As US military leaves Kabul, many Americans, Afghans remain

As US military leaves Kabul, many Americans, Afghans remain

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the final five U.S. military transport aircraft lifted off out of Afghanistan Monday, they left behind up to 200 Americans and thousands of desperate Afghans who couldn’t get out and now must rely on the Taliban to allow their departure.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. will continue to try to get Americans and Afghans out of the country, and will work with Afghanistan’s neighbors to secure their departure either over land or by charter flight once the Kabul airport reopens.

“We have no illusion that any of this will be easy, or rapid,” said Blinken, adding that the total number of Americans who are in Afghanistan and still want to leave may be closer to 100.

Speaking shortly after the Pentagon announced the completion of the U.S. military pullout Monday, Blinken said the U.S. Embassy in Kabul will remain shuttered and vacant for the foreseeable future. American diplomats, he said, will be based in Doha, Qatar.

“We will continue our relentless efforts to help Americans, foreign nationals and Afghans leave Afghanistan if they choose,” Blinken said in an address from the State Department. “Our commitment to them holds no deadline.”

Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told reporters the U.S. military was able to get as many as 1,500 Afghans out in the final hours of the American evacuation mission. But now it will be up to the State Department working with the Taliban to get any more people out.

McKenzie said there were no citizens left stranded at the airport and none were on the final few military flights out. He said the U.S. military maintained the ability to get Americans out right up until just before the end, but “none of them made it to the airport.”

“There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure,” said McKenzie. “We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. But I think if we’d stayed another 10 days we wouldn’t have gotten everybody out that we wanted to get out.”

McKenzie and other officials painted a vivid picture of the final hours U.S. troops were on the ground, and the preparations they took to ensure that the Taliban and Islamic State group militants did not get functioning U.S. military weapons systems and other equipment.

The terror threat remains a major problem in Afghanistan, with at least 2,000 “hard core” members of the Islamic State group who remain in the country, including many released from prisons as the Taliban swept to control.

Underscoring the ongoing security threats, the weapon systems used just hours earlier to counter IS rockets launched toward the airport were kept operational until “the very last minute” as the final U.S. military aircraft flew out, officials said. One of the last things U.S. troops did was to make the so-called C-RAMS (Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System) inoperable.

McKenzie said they “demilitarized” the system so it can never be used again. Officials said troops did not blow up equipment in order to ensure they left the airport workable for future flights, once those begin again. In addition, McKenzie said the U.S. also disabled 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft so they can never be used again.

Throughout the day, as the final C-17 transport planes prepared to take off, McKenzie said the U.S. kept “overwhelming U.S. airpower overhead” to deal with potential IS threats.

Back at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, watched the final 90 minutes of the military departure in real time from an operations center in the basement.

According to a U.S. official, they sat in hushed silence as they watched troops make last-minute runway checks, make the key defense systems inoperable and climb aboard the C-17s. The official said you could hear a pin drop as the last aircraft lifted off, and leaders around the room breathed sighs of relief. Later, Austin phoned Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who was coordinating the evacuation. Donahue and acting U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson were the last to board the final plane that left Kabul.

Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of military operations.

“Simply because we have left, that doesn’t mean the opportunities for both Americans that are in Afghanistan that want to leave and Afghans who want to leave, they will not be denied that opportunity,” said McKenzie.

The military left some equipment for the Taliban in order to run the airport, including two fire trucks, some front-end loaders and aircraft staircases.

Blinken said the U.S. will work with Turkey and Qatar to help them get the Kabul airport up and running again.

“This would enable a small number of daily charter flights, which is a key for anyone who wants to depart from Afghanistan moving forward,” he said.

‘Very, very bad’: Images show damage, flooding from Hurricane Ida

‘Very, very bad’: Images show damage, flooding from Hurricane Ida

 

Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday in southern Louisiana as a ferocious Category 4 storm, tearing roofs from a hospital and homes, flooding roads and sending ferries adrift.

There was a report of one fatality in Prairieville after a victim was apparently struck by a falling tree, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

A man passes by a section of roof that was blown off of a building in the French Quarter by Hurricane Ida winds on Aug. 29, 2021, in New Orleans. (Eric Gay / AP)
A man passes by a section of roof that was blown off of a building in the French Quarter by Hurricane Ida winds on Aug. 29, 2021, in New Orleans. (Eric Gay / AP)

 

Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng told reporters earlier Sunday that the only road into Grand Isle, a barrier island south of New Orleans that is home to less 1,000 people, was under six feet of water. The local fire station was flooded, she said, and a few dozen people appeared to have disregarded a mandatory evacuation order.

“The conditions are very, very bad,” she said. “They are really getting beaten up right now.”

Images posted on Facebook by someone who appeared to be riding out the storm in Grand Isle showed roads topped with white-capped waves and a parking lot submerged in water.

“Pray for us all,” the person wrote.

The National Hurricane Center described Ida’s storm surge as “catastrophic” and said it could measure as much as 16 feet at Port Fourchon, where it made landfall shortly before noon.

Elsewhere in southern Louisiana, the quick rise in sea level was expected to be less, the center said. But security camera video from a fire station in St. Bernard Parish, east of New Orleans, showed what was still a dramatic surge of water.

The storm made landfall with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, and video and photos from areas in and around New Orleans showed roofs that had been ripped from buildings and, in one case, tossed down the road into a power line.

In Galliano, southwest of New Orleans, top sections of the Lady of the Sea Hospital could also be seen getting hurled from the building.

In St. Rose, just west of downtown New Orleans, a boat collision was captured on camera. A barge crashed into a bridge in Jefferson Parish, making it structurally unsafe, officials there said. It was one of more than a dozen examples in the region of what a spokesman with the U.S. Coast Guard’s local office described as “breakaway barges.”

Ferries were also seen drifting in the area, NBC affiliate WDSU of New Orleans reported.

In one instance, the regional transit authority told the station that the vessel had detached from a barge and run aground.

In St. Bernard Parish, where the Chalmette ferry could be seen floating upriver, parish president Guy McInnis told the station: “Nothing we can do at this point.”

A New Breed of Crisis: War and Warming Collide in Afghanistan

A New Breed of Crisis: War and Warming Collide in Afghanistan

Somalian refugees displaced by drought wait for rations in Dadaab, Kenya, July 14, 2011. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)
Somalian refugees displaced by drought wait for rations in Dadaab, Kenya, July 14, 2011. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)

 

Parts of Afghanistan have warmed twice as much as the global average. Spring rains have declined, most worryingly in some of the country’s most important farmland. Droughts are more frequent in vast swaths of the country, including a punishing dry spell now in the north and west, the second in three years.

Afghanistan embodies a new breed of international crisis, where the hazards of war collide with the hazards of climate change, creating a nightmarish feedback loop that punishes some of the world’s most vulnerable people and destroys their countries’ ability to cope.

And although it would be facile to attribute the conflict in Afghanistan to climate change, the impacts of warming act as what military analysts call threat multipliers, amplifying conflicts over water, putting people out of work in a nation whose people largely live off agriculture, while the conflict itself consumes attention and resources.

“The war has exacerbated climate change impacts. For 10 years, over 50% of the national budget goes to the war,” said Noor Ahmad Akhundzadah, a professor of hydrology at Kabul University, said by phone Thursday. “Now there is no government, and the future is unclear. Our current situation today is completely hopeless.”

A third of all Afghans face what the United Nations calls crisis levels of food insecurity. Because of the fighting, many people haven’t been able to plant their crops in time. Because of the drought, the harvest this year is certain to be poor. The World Food Program says 40% of crops are lost, the price of wheat has gone up by 25%, and the aid agency’s own food stock is due to run out by the end of September.

Afghanistan is not the only country to face such compounding misery. Of the world’s 25 nations most vulnerable to climate change, more than a dozen are impacted by conflict or civil unrest, according to an index developed by the University of Notre Dame.

In Somalia, pummeled by decades of conflict, there has been a threefold increase in extreme weather events since 1990, compared with the previous 20-year period, making it all but impossible for ordinary people to recover after each shock. In 2020, more than 1 million Somalis were displaced from their homes, about a third because of drought, according to the United Nations.

In Syria, a prolonged drought, made more likely by human-made climate change, according to researchers, drove people out of the countryside and fed simmering anti-government grievances that led to an uprising in 2011 and, ultimately, a full-blown civil war. This year again, drought looms over Syria, particularly its breadbasket region, the northeastern Hassakeh province.

In Mali, a violent insurgency has made it harder for farmers and herders to deal with a succession of droughts and flood, according to aid agencies.

Climate change cannot be blamed for any single war, and certainly not the one in Afghanistan. But rising temperatures, and the weather shocks that come with it, act as what Marshall Burke, a Stanford University professor, calls “a finger on the scale that makes underlying conflict worse.” That is particularly true, he argued, in places that have undergone a long conflict and where government institutions have all but dissolved.

“None of this means that climate is the only or the most important factor in conflict,” said Burke, co-author of a 2013 paper looking at the role of climate change in dozens of conflicts across many years. “But based on this evidence, the international community would be foolish to ignore the threat that a warming climate represents.”

The combination of war and warming compounds the risks facing some of the world’s most vulnerable people: According to the U.N. children’s agency, Afghanistan is the 15th-riskiest country in the world for children, because of climate hazards, including heat and drought, and a lack of essential services, including health care. Two million Afghan children are malnourished.

That is in sharp contrast to Afghanistan’s part in global warming. An average Afghan produces 0.2 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, compared with nearly 16 metric tons of the average American.

The collapse of the government has also made Afghanistan’s participation in the next international climate talks entirely uncertain, said one of its members, Ahmad Samim Hoshmand. “Now I don’t know. I’m not part of any government. What government I should represent?” he said.

Until recently, he had been the government official in charge of enforcing the country’s ban on ozone-depleting substances, including refrigerants used in old air-conditioners and that are banned by the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that Afghanistan had ratified. Just days before the Taliban seized Kabul, he fled to Tajikistan. The traders of illegal substances whom he helped arrest are now out of prison, keen to exact revenge. He says they will kill him if he returns.

Hoshmand is now scrambling to emigrate elsewhere. His visa in Tajikistan expires in a matter of weeks. “My only hope is the ozone community, the Montreal Protocol community, if they can support me,” he said.

Afghanistan’s geography is a study of extreme hazard, from the glacier-peaked Hindu Kush mountains in the north to its melon farms in the west to the arid south, stung by dust storms.

Climate data is sparse for Afghanistan. But a recent analysis based on what little data exists suggests that a decline in spring rains has already afflicted much of the country, but most acutely in the country’s north, where farmers and herders rely almost entirely on the rains to grow crops and water their flocks.

Over the past 60 years, average temperatures have risen sharply, by 1.8 degrees Celsius since 1950 in the country as a whole and by more than 2 degrees Celsius in the south.

“Climate change will make it extremely challenging to maintain — let alone increase — any economic and development gains achieved so far in Afghanistan,” the United Nations warned in a 2016 report. “Increasingly frequent and severe droughts and floods, accelerated desertification, and decreasing water flows in the country’s glacier-dependent rivers will all directly affect rural livelihoods — and therefore the national economy and the country’s ability to feed itself.”

This is the country’s biggest risk, Akhundzadah argued. Three-fourths of his compatriots work in agriculture, and any unpredictable weather can be calamitous, all the more so in a country where there hasn’t been a stable government and no safety net to speak of.

The Taliban, for their part, appear more exercised by the need to scrub women’s pictures from billboards than addressing climate hazards.

But climate change is a threat multiplier for the Taliban, too. Analysts say water management will be critical to its legitimacy with Afghan citizens, and it is likely to be one of the most important issues in the Taliban’s relations with its neighbors as well.

Already on the Afghan battlefield, as in many battlefields throughout history, water has been an important currency. The Taliban, in their bid for Herat, a strategic city in the west, repeatedly attacked a dam that is critical for drinking water, agriculture and electricity for the people of the region. Likewise, in Kandahar province in the south, one of the Taliban’s most critical victories was to seize control of a dam that holds water for drinking and irrigation.

Climate change also stands to complicate the Taliban’s ability to fulfill a key promise: the elimination of opium poppy cultivation. Poppies require far less water than, say, wheat or melons, and they are far more profitable. Poppy farming employs an estimated 120,000 Afghans and brings in an estimated $300 million to $400 million a year, according to the United Nations, and has, in turn, enriched the Taliban.

Areas under poppy cultivation grew sharply in 2020.

Analysts said the Taliban would seek to use a poppy ban to gain legitimacy from foreign powers, such as Qatar and China. But it is likely to face pushback from growers who have few alternatives as the rains become less reliable.

“It’s going to be a gigantic political flashpoint,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, who studies the region at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

The last drought, in 2018, left 4 million Afghans in need of food aid and forced 371,000 people to leave their homes, many of whom haven’t returned.

“The effects of the severe drought are compounded by conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic in a context where half the population were already in need of aid,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov said by email from Kabul on Thursday. “With little financial reserves, people are forced to resort to child labor, child marriage, risky irregular migration exposing them to trafficking and other protection risks. Many are taking on catastrophic levels of debt and selling their assets.”

Akhundzadah, a father of four, is hoping to emigrate, too. But like his fellow academics, he said he has not worked for foreign governments and has no way to be evacuated from the country. The university is closed. Banks are closed. He is looking for research jobs abroad. For now, there are no commercial flights out of the country.

“Till now, I’m OK,” he said on the phone. “The future is unclear. It will be difficult to live here.”

California Marine Nicole Gee, 23, who cradled baby at Kabul airport, killed in Afghanistan attack

California Marine Nicole Gee, 23, who cradled baby at Kabul airport, killed in Afghanistan attack

 

Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee celebrated the joy of service just days before she was one of 13 U.S. service members killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing attack near Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

A week ago, Gee, 23, posted a photo on Instagram that showed her holding a baby at that airport. She added a simple, profound comment: “I love my job.” The same photo was posted by the Department of Defense on Aug. 21.

Gee, from Sacramento, California, served as a maintenance technician with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. On her Instagram page, she described herself as a “positive mental attitude advocate.” The locations listed on her page include California, North Carolina and “somewhere overseas.”

Another photo on Gee’s Instagram page shows her earlier in the week, on duty with her rifle next to a line of people waiting to board a transport plane. She described her assignment as “escorting evacuees onto the bird.”

Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, seen holding a baby at Kabul's airport, was one of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the Aug. 26 bombing in Afghanistan.
Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, seen holding a baby at Kabul’s airport, was one of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the Aug. 26 bombing in Afghanistan.

 

Other recent Instagram photos show Gee with friends in Spain, where they shared a toast, and Greece. Other pictures show the Marine riding a camel in Saudi Arabia and receiving her promotion to sergeant.

“Never would have imagined having my Sergeant promotion meritoriously in Kuwait,” she wrote of the promotion in a post shared three weeks ago.

Facebook post by the city of Roseville, California, which calls Gee “a hometown hero,” says she graduated in 2016 from the city’s Oakmont High School and enlisted in the Marines a year later. It says her husband, Jarod Gee, also is an Oakmont graduate and a Marine.

Gee was remembered by Sgt. Mallory Harrison, a fellow Marine who roomed with her for more than three years, in a Facebook post accompanied by more than a dozen photos.

“Her car is parked in our lot. It’s so mundane. Simple. But it’s there,” she began the post. “My very best friend, my person, my sister forever. My other half. We were boots together, Corporals together, & then Sergeants together. Roommates for over 3 years now, from the barracks at MOS school to our house here. We’ve been attached at the hip from the beginning.

“I can’t quite describe the feeling I get when I force myself to come back to reality & think about how I’m never going to see her again. How her last breath was taken doing what she loved — helping people — at HKIA in Afghanistan. Then there was an explosion. And just like that, she’s gone.”

She said the war stories told by older Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are “not so distant anymore.”

Harrison concluded: “My best friend. 23 years old. Gone. I find peace knowing that she left this world doing what she loved. She was a Marine’s Marine. She cared about people. She loved fiercely. She was a light in this dark world. She was my person. … Til Valhalla, Sergeant Nicole Gee. I can’t wait to see you & your Momma up there. I love you forever & ever.”

Contributing: Associated Press

COVID and wildfires gave us an education instead of a vacation. We’ll never be the same.

COVID and wildfires gave us an education instead of a vacation. We’ll never be the same.

Smoke from the Caldor Fire in California covers Lake Tahoe in the Incline, Nev., area on Aug. 24, 2021.
Smoke from the Caldor Fire in California covers Lake Tahoe in the Incline, Nev., area on Aug. 24, 2021.

 

The last time we tried for a two-week vacation, in 1993, a Hurricane Emily evacuation forced us to leave after six days. Nearly three decades later, we decided to try again. We left early this time, too, after close encounters with COVID-19 and wildfires.

This is not a first-world rant against the inconvenience of climate change and a virus we can’t seem to beat. Rather, it’s a look at lessons learned and not learned – about the folly of betting against nature, science and, in particular, the frightening fires that seem remote on the East Coast but often dictate life in the West. It’s about the friction between a husband and wife with different tolerances for masking, crowds and indoor vs. outdoor dining, as they traveled through a patchwork of pandemic regulations in three states.

And it’s about a family that keeps trying against the odds to celebrate, together in person, two birthdays four days apart in August – prime hurricane and wildfire season and, in 2020 and 2021, prime COVID season as well.

Smoke and COVID on Day One

We should have known from the start that the trip was going to be problematic. The weather app on my phone showed a solid gray sky in Seattle, our first destination, and the forecast was “Smoke.” Those were firsts in my East Coast experience. Friends had arranged a dinner out on our first night. But the restaurant had a COVID outbreak and was closed all three nights we were there.

Our next adventure was a road trip down the Oregon coast, staying in five towns over five nights. We were in Cannon Beach four days after Gov. Kate Brown reinstated a mask mandate for indoor gatherings. There were posters on store doors all over town announcing the mandate. And, in what could be interpreted as simple fact or passive aggression, they offered Brown’s office number and told people with questions to call her.

"Any questions please call Oregon Governor Kate Brown's office": Mask mandate signs on store doors in Bandon, Ore., on Aug. 18, 2021.
“Any questions please call Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s office”: Mask mandate signs on store doors in Bandon, Ore., on Aug. 18, 2021.

 

Each town brought new reasons to study COVID responses. In Newport, a motel clerk was behind plastic but not masked (fine with me, but not my husband). In Fortuna, motel clerks were masked and so was our waiter at a brewery where we ate outdoors. The inevitable happened at a Bandon bakery, as we waited with a dozen others to order or pick up breakfast: An unmasked young man walked in, an employee offered him a mask, he looked annoyed and he stalked back out the door.

Our first stop in California was Crescent City in Del Norte County, the hottest COVID hotspot on the West Coast. We picked a table far from other diners in a large airy restaurant, and my husband noted to our waiter that he was unmasked. The adorable teenager offered to wear one, but he also reminded us of what we had forgotten: We were no longer in Oregon, so there was no mandate.

Halfway through our meal, we heard an older server tell our waiter that a party of 14 was expected in 15 minutes. Unnerved by the prospect of 14 unmasked strangers at tables the staff was pushing together right next to ours, we gulped a few last bites, paid up and fled.

A second try for Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe has been on my bucket list for years, thanks to raves from friends and family. Last year we rented a house there, but COVID forced us to cancel. This year we rented the same house and crossed our fingers. But as we started a 6.5-hour drive, the fire danger snapped into focus. We saw smoke haze for most of the trip. In the parking lot of a Tahoe City supermarket, we slapped on our COVID masks to filter out the smoky air. At the rental house, two big cinders flew by my face as I stepped onto the driveway. Welcome to Tahoe.

Sun through smoke at 11 a.m. PT in Tahoe City, Calif., on Aug. 23, 2021.
Sun through smoke at 11 a.m. PT in Tahoe City, Calif., on Aug. 23, 2021.

 

I immediately started following @CAL_FIRE on Twitter and checking several times a day on the Caldor Fire, which had destroyed nearly 500 homes and commercial buildings: 98,000 acres and 0% contained. 106,000 and 5% contained. The air quality was hazardous. Then very unhealthy. Then back to hazardous. We had lists of best walks, hikes and places to see sunsets, but we couldn’t go outside. Government agencies advised everyone to stay inside and limit activities. The haze was so thick that there was nothing to see, anyway.

The saving grace was that our sons were coming. One of them was flying into Reno, Nevada, on Aug. 23, the day before his birthday. But wildfire smoke diverted the flight to San Francisco, and then it was canceled. He returned home to Los Angeles the same night. His older brother, driving from Salt Lake City, had been waiting in Reno to pick him up. He continued on to Tahoe alone.

Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay is shrouded in smoke from the Caldor Fire, near South Lake Tahoe, Calif., on Aug. 24, 2021.
Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay is shrouded in smoke from the Caldor Fire, near South Lake Tahoe, Calif., on Aug. 24, 2021.

 

When the Tahoe air improved to simply “unhealthy,” my first reaction was wow, that’s great. My second was, it’s actually not great when “unhealthy” seems great. “I don’t think it’s healthy to be here,” I told my husband late Monday night. We ended up leaving two days early, on Wednesday. Our Reno-Denver flight was canceled early that morning for visibility reasons, but the airline rebooked us. We walked in our front door in Washington, D.C., about 2 a.m.

Jill Lawrence: Not a joke or a bore: After Florida condo collapse, can we take infrastructure seriously?

Our decision was prescient. By last Tuesday, as it advanced toward Tahoe and closed Reno schools, the Caldor Fire was the No. 1 priority for national firefighting resources. On Wednesday, as we drove away, Tahoe City and South Lake Tahoe had the worst air pollution in the nation. By Thursday, Tahoe basin evacuations had started and tourists were being asked to stay home. By Friday, the fire had grown to 225 square miles and weather conditions were getting worse. On Saturday, a fire that began 70 miles from Lake Tahoe on Aug. 14 was about 8 miles away.

John Martin and Jill Lawrence at Redwood National Park in northern California on Aug. 21, 2021.
John Martin and Jill Lawrence at Redwood National Park in northern California on Aug. 21, 2021.

 

This was not quite the trip we had planned. We did reunite with friends in Seattle, and the Oregon coast did live up to its spectacular billing, as did the redwoods. As far as I know, we avoided catching plague from chipmunks at Lake Tahoe. And so far, we are coronavirus-free. But our Pacific Northwest sojourn was not so much an escape as an immersion in two clear and present dangers: COVID and climate change.

Jill Lawrence: A pile of forgotten shoes snapped me back to pre-COVID reality. But the aftershocks won’t stop.

The active life we’ve avoided for so long at home exposed us to more COVID risk on the road and more diverse views on how and whether to reduce risk. The challenges of figuring out appropriate restrictions and precautions were never more clear. As for climate change, as an East Coast lifer, I am familiar with its role in making hurricanes more destructive, but until now I could only imagine its impact in the increasingly dry and hot West. This firsthand experience with drought and fire made the climate crisis real and urgent, and our strange, sobering “vacation” unforgettable.

Jill Lawrence is the commentary editor of USA TODAY and author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock.

‘Our future might not look the same’: wildfires threaten way of life in California’s mountain towns

‘Our future might not look the same’: wildfires threaten way of life in California’s mountain towns

 

<span>Photograph: Eugene García/AP</span>Photograph: Eugene García/AP

Megan Brown’s family has stewarded several ranches in and along California’s northern Sierra Nevada for six generations.

But in the last four years, the Browns have faced unprecedented challenges. Four different wildfires have touched the family’s ranches in Oroville and Indian Valley. Smoke has killed some of their animals. Years of drought have ravaged their lands.

The disasters have threatened the family’s livelihood, and forced them to question whether life in this region can continue as it has as the climate crisis intensifies.

“If I want our family to continue this lifestyle, it might not look the same as it always has,” said Brown. “Trying to come to terms with that is really hard. I feel like I have to grieve and I don’t know what the future’s going to look like. I don’t know what I should be doing.”

Related: ‘Fire weather’: dangerous days now far more common in US west, study finds

Deadly fires have battered this part of northern California almost annually since 2018destroying entire communities, killing dozens and covering the area in smoke for weeks at a time.

This year, the region is threatened by the Dixie fire, California’s largest ever single wildfire, and the biggest blaze currently burning in the United States. The fire has already scorched more than 750,000 acres, burning across the mountain range and destroying much of the small hamlet of Greenville.

“I should have been a firefighter instead of a cowboy,” said Brown on a recent afternoon as she glanced down at her phone for updates on the fire, which was raging around one of the ranches.

The fire risk in this part of California goes hand in hand with its abundance of natural beauty: river canyons with emerald green water, rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada that grow thick in the spring with wildflowers, and vast swaths of trees. In some areas, such as the remote settlement of Concow, Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs cover the landscape – their branches sometimes arch over the roads like a canopy.

This stretch of land, from the Feather River in Oroville up to Lake Almanor, is particularly conducive to flames thanks in part to its steep canyons and seasonal winds. Severe drought has only exacerbated the fire risk.

There is no indication that these extreme wildfires will diminish in the coming years without dramatic steps to reintroduce fire into the landscape to reduce fuels in the forest and tackle the climate emergency.

“California is going to fundamentally change,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor in the department of earth system science at Stanford. “All evidence would suggest a business as usual scenario where we keep warming the climate and we don’t rapidly scale up our efforts to get fuels out of the forest we’re going to see a lot more wildfire and a lot more extreme wildfire. The science is clear on that.”

Sierra Nevada communities, like the town of Greenville that burned earlier this month, were already struggling with population decline, largely due to economic issues, said Jesse Keenan, a climate adaptation expert at Tulane University. The climate crisis will probably accelerate that decline.

The stretch of land from Oroville to Lake Almanor is particularly conducive to flames. Both Concow and Greenville were badly damaged in wildfires.

Insurers have become reluctant to cover homes and businesses in the region, raising questions about the ability to rebuild. Kimberly Price, a Greenville resident, said she lost insurance coverage for her home because she was in a fire zone, and her partner lost coverage on his store, which burned down in the Dixie fire, for the same reason.

“This is a problem in the state of California. If you can’t get your house insured, people aren’t going to move here,” she said.

Intensifying wildfires also means the region will continue to see severe smoke lingering for weeks at a time, including in more densely populated cities such as Chico and Oroville. This week, air quality in the Lake Tahoe region ranked among the worst in the world because of smoke from the Caldor fire.

Smoke at the levels seen this year and last year are likely to be normal going forward, Burke said. “Instead of a few days or a week or two of smoke exposure it’s going to look more like 2020 and 2021 where we have months of bad air,” he said. “The science suggests 2020 is a historical anomaly looking backwards but looking forward it’s not going to be.”

That is particularly bad for vulnerable populations such as elderly people and those suffering from pre-existing health conditions, but the effects extend far beyond. A recent study from Stanford University, of which Burke is an author, found breathing wildfire smoke during pregnancy increases the risk of premature birth. Research also shows an increase in the rate of heart attacks, increased susceptibility to Covid-19 and decreased test scores among children exposed to smoke.

Wildfire smoke has killed several of Brown’s animals in recent years, she said, and there’s nothing she can do to protect them. “They all sound like they’re pack-a-day smokers. And it’s like, are they sick? No, they’ve been out in the smoke for a month.”

At the same time, the drought brought a swarm of grasshoppers to the land and forced Brown to reduce her herd. “Our cattle herd is decimated. Our ranches are on fire. I don’t have water.”

One of the keys to combating the state’s deadly megafires involves restoring fire’s role in the landscape with prescribed burns, said Don Hankins, a pyrogeographer and Plains Miwok fire expert at California State University, Chico. Prescribed burns help clear fire-fueling vegetation, and can prevent larger, more extreme blazes.

“If people were able to practice the way indigenous cultures have done so since the beginning of time, that would be the way to change the way fires move with the landscape,” he said. Prescribed burning creates less smoke than the megafires California is seeing today, Hankins said, and gives people a say in when and how smoke is dealt with.

Related: In the shadow of Paradise, nearby residents make uneasy peace with fire

Rather than abandoning these areas, people must learn to change the way they live with fire, Hankins said.

“There is no no-fire solution,” he said. “Fire has to be part of this landscape. It has to be, so we should be the ones directing it.”

To Concow residents Pete and Peggy Moak, prescribed burns are an important tool to live in a remote part of California prone to burning. The couple has survived several wildfires, each time staying behind in their home to battle the encroaching flames.

Their expansive property is pristinely manicured and watered – Pete, a former logger, manages the trees – with a large vegetable garden, a fire break and paths free of debris and vegetation so that if a fire does burn they can defend their home. This time of year, the risk is ever present.

“We’ve got a lot of PTSD,” said Pete, whose family has lived in the area since the 19th century. “It’s unexplainable how the tension is, but there’s never a dull moment.”

Jennifer Whitmore sprays her home with water as the Caldor fire burns near White Hall, California, on 17 August.
Jennifer Whitmore sprays her home with water as the Caldor fire burns near White Hall, California, on 17 August. Photograph: Ethan Swope/AP

 

Fire will surely scorch this area again, the couple says, and living here requires constantly maintaining their land and the lots around them by felling dead trees, clearing needles and dead leaves and using prescribed burns. It also means they’ve all but stopped traveling in the summer and fall, so that they are here to save their home if necessary.

“It’s hard to understand for folks that live in town and sell their house every five years and move somewhere else,” Pete said.

“Pete and folks like us, we have deep roots in the land,” Peggy said.

Brown, too, can’t see herself leaving the land her family has tended for decades or the animals she loves. “That ranch, this land is my passion and I will die defending it. I’ve been here too long. I love it too much,” she said.

But she wonders whether local elected officials will take the necessary steps to prevent these sorts of devastating fires and assist those affected by them.

“Either we’re going to pull it together and we’re going to be better and more resilient and able to protect ourselves. Or we’re just going to be in this cycle of rebuilding and burning, rebuilding and burning,” she said.

Doing Just Five Minutes of Breathing Exercise Each Day Can Lower Your Blood Pressure, a New Study Finds

Doing Just Five Minutes of Breathing Exercise Each Day Can Lower Your Blood Pressure, a New Study Finds

 

Going for a walk with your pet or keeping busy in your garden are easy ways to stay fit in your day-to-day life. But according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, there’s one unexpected type of activity that can boost your health, too: breathing exercises. University of Colorado at Boulder researchers found that just five minutes of “strength training for your breathing muscles” can lower your blood pressure and improve vascular health, and it’s even more effective than standard aerobic exercise or meditation.

woman drinking coffee and breathing fresh air on balcony in the morning
woman drinking coffee and breathing fresh air on balcony in the morning

d3sign / Getty

This breathing training is formally called High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST), according to the research team. “There are a lot of lifestyle strategies that we know can help people maintain cardiovascular health as they age. But the reality is, they take a lot of time and effort and can be expensive and hard for some people to access,” said Daniel Craighead, the lead author and an assistant research professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology. “IMST can be done in five minutes in your own home while you watch TV.”

Related: 10 Foods That Naturally Help Lower Blood Pressure

Practicing IMST includes inhaling heavily through a hand-held device as it provides resistance. The researchers described the feeling as sucking hard through a tube that is also sucking back. To test out the health benefits, the scientists studied 36 healthy adults between 50 to 79 years of age with systolic blood pressure that was above 120 millimeters of mercury. The volunteers were split in two groups: one who did IMST for six weeks and the other who completed a placebo training with low resistance. As a result, the test subjects who did the IMST regimen decreased their systolic blood pressure by an average of nine points. The researchers noted that this is the equivalent of walking 30 minutes a day, five days a week or taking blood pressure-reducing supplements. “We found that not only is it more time-efficient than traditional exercise programs, the benefits may be longer lasting,” Craighead said.

The IMST group also experienced a 45 percent boost in their vascular health (which essentially controls artery expansion when stimulated) and nitric oxide (a molecule that helps dilate arteries and prevent plaque buildup). “We have identified a novel form of therapy that lowers blood pressure without giving people pharmacological compounds and with much higher adherence than aerobic exercise,” Doug Seals, a distinguished professor of integrative physiology and senior study author, said. “That’s noteworthy.”

A 6pm finish, three cups of coffee a day and one cold shower: the maths of a healthy middle-age

A 6pm finish, three cups of coffee a day and one cold shower: the maths of a healthy middle-age

how to be healthy in midlife
how to be healthy in midlife

 

In the final part of our series on the maths of midlife fitness, we reveal the lifestyle habits midlifers should add to their daily routines…

Two minutes in a cold shower

From model Elle Macpherson to fitness guru Joe Wicks, many successful people extol the benefits of a cold shower in the morning. Research has shown that cold water immersion strengthens your cardiovascular, respiratory and musculoskeletal systems – all of which need a little extra care in midlife. Cold water can also increase your immunity-boosting white blood cell count. One study found that people who take cold showers are 29 per cent less likely to call in sick for work while research by Virginia Commonwealth University found that cold showers can even help to ward off depressive symptoms. Research in Medical Hypotheses suggests a bracing 20°C is about right. Try to brave a full two minutes in there if you can.

1.8 liters of water

Water supports your kidneys and liver, lubricates and cushions your joints, boosts your mental alertness and memory, aids digestion, improves the performance of your cells, supports the transfer of nutrients and oxygen, and helps remove waste. But surveys suggest 62-89 per cent of UK adults don’t drink enough. This becomes an even bigger issue in midlife because we tend to “dry out” as we age. According to the NHS, the human body is approximately 70 per cent water at birth, whereas by the time we reach old age this figure is down to 55 per cent. There are a few reasons for this: we naturally lose muscle as we age, which reduces our ability to store water. Our sweat rates, temperature control mechanisms and kidneys become less efficient. And our thirst reflex is blunted with age. So make sure you sip throughout the day. An independent review of hydration studies published in the journal Nutrients found a total daily water intake of less than 1.8 liters appears to be when dehydration-related health issues kick in. So aim for at least 1.8 liters – around eight glasses – per day.

Two hours of hobbies

Whether you enjoy reading novels, gardening or playing the piano, maintaining a range of enjoyable hobbies is the secret to a healthy midlife. Research by the University of California found that participants who devoted two hours a day to hobbies were 21 per cent less likely to die early. Challenging your brain with interesting pursuits helps sharpen your cognitive performance, increases your social interactions and wards off disease. Hobbies also inject a healthy sense of purpose into your life, which research in Psychological Science suggests can work to “buffer against mortality risk” throughout your midlife years and into retirement. Reading is particularly powerful: a study by the University of Sussex found reading a book can help to reduce stress by up to 68 per cent. And listening to music offers a “total brain workout,” according to researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, helping to reduce anxiety and blood pressure while also improving sleep and memory.

200-300 minutes outside

Research by the University of East Anglia found spending time in greenery helps beat stress by lowering blood pressure and HDL cholesterol, which reduces your risk of Type 2 diabetes and all-cause mortality. According to a research paper in Scientific Reports, spending 200-300 minutes per week outside in natural environments delivers the optimal health boost (just over half an hour a day). It doesn’t matter whether you spend every day in a park or enjoy a long day out at the weekend – as long as you hit that target, you’ll improve your physical and mental health.

Four alcohol-free days

People aged between 45 and 65 are more likely than any other group to consume more than the recommended alcohol limit of 14 units a week, despite being at greater risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer. Research in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research found that even drinking lightly four or more times per week may raise the risk of early death by 20 per cent. A little won’t harm you. In fact, research in the British Medical Journal found low to moderate intake of wine is associated with lower mortality from cardiovascular disease. But you really need four alcohol-free days per week to protect your liver – a key organ responsible for over 500 vital bodily functions, from energy production to detoxification – in midlife.

6pm finish time

Working past normal office hours could be killing you. New research presented at the European Society of Cardiology’s Preventive Cardiology Congress found people whose working hours are out of sync with their natural body clock suffer a higher risk to their cardiovascular health. In fact, data from the World Health Organization suggests long work hours are killing 750,000 people per year. With the rise of home working, this is no longer just a problem for shift workers. So stick to a regular work schedule and avoid late night emails.

Three cups of coffee

Excessive caffeine consumption could lead to an early grave. Research has shown that high coffee consumption (more than 28 cups per week, or four cups a day) is linked to a 21 per cent increased mortality risk. But research published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease suggests moderate coffee consumption in midlife can deliver a 65 per cent decrease in risk of dementia later in life, so you don’t need to give it up altogether. A paper in the Journal of Caffeine Research found that coffee can cut your risk of early death by 10 per cent. As ever, the key is moderation and most health organizations recommend no more than 300mg of caffeine (about three cups) per day.

Eight hours of sleep

The 2021 State of UK Sleep Survey found 54 per cent of the UK population is unhappy with their sleep, with work pressure, financial stress and Covid-19 all having an impact. This is bad news for midlife health. Research in the journal Sleep found people who sleep less than seven hours a night have a 26 per cent higher risk of dying early. And a study by the University of Paris found people who get less than six hours sleep in their middle and older years face a 30 per cent greater risk of dementia. However, those who laze in bed for more than eight hours a day also face a 17 per cent spike in their chances of an early death. So getting as close as possible to eight hours of sleep per night seems to be the optimal way to go. Start improving your sleep by downloading a sleep app like Pzizz, Sleep Cycle, Calm or Sleep School now.

Lastly, be organized

Tidy your desk, organize your emails and turn up to meetings on time. Being conscientious helps to sustain your health in midlife, according to research by Duke University. The researchers found people who are conscientious tend to follow other good habits – such as exercising and cleaning their teeth – which makes them 27 per cent less likely to suffer health problems in later life, such as obesity, high cholesterol, inflammation, hypertension and gum disease.

Ed Asner (1929-2021)

Greg Palast – Investigative Journalism

Ed Asner (1929-2021)

A Lion in Underpants – By Greg Palast               

The death squads had just executed Maryknoll nuns, bullets to the back of the head.

It was the Reagan-sponsored war on “communists” in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

Ed Asner, an actor who wasn’t particularly political, agreed to attend a press conference denouncing the killing of the nuns.

Within short order, his network canceled Lou Grant, the number one show on American TV, in fact, #1 worldwide.

Ed once told me he could’ve kissed the network’s ass, promised to be a good on-stage puppet, an off-stage mute, and save his career which was now on the new Black List.

But he couldn’t. Couldn’t stay silent. Instead, Ed grew louder.

And unstoppable.  At dinner this week, Ed told me he was preparing to open in three new one-act plays.

But my wife didn’t think so. She said, “This is the last time we’ll see Ed, isn’t it?”

I wish she weren’t always right.

I remember when we were about to film Ed in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. I deliberately hadn’t revealed his lines to him, nor his costume: a ridiculous Santa suit.

Ed was a good sport about it.  And a “one-take” wonder. But, we needed several takes, a bit too long for his 80-something’s bladder. So, rather than halt the production, he said, “The heck with it!”, let go, then simply dropped his soaking pants and continued the shoot in his boxers.

So, that’s how we shot the next scene: Ed Asner in a top hat and underpants. Absolutely brilliant. Take a look.

For inspiration at the shoot, Ed asked our Executive Producer Leni Badpenny if he could think of her naked. Hey, he only said what every guy thinks. Her response was to sit on his somewhat damp lap. (By the way, he was thrilled when he learned we married.)

Ed Asner and Leni Badpenny at The Best Democracy Money Can Buy premiere 2016

And take a listen to learn why Asner was recognized as the best voice actor on the planet. This is his reading of my investigation of Wal-mart, “What Price a Storegasm?”

And here, the Network soliloquy that Ed gamely voiced to a techno dance beat for Armed Madhouse.

Asner was an actor of great talent because he was a man of great feeling.  He would allow nothing to get between his emotions and the words he would express. It was true fearlessness, a courage and inner power that came through even in a sitcom or in a Santa suit.

There’s no guessing where it came from.  A working class Jewish kid from Kansas City, child of the Depression and the incipient Holocaust which most Americans, Left and Right, were happy to ignore, and a fierce union man from early on. Ed only became an actor, he told me, because he lost his job in the steel mills.

Before I got the call that Ed was gone, it was already a lousy morning.

I was deeply upset about the people of Afghanistan whom we’d just abandoned to the Islamists executioners, the very killers Reagan had unleashed alongside the death squads of El Salvador.

And, frankly, I’ve been afraid that I’d be shunned by progressive friends and editors who are breaking out the party hats to celebrate the end of the “forever war.”

But I just can’t join the party.  Should I say something?  Death squads, Nazis, Taliban. Which victims am I allowed to speak for?

I’m an operational atheist.
I can’t turn to the Lord for advice.
But I can ask, What would Lou Grant do?

You’ll have my answer this week.

Alev ha-shalom, my friend.

Producer David Ambrose (left), Ed Asner (center), Greg Palast (right)
at The Best Democracy Money Can Buy premiere 2016

As Colorado River Basin states confront water shortages, it’s time to focus on reducing demand

As Colorado River Basin states confront water shortages, it’s time to focus on reducing demand


<span class="caption">Water flows into a canal that feeds farms in Casa Grande, Ariz.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ColoradoRiver-Drought-Farmers/829f1440d70544f59500b090305b8d7a/photo" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" data-ylk="slk:AP Photo/Darryl Webb">AP Photo/Darryl Webb</a></span>
Water flows into a canal that feeds farms in Casa Grande, Ariz.
 AP Photo/Darryl Webb

 

The U.S. government announced its first-ever water shortage declaration for the Colorado River on Aug. 16, 2021, triggering future cuts in the amount of water states will be allowed to draw from the river. The Tier 1 shortage declaration followed the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s forecast that the water in Lake Mead – the largest reservoir in the U.S., located on the Arizona-Nevada border – will drop below an elevation of 1,075 feet above sea level, leaving less than 40% of its capacity, by the end of 2021.

The declaration means that in January 2022 the agency will reduce water deliveries to the Lower Colorado River Basin states of Arizona and Nevada and to Mexico, but not to California – yet.

Map of Colorado River Basin.
Map of Colorado River Basin.

 

Arizona will lose the most water: 512,000 acre-feet, nearly a fifth of its total Colorado River allocation of 2.8 million acre-feet. Nevada will lose 21,000 and Mexico 80,000. An acre-foot is enough water to cover an acre of land, which is roughly the area of a football field, to a depth of one foot – about 326,000 gallons.

Central Arizona farmers are the big losers in this first round of cuts. The cities are protected because they enjoy the highest priority in Arizona for water delivered through the Central Arizona Project, a 330-mile canal from the Colorado River. From my experience analyzing Western water policy, I expect that this declaration won’t halt growth in the affected states – but growth can no longer be uncontrolled. Increasing water supply is no longer a viable option, so states must turn to reducing demand.

Conservation remains the low-hanging fruit. Water reuse – treating wastewater and using it again, including for drinking – is also viable. A third option is using pricing and trading to encourage the reallocation of water from lower-value to higher-value uses.

Interstate collaboration

The Colorado River Basin states have formally negotiated who can use how much water from the Colorado River since they first inked the Colorado River Compact in 1922. In 2007 they negotiated interim shortage guidelines that specified how much each state would reduce its use depending on the elevation of Lake Mead. A series of subsequent agreements included Mexico, increased the scale of reductions and authorized the secretary of the Interior, ultimately, to impose truly draconian cuts.

Arizona suffers the biggest cuts because it agreed in the 1960s that it would have the lowest priority among the Lower Basin states.

California does not take a cut until the level in Lake Mead drops even lower. But that could happen as soon as 2023. The water level is dropping partly because of the Western drought but also because of the shape of Lake Mead, which was created by damming Boulder Canyon in 1936.

Like most Western river canyons, Boulder Canyon is wide at the rim and narrow at its base, like a martini glass. As its water elevation drops, each remaining foot in the lake holds less water.

Lake Mead feeds Hoover Dam, one of the largest hydroelectric generating facilities in the country. The plant produces electricity by moving water through turbines. When Lake Mead is high, Hoover Dam’s generating capacity is more than 2,000 megawatts, which produces enough electricity to supply some 450,000 average households in Nevada, Arizona and California.

But the plant has lost 25% of its capacity as Lake Mead has dropped. If the water level declines below about 950 feet, the dam won’t be able to generate power.

Sending water south

The Upper Basin states – Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico – will also suffer.

That’s because the Colorado River Compact obligates the Bureau of Reclamation to release an annual average of 8.23 million acre-feet from Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, which extends from southern Utah into northern Arizona.

The Bureau of Reclamation predicted in mid-July that runoff into Lake Powell for 2021 will total just 3.23 million acre-feet, or 30% of average. To make up for this shortfall, the bureau will release more water from three Upper Basin reservoirs: Flaming Gorge in Utah, Blue Mesa in Colorado and Navajo on the Colorado-New Mexico border.

These releases will harm farmers and ranchers, who may be forced to raise less-water-intensive crops or fewer animals due to water shortages. The Upper Basin states get much of their water from snowpack, which has declined in recent years as the West warms.

Doing the math

The ultimate problem facing the Colorado River Basin states is simple. There are more water rights on paper than there is water in the river. And that’s before considering the impact of climate change and evaporation loss from Lakes Mead and Powell.

The urgency of the Tier 1 shortage declaration has generated wild-eyed proposals to import water from far-flung places. In May 2021, the Arizona legislature passed a bipartisan resolution calling on Congress to study a pipeline from the Mississippi River that would augment the Colorado River. Space does not permit me to elaborate all the obstacles to this idea, but here’s a big one: the Rocky Mountains.

Similarly, the city of St. George in southwest Utah has proposed building a 140-mile pipeline from Lake Powell to augment its supply. St. George has some of the highest water consumption and lowest water prices in the country.

Downtown Phoenix with suburban homes in foreground.
Downtown Phoenix with suburban homes in foreground.

 

The gospel of growth still motivates some cities. Buckeye, Arizona, on the west side of Phoenix, has a planning area of 642 square miles, which is larger than Phoenix. The city has approved 27 housing developments that officials project will increase its population by 800,000 people by 2040. Yet its water supply depends on unsustainable groundwater pumping.

Other communities have faced reality. In early 2021 Oakley, Utah, east of Salt Lake City, imposed a construction moratorium on new homes, sending shivers up the spines of developers across the West.

Enabling farmers to be more efficient

The Tier 1 declaration gives states and local communities reason to remove barriers to transferring water. Market forces are playing an increasingly critical role in water management in the West. Many new demands for water are coming from voluntary transfers between willing sellers and desperate buyers.

Water markets threaten rural communities because farmers cannot hope to compete with cities in a free market for water. Nor should they have to. Water remains a public resource. I believe the states need a process to ensure that transfers are consistent with the public interest – one that protects the long-term viability of rural communities.

As the West enters an era of water reallocation, most of the water will come from farmers, who consume more than 70% of the region’s water. Cities, developers and industry need only a tiny fraction of that amount for the indefinite future.

What if municipal and industrial interests created a fund to help farmers install more efficient irrigation systems instead of simply flooding fields, a low-tech approach that wastes a lot of water? If farmers could reduce their water consumption by 5%, that water would be available to cities and businesses. Farmers would continue to grow as much food as before, thus protecting the stability of rural communities. This could be a win-win solution to the West’s water crisis.