West Texas earthquake causes damage hundreds of miles away
November 18, 2022
This May 24, 2021 photo shows the Robert B. Green hospital building, Bexar county’s original hospital that has been standing for more than 100 years, in San Antonio. A strong earthquake that struck a remote area of the West Texas desert on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, caused damage in San Antonio, hundreds of miles from the epicenter, officials said. University Health said Thursday, Nov. 17, that the historical building was deemed unsafe because of damage sustained from the quake. (Kin Man Hui/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)This May 24, 2021 photo shows a historical marker on the corner of the old Robert B. Green Hospital building, Bexar county’s original hospital that has been standing for more than 100 years, in San Antonio. A strong earthquake that struck a remote area of the West Texas desert on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, caused damage in San Antonio, hundreds of miles from the epicenter, officials said. University Health said Thursday, Nov. 17, that the historical building was deemed unsafe because of damage sustained from the quake. (Kin Man Hui/The San Antonio Express-News via AP) ASSOCIATED PRESS
University Health said Thursday that its Robert B. Green historical building was deemed unsafe because of damage sustained from the quake, which hit Wednesday in a remote area near the New Mexico border. The historical building is more than 100 years old and has been closed off for safety reasons, University Health said.
The quake initially had a 5.3 magnitude but that was revised upward to 5.4. The earthquake’s epicenter was about 23 miles (37 kilometers) south of Mentone, a tiny community about 350 miles (560 kilometers) northwest of San Antonio.
It was one of the strongest earthquakes on record in Texas and hit in an area known for oil and gas production. On Thursday, the state’s Railroad Commission — which regulates Texas’ oil and gas industry — sent inspectors to the site to determine whether any actions were needed.
Earthquakes in the south-central United States have been linked to oil and gas production, particularly the underground injection of wastewater. The U.S. Geological Survey said research suggests that a 5.0 magnitude quake that struck the same West Texas area in 2020 was the result of a large increase of wastewater injection in the region.
In neighboring Oklahoma, thousands of earthquakes of varying magnitudes have been recorded in the past decade, leading state regulators to direct producers to close some injection wells.
Red tide update: State report shows toxic algae levels from Sarasota south to Marco Island
Chad Gillis, Fort Myers News-Press – November 17, 2022
Scientists are saying a red tide bloom that’s lingered along the coast for a few weeks is now being fed by nutrients running off the landscape in the wake of Hurricane Ian.
Red tide (Karenia brevis) is a naturally occurring organism in the Gulf of Mexico that sometimes blooms to toxic levels.
But research shows that nutrients from farm fields, lawns and septic tanks fuel red tide blooms close to shore — making them more frequent, longer-lasting and more intense.
“I don’t see any good evidence that hurricanes initiate a red tide, but once you have a red tide started, runoff will make it worse,” said Larry Brand, a water quality expert, scientist and professor at the University of Miami.
Ian didn’t create the conditions for the original bloom; but rain water and storm surge has helped fuel the bloom, which now stretches from the Sarasota area south to Marco Island.
Counts of 1 million cells per liter and higher have been reported at multiple locations along the Southwest Florida coast.
Dead fish litter many beaches in the region, and the Florida Department of Health in Collier County issued an exposure advisory Wednesday.
DOH agrees with Brand, that nutrients flowing off the landscape contribute to the intensity and duration of the bloom.
Thousands of dead fish line the high tide line at Cayo Costa State Park on Nov. 14, 2022. Red tide has moved into Lee County waters in recent weeks.
“Once inshore, these opportunistic organisms can use nearshore nutrient sources to fuel their growth,” a Wednesday DOH press release reads. “Blooms typically last into winter or spring, but in some cases, can endure for more than one year.”
What should Southwest Florida residents do?
DOH says people who live along the coast should even check their air conditioning filters.
“Residents living in beach areas are advised to close windows and run the air conditioner, making sure that the A/C filter is maintained according to manufacturer’s specifications,” DOH says. “If outdoors near an affected location, residents may choose to wear masks, especially if onshore winds are blowing.”
Carly Jones, spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission — the state agency charged with monitoring red tide, said offshore winds can help push the contaminated waters and the microscopic algae away from the coast.
The latest FWC report show the strongest red tide counts have been found in northern Lee and Sarasota counties.
“Some people experience respiratory irritation (coughing, sneezing, tearing and an itchy throat) when the red tide organism is present and winds blow onshore,” Jones wrote in an email to The News-Press. “Offshore winds usually keep respiratory effects experienced by those on the shore to a minimum. The Florida Department of Health advises people with severe or chronic respiratory conditions, such as emphysema or asthma, to avoid red tide areas.”
Red tide can contaminate shellfish, and the DOH recommends against collecting and eating shellfish from this region at this time.
Locally caught, properly cleaned and cooked fish can be eaten, the press release says.
DOH recommends washing yourself and all clothing if you make contact with waters containing the toxic algae.
Hurricane Irma also stirred nutrients in toxic algae bloom in 2017
Calusa Waterkeeper John Cassani has been monitoring the bloom online.
“I’m hearing people aren’t seeing as many gamefish species as compared to (Hurricane) Irma (2017),” Cassani said. “It’s mostly foraging fish but most are decayed to the point you can’t determine the species.”
Hurricane Irma stirred up nutrients in the Lake Okeechobee/Caloosahatchee River system five years ago, and the following summer was virtually lost to a massive red tide and blue-green algae bloom in the river.
Lee County was part of a state of emergency for both blooms.
Some scientists have speculated that Hurricane Ian’s aftermath will cause similar conditions between now and the spring of 2024.
The Hurricane Irma-fed red tide lasted from the fall of 2017 until the spring of 2019.
“It’s a neurotoxin,” Cassani said. “There are neurological symptoms that have been defined in response for red tide. And people with asthma are showing up in emergency rooms. There’s an influx often during a bloom. It’s an unregulated contaminant.”
Red tide worsens and spreads to Tampa Bay. Dead fish found on Anna Maria Island
Ryan Ballogg – November 16, 2022
A red tide bloom has worsened in Southwest Florida waters this week, the latest samples from the state show.
The algae that causes red tide, Karenia brevis, was observed at elevated levels in Tampa Bay, around Anna Maria Island, Longboat Key and in Sarasota Bay. Dead fish and breathing irritation have been reported on local beaches.
The bloom remains most intense further south offshore of Sarasota, Charlotte and Lee counties, according to samples from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation commission.
On Monday, a very low concentration of red tide algae was detected in a water sample near the Rod and Reel Pier in Anna Maria —down from medium levels last week— and a medium concentration was again found in waters near Longboat Pass in Bradenton Beach.
University of South Florida’s red tide for predicts that very low levels of the algae will continue to circulate around Anna Maria Island through this weekend. At very low levels, respiratory irritation is possible.
USF predicts that low to medium levels of the algae will circulate around Longboat Key, with high levels persisting farther south in Sarasota Bay.
At levels of medium and above, which are considered “bloom concentrations” of the algae, respiratory irritation and fish kills are likely.
Slight breathing irritation and a few dead fish were reported on Anna Maria Island beaches this week, Mote Marine Laboratory’s red tide beach conditions report said. To the south, moderate breathing irritation and numerous dead fish were observed on several Sarasota County beaches.
Red tide’s patchy nature means that even beaches in close proximity can have very different conditions. Respiratory irritation and dead fish can also become more or less present as wind directions and tides change.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts the respiratory threat from red tide. On Wednesday, NOAA warned that beachgoers in Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties could experience moderate to high levels of respiratory irritation over the next 36 hours.
On Monday, the Florida Department of Health Manatee County issued a red tide health alert for the following beaches:
Bayfront Park
Coquina Beach South
Longboat Pass/Coquina Boat Ramp
Rod and Reel Pier (City of Anna Maria Island)
FDOH-Manatee offers the following red tide safety tips:
Look for informational signage posted at most beaches.
Stay away from the water.
Do not swim in waters with dead fish.
Those with chronic respiratory problems should be especially cautious and stay away from these locations as red tide can affect your breathing.
Do not harvest or eat molluscan shellfish or distressed or dead fish from these locations. If caught live and healthy, finfish are safe to eat as long as they are filleted and the guts are discarded. Rinse fillets with tap or bottled water.
Wash your skin and clothing with soap and fresh water if you have had recent contact with red tide.
Keep pets and livestock away and out of the water, sea foam and dead sea life. If your pet swims in waters with red tide, wash your pet as soon as possible.
Residents living in beach areas are advised to close windows and run the air conditioner, making sure that the A/C filter is maintained according to manufacturer’s specifications.
If outdoors near an affected location, residents may choose to wear masks, especially if onshore winds are blowing.
Global population passes 8 billion, says UN amid concerns of impact on climate crisis
Sravasti Dasgupta – November 15, 2022
The world population has crossed eight billion, the United Nations said on Tuesday as it warned of the impact of climate change and resource scarcity.
John Wilmoth, director of the UN’s population division said that reaching eight billion people is “a sign of human success, but it’s also a great risk for our future”.
According to a statement by the UN, the global population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950.
UN projections suggest that the global population could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050.
It is projected to reach a peak of around 10.4 billion people during the 2080s and to remain at that level until 2100.
The figures were earlier released by the UN in a report ahead of World Population Day in July.
“China and India, with more than 1.4 billion each, accounted for most of the population in these two regions,” the report said.
“India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in 2023,” it added.
Despite the global population increasing, experts say that the growth rate has fallen steadily to less than 1 per cent per year.
“A big part of this story is that this era of rapid population growth that the world has known for centuries is coming to an end,” Mr Wilmoth said.
Experts have warned that the rising population combined with the impact of climate change will adversely affect vulnerable nations and people.
Deborah Balk, a demographic researcher at the City University of New York, said: “African cities will, on average, grow.”
Ms Balk said that this will leave millions more urban dwellers exposed to climate threats such as rising seas.
Analysts warn that there will also be resource scarcity with the population rise.
“Every single person needs fuel, wood, water, and a place to call home,” said Stephanie Feldstein, population and sustainability director at Center for Biological Diversity.
UN officials have also said that rising population is likely to impact achieving sustainable development goals.
“The relationship between population growth and sustainable development is complex and multidimensional” said Liu Zhenmin, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs in a statement.
“Rapid population growth makes eradicating poverty, combatting hunger and malnutrition, and increasing the coverage of health and education systems more difficult.
“Conversely, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, especially those related to health, education and gender equality, will contribute to reducing fertility levels and slowing global population growth.”
Will Florida’s red tide get worse because of Hurricane Nicole? Here’s what experts say
Max Chesnes – November 15, 2022
Red tide was found this week in the waters off Anna Maria Island, and now experts fear Hurricane Nicole could possibly make conditions worse for Tampa Bay.
Extra runoff from rainfall could mean more algal-bloom-fueling nutrients dump into the bay. That may — or may not ― spark more Red Tide.
“Of course our eyes are on any additional rainfall and runoff that might occur in response to . . . Nicole’s passage,” said Ed Sherwood, executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. “With red tide now present in lower Tampa Bay, additional nutrient loads may exacerbate the bloom if salinities remain high.”
It’s a big if, with plenty of variables. The organism that causes red tide, karenia brevis, prefers salty marine environments. Rainwater is fresh, but brings pollution along with it as it flows into the bay. That pollution, in turn, can fuel red tide blooms.
“Any additional nutrient loads to our coast — especially when a red tide is already present in the estuary — is a concern,” Sherwood wrote in an email. “As the red tide bloom that formed further south is carried by winds and currents into our estuary, any additional stormwater nutrient loads caused by (Nicole) may promote water quality declines this winter.”
State water samplers detected medium concentrations of red tide-causing karenia brevis, between 100,000 and 1,000,000 cells per liter, on the northern tip of Anna Maria Island Monday, according to the latest Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission data. Scientists consider that level a “bloom,” meaning breathing problems are possible and fish kills are probable.
On Nov. 2, small amounts were measured 11 miles offshore of Tampa Bay, data show.
There’s cause for concern for residents in the Tampa Bay area, “because it is likely that a red tide bloom will evolve here,” according to Bob Weisberg, a physical oceanographer at the University of South Florida. Once Red Tide is measured at the mouth of Tampa Bay, tidal currents could easily bring it into the estuary. Now, add the winds from Nicole into the mix.
Medium concentration levels of Karenia brevis, the algae that causes red tide, were detected in water samples taken Monday by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission near Longboat Pass.
The storm is currently pushing northerly winds, which makes conditions more favorable for the spread of red tide here, according to Weisberg. “Such winds will result in red tide cells located offshore along the bottom being transported toward the shore and hence an increase in what may be observed here in subsequent days.”
Still, the mixing of wind and water during storm events are speculated to hurt red tide, so there may also be a die-off of some karenia brevis cells, Weisberg wrote in an email. Nicole isn’t nearly as strong as the recent Hurricane Ian, though, so there’s a chance that more Red Tide organism feeds on runoff entering the bay versus being killed off in turbulent water.
“Red tide ecology is the whole shebang,” Weisberg wrote.
The most recent models from the University of South Florida’s Ocean Circulation Lab show traces of the red tide organism — resembling green strands of spaghetti on the chart — in small amounts entering into Tampa Bay over the next few days, beginning from where it was first measured on Anna Maria Island.
The takeaway is that there’s no immediate threat of dangerous red tide exposure through the weekend, but it’s definitely something to watch, according to Yonggang Liu, the lab’s director.
The latest Red Tide models from the University of South Florida, which run through Nov. 12, show small concentrations of the Red Tide-causing organism flowing into Tampa Bay over the next few days.
“It may still be OK for Tampa Bay area in the next three days,” Liu wrote in an email. “You may go to a beach and enjoy water activities without issues of red tide.”
With Nicole expected to drop as much as four inches of rain in the area, it’s still to be determined just how much runoff the bay will receive. But storm surge shouldn’t be a major issue for the estuary, according to tide models provided by Liu. Sea level will first recede, but not nearly as much as what was documented with Hurricane Ian earlier this year and Hurricane Irma in 2017.
Once Nicole passes, the bay should hopefully start to see a reprieve, according to Sherwood.
“We’re coming to the tail-end of our rainy season, so with the exception of the recent tropical storms that are impacting our region, we should start to see a decline in storm-water nutrient loads from our coast,” Sherwood said. “That in combination with cooling temperatures will hopefully lead to some water quality improvements over the next several months.”
Mexico releases ‘ambitious’ renewable energy targets to fight climate change
Ben Adler, Senior Editor – November 14, 2022
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry and Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard hold a press conference at the COP27 climate conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
Mexico announced Monday that it plans to dramatically increase the amount of power it generates from renewable sources of energy, deploying more than 30 additional gigawatts of annual electricity generation from wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower by 2030.
The new clean energy targets were made public at a news conference at the United Nations climate change conference, known as COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. By the end of the decade, Mexico aims to generate more than 40 gigawatts of power from wind and solar alone.
As of 2019, Mexico had 80 gigawatts of installed electricity generation capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The majority of that comes from natural gas, while renewables account for 10% and hydropower 7%, so the new target would represent a major shift toward a largely renewable energy portfolio if the country succeeds in meeting its new target.
John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate change, joined Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard at Monday’s news conference.
U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry speaks at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
“Secretary Kerry indicated his support for Mexico’s new renewable goal, and the United States intends to work closely with Mexico to achieve these ambitious goals, including through U.S. efforts to mobilize financial support and joint efforts to catalyze and incentivize investments into new Mexican renewable energy deployment and transmission,” the U.S. Embassy in Mexico reported.
Mexico is the 13th-largest global emitter of greenhouse gases. It is one of the few countries that updated its plan to reduce emissions at COP27, pledging to reduce emissions by 35% from business-as-usual levels by 2030. The renewable energy targets are intended to help it meet that goal. Mexico also said it plans to double its spending on clean energy by 2030, protect more of its forests, increase electric vehicle usage and cut down on methane emissions from its oil and gas drilling sectors.
“This is a huge, significant shift from where Mexico was last year in Glasgow,” Kerry told reporters on Saturday, in response to Mexico’s new emissions reduction promise and in reference to the last climate change conference, COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland. Kerry added that he had negotiated extensively with his Mexican counterparts and said Mexico has “extraordinary availability of sun, extraordinary availability of wind power.”
Earlier on Monday the U.S. and China achieved a diplomatic breakthrough when President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to restart stalled climate change negotiations.
The sun sets behind the sign showing the logo of the COP27 climate conference at the Sharm el-Sheikh resort. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
Kerry has been working to persuade large developing countries to take new actions to decarbonize their economies and offering assistance to do so. Last week, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union countries committed to jointly mobilizing $8.5 billion to finance South Africa’s deployment of electric vehicles and clean energy and a new low-carbon source of energy called ‘green hydrogen.'” On Monday, Indonesia announced the planned retirement of a coal-fired power plant with assistance from the Asian Development Bank, and it is expected to announce on Tuesday a similar plan to South Africa’s.
Still, COP27 is not expected to produce significant changes in the global emissions trajectory, as the biggest emitters, such as the United States and China, have not lowered their planned emissions in this decade. But on Monday, in what climate change activists consider a sign of potential progress, President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that the two countries will put aside their differences over tense issues such as the fate of Taiwan and try to work together on climate change.
Farmland Values Hit Record Highs, Pricing Out Farmers
Linda Qiu – November 13, 2022
Farmland outside of Clark, S.D., on Oct. 26, 2022. (Tim Gruber/The New York Times)
Joel Gindo thought he could finally own and operate the farm of his dreams when a neighbor put up 160 acres of cropland for sale in Brookings County, South Dakota, two years ago. Five thousand or six thousand dollars an acre should do the trick, Gindo estimated.
But at auction, Gindo watched helplessly as the price continued to climb until it hit $11,000 an acre, double what he had budgeted for.
“I just couldn’t compete with how much people are paying, with people paying 10 grand,” he said. “And for someone like me who doesn’t have an inheritance somewhere sitting around, a lump sum of money sitting around, everything has to be financed.”
What is happening in South Dakota is playing out in farming communities across the nation as the value of farmland soars, hitting record highs this year and often pricing out small or beginning farmers. In the state, farmland values surged by 18.7% from 2021 to 2022, one of the highest increases in the country, according to the most recent figures from the Agriculture Department. Nationwide, values increased by 12.4% and reached $3,800 an acre, the highest on record since 1970, with cropland at $5,050 an acre and pastureland at $1,650 an acre.
A series of economic forces — high prices for commodity crops like corn, soybeans and wheat; a robust housing market; low interest rates until recently; and a slew of government subsidies — have converged to create a “perfect storm” for farmland values, said Jason Henderson, a dean at the College of Agriculture at Purdue University and a former official at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Missouri.
As a result, small farmers like Gindo are now going up against deep-pocketed investors, including private equity firms and real estate developers, prompting some experts to warn of far-reaching consequences for the farming sector.
Young farmers named finding affordable land for purchase the top challenge in 2022 in a September survey by the National Young Farmers Coalition, a nonprofit group.
Already, the supply of land is limited. About 40% of farmland in the United States is rented, most of it owned by landlords who are not actively involved in farming. And the amount of land available for purchase is extremely scant, with less than 1% of farmland sold on the open market annually.
The booming housing market, among a number of factors, has bolstered the value of farmland, particularly in areas close to growing city centers.
“What we have seen over the past year or two was, when housing starts to go up with new building construction, that puts pressure on farmland, especially on those urban fringes,” Henderson said. “And that leads to a cascading ripple effect into land values even farther and farther away.”
Government subsidies to farmers have also soared in recent years, amounting to nearly 39% of net farm income in 2020. On top of traditional programs like crop insurance payments, the Agriculture Department distributed $23 billion to farmers hurt by President Donald Trump’s trade war from 2018 to 2020 and $45.3 billion in pandemic-related assistance in 2020 and 2021. (The government’s contribution to farm income decreased to 20% in 2021 and is forecast to be about 8% in 2022.)
Those payments, or even the very promise of additional assistance, increase farmland values as they create a safety net and signal that agricultural land is a safe bet, research shows.
“There’s an expectation in the market that the government’s going to play a role when farm incomes drop, so that definitely affects investment behavior,” said Jennifer Ifft, a professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University.
Eager investors are increasingly turning to farmland in the face of volatility in the stock and real estate markets. Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire, is the biggest private farmland owner in the country and recently won approval to buy 2,100 acres in North Dakota for $13.5 million.
The number of private equity funds seeking to buy stakes in farmland has ticked higher, said Tim Koch, a vice president at an agricultural financial cooperative in the Midwest, Farm Credit Services of America. Pension funds also consider farmland a stable investment, Ifft said.
Farmers, too, have witnessed an influx of outside interest. Nathaniel Bankhead, who runs a farm and garden consulting business in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has banded with a group of other agricultural workers to save up to $500,000 to buy about 60 acres of land. For months, the collective has been repeatedly outbid by real estate developers, investors looking to diversify their portfolios and urban transplants with “delusional agrarian dreams,” he said.
“Places that I have looked at as potential farmland are being bought up in cash before I can even go through the process that a working-class person has to do to access land,” he said. “And the ironic thing is, those are my clients — like I get hired by them to do as a hobby what I’m trying to do as a livelihood. So it’s tough to watch.”
Bankhead characterized the current landscape as a form of “digital feudalism” for aspiring working farmers. Wealthy landowners drive up land prices, contract with agricultural designers like himself to enact their vision and then hire a caretaker to work the land — pricing out those very employees from becoming owners themselves.
“They kind of lock that person to this new flavor of serfdom where it’s, you might be decently paid, you’ve got access to it, but it will never be yours,” he said.
Unable to afford land in her native Florida, Tasha Trujillo recently moved her flower farm to South Carolina. Trujillo had grown cut flowers and kept bees on a parcel of her brother-in-law’s 5-acre plant nursery in Redland, a historically agricultural region in the Miami area, about 20 miles south of downtown.
When she sought to expand her farm and buy her own land, she quickly found that prices were out of reach, with real estate developers driving up land values and pushing out agriculture producers.
A 5-acre property in the Redlands now costs $500,000 to $700,000, Trujillo said. “So I essentially didn’t have a choice but to leave Miami and Florida as a whole.”
“Farming is a very stressful profession,” she added. “When you throw in land insecurity, it makes it 20 times worse. So there were many, many times where I thought, oh, my God, I’m not going to be able to do this. This isn’t feasible.”
As small and beginning farmers are shut out — the latest agricultural census said that the average age of farmers inched up to 57.5 — the prohibitively high land values may have ripple effects on the sector at large.
Brian Philpot, CEO of AgAmerica, an agricultural lending institution, said his firm’s average loan size had increased as farms consolidated, squeezing out family farms. This, he argued, could lead to a farm crisis.
“Do we have the skills and the next generation of people to farm it? And two, if the answer is going to be, we’re going to have passive owners own this land and lease it out, is that very sustainable?” he said.
Henderson also warned that current farmers may face increased financial risk as they seek to leverage their high farmland values, essentially betting the farm to expand it.
“They’ll buy more land, but they’ll use debt to do it,” he said. “They’ll stretch themselves out.”
Economists and lenders said farmland values appear to have plateaued in recent months, as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates and the cost of fertilizer and diesel soared. But with high commodity prices forecast for next year, some believe values will remain high.
A native of Tanzania who moved to South Dakota about a decade ago, Gindo bought 7 acres of land to raise livestock in 2019 and currently rents an additional 40 acres to grow corn and soybeans — all the while working full time as a comptroller to make ends meet.
For now, he has cooled off his search for a farm of his own even as he dreams of passing on that land to his son. The more immediate concern, he said, was whether his landlord would raise his rent. So far, the landlord has refrained because Gindo helps him out around the farm.
“He really doesn’t have to lend me his land,” Gindo said. “He can make double that with someone else.”
In Florida, Trujillo said, the owner of the land where her brother-in-law’s nursery sits has spoken of selling the plot while prices remain high, so he too has begun looking for his own property.
“That’s a big fear for a lot of these farmers and nursery owners who are renting land, because you just never know when the owner’s just going to say, ‘You know what, this year, I’m selling, and you’ve got to go,’” she said.
In Tennessee, Bankhead said he considered giving up on owning a farm “multiple times a day” as friends who have been longtime farmers leave the profession.
But so far, he remains committed to staying in the field and doing “the work of trying to keep land in families’ hands and showing there’s more to do with this land than to sell it to real estate developers,” he said. “But the pain of not having my own garden and not being able to have my animals where I live, it never stings any less.”
As world population hits 8 billion, China frets over too few babies
November 13, 2022
FILE PHOTO: People walk and ride vehicles along a street, amid the coronavirus disease pandemic, in Shanghai
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese software developer Tang Huajun loves playing with his two-year-old in their apartment on the outskirts of Beijing but he said he is unlikely to have another child.
Such decisions by countless people like Tang will determine the course not only of China’s population but that of the world, which the United Nations says is projected to reach 8 billion on Tuesday.
Tang, 39, said many of his married friends have only one child and, like him, they are not planning any more. Younger people aren’t even interested in getting married let alone having babies, he said.
The high cost of childcare is a major deterrent to having children in China, with many families in an increasingly mobile society unable to rely for help on grandparents who might live far away.
“Another reason is that many of us get married very late and its hard to get pregnant,” Tang said. “I think getting married late will definitely have an impact on births.”
China was for decades preoccupied with the prospect of runaway population growth and imposed a strict one-child policy from 1980 to 2015 to keep numbers in check.
But now the United Nations expects China’s population will start shrinking from next year, when India will likely become the world’s most populous country.
China’s fertility rate of 1.16 in 2021 was below the 2.1 OECD standard for a stable population and among the lowest in the world.
The anguish of the coronavirus pandemic and China’s strict measures to stamp it out may also have had a profound impact on the desire of many people to have children, demographers say.
New births in China are set to fall to record lows this year, demographers say, dropping below 10 million from last year’s 10.6 million – which was already 11.5% lower than in 2020.
Beijing last year began allowing couples to have up to three children and the government has said it is working towards achieving an “appropriate” birth rate.
OLD PEOPLE, NEW PROBLEMS
For planners, a shrinking population poses a whole new set of problems.
“We expect the aging population to increase very rapidly. This is a very important situation facing China, different to 20 years ago,” said Shen Jianfa, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The proportion of the population over the age of 65 is now about 13% but is set to rise sharply. A declining labour force faces an increasing burden of looking after the rising numbers of old folk.
“It will be very high for some years,” Shen said of the proportion of elderly in the population. “That’s why the country has to prepare for the coming aging.”
Alarmed by the prospect of an ageing society, China has been trying to encourage couples to have more children with tax breaks and cash handouts, as well as more generous maternity leave, medical insurance and housing subsidies.
But demographers say the measures are not enough. They cite high education costs, low wages and notoriously long working hours, along with frustration over COVID curbs and the overall state of the economy.
A key factor is job prospects for young people, said Stuart Gietel Basten, professor at Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology.
“Why would you have more babies when the people you have cannot even get jobs?”
(Reporting by Thomas Suen and Farah Master; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Climate change: Dimming Earth, mustard shortages and other odd side-effects
Victoria Gill and Ella Hambly – BBC News – November 12, 2022
Scientists believe warmer ground temperatures have caused underground pockets of gas to spontaneously explode beneath permafrost
Birdsong, snowdrops, blossom and midge bites – these are not things you associate with November in the north of England.
But these are just some of the milder side effects of a warming world.
As well as fuelling deadly floods and drought, rising temperatures are cited as a cause of spontaneous explosions of Siberian permafrost, mustard shortages and the planet becoming dimmer.
Many of the impacts of climate change are devastating. Some are weird.
Exploding tundra and ‘earthshine’
Giant craters in thawing Siberian permafrost have been attributed by some Russian scientists to warmer ground temperatures causing underground pockets of gas to spontaneously explode. Permafrost is defined as land that has been frozen continuously for more than two years.
It’s only one hypothesis to explain the formation of giant craters in the Arctic landscape.
As this BBC Future article highlighted, they are a “disquieting sign” that this cold, largely unpopulated landscape at the north of our planet is undergoing some radical changes.
Crescent moon with the dark part of the Moon slightly illuminated by “earthshine”
And as well as blasting holes in Earth’s wilderness, climate change could also be dimming the planet’s “shine”, according to scientists at Big Bear Solar Observatory in New Jersey.
By measuring the sunlight reflected from Earth to the dark part of the moon at night, scientists measured what they call “earthshine” or albedo – basically Earth’s reflectiveness.
The studies suggested that the amount of low cloud cover over the eastern Pacific Ocean is reducing due to warming ocean temperatures.
Since these clouds act like a mirror, reflecting light from the Sun back into space, without them that reflected light diminishes. So, according to these scientists, we might actually be taking the shine off our little blue dot.
Sex-changing reptiles
While we might be causing global warming, we’re not the only species experiencing it. Some creatures are affected in truly surprising ways.
In some reptiles, the sex of offspring is partly determined by the temperature at which the eggs are incubated. Genetically male central bearded dragons – a species of lizard found in Australia – will actually change from male to female when they are incubated over a certain temperature. So scientists are concerned that males could become increasingly rare as the world warms – putting the species at risk of extinction.
Day-old great tit nestlings in the palm of a scientist’s hand
Climate change is also measurably messing up seasonal synchrony. In Wytham Wood this April – the UK’s most scientifically studied woodland – great tit hatchlings emerged from their eggs up to three weeks earlier than they would have done in the 1940s.
The entire spring food chain has shifted with warming – the caterpillars the birds eat, the oak tree leaves the caterpillars eat – all reach their peak weeks earlier than they did before we warmed up the world.
While the seasons shift, many birds are adjusting – or just moving. This year, bee-eater chicks hatched in a Norfolk quarry – they are usually found in the southern Mediterranean and northern Africa.
Extreme weather is also making it harder to grow food. Staples like wheat, corn and coffee are already being affected. And this year, there have been some notable condiment shortages.
In April, Huy Fong Foods, a California-based company that produces around 20 million bottles of Sriracha chilli sauce every year, sent a letter to customers warning of a “severe shortage” of chillies.
In summer, supermarkets in France started to run out of Dijon mustard – a problem that could be traced to bad weather in the Canadian Prairies, where most of world’s mustard seeds are grown.
And the reality of climate change is even hampering efforts to go carbon-free. In August, the energy company EDF had to cut output from nuclear power stations situation in France, because there wasn’t enough cool water in French rivers.
Finding safe haven in the climate change future: The Midwest
David Knowles, Senior Editor – November 12, 2022
This Yahoo News series analyzes different regions around the country in terms of climate change risks that they face now and will experience in the years to come.
As the negative consequences of rising global temperatures due to mankind’s relentless burning of fossil fuels become more and more apparent in communities across the United States, anxiety over finding a place to live safe from the ravages of climate change has also been on the rise.
“Millions and likely tens of millions of Americans” will move because of climate through the end of the century, Jesse Keenan, an associate professor of real estate in Tulane University’s School of Architecture, told Yahoo News.“People move because of school districts, affordability, job opportunities. There are a lot of drivers and I think it’s probably best to think about this as ‘Climate is now one of those drivers.’”
A building is surrounded by floodwater in 2019 in Atchison, Kan. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
In late October, a report by the United Nations concluded that average global temperatures are on track to warm by 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. As a result, the world can expect a dramatic rise in chaotic, extreme weather events. In fact, that increase is already happening. In the 1980s, the U.S. was hit with a weather disaster totaling $1 billion in damages once every four months, on average. Thanks to steadily rising temperatures, they now occur every three weeks, according to a draft report of the latest National Climate Assessment, and they aren’t limited to any particular geographic region.
To be sure, calculating climate risk depends on a dizzying number of factors, including luck, latitude, elevation, the upkeep of infrastructure, long-term climate patterns, the predictable behavior of the jet stream and how warming ocean waters will impact the frequency of El Niño/La Niña cycles.
“No place is immune from climate change impacts, certainly in the continental United States, and throughout the U.S. those impacts will be quite severe,” Keenan said. “They will be more severe in some places and less severe in other places. Certain places will be more moderate in terms of temperature and some places will be more extreme, but we all share the risk of the increase of extreme events.”
In this installment, we look at a region that is already used to weather extremes and where, thanks to climate change, even more are coming into view.
The Midwest
Made up of eight states — Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin — the Midwest has found itself over recent centuries at the intersection of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and frigid polar vortexes that dip south from Canada. As with other regions of the country, climate change is already upending weather patterns in the Midwest and will, in the years to come, alter precipitation trends, food production, humidity and overall heat in profound ways.
Of the top 10 counties rated safest to live in the Midwest when it comes to climate change risks, six — Menominee, Vilas, Winnebago, Shawano, Portage and Polk — are located in Wisconsin, according to a 2020 analysis by the New York Times and ProPublica based on findings provided by the Rhodium Group, a data analytics firm. The remaining four in the top 10 Midwestern counties — Keweenaw, Luce, Crawford and Alger — are found in Michigan.
Many other counties in those two states and in Minnesota also ranked highly based on a cumulative scale that examined six major categories — heat stress, humidity (“wet bulb”), wildfires, crop loss, sea level rise and overall economic damages — and two emissions scenarios, high and moderate.
While northern counties in the Midwest offer relative protection from climate change risks, those further south, such as Missouri’s Camden, Hickory, Wayne, Bollinger, Dunklin, Maries, Phelps and Ripley counties as well as Illinois’s Alexander and Pulaski counties, all ranked lowest in the region, in large part due to poor scores on farm crop yields, heat and wet-bulb effect.
The bones of a fish washed ashore lie in a field of destroyed soybeans next to the Missouri River near Omaha in 2019. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
While many Americans may not yet be familiar with the term “wet bulb,” they certainly will in parts of the Midwest before long. It refers to a potentially fatal combination of hot temperatures and high humidity that conspire to prevent the body from being able to cool itself down through the evaporation of sweat. That dynamic explains why even excessive “dry heat” feels less oppressive than less severe temperatures coupled with high humidity.
NASA predicts that Midwestern states like Missouri and Iowa will “hit the critical wet-bulb limit” in the next 50 years, leading to higher rates of weather-related deaths.
On average, the Midwest can expect dramatic shifts in temperatures if emissions continue at their current pace that will have a wide range of negative effects on human health.
“Compared to other regions where worsening heat is also expected to occur, the Midwest is projected to have the largest increase in extreme temperature-related premature deaths under the higher scenario,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states on its website. “Northern midwestern communities and vulnerable populations that historically have not experienced high temperatures may be at risk for heat-related disease and death.”
As temperatures continue to rise, the Midwest will also find itself dealing with poor air quality, a risk category not included in the New York Times/ProPublica rankings.
“Increases in ground-level ozone and particulate matter are associated with the prevalence of various lung and cardiovascular diseases, which can lead to missed school days, hospitalization, and premature death,” the CDC states. “In the absence of mitigation, ground-level ozone concentrations are projected to increase across most of the Midwest, resulting in an additional 200 to 550 premature deaths in the region per year by 2050.”
An American flag remains standing after a tornado tore through rural Kentucky. (Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The CDC also warns that some of the climate change consequences forecast to hit the Midwest, such as drought, severe flash flooding and diminished air quality, can cause mental health problems like anxiety. Kristi White, a clinical health psychologist in Minneapolis, has already been treating young adults for anxiety born of climate change.
“Some of the things in the patients that I work with are things like asthma exacerbation due to poor air quality from wildfires [and] concerns around the risk for heat-related illnesses during extreme heat waves,” White told Yahoo News earlier this year.
While the climate change risks to the Midwest and other regions of the country have long been predicted by climate scientists using computer modeling, there’s still a large element of surprise when it comes to pinpointing which parts of the region can expect to see extreme weather events and exactly how bad they will be.
Indeed, this summer it seemed as though 1-in-1,000-year rain events traveled in threes.
One increasingly glaring problem with rating extreme rainfall events in terms of their historical likelihood is that the changing climate has rendered such scales woefully out of date.
“If you build a statistical model based on a climate that no longer exists, it’s not going to be too surprising that it fails,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who also consults for ClimateCheck, a company that provides climate change risk assessments on real estate nationwide, told Yahoo News. Most “hydrologic models and the Army Corps of Engineers” do not factor in the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, which describes the increase in atmospheric moisture that results from every degree of temperature rise, into their modeling, Swain added.
Simply put, more atmospheric moisture can result in more rainfall. Overall, the Environmental Protection Agency has found that rainfall across the Midwest has risen by 5 to 10% in the past 50 years on average. Though average annual rainfall won’t rise at an equal pace across the region, the trend line based on current greenhouse gas projections is clear.
A street is flooded after water from the Tittabawassee River breached a nearby dam in 2020 in Sanford, Mich. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
“Precipitation in the Midwest is expected to become more intense, leading to increased flood damage, strained drainage systems, and reduced drinking water availability,” the EPA says on its website.
But the other major aspect of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation is that warmer temperatures dramatically speed up evaporation rates so that even when a region sees an uptick in the amount of annual precipitation, it remains susceptible to drought. In 2021, for instance, 27% of the Midwest experienced a drought, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including 70% of Michigan and 57% of Iowa.
In 2022, despite record-setting rains in some states, large portions of Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota now find themselves in severe or extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
To be sure, while the Upper Midwest — including northern Minnesota and Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — offers cooler average temperatures than other parts of the region, it has also been warming fastest in the region in recent years. Ice on the Great Lakes continues to melt away earlier and wintertime average temperatures across the region have risen significantly. For a little while, that might all seem like good news, sparing residents from the unrelenting winters of past decades. But should emissions continue at their current levels, the changes to the Midwest will be jarring.
Ice forms along the shore of Lake Michigan as temperatures hang in the single digits on Jan. 26 in Chicago. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
For Hoosiers, that will mean an increase from seven days per year of temperatures exceeding 95°F at present to between 50 and 89 of them by the end of the century. That heat will, in turn, further decrease crop yields for corn and soybeans, potentially upending a way of life.
In some ways, the Midwest epitomizes the folly of trying to outrun climate change. For every global warming advantage that is offered in places like northern Michigan and Wisconsin, other hazards are poised to present themselves. In its entry on the Midwest, the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit highlights those emerging risks.
“Climate change is expected to worsen existing health conditions and introduce new health threats by increasing the frequency and intensity of poor air quality days, extreme high temperature events, and heavy rainfalls; extending pollen seasons; and modifying the distribution of disease-carrying pests and insects,” the website states.
