Trump commits U.S. to more trees, maybe -- Jan. 23, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Nobody would mistake President Donald Trump for a tree hugger.

He has dismissed climate change as a “hoax,” rolled back many Obama-era environmental and clean energy policies that reduce carbon emissions, and is withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

But as his impeachment trial was poised to begin in Washington Tuesday, Trump announced during a campaign-style speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the United States would join in the forum’s 1 Trillion Trees initiative. What?

The forum launched 1t.org to connect, support and fund the international movement to plant 1 trillion trees around the globe in coming decades to fight climate change.

Billionaire entrepreneur Marc Benioff, founder of the software company Salesforce, and his wife Lynne are providing financial support for the 1t.org digital platform. Benioff said his company also intends “to support and mobilize the conservation and restoration of 100 million trees over the next decade.”

Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will join 1t.org drew applause from the global business and government leaders in Davos, but it’s unclear what happens next.  

“We will continue to show strong leadership in restoring, growing and better managing our trees and forests,” Trump said, but offered no specifics.

Although he described himself to reporters in Davos as “a very big believer in the environment,” Trump has proposed cuts in the U.S. Forest Service, opened public lands to drilling and mining, and pushed for new logging in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

In Davos, Trump downplayed climate fears saying, “This is not a time for pessimism; this is a time for optimism. . . this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action.”

He also indirectly called out Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist from Sweden who was in the audience. She urges all countries to heed the call by the United Nations environmental panel to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over a decade to avoid intense climate impact. That will require reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% between now and 2030.

But Trump said: "We must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers.” He also lambasted “radical socialists” who would ruin the U.S. economy with environmental regulations.

Forests remove carbon dioxide from the air and store the carbon in trees, vegetation, the forest floor and in the soil. This carbon removal, or sequestration, “makes the forest a type of carbon sink by absorbing more CO2 than is emitted. This absorption partially offsets the contribution of carbon to the atmosphere from carbon sources such as the burning of fossil fuels,” the Virginia Department of Forestry says on its website.

Some nations have acted. Ethiopia planted more than 350 million trees in 12 hours last July, setting a new world record. India had held the record for planting 66 million trees in 2017.

Trump’s comments in Davos reflect the shifting politics of climate in Congress. House Republicans who recognize they’re losing young voters concerned about climate issues, are developing an alternative to the Democrats’ Green New Deal, Axios reported this week. The Green New Deal would remake the economy to fight climate change. The GOP plan stops short of envisioning major changes in how we work and live.

Rep. Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas, is drafting a Trillion Trees Act that will set a target for growing more trees “for the purpose of sequestering carbon,” according to a summary of the bill Axios viewed, but so far does not include an actual numerical target.

Who doesn’t like trees? Planting them makes people feel good, but that by itself won’t come close to solving the climate crisis. It’s estimated reforestation could provide only up to one-third of the climate solutions needed by 2030 to meet the 1.5 degree goal, the forum reported.

“Nature-based solutions will only be effective if undertaken in conjunction with other efforts to transform energy, heavy industry and the finance sectors,” the forum said.

We in the United States should plant trees as a first step, but we, the Trump administration and Congress will need to do more to fight climate change.

© Marsha Mercer 2020. All rights reserved.

Meddling in 2016 election just a warm up for 2020 -- Jan. 31, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

So, you see a video of President Donald Trump doing something truly outrageous, what do you do?

Or, you hear an audio clip of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris saying something beyond the pale, what then?

Rush to share it. Fly into a furious tweetstorm. Post and rant on Facebook. I know, it happens all the time.

But what if the video or audio you sent ’round the world was fake, bogus, a trick?

I don’t mean fake news but a deepfake: digital audio or video created by artificial intelligence so realistic we can’t tell it’s fake.

In our brave new cyberworld, voters should know what we see and hear may not always be real. As in, no, you can’t believe your lying eyes – or ears.

In 2016, Russia and others used fake web sites and impersonated Americans on social media to divide us and sow discord. As if we needed help in that department.

By 2018, Russia, China and Iran all tried to manipulate and polarize us. Fortunately, they were unable to compromise the elections, the U.S. government says.

But that likely was just a warm-up.  

“We expect (foreign actors) to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other’s experiences and efforts, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.  

One big, new threat is deepfakes, which made news in 2017, when people swapped actresses faces for porn stars and made sex videos.

Almost anyone can make deepfakes now, and they have the potential for creating havoc on the national and world stage.

Today, while the algorithms are complex, “there are user-friendly platforms that people with little to no technical expertise can use to create deepfakes,” Charlotte Stanton, director of the Silicon Valley office of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, wrote in a report released Monday.

“The easiest among these platforms allow anyone with access to the internet and pictures of a person’s face to make a deepfake. Tutorials are even available for people who want step-by-step instructions,” Stanton said.

Canadian start-up Lyrebird claims it creates “the most realistic artificial voices in the world” from just one minute of speech. To show how realistic – and scary this is – the lyrebird.ai website has sample “voice avatars” of Donald Trump and Barack Obama. You’d never guess they’re fakes.

Make no mistake, there are laudable uses for such technology. Lyrebird works with ALS patients to create a digital voice copies so they can still communicate in their voice if they lose the ability to speak.

But the bad guys are out there, and the Pentagon and academics are researching how to identify and stop deepfakes. The AI technology evolves so fast it makes detection ever more difficult.

Congress is alarmed, and some lawmakers are weighing legislation, although it’s important not to create new problems while fixing one. Sen. Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, wants to make it illegal to create or distribute malicious deepfakes.

“Deepfakes – video of things that were never done with audio of things that were never said – can be tailor-made to drive Americans apart and pour gasoline on just about any culture war fire,” Sasse told Axios.

Government can’t save us from being gullible. Each of us needs to guard against those who want to weaken our democracy and make truth a relic of the past.

What can we do? First, be skeptical. As always, consider the source before you share.

Look closely. In some deepfake videos, the people don’t blink -- but blinking doesn’t guarantee one is legit.

And take a breath. It’s easy to fly off the handle and repost the things that confirm our worst nightmares.

“Let us remember that while Russia can amplify our divisions, it cannot invent them,” Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, co-chairman of the Intel committee, said at Tuesday’s hearing.

“When a divisive issue like the `take a knee’ NFL controversy or a migrant caravan dominates the national dialogue, these are issues that can be – and are – taken advantage of by Russian trolls. Let’s not make their work easier,” Warner said.

Excellent advice. It won’t be easy, but we need to unite on this one thing: stopping deepfake tricks in their tracks.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.