It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, June 05, 2021
Genomics-informed decisions can help save species from extinction
Researchers in Lund, Copenhagen and Norwich have shown that harmful mutations present in the DNA play an important - yet neglected - role in the conservation and translocation programs of threatened species.
"Many species are threatened by extinction, both locally and globally. For example, we have lost about ten vertebrate species in Sweden in the last century. However, all these species occur elsewhere in Europe, which means that they could be reintroduced into Sweden. Our computer simulations show how we could theoretically maximize the success of such reestablishments", says Bengt Hansson, biologist at Lund University.
In a new study published in Science, the researchers investigated which individuals might be most suited for translocation to new populations. To date, conservation geneticists have opted to select the most genetically variable individuals. However, the authors argue that is important to consider what type of genetic variation is being move around. Using computer simulations, they showed that harmful mutations present in the genome of translocated individuals can cause problems in future generations. This so called "mutation load" could jeopardize the viability of the new population in the long run and eventually led to extinction.
According to Hansson and van Oosterhout, geneticist at University of East Anglia, Norwich, who led the study, the best choice is to exclude individuals with many harmful mutations, whilst at the same time, selecting individuals from multiple different source populations.
"Active translocation of animals between localities is sometimes the last option available to conservation biologists. By carefully selecting individuals based on their low mutation load, we can minimize the loss of fitness that is normally associated with inbreeding in small populations", says Bengt Hansson.
Huge advances have been made in DNA sequencing technologies, and the whole genomes of individuals can now be sequenced for relatively little costs. This opens up new possibilities to improve the conservation management of threatened species.
"For many species of mammals and birds, we now know which mutations are harmful. Similar mutations are also found in humans, so we understand what they do, and hence, we know what to look out for when analyzing the sequence data of those species. The advantage of using DNA sequencing is that we can see these mutations in the genome, even if an individual carries just a single copy of the mutant gene. This means we can select against those bad mutations even before they cause a problem. Our computer model shows that at least theoretically, this ensures the best probability for population survival. This could help conservation managers in picking the optimal individuals of a threatened species for translocation into a new habitat", says van Oosterhout.
The biggest shark attack in history did not involve humans.
A new study by Earth scientists from Yale and the College of the Atlantic has turned up a massive die-off of sharks roughly 19 million years ago. It came at a period in history when there were more than 10 times more sharks patrolling the world's oceans than there are today.
For now, researchers don't know the cause of the shark die-off.
"We happened upon this extinction almost by accident," said Elizabeth Sibert, a Hutchinson postdoctoral associate in Yale's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies. She is lead author of the new study, which appears in the journal Science.
"I study microfossil fish teeth and shark scales in deep-sea sediments, and we decided to generate an 85-million-year-long record of fish and shark abundance, just to get a sense of what the normal variability of that population looked like in the long term," Sibert said. "What we found, though, was this sudden drop-off in shark abundance around 19 million years ago, and we knew we had to investigate further."
How big was the drop-off? Sibert said more than 70% of the world's sharks died off -- with an even higher death toll for sharks in the open ocean, rather than coastal waters. It was twice the level of extinction that sharks experienced during the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event 66 million years ago that wiped out three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth.
Adding to the mystery is the fact that there is no known climate calamity or ecosystem disruption that occurred at the time of the steep drop in shark populations. "This interval isn't known for any major changes in Earth's history," said Sibert, "yet it completely transformed the nature of what it means to be a predator living in the open ocean."
Co-author Leah Rubin, an incoming doctoral student at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, was a student at the College of the Atlantic at the time of the research.
"The current state of declining shark populations is certainly cause for concern and this paper helps put these declines in the context of shark populations through the last 40 million years," Rubin said. "This context is a vital first step in understanding what repercussions may follow dramatic declines in these top marine predators in modern times."
The researchers noted that past discoveries of extinction events have led to waves of new research to learn the origins of the die-off and whether it signaled a larger, previously unknown, perturbance in global ecosystems.
For example, further research might confirm whether the shark-off caused remaining shark populations to change their habitat preferences to avoid the open ocean, Sibert and Rubin said. Additional research might also help to explain why shark populations did not rebound after the die-off 19 million years ago.
"This work could tip-off a race to understand this time period and its implications for not only the rise of modern ecosystems, but the causes of major collapses in shark diversity," said Pincelli Hull, an assistant professor of Earth and planetary science at Yale, who was not part of the study. "It represents a major change in ocean ecosystems at a time that was previously thought to be unremarkable."
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Stone Age raves to the beat of elk tooth rattles?
UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
VIDEO: HYPOTHETICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF TOOTH ORNAMENTS FOUND IN THE LATE MESOLITHIC GRAVES OF YUZHNIY OLENIY OSTROV: 94 EURASIAN ELK TEETH SEWN ON AN APRON HIT AND BOUNCE OFF THE SUBSTRATUM AND...view more
CREDIT: JULIA SHPINITSKAYA
"Ornaments composed of elk teeth suspended from or sown on to clothing emit a loud rattling noise when moving," says auditory archaeologist and Academy of Finland Research Fellow Riitta Rainio from the University of Helsinki. "Wearing such rattlers while dancing makes it easier to immerse yourself in the soundscape, eventually letting the sound and rhythm take control of your movements. It is as if the dancer is led in the dance by someone."
Rainio is well versed in the topic, as she danced, for research purposes, for six consecutive hours, wearing elk tooth ornaments produced according to the Stone Age model. Rainio and artist Juha Valkeapää held a performance to find out what kind of wear marks are formed in the teeth when they bang against each other and move in all directions. The sound of a tooth rattler can be clear and bright or loud and pounding, depending on the number and quality of the teeth, as well as the intensity of movement.
Microanalysis demonstrates that tooth wear marks are the result of dancing
The teeth worn out by dancing were analysed for any microscopic marks before and after the dancing. These marks were then compared to the findings made in the Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov graves by Evgeny Girya, an archaeologist specialised in micro-marks at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Girya documented and analysed the wear marks in the elk teeth found in four graves chosen for the experiment. Comparing the chips, hollows, cuts and smoothened surfaces of the teeth, he observed a clear resemblance between teeth worn out by dancing and the Stone Age teeth. However, the marks in the Stone Age teeth were deeper and more extensive. According to Girya, the results show that the marks are the result of similar activity.
"As the Stone Age teeth were worn for years or even decades, it's no surprise that their marks are so distinctive," Girya says.
Associate Professor of Archaeology Kristiina Mannermaa from the University of Helsinki is excited by the research findings.
"Elk tooth rattlers are fascinating, since they transport modern people to a soundscape that is thousands of years old and to its emotional rhythms that guide the body. You can close your eyes, listen to the sound of the rattlers and drift on the soundwaves to a lakeside campfire in the world of Stone Age hunter-gatherers."
A total of 177 graves of women, men and children have been found in the Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov burial site, of which more than half contain several elk tooth ornaments, some of them composed of as many as over 300 individual teeth.
CAPTION
Adult male from grave 76a in Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov drawn as if he were alive during a dance session: 140 elk teeth on the chest, waist, pelvis, and thighs rattle rhythmically and loudly.
CREDIT
Artist Tom Bjorklund
Five million years of climate change preserved in one place
An 80-meter-thick sedimentary succession at Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan, recorded interactions between land, atmosphere and ocean
IMAGE: CHARLOTTE PRUD'HOMME IS ABSEILING TO COLLECT SOIL SAMPLES. THE 80-METER-THICK SEDIMENTARY SEQUENCE IN CHARYN CANYON, KAZAKHSTAN, DOCUMENTS CLIMATE CHANGE OVER THE PAST 5 MILLION YEARS. view more
CREDIT: CHARLOTTE PRUD'HOMME, MPI FOR CHEMISTRY
Paleo researcher Charlotte Prud'homme, who until recently worked at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and is now a researcher at the Université Lausanne, explains: "The 80-meter-thick sedimentary sequence we found at Charyn Canyon in southeast Kazakhstan provides us with a virtually continuous record of five million years of climate change. This is a very rare occurrence on land!" The alternating dust and soil layers provide the first reliable evidence, in one place, of long-term interactions between major climate systems on the Eurasian continent. "Over the past five million years, the land surfaces of Eurasia appear to have more actively contributed to the land-atmosphere-ocean water-cycle than previously acknowledged. The sediments preserved at Charyn Canyon acted as a litmus test for the influx of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean, stimulating the transport of moist air masses from the North Atlantic back onto land via westerly air flows," corresponding author Prud'homme says. The results of the research have now been published in the scientific journal Communications Earth and Environment.
The researchers focused their investigation on the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods. The Pliocene, five to 2.6 million years ago, represents the best analogue for the climatic conditions of the Anthropocene: this geologic time period was the last time concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was comparable to today, around 400 parts per million (ppm). "That's why our insights from the Charyn Canyon sediments are so essential for understanding future climate," Prud'homme says.
Until now, little has been known about the role Central Asia plays in global climate evolution past and present. Earth's climate evolution over the past five million years has been understood mainly from the perspective of marine mechanisms. In contrast, the significance of climate feedbacks that originated on land - rather than in the oceans, lakes or ice cores - has remained largely unexplored. The international research team has filled this gap with their field research in Charyn Canyon.
Interactions between mid- and high-latitude climatic systems
The geographical location of the study site in the middle of Central Asia was of key importance to the team: "We needed to find a place that was inland and as far away from the ocean as possible," Kathryn Fitzsimmons, Group Leader of the Terrestrial Paleoclimate Reconstruction Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, explains. "We could hardly find a more continental situation than at Charyn Canyon in southeastern Kazakhstan." The semi-arid climate of the canyon, and its landscape, was shaped by the interaction between the mid-latitude westerlies and the high-latitude polar fronts, and by sediment transported from the nearby Tien Shan mountains. Charyn Canyon is ideal, according to Kathryn Fitzsimmons, for studying long-term land-climate feedback mechanisms.
The researchers examined the 80-meter-thick sedimentary succession and sampled by abseil to ensure continuous coverage of the record. By measuring the relative concentrations of isotopes within soil carbonates, they reconstructed the changing availability of moisture in the soil through time. A combination of paleomagnetic analyses and absolute uranium-lead dating of soil carbonates established the age and accumulation rates of the sediment record. The soil samples revealed a region characterized by ever-increasing aridity over the last five million years. In the early Pliocene, the soil was significantly wetter than in subsequent epochs or than today's climate. This process of aridification was not linear, however; it was interrupted by short-term climate fluctuations which provide insights into the interaction between the mid-latitude westerly winds and the Siberian high-pressure system.
Interaction between the Siberian high and rain-bringing westerlies
The research at Charyn Canyon enabled the scientists to investigate the long-term interaction of the Siberian high with the rain-bringing westerlies. Kathryn Fitzsimmons says: "We're confident that the changes in soil moisture we found at our site can also be used as a proxy for Siberian river activity further north." The hydroclimate at Charyn Canyon reflects that of the steppe to the north, from where a number of large Siberian rivers, such as the Irtysh and Ob, flow, she says. These are similarly influenced by the dynamics of the Siberian high and westerly air masses. One particular phase where this link is important stands out: a sustained period of wet conditions at Charyn Canyon just prior to the first major global glaciation around 3.3 million years ago. It is likely that these wet conditions extended to the Siberian rivers to the north, whose outflow of fresh water to the Arctic ocean may have breached a tipping point for widespread increased sea ice formation.
The information from this most complete terrestrial climate archive for the past five million years provides a very valuable basis for future climate models. Charlotte Prud'homme literally says, "We have opened a door."
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Information for editors:
Researchers from the following institutions were involved in the field research at Charyn Canyon:
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz
Instituto de Geociências e Ciências Exatas, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, Brazil.
Université de Paris, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Paris, France.
Université Aix-Marseille, CNRS, IRD, INRAE, Coll France, CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence, France.
Institute of Geological Sciences K. Satpaeva, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Institute of Geosciences, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany
Frankfurt Element and Isotope Research Center (FIERCE), Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany
How plants cope with stress factors has already been broadly researched. Yet what happens when a plant is confronted with two stressors simultaneously? A research team working with Simon Haberstroh and Prof. Dr. Christiane Werner of the Chair of Ecosystem Physiology at the Institute of Forest Sciences and Natural Resources (UNR) of the University of Freiburg is investigating this. Together with colleagues from the Forest Research Center of the School of Agriculture of the University of Lisbon in Portugal and the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology - KIT, they have published their findings in the specialist journal "New Phytologist."
The researchers set up a field study in the Park Tapada Real in the small Portuguese town of Vila Viçosa. The focus was on how cork oak (Quercus suber) handles two stressors: the first being extreme drought; and the other, the invasive plant species gum rockrose (Cistus ladanifer). The study has great relevance because both stress factors are currently clearly on the increase. At the same time, there was a gap in research on the issue. Researchers have up to now rarely looked at how different, interacting stress factors influence ecosystems.
The researchers were in part surprised by their findings. "The factors interacted more dynamically than we expected," says Haberstroh, who did the investigative work for his doctoral thesis. During wet years, the interacting stressors didn't cause any significant changes in the cork oak, while in dry conditions, the factors either amplified or buffered each other. One surprising result was also that cork oak, despite the double burden, was able to recover better than had been expected after extreme drought. The researchers observed that happens above all when the invasive gum rockrose shrubs were seriously compromised by the drought as well. The team will continue its work in Portugal to gather more data and look at long-term trends.
"These new research findings contribute to better understanding and more expedient care of ecosystems," Haberstroh explains. "Using them we can, for example, develop rules for particularly dry years, which is a central issue in times of climate change," he says.
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Original publication
Haberstroh, S., Caldeira, M. C., Lobo-do-Vale, R., Martins, Joana I., Moemken, J., Pinto, J. G., Werner, C. (2021): Non-linear plant-plant interactions modulate impact of extreme drought and recovery on a Mediterranean ecosystem. In: New Phytologist. DOI: 10.1111/nph.17522
IMAGE: NOTE: "NATIONALLY DETERMINED CONTRIBUTION (NDC) ADJUSTMENT " REFERS TO THE SCENARIO WHERE GOVERNMENTS TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR REDUCING EMISSIONS IN THEIR PARIS COMMITMENTS, SO ONLY HIGHER COST ABATEMENT OPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE TO... view more
CREDIT: TROVE RESEARCH
The cost of offsetting corporate carbon emissions needs to increase ten-fold to drive meaningful climate action, says a landmark report by Trove Research and UCL.
Current prices of carbon offsets are unsustainably low and need to increase significantly to encourage greater investment in new projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere.
If prices stay low companies could be accused of greenwashing their emissions, as real emissions reduction and carbon removals are more costly than today's prices.
Prices of carbon credits used by companies to offset their emissions are currently low, due to an excess of supply built up over several years, together with issues over whether payments for credits really result in additional reductions in carbon emissions.
According to the research, titles Future Demand, Supply and Prices for Voluntary Carbon Credits - Keeping the Balance, without this surplus, prices would be around $15/tCO2e higher, compared to $3-5t/CO2e today.
The research shows, however, that the surplus will not last forever, with demand for carbon credits expected to increase five to ten-fold over the next decade as more companies adopt Net Zero climate commitments.
This growth in demand should see carbon credit prices rise to $20-50/tCO2e by 2030, as more investment is required in projects that take carbon out of the atmosphere in the long-term. These prices are needed, for example, to incentivise landowners to forgo income from agriculture and instead preserve forests and plant trees.
With a further increase in demand expected by 2040 and 2050, carbon credit prices would rise in excess of $50/tCO2e.
If governments successfully reduce emissions through domestic policies, fewer carbon credits will be available to businesses through the voluntary market. This would increase carbon credit prices further, potentially reaching $100/tCO2e.
If carbon credit prices remain significantly below these forecast levels, companies could be open to criticisms of greenwashing, claiming credit for emission reductions that would have been undertaken anyway.
The analysis also shows that the contribution of the voluntary market to reducing world emissions needs to be seen in perspective. Even at prices of $100/tCO2e the technologies assessed in this study (reducing deforestation, forest restoration, CCS, BECCs and renewables in least developed countries) could deliver around 2bn tCO2e per year of emission reductions on average between now and 2050.
This is about 4% of world greenhouse gas emissions, and 10% of the gap between global "business as usual" emissions in 2030 and pledges in the Paris Agreement by 2030, showing that the market for offsets will be modest compared to economy-wide emissions reductions needed to reach the Paris targets and net zero by 2050.
However, over the next decade the voluntary market will provide a valuable financing mechanism to support the protection of existing forests and restoring degraded habitats, providing immediate climate and biodiversity benefits while other technologies that can remove carbon from the atmosphere are scaled up.
Guy Turner, CEO of Trove Research and lead author of the study said "It is encouraging to see so many companies setting Net Zero and Carbon Neutral climate targets. What this new analysis shows is that these companies need to plan for substantially higher carbon credit prices and make informed trade-offs between reducing emissions internally and buying credits from outside the company's value chain."
Co-author of the study Professor Mark Maslin (UCL Geography) said: "Customers, clients, investors and employees all want companies to become more sustainable and achieve net zero carbon as soon as possible. Even with ambitious carbon reduction plans there are some company emissions that are currently unavoidable and this is where carbon offsetting is essential. But everyone wants a carbon credit system that is reliable and really does remove carbon from the atmosphere - what this groundbreaking report shows is that this will cost significantly more than companies are paying now."
Co-author of the study Professor Simon Lewis (UCL Geography) said: "The current market in carbon credits is the wild-west, where too often anything goes. A clean-up and independent regulation is required, which will increase the price of carbon credits. This is because in reality it is costly to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Overall it will be cheaper in the long-run to invest in moving to zero emissions rather than relying on offsets. But for those emissions that remain, the true price of removing carbon from the atmosphere must be paid, as the alternative is greenwash."
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Future Demand, Supply and Prices for Voluntary Carbon Credits - Keeping the Balance will be published and available to download on the Trove Research website.
Notes to Editors
For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact:
Jane Bolger, UCL Media Relations: T: +44 (0) 7990 675 947, E: j.bolger@ucl.ac.uk
Trove Research is an independent research and data company focused on solving the climate change challenge through objective and rigorous analysis. We work across the range of climate policy areas, including carbon markets and the broader energy transition. We develop analytical tools and insights for use by companies, governments, NGOs and other research organisations to gain deeper understanding of complex sustainability decisions.
UCL is a diverse community with the freedom to challenge and think differently.
Our community of more than 41,500 students from 150 countries and over 12,500 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.
We are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.
We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research - championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors.
For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.
We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL.
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A new study shows that substantial amounts of carbon dioxide were released during the last millennium because of crop cultivation on peatlands in the Northern Hemisphere.
Only about half of the carbon released through the conversion of peat to croplands was compensated by continuous carbon absorption in natural northern peatlands.
Peatlands are a type of wetland which store more organic carbon than any other type of land ecosystem in the world.
Due to waterlogged conditions, dead plant materials do not fully decay and carbon accumulates in peatlands over thousands of years.
Therefore, natural peatlands help to cool the climate by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and trapping carbon in soils.
However, artificial drainage of peatlands for agriculture aerates the soil and enhances the decay of organic matter, rapidly releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
Peatlands are a missing piece of the carbon cycle puzzle; little is known about how much carbon has been released due to drainage and conversion of peatland to cropland during the historical sprawl of agriculture, and about the role of cultivated peatlands versus natural peatlands.
The new international study, led by INRAE and LSCE, and including the University of Exeter, quantified CO2 fluxes in natural and cultivated peatlands between 850 and 2010.
The study provides the first detailed estimates of historical carbon losses from cultivated northern peatlands.
"We incorporated peatland hydrological and carbon processes into a process-based land surface model," said Chunjing Qiu who developed the model and designed the study, and worked at the Institut National de de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (INRAE) and the Laboratory for Sciences of Climate and Environment (LSCE) in France.
"This model is one of the first to simulate natural peatland and the conversion of peatland to cropland and resultant CO2 emissions.
"We also looked at how the carbon emission rates of cultivated peatlands vary with time after conversion.
"High CO2 emissions can occur after the initial drainage of peatland, but then, the emission rates decrease with time because of depletion of labile carbon and increasing recalcitrance of the remaining material."
Professor Angela Gallego-Sala, of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, said: "This study highlights how much carbon is lost if you drain peatlands, as we have done to many peatlands in Europe, but it also reminds us how important it is to make sure we manage peatlands appropriately."
The study shows that cultivated northern peatlands emitted 72 billons tons of carbon over 850-2010, and 40 billons tons over the period 1750-2010.
According to the authors, this indicates that historical CO2 emissions caused by land-use changes are greater than previously estimated.
It also implies an underestimation of historical carbon uptake by terrestrial ecosystems if carbon emissions from cultivated peatlands is ignored.
"Carbon emissions from drainage of peatlands are a source of concern for national greenhouse gas budgets and future emission trajectories," said Philippe Ciais from LSCE, who co-lead the study with Chunjing Qiu.
"However, we have only a very few observations, and peatland drainage and cultivation are not explicitly considered by bookkeeping models and dynamic global vegetation models used to compute the annual carbon budget.
"Emissions from cultivated peatlands are omitted in previous global carbon budget assessments.
"Our study brings new and important implications for a better understanding of the global carbon budget."
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The paper, published in the journal Science Advances, is entitled: "Large historical carbon emissions from cultivated northern peatlands."
PEAT, MUSKEG, BOG FIRES Canada may see more 'zombie fires' as climate warms and winters shorten: experts
Canada may see more 'zombie fires' as climate warms and winters shorten: experts
VANCOUVER — Blazes that continue to burn through the winter in Canada were once thought to be a myth, but the so-called zombie fires may become more common as temperatures get warmer and less snow falls, experts say.
Steven Cumming, an associate professor at Laval University's department of wood and forest sciences, said those working in fire management had heard stories of the underground smouldering blazes over winter but there was no way of counting them until a recent study.
"All I know in Canada is that their existence has been reported more as a matter of folklore," he said in an interview. "And what this paper does is give us some idea how often these things might be happening."
The paper, published in the science journal Nature, said increasing summer temperatures associated with climate warming may promote the survival of overwintering fires in the future in the boreal regions. Blazes that burn over winter are also known as holdover or zombie fires.
Most of the fires are seen in the sub-Arctic, Arctic, Northwest Territories and the northern boreal forest in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, where peat is found in vast amounts, the report said.
The Fort McMurray fire in Alberta and several fires in Northwest Territories were considered zombie fires.
James Waddington, a professor at McMaster University's school of Earth, environment and society, said holdover fires come back to life from a previous season after smouldering under the snow.
"In some areas, a fire can come back to life and start being a flaming fire again," he said.
"So, the idea that because it can come back without a new ignition source burning and smouldering all winter, we call that a zombie fire. The term zombie fire is relatively new."
Hot summers lead to fires burning deeper in organic or peat soils, and are more likely to be detected the following spring, Waddington said.
"Perhaps they are becoming more common, but perhaps we're also getting a little bit better at, well, hunting them down, to use the zombie terms.
"I would say we're not at a stage of what I would call a zombie fire apocalypse, to use another zombie term, but I think it's important because the scientists found that it was linked to hot summers."
Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at the University of Alberta, said the holdover fires emit a lot more carbon on average than normal forest fires.
Peatlands are carbon reservoirs that have been building up over thousands of years, he said.
Burning one kilogram of peat emits about half a kilogram of carbon into that atmosphere, Flannigan noted.
"And the more carbon you have, the more warming you have, the more warming you have the more fire, so it's a cycle."
He said he would attribute most of the increase for the zombie fires, if not all, to a warming climate.
Canada is warming at twice the rate and the Arctic area is warming three times as fast as the rest of the world, Flannigan said.
"These fires that would normally have gone out in the winter or in the fall, burn right through until the following year," he said.
"So, warming will lead to more zombie fires because of warmer, drier winters and less snow."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 5, 2021.
Hina Alam, The Canadian Press
Debunking two myths – “China stole American jobs” and “America built China.”
China succeeded by emulating the proven paths of other Asian Tigers, which relied on investment, manufacturing, and exports to build their nations.
We live in a highly connected and interdependent world, where no country can achieve progress on its own. While developing countries rely on rich countries for technology, the rich countries depend on poorer nations for labor, natural resources, consumers, and bright immigrants. Nationalistic Republicans forget this symbiotic relationship, especially when it comes to China. The two enduring and endlessly repeated myths are that China is uniquely guilty of stealing American jobs and that America built China. Let’s quickly analyze the raw facts.
Loss of Manufacturing Jobs
First, the number of manufacturing jobs as a percentage of all jobs have been decreasing since the 1940s, as the chart below shows.
The inexorable decline in manufacturing was first due to automation from 1945-1975 and then due to additional pressure from outsourcing to developing nations. Thus, manufacturing’s share declined from 38% in the 1940s to 20% in 1980 when U.S. corporations started accelerating offshoring of low-end manufacturing such as those related to textiles, shoes, and toys. By the time China joined the WTO in 2001, U.S. manufacturing of employment had already been further halved to about 12%. Then over the next two decades, it declined by only an additional three percentage points. Even the U.S. government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics acknowledges that only one-fourth of jobs lost in the last two decades in the U.S. can be ascribed to China. So, Why Does China Get all the Blame?
Simple. It’s because there was a vast consolidation of manufacturing in Asia. After China joined the WTO, many multinational corporations moved their factories from places like Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand etc. into China, where labor was relatively much cheaper. It was simply a matter of cost-efficiency. Thus, while Americans used to see names of numerous countries on the imported products before, now they just saw “Made in China” dominate the labels. This made China look like a bigger problem.
As economist Yukon Huang points out, Asia’s share of U.S. imports has remained pretty much the same. The only difference was the shuffling of factories within Asia. I created the chart below with data from U.S. government’s data about U.S. trade with Asia and U.S. total trade. The chart shows how Asia’s share of total U.S. imports has remained pretty much constant over the last two decades.
Therefore, if we had kept importing from ten different Asian countries, nobody would be blaming China, and there won’t be sensational books and videos like Death by China. Or, look at it this way: If the labels on products said, “Made in Asia,” Americans wouldn’t have noticed much difference over the last two decades.
Did America Build China?
Another populist trope is that “We (America) built China!!!” It sounds great and nobody is going to argue if you’re talking to an American audience. The logic is that America’s foreign direct investments (FDI) and outsourcing created all those jobs and made China great again.
Here are three compelling facts that debunk this myth: America invested very little of its FDI in China. In fact, less than 2%. On the flipside, U.S.A. accounted for only about 10% of all the FDI that flowed into China over the last 30 years.
FDI is a very small percentage of China’s GDP.
Consider that the U.S. spent about $5.4 TRILLION on FDI in other countries from 1990-2020. Guess how much of that went into China? About $260 billion or less than 5% of the total (source: U.S. Gov report).
Notice that $260 billion over 30 years amounts to less than $10 billion a year. Peanuts, in the big picture. Furthermore, as seen in the table above, China invested $150 billion in the U.S. during the same period. So, the net flow was only $100 billion over 30 years. It’s a drop in the ocean.
Wait! How could that be? What about all the factories for Apple, Walmart, Nike, etc.? Well, here’s what happened: U.S. corporations simply outsourced all of them to other multinational corporations like Foxconn. Thus, the real investors in mainland China were Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore etc.
If you look at China’s total FDI inflows in the last 30 years, it amounts to an impressive $2.3 trillion. Thus, U.S.A.’s share of all Chinese FDI is only about 10%.
Third, while China has been the second largest recipient of FDI – the U.S. has been #1 for a long time – the FDI has averaged to only 3% of GDP over the last two decades. In the recent years, it has decreased to 1% as compared to China’s GDP. (Chart below from World Bank).
Conclusion
China succeeded by emulating the proven paths of other Asian Tigers, which relied on investment, manufacturing, and exports to build their nations. However, this model has limitations and couldn’t have succeeded spectacularly without industrial socialism, as I explained in a previous article.
Finally, China just didn’t take all the money. They have also invested $1.5 trillion in other countries. Thus, the money sloshes around and flows everywhere in this globalized world. It’s not a zero-sum game. Politicians don’t understand math and pundits prefer to ignore math.
Of course, China-bashers complain either way. If China receives investment from other countries, people will point to it as a sign of Chinese inferiority. If China invests in other countries, it is accused of taking over the world. And if China does neither, critics will bemoan how China is isolated from the world.
Chris Kanthan is the author of six books, including the latest: “China, China, Chyyna: Greatest disruption to American century.” Chris lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, has traveled to 40 countries, and writes about world affairs, politics, economy and health.
“Disaster patriarchy”:
V (Eve Ensler) on how the pandemic has unleashed a war on women
“Women are losing their safety, their economic power, their autonomy, their education, and they are pushed onto the frontlines, where they are often used, unprotected and sacrificed.”
The pandemic has led to a sharp rise in gender-based violence, job losses in female-dominated industries, greater parenting duties for mothers, and other pressures that primarily fall on women around the world. These effects amount to a kind of “disaster patriarchy” in which “men exploit a crisis to reassert control and dominance and rapidly erase the hard-earned rights of women,” says V, the artist and activist formerly known as Eve Ensler. “Women are losing their safety, their economic power, their autonomy, their education, and they are pushed onto the frontlines, where they are often used, unprotected and sacrificed.”
Biden urged to go further after ‘strong step’ toward protecting Arctic Refuge from drilling
"Until the leases are canceled, they will remain a threat to one of the wildest places left in America."
Protesters march in support of Arctic environmental protections
at a rally in Fairbanks, Alaska on May 7, 2017.
Environmental campaigners in Alaska and across the country are cautiously celebrating the Biden administration’s Tuesday decision to suspend some fossil fuel drilling leases that were sold in the Arctic shortly before former President Donald Trump left office while also calling on Congress to provide permanent protections to one of the planet’s most biodiverse places.
“We strongly support the Biden administration’s commitment to preserving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last great expanses of untouched wilderness areas in America,” said Kristen Miller, acting executive director of Alaska Wilderness League. “The leasing program and resulting lease sale were the result [of] a substantial flawed and legally deficient process that must be reversed.”
“Suspending these leases is a step in the right direction and we commend the Biden administration for committing to a new program analysis that prioritizes sound science and adequate tribal consultation,” Miller continued. “The Arctic refuge Coastal Plain is sacred to the Gwich’in people who were roundly ignored by the Trump administration, as well as the Iñupiat that have lived on the Coastal Plain for generations.”
“There is still more to be done,” she added. “Until the leases are canceled, they will remain a threat to one of the wildest places left in America. Now we look to the administration and Congress to prioritize legislatively repealing the oil leasing mandate and restore protections to the Arctic refuge Coastal Plain.”
Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, echoed that call for additional action.
“After fighting so hard to protect these lands and the Porcupine caribou herd, trusting the guidance of our ancestors and elders, and the allyship of people around the world, we can now look for further action by the administration and to Congress to repeal the leasing program,” she said. “There is so much more to do to protect these lands for future generations.”
BREAKING: President Biden's administration will cancel oil & gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge!!
This is a MASSIVE win for climate, wildlife & Indigenous communities! We thank Biden's admin for standing with people — not polluters.https://t.co/vr8Cwjet2W— Friends of the Earth (Action) (@foe_us) June 1, 2021
Citing “alleged legal deficiencies,” President Joe Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office directing the interior secretary to place a temporary moratorium on all activities related to the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program in the 19.6 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and conduct a new, comprehensive analysis of its potential environmental impacts.
Interior Secretary Deb Haalad’s new order (pdf) directs the department to analyze the leasing program under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Gina McCarthy, the White House domestic climate policy adviser, said Tuesday that Biden “believes America’s national treasures are cultural and economic cornerstones of our country and he is grateful for the prompt action by the Department of the Interior to suspend all leasing pending a review of decisions made in the last administration’s final days that could have changed the character of this special place forever.”
Politico noted that “the move comes after the Biden administration disappointed environmental groups last week by lending its support to developing ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the area that lies to the west of ANWR.”
Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School, told the New York Times that the move could help appease critics of that decision.
“This will help solidify the president’s bona fides in opposing major new fossil fuel projects,” Gerrard said. “He doesn’t have a 100% clean record on this. This is certainly a step that the environmental community will smile on, coming at this moment, in view of the recent actions that environmentalists didn’t like.”
The Biden admin is suspending several oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—an essential step to protect precious ecosystems and our climate. It’s also a move that’s popular among voters. @danielledeis and I break down the polling: https://t.co/g68LccMoHa— Marcela Mulholland (@x3Marcela_) June 1, 2021
While environmental campaigners applauded the ANWR move, they also emphasized the importance of the administration going much further to protect ANWR’s 1.56 million-acre Coastal Plain.
“This is a welcome announcement and another strong step toward protecting the refuge,” said Environment America public lands campaign director Ellen Montgomery. “Thanks to President Biden’s action in January and today, the caribou and polar bears can live undisturbed by heavy equipment, roads, and pollution from drilling operations. For now, we can breathe a little easier knowing that the seismic testing ‘thumper trucks’ are not going to be driving into the refuge.”
“While this buys some time, the fight to protect this unique and pristine area is not over,” she said. “We’re calling on Congress to establish permanent protections for this wild, remote area. Oil leases should never have been sold in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and we now need our leaders to make sure it never happens again. We need more nature, more baby caribou, more denning polar bears, and more wildlife. Here’s what we don’t need: dredging up fossil fuels in a wildlife refuge.”
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a primary leader of climate legislation in Congress, also welcomed the suspension, saying that “today’s decision is an important step towards safeguarding the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, protecting the people and species who depend upon this invaluable wild place, and avoiding unnecessary climate and environmental harm.”
“The refuge needs more than this pause, it needs permanent protection. A new analysis will tell us what we already know, that the refuge is a special place and should never be opened up to drilling. I remain committed to passing my Arctic Refuge Protection Act and permanently protecting this the unique and vulnerable habitat from oil and gas leasing and development,” added the senator, referencing a bill he reintroduced in February.
I fought to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and stop the Trump administration’s plan for drilling I am proud to see the Biden administration reverse this Trump-era plan We must fight to preserve America’s wild places for future generations https://t.co/rRKxeopM6U— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 1, 2021
Absent congressional action, the federal government will be legally required to hold two more lease sales by late 2024, thanks to what critics call the 2017 Trump tax scam.
The sale in early January followed decades of political fights over drilling in the region, but did not attract any interest from the fossil fuel industry’s major players.
As Politico detailed:
Despite the oil industry’s long efforts to access the refuge, the lease sale flopped, and generated only $14.4 million in revenue and bids from only three players, none of which were major oil and gas operators. Seven of the nine bids went to the Alaska Investment Development and Export Authority, a state-owned corporation that was urged to participate by former Alaska Governors Bill Walker and Frank Murkowski, who raised concerns that industry would show no interest in the sale.
In addition to AIDEA, Knik Arm Services, a real estate and leasing firm, and Regenerate Alaska, a subsidiary of the Australian oil and gas company 88 Energy, each picked up one tract.
The leases were signed and issued on January 19.
Greenpeace USA climate campaign director Janet Redman said Tuesday that “the disastrous idea to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas corporations was never anything more than an eleventh-hour favor to fossil fuel billionaires from the previous administration.”
“It made zero sense then and as demand for oil continues to plummet and climate impacts wreak havoc across the world it makes even less sense now,” Redman added. “Scientists are clear that 100% of Arctic oil and gas must stay in the ground if we’re going to limit global warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius outlined in the Paris agreement.”
“The bar for President Biden and his administration has never been whether they can reverse the climate destruction of the previous administration, but if they’ll do what science and justice demand to stop the climate crisis,” she said. “We fully expect President Biden to keep his promise to phase out fossil fuels and transition to 100% renewable energy. This includes ending oil and gas leasing on all federal lands and waters.”
Jessica Corbett Jessica’s writing has been published by The Nation, In These Times, The Ithaca Voice, London’s Peace News, and Common Dreams. Her work in journalism primarily explores the intersection of politics, public health, and environmental policy. She also writes about human and civil rights, gender, and labor issues.
GREEN CAPITALI$M
Matchbox joins toy companies to make toys more eco-friendly
Matchbox car swill be made of 99 percent recycled materials and will hit store shelves in 2022.
Matchbox announced it’s goal to use 100 percent recycled material by 2030 to produce their toys. This is one environmental initiative Mattel, owner of Matchbox, is striving for.
The company, who joins major toy companies such as Hasbro and LEGO to make toys more environmentally friendly, also plans on launching a series of toy electric cars modeled after real vehicles as a way to “educate children on the environmental impact of cars and motoring,” according to a press release.
“Matchbox has always been about realism,” Roberto Stainchi, senior vice president of Hot Wheels and global head of vehicles at Mattel, Inc., said. “It’s a reflection of the world and the vehicles kids see driving on the road every day. As we were thinking about our brands, and thinking about where to begin, we thought, ‘Well if this world is evolving, so should Matchbox.'”
The first matchbox car to be release in Mattel’s “eco-series” is modeled after the Tesla Roadster—a zero-emission, electric vehicle. The matchbox car will be made of 99 percent recycled materials and will hit store shelves in 2022.
“We love this casting of the Matchbox Tesla Roadster because it represents two things,” Stainchi said. “It’s not just about the materials and usage of the materials that are more sustainable, but it’s also about the themes that encourage environmental consciousness and really help kids experience greener behaviors in their play.”
Not only will the matchbox car be made of recycled material, the packaging it comes in will be made from paper and wood fiber.
Mattel also plans on adding matchbox versions of BMW, Nissan and Toyota’s hybrid and electric cars.
