Month: January 2022

The winter grassland fire that blew up along Colorado’s Front Range was rare, experts say, but similar events will be more common in the coming years as climate change warms the planet — sucking the moisture out of plants — suburbs grow in fire-prone areas and people continue to spark destructive blazes.

“These fires are different from most of the fires we’ve been seeing across the West, in the sense that they’re grass fires and they’re occurring in the winter,” said Jonathan Overpeck, a professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. “Ultimately, things are going to continue to get worse unless we stop climate change.”

Flames swept over drought-stricken grassy fields and neighborhoods northwest of Denver on Thursday with alarming speed, propelled by guests up to 105 mph (169 kph). Tens of thousands were ordered to flee with little notice.

“I came out of Whole Foods, which is about a half mile from ground zero, and felt like I had to jump in my car and make a dash for my life as the smoke and wind and nearby flames were engulfing the area,” Susie Pringle of Lafayette said in an email. “It was scary!”

Three people were missing as of Saturday and at least seven were injured but no deaths were reported. Officials estimated nearly 1,000 homes and other buildings were destroyed.

Many whose homes were spared remained without power while temperatures dropped to the single digits. The blaze burned at least 9.4 square miles (24 square kilometers).

The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, but experts say it’s clear what allowed it to spread so fast.

“With any snow on the ground, this absolutely would not have happened in the way that it did,” said Keith Musselman, a snow hydrologist in Boulder. “It was really the grass and the dry landscape that allowed this fire to jump long distances in a short period of time.”

Three ingredients were needed to start this fire: fuels, a warm climate and an ignition source, said Jennifer Balch, a fire scientist with the University of Colorado, Boulder. “And then you add a fourth ingredient, wind, and that’s when it became a disaster.”

Temperatures in Colorado between June and December were the warmest on record, Balch said. The grasses grew thick because they had a wet spring, but saw no moisture until snow flurries arrived Friday night. 

“All of Colorado is flammable, our grasses are flammable, our shrubs are flammable, our trees are flammable,” Balch said. “This is a dry landscape that is flammable for good chunks of the year, and those chunks of time are getting longer with climate change.”

The lesson learned throughout this event is that the “wildland-urban interface is way bigger than we thought it was,” Balch said. That means a wider area is under threat of wildfire.

That border area — where structures built by people meet undeveloped wildland prone to fire — has always been the foothills, she said. Fire-fighters in Boulder consider the interface west of Broadway, a busy road that passes through the center of town. But Thursday’s fire sparked east of that line, next to thousands of houses that have sprouted up on the east side of the Rockies since the 1990s, Balch said. 

“There were stretches between Denver and Fort Collins that had no development, but now it’s just like one long continuous development track,” Balch said. “And those homes are built with materials that are very flammable — wood siding, asphalt roofing.

“We need to completely rethink how we’re building homes.”

The other important change is understanding how these fires start in the first place, she said.

“There’s no natural source of ignition at this time of year. There’s no lightning,” she said. “It’s either going to be infrastructure-related or it’s going to be human caused.”

“The way we live in the landscape and our daily activities make us vulnerable,” she said.

Over the last two decades, 97% of wildfires were started by people, according to a recent study by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Causes have ranged from accidents at construction sites, to a car with a hot tailpipe, to tossed cigarettes.

“I like to say, we need Smokey Bear in the suburbs,” she said. “We need to be thinking about how our daily activities can contribute ignitions or sparks that start wildfires.”

Unless people stop climate change by cutting back on fossil fuels, wildfires will threaten communities, Overpeck said.

“There’s little doubt in my mind that the conditions conducive to really bad wildfire, whether it’s grass or forest, are only going to get worse,” he said.

As more people move to areas where wildfires occur, the threat goes up.

“We’re building towns and cities and infrastructure and so it’s just a matter of time before we have whole towns burning down like we had in California and events like this in Colorado.” 
…

Human rights advocates are welcoming what they see as increased U.S. attention to Chinese behavior in its volatile Tibet and Xinjiang regions, suggesting that lobbying by rights groups may have contributed to the surge of pressure on Beijing.

A law, a boycott and the appointment of a government official added up in late 2021 to increased U.S. resolve toward the restive Chinese regions, these advocates say.

The Muslim, ethnic Uyghur population in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China and ethnic Tibetans in a region of China’s Himalayas have sparred over the past half-century with the Communist government over freedom of worship and displays of their indigenous culture.

“Paying particular attention to the humanitarian crisis in East Turkestan [Xinjiang] is in America’s national interest and in line with American values and tradition to call to action whenever genocide and crimes against humanity occur, such as the case of Uyghurs,” said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress organization of exiled Uyghur groups.

“Much like the other countries in liberal democracies, Americans have this vow of ‘never again’ to allow vulnerable religious and ethnic groups subject to atrocity crimes like the Holocaust, and now the Uyghurs,” he said.

U.S. officials also are enmeshed in a nearly 4-year-old trade dispute with China as well as disagreements over Chinese territorial expansion in the seas around Asia and curbs on sharing advanced technology.

Multiple foreign governments, along with human rights advocates, say China has sent more than 1 million Uyghurs to detention camps. Beijing calls the compounds “vocational education centers” that are intended to stop the spread of religious extremism and terrorist attacks.

In Tibet, a religiously and ethnically non-Chinese region that China acquired in 1951, Beijing is increasing control over Buddhist monasteries and adding education in the Chinese language, not Tibetan. Critics of such policies are routinely detained and can receive long prison terms. 

In the past five years, Washington has called out China over its restrictions on anti-Beijing activism in Hong Kong and People’s Liberation Army flyovers in the airspace of Taiwan.

Mounting pressure

U.S. President Joe Biden cited China’s treatment of Uyghurs when announcing a diplomatic boycott this month of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

On Dec. 23, Biden signed into law the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The bill is meant to “ensure that goods made with forced labor” in Xinjiang do not enter the U.S. market. 

Targeting Tibet, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 20 designated Indian American human rights-focused undersecretary Uzra Zeya to serve concurrently as the U.S. special coordinator for Tibetan issues. 

Underscoring the human rights element, the U.S. special coordinator will lead efforts to “advance the human rights of Tibetans” and “help preserve their distinct religious, linguistic, and cultural identity,” the State Department website says. 

Legislators had urged Biden in early December to meet with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to ensure a place on his agenda for Tibetans’ rights.

Pressure on Biden?

Huang Kwei-bo, associate professor of diplomacy at National Chengchi University in Taipei, said in an interview that Biden’s focus on Tibet and Xinjiang is consistent with traditional U.S. policy, but may also have been prompted by “internal lobbying” from American human rights groups.

The labor centers are a “relatively new creation” established under Chen Quanguo, who took over in 2016 as the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, said Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington. Chen has also announced policies to limit Uyghur religious freedom. 

China replaced Chen this week in what Sun sees as a sign it wants to move beyond the labor camp policy he created in Xinjiang because the costs to Beijing’s international reputation outweigh the benefits.

Pema Doma, campaigns director at Students for a Free Tibet, credits communications from advocacy groups that warily watch China for the Biden government’s increased attention to Tibet and Xinjiang.

“It really is the bravery of human rights defenders, the ones that have survived through so much and still come out on the other side brave enough to keep speaking up against the Chinese government,” Doma told VOA.

Students for a Free Tibet wants Biden to oppose the forced assimilation of Tibetans and Uyghurs into Chinese culture, Doma said. Western nations can learn from their own histories of racial problems to prevent China from “brainwashing” Tibetans and Uyghurs.

“The Biden administration really has a responsibility to act differently than previous administrations,” she said. “It needs to break the mold, because China isn’t sitting around.”

China’s reaction

Chinese officials are rejecting now, as before, U.S. actions toward its western regions as interference. “I think China’s most recent tone is rather assertive, to say ‘don’t interfere in our domestic affairs,'” Huang said.

The official Xinhua News Service criticized the U.S. bill on sanctions against Xinjiang as “full of vicious lies” and “nothing but another desperate attempt to interfere in China’s internal affairs through ‘long-arm jurisdiction.'” 

 
…

Looking west from Hazel Mountain, Brad Kreps can see forested hills stretching to the Tennessee border and beyond, but it is the flat, denuded area in front of him he finds exciting.

Surface coal mining ended on this site several years ago. But with a clean-up underway, it is now being prepared for a new chapter in the region’s longstanding role as a major energy producer – this time from a renewable source: the sun.

While using former mining land to generate solar energy has long been discussed, this and five related sites are among the first projects to move forward in the coalfields of the central Appalachian Mountains, as well as nationally.

Backers say the projects could help make waste land productive and boost economic fortunes in the local area, part of a 250,000-acre (101,171-hectare) land purchase by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in 2019, one of its largest such acquisitions.

“There’s very little activity going on this land, so if we can bring in a new use like solar, we can bring tax revenue into these counties that are really trying to diversify their economies,” said Kreps, a TNC program director.

Besides creating a new source of green energy, the project offers a model for solar development that does not impinge on forests or farmland, he said.

TNC, a U.S.-based environmental nonprofit, has identified six initial sites for solar plants in the area and is now moving forward with projects on parcels covering about 1,700 acres.

The two companies that have bid to do the work – solar developer Sun Tribe and major utility Dominion Energy – estimate the projects could produce around 120 megawatts (MW) of electricity, potentially enough to power 30,000 homes.

Construction is expected to start in two or three years after pre-development work and permitting are completed.

“This is a ground-breaking model,” said Emil Avram, Dominion’s vice president of business development for renewables in Virginia.

Dominion believes it is the largest utility-scale renewable energy initiative to be developed on former coal mining land, and could be replicated elsewhere, Avram added.

Renewables targets

The U.S. government formally began looking at putting renewable energy installations on disturbed land – including mines, but also contaminated sites and landfills – in 2008.

Since then, the RE-Powering America’s Land program has mapped over 100,000 potential sites covering more than 44 million acres, and helped establish 417 installations producing 1.8 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, according to March data.

A toxic landfill site in New Jersey, for instance, now hosts a 6.5-MW solar installation, while a former steel mill in New York has been turned into a wind farm with capacity of 35 MW.

Yet on mine land, the work has so far been mostly limited to doing inventories and providing technical assistance, resulting in fewer than a half-dozen projects, said Nels Johnson, TNC’s North America director for energy.

That has stunted solar developers’ interest in mine land, he said – a knowledge gap he hopes the new projects can help fill, particularly amid a surging focus on meeting clean energy goals.

“After five to 10 years of almost nobody paying attention to this, there’s an awakening starting to take place,” he said. “As more and more states pass renewable energy commitments, it’s kind of a situation of the dog catching the car.”

Virginia, for instance, has a 2020 clean energy bill that, among other things, pushes for Dominion Energy’s electricity in the state to be carbon-free by 2045.

There are about 100,000 acres affected by coal mining in southwest Virginia alone, said Daniel Kestner, who manages the Innovative Reclamation Program for the state’s energy department.

“Reusing land like former coal mines makes a lot of sense instead of looking at prime farmland … or lands near populated areas where there may be conflict,” he said.

Kestner’s team is now exploring renewable energy development as an approved option for required post-mining reclamation work.

‘LIFE AFTER COAL’

Appalachia had harbored a deep-rooted skepticism toward renewable energy, said Adam Wells, regional director of community and economic development with Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit that works in former coal communities.

But recent years have seen a turnaround, he noted, with the recognition that the coal industry – the region’s longstanding main economic driver – will not return to its former strength.

Across the country, the number of coal mines dropped by 62% from 2008 to 2020, based on U.S. government figures, translating into a loss of 100,000 jobs since the mid-1980s, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

Starting around 2015, Wells said, “it became necessary to talk about what life after coal looks like in Appalachia. And so, as a result, it became safe to talk about solar.”

While the number of jobs from utility-scale solar development does not compare to coal-industry jobs, he said, it could still be significant.

“It does generate notable and meaningful tax revenues for localities at a time of declining revenues from coal,” he added.

For now, communities are watching the shift with a “wait-and-see” attitude, he said.

Dominion Energy’s 50-MW project is the largest of the six local solar initiatives now underway.

While Dominion does not have job and tax revenue estimates for that project, it noted in a recent regulatory filing that 15 newly proposed solar projects across Virginia would generate more than $880 million in economic benefits and support almost 4,200 jobs associated with construction.

The company is under major pressure to increase solar production and is planning for an additional 16,000 MW by 2035, executive Avram said, requiring new capacity of about 1,000 MW annually through that date.

“That will require a fair amount of land – a thousand acres per project, roughly,” he said.

While the initial mine-land project in southwestern Virginia is relatively small, he said, it is an important “stepping stone” in learning how to work on previously disturbed sites.

TNC’s Kreps sees much more opportunity, literally on the horizon.

“There’s hundreds of thousands of acres like this across the region – and in many cases, right now they aren’t creating a lot of economic value,” he said.

His organization, he added, aims to demonstrate “that we can manage these lands for nature outcomes and people outcomes.” 
…

Prince Andrew’s effort to immediately block the progression of a lawsuit by a woman who says he sexually assaulted her when she was 17 — on the grounds that she no longer lives in the U.S. — was rejected by a federal judge as oral arguments were set to proceed Monday on the prince’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, in a written order Friday, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought in August by Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre says she was abused by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein. The prince’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, has called the lawsuit baseless.

The order was filed three days before the scheduled public release Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre. Lawyers for Andrew say that the agreement protects the prince from claims like those brought by Giuffre and will be sufficient grounds for the lawsuit’s dismissal.

The prince’s lawyers had claimed that the evidence was so strong that Giuffre does not reside in the United States that it was pointless to exchange evidence until that question is resolved because it could result in the lawsuit’s dismissal.

They argued that Giuffre has lived in Australia for all but two of the past 19 years, has an Australian driver’s license and lives in a $1.9 million home in Perth, Western Australia, where she has been raising three children with her husband, who is Australian.

In a statement, Giuffre attorney Sigrid McCawley called the request to halt the case “another in a series of tired attempts by Prince Andrew to duck and dodge the legal merits of the case Virginia Giuffre has brought against him. All parties in litigation are subject to discovery and Prince Andrew is no exception.”

Kaplan, in a one-page order, noted that the prince’s lawyers have requested that extensive materials be turned over by Giuffre by Jan. 14, including documents related to where she has lived. And he said the prince’s attorneys have not yet formally raised to the defense that the lawsuit cannot proceed on the grounds that Giuffre has been living in Australia rather than Colorado, where her lawyers say she is a resident.

His order expressed no opinion on the merits of the prince’s claims that Giuffre should be disqualified from suing because she lives in Australia.

Oral arguments via a video teleconference on the prince’s request to dismiss the case are scheduled for Monday morning.

In October, the prince’s lawyers attacked the lawsuit on multiple grounds, saying Giuffre had made false claims against Andrew because he “never sexually abused or assaulted” her.

“Giuffre has initiated this baseless lawsuit against Prince Andrew to achieve another payday at his expense and at the expense of those closest to him. Epstein’s abuse of Giuffre does not justify her public campaign against Prince Andrew,” the written arguments said.

Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

His former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, was convicted Wednesday of charges including sex trafficking and conspiracy after a monthlong trial.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they choose to come forward publicly, as Giuffre has. 
…

The United States on Saturday cut Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea from access to a duty-free trade program, following through on President Joe Biden’s threat to do so over accusations of human rights violations and recent coups.

“The United States today terminated Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea from the AGOA trade preference program due to actions taken by each of their governments in violation of the AGOA Statute,” the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said in a statement.

Biden said in November that Ethiopia would be cut off from the duty-free trading regime provided under the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) because of alleged human rights violations in the Tigray region, while Mali and Guinea were targeted because of recent coups.

The suspension of benefits threatens Ethiopia’s textile industry, which supplies global fashion brands, and the country’s nascent hopes of becoming a light manufacturing hub. It also piles more pressure on an economy reeling from the conflict, the coronavirus pandemic, and high inflation.

“The Biden-Harris administration is deeply concerned by the unconstitutional change in governments in both Guinea and Mali, and by the gross violations of internationally recognized human rights being perpetrated by the government of Ethiopia and other parties amid the widening conflict in northern Ethiopia,” the trade office statement said.

The AGOA trade legislation provides sub-Saharan African nations with duty-free access to the United States if they meet certain eligibility requirements, such as eliminating barriers to U.S. trade and investment and making progress toward political pluralism.

“Each country has clear benchmarks for a pathway toward reinstatement and the administration will work with their governments to achieve that objective,” it added.

The Washington embassies of the three African countries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ethiopia’s Trade Ministry said in November it was “extremely disappointed” by Washington’s announcement, saying the move would reverse economic gains and unfairly impact and harm women and children.
…

Colorado authorities were searching Saturday for two people reported missing from a wind-whipped winter-season wildfire in Denver’s suburbs that destroyed hundreds of homes and left thousands of people trying to salvage what belongings they could from the fast-moving blaze.

Authorities had said earlier no one was missing in the area hit by Thursday’s blaze, but Boulder County spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said Saturday they were now trying to find two people who were later reported as unaccounted for after sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and other officials located hundreds of people who initially were reported missing. She declined to provide details on the two, where they were last seen, or efforts to find them, and attributed the error to confusion inherent when agencies are scrambling to manage an emergency.

The news came as an overnight dumping of snow and frigid temperatures Saturday compounded the misery of hundreds of Colorado residents who started off the new year trying to salvage what remains of their homes.

At least 6 inches (0.15 meters) of snow and temperatures in the single digits cast an eerie scene amid the still-smoldering remains of homes destroyed in Thursday’s wildfire that raced through the suburban area that lies between Denver and Boulder. Despite the shocking change in weather, the smell of smoke still permeated empty streets blocked off by National Guard troops in Humvees.

For the thousands of residents whose homes survived the conflagration, Red Cross shelter volunteers distributed electric space heaters as utility crews struggled to restore natural gas and electricity.

At least seven people were injured in the wildfire that erupted in and around Louisville and Superior, neighboring towns about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Denver with a combined population of 34,000. More than 500 homes were feared destroyed.

The blaze, which burned at least 9.4 square miles (24 square kilometers), was no longer considered an immediate threat.

Families forced to flee the flames with little warning began returning to their neighborhoods Friday to find a patchwork of devastation. On some blocks, homes reduced to smoking ruins stood next to ones practically unscathed by the fires.

“For 35 years I walked out my front door, I saw beautiful homes,” Eric House said. “Now when I walk out, my home’s standing. I walk out my front door and this is what I see.”

Cathy Glaab found that her home in Superior had been turned into a pile of charred and twisted debris. It was one of seven houses in a row that were destroyed.

“The mailbox is standing,” Glaab said, trying to crack a smile through tears. She added sadly, “So many memories.”

Despite the devastation, she said they intend to rebuild the house she and her husband have had since 1998. They love that the land backs up to a natural space, and they have a view of the mountains from the back.

Rick Dixon feared there would be nothing to return to after he saw firefighters try to save his burning home on the news. On Friday, Dixon, his wife and son found it mostly gutted with a gaping hole in the roof but still standing.

“We thought we lost everything,” he said, as he held his mother-in-law’s china in padded containers. They also retrieved sculptures that belonged to Dixon’s father and piles of clothes still on hangers.

As the flames swept over drought-stricken neighborhoods with alarming speed, propelled by guests up to 105 mph (169 kph), tens of thousands were ordered to flee.

The cause of the blaze was under investigation. Emergency authorities said utility officials found no downed power lines around where the fire broke out.

With some roads still closed, people walked back to their homes to get clothes or medicine, turn the water off to prevent the pipes from freezing, or see if they still had a house. They left carrying backpacks and pulling suitcases or wagons down the sidewalk.

David Marks stood on a hillside overlooking Superior with others, using a pair of binoculars and a long-range camera lens to see if his house, and those of his neighbors, were still there, but he couldn’t tell for sure whether his place was OK. He said at least three friends lost their homes.

He had watched from the hillside as the neighborhood burned.

“I’ve never seen anything like that. … Just house after house, fences, just stuff flying through the air, just caught on fire.”

President Joe Biden on Friday declared a major disaster in the area, ordering federal aid be made available to those affected.

The wildfire broke out unusually late in the year, following an extremely dry fall and amid a winter nearly devoid of snow until the overnight snowfall.

Pelle said more than 500 homes were probably destroyed. He and Gov. Jared Polis said as many as 1,000 homes might have been lost, though that won’t be known until crews can assess the damage.

Superior and Louisville are filled with middle- and upper-middle-class subdivisions with shopping centers, parks and schools. The area is between Denver and Boulder, home to the University of Colorado. 

Scientists say climate change is making weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

Ninety percent of Boulder County is in severe or extreme drought, and it hadn’t seen substantial rainfall since mid-summer. Denver set a record for consecutive days without snow before it got a small storm on Dec. 10, its last snowfall before the wildfires broke out.

Bruce Janda faced the loss of his Louisville home of 25 years in person Friday.

“We knew that the house was totaled, but I felt the need to see it, see what the rest of the neighborhood looked like,” he said. “We all know each other and we all love each other. It’s hard to see this happen to all of us.” 
…

A new year brings a new mayor for New York City and new laws in many of the 50 U.S. states. 

Democrat Eric Adams was elected in November to be the next leader of the largest city in the United States. He succeeds Bill de Blasio, who served two terms as mayor, beginning in 2014. 

An inauguration ceremony planned for Saturday was postponed because of the rise in cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19. 

On the other side of the country, the city of Seattle is getting a new mayor as well, with Bruce Harrell assuming the post Saturday. 

Among the many new laws going into effect at the state level are increases in the minimum wage in a number of states, including California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New Mexico. 

Such laws are the result of legislation approved by state legislatures and governors, and in some cases, the minimum wage increases will go into effect in stages over the course of several years. 

Animal rights, voting rights 

Virginia has a new law preventing cosmetics companies from testing their products on animals. 

In Washington state, people who have served prison time for felony crimes now regain their right to vote as soon as they leave prison. 

Nevada is making it easier for people to cast their votes by mail with a new law requiring that all registered voters receive a ballot by mail for each election.

Helping others 

A new Texas law provides property tax exemptions for certain charity groups that provide housing or other aid to people experiencing homelessness. 

In Illinois, people who work at restaurants and truck stops will receive required training to help them identify potential instances of human trafficking and report suspected cases to authorities. 

A New Hampshire law strengthens penalties against people convicted of multiple offenses of drunken driving in cases where they harm or kill someone. 

A new law in Colorado will make it easier for people who were victims of sexual assault as children to report their assaults, removing the existing statute of limitations for prosecuting such lawsuits. 

Health, wellness 

The state of Connecticut is enacting caps on how much people pay for insulin and other diabetes management supplies. 

Montana is joining the states that allow recreational sales of marijuana. It will be legal in parts of the state where a majority of voters approved it. 

In Pennsylvania, the city of Philadelphia is banning employers from conducting pre-employment testing for marijuana. 

And in Missouri, health insurance providers must make coverage available for certain mental health conditions as part of their plans. 

 
…

Five Virginia jurisdictions have joined a growing trend across America of taxing plastic shopping bags in hopes of reducing and eventually eliminating their use. 

The bags, designed as single-use items, are among the most common forms of litter, polluting land and waterways alike and constituting a substantial portion of the nation’s plastic waste. 

Slow to decompose and made from petroleum products, the bags pose myriad dangers even when disposed of properly. 

Over time, the plastic may discharge harmful chemicals into drinking water supplies or threaten marine animals and other wildlife that think it is food. 

The mid-Atlantic state of Virginia allows any county or city to force grocery stores, pharmacies and other retailers to collect a 5-cent tax on every plastic bag provided to shoppers. Arlington and Fairfax counties, along with the cities of Alexandria, Fredericksburg and Roanoke, have done just that beginning January 1. 

First ban in Bangladesh

Taking a stand against plastic bags didn’t originate in the United States. 

In 2002, Bangladesh became the first country to ban thin plastic bags, which were blamed for clogging drainage systems and contributing to catastrophic flooding. 

Other countries followed suit, either banning them outright or taxing them to discourage their use, which ballooned to a million bags per minute worldwide in 2011, according to the United Nations.

According to World Atlas, about 60 countries have instituted plastic bag controls, including China, India and Cambodia. Several African countries have banned them, including Kenya, Cameroon, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Despite such efforts, plastic bags continue to litter the globe, from oceans to the polar ice caps to even the summit of Mount Everest.

In the United States, California was the first to pass a statewide ban in 2014. Since then, several other states, including Hawaii, New York and Oregon, have banned single-use plastic bags.

Support is growing in the U.S. as more local governments join the cause. 

But not everyone is on board, notably the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance, a lobbying group representing the U.S. plastic bag manufacturing and recycling industry.

“Taxes on plastic bags will drive up costs for consumers already struggling with rapidly increasing grocery bills due to widespread inflation,” Zachary Taylor, the group’s director, said in a statement to VOA. When disposed of properly, the plastic grocery bag is the carryout bag with the fewest environmental impacts, he asserted.

Local issue

However, Ruthie Cody, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, supports allowing local jurisdictions to implement bag taxes. 

“I don’t think it should be mandatory nationwide but something local governments should decide,” she said, “and the tax is minimal for the everyday consumer, but still effects change.” 

By contrast, Linda Joy Wilson, a Fairfax County resident, thinks the tax should be standard across the country. “I’ve lived in other states with the plastic bag tax and have noticed that it cuts down on plastic bags usage and people bring their own single-use disposable plastic bags in grocery, drug and convenience stories,” she said. 

The counties of Arlington and Fairfax and the city of Alexandria plan to use the income generated from the bag tax to fund environmental cleanup projects, pollution and litter mitigation, and education programs.

“We expect there might be some resistance to the tax,” Kate Daley, an environmental analyst for the Fairfax County government, told VOA. “But we’ve also seen a lot of enthusiasm from people who believe it will make a big difference in protecting the environment and help curb pollution in streams, trees and roadways.”

“I wish it had happened sooner,” said Patty Hagan, a Fairfax County resident. “Everyone should use reusable bags.”

Another county resident, David Toms, agreed. “But I think they need to ban the plastic bags altogether since they harm wildlife. I live on a lake and it’s disgusting how frequently I see them in the water.” 

But Paul Thurmond in Arlington, Virginia, doesn’t think the tax will make a big difference. “People who want the bags will buy them anyway and then just throw them out, which seems to defeat the purpose,” he said. 

The goal is to “get people not to use the plastic bags” or refrain from throwing them on the ground, said Erik Grabowsky, solid waste bureau chief for Arlington, Virginia. “It’s up to individuals to do the right thing.”
…

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday asked AT&T and Verizon Communications to delay the planned Jan. 5 introduction of new 5G wireless service over aviation safety concerns.

In a letter Friday seen by Reuters, Buttigieg and FAA Administrator Steve Dickson asked AT&T Chief Executive John Stankey and Verizon Chief Executive Hans Vestberg for a delay of no more than two weeks as part of a “proposal as a near-term solution for advancing the co-existence of 5G deployment in the C-Band and safe flight operations.”

The aviation industry and FAA have raised concerns about potential interference of 5G with sensitive aircraft electronics like radio altimeters that could disrupt flights.

“We ask that your companies continue to pause introducing commercial C-Band service for an additional short period of no more than two weeks beyond the currently scheduled deployment date of January 5,” the letter says.

Verizon and AT&T both said they received the letter and were reviewing it. Earlier Friday the two companies accused the aerospace industry of seeking to hold C-Band spectrum deployment “hostage until the wireless industry agrees to cover the costs of upgrading any obsolete altimeters.”

Buttigieg and Dickson said under the framework “commercial C-band service would begin as planned in January with certain exceptions around priority airports.”

The FAA and the aviation industry would identify priority airports “where a buffer zone would permit aviation operations to continue safely while the FAA completes its assessments of the interference potential.”

The government would work to identify “mitigations for all priority airports” to enable most “large commercial aircraft to operate safely in all conditions.” That would allow deployment around “priority airports on a rolling basis,” aiming to ensure activation by March 31 barring unforeseen issues.

The carriers, which won the spectrum in an $80 billion government auction, previously agreed to precautionary measures for six months to limit interference.

On Thursday, trade group Airlines for America asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to halt deployment of new 5G wireless service around many airports, warning thousands of flights could be disrupted.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, representing 50,000 flight attendants at 17 airlines, called the Transportation Department proposal “the right move to successfully implement 5G without using the traveling public (and the crews on their flights) as guinea pigs for two systems that need to coexist without questions for safety.”

Wireless industry group CTIA said 5G is safe and spectrum is being used in about 40 other countries.

House Transportation Committee chair Peter DeFazio on Friday backed the airline group petition warning “we can’t afford to experiment with aviation safety.” 
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More canceled flights frustrated air travelers on the final day of 2021 and appeared all but certain to inconvenience hundreds of thousands more over the New Year’s holiday weekend. 

Airlines blamed many of the cancellations on crew shortages related to the spike in COVID-19 infections, along with wintry weather in parts of the United States. 

United Airlines, which suffered the most cancellations among the biggest U.S. carriers, agreed to pay pilot bonuses to fix a staffing shortage.

By early evening Friday on the East Coast, airlines had scrubbed more than 1,550 U.S. flights — about 6% of all scheduled flights — and roughly 3,500 worldwide, according to tracking service FlightAware.

That pushed the total U.S. cancellations since Christmas Eve to more than 10,000 and topped the previous single-day peak this holiday season, which was 1,520 on December 26. 

The disruptions come just as travel numbers climb higher going into the New Year’s holiday weekend. Since December 16, more than 2 million travelers a day on average have passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints, an increase of nearly 100,000 a day since November and nearly double last December. 

Led by Southwest and United, airlines have already canceled 1,500 U.S. flights on Saturday — about 700 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, where the forecast called for a winter storm — and 700 more on Sunday. 

Canceled flights began rising from a couple hundred a day shortly before Christmas, most notably for United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways. 

On Friday, United canceled more than 200 flights, or 11% of its schedule — and that did not include cancellations on the United Express regional affiliate. CommutAir, which operates many United Express flights, scrubbed one-third of its schedule, according to FlightAware. 

United decided to spend more money to fill empty cockpits. The airline reached a deal with the pilots’ union to pay 3.5 times normal wages to pilots who pick up extra trips through Monday and triple pay for flights between Tuesday and January 29, according to a memo from Bryan Quigley, United’s senior vice president for flight operations. 

JetBlue canceled more than 140 flights, or 14% of its schedule, and Delta grounded more than 100, or 5% of its flights by midday Friday. Allegiant, Alaska, Spirit and regional carriers SkyWest and Mesa all scrubbed at least 9% of their flights. 

FlightAware reported fewer cancellations at Southwest, 3%, and American, 2%. 

The virus is also hitting more federal air traffic controllers. The Federal Aviation Administration said that more of its employees have tested positive – it didn’t provide numbers Friday – which could lead controllers to reduce flight volumes and “might result in delays during busy periods.” 

While leisure travel within the U.S. has returned to roughly pre-pandemic levels, international travel remains depressed, and the government is giving travelers new cause to reconsider trips abroad. On Thursday, the State Department warned Americans that if they test positive for coronavirus while in a foreign country it could mean a costly quarantine until they test negative.

Since March 2020, U.S. airlines have received $54 billion in federal relief to keep employees on the payroll through the pandemic. Congress barred the airlines from furloughing workers but allowed them to offer incentives to quit or take long leaves of absence – and many did. The airlines have about 9% fewer workers than they had two years ago. 

Kurt Ebenhoch, a former airline spokesman and later a travel-consumer advocate, said airlines added flights aggressively, cut staff too thinly, and overestimated the number of employees who would return to work after leaves of absence. It was all done, he said, “in the pursuit of profit … and their customers paid for it, big time.” 

Many airlines are now rushing to hire pilots, flight attendants and other workers. In the meantime, some are trimming schedules that they can no longer operate. Southwest did that before the holidays, JetBlue is cutting flights until mid-January, and Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific is suspending cargo flights and reducing passenger flights because it doesn’t have enough pilots. 

Other forms of transportation are also being hammered by the surge in virus cases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that it is monitoring more than 90 cruise ships because of COVID-19 outbreaks. The health agency warned people not to go on cruises, even if they are fully vaccinated against the virus. 

The remnants of the delta variant and the rise of the new omicron variant pushed the seven-day rolling average of new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. above 350,000, nearly triple the rate of just two weeks ago, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. 

 
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