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The Rest of the World Is Pretty Happy With President Obama’s Handling of World Affairs

by VernellClouse Posted on June 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Obama has had his ups and downs on the world stage. Libya didn’t turn out so well. There’s been no progress between Israel and the Palestinians. Vladimir Putin continues to be annoying. Still, all things considered, he hasn’t done badly. He’s started some new wars, but none as horrifically bad for US interests as George Bush’s. He appears to have managed passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He negotiated the NEW START treaty with Russia. He’s mostly stayed out of Syria, despite endless braying from Republicans. The pivot to Asia has been moderately successful. And he might yet sign a treaty that will halt Iran’s nuclear bomb program, though it still looks like no more than a 50-50 proposition to me.

But enough about me. What does the rest of the world think of Obama? According to a new Pew poll, they think surprisingly well of him. Obama’s foreign policy is astonishingly well regarded in France, Italy, and Germany—and surprisingly, although his numbers are down from last year, he still does reasonably well in Israel too. And here I thought Obama was universally hated in Israel because he had betrayed them to their enemies thanks to his preoccupation with sucking up to Muslims. I guess that’ll teach me to listen to Republicans.

Obama bombs in a few countries too, notably Russia, Jordan, and Pakistan. Russia and Pakistan are easy to understand, but what’s the deal with Jordan? I don’t quite remember what we’ve done to piss them off.

China is surprisingly positive: 44-41 percent approval. The rest of Asia is strongly positive, probably because they trust Obama to stand up to China.

Anyway, Obama’s median approval throughout the world is a surprisingly healthy 65-27 percent. He could only wish for such strong approval at home.

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The Rest of the World Is Pretty Happy With President Obama’s Handling of World Affairs

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The Richest Countries on Earth Just Agreed to Stop Your Great-Grandchildren From Using Fossil Fuels

by SalvatoYkv Posted on June 8, 2015

Mother Jones

This story originally appeared on Grist and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The global economy must be completely fossil fuel–free by the end of the century. That point of climate consensus came out of a meeting today between the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union, which make up the G7.

In the interest of preventing the planet from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius, the nations said in a joint statement, “we emphasize that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of this century.” To that end, the nations agreed to work toward cutting emissions by between 40 and 70 percent by 2050.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also announced that the G7 countries would raise $100 billion by 2020 to help poorer nations adapt to climate change. Those funds, she said, would come from public and private sources. Financing to help the developing world confront climate change has long been a point of contention in climate negotiations, and past efforts to get rich countries to pony up have been a bit rocky.

Environmental groups praised the G7 announcement, which they had worried would be derailed by dissent from Japan and Canada. “The decisions made by the G7 today indicated an acknowledgement that there needs to be a phase-out of climate-killing coal and oil by 2050 at the latest,” said Greenpeace’s head of international climate politics, Martin Kaiser. “Merkel and Obama succeeded in not allowing Canada and Japan to continue blocking progress towards tackling climate change.”

After the Fukushima disaster, Japan backed away from nuclear energy, and has drawn criticism for favoring coal over renewables. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s administration has leaned heavily on Alberta’s tar sands as a potential economic boon for the country, and has been notoriously unfriendly to climate campaigners who disagree.

In a statement, the Sierra Club called today “the first time that the leaders of the world have made clear with one voice that we must get off fossil fuels completely.”

Though this announcement doesn’t require these countries to actually do anything specific, green groups see it as an encouraging indicator of momentum as we approach December’s UN climate summit in Paris, where 200 countries will commit to specific plans for how to green their economies. If, six months before diplomats sit down with pens in hand, the leaders of the world’s major economies are making announcements that involve words like “decarbonisation”—well, greens see that as a good thing.

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The Richest Countries on Earth Just Agreed to Stop Your Great-Grandchildren From Using Fossil Fuels

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Some big, important countries are promising to cut out fossil fuels by 2100

by LourdesManor Posted on June 8, 2015

Some big, important countries are promising to cut out fossil fuels by 2100

By on 8 Jun 2015commentsShare

The global economy must be completely fossil fuel–free by the end of the century. That point of climate consensus came out of a meeting today between the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union, which make up the G7.

In the interest of preventing the planet from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius, the nations said in a joint statement, “we emphasize that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of this century.” To that end, the nations agreed to work toward cutting emissions by between 40 and 70 percent by 2050.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also announced that the G7 countries would raise $100 billion by 2020 to help poorer nations adapt to climate change. Those funds, she said, would come from public and private sources. Financing to help the developing world confront climate change has long been a point of contention in climate negotiations, and past efforts to get rich countries to pony up have been a bit rocky.

Environmental groups praised the G7 announcement, which they had worried would be derailed by dissent from Japan and Canada. “The decisions made by the G7 today indicated an acknowledgement that there needs to be a phase-out of climate-killing coal and oil by 2050 at the latest,” said Greenpeace’s head of international climate politics, Martin Kaiser. “Merkel and Obama succeeded in not allowing Canada and Japan to continue blocking progress towards tackling climate change.”

After the Fukushima disaster, Japan backed away from nuclear energy, and has drawn criticism for favoring coal over renewables. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s administration has leaned heavily on Alberta’s tar sands as a potential economic boon for the country, and has been notoriously unfriendly to climate campaigners who disagree.

In a statement, the Sierra Club called today “the first time that the leaders of the world have made clear with one voice that we must get off fossil fuels completely.”

Though this announcement doesn’t require these countries to actually do anything specific, green groups see it as an encouraging indicator of momentum as we approach December’s U.N. climate summit in Paris, where 200 countries will commit to specific plans for how to green their economies. If, six months before diplomats sit down with pens in hand, the leaders of the world’s major economies are making announcements that involve words like “decarbonisation” — well, greens see that as a good thing.

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It’s time to panic. Olives are in big trouble

by ukiczp43 Posted on May 13, 2015

It’s time to panic. Olives are in big trouble

By on 13 May 2015commentsShare

It’s a hard time to be an olive. After a rash of terrible weather in 2014 and an actual plague of fruit flies, the latest blight to hit the iconic, enigmatic fruit is an actual blight. From the New York Times:

“It is devastating,” said Enzo Manni, the director of ACLI-Racale, an olive cooperative in the heart of the outbreak area. “It is apocalyptic. I compare it to an earthquake.”

Today, scientists estimate that one million olive trees in the peninsula, known as the Salento, are infected with the bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, a figure that could rise rapidly.

The bacterium is an invasive species that has already taken down citrus trees in Brazil and vineyards in California. The omnivorous pest is now eating its way through the olive-rich “heel” of Italy, which means the rest of us will have a harder time doing so. Olives, like California’s much maligned almond trees, are slow-growing, which means they are an expensive investment up front.

In southern Salento, growers are alarmed but determined to learn how to adapt to the presence of the bacterium. It takes seven years or longer for a new tree to begin producing olives, and farmers were initially furious at reports that the European Commission wanted to cut down a million or more trees, and possibly even healthy plants in proximity.

Growers note that about 10 percent of all olive trees in the southern part of the province are infected — meaning that about 10 million trees are still thought to be healthy.

This is a major threat to the way of life of many families that have been farming olives for generations, but it’s also bad news for anyone who likes to eat well, without putting an undue burden on the planet.

Olive oil is delicious, drinkable, liquid gold — it is also vegan. I firmly believe it is one of the major reasons that Italians get away with eating so many plants (yes, pasta counts) and relatively little meat. When you can eat bread sopped in the ambrosial, green nectar of the gods, as far as I’m concerned, dinner is served.

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Fear of Ruin as Disease Takes Hold of Italy’s Olive Trees

, New York Times.

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BREAKING: Italian Court Reaches Verdict In Amanda Knox Case

by PBIJannieaz Posted on March 27, 2015

Mother Jones

AFP has the breaking news:

Italy’s top court on Friday cleared Amanda Knox of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher, bringing a sensational end to an eight-year legal drama.

Judges at the Court of Cassation also cleared Knox’s Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito after ten hours of deliberations in Rome.

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BREAKING: Italian Court Reaches Verdict In Amanda Knox Case

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Earthquake Warning Systems Exist. But California Won’t Pay for One.

by JoelParrott Posted on August 26, 2014

Mother Jones

As Bay Area residents clean their streets and homes after the biggest earthquake to hit California in 25 years rocked Napa Valley this weekend, scientists are pushing lawmakers to fund a statewide system that could warn citizens about earthquakes seconds before they hit.

California already has a system, called ShakeAlert, that uses a network of sensors around the state to detect earthquakes just before they happen. The system—a collaboration between the University of California-Berkeley, Caltech, the US Geological Survey (USGS), and various state offices—detects a nondestructive current called a P-wave that emanates from a quake’s epicenter just before the destructive S-wave shakes the earth. ShakeAlert has successfully predicted several earthquakes, including this weekend’s Napa quake. It could be turned into a statewide warning system. But so far, the money’s not there.

“For years, seismic monitoring has been funded, essentially, on a shoestring,” says Peggy Hellweg, operations manager at UC-Berkeley’s seismological lab.

Maintaining ShakeAlert in its current state costs $15 million a year—a tiny fraction of the estimated $1 billion in damage caused by the Napa quake. Turning it into a statewide early-warning system would require installing new earthquake sensors throughout the state, building faster connections between sensors and data centers, and upgrading the data centers themselves. Since many of California’s population centers, including the Bay Area, sit on fault lines, a warning system would likely give residents little time to prepare, ranging “from a few seconds to a few tens of seconds,” depending on a person’s proximity to the earthquake’s epicenter, according to ShakeAlert’s website—not enough time to leave a large building, but perhaps enough to take cover under a desk or table. Warnings could be deployed via text messages, push notifications, or publicly funded alert systems. Setting the whole thing up could cost as much as $80 million over five years—and keeping it running would cost more than $16 million annually, according to a USGS implementation plan published earlier this year.

In September 2013, the California legislature passed a bill requiring the state’s emergency management office to work with private companies to develop an early warning system, but forbade it from pulling money from the state’s general fund. The effort got a boost last month when the House appropriations committee approved $5 million for the system, the first time Congress has allocated money for a statewide system. But the project is still short on funding.

An earthquake early-warning system would not be a unprecedented: Similar systems already exist in China, India, Italy, Romania, Taiwan, and Turkey. In Mexico City, a warning system connected to sensors 200 miles to the south gave residents two minutes’ warning before a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck earlier this year—enough time for many to leave buildings and congregate in open areas.

More than 200 people were injured following last weekend’s Napa earthquake, 17 of them seriously, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Among those hit was a boy who was hit by debris from a falling chimney.

On Monday, the USGS said the likelihood of a “strong and possibly damaging” aftershock (magnitude 5.0 or higher) occurring within the next week was around 29 percent.

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Luis Suárez’s World Cup Bite Was Really Dangerous. Here’s Why.

by John Graham Posted on June 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, has officially banned Uruguay striker Luis Suárez from the remainder of the World Cup for his alleged bite of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini this week. And for good reason: Not only is biting another player incredibly unsportsmanlike and just plain dirty; it’s also extremely dangerous.

Of all the bites you can get—nearly 1 percent of emergency room visits are due to mammalian bites of various kinds—the human one is “particularly notorious,” as one study puts it, due to the risk of subsequent infection. Ten percent of human bites that break the skin become infected, quite a high number in comparison with infection rates generally. For example, in a recent study of 297 emergency room patients with lacerations, the infection rate was only 3.4%.

That’s because, to put it bluntly, we have pretty dirty mouths. Human saliva contains some 50 species of bacteria—and 100 million microbes of them per milliliter. There are even reports in the scientific literature of serious diseases resulting from human bites and their subsequent infections, including hepatitis, herpes, and tetanus. (There is even one report of a patient contracting HIV from a bite to the lip.)

The placement of Luis Suárez’s bite was relatively rare: the shoulder. More than half of human bites are on the hands and fingers; only about 18 percent are to the head and neck. One of the most common bite scenarios: One person punches another in the mouth, connects with his teeth, and ends up with a hand wound. One 2003 study found that of emergency room patients arriving with infected human bites, 70 percent were young men, and fifty-six percent of the bites were “clenched fist injuries.”

These so-called “fight bites,” says another 2002 study, are “notorious for being the worst of human bites.” That’s because they can infect certain hand tendons and joints that have “a very limited ability to fight infection.” The authors warn that “significant morbidity can result from late presentation or inadequate initial management” and that “the emergency physician needs to remain vigilant for complications associated with the closed fist injury.”

The research literature also notes that “patients with bite injuries are often intoxicated, making the process of obtaining a reliable history and conducting a thorough examination difficult.” Luis Suárez does not appear to have been drunk, though; and FIFA has a lot of videotape. It does not look like his bite broke Chiellini’s skin, but if it did, let’s hope he gets some very careful medical care.

We discussed the science of the human bite in more detail on the latest episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast:

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Luis Suárez’s World Cup Bite Was Really Dangerous. Here’s Why.

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Papers Find Mixed Impacts on Ocean Species from Rising CO2

by Myrna Posted on August 26, 2013

A new collection of scientific papers provide fresh insights on how the ecology of the oceans is being affected by the global buildup of carbon dioxide released by human activities. See the article here:  Papers Find Mixed Impacts on Ocean Species from Rising CO2 ; ;Related ArticlesDot Earth Blog: Papers Find Mixed Impacts on Ocean Species from Rising CO2Could Climate Campaigners’ Focus on Current Events be Counterproductive?A Closer Look at the Technical and Behavioral Barriers to Action on Global Warming ;

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Animal Rights Activists Make Off With One Hundred Mutant Mice

by Andrew Karolitz Posted on April 23, 2013

Photo: Rick Eh?

Animal rights activists may have good intentions, but on Saturday in Italy, a protest at a scientific lab ruined research on autism, schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. The activists entered labs at the University of Milan, where they released, stole and mixed up labels on mouse and rabbit cages. The scientists say it will take years to recover their work, Nature News reports.

The activist group, called Stop Green Hill (in reference to a questionable dog-breeding facility), had staged a 12-hour demonstration at the university. Then five of them snuck into pharmacology labs:

The lack of signs of a break-in suggests that the activists may have used an illegally acquired electronic card, says pharmacologist Francesca Guidobono-Cavalchini, who works there. They prised open the reinforced doors of the facility on the fourth floor, and two of them chained themselves by the neck to the main double doors such that any attempt to open the doors could have endangered their lives.

Around 800 animals, most of which are genetically modified to serve as model organisms for testing new drugs, live in the lab. The activists brought along food, water and sleeping bags, Nature reports, and said they would not leave until they could collect all of the facility’s animals. In the end, they left with one hundred of the rodents, most of which will likely die shortly after leaving the lab since they are bred to have extremely weak immune systems.

So far, no arrests have been made, but the university will likely press charges. Meanwhile, Nature adds, around 60 scientists organized their own protest against the “bullying tactics” of groups like Stop Green Hill. Here’s the argument for animal testing, from The Society of Toxicology:

Research involving laboratory animals is important to people and to our quality of life. In the past century, most inhabitants of this planet have experienced an unprecedented rise in living standards, life expectancy and personal opportunity, in large part due to the many ways chemicals have been put to work for us.

In the absence of human data, research with experimental animals is the most reliable means of detecting important toxic properties of chemical substances and for estimating risks to human and environmental health.

While animal testing is not ideal, it more often than not is the only way to determine whether a new treatment is safe and effective for use in humans.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Should Dolphins and Whales Have Human Rights? 
Feeding Animals at the National Zoo 

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Animal Rights Activists Make Off With One Hundred Mutant Mice

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European leaders let cap-and-trade flounder

by Theodot7v8 Posted on April 17, 2013

European leaders let cap-and-trade flounder

By John Upton

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Europe: Not so into that carbon-trading thing anymore.

The world’s foremost carbon cap-and-trade system is floundering, and members of the European Parliament on Tuesday voted to keep it that way.

About 12,000 power plants and factories operating across the 27 countries that make up the European Union must purchase allowances to release greenhouse gases. The eight-year-old cap-and-trade program, designed to rein in carbon emissions and slow down climate change, is the world’s biggest and oldest international carbon-trading scheme.

But there’s a problem. Greenhouse gas–producing industrial activity has been slowed down by sour economies across Europe, which has left the market awash with a glut of carbon allowances. The price to buy the right to release a tonne of carbon on the E.U. Emissions Trading Scheme has dropped below $6.50 — well down from highs of more than $39 in 2006.

That means the system has stopped working. At least, it’s not working as planned: The price of carbon is now so low that it provides very little disincentive to release greenhouse gases, which means that it’s doing very little to combat climate change. Naturally, some of the businesses that must buy the allowances disagree with that logic, saying the price reflects the true price of carbon emissions in a stagnant European economy.

In a bid to revive the system and reduce Europe’s carbon emissions to lower levels than previously planned, the European Commission proposed cutting back on the number of allowances sold into the open market during the next couple of years. If the supply of allowances is pushed down, the commission reckons that economic forces would push prices up.

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. It’s a bureaucracy that represents the region as a whole — it’s not meant to be distracted by any parochial concerns of the 27 nations that are members of the E.U. It produces recommendations that are voted on by politicians in the European Parliament.

The European Parliament is made up of hundreds of elected officials from the E.U.’s member states. Europe’s parliament doesn’t always agree with the commission: National interests and domestic election campaigns can color the outcomes of its votes. And so it was this week when the parliament voted down the commission’s proposal to withhold around 900 million allowances over two years. From the BBC:

Despite political backing from the UK, France and Italy, [members of the European Parliament] voted against the proposal by 334 votes to 315 with more than 60 abstentions. It will now go back to the Parliament’s environment committee for further consideration.

Poland’s minster for the environment, Marcin Korolec, welcomed the move in a tweet.

“The vote of reason,” he wrote.

From Reuters:

Traders took the lack of political support as a signal to sell, driving the market down to its lowest yet. Immediately after the vote, carbon prices dropped by around 40 percent to [$3.43] a tonne. They were trading at [$4.10], down 34 percent, by [3:41 p.m.] GMT.

“The carbon market is now in a coma, until a clear intervention takes place,” an emissions trader said.

Bummer. And the bummer moments kept coming Tuesday for those who want to force polluting industries to rein in their carbon emissions through trading schemes.

The European Parliament voted Tuesday to continue to exempt international flights from the carbon-trading scheme for a year. That was a victory for political leaders and airlines from the U.S. and other non-European countries, which argued that subjecting businesses outside the E.U. to the carbon-trading scheme would violate international law.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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