05 May 20
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05 May 20
The Rest of the World Is Laughing at Trump
Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic
Applebaum writes: "Anybody who knows any history will be aware that propaganda - even the most obvious, most shameless propaganda - sometimes works."
READ MORE
Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic
Applebaum writes: "Anybody who knows any history will be aware that propaganda - even the most obvious, most shameless propaganda - sometimes works."
READ MORE
Medical staff attend to a patient infected with COVID-19. (photo: Thomas Samson/AP)
Draft Report Predicts Covid-19 Cases Will Reach 200,000 a Day by June 1
William Wan, Lenny Bernstein, Laurie McGinley and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "A draft government report projects covid-19 cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day."
William Wan, Lenny Bernstein, Laurie McGinley and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "A draft government report projects covid-19 cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day."
Migrants board a van that will take them to a processing center, on May 16, 2019, in El Paso, Texas. (photo: Paul Ratje/AFP/Getty Images)
"It's Like Purgatory": How the US Has Undermined the Promise of Asylum
John Washington, The Intercept
Washington writes: "Humans recoil from death as well as from captivity. We want to live and we want to live free. We want both."
John Washington, The Intercept
Washington writes: "Humans recoil from death as well as from captivity. We want to live and we want to live free. We want both."
EXCERPT:
Since detention standards were changed in 1996, the U.S. government, in direct refutation to the 1951 Refugee Convention, has locked up hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers who have broken neither domestic nor international law. The idea is to use them as an example of the misery the government is willing to draw on the bodies and minds of those seeking its protection, in order to convince future asylum-seekers from even trying.
When former White House chief of staff John Kelly first introduced the idea of separating migrant families in 2017, he said, “Yes, I’m considering” family separation “in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network. I am considering exactly that.” But deterrence — prolonged detention, family separation, or forcing migrants to walk through the remote deserts — doesn’t work. Bertha, for example, a 63-year-old Honduran grandmother fleeing to save her and her granddaughter’s life, came to the United States knowing that they would likely be detained. And they were. Even after Bertha’s granddaughter was released, Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Bertha locked up for almost two years.
I met Bertha in a small echoic room in the El Paso Processing Center, in her 18th month of detention. Boggled as to why ICE would detain, for such a long time, a shy grandmother with developing health complications who poses neither flight risk nor security concern, I asked her lawyer, Ed Beckett, if he knew why the government hadn’t released her.
They’re just assholes, Beckett told me. Cruel and unusual punishment, that’s about it. I think she’s a prime example of deterrence.
At her first asylum hearing in the low-ceilinged court inside the El Paso Processing Center, Bertha was denied asylum but was offered protection and relief from deportation through the Convention Against Torture. But then, a few days after the hearing, and before she was released, the judge suddenly changed his mind and reversed his decision. As Beckett helped Bertha appeal, she was kept in detention.
I’ve been in here 18 months, she told me in the spartan interview room. I’m from the department of Cortés. I came to the bridge on November 18. We were in the hielera — an icebox, and the common Spanish name for freezing-cold holding cells — for one day, and then they sent us here. I came … I fled. We came together. My granddaughter was only 14, her name is Yariela. The gangsters wanted her to be their wife. But I couldn’t let that happen. And then they wanted to kill me. They said they were going to kill me. We left the next day. I knew … well, I’m scared to return to my country, that’s what I told them.
I asked her what the security situation was like in her hometown.
I lost my grandson on October 11, 2013. They disappeared him. We don’t know where he is. I raised them both. Their mom was already here, in Houston. And when we had to leave, we just left, without hardly anything. We ran out of money in Guatemala. We had to go asking for money, asking for alms, for food. I was asking God for help. We traveled by bus. I wouldn’t know how to take a train. We were hungry sometimes, but people treated us OK. They gave us food.
They respected me because of my age. An abuelita. A little grandmother.
That’s why we left. Because a gangster was trying to make my granddaughter his wife. I turn to ice when I think about going back there.
I came to ask for protection. I didn’t kill anyone, she says. She began counting on her fingers, starting with her thumb, then index finger. I didn’t rob anyone. I don’t do drugs, don’t have anything to do with drugs. She held up all five fingers to me, and then dropped her hand. I’m clean. A good woman. My daughter is the only one who helps me with some money, for the vending machine, for phone calls, but I can’t stand anything from the vending machines anymore. I can’t stand the soda … I’m just asking God to get me out of here. And my granddaughter. She asks me, she’s so sad, she asks me, Mami, she calls me, why don’t they let you out? And she starts to cry. You raised me. Please come here with me.
You can’t make a complaint or go to the police back in Honduras, Bertha told me, because they’ll know. They have a system, they can track you. I was looking for my grandson after he disappeared, but trying not to make too much noise. And we never found him. I imagine that they killed him, dropped him off somewhere, in some ditch, that’s how they do it. You can’t try to talk to the police or they’ll disappear you. If you see something, she said, and then zipped her lips with a finger.
I don’t know why there’s so much violence. I can’t explain it. It started around, around 2000. It wasn’t like this when I was a girl. Everything was much calmer. But it’s so bad now. Everybody, so many people are leaving. They told me they had to separate us, but they didn’t tell me where they were taking her. I was so … I never expected to be here so long.
To kill time I read the Bible. I also like to play Monopoly. I used to play with this other woman, from Honduras. We played a game last night. But she left today.
I asked her who won.
She smiled, embarrassed. I did, she said. I’ll miss her a lot. She went back to Honduras, just today. I lie in bed and read the Bible. The Psalms. My dad died when he was 91 years old, and he told me, hija, for this, your tongue, she said, and stuck out her tongue, they’ll kill you … for talking, for saying what you see. The gangs, they were taking money, war taxes. They charge you for everything. There wasn’t any more money for food.
Here, in detention, we wake up at five, we have breakfast. Lunch at 11. And dinner at 4:30. But sometimes I’m hungry at night. At home we ate at nine. I get hungry at midnight. Sometimes I buy something from the vending machine, but I don’t like those crackers or cookies anymore. I don’t even like soda. I go to bed hungry. Lights out at nine o’clock. There’s count three times a day. At 10 in the morning, at 3:30, and at nine. At count we have to be quiet. We have to lie in our beds and we can’t talk. If we make noise we get in trouble. At night though, it’s hard to sleep. If someone’s snoring, she says, laughing and putting her hands on her cheeks, we have to deal with it. There’s always someone in the barracks with us. One of the guards. They’re not mean, but they talk strong if we’re loud, if someone’s talking during count. She paused to think. Sometimes, to pass the time, I draw. I draw flowers, princesses, little animals, things like that. Curlicues. Just to pass the time.
It’s not good to be in here. This situation … it’s like a purgatory. It’s like we’re never going to leave. I just think I’m never going to leave. If I get out I’m going to do what I always do, follow the right path. Be good. Do right. We’re all the same. You have to treat people nice. I hope, I hope that God forgives the United States. They have no heart. We’re people. We’re old women. We can’t be here. I don’t know why they don’t let us go. I just don’t know why.
Bertha started telling me about her favorite Psalms, but then one of the guards interrupted us. Our time was up. I told her I would read a couple of her recommendations, and, as I scribbled into my notebook and the guard stood watching us, she told me to read Psalms 23, 91, 102, 27, and 71.
It had been a long time since I read any of them, and, at my hostel later that night, as I began to read them on my computer, I wondered at first if all the Psalms referred to danger and searching for refuge in times of trouble and old age, or if she had just selected those that so precisely fit her situation.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under his wings you shall take refuge. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned like a hearth. My heart is stricken and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. My bones cling to my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness, I am like an owl of the desert. I lie awake, and am like a sparrow alone on the housetop. Do not cast me off in the time of old age. Do not forsake me when my strength fails. You prepare a table before me. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over.
In the summer of 2018, after 20 months of detention, Bertha lost her appeal and was deported alone back to Honduras. When I think of her now, I think of another poem, the line from Keats — “Where but to think is to be full of sorrow” — and of Saint Oscar Romero, who was reading the 23rd Psalm, one of Bertha’s recommendations, during mass on the day he was assassinated in the cathedral in El Salvador’s capital. “May God have mercy on the assassins” were the archbishop’s last words.
Sixteen hours after a Salvadoran army sniper pulled the trigger and killed Romero, on March 24, 1980, the U.S. House Foreign Operations Subcommittee began hearings on the $5.7 million in military aid that the archbishop had begged President Jimmy Carter not to send, which Romero said would “surely increase injustice here and sharpen the repression that has been unleashed.”
Though the vote was postponed, the military aid was eventually approved.
Joan Didion described the administration’s account of the Salvadoran government’s progress toward human rights, on which the U.S. aid depended, as hallucinatory. The adjective also would apply to ICE’s self-proclaimed compliance with its own standard of guaranteeing “safe, secure, and humane environments” for what it calls “custodial supervision.”
Activists in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (photo: Getty Images)
The Fight Over the Affordable Care Act and Birth Control Is Back at the Supreme Court
David H. Gans, Slate
Gans writes: "A religiously affiliated employer known as the Little Sisters is urging the Supreme Court to bless the Trump administration's decision to give employers an unconditional religious exemption from the contraceptive coverage requirements of the [ACA] and declare [its] religious accommodation unlawful."
David H. Gans, Slate
Gans writes: "A religiously affiliated employer known as the Little Sisters is urging the Supreme Court to bless the Trump administration's decision to give employers an unconditional religious exemption from the contraceptive coverage requirements of the [ACA] and declare [its] religious accommodation unlawful."
n 1756, the Rev. Francis Alison, a prominent minister from Pennsylvania, urged people in the colonies of all religious persuasions to join together to help win the French and Indian War. In making a point about conscientious objectors, Alison argued that “[a]ll … should have a free use of their religion, but so as not on that score to burden or oppress others.” Alison’s understanding of religious liberty would be reflected in the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, which freed conscientious objectors from having to fight but required them to pay for a substitute.
The story of how conscientious objector laws have safeguarded religious liberty, while also protecting the rights of others—laid out in a brief filed by prominent military historians—should be front and center on Wednesday when the Supreme Court hears Little Sisters v. Pennsylvania and Trump v. Pennsylvania. In those cases, a religiously affiliated employer known as the Little Sisters is urging the Supreme Court to bless the Trump administration’s decision to give employers an unconditional religious exemption from the contraceptive coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act and declare the ACA’s religious accommodation unlawful.
In 2014, a bitterly divided Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores held that closely held corporations, whose owners had a religious objection to providing contraceptive coverage, were entitled to avail themselves of the religious accommodation contained in the ACA’s regulations. Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, such businesses would be entitled to shift the obligation to provide contraceptive coverage to their insurance companies. For the first time in history the Supreme Court held that some business corporations were entitled to religious accommodations, sending the message that owners of companies could invoke their religious beliefs to skirt the law.
The silver lining in the 5–4 ruling was the majority’s recognition that the ACA’s religious accommodation provided the key to taking account of the rights of all parties. The majority concluded that the accommodation is “an alternative that achieves all of the government’s aims while providing greater respect for religious liberty” and guarantees that “women would still be entitled to FDA-approved contraceptives without cost-sharing.” Now, the Little Sisters and the Trump administration are asking the Supreme Court to shelve that part of the Hobby Lobby ruling and strike down the accommodation.
This is not the first time the Supreme Court has been asked to take this step. In 2016, in Zubik v. Burwell, the court heard a set of cases in which employers argued that the accommodation violated RFRA. But an eight-member court failed to resolve the issue. That is unlikely to happen this time around.
In more than two centuries, the Supreme Court has never struck down a religious accommodation on the ground that it substantially burdened the free exercise of religion. The Little Sisters, joined by the Trump administration, is urging the court to take that extreme step for the first time. Even though the ACA’s religious accommodation eliminates any role for the employer in providing contraceptive services and shifts the burden of paying for contraceptive coverage to insurance companies, the Little Sisters argues that the accommodation still tramples on its religious beliefs. In its view, the government may not require it to do anything—even a ministerial task as simple as filling out a piece of paper—if the end result is that even one of its employees could enjoy the access to contraceptive coverage that the ACA requires.
When the Supreme Court hears oral argument on Wednesday—which will be livestreamed for all to hear as part of the court’s social distancing measures taken in response to COVID-19—the questioning is likely to focus on RFRA and the court’s precedent. But the court should not ignore centuries of historical practice that have given meaning to the guarantee of the free exercise of religion.
The sweeping arguments for a total religious exemption are profoundly inconsistent with the history of religious accommodation in this country and the backdrop against which the Framers crafted the First Amendment. Throughout American history, religious accommodations that have allowed objectors to opt out and to transfer their legal duties to others have been a crucial means of respecting religious liberty in a nation of diverse faiths.
From 1776 to the present, conscientious objector laws have exempted those with a religious objection to war from combat, while still requiring them to aid the nation during wartime. What the Little Sisters denounces as a violation of their freedom of conscience is what history shows is a common practice: accommodating religious objectors by shifting their obligations to third parties who do not share that objection.
In 1776, the people of Pennsylvania enacted a new Constitution, which relieved conscientious objectors of the duty to fight but required those opposed to war to “pay such equivalent” in order to find a substitute. The Keystone State was not alone in rejecting an unconditional exemption. In numerous states, conscientious objector laws enacted at the time of the American Revolution and the writing of the Constitution required individuals objecting to participation in military service on religious grounds to pay for a substitute.
Religious accommodations for military service also figured prominently in debates over the Bill of Rights. During debates in Congress over proposals to include a religious exemption from combat in the Second Amendment, members of the First Congress stressed that conscientious objectors had to do their part to ensure the safety of the nation. A religious exemption from combat would be “unjust, unless the constitution secured an equivalent.” Ultimately, the Second Amendment did not contain a religious accommodation, leaving matters to the states. In many states, a conscientious objector had to pay for a substitute.
Since the Civil War, federal draft laws have accommodated individuals with a religious objection to war, requiring them to perform alternative service. Under these laws, an individual who considers war sinful cannot refuse to participate in the war effort entirely. What is more, a conscientious objector cannot stop a draft in its tracks by insisting that calling up the next draftee makes him or her complicit in sin. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor commented during oral argument in Zubik, the logic of the argument for an unconditional exemption would wreak havoc with federal draft laws. Look for her to press this line of questioning again.
Our Constitution and laws place the highest of values on religious liberty, recognizing the right to practice’s one’s religion as critical to freedom, dignity, and self-definition. But the Affordable Care Act has already accommodated the beliefs of those who have a religious objection to contraception. What the Little Sisters wants—to prevent insurance companies from assuming their legal duty—would pervert our cherished constitutional values of religious liberty. It would allow employers to impose their own religious beliefs on their employees and extinguish important federal rights secured by the Affordable Care Act. Women would be left without access to the most effective forms of contraception.
In Little Sisters and other cases on the docket both this term and next, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is poised to reshape the meaning of religious freedom in America. If the Supreme Court strikes down the ACA’s religious accommodation, it will be casting aside centuries of history. As the history of conscientious objector laws shows, religious accommodations help, not harm, religious liberty. Religious accommodations, like those contained in the Affordable Care Act, ensure, as the Rev. Francis Alison explained more than 250 years ago, that “all should have a free use of their religion, but so as not on that score to burden or oppress others.”
Women shop at a market wearing protective face masks amid concerns over COVID-19 in Cairo, Egypt, April 12, 2020. (photo: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)
For Arab Women and Girls, the Crisis Is Just Beginning
Lina AbiRafeh, Al Jazeera
AbiRafeh writes: "In the Arab region, where I now work, women were vulnerable before the crisis. And their crisis is just beginning."
Lina AbiRafeh, Al Jazeera
AbiRafeh writes: "In the Arab region, where I now work, women were vulnerable before the crisis. And their crisis is just beginning."
EXCERPT:
I have spent my career as a humanitarian aid worker in insecure environments around the world, supporting women to mitigate the risks they face in those settings - notably as a result of a more hidden global pandemic, violence against women. Everywhere I have worked - from Afghanistan to Mali to Haiti - women and girls suffer more. It does not matter whether this is due to a conflict, a natural disaster or an epidemic.
Already volatile prior to COVID-19 due to socioeconomic instabilities and protracted humanitarian crises, the Arab region is uniquely affected by this global pandemic, with more than 62.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
In the Arab region, nearly half of the female population of 84 million is not connected to the Internet nor has access to a mobile phone. This, coupled with alarming literacy rates - approximately 67 percent of women and 81 percent of men - means that women are disproportionately unable to access accurate information about the virus to help them prepare, respond and survive.
Amid this crisis, and combined with the continuing conflicts and economic collapse, violence against women is increasing. For many women and girls, being quarantined safely is a luxury. Based on anecdotal evidence and reporting by several Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in Lebanon, under lockdown the number of reported cases of violence against women rose by 100 percent during the month of March.
Similarly, live-in migrant domestic workers (almost always women) are exposed to unique risks stemming from the nature of their jobs. The travel ban and other restrictions further harm their livelihoods and ability to support family members in their countries of origin. Additionally, they cannot leave the house and are therefore working around the clock often without the right to rest. The abuse they suffer - sexual, physical, psychological, economic - is heightened as a result of the additional stress of deteriorating economic conditions and health risks.
Refugees are another disproportionately affected group. Female refugees, in particular, are no strangers to discrimination. Lack of funding due to the pandemic has compromised their survival. Even more than before, refugees are considered a threat by host communities and are shunned due to fears that the virus will spread through the camps, placing the host country at greater risk.
Women in conflict zones face additional risks during this pandemic. In both Syria and Yemen, the healthcare infrastructure has been decimated by years of armed conflict - with 67 attacks on hospitals in Syria in over a year and constant attacks on health facilities and medical personnel in Yemen.
The informal and community-based nature of women's work in conflict zones also means an inherent lack of financial stability and access to formal, professional roles in society. In Yemen, at least there is momentum and strong organising for feminist peacebuilding and the inclusion of women in official peace talks and conflict mitigation processes.
The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to result in the loss of 1.7 million jobs in the Arab region, including approximately 700,000 jobs held by women. But female participation in the labour market is already weak, with high unemployment among women reaching 19 percent in 2019, compared with 8 percent for men.
Projections indicate that the informal sector will be particularly impacted by the pandemic. In the Arab region, women perform nearly five times as much unpaid care work as men while approximately 61.8 percent of active women work in the informal sector and will, therefore, suffer disproportionately.
Women are the majority of the world's healthcare practitioners and family caretakers, performing unpaid labour and exposing themselves to infection in order to care for a sick child, an elderly family member or a needy member of the community.
In Lebanon, 80 percent of nursing staff are female. More than half of these are now working with reduced salaries and longer hours, rather than being properly compensated and protected. In every emergency I have worked in, women are the ones who know who is in need, what they need and how to get it to them. They are the world's social safety net.
If women are once again left out of leadership roles in the response to the pandemic, the patriarchal consolidation of power in these areas will have devastating effects on women's rights, equality and autonomy. This requires a robust feminist response, guaranteeing women's right to information, to healthcare, to choose. Because when others decide for a woman, she faces discrimination and violence. In short, her own life is at risk.
A feminist response to this pandemic must work to undo rather than magnify oppression and the very systems that place women at higher risks in times of crisis, with the recognition that simply existing as a woman is a form of crisis. Simply, a woman's right to decide must be at the heart of the response to this pandemic.
Life will undoubtedly be different in the aftermath of the pandemic. And, for the majority of women, their challenges do not end when the crisis is resolved. For women and girls, the crisis is just beginning.
In the Arab region, this presents an opportunity to implement feminist policies and ensure that women's rights organisations and feminist activists have the tools and resources they need to advocate and act on behalf of women and girls.
Centring women in the response will enable the region to better withstand future shocks. In short, when women lead, we all benefit.
Nicolás Maduro. (photo: AP)
Venezuela Detains Two Americans Allegedly Involved in Failed Raid to Remove Maduro
Reuters
Excerpt: "Venezuelan authorities have detained two US citizens allegedly working with a US military veteran who has claimed responsibility for a failed armed incursion into the oil-producing country, President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday."
Reuters
Excerpt: "Venezuelan authorities have detained two US citizens allegedly working with a US military veteran who has claimed responsibility for a failed armed incursion into the oil-producing country, President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday."
In a state television address, Maduro said authorities arrested 13 “terrorists” on Monday allegedly involved in a plot he said was coordinated with Washington to enter the South American country via the Caribbean coast and oust him.
Eight people were killed during the foiled incursion attempt on Sunday, Venezuelan authorities said.
Maduro showed what he said were the US passports and other identification cards belonging to Airan Berry and Luke Denman, who he said were in custody and had been working with Jordan Goudreau, an American military veteran who leads a Florida-based security company called Silvercorp USA.
“They were playing Rambo. They were playing hero,” Maduro said, adding that Venezuelan authorities had caught wind of the plot before its execution.
Goudreau, who identified himself as an organiser of the invasion on Sunday, told Reuters on Monday that Berry and Denman were also involved.
“They’re working with me. Those are my guys,” he said by telephone.
The State Department did not provide any immediate comment on the alleged arrests. US officials have strongly denied any US government involvement in the incursions.
A person familiar with the matter said the two US citizens were captured on Monday in a second-day roundup of accomplices and were believed to be in the custody of Venezuelan military intelligence.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the details came from contacts with Venezuelan security forces.
Opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, who the US has backed to be president of Venezuela, cast doubt on the government’s version of Sunday’s events, insisting Maduro is seeking to distract from other problems in recent days including a deadly prison riot and a violent gang battle in Caracas.
Guaidó’s communications team on Monday denied media reports that Guaidó had hired Silvercorp to remove Maduro by force, adding the opposition leader and his allies “have no relationship with or responsibility for the actions of the company Silvercorp.”
In a statement on Monday evening, Guaidó’s team said: “We demand the human rights ... of the people captured in recent hours be respected.“
Washington has imposed tough economic sanctions against Venezuela in an effort to oust Maduro, whom it accuses of having rigged elections in 2018. Maduro’s government says the United States wants to control Venezuela’s massive oil reserves.
Monday’s arrests come after Maduro’s government on Sunday said mercenaries had attempted to enter the South American country on speed boats from neighbouring Colombia, saying eight people had been killed and two detained.
Later on Sunday, Goudreau released a video identifying himself as an organiser of the alleged invasion, alongside dissident Venezuelan military officer Javier Nieto.
Goudreau said in the video that fighters on the ground continued to carry out operations in different parts of the country.
He identified one of the fighters as “Commander Sequea,” which appeared to be a reference to Antonio Sequea, who was identified on Monday by state television as one of the people arrested.
Silvercorp’s website describes Goudreau as a “highly decorated Special Forces Iraq and Afghanistan veteran.“
Single-use plastic containers are the biggest source of trash found near waterways and beaches. (photo: Dimitar Dilkoff/Getty Images)
Satellite Imagery Helps Detect Ocean Plastic Pollution
Elizabeth Claire Alberts, Mongabay
Alberts writes: "Lauren Biermann was scouring a satellite image of the ocean off the coast of the Isle of May, Scotland, searching for signs of floating seaweed for a project at her university. Her eyes were drawn to lines of white dots gently curving along an ocean front."
Elizabeth Claire Alberts, Mongabay
Alberts writes: "Lauren Biermann was scouring a satellite image of the ocean off the coast of the Isle of May, Scotland, searching for signs of floating seaweed for a project at her university. Her eyes were drawn to lines of white dots gently curving along an ocean front."
EXCERPTS:
More than 8.3 billion tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, equivalent to a garbage truck dumping its contents into the sea every minute of the day, according to a report by the World Economic Forum. Anything more than 5 millimeters in size, about a fifth of an inch, is generally considered to be "macroplastic," while anything below that size is "microplastic."
Biermann and a team of colleagues embarked on their own study of detecting ocean plastic through satellite imagery, and recently published their findings in Scientific Reports. First, they obtained high-resolution optical data from the European Space Agency (ESA), which is gathered by the Sentinel-2 Earth observation satellite. Second, they used the plastic target data from the University of the Aegean to help differentiate plastic debris from natural objects like driftwood and seaweed.
There will be cleanup operations like the Ocean Voyages Institute, which we'd like to work with. They would then go to where we spotted things, and they would be able to remove tons of plastic at a time," Biermann said. "This really is the first technical exercise, but we would then like to apply the method, far more broadly … to rivers and open waters."
Biermann makes an important clarification: this satellite data shouldn't be seen as a solution to the plastic pollution issue.
"On its own, it can't do anything to curb the plastic pollution problem," Biermann said. "The way to curb plastic pollution problem is to address the source. We know that the majority of plastics come from land, so it's not just addressing the source in terms of the industry, but also in terms of waste management practices on land."
She says she also hopes this data will help build awareness of the global plastic pollution issue, and inspire action on the issue.
"What I don't want to see is my work being used to greenwash the problem — now we can see it from space, so we know where to go and fetch it," she said. "That's not the case at all. And I think if anything, it's just to say there that there's enough of it now that it can be seen from space, [and we should] take that message to heart. The individual is not the problem here, and our individual behavior is not generating plastic on such a scale that it can be seen from space. Really, it is an industry problem."
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