Category: Labor and Working

St. Petersburg mayor to DeSantis: ‘We need your help’ with Red Tide

St. Petersburg mayor to DeSantis: ‘We need your help’ with Red Tide

Zachary T. Sampson, Tampa Bay Times                   

 

ST. PETERSBURG — Mayor Rick Kriseman said Wednesday that the city is straining its resources to pick up dead sealife from the current Red Tide crisis and called for more help from the state and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Our city teams can only keep at this for so long,” he said during a news conference held in waterfront Crisp Park, backed by a crew scooping dead fish with pool skimmers and a fishing net off a sea wall. “We are asking the governor, please … we need your help.”

As of Tuesday morning, Kriseman said, the city had collected 477 tons of dead marine life. A day later, that total has surely risen, and the mayor estimated it is likely over 500 tons.

City council members and the city’s lobbyist have reached out to the governor’s office, Kriseman said, but the mayor’s office has not yet heard back. The Tampa Bay Times is seeking comment from DeSantis’ office. A spokeswoman did not immediately answer the phone Wednesday morning or reply to an email.

Ben Kirby, a spokesman for the mayor, said the city specifically wants help securing more shrimp boats to cast their wide nets and collect dead fish in the water before the carcasses lap against St. Petersburg’s shore.

A few such boats are already out in the water and Kriseman said they are the most effective tool for removing the rotting marine life. He described a difficult process on land, with catfish becoming tangled frequently in small nets and city workers having to use grabber tools to remove dead fish stuck in mangroves.

More than 200 St. Petersburg employees are involved in the response, officials said. That has diverted attention from other routine tasks, like mowing parks, repairing sidewalks and cleaning gutters. Kriseman said he did not know the cost to date but believes it is in the six figures.

“We’re going to have to juggle resources to cover it,” he said. “This is obviously not something we budgeted for.”

Workers have picked up a variety of dead animals, from small fish to turtles and dolphins, according to the mayor. No one knows when the Red Tide bloom will end.

“They can spend hours out here picking stuff up and then another tide comes and brings stuff in,” Kriseman said.

As the mayor wrapped up, the workers pulling fish behind him gathered around a new carcass at the seawall. It was bloated, gray and enormous.

It was a juvenile goliath grouper, a behemoth of its kind formerly targeted by anglers. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says people have been banned from keeping such fish since 1990. The Times confirmed the fish’s species with a researcher.

The St. Petersburg crew said they have seen several dead goliath groupers this month.

Because Fracking Wasn’t Already Toxic Enough, the Oil and Gas Industry Decided to Add ‘Forever Chemicals’ to the Mix

Because Fracking Wasn’t Already Toxic Enough, the Oil and Gas Industry Decided to Add ‘Forever Chemicals’ to the Mix

Hannah Murphy                          
GettyImages-Fracking-520681118 - Credit: J Pat Carter/Getty Images
GettyImages-Fracking-520681118 – Credit: J Pat Carter/Getty Images

 

A fresh hazard has been uncovered in the oil and gas industry: For the past decade, the Environmental Protection Agency has knowingly allowed oil companies to use chemicals that could break down into PFAS — a class of highly toxic, long-lasting compounds also known as “forever chemicals,” which have been linked to cancers, birth defects, and other serious health problems, a new report has found.

The report, released by Physicians for Social Responsibility and first reported by The New York Times, is based on internal EPA documents obtained using the Freedom of Information Act. The documents show that the agency approved three new chemicals for use in drilling and fracking in 2011, despite clearly stated concerns about their safety: namely, that as the chemicals broke down, they would become PFAS, which, the agency said, could create a persistent, toxic threat. (The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

More from Rolling Stone

The EPA didn’t keep public records of where these chemicals were used, but through the FracFocus database, which tracks chemicals used in fracking around the country, the advocacy group determined that at least 1,200 wells across Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, and Wyoming used PFAS — or chemicals that, once degraded, turn into PFAS — between 2012 and 2020. But because many states don’t require companies to report the chemicals that they inject, that number could be much higher.

The chain of possible exposure is vast — from workers in the oil fields, to truckers that haul the chemicals to disposal sites, to the communities and waterways that surround them. “The evidence that people could be unknowingly exposed to these extremely toxic chemicals through oil and gas operations is disturbing,” Dusty Horwitt, the author of the report, said in a statement. “Considering the terrible history of pollution associated with PFAS, EPA and state governments need to move quickly to ensure that the public knows where these chemicals have been used and is protected from their impacts.”

Details about the chemicals used in fracking and drilling are notoriously difficult to bring to light. The documents were heavily redacted — concealing trade names of chemicals and even the name of the company that applied for approval — likely due to a loophole that allows oil companies to conceal information about the chemicals they use as “trade-secrets.” But testing of oil and gas waste has found a wealth of carcinogens, heavy metals, and radioactive elements. One 2016 report from the EPA found more than 1,600 different chemicals involved in fracking alone.

But this is the first time that the use of PFAS in oil and gas drilling has been publicized, and the chemicals add a new layer of hazards to the industry.

There are thousands of PFAS chemicals — all man-made compounds of carbon and fluorine — and they are toxic even in minuscule concentrations; as little as one cup in 8 million gallons of water is enough to make the water toxic.

Of the thousands of PFAS compounds that have been developed, only some have been studied for their health impacts, but so far, they’ve all raised alarms. PFOA — the PFAS chemical that contaminated the drinking water around a DuPont Teflon plant in West Virginia and inspired the 2019 film Dark Waters — is linked to cancers, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia, and ulcerative colitis. In an EPA assessment of the two most common PFAS chemicals, studies found connections to birth defects, accelerated puberty, and damage to the liver and immune system. One study even found that infants who are exposed to PFAS have a weakened response to vaccines.

The dilemma, though, is that “PFAS are really useful chemicals,” said Linda Birnbaum, a toxicologist and former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, in a press conference yesterday. They’re exceptionally slippery, and good at repelling water and oil — which is why, in the decades after their invention in the 1930s, they were used in everything from stain-resistant carpeting to fire-fighting foam to the plastic lining inside popcorn bags. And while the EPA documents don’t indicate how or where the chemicals were used in the process of oil and gas extraction, a 2008 paper written by a DuPont researcher found that the “exceptional” water-repelling characteristics of chemicals like PFAS showed promise for use in oil and gas extraction.

But for all of their usefulness, the chemical bonds in the man-made PFAS are impossible to break down, so the chemicals accumulate in our environment and in our bodies, earning them the nickname “forever chemicals.” One 2007 study found that more than 98 percent of Americans have them in their bloodstream. Parents are even able to pass PFAS to their children through breastfeeding.

For that reason, the EPA worked with manufacturers to phase out the use of PFAS chemicals, and they haven’t been produced in the U.S. since 2012. But it’s still possible to use existing stores of the chemicals, or to import products that use them, a workaround that the oil and gas industry appeared to use. The report found that oil companies started importing the chemicals for commercial use in November 2011, shortly after they were approved by the EPA, and continued until at least 2018.

In the report, Physicians for Social Responsibility urges the EPA to issue a moratorium on the use of PFAS in the oil and gas industry, track where they’ve been used, and begin health assessments on the communities and wildlife that surround the wells.

They also insist that the government hold the oil and gas industry responsible for removing PFAS from the environment, but that won’t be easy. Because PFAS compounds don’t break down, “once it’s in the environment, there’s no easy way to get rid of it,” said Birnbaum.

The leading cleanup method requires activated charcoal, “similar to what you find in a Brita filter, except the quantities have to be much, much greater,” explained Horwitt, the study’s author. “And then once that carbon fills up with PFAS — and perhaps other contaminants — you’d have to dispose of it somewhere. And landfills can be reluctant to accept this waste.”

Even if a system of removal and disposal was accessible to oil and gas companies, it’s still unlikely that the oil and gas industry will ultimately pay for this damage. They’ve already shirked responsibility for millions of “orphaned” wells across the country — which could cost as much as $300 billion to clean up. Not to mention that fracking and drilling companies have been declaring bankruptcy at an unprecedented pace. By the time the government could get around to holding them responsible, those companies are likely to be gone, says Silverio Caggiano, a hazardous waste expert who contributed to the report. “It’s going to be the taxpayer that gets caught with a bill for cleaning this all up.”

Microplastics are getting into our bodies. We need to understand what that means

Opinion: Microplastics are getting into our bodies. We need to understand what that means

Caroline Petrow-Cohen                   
recycling Plastic in junkyard wait for recycling.The plastic waste can reused many times ,decreased air pollution and greenhouse gases
Large pieces of plastic waste ultimately break down into tiny particles called microplastics. (Worradirek / Getty Images / iStockphoto)

 

Nobody wants to snack on plastic bags or soda rings, but according to a 2019 study from the University of Newcastle, we could be consuming roughly a credit card’s worth of plastic every week.

Microplastics, which are less than a quarter-inch in size and come in various shapes and textures, have contaminated the natural world and infiltrated our bodies. These particles are just about everywhere on Earth, including in drinking water and the air we breathe, but until recently we didn’t know how ubiquitous they really were.

Microplastics were first discovered in our oceans, and the vast majority of studies published since then focus on marine environments only. The threat to our oceans is indeed huge, but it’s not the full picture anymore.

The first clue to microplastic exposure in humans came around 2013, when scientists discovered plastic particles in seafood prepared for consumption. But by 2019, when the University of Newcastle study was published, the scientific community understood that the problem was considerably broader.

“We started to realize that we have exposure that’s much greater than just a fish at the grocery store,” said Dr. Chelsea Rochman, a University of Toronto professor who helped produce a report on microplastics in April for the California Ocean Science Trust. “The trend of the research at first was just to show that we were exposed, and then it became clear that we needed to understand how this impacts human health.”

Microplastics shed off of clothes and tires and have been found in beer, honey, table salt and other food items. We inhale plastic suspended in the air and drink plastic floating in our beverages. It’s no stretch to conclude that our exposure is significant. What we don’t know is what this means for us.

Researchers started to look seriously into the human health impacts of microplastic ingestion and inhalation just a few years ago. We’ve started to ask the right questions, but there’s a long way to go. If we’re going to get the answers in time, we need to prioritize this area and funnel resources into science that analyzes how microplastics interact with our bodies.

The amount of evidence collected on this subject is growing rapidly, according to Scott Coffin, a toxicologist also involved with the state report. Studies done on mice and rats have found that plastic contamination can reduce fertility, alter the gut microbiome and cause oxidative stress, which can severely damage cells.

These results aren’t directly translatable to people, however, and there are gaps in the research that make it difficult to draw conclusions. Most studies rely on polystyrene spheres, a specific kind of microplastic that can be purchased commercially but doesn’t reflect the vast range of plastics and chemicals in the natural environment.

Susanne Brander, an Oregon State University professor who also worked on the recent report, acknowledges these shortcomings. “More studies are needed on environmentally relevant plastic types before we can say with full confidence that the plastics you’re exposed to every day could harm you in these ways,” Brander said. “But I think it’s safe to say that it’s a concern, and if we’re seeing responses in mouse models, it’s likely that humans are also being affected.”

Toxicologists, ecologists and other scientists have been digging deep into these questions, but the scientific process is still in its infancy. Meanwhile, major environmental agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and National Science Foundation have not provided funding for microplastic research regarding human health.

We already know enough to take action on the microplastics problem, but without all the details, it’s much more challenging to bring about change. If we could bring specifics to the table — for example, that these plastics cause cancer, damage organs, reduce fertility — there would be more pressure on public officials to pass sweeping regulations.

“We have to make a bit of a leap and say, whatever’s happening in rodents is happening at similar quantities in humans,” Coffin said, “and there is a little bit of a precautionary principle baked into that assumption.”

But will we be willing to make that leap? Because microplastics are too small to clean up, the only solution is to stop plastic waste at the source. And doing so would take a radical adjustment, given that plastics are deeply embedded in our economy and lifestyle. Weaning ourselves from them would fundamentally affect countless industries, including textiles, transportation and manufacturing.

“I think we’re going to need to have more studies coming out that are directly related to human health before we see a lot more concern from the general public,” Brander said. “It takes a lot to convince people that something that is really convenient for them to use is something they should sacrifice.”

The question of microplastics and human health needs more attention — from the scientific community, the general public, the government and funding groups. The issue isn’t being ignored, but it’s not being prioritized either.

In a perfect world, the knowledge we have now would be enough impetus for policy change. But in a society stuck in its ways and reluctant to alter the status quo, we need more than precaution to move the needle.

These Scientists Linked June’s Heat Wave to Climate Change in 9 Days. Their Work Could Revolutionize How We Talk About Climate

These Scientists Linked June’s Heat Wave to Climate Change in 9 Days. Their Work Could Revolutionize How We Talk About Climate

Alejandro de la Garza                       

Lighting strikes over Lake Mead as a storm rolls through the area Tuesday, June 29, 2021. Credit – Allen J. Schaben—Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Long before most people in the U.S. Pacific Northwest had woken up on June 28—the hottest day in last month’s record-breaking heat wave—European climate scientists Geert Jan van Oldenborgh and Friederike Otto were preparing to determine the connection between that deadly weather phenomenon and the broader state of the global climate.

“Friederike and I looked at each other over the Zoom,” Van Oldenborgh told Dutch newspaper NRC on July 5. “The heat wave would peak that day. We said, ‘This is so beyond the expectation of a heat wave. We must investigate this.’”

So began a nine-day round-the-clock scientific sprint, with dozens of climate researchers worldwide working in shifts to analyze the unprecedented temperatures that killed hundreds and hospitalized thousands across Oregon, Washington and Canada’s British Columbia. While it was clear that the blistering temperatures were caused by a heat dome—an atmospheric phenomenon wherein air heated by the ocean gets trapped over large areas of land—Van Oldenborgh and Otto’s team was racing to determine what role global warming played in triggering that condition. The results of that work—published on July 7, just days before another heat wave descended on the West Coast—were headlined by a disturbing conclusion: the heat wave that sent temperatures spiking to an unheard-of 116℉ in Portland, Ore. last month would have been virtually impossible without the effects of human-caused climate change.

Damaged structures are seen in Lytton, British Columbia, on July 9, 2021, after a wildfire destroyed most of the village on June 30.<span class="copyright">Darryl Dyck—The Canadian Press/AP</span>
Damaged structures are seen in Lytton, British Columbia, on July 9, 2021, after a wildfire destroyed most of the village on June 30.Darryl Dyck—The Canadian Press/AP

 

A decade ago, it might have taken months for such work to be published. The ability for scientists to determine within days the role human-caused global heating played in a given weather phenomena—a complex statistical process known as “extreme event attribution,” involving enormous quantities of weather data and cutting-edge climate models—has been years in the making, though it’s recently been accelerated by improved methodology and coordination among a small group of climate researchers, including Van Oldenborgh, of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute, and Otto, of the University of Oxford.

For those seeking to point to big, newsworthy weather events to emphasize the need to address climate change, such speed is crucial. Being able to confidently say that a given weather disaster was caused by climate change while said event still has the world’s attention can be an enormously useful tool to convince leaders, lawmakers and others that climate change is a threat that must be addressed. But that speed hasn’t been possible until relatively recently, thanks to the work of Van Oldenborgh, Otto and others like them.

“The problem has always been [that] if you want to have a very sophisticated statistical attribution, usually you’re not going to have the answer until the event itself is out of the news cycle,” says Jonathan Overpeck, a professor of environmental education at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in Van Oldenborgh and Otto’s recent study.

People visit the unofficial thermometer reading 133 degrees Fahrenheit/56 degrees Celsius at Furnace Creek Visitor Center on July 11, 2021 in Death Valley National Park, California.<span class="copyright">David Becker—Getty Images</span>
People visit the unofficial thermometer reading 133 degrees Fahrenheit/56 degrees Celsius at Furnace Creek Visitor Center on July 11, 2021 in Death Valley National Park, California. David Becker—Getty Images

 

The science of extreme event attribution began after a disastrous 2003 European heat wave killed at least 30,000 people over a series of blistering weeks hotter than anything recorded on the continent in 500 years. Scientists were eventually able to link the event to climate change, but those results were published more than a year after the phenomenon left the headlines. Scientists have since refined the basic methods used in that research, and in 2016 the U.S. National Academies of Science published a study of extreme event attribution that climate scientists say was pivotal in establishing confidence in the methodology. There was one problem, though: even as the science behind event attribution gained wide acceptance, it still wasn’t producing results fast enough to get attention from people outside the climate science world.

That’s changing thanks to the World Weather Attribution initiative (WWA), a global group of climate scientists led by Van Oldenborgh and Otto, which in 2014 set out to dramatically speed up the work of linking weather events to climate change. The WWA, which published the aforementioned Pacific Northwest heat wave report, has only gotten faster at its work in recent years. Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and a co-author of the July 7 report, says it’s difficult to put an exact figure on the team’s improvement, but his sense is that it does the same scientific work two or three times faster than it did just five years ago, allowing for such breakneck speeds as seen with its latest report

It’s difficult to attribute those improvements to any one factor. Better forecasts have enabled scientists to start examining extreme weather events before they reach peak intensity, then retroactively plug in numbers from observations recorded on the ground. New, more powerful computers have allowed researchers to run more detailed climate models more frequently, and scientists have developed a wider variety of climate models since the early days of extreme event attribution, more of which are tuned specifically to answer questions about extreme weather events.

“Years ago, most of the questions were still about, ‘Is the climate changing, and, if it is, are humans to blame?’” says Van Aalst. “Now we’re really interested in the questions, ‘If the climate is changing, how is it going to materialize? What sort of impacts should we be worried about? How fast is it changing? And particularly not just how the average is changing, but how are these really extreme events that hit us much harder changing?’”

Experience has made a difference as well, with the teams’ efforts becoming more seamless and coordinated over time. “It’s partly the quality of the tools and the number of tools,” Van Aalst says, explaining how the attributions have gotten faster. “But it’s particularly our fine-tuning of the process. We’ve got these steps; we know what we need to do. We know how we need to line up with each other to be able to put these pieces together.”

“The group is often made up of people across many time zones,” adds Gabriel Vecchi, a Princeton University climate scientist involved in the recent study. “You’ll see the edits in the documents to proceed with the sun as it’s day somewhere.”

Pablo Miranda cools off in the Salmon Springs Fountain on June 27, 2021 in Portland, Oregon.<span class="copyright">Nathan Howard—Getty Images</span>
Pablo Miranda cools off in the Salmon Springs Fountain on June 27, 2021 in Portland, Oregon.Nathan Howard—Getty Images

 

The group’s findings on the recent heat wave sent ripples through the climate journalism community, shifting vague, hedging language (“likely linked to climate change”) into a more definitive and urgent framing backed up by the data—that this event would have been essentially impossible without human climate impacts. WWA scientists say they’re often able to analyze heat waves faster than other events, like hurricanes or drought, because the connection between a warming climate and localized temperature extremes is relatively straightforward, atmospherically speaking. (Attributing the catastrophic 2019-2020 Australian Bushfires to climate change, for instance, was a more complicated task, partly because the fires were driven by many different weather factors, like heat and lack of rain, each with their own relationship to the global climate.)

The report also noted other disconcerting implications of the heat wave that have made clear the importance—and sheer strangeness—of what occurred in the atmosphere over western North America last month, the period that the study covered. Namely, the Pacific Northwest heat wave was so extreme that it would be highly unlikely to occur even accounting for global warming caused by greenhouse gases, suggesting either climatory bad luck or a gap in scientific understanding of extreme heat events.

“We have to ask ourselves, ‘Are we missing something?’” says Vecchi. “It’s always possible that we were just unlucky; really, really unlucky. And it’s also possible that there is something that we still need to learn how to account for better.”

Even so, the WWA’s work represents a paradigm shift in a research world that typically runs at the months- or years-long timescales of journal publication and peer review. (The group submits its work for peer review, but publishes in pre-review form.) Facing a deepening climate crisis and continuing fossil fuel-sponsored misdirection and “greenwashing” initiatives, climate scientists may have little choice about changing the nature of their work to suit the times, both by accelerating their efforts and focusing on news-making and alarming events, like the recent heat wave.

“Now the studies are targeted to pick on events that are particularly important to people, and which the media might actually pay some attention to,” says Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton climate scientist who serves on the board of Climate Central, a group that helped launch WWA. “There’s no point going through this exercise involving dozens of scientists if it’s something that you think no one’s going to care about.”

Red tide runs rampant across Tampa Bay again

Red tide runs rampant across Tampa Bay again

Ben Montgomery                  

 

Red tide is impacting humans’ own everyday lives — beyond impacting our wildlife — in ways large and small.

  • 🐟 St. Pete has removed more than 15 tons of dead fish from its waterways.
  • 🏝 Hillsborough County closed the beaches at Apollo Beach Nature Preserve and E.G. Simmons Conservation Park on Friday due to public health concerns.
  • 🏖 The National Weather Service issued a beach hazards statement Saturday night, in effect through tonight, advising people to avoid going into the water in coastal southern Pinellas County.

What they’re saying: People who live along the water in Coquina Key told WTSP they’ve never seen this many fish die because of red tide.

What we’re seeing: I went to Indian Rocks Beach on Saturday morning and, after a swim and about 20 minutes of sunning, was ready to pack it in.

  • My throat was itchy, my nose burned, and I noticed many beachgoers coughing.

‘Anarchy and chaos’: Michael Bender book describes turmoil in Trump White House

‘Anarchy and chaos’: Michael Bender book describes turmoil in Trump White House

Matthew Brown, USA TODAY                           

 

WASHINGTON – Furious arguments, abrupt decision changes, perpetual dismay and “anarchy and chaos” defined the finals days of the Trump administration, according to The Wall Street Journal’s senior White House correspondent, Michael Bender.

Bender’s book, “‘Frankly, We Did Win This Election’: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost,” compiles interviews with dozens of former Trump staffers and allies, as well as two interviews with former President Donald Trump himself.

The book depicts the inner workings of a White House and presidential campaign in turmoil, as Trump’s subordinates fought each other for influence and grappled with obeying presidential orders that often contradicted basic democratic and constitutional norms.

Bender recounted that Trump called for whoever “leaked” information on him staying in a bunker during protests in 2020 to be “executed” for their actions.

Trump was infuriated after The New York Times reported he, first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, had been put in a bunker beneath the East Wing as racial justice protests in Lafayette Square, near the White House, were cleared by federal, local and military police.

At a meeting with top law enforcement, military and policy aides, Trump “boiled over as soon as they arrived,” according to Bender. “It was the most upset some aides had ever seen the president.”

The book recounts: “‘Whoever did that, they should be charged with treason!’ Trump yelled. ‘They should be executed!’” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who “repeatedly tried to calm the president as startled aides avoided eye contact,” Bender wrote, promised Trump the officials present would find whoever leaked the story.

A new book on the Trump White House by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender reveals turmoil and chaos, particularly related to the handling of the pandemic and the 2020 campaign.
A new book on the Trump White House by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender reveals turmoil and chaos, particularly related to the handling of the pandemic and the 2020 campaign.

 

In 2018, Trump casually praised the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, for his economic policies and popularity within the fascist regime, according to the book.

“Well, Hitler did a lot of good things,” Trump reportedly remarked to White House chief of staff John Kelly, a former four-star Marine general. “You cannot say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler,” an astounded Kelly replied, “You just can’t.”

Much of the chaos of the Trump campaign and White House in 2020, Bender wrote, centered on the administration’s missteps in its pandemic response and the subsequent economic downturn and the social upheaval brought by the death of George Floyd, a Minneapolis Black man murdered by a police officer.

Trump had a visceral response to the Floyd video, calling the event “terrible.” He tweeted his support for the Floyd family, promising that “justice will be served.” His tone shifted rapidly as protesters calling for racial justice filled the streets of cities and towns.

Bender’s work depicts frantic scenes of Trump administration aides deeply concerned over the president’s cavalier desire to deploy military troops against peaceful protesters and rioters alike.

“The country had turned into a tinderbox. And inside the Oval Office was a president who liked playing with matches,” Bender wrote, describing aides he spoke with as horrified by the president’s behavior.

Trump calls for military intervention

Multiple times, Trump called for the military to be deployed and to use live ammunition against protesters, aides said.

In one tense exchange, senior adviser Stephen Miller, an ardent Trump ally, told a group of aides that “these cities are burning,” which justified intense military intervention.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly told Miller to shut up, using expletives.

“Let me show you what I can do with the National Guard before we make that next jump,” said Milley, who was unnerved by the prospect of U.S. troops being deployed against civilians, according to Bender.

Campaign in disarray

In the weeks approaching the presidential election, the Trump campaign was beleaguered in internal disputes and self-confidence issues, Bender wrote.

After a story pitched by Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Robert Costello about Joe Biden’s son Hunter failed to catch steam in the media, followed by Trump’s hospitalization with the coronavirus, the campaign became insular and doubtful, according to the book. At rallies, Trump lamented his poor polling among constituents such as suburban women.

“I didn’t love it,” Trump conceded to Bender on his experience with the coronavirus. Bender described the Trump campaign’s data and media advertising campaigns in disarray despite a $2 billion war chest.

The replacement of campaign manager Brad Parscale with Bill Stepien in the fall led to further financial mismanagement, the book says. Bender quoted Stepien as complaining in the run-up to Election Day that he “has $65 million to spend on digital, and I don’t know whether to put it in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and at what levels.”

“Bill is locked in decision paralysis,” Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a senior adviser, told Katie Walsh, White House deputy chief of staff, offering Walsh the job to replace Stepien.

Post-election chaos

The disorganization of the campaign bled into efforts to contest the election after the president’s loss, the book says. A defiant Trump ordered aides to pursue dozens of lawsuits and to pressure government aides and allies at the state and federal levels to help him overturn the election results.

Officials at the Justice Department were horrified, Bender wrote, when department attorney Jeffrey Clark aided Meadows in concocting a plan to oust acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and overturn the election results in Georgia.

In addition to pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump leaned on Supreme Court justices in North Carolina and pressured aides to convince GOP lawmakers in swing states to help overturn the election.

The insurrection by Trump supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and its aftermath further demoralized those closest to Trump, Bender wrote, though many saw the attack as a “horrifying but inevitable conclusion” to the president’s time in office.

Bender described an aggrieved and somewhat directionless Trump determined to win back power.

“What am I going to do all day?” Trump asked one aide upon landing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after leaving the White House. The former president’s future remains unclear, though his power within conservative politics is unquestioned.

“Trump was in transition. Weeks earlier he’d been the leader of the free world. Now he was King of Mar-a-Lago,” Bender wrote.

Trump’s associates believe he’s ‘off his rocker,’ Michael Wolff says

Trump’s associates believe he’s ‘off his rocker,’ Michael Wolff says

Thomas Colson                       
A close-up of Donald Trump against a dark-blue background.
Donald Trump. Getty 

  • Trump’s close associates believe he’s “off his rocker,” the author Michael Wolff said.
  • “They believe he is crazy,” he told Channel 4 News.
  • Wolff was discussing his latest book, “Landslide,” about the last days of Trump’s presidency.

Donald Trump’s close associates think he’s “off his rocker” and “crazy,” said Michael Wolff, the author of several books on Trump.

Wolff told Channel 4 News on Monday that “aides, intimates, and supporters” thought the former president was not of sound mind. Wolff was promoting his latest book, “Landslide,” about the last days of Trump’s presidency.

There’s “a situation in which virtually everyone around Trump – we’re not talking Democrats here, we’re talking Trump aides, intimates, and supporters – everyone believes he has gone off his rocker,” Wolff said. “I mean, let’s not put too fine a point here: They believe he is crazy.

“At the same time, he commands a, if not a majority of the country, a very, very substantial minority comes to believe that this election is stolen and whose support for him ever hardens,” he added.

In a separate interview on Monday, Wolff told MSNBC, “I think that anyone who speaks to Donald Trump should be certainly switching on their phone, their iPhone, to tape what’s going on.”

“Donald Trump is only half aware of what he’s saying,” he later added. “It just spews out.”

Wolff’s first book about Trump’s presidency, “Fire and Fury,” published in 2018, contained a series of embarrassing revelations about Trump, prompting Trump to call the writer a “total loser” in a tweet.

A January 2018 tweet from Trump that says in part: &quot;Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book.&quot;
In a January 2018 tweet, Trump called Michael Wolff a “total loser.” Twitter

But Wolff said Trump had invited him to his residence at Mar-a-Lago for dinner after he heard Wolff was writing another book about him.

Wolff’s latest book is said to contain further revelations about Trump, including that he wanted to call off the election because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Wolff told Channel 4 News: “When my first book came out, he tried to sue me. That would be the first time that a sitting president has tried to sue a writer. He tried to stop the publication of the book, said he had never met me when he had, in fact, invited me into the White House.

“And then I thought, ‘OK, you know, I guess that relationship is over.’ But then when he heard that I was doing this new book – actually, someone recounted the conversation to me that he was told that I was doing this book and he said, ‘Oh, that guy gets ratings, let’s see him.’ And he immediately had someone invite me down to Mar-a-Lago to sit with him, to interview him, and to have dinner with him and Melania.”

Death Valley hits 130 degrees as relentless Western heat wave adds fuel to wildfires

Death Valley hits 130 degrees as relentless Western heat wave adds fuel to wildfires

Kathryn Prociv                       

On Friday, Death Valley, California, hit 130 degrees.

On Saturday, Las Vegas tied its hottest temperature, hitting 117 degrees, and Utah also tied its statewide record, hitting 117 in St. George.

On Sunday morning, nearly 30 million people remained under heat alerts across several Western states, where temperatures were forecast again soar to 10 to 20 degrees above average.

Las Vegas was forecast again to climb to near 117 degrees. If that happened for the second time in a row, it would be the first time in recorded history.

And all eyes were on Death Valley to see whether it would hit 130 degrees again for the second time in three days, or perhaps higher.

Death Valley is considered the hottest place in the world — it hit 134 degrees back in 1913. No reliable weather station has recorded a hotter temperature on Earth.

Overnight lows have also been very warm. Lows are failing to drop below the 90s in desert locations and below the 80s in several larger metro areas. When overnight hours provide little relief, it can strain infrastructure and increase the risk for heat illness.

Las Vegas, in fact, cooled down only to a suffocating 94 degrees Sunday morning, 1 degree shy of its warmest low of 95 degrees. The dangerously high temperatures are expected to last through the first half of the week for most of the Western region.

But parts of the desert Southwest and the Four Corners region of Colorado, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico may get some heat relief in monsoon showers and thunderstorms. They would be welcome after the most recent indicators revealed that a staggering nearly 95 percent of the West is in drought.

And the heat has continued to fuel the wildfire risk out West.

On Saturday, the Bootleg Fire in Oregon spread rapidly, and the Beckwourth Complex fire in northern California doubled in size. Two firefighters were killed fighting blazes in Arizona.

Because of climate change, heat waves are happening more frequently and lasting longer, and they are increasingly more intense. A study by World Weather Attribution, an international climate change institute, found that the Pacific Northwest heat wave at the end of June would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change. The warmer atmosphere, because of human-induced warming, made the heat wave 150 times more likely and on average 4 degrees hotter compared to the 1800s, it found.

The U.S. also just recorded its hottest June on record.

Alcohol Abuse Is on the Rise, but Doctors Too Often Fail to Treat It

Alcohol Abuse Is on the Rise, but Doctors Too Often Fail to Treat It

Anahad O’Connor                    

 

Andy Mathisen sits in Thompson Park in Lincroft, N.J., after a difficult pandemic year in which his drinking became excessive. (Elianel Clinton for The New York Times).

Like many people who struggle to control their drinking, Andy Mathisen tried a lot of ways to cut back.

He attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, went to a rehab center for alcohol abuse and tried using willpower to stop himself from binge drinking. But nothing seemed to work. This past year, with the stress of the pandemic weighing on him, he found himself craving beer every morning, drinking in his car and polishing off two liters of Scotch a week.

Frustrated, and feeling that his health and future were in a downward spiral, Mr. Mathisen turned to the internet and discovered Ria Health, a telehealth program that uses online coaching and medication to help people rein in their drinking without necessarily giving up alcohol entirely.

After signing up for the service in March, he received coaching and was given a prescription for naltrexone, a medication that diminishes cravings and blunts the buzz from alcohol. The program accepts some insurance and charges $350 a month for a one-year commitment for people who pay out of pocket. Since he started using it, Mr. Mathisen has reduced his drinking substantially, limiting himself to just one or two drinks a couple of days a week.

“My alcohol consumption has dropped tremendously,” said Mr. Mathisen, 70, a retired telecommunications manager who lives in central New Jersey. “It’s no longer controlling my life.”

Mr. Mathisen is one of the roughly 17 million Americans who grapple with alcoholism, the colloquial term for alcohol use disorder, a problem that was exacerbated this past year as the pandemic pushed many anxious and isolated people to drink to excess. The National Institutes of Health defines the disorder as “a medical condition characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse social, occupational or health consequences.” Yet despite how prevalent it is, most people who have the disorder do not receive treatment for it, even when they disclose their drinking problem to their primary care doctor or another health care professional.

Last month, a nationwide study by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that about 80 percent of people who met the criteria for alcohol use disorder had visited a doctor, hospital or medical clinic for a variety of reasons in the previous year. Roughly 70 percent of those people were asked about their alcohol intake. Yet just one in 10 were encouraged to cut back on their drinking by a health professional, and only 6 percent received any form of treatment.

Alcohol abuse can be driven by a complex array of factors, including stress, depression and anxiety, as well as a person’s genetics, family history and socioeconomic circumstances. Many people kick their heavy drinking habit on their own or through self-help programs like Alcoholics Anonymous or SMART Recovery. But relapse rates are notoriously high. Research suggests that among all the people with alcohol use disorder who try to quit drinking every year, just 25 percent are able to successfully reduce their alcohol intake long-term.

While there is no silver bullet for alcohol use disorder, several medications have been approved to treat it, including pills like acamprosate and disulfiram, as well as oral and injectable forms of naltrexone. These medications can blunt cravings and reduce the urge to drink, making it easier for people to quit or cut back when combined with behavioral interventions like therapy.

Yet despite their effectiveness, physicians rarely prescribe the drugs, even for people who are most likely to benefit from them, in part because many doctors are not trained to deal with addiction or educated on the medications approved to treat it. In a study published last month, scientists at the N.I.H. found that just 1.6 percent of the millions of Americans with alcohol use disorder had been prescribed a medication to help them control their drinking. “These are potentially life saving medications, and what we found is that even among people with a diagnosable alcohol use disorder the rate at which they are used is extremely low,” said Dr. Wilson Compton, an author of the study and deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The implications of this are substantial. Alcohol is one of the most common forms of substance abuse and a leading cause of preventable deaths and disease, killing almost 100,000 Americans annually and contributing to millions of cancers, car accidents, heart attacks and other ailments. It is also a significant cause of workplace accidents and lost work productivity, as well as a driver of frayed family and personal relationships. Yet for a variety of reasons, people who need treatment rarely get it from their physicians.

Some doctors buy into a stereotype that people who struggle with alcohol are difficult patients with an intractable condition. Many patients who sign up for services like Ria Health do so after having been turned away by doctors, said Dr. John Mendelson, a professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Ria Health’s chief medical officer. “We have patients who come to us because they’ve been fired by their doctors,” he added.

In other cases, doctors without a background in addiction may worry that they don’t have the expertise to treat alcoholism. Or they may feel uncomfortable prescribing medications for it, even though doing so does not require special training, said Dr. Carrie Mintz, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University and a co-author of the study last month that looked at nationwide treatment rates.

The result is that a lot of patients end up getting referred to mental health experts or sent to rehab centers and 12-step programs like A.A.

“There’s a stigma associated with substance use disorders, and the treatment for them has historically been outside of the health care system,” Dr. Mintz said. “We think these extra steps of having to refer people out for treatment is a hindrance. We argue that treatment should take place right there at point of care when people are in the hospital or clinic.”

But another reason for the low rates of treatment is that problem drinkers are often in denial, said Dr. Compton at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Studies show that most people who meet the criteria for alcohol use disorder do not feel that they need treatment for it, even when they acknowledge having all the hallmarks of the condition, like trying to cut back on alcohol to no avail, experiencing strong cravings, and continuing to drink despite it causing health and relationship problems.

“People are perfectly willing to tell you about their symptoms and the difficulties they face,” Dr. Compton said. “But then if you say, ‘Do you think you need treatment?’ they will say they do not. There’s a blind spot when it comes to putting those pieces together.”

Studies suggest that a major barrier to people seeking treatment is that they believe that abstinence is their only option. That perception is driven by the ubiquity and long history of 12-step programs like A.A. that preach abstinence as the only solution to alcoholism. For some people with severe drinking problems, that may be necessary. But studies show that people who have milder forms of alcohol use disorder can improve their mental health and quality of life, as well as their blood pressure, liver health and other aspects of their physical health, by lowering their alcohol intake without quitting alcohol entirely. Yet the idea that the only option is to quit cold turkey can prevent people from seeking treatment.

“People believe that abstinence is the only way — and in fact it’s not the only way,” said Katie Witkiewitz, the director of the Addictive Behaviors and Quantitative Research Lab at the University of New Mexico and a former president of the Society of Addiction Psychology. “We find robust improvements in health and functioning when people reduce their drinking, even if they’re not reducing to abstinence.”

For people who are concerned about their alcohol intake, Dr. Witkiewitz recommends tracking exactly how much you drink and then setting goals according to how much you want to lower your intake. If you typically consume 21 drinks a week, for example, then cutting out just five to 10 drinks — on your own or with the help of a therapist or medication — can make a big difference, Dr. Witkiewitz said. “Even that level of reduction is going to be associated with improvements in cardiovascular functioning, blood pressure, liver function, sleep quality and mental health generally,” she added.

Here are some tools that can help.

— Ria Health is a telehealth program that offers treatment for people with alcohol use disorder. It provides medical consultations, online coaching, medication and other tools to help people lower their alcohol intake or abstain if they prefer. It costs $350 a month for the annual program, cheaper than most rehab programs, and accepts some forms of health insurance.

— The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has a free website called Rethinking Drinking that can help you find doctors, therapists, support groups and other ways to get treatment for a drinking problem.

— Cutback Coach is a popular app that helps people track their alcohol intake and set goals and reminders so they can develop healthier drinking habits. The service allows people to track their progress and sends out daily reminders for motivation. The cost is $79 if you pay annually, $23 per quarter or $9 a month.

— Moderation Management is an online forum for people who want to reduce their drinking but not necessarily abstain. The group offers meetings, both online and in person, where members can share stories, advice and coping strategies. It also maintains an international directory of “moderation-friendly” therapists.

— CheckUp & Choices is a web-based program that screens people for alcohol use disorder. It provides feedback on your drinking habits and options for cutting back. The service charges $79 for three months or $149 per year.

© 2021 The New York Times Company

‘Wither away and die:’ U.S. Pacific Northwest heat wave bakes wheat, fruit crops

‘Wither away and die:’ U.S. Pacific Northwest heat wave bakes wheat, fruit crops

Julie Ingwersen                     

 

FILE PHOTO: A farmer plows a field with a tractor in rural Idaho

CHICAGO (Reuters) – An unprecedented heat wave and ongoing drought in the U.S. Pacific Northwest is damaging white wheat coveted by Asian buyers and forcing fruit farm workers to harvest in the middle of the night to salvage crops and avoid deadly heat.

The extreme weather is another blow to farmers who have struggled with labor shortages and higher transportation costs during the pandemic and may further fuel global food inflation.

Cordell Kress, who farms in southeastern Idaho, expects his winter white wheat to produce about half as many bushels per acre as it does in a normal year when he begins to harvest next week, and he has already destroyed some of his withered canola and safflower oilseed crops.

The Pacific Northwest is the only part of the United States that grows soft white wheat used to make sponge cakes and noodles, and farmers were hoping to capitalize on high grain prices. Other countries including Australia and Canada grow white wheat, but the U.S. variety is especially prized by Asian buyers.

“The general mood among farmers in my area is as dire as I’ve ever seen it,” Kress said. “Something about a drought like this just wears on you. You see your blood, sweat and tears just slowly wither away and die.”

U.S. exports of white wheat in the marketing year that ended May 31 reached a 40-year high of 265 million bushels, driven by unprecedented demand from China.

But farmers may not have as much to sell this year.

“The Washington wheat crop is in pretty rough shape right now,” said Clark Neely, a Washington State University agronomist. The U.S. Agriculture Department this week rated 68% of the state’s spring wheat and 36% of its winter wheat in poor or very poor condition. A year ago, just 2% of the state’s winter wheat and 6% of its spring wheat were rated poor to very poor. [US/WHE]

On top of the expected yield losses, grain buyers worry about quality. Flour millers turn to Pacific Northwest soft white wheat for its low protein content, which is well-suited for pastries and crackers.

But the drought is shriveling wheat kernels and raising protein levels, making the some of the crop less valuable. “The protein is so high that you can’t use (it) for anything but cattle feed,” Kress said.

Low-protein “soft” wheats have lower gluten content than the “hard” wheats used for bread, producing a less-stretchy dough for delicate cakes and crackers.

The Washington State Agriculture Department said it was still too early to estimate lost revenue from crop damage.

The heat peaked in late June, in the thick of the harvest of cherries. Temperatures reached 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 Celsius) on June 28 at The Dalles, Oregon, along the Washington border, near the heart of cherry country.

Scientists have said the suffocating heat that killed hundreds of people would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change and such events could become more common.

The National Weather Service posted weekend heat advisories for eastern Washington.

NIGHTTIME CHERRY HARVEST; SUN NETS FOR APPLES

On the hottest days last month, laborers who normally start picking cherries at 4 a.m. began at 1 a.m., armed with headlamps and roving spotlights to beat the daytime heat that threatened their safety and made the fruit too soft to harvest.

The region should still produce a roughly average-sized cherry harvest, but not the bumper crop initially expected, said B.J. Thurlby, president of the Northwest Cherry Growers, a grower-funded trade group representing top cherry producer Washington and other Western states.

“We think we probably lost about 20% of the crop,” Thurlby said, adding that growers simply had to abandon a portion of the heat-damaged cherries in their orchards.

The heat wave’s impact on Washington’s $2 billion apple crop – the state’s most valuable agricultural product – is uncertain, as harvest is at least six weeks away. Apple growers are used to sleepless nights as they respond to springtime frosts, but have little experience with sustained heat in June.

“We really don’t know what the effects are. We just have to ride it out,” said Todd Fryhover, president of the Washington Apple Commission.

Growers have been protecting their orchards with expansive nets that protect fruit against sunburn, and by spraying water vapor above the trees. Apples have stopped growing for the time being, Fryhover said, but it is possible the crop may make up for lost time if weather conditions normalize.

The state wine board in Oregon, known for its Pinot Noir, said the timing of the heat spike may have benefited grapes. Last year, late-summer wildfires and wind storms forced some West Coast vineyards to leave damaged grapes unharvested.

Washington’s wine grapes also seem fine so far, one vineyard manager said. “I think wine grapes are situated well to handle high heat in June,” said Sadie Drury, general manager of North Slope Management.

(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Matthew Lewis)