The Marshall Islands, an atoll-nation vulnerable to sea level rise from climate change, announced steps Monday toward an ambitious plan to cut its greenhouse emissions to zero by 2050.

The Pacific country became the first small island nation to present such a strategy to the United Nations amid increasing interest from governments worldwide toward eliminating planet-warming emissions in a bid to curb man-made climate change.

“If we can do it so can you,” Hilda Heine, Marshall Islands president, said at an event on the sidelines of the annual U.N. summit that featured a handful of heads of small island nations.

The announcement came as more than 150 heads of state and government gathered on Monday for the annual United Nations General Assembly.

Heine upped the pressure on world leaders to go beyond current pledges to reduce their heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions as agreed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

“I challenge you all to develop your own vision to fully decarbonize by 2050,” she told an audience of climate policymakers and advocates brought together by U.S. nonprofit The Climate Group.

Worldwide, nine other countries have so far unveiled long-term plans to completely eradicate carbon emissions at home, from Britain to France and the United States under the administration of former U.S. president Barack Obama.

Since then, the United States has become the only country to announce its intention to withdraw from the Paris pact, following a decision by President Donald Trump last year.

The Paris accord aims to limit the rise in global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), and ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius, with a sweeping goal of ending the fossil fuel era this century.

Aseem Prakash, founding director of the University of Washington’s Center for Environmental Politics, said the Marshall Islands’ move spoke to a growing trend around carbon neutrality by cities, companies, and now countries.

Cities, regions and companies, including Indian conglomerate Mahindra and the state of California, made similar carbon-zero commitments in the run-up and at a global climate summit held in San Francisco earlier this month.

The announcement was charged with symbolism, said Prakash, with the Marshall Islands contributing less than 0.00001 percent of the global total of emissions.

The Marshall Islands’ net-zero strategy, in addition to seeking to slow climate change in the transport, electricity and waste sector, stresses the need to invest into adapting to freak weather events linked to global warming, from hurricanes to floods, said Heine.

At the event, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pledged $300 million over four years to help Pacific countries set up defenses to ward off the impact of climate change.

“The challenge of climate change requires us to look beyond our domestic borders,” she said in a news release.
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Thousands of scientists joined on Monday to accuse the Trump administration of trying to erode the Endangered Species Act in favor of commercial interests with a plan to revamp regulations that have formed a bedrock of U.S. wildlife protection for over 40 years.

The extraordinary critique of the administration’s proposal, which was unveiled in July, came in an open letter addressed to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from three associations representing 9,000 professional biologists.

A separate letter similarly condemning revisions proposed to endangered species policies was signed by 273 leading university scientists from around the country.

Both came as the 60-day public comment period drew to a close for what would be the most sweeping overhaul in decades of the rules implementing the landmark environmental law.

The 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA) currently protects more than 1,600 species of U.S. animals and plants listed as either endangered — on the brink of extinction — or threatened — deemed likely to become extinct in the foreseeable future.

The ESA is credited with a number of high-profile success stories, including the comeback of the American bald eagle, the California condor and the grizzly bear.

But the act has long been controversial for requiring the government to designate “critical habitat” deemed essential to a listed species’ survival and limiting commercial activities there, such as construction, mining, energy development or logging.

Developers and other critics argue that such restrictions pose an unfair and overly burdensome intrusion on property rights and economic activity.

Under the administration’s proposal, the government would end the practice of automatically treating endangered species and threatened species essentially the same.

The plan also calls for initially evaluating a species’ critical habitat on the basis of its current range, rather than according to the larger area it could be expected to occupy once recovered.

The administration has argued its proposal would enhance wildlife protection by building greater support for a statute that has become outdated and by streamlining the regulatory process.

Scientists, however, said the planned revisions would undermine the ESA and drive some wildlife closer to extinction.

One proposed change, they said, to allow consideration of economic factors when assessing a species’ status, would violate the law’s requirement that safeguards hinge solely on science.

“This is completely disastrous for efforts to save species from extinction,” said Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecology professor at Duke University.

A spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Brian Hires, said the agency encourages “input on our proposed ESA regulatory changes from all stakeholders as part of a robust and transparent public process.”
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Archaeologists searching Portugal’s coast have found a 400-year-old shipwreck believed to have sunk near Lisbon after returning from India laden with spices, specialists said on Monday.

“From a heritage perspective, this is the discovery of the decade,” project director Jorge Freire said. “In Portugal, this is the most important find of all time.”

In and around the shipwreck, 40 feet (12 meters) below the surface, divers found spices, nine bronze cannons engraved with the Portuguese coat of arms, Chinese ceramics and cowry shells, a type of currency used to trade slaves during the colonial era.

Found on Sept. 3 off the coast of Cascais, a resort town on the outskirts of Lisbon, the shipwreck and its objects were “very well-preserved,” said Freire.

Freire and his team believe the ship was wrecked between 1575 and 1625, when Portugal’s spice trade with India was at its peak.

In 1994, Portuguese ship Our Lady of the Martyrs was discovered near Fort of Sao Juliao da Barra, a military defense complex near Cascais.

“For a long time, specialists have considered the mouth of the Tagus river a hotspot for shipwrecks,” said Minister of Culture Luis Mendes. “This discovery came to prove it.”

The wreck was found as part of a 10-year-old archaeological project backed by the municipal council of Cascais, the navy, the Portuguese government and Nova University of Lisbon.
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U.S. researchers are reporting progress in helping those paralyzed by spinal cord injuries to stand, and even to take steps.

Two teams of medical researchers working separately say an electrical implant that stimulates the spinal cord allowed three paralyzed patients to stand and move forward while they held on to a walker or were supported from the back.

One patient was able to walk the length of a football field.

“Recovery can happen if you have the right circumstances,” University of Louisville professor Susan Harkema said, adding that the spinal cord can “relearn to do things.”

Experts say that a damaged spinal cord leaves the brain unable to send messages to the nerves that activate the muscles.

The researchers believe those nerves are still alive, but are asleep.

Stimulating them with electricity, along with intense rehabilitation, can wake up those sleeping nerves and enable them to receive commands again.

Other earlier treatments using electricity allowed patients to stand and move their toes, but not walk.

But the researchers say this is not a cure for paralysis, and caution that it may not work on every patient. They say more study is needed.

Reports on the new therapy appear in the New England Journal of Medicine and the journal Nature Medicine.
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Scientists have succeeded in wiping out a population of caged mosquitoes in laboratory experiments using a type of genetic engineering known as a gene drive, which spread a modification blocking female reproduction.

The researchers, whose work was published Monday in the journal Nature Biotechnology, managed to eliminate the population in less than 11 generations, suggesting the technique could be used to control the spread of malaria, a parasitic disease carried by Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes.

“It will still be at least five to 10 years before we consider testing any mosquitoes with gene drive in the wild, but now we have some encouraging proof that we’re on the right path,” said Andrea Crisanti, a professor at Imperial College London who co-led the work.

The results mark the first time this technology has been able to completely suppress a population. The hope is that in future, mosquitoes carrying a gene drive could be released, spreading female infertility within local malaria-carrying mosquito populations and causing them to collapse.

Gene drive technologies alter DNA and drive self-sustaining genetic changes through multiple generations by overriding normal biological processes.

The technique used in this study was designed to target the specific mosquito species Anopheles gambiae that is responsible for malaria transmission in sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Health Organization has warned that global progress against malaria is stalling and could be reversed if momentum in the fight to wipe it out was lost.

The disease infected around 216 million people worldwide in 2016 and killed 445,000 of them. The vast majority of malaria deaths are in babies and young children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Crisanti’s team designed their gene drive to selectively alter a region of a so-called “doublesex gene” in the mosquitoes, which is responsible for female development.

Males who carried this modified gene showed no changes, and neither did females with only one copy of it, he explained in the study. But females with two copies of the modified gene showed both male and female characteristics — they failed to bite and did not lay eggs.

The experiments found the gene drive transmitted the genetic modification nearly 100 percent of the time, and after 7 to 11 generations the populations collapsed due to lack of offspring.

Crisanti said the results showed that gene drive solutions can work, offering “hope in the fight against a disease that has plagued mankind for centuries.”

He added, however, that “there is still more work to be done, both in terms of testing the technology in larger lab-based studies and working with affected countries to assess the feasibility of such an intervention.”
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Researchers at the European Space Agency are preparing for a historic trip. They say their Solar Orbiter, a modified spacecraft built to withstand the heat, will travel closer to the sun than ever before, which may help scientists study the buildup of solar storms. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Fatal drug overdoses increased to a record 4,854 last year in Ohio, a 20 percent rise compared with the previous year, according to information reported to the state.

Data on unintentional drug deaths provided to the Ohio Department of Health show 2017 was the eighth year in a row that drug deaths increased, The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday. Ohio’s county coroners logged 4,050 fatal overdoses in 2016.

The newspaper’s review of the data shows the synthetic opioid fentanyl continued to fuel the drug epidemic, accounting for nearly three-fourths of last year’s overdose deaths and killing 3,431 people. That was 46 percent higher than in the previous year. Cocaine-related deaths increased 39 percent from 1,109 in 2016 to 1,540 last year.

Positive news shown by the data included a 46 drop in heroin deaths to 987 last year for the fewest deaths in four years.

Fatal overdoses from prescription opioids also fell in 2017 to 523. That was the lowest number in eight years, down from a peak of 724 deaths in 2011, the newspaper reported.

Russ Kennedy, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health, says while review of the data confirms fentanyl is “driving overdose deaths in the state,” Ohio also is seeing “significant progress in reducing the number of prescription opioids available for abuse.”

Kennedy confirmed Sunday that the health department expects to release its own analysis of 2017 drug deaths this week. He also noted that the information shows the number of unintentional overdose deaths in Ohio declined during the second half of 2017 by 23 percent.

A recent state report on drug trends stated that “drug cartels have flooded Ohio” with fentanyl, and many users don’t realize they’ve taken the opioid because it’s being cut into heroin and cocaine and even “pressed” into prescription opioids.

“Drug dealers are flooding communities with different drugs to see what takes. They are very smart businesspeople,” said Lori Criss, chief executive officer of the Ohio Council of Behavioral Health & Family Services Providers.

Cheri Walter, chief executive officer of the Ohio Association of County Behavioral Health Authorities, said the state’s death toll was high, but could have been much worse.

“The reality is, we’ve focused on opioids and heroin, and now we’re seeing more deaths involving other drugs, so we’ve got to (broaden our) focus on treatment” for all kinds of addiction, Walter said.

Gov. John Kasich’s administration is spending more than $1 billion a year to fight the drug epidemic, most of it to provide addiction treatment though Medicaid expansion. The state also is investing in providing the opioid-overdose antidote, naloxone, to first responders and others and in supporting efforts including drug courts, housing for recovering addicts and educational programs.
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At least 14 civilians were killed on Saturday in a six-hour attack by rebels on the town of Beni in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials told Reuters, warning the unrest may hamper efforts to quash an Ebola epidemic in the area.

The latest outbreak of the deadly disease has been focused in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which have been a tinder box of armed rebellion and ethnic killing since two civil wars in the late 1990s.

Militants believed to belong to the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan Islamist group active in eastern Congo, clashed with Congolese troops in Beni, a town of several hundred thousand people, local civil society leader Kizito Bin Hangi said by telephone.

“Beni is ungovernable this morning. Several protests have been declared in the town where the people express their anger with consternation,” he said.

In addition to the known fatalities, dozens of civilians were wounded as they fled the violence, which broke out in the early hours of Saturday evening and lasted until midnight, Bin Hangi added.

A spokesman for the army declined immediate comment.

The attack underscores the challenges the government and health organizations face in tackling Ebola in an area where years of instability has undermined locals’ confidence in the authorities.

The violence “will have a considerable impact on the whole response to Ebola,” a local public health official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“The general hospital which houses one of the Ebola treatment centers was the focus of angry protests this morning.

This is a normal reaction for a community that is bereaved for the umpteenth time,” the official said.

The latest Ebola outbreak, which causes hemorrhagic fever, vomiting and diarrhea, is believed to have killed 99 people since July and infected another 48.
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A former Afghan refugee turned doctor in the United Kingdom is using technology and the web to save lives in war-torn and low income countries. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo has more on what the doctor has dubbed “Teleheal,” the charitable organization he recently founded.
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Plastic pollution floating in our seas is creating huge environmental hazards, polluting our oceans and killing animals like seabirds and marine life. But a new study shows young turtles, in particular, are at a higher risk of dying from eating ocean-borne plastic because it doesn’t take a lot of plastic to kill them. VOA’s Deborah Block more.
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What makes food organic and what does the “USDA organic” label really mean? VOA’s Mariia Prus visited a certified organic farm in southern Maryland to find out more and spoke to some consumers about why they prefer organically grown products. Joy Wagner narrates for VOA reporter Mariia Prus in Saint Mary’s County.
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The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports a growing number of children in eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo orphaned by the Ebola outbreak in the region are at risk of stigmatization and abandonment.

UNICEF reports a number of children have died from the disease. Others, it says, have lost one or both parents to Ebola or have been left to fend for themselves while their parents are confined in Ebola treatment centers.

UNICEF spokesman, Christophe Boulierac, says his and other aid agencies so far have identified 155 children who have been orphaned or separated from their parents with no one to care for them.  He says these children are extremely vulnerable.

“Children who lose a parent due to Ebola are at risk of being stigmatized, isolated or abandoned, in addition to the experience of losing a loved one or primary caregiver.”  

Boulierac says UNICEF worries about the physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing of these orphaned and separated children.  He says his agency is tailoring its assistance programs to meet the specific needs of each individual child.

“For instance, a new-born who has lost his mother has different needs than a school-aged child.  Our support to an orphaned or unaccompanied child typically includes psycho-social care, food and material assistance, and support to reintegrate into school,” Boulierac said.   

Ebola was declared on August 1 in the DRC’s conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces.   This is the 10th outbreak in the DRC since Ebola was first identified in 1976.  Latest estimates by the World Health Organization find 147 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola in the eastern part of the country, including 97 deaths.

WHO reports progress is being made in limiting the spread of the deadly virus in some areas.  But, it warns the epidemic is far from over and much work to combat the disease lies ahead.

 
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Keith Green has an unusual fascination with vacant lots. Even on vacation.

Out for dinner in Shanghai one recent night, he came across a sight that stopped him short.

“Everyone else is taking pictures of the skyline,” he said. “I’m taking a picture of a vacant lot.”

​Scourge of abandoned property

Abandoned properties don’t attract many tourists. In Green’s hometown of Philadelphia, vacant lots attract crime, from dumping trash, tires and broken appliances to stashing weapons and drugs.

Green is leading an effort to rid Philadelphia of these blights in low-income communities.

It’s a massive job. The city has an estimated 40,000 vacant lots.

But Green is witnessing how a little green space can make a big difference in urban areas plagued with poverty and crime.

Recent studies published in major scientific journals have documented how the program Green heads is helping drive substantial reductions in gun violence and depression in some of the poorest parts of Philadelphia.

Before the shooting starts

Gina South co-wrote those studies. She’s an emergency department physician at the University of Pennsylvania. Since her residency on the trauma unit, she has wanted to do more to help the people from these neighborhoods before they came to her on stretchers.

“We took care of a lot of shooting victims and did a great job of treating their physical injuries,” she said, “but did little to nothing to think about what was causing them to come in as shooting victims to us in the first place.”

Several years ago, South became interested in the program Green directs at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, called Philadelphia LandCare. 

The program hires local landscapers to clear the trash and weeds from vacant lots, replace them with trees and grass, mow them twice a month, and surround them with fences with openings that invite people in.

Physical, emotional benefits

South said at first she was skeptical that it would do much for residents.

But the more she and her colleagues looked into it, the more positive results they found.

In one study, they found people’s heart rates declined as they walked past cleaned-up lots. That shows their stress levels are coming down, “a physiologic reaction happening in people’s bodies in response to what’s in their neighborhood environment,” she said.

Fighting crime with lawnmowers

The most significant results come from the group’s study of 541 vacant lots scattered across the city. They were divided into three groups. One got the full cleaning and greening treatment. One just got periodic trash pickups. One got nothing.

Around the cleaned and greened lots, crime declined by nearly 10 percent overall. In the poorest neighborhoods, gun crimes fell by 17 percent.

“Those are big effects,” said Northwestern University criminologist Wesley Skogan, who was not involved with the study.

Cleaning and greening vacant lots is “wiping out signs that nobody’s watching, nobody cares, nobody’s in charge,” he added.

It fits in with a concept called the “broken windows” theory. The idea is, disorder in the environment sends a signal that more disorder will be tolerated, including criminal behavior.

The theory became controversial as it evolved into “stop and frisk” policing, in which officers confront anyone they suspect may be up to no good.

Cleaning and greening “is much closer just to fixing the … window,” Skogan said.

South’s group also found that in the lowest-income neighborhoods, nearly 70 percent fewer people said they felt depressed.

It’s good for neighborhood morale, Skogan said. “It’s a sign that someone’s looking out for them. Someone’s paying attention.”

‘I didn’t think it would work’

The program is working better than even Green expected.

He had been doing community gardening with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society as the LandCare program was getting started in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“I was curious about the program. I didn’t think it would work,” he said.

At the time, he was planting flowers and shrubs and surrounding them with cyclone fences “to keep people out,” he said.

“This project was inviting people in. I was like, ‘That’s not going to work. People aren’t going to respect it.’”

“Then I started seeing people put picnic tables on it, putting garden areas in certain spots. They’re not destroying it,” he added. “Then I was like, ‘This can actually work.’ When I had the opportunity, I was all in.”

Green said each lot costs about $1,600 to treat and about $200 per year to maintain.

“It is a bargain,” South said.

However, Skogan would like to see research showing how it compares to other approaches.

“Probably nobody thought it was a bad idea to clean things up and put up fences,” he said. “It’s always a question of whether you do this versus something else. What this (research) says is, it’s not foolish.”

Green said he gets calls from officials across the country and the world asking how a little green space can help revive their neighborhoods.

He said he sees people’s mindsets changing in neighborhoods where he’s working. Kids don’t throw trash in the cleaned-up lots, he said. They pick it up.

That’s been satisfying enough, he said. “But when you start throwing (in) these numbers, like, gun violence is going down, and people’s heart rates are being reduced, people are exercising more in certain sections of Philadelphia, you’re just like, wow.”
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