Urban crime fell by over a third around the world during COVID-19 shutdowns, study suggests

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Research News

 

A team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge and University of Utrecht examined trends in daily crime counts before and after COVID-19 restrictions were implemented in major metropolitan areas such as Barcelona, Chicago, Sao Paulo, Tel Aviv, Brisbane and London.

While both stringency of lockdowns and the resulting crime reductions varied considerably from city to city, the researchers found that most types of crime - with the key exception of homicide - fell significantly in the study sites.

Across all 27 cities, daily assaults fell by an average of 35%, and robberies (theft using violence or intimidation, such as muggings) almost halved: falling an average of 46%. Other types of theft, from pick-pocketing to shop-lifting, fell an average of 47%.

"City living has been dramatically curtailed by COVID-19, and crime is a big part of city life," said Prof Manuel Eisner, Director of the Violence Research Centre at the University of Cambridge and senior author of the study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

"No drinkers spilling into the streets after nights out at bars and pubs. No days spent in shops and cafés or at the racetrack or football match. Some cities even introduced curfews. It choked the opportunism that fuels so much urban crime."

"We found the largest reductions in crimes where motivated offenders and suitable victims converge in a public space. There would be far fewer potential targets in the usual crime hotspots such as streets with lots of nightclubs," said Eisner.

Falls in crime resulting from COVID-19 stay-at-home orders tended to be sharp but short-lived, with a maximum drop occurring around two to five weeks after implementation, followed by a gradual return to previous levels.

Overall, the team found that stricter lockdowns led to greater declines in crime - although even cities with voluntary "recommendations" instead of restrictions, such as Malmo and Stockholm in Sweden, saw drops in daily rates of theft.

Theft of vehicles fell an average of 39% over the study sites. Researchers found that tougher restrictions on use of buses and trains during lockdowns was linked to greater falls in vehicle theft - suggesting that negotiating cities via public transport is often a prerequisite for stealing a set of wheels.

Burglary also fell an average of 28% across all cities. However, lockdowns affected burglary numbers in markedly different ways from city to city. While Lima in Peru saw rates plunge by 84%, San Francisco actually saw a 38% increase in break-ins as a result of COVID restrictions.

Data from many cities didn't distinguish between commercial and residential. Where it did, burglaries of private premises - rather than shops or warehouses - was more likely to decline, with more people stuck in-doors around the clock.

Reduction was lowest for crimes of homicide: down just 14% on average across all cities in the study. Dr Amy Nivette from the University of Utrecht, the study's first author, said: "In many societies, a significant proportion of murders are committed in the home. The restrictions on urban mobility may have little effect on domestic murders.

"In addition, organised crime - such as drug trafficking gangs - is responsible for a varying percentage of murders. The behaviour of these gangs is likely to be less sensitive to the changes enforced by a lockdown," said Nivette.

However, three cities where gang crime drives violence, all in South America, did see major falls in daily homicide as a result of COVID-19 policies. In Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, homicide dropped 24%. In Cali, Columbia, the drop was 29%, and in Lima, Peru, it plummeted 76%.

Rates of reported assaults also saw striking falls in Rio de Janeiro (56% drop) and Lima (75% drop). "It may be that criminal groups used the crisis to strengthen their power by imposing curfews and restricting movement in territories they control, resulting in a respite to the violence that plagues these cities," said Eisner.

Researchers found Barcelona to be something of an "outlier", with massive falls in assault (84% drop) and robbery (80% drop). Police-recorded thefts in the Spanish city declined from an average of 385 per day to just 38 per day under lockdown.

London saw less pronounced but still significant falls in some crime, with daily robberies dropping by 60%, theft by 44% and burglaries by 29%. The two US cities in the study, Chicago and San Francisco, had their best results in the category of assault, falling by 34% and 36% respectively.

The research team found no overall relationship between measures such as school closures or economic support and crime rates during lockdowns.

Added Eisner: "The measures taken by governments across the world to control COVID-19 provided a series of natural experiments, with major changes in routines, daily encounters and use of public space over entire populations.

"The pandemic has been devastating, but there are also opportunities to better understand social processes, including those involved in causing city-wide crime levels."

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How harm reduction advocates and the tobacco industry capitalized on pandemic to promote nicotine

Scientific papers suggesting that smokers are less likely to fall ill with COVID-19 are being discredited as links to the tobacco industry, reveals an investigation by The BMJ today

BMJ

Research News

 

Scientific papers suggesting that smokers are less likely to fall ill with covid-19 are being discredited as links to the tobacco industry, reveals an investigation by The BMJ today.

Journalists Stéphane Horel and Ties Keyzer report on undisclosed financial links between certain scientific authors and the tobacco and e-cigarette industry in a number of covid research papers.

In April 2020, two French studies (shared as preprints before formal peer review) suggested that nicotine might have a protective effect against covid-19 - dubbed the "nicotine hypothesis."

The stories made headlines worldwide and led to concern that decades of tobacco control could be undermined.

It has since been roundly disproved that smoking protects against covid-19, and several studies show that smoking, when adjusted for age and sex, is associated with an increased chance of covid-19 related death.

Horel and Keyzer point out that one of the study authors, Professor Jean-Pierre Changeux, has a history of receiving funding from the Council for Tobacco Research, whose purpose was to fund research that would cast doubt on the dangers of smoking and focus on the positive effects of nicotine.

From 1995 to 1998, tobacco industry documents show that Changeux's laboratory received $220,000 (£155,000; €180,000) from the Council for Tobacco Research.

Changeux assured The BMJ that he has not received any funding linked "directly or indirectly with the tobacco industry" since the 1990s.

In late April 2020, Greek researcher, Konstantinos Farsalinos, was the first to publish the "nicotine hypothesis" formally in a journal, in an editorial in Toxicology Reports.

The journal's editor in chief, Aristidis Tsatsakis featured as a co-author, as did A Wallace Hayes, a member of Philip Morris International's scientific advisory board in 2013, who has served as a paid consultant to the tobacco company.

Another co-author is Konstantinos Poulas, head of the Molecular Biology and Immunology Laboratory at the University of Patras, where Farsalinos is affiliated.

The laboratory has received funding from Nobacco, the market leader in Greek e-cigarettes and the exclusive distributor of British American Tobacco's nicotine delivery systems since 2018.

Neither Farsalinos nor Poulas has ever declared this Nobacco funding in their published scientific articles.

Yet Horel and Keyzer show that two grants were attributed in 2018 by the Foundation for a Smoke Free World - a non-profit established by Philip Morris International in 2017 - to "Patras Science Park."

The grants, whose amounts are not disclosed on the foundation's website, but tax documents show came close to €83,000, went to NOSMOKE, a university start-up incubator headed by Poulas, which markets an "organic" vaping product.

Last month, the European Respiratory Journal retracted a paper co-written by Poulas and Farsalinos, among others, after two authors failed to disclose conflicts of interest.

The retracted article had found that "current smoking was not associated with adverse outcome" in patients admitted to hospital with covid, and it claimed that smokers had a significantly lower risk of acquiring the virus.

The foundation has invested heavily in the covid-19/nicotine hypothesis, say Horel and Keyzer.

In June 2020 it set aside €900,000 for research "to better understand the associations between smoking and/or nicotine use, and covid-19 infection and outcome."

Its request stated that the pandemic offered "both an opportunity and a challenge for individuals to quit smoking or transition to reduced risk nicotine products."

They conclude: "In 2021, amid a global lung disease pandemic, tobacco industry figures are increasingly pushing the narrative of nicotine as the solution to an addiction that they themselves created, with the aim of persuading policy makers to give them ample room to market their "smoke-free" products. This makes studies on the hypothetical virtues of nicotine most welcome indeed."

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Externally peer reviewed? Yes
Evidence type: Investigation
Subject: Research integrity

 

Declining fish biodiversity poses risks for human nutrition

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

ITHACA, N.Y. - All fish are not created equal, at least when it comes to nutritional benefits.

This truth has important implications for how declining fish biodiversity can affect human nutrition, according to a computer modeling study led by Cornell and Columbia University researchers.

The study, "Declining Diversity of Wild-Caught Species Puts Dietary Nutrient Supplies at Risk," published May 28 in Science Advances, focused on the Loreto region of the Peruvian Amazon, where inland fisheries provide a critical source of nutrition for the 800,000 inhabitants.

At the same time, the findings apply to fish biodiversity worldwide, as more than 2 billion people depend on fish as their primary source of animal-derived nutrients.

"Investing in safeguarding biodiversity can deliver both on maintaining ecosystem function and health, and on food security and fisheries sustainability," said the study's first author Sebastian Heilpern, a presidential postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at Cornell University.

Practical steps could include establishing and enforcing "no-take zones" - areas set aside by the government where natural resources can't be extracted - in critical habitat; making sure that fishers adhere to fish size limits; and an increased investment in gathering species data to inform fisheries management policies, especially for inland fisheries.

In Loreto, people eat about 50 kilograms of fish annually per capita, rivaling the highest fish consumption rates in the world, and about half the amount of meat an average American consumes each year. Loreto residents eat a wide variety of fish, approximately 60 species, according to catch data. Species include large predatory catfish that migrate more than 5,000 kilometers, but whose numbers are dwindling due to overfishing and hydropower dams that block their paths. At the same time, the amount of fish caught has remained relatively consistent over time. This could be due to people spending more time fishing and smaller, more sedentary species or other predators filling voids left by dwindling larger predator populations.

"You have this pattern of biodiversity change but a constancy of biomass," Heilpern said. "We wanted to know: How does that affect nutrients that people get from the system?"

In the computer model, the researchers took all these factors into account and ran extinction scenarios, looking at which species are more likely to go extinct, and then which species are likely to replace those to compensate for a void in the ecosystem.

The model tracked seven essential animal-derived nutrients, including protein, iron, zinc, calcium and three omega-3 fatty acids, and simulated how changing fish stocks might affect nutrient levels across the population. While protein content across species is relatively equal, smaller, more sedentary fish have higher omega-3 content. Levels of micronutrients such as zinc and iron can also vary between species.

Simulations revealed risks in the system. For example, when small, sedentary species compensated for declines in large migratory species, fatty acid supplies increased, while zinc and iron supplies decreased. The region already suffers from high anemia rates, caused by iron deficiency, that such outcomes could further exacerbate.

"As you lose biodiversity, you have these tradeoffs that play out in terms of the aggregate quantity of nutrients," Heilpern said. "As you lose species, the system also becomes more and more risky to further shocks."

A related paper published March 19 in Nature Food considered whether other animal-based food sources, such as chicken and aquaculture, could compensate for the loss of biodiversity and dietary nutrients in the same region. The researchers found that those options were inadequate and could not replace the nutrients lost when fish biodiversity declines.

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The study was funded by a Columbia University Dean's Diversity Fellowship, a New York Community Trust Edward Prince Goldman Scholarship in Science, and a grant from the Conservation, Food and Health Foundation.

UMaine researchers: Culture drives human evolution more than genetics

UNIVERSITY OF MAINE

Research News

 

In a new study, University of Maine researchers found that culture helps humans adapt to their environment and overcome challenges better and faster than genetics.

After conducting an extensive review of the literature and evidence of long-term human evolution, scientists Tim Waring and Zach Wood concluded that humans are experiencing a "special evolutionary transition" in which the importance of culture, such as learned knowledge, practices and skills, is surpassing the value of genes as the primary driver of human evolution.

Culture is an under-appreciated factor in human evolution, Waring says. Like genes, culture helps people adjust to their environment and meet the challenges of survival and reproduction. Culture, however, does so more effectively than genes because the transfer of knowledge is faster and more flexible than the inheritance of genes, according to Waring and Wood.

Culture is a stronger mechanism of adaptation for a couple of reasons, Waring says. It's faster: gene transfer occurs only once a generation, while cultural practices can be rapidly learned and frequently updated. Culture is also more flexible than genes: gene transfer is rigid and limited to the genetic information of two parents, while cultural transmission is based on flexible human learning and effectively unlimited with the ability to make use of information from peers and experts far beyond parents. As a result, cultural evolution is a stronger type of adaptation than old genetics.

Waring, an associate professor of social-ecological systems modeling, and Wood, a postdoctoral research associate with the School of Biology and Ecology, have just published their findings in a literature review in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the flagship biological research journal of The Royal Society in London.

"This research explains why humans are such a unique species. We evolve both genetically and culturally over time, but we are slowly becoming ever more cultural and ever less genetic," Waring says.

Culture has influenced how humans survive and evolve for millenia. According to Waring and Wood, the combination of both culture and genes has fueled several key adaptations in humans such as reduced aggression, cooperative inclinations, collaborative abilities and the capacity for social learning. Increasingly, the researchers suggest, human adaptations are steered by culture, and require genes to accommodate.

Waring and Wood say culture is also special in one important way: it is strongly group-oriented. Factors like conformity, social identity and shared norms and institutions -- factors that have no genetic equivalent -- make cultural evolution very group-oriented, according to researchers. Therefore, competition between culturally organized groups propels adaptations such as new cooperative norms and social systems that help groups survive better together.

According to researchers, "culturally organized groups appear to solve adaptive problems more readily than individuals, through the compounding value of social learning and cultural transmission in groups." Cultural adaptations may also occur faster in larger groups than in small ones.

With groups primarily driving culture and culture now fueling human evolution more than genetics, Waring and Wood found that evolution itself has become more group-oriented.

"In the very long term, we suggest that humans are evolving from individual genetic organisms to cultural groups which function as superorganisms, similar to ant colonies and beehives," Waring says. "The 'society as organism' metaphor is not so metaphorical after all. This insight can help society better understand how individuals can fit into a well-organized and mutually beneficial system. Take the coronavirus pandemic, for example. An effective national epidemic response program is truly a national immune system, and we can therefore learn directly from how immune systems work to improve our COVID response."

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Waring is a member of the Cultural Evolution Society, an international research network that studies the evolution of culture in all species. He applies cultural evolution to the study of sustainability in social-ecological systems and cooperation in organizational evolution.

Wood works in the UMaine Evolutionary Applications Laboratory managed by Michael Kinnison, a professor of evolutionary applications. His research focuses on eco-evolutionary dynamics, particularly rapid evolution during trophic cascades.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by con

The feasibility of transformation pathways for achieving the Paris Climate Agreement

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

Research News

 

What drives the feasibility of climate scenarios commonly reviewed by organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? And can they actually be achieved in practice? A new systematic framework can help understand what to improve in the next generation of scenarios and explore how to make ambitious emission reductions possible by strengthening enabling conditions.

While the IPCC is in the midst of the drafting cycle of the Sixth Assessment Report, whose publication will start in the second half of 2021, there is an ongoing debate on how to assess the feasibility of ambitious climate mitigation scenarios developed through integrated assessment models and to what extent they are actually achievable in the real world. In their new study published in Environmental Research Letters, researchers from IIASA and the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE) developed a systematic framework that allows identifying the type, timing, and location of feasibility concerns raised by climate mitigation scenarios.

"Feasibility - in other words, how plausible it is that a scenario materializes in the real world - is a complex concept that is currently getting significant academic attention. In our research, we built on past advancements in theoretical discussions and propose to operationalize feasibility in terms of the timing, disruptiveness, and scale of transformation across geophysical, technological, economic, institutional, and sociocultural feasibility dimensions," explains the paper's first author, Elina Brutschin, researcher in the IIASA Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group.

"Another major insight concerns the necessity to improve the assessment of socio-cultural feasibility concerns by including more indicators and incorporating insights on attitudes and behavioral changes from the social sciences," says Silvia Pianta, a postdoctoral researcher at EIEE and PhD fellow at Bocconi University.

"We found that the current generation of scenarios does not explore demand-side mitigation to its full potential and that more research is necessary in this area," adds coauthor Bas van Ruijven, IIASA Sustainable Service Systems Research Group leader.

To address these issues, the researchers developed a feasibility evaluation of indicators in each decade, with a flexible aggregation procedure that allows assessing feasibility concerns across dimensions and time. This flexible approach enabled them to look at the "big picture" to, for instance, assess which dimension raises major feasibility concerns, but also to analyze more detailed questions such as trade-offs over time, both within and across different dimensions. The resulting systematic framework is extremely useful, not only to understand what to improve in the next generation of scenarios, but also to analyze more systematically what type of enabling factors might bring us closer to more ambitious mitigation paths in the future.

The authors specifically applied the framework to the publicly available scenario set from the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C and found that many scenarios currently assume a relatively fast overall decarbonization rate in regions that have a relatively low mitigation capacity. According to Brutschin, this suggests that many feasibility concerns are related to institutional constraints such as government effectiveness. While improving the quality of governance in many regions might be complicated, targeted capacity building and investments can significantly contribute to overcoming this challenge.

The authors highlight that the framework allows tracing important trade-offs over time, noting that while past studies focused on mitigation costs, the new research clearly shows that delayed climate action might generally be much more risky than an early disruptive transformation as delayed action requires an overall larger system to be transformed much faster and by relying on new technologies. In this regard, a better understanding of inter-temporal and inter-dimensional trade-offs incorporating insights from experts and policymakers is essential to take the overall understanding of the feasibility concepts to the next level.

"The new versatile framework that emerged from this collaborative project can be applied to any set of scenarios and can be constantly improved by incorporating new insights from the empirical literature on what is feasible in the real world. Although it was originally developed to evaluate global scenarios, it can be adjusted to have a more systematic evaluation of regional or national feasibility concerns in the future," notes IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program Director, Keywan Riahi, who is also a coordinating lead author in Working Group III of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

In addition to the new framework, the researchers also developed an interactive visual tool with key contributions by Giacomo Marangoni, a researcher at EIEE and Assistant Professor at Politecnico di Milano.

"A new data visualization method is extremely valuable when looking at multidimensional concepts such as feasibility. The tool we developed allows us to visualize our feasibility evaluations for different scenarios and to assess the sensitivity of our results to the definition of different feasibility concern thresholds," he says.

The data visualization tool can be accessed here: https://data.ece.iiasa.ac.at/climate-action-feasibility-dashboard/

Reference Brutschin, E., Pianta, S., Tavoni, M., Riahi, K., Bosetti, V., Marangoni, G., & van Ruijven, B. (2021) A multidimensional feasibility evaluation of low-carbon scenarios. Environmental Research Letters DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/abf0ce

Contacts: Researcher contact Elina Brutschin Research Scholar Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group Energy, Climate, and Environment Program Tel: +43 2236 807 350 brutschin@iiasa.ac.at

Press Officer Ansa Heyl IIASA Press Office Tel: +43 2236 807 574 Mob: +43 676 83 807 574 heyl@iiasa.ac.at

About IIASA: The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

About: RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE) RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment leverages two leading international centers for economic and environmental research: RFF - Resources for the Future and CMCC - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change. EIEE's research aims to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement to facilitate the transition to a sustainable, inclusive society. The focus is on issues surrounding but not limited to climate change, including a wide range of environmental, energy, natural resource, and societal issues.

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Current global environmental law and policy are failing, experts say

In a landmark special issue of Environmental Policy and Law, noted scholars lay out their vision for a complete overhaul of regulatory processes, approaches, and instruments for the protection of the global environment

IOS PRESS

Research News

 

 

IMAGE: ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND LAW SPECIAL ISSUE - OUR EARTH MATTERS: PATHWAYS TO A BETTER COMMON ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURE. "WE NEED TO ACCEPT WITH ALL HUMILITY OUR SACRED DUTY FOR THE CARE,... view more 

CREDIT: IOS PRESS

Amsterdam, June 2, 2021 - On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm conference that created the United Nations Environmental Programme, it is clear that the global environmental situation has only deteriorated. In "Our Earth Matters: Pathways to a Better Common Environmental Future," an extended special issue of Environmental Policy and Law (EPL), leading scholars from more than five continents call for an honest introspection of what has been attained over the last 50 years relating to regulatory processes and laws and explore future trajectories with new ideas and frameworks for environmental governance in the 21st century.

"Our objective is to fire the imaginations of scholars and decision-makers to re-examine current approaches and to explore the future, with new tools, ideas, ecological frameworks, and new international environmental institutions," explains Guest Editor Bharat H. Desai, PhD, LLM, Professor of International Law and Jawaharlal Nehru Chair in International Environmental Law, Centre for International Legal Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Contributors to the first section of the special issue review some of the structural problems of environmental law in the Anthropocene era, an era of significant human impact on the environment, and predict what frameworks and solutions will be necessary in the future. "Nations are not acting as if they are governing in the Anthropocene epoch, not yet," warns Nicholas A. Robinson, JD, Pace University School of Law, New York; Executive Governor, International Council of Environmental Law. "More than just air pollution and the loss of natural resources, future policies must cope with threats from cyber wars, nuclear war, genetic mutations, and artificial intelligence. International law will have to be more ambitious, taking advantage of cutting-edge science."

The next section explores international law-making processes, outlining current shortcomings and proposing possible frameworks for the future. Observing that current approaches seek to minimize economic impact at the expense of environmental protection, Jorge E. Viñuales, PhD, LLM, University of Cambridge, notes that, "The scale and urgency of the unfolding environmental crisis has made the critique of this hierarchy (economy over environmental protection) more powerful."

Since the 1960s, the United Nations General Assembly has been the central enterprise for the protection of the global environment. The special issue suggests that it is high time the UN system recalibrates itself for the vagaries of scientific assessments and the political realities of the future. A new environmental charter is proposed to rejuvenate the founding values of the international system and restore faith in international environmental governance.

The third section, focusing on problematic situations, highlights how State sovereignty is a major stumbling block for effective environmental conservation and sustainable development. The modern international law movement makes States responsible for adapting regulations and securing compliance. Existing multilateral treaties may serve as an organizational principle for planetary management of natural resources. Writing about the direct and indirect impacts of armed conflicts on the natural environment, Peter Maurer, PhD, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Geneva, writes that States can integrate legal protections for the environment into their armed forces' doctrines, and humanitarians must commit resources and expertise to help those coping with the environmental consequences of conflict.

"We all have our part to play as we face this existential threat," Dr. Maurer states. "Perhaps the biggest challenge ahead is the shift in in mindset and mechanics needed from States, humanitarian organizations, and those engaged in hostilities."

Other contributions address sector-specific environmental problems including climate skepticism; transnational environmental crimes; soil protection and global food security; the impending global water crisis; ocean biodiversity, and a call for new approaches.

In a concluding section, contributors look to the future at international environmental governance structures and reforms that will be necessary to meet current and future challenges. It has become clear that the changes in attitudes and social structures called for at the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment have not taken place and that now time is even more limited to make necessary, far-reaching changes.

Contributor Anna Sundström, MA, Secretary General, Olof Palme International Centre, Stockholm, comments, "Together, we face humanity's greatest challenge. Together we must fix it. The need for international action remains even more acute."

International governance is proposed to deal with the practical challenges of repairing environmental conflict. Contributions suggest reviving the United Nations Trusteeship Council, dormant since 1994, with a mandate for the environment and the global commons and turning the United Nations Environment Programme into a specialized agency to elevate its status and equip it with the necessary competence and financial stability. International and national courts and tribunals could become the new "environmental sentinels," and a specialized International Environmental Court could serve as a global watchdog.

"The 50th Anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm Conference next year calls for honest introspection on what we have attained during the past 50 years," says Dr. Desai. "This special issue is a modest effort to challenge the connoisseurs of international law and diplomacy to look ahead at this time of perplexity in the 21st century."

On World Environment Day, June 5, 2021, an exclusive free online event featuring a panel of high-profile experts will explore the issues raised in "Our Earth Matters," discussing pertinent questions about how we might move ahead to forge pathways to a better environmental future.

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Marking the 40th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic: A paper in the New England Journal of Medicine

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Research News

 

June 5, 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the first report of AIDS cases and the onset of the American AIDS epidemic. In a new, thought-provoking paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, Professor Ronald Bayer and co-author Gerald Oppenheiner capture the experiences of the physicians who were central to the AIDS epidemic. In the words of the doctors, they relay what it meant to look back after 40 years and how they "aged together."

The doctors called their experiences extraordinary and the conditions demanding, under which they performed their duties and treated their patients. They speak of their work as "in the trenches," giving their careers immediate meaning and value that they never expected. As several physicians expressed, "The epidemic changed me in about every considerable way possible." And for some, their lives in medicine were bookended by another extraordinary moment in global health - the COVID-19 epidemic.

Dr. Ronald Bayer, professor of Sociomedical Sciences and co-director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, focuses his research on issues of social justice and ethical matters related to AIDS, tuberculosis, illicit drugs, and tobacco. An elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, he has served on its committees dealing with the social impact of these issues in addition to vaccine safety and the Ryan White Care Act. Dr. Bayer has been a consultant to the World Health Organization on ethical issues related to public health surveillance, HIV and tuberculosis.

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The Commentary is titled "Marking the 40th Anniversary of the AIDS Epidemic: American Physicians Look Back." A co-author is Valentina Parisi.

Oil and gas stocks carry $126 billion cost for Norway's sovereign fund - research
By Tom Arnold and Gwladys Fouche 

 Reuters/Gwladys Fouche FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Norwegian central bank, where Norway's sovereign wealth fund is situated, in Oslo

LONDON/OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's sovereign wealth fund missed out on $125.8 billion in potential returns over a three year period by investing in oil and gas rather than green stocks, according to research from Global SWF, an industry data specialist.

The results showed oil and gas equities held by the $1.3 trillion sovereign fund, the world's largest, lost 11% over the three-years to Dec. 31, 2020, while its green stock holdings earned a return of 316%.

That equates to an opportunity cost of $125.8 billion, according to the analysis by Global SWF and non-governmental organisation Framtiden of the 198 so-called black stocks and 91 green stocks the fund held as of Dec. 31, 2020.

Norges Bank Investment Management's (NBIM) balance sheet would be 10% larger today if the fund had fully divested from oil and gas stocks and reinvested the money into renewables in Nov. 2017, the research found.

"Financial profitability has stopped and must stop being an excuse for not investing in green energy," Global SWF wrote in a report released this week.

"There is no reason for NBIM not to divest from its (still very significant) portfolio of fossil fuels stocks and use the proceeds to invest more in companies engaged in renewable energy, both listed and private."

NBIM, which invests Norway's revenues from oil and gas production for future generations, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The fund in 2017 proposed dropping oil and gas companies from its benchmark index, an announcement that sent energy stocks worldwide lower at the time.

Although it cited a reduction in the exposure of the country's wealth to the risk of a permanent drop in oil prices, environmental campaigners seized on it as example of an investor turning away from the oil industry. The proposal would have affected some 6% of the fund's equity holdings for a then-value of $37 billion.

It was rejected by the Norwegian finance ministry which instead put forward a different plan, limited to removing only dedicated oil and gas explorers and producers from the fund's benchmark index.

Parliament voted in 2019 in favour of that plan, which affected 1.2% of the fund's overall equity holdings.

Many lawmakers were concerned that Norway would be perceived at not having faith in the future of its biggest industry, including Equinor, the oil firm that is majority-owned by the Norwegian state.

(Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Mining rig maker Canaan argues against wholesale crackdown on bitcoin mining in China

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - A major Chinese maker of bitcoin mining machines argued against an indiscriminate crackdown on cryptocurrency mining in China, saying the business helps make better use of electricity and contributes to employment and the local economy

© Reuters/Dado Ruvic FILE PHOTO: Picture illustration of small toy figurines and representations of the Bitcoin virtual currency displayed in front of an image of China's flag

Zhang Nangeng, CEO of Nasdaq-listed Canaan Inc, told an earnings conference call that although cryptomining activities using fossil-fuel power hampers Beijing's green efforts, those powered by clean energy should be spared from the crackdown.


"For-profit miners prefer regions with low electricity prices that indicate oversupply, and likely energy waste," Zhang said.

In addition, "bitcoin miners also help create jobs in impoverished regions and contribute to fiscal coffers."

Zhang's comments come after China's State Council, last month, ordered a crackdown on energy intensive bitcoin mining and trading, and Inner Mongolia, a major mining centre, proposed measures to root out the practice.

Energy regulators in southwest Sichuan - a province rich in hydropower - met local power generators on Wednesday to probe cryptomining in China's second-biggest bitcoin production hub.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are created or "mined" by high-powered computers competing to solve complex mathematical puzzles in an energy-intensive process that often relies on fossil fuels, particularly coal.

Canaan makes machines, or rigs, to mine bitcoins.

Zhang said policy uncertainty is prodding domestic miners to move overseas, and causing some clients to hold off placing new orders for mining equipment.

Beijing's crackdown is also prompting some miners to "undersell" mining equipment, helping knock-down prices, Zhang said.

Spot prices of bitcoin mining machines are down 20%-30% from roughly a month ago, hurt by falling bitcoin prices.

To reduce business uncertainty, Canaan is accelerating overseas expansion, securing long-term contracts, and setting up its own offshore bitcoin mining business.

Canaan, which on Tuesday reported a nearly 500% surge in first-quarter sales to 402.8 million yuan ($63.12 million), said overseas markets now contributes to 78.4% of its total revenues. That compares with just 4.9% in the first quarter of 2020.

Orders from overseas clients, including Canada's Hive Blockchain Technologies, and U.S. crypto player Core Scientific, also account for more than 70% of total orders.

Canaan is also expanding into bitcoin mining itself, having set up an office in Singapore, and is preparing to launch a cryptomining business in Kazakhstan, in central Asia.

"Just as it took a long time for bitcoin to be recognized by the market, there will also be a (long) process for bitcoin, and cryptomining, to be recognized by regulators" in China, Zhang said.

($1 = 6.3820 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Samuel Shen and Alun John; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

Bitcoin is copper, not gold, Goldman Sachs claims
CryptocurrencyJun 02, 2021




© Reuters. Bitcoin is copper, not gold, Goldman Sachs c

The global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), Jeff Currie, has dismissed claims that Bitcoin could replace gold as a store of value.

During a recent appearance of CNBC international, Currie explained that neither Bitcoin nor any other cryptocurrency stands a chance at beating gold, a narrative that is becoming quite popular in crypto cycles. He said:

The digital currencies…they are not substitutes to gold. If anything, they would be a substitute to copper…They are pro-risk, risk-on assets.The Goldman exec also argues that Bitcoin is a risk-on asset based on his firm’s trading history. Meanwhile, he considers gold to be a risk-off asset that hedges bad inflation.

If anything, you would argue that Bitcoin substitutes against risk-on inflation hedges, not risk-off inflation hedges.While Currie’s claims are definitely up for debate, gold outperformed Bitcoin in May. Following Tesla’s announcement that it was no longer going to accept Bitcoin as a payment option for its cars in May, the leading digital asset began to drop. This was further exacerbated by reports that China was planning to crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading. Consequently, Bitcoin saw its third-biggest monthly drop in May. Gold, on the other hand, is up by seven percent within the same period.

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