📰 Kerala celebrates first transsexual wedding
Surya and Ishaan overcome obstacles, become the first such couple to tie the knot in the State
•They had many battles to overcome before they could come together. When they finally did on Thursday, they created history by becoming the first transsexual couple in Kerala, and perhaps in the country, to tie the knot.
•Laughter and songs filled the air as Surya, decked up in traditional bridal wear, was escorted to the stage by her friends. Ishaan, who sported a dapper brown suit, tied the thali around Ms. Surya’s neck amid the playing of traditional music. The gathering broke into applause as they exchanged garlands. With the couple eschewing traditional rites for the occasion, their marriage was solemnised and registered under the Special Marriage Act.
•Hundreds of well-wishers, including members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) community, thronged the venue at the Mannam Memorial National Club in Thiruvananthapuram.
•Among those in attendance were Kerala Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran, Thiruvananthapuram Mayor V.K. Prasanth, Haritha Keralam Mission executive vice-chairperson T.N. Seema, and dubbing artist and actor Bhagyalakshmi.
•Ms. Surya, 31, has worn many hats in her life, including those of a television anchor, activist, and more recently, a member of the State Transgender Justice Board. Mr. Ishaan, 33, is a member of the District Transgender Justice Board. They had met at an event six years ago and have been together ever since.
•While Ms. Surya had a sex reassignment surgery four years ago, Mr. Ishaan underwent the procedure two years ago to assert his identity as a trans man.
‘Living our dreams’
•“We have shown society that we too can live out our dreams,” an elated Ms. Surya said. Mr. Ishaan, who comes from a conservative Muslim family, was hopeful that they would become a model couple for the community.
•For the couple, the celebrations have only just begun. They were felicitated by Oasis, a self-help group for transgenders, on Thursday evening. The government is expected to host a formal reception for them on May 30.
📰 Mahathir’s surprise: on the Malaysian elections
Malaysians bring back the 92-year-old veteran in a historic election
•Mahathir Mohamad’s spectacular victory in Malaysia’s elections has the potential to spur democratic movements across Southeast Asia, where one-party rule and the military’s preeminence are pervasive. Winds of change could be in the offing, with elections looming in a number of countries. A clear majority for the opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) in the new federal legislature signals Mr. Mohamad’s resounding comeback. Outgoing Prime Minister Najib Razak’s overall economic track record was not sufficient to salvage the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front), or its principal party, the United Malays National Organisation. Neither did his government’s stringent curbs on media freedoms, last-minute meddling with electoral constituencies and promises of generous handouts do the trick. This is a historic transition, with UNMO ousted from power for the first time. Mr. Mohamad had helped found UNMO, held power between 1981 and 2003, and in 2009 handpicked Mr. Razak for the big post. Now, the 92-year-old challenged the party that was once his, with the single objective of overthrowing his old protégé. Mr. Razak’s alleged involvement in a multi-million-dollar embezzlement scandal in a sovereign wealth fund appears to have turned the popular mood. Investigations in several countries into investments in the fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad, dented the country’s reputation as a regional tiger economy. The scandal and Mr. Mohamad’s strong Malay nationalist credentials gave the opposition the momentum it had long sought. Also, he forged an alliance with his arch-rival, Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the Alliance of Hope, now in prison.
•Mr. Mohamad’s return to the Prime Minister’s office after more than a decadecoincides with the recovery of global commodity prices to Malaysia’s advantage. A regional heavyweight in the 1980s and 1990s, he was known for grandstanding on Asian values of collective well-being over the West’s emphasis on individual rights. He may find little need for such sermons on the world stage today, given the West’s diminishing appetite to hold leaderships to account on their human rights record. In any case, Mr. Mohamed has recast himself, and his promise to uphold the rule of law will strike a chord among both his domestic audience and across the ASEAN belt. The region has come to regard lack of democratic accountability as stumbling blocks to consolidating gains from economic integration. It remains to be seen how Mr. Mohamad honours his word to hand over charge to Mr. Ibrahim, whose return to politics is subject to a royal pardon. That would be a statesmanly gesture to cap an epoch-defining victory.
📰 It’s not about the nuclear deal
The U.S. won’t ease the terms of sanctions on Iran, as the goal is regime change in Tehran
•If — and that’s a big if — the leaders of the U.S., China, South Korea and North Korea succeed in concluding a deal on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula as well as on a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War, they would be front runners for the Nobel Peace Prize. That deal could appropriately be called a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) if it lays down a detailed blueprint for denuclearisation, with provisions of intrusive inspections. The only thing that could stand in their way is Iran.
•There should be little doubt that U.S. President Donald Trump’s real, but of necessity undeclared, objective in withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal is a regime change in Tehran. This goal is even more ardently desired by Israel and Saudi Arabia. Ever since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made particularly provocative statements about Israel, Israelis of all political persuasions have wanted to get rid of the regime in Iran. The Saudis have openly called for cutting off the head of the (Iranian) snake. Thus, three important and powerful states have a congruence of interests seldom seen in recent times.
Iranian discontent
•There have been frequent and persistent reports in the Western media for several months about large-scale demonstrations and protests by Iranian people against the regime. Living conditions are difficult. Iran did not get the goodies that it expected after signing the JCPOA. Inflation is high. The Iranian rial is trading at 75,000 to the dollar. People are angry with the government. According to the well-researched work Democracy in Iran: Why It Failed and How It Might Succeed by American academic Misagh Parsa, disaffection among the people has manifested itself in several forms. Hundreds of mosques do not have imams and the attendance at Friday prayers has dwindled dramatically. Some are converting to Christianity and, according to Professor Parsa, even to the Baha’i faith, which is the largest non-Muslim community in Iran. Professor Parsa states that there is massive corruption as well as economic inequality in Iran. All in all, he suggests that it is quite likely that there might be a revolutionary upsurge, though he is careful not to indicate any timeline for it.
A different calculation
•It is this discontent that Mr. Trump might be counting on tapping. His calculation seems to be that the reimposition of severe sanctions would render life very difficult, almost unbearable, for the populace who might, in the absence of other avenues, take to the streets, as they did in 1979 to overthrow the Shah’s regime which too, like the present one, had strong military and oppressive secret services such as the Savak but which could not defeat public anger, frustration and rage. For these reasons, Mr. Trump is unlikely to listen to voices of reason or to appeals from his Western allies. He is equally not likely to grant exemptions from sanctions to any country engaging in any form of trade and other transactions with Iran. His administration will follow strict interpretation of the guidelines regarding the sanctions regime.
Iranian restraint
•Iran has shown restraint, forsaking knee-jerk reaction. It did not declare that the deal was dead, as it might well have done. It did not announce immediate resumption of uranium enrichment, which it emphasised will be at the industrial level. It has so far not called off International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. Iran will consult with the other signatories to the JCPOA for several weeks before taking any further action. This shows the maturity of Iranian diplomacy. It remains to be seen how long France and others will stick to their position of continuing to adhere to the deal; they will eventually have to fall in line in some way with the Americans, if not for political then for economic considerations. For Mr. Trump, the Republicans are fully with him and the Democrats will be too eventually.
•Will Iran live up to the American calculation? For the present, Mr. Trump’s decision has strengthened the hardliners. President Hassan Rouhani, regarded as a moderate, has no option but to take a defiant stance. The Iranian people, proud as they are of their heritage, will stand behind their regime. But there may come a time when their hardships reach a stage when they might feel compelled to take to the streets.
•In the meanwhile, Iran will even more vigorously support the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus, in which it will be joined by Russia and Hezbollah, which has done very well in the parliamentary elections in Lebanon this month. The Houthi rebels in Yemen will feel more emboldened to take on the Saudi-led coalition; of course, the Yemeni people will continue to suffer, as will the Syrian people, for years to come. Iran will more directly intervene in Iraq and render the possibility of progress in the non-existent peace effort in Afghanistan even more difficult.
•If the regime in Tehran does not collapse, the Washington-Jerusalem-Riyadh axis might look for an alternative course of action, not excluding military. In that case, the Nobel Peace Prize will elude Mr. Trump.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi has established special relationship with Israel and its present Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He has also made efforts to forge intimate relations with the U.S. With both India has the upper hand, since it is they who want to sell expensive military hardware to India. Under the circumstances, India has made a well-drafted two-sentence statement on the Trump decision. The first strikes a balance between Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes as also the international community’s concern to ensure that its nuclear programme remains strictly peaceful. The second sentence contains implicit disapproval of the American decision and warns, again implicitly, against any strong military action. For India, the question will also be: can it rely on the U.S. to honour even its written word embodied in international agreements? Mr. Trump wants to annul every single achievement of his predecessor — Obamacare, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement, and now JCPOA. India will have to remain vigilant in dealing with this administration; it would not be prudent to assume that it is a special case.
Fallout for India
•The impact on India will be severe. The price of crude is already close to $80. Energy imports from Iran will become difficult and expensive. Fuel prices will go up. The Reserve Bank of India might have to increase interest rates to contain inflation and step in to check the fall in the rupee’s value. All this might have a direct bearing on politics, given the fact that the government was the beneficiary of low crude price for the first four years but may have to face consequences of inflation and attendant factors in its fifth.
📰 Pokhran II, twenty years later
The liability law and the Fukushima accident have changed India’s nuclear energy outlook
•Twenty years ago, on May 11, 1998, India took a leap into the unknown world of nuclear weapon powers with the tests at Pokhran. Though the decision was taken after great deliberation and with preparation, how the reaction of the world would affect the future of India was unknown. But today, it is certain that the action was timely and inevitable.
Obstacles removed
•India has reason to be satisfied over having accomplished many of the objectives of Pokhran II. Indian diplomacy triumphed in turning a grave crisis into an opportunity by securing legitimacy for its nuclear arsenal and removing obstacles in generating nuclear power. But the hasty enactment of a liability law, which inhibited nuclear trade, and the setback globally to nuclear power on account of the Fukushima disaster stood in the way of India benefitting fully from Pokhran II and the subsequent agreements reached. The fact, however, remains that the 1998 tests and the subsequent nuclear deal have brought India to the nuclear mainstream and opened up the global nuclear market for development of nuclear power without signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) or the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
•The tests shocked the world, particularly because they were done with utmost secrecy and the India-U.S. ties hit rock bottom. For nearly two months, the U.S. refused to have any dialogue with India and implemented the Glenn Amendment for the first time. Newer sanctions were imposed, and at one point it looked that relations would never recover.
•The talks between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh over the next two years were the most comprehensive dialogues India had with the U.S. on its nuclear policy, including the threat perception and future plans for security. India was anxious to have the sanctions lifted, but Mr. Singh sought to delink sanctions from the security dialogue, not to be pressurised to take quick decisions. Mr. Talbott began by insisting that the objective was to get India to sign the NPT. Then he listed five benchmarks as non-proliferation goals to normalise relations: signing the CTBT, halting production of fissile material, strategic restraint, strengthening export control regimes, and normalisation of relations with Pakistan. These were strongly rejected by India, but the talks proceeded on the assumption that India’s security concerns should be fully understood and that India would take certain measures to suit its new status. But, in effect, India met the U.S. demands more than half way, leading to an understanding, which led to President Bill Clinton’s visit to India and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to the U.S. in 2000. India refused to sign the CTBT, but declared a moratorium on testing; agreed to join the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty negotiations without halting fissile material production; reaffirmed minimum deterrent without giving any number of warheads; and agreed to strengthen export controls. Additionally, India declared no-first-use and commitment to disarmament. Though no deal could be struck, the foundation was laid for what became the nuclear deal in 2008.
•Though India placed its civilian nuclear facilities under perpetual safeguards, its nuclear assets remained fully insulated against external scrutiny and interference. India secured rights to receive uninterrupted nuclear fuel supplies as a trade-off against safeguards. It kept open its right to acquire advanced enrichment and reprocessing technologies, although it would require bilateral negotiations with the U.S. and others. India’s sovereign right to test a nuclear device in the future has remained intact, although the deal would be in jeopardy in such an eventuality. Presidents George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh remained committed to the deal throughout the negotiations and made decisive interventions at crucial moments. Apart from the specific gains in the nuclear area, the new India-U.S. partnership, which promised investment and high technology, was a turning point in Indian foreign policy. On the negative side, the deal generated mistrust in Russia and China, which had to be dealt with in future years.
Reality check
•Ten years after signing the deal, its gains and losses have proved much less game-changing than it was hoped in 2008. Though not a champion of the deal as a Senator, President Barack Obama committed himself to the implementation of the deal as part of his strategy to build good relations with India. But his personal affinity to the NPT and non-proliferation made him reluctant to interpret the 123 Agreement liberally. The expectation was that the prospect of nuclear trade with India would be a great attraction, but in 2009 Mr. Obama gave clear indication to his advisers that he would not sacrifice his non-proliferation agenda for commercial reasons. Much has happened since then, but the fact remains that there has been no nuclear trade till today. India’s nuclear liability law, forced on the government by critics of the deal, became a smokescreen for the U.S. to not supply nuclear material to India. The repeated declarations about a way out of the liability law and plans to set up American reactors in India after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister have not changed the lack of enthusiasm in the U.S. on nuclear trade with India. In any case, the situation has become more volatile after Donald Trump became U.S. President.
•Another major event that has shaken confidence in the value of nuclear power in India’s energy mix was the Fukushima disaster. It has changed the global nuclear power scenario beyond recognition, though India has maintained that it is “business as usual”. The government’s recent decision to build more indigenous reactors points to the fact that the dream of imported nuclear reactors dotting India has disappeared. India’s focus has rightly shifted to solar and other new sources of energy.
📰 Faith and diplomacy: on the India-Nepal relationship
Mixing personal faith with bilateral diplomacy makes for good optics — but only when all goes well
•When he visited India for the Agra Summit in 2001, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf added religious stops to the trip — perhaps with a domestic constituency in mind and perhaps hoping for some luck too. His itinerary included a visit to the Nizamuddin dargah on his first day in Delhi and to the Ajmer dargah on his way back. But the visit to Ajmer never took place as the Summit was extended and then collapsed. In 2005, Mr. Musharraf took no chances and began his trip to India by first going to Ajmer.
•Similarly, after an aborted attempt to visit Janakpur in November 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will begin his visit to Nepal on Friday by first landing in Janakpur, before he heads to Kathmandu for talks. He will also visit Muktinath in Mustang, which was on his itinerary in November 2014, but was cancelled at the last minute. Mr. Modi’s disappointment over his inability to travel to both these places was palpable when he landed in Kathmandu, officials say. Shortly after landing, he gave a stern speech indicating that there was a lack of consensus-building on the Nepali Constitution. “That came as a shock to us, as just three months earlier, in our Parliament, he had clearly said that building the constitution was Nepal’s job alone,” said a close adviser to then Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala.
•What led to the cancellation of the Janakpur visit remains a mystery. The most obvious reason seemed to be the protests by the opposition in Nepal over Mr. Modi’s plans to address a public rally in Janakpur. Another issue was that Mr. Modi had wanted to drive to Janakpur by road through the Birgunj-Raxaul checkpoint, and there was fear that his convoy would be accompanied by crowds overrunning the open border. Accusing the government of giving up Nepal’s “sovereignty”, the Maoists even threatened a parallel rally, leading to new security concerns. Indian officials say they felt snubbed when all this was conveyed to them and Mr. Modi decided to call off his pilgrimage plans. When the four-month-long economic blockade happened at the Raxaul border in 2015, many in the Nepali establishment held the bitterness of the past year responsible for it. New Delhi always disclaimed responsibility for enforcing the blockade, but the Nepali perception was fuelled by the fact that the last time Nepal had faced a blockade, in 1989, it had come after another disastrous diplomatic incident, when Sonia Gandhi was not allowed to enter Kathmandu’s Pashupatinath temple by its orthodox priests, who said only Hindus could enter. Mixing personal faith with bilateral diplomacy makes for good optics when all goes well, but when bilateral ties suffer, it gets personal all too quickly.
•Much has changed in four years. This time, officials say it was Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli who reminded Mr. Modi, during a phone call after the Nepal elections, that he should visit Janakpur at the earliest. Mr. Modi will — by helicopter, not by road across the border. Through this gesture, both leaders are signalling the closing of a bitter chapter in India-Nepal ties.
📰 Donald Trump to meet Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12
The location was revealed hours after three American prisoners were released by North Korea and arrived back in the U.S.
•U.S. President Donald Trump on May 10 announced his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will take place in Singapore on June 12.
•“We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!” Mr. Trump announced on Twitter.
•The two leaders are expected to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons development and testing programme, which has deepened long-seated tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.
•Mr. Trump's announcement came just hours after three Americans who had been held prisoner in North Korea arrived at a U.S. military base outside Washington, having been released by Mr. Kim.
•Mr. Trump said on their arrival that he believed Mr. Kim wanted to bring North Korea “into the real world” and had high hopes for their planned meeting, which would be the first between a serving U.S. President and a North Korean leader.
•“I think we have a very good chance of doing something very meaningful,” Mr. Trump said. “My proudest achievement will be — this is part of it — when we denuclearise that entire peninsula.”
📰 SC reserves verdict in Aadhaar case
Petitions have challenged constitutional validity of Aadhaar and its enabling 2016 law
•The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and its enabling 2016 law after a marathon 38-day hearing that spanned four months.
•A five-judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.K. Sikri, A.M. Khanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan heard the argument of all the parties before reserving its verdict.
•A battery of lawyers including Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, who represented the Centre, and senior advocates Kapil Sibal, P. Chidambaram, Rakesh Dwivedi, Shyam Divan and Arvind Datar appeared for various parties.
•The petitions are directed at the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, 2016; the Aadhaar project from 2009 to 2016; parts of the project which are not covered by the Act; authorities’ attempts to make Aadhaar compulsory when not defined by the law; the government’s push to link Aadhaar numbers with SIM cards, bank accounts and PANs; and the move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits and subsidies.
•On March 13, the Supreme Court indefinitely extended the deadline for linking Aadhaar with mobile phones, tatkal passports and for opening bank accounts till it pronounces its final verdict on the validity of the Aadhaar scheme.
•The petitioners challenging Aadhaar argue that the scheme is a stark violation of citizen’s fundamental right to privacy.
📰 Getting down to business
A bill seeks to make it easier to resolve commercial disputes
•The Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts (Amendment) Bill of 2018 is pending in Parliament. The Bill intends to jump-start India as a sought-out business destination in the world. Its objective is to set India at the top of the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ index of the World Bank. It aims to create a conducive regulatory environment for investors to set up and operate businesses.
•India recently jumped 30 positions and reached the 100th rank in terms of ‘Ease of Doing Business’ among 190 countries. The urgency is apparent, with the government also promulgating an ordinance.
•The Bill proposes to lower the specified value of a commercial dispute to ₹3 lakh from the present ₹1 crore so that commercial disputes of a reasonable value can be decided by commercial courts. This would bring down the time taken (at present, 1,445 days) in resolving commercial disputes of less value, and further improve India’s ranking in the index.
•The Bill provides for the establishment of commercial courts at the district judge level for the territories over which the respective High Courts have ordinary original civil jurisdiction, as in Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Himachal Pradesh. The State governments in such territories may by notification specify such pecuniary value of commercial disputes to be adjudicated at the district level. In the jurisdiction of High Courts other than those exercising ordinary original jurisdiction, a forum of appeal in commercial disputes decided by commercial courts below the level of district judge is being provided, in the form of Commercial Appellate Courts to be at the district judge level.
•The introduction of the Pre-Institution Mediation (PIM) process in cases where no urgent or interim relief is contemplated would provide an opportunity to the parties to resolve commercial disputes outside the ambit of the courts through the authorities constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. The Bill proposes a new Section, 21A, which enables the Centre to make rules and procedures for PIM.
•The Cabinet note for the Bill says that with rapid economic development, there has been a considerable increase in commercial activities and a consequent steep rise in the number of commercial disputes at the domestic and international levels. Increase in foreign direct investment and overseas commercial transactions have further contributed to a significant rise in commercial disputes.
📰 Need rules to balance out digital media: Smriti
‘We should not have one player ruling the roost’
•Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani on Thursday underscored the need for “laws, ethics and rules” to ensure that no one player dominated the digital media industry.
•She was speaking at the inaugural function of the 15th Asia Media Summit 2018. This is the first time the summit has been organised in India. The theme is ‘Telling Our Stories Asia and More.’
•“Do we look at the new evolving technologies from a position of suspect or do we look [at them] from a position of opportunity, from a position of consolidation or further expansion?” Ms. Irani said.
•She said India would have 969 million Internet users by 2021, and the digital world should be looked at not only as a challenge but also as an opportunity. “This is the time to put laws, ethics, rules in place, which will help us balance out the industry so that we do not have one dominant player who rules the roost.”
•She said India was the fastest growing advertising market, which was expected to touch the $10.59-billion mark by the end of 2018, and mobile spend was estimated to grow to $1.55 billion in 2018.
📰 Tiny fossil shells unveil details about ancient Earth’s climate
The fossils extracted from blocks of limestone were 515-510 million years old
•Scientists have discovered tiny fossil shells that unveil details about the Earth’s climate over half a billion years ago. The research, published in the journal Science Advances, suggests that early animals diversified within a climate similar to that in which the dinosaurs lived.
•An international collaboration of scientists, led by the University of Leicester in the UK, has investigated by combining climate models and chemical analyses of fossil shells about 1mm long. This interval in time is known for the ‘Cambrian explosion’, the time during which representatives of most of the major animal groups first appear in the fossil record.
•These include the first animals to produce shells, and it is these shelly fossils that the scientists used. Scientists have long thought that the early Cambrian Period was probably a greenhouse interval in Earth’s climate history, a time when there were no permanent polar ice sheets. Until now, however, scientists have only had a sense of what the Cambrian climate was like because of the types of rock that were deposited at this time – while it has long been believed that the climate was warm, specific details have largely remained a mystery.
Temperature data
•Data from the tiny fossil shells, and data from new climate model runs, show that high latitude ( about 65 degree South) sea temperatures were in excess of 20 degrees C. This seems very hot, but it is similar to more recent, better understood, greenhouse climates like that of the Late Cretaceous Period.
•“Because scientists cannot directly measure sea temperatures from half a billion years ago, they have to use proxy data – these are measurable quantities that respond in a predictable way to changing climate variables like temperature,” said Thomas Hearing, a PhD student from the University of Leicester in the UK. “In this study, we used oxygen isotope ratios, which is a commonly used palaeothermometer. We then used acid to extract fossils about 1mm long from blocks of limestone from Shropshire, UK, dated to between 515-510 million years old.”
•“Careful examination of these tiny fossils revealed that some of them have exceptionally well-preserved shell chemistry which has not changed since they grew on the Cambrian sea floor,” he added.
Climate model simulations
•“Many marine animals incorporate chemical traces of seawater into their shells as they grow. That chemical signature is often lost over geological time, so it’s remarkable that we can identify it in such ancient fossils,” said Tom Harvey from University of Leicester. Analyses of the oxygen isotopes of these fossils suggested very warm temperatures for high latitude seas, probably between 20 to 25 degree Celsius.
•To see if these were feasible sea temperatures, the scientists then ran climate model simulations for the early Cambrian. The climate model simulations also suggest that Earth’s climate was in a ‘typical’ greenhouse state, with temperatures similar to more recent, and better understood, greenhouse intervals in Earth’s climate history, like the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic eras.
•Ultimately, these findings help to expand our knowledge of the early animals of the period and the environment in which they lived. “We hope that this approach can be used by other researchers to build up a clearer picture of ancient climates where conventional climate proxy data are not available,” said Hearing.
