New story in Science and Health from Time: Asia Is Home to 99 of the World’s 100 Cities Facing the Greatest Environmental Challenges Asia Is Home to 99 of the World’s 100 Cities Facing the Greatest Environmental Challenges

The many environmental challenges facing the world are far from evenly shared across regions. Of the 100 cities facing the greatest environmental risks, 99 are in Asia, according to a report published today by risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. Meanwhile, Europe is home to 14 of the 20 safest cities.

Researchers scored the world’s 576 largest cities on air and water quality, heat stress, water scarcity, vulnerability to climate change and exposure of their landscapes, populations, economies and infrastructure to natural hazards like earthquakes, tsunamis and landslides. Around 1.5 billion people live cities facing “high or extreme risk,” the report says.

Many of those live in Asia. The region is not only the world’s most densely-populated–which puts pressure on water sources and compounds pollution from the widespread burning of coal and biomass fuels–but also has a large number of so-called “natural hazards” built into its geography. For example, there are a number of cities in Japan at risk of earthquakes, and many of the towns in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta are especially vulnerable to flooding.

The report ranks Jakarta, Indonesia’s sprawling capital of 10 million people, as the most vulnerable city in the world to environmental risks. Rising sea levels and land subsidence—due to the depletion of the natural aquifers under the city as people pump water out of the ground for drinking and washing—have made Jakarta the world’s fastest-sinking city, with flooding already a regular occurrence, and parts of the metropolis expected to be underwater by 2050. The city also suffers from air pollution due to nearby coal-fired power stations. The situation is so bad that the Indonesian government is planning to move its capital.

India fares the worst as a country, accounting for 13 of the 20 riskiest cities and 43 of the top 100 identified by the report, with Delhi, Chennand Chandigarh dealing with the greatest threats. India’s poor air quality is largely to blame for its high level of environmental risk. A study published in the Lancet last year found that air pollution contributed to 1.7 million premature deaths in India in 2019, and scientists say air pollution is driving up the death toll in the devastating COVID-19 outbreak unfolding in India this spring.

China has 37 of the 100 cities considered most at risk, with air pollution again the largest factor. President Xi Jinping has made cleaning up China’s air a priority since he took office in 2013, establishing programs that encourage the replacement of coal-powered stoves in homes with gas and electric ones and disciplining factories that exceed pollution limits, through fines and shut-downs. But the government remains behind schedule to meet its own targets, according to Bloomberg, especially as China has ramped up plans to build new coal plants as it recovers from the economic lull of the pandemic.

Cities in Africa overall have “vastly” lower levels of air pollution compared to their Asian counterparts, says Will Nichols, Head of Environment and Climate Change Research at Verisk Maplecroft, who led the report, and they also tend to face fewer threats from natural hazards.

But researchers said African cities were by far the most at risk from climate change—accounting for 38 of the 40 most vulnerable in an index focused solely on climate risks. That stems from the region’s poorly funded public services and infrastructure, as well as the extreme heat and weather events that climate change is already disproportionately making more common there.

Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, faces Africa’s greatest environmental risks, ranking 144th out of 576 in total, due to problems with air quality, water pollution and heat stress. But it is the fourth most vulnerable to climate change in the world.

Researchers identified Glasgow–which is due to host a crucial U.N. climate conference in November–as the least vulnerable city to climate change in the world, and fourth safest for environmental risks overall. Though the Scottish city experiences some “natural flooding,” Nichols says. “It is low-risk for pretty much everything else.”

The outlook for U.S. cities is mixed. Most urban centers in the country have comparatively lower air pollution than cities in Asia and Europe, thanks to historic policy decisions on polluting fuels. Cities in the southwest face greater heat stress and a higher number of natural hazards, like earthquakes, than those in the northeast. Of the cities included in this report, Los Angeles has the greatest level of environmental risk, ranking 257th overall, driven largely by poor air quality, as well as California’s high number of natural hazards and the state’s severe water stress.

Verisk Maplecroft put this report together to guide companies making business decisions. But the takeaways may be equally important for communities and policymakers looking to the future of their cities. “These environmental threats are not going away and in many cases will get worse as a result of climate change,” Nichols says. “You need to start factoring them into your decision making today. Really, it’s not something that can kind of be left for tomorrow.”

 

New story in Science and Health from Time: An Animated Guide to This Year’s Massive Brood X Cicada Emergence An Animated Guide to This Year’s Massive Brood X Cicada Emergence

As COVID-19 vaccination continues, many of us are gearing up to come out of our shells after what feels like years of laying low. But this spring’s emergence of trillions of Brood X cicadas will make our renewed buzz of activity look like child’s play.

Every 17 years, trillions of Brood X cicadas emerge from below ground, ready to party. The circle-of-life spectacle comes with a deafening mating ritual—plus sex in the treetops, predation and also, inevitably, death. Just about as quickly as they emerge, the cicadas will all be gone. The adults will be left to decompose on the ground, and newly hatched nymphs will burrow into the soil, their home for the next 17 years until, like clockwork, the cycle begins anew.

Here’s an animated look at this year’s Brood X cicada emergence:

The nymphs emerge

Brood X cicada nymphs emerge at night, through exit holes they’ve created in the ground, when soil temperatures reach about 64℉.

A revolting molting

The same night they crawl above ground, cicada nymphs climb to vertical surfaces to shed their skin. Adult cicadas emerge from the shedded skin, littering piles of crunchy exoskeletons in yards across 15 U.S. states.

The bodies mature

Over the course of several hours, the cicadas’ bodies harden and darken. The insects keep a low profile during this time to avoid being eaten by predators—but they will soon fly to the treetops, where their mating ritual will take place six to 10 days later.

The (deafening) mating ritual begins

To woo females, male cicadas emit an ear-splitting mating call—muscle contractions cause their tymbal organ to vibrate, and their hollow abdomen amplifies the sound to deafening levels. A chorus of cicadas can reach 80 to 100 decibels—as loud as a lawnmower.

Predators have their fill

Birds, snakes, turtles, spiders, and small mammals love to eat cicadas—yet all this predation will barely put a dent in their population. (Some brave humans even snack on the protein-rich insects.)

Females lay their eggs

After male and female cicadas hook up, the females slice into small tree branches using their ovipositor—a saw-like organ—and lay nests of 20 to 30 eggs at a time. Females may lay 400 to 600 eggs in total before tumbling to the ground and dying.

The eggs hatch

Six to 10 weeks later, the eggs hatch into tiny nymphs, which fall to the earth and tunnel underground. The nymphs spend the next 17 years sucking on plant sap, waiting for their big moment back in the sun.

It’s a regional affair

Brood X is the largest and most widespread group of periodical cicadas in the United States. But with 15 periodical broods that emerge in predictable cycles of every 13 or 17 years, a massive cicada emergence can be found in some part of the country just about every year.

New story in Science and Health from Time: A Private Company Is About to Send the First Paying Crew to the International Space Station A Private Company Is About to Send the First Paying Crew to the International Space Station

Outer space is rapidly becoming Outer Space, Inc., as the rise of private launch providers is making it increasingly easy to turn a buck in an industry that was once exclusively a not-for-profit government operation. The commercialization of low-Earth orbit took a big step forward yesterday, with NASA’s announcement that the space agency has inked a deal with Houston-based Axiom Space, in which Axiom will fly the first purely commercial crew to the International Space Station (ISS)—and pay NASA handsomely for the privilege.

“We are excited to see more people have access to spaceflight through this first private astronaut mission to the space station,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, during a May 10 press conference.

“This is another first for human space flight,” added Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial spaceflight development. “I’m very bullish on the commercial crew market.”

If all goes according to plan, Axiom’s four-man crew will take off for the station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft sometime in Jan. 2021. The mission will be commanded by Axiom Vice President and former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, a veteran of three space shuttle missions and one space station rotation. He will be joined by an international team of space rookies: American entrepreneur Larry Connor, Israeli investor and former fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, and Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy. The crew will spend two days making their way to the station and eight days aboard, conducting scientific experiments along with the regular crew and promoting various charities in their home countries. They expect to be kept exceedingly busy.

“Eytan, Larry and Mark are not interested in being tourists,” says López-Alegría. “They are looking forward to doing meaningful work aboard the ISS as well as [publicizing] the Cleveland and Mayo Clinics, the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation and [Israel’s] Ramon Foundation.

In some ways, the crew had better work, because they and Axiom are spending top dollar to go to to space. In addition to the amount the astronauts are paying SpaceX for flying them to the station—officially undisclosed but estimated at about $55 million a seat—Axiom is paying NASA a hefty fee for playing host. Food for the visiting crew, for example, runs $2,000 per day per person. Clothing, hygiene products, sleeping bags and more add another $1,500 per person per day. And these are the small-ticket items. Simply launching those supplies from Earth aboard cargo vessels comes in at up to $164,000 per person, per day. The real sticker shock, however, comes from paying for the labor the long-duration space station crew members will perform while helping their visitors—another $5.2 million per mission. Space-to-ground communications, mission planning and execution add another $4.8 million.

The payments won’t go only one way: for example, NASA is paying Axiom $1.69 million for various services, including providing cold stowage aboard the Crew Dragon to ship station experiments back to Earth. As with many good business deals, everyone winds up making some money—though Axiom and its astronauts are clearly paying much more, mostly because they have the will and the wallet to do so.

“It’s true that right now, it’s not very democratic; you have to be in a pretty select demographic to be able to afford it,” said Lopez-Alegria. “But we’re all working to get the prices to come down. And I think if you follow the trend of costing, for example, commercial aviation, they all start out high and come down.”

NASA is entirely open to hosting other companies aboard the ISS, and expects at least some to step forward. But for now Axiom is the big—indeed only—dog. The company is looking to launch private crews to the station at a pace of about two per year, depending on the availability of docking ports at the ISS—which, with NASA and Russian cargo vehicles forever shuttling up supplies and private travel to the station only growing, can be as hard as finding a free gate at an airport.

“The traffic to and from ISS is growing considerable,” says Mike Suffredini, former director of the space station program and now president and CEO of Axiom. “There are only two available docking ports so port availability is a consideration.”

But if Axiom has its way, there will be more ports—and indeed more station—and therein lies a way for the company to make more money. In 2020, NASA and Axiom inked a deal for the company to add an additional module to the station, with a plan for two more to follow. In the mid-to-late 2020s, the ISS will be old enough to be retired and de-orbited, being sent on an incineration plunge through the atmosphere. Before it does, the newer, shinier Axiom modules will detach, becoming a free-flying, albeit modest, space station of their own. Axiom will then be the one charging fees to visiting crews—and setting the standard for other private stations that may want to follow its lead. Space, once run entirely on the government’s dime, is discovering the free market—and so far it likes it fine.

New story in Science and Health from Time: The 3 Science-Backed Strategies That Can Help You Achieve Your Post-Pandemic Goals The 3 Science-Backed Strategies That Can Help You Achieve Your Post-Pandemic Goals

With gyms, restaurants, and workplaces reopening, people from every part of my life are asking for expert advice on how to ingrain new and healthier habits as we re-emerge from our pandemic cocoons. Their instinct that now is the right time to make a change is spot on—my research shows that having a “fresh start” is a powerful motive to initiate positive change at home and at work. But what are the chances that a new, post-COVID fitness routine or commitment to meeting-free mornings will outlast our initial fervor?

Unfortunately, even with the motivation of a fresh start, most self-improvement goals don’t pan out. One reason is that change is hard. But a more helpful explanation is that change requires the right strategy. I’ve devoted my academic career to the study of behavior change, and I’ve been startled by how often people fail to size up the obstacles they’ll need to surmount to achieve their objectives before charging forward with a strategy that’s poorly-suited to their circumstances. Setting audacious goals and visualizing success are all well and good, but most people would get farther faster if they customized their approach to counter the blockades that stand in their way.

The internal obstacles that commonly prevent change—the tendency to give into temptation, to be lazy, to be forgetful, to experience self-doubt, and so on—are surmountable. But just as different maladies respond to different treatments, so too do different barriers to change. We can’t just throw any solution at them and expect great results. We need the right one.

Tackling Temptation

Take, for example, temptation. Falling prey to temptation is one of the most common reasons people fail to reach their goals. We mean to go to the gym, but Netflix beckons. We know we should prepare for an upcoming presentation, but scrolling through Facebook is more enticing.

Psychologists Ayelet Fishbach and Kaitlin Woolley have shown that when pursuing goals that require resisting temptation, most people make a crucial mistake: they approach them in the way they believe will yield the greatest long-term payoff. But a more successful strategy is to try to make this kind of goal pursuit fun.

Across multiple research studies, Fishbach and Woolley encouraged some participants (chosen at random) to choose healthy foods or exercises they expected to enjoy most while others were encouraged to choose foods and exercises they’d benefit from most. These studies demonstrated that people encouraged to approach healthy activities with a focus on short-term enjoyment persisted longer on their workouts and ate more healthy food. This research reveals that we’re better off when we harness temptation, rather than when we ignore it to focus on our long-term goals.

One way of engineering success with this insight is through what I call “temptation bundling.” This technique involves pairing something tempting (like watching lowbrow tv) with a goal-oriented activity that isn’t inherently fun (like exercising or preparing a home-cooked meal). The “indulgence” is only permitted while working towards the goal. I’ve proven that temptation bundling can help gymgoers exercise more, but I’ve also heard stories of people using this technique to get ahead in school (by bundling trips to the library with indulgent snacks), master housework (by bundling it with a favorite podcast), and even improve relationships (by bundling get-togethers with trips to a favorite restaurant).

Foiling Flake Out

Of course, many goals—like strengthening bonds with loved ones through frequent calls, staying on track with medical check-ups, and even reducing waste by cancelling unnecessary subscriptions—aren’t inherently unpleasant to pursue. We just don’t get around to them because we’re forgetful. Estimates suggest, in fact, that we flake out on anywhere from a third to two thirds of our stated intentions, and forgetfulness plays a key role. The solution here has nothing to do with fun.

Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer has shown that when most people make plans to attack their goals, they do it incorrectly, focusing on what they intend to do (say, saving more money) rather than what will trigger them to act. To avoid flaking out, it’s vital to link intentions with a trigger cue, like a specific time, place, or action.

Making the right kind of plan is as simple as filling in the blanks in the sentence “when ___ happens, I’ll do ___.” So “I’ll increase my monthly retirement savings” has a missing ingredient, but “whenever I get a raise, I’ll increase my monthly retirement savings” is a more useful plan because it includes a trigger.

Research done by myself and others shows that prompting people to think through the date and time cue that will spur them to act can increase follow-through on everything from voting to getting a flu shot or colonoscopy.

Managing Missteps

As a final example, many people fail to achieve their goals because they get discouraged by small setbacks. For over a decade, my Wharton colleague Marissa Sharif has had the ambitious goal of running every day. But, as a behavioral scientist, Marissa realized that a missed jog could easily spiral into a series of skipped workouts thanks to the aptly-named “what the hell effect.” Research on this psychological phenomenon shows that even small failures, like missing a daily diet goal by a few calories, can lead to downward spirals in behavior—like eating a whole apple pie. Marissa came up with a clever strategy to counter this risk. She allowed herself two emergency skip days each week. If she couldn’t squeeze in a workout, she’d let herself declare an emergency, and this kept her on track.

Marissa has proven that this strategy works for other people at risk of abandoning their goals after a small failure, too. In one study, Marissa and a collaborator asked hundreds of people to do thirty-five annoying tasks every day for a week in exchange for $1 a batch. These workers were randomly assigned to three groups. Some got the tough goal of completing their work every day of the week. Others were given the easier objective of completing their work just five days out of seven. Finally, a third group was told to complete the assignment every day but got two “emergencies” to excuse missed work. Everyone knew they would get a $5 bonus if they managed to achieve their goal.

The chance to declare an emergency proved invaluable. A whopping fifty-three percent of those allowed to take “emergencies” hit their goal, compared with just twenty-six percent of people in the (objectively identical) easy group and twenty-one percent of participants with the seven days-per-week goal. The beauty of the system was that people were reluctant to use emergencies willy nilly (wisely hoarding their chits for real disasters). But having a tough goal with wiggle room kept people highly motivated even when they stumbled – blips no longer spiraled out of control because they could be written off.

These findings demonstrate that allowing for a limited number of emergencies is one way to ensure small mistakes won’t derail goal pursuit.

Temptation, flake out, and the what the hell effect are just a few of the many internal barriers to goal achievement that behavioral scientists have identified, ranging from self-doubt to bad habits. As people the world over seize upon a spike in motivation to change their lives for the better at the end of this pandemic era, I’m confident that successful change will come easiest to those who diagnose the barriers they’ll face and counter them strategically.

Adapted from Milkman’s new book, How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

New story in Science and Health from Time: Fossil Fuels, Climate Change and India’s COVID-19 Crisis Fossil Fuels, Climate Change and India’s COVID-19 Crisis

A version of this story first appeared in the Climate is Everything newsletter. If you’d like sign up to receive this free once-a-week email, click here.

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The surge of COVID-19 cases and the humanitarian crisis now unfolding in India has shocked the world and led to a search for an explanation of how the situation got so bad so fast. Scientists are investigating several factors including new variants and public health officials have pointed to underinvestment in the country’s health system.

Undoubtedly, the causes are varied, and as I watched the numbers surge, I began to wonder whether it’s worth considering the role air pollution may be playing. Since the early days of the pandemic, researchers have understood that exposure to polluted air makes people more vulnerable to COVID-19, and India’s megalopolises are among the most polluted in the world. “We understand that the impact of pandemic can be higher in polluted regions where people’s lungs have already been weakened due to long term exposures,” says Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi. “That makes Indian cities vulnerable.”

There’s been some research on air pollution and COVID-19 in India specifically, but it’s probably first worth looking at the bigger picture. A slew of studies have shown direct links between exposure to air pollution and vulnerability to COVID-19. One paper published in December in the journal Cardiovascular Research found that chronic exposure to particulate matter—a type of pollution that results from a mix of chemicals that come from sources like smokestacks and fires—is likely linked to some 15% of global COVID-19 deaths. Particulate matter doesn’t just come from fossil fuels, but the study’s authors found that more than 50% of air pollution-linked COVID-19 deaths are specifically connected to fossil-fuel use.

A seemingly endless stack of studies has shown the causal links that explain this: extended exposure to air pollution contributes to a range of ailments—from asthma to diabetes—that are risk factors for COVID-19.

The research in India is still in early stages, but scientists have already begun to evaluate the local connection. A preliminary study out of Malaviya National Institute of Technology in Jaipur, India found a correlation between COVID-19 cases and air pollution and climatic conditions—like wind and humidity—in Delhi. Another preliminary paper from the World Bank relying on data from India found that a “1 percent increase in long-term exposure to [particulate matter] leads to an increase in COVID-19 deaths by 5.7 percentage points.” The study suggested a range of “urgent” interventions from promoting cleaner fuel sources to reducing pollution in the transportation system that would complement more obvious public health measures like vaccination and mask wearing.

“A scientific consensus seems to be emerging that improving air quality may play an important role in overcoming or at least reducing the impacts of the pandemic,” the authors of the World Bank paper wrote. “Research implies that pollution must be limited as much as possible when lockdowns are lifted.”

This dynamic is important to understand not only because it helps explain one factor that has worsened the pandemic, but also because it offers a lens into so-called “climate co-benefits”—a key consideration that helps make the case for urgent action on climate change. That term refers to the positive effects beyond carbon dioxide emissions reduction that result from tackling climate change. Co-benefits range from improved soil health (resulting from agricultural practices that reduce carbon emissions) to improved energy security (as a positive outcome of expanding renewable energy sources and reducing reliance on fossil fuel imports).

But perhaps no co-benefit is more significant—and more urgent—on a global level than the clean air that results from nixing fossil fuels. In India, for example, chronic exposure to air pollution causes the premature death of more than a million people each year. Hundreds of thousands more are similarly affected in China. Even in the U.S., which has relatively strict environmental standards, more than 100,000 people have been estimated to die prematurely due to particulate matter air pollution every year, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And, in the U.S. and around the world, the burden falls disproportionately on low-income communities of color.

Policymakers and scientists have had many a thorny debate about the best ways to account for those co-benefits, but on a purely human level it’s another example of how tackling climate change would save lives—not just 30 years in the future but right now.

New story in Science and Health from Time: A Massive Chinese Rocket Will Fall Uncontrollably Back to Earth Soon. It (Probably) Won’t Land On You A Massive Chinese Rocket Will Fall Uncontrollably Back to Earth Soon. It (Probably) Won’t Land On You

If you’re not at least a little worried about the core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket now flying—tumbling, really—through low Earth orbit, you’re not paying enough attention. The giant chunk of space junk measures 30 m (98 ft) long and 5 m (16.5 ft) wide and weighs 21 metric tons. It’s traveling on an elliptical path around the Earth measuring roughly 370 km (230 mi) high by 170 km (105 mi) low, and that orbit is decaying fast. At the current rate, the rocket stage should reenter the atmosphere sometime on May 8—unless it’s May 7 or maybe May 9—and potentially scatter debris across the Pacific Ocean—unless it’s the Atlantic Ocean or Europe or Russia or Africa or somewhere in midtown Manhattan.

The point is, the only two things we know for certain are A: that the Long March 5B core stage is definitely coming down soon, and B: there’s absolutely no reason China should have gotten itself—and the world—in this position in the first place. “China is an outlier in the way countries have been disposing of rocket parts for 30 years,” says astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “They just decided, ‘Hey, the Earth is big. This probably won’t affect anyone.”

This particular Long March 5B started out its mission with no shortage of hoopla. It was launched on April 28, with the job of putting the 22-ton, 16.6 m core module of China’s new Tianhe space station into orbit. While the launch was flawless—at least so far as doing its principal job, which was getting the Tianhe to orbit—the follow-through was indifferent at best, and reckless at worst.

When spacefaring nations send a payload to orbit and jettison a spent first rocket stage along the way, they typically don’t let that stage fly too high or too fast, which would allow it to reach orbit. Rather, they keep it on a parabolic, suborbital trajectory. That means that when it’s done with its work, it falls immediately back to Earth in a predictable way and in an unpopulated area. In the case of rockets launched from Cape Canaveral, the dumping ground is the nearby Atlantic. In the case of China, which launches its rockets from the Wenchang Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan, the Pacific is typically the junk yard.

But the Long March 5B didn’t fly that way. Instead, the core stage made it all the way to orbit along with the Tianhe module. Tianhe has its own guidance system to keep it in a high, stable orbit. But the spent Long March core stage was left behind in a much more wobbly (and unsustainable) orbit, and now it’s destined to fall back to Earth. “The fact that [China] let the core stage go into orbit reflects a lack of caring,” says McDowell. “They really do have to get with the 21st century.”

Trying to guess exactly where and when the rocket will re-enter is no simple business, though the U.S. military, for one, is doing its best. “U.S. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space,” said a U.S. Space Command spokesperson in an email to TIME. “But its exact entry point into the Earth’s atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry, which is expected around May 8.”

The rocket’s reentry time will be determined in part by earth’s atmosphere, which can swell or contract slightly depending upon random fluctuations of solar energy reaching the planet. The more contact the atmosphere makes with the rocket stage, the faster its orbit will decay. The question of just where it will reenter is a more complicated business. The rocket stage’s orbital inclination—its angle relative to the equator—is 41.5º, carrying it as far north as Chicago, Rome and Beijing and as far south as New Zealand and Tasmania. That puts an awful lot of people in its direct path.

It’s impossible to know which population centers—if any—the rocket will threaten until just before it begins its final reentry. Its orbital speed exceeds 28,000 k/h (17,500 mph), and miscalculating the reentry by half an hour either way can make a difference of more than 10,000 km in landing distance. “It’s a mug’s game trying to predict reentry locations,” says McDowell.

The good news, of course, is that more than 70% of the Earth’s surface is water, increasing the odds that the rocket will splash down harmlessly into the ocean. Much—but not all—of the rocket should also incinerate during reentry. What typically survives, McDowell says, are small components made of metals that can tolerate the extreme heat of reentry and larger ones that melt at lower temperatures, but may partly make it through due to their size.

Even if this particular piece of space debris does us no harm, there’s plenty more where it came from. Space Command reports that at any given moment, it’s tracking 27,000 human-made objects in space, the majority of which are in low-Earth orbit. The ability to venture into space might be one of our species’ more impressive achievements, but as the Long March is showing, it can come at a dangerous price.

New story in Science and Health from Time: How Trees Mother Their Seedlings and What We Can Learn About Connection From Forests How Trees Mother Their Seedlings and What We Can Learn About Connection From Forests

Well hello! I’m so glad you’re here. A version of this article also appeared in the It’s Not Just You newsletter. Sign up here to receive a new edition every Sunday.

Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard studies what she calls “mother trees.” They are tall old-growth trees with vast root systems connected to hundreds of other trees via a network of fungi that allows them to share resources and information. Mother trees are the source of a forest’s resilience and renewal in the face of modern stressors, like climate change.

This breakthrough research revealed stunningly complex communications and cooperation among trees. A mother tree can even recognize its own saplings and direct more carbon, nutrients, and water to them if needed, but will also support other neighbor trees in distress.

Simard’s work led to a revolutionary premise: that the forest is a bit like a mutual aid society. “I discovered that [the trees] are in a web of interdependence, linked by a system of underground channels, where they perceive and connect and relate with an ancient intricacy and wisdom,” she writes in her new book, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.

I’ve been thinking about those wise old trees as Mother’s Day approaches in this, the second spring of the pandemic.

Simard’s discovery of an invisible but essential network we didn’t appreciate until it was under threat, sure is resonant right these days. We now know much our economy and our sanity depend on the emotional, intellectual and physical labor of the nurturers, caregivers, and organizers that have been both our nation’s emergency backup system and the everyday infrastructure. They may not all be mothers or women, but they’re our mother trees.

Start with healthcare workers, 76% of whom are women, like the frontline nurses who withstood endless shifts exhausting their bodies and hearts in the battle against COVID-19. And there are the armies of women who’ve set up neighborhood food banks and nutrition programs with star chefs like Jose Andres–nurturers all. And the mother trees bound by tragedy, like Gwen Carr and Sybrina Fulton, who showed up for the family of George Floyd.

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My corner of the world is full of magnificent mother trees–mentors and ralliers of empathy like Shelly Tygielski, the founder of Pandemic of Love, a grassroots organization with thousands of mother trees directing resources of food, funds, and connection to those that need it most.

And there are so many friends who are essential hubs for their family and friend groups. Their to-do lists are part errands, part emotional labor. They have an uncanny ability to send a text or a card, or a jar of confetti at just the right time, small gestures of grace that can lift someone out of terrible sadness.

Building those networks of care is a learned skill in and out of the forest. And when that generational chain of knowledge is disrupted, mother trees like Isis Sapp-Grant have stepped in. A social worker by training, she founded the first community-based diversion and alternative to incarceration program in New York state specifically designed—in terms of culture and identity—for Black girls and other girls of color. In the early 2000s, the Brooklyn-based Blossom program became an after-school haven offering mentorship and practical assistance.

Many of those girls are now grown with jobs and kids of their own. But they’ve maintained the support system they formed at Blossom. Former mentors are now friends and godmothers to their children. “These women still rely on each other. And I still spend hours talking with them,” says Sapp-Grant. “The conversations now are around breaking cycles when you come from trauma. How do I raise my kids differently?” There’s no easy answer, but they have a community bank of wisdom to draw on.

In one of Simard’s TED Talks, she describes both the interdependence of trees and a battle with cancer that interrupted her work. She talked about how she came to depend on a group of women who’d been through the same challenges:

“We’ve become this tapestry that’s knit together in a tight weave. When one of us stumbles or bends, the others are right there to pick her up,” she says. “What I’ve learned from all this is what my forest was trying to tell me all along. That these connections are crucial to our wellbeing, they’re not easily seen, but they’re real. And you know what? I’m living proof. And I’m really grateful.”

All this is to say, happy Mother’s Day to all you mother trees who’ve shown up for your families, your communities, your country this year. I know you’re tired. You’ve held up more than half the sky for too long. It’s time for reinforcements.

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Road Trip Update! Thanks to all of you for the good wishes and kind invitations for my cross-country voyage. I’m flipping the script a little bit. Dog and I will now be traveling West to East at the end of May, and I’ll be posting from the road on Instagram @SusannaSchrobs

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EVIDENCE OF HUMAN KINDNESS ❤️

Here’s your weekly reminder that creating a community of generosity elevates us all.

When Pandemic of Love was introduced to John from Baltimore, in April, he was living on the streets. Months earlier, his family, most of his friends, and his community cut John off when he revealed he was gay. John went into survival mode, eventually running out of funds for hotel stays, losing his job, and entering a major depression. He started to believe that God didn’t love him and his life was cursed.

One night, while panhandling near the baseball stadium, someone suggested he reach out to Pandemic of Love. Within two days, POL volunteers on the ground were able to get John into a hotel, then into secure housing, raise over $4.5k for him, offer him employment and purchase a new laptop for him.

I am still in awe of what happened to me and how people I don’t know, who have nothing to gain from helping me, came to my aid so quickly and so wholeheartedly.Adam, a local volunteer, who is gay, read John’s story and jumped in to help John financially and also as a mentor. He connected John to a community of individuals with similarly devastating stories about coming. Recently the two had dinner, and John marveled at the transformative generosity he’d encountered:

–John

Adam (left) and John are pictured above. John’s face is blurred for privacy. Story and images courtesy of Shelly Tygielski, founder of Pandemic of Love, a grassroots organization that matches volunteers, donors, and those in need.

COMFORT CREATURES 🐕

Our weekly acknowledgment of the animals that help us make it through the storm. “This is Mash, super cool dog. Nuff said,” says Jules who submitted the photo below as evidence.

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