Source: The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (PEN NZ Inc)
The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (PEN NZ Inc) congratulates Steph Matuku on winning the inaugural NZSA Shaw Writer’s Award 2024.
Steph Matuku, who has written several books for young people, will use the award to help complete the writing of The Blue Dawn, a novel set in early 19th century New Zealand, when the whaling industry was at its peak. Māori mythology and tradition collide with capitalism and brutal progress, as a grieving fugitive hunts the giant octopus that will lead her to her ancestors’ homeland.
The judging panel of Dr Paula Morris and Catherine Roberston said, “This is Steph Matuku’s first adult novel, and we thought the concept shows great promise. Steph is a hard-working writer and will make good use of this grant.”
Tina Shaw said, “I’ve just read and enjoyed Steph’s YA novel Migration, and was really impressed. She is obviously a very talented and dedicated writer. I’m pleased to see that Steph is now moving towards an adult readership with a novel that sounds exciting and imaginative and draws on a strong mythical element from te ao Māori.”
Of this year’s applicants, the judges said, “The number of applications shows how much need there is for an award like this. Authors often struggle at the mid-career point, and if they cannot find the right acknowledgment and support, may decide to give up. In creating the shortlist, we favoured applicants who were obviously committed to their writing career and really needed that boost to get over the midway hump. Our thanks to Tina for providing this opportunity for New Zealand writers, and congratulations to the first recipient.”
The $5,000 award was established by award-winning novelist Tina Shaw to encourage the development of new novels by mid-career fiction writers.
Tina Shaw is a novelist, short story writer and editor who has received many awards for her work, including the CNZ Berlin Writers Residency, the University of Waikato Writer-In-Residence and the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship. She won the 2018 Storylines Tessa Duder Award with Ursa which was published in 2019 by Walker Books Australia and received a Storylines Notable Book Award. As editor, her 7th edition of the Bateman NZ Writer’s Handbook was published in 2023. Her novel manuscript A House Built on Sand won the 2023 Michael Gifkins Prize and was published in 2024 by Text Publishing.
Shaw works as a book reviewer, mentor, manuscript assessor, publisher, and is editor of the NZSA quarterly publication NZ Author.
The NZSA would like to thank the 2024 Judging Panel – Dr Paula Morris and Catherine Robertson and Tina Shaw for generously establishing this award.
Notes: The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa PEN NZ Inc is the principal organisation representing writers in Aotearoa. Founded in 1934, it advocates for the right to fair reward and creative rights, administers prizes and awards, works across the literary sector to make Aotearoa New Zealand writers and books more visible, and runs professional development programmes for writers. authors.org.nz
Source: United States Senator Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona)
Sinema worked directly with the White House to nominate Sharad Desai to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge
For a broadcast-quality HD clip, click HERE.
For an MP3 soundbite, click HERE.WASHINGTON – Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema introduced Sharad Desai, nominee to the U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Arizona to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sinema recommended Mr. Desai and worked directly with the White House on his nomination to the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. “Sharad Desai represents the best of the Arizona legal community. He possesses the experience, integrity, and intellect to serve honorably as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona,” said Sinema. Earlier this year, Sinema applauded Sharad Desai’s nomination to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Arizona. Mr. Desai is a native Arizonan and, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he would be Arizona’s first South Asian federal district judge. Mr. Desai currently serves as Vice President and General Counsel for Honeywell’s Integrated Supply Chain and Information Technology groups, where he manages legal risk, ensures compliance with laws and regulations across the globe, resolves disputes prior to litigation, and more. At Honeywell, Mr. Desai has served in numerous roles, including as Litigation Counsel for Honeywell’s Aerospace division and Chief Litigation Counsel for the Safety and Productivity Solutions division. In these roles, Mr. Desai managed a docket of federal and state court matters and arbitrations – including commercial, qui tam, product liability, and toxic tort matters. Mr. Desai also selected outside counsel, developed the litigation strategy, and coordinated discovery efforts. He was also responsible for handling government subpoenas and civil investigatory demands, as well as subpoenas received in connection with civil and criminal matters. Mr. Desai also worked almost for a decade at the Arizona law firm Osborn Maledon, becoming a partner in the litigation group where he represented clients – including individuals, small business, and Fortune 100 companies – in commercial litigation and appellate matters. In this role, Mr. Desai regularly appeared in both federal and state courts, mental health court proceedings, and lawyer ethics matters. After graduating from New York University Law School in 2006, Mr. Desai clerked for Arizona Supreme Court then-Vice Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch. Mr. Desai earned a Bachelor of Science in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Magna Cum Laude, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of Arizona in 2003, where he was a Flinn Scholar. Sinema has a track record of earning broad bipartisan support for judicial nominees. Earlier this year, Sinema celebrated the Senate confirmation of Arizona’s Angela Martinez and Krissa Lanham as federal judges for the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona – which Sinema personally ensured both nominees earned a broad bipartisan vote.
Last month, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered a one-hour address on the danger of illegal immigration to the United States. His stage was the US-Mexico border in Arizona and the set piece of his performance was the border wall.
The message was simple: with their border policy, Democrats have “unleashed a deadly plague of migrant crime”. Trump has ratcheted up the tensions on immigration further since then, repeating wild conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants eating pets and, more recently, claiming migrants are “attacking villages and cities all throughout the Midwest”.
What the US needs, Trump has repeatedly stressed, is a closed border, a walled border.
A long history of wall-building advocacy
The US-Mexico border wall, which is currently around 700 miles in length in various stretches, has loomed large in American politics in recent decades, especially since the 2016 US presidential campaign. Yet, current stories about the wall mostly overlook its history.
Most importantly, the media ignore the long-standing appeal of the wall as a tool of spatial and cultural division in the making of the US-Mexico border.
In my forthcoming book, I trace the origin of the border wall to the early 1900s, when the US Immigration Service and other federal agencies called for the construction of barriers at the border.
Congress answered their appeal by adopting an act in 1935 that authorised the secretary of state to construct and maintain fences between the US and Mexico. For decades following its adoption, US officials stood before Congress almost yearly, asking for funding for the construction of border fences.
This trend culminated in the 1940s with two parallel projects: the Western Land Boundary Fence Project (576 miles or 926 kilometres of fencing from El Paso, Texas, to the west) and the Rio Grande Border Fence Project (415 miles or 668 kilometres of fencing along the Mexico-Texas border).
Neither one of these projects was ever fully realised. But if they had been built, they would have surpassed the length of the current border wall.
Immigration, disease and crime
What is telling when looking at the history is how similar the arguments supporting such fences in the early 1900s were to those deployed today. Immigration, disease and crime have been recurring justifications for the wall, both then and now.
Indeed, there is an uncanny likeness to Trump’s rhetoric surrounding the US-Mexico border — including during his August speech in Arizona — and the narratives justifying a border wall in the mid-20th century.
High on the list of justifications was the need to deter “juvenile delinquents”, “thieves”, “beggars”, undocumented workers, narcotic smugglers, “wetbacks” (a derogatory term for Mexicans), and Mexican nationals seeking medical care in the US at public expense.
These arguments appeared regularly in government reports and during congressional hearings from the 1930s to the late 1950s.
A 1934 report by the Immigration Services on the feasibility of a short border fence between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, for example, said it would stifle illegal immigration that took employment opportunities from American workers, while lowering wages in the borderland area.
Reminiscent of recent analogies between the borderland and a “war zone”, the report noted that sending agents to patrol the border without proper equipment was pointless. It was akin to:
put[ting] a body of troops in the field in an enemy’s theatre of operation without artillery, observation planes, trucks, ammunition and other weapons.
The fence was “the correct solution to the problem.”
At times, the fear of the undocumented merged with the fear of contagion. A foot and mouth disease outbreak in Mexico in 1946, for example, provided additional rhetorical support for the wall. As Texas Senator Tom Connally said when the Committee on Foreign Relations considered the issue:
It has been a dream of the Department of State for many years to have this fence, not because of the hoof and mouth disease, but for immigration and customs and smuggling and all of that sort of thing.
Senator Tom Connally in 1938. Harris & Ewing photographs, via Wikimedia Commons
Persistent racial faultlines
The 1935 act has long been forgotten. In fact, by the end of the 1950s, only a few hundred miles of fencing had actually been built.
These earlier walling plans failed for a range of reasons, including opposition by Texan landowners and industries relying on illegal Mexican labour. Perhaps most importantly, there were serious reservations back then about the efficiency of fences in curbing immigration.
Yet, these doubts have not weighed in to the same extent in contemporary debates about the border wall. This underscores the performative role of the wall in today’s politics.
In fact, close to 700 hundred miles (1,126 kilometres) of fencing has been built under the Secure Fence Act of 2006. This includes large portions of the wall built under the presidency of Barack Obama and, to a lesser extent, Trump’s.
What has filtered through, however, is the racialised narrative that paints Mexicans nationals in a disparaging way.
This rhetoric relied on generalisations and stereotypes on themes such as criminality, licentiousness and disease. It transformed Mexico into a threat to be curtailed and became a frame of reference that has permeated politics for decades – and is now a defining issue in the upcoming presidential election.
Marie-Eve Loiselle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Support for semiconductor scale-ups announced as Lord Vallance kicks off a stakeholder forum ahead of the G7 Semiconductors Points of Contact group in Cambridge.
16 semiconductor scale up projects backed to advance innovative tech
Science Minister Lord Vallance unveils new support for UK semiconductor scale-ups to advance innovations, from phone screens to medical tech
Support to help businesses grow unveiled as Minister welcomes leading tech nations to a stakeholder forum preceding the G7 Semiconductors Points of Contact group in Cambridge
Comes as new report finds rapidly growing UK semiconductor industry valued at nearly £10 billion and expected to rise this decade
UK semiconductor firms producing vital technology from phone screens to surgical lasers are being backed in their efforts to scale up into large businesses and drive economic growth.
The science Minister Lord Patrick Vallance has announced the 16 projects that will win a share of a £11.5 million pot – provided by Innovate UK – that will help drive innovation, as he opened an industry conference of G7 nations today (Thursday 26 September).
Pioneering projects across the country will help take the UK’s thriving semiconductor industry to the next level as it further enhances everyday life – from more efficient medical devices to energy saving phone screens – and kickstart economic growth.
This comes shortly before the Government’s International Investment Summit which will showcase the UK as a place to do business. Today’s move is yet another reason for business to choose the UK as a place to invest – as it is backing the industries of the future.
A new report by Perspective Economics reveals the UK semiconductor sector, which includes over 200 companies in research, design, and manufacturing, is valued at almost £10 billion and could grow up to £17 billion by 2030.
Semiconductors are small chips at the core of everyday technology from smartphones to renewable energy systems and this support will help to scale up domestic manufacturing and strengthen supply chain resilience, so the UK is fit for the future in a global industry.
The funding comes as the G7 Semiconductors Point of Contact group kicks off with a stakeholder forum at major UK tech company Arm’s HQ in Cambridge, where member states, research organisations, and industry representatives are discussing key issues affecting the global semiconductor industry, like supporting early-stage innovation and sustainability.
Science Minister, Lord Vallance, said:
Semiconductors are an unseen but vital component in so many of the technologies we rely on in our lives and backing UK innovators offers a real opportunity to growth these firms into industry leaders, strengthening our £10 billion sector and ensuring it drives economic growth.
Our support in these projects will promote critical breakthroughs such as more efficient medical devices that could significantly lower costs and faster manufacturing processes to improve productivity.
Hosting the G7 semiconductors Points of Contact group is also a chance to showcase the UK’s competitive and growing sector and make clear our commitment to keeping the UK at the forefront of advancing technology.
Among the funded projects, receiving a share of £11.5 million, is Vector Photonics Limited in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, which aims to enhance the power and cost-effectiveness of blue light lasers in everyday technology by using gallium nitride, a high-performance material. Blue lasers are key in devices like medical equipment, quantum displays and car headlights.
Another project, led by Quantum Advanced Solutions Ltd with the University of Cambridge, is developing advanced shortwave infrared (SWIR) sensors which improve vision in critical sectors like defence, by supporting surveillance in challenging conditions in low-visibility environments, such as during adverse weather conditions or atmospheric disturbances. The project looks to simplify production using innovative quantum dot materials – tiny semiconductor particles that emit light at specific wavelengths – offering higher sensitivity and performance, cutting costs and making this advanced technology more accessible to multiple sectors including manufacturing and healthcare.
Andrew Tyrer, Deputy Director, Electronics, Sensors and Photonics, Innovate UK, said:
Innovate UK’s investment in this programme directly supports the National Semiconductor Strategy launched in 2023 and aims to ensure the UK’s place in the global landscape.
Iain Mauchline Innovation Lead – Electronics, Sensors, and Photonics at Innovate UK, added:
It has been recognised that semiconductors are key enablers for the UK ambitions across all critical technology areas. Funding these diverse projects highlights the strengths and depth of the UK’s semiconductor ecosystem.
The G7 Semiconductors Point of Contact Group, established under Italy’s G7 Presidency earlier this year, continues its mission to address issues impacting the semiconductor industry, including early-stage innovation, crisis coordination, sustainability, and the impact of government policies and practices.
Rene Haas, CEO, Arm said:
It is an honour to host the G7 Semiconductor working group at Arm’s global headquarters in Cambridge to advance collective efforts from industry, research organizations, and governments to increase supply chain resilience, security, and energy efficiency. We look forward to continued partnership with the G7 representatives and the UK government as we work to enable innovation and realize the full potential of AI.”
This meeting immediately follows the OECD Semiconductor Informal Exchange Network gathering, where countries and stakeholders shared strategies for strengthening global semiconductor supply chains and addressing shared challenges in the semiconductor industry.
The UK is playing a key role in the OECD’s efforts to unite government and industry in navigating the complexities of the global chip supply chain.
Charles Sturman, CEO of TechWorks said:
This report represents the first detailed economic study of the UK Semiconductor sector in many years. I am proud to have been part of this important work and pleased with the results. Key findings here show that the UK already sees significant revenue from the sector and, by building on strong innovation, we can see significant opportunity to increase this together with our ~2% share of global semiconductor revenues; ultimately creating much more than the 86,000 jobs currently in the wider economy. The industry is set to grow rapidly in the next decade and the right mix of scale-up support and industrial policy can secure future growth of the UK semiconductor sector.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Bleich, Professorial fellow, Jeff Bleich Centre for Democracy and Disruptive Technologies, Flinders University
In countries with compulsory voting, such as Australia and many in Latin America, the system usually ensures an overwhelming majority of voters cast their ballots election after election.
In the United States, it’s a very different story. Two-thirds of eligible voters turned out to vote in the 2020 presidential election – the highest rate since 1900. Turnout in presidential elections before 2020 tended to hover between 50% and 65%.
Often, it’s the voters choosing to stay home on the couch who effectively decide an election’s outcome.
Under the United States’ unusual Electoral College presidential voting system, the candidate who wins the most votes nationally does not necessarily win the election. Twice in the past 25 years, Democrats have won the popular vote in the presidential race and still lost the election. That includes Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
As such, victory depends on getting more voters “off the couch” in key battleground states where the decisive Electoral College votes are up for grabs. In those states, it doesn’t matter what percentage of people show up to vote, or how much a candidate wins by, it is winner take all.
A voter who doesn’t vote, therefore, actually makes an active choice — they remove a vote from the candidate they would have likely chosen, and so give an important advantage to the person they would not have voted for.
The “couch” is effectively where Americans go to vote against their self-interest.
Who is more incentivised to vote?
As this year’s presidential election between Trump and Kamala Harris approaches, we ask a simple question: whose “couch” will decide one of the most consequential elections in living memory?
Recent research demonstrates that partisanship is an important driver of voter choice in presidential elections.
The fact that the US is deeply divided is not news to most, but current survey data show how evenly split along partisan lines it actually is. With about 30% of Americans identifying as a Republican and 30% identifying as a Democrat, there is virtually no difference in the total number of voters who support each major party.
The remaining 40% of Americans identify as “independent” – that is, not loyal to either major political party. Almost seven decades of research on the American voter shows, however, that independents heavily “lean” towards one party or the other, with about half leaning Republican and the other half leaning Democrat.
One possible insight into which group has greater incentive to vote is polling on people’s dissatisfaction with their party’s candidate.
According to the most recent Gallup Poll data, 9% of Republicans currently have an unfavourable opinion of Trump. In contrast, only 5% of Democrats have an unfavourable opinion of Harris.
Partisan voters who are dissatisfied with their party candidate have a massive incentive to “stay on the couch” and refrain from voting. They don’t really want to vote for “the other team”, but they can’t stand their own team anymore either.
For example, Republican women in the suburbs, veterans and traditional Republicans have started to abandon Trump over his stances on reproductive rights and national security, and his temperament. The Trump campaign clearly knows this. At a rally in New York a few days ago, he told attendees to “get your fat ass out of the couch” to go vote for him.
Should these disaffected Republican and Republican-leaning voters stay home on November 5, Harris may well have a decisive edge over Trump.
When the couch wins, America loses
In 2016, Trump defied the polls and traditional voter turn-out trends by convincing some disaffected, working-class Democrats to stay on the couch, vote for an unelectable third party candidate or, in some cases, vote for him.
Could this happen again? Or will Democrats be able to reverse this phenomenon by getting exhausted Republicans suffering Trump fatigue to stay home, while motivating everyone from Taylor Swift fans to “never Trumpers” to veterans of foreign wars to get out to vote.
Recent trends suggest overall turnout will be comparatively high, in line with the past three federal US elections.
Democrats have traditionally benefited from higher voter turn-out, but it is not as clear this is still the case in 2024. Recent research shows higher turnout rates seem to have favoured the Republican Party since 2016.
Yet both parties still have significant numbers of people who don’t vote. According to the Pew Research Center, 46% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents didn’t vote in the past three elections (2018, 2020 and 2022), compared to the 41% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.
So again, who sits on the couch matters. Inevitably, many of those who stay home will get precisely what they don’t want. When the couch wins, America loses.
Jeff Bleich is a former US ambassador to Australia and a member of the National Security Leaders for America, a group of 700 former generals, admirals, service secretaries, ambassadors, and other national security professionals, that has endorsed Kamala Harris in the presidential election. He was also special counsel to President Barack Obama and served as chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board under President Donald Trump and as a member of President Joe Biden’s (non-partisan) National Security Education Board.
Rodrigo Praino receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government Department of Defence, and SmartSat CRC.
Source: United States Senator for Nevada Cortez Masto
FTP for TV stations of her remarks is available here.
Cortez Masto highlighted the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada’s Resiliency and Justice Center that has helped survivors and their families access the resources they need
Washington, D.C. – Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) spoke on the Senate floor today ahead of the 7th anniversary of the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017, the deadliest in modern American history.
Cortez Masto honored the victims and their families, and she highlighted the work being done at the Resiliency and Justice Center in Las Vegas to connect survivors of violent crime with resources to help them heal.
Below are her remarks as prepared for delivery:
M. President, I rise today along with my colleague from Nevada, Senator Jacky Rosen, to commemorate seven years since the deadliest mass shooting in America’s recent memory.
Seven years ago, people from across the country gathered in Las Vegas for the Route 91 Harvest music festival – three days of live performances, dancing, and fun.
On October 1st, what was supposed to be a joyous conclusion to the festival turned into a nightmare.
In just 10 minutes, from the window of a nearby hotel, a gunman fired more than 1,000 shots into the festival crowd.
58 people were killed, and two more died later from their injuries. More than 800 were wounded. Thousands of families were forever changed.
I remember sitting with some of them at the Reunification Center, hoping and praying that their loved ones would return to them. Some prayers were never answered.
But as the city of Las Vegas mourned, we also came together. Neighbors reached out to one another and helped each other heal. Programs were created to help our city cope and move forward. We were resilient. We are Vegas Strong.
Out of tragedy and suffering, there was hope.
Let me tell you about something that gives me hope.
Three weeks after the events of 1 October, the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada and Clark County set up the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center as a resource for survivors of the Route 91 Harvest Festival and their families.
After a tragedy like a mass shooting, the families of victims and survivors alike have to adjust to a new normal. Imagine living through the horrors of that October night, healing from injuries, or grieving the loss of a loved one whose life was taken so suddenly by a senseless act of violence.
And then imagine, after you’ve been left with all that trauma, that you’re now faced with the complexities of paying medical bills, or dealing with insurance companies. It’s overwhelming. Where do you even begin? How are you going to navigate it all?
The Vegas Strong Resiliency Center was designed to ensure families didn’t have to go through this process alone.
The Center brought community partners with different resources to the table to deliver anything survivors might need – from support groups to mental health services to financial advice.
I’ve seen some of their great work myself.
Their incredible Executive Director, Tennille [ten-KNEEL] Pereira [puh-RARE-uh], shared the story of a survivor of 1 October who, after recovering from being shot that night, could no longer make her way up the stairs to reach her apartment. In response, her landlord threatened to evict her!
So, she got in touch with the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center. The Center contacted her landlord, got them to back down, and then helped their client move to another apartment that was accessible to her.
This is what happens when the community comes together to help each other. The Resiliency Center connected survivors with the resources they needed – right when they needed them. It gave survivors hope, and it helped them find light in the darkness.
In the seven years since its establishment, the Center not only helped survivors of the Route 91 Harvest Festival, but through the lessons learned from that crisis, it actually improved services for victims of violent crime throughout Southern Nevada.
That includes human trafficking survivors, domestic abuse survivors, and even first responders who have post-traumatic stress.
And when Las Vegas was struck by another tragedy last year, after a gunman killed three people at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the staff at the Resiliency Center were able to immediately respond, providing resources and programs for students, families, faculty, and staff.
In January of this year, the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center was renamed the Resiliency and Justice Center, and its mission expanded to serve all survivors of violent crime in Southern Nevada. They are continuing to grow their staff and their resources, and they’re even getting ready to expand their offices.
I’m proud to support the work of the Resiliency and Justice Center. At a time when our city was shaken to its core, they were there to help us get back on our feet. To help us remember that life goes on after loss. To help us find the strength to rebuild as a community.
And now, as we mark seven years since that terrible evening at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, we also mark seven years of hope and resilience in the city of Las Vegas. We hold the victims and their families in our hearts forever, and we remain Vegas Strong.
Source: United States Senator for Rhode Island Jack Reed
WASHINGTON, DC – The number of Americans living with Alzheimer’s is growing fast. One in three older Americans dies with dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. And Congress needs to wisely prioritize research dollars to effectively combat Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
The fight to find a cure and new treatments for Alzheimer’s got a significant boost this week as the U.S. House of Representatives approved a pair of bipartisan bills backed by U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) that previously cleared the U.S. Senate.
Now that they have cleared both chambers, the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) Reauthorization Act and the Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act (AAIA), are headed to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The NAPA Reauthorization Act reauthorizes NAPA through 2035 as a much needed roadmap for coordinated federal efforts in responding to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Since NAPA was first passed in 2011, Alzheimer’s research funding has increased seven-fold. Today, funding for research into Alzheimer’s and other dementias totals over $3.8 billion.
The Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act would require the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to submit an annual budget to Congress estimating the funding necessary to fully implement NAPA’s research goals. This will help ensure Congress can make a well-informed decision to determine necessary Alzheimer’s research funding levels.
“This is a positive step toward renewing the nation’s commitment to healthy aging, boosting funding for Alzheimer’s research, and improving dementia care in Rhode Island and nationwide,” said Senator Reed, a cosponsor of both bills. “Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease that impacts millions of families. While real progress has been made over the last decade since we enacted NAPA, we’ve got to keep up the positive momentum. These bipartisan bills will help ensure federal research investments into Alzheimer’s and dementia are wisely allocated and can fund breakthroughs, a cure, and effective help for caregivers and families struggling with this disease.”
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 6.9 million older Americans – including 22,000 Rhode Islanders — are living with Alzheimer’s disease in 2024, a nationwide increase of about 200,000 cases over last year, and the population is projected to nearly double by 2060 to 14 million people.
Alzheimer’s costs the United States an astonishing $360 billion per year, including $231 billion in costs to Medicare and Medicaid, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, up $15 billion over the previous year
As a member of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Senator Reed helped provide a $275 million increase for Alzheimer’s disease research in the fiscal year 2025 Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and related Agencies Appropriations bill. In 2019, NIH awarded Brown University researchers, along with Boston-based Hebrew SeniorLife (HSL), over $53 million in federal research funds to lead a nationwide effort to improve health care and quality of life for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, as well as their caregivers.
In 2011, U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) led passage of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (P.L. 111-375), which Senator Reed supported. NAPA convened a panel of experts, who created a coordinated strategic national plan to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025. The law was set to expire soon and needed to be reauthorized to ensure that research investments remain coordinated, and their impact is maximized.
Source: United States Senator Pete Ricketts (Nebraska)
September 25, 2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, introduced five pieces of legislation aimed at combatting the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in America’s agriculture and financial sectors.
“The CCP is the single greatest threat to America’s national security and financial independence,” said Senator Ricketts. “A CCP-led world would mean coercion instead of choice, tyranny instead of liberty, and dictatorship instead of democracy. The only way to combat this threat is with a strong, strategic, all-of-government approach. These bills move us closer to that.”
The Securing American Agriculture Act bolsters and protects our domestic food and agriculture supply chains and reduces America’s reliance on foreign adversaries.
The Protecting Endowments from our Adversaries Act disincentivizes endowments from investing in adversarial entities flagged by the U.S. Government as threatening to our national security.
The No Capital Gains Allowance for American Adversaries Act eliminates tax breaks for investments made in companies based in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Belarus.
The PRC Military and Human Rights Capital Markets Sanctions Act prevents Wall Street firms from using Americans’ investment dollars to effectively underwrite the CCP’s human rights abuses and aggression.
The No China in Index Funds Act prevents index mutual funds from holding Chinese stocks.
The bills were first covered by Fox News here.
BACKGROUND:
Securing American Agriculture Act – The PRC’s strategic control over crucial sectors of our food and agricultural supply chain poses a serious national security threat. In recent years, the PRC gained significant market share in the production of essential agricultural inputs like vitamins, veterinary pharmaceuticals, and crop protection tools. China now controls over 90% of vitamin C and vitamin B6 production and up to 85% of amino acids used in animal feed.
Losing access to these key inputs could drastically reduce agricultural productivity, increase food prices, and undermine domestic food security. A University of Wisconsin-Whitewater study found that, if left unchecked, the PRC’s domination of the amino acids market would destroy 30,000 U.S. jobs and reduce economic activity by $15 billion per year. The Securing American Agriculture Act bolsters and protects our food production supply chain.
Specifically, the bipartisan bill:
Requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department of Commerce, to conduct an annual threat assessment of critical food and agricultural supply chains.
Requires the Secretary of Agriculture to provide recommendations to mitigate potential threats from the PRC and for legislative and regulatory actions to reduce barriers to domestic critical input production.
U.S. Representatives Ashley Hinson (R-IA-02) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI-07) haveintroduced companion legislation in the House. The Senate bill is co-sponsored by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Mike Braun (R-IN), John Barrasso (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jim Risch (R-ID), Rick Scott (R-FL), and Eric Schmitt (R-MI).
A one-pager on the bill can be found here. Bill text is available here.
Protecting Endowments from Our Adversaries Act (PEOAA) – U.S. University endowment dollars have helped fund technology behind the CCP’s surveillance of Uyghur Muslims in China. Many endowment fund portfolios own Chinese stocks listed on American exchanges, either directly or indirectly. Tax-advantaged endowment dollars are supposed to be used to lower tuition costs and improve education, not to fund our adversaries.
Specifically, the bill:
Imposes a 50% excise tax on initial investments in adversarial entities on the Entity List, Military End User List, Unverified List, or FCC Covered List.
Imposes a 100% excise tax on the realized gains derived from listed investments one year after an entity is listed.
Applies to private college and university endowments over $1 billion.
U.S. Representative Greg Murphy (R-NC-3) has introduced companion legislation in the House. The Senate bill is co-sponsored by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) And Deb Fischer (R-NE).
One-pager can be found here. Bill text is available here.
No Capital Gains Allowance for American Adversaries Act – According to a comparative analysis of capital gains tax rates by the Law Library of Congress, many countries have investment incentives not applicable to some foreign investments. For example, China provides investment incentives through its tax code, but foreign investments are eligible only with the pre-approval of the Chinese government. The No Capital Gains Allowance for American Adversaries Act stops subsidizing our adversaries’ investments in the United States.
Specifically, the bipartisan bill:
Eliminates the capital gains tax break for investments in companies based in China, Russia, Belarus, Iran, and North Korea.
Eliminates a related tax break, the “step-up in basis” at death, for investments in such companies.
Requires disclosure to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that no tax breaks are available for these stocks.
U.S. Representatives Brad Sherman (D-CA-32) and Victoria Spartz (R-IN-05) haveintroduced companion legislation in the House.
One-pager can be found here. Bill text is available here.
People’s Republic of China (PRC) Military and Human Rights Capital Markets Sanctions Act – A recent report identified 144 Chinese companies, or their affiliates, whose practices were so adverse to U.S. interests that it is illegal for Americans to buy their products. Most of these companies have been found to violate human rights. Others play an integral role in the CCP’s military-industrial complex. While buying the products of these companies is illegal, it is still legal to buy their stock. The PRC Military and Human Rights Capital Markets Sanctions Act fixes this problem.
Specifically, the bipartisan bill:
Prohibits Americans from purchasing, selling, or holding publicly-traded securities of companies that appear on sanctions lists or have an affiliate on the sanctions list.
Prohibits Americans from purchasing, selling, or holding publicly-traded securities that are derivatives of securities issued by a sanctioned company.
Prohibits Americans from purchasing, selling, or holding securities that provides investment exposure to a publicly-traded security issued by a sanctioned company or affiliate.
Requires divestment from the prohibited securities within 180 days.
U.S. Representatives Brad Sherman (D-CA-32) and Victoria Spartz (R-IN-05) haveintroduced companion legislation in the House.
One-pager can be found here. Bill text is available here.
No China in Index Funds Act – Index mutual funds minimize their expenses by simply investing in all the companies in a certain market sector, without looking closely at the individual companies. There are unique difficulties in evaluating the risks of investing in Chinese companies. Americans should not invest in these companies without carefully evaluating the risk. The No China in Index Funds Act will keep these hard-to-evaluate Chinese stocks out of index mutual funds.
Specifically, the bipartisan bill:
Prohibits index funds from investing in Chinese companies.
Requires index funds to divest from such investments within 180 days.
U.S. Representatives Brad Sherman (D-CA-32) and Victoria Spartz (R-IN-05) haveintroduced companion legislation in the House.
One-pager can be found here. Bill text is available here.
Source: United States Senator for Rhode Island Jack Reed
WASHINGTON, DC – The number of Americans living with Alzheimer’s is growing fast. One in three older Americans dies with dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. And Congress needs to wisely prioritize research dollars to effectively combat Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
The fight to find a cure and new treatments for Alzheimer’s got a significant boost this week as the U.S. House of Representatives approved a pair of bipartisan bills backed by U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) that previously cleared the U.S. Senate.
Now that they have cleared both chambers, the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) Reauthorization Act and the Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act (AAIA), are headed to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The NAPA Reauthorization Act reauthorizes NAPA through 2035 as a much needed roadmap for coordinated federal efforts in responding to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Since NAPA was first passed in 2011, Alzheimer’s research funding has increased seven-fold. Today, funding for research into Alzheimer’s and other dementias totals over $3.8 billion.
The Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act would require the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to submit an annual budget to Congress estimating the funding necessary to fully implement NAPA’s research goals. This will help ensure Congress can make a well-informed decision to determine necessary Alzheimer’s research funding levels.
“This is a positive step toward renewing the nation’s commitment to healthy aging, boosting funding for Alzheimer’s research, and improving dementia care in Rhode Island and nationwide,” said Senator Reed, a cosponsor of both bills. “Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease that impacts millions of families. While real progress has been made over the last decade since we enacted NAPA, we’ve got to keep up the positive momentum. These bipartisan bills will help ensure federal research investments into Alzheimer’s and dementia are wisely allocated and can fund breakthroughs, a cure, and effective help for caregivers and families struggling with this disease.”
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 6.9 million older Americans – including 22,000 Rhode Islanders — are living with Alzheimer’s disease in 2024, a nationwide increase of about 200,000 cases over last year, and the population is projected to nearly double by 2060 to 14 million people.
Alzheimer’s costs the United States an astonishing $360 billion per year, including $231 billion in costs to Medicare and Medicaid, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, up $15 billion over the previous year
As a member of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Senator Reed helped provide a $275 million increase for Alzheimer’s disease research in the fiscal year 2025 Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and related Agencies Appropriations bill. In 2019, NIH awarded Brown University researchers, along with Boston-based Hebrew SeniorLife (HSL), over $53 million in federal research funds to lead a nationwide effort to improve health care and quality of life for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, as well as their caregivers.
In 2011, U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) led passage of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (P.L. 111-375), which Senator Reed supported. NAPA convened a panel of experts, who created a coordinated strategic national plan to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025. The law was set to expire soon and needed to be reauthorized to ensure that research investments remain coordinated, and their impact is maximized.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Andrew J. Hoffman, Professor of Management & Organizations, Environment & Sustainability, and Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan
The U.S. has seen a large number of billion-dollar disasters in recent years.AP Photo/Mark Zaleski
Millions of Americans have been watching with growing alarm as their homeowners insurance premiums rise and their coverage shrinks. Nationwide, premiums rose 34% between 2017 and 2023, and they continued to rise in 2024 across much of the country.
There are a few reasons, but a common thread: Climate change is fueling more severe weather, and insurers are responding to rising damage claims. The losses are exacerbated by more frequent extreme weather disasters striking densely populated areas, rising construction costs and homeowners experiencing damage that was once more rare.
Hurricane Ian, supercharged by warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane in October 2022 and caused an estimated $112.9 billion in damage. Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images
Just a decade ago, few insurance companies had a comprehensive strategy for addressing climate risk as a core business issue. Today, insurance companies have no choice but to factor climate change into their policy models.
Rising damage costs, higher premiums
There’s a saying that to get someone to pay attention to climate change, put a price on it. Rising insurance costs are doing just that.
Increasing global temperatures lead to more extreme weather, and that means insurance companies have had to make higher payouts. In turn, they have been raising their prices and changing their coverage in order to remain solvent. That raises the costs for homeowners and for everyone else.
The importance of insurance to the economy cannot be understated. You generally cannot get a mortgage or even drive a car, build an office building or enter into contracts without insurance to protect against the inherent risks. Because insurance is so tightly woven into economies, state agencies review insurance companies’ proposals to increase premiums or reduce coverage.
The insurance companies are not making political statements with the increases. They are looking at the numbers, calculating risk and pricing it accordingly. And the numbers are concerning.
The arithmetic of climate risk
Insurance companies use data from past disasters and complex models to calculate expected future payouts. Then they price their policies to cover those expected costs. In doing so, they have to balance three concerns: keeping rates low enough to remain competitive, setting rates high enough to cover payouts and not running afoul of insurance regulators.
But climate change is disrupting those risk models. As global temperatures rise, driven by greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use and other human activities, past is no longer prologue: What happened over the past 10 to 20 years is less predictive of what will happen in the next 10 to 20 years.
The number of billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. each year offers a clear example. The average rose from 3.3 per year in the 1980s to 18.3 per year in the 10-year period ending in 2024, with all years adjusted for inflation.
With that more than fivefold increase in billion-dollar disasters came rising insurance costs in the Southeast because of hurricanes and extreme rainfall, in the West because of wildfires, and in the Midwest because of wind, hail and flood damage.
Hurricanes tend to be the most damaging single events. They caused more than US$692 billion in property damage in the U.S. between 2014 and 2023. But severe hail and windstorms, including tornadoes, are also costly; together, those on the billion-dollar disaster list did more than $246 billion in property damage over the same period.
As insurance companies adjust to the uncertainty, they may run a loss in one segment, such as homeowners insurance, but recoup their losses in other segments, such as auto or commercial insurance. But that cannot be sustained over the long term, and companies can be caught by unexpected events. California’s unprecedented wildfires in 2017 and 2018 wiped out nearly 25 years’ worth of profits for insurance companies in that state.
To balance their risk, insurance companies often turn to reinsurance companies; in effect, insurance companies that insure insurance companies. But reinsurers have also been raising their prices to cover their costs. Property reinsurance alone increased by 35% in 2023. Insurers are passing those costs to their policyholders.
What this means for your homeowners policy
Not only are homeowners insurance premiums going up, coverage is shrinking. In some cases, insurers are reducing or dropping coverage for items such as metal trim, doors and roof repair, increasing deductibles for risks such as hail and fire damage, or refusing to pay full replacement costs for things such as older roofs.
Some insurances companies are simply withdrawing from markets altogether, canceling existing policies or refusing to write new ones when risks become too uncertain or regulators do not approve their rate increases to cover costs. In recent years, State Farm and Allstate pulled back from California’s homeowner market, and Farmers, Progressive and AAA pulled back from the Florida market, which is seeing some of the highest insurance rates in the country.
In some cases, insurers are restricting coverage. Roof repairs, like these in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., after Hurricane Ian, can be expensive and widespread after windstorms. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
State-run “insurers of last resort,” which can provide coverage for people who can’t get coverage from private companies, are struggling too. Taxpayers in states such as California and Florida have been forced to bail out their state insurers. And the National Flood Insurance Program has raised its premiums, leading 10 states to sue to stop them.
According to NOAA data, 2023 was the hottest year on record “by far.” And 2024 could be even hotter. This general warming trend and the rise in extreme weather is expected to continue until greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are abated.
In the face of such worrying analyses, U.S. homeowners insurance will continue to get more expensive and cover less. And yet, Jacques de Vaucleroy, chairman of the board of reinsurance giant Swiss Re, believes U.S. insurance is still priced too low to fully cover the risk from climate change.
Climate change is a major factor in the rising cost of insurance. Join us for a special free webinar with experts Andrew Hoffman of the University of Michigan and Melanie Gall of Arizona State University to discuss the arithmetic behind these rising rates, what climate change has to do with it, and what may be coming in your future insurance bills.
Andrew J. Hoffman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Sept. 25, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Capital City Bank today announced the promotion of Matthew Henderson to chief information security officer, effective October 1, 2024. He will succeed LeAnne Staalenburg McCorvey, who will retire on December 31, 2024. In this role, Henderson will lead the Corporate Security & Risk Department, overseeing both the information and physical security teams. His responsibilities include developing, overseeing, monitoring, managing and reporting on the security program in accordance with policy.
Henderson began his career with Capital City Bank in September 2022 as an information security officer. In this role, he focused on information security, physical security, vendor management, business continuity and incident response initiatives.
He holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Management Information Systems from Troy University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, respectively. His credentials include certifications as a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Certified Information Security Manager, Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control and Certified Information Systems Auditor.
With over 15 years of experience in information technology, cybersecurity, information security and physical security across various industries, Henderson brings a wealth of knowledge to his new position. He also serves on several advisory boards and committees within the financial sector, including the American Bankers Association’s Cybersecurity and Operational Resilience Advisory Committee, the Risk and Compliance Conference Board and the Cyber Risk Institute’s Joint Standards Committee.
“Matt’s extensive experience and proven expertise make him an ideal choice to lead our Corporate Security & Risk Department,” said Bill Smith, Capital City Bank Group chairman, president and CEO. “I am confident that under his leadership we will continue to uphold the highest standards of security and risk management.”
Beyond his professional roles, Henderson is actively engaged in the community. He is a member of Celebration Baptist Church, Shriners International and the Tallahassee Tennis Association. Additionally, he volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Big Bend.
In his spare time, Henderson enjoys spending time with his wife, Brittony, and their two children.
About Capital City Bank Group, Inc. Capital City Bank Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CCBG) is one of the largest publicly traded financial holding companies headquartered in Florida and has approximately $4.2 billion in assets. We provide a full range of banking services, including traditional deposit and credit services, mortgage banking, asset management, trust, merchant services, bankcards, securities brokerage services and financial advisory services, including the sale of life insurance, risk management and asset protection services. Our bank subsidiary, Capital City Bank, was founded in 1895 and now has 63 banking offices and 105 ATMs/ITMs in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. For more information about Capital City Bank Group, Inc., visit http://www.ccbg.com.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Dan Sousa, San Diego State University Graduate Mentor: Megan Ward-Baranyay, San Diego State University
[embedded content] Megan Ward Baranyay, graduate student mentor for the 2024 SARP West Land group, provides an introduction for each of the group members and shares behind-the scenes moments from the internship.
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Predicting Ammonia Plume Presence at Feedlots in the San Joaquin Valley from VSWIR Spectroscopy of the Land Surface Gerrit Hoving, Carleton College Industrial-scale livestock farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), are a major source of air pollutants including ammonia, methane, and hydrogen sulfide. Ammonia in particular is a major contributor to rural air pollution that is released from the breakdown of livestock effluent. Mitigating regional air pollution through improved waste management practices is only possible if emissions can be accurately monitored. However, ammonia is challenging to measure directly due to its short atmospheric lifetime and lack of VSWIR spectral signature. Here we investigate the potential for spectroscopic imaging of the CAFO land surface to predict the presence of detectable ammonia emissions. Data from the Hyperspectral Thermal Emission Spectrometer (HyTES) instrument were found to clearly identify plumes of ammonia emitted by specific feedlots. Plume presence or absence was then tied to pixel-level reflectance spectra from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source (EMIT) instrument. Random forest classification models were found to predict ammonia plume presence/absence from VSWIR reflectance alone with an accuracy in the range of 70% to 80%. Our conclusions are limited by the limited number of feedlots overflown by HyTES (n=96), the time gap between HyTES and EMIT data, and potential difficulty in comparing feedlots in different regions. While only tested over a modest area, our results suggest that ammonia plume presence/absence may be predictable on the basis of surface features identifiable from VSWIR reflectance alone. Further investigation could focus on more comprehensive model validation, including characterization of the land surface processes and spectral signatures associated with feedlot surfaces with and without observable ammonia plumes. If generalizable, these results suggest that EMIT data may in some circumstances be used to predict the presence of ammonia emission plumes at feedlots in other areas, potentially enabling broader accounting of feedlot ammonia emissions.
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Burn to Bloom: Assessing the Impact of Coastal Wildfires on Phytoplankton Dynamics in California Benjamin Marshburn, California Polytechnic State University- San Luis Obispo California is experiencing rising temperatures as well as increased frequency and length of drought conditions due to anthropogenic climate change. Wildfires are an intrinsic component of California and its Mediterranean ecosystems. However, this change in natural wildfire behavior increases the risk to ecosystems including soil erosion, poor plant regrowth, and ash/nutrient runoff that leads to the ocean. Previous work has attributed phytoplankton blooms in the coastal ocean to runoff from wildfires. This study aims to quantify the extent to which the concentration of chlorophyll-a, an indicator of phytoplankton abundance, can be predicted by wildfire parameters in coastal California and to evaluate which parameters are the most important predictors. Due to climatic variation in California we split the coast into three regions, northern, central and southern, and analyzed three fires from each area. For each fire, the stream length connecting the most severely burned area and the ocean was derived from analysis of a digital elevation model acquired by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. Additionally, differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) was used to analyze burn severity for each fire. The change in chlorophyll-a levels before and after each fire from the impacted coastal area were evaluated using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The Random Forest Regression machine learning model did not strongly predict the difference in chlorophyll-a from the fire parameters. However, our moderate R2 value (0.36) shows promising avenues for future work, including investigating post-fire chlorophyll-a after the first significant rain event, as well as the impact of wind-blown ash on coastal chlorophyll-a concentrations.
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Species-specific Impact on Maximum Fire Temperature in Prescribed Burns at Sedgwick Reserve Hannah Samuelson, University of St. Thomas Fuel load plays a key role in determining severity (change in biomass), intensity (temperature), and frequency (length in time) of wildfires and prescribed fires. Fuel loads can vary in fuel conditions, like moisture content, amount, and flammability of the fuel, and are affected by species type and climatic conditions. Moreover, the difference in the chemical composition of plant species can affect its flammability. Anecdotal evidence from firefighters claim that Purple Sage burns hotter than other shrubs. Here we focus on two shrub species and two tree species that are broadly representative of California foothills; Blue Oak (Quercus douglasii), Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia), Purple Sage (Salvia leucophylla), and California Sagebrush (Artemisia californica), and aim to understand species-specific proclivity to burn with higher or lower severity and intensity. In fall of 2023, a prescribed fire was conducted at Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Barbara County, CA. Field data collection included maximum temperature point measurements with metal pyrometers, the change in 3D vegetation structure using UAV LiDAR, and orthomosaic images for species identification. Radial buffers were created around the locations of the metal pyrometers and used to evaluate the spatial distribution of species, which were verified through field-observed species identification. The relationship between dominant overstory species, change in biomass, and maximum fire temperature was investigated. Preliminary results suggest that Purple Sage produced the highest maximum fire temperatures. Additionally, preliminary results showed both tree species, Blue Oak and Coast Live Oak, exhibit similar biomass change at low maximum fire temperatures. This investigation confirmed the firefighters’ anecdotal evidence on the relationship between species and their wildfire dynamics. The results have the potential to refine fire spread models and ultimately land management practices, improving the protection of humans and infrastructure while preventing habitat destruction from wildfires.
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Quantifying the Influence of Soil Type, Slope, and Aspect on Live Fuel Load in Sedgwick Reserve Angelina Harris, William & Mary The severity and increasing frequency of California wildfires requires investigation of factors that characterize pre-fire landscapes to improve approaches to wildland management and predict the spread of wildfire. Quantifying the relationship between soil type and fuel load could improve existing efforts to map both overall quantity and composition of live fuel for fire spread models which may assist in preventative wildfire measures and potentially active firefighting work. The southwest corner of Sedgwick Reserve, Santa Barbara County, CA hosts two dominant soil types that broadly represent soil variability in the area. The more northerly soil unit is a Chamise shaly loam, and the more southerly soil unit is a Shedd silty clay loam. The Chamise series has a mixed texture, abundant in clay with a significant amount of rock fragments (> 35%) composing its texture while the Shedd series has a fine texture dominated by silt-sized particles. Topography, specifically slope and aspect, plays a significant role in formation and characteristics of soil due to influence on erosion and deposition and sun exposure, respectively. This research aims to explore the relationship between soil type and topography and quantify their influence on live fuel using a Canopy Height Model (CHM) derived from airborne LiDAR collected on 11/04/2020 with a point density of 10.19 pts/m2. The LiDAR-based CHM was filtered to separate trees (> 2 m) and shrubs (.07 – 2 m). A Random Forest Regressor was used to investigate the relationship between soil type, slope, and aspect to identify which variable is the best predictor of canopy height. Preliminary results suggested that soil type and aspect were the most important variables to determine canopy height (variable importance of .50 and .41, respectively). Further studies investigating quantity and composition of live fuel load focusing on additional soil units within Sedgwick Reserve are encouraged.
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From Canopy to Chemistry: Exploring the Relationship Between Vegetation Phenology and Isoprene Emission Emily Rogers, Bellarmine University Isoprene (2-methyl-1,3-butadiene) represents the most abundant non-methane biogenic volatile organic compound in the troposphere, with annual emissions almost equal to those of methane. Depending on the chemical environment, this effective thermoregulator and reactive oxygen species scavenger participates in photochemical reactions to produce climate pollutants and toxins such as ozone and secondary organic aerosols. Previous studies have revealed strong connections between isoprene emission and photosynthesis as its precursors are formed during the Calvin Cycle. This raises questions as to whether the periodic biological events of plants, collectively known as vegetation phenology, influences tropospheric isoprene quantities. In this study, we investigate the influence of vegetation phenology on isoprene emission in Southern California by comparing photosynthetic activity and the spatial distribution of the isoprene oxidation product, formaldehyde, for regions dominated by plants of two different physiologies: high altitude woodlands and coastal shrublands. We interrogate the annual phenology of these regions using high resolution solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) estimates from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite, and formaldehyde vertical column measurements from the recently activated Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) geostationary satellite. We explore the seasonal trends in both formaldehyde formation and SIF as well as their bivariate relationship. Preliminary results indicate both heightened formaldehyde emission and heightened SIF during summer months relative to winter months, with a comparatively stronger correlation between the two metrics during the fall. Our findings will provide insight toward the response of plants to variations in their environment which directly influence chemical systems in the air. Whereas VOCs hold a great potential for environmental and anthropological harm if emitted in excess, it is crucial to understand the factors involved in their formation. As such, we hope that our findings provide information relevant to the development of air pollution mitigation strategies.
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Keeping it Fresh(water): Understanding the Influence of Surface Mineralogy on Groundwater Quality within Volcanic Aquifer Systems Sydney Kent, Miami University Geology plays a key role in determining the chemical profile of groundwater through weathering and erosion, leading to minerals entering the groundwater. The Columbia Plateau, a geologic region that resides within the Pacific Northwest volcanic aquifer system, is known to have water management issues due to groundwater extraction for agriculture. Decreases in groundwater levels can lead to higher concentrations of rock-originated minerals, so the relationship between basaltic geology and well water quality is particularly important in these systems. This research aims to assess the extent in which the basaltic surface mineralogy of the Columbia Plateau impacts predetermined health benchmarks pertaining to trace elements, radionuclides, and nutrients. NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument, a spaceborne imaging spectrometer on the International Space Station, was used to map surface minerals within and among distinct regions of the Columbia Plateau. Some basalt aquifers have uranium that decays to radon-222, a mineral that can be toxic when consumed, as well as lithium, which is commonly found during volcanic eruptions. Preliminary findings showed that where basalt and its secondary minerals were identified with EMIT, chlorite and calcite, well data also indicated raised levels of lithium and radon-222. The relationship between EMIT mineral maps and water quality data indicated that EMIT can potentially be used to identify basalt aquifer systems that may be at risk of poor water quality. Results from this study can be used to enact more personalized water purification methods in areas with water quality issues and individuals with private wells can be more informed about the hazards present in their water. Click here watch the Atmospheric Aerosols Group presentations. Click here watch the Ocean Group presentations. Click here watch the Whole Air Sampling (WAS) Group presentations.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Donald Blake, University of California, Irvine Graduate Mentor: Katherine Paredero, Georgia Institute of Technology
[embedded content] Katherine Paredero, graduate student mentor for the 2024 SARP West Whole Air Sampling (WAS) group, provides an introduction for each of the group members and shares behind-the scenes moments from the internship.
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Urban Planning Initiative: Investigation of Isoprene Emissions by Tree Species in the LA Basin Mikaela Vaughn, Virginia Commonwealth University Elevated ozone concentrations have been a concern in Southern California for decades. The interaction between volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrous oxides (𝑁𝑂!) in the presence of sunlight leads to enhanced formation of tropospheric ozone (𝑂”) and secondary organic aerosols (SOA). This can lead to increased health hazards, exposing humans to aerosols that can enter and be absorbed by the lungs, as well as a warming effect caused by ozone’s role as a greenhouse gas in the lower levels of the atmosphere. This study will focus on a VOC that is of particular interest, isoprene, which has an atmospheric lifetime of one hour, making it highly reactive in the presence of the hydroxyl radical (OH) and resulting in rapid ozone formation. Isoprene is a biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emitted by vegetation as a byproduct of photosynthesis. This BVOC has been overlooked but should be investigated further because of its potential to form large sums of ozone. In this study the reactivity of isoprene with OH dominated ozone formation as compared to other VOCs. Ambient isoprene concentrations were measured aboard NASA’s airborne science laboratory (King Air B200) along with whole air sampling canisters. Additionally, isoprene emissions of varying tree species, with one to three samples per type, were compared to propose certain trees to plant in urban areas. Results indicated that Northern Red Oaks and the Palms family emitted the most isoprene out of the nineteen species documented. The species with the lowest observed isoprene emissions was the Palo Verde and the Joshua trees. The difference in isoprene emissions between the Northern Red Oak and Joshua trees is approximately by a factor of 45. These observations show the significance of considering isoprene emissions when selecting tree species to plant in the LA Basin to combat tropospheric ozone formation.
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VOC Composition and Ozone Formation Potential Observed Over Long Beach, California Joshua Lozano, Sonoma State University Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), when released into the atmosphere, undergo chemical reactions in the presence of sunlight that can generate tropospheric ozone, which can have various health effects. We can gauge this ozone formation by multiplying the observed mixing ratios of VOCs by their respective rate constants (with respect to OH radicals). The OH radical reacts very quickly in the atmosphere and accounts for a large sum of ozone formation from VOCs as a result, giving us an idea of the ozone formation potential (OFP) for each VOC. In this study, we investigate observed mixing ratios of VOCs in order to estimate their contribution to OFP over Long Beach, California. The observed species of VOCs with the highest mixing ratios differs from the observed species with the highest OFP, which highlights that higher mixing ratios of certain VOCs in the atmosphere do not necessarily equate to a higher contribution to ozone formation. This underscores the importance of understanding mixing ratios of VOC species and their reaction rates with OH to gauge impacts on ozone formation. In the summer there were significantly lower VOC concentrations compared to the winter, which was expected because of differences in boundary layer height within the seasons. Additionally, a decrease in average mixing ratios was observed between the summer of 2014 and the summer of 2022. A similar trend was observed in OFP, but by a much smaller factor. This may indicate that even though overall VOC emissions are decreasing in Long Beach, the species that dominate in recent years have a higher OFP. This research provides a more comprehensive view of how VOCs contribute to air quality issues across different seasons and over time, stressing the need for targeted strategies to mitigate ozone pollution based on current and accurate VOC composition and reactivity.
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Investigating Enhanced Methane and Ethane Emissions over the Long Beach Airport Sean Breslin, University of Delaware As climate change continues to worsen, the investigation and tracking of greenhouse gas emissions has become increasingly important. Methane, the second most impactful greenhouse gas, has accounted for over 20% of planetary warming since preindustrial times. Methane emissions primarily originate from biogenic and thermogenic sources, such as dairy farms and natural gas extraction. Ethane, an abundant hydrocarbon emitted from biomass burning and natural gas, contributes to the formation of tropospheric ozone. The data for this project was collected in December 2021 and June 2022 aboard the DC-8 aircraft, where whole air samples were taken during low approaches to find potential sources of methane and ethane emissions. Analysis of these samples using gas chromatography revealed a noticeable increase in methane and ethane concentrations over Long Beach Airport, an area surrounded by numerous plugged oil and gas wells extracting crude oil and natural gas. In this study, we observe that methane and ethane concentrations were lower in the summer and higher in the winter, which can be primarily attributed to seasonal variations in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer height. Our results show that in both summer and winter campaigns, the ratio of these two gases over the airport was approximately 0.03, indicating that for every 100 methane molecules, there are 3 ethane molecules. This work identifies methane and ethane hotspots and provides a critical analysis on potential fugitive emission sources in the Long Beach area. These results emphasize a need to perform in depth analyses on potential point sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the Long Beach area.
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Investigating Elevated Levels of Toluene during Winter in the Imperial Valley Katherine Skeen, University of North Carolina at Charlotte The Imperial County in Southern California experiences pollutants that do not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, and as a result, residents are suffering from adverse health effects. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are compounds with a high vapor pressure at room temperature. They are readily emitted into the atmosphere and form ground level ozone. Toluene is a VOC and exposure poses significant health risks, including neurological and respiratory effects. This study aims to use airborne data to investigate areas with high toluene concentrations and investigate potential source. Flights over the Imperial Valley were conducted in the B200 King Air. Whole air canisters were used to collect ambient air samples from outside the plane. These Whole Air Canisters were put through the UCI Rowland Blake Lab’s gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, which identifies different gasses and quantifies their concentrations. Elevated values of toluene were found in the winter as compared to the summer in the Imperial Valley, with the town of Brawley having the most elevated amounts in the air. Excel and QGIS were utilized to analyze data trends. Additionally, a backward trajectory calculated using the NOAA HYSPLIT model revealed the general air flow on days exhibiting high toluene concentrations. Here we suggest Long Beach may be a source of enhanced toluene levels in Brawley. Both areas exhibited enhanced levels of toluene with slightly lower concentrations observed in Brawley. We additionally observed other VOCs commonly emitted in urban areas, and saw a similar decrease in gasses from Long Beach to Brawley. This trend may indicate transport of toluene from Long Beach to Brawley. Further research could be done to investigate the potential for other regions that may contribute to high toluene concentrations in Brawley. My study contributes valuable insights to the poor air quality in the Imperial Valley, providing a foundation for future studies on how residents are specifically being affected.
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Characterizing Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Emissions from Surface Expressions of the Salton Sea Geothermal System (SSGS) Ella Erskine, Tufts University At the southeastern end of the Salton Sea, surface expressions of an active geothermal system are emitting an assemblage of potentially toxic and tropospheric ozone-forming gasses. Gas measurements were taken from ~1 to 8 ft tall mud cones, called gryphons, in the Davis-Schrimpf seep field (~50,000 ft2). The gaseous compounds emitted from the gryphons were collected using whole air sampling canisters. The canisters were then sent to the Rowland-Blake laboratory for analysis using gas chromatography techniques. Samples from June of 2022, 2023, and 2024 were utilized for a time-series analysis of VOC distribution. Originally, an emission makeup similar to petroleum was expected, as it has previously been found in some of the seeps. It is thought that hydrothermal fluid can rapidly mature organic matter into hydrothermal petroleum, so it is logical that the emission makeup could be similar. However, unexpectedly high levels of the VOC benzene were recorded, unlike concentrations generally observed in crude oil emissions. This may indicate a difference between the two sources in regard to their formation process or parent material composition. A possible cause of the elevated benzene could be its relatively high aqueous solubility compared to other hydrocarbons, which could allow it to be more readily incorporated into the hydrothermal fluid. Since the gryphons attract almost daily visitors, it is important to quantify their human health effects. Benzene harms the bone marrow, which can result in anemia. It is also a carcinogen. Additionally, benzene can react with the OH radical to form ozone, an additional health hazard. Future studies should revisit the Davis-Schrimpf field to continue the time series analysis and collect samples of the water seeps. Additionally, drone and ground studies should be conducted in the geothermal power plant adjacent to the gryphons to determine if benzene is being emitted from drilling activities.
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Airborne and Ground-Based Analysis of Los Angeles County Landfill Gas Emissions Amelia Brown, Hamilton College California has the highest number of landfills of any individual US state. These landfills are concentrated in densely populated areas of California, especially within the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Landfills produce three main byproducts: heat, leachate, and landfill gas (LFG). LFG is primarily composed of methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂), with small concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other trace gases. The CH4 and CO2 components of LFG are well documented, but the VOCs and trace gases in LFG remain underexplored. This study investigates the emission of trace gases from four landfills in Los Angeles County, with a particular focus on substances known to have high Ozone Depletion Potentials (ODPs) and Global Warming Potentials (GWPs). The four landfills sampled were Chiquita Canyon Landfill, Lopez Canyon Landfill, Sunshine Canyon Landfill, and Toyon Canyon Landfill. Airborne samples were taken above the four landfills and ground samples were taken at Lopez Canyon as this was the only site accessible by our research team. The substances of interest were chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and halons. Airborne CH4 and CO2 measurements over the four landfills were obtained using the Picarro instrument onboard NASA’s B-200 aircraft. Ground samples were collected using whole air sampling canisters and were analyzed to determine the concentrations of these gases. The analytical approach for the ground samples combined Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) with Flame Ionization Detection (FID) and Mass Selective Detection (MSD), providing a comprehensive profile of the emitted compounds. Findings reveal elevated levels of substances with high ODP and GWP, which were banned under the Montreal Protocol of 1987 and its subsequent amendments due to their contributions to stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change. These results underscore the importance of monitoring and mitigating landfill gas emissions, particularly for those containing potent greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances. Click here watch the Atmospheric Aerosols Group presentations. Click here watch the Terrestrial Ecology Group presentations. Click here watch the Ocean Group presentations.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Henry Houskeeper, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Graduate Mentor: Lori Berberian, University of California, Los Angeles
[embedded content] Lori Berberian graduate student mentor for the 2024 SARP West Oceans group, provides an introduction for each of the group members and shares behind-the scenes moments from the internship.
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Leveraging High Resolution PlanetScope Imagery to Quantify oil slick Spatiotemporal Variability in the Santa Barbara Channel Emory Gaddis, Colgate University Located within the Santa Barbara Channel of California, Coal Oil Point is one of the world’s largest hydrocarbon seep fields. The area’s natural hydrocarbon seepage and oil production have sustained both scientific interest and commercial activity for decades. Historically, indigenous peoples in the region utilized the naturally occurring tar for waterproofing baskets, establishing early evidence of the natural presence of hydrocarbons long before modern oil extraction began. Gaseous hydrocarbons are released from the marine floor through the process of seeping, wherein a buildup of reservoir pressure relative to hydrostatic pressure causes bubbles, oily bubbles, and droplets to rise to the surface. This hydrocarbon seepage is a significant source of Methane CH4—a major greenhouse gas––emissions into the atmosphere. Current limitations of optical remote sensing of oil presence and absence in the ocean leverage geometrical as well as biogeochemical factors and include changes in observed sun glint, sea surface damping, and wind roughening due to changes in surface oil concentrations. We leverage high-resolution (3m) surface reflectance observations obtained from PlanetScope to construct a time series of oil slick surface area spanning 2017 to 2023 within the Coal Oil Point seep field. Our initial methods are based on manual annotations performed within ArcGIS-Pro. We assess potential relationships between wind speed and oil slick surface area to support a sensitivity analysis of our time series. Correcting for confounding outside factors (e.g., wind speed) that modify oil slick surface area improves determination of oil slick surface area and helps test for changes in natural seepage rates and whether anthropogenic activities, such as oil drilling, alter natural oil seepage. Future investigations into oil slick chemical properties and assessing how natural seepage impacts marine and atmospheric environments (e.g., surface oil releases methane into the atmosphere) can help to inform the science of optimizing oil extraction locations.
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Investigating Airborne LiDAR Retrievals of an Emergent South African Macroalgae Rachel Emery, The University of Oklahoma Right now, the world is facing an unprecedented biodiversity crisis, with areas of high biodiversity at the greatest risk of species extinction. One of these biodiversity hotspots, the Western Cape Province of South Africa, features one of the world’s largest unique marine ecosystems due to the extensive growth of canopy forming kelps, such as Macrocystis and Ecklonia, which provide three-dimensional structure important for fostering biodiversity and productivity. Canopy-forming kelps face increasing threats by marine heatwaves and pollution related to climate change and local water quality perturbation. Though these ecosystems can be monitored using traditional field surveying methods, remote sensing via airborne and satellite observations support improved spatial coverage and resample rates, plus extensive historical continuity for tracking multidecadal scale changes. Passive remote sensing observations—such as those derived using observations from NASA’s Airborne Visible-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer – Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG) —provide high resolution, hyperspectral imagery of oceanic environments anticipated to help characterize community dynamics and quantify macroalga physiological change. Active remote sensing observations, e.g., Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), are less understood in terms of applications to marine ecosystems, but are anticipated to support novel observations of vertical structure not supported using passive aquatic remote sensing. Here we investigate the potential to observe an emergent canopy-forming macroalgae (i.e., Ecklonia, which can extend more than a decimeter above the ocean’s surface) using NASA’s Land, Vegetation, and Ice sensor (LVIS), which confers decimeter-scale vertical resolution. We validate LVIS observations using matchup observations from AVIRIS-NG imagery to test whether LiDAR remote sensing can improve monitoring of emergent kelps in key biodiversity regions such as the Western Cape.
Vertical structure of the aquatic light field based on half a century of oceanographic records from the southern California Current Brayden Lipscomb, West Virginia University Understanding the optical properties of marine ecosystems is crucial for improving models related to oceanic productivity. Models relating satellite observations to oceanic productivity or subsurface (e.g., benthic) light availability often suffer from uncertainties in parameterizing vertical structure and deriving columnar parameters from surface observations. The most accurate models use in situ station data, minimizing assumptions such as atmospheric optical thickness or water column structure. For example, improved accuracy of satellite primary productivity models has previously been demonstrated by incorporating information on vertical structure obtained from gliders and floats. We analyze vertical profiles in photosynthetically available radiation (PAR) obtained during routine surveys of the southern California Current system by the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigation (CalCOFI). We find that depths of 1% and 10% light availability show coherent log-linear relationships with attenuation measured near surface (i.e., within the first 10 m), despite vertical variability in water column constituent concentrations and instrumentation challenges related to sensitivity, self-shading, and ship adjacency. Our results suggest that subsurface optical properties can be more reliably parameterized from near-surface measurements than previously understood.
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Comparing SWOT and PACE Satellite Observations to Assess Modification of Phytoplankton Biomass and Assemblage by North Atlantic Ocean Eddies Dominic Bentley, Pennsylvania State University Upwelling is the shoaling of the nutricline, thermocline, and isopycnals due to advection by eddies of the surface ocean layer. This shoaling effect leads to an increase in the productivity of algal blooms in a given body of water. Mesoscale to deformation scale eddy circulation modulates productivity based on latitude, season, direction, and other physical factors. However, many processes governing the effects of eddies on the ocean microbial environment remain unknown due to limitations in observations linking eddy strength and direction with productivity and ocean biogeochemistry. Currently, satellites are the only ocean observing system that allows for broad spatial coverage with high resample rates, albeit with limitations due to cloud obstructions (including storms that may stimulate productivity) and to observations being limited to the near-surface. A persisting knowledge gap in oceanography stems from limitations in the spatial resolution of observations resolving submesoscale dynamics. The recent launch of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission in December of 2022 supports observations of upper-ocean circulation with increased resolution relative to legacy missions (e.g. TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, OSTM/Jason-2). Meanwhile, the launch of the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite in February of 2024 is anticipated to improve knowledge of ocean microbial ecosystem dynamics. We match up SWOT observations of sea surface height (SSH) anomalies—informative parameters of eddy vorticity—with PACE observations of surface phytoplankton biomass and community composition to relate the distribution of phytoplankton biomass and assemblage structure to oceanic eddies in the North Atlantic. We observe higher concentrations of Chlorophyll a (Chla) within SSH minima indicating the stimulation of phytoplankton productivity by cyclonic features associated with upwelling-driven nutrient inputs.
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Assessing EMIT observations of harmful algae in the Salton Sea Abigail Heiser, University of Wisconsin- Madison In 1905, flooding from the Colorado River gave rise to what would become California’s largest lake, the Salton Sea. Today, the majority of its inflow is sourced from agricultural runoff, which is rich in fertilizers and pollutants, leading to elevated lake nutrient levels that fuel harmful algal blooms (HAB) events. Increasingly frequent HAB events pose ecological, environmental, economic, and health risks to the region by degrading water quality and introducing environmental toxins. Using NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) imaging spectrometer we apply two hyperspectral aquatic remote sensing algorithms; cyanobacteria index (CI) and scattering line height (SLH). These algorithms detect and characterize spatiotemporal variability of cyanobacteria, a key HAB taxa. Originally designed to study atmospheric mineral dust, EMIT’s data products provide novel opportunities for detailed aquatic characterizations with both high spatial and high spectral resolution. Adding aquatic capabilities for EMIT would introduce a novel and cost-effective tool for monitoring and studying the drivers and timing of HAB onset, to improve our understanding of environmental dynamics.
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Reassessing multidecadal trends in Water Clarity for the central and southern California Current System Emma Iacono, North Carolina State University Over the past several decades, the world has witnessed a steady rise in average global temperatures, a clear indication of the escalating effects of climate change. In 1990, Andrew Bakun hypothesized that unequal warming of sea and land surface temperatures would increase pressure gradients and lead to rising rates of alongshore upwelling within Eastern Boundary Currents, including the California Current System (CCS). An anticipated increase in upwelling-favorable winds would have profound implications for the productivity of the CCS, wherein upwelled waters supply nutrient injections that sustain and fuel coastal ocean phytoplankton stocks. Increasing upwelling, therefore, is anticipated to increase the turbidity of the upper ocean, corresponding with greater phytoplankton concentrations. Historical observations of turbidity are supported by observations obtained using a Secchi Disk, i.e., an opaque white instrument lowered into the water column. Observations of Secchi depth—or the depth at which light reflected from the Secchi Disk is no longer visible from the surface—provide a quantification of light penetration into the euphotic zone. The shoaling, or shallowing, of Secchi disk depths was previously reported for inshore, transition, and offshore waters of the central and southern CCS for historical observations spanning 1969 – 2007. Here, we reassess Secchi disk depths during the subsequent period spanning 2007 to 2021 and test for more recent changes in water clarity. Additionally, we evaluate the seasonality and spatial patterns of Secchi disk trends to test for potential changes to oceanic microbial ecology. Indications of long-term trends in some of the coastal domains assessed were found. Generally, our findings suggest a reversal of the trends previously reported. In particular, increases in water clarity likely associated with a recent marine heatwave (MHW) may be responsible for recent changes in Secchi disk depth observations, illustrating the importance of MHW events for modifying the CCS microbial ecosystem. Click here watch the Atmospheric Aerosols Group presentations. Click here watch the Terrestrial Ecology Group presentations. Click here watch the Whole Air Sampling (WAS) Group presentations.
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Andreas Beyersdorf, California State University, San Bernardino & Dr. Ann Marie Carlton, University of California Graduate Mentor: Madison Landi, University of California, Irvine
[embedded content] Madison Landi, graduate student mentor for the 2024 SARP Aerosols group, provides an introduction for each of the group members and shares behind-the scenes moments from the internship.
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A Comparative Analysis of Tropospheric NO2: Evaluating TEMPO Satellite Data Against Airborne Measurements Maya Niyogi, Johns Hopkins University Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) plays a major role in atmospheric chemical reactions; the inorganic compound both contributes to tropospheric ozone production and reacts with volatile organic compounds to create health-hazardous particulate matter. The presence of NO2 in the atmosphere is largely due to anthropogenic activity, making NO2 at the forefront of policy decisions and scientific monitoring. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) satellite launched in 2023 with the goal of monitoring pollution across North America. The publicly-accessible data became available for use in May 2024, however parts of the data remain unvalidated and in beta, creating a need for an in situ validation of its data products. Here we analyze TEMPO’s tropospheric NO2 measurements and compare them to aloft NO2 measurements collected during the NASA Student Airborne Research Project (SARP) 2024 airborne campaign. Six of the campaign flights recording NO2 performed a vertical spiral, providing vertical column data that was adjusted to ambient conditions for comparison against the corresponding TEMPO values. Statistical analyses indicate we have reasonable evidence to conclude that TEMPO satellite data and the flight-collected data record similar values. This research fills a critical knowledge gap through the utilization of aloft NO2 measurements to validate NASA’s newly-launched TEMPO satellite. It is expected that future users of TEMPO data can apply these results to better inform project creation and research.
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Investigating the Atmospheric Burden of Black Carbon Over the Past Decade in the Los Angeles Basin Benjamin Wells, San Diego State University Black Carbon is a primary aerosol emitted directly into the atmosphere as a result of biomass burning and incomplete combustion of fossil fuels. During the pre-industrial revolution, the main source of black carbon was natural sources whereas currently, the main source is anthropogenic activities. When black carbon is released into the atmosphere, it is a dominant absorber of solar radiation and leads to a significant warming effect on Earth’s climate. In addition to its harmful effects associated with climate change, ambient black carbon inhalation is correlated with adverse health effects such as respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer, and premature mortality. In this study, we analyze aloft black carbon measurements in 2016 and 2024 acquired on NASA SARP research flights and compare these concentrations to black carbon measurements taken during the 2010 CalNex field campaign. Both field campaigns flew similar flight paths over the Los Angeles basin allowing us to conduct a critical comparative analysis on vertical and spatial profiles of the atmospheric burden of black carbon over the past 14 years. During the CalNEX study, mass concentrations of black carbon ranged from 0.02 μg/m3 to 0.531 μg/m3, meanwhile 2024 SARP measurements demonstrate concentrations as elevated as 7.83 μg/m3 within the same region. Moreover, similar flight paths conducted during SARP 2024 and 2016 allow for further analysis of aloft black carbon concentrations over a period of time. The results of this study examines and analyzes the changing spatial and temporal characteristics of black carbon throughout the years, leading to an increase of adverse effects on both the climate and public health.
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Tracking Methane and Aerosols in relation to Health Effects in the San Joaquin Valley Devin Keith, Mount Holyoke College The San Joaquin Valley (SJV) is located in central California and is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country for dairy, nuts, and berries, producing more than half of California’s $42 billion output. Due to the SJV’s close proximity to the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range to the East and predominantly Easterly winds, air pollution often accumulates because it is trapped by the geography. Significant chemical constituents of trapped particulate matter are ammonium (NH4), chloride (Cl), sulfate (SO4), nitrate (NO3), black carbon, and organic carbon. The particle size measured in this study is less than 1 micron in diameter, and due to their size, can easily penetrate the respiratory tract leading to adverse health effects such as: asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cardiovascular disease. We employ airborne data collected during the SARP 2024 mission onboard NASA’s P-3 research plane to observe spatial and temporal trends of NH4, Cl, SO4, NO3, and black carbon. Further, we analyze measurements from SARP 2016 flights and compare the atmospheric burden of pollution in the SJV across time. To investigate observations in the context of the public health impacts, we utilize data collected by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment and find asthma and cardiovascular disease rates are higher in the SJV hotspots identified here. Per capita health impacts are greater than other California regions such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. The SJV exhibits higher rates of poverty than other communities, which may reveal an environmental justice issue that is difficult to explicitly quantify especially where measurements are sparse.
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Investigating the Effects of Aerosols on Photosynthesis Using Satellite Imaging Lily Lyons, Brandeis University Aerosols in the atmosphere can affect the way sunlight travels to the ground by absorbing or scattering light. Sunlight is a critical component in plant photosynthesis, and the way light scatters affects productivity for vegetation and plant growth. When plants absorb sunlight, the chlorophyll in their leaves releases the excess energy as infrared light, which can be measured from space via satellite. To better understand how aerosol loading in the atmosphere affects plant photosynthesis, this study examines locations in Yosemite, Sequoia, Garrett, and Talladega national forests, and compares aerosol optical depth (AOD), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and solar induced fluorescence (SIF) in these areas. Yosemite and Sequoia act as proxies for the old growth sequoia grove ecosystems, and Talladega and Garrett act as proxies for the Appalachian mixed mesophytic forest ecosystem. Our results show that within 2015-2020 during July, SIF and NDVI levels are significantly greater in mixed mesophytic forests than in sequoia groves. Using linear regression plots, we determined the correlation between SIF, NDVI and AOD to be weak in the given locations. Greater SIF in mixed mesophytic forests could suggest that the presence of a prominent and biodiverse understory is positive for the overall primary productivity of an ecosystem. This study is a good starting point for analyzing diverse ecosystems using SIF, NDVI and satellite data as proxies for photosynthesis, and broadening the scope of biomes examined for their SIF. Furthermore, it highlights the need for further investigation of aerosol impact on the trajectory and amount of sunlight that reaches certain plants.
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Validating the Performance of CMAQ in Simulating the Vertical Distribution of Trace Gases Ryleigh Czajkowski, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Air quality modeling simulates atmospheric processes and air pollutant transport to better understand gas-and particle-phase interactions in the atmosphere. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model couples meteorological, emission, and chemical transport predictions to simulate air pollution from local to hemispheric scales. CMAQ provides scientists and regulatory agencies with important assistance in air quality management, policy enactment, atmospheric research, and creating public health advisories. Recently, a new update to CMAQ (v5.4) was released, utilizing new chemistry mechanisms and incorporating a new atmospheric chemistry model. This study evaluates the performance of the latest model update by analyzing multiple time series of vertical distributions of formaldehyde (CH2O) and methane (CH4) in the Los Angeles Basin and Central Valley regions of California. It compares data from aloft measurements taken during NASA SARP 2017 flights with model predictions to evaluate accuracy. Our study analyzes CMAQ’s capabilities in capturing the vertical dispersion of CH2O and CH4 in different regions, offering insights into the effectiveness of CMAQ for air quality management and the analysis of trace and greenhouse gas dynamics. Using NASA airborne data, this research utilizes a diversified data set to validate the model, providing a more comprehensive evaluation of its capabilities, and thus providing valuable insight into future developments of CMAQ.
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Estimating Aerosol Optical Properties Using Mie Theory and Analyzing Their Impact on Radiative Forcing in California Alison Thieberg, Emory University Anthropogenic aerosols, unlike greenhouse gasses, provide a net cooling effect to the Earth’s surface. Particles suspended in the atmosphere have the ability to scatter incoming solar radiation, preventing that radiation from heating up the surface. These aerosols like black carbon, ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate, and organics are byproducts of both natural and anthropogenic activities. Measuring radiative forcing as a result of these aerosols over time can provide insight on how anthropogenic industries are altering our Earth’s temperature. This study analyzes the changes in radiative forcing from aerosols in central and southern California using data collected from NASA SARP flights from 2016-2024. Aerosol size, composition, and single scattering albedo were used to estimate the aerosol characteristics and to calculate the aerosols’ radiative forcing efficiency. Our results show that aerosols are found to have less of a cooling effect over time when looking at the change in radiative forcing in California from 2016 to 2024. When narrowing in on specific geographic regions, we observe the same trends in the Central Valley with the area becoming warmer as a result of aerosols. However, more southern regions like Los Angeles and the Inland Empire have become cooler from aerosols during this time period. The overall decrease in the cooling effect of California’s aerosols could indicate that the average size of particulates is changing or that the aerosol composition could be shifting to a greater concentration of absorbing aerosols rather than scattering aerosols. This study shows how aerosols influence radiative forcing and their subsequent impacts across regions in California from multiple years. Click here watch the Terrestrial Ecology Group presentations. Click here watch the Ocean Group presentations. Click here watch the Whole Air Sampling (WAS) Group presentations.
WASHINGTON – The Biden-Harris administration announced the award of approximately $71 million in grants to improve job quality, expand access to good jobs in critical sectors and prepare workers for good-paying jobs being created by the administration’s Investing in America agenda.
Funding from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs Grant Program, Critical Sectors Job Quality Grants Program and Workforce Pathways for Youth program will support 27 organizations serving 14 states and the District of Columbia.
“The funding we’re announcing today advances the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of promoting worker-focused training programs that incorporate industry and worker voices,” said Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su. “The grants will help enhance access to quality jobs for care workers and people in other critical sectors, broaden high-quality job training and career opportunities for youth and strengthen public-private partnerships that prepare workers for high-quality infrastructure jobs.”
The department awarded nearly $38 million through the second round of the Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs Grant Program to enable 13 public-private partnerships across nine states to prepare workers for the good-paying infrastructure jobs the Biden-Harris administration is creating. The funding announced today – with the $94 million the department announced in September 2023 – is a combined investment of more than $130 million to support the growing demand for a skilled infrastructure workforce.
Through the Critical Sectors Job Quality grants, totaling $13 million, eight organizations will design and deploy programs in 10 states to improve job quality and increase the availability of good jobs in the care, climate resilience and hospitality industries. The round of funding announced today aligns with the Good Jobs Principles developed by the departments of Labor and Commerce and emphasizes improving job quality within the care sector. Three recipients, representing half the total funding, will specifically focus on care occupations, including childcare and direct care workers.
The department also awarded nearly $20 million in Workforce Pathways for Youth demonstration grants to six national organizations that provide workforce development and training programs to youth after school and over the summer. The grants will help the organizations partner with state and local organizations that serve marginalized and underserved youth, ages 14 to 21, including Native American youth. Through the partnerships, these out-of-school-time organizations will provide workforce readiness programming to expand job training and workforce pathways for youth, including soft skill development, career exploration, job readiness, work-based learning opportunities and work experiences.
As the Investing in America agenda continues to create good-paying jobs nationwide, recipients of the Workforce Pathways for Youth, Building Pathways to Infrastructure and Critical Sectors grants will help build an “opportunity infrastructure” in which workers understand what skills they need, have access to the training to develop those skills – without roadblocks or barriers – and are connected to those jobs early.
The recipients of Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs grants are as follows:
Recipient
City
State
Amount
UNITE-LA Inc.
Los Angeles
CA
$2,000,000
Contra Costa County
Martinez
CA
$5,000,000
Humanmade
San Francisco
CA
$2,000,000
City and County of Denver
Denver
CO
$5,000,000
City of Refuge Inc.
Atlanta
GA
$1,944,883
Jane Addams Resource Corporation
Chicago
IL
$4,789,579
Revolution Workshop
Chicago
IL
$2,000,000
Goodwill Industries International Inc.
Rockville
MD
$5,000,000
Governor’s Office of Workforce Innovation
Las Vegas
NV
$1,998,841
Pursuit Transformation Company Inc
Long Island City
NY
$2,000,000
Philadelphia Works Inc.
Philadelphia
PA
$1,999,973
Texas A&M University
College Station
TX
$1,997,570
Workforce Solutions Alamo
San Antonio
TX
$2,000,000
Total Awarded
$37,730,846
The recipients of the Critical Sectors Job Quality grants are as follows:
Recipient
City
State
Amount
Alaska Southcentral/Southeastern Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 23 Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee
Anchorage
AK
$2,415,709
SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West Local 2005
Oakland
CA
$3,000,000
National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation
Washington
DC
$499,890
Charles Stewart Mott Community College
Flint
MI
$2,971,060
Workforce Development Board of Herkimer Madison and Oneida Counties Inc.
Utica
NY
$398,657
Seattle-King County Workforce Development Council
Seattle
WA
$3,000,000
Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Seattle
WA
$500,000
United Way of Dane County Inc.
Madison
WI
$147,384
Total Awarded
$12,932,700
The recipients of the Workforce Pathways for Youth grants are as follows:
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service today signed a memorandum of understanding with Albany State University designed to enhance career readiness and employment opportunities for veterans and military-affiliated students at historically Black colleges and universities.
The memorandum of understanding marks the beginning of this unique collaboration, which will give veterans – including Albany State alumni who have served, ROTC cadets, military spouses and servicemembers currently on active duty, in the reserves or the National Guard – access to career resources and support from VETS job training programs. They also will gain access to apprenticeships, internships and employment placement services aimed at easing the transition into the civilian workforce.
The memorandum was signed by Assistant Secretary for Veterans’ Employment and Training James D. Rodriguez and Albany State University Interim President Dr. Lawrence M. Drake II.
“Veterans bring a wealth of experience, leadership and skill to the workforce, and we are excited to partner with Albany State University to support their students as they matriculate and move toward civilian careers,” said Assistant Secretary Rodriguez. “This memorandum of understanding formalizes a partnership that will open doors to career development, job training and employment opportunities for veterans and military students at Albany State University and more HBCUs.”
The partnership is part of a larger initiative to connect the department with HBCUs nationwide, enhancing opportunities for veteran students, alumni and military-affiliated individuals. It also aligns with the Biden-Harris Administration’s broader efforts to support HBCUs and veterans, building on executive orders focused on workforce development, education and expanding career pathways for underrepresented groups.
For more information on the services provided to veterans through VETS please visit dol.gov/vets.
Over six in 10 children with access to the internet interact with “unknown others” daily despite concerns about online grooming, according to new research released by Save the Children and Western Sydney University that highlighted children’s demands for better online protection.
The research team held in-depth consultations with about 600 children and young people aged 8 to 18 from Australia, Finland, the Philippines, Cambodia, Colombia, Kenya, and South Africa, who shared their views and experiences of facing inappropriate requests online for personal information or images.
The report, ‘Protecting Children from Online Grooming’, was written by the Young & Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University, and funded by the global child online safety investment vehicle Safe Online as part of the Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, incidents of online grooming and child sexual and financial exploitation have reached an all-time high [1], with an 82% rise in online grooming crimes against children reported in that period [2]. Online grooming practices have also transformed, with the fastest growing form of online grooming targeting young men for financial extortion [3].
The report revealed children were more inclined to connect with strangers – or “unknown others” – online as they matured and became more social, motivated by a desire for friendship, fun and play, followed by a wish to stay informed about trends and events, and to connect over shared interests.
The findings also showed that while children across all cultures and age groups were more suspicious of people they didn’t know online than people they knew in person, most (66%) of the study participants still interacted with “unknown others” daily online.
Children in high-income settings were twice as likely to use privacy settings to protect themselves from unwanted contacts, compared to children from some low-income settings, but the potential to derive financial benefits was an incentive for children in middle-income countries to connect with strangers online, potentially compromising their safety.
While children have come up with numerous ways to protect themselves, they are calling for widespread, accessible and targeted online safety education for themselves and their caregivers. In the discussions the children also made concrete suggestions about how technology platforms and governments can implement changes that will keep them safer online.
Sonisay-, a girl aged 11-12 from rural Cambodia, said:
“Adults should know that children interact with strangers, monitor them, and read their chats.”
Angel- aged 15-17 from a city in the Philippines said:
“Adults need to know about the children of today who are highly computer-savvy… To be able to support and protect the children, adults need to understand that children are comfortable with using the internet which pushes to interact with strangers.”
Charlie- aged 14 from Australiaemphasised the need to start online safety education earlier:
“Having young children educated about the safety of technology and the dangers … adults only start this education for older kids on social media when the problem can be on video games played by young kids.”
Children reported that it was very difficult to ascertain the intentions of strangers online. Children were also particularly worried about being asked for personal information or nude pictures, being drawn into inappropriate sexually-oriented exchanges, or exposure to criminal activities.
The report found that children want and need better online protection, with children primarily using intuition and background checks rather than seeking help from trusted adults to manage their online interactions with people they don’t know.
The data also showed that children distinguish people they know well both online and in person from those they only know online, with 86% approaching the latter with caution. Yet despite this wariness, children were still three times more likely to ignore or decline an inappropriate or unwanted request than they are to report or block it.
Steve Miller, Save the Children’s Global Director of Child Protection, said:
“Children deserve to thrive in a safe and nurturing environment – both online and offline. As the digital landscape evolves, so do the challenges and threats, including the threat of online grooming and exploitation. We need to foster a digital environment that is not only safe but also enriching, allowing children to explore, learn, and grow without fear. Policymakers need to listen to the voices and experiences of children when developing policies that protect them.”
Professor Amanda Third, Co-Director of the Young and Resilient Research Centre, Western Sydney University, said:
“Keeping children safe from online grooming requires a whole-of-community approach. Governments, NGOs, technology platforms, teachers, parents, caregivers, and children themselves all have an important role to play. However, to most effectively address this issue it is crucial that we listen to the views and experiences of children and young people and engage them as active partners in the research and policy design process. Children and young people are finding their own ways to tackle this issue and devise solutions but they are also calling on us to help equip them and their caregivers with the skills and knowledge needed to be able to safely navigate these rapidly evolving digital environments.”
Save the Childrenhas launched a major global effort to support digital inclusion and empower the next generation of resilient digital citizens. Save the Children’s Safe Digital Childhood initiative is includes partnering with schools, communities and tech leaders to break down barriers to digital inclusion by making sure the children with the fewest resources can access devices and connectivity; offering targeted digital literacy and citizenship programs; helping technology industry partners embed child-centric safeguards into their platforms; and empowering children to advocate for their rights in the digital world.
TheYoung & Resilient Research Centreat Western Sydney University is an Australian-based, international research centre that unites young people with researchers, practitioners, innovators, and policymakers to explore the role of technology in children’s and young people’s lives and how it can be used to improve individual and community resilience across generations.
Safe Onlineis the only global investment vehicle dedicated to keeping children safe in the digital world. Through investing in innovation and bringing key actors together,Safe Onlinehelps shape a digital world that is safe and empowering for all children and young people, everywhere. TheTech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund, which funded the research, is a groundbreaking collaboration fuelling actionable research and bringing together the tech industry with academia and civil society in a bold alliance to end online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Source: Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
Marine animal forests rich in sea life have been found in the shallow waters around Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington.
“Marine animal forests are habitats formed by big groups of invertebrates—creatures such as sponges, horse mussels, and brachiopods, which look a bit like clams. These remarkable communities are increasingly being recognised as biodiversity hotspots and we’ve got them on our doorstep,” said Professor James Bell, a marine biologist at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
The forests were located by Professor Bell and colleagues Dr Valerio Micaroni and Dr Francesca Strano while studying life in the region’s shallow waters.
The researchers identified numerous animal forests in Wellington Harbour, many at depths of less than 15 metres. Sites were located at Eastbourne, Evans Bay, Kaiwharawhara, the Miramar Peninsula, and Petone.
Rich animal forests were also found in shallow waters at other areas including the Kāpiti Coast and Mana Island.
“Finding animal-dominated ecosystems in such shallow waters is surprising as these are areas that are usually dominated by seaweeds,” said lead researcher Dr Micaroni.
Sponges were one of the common species found in the forests. They included a massive potato-shaped sponge (Suberites australiensis) that grows up to 40 centimetres in diameter and forms dense sponge beds.
“These beds were home to a range of species, including molluscs, cnidarians, and red algae, as well as other sponges and fish. We also discovered what we think is a previously undescribed sponge species,” Dr Strano said.
The sponge beds in the harbour comprised a total area of 120,000 m2. Researchers estimate the beds can filter between 500 million to 1 billion litres of water daily. This filtering plays an important role in transferring nutrients and food from the water column to the sea-floor, influencing overall water quality and supporting the sea-floor food chain.
Despite the ecological importance of these shallow-water forests, they are largely unprotected and face increasing threats from climate change, fishing, sedimentation, and pollution, Professor Bell said.
At most of the sites in Wellington Harbour, the researchers found litter on the sea-floor.
“There was a lot of plastic items—such as bottles, packaging, and cups—as well as aluminium cans. Car parts and tyres were found at half the sites, and fishing gear was found at three locations. Concrete blocks were also common,” Professor Bell said.
Evans Bay was the worst site for marine litter, followed by Kaiwharawhara where large amounts of gravel had been dumped on areas of the seabed. The gravel dramatically altered the habitat with animal communities significantly reduced and limited evidence they had been able to recover since the gravel was dumped.
“This example highlights the significant effects human activities can have on marine animal forests. It also highlights the need to protect these fragile ecosystems to avoid further biodiversity loss,” said Dr Megan Melidonis, senior coastal scientist at the Greater Wellington Regional Council. The council helped fund the research as part of work to explore and map the region’s marine biodiversity.
“These forest communities play such a key role in marine food chains and in maintaining water quality. It is incredible to find them in a harbour adjacent to a major urban area,” Dr Melidonis said.
I am delighted to be able to speak before you today, as representatives of Hessian family businesses. Family businesses play a significant role for the German economy and German society.
In cooperation with the audit firm EY, the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland compiles the Global Family Business Index.[1] It lists the 500 largest family businesses in the world. And, last year, 78 businesses on this list – nearly 16% – were located in Germany. This puts Germany in second place behind the United States, which, however, has nearly five times the GDP of Germany. According to EY data, these 78 businesses generated the equivalent of just over €1 trillion in revenues in 2023.[2] Germany’s share of total revenues is therefore just over 10%. And, let it be noted, these are merely the largest and highest-revenue family enterprises.
However, when we talk about family businesses, it is naturally not just numbers that come to mind. It’s about much more than that, not least about tradition. What I often hear in this context is that “family businesses think in terms of generations, not quarterly reports”. For me, staying power is a good and important quality to have in order to comprehensively rise to challenges and overcome them sustainably. And we are currently facing our share of challenges; of that there is no doubt. I am referring to macroeconomic challenges, which also matter to family businesses.
Once a year, the Society for the German Language (Gesellschaft für die deutsche Sprache) chooses several terms as “Words of the Year”. Krisenmodus – “crisis mode” – took first place last year.[3] The term Krisenmodus will probably ring a bell if you look back across the past few years: the COVID–19 pandemic, disintegrating supply chains, high energy prices. This has also left its mark on economic growth, which, this year, will remain weak as well.
In my speech, I want to discuss in depth the factors that are still continuing to gnaw away at growth. These factors can be either temporary or also permanent in nature. My focus will be on the permanent factors, as we have to address these structural factors in order to make long-term progress. I will subsequently discuss which economic policy measures can specifically help overcome the current weak growth. However, let me first put the current period of economic weakness into context. How serious is the situation really?
2 Are Germany’s days as an industrial superpower coming to an end?
In the first half of 2024, like last year, Germany ranked among the laggards in terms of growth in the euro area. German GDP more or less stagnated in the first six months of the year, whereas the euro area average picked up markedly. Germany does not come off favourably in a global comparison, either. The advanced economies’ collective GDP rose by 0.5% in the spring, and of these, the United States even saw a 0.7% increase.
Third-quarter economic figures for Germany have likewise remained weak. All the while, the media seem to be trying to outdo each other with horror stories about the German economy. “Germany’s days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end” was, for instance, the title of a Bloomberg article in February on the current economic situation in Germany.[4] We read further on in that story that the “underpinnings of Germany’s industrial machine have fallen like dominoes”.
Just a cursory look back over the history of our economy shows us this: there is nothing inherently new about such headlines and debates. Germany weathered a pronounced slump around the turn of the millennium. Bloomberg Businessweek titled the cover page of its February 2003 issue “The decline of Germany”.[5] And, at the end of 2004, German author Gabor Steingart published a book titled Deutschland – der Abstieg eines Superstars (Germany – The decline of a superstar).[6] Is that painful crisis threatening to repeat itself? Are we in decline?
Without wanting to get ahead of myself: we are undoubtedly in a midst of a difficult transformation process. But it’s a process we have the power to shape. And if we shape it right, then my clear response is: No, in my opinion Germany is not in decline! How is today’s situation in Germany different from that at the turn of the millennium? Let’s take a look at the numbers.
At that time, the unemployment rate as calculated by the International Labour Organization (ILO) stood at over 9% on average; it is now 3.3%, and thus also well below the euro area average of 6.5%. Back then, the most pressing labour market problem was unemployment; now, it is the shortage of skilled workers.
Moreover, German firms’ profitability and capital base are much better now than they were 25 years ago. As a case in point, the average capital ratio was 23% then, whereas in the 2020 to 2022 period it averaged 30%. The profit margin went up from 3.4% at the time to 4.5% in the 2020 to 2022 period. These data are subject to a major time lag, which is why we do not yet have any numbers for 2023.
However, what are the reasons for the current feeble growth dynamics? The energy crisis had an outsized impact on Germany, an exporting country where manufacturing has a special status. As, before the outbreak of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, dependency on inexpensive Russian energy deliveries was high – too high. Moreover, the fallout from the high inflation weighed on the economy. Many consumers kept their purse strings tight. In addition, the restrictive monetary policy is dampening economic activity. And last but not least, industry continues to be impacted by weak foreign demand, particularly because our euro area trading partners’ imports rose less strongly than world trade. What we know for sure is that some of these factors are only temporary. We therefore assume that Germany’s economy will be able to slowly regain some momentum.
3 Structural challenges
Some factors, however, have a longer-term effect. We are facing extensive structural challenges which can likewise dampen growth. To wit, energy costs are set to remain higher than before Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine for quite a while to come. The price of natural gas fell from some €240 per kilowatt hour in August 2022 to €30 in early 2024, before then bouncing back up to around €38 in August of this year, still well above the average price of €13 in the pre-crisis year of 2019.
But the desired transition to a carbon-free energy supply will be costly as well, at least over a relatively long transition period. Plus there are further challenges such as demographic change, the reduction of unilateral dependence on imports and fragmentation of international trade.
The transition to a climate-neutral economy, above all, will require massive investment. On this point, a study commissioned by the KfW Group estimated the volume of investment needed to reach Germany’s net-zero targets by mid-century. The result: around €5 trillion. [7] A McKinsey study even puts the figure higher still, at €6 trillion.[8] And just like when you retrofit an old building to improve its energy efficiency, that number includes investment that will be made in any event. But the estimated incremental investment is considerable, too. The KfW study puts this at around €72 billion per year, or just under 2% of German GDP.
And even though the comprehensive digitalisation process that needs to take place will offer huge opportunities, it, too, will require investment, not to mention training or reconceptualising of processes and business lines. But how is investment faring in Germany at the moment? Let’s take a look at the statistics.
They show that investment in buildings, machinery and equipment, and other assets in Germany has not grown over the past few years. And declining investment was a key factor behind the slight contraction in economic output in the second quarter. But not just that: in a recent analysis the audit firm EY found that the number of foreign investment projects in Germany has dropped for the past six years in a row.[9] All things considered, despite the aforementioned challenges and the need for investment that they entail, there is currently no indication of an investment boom.
But what are the reasons for this weak investment propensity? We have investigated this question through our business survey, the Bundesbank Online Panel – Firms. In it, around 7,400 German firms were asked in the third quarter of 2023 about their motives for investment. We published the results in the May edition of our Monthly Report.[10]
The poor macroeconomic setting was evidently the key reason for declining investment. This was closely followed by high energy and wage costs, a shortage of skilled workers, uncertainty about regulation, and high taxes and public levies. Low public funding, inefficient public administration and poor digital infrastructure played a lesser role. These findings may be a year old, but there is much to suggest that they remain valid.
4 The tasks of economic policy
This brings us to the following question: what can economic policy do to remove barriers to investment, or at least mitigate them? One thing it certainly cannot do is directly influence the challenging global setting. For certain other barriers, however, it is very much possible and preferable to tackle them through economic policy. I would like to address three such areas: energy and climate policy, bureaucratic hurdles and the labour market.
4.1 Energy and climate policy
The first area primarily concerns planning certainty and reliability in energy and climate policy. The terms planning certainty and reliability were not plucked out of thin air, as shown by the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index. Developed by the economists Scott Baker, Nicholas Bloom and Steven Davis, this index is based on the analysis of pertinent newspaper articles.[11] According to the index, economic policy uncertainty in Germany has risen much more strongly over the past few years than the average for Europe.[12] Deciding to invest in green technologies is mostly tied up with irreversible costs. So where there is uncertainty about future policy, firms understandably hesitate before making such decisions.
Now, there is no doubt about the basic direction we’re heading in: we have to become carbon neutral if we care even just a little for the welfare of subsequent generations. But when it comes to the details, there is indeed uncertainty. How will the costs of fossil fuels develop? How will the costs of environmentally friendly energy develop and will there be a reliable supply? What will government regulation, taxation, and support look like?
To reduce these kinds of uncertainties about the energy transition, it is vital that we have a transparent, purposeful and consistent overall framework. This framework includes having sufficient capacity to import and store climate-neutral energy, and back-up power plants for the event that a dunkelflaute – a period with no wind or sunlight – coincides with a period of high energy needs. And, of course, an efficient energy grid. It will therefore be increasingly important, too, to expand power lines connecting Germany from north to south, but also connecting us to our neighbours in Europe.
The Bundesbank believes that the key instrument to achieve climate objectives should be a price on carbon emissions. This is because carbon pricing ensures that savings and investment are made where it is possible to do so with the lowest costs. However, the crucial thing is to apply carbon pricing as broadly, uniformly and predictably as possible.
Ambitious carbon pricing not only creates incentives for the use of renewable energy, but also for greater energy efficiency. Our April Monthly Report showed how important advancements in energy efficiency are to not missing climate targets.[13] Increases in energy efficiency reduce aggregate energy intensity and thereby boost aggregate production. They thus counteract the activity-dampening stimuli likely to emanate from a higher carbon price.
So the production losses or gains that would be associated with achieving climate goals depend not least on energy-saving technological progress. Besides carbon pricing, subsidies for research and development are one conceivable instrument to increase energy efficiency. However, subsidies should be used in a measured and purposeful manner.
I’m not just concerned about the burden on government finances, which we naturally have to keep an eye on as well. When government interventions become too complex and too extensive, they can significantly distort market incentives. It is possible, for example, that firms keep putting off the necessary investment in the hopes of receiving future subsidies. Some subsidies still in place in the energy and transportation sectors actually run counter to the climate goals. To a certain extent, they therefore act in the same way as a negative carbon price.[14] And last but not least, excessive government intervention ultimately leads to bureaucratic hurdles.
4.2 Bureaucratic hurdles
That brings me to the second area where economic policy can improve the investment climate: the burden of bureaucracy. We should make a distinction between two different aspects here. First, there is the extent of requirements placed on firms. For example, there has recently been intense debate about the Supply Chain Act and questions surrounding data protection. In this respect, politicians should make sure they don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Even if the objectives are legitimate, the ability to implement measures has to be borne in mind.
Second, the speed of bureaucracy is important. In Germany, congestion occurs not just on the motorways but also in approval processes. It can sometimes take years for a wind turbine to go into operation, say. When it comes to the pace and efficiency of bureaucracy, especially, we should consider digitalisation as a huge opportunity. Digital technologies can simplify and streamline administrative processes. Incidentally, that is very much in the interest of the administration seeing as it, too, is affected by the shortage of skilled workers. It would appear somewhat logical to bundle more processes when it comes to the digitalisation of administration.
That means the targeted transferral of responsibilities to central units, which develop harmonised approaches in a cost-effective way. This would open the door to achieving economies of scale, if the relevant costs per process are reduced thanks to a larger area of application, say. What I’m thinking about here is the digitalisation of the tax administration, for instance. It could likely leverage efficiency reserves if certain tasks were delegated to a single unit. A modern form of federalism could also help us to leverage efficiency reserves, specifically when those responsible actually learn from the best practices of others.
And I’m speaking on this not just as an economist, but also as the president of a large public authority. Dismantling bureaucracy and driving digitalisation often require enormous effort and persistence. But they also present huge opportunities. There’s a reason why the Society for the German Language listed “AI boom” as another “Word of the Year” in 2023, ranking it number eight.
4.3 Labour market
The third area where economic policy can play an important role is the labour market. You, as operators of businesses, have been complaining of a shortage of skilled workers for many years now. Quite apart from the current bout of economic weakness, the problem has been increasingly exacerbated by demographic change. And it will become even greater in the future.
The number of vacancies per unemployed person is often used as an indicator of tightness in the labour market. Up until 2014, there were around three vacancies for every 10 unemployed persons.[15] At the moment, there are roughly six jobs available for every ten unemployed persons. And the number of vacancies has also climbed to an all-time high since the end of the pandemic and is barely coming down. There is a shortage of skilled workers, and a shortage of labour.
There is a host of conceivable measures to reduce this shortage: open up better employment opportunities for women and older people, make a targeted play for skilled workers from abroad, strengthen vocational and further training, and do a better job of getting the long-term unemployed and immigrants into work.
Equally, we shouldn’t lose sight of the groups that so far haven’t participated in the labour market – known as the “hidden reserve”. According to the Federal Statistical Office, Germany’s hidden reserve recently came to almost 3.2 million people.[16] Close to 60% of them have a mid to high-level qualification. Looking at the hidden reserve, there are significant differences between the genders. For example, many women state that they cannot work because they care for children or family members. We should make better use of this untapped potential labour force. Expanded care facilities for children or dependants requiring care are an important way to help more people enter the labour market.
I am certain that many of you have already taken steps at your businesses to make it easier to reconcile work and family life: you operate kindergartens or have spaces reserved at other childcare facilities, offer flexible working time models or the option of working from home – the list of possibilities is long.
The number of older persons in employment could be increased as well, for example if the statutory retirement age were linked to life expectancy after 2030. This would allow the ratio of retirement to working years to be more or less stabilised. Without this link, the ratio would carry on growing as life expectancy continues to rise. Also, in the short term, it might be worth considering limiting the financial incentives to take early retirement.
After all, in the interests of preserving a good employment and investment climate, it is important to see to it that the tax burden on labour and capital remains reasonable. Germany, for instance, has a high corporate tax burden in comparison to other countries.[17]
The Federal Government has the three economic policy areas I have just spoken about on its radar. This can be seen in this year’s growth initiative from 17 July. The bundle of 49 measures is intended – amongst other things – to increase incentives to work, including making it more attractive for older people to remain in work, accelerate the reduction of bureaucracy and secure the further expansion of renewable energy generation. The growth initiative is an important step in the right direction if Germany wants to rise to today’s challenges. Much depends on its implementation, however. And there is still much to be done.
As an economist myself I must of course not forget what the term “budget constraints” implies: it is not easy to deal with all these challenges when the public purse is light. This being as it is, a critical evaluation of economic policy priorities is almost certainly unavoidable, and that evaluation will remain on the agenda even if the debt brake were to be reformed. The Bundesbank would tolerate a reform if it would continue to guarantee sound government finances. And we have proposed some stability-oriented reforms.
4.4 More financing via the capital markets union
I have gone over what politics and politicians can do to improve the investment climate in Germany. But whether or not an investment will pay off over the long term is not the only important factor. Any investment project must also be funded.
That brings me to the European perspective. Because, all too often, businesses come up against internal European borders in their search for funding. An integrated capital market across the whole of Europe could give European businesses access to more funding for important private investments. But to forge that integrated pan-European capital market, we must make swift progress on both the banking and capital markets unions.
To demonstrate my point with figures: securitisation markets in the EU saw a volume of around €800 billion in 2020. In the United States, this volume was at around US$3.2 trillion, excluding government-guaranteed products.[18] So that’s a different magnitude altogether, even though the United States and the EU have comparably large economies when measured by purchasing power parity.[19] The European securitisation market fell apart following the financial crisis and has never fully recovered since. The securitisation volume in the United States, on the other hand, has already exceeded pre-crisis levels, with the caveat that American market structures are not perfectly comparable with European ones.
You may be thinking that securitisation has a bad reputation. And you would be right. After the 2008 financial crisis it was the poster child for “bad financial market innovations” and mainly brought to mind the sale of potentially non-performing loans to unsuspecting investors. As the head of the Bundesbank’s financial crisis management team at the time, I had an unmatched position from which to examine the dynamics of the crisis in detail.
The financial crisis did indeed lay bare the weaknesses in the securitisation process, which can particularly come to bear in highly complex securitisation transactions. These related to deficits surrounding transparency, risk management and valuation methods. Properly structured and well regulated, though, securitisation vehicles can definitely offer added value to our economy. Securitisation markets complement other sources of long-term financing in the real economy. They give enterprises the opportunity to broaden their funding.
This particularly applies to small and medium-sized enterprises, because securitisation gives them indirect access to capital market investors. Moreover, securitisation can relieve the pressure on bank balance sheets and open up additional scope for lending to the private sector. Well-regulated and structured securitisation markets could improve the allocation of resources in an economy and ensure a better distribution of risk.[20] This could reduce funding costs and increase economic growth.
Support for the securitisation market is thus an important element of EU plans for a capital markets union. But there are others. The creation of integrated financial supervisory structures is planned. National insolvency rules, accounting and securities law are to be harmonised. The goal is to create a level playing field for all financial market participants operating at the EU level. And so long as this goal remains abstract, pretty much nobody has a problem with it. As soon as concrete decisions and negotiations enter the picture, however, unity often dissipates. Harmonising national rules is impossible without compromise, after all.
Happily, more and more European policymakers are coming around to the view that we urgently need a common capital market. There’s been some movement on that front in the last few months. I think, for example, that we have made good progress towards developing a European securitisation market. We need to break down the barriers separating European capital markets one by one!
5 Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen,
As far as the structural challenges are concerned, we need to set the necessary changes in motion and make them fit for purpose. I am certain we can achieve that. The underpinnings of Germany’s industrial machine are still intact, and Germany’s position as an industrial and investment location is better than its present reputation implies. After recording sluggish growth at the turn of the millennium, Germany ranked as an economic powerhouse in Europe for more than decade.[21] Perhaps that should inspire us to invest shrewdly and sufficiently in our future.
Economic policymaking can lay a solid foundation for that investment, but it is not all-powerful. It all comes down to enterprises and their employees in the end. Academic studies show that family businesses have greater resilience when in crisis mode than other enterprises.[22] I therefore firmly believe that all of you, as operators of family-owned businesses, continue to play an important role in ensuring the German economy rises to the challenges it faces today. And thus in ensuring that Germany remains ready for what the future holds
See EBA (2022), Joint Committee advice on the review of the securitisation prudential framework (Banking), p. 24. For comparison purposes, the total volume of the US securitisation market (US$13,131 billion) was adjusted for agency ABSs (75%), while the total volume of the EU securitisation market (€3,058 billion) was adjusted for mortgage CBs (63%) and other CBs (11%).
Buchner et al. (2021), Resilienz von Familienunternehmen – Eine systematische Literaturanalyse, Betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung und Praxis 73, Vol. 3, pp. 225 f.
Women in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields are experiencing a new period of growth, acceptance, and respect in the modern workforce.
But when UConn alumna Jeanine Armstrong Gouin studied civil engineering in the 1980s, it was hard to feel welcome in an engineering building that didn’t even have a women’s bathroom.
Despite the dreary beginning, Gouin (who graduated in 1987, about four years before the Castleman Building installed women’s restrooms) delivered an inspirational message to an audience of young female STEM students last week.
A member of the audience asks a question during the Q&A portion of the Career Panel.
The Women in STEM Frontiers in Research Expo (WiSFiRE) was held on Friday at the UConn Storrs campus. It brought together university undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, alumni, and STEM employees and supporters.
WiSFiRE was one of the first conferences in the region to specifically highlight the work of women researchers in STEM. That mission has been solidified through a recent endowment by Gouin.
Gouin, who is both a UConn Trustee and U.S. division president of environmental consulting firm SLR International Corp., made an undisclosed gift in July to endow the Jeanine Armstrong Gouin Initiative for Women in Leadership at the UConn College of Engineering.
The gift will provide financial support for leadership programs and activities that are available to all engineering students, not just women.
Part of that endowment will continue to support WiSFiRE.
Friday’s event included panels, technical talks, and networking opportunities for the men and women leading the STEM fields today.
Speakers, panelists and moderators included: Gouin; physics professor Nora Berrah; alumna and University of Kentucky professor Gosia Chwatko; earth sciences professor Ran Feng; animal science professor Sarah Reed; chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Kristina Wagstrom; civil and environmental engineering professor Guiling Wang; electrical and computer engineering professor Zongjie Wang; statistics professor Elizabeth Schifano; biomedical engineering professor Leila Daneshmandi; civil and environmental engineering professor Alexandra Hain; molecular and cell biology professor Kat Milligan-McClellan; biomedical engineering professor Kristin Morgan; civil and environmental engineering professor Fatemeh Fakhrmoosavi; animal science professor Maria Gracia Gervasi; mechanical, aerospace, and manufacturing engineering professor SeungYeon Kang; computing professor Lina Kloub; chemistry professor Priya Shah; pharmacy professor Kristin Waters, and mathematics professor Xiaodong Yan.
The expo is co-chaired by UConn Engineering professors Qian Yang and Anna Tarakanova.
To the students and budding engineers, UConn faculty advised them to challenge themselves, answer the unanswered questions, get involved, and above all else, be the hard worker they always dreamed of being.
“Learn the skills you know you need to learn,” Wagstrom said. “Critically look at everything you’re producing. You are the best judge of your own work.”
Tarakanova explained that through Gouin’s support, they hope to build momentum throughout the year, with smaller events and opportunities to gather together between the annual exposition.
Jeanine Armstrong Gouin presenting during the fourth annual WiSFiRE.
“We look to establish more mentor/mentee models through the STEM fields in the university,” Tarakanova said. “While many of us are blessed to have found our ‘home’ of supporters early on in our careers, there are many young women who still need to find their ‘STEM sisters.’”
After the event, participants supplied feedback about the days’s offerings.
“I personally enjoyed seeing that many amazing women in STEM,” one participant said. “It’s been a long time since the last time I felt welcome in an academic environment, but this event reminded me of who I always wanted to be.”
Students enjoyed the opportunities for networking, and the panel speakers.
“I enjoyed talking to other people, hearing the inspirational words, and hearing students present research,” one student commented. “I didn’t realize how intimidated I was by research before, and this experience has given me confidence and assurance that I can do it too.”
On August 12-13, 24 students from the West Coast cohort of NASA’s Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) gathered at University of California, Irvine (UCI) to present their final research to a room of mentors, professors, family, and NASA personnel. SARP is an eight-week summer internship for undergraduate students, hosted in two cohorts: SARP West operates out of Ontario Airport and UCI in California, while SARP East operates out of Wallops Flight Facility and Christopher Newport University in Virginia. After research introductions from faculty, instrument scientists, and staff, students are assigned one of four research categories: for SARP West, these categories are aerosols, terrestrial ecology, whole air sampling (WAS), or oceans. Each group is led by a dedicated researcher who is a specialist in that field, along with a graduate student mentor. Over the course of the summer, each intern develops their own research project as they conduct field work, collect data, and fly onboard either the P-3 or B200 NASA flying laboratories. “You really see them become scientists in their own right,” said Stephanie Olaya, Program Manager for SARP East and West. “A lot of these projects are PhD level: they are researching and making novel discoveries for the field. They don’t even realize the magnitude of the things they’ve accomplished until the end of the program.”
Stephanie olaya SARP Program Manager
Research is not the only focus of the program, however. Faculty and mentors alike commented on the confidence they watched grow in the cohort over the two month internship, and the sense of camaraderie with their peers. Olaya says building a sense of community is a primary goal of the program, which encourages close friendships through communal living, regular group dinners, and weekend trips, in addition to the hours of team fieldwork, data collection, and laboratory analysis. The final presentations are another critical facet of the program, as it teaches students how to communicate scientific research and results to a non-scientific audience. “We want to impress on these students that science is not just for scientists,” Olaya said. “Science is for everyone.” The event finished with closing remarks by Barry Lefer, Tropospheric Composition Program Manager at NASA Headquarters. “I want to welcome you to the SARP family,” Lefer said, “and to the NASA family.” To watch videos of these student’s presentations and/or read their research abstracts, please follow the links below.
Introduced by Oceans Group PhD student mentor Lori Berberian, University Of California, Los Angeles
Leveraging high resolution PlanetScope imagery to quantify oil slick spatiotemporal variability in the Santa Barbara Channel
Emory Gaddis, Colgate University
Investigating airborne LiDAR retrievals of an emergent South African macroalgae
Rachel Emery, The University of Oklahoma
Vertical structure of the aquatic light field based on half a century of oceanographic records from the Southern California current
Brayden Lipscomb, West Virginia University
Comparing SWOT and PACE satellite observations to assess modification of phytoplankton biomass and assemblage by North Atlantic ocean eddies
Dominic Bentley, Pennsylvania State University
Assessing EMIT observations of harmful algae in the Salton Sea
Abigail Heiser, University of Wisconsin- Madison
Reassessing multidecadal trends in water clarity for the Central and Southern California current system
Emma Iacono, North Carolina State University
Introduced by Atmospheric Aerosols PhD student mentor Madison Landi, University of California, Irvine
A comparative analysis of tropospheric NO2: Evaluating TEMPO satellite data against airborne measurements
Maya Niyogi, Johns Hopkins University
Investigating the atmospheric burden of black carbon over the past decade in the Los Angeles Basin
Benjamin Wells, San Diego State University
Tracking methane and aerosols in relation to health effects in the San Joaquin Valley
Devin Keith, Mount Holyoke College
Investigating the effects of aerosols on photosynthesis using satellite imaging
Lily Lyons, Brandeis University
Validating the performance of CMAQ in simulating the vertical distribution of trace gases
Ryleigh Czajkowski, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Estimating aerosol optical properties using Mie Theory and analyzing their impact on radiative forcing in California
Alison Thieberg, Emory University
Introduced by WAS PhD student mentor Katherine Paredero, Georgia Institute of Technology
Urban planning initiative: Investigation of isoprene emissions by tree species in the LA Basin
Mikaela Vaughn, Virginia Commonwealth University
VOC composition and ozone formation potential observed over Long Beach, California
Joshua Lozano, Sonoma State University
Investigating enhanced methane and ethane emissions over the Long Beach Airport
Sean Breslin, University of Delaware
Investigating elevated levels of toluene during winter in the Imperial Valley
Katherine Skeen, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Characterizing volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from surface expressions of the Salton Sea Geothermal System (SSGS)
Ella Erskine, Tufts University
Airborne and ground-based analysis of Los Angeles County landfill gas emissions
Amelia Brown, Hamilton College
Introduced by Terrestrial Ecology PhD student mentor Megan Ward-Baranyay, San Diego State University
Predicting ammonia plume presence at feedlots in the San Joaquin Valley from VSWIR spectroscopy of the land surface
Gerrit Hoving, Carleton College
Burn to bloom: Assessing the impact of coastal wildfires on phytoplankton dynamics in California
Benjamin Marshburn, California Polytechnic State University- San Luis Obispo
Species-specific impact on maximum fire temperature in prescribed burns at Sedgwick Reserve
Hannah Samuelson, University of St. Thomas
Quantifying the influence of soil type, slope, and aspect on live fuel load in Sedgwick Reserve
Angelina Harris, William & Mary
From canopy to chemistry: Exploring the relationship between vegetation phenology and isoprene emission
Emily Rogers, Bellarmine University
Keeping it fresh(water): Understanding the influence of surface mineralogy on groundwater quality within volcanic aquifer systems
CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (CSIR-NIScPR) signed an MoU with the Gurugram University on 24thSeptember 2024 at the NIScPR’s Vigyan Sanchar Bhawan, Pusa Campus, New Delhi. This MoU will open up new windows for the both the institutions in the service of society. The key areas of this memorandum of understanding are science communication, STI policy research, traditional knowledge and many more. On the occasion of this MoU signing, the Director of CSIR-NIScPR and Vice Chancellor of Gurugram University shared their views about the significance and need of this MoU.
Shri Rajesh Kumar Singh Roushan, Controller of Administration, CSIR-NIScPR and Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Registrar, Gurugram University signed and exchanged the MoU. Dr. Sarala Balachandran, Chairperson, Department of Chemistry; Dr. Dwivedi, Head, Nursing; and Dr. Rakesh Yogi, Chairperson, Media Studies, Gurugram University also joined the program. CSIR-NIScPR has seven decades legacy of science communication and science policy research. On 13th-14th November 2024, CSIR-NIScPR in collaboration with Gurugram University is going to organise an International Conference on Communication and Dissemination of Traditional Knowledge (CDTK-2024). Last date for early bird registration for CDTK-2024 is 30thSeptember 2024.
Union Minister of Textiles, Shri Giriraj Singh unveiled the Commemoratory coin, celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of the Central Silk Board (CSB) at Mysuru on 20th Sep 2024. The Central Silk Board has proudly marked 75 years of dedicated service to advancing India’s silk industry.
The celebrations also witnessed the participation of many dignitaries including Union Minister of Heavy Industries and Steel, Shri H.D. Kumaraswamy; Minister of State for External Affairs and Minister of State for Textiles, Shri Pabitra Margherita; Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Smt. Rachna Shah; Minister, Animal Husbandry and Sericulture, Govt. of Karnataka, Shri K. Venkatesh; Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha and Board Member, Central Silk Board, Shri Iranna B Kalladi; Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, and Board Member, Central Silk Board, Shri Narayana Koragappa; Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Chikkaballapura, & Board Member, Central Silk Board, Dr. K. Sudhakar; Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha & Board Member, Central Silk Board, Shri A. G. Lakshminarayana Valmiki; Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Shri Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar; MLA, Govt. of Karnataka, Shri G.T. Devegowda; and other senior officers of the Ministry and Central Silk Board.
During the events commemorating the 75-year journey of the Central Silk Board (CSB), several significant releases and launches took place. A documentary video showcasing CSB’s history was unveiled, along with a commemorative coin celebrating the Platinum Jubilee and a Coffee Table Book titled CSB in the Service of the Nation Since 1949. A postal cover featuring the CSB 75 Years Logo was also released. Additionally, new mulberry varieties and silkworm hybrids, including CBC-01 (C-2038) for Eastern and Northeastern India, as well as CMB-01 (S8 x CSR16) and CMB-02 (TT21 x TT56), were launched to enhance silk production. Four new technologies—Nirmool, Seri-win, Mr. Pro, and a trapping machine—were introduced, alongside the release of 13 books, 3 manuals, and 1 Hindi magazine dedicated to sericulture. The Silk Mark India (SMOI) website was officially launched, and notable exchanges of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) occurred between CSB and prominent institutions like ICAR-CIFRI Barrackpore, Jain University Bengaluru, and Assam Agricultural University (AAU), Jorhat, to strengthen cooperative efforts in sericulture research and training.
The introduction of new mulberry varieties and silkworm hybrids is crucial for enhancing silk production, particularly in Eastern and Northeastern India, thereby diversifying production areas and reducing regional dependency. Additionally, the launch of innovative technologies like Nirmool and Seri-win addresses critical challenges such as pest management, promoting sustainable practices, and increasing productivity.
Educational resources released during the event will empower farmers with essential knowledge, while the signed MoUs with institutions like ICAR-CIFRI and Jain University facilitate collaborative research and training initiatives. This strategic approach to enhancing infrastructure, market access, and resource availability for sericulture farmers creates a supportive ecosystem for their growth, ultimately aiming to uplift livelihoods and strengthen India’s position in the global silk market.
The Seri-stakeholders experience-sharing session was also held during two days of celebrations, bringing together all stakeholders in the Silk sector and by-product producers. The session provided a platform for participants to interact and share their experiences regarding the current state of the silk industry. Several key suggestions emerged from the discussions, including the creation of a platform for utilizing sericulture waste in animal feed, pharmaceuticals, and medical applications.
Participants emphasized the need to strengthen market facilities in sericulture states and stabilize cocoon prices while reducing the influence of middlemen to increase farmers’ margins. They also called for subsidies on sericulture components, along with adjustments to unit costs in line with market inflation.
The Central Silk Board was set up based on the recommendations of the Silk Panel by the Imperial Govt. on 8th March 1945 to examine the development of silk industry, the Government of Independent India enacted the CSB Act 1948 on 20th September 1948. Accordingly, the Central Silk Board (CSB) a statutory body was set up under an Act of Parliament (LXI) of 1948 to shape the Sericulture Industry on 9th April 1949.
The Central Silk Board (CSB) is the sole organisation for comprehensive sericulture Research &Development (R&D) and coordinates development programs across 26 States/UTs. The mandated activities of CSB are Research and Development, maintenance of four tier silkworm seed production network, leadership role in commercial silkworm seed production, standardizing and instilling quality parameters in the various production processes, and advising the Government on all matters concerning sericulture and silk industry. These mandated activities of the Central Silk Board are being carried out by the 159 units of CSB located in different States.
CSB’s R&D institutes have played a pivotal role in developing over 51 silkworm hybrids tailored to different regions and seasons, 20 high-yielding varieties of host plants, and more than 68 patented technologies. Due to CSB’s R&D effort, the country has started manufacturing Indigenous Automatic Reeling Machines, which were earlier imported from China. These advancements have been instrumental in improving silk production, providing valuable tools and techniques for farmers and stakeholders to enhance both quality and yield.
Through the transformative initiatives of the Central Silk Board (CSB), India has made impressive progress in the silk industry. The nation now ranks as the second-largest silk producer worldwide, with its share of global production jumping from 6% in 1949 to 42% in 2023. Raw silk production has skyrocketed from 1,242 metric tonnes in 1949 to 38,913 metric tonnes in 2023-24. Efficiency improvements are evident, as renditta has decreased from 17 in 1949 to 6.47 in 2023-24, and productivity per hectare of mulberry plantations has risen from 15 kg to 110 kg. Furthermore, silk exports have experienced remarkable growth, with earnings increasing from ₹0.41 crores in 1949-50 to ₹2,028 crores in 2023-24 and reaching over 80 countries.
VP highlights the timeless relevance of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s philosophy and thoughts VP stresses on the significance of India’s hard earned independence
Vice President of India unveils the statue of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya on his 108th Birth Anniversary at Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Shekhawati University, Sikar
Posted On: 25 SEP 2024 6:31PM by PIB Delhi
The Hon’ble Vice President of India, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar today, unveiled a statue of “Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya” at the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Shekhawati University, Sikar, commemorating the 108th birth anniversary of the esteemed leader. The event also marked the inauguration of the “Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Samiti Udyan,” reflecting a commitment to the legacy of one of India’s visionary leaders.
In his address, Vice President Dhankhar highlighted the contemporary relevance of Pandit Deendayal’s philosophy, stating, “I am immensely pleased to be here. When I received the invitation, I naturally did not envision the significance of what I am witnessing today. I had only the name of a great man in mind.
Today, I realize the essence of his teachings.” Reflecting on the honor of unveiling Pandit Deendayal’s statue, the Vice President noted, “I never imagined I would unveil a statue of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya. This is a moment of great privilege, especially on his birth anniversary.” He recalled his connection with the leader’s philosophy, expressing gratitude for having been influenced by his teachings, stating, “His ideals and thoughts are profoundly impactful. We must learn extensively about Pandit Ji and strive to embody his philosophy in our lives”, he noted.
Emphasizing on the transformative impact of Deendayal Upadhyaya’s teachings, he stated, “His focus was on individual development, empowering individuals to become integral parts of society.” He further stressed the importance of addressing the needs of the last person in society, encapsulated in the concept of Antyodaya, which aims to uplift the most marginalized individuals.
Shri Dhankhar called for collective action, encouraging students, teachers, and all attendees to participate in the Prime Minister’s initiative to plant trees in their mother’s name. He remarked, “Planting trees in one’s mother’s name evokes a profound sense of connection. I urge everyone here to plant trees within this sixty-acre premise and care for them with guidance from agricultural institutions.”
“Today, I’m reminded of two visionary leaders who share their birthdays. Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya and Chaudhary Devi Lal were both selfless thinkers who dedicated their lives to giving back to society,” he said. He recounted how visiting Chaudhary Devi Lal’s statue at the Inspiration Hub of the New Parliament building evoked a deep connection, reminding him how the former Deputy Prime Minister guided him into politics.
The Vice-President underscored the importance of India’s hard-won independence, urging the youth to reflect on the lessons from the Emergency period. He stated, “We must recognize the significance of India’s independence, achieved with immense struggle. The ‘Samvidhan hatya diwas’ reminds us of how our rights were undermined by one individual and emergency was imposed to safeguard her position, leading to widespread denial of freedoms.”
Finally, the Vice-President encouraged young people to embrace opportunities beyond traditional pathways, stating, “Never fear failure; it is a natural part of any endeavor. Your opportunity basket is expanding.
Today, India is seen as the favorite destination for investment and opportunity, not solely due to government jobs but a broader horizon of possibilities”, he noted.
Shri Haribhau Bagde, Governor of Rajasthan, Dr. Prem Chand Bairwa, Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Prof. (Dr.) Anil Kumar Rai, Vice-Chancellor, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Shekhawati University, Sikar, Rajasthan and other dignitaries were also present on the occasion.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 3
The defence ministers of the AUKUS partnership met in London to review progress in and reaffirm their commitment to the AUKUS partnership.
Today the Right Honourable John Healey MP, Secretary of State for Defence, United Kingdom hosted the Honourable Richard Marles MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Australia and the Honorable Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense, United States (U.S.) at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, the United Kingdom (UK) to review progress in and reaffirm their commitment to the AUKUS partnership.
The AUKUS partnership reflects the continued commitment by Australia, the United Kingdom, and United States to support a free and open Indo-Pacific that is peaceful, secure and stable. The discussions between the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister today reaffirmed the importance of this innovative, enduring, and trusted partnership in the face of a rapidly evolving and increasingly unstable international security environment. The three nations will continue to work to uphold the global rules-based order where international law is followed, and states can make sovereign choices free from coercion. In this context, they reiterated their shared commitments to the AUKUS partnership for the decades to come and welcomed the progress made since AUKUS Defence Ministers last met in California, the United States, in December 2023.
Pillar I – Conventionally Armed, Nuclear-Powered Submarines (SSNs)
In March of 2023, our Heads of Government met to announce a comprehensive plan to support Australia’s acquisition of a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability as quickly as possible. Since that announcement, our three governments have worked shoulder-to-shoulder to refine the milestones and principles that will form the building blocks for this decades-long partnership.
The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reiterated their shared and enduring commitment to setting the highest nuclear non-proliferation standard, and the importance of this work to the success of the programme. They undertook to continue AUKUS partners’ open, and transparent engagement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and noted the ongoing bilateral negotiations between the IAEA and Australia to develop a robust safeguards and verification approach for Australia’s naval nuclear propulsion programme under Article 14 of Australia’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA.
Over the last year, our Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Royal Navy (RN), and U.S. Navy personnel have worked tirelessly across governments, defence industry, and academic institutions to optimise the training of personnel to maintain, sustain, operate, and crew nuclear-powered submarines. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reiterated that the delivery of the “Optimal Pathway” depends upon the skilled workforces of all three countries and reaffirmed their shared commitment to develop a robust base of skills across their military, civilian and industrial sectors.
More than 60 RAN personnel are currently in various stages of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine SSN training pipeline to equip a cadre of Australian officers and sailors with experience aboard the U.S. Virginia class SSNs that the RAN will own and operate from the early 2030s. These numbers will increase further in 2025, with more than 100 personnel commencing training. Six officers have completed all training and have been assigned to U.S. Virginia class submarines. RAN enlisted sailors will join U.S. submarine crews before the end of this year.
In the United Kingdom, three RAN officers completed the UK Nuclear Reactor course in July 2024 and are now assigned to UK Astute class submarines. The next group of RAN officers will commence training in the UK in November 2024.
The RN, with the support of the Australian Submarine Agency, has also delivered professional and general naval nuclear propulsion training for more than 250 Australian personnel in Canberra.
Australians have embedded into programme delivery teams in the UK Ministry of Defence and with Rolls-Royce Submarines. Australians are also currently embedded in U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program teams.
In July and September 2024, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard welcomed the first 40 ASC Pty Ltd personnel into its training pipeline with the expectation of more than 100 additional ASC Pty Ltd employees by mid-2025.
The Australian Government has committed to nearly AUD 250 million to start delivering the skills and workforce needed for its SSN program, including providing 4,001 Commonwealth Supported Places at Australian universities, in addition to 3,000 undergraduate scholarships over six years, to build the necessary Australian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics workforce.
Additional programs have seen more than 70 Australians supported to undertake postgraduate nuclear studies at universities in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia.
Australia has also recently announced the “Jobs for Subs” initiative, a government-funded program to evolve ASC Pty Ltd to recruit, train and retain approximately 200 additional graduates, apprentices and trainees to support Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) in Western Australia.
Recognising that our partners in defence industry are and will remain vital to this endeavour, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister discussed opportunities to maximize our efforts to foster collaboration and build resilience across our industrial bases and supply chains. They welcome the collaboration between BAE Systems (BAES) and ASC Pty Ltd to bring together their combined decades of submarine building to deliver the SSN-AUKUS programme.
The U.S. Government decided to invest USD 17.5 billion into its submarine industrial base to support initiatives related to supplier development, shipbuilder and supplier infrastructure, workforce development, technology advancements, and strategic sourcing.
Australia has also committed to invest over AUD 30 billion in the Australian defence industrial base to develop Australia’s supply chains and facilitate industry participation in U.S. and UK supply chains.
His Majesty’s Government announced an initial allocation of £4 billion from the United Kingdom to continue the detailed design work of SSN-AUKUS and order long-lead items, as well as the United Kingdom’s investment of £3 billion across its Defence Nuclear Enterprise, including the construction of submarine industrial infrastructure that will help to deliver the SSN-AUKUS programme.
The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the AUKUS partners’ commitment to accelerate opportunities for Australian industry in the Virginia class submarine supply chain, including through the Defence Industry Vendor Qualification Program and other industry collaboration initiatives. They welcomed ongoing efforts to encourage further industrial base partnerships to build resiliency across the trilateral Submarine Industrial Base.
This August, as a direct result of our close collaboration over this year, our three nations commenced the execution of the first-ever planned maintenance activity of a U.S. SSN in Australia. More than 30 RAN personnel worked alongside U.S. Navy and contractor personnel and UK observers to conduct routine maintenance and observe safety and stewardship evolutions. This was an important step in building Australia’s capacity to support a rotational presence of UK and U.S. SSNs at SRF-West beginning as early as 2027, as well as Australia’s future sovereign SSN capability.
The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister emphasised the importance of ensuring that our trilateral systems have the tools they need to transfer information and data in a timely fashion to facilitate cooperation. They were pleased to welcome the August 2024 signing of an enabling agreement for trilateral cooperation related to naval nuclear propulsion. Once in force, this historic agreement will enable AUKUS partners to go beyond sharing naval nuclear propulsion information, allowing the United States and the United Kingdom to transfer nuclear-propulsion material and equipment to Australia required for the safe and secure construction, operation, and sustainment of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines.
This agreement reaffirms, and remains consistent with, the AUKUS partners’ respective, existing international non-proliferation obligations. As a non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Australia has re-affirmed unequivocally that it does not have, and will not seek to acquire, nuclear weapons.
Pillar II – Advanced Capabilities
The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister hailed progress being made under Pillar II to deliver capability to our defence forces while bolstering industry and innovation sector collaboration. AUKUS nations continue to pool the talents of our defence sectors to catalyse, at an unprecedented pace, the delivery of advanced capabilities.
Through AUKUS Pillar II, our trilateral science and technology, acquisition and sustainment, and operational communities are working across the full spectrum of capability development—generating requirements, co-developing new systems, deepening industrial base collaboration, and bolstering our innovation ecosystems. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed progress made in building a more capable, combined joint force of the future because of this work.
This year, under the Maritime Big Play initiative, we are undertaking a series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises to enhance interoperability and accelerate the combined fielding of autonomous uncrewed systems in the maritime domain. Later this year, the three nations will bring together approximately 30 systems across four domains for the first large-scale AUKUS integrated demonstration. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the inclusion of technologies from companies in each of the three nations and plans to expand to include additional industry partners in the future.
In 2024, AUKUS partners furthered their undersea warfare capabilities by beginning to scale up the ability to launch and recover uncrewed underwater systems from torpedo tubes on current classes of British and U.S. submarines, which will increase the range and capability of our undersea forces. AUKUS partners are exploring opportunities to collaborate on sensors and payloads to maximize this capability and deliver effects such as strike, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
In parallel, the United Kingdom and the United States are strengthening superiority in the maritime domain by integrating the Sting Ray lightweight torpedo into the P-8A Maritime Patrol Aircraft alongside the Mk 54 torpedo, with trials planned for 2025. This will increase the opportunity for interchangeability and potential work on future torpedo programmes. These efforts will ultimately enhance the survivability of our surface combatant and submarine fleets.
In the area of long-range precision strike, we are increasing our collective ability to develop and deliver offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies through a robust series of trilateral tests and experiments that will accelerate the development of hypersonic concepts and critical enabling technologies. These capabilities will hold time critical and heavily defended targets at risk from increased ranges, enhancing the survivability of our forces and defending our homelands and forces against potential threats.
Advancing our maritime domain autonomy and decision advantage efforts, AUKUS partners demonstrated and deployed common advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms on P8-A Maritime Patrol aircraft to process data from each nations’ sonobuoys. These advances allow for faster data processing and improved target identification in congested acoustic environments, enhancing our combined anti-submarine warfare capabilities. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed plans to scale these technologies in 2025.
Our joint forces demonstrated several innovative uses of AI technologies to enhance decision making and bolster combined military effects. In March, AUKUS partners demonstrated the ability to rapidly co-develop and deploy trilateral AI algorithms to find and fix targets for strike. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed trilateral plans to explore the introduction of these capabilities into operational units in the coming years.
The International Joint Requirements Oversight Council (I-JROC) remains a critical collaborative forum to identify and validate joint and combined requirements to ensure capability development considers interoperability and interchangeability from the very start. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the establishment of trilaterally determined key operational problems, leveraging existing activities to achieve capability development priorities endorsed by I-JROC. AUKUS partners seek:
An enhanced multi-domain long-range strike capability that incorporates asymmetric capabilities and integrated targeting;
Strengthened multi-domain integrated air and missile defence capability;
Resilient command and control systems that maintain a diverse range of information; and
Enhanced logistical networks that are able to deliver persistent support and sustainment for operations in contested environments.
To this end, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed work underway across our trilateral Armies, Navies, and Air Forces to explore additional opportunities for collaboration in the land, maritime, air, and other domains under AUKUS Pillar II.
A cornerstone of our AUKUS Pillar II program remains the opportunity to leverage the best of our defence industrial bases and innovation ecosystems. Over the past year we have further integrated our innovation ecosystems and fostered increased collaboration with these stakeholder communities to explore opportunities in all aspects of Pillar II.
AUKUS partners executed the first trilaterally sponsored innovation prize challenge, which focused on electronic warfare. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister are pleased to announce Advanced Design Technology Pty Ltd, Inovor Technologies Pty Ltd and Penten Pty Ltd (AUS), Amiosec Ltd, University of Liverpool, Roke Manor Research Ltd, Autonomous Devices Ltd (UK), and Distributed Spectrum (U.S.) as the winners for this challenge. The selection of these companies demonstrates the important contributions that our trilateral commercial sectors and innovation bases can make in addressing critical operational requirements.
Building on the success of this first challenge, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister were pleased to endorse plans for a robust two-year agenda that will increase collaboration between and among our innovation centres of excellence. Through this collaboration, AUKUS partners will leverage innovative tools to reach our entrepreneurs and actively solicit new and powerful capabilities from our trilateral innovation ecosystem and industrial base.
In coordination with industry associations representing the trilateral defence industrial base, the Advanced Capabilities Industry Forum, continues to provide an opportunity for representatives across government and industry to exchange ideas and deepen industrial collaboration in Pillar II. By the end of this year, AUKUS partners will have convened meetings in each country and facilitated discussions with technology and policy subject matter experts to increase understanding and information sharing.
In response to industry feedback and as current projects mature beyond traditional research and development projects, the National Armaments Directors from each nation are identifying opportunities to harmonise acquisition processes and reducing barriers to facilitate the accelerated delivery of Pillar II advanced capabilities.
In April 2024, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister announced principles for engaging additional partners on opportunities to collaborate on AUKUS Pillar II projects. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed progress on consultations with Japan on improving interoperability with Japan’s maritime autonomous systems as an initial area of cooperation. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister noted ongoing consultations with Canada, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea to identify possibilities for collaboration on advanced capabilities under AUKUS Pillar II on a project by project basis.
Defence trade and industrial base collaboration
To promote innovation and realise the goals of AUKUS, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States implemented momentous amendments to our respective export control regimes. These historic efforts will maximise secure, licence-free defence trade and stimulate innovation across the full breadth of our defence collaboration, mutually strengthening our three defence industrial bases, while maintaining rigour and security in all three systems. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reaffirmed support to reduce bureaucratic barriers to collaboration to enable deeper defence industrial base cooperation.
Just like people confronted with a sea of options at the grocery store, bees foraging in meadows encounter many different flowers at once. They must decide which ones to visit for food, but it isn’t always a straightforward choice.
Flowers offer two types of food: nectar and pollen, which can vary in important ways. Nectar, for instance, can fluctuate in concentration, volume, refill rate and accessibility. It also contains secondary metabolites, such as caffeine and nicotine, which can be either disagreeable or appealing, depending on how much is present. Similarly, pollen contains proteins and lipids, which affect nutritional quality.
When confronted with these choices, you’d think bees would always pick the flowers with the most accessible, highest-quality nectar and pollen. But they don’t. Instead, just like human grocery shoppers, their decisions about which flowers to visit depend on their recent experience with similar flowers and what other flowers are available.
I find these behaviors fascinating. My research looks at how animals make daily choices – especially when looking for food. It turns out that bees and other pollinators make the same kinds of irrational “shopping” decisions humans make.
Predictably irrational
Humans are sometimes illogical. For instance, someone who wins $5 on a scratch ticket immediately after winning $1 on one will be thrilled – whereas that same person winning $5 on a ticket might be disappointed if they’re coming off a $10 win. Even though the outcome is the same, perception changes depending on what came before.
Perceptions are also at play when people assess product labels. For instance, a person may expect an expensive bottle of wine with a fancy French label to be better than a cheap, generic-looking one. But if there’s a mismatch between how good something is and how good someone expects it to be, they may feel disproportionately disappointed or delighted.
Research shows bumblebees and humans share many of these behaviors. A 2005 study found bees evaluate the quality of nectar relative to their most recent feeding experience: Bees trained to visit a feeder with medium-quality nectar accepted it readily, whereas bees trained to visit a feeder with high-quality nectar often rejected medium-quality nectar.
My team and I wanted to explore whether floral traits such as scents, colors and patterns might serve as product labels for bees. In the lab, we trained groups of bees to associate certain artificial flower colors with high-quality “nectar” – actually a sugar solution we could manipulate.
The bumblebee colony, right, is attached by tunnel to the foraging arena, left, where colored discs serve as artifical flowers. Claire Hemingway, CC BY-SA
For example, we trained one group to associate blue flowers with high-quality nectar. We then offered that group medium-quality nectar in either blue or yellow flowers.
We found the bees were more willing to accept the medium-quality nectar from yellow flowers than they were from blue. Their expectations mattered.
In another recent experiment, we gave bumblebees a choice between two equally attractive flowers – one high in sugar concentration but slower to refill and one quick to refill but containing less sugar. We measured their preference between the two, which was similar.
At the center of each artifical flower is a tube the bee enters to access the sugar solution. Claire Hemingway, CC BY-SA
We then expanded the choice by including a third flower that was even lower in sugar concentration or even slower to refill. We found that the presence of the new low-reward flower made the intermediate one appear relatively better.
These results are intriguing and suggest, for both bees and other animals, available choices may guide foraging decisions.
Potential uses
Understanding these behaviors in bumblebees and other pollinators may have important consequences for people. Honeybees and bumblebees are used commercially to support billions of dollars of crop production annually.
If bees visit certain flowers more in the presence of other flowers, farmers could use this tendency strategically. Just as stores stock shelves to present unattractive options alongside attractive ones, farmers could plant certain flower species in or near crop plants to increase visitation to the target crops.
Claire Therese Hemingway is affiliated with The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institue.
Four years ago, in an attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election, then-President Donald Trump and his surrogates furiously challenged its results. Lodging 63 lawsuits, Trump and his surrogates tried to discredit or override vote counting, election processes and certification standards in nine states.
None of these attempts was successful. Many were dismissed as baseless – often by Trump-appointed judges – before they even saw trial. Simply put, there is no evidence of widespread fraud. Even a voter data expert hired by Trump concluded that the 2020 election was not stolen.
The U.S. legal system agreed, demonstrating that courts remain an important bulwark protecting American democracy. Yet the legal system cannot prevent political violence wrought by election denialism, as the country soon learned.
The mob was spurred, at least in part, by Trump’s rousing speech at a rally in Washington, D.C., earlier that day. There, he reiterated his claims that the 2020 election had been “stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats” and warned the crowd of approximately 53,000 that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Many legal scholars considered this to be incitement.
“He clearly knew there were people in that crowd who were ready to and intended to be violent,” legal scholar Garrett Epps told the BBC. “He not only did nothing to discourage it, he strongly hinted it should happen.”
Trump: A sore loser … and winner
Trump has a long history of denying the results of any contest whose outcome he does not like.
Before entering the political arena, Trump called the 2012 Emmys “dishonest” because his show, “The Apprentice,” did not win. In 2012, he dismissed then-President Barack Obama’s reelection as a “total sham” and questioned the accuracy of vote tallies and voting machines. Unleashing a barrage of tweets, Trump urged citizens to “fight like hell” against a “disgusting injustice.”
As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump called the Republican primaries fraudulent after his competitor Sen. Ted Cruz won in Iowa, tweeting that the Texan “stole it.”
Trump has doubled down on his election denial this election cycle. By May 2024, The New York Times had documented 550 such statements, up from roughly 100 in the entire 2020 campaign.
This narrative of pervasive victimization has been bolstered by a flurry of lawsuits and criminal investigations brought against the former president. Since 2020, state and federal prosecutors have charged Trump with 94 crimes, including business fraud, mishandling classified documents and interfering with the federal election.
Trump has cast these legal challenges as a deliberate attempt by President Joe Biden to interfere with the 2024 election over 350 times.
“My legal issues, every one of them, civil and the criminal ones, are all set up by Joe Biden,” Trump told a New York City crowd in January 2024. “They’re doing it for election interference.”
His surrogates amplify this message. For instance, Mike Howell, director of the right-leaning Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, proclaimed on June 6, 2024, at a public Washington event that there is a “0% chance of a free and fair election.”
From denialism to violence: Warning signs
Lying about election results is no mere tantrum. It is a cornerstone of Trump’s strategy to paint himself as the victim of an elitist deep state – an image that appeals to his base, particularly among white working-class voters, some of whom feel that they are victims themselves of globalization and shadowy elites.
I fear little can be done to prevent such violence.
In 2022, Congress, acting in rare bipartisan fashion, approved the Electoral Count Reform and Transition Improvement Act of 2022, which closed many doors that President Trump attempted to use to thwart the 2020 election. Yet, as history shows, rule of law is not a certain brace against violence.
Given the perceived stakes of the election for most Americans, along with Trump’s ever-sharpening incendiary rhetoric, it is hard to imagine that Jan. 6, 2021, was an isolated chapter in American history.
Indeed, it may have been just a prelude.
Alexander Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz thanks supporters after serving ice cream at the Minnesota State Fair on Sept. 1, 2024. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
Since Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris selected Tim Walz as her running mate in August 2024, political commentators have offered various takes on Walz – is he pragmatic or progressive, centrist or radical, a grassroots lefty or a mainstream Democrat?
Walz will have a chance to speak directly to voters and possibly explain who he is and what he stands for when he debates Republican contender JD Vance on Oct. 1, 2024.
I am a scholar of populist politics in North America, and I understand why it is difficult to define how Walz fits within the Democratic Party.
On the one hand, Walz is a shock to the Democratic Party, which often endorses elite-educated, moderate politicians from the country’s two coasts. Walz is a former public school teacher who graduated from a state college in Nebraska – and he is not afraid to embrace the moniker of a “progressive,” which some Democrats reject in order to avoid false comparisons to socialists.
As Walz said in an August 2024 donor call for Harris: “Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values. One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”
Yet, Walz is unlike many other progressives in the Democratic Party. He is a gun owner and a hunter – and was one of the “best shots in Congress” when he represented Minnesota in Washington, as he will remind people. He uses sports metaphors to convey his messages, rallying Democrats behind a “fourth quarter” comeback in the election, for example.
Yet these apparent contradictions make sense when considering that Walz follows a rich lineage of Midwestern progressive politics that starts with the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, a state affiliate of the Democratic Party that maintains the traditions and values of populist farmer politics in the American Midwest.
The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is one of the first major recognized political parties in the state. It began more than 100 years ago as a form of populist protest to the harm industrialization and urbanization brought to rural farmers at the turn of the 20th century.
In the late 1800s, political movements like the Grangers and the Farmers’ Alliances organized to bring attention to falling crop prices, increases in railroad fees for transporting crops and the monopolization of agribusiness.
In Minnesota, these farmer protest groups joined forces with American labor unions to build a third-party alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. This new group, known as the Farmer-Labor Party, formed in 1918 as a way to represent rural people’s interests. The Farmer-Labor Party challenged state officials to legalize union protections and offer farmer subsidies, and unsuccessfully tried to place private utilities and natural resource industries under state control.
The Farmer-Labor Party was ideologically diverse – sometimes to a fault – and brought together a range of activists, even socialists, under the common goal of protecting working people. In 1936, the Farmer-Labor Party’s momentum captured President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attention, and it became a key member of his New Deal coalition.
For most of the 1920s and 1930s, Farmer-Labor challenged the Democratic Party with its more progressive ideas. However, under the guidance of former vice president Hubert Humphrey, the party merged in 1944 with the more moderate Minnesota Democratic Party to form the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
Over the next several decades, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party pushed for pragmatic and progressive politics within the state’s Democratic Party. The movement’s grassroots message has centered around protecting the country’s rural backbone.
Influential Minnesotan politicians – including U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, who championed environmentalism and walked the picket lines with Midwestern laborers before he died in 2002 – have been members of the party.
The ideas behind Farmer-Laborism
Today, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party shares many of its platforms and policy positions with the national Democratic Party.
But Farmer-Labor politics are distinct in how the party has embraced a Midwestern working-class identity and rallied against monopolies, business elites and corrupt government.
Among other Midwestern state political parties, like the Libertarian Party of Minnesota, Farmer-Labor is one of the most progressive and successful. The party has helped pass recent progressive legislation, like a public option health plan and a universal free school lunch policy.
Walz’s predecessors in the Farmer-Labor movement have also successfully spoken out against economic and political injustices from a position within working-class and agrarian communities. Like Walz, this movement took a populist stance against political and economic elites.
This Farmer-Labor tradition, in many ways, is a foil to the conservative-populism that is popular today. Unlike Trump’s appeal to middle America, this Minnesota brand of populism was not an attempt to save white Christian manhood. Instead, it was a genuine recognition that working people – especially those in middle America – needed to actively push back against economic inequality and forces that threatened the middle class.
For some people, Walz and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party are still hard to situate within the national Democratic Party.
This is in part because the Democratic Party has sidelined rural and working-class voters over the past few decades. In 2016, the Democratic Party made the strategic mistake of not focusing enough on the Midwest – and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College in important Midwestern states, including Wisconsin and Michigan.
In the 2024 election, the Democratic Party is presenting voters with Walz, who can speak to the American dream from a familiar perspective. Walz embraces unions beyond lip service, chastises corporate greed and does not shy away from rural voters even if they have cultural differences.
American voters said in September that they view Walz slightly more favorably than Republican contender JD Vance, though they say that they don’t know either candidate well. The debate should offer voters a chance to learn more about the popular Minnesota governor.
Conservatives, meanwhile, have tried to paint Walz as someone whose progessive politics challenge the culture of rural American life. I’d argue that the truth is far from that. Instead, like the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and some of the rural activists it produced, Walz is trying to uncouple small-town politics from the politics of fear and cultural isolation.
Gabriel Paxton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Just when the summer uproar over Donald Trump calling his potential rival “Laffin’ Kamala” and “Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris” was beginning to subside, an apparent new round of attacks by Trump and other Republicans has emerged after their initial U.S. presidential debate.
The target – again – was Kamala Harris’ laugh.
Three days after the debate, for instance, Bruce Zuchowski, an Ohio sheriff, posted on his Facebook account that Harris was a “laughing hyena.” Zuchowski was subsequently barred from providing election security during in-person voting.
This is not surprising, given that Harris’ laughter was on full display during much of the nationally televised debate – and, worse, Trump was clearly the object of her unrelenting derision.
Much has been written already about the sexism and racism behind Trump’s contempt for Harris’ laugh.
Ellison’s essay, published in a 1986 collection “Going to the Territory,” still offers useful historical racial context for explaining Trump’s animus toward Harris. Among the stories Ellison tells: Black people once had to put their heads in a barrel to laugh because their laughter unnerved white Southerners.
The dangers of Black laughter
Best known for his 1952 novel “Invisible Man,” Ellison was one of America’s foremost social critics who confronted racism and white supremacy by telling the stories of alienation among everyday Black people searching for identity in a nation that deemed them inferior.
In “An Extravagance of Laughter,” Ellison began with an anecdote about attending a theater adaptation of Erskine Caldwell’s novel “Tobacco Road” in New York City in 1936. The popular play detailed the lives of destitute white sharecroppers during the Great Depression. The sharecroppers feared, among other things, losing their social status by dropping below the lower rung reserved for Black people in America.
While laughing uncontrollably at a comical scene in the play involving the antics of poor white Georgia farmers, Ellison became aware of the stir he was causing among the predominantly white audience.
For many white Americans, Black laughter was “a peculiar form of insanity suffered exclusively by Negroes, who in light of their social status and past condition of servitude were regarded as having absolutely nothing in their daily experience which could possibly inspire rational laughter,” Ellison explained.
As Ellison saw it, his laugh during the play was being construed as an affirmation of the Black buffoon stereotype.
As he described it, the white spectators were “catching fire and beginning to howl and cheer the disgraceful loss of control being exhibited” by a Black man.
Later in the essay, Ellison lampoons the use of “laughing barrels” in Southern towns, which he described as “huge whitewashed barrels labeled FOR COLORED, and into which any Negro who felt a laugh coming on was forced … to thrust his boisterous head.”
The intent of suppressing Black laughter, Ellison explained, was pro bono publico, or for the public good.
While the idea of the barrels may seem utterly ridiculous, Ellison understood them as an absurd strategy of containment for a not-so-absurd fear in post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow white America, when racial segregation was legal.
Black folks who laugh “turned the world upside down and inside out,” he explained.
And in so doing, Ellison wrote, Black laughter “in-verted (and thus sub-verted) tradition and thus the preordained and cherished scheme of Southern racial relationships was blasted asunder.”
In a 1983 letter celebrating Caldwell’s birthday, Ellison thanked the writer – “by giving artistic sanction to a source of comedy which in the interest of self-protection I had been forced to deny myself you had released me from three turbulent years of self-restraint.”
Flipping the script on who gets to laugh
The first time Trump found himself the object of Black laughter was during the 2011 White House correspondents’ dinner, where he was publicly and mercilessly roasted by a gleeful Barack Obama. The experience appeared to humiliate and infuriate Trump and is widely seen by political pundits as the catalyst for Trump’s entrance into the 2016 presidential race.
It is not surprising, then, to see his campaign resurrect the rhetoric that many deem to be racist to erode public confidence in Harris’ fitness for the office.
In this Harper’s Weekly cartoon published in 1874, two Black legislators are arguing in front of their white colleagues. Fotosearch/Getty Images
These hearken to the long and shameful history of racist characterizations of Black Americans as menaces to society. They include depictions of unruly, newly emancipated Black men holding public office in D.W. Griffith’s 1915 “The Birth of a Nation” to Trump’s public call for the death penalty for the Black and Hispanic teens known as the Central Park Five in a full-page New York Times ad in 1989.
In that case, the teen boys were falsely accused of the brutal assault of a white New York jogger. They served years in prison before being exonerated by DNA and the confession of a convicted rapist and murderer.
Harris is widely regarded by political commentators as the winner of the debate, and the lasting impression is that of a glowering Trump repeatedly failing to put a stop to Harris’ mirthful expressions of incredulity.
Almost a century has passed since Ellison’s disruptive laugh occurred in a New York theater in 1936. In that time, both Obama and Harris have reordered traditional gender and racial norms by using Black laughter in the very public theater of U.S. presidential politics.
Betsy Huang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
