AFP UK

The weather seems cooperative and the passengers are raring to go: SpaceX’s first space tourists were a picture of calm Tuesday as they prepared to blast off on a three-day mission to orbit the Earth.

“No jitters, excited to get going!” American billionaire Jared Isaacman told reporters when asked his state of mind at a press conference.

Behind him towered the giant Falcon 9 rocket, which will carry the four-member, all civilian crew for the mission, dubbed Inspiration4.

“Any jitters are the good kind,” added 29-year-old physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux. “I’m just so excited for tomorrow to get here.” 

Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old Air Force veteran, even compared the extraordinary voyage to a “camper van” ride.

He’s not far off: the interior of the Dragon Capsule offers its occupants a cramped eight by four meters (27 by 13 feet) of space.

“You just wrap yourself in (sleeping bags) so you don’t float into each other during the middle of the night!” he joked.

They all said they got along well, even though they didn’t know each other before they started training only about six months ago. 

Isaacman, who chartered the mission at his expense, ran a competition to choose the three joining him.

“Since the announcement… every day has been the best day of my life, and it’s only getting better,” declared Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old geology professor who will become the first African American woman to assume the role of “pilot” on a spaceflight.

Clearly moved by the occasion, she shared that she and the crew had had a phone chat with former first lady Michelle Obama.

“We had a very nice conversation that will stay with you for the rest of my life.” 

A take-off window begins at 8:02pm Wednesday (0002 GMT Thursday).

“Right now, the weather is trending well,” said Benji Reed, chief of crewed missions for SpaceX.

The weather seems cooperative and the passengers are raring to go: SpaceX’s first space tourists were a picture of calm Tuesday as they prepared to blast off on a three-day mission to orbit the Earth.

“No jitters, excited to get going!” American billionaire Jared Isaacman told reporters when asked his state of mind at a press conference.

Behind him towered the giant Falcon 9 rocket, which will carry the four-member, all civilian crew for the mission, dubbed Inspiration4.

“Any jitters are the good kind,” added 29-year-old physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux. “I’m just so excited for tomorrow to get here.” 

Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old Air Force veteran, even compared the extraordinary voyage to a “camper van” ride.

He’s not far off: the interior of the Dragon Capsule offers its occupants a cramped eight by four meters (27 by 13 feet) of space.

“You just wrap yourself in (sleeping bags) so you don’t float into each other during the middle of the night!” he joked.

They all said they got along well, even though they didn’t know each other before they started training only about six months ago. 

Isaacman, who chartered the mission at his expense, ran a competition to choose the three joining him.

“Since the announcement… every day has been the best day of my life, and it’s only getting better,” declared Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old geology professor who will become the first African American woman to assume the role of “pilot” on a spaceflight.

Clearly moved by the occasion, she shared that she and the crew had had a phone chat with former first lady Michelle Obama.

“We had a very nice conversation that will stay with you for the rest of my life.” 

A take-off window begins at 8:02pm Wednesday (0002 GMT Thursday).

“Right now, the weather is trending well,” said Benji Reed, chief of crewed missions for SpaceX.

The government of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous Danish territory, faced an outcry on Tuesday over the culling of more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins in a day in what was said to be the single biggest hunt in the northern archipelago.

“There is no doubt that the Faroese whale hunts are a dramatic sight to people unfamiliar to the hunts and slaughter of mammals,” a government spokesman told AFP. 

“The hunts are, nevertheless, well organised and fully regulated,” he said.

Traditionally, the North Atlantic islands — which have a population of around 50,000 people — hunt pilot whales and not dolphins, the spokesman said. 

“There are usually a few of them in the ‘grind’, but we normally don’t kill such a large number,” said a local television journalist, Hallur av Rana.

The “grindadrap” is a practice whereby the hunters first surround the whales with a wide semi-circle of fishing boats and then drive them into a bay to be beached and slaughtered. 

“It looks quite extreme and it took some time to kill them all, while it’s usually pretty quick,” av Rana said. 

Photos showing the bloodied corpses of more than 1,000 Atlantic white-sided dolphins on the beach sparked outrage on social media.

According to av Rana, although some 53 percent of the islands’ population are opposed to the “grind”, there no plans to abolish the practice. The authorities insist it is a sustainable way of hunting.

Sea Shepherd, a charity that campaigns against the hunting of whales and dolphins, described it as a “barbaric practice”. 

According to local estimates, there are around 100,000 pilot whales in the waters around the Faroe Islands and around 600 were killed last year.

The government of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous Danish territory, faced an outcry on Tuesday over the culling of more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins in a day in what was said to be the single biggest hunt in the northern archipelago.

“There is no doubt that the Faroese whale hunts are a dramatic sight to people unfamiliar to the hunts and slaughter of mammals,” a government spokesman told AFP. 

“The hunts are, nevertheless, well organised and fully regulated,” he said.

Traditionally, the North Atlantic islands — which have a population of around 50,000 people — hunt pilot whales and not dolphins, the spokesman said. 

“There are usually a few of them in the ‘grind’, but we normally don’t kill such a large number,” said a local television journalist, Hallur av Rana.

The “grindadrap” is a practice whereby the hunters first surround the whales with a wide semi-circle of fishing boats and then drive them into a bay to be beached and slaughtered. 

“It looks quite extreme and it took some time to kill them all, while it’s usually pretty quick,” av Rana said. 

Photos showing the bloodied corpses of more than 1,000 Atlantic white-sided dolphins on the beach sparked outrage on social media.

According to av Rana, although some 53 percent of the islands’ population are opposed to the “grind”, there no plans to abolish the practice. The authorities insist it is a sustainable way of hunting.

Sea Shepherd, a charity that campaigns against the hunting of whales and dolphins, described it as a “barbaric practice”. 

According to local estimates, there are around 100,000 pilot whales in the waters around the Faroe Islands and around 600 were killed last year.

Facing pressure from environmentalists, Chevron boosted spending Tuesday for “lower carbon” ventures and unveiled plans to reduce emissions from its operations in a pitch that drew shrugs from climate activists.

The US oil giant said it would more than triple spending through 2028 to $10 billion on its “lower carbon businesses,” including on products like aviation fuel made from biofeedstocks instead of crude oil.

“We believe climate change is real and that human activity, including the use of fossil fuels, contributes to it,” Chief Executive Mike Wirth said at the outset of an investor presentation. 

“We believe the future of energy will be lower carbon and intend to be a leader in that future.”

But the strategy — which keeps the vast majority of Chevron’s capital budget going to fossil fuels — drew little praise from critics.

Like its US rival ExxonMobil, Chevron has faced intensifying pressure from environmentalists as well as mainstream investors, and shareholders have voted against their recommendations at annual meetings earlier this year.

“We’re pleased that Chevron finally wants to talk about the energy transition. We’re pleased that they’re increasing spending on lower carbon energy,” said Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, a Dutch activist shareholder group. “But this is by far not enough.”

Chevron’s increased investment in lower carbon energy is “encouraging,” but “it’s hard to see” how bringing renewable fuels to seven percent of refineries throughout by 2030 “will convince investors that it taking climate seriously,” Andrew Logan, director of the oil and gas program at activist non-profit investor group Ceres, said on Twitter.

Many activists view the climate situation as a crisis, arguing that worsening storms and forest fires are proof of the need for immediate action. 

– ‘Action over pledges’ –

During the 90-minute presentation to Wall Street analysts, executives outlined investments such as upgrades to its El Segundo, California refinery to produce renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel and a joint venture with agribusiness Bunge to line up feedstocks for such fuels.

The company also walked through improvements that will make upstream operations less emitting, such as the use of satellite technology to monitor for methane releases in Kazakstan and an upgrade to an offshore project in Nigeria to reinject natural gas into the reservoir instead of flaring it into the atmosphere.

But even with the additional spending, most of Chevron’s capital budget will go to its conventional petroleum business. Chevron said in March it plans $14 billion to $16 billion in annual capital spending between 2021 and 2025.

Wirth said Chevron’s strategy reflects the reality that fossil fuels remain needed today to keep the global economy running and improve life in developing countries.

“We have to be very mindful of meeting the needs of the energy system and the economy today even as we try to build a different system for the future,” Wirth told reporters at a briefing. “We’re trying to do both.”

Wirth also defended the company’s decision not to follow Royal Dutch, Total and some other companies to pledge “net zero” emissions in its overall business by 2050, saying “we have favored action over pledges.”

In May, shareholders narrowly defeated a proposal requiring a report on a “Net Zero 2050” scenario, such as ones discussed by the International Energy Agency.

But 61 percent of shareholders voted in favor of a proposal authored by Follow This calling on Chevron to reduce its “Scope 3” carbon emissions, which are connected to products sold by the company.

Chevron plans to update shareholders on its response to the investor votes next month when it publishes an update to its climate change report, Wirth said.

“The reason it’s taking time is that it’s a big complicated issue and we’re not going to treat it like a simple pledge that you sign without understanding it really well,” he said. 

Now This’ van Baal had “hoped for serious discussion of Scope 3, but we’re not surprised they’re not there yet,” he told AFP. 

A pledge to reduce Scope 3 “would mean less oil and gas. I didn’t hear them say that,” he added.

Shares of Chevron fell 1.2 percent in afternoon trading to $96.77.

Tropical storm Nicholas weakened as it moved inland Tuesday, lashing Texas after flooding coastal towns with dangerous storm surges in the southern US state and leaving nearly half a million homes without power. 

Nicholas barreled ashore overnight and raked the coastline as a Category One hurricane, and then quickly set its sights on Houston, Texas’s largest city.

Electricity provider CenterPoint reported more than 450,000 customers in the area were without power early Tuesday, although that number had dropped below 380,000 by late morning.

Other than widespread outages, the city of 2.3 million people largely dodged a bullet.

“This storm could have been a lot worse for the city of Houston,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said at an emergency operations meeting, noting there were no recorded storm-related deaths in the area.

“I think we fared fairly well,” he added.

Parts of Houston were devastated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Perhaps mindful of the damage four years earlier, Turner put the city on high alert Monday, erecting barricades, activating an emergency management office, closing the Houston ship channel at its busy port and warning residents to take extra safety precautions.

Some 400 flights in and out of Houston were cancelled, but the city’s airports were set to resume full service later Tuesday, Turner said.

As of 10:00 am (1500 GMT), the storm’s maximum sustained winds had dipped to 45 miles (75 kilometers) per hour, with higher gusts, and was expected to dump five to 10 inches (125-250 millimeters) of rain over the Texas coast and Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said.

However, the NHC warned that even as Nicholas was forecast to downgrade to a tropical depression by Tuesday night, there could be isolated instances of 20 inches of rainfall in parts of southern Louisiana.

“Life-threatening flash floods (are) expected across portions of the Deep South during the next couple of days,” the NHC reported, adding that urbanized metropolitan areas were also at risk.

At Surfside Beach south of Houston, Nicholas blew off roofs and sent a storm surge through town, knocking out power to the community.

“We took a pretty strong hit,” Mayor Gregg Bisso told AFP.

“We are cleaning up in order to reopen closed roads,” he said, adding: “We don’t let anyone in unless you are a resident.”

Videos shared on social media showed vicious winds — in one clip, a Citgo gas station roof tips over — and lashing rain as the storm moved up the coast towards Houston and beyond.

The NHC also issued a storm surge warning for much of the Gulf coast, meaning “there is a danger of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline.”

– State of emergency –

Late Monday, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate all disaster relief efforts.

Texas is no stranger to hurricanes, but scientists warn that climate change is making the storms more powerful, posing an increasing risk to coastal communities.

Coastlines are already suffering from flooding, which has been amplified by rising sea levels.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott had urged residents to take precautions and “remain vigilant” in the face of the severe weather. 

On Tuesday, he said emergency shelters had been set up for residents who might be displaced by Nicholas.

Farming subsidies worth around $500 billion doled out by governments every year must be repurposed, three UN agencies warned on Tuesday, citing the environmental and health damage they cause.

Released ahead of a UN food systems summit next week, the agencies’ report is a “wake-up” for governments to rethink their agricultural support schemes, Food and Agriculture Organization director general Qu Dongyu said in a statement.

Global support to producers totals $540 billion (457 billion euros) per year, according to the joint report by the FAO, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Programme.

The agencies said 87 percent of that aid — $470 billion — is “price distorting and environmentally and socially harmful”.

“Agricultural support is not providing desirable results for sustainability and human health, but repurposing it can be a game changer,” the report said.

The aid is expected to triple to nearly $1.8 trillion by 2030.

A hefty portion of the subsidies, $294 billion per year, comes in the form of price incentives resulting from import tariffs and export subsidies, the report found.

Farmers also receive $245 billion in fiscal subsidies, which can lead to “negative environmental outcomes” when they are linked to the production of a specific commodity, a practice known as “coupled subsidies”.

This aid can encourage the overuse of agrochemicals and natural resources, and the cultivation of a single crop, according to the report. 

Emissions-heavy products such as beef, milk and rice receive the most support worldwide despite their potentially negative impact on climate change, the report said.

The subsidies also disincentivise farmers from producing healthier foods such as fruits and vegetables.

“Phasing out the most distorting and environmentally and socially harmful producer support (i.e. price incentives and fiscal subsidies tied to the production of a specific commodity) is essential,” the agencies said.

“But this will not bear fruit if resources are not redirected towards investments for the provision of public goods and services for agriculture (i.e. research and development and infrastructure) and to decoupled fiscal subsidies.”

The agencies suggest governments take a six-step strategy to reform subsidies, including measuring the support they provide, understanding their impact and identifying repurposing options.

“Transparency and inclusive consultations are critical to address institutional bottlenecks and vested interests that could hinder reform and the effective implementation of the strategy,” they said.

“By shifting to more nature-positive, equitable and efficient agricultural support, we can improve livelihoods, and at the same time cut emissions, protect and restore ecosystems, and reduce the use of agrochemicals,” said UNEP executive director Inger Andersen.

Chevron said Tuesday it will lift spending on lower carbon energy while still investing primarily in fossil fuels as it updated its climate strategy in the face of investor pressure.

The US oil giant said it would more than triple spending through 2028 to $10 billion on its “lower carbon businesses,” including $2 billion to lower the carbon intensity of Chevron’s operations. 

The program includes increasing production of renewable natural gas, renewable fuels and boosting hydrogen production, according to a press release ahead of presentations by executives later Tuesday.

However, the capital spending is still much lower than that planned for conventional oil and gas. Chevron said in March it plans $14 billion to $16 billion in annual capital spending between 2021 and 2025.

Also, the company did not promise to reach “net zero” emissions in its overall business by 2050, a pledge taken by rivals such as Royal Dutch Shell and Total.

Like its US rival ExxonMobil, Chevron has faced intensifying pressure from investors on climate policy. 

In May, 61 percent of shareholder voted in favor of a shareholder proposal calling on Chevron to reduce its “Scope 3” carbon emissions, those connected to products sold by the company.

Shareholders also narrowly defeated a proposal requiring a report on a “Net Zero 2050” scenario, such as ones discussed by the International Energy Agency.

In a presentation on Chevron’s website, Chief Executive Mike Worth said the company would update its climate change report next month to include a response to the Scope 3 proposal and net zero.

Activists expressed skepticism about Chevron’s approach to climate change and the energy transition in interviews ahead of Tuesday’s investor presentations.

The company’s statements since the shareholder vote have been “not very promising,” said Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, a Dutch activist shareholder group that authored the Scope 3 resolution at Chevron.

“If the world is to avoid climate disaster, then the reductions need to be done this decade,” van Baal said on Monday.

Tropical storm Nicholas weakened as it moved inshore over Texas early Tuesday morning, with meteorologists downgrading it from a hurricane.

The storm has maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kilometers) per hour, with higher gusts, and was expected to dump five to 10 inches of rain over the Texas coast and upper Louisiana, weather officials said.

However, they warned there could be isolated instances of storm rainfall of 20 inches across central to southern Louisiana.

“Radar and surface observations indicate that Nicholas has continued to move slowly inland and has weakened during the past few hours,” the US National Hurricane Center said.

The storm — which landed at around 0530 GMT Tuesday — was bringing heavy rainfall “potentially resulting in areas of life-threatening flash and urban flooding,” the NHC said in a separate advisory.

“There is the danger of life-threatening storm surge inundation along the coast of Texas from Sargent to Sabine Pass,” it added.

Early Tuesday morning the hurricane’s center was located above the eastern part of the Matagorda Peninsula, according to the Miami-based observatory.

Matagorda is just a few miles southwest of Houston, Texas’s largest city.

Videos shared on social media showed vicious winds — in one clip a CitGo petrol station roof is tipped over — and lashing rain as the storm moved up the coast towards Houston. 

The NHC also issued a storm surge warning for much of the Gulf coast, meaning “there is a danger of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline.”

“This is a life-threatening situation,” it said, warning people in the area to “take all necessary actions to protect life and property.”

The NHC said Nicholas should weaken further, and is set to become a tropical depression by Wednesday.

– State of emergency –

Sylvester Turner, the mayor of Houston — parts of which were devastated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 — said the city was on high alert.

Authorities have erected barricades, activated Houston’s office of emergency management and told residents to take extra safety precautions.

“I urge everyone to be OFF the roads by sun down and to avoid driving tonight through tomorrow as we anticipate heavy rainfall,” Turner tweeted.

Late Monday, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts.

Ahead of the storm’s arrival many flights were canceled at Houston-area airports, and the Houston ship channel at its busy port was closed, said a spokesman for the agency that steers ships through the waterway.

Schools closed Monday afternoon across the storm-affected area and will remain shut on Tuesday, officials said.

Customers rushed to gas stations and supermarkets across the region to fill fuel tanks and stock up on bottled water, toilet paper, and perishables such as milk and eggs.

Texas is no stranger to hurricanes, but scientists warn that climate change is making the storms more powerful, posing an increasing risk to coastal communities.

Coastlines are already suffering from flooding, which has been amplified by rising sea levels.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott had urged residents to prepare.

“It is up to all Texans in the path of this storm to take precautions, heed the guidance of officials, and remain vigilant as this severe weather moves through Texas,” he said in a statement.

Cats may have nine lives, but their time on Earth is often cut short by kidney problems — so people in Japan who want their feline friends to live longer have donated nearly $2 million to the search for a cure.

As the coronavirus pandemic hit the economy last year, scientists at the University of Tokyo lost their corporate funding for a study on preventing kidney disease in cats.

But thousands of Japanese cat lovers mobilised online to donate to the researchers after an article about their plight by news agency Jiji Press went viral.

“I lost my beloved cat to kidney disease last December… I hope this research will progress and help many cats to live without this disease,” one woman wrote in a message alongside her $20 donation.

Another donor, who gave $90, said: “I recently got a kitten. I make a donation in the hope that it will be in time for this cat.”

Domesticated cats and their bigger cousins in the wild are highly prone to kidney problems because of a genetic inability to activate a key protein discovered by the Tokyo researchers.

The protein called AIM helps clean up dead cells and other waste in the body, preventing the kidneys from becoming clogged.

Immunology professor Toru Miyazaki and his team are working on ways to produce the protein in a stable quantity and quality.

They hope to develop a new remedy they say could double the current feline life expectancy of roughly 15 years.

“I hope that ultimately veterinarians will give (cats) jabs every year like vaccines,” Miyazaki told the AFP-affiliated AFPBB News.

“It would be good to give them one or two doses every year” of AIM, he said.

Around 3,000 unsolicited donations were sent to the team hours after the article was published in July.

This surged to 10,000 in just a few days — more than the total number of donations the university usually receives in a year.

And by mid-September, the amount donated had reached 207 million yen ($1.9 million).

“It was the first time I understood first-hand how much my research is anticipated,” said Miyazaki.

His team’s research on how AIM — short for apoptosis inhibitor of macrophage — functions in the body was published in 2016 in the journal Nature Medicine.

They are also developing pet food containing a substance that could help activate the non-functional AIM in feline blood.