Minibus taxis are everywhere in South Africa, and all of them run on gasoline. But engineers at one university are hoping to change that as they are getting better-than-expected results from their all-electric minibus taxi. Vicky Stark has the story from Cape Town, South Africa.
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Day: June 2, 2024
Geneva — Nearly 62,000 people died from heat-related stress in the summer of 2022 in Europe alone, and, according to a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, “With further global warming, we can expect an increase in the intensity, frequency, and duration of heatwaves.”
A new report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched ahead of Heat Action Day on Sunday, June 2, looks at the role climate change is playing in increasing the number of extreme heat days around the world over the last 12 months.
“What we are now going through is a very silent but increasingly common killer — heat, that was particularly disastrous last year,” said climatologist Friederike Otto, co-lead of World Weather Attribution at Imperial College London and one of the authors of the report.
Speaking from London last Tuesday, she told journalists in Geneva that this May was hotter than any May ever experienced before, as were all months for the past 12 months.
“Every heat wave that is happening today is hotter and lasts longer than it would have without human-induced climate change. That is without the burning of coal, oil and gas and we also see many more heat waves than we have otherwise,” she said noting that temperatures right now were around 50° C (122° F) in India and Pakistan.
The World Meteorological Organization confirms that 2023 was the hottest year on record, reaching 1.45° C (2.6° F) above the pre-industrial average, almost reaching the Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5° C.
According to the report, the average inhabitant of the planet has experienced 26 more extremely hot days, “which probably would not have occurred without climate change.” Or put another way, 6.8 billion people —78 percent of world’s population — have experienced at least 31 days of extreme heat.
“But, of course, we are not average people. We live in a specific place, in a specific country,” said Otto. “So, for example if you lived in Ecuador, it was not 26 more days, but it was 170 more days. In other words, in the last 12 months, the people in Ecuador experienced 180 days of extreme heat. Without climate change, it would have been just 10. So, it is six months of extreme heat, instead of 10 days.”
She noted that extreme heat was dangerous and responsible for thousands of deaths every year. She said, “Heat harmed especially vulnerable people: the elderly, the very young, those with pre-existing health conditions” as well as healthy people exposed to extreme temperatures, “like outdoor workers in construction or agriculture and people living in refugee camps.”
The World Health Organization, previewing a new collection of papers to be published this week in the Journal of Global Health, says the studies show “climate-related health risks have been crucially underestimated” for younger and older people and during pregnancy, “with serious, often life-threatening implications.”
Taking extreme heat for example, WHO says the authors note that preterm births — the leading cause of childhood deaths, “spike during heatwaves, while older people are more likely to suffer heart attacks or respiratory distress.”
Heat Action Day, which is organized by the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, aims to draw attention to the threat of extreme heat and to what can be done to mitigate it.
In a statement to mark Heat Action Day, Japan Chapagain, IFRC Secretary-General said, “Flooding and hurricanes may capture the headlines, but the impacts of extreme heat are equally deadly.
“That is why Heat Action Day matters so much,” he said. “We need to focus attention on climate change’s silent killer. The IFRC is making heat and urban action to reduce its impacts a priority.”
Climatologist Otto said the burning of fossil fuels must stop to prevent the situation from becoming worse.
“Heat kills. But it does not have to kill. There are many solutions, some of which are low or no cost, ranging from individual action to population-scale interventions that reduce the urban heat island effect.
“At an individual level, people can cool their bodies by self-dousing with water, using cooling devices or modifying their built environment to increase shade” around their homes.
But she observed that individual action alone is not enough. She said action had to be taken at the community, city, regional and country levels as well.
“Cities can develop and implement heat action plans that outline how they will prepare for the heat season, respond to imminent heat waves, and plan for the future.
“And on a large scale, policies can be introduced to incorporate cooling needs into social protection programs, supplement energy costs for the most vulnerable and building codes can be updated to encourage better housing,” she said.
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DUBAI — The next CEO of Boeing BA.N should have an understanding of what led to its current crisis and be prepared to look outside for examples of best industrial practices, the head of the International Air Transport Association said on Sunday.
U.S. planemaker Boeing is engulfed in a sprawling safety crisis, exacerbated by a January mid-air panel blowout on a near new 737 MAX plane. CEO Dave Calhoun is due to leave the company by the end of the year as part of a broader management shake-up, but Boeing has not yet named a replacement.
“It is not for me to say who should be running Boeing. But I think an understanding of what went wrong in the past, that’s very important,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh told Reuters TV at an airlines conference in Dubai, adding that Boeing was taking the right steps.
IATA represents more than 300 airlines or around 80% of global traffic.
“Our industry benefits from learning from mistakes, and sharing that learning with everybody,” he said, adding that this process should include “an acknowledgement of what went wrong, looking at best practice, looking at what others do.”
He said it was critical that the industry has a culture “where people feel secure in putting their hands up and saying things aren’t working the way they should do.”
Boeing is facing investigations by U.S. regulators, possible prosecution for past actions and slumping production of its strongest-selling jet, the 737 MAX.
‘Right steps’
Calhoun, a Boeing board member since 2009 and former GE executive, was brought in as CEO in 2020 to help turn the planemaker around following two fatal crashes involving the MAX, its strongest-selling jet.
But the planemaker has lost market share to competitor Airbus AIR.PA, with its stock losing nearly 32% of its value this year as MAX production plummeted this spring.
“The industry is frustrated by the problems as a result of the issues that Boeing have encountered. But personally, I’m pleased to see that they are taking the right steps,” Walsh said.
Delays in the delivery of new jets from both Boeing and Airbus are part of wider problems in the aerospace supply chain and aircraft maintenance industry complicating airline growth plans.
Walsh said supply chain problems are not easing as fast as airlines want and could last into 2025 or 2026.
“It’s probably a positive that it’s not getting worse, but I think it’s going to be a feature of the industry for a couple of years to come,” he said.
Earlier this year IATA brought together a number of airlines and manufacturers to discuss ways to ease the situation, Walsh said.
“We’re trying to ensure that there’s an open dialogue and honesty,” between them, he said.
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ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria adopted a new national anthem Wednesday after lawmakers passed a law that replaced the current one with a version dropped nearly a half-century ago, sparking widespread criticism about how the law was hastily passed without much public input.
President Bola Tinubu’s assent to the law comes a day after it was approved by both chambers of Nigeria’s National Assembly, which is dominated by the governing party. The federal lawmakers introduced and passed the bill in less than a week, an unusually fast process for important bills that usually take weeks or months to be considered.
The Arise, O Compatriots anthem being replaced had been in use since 1978, when it was introduced by the military government. The anthem was composed at a time when the country was reeling from a deadly civil war and calls on Nigerians to “serve our fatherland with love and strength” and not to let “the labor of our heroes past (to be) in vain.”
The new version that takes immediate effect was first introduced in 1960 when Nigeria gained independence from Britain before it was dropped by the military. Titled Nigeria We Hail Thee, it was written by Lillian Jean Williams, a British expatriate who was living in Nigeria at the time.
The new anthem was played publicly for the first time at a legislative session attended by Tinubu, who marked his one year in office as president Wednesday.
Many Nigerians, however, took to social media to say they won’t be singing the new national anthem, among them Oby Ezekwesili, a former education minister and presidential aspirant who said that the new law shows that the country’s political class doesn’t care about the public interest.
“In a 21st Century Nigeria, the country’s political class found a colonial National Anthem that has pejorative words like “Native Land” and “Tribes” to be admirable enough to foist on our Citizens without their consent,” Ezekwesili posted on X.
Supporters of the new anthem, however, argued it was wrong for the country to have adopted an anthem introduced by the military.
“Anthems are ideological recitations that help the people to be more focused. It was a very sad development for the military to have changed the anthem,” public affairs analyst Frank Tietie said.
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PARIS — Of all the decisions Paris Olympics organizers made about where to hold each sport, sending surfing competitions to the other side of the world — in the Pacific waters of Tahiti — provoked the strongest reactions. Tahitians and others railed against the building of a new viewing tower on Teahupo’o reef because of fears it would hurt marine life.
But organizers say it wasn’t just the world-class waves that lured them to the French territory 16,000 kilometers away. Paris Olympic officials had set an ambitious target of halving their overall carbon footprint compared with the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Games.
Tahiti’s surfing reef is too far offshore for fans to see the action clearly from the beach, so organizers say they calculated that most would watch on television instead of taking flights, a major source of carbon emissions.
And fewer spectators, they said, would require little new construction, another key emissions source.
“We actually did the math,” said Georgina Grenon, director of environmental excellence for the Paris Games. “There was less impact in Tahiti compared to other metropolitan areas.”
Tahiti’s selection provides a window into Games organizers’ approach to hitting their goal of reducing emissions, the driver of climate change. It also underscores an inherent tension in the drive for sustainability: There are tradeoffs, and reducing emissions doesn’t necessarily mean preserving the environment.
Organizers’ goal is to limit emissions to 1.58 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent for the July 26-August 11 Games and Paralympics that follow. That’s still a lot of pollution — equal to that of about 1.3 million economy passengers flying one way from New York to Paris on Boeing 787 jets, according to myclimate, a climate and sustainability consultancy.
It’s a lot less, however, than the footprint of previous Games.
Organizers say they’re thinking about the Games’ future, not just the planet’s. Fewer cities are volunteering to spend billions on infrastructure that sometimes falls into disuse. Paris and the next host, Los Angeles in 2028, were the only cities left in the race when picked in 2017. For organizers, hosting less-wasteful Games is key, along with including more inclusive, youth-oriented events such as skateboarding.
Paris is under additional pressure to be a sustainable model: The city hosted the 2015 U.N. climate talks that resulted in the Paris Agreement, the most significant international climate accord to date. Delegates agreed the world should limit average global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above that of the 1850s, and ideally cap it at 1.5 degrees — a goal looking increasingly unattainable.
Independent experts say Paris appears to be decarbonizing in the systematic ways businesses do: Calculate total emissions, then start cutting, including myriad small CO2 savings that add up significantly. Organizers targeted reductions across three categories: construction, transportation and operations.
“They seem to be taking a very thoughtful approach,” said Adam Braun of Clarasight, which builds carbon-planning software for companies. “They are trying to do something that is indicative of how many organizations will be holding themselves accountable.”
The biggest break from previous Games is in construction. Organizers say 95% of facilities are existing or will be temporary. Two new structures were deemed unavoidable: The Olympic Village, to house athletes and later become housing and office space, and the aquatics center in Paris’ disadvantaged northern suburbs.
Using wood, low-carbon cement, and salvaged materials helped reduce emissions by 30% compared with traditional methods, Grenon said.
Reductions in operations include food. The average meal in France — restaurant- or home-prepared — produces about 2 kilograms of CO2, said Philipp Würz, the Games’ catering head. Paris aims to halve that by sourcing 80% of ingredients locally, cutting transport emissions, and offering spectators 60% plant-based foods.
Winning minds as well as taste buds could take work. “Locally grown food, and supporting local farmers, are beautiful things,” tennis player Victoria Azarenka said. But “when people are doing these big gestures, I’m not fully convinced of the impact,” she added of Paris’ overall climate efforts.
Another emissions-savings source is energy. Energy will represent only 1% of emissions, organizers said. They intend to use 100% renewable power from wind and solar farms, plus solar panels on some venues.
Stadiums and temporary venues will get power from the grid instead of diesel generators, which produce much CO2. Giant electrical plugs at venues will remain post-Games, removing the need for generators at future events.
Reducing transportation-related emissions is arguably Paris’ biggest challenge. Tourism officials expect 15.3 million visitors for the Olympics and Paralympics, including 1.9 million from outside France, with at least 850,000 taking long-haul flights.
In Paris, there are low-carbon transport options — cycling routes, Metro trains, buses and other public transit — to all venues.
But the inability to control how people get to the Olympics, or any big event, raises questions about whether humanity can afford such get-togethers at the cost of further climate damage.
“Maybe things like the Olympics have to be reconsidered,” said Seth Warren Rose of the Eneref Institute, an advocacy and research group focused on sustainable development. “Having millions of people congregate in a single area is a very intensive thing.”
Rose said organizers’ efforts are laudable, but they should have gone further — reducing emissions beyond half and finding more ways to make sustainability a central fan experience.
Some critics have also questioned some sponsors. Air France, ports operator CMA CGM Group and metals giant ArcelorMittal are leaders in carbon-intensive industries. On their websites, all tout their Olympic sponsorship and sustainability efforts.
The Upright Project, a Finnish company that creates and analyzes data to evaluate companies’ impact on the world, looked at sponsors, assigning scores for positive and negative impacts on environment, health, jobs and other metrics.
On environment, sponsors’ emissions had an overall 10-fold negative impact.
“I do find the current sustainability discourse, where we effectively celebrate companies’ miniscule sustainability tweaks and greenwashing efforts like they actually make a difference to climate change, extremely harmful,” Upright Project’s Annu Nieminen said in a statement. “If the Paris 2024 sponsors are celebrated by the organizers for their ‘sustainability,’ that’s contributing to the same harmful discourse.”
In a statement, organizers said the Games presented “a unique opportunity to encourage partner businesses to adopt more responsible practices.”
For emissions it can’t cut, Paris plans to compensate – a practice called offsetting. Planting trees, for example, could help take CO2 out of the atmosphere that the Games put in. But offset markets aren’t well regulated, and investigations by news organizations have found some projects to be fraudulent while others miscalculated the quantity of emissions captured.
Organizers say they’ll continue to adapt sustainability plans as they go, including those in Tahiti. The metal judging tower, which replaced the aging wooden one Tahiti previously used to host surfing competitions, was scaled back in size in response to concerns about environmental harm, organizers say. Finished earlier this year, the tower will be dismantled after the Games. It will be erected and used again when Teahupo’o holds world surfing events.
Organizers say they expect about 1,300 people with Olympic accreditation on the island, including 500 flying in. That total, likely much smaller than if the competition took place off France’s coast, includes surfers, judges, journalists and Games workers.
“We say that sustainability is a collective sport,” Grenon said. “Will everything be perfect? No, right? We cannot say that. We’re still working very, very hard to go as far as we can.”
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Last-minute computer trouble nixed Saturday’s launch attempt for Boeing’s first astronaut flight, the latest in a string of delays over the years.
Two NASA astronauts were strapped in the company’s Starliner capsule when the countdown automatically was halted at 3 minutes and 50 seconds by the computer system that controls the final minutes before liftoff.
With only a split second to take off, there was no time to work the latest problem and the launch was called off.
Technicians raced to the pad to help astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams out of the capsule atop the fully fueled Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Within an hour of the launch abort, the hatch was reopened.
The team can’t get to the computers to troubleshoot the problem until the rocket is drained of all its fuel, said Tory Bruno, CEO for the rocket maker, United Launch Alliance.
Bruno said one of the three redundant computers located near the rocket at the pad was sluggish. All three must work properly to proceed with a launch, he said.
Depending on what needs to be fixed, the next launch attempt could be as early as Wednesday. If it doesn’t blast off this coming week, then that would be it until mid-June in order to move the rocket off the pad and replace batteries.
“This is the business that we’re in,” Boeing’s Mark Nappi said. “Everything’s got to work perfectly.”
It was the second launch attempt. The first try on May 6 was delayed for leak checks and rocket repairs.
NASA wants a backup to SpaceX, which has been flying astronauts since 2020.
Boeing should have launched its first crew around the same time as SpaceX, but its first test flight with no one on board in 2019 was plagued by severe software issues and never made it to the space station.
A redo in 2022 fared better, but parachute problems and flammable later caused more delays. A small helium leak in the capsule’s propulsion system last month came on top of a rocket valve issue.
More valve trouble cropped up two hours before Saturday’s planned liftoff, but the team used a backup circuit to get the ground-equipment valves working to top off the fuel for the rocket’s upper stage. Launch controllers were relieved to keep pushing ahead, but the computer system known as the ground launch sequencer ended the effort.
“Of course, this is emotionally disappointing,” NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, the backup pilot, said from neighboring Kennedy Space Center shortly after the countdown was halted.
But he said delays are part of spaceflight. “We’re going to have a great launch in our future.”
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