uphillbothways

Zelenskyy warns Putin could cause World War III if not stopped in Ukraine, says Putin counting on U.S. instability during the 2024 election and says drone strikes will continue if Russia keeps attacking infrastructure.

We met President Zelenskyy as he prepared to depart Kyiv for the United States. This week, he will speak at the U.N. and meet President Biden. It is a critical time. U.S. officials tell us that over nearly 600 days, almost half a million troops have been killed or wounded—both sides, all together—part of the cost, so far, of Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion. We spoke to Zelenskyy on Thursday. He told us that his people are dying every day to prevent World War III.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (translated): We're defending the values of the whole world. And these are Ukrainian people who are paying the highest price. We are truly fighting for our freedom, we are dying we are not fiction, we are not a book. We are fighting for real with a nuclear state that threatens to destroy the world.

Scott Pelley: The United States has contributed about $70 billion to your war effort, and I wonder if you expect that level of support to continue?

Zelenskyy (translated): The United States of America [is] supporting Ukraine financially and I'm grateful for this. I just think they're not supporting only Ukraine alone. If Ukraine falls, Putin will surely go further. What will the United States of America do when Putin reaches the Baltic states? When he reaches the Polish border? He will. This is a lot of money. We have a lot of gratitude. What else must Ukraine do for everyone to measure our huge gratitude? We are dying in this war. (PAUSE) Look, if Ukraine falls, what will happen in ten years? Just think about it. If [the Russians] reach Poland, what's next? A Third World War?

Pelley: What will it take? Another $70 billion?

Zelenskyy (translated): I don't have an answer. The whole world [has to] decide whether we want to stop Putin, or whether we want to start the beginning of a world war. We can't change Putin. Russian society has [lost] the respect of the world. They elected him, and re-elected him and raised a second Hitler. They did this. We cannot go back in time. But we can stop it here.

Ukraine stopped the Russian advance, but at a terrible cost. Ruined cities, millions of refugees, untold thousands of dead, all for Vladimir Putin's nation-building vanity.

Today the war is fought on a 700-mile front. The red area is the 20% of Ukraine still occupied by Russia. That is where western donated tanks were supposed to punch through cutting the Russian force in half. But trenches, minefields and artillery stopped the armored advance. Now, it's an artillery duel with each side firing about 40,000 shells a day. Ukrainian infantry is advancing bloody yards at a time. It's World War I with drones.

Pelley: How would you describe the fighting at the front?

Zelenskyy (translated): It's a difficult question. I will be completely honest with you. We have the initiative. This is a plus. We stopped the Russian offensive and we moved into a counter-offensive. [But] despite that, it's not very fast. It is important that we are moving forward every day and liberating territory.

Pelley: You have about six weeks of good weather left, and I wonder, after that point will the front be frozen in place?

Zelenskyy (translated): We need to liberate our territory as much as possible and move forward, even if it's less than [half a mile or] a hundred [yards] we must do it. we can't lose time. Forget about the weather, and the like. In places that we can't get through in an armored vehicle - let's fly. If we can't fly – let's send drones. We mustn't give Putin a break.

If the front is stationary, Ukrainian drones have vaulted into Russia itself, hitting the Kremlin, warplanes and Moscow high rises. Officially, Ukraine does not acknowledge these attacks.

Pelley: The drone strikes in Russia are being done on your orders?

Zelenskyy (translated): No.

Pelley: Not on your orders?

Zelenskyy (translated): Well, you know…

Pelley: How was it happening?

Zelenskyy (translated): You know that we don't shoot at the territory of the Russian Federation.

We decided to try the question another way.

Pelley: What message is being sent with these drone strikes in Russia?

Zelenskyy (translated): You do know that we use our partners' weapons on the territory of Ukraine only. And this is true. But these are not punitive operations, such as they carry out killing civilians. But Russia needs to know that wherever it is, whichever place they use for launching missiles to strike Ukraine, Ukraine has every moral right to send a response to those places. We are responding to them saying: "Your sky is not as well protected, as you think."

Last winter, it was Ukrainian skies that were filled with missiles in a Russian bombardment to destroy powerplants. Millions shivered in the dark. With winter approaching again, Zelenskyy had this warning.

Zelenskyy (translated): They must know if you cut off our power, deprive us of electricity, deprive us of water, deprive us of gasoline you need to know we have the right to do it [to you].

Russia takes Zelenskyy seriously now because Putin's mass invasion was a fiasco. The red marks where Ukraine stopped Russia's advance last year. It also marks the stain of Russia's war crimes.

Pelley: Mr. President, in traveling around Ukraine for the last year and a half we spoke to people in bombed-out schools in Chernihiv, we've seen destroyed apartment blocks in Borodyanka, a bombed hospital in Izium, civilians in a mass grave in Bucha. These are not military targets. What is Vladimir Putin trying to do?

Zelenskyy (translated): To break [us]. And by choosing civilian targets, Putin wanted to achieve exactly this – to break [us]. this person who has made his way with such bloody actions, with everything he has said, cannot be trusted. There is no trust in such a person because he has not been a human being for a long time.

Pelley: The Russians have suffered grievous losses without resorting to nuclear weapons, and I wonder if you believe that the threat of nuclear war is now behind us.

Zelenskyy (translated): I think he's going to continue threatening. He is waiting for the United States to become less stable. He thinks that's going to happen during the U.S. election.

He will be looking for instability in Europe and the United States of America. He will use the risk of using nuclear weapons to fuel that [instability]. He will keep on threatening.

That U.S. election he mentioned worries him. His negotiations with President Biden have been contentious at times. But Zelenskyy tends to get what he asks for, even if, in Zelenskyy's opinion, it's generally, six months too late. This week, Zelenskyy will press Mr. Biden for missiles with longer range. Congress is debating another 24 billion dollar package.

Zelenskyy (translated): And if Ukraine had enough of these modern systems, we would have already restored the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We would have already done that. These systems exist.

We first met Zelenskyy not long after the invasion when his office was a blacked-out bunker. Now a year and a half later, we noticed a difference. As we were setting up the interview, the former actor used his talent to mask the strain. He smiled at a compliment to his wife.

And then, instantly, he seemed pulled beneath a depth no one can know. We don't know what he was thinking, it looked like empathy for the lost and for those who might be saved.

Our time with Zelenskyy began in silence--a remembrance of the fallen during a ceremony to award medals of valor. Ukrainian officials tell us Ukraine and Russia have lost their professional armies. Now the forces are made up of volunteers, draftees, and, in Russia's case, prison inmates. Zelenskyy counts his dead in casualty reports each morning.

Pelley: You are the President, but it must be humbling to meet those men. I wonder what they mean to you?

Zelenskyy (translated): First of all, it is a great honor for me. I look into their eyes and it makes me proud that we have such strong people because this is a big risk, a big risk, you can definitely lose your life… for the sake of [saving] other lives. [And] when I say, "other lives", I don't speak in general, I mean my own life, [the] lives of my children and I understand completely what risks are involved.

That empathy for life has Volodymyr Zelenskyy reaching out, again, to the United Nations and the United States hoping to convince the allies that the world can be safe only when Ukraine is whole.

Pelley: Can you give up any part of Ukraine for peace?

Zelenskyy (translated): No. This is our territory.

Pelley: You must have it all? Including Crimea?

Zelenskyy (translated): Today you and I… you said it to me… you saw me awarding people [medals]. [Well] today is a day like that. A week ago, I gave awards to parents [of soldiers who have been killed]. There were 24 families of the dead. There was a woman. She was with three children. There were parents, very old. They could barely walk and they had had only one son. One of the women was pregnant. She arrived holding a baby in her arms. And she was pregnant. And that baby will never see… what should I tell them? That all of them died so that we could say, "It's okay, [Russia] you can take it all." It's a difficult job. You understand me, right? Giving awards to people whose faces show their whole world has collapsed. And all I can give them, all I can give them – is victory.

Produced by Maria Gavrilovic. Associate producer, Alex Ortiz. Broadcast associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by Peter M. Berman.

archive: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/UOMle

original interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8qC2tVkGeU
https://piped.video/watch?v=Z8qC2tVkGeU

Search for F-35B Lightning II fighter jet focused on two lakes after Marine Corps pilot ejected over North Charleston for unknown reason

US military officials have appealed to the public for help to find a fighter jet after losing track of it somewhere over South Carolina when the pilot ejected.

A Marine Corps pilot safely escaped the F-35B Lightning II jet over North Charleston on Sunday afternoon after a “mishap”, military officials said, and the search for his missing aircraft was now focused on two lakes north of North Charleston.

The pilot parachuted safely into North Charleston at about 2pm and was taken to a local hospital, where he was in stable condition, said Maj Melanie Salinas. The pilot’s name has not been released.

Based on the missing plane’s location and trajectory, the search for the F-35 Lightning II jet was focused on Lake Moultrie and Lake Marion, said Senior Master Sergeant Heather Stanton at Joint Base Charleston. Both lakes are north of North Charleston.

Local congresswoman Nancy Mace said: “How in the hell do you lose an F-35? How is there not a tracking device and we’re asking the public to what, find a jet and turn it in?”

A South Carolina Law Enforcement Division helicopter joined the search for the F-35 after some bad weather cleared in the area, Stanton said.

Officials are still investigating why the pilot ejected, authorities said.

The pilot of a second F-35 returned safely to Joint Base Charleston, Salinas said.

The planes and pilots were with the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 based in Beaufort, not far from South Carolina’s Atlantic coast.

archive: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/vNlJ2

There’s a warning about a dangerous bacteria that might have infected a local woman who’s still recovering after nearly two months in the hospital. An online fundraising effort says she contracted the bacterial infection after eating fish and is now a quadruple amputee.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued a warning about a bacterial infection that people can get by eating raw or undercooked fish or by exposing an open wound to coastal waters. A friend tells us this San Jose woman likely got this specific infection after eating undercooked tilapia.

A San Jose mother’s life is changed forever. Laura Barajas, 40, has had her limbs amputated while battling a bacterial infection.

“It’s just been really heavy on all of us. It’s terrible. This could’ve happened to any of us,” said Barajas’ friend Anna Messina.

Messina says back in late July Barajas had bought tilapia from a local market for dinner. She cooked it and ate it alone. Within days, she got very ill and was then hospitalized.

“She almost lost her life. She was on a respirator,” Messina said. “They put her into a medically induced coma. Her fingers were black, her feet were black her bottom lip was black. She had complete sepsis and her kidneys were failing.”

Now, a month and a half later, Barajas is without her arms and legs.

Messina believes the infection was caused by Vibrio vulnificus — a bacterial infection the CDC has been warning about.

“The ways you can get infected with this bacteria are one-you can eat something that’s contaminated with it the other way is by having a cut or tattoo exposed to water in which this bug lives,” said UCSF Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Natasha Spottiswoode.

Spottiswoode says the bacteria is especially concerning for people who are immunocompromised.

The CDC says about 150-200 cases of the infections are reported each year and about one in five people with the infection die — sometimes within one to two days of becoming ill.

“People should take sensible precautions like if you have a cut avoid getting immersed in water until it’s well healed,” Spottiswoode said. “If you are someone immunocompromised keeping an eye on these things and avoiding those high-risk activities and foods.”

Messina says she and Barajas’ family are still waiting to learn more about what happened. She hopes people realize how precious life can be.

“Be thankful for what we have right now because it can be taken away so quickly so easily,” Messina said.

Messina has set up a GoFundMe to help with her friend’s medical expenses. So far, it has raised more than $20,000.

archive: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/iVz5y

Ukrainian presidential adviser says deaths of civilians ‘the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego’

A senior Ukrainian official has accused Elon Musk of “committing evil” after a new biography revealed details about how the business magnate ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships.

In a statement on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk owns, the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote that Musk’s interference led to the deaths of civilians, calling them “the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego”.

“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian fleet via Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, and children are being killed,” Podolyak wrote.

“Why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realise that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?”

Musk defended his decision, saying he did not want his SpaceX company to be “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation”.

CNN on Thursday quoted an excerpt from the biography Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, which described how armed submarine drones were approaching a Russian fleet near the Crimean coast when they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly”.

The biography, due out on Tuesday, alleges Musk ordered Starlink engineers to turn off the service in the area of the attack because of his concern that Vladimir Putin would respond with nuclear weapons to a Ukrainian attack on Russian-occupied Crimea.

Musk, who is also the CEO of the Tesla electric car company and SpaceX rocket and spacecraft manufacturer, initially agreed to supply Starlink hardware to Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion disrupted Ukrainian communications. But he reportedly had second thoughts after Kyiv succeeded in repelling the initial Russian assault and began to counterattack.

Musk has previously been embroiled in a social media spat with Ukrainian officials including the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, over his ideas for ending Russia’s invasion.

In October last year, Musk proposed a peace deal involving re-running under UN supervision annexation referendums in Moscow-occupied Ukrainian regions, acknowledging Russian sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula and giving Ukraine a neutral status.

“Preliminary analysis suggests that the reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts has grown further in the first half of 2023, driven in particular by the dismantling of Twitter’s safety standards.

The EU has also accused Musk’s X of allowing Russian propaganda about Ukraine to spread on its website.

A study released last week by the European Commission, the governing body of the European Union, found that “the reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts has grown further in the first half of 2023.”

The study said that the increased reach of Russian propaganda online was “largely driven by Twitter, where engagement grew by 36% after CEO Elon Musk decided to lift mitigation measures on Kremlin-backed accounts”.

Musk on Friday attempted to refute the EU study, writing on his social media platform: “Where is all this pro-Russian propaganda? We don’t see it.”

archive: https://archive.ph/wip/ENe3P

Study finds ‘direct evidence’ of polar amplification on continent as scientists warn of implications of ice loss

Antarctica is likely warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world and faster than climate change models are predicting, with potentially far-reaching implications for global sea level rise, according to a scientific study.

Scientists analysed 78 Antarctic ice cores to recreate temperatures going back 1,000 years and found the warming across the continent was outside what could be expected from natural swings.

In West Antarctica, a region considered particularly vulnerable to warming with an ice sheet that could push up global sea levels by several metres if it collapsed, the study found warming at twice the rate suggested by climate models.

Climate scientists have long expected that polar regions would warm faster than the rest of the planet – a phenomenon known as polar amplification – and this has been seen in the Arctic.

Dr Mathieu Casado, of the Laboratoire des Science du Climat et de l’Environnement in France and lead author of the study, said they had found “direct evidence” that Antarctica was also now undergoing polar amplification.

“It is extremely concerning to see such significant warming in Antarctica, beyond natural variability,” he said.

Antarctica is the size of the continental US and Mexico combined, but has only 23 permanent weather stations and only three of these are away from the coast.

Casado and colleagues examined 78 Antarctic ice cores that hold a record of temperature and then compared those temperatures to climate models and observations.

The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found Antarctica was warming at a rate of between 0.22C and 0.32C per decade, compared to 0.18C per decade predicted by climate models.

Part of the warming in Antarctica is likely being masked by a change in a pattern of winds – also thought to be linked to global heating and the loss of ozone over the continent – that has tended to reduce temperatures.

Dr Sarah Jackson, an ice core expert at the Australian National University, who was not involved in the study, said the findings were “deeply concerning”.

“All our projections for future sea level rise use these low rates of warming. Our models might be underestimating the loss of ice that we might get,” she said.

Dr Danielle Udy, a climate scientist and ice core expert at the University of Tasmania, who was not involved in the paper, said the research was timely “given the extreme events we have been seeing in Antarctica”.

Scientists are scrambling to understand why Antarctic sea ice has been at record low levels over the last two years, with some suggesting global heating could now be affecting the region.

Thousands of emperor penguin chicks likely died in late 2022 after the usually stable sea ice supporting colonies in West Antarctica melted.

Dr Kyle Clem, a scientist at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, has studied recent record high temperatures at one weather station at the south pole.

Clem said Antarctica’s climate was subject to large natural swings, but Casado’s study had shown “a detectable change in Antarctic climate and an emergence of anthropogenic polar amplification”.

He said the results would be crucial for understanding the future of the continent “as greenhouse gases continue to increase”.

“The implications of this study are of particular importance for considering future changes in Antarctic sea ice, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and potentially even sea level rise,” Clem said.

“If anthropogenic polar amplification is already occurring in the Antarctic that exceeds that simulated by climate models, then future warming will likely be greater than that currently projected by climate models.”

A warming Antarctic, he said, would also likely lead to further losses of sea ice that would have implications for “ocean warming, global ocean circulation, and marine ecosystems”.

“As far as sea level rise, ocean warming is already melting protective ice shelves in West Antarctica and causing the West Antarctic ice sheet to retreat.”

Greater warming could also lead to more melting of coastal ice shelves that protect glaciers.

“This has already been seen on the Antarctic peninsula in recent decades, and it could become a more widespread occurrence around Antarctica sooner than anticipated in a more strongly warming Antarctic climate,” he said.

archive: https://archive.ph/E2yPg

North Korea has launched its first operational "tactical nuclear attack submarine" and assigned it to the fleet that patrols the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan, state media said on Friday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who attended the launch ceremony on Wednesday, said arming the navy with nuclear weapons was an urgent task and promised to transfer more underwater and surface vessels equipped with tactical nuclear weapons to the naval forces, news agency KCNA reported.

"The submarine-launching ceremony heralded the beginning of a new chapter for bolstering up the naval force of the DPRK," KCNA said, using the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Submarine No. 841 -- named Hero Kim Kun Ok after a North Korean historical figure -- will perform its combat mission as "one of core underwater offensive means of the naval force" of North Korea, Kim said.

North Korea plans to turn its existing submarines into nuclear weapons-armed attack submarines, and accelerate its push to build nuclear-powered submarines, Kim said.

"Achieving a rapid development of our naval forces ... is a priority that cannot be delayed given ... the enemies' recent aggressive moves and military acts," the North Korean leader said in a speech, apparently referring to the United States and South Korea.

Analysts first spotted signs that at least one new submarine was being built in 2016, and in 2019 state media showed Kim inspecting a previously unreported submarine that was built under "his special attention" and that would be operational in the waters off the east coast.

State media at the time did not describe the submarine's weapons systems or say where and when the inspection took place, but analysts said the apparent size of the new vessel indicated it was designed to carry missiles.

It was not immediately clear what missiles the new submarine would be armed with. North Korea has test-fired a number of submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and cruise missiles that can be fired from submarines.

It is also unclear whether North Korea has fully developed the miniaturised nuclear warheads needed to fit on such missiles. Analysts say that perfecting smaller warheads would most likely be a key goal if the North resumes nuclear testing.

North Korea has a large submarine fleet but only the experimental ballistic missile submarine 8.24 Yongung (August 24th Hero) is known to have launched a missile.

"This is likely intended to field the navalized version of the KN23, which they've acknowledged as a delivery system for their compact nuclear warhead," said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, citing the short-range SLBM that the North has test-fired.

Tal Inbar, a senior research fellow at the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said the submarine's huge sail appeared to have room for both ballistic and cruise missiles.

"It won't be long before we will see it launch missiles," he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The launching ceremony comes as North Korea is set to mark the 75th anniversary of its founding day on Saturday and follows reports that Kim plans to travel to Russia this month to meet President Vladimir Putin to discuss weapons supplies to Moscow.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Jakarta, and asked Beijing to do more as a U.N. Security Council member to address North Korea's nuclear threat.

archive: https://archive.ph/23A1X

‘Season of simmering’ in planet’s warmest June to August period since documentation began in 1940

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The world has experienced its hottest season on record, the EU earth observation agency reported, as heat records in the 2023 northern hemisphere summer were “not just broken but smashed”, scientists said.

The June to August period was the planet’s warmest since records began in 1940, according to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

UN secretary-general António Guterres said the planet had “just endured a season of simmering” and called on global leaders to take urgent action.

“Climate breakdown has begun,” he warned. “Our climate is imploding faster than we can cope with extreme weather events hitting every corner of the planet.”

The global average temperature was 16.77C, or 0.66C higher than the 1990- 2020 average. This beat the previous record set in 2019 by 0.3C, with an average temperature of 16.48C. Every fraction of a degree of warming of the planet has an exponential effect.

Extreme weather patterns have concerned experts who fear it indicates an acceleration of global warming. 

“Global temperature records continue to tumble in 2023, with the warmest August following on from the warmest July and June leading to the warmest boreal summer in our data record going back to 1940,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus.

“The scientific evidence is overwhelming — we will continue to see more climate records and more intense and frequent extreme weather events impacting society and ecosystems, until we stop emitting greenhouse gases.”

This year could yet be the hottest on record, with the first eight months of the year ranking as the second-warmest, just .01C below 2016 as the warmest year so far, according to Copernicus.

In Europe the temperature was 0.83C above average making it the fifth warmest summer season, although it has suffered among the most fatalities and losses with Greece and Spain suffering deadly wildfires and floods.

Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London, said: “2023 is the year that climate records were not just broken but smashed.”

“With record heatwaves in Europe, America and China, record ocean temperature and extreme melting of Antarctic sea ice we are now feeling the full impacts of climate change.”

Copernicus said there was above-average rainfall also over most of western Europe and Turkey, as well as in western and north-eastern North America, parts of Asia, Chile and Brazil, and north-western Australia, which in some cases led to flooding.

However, Iceland, northern Scandinavia, central Europe, large parts of Asia, Canada, southern North America and most of South America experienced drier-than-average conditions, it said, with these dry conditions leading to significant wildfires in some regions where it was unusual.

Following the same trend as in June and July, the month August was estimated to have been about 1.5C warmer than the preindustrial average for 1850-1900.

A temporary rise of 1.5C in the average global temperature is distinct from the Paris Agreement goal of limiting long-term global warming to 1.5C by 2100. On that long-term basis, temperatures have risen at least 1.1C, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said.

During August, Antarctic sea ice extent was at a record low level for the time of year.

Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, said: “Breaking heat records has become the norm in 2023. Global warming continues because we have not stopped burning fossil fuels.”

archive: https://archive.ph/XJT7Y

Photocatalytic process enables water to be activated.

Hydrogen is often touted as a future energy solution, especially when generated through environmentally friendly methods. Beyond its energy potential, hydrogen plays a crucial role in producing active ingredients and various essential compounds. To generate hydrogen, water (H2O) can be transformed into hydrogen gas (H2) through a sequence of chemical reactions.

However, as water molecules are very stable, splitting them into hydrogen and oxygen presents a big challenge to chemists. For it to succeed at all, the water first has to be activated using a catalyst – then it reacts more easily.

A team of researchers led by Prof. Armido Studer at the Institute of Organic Chemistry at Münster University (Germany) has developed a photocatalytic process in which water, under mild reaction conditions, is activated through triaryl phosphines and not, as in most other processes, through transition metal complexes.

This strategy, which was recently published in the journal Nature, will open a new door in the highly active field of research relating to radical chemistry, says the team. Radicals are, as a rule, highly reactive intermediates. The team uses a special intermediate – a phosphine-water radical cation – as activated water, from which hydrogen atoms from H2O can be easily split off and transferred to a further substrate.

The reaction is driven by light energy. “Our system,” says Armido Studer, “offers an ideal platform for investigating unresearched chemical processes that use the hydrogen atom as a reagent in synthesis.”

Dr. Christian Mück-Lichtenfeld, who analyzed the activated water complexes using theoretical methods, says, “The hydrogen-oxygen bond in this intermediate is extraordinarily weak, making it possible to transfer a hydrogen atom to various compounds.” Dr. Jingjing Zhang, who carried out the experimental work, adds: “The hydrogen atoms of the activated water can be transferred to alkenes and arenes under very mild conditions, in so-called hydrogenation reactions.”

Hydrogenation reactions are enormously important in pharmaceutical research, in the agrochemical industry, and in materials sciences.

Reference: “Photocatalytic phosphine-mediated water activation for radical hydrogenation” by Jingjing Zhang, Christian Mück-Lichtenfeld and Armido Studer, 28 June 2023, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06141-1

archive: https://archive.ph/wip/3tKcx

Wolves on an Alaskan island are showing a remarkable adaptation.

Pleasant Island in Alaska is not exactly befitting of its name. The frigid, 20-square-mile island is uninhabited by humans, but it hosts a remarkably large and rich ecosystem that features deer, otters, red squirrels, and even brown bears. But in 2013, the island got a new addition: wolves.

When wolves colonized the island in 2013, it set up a natural experiment.

"This provided a great opportunity to study predator-prey dynamics of wolves and deer," says Roffler Gretchen. "We were interested in seeing how the newly colonizing wolf population would impact the deer population and predicted that the wolves might eat all the deer, and then leave the island as it is only separated from the mainland by 1.5 km."

The first part of the prediction came true. The deer population of around 120-200 deer plummeted. But instead of moving to greener pastures, the wolves remained on an island and shifted their diet to unexpected prey: sea otters.

Sea otters are themselves a top predator in the near-shore ecosystem, while wolves are an apex predator in the terrestrial area. -- so it's pretty surprising that you end up with a dynamic where one eats the other, says Taal Levi, an associate professor at Oregon State. "You have top predators feeding on a top predator," Levi says.

Gretchen, Levi, and colleagues were studying the wolf diets throughout southeast Alaska, as these wolves are petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act -- so knowing more about their feeding ecology was important.

They tracked some of the wolves with GPS collars and analyzed their scat. They found that in 2015, deer were the primary food of wolves, representing 75% of their diet. By 2017, wolves transitioned to eating primarily sea otters (57% of their diet), while deer only made up 7% of their diet. The pattern held through to 2020, when the study ended.

Otters themselves have had a rough history in the area. During the 19th and 20th centuries, sea otters in the region were hunted by fur traders and basically wiped out from the region. Local wolves were not hunted to extinction, unlike wolves in other parts of the US. But it was only in recent decades, thanks to the legal protection granted to sea otters, that the two populations overlapped.

But researchers weren't expecting wolves, a terrestrial species, to become so proficient at eating sea otters -- which, as the name implies, spend most of their time at sea.

"They are both scavenging otters and hunting them when the sea otters haul on land. Sea otters are very unlikely to be vulnerable to wolves in the ocean," notes Levi.

Wolves were often seen patrolling the shoreline of Pleasant Island and investigating rocky outcrops. The GPS data confirmed that they spent a lot of time in the intertidal zone as if looking for something -- and indeed they were: they were looking for otters to ambush.

Sea otters haul out on rocks to conserve energy, says Roffler. But this makes them more vulnerable to predation as they are slow and awkward on land -- and wolves are quick to take their chance. "We have collected evidence of wolves killing sea otters by ambush when they haul out on land or are in shallow water," Gretchen adds.

This new twist to the ecosystem makes for a very interesting case study, Gretchen continues.

"Previously there have been investigations into the effects of marine predators on sea otter populations, but until now very little attention has been paid to the impact of terrestrial predators on sea otters, or how sea otters may be an abundant marine prey to terrestrial predators. This interaction was unexpected, but has had profound effects, at least on Pleasant Island."

For now, it's not clear how the otters are adapting to this (or if they are adapting at all). The biggest effect might be a behavioral change that forces them to spend more time at sea, even when it would be beneficial to them to conserve energy on land -- the effects of this could be stressful in the long term, but this is something that warrants future research, Levi says.

But overall, the researchers don't expect that wolves will have a big effect on the sea otter population. The more important ecosystem implication is that wolf population dynamics can be decoupled from the large mammals that make up their typical prey.

"This allows wolves to remain abundant even as they cause large herbivore populations to decline. That is, sea otters may allow wolves to maintain large herbivores at lower densities, which has implications for vegetation and the animals that depend on it (bees, birds, bears for floral and berry resources, for example), across a huge coastline that will be eventually occupied by sea otters as their recovery continues," Levi adds.

This surprising finding of wolf diets definitely warrants more studies to better understand the interactions in this ecosystem -- and Levi says they're working exactly on that.

"We are now increasingly following up on the wolf-sea otter story with additional field studies, including one by PhD student Ellen Dymit, comparing mainland study areas with and without sea otters along the colonizing front of sea otter population expansion."

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

archive: https://archive.ph/wip/wgO64

The Vibrio vulnificus pathogen thrives in hot coastal waters, and beachgoers can contract it via a small cut or scrape. It can also kill them in two days.

If you were planning on a shore vacation this year, you might have kept track of great white sharks. The apex predator made famous by Jaws (and, OK, by The Meg and Sharknado) has been spotted on East Coast beaches from South Carolina up past Cape Cod, leaving potential beachcombers worried by accounts of close encounters and attacks.

But many marine biologists are worried about a much smaller—in fact, microscopic—threat. They are tracking an unprecedented surge in ocean-going bacteria known as Vibrio, which recently killed three people and sickened a fourth in Connecticut and New York, at least two of them after swimming in the coastal waters of Long Island Sound.

For swimmers and fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, Vibrio is a known summer foe. It is one of the reasons for the old saying that you shouldn't eat oysters in months that don’t have an R in their name: Warmer water encourages bacterial growth, and oysters accumulate these organisms when they feed. The bacteria is also an infection hazard for anyone who gets a cut while cleaning up soaked debris after a hurricane. But Vibrio appearing in the waters of the upper East Coast is a new and unfamiliar problem, fueled by the rapid ocean warming of climate change.

Researchers worry Vibrio is going to become a persistent threat to whether people can safely enjoy the beach—and physicians who work in areas where it is already common wonder whether their northern colleagues will be alert to its potentially fatal risks. “We are used to certain diseases in our area, but they are something that clinicians in the Northeast, for example, may not be as familiar with,” says Cesar Arias, a professor and chief of infectious diseases at Houston Methodist Hospital. “All these changes in climate that we are seeing, including the tremendous heating of the oceans, is making the geography of infectious diseases change.”

Already, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there may be 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths caused by Vibrio species in the US each year; about 52,000 of them come from eating seafood. But because shellfish safety is tightly policed by federal agencies, it’s the other portion of Vibrio infections, caused by the species Vibrio vulnificus, that is raising so much concern right now. These infections happen when bacteria-laden seawater infiltrates a break in the skin. In an average year there are believed to be 28,000 cases, but that’s widely considered an undercount.

Those infections can be treated, if people get antibiotics quickly. But without rapid attention, they can cause necrotizing fasciitis—flesh-eating disease—that can only be arrested by amputation, and also can put people into septic shock in as few as two days. The bacteria can enter the body through very minor injuries: a cut from stepping on a shell, a pinch from a crab’s claws, water touching the incision created by a new piercing or tattoo. Up to one-fifth of those who contract vibriosis from wound infections die.

The risk is serious enough that, on Friday afternoon, the CDC sent out an alert to health departments and physicians, urging them to consider the possibility of V. vulnificus if they learn of wound infections in anyone who has been in the water in the Gulf of Mexico or on the East Coast. The alert emphasizes how fast these infections turn septic and asks doctors to send cultures to a lab—but it also urges them to start patients on antibiotics immediately, without waiting for lab results or consultation with a specialist.

Vibrio are on the move. In March, a research team based at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom used records of diagnoses combined with models of climate warming to define the situation in the US now and forecast what might come next. They found that, just for V. vulnificus wound infections, cases increased eightfold between 1988 and 2018. Every year, they were recorded about 30 miles (48 kilometers) further north.

Then, using several computer models based on predicted levels of greenhouse gas emissions combined with population movements, the group plotted the bacterium’s possible further shift. Under a conservative low-emissions scenario, they found that Vibrio—already present in the Chesapeake Bay—might extend its range to the middle of the New Jersey shore by 2060. In the outer bound of a high-emissions scenario, it might move as far north as the coast of southern Maine by 2100.

Elizabeth Archer, an environmental scientist who led the work as a doctoral student, says it was a mild shock to discover, via news of the recent Connecticut and New York cases, that V. vulnificus had already reached the edge of New England. “Our model had predicted that area to be in the main distribution of infections by mid-century,” she says. “So it was perhaps a bit surprising that it came so soon—but also not surprising, given the trends in ocean warming and air temperatures.”

In a few scientific circles, there has been concern for years that temperature anomalies are permitting Vibrio to surge out of its historic areas. Bacterial surges have been documented on the coasts of the Netherlands and Poland, and isolated from tidal flats in northern California—all places where the water ought to be too cold for Vibrio to grow. And over the past decade, Vibrio has increased in Atlantic coastal waters off Florida and the Carolinas, not only contaminating seafood but also posing a hazard to people who fish or boat in marshes and in-shore waterways.

This year, the unprecedented warming of ocean water, which fueled the rapid intensification of Hurricane Idalia the night before it struck Florida’s Big Bend, is changing marine environments all the way up the Atlantic Coast. Both Long Island Sound—where two of the Connecticut victims were apparently infected—and waters off New England have reached record-high temperatures in the past few years.

“V. vulnificus is only active at a temperature that's above 13 degrees Celsius, and then it becomes more prevalent up until the temperature reaches 30 degrees Celsius, which is 86 Fahrenheit,” says Karen Knee, who is an associate professor and water-quality expert at American University and an open-water swimmer accustomed to ocean conditions. “I was looking at the sea surface temperature maps, and everywhere south of Cape Cod is getting into territory that's above 20 degrees Celsius, which is when [Vibrio] really starts to become more infectious. And that's most of the swimming waters on the East Coast.”

There’s more going on than just temperature shifts. Geoffrey Scott, the chair of environmental sciences at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health who leads a research consortium on oceans and climate change, says changes in water quality are whomping up Vibrio’s ability to cause severe illness. Those changes are driven by people relocating to coasts, which increases nutrient flows into the ocean via wastewater.

Vibrio used to be a late-summer hazard, but is now turning up earlier—and also later— in the year. “We've gone from them being mainly an issue from late July through early October, to being present April through November,” says Scott, who formerly supervised several coastal laboratories in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “And in some cases, they have been seen overwintering in North Carolina, around the Outer Banks.”

To the problems of V. vulnificus being more virulent, in more places, for longer, you can add that more people may be exposed: first, because hot weather naturally sends more people to the beach, and second, because some of those people may not realize how vulnerable they are. “[Vulnificus] predominantly seems to impact people who have liver disease much harder than those who do not,” says Scott Roberts, an infectious-disease physician and assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine. “And in general, being in an immunocompromised state. That could be from age, could be from chemotherapy, or if there's some sort of underlying disease.”

Many people won’t know they are in danger. Every state with a shellfish industry participates in the National Shellfish Sanitation Program run by the Food and Drug Administration, which dictates standards for every aspect of shellfish production, including screening for contamination by Vibrio. That’s out of self-interest: Any hint of the organism’s presence can shut down a state’s shellfish economy. (In fact, since the recent deaths, the home page of the Connecticut Department of Agriculture has been topped by a highlighted banner declaring “Connecticut shellfish have never been associated with Vibrio vulnificus infections.”)

But there’s no national program that can warn swimmers or surfers of Vibrio’s presence in the ocean; no testing regime like ones that look for coastal E. coli; no system of flags like the ones that announce strong surf and rip tides. These hazards are local knowledge, shared among people who have lived alongside them.

“People down here may have a buddy who got cut on a shell or while fishing, and their finger’s a little red and swollen, and somebody will be like, ‘Don't sleep on that. I had a buddy who waited till the next morning and he lost his hand,’” says Brett Froelich, a microbiologist and assistant professor at George Mason University in Virginia. “Other people in other locations don't know that. They will absolutely think, ‘Well, I hope it gets better in the morning,’ and in the morning, their hand is black.”

This poses a problem: How to make the public in newly endemic areas conscious of their new risks. No one—especially not researchers at publicly funded universities—wants to be perceived as hurting coastal tourism. “We don’t want to scare people away from beaches,” Froelich says. “You don't need to avoid [them]. You just need to be aware.”

archive: https://archive.ph/VvI1h

For food companies, it will be a balancing act between raising prices and losing customers. For the agriculture business, it may be a boon.

First, there was the intense heat. Then, the wildfires and violent storms followed.

This summer is on track to be the hottest recorded on Earth. But the impact goes far beyond keeping cool: Extreme high temperatures are creating risks to food production.

Heat waves destroy crops and threaten to drive up food prices. Food insecurity is the ‘new normal’ with climate change pointing to recurring crises and structurally higher agricultural commodity prices, wrote J.P. Morgan’s chair of global research Joyce Chang in a recent research note.

Big packaged-food companies such as Mondelez International (ticker: MDLZ), Unilever (UL) and Nestlé (NESN.Switzerland) could face an increasing struggle to pass on price increases while not driving away customers. However, price volatility could bring benefits for companies such as agricultural equipment supplier Deere (DE) and commodities trader Bunge (BG).

The standout example of how extreme weather can drive up food prices is olive oil. The Mediterranean staple has more than doubled over the last 12 months to $8,000 a metric ton, a record high according to statistics tracked by the International Monetary Fund back to 1990. Extreme heat was the culprit as Spain, the world’s largest producer, was hard hit by drought.

The impact on privately owned Dave’s Gourmet offers a snapshot into what some of America’s biggest food producers could face in the future. The Dallas-based specialty food company sources olive oil from a producer in the south of Spain. Dave’s Gourmet marketing director Jade Steger told Barron’s that its supplier raised prices by 20% to cover additional costs.

“Half of the Spanish olive groves are not in irrigated plantations,” Steger said. “Our partner relies on an efficient water irrigation system which significantly reduces the risk, but unfortunately it can’t be removed entirely.”

Olive oil has a relatively limited knock on effect in the food chain, although fans of Starbucks ’s (SBUX) range of olive-oil infused coffees might need to brace themselves for a price increase. However, a whole range of major food ingredients are at risk. Argentina’s soybean crop fell by more than half this year due to prolonged drought, according to the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange. Kansas had its smallest wheat crop since 1966 this summer after dry conditions caused many fields to be abandoned.

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Government-imposed measures to tackle food inflation pose the most immediate threat to corporations. The French government said in June that it had reached a deal with dozens of food producers to lower their prices, with a minister subsequently naming Unilever as one of the companies which wasn’t doing enough to bring down costs. Unilever declined to comment on the French government’s comments but told Barron’s its pricing decisions are always taken very carefully and it is investing in regenerative agriculture practices to secure the food-supply chain.

Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher told analysts on a recent earnings call that agricultural commodities were still highly volatile, citing the drought in Southern Europe, and said the company had been facing prolonged negotiations with retailers.

That was also a theme picked up by Oreo maker Mondelez, which said that its volumes of sales in Europe were down in the second quarter due to contentious negotiations with grocers, which included its products being temporarily removed from some supermarkets.

At the moment, the effects look manageable. Unilever’s underlying sales rose 7.9% in the second quarter of the year from the same period a year earlier, while Mondelez‘s organic net revenue was up 16%, both boosted by price increases. Unilever’s U.S.-listed shares are flat this year so far while Mondelez is up 4.2%.

Price increases are slowing now, after hitting a peak in July last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a global crisis. However, climate change is increasing the chances of sharp swings in food prices in the future. Over the next few years that could be exacerbated by the El Niño weather pattern, which tends to raise temperatures and bring more extreme weather conditions.

“Sugar, cocoa, coffee are very much at risk and so are the grains,” said Kathy Kriskey, a Commodities ETF strategist at Invesco. Cocoa prices hit a 12-year high in New York trading this summer with harvests in West Africa hit by extreme wet weather.

Higher prices for cocoa and coffee pose challenges for companies such as Nestlé, although the the effects can be complex. Higher prices could drive consumers to Nestlés instant coffee products. Nestlé shares are down 2.8% this year so far, after it reported organic sales growth of 8.7% for the first half of the year.

Another example of a vulnerable staple is wheat. Researchers at Tufts University found that heat waves that only had a probability of happening once every hundred years based on conditions in 1981 are now likely to happen once every six years in the Midwestern U.S. and once every 16 years in Northeastern China, both key wheat-producing areas.

That could have an effect on agricultural equipment suppliers such as Deere. They generally benefit from rising crop prices, which leave farmers with more profit to spend on tractors and other machinery. Drier conditions can therefore be helpful in supporting crop prices and farming profits but only if they don’t tip over into severe drought.

For this year, Deere executives said they expect sales of large agricultural equipment in the U.S. and Canada, its largest markets, to be up approximately 10% as drier weather conditions supported commodity prices. Deere shares are down 2.8% this year so far and it trades at a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 12.5 times, below its five-year average of 16.0 times according to FactSet.

One company hoping to profit from volatile weather swings is grain trader and oilseed processor Bunge. Earlier this year it struck a deal to buy fellow grain merchant Viterra for $8.2 billion, citing the advantages of having a larger global footprint to deal with violent weather caused by climate change. Bunge’s profit tripled in the second quarter on improved margins as it benefited from commodities volatility despite falling sales. Bunge stock is up 14% this year so far and it trades at a forward P/E multiple of 9.5 times, below its five-year average of 11.3 times according to FactSet.

Investors can also look to invest directly in commodities to either back an expected rise in prices or hedge against inflation. Invesco’s Kriskey advises against concentrating on a single crop and instead looking for exposure to a broader basket such as via the fund manager’s Agriculture Commodity Strategy No K-1 ETF, an exchange-traded fund with exposure to 11 agricultural commodities.

A new normal for the climate is likely to mean more abnormal movements in food prices. That creates risks but also opportunities for investors keeping a close eye on the stocks and commodities most affected and with a strong understanding of how to play a rising likelihood of food price shocks.

archive: https://archive.ph/9fFye

The Environmental Protection Agency is delaying plans to tighten air quality standards for smog despite a recommendation by a scientific advisory panel to lower air pollution limits to protect public health.

The decision by EPA Administrator Michael Regan means that one of the agency’s most important air quality regulations will not be updated until well after the 2024 presidential election.

“I have decided that the best path forward is to initiate a new statutory review of the ozone (standard) and the underlying air quality criteria,’' Regan wrote in a letter to the EPA advisory panel last month. The letter cites “several issues” raised by the panel in a recent report that “warrant additional evaluation and review.’'

The review, which will last at least two years, will “ensure that air quality standards reflect the latest science in order to best protect people from pollution,’' Regan said.

Regan’s decision avoids an election year battle with industry groups and Republicans who have complained about what they consider overly intrusive EPA rules on power plants, refineries, automobiles and other polluters.

The delay marks the second time in 12 years that a Democratic administration has put off a new ozone standard prior to an election year. President Barack Obama shut down plans to tighten ozone standards in 2011, leading to a four-year delay before the standards were updated in 2015.

Paul Billings, senior vice president of the American Lung Association, called the EPA’s decision “profoundly disappointing” and a missed opportunity to protect public health and promote environmental justice. A recent report by the lung association showed that minority communities bear a disproportionate burden from ground-level ozone, which occurs when air pollution from cars, power plants and other sources mixes with sunlight. The problem is particularly acute in urban areas.

Billings called the ozone rule “the public health cornerstone of the Clean Air Act,’' adding that “millions of people will breathe dirty air for many more years’’ as a result of the delay. An increased number of asthma attacks, sick days and even premature death are likely to occur, he and other public health advocates said.

Raul Garcia, vice president of policy and legislation for Earthjustice, called the delay “shameful” and unjustified. “The science tells us we are long overdue,” Garcia said.

Democratic lawmakers also were disappointed. “Inaction threatens public health and puts those with underlying conditions such as asthma or lung disease at an elevated risk,’' said Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. He and 51 other Democrats had urged swift action on a new rule.

“Unfortunately we’ve seen the process for updating the ozone standards repeatedly swept up in political games that risk lives,’' the lawmakers said in an Aug. 7 letter to the EPA.

Conor Bernstein, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, applauded the EPA’s decision “not to race ahead with an unnecessary revision of the ozone standards,’' which have not been changed since 2015. The current standard was reaffirmed in December 2020 under then-President Donald Trump, a Republican.

Bernstein, whose members produce coal and other fossil fuels, urged officials to reconsider other regulations that he said target coal-fired power plants and endanger reliability of the electric grid. “It’s clear — and deeply alarming — that EPA (does not) understand the cumulative impact its rules will have on the grid and the nation’s severely stressed power supply,’' he said.

A spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, the top lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, said current ozone limits are among the most stringent in the world. “Any tightening of the standard could impact energy costs, threaten U.S. energy security and impact businesses and American consumers,’' spokeswoman Andrea Woods said in an email.

The EPA’s decision comes after two advisory panels — the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council — urged the agency to lower the current ozone standard of 70 parts per billion.

“Based on the scientific evidence currently available, it is concluded that the level of the current standard is not protective with an adequate margin of safety,’' the EPA panel said in a June report. A limit of 55 to 60 parts per billion “is more likely to be protective and to provide an adequate margin of safety,’' the panel said.

Lianne Sheppard, a University of Washington biostatistics professor who chairs the scientific advisory panel, said Regan’s decision was “his alone” to make.

“However, I am disappointed, given the robust scientific evidence that ozone is harmful to public health and welfare,” she told E&E News last month.

The White House environmental justice council, meanwhile, cited the “horrible toll of air pollution’’ and its disproportionate effect on minority communities. In a letter to the White House, co-chairs Richard Moore and Peggy Shepard said the problem is “compounded by the inadequate monitoring and enforcement in many of our communities.’'

Moore is co-director of Los Jardines Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, while Sheppard is co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice in New York City.

Tomas Carbonell, a top official in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said the report by the scientific panel left the EPA with little choice but to launch a comprehensive review even though all but one panel member supported a stricter ozone standard.

“When we’re looking at our national air quality standards, there’s really no way to cut corners around that process,’' Carbonell said in an interview.

The agency will convene workshops next spring to gather information and will release a review plan for action in late 2024, he said. A final decision could be years away.

archive: https://archive.ph/wip/lSj05