Science

Russia Fights Efforts to Declare It an Exporter of ‘Blood Diamonds’

Published

2 years ago

August 16, 2022

Russia Fights Efforts to Declare It an Exporter of ‘Blood Diamonds’

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to world soul-searching about overreliance on Russian oil and gasoline, however a brand new drama is unfolding over one other of Russia’s main exports: diamonds.

Russia is the world’s largest provider of small diamonds. For years, engagement rings, earrings and pendants on the market in america and past have included diamonds mined from deep within the permafrost in Russia’s northeast.

Now, america and different nations are taking motion that might formally label Russian diamonds as “battle diamonds,” claiming their sale helps pay for Russia’s lethal aggression in Ukraine.

“Proceeds from that manufacturing are benefiting the identical state that’s conducting a premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified battle,” mentioned George Cajati, a U.S. State Division official, in a letter written in Could to the chair of the Kimberley Course of, a global group created by United Nations decision to forestall the circulation of battle diamonds.

The European Union, Canada and different Western nations, in addition to Ukraine and a number of other activist organizations, have joined in comparable requires a Kimberley Course of dialogue in regards to the implications of the invasion of Ukraine, together with whether or not Russian gems needs to be thought of battle diamonds.

Also called blood diamonds, battle diamonds are generally considered gems offered to finance battle. The Kimberley Course of, created within the wake of diamonds financing a lethal battle in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, defines them extra particularly, as “tough diamonds utilized by insurgent actions or their allies to finance battle aimed toward undermining respectable governments.”

However “insurgent motion” doesn’t precisely describe Russia, and officers there vehemently object to labeling the nation’s diamonds as battle gems. They chalk up the hassle by Western governments to take action as “political demagogy,” in keeping with an emailed assertion from the press service of Russia’s Ministry of Finance.

The problem is coming into sharper focus as Western nations outraged by Russia’s actions in Ukraine prohibit Russian gasoline and search for long-term alternate options to their reliance on its fossil fuels. Revenues from Russia’s different large exports, akin to diamonds, have gained new world relevance each for Russia in addition to for nations trying to punish the nation for its actions in Ukraine.

The gems are one in all Russia’s prime non-energy exports by worth, accounting for greater than $4.5 billion of exports final yr, in keeping with U.S. authorities information.

Russian diamonds have for years been widespread with American jewelers weary of the taint of diamonds from African mines — even these removed from battle areas — that buyers might confuse for blood diamonds. However the debate over Russian diamonds is exposing an often-overlooked actuality in regards to the effort to rein within the murky $80 billion world diamond trade, which commercializes the deepest of feelings and has spent years working to reassure those who its gems are reliable by means of Kimberley Course of certification.

Due to loopholes and technicalities, so-called moral diamonds don’t actually exist, many jewelers acknowledge. And the hassle to dam Russian diamonds underscores that reality. “We use the Kimberley Course of as the best greenwashing machine the world has ever seen,” mentioned Martin Rapaport, a number one diamond dealer whose worth checklist is used as a benchmark for the wholesale commerce in polished diamonds.

For Russia’s half, its officers say the nation’s diamonds had been in keeping with environmental, social and governance requirements lengthy earlier than they grew to become modern within the company world. They are saying Russian mines contribute to the economic system in a desolate a part of the nation, close to an space referred to as Yakutia, that might be in any other case destitute.

Diamond proceeds have paved roads, constructed colleges and hospitals, Russia’s finance ministry mentioned in an electronic mail, including that funds are additionally made to institutional and personal buyers. “The livelihoods of 1 million individuals of Yakutia totally depend upon the soundness of diamond mining within the area,” the ministry mentioned.

However Ukraine officers say the diamonds contribute to Russia’s invasion.

“Russian diamonds are concerned in financing the battle of the Russian Federation in opposition to Ukraine, which makes these diamonds not simply battle, however bloody,” mentioned Vladimir Tatarintsev, deputy director of the State Gemmological Heart of Ukraine, which is a member of the Kimberley Course of.

Western officers have lined up beside the Ukrainians.

On the very day in February that Russia invaded Ukraine, america added to its sanctions checklist Serge S. Ivanov, the chief government of Alrosa, Russia’s greatest diamond producer and the world’s largest diamond mining firm. Mr. Ivanov is the son of one in all President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, who was additionally added to the sanctions checklist.

Later, the U.S. banned imports of Russian diamonds together with Russian vodka, caviar and different gadgets.

However the U.S. motion had a significant loophole: It utilized solely to Russian tough diamonds, gems that had been dug from the bottom however had but to be minimize and shined. And few tough diamonds from Russia attain the U.S. market.

After being pulled from the bottom, most diamonds are shipped overseas for transformation, no matter the place they’re mined. The overwhelming majority find yourself in sharpening facilities in India, which has no ban on Russian diamonds. As soon as the diamonds are reworked and readied for delivery, their origin adjustments. Diamonds mined in Russia are not Russian-origin diamonds; they’re labeled Indian-origin.

Boycotts of Russian diamonds had been launched by main jewelers akin to Tiffany. De Beers elevated efforts to hint the gems by means of the provision chain.

The U.S. escalated its motion not lengthy after, concentrating on the mining large Alrosa, which is majority-owned by the Russian federal and regional governments. It added Alrosa to a U.S. Treasury checklist that primarily bans U.S. nationals from doing enterprise with it. Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and the Bahamas took comparable motion.

However critics mentioned the ban failed to shut the loophole and left open the chance that Alrosa’s subsidiaries might nonetheless discover a strategy to get diamonds which can be minimize and polished overseas into the U.S. They usually observe that whereas the U.S. is the most important marketplace for Russian diamonds, Alrosa can nonetheless promote diamonds freely in different main markets akin to China, which has taken no motion in opposition to Russian gems.

Regardless, shares of Alrosa, which the U.S. says generated greater than $4.2 billion in income final yr and is answerable for 90 p.c of Russia’s diamond mining capability, have plummeted. It was successful for an organization that 5 years in the past had launched a brand new advertising marketing campaign in America, hoping its Russian id could be a bonus in a nation the place savvy customers had been cautious of atrocities in diamond mining that fueled wars in African nations.

“Alrosa has a really sturdy deal with environmental and social points and conforms to the very best requirements of company social accountability,” the corporate mentioned in an emailed assertion. Its web site highlights efforts aimed toward defending water and soil, serving to Indigenous populations and making a park to guard reindeer and different wildlife.

The controversy over Russian diamonds reached the Kimberley Course of forward of the group’s scheduled assembly in June. A motion was already afoot by the U.S. and different Western nations to find out whether or not Russia was exporting battle diamonds and to rethink Russia’s management roles within the group.

Russia itself had been among the many quite a few nations that for a number of years had been pushing inside the Kimberley Course of for an growth of the definition of battle diamonds, searching for to broaden it to use to points akin to human rights, labor and the setting. However as a result of the group is ruled by consensus — all selections should be unanimous among the many greater than 80 nations — the motion has stalled.

Tensions over Russian diamonds break up the Kimberley Course of member nations alongside more and more acquainted geopolitical traces, with quite a few Western nations pitted in opposition to Russia, which was backed by China Belarus and Kyrgyzstan in addition to Mali and Central African Republic the place Russia has a giant presence together with by its mercenaries who function in diamond mines.

The Kimberley Course of “has much less and fewer to do with diamonds and in a means has change into one other geostrategic theater,” mentioned Hans Merket, a diamond trade and human rights researcher whose group is a part of civil society membership within the Kimberley Course of.

On the June assembly in Botswana, discussions about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and its implications for the Kimberley Course of, ended after vetoes by Russia, China and Belarus. Journalists had been requested to depart classes they usually could be allowed to attend, some contributors mentioned, and talks with the group’s chairman grew to become tangled in disputes over whether or not Russia ought to participate. The U.S. and British representatives boycotted classes led by Russian representatives.

Mr. Merket mentioned the group had change into “an organ of bureaucrats” who log off on diamonds which can be problematic but obtain endorsements that falsely reassure jewellery consumers. “Shoppers anticipate one thing that isn’t true,” he mentioned.

The assembly left him and different contributors annoyed and anxious that vital work was being sidetracked.

A brand new course of awaits assessment for exporting diamonds from the war-torn Central African Republic, the place Russian mercenaries function within the diamond trade and have been accused of human rights violations. Reviews of violence in diamond mines in Brazil and Venezuela usually are not being investigated, some contributors mentioned. Allegations of violence involving safety officers at mines within the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Tanzania have gone unaddressed.

Inside the entrenched trade, the place jewellery companies are handed down for generations, defenders of the Kimberley Course of say that regardless of the issues it largely works.

“It’s not an ideal world,” mentioned Edward Asscher, president of the World Diamond Council, which represents the diamond trade within the Kimberley Course of. Nonetheless, Mr. Asscher, whose household diamond enterprise dates to the 1850s, mentioned he believed that 99 p.c of diamonds licensed by the Kimberley Course of had been conflict-free.

Nonetheless, pressure over Russian diamonds threatens to overshadow work at a Kimberley Course of assembly scheduled for November. “The Kimberley Course of can not keep silent following a navy aggression of 1 participant in opposition to one other,” mentioned Xavier Cifre Quatresols, a spokesperson for overseas affairs and safety coverage on the European Union.

And simply final month, comparable tensions stuffed the room at a gathering of diamond trade leaders in New York, the place jewelers and merchants who lengthy have labored with Russian counterparts had been now within the uncomfortable place of distancing themselves from the gems.

Practically everybody in attendance agreed that, in a method or one other, the trade wanted reform.

Ronnie VanderLinden, a frontrunner within the U.S. diamond trade and longtime jeweler based mostly in New York Metropolis’s famed diamond district, mentioned that “all diamonds in america are moral diamonds,” however acknowledged the system had flaws. “It relies upon,” he mentioned, “on what your definition of moral is.”

Science

2024 was the hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA confirm

Published

4 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

2024 was the hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA confirm

Amid a week of horrifying wildfires in Los Angeles, government agencies in the U.S. and around the world confirmed Friday that 2024 was the planet’s hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880.

It’s the 11th consecutive year in which a new heat record has been set, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

“Between record-breaking temperatures and wildfires currently threatening our centers and workforce in California, it has never been more important to understand our changing planet,” Nelson said.

Firefighters on Friday were battling to protect NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge from the Eaton fire, which has burned 13,690 acres and roughly 5,000 buildings thus far.

Research has shown that global warming is contributing significantly to larger and more intense wildfires in the western U.S. in recent years, and to longer fire seasons.

The devastating fires in Southern California erupted after an abrupt shift from wet weather to extremely dry weather, a bout of climate “whiplash” that scientists say increased wildfire risks. Research has shown that these rapid wet-to-dry and dry-to-wet swings, which can worsen wildfires, flooding and other hazards, are growing more frequent and intense because of rising global temperatures.

Extreme weather events in 2024 included Hurricane Helene in the southeastern U.S., devastating floods in Valencia, Spain, and a deadly heat wave in Mexico so intense that monkeys dropped dead from the trees, noted Russell Vose, chief of the monitoring and assessment branch of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

“We aren’t saying any of these things were caused by changes in Earth’s climate,” Vose said. But since warmer air holds more moisture, the higher temperatures “could have exacerbated some events this year.”

Last year’s data also notes a step toward a major climate threshold. Keeping the average global surface temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has long been seen as necessary to avoid many of the most harrowing climate impacts.

NOAA pegged 2024’s global average surface temperature at 1.46 degrees C above its preindustrial baseline, and NASA’s measurements put the increase at 1.47 degrees C. In 2023, NASA said the temperature was 1.36 degrees C higher than the baseline.

Considering the margin of error in their measurements, “that puts the NOAA and NASA models comfortably within the possibility that the real number is 1.5 degrees,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Calculations from other organizations passed the 1.5-degree mark more clearly.

Berkeley Earth and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service both said the planet warmed to slightly more than 1.6 degrees C above pre-industrial times in 2024. The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said the increase was 1.55 degrees C and the U.K. Met Office, the country’s weather service, measured an increase of 1.53 degrees C.

Although 2024 probably marks the first calendar year in which the average temperature exceeded the 1.5-degree threshold, it doesn’t mean Earth has passed the crucial target set in the Paris Agreement, Vose said.

That describes “a sustained, multi-decade increase of 1.5 degrees,” something that’s not expected to occur until the 2030s or 2040s, the scientists noted.

“For a long time, the global mean temperature changes were a bit of an esoteric thing — nobody lives in the global mean,” Schmidt said. “But the signal is now so large that you’re not only seeing it at the global scale … you’re seeing it at the local level.”

“This is now quite personal,” he said.

The oceans, which store 90% of the planet’s excess heat, also recorded their highest average temperature since records began in 1955.

The Arctic has seen the most warming, which is concerning because the region is home to vast quantities of ice that stands to melt and raise sea levels, Schmidt said.

Temperatures there are rising 3 to 3.5 times faster than the overall global average, he added.

The only place where average surface temperatures have cooled is the area immediately around Antarctica, and that’s probably due to meltwater from shrinking ice sheets, Schmidt said.

A year ago, NOAA predicted there was only a 1 in 3 chance that 2024 would break the record set in 2023, Vose said. Then every month from January to July set a new high, and August was a tie. As a result, Friday’s declaration came as little surprise.

The longer-term trends are no better.

“We anticipate future global warming as long as we are emitting greenhouse gases,” Schmidt said. “That’s something that brings us no joy to tell people, but unfortunately that’s the case.”

Times staff writer Ian James contributed to this report.

Science

There's a reason you can't stop doomscrolling through L.A.'s fire disaster

Published

16 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

There's a reason you can't stop doomscrolling through L.A.'s fire disaster

Even for those lucky enough to get out in time, or to live outside the evacuation zones, there has been no escape from the fires in the Los Angeles area this week.

There is hardly a vantage point in the city from which flames or plumes of smoke are not visible, nowhere the scent of burning memories can’t reach.

And on our screens — on seemingly every channel and social media feed and text thread and WhatsApp group — an endless carousel of images documents a level of fear, loss and grief that felt unimaginable here as recently as Tuesday morning.

Even in places of physical safety, many in Los Angeles are finding it difficult to look away from the worst of the destruction online.

“To me it’s more comfortable to doomscroll than to sit and wait,” said Clara Sterling, who evacuated from her home Wednesday. “I would rather know exactly where the fire is going and where it’s headed than not know anything at all.”

A writer and comedian, Sterling is — by her own admission — extremely online. But the nature of this week’s fires make it particularly hard to disengage from news coverage and social media, experts said.

For one, there’s a material difference between scrolling through images of a far-off crisis and staying informed about an active disaster unfolding in your neighborhood, said Casey Fiesler, an associate professor specializing in tech ethics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“It’s weird to even think of it as ‘doomscrolling,’ ” she said. “When you’re in it, you’re also looking for important information that can be really hard to get.”

When you share an identity with the victims of a traumatic event, you’re more likely both to seek out media coverage of the experience and to feel more distressed by the media you see, said Roxane Cohen Silver, distinguished professor of psychological science at UC Irvine.

For Los Angeles residents, this week’s fires are affecting the people we identify with most intimately: family, friends and community members. They have consumed places and landmarks that feature prominently in fond memories and regular routines.

The ubiquitous images have also fueled painful memories for those who have lived through similar disasters — a group whose numbers have increased as wildfires have grown more frequent in California, Silver said.

This she knows personally: She evacuated from the Laguna Beach fires in 1993, and began a long-term study of that fire’s survivors days after returning to her home.

“Throughout California, throughout the West, throughout communities that have had wildfire experience, we are particularly primed and sensitized to that news,” she said. “And the more we immerse ourselves in that news, the more likely we are to experience distress.”

Absorption in these images of fire and ash can cause trauma of its own, said Jyoti Mishra, an associate professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego who studied the long-term psychological health of survivors of the 2018 Camp fire.

The team identified lingering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety both among survivors who personally experienced fire-related trauma such as injury or property loss, and — to a smaller but still significant degree — among those who indirectly experienced the trauma as witnesses.

“If you’re witnessing [trauma] in the media, happening on the streets that you’ve lived on and walked on, and you can really put yourself in that place, then it can definitely be impactful,” said Mishra, who’s also co-director of the UC Climate Change and Mental Health Council. “Psychology and neuroscience research has shown that images and videos that generate a sense of personal meaning can have deep emotional impacts.”

The emotional pull of the videos and images on social media make it hard to look away, even as many find the information there much harder to trust.

Like many others, Sterling spent a lot of time online during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Back then, Sterling said, the social media environment felt decidedly different.

“This time around I think I feel less informed about what’s going on because there’s been such a big push toward not fact-checking and getting rid of verified accounts,” she said.

The rise of AI-generated images and photos has added another troubling kink, as Sterling highlighted in a video posted to TikTok early Thursday.

“The Hollywood sign was not on fire last night. Any video or photos that you saw of the Hollywood sign on fire were fake. They were AI generated,” she said, posting from a hotel in San Diego after evacuating.

Hunter Ditch, a producer and voice actor in Lake Balboa, raised similar concerns about the lack of accurate information. Some social media content she’s encountered seemed “very polarizing” or political, and some exaggerated the scope of the disaster or featured complete fabrications, such as that flaming Hollywood sign.

The spread of false information has added another layer of stress, she said. This week, she started turning to other types of app — like the disaster mapping app, Watch Duty — to track the spreading fires and changing evacuation zones.

But that made her wonder: “If I have to check a whole other app for accurate information, then what am I even doing on social media at all?”

Science

Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers

Published

1 day ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers

From above the raging flames, these planes can unleash immense tankfuls of bright pink fire retardant in just 20 seconds. They have long been considered vital in the battle against wildfires.

But emerging research has shown that the millions of gallons of retardant sprayed on the landscape to tame wildfires each year come with a toxic burden, because they contain heavy metals and other chemicals that are harmful to human health and the environment.

The toxicity presents a stark dilemma. These tankers and their cargo are a powerful tool for taming deadly blazes. Yet as wildfires intensify and become more frequent in an era of climate change, firefighters are using them more often, and in the process releasing more harmful chemicals into the environment.

Some environmental groups have questioned the retardants’ effectiveness and potential for harm. The efficiency of fire retardant has been hard to measure, because it’s one of a barrage of firefighting tactics deployed in a major fire. After the flames are doused, it’s difficult to assign credit.

The frequency and severity of wildfires has grown in recent years, particularly in the western United States. Scientists have also found that fires across the region have become faster moving in recent decades.

There are also the longer-term health effects of exposure to wildfire smoke, which can penetrate the lungs and heart, causing disease. A recent global survey of the health effects of air pollution caused by wildfires found that in the United States, exposure to wildfire smoke had increased by 77 percent since 2002. Globally, wildfire smoke has been estimated to be responsible for up to 675,000 premature deaths per year.

Fire retardants add to those health and environmental burdens because they present “a really, really thorny trade-off,” said Daniel McCurry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, who led the recent research on their heavy-metal content.

The United States Forest Service said on Thursday that nine large retardant-spraying planes, as well as 20 water-dropping helicopters, were being deployed to fight the Southern California fires, which have displaced tens of thousands of people. Several “water scooper” amphibious planes, capable of skimming the surface of the sea or other body of water to fill their tanks, are also being used.

Two large DC-10 aircraft, dubbed “Very Large Airtankers” and capable of delivering up to 9,400 gallons of retardant, were also set to join the fleet imminently, said Stanton Florea, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, which coordinates national wildland firefighting efforts across the West.

Sprayed ahead of the fire, the retardants coat vegetation and prevent oxygen from allowing it to burn, Mr. Florea said. (Red dye is added so firefighters can see the retardant against the landscape.) And the retardant, typically made of salts like ammonium polyphosphate, “lasts longer. It doesn’t evaporate, like dropping water,” he said.

The new research from Dr. McCurry and his colleagues found, however, that at least four different types of heavy metals in a common type of retardant used by firefighters exceeded California’s requirements for hazardous waste.

Federal data shows that more than 440 million gallons of retardant were applied to federal, state, and private land between 2009 and 2021. Using that figure, the researchers estimated that between 2009 and 2021, more than 400 tons of heavy metals were released into the environment from fire suppression, a third of that in Southern California.

Both the federal government and the retardant’s manufacturer, Perimeter Solutions, have disputed that analysis, saying the researchers had evaluated a different version of the retardant. Dan Green, a spokesman for Perimeter, said retardants used for aerial firefighting had passed “extensive testing to confirm they meet strict standards for aquatic and mammalian safety.”

Still, the findings help explain why concentrations of heavy metals tend to surge in rivers and streams after wildfires, sometimes by hundreds of times. And as scrutiny of fire suppressants has grown, the Forestry Service has set buffer zones surrounding lakes and rivers, though its own data shows retardant still inadvertently drifts into those waters.

In 2022, the environmental nonprofit Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics sued the government in federal court in Montana, demanding that the Forest Service obtain a permit under the Clean Water Act to cover accidental spraying into waterways.

The judge ruled that the agency did indeed need to obtain a permit. But it allowed retardant use to continue to protect lives and property.