Month: July 2021
Girl’s prayer at collapse site leads to meeting with Biden
News 4 Jax
Girl’s prayer at collapse site leads to meeting with Biden
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SURFSIDE, Fla. – Gazing at the mountain of rubble that had buried her father, uncle and dozens of others, a 12-year-old girl moved away from her relatives, sat down by herself and pulled out her phone. She opened a collection of Psalms and began to pray.
Elisheva Cohen’s moment of reflection at the site of the Florida condominium collapse captivated the Surfside mayor and led to an introduction to President Joe Biden, who asked to meet her Thursday when he arrived to console families affected by the disaster.
For days, families were kept away from the collapse site, which had been deemed unsafe. Then earlier this week, relatives were taken there briefly. Some shouted the names of loved ones and friends, hoping to hear their cries for help. Others cried.
Elisheva sat down alone, away from her mother and brother, and began to read prayers.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett soon noticed her. He knelt down beside her to ask if she was OK.
“Yes” the girl told him.
“And that really brought it home to me,” Burkett said. “She wasn’t crying. She was just lost. She didn’t know what to do, what to say, who to talk to.”
Only six months ago, Elisheva celebrated her bat mitzvah with her mother and father, Dr. Brad Cohen, one of about 120 people missing under the rubble. The year that precedes the religious ceremony involves intensive study of Hebrew, the Bible and history.
That night, Dr. Cohen was proud. His youngest daughter was growing up and reaffirming her Jewish identity. Her father instilled a love for the teaching in both Elisheva and her teenage brother.
Before Dr. Cohen completed his medical residency and internships, he had spent weekends staying at the home of his mentor Rabbi Yakov Saachs, always desperate to learn more about his faith.
On his long commutes, he played cassette tapes, hungry to learn the teachings.
“Even though he was dog tired, it was a priority for him to try and glean as much information as he could,” Saachs told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
At Brad Cohen’s urging, the entire family became “more observant,” the rabbi said, following customs about not driving or doing business on the Sabbath.
The night before the collapse, her mother sent a message to Cohen with a selfie taken by Elisheva in front of a mirror. She wore a pink T-shirt with a high ponytail. They were staying in separate homes.
“Look how pretty,” the message read.
She was wearing the same outfit the next morning, when her mother “frantically woke her up” to tell her about the collapse.
For several days, Burkett shared Elisheva’s story far and wide. After Biden’s visit was announced, the girl’s mother, Soriya Cohen, bought her a new blue and white dress for the occasion. Her teenage brother was the first one in the family chosen to meet Biden. He had rushed home from a kibbutz in Israel as soon as he heard about the collapse.
But the teen had already arranged to have a class with a rabbi in Miami during the president’s visit.
“He said, ‘I already made a commitment,’” Saachs said. “So he said no.”
The mother also skipped the meeting with Biden, saying she felt the president’s visit was a diversion from the search efforts. Elisheva went with another family member.
The mayor said the most moving moment of Biden’s visit was when he shared Elisheva’s story with the president.
“I wanted him to know and see the face of that little girl who is praying for her father across from the rubble,” he said. “He looked at me and said, ‘Would you please bring her to me right now?’”
Police went to get Elisheva. Biden walked up to her and they hugged.
Associated Press Writer Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, also contributed to this report.
The Mega Heat Dome Over The Pacific Northwest Has Brought Death, Fire, And Misery
BuzzFeed News
The Mega Heat Dome Over The Pacific Northwest Has Brought Death, Fire, And Misery
Across the Pacific Northwest and into Canada, a record-breaking heat wave has pushed death tolls into staggering territory. In British Columbia alone, at least 500 heat-related deaths have been recorded since last Friday. In Oregon, 95 deaths have been attributed to scorching temperatures, as well as about 20 in Washington.
The past week has brought unprecedented temperatures to a region of North America ill-equipped to handle extreme heat as authorities struggle to respond to thousands of emergency calls, hundreds of deaths, and explosive wildfires. The unprecedented event is also a sign of more danger to come as climate change leads to more extreme weather across the country.
Many of the people killed or at risk of heat-related illness were children, older people, or those who live alone in a region where many people do not have air conditioning.
“For some folks, especially those who are elderly and those who are otherwise ill, they may not have the same [bodily] mechanisms built in. And if you don’t have access to clean water, if you don’t have access to a place to get cool, you could get overheated very quickly,” said Vasisht Srinivasan, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Washington. “It’s a very serious problem. When you have folks who are poor or don’t have access to stable housing, who don’t have access to housing with temperature control … the problem really starts to compound itself.”
David Jones, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, said one difficulty in treating heat-related illness is recognizing the symptoms, which can range from grumpiness to feeling lightheaded and cramping.
“It may not even be the heat that is the problem, but it is kind of exacerbating their own underlying condition,” Jones said. “And because of the heat, it kind of puts an extra stress on their body … which makes it dangerous for them.”
Srinivasan said that pandemic-era restrictions made people afraid to leave their homes for crowded cooling centers, and the heat wave forced hospitals to dip into reserves of cooling blankets and fans.
“Now on top of [COVID], you add a temporary, but very real, additional health crisis and hospitals are finding themselves sort of at the brink,” Srinivasan said. “This weekend, when dozens of patients arrived simultaneously with the same problems, resources tend to get strapped very quickly.”
The heat wave began last Friday when high pressure in the atmosphere forced warm air toward the ground. The compressed, warm air has been trapped under that high pressure in what meteorologists call a heat dome, which is rare for the Pacific Northwest region.
“The North West Territories have recorded their all-time highest temperatures not just in June, but at any point in the year,” Armel Castellan, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said
in a statement, adding that fewer than than 40% of homes on the coast have air conditioning. “We are setting records that have no business in being set so early in the season.”
Vancouver police spokesperson Tania Visintin confirmed 53 sudden deaths, in which the cause of death is not known and a coroner is called in to run an investigation, were reported on Tuesday alone, bringing the total since last Friday to 98. Two-thirds of the victims were 70 or older and the vast majority of deaths have occurred in homes.
“At times, there were officers going from one sudden death to another for their entire 12-hour shift,” Visintin said, adding that the department was forced to stop answering any nonurgent calls and deploy extra officers. “It is typical for three to four sudden death calls to come in each day in the city. But to have 53 in one day is unprecedented … it is truly gut-wrenching.”
The spokesperson added that “heat is looking like the obvious factor for most of the deaths,” although the British Columbia Coroners Service is still investigating. As of Thursday afternoon, the spokesperson said names and descriptions of the victims could not be provided.
“We’ve never seen anything like this, and it breaks our hearts,” Vancouver Police Sgt. Steve Addison said in a statement. “If you have an elderly or vulnerable family member, please give them a call or stop by to check on them.”
Scientists and health experts have attributed the record-setting temperatures to the climate crisis — and warn that it’s only going to get worse going forward.
“We cannot just turn up the AC; we have to turn up our level of efforts fighting the underlying cause of our changing world — climate change,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wrote Tuesday in a Seattle Times op-ed. “Our recent discomfort is but the tip of the melting iceberg. What we felt this week is just the opening act in a looming global disaster.
The Oregon state medical examiner reported 95 heat-related deaths as of Friday. Temperature records were set across the state, with Portland reaching an all-time high of 116 degrees on Monday, the Oregonian reported.
“I’ve lived in Portland for the past 10 years, and when I got here, Portland was a very temperate city,” Jones said. “And over the course of that time, I think, in the wintertime, we’re seeing more snow, and in the summertime, we’re seeing more prolonged heat spells.”
He added that the city will have to adapt to address public health threats as heat waves become a more permanent presence.
“That’s going to mean more cooling stations throughout the city, that’s going to mean easier access to water, that’s going to mean shade and shelter, either provision or opportunities for people,” Jones said. “It’s one thing to talk about a hot day, it’s a whole other thing to talk about a hot two weeks.”
The casualties reveal the dangers of extreme weather to laborers too. Sebastian Francisco Perez, a 38-year-old farmworker from Guatemala, died in Oregon after being found unresponsive in a field as temperatures reached 104 degrees. A spokesperson for the Oregon Health and Safety Administration said the agency is investigating Brother Farm Labor Contractor and Ernst Nursery and Farms regarding his death last week
The farm declined BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.
Rebecca Muessle, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Portland, told BuzzFeed News the region has gone more than 40 years “without hitting a record like this,” adding that the rarity of the event makes it difficult to conclude that the heat wave is in fact indicative of future weather patterns.
Muessle said this particular heat wave had all of the right “ingredients” to be particularly brutal: the high pressure system, easterly winds bringing additional warmer air into the area, and the “incredibly deep layer of hot air” that manifested the heat dome system. Also missing were westerly winds that are typically responsible for bringing in cooler air from the Pacific Ocean.
“We just had no reprieve,” Muessle said. “So it was just almost like a blow-dryer of hot easterly winds that just kept the temperatures rising and rising.”
In Washington, Seattle set an all-time record on Monday when temperatures reached 107 degrees. A spokesperson for the Washington Department of Health told BuzzFeed News that since June 25, there have been 1,792 emergency department visits reported by hospitals for suspected heat-related illness across the state. Nearly 400 of those led to an inpatient admission and nearly 40% of patients seen for suspected heat-related illness were 65 years and older.
Seattle Fire Department spokesperson Kristin Tinsley told BuzzFeed News there have been “many sleepless nights for our on-duty crews who work 24-hour shifts.”
“We first set the record on June 27 for the busiest day of Seattle Fire medical and fire responses, 386 responses, and then a day later on June 28, we broke the record again with 544 responses,” they added.
Kevin Mundt with the Seattle Human Services Department told BuzzFeed News that of the 118 combined heat-related medical responses between June 26 and June 28, 11% were for unhoused people. The median age for heat-related medical responses was 67 years old, and most involved older people overheating in indoor living quarters, he added.
“Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to gain access to [cool places],” Srinivasan said. “Lots of people in Seattle decided to pick a mini staycation and go get a hotel room for the weekend. Now, that’s great for the people who are able to do that, to have the resources to be able to do that, but unfortunately not everyone is able to do that.”
Raging wildfires spurred by the record-setting temperatures and drought paint an even grimmer picture in the Northwest down into California. On Thursday, more than 1,200 firefighters attacked the Lava fire near Mount Shasta, which had grown to nearly 24,000 acres.
Lytton, British Columbia, was almost entirely razed by a fast-moving wildfire Wednesday, forcing most of the town’s 1,000 residents to flee in record heat that hit 121 degrees.
And in Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency in response to the 10,000-acre Wrentham Market fire, the Statesman Journal reported. Another blaze, the Sunset Valley Fire, broke out Thursday near the Dalles, burning brush and wheat and causing evacuations and road closures.
Brown said in a statement on Wednesday that a large portion of the state was in extreme fire danger, and she readied every possible resource to combat the blazes.
“There’s a very real chance that we’re going to get more of these in the future,” Srinivasan said of the climate crisis. “And these aren’t going to be surprise isolated heat waves: ‘Oh my god, once in a century.’ I think this is going to be ‘Cool, it’s that time of year again,’ where this happens every year now.”
In push to end gerrymandering, an unlikely state steps into the spotlight
NBC News
In push to end gerrymandering, an unlikely state steps into the spotlight
PORT HURON, Mich. — In a country where Democrats and Republicans have spent the past year battling over allegations of election fraud and attempts at voter suppression, the earnest scene playing out in a conference room here last week almost didn’t make sense.
The stakes were high. A commission charged with redrawing Michigan’s political boundaries was preparing to make crucial decisions that could affect the future of the state — and even the nation.
Yet there was no heckling, no chanting, no catcalls.
Instead, the roughly 70 people gathered in a brightly lit convention hall at the base of an international bridge that connects Michigan with Canada listened respectfully as one speaker after another offered ideas for how the state’s legislative and congressional districts should be drawn.
An environmental advocate asked for a district linking towns along the nearby St. Clair river so future representatives might prioritize its water quality.
A Methodist pastor requested a district that would consider the needs of religious voters, keeping churchgoers together.
A farmer and union leader asked for the rural and tourism communities in Michigan’s thumb region — named for its location in the mitten-shaped state — to be grouped together in a district separate from the industrial areas closer to Detroit. That way, he said, the thumb would have elected officials focused on agriculture rather than on industry.
“I don’t think we get a fair shake up here,” said the farmer, Dick Cummings, 78.
This genteel display of civic discourse was part of a new nonpartisan effort by Michigan to redraw its political boundaries this year. The approach — handing redistricting power over to a 13-member independent citizens commission — is being watched by other states with interest, said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center For Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy organization at New York University Law School.
“I can’t overstate how many eyes are on Michigan right now,” Li said.
Michigan has some of the most gerrymandered political boundaries in the nation, Li said. The sprawling districts twist and turn to give electoral advantages to Republicans, who drew the lines a decade ago.
The state has also had some of the fiercest political fights of recent years. Protesters stormed the statehouse with assault weapons to protest Covid-19 restrictions last spring, and supporters of former President Donald Trump pounded on the windows of a Detroit convention center as election workers counted votes after the November election. Last fall, 13 men were charged with attempting to kidnap the state’s Democratic governor.
So if an independent commission can draw fair political districts here that meet legal requirements and that can survive an expected flood of court challenges, it could serve as a model for other states to follow, Li said. Eventually, that could lead to fairer elections across the country — and maybe even a less rancorous political dynamic.
“A lot of people are rooting for Michigan now because the state looked hopeless in a lot of ways,” Li said.
If Michigan can do it, he added, “there’s a lot of hope for other places that also might seem hopeless.”
‘Just trying to work together’
Most states are preparing to redraw legislative and congressional districts after the 2020 federal census in the same way they always have: People in power will work behind closed doors to create districts designed to give their party an electoral edge for the coming decade.
The traditional partisan method has led in the past to strangely shaped districts in some states that zigzag to ensure that as many districts as possible are “safe” for the party drawing them up. The opposing party either gets packed into single districts, or carved up so its political power is diluted.
Critics say the approach — called gerrymandering — is a major reason the nation’s politics have become so deeply partisan. Since candidates running in safe districts typically don’t need to worry about the general election, they’re more likely to cater to the hard-core party stalwarts who vote in low-turnout primaries by adopting more extreme views.
“Some of the divide we’re seeing right now is that legislatures know they don’t have to be 100 percent responsive,” said Hannah Wheelan, a senior analyst with the electoral innovation lab at Princeton University. “A lot of their districts are safe, and they’re going to be able to win them no matter what.”
Voters then don’t feel like their votes matter, she said, which drives down turnout and puts even more power into the hands of party bosses.
Gerrymandering in Michigan 10 years ago, after the last census, was so effective for the Republican Party that the GOP has maintained a majority in both legislative houses for the last decade, though Democrats have won a majority of votes in some elections, including 2018 when they swept four statewide offices and earned more votes in legislative races overall.
This time, however, the process will be different, thanks to a grassroots effort that began in 2016, when a Michigan woman lamented the effects of gerrymandering on Facebook.
Her post went viral, bringing out volunteers who gathered more than 400,000 signatures to put a proposed redistricting change on the state ballot. The measure overcame a host of legal challenges and, in 2018, won overwhelming support from voters who amended the state Constitution to create the independent commission.
The voters made Michigan one of four states, along with Arizona, California and Colorado, that have removed elected officials and political parties from the process of redrawing political lines.
Michigan’s new process doesn’t even use elected officials to choose the members of the commission.
The 13 commissioners — four Democrats, four Republicans and five independents — were chosen by lottery from among 9,000 applicants. The secretary of state last summer randomly selected 200 semifinalists using a statistical weighting process to ensure diversity and statewide representation. Political parties only had the power to remove a limited number of candidates who they thought would be particularly partisan before the 13 commissioners were randomly chosen.
The commissioners, including lawyers, a retired banker, a medical student and a trauma practitioner who works with survivors of violent crimes, will start drawing political lines this summer or fall once final census numbers are available. The maps will apply to Congressional and legislative races next year.
Districts must comply with state and federal laws and be similarly sized with reasonable, not zigzagging shapes. The commission, which does its work in public meetings, must also consider “communities of interest,” which could be anything — a religious group, a group of people who work in the same industry or people who send their children to a particular school. The goal is to keep voters in those communities together in a district, so that they can more powerfully lobby for their views.
Learning about these communities was one the goals of the 16 public meetings the commission held in May and June, including the one last week in Port Huron.
More than a thousand people have addressed the commission. Hundreds more have submitted comments and proposed maps online.
All of the public meetings have been as peaceful and civil as the one in Port Huron, said Douglas J. Clark Jr., 74, a Republican commissioner from the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills. At some meetings, he said, people have applauded every speaker.
Not everyone will be happy with the new districts, said Clark, a retired operations and development manager. That’s not possible given the broad range of opinions people have expressed. But he believes the lines drawn through this process will be better than the ones drawn by political parties.
“We’re going to represent the public a lot better than they did,” Clark said. “The Republicans aren’t forcing anything Republican. The Democrats aren’t forcing anything Democrat. We’re all just trying to work together to get these maps drawn in a nonpartisan way.”
‘David overcoming Goliath’
The commissioners’ goals are lofty, but the process could be messy. A couple of lawsuits have already tried to stop the commission’s work — unsuccessfully, so far — and more are likely once maps are drawn, said Nancy Wang, the president of Voters Not Politicians, the nonpartisan advocacy organization that wrote the constitutional amendment and led the campaign to pass it.
Many in Michigan oppose the process, particularly Republicans who would have had the power to draw districts again this year.
Tori Sachs, the executive director of the conservative Michigan Freedom Fund, whose former director filed a lawsuit last year to stop the commission, said in a statement that the focus on communities of interest seems like just another form of gerrymandering.
“Activists are asking the Commission to gerrymander maps that divide communities based on partisan political issues,” she said in the statement, citing reports that describe potential communities of interest formed around political issues like the environment or immigration.
“That’s a mistake,” Sachs said. “Voters established a nonpartisan commission to draw fair maps and avoid gerrymandering. They deserve a commission that does what it promised.”
Advocates for overhauling redistricting across the country worry that a botched process in Michigan, whether that’s maps thrown out in court, a chaotic rollout or unfair lines that everyone hates, could harm the national movement. But, as Wang sees it, the fact that the process is happening here at all is a sign of progress.
“This really was David overcoming Goliath,” she said. “People in power are doing everything they can to fight this, but this is what the people want.”
When Arizona became the first state to use an independent redistricting commission after the 2000 census, it was something of a curiosity, Wang said.
When California followed suit in 2010, the effort won attention and applause. But Colorado and Michigan adopting the approach this year has the potential to show that the idea can work more broadly, Wang said.
“If you add Michigan to the mix, it just builds a case that you can’t really refute.”
Ranchers cut cattle herds as drought reduces pasture, forage supplies
Red Tide, stench of dead fish threatens St. Petersburg’s Fourth of July
Tribune Publishing
Red Tide, stench of dead fish threatens St. Petersburg’s Fourth of July
ST. PETERSBURG — Nick Finch’s son Wallace turns 4 next week. The father planned to celebrate during the Fourth of July weekend by grilling Sunday and taking his son’s friends to Lassing Park to swim out to the sandbar.
That was before thousands of dead fish showed up this week.
Finch, 27, did his best to withstand the odor on Thursday as he kicked a soccer ball with his son in the park.
“I’m not sure how long we’ll be outside with that smell,” Finch said.
That will be a question asked by many this Fourth of July Weekend as the stench of rotting fish fills the downtown waterfront.
The Red Tide blooms that have afflicted the region for weeks, producing fish kills and respiratory warnings, is now sending waves of dead fish piling up from North Shore Park south to the St. Pete Pier to Demens Landing and Lassing Parks.
Crews scooped dead fish from the shore on Wednesday, said Finch, who lives in Old Southeast, but they keep washing up.
Ben Kirby, the spokesperson for Mayor Rick Kriseman, said crews are busy cleaning up the waterfront to prepare for Fourth of July festivities and for the potential arrival of Tropical Storm Elsa. Florida is now within the storm’s cone of uncertainty and it is expected to reach the Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday.
The toxic algal blooms are a frequent menace along Florida’s west coast and it’s not unprecedented for outbreaks to occur within the bay. But Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission research scientist Kate Hubbard said this Red Tide outbreak stands out.
“It’s unusual to have the levels we’re seeing, and to have them this time of year,” Hubbard said. Her department is ramping up water testing and investigating fish kills to respond to the severe blooms.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Red Tide map shows a medium concentration of Karenia brevis, which causes the blooms, was found off the tip of Bayboro Harbor and low concentrations off the St. Pete Pier and Big Bayou directly off the St. Petersburg coast.
Winds pushed Red Tide into the bay, and the heavy rains that followed the recent drought may have helped the blooms grow by washing nutrients into the water, Hubbard said. Scientists are also investigating whether there’s a link to the 215 million gallons of polluted wastewater dumped into Tampa Bay in April from the old Piney Point fertilizer plant in Manatee County.
“Looking ahead 3½ days, it looks like there will still be Red Tide in the bay,” she said. She added that the Pinellas beaches along the Gulf have seen a recent drop in blooms. County officials say the Fort De Soto Park beaches still have medium and high concentrations, however.
At the far end of Demens Landing Park, rocks trapped in the dead sea creatures. John Lambo hadn’t seen them yet, but despite the smoke of his cigar, he could still smell them.
“It would probably keep me from coming here if I thought it was going to be like this every day,” said Lambo, who’s visiting from Houston.
Floating fish carcasses bobbed around the boats docked at the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina and under the long concrete walkway of the St. Pete Pier. After an hour and no bites, Pablo Barbosa gave up on fishing off the pier.
“As soon as I saw it, I knew exactly what was going on,” said Barbosa. He visited St. Petersburg from Georgia in 2018, in the middle of the historic Red Tide outbreak of 2017-18, which devastated the tourism industry.
Back at Lassing Park, the smell pushed Noel Jambor and his Jack Russell terrier, Loki, back to the car. He usually sees people kiteboarding in the water, but not today.
“No one’s going to come here right now,” Jambor said. “It stinks.”
Red Tide resources
Florida Poison Control Centers have a toll-free 24/7 hotline to report illnesses, including from exposure to Red Tide: 1-800-222-1222
There are several online resources that can help residents stay informed and share information about Red Tide:
Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, the county’s tourism wing, runs an online beach dashboard at www.beachesupdate.com.
The agency asks business owners to email reports of Red Tide issues to pr@visitspc.com.
Pinellas County shares information with the Red Tide Respiratory Forecast tool that allows beachgoers to check for warnings.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has a website that tracks where Red Tide is detected and how strong the concentrations.
How to stay safe near the water
- Beachgoers should avoid swimming around dead fish.
- Those with chronic respiratory problems should be particularly careful and “consider staying away” from places with a Red Tide bloom.
- People should not harvest or eat mollusks or distressed and dead fish from the area. Fillets of healthy fish should be rinsed with clean water, and the guts thrown out.
- Pet owners should keep their animals away from the water and from dead fish.
- Residents living near the beach should close their windows and run air conditioners with proper filters.
- Visitors to the beach can wear paper masks, especially if the wind is blowing in.
Source: Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County
Why Glyphosate Herbicides Are So Harmful
Avacado – Sustainability
Why Glyphosate Herbicides Are So Harmful
By Jenni Gritters June 30, 2021
Research shows the weed killer, once touted as a miracle farming innovation, may be introducing toxic chemicals into our bodies, water, wildlife, and soil.
This article is the first in our ‘Soil Series’, where we explore complex issues related to agriculture, our environment, and the future of our planet.
Herbicides have been a key — and normal — part of farming practices for years; they’re used to remove the past years’ crop to plant a new one, to form rows in orchards or vineyards, or to control weeds in fields. In fact, you may have sprayed herbicides in your own yard to get rid of weeds in your garden or grass. Sometimes, they’re even used to clear vegetation along train tracks or power lines.
In the 1970s, herbicides were used sparingly on farms; if you sprayed them everywhere, you’d kill weeds and crops. Then, in 1996, Monsanto (which is now part of the pharmaceutical company Bayer), created a new line of genetically modified, glyphosate-tolerant crops. Thanks to this new innovation, you could spray glyphosate herbicides in your field and your crops would remain hardy and thriving. In terms of efficiency and production, it was a huge win for farmers and appeared to be better for the environment than the more toxic herbicides that had been used in the past. All of this meant that glyphosate herbicides — which you can find in the store under the label RoundUp — became the most widely used herbicide in recent history.
Read More: This Permaculture Garden is Healing a Town
But here’s the issue. In 2015, the World Health Organization and International Agency for Research on Cancer both classified glyphosates as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” In other words, the human consumption of glyphosate herbicides was being linked to lymphoma and other cancers in a growing body of research. This 2015 announcement began an all-out battle between Monsanto, the farming industry, and researchers.
Research conducted in 2005 by the Food and Agriculture Organization in the UN showed that glyphosate residue can stick around in water and soil for several months after it’s sprayed, which doesn’t bode well for the trickle-down effects on animals and humans. But authorities from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and European Food Safety Authority both concluded in 2017 that glyphosate was probably not giving people cancer. Again, the key word in all of these findings is “probably.”
Individual people joined the battle over glyphosates, too. During the past five years, Monsanto has been sued more than 9,000 times by people who claim to have developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other kinds of cancer after exposure to Monsanto’s herbicide. In three landmark cases, verdicts were made resoundingly in favor of the victims. Monsanto continues to maintain that there are no links between human health and glyphosates.
Read More: Why Local Farmers Need Your Support Now More Than Ever
Now, research is starting to look at the impacts of glyphosate herbicides on animals and the environment. At first, RoundUp appeared to be a better option than past compounds; compared to paraquat (which killed anyone who breathed it in or swallowed it, meaning that farmers wore respirators while spraying). So, glyphosate was actually better for animals because it inhibits a nutritional pathway in plants that isn’t present in animals. But the EPA still maintains that animals should be kept away from any plants that have been sprayed with RoundUp; they risk digestive or intestinal problems.
And if glyphosate stays in water for several months, scientists are concerned about the effects of the chemical compound on fish, mollusks, and insects. Specifically, glyphosates appear to affect microorganisms and invertebrates more than larger mammals. In one study, herbicide use affected earthworms negatively; worm reproduction was reduced by 56 percent in the three months after herbicides were sprayed, and the soil also had increased levels of nitrates and phosphates.
What can we do about this? In the U.S., federal law requires that glyphosate-based herbicides would only be banned if the costs are greater than the benefits. Basically, if prohibiting the use of these herbicides made corn and soybeans more expensive, this could adversely affect food security, making it an issue that federal law is not willing to tackle.
Read More: How Food Forests Help Solve Food Insecurity
The EPA has also set limits for the amount of RoundUp that can be used on a wide range of crops (known as “tolerances”), which, for the moment, is keeping the likely toxicity levels at bay. But still, it’s important to be aware of these farming practices so you can protect yourself.
Consider washing your produce with a light (2 percent) saltwater solution to remove most pesticide residue. You can choose to buy organic produce and fabrics; anything with a USDA Certified Organic or Global Organic Textile Standard seal must be grown and produced without the use of herbicides or fertilizers. And investing in a local CSA (community supported agriculture) program can help smaller, organic farms thrive.
Deaths surge in U.S. and Canada from worst heatwave on record
Reuters
Deaths surge in U.S. and Canada from worst heatwave on record
Smoke and flames are seen during the Sparks Lake wildfire at Thompson-Nicola Regional District, British Columbia, Canada
VANCOUVER/PORTLAND (Reuters) -A heatwave that smashed all-time high temperature records in western Canada and the U.S. Northwest has left a rising death toll in its wake as officials brace for more sizzling weather and the threat of wildfires.
The worst of the heat had passed by Wednesday, but the state of Oregon reported 63 deaths linked to the heatwave. Multnomah County, which includes Portland, reported 45 of those deaths since Friday, with the county Medical Examiner citing hyperthermia as the preliminary cause.
By comparison all of Oregon had only 12 deaths from hyperthermia from 2017 to 2019, the statement said. Across the state, hospitals reported a surge of hundreds of visits in recent days due to heat-related illness, the Oregon Health Authority said.
In British Columbia, at least 486 sudden deaths were reported over five days, nearly three times the usual number that would occur in the province over that period, the B.C. Coroners Service said Wednesday.
“This was a true health crisis that has underscored how deadly an extreme heat wave can be,” Multnomah County Health Officer Dr. Jennifer Vines said in the statement. “As our summers continue to get warmer, I suspect we will face this kind of event again.”
The heat dome, a weather phenomenon trapping heat and blocking other weather systems from moving in, weakened as it moved east, but was still intense enough to set records from Alberta to Manitoba, said David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, a government agency.
“In some of these places, their (temperature) records are being annihilated,” Phillips said. “It really is spectacular, unprecedented for us.”
It was unclear what triggered the dome, but climate change looks to be a contributor, given the heatwave’s duration and extremes, Phillips said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paused to remember the dead during remarks in Ottawa on Wednesday and expressed concern over the fire threat.
“We’ve been seeing more and more of this type of extreme weather event in the past years,” Trudeau said. “So realistically, we know that this heatwave won’t be the last.”
In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden said climate change was driving “a dangerous confluence of extreme heat and prolonged drought,” warning that the United States was behind in preparing for what could be a record number of forest fires this year.
SMASHING RECORDS
Lytton, a town in central British Columbia, this week broke Canada’s all-time hottest temperature record three times. It stands at 49.6 degrees Celsius (121.28 degrees Fahrenheit) as of Tuesday. The previous high in Canada, known for brutally cold winters, was 45C, set in Saskatchewan in 1937.
In the U.S. Northwest, temperatures in Washington and Oregon soared well above 100F (38C) over the weekend. Portland set all-time highs several days in a row including 116F (47C) on Sunday.
In Washington state, where media also reported a surge in heat-related hospitalizations, Chelan County east of Seattle topped out at 119F (48C) on Tuesday.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown declared a state of emergency due to “imminent threat of wildfires” while the U.S. National Weather Service in Portland issued a red-flag warning for parts of the state, saying wind conditions could spread fire quickly.
The Portland Fire Department banned use of fireworks for the Fourth of July weekend, when Americans celebrate Independence Day.
FIRE AND MELTING ICE POSE RISKS
Most of Alberta and large parts of British Columbia and Saskatchewan are at extreme risk of wildfires, according to Natural Resources Canada’s fire weather map.
“All the ingredients are there. It’s a powder keg just looking for a spark,” said Mike Flannigan, professor of wildland fire at University of Alberta.
But the Chilcotin region, roughly 600 km (370 miles) north of Vancouver, was on flood warning due to the “unprecedented” amount of snow melting at “extraordinary” rates, according to a government release.
“These are the types of issues that are going to be confronted more and more over the next few years,” said Adam Rysanek, assistant professor of environmental systems at the University of British Columbia.
(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto, Nia Williams in Calgary, Moira Warburton in Vancouver, Steve Scherer in Ottawa, and Sergio Olmos in Portland; Writing by by Daniel Trotta; Editing by David Gregorio, Richard Chang and Aurora Ellis)
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Nowhere is safe, say scientists as extreme heat causes chaos in US and Canada
The Guardian – Climate Change
Nowhere is safe, say scientists as extreme heat causes chaos in US and Canada
Governments urged to ramp up efforts to tackle climate emergency as temperature records smashed.
The devastating “heat dome” has caused temperatures to rise to almost 50C in Canada and has been linked to hundreds of deaths, melted power lines, buckled roads and wildfires.
Experts say that as the climate crisis pushes global temperatures higher, all societies – from northern Siberia to Europe, Asia to Australia – must prepare for more extreme weather events.
Sir David King, the former UK chief scientific adviser, said: “Nowhere is safe … who would have predicted a temperature of 48/49C in British Columbia?”King, who along with other leading scientists set up the Climate Crisis Advisory Group earlier this month, said scientists had been warning about extreme weather events for decades and now time was running out to take action.
“The risks have been understood and known for so long and we have not acted, now we have a very narrow timeline for us to manage the problem,” he said.
In Canada experts have been shocked by the rise in temperature, which on Tuesday hit 49.6C (121.1F) in the town of Lytton, British Columbia, smashing the national record for the third day in a row.
On the US west coast, Seattle and Portland have registered consecutive days of exceptional heat. Local authorities said they were investigating about a dozen deaths in Washington and Oregon that could be attributed to the scorching temperatures.
Michael E Mann, professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University and author of The New Climate War, said as the planet warmed up such dangerous weather events would become more common.
“We should take this very seriously … You warm up the planet, you’re going to see an increased incidence of heat extremes.”
Mann said the climate was being destabilized in part by the dramatic warming of the Arctic and said existing climate models were failing to capture the scale of what was happening.
“Climate models are actually underestimating the impact that climate change is having on events like the unprecedented heatwave we are witnessing out west right now,” he added.
On Wednesday the US president, Joe Biden, blamed the climate crisis for the heatwave in the western US and Canada which officials said had already broken 103 heat records across British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and Northwest Territories.
The US National Weather Service said the peak in the region was 42.2 C on Tuesday in Spokane, Washington, another local record. About 9,300 homes lost power and the local utility Avista Utilities said planned blackouts would be needed, affecting more than 200,000 people.
In British Columbia (BC) at least 486 sudden deaths were reported over five days during the heatwave. The chief coroner said typically there would have been about 165 sudden deaths, suggesting more than 300 deaths could be attributed to the heat.
“While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather BC has experienced and continues to impact many parts of our province,” Lisa Lapointe said in a statement.
Lapointe said the figures were preliminary and would increase as coroners in communities across the province entered other death reports into the agency’s system.
“Our thoughts are with people who have lost loved ones,” said Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, warning the blistering temperatures in a region of the country ill-prepared for such heat was a reminder of the need to address the climate crisis.
Police sergeant Steve Addison said: “I’ve been a police officer for 15 years and I’ve never experienced the volume of sudden deaths that have come in such a short period of time.”
Many of those who died over the five-day period were elderly people who lived alone and were found in residences that were hot and not well ventilated.
“People can be overcome by the effects of extreme heat quickly and may not be aware of the danger,” Lapointe said.
Scientists said that the scale of the heatwave in the US and Canada should serve as a “wake-up call” to policymakers, politicians and communities around the world, especially in the buildup to the crucial UN Cop26 climate summit to be hosted by the UK in November.
“The risk of heatwaves is increasing across the globe sufficiently rapidly that it is now bringing unprecedented weather and conditions to people and societies that have not seen it before,” said Prof Peter Stott from the Met Office. “Climate change is taking weather out of the envelope that societies have long experienced.”
Prof Simon Lewis of University College London described the situation as “scary” and warned that extreme heat events could have huge impacts on everything from food prices to power supplies.
“Everywhere is going to have to think about how to deal with these new conditions and the extremes that come along with the new climate that we are creating. That means everyone needs plans.”
He said it was crucial governments and policymakers heeded the warning signs and dramatically ramped up plans to halt fossil fuel emissions and prepare societies to deal with more extreme weather events.
“This is a warning in two senses,” said Lewis. “We have to get emissions down to zero fast to cut off the new extreme heatwaves, and we have to adapt to the new climate conditions we are creating.”