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World

Rare good news for planet: Ozone layer on track to recover within decades as chemicals are phased out

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CNN
 — 

In rare good news for the planet, Earth’s ozone layer is on track to recover completely within decades, as ozone-depleting chemicals are phased out across the world, according to a new United Nations-backed assessment.

The ozone layer protects the planet from harmful ultraviolet rays. But since the late 1980s, scientists have sounded the alarm about a hole in this shield, caused by ozone-depleting substances including chlorofluorocarbons, dubbed CFCs, often found in refrigerators, aerosols and solvents.

International cooperation helped stem the damage. The use of CFCs has decreased 99% since the Montreal Protocol went into force in 1989, which began the phase-out of those and other ozone-harming chemicals, according to the assessment by a panel of experts published on Monday.

If global policies stay in place, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 levels by 2040 for most of the world, the assessment found. For polar areas, the timeframe for recovery is longer: 2045 over the Arctic and 2066 over the Antarctic.

“Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action. Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done – as a matter of urgency – to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase,” said Secretary General for the World Meteorological Organization Petteri Taalas.

Ozone-depleting gases are also potent greenhouse gases, and without a ban the world could have seen additional warming of up to 1 degree Celsius, according to a 2021 study in the journal Nature. The planet has already warmed around 1.2 degrees since the industrial revolution, and scientists have warned that it should be limited to 1.5 degrees to prevent the worst consequences of the climate crisis. Warming beyond 1.5 degrees would dramatically increase the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages, scientists have reported.

For the first time in this assessment, which is published every four years, scientists also looked at the prospect of solar geoengineering: the attempt to reduce global warming through measures such as spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight out of the earth’s atmosphere.

They found stratospheric aerosol injection could help reduce climate warming but warned there may be unintended consequences. Deploying the technology “could also affect stratospheric temperatures, circulation and ozone production and destruction rates and transport,” the report, published every four years, found.

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World

Taiwan: War game simulation suggests Chinese invasion of Taiwan would fail at a huge cost to US, Chinese and Taiwanese militaries

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CNN
 — 

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026 would result in thousands of casualties among Chinese, United States, Taiwanese and Japanese forces, and it would be unlikely to result in a victory for Beijing, according to a prominent independent Washington think tank, which conducted war game simulations of a possible conflict that is preoccupying military and political leaders in Asia and Washington.

A war over Taiwan could leave a victorious US military in as crippled a state as the Chinese forces it defeated.

At the end of the conflict, at least two US aircraft carriers would lie at the bottom of the Pacific and China’s modern navy, which is the largest in the world, would be in “shambles.”

Those are among the conclusions the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), made after running what it claims is one of the most extensive war-game simulations ever conducted on a possible conflict over Taiwan, the democratically ruled island of 24 million that the Chinese Communist Party claims as part of its sovereign territory despite never having controlled it.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has refused to rule out the use of military force to bring the island under Beijing’s control.

CNN reviewed an advance copy of the report – titled “The First Battle of the Next War” – on the two dozen war scenarios run by CSIS, which said the project was necessary because previous government and private war simulations have been too narrow or too opaque to give the public and policymakers a true look at how conflict across the Taiwan Strait might play out.

“There’s no unclassified war game out there looking at the US-China conflict,” said Mark Cancian, one of the three project leaders and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Of the games that are unclassified, they’re usually only done once or twice.”

CSIS ran this war game 24 times to answer two fundamental questions: would the invasion succeed and at what cost?

The likely answers to those two questions are no and enormous, the CSIS report said.

“The United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of service members. Such losses would damage the US global position for many years,” the report said. In most scenarios, the US Navy lost two aircraft carriers and 10 to 20 large surface combatants. Approximately 3,200 US troops would be killed in three weeks of combat, nearly half of what the US lost in two decades of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“China also suffers heavily. Its navy is in shambles, the core of its amphibious forces is broken, and tens of thousands of soldiers are prisoners of war,” it said. The report estimated China would suffer about 10,000 troops killed and lose 155 combat aircraft and 138 major ships.

– Source:
CNN
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Japan expands defense of its southern front line to counter China (April 2022)

The scenarios paint a bleak future for Taiwan, even if a Chinese invasion doesn’t succeed.

“While Taiwan’s military is unbroken, it is severely degraded and left to defend a damaged economy on an island without electricity and basic services,” the report. The island’s army would suffer about 3,500 casualties, and all 26 destroyers and frigates in its navy will be sunk, the report said.

Japan is likely to lose more than 100 combat aircraft and 26 warships while US military bases on its home territory come under Chinese attack, the report found.

But CSIS said it did not want its report to imply a war over Taiwan “is inevitable or even probable.”

“The Chinese leadership might adopt a strategy of diplomatic isolation, gray zone pressure, or economic coercion against Taiwan,” it said.

Dan Grazier, a senior defense policy fellow at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), sees an outright Chinese invasion of Taiwan as extremely unlikely. Such a military operation would immediately disrupt the imports and exports upon which the Chinese economy relies for its very survival, Grazier told CNN, and interrupting this trade risks the collapse of the Chinese economy in short order. China relies on imports of food and fuel to drive their economic engine, Grazier said, and they have little room to maneuver.

“The Chinese are going to do everything they can in my estimation to avoid a military conflict with anybody,” Grazier said. To challenge the United States for global dominance, they’ll use industrial and economic power instead of military force.

But Pentagon leaders have labeled China as America’s “pacing threat,” and last year’s China Military Power report mandated by Congress said “the PLA increased provocative and destabilizing actions in and around the Taiwan Strait, to include increased flights into Taiwan’s claimed air defense identification zone and conducting exercises focused on the potential seizure of one of Taiwan’s outlying islands.”

In August, the visit of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island prompted a wide-ranging display of PLA military might, which included sending missiles over the island as well as into the waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Since then, Beijing has stepped up aggressive military pressure tactics on the island, sending fighter jets across the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the body of water separating Taiwan and China and into the island’s air defense identification zone – a buffer of airspace commonly referred to as an ADIZ.

And speaking about Taiwan at the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress in October, Chinese leader Xi Jinping won large applause when he said China would “strive for peaceful reunification” — but then gave a grim warning, saying “we will never promise to renounce the use of force and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.”

The Biden administration has been steadfast in its support for the island as provided by the Taiwan Relations Act, which said Washington will provide the island with the means to defend itself without committing US troops to that defense.

The recently signed National Defense Authorization Act commits the US to a program to modernize Taiwan’s military and provides for $10 billion of security assistance over five years, a strong sign of long-term bipartisan support for the island.

Biden, however, has said more than once that US military personnel would defend Taiwan if the Chinese military were to launch an invasion, even as the Pentagon has insisted there is no change in Washington’s “One China” policy.

Under the “One China” policy, the US acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China, but has never officially recognized Beijing’s claim to the self-governing island.

“Wars happen even when objective analysis might indicate that the attacker might not be successful,” said Cancian.

The CSIS report said for US troops to prevent China from ultimately taking control of Taiwan, there were four constants that emerged among the 24 war game iterations it ran:

Taiwan’s ground forces must be able to contain Chinese beachheads; the US must be able to use its bases in Japan for combat operations; the US must have long-range anti-ship missiles to hit the PLA Navy from afar and “en masse”; and the US needs to fully arm Taiwan before shooting starts and jump into any conflict with its own forces immediately.

“There is no ‘Ukraine model’ for Taiwan,” the report said, referring to how US and Western aid slowly trickled in to Ukraine well after Russia’s invasion of its neighbor started and no US or NATO troops are actively fighting against Russia.

“Once the war begins, it’s impossible to get any troops or supplies onto Taiwan, so it’s a very different situation from Ukraine where the United States and its allies have been able to send supplies continuously to Ukraine,” said Cancian. “Whatever the Taiwanese are going to fight the war with, they have to have that when the war begins.”

Washington will need to begin acting soon if it’s to meet some of the CSIS recommendations for success in a Taiwan conflict, the think tank said.

Those include, fortifying US bases in Japan and Guam against Chinese missile attacks; moving its naval forces to smaller and more survivable ships; prioritizing submarines; prioritizing sustainable bomber forces over fighter forces; but producing more cheaper fighters; and pushing Taiwan toward a similar strategy, arming itself with more simple weapons platforms rather than expensive ships that are unlikely to survive a Chinese first strike.

Those policies would make winning less costly for the US military, but the toll would still be high, the CSIS report said.

“The United States might win a pyrrhic victory, suffering more in the long run than the ‘defeated’ Chinese.”

“Victory is not everything,” the report said.

– Source:
CNN
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Breakdown in US-China relations a ‘manufactured crisis,’ US ambassador says (August 2022)

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US

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano is erupting once again

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CNN
 — 

Weeks after Hawaii’s Mauna Loa erupted for the first time in decades, neighboring volcano Kilauea is showing activity again after a brief pause, according to officials.

Kilauea – which had stopped erupting last month for the first time since September 2021 amid Mauna Loa’s own lava eruption and subsequent slowdown – had increased earthquake activity beneath its summit and recorded ground deformation on Thursday morning, officials said.

“Kilauea volcano is erupting,” the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and the US Geological Survey said on Thursday. A glow was detected in nearby webcam images, “indicating that the eruption has resumed within Halemaʻumaʻu crater in Kilauea’s summit caldera” at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the agencies said.

Officials have elevated Kilauea’s volcano alert level to a “warning” status as well as updated its aviation color code from orange to red, the agencies said.

The warning status and red color code are the highest levels of alert, indicating hazardous eruption with significant emission of volcanic ash.

The eruption is occurring within a closed portion of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

“Therefore, high levels of volcanic gas are the primary hazard of concern, as this hazard can have far-reaching effects down-wind,” according to a status report from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. It also warns residents to avoid exposure to volcanic particles that could waft some distance from the eruption.

The National Park Service has posted an air quality alert on its website, warning that unhealthy levels of volcanic pollutants can occur. It includes charts with regular air quality readings, particularly relevant for those with pre-existing respiratory conditions.

Visitors to the national park may encounter a “minor hazard,” the status report says.

“Visitors to Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park should note that under southerly (non-trade) wind conditions, there is potential for a dusting of powdery to gritty ash composed of volcanic glass and rock fragments.”

The eruption is currently confined to the crater and poses “no threat to communities,” the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said on social media.

Kilauea’s eruption in 2018 was one of the most destructive in recent Hawaii history, forcing evacuations of surrounding neighborhoods and destroying hundreds of homes.



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US

NFL’s Tennessee Titans delay game one hour as state deals with rolling power outages

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CNN
 — 

The NFL’s Tennessee Titans delayed its scheduled noon CT game by an hour due to rolling blackouts in the region, which have since ended, stemming from the winter storm and brutal cold.

“Due to the extreme weather and power outages affecting our region, kickoff for today’s game has been postponed one hour to 1 p.m. CT,” the Titans said in a statement.

“This decision was made in partnership with the NFL, Office of Emergency Management, Nashville Electric Service and the Mayor’s Office in an abundance of caution to ensure that the game would not negatively impact our community in any way. We are exploring every possibility to minimize non-essential power around the stadium.”

The Titans (7-7), losers of four straight games, began their game against the Houston Texans (1-12-1) at Nissan Stadium in Nashville at 1 p.m. CT. The temperature was 22 degrees at kickoff, making it the coldest game in Nissan Stadium history, according to the CBS broadcast.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, the federally owned electric utility company that powers seven states in the region, had directed local power companies to reduce their power load for periods on Friday and Saturday due to weather-related record-high demand and power generation issues.

Chief Operating Officer Don Moul said the agency “lost some generation” due to the extreme cold and high winds, and the authority urged residents to conserve power. Still, the TVA said Saturday it supplied more power in the past 24 hours than at any other time in its history.

The authority ended the rolling blackouts midday Saturday after temperatures rose slightly and the power system’s conditions improved, the TVA said.

“We recognize that these planned temporary disruptions are a challenge, but it was needed to maintain grid stability for 10 million people across seven states,” the authority said. “Thank you for doing your part, conserving energy, and helping us manage this extreme weather event.”

On Saturday morning, local power companies said that they were directed to interrupt power for short spurts. CDE Lightband, a power company out of Clarksville, Tennessee, said the TVA told it to interrupt power in 15-minute intervals.

Similarly, the Nashville Electric Service told customers Saturday morning to expect “rotating, intermittent power outages” in about 10-minute increments every one-and-a-half to two hours.

Amid the blackouts, Nashville Mayor John Cooper had urged the Titans to postpone their game, saying that “all non-essential businesses should reduce power usage.” He issued a follow-up tweet saying he appreciated the decision to delay the game an hour.

In general, prolonged cold snaps can overwhelm the power grid by simultaneously knocking out power supply and causing a sharp increase in demand as residents turn up the heat. For example, in Texas in February 2021, a winter storm and lengthy cold period caused mass outages in areas served by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, leaving millions of residents in the cold and dark for nearly a week.

The TVA informed residents on Friday there would be rolling blackouts due to the winter storm, though that directive was later rescinded.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland told CNN on Friday hospitals and medical offices were exempt. The TVA did not anticipate the extent of the situation prior to the storm, he said.

“This is a real struggle. This has never happened in my lifetime, this hasn’t happened in Memphis in at least 50 years,” Strickland said Friday.

On Saturday morning, he said the rolling blackouts across Memphis impacted more than 50,000 people for about 30 to 60 minutes at a time, likely two to three times per day.

“TVA has always prided itself on reliability. This is the first time TVA has required rolling blackouts,” Strickland told CNN. “It’s going to take a deeper dive into the reasons this happened.”

Strickland said that temperatures are not expected to rise above 32 degrees Fahrenheit for at least the next two days.

The outages and rolling blackouts have affected much of the US, particularly the Southeast.

As of 11 a.m. ET Saturday, Tennessee has about 250,000 customers without power, and North Carolina has over 380,000 customers without power, according to the website PowerOutage.US. In Davidson County, Tennessee, which includes Nashville, more than 60% of customers were without power, the site says.

Duke Energy, the electric power company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday morning announced “emergency outages” as extremely cold temperature drive unusually high energy demand across the Carolinas.

“We have begun short, temporary power outages. These emergency outages are necessary to protect the energy grid against longer, more widespread outages. We appreciate your patience,” the energy provider said in a tweet.



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Science

NASA’s quake-detecting InSight Mars mission has come to an end

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CNN
 — 

After making groundbreaking discoveries about the mysterious interior of the red planet, the InSight lander’s mission has officially ended.

The stationary lander spent nearly 1,500 days on Mars. Mission managers declared the program’s end on Wednesday after the lander failed to respond to two messages from mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The mission, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, ended more than four years after it first landed on November 26, 2018.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement that “while saying goodbye to a spacecraft is always sad, the fascinating science InSight conducted is cause for celebration. The seismic data alone from this Discovery Program mission offers tremendous insights not just into Mars but other rocky bodies, including Earth.”

Designed to last for only two years, InSight’s mission was extended twice. But a heavy accumulation of dust on its solar panels caused a steady drop in the lander’s power source.

Mars is a frigid desert where weather is driven by swirling dust. Over the course of InSight’s time on Mars, it survived dust storms and swirling dust devils. The clever mission team, and wind on Mars, helped clear the solar panels from time to time.

Eventually, nothing could keep the red dust from building up an impenetrable layer on InSight’s solar panels, as captured by one of the mission’s final selfies in April.

Despite these challenges, InSight conserved power to keep capturing science from its home in a plain called Elysium Planitia along the Martian equator. Slowly, it shut off its instruments, one by one, while listening for the rumble of Marsquakes to the very end.

Unlike its roaming rover cousins, InSight was designed to stay in its landing spot and perform the first “checkup” of Mars, bedecked with 7-foot solar arrays, a suite of instruments and a robotic arm.

InSight made history by detecting the first quakes on another planet and heard Mars rumble more than 1,300 times during its mission.

Marsquakes are like the earthquakes we experience on Earth, just a little bit different when it comes to why they occur on each planet.

When we experience earthquakes, it’s because the tectonic plates on Earth are shifting, moving and grinding against one another. So far, Earth is the only planet known to have these plates.

Think of the Martian crust as a single giant plate. This crust has faults and fractures within it because the planet continues to shrink as it cools. This puts stress on the Martian crust, stretching and cracking it.

The lander’s incredibly sensitive seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, could detect marsquakes from hundreds and thousands of miles away.

In May, InSight captured “the big one,” a marsquake with a magnitude of 5, which sent vibrations through the planet for at least six hours.

InSight also heard space rocks as they slammed into Mars and left behind fresh, gaping craters. One revealed a treasure trove of buried ice near the warm Martian equator.

When the seismic waves of marsquakes traveled through different materials within the Martian interior, it allowed scientists to study the planet’s structure.

The data collected by InSight also revealed new details about the unexplored Martian core, mantle and crust, including why Mars’ core is still molten. The findings can shed light on whether it was ever able to support life and how rocky planets like Mars and Earth formed in the solar system.

It wasn’t always an easy path for the lander and its instruments.

“The mole,” or the self-hammering heat probe, was designed to reach at least 16 feet beneath the surface to record how heat escapes from the interior, according to NASA.

The InSight team tirelessly tried every trick in the book, including banging on it, to send the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package beneath the Martian soil for nearly two years. But the soil’s odd clumping prevented the mole from having the friction it needed and it was essentially retired in January 2021.

Although dust ultimately ended InSight’s mission, as with other solar-powered Martian robotic explorers like the Opportunity rover, the lander made an in-depth study of its enemy.

InSight collected the most comprehensive weather data of any mission sent to the surface of Mars, according to NASA.

Over four years, it captured daily weather forecasts on Mars, recorded the eerie sounds of wind, rode out Martian winters, and observed thousands of sunrises and sunsets.

InSight has allowed scientists a more complete picture of Mars and gathered information that will be instrumental when humans land on the red planet.

“We’ve thought of InSight as our friend and colleague on Mars for the past four years, so it’s hard to say goodbye,” said Bruce Banerdt, the mission’s principal investigator. “But it has earned its richly deserved retirement.”

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World

On Snake Island, the rocky Black Sea outcrop that became a Ukraine war legend

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Snake Island, Ukraine
CNN
 — 

Snake Island has a special place in Ukraine’s folklore, now more than ever. Its defiant defense – when a Russian warship was famously told to “go f*** yourself” – and then reconquest rallied a nation in the early months of the conflict with Russia, puncturing the myth of the invaders’ superiority.

Now, whipped by winter winds, it remains firmly in Ukrainian hands – a speck of rock that has both symbolic and strategic significance.

A CNN team became the first foreign media to visit the island since it was recaptured in June, and to speak with the commander of the operation that led to its liberation.

A few acres of rock and grass, treeless and difficult to access, Snake Island, also known as Zmiinyi Island, lies around 30 miles (48 kilometers) off the Ukrainian coast, near its maritime border with Romania.

Getting there proved challenging: An hour being pitched from wave to wave in a small boat, showered with spray, in sub-freezing temperatures. The Black Sea can be unforgiving, and so can its hazardous coastline. On the way back our dirigible boat got stuck on a sandbar, and it took six hours before we were transferred, one-by-one, to another vessel in the darkness.

Snake Island is now a desolate place, strewn with wreckage, its few buildings reduced to shells, its half-sunken jetty battered by the tide. It’s a graveyard of expensive military hardware – and is littered with unexploded ordnance and mines. This is not a place to be careless.

The CNN team saw at least four different kinds of landmines, Russian Pantsir surface-to-air missile systems, and an almost intact Tor anti-air missile complex. There was also the carcass of a Russian military helicopter that was hit.

Wondering among the wreckage, in a surreal scene, were dozens of cats, probably the descendants of the lighthouse pets from a more peaceful time.

Ukraine keeps a small military presence on the island as an observation mission. One of that detachment is actually Russian, a volunteer with the Ukrainian forces who goes by the call-sign Fortuna.

He’d been living with his family in Ukraine. “And here comes Russia attacking us. If some other country had attacked us we’d fight too.”

Nowadays, he says, the Russians aren’t doing much attacking, at least in this corner of Ukraine.

“At this stage the Russians only perform air strikes,” Fortuna told CNN. “So we can hear them coming. Plus we have observers all along the perimeter and we receive intelligence. So usually we are warned about a possible attack.”

Occasionally they will see a Russian warship in the distance.

“We need to be on guard 24/7 so we never get bored. There is always something to get busy with,” Fortuna says.

The troops here can’t communicate with their families. Even when there is a signal, turning on your phone invites a strike. The small boats used to ferry supplies are often unable to make the trip, so a rotation here can get extended by the elements, sometimes for a week.

Snake Island fell in the first few days of the invasion in February, as Ukraine struggled on multiple fronts against Russian forces. But before it did, there was a show of defiance that immediately became a meme for Ukraine’s determined resistance.

Ordered to surrender by an approaching Russian vessel, one of the small detachment there responded by radio: “Russian warship: Go f*** yourself.”

Those words were echoed on everything from T-shirts to postage stamps and road signs.

One of the small detachment on the island told CNN it was a pivotal moment, encouraging people to fight and volunteer.

The man who led the operation to expel the Russians from the island, after they occupied it for several months, cannot reveal his real name. As an officer in military intelligence he goes by the call-sign Shakespeare.

“There are just four or five officers like me in Ukraine,” he told CNN. “if I give any details, everybody will recognize me.”

But he did provide a detailed account of the plan to retake the island, which was successful by the end of June.

Much of the hard work was done in May, when exposed Russian positions were targeted. “It was all about choosing the right kind of artillery and combination of artillery,” Shakespeare said.

“The Russians made a mistake in estimating we cannot reach them there. They thought we could only fire multiple rocket launchers at them, so they installed anti-air systems on the island. They were able to intercept our rockets, but we used complex strikes.”

“They just lost manpower and lots of expensive vehicles for nothing. This was their main mistake.”

French-made CAESARS as well as Grad rocket launchers were used, he said, though he was less complimentary about the Ukrainian-developed Bogdana howitzer, which has a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles).

“It was breaking more than firing,” Shakespeare told CNN.

They were plenty of challenges, particularly as launching artillery across the sea is nothing like firing it across land. “Different conditions, so aiming is complicated,” he added. Reconnaissance drones helped make the artillery fire more accurate.

The Ukrainians also used the Turkish-supplied Bayrakhtar drone before the Russians introduced electronic warfare measures and air defenses on the island.

But the Russians had to ship equipment from Sevastopol in Crimea to defend the island. And that was their second mistake, Shakespeare said. This was a long and exposed supply line vulnerable to Ukrainian anti-ship missiles.

Shakespeare recalled the initial landing at the end of June, after Russian positions had been pummeled.

“It was a unit from Special Ops Forces and deminers from the marine corps. Combat swimmers, divers. They checked water for the mines. Then others could approach the island on the vessels.”

What they found was a deserted scrap yard.

“There was nobody there … They left in a hurry leaving behind ammunition and equipment.”

That included the nearly intact Tor complex. “If they’d had the time, they would have blown it up,” Shakespeare added.

Besides the huge boost to Ukrainian morale, the recapture of Snake Island had a strategic purpose.

“Controlling Snake Island allows you to control the mouth of Danube. Without securing (the) island signing the grain deal would have been impossible,” Shakespeare said, referring to the UN-brokered grain initiative agreed in July that allowed Ukraine to restart exports through the Black Sea.

Our visit is necessarily brief. Our hosts don’t want Russia to have the time to plan something and the weather is deteriorating. In the slate-gray of the winter afternoon we are whisked away for our rendezvous with the sandbar.

But the mystery of the island stays with you. It is reputed to be the burial place of Achilles and once had a Greek temple. It was fought over by the Russian and Ottoman empires. It seems that every crag and cave hides a story.

Now there is a modern legend to add to those fables.

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US

P-22, Los Angeles’ famous mountain lion, has been euthanized

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CNN
 — 

P-22, a mountain lion who has spent years in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, has been euthanized after likely suffering injuries in a “vehicle strike,” officials say.

The big cat made made headlines last month after he attacked and killed a resident’s leashed chihuahua. He was captured by authorities on Monday, who used GPS data from his tracking collar to locate and anesthetize him.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife made the decision to euthanize P-22 after a “comprehensive medical evaluation,” according to a news release Saturday.

The department said the “compassionate euthanasia” was unanimously recommended by the medical team at San Diego Zoo Safari Park and conducted under general anesthesia.

P-22 was given an “extensive evaluation” which “showed significant trauma to the mountain lion’s head, right eye and internal organs, confirming the suspicion of recent injury, such as a vehicle strike,” said the department. “The trauma to his internal organs would require invasive surgical repair.”

The 12-year old mountain lion also had “significant pre-existing illnesses, including irreversible kidney disease, chronic weight loss, extensive parasitic skin infection over his entire body and localized arthritis,” according to the release.

He was in poor health overall and “may also have had additional underlying conditions not yet fully characterized by diagnostics,” said the department.

Officials will not be seeking information on P-22’s possible run-in with a vehicle, they added.

“This situation is not the fault of P-22, nor of a driver who may have hit him,” wrote the department. “Rather, it is an eventuality that arises from habitat loss and fragmentation, and it underscores the need for thoughtful construction of wildlife crossings and well-planned spaces that provide wild animals room to roam.”

P-22 become a Los Angeles celebrity when he was photographed beneath the iconic Hollywood sign by a camera trap. The image was featured in the December 2013 issue of National Geographic.

The mountain lion even had his own Facebook and Instagram pages, where fans left heartfelt messages on Saturday.

P-22 also made headlines for breaching a 9-foot fence at the Los Angeles Zoo and mauling a koala in 2016.

Officials throughout California issued statements marking the mountain lion’s death, including Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“P-22’s survival on an island of wilderness in the heart of Los Angeles captivated people around the world and revitalized efforts to protect our diverse native species and ecosystems,” Newsom said in a news release.

Newsom’s father was a founder of the Mountain Lion Foundation and championed permanent protections for the species, according to the release.

“The iconic mountain lion’s incredible journey helped inspire a new era of conserving and reconnecting nature, including through the world’s largest wildlife overpass in Liberty Canyon,” Newsom added. “With innovative coalitions and strategies to restore vital habitat across the state, we’ll continue working to protect California’s precious natural heritage for generations to come.”

Earlier this year construction on a wildlife crossing spanning 10 lanes along Highway 101 began, with the hopes of creating a safer way for animals to roam in the region. In addition, Newsom promised $50 million for other similar projects throughout the state.

Beth Pratt, the California regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation, also remembered the mountain lion in an emotional news release. She said it is “hard to imagine I will be writing about P-22 in the past tense now,” and expressed hope that future California mountain lions would be able to roam safely.

“Thank you for the gift of knowing you, P-22. I’ll miss you forever,” Pratt said. “But I will never stop working to honor your legacy, and although we failed you, we can at least partly atone by making the world safer for your kind.”

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated when authorities captured P-22. He was captured on Monday.

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World

Taiwan’s military has a problem: As China fears grow, recruitment pool shrinks

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Taipei, Taiwan
CNN
 — 

Taiwan has noticed a hole in its defense plans that is steadily getting bigger. And it’s not one easily plugged by boosting the budget or buying more weapons.

The island democracy of 23.5 million is facing an increasing challenge in recruiting enough young men to meet its military targets and its Interior Ministry has suggested the problem is – at least in part – due to its stubbornly low birth rate.

Taiwan’s population fell for the first time in 2020, according to the ministry, which warned earlier this year that the 2022 military intake would be the lowest in a decade and that a continued drop in the youth population would pose a “huge challenge” for the future.

That’s bad news at a time when Taiwan is trying to bolster its forces to deter any potential invasion by China, whose ruling Communist Party has been making increasingly belligerent noises about its determination to “reunify” with the self-governed island – which it has never controlled – by force if necessary.

And the outlook has darkened further with the release of a new report by Taiwan’s National Development Council projecting that by 2035 the island can expect roughly 20,000 fewer births per year than the 153,820 it recorded in 2021. By 2035, Taiwan will also overtake South Korea as the jurisdiction with the world’s lowest birth rate, the report added.

Such projections are feeding into a debate over whether the government should increase the period of mandatory military service that eligible young men must serve. Currently, the island has a professional military force made up of 162,000 (as of June this year) – 7,000 fewer than the target, according to a report by the Legislative Yuan. In addition to that number, all eligible men must serve four months of training as reservists.

Changing the mandatory service requirement would be a major U-turn for Taiwan, which had previously been trying to cut down on conscription and shortened the mandatory service from 12 months as recently as 2018. But on Wednesday, Taiwan’s Minister of National Defence Chiu Kuo-cheng said such plans would be made public before the end of the year.

That news has met with opposition among some young students in Taiwan, who have voiced their frustrations on PTT, Taiwan’s version of Reddit, even if there is support for the move among the wider public.

A poll by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation in March this year found that most Taiwanese agreed with a proposal to lengthen the service period. It found that 75.9% of respondents thought it reasonable to extend it to a year; only 17.8% were opposed.

Many experts argue there is simply no other option.

Su Tzu-yun, a director of Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that before 2016, the pool of men eligible to join the military – either as career soldiers or as reservists – was about 110,000. Since then, he said, the number had declined every year and the pool would likely be as low as 74,000 by 2025.

And within the next decade, Su said, the number of young adults available for recruitment by the Taiwanese military could drop by as much as a third.

“This is a national security issue for us,” he said. “The population pool is decreasing, so we are actively considering whether to resume conscription to meet our military needs.

“We are now facing an increasing threat (from China), and we need to have more firepower and manpower.”

Taiwan’s low birth rate – 0.98 – is far below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population, but it is no outlier in East Asia.

In November, South Korea broke its own world record when its birth rate dropped to 0.79, while Japan’s fell to 1.3 and mainland China hit 1.15.

Even so, experts say the trend poses a unique problem for Taiwan’s military, given the relative size of the island and the threats it faces.

China has been making increasingly aggressive noises toward the island since August, when then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi controversially visited Taipei. Not long after she landed in Taiwan, Beijing also launched a series of unprecedented military exercises around the island.

Since then, the temperature has remained high – particularly as Chinese leader Xi Jinping told a key Communist Party meeting in October that “reunification” was inevitable and that he reserves the option of taking “all measures necessary.”

Chang Yan-ting, a former deputy commander of Taiwan’s air force, said that while low birth rates were common across East Asia, “the situation in Taiwan is very different” as the island was facing “more and more pressure (from China) and the situation will become more acute.”

“The United States has military bases in Japan and South Korea, while Singapore does not face an acute military threat from its neighbors. Taiwan faces the greatest threat and declining birth rate will make the situation even more serious,” he added.

Roy Lee, a deputy executive director at Taiwan’s Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research, agreed that the security threats facing Taiwan were greater than those in the rest of the region.

“The situation is more challenging for Taiwan, because our population base is smaller than other countries facing similar problems,” he added.

Taiwan’s population is 23.5 million, compared to South Korea’s 52 million, Japan’s 126 million and China’s 1.4 billion.

Besides the shrinking recruitment pool, the decline in the youth population could also threaten the long-term performance of Taiwan’s economy – which is itself a pillar of the island’s defense.

Taiwan is the world’s 21st largest economy, according to the London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research, and had a GDP of $668.51 billion last year.

Much of its economic heft comes from its leading role in the supply of semiconductor chips, which play an indispensable role in everything from smartphones to computers.

Taiwan’s homegrown semiconductor giant TSMC is perceived as being so valuable to the global economy – as well as to China – that it is sometimes referred to as forming part of a “silicon shield” against a potential military invasion by Beijing, as its presence would give a strong incentive to the West to intervene.

Lee noted that population levels are closely intertwined with gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic activity. A population decline of 200,000 people could result in a 0.4% decline in GDP, all else being equal, he said.

“It is very difficult to increase GDP by 0.4%, and would require a lot of effort. So the fact that a declining population can take away that much growth is big,” he said.

Taiwan’s government has brought in a series of measures aimed at encouraging people to have babies, but with limited success.

It pays parents a monthly stipend of 5,000 Taiwan dollars (US$161) for their first baby, and a higher amount for each additional one.

Since last year, pregnant women have been eligible for seven days of leave for obstetrics checks prior to giving birth.

Outside the military, in the wider economy, the island has been encouraging migrant workers to fill job vacancies.

Statistics from the National Development Council showed that about 670,000 migrant workers were in Taiwan at the end of last year – comprising about 3% of the population.

Most of the migrant workers are employed in the manufacturing sector, the council said, the vast majority of them from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Lee said in the long term the Taiwanese government would likely have to reform its immigration policies to bring in more migrant workers.

Still, there are those who say Taiwan’s low birth rate is no reason to panic, just yet.

Alice Cheng, an associate professor in sociology at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, cautioned against reading too much into population trends as they were affected by so many factors.

She pointed out that just a few decades ago, many demographers were warning of food shortages caused by a population explosion.

And even if the low birth rate endured, that might be no bad thing if it were a reflection of an improvement in women’s rights, she said.

“The educational expansion that took place in the 70s and 80s in East Asia dramatically changed women’s status. It really pushed women out of their homes because they had knowledge, education and career prospects,” she said.

“The next thing you see globally is that once women’s education level improved, fertility rates started declining.”

“All these East Asian countries are really scratching their head and trying to think about policies and interventions to boost fertility rates,” she added.

“But if that’s something that really, (women) don’t want, can you push them to do that?”

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Science

Whales can have an important but overlooked role in tackling the climate crisis, researchers say

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CNN
 — 

The world’s largest whales are more than just astonishing creatures. Much like the ocean, soil and forests, whales can help save humanity from the accelerating climate crisis by sequestering and storing planet-heating carbon emissions, researchers say.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, climate researchers suggest that whales are important, but often overlooked, carbon sinks. The enormous size of these marine mammals, which can reach 150 tons, means they can store carbon much more effectively than smaller animals.

And because whales live longer than most animals, some for more than 100 years, the paper said they could be “one of the largest stable living carbon pools” in the ocean. Even when they die, whale carcasses descend to the deepest parts of the sea and settle on the seafloor, trapping the carbon they’ve stored in their stout, protein-rich bodies.

An indirect way whales can be critical carbon sinks is through their feces. Whale poop is rich in nutrients which can be taken up by phytoplankton — tiny organisms that suck up carbon dioxide as they grow. When they die, phytoplankton also sink at the bottom of the seafloor, taking tiny bits of carbon in their carcasses.

The process of carbon sequestration helps mitigate climate change, because it locks away carbon that otherwise would have warmed the planet somewhere else for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Yet whales are threatened, with six out of 13 great whale species classified as endangered or vulnerable due to threats including industrial whaling, which has reduced whale biomass by 81%, as well as entanglement with fishing gear, climate change-induced shifts in prey availability, noise pollution and more.

Heidi Pearson, lead author and researcher at the University of Alaska Southeast, said the research shows that protecting whales has a double benefit — helping to stem the biodiversity crisis as well as human-caused climate change.

The paper puts together all available research about how whales work as critical carbon sinks. As the need grows for nature-based solutions such as tree planting to help solve the climate crisis, Pearson said it is important to understand the ability of whales to trap carbon.

“You can think of protecting whales as a low risk and low regret strategy, because there’s really no downside,” Pearson told CNN. “What if we protect them and get ecosystem benefits in addition to carbon?” She said there was no risk to this strategy compared to other untested, expensive solutions to capturing and trapping carbon, such as geoengineering. There has been much research and analysis into whales’ contribution to carbon storage over the years.

In 2019, economists with the International Monetary Fund attempted to quantify the economic benefits of whales. The first-of-its-kind analysis looked at the market price of carbon dioxide, then calculated the whale’s total monetary value based on how much carbon it captures, in addition to other economic benefits like ecotourism. It put the average value of a great whale at $2 million.

But there remain big gaps in knowledge to fully determine how whale carbon should be used in climate mitigation policies. Asha de Vos, a marine biologist and founder of Oceanswell in Sri Lanka, said it’s important to recognize that whales have “more to offer than their beauty and charisma,” and that protecting them is key to a proper functioning ocean ecosystem.

“But, as the authors suggest, we mustn’t overemphasize the role of whales in these spaces as we do not have sufficient research,” de Vos, who is not involved with the study, told CNN. “Fundamentally, whales will not save our oceans or planet on their own, but they likely play a role in the larger system.”

As Pearson continues to research whale carbon in Alaska, particularly delving into the indirect pathways in which whales can be carbon sinks, she said she hopes the current paper pushes policymakers to consider whales as a significant part of climate mitigation strategies.

It’s another layer that links the biodiversity crisis to the climate crisis — but for now, Pearson said she and a team will go back out in the field to fully quantify the carbon impact of whales.

“Whales aren’t a silver bullet to saving the planet; it’s just one small thing that we could do amidst many other things we need to do for climate change,” Pearson said. “We just need to get the scientific story straight.”

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Science

NASA spacecraft heads for the most volcanic place in the solar system

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CNN
 — 

A NASA spacecraft is gearing up for the first of a series of close encounters with the most volcanic place in the solar system. The Juno spacecraft will fly by Jupiter’s moon Io on Thursday, December 15.

The maneuver will be one of nine flybys of Io made by Juno over the next year and a half. Two of the encounters will be from a distance of just 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) away from the moon’s surface.

Juno captured a glowing infrared view of Io on July 5 from 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) away. The brightest spots in that image correspond with the hottest temperatures on Io, which is home to hundreds of volcanoes — some of which can send lava fountains dozens of miles high.

Scientists will use Juno’s observations of Io to learn more about that network of volcanoes and how its eruptions interact with Jupiter. The moon is constantly tugged by Jupiter’s massive gravitational pull.

“The team is really excited to have Juno’s extended mission include the study of Jupiter’s moons. With each close flyby, we have been able to obtain a wealth of new information,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, in a statement.

“Juno sensors are designed to study Jupiter, but we’ve been thrilled at how well they can perform double duty by observing Jupiter’s moons.”

The spacecraft recently captured a new image of Jupiter’s northernmost cyclone on September 29. Jupiter’s atmosphere is dominated by hundreds of cyclones, and many cluster at the planet’s poles.

The Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016 to uncover details more about the giant planet and is focused on performing flybys of Jupiter’s moons during the extended part of its mission, which began last year and is expected to last through the end of 2025.

Juno flew by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede in 2021, followed by Europa earlier this year. The spacecraft used its instruments to look beneath the icy crust of both moons and gathered data about Europa’s interior, where a salty ocean is thought to exist.

INTERACTIVE: Explore where the search for life is unfolding in our solar system

The ice shell that makes up Europa’s surface is between 10 and 15 miles (16 and 24 kilometers) thick, and the ocean it likely sits atop is estimated to be 40 to 100 miles (64 to 161 kilometers) deep.

The data and images captured by Juno could help inform two separate missions heading to Jupiter’s moons in the next two years: the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer and NASA’s Europa Clipper mission.

The first, expected to launch in April 2023, will spend three years exploring Jupiter and three of its icy moons — Ganymede, Callisto and Europa — in depth. All three moons are thought to have oceans beneath their ice-covered crusts, and scientists want to explore whether Ganymede’s ocean is potentially habitable.

Europa Clipper will launch in 2024 to perform a dedicated series of 50 flybys around the moon after arriving in 2030. Eventually transitioning from an altitude of 1,700 miles (2,736 kilometers) to just 16 miles (26 kilometers) above the moon’s surface, Europa Clipper may be able to help scientists determine whether an interior ocean truly exists there and if the moon could support life.

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