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While firefighters work to extinguish the Los Angeles-area wildfires, city officials and emergency managers are also worried about what could come next. Light rain began falling on January 25, 2025, helping firefighters who have been battling fires for nearly three weeks, but rain can also trigger dangerous floods and debris flows on burned hillslopes. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for the burned areas through Jan. 27. Debris flows can move with the speed of a freight train, picking up or destroying anything in their path. They can move tons of sediment during a single storm, as Montecito, just up the coast from Los Angeles, saw in 2018. What causes these debris flows, sometimes called mudflows, and why are they so common and dangerous after a fire? I am a geologist whose research focuses on pyrogeomorphology, which is how fire affects the land. Heres what we know. How debris flows begin When severe fires burn hillslopes, the high heat from the fires, sometimes exceeding 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (538 degrees Celsius), completely destroys trees, shrubs, grass, and structures, leaving behind a moonscape of gray ash. Not only that, the heat of the fire actually burns and damages the soil, creating a water-repellent, or hydrophobic, layer. What once was a vegetated hillslope, with leaves and trees to intercept rain and spongy soils to absorb water, is transformed into a barren landscape covered with ash, and burned soil where water cannot soak in. Illustrations show how fire can change the soil and landscape. [Photo: National Weather Service] When rain does fall on a burned area like this, water mixes with the ash, rocks, and sediment to form a slurry. This slurry of debris then pours downhill in small gullies called rills, which then converge to form bigger and bigger rills, creating a torrent of sediment, water, and debris rushing downhill. All this debris and water can transform small streams and usually dry gullies into a danger zone. Because the concentration of sediment is so high, especially when there is a large amount of ash and clay, debris flows behave more like a slurry of wet cement than a normal stream. This fluid can pick up and move large boulders, cars, trees, and other debris rapidly downhill. In January 2018, a few weeks after the Thomas fire burned through the hills above Montecito, a storm triggered debris flows that killed 23 people and damaged at least 400 homes. What controls size and timing of debris flows The geography of the land, burn severity, storm intensity, and soil characteristics all play important roles in if, when, and where debris flows occur. Fire and debris flow scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey use these variables to create models to predict the likelihood and possible hazards from postfire debris flows. They are already developing maps to help residents, emergency managers, and city officials prepare and predict postfire debris flows in 2025 burn areas in Los Angeles. The U.S. Geological Survey modeled debris flow risks after the Palisades Fire near Los Angeles. The map shows some of the highest-risk areas if hit by 15 minutes of rain falling at just under 1 inch (24 millimeters) per hour. [Photo: USGS] Some of the triggers of debris flows are literally part of the landscape. For example, the slope angle in a watershed and the amount of clay in the soil are important. Watersheds with gentle slopesgenerally less than about 23 degreesand a lack of clay and silt-sized particles are unlikely to produce debris flows. Other key factors that contribute to postfire debris flows relate to the proportion of the watershed that is severely burned and the intensity and duration of the rainstorm event. Early important research in the field of pyrogeomorphology demonstrated that while large, intense storms are more likely to cause large, intense debris flows, even small rainstorms can produce debris flows in burned areas. Debris flows are becoming more common A whopping 21.8 million Americans live within three milesof where a fire burned during the past two decades, and that population more than doubled from 2000 to 2019. A recent study from central and northern California indicates that nearly all the observed increases in area burned by wildfires in recent decades are due to human-caused climate change. The warming climate is also increasing the likelihood of more extreme downpours. The amount of moisture the atmosphere can hold increases by about 7% per degree Celsius of warming, leading to more intense downpours, particularly from ocean storms. In California, scientists project increases in rainfall intensity of 18% will result in an overall 110% increase in the probability of major debris flows. Studies using models of fire, climate, and erosion rates estimate that the amount of sediment flowing downhill after fires will increase by more than 10% in nine out of every 10 watersheds in the western U.S. Even without rain, debris on fire-damaged slopes can be unstable. A small slide in Pacific Palisades shortly after a fire burned through the area split a home in two. A phenomenon called dry ravel is a dominant form of hillslope erosion following wildfires in chaparral environments in Southern California Preparing for debris flow risks Research on charcoal pieces from ancient debris flows has shown fires and erosion have shaped Earths landscape for at least thousands of years. However, the rising risk of wildfires near populated areas and the potential for increasingly intense downpours mean a greater risk of damaging and potentially deadly debris flows. As their populations expand, community planners need to be aware of those risks and prepare. This article, originally published Jan. 23, 2025, has been updated with rainfall in Los Angeles. Jen Pierce is a professor of geosciences at Boise State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The three women in the painting stoop low in the field, their hands reaching for leftover stalks of wheat. Their bent figures dominate the foreground, emphasizing the physical toll of their labor. Jean-François Millets The Gleaners, painted in 1857, immortalized this act of necessity: gleaning, the collection of leftover crops after the harvest. Rooted in agrarian traditions, the term originates from the Old French glener and the Latin glennare, meaning to gather. For centuries, gleaning had been a lifeline for the rural poor in England and Francea legally recognized right that allowed them to enter fields after the harvest to collect what remained. French law enshrined it as a civil right in 1554, while in England, it was an unspoken agreement that reflected the feudal systems delicate balance between the privileged and the poor. But by the late 18th century, this precarious equilibrium began to unravel. The forces of privatization and industrialization swept through England, as Enclosure Acts transformed common lands into private property, barring access for the poor. In 1788, the landmark court case Steel v. Houghton shattered the custom of gleaning as a right, reclassifying it as trespass. Mechanization soon followed, with threshing machines and combine harvesters leaving less behind for gleaners to collect. By the mid-19th century, gleaning had faded into memory, a relic of premodern agrarian life overtaken by the relentless march of progress. And yet, Millets scene depicting the work of gathering what others have left behind is playing out once againnot as a relic, but as a response to the crises of food waste and poverty. In a potato field in Cornwall, England, volunteers sift through wooden crates, separating the good from the bruised, while others cut kale, filling sacks with leaves destined for community kitchens. Were feeding quite a lotabout 10,000 people a week, said Holly Whitelaw, the founder of Gleaning Cornwall. It might just be a couple of bits of vegetables, but its something healthy. The operation, run with the help of over 400 volunteers, relies on a patchwork of coordination via the online messaging platform WhatsApp, donated storage spaces, and sheer determination. Yet, Whitelaw notes, its far from enough: Big funding is needed to really do this properly. The need is increasing. At a time when 3.3 million metric tons of food are wasted annually on U.K. farms, the environmental and social costs of inaction are staggering. Rotting food releases methane, a greenhouse gas that is far more potent than carbon dioxide, and the resources used to grow that foodwater, energy, and landare wasted along with it. Tristram Stuart, the historian and activist who co-founded the Gleaning Network in 2011, of which Gleaning Cornwall is a part, envisioned the practice as a way to challenge British food waste at its source. Today, from Kent to Birmingham, gleaning groups are not just picking up produce but picking apart the unsustainable norms that allow waste to persist in the first place. The impact of this waste goes far beyond the visible rot in fields. Globally, nearly a third of all food produced is never eaten, and in the U.K., unharvested crops contribute an estimated 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually11% of the countrys agricultural emissions. Across the Atlantic, the problem plays out on an even larger scale. Laurie Beyranevand, the director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School in the U.S., highlights the strain on natural resources caused by overproduction. Here in the states, weve got mega farms out West using precious water resources during droughts to grow food that never makes it into the supply chain, she said. People say, Oh, itll get tilled back into the soil, but that doesnt account for the resources wasted in the processpesticides, labor, energyall of it has environmental costs. Across the U.K., gleaning has become a critical tool in the fight against food waste and poverty. Groups like the Sussex Gleaning Network organize teams to collect everything from carrots to cauliflowers, redistributing the rescued food to food banks and community projects like FareShare Sussex, which takes good-quality surplus food and provides it to people in need. The Gleaning Network as a whole has collaborated with over 60 farmers and 3,000 volunteers to save more than 500 metric tons of fruits and vegetables, ensuring that surplus produce is delivered quickly and safely to those who need it most. For Phil Holtam, the regional programs manager of Feedback Global, an organization that pushes for a more sustainable food system, the process begins long before harvest day. We recruit a team of volunteers and hire a van in advance, he explained. On the day, we meet at the farm around 10 a.m., go over health and safety, and then get to work. Once the produce is picked, its rushed to cold storage facilities to preserve its freshness. Gleaning volunteers can pick more in a day than a kitchen can process in a week, Holtam added, underscoring the scale of both the problem and the solution. For the volunteers in the fields, the work is urgent. And for the families they serve, its a lifeline. A volunteer takes part in an organized collection, traditionally known as gleaning,” of unharvested apples at Maynards fruit farm in September 2022 in Wadhurst, United Kingdom. [Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images/Grist] Food waste starts at the very source: the farm. Up to 16% of a crop can be wasted due to factors completely out of a farmers control. Supermarkets reject produce for being too wonky, too small, or the wrong color, said Sussex-based Holtam. Then theres unpredictable weather, labor shortagesits endless. Whats left in the fieldspotatoes, kale, zucchini, soft fruitrepresents a staggering waste of resources and an urgent environmental crisis. The solutions offered by gleaning are both practical and symbolic. Gleaners rescue food that would otherwise contribute to methane emissions in landfills or decompose in fields. They work with farmers to ensure that what cant be sold is turned into a resource for the community. Weve worked with everything from soft fruit to salad greens, clearing beds and keeping crops out of the compost heap, said Holtam. Its about turning potential waste into community resources. Yet, for all its impact, gleaning is still a stopgap measure. As Beyranevand points out, the root problem is systemic. Farmers are forced to overgrow to meet strict supermarket contracts, only to see tons of perfectly good food rejected because it doesnt meet cosmetic standards. The solution lies, she said, in creating secondary markets for surplus produce and reducing the overproduction that forces farmers to rely on donations to move their crops. Until that systemic shift occurs, the gleaners persistcrouching infields, filling crates with overlooked crops, and salvaging what they can. Every potato pulled from the ground, every courgette packed into a crate, every small effort, is a quiet victory. While the idea is simplerescue food that would otherwise go to wastethat work takes different forms around the world. In the U.K., organizations like Gleaning Network UK run structured operations, coordinating volunteers to collect surplus crops from farms and deliver them to food banks. In the U.S., gleaning is often smaller scale, led by grassroots groups and church volunteers. Its very much driven by philanthropy, and the groups are often disconnected, said Beyranevand, who has worked with several gleaning organizations in the country. Without a centralized system, efforts rely on personal relationships with farmers and ad hoc coordination, making the process inconsistent and resource-dependent. Legal and cultural differences also shape these approaches. In the U.K., farmers generally welcome gleaners, while in the U.S., stricter property laws and liability concerns create barriers. Farmers worry about what happens if someone gets injured, Beyranevand explained. Although some states have introduced protections, these laws are inconsistent, and food safety concerns add further complexity. Maryland, for example, has enacted specific laws to protect farmers from liability when they allow gleaners onto their land, providing a model for how legislation can encourage participation while addressing farmers concerns. Despite its promise, gleaning alone cannot fix systemic issues of food waste and insecurity. Beyranevand calls it a reactive solution, dependent on surplus or rejected crops. Ultimately, wouldnt it be wonderful if we didnt need gleaning at all? she asked. Some organizations, like Boston Area Gleaners in the U.S., are exploring proactive approaches, such as acquiring farmland to grow crops specifically for food banks. But scaling such initiatives requires significant investment and structural support. Still, gleaning is about more than just rescuing foodits about rediscovering the value of what weve overlooked. For Kelly LeBlanc, vice president of nutrition programming at Oldways, a nonprofit that inspires people to embrace the healthy and sustainable joys of the old ways of eating, the significance goes beyond food itself. Were starting to recognize that diets better for people are better for the planet as well, she said. The simple act of turning discarded crops into nourishment bridges so many dividesbetween nutrition and sustainability, between waste and renewal. Perhaps thats gleanings greatest gift: its ability to remind us that even in a world of abundance, there is beauty in whats left behind. Jean-François Millets painting The Gleaners immortalized this truth nearly two centuries ago, and today, its no less poignant. Natasha Khullar Relph, Grist This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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As of last Wednesday, the State Department has suspended a gender-affirming identification option on all American passports. According to a memo obtained by NBC News, Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed the State Department to suspend any passport applications seeking to either change a sex marker or requesting an X sex marker. In the memo, Rubio cited an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on January 20, which states that it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Rubios memo to the State Department noted that the executive order specifies government-issued identification documents shall refer to an individuals immutable biological classification as either male or female. Heres what to know about how the new passport rules will impact trans and nonbinary Americans: What is the X gender marker? The Biden administration officially added an X gender marker to passports in April 2022 as an alternative to the standard male and female designations. At the time, the State Department explained that the X was added to ensure that non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming persons would have a gender-affirming option to select on their passport. The X marker came around a year after the Biden administration began allowing transgender Americans to select their own gender on passports without a letter from a doctora policy that was celebrated by queer advocacy groups as a small step toward greater acceptance of trans communities. Now, it seems that the Trump administration is aiming to both roll back the X gender marker and prevent trans Americans from self-selecting the gender listed on their passport. What does this mean for pending and future passport applications? Per the memo sent by Rubio, the State Department has been instructed to suspend pending applications that seek either an “X” gender marker or seek to change their sex marker from that defined in the executive order. Given the contents of Trumps executive order, this wording would seem to mean that trans Americans are currently barred not only from choosing the X option, but also from changing their listed gender within the male/female binary. Fast Company reached out to the State Department for clarification on this point, and will update this story will any new details. The memo noted that future applications under those listed parameters should also be suspended, and added that further guidance for staff would be forthcoming. On X, queer advocates are warning their followers that attempting to change the gender listed on their passport could present major difficulties. PSA: If you are trans, do NOT mail in your passport to attempt to change your gender marker, wrote Ari Drennen, LGBTQ program director at Media Matters for America. The State Department is currently collecting them unchanged and will not give a public timeline for returning them. You could be without a passport indefinitely. Fast Company also requested further information from the State Department on what might happen to suspended passports. What does this mean for existing passports with the X gender marker? In a statement to the publication NOTUS, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that the new passport rules will not retroactively invalidate passports that have already been issued. However, she added, if individuals with an “X” marker were to renew their passports in future, they just have to use their God-given sex, which was decided at birth. What are experts and trans rights organizations saying about the new mandate? The LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group Lambda Legal helped to secure the first-ever passport with an X gender marker. Early last week, Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings released a statement promising to fight the new passport regulations: Lambda Legal secured the first U.S. passport with an X gender marker for our brave client, Dana Zzyym, and well continue to stand with Dana and all intersex, nonbinary, and transgender people to defend their right to identity documents that accurately identify who they are, and their equal protection rights against targeting and exclusion by their own government, Jennings wrote. ACLU attorney Chase Strangio emphasized in an interview with the publication Them that new passport regulations were always going to be one of the easiest ways for the Trump administration to act on its so-called gender ideology executive order. Strangio added that, just because we are seeing immediate action on this part of the [executive order] does not mean that the rest of the EO is going to be immediately implemented across the government. In response to Trumps overarching executive order, the ACLU also published an article titled, Trump’s Executive Orders Promoting Sex Discrimination, Explained. “For decades, feminist legal scholars and womens rights advocates have opposed efforts to define gender based strictly on biology,” ACLU communications strategist Gillian Branstetter writes. “Recent state laws that use these definitions to discriminate against transgender people have resulted in invasive and traumatizing efforts to determine who counts as a man or as a woman, targeting youth who are even suspected of being transgender because they do not conform to sex stereotypes.” The order, Branstetter continued, “likewise ignores the existence of intersex people and others with variations in sex characteristics beyond the overly-simplistic definitions Trump endorsed.
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DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence company whose technology has rattled both Silicon Valley and Wall Street, said Monday it would temporarily limit new user registrations due to “large-scale malicious attacks.” Existing users can log in as usual, it added in an incident report on its website. The attack coincides with the company’s rapid success. Its latest model appears to put it alongside peers like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, but at, what it says, a much lower price point. Founded in 2023, DeepSeek introduced its specialized model, R1, last week. Deepseek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs Ive ever seen, Trump advisor and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said in a post on X. DeepSeek’s mobile phone app hit No. 1 on the Apple App store’s free app list on Monday, surpassing ChatGPT. That success also stoked investor fears and led to a deep tech selloff Monday. Shares of Nvidia, which designs chips for major AI firms, were down more than 15% in midday trading Monday.
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Long before Roe v. Wade was overturned, reproductive justice advocates had been sounding the alarm about the increasing number of women subjected to criminal investigation for suspected abortion, stillbirth, or miscarriage. These cases were often initiated by healthcare providers and bolstered by state laws used to prosecute women for having abortions. Newer laws, however, incentivize people outside of healthcare, including friends and family members, to report someone they suspect of having an abortion or helping someone else with an abortion. Coupled with the unprecedented access that authorities now have to digital information, these laws create new avenues for prosecution. In the post-Roe era, people capable of pregnancy face growing threats. Healthcare providers, family, friends, information on personal devices, and virtually any activity that can be observed or recorded pose privacy risks that can lead to prosecution. I study online privacy. This vast scope for potential surveillance and privacy intrusion is a key focus of the research my colleagues and I conduct. In a recent paper, we surveyed reproductive healthcare providers about their privacy and security practices. We used the results to map the path of a hypothetical Jane to illustrate how people can identify privacy risks in their own situations. This choose-your-adventure approach helps readers navigate the potential legal, digital, and personal challenges involved in accessing reproductive healthcareand reveals the grim stakes. Privacy protections Historically, healthcare providers who opposed abortion have been the primary sources for reporting patients suspected of seeking abortions. While they remain a significant threat, additional risks to patient privacy have emerged. For example, state laws increasingly compel providers to hand over medical records. This circumvents new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protections meant to shield protected reproductive health information from use in investigations when people seek abortions in states where the procedure is legal. Authorities might also be able to access records across state lines where abortion is legalfor example, when different electronic health record systems can share data. It is also possible that, in the future, electronic health records could be seized across state lines. Last year, in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 19 state attorneys general protested the new federal data privacy rules. Texas followed up with a lawsuit against the Biden administration over the rule. Even so-called shield laws adopted by some states meant to protect people seeking abortions from record seizures have loopholes. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services added a privacy rule to protect reproductive health data. Privacy vulnerabilities Despite some protections offered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, additional gaps in safeguarding reproductive health information persist. Data captured outside medical portals, such as from apps or pharmacy transactions, often falls outside the federal laws scope. Its important to note that apps that capture consumer reproductive health data, like period trackers, do not necessarily pose a greater risk than informants. But the dystopian potential of governments reaching into personal intimate data, and the simplicity of the remedydeleting an appdraw disproportionate attention. While its not entirely clear whether period trackers are definitively good or bad from a digital privacy perspective, they do offer potential benefits, such as helping people prevent unwanted pregnancies and thus avoid prosecution. Once reported to authorities, activities conducted on personal devicesbrowsing history, purchases, location data, and messages with friends or familycan become evidence in prosecutions. Authorities have shown a willingness to subpoena records from social media platforms, and they frequently access personal devices. Additionally, laws that incentivize family, friends, and partners to report suspected abortions create a threat of surveillance from intimate associates. These dynamics are exacerbated by new laws that criminalize trafficking minorstransporting them across state linesfor abortion services. Providers role protecting privacy In our research, my colleagues and I found that reproductive healthcare providers can play a critical role in guiding patients on adopting privacy strategies and helping them navigate an increasingly complex landscape of privacy threats. Clinics are trusted spaces for affordable, progressive care that often shield patients from judgment or harm. Based on our interviews with reproductive healthcare providers, the protocols they use to manage communications, billing, and other aspects of patient interactions have proved effective at protecting privacy, especially for vulnerable populations like minors or people with abusive partners. Hoever, people seeking abortions face more nuanced threats. Providers tend to overlook digital risks and threats of prosecution tied to patients devices and records. This gap in awareness leaves patients without critical guidance for protecting their privacy. Our initial research conducted in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision revealed that people capable of pregnancy express profound concerns about reproductive privacy, yet often feel inadequately prepared to navigate its complexities. Findings from our forthcoming research suggest that many patients take extensive precautions, yet its not clear how effectively they can prioritize their digital strategies. At the same time, these people place significant trust in their reproductive healthcare providers, especially because they often deem existing guidance on privacy untrustworthy or insufficient. Although providers may currently be less attuned to the newer privacy risks, they could play a crucial role in addressing them. By incorporating digital privacy and threat modeling into their care, providers can help patients navigate a complex landscape of threats in an environment of pervasive surveillance. Nora McDonald is assistant professor of information technology at George Mason University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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