Month: April 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that disinfectants could be used to treat coronavirus patients is triggering alarm among health experts, and warnings from a maker of the sanitizing solutions.Trump said at his regular White House coronavirus media briefing Thursday that scientists should investigate inserting disinfectants into patients’ bodies to cure COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.”I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said. “And is there a way we can do something like that by injection, inside, or almost a cleaning?”With coronavirus response coordinator and physician Deborah Birx looking on, Trump noted the virus “does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.” However, physicians and other health experts are warning against Trump’s suggestion to use disinfectants to treat the virus.”(This is an) absolutely dangerous, crazy suggestion,” said Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at Britain’s University of East Anglia.An academic pharmacist at the University of Reading in Berkshire, England, Parastou Donyai, expressed shock over what she said were “unscientific comments” that could lead people with the virus to seek homemade remedies.President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, April 23, 2020.”What is shocking about these latest comments is that they completely bypass other important facts about injections … not only will homemade injections bruise, burn, or block the veins, they will almost certainly also introduce new infections straight into the body, the very thing people are …

After months of testing, a European space telescope finally begins its work studying far-off planets. Meanwhile, a crew return home from the International Space Station after more than two hundred days in orbit. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the week in space. …

One of the hard lessons the World Health Organization learned during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was this: Other diseases can be forgotten and take a deadlier toll. The WHO is now warning that the battle against malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, where it already kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, could be set back by 20 years as countries focus energy and resources on containing the coronavirus.   The WHO said new projections indicate that in a worst-case scenario, 769,000 people could die of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa this year as campaigns to combat it are interrupted. That’s more than double the deaths in the last detailed count two years ago, when more than 360,000 people died, and would be the worst figures for the region since 2000.   “We must not turn back the clock,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said Thursday. While health experts express fears that the coronavirus pandemic could erode the global fight against many diseases,  sub-Saharan Africa is by far the worst affected by malaria. It had 93% of the world’s cases and 94% of deaths in 2018, the WHO said. The deaths were mainly children under the age of 5. There have already been “severe disruptions” to anti-malaria campaigns and access to anti-malaria medication in Africa, WHO said. The warning came ahead of World Malaria Day on Saturday. Malaria remains one of the leading killers in low-income countries.   “I urge all countries to not lose focus on their …

Youth groups are staging a long-planned global climate demonstration online Friday because of restrictions on public protests during the coronavirus pandemic. The student group Fridays for Future, whose past rallies have drawn hundreds of thousands onto the streets worldwide, is using a livestream to call on world leaders to act against global warming. Some groups have found creative ways to stage very limited demonstrations despite the lockdown. In Berlin, activists placed thousands of protest placards in front of the German parliament. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 17, the most prominent face of the youth climate movement, said Wednesday during an online Earth Day event that the climate crisis “may not be as immediate as the corona crisis but we need to tackle this now, otherwise it will be irreversible.” …

Friday marks 30 years since the groundbreaking Hubble Telescope, the first optical telescope to be put into space, was sent into orbit.The Hubble rocketed into orbit aboard space shuttle Discovery April 24, 1990 and was later deployed by the shuttle’s crew members.  The telescope, named for American astronomer Edwin Hubble, was created because astronomers at the U.S. space agency NASA wanted an observatory free of the Earth’s atmosphere and human-generated light.  But the initial excitement about Hubble quickly turned to disappointment when it was discovered the telescope’s primary mirror had been manufactured incorrectly, blurring the telescope’s optics.Shuttle astronauts visited Hubble five times, from 1993 to 2009, to make improvements and repairs to the 13-meter-long observatory. The repairs paid off almost immediately, and since then, Hubble has made over 1.4 million observations and significant discoveries.Among them, Hubble proved the existence of super-massive black holes and found they’re located at the center of most galaxies. It also helped pinpoint the age of the universe at 13.8 billion years old, by determining the current rate of expansion of the universe with an uncertainty of just three percent.Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, was originally due to be launched in 2018, but has been delayed several times, and will now be launched no earlier than 2021.   …

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration on Thursday, saying industry cannot avoid the Clean Water Act when it pumps wastewater into the ground instead of directly into oceans and rivers.In a 6-3 decision, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the majority. He said putting the polluted water into the ground before it eventually reaches oceans and rivers is “the functional equivalent” of directly releasing it into the ocean, and permission from the Environmental Protection Agency is needed.In his dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that according to current laws, a permit is needed only for directly dumping polluted water into a waterway.Attorney David Henkin argued the case on behalf of the environmental group Earthjustice.“This decision is a huge victory for clean water. The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration’s effort to blow a big hole in the Clean Water Act’s protections for rivers, lakes and oceans,” he said.Thursday’s decision stems from a case in Hawaii involving the question of whether a sewage treatment plant needs permission from the EPA to pump treated wastewater into the ground instead of straight into the Pacific Ocean.Environmentalists said even through this indirect route, the dirty water damaged a fragile coral reef.President Donald Trump has promised to cut government regulations and rules he says stifle business and kill jobs. But environmentalists say cutting back on such enforcement and oversight is harmful not only to the air and water but also to human health.  …

After last week’s court ruling brought to light potential environmental concerns, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended a nationwide program meant to approve utility work, despite industry representatives’ warnings it could stop important infrastructure projects.Nationwide Permit 12, a blanket permit used by utility companies to build gas and oil pipelines, powerlines and other infrastructure across wetlands and streams, was ruled illegal by U.S. District Judge Brian Morris concerning the Keystone XL pipeline’s use of the permit for water crossings without the Army Corps’ proper consideration of endangered wildlife.From there, the judge’s findings were expanded to include any projects using Nationwide Permit 12.The Trump administration likely will counter the court’s ruling, seeing as the original lawsuit was over the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, a project Trump supported.Currently, 360 requests are pending from companies seeking approval to use the permit, according to Army Corps spokesman Doug Garman.Though no further details were released on the nature of these projects and their locations, industry representatives say the suspension’s potential longevity could affect thousands of separate projects.Critics see minimal reviewTo many environmentalists’ dismay, Nationwide Permit 12 is often used by the Army Corps, which has control over U.S. waterways, to approve utility projects after minimal environmental review. Since the permit’s last renewal in 2017, it has been used more than 37,000 times.Utility companies counter that this is because projects are timely and expansive, often spanning multiple states and hundreds of waterways. Therefore, it would be counterproductive and unnecessarily expensive to inspect each crossing.Labor …

The arrival of the new coronavirus pandemic has made something of a wildlife celebrity of a previously not very well-known scaly mammal known as a pangolin.  These cute or creepy looking (depending upon whom you ask) creatures are hunted in sub-Saharan Africa for their scales and meat and illegally trafficked primarily to Southeast Asia.  Several conservation organizations say they are the most heavily trafficked wild mammal on the planet, bringing poachers and smugglers vast amounts of money. Between 2006 and 2015, more than 1 million pangolins are estimated to have been hunted. The creatures, which vary from the size of a domestic cat to a large dog, have gained notoriety during the coronavirus outbreak, as scientists explore whether the virus originated in the pangolin or whether it could have been a middleman, transmitting it from another wild animal, such as a bat, to humans. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the source of the current coronavirus outbreak is not yet known. FILE – In this April 9, 2019, photo released by the National Parks Board, over 12 tons of pangolin scales are displayed in an undisclosed site in Singapore.Previous outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012, both coronaviruses, had their origins in animals and were transmitted to humans. SARS, for example, began in bats and spread through civet cats to humans. Thus, the spotlight on the shy, reclusive pangolin, which would rather be left alone to scavenge for ants and termites and sleep all day. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime tracks illegal wildlife activity and released …

The world has lost more than one quarter of its land-dwelling insects in the past 30 years, according to researchers whose big picture study of global bug decline paints a disturbing but more nuanced problem than earlier research. From bees and other pollinators crucial to the world’s food supply to butterflies that beautify places, the bugs are disappearing at a rate of just under 1% a year, with lots of variation from place to place, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science.  That’s a tinier population decline than found by some smaller localized studies, which had triggered fears of a so-called insect apocalypse. But it still adds up to something “awfully alarming,” said entomologist Roel van Klink of the German Centre for Integrative Biology, the study’s lead author. “The decline across insect orders on land is jaw dropping,” said Michigan State University butterfly expert Nick Haddad, who wasn’t part of the study. “Ongoing decline on land at this rate will be catastrophic for ecological systems and for humans. Insects are pollinators, natural enemies of pests, decomposers and besides that, are critical to functioning of all Earth’s ecosystems.” FILE – A grasshopper rests on a rail outside the Kansas City Royals dugout during a baseball game, in Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 2, 2011.Midwest numbersInsect declines are worst in North America, especially the Midwestern United States, and in parts of Europe, but the drop appears to be leveling off in the U.S. in recent years, said the study that pulled together earlier research on …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said a fundamental reform of the World Health Organization was needed following its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and that the United States, the WHO’s biggest donor, may never restore funding to the U.N. body.   As Pompeo launched fresh attacks on the U.N. body on Wednesday, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives accused the Trump administration of trying to “scapegoat” the WHO to distract from its handling of the coronavirus outbreak.   In a letter to President Donald Trump, they called for the immediate restoration of U.S. funding, which Trump suspended last week accusing the WHO of being “China-centric” and of promoting China’s “disinformation” about the outbreak.   Pompeo told Fox News late on Wednesday there needed to be “a structural fix of the WHO” to correct its “shortcomings.”   Asked if he was not ruling out a change in leadership of the WHO, Pompeo replied: “Even more than that, it may be the case that the United States can never return to underwriting, having U.S. taxpayer dollars go to the WHO.”   The WHO has denied the Trump administration’s charges and China insists it has been transparent and open.   The United States has been the biggest overall donor to the WHO, contributing over $400 million in 2019, roughly 15% of its budget. Senior U.S. officials last week told Reuters Washington could redirect these funds to other aid groups.   Earlier on Wednesday, Pompeo said the United States “strongly believed” Beijing …

The United Kingdom’s economy is crumbling under the strain of the coronavirus lockdown and government borrowing is soaring to the highest levels in peacetime history, increasing pressure on the government to set out an exit strategy.   Prime Minister Boris Johnson, recuperating at his country residence after being seriously ill with COVID-19, is facing criticism from opposition politicians and some epidemiologists for reacting too slowly to the novel coronavirus outbreak.   Ministers are already struggling to explain high death rates, limited testing and shortages of protective kit, and the grim reality of the damage to the world’s fifth largest economy hit home on Thursday.   The past century, or possibly several centuries,” Bank of England interest-rate setter Jan Vlieghe said, the recovery, he said, was unlikely to be swift.   “The risks are that it will take longer and that it will look a little bit more like a U than a V,” Vlieghe said.   The IHS Markit/CIPS Flash UK Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to a new record low of 12.9 from 36.0 in March – not even close to the weakest forecast in a Reuters poll of economists that had pointed to a reading of 31.4.   The United Kingdom will issue 180 billion pounds ($222 billion) of government debt between May and July, more than it had previously planned for the entire financial year.   The country’s debt mountain exceeds $2.5 trillion and its public sector net borrowing could reach 14% of gross domestic product …

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg joined calls for a combined effort to tackle coronavirus and the climate crisis, saying the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on Wednesday was the time to choose a “new way forward.” Dramatic improvements in air and water quality as coronavirus lockdowns have cut pollution have prompted calls for a low-carbon future, but the need to get millions back to work is clouding the picture for the future.  Thunberg, taking part in a streamed event to mark Earth Day, said the extraordinary measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus did not mean the climate crisis had gone away.   Climate activist Greta Thunberg, center, talks with other climate activists youth at the COP25 climate talks summit in Madrid, Dec. 6, 2019.”We need to tackle two crises at once,” she said.  “Whether we like it or not the world has changed, it looks completely different from how it did a few months ago and it will probably not look the same again and we are going to have to choose a new way forward,” the teenager said.  With economies round the world shut down, wildlife has returned to some city streets, with wolves, deer and kangaroos spotted on thoroughfares usually teeming with traffic. Fish have been seen in Venice canals no longer polluted by motor boats, while residents of some Indian cities have reported seeing the Himalayas for the first time in decades. Satellite imagery has shown significant air quality improvements across Europe and Asia, including China, where the coronavirus pandemic emerged at …

The World Meteorological Organization is warning that if the planet keeps warming at its current pace, the average global temperature could increase by 1.5 degrees C  in the next 10 years.  This rise would worsen extreme weather events, and many of the dangerous effects of climate change might become irreversible, it said.  WMO reported Wednesday that the national lockdowns of transportation, industry and energy production because of the coronavirus pandemic have resulted in a 6 percent drop of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.  However, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said this good news would be short-lived.  He said the startup of industry might even trigger a boost in emissions.  He said the pandemic also was making it more difficult to monitor and manage weather and other hazards.“This current COVID crisis has led to the decrease in some measurements,” he said. For example, “airline companies have been carrying out measurements.  Since we have very few flights nowadays, we have less measurements from the aircraft, which is having a negative impact on the quality of the forecasts.”While the world is in the throes of tackling two big issues at the same time, Taalas said, the magnitude of problems associated with climate change is much greater than that of COVID.  He said health and economic problems resulting from the pandemic were devastating but noted they would last only a few years.“If we are unable to mitigate climate change, we will see persistent health problems, especially hunger and the ability to feed the growing …

As people across the globe stay home to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, the air has cleaned up, albeit temporarily. Smog stopped choking New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, and India’s getting views of sights not visible in decades. Nitrogen dioxide pollution in the northeastern  United States is down 30%. Rome air pollution levels from mid-March to mid-April were down 49% from a year ago. Stars seem more visible at night. People are also noticing animals in places and at times they don’t usually. Coyotes have meandered along downtown Chicago’s Michigan Avenue and near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. A puma roamed  the streets of Santiago, Chile. Goats took over a town in Wales. In India, already daring wildlife has become bolder with hungry monkeys entering homes and opening refrigerators to look for food. When people stay home, Earth becomes cleaner and wilder. “It is giving us this quite extraordinary insight into just how much of a mess we humans are making of our beautiful planet,” says conservation scientist Stuart Pimm of Duke University. “This is giving us an opportunity to magically see how much better it can be.”   Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, assembled scientists to assess the ecological changes happening with so much of humanity housebound. Scientists, stuck at home like the rest of us, say they are eager to explore unexpected changes in weeds, insects, weather patterns, noise and light pollution. Italy’s government …

China will pay close attention to clusters of coronavirus infections, especially in hospitals, according to a top level meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday.   China’s northeastern city of Harbin has had several clusters of infections in local hospitals.   The government also called for efforts to increase coronavirus testing capability and produce more effective testing equipment, according to a statement on the state council’s website. (Reporting by Colin Qian and Nori Shirouzu; Editing by Andrew Heavens) …

On the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, teen climate activist Greta Thunberg says we should not let the coronavirus pandemic make us forget the ongoing climate crisis. She spoke from the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, in a video conversation with Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Professor Johan Rockstrom in Germany. Thunberg said both the climate crisis and the pandemic are similar in that “we listen to scientists, to science and to the experts.” She said times like these require people to put aside their differences and act.  Thunberg and Rockstrom held their digital conversation in honor of Earth Day, and discussed “courage, solidarity and opportunities in times of crisis.” Earth Day was first observed April 22, 1970, as the result of student activism and a bipartisan effort in Congress to call attention to environmental issues in the United States, such as water and air pollution.  Earth Day is credited with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) later that year, as well as passage of key environmental legislation such as the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Education Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act.    …

Health officials say two people died with the coronavirus in California weeks before the first reported death from the disease.   Santa Clara County officials said Tuesday the people died at home Feb. 6 and Feb. 17. Before this, the first U.S. death from the virus had been reported on Feb. 29 in Kirkland, Washington. The Medical Examiner-Coroner received confirmation Tuesday that tissue samples sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested positive for the virus, officials said.   The announcement came after California Gov. Gavin Newsom promised a “deep dive” update Wednesday of the state’s ability to test for the coronavirus and to track and isolate people who have it, one of the six indicators he says is key to lifting a “stay-at-home” order that has slowed the spread of the disease while forcing millions of people to file for unemployment benefits. “This will go to the obvious questions and queries that all of us are asking: When? … When do you see a little bit of a release in the valve so that we can let out a little of this pressure,” Newsom said Tuesday, teasing what he says will be the first of regular weekly updates on the state’s progress toward reopening. Newsom says the state is testing an average of 14,500 people per day, up from just 2,000 tests per day at the beginning of April. Still, in a state of nearly 40 million people, that’s not enough for public health officials to …

Several countries around the world, including Germany and South Korea, and a number of U.S. states are easing their coronavirus lockdown restrictions this week. But experts caution that a number of conditions need to be in place before people leave their homes and head back out to churches, shops, restaurants and beaches.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. Embed” />Copy …

Frequent hand-washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds is recommended by health experts to help prevent exposure to COVID-19. That is exactly what many people do these days. But while washing hands and bathing signifies personal hygiene in our time, it was not always the case.  Louis XIV of France, for example, is said to have taken only two baths in his adult lifetime — both times recommended by his doctors. The king had headaches, and his doctors thought bathing would help cure the condition. It did not, and he never bathed again.  The hygiene rituals of Louis XIV and other historical figures are recounted in the new book “The Clean Body: A Modern History” by Peter Ward. The history professor emeritus at the University of British Colombia explores the transformation of body care habits in the West over the past four centuries.  In the 19th century, advancements in industry, plumbing, architecture and science helped spread the practice of bathing and hand-washing.Cleanliness now and then According to Ward, Louis XIV was not unique in his body care habits.  In the 1700s, most people in the upper class seldom, if ever, bathed. They occasionally washed their faces and hands, and kept themselves “clean” by changing the white linens under their clothing. “The idea about cleanliness focused on their clothing, especially the clothes worn next to the skin,” Ward said. “The common view was that the white linen garments they wore below their outer clothes absorbed the body’s impurities, cleaning the skin in the process.” Starched white collars and cuffs from the inner layer often extended beyond the outer clothes, signifying the cleanliness of the body underneath. They also implied the social superiority of those who wore such clothes, because most people in western societies lacked the wealth to dress this way. Gradually, the concept of cleanliness changed, beginning with the upper class, and spreading to the emerging middle class. “By …

The United Nations’ food chief warned Tuesday that while the world fights the coronavirus pandemic, it is also on the brink of a hunger pandemic.”Millions of civilians living in conflict-scarred nations, including many women and children, face being pushed to the brink of starvation, with the specter of famine a very real and dangerous possibility,” World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley told a remote meeting of the U.N. Security Council.Beasley said 821 million people worldwide are chronically hungry, and 135 million face crisis levels of hunger. With the added stress of COVID-19, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020.”In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries,” he warned.FILE – A homeless young man, who is thought to be suffering from malnutrition, is helped to the clinic in a quarantined area at a refuge for newly arrived street children outside Dakar, April 10, 2020.In a report released Tuesday by the Global Network Against Food Crises, a coalition of U.N., governmental and non-governmental agencies, it attributed the hunger increase to economic shocks, conflicts, drought and other weather-related events.Declines in economic activity and trade restrictions “are likely to diminish national budgets, reduce household incomes and may lead to rises in food prices,” the network said.The report warned that “critical food value chains” could be disrupted, particularly in “under-resourced and vulnerable nations” such as South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan.Over half of the 135 million people …

SARS-CoV2 should be a good candidate for a vaccine. The question is which vaccine will be the best solution? …

Pollution and greenhouse gas emissions have decreased across the globe, as countries strive to contain the spread of the coronavirus by ordering people to stay at home.Among the many unknown facts about this new virus is what kind of long-term impact it will have on the environment.Since the outbreak in December 2019 and the subsequent pandemic, businesses have shuttered, airlines have slashed services, and more and more people are working from home or not working at all, cutting traffic to a minimum.The global shutdown has inadvertently become an experiment in the reduction of greenhouse gases.NASA recently released satellite data of the northeastern U.S., revealing a 30% drop in air pollution over densely populated metropolitan areas. Nitrogen dioxide from transportation fossil fuels and electricity generation shows that March 2020 has the lowest emission levels on record since 2005.In Wuhan, China, the manufacturing hub where the outbreak began, NASA reported that pollution levels have lowered between 10% and 30% since eastern and central China’s lockdown in late January.Northern Italy, another industrial and high-traffic region, has seen nitrogen dioxide levels drop about 40% since early March when its quarantine began.”It just shows you where the air pollution comes from,” Dr. John Balmes, a medical professor and national spokesperson for the American Lung Association, told VOA. It “comes from motor vehicles and industrial sources that, with the economy basically shut down, we have a lot less emission from those sources.”Some environmentalists see this as an opportunity to make significant strides in preventing serious outcomes …

The CCTV footage from a Dutch business park shows a man in a black cap pouring the contents of a white container at the base of a cellular radio tower. Flames burst out as the man jogs back to his Toyota to flee into the evening. It’s a scene that’s been repeated dozens of times in recent weeks in Europe, where conspiracy theories linking new 5G mobile networks and the coronavirus pandemic are fueling arson attacks on cell towers. Popular beliefs and conspiracy theories that wireless communications pose a threat have long been around, but the global spread of the virus at the same time that countries were rolling out fifth generation wireless technology has seen some of those false narratives amplified. Officials in Europe and the U.S. are watching the situation closely and pushing back, concerned that attacks will undermine vital telecommunications links at a time they’re most needed to deal with the pandemic. “I’m absolutely outraged, absolutely disgusted, that people would be taking action against the very infrastructure that we need to respond to this health emergency,” Stephen Powis, medical director of the National Health Service in England, said in early April. Some 50 fires targeting cell towers and other equipment have been reported in Britain this month, leading to three arrests. Telecom engineers have been abused on the job 80 times, according to trade group Mobile UK, making the U.K. the nucleus of the attacks. Photos and videos documenting the attacks are often overlaid with false commentary …

Jamie Margolin had not expected to be sitting in her bedroom right now.   The high school senior had prom and graduation coming up, but so much more: A multi-state bus campaign with fellow climate activists. A tour for her new book. Attendance at one of the massive marches that had been planned this week for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.   Then the pandemic arrived in Seattle, her hometown, and her plans went out the window. “But still so much to do,” Margolin said, perched in front of her computer for a video interview from that bedroom.   Like many other young activists who’ve helped galvanize what’s become a global climate movement, Margolin is not letting a spreading virus stop her. They are organizing in place, from the United States to Ecuador, Uganda, India and beyond.   And while some fear they’ve lost some momentum in the pandemic, they are determined to keep pushing — and for now, to use technology to their advantage. Unable to gather en masse as they’d planned this Earth Day, these activists are planning livestreams and webinars to keep the issue of climate front and center on the world stage and in the U.S. presidential race. One event, Earth Day Live, is being organized by a coalition of youth-led climate groups, including Zero Hour, of which Margolin is a leader (her Twitter profile includes the tag #futurepotus). As is the case with many other young climate activists, she got involved in the movement …