Day: December 11, 2018

Environmental groups opposed to offshore drilling sued the federal government Tuesday to prevent future seismic tests for oil and gas deposits 

in Atlantic waters off the U.S. East Coast. 

Seismic testing, which uses air gun blasts, violates federal laws that protect marine mammals, endangered species and national environmental policy, according the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston, S.C., against U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the National Marine Fisheries Service. 

The fisheries service in November gave initial permission to five companies to conduct seismic airgun tests beneath a vast region off the East Coast. The permits allow marine wildlife to be harassed but not killed.

Conservationists say the testing, a precursor to oil drilling, can cause disorientation that leads to beachings of an endangered species, the North Atlantic right whale. 

U.S. President Donald Trump is pursuing increased petroleum drilling as part of an “energy dominance” policy. A proposal to open nearly all U.S. waters to offshore drilling, announced in January, is pending.

Objections ‘steamrolled’

“The Trump administration has steamrolled over objections of scientists, governors and thousands of coastal communities and businesses to enable this dangerous activity,” Michael Jasny, a director and ocean noise pollution expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.

A federal marine biologist said last month that no seismic tests had been known to cause whale beachings. A spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency within the Commerce Department, declined to discuss ongoing litigation.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit also included the Southern Environmental Law Center, Sierra Club, Oceana, the Center for Biological Diversity and the North Carolina Coastal Federation. 

Lawmakers from South Carolina and coastal mayors held a news conference on Tuesday in Charleston to address the issue. 

U.S. Rep.-elect Joe Cunningham, a Democrat, said drilling threatens fishing industries, jobs, recreation and a tourism industry worth $21 billion.

“I’m here not just to say ‘no to offshore drilling’ but ‘hell, no, to offshore drilling,’ ” added Cunningham, who said he would introduce legislation next year to reinstate a ban on U.S. offshore drilling that had been renewed by President Barack Obama. 

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, opposes drilling off the coast of his state. State Attorney General Alan Wilson, also a Republican, will send a letter of opposition to Ross soon, a spokesman said by phone.

More than a dozen states are seeking exemptions from offshore drilling leases.

“Oil spills don’t respect state boundaries,” said Catherine Wannamaker, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
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Deforestation in Brazil’s tropical Cerrado savanna, which makes up a quarter of the country, fell 11 percent to a record low in 2018 compared with a year earlier, the Ministry of Environment said in a statement Tuesday. 

Deforestation in the South American country’s savanna biome totaled 6,657 square kilometers (2,570 square miles), an area larger than the U.S. state of Connecticut. That’s just below 6,777 square kilometers in 2016, the previous low since records began to be kept, the ministry said.

A biome is a grouping of plants and animals that have adapted to a specific environment. 

This contrasts with the Amazon rainforest, making up 40 percent of Brazil, which has seen a 13.7 percent spike in deforestation this year to a 10-year high. 

Activists have been concerned that deforestation could spike under policies proposed by President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who assumes office Jan. 1 and has pledged to end the current “industry of fines” for environmental violations like deforestation.

The figure for Cerrado is based on the change in deforestation between August 2017 and July 2018, the period used to measure annual destruction, as recorded by Brazilian space research agency Inpe. The statement did not give a reason for the decline in deforestation.

The Cerrado’s vegetation soaks up major amounts of carbon dioxide, making its preservation key to curbing greenhouse gas emissions and for countering global warming. 

While the Cerrado is less densely forested than the Amazon rainforest, its plants have deep roots that lock carbon into the ground and are sometimes referred to as an underground forest. 

Ricardo Salles, Brazil’s future environment minister under Bolsonaro, told Reuters on Monday that Bolsonaro would not gut resources for environmental protection, contrary to the fears of environmentalists. 

Money for environmental protection is spent inefficiently and mismanaged, he said, arguing he could produce better results with the same budget.
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A U.S. energy official says “no country should have to sacrifice economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability” during a U.N. climate discussions in Poland. Preston Wells Griffith, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of International Affairs at the Department of Energy, spoke at a U.S. government-sponsored event Monday in Katowice, responding to criticism of the U.S. administration’s policy of supporting the fossil fuel industry. Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Scientists have drilled a mile and a half (2.5 kilometers) beneath the seabed and found vast underground forests of “deep life,” including microbes that persist for thousands, maybe millions of years, researchers said Monday.

Feeding on nothing but the energy from rocks, and existing in a slow-motion, even zombie-like state, previously unknown forms of life are abundant beneath the Earth despite extreme temperatures and pressure.

About 70 percent of Earth’s bacteria and archaea — single-celled organisms with no nucleus — live underground, according to the latest findings of an international collaboration involving hundreds of experts, known as the Deep Carbon Observatory, were released at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington.

This “deep life” amounts to between 15 and 23 billion tons of carbon, said the DCO, launched in 2009, as it nears the end of its 10-year mission to reveal Earth’s inner secrets.

“The deep biosphere of Earth is massive,” said Rick Colwell, who teaches astrobiology and oceanography at Oregon State University.

He described the team’s findings so far as a “very exciting, extreme ecosystem.”

Among them may be Earth’s hottest living creature, Geogemma barossii, a single-celled organism found in hydrothermal vents on the seafloor.

Its microscopic cells grow and replicate at 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 Celsius).

“There is genetic diversity of life below the surface that is at least equal to but perhaps exceeds that which is at the surface and we don’t know much about it,” Colwell said.

‘Distinct’ from surface life

Similar types of strange, deep life microbes might be found on the subsurface of other planets, like Mars.

“Most of deep life is very distinct from life on the surface,” said Fumio Inagaki, of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

Using the Japanese scientific vessel Chikyu, researchers have drilled far beneath the seabed and removed cores that have given scientists a detailed look at deep life.

“The microbes are just sitting there and live for very, very long periods of time,” he told AFP.

Brought up from these ancient coal beds and fed glucose in the lab, researchers have seen some microbes, bacteria and fungi slowly waking up.

“That was amazing,” said Inagaki.

Scientists have found life in continental mines and boreholes more than three miles (five kilometers) deep, and have not yet identified the boundary where life no longer exists, he added.

How basic biology works?

Gaining a better understanding of subsurface life on Earth can also help understand and better engineer climate-change fighting technologies that may one day sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

“What we learn here will help us understand what to look for on other planets or other systems where life could exist,” said Colwell.

In any case, studying what some scientists have called the “Galapagos of the Deep,” dramatically changes human’s perception of life on Earth, and their place in it.

Most of our planet’s microbial life is deep beneath the surface, and it may have played a big part in the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere by locking carbon dioxide underground and allowing air for people and animals to breathe.

“There is lots and lots of life on Earth that we did not know about. The fact that so much of it — at least in the marine sediment — is functioning at extremely low energy, it really changes our basic conception of how biology works,” said Karen Lloyd, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

“They are new branches on the tree of life that have been on Earth, doing whatever it is that they do, for billions of years, but without us ever noticing them,” she told AFP.

“It is like looking beside you and finding that you have an office mate you never knew about.”
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When a U.S. district judge last month ruled a federal ban on female genital mutilation unconstitutional, he undercut the federal government and alarmed anti-FGM activists, who hope to eradicate the practice.

The World Health Organization calls FGM, also known as female circumcision, a human rights violation of women and girls, with no health benefits.

Some 200 million women and girls around the world, mainly in Africa, have experienced FGM, the WHO says.

In his opinion, Judge Bernard Friedman called FGM “despicable,” but also “a local criminal activity” that must be addressed at the state level. In enacting a federal law, he said, Congress overstepped.

Now, local lawmakers, advocates and newspapers are calling for state bans that equal or surpass the scope of the federal law that was struck down.

‘Never again’

The case Friedman ruled on centers around Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, an emergency room physician accused of performing FGM on at least 100 girls in Michigan for more than a decade.

Prosecutors have focused their case on nine girls, aged 7 to 12, from three states. The girls allegedly were subjected to FGM with the aid of Nagarwala and seven others, including the girls’ mothers.

Defense attorneys say the procedure amounted to only a “nick” on the girls performed as part of a religious ritual — not FGM. But they also argued in July that the federal law banning FGM is unconstitutional.

State Senator Rick Jones, who represents Michigan’s 24th district, told VOA by phone that he was shocked to learn about Nagarwala’s case and strongly disagrees with Friedman’s ruling.

Last year, Jones became the spokesperson for a package of bills outlawing FGM statewide. The legislation passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Now, Michigan has some of the toughest FGM laws in the country.

Health-care providers convicted of performing FGM face up to 15 years in prison, along with the permanent loss of their medical licenses. Parents who take their daughters to doctors to be cut can lose custody.

The 1996 federal law, meanwhile, stipulated up to five years in prison and fines for medical providers who perform FGM.

“We wanted to send a strong message around the world: Never again bring your girls to Michigan for this horrible procedure,” Jones said.

Across the U.S., 27 states have passed laws banning FGM, many of which have been written in recent years and include penalties that go beyond the federal law, which also criminalizes so-called “vacation cutting,” the practice of taking girls out of the United States to have FGM performed overseas.

News organizations are among those pushing for an expansion of state laws. Last month, the Seattle Times editorial board called for a ban in Washington, one of 23 states yet to outlaw FGM.

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times editorial board said all 50 states should ban the “barbaric” practice, in light of Friedman’s ruling.

Religious ritual?

The health-care providers and families involved in the Michigan case belong to Dawoodi Bohra, a Shi’ite Muslim sect based in India with about 2 million followers worldwide.

According to a study published earlier this year, FGM, called khafd in Dawoodi Bohra communities, is widespread in the sect and involves cutting the clitoral hood or part of the clitoris, without an anesthetic, when girls turn seven.

The study, commissioned by WeSpeakOut, an advocacy group focused on eradicating khafd, also found that three-quarters of Dawoodi Bohra women have experienced FGM.

The severity and nature of FGM can vary.

Health-care providers have identified four types of FGM. Khafd involves Type 1 FGM. Other types involve removing all of the external genitalia and narrowing the vaginal opening.

Jones rejects the idea that there’s a religious basis for the procedure, however it’s performed.

“Across the world, this has been practiced by Christians, pagans, Muslims, even a small Jewish sect in Ethiopia,” he said.

“This is not about a religion,” he added. “This is about men attempting to control women’s behavior by this horrible procedure.”

The WHO identifies both short-term and permanent harms associated with the practice. Immediate concerns include severe pain, infections and, in some cases, death. Long term, women and girls subjected to FGM face a range of physiological and psychological complications that can affect menstruation, childbirth and sexual health.

The United States has been unequivocal in condemning the practice, saying “the U.S. government considers FGM/C to be a serious human rights abuse, and a form of gender-based violence and child abuse” on a fact sheet posted to the Citizenship & Immigration Services website.

Education and legislation

Friedman’s November decision is the latest in a series of setbacks for prosecutors.

Nagarwala spent seven months in 2017 in jail before 16 friends posted a $4.5 million unsecured bond, against the pleas of prosecutors, who argued Nagarwala could silence potential witnesses or even flee the country if released.

And in January, the judge dismissed charges that Nagarwala and a second doctor, Fakhruddin Attar, transported minors with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, an offense that carries a lifetime sentence.

Nagarwala still faces conspiracy and obstruction charges that could result in decades in prison.

The trial is now set to begin next April, the Detroit Free Press reported last month. However, the prosecution could appeal last month’s decision, drawing the case out further.

Looking beyond the Michigan case, Jones said the key to stopping FGM isn’t just legislation but also education.

“What we have to do is continue to fight this worldwide. This is a global problem,” Jones said.

“It is a violation of human rights,” he said. “And I’m going to continue speaking out worldwide against this horrible, horrible practice that must end.”
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NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has discovered ingredients for water on a relatively nearby skyscraper-sized asteroid, a rocky acorn-shaped object that may hold clues to the origins of life on Earth, scientists said on Monday.

OSIRIS-REx, which flew last week within a scant 12 miles (19 km) of the asteroid Bennu some 1.4 million miles (2.25 million km) from Earth, found traces of hydrogen and oxygen molecules — part of the recipe for water and thus the potential for life — embedded in the asteroid’s rocky surface.

The probe, on a mission to return samples from the asteroid to Earth for study, was launched in 2016. Bennu, roughly a third of a mile wide (500 meters), orbits the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth. There is concern among scientists about the possibility of Bennu impacting Earth late in the 22nd century.

“We have found the water-rich minerals from the early solar system, which is exactly the kind of sample we were going out there to find and ultimately bring back to Earth,” University of Arizona planetary scientist Dante Lauretta, the OSIRIS-REx mission’s principal investigator, said in a telephone interview.

Asteroids are among the leftover debris from the solar system’s formation some 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists believe asteroids and comets crashing into early Earth may have delivered organic compounds and water that seeded the planet for life, and atomic-level analysis of samples from Bennu could provide key evidence to support that hypothesis.

“When samples of this material are returned by the mission to Earth in 2023, scientists will receive a treasure trove of new information about the history and evolution of our solar system,” Amy Simon, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in a statement.

“We’re really trying to understand the role that these carbon-rich asteroids played in delivering water to the early Earth and making it habitable,” Lauretta added.

OSIRIS-REx will pass later this month just 1.2 miles (1.9 km) from Bennu, entering the asteroid’s gravitational pull and analyzing its terrain. From there, the spacecraft will begin to gradually tighten its orbit around the asteroid, spiraling to within just 6 feet (2 meters) of its surface so its robot arm can snatch a sample of Bennu by July 2020.

The spacecraft will later fly back to Earth, jettisoning a capsule bearing the asteroid specimen for a parachute descent in the Utah desert in September 2023.
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City frogs and rainforest frogs don’t sing the same tune, researchers have found.

A study released Monday examined why Panama’s tiny tungara frogs adapt their mating calls in urban areas — an unexpected example of how animals change communication strategies when cities encroach on forests.

These frogs take advantage of the relative absence of eavesdropping predators in cities to belt out longer love songs, which are more alluring to female frogs.

Tungara frogs don’t croak like American bullfrogs. To human ears, their distinctive call sounds like a low-pitched, video-game beep. To female frogs, it sounds like pillow talk.

Every evening at sunset, the 1-inch male brown frogs crawl into puddles to serenade prospective mates. The lady frog selects a mate largely based on his love song.

Researchers found that the urban frogs call faster, more frequently and add more embellishments — a series of staccato “chucks” on the end of the initial whine — compared with those in the forest.

Those fancy urban love songs are three times more likely to attract the ladies, as scientists learned by playing back recordings of both city and forest frog calls to an audience of female frogs in a laboratory. Thirty of 40 female frogs hopped over to the speaker playing the urban frog calls, the researchers report in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Whether the female frogs hailed from the city or forest themselves, they showed the same preference for fast-paced, complex crooning that combines high and low tones in quick arrangements.

Study co-author Michael J. Ryan, a biologist at the University of Texas who has studied tungara frogs for more than 30 years, said that the high and low notes likely stimulated the inner and outer ear chambers of female frogs in a pleasurable or interesting way.

So why don’t rainforest frogs sing the same way?

The scientists set out to confirm their hypothesis that frogs that added extra high-pitched “chucks” attracted not only more mates, but also more trouble from frog-eating bats and parasitic midges. With the help of camera traps and sticky paper, the researchers demonstrated that extended frog calls significantly increased the risk of attracting predators.

In the rainforest, the frogs must balance two goals: attracting a mate and staying safe.

In the city, there are no frog-eating bats, and far fewer snakes and midges. The male frogs are freer to belt their hearts out.

“An urban male can take greater risks,” said lead author Wouter Halfwerk, an ecologist at Vrije University in Amsterdam.

A town frog also has to work harder to find a mate because lady frogs are rarer in the city. “Competition for females increases,” said Halfwerk. “The best adaptation is to be the most attractive, with an elaborate love song.”

Corinne Lee Zawacki, a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved in the study, said the researchers’ methodology confirmed that urbanization is the reason for the call changes.

“I love the choice of study system,” she said. “A lot of background research has already been done on this frog. So we can see clearly how urbanization changes the interplay of natural and sexual selection” — or the trade-offs between survival and courtship goals.

But not all amphibians are as lucky as Panama’s tungara frogs.

“Amphibian populations are declining worldwide, mostly due to habitat destruction,” said Andrew Blaustein an ecologist at Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study. “This is a rare case — and a very interesting case — of an animal adapting quickly, in evolutionary terms, to new circumstances.”
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