Ukraine clings to Bakhmut as Russia pounds front lines
Kyiv and the West say the smashed city has only symbolic importance.
April 11, 2023
Fighting raged in the frontline cities in eastern Ukraine Tuesday, as Russian forces launched airstrikes and artillery attacks.
Footage from a Ukrainian soldier’s bodycam video, released by the border service, showed fighters launching rocket-propelled grenades and shooting rifles in the destroyed yard of a house, purported to be in the besieged city of Bakhmut.
Ukrainian officials said its forces repelled dozens of attacks, as the Russian military kept up its effort to take control of Bakhmut.
The battle for the small city – now largely ruined – on the edge of Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk has been the bloodiest of the war, as Moscow tries to revive its campaign after recent setbacks.
Both sides have suffered heavy casualties in the Bakhmut fighting.
Near the frontline, under the cover of darkness, medical volunteers loaded wounded soldiers into a bus converted into an ambulance to bring them to a hospital in the city of Dnipro.
Mariia, a 23-year-old volunteer paramedic, told Reuters that during a two-week rotation she and her team evacuated hundreds of wounded soldiers.
“This bus has been operational for around two months, so we evacuated nearly 600 people. This bus makes a whole difference as it saves people’s lives.”
Tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed and wounded on both sides of the conflict since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
The ambulance effort involves rotating teams of volunteers who spend several weeks on call, ready when injured soldiers need transport from the frontline.
Both trained medics and volunteers without a medical background serve.
“It is very important for me because I have a connection to what we are doing. I work in the field which I know and where I am confident that I will do my best. Each of us has a mission and this is my mission.”
Donetsk is one of four provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia declared annexed last year and is seeking to fully occupy.
Last week, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said troops could be withdrawn from Bakhmut if they ran the risk of being encircled.
Kyiv and the West say the smashed city has only symbolic importance.
Study warns critical ocean current is nearing ‘collapse.’ That would be a global disaster.
Doyle Rice, USA Today – April 11, 2023
Due to global warming, a deep ocean current around Antarctica that has been relatively stable for thousands of years could head for “collapse” over the next few decades.
Such a sudden shift could affect the planet’s climate and marine ecosystems for centuries to come.
So says a recent study that was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
The cold water that sinks near Antarctica drives the deepest flow of a network of currents that spans throughout the world’s oceans, known as the overturning circulation. The overturning carries heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients around the globe.
This in turn influences climate, sea level and the productivity of marine ecosystems. Indeed, the loss of nutrient-rich seawater near the surface could damage fisheries, according to the study.
‘Headed towards collapse’
This deep ocean current has remained in a relatively stable state for thousands of years, but with increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the melting of Antarctic ice, Antarctic overturning is predicted to slow down significantly over the next few decades.
“Our modeling shows that if global carbon emissions continue at the current rate, then the Antarctic overturning will slow by more than 40% in the next 30 years – and on a trajectory that looks headed towards collapse,” said study lead author Matthew England of the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Speaking about the new research, paleoclimatologist Alan Mix told Reuters “that’s stunning to see that happen so quickly.” Mix, a paleoclimatologist at Oregon State University and co-author on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments, who was not involved in the study, added “It appears to be kicking into gear right now. That’s headline news.”
Such a collapse would also impact a nearby Atlantic Ocean current, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, which transports warm, salty water from the tropics northward at the ocean surface and cold water southward at the ocean bottom.
This current includes the well-known Gulf Stream, which affects weather patterns in the U.S. and Europe. “The main issue for the AMOC at the moment is meltwater from Greenland, which slows that current,” England told USA TODAY.
Other studies in recent years about the AMOC drew comparisons to the scientifically inaccurate 2004 disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” which used such an ocean current shutdown as the premise of the film. In a 2018 study, authors said a collapse was at least decades away but would be a catastrophe.
An Antarctic “tidewater” glacier meets the ocean in this 2018 photo that also shows sea ice floating on the water’s surface.
Cause of the current slowdown
What’s causing the currents to slow down and potentially collapse? “Climate change is to blame,” England wrote for the Conversation. “As Antarctica melts, more freshwater flows into the oceans. This disrupts the sinking of cold, salty, oxygen-rich water to the bottom of the ocean”.
Specifically, more than 250 trillion tons of that cold, salty, oxygen-rich water sinks near Antarctica each year. This water then spreads northward and carries oxygen into the deep Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
“If the oceans had lungs, this would be one of them,” England said.
“Simply put, a slowing or collapse of the overturning circulation would change our climate and marine environment in profound and potentially irreversible ways.” he wrote.
England told USA TODAY that the main impact for North America would be sea-level rise along the East Coast.
In addition, another impact of the collapse of the AMOC would be a transition to a more La Nina-like-state in the Pacific Ocean, England said. La Niña, a natural cooling of sea water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, affects weather and climate in the U.S. and around the world.
It tends to lead to worsening droughts and wildfires in the Southwest U.S., and more hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.
What can be done?
“Our study shows continuing ice melt will not only raise sea levels, but also change the massive overturning circulation currents which can drive further ice melt and hence more sea-level rise, and damage climate and ecosystems worldwide,” England wrote in the Conversation. “It’s yet another reason to address the climate crisis – and fast.”
How Russia’s large-scale war efforts have warped the country’s economy, according to top scholars
Morgan Chittum – April 11, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin.Contributor/Getty Images
Russia’s economy is adjusting to the sanctions imposed on it after Moscow began its war on Ukraine.
As a result, the country has lost the largest markets for its exports.
The shrinking market for Russia’s resources will force the Kremlin to cut spending on infrastructure and social programs.
Russia’s economy has been transformed in nearly ever way since Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine last year.
While the World Bank sees a smaller contraction than expected, and the International Monetary Fund forecasted some growth in 2023, top scholars outlined how the country has adjusted to the Western sanctions imposed on it since the invasion.
For example, Russia has lost its largest export markets, reducing its bargaining power. So Russia is selling its crude to a “truncated” market for around $50 per barrel, or just half of its breakeven price, Wharton Business School professor Philip Nichols told Insider.
“Russia is able to make up the difference by drawing on the foreign currency reserves in its National Wealth Fund, but those reserves are shrinking,” he said.
Eventually, the smaller market for Russia’s resources will force the Kremlin to cut spending on infrastructure and social programs, Nichols added.
Meanwhile, Russia has had to search for substitutions to trading partners that the Kremlin deems as “unfriendly countries,” which represent over 50% of the global economy, per a report from Finland’s central bank.
As a result of deteriorating relationships with other countries, Russia is orienting towards partners that did not impose sanctions like China and Turkey.
To trade with them, Russia must build more infrastructure, such as oil pipelines, to minimize exposure to the West, said Boston College’s Aleksandar Tomic.
“However, the war in Ukraine is definitely imposing costs on Russia, and there must be realignment to support the effort which is not likely to end any time soon,” he added.
And car imports from China have increased as Russian auto manufacturing collapsed, Tania Babina, a business professor at the Columbia Business School, told Insider.
Finally, airlines, pharmaceuticals, and industries that require “sophisticated materials” have been hit hard too, Nichols said.
This is due to highly skilled workers fleeing the country, resulting in less productivity. Also, these industries rely on sophisticated machinery, which need a continued supply of replacement parts that are now harder to obtain because of sanctions.
“This cannot be turned around in a short period of time; the Russian economy is going to feel the effects of this downgrade for a long time,” said Nichols.
How to Fall Back Asleep After Waking Up in the Middle of the Night
Ashley Zlatopolsky – April 11, 2023
Sleep experts share what to do and what to avoid.
jhorrocks/Getty Images
You’ve probably been here before: It’s 3 a.m., you’re awake for reasons you can’t explain and now you can’t fall back asleep. Should you continue tossing and turning and hope for the best, or get out of bed to do something that makes you sleepy again? The best course of action lies somewhere in the middle. Here’s what sleep experts recommend doing (and avoiding) if you wake up in the middle of the night and need help falling back to sleep.
What causes nighttime waking?
Normal, natural sleep patterns.
There are few things worse than waking up in the middle of the night, whether from anxiety or another reason, and not being able to fall back asleep. But waking up in the middle of the night is actually normal. “Everybody wakes up in the middle of the night,” says Philip Lindeman, MD, PhD and a sleep expert with Ghostbed. “Normal sleep cycles are such that we all enter at least a very shallow phase of wakefulness several times per night.” This can include interludes of getting up to use the bathroom and then going back to sleep. In fact, he adds that you may not even remember many of these awakenings happening.
Other causes of nighttime waking can include stress, anxiety, illness, hunger, discomfort, or changes in your sleep routine and sleep environment, explains clinical psychologist Carolina Estevez, PsyD. Then there are causes like nightmares or night terrors, or environmental noise or light disturbances.
Clearly middle-of-the-night waking is common and far from unavoidable, and is typically fine if we can get back to sleep without much of a problem. The real issue arises when you wake up, either naturally or unnaturally, and can’t fall back asleep afterward. This can actually cause more stress and anxiety that keeps you awake, and of course cause you miss out on precious sleep for your overall health.
How to Fall Back Asleep, According to Experts
Let your mind wander in a “happy place.”
If you’re awake in the middle of the night and wondering how to fall back asleep, Dr. Lindeman first recommends getting yourself in a good headspace. “Try guiding yourself into a ‘happy place,’ ‘flying’ over a place you like, or even ‘walking’ there if it helps,” he says. “Don’t worry if your eyes are open or closed, because it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the room is dark.” Dr. Lindeman says to “let your mind wander and do your best to stay there,” which can lull you into a sleep.
After about 20 minutes, find another place to lie down.
However, Dr. Lindeman adds that it’s important not to force sleep, which he says can have the opposite effect. If more than 20 minutes have gone by and you’re still lying awake in bed, Estevez suggests getting up and going into another room that might help calm your mind. Ideally, this is a room with a couch or even another bed where you can lie down and encourage rest.
“You can also try relaxation techniques such as deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation,” she adds. Some research has shown that slow breathing, together with healthy sleep hygiene and habits, may be more effective for insomnia than interventions like hypnosis or prescription medications. One breathing exercise called 4-7-8 breathing, which involves an elongated exhale, helps deactivate your stress system and activate your rest and digest system.
Get more physical exercise during the daytime.
Estevez also says that incorporating regular physical activity into your day can help promote better sleep quality at night and prevent occurrences of nighttime waking and sleeplessness.
There’s more on the list of things you should avoid rather than things you should do if you’re wondering how to fall back asleep. The biggest thing to avoid: your cell phone, and then your TV. “Don’t open your phone, tablet, or computer,” Dr. Lindeman says. “It’s the worst thing you can do because the wavelength of light emitted will bottom out your melatonin levels.” Since blue light and bright light stops melatonin production, which is essential to making you feel sleepy, playing around on your phone or putting on a Netflix show can cue your body further for wakefulness.
Dr. Lindeman also cautions against turning on a light, eating, drinking, or taking medicine unless you’re in pain (such as being sick with a virus and unable to fall back asleep because of it). If you’re really struggling to fall back asleep and none of the above has helped, you can try taking a hot bath or diffusing lavender oil in your bedroom, but these should be last resorts, since the act of turning on lights or looking for things to help might in turn wire your brain some more.
Another thing to avoid is the clock. Seeing what time it is can cause anxiety and keep you from falling back asleep, so if you have regular nighttime awakenings that leave you awake for long periods of time, you may want to consider removing any clocks from your room (or at least keeping them out of your sight). If noise is keeping you up, earplugs or a sound machine are other options to consider, while light disturbances can be blocked out with a good set of blackout curtains or a quality eye mask.
If waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep is affecting your mental health or daily functioning, and you’ve tried all of the above to no avail, an underlying medical sleep condition, like insomnia, could be at the root of the problem. To get to the bottom of it, Estevez says, “speaking with a health professional may be helpful in developing an individualized treatment plan.” However, be sure to practice good sleep hygiene, keep a regular sleep schedule and avoid stimulating activities at night, like scrolling your phone before bed or working out late.
China could cross a red line and start arming Russia if Ukraine pulls off a major counterattack, leaked Pentagon papers say
Tom Porter – April 11, 2023
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (C) reviews a military honour guard with Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) in Beijing on June 8, 2018.GREG BAKER/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Leaked US documents reveal what could prompt China to begin arming Russia, reports say.
A Ukrainian attack on Russia using NATO weapons could be a red line for China, they say.
The leaked documents contain secret details of US military operations globally.
Leaked Pentagon papers spell out the circumstances that US officials believe could prompt China to get involved in the Ukraine conflict and begin arming its ally Russia, reports say.
The US Defense Department documents posted online appear to contain extensive discussion of the Ukraine conflict, and of China’s military plans and capabilities.
They say that a Ukrainian attack on Russian territory using weapons supplied by NATO would compel Beijing to act, according to The Washington Post and CNN, who have reviewed the documents.
US officials believe that if Ukraine were to strike a significant strategic target or leader in Russia it could be further justification for China to cross a red line and send lethal aid to Russia, reported the Post.
The documents say that, according to US intelligence, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had earlier this year discussed using drones to strike Russian deployment lines in Rostov Oblast, which borders eastern Ukraine, CNN reported.
The US has been hesitant to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles amid concerns they could be used to strike targets in Russia, and potentially escalate the conflict.
China could use Ukrainian attacks in Russia “as an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor, and may increase its aid to Russia if it deems the attacks were significant,” said CNN, citing the leaks.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, China has trodden a careful path, seeking to portray itself as neutral in the conflict. More recently it has acted as a peace broker, while also providing Russia with key diplomatic and economic support. At a recent summit in Moscow, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin renewed their “no limits” cooperation pact.
But Russian setbacks on the battlefield, and reports that Russia has suffered steep casualties and equipment shortages, have prompted claims that China could start providing lethal aid to Russia.
China has denied the claim, and said it has provided weapons to neither side in the war, while accusing the US of stoking the conflict by providing Ukraine with billions in aid and weapons.
Pressured by Their Base on Abortion, Republicans Strain to Find a Way Forward
Jonathan Weisman – April 11, 2023
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Feb. 2, 2023 (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)
Republican leaders have followed an emboldened base of conservative activists into what increasingly looks like a political cul-de-sac on the issue of abortion — a tightly confined absolutist position that has limited their options before the 2024 election season, even as some in the party push for moderation.
Last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning a woman’s constitutionally protected right to an abortion was supposed to send the issue of abortion access to the states, where local politicians were supposed to have the best sense of the electorate’s views. But the decision on Friday by a conservative judge in Texas, invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, showed the push for nationwide restrictions on abortion has continued since the high court’s nullification of Roe v. Wade.
Days earlier, abortion was the central theme in a liberal judge’s landslide victory for a contested and pivotal seat on the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin. Some Republicans are warning that the uncompromising position of their party’s activist base could be leading them over an electoral cliff next year.
“If we can show that we care just a little bit, that we have some compassion, we can show the country our policies are reasonable, but because we keep going down these rabbit holes of extremism, we’re just going to keep losing,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who has repeatedly called for more flexibility on first-term abortions and exceptions for rape, incest and the life and health of the mother. “I’m beside myself that I’m the only person who takes this stance.”
She is far from the only one.
The chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, has been showing polling to members of her party demonstrating that Americans largely accept abortion up to 15 weeks into a pregnancy and support the same exemptions that Mace wants. Dan O’Donnell, a conservative radio host in Wisconsin, wrote after the lopsided conservative defeat in the state Supreme Court contest that abortion was driving young voters to the polls in staggering numbers and that survival of the party dictated compromise.
“As difficult as this may be to come to grips with, Republicans are on the wrong side politically of an issue that they are clearly on the right side of morally,” he wrote.
The problem goes beyond abortion. With each mass shooting, the GOP’s staunch stand against gun control faces renewed scrutiny. Republicans courted a backlash last week when they expelled two young Democratic lawmakers out of the Tennessee state legislature for leading youthful protests after a school shooting in Nashville that left six dead. Then on Monday came another mass shooting, in Louisville, Kentucky.
“My kids had friends on Friday night running for their lives,” said Mace, referring to a shooting on South Carolina’s Isle of Palms, which elicited no response from most of her party. “Republicans aren’t showing compassion in the wake of these mass shootings.”
The party’s stand against legislation to combat climate change has helped turn young voters into the most liberal bloc of the American electorate. And Republican efforts to roll back LGBTQ rights and target transgender teenagers, while popular with conservatives, may be seen by the broader electorate as, at best, a distraction from more pressing issues.
Rep. Mark Pocan, an openly gay Democrat from Wisconsin, said Monday that in the short term, the Republican attacks on transgender Americans were having a real-world effect, with a rise in violence and bigotry. But he said it is also contributing to the marginalization of the party, even in his swing state.
He pointed to the “WOW counties” that surround Milwaukee — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington — where then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker won 73% in 2014, and where the Republican, Dan Kelly, won 58.7% in the state Supreme Court race last week.
“We keep seeing our numbers increase in those counties because those Republicans largely are economic Republicans, not social Republicans,” Pocan said, adding that GOP candidates “definitely are chasing their people away.”
Mace does appear to be correct that her desire for compromise is not widely shared in a party in which analysts continue to look past social issues to explain their electoral defeats.
Kelly was a poor candidate who lost by an almost identical margin in another state Supreme Court race in 2020, noted David Winston, a longtime pollster and strategist for House Republican leaders. And, Winston added, Republicans may have lost female voters by 8 percentage points in the 2022 midterm elections, but they lost them by 19 points in 2018.
If inflation and economic concerns remain elevated, he added, the 2024 elections will be about the economy, not abortion or guns.
Republicans greeted the abortion-drug ruling on Friday, by Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, with near total silence. The judge gave the Biden administration seven days to appeal, and on Monday, senior executives of more than 250 pharmaceutical and biotech companies pleaded with the courts to nullify the ruling with a scorching condemnation of Kacsmaryk’s reasoning.
Most anti-abortion advocates are not backing down. Katie Glenn Daniel, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups, said Wisconsin’s results were more about anti-abortion forces being badly outspent than about ideology. In her state, Florida, she noted, Democrats scorched Republicans with advertising in 2022 saying they planned to ban abortion without exceptions. Republicans, from Gov. Ron DeSantis on down, easily prevailed that November.
Republicans need to keep pressing with abortion restrictions that will affect Democratic states as well as Republican ones, she said.
“A national minimum standard is incredibly important. Without it there will continue to be late-term abortions, and governors like Gavin Newsom are very motivated to force his views on the rest of the country,” she said of California’s Democratic governor.
Last week, the Florida state Senate approved legislation pushing the state’s ban on abortion from the current 15 weeks into pregnancy to six weeks. If the state’s House of Representatives approves it, DeSantis has said he will sign it. If DeSantis runs for president as expected, his signature would thrust abortion squarely into the 2024 race for the White House.
Last year, John P. Feehery, a veteran Republican leadership aide in the House, urged his party to find a defensible position on abortion that included flexibility on abortion pills, allowed early pregnancies to be terminated and detailed a coherent position on exceptions for rape, incest and health concerns. He said Monday that he was repeatedly told abortion would be a state-level issue and federal candidates should just stay quiet.
“They didn’t want to do the hard work on abortion,” he said, blaming “a lack of leadership” in the party that still has the Republican position muddled.
Guns are another issue where silence is not working. The shooting in Louisville, which left six dead, including the gunman, and eight wounded, kept the issue of guns in the spotlight after last week’s heated showdown in Tennessee — and before a three-day gathering of the National Rifle Association on Friday in Indianapolis. The Kentucky attack was the 15th mass shooting this year in which four or more victims were killed, the largest total in a year’s first 100 days since 2009, according to a USA Today/Associated Press/Northeastern University database.
“You can’t stop paying attention after one horrible event happens. You have to watch what happens afterward,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, 26, a Florida Democrat who last year became the first member of Generation Z to be elected to the House.
Voices for compromise are beginning to bubble up, in some cases from surprising sources. Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, one of the country’s largest anti-abortion groups, said Monday that even she was “somewhat concerned” that the Republican Party might be getting ahead of the voters on abortion. Her organization has drafted model legislation to ban abortion at the state level in every case but when the life of the mother is in grave danger. But, Tobias said, that legislation comes with language to extend those exceptions to the “hard cases,” pregnancies that result from rape or incest, or that might harm a mother’s health.
“We’ve always known the American public does not support abortion for all nine months of a pregnancy,” she said. “They want some limits. We are trying to find those limits.”
She added, “If we can only at this time save 95% of the babies, I am happy to support that legislation.”
Volcano eruption in Russia’s Kamchatka spews vast ash clouds
Associated Press – April 11, 2023
Smoke and ash are visible during the the Shiveluch volcano’s eruption on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, Tuesday, April 11, 2023. Shiveluch, one of Russia’s most active volcanoes, erupted Tuesday, spewing clouds of ash 20 kilometers into the sky and covering broad areas with ash. (Alexander Ledyayev via AP)
MOSCOW (AP) — A volcano erupted early Tuesday on Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, spewing clouds of dust 20 kilometers (65,600 feet) into the sky and covering broad areas with ash.
The ash cloud from the eruption of Shiveluch, one of Kamchatka’s most active volcanoes, extended over 500 kilometers (more than 300 miles) northwest and engulfed several villages in grey volcanic dust.
Officials closed the skies over the area to aircraft. Local authorities advised residents to stay indoors and shut schools in several affected communities. Two villages had their power supplies cut for a few hours until emergency crews restored them.
Ash fell on 108,000 square kilometers (41,699 square miles) of territory, according to the regional branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Geophysical Survey. Scientists described the fallout as the biggest in nearly 60 years.
The village of Klyuchi, which is located about 50 kilometers (some 30 miles) from the volcano, was covered by an 8-centimeter (3-inch) layer of dust. Residents posted videos showing the ash cloud plunging the area into darkness.
Kamchatka Gov. Vladimir Solodov said there was no need for mass evacuation, but added that some residents who have health issues could be temporarily evacuated.
Shiveluch has two parts, the 3,283-meter (10,771-foot) Old Shiveluch, and the smaller, highly active Young Shiveluch.
The Kamchatka Peninsula, which extends into the Pacific Ocean about 6,600 kilometers (4,000 miles) east of Moscow, is one of the world’s most concentrated area of geothermal activity, with about 30 active volcanoes.
Russia’s economy is becoming more ‘primitive’ and war could push it to the same fate as the Soviet Union, says economist targeted by Moscow
Phil Rosen – April 10, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin rides a suburban train in Moscow, Russia, in November 2019.Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Economist Konstantin Sonin said the Russian economy has become more primitive since the war began, Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta reported.
The economist, who Moscow placed on its wanted list, said Russia could follow the Soviet Union’s path toward “complete economic implosion.”
“Everything that is happening makes the Russian economy more primitive, more backwards.”
Russia’s economy is becoming increasingly primitive as its war in Ukraine drags on, and the repercussions could push it down the same path the Soviet Union endured three decades ago, according to the Russian economist and University of Chicago professor Konstantin Sonin.
Sonin, who Moscow targeted with a criminal case in last month, told Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta Sunday that the West’s sanctions so far have had “no influence” on the Russia economy. He said it’s instead been Vladimir Putin’s war efforts that have dragged on growth and fueled turmoil.
“Sanctions are a consequence of Russian planes bombing Ukrainian cities, Russian tanks crawling along Ukrainian roads, and Russian soldiers killing Ukrainians,” he said. “Therefore, talking about the influence of sanctions is like talking about the influence of fever on illness.”
The US has led Europe and other nations in imposing various sanctions on Russia and Russian individuals over the last year, including bans on oil and fuel purchases, as well as price cap mechanisms.
The academic explained that the country’s GDP has contracted 3%, instead of expanding 4% as anticipated. And with consumption and retail activity plunging, citizens have suffered even more than what’s been reflected in GDP.
“Everything that is happening makes the Russian economy more primitive, more backwards,” Konstantin said. “This makes backwardness and primitivism more persistent. And I think we are seriously going to follow the Soviet Union’s path from the 1970s to the complete economic implosion of the late 1980s.”
The collapse has already started, in his view. The Kremlin posted a $29 billion deficit in the first quarter, new data showed, as energy revenue continued to decline.
While Russia’s coming demise may not be as dramatic in scale as the Soviet Union’s fall, since certain parameters exist now that weren’t present decades earlier, the economic drag will be severe, Konstantin said.
“[T]he stagnation can reach the level that will cause the full collapse of the state government machine, as it happened in the 1990s.”
Sea levels rising rapidly in southern U.S., study finds
Ben Adler, Senior Editor – April 10, 2023
Damage after Hurricane Ian Bonita Springs, Fla., Sept. 29, 2022. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
A study published Monday finds sea-level rise along the coast of the southeastern United States has accelerated rapidly since 2010, raising fears that tens of millions of Americans’ homes in cities across the South will be at risk from flooding in the decades to come.
“It’s a window into the future,” Sönke Dangendorf, an assistant professor of river-coastal science and engineering at Tulane University, who co-authored the study that appeared in Nature Communications, told the Washington Post.
That paper and another published last month in the Journal of Climate find that sea levels along the Gulf Coast and the southern Atlantic Coast have risen an average of 1 centimeter per year since 2010. That translates to nearly 5 inches over the last 12 years, and it is about double the rate of average global sea-level rise during the same time period.
The Journal of Climate study found that the hurricanes that have recently hammered the Gulf Coast, including Michael in 2018 and Ian — which was blamed in the deaths of 109 Floridians last year — had a more severe impact because of higher sea levels.
“It turns out that the water level associated with Hurricane Ian was the highest on record due to the combined effect of sea-level rise and storm surge,” Jianjun Yin, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona and the author of the Journal of Climate study, told the Post.
Residents of Houston evacuate their homes after the area was flooded from Hurricane Harvey, Aug. 28, 2017. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show the water level at Lake Pontchartrain, an estuary bordering New Orleans, is eight inches higher than it was in 2006. Other cities threatened by rising oceans in the region include Houston, Miami and Mobile, Ala.
The centimeter-per-year rate is far faster than experts had expected, and it is more in line with projections made for the end of the century, Dagendorf said. High-tide flooding — when the tides bring water onto normally dry land on rain-free days — has more than doubled on the Gulf Coast and Southeast coast since the beginning of this century, according to NOAA. Recent years have seen records for high-tide flooding obliterated. The city of Bay St. Louis, Miss., went from three days of high-tide flooding in 2000 to 22 days in 2020.
A study by scientists with the University of Miami, NOAA, NASA and other institutions, which has not yet undergone peer review, found that the Southeastern sea-level rise accounted for “30%-50% of flood days in 2015-2020.”
“In low-lying coastal regions, an increase of even a few centimeters in the background sea level can break the regional flooding thresholds and lead to coastal inundation,” the study said.
Miami and New Orleans face greater sea-level threat than already feared
Richard Luscombe – April 10, 2023
Photograph: Wilfredo Lee/AP
Coastal cities in the southern US, including Miami, Houston and New Orleans, are in even greater peril from sea-level rise than scientists already feared, according to new analysis.
What experts are calling a dramatic surge in ocean levels has taken place along the US south-eastern and Gulf of Mexico coastline since 2010, one study suggests, an increase of almost 5in (12.7cm).
That “burst”, more than double the global average of 0.17in (0.44cm) per year, is fueling ever more powerful cyclones, including Hurricane Ian, which struck Florida in September and caused more than $113bn of damage – the state’s costliest natural disaster and the third most expensive storm in US history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
The University of Arizona study, published in the Journal of Climate and reported on Monday by the Washington Post, provides an alarming new assessment of a key ingredient of the escalating climate emergency, particularly in popular but vulnerable areas of the US where millions of people live.
Existing projections by Nasa show a sea-level rise up to 12in (30cm) by the middle of the century, with longer-range forecasts even more dire.
The Gulf region from Texas to Florida, and southern Atlantic seaboard will see most of the change, the agency says.
“The entire south-east coast and the Gulf Coast is feeling the impact of the sea-level rise acceleration,” the study’s author Jianjun Yin, professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona, told the Post.
“It turns out that the water level associated with Hurricane Ian was the highest on record due to the combined effect of sea-level rise and storm surge.”
The threat from rising oceans hangs over numerous centers of heavy population located on, or close to the coast. Miami, and Miami Beach, cities often cited as ground zero for the climate emergency, frequently see flooding during high tides. Property insurance rates throughout Florida, which Noaa says has experienced more than 40% of all US hurricane strikes, have soared in recent years.
Earlier this month, the Guardian carried an extract from a new book about how Charleston, South Carolina, is facing a “perfect storm” of rising sea levels and racism that leaves the city, in the view of many observers, living on borrowed time.
“What is likely to happen in Charleston is likely, absent a substantial shift in attitude, to happen in many other coastal cities around the globe,” wrote Susan Crawford, author of Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm.
The Post reported on a second study, published on Monday on nature.com, effectively mirroring the finding of the Arizona analysis that an “acceleration” of sea-level rise was under way.
Researchers at Tulane University, New Orleans, also note that the increase in the Gulf and south-eastern region is greater than the global average, a surge of greater than 0.4in per year they say is “unprecedented in at least 120 years”.
The study, which says the rise is “amplified by internal climate variabilities”, cites storms such as Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, that “illustrate that any further increases in the rate of MSL [mean sea-level] rise, particularly rapid ones, threaten the national security of the US and hamper timely adaptation measures.”
Human activity in the Gulf region, which the researchers refer to as “vertical land motion” (VLM), has played a role, the study continues.
“It is well known that tide gauges in the Gulf of Mexico are subject to significant nonlinear VLM, likely related to oil, gas, or groundwater withdrawal. These nonlinear changes appear predominantly along the western portions of the US Gulf coast (Louisiana and Texas),” it says.
