Equilibrium/Sustainability — Mating dolphins form large ‘social alliances’ 

Male dolphins seeking mates form social networks with ranges larger than those of any species except humans, a new study has found.  

An international team of scientists observed how unrelated male dolphins not only create small friend groups, but also combine these cohorts to forge larger alliances. The researchers published their findings on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

“Cooperation between allies is widespread in human societies and one of the hallmarks of our success,” co-author Stephanie King, of England’s Bristol University, said in a statement, acknowledging that such behavior “was once thought unique to our species.”  

Bottlenose dolphin alliances have reached such size because the animals combine multiple smaller friend groups, the researchers observed. 

Studying 121 male dolphins in Western Australia’s Shark Bay, the scientists found that “first-order” groups of two or three males come together to pursue females.  

Second-order alliances of between four and 14 unrelated males then compete with each other for access to those females, while third-order alliances can form between second-order friend groups, according to the study. 

“Cooperative relationships between groups, rather than simply alliance size, allows males to spend more time with females, thereby increasing their reproductive success,” King said. 

The study also dispelled a long-held belief about “intergroup cooperation” in humans: that it emerged as a side effect of our evolution of pair-bonding and parental care by males — which humans do but chimpanzees, our nearest relatives, do not. 

But the paper’s results “show that intergroup alliances can emerge without these features, from a social and mating system that is more chimpanzee like,” co-author Richard Connor of Florida International University said in a statement. 

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

Today we’ll look at the attempts by the U.S. and the international community to avert further destruction from a climate-induced disaster in Pakistan, followed by a near-miss flood disaster in Mississippi. Then we’ll review two global sustainability treaties that Russia helped derail over the weekend.   

Global aid rushes into flood-ravaged Pakistan  

International aid has begun flowing into Pakistan as the country struggles to contend with deadly floodwaters that have ravaged communities and food supplies this summer. 

Both the U.S. and the EU have already provided cash assistance, while other countries are landing cargo planes and humanitarian groups are accelerating aid campaigns.  

A calamitous week: Widespread floods caused by “monster monsoons” — which Pakistani officials attributed to climate change — hammered the country last week after an already rough summer, according to The Associated Press. 

• Monsoon season has barreled in much heavier and earlier than usual this year.  
  
• The massive rainfall is affecting nearly the entire country.  

This summer’s flash floods have affected 33 million Pakistanis, damaged almost a million homes and killed at least 1,061 people, the AP reported, citing local officials.  

Things could get worse: Pakistan is scrambling to prevent even more deaths, as persistent rains raise concerns about further destruction, CNN reported.  

“By the time this is over, we could well have one quarter or one third of Pakistan under water,” Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman told Turkish news outlet TRT World last week, according to CNN.  

Satellite images home in on devastation: New satellite images on Monday revealed the scale of the disaster, with homes and fields submerged along the Indus River, CNN reported.  

• Two cities in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, were also under water.  
  
• “We’ve had to deploy the navy for the first time to operate in Indo-Pakistan, because much of it resembles a small ocean,” Rehman told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, according to CNN.  

With disaster comes hunger: Near the Indus River in southeastern Pakistan, 24-year-old laborer Rehan Ali told the AP that he cannot rebuild his destroyed home without government help and has no work due to the ongoing crisis. 

“I don’t even have anything to feed my family,” Ali said. “I lost everything. I don’t know where to go. God help me.” 

AN INTERNATIONAL APPEAL FOR AID

Assistance from around the world has begun arriving to Pakistan, after officials appealed for help coping with the disastrous floods, according to the AP.  

Pakistan’s military is working to distribute aid to remote areas and evacuate those who lost their homes, while authorities have begun rebuilding damaged infrastructure, the AP reported.  

Cargo planes land: Cargo planes from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates landed in Islamabad on Sunday, with supplies such as tents and food, according to the AP.   

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has appealed for more than $25 million in aid — with hopes of serving 324,000 people, CNN reported.  

U.S., EU send money: In early August, the U.S. government announced a $1 million grant —funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — to help Pakistan address natural disasters, according to the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan.  

• A few days later, USAID also pledged  $100,000 in immediate, multi-purpose cash assistance to support those affected by Pakistan’s flooding.  
  
• Last week, the European Commission allocated 1.8 million euros ($1.8 million) in humanitarian aid, in addition to a previous 350,000-euro ($350,000) contribution to residents of the Balochistan province, which has faced the worst of the flood damage.  

UN steps in: The United Nations’s World Food Program said on Monday that it is working with local authorities and partners to expand food assistance.  

The goal is to reach nearly half a million people in Balochistan, where the program already supports 42,000 residents.  

The U.N. is also expected to launch a $161 million flash appeal for Pakistan on Tuesday. 

The International Monetary Fund — another U.N. agency — approved the release of $1.17 billion in relief on Monday, a Pakistani government official told the AP. 

Pakistan may resume trade with India: Pakistan may “consider importing vegetables and other edible items from India,” Pakistan’s Finance Minister Miftah Ismail told Radio Pakistan on Monday, according to the Hindustan Times. 

• Such a move would aim to address food security concerns amid widespread crop destruction.  
  
• Bilateral trade between the two countries was suspended in 2019, after Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with India. 

Mississippi prepares for worst — but gets off easy 

Mississippi’s capital appears to have dodged an anticipated disaster on Monday, as damaging floods expected from the swollen Pearl River covered roads but stayed out of homes. 

Jackson, Miss., residents had feared that the flooding would compound damage from the devastating floods of February 2020, our colleagues at Nexstar station WJTV reported.

• Floodwaters on neighborhood streets near the river reached “waist-deep” height and damaged cars, but didn’t destroy any homes. 
  
• “It’s a little better than it was in 2020, because we actually got flooded in 2020. But this time … it just got in the street,” resident Patricia Smith said.

Near miss: It’s a close call for neighborhoods that were under evacuation orders, according to CNN.

• Over the weekend, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (D) warned residents in the potential flood zone to “take heed to these warnings and move out quickly.”  
  
• But as of press time, the city had received “no reports of water in any homes,” the mayor’s office said. 

Dodging double damage: That’s good news for a city still recuperating from floods more than two years ago, residents told CNN. 

• During that 2020 event, some Jackson citizens who thought they had prepared sufficiently received an unpleasant reality check.  
  
• “I had 50 sandbags, and it didn’t do nothing,” Jackson resident Shawn Miller said, noting that he returned to find “still had about a foot in the water damage inside the home.” 

Building on last week: The weekend’s flood warning also came after record rainfalls brought flash floods last week, derailing a train and forcing the evacuation of a retirement home and day care, CNN reported last week. 

“Before we can even recover from the first weather event, we’re already being challenged by another one,” the mayor told CNN. 

Preparing for the worst: The state prepared for Monday’s flooding with water-level scanning drones and 126,000 sandbags, according to The Washington Post. 

Over the weekend, emergency management officials and local residents prepared shelters, deployed sandbags and got ready to flee harm’s way, The Associated Press reported.

Russia helps torpedo UN ocean, nuclear deals 

Russia’s refusal to cooperate with other United Nations members this weekend contributed to the breakdown of a treaty that would have served to protect global ocean environments. 

The treaty, proposed by a coalition of nearly 50 countries including Chile, Egypt and the EU member states, had aimed to establish environmental rules for the majority of the world’s oceans, Uruguay-based MercoPress reported. 

• “Russia has … been a key blocker in negotiations, refusing to engage in the treaty process itself,” Laura Meller, who heads Greenpeace’s ocean protection division, said in a statement. 
  
• Delegates from the U.S., U.K. and 70 other countries had come to the U.N. headquarters in New York prepared to put 30 percent of the world’s oceans into environmental protection — but talks broke down over the question of fishing rights. 

Can you fish a protected area? At least in the U.S. — which last May committed to protecting 30 percent of its land and ocean area by 2030 — that question is still open, according to a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

“The Executive Order does not define the level of conservation that would be applied to measure progress,” the NOAA report noted. 

Moscow’s big plans: International plans to establish sweeping protected areas directly conflicted with Russia’s national plans to dramatically increase its own
fishing totals. 

• Russia is already the world’s fourth largest seafood exporter — and plans to double exports by 2024, according to the Brussels-based EU Reporter news site. 
  
• The country has long quarreled with the EU over the actions of its fishing fleet in the Arctic Circle, with Brussels accusing Moscow of consistently overfishing Arctic cod, the European Commission stated. 

Urgent need: Less than 1 percent of international waters — two-thirds of the ocean outside national control — is currently protected, according to MercoPress, which covers news affecting the South Atlantic. 

“Pockets of marine protection are not enough,” U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state Maxine Burkett told journalists, MercoPress reported. 

• Deep sea mining for “polymetallic nodules” — a potential source of minerals for clean energy manufacture — could begin by 2024, The New York Times reported. 
  
• While deep sea mining avoids the human-rights concerns of conventional mining, it effectively kills the seafloor, according to the Times. 

More than 90 percent of maritime species could go extinct if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t sharply curtailed, our colleague Zack Budryk reported last week. 

ALSO KILLED BY RUSSIA: KEY NUCLEAR TREATY 

Russia this weekend also refused to sign another U.N. accord — the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons — killing the treaty, CNN reported. 

• Russia had objected to language that condemned its occupation of Europe’s largest nuclear facility, the Zaporizhzhia plant in eastern Ukraine, which faced a near meltdown last week. 
  
• “This result is terminally unserious and a total abdication of responsibility in the face of an unacceptably dangerous global situation,” Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told CNN. 

A study in Nature Food earlier this month warned that a nuclear war could lead to billions of indirect deaths from crop failures, as we reported. 

Monday Miscellanies

Middle Eastern countries try a politically (and scientifically) fraught tactic to bring rain, New Jersey brings climate change to the classroom and why doomed ice means unstoppable sea level rise. 

Middle Eastern countries race for rainwater 

• As the Middle East grapples with ongoing drought, countries are racing to develop technologies that can squeeze rain drops out of clouds, The New York Times reported. But while scientists aren’t sure it actually works, this so-called “cloud seeding” approach is exacerbating existing political rivalries: Iran, for example, has accused Israel and the United Arab Emirates of “working to make Iranian clouds not rain,” according to the Times. 

NJ to become the first state with mandatory climate change curriculum 

• New Jersey will become the first state to require all public schools to teach climate change this fall, NPR reported, in a weekend interview with an advanced placement environmental science teacher. The new rules aim to help students dissect the causes of climate change as well as what they can do to address it, according to NPR.  

Zombie ice fated to raise sea levels nearly a foot 

• Doomed or “zombie” ice on the fringes of the Greenland glacier could raise global sea levels by 10 inches on average, according to a Nature Climate Change study covered in The Associated Press. Because the ice is no longer nourished by enough snowfall for it to survive, it “has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what climate (emissions) scenario we take now,” a study author said. 

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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