Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 112

Wipeout: Human role in climate change removed from science report

(Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited report on sea level rise and storm surge, contradicting Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s vow to Congress that his department is not censoring science.

The research for the first time projects the risks from rising seas and flooding at 118 coastal national park sites, including the National Mall, the original Jamestown settlement and the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Originally drafted in the summer of 2016 yet still not released to the public, the National Park Service report is intended to inform officials and the public about how to protect park resources and visitors from climate change.

Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting obtained and analyzed 18 versions of the scientific report. In changes dated Feb. 6, a park service official crossed out the word “anthropogenic,” the term for people’s impact on nature, in five places. Three references to “human activities” causing climate change also were removed.

The 87-page report, which was written by a University of Colorado Boulder scientist, has been held up for at least 10 months, according to documents obtained by Reveal. The delay has prevented park managers from having access to the best data in situations such as reacting to hurricane forecasts, safeguarding artifacts from floodwaters or deciding where to locate new buildings.

The omissions reflect a broader crackdown on climate science at federal agencies, including removal of references to human impacts, since President Donald Trump took office. Trump previously called climate change a Chinese hoax, took steps to withdraw from an international agreement to cut greenhouse gases and moved toward reversing President Barack Obama’s policies to regulate power plant emissions.

Critics say the National Park Service’s editing of the report reflects unprecedented political interference in government science at the Interior Department, which oversees the park service.

Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist and dean of the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, said the deletions are “shocking from a scientific point of view, but also from a policy point of view.”

“To remove a very critical part of the scientific understanding is nothing short of political censorship and has no place in science,” he said. “Censorship of this kind is something you’d see in Russia or some totalitarian regime. It has no place in America.”

Several scientists said the editing appears to violate a National Park Service policy designed to protect science from political influence.

“It looks like a pretty clear-cut, blatant violation of what we generally would consider to be scientific integrity,” said Jane Lubchenco, who led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under Obama.

National Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson said the agency would not comment on the editing of a report that had not yet been released. He said that it was premature to report on it and that it would be released soon.

Zinke testified at a Senate committee hearing last month that the Interior Department has not changed any scientific documents.

“There is no incident, no incident at all that I know that we ever changed a comma on a document itself. Now we may have on a press release,” Zinke told the senators. “And I challenge you, any member, to find a document that we’ve actually changed on a report.”

Zinke’s press secretary said no one at the Interior Department was available to comment about the report.

A hallmark of the Trump administration is equivocation about climate change to downplay the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels are warming the planet.

Columbia University’s Silencing Science Tracker  documents more than 100 instances of government trying to restrict research or public information about climate change. Among them are reports on climate change that have been stripped from government websites. Climate change was removed from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s strategic plan. Environmental Protection Agency employees were issuedtalking points that promote an inaccurate message about gaps in climate science and downplay the role of human activities in global warming.

The edited national parks report “is probably the biggest scientific integrity violation at the Department of Interior, by far … because this is an actual scientific report,” said Joel Clement, who was the Interior Department’s top climate change official in the Obama administration. Heresigned in October after Zinke reassigned him to an oil and gas accounting office and now is a senior fellow for the Union of Concerned Scientists working on scientific integrity issues.

“By taking the words out, they are depowering the (climate change) issue,” Clement said. “It’s a horrible thing for reports to be suppressed and for the words to be changed.”

Censored words and phrases

The report, titled, “Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge Projections for the National Park Service,” reveals that national treasures will face severe flooding if global greenhouse gases keep increasing. Some of its projections, according to the drafts, include:

In North Carolina, the Wright Brothers National Memorial has the highest projected increase in sea level among parks nationwide — 2.69 feet by 2100 under a scenario of high growth of greenhouse gases. Along with Cape Lookout and Cape Hatteras national seashores, the memorial could face significant permanent flooding. “Future storm surges will be exacerbated by future sea level rise nationwide; this could be especially dangerous for the Southeast Region where they already experience hurricane-strength storms,” the report says.
In Virginia, three parks — Colonial National Historical Park, home of Historic Jamestowne; Fort Monroe National Monument; and Petersburg National Battlefield — face the biggest potential sea level increases in the park service’s Northeast region — 2.66 feet by 2100.
Parks in the Washington, D.C., region could experience some of the greatest sea level increases — 2.62 feet by 2100. “Storm surge flooding on top of this sea level rise would have widespread impacts,” the report says.
If a Category 2 hurricane hit Florida’s Everglades National Park, the entire park could be flooded, with most of it under several feet of water.

Reveal obtained almost 2,000 pages of drafts of the report showing tracked changes and dating back to August 2016 — along with dozens of pages of other documents about the report and preparations to release it — in response to a public records request to the state of Colorado.

The lead author, University of Colorado geological sciences research associate Maria Caffrey, worked full time on the report on contract with the park service from 2013 through 2017.

Caffrey declined to discuss the editing and long delay in releasing her report, instead referring questions to the park service. Asked whether she has been pressured to delete the terms “anthropogenic” and “human activities,” she replied, “I don’t really want to get into that today.”

“I would be very disappointed if there were words being attributed to me that I didn’t write,” she said. “I don’t think politics should come into this in any way.”

Although references to human-induced change were deleted, data and maps showing the severity of impacts on the parks were unchanged.

In drafts dated January 2017 to May 2017, the executive summary starts: “Changing relative sea levels and the potential for increasing storm surges due to anthropogenic climate change present challenges to national park managers.”

But editing dated Feb. 6, 2018, changed that to: “Ongoing changes in relative sea levels and the potential for increasing storm surges present challenges to national park managers.”

In a section about 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, one of the costliest storms to hit the U.S., this sentence was deleted: “This single storm cannot be attributed to anthropogenic climate change, but the storm surge occurred over a sea whose level had risen due to climate change.” An entire sentence was removed from the report’s section on Hurricane Sandy.

The introduction also was substantially altered in February. These two sentences were deleted: “While sea levels have been gradually rising since the last glacial maximum approximately 21,000 years ago, anthropogenic climate change has significantly increased the rate of global sea level rise. Human activities continue to release carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, causing the Earth’s atmosphere to warm.”

Other scientists who reviewed the draft reports said the deletions about the cause of climate change were alarming.

“It’s hiding from the public the reality of the causes and the possible options to

choose or influence what scenario plays out,” Lubchenco said.

Some of the editing apparently remained in play. Caffrey has pushed back on at least some of the deletions, according to a March draft.

Editing notes in a draft obtained by Reveal indicate that many of the deletions were made by Larry Perez, a career public information officer who coordinates the park service’s climate change response program.

Perez declined to comment on why the changes were made. Watchdog groups say that in some cases, career officials within the administration may be self-censoring to avoid angering Trump appointees. In others cases, they may be responding to verbal orders from superiors who have been told to avoid creating records that eventually could be made public.

The National Park Service’s scientific integrity policy prohibits managers from engaging in “dishonesty, fraud, misrepresentation, coercive manipulation, censorship, or other misconduct that alters the content, veracity, or meaning or that may affect the planning, conduct, reporting, or application of scientific and scholarly activities.” It also requires employees to differentiate between their opinions or assumptions and solid science.

Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said “the edits are glaringly in violation” of the science cited in the report and “such alterations violate” the policy.

“The individual who edited the document is making a personal opinion/assumption that runs counter to the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions responsible for sea level rise are of anthropogenic origin and that the threat to the National Park Service assets arises primarily from human activities,” said McNutt, who led the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department’s main scientific agency, from 2009 to 2013.

Clement, who worked for seven years as a high-ranking director in the Interior Department, said it would be unusual for such editing to occur without an order from a top supervisor.

“I can’t imagine a career man or woman would take those steps without some sort of direction,” he said.

The editing seemed to cross a line that Zinke drew during last month’s hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, pressed Zinke about censoring science. She asked him about department officials deleting this line from a press release about a newly published scientific article: “Global climate change drives sea-level rise, increasing the frequency of coastal flooding.”

In his testimony, Zinke differentiated editing press releases from altering scientific reports. He also rebuffed suggestions that he considers references to climate change unacceptable, saying “man has been an influencer” on the warming climate.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska and the committee’s chairwoman, summarized Zinke’s comments: “I think you were pretty clear … that within the department, you’re not altering the reports that are coming out from the agencies.”

Why the deletions matter

Caffrey, the park service report’s lead author, said it’s crucial that the report address the human role in climate change. One of her key findings is that decisions about reducing greenhouse gases will determine how much peril the coastal national parks face from sea level rise and storm surge.

The report calculates projected sea level rise in 2030, 2050 and 2100 under four scenarios for global emissions. For instance, projections for the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington in 2100 range from 1.74 feet to 2.62 feet. The low end envisions a future in which people burn significantly less coal and other fossil fuels, while the upper number reflects increases in use.

“What scenario we choose to follow in the future will have a significant impact on how we protect our resources, like the National Park Service resources,” Caffrey said. “I feel it’s an important part to include in the report because it’s an essential part of those findings.”

In an October 2016 webinar for park staff about her research, Caffrey showed an aerial photo that depicts Washington in 2100 if global emissions rise and a Category 3 hurricane hits the city. The National Mall and Constitution Avenue are flooded. Water surrounds museums.

This rendering depicts an aerial view of a flooded National Mall area in Washington, D.C., in 2100 if global emissions rise and a Category 3 hurricane hits the city. It was included in an October 2016 webinar by University of Colorado Boulder’s Maria Caffrey, the lead author of the sea level rise report for the National Park Service.

“We can see the results could potentially be quite catastrophic,” Caffrey said in an interview.

The report is intended to be released with an interactive website that would allow the public and park managers to visualize rising waters in their favorite parks.

“You can zoom in and move around and see the underlying infrastructure and see what’s at risk,” said William Manley, a University of Colorado Boulder research scientist who worked on data, maps and the online viewer.

“The data and the viewer, if released, would help park decision-makers to see more clearly what decisions they should make to avoid costly mistakes,” he said. In addition, “the maps and information would be helpful to resource managers in preparation for any storms that were forecasted.”

Destruction from last summer’s Hurricane Irma includes wrecked boats on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. If a long-delayed National Park Service science report had been released last year, it might have helped park managers know which areas were likely to flood.

For instance, if the report had been released by late last summer, park managers could have consulted it when Hurricanes Irma and Maria, both Category 5 storms, headed toward the U.S. Virgin Islands in September. Thestorm surge maps for Virgin Islands National Park could have shown managers which areas were likely to flood. The interactive viewer possibly could have helped evacuation planning.

“It’s becoming clearer and clearer to most Americans that weather patterns are changing, climate change is a real phenomenon, and it’s affecting things they care about, people they love and places that they love,” said Lubchenco, the former NOAA administrator.

“I think what we are seeing is an effort to undermine that realization in a very subtle way. And it’s very dangerous. It’s counter to the best interests of a fully democratic society.”

 

My Tinder date in Thailand: What a vacation fling taught me

(Credit: Getty/Oleh_Slobodeniuk)

I was in a reggae bar owned by a passionate Bob Marley fan on the Thai Island of Koh Lanta when I befriended a couple of cigarette-smoking British girls. We swapped backpacking stories, but their tales included one anecdote mine was missing; I had built mud houses in the jungle and fended off scorpions, but I’d yet to experience a travel romance.

“How do you meet someone?” I inquired.

“Tinder,” they sang in their enviable accents.

A couple beers later, I was happily swiping. Eventually, I received a message from Daniel, an English guy who was backpacking Southeast Asia and, according to his profile, preferred coconut milk in his morning coffee.

“I’m in Koh Lanta for a very limited time. Fancy being my island romance?” he wrote.

The British girls weren’t kidding. Tinder really was a trove of men looking for a travel romance. After a few flirty messages back and forth, I agreed to meet him at sunset on the beach the next day. I felt nervous when I first caught a glimpse of him across the street, and contemplated not following through — so I stalled, standing on the curb, wondering, Was I really going to meet a Tinder date in Thailand? But this was 2016, after all, and it didn’t matter where in the world you were, Tinder was still a reliable place to find someone. I got ahold of my expectations, tossed them aside and walked over.

Daniel was tall and lanky with short brown hair and bright blue eyes. His gray shorts were a little long by traditional European standards, but he didn’t have a problem embracing his homeland’s quick wit. “I was wondering when you finally were going to come over here,” he taunted.

Our date started with traveler small talk. He told me about how he left his teaching job in China, and the trouble he got into in Indonesia. I reciprocated with stories about ending up on a hippie commune and my own failed attempt at teaching in Thailand. I told him that I had no tangible plans to return to California, despite what I had told friends and family back home. It wasn’t hard to bond over the lives we left.

After the ocean gobbled up the pink and orange sun, Daniel proposed we migrate to a less-crowded spot on the island, the secret cove. Eager to see the bioluminescent plankton, we hopped on a motorbike and zipped through the sticky air. Our 20-minute ride gave me a rush of the adrenaline I’d been living off for the last couple months. We carelessly twirled around corners, dodged monkeys, and relied on stars to guide us. One hundred descending steps later, we found ourselves the only ones seeking trouble. We sat on the shore and let the sea wash our dirty feet.

“So, about this island romance. Are you going to kiss me or what?” I asked.

My boldness had peaked, as expected, after traveling alone for a couple months. He grabbed the back of my head with just the right amount of force, and slowly pulled me in. I closed my eyes tightly as he kissed my salty lips. The moon was too bright to see the plankton that night, but we found another way to stay busy.

* * *

Daniel and I separated for a few days and reunited in Koh Tao, another Thai island, for one more adventurous night together. Koh Tao had a more picture-perfect atmosphere than Koh Lanta: whiter beaches, bluer water and pastel-green palm trees. A postcard for honeymooners.

“So, tell me something you’ve never shared with a date before,” I said.

“Isn’t the point of an island fling that we don’t get to know each other?”

Touché. Our arrangement was meant to be casual, as travel flings usually are, but a part of me wanted it to have an “Eat, Pray, Love” ending. Another part of me was tired of traveling alone and eager for companionship. The idea of having someone to do things with appealed to me, and if that included sex with a cute English man, even better. After dinner, we went to the bar across the street to play one round of beer pong. As he expected, I won, thanks to my American university roots. He balanced the scoreboard later by winning a game of pool.

During the next few days and nights, we played getting-to-know-you-games like “Would You Rather,” and “Never Have I Ever” while we soaked up the sun and happily drank out of coconuts. One day, we tried to stack our backpacks‚ and me, on his motorbike to move to another bungalow. Two minutes into our drive, he lost his balance and swerved to the right. We tilted over slowly enough to know what was happening, but not fast enough to stop it. A few minutes later, we clawed our way out from under a mountain of backpacks and spinning wheels, covered in blood and bruises.

Daniel and I bandaged up each other’s wounds. He cussed when I grazed his open sores with rubbing alcohol. He distracted me with jokes when the liquid touched mine. Later that night we relaxed with a happy cookie from our hostel bar. At first, we didn’t think there was marijuana in it, but then Daniel couldn’t feel his legs and I couldn’t stop laughing.

“One more night,” we kept saying. But “one more night” kept multiplying, until we got tired of counting. Still, for each night we spent together, we inched closer to our expiration date. I had already booked a ticket to Bali before we met.

In the moment, it was hard to understand the rush of emotions we were both experiencing in such a short period of time. We reached a level of openness that would usually take months to get to back home. In a week’s span, we found ourselves living together, sharing a bathroom, and arguing over what to eat for dinner. We had a morning routine. Daniel described the speed of our romance as a relationship bootcamp. I felt like I’d found myself in an arranged marriage. One night, we sat on a dimly lit porch watching the mosquitos dance to the music we shared with each other. Daniel liked heavy metal jams, and while I never grew an affinity for that genre, I considered adding them to my Spotify playlist for him.

Perhaps our expedited relationship was a consequence of heightened vulnerability travelers are plagued with regularly. On the road, you’re forced to take down the walls you’ve built around yourself, cemented by your own fears and insecurities. Daniel and I couldn’t hide behind our jobs, friends, exes and self-imposed expectations during the usually drawn-out indecisive dating phase. Our relationship lived in a parallel universe where the unfolding of intimacy wasn’t bound to the constraints of time and preconceived milestones. It also wasn’t tied to a committed future. We had the freedom to move with whatever came our way, unattached to the anxiety of the future and the responsibilities of our past.

I found this all very exciting. I liked being able to be myself, but also an idealized version of who I wanted to be, with someone who didn’t know the me from back home. He had never seen me with my hair straightened, or with makeup on. He had never seen how I laughed with my closest friends, or how I dealt with stress from the demands of everyday life. He only knew the free-spirited, backpacker me — a version of myself that felt right in the moment, but wasn’t exactly conducive to Western society, or so I thought.

On the eve of our last night, Daniel disappeared to take a late-night dip in the ocean. I followed him into the darkness, and watched him climb aboard a long-tail boat. He grabbed me under my armpits and lifted me over the rail. We spent the rest of the night swimming and wrestling under the moonlight. As we combed through the water with our fingers, we found what we had searched for on our first night together, the bioluminescent plankton. The mysterious creatures lit up around us like the stars in the sky.

The next morning, I teared up in the rare moment I had to myself in the shower. My heart felt heavy. I’d known the whole time that it would come to end, but I didn’t want to let go of our fantasy relationship that I knew had little hope of thriving in the real world.

* * *

Prior to meeting Daniel, I spent a day with a monk whose English name was Joe. We sat under the suffocating Thai sun to talk about Buddhism.

“What do you think the purpose of life is?” I asked in all seriousness.

“Everyone has a different life purpose,” he said. “But we must do our best to understand that everything is impermanent. Understanding that everything changes help us to let go of desires and attachments. Letting go allows us to be in the moment and be happy with what we have right now.”

Goodbyes have always created a heart-tightening sense of finality for me, and too many times I worried about them before they ever arrived. Joe got me thinking, though: Why did I always fear the end? What happens when I simply accept the time I was given with someone and let go?

Of course, that’s easier said than done. I resisted the end of my relationship with Daniel, and instead, I suggested that we meet up again. A few weeks later, after my short trip to Bali, we backpacked from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi in Vietnam for six weeks, and eventually Cambodia for another two — after spending some time apart again.

One night on the Cambodian island of Koh Rong, a few travelers invited us to see the bioluminescent plankton. Daniel insisted we join. During our barefoot trek through the jungle, a sharp stick stubbed my toe. I couldn’t see the damage, but I started to limp.

“Quit being so dramatic,” he yelled at me as I struggled to keep up.

I sat on a log while he frolicked into the water with his new friends without me. Like any flailing relationship, the warning signs accumulated until they could no longer be ignored.

This would be the beginning of our real end. Daniel’s resentment started to build, and so did mine. Our relationship no longer flowed, and each day it felt clearer that it had fizzled out.

We parted ways for good a week later, after a fight we had in a Cambodian movie theater.

* * *

In hindsight, a part of me wished I had never followed Daniel to Vietnam and then to Cambodia. A part of me believed he was right in being reluctant of intimacy. If we had left our affair in Thailand, I told myself, our memories together would have been warmer. I would have always thought of him as “the one who got away.”

Mary Oliver once wrote, “When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.” Two years later, when I look back on that adventure, the memories of the places I visited feel distant, almost nonexistent. I can’t remember the exotic smells or busy streets, as much as I can remember, let’s say, the joy I felt during the funniest moments Daniel and I shared, or the sadness I felt when we went our separate ways.

Even when you’ve embarked on a solo adventure abroad, to visit a foreign city, the people you meet become the adventure. Perhaps that’s because amazement in life lies in the moments we share with each other — the happy and the heartbreaking. The rest is just a backdrop.

Wave of climate migration looms, but it “doesn’t have to be a crisis”

(Credit: AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

As the sea creeps steadily inland in countries such as Bangladesh, and as dwindling rains put already marginal farmland out of play in Ethiopia and other places, a wave of migration triggered by a changing climate is taking shape on the horizon.

But most “climate migrants” will not be heading abroad to start new lives; instead they will settle elsewhere in their home countries. A new World Bank report released this week declares that if nothing is done to curb global warming and factor migration into development planning, by mid-century this internal population shift could involve more than 140 million people in three regions examined: sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia and Latin America. “Climate change is already a driver of internal migration, and it will become more so in the future,” says John Roome, senior director for climate change at The World Bank Group.

The potential for such a surge in areas comprising 55 percent of the developing world’s population raises questions of environmental justice because those who have contributed least to global warming are forced to shoulder most of the burden. It is incumbent on developed countries like the U.S. to step up, says María Cristina García, a professor of American Studies at Cornell University who was not involved in the report. Developed countries can help by both working to limit greenhouse gas emissions and funding efforts to help developing nations plan for climate migration challenges, García says.

Some people will need to migrate despite any measures that might be taken — but “this doesn’t have to be a crisis,” Roome says. Properly managed migration could even bring more economic opportunities to some poor communities, the World Bank report’s authors contend. But planning needs to start now.

“THOSE PEOPLE DO NOT GET COUNTED”

The study of climate migration is still relatively new, and projections of just how many people might be driven from their homes as the world warms are hard to pin down. Predictions of climate change impacts carry an inherent uncertainty, and the reasons people decide to migrate — or are forced to — are often complex.

To get a clearer picture of how this story might unfold, the authors of the report modeled how slow-burn climate effects (such as coastal land lost to sea level rise, along with water scarcity and crop failure caused by changing rainfall and higher temperatures) affected population patterns in the three regions covered by the report. They focused on internal migration because most people pushed from home — whether for economic, climate-related or other reasons — are displaced within their own countries.

The models looked at how populations might shift in the future if greenhouse gas emissions abate, and compared that scenario with what could happen if emissions continue on their current trajectory. The models also incorporated instances in which development planning alleviated economic inequality — and when that equality gap widened. When emissions were left to soar and development was left unequal, internal migration registered highest: an estimated 86 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, 40 million in south Asia and 17 million in Latin America by 2050. But tackling either issue substantially reduced migration numbers to as few as 31 million across all three regions.

Migration “hot spots” — places people are likely to leave, as well as their probable destinations — emerged in each region. “The impact of climate on migration is not uniform across countries or even within countries,” Roome says. For example, people may increasingly leave Ethiopia’s northern highlands, where agriculture depends on seasonal rains that are now unreliable. Others are likely to flee coastal areas in Bangladesh, where saltwater infiltrating the drinking supplies of 20 million people may already be causing an increase in diarrheal diseases. The report also found climate change could cause people to leave urban centers that have long attracted migrants drawn to the promise of better-paying jobs. Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, a sprawling city of more than 17 million people, is threatened by sea level rise and ever-higher storm surges; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital of three million, could see increasingly unreliable rains and thus an unstable water supply.

The report’s overall findings are no surprise for researchers who have studied climate migration over the last decade or so, says García, who is writing a book on climate migration. Overall migration is usually associated with refugees fleeing to other countries in times of war or other crises, with the U.N. and other agencies keeping track of those pushed outside their own borders. But internal migration is less thoroughly tracked. “We just don’t have a lot of hard data” on it, says Alice Thomas, climate displacement program manager at the nonprofit Refugees International. “Often it just happens kind of slowly over time, and those people do not get counted.

WHO BEARS THE BRUNT?

The report’s authors caution that it is not meant to be a precise forecast, but rather a guide to what might happen and an aid to planning for a potential upheaval. This kind of modeling is useful “not because any one scenario is going to give us the answer” but because it illuminates the various forces influencing migration, says report co-author Alex De Sherbinin, deputy manager of the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center at Columbia University.

“It’s really about taking a longer-term view of the issue,” says report co-author Kanta Kumari Rigaud, a lead environmental specialist with the World Bank. For example, Kumari says countries can foster industries that are less subject to climate fluctuations in order to help communities adapt and prevent the need for people to leave. Ethiopia has done this, the report notes, by pushing to diversify its economy — three quarters of its population currently depends on agriculture but the government, with help from the World Bank, has implemented more sustainable land management.

Various efforts to bolster the economy and reduce poverty have led to a $50-billion gain in gross domestic product over the last decade as well as higher school enrollment and improved sanitation. Governments can also step in earlier to provide support when population movements will eventually become unavoidable, the report suggests, instead of waiting until families have exhausted all their resources battling drought or rising seas. Social services could help line people up with jobs in more climatically stable areas, for example. This could raise the economic prospects for families and countries as a whole. “When it’s planned, it should be a win–win situation for everybody,” Thomas says.

Of course, this kind of planning requires a dedicated effort — one that even developed nations like the U.S. have struggled to implement. Thomas notes thousands of people left Puerto Rico for the mainland after Hurricane Maria last fall, largely because they had so little support on the ground. “Even in wealthy countries we don’t have the right laws and policies in place,” Thomas says. “Those measures will take a long time to put in place.”

But it is poorer countries “that are paying the price and have the populations that are being forced to suffer the most,” Thomas says. The U.S. and other wealthier nations have nominally committed to efforts, including the Green Climate Fund, to help developing countries study and plan for climate impacts. But many of the wealthier players have yet to fulfill their promises; the U.S., under the administration of Pres. Donald Trump, has balked at providing more money for such programs.

Even if seriously concerted efforts are made to lower carbon dioxide emissions and promote more equitable development, millions will still be displaced because of the inevitable warming that is already baked in. The authors and other experts hope the new report will help spur action and research into the problem. “Hopefully,” Roome says, “this report can raise awareness of the issue and create a little bit of this political will.”

GOP Senator Ralph Norman pulls out gun during meeting

(Credit: AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

On Friday, South Carolina Republican congressman Ralph Norman held one of his ongoing “Coffee with constituents” at Rock Hill Diner. At this meeting, according to various reports, constituents—some who are part of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America—wanted to discuss gun violence.

Instead of listening, Norman pulled out .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun. The Post and Courier, a local publication, first reported the incident. According to the report, he put the gun on the table and left it there for a several minutes “to make a point” that guns alone aren’t the issue.

Later, he implied to the publication that people need guns to defend themselves.

“I’m not going to be a Gabby Giffords,” he said, referring to the Democratic congresswomen who was shot in 2011.

One of the constituents at the meeting, Lori Freemon—who is a volunteer with the South Carolina chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America—said in a news release  that his behavior was “a far cry from what responsible gun ownership looks like.”

“Rep. Norman’s behavior today was a far cry from what responsible gun ownership looks like,” Freemon said in the statement. “I had looked forward to a respectful dialogue with my representative about common-sense gun violence prevention policies. Instead, I felt unsafe when he insisted on showing us his loaded gun and keeping it out on the table for much of our conversation.”

In a statement issued to Poitico, sent by Norman’s office, he said he “merely proved a point that guns themselves are not the issue” during a discussion with “a group of organized anti-gun activists.”

“Given the scenario that if someone had walked into that diner and began to fire a weapon, I told them I would be able to defend myself and them as well,” the statement said.“Mental health, and more importantly, a lack of morality is the driving force behind this epidemic. Guns are not the problem.”

Norman also explained to The Post and Courier that he doesn’t mind “dying,” but said whoever shoots him “better shoot well” or he’ll shoot back.

This incident understandably caused an uproar and a lot of criticism on Twitter. Even from some in his own party.

https://twitter.com/AynRandPaulRyan/s...

This is typical of the unhinged leadership we expect from SC’s GOP representatives in Congress! What sand member of Congress pulls out a gun while talking to constituents?! This district is desperate for leadership… a statesman like @Archie4Congress https://t.co/NHeObt3QZU

— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) April 6, 2018

What a miserable human being. This person should not be serving in congress. If anyone is connected to his opponent, please let me know as I would love to come and campaign for them.https://t.co/Jw5sdPmqqY

— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) April 6, 2018

I sincerely hope you never have to experience what my friend @gabbygiffords experienced. But to suggest that she might have avoided being shot had she carried a weapon as she spoke to constituents that morning is inappropriate and inconsiderate. https://t.co/gnuSko0qcB

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) April 7, 2018

Giffords responded on Twitter, saying: “Serving in Congress is about listening and leadership, not intimidation and showmanship. When ‘leaders’ make constituents feel unsafe, they have no place in elected office.”

Serving in Congress is about listening and leadership, not intimidation and showmanship. When “leaders” make constituents feel unsafe, they have no place in elected office. https://t.co/HuWHCUNH7v

— Gabrielle Giffords (@GabbyGiffords) April 7, 2018

BBC America’s “Killing Eve”: Murder most feminist

Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh in "Killing Eve" (Credit: BBC America)

BBC America’s “Killing Eve” is a gorgeous scoop of sinister. That pretty much hits you from the very first view of Villanelle (Jodie Comer), a gleefully unrepentant assassin with a taste for life’s finer things. In Paris, she is savoring a dish of ice cream as a little girl sitting at a nearby table observes her.

Everyone has their version of this moment the child is experiencing, that glimpse of someone who represents a possibility of what could be in store, of who we might become. It’s a little like falling in love, actually. Women do it all the time, and mostly with other women.

As the chubby-cheeked little girl regards the chic woman with fascination, and Villanelle meets her stare, we recognize this innocent platonic flirtation for what it is. The child smiles, and Villanelle notices an onlooker’s grinning reaction to the silent exchange and coaxes forth a gamine’s grin in response.

Then Villanelle does something selfish and entirely unnecessary, perhaps to prove how dangerous beguilement can be, though it’s more likely because she knows she can get away with it. Cloaking herself in the couture of a proper lady enables her to get away with murder. Literally.

The nursery rhyme line warning “when she was bad, she was horrid” was written for women like Villanelle, a vision created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and that Comer realizes with a formidable presence in her captivating new series, debuting Sunday at 8 p.m.

In reality “Killing Eve” belongs to Sandra Oh, owning her charisma completely as Eve Polastri, the balance to Comer’s killer. As the series starts her Eve is a stammering mess, easily flustered, afraid to offend and reluctant to shine. Later on she crosses paths with Villanelle, who makes her punch glass for the hell of it, and regret it immediately.

Eve is good in all the ways Villanelle is defiant, and so far it has gained the MI5 agent very little. She dresses simply, doesn’t outshine her boss and is relegated to desk jockey status. Her instincts grant her a distinct level of insight into cases that others lack, but she’s frequently dismissed nevertheless, especially when she suggests that a baffling murder of a misogynist and a sex trafficker was committed by a woman.

Eve’s determination and her insatiable curiosity vexes her superiors — all men, naturally — save for one female senior operative, Carolyn (Fiona Shaw). When these women join forces to hunt Villanelle, the threat escalates almost immediately because only they believe in Villanelle’s lethal potential. In turn, Villanelle grows bolder and less careful when she realizes that, at long last, somebody sees her.

“Killing Eve” has been renewed for a second season before the first of season 1’s eight episodes has debuted. Such a feat means little in these days of high-volume content production — more of an indicator of network confidence than a guarantee of quality.

But BBC America is right to sense that it has something different in “Killing Eve” and its relevance to women in this time. Although based on a series of novellas written by a man, Luke Jennings, Waller-Bridge and the cast have created an assured scrutiny of all the irritants women have to contend with, the rage they have to swallow, at any given moment.

Eve and Villanelle are women whose desires and ambitions have little to do with the men in their lives. Indeed, their desires and ambitions annoy the men around them. Their bosses are patronizing and detest their efforts to think freely. Eve has a devoted husband whose patience is pressed to the limit, and who soon chafes at knowing he is less important than her work. Villanelle is more fortunate in that regard: a solo act and psychopath, she loves only herself if she can love anyone or anything at all.

At first, Oh lends her role the air of a woman dragged down and held back by patronizing bureaucracy and sexism. But as the hunt intensifies during a gallop through a number of European cities, and the distance between Eve and Villanelle shortens, the actress enlivens Eve with a quiet yet substantive wrath that engulfs the screen.

Comer, last seen starring in “The White Princess,” is spiky and luminous here, making Villanelle as impetuous and calculating as Eve is solid. Her assassin is a glass vessel, deceptively fragile and harmless looking but all sharp points and slicing edges when struck or dropped. She also bathes her role in a playful insouciance, taking joy in her vices and utter lack of virtues. The viewer, meanwhile, can only be impressed by her extraordinary taste. A major source of Eve’s fascination with Villanelle is the criminal’s flair for fashion and the stylishness of her crimes. It takes no time at all for us to understand.

Enjoying “Killing Eve” for the wickedness of its narrative, its tart and caustic humor and the exciting run-down is a simple enough proposition. All of those components are satisfying, and both Oh and Comer turn in substantial performances, making the most of their screen time both separately and together — particularly together. The editing, cinematography and soundtrack of “Killing Eve” capture the brio of Waller-Bridges’ singular view of womanhood in all of its facets, though the central tension really comes from the interplay of the classic good-girl-and-bad-girl dynamic, how each complements and seeks to destroy the other.

Whether by Jennings’ design or Waller-Bridges’ — I haven’t read the books — “Killing Eve” plays with the Judeo-Christian mythology of Eve and Lilith within the framework of a spy thriller. It’s in the names and it’s definitely present in the work dynamics each woman contends with; even the assassin, with her freedom, has a handler who treats her like a child. The difference is that instead of allowing that to rankle her, she plays it to her advantage.

In these scenes, “Killing Eve” proves to be something more than a spy-versus-spy game. Twisted within its humor and spark is a prismatic depiction of the ways society aspires to render women invisible, except for the ways the patriarchy wishes them to be seen. Eve and Villanelle are savvy women who exploit that invisibility as a blind spot — Eve with her intellect, and the killer with her deceptive delicacy.

Where its creative energy peaks, “Killing Eve” becomes a savage dance between two women who see the truth of each other, each sizing up the other and, in an undeniably perverse way, loving the view.

The pull between these women is something beyond sexual. It might not be sensual. Animal may be the best way to describe it. Whatever you’d call it, Comer and Oh make us believe in their mutual obsession, delighting in the sparks they create at a distance and holding our breath in anticipation of the inevitable conflagration that would result from a meeting of these opposing forces.

How Elvis Costello launched “Armed Forces”

(Credit: Getty/Bloomsbury Publishing/Salon)

Each of Elvis Costello’s first three albums announces the singer’s presence by a snatch of unaccompanied vocal. This, we understand, conveys his urgency: He’s too keyed up to wait for a downbeat, never mind a lengthy vamp. On “Welcome to the Working Week,” from “My Aim Is True,” three pickup notes (“Now that your”) rise into the guitar chords and backing vocal-group that enter on “picture”; the band comes in, tidily, a bar before the chorus. By “This Year’s Model,” less than a year later, he’s recruited permanent backing, but there’s no confusion about the main Attraction. “I don’t want to kiss you, I don’t want to touch”; two full bars and a hint of anticipatory bass-drum, introducing the Who-inspired tumble of “No Action.”

“Accidents Will Happen” opens “Armed Forces” with exactly one second of unalloyed Elvis; two vowel sounds (“Oh, I”), meaningless by themselves, the second broken soulfully over two pitches. There’s less time to get acquainted, and less need; by January 1979, EC’s voice and persona were known quantities to many listeners. But the familiarity of the opening tactic is a bait and switch; sonically, the track that follows bears little resemblance to his earlier releases. The band swells up around Costello’s voice instead of kicking in behind it, plunging singer and listener into a which-way-is-up murk that suits the opening lyric: “Oh, I . . . just don’t know where to begin.” After the opening phrase, the singing voice is new as well, a deep near-croon that frames the song as a “pop ballad” (though the tempo is not all that slow), sharpening into something closer to EC’s customary attack on the chorus. Around it, Nick Lowe’s production adapts Phil Spector’s reverberant “Wall of Sound” to a small combo, with guitar and organ blended and spread across the mix, later complicated by touches of dub (the rifle-crack snare at the bridge) and psychedelia (the wash of cymbals and bass in the fade, which lasts for nearly a third of the 3:00 running time). Nuances of arrangement and performance emerge only on repeated listening: The three-note ensemble figure five bars into each verse, the double-time feel and closely arranged rhythm-section patterns of the chorus. Even without picking the record apart—our purpose here—its distance from the eight-to-the-bar drive of “Radio Radio,” the band’s previous single, is unmistakable.

Structurally, the underlying song has little in common with its stated model, Bacharach/David’s 1963 “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” which slips between 9/4 and 4/4. Still, “Accidents” is the most elaborate construction Costello had so far released (with “No Dancing” from “My Aim Is True” coming in second). Each section is off-the-shelf pop-song yardage, artfully joined by chiming transitional sections and a (Bacharachian) extra measure before the bridge The dramatic major/minor shift between verse and chorus is foreshadowed by subtler chromatic motion in the second half of each verse, and recapitulated by alternating bass notes in the fade. The bridge ends with a standard V–I resolution, but its melodic descent makes a virtue of necessity, dovetailing into the third verse on “scare me so, there’s.” (Or “scare me, so there’s.”) The final chorus cycles through the chords under “I know” two extra times before resolving, as the previous choruses do not, to the tonic. “Big Boys” and “Party Girl” end similarly, but less inventively.

The first verse traps the singer in a web of earlier songs: The other Elvis’ “It’s Now Or Never,” The Supremes’ “You Just Keep Me Hanging On,” and “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself,” another Bacharach/David song, which EC had covered live in 1977. The chorus adds Randy Newman’s “I Don’t Want to Hear It Anymore.” Except for the repeated Supremes line, a micro-chorus within each verse, these are supplanted by odd associations (fish/mercury) and oppositions (made up/undone) in later verses. The fade comes full circle: the repeated “I know” inverts the vowel sounds of the opening “Oh, I,” and places retrospective emphasis on “know” in the first line, chorus, and bridge. The long, singable vowel sounds also set off the harsh consonants of the verses: “check,” “collection,” the “axe” of “accidents.”

The craft is precise; the content is obscure. This is no accident: the singer knows what he’s done, but we don’t. After directly addressing the listener in the opening line, the “I” is otherwise undetected in the verses, which follow a lover to the brink of faithlessness. The chorus and bridge shift to “we”; betrayal, as Richard Hell had it, takes two. But the central line “He used to be your victim, now you’re not the only one” resists interpretation. (Not his only one, or mine? Only lover, or victim?) Determining just who’s zooming who is less relevant than the sense that these people treat one another as toys, or tools, or pronouns—anything but people. Telling someone you’ve wronged that “accidents will happen” is fairly chilly, as apologies go, though EC sings the phrase without the arch emphasis on “will” with which the phrase might be spoken.

As with the production, we’re being softened up for the ambiguities and instabilities that pervade “Armed Forces.” The album’s other verbal signature, the vocabulary of politics and economics, is largely absent. Allusions to failures of masculinity (“the silly champion”) and communication (“the words that we don’t say”) are of a piece with the previous two records, and will resonate as this one proceeds. So will the intimations of physical harm—but, in isolation, these read as strong but not excessive metaphors for the emotional kind, pages torn from the lexicon of love. Or so it might have seemed to listeners who encountered the record as a single. In that form, it reached #29 in the UK, as the May 1979 follow-up to “Oliver’s Army”; in the US, it stalled at #101, the very definition of “bubbling under.”

Excerpted from “Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces” by Franklin Bruno (Continuum, 2005). Reprinted with permission from Bloomsbury Publishing.

Massive minimum wage study finds significant gains for low-income workers and few downsides

(Credit: Getty/Matt_Brown)

A new study on the minimum wage confirms previous research that found the policy raises wages for low-income workers without reducing total employment. The paper may even finally start to convince conservative critics of the minimum wage to reconsider their views.

Economist and blogger Tyler Cowen was one of the first to write about the study. As a libertarian, he’s long been critical of policies like the minimum wage, and the new study hasn’t made him a believer. But he does acknowledge that the new research is “thorough and detailed.” He writes:

“…[O]n the pro-minimum wage side, you should consider that those immediately affected by the wage hike do seem better off, and their higher income in the meantime may itself bring some efficiency-enhancing gains.”

The study is indeed impressive. Census researchers Kevin Rinz and John Voorheis used data from the bureau’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which surveys more than 75,000 households. The authors then link this data with administrative filings from the Social Security Administration on wages and track the changes between 1991 and 2013. The study stands out for covering such a large number of people over such an extended people.

“[R]aising the minimum wage increases earnings growth at the bottom of the distribution, and those effects persist and indeed grow in magnitude over several years,” the authors write. At the same time, there’s little indication that other people lose their jobs as a result of the minimum wage — the outcome conservatives always warn about.

The authors go on to note that “a large increase in minimum wages would blunt the worst of the income losses during the Great Recession,” though it would not have completely reversed the crisis’s effects.

While this research supports the case for more aggressive minimum wage policies, it also speaks to major distortions in the economy. As columnist Noah Smith points out, these findings, combined with others, indicate that workers are particularly vulnerable in the present economy.

This means an increased minimum wage is almost certainly not enough. Workers will need a range of new protections, like labor union protections and a greater ability to sue their employers, to dampen the power that businesses wield over them.

 

Planning for Trump-Kim Jong Un meeting in progress: report

(Credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta/KRT)

When Donald Trump first shared the news that he accepted an invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to meet in May, many were skeptical if the meeting would even happen. Indeed, it was a twist to U.S.–North Korea tensions that few saw coming. While the unexpected invitation initially seemed like a bright sign between the tense nations, experts were also quick to comment that it was unclear if anything would come from a meeting of the minds.

According to a new CNN report though, officials from both parties have continued to engage in “secret talks.” Several anonymous administration officials told CNN, according to the report, that Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo and a team have been “working through intelligence back-channels to make preparations for the summit.”

They’re even reportedly debating on a location. Officials reportedly claim that North Koreans want to hold the meeting in Pyongyang. Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, has also reportedly been suggested as a potential meeting spot. Once a location is locked in, a date will reportedly be set.

The report explained:

“Officials said the decision to use the already existing intelligence channel was more a facet of Pompeo’s current status as CIA director as he awaits confirmation as secretary of state than a reflection of the content of the discussions. Pompeo is expected to begin the process of Senate confirmation in the next several weeks.

One of Trump’s most trusted national security advisers, Pompeo has led efforts to prepare for the summit, which Trump has pressed his aides to organize. If he confirmed, he will assume oversight of the diplomatic preparations.

As recently as this weekend, Trump told associates he was looking forward to the summit, which he agreed to on the spot when presented the invitation from Kim. The timeline, however, remains unknown. Officials said the current target is late May or even June.”

Trump has been sharing sporadic updates during the last couple weeks on Twitter.

Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me. In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018

However, what many have been concerned about—including Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state who served for President Bill Clinton—is that not enough preparation will go into the meeting. Albright traveled to North Korea in 2000 to meet with Kim Jong Il.

“The Clinton Administration, we had had a number of iterations dealing with the North Koreans in terms of trying to get them to give up their nuclear potential and try to deal with them on what they had issues with, their missiles and missile limits,” Albright shared in a recent interview with Terry Gross on “Fresh Air.” “What happened was that because we had no representation in North Korea, we really relied on our intelligence systems and our friends, and we worked incredibly hard to get ready for it. It took a very long time.”

Albright said she’s “very worried” about a “haphazard” approach to the Trump-Kim Jong Un meeting.

“It’s a combination of lack of preparation, lack of personnel, and a president who is kind of going in a different direction every other day,” she added. “I think it’s a dangerous situation, it’s a dangerous situation if we don’t have diplomatic talks but it’s also a dangerous in terms of the back and forth.”

Alex Bell, the Senior Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, told Salon when news first surfaced about the meeting, that it was wise to remain cautious.

“There’s not a lot of reason to trust the North Koreans based on our previous experiences with them,” said Bell, who was also the Director for Strategic Outreach in the Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department under the Obama Administration.

She also added that the process to obtaining a denuclearization deal with North Korea would be extremely complicated and tedious.

“This is highly technical if we are actually talking about dismantling the North Korean nuclear program,” Bell added. “It would be the Iran deal times one hundred.”

Inspire & motivate your teams to success with this training

There’s a saying out there that great leaders are born — but actually, great leaders can be made. With the right experience and training, you can not only gain a position where you start to lead teams but develop the skills you need to execute initiatives and projects successfully. The Certified Learn to Lead Bundle includes two different courses focused on helping you develop strategies and techniques to get you noticed for managerial positions and motivate your team members to produce higher quality work.

The first course, “Learn 7 Ways to Ensure Exceptional Leadership,” helps you cultivate leadership skills. It includes 21 lectures and 10.5 hours of content that you can access 24/7, including defining your leadership style based on your personality and thinking, and how to influence your team by assessing their different personality types. You’ll learn to set and implement purpose-driven targets and keep those targets on track when you encounter challenges. Most importantly, you’ll learn practical ways of changing behavior with consequence, reward and reinforcement strategies.

The second course, “Utilize the People Management Skills to Lead Successful Teams,” will help you win that promotion you’ve been eyeing. It includes the refinement of practical skills, including how to differentiate business groups from working teams. You’ll also learn how to streamline workflows and communicate more efficiently by identifying the roles and responsibilities of team members.

Finally, you’ll develop new ways to track performance and hold team members accountable for their responsibilities, firmly rooted in effective time management. This course also shows you how you can supervise team meetings better, and conduct productive negotiations and decision-making, even under high pressure. You’ll also improve team dynamics by applying problem-solving techniques to resolve conflicts and team dysfunction.

Whether you’re a project manager or manager (aspiring or otherwise), you can learn valuable new skills to bolster your resume and career. Usually the Certified Learn to Lead Bundle is $398, but you can get it now for $19, or 95% off.

What parents need to know about virtual reality

(Credit: AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Everyone who’s tried it agrees: Virtual reality is mind-blowing. Once you strap on that headset, you truly believe you’re strolling on a Parisian street, careening on a roller coaster, or immersed in the human body exploring the inner workings of the esophagus. But for all its coolness — and its potential uses, from education to medicine — not a lot is known about how VR affects kids. Common Sense Media’s new report, Virtual Reality 101: What You Need to Know About Kids and VR, co-authored by the founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, offers a first-of-its-kind overview of the expanding uses for the technology and its potential effects on kids. Now that VR devices from inexpensive viewers to game consoles to full-scale gaming arcades are finally here — with lots more coming soon — it’s a good idea to start thinking about how to manage VR when it comes knocking at your door.

Virtual reality can make you think and feel things you know aren’t real. Other media can give you the sense of “being there” — what’s called psychological presence — but not to the extent that VR can. This unique ability is what makes it so important to understand more about the short- and long-term effects of the technology on kids. Here are some of the key findings from the report:

Everything in VR is more intense.  Because the brain processes virtual reality experiences similar to how it processes actual experiences, it can provoke feelings of fear, anxiety, disorientation — as well as joy and excitement. Also, VR characters may be more influential than characters kids see on TV — which can have positive or negative effects, depending on the message.
It has major potential — and serious downsides.  VR at its best reveals new worlds and new perspectives that kids wouldn’t be able to experience in real life. At its worst, it exposes kids to intense and possibly inappropriate content that feels too “real.”
The long-term effects of VR on developing brains are unknown, which concerns both parents and the pros.  Sixty percent of parents say they are at least “somewhat concerned” that their children will experience negative health effects while using VR. Experts advocate moderation and supervision.
As a teaching tool, the jury is still out on VR.  Students are more enthusiastic about learning with VR than without it, but they aren’t necessarily learning more effectively.

Even though we don’t yet have all the answers to how VR affects kids, we know enough to consider some pros and cons. And whether kids are using VR through a mobile device like Google Cardboard (check out our editor’s picks of VR apps), on a console like the PlayStation VR, on a fully tricked-out desktop rig like the Oculus Rift, or at a mall arcade, these guidelines can help you keep any VR experience your kids have safe and fun.

Pay attention to age ratings. Check the recommended age on the headset package and don’t let younger kids use products designed for older kids. The minimum age isn’t based on medical proof of adverse effects on the brain and vision, but it’s the manufacturer’s best guess as to who the product is safest for.

Choose games wisely. Because the VR game experience can be more intense than that of regular games, it’s even more important to check reviews to make sure the gameplay, the content, and the subject matter are appropriate for your kid.

Keep it safe. A few precautions: Once you have the goggles on, orient yourself to the room by touching the walls; stick to short sessions until you know how you’re affected by VR; stay seated if possible; move furniture out of the way; and have a second person as a spotter.

Pay attention to feelings — both physical and emotional. If you’re feeling sick to your stomach, dizzy, drained, or sad, angry, or anxious — give it a rest for a while.

Talk about experiences. Since VR feels so real, it’s an excellent time to talk through what your kid has experienced in a game. Ask what it felt like, what the differences are between VR and regular games, and how VR helps you connect to other people’s experiences by putting you in someone else’s shoes.

Find opportunities; avoid pitfalls. Don’t let your kids play VR games that mimic experiences you wouldn’t want them to have in real life, such as using violent weapons. On the other hand, take advantage of VR that exposes kids to things they wouldn’t normally get to see, feel, and learn, such as visiting a foreign country.

Keep privacy in mind. Devices that can track your movements — including eye movements — could store that data for purposes that haven’t yet been invented.