AFP UK

Three techniques to avoid a castastrophic collision with an asteroid

NASA’s DART mission to test deflecting an asteroid using “kinetic impact” with a spaceship is just one way to defend planet Earth from an approaching object  — and for now, the only method possible with current technology.

The operation is like playing billiards in space, using Newton’s laws of motion to guide us. 

If an asteroid threat to Earth were real, a mission might need to be launched a year or two in advance to take on a small asteroid, or decades ahead of projected impact for larger objects hundreds of kilometers in diameter that could prove catastrophic to the planet. 

Or, a larger object might require hits with multiple spacecraft.

“This demonstration will start to add tools to our toolbox of methods that could be used in the future,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense office, in a recent briefing.

Other proposed ideas have included a futuristic-sounding “gravity tractor,” or a mission to blow up the hypothetical object with a nuclear weapon — the method preferred by Hollywood.

– Gravity tractor – 

Should an approaching object be detected early — years or decades before it would hit Earth — a spaceship could be sent to fly alongside it for long enough to divert its path via using the ship’s gravitational pull, creating a so-called gravity tractor.

This method “has the virtue that the method of moving the asteroid is totally well understood — it’s gravity and we know how gravity works,” Tom Statler, a DART program scientist at NASA said at a briefing last November when DART launched.

The mass of the spacecraft however would be a limiting factor — and gravity tractors would be less effective for asteroids more than 500 meters in diameter, which are the very ones that pose the greatest threat. 

In a 2017 paper, NASA engineers proposed a way to overcome this snag: by having the spacecraft scoop material from the asteroid to enhance its own mass, and thus, gravity.

But none of these concepts have been tried, and would need decades to build, launch and test.

– Nuclear detonation – 

Another option: launching nuclear explosives to redirect or destroy an asteroid. 

“This may be the only strategy that would be effective for the largest and most dangerous ‘planet-killer’ asteroids (more than one kilometer in diameter),” a NASA article on the subject says, adding such a strike might be useful as a “last resort” in case the other methods fail.

But these weapons are geopolitically controversial and technically banned from use in outer space.

Lori Glaze, NASA’s planetary science division director said in a 2021 briefing that the agency believed the best way to deploy the weapons would be at a distance from an asteroid, in order to impart force on the object without blowing it into smaller pieces that could then multiply the threat to Earth.

A 2018 paper published in the “Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics” by Russian scientists looked at the direct detonation scenario.

E. Yu. Aristova and colleagues built miniature asteroid models and blasted them with lasers. Their experiments showed that blowing up a 200-meter asteroid would require a bomb 200 times as powerful as the one that exploded over Hiroshima in 1945. 

They also said it would be most effective to drill into the asteroid, bury the bomb, then blow it up — just like in the movie Armageddon.

Typhoon Noru is the strongest storm to hit the Philippines this year

The strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year left at least six people dead, authorities said Monday, after heavy rain and fierce winds battered the country’s most populous island.

Typhoon Noru toppled trees, knocked out power and flooded low-lying communities as it swept across Luzon on Sunday and Monday.

There have so far been no reports of widespread severe damage to buildings from the storm, which hit the country as a super typhoon. 

Five people suffered minor injuries and several others are missing, disaster officials said.  

“I think that we may have gotten lucky at least this time, a little bit,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told a briefing with disaster agencies.

Five rescuers were killed after they were sent to help flooded residents in San Miguel municipality in Bulacan province, near the capital Manila.

Lieutenant-Colonel Romualdo Andres, chief of police in San Miguel, said the rescuers were wading through floodwaters when a wall collapsed, sending them into the fast current.

“Our house was swept away by the flood, it’s gone,” said Willie Ortega, 59, in San Miguel. “We weren’t able to save anything, even the rice to eat, none.”  

An elderly man died after he was hit by a landslide in Burdeos municipality on the Polillo Islands, part of Quezon province, where the storm made landfall, said Garner Jimenez from the local civil defence office.

The Philippines is regularly ravaged by storms, with scientists warning they are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer because of climate change.

Noru smashed into the archipelago nation on Sunday after an unprecedented “explosive intensification” in wind speeds, the state weather forecaster said earlier.

It made landfall about 100 kilometres (62 miles) northeast of Manila, before weakening to a typhoon as it crossed a mountain range, coconut plantations and rice fields.

More than 74,000 people were evacuated from their homes before the storm hit, as the meteorology agency warned heavy rain could cause “serious flooding” in vulnerable areas and trigger landslides.

But on Monday, there was no sign of the widespread devastation many had feared, as the storm moved over the South China Sea towards Vietnam.

State weather forecaster Ana Laurel said Noru brought less rain and moved faster compared to other destructive typhoons that have hit the Philippines.

“It all depends on the interplay of the weather systems. Each typhoon has its own characteristics,” Laurel explained.

Aerial footage taken during Marcos’s inspection flight over central Luzon showed rivers that were swollen or had burst their banks, and patches of farmland under water.

Officials estimate about 141 million pesos ($2.4  million) worth of crops were damaged.

National disaster agency spokesperson Rafaelito Alejandro described the storm’s impact as “very minimal”. 

Marcos said preparations for the storm helped. 

“You might think that we overdid it. There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to disasters,” he said.

– ‘The wind was whistling’ – 

The Polillo Islands bore the brunt of Noru with storm surges blamed for flooding coastal communities.

“The wind was whistling and it had heavy rains,” said Ervin Calleja, a 49-year-old teacher in Burdeos municipality.

Ferocious winds ripped off roofs and brought down large trees. Some crops were wiped out.

“Here at the town centre all banana trees were flattened, 100 percent,” said Liezel Calusin, a member of the civil defence team in Polillo municipality. 

“We still have no electricity, but the phones are working.”

In Banaba village near Manila, Terrence Reyes fled his riverside home with his family and neighbours as floodwaters rose during the storm. 

They returned home Monday to find their belongings sodden and caked in mud.

“We just have to throw them away and start over again,” Reyes, 25, said. 

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.

People in the US state of Florida were also preparing for the storm's imminent arrival

Tropical storm Ian has strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane as it nears western Cuba, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Monday.

“Ian becomes a hurricane,” the NHC said in an advisory, warning that “additional rapid strengthening is expected today.”

The storm was moving northwest toward Cuba and the Cayman Islands with maximum sustained winds of 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour, the NHC said.

It added that western Cuba was expected to bear the brunt of the storm on Monday when it could be hit by “significant wind and storm surge impacts.”

People in the US state of Florida were also preparing for the storm’s imminent arrival, with the NHC issuing a hurricane watch for the state’s west coast, including Tampa Bay.

On Sunday, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in all 67 counties as officials scrambled to prepare for the storm. 

“Expect heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surge and even isolated tornados,” DeSantis told reporters on Sunday.

The governor urged residents to stock up on food, water, medicine and fuel and to prepare for power outages.

DeSantis activated 2,500 National Guard members to help with the effort.

Authorities in several Florida municipalities, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, began distributing free sandbags to residents to help them protect their homes from the risk of flooding. 

President Joe Biden approved emergency aid to 24 counties in Florida through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“It’s never too early to prepare,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor tweeted.

– Fiona’s wake –

The Caribbean and parts of eastern Canada are still counting the costs of powerful storm Fiona, which tore through the region last week.

Fiona claimed seven lives as it roared through the Caribbean at the start of a week of havoc.

When it arrived in eastern Canada, the storm packed intense winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour, bringing torrential rain and waves of up to 40 feet (12 meters).

Canadian authorities have now confirmed two deaths caused when Fiona tore into Nova Scotia and Newfoundland as a post-tropical cyclone early Saturday.

Prince Edward Island authorities on Sunday confirmed the death of one person while officials in Newfoundland said they found the body of a 73-year-old woman believed to have been swept from her home. She was apparently sheltering in her basement when waves broke through.

“The devastation is immense,” Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston told reporters. “The magnitude of the storm is incredible.”

Storm surges swept at least 20 homes into the sea in the town of Channel-Port aux Basques, on the southwestern tip of Newfoundland.

Mayor Brian Button described “a total war zone” in the coastal community. 

Around 200 residents had been evacuated before the storm hit.

“Some people have lost everything, and I mean everything,” Button told CBC News.

A man sits at his workstation within the Mission Operations Center for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spaceship, which is fast approaching its target

NASA will on Monday attempt a feat humanity has never before accomplished: deliberately smacking a spacecraft into an asteroid to slightly deflect its orbit, in a key test of our ability to stop cosmic objects from devastating life on Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spaceship launched from California last November and is fast approaching its target, which it will strike at roughly 14,000 miles (22,500 kilometers) per hour.

To be sure, neither the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, nor the big brother it orbits, called Didymos, pose any threat as the pair loop the Sun, passing about seven million miles from Earth at nearest approach.

But NASA has deemed the experiment important to carry out before an actual need is discovered.

If all goes to plan, impact between the car-sized spacecraft, and the 530-foot (160 meters, or two Statues of Liberty) asteroid should take place at 7:14 pm Eastern Time (2314 GMT), and can be followed on a NASA livestream.

By striking Dimorphos head on, NASA hopes to push it into a smaller orbit, shaving ten minutes off the time it takes to encircle Didymos, which is currently 11 hours and 55 minutes — a change that will be detected by ground telescopes in the days that follow.

The proof-of-concept experiment will make a reality of what has before only been attempted in science fiction — notably films such as “Armageddon” and “Don’t Look Up.” 

– Technically challenging –

As the craft propels itself through space, flying autonomously for the mission’s final phase, its camera system will start to beam down the very first pictures of Dimorphos.

Minutes later, a toaster-sized satellite called LICIACube, which separated from DART a couple of weeks earlier, will make a close pass of the site to capture images of the collision and the ejecta — the pulverized rock thrown off by impact.

LICIACube’s pictures will be sent back in the weeks and months that follow. 

Also watching the event: an array of telescopes, both on Earth and in space — including the recently operational James Webb — which might be able to see a brightening cloud of dust.

Finally, a full picture of what the system looks like will be revealed when a European Space Agency mission four years down the line called Hera arrives to survey Dimorphos’s surface and measure its mass, which scientists can only guess at currently.

– Being prepared –

Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in our solar system are considered potentially hazardous to our planet, and none are expected in the next hundred or so years. 

But “I guarantee to you that if you wait long enough, there will be an object,” said NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen. 

We know that from the geological record — for example, the six-mile wide Chicxulub asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the world into a long winter that led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs along with 75 percent of all species.

An asteroid the size of Dimorphos, by contrast, would only cause a regional impact, such as devastating a city, albeit with greater force than any nuclear bomb in history.

How much momentum DART imparts on Dimorphos will depend on whether the asteroid is solid rock, or more like a “rubbish pile” of boulders bound by mutual gravity, a property that’s not yet known.

The shape of the asteroid is also not known, but NASA engineers are confident DART’s SmartNav guidance system will hit its target.

If it misses, NASA will have another shot in two years’ time, with the spaceship containing just enough fuel for another pass.

But if it succeeds, Chabot said, the mission will mark the first step towards a world capable of defending itself from a future existential threat.

Typhoon Noru is the strongest storm to hit the Philippines this year

The strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year left at least six people dead, authorities said Monday, after heavy rain and fierce winds battered the country’s most populous island.

Typhoon Noru toppled trees, knocked out power and flooded low-lying communities as it swept across Luzon on Sunday and Monday.

There have so far been no reports of widespread severe damage from the storm, which hit the country as a super typhoon. 

“We were ready for all of this,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told a briefing with disaster agencies.

“You might think that we overdid it. There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to disasters.”

Five rescuers were killed after they were sent to help flooded residents in San Miguel municipality in Bulacan province, near the capital Manila.

“They were deployed by the provincial government to a flooded area,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Romualdo Andres, chief of police in San Miguel.

Andres said the rescuers were wading through floodwaters when a wall beside them collapsed, sending them into the fast current.

An elderly man died after he was hit by a landslide in Burdeos municipality on the Polillo islands, part of Quezon province, where the storm made landfall, said Garner Jimenez from the local civil defence office.

The Philippines is regularly ravaged by storms, with scientists warning they are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer because of climate change.

Noru smashed into the archipelago nation on Sunday after an unprecedented “explosive intensification” in wind speeds, the state weather forecaster said earlier.

It made landfall about 100 kilometres (62 miles) northeast of the densely populated capital Manila, before weakening to a typhoon as it crossed a mountain range, coconut plantations and rice fields.

Nearly 75,000 people were evacuated from their homes before the storm hit, as the meteorology agency warned heavy rain could cause “serious flooding” in vulnerable areas, trigger landslides and destroy crops.

But on Monday there was no sign of the widespread devastation many had feared, as the storm moved over the South China Sea towards Vietnam.

Aerial footage taken during Marcos’s inspection flight over central Luzon showed rivers that were swollen or had burst their banks, and patches of farmland under water.

– ‘The wind was whistling’ – 

Burdeos municipality on the Polillo islands bore the brunt of Noru.

Ferocious winds ripped off some roofs and brought down large trees while heavy rain flooded riverside houses, said Ervin Calleja, a 49-year-old teacher.

“It was really worrisome,” Calleja told AFP by phone. 

“The wind was whistling and it had heavy rains. That’s the more dangerous part.”

Flimsy houses along the coast were damaged and some crops were wiped out.

“Here at the town centre all banana trees were flattened, 100 percent,” said Liezel Calusin, a member of the civil defence team in Polillo municipality. 

“We still have no electricity, but the phones are working.”

In Banaba village near Manila, Terrence Reyes fled his riverside home with his family and neighbours as floodwaters rose during the storm. 

They returned home Monday to find their belongings sodden and caked in mud.

“We just have to throw them away and start over again,” Reyes, 25, said. 

“It happens each time there is a storm here.”

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.

Members of a Methodist church in Tachira state were swept away by sudden floods

The death toll from floods that swept away a group of people at a religious retreat in western Venezuela has risen to eight, authorities said on Sunday, as the search for two more missing people continued.

Around 40 members of a Methodist church had gathered in Tachira state on Friday when heavy rains caused flooding, state governor Freddy Bernal tweeted.

Some of the worshippers were bathing in the river when the rains came down, suddenly raising the water level and washing them away, Bernal said.

Four of the dead were between the ages of 12 and 17, according to a police report seen by AFP, with the rest aged between 19 to 25.

“The search for two more people is ongoing,” Bernal wrote.

The flooding took place in a region of the Andes Mountains bordering Colombia that is popular with tourists.

Authorities were searching 12 kilometers (seven miles) downstream from where they estimated the 10 people had been swept away by the current, according to police chief Yesnardo Canal.

The incident took place in the city of Lobatera, about 31 kilometers (19 miles) from Tachira’s capital of San Cristobal, authorities said.

Resident Martin Carrillo said his daughter and his son-in-law were swept away by the current.

“They were on a spiritual retreat, they decided to go swimming in the river and the flood came and swept them away,” he told AFP as he waited with several family members for the bodies to be delivered.

This year, Venezuela has recorded above-average rainfall, which has caused damage in several regions, officials said.

Government spokespeople have linked the heavy rain to the La Nina weather phenomenon, which is caused by a thermal anomaly in the equatorial surface waters of the Pacific Ocean.

In Caracas, the country’s capital, rains accompanied by strong gusts of wind, electrical discharges and hail were recorded on Sunday.

The ENOC filling station at Dubai's Expo 2020 projects a bright and colourful futurist vibe

A vintage pump in the Vietnamese hills; a Madrid petrol station topped with a giant sombrero; a multi-coloured futuristic fuel outlet in Dubai -– whatever its form the humble filling stop, emblem of our modern societies, would appear to be running out of road.

Faced with the drive away from hydrocarbons as governments seek to fight global warming, compounded by fuel shortages due to the Ukraine conflict and consequent soaring prices, there is little doubt that the internal combustion engine’s days will likely soon be numbered.

That may well sound the death knell -– or at least trigger a deep reconfiguration –- for petrol stations, whose history was closely tied to the rise of the automobile at the start of the 20th century.

In Moscow, the oldest filling station in the city centre was established in the 1930s. Nine decades later, this sober cream and red building is still there, in the shadow of golden-domed Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Some filling outlets have become landmarks in themselves, such as Blackwell’s Corner, in the California desert. A giant billboard with James Dean’s face reminds motorists that it was here the “Rebel Without a Cause” star made his last stop before the accident which killed him 40 kilometres (25 miles) further down the highway.

The common element of most service stations is the canopy above the fuel pumps which, as well as sheltering users from the weather, often serves for marketing.

Some have earned listing as historical monuments, such as Red Hill service station 170 kms north of London, whose futuristic “Pegasus” design from the 1960s comprises six circular canopies.

– Back to the land –

At night the Union 76 petrol station in Beverly Hills looks like a space ship which has landed next to the palm trees of Little Santa Monica Boulevard. It is recognised as a prime example of Googie architecture, and was chosen by British rocker Noel Gallagher in 2011 for the cover of his first album with the High Flying Birds.

But the canopies are not always as flashy. 

In many places it’s just corrugated sheeting. In a typical fuel outlet in Nimba county, Liberia, fuel is sold using jerrycans and people fill their vehicles using funnels.

In Europe, many small village filling stations have closed down. 

In France there were just over 11,000 service stations in 2021, compared to 41,000 at the start of the 1980s. A key reason is competition from supermarkets which can afford to earn smaller margins.

“In the 2000s, we branched out into garage work, then vehicle washing,” said Francis Pousse, in charge of service stations at auto industry body Mobilians. 

“But the margins kept going down, and faced with the investments needed to modernise, lots of managers threw in the towel. And young people who buy garage/fuel stations close down the fuel part,” he added. 

How many still remember that long-ago era of small village petrol stations? In Roaix, north of Marseille, a sign for petrol company Antar and an old red pump are reminders that a second-hand store by the road wasn’t always here.

Elsewhere, for example near Gjilan in Kosovo, some abandoned filling stations are simply disappearing under overgrown vegetation –- possibly presaging the fate of others as humanity switches from hydrocarbons.

In the meantime, some are being recycled, like one former petrol station in Phnom Penh, which has taken the concept of ecological transition to a logical conclusion: instead of fuel, its main product on sale now is plants.

Typhoon Noru is the strongest storm to hit the Philippines this year

Five rescuers were killed in the Philippines after they were sent to a flooded community during a powerful typhoon, authorities said Monday, the first confirmed casualties of the strongest storm to hit the country this year. 

The typhoon dumped heavy rain and unleashed fierce winds as it swept across the main island of Luzon on Sunday and Monday, toppling trees and flooding low-lying communities. 

So far, there have been no reports of widespread severe damage.

The five rescuers were in San Miguel municipality in Bulacan province, near the capital Manila, when they died. 

“They were deployed by the provincial government to a flooded area,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Romualdo Andres, chief of police in San Miguel.

Andres said the rescuers were wading through floodwaters when a wall beside them collapsed, sending them into the fast current.

The Philippines is regularly ravaged by storms, with scientists warning they are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer because of climate change.

Super Typhoon Noru smashed into the archipelago nation on Sunday after an unprecedented “explosive intensification” in wind speeds, the state weather forecaster said earlier.

It made landfall about 100 kilometres (62 miles) northeast of the densely populated capital Manila, before weakening to a typhoon as it crossed a mountain range, coconut plantations and rice fields.

Nearly 75,000 people were evacuated from their homes before the storm hit, as the meteorology agency warned heavy rain could cause “serious flooding” in vulnerable areas, trigger landslides and destroy crops.

But on Monday morning there was no sign of the widespread devastation many had feared.

“We were ready for all of this,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told a briefing with disaster agencies.

“You might think that we overdid it. There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to disasters.”

Burdeos municipality on the Polillo islands, part of Quezon province, bore the brunt of Noru as it made landfall.

Fierce winds ripped off some roofs and brought down large trees while heavy rain flooded riverside houses, said Ervin Calleja, a 49-year-old teacher.

“It was really worrisome,” Calleja told AFP by mobile phone. 

“The wind was whistling and it had heavy rains. That’s the more dangerous part.”

Despite taking the full force of the typhoon, authorities said it passed over quickly and there were so far no reports of major damage to houses. But some crops were wiped out.

“Here at the town centre all banana trees were flattened, 100 percent,” said Liezel Calusin, a member of the civil defence team in Polillo municipality. 

“We still have no electricity, but the phones are working.”

In Banaba village near Manila, Terrence Reyes fled his riverside home with his family and neighbours during the storm as floodwaters rose. 

They returned home Monday to find their belongings caked in mud.

“We just have to throw them away and start over again,” Reyes, 25, said. 

“It happens each time there is a storm here.”

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.

This handout image provided by Pauline Billard on September 25, 2022 shows damage caused by Hurricane Fiona in Rose Blanche-Harbour le Cou, Canada

Parts of eastern Canada suffered “immense” devastation, officials said Sunday after powerful storm Fiona swept houses into the sea and caused major power outages, as the Caribbean and Florida braced for intensifying Tropical Storm Ian.

Canadian authorities have now confirmed two deaths caused when Fiona, then a post-tropical cyclone, tore into Nova Scotia and Newfoundland early Saturday.

Fiona had earlier claimed seven lives as it roared through the Caribbean at the start of a week of havoc.

Officials on Prince Edward Island on Sunday confirmed the death of one person there, though there were few details.

And officials have found the body of a 73-year-old woman believed to have been swept from her home in Newfoundland. She apparently was sheltering in her basement when waves broke through.

The storm packed intense winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour when it arrived with force rarely seen in eastern Canada, bringing torrential rain and waves of up to 40 feet (12 meters).

“The devastation is immense,” Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston told reporters. “The magnitude of the storm is incredible.”

Storm surges swept at least 20 homes into the sea in the town of Channel-Port aux Basques, on the southwestern tip of Newfoundland.

Mayor Brian Button described “a total war zone” in the coastal community. 

Some 200 residents had been evacuated before the storm hit.

On Sunday, residents were reckoning with the damage.

“Some people have lost everything, and I mean everything,” Button told CBC News.

“The sea was taking back the land and we were getting separated. A lot of our homes are built along the coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. Down there, Fiona just wiped out parts of that,” he said. 

Tempers were fraying Sunday as residents tried to return to their homes — or what was left of them. 

“I know people are showing up at the barricades angry this morning and wanting to move in and go check up on their properties,” said Button in a live video on Facebook. 

“You’ve got to give us a little bit of time… Unfortunately, this is going to take days, could take weeks, could take months in some cases,” he said.

– ‘Incredible storm’ –

More than 300,000 people were still without electricity across five provinces Sunday after the storm felled trees, ripped roofs from buildings and damaged power lines, officials said. Hundreds of utility crews were working to restore power.

Nova Scotia premier Houston told CBC the Canadian military had been deployed to help clear trees and roads.

Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said the Canadian armed forces would also provide assistance to Newfoundland’s cleanup efforts. This is the third province to request federal military assistance, after Nova Scotia on Saturday and Prince Edward Island earlier Sunday.

Television images showed a long line of cars and people on foot queuing to get gas for generators in Cape Breton, an island off Nova Scotia, where dozens had spent the night in relief centers operated by the Canadian Red Cross.

On Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown Police Chief Brad MacConnell pleaded with residents to stay inside as recovery efforts continue.

“We ask people to stay home unless absolutely necessary,” he told CBC, adding that there’s “a lot of devastation” and hardly an area of the city that had not been significantly affected.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that he had met again with his Incident Response Group to ensure that “resources are available to help those affected by the storm.”

By Sunday, with a waning Fiona dissipating over the Labrador Sea, the country’s environmental agency said all warnings had been canceled.

– Ian to become major hurricane –

Further south, parts of the Caribbean as well as the US state of Florida were preparing for Tropical Storm Ian, which the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said is forecast to become a hurricane on Monday and a major hurricane the following day.

Packing winds of near 60 miles per hour and getting stronger, the storm is expected to pass near the Cayman Islands, either near or over western Cuba, and then head toward Florida, the NHC said.

A hurricane warning is in effect for parts of Cuba — where the storm is forecast to “produce significant wind and storm surge” — as well as the British territory of Grand Cayman, according to the NHC. 

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis said Saturday that he had declared a state-wide emergency in preparation for the storm, warning on Twitter that “Floridians should take precautions.”

Authorities in several Florida municipalities including Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa began distributing free sandbags to residents to help them protect their homes from the risk of flooding. 

“It’s never too early to prepare,” tweeted Jane Castor, the mayor of Tampa.

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A man uses a makeshift raft to cross s stream of flood waters near his damaged house in Jaffarabad, Pakistan

Pakistan’s catastrophic floods have led to renewed calls for rich polluting nations, which grew their economies through heavy use of fossil fuels, to compensate developing countries for the devastating impacts caused by the climate crisis.

The currently favored term for this concept is “loss and damage” payments,  but some campaigners want to go further and frame the issue as “climate reparations,” just as racial justice activists call for compensation for the descendants of enslaved people. 

Beyond the tougher vocabulary, green groups also call for debt cancellation for cash-strapped nations that spend huge portions of their budgets servicing external loans, rather than devoting the funds to increasing resilience to a rapidly changing planet. 

“There’s a historical precedent of not just the industrial revolution that led to increased emissions and carbon pollution, but also the history of colonialism and the history of extraction of resources, wealth and labor,” Belgium-based climate activist Meera Ghani told AFP.

“The climate crisis is a manifestation of interlocking systems of oppression, and it’s a form of colonialism,” said Ghani, a former climate negotiator for Pakistan. 

Such ideas stretch back decades and were first pushed by small island nations susceptible to rising sea levels —  but momentum is once more building on the back of this summer’s catastrophic inundations in Pakistan, driven by unprecedented monsoon rains. 

Nearly 1,600 were killed, several million displaced, and the cash-strapped government estimates losses in the region of $30 billion. 

– Beyond mitigation and adaptation –

Campaigners point to the fact that the most climate-vulnerable countries in the Global South are least responsible — Pakistan, for instance, produces less than one percent of global greenhouse emissions, as opposed to the G20 countries which account for 80 percent.

The international climate response currently involves a two-pronged approach: “mitigation” — which means reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gases — and “adaptation,” which means steps to alter systems and improve infrastructure for changes that are already locked in.

Calls for “loss and damage” payments go further than adaptation financing, and seek compensation for multiplying severe weather impacts that countries cannot withstand.

At present, however, even the more modest goal of adaptation financing is languishing. 

Advanced economies agreed to channel $100 billion to less developed countries by the year 2020 — a promise that was broken — even as much of the funding that was mobilized came in the form of loans.

“If our starting point is that the global North is largely responsible for the state of our planet today,” said Maira Hayat, an assistant professor of environment and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. 

“Then why should countries that have contributed little by way of GHG emissions be asking them for aid — loans are the predominant form –- with onerous repayment conditions?”

“If the language is upsetting for some, the next step should be to probe why that might be -– do they dispute the history? Or the present-day implications of accepting certain historical pasts?”

– Point scoring? –

Not all in the climate arena are convinced. 

“Beyond a certain rhetorical point-scoring that’s not going to go anywhere,” said Daanish Mustafa, professor in critical geography at King’s College London. 

While he also blames the Global North for the world’s current predicament, he says he is wary of pushing a narrative that may excuse the actions of the Pakistani leadership and policy choices they have taken that exacerbate this and other disasters.

The World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists found that climate change likely contributed to the floods. 

But the devastating impacts were also driven “by the proximity of human settlements, infrastructure (homes, buildings, bridges) and agricultural land to flood plains,” among other locally driven factors, they said.

Pakistan’s own emissions, while low at the global scale, are fast rising — with the benefits flowing to a tiny elite, said Mustafa, and the country should pursue an alternative, low-carbon development path rather than “aping the West” and damaging itself in the process. 

The case for “loss and damage” payments received a recent boost with UN chief Antonio Guterres calling for “meaningful action” on it at the next global climate summit, COP27 in Egypt in November.

But the issue is sensitive for rich countries — especially the United States, the largest emitter of GHGs historically — which fear it could pave the way for legal action and kept language regarding “liability and compensation” out of the landmark Paris agreement.