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)
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Massive Extinction of Species in the Late Cretaceous Was Not Caused by Extreme Volcanism
ByUNIVERSITY OF BARCELONASEPTEMBER 28, 2021
The Zumaia cliffs are characterized by an exceptional section of strata that reveals the geological history of the Earth in the period of 115-50 million years ago (Ma). Credit: University of Barcelona / IUCA – University of Zaragoza
A study published in the journal Geology rules out that extreme volcanic episodes had any influence on the massive extinction of species in the late Cretaceous. The results confirm the hypothesis that it was a giant meteorite impact that caused the great biological crisis that ended up with the non-avian dinosaur lineages and other marine and terrestrial organisms 66 million years ago.
K/Pg boundary: the great extinction of the Cretaceous in Zumaia coasts
The scenario of this study was the Zumaia cliffs (Basque Country), which have an exceptional section of strata that reveals the geological history of the Earth in the period of 115-50 million years ago (Ma). In this environment, the team analyzed sediments and rocks that are rich in microfossils that were deposited between 66.4 and 65.4 Ma, a time interval that includes the known Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary (K/Pg). Dated in 66 Ma, the K/Pg boundary divides the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras and it coincides with one of the five large extinctions of the planet.
This study analyzed the climate changes that occurred just before and after the massive extinction marked by the K/Pg boundary, as well as its potential relation to this large biological crisis. For the first time, researchers examined whether this climate change coincides on the time scale with its potential causes: the Deccan massive volcanism (India) — one of the most violent volcanic episodes in the geological history of the planet — and the orbital variations of the Earth.
The experts Sietske Batenburg, from the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona, and ¡Vicente Gilabert, from the University Research Institute on Environmental Sciences of Aragon (IUCA-University of Zaragoza). Credit: University of Barcelona / IUCA – University of Zaragoza
“The particularity of the Zumaia outcrops lies in that two types of sediments accumulated there — some richer in clay and others richer in carbonate — that we can now identify as strata or marl and limestone that alternate with each other to form rhythms,” notes the researcher Sietske Batenburg, from the Department of Earth and Ocean Dynamics of the UB. “This strong rhythmicity in sedimentation is related to cyclical variations in the orientation and inclination of the Earth axis in the rotation movement, as well as in the translational movement around the Sun”.
These astronomic configurations — the known Milankovitch cycles, which repeat every 405,000, 100,000, 41,000, and 21,000 years — regulate the amount of solar radiation they receive, modulate the global temperature of our planet and condition the type of sediment that reaches the oceans. “Thanks to these periodicities identified in the Zumaia sediments, we have been able to determine the most precise dating of the climatic episodes that took place around the time when the last dinosaurs lived,” says PhD student Vicente Gilabert, from the Department of Earth Sciences at UZ, who will present his thesis defense by the end of this year.
Planktonic foraminifera: revealing the climate of the past
Carbon-13 isotopic analysis on the rocks in combination with the study of planktonic foraminifera — microfossils used as high-precision biostratigraphic indicators — has made it possible to reconstruct the paleoclimate and chronology of that time in the Zumaia sediments. More than 90% of the Cretaceous planktonic foraminiferal species from Zumaia became extinct 66 Ma ago, coinciding with a big disruption in the carbon cycle and an accumulation of impact glass spherules originating from the asteroid that hit Chicxulub, in the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico).
In addition, the conclusions of the study reveal the existence of three intense climatic warming events — known as hyperthermal events — that are not related to the Chicxulub impact. The first, known as LMWE and prior to the K/Pg boundary, has been dated to between 66.25 and 66.10 Ma. The other two events, after the mass extinction, are called Dan-C2 (between 65.8 and 65.7 Ma) and LC29n (between 65.48 and 65.41 Ma).
In the last decade, there has been intense debate over whether the hyperthermal events mentioned above were caused by an increased Deccan volcanic activity, which emitted large amounts of gases into the atmosphere. “Our results indicate that all these events are in sync with extreme orbital configurations of the Earth known as eccentricity maxima. Only the LMWE, which produced an estimated global warming of 2-5°C, appears to be temporally related to a Deccan eruptive episode, suggesting that it was caused by a combination of the effects of volcanism and the latest Cretaceous eccentricity maximum”, the experts add.
Earth’s orbital variations around the Sun
The global climate changes that occurred in the late Cretaceous and early Palaeogene — between 250,000 years before and 200,000 years after the K/Pg boundary — were due to eccentricity maxima of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
However, the orbital eccentricity that influenced climate changes before and after the K/Pg boundary is not related to the late Cretaceous mass extinction of species. The climatic changes caused by the eccentricity maxima and augmented by the Deccan volcanism occurred gradually at a scale of hundreds of thousands of years.
“These data would confirm that the extinction was caused by something completely external to the Earth system: the impact of an asteroid that occurred 100,000 years after this late Cretaceous climate change (the LMWE),” the research team says. “Furthermore, the last 100,000 years before the K/Pg boundary are characterized by high environmental stability with no obvious perturbations, and the large mass extinction of species occurred instantaneously on the geological timescale,” they conclude.
Hanke holds a recently caught wall lizard near his Victoria home (Photo by Alana Paterson)
To satisfy his Fitbit, Gavin Hanke frequently goes for long walks from his home in Victoria that double as reconnaissance missions. Eyeballing rock walls, stucco, wood piles and gardens—sometimes evoking strange looks from residents—Hanke searches for an invader to Vancouver Island’s ecosystem: Podarcis muralis, or the common wall lizard.
When he spots one while “lizarding”—easy to do around the B.C. capital—Hanke snaps photos with his iPhone, geotagging and uploading the images to his growing collection on the iNaturalist app.
Hanke, the Royal B.C. Museum’s curator of vertebrate zoology, has been sounding the alarm about wall lizards since 2006. Until recently, few communities took notice.
Native to the Mediterranean, the reptiles seem perfectly happy sunning themselves throughout the southern half of Vancouver Island. Hanke estimates their current population in British Columbia to be between 500,000 and 700,000. They grow as long as 23 cm, but are generally smaller. And with climate change, they appear to be spreading: last year, a few were even spotted on the Lower Mainland, near Chilliwack.
The lizard’s provenance in B.C. can be traced to Rudy’s Pet Park, a roadside zoo that opened in Saanich in 1957 with monkeys, lions and, among other creatures, a dozen wall lizards imported from Italy. When the now-deceased owner Rudy Bauersachs closed it in 1970, the bigger animals went to the Greater Vancouver Zoo. According to academic studies, the lizards he simply turned loose.
The creatures live for up to 10 years, devouring insects, fruits, baby garter snakes and local frog species. They even munch their own young, who, seemingly aware, scurry away soon after hatching.
On Vancouver Island they’ve established populations in Langford, Ucluelet, Nanaimo and other communities, appearing as far north as Campbell River, 265 km from Victoria. They sneak trips hiding in camping gear, and their eggs get ferried around in plants and potting soils. Children aid their distribution by taking them home as pets.
A reptile lover since his boyhood in Manitoba, Hanke sees dozens daily in his garden. And though tracking and stemming their spread is part of his mandate with the museum, he confesses that, to him, having lizards on his property is “a kid’s dream come true.” In the capital region, the species is “so stupidly abundant we aren’t ever going to eradicate them,” he says. “It’s probably wrong to say it, but they’re actually quite charming.”
Still, on a scale of one to 10, Hanke assesses the threat to B.C.’s ecosystems as “an eight, if not a nine.” He worries for native species such as the sharp-tailed snake, the Pacific chorus frog and the northwestern alligator lizard. The wall lizard feasts on them all.
When he discovers new populations, Hanke notifies municipal or provincial authorities, because wall lizards can be eliminated from an area if caught early. Though B.C. has a response plan to fend off invasive species, the lizards are so well-established that the province is largely down to preventing their expansion through awareness programs, and by encouraging people to report sightings. Some residents are resorting to improvised measures, such as DIY traps and even BB guns.
Last May on Salt Spring Island, retired biologist Pat Miller took photos of a lizard lazing on stone-slab steps leading to her back deck, then contacted Hanke. His verdict: wall lizard. Hanke is particularly concerned because the Gulf Islands, with their rich flora and fauna, are a perfect habitat for them. “They’re going to love it.”
Alarmed, Miller alerted the Salt Spring Island Conservancy, a society dedicated to protecting the island’s native plants and animals, which urged its 270 members to report additional sightings. She initially planned to trap her lizard, but it disappeared for a few weeks after a bout of cool weather. She’s since spotted more, and as of late July another person had reported a sighting in the same area, near the Vesuvius Ferry Terminal. “We can still go after them,” says Miller.
Hanke is pro-extermination, if it’s done humanely. Some islanders use buckets sunk in the ground with water in the bottom and pitched at a 45-degree angle; lizards that slide in for a drink can’t climb out. Hanke himself employs a technique called “lizard noosing,” using a fishing rod with a small loop at the tip: “Just pull up sharply,” he says, “and you’ve got him.” To euthanize them, he advises putting captured lizards in a fridge until they lapse into a torpid state, then into a freezer. “They have to be frozen solid,” he cautions. “They can survive partial freezing.”
Not everyone sees the creatures as a menace. Last June, the Times Colonist newspaper was bombarded with heated emails over a feature on the best ways to trap and liquidate them. One reader wrote that her family lives in harmony with lizards on their farm, adding: “They don’t eat the roses like the deer, carry disease like the rats or buy up all of our affordable housing like the Torontonians.”
But Hanke rejects suggestions from some lizard lovers that populations can be left to natural predators. The hundreds of thousands on Vancouver Island, he warns, are agricultural pests preying on much-needed pollinators. Though Hanke has no direct evidence that the lizards eat honeybees, he believes eyewitness reports of them doing so. “They will eat mason bees, bumblebees, even wasps,” he says. “If they’ll take a wasp, they’ll take anything.” This article appears in print in the October 2021 issue of Maclean’s magazine with the headline, “Climbing the walls.”
From paints to plastics, a chemical shortage ignites prices
Billy Wommack, purchasing director at the W.S. Jenks & Sons hardware, poses in front of the hardware store, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021, in northeast Washington. The chemical shortages, and a near doubling of oil prices in the past year, mean higher prices for many goods. The W.S. Jenks & Son hardware store is only getting 20% to 30% of paint it needs to meet customer demand without backordering; in normal times the so-called fill rate usually runs 90%. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
In an economy upended by the coronavirus, shortages and price spikes have hit everything from lumber to computer chips. Not even toilet paper escaped.
Now, they’re cutting into one of the humblest yet most vital links in the global manufacturing supply chain: The plastic pellets that go into a vast universe of products ranging from cereal bags to medical devices, automotive interiors to bicycle helmets.
Like other manufacturers, petrochemical companies have been shaken by the pandemic and by how consumers and businesses responded to it. Yet petrochemicals, which are made from oil, have also run into problems all their own, one after another: A freak winter freeze in Texas. A lightning strike in Louisiana. Hurricanes along the Gulf Coast.
All have conspired to disrupt production and raise prices.
“There isn’t one thing wrong,” said Jeremy Pafford, managing editor for the Americas at Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), which analyzes energy and chemical markets. “It’s kind of whack-a-mole — something goes wrong, it gets sorted out, then something else happens. And it’s been that way since the pandemic began.”
The price of polyvinyl chloride or PVC, used for pipes, medical devices, credit cards, vinyl records and more, has rocketed 70%. The price of epoxy resins, used for coatings, adhesives and paints, has soared 170%. Ethylene — arguably the world’s most important chemical, used in everything from food packaging to antifreeze to polyester — has surged 43%, according to ICIS figures.
The root of the problem has become a familiar one in the 18 months since the pandemic ignited a brief but brutal recession: As the economy sank into near-paralysis, petrochemical producers, like manufacturers of all types, slashed production. So they were caught flat-footed when the unexpected happened: The economy swiftly bounced back, and consumers, flush with cash from government relief aid and stockpiles of savings, resumed spending with astonishing speed and vigor.
Suddenly, companies were scrambling to acquire raw materials and parts to meet surging orders. Panic buying worsened the shortages as companies rushed to stock up while they could.
“It’s such a bizarre scenario,” said Hassan Ahmed, a chemicals analyst with Alembic Global Advisors, a research firm. “Inventories are lean, and supply is low. Demand will exceed supply growth.”
Against the backdrop of tight supplies and surging demand came a series of events that struck Pafford as Murphy’s Law in action: Anything that could go wrong did. In 2020, Hurricanes Laura and Zeta pounded Louisiana, a hub of petrochemical production.
Then, in February, a winter storm hit Texas, with its many oil refining and chemical manufacturing facilities. Millions of households and businesses, including the chemical plants, lost power and heat. Pipes froze. More than 100 people died.
A July lightning strike temporarily shut down a plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that makes polypropylene, used in consumer packaging and auto manufacturing.
The industry was just beginning to recover when Hurricane Ida struck the Gulf Coast in August, once again damaging refineries and chemical plants. As if that weren’t enough, Tropical Storm Nicholas caused flooding.
“Some of these downstream petrochemical plants in the Gulf Coast regions are still shut down from Hurricane Ida,” said Bridgette Budhlall a professor of plastics engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.
“Anything related to base chemicals — they’ve had a hell of a year,” said Tom Derry, CEO of the Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers.
“It’s been the hardest year for logistics and supply chain managers,” Pafford said. “They always say the most stressful job in the world is being an air traffic controller at any airport ... I’d venture to say that being a supply chain manager is that — or worse — this year.’’
Ford Motor Co., hampered by an industrywide shortage of computer chips, is now running short of other parts, too, some of them based on petrochemicals.
“I think we should expect, as business leaders, to continue to have supply chain challenges for the foreseeable future,” CEO Jim Farley said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The shortages are slowing production at two leading paint makers, Sherwin-Williams and PPG. Both have raised prices and downgraded their sales guidance, saying the outlook for additional supply remains dim.
Though Sherwin-Williams reported strong second-quarter profits, it said that a lack of raw materials cut sales by 3.5% for the period. CEO John Morikis said Sherwin-Williams raised prices in the Americas by 7% in August and an additional 4% this month. More increases are possible next year, he said.
The chemical shortages, combined with a near-doubling of oil prices in the past year to $75 a barrel of U.S. benchmark crude, mean higher prices for many goods.
“The consumer is going to have to pay,” said Bill Selesky, a chemicals analyst for Argus Research, who suggested that many households, armed with cash from government aid and built-up savings, will be willing to pay higher prices.
In the meantime, the supply problem isn’t getting any better. A W.S. Jenks & Son hardware store in Washington, D.C., is receiving only 20% to 30% of the paint it needs to meet customer demand without backordering. In normal times, that rate usually runs 90%, says Billy Wommack, the purchasing director.
“Nobody’s happy about it,” Wommack said. “There are a lot of ‘I’m sorrys’ out there.”
The shortage is generally felt most by big contractors that need, say, the same-colored paint for numerous apartment complexes and other major projects. Individual homeowners can typically be more flexible.
Duval Paint & Decorating, with three stores in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, is scrambling to fill orders, especially for big contractors who need a lot of paint, said John Cornell, a sales clerk who orders paint for the stores.
“We’re struggling,” Cornell said. “Sometimes you have to grab products and sit on them for weeks or months so that when the job starts we have it.”
Andrew Moore, a clerk at Ricciardi Brothers in Philadelphia, said the store has been running short of lower-grade paints that large contractors use, though here’s ample supply of higher grades. Demand is so high that the store is having a record year, with sales up 20% over last year. Prices are up as high as 15% for some brands, Moore said.
The problems in the petrochemical supply chain have been compounded by shortages of labor and shipping containers and by overwhelmed ports. Some Asian ports have been shut down by COVID-19 outbreaks. In the United States, ports like the one in Long Beach, California, are struggling with backlogs of ships waiting to be unloaded.
“I think this is going to go on for a really long time because there are so many factors at play here,” said Kaitlin Wowak, a management professor at the University of Notre Dame. “And it’s across the board in so many products.”
It’s also forcing manufacturers to rethink some of their practices. For decades, companies moved production to China to capitalize on lower labor costs. They also held down expenses by keeping inventories to a minimum. Using a “just-in-time” strategy, they bought materials only as needed to fill orders. But as the recession and recovery showed, keeping inventories threadbare carries risk.
“Supply chains have changed forever,” said Bindiya Vakil, CEO of the supply chain consultancy Resilinc.
The old management philosophy, she said, was to “get everything to the lowest possible price point... What we are dealing with right now is a consequence of those decisions. Companies have lost hundreds of millions, in some cases billions, of dollars in (forgone) profits because of that, because their supply chains failed.”
The petrochemical experience, Vakil said, will teach companies to monitor the lowliest links in their supply chains. It’s always easier, she said, to track only the big-ticket items — engines, say, or electronics.
But simple plastics are vital, too. Imagine trying to market breakfast cereal without a cheap plastic bag to hold corn flakes or wheat bran.
“You can’t just dump the cereal into the cardboard and ship it,” Vakil says. “The plastic bag is just as critical an ingredient as the actual (product) and the cardboard and everything else. But supply chain practitioners traditionally have not considered it to be just as critical. And nowadays plastics are ubiquitous.”
Analysts expect the petrochemical crunch to last well into 2022.
“You really have to put COVID truly in the rearview mirror for this logistics situation to normalize,” Pafford said. “You can’t simply just throw more ships and more containers on the water. ...We’ve got to get them loaded. If ports are going to be shut down because of a COVID lockdown — good luck.’’
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Wiseman reported from Washington, Krisher from Detroit.
Health workers once saluted as heroes now get threats
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and GRANT SCHULTE Keith Mathis holds a panic button he helped create as part of CoxHealth's Innovation Accelerators program. Nurses and hundreds of other staff members will soon begin wearing panic buttons at a Missouri hospital where assaults on workers tripled after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Sara Karnes/The Springfield News-Leader via AP)
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — More than a year after U.S. health care workers on the front lines against COVID-19 were saluted as heroes with nightly clapping from windows and balconies, some are being issued panic buttons in case of assault and ditching their scrubs before going out in public for fear of harassment.
Across the country, doctors and nurses are dealing with hostility, threats and violence from patients angry over safety rules designed to keep the scourge from spreading.
“A year ago, we’re health care heroes and everybody’s clapping for us,” said Dr. Stu Coffman, a Dallas-based emergency room physician. “And now we’re being in some areas harassed and disbelieved and ridiculed for what we’re trying to do, which is just depressing and frustrating.”
Cox Medical Center Branson in Missouri started giving panic buttons to up to 400 nurses and other employees after assaults per year tripled between 2019 and 2020 to 123, a spokeswoman said. One nurse had to get her shoulder X-rayed after an attack.
Hospital spokeswoman Brandei Clifton said the pandemic has driven at least some of the increase.
“So many nurses say, ‘It’s just part of the job,’” Clifton said. “It’s not part of the job.”
Some hospitals have limited the number of public entrances. In Idaho, nurses said they are scared to go to the grocery store unless they have changed out of their scrubs so they aren’t accosted by angry residents.
Doctors and nurses at a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, hospital have been accused of killing patients by grieving family members who don’t believe COVID-19 is real, said hospital spokeswoman Caiti Bobbitt. Others have been the subject of hurtful rumors spread by people angry about the pandemic.
“Our health care workers are almost feeling like Vietnam veterans, scared to go into the community after a shift,” Bobbitt said.
Over Labor Day weekend in Colorado, a passerby threw an unidentified liquid at a nurse working at a mobile vaccine clinic in suburban Denver. Another person in a pickup truck ran over and destroyed signs put up around the clinic’s tent.
About 3 in 10 nurses who took part in a survey this month by an umbrella organization of nurses unions across the U.S. reported an increase in violence where they work stemming from factors including staff shortages and fewer visitor restrictions. That was up from 2 in 10 in March, according to the National Nurses United survey of 5,000 nurses.
Michelle Jones, a nurse at a COVID-19 ICU unit in Wichita, Kansas, said patients are coming in scared, sometimes several from the same family, and often near death. Their relatives are angry, thinking the nurses and doctors are letting them die
“They cry, they yell, they sit outside our ICU in little groups and pray,” Jones said. “Lots of people think they are going to get miracles and God is not passing those out this year. If you come into my ICU, there is a good chance you are going to die.”
She said the powerful steroids that have shown promise often make patients angrier.
“It is like ’roid rage on people,” she said. “I’ve worked in health care for 26 years. and I’ve seen anything like this. I’ve never seen the public act like this.”
Several people have been shot to death in disputes over masks in stores and other public places. Shouting matches and scuffles have broken out at school board meetings. A brawl erupted earlier this month at a New York City restaurant over its requirement that customers show proof of vaccination.
Dr. Chris Sampson, an emergency room physician in Columbia, Missouri, said violence has always been a problem in the emergency department, but the situation has gotten worse in recent months. Sampson said he has been pushed up against a wall and seen nurses kicked.
Dr. Ashley Coggins of St. Peter’s Health Regional Medical Center in Helena, Montana, said she recently asked a patient whether he wanted to be vaccinated.
“He said, ‘F, no,’ and I didn’t ask further because I personally don’t want to get yelled at,” Coggins said. “You know, this is a weird time in our world, and the respect that we used to have for each other, the respect that people used to have for caregivers and physicians and nurses — it’s not always there, and it makes this job way harder.”
Coggins said the patient told her that he “wanted to strangle President Biden” for pushing for vaccinations, prompting her to change the subject. She said security guards are now in charge of enforcing mask rules for hospital visitors so that nurses no longer have to be the ones to tell people to leave.
The hostility is making an already stressful job harder. Many places are suffering severe staffing shortages, in part because nurses have become burned out and quit.
“I think one thing that we have seen and heard from many of our people is that it is just really hard to come to work every day when people treat each other poorly,” said Dr. Kencee Graves, a physician at the University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City.
“If you have to fight with somebody about wearing a mask, or if you aren’t allowed to visit and we have to argue about that, that is stressful.”
Associated Press writer Rebecca Boone contributed to this report from Boise, Idaho. Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.
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Iris Samuels contributed to this report from Helena, Montana. Samuels is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Woman who survived Spanish flu, world war succumbs to COVID
Dorene Giacopini holds up a photo of her mother Primetta Giacopini while posing for a photo at her home in Richmond, Calif. on Monday, Sept 27, 2021. Primetta Giacopini's life ended the way it began — in a pandemic. She was two years old when she lost her mother to the Spanish flu in Connecticut in 1918. Giacopini contracted COVID-19 earlier this month. The 105-year-old struggled with the disease for a week before she died Sept. 16. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson)
She lived a life of adventure that spanned two continents. She fell in love with a World War II fighter pilot, barely escaped Europe ahead of Benito Mussolini’s fascists, ground steel for the U.S. war effort and advocated for her disabled daughter in a far less enlightened time. She was, her daughter said, someone who didn’t make a habit of giving up.
And then this month, at age 105, Primetta Giacopini’s life ended the way it began — in a pandemic.
“I think my mother would have been around quite a bit longer” if she hadn’t contracted COVID,” her 61-year-old daughter, Dorene Giacopini, said. “She was a fighter. She had a hard life and her attitude always was ... basically, all Americans who were not around for World War II were basically spoiled brats.”
Primetta Giacopini’s mother, Pasquina Fei, died in Connecticut of the Spanish flu in 1918 at age 25. That pandemic killed about 675,000 Americans — a death toll eclipsed this month by the 2020-21 coronavirus pandemic.
Primetta was 2 years old when her mother died. Her father, a laborer, didn’t want to raise Primetta or her younger sister, Alice. He sent Alice back to Italy, their ancestral homeland, and handed Primetta to an Italian foster family that then relocated to Italy in 1929.
“The way Mom talked about it, he didn’t want to raise those kids alone, and men didn’t do that at that time,” Dorene recalled. “It’s ridiculous to me.”
Primetta supported herself by working as a seamstress. Raven-haired with dark eyes and sharp features, she eventually fell in love with an Italian fighter pilot named Vittorio Andriani.
“I didn’t see too much of him because he was always fighting someplace,” Primetta told the Golden Gate Wing, a military aviation club in Oakland, California, in 2008.
Italy entered World War II in June 1940. The local police warned Primetta to leave because Mussolini wanted American citizens out of the country. Primetta refused. Several weeks later, the state police told her to get out, warning her that she could end up in a concentration camp.
In June 1941, Andriani was missing in action; Primetta learned later that he had crashed and died near Malta. While he was missing, she joined a group of strangers making their way out of Italy on a train to Portugal.
“In Spain, one can still see, after 2-3 years, the traces of the atrocities of the past,” Primetta wrote in a letter to a friend in the midst of her flight. “At Port Bou, the Spanish border, not one house is left standing; everting got destroyed because the town is an important train transit point that brought supplies to the “Reds”, the enemy . . . I’ve seen so much destruction that I’ve had enough. The day after tomorrow, I get on the ship, and I’m sure all will go well.”
In Lisbon she boarded a steamer bound for the United States. She returned to Torrington, bought a Chevrolet sedan for $500 and landed a job at a General Motors plant in Bristol grinding steel to cover ball bearings for the war effort. She met her husband, Umbert “Bert” Giacopini, on the job. They stayed married until he died in 2002.
Primetta gave birth to Dorene in 1960 and received devastating news: The infant had been born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which the spinal cord doesn’t fully develop. For the first 50 years of her life, Dorene needed crutches to walk. Worried that Dorene would slip during Connecticut’s winters, the family moved to San Jose in 1975.
“My folks were born a long time ago,” she said. “Their attitude about disability, and my mother’s attitude about disability, was it was lucky I was smart and I should get a good job I really liked because I probably wouldn’t be getting married or have children. They did not take parenting classes.”
But Primatta was “pushy,” Dorene said, and never stopped fighting for her.
She once convinced school officials to move accelerated classes from the third floor of Dorene’s school to the first floor so Dorene could participate. During the springs in Connecticut, she demanded that city sweepers clear their street of salt and sand so Dorene wouldn’t slip.
This year, during a visit on Sept. 9, Dorene noticed her mother was coughing. She knew her mother’s caretaker had been feeling sick after her husband returned from a wedding in Idaho. All three had been vaccinated. But as she drove away, Dorene guessed that her mother had contracted COVID-19.
“I made sure we said ‘I love you.’” She did the ‘See you later, alligator.’ I think we both said ‘After a while, crocodile,’” Dorene said. “That was the last time I saw her.”
Two days later, Primetta was in the emergency room. Her oxygen levels dropped steadily over the next six days until nurses had to put an oxygen mask on her.
She became confused and fought them so hard she had to be sedated, Dorene said. Chest X-rays told the story: pneumonia. Faced with a decision of whether to put Primetta on a ventilator — “They said nobody over 80 makes it off a ventilator,” Dorene said — she decided to remove her mother’s oxygen.
Primetta died two days later, on Sept. 16. She was 105 years old.
“She had such a strong heart that she remained alive for more than 24 hours after they removed the oxygen,” Dorene said. “I’m full of maybes, what I should have done with the ventilator . . . (but) it broke through three vaccinated people.”
She added: “I’m reminding myself that she was 105. We always talk about ... my grandmother and mother, the only thing that could kill them was a worldwide pandemic.”
a laboratory reproduction of the Zen stone phenomenon in a lyophilizer (freeze-drier). Image credits Nicolas Taberlet, Nicolas Plihon, (2021), PNAS.
It’s not a rare sight to see stones seemingly placed on a pedestal of ice on the surface of frozen lakes. Contrary to all appearances, this is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, referred to as “Zen stones” for its similarities with the Japanese style of garden decoration, or “Baikal Zen”, after the famous Siberian lake.
Although we had theories regarding their formation, ranging from ‘magic’ to ‘wind erosion, we never actually knew for sure why this happened. The study, now, reports that it comes down to sublimation — the process of a solid becoming a gas without turning into a liquid in-between.
Naturally zen
“There’s no direct application to our work. Just the satisfaction of having understood something new,” Dr. Nicholas Taberlet, a physicist at the University of Lyon and first author of the study, told ZME Science in an email. “However our results can be useful for space exploration missions. For example, NASA is planning to send a lander to Europa, which is covered in ice. It’s important to realize that the rover will prevent the ice from sublimating underneath it and to plan the mission accordingly.”
Lake Baikal, in Siberia, is particularly associated with this phenomenon. As the world’s largest, deepest, and perhaps cleanest freshwater lake, as well as one in a very frigid expanse of the globe, conditions here are ripe for ice pedestals to form. The first requirement for this phenomenon is for a stone to become lodged in ice. This isn’t a rare occurrence in places such as Baikal, whose surface is frozen solid for a long period each year (around 5 mo/year). That being said, however, it is a very rare phenomenon on a global scale, which is why ice pedestals are so strongly associated with this lake.
According to the findings, the physical processes that govern this phenomenon can act pretty much anywhere — even, as Dr. Taberlet mentioned, in outer space. All it takes is the right environmental conditions. Ice pedestal formation is relatively rare on the global scale because it requires “thick, flat, snow-free layers of ice” which form only under “longstanding cold and dry weather conditions”. There simply aren’t many places on Earth that satisfy those conditions.
The team explains that the formation of an ice pedestal starts with a stone that initially “rests directly on a flat ice surface”. Over time, however, this ice is gradually eroded to create the final, slender shape. The exact mechanism which protects the ice under the stone, thus forming the pedestal, remained unknown. The goal of this paper was to determine what this mechanism is.
Up to now, our best guess as to what was happening was the direct melting of the ice beneath the stone. But it didn’t really fit in with what we were seeing in the field. Liquid water promotes the melting of ice around it. Since liquids pool, a small puddle forming underneath the stones would not be able to create a pedestal-like shape — it would melt all the ice at the same rate, creating a roughly uniform, concave shape. Furthermore, it didn’t really make sense for ice underneath the stones to melt faster than the rest, since the stone itself should be blocking sunlight, essentially acting as an umbrella providing shade around it. An argument could be made that the stone warmed up under sunlight, which would promote melting, but that would also melt the pedestal, not create the wavy patterns seen in the field.
The main breakthrough in the study came when the team realized that “the ice was indeed sublimating (and not melting)” and that this effect was caused directly by the shade cast by the stone.
Sublimation is the process through which a solid turns directly into a gas, without turning into a liquid in between. Naphthalene (mothballs) are a very good example of sublimation at work. Dry ice and car air fresheners also rely on sublimation.
Through a series of lab experiments and mathematical modeling, the team showed that the stones do indeed act as umbrellas, preventing sunlight from reaching the ice beneath them. At the same time, however, due to the movements of the Sun in the sky and light scattering in the atmosphere, they only provide complete and permanent shade to a small area in the middle — this will become the pedestal.
A very interesting finding is that, although the stones do block infrared energy (i.e. heat) in sunlight from reaching the ice, they are also what causes the dips around them to form. As these stones heat up, they emit infrared radiation in turn (this is known as black-body radiation). In the area around the stone, ice is heated up by infrared waves from the sunlight and the stones at the same time — causing it to melt even faster than exposed ice. But the radiation emitted by the stone isn’t particularly powerful, and not enough to melt through the ice of the pedestal by itself.
Tied into the unique combination of environmental conditions at the site (sustained, very low temperature and humidity levels), which promote sublimation of ice instead of melting, these interactions lead to the creation of the wavy patterns and ice pedestal beneath the stones of the Baikal lake.
The team used both stones and disks of a variety of dimensions and materials (to account for a larger range of physical properties), finding that the ice pedestals form largely independently of these properties.
While the conditions necessary for this process to take place are quite rare on Earth, they would be very, very common on planets lacking an atmosphere, or those with atmospheres that are very dry. As Dr. Taberlet noted, understanding how a rover might promote the sublimation of ice beneath it could prevent some embarrassing — and very dire — situations for our future explorers.
The paper “Sublimation-driven morphogenesis of Zen stones on ice surfaces” has been published in the journal PNAS.
Judge Denies Request to Block "Canadian Rail" Jones Act Penalties
On Monday, a federal judge denied a petition to block new Jones Act penalties for American Seafoods Company's controversial "Canadian railway" program. The paperwork that ASC used in connection with its unique rail operation is out of order, the judge ruled, making the compliance-oriented rail system noncompliant.
ASC and its partners face federal fines totalling to about $350 million for alleged violations of the Jones Act. Since 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been investigating a unique logistical arrangement that ASC created for transporting pollock from Alaska to Maine. An ASC subsidiary, Alaska Reefer Management (ARM), charters foreign-flag reefer ships to transport fish from Dutch Harbor to New Brunswick, Canada via the Panama Canal. At Bayside, New Brunswick, the fish is offloaded at a terminal operated by ARM subsidiary Kloosterboer International.
The cargo is then loaded into truck trailers and driven onto a two-car, one-track train, the Bayside Canadian Railway (BCR). This miniature onsite rail line carries each laden truck 100 feet to the south, then 100 feet back north, completing a round-trip "Canadian rail journey." From the BCR's loading ramp. the truck drives over the border into Maine, completing a 7,500 nm foreign-flag cargo shipment between U.S. points.
The Jones Act ordinarily bans foreign-flag vessels from transporting cargo in U.S. coastwise trade, but the law contains an obscure clause - the "Third Proviso" - that exempts shipment routes that are "in part over Canadian rail lines." According to ARM and terminal operator Kloosterboer International, the Bayside Canadian Railway - small as it may be - is indeed a "Canadian rail line" for the purposes of compliance. U.S. Customs and Border Protection disagrees, and in August, it issued fines totaling more than $350 million to ARM, ASC, Kloosterboer and other participants in the Bayside program.
In their lawsuit, Kloosterboer and ARM contend that the threat of additional Jones Act penalties is currently preventing them from delivering millions of pounds of fish to their U.S. East Coast customers. They have sought a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prevent CBP from charging them with any further violations of the Jones Act until litigation is completed.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason denied their petition. In ARM's attempts to precisely match the letter of the Third Proviso, it forgot to dot its i's and cross its t's, she ruled. To meet the clause's requirements, ARM relied on outdated railroad "rate tariff" paperwork from 2006, which had been filed by a different company for use on a different Canadian railroad. The Third Proviso requires that the rail route used must be "recognized" by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) and that rate tariffs for the route must have been filed with the STB.
"[ARM and Kloosterboer] have not demonstrated that they are in compliance with the Jones Act insofar as they have not demonstrated that a tariff for the BCR Route has been filed with the [U.S. Surface Transportation Board]. In addition, the record indicates that [they] are not diligently pursuing all available administrative remedies. In these circumstances, the balance of equities and public interest tip decidedly against [them], and the entry of a preliminary injunction is not warranted at this time," Gleason ruled.
Her decision leaves CBP free to impose more penalties if American Seafoods attempts to move any additional fish along the Bayside route. However, she also left the door open for ARM and Kloosterboer to renew their request for an injunction - but only after they properly register the rate tariffs they charge themselves for the use of their own miniature Canadian railroad, as required by the Third Proviso.
She also found that they might succeed on the merits in later litigation. "As CBP stated in one of its letter rulings in 2004, 'We have long held that "in part over Canadian rail lines" is any use of Canadian rail,'" she noted. "Clearly, the BCR Route includes, in part, the use of a rail in Canada. At least in terms of functionality, the BCR rail line would appear to be substantially identical to other Canadian rail lines on which merchandise is carried solely to comply with the Third Proviso."
Canadian Investors Acquire North America’s Largest Terminal Opeator
Ports America is expanding tis terminal operatios in Baltimore (Ports America Chesapeake)
Canada’s largest private pension fund investment manager is acquiring North America’s largest marine terminal operator in a private transaction. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which has been a minority investor in Ports America since 2014, said the transaction would provide for continuity in the operations while underscoring its confidence in the strong business outlook for the operation.
The Canadian investment manager, which manages over $400 billion for 20 contributors and beneficiaries of the Canada Pension Plan holds a broad portfolio of public and equities, real estate, infrastructure, and fixed income. They are buying the remaining investments in Ports America from California=based investment manager Oaktree Capital Management. Oaktree had been an investor in Ports America for 12 years. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.
"Ports America represents the opportunity to continue to invest in a high-quality operator that plays an important role in global trade, making the company a good fit for our long-term infrastructure investment strategy," said Scott Lawrence, Managing Director, Head of Infrastructure, CPP Investments. "Terminal operators play a crucial role as cargo demand and transportation requirements continue to grow in response to the rapid and dynamic changes in how individuals and businesses are buying and selling products."
Founded in 1921, Ports America today is the largest terminal operator in North America, with diversified operations across the country, including 70 locations in 33 ports on each of the United States' three coasts. The Company annually handles 13.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), including 10 million tons of general cargo, 2.5 million vehicles, and 1.7 million cruise ship passengers.
"At Ports America, our commitment and ability to provide our customers with excellent, safe service and long-term, strategic value informs everything that we do," said Mark Montgomery, Chief Executive Officer at Ports America. Commenting on the acquisition by CPP, he said "We share a long-term vision for Ports America and are excited to grow our capabilities and service offerings to position the company for another century of innovation, leadership, and success."
Ports America’s current operations encompass container, RoRo, breakbulk, military, and cruise ship operations. Recently, the company has been expanding its operations at the port of Baltimore, Maryland. Ports America Chesapeake is investing more than $110 million in marine terminal upgrades and will invest an additional $56 million in yard equipment, to support the ongoing growth of the Port of Baltimore and Seagirt Marine Terminal. Infrastructure enhancements to the terminal include four new container cranes and the upgrade of a second 50-foot berth, allowing Seagirt to handle two 14,000 TEU vessels simultaneously. In addition to technology advancements to the Terminal Operating System (TOS), improved weigh-in-motion truck scales, and advanced visibility tools, Ports America Chesapeake will also invest in new container handling equipment, including 15 hybrid-electric rubber-tired gantry cranes.
Australian Dockworkers Accused of Threatening Christmas With Strike
Labor action will center on the Patrick terminal in Melbourne (Patrick)
Australia’s major ports are bracing for the impact of a dockworkers’ strike against the country’s largest terminal operator. The labor action comes as the ports continue to struggle to maintain their operations in the face of continuing COVID-19 related restrictions. As Australians prepare for the busy summer season and the upcoming Christmas holidays, fears of supply chain disruptions and shortages are rising, claims the labor union has been quick to dismiss.
The Maritime Union of Australia announced that after 18 months of negotiations with Patrick Terminals, they will begin a rolling labor action against the operators, which handles over 40 percent of all the container freight coming into Australia. “Wharfies are expected to walk off the job of 12 hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” said the MUA. The focus is the port of Melbourne, but it will also include other actions in Sydney, Fremantle, and Brisbane.
A spokesperson for Patrick called the actions “bewildering,” saying that they have been bargaining with the union for over 19 months and provided “a very generous pay increase, guaranteed no redundancies, and provided a commitment to preserving jobs.”
Patrick CEO Michael Jovicic said, “The MUA is clearly embarking on a major pre-Christmas industrial campaign. It seems that the union is trying to starve the Melbourne public of Christmas presents after all that Victorians have gone through over the past 18 months – it is truly mind-boggling.”
The MUA was quick to counter, saying that the company is engaging in “exaggerated PR spin,” firmly declaring that rolling strikes throughout October “won’t ruin Christmas.” The union accuses the terminal operator of “corporate tactics to deny a modest pay raise and remove previously agreed conditions on secure jobs.” The union says it declined an offer to continue the previous contract due to changes that would impact job security for its members.
“That Christmas shelves won’t be stocked in time, that’s a complete fabrication,” said MUA Assistant National Secretary Jamie Newlyn. “There’s plenty of capacity on the Australian waterfront with other container terminal operators to make sure that our stores will be full of stock and the kids will get their Christmas presents. We’re trying to limit impact on the public by just quarantining the action to Patrick, where the dispute lies.”
Patrick Terminals, however, says that the rolling strikes will have a far greater impact as they will spread to neighboring operations and other ports around the country. Retailing associations are fearful of the impact on smaller stores, with Patrick saying the strike was most likely to impact imported electronics, furniture, sporting gear, and building materials in the lead-up to Christmas.
Talks between the union and terminal operator reportedly collapsed last Friday, September 24, after the union rejected an offer of 2.5 percent wage increases for four years. The union began serving notice of the planned labor actions over the weekend.
Earlier in 2021, the Maritime Union of Australia reached separate deals in February with DP World and in June with Hutchison Ports for its terminals in Sydney and Brisbane. The MUA and Patrick have been locked in a protracted dispute. The union staged a labor action in September 2020 against the Patrick terminal at Port Botany in Sydney. Before the union was ordered back to work, an estimated 100,000 containers were reportedly backed up in the port.
China Plans $3.5B Equity Investment in Pakistani Port Project
The KCCDZ project includes a new harbor bridge (left) and a 1,500 acre redevelopment district (right)
At this year's joint meeting on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, Pakistan's Ministry of Maritime Affairs came away with a huge commitment. The Chinese government has agreed to make a direct investment - not a loan - of $3.5 billion in the Karachi Coastal Comprehensive Development Zone, or KCCDZ. This massive proposal would include constructing a mixed-use residential/commercial/seaport project on underutilized lands belonging to the Karachi Port Trust.
Illustrations of the 1,500-acre development show a mixture of high- and mid-rise buildings on a strip of reclaimed land, just across an inlet from Karachi's TP3 sewage treatment plant. The illustration suggests that its new buildings and roads will also replace the Machar Colony neighborhood, an unplanned settlement also known as the Fisherman's Colony. This area is home to about 150,000 people, primarily low-income residents who work in fishing or shrimp-processing, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres.
In a release, Pakistan's Ministry of Maritime Affairs said that the project would include residential resettlement assistance for "more than 20,000 families living in the surrounding slums."
The proposed development also appears to transform the fishing harbor on the port's West Wharf - a jam-packed marina for small fishing vessels - into a new waterfront commercial district. According to the ministry, a new "state-of-the-art fishing port" will take its place, along with a "world-class fisheries export processing zone," according to the ministry.
KCCDZ will also add four new ship berths for the Karachi Port Trust, located on the new, reclaimed "peninsula" in the harbor. It will also add a giant harbor bridge across Baba Channel, giving the new district a direct highway connection with Karachi's container terminals. It also adds an extra sewage plant adjacent to the existing TP3 facility.
"The KCCDZ will unlock Pakistan’s unexplored Blue Economy and significantly enhance development and industrial cooperation between the two brotherly countries," the ministry said. "The KCCEZ is a game-changer for Pakistan."
LONG READ
China's Illicit Squid Fishery Has Deadly Impact on North Korea
Chinese squid fishing vessel anchored at Ulleung, South Korea (Outlaw Ocean Project)
[This article originally appeared on NBC News and appears here courtesy of The Outlaw Ocean Project]
The battered wooden “ghost boats” drift through the Sea of Japan for months, their only cargo the corpses of starved North Korean fishermen whose bodies have been reduced to skeletons. In 2019, more than 150 of these macabre vessels washed ashore in Japan, and there have been more than 500 in the past five years.
For years the grisly phenomenon mystified Japanese police, whose best guess was that climate change pushed the squid population further from North Korea, driving the country’s desperate fishermen dangerous distances from shore, where they become stranded and die from exposure.
But an investigation conducted by an international team of academic researchers, Ian Urbina (a former New York Times investigative reporter who now directs The Outlaw Ocean Project), and Global Fishing Watch has revealed what marine researchers now say is a more likely explanation: China is sending a previously invisible armada of industrial boats to illegally fish in North Korean waters, violently displacing smaller North Korean boats and spearheading a decline in once-abundant squid stocks of more than 70 percent.
The Chinese vessels — nearly 800 in 2019— appear to be in violation of U.N. sanctions that forbid foreign fishing in North Korean waters. The sanctions, imposed in 2017 in response to the country’s nuclear tests, were intended to punish North Korea by not allowing it to sell fishing rights in its waters in exchange for valuable foreign currency.
“This is the largest known case of illegal fishing perpetrated by a single industrial fleet operating in another nation’s waters,” said Jaeyoon Park, a data scientist from Global Fishing Watch.
China is a member of the U.N. Security Council, which unanimously signed the recent North Korean sanctions. But the flotilla violating this ban comprises nearly a third of the entire Chinese distant-water fishing fleet, according to Global Fishing Watch.
Presented with the findings of the investigation, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that, “China has consistently and conscientiously enforced the resolutions of the Security Council relating to North Korea.” The ministry added that China has “consistently punished” illegal fishing.
In March 2020, two countries anonymously complained in a report to the United Nations about China’s violations of these sanctions and they provided evidence of the crimes, including satellite imagery of the Chinese ships fishing in North Korean waters and testimony from Chinese fishing crew who said they had alerted their government of their plans to fish in North Korean waters.
The fishing grounds in the Sea of Japan, known in the Koreas as the East Sea, are located between the Koreas, Japan and Russia, and include some of the world’s most contested and poorly monitored waters. Up to now, the huge presence of Chinese boats in this area was largely hidden, because their captains routinely turn off their transponders, making them invisible to on-land authorities, which under most conditions is illegal.
Global Fishing Watch and its partner researchers were able to document these vessels, however, using several types of satellite technology, including one that spots bright lights at night. Many squid boats use extremely strong lights to draw their prey nearer to the ocean surface, making the squid easier to catch. The Chinese also use what are called “pair trawlers,” which consist of two side-by-side boats with a net strung between them that combs the seas, which are easier to track by satellite since the two travel together.
So many North Koreans have disappeared at sea in recent years that some North Korean port towns, including Chongjin along the country’s eastern shore, are now called “widows villages.” In 2019, more than 50 bodies of North Koreans washed onto Japanese beaches, according to the Japanese Coast Guard.
The grim uptick of these ghost boats washing ashore has stoked paranoia and inflamed a tense history between Japan and North Korea, leading some in Japan to speculate that the ghost boats are carrying spies, thieves, or possibly even weaponized carriers of contagious disease.
“If a Korean ship lost its way, it would be destroyed by the time it lands on our beaches,” said Kazuhiro Araki, CEO of the Abduction Research Organization, a group that studies the history of hundreds of Japanese citizens who were allegedly kidnapped by North Korea in the 70s and 80s. “But some ships arrived to our coast intact, and with no men on board, and its possible those people are spies who made it to land.”
Encrusted with shells and algae, these flat-bottom wooden boats are 15 to 20 feet long and typically carry five to 10 men. They have no toilets or beds, just small jugs of clean water, fishing nets and tackle, according to Japanese Coast Guard investigation reports. They fly tattered North Korean flags and their hulls are often emblazoned with painted numbers or markings in Korean script including, "State Security Department" and "Korean People's Army."
All of the bodies found on board these ghost boats appear to be male, though some were so badly decomposed that Japanese investigators struggled to say for sure. Political tensions between the countries and a lack of transparency in the so-called “Hermit State” of North Korea make it difficult to get an official explanation of the phenomenon.
In 2004, China signed a multi-million-dollar fishing license agreement with North Korea that led to a drastic increase in the number of Chinese boats in North Korean waters. But international sanctions imposed in 2017 in response to North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests were meant to squeeze key sources of North Korean revenue.
A long-time benefactor of North Korea, China signed the sanctions after being pressured by the United States, and in August 2017 China’s minister of commerce publicly reiterated his government’s commitment to enforce these new rules.
Seafood remains North Korea's sixth-biggest export and in recent speeches the country’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, has pushed the state-owned seafood industry to increase its haul.
"Fish are like bullets and artillery shells," an editorial in the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, said in 2017. "Fishing boats are like warships, protecting the people and the motherland."
In the wake of the U.N. sanctions and as foreign currency reserves have dwindled, the North Korean government has tried to bolster its fishing industry by turning soldiers into fishermen, dispatching these poorly-trained seafarers onto notoriously turbulent waters. The sanctions have also intensified North Korea’s gasoline shortage. Japanese investigators say that some of the Korean fishing boats washing onto Japanese beaches suffered from engine failure or simply ran out of fuel.
Since 2013, at least 50 survivors have been rescued from these dilapidated boats, but in interviews with Japanese police, the men rarely say more than that they were stranded at sea and that they want to be returned home to North Korea. Autopsies on the bodies found on these boats usually indicate that the men starved or died from hypothermia or dehydration.
In 2013, North Korean fishermen were limited by the capacity of their 12-horsepower engines and they typically only traveled several dozen miles from land, said a former North Korean fisherman, who defected to South Korea in 2016 and now lives in Seoul.
“Government pressure is greater now, and there are 38-horsepower engines,” said the defector, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions for his family. “People are more desperate, and they can go farther from shore.”
But marine researchers say that pressure from the North Korean government is not the only factor.
“Competition from the industrial Chinese trawlers is likely displacing the North Korean fishers, pushing them into neighboring Russian waters,” said Jungsam Lee, whose institute also found hundreds of North Korean vessels fished illegally in Russian waters in 2018.
In 2017, the Japanese Coast Guard also reported spotting more than 2,000 North Korean fishing boats fishing illegally in their waters. In more than 300 instances, the Japanese Coast Guard used water cannons to force these boats to leave the area.
Powerful Chinese fleet
Around the globe, many kinds of fish and sea creatures are disappearing at an unsustainable rate due to climate change, overfishing and illegal fishing by industrial fleets. As these fishing stocks shrink, competition grows and offshore clashes between fishing nations become more common. Seafood-loving countries like Japan and South Korea are being edged out by growing fleets from Taiwan, Vietnam and most of all, China.
With a population of over 1.38 billion, China is the world's biggest consumer of seafood and its global catches have grown by over 20 percent in the past five years. Many of the fishing stocks closest to China’s shores have collapsed from overfishing and industrialization, which is why the Chinese government heavily subsidizes its fishermen, who sail the world in search of new grounds.
Fishing fleets from China accounted for 50 to 70 percent of the squid caught on the high seas in recent years, according to an estimate by the Chinese government. Often these boats are fishing illegally in other countries’ national waters, according to analysis by C4ADS, a marine research firm.
The Sea of Japan includes disputed patches of water where the surrounding countries — Russia, Japan and the two Koreas — do not recognize each other’s sea borders. The incursion of the Chinese in this region has only intensified local tensions.
Chinese fishing boats are famously aggressive, often armed and known for ramming competitors or foreign patrol vessels. Chinese media often depict the country’s maritime clashes with other nearby Asian nations as an extension of ancient China's Three Kingdoms, which fought a fierce three-way battle for supremacy.
Tensions between Seoul and Beijing increased in 2016 after a Chinese vessel, illegally fishing in South Korean waters, sank a South Korean Coast Guard cutter. The cutter was in South Korean waters and was trying to stop a Chinese fishing ship that allegedly had been caught illegally fishing when another Chinese ship rear-ended the marine officers.
Similarly, while reporting at sea for this investigation, reporters for this article filmed 10 of these illegal Chinese fishing ships crossing into North Korean waters. However, the reporting team was forced to divert its course to avoid a dangerous collision after one of the Chinese fishing captains suddenly swerved toward the team’s boat, coming within 10 meters, likely intending to ward off the boat.
Spotted at night and roughly 100 miles from shore, the Chinese squid ships would not respond to radio calls and were traveling with their transponders off.
A yearly migratory species, the so-called Pacific Flying Squid spawn in waters near the southeastern port city of Busan or off South Korea's southernmost island of Jeju. They swim north in the spring before returning south to their birthplace between July and September.
In 2017 and 2018, the illegal Chinese boats, which are typically about 10 times larger than North Korean boats, caught as much of the squid as Japan and South Korea combined — an estimated 160,000 tons, worth more than $440 million annually.
Marine researchers fear a full collapse of this squid colony, which has declined by 63 percent and 78 percent in South Korean and Japanese waters respectively since 2003.
The Chinese fleet is a primary culprit of this precipitous drop because in targeting North Korea waters, these industrial boats are catching the squid before they grow big enough to procreate, said Park, the scientist from Global Fishing Watch.
Since Chinese authorities do not make their fishing licenses public, Global Fishing Watch said that there is no way to verify that all of the ships entering North Korean waters were authorized by the Chinese government. However, the organization corroborated that the vessels were of Chinese origin through various other sources of information.
Among these corroborating sources were transponder and other types of radio transmissions, records from South Korean Coast Guard officials who routinely board and inspect fishing ships on their way into North Korean waters, data showing the ships departed from Chinese ports or waters that are strictly limited Chinese vessels, records indicating the use of distinctly Chinese gear type or ship design, and satellite information showing that the ships previously fished in Chinese waters that are closely policed and forbidden to foreign ships.
All of the roughly two dozen fishing ships that the reporting team witnessed heading into North Korean waters were flying Chinese flags.
"When they come, they take over,” said Kim Byong Su, the mayor of Ulleung island, located in the East Sea about 75 miles east of the Korean Peninsula. A tiny spit of land belonging to South Korea, Ulleung is the closest port to the North Korean fishing grounds.
Kim said that the Chinese squid boats have decimated the island’s two primary sources of income, tourism and fishing. In the Jeodong market near the pier, rows of the squid are draped across lines like folded laundry as they sun-dry into fish jerky. Squid sellers estimated that the per-pound cost of squid is roughly three times what it was less than five years ago.
Most of the island’s men older than 40 are squid fishermen but a third of them are now unemployed because of the decline in stock, the mayor said. That a creature so central to the local culture could disappear has shaken this community, whose identity has been defined by squid fishing for centuries.
Historically, most of the Ulleung’s restaurants served fried, dried or raw squid as a free appetizer, but these dishes are now absent from many menus.
Local animosity toward the Chinese fleet has been made only worse, the mayor said, because a few times a year when bad weather strikes, an armada of more than 200 Chinese squid boats arrive simultaneously to the Ulleung’s port to ride out the storm. The mayor said he is powerless to tell them to leave.
They dump oil, throw litter, run loud smoky generators all night and when leaving drag their anchors, destroying the island’s freshwater pipes, he said.
“The outside world needs to know what’s happening here,” Mr. Kim said.
Ian Urbina is the director of The Outlaw Ocean Project, a non-profit journalism organization based in Washington DC that focuses on environmental and human rights concerns at sea globally.
This article appears here courtesy of The Outlaw Ocean Project. To follow the project's latest work, readers may subscribe to its Substack newsletter at https://theoutlawocean.substack.com/.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.
