Whiteflies – Africa’s main cassava pest causes damage to crops. Maurice/Flickr The dreaded crop-eating fall armyworm continues to spread across Africa like wildfire. This invasive insect pest, first reported in Africa in early 2016, is in more than 20 African countries including South Sudan and South Africa. It has destroyed many staple crops like maize.… Continue reading Africa’s most notorious insects – the bugs that hit agriculture the hardest
Whiteflies – Africa’s main cassava pest causes damage to crops. Maurice/Flickr The dreaded crop-eating fall armyworm continues to spread across Africa like wildfire. This invasive insect pest, first reported in Africa in early 2016, is in more than 20 African countries including South Sudan and South Africa. It has destroyed many staple crops like maize.… Continue reading Africa’s most notorious insects – the bugs that hit agriculture the hardest
When a Virgin Galactic commercial flight soared into space on 8 September 2023, there were two Virgin Galactic pilots, an instructor and three passengers on board – as well as two fossils of ancient prehuman relatives from South Africa. Timothy Nash, a businessman, carried a clavicle belonging to Australopithecus sediba and the thumb bone of… Continue reading South African hominin fossils were sent into space and scientists are enraged
Natural materials like palm fronds, tree branches or reeds typically create the top of the sukkah. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Sukkot is a Jewish festival that follows right on the heels of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Judaism’s High Holy Days. The harvest holiday, which begins on Sept. 29, 2023, lasts for seven days when celebrated… Continue reading On Sukkot, the Jewish ‘Festival of booths,’ each sukkah is as unique as the person who builds it
A Black actor in 1974 impersonating an enslaved man in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. George Bryant/Toronto Star via Getty Images Of all the debate over teaching U.S. slavery, it is one sentence of Florida’s revised academic standards that has provoked particular ire: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied… Continue reading Why separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching US slavery
Electric vehicle sales are growing faster than expected around the world, and sales of gas- and diesel-powered vehicles have been falling. Yet, the U.S. government still forecasts an increasing demand for oil, and the oil industry is doubling down on production plans.
Why is that, and what happens if the U.S. projections for growing oil demand are wrong?
On Sept. 12, 2023, Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization that advises the world’s major economies, drew global attention when he wrote in the Financial Times that the IEA is now projecting a global peak in demand for oil, gas and coal by 2030.
The new date was a significant leap forward in time compared with previous estimates that the peak would not be until the 2030s for oil and even later for gas. It also stood out because the IEA has typically been quite conservative in modeling changes to the global energy system.
Birol pointed to changes in energy policies and a faster-than-expected rise in clean technologies – including electric vehicles – along with Europe’s shift away from fossil fuels amid Russia’s war in Ukraine as the primary reasons. He wrote that the IEA’s upcoming World Energy Outlook “shows the world is on the cusp of a historic turning point.”
EV sales have been growing quickly, particularly in China. China’s BYD produces several of the top-selling models globally.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
The United Nations also released its “global stocktake” report in early September, assessing the world’s progress toward meeting the Paris climate agreement goals of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial temperatures. The report found serious gaps in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by soon after mid-century. However, it noted two bright spots: The world is more or less on track in the growth in solar photovoltaics for renewable energy – and in the growth of electric vehicles.
The dynamics of EV expansion are important because each vehicle that uses electricity instead of gasoline or diesel fuel will depress demand for oil. Even though demand for petroleum products in other sectors, like aviation and petrochemicals, is still increasing, the IEA expects a decline in road transportation’s 50% share of oil consumption to drive an overall peak in demand within a few years.
EVs are now on pace to dominate global car sales by 2030, with fast growth in China in particular, according to analysts at the Rocky Mountain Institute. If countries continue to upgrade their electricity and charging infrastructure, “the endgame for one quarter of global oil demand will be in sight,” they wrote in a new report. As electric trucks become more common, oil demand will likely drop even faster, the analysts wrote.
Based on the data, it appears that global oil demand will peak relatively soon. Yet, major oil companies say they plan to increase their production, and the U.S. Energy Information Administrationstill projects that global demand for oil and fossil fuels will continue to grow.
It’s fair to assume that large industries should have a good handle on future developments expected to affect their fields. But they often have a competing priority to ensure that short-term gains are preserved.
Both Shell and BP recently backpedaled on their previous climate commitments in spite of tacit admissions that increasing oil production is inconsistent with climate change mitigation. Exxon’s CEO said in June 2023 that his company aimed to double its U.S. shale oil production over the next five years.
In 2020, then-BP CEO Bernard Looney declared that the oil company would achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In 2023, after record profits, BP announced it would increase fossil fuel production investment by about
billion a year for the rest of the decade.
Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images
What is happening in the fossil fuel industry seems to be an example of the so-called “green paradox,” in which it is rational, from a profit-maximization point of view, to extract these resources as quickly as possible when faced with the threat of future decreased market value.
That is, if a company can see that in the future its product will make less money or be threatened by environmental policies, it would be likely to sell as much as possible now. As part of that process, it may be very willing to encourage the building of fossil fuel infrastructure that clearly won’t be viable a decade or two in the future, creating what are known as stranded assets.
In the long run, countries encouraged to borrow to make these investments may be stuck with the bill, in addition to the global climate change impacts that will result.
Extractive industries have known about climate change for decades. But rather than transform themselves into broad-based energy companies, most have doubled down on oil, coal and natural gas. More than two dozen U.S. cities, counties and states are now suing fossil fuel companies over the harms caused by climate change and accusing them of misleading the public, with California filing the latest lawsuit on Sept. 15, 2023.
The question is whether these companies will be able to successfully adapt to a renewable energy world, or whether they will follow the path of U.S. coal companies and not recognize their own decline until it is too late.
Robert Brecha is also affiliated with Climate Analytics, a global non-profit climate science and policy institute. Opinions and ideas expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Dayton or Climate Analytics.
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string(10493) "Whiteflies - Africa's main cassava pest causes damage to crops. Maurice/Flickr
The dreaded crop-eating fall armyworm continues to spread across Africa like wildfire. This invasive insect pest, first reported in Africa in early 2016, is in more than 20 African countries including South Sudan and South Africa. It has destroyed many staple crops like maize. Damage to maize alone by this pest could total USD billion in the next 12 months.
Crop losses in African countries due to insect pests are estimated at 49% of the expected total crop yield each year, according to the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International. But some crop losses can be even worse, and the effects of the changing climate are expected to increase the damage done by insects.
Which are Africa’s top insect pests? The ones named here are just a few of the wide range of insect pests that affect crop production in Africa. But describing the top ones – and the crops they attack – can help focus the minds of researchers, governments and development agencies.
Insects that damage cereal crops
Cereals like maize, rice, wheat and sorghum are Africa’s most important food crops. Maize is by far the most widely grown cereal crop – more than 300 million people out of approximately 1 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa depend on it as their main food source. Maize is severely affected by pests. The most significant yield losses are caused by lepidopteran stem borers, Busseola fusca (Fuller) and Chilo partellus Swinhoe (Crambidae).
Depending on the country, season, region and maize variety, Chilo partellus can cause (annual) yield losses ranging from 15% to 100%. Production losses of up to USD0 million to farmers in eastern Africa by Chilo partellus have been reported.
Root and tuber crops
More than 240 million tons of root and tuber crops, including cassava, sweet potato, potato and yam, are annually produced on 23 million hectares of land in Africa. As many as 500 million to 1 billion Africans consume cassava. While the crop is tolerant of heat and other extremes, it’s vulnerable to insect pests.
Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) is Africa’s main cassava insect pest. Unlike the stem borers, which chew and bore through stems and new maize cobs, these whiteflies feed directly on plants’ sap. They also carry cassava plant diseases.
Cassava roots infected with Cassava Brown Streak Disease.
IITA/Flickr
Legume crops, including cow peas and beans, are an important part of African diets. They provide protein, vitamins and minerals such as calcium and antioxidants. But the production of most legume crops is threatened by several insect pests including bean flies, aphids, thrips, leafhoppers, whitefly and leaf beetles.
The legume pod borer is a serious pest for cowpeas, a crop that is consumed by over 200 million Africans. Yield losses of up to 80% have been reported in Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso —- the three major cowpea producing countries.
Efforts at control
Because of insects’ impact on food security, billions of dollars have gone into research aimed at finding effective control measures. The International Center of Insect Physiology, for example, dedicated over a decade of research in an effort to find ecologically sustainable controls for lepidopteran stem borers. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture is developing crop varieties that are resistant to insect pests and the plant diseases they spread.
There are many more insects that affect African crop production. And minor pests can become a greater threat when weather conditions change or when they develop resistance to chemical pesticides used to control them.
Insects can spread into new areas because of trade and climate change. The resulting outbreaks can destabilise food security and the gains made in crop productivity. The emergence of the fall armyworm in Africa is an example of this.
Many invasive insect species can be controlled at early stages before they disperse to new environments. It requires better surveillance and monitoring by African countries.
This should include predictive modelling – a process that uses data mining and probability to forecast future outcomes. The process could help determine when the next insect invasions are likely to occur or predict the impact of a changing climate on the distribution of insect pests. It has already been used to help predict the impact of temperature changes on the future distributions of lepidopteran maize stem borers and their natural enemies.
Countries could then prepare to reduce the impact of insect invasions. Because insects know no borders, it is important for African countries to work together on combating pests.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation is trustworthy news from experts. Try our free newsletters.
The dreaded crop-eating fall armyworm continues to spread across Africa like wildfire. This invasive insect pest, first reported in Africa in early 2016, is in more than 20 African countries including South Sudan and South Africa. It has destroyed many staple crops like maize. Damage to maize alone by this pest could total USD billion in the next 12 months.
Crop losses in African countries due to insect pests are estimated at 49% of the expected total crop yield each year, according to the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International. But some crop losses can be even worse, and the effects of the changing climate are expected to increase the damage done by insects.
Which are Africa’s top insect pests? The ones named here are just a few of the wide range of insect pests that affect crop production in Africa. But describing the top ones – and the crops they attack – can help focus the minds of researchers, governments and development agencies.
Insects that damage cereal crops
Cereals like maize, rice, wheat and sorghum are Africa’s most important food crops. Maize is by far the most widely grown cereal crop – more than 300 million people out of approximately 1 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa depend on it as their main food source. Maize is severely affected by pests. The most significant yield losses are caused by lepidopteran stem borers, Busseola fusca (Fuller) and Chilo partellus Swinhoe (Crambidae).
Depending on the country, season, region and maize variety, Chilo partellus can cause (annual) yield losses ranging from 15% to 100%. Production losses of up to USD0 million to farmers in eastern Africa by Chilo partellus have been reported.
Root and tuber crops
More than 240 million tons of root and tuber crops, including cassava, sweet potato, potato and yam, are annually produced on 23 million hectares of land in Africa. As many as 500 million to 1 billion Africans consume cassava. While the crop is tolerant of heat and other extremes, it’s vulnerable to insect pests.
Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) is Africa’s main cassava insect pest. Unlike the stem borers, which chew and bore through stems and new maize cobs, these whiteflies feed directly on plants’ sap. They also carry cassava plant diseases.
Cassava roots infected with Cassava Brown Streak Disease.
IITA/Flickr
Legume crops, including cow peas and beans, are an important part of African diets. They provide protein, vitamins and minerals such as calcium and antioxidants. But the production of most legume crops is threatened by several insect pests including bean flies, aphids, thrips, leafhoppers, whitefly and leaf beetles.
The legume pod borer is a serious pest for cowpeas, a crop that is consumed by over 200 million Africans. Yield losses of up to 80% have been reported in Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso —- the three major cowpea producing countries.
Efforts at control
Because of insects’ impact on food security, billions of dollars have gone into research aimed at finding effective control measures. The International Center of Insect Physiology, for example, dedicated over a decade of research in an effort to find ecologically sustainable controls for lepidopteran stem borers. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture is developing crop varieties that are resistant to insect pests and the plant diseases they spread.
There are many more insects that affect African crop production. And minor pests can become a greater threat when weather conditions change or when they develop resistance to chemical pesticides used to control them.
Insects can spread into new areas because of trade and climate change. The resulting outbreaks can destabilise food security and the gains made in crop productivity. The emergence of the fall armyworm in Africa is an example of this.
Many invasive insect species can be controlled at early stages before they disperse to new environments. It requires better surveillance and monitoring by African countries.
This should include predictive modelling – a process that uses data mining and probability to forecast future outcomes. The process could help determine when the next insect invasions are likely to occur or predict the impact of a changing climate on the distribution of insect pests. It has already been used to help predict the impact of temperature changes on the future distributions of lepidopteran maize stem borers and their natural enemies.
Countries could then prepare to reduce the impact of insect invasions. Because insects know no borders, it is important for African countries to work together on combating pests.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation is trustworthy news from experts. Try our free newsletters.
Esther is a 2015 Food Security Fellow with the New Voices, Aspen Institute
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string(16519) "The Supreme Court begins its new term on Oct. 2, 2023. Douglas Rissing/ iStock / Getty Images Plus
The first Monday in October, the traditional date for the beginning of the U.S. Supreme Court’s term, is almost here: On Oct. 2, 2023, the court will meet after the summer recess, with the biggest case of the term focused on the limits of individual gun rights.
The other core issue for the coming year is a broad reassessment of the power of the administrative state.
When the court announces a new principle – for example, a limit on the powers of a specific part of government – citizens and lawyers are not sure of the full ramifications of the new rule. How far will it go? What other areas of law will come under the same umbrella?
In a revolutionary period, aggressive litigants will push the boundaries of the new doctrine, attempting to stretch it to their advantage. After a period of uncertainty, a case that defines the limits on the new rule is likely to emerge.
U.S. v. Rahimi may be the limiting case for gun rights, identifying the stopping point of the recent changes in Second Amendment doctrine.
Zackey Rahimi is a convicted drug dealer and violent criminal who also had a restraining order in place after assaulting his girlfriend. The court will decide whether the federal law prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order violates the Second Amendment.
In the 2022 case of New York Rifle & Pistol v. Bruen, the court announced a new understanding of the Second Amendment. The amendment had long been understood to recognize a limited right to bear arms. Under the Bruen ruling, the amendment instead describes an individual right to carry a gun for self-protection in most places in society, expanding its range to the level of other constitutional rights such as freedom of religion or speech, which apply in public spaces.
However, the court’s conservative justices also tend to argue that constitutional rights are balanced by responsibilities to promote a functional society, a concept known as “ordered liberty.” The practical question is how to know the proper balance between liberty and order. If the right to carry a gun can be regulated but not eradicated, limited but not eliminated, where is the line?
The court’s answer in Bruen is history – a current law does not have to match a specific historical one exactly, but it has to be similar in form and purpose. Whatever gun regulations Americans allowed during the early Republic – the critical period from around the 1780s to around the 1860s at the time of the Civil War – are allowable now, with the exception of any that would violate racial equality under the 14th Amendment.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the Bruen ruling, described it this way: The government must “identify a well-established and representative historical analogue, not a historical twin.” Thomas argued in Bruen that no such historical analogue existed for the limits New York imposed, invalidating the state’s ban on concealed carry permits.
The Rahimi case will provide a critical test of this historical approach to the boundaries of constitutional rights.
Historians have presented evidence that there were widespread laws and practices during the early Republic limiting gun possession by individuals, like Rahimi, who were judged to be dangerous. However, those dangers did not include domestic violence, which was not deemed the same important concern then that it is now.
The court may consider the laws prevalent in the early Republic, which regulated those who “go armed offensively” or “to the fear and terror of any person,” to be analogous to contemporary laws restraining those under a domestic violence restraining order. If so, the ruling will likely uphold Rahimi’s conviction and limit gun rights.
On the other hand, if the court reads those historical standards as more narrow and specific than the contemporary ban on gun possession while under a restraining order, those limits will be struck down.
The power of the administrative state
The founders expected a permanent battle for power between the Congress and the presidency. What they did not anticipate was the expansion of the federal bureaucracy.
With the growth in the number, funding and power of federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and many others, the debate over who controls them and how much power they wield has grown as well.
The court’s conservatives tend to see the actions of federal agencies as violating the constitutional principle of limited government. This view argues that government powers are specific and constrained, not flexible and expansive. They fear that the federal government is likely to use its vast power abusively if it is unconstrained. In this view, the expansion of the administrative state allowed an end-run around the Constitution’s limits on government power.
One case before the Supreme Court this term challenges the constitutionality of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The constitutional question is whether bureaucrats have broad regulatory powers over economic and social questions, or only elected officials do.
This is a core dispute between the two judicial camps.
In the last few years, the court has emphasized new doctrines limiting the power of federal agencies.
One of those doctrines is the Unitary Executive Theory, which limits the independence of administrative agencies. In this view, if the Constitution envisions executive branch agencies as controlled by voters through the selection and removal of the president, then the president must be able to control the decision-makers within those agencies.
One case before the court this term challenges the constitutionality of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, which regulates the stock market, on the grounds that the agency operates outside the boundaries set by the Constitution in several ways. One possible violation is that its judges cannot be removed by the president, violating the Unitary Executive Theory.
Another potential constitutional violation is the SEC’s practice of imposing monetary penalties without a finding by a civil jury. The court will decide if this violates the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a jury trial.
Another case challenges the constitutionality of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau on the grounds that the agency’s funding mechanism – through fees charged to the Federal Reserve rather than through normal congressional appropriations – violates how the Constitution allows the government to spend money. If Congress does not control the agency’s budget, this may put the agency outside of the control of the legislative branch that created it.
Perhaps the most far-reaching case could overturn a long-standing precedent known as Chevron deference, which allows agencies to determine the meaning of disputed terms in federal laws. Overruling this precedent would strip power from administrative agencies and reallocate decisions to Congress or to courts.
In these two core areas of constitutional conflict – gun rights and administrative powers – the court will determine this term whether its revolutionary doctrines will continue to expand or come to a resolution.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.
Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(15480) "A Wyoming Hotshot crew conducts night operations on the Pine Gulch fire in Colorado in August 2020. Kyle Miller, Wyoming Hotshots, USFS
Radios crackle with chatter from a wildfire incident command post. Up the fireline, firefighters in yellow jerseys are swinging Pulaskis, axlike hand tools, to carve a fuel break into the land.
By 10 a.m., these firefighters have already hiked 3 miles up steep, uneven terrain and built nearly 1,200 feet of fireline.
It’s physically exhausting work and essential for protecting communities as wildfire risks rise in a warming world. Hotshot crews like this one, the U.S. Forest Service’s Lolo Hotshots, are the elite workforce of the forests. When they’re on the fireline, their bodies’ total daily energy demands can rival that of the cyclists in the Tour de France, as my team’s research with wildland fire crews shows.
Ruby Mountain Hotshots construct a fireline during the Dixie Fire in 2021.
Joe Bradshaw/BLM
These firefighters are also caught in Congress’ latest budget battle, where demands by far-right House members to slash federal spending could lead to a governmentwide shutdown after the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, 2023.
After extreme fire seasons in 2020 and 2021, Congress funded a temporary bonus that boosted average U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighter pay by either 50% or US$20,000, whichever was lower. But that increase expires after Sept. 30, knocking many federal firefighters back to earning the minimum $15 per hour.
Life on the fireline is demanding. Pack straps dig into the neck and shoulders with each swing of the Pulaski. It’s a constant reminder that everything wildland firefighters need, they carry – all day.
The critical water and food items, supplies, extra gear and fireline tools – Pulaskis, chain saws and fuel – add up to an average gear weight often exceeding 50 pounds.
Hiking with a load and digging firelines with hand tools burns about 6 to 14 calories per minute. Heart rates rise in response to an increased pace of digging.
A Lakeview Hotshots firefighter carries equipment and fuel for containing the Cedar Creek fire near Oakridge, Ore., in 2022.
Dan Morrison / AFP via Getty Images
This isn’t just for a few days. Fire season in the western United States can last five months or more, with most Hotshot crews accumulating four to five times the number of operational days of the 22-day Tour de France and over 1,000 hours of overtime.
The physical demand of a day on the fireline
My team has been measuring the physical strain and total energy demands of work on an active wildfire, with the goal of finding ways to improve firefighter fueling strategies and health and safety on the line.
The crew members we work with are outfitted with a series of lightweight monitors that measure heart rate, as well as movement patterns and speed, using GPS. Each participant swallows a temperature-tracking sensor before breakfast that will record core body temperature each minute throughout the work shift.
Firefighters are often working in rough forest terrain involving long hikes and steep slopes. Here, the Ruby Mountain Hotshot crew gets a briefing on the Dixie Fire in California in 2021.
Joe Bradshaw/BLM
As the work shift progresses, the Hotshots constantly monitor their surroundings and self-regulate their nutrient and fluid intake, knowing their shift could last 12 to 16 hours.
During intense activity in high heat, their fluid intake can increase to 32 ounces per hour or more.
My team’s research has found that the most effective way for wildland firefighters to stay fueled is to eat small meals frequently throughout the work shift, similar to the patterns perfected by riders in the Tour. This preserves cognitive health, helping firefighters stay focused and sharp for making potentially lifesaving decisions and keenly aware of their ever-dynamic surroundings, and boosts their work performance. It also helps slow the depletion of important muscle fuel.
Resource demands on a wildland firefighter.
Christopher Durdle, Brent Ruby, CC BY-ND
Although crews gradually acclimatize to the heat over the season, the risk for heat exhaustion is ever present if the work rate is not kept in check. This cannot be prevented by simply drinking more water during long work shifts. However, regular breaks and having a strong aerobic capacity provides some protection by reducing heat stress and overall risk.
The season takes a toll
Hotshots are physically fit, and they train for the fire season just as many athletes train for their competition season. Most crew members are hired temporarily during the fire season – typically from May to October, but that’s expanding as the planet warms. And there are distinct fitness requirements for the job. The physical preparations are demanding, take months and are expected, even when temporary crew members are not officially employed by the agencies.
‘Home’ on the firelines is typically groups of tents and air mattresses.
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Progressive intervention strategies can help, such as educational programs on specific physical training and nutritional needs, mindfulness training to reduce the risk of job-oriented anxiety and depression, and emotional support for crew members and families. However, these require agency and congressional investment, a commitment beyond ensuring pay raises remain intact. Removing either is synonymous with taking away critical tools for the job on the firelines.
Developing offseason practices that pay close attention to both physical and mental health recovery can help limit harm to firefighters’ health. Many Hotshots have bounced back and returned season after season.
However, a government shutdown and failure to act on pay with no thought to the health and safety of front-line fire crews could worsen crew retention in an already dwindling workforce.
This is an update to an article originally published Aug. 8, 2023.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
When a Virgin Galactic commercial flight soared into space on 8 September 2023, there were two Virgin Galactic pilots, an instructor and three passengers on board – as well as two fossils of ancient prehuman relatives from South Africa. Timothy Nash, a businessman, carried a clavicle belonging to Australopithecus sediba and the thumb bone of a Homo naledi specimen. The fossils’ brief journey – the VSS Unity’s flight lasted just an hour – was organised by palaeontologist Lee Berger, who led the team that discovered and described Homo naledi in 2015. Berger was granted an export permit in July by the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) to take the fossils from the country to the US launch site for VSS Unity. SAHRA is a “national administrative body responsible for the protection of South Africa’s cultural heritage”.
The event has drawn the ire of scores of human evolution researchers from South Africa and beyond. Some have labelled it “unethical” and a “publicity stunt”. Berger has not yet responded to the furore. In a statement quoted by Nature, SAHRA said it was “satisfied that the promotional benefit derived was appropriately weighted against the inherent risk of travel of this nature”.
Why are scientists so angry about the fossils being sent to space?
There are a number of reasons.
One is the threat to South African heritage. According to the SAHRA permitting policy, fossils of this nature are only allowed to travel for scientific purposes and should be securely packed to prevent damage. The fossils travelled in space in a sealed tube – and were then kept in an individual’s pocket as he floated freely.
There is no scientific reason for allowing these fossils to travel to space. No new knowledge has been generated and no community, either local or international, has been engaged on this science.
Also, doses of radiation which these specimens were exposed to during this trip could have potentially permanently altered the fossil microstructure, affecting any data which might be required in the future.
A second issue is that the A. sediba clavicle is a type specimen: it is the original physical example of the species and, if such a specimen is lost or destroyed, it is gone forever.
Finally, this event demonstrated the unequal power relations at play in accessing this invaluable heritage. Some local communities – like the people of Taung, where a 2.8 million year old child’s skull nicknamed the Taung Child was discovered in 1924 – have requested access to fossil specimens that originated from their areas. In the case of the Taung Child, there have reportedly been discussions “over a long time” to have the skull returned by the university where it is stored.
So, is it only wealthy, famous rich white men who can have access to fossils? Poor communities do not have access to the same privileges?
Professor Berger’s SAHRA application called the fossils’ space flight a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity to bring awareness to science, exploration, human origins and South Africa and its role in understanding Humankind’s shared African ancestry’.
We completely disagree. Which community has been engaged in science awareness? Surely no South African or any African community has been engaged through this act?
Some have argued that the space flight echoes colonial attitudes to human remains. How so?
This is an example of what we callneo-colonialism. The science of human evolution has a long, dark past of exploitation and extraction. The main perpetrators of this past were privileged white men, so this latest event feels familiar but is really not OK in 2023.
Our field is just beginning to grapple with its past, and we’ve made some progress in the last decade. Something like this puts us right back into the olden days.
So what happens next?
Several professional bodies in various African regions have issued statementsexpressing their unhappiness about the treatment of the fossils.
Various arms of the palaeoscience community, such as the Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists, have directly asked SAHRA and the Cradle of Humankind Management Authority (which is responsible for preserving the world heritage site where the fossils were found) and the government to address us and the South African public more broadly.
We are also pushing for these organisations to reflect on this issue and to discuss changes to their permitting policy. We’re confident that the outrage we’ve demonstrated will guard against something like this happening again in the future.
September is Heritage Month in South Africa, a time when we are asked to come together as a country, to celebrate, learn about and explore our heritage as a way to build unity in a diverse society. Our common heritage, represented by the fossils, is a great tool for bringing us together as a country. Treating the same fossils in this way goes against this noble aim.
Dipuo Winnie Kgotleng has received funding from the Wenner-Gren foundation, National Heritage Council and National Research Foundation.
Robyn Pickering receives funding from The University of Cape Town, the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the DSI Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences/GENUS
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string(12991) "Natural materials like palm fronds, tree branches or reeds typically create the top of the sukkah. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Sukkot is a Jewish festival that follows right on the heels of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Judaism’s High Holy Days. The harvest holiday, which begins on Sept. 29, 2023, lasts for seven days when celebrated in Israel and eight days when celebrated elsewhere.
Like many Jewish rituals and traditions, from lighting Friday night candles to hosting Passover seders, Sukkot is primarily celebrated in the home – or rather, in the yard. Translated as the “Festival of Booths,” Sukkot is celebrated in an outdoor structure called a sukkah, which is carefully built and rebuilt each year.
Michal Sumdon, left, of Poland, and Taul Juin, of France, build a sukkah in the heart of a historic Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw.
AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski
Harvest holiday
Held during the autumn harvest, Sukkot likely has origins in huts that ancient farmers erected so they could sleep in the fields. Yet tradition also says that these booths represent the tents that the Israelites lived in while they wandered the desert for 40 years following the Exodus, their escape from slavery in Egypt.
Some aspects of Sukkot happen in the synagogue, including special prayers and readings from the Bible. Yet the main action takes place at home, in the backyard sukkah – the singular form of the word “sukkot” in Hebrew. For Jews who observe the holiday, tradition says to start building the sukkah as soon as possible after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; some people even start building the structure are soon as they have broken their 25-hour fast.
The makeshift walls, of which there must be at least three, can be made out of anything one wants, from pre-made walls printed with blessings said during the holiday to tablecloths or rugs. People often decorate to say something about who they are: photos of Jerusalem, quilts made by relatives. I have always imagined that, if I had a sukkah, I would use Indian tablecloths for walls, merging that piece of my heritage with my religion.
The roof, however, is supposed to be made out of natural materials like palms or branches; one friend of mine likes to use cornstalks. The roof should provide shade but must allow gaps to see the stars. Those of us who do not have yards can get creative with our balconies or, like me, drop hints that they would welcome invitations to other people’s sukkot. One New Yorker friend turns her living room into a faux sukkah – you cannot see the stars, but it is filled with nature and decorations.
In the United States, many families decorate their sukkot with classic elements of the American harvest season: corn husks, colorful dried ears of corn, harvest gourds and even the occasional bale of hay. In New Mexico, you sometimes see “ristras,” the decorative red strings of chiles that hang from porches.
The traditional plants of Sukkot, however, are four distinct species: a citrus fruit called an etrog, and fronds of palm, myrtle and willow, which are bound together and referred to as the “lulav.” The lulav and etrog are blessed and shaken together on a daily basis throughout the festival.
Beyond this, Jews are supposed to live in the sukkah for the festival, which technically means eating and sleeping there. But as with all religious holidays, individuals celebrate Sukkot in a wide variety of ways.
Many Jews do not construct sukkot at all, let alone sleep in them for a week. Of those who do, some sleep every night in the sukkah; some have one night of family “camping”; others do not sleep in it at all. Many people entertain guests there: I have been to many a meal – and one graduate seminar – in sukkot all over the country.
It is the fact that so much of Sukkot is held at home that accounts for the holiday’s immense flexibility. Like at Passover, most Jews who celebrate Sukkot encounter it in spaces where people can honor their values, cultures or histories.
What this looks like is as diverse as the world of American Jews.
For instance, for the years that I taught outside of Philadelphia, I attended a multinight open house, called “Whiskey in the Sukkot,” hosted by an interfaith couple. The Jewish wife explains that when she and her husband – a whiskey aficionado from Appalachia – got married, his thought process went: “harvest festival, grain, whiskey.”
Each year, he curates a selection to share with his guests, with new offerings for each night. Accompanied by pungent cheeses and other nibbles, this festival of whiskey offered him a way to make the holiday his own. In the process, the couple created an event that welcomes their Jewish – and non-Jewish – communities.
On his Afroculinaria blog, the chef, culinary historian and author Michael Twitty created a Southern harvest soup for Sukkot, which he notes uses “traditional Southern ingredients and flavors.” His soup is vegetarian, but he also offers a “trayf alternative,” meaning a version that is not kosher – a recipe that swaps out olive oil for bacon grease. Even in the most liberal Jewish settings, one cannot usually serve pork in a synagogue setting, but this is your Sukkot table. If you, like most American Jews, do not keep kosher, why not go full-on Southern in your flavors?
Not everyone sees their full identity reflected on Sukkot. Emily Bowen Cowen, a cartoonist who is Jewish and Muscogee (Creek), has written a comic called “My Sioux-kot,” imagining what Sukkot could look like if, like many contemporary Passover celebrations, it emphasized social justice. Cohen muses on the parallels she saw between Sukkot celebrations and 2016 protests to block an oil pipeline at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. At the time, both were events where people talked about valuing nature as sacred. Yet no one mentioned the protests in the sukkot she visited that week.
Indeed, some Jews are finding ways to realize the social justice potential in the holiday. Fiber artist Heather Stoltz used a sukkah as the basis for an art exhibition called “Temporary Shelter,” decorating its walls with stories of unhoused New Yorkers and with art made by children staying in the city’s shelters.
Perhaps the time will come when Sukkot, too, becomes infused with possibilities for a more just future.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation is trustworthy news from experts, from an independent nonprofit. Try our free newsletters.
Samira Mehta receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation.
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string(12289) "Renewable energy jobs often aren't close to fossil fuel workers' homes. Prapass Pulsub/Moment via Getty Images
As the U.S. shifts away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources, thousands of people working in the coal, oil and gas industries will be looking for new jobs.
Many will have the skills to step into clean energy jobs, but transitioning from a fossil fuels industry job to an emerging green industry job in the U.S. may not be as simple as it seems. New research published in the journal Nature Communications identifies a major barrier that is often overlooked in discussions of how to create a just transition for these workers: location.
Weanalyzed 14 years of fossil fuel employment and skills data and found that, while many fossil fuel workers could transfer their skills to green jobs, they historically have not relocated far when they changed jobs.
That suggests that it’s not enough to create green industry jobs. The jobs will have to be where the workers are, and most fossil fuel extraction workers are not in regions where green jobs are expected to grow.
Without careful planning and targeted policies, we estimate that only about 2% of fossil fuel workers involved in extraction are likely to transition to green jobs this decade. Fortunately, there are ways to help smooth the transition.
Many fossil fuel and green skills overlap
As of 2019, about 1.7 million people worked in jobs across the fossil fuels industry in the U.S., many of them in the regions from Texas and New Mexico to Montana and from Kentucky to Pennsylvania. As the country transitions from fossil fuel use to clean energy to protect the climate, many of those jobs will disappear.
Policymakers tend to focus on skills training when they talk about the importance of a just transition for these workers and their communities.
To see how fossil fuel workers’ skills might transfer to green jobs, we used occupation and skills data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to compare them. These profiles provide information about the required workplace skills for over 750 occupations, including earth drillers, underground mining machine operators and other extraction occupations.
Overall, we found that many fossil fuel workers involved in extraction already have similar skills to those required in green occupations, as previous studies also found. In fact, their skills tend to be more closely matched to green industries than most other industries.
Job-to-job flow data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that these workers historically tend to transition to other sectors with similar skills requirements. Thus, fossil fuel workers should be able to fill emerging green jobs with only minimal reskilling.
However, the data also shows that these fossil fuel workers typically do not travel far to fill employment opportunities.
The location problem
When we mapped the current locations of wind, solar, hydro and geothermal power plants using data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we found that these sites had little overlap with fossil fuel workers.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ projections for where green jobs are likely to emerge by 2029 also showed little overlap with the locations of today’s fossil fuel workers.
These results were consistent across several green employment projections and different definitions of “fossil fuel” occupations. That’s alarming for the prospects of a just transition.
How policymakers can intervene
Broadly, our findings point to two potential strategies for policymakers.
First, policymakers can explore incentives and programs that help fossil fuel workers relocate. However, as our analysis reveals, these populations have not historically exhibited geographic mobility.
Alternatively, policymakers could design incentives for green industry employers to build in fossil fuel communities. This might not be so simple. Green energy production often depends on where the wind blows strongest, solar power production is most effective and geothermal power or hydropower is available.
We simulated the creation of new green industry employment in two different ways, one targeting fossil fuel communities and the other spread uniformly across the U.S. according to population. The targeted efforts led to significantly more transitions from fossil fuel to green jobs. For example, we found that creating 1 million location-targeted jobs produced more transitions than the creation of 5 million jobs that don’t take workers’ locations into account.
Another solution doesn’t involve green jobs at all. A similar analysis in our study of other existing U.S. sectors revealed that construction and manufacturing employment are already co-located with fossil fuel workers and would require only limited reskilling. Supporting manufacturing expansion in these areas could be a simpler solution that could limit the number of new employers needed to support a just transition.
There are other questions that worry fossil fuel workers, such as whether new jobs will pay as well and last beyond construction. More research is needed to assess effective policy interventions, but overall our study highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to a just transition that takes into account the unique challenges faced by fossil fuel workers in different regions.
By responding to these barriers, the U.S. can help ensure that the transition to a green economy is not only environmentally sustainable but also socially just.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.
Morgan R. Frank receives funding from Russell Sage Foundation and the Heinz Endowment.
Junghyun Lim received funding from Russell Sage Foundation and the Heinz Endowment.
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string(12202) "A Black actor in 1974 impersonating an enslaved man in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. George Bryant/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Of all the debate over teaching U.S. slavery, it is one sentence of Florida’s revised academic standards that has provoked particular ire: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Does this sentence constitute “propaganda,” as Vice President Kamala Harris proclaimed, “an attempt to gaslight us?”
Or is it a reasonable claim in a discussion of a difficult topic?
Whatever it is, the sentence is of a sort not unique to the teaching of enslavement in Florida. It is, instead, an example of how some Americans transform the racist history of this country into an uplifting – and sanitized – moral lesson.
It is a fact that small numbers of the enslaved acquired skills that allowed them to earn money, to save it and to buy their freedom and the freedom of family members.
It is also a fact that freed Black people in the antebellum era helped other Black people to also acquire skills and became part of a segregated Black middle class in many Southern cities.
One might argue that such a sentence, because it is true, should not give rise to protest. But as scholars who have studied how history is taught in America, we learned that this particular nugget is neither trivial nor insignificant.
Instead, the one sentence in Florida’s new standards allows Americans to transform a story about what we today call structural racism into an apocryphal story about Horatio Alger and America’s rags-to-riches melting pot.
As this line of thinking goes, enslaved ancestors of contemporary African Americans labored just as most contemporary Americans’ ancestors labored: at the bottom, but able to climb up the social ladder with hard work and discipline.
And this is the problem: To portray enslaved people as laborers like free laborers is exactly how not to teach about slavery.
But it is a commonly used method that is called a “switching mechanism.” In this example, the story about the horrors of the slave system is transformed into a story about opportunity, success and the American dream.
Switching the story at Colonial Williamsburg
Thirty years ago, when we conducted anthropological research at Colonial Williamsburg, we encountered the same narrative switching mechanism that is occurring now in Florida.
At that time, the world-famous Virginia outdoor history museum depicting a genteel, colonial America was trying to present the public with a truer picture of the past by incorporating the history of what they called “the Other Half” – the enslaved people who had been all but absent from the museum’s past portrayals.
In this 2001 photograph, Black ‘interpreters’ are acting as carpenters in Colonial Williamsburg.
Education Images/Getty Images
But it was difficult, we found, for the museum to sustain a narrative about the evils of the slave system. That’s because much of its paying audience of white middle-class tourists did not want to dwell on such tales, and second, its “interpreters,” or guides, found ways to switch the narrative.
Starting from a story about the enslaved being someone else’s property, they would transition to one suggesting the enslaved were working for their own advancement.
• Don’t imagine that 18th century Williamsburg was like mid-19th century Mississippi cotton plantations, with families torn apart by avaricious masters, whippings, shackles and rape. Instead, in Williamsburg, slaves were valuable property.
• Consider that your average white yeoman farmer of the time had an annual income of about 20 pounds. Now consider that a highly trained slave cook was worth 500 pounds. Would your average owner be likely to abuse such a valuable piece of property? No! They’d treat that slave like an NFL quarterback!
Such stories conflated an enslaved laborer’s monetary value to his owner and the income of a white laborer. And that is how many visitors we listened to interpreted what they were hearing.
In other instances, we found conflicting messages.
In a skit that took us to the basement of an elite white Williamsburg household during Christmas, we witnessed Black interpreters portraying enslaved houseboys, maids and cooks complaining that they had to work harder than ever to create the festive atmosphere their owners desired. Meanwhile, upstairs, white interpreters portraying gentlemen conversing waxed philosophical about the evils of slavery coupled with the impossibility of getting rid of it.
At the conclusion of the story, we talked to two members of the audience who, it turns out, had learned different lessons.
One concluded that she had witnessed a universal story because workers everywhere grumble about their bosses. The other pointed out that if she disliked her boss, she could quit her job – something the enslaved couldn’t do.
Still, both were relieved to hear that slavery did not sit easy on the consciences of the white elite.
Structural inequality or Horatio Alger?
Switching mechanisms such as these are hard to dislodge. They remake the worst parts of the American story into a story consonant with the American Dream.
Today, not much has changed in Williamsburg. In Florida and many other states, switching allows designers of history curricula to avoid discussions on the lasting effects of racialized slave labor. They avoid discussing what that has meant to millions of people who did not, will not and cannot start on the same rung of the ladder of upward mobility that is available to other Americans who do not share a history of enslavement.
In our view, that is not a story that many Americans want to tell, teach or hear.
And so they switch to a different one, in which equal opportunity has been achieved, every one of us is capable of overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, and failure to rise must be a result of individual weakness and vice.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Ever go to the movies or a rock concert and been blasted by the sound? You may not realize it while it’s happening, but ongoing exposure to loud sounds at these venues can damage your hearing.
Our ears are highly sensitive to loud noise. Even very short exposures to high-level sounds – that’s anything above 132 decibels – can cause permanent hearing loss for some people. That’s true even if it’s just a brief blast; a single gunshot or fireworks explosion can cause immediate damage to the ear.
Even lower-level sounds – around 85 decibels – can injure the ear if heard for extended periods of time. Listening to a lawn mower for eight hours a day, for example, can put a person at risk for hearing loss.
Simply put, as the sound gets louder, safe exposure times get shorter. And whether from movies or concerts, fireworks or lawn mowers, about 40 million Americans have hearing problems from loud noise exposure. The unfortunate part is that it’s all preventable.
What many people do not know is that exposure to loud sounds over time can damage the tiny hair cells of the inner ear. These cells pick up sound and turn them into neural impulses that travel to the hearing centers of the brain.
I’m particularly concerned about recreational noise exposure. While we commonly think about potential harms from loud noises in factories, construction sites or other loud workplaces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 53% of people ages 20 to 69 who have hearing loss from loud noise report no workplace noise exposure.
That means these people choose loud hobbies or recreational activities without being aware of the risks. It’s not just movies, concerts and sporting events; power tools, motorcycles, off-road vehicles and firearms can all be hazardous to the ear.
Concerts and movies
Concerts regularly exceed 105 decibels, where sound exposure is safe for only about four minutes. Some shows can be even louder. And these levels of sound usually last for long periods of time – two or three hours. This clearly puts listeners at risk for hearing loss. The same also applies to other music-dominated events, like nightclubs.
Movie theaters can exceed 100 decibels, though usually not for extended periods of time. Generally, most people are safe when going to movies, though many moviegoers may find some louder sounds uncomfortable – like music or over-the-top sound effects, along with the explosions and gunshots. Extended watching of movies, such as a double feature, can increase a viewer’s risk.
How to fix the sound when watching a movie on your laptop.
Protecting yourself
Using a sound meter app can estimate how loud the environment is, and then you can decide if you need to protect your hearing.
First, if you can control the volume, turn it down. For headphones, use the 80-90 rule, which means you can listen at 80% of the maximum volume for 90 minutes per day. Turning it down gives you more time; turning it up gives you less time.
If you can’t control the volume, move farther away from the sound source. Standing next to big speakers at a concert, for instance, is often louder than being in the middle of the crowd. Taking breaks from the sound also helps.
So will earplugs or earmuffs. Although foam or rubber earplugs work, they block high frequencies, which sometimes muffles the sound. But specialty earplugs are designed to reduce loud music levels without muffling the sound. That said, for children, earmuffs are usually the easiest and safest choice.
Injury from loud sound results in premature aging of the ears. The ears of a 30-year-old with damage from loud sound may hear more like the ears of a 50-year-old. But remember, it’s largely preventable. Taking action today can help you protect and preserve your hearing for a lifetime.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation is trustworthy news from experts, from an independent nonprofit. Try our free newsletters.
Cory Portnuff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(15361) "Tesla brought EVs into the mainstream. Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images
Electric vehicle sales are growing faster than expected around the world, and sales of gas- and diesel-powered vehicles have been falling. Yet, the U.S. government still forecasts an increasing demand for oil, and the oil industry is doubling down on production plans.
Why is that, and what happens if the U.S. projections for growing oil demand are wrong?
On Sept. 12, 2023, Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization that advises the world’s major economies, drew global attention when he wrote in the Financial Times that the IEA is now projecting a global peak in demand for oil, gas and coal by 2030.
The new date was a significant leap forward in time compared with previous estimates that the peak would not be until the 2030s for oil and even later for gas. It also stood out because the IEA has typically been quite conservative in modeling changes to the global energy system.
Birol pointed to changes in energy policies and a faster-than-expected rise in clean technologies – including electric vehicles – along with Europe’s shift away from fossil fuels amid Russia’s war in Ukraine as the primary reasons. He wrote that the IEA’s upcoming World Energy Outlook “shows the world is on the cusp of a historic turning point.”
EV sales have been growing quickly, particularly in China. China’s BYD produces several of the top-selling models globally.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
The United Nations also released its “global stocktake” report in early September, assessing the world’s progress toward meeting the Paris climate agreement goals of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial temperatures. The report found serious gaps in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by soon after mid-century. However, it noted two bright spots: The world is more or less on track in the growth in solar photovoltaics for renewable energy – and in the growth of electric vehicles.
The dynamics of EV expansion are important because each vehicle that uses electricity instead of gasoline or diesel fuel will depress demand for oil. Even though demand for petroleum products in other sectors, like aviation and petrochemicals, is still increasing, the IEA expects a decline in road transportation’s 50% share of oil consumption to drive an overall peak in demand within a few years.
EVs are now on pace to dominate global car sales by 2030, with fast growth in China in particular, according to analysts at the Rocky Mountain Institute. If countries continue to upgrade their electricity and charging infrastructure, “the endgame for one quarter of global oil demand will be in sight,” they wrote in a new report. As electric trucks become more common, oil demand will likely drop even faster, the analysts wrote.
Based on the data, it appears that global oil demand will peak relatively soon. Yet, major oil companies say they plan to increase their production, and the U.S. Energy Information Administrationstill projects that global demand for oil and fossil fuels will continue to grow.
It’s fair to assume that large industries should have a good handle on future developments expected to affect their fields. But they often have a competing priority to ensure that short-term gains are preserved.
Both Shell and BP recently backpedaled on their previous climate commitments in spite of tacit admissions that increasing oil production is inconsistent with climate change mitigation. Exxon’s CEO said in June 2023 that his company aimed to double its U.S. shale oil production over the next five years.
In 2020, then-BP CEO Bernard Looney declared that the oil company would achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In 2023, after record profits, BP announced it would increase fossil fuel production investment by about
billion a year for the rest of the decade.
Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images
What is happening in the fossil fuel industry seems to be an example of the so-called “green paradox,” in which it is rational, from a profit-maximization point of view, to extract these resources as quickly as possible when faced with the threat of future decreased market value.
That is, if a company can see that in the future its product will make less money or be threatened by environmental policies, it would be likely to sell as much as possible now. As part of that process, it may be very willing to encourage the building of fossil fuel infrastructure that clearly won’t be viable a decade or two in the future, creating what are known as stranded assets.
In the long run, countries encouraged to borrow to make these investments may be stuck with the bill, in addition to the global climate change impacts that will result.
Extractive industries have known about climate change for decades. But rather than transform themselves into broad-based energy companies, most have doubled down on oil, coal and natural gas. More than two dozen U.S. cities, counties and states are now suing fossil fuel companies over the harms caused by climate change and accusing them of misleading the public, with California filing the latest lawsuit on Sept. 15, 2023.
The question is whether these companies will be able to successfully adapt to a renewable energy world, or whether they will follow the path of U.S. coal companies and not recognize their own decline until it is too late.
Robert Brecha is also affiliated with Climate Analytics, a global non-profit climate science and policy institute. Opinions and ideas expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Dayton or Climate Analytics.
