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☆ COP27: How Lewis Pugh braved sharks and shipping containers in the world's first swim across the Red Sea
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( George Ramsay | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Lewis Pugh had to contend with large shipping vessels while swimming across the Red Sea. Pugh completed his swim across the Red Sea -- home to some of the world's most biodiverse coral reefs -- in 16 days. The Lewis Pugh FoundationFor sections of the swim, Pugh was joined by open-water swimmer Mariam Saleh Bin Laden – who became the first Arab, first Saudi and first woman to swim from Saudi Arabia to Egypt – and Egyptian swimmer Mostafa Zaki. The purpose of the swim was to shine a spotlight on the world’s coral reefs – home to the earth’s most vibrant marine ecosystems – and their precarious status amid the climate crisis. The Lewis Pugh FoundationThis week, Pugh has traveled to the COP27 climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt – a location he passed during his swim across the Red Sea.

☆ New missions in the high north are taking US and British aircraft carriers closer to a frigid frontline with Russia
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Christopher Woody | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Throughout the war in Ukraine, US destroyers have continued "operating with allies and partners in the high north to put pressure on Russia, to make sure that they know that we're there with capable platforms," Gilday added. The British Royal Navy followed suit this spring, sending HMS Prince of Wales into the Arctic for seven weeks — the first Arctic deployment for the UK's new Queen Elizabeth-class carriers. By sending the carrier that far north, the Royal Navy sought "to push the boundaries of UK carrier operations in the cold, harsh environment," the ship's commanding officer said. British Royal NavyHMS Prince of Wales' deployment reflects the British navy's increasing investment in Arctic operations. In 2020, the British navy "recommenced" routine operations in the Arctic, according to the UK's updated Arctic strategy, released in March.

☆ A U.S. Research Station in Antarctica Is Stopping Travel After Covid-19 Outbreak
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Joseph De Avila | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The National Science Foundation is shutting down travel to McMurdo Station in Antarctica after 10% of the population tested positive for Covid-19. All travel to the U.S. outpost on Antarctica will be paused for the next two weeks due to the outbreak, the National Science Foundation said over the weekend. The halt on travel doesn’t apply to essential travel for health and safety reasons, the foundation said.

A Covid outbreak at an American scientific research station in Antarctica has forced U.S. officials to temporarily halt all travel to the remote outpost. The agency confirmed that 10% of the research station’s population have tested positive for Covid during this recent outbreak. There are 885 people currently living and working at McMurdo Station. Though the station operates year-round, many scientists typically travel to McMurdo in November for field research during Antarctica’s summer season. It’s not yet clear what, if any, impact the outbreak could have on research and operations at the outpost.

☆ COP27: Loss of Arctic summer sea ice 'inevitable' within 30 years — report
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Gloria Dickie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The newest report's authors highlighted the "terminal diagnosis" for the ice that forms and floats atop the Arctic Ocean each summer. On Monday evening, Arctic campaigners and indigenous youth from the region planned a media event to mark the demise of sea ice. Mallett said COP27 talks would do little to save the summer sea ice. Last year, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said summer sea ice would be lost even if warming peaked at 1.6 degrees above the preindustrial average. If summer sea ice is lost, no multiyear sea ice — sea ice that persists in the ocean from year to year — will remain.

☆ At one of Earth's most remote research stations, Covid is still a problem
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Evan Bush | Evan Bush Is A Science Reporter For Nbc News. He Can Be Reached At Evan.Bush Nbcuni.Com. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

An outbreak of Covid at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica has disrupted life for researchers and support staffers at the southern end of the world. The research station has a population of 885, the statement said, meaning more than 8% of those have tested positive for the coronavirus so far. The outbreak is a reminder that Covid is still a threat to close-knit workplaces and that the virus is still roiling scientific research in remote sites. Because McMurdo is such a remote location, stringent measures were implemented during past field seasons to keep Covid from circulating. “As COVID cases and population at McMurdo Station continue to increase, individuals may be assigned to rooms with COVID positive roommates.”The email encouraged physical distancing and the use of masks.

☆ Fact Check-The Earth is not covered by a dome or ‘firmament’
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Users on social media are saying people on Earth are living under a dome, also called a “firmament,” without providing evidence to support the claim. But the video’s examples offer no proof of humans living under a dome or firmament, while there is ample evidence that no dome exists. “Rocket hitting the flat earth dome”, reads the title of one of the YouTube clips. SIXTY YEARS OF SPACEFLIGHTExperts pointed out that if there were a dome that covered the Earth, astronauts would have encountered it by now. A video provides no evidence that the Earth is under a dome or “firmament”.

☆ The Woman Who Inspired Me to Climb Higher
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Katie Arnold | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

On Oct. 15, hundreds gathered in Telluride, Colo., to celebrate the life of renowned ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson . Nelson, 49, died on Sept. 26 when she triggered a small avalanche while skiing off the 26,781-foot summit of Mount Manaslu in Nepal. The crowd read like a who’s-who from the world of climbing and adventure. Jimmy Chin, who won an Academy Award for his 2018 documentary “Free Solo,” shared stories of a long friendship. Nelson’s death triggered an outpouring of tributes from people around the world, most of whom, like me, didn’t know her personally.

☆ New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern makes rare trip to Antarctica
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appeared awestruck Thursday to be standing in the Antarctic hut of explorer Ernest Shackleton. “I think when you’re a kid and you read stories about Shackleton, you’d never imagine you’d have the opportunity to come. So, I feel pretty lucky,” she said from inside the hut that was built more than a century ago. Conservationists say new marine protected areas and rules to prevent overfishing in Antarctica are desperately needed, but that Russia could use its veto-like powers to once again block progress. The motivation for Russia, which did not respond to requests for comment this week, remains unclear.

☆ New Zealand PM Ardern delayed in Antarctica after plane breaks down
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Lucy Craymer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

WELLINGTON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spent an extra night Friday at the country's research station in Antarctica after the military aircraft she was meant to be travelling back to New Zealand on broke down. Ardern has been in Antarctica meeting with the country's scientists and visiting the sites of historical importance while promoting the need for co-operation in the region. A spokeswoman for the prime minister said on Saturday that Ardern and those travelling with her are due to return Saturday on a Italian C-13 Hercules military aircraft. Ardern flew on a U.S. military plane to Antarctica after her first flight had to turn back midflight due to bad weather. New Zealand is one of seven countries, including Australia, France and Chile, with a territorial claim to Antarctica.

☆ Climate Change Is Real. Markets, Not Governments, Offer the Cure. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Bret Stephens | Mr. Stephens Is An Opinion Columnist. Mr. Winter Is A Staff Photographer On Assignment In Opinion. | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +32 min

worse-case, highest-carbon-emission scenario.” (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the U.N. body that assesses climate change.) How do we weigh the risks of underreacting to climate change against the risks of overreacting to it? While he’s not an expert on climate change, he has spent decades thinking deeply about every manner of risk. That’s particularly true if climate change is akin to cancer — manageable or curable in its earlier stages, disastrous in its later ones. Maybe, I realized, in assessing my newfound concerns about climate change, my long-held beliefs might provide a solution — look to the market.

☆ Fact Check-Alexander Gleason’s map of the world does not prove the earth is flat
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

One Instagram user (here) shared a TikTok video which tries to challenge the fact that that Gleason’s map is a projection of the earth as a globe. Gleason argued that the earth is flat in his 1890 book “Is the Bible from Heaven? ALL 2D MAPS DISTORT EARTHAs Gleason’s map is centered on the north pole, the edges indicate the south pole. “A projection of a person on a page is also flat (see Jeff Brown’s ‘Flat Stanley’ character), but people aren’t flat,” Bennett said. Gleason’s map is a depiction of the earth as a globe in a north-polar azimuthal equidistant projection and is not proof that the earth is flat.

☆ NZ's Ardern visits Antarctica to highlight climate change challenges
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Lucy Craymer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

WELLINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visited scientists at New Zealand's Scott Base in Antarctica on Thursday, as part of a trip aimed at highlighting climate change challenges, her country's commitment to the continent and the need for regional cooperation. Last year, New Zealand announced it was allocating NZ$344 million($200.72 million) for a rebuild of the base, to support New Zealand's presence there for the next 50 years. "Cooperation in Antarctica and in the Antarctic Treaty System is more important than ever as we tackle the crises of climate change and biodiversity loss," Ardern added. In recent years, both Russia and China have invested in their capability and presence in Antarctica, and Western governments have responded in similar fashion. The impact of climate change on Antarctica has made it a critical location for research.

☆ Emperor penguins are now a threatened species due to climate change, U.S. officials say
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Endangered Species Act. Fish and Wildlife Service said emperor penguins should be protected under the law since the birds build colonies and raise their young on the Antarctic ice threatened by climate change. The agency’s review followed a 2011 petition by the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity to list the bird under the Endangered Species Act. Tuesday’s designation was described as a warning that emperor penguins need “urgent climate action” in order to survive by Shaye Wolf, the climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The 1973 Endangered Species Act is credited with bringing several animals back from the brink of extinction, including grizzly bears, bald eagles, gray whales and others.

☆ Emperor Penguins to Be Listed as Threatened Species in U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Talal Ansari | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

By 2050, the emperor penguin population is estimated to decrease by 26% to 47%, officials said. The emperor penguin will soon be considered a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. The federal agency said Tuesday it had finalized protections for the species, following a proposal last year. It cited the effects of a warming climate on the sea-ice habitat in Antarctica, where emperor penguins spend the majority of their lives, as the “primary threat to the penguin.”

☆ Bad weather thwarts New Zealand PM Ardern's Antarctica trip
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SYDNEY, Oct 25 (Reuters) - New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's visit to her country's research station in Antarctica was upended by bad weather that forced the plane she was travelling in to turn back midflight on Tuesday. The C130 Hercules military aircraft carrying Ardern encountered poor weather at McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, the location of several international research stations, according to a government statement. The spokesperson did not say whether the trip would be attempted again once the weather clears. New Zealand is one of seven countries, including Australia, France and Chile, with a territorial claim to Antarctica. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Lewis Jackson; Editing by Edmund KlamannOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Emperor penguins now a threatened species due to climate change, U.S. says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Clark Mindock | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Endangered Species Act. Fish and Wildlife Service said emperor penguins should be protected under the law since the birds build colonies and raise their young on the Antarctic ice threatened by climate change. The agency's review followed a 2011 petition by the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity to list the bird under the Endangered Species Act. Tuesday's designation was described as a warning that emperor penguins need “urgent climate action” in order to survive by Shaye Wolf, the climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The 1973 Endangered Species Act is credited with bringing several animals back from the brink of extinction, including grizzly bears, bald eagles, gray whales and others.

☆ The Chase Sapphire Reserve's 80K bonus is effectively a blank airline ticket — here's how to use it to get (almost) anywhere in the world
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Joseph Hostetler | Credit Cards Reporter | Read More | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

By transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards® points to airline partners, you can fly just about anywhere on earth. Show more Regular APR 19.99% - 26.99% Variable Editor's Rating 4.65 /5 A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star 4.65 out of 5 Stars Our editor's ratings analyze fees, bonuses, rewards, and benefits to highlight the simplest and most valuable credit cards available. By transferring 80,000 Chase points to Southwest, you can expect an average value of $1,120 in free flights. You can save quite a few Chase points if you're willing to pay a bit in taxes, however. Bottom lineThe 84,000 Chase points you'll have after opening the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and meeting its minimum spending requirement is basically a blank airline ticket to nearly anywhere on earth's surface.

☆ A travel planner for the ultrawealthy shares what goes into organizing $800,000 trips to exclusive locations
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Mark Ellwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Jules Maury is the head of Scott Dunn Private, an ultraexclusive division of a luxury travel firm. She was raised in a wealthy family and learned how to plan luxury trips by taking them herself. Jules Maury was 12 when she made her first hotel booking. She handles trips for the world's wealthiest people along with a team of four travel advisors and six booking specialists. But even an expert travel planner lacks some knowledgeMaury still relishes the chance to travel, and she spends much of the year on the road, often attending luxury travel shows like ILTM in Cannes or Pure in Marrakech.

☆ Afraid of heights, he climbed Mount Everest — now he's helping others conquer their fears too
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-07 | by ( Monica Buchanan Pitrelli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

He's also climbed the highest mountains on all seven continents, the so-called Seven Summits. The cost to climbRigney estimates he's paid between $170,000 and $180,000 to climb the Seven Summits, he said. But Mount Everest is a "massive logistical operation" that takes about two months, he said. Rigney climbed Mount Everest for about four to five hours a day. After climbing the "Seven Summits," Rigney said he is deliberately choosing travel experiences that are less risky.

☆ Plastic pollution may have met its match: The saliva of wax worms
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-05 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Two substances in the saliva of wax worms — moth larvae that eat wax made by bees to build honeycombs — readily break down a common type of plastic, researchers said on Tuesday, in a potential advance in the global fight against plastic pollution. For plastic to degrade, oxygen must penetrate the polymer — or plastic molecule — in an important initial step called oxidation. Wax worms are the larvae of wax moths, a species called Galleria mellonella. The idea would be to produce the worms’ saliva enzymes synthetically, which the researchers succeeded in doing, to break down plastic waste. Bertocchini said the use of billions of wax worms to do the job has drawbacks including generating carbon dioxide as they metabolize the polyethylene.

☆ Millennials and Gen Z want to stop a climate catastrophe. But first they have to get elected.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +24 min

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, told young climate activists in 2019, "You didn't vote for me." AP Photo/Gemunu AmarasingheBut most policy debates aren't genuinely existential in the way climate change is. "Younger Democrats tend to have a much more friendly relationship and response to the party's activist class than older Democrats do." Fossil-fuel interests have played a central role in stymieing progress on climate change for decades. Nearly a decade later, Trump ran for and won the presidency — with Gingrich's early and staunch support — while calling climate change a "hoax."

☆ Don’t Believe the Hype About Antarctica’s Melting Glaciers
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Steven Koonin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Alarming reports that the Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking misrepresent the science under way to understand a very complex situation. The ice sheet holds about 26.5 million gigatons of water (a gigaton is a billion metric tons, or about 2.2 trillion pounds). Much more modest ice loss is normal in Antarctica. The difference between the discharge and addition each year is the ice sheet’s annual loss. That figure has been increasing in recent decades, from 40 gigatons a year in the 1980s to 250 gigatons a year in the 2010s.

☆ Elon Musk says SpaceX's Starlink internet is active on all 7 continents
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet is active across all seven continents, CEO Elon Musk tweeted. The company launched 54 Starlink satellites on Sunday to add to its constellation. SpaceX launched on Sunday a batch of 54 Starlink satellites after five previous attempts were scrubbed because of bad weather. These satellites have joined the 3,076 working Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit. Musk sent Starlink terminals to the country after Ukraine's vice-prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, asked Musk in February for help.

☆ Dramatic footage shows orcas breaking an ice platform to trap and kill a seal, a rare technique used by only 100 whales
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-12 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A new BBC documentary shows a pod of killer whales hunting a seal using a sophisticated technique. They used "wave crashing," creating a wave to break up an ice platform and trap the seal on it. The technique is used by only about 100 killer whales around the world. The video, part of the BBC's new "Frozen Planet II" documentary released Sunday in the UK, shows four killer whales that attacked a Weddell Seal. Once the seal was in the water, the whales used another hunting technique: blowing bubbles to confuse the seal, which made it easier to catch.

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