Offshore Wind Industry Says Germany Must Act to Boost Capacity

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Jan 30, 2024

Germany needs better auction and price policies in offshore wind tenders to provide certainty to the offshore wind developers and the supply chain to invest in a faster expansion of capacity, which is needed to meet Germany’s clean energy targets, industry groups said on Tuesday.   

Last year, Germany put into operation a total of 27 offshore wind turbines with a combined output of 257 megawatts (MW), the German Wind Energy Association, BWE, and other wind industry and engineering groups said in a statement.   

However, the expansion in offshore wind power capacity needs to dramatically rise by 2030 if Germany is to achieve its target of boosting offshore wind power capacity to 30 GW by 2030, from 8.5 GW now, according to the industry associations.

The offshore wind industry’s supply chain needs more security to be able to invest quickly, and this requires tweaks to the offshore wind energy regulations, the groups said.

Although it is encouraging that offshore wind expansion has slowly started to pick up pace again, Germany needs another 21.5 GW of capacity to come online over the next seven years if Europe’s biggest economy is to meet its 30 GW offshore wind capacity target by 2030, the associations BWE, BWO, Stiftung OFFSHORE-WINDENERGIE, VDMA Power Systems, WAB e.V., and WindEnergy Network said.

This means that Germany needs to install 3.1 GW of offshore wind capacity each year until 2030, they noted.

Political will is not enough to meet the goals, so policymakers should focus on project implementation with support and a regulatory framework encouraging investments, the industry groups said. They called for amendments to the auction schemes which, they say, currently put a considerable financial burden on the supply chain and future power prices.

Germany installed a record-high power capacity from solar and wind in 2023, but only solar additions met government targets, while wind power installations fell short of goals.

Wind power saw an increase in wind power tenders, which awarded a record-high total power capacity of 6.4 GW last year, data from wind power association BWE showed at the end of December.

But these were short of the 10 GW annual goal.

UK

PM accused of ‘playing games’ as rail strike continues

Alan Jones, PA Industrial Correspondent
Tue, 30 January 2024 

The Prime Minister has been accused of “playing games” rather than trying to help resolve the long-running train drivers’ dispute as another strike caused travel disruption across parts of England.

Members of Aslef on some of the busiest commuter routes, including many into London, walked out on Tuesday, crippling services on operators such as Southern, SouthEastern, Gatwick Express and South Western Railway.

Some areas had no trains all day, forcing many people onto the roads, leading to huge traffic jams in parts of the country.

Train drivers at Northern Trains and the TransPennine Express will strike on Wednesday as part of a rolling programme of action until early next week in a bitter row over pay and conditions.

None of the operators hit by strikes used new regulations aimed at ensuring a minimum level of service during industrial action.

Downing Street said it will consider if they can “strengthen” minimum service level (MSL) rules after train operators opted not to use the new law during strikes.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “This is something that the rail companies have asked for and we have delivered it for them.

“We believe they should be ready to use the legislation to reduce the impact of rail strikes on passengers, but we are always open to looking at how we can strengthen the rules around MSLs to ensure they deliver for the best interests of passengers.

“That’s something we will continue to look at and of course we will keep discussing with the rail companies themselves.”

Sources told the PA news agency that rail companies had not asked for the regulations amid warnings from unions and opposition politicians that they were unworkable.

Alan Jones, PA Industrial Correspondent

Tue, 30 January 2024 at 9:23 am GMT-7·4-min read

The Prime Minister has been accused of “playing games” rather than trying to help resolve the long-running train drivers’ dispute as another strike caused travel disruption across parts of England.

Members of Aslef on some of the busiest commuter routes, including many into London, walked out on Tuesday, crippling services on operators such as Southern, SouthEastern, Gatwick Express and South Western Railway.

Some areas had no trains all day, forcing many people onto the roads, leading to huge traffic jams in parts of the country.

Train drivers at Northern Trains and the TransPennine Express will strike on Wednesday as part of a rolling programme of action until early next week in a bitter row over pay and conditions.

None of the operators hit by strikes used new regulations aimed at ensuring a minimum level of service during industrial action.

Downing Street said it will consider if they can “strengthen” minimum service level (MSL) rules after train operators opted not to use the new law during strikes.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “This is something that the rail companies have asked for and we have delivered it for them.

“We believe they should be ready to use the legislation to reduce the impact of rail strikes on passengers, but we are always open to looking at how we can strengthen the rules around MSLs to ensure they deliver for the best interests of passengers.

“That’s something we will continue to look at and of course we will keep discussing with the rail companies themselves.”

Sources told the PA news agency that rail companies had not asked for the regulations amid warnings from unions and opposition politicians that they were unworkable.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak told PA: “This is a desperate attempt to distract from the Government’s failings.

“Employers from rail to health warned months ago these new laws are unworkable and would escalate industrial tensions.

“The PM should stop playing games and help resolve this dispute.”

A spokesperson for Rail Delivery Group, said: “Minimum Service Level legislation is one of many useful tools for managing strike disruption, but it is not a silver bullet.

“Operators’ guiding principle is always to make sure they can offer the best, most reliable services possible for their passengers on and around industrial action days, and to do that they need to make careful assessments of their own particular operational circumstances before deciding the best way forward.”

Meanwhile, the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) announced a strike by London Overground workers in a separate dispute over pay.

More than 300 union members will walk out for 48 hours on February 19 and again on March 4.

Security, station, revenue and control staff are among those taking industrial action.

Rail services are already being affected by a nine-day ban on overtime by Aslef members, which started on Monday.

On Tuesday, drivers went on strike at Southeastern, Southern/Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Thameslink and South Western Railway followed by walkouts at Northern Trains and TPE on Wednesday, at LNER, Greater Anglia and C2C on Friday, at West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast and East Midlands Railway on February 3 and at Great Western, CrossCountry and Chiltern on February 5.

Aslef says it has not met with Transport Secretary Mark Harper for more than a year despite a series of strikes which have caused travel misery and cost industries such as hospitality tens of millions of pounds in lost business.

A Department of Transport spokesperson said on Monday: “Aslef’s leadership is refusing to let their members vote on an offer that would see the average train driver’s salary increase to £65,000.

“The Transport Secretary and Rail Minister have already facilitated talks that led to this fair and reasonable offer from industry – Aslef bosses should put it to their members so we can resolve the dispute, which has already happened with the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions.

“With passenger revenues not having recovered since the pandemic, the taxpayer has had to prop up the railways with £12 billion in the past year alone – these strikes will not change the need for urgent workplace reforms that Aslef continue to block.”

Fórsa to begin ballot on public sector pay deal in February

Updated / Tuesday, 30 Jan 2024 

Agreement was reached last week following talks at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)

By Brian O'Donovan
Work & Technology Correspondent

Ireland's largest public service trade union, Fórsa, will commence a ballot on the new public sector pay deal next month.

The union's executive is recommending acceptance of the agreement which will provide for pay increases of 10.25% and over a two-and-a-half year period.

The deal is estimated to be worth up to 17.3% for lower paid workers.

Agreement was reached last week following talks at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) involving unions, staff association and Government representatives.

Fórsa represents just over 85,000 members, most of whom are employed in public services and state agencies.

From next week, the union will commence two weeks’ of member information meetings in advance of the ballot, which is set to commence on 19 February.

Fórsa General Secretary Kevin Callinan said union members would ultimately decide whether to accept the new agreement.

"This morning the union’s executive backed the terms of the deal negotiated over the past two months, and its recommendation is based on the understanding that the pay terms represent the absolute maximum achievable through negotiations at this time, and that it is the outcome of a challenging negotiations process," Mr Callinan said.

The previous public service pay agreement, Building Momentum, expired on 31 December 2023 and the proposed new deal will run from January 2024 to June 2026.

The 19 unions affiliated to the Public Services Committee (PSC) of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), have until Monday 25 March to complete ballots of their members.

If the deal is ratified, the first of a series of pay increases will come in the form a 2.25% increase backdated to 1 January.

The pay deal will cost around €3.6 billion and includes a local bargaining mechanism to allow individual grades, groups and categories of public servants to raise specific issues.

Has Veganuary had its day? Consumer sentiment suggests possibly yes


By Nicholas Robinson

30 January 2024

The month of resolutions and abstinence is almost over. The small percentage of Brits who endured January sans animal-derived foods and ingredients, however, should perhaps be praised.

And why’s that? Aside from new year’s resolutions typically going down the can by the second week of January, many of those who vow to abstain from all meat and dairy products fail to finish Veganuary. It’s a difficult task, according to recent consumer research.

It’s not to say Brits aren’t keen to try a meat and dairy-free lifestyle. It appears they just can’t hack and sustain such a big lifestyle change for 31 days.

Veganuary’s popularity has grown, yet 72% of UK adults fail to complete the mission, 45% believe there is too much pressure to go all vegan all at once and 42% say it’s too difficult to go meat and dairy-free in January, data from dairy alternative maker Pure claimed.

Conversely Veganuary’s once less exciting sibling, Dry January, has seen a popularity uptick in 2024, with sales of low & no-alcohol drinks in pubs and supermarkets nearly a quarter up this month, and the expectation they’ll rise further this year.

Vegan products launched in Veganuary 2024

So why has it become easier to quit booze for a month and harder to be vegan? The simple argument is education and cost. Alcohol isn’t a necessity and not buying it will save consumers money, whereas buying meat and dairy alternatives can end up costing more.

The challenge of going vegan in January began in 2014. Co-founded by Matthew Glover, it gained in popularity and has, according to The Vegan Society, continued to attract a large global following.

Supermarkets, along with fmcg food and drink manufacturers, seeing a strong sales opportunity, jumped on the trend by giving more space to vegan NPD during the period.

Veganuary 2024 has been no different. A plethora of launches from big and small-name brands hit the shelves of major retailers in time for its start. Ben & Jerry’s, Walkers and Beyond Meat, to name a few, all launched new meat and dairy-free products and variants for Veganuary.

Analysis of Assosia data by The Grocer, however, shows the Veganuary hype was subdued in parts of the category this year, with 71 fewer meat-free products launched on the big four retailers’ shelves – 617 last year versus 546 this January.

Further, plant-based has struggled to maintain its throughput, particularly last year when sales plummeted and the big supermarkets pulled branded ranges and demarked shelf space previously dedicated to the category.
Is a vegan diet healthier?

Yet consumers are being urged by media, influencers, celebrities and even the government to cut down or cull their intake of animal-derived products. Pure’s data shows consumers believe eating a plant-based diet or reducing meat and dairy consumption is better for the planet, with one in six being influenced to do so by social media.

One recent mass-market push came from Netflix’s You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment serialisation of a Stanford Medicine-led trial, a docuseries that compared the potential health benefits of vegan and omnivorous diets.

In the original study, participants on the vegan diet experienced improved cardiovascular health, the result of reduced lipoprotein cholesterol levels, insulin and weight loss, which was replicated among participants in the Netflix series.

However, the docuseries was criticised for, among other reasons, being biased towards veganism, showing a restricted view of a vegan diet, oversimplifying healthy diets and not fully explaining what a healthy omnivore diet is.

So, what’s the solution for a sustainable Veganuary or increasing the uptake of plant-based diets? Clearly consumers need a better plant-based diet education. Replacing everything, like for like, with an alternative can be costly and sometimes worse nutritionally, making it unsustainable for a month, never mind permanently. Pure senior brand manager Alexandra Moston advocates small swaps throughout the year instead of going all-in for one month.

And when compared to Dry January, the argument for Veganuary isn’t as clear cut. Products dense in calories, fat, salt and sugars don’t support the health argument, while those manufactured overseas work against the sustainability argument. Dry January’s sales pitch is simple: “A total body and mind reset. From better sleep and a mental health boost, to saving money and time.”


Nicholas Robinson is editor of thegrocer.co.uk where he is responsible for The Grocer's digital strategy, setting the website's daily content agenda and commissioning the Daily Bread opinion newsletter among other duties. He has an extensive background in food and drink. 

These Paintings Reveal How the Dutch Adapted to Extreme Weather During the Little Ice Age

Artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hendrick Avercamp documented locals’ resilience in the face of freezing winters and food shortages

During the Little Ice Age, which spanned roughly 1250 to 1860, average global temperatures dropped by as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

 Illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos via Wikimedia Commons

HISTORY | JANUARY 30, 2024 
Tim Brinkhof

On the afternoon of January 2, 1565, an iceberg drifted down the harbor of Delfshaven, a fishing village in the Netherlands. According to the inscription on a 16th-century oil painting of the event, the block of ice measured nearly 20 feet tall and 230 feet wide—large enough to cut off the village’s access to the Nieuwe Maas River. No fishers would have been looking to set sail that day, though, as the water was completely frozen over, with boats great and small trapped in the ice.

The fact that artist Cornelis Jacobsz van Culemborch commemorated this iceberg’s arrival with a painting suggests it was not a regular occurrence. Dutch winters were cold, but they were rarely this unforgiving. As it happened, the year 1565 fell in the middle of the Little Ice Age (LIA), a period of widespread cooling that spanned roughly 1250 to 1860. Average global temperatures dropped by as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly due to a combination of volcanic eruptions and a reduction in solar activity.

Cornelis Jacobsz van Culemborch's painting of an iceberg that appeared in Delfshaven in January 1565 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons


The LIA manifested in a variety of ways. “Many [Dutch people] died in floods that were partly caused by severe storms,” says Dagomar Degroot, an environmental historian at Georgetown University and the author of The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age and the Dutch Republic, 1560-1720. “Others froze to death in bitterly cold winters.” Some parts of the world saw frequent flooding, while others suffered from persistent drought. Glaciers expanded; certain pathogens spread more readily; and icebergs floated to regions that had not seen them since the last glacial period (popularly called the Ice Age), which ended more than 11,500 years ago, before the birth of civilization.

Researchers have long been interested in how early modern societies adapted to the changes wrought by the LIA. Written accounts can certainly provide insight into this period of global cooling. Reporting from Paris in 1675, author Marie de Rabutin-Chantal wrote, “It is horribly cold. … The behavior of the sun and of the seasons has changed.” Nine years later, in January 1684, English diarist John Evelyn noted, “The frost continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with booths in formal streets, all sorts of shops and trades furnished and full of commodities.”

Frost Fair on the Thames, With Old London Bridge in the Distance, unknown artist, 1684 Yale Center for British Art

But an especially rich source of information on the LIA is art. A 1684 painting by an unknown artist, titled Frost Fair on the Thames, With Old London Bridge in the Distance, illustrates the festival that Evelyn described. Italian artist Gabriel Bella, meanwhile, depicted the frozen canals of Venice in 1708. Other paintings and etchings of the Mediterranean city-state indicate its lagoon froze over at least twice more in the 18th century, in 1789 and 1791.

Even artworks that don’t center on climate anomalies can offer clues about the LIA. Scholars have used paintings of Venice’s historic architecture to track rising sea levels by comparing the positions of algal bands along the buildings’ walls then and now. A 2010 study of a 1571 painting by Paolo Veronese, who likely employed a camera obscura to ensure proportional accuracy, concluded that the sea level outside of the Coccina family’s palace was roughly 30 inches lower at the time than it is at present.

The Madonna of the Coccina Family, Paolo Veronese, 1571 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the Little Ice Age

The LIA coincided with a period of great religious and political upheaval. In the aftermath of the 16th-century Protestant Reform

ation, Northern European artists slowly abandoned Christian imagery of heaven and hell in favor of the here and now. In Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, portraits of kings and saints gave way to paintings of parents and children, soldiers and workers, street scenes, and landscapes.

Dutch artists were especially celebrated for their commitment to realism. In 1882, French painter Eugène Fromentin declared Dutch art a “faithful, exact, complete” representation of the country’s culture; a century later, art historian Svetlana Alpers characterized Northern European painting as “an art of describing” reality, distinct from the narrative art of the Italian Renaissance. Johannes Vermeer’s The Little Street (circa 1658), for example, shows touched-up cracks in the bricklaying of a building in Delft—likely a scar from the 1654 gunpowder explosion that devastated the city and killed one of Rembrandt’s most gifted students, Carel Fabritius.

The Little Street, Johannes Vermeer, circa 1568 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

As a genre of painting, winter scenes hardly existed in Europe before the LIA. This was partly because harsh winters like the one immortalized by van Culemborch were, at best, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. “The medieval world …. had been much warmer,” with Vikings settling in Greenland and grapes growing as far north as southern England, writes author Benjamin Moser in The Upside-Down World: Meetings With the Dutch Masters. He points out that Europe’s “first notably cold winter” took place in 1564 and 1565, when that iceberg made its way to Delfshaven.

The frost stretched from Rotterdam to Brussels, where its effects were documented by Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder in his painting Hunters in the Snow (Winter). (Art historians use the term “Flemish” to refer to Flemish-speaking towns in the medieval Low Countries, which included parts of modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Germany.) Part of a series depicting the seasons, the image captures the hardships of the LIA, especially when compared with other hunting scenes of the time. As journalist Harmen van Dijk writes for Dutch newspaper Trouw, “The hunters do not seem to have had any luck, returning with one little fox. Not exactly a feast. The innkeepers are trying to get a fire going. They might have some food, though that dilapidated sign outside doesn’t look promising.”

Hunters in the Snow (Winter), Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The LIA confronted the Dutch with challenges they had never faced before. In the Low Countries, rivers and canals were used to transport goods; when they froze, entire villages were cut off from maritime trade. Food shortages were common, and timber was in such short supply that in the winter of 1564 to 1565, a single bushel sold for two weeks’ wages. Households unable to afford these exorbitant prices had no choice but to look for fuel in unexpected places, tearing apart the gallows of their town squares or, if those had already been burned up, their own floorboards.

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Hunters in the Snow contrasts the hard-working hunters with a group of carefree ice skaters playing in the background. Another Bruegel painting, Winter Landscape With Skaters and Bird Trap, also from 1565, lacks this explicit juxtaposition but delivers a similar message through its subject matter. At a time when birds were considered “symbols of the soul,” wrote art historians Linda and George Bauer in a 1984 journal article, the work’s winter setting appeared deliberate, with the skaters representing “the dangerous progress of the soul as it passes through the world.”

Winter Landscape With Skaters and Bird Trap, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Hendrick Avercamp and the Little Ice Age

Bruegel’s moralizing tone—a kind of visual representation of the expression “walking on thin ice”—differs from that of later Dutch and Flemish landscape painters like Hendrick Avercamp, who was active in the early 17th century. If Bruegel’s winters appear harsh and cold, Avercamp’s are warm and fuzzy, both in color and in atmosphere. Sidelining seasonal hardship, his paintings almost exclusively show people enjoying themselves as they skate, sled or play an early form of ice hockey called ijskolf. As Moser writes in The Upside-Down World, “They show a merry Christmassy world of funnily dressed people disporting themselves on frozen canals: paintings I knew from jigsaw puzzles and holiday cards.”

These pleasant scenes may have been shaped by Avercamp’s own experiences: Moser records the oft-repeated possibility that the painter, who was probably born deaf and mute, romanticized an environment he was forced to observe from a distance. But the works also have their roots in history. Avercamp was born in 1585—three years before the Dutch Republic (consisting of seven northern Netherlandish provinces) won independence from Spain in a long and brutal war—and he died in 1634. Over the course of the painter’s life, the republic developed into one of the world’s most powerful and prosperous nations.

Winter Landscape With Skaters, Hendrick Avercamp, circa 1608 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Degroot argues that the republic’s successes were, in part, a result of the LIA. “Increased precipitation hampered Spanish invasions,” he says, “while changes in atmospheric circulation helped Dutch fleets to sail into battle with the wind behind them, an important tactical advantage in the age of sail. Dutch farmers, sailors, soldiers, entrepreneurs and inventors also found ways to cope with—and even exploit—otherwise disastrous weather.”

Shipwrights, for example, greased and fortified the hulls of their vessels, allowing them to slide past ice. Ice-breaking boats kept domestic waterways open in times of persistent frost and helped maintain a steady supply of ice for wine cellars.

But developments during the LIA weren’t all positive. “Dutch people also suffered from extreme weather that can now be connected to the Little Ice Age,” Degroot says. During bitterly cold winters, “rivers froze over that would otherwise have protected the republic from invasion, and hostile armies took advantage.” Ultimately, the historian concludes, “The Little Ice Age offered more benefits than drawbacks for the republic, but the same cannot be said for many of its citizens.”

Enjoying the Ice Near a Town, Hendrick Avercamp, 1620

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Bustling compositions like Avercamp’s Winter Landscape With Ice Skaters document not only the republic’s increasing resilience but also its growing disregard for traditional social hierarchies. “Frozen water was like carnival,” Moser writes, “an upside-down world when, for a few days, the conventions of daily life relaxed.” The polymath Hugo Grotius, a contemporary of Avercamp, agreed. “Here nobody speaks of rank,” he wrote in a poem, “here we are open and free; here the farm girl joins with the nobleman.” In time, this upside-down world would no longer be restricted to the ice.

Avercamp’s unceasing production of winter landscapes—he hardly painted anything else, leaving behind around 100 such scenes—cemented the season and its corresponding activities as a central aspect of burgeoning Dutch national identity. Today, his paintings provide snapshots of a climate that is gradually disappearing from living memory due to global warming.

“These paintings already have a nostalgic quality to them,” Moser tells Smithsonian magazine, “of sadness or loss,” particularly among Dutch people who grew up skating outdoors. “These images are over 400 years old, and the people in them look different, but we connect to them because we went outside and did the same things they did when we were kids. Now, they are the skeletons of dinosaurs.”


Tim Brinkhof | READ MORE
Tim Brinkhof is a Dutch journalist who covers art, culture and history. He studied comparative literature at New York University and has written for Vox, Vulture, Big Think, JSTOR Daily, Jacobin, New Lines and more.

Ozone-Linked Deaths on the Rise Globally

By HealthDay

|

Jan. 30, 2024, 

Ozone-Linked Deaths on the Rise Globally

More

By Dennis Thompson 

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Jan. 30, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Deaths related to ozone air pollution will rise significantly around the world during the next two decades due to climate change, a new study warns.

Cities in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa can expect to see ozone-related deaths increase by as many as 6,200 fatalities a year by 2054 unless humans rein in global warming, researchers project.

“This paper is further evidence of the health benefits that can be achieved if more countries adhered to the Paris Climate Agreement’s goals,” said senior researcher Kai Chen, an assistant professor of public health at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn.

In the study, researchers analyzed short-term exposure to ground-level ozone pollution and daily deaths in 406 cities across 20 countries and regions. They used four specific climate change scenarios to predict future death rates due to air pollution.

Ozone is the primary component of smog, and it has been linked to respiratory problems, heart disease and premature death, researchers said in background notes.

Ozone forms when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants and industry chemically react in the presence of sunlight. Ozone is most likely to reach unhealthy levels on hot, sunny days in cities, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Researchers estimated that ozone-related deaths will claim as many as 6,200 lives a year in those cities by 2050-2054, up from an average 45 deaths annually in 2010-2014.

However, they also found that strong climate and air quality controls could make a difference.

In the scenario where nations stuck to the Paris climate accords, ozone-related deaths only increased by a projected 0.7% between 2010 and 2054, researcher said.

On the other hand, weak climate or air pollution controls led to an increase in ozone-related deaths of 56% to 94%.

All scenarios except compliance with the Paris accords led to an increase in mortality fractions -- the number of ozone-related excess deaths divided by total deaths.

“In all four of the climate scenarios we studied, only the scenario that aligns with the Paris Agreement would see a reduction in ozone-related mortality fraction in the future,” Chen said.

The new study was published Jan. 23 in the journal One Earth.

The researchers noted that many countries’ climate and air quality standards fall short of what is needed to stem this tide.

In the most optimistic scenario for human health, researchers set the threshold for maximum allowable exposure at 70 micrograms of ozone per cubic meter of air.

By contrast, the World Health Organization’s current air quality standard is 100 micrograms, researchers said. The standard is 137 in the United States and Mexico, 160 in China, and 120 in Europe.

“Our study highlights the need for more rigorous ozone standards,” the scientists concluded in a Yale news release. “Beyond mitigating ozone-related acute excess mortality, the implementation of stricter air quality regulations will likely yield additional benefits in terms of reducing long-term ozone-related mortality and conferring climate benefits.”

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more about ozone pollution.

SOURCE: Yale University, news release, Jan. 25, 2024

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

 

Why AI can’t replace air traffic controllers



Control towers at airports are only the most visible parts of the complex national air traffic control system. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

THE CONVERSATION
Published: January 30, 2024 

After hours of routine operations, an air traffic controller gets a radio call from a small aircraft whose cockpit indicators can’t confirm that the plane’s landing gear is extended for landing. The controller arranges for the pilot to fly low by the tower so the controller can visually check the plane’s landing gear. All appears well. “It looks like your gear is down,” the controller tells the pilot.

The controller calls for the airport fire trucks to be ready just in case, and the aircraft circles back to land safely. Scenarios like this play out regularly. In the air traffic control system, everything must meet the highest levels of safety, but not everything goes according to plan.

Contrast this with the still science-fiction vision of future artificial intelligence “pilots” flying autonomous aircraft, complete with an autonomous air traffic control system handling aircraft as easily as routers shuttling data packets on the internet.

I’m an aerospace engineer who led a National Academies study ordered by Congress about air traffic controller staffing. Researchers are continually working on new technologies that automate elements of the air traffic control system, but technology can execute only those functions that are planned for during its design and so can’t modify standard procedures. As the scenario above illustrates, humans are likely to remain a necessary central component of air traffic control for a long time to come.

What air traffic controllers do

The Federal Aviation Administration’s fundamental guidance for the responsibility of air traffic controllers states: “The primary purpose of the air traffic control system is to prevent a collision involving aircraft.” Air traffic controllers are also charged with providing “a safe, orderly and expeditious flow of air traffic” and other services supporting safety, such as helping pilots avoid mountains and other hazardous terrain and hazardous weather, to the extent they can.

Air traffic controllers’ jobs vary. Tower controllers provide the local control that clears aircraft to take off and land, making sure that they are spaced safely apart. They also provide ground control, directing aircraft to taxi and notifying pilots of flight plans and potential safety concerns on that day before flight. Tower controllers are aided by some displays but mostly look outside from the towers and talk with pilots via radio. At larger airports staffed by FAA controllers, surface surveillance displays show controllers the aircraft and other vehicles on the ground on the airfield.

This FAA animation explains the three basic components of the U.S. air traffic control system.

Approach and en route controllers, on the other hand, sit in front of large displays in dark and quiet rooms. They communicate with pilots via radio. Their displays show aircraft locations on a map view with key features of the airspace boundaries and routes.

The 21 en route control centers in the U.S. manage traffic that is between and above airports and thus typically flying at higher speeds and altitudes.

Controllers at approach control facilities transition departing aircraft from local control after takeoff up and into en route airspace. They similarly take arriving aircraft from en route airspace, line them up with the landing approach and hand them off to tower controllers.

A controller at each display manages all the traffic within a sector. Sectors can vary in size from a few cubic miles, focused on sequencing aircraft landing at a busy airport, to en route sectors spanning more than 30,000 cubic miles (125,045 cubic km) where and when there are few aircraft flying. If a sector gets busy, a second and even third controller might assist, or the sector might be split into two, with another display and controller team managing the second.

How technology can help

Air traffic controllers have a stressful job and are subject to fatigue and information overload. Public concern about a growing number of close calls have put a spotlight on aging technology and staffing shortages that have led to air traffic controllers working mandatory overtime. New technologies can help alleviate those issues.

The air traffic control system is incorporating new technologies in several ways. The FAA’s NextGen air transportation system initiative is providing controllers with more – and more accurate – information.



Controllers’ displays originally showed only radar tracking. They now can tap into all the data known about each flight within the en route automation modernization system. This system integrates radar, automatic position reports from aircraft via automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, weather reports, flight plans and flight histories.

Systems help alert controllers to potential conflicts between aircraft, or aircraft that are too close to high ground or structures, and provide suggestions to controllers to sequence aircraft into smooth traffic flows. In testimony to the U.S. Senate on Nov. 9, 2023, about airport safety, FAA Chief Operating Officer Timothy Arel said that the administration is developing or improving several air traffic control systems.

Researchers are using machine learning to analyze and predict aspects of air traffic and air traffic control, including air traffic flow between cities and air traffic controller behavior.

How technology can complicate matters

New technology can also cause profound changes to air traffic control in the form of new types of aircraft. For example, current regulations mostly limit uncrewed aircraft to fly lower than 400 feet (122 meters) above ground and away from airports. These are drones used by first responders, news organizations, surveyors, delivery services and hobbyists.

NASA and the FAA are leading the development of a traffic control system for drones and other uncrewed aircraft.

However, some emerging uncrewed aircraft companies are proposing to fly in controlled airspace. Some plan to have their aircraft fly regular flight routes and interact normally with air traffic controllers via voice radio. These include Reliable Robotics and Xwing, which are separately working to automate the Cessna Caravan, a small cargo airplane.

Others are targeting new business models, such as advanced air mobility, the concept of small, highly automated electric aircraft – electric air taxis, for example. These would require dramatically different routes and procedures for handling air traffic.

Expect the unexpected

An air traffic controller’s routine can be disrupted by an aircraft that requires special handling. This could range from an emergency to priority handling of medical flights or Air Force One. Controllers are given the responsibility and the flexibility to adapt how they manage their airspace.

The requirements for the front line of air traffic control are a poor match for AI’s capabilities. People expect air traffic to continue to be the safest complex, high-technology system ever. It achieves this standard by adhering to procedures when practical, which is something AI can do, and by adapting and exercising good judgment whenever something unplanned occurs or a new operation is implemented – a notable weakness of today’s AI.

Indeed, it is when conditions are the worst – when controllers figure out how to handle aircraft with severe problems, airport crises or widespread airspace closures due to security concerns or infrastructure failures – that controllers’ contributions to safety are the greatest.

Also, controllers don’t fly the aircraft. They communicate and interact with others to guide the aircraft, and so their responsibility is fundamentally to serve as part of a team – another notable weakness of AI.

As an engineer and designer, I’m most excited about the potential for AI to analyze the big data records of past air traffic operations in pursuit of, for example, more efficient routes of flight. However, as a pilot, I’m glad to hear a controller’s calm voice on the radio helping me land quickly and safely should I have a problem.

Author

Amy Pritchett
Professor of Aerospace Engineering, Penn State
Disclosure statement
Amy Pritchett receives funding from the National Science Foundation through the Center for Advanced Aerial Mobility and Sensors (CAAMS) on the topic of in-flight autonomy capable of resolving faults and failures in on-board systems, and is finishing up a project sponsored by NASA examining human-autonomy teaming in advanced aerial mobility.

 

Soil fungi and teabags respond to loud sounds

Credit: Andreas Häuslbetz / Getty Images

January 31, 2024

Ellen Phiddian

Ellen Phiddian is a science journalist at Cosmos. She has a BSc (Honours) in chemistry and science communication, and an MSc in science communication, both from the Australian National University.

The soils are alive with the sounds of music. Want your soil health to improve? Try making it noisier, say Australian scientists.

The researchers have found that playing soundscapes can make friendly soil fungi grow faster. The discovery could help restore microbial health to the worlds soils, 75% of which are substantially degraded.

Sounds played at volumes of 70-90 decibels, and a pitch of 8KHz, encouraged things to decompose more quickly than ambient background noise at 30 decibels.

“This was informed by previous research that suggested 8 kilohertz at around 80 decibels increases the activity of E. coli bacteria,” says Dr Jake Robinson, a microbial ecologist at Flinders University and lead author on a pre-print (not peer-reviewed) paper.

The researchers first tested the soundness of their theory by playing Youtube soundscapes to teabags.

“The humble teabag is often used in ecological studies to get information about soil decomposition,” Robinson tells Cosmos.

“We basically played sound to these tea bags in the soil to see if it had an effect on the decomposition rate or the fungal biomass. Teabags that received the sound treatment significantly increased in biomass compared to the control group.”

Jake Robinson with his 2023 book.

Specifically, the researchers used green tea and rooibos tea, which Robinson says are used because they have very different consistencies.

“Green tea bags are more leafy, and the rooibos is more woody. [We wanted] to see if that had different effects on the decomposition rate, because you’d expect woody stuff to decompose slightly slower.”

After seeing the sound-treated teabags decompose faster, the researchers turned to a common soil fungus – Trichoderma harzianum – to see if sound had the same effect.

“This fungal species is known to be beneficial for plants. We cultured it in petri dishes, and then did the same thing: we applied sound to the petri dishes, and we found that it significantly increased growth rate.”

The researchers aren’t sure why sounds help the fungi to grow, although they have a few ideas.

“It might be that microbes, including fungi, can convert the soundwave energy into an electrical charge, which stimulates their activity,” says co-author Christian Cando-Dumancela, a research assistant at Flinders University.

Robinson says that the study is a progression of ecoacoustics: studying ecology via listening to soundscapes.

“We’ve developed special microphones that you can put in the soil and listen to the sounds of the little animals in the soil. And that gives you an indication of soil health,” he says.

“But this is actually applying sound.”

The researchers are keen to investigate their soundscape technique further, to see if it can work at a larger scale. Other research recently published by the team has highlighted the threat to microbial communities in degrading soil, and their importance in keeping soil healthy.

“Can we use sound in a positive way? And also, can we kind of prevent the negative sounds that might be damaging our ecosystems?” says Robinson, adding that global noise pollution may also be having a negative effect.

This isn’t a brand-new idea – sound has been proposed to control botrytis fungi in grapes, points out Robinson – but there is still much research to be done before they can establish what will help and hinder the soil.

“We don’t know too much about it yet. The next step is trying to understand the mechanisms, and where we can select for different sounds to promote different communities in the soil,” says Robinson.