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Texas A&M University, Bizzell Street, College Station, TX, USA

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Texas A&M University, Bizzell Street, College Station, TX, USA

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Texas A&M University, Bizzell Street, College Station, TX, USA

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The introduction of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has revolutionized technology as a whole, leading to major advances in consumer goods across nearly all sectors. Battery-powered devices have become ubiquitous across the world. While the availability of technology is generally a good thing, the rapid growth has led directly to several key ethical and environmental issues surrounding the use of Li-ion batteries.

Current Li-ion batteries utilize significant amounts of cobalt, which in several well-documented international cases is mined using child labor in dangerous working environments. Additionally, only a very small percentage of Li-ion batteries are recycled, increasing the demand for cobalt and other strategic elements.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Texas A&M University has made a breakthrough that could lead to battery production moving away from cobalt. In an article published in the May issue of Nature, Dr. Jodie Lutkenhaus, Axalta Coating Systems Chair and professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Karen Wooley, distinguished professor in the Department of Chemistry and holder of the W.T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry in the College of Science, outline their research into a new battery technology platform that is completely metal free. This new battery technology platform utilizes a polypeptide organic radical construction.

"By moving away from lithium and working with these polypeptides, which are components of proteins, it really takes us into this realm of not only avoiding the need for mining precious metals, but opening opportunities to power wearable or implantable electronic devices and also to easily recycle the new batteries," said Wooley, recently honored as the 2021 SEC Professor of the Year. "They [polypeptide batteries] are degradable, they are recyclable, they are non-toxic and they are safer across the board."

The all-polypeptide organic radical battery composed of redox-active amino-acid macromolecules also solves the problem of recyclability. The components of the new battery platform can be degraded on demand in acidic conditions to generate amino acids, other building blocks and degradation products -- one of the major breakthroughs in this research, according to Lutkenhaus.

"The big problem with lithium-ion batteries right now is that they're not recycled to the degree that we are going to need for the future electrified transportation economy," Lutkenhaus added. "The rate of recycling lithium-ion batteries right now is in the single digits. There is valuable material in the lithium-ion battery, but it's very difficult and energy intensive to recover."

The development of a metal-free, all-polypeptide organic radical battery composed of redox-active amino-acid macromolecules that degrade on demand marks significant progress toward sustainable, recyclable batteries that minimize dependence on strategic metals. As a next step, Wooley and Lutkenhaus have begun working in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Tabor, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, through a 2020 Texas A&M Triads for Transformation (T3) grant that aims to utilize machine learning to optimize the materials and structure of the battery platform.

Journal Reference:

Tan P. Nguyen, Alexandra D. Easley, Nari Kang, Sarosh Khan, Soon-Mi Lim, Yohannes H. Rezenom, Shaoyang Wang, David K. Tran, Jingwei Fan, Rachel A. Letteri, Xun He, Lu Su, Cheng-Han Yu, Jodie L. Lutkenhaus, Karen L. Wooley. Polypeptide organic radical batteries. Nature, 2021; 593 (7857): 61 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03399-1

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Researchers develop new metal-free, recyclable polypeptide battery that degrades on demand: This could result in battery production moving away from strategic elements like cobalt

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The introduction of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has revolutionized technology as a whole, leading to major advances in consumer goods across nearly all sectors. Battery-powered devices have become ubiquitous across the world. While the availability of technology is generally a good thing, the rapid growth has led directly to several key ethical and environmental issues surrounding the use of Li-ion batteries.

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This story was produced in partnership with National Geographic and the Fuller Project, with funding from the National Geographic Society.
HERAT, Afghanistan As dry months turned to parched years, Fatemeh watched the crops in her northwestern Afghan province of Badghis wither and her cattle die of thirst. Hunger turned to desperation, and eighteen months ago, her farming family begged a wealthy man for a loan to get them through the worst drought Afghanistan had seen in decades. He obliged, with $1,250 worth of sheep, rice, and flour.

When rains returned in spring, so did the man, this time demanding repayment. But there hadn't yet been a profitable harvest. "Give me your daughter," he said. He wanted shy, four-year-old Fariba as a wife for his son.

"She would have died from sorrow," says Fatemeh, glancing at Fariba, her wide, brown eyes outlined with kohl.

And so they fled-to save Fariba, to search for land that could survive the next drought, and to escape U.S.-backed Afghan airstrikes that pounded Taliban fighters in nearby villages at night. After three days and three nights on the road, they found shelter in a sprawling, bare-bones camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Afghanistan's third largest city, Herat.

In the 18 years since the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom and invaded Afghanistan, the fight against terrorism has dominated the global conversation about the South Asian country, influencing billions of dollars spent on warfighting and reconstruction efforts in a relentless conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Meanwhile, a potentially bigger fight is brewing.

Afghanistan is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change, and one of the least equipped to handle what's to come. Experts say drought, flood, avalanches, landslides, extreme weather, mass displacement, conflict, and child marriage-all of which already plague Afghanistan-are set to worsen.

There has been relatively little attention paid to climate change in Afghanistan, where the majority of Afghans are farmers or earn income from agriculture, and where the United Nations Environment Programme estimates 80 percent of conflict is over land, water, and resources. And assistance to help Afghans cope with the effects of drought and climate change-related hardships is often too short term or does not take into account the actual needs of Afghans on the ground, critics say.

Afghanistan's extreme drought of 2018 is over, for now. But Fatemeh is one of an estimated 13.5 million Afghans who remain severely food insecure. A third of Afghans have migrated or have been displaced since 2012, according to the International Organization for Migration.Projections paint a picture of an even hotter, more resource-scarce Afghanistan.

Temperatures could rise by 5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, according to UN Environment and Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency, unless measures are taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions. While Afghanistan's precipitation levels are projected to remain relatively stable through the end of the 21st century, hotter temperatures would lead to more evaporation, endangering life-sustaining water resources.

That could be a death sentence in places like Badghis, where Fatemeh and her family dug holes in the ground to collect rainwater and melted snow to survive before ultimately fleeing.

"No land. No water. No life," says Gul Dasta, Fatemeh's sister. Under her homemade emerald green dress hanging off of her rail thin body, a newborn baby tries in vain to feed from her deflated breast.

To much, too little

Some 450 miles east of Herat, in northeastern Afghanistan's Panjshir province, local communities are also at the mercy of the elements. There, the turquoise Panjshir River winds through a lush valley wedged between towering mountains.

In July 2018 a mountain glacier melted too fast, causing a natural dam surrounding a glacial lake to burst. Thousands of cubic tons of water rushed down the mountain, triggering a landslide that destroyed schools, hundreds of homes, and fields growing beans, potatoes, olive trees, and wheat.

Shepherds on the mountain called downstream to alert their loved ones, but for at least 10 people, including 65-year-old Bib Mazari, it was too late. "The water washed her body away," said her brother, Niaz Mohamed.

The spring and summer snowmelt of glaciers keeps entire communities alive with their cool, fresh water. But too much snowmelt too fast is deadly, increasing the risk of springtime flooding and summer drought.

Glacier volumes in the extended Hindu Kush Himalaya region are projected to decline by up to 90 percent by 2100, according to the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development.

The cash-strapped and embattled Afghan government is working on installing stations on the mountain to warn people of disasters. But locals, who say there has been inadequate government assistance, aren't holding their breath. Following the 2018 flash flood, which wiped out fertile agriculture land, many villagers left Panjshir for good. They're not alone, much like Fatemeh and her family, who abandoned their traditional way of life in order to survive.

Across the country, men like Gul Dasta's husband are saying goodbye to loved ones to search for work in Iran, leaving women to head households in a traditionally patriarchal society. Families are moving to displacement camps and urban cities like the capital Kabul, one of the world's fastest growing cities. There, they pray, life will be easier.

But even in Kabul, the most developed Afghan city, home to hundreds of embassies and military bases, many city residents face their own fight for survival. Kabul's population has ballooned in recent decades, placing even more strain on resources, like water. Despite Afghanistan's abundance of snowy mountains and rushing rivers, clean water is a luxury for many Afghans, largely due to war, widespread water mismanagement, and corruption.

Kabul's water distribution system provides water to less than 20 percent of the city's population. Because most of the groundwater is not potable, Kabul residents dig unregulated wells or buy expensive bottled water that clog waterways and festering roadside sewers. An $82 million, USAID-supported project to expand Kabul's water infrastructure is supposed to be completed by 2021. But such water projects in the past have come under fire for failing to meet objectives.

Afghanistan currently lacks the ability to store or use most of its water, says Faez Azizi, a water resources and hydrology advisor at Afghanistan's Ministry of Energy and Water. Most of that water flows into neighboring countries.

"The people need water," says Azizi. "Afghanistan needs the construction of dams. And this needs huge investment."

But large-scale dam projects are controversial and complicated. USAID and other development and government agencies have struggled to support dam projects, and such initiatives pose diplomatic and security risks both within Afghanistan and with neighboring countries like Iran.

For rural communities across Afghanistan, small dams are lifelines to produce electricity, irrigate fields, and divert water for drinking.

In May, a tiny farming village flanked by the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan's central Bamiyan province-famous for its once towering stone Buddhas blown up by the Taliban in 2001-plunged into darkness when floodwaters wiped out a dam and the electrical lines it powered.

The drought set off a series of devastating events. Girls and women, traditionally responsible for collecting water, cooking, and tending to crops, were forced to walk longer distances during drought. In one girls' school in rural Bamiyan, one-fifth of the students-several hundred girls-were pulled out of school by their families during the drought, according to Director Abdul Qayoon Afshar.

But even when it rained, the water didn't offer much relief. The parched ground could not easily absorb water. Deforestation on the mountainside created a sleek surface for water to rush down, wiping out the dam, the community mill, and fields of freshly planted crops.

"It has gotten harder for us," says 41-year-old Abdul Ghafur, who pulled his oldest son out of school to help replant. Ankle deep in mud and wielding a dirt-caked hoe, he sighed, staring out at the wilted, water-logged fields of destroyed crops his family had planted days earlier. "And it will get harder for my sons to do this."

Abdul Ghafur is counting down the days until he, too, will be forced to leave Bamiyan in search of work, just like his neighbors.

Food insecurity

In Bamiyan, a mountainous geographic buffer offers relative protection from powerful militant groups. But in other provinces, like Fatemeh's home of Badghis, due west of Bamiyan, drought and natural disasters further fuel insurgency and militant recruitment.

"It was easy for [the Taliban] to capture the area," says 40-year-old Kamar Gul, who left Badghis two decades ago during a previous drought, and who still has family in Badghis. "Everyone was hungry."

In Badghis, wholly reliant on rainfall for agriculture and drinking water, food insecurity is still at crisis level. In 2017, nearly 60 percent of Afghans made a living from agriculture, and yet, nearly half were highly food insecure. Only one country, war-ravaged Yemen, was more food insecure.

"Every day, I dream my children are dying from hunger," says Fatemeh, who says members of her family joined the Taliban during the drought. There has been relatively little research into how the effects of climate change, and the desperation it fuels, impact peace prospects.

"Climate change exacerbates the situation," says Jeremy Pal, Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science at Loyola Marymount University. There's a limited amount of arable land, and the "potential for more refugees and displacement."

In recent years, less winter snow has meant it's easier for the Taliban to wage war outside of its traditional fighting season. Meanwhile, more Afghan civilians were killed or wounded this past year than in any year since 2009, mainly by Afghan and U.S.-led allies, as well as by attacks by the militants they're fighting.

While the United States has spent at least $744.9 billion in warfighting since 2001, in addition to millions more from the international community, most of that money went to traditional security efforts: training Afghan soldiers, dropping bombs, and supporting thousands of foreign troops. Sixteen percent of the U.S. budget in Afghanistan has gone toward reconstruction, the majority of it funding security, counternarcotics, and governance projects. Only a small fraction of funding has supported initiatives that help Afghans adapt to climate change, respond to natural disasters, and foster resilience.

"The development system is broken," says Anthony Neal, a humanitarian policy analyst who served as Advocacy Manager throughout the drought response for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which helps manage camps for internally displaced people like Fatemeh. "Development donors are not adaptable and we're therefore relying on the short-term funding and emergency response to meet long-term and developmental issues."

Fighting back

Though limited and inhibited by insecurity, corruption, and lack of sustained funding, initiatives to combat climate change have popped up in Afghanistan in recent years, some of them supported by the United States. and the international community. Greenhouses have been set up for women farmers. Communities have received funding and training to grow crops like saffron instead of drought-resistant poppies, which have long fueled Afghanistan's illicit heroin trade.

Early warning systems have been developed in order to better warn communities of impending natural disasters. Wells and water systems have been dug and installed in remote areas. Awareness, too, has increased about climate change and the threat it poses to national security.

In September, despite near-daily terrorist attacks in the capital and across the country, dozens of young Afghans-many of them women- took to the streets in Kabul demanding that attention be paid to climate change. Guarded by Afghan security forces holding Kalashnikov rifles, the protestors held up banners and donned face masks protecting their mouths and noses from the polluted air, thick with smoke billowing from the exhaust pipes of Soviet-era vehicles and coal-burning stoves. "Stop denying, our world is dying," read one sign held up by a young man.

While initiatives across Afghanistan strive to foster climate change resilience and adaptation, they largely cannot reverse or slow the effects of climate change because Afghans are not the primary drivers of climate change in their country. Instead, that burden largely lies with the United States, China, and India, together making up half the world's CO2 emissions. In recent years, the United States has loosened regulations on emissions and slashed funding for development programs in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

These policy shifts have coincided with controversial peace negotiations with the Taliban, which calls for a pullout of foreign troops in Afghanistan, in addition to other demands that have left many Afghans worried about the future of international aid.

In Herat, the camps housing Fatemeh and thousands of others have lost most of their emergency funding in recent months. That means largely no more food or water distribution, or education programs, which has led to increased rates of child marriage and begging. Funders say the situation is no longer an "emergency" because the drought is over and people, in theory, could return home.

Just down the road, another sprawling camp filled with Afghans who fled previous droughts and conflict has turned into a permanent, impoverished town. They, like Fatemeh, don't plan to return home.

Sitting inside her family's tent, its sides rippling against whooshes of hot, sandy wind, Fatemeh thinks back to her own brief childhood in Badghis, wading through golden fields of wheat up to her knees. There, she laughed and played with friends as the cattle grazed nearby.

"We were free," Fatemeh says, holding the tiny hand of her daughter, Fariba, tightly. "I want my daughter to have that same feeling."

Unless something changes drastically-and soon-Fariba will grow up in a wasteland dotted by plastic tents, next to a dry, cracked riverbed that offers no relief. When she begins menstruating, she'll pay off her family's debt by marrying the son of the man who loaned her family money. They may have survived the drought, but it has most certainly cost Fariba her freedom.
Sophia Jones is a senior editor with the Fuller Project, a nonprofit journalism organization reporting on global issues impacting women. Solmaz Daryani is a documentary photographer. Khwaga Ghani contributed reporting.

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In Afghanistan, climate change complicates future prospects for peace

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This story was produced in partnership with National Geographic and the Fuller Project, with funding from the National Geographic Society. HERAT, Afghanistan As dry months turned to parched years, Fatemeh watched the crops in her northwestern Afghan province of Badghis wither and her cattle die of thirst.

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By Soumik Dutta
Soumik Dutta is a freelance investigative journalist based in Kolkata and Bangalore, India, covering energy transition, environmental or green corruption, human interest, land acquisition-related conflicts and human rights violation issues.
KOLKATA, India, Jul 9 2020 (IPS) - In India the impacts of climate change induced extreme weather events on the lives and livelihood of people, particularly belonging to the poor and vulnerable sections of the society, are increasing alarmingly with each passing year.

The remote Sunder ban delta (UNESCO world heritage site) in Eastern India's West Bengal is accessible mostly by boats. Surprisingly, this remote region has become a hub for human traffickers who manage to prey upon the gullible villagers, mostly dependent on fishing, agriculture, collection of fire wood and honey for a living.

There are crocodiles in the inland lagoons of Sunder bans, poisonous snakes, the world famous Royal Bengal Tiger, River pirates and now, to top it all, human traffickers.

The combined effects of climate change, erosion, flood, sea water inundation and extreme poverty, make it relatively easier for traffickers to lure women and children into forced prostitution, marriage and child labor.

In recent years there has been a spurt in man-animal conflicts with climate change and manmade ecological disasters in the garb of development projects inside the world's largest mangrove forests.

As a result of this habitat destruction, there have been more Tiger attacks in the villages and adjoining forests killing many people who roam the forests in search of honey, wood and shrimps for a living.

In 2019, the Supreme Court of India had directed the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to "analyze the data on missing persons (especially on women and children) so that areas prone to persons being trafficked could be identified and action taken".

The NCRB study was based on the annual Crime in India Report compiled by the agency for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018. According to the report, the three states where the highest number of women went missing in the three years are Maharashtra, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.

In 2016, as many as 28,316 women went missing in Maharashtra, followed by 29,279 in the year 2017, and 33,964 in 2018. In West Bengal, the number of missing women for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018 was 24,937, 28,133 and 31,299, respectively. Madhya Pradesh recorded 21,435, 26,587 and 29,761 missing reports of women in the three years.

Regular flooding is not only eroding people's land and livelihoods, but the social fabric of these communities too. The dire circumstances force most families to send their young children away, to work in factories or in cities.

The traffickers take advantage of the situation, pose as job recruiters, or use local unemployed poor men to lure girls away with the false promise of marriage. Once abducted, the girls are sold into prostitution, some end up as domestic help and are abused; sometimes they land as far away as the Middle East.

With the Sundar ban coastline retreating about 650 feet a year and the land being at an average elevation of only three feet above sea level (MSL), scientists predict much of the Sundar bans could be submerged in 15 to 25 years.

Several thousand kilometers away, people in the North Eastern state of Assam are struggling to prove their citizenship as Indians, under the National Register of Citizens (NRC). They are internally displaced people because their lands have been swept away by erosion or floods.

Detention camps have been built for these people whose citizenship is now under the scanner. In 2017, the Assam government decided to stop taxation of land that has been lost due to erosion. So, ownership records of land that has been lost due to erosion do not prove anything.

Almost 40 villages in the Bhuragaon circle have been lost due to erosion. According to the Economic Survey of India, 10% of the country is flood prone. In Assam, this becomes approximately 40%, or 931,000 hectares. Similar tales can be found in the village of Goroimari and Champupara village under Goroimari circle.

The scale of the problem has grown with massive erosion, which stands at an average rate of 8,000 hectares every year in the state with a total of 427,000 hectares of land having been washed away since 1950. From 2010 to 2015, 880 villages were completely lost due to erosion, 67 villages were partially lost, and 36,981 families lost their homes.

A recent 2018 study by Michael Gerrard of Columbia University linked the water crisis and climate change to trafficking.

In order to mitigate the amount of trafficking that's projected to increase, Gerrard says the world's economies need to transition away from using fossil fuels, which will decrease greenhouse gas emissions and can make the impacts of climate change less severe.

Experts believe that by 2050, more than 200 million people will be forced to flee their homes. They are referred as climate migrants or climate refugees. The World Migration Report 2020, was released by the UN in December 2019 detailing out the severity of the problem.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has also pointed out climate change, natural disasters and poverty as factors that exacerbate the vulnerabilities and desperation that enables trafficking to flourish.

The Indian government and several Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have been working towards mitigating the migration, displacement and trafficking nexus, but there seems to be a gap between the cup and the lip.

The traffickers take advantage of the loopholes in the system. Extreme poverty and resultant vulnerability of people, seems to be the key to this vicious cycle.

"It's no longer a matter of improving our situation; we are just fighting to keep it from getting any worse", summed up a village elder from the Sunder bans.
https://peacedata.net/strangers-in-their-own-land-how-climate-change-cre...

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In India, Climate Change is Increasing Refugees & Human Trafficking - India

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By Soumik Dutta Soumik Dutta is a freelance investigative journalist based in Kolkata and Bangalore, India, covering energy transition, environmental or green corruption, human interest, land acquisition-related conflicts and human rights violation issues.

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The Hmong double-village of Ban Tha Jok/Na Kam Peng has recycled old war junk into practical objects, hence the nickname 'Bomb Village', with cluster-bomb casings used to make the legs of rice barns, planting pots for herbs, barbecue braziers and, in one case, a whole over-engineered fence. The main concentration lies in minor lanes about 700m south of Rte 7, turning at Km 165 (27km east of Phonsavan).

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The Hmong double-village of Ban Tha Jok/Na Kam Peng has recycled old war junk into practical objects, hence the nickname 'Bomb Village', with cluster-bomb casings used to make the legs of rice barns, planting pots for herbs, barbecue braziers and, in one case, a whole over-engineered fence.