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‘This is not free will’: Prince Harry blames social media for youth ‘epidemic’

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Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Prince Harry said today’s youth is in the midst of an “epidemic” of anxiety, depression and social isolation due to negative experiences online, as he brought his campaign to help children and their parents navigate cyberspace to this week’s Clinton Global Initiative. “These platforms are designed to create addiction,” Harry, 40, said in remarks Tuesday in New York City. “Young people are kept there by mindless, endless, numbing scrolling — being force-fed content that no child should ever be exposed to. This is not free will.” Beyond supporting parents and youth throughout this advocacy, The Duke of Sussex stressed the need for corporate accountability. He asked why leaders of powerful social media companies are still held to the “lowest ethical standards” — and called on shareholders to demand tangible change. “Parenting doesn’t end with the birth of a child. Neither does founding a company,” said Harry, who revealed that his smartphone lock screen is a photo of his children, five-year-old Prince Archie and three-year-old Princess Lilibet. “We have a duty and a responsibility to see our creations through.” Harry’s remarks arrive as pressures continue to mount on tech giants like Meta, Snap and TikTok to make their online platforms safer, particularly for younger users. Many children on these platforms are exposed to content that is not age appropriate, such as violence, or misinformation. Others face unrealistic beauty standards, bullying and sexual harassment. Companies have made some changes over the years — with Instagram, for example, announcing last week that it would be making teen accounts private by default in a handful of countries. But safety advocates have long-stressed that there’s more work to be done. Many also maintain that companies still put too much responsibility on parents when it comes to keeping children safe on social media. Harry’s contribution to this year’s CGI annual meeting was part of the “What’s Working” theme, in a panel that included former President Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres. The Archewell Foundation, which Harry founded with his wife, Meghan Markle, to carry out their philanthropic work recently launched an initiative supporting parents whose children have suffered or died due to online harms. Harry highlighted the work of that initiative, called The Parents Network, in his speech Tuesday. The foundation has also partnered with the World Health Organization and others to end violence against children, an issue he and Meghan outlined during a recent trip to Colombia. Harry on Tuesday pointed to the inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, which is set to take place in Bogotá this November. He said that this meeting could result in the first global agreement for prioritizing child safety and protection online. His CGI address was part of a string of appearances for Harry in New York at the growing number of humanitarian and philanthropic events that run alongside the United Nations General Assembly Week. On Monday, he appeared at an event for The HALO Trust, where he discussed how the work of the landmine clearing charity was influential on his late mother, Princess Diana, as well as at the 2024 Concordia Annual Summit, where he spoke with winners of The Diana Award. “The HALO Trust’s work in Angola meant a great deal to my mother,” he said. “Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take seriously. And I think we all know how much she would want us to finish this particular job.” Harry’s message on Tuesday was generally well-received at the conference. Nia Faith, 22, co-founder of the Canadian nonprofit Revolutionnaire, which works to empower youth and uses social media to mobilize members, said she saw his presentation as a “call to action” on an issue that does not get enough attention. “I was incredibly moved by Prince Harry’s speech,” she said. “At Revolutionnaire, we use digital advocacy and social media to empower youth to make a positive impact. We also recognized that social media is being used in a way that is harmful and detrimental to the mental health of young people.” Faith hopes that Harry’s work will convince companies and governments to take action to protect children while encouraging the use of platforms to drive more positive action. Ashley Lashley, 25, whose Ashley Lashley Foundation works to address environmental challenges in her native Barbados by motivating young people to take action in their communities, said she was impressed by his remarks, even though she also worries about the digital divide in her country. “His message really hit home that parents, teachers, and students really need to unite to educate each other about the safe usage of digital technology,” she said. “I really believe that there needs to be a multi sectorial approach. That’s what we’re seeing here at CGI where different persons from different sectors — from governments, from private sectors, from philanthropy organizations — can really work together to ensure that there is peace and equity across all social media platforms.” Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy. —Glenn Gamboa and Wyatte Grantham-Philips, Associated Press

“These platforms are designed to create addiction,” Harry, 40, said in remarks Tuesday in New York City. “Young people are kept there by mindless, endless, numbing scrolling — being force-fed content that no child should ever be exposed to. This is not free will.”

Beyond supporting parents and youth throughout this advocacy, The Duke of Sussex stressed the need for corporate accountability. He asked why leaders of powerful social media companies are still held to the “lowest ethical standards” — and called on shareholders to demand tangible change.

“Parenting doesn’t end with the birth of a child. Neither does founding a company,” said Harry, who revealed that his smartphone lock screen is a photo of his children, five-year-old Prince Archie and three-year-old Princess Lilibet. “We have a duty and a responsibility to see our creations through.”

Harry’s remarks arrive as pressures continue to mount on tech giants like Meta, Snap and TikTok to make their online platforms safer, particularly for younger users. Many children on these platforms are exposed to content that is not age appropriate, such as violence, or misinformation. Others face unrealistic beauty standards, bullying and sexual harassment.

Companies have made some changes over the years — with Instagram, for example, announcing last week that it would be making teen accounts private by default in a handful of countries. But safety advocates have long-stressed that there’s more work to be done. Many also maintain that companies still put too much responsibility on parents when it comes to keeping children safe on social media.

Harry’s contribution to this year’s CGI annual meeting was part of the “What’s Working” theme, in a panel that included former President Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres.

The Archewell Foundation, which Harry founded with his wife, Meghan Markle, to carry out their philanthropic work recently launched an initiative supporting parents whose children have suffered or died due to online harms. Harry highlighted the work of that initiative, called The Parents Network, in his speech Tuesday.

The foundation has also partnered with the World Health Organization and others to end violence against children, an issue he and Meghan outlined during a recent trip to Colombia. Harry on Tuesday pointed to the inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, which is set to take place in Bogotá this November. He said that this meeting could result in the first global agreement for prioritizing child safety and protection online.

His CGI address was part of a string of appearances for Harry in New York at the growing number of humanitarian and philanthropic events that run alongside the United Nations General Assembly Week.

On Monday, he appeared at an event for The HALO Trust, where he discussed how the work of the landmine clearing charity was influential on his late mother, Princess Diana, as well as at the 2024 Concordia Annual Summit, where he spoke with winners of The Diana Award.

“The HALO Trust’s work in Angola meant a great deal to my mother,” he said. “Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take seriously. And I think we all know how much she would want us to finish this particular job.”

Harry’s message on Tuesday was generally well-received at the conference.

Nia Faith, 22, co-founder of the Canadian nonprofit Revolutionnaire, which works to empower youth and uses social media to mobilize members, said she saw his presentation as a “call to action” on an issue that does not get enough attention.

“I was incredibly moved by Prince Harry’s speech,” she said. “At Revolutionnaire, we use digital advocacy and social media to empower youth to make a positive impact. We also recognized that social media is being used in a way that is harmful and detrimental to the mental health of young people.”

Faith hopes that Harry’s work will convince companies and governments to take action to protect children while encouraging the use of platforms to drive more positive action.

Ashley Lashley, 25, whose Ashley Lashley Foundation works to address environmental challenges in her native Barbados by motivating young people to take action in their communities, said she was impressed by his remarks, even though she also worries about the digital divide in her country.

“His message really hit home that parents, teachers, and students really need to unite to educate each other about the safe usage of digital technology,” she said. “I really believe that there needs to be a multi sectorial approach. That’s what we’re seeing here at CGI where different persons from different sectors — from governments, from private sectors, from philanthropy organizations — can really work together to ensure that there is peace and equity across all social media platforms.”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

—Glenn Gamboa and Wyatte Grantham-Philips, Associated Press

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Related News

Could a ban on sea farms save Canada’s salmon?

A row over sea life, lice and livelihoods is dividing communities as the government plans to end open-net pen farming in British Columbian watersOn a clear August morning, Skookum John manoeuvres his fishing boat, Sweet Marie, out of the Tofino harbour and into the deep blue waters of Clayoquot Sound on Canada’s west coast.On shore, the late summer sun shines on visitors from all over the world who have flocked to the bustling fishing town on Vancouver Island, where they wander in and out of surf shops, art galleries and restaurants and pile into small boats in the hope of glimpsing orca, humpback and grey whales. Continue reading...

On a clear August morning, Skookum John manoeuvres his fishing boat, Sweet Marie, out of the Tofino harbour and into the deep blue waters of Clayoquot Sound on Canada’s west coast.On shore, the late summer sun shines on visitors from all over the world who have flocked to the bustling fishing town on Vancouver Island, where they wander in and out of surf shops, art galleries and restaurants and pile into small boats in the hope of glimpsing orca, humpback and grey whales.“You’ll never find this anywhere in the world,” John says, gesturing through the Sweet Marie’s window at the mosaic of islands and mountains, cloaked in thick green rainforests, that form part of the Clayoquot Sound Unesco biosphere reserve.The Sweet Marie motors deeper into Clayoquot Sound, past a web of inviting channels and inlets, and cruises past a raft of sea otters resting in the gentle swells. Hunted nearly to extinction, sea otters are one of the celebrated species found in the reserve, along with sea lions, seals, wild salmon and bald eagles.Dan Lewis, co-founder of Clayoquot Action, with a map of the fish farms in Clayoquot Sound. Photograph: Jeremy MathieuJohn, a member of Ahousaht First Nation, makes his living on the water, where he helps train coast guard members in marine rescue, ferries passengers to islands and hot springs and takes visitors on whale watching tours. Today, he is taking members of Clayoquot Action, a conservation group focused on protecting wild salmon, to the site of one of the area’s more controversial industries: open-net pen salmon farms.Dan Lewis, the co-founder and executive director of Clayoquot Action, is incredulous that industrial salmon farming is allowed to take place in a globally recognised protected area. “Why are we doing this here?” he says, gesturing at the rich waters, home to a colourful array of sea life that includes giant rock scallops, tufted anemones in green, pink and white, dark green kelp forests, red sea urchins and purple-tinged Dungeness crabs.Clayoquot Sound is also home to some of the last 60 salmon farms left on North America’s west coast. For decades, as many as 100 farms in Canadian waters have raised mostly non-native Atlantic salmon in pens in the Pacific Ocean.A farm uses a semi-closed containment system, which reduces the exposure of wild fish to sea lice. Photograph: Jeremy MathieuBut now the salmon farming industry, blamed for contributing to the collapse of wild salmon stocks, faces an uncertain future. In June, the Canadian government announced a ban on open-net pen salmon farming from coastal waters in July 2029, as part of a commitment “to protecting wild salmon and promoting more sustainable aquaculture practices”.Concerns about the industry’s impact on wild salmon played a leading role in the closure of about three dozen farms in British Columbia over the past seven years, after Clayoquot Action and other groups documented sea lice outbreaks and other diseases in farmed fish, including at farms along migration routes for wild salmon.The decision to ban all remaining British Columbia farms, lauded by conservation groups and wild salmon advocates, has been soundly criticised by Canada’s salmon farming industry, which largely consists of multinational corporations that farm salmon around the world, including in the UK. The industry says moving salmon farming to closed containment systems on land or in the water, as the government suggests, is not logistically feasible and would be prohibitively expensive.A coho salmon smolt infected with sea lice. Photograph: Fernando Lessa/AlamyFor John, who has been campaigning against salmon farms since 2015, the Canadian government’s new 2029 deadline may just be an empty promise, after its earlier, unfulfilled commitment to remove open-net pen salmon farms by 2025. “I won’t believe anything that the government says until I see it happen,” he says, as the Sweet Marie slowly circles a floating salmon farm in a small bay, barely a stone’s throw from the seaweed-strewn shore.John’s scepticism is shared by Hasheukumiss, hereditary chief of the Ahousaht Nation and president of the Maaqutusiis Hahoulthee Stewardship Society, which manages economic development for the nation. But the two men have very different perspectives on the salmon farming industry, mirroring broader divisions about whether open-net pen farms should be allowed to operate in Canadian waters.Hasheukumiss, Richard George, says sea lice and the pathogens are his main concerns. Photograph: The Canadian Press/AlamyIn 2010, the Ahousaht Nation signed an agreement allowing Cermaq Global, a Mitsubishi subsidiary that also farms salmon and trout in Norway and Chile, to operate in its territorial waters. The agreement was subsequently renewed with changes, according to Hasheukumiss, also known as Richard George.“One of the things that I wanted to address was the environmental concerns because we are the true stewards of our back yard,” he says. “It was the sea lice and the pathogens that were the biggest concerns we had.”According to Hasheukumiss, Cermaq was responsive and worked with the nation to address that concern.Hasheukumiss’ assessment of the Canadian government’s handling of fish farms is less rosy. Since he inherited his title in 2020, he says he has discussed the issue with three different cabinet ministers, yet has seen little in the way of consultation with his nation.A five-year transition away from open-net pen farms is not a realistic timeframe for the industry, he says. “In five years, there is no way this industry – or any industry – can go to fully contained systems.”As the Sweet Marie noses slowly towards a rectangle of floating walkways bordered by black net fencing, John stands and slips the engine into neutral. He calls out to one of the salmon-farm workers, jokingly asking why he’s pretending to be busy. It’s his nephew, who recently started working at the Cermaq farm, one of 13 facilities in Clayoquot Sound that employ about 20 Ahousaht members.The two chat while Lewis stands at the Sweet Marie’s bow, peering through the nets to get a view into the pens, as part of the group’s regular monitoring of the industry’s operations.Sweet Marie approaches Cermaq’s fish farm and delousing boat, Aqua Service. Photograph: Jeremy MathieuAt an unstocked salmon farm nearby, the Cermaq’s delousing boat, Aqua Service, towers over the Sweet Marie from its berth. The vessel has a large rear deck fitted with a patented delousing system, which pulls fish from the pens and uses seawater to flush off the lice. The treatment process takes just two tenths of a second, aiming to reduce stress and fish deaths.In Ahousaht territory, Cermaq has been experimenting with technology to reduce the industry’s impact on wild salmon. A semi-closed containment system – consisting of a semi-permeable bag that stretches 25 metres below the water – is used to raise young salmon smolts while reducing their exposure to sea lice. The bag draws water from deep in the water column where sea lice can’t survive.Fewer sea lice on the farmed smolts make it less likely wild salmon swimming past the farms will pick up the parasites. After a year, the young salmon are moved to open-net pens to grow to marketable size.The semi-closed containment system Cermaq is trialling is expensive – costing C$20,000 (£11,000) a month in diesel alone. Brian Kingzett, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, representing Cermaq and other companies, says there is little appetite to make big investments and navigate the time-consuming licensing process for new technology, especially with the future of the industry in question.In 2022, conservationists highlighted the risks of salmon farms to wildlife after sea lions broke into a Cermaq farm off the coast of British Colombia. Photograph: Jeremy Mathieu/Clayoquot Action“There are lots of reasons why farmers want to go to closed containment for that first year; Cermaq has been trying to do it,” he says. “It took them six years to get a licence. We only have a five-year window.”Kingzett says the industry was “completely gobsmacked” by the Canadian government’s decision to remove open-net pen salmon farms by 2029, calling closed containment “an unfeasible option”.Setting up a medium-sized land-based salmon farm, capable of producing 5,000 tonnes of fish a year, could cost C$1.8bn (£1bn), according to a 2022 report commissioned by the British Columbia government. The report’s authors said it was difficult to estimate the costs of setting up large-scale farms because there are no land-based salmon farms in the world that are reliably producing large amounts of fish.BC’s first land-based salmon farm, Kuterra, is now raising steelhead trout, after achieving barely one-third of its production target, according to the BC government report. Another land-based venture, West Creek, has stopped farming salmon altogether. And on the other side of the country on the Atlantic coast, a land-based salmon farm, Sustainable Blue, suffered a mass die-off, reportedly because of an equipment malfunction, and is now in receivership.But Lewis says closed containment systems on land are the only option if the Canadian government is serious about protecting wild salmon stocks.“To our understanding, there is nothing that can actually have zero discharge that’s in the water,” Lewis says. “What we want to see in the next five years is all the farms come out of the water. We don’t believe there are any in-water solutions.”Kingzett says closing down open-net pen salmon farms will harm small coastal communities. Any land-based containment systems will need to be close to plentiful power and water supplies, not to mention customers, he says.Skookum John has campaigned against salmon farms in Ahousaht territory for almost a decade. Photograph: Jeremy MathieuIf BC’s salmon farms disappear, Kingzett is confident farmed salmon will still be sold in the country’s supermarkets – but it will come from places such as Chile and Norway.Inside the Sweet Marie’s cabin, John has placed a sticker with the hashtag #FishFarmsOut near the helm. He is eager for the industry to leave Ahousaht territory, even if it means losing the money fish farming has brought to the community.“Wealth isn’t money,” he says. “What we have in our territory, what we have in the ocean, what we have in the air, that’s wealth.”

Government

Water

Extinction

Hurricanes Like Helene Are Deadly When They Strike and Keep Killing for Years to Come

A new study says hurricanes in the United States are hundreds of times deadlier in the long run than the government calculates

Hurricanes in the United States end up hundreds of times deadlier than the government calculates, contributing to more American deaths than car accidents or all the nation's wars, a new study said. The average storm hitting the U.S. contributes to the early deaths of 7,000 to 11,000 people over a 15-year period, which dwarfs the average of 24 immediate and direct deaths that the government counts in a hurricane's aftermath, the study in Wednesday's journal Nature concluded. Study authors said even with Hurricane Helene's growing triple digit direct death count, many more people will die partly because of that storm in future years.“Watching what's happened here makes you think that this is going to be a decade of hardship on tap, not just what's happening over the next couple of weeks,” said Stanford University climate economist Solomon Hsiang, a study co-author and a former White House science and technology official. “After each storm there is sort of this surge of additional mortality in a state that’s been impacted that has not been previously documented or associated with hurricanes in any way,” Hsiang said. Hsiang and University of California Berkeley researcher Rachel Young looked at hurricane deaths in a different way than previous studies, opting for a more long-term public health and economics-oriented analysis of what's called excess mortality. They looked at states' death rates after 501 different storms hitting the United States between 1930 and 2015. And what they found is that after each storm there's a “bump” in death rates. It's a statistical signature that they see over and over, Hsiang said. Similar analyses are done for heat waves and other health threats like pollution and disease, he said. They compare to pre-storm times and adjust for other factors that could be causing changes in death rates, he said. Complicating everything is that the same places keep getting hit by multiple storms so there are death bumps upon death bumps.Just how storms contribute to people's deaths after the immediate impact is something that needs further study, Hsiang said. But he theorized it includes the health effects of stress, changes in the environment including toxins, people not being able to afford health care and other necessities because of storm costs, infrastructure damage and government changes in spending.“When someone dies a few years after a hurricane hit them, the cause will be recorded as a heart attack, stroke or respiratory failure,” said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who wasn’t part of the study but has done similar studies on heat and cold deaths. “The doctor can’t possibly know that a hurricane contributed/triggered the illness. You can only see it in a statistical analysis like this.”Initially Hsiang and Young figured the storm death bump would go away in a matter of months, but they were surprised when they examined hundreds of bumps and found they stretch out, slowly, over 15 years, Hsiang said.It's “almost like a trickle of mortality, like each month we're talking about five to 10 individuals who are dying earlier than they would have otherwise," Hsiang said.These people don't realize that 10 or 15 years later their health issues are associated with a storm in some way, but Hsiang said it shows up in the data: "They would not have died at those times had the storm not arrived. And so essentially, these storms are accelerating people’s deaths.”The numbers proved so high that the researchers kept looking for mistakes or complicating factors they had missed. “It took years for us to really fully accept that this was happening," Hsiang said.Storms are a factor in between 55,000 to 88,000 excess deaths a year, the study concluded. So for the 85 years studied, the team calculated between 3.6 and 5.2 million people died with storms being a factor. That's more than the 2 million car accident deaths over that period, the study said.Before now the public looked at storms “as an inconvenience that is tragic for a small number of community members,” Hsiang said. But they really are “a major threat to public health,” he said.Hsiang said he and Young saw a trend of increasing hurricane-connected deaths, predominantly because of population growth. Starting in 2000, there's been a big jump in the total volume of storms hitting large population, he said.Three outside scientists said the study made sense.“It seems like what they're doing is reasonable,” said University of Albany hurricane expert Kristen Corbosiero, who wasn't part of the research. “The numbers are really staggering.”Texas A&M's Dessler said this is an important study because it brings home the deadly nature of climate change and extreme weather. He said he and his fellow climate scientists have been accurate in their warnings of the physics of what climate change would mean, but failed to emphasize enough how it would hurt people.“Reading this, it’s clear that humanity is very vulnerable to weather shocks, even in an incredibly rich country like ours,” Dessler said in an email.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Government

Climate

Nature

New Jersey Offshore Wind Farm Clears Big Federal Hurdle Amid Environmental Concerns

The federal government has given a key approval to an offshore wind farm in New Jersey

SEA GIRT, N.J. (AP) — The federal government gave a key approval Tuesday to an offshore wind farm in New Jersey, even as residents in the town where its power cable would come ashore worry it could go through underground toxic waste that's still being cleaned up. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved Atlantic Shores' plan to construct and operate an energy facility, a major milestone in moving the project forward. The project still requires a review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and several state permits, the company said.The project, consisting of two phases, would be built between Atlantic City and Long Beach Island in southern New Jersey. It would generate 2,800 megawatts from 197 turbines, enough to power 1 million homes. “Atlantic Shores is thrilled to receive approval to build our first two projects and deliver sufficient clean power to serve one third of New Jersey households,” said Joris Veldhoven, the company's CEO. “Securing these critical approvals enables New Jersey’s first offshore wind project to start construction next year, and represents meaningful progress in New Jersey achieving 100% clean energy by 2035."The federal government says the project would be about 8.7 miles (14 kilometers) from the shore at its closest point. But the company has previously said that it will not build right up to that line and that the closest turbines will be at least 12.8 miles (20 kilometers) from shore.Atlantic Shores is a joint partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF-RE Offshore Development LLC.“Responsibly developed offshore wind is a critical component in a clean energy future, which will fight climate change, create union jobs and improve the air quality in overburdened communities," said Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters.Offshore wind foes, who are particularly vocal and well-organized in New Jersey, vowed to try to keep the project from ever being built.“We understand this development would be devastating for the marine and coastal habitats, and it would destroy the Jersey Shore as we know it,” said Robin Shaffer, president of Protect Our Coast NJ. BOEM said the power cables for the project will “potentially” come ashore in Atlantic City and Sea Girt.That possibility has angered residents of Sea Girt, a wealthy Jersey Shore community about seven miles (11 kilometers) south of Asbury Park, due to concerns that its route would run through two federal Superfund sites where underground toxic contamination from former dry cleaning operations is still being cleaned up.The route proposed through Sea Girt would likely take the cable through contamination at the former White Swan and Sun cleaners sites in neighboring Wall Township where chemicals leached into the soil and contaminated underground water in a wide area including Sea Girt. More than 300 dump truck loads of contaminated soil have been removed from the site, and a ground water treatment system has been designed that will operate for at least 30 years.Kimberly Paterson is a leader of a Sea Girt-based residents group opposing the cable landing project; it takes no position on offshore wind energy itself.“It's just common sense that when you have a Superfund site still in remediation and the ground water is still contaminated, you shouldn't be messing around there,” she said. “When you start digging, you stand a very good chance of disturbing this plume of contamination. It seems to be all risk and no reward.”Elias Rodriguez, a spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the federal Superfund cleanup projects, said the agency is aware of concerns about the sites.“We understand that the public believes there could be risks associated with running electric cables through areas with site-related groundwater contamination,” he said. “EPA will work with the (New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection) to make sure relevant officials are aware of these concerns. EPA will continue to take appropriate steps to ensure that the ongoing cleanup is protected.”The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities does not plan to authorize a specific route for the cable to connect with the power grid about 9 miles west in Howell Township. It said that decision is for the company eventually chosen to build the project, in consultation with local governments.“Should the site become a part of the future (cable route project), all federally-mandated site remediation measures will be followed,” the board said in a statement.Follow Wayne Parry on X at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Government

Chemicals

Conservation

Washington targeted ‘corrupt’ mines. Workers paid the greatest price.

Treasury Department sanctions on far-off nickel mines in central America were supposed to protect vulnerable workers and ward against government corruption. Instead, they triggered an economic crisis with fatal consequences

EL ESTOR, GUATEMALAJosé Trabaninos and his uncle Edi Alarcón were arguing again. Sitting by the wire fence that cuts through the dirt between their shacks, surrounded by children’s toys and stray dogs and chickens ambling through the yard, the younger man pressed his desperate desire to travel north.It was spring 2023. About six months earlier, American sanctions had shuttered the town’s nickel mines, costing both men their jobs. Trabaninos, 33, was struggling to buy bread and milk for his 8-year-old daughter and worried about anti-seizure medication for his epileptic wife. If he made it to the United States, he believed he could find work and send money home.“I told him not to go,” recalled Alarcón, 42. “I told him it was too dangerous.”U.S. Treasury Department sanctions imposed on Guatemala’s nickel mines in November 2022 were meant to help workers like Trabaninos and Alarcón. For decades, mining operations in Guatemala have been accused of abusing employees, polluting the environment, violently evicting Indigenous groups from their lands and bribing government officials to escape the consequences. Many activists in Guatemala long wanted the mines closed, and a Treasury official said the sanctions would help bring consequences to “corrupt profiteers.”But the economic penalties did not alleviate the workers’ plight. Instead, it cost thousands of them a stable paycheck and plunged thousands more across an entire region into hardship. The people of El Estor became collateral damage in a widening gyre of economic warfare waged by the U.S. government against foreign corporations, fueling an out-migration that ultimately cost some of them their lives.Treasury has dramatically increased its use of financial sanctions against businesses in recent years. The United States has imposed sanctions on technology companies in China, automobile and gas producers in Russia, cement factories in Uzbekistan, an engineering firm and wholesaler in Bosnia. This year, two-thirds of sanctions have been imposed on “organizations,” including businesses — a big increase from 2017, when only a third of sanctions were of that type, according to a Washington Post analysis of sanctions data collected by Enigma Technologies.The U.S. government is putting more sanctions on foreign governments, companies and people than ever. But these powerful tools of economic warfare can have unintended consequences, hurting civilian populations and undermining U.S. foreign policy interests. The Money War investigates the proliferation of U.S. financial sanctions and the dangers of overuse.These efforts are often defended on moral grounds. Washington frames sanctions on Russian businesses as a necessary response to President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, for example, and has justified sanctions on African gold mines by saying they help fund the Wagner Group, which has been accused of child abductions and mass executions.But whatever their benefits, these actions also cause untold collateral damage. Globally, U.S. sanctions have cost hundreds of thousands of workers their jobs over the past decade, The Post found in a review of a handful of the measures. Gold sanctions on Africa alone have affected roughly 400,000 workers, said Akpan Hogan Ekpo, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Uyo in Nigeria — either through layoffs or by pushing their jobs underground.In Guatemala, more than 2,000 mine workers were laid off after U.S. sanctions shut down the nickel mines. The companies soon stopped making annual payments to the local government, leading dozens of teachers and sanitation workers to be laid off as well. Projects to bring water to Indigenous groups and repair decrepit bridges were put on hold. Business activity cratered. Unemployment, poverty and hunger rose.As the mine closures stretched from weeks to months, another unintended consequence emerged: Migration out of El Estor spiked.Yadira Cisneros and José Trabaninos with their daughter in Asunción Mita, Guatemala. (Family photo)The Treasury Department said sanctions on Guatemala’s mines were imposed in part to “counter corruption as one of the root causes of migration from northern Central America.” They came as the Biden administration, in an initiative led by Vice President Kamala Harris, was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to stem migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to the United States. But according to Guatemalan government records and interviews with local officials, as many as a third of mine workers attempted to move north after losing their jobs. At least four died trying to reach the United States, according to Guatemalan officials and the local mining union.As they argued that day in May 2023, Alarcón said, he gave Trabaninos several reasons to be wary of making the trip. The coyotes, or smugglers, could not be trusted. Drug traffickers roamed the border and were known to kidnap migrants. And then there was the desert heat, a mortal threat to those journeying on foot, who might go days without access to fresh water.Alarcón thought it seemed possible the United States might lift the sanctions. Why not wait, he asked his nephew, and see if the work returns?Fishermen on Lake Izabal, Guatemala’s largest lake.‘We made our little house’Leaving El Estor was not an easy decision for Trabaninos. Once, the town had provided not just work but also a rare chance to aspire to — and even achieve — a comparatively comfortable life.Trabaninos had moved from the southern Guatemalan town of Asunción Mita, where he had no job and no money. At 22, he still lived with his parents and had only briefly attended school.So he leaped at the opportunity in 2013 when Alarcón, his mother’s brother, said he was taking a 12-hour bus ride north to El Estor on rumors there might be work in the nickel mines. Alarcón’s wife, Brianda, joined them the next year.El Estor sits on low plains near the country’s biggest lake, Lake Izabal. Its 20,000 residents live mainly in single-story shacks with corrugated metal roofs, which sprawl along dirt roads with no stoplights or signs. In the central square, a ramshackle market offers canned goods and “natural medicines” from open wooden stalls.Towering to the west of the town is the Sierra de las Minas, the Mountain Range of the Mines, a geological treasure trove that has attracted international capital to this otherwise remote backwater. The mountains hold deposits of jadeite, marble and, most importantly, nickel, which is critical to the global electric vehicle revolution. The mountains are also home to Indigenous people who are even poorer than the residents of El Estor. They tend to speak one of the Mayan languages that predate the arrival of Europeans in Central America; many know only a few words of Spanish.The region has been marked by bloody clashes between the Indigenous communities and international mining corporations. A Canadian mining firm began work in the region in the 1960s, when a civil war was raging between Guatemala’s business-friendly elite and Mayan peasant groups. Tensions erupted here almost immediately. The Canadian firm’s subsidiaries were accused of forcibly evicting the Q’eqchi’ people from their lands, intimidating officials and hiring private security to carry out violent reprisals against locals.“If the mine had not been closed down, he would be with us today.” Edi Alarcón, with wife Brianda at their home, of nephew José Trabaninos“I absolutely don’t want ... that company here. These lands here are soaked full of blood, the blood of my husband.” Angélica Choc, at her home in El EstorIn 2007, 11 Q’eqchi’ women said they were raped by a group of military personnel and the mine’s private security guards. In 2009, the mine’s security forces responded to protests by Indigenous groups who said they had been evicted from the mountainside. They shot and killed Adolfo Ich Chamán, a teacher, and reportedly paralyzed another Q’eqchi’ man. (The firm’s owners at the time have contested the accusations.)In 2011, the mining firm was acquired by the international conglomerate Solway, which is headquartered in Switzerland. But allegations of Indigenous mistreatment and environmental contamination persisted.“From the bottom of my heart, I absolutely don’t want — I don’t want; I don’t; I absolutely don’t want — that company here,” said Angélica Choc, 57, Ich’s widow, as she dabbed away tears. To Choc, who said her brother had been jailed for protesting the mine and her son had been forced to flee El Estor, U.S. sanctions were an answer to her prayers. “These lands here are soaked full of blood, the blood of my husband.”And yet even as Indigenous activists struggled against the mines, they made life better for many employees.After arriving in El Estor, Trabaninos found a job at one of Solway’s subsidiaries cleaning the floor of the mine’s administrative building, its workshops and other facilities. He was soon promoted to operating the power plant’s fuel supply, then became a supervisor, and eventually secured a position as a technician overseeing the ventilation and air management equipment, contributing to the production of the alloy used around the world in cellphones, kitchen appliances, medical devices and more.When the mine closed, Trabaninos was making 6,500 quetzales a month — roughly $840 — significantly above the median income in Guatemala and more than he could have hoped to make in Asunción Mita, his uncle said. Alarcón, who had also moved up at the mine, bought a stove — the first for either family — and they enjoyed cooking together.Vendors at El Estor’s main market have reported sharp declines in business since the mines closed.Trabaninos also fell in love with a young woman, Yadira Cisneros. They bought a plot of land next to Alarcón’s and started building their home. In 2016, the couple had a girl. They affectionately referred to her sometimes as “cachetona bella,” which roughly translates to “cute baby with big cheeks.” Her birthday parties featured Peppa Pig cartoon decorations.The year after their daughter was born, a stretch of Lake Izabal’s coastline near the mine turned a strange red. Local fishermen and some independent experts blamed pollution from the mine, a charge Solway denied. Protesters blocked the mine’s trucks from passing through the streets, and the mine responded by calling in security forces. Amid one of many confrontations, the police shot and killed protester and fisherman Carlos Maaz, according to other fishermen and media accounts from the time.In a statement, Solway said it called police after four of its employees were kidnapped by mining opponents and to clear the roads in part to ensure passage of food and medicine to families living in a residential employee complex near the mine. Asked about the rape allegations during the mine’s Canadian ownership, Solway said it has “no knowledge about what occurred under the previous mine operator.”Still, calls were beginning to mount for the United States to punish the mine. In 2022, a leak of internal company documents revealed a budget line for “compra de líderes,” or “buying leaders.”Several months later, Treasury imposed sanctions, saying Solway executive Dmitry Kudryakov, a Russian national who is no longer with the company, “allegedly led multiple bribery schemes over several years involving politicians, judges, and government officials.” (Solway’s statement said an independent investigation led by former FBI officials found payments had been made “to local officials for purposes such as providing security, but no evidence of bribery payments to federal officials” by its employees.)Cisneros and Trabaninos didn’t worry right away. Their lives, she recalled in an interview, were improving.“We started from nothing. We had absolutely nothing. But then we bought some land. We made our little house,” Cisneros said. “And little by little, we made things.”Soil extracted by the Mayaniquel mine lies on a mine property, covered to avoid erosion. The Treasury Department has not produced evidence to support its justification for putting this mine under sanctions.‘They would have found this out instantly’Trabaninos and other workers understood, of course, that they were out of a job. The mines were no longer open. But there were confusing and contradictory rumors about how long it would last.The mines promised to appeal, but people could only speculate about what that might mean for them. Few workers had ever heard of the Treasury Department more than 1,700 miles away, much less the Office of Foreign Assets Control that manages sanctions or its byzantine appeals process.As Trabaninos began to express concern to his uncle about his family’s future, company officials raced to get the penalties rescinded. But the U.S. review stretched on for months, to the particular shock of one of the sanctioned parties.Treasury sanctions targeted two entities: the El Estor-based subsidiaries of Solway, which gather and process nickel, and Mayaniquel, a local company that collects unprocessed nickel. In its announcement, Treasury said Mayaniquel was also in “function” a subsidiary of Solway, which the government said had “exploited” Guatemala’s mines since 2011.Documents related to legal proceedings against Julio Anselmo Toc, a leader of a fishermen’s union in El Estor who protested the mining operations. Tensions between the community and the mining operations remain high even after U.S. sanctions shuttered the mines. Many mining properties were covered in red graffiti telling the operators to leave the area. Mayaniquel and its Swiss parent company, Telf AG, immediately contested Treasury’s claim. The mining firms shared some joint costs on the only road to the ports of eastern Guatemala, but they have different ownership structures, and no evidence has emerged to suggest Solway controlled the smaller mine, Mayaniquel argued in hundreds of pages of documents provided to Treasury and reviewed by The Post. Solway also denied exercising any control over the Mayaniquel mine.Had the mines faced criminal corruption charges, the United States would have had to justify the action in public documents in federal court. But because sanctions are imposed outside the judicial process, the government has no obligation to disclose supporting evidence.And no evidence has emerged, said Jonathan Schiller, a U.S. lawyer representing Mayaniquel.“There is no relationship between Mayaniquel and Solway whatsoever, beyond Russian names being in the management and ownership of the separate companies. That is uncontroverted,” Schiller said. “If Treasury had picked up the phone and called, they would have found this out instantly.”The sanctioning of Mayaniquel — which employed several hundred people — reflects a degree of imprecision that has become inevitable given the scale and pace of U.S. sanctions, according to three former U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter candidly. Treasury has imposed more than 9,000 sanctions since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. A relatively small staff at Treasury fields a torrent of requests, they said, and officials may simply have too little time to think through the potential consequences — or even be sure they’re hitting the right companies.In the end, Solway terminated Kudryakov’s contract and implemented extensive new human rights and anti-corruption measures, including hiring an independent Washington law firm to conduct an investigation into its conduct, the company said in a statement. Louis J. Freeh, the former director of the FBI, was brought in for a review. And it relocated the headquarters of the company that owns the subsidiaries to New York City, under U.S. jurisdiction.Solway “is making its best efforts” to adhere to “global best practices in transparency, responsiveness, and community engagement,” said Lanny Davis, who served as an aide to President Bill Clinton and is now an attorney for Solway. “Our focus is firmly on environmental stewardship, respecting human rights, and supporting the rights of Indigenous people.”Following an extended battle with the mines’ attorneys, the Treasury Department lifted the sanctions after about 14 months.In August, Guatemala’s government reactivated the export licenses for Solway’s subsidiaries; the company is now trying to raise international capital to restart operations. But Mayaniquel has yet to have its export license renewed.A photo of Candida Caal’s mother, who the family said died because Caal’s husband could no longer buy diabetes medicine for her after he was laid off from his mining job.‘It is their fault we are out of work’The consequences of the penalties, meanwhile, have ripped through El Estor. As the closures dragged on, laid-off workers such as Trabaninos decided they could no longer wait for the mines to reopen.One group of 25 agreed to go together in October 2023, about a year after the sanctions were imposed. They joined a WhatsApp group, paid a bribe to a smuggler and prepared to leave El Estor on the same day. Some of those who went showed The Post photos from the trip, sleeping on buses in Mexico and joking with Chinese tourists they met along the way.Then everything went wrong. At a warehouse near the U.S.-Mexico border, their smuggler was attacked by a group of drug traffickers, who executed the smuggler with a gunshot to the back, said Tereso Cacheo Ruiz, one of the laid-off miners, who said he watched the killing in horror. The traffickers then beat the migrants and demanded they carry backpacks filled with cocaine across the border. They were kept in the warehouse for 12 days before they managed to escape and make it back to El Estor, Ruiz said.“Until the sanctions shut down the mine, I never could have imagined that any of this would happen to me,” said Ruiz, 36, who operated an excavator at the Solway plant. Ruiz said his wife left him and took their two children, 9 and 6, after he was laid off and could no longer provide for them.“It is their fault we are out of work,” Ruiz said of the sanctions. “The United States was the reason all this happened.”It’s unclear how thoroughly the U.S. government considered the possibility that Guatemalan mine workers would try to emigrate. Sanctions on the mines — pushed by the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala — faced internal resistance from Treasury Department officials who feared the potential humanitarian consequences, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. A State Department spokesman declined to comment.A Treasury spokesman declined to say what, if any, economic assessments were produced before or after the United States put one of the most significant employers in El Estor under sanctions. The spokesman also declined to provide estimates on the number of layoffs worldwide caused by U.S. sanctions. Last year, Treasury launched an office to analyze the economic impact of sanctions, but that came after the Guatemalan mines had closed.Human rights groups and some former U.S. officials defend the sanctions as part of a broader warning to Guatemala’s private sector. After a 2023 election, they say, the sanctions put pressure on the country’s business elite and others to abandon former president Alejandro Giammattei, who was widely feared to be trying to pull off a coup after losing the election.“Sanctions absolutely made it possible for Guatemala to have a democratic option and to protect the electoral process,” said Stephen G. McFarland, who served as ambassador to Guatemala from 2008 to 2011. “I won’t say sanctions were the most important action, but they were essential.”“It is their fault we are out of work. The United States was the reason all this happened.” Tereso Cacheo Ruiz, who almost died on one of his attempts to migrate to the United States after losing his job because of sanctions“When the mine was here, business was magnificent. And now there’s nothing.” Julia Jesus Caal, a chicken vendor who now struggles to buy her arthritis medicineThe collateral damage, however, went far beyond the workers who lost their jobs.The unemployment rate in El Estor rose by more than 10 percentage points and requests for food rations soared, said Carlos Tenas Martinez, the governor of the Izabal Department, which includes El Estor. A Guatemalan government report attributed a spike in child malnutrition in the area to the closure of the mines, though other factors — including a recent drought, the pandemic and two devastating storms — probably contributed as well. The city has since laid off roughly 35 percent of its workforce, according to a rough estimate by former mayor Rony Méndez.“The wrong the U.S. did for the people is at every level, from the manager in Guatemala City who got laid off to the peasant who has no alternative who migrated to the U.S., putting his or her life in danger in the process,” said Antonio Malouf, who served as the economic minister of Guatemala before resigning and becoming a Giammattei critic. Malouf added that there was never any evidence that Mayaniquel functioned as a subsidiary of Solway.In the town market, vendors bemoaned the loss of business. Julia Jesus Caal, 53, said she once routinely sold more than 100 pounds of chicken a day — often to Russian mining executives, who no longer come by. Now she struggles to sell even 25 pounds. The steep drop-off means she often can’t afford to buy medicine for her chronic arthritis.“When the mine was here, business was magnificent,” Caal said. “And now there’s nothing.”Mario Augusto Cac Caal, 29, worked as a flagger at the Mayaniquel mine. Without work, he said, he has been unable to afford vitamins and other supplements for his 8- and 6-year-old daughters, who have severe anemia. And the mother of another Mayaniquel flag-waver sobbed as she recalled how her 20-year-old son migrated to Phoenix.“I tried to convince him not to leave but the need was greater,” said Clara Itz Cuc, 45. She worries about him being alone in a giant American city and wishes she could make him dinner. “There is so much pain in my heart,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.”Laid-off miner Henry Quim, 29, said he has been left helpless to watch his father succumb to cancer because their family can no longer afford to pay an oncologist in the Guatemalan capital. Quim, who paid smugglers to take him to the United States but returned to El Estor after the journey failed, said: “What can I buy now? Nothing.”After arguing with his uncle, Trabaninos tried migrating to the United States with several other former miners in May 2023. The trip failed and he wound up back in El Estor.Three days later he was gone again, traveling this time with someone from El Salvador.Yadira Cisneros waited, hearing little for about four months. Then came a call from the Guatemalan government.Trabaninos’s body had been found in or near Arizona, Alarcón said. The suspected cause of death was heat stroke. Cisneros received his body, along with his wallet, shoes, shirt and pants. He was buried in Asunción Mita, the town he had left so long ago.“If the mine had not been closed down, he would be with us today,” Alarcón said. “That is the reason he died.”Last month, Alarcón said he’d heard a rumor that two more former workers from El Estor had taken off for the United States. The men had not been heard from in weeks. Nobody knew their fates.About this storyFederica Cocco and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report. Design and development by Stephanie Hays. Photo editing by Haley Hamblin. Design editing by Betty Chavarria. Visual editing by Karly Domb Sadof.Editing by Mike Madden and Lori Montgomery. Copy editing by Kim Chapman.Project editing by Ana Carano. Additional production and support from Jordan Melendrez, Sarah Murray, Megan Bridgeman, Kathleen Floyd, Jenna Lief and Alisa Vasquez.

Government

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Why the government won’t let you see its best tool for forecasting hurricanes

The lack of access to this model is spurring concerns that NOAA is holding back information that could help people prepare for deadly storms.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for four years has used a hurricane forecasting tool that often surpasses all others in its accuracy, but it won’t release its predictions to the public, spurring concerns that it is holding back information that could help people prepare for deadly storms.The tool, known as the HCCA model, was developed by NOAA as part of a program to reduce errors in hurricane forecasts. Statistics published by NOAA’s National Hurricane Center show that from 2020 to 2023, HCCA was one of the two best models for forecasting a storm’s track and intensity. In 2022, HCCA provided the most accurate track forecasts for all lead times out to four days, even beating the Hurricane Center’s official forecast.The HCCA model produced superior two-day and three-day track forecasts to the Hurricane Center during Ian, the devastating Category 4 hurricane that struck Florida in late September 2022. That hurricane was particularly hard to predict, and better track forecasts could have improved evacuation decisions and saved lives.But because of agreements with a vendor, NOAA has refused to release the model’s results to the public. With a massive storm headed toward a U.S. landfall this week, critics of the agreement argue taxpayer-funded forecasts should be freely and openly available. They say the model’s forecast could be highlighted in television and online graphics as one of the more reliable scenarios given its track record.“The HCCA is the gold standard in modern consensus modeling, and if it were available, we would show it,” Bryan Norcross, Fox Weather hurricane specialist, said in an email.The HCCA, or Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) Corrected Consensus Approach model, is one of more than 25 models used by the National Hurricane Center and is often referenced in its forecast discussions. It uses a proprietary technique, obtained from the private weather risk firm now known as RenaissanceRe Risk Sciences, to blend forecasts from other hurricane forecast models.“HCCA combines input from a number of models in a way that is weighted by their past performance,” Mark DeMaria, senior research scientist at Colorado State University and co-author of a research article describing the model, said in an email. “That allows biases from individual models to cancel each other and provide a more accurate forecast.”The agreement signed in 2020 by NOAA and the company enabled the agency to collaborate with the firm but does not allow the government to provide compensation. It states HCCA forecasts are “trade secrets and confidential information” that “shall not be publicly disclosed or disseminated” for a period of five years from the effective date of the agreement. The terms of the agreement were released to The Washington Post in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.Some worry the model’s inaccessibility sets a bad precedent for future partnerships between the government and private industry if it keeps potentially lifesaving information from the public.Maureen O’Leary, a National Weather Service spokesperson, said the agency strives for unrestricted public access to data and models but that “we must honor legal agreements made.”She added that NOAA is “constantly evaluating new opportunities to improve our products and services and seeks to find the appropriate balance to share that information publicly.”A company spokesperson for RenaissanceRe said in an email that its collaboration with NOAA is “one of [its] many public-private partnerships … which encourages risk knowledge sharing so communities around the world can better protect themselves.”Some private weather providers, however, have voiced concerns about the lack of access to the model’s forecasts.“This HCCA model … was developed at NOAA obviously using taxpayer resources,” Jonathan Porter, senior vice president at the forecasting services company AccuWeather, said in an interview. “This is an urgent public safety issue. It’s about ensuring … that we all have access to the same critical data as the Hurricane Center to effectively understand and communicate risks to people in harm’s way.”Baron Weather, a longtime provider of weather content to broadcast media, also supports wider access to the model.“It would certainly be a welcome addition for all broadcast meteorologists and assist them in communicating tropical forecast information and hazards to their viewers,” Bob Dreisewerd, the company’s chief executive, said in an email to The Post.Open data policies challenged by commercial business modelsNOAA plans to start making HCCA forecasts publicly available after its five-year agreement with RenaissanceRe, previously known as WeatherPredict Consulting, expires in March. “It is our intent to publicly release real-time HCCA model output and the source code before the start of the 2025 hurricane season,” O’Leary said in an email.Porter said AccuWeather is “delighted that NOAA … will make HCCA forecast guidance available to meteorologists across the country so that they can better understand the rationale behind the National Hurricane Center’s forecast and warnings.”But, he argues, restricted access to the model during this and previous hurricane seasons has been “a major setback” that “goes against the basic principles of … free and open distribution of government-based data.”“It’s setting a very precarious precedent … threatening to unravel and reverse over 50 years of progress that’s been achieved through the cooperation of the government, academic and private sectors,” Porter said. It “raises the question of what won’t be distributed next.”U.S. weather forecasting has long been a collaborative endeavor. Historically, NOAA and its international government partners have provided the foundational sensors and systems for making forecasts while the private sector helps to widely disseminate predictions and creates specialized products and services. The 2003 National Academies’ “Fair Weather” report helped define the roles of the U.S. government, private sector and academia at a time of growing friction between the sectors due to their increasingly overlapping roles.The report noted “the government’s obligation to make its information as widely available as possible to those who paid for it — the taxpayers,” but also recognized the challenges of government-industry partnerships and the desire for policy “that permits commercial objectives to be achieved.”The lines between the U.S. weather sectors have become even more blurred in recent years as the private sector has built up capabilities that were once exclusively undertaken by governments. NOAA now buys commercial satellite, aircraft and ground data and is collaborating with private companies that have recently built powerful AI weather models.“The weather enterprise has become a lot more complicated in the past decade, with more observations and modeling being done by private-sector entities,” Keith Seitter, executive director emeritus at the American Meteorological Society, said in an email. “This has challenged the historical approach having all the data being openly and freely distributed … because the private-sector producers often need to protect their intellectual property as part of their business model.”Seitter and Mary Glackin, former deputy undersecretary for operations at NOAA, are among those leading an American Meteorological Society study looking at the state of the weather enterprise two decades after the “Fair Weather” report. Glackin, now chair of the National Academies’ Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, said policy around commercial weather data and technology acquisition presents a growing challenge.“Plans must be a balance of public good and costs while also considering maintaining a vibrant U.S. private sector,” Glackin said in an email. “I suspect each opportunity will need to be weighed independently — at least until we have more experience.”New policy guidance published in July by NOAA addresses the challenge of balancing public and commercial interests, stating that its “programs and offices should seek to maximize the public benefit derived from environmental data and data products obtained through commercial solutions by negotiating the least restrictive terms of use possible.”Andrew Rosenberg, a former NOAA official and a senior fellow at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy, said the confidentiality requirements that come along with NOAA’s commercial partnerships can sometimes be too broad, at the expense of transparency that is designed to instill trust in its work.That is especially concerning when it comes to weather forecasts that are meant to serve public health and safety, Rosenberg added. “I do think it’s problematic,” he said. “That isn’t really the way you want to serve the public interest.”

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Health

Suggested Viewing

928 The Threat Continues...

Since the 1950s deadly nuclear fallout has threatened millions of Americans from nuclear fallout carried east in the atmosphere across the United States, from the Nevada Test Site. “928 The Threat Continues...” tells the story of massive contamination from concentrated nuclear fallout that rained down during heavy storms, on communities and major cities for 40 years. Hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and deaths were the result. The Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Energy knew the truth, but covered it up. Multiple generations may still face the long-term affects. Through current interviews with scientific experts and surviving victims across the country, plus footage from historic interviews with victims, whistle-blower scientists and journalists, we tell the devastating story of those affected by the deadly radioactive fallout. In Act 3, obscure government videos from US government websites reveal that the threat of cancer death to Americans from Nevada Test Site contamination continues even today! NTS has been renamed, the Nevada National Security Site or NNSS. Presidential administrations from Harry Truman to the present day have kept the highly contaminated former Nevada Test Site operating. Donald Trump while in office ordered the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to start testing newly designed battlefield nuclear weapons at the NNSS despite the existence of The Non-Proliferation Treaty – 1970. Not withstanding the treaty, the extremely reckless aboveground testing area at the NNSS called Big Explosives Experimental Facility or B.E.E.F. tests non-nuclear bombs that send tons of highly contaminated nuclear dirt 10,000 feet into the atmosphere where the winds carry it east. It needs to be stopped now! The film asks viewers to inform their congressman and vote.

Chemicals

Crisis

Government

Jetty Cats

Jetty Cats explores contemporary animal rights issues through a focus on a feral cat colony that has survived on a rocky, seaside jetty in Southern California for decades. There is an ongoing debate over feral cat colonies involving advocates who support the trap, neuter, and return -- or "TNR" -- model of management, and those who argue that trapping and euthanizing the cats is more humane. This documentary’s point-of-view supports the TNR model and the related “no-kill” animal shelter policy, and features an exclusive interview with Richard Avanzino, the "Father" of the no-kill movement.

Animals

Government

Activism

Descended: The Fight for Harris Neck

The documentary film “Descended: The Fight for Harris Neck” explores an ongoing land battle in Harris Neck, Georgia. In 1942 the U.S. war department seized 2,687 acres of land from a self-reliant community of seventy-five African American families. Since 1962 the land has been a national wildlife refuge. The film seeks to answer the pivotal question: How has a community been shaped by its common goal to reclaim their land?

Social Justice

Government

Nature

THE SPRAYER

In the land occupied with the sprayers army, no one has the right to grow any kind of plants either in public or private. So many of the people and soldiers do not even know how a plant grows or looks like, until one day one of the soldiers finds a seed buried deep down in the dust and his curiosity is just the beginning of something extraordinary, something big, something revolutionary.

Plants

CO2

Animation

Lake Victoria: An Ecosystem in Turmoil

Decades of mismanagement, environmental changes and a burgeoning population have created tensions for the 40 million people living on the shores of the world's second largest freshwater lake, Lake Victoria. Desperate fishermen use illegal nets and overfish the East African lake's dwindling stocks, while many fishermen have had to turn to other forms of work - much of which has a detrimental impact on the health of the lake and its residents. Lake Victoria: An Ecosystem in Turmoil follows some of those trying to eek out a living on the lake: a Kenyan fisherman who illegally crosses the border into Uganda in the search for fish; a Ugandan who gave up fishing to become a palm oil farmer; and a Tanzanian gold miner using mercury with his bare hands to extract the precious mineral from unregulated mines on the lake's shores. But how well do they comprehend the pressure that they’re putting on the lake, and can the regional governments and communities take action before irreversible damage happens?

Land Use

Water

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‘This is not free will’: Prince Harry blames social media for youth ‘epidemic’

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Could a ban on sea farms save Canada’s salmon?

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Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
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