The lethal gun battle in a Christian neighborhood of Beirut that lasted only a few hours did more than leave seven people dead and create mounds of broken glass.

Pointedly, it erupted in response to a sometimes-violent Shiite march protesting a tough judge’s attempts to investigate last year’s explosion in the Port of Beirut.

For many Lebanese, the impact of the heaviest violence in more than a decade was twofold, and bluntly political.

It served as a time machine back to the dark days of the 1975–90 civil war. But it was also a stark warning about where the country’s surging sectarian tensions and chronic lack of accountability can lead once again.

Indeed, raising those fears may have been the intention on both sides of the fight, say analysts who described the violence as a bid by the country’s disgraced political elite to resist accountability for the port blast – as well as for their role in Lebanon’s yearslong disintegration.

Images of gunmen firing assault rifles and launching grenades in cramped residential streets, even of children cowering on the floors of their schools and being evacuated by panicking parents, were all too familiar.

“Always, the consistent message to the Lebanese population is, ‘If you try to hold anyone accountable, we go back to the civil war,’” says Mona Fawaz, professor of urban studies and planning at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

“There are those who will benefit from showing that they want accountability,” she says. “But in practice, all these warlords don’t want accountability. [The violence] was a staged event exactly on the location where the civil war started, with actors doing exactly the same as 1975, with the same vocabulary.

“That’s a message ... for those of us who have lived the civil war, and went rushing to schools to pick up our kids,” says Professor Fawaz. “It’s so reminiscent of exactly what we lived.”

“October Revolution”

Lack of accountability by a corrupt political elite, a collapsing economy, and a perennial lack of government services prompted hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to take to the streets repeatedly in nationwide protests starting two years ago, during the so-called October Revolution.

They rallied around the chant “All of them means all of them,” meaning that all politicians, their parties, and patronage networks were responsible, and that all had to go.

Since then very little has changed for the better. Top posts have remained under the control of entrenched factions, and the anti-government protests that once brimmed with optimism for reform and ousting the political elite have dissipated, amid the pandemic, attacks by armed thugs loyal to Shiite parties, and a lack of observable change.

Hussein Malla/AP

Supporters of the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal groups chant slogans against Judge Tarek Bitar, who is investigating last year's deadly seaport blast, during a protest in front of the Justice Palace, in Beirut, Oct. 14, 2021.

Still, public anger surged again after Aug. 4, 2020, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate poorly stored at the Beirut port exploded in one of the largest nonnuclear blasts in history, destroying mostly Christian neighborhoods and killing more than 200 people.

Instead of becoming a catalyst for change, however, the embattled investigation to determine who was responsible has become a symbol of how Lebanon’s political elite have dodged accountability for decades, and still do.

A principle, in the breach

The latest flare-up reaffirms how accountability is a driving principle in Lebanese society – if only in its constant breach.

“An investigation should discover the truth, [but] in Lebanon, no one likes to uncover the truth,” says Michael Young, editor of Diwan, a blog of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center.

“The issue of accountability is always very worrisome in a sectarian context because there is fear that it will lead to communal clashes,” says Mr. Young, author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle.”

Efforts to disrupt the probe by removing presiding judges – spearheaded by the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal movements, even while they pay lip service to the need for a full and fair inquiry – have focused now on raising legal challenges to and impugning the reputation of Judge Tarek Bitar.

Widely considered incorruptible, and with no known political affiliation, he has subpoenaed leading figures from many factions to give evidence, including allies of Hezbollah.

The first judge appointed to lead the investigation was forced out, after a lawmaker questioned his impartiality because his house was damaged by the blast.

Even the spokesperson for the victims’ families, Ibrahim Hoteit, reversed his earlier position in a video Friday, and called for Judge Bitar to step down – prompting rumors of pressure from Hezbollah and Amal.

Such manipulations feed into broader dissatisfaction with a political structure that divides top posts along sectarian lines, enabling the same figures and parties that tore Lebanon apart during the civil war to divide up the spoils of the state to loyalists.

Precedent of impunity

The 1990 deal that ended the war included no mechanism for accountability for war crimes, setting a precedent of impunity ever since.

“Hezbollah and Amal sent a message [with the protests] that if the Bitar investigation goes ahead, this is a casus belli,” says Mr. Young.

“In this case, the two Shiite parties said there’s an investigation, and it should stop. They threatened to pull out of government. They went to the streets with armed men. And this is, in a way, outrageous especially to the Christian community, because they paid such a high price. The blast killed a large number of Christians, so they want the investigation to continue,” says Mr. Young.

“So the idea that now [the Shiite parties] want to impose on everyone else an end to this investigation, this is just a red line,” he says. “In the sectarian context of Lebanon, this is very provocative. It was not surprising that it should lead to a counter-reaction.”

Hussein Malla/AP

A monument that represents justice stands in front of towering grain silos that were gutted in the massive August 2020 explosion at the port that killed more than 200 people and wounded more than 6,000, in Beirut, Aug. 4, 2021.

Indeed, the protesters directed by Hezbollah and Amal marched Oct. 14 into a largely Christian area toward the Ministry of Justice. Video shows some of them throwing stones, wrecking cars, and chanting “Shia! Shia!” as they crossed Tayyouneh roundabout – a Muslim-Christian fault line during the civil war.

They were met by force in the largely Christian neighborhood of Ain al-Rummaneh. Snipers loyal to the Lebanese Forces – a Christian paramilitary force during the war, and now a political party with seats in Parliament – reportedly fired from rooftops and upper floors, initiating the gunfight. The seven dead were all Shiites, including Maryam Farhat, a mother of five children shot while taking in laundry from her balcony. The Lebanese Forces denied opening fire on Shiite protesters.

Those seven were “like our martyrs who died on the battlefield,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech Monday, seizing the moment. He declared that America and “many others” were manipulating the probe, including the Christian Lebanese Forces led by Samir Geagea, whom he accused of attempting to ignite a civil war by ordering sniper fire on Shiite protesters.

For the first time, the Hezbollah leader also specified that his Shiite militiamen number 100,000 Lebanese citizens, a force larger and far better armed than the 85,000-strong Lebanese army.

About the port blast, Mr. Nasrallah claimed: “We do not fear this investigation,” adding that Hezbollah was “protesting to know the truth for Lebanon.”

Lebanon’s “collective ‘we’”

Yet such statements carry little water with many Lebanese, who have seen the port blast probe stymied and undermined from the start.

“The ruling warlords in #Lebanon have confronted the Lebanese with a stark choice since the late 80s: impunity or violence,” tweeted Nadim Houry, the Paris-based director of the Arab Reform Initiative. “Hezbollah became the main proponent of this since 2005. The Lebanese compromised on accountability but never got stability. Time to reject this false equation.”

That is beginning to happen at a grassroots level due to the sheer scale of Lebanon’s problems, despite obstacles created by the political elite, says AUB’s Professor Fawaz.

“What is dangerous about the mobilization against the port blast for these political parties is that these are people from all sects,” she says. “The port brought together hundreds of families who feel they are for something, and they feel a collective ‘we’ for accountability that is transcending the sectarian divide.

“One after the other, people are beginning to realize that there is a very expensive political class, and we as a population cannot pay the price anymore,” Professor Fawaz says.

“That’s why the port accountability is so important. That’s why we need to defend the integrity of the judge,” she adds.

“Yes, [Judge] Bitar is being courageous, but he is not alone. There are judges who are refusing the appeals for the case. There is a movement building around independent judges who are saying, ‘We want the independence of the judiciary,’ and that is increasingly a clear aim even within society.

“We’re waking up, as Lebanese.”

Dar Yasin/AP

Kashmiri villagers inspect the debris of a house destroyed in a gunfight in Pampore, south of Srinagar in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Oct. 16, 2021. Indian government forces killed five rebels over a 24-hour period in disputed Kashmir, officials said Saturday, after weeks of increasing violence.

Makhan Lal Bindroo had watched as other Hindus left Kashmir, driven out by the threat of militant violence in the early 1990s. He vowed not to leave his birthplace in the disputed Muslim-majority territory. At the time he told his family, “I have no threat.”

On Oct 5, Mr. Bindroo was shot dead by militants inside his prominent pharmacy in Srinagar, the summer capital. Since Oct. 1, a dozen civilians have been killed, seven of whom were from minority communities of Hindus and Sikhs, including laborers who had moved to Kashmir for work.

In total, 39 people have died so far this month, including 13 Indian army personnel and 14 alleged militants, raising fears of an escalating security crisis in a region claimed by both India and its archrival Pakistan. 

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy in 2019, his government claimed it would lead to greater stability. But now Indian authorities have had to launch a major crackdown in Kashmir, arresting hundreds of suspected militants and engaging in firefights, in a bid to stop the killings. 

Some experts see in the targeted killings in Kashmir of non-Muslims a spillover effect from Afghanistan, where the recent Taliban victory over U.S.-backed forces has buoyed Islamic militants across the region. Politicians in Kashmir have voiced concern: In a statement on Oct. 8, a coalition of parties said the recent killings “have created a climate of fear that has not been seen since the early 1990s,” when an insurgency against India erupted and led to a mass migration of Hindus.

And while that isn’t happening yet, as resident Hindu families are staying on in Kashmir, non-Muslims who had moved to the Himalayan valley for work are going home. Migrant laborers are leaving by train and bus to other parts of India, despite government assurances for their safety. Authorities have stepped up security around commercial and residential properties of non-Muslims, and some minority families have been moved to secure locations.

Manish Swarup/AP

Police officers carry an activist of the Congress party's youth wing as others try to stop them during a protest against recent killings of civilians in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in New Delhi, Oct.18, 2021. Indian-controlled Kashmir has witnessed a major uptick in violence targeting Indian migrants in the disputed Himalayan region.

By revoking Kashmir’s autonomy in 2019, India ensured that nonnatives had greater rights to live and work there, rights that were previously restricted to locals. Today, anyone who has lived in Kashmir for 15 years can become a permanent resident or apply for jobs. To many in the local Muslim population, this signaled a potential demographic shift that threatened the region’s character. 

A new militant group

Kashmir-based militants, which India says are supported by Pakistan, have seized on the changes to push their agenda.   

In the past two years, a new militant group, The Resistance Front or TRF, has emerged as a challenge to Indian rule. The group fashions itself as operating without Pakistani backing, in contrast to other militant groups, and it has claimed responsibility for most of the recent attacks on civilians, including the killing of Mr. Bindroo. The group accused Mr. Bindroo of collaborating with right-wing groups.  

Police in Kashmir claim TRF is actually an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group that India and the United States say was the perpetrator of the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. 

SOURCE:

Central Intelligence Agency

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

After the recent surge in violence, Indian authorities have carried out multiple raids across the valley aimed at TRF, detaining or questioning at least 900 people in recent weeks, according to security officials involved in the operations.

Vijay Kumar, Kashmir’s police chief, said that these killings of civilians, including non-Muslims, are “committed by newly recruited terrorists or those who are about to join terrorists’ rank.”

He accused Pakistan of fomenting the violence. “Terrorists’ handlers across [in Pakistan] have got frustrated and started targeting unarmed policemen, innocent civilians, politicians, and now innocent civilians from minority communities including women.” 

A senior police official said that the arrests have disrupted the militants’ network, halting future attacks. “There are clear directions to stop these attacks at any cost. In coming weeks, more people will be detained or questioned to damage the functioning of the TRF,” the official said.

Taliban’s return in Afghanistan 

Many experts believe that the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan has inspired the militants to step up their attacks in Kashmir against Indian rule. 

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., says that the Taliban’s victory has already galvanized militants in Afghanistan and across South Asia. 

“This is a concern for both Pakistan, which will fear stepped-up attacks by the Pakistani Taliban, and India, which will fear new assaults by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in Kashmir,” he says, referring to Pakistan-backed groups that Delhi accuses of infiltrating Indian-administered Kashmir. 

Both groups have long-standing ties with the Afghan Taliban, which is accused of supplying weapons and training their fighters. In February 2019, Jaish-e-Mohammed carried out a major suicide attack on Indian forces in Kashmir, killing more than 40 personnel. Mr. Kugelman, an expert on Afghanistan, says India fears that the Taliban will increase their support for both groups. 

Lt. Gen. D.P. Pandey, general commanding officer for the Indian army in the region, said those involved in civilian killings want to trigger divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims in Kashmir. 

In a statement via Telegram, TRF claimed that the targeted civilians in Kashmir were collaborating with India, and their killings should not be seen as a communal attack. 

Still, migrant workers in Kashmir are voting with their feet. On Monday, dozens of nonlocals gathered outside bus stations in different towns in Kashmir with luggage, ready to leave the valley and its troubles behind. 

Pramod Kumar, a laborer from Bihar, says that the situation has turned dangerous in Kashmir. “We are not leaving because of people, but the killings have made it difficult to be here,” he says. 

Grant Stringer

A portion of the Assembly Solar Project under construction in Michigan's Shiawassee County. Ranger Power, the developer behind the project, agreed to implement several community demands, like growing a visual buffer of vegetation around the project’s rim.

Before the end of the year, a colossal, 1,800-acre solar farm will begin delivering its full stream of power from farm fields west of Flint, Michigan. It’s the largest solar installation in the state, by far, and a key driver toward Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s goal to decarbonize the Midwestern state’s electrical grid, which is still dominated by coal. 

The problem with the project: Many locals hate it. 

“We’re sick of these ridiculous-looking panels. We don’t like them,” says Jim Sheridan. He lives across the road from the installation in Hazelton Township and leads its local government as supervisor. 

“First of all, they’re ugly,” he says. 

In mid-Michigan, economic development chiefs view solar panels and wind turbines as key to diversifying local economies, which are largely dependent on agriculture and manufacturing. Developers, in turn, have been lured by an ample supply of land, proximity to customers in urban centers, and incentives. The area has seen a boom in renewable-energy projects, and more are being planned – although community leaders are vowing resistance. 

The turmoil here symbolizes an emerging tension in rural America between addressing climate change – a goal most U.S. citizens support – and age-old “not in my backyard” tendencies rooted in concerns about aesthetics and land-use traditions. 

Earlier this year, the state’s largest single-phase wind farm began operating 55 miles northwest of Hazelton Township, despite the protests of some area residents who didn’t want to see, or hear, wind turbines. Workers are now finishing up the huge Assembly Solar Project, which occupies almost 3 square miles of land across Shiawassee County. The company behind the project – Chicago-based Ranger Power – says the array will generate 239 megawatts of power, or enough to power about 35,000 homes. 

Most locals interviewed by the Monitor aren’t feeling the benefits of the low-carbon power installation. Some said climate concerns are overblown and that solar power is still a tenuous, expensive technology, despite its widespread feasibility. Several residents were irked that the Assembly project will deliver power outside the immediate area, including the nearby state capital, Lansing. 

Many also doubt the talking point that Assembly will also generate ample local tax revenue. County officials did not provide expected revenue figures, despite repeated requests. Ranger Power says the project will generate up to $25 million in property tax revenue over the next 25 years. 

A new zoning board

Under Mr. Sheridan’s tenure as supervisor, Hazelton Township recently enacted a one-year ban on new solar projects within its limits. The small community is also forming its own zoning board to approve – or deny – commercial-scale solar farms.

The Shiawassee County planning commission approved Assembly in early 2019. Officials didn’t recall hearing much opposition as they considered Ranger Power’s plans. Solar farms are generally considered less intrusive than wind turbines, which are often controversial because they dominate local landscapes. 

Attitudes changed during construction. As the project neared completion this spring. Hazelton Township resident Rex Wheeler, deciding he’d had enough, began distributing thousands of lawn signs that now pepper country roads for miles around. 

“NO solar farms,” the red-and-white signs read. 

Mr. Wheeler, a prominent businessman who runs a trucking company, says he’s lived in Hazelton Township his entire life. He owns 240 acres – land he says Ranger Power asked to lease.

Like Mr. Sheridan, who counts him as a friend, Mr. Wheeler sees a number of problems with the array of solar panels. He says it “looks terrible,” and that in his view, the land should continue producing soybeans and corn. He believes Ranger Power held “secret meetings” with landowners when acquiring leases – an assertion the company disputes – and that “the government is pushing way too hard and too fast on green energy.” 

Grant Stringer

Jim Sheridan, supervisor of Hazelton Township, Michigan, helped institute a one-year ban on new commercial-scale solar projects. He lives across the road from a portion of the Assembly Solar Project.

Mr. Wheeler and other opponents are quick to acknowledge that some locals are reaping the benefits from Assembly: the farmers who leased, or sold, their land. Agricultural groups, such as the Michigan Agri-Business Association, say farmers can reap much-needed income by leasing land for renewable energy projects.  

Rich Slovak, who farms soybeans and corn, is among those who are gaining. He sold almost 115 acres of land to Assembly, he says. On a recent rainy Friday, he surveyed the solar panels that border his land and stretch as far as the eye can see to the south and west. 

The developer’s offer was “once in a lifetime,” he says. But he understands why so many people are resisting the solar farm. 

“It doesn’t benefit them,” he says. 

Ray Gallagher lives just down the road from Mr. Slovak. His rented farmhouse is now almost completely surrounded by solar panels, but he’s ambivalent. An elevator installer, he climbs the narrow ladder of a nearby grain silo to dizzying heights for a bird’s-eye view of the construction progress. It’s almost finished up.

Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Slovak, who are in their 30s, said a generational divide is apparently fueling opposition to the project. 

“This is Shiawassee County. The old farmers – they don’t like change. But times are changing,” Mr. Gallagher says. 

How big a threat to renewable power?

In Shiawassee County, the swelling “anti-movement,” as Mr. Sheridan calls it, has produced mixed results. In 2018, developers pulled out of a wind power project after fierce community resistance. This year, a Colorado-based developer is moving ahead with plans to build a much smaller solar project in nearby Caledonia Charter Township. Some residents in other townships are also calling for moratoria on new solar projects. 

And Mr. Wheeler’s one-man campaign has become something of an inspiration for like-minded residents in nearby hamlets. Mr. Sheridan and other township officials say they field calls from concerned residents across the state. 

It’s unclear whether more community engagement will threaten Michigan’s push to build up its renewable energy capacity. At minimum, officials expect that zoning commission hearings on proposed projects will continue to be crowded.

So far, any opposition hasn’t stalled statewide momentum. The number of utility-scale solar installations in Michigan has dramatically spiked in the past two years, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Regulators are approving more wind and solar projects each year. Climate advocates note the state has a very long way to go; renewable energy makes up only about 15% of Michigan’s power mix.

Ben Sonnega, a renewable energy advocate with Environment America, says the lesson from Shiawassee County is that locals didn’t feel included in the conversation when officials approved Assembly’s construction. That’s a mistake, he says. 

“It’s not always the clearest process. That’s on the elected officials and, I think in this case, on the developers,” he says. 

A spokesperson for Ranger Power said in an email the company knocked on neighbors’ doors for about seven months to get the word out and otherwise takes a “community-first approach to all our projects.”

To Justin Horvath, CEO of the Shiawassee Economic Development Partnership, the process worked as it should have. After hearing concerns, Ranger Power agreed to implement several community demands, like growing a visual buffer of vegetation around the project’s rim and maintaining the road. Those conditions haven’t been met yet because the project is still in construction, he says. 

“My hope is that some – it won’t be all – that some of the concern will be resolved when the project is done,” Mr. Horvath says. 

For his part, Mr. Sheridan thinks renewable projects will gobble up the region’s farmland. He just doesn’t think he’ll live long enough to see that day.

For now, he’s tilted his chair on the front porch away from the solar farm, so he doesn’t have to look at it as much. 

Editor’s note: The home city of Ranger Power has been corrected in one sentence in this article.

It was a joyous occasion. On Oct. 13, two birds – a ruddy duck and an eared grebe – were the first to be released after being rescued from an oil spill in the coastal waters of Southern California. Set free at a small beach in placid Huntington Harbor, the recovered grebe, once heavily oiled, immediately took flight. The duck, also formerly coated with crude, paddled and bobbed, oblivious to crouching photographers and television cameras on shore. 

The first planned release of recovered wildlife is “like a turning point” in an oil spill, says Michael Ziccardi, director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, which is tasked with coordinating oiled wildlife response to the Oct. 2 spill. The release is also a testament to the increased rate of wildlife survival after such incidents, generally a 50% to 75% success rate for treated, captured animals until the time of their release, up from a 25% to 50% rate in the early 1990s, he says. He attributes much of the progress to readiness. “The level of preparedness now, versus 20 years ago, is tremendous.”

On the morning of the release, Dr. Ziccardi, a veterinarian, and Laird Henkel, a senior environmental scientist in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response, sat down with the Monitor to talk about the improvement in the survivability of animals recovered from oil spills. Mr. Henkel directed the wildlife response for this event. The two are relieved that the leak is not as bad as first feared. Estimates of oil released from a torn underwater pipeline owned by Amplify Energy have been revised downward, from potentially 144,000 gallons to 25,000, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Beaches have reopened, aided by crews picking up tar balls and by ocean currents, wind, and wave action. 

“We all feel very fortunate that it appears that the overall abundance of wildlife out there on the ocean and on the beaches was really low,” Mr. Henkel says, noting that it was neither breeding nor migration season. Only 111 wildlife were collected from the three affected counties – Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego – the vast majority of them birds. Of the birds collected, 74 were dead, but 32 were alive – including 7 snowy plovers, a threatened species of small shorebird. As of Monday, 10 birds had been released.

The extent of the damage was unknown when Mr. Henkel first got the call about the spill midday on Oct. 2, a Saturday. But because protocols, a response network, and care facilities were already in place, teams could be activated quickly and forcefully. Four regional facilities were put on standby – two for birds and two for mammals – with one for each group serving as a “MASH” unit for immediate stabilization before transport to a primary care facility. Vehicles and personnel began rolling at 4 a.m. Sunday from the University of California, Davis, where Dr. Ziccardi’s office is based in the veterinary school. By first light Sunday, two teams from the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care and Education Center were on the scene. The facility, near the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, is the primary care center for the birds from this spill – one of 12 facilities up and down the state designated for care of oiled wildlife.

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

Dr. Michael Ziccardi (left) and Laird Henkel (right) at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, on Oct. 13, 2021. The college is the site of the unified command for response to the Oct. 2 oil spill off Huntington Beach. Mr. Henkel, senior scientist for California's Office of Spill Prevention and Response, directed the wildlife response effort, and Dr. Ziccardi, a veterinarian and director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, is coordinating the response.

So far, no marine mammals have been collected for treatment from this spill. Unlike furry sea otters, which don’t live this far south, other marine mammals are less susceptible than birds, though cetaceans like whales and dolphins can breathe in harmful vapors from oil, says Mr. Henkel. 

On the other hand, oil interferes with a bird’s alignment of feathers that allows them to stay afloat, dry, and warm. It weighs them down and weakens them as they expend more energy to move and maintain their body temperature. They seek warmth by beaching themselves, but then they lose their access to food. At the Los Angeles bird care center, they are cleaned with a solvent, dish soap, and warm water. Dr. Ziccardi says the more recent practice of bringing oiled wildlife first to a “MASH” station to get warm, hydrated, and have a little more time has made a big difference. 

“We’ve actually got reports from our facility people with the birds coming in to them. They say that they’re in amazing shape when they arrive, just because of the care they’re getting early.” 

It wasn’t always this way. The two men explain that the massive Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989 and the 1990 American Trader oil tanker spill off Huntington Beach – the same area as this spill – triggered a major shift in attitude in industry and government, spurred on by public opinion.

Congress quickly moved to pass the U.S. Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which mandates that wildlife protection and rehabilitation be part of oil spill contingency plans. But the California Legislature went much further that year, setting up a detailed framework for response, including facilities for oiled wildlife care. This led to the 1994 founding of Dr. Ziccardi’s Oiled Wildlife Care Network, which draws on help from 1,600 trained volunteers and 44 member organizations to help in California oil spills. “In California, public opinion after those big spills in ’89 and ’90 really helped,” says Mr. Henkel.

No other state comes even close to California’s systematic approach and its dozen facilities, says Dr. Ziccardi, who worked on the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico for five months. Texas has one purpose-built facility for oiled wildlife, and Delaware has one, he says. “That is it.” 

Dr. Ziccardi chairs the Global Oil Wildlife Response System, a consortium of 11 leading wildlife groups that do worldwide response. And Europe has pulled together groups in several countries to come up with standardized protocols and training. “But it would be hard to argue the fact that California is the best-prepared place in the world for spill response,” he says.

Courtesy of Petty Officer 3rd Class Alex Gray/U.S. Coast Guard

Contractors deploy booms at Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad, California, Oct 10, 2021, ahead of inclement weather, to protect an environmentally sensitive area. The crews worked alongside federal, state, and local partners, ensuring cleanup efforts were conducted efficiently and with minimal impact on the environment.

Triage for oiled animals has its critics in the scientific community. As the world focused on the Deepwater disaster, for instance, German biologist Silvia Gauss argued it was kinder and made more sense to euthanize oiled birds than to clean and release them. She said studies of oiled birds after they are released show midterm survival is less than 1%. In addition to long-term health risks, the stress of being caught and cleaned can be fatal, she said.  

But in a 2018 article in the Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management, Mr. Henkel and Dr. Ziccardi argue otherwise. They point to variability among studies, and write that post-release survival can “far exceed” lower results that compare released oiled birds with control groups of non-oiled birds. In studies of penguins and pelicans, there was no difference, they write. 

After the 1990 American Trader oil spill, a post-release study of brown pelicans funded by Dr. Ziccardi’s group found significant mortality. But after the Refugio oil spill in Santa Barbara County 25 years later, and using better tracking technology, Dr. Ziccardi says there was no statistical difference in survivability between oiled brown pelicans that were treated and released and a control group of non-oiled brown pelicans. 

In the interview, Dr. Ziccardi explains that survival data is “a little messy.” Much depends on the type of oil spill, the speed of response, and the kind of bird – whether it is a robust species or not. Seven of the 32 recovered birds in this spill have had to be euthanized, and two died in care – still a short-term survivability rate of 72%. Dr. Ziccardi says he wants to continue to learn from each spill and improve procedures. Some people may think oiled wildlife recovery is not worthwhile, he says, but “data shows that it does make a difference.”

AP

Construction workers erect a home in Allen, Texas.

Americans are quitting their workplaces at a record pace – 4.3 million in August – which may be one of the most unexpected shifts as the pandemic eases. Yet it may also be one of the most promising for the U.S. economy.

Many of these “quits” are people who simply seek more pay or less stress. Yet others want to use and grow their skills with employers who – again, because of the pandemic – need the intangible capital of worker creativity to be resilient in a disrupted economy.

The result so far is another unexpected change. The U.S. productivity rate rose more than 2% so far in 2021 after years of mediocre growth, signaling a burst of innovation. More restaurants, for example, are rapidly digitizing the task of taking food orders. After a year of working remotely, employees find their offices operate with faster decision-making and less hierarchy.

In addition, the higher productivity might help dampen concerns about inflation. While wages have risen sharply in the new competition for workers, many employers may also be able to provide better and cheaper services and products – the definition of productivity – thus possibly keeping a check on a general rise in prices.

Will this current virtuous cycle between workers and businesses be sustainable?

“While optimism is warranted, exuberance is not,” states a paper by the World Economic Forum. “On the other hand, business leaders should be exuberant because their instinct is to make the most from [a crisis] and innovate.”

At the least, the United States could be going through one of its most creative periods. And it is not alone, based on a ranking of the world’s economies on innovation capacity and output.

The latest Global Innovation Index, issued in September, found “that new ideas are critical for overcoming the pandemic and for ensuring post-pandemic economic growth.” Worldwide, a number of key factors for resiliency – scientific output, spending on research, new patents, and venture capital deals – all rose last year during the pandemic, the survey found.

While many countries are still suffering from COVID-19, their people can take heart from these latest trends in the most productive economies. The search for greater creativity and innovation – whether by workers or businesses – is a latent force for progress. It doesn’t take a crisis to start that search.