It’s not summer yet, but climate change is already showing its teeth in 2022
David Knowles, Senior Editor – June 17, 2022
The evidence of how climate change is already affecting our world seems to grow more pronounced with every passing day.
At least 2,000 cows at a Kansas feedlot were killed this week by excessively high temperatures, as the latest record-breaking spring heat wave pushed east across the country.
“This was a true weather event — it was isolated to a specific region in southwestern Kansas,” A.J. Tarpoff, a cattle veterinarian with Kansas State University, told the Associated Press. “Yes, temperatures rose, but the more important reason why it was injurious was that we had a huge spike in humidity … and at the same time, wind speeds actually dropped substantially, which is rare for western Kansas.”
On Wednesday, the National Weather Service advised more than one-third of the U.S. population to remain indoors to protect themselves against that same potentially deadly combination of heat and humidity. Scientists have termed that lethal mix the “wet-bulb” effect. When the body gets hot, it sweats, and the evaporation of that sweat helps cool the body. But when the humidity in the atmosphere is too high, that evaporation isn’t possible, and the sweat doesn’t help cool the body down.
“We need a differential between the human body and the environment, and if the air is already holding as much moisture as it can, you don’t have that gradient,” Radley Horton, Lamont Research Professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told Vice News. “Your body’s not able to get the atmosphere to take that moisture from it.”
While climate scientists had previously predicted that such high temperatures and humidity would not arrive on Earth until the mid-21st century, recent studies have found that “extreme humid heat overall has more than doubled in frequency since 1979.”
Logs pile up on a washed-out bridge near Rescue Creek in Yellowstone National Park on June 13. (National Park Service via Getty Images)
The rain unleashed on Montana was part of a so-called atmospheric river that broke records in Washington state shortly before it pushed east. Studies have linked an increase in those records to rising air and water temperatures caused by climate change.
Meanwhile, the extreme drought that has gripped the American West continues apace. The last 20 years have been the driest two decades in the past 1,200 years. As a result, rivers, lakes and reservoirs are drying up at alarming speed.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing this week on the dwindling water supply in the Colorado River and its reservoirs, including Lake Mead and Lake Powell. In all, 40 million people across the West rely on the Colorado for water.
The arid desert Southwest near Moab, Utah, viewed from 33,000 feet on May 19. (George Rose/Getty Images)
“What has been a slow-motion train wreck for 20 years is accelerating, and the moment of reckoning is near,” John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, testified at the hearing. “We are 150 feet from 25 million Americans losing access to the Colorado River, and the rate of decline is accelerating.”
Water-rationing restrictions have been put in place in California and are likely to be extended there and in other states in the coming months.
The science is crystal clear about why these weather-related disasters continue to pile up: Human beings are pumping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which traps the sun’s radiation, warming temperatures.
For years now, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has measured that buildup at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, charting the steady rise on a graph known as the Keeling Curve.
Ultimately, researchers say, until mankind reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the consequences being witnessed this spring will persist. Just as certainly, they will worsen along with the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Yet there is still much that we don’t know about how climate change will play out in the coming decades. A study published in April in the Cornell University astrophysics journal arXiv concluded that mankind is ushering in an unprecedented shift in the Earth’s climate system. Those changes, contrary to the claim of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., earlier this week, are not likely to prove “healthy for us.”
“The implications of climate change are well known (droughts, heat waves, extreme phenomena, etc),” researcher Orfeu Bertolami told Live Science in an email. “If the Earth System gets into the region of chaotic behavior, we will lose all hope of somehow fixing the problem.”
EPA finds no safe level for two toxic ‘forever chemicals,’ found in many U.S. water systems
Kyle Bagenstose, USA TODAY – June 17, 2022
The Environmental Protection Agency stunned scientists and local officials across the country on Wednesday by releasing new health advisories for toxic “forever chemicals” known to be in thousands of U.S. drinking water systems, impacting potentially millions of people.
The new advisories cut the safe level of chemical PFOA by more than 17,000 times what the agency had previously said was protective of public health, to now just four “parts per quadrillion.” The safe level of a sister chemical, PFOS, was reduced by a factor of 3,500. The chemicals are part of a class of chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as forever chemicals due to their extreme resistance to disintegration. They have been linked to different types of cancer, low birthweights, thyroid disease and other health ailments.
In effect, the agency now says, any detectable amounts of PFOA and PFOS are unsafe to consume.
The announcement has massive implications for water utilities, towns, and Americans across the country.
The Environmental Working Group, a national environmental nonprofit, has tracked the presence of PFOA, PFOS, and other PFAS chemicals in drinking water. Because the chemicals are not yet officially regulated, water systems are not required to test for them. But their use for decades in a range of products such as Teflon and other nonstick cookware, clothing, food packaging, furniture, and numerous industrial processes, means they are widespread in both the environment and drinking water.
Scott Faber, senior vice president with the group, said this week that at least 1,943 public water supplies across the country have been found to contain some amount of PFOS and PFOA. And there are likely many more that contain the chemicals but haven’t tested, Faber said, potentially placing many millions of Americans in harm’s way.
“This will set off alarm bells for consumers, for regulators, and for manufacturers, who thought the previous (advisories) were safe,” Faber said. “I can’t find the words to explain what kind of a moment this is. … The number of people drinking what are, according to these new numbers, unsafe levels of PFAS, is going to grow astronomically.”
Hundreds of barrels of dirt sample collected from a former Wolverine World Wide tannery site in Rockford, March 1, 2019.
Previous research has found Americans have already faced widespread exposure to the chemicals for decades.
More than 96% of Americans have at least one PFAS in their blood, studies show. Dangers are most studied for PFOA and PFOS, which were used heavily in consumer goods before a voluntary agreement between the EPA and industry phased them out of domestic production in the 2000s. Since then, the amount of PFOA and PFOS in the blood of everyday Americans has fallen, but scientists are now concerned about a newer generation of “replacement” chemicals that some studies show are also toxic.
Indeed, EPA on Wednesday released two additional, first-time health advisories for PFAS chemicals GenX, which has contaminated communities along the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, as well as PFBS.
For years, scientists have grown increasingly concerned about how the entire class of chemicals, which number in the thousands, may be impacting public health in the United States. In highly contaminated communities like Parkersburg, West Virginia, studies have linked PFOA to kidney and testicular cancers, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, and other serious ailments.
But other studies have found a range of PFAS may be toxic even at the extremely low levels found in the general population, potentially impacting the immune system, birth weights, cholesterol levels, and even cancer risk.
Philippe Grandjean, a PFAS researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who has called for extremely protective limits on PFAS, said the chemicals don’t have acute toxicity. Consumers shouldn’t expect to fall instantly ill from consuming amounts common in drinking water.
Instead, PFAS work in the background, with risks building up over a lifetime of consumption. His work shows PFAS can decrease the immune response in children. They may come down with more infections than they would otherwise. Vaccinations aren’t as successful, an effect that may even extend to COVID-19 vaccination, a question research is now exploring.
No single individual is likely to know when PFAS caused their illness. But public health officials can detect its presence when studying overall rates, Grandjean said.
“If increased exposures have been in a community, then there will be an increased occurrence of these adverse effects,” Grandjean said.
Equipment used to test for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known collectively as PFAS, in drinking water is seen at Trident Laboratories in Holland, Michigan. As part of its attempt to clean up the chemical, the military is spending millions on research to better detect, understand and filter the chemicals.
Even with deep experience studying PFAS, a primary reaction among Grandjean and other experts to the EPA’s Wednesday announcement was surprise. The agency has grappled with how to handle PFAS for decades and has often been criticized for a perceived lack of action. The thorniest problem is the sheer scope of PFAS: regulating the substances, particularly at very low levels, has nationwide implications for water utilities, industry, and the public.
But the EPA under the Biden administration, Faber said, is signaling they are serious about moving in that direction.
“This administration has pledged to do more, and has accomplished more, than any other,” Faber said.
In releasing the new health advisories, EPA said they fit into a larger picture under the agency’s “Strategic Roadmap.” That includes an intention to propose a formal drinking water regulation for PFOS, PFOA, and potentially other chemicals this fall. The agency also says it is taking a holistic approach to PFAS, with measures planned to clean up contamination hotspots, address PFAS in consumer products, and offer support to impacted communities.
In a press release, the agency says it is making available the first $1 billion of a total of $5 billion in grant funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year to assist communities contaminated with PFAS. Another $6.6 billion is potentially available through existing loan programs for water and sewer utilities.
“People on the front lines of PFAS contamination have suffered for far too long,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in the release. “That’s why EPA is taking aggressive action as part of a whole-of-government approach to prevent these chemicals from entering the environment and to help protect concerned families from this pervasive challenge.”
PFAS foam floats along Van Etten Creek after being dumped from a storm pipe of water treated at a granular activated carbon GAC plant from the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda on Wednesday, March 13, 2019.
But the EPA is already receiving pushback from various corners.
The American Chemistry Council, an industry group representing many of the companies that use PFAS, said it believes the agency’s new advisories are “fundamentally flawed.”
“ACC supports the development of drinking water standards for PFAS based on the best available science. However, today’s announcement … reflects a failure of the agency to follow its accepted practice for ensuring the scientific integrity of its process,” the council said in a release.
Meanwhile, utilities remain skeptical the agency will ultimately do enough to tackle industry and other sources of pollution.
In 2016, Tim Hagey, general manager of the Warminster Municipal Authority in southeast Pennsylvania, came face to face with a nightmare for anyone tasked with providing safe drinking water to the public.
PFOA and PFOS — invisible, odorless, and dangerous — had slipped into the town’s water supply after leaking from nearby military bases. The discovery set off a years-long struggle in Warminster and neighboring communities, which decided to go beyond the EPA’s prior advisory and filter out the chemicals entirely. Hagey said they saw the writing on the wall.
“The EPA told us over the years that the more they study the chemicals, the uglier they are,” Hagey said. “Our local leaders had the courage to say, ‘We’re going to filter to zero.’”
Tim Hagey, left, general manager of Warminster Municipal Authority, speaks with residents during a public information session about water quality in Warminster. The meeting followed the announcement that public and private wells in Warminster (and nearby Horsham) were contaminated by two chemicals used when the Navy was operating the Naval Air Warfare Center.
But the decision was costly, adding up to tens of millions of dollars and requiring significant surcharges on customer water bills.
Hagey said the EPA’s new advisories are a “pleasant surprise” when it comes to protecting public health. But he’s frustrated that the Department of Defense has not yet addressed the contaminated groundwater beneath his town, contributing to ongoing cost fears.
“The aquifer has not been cleaned up. There needs to be leadership on that,” Hagey said.
Emily Remmel, director of regulatory affairs for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents wastewater authorities, said water and sewer utilities across the country are facing similar dilemmas. In many ways, PFAS contamination is unprecedented. The chemicals are everywhere, and the EPA has now found they are dangerous at levels smaller than can even be detected.
“We can’t measure to these levels, we can’t treat to these levels,” Remmel said. “So how do you deal with this from a public health standpoint?”
Remmel said she’d also like to see EPA take more action to get rid of PFAS at the source. Often they come from everyday consumer products that people use and wash down the drain.
“Washing your clothes, washing your face, washing your dishes,” Remmel said.
The costs to remove and dispose of PFAS are astronomical. A filter on a single water well can cost $500,000. Remmel said while the new funding is helpful, it’s also just a “drop in the bucket” for what’s needed across the country.
Ultimately, costs will need to be passed onto water consumers, who have already seen rates rising steeply over the past decade as utilities have invested in other priorities such as replacing lead pipes and outdated sewer infrastructure. Remmel said she wants the EPA to do a better job engaging at the local level to assist with the public health and financial burdens PFAS create.
“This should not be on the backs of municipalities, of ratepayers,” Remmel said.
Kyle Bagenstose covers climate change, chemicals, water and other environmental topics for USA TODAY.
Now 15,000 Millionaires Are Fleeing the Hell of Putin’s Russia
Barbie Latza Nadeau – June 17, 2022
REUTERS
Russia is literally bleeding money. One of President Putin’s great achievements was creating a wealthy elite that was loyal to him, but the wealthiest Russians have now had enough of the pariah nation.
New data released Friday from the British Defense Ministry shows a shocking number of Russian millionaires trying to get the hell out of the the country this year.
“Migration applications suggest that 15,000 Russian millionaires are likely already attempting to leave,” the ministry said, with most heading to the United Arab Emirates and Australia
The news corresponds with a study earlier this week by the London-based Henley & Partners which facilitates residency applications and citizenship applications and which has apparently seen an uptick in Russian applications to get out of dodge since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine Feb. 24 of this year.
The group’s Private Wealth Migration Dashboard keeps tabs on some 150,000 super rich and monitors movement into and out of 62 countries, including Russia and the UAE. Some of the movement of wealthy people was expected after a halt during the height of the pandemic, but the group says geopolitics play a greater role than ever.
The exodus of 15,000 of the richest Russians is part of a huge movement of people unwilling to live under Putin’s increasingly unhinged autocracy. It is unclear if those fleeing will be able to take their assets with them or if Putin has complicated the process.
The Russian economy is in danger of collapsing as sanctions bite and there is no end in sight of restrictions from abroad. The European Union is threatening to end oil and gas imports and growing numbers of individuals, businesses and banks are cut off from international markets.
Dissent has been crushed and Russia’s middle classes and wealthy businessmen feel unable to discuss openly their concerns about Putin’s war in Ukraine.
For many or them, the only answer is to start a new life overseas.
‘Russia is failing’ in Ukraine and has already ‘strategically lost’ the war, says the head of Britain’s armed forces
Chloe Taylor – June 17, 2022
Russia has already “strategically lost” the war in Ukraine and is a “more diminished power” on the world stage as a result of the invasion, according to the U.K.’s defense chief.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, who heads up the British armed forces, told PA Media in an interview published Friday that the Russian president had used 25% of his country’s army but achieved only “tiny” gains.
“This is a dreadful mistake by Russia,” he said. “Russia will never take control of Ukraine. Russia has strategically lost already.”
Radakin explained that Moscow had been forced to abandon its objectives of seizing control of most Ukrainian cities, noting that Russian forces were vulnerable because they were running out of people and military hardware.
“Any notion that this is a success for Russia is nonsense. Russia is failing,” he told PA.
“It might be getting some tactical successes over the last few weeks, and those might continue for the next few weeks—but Russia is losing strategically.”
Spokespersons for the Ukrainian and Russian governments were not immediately available for comment when contacted by Fortune.
‘A disaster for Putin’
Chris Tuck, a reader in strategic studies at King’s College London, told Fortune that although Russian forces were having some tactical successes in limited areas, such as the eastern city of Severodonetsk, strategically the invasion of Ukraine has been “a disaster for Putin and Russia.”
Radakin’s comments, he said, were intended to separate Moscow’s limited successes from the bigger picture of what had been happening in Ukraine.
“Russia has categorically failed to achieve any of the objectives it set out to achieve in the initial stage of the invasion,” Tuck said in a phone call on Friday. “It obviously intended to try and regain control of Ukraine, and of course that hasn’t happened—if anything it’s pushed Ukraine further away.”
He noted that many of Moscow’s other objectives—like the weakening of NATO and the demonstration of Russia’s military power—had also been counterproductive.
One of Russia’s key demands as it amassed thousands of troops at the border it shares with Ukraine before invading its neighbor was that Ukraine should never be permitted to join NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance.
Jonathan Eyal, associate director of strategic research partnerships at defense think tank the Royal United Services Institute, told Fortune on Friday that ultimately, Putin’s strategic objective in Ukraine was to re-create the old Soviet Empire by reimposing control over Ukraine.
“Russia has lost strategically if we assume, as looks likely, that the objective of Putin was to take over Ukraine and transform it into a satellite state under Russian influence,” he said. “So in that respect, Russia has failed strategically. It is now blatantly obvious that Ukraine may not regain full control of all its territory, but it will remain an independent state, and more importantly it will remain a state that will challenge Russian influence in the region.”
However, Eyal added that while it was true that the strategic objective of Russia had failed for the moment, this was merely a snapshot of the situation.
“The final judgment on this sad objective of Putin is yet to be delivered,” he told Fortune.
“The more important question still remains around what lesson Russian leaders draw out of the conflict. The debate is not really on whether Putin has failed strategically, but on whether it would be obvious to Russian decision-makers in the future that this was a disaster.”
Eyal also warned that if Putin succeeds in “grabbing a chunk of Ukraine” and the West remains divided on the country’s future, Russia could still achieve some of its long-term strategic objectives.
“Clearly Putin’s failed, but he may be able to snatch victory out of defeat if we [in the West] do not come to a very decisive conclusion what is going to happen to Ukraine after the fighting is over,” he said. “If Ukraine remains suspended in the air and nobody knows what to do with it, then Russia’s still got a chance to come back at it.”
Heat stress blamed for thousands of cattle deaths in Kansas
June 16, 2022
Thousands of cattle in feedlots in southwestern Kansas have died of heat stress due to soaring temperatures, high humidity and little wind in recent days, industry officials said.
The final toll remains unclear, but as of Thursday at least 2,000 heat-related deaths had been reported to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the state agency that assists in disposing of carcasses. Agency spokesman Matt Lara said he expects that number to rise as more feedlots report losses from this week’s heat wave.
The cattle deaths have sparked unsubstantiated reports on social media and elsewhere that something besides the weather is at play, but Kansas agriculture officials said there’s no indication of any other cause.
Cattle feed at a feed lot near Dodge City, Kansas, March 9, 2007. Thousands of cattle in feedlots in southwestern Kansas have died of heat stress amid soaring temperatures coupled with high humidity and little wind in recent days, industry officials said Thursday, June, 16, 2022.ORLIN WAGNER / AP
“This was a true weather event — it was isolated to a specific region in southwestern Kansas,” said A.J. Tarpoff, a cattle veterinarian with Kansas State University. “Yes, temperatures rose, but the more important reason why it was injurious was that we had a huge spike in humidity … and at the same time wind speeds actually dropped substantially, which is rare for western Kansas.”
Last week, temperatures were in the 70s and 80s, but on Saturday they spiked higher than 100 degrees, said Scarlett Hagins, spokeswoman for the Kansas Livestock Association.
“And it was that sudden change that didn’t allow the cattle to acclimate that caused the heat stress issues in them,” she said.https://2bfa6c9b6538fcc17b8fb63e5c030472.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
The deaths represent a huge economic loss because the animals, which typically weigh around 1,500 pounds, are worth around $2,000 per head, Hagins said. Federal disaster programs will help some producers who incurred a loss, she added.
And the worst may be over. Nighttime temperatures have been cooler and — as long as there is a breeze — the animals are able to recover, Tarpoff said.
Hagins said heat-related deaths in the industry are rare because ranchers take precautions such as providing extra drinking water, altering feeding schedules so animals are not digesting during the heat of the day, and using sprinkler systems to cool them down.
“Heat stress is always a concern this time of year for cattle and so they have mitigation protocols put in place to be prepared for this kind of thing,” she said.
Many cattle had still not shed their winter coats when the heatwave struck.
“This is a one in 10-year, 20-year type event. This is not a normal event,” said Brandon Depenbusch, operator of the Innovative Livestock Services feedlot in Great Bend, Kansas. “It is extremely abnormal, but it does happen.”
While his feedlot had “zero problems,” he noted that his part of the state did not have the same combination of high temperatures, high humidity, low winds and no cloud cover that hit southwestern Kansas.
Elsewhere, cattle ranchers haven’t been so hard hit.
The Nebraska Department of Agriculture and the Nebraska Cattlemen said they have received no reports of higher-than-normal cattle deaths in the state, despite a heat index of well over 100 degrees this week.
Oklahoma City National Stockyards President Kelli Payne said no cattle deaths have been reported since temperatures topped 90 degrees last Saturday, after rising from the mid 70s starting June 1.
“We have water and sprinklers here to help mitigate heat and the heat wave,” Payne said, but “we don’t have any control over that pesky Mother Nature.”
Ukrainian Farmers Poison Russian Troops With Spiked Cherries as Guerrilla War Terrifies Invaders
Allison Quinn – June 16, 2022
Russian authorities have gone all out to tighten their grip on cities taken over by Putin’s troops in eastern Ukraine, but ordinary citizens are fighting back—with arson attacks and poisoned fruit.
The latest surprise for Russian troops came in Melitopol, where Mayor Ivan Fyodorov said local farmers had caused “mass illness” among Russians by poisoning cherries.
“Our farmers prepared another gift for the [Russians]—recently treated sweet cherries, which caused mass illness among those who stole them from the farmers. It’s the latest kind of partisan resistance on the territory of Melitopol,” Fyodorov told local reporters on Thursday.
He said pro-Ukrainian sentiment remains strong in the city, despite Russian authorities portraying themselves as saviors who “rescued” residents from Ukraine.
“Melitopol residents fully ignored the celebration of Russia Day. The whole country saw—last Sunday only 15 people out of 70,000 residents who stayed in the temporarily occupied city stood in line for [Russian] passports,” he said.
Even Russian troops in the Kherson region appear to be keenly aware of the Ukrainian resistance, according to audio released Thursday by Ukraine’s Security Service.
In a nearly two-minute recording of what Ukrainian intelligence describes as an intercepted call between Putin’s troops, a man identified as a soldier tells his friends the guys on the front line there are “going crazy.”
“Where they are located… no one is sure about the locals: who they are, what they’re doing. Maybe they are fucking with us at night, while they’re peaceful people during the day. No one can be trusted. An old woman walking around with pies might be a fucking colonel acting as an artillery spotter at night.”
Russian authorities have begun opening up passport processing centers in the occupied territories, and in Kherson, residents were informed this week that any babies born after Feb. 24 would automatically be given Russian passports, Russia’s RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
But Ukrainian residents are not letting them get off easy for the forced “Russification.” A new report by the Institute for the Study of War this week listed a series of recent guerrilla-style attacks by Ukrainian partisans in cities including Berdyansk and Mariupol.
“Russian authorities are continuing to face difficulties implementing their occupation agendas due to pro-Ukrainian pressure in occupied areas,” the report noted, describing teachers “refusing to teach under Russian curricula” in Berdyansk and “unidentified Ukrainian partisans” targeting staffers of Russia’s Emergency Ministry in Mariupol.
Petro Andriushchenko, an aide to the Mariupol mayor, described the latter incident in a post on Telegram on Wednesday.
He said two tractors and three large truck trailers parked outside the Russian Emergency Ministry’s headquarters “suddenly” went up in flames on July 9 due to an arson attack.
Two days later, he said, on the eve of the city’s “Day of Russia” celebrations, a staffer for the same ministry was stabbed in the back while standing in a crowd.
“The injury turned out to be fatal,” he said. “We’re talking to you, scum. Start looking behind you. Retribution is already near.”
“At first, the Russians destroyed Mariupol and its residents,” he said.
“Now, a Russian missile hit a car with the World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid, which was supposed to feed Donetsk Oblast and will now affect Mariupol residents in the YaMariupol centers.”
Mariupol was under siege by the Russian invaders for almost three months. Russia’s actions led to a large-scale humanitarian catastrophe, as the invaders bombed residential areas and civilian infrastructure, as well as continually blocking humanitarian aid.
In Severodonetsk, Ukrainian military controls a third of the city, and industrial zone
June 15, 2022
A third of Severodonetsk with the industrial zone remain under control of the Ukrainian military
Stryuk said that there had been no major changes to the situation. The military continue to hold their positions. Last night, there was heavy shelling, with the Russians using Grad multiple launch rocket systems and heavy artillery to attack Ukrainian positions.
US military veterans training Ukrainian frontline troops say NATO’s artillery and rocket launchers are essential for Ukraine to beat Russia
Cheryl Teh – June 15, 2022
Ukrainian soldiers man a howitzer during artillery drills in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv Region.Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images US military veterans training Ukrainian frontline troops say NATO’s artillery and rocket launchers are essential for Ukraine to beat Russia
US military veterans training Ukrainian soldiers said Ukraine needs NATO weapons to beat Russia.
They said Ukrainian forces might be overwhelmed without more modern, long-range weaponry.
“It’s a bit of a slugfest,” Martin Wetterauer, a Marine veteran, said of the war.
A group of US military veterans currently training Ukrainian soldiers said Ukraine needs more NATO weapons to win its war with Russia.
Officers in the Mozart Group told Newsweek that modern, long-range artillery would help Ukrainian forces fend off the Russian offensive.
“It’s a bit of a slugfest,” Martin Wetterauer, a Marine veteran and the Mozart Group’s chief operations officer, told Newsweek from the organization’s outpost in Zaporizhzhia.
Wetterauer told the outlet that the Ukrainians were under heavy fire from Russian artillery and said that NATO’s artillery systems and aircraft would be essential to help eliminate Russian defense lines in the Donbas region.
Steve K., an operations manager in the group who declined to give Newsweek his full name, agreed with Wetterauer and highlighted the US-made Multiple Launch Rocket System and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System as being vital tools for the Ukrainian war effort.
“They need the artillery, they need rounds,” Steve K. told the outlet. “If we do not continue with that supply, they won’t be able to hold them back.”
Per Newsweek, Wetterauer added that the Ukrainians do not underestimate the Russians’ capabilities and expressed confidence in their chances of winning if they received the right equipment.
“If we can increase their skill set, then ultimately over time hopefully they’ll get better and more advanced weapon systems,” Wetterauer said, per the outlet. “With the fighting spirit that they have, there’s no doubt they will turn this war. It’s just going to take a while.”
One Surprising Theory Why the Philippines Has Very Few Mass Shootings—Despite Easy Access to Lots of Guns
Chad de Guzman / Manila – June 15, 2022
Shop assistants pose with various handgu
Shop assistants pose with various handguns at the Defense and Sporting Arms show at a shopping mall in Manila on July 16, 2009. Credit – TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images
Mass shootings are a result of a confluence of factors, but at the heart of the problem are guns—of which the Philippines has plenty. Firearms are sold openly in malls, and almost anyone can carry them, even priests and accountants.
Fixers can reportedly take care of formalities standing in the way of gun ownership, such as drug and psychological tests, and there are estimated to be some four million firearms in the nation of 110 million people. Hundreds of thousands of weapons are illegally owned. Poverty, corruption, crime, and outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs have left deep social scars.
No consensus has been reached in the Philippines over what sets a mass shooting apart from other gun deaths, but indiscriminate slayings are uncommon. When eight people died and 11 were injured after a drunk gunman began firing wildly in the southern province of Cavite back in 2013, the tragedy was notable for its sheer rarity.
To be clear, homicides involving firearms are a fact of life in the Philippines. Hitmen can be hired for as little as $300. In fact, the Philippines is one of the deadliest places in Asia when it comes to firearm homicides. The country saw over 1,200 intentional killings using firearms in 2019. This meant guns killed one in every 100,000 people in the Southeast Asian country—one of the highest rates in Asia. (In 2020, the comparable figure for the U.S. is four.)
Elections can be particularly bloody times, with lethal attacks on poll officers and political rivals. One of the country’s worst killings, the 2009 Maguindanao massacre of 58 people, took place during a gubernatorial election. But it was a political atrocity. Shootings not related to politics or crime are uncommon—and there has been nothing as extreme as Columbine, Sandy Hook, or Uvalde.
“I think it’s just a matter of time,” says Gerry Caño, Dean of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Cagayan de Oro College. “I think our authorities and the public safety practitioners are just waiting for that time to happen, considering that Philippine culture is greatly influenced by the West, particularly the United States.”
For now, though, powerful social factors continue to have a restraining effect on indiscriminate violence. Philippine academic Raymund Narag, a criminology associate professor at Southern Illinois University and a former prisoner himself, says mass shootings in his native country are in part deterred by hiyâ, a Tagalog word meaning shame or embarrassment. Avoidance of hiyâ, and sparing one’s family and community from it, is often described as a core Philippine value.
“It reflects on you, and reflects on your family,” Narag says. “When I was jailed, our entire clan felt humiliated.”
Visitors view displayed firearms during the Tactical, Survival and Arms Expo in Pasay City, the Philippines, Nov.15, 2019.Rouelle Umali/Xinhua via Getty
Gun culture in the Philippines
While the right to bear arms isn’t enshrined in the nation’s constitution, as it is in the United States, there is no denying the Philippine love of guns.
When the U.S. colonized the Philippines in the early 1900s, private citizens were allowed to own high-powered guns for “lawful purposes” and hunting. After Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, owners were limited to one low-powered rifle and a pistol or revolver—and both had to be licensed. But in 2000, President Joseph Estrada lifted these limits and allowed citizens to possess as many guns as they wanted, of any type and caliber.
A 2013 law set down qualifications for owning guns and carrying them in public. Licensed gun owners had to be 21 years old and take a firearm safety seminar, among other requirements. Depending on their license, most owners could possess up to 15 handguns, rifles and shotguns (collectors are allowed more than 15). Licenses were issued for as long as 10 years.
Before he was president, Estrada was a gun-wielding hero in action movies—a genre beloved of Filipinos for playing up machismo and depicting shootouts as legitimate forms of defense in a crime-riddled country. The action movie craze certainly helped Filipinos embrace gun culture.
In some of the country’s poorest communities, guns became a common sight among warring gangs, who sourced low-priced firearms from illegal sellers. Shooting clubs opened for those with more money and an interest in shooting for sport. Many affluent Filipinos took up gun collecting, while the wealthiest citizens began enthusiastically arming their bodyguards.
But despite the glorification of firearms, when gun violence takes place, the victims are rarely random bystanders in movie theaters or shopping malls. Almost a quarter of the Philippine population falls below the poverty line and “the money or the reward seems to be the best motivating factor” in many homicide cases involving firearms, Caño says.
In January, a provincial hitman admitted to committing his crime in exchange for $500 to help his child, who was suffering from meningitis. In April, another gunman confessed to killing a mechanic for $400.
Displaced children playing with wooden toy guns inside a temporary shelter area in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, on August 22, 2018, in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, southern Philippines.Jes Aznar/Getty Images
How hiyâ plays a role in social control
Narag says the strong ties of Philippine kinship mean troubled individuals are more likely to be identified before they become mass shooters. He contrasts that with the situation in the U.S., where he presently lives and teaches.
“Here, if you have problems, you have to go to a health professional,” he tells TIME. “You’ll divulge everything there. You don’t talk to your neighbors—sometimes you don’t talk to your own parents—because [there isn’t] an engaged culture where one’s problem is everyone’s problem.”
Jose Antonio Clemente, a professor of social psychology at the University of the Philippines, says community is everything. “At an early age, we are trained to give importance to our families and our relationships,” he says. “Maybe at some point we’re also taught to value our community, since there are a lot of communities that are very close-knit because of the high population density.”
National police do have mass shooting protocols in place. Authorities have also suggested an increased police presence on college campuses to deter insurgent groups from recruiting students. But it seems that ingrained values in the Philippines are restraining people from using guns indiscriminately.
Whether that is enough is up for debate. For now, however, hiyâ means you cannot “just start shooting people,” Narag says. “Because if that happens, you know the community won’t support you.”
