Mississippi’s governor says people in the state are less scared of COVID-19 because they ‘believe in eternal life’

Mississippi’s governor says people in the state are less scared of COVID-19 because they ‘believe in eternal life’

Tate reeves
Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves delivers a televised address prior to signing a bill retiring the last state flag with the Confederate battle emblem during a ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 30, 2020. ROGELIO V. SOLIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images.
  • Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said people in the state are “less scared” of COVID-19.
  • “When you believe that living on this earth is but a blip on the screen, then you don’t have to be so scared of things,” he said.
  • Health services are struggling under a wave of new infections in the state.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, in remarks Saturday, said that people in the state were “less scared” of COVID-19 because they believe in “eternal life,” as new infections reach record levels and hospitalizations spike.

Reeves made the remarks to a gathering of state Republicans at a fundraiser last Thursday in Eads, reported the Daily Memphian.

“I’m often asked by some of my friends on the other side of the aisle about COVID … and why does it seem like folks in Mississippi and maybe in the Mid-South are a little less scared, shall we say,” Reeves said.

“When you believe in eternal life – when you believe that living on this earth is but a blip on the screen, then you don’t have to be so scared of things,” he said.

Read more: Governors of all 50 states are vaccinated against COVID-19

Reeves went on to say, “God also tells us to take necessary precautions. And we all have opportunities and abilities to do that and we should all do that. I encourage everyone to do so.”

Mississippi has recorded more new COVID-19 cases per capita than any other state, with around 127 new cases per 100,000, according to an analysis of data by The New York Times.

The wave of infections in Mississippi has put state health services at breaking point, with 93% of the state’s ICU beds in use and 63% occupied by COVID-19 patients, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The state also has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, with about 37% of the population fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Reeves, throughout the pandemic, has criticized measures to slow the spread of the disease introduced by public health officials and has declined to issue a mask mandate at schools, where the disease is spreading rapidly.

In July, after the CDC issued new guidance for those fully vaccinated to wear a mask indoors to help reduce transmission, Reeves told supporters the measure was part of a political plot.

“It reeks of political panic so as to appear they are in control,” Reeves told supporters, reported the Associated Press.

‘Worst drought conditions we’ve had since 2002’: Alberta farmers struggle to feed cattle, grow crops

‘Worst drought conditions we’ve had since 2002’: Alberta farmers struggle to feed cattle, grow crops

A summer of heat waves and little rainfall has Alberta farmers struggling to make it through the season.

Crops aren’t making enough feed for some cattle farms and Shelby Blosky, owner of Double S Ranch Cattle Co., said farmers like herself are having to buy extra hay bales at steeper prices due to limited supply.

“Typically, we pay around $50 for a round bale of hay and this year there’s prices out there upwards of $300 a bale,” said Blosky, whose farm is about 107 kilometres southwest of Edmonton near Breton. “There’s going to be a lot of farms that are just going to say they are done with it and that’s really heartbreaking to see.”

Blosky said the increased prices of hay and other crops are forcing some farmers to sell off their cattle at auctions, and it’s hard for her to see because farmers don’t farm to be rich.

“We do it because we love it. I can’t imagine family farms that have had the same cattle bloodline for 100 years and they’re being forced to sell their cows — it just makes me sick, to be honest,” said Blosky, adding she still thinks about the cows she had to sell six to seven years ago to avoid going into debt.

Melanie Wowk, chair of Alberta Beef Producers, which represents over 18,000 cattle farmers and ranchers in the province, confirmed that some farmers are being forced to sell their cows.“We’ve definitely heard from the auction markets that cattle numbers are up,” said Wowk. “So, there’s a lot higher numbers going through right now than there typically is at this time of year.”

On July 9, Wowk said she got several calls from producers in the area who said their crops were starting to turn early due to the extreme heat and they were worried the crops would deteriorate to the point that they wouldn’t be worthwhile to turn into feed.

The hotter-than-average summer has been detrimental to the condition of crops and just 18.2 per cent were considered to be in good to excellent condition as of Aug. 10, according to the province’s crop report. The report noted that the 10-year average has seen 69.9 per cent of crops in good to excellent condition.

“In the cropping sector in Alberta, these are the worst drought conditions we’ve had since 2002 when thanada,” said Tom Steve, general manager of the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions. “It’s definitely going to take its toll on a number of farmers.”Steve said prices for a lot of crops are very strong due to the drought reaching many regions, however, he said farmers have no or very little crop to sell and are unable to take advantage of the strong prices.“It’s going to cost the same amount of money to harvest that crop. Whether it’s a four bushel per acre yield or a 50 bushel per acre yield, it still costs you the same for fuel, labor and wear and tear on your equipment.”

Regions south of the Trans-Canada Highway have seen the biggest impact due to the drought, he said.

Blosky, Wowk and Steve all said the extreme heat has also brought more grasshoppers.

“It was pretty disheartening to go walk out into the pasture when we turned the cows out and the grasshoppers had already eaten a very large amount of the grass,” said Blosky. “There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s just another thing this year.”

Hay bales are seen in a field near Highway 37 and Highway 2 north of Edmonton, on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. As historic drought conditions have destroyed crop yields across the Prairies, hay prices have skyrocketed. Photo by Ian Kucerak
Hay bales are seen in a field near Highway 37 and Highway 2 north of Edmonton, on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. As historic drought conditions have destroyed crop yields across the Prairies, hay prices have skyrocketed. Photo by Ian Kucerak PHOTO BY IAN KUCERAK /Postmedia

13 U.S. service members killed in Kabul attack: Pentagon

13 U.S. service members killed in Kabul attack: Pentagon

 

A “complex attack” involving at least two explosions outside the airport in Kabul on Thursday killed 13 U.S. service members and injured at least 15 others, the Pentagon said.

The attack also killed and wounded a number of Afghan civilians. An Afghan official told Associated Press that at least 60 Afghans were killed and 143 others were injured in the attack.

“Let me be clear: While we’re saddened by the loss of life, both U.S. and Afghan [lives], we’re continuing to execute the mission,” Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said at a press briefing on Thursday.

McKenzie confirmed earlier reports that a suicide bomb exploded outside one of the main gates at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He said another bomb went off in the vicinity of the Baron Hotel, which is near the airport and is often frequented by Americans in Kabul.

Smoke rises from explosion outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021. The explosion went off outside Kabul's airport, where thousands of people have flocked as they try to flee the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. (Wali Sabawoon/AP)
Smoke rises from an explosion outside the airport in Kabul on Thursday. (Wali Sabawoon/AP)

 

McKenzie also confirmed that ISIS-K, an affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group in Afghanistan, is believed to be responsible for the attacks. He said U.S. officials believe it is the group’s “desire to continue those attacks, and we expect those attacks to continue.” ISIS-K is also an enemy of the Taliban.

Asked whether the U.S. would take military action against those responsible, McKenzie said, “Yes. If we can find who is associated with this, we will go after them.”

On Thursday evening, President Biden, speaking somberly from the White House, vowed to “hunt down” those who carried out the attack.

“We will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said.

Biden added that officials “have some reason to believe we know who [the ISIS-K leaders] are, and we will find ways of our choosing, without large military operations, to get them.”

(Yahoo News)
Yahoo News

 

The Hamid Karzai airport has been the site of a massive airlift operation by the U.S. military to evacuate tens of thousands of Americans, at-risk Afghans and citizens of allied nations out of Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover of the country less than two weeks ago.

McKenzie told reporters that the suicide bomber likely made it past Taliban checkpoint outside the airport and was being screened by U.S. Marines for entry at the gate when the attack occurred, highlighting the threats to U.S. troops who are facilitating the airlift.

“We don’t want to let somebody on an airplane with a bomb,” McKenzie said. “Ultimately, Americans have got to be endangered to do these searches, there’s really no other way to do it.”

McKenzie said he doesn’t think there’s any reason to believe the Taliban intentionally let the attack happen.

“Clearly, if they were able to get up to the Marines at the entry point of the base, there’s a failure somewhere,” he said. Still, McKenzie said, U.S. officials have asked Taliban leaders for help providing additional security around the airport, given threats of another possible attack.

“They have a practical reason for wanting us to get out of here by Aug. 31,” McKenzie said of the Taliban, who, he said, want to reclaim control of the Kabul airfield. “As long as we kept our common purpose aligned, they’ve been useful to work with.”

Biden to ISIS-K: ‘We will hunt you down and make you pay’

President Biden addressed the nation Thursday evening following two bombing attacks outside the Kabul airport that killed 12 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghans. Biden blamed Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, for the attack and vowed to avenge those deaths.

Biden reiterated this point on Thursday, saying that “no one trusts” the Taliban, but that U.S. officials are counting on the group’s “self-interest.”

“It’s not a matter of trust,” Biden said, “it is a matter of mutual self-interest.”

The U.S. has been racing to evacuate as many people from Afghanistan as possible before Aug. 31, when the last American troops are scheduled to withdraw from the country. Earlier this week, Biden confirmed that he intends to stick with that withdrawal deadline, despite calls to extend it. He cited the growing threat that ISIS-K poses to U.S. troops on the ground in Kabul.

“Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport,” Biden said Tuesday. “The sooner we can finish, the better.”

As of Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that more than 4,500 American citizens and their immediate family members had been evacuated from Afghanistan, and that up to 1,500 others were still waiting to leave.

At the Pentagon on Thursday, McKenzie said that before the attack, 104,000 people had been airlifted out of the Kabul airport.

Medical and hospital staff bring an injured man on a stretcher for treatment after two blasts outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday. (Photo by Wakil Koshar/AFP via Getty Images)
Medical staff bring an injured man on a stretcher for treatment after the explosions on Thursday. (Wakil Koshar/AFP via Getty Images)

‘As they’re being intubated, they still don’t believe it.’ The COVID denial won’t die

‘As they’re being intubated, they still don’t believe it.’ The COVID denial won’t die

Our friends in health care have seen plenty to impale the heart in this COVID-19 pandemic, but nothing more tragic than this: the sight of guilt-ridden young children who believe they’ve killed an unvaccinated parent by bringing the virus home.

“And as they’re dying, the kids are at the bedside apologizing,” a hospital nurse tells me.

“You’ve actually seen that?” I ask her.

“Multiple times,” says the nurse.

My Kansas City nurse friend, who can’t use her name because she isn’t authorized to speak to the media, occasionally shares this inconceivable, untold tragedy with dinner companions who obnoxiously insist on spouting their anti-vaccine views to her over burgers and beer.

Some of them are shamed into silence by what she tells them. But others cling stubbornly to their defiance, even after hearing of parents who’ve left their children motherless or fatherless because of it — and left them with a lifetime of self-reproach for something that clearly wasn’t their fault.

Of course it isn’t the kids’ fault they got sick and may have gotten their unvaccinated father or mother deathly ill. While Dad or Mom could’ve easily gotten vaccinated, the children could not have. “But they still just feel terrible, because they feel like they killed their parent,” she says.

COVID vaccine resistance goes on and on and on, even amid the delta variant and amongst the caring hospital workers who can help, if not the dying patients then their survivors. Astonishingly, many of those who’ve seen a loved one die still refuse to get vaccinated.

“We discuss it. We try to push it. Our doctors try to push it,” my friend says of efforts to vaccinate the survivors of COVID’s dead and dying. “It seems more often than not they don’t want it.”

Good God, why not?

The nurse says most complain they don’t know what’s in the shot, or they just don’t trust it or the government. Or they say they’ve gone this long without getting it, so they should be fine — unlike their loved one who succumbed to it.

Vaccine hesitancy — which feeds my friend’s hospital with an unending stream of patients from some of the most intractably vaccine-hesitant counties in America — shows up even in the most desperately ill. One man on the cusp of needing intubation told my friend’s nursing colleague she was an idiot for being vaccinated.

“He asked her if she’d had her vaccine, and he was just like, ‘You’re stupid,’” the nurse says. “Just laid into her about how everybody’s falling for what the government says and COVID’s not real and you shouldn’t get the vaccine. While he’s laying in an ICU bed.”

Walked out tied to oxygen; on a ventilator 12 hours later

Another man — not the only one, mind you — berated the hospital’s emergency room staff for urging him to be admitted. He walked out, albeit tethered to oxygen, insisting angrily that COVID isn’t real.

“And then we found out that he was at (another hospital) within 12 hours on a ventilator,” the nurse says. “He was, the whole time, just saying, like, ‘COVID’s not real. You guys are stupid.’

“I could tell you that story about every day — that they’re just yelling at us and they leave and then they come back or they go to (another hospital) because they’re worse than when they left. And as they’re being intubated they still don’t believe it.

“We’re all so exhausted we don’t want to beg you to stay, but we do because we know you’re going to leave and die.”

This is the tragedy tucked inside COVID’s calamity. As if our heroes in health care need more on their shoulders, they must deal with hostility toward them and toward the hard-won medicine that could’ve saved even the quarrelsome — and perhaps saved their young children a lifetime of groundless guilt for having brought the virus home that killed daddy.

“If that story doesn’t make you change your mind, I just don’t really care to talk with you at all,” my nurse friend says, matter-of-factly. “If that doesn’t bother you, I don’t know what will.

“It’s mind-blowing to all of us. We just can’t fathom it.”

Still, she and her colleagues work long, incessant hours to save even the belligerent unbelievers, all the while compartmentalizing the monstrous tragedies they endure, just to stay sane and functional. There seems no end to the cruelty, because there seems no end to the unmoved and unvaccinated.

“I think the worst part is knowing that there’s just no end in sight. Even if we get a lull, and maybe the census goes down a little bit, it’s going to keep spiking all winter. And we know that, and it’s just exhausting to think about it.”

Ultimately, the worst part has to be seeing kids who will grow up believing they’ve killed an unvaccinated parent, when in fact stubbornness, ignorance or cynicism did the deed.

Climate change made catastrophic flood more likely, study finds

Climate change made catastrophic flood more likely, study finds

One of the worst disasters in a summer full of extreme weather events — the Western European flooding in July — was made significantly more likely and more intense due to the impact of human-caused climate change, new research shows. More than 200 people lost their lives when rivers overflowed and roared through towns in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, washing away structures that had been standing for hundreds of years.

A Belgian government minister described the flood as “one of the greatest natural disasters our country has ever known.” As much as two months’ worth of rainfall fell in just two days, with some locations picking up nearly 8 inches.

The new study from a team of international scientists at World Weather Attribution has found that the European flooding event — even in today’s heated climate — would only be expected to occur once every 400 years in that part of the world. The study also found that the flood event was between 1.2 times and 9 times more likely than it would have been without climate change, and our warmer climate made it up to 19% more intense.

And the researchers warn, “these changes will continue in a rapidly warming climate.”

Rainfall totals from the mid-July European flood event in millimeters. / Credit: World Weather Attribution
Rainfall totals from the mid-July European flood event in millimeters. / Credit: World Weather Attribution

 

The factors the study takes into account involve fairly straightforward science. For instance, it’s well understood that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor and dump more rain. The relationship is simple: for every 2 degrees Fahrenheit increase in global temperature, atmospheric water vapor increases by 8%.

In addition, the attribution study uses climate models to analyze local effects like the impact on convection (downpours) due to a warmer atmosphere. The study can then use computer modeling to compare heavy precipitation in today’s heated atmosphere with what they call a counter-factual world — one with cooler, pre-industrial-level temperatures. The difference between the heated and not-heated world tells scientists how impactful climate change has become.

While these numbers are impressive in their own right, they don’t tell the whole story. That’s because assessments like these focus on statistical and climate model analysis, which do not take into account the climate change impact on large scale weather patterns, like atmospheric steering currents known as the jet stream.

Climate change and the jet stream

The jet stream is a narrow river of air in the upper atmosphere which is responsible for steering storms around the globe and also separating cold air masses from warm air masses. In the case of the European floods there’s no debate that a very abnormal jet stream was a significant factor.

The jet stream at the time, from July 12 to 15, was so elongated, wavy and unstable that a piece of it broke off, forming what is called a cut-off low. These type of lows move very slowly, often dumping heavy precipitation over the same areas for a prolonged period of time.

You often hear us talk about the wavy jet stream. Here’s a good illustration of how this manifests in extreme weather, connecting the Europe flooding to the Heat Dome in the US West. Some scientists have found a connection between climate change and a more amp’d – wavy jet 1/…. pic.twitter.com/4rEZNHL3mg

Cut-off lows like the one in Europe can and do happen naturally. But they are made more likely when the jet stream is slower and more wavy. Many climate scientists believe that a warmer climate is indeed making the jet stream slower.

In 2018, Penn State climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann published a paper about changes in persistent extreme summer weather events, coining the rather technical term quasi-resonant amplification (QRA), which refers to large scale weather patterns that are more likely to be semi-stationary due to a warmer climate.

In an email to CBS News, Mann says although he doesn’t see evidence that QRA contributed to this flood event, “There’s no question that the overall slowing down of the summer jet stream did play a role.”

Mann calls attribution studies like this one “extremely conservative” and says that since its modeling doesn’t appear to have taken this factor into account, “it is likely understating the role climate change likely played here.”

Why was the impact of warming on the jet stream not included in the World Weather Attribution analysis? Simply put, jet stream dynamics are extremely complicated and hard to replicate in climate models. The jet stream also exhibits tremendous day-to-day and year-to-year variability in terms of its location, speed and degree of waviness. This makes determining the impact of climate change on the jet stream extremely challenging, especially for a rapid study like this.

The extent to which climate change is causing the jet stream is become slower and more “wavy” is one of the hottest debates in the climate community. There’s one camp of scientists who buy into a concept called the wavy jet stream — the idea that because the temperature contrast from the poles to the tropics is lessening, the jet stream slows down and becomes more meandering and curvy. There’s another camp, just as big, who disagree.

Although there is still no clear winner in this climate debate yet, there is one study, coincidentally published just two weeks before the European floods, which seems to be especially applicable. In their research, the authors not only take into account changing rain rates due to increased moisture and convection, but also the change in steering currents in the atmosphere.

Using extremely high resolution climate simulations, the authors were able to show that a future increase in precipitation extremes across Europe happens not only because of more moisture, but also due to slower storm movement of storms, which increases their duration in a given location. What they describe bears a striking resemblance to what happen in mid-July.

“Our results suggest such slow-moving storms may be 14x more frequent across land [in Europe] by the end of the century,” the study concludes. The authors say the main reason seems to be a reduced temperature difference between the poles and tropics, which weakens upper-level winds, especially in the fall.

But this impact of a slower, more amplified jet stream reverberates all around the globe. This past weekend in the U.S., record-breaking rainfall occurred both near the path of Henri in the New York City area and to a much larger degree in western Tennessee, where more than 17 inches of rain fell in 24 hours — a new state record.

Following a weekend of record-breaking rain after #Henri made landfall, @WeatherProf breaks down how climate change is intensifying these naturally occurring weather patterns. pic.twitter.com/iDNtam1OA8

 

The Tennessee flooding, which claimed at least 22 lives, was not caused by a large weather system. Rather, it was caused by a very narrow band of heavy rain which got stuck over one small area for an extended period of time.

The result was an extremely rare event — one that would be expected to happen less than once every 1,000 years.

As seen in the graphic below, this can be blamed on a blocked weather pattern — a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam in the atmosphere — which extended well into the Atlantic Ocean and even Greenland. When nothing can move, heavy rain bands persist in the same spot.

This summer has featured a very amplified and wavy jet stream across the globe. One aspect of this type of pattern is a blocked flow, in which systems get stuck for extended periods of time.  / Credit: CBS News
This summer has featured a very amplified and wavy jet stream across the globe. One aspect of this type of pattern is a blocked flow, in which systems get stuck for extended periods of time. / Credit: CBS News

 

While the connection between climate change and extreme weather is still hard for science to put an exact number on, what this summer has made abundantly clear is that greenhouse warming from the accumulation of carbon emissions is amplifying extreme weather all over the globe. These extremes will only increase at a faster rate as the climate continues to warm.

Denmark, Costa Rica seek alliance to speed up the end of oil and gas

Reuters

Denmark, Costa Rica seek alliance to speed up the end of oil and gas

By Kate Abnett and Stine Jacobsen         August 25, 2021

A flame burning natural gas is seen at the Joint stock company "Mozyr oil refinery" near the town of Mozyr, Belarus January 4, 2020. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko/File Photo

A flame burning natural gas is seen at the Joint stock company “Mozyr oil refinery” near the town of Mozyr, Belarus January 4, 2020. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko/File Photo

BRUSSELS/COPENHAGEN, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Denmark and Costa Rica are trying to forge an alliance of countries willing to fix a date to phase out oil and gas production and to stop giving permits for new exploration, government ministers said and documents showed.

Burning fossil fuels is the main source of the greenhouse gas emissions heating the planet, but so far there has been no collective government action to end oil and gas production.

“Restricting domestic oil and gas production in line with what is required to live up to the Paris Agreement goals will be the core focus for BOGA,” a draft of the rules for the alliance said, referring to the group’s name – the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA).

Industry and governments are moving too slowly to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit), which scientists say requires the world to reach net zero emissions by 2050. read more

The International Energy Agency has said there should be no new investments in fossil fuel supply projects anywhere in the world if the Paris targets are to be met. read more

The draft document seen by Reuters said a core task for the BOGA would be to establish a deadline for developing and developed countries to phase out existing oil and gas production that would align them with the Paris goals.

To become a full member of the alliance, countries must promise to end new licensing rounds for oil and gas production on their territories, as well as to phase out existing production, the draft said. The draft could change before the expected launch of the BOGA at the U.N. climate summit in November in Glasgow, Scotland.

Countries could become second-tier members if they have taken some steps to limit oil and gas output, such as ending public financing of it abroad or reforming fossil fuel subsidies.

LEVEL OF SUPPORT UNCLEAR

Danish climate and energy minister Dan Jorgensen told Reuters Denmark, which is co-leading the initiative with Costa Rica, was talking to many countries, but it was too early to say how many would join the alliance.

One of the largest European oil and gas producers, Denmark last year banned new North Sea oil and gas exploration and committed to ending its existing production by 2050.

“Very few countries have taken such steps and we hope that this alliance will be something that will be noticed and hopefully inspire others to join,” Jorgensen said.

Costa Rica has never extracted oil, but is considering a bill to permanently ban fossil fuel exploration to ensure no future governments do so.

“Costa Rica represents the commitment and decision of a developing country that has the possibility to explore, makes a brave decision and decides to go for another development model and rides into the economy of the future,” Costa Rica’s environment minister Andrea Meza said.

New Zealand, which banned new permits for offshore oil in 2018, told Reuters it had been approached by Denmark and was “in the process of learning more about this initiative”.

Costa Rica’s Meza said the countries the alliance had approached included Portugal and Spain. Spain did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, while Portugal said it had not applied for membership of the alliance yet.

The United Kingdom, which is hosting the U.N. climate summit December and has not committed to phase out its oil and gas production or halt exploration, declined to comment on its involvement.

A UK government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the government is engaging with Denmark on the alliance.

However, some large producers – including Norway, western Europe’s top oil and gas producer, are not yet involved.

“We’ve not been contacted in this regard,” Norwegian deputy energy minister Tony Tiller told Reuters.

PARADOXIAL SITUATION

As a coalition of the willing, BOGA is unlikely to touch major oil and gas producers, such as Saudia Arabia or Russia, whose economies depend on fossil fuels, and which have shown no interest in curbing production.

But part of BOGA’s aim is to redefine what counts as climate leadership from governments. Large countries’ climate change targets tend to focus on reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels, but rarely limit the production of the fuels themselves.

“We are in a paradoxical situation right now where many countries have pledged to become carbon neutral but are actually still planning to produce oil and gas after that date,” Jorgensen said.

The United States, the world’s largest producer of both oil and gas, this year pledged to halve its emissions by 2030, from 2005 levels. The U.S. government did not respond to a request for comment on whether it is involved in BOGA.

Of the few countries that have taken action to ban fossil fuel exploration and production, France has committed to do so by 2040, and Spain by 2042.

‘Times have changed’: some Afghan women defiant as Taliban return

‘Times have changed’: some Afghan women defiant as Taliban return

Afghan women wait to receive free wheat donated by the Afghan government during a quarantine, amid concerns about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Kabul.

 

(Reuters) – Afghan women and girls who have won freedoms they could not have dreamt of under the last Taliban rule that ended 20 years ago are desperate not to lose them now the Islamist militant movement is back in power.

Taliban leaders have made reassurances in the build-up up to and aftermath of their stunning conquest of Afghanistan that girls and women would have the right to work and education, although they have come with caveats.

Some women have already been ordered from their jobs during the chaos of Taliban advances across the country in recent days. Others are fearful that whatever the militants say, the reality may be different.

“Times have changed,” said Khadija, who runs a religious school for girls in Afghanistan.

“The Taliban are aware they can’t silence us, and if they shut down the internet the world will know in less than 5 minutes. They will have to accept who we are and what we have become.”

That defiance reflects a generation of women, mainly in urban centers, who have grown up being able to attend school and university and to find jobs.

When the Taliban first ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, their strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law – sometimes brutally enforced – dictated that women could not work and girls were not allowed to attend school.

Women had to cover their face and be accompanied by a male relative if they wanted to venture out of their homes. Those who broke the rules sometimes suffered humiliation and public beatings by the Taliban’s religious police.

During the past two years, when it became clear that foreign troops were planning to withdraw from Afghanistan, Taliban leaders made assurances to the West that women would enjoy equal rights in accordance with Islam, including access to employment and education.

On Tuesday, at the Taliban’s first press conference since seizing Kabul on Sunday, spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said women would have rights https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/evacuation-flights-resume-kabul-airport-biden-defends-us-withdrawal-2021-08-17 to education, health and employment and that they would be “happy” within the framework of sharia.

Specifically referring to women working in media, Mujahid said it would depend on what laws were introduced by the new government in Kabul.

On Tuesday, a female anchor for the private Afghan channel Tolo TV interviewed a Taliban spokesman live on air.

WOMEN FORCED FROM WORK

Afghan girls’ education activist Pashtana Durrani, 23, was wary of Taliban promises.

“They have to walk the talk. Right now they’re not doing that,” she told Reuters, referring to assurances that girls would be allowed to attend schools.

“If they limit the curriculum, I am going to upload more books to (an) online library. If they limit the internet … I will send books to homes. If they limit teachers I will start an underground school, so I have an answer for their solutions.”

Some women have said that one test of the Taliban’s commitment to equal rights would be whether they give them political and policy making jobs.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who survived being shot in the head by a Pakistani gunman in 2012 after she campaigned for girls’ rights to education, said she was deeply concerned https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/malala-yousafzai-urges-world-leaders-take-urgent-action-afghanistan-2021-08-17 about the situation in Afghanistan.

“I had the opportunity to talk to a few activists in Afghanistan, including women’s rights activists, and they are sharing their concern that they are not sure what their life is going to be like,” Yousafzai told BBC Newsnight.

The United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF expressed cautious optimism https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/unicef-says-some-taliban-support-education-afghan-girls-2021-08-17 about working with Taliban officials, citing their early expressions of support for girls’ education.

It is still delivering aid to most parts of the country and has held initial meetings with new Taliban representatives in recently seized cities like Kandahar, Herat and Jalalabad.

“We have ongoing discussions, we are quite optimistic based on those discussions,” UNICEF’s chief of field operations in Afghanistan, Mustapha Ben Messaoud, told a U.N. briefing.

But U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned on Monday of “chilling” curbs on human rights under the Taliban and mounting violations against women and girls.

Reuters reported https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-women-bankers-forced-roles-taliban-takes-control-2021-08-13 last week that in early July, Taliban fighters walked into a commercial bank branch in Kandahar and ordered nine women working there to leave because their jobs were deemed inappropriate. They were allowed to be replaced by male relatives.

(Writing and editing by Mike Collett-White)

Climate change: Europe’s 2020 heat reached ‘troubling’ level

Climate change: Europe’s 2020 heat reached ‘troubling’ level

Fire
Fire. Last year was the warmest on record across Europe, breaking the previous high mark by a considerable distance, say scientists.

Temperatures across the region were more than 1.9C above the long-term average between 1981 and 2010.

The State of the Climate 2020 report from the American Meteorological Society says temperatures in the Arctic are also rising rapidly.

The temperature over land there was the highest since records began in 1900.

Reports earlier this year had confirmed that 2020 was Europe’s warmest on record and one of the three hottest globally.

This new data shows that Europe’s temperature margin over previous years was significantly greater than previously thought.

Not only was the year 1.9C above the long-term average, it was more than 0.5C greater than the previous high mark.

“This level of difference to the previous long-term average, which is a large difference, is something that is concerning,” said Dr. Robert Dunn, a senior climate scientist at the UK Met Office.

“It is something to sit up and take notice of, but it’s not just the temperatures that are increasing, the extreme events, the heat waves we’re seeing this year, and last year as well. We’re seeing these responses across the world.”

Other researchers agreed that the scale of the record-breaking heat in Europe was troubling.

“The amount by which the previous record has been exceeded should worry us all,” said Prof Gabi Hegerl, professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study.

“European temperatures are well measured and can be tracked back to the beginning of industrialization and beyond, using documentary evidence and proxy records. This long-term context emphasizes how unusual this warmth is.”

river
River. The warmth across Europe brought huge temperature differences from the long-term average in some countries with Estonia, Finland and Latvia all recording anomalies of 2.4C.

 

Overall, Europe has seen its five warmest years on record all occur since 2014.

One other area of the world experiencing rapid warming is the Arctic.

Temperatures over land reached worrying new heights, getting to 2.1C above the 1981-2010 average. This was the highest since the series of records began 121 years ago.

It was also the seventh year in succession with an annual average temperature more than 1C above the average.

“The Arctic, we see warming incredibly rapidly. It was the warmest average surface temperature in the Arctic in a series going back 121 years, in 2020,” said Dr Dunn.

“That, of course feeds down into places nearby, which includes Europe to some level. But we’re seeing these effects throughout the world.”

Key findings from the State of the Climate 2020
  • Earth’s greenhouse gases were the highest on record. Despite the global pandemic that slowed economic activity, the major atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide rose to a new record high in 2020.
  • CO2 levels were the highest in both the modern 62-year record and in ice cores dating back as far as 800,000 years.
  • Global sea level was the highest on record. For the ninth consecutive year, global average sea level rose to a new record high and was about 91.3mm higher than when satellite observations began.
  • Earth’s warming trend continued. The year 2020 was among the three-warmest years since records began (around 1850) and was the warmest year on record without an El Niño event (a warming climate pattern in the Pacific).
  • The last seven years (2014-20) were the seven warmest years on record.

While rainfall around the world wasn’t exceptionally high during 2020, the authors say that there’s a clear response from the hydrological cycle to sustained heating.

Total atmospheric water vapor was well above average. The extra moisture adds to the impact of higher temperatures on humans.

Drought
Dry conditions were seen in many parts of Europe in 2020

 

Taken together, the indicators show what one of the study’s editors calls “our new normal”.

“This report follows closely on the latest [UN] IPCC [climate] report which could not be clearer in its messaging,” said Dr. Kate Willett, from the Met Office.

“Our climate has changed and is likely to continue changing unless the key driver, greenhouse gases, are curbed, and what we’re seeing now is already straining our society and our environment.”

A Florida teacher who couldn’t get vaccinated because of her cancer treatment died of COVID-19.

A Florida teacher who couldn’t get vaccinated because of her cancer treatment died of COVID-19. Her union says she caught it from her classroom, which had no mask mandate.

Lake Shipp Elementary
Lake Shipp Elementary School in Florida Google Street View
 
  • Florida elementary school teacher Kelly Peterson died of COVID-19 complications on Monday.
  • She was advised not to get a COVID-19 vaccine by her doctor due to her leukemia treatment.
  • Her sister and union believes Peterson got infected in the classroom, where masks were not mandatory.

A 41-year-old Florida teacher whose doctor had advised her against getting vaccinated has died of COVID-19 complications after she was forced to return to in-person teaching where there was no mask mandate, local outlets say.

Kelly Peterson was not vaccinated against the coronavirus because she had leukemia and her doctor advised against getting the shot in her already weakened state, her sister, Christin, told KTVU.

Lake Shipp Elementary School announced Peterson’s death in a Facebook post on Monday, saying she “touched hundreds of students’ lives” and “made a lasting impression on us all.”

Both Peterson’s sister and the Polk County teacher’s union said that she contracted COVID-19 in the classroom, KTVU reported. However, it should be noted that it’s almost impossible to know how someone contracted COVID-19.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has banned mask mandates in the state, but several schools have defied the order.

Peterson’s sister told KTVU of the doctor’s warnings against the COVID-19 vaccination: “Because her leukemia was so bad at this point, their concern was by getting the vaccine that potentially could put too much stress on her body.”

Cancer patients and survivors are encouraged to get the vaccine, but to discuss the decision with their doctor first, according to the American Cancer Society. ACS said the main question about vaccines and cancer is not whether the vaccine is safe, but whether it is as effective in people with already compromised immune systems.

Last year, Peterson worked remotely, but her sister said she was forced to return to in-person learning this school year, even though she’s immunocompromised.

“With all the COVID cases this year and her medical situation, she should have been a virtual teacher this year. The school didn’t offer that,” Peterson’s sister told The Ledger.

Both the Polk County School District superintendent and the Lake Shipp principal did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Lorinda Utter, one of Peterson’s coworkers, told The Ledger that Peterson took every precaution in the classroom, wearing a mask at all times and sanitizing surfaces regularly.

“She did everything she could to try to stay away from COVID,” Utter said.

Peterson was terrified of getting COVID-19, her sister said, and knew the effects it would have on her if she contracted it.

“She had voiced concerns many times that if she contracted COVID, she was afraid that it would kill her, and unfortunately that’s what happened,” Christin Peterson told KTVU.

Christin Peterson also said she hopes her sister’s story will encourage more people to get vaccinated.

Stephanie Yocum, president of the Polk County Teachers union, said she hopes parents “set good examples” for their kids by wearing masks.

“If wearing a mask can keep somebody from dying, that should be something that every person should do right now,” Yocum told KTVU.

Pristine Lake Tahoe shrouded in smoke from threatening fire

Pristine Lake Tahoe shrouded in smoke from threatening fire

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Ash rained down on Lake Tahoe on Tuesday and thick yellow smoke blotted out views of the mountains rimming its pristine blue waters as a massive wildfire threatened the alpine vacation spot on the California-Nevada state line.

Tourists ducked into cafes, outdoor gear shops and casinos on Lake Tahoe Boulevard for a respite from hazardous air coming from an erratic blaze less than 20 miles (32 kilometers) away.

The Caldor Fire erupted over the course of a week into the nation’s No. 1 firefighting priority and was “knocking on the door” of Tahoe, said Thom Porter, California’s state fire chief. A major wildfire has not penetrated the Lake Tahoe Basin since 2007.

Tourists typically come to swim and hike, relax along the lake’s calm shores or take their chances gambling, not risk their lives in the face of a potential disaster.

Although there were no evacuations ordered and Porter said he didn’t think the fire would reach the lake, it was impossible to ignore the blanket of haze so thick and vast that it closed schools for a second day in Reno, Nevada, which is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the fire.

Visitors wore masks outdoors — not because the coronavirus pandemic, but because of the toxic air and inescapable stench of fire. The gondola that ferries summer passengers to the summit of the Heavenly Mountain ski area was closed until winter due to the wildfire risk.

Cindy Osterloh, whose husband pushed a relative in a wheelchair beneath the idled cables, said she and family members visiting from San Diego were all on allergy medications to take the sting out of their eyes and keep their noses from running so they can ride out the smoke for the rest of their vacation.

“We got up and it was a lot clearer this morning. We went for a walk and then we came back and now it’s coming in again,” she said of the smoke. “We’re going to go and see a movie and hopefully it clears up enough that we can go do our boat rides.”

An army of firefighters worked to contain the blaze, which has spread explosively in a manner witnessed in the past two years during extreme drought. Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

Massive plumes have erupted in flames, burning embers carried by gusts have skipped miles ahead of fire lines, and fires that typically die down at night have made long runs in the dark.

Northern California has seen a series of disastrous blazes that have burned hundreds of homes and many remain uncontained. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden declared that a major disaster exists in California and ordered federal aid made available in four northern counties ravaged by blazes dating back to July 14.

The Caldor Fire had scorched more than 190 square miles (492 square kilometers) and destroyed at least 455 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe. It was 11% contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.

Nationally, 92 large fires were burning in a dozen states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Although many fires are larger, the Caldor Fire has become the top priority to keep it from sweeping into the Tahoe.

As the fire grew last week, politicians, environmentalists, and policy makers gathered on the shore for the 25th annual Lake Tahoe Summit dedicated to protecting the lake and the pine-covered mountains that surround it.

With the Caldor Fire burning to the southwest and the Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history with a 500-mile (804-kilometer) perimeter, burning about 65 miles (104 kilometers) to the north, the risk to the lake was top of mind.

“The fires that are raging all around us nearby are screaming this warning: Tahoe could be next,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif.

The last major blaze in the area took South Lake Tahoe by surprise after blowing up from an illegal campfire in the summer of 2007. The Angora Fire burned less than 5 square miles (13 square kilometers) but destroyed 254 homes, injured three people and forced 2,000 people to flee.

Scars from the fire can still be seen not far from the commercial strip where South Lake Tahoe meets the Nevada border in Stateline, where tourists go to gamble.

Inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, cocktail waitresses in fishnet stockings and leopard-print corsets served customers playing slots and blackjack who said they weren’t overly concerned about the fire.

Sitting at a slot machine near a window looking out at cars driving through the haze on Lake Tahoe Boulevard, Ramona Trejo said she and her husband would stay for their 50th wedding anniversary, as planned.

Trejo, who uses supplemental oxygen due to respiratory problems, said her husband wanted to keep gambling.

“I would want to go now,” she said.

Melley reported from Los Angeles. Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.