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Silicon Valley’s ‘Audacity Crisis’

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Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Two years ago, OpenAI released the public beta of DALL-E 2, an image-generation tool that immediately signified that we’d entered a new technological era. Trained off a huge body of data, DALL-E 2 produced unsettlingly good, delightful, and frequently unexpected outputs; my Twitter feed filled up with images derived from prompts such as close-up photo of brushing teeth with toothbrush covered with nacho cheese. Suddenly, it seemed as though machines could create just about anything in response to simple prompts.You likely know the story from there: A few months later, ChatGPT arrived, millions of people started using it, the student essay was pronounced dead, Web3 entrepreneurs nearly broke their ankles scrambling to pivot their companies to AI, and the technology industry was consumed by hype. The generative-AI revolution began in earnest.Where has it gotten us? Although enthusiasts eagerly use the technology to boost productivity and automate busywork, the drawbacks are also impossible to ignore. Social networks such as Facebook have been flooded with bizarre AI-generated slop images; search engines are floundering, trying to index an internet awash in hastily assembled, chatbot-written articles. Generative AI, we know for sure now, has been trained without permission on copyrighted media, which makes it all the more galling that the technology is competing against creative people for jobs and online attention; a backlash against AI companies scraping the internet for training data is in full swing.Yet these companies, emboldened by the success of their products and war chests of investor capital, have brushed these problems aside and unapologetically embraced a manifest-destiny attitude toward their technologies. Some of these firms are, in no uncertain terms, trying to rewrite the rules of society by doing whatever they can to create a godlike superintelligence (also known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI). Others seem more interested in using generative AI to build tools that repurpose others’ creative work with little to no citation. In recent months, leaders within the AI industry are more brazenly expressing a paternalistic attitude about how the future will look—including who will win (those who embrace their technology) and who will be left behind (those who do not). They’re not asking us; they’re telling us. As the journalist Joss Fong commented recently, “There’s an audacity crisis happening in California.”There are material concerns to contend with here. It is audacious to massively jeopardize your net-zero climate commitment in favor of advancing a technology that has told people to eat rocks, yet Google appears to have done just that, according to its latest environmental report. (In an emailed statement, a Google spokesperson, Corina Standiford, said that the company remains “dedicated to the sustainability goals we’ve set,” including reaching net-zero emissions by 2030. According to the report, its emissions grew 13 percent in 2023, in large part because of the energy demands of generative AI.) And it is certainly audacious for companies such as Perplexity to use third-party tools to harvest information while ignoring long-standing online protocols that prevent websites from being scraped and having their content stolen.But I’ve found the rhetoric from AI leaders to be especially exasperating. This month, I spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Thrive Global CEO Arianna Huffington after they announced their intention to build an AI health coach. The pair explicitly compared their nonexistent product to the New Deal. (They suggested that their product—so theoretical, they could not tell me whether it would be an app or not—could quickly become part of the health-care system’s critical infrastructure.) But this audacity is about more than just grandiose press releases. In an interview at Dartmouth College last month, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, discussed AI’s effects on labor, saying that, as a result of generative AI, “some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” She added later that “strictly repetitive” jobs are also likely on the chopping block. Her candor appears emblematic of OpenAI’s very mission, which straightforwardly seeks to develop an intelligence capable of “turbocharging the global economy.” Jobs that can be replaced, her words suggested, aren’t just unworthy: They should never have existed. In the long arc of technological change, this may be true—human operators of elevators, traffic signals, and telephones eventually gave way to automation—but that doesn’t mean that catastrophic job loss across several industries simultaneously is economically or morally acceptable.[Read: AI has become a technology of faith]Along these lines, Altman has said that generative AI will “create entirely new jobs.” Other tech boosters have said the same. But if you listen closely, their language is cold and unsettling, offering insight into the kinds of labor that these people value—and, by extension, the kinds that they don’t. Altman has spoken of AGI possibly replacing the “the median human” worker’s labor—giving the impression that the least exceptional among us might be sacrificed in the name of progress.Even some inside the industry have expressed alarm at those in charge of this technology’s future. Last month, Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI employee, wrote a 165-page essay series warning readers about what’s being built in San Francisco. “Few have the faintest glimmer of what is about to hit them,” Aschenbrenner, who was reportedly fired this year for leaking company information, wrote. In Aschenbrenner’s reckoning, he and “perhaps a few hundred people, most of them in San Francisco and the AI labs,” have the “situational awareness” to anticipate the future, which will be marked by the arrival of AGI, geopolitical struggle, and radical cultural and economic change.Aschenbrenner’s manifesto is a useful document in that it articulates how the architects of this technology see themselves: a small group of people bound together by their intellect, skill sets, and fate to help decide the shape of the future. Yet to read his treatise is to feel not FOMO, but alienation. The civilizational struggle he depicts bears little resemblance to the AI that the rest of us can see. “The fate of the world rests on these people,” he writes of the Silicon Valley cohort building AI systems. This is not a call to action or a proposal for input; it’s a statement of who is in charge.Unlike me, Aschenbrenner believes that a superintelligence is coming, and coming soon. His treatise contains quite a bit of grand speculation about the potential for AI models to drastically improve from here. (Skeptics have strongly pushed back on this assessment.) But his primary concern is that too few people wield too much power. “I don’t think it can just be a small clique building this technology,” he told me recently when I asked why he wrote the treatise.“I felt a sense of responsibility, by having ended up a part of this group, to tell people what they’re thinking,” he said, referring to the leaders at AI companies who believe they’re on the cusp of achieving AGI. “And again, they might be right or they might be wrong, but people deserve to hear it.” In our conversation, I found an unexpected overlap between us: Whether you believe that AI executives are delusional or genuinely on the verge of constructing a superintelligence, you should be concerned about how much power they’ve amassed.Having a class of builders with deep ambitions is part of a healthy, progressive society. Great technologists are, by nature, imbued with an audacious spirit to push the bounds of what is possible—and that can be a very good thing for humanity indeed. None of this is to say that the technology is useless: AI undoubtedly has transformative potential (predicting how proteins fold is a genuine revelation, for example). But audacity can quickly turn into a liability when builders become untethered from reality, or when their hubris leads them to believe that it is their right to impose their values on the rest of us, in return for building God.[Read: This is what it looks like when AI eats the world]An industry is what it produces, and in 2024, these executive pronouncements and brazen actions, taken together, are the actual state of the artificial-intelligence industry two years into its latest revolution. The apocalyptic visions, the looming nature of superintelligence, and the struggle for the future of humanity—all of these narratives are not facts but hypotheticals, however exciting, scary, or plausible.When you strip all of that away and focus on what’s really there and what’s really being said, the message is clear: These companies wish to be left alone to “scale in peace,” a phrase that SSI, a new AI company co-founded by Ilya Sutskever, formerly OpenAI’s chief scientist, used with no trace of self-awareness in announcing his company’s mission. (“SSI” stands for “safe superintelligence,” of course.) To do that, they’ll need to commandeer all creative resources—to eminent-domain the entire internet. The stakes demand it. We’re to trust that they will build these tools safely, implement them responsibly, and share the wealth of their creations. We’re to trust their values—about the labor that’s valuable and the creative pursuits that ought to exist—as they remake the world in their image. We’re to trust them because they are smart. We’re to trust them as they achieve global scale with a technology that they say will be among the most disruptive in all of human history. Because they have seen the future, and because history has delivered them to this societal hinge point, marrying ambition and talent with just enough raw computing power to create God. To deny them this right is reckless, but also futile.It’s possible, then, that generative AI’s chief export is not image slop, voice clones, or lorem ipsum chatbot bullshit but instead unearned, entitled audacity. Yet another example of AI producing hallucinations—not in the machines, but in the people who build them.

AI executives are acting like they own the world.

Two years ago, OpenAI released the public beta of DALL-E 2, an image-generation tool that immediately signified that we’d entered a new technological era. Trained off a huge body of data, DALL-E 2 produced unsettlingly good, delightful, and frequently unexpected outputs; my Twitter feed filled up with images derived from prompts such as close-up photo of brushing teeth with toothbrush covered with nacho cheese. Suddenly, it seemed as though machines could create just about anything in response to simple prompts.

You likely know the story from there: A few months later, ChatGPT arrived, millions of people started using it, the student essay was pronounced dead, Web3 entrepreneurs nearly broke their ankles scrambling to pivot their companies to AI, and the technology industry was consumed by hype. The generative-AI revolution began in earnest.

Where has it gotten us? Although enthusiasts eagerly use the technology to boost productivity and automate busywork, the drawbacks are also impossible to ignore. Social networks such as Facebook have been flooded with bizarre AI-generated slop images; search engines are floundering, trying to index an internet awash in hastily assembled, chatbot-written articles. Generative AI, we know for sure now, has been trained without permission on copyrighted media, which makes it all the more galling that the technology is competing against creative people for jobs and online attention; a backlash against AI companies scraping the internet for training data is in full swing.

Yet these companies, emboldened by the success of their products and war chests of investor capital, have brushed these problems aside and unapologetically embraced a manifest-destiny attitude toward their technologies. Some of these firms are, in no uncertain terms, trying to rewrite the rules of society by doing whatever they can to create a godlike superintelligence (also known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI). Others seem more interested in using generative AI to build tools that repurpose others’ creative work with little to no citation. In recent months, leaders within the AI industry are more brazenly expressing a paternalistic attitude about how the future will look—including who will win (those who embrace their technology) and who will be left behind (those who do not). They’re not asking us; they’re telling us. As the journalist Joss Fong commented recently, “There’s an audacity crisis happening in California.”

There are material concerns to contend with here. It is audacious to massively jeopardize your net-zero climate commitment in favor of advancing a technology that has told people to eat rocks, yet Google appears to have done just that, according to its latest environmental report. (In an emailed statement, a Google spokesperson, Corina Standiford, said that the company remains “dedicated to the sustainability goals we’ve set,” including reaching net-zero emissions by 2030. According to the report, its emissions grew 13 percent in 2023, in large part because of the energy demands of generative AI.) And it is certainly audacious for companies such as Perplexity to use third-party tools to harvest information while ignoring long-standing online protocols that prevent websites from being scraped and having their content stolen.

But I’ve found the rhetoric from AI leaders to be especially exasperating. This month, I spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Thrive Global CEO Arianna Huffington after they announced their intention to build an AI health coach. The pair explicitly compared their nonexistent product to the New Deal. (They suggested that their product—so theoretical, they could not tell me whether it would be an app or not—could quickly become part of the health-care system’s critical infrastructure.) But this audacity is about more than just grandiose press releases. In an interview at Dartmouth College last month, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, discussed AI’s effects on labor, saying that, as a result of generative AI, “some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” She added later that “strictly repetitive” jobs are also likely on the chopping block. Her candor appears emblematic of OpenAI’s very mission, which straightforwardly seeks to develop an intelligence capable of “turbocharging the global economy.” Jobs that can be replaced, her words suggested, aren’t just unworthy: They should never have existed. In the long arc of technological change, this may be true—human operators of elevators, traffic signals, and telephones eventually gave way to automation—but that doesn’t mean that catastrophic job loss across several industries simultaneously is economically or morally acceptable.

[Read: AI has become a technology of faith]

Along these lines, Altman has said that generative AI will “create entirely new jobs.” Other tech boosters have said the same. But if you listen closely, their language is cold and unsettling, offering insight into the kinds of labor that these people value—and, by extension, the kinds that they don’t. Altman has spoken of AGI possibly replacing the “the median human” worker’s labor—giving the impression that the least exceptional among us might be sacrificed in the name of progress.

Even some inside the industry have expressed alarm at those in charge of this technology’s future. Last month, Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI employee, wrote a 165-page essay series warning readers about what’s being built in San Francisco. “Few have the faintest glimmer of what is about to hit them,” Aschenbrenner, who was reportedly fired this year for leaking company information, wrote. In Aschenbrenner’s reckoning, he and “perhaps a few hundred people, most of them in San Francisco and the AI labs,” have the “situational awareness” to anticipate the future, which will be marked by the arrival of AGI, geopolitical struggle, and radical cultural and economic change.

Aschenbrenner’s manifesto is a useful document in that it articulates how the architects of this technology see themselves: a small group of people bound together by their intellect, skill sets, and fate to help decide the shape of the future. Yet to read his treatise is to feel not FOMO, but alienation. The civilizational struggle he depicts bears little resemblance to the AI that the rest of us can see. “The fate of the world rests on these people,” he writes of the Silicon Valley cohort building AI systems. This is not a call to action or a proposal for input; it’s a statement of who is in charge.

Unlike me, Aschenbrenner believes that a superintelligence is coming, and coming soon. His treatise contains quite a bit of grand speculation about the potential for AI models to drastically improve from here. (Skeptics have strongly pushed back on this assessment.) But his primary concern is that too few people wield too much power. “I don’t think it can just be a small clique building this technology,” he told me recently when I asked why he wrote the treatise.

“I felt a sense of responsibility, by having ended up a part of this group, to tell people what they’re thinking,” he said, referring to the leaders at AI companies who believe they’re on the cusp of achieving AGI. “And again, they might be right or they might be wrong, but people deserve to hear it.” In our conversation, I found an unexpected overlap between us: Whether you believe that AI executives are delusional or genuinely on the verge of constructing a superintelligence, you should be concerned about how much power they’ve amassed.

Having a class of builders with deep ambitions is part of a healthy, progressive society. Great technologists are, by nature, imbued with an audacious spirit to push the bounds of what is possible—and that can be a very good thing for humanity indeed. None of this is to say that the technology is useless: AI undoubtedly has transformative potential (predicting how proteins fold is a genuine revelation, for example). But audacity can quickly turn into a liability when builders become untethered from reality, or when their hubris leads them to believe that it is their right to impose their values on the rest of us, in return for building God.

[Read: This is what it looks like when AI eats the world]

An industry is what it produces, and in 2024, these executive pronouncements and brazen actions, taken together, are the actual state of the artificial-intelligence industry two years into its latest revolution. The apocalyptic visions, the looming nature of superintelligence, and the struggle for the future of humanity—all of these narratives are not facts but hypotheticals, however exciting, scary, or plausible.

When you strip all of that away and focus on what’s really there and what’s really being said, the message is clear: These companies wish to be left alone to “scale in peace,” a phrase that SSI, a new AI company co-founded by Ilya Sutskever, formerly OpenAI’s chief scientist, used with no trace of self-awareness in announcing his company’s mission. (“SSI” stands for “safe superintelligence,” of course.) To do that, they’ll need to commandeer all creative resources—to eminent-domain the entire internet. The stakes demand it. We’re to trust that they will build these tools safely, implement them responsibly, and share the wealth of their creations. We’re to trust their values—about the labor that’s valuable and the creative pursuits that ought to exist—as they remake the world in their image. We’re to trust them because they are smart. We’re to trust them as they achieve global scale with a technology that they say will be among the most disruptive in all of human history. Because they have seen the future, and because history has delivered them to this societal hinge point, marrying ambition and talent with just enough raw computing power to create God. To deny them this right is reckless, but also futile.

It’s possible, then, that generative AI’s chief export is not image slop, voice clones, or lorem ipsum chatbot bullshit but instead unearned, entitled audacity. Yet another example of AI producing hallucinations—not in the machines, but in the people who build them.

Read the full story here.
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As Colorado River declines, states are failing to tap an alternate resource

Five out of seven Colorado River basin states are failing to maximize a critical resource that could help alleviate the region’s longstanding water crisis, a new report found. Across all the states, just 26 percent of treated municipal wastewater is being reused, according to the research, released by the University of California Los Angeles, along...

Five out of seven Colorado River basin states are failing to maximize a critical resource that could help alleviate the region’s longstanding water crisis, a new report found. Across all the states, just 26 percent of treated municipal wastewater is being reused, according to the research, released by the University of California Los Angeles, along with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Arizona and Nevada, which both recycle more than half of their wastewater, stand out among the other five — California, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming — all of which reuse less than a quarter of their wastewater, the report determined. "We're facing a hotter, drier future and we need to pursue water recycling aggressively if we're going to ensure a sustainable, resilient water supply for the Colorado Basin,” co-author Noah Garrison, a water researcher at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, said in a statement. “Even recycling 40% of our wastewater could make a dramatic difference, and we have two states already above 50% showing this is an entirely feasible solution,” Garrison added. The 1,450-mile Colorado River provides drinking water and agricultural irrigation to about 40 million people across seven U.S. states, 30 tribal nations and two states in Mexico. As the West becomes increasingly dry and a growing population consumes more water, this key transboundary artery is dwindling. On the domestic level, the seven U.S. basin states are currently negotiating an update to the Colorado River’s operational guidelines, which are set to expire at the end of 2026. The UCLA-led research team drew their conclusions by analyzing 2022 data from publicly owned treatment works, which process more than 1 million gallons of wastewater daily across the states. They found that Nevada reused 85 percent of its treated wastewater, followed by Arizona at 52 percent. California, which is the region’s biggest wastewater producer, recycled only 22 percent, despite setting ambitious water recycling goals in 2009 and boasting stringent regulations on the subject. Nonetheless, California fared much better than the remaining states, with New Mexico reusing just 18 percent, Colorado 3.6 percent, Wyoming 3.3 percent and Utah less than 1 percent, according to the study. “This is a striking divide,” co-author author Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “The river is over-allocated by up to 4-million-acre feet a year, and state reductions can be less difficult,” Gold added. For reference, the basin states have the collective right to 15 million acre-feet per year, while Mexico receives a 1.5-million-acre-foot allocation. The average U.S. household consumes about half an acre-foot of water annually. In addition to identifying this dearth in water reuse, the researchers also flagged an apparent absence of basic monitoring as to how much recycling is actually occurring — creating a situation that they described as a “data desert.” To quantify the amount of reuse that was occurring, the scientists said they had to in some cases call specific treatment plants to get answers. This absence of consistent reporting systems, they explained, speaks to other systemic issues: a situation in which prolonged drought, climate change, overuse and obsolete infrastructure have come together to create a regional crisis. The authors also criticized the lack of federal standards for wastewater recycling, while noting that just a handful of states track where their treated water goes and how much of it is reused. “There is tremendous opportunity to expand recycled water use, but the lack of adequate data is a significant barrier for increasing wastewater reuse,” Garrison said. Going forward, the researchers suggested concrete policy recommendations for both state and federal governments. They advised the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop model ordinances for states and work with them to create standardized reporting protocols and reuse targets. Also crucial, they added, would be the expansion of funding mechanisms, including grants from the Bureau of Reclamation. At the state level, the authors recommended assessing the effectiveness of individual state programs while also conducting comparisons between neighbors. Each state, they concluded, should establish its own numeric targets, timelines and interim goals, while working with local reclamation agencies. If the Colorado River basin states raised their water recycling rates to just 40 percent, they could gain nearly 900,000 acre-feet of new water each year, or enough to quench the thirst of almost 2 million households, according to the report. Although opportunities exist to ramp up the region’s water recycling efforts substantially, the researchers stressed that doing so “will require a strong commitment from all participants.” “Water reuse won’t solve the Colorado River crisis alone,” Garrison said. “But it’s one of the few solutions available today that can be rapidly scaled and sustained over the long term,” he added.

Headlines for March 28, 2025

Major Earthquake Strikes Burma and Thailand, Collapsing Buildings as Rescuers Rush to Find Survivors, Israeli Attacks on Gaza Continue After It Broke Ceasefire, Killing More Students and Aid Workers, Israel Attacks Southern Lebanon, Beirut in Flagrant Breach of Ceasefire, Marco Rubio Says Rumeysa Ozturk Is One of “More Than 300” Visa Holders Targeted by Trump, U.S. Court in New Jersey Hearing Arguments in Mahmoud Khalil Case, U.S. and Colombia Agree to Share Biometric Data of Immigrants, Protesters in El Salvador Denounce Nayib Bukele’s Human Rights Abuses, Collaboration with Trump, Turkish Authorities Escalate Crackdown on Protesters and the Media Amid Political Crisis, U.S. Escalates Yemen Airstrikes, Bringing Total Deaths Since March 15 to at Least 57, U.S. Judge Orders Waltz, Vance, Rubio to Preserve Messages from Signal War Group Chat, HHS Cutting 10,000 More Jobs as DOGE Carries Out Mission to Gut the Government, “We Can Eliminate an Entire District Court”: Mike Johnson Escalates Attack on Courts That Defy Trump, Trump Withdraws Elise Stefanik Nom for U.N. Ambassador as GOP Frets Over Slim House Majority, New York County Clerk Refuses to Enforce Texas Penalty Against NY Abortion Provider, Trump EO Orders Gov’t Agencies to End Collective Bargaining with Federal Unions, EPA Created Email So Polluters Can More Easily Obtain Exemptions from Environmental Rules, Robert McChesney, Free Press Co-Founder and Staunch Defender of Media and Democracy, Has Died, New Trump EO Aims to Gut Smithsonian Institution

Major Earthquake Strikes Burma and Thailand, Collapsing Buildings as Rescuers Rush to Find SurvivorsIsraeli Attacks on Gaza Continue After It Broke Ceasefire, Killing More Students and Aid WorkersIsrael Attacks Southern Lebanon, Beirut in Flagrant Breach of CeasefireMarco Rubio Says Rumeysa Ozturk Is One of "More Than 300" Visa Holders Targeted by TrumpU.S. Court in New Jersey Hearing Arguments in Mahmoud Khalil CaseU.S. and Colombia Agree to Share Biometric Data of ImmigrantsProtesters in El Salvador Denounce Nayib Bukele's Human Rights Abuses, Collaboration with TrumpTurkish Authorities Escalate Crackdown on Protesters and the Media Amid Political CrisisU.S. Escalates Yemen Airstrikes, Bringing Total Deaths Since March 15 to at Least 57U.S. Judge Orders Waltz, Vance, Rubio to Preserve Messages from Signal War Group ChatHHS Cutting 10,000 More Jobs as DOGE Carries Out Mission to Gut the Government"We Can Eliminate an Entire District Court": Mike Johnson Escalates Attack on Courts That Defy TrumpTrump Withdraws Elise Stefanik Nom for U.N. Ambassador as GOP Frets Over Slim House MajorityNew York County Clerk Refuses to Enforce Texas Penalty Against NY Abortion ProviderTrump EO Orders Gov't Agencies to End Collective Bargaining with Federal UnionsEPA Created Email So Polluters Can More Easily Obtain Exemptions from Environmental RulesRobert McChesney, Free Press Co-Founder and Staunch Defender of Media and Democracy, Has DiedNew Trump EO Aims to Gut Smithsonian Institution

‘Don’t call it zombie deer disease’: scientists warn of ‘global crisis’ as infections spread across the US

A contagious, fatal illness in deer, elk and moose has taken hold in the US and is now reaching other countries. While it has not infected humans yet, the risk is growingIn a scattershot pattern that now extends from coast to coast, continental US states have been announcing new hotspots of chronic wasting disease (CWD).The contagious and always-fatal neurodegenerative disorder infects the cervid family that includes deer, elk, moose and, in higher latitudes, reindeer. There is no vaccine or treatment. Continue reading...

In a scattershot pattern that now extends from coast to coast, continental US states have been announcing new hotspots of chronic wasting disease (CWD).The contagious and always-fatal neurodegenerative disorder infects the cervid family that includes deer, elk, moose and, in higher latitudes, reindeer. There is no vaccine or treatment.Described by scientists as a “slow-motion disaster in the making”, the infection’s presence in the wild began quietly, with a few free-ranging deer in Colorado and Wyoming in 1981. However, it has now reached wild and domestic game animal herds in 36 US states as well as parts of Canada, wild and domestic reindeer in Scandinavia and farmed deer and elk in South Korea.In the media, CWD is often called “zombie deer disease” due to its symptoms, which include drooling, emaciation, disorientation, a vacant “staring” gaze and a lack of fear of people. As concerns about spillover to humans or other species grow, however, the moniker has irritated many scientists.“It trivialises what we’re facing,” says epidemiologist Michael Osterholm. “It leaves readers with the false impression that this is nothing more than some strange fictional menace you’d find in the plot of a sci-fi film. Animals that get infected with CWD do not come back from the dead. CWD is a deathly serious public and wildlife health issue.”Five years ago, Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, delivered what he hoped would be a wake-up call before the Minnesota legislature, warning about “spillover” of CWD transmission from infected deer to humans eating game meat. Back then, some portrayed him as a scaremonger.Today, as CWD spreads inexorably to more deer and elk, more people – probably tens of thousands each year – are consuming infected venison, and a growing number of scientists are echoing Osterholm’s concerns.In January 2025, researchers published a report, Chronic Wasting Disease Spillover Preparedness and Response: Charting an Uncertain Future. A panel of 67 experts who study zoonotic diseases that can move back and forth between humans and animals concluded that spillover to humans “would trigger a national and global crisis” with “far-reaching effects on the food supply, economy, global trade and agriculture”, as well as potentially devastating effects on human health. The report concludes that the US is utterly unprepared to deal with spillover of CWD to people, and that there is no unifying international strategy to prevent CWD’s spread.Wyoming has wilfully chosen to ignore conservationists, scientists, disease experts and prominent wildlife managers who were all saying the same thing: stop the feedingLloyd Dorsey, conservationistSo far, there has not been a documented case of a human contracting CWD, but as with BSE (or mad cow disease) and its variant strain that killed people, long incubation times can mask the presence of disease. CWD, which is incurable, can be diagnosed only after a victim dies. Better surveillance to identify disease in people and game animals is more urgent than ever, experts say. Osterholm says the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to public health funding and research, and the US’s withdrawal from international institutions, such as the World Health Organization, could not be happening at a worse time.The risk of a CWD spillover event is growing, the panel of experts say, and the risk is higher in states where big game hunting for the table remains a tradition. In a survey of US residents by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20% said they had hunted deer or elk, and more than 60% said they had eaten venison or elk meat.Tens of thousands of people are probably eating contaminated game meat either because they do not think they are at risk or they are unaware of the threat. “Hunters sharing their venison with other families is a widespread practice,” Osterholm says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises people who suspect they have killed an animal infected with CWD not to eat it, and states advise any hunters taking animals from infected regions to get them tested. Many, however, do not.A biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources removes lymph nodes from deer in a hunter’s truck, to test for CWD. Photograph: Scott Takushi/APThe movement of meat around the country also raises concerns of environmental contamination. CWD is not caused by bacteria or a virus, but by “prions”: abnormal, transmissible pathogenic agents that are difficult to destroy. Prions have demonstrated an ability to remain activated in soils for many years, infecting animals that come in contact with contaminated areas where they have been shed via urination, defecation, saliva and decomposition when an animal dies. Analysis by the US Geological Survey has shown that numerous carcasses of hunted animals, many probably contaminated with CWD, are transported across state lines, accelerating the scope of prion dispersal.In states where many thousands of deer and elk carcasses are disposed of, some in landfill, there is concern among epidemiologists and local public health officials that toxic waste sites for prions could be created.Every autumn, Lloyd Dorsey has hunted elk and deer to put meat on the table, but now he is concerned about its safety. “Since CWD is now in elk and deer throughout Greater Yellowstone, the disease is on everybody’s mind,” he says. Dorsey has spent decades as a professional conservationist for the Sierra Club, based in Jackson Hole in Wyoming, and he has pressed the state and federal governments to shut down feedgrounds for deer – where cervids gather and disease can easily spread.A sign in Montana warns of CWD in an attempt to prevent its spread via animal carcasses. Photograph: Courtesy of Montana Wildlife Federation“Wyoming has wilfully chosen to ignore conservationists, scientists, disease experts and prominent wildlife managers who were all saying the same thing: stop the feeding,” he says.What’s happening was predictable and we’re living with the consequences of some decisions that were rooted in denialTom Roffe, former US Fish and Wildlife Service chiefApart from the grave concerns about CWD reaching people, scientists describe it as “an existential threat” to wild cervid populations, which are central to American hunting traditions. Nowhere is there more at stake than in the region surrounding the country’s most famous nature preserve, Yellowstone.A new study that tracked 1,000 adult white-tailed deer and fawns in south-west Wisconsin mirrors what research elsewhere suggests: over time infected animals die at rates that outpace natural reproduction, meaning some populations could disappear. No animals have demonstrated immunity to CWD and there is no vaccine.If depopulating herds becomes necessary to reduce disease presence, it could have devastating consequences for people who rely on those animals and who have a connection to them.Studies show that having healthy wild carnivores on a landscape can help weed out sick CWD-carrying elk and deer, but states in the northern Rockies have adopted policies aimed at dramatically reducing wolves, bears and mountain lions.CWD has been detected in the National Elk Refuge in Yellowstone national park, where thousands of elk gather. Photograph: USFWSOther policies continue to contradict scientific advice. Wyoming has attracted national criticism for refusing to shutter nearly two dozen feedgrounds where tens of thousands of elk and deer gather in close confines every winter and are fed artificial forage to bolster their numbers.One of the largest feedgrounds is operated by the federal government: the National Elk Refuge, where more than 8,000 elk cluster, and CWD has already been detected. Tom Roffe, former chief of animal health for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, and Bruce Smith, a former refuge senior biologist, have said Wyoming has created ripe conditions for an outbreak of the disease, with consequences that will negatively ripple throughout the region.“This has been a slowly expanding epidemic with a growth curve playing out on a decades scale, but now we’re seeing the deepening consequences and they could be severe,” Roffe says. “Unfortunately, what’s happening with this disease was predictable and we’re living with the consequences of some decisions that were rooted in denial.”Roffe and others say the best defence is having healthy landscapes where unnatural feeding of wildlife is unnecessary and where predators are not eliminated but allowed to carry out their role of eliminating sick animals.“As Yellowstone has been for generations, it is the most amazing and best place to get wildlife conservation right,” Dorsey says. “It would be such a shame if we continued doing something as foolish as concentrating thousands of elk and deer, making them more vulnerable to catching and spreading this catastrophic disease, when we didn’t have to.”Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage

Tonnes of microplastics infiltrate Australia’s agricultural soils each year, study shows

Without swift and effective action, composting may become an environmental crisis, rather than a solution.

Gary D Chapman/ShutterstockCompost applied to agricultural soils in Australia each year contains tonnes of microplastics, our research has revealed. These microplastics can harm soil and plant health and eventually enter food crops, potentially posing a risk to humans. In Australia, more than 51% of organic waste – including garden and food waste from households – is recovered and processed. Much of it is turned into compost. However, every kilogram of compost we sampled in our study contained thousands of tiny pieces of plastic, invisible to the naked eye. They come from a range of potential sources, including compostable waste bags used by households to store food scraps. Without swift and effective action, composting may become an environmental crisis, rather than a solution. The research revealed every kilogram of compost contains thousands of tiny pieces of plastic. SIVStockStudio/Shutterstock The problem with microplastics in compost As Australia’s landfill sites become exhausted, finding new uses for organics waste has become crucial. Composting is widely promoted as a solution to managing organic waste. It is comprised of decomposed plant and food waste and other organic materials, which is applied to farms and gardens to enrich the soil and improve plant growth. Many local councils provide residents with kitchen caddies and “compostable” plastic bags to collect food waste. These bags can also be bought from supermarkets. These bags usually contain some plant-based substances. However, some contain fossil-fuel based material. Others may contain “bioplastics” such as that made from corn starch or sugarcane, which require very specific conditions to break down into their natural materials. Research shows some compostable bags are a source of microplastics – plastic particles smaller than 5 millimetres. Some compostable bags are a source of microplastics. Hurricanehank/Shutterstock Once applied to soil, microplastics can accumulate over time, posing risks to soil health. For example, research shows microplastics can alter soil structure, limit plant growth, hinder the cycling of nutrients and disrupt microbial communities. This in turn may affect farm productivity. Microplastics can also further degrade into “nanoplastics” small enough to be absorbed by plant roots. From there they can enter stems, leaves, and fruits of agricultural products consumed by humans, posing potential health risks. Internationally, evidence is growing that compost can introduce significant amounts of microplastics into soil. However, little is known about whether organics applied to farm soils in Australia contain microplastics. This study sought to shed light on this. What we found My colleagues and I investigated microplastics in processed organic waste. We took samples from 11 composting facilities in Victoria. We found every kilogram of compost contains between 1,500 and 16,000 microplastic particles. In weight, this equates to between 7 and 760 milligrams of microplastics per kilogram of compost. In Australia, about 26% of compost produced at organic waste processing facilities is used in agriculture. So, we estimate that between 2.7 and 206 tonnes of microplastics is being transported to Australian agricultural land from compost each year. Most microplastic particles we found were “microfibres” and “microfragments”. Microfibres usually derive from synthetic fabrics. Microfragments come from larger plastics, such as packaging material. We then analysed bin bags marketed as compostable or biodegradable, and found their physical and chemical characteristics were very similar to some microfragments we found in organic waste. The microfragments may be coming from other sources as well, such as plastic containers and bags, and plant string scooped into the bin when people collect garden waste. Various microplastic particles from compost samples as seen under the microscope. Hsuan-Cheng Lu Where to now? This study provides the first evidence of microplastics in processed organic waste in Australia. It underscores the need to better understand what happens to microplastics during the composting processes, and how microplastics affect soil health. Policies such as the National Plastic Plan and the National Waste Policy Action Plan promote composting as a key strategy for reducing landfill waste and supporting a circular economy. But these policies do not adequately address the risks of contaminants such as microplastics. In fact, there are no national standards in Australia regulating microplastics in processed organics. The absence of clear guidelines leaves composting facilities, waste processors, and end users vulnerable to unintended plastic pollution. To address this serious environmental issue, urgent action is needed. Authorities should take steps to limit the flow of microplastics into compost, including developing guidelines for composting facilities, waste management companies and households. Monitoring should also be used to track microplastic levels in processed organics, identify their sources and assess the impact on soils and food safety. Shima Ziajahromi receives funding from EPA Victoria, EPA NSW, Water Research Australia, Queensland Government through an Advance Queensland Industry Research Project, co-sponsored by Urban Utilities, Sydney Water, SA Water, Water Corporation (WA) and Eurofins Environment Testing Australia. This project was funded by EPA, Victoria.Frederic Leusch receives funding from the Australian Research Council, EPA Victoria, EPA NSW, Qld DESTI, Water Research Australia, Seqwater, Urban Utilities, Sydney Water, SA Water, Water Corporation and the Global Water Research Coalition. This project was funded by EPA Victoria.Hsuan-Cheng Lu receives funding from EPA Victoria. This project was funded by EPA, Victoria.

El Salton Sea es el lago más amenazado de California. ¿Puede una nueva reserva natural frenar la situación?

Una nueva entidad de conservación supervisará las obras para mejorar la vegetación, la calidad del agua y el hábitat natural en Salton Sea.

Read this story in English La neblina se cernía sobre el lago Salton Sea en un reciente día de invierno, mientras las cigüeñuelas de cuello negro y los kildeer vadeaban en las aguas poco profundas, picoteando crustáceos.  Algo más surgió unos pasos más cerca de la orilla del lago: un hedor a huevo podrido y salado que flotaba desde el agua.  Salton Sea está casi el doble de salado que el océanoargado de escorrentía agrícola y susceptible a la proliferación de algas que expulsan sulfuro de hidrógeno, un gas nocivo. También es un refugio para más de 400 especies de aves y una parada clave en la ruta migratoria del Pacífico, una de las principales rutas migratorias de aves de América del Norte.  Los funcionarios estatales han luchado con el deterioro de la condición del mar a medida que sus aguas se vuelven más sucias y su huella se reduce, exponiendo el polvo tóxico que flota a través de la región.  Este año, el estado dio un paso hacia una solución: creó la nueva Reserva de Salton Sea y destinó casi 500 millones de dólares para revitalizar el cuerpo de agua en deterioro. Si bien los fondos ayudarán a restaurar la vegetación nativa y mejorar la calidad del agua, algunos organizadores comunitarios creen que, en última instancia, se necesitarán decenas de miles de millones de dólares para salvarlo. Y la reserva por sí sola no puede abordar el impacto de su contaminación en la salud humana, incluyendo las elevadas tasas de asma entre los residentes de la zona.  “El Salton Sea es una de las crisis de salud ambiental más urgentes en el estado de California”, dijo el Senador estatal Steve Padilla, el demócrata de Chula Vista que escribió el Proyecto de ley para crear la entidad conservacionista el año pasado. “Es un desastre ecológico y de salud pública… Salton Sea Conservancy garantizará la permanencia de nuestras inversiones en limpieza y restauración”. El bono climático de California, aprobado por los votantes en noviembre, destina 170 millones de dólares a la restauración del Salton Sea, incluyendo 10 millones para establecer la reserva. El Fondo Estatal para la Reducción de Gases de Efecto Invernadero también destina 60 millones de dólares y la Oficina Federal de Recuperación aportará otros 250 millones, según Padilla. Se espera que el gobernador Gavin Newsom, la Legislatura, los distritos de agua locales, los gobiernos tribales y las organizaciones sin fines de lucro designen a 15 miembros para la entidad conservacionista antes del 1 de enero.  La nueva entidad conservacionista administrará los derechos sobre la tierra y el agua y supervisará el trabajo de restauración detallado en el Programa de Gestión de Salton Sea de 2018, un plan de 10 años para construir 30,000 acres de hábitat para la vida silvestre y proyectos de supresión de polvo.  “La conservación es necesaria para garantizar su finalización, pero también para mantener y gestionar permanentemente esa restauración”, dijo Padilla. “Esto no es algo que se hace solo una vez y listo”. Con 35 kilómetros de largo y 15 kilómetros de ancho, Salton Sea es el lago más grande de California. Su forma más reciente se formó en 1905, cuando el río Colorado rompió un canal de riego y millones de litros de agua dulce inundaron la cuenca, creando un lago interior que abarca los valles de Coachella e Imperial. Los pelícanos alzan vuelo en el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Sonny Bono Salton Sea en Calipatria el 15 de julio de 2021. Foto de Marcio José Sánchez, AP Photo Pero ese no fue realmente su comienzo. Aunque Salton Sea tiene fama de ser un accidente agrícola, se ha llenado y drenado de forma natural durante los últimos milenios.  Versiones antiguas de lo que se llamó Lago Cahuilla han aparecido cada pocos siglos desde tiempos prehistóricos. En sus configuraciones más antiguas y grandes, los nativos americanos colocaron trampas para peces a lo largo de la costa. Se llenó tan recientemente como en 1731, estudio de hidrología de la Universidad Estatal de San Diego encontrado. Esa historia natural demuestra su valor para la región, dicen los defensores. “Necesitamos tratar Salton Sea como un ecosistema importante para el medio ambiente en el que vivimos”, dijo Luis Olmedo, director ejecutivo del Comité Cívico del Valle, una organización comunitaria con sede en Brawley. Durante su apogeo en la década de 1960, el lago salado era un zona de juegos acuática para las celebridades del Rat Pack, incluyendo a Frank Sinatra y Dean Martin. A finales del siglo pasado, su salinidad aumentó y la calidad del agua se desplomó, lo que provocó… muertes masivas de peces y aves, incluidos los pelícanos pardos en peligro de extinción.  Residentes del área sufren de problemas respiratorios, mientras el polvo del lecho del lago expuesto se arremolina en las comunidades vecinas. El año pasado, un estudio realizado por la Universidad del Sur de California descubrió que casi una cuarta parte de los niños que viven cerca de Salton Sea padecen asma, aproximadamente entre tres y cinco veces el promedio nacional. Un próspero punto de encuentro para las aves A pesar de su contaminación, el lago sigue siendo un hábitat clave para la vida silvestre. Un conteo de aves de Audubon en agosto de 2023 arrojó un récord de 250,000 aves playeras avistadas en un solo día, según Camila Bautista, gerente del programa de Salton Sea y el desierto de Audubon California. Si bien la contaminación del agua del mar y la disminución de la pesca lo hacen menos acogedor para las aves piscívoras, como los pelícanos, las aves que anidan en el suelo, como los chorlitos nevados, proliferan en la costa en expansión.  “El Salton Sea sigue siendo un lugar de gran importancia para las aves, y estos proyectos de restauración son importantes para garantizar que siga siendo así”, afirmó Bautista. El Programa de Gestión de Salton Sea de California enumera 18 proyectos de restauración, incluyendo algunas iniciativas clave que ya están en marcha. Estas incluyen proyectos masivos de restauración acuática, así como iniciativas de revegetación, según la subsecretaria de la Agencia de Recursos Naturales, Samantha Arthur, quien supervisa el programa de gestión. En el extremo sur del lago, el proyecto estatal de conservación de hábitats ha añadido casi 5,000 acres de estanques, cuencas y otras fuentes de agua, según el rastreador de proyectos del programa de gestión. Las imágenes del sitio parecen un mundo acuático de ciencia ficción, donde la maquinaria de movimiento de tierras transforma la costa en una red de pozas de 10 metros de profundidad.  Los trabajadores mezclarán agua altamente salina del mar con agua dulce de su principal afluente, el Río Nuevo, para alcanzar una salinidad objetivo de 20 a 40 partes por mil, explicó Arthur. A ese nivel, el agua puede albergar al pez cachorrito del desierto, un pez importado adaptado al agua salobre que antaño prosperaba en todo el mar.  “Estamos diseñando una salinidad objetivo para sustentar a los peces y luego atraer a las aves”, dijo.  Cubrir el suelo expuesto con agua también debería mejorar la calidad del aire al suprimir el polvo, afirmó Arthur. Ese proyecto comenzó en 2020 y está previsto que finalice este año. Una ampliación del hábitat de conservación de especies añadiría 14,900 acres adicionales de hábitat acuático para aves piscívoras, con islas de anidación y descanso y estanques de distintas profundidades. Se prevé su finalización en 2027.  El plan de manejo también incluye plantar vegetación nativa alrededor de la costa o fomentar las plantas que ya existen allí.  “Vemos 8,000 acres de humedales que han surgido naturalmente a lo largo de la orilla del mar”, dijo Arthur. “Lo mejor de esto es que proporciona un hábitat permanente para las especies de aves”. El estado está ayudando a lograrlo plantando vegetación nativa en el lado oeste del mar, para crear hábitat y reducir el polvo. Creando soluciones basadas en la naturaleza Bombay Beach es una aldea artesanal situada en el lado este del Salton Sea, salpicada de remolques oxidados, automóviles abandonados e instalaciones de arte emergentes. Primera foto: El mar de Salton en Bombay Beach el 4 de febrero de 2023. Segunda foto: Gente en el Mar de Salton en Bombay Beach el 4 de febrero de 2023. Fotos de Ariana Drehsler para CalMatters También es el sitio de un proyecto de restauración encabezado por Audubon California, que añadirá 564 acres de humedal para 2028. Creará bermas en la costa para permitir que el agua se acumule de forma natural, formando estanques poco profundos que atraen aves acuáticas y playeras, dijo Bautista. “El mensaje de este proyecto es hacer que sea lo más autosuficiente posible y trabajar con soluciones basadas en la naturaleza para que no sea algo superdiseñado”, dijo Bautista. Estos proyectos forman las primeras fases de un esfuerzo de restauración más grande, dijo Arthur.  Mientras los funcionarios estatales y los socios sin fines de lucro están apuntalando los humedales y plantando vegetación, el Cuerpo de Ingenieros del Ejército está estudiando soluciones a largo plazo para Salton Sea Olmedo cree que los 500 millones de dólares asignados ahora son sólo una pequeña parte de lo que en última instancia se necesita para salvar el mar.  “Todo cuesta más y no es descabellado pensar que tenemos un pasivo de 60 mil millones de dólares”, dijo. “Quiero ver miles de millones de dólares invertidos en infraestructura”. Silvia Paz, directora ejecutiva del grupo comunitario Alianza Coachella Valley, con sede en Coachella, señaló que la reserva se centra principalmente en la restauración del hábitat, pero que los riesgos para la salud humana derivados de su contaminación aún requieren atención. Desea que se incluyan más estudios y servicios de salud pública en los planes a largo plazo para Salton Sea “Es un gran logro que hayamos establecido la reserva”, dijo. “En cuanto a abordar los impactos generales en la salud, el medio ambiente y la economía, la reserva no fue diseñada para eso, y aún tenemos mucho camino por recorrer para encontrar la manera de abordarlo”. Este artículo fue publicado originalmente por CalMatters.

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