Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Science post: The sun, gray whales, the Pope on climate change





Scientists have discovered what the Sun's death will look like when it reaches the end of its life in approximately 10 billion years. Humanity won't be around to witness this dramatic event, as our existence on Earth is limited to about 1 billion more years. This is due to the Sun's gradual increase in brightness, rendering the planet uninhabitable as oceans evaporate and the surface becomes barren.

The Sun will turn into a red giant approximately 5 billion years before its death, Science Alert reports. During this transformation, its core will shrink while its outer layers expand, engulfing the orbits of nearby planets, including Earth, in the fiery embrace of its expanding atmosphere. The perplexing part is what comes after its red giant phase.

Previous studies had suggested that a bright planetary nebula would require the initial star to be up to twice as large as the Sun. However, the 2018 study used advanced computer modeling and determined that, like approximately 90 percent of other stars, the Sun will probably shrink from a red giant to become a white dwarf before culminating in death as a planetary nebula.

Next, remember the large number of whales that have been washing up dead?  Stacey Ritzen (MEN'S JOURNAL) reports:




Nearly 700 gray whales have washed up dead on the Pacific coast between January 2019 and September 2023, and scientists finally believe they have answers. And in what will probably not come as a huge surprise, environmental factors related to climate change seem to be at the root of it all.

The recent uptick in deaths is the third "mortality event" that has struck gray whales living off the coast of North America since the 1980s—once between 1987 and 1989 and the second time between 1999 and 2000—each time reducing the population by 15 to 25 percent. However, what differentiates the most recent die-off is that it's still ongoing, with a total of 688 whales that have perished.

"These are extreme population swings that we did not expect to see in a large, long-lived species like gray whales," said Joshua Stewart, an assistant professor with Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute and the lead author of a recent study published in the journal Science



. "When the availability of their prey in the Arctic is low, and the whales cannot reach their feeding areas because of sea ice, the gray whale population experiences rapid and major shocks."

"Even highly mobile, long-lived species such as gray whales are sensitive to climate change impacts," Stewart explained. "When there are sudden declines in the quality of prey, the population of gray whales is significantly affected."

Gray whales migrate seasonally from Southern California and Mexico in the winter to access foraging hotspots in the Arctic in the summer. What the researchers learned was the decrease of sea ice in the whales' summer feeding areas in Arctic waters have had a negative impact on their diets. 

Algae that grows on the underside of the ice sinks to the sea floor, where it feeds the the calorie-rich benthic amphipods and other crustaceans that whales like to feed on. The reduced amount of ice means there is less algae at the bottom of the food chain. Not to mention, warmer water causes faster currents that make for a less hospitable habitat for the whales' chosen prey.



Now let me wind down this post with this from a Kristen Stade NEWSWEEK column:


After the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer on record, with record high temperatures around the world, Pope Francis recently exhorted the developed world to act faster on climate change. An overhaul of wealthy lifestyles is in order, he said, and technological fixes are not the answer.


As evidence of climate change itself becomes impossible to deny, governments and industry are responding with a new form of denial: the illusion that switching to "clean" energy (solar, wind, geothermal), "decarbonizing" the energy sector, and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 can "solve" the climate crisis. But warming of 2° C or more by 2050 is baked in from the carbon already in the atmosphere, and that doesn't account for what current and future emissions will add.

In fact, the push for clean energy will drive temperatures up, at least in the short term. Building renewables requires massive amounts of fossil fuels and environmentally harmful trace metal mining. New transmission infrastructure destroys more habitat. And as renewables come online and fossil fuels phase out, "aerosol dimming," which has been masking or offsetting warming, will cease. Sulfate aerosols from burning fossil fuels have a temporary cooling effect. When fossil fuel use stops, so will the cooling effect. The Earth will then warm faster than lowered CO2 emissions can cool it, causing a net temperature rise.

What all this adds up to is that our chances for avoiding catastrophic warming depend upon our ability to remove CO2 already in the atmosphere, in addition to stopping the emission of more. The solution proposed by our political leaders and amplified in the media is more technology. Following intensive lobbying by the fossil fuel industry, the Biden Administration authorized billions of dollars in new subsidies for the industry to adopt carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.

Pope Francis rightly noted that such subsidies are a poor investment. A new study compares technologies for mechanical carbon capture and storage to natural carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies like reforestation, improved forest management, and encouraging kelp growth in oceans. It found mechanical methods fall short by every measure, and that restoring forests, grasslands, and wetlands and shifting to regenerative forms of agriculture remove more carbon than CCS and use less energy and land. Through protecting and enhancing natural carbon sinks, natural CDR strategies are not only cost-effective but have co-benefits like conserving biodiversity and improving water quality.



"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, October 18, 2023.  Joe Biden goes to Tel Aviv to try to redecorate the destruction of the Gaza Strip and immediately declares the Israeli government clear in the bombing of a hospital.




Protests erupted across the Middle East following the deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital, with Israeli and Palestinian officials trading accusations over who was to blame as US President Joe Biden arrived in Tel Aviv.  
Hundreds of people were likely killed in the blast on Tuesday at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the center of Gaza City, where thousands were sheltering from Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry sid in a statement. 


Israel's prime minister took time out from his indiscriminate killings to Tweet:


He should be thanking Joe.  No sooner did Joe land then he immediately began blaming the hospital bombing on the Palestinians -- "It appears the hospital explosion was done by the other team" -- he's also quoted stating, "Based on what I saw, it looks like it was done by another team and not by you."  The other team?  This isn't a sport.  This is a massacre.  And the US government is condoning it and supplying weapons for it.
 





REUTERS notes, "A strike on the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip that killed hundreds was "unprecedented in scale," the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, condemning the attack.  The strike was the bloodiest single incident in Gaza since Israel launched a bombing campaign against the densely populated Gaza Strip in retaliation for a deadly cross-border Hamas assault on Israeli communities on Oct. 7."  But, hey, with no investigation, Joe Biden just concludes that the Palestinians bombed themselves.  He's helping on one in need.  In fact, he's now a partner in the killings.



 Authorities in Gaza said Tuesday night that an Israel Defense Forces airstrike on a hospital holding thousands of patients, staff, and people seeking shelter from Israel's relentless bombardment killed at least 500 civilians, while IDF officials blamed the deaths on a botched Islamic Jihad rocket attack.

Photos and videos from al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City posted on social media showed bodies and body parts scattered about in the fiery aftermath of the blast. One video shared by senior Al Jazeera journalist Ali Hashem reportedly shows the moment when a rocket or missile strikes the Anglican-run hospital, causing a massive, earth-shaking explosion.

"The death toll right now is more than 500, but we believe that number will reach more than 1000," Ziad Shehadah, a medical doctor and resident of Gaza, told Al Jazeera. "It is a massacre." 

  Ghassan Abu Sittah, a physician with the international charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said on social media: "We were operating in the hospital, there was a strong explosion, and the ceiling fell on the operating room. This is a massacre."

MSF said that "nothing justifies this shocking attack on a hospital and its many patients and health workers, as well as the people who sought shelter there."

"Hospitals are not a target. This bloodshed must stop. Enough is enough," the group added.

  Many Gazans had fled to the hospital after Israeli authorities ordered 1.1 million Palestinians to flee for their lives—an alleged war crime compared to the Nakba ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel—amid a bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,500 people, including over 1,000 children, since October 7.

"What's s happened is terrible because those people, all of them are civilians. They fled their homes and reached a place that they believed was safe—a hospital, which according to international law, is a safe place," Shehadah said. "People left their homes thinking they were more dangerous and they move to our schools and hospitals to be safe. And in one minute, all of them have been killed at a hospital." 

 

Joe Biden's just another War Criminal as his Tweet makes clear.



What about the daily brutal attacks on the Palestinians?  What about the children of Palestine?  No move to stand with them, no move to defend them.  You wasted everyone's time by even going.  All you're doing is providing cover for this continued slaughter.  It's beyond disappointing, it's shameful. 

WSWS calls out the bombing:


On Tuesday, the Israeli military dropped a massive GPS-guided bomb on the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, killing more than 500 medical personnel, patients and refugees. The hospital, operated by the Anglican Christian Church, had been sheltering over 1,000 people who were displaced by the bombing. Doctors and medical staff at the hospital had courageously refused Israeli demands that they relocate further south, stating that there were not enough beds in southern Gaza to accommodate their critically wounded patients.

This atrocity has triggered mass protests by hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East, Europe and America. Thousands rallied outside the White House, with banners accusing US President Joe Biden of genocide.

The Israeli government and US media have launched a campaign to promote the lie that the Palestinians bombed their own hospital. Israel denied responsibility for the bombing, claiming that the attack was caused by a rocket launched from Gaza that misfired. The entire world knows this is an absurd fabrication. This massacre was conducted by Israel, with the support of the US-NATO axis.

There is nothing accidental about the Gaza bombing. It is only the latest, and most heinous, in a string of dozens of attacks on hospitals, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure over the past 10 days. It is entirely in keeping with Israel’s strategy for the war, which is to terrorize the population by inflicting massive casualties and deaths.


Yet Joe lands in Tel Aviv and immediately issues propaganda statements that it was "the other side."  Disgusting and humiliating.  Bethan McKernan (GUARDIAN) reports, "The Israeli military said an initial investigation suggested the explosion was caused by a failed Hamas rocket launch, before saying it was the result of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket barrage. Islamic Jihad denied the Israeli allegation, and the scale of the blast appeared to be outside either of the militant groups’ capabilities."

  As Amy Goodman noted yesterday, "Biden has so far refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza."  At THE NATION, Abdullah Shihipar notes:


The situation in the Gaza Strip is dire. Amid an intense bombing campaign, Israel has shut off water and power and limited essential supplies such as food, medicine, and fuel, creating a massive public health crisis in a region that was already struggling due to a years-long blockade. According to latest statistics, more than 2,750 people have been killed by Israeli strikes, of whom 1,000 are children. Hospitals in Gaza have already been targeted. After repeated threats and calls to evacuate, the Ahli Arab Hospital was bombed on October 17, with early estimates of casualties reporting 500 dead. The hospital was filled with people seeking shelter from the bombings, as are hospitals across Gaza. At Shifa Hospital alone the number of people seeking shelter is estimated to be around 35,000 people. These are ideal conditions for infectious disease to spread. If there is not immediate intervention, thousands of Gazans will die of infections, malnutrition, and dehydration, in addition to the bombardment.

The shutoff of clean water is of particularly grave concern. When people no longer have access to clean, treated water, they will drink water from whatever source there is, including seawater. These sources may be contaminated with sewage, chemicals, and other contaminants, which can lead to water-borne illnesses like cholera and dysentery; outbreaks of such diseases would strain the medical system in Gaza. These diseases also require rapid rehydration, and without a source of water, they can quickly become deadly. Clean water is also necessary for providing proper medical care to people—for one thing, you can’t wash your hands without it. Water is a key component in many medical procedures, such as dialysis for kidney patients. When clean water is no longer available, medical practitioners have to spend crucial moments looking for water in a time when time can barely be spared. Meanwhile, the blockade prevents medical supplies from entering Gaza, and Médecins Sans Frontières has reported that hospitals have run out of painkillers. As people are gravely injured and arrive at the hospital with open wounds, if hospitals are lacking proper medical equipment to stabilize them and prevent infection, many people will die preventable deaths.

[. . .]

To prevent mass death and urgently address this public health crisis, Israel and Hamas must agree to a cease-fire. It is not merely enough to open up a humanitarian corridor, especially since there is evidence that the IDF bombed civilians evacuating on a promised safe route, calling into question future guarantees of safety. A cease-fire will allow vital supplies to enter Gaza and will allow rescue and medical workers time to tend to the injured and dead without the fear of being bombarded. Aid workers need to distribute badly needed food and water to a population that hasn’t had a proper supply of nutrients or hydration in days. The water and power must also be turned back on. The United States must play a crucial role in ensuring that this happens. Fellow public health professionals and our elected officials must also be vocal. Representatives Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, and others have introduced a resolution in Congress calling for cease-fire, and we must support their efforts.


Others are also calling for a cease-fire.   Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) reports this morning:

  The head of the United Nations on Wednesday called for an "immediate humanitarian cease-fire" in Israel and Gaza following a deadly strike on the Palestinian territory's al-Ahli Hospital, where many displaced Palestinians had taken refuge amid relentless Israeli bombing.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said a cease-fire would "provide sufficient time and space" for humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip and hostages to be freed. 







AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We head now to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 55 Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel October 7th. Israeli authorities have also arrested over 700 Palestinians, several prominent lawmakers, including Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

To talk about the situation in the West Bank and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, we’re joined by Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch, co-founder of Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza.

Sari, if you can talk about the entire situation, the imminent invasion of Gaza? You just heard Raji Sourani. And also talk about what’s happening in the West Bank. In the last year, approximately — it’s a bit more, but a Palestinian a day has been killed since the beginning of the year.

SARI BASHI: Yes. Thank you.

And I’m sorry to say that since October 7th in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have killed, on average, 100 children a day. And that’s the statistic that stays with me.

So, this latest escalation began on October 7th, when Hamas-led fighters entered Israel and committed unspeakable war crimes against Israeli civilians. They massacred partygoers at an outdoor dance party. They entered homes, in some cases burning the homes, in other cases shooting families. And they took hostage men, women, older people, children, people with disabilities. Appropriately, the U.S. government and people in the United States condemned those acts, because they were unspeakable crimes against civilians that have no justification.

So the answer cannot be for the Israeli government, with the backing of the American government, to then target and harm civilians in Gaza. I am particularly concerned about the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza. The Israeli military cut food, electricity, water and fuel supplies on October 7th, which is contributing to the humanitarian catastrophe. And the Israeli military is engaging in — is dropping explosive weapons in densely populated areas with wide area effects. So, when you do that, when you drop bombs on crowded urban centers, it is predictable that you will kill civilians. It is predictable that you will kill children. And that’s what’s happening. Gaza is the size — about the size of the U.S. city of Philadelphia. It’s 2.2 million people. Nearly half of those people are children.

And that’s something that we need to see more of the United States government addressing. We’ve heard thus far general comments about the need to respect international humanitarian law. We need very specific directives for the Israeli government to immediately restore food, fuel, electricity and water supplies and to stop dropping weapons in densely populated civilian areas.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sari Bashi, I wanted to ask you — the prime minister, Netanyahu, has urged the Palestinians in Gaza to flee to Egypt if they want to avoid the horrors of the bombing and the invasion. Isn’t this itself a form of ethnic cleansing? After all, Israel is not telling the Palestinians, “Hey, if you want to escape the bombing and the invasion, move into Israel or be transported to the West Bank.” After all, even Putin, in his invasion of Ukraine, ended up admitting 1.2 million Ukrainians into Russia to avoid the worst impact on them of the war itself.

SARI BASHI: So, the first thing to say is that the countries that are neighboring Gaza — Israel and Egypt — have an obligation to open their borders and let people who are fleeing for their lives enter. Not to do that risks violating the principle of non-refoulement. When you have mothers with children who are trying to save their children’s lives, Israel and Egypt need to open their borders and let that happen. But the Israeli evacuation order risks forcible transfer. The Israeli military has called on half the population in Gaza in the north to go to the south, and Israeli military officials have also called on people in Gaza to flee to Egypt.

Now, for people in Gaza, Gaza is — 70% of the people living in Gaza are refugees from what is now Israel. Some of the older people who fled Friday, Saturday from northern Gaza to southern Gaza, they remember fleeing the Israeli army 75 years ago. They remember the homes they left behind in what is now Israel. And they remember that they were never allowed to come back, although international law defends the right of return for all refugees, whether they’re Ukrainians trying to resume — to return to areas that have been liberated from Russian occupation or under Russian occupation, or people from Gaza coming back after the army has left.

My concern is that while it’s acceptable, and in some cases advisable, for warring parties to issue warnings, those warnings are only effective if there are safe ways for civilians to avoid harm. So, when you tell a million people to evacuate but there’s no safe place to go to and no safe way to get there, that’s not an effective warning. And another thing that the United States government should do very clearly is to call on the Israeli government to cancel the evacuation order and to take all measures to protect civilians who remain in the north. There are many people — men, women, children, older people, people with disabilities, hospital patients — who either cannot or will not leave the northern Gaza, and they retain their protections under international law.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk to us about how Palestinians in the West Bank are being impacted as a result of the continuing conflict in Gaza?

SARI BASHI: So, here, people are mostly worried. There have been road closures. Workers have not been allowed to enter Israel for their jobs. There have been increased military activity in the West Bank, including incursions and arrests. You mentioned arrests of people who expressed support for the attacks on October 7th. Businesses who engaged in that have been closed at night, with the Israeli army coming in. For the most part, people are worried.

All of this is unprecedented. The attacks that Hamas-led fighters committed against Israeli civilians on October 7th are unprecedented. It was the worst massacre of civilians in Israeli history. And the level of harm, targeted harm, that the Israeli military is inflicting on civilians in Gaza is also unprecedented.

At Human Rights Watch, we’re trying to hold open a narrow space for universal basic principles of humanity. It is never OK to commit unspeakable war crimes against civilians, as was done in southern Israel on October 7th. And that in no way justifies committing war crimes against civilians in Gaza.

And for Americans who are confused by all of what’s going on, I would suggest you just remember that very basic principle that civilians need to be protected, and then encourage your elected representatives to remind the U.S. government of that principle, because the United States government is providing $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel, and it’s rushing even more weapons here right now. It has a responsibility to rein in the attacks on civilians, to call on Israel to cancel the evacuation order and protect civilians in Gaza and to immediately restore humanitarian supplies to civilians.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference between your experience on the West Bank, as an Israeli Jewish lawyer, and your husband’s experience, as a Palestinian professor, a resident of Ramallah, for people to understand? And also this issue — you know, Jake Sullivan recently said, just a few weeks ago, Biden’s national security adviser, that it’s been quieter in the Middle East than any time in 20 years. This is the time that at least a Palestinian a day was being killed. And talk about settlers and the army.

SARI BASHI: Yeah. I think part of the concern — and I know Raji was addressing that when he talked about root causes — is that some of the root causes of the violence, including what Human Rights Watch and many other groups have called apartheid, are invisible to U.S. policymakers. We have a situation where U.S. policymakers are very busy brokering normalization deals between the most right-wing Israeli government in history and dictatorial Arab governments, and it’s not paying attention to what’s happening on the ground.

For decades, the Israeli authorities have engaged in systemic repression of Palestinians, including not allowing people in Gaza, refugees in Gaza, to return to their homes in what is now Israel, and including a punishing closure for the last 16 years that has not allowed appropriate supplies to enter and leave Gaza and has not allowed people to travel. And that’s part of the reason why people in Gaza were so vulnerable even before this violence began.

In addition, the Israeli government is privileging Israeli Jews over Palestinians. And that’s the essence of the crime against humanity of apartheid, when you commit inhumane acts and engage in systemic repression in order to privilege one group over another. So, I’m Israeli Jewish, American, as well. My partner is Palestinian. And I can do things that he can’t do. I can travel quite freely. And even though his mother is a refugee from what is now Israel, he can’t pass areas that are off limits to Palestinians. I have excellent rights. I have health. There are cities in Israel being built for Jews only, and also in the West Bank, settlements being built for Israeli Jews only, while Palestinians are hemmed in, unable to build cities, and their homes are being demolished for lack of permits that are almost impossible to get. The Israeli authorities are engaging in forcible transfer, where they remove Palestinian communities in the West Bank to make room for settlements. All of these are part of the root causes of the violence.

And the only thing I can hope is that U.S. policymakers will realize that it’s not quiet here. There’s terrible abuses going on. You just have to listen to what people on the ground are telling you, and adjust accordingly. No U.S. policy toward Israel-Palestine will be successful if it doesn’t address the abuses on the ground, first, second and third.

AMY GOODMAN: Sari Bashi, we want to thank you for being with us, program director at Human Rights Watch, co-founder of Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza.

Next up, we go to a former Israeli peace negotiator. His recent interview on BBC went viral. Back in 20 seconds.


The propaganda spin is not working.  The world can see that this is collective punishment, that the government of Israel is committing War Crimes.  So what do they do next?  Try to silence the truth.  COUNTERPUNCH is under bot attack.  On yesterday's THE REMIX MORNING SHOW (BLACK POWER MEDIA), Jacqueline Luqman announced that SPUTNIK had cancelled her show BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY because they did not like the anti-colonization position of the show.  Last week, we noted YOUTUBE restricting access to a DEMOCRACY NOW! conversation claiming it was too violent.   These are desperation tactics that come too late to stop reality from being seen.









The following sites updated:





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