World Environment Day 2023: How a teen climate crusader battled poverty, abuse after Cyclone Yaas
Across the world, there are millions of children who have been displaced from a stable life by climate-change induced natural calamities
As news of cyclone Mocha advancing towards India’s eastern coast blared from television sets and microphones a few weeks ago, 16-year-old Sikha (name changed), a Green Scout member in her remote village in Bengal’s South 24 Parganas, watched the ominous dark clouds gathered on the horizon.
Cyclones, storms and floods are a way of life in the environmentally fragile zone that Sikha lives in. Year after year, villages in the region have been ravaged, leaving behind a trail of death, destruction of property and infrastructure, damage to the environment and ecosystem and endless misery. Lives and livelihoods have been rebuilt, only to be decimated again the following year or the next.
In 2020, it was Cyclone Amphan, and the following year it was Cyclone Yaas.
Sikha can never forget how her life changed after Yaas. The cyclone had flattened their home, and the incessant rain and flooding that followed submerged whatever remained. When calm returned, her village was in ruins, as far as the eye could see.
The aftermath
Over the next few months, Sikha’s family of five, lived on one watery meal a day. A tarpaulin sheet tied precariously over four bamboo poles was the roof over their heads. For Sikha though, the worst was yet to come.
One dark day, Sikha’s “aunt” told the Class IX student that she would find a good home for her in a neighbouring village, where she would get two meals a day, a roof over her head and also help with studies. She took the unsuspecting girl to an unknown house in an unknown place and left her there.
Back home, when the hapless parents enquired about Sikha, the aunt said she had married off their daughter in a happy family, where she would be taken care of well. Already struggling to provide a square meal for his family and a roof over their heads, the father thought whatever had happened had happened for the best.
A few villages away, the “best” turned out to be hell for Sikha. The husband and the family took turns in physically assaulting her every single day and night. She was made to do chores, kept unfed and not allowed to come out.
Sikha forgot to smile. Actually, she could just about manage to breathe and live. There came a moment when she could take the torture no more — she ran away. The flight to freedom was short-lived, though. Back in her nightmare, the blows reigned free.
Days rolled into several months and the parents hadn’t heard a word about their teenage daughter. When repeated questions to the “aunt” did not work, the family approached Kaajla Janakalyan Samity, a CRY partner and explained the situation. “We took the family to the police. The father narrated the situation. The police told them that if the girl didn’t return on her own in a few days, they would accept a complaint,” said Vivekananda Sahu, project coordinator of Kaajla.
Around the same time, Sikha’s mother received a phone call from an unknown number. The voice on the other side, barely recognizable after almost a year, told a horror story of torture, abuse and a “marriage” of sorts. Sikha could not give the name of the village she was kept confined at, but the neigbour whose phone she was using, mentioned the name.
The Kaajla team swung into action, contacted the Gram Panchayat Pradhan of that particular village and made plans to bring her back. Before they could rescue her, Sikha ran away from hell, and this time she succeeded.
Back home with her parents, the nightmare came out in the open. The aunt, who many in the village say doubles as an “agent”, was nowhere to be found.
A new beginning
In December 2022-January 2023 began a process of recuperation and rehabilitation for Sikha. “The girl was in trauma and suicidal. It took us endless talks to convince her that she could fight back,” said Sahu.
With help and encouragement, the 16-year-old started attending classes at the Antarasha centre, run by Kaajla and CRY. She was admitted to a local school. Antarasha gave Sikha a reason to live and believe. Support classes made up for her learning gap and life-skill sessions helped her become mentally strong.
Sikha attended special sessions where she learned about environmental degradation, global warming, soil erosion and more. She knows now why cyclones, storms and floods have become more frequent than before. She is aware that her village may be decimated again in the aftermath of another Amphaan or Yaas. And she knows how lives can change after a natural calamity. Hers did.
Now a student of Class X, Sikha has joined the Green Scouts team in her village. Conscious of the fragile ecosystem around her, she tries to spread awareness about the little things that we can do to conserve our environment.
People need to know more about why the cyclones happen, and steps that can be taken in daily lives to mitigate the sufferings in the aftermath. Sikha and team convince people to plant trees and nurture them. The more the greenery, the less the amount of carbon dioxide in the air — the easiest remedy to reverse the adverse effects of climate change.
The 16-year-old has stopped the use of plastic in her family and she asks neighbours to do the same. Plastic waste can choke rivers and propel erosion at the edges, the crusader tells people.
Developing new understanding
A climate crisis is a child rights crisis, according to UNICEF. Climate change is the greatest threat facing the world’s children and young people. It poses major threats to their health, nutrition, education and future.
Across the world, there are millions of children like Sikha who have been displaced from a stable life or adversely impacted by a climate-change induced natural calamity.
The important question: What can be done to redress? To begin with, efforts to sustain a livable planet must not only account for the unique needs and vulnerabilities of young people; they must also include them in the solutions. Children have critical skills, experiences and ideas for safer, more sustainable societies.
On World Environment Day, it is our responsibility to groom children like Sikha, who have been victims themselves, as ‘change-makers’ for the environment. Let them learn to use their knowledge and resources available to them to protect and conserve the Earth. Let them carry the mantle of ushering in a better tomorrow for themselves and the generations to follow.
Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.
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EarthSky | Will Betelgeuse explode in tens of years?
Betelgeuse due to explode soon?
Betelgeuse is the nearest red supergiant star to Earth. Distance estimates vary, but it’s probably within 1,000 light-years of Earth … a hop and a skip in galactic terms. Someday, Betelgeuse will explode as a supernova. When it does, it might become as bright as a full moon. It might even be visible in broad daylight! But when will Betelgeuse explode? A decade ago, this question was interesting but academic. The answer was: Maybe today. Maybe a thousand years from now. Few imagined it would be today. But now there’s been a noticeable uptick in the brightening and dimming of Betelgeuse. And a new paper – published this week (June 1, 2023) – suggests not thousands of years but “tens of years” as Betelgeuse’s explosion timescale.
The paper focuses on the concept of stellar nucleosynthesis, the process that enables stars to shine. Inside stars, simple atoms fuse to make more complex atoms, with energy as a by-product. It’s when a star’s nuclear fuel runs out, that a supernova occurs. Arxiv.org, an open-access repository, published the new study on June 1. It’s called The evolutionary stage of Betelgeuse inferred from its pulsation periods. The scientists said:
We conclude that Betelgeuse is … a good candidate for the next galactic supernova.
The first author is Hideyuki Saio from the Astronomical Institute, Graduate School of Science, at Tohoku University in Japan. The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society has accepted the paper for publication.
It’s got people talking
Let’s be clear. The history of observations of supernovae within our own Milky Way is sketchy. But we’d surely be lucky to see any galactic supernova, much more one as nearby as Betelgeuse, in our lifetimes.
And Betelgeuse exploding in just tens of years? That’s an amazing thought, and has people talking!
But is it realistic?
Tens of years?!
What follows are a couple of tweets that have set off a new round of chatter on Twitter. The first – from Friday, June 2 – points to the “tens of years” scenario.
Yikes – serious scientific evidence that Betelgeuse might explode within “tens” of years.https://t.co/bgRqK9l97u
— Dr Jan Eldridge (@astro_jje) June 2, 2023
An almost 50% brightness increase
A second notable tweet – from @Betelbot on Twitter, which provides daily status reports on the star – is from May 18, 2023. It points to a recent almost 50% brightness increase for the star! Note that Betelgeuse is behind the sun in summer. So, until it emerges before dawn in late summer, we won’t know what it’s doing.
Now at 142% of my usual brightness! #Betelgeuse pic.twitter.com/S7TuFTcjdj
— Betelgeuse Status (@betelbot) May 18, 2023
The background buzz on Betelgeuse
Stars shine because they undergo thermonuclear fusion reactions in their interiors. Simply put, they fuse simple elements (like hydrogen) to create more complex elements (like helium), with energy as the by-product. As massive stars (eight or more solar masses) age, they run out of the simplest fuels, but progressively burn more complex fuels until ultimately their cores are made of iron … and then nuclear burning ceases. At that point, with no more fusion taking place, the high temperatures in a star’s interior drop. And that means the high pressures in the star’s interior drop too. The star begins to collapse on itself. It collapses … then rebounds in a terrific explosion, a supernova.
So, massive stars like Betelgeuse explode as Type II supernovae – collapsing rapidly and exploding violently – after they exhaust their fuel supply.
And so, when a star explodes depends on what’s going on inside the star, on how much fuel it has left, and on how close it is to collapse.
But what’s going on inside Betelgeuse?
The new online study said:
We conclude that Betelgeuse is in the late stage of core carbon burning …
And the carbon burning phase for a massive star like Betelgeuse lasts around 1,000 years. If we are “near the end” of that stage, then Betelgeuse has neared the end of its lifetime and may be about to explode, perhaps even in “tens of years.”
But are there other possibilities? Of course there are.
UniverseToday published a great story on Betelgeuse on Friday, June 2, 2023, that explains some of the science involved with drawing any conclusion about whether Betelgeuse will explode soon. The author pointed out that:
… What hasn’t attracted as much attention is the following part of the paper.
‘In fact, it is not possible to determine the exact evolutionary stage, because surface conditions hardly change in the late stage close to the carbon exhaustion and beyond,’ the researchers write. Astronomers can only see the surface, but it’s what’s happening deep inside the star that tells the tale.
The authors of the paper are really saying that according to observations, data, and modelling, Betelgeuse could explode sooner than thought. But – and this is critical – they don’t know what stage of core carbon-burning the star’s in. Carbon burning could go on for a long time, according to some of the models that fit the data.
So, basically, we’re back to square one. Betelgeuse might explode tomorrow. It might explode in “tens of years.” Or it might explode in a thousand years.
But why did Betelgeuse dim in 2019?
In late 2019, Betelgeuse sparked excitement around the world when it began dimming noticeably. Astronomers now refer to this event as the Great Dimming of Betelgeuse. As it was happening, many believed (and hoped!) the big event – the explosion of this relatively nearby star – was close at hand.
Of course – although Betelgeuse since regained brightness, then dimmed again, now brightened again, and so on – it has not exploded yet.
So why did it dim?
Analyzing data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and several other observatories, astronomers concluded that the bright red supergiant star Betelgeuse quite literally blew its top in 2019. Betelgeuse lost a substantial part of its visible surface and produced a gigantic Surface Mass Ejection (SME). This is something never before seen in a normal star’s behavior.
Our sun routinely blows off parts of its tenuous outer atmosphere, the corona, in an event known as a coronal mass ejection (CME). But the Betelgeuse SME blasted off 400 billion times as much mass as a typical CME!
Read more: Betelgeuse is recovering from blowing its top
So, the Great Dimming of Betelgeuse in 2019 was apparently caused by a cloud of hot gas, expelled by the star, that temporarily blocked some of the star’s light.
Clearly, some game is afoot at Betelgeuse!
Will its supernova destroy Earth?
Whenever Betelgeuse does blow up, our planet Earth is too far away for this explosion to harm, much less destroy, life on Earth. Studies indicate we’d have to be within 160 light-years of a supernova for it to harm us. And Betelgeuse is perhaps four times this distance.
Instead, anyone alive on Earth when Betelgeuse does finally explode will see an amazingly beautiful sight in the night sky – a very, very, very bright star.
And professional astronomers will be happy to have an exploded Betelgeuse so close. They’ll be able to study the star post-supernova.
Meanwhile, amateur astronomers and casual stargazers will enjoy the explosion, too. But the many who enjoy seeing Betelgeuse as Orion’s bright red star will dearly miss it when it’s gone!
Betelgeuse in the night sky
At mid-northern latitudes, around the first of every year, Betelgeuse rises around sunset. The star is prominent on January and February evenings.
By the beginning of March, this star is due south in early evening. By mid-May, it is briefly visible in the west after sunset. Betelgeuse is traveling behind the sun in early summer, but it returns to the east before dawn by about mid- to late July. Certainly, by early August, you can see Betelgeuse in Orion in the east before sunrise, where the constellation is known as the ghost of the summer dawn.
The star Betelgeuse has a distinctive muted orange-red color. It’s ideal for convincing non-believers that stars do, in fact, come in colors.
Stars designated as Alpha are typically brightest in their constellations. But Betelgeuse is Alpha Orionis, despite the fact that it’s fainter than Orion’s other bright star, Rigel.
Betelgeuse is the 10th-brightest star in the sky overall, and it’s the 7th-brightest star visible from most of the U.S., Canada, Europe and the majority of the Northern Hemisphere.
Pop culture, history and mythology
Remember the movie Beetlejuice? This star’s name is similar to that.
The proper names of many bright stars are Arabic in origin. This fact reflects the dominance of Arabic astronomers and astrologers during Europe’s Dark Ages. The name Betelgeuse is derived from an Arabic phrase that is usually translated as The Armpit of the Giant. Of course, the Giant refers to Orion, but – rather than an armpit – some authors see Betelgeuse as representing a hand or sometimes a shoulder. While it is not entirely clear what the name means, Betelgeuse marks the right shoulder of Orion in many old star maps.
In the ancient myths, Orion is most often associated with a giant, a warrior, a hunter, a god or some other anthropomorphic or animal figure, so it is not surprising that most depictions of Betelgeuse have an anatomical connection. The Sanskrit name signified an arm, too, for example, although it likely was really the leg of a stag. In parts of Brazil, Betelgeuse was seen as the hind leg of a caiman (crocodilian) or the foreleg of a turtle. On the other hand, in ancient Japan, Betelgeuse was considered to be part of the rim of a ceremonial drum. In Peru, it was one of four vultures about to devour a criminal.
The position of Betelgeuse is RA 05h 55m 10.3053s, dec +07° 24′ 25.4″.
Bottom line: Betelgeuse is due to explode as a supernova someday, although maybe not soon on a human timescale. When it does explode, it’ll be bright enough from our earthly vantage point to shine during the day. But it’s far enough away that Earth won’t be in any danger.
Read more: Colors of Betelgeuse in a star collage
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New Dinosaur With Rows of Bristles On its Head Like a Toothbrush Has Been Discovered
Researchers say this strange, dome-headed, bristle-bristling dino from 68 million years ago has traces of keratin, what fingernails and rhino horn are made of, sticking up from its skull.
The paleontologists who discovered the beast completed a CT scan on the partially-completed skull and revealed these keratin bristles, described as giving the animal the appearance of having a “brush cut.”
The animal is called Platytholus clemensi, and is a type of pachycephalosaur discovered in 2011 in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation. It was a plant-eating dinosaur that grew up to 15 feet long and walked on two legs.
Dinosaur skulls sport an amazing variety of bony ornaments, ranging from the horns of Triceratops and the mohawk-like crests of hadrosaurs to the bumps and knobs covering the head of Tyrannosaurus rex.
There is a theory that pachycephalosaurs bashed heads in courtship rituals much like some mammals do today. But despite a gash being discovered on the skull which had healed up, the researchers say there is no real evidence to support this, and the discovery of bristles is currently considered more like an elaborate headdress.
“We don’t know the exact shape of what was covering the dome, but it had this vertical component that we interpret as covered with keratin,” said Dr. Mark Goodwin of the University of California, Berkeley. “A bristly, flat-topped covering biologically makes sense. Animals change or use certain features, particularly on the skull, for multiple functions.”
The head wound is about half an inch deep but it could have been caused by anything from a falling rock to a chance encounter with a tree or another dinosaur.
“We see probably the first unequivocal evidence of trauma in the head of any pachycephalosaur, where the bone was actually ejected from the dome somehow and healed partially in life,” said Dr. Goodwin. “We don’t know how that was caused. It could be head-butting—we don’t dispute that.”
However his colleague and co-author of the paper describing the curious animal, Dr. John Horner at the University of California, Orange, believes that since Dinosaurs’ closest living relatives are birds, they should look at skull ornamentation among them, rather than their distant lizard precursors as a guide for what the purpose of these bristles was.
“That’s the first place everybody wants to go—let’s crash them together. And, you know, we just don’t see any evidence of it, histologically,” said Dr. Horner. “Any features, any accouterments that we find on the heads of dinosaurs, I think, are all display—it’s all about display.”
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He said that reptiles and birds, the closest relatives to dinosaurs, have head ornamentation for display and rarely butt heads like mammals such as sheep. While crocodiles bash their heads together over territorial and mating disputes, sometimes for hours, dinosaurs diverged from crocodiles more than 200 million years before this animal was living.
Pachycephalosaurs also lack a pneumatic chamber above the braincase, as found in bighorn sheep, which protects their brain from injury.
“I don’t see any reason to turn dinosaurs into mammals, rather than just trying to figure out what they might be doing as bird-like reptiles,” Dr. Horner said.
The study in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology said that blood vessels in the skull ended abruptly at the surface of the dome, indicating that the blood originally fed some tissue that was sitting atop the dome.
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And as the vessels were perpendicular to the surface they most likely fed a vertical structure.
“What we see are these vertical canals coming to the surface, which suggests that there might be keratin on top, but it’s oriented vertically,” Horner continued.
“I think these pachycephalosaurs had something on top of their head that we don’t know about. I don’t think they were just domes. I think there was some elaborate display on top of their head.”
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The authors added that it could have been high, colored, or even subject to changes in color depending on the seasons. It suggests they were used for sexual display and courting, though they may have been used to butt the flanks, as opposed to the heads, of male rivals.
Dr. Goodwin said he suspects that dinosaurs likely distinguished gender by color, as do most modern birds, such as cassowaries, peafowls, and toucans, which have bright integumental colors around the face and head for visual communication.
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