Sunday, September 26, 2021

 British Columbia

Immigrant nurses in B.C. say language proficiency tests a barrier to practice

Anne Ignacio took the IELTS exam 7 times before switching careers

Christina Jung · CBC News · 
Anne Ignacio (centre) and her two sisters. Anne said she started studying kinesiology after being unable to pass the IELTS, one of the requirements for working as a registered nurse in B.C. (Anne Ignacio/Submitted)

Some internationally educated nurses in B.C. say the language proficiency requirement to become a registered nurse is an unnecessary barrier forcing them to give up their career and look for other jobs. Amid the strain of the pandemic on other nurses, they say they feel frustrated, unable to help.

Anne Ignacio and her parents, all internationally educated nurses (IENs), immigrated to Canada from the Philippines almost a decade ago with hopes of continuing to work in their profession.

But after multiple attempts at passing the English proficiency exam, she said they had to make the difficult decision to switch careers.

"The required scores for the English exams, I find it ridiculous," Ignacio said. "They require an overall score ... and they also require you to meet a certain score for each category."

Anne Ignacio's parents, Maria and Ramon. She said when they moved to Canada in 2011, her parents — also internationally educated nurses — had to take "survival jobs" to make ends meet. (Anne Ignacio/Submitted)

IENs can take one of two language tests — the Canadian English Language Benchmark Assessment for Nurses (CELBAN), or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), which cost around $300 to $400 each to take. The results of both tests expire after two years.

Ignacio, who worked as an operating room nurse for two years before coming to Canada, said she would score above the overall minimum in the IELTS, but come up short by half a mark in one of its categories.

After seven attempts, she said she couldn't afford to take any more tests. 

"That's when I decided if nursing is not working out for me here in Canada, then I will just have to pursue another program," she said. "My job at the time, I only made $13 an hour and it wasn't full time work."

'It would be better if we would have ended up where we expected'

Ignacio's dad, Ramon, who has over 20 years of experience as a dentist in addition to a nursing degree, now works for an organization that helps patients with developmental challenges.

Her mom, Maria, who also has degrees in nursing and hospitality management, works in a housekeeping role at a retirement home.

"Still in the health care field-ish, but it would be better if we would have ended up where we expected with our profession," said the younger Ignacio.

She said before they left, they attended an immigration seminar where "they said there's a lot of opportunities for nurses and doctors because Canada is constantly needing professionals in the health care field."

Leilani Leonardo said she immigrated to Canada in 2011 with the same understanding.

When Leilani Leonardo immigrated to Canada with her family in 2011, she said she was hopeful of being able to continue working as a nurse. But the language proficiency exams, and requirements for further education, were expensive. (Leilani Leonardo/Submitted)

Leilani said she worked for four years as a labour and delivery nurse, and an operating room nurse, at one of Manila's top hospitals.

She said she took the language proficiency test twice before learning she also needed to complete four more years of schooling.

"I just gave up," she said. "The whole system is so convoluted and it's really expensive ... and I had bills and expenses."

But after almost 10 years, Leonardo said she has decided to pursue her nursing registration again, now that her children are older and life is a bit easier to manage.

After almost 10 years, Leilani Leonardo said she is pursuing her nursing registration again, now that her children are older and life is a bit easier to manage. (Leilani Leonardo/submitted)

"I'm really excited and I'm hopeful. I managed to save up a little bit and I'm ready to do it again to at least prove that I can do it."

Petition for change

Sara Jackson, who has been teaching English as a second language to internationally educated health care professionals since 2000, said she's seen students try for years to meet the high language requirements and eventually give up to pursue another career.

"It was heartbreaking because they were just stuck," said Jackson, also a registered nurse. "The system is not designed to break people but it does."

In 2019, she said she decided to put out a petition to lower the required IELTS and CELBAN scores for IENs.

"I have sent this petition to every nursing regulatory body across Canada and to the Ministry of Health," she said.

In an email statement to CBC, the British Columbia College of Nursing and Midwives said they work with the Ministry of Health and the National Nursing Assessment Service (NNAS) — which evaluates the educational and professional credentials of IENs — to regularly update and streamline the registration process.

"We are working collaboratively with the Ministry of Health, NNAS, and other partners to continuously ensure that our processes protect the public and ensure that nursing standards are met," they said.

B.C.'s Ministry of Health said they are aware of concerns over test accessibility, costs, score requirements and delays, especially for immigrants.

"In response to processing delays due to English Language Testing requirements by National Nursing Assessment Service, effective July 8, 2021, applicants can defer their language assessment until they apply for licensing registration in B.C.," the ministry said in a written statement. 

 

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World’s Top Shale Oil Field Is Still Spewing Methane by the Ton

Zachary R. Mider and Rachel Adams-Heard
Thu, 23 September 2021, 


(Bloomberg) -- When researchers flew over an Energy Transfer LP facility in the Permian Basin of West Texas two months ago, a NASA-designed sensor on their airplane detected a colossal plume of methane pouring into the air.

Over the next two weeks, they returned twice and found large amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas each time. It was just one of many persistent methane emitters discovered by an aerial survey conducted by the Environmental Defense Fund over the largest U.S. oil field in July and August.

The invisible leak was later calculated at more than a ton per hour, with a short-term impact on the atmosphere equivalent to about 47,000 idling cars.

Halting methane leaks has become one of the most important fronts in the fight against climate change, and companies across the U.S. energy industry have been pledging to curb their emissions of the gas. But the study released Thursday shows a shocking amount of pollution continues.

Methane is the chief component of natural gas and packs more than 80 times the planet-warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. It often escapes undetected by companies that produce and transport natural gas, and in some cases methane is intentionally vented to prevent equipment failure.

The results of the flyovers don’t appear to show much progress compared to a similar survey conducted in 2019, said David Lyon, a senior scientist at EDF. “Emissions are still very high, so there’s still a lot of opportunities for companies to reduce.”

EDF found emissions at a total of 533 different locations, including 149 persistent ones, where plumes were spotted in the same place on at least two different days. Energy Transfer and Targa Resources Corp., both Texas-based pipeline operators, were among those with the highest numbers of persistent sources at 11 and 16, respectively.

In all, emissions from persistent locations made up about 45% of all methane EDF detected over the course of the survey. EOG Resources Inc. had the highest number of persistent locations among oil and gas producers, with eight sites that had a plume on more than one day during the survey.

An Energy Transfer spokeswoman said she couldn’t speak to the accuracy of the survey data. The company complies with an air permit in place at the compressor station found emitting methane and regularly monitors the facility for emissions, she said.

A representative for EOG said the company believes its methane-emissions performance in the Permian “compares favorably against others in the industry” and that it would review the data for accuracy. Targa didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The EDF survey used an airplane operated by Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit that partners with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It’s able to see only the largest plumes of gas, sometimes referred to as “super-emitters.”

The best way for companies to eliminate these super-emitters is to perform their own regular inspections, Lyon said. Some companies conduct their own aerial surveys to hunt for leaks, while others use stationary monitors at their sites.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules require companies to inspect oil and gas wells regularly for leaks, but those rules apply only to new facilities. The agency is currently drafting rules that would apply to older facilities, but it hasn’t yet said whether those rules would extend to low-producing oil and gas wells. Many industry groups oppose methane regulations on low producers, arguing that inspection costs could make these wells uneconomic.

EDF said its findings bolster the case for including low-producing wells, which made up about one-tenth of the emissions sources it identified.

When it comes to cracking down on methane emissions, oil and gas industry groups said this month that they actually favor direct regulation over a proposed fee that Democrats have introduced as a way to pay for their $3.5 trillion spending plan. A coalition of trade groups and local chambers of commerce called the measure “punitive” and said taxing methane emissions from oil and gas facilities would threaten Americans’ access to cheap energy.

Any impact from such a fee on drillers’ bottom line would depend heavily on how methane emissions are measured, Citigroup Inc. analysts wrote in a note to clients this week. That’s because methane estimates based on satellite images and aerial surveys tend to show far higher counts than what companies self-report to U.S. regulators.
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Zeroing in on the Cause of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

Although trace amounts of chemicals have been blamed for ill health, a new and comprehensive look at the evidence points the finger at anxiety
| 25 Sep 2021
Health
MCGILL


Sometimes, science doesn’t give you the answer you wanted. You may be certain you know what is causing a mysterious phenomenon, but a well-done scientific experiment denies you that satisfaction and points you in an unexpected direction. Reality can be stranger than hypotheses.

Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is one of those mysterious phenomena that science, when applied correctly, has the power to resolve. (As a side note, MCS can also be found under the larger umbrella of idiopathic environmental intolerance or IEI.) Put succinctly, it’s the complaint that some people are harmed by small concentrations of chemicals that the rest of us tolerate. Think perfumes, air fresheners, paints, scented products. It is a syndrome, a group of symptoms that always occur together, but those symptoms, to the great frustration of medical professionals, are often non-specific: they can have dozens and dozens of potential causes. They are commonly things like fatigue, headaches, and a general sense of not being well. The full list of potential symptoms involves every organ system in the body.

When a patient consults a doctor about non-specific symptoms and a battery of tests reveals nothing, it can be irritating. “The symptoms are clearly there,” the patient thinks, “why can’t my doctor find what’s causing them?” Which is why when they are given a diagnosis, even one that turns out to be wrong or fake, it feels reassuring. A diagnosis provides information about the condition and paves the way to meet other people with the diagnosis who can offer moral support and potential solutions.

I bring up MCS in this context because the question of what causes it has been addressed by a massive report that was published earlier this summer (in French only). In fact, to call it a report is to show modesty on behalf of its authors. At over 800 pages and with an emphasis on educating the reader about the many discoveries and technological innovations that helped researchers probe the mystery of MCS, it is a veritable textbook on multiple chemical sensitivity.

This textbook was commissioned by Quebec’s Ministry of Health and Social Services because of the magnitude of the problem in Canada. As the authors remark, the number of medical appointments made by people with MCS in Canada is much higher than that of a similar population. Quebec’s public health agency, the INSPQ, was thus tasked with summarizing the literature on the subject (over 4,000 papers and documents), and my hat’s off to the textbook’s many authors for this colossal work.

MCS was first described in 1956 and in the intervening 65 years, a number of hypotheses have been formulated to explain what its underlying cause may be. Could people with MCS have a genetic predisposition, a change in their DNA, that would trigger this sensitivity? We already know that certain changes can affect the activity of our enzymes tasked with metabolizing foreign substances. We can imagine a similar scenario in which molecules from a perfume end up causing some sort of toxicity because of the impaired function of an important enzyme. Genetic studies of MCS have so far produced contradictory results, in part because determining who belongs to the MCS group is not easy. There is no diagnostic test that can confirm someone has MCS. It is a diagnosis of exclusion, what is left after ruling out a long list of possibilities. So who participates in a genetic study of MCS can be just about anyone who self-identifies as having the syndrome, and this can fudge the data. So far, the INSPQ report concludes, the lack of reliability of these genetic studies means we cannot blame MCS on specific changes in the DNA. As we have seen with handedness, height, asthma and other traits, however, it may be that multiple genes all make small contributions to MCS, but this remains to be proven.

Another hypothesis is that these chemicals would have a neurotoxic effect: they would directly alter the normal functioning of the brain. Various mechanisms were proposed, including one poetically called “limbic kindling” which suggests that small, repeated exposures of the brain to a substance leads to a much-amplified response later on even in the absence of exposure. The idea is that these small, early exposures “kindled” or set fire to the electrical activity of the brain and the metaphorical fire is now self-sustained. While scientists seemingly agree that the limbic system—the parts of our brain involved in emotion, memory, learning, and motivation—indeed plays a role in MCS, they disagree on whether the dreaded chemicals are toxic to it or if the impact on the limbic system is due to the anxiety of anticipating the presence of the chemical. More on that later.

Then there is the immune system. Could MCS be an allergy? Laboratory tests proved negative. Could MCS be a type of immunodeficiency or an autoimmune condition like lupus? The data we have so far seem to disprove these ideas, although high levels of pro-inflammatory molecules seen with MCS (but not unique to it) may contribute to the condition.

The INSPQ textbook goes on to survey the remaining hypotheses—blaming oxidative stress, or inflammation inside the brain or the spinal cord, or the sense of smell itself—but while some of these systems are altered in some way in MCS, nothing could be pinned down as a specific cause. Studies on the sense of smell are particularly revealing, however. People with MCS who enrolled in these studies had no better detection threshold than people without MCS when it came to smells, thus ruling out a hypersensitivity of the nose, but surprisingly enough they were worse at identifying and distinguishing familiar smells. Not better; worse. Moreover, in a 2016 study, participants with MCS would start reporting symptoms before the volatile chemicals were even deployed. Faced with all of this information, the INSPQ report ends with the remaining hypothesis: that multiple chemical sensitivity is an anxiety disorder.

It’s worth highlighting the fact that people who suffer from an anxiety disorder are not “crazy.” Our brain is an organ, like our liver and lungs, and it can malfunction. There is an unfortunate stigma around mental health and a severe underfunding of services meant to address it. But anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder—these are as real as high blood pressure and asthma, and they have genuine and debilitating effects on the body. Summarizing the research on MCS, the INSPQ report proposes that chronic anxiety can explain all of the symptoms associated with MCS. Anxiety is characterized by the anticipation of a perceived danger, which leads the person to always be on the lookout for this supposed threat, thus creating a state of permanent stress. The perception of a threat, in this case, a chemical, arises through a bit of conditioning: if the chemical is originally detected when someone’s symptoms independently manifest themselves, an association is made which leads to a catastrophizing anticipation of the next exposure. Physical consequences, like insomnia, depression, and headaches, trickle down from this state of constant anxiety.

This is a real health issue, and the INSPQ proposes that specialized centres dedicated to MCS be set up to address this significant problem. While it is challenging to know how many people are affected by MCS given the lack of proper diagnostic tools, the scientific literature reveals numbers between 0.5 and 3% of the population when it is diagnosed by a medical doctor, and up to 32% (a third) of the population when it is self-diagnosed, with a higher risk being seen in women and in adults between the ages of 40 and 60. This is not a problem that can be ignored.

But blaming trace amounts of chemicals is simply not supported by the evidence at this point. If you cannot reliably tell when you are being exposed to the chemical; if you start reporting symptoms before the chemical is even released; if your brain is worse at identifying smells than the average person; if it has been shown that these chemicals, present in trace amounts, are not even absorbed by your body; then it is unlikely this chemical is responsible for the debilitating symptoms. This latest summary of the evidence points us in a different direction than the original name of the syndrome did, and while it will not please everyone, it paves the way for more effective treatments of a very real condition.

Take-home message:

-Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is a chronic condition, often blamed on exposure to trace amounts of chemicals, that is accompanied by a wide variety of symptoms

-Since it was first described in 1956, scientists have investigated many hypotheses to explain how tiny concentrations of chemicals could affect people with MCS: hypotheses based on genetics, neurology, the immune system, the sense of smell, oxidative stress, and the mind influencing the body

-An 840-page report by Quebec’s public health agency summarizes the state of our knowledge on MCS and comes to the conclusion that trace amounts of chemicals are not to blame and that MCS is a type of anxiety disorder in which anticipation of a danger causes very real and debilitating physical symptoms

@CrackedScience
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 The Current·Back to the Land

How BIPOC farmers are working to make rural agriculture more diverse

Farmers of colour often forced more than white farmers to prove credibility: expert

CBC Radio · 
Aliyah Fraser started Lucky Bug Farm on a rented plot of land in Erin, Ont., earlier this year. As one of the only Black farmers in her area, she hopes to bring produce such as collard greens and Scotch bonnet peppers to local markets. (Submitted by Aliyah Fraser)
The Current23:36Back to the Land: How a first-generation farmer hopes to make rural agriculture more diverse

On her farm in small-town Ontario, Aminah Haghighi is trying to shake the perception that farmers are typically older white men.

Though she acknowledges she didn't have much of a green thumb when she moved to Hillier, Ont., two hours east of Toronto, last year, the first-generation farmer now sells a cornucopia of produce from her quarter-acre of land.

"I'm not an outdoorsy person, but I really, really felt connected with growing food," she told Back to the Land host Duncan McCue.

"I saw that there weren't a lot of people that looked like me in this. And so I thought, maybe, if I'm not going to do it, then who else is going to look like me in this space," said Haghighi, 31, who is of Iranian and Filipino descent.

Even though some of Haghighi's family in the Philippines are rice farmers, she admits she couldn't picture herself in agriculture

For most people, the childhood nursery rhyme, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, conjures up an image of the typical farmer: a "white guy," says Jacqueline L. Scott, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto who studies the intersection of race and nature.

"Nature is coded as a white space; the city is coded as a multicultural space," she told McCue.

"So when Black people, people of colour show up in nature — whether in the rural areas, on the farms or in the wilderness in outdoor recreation, you're seen as out of place. It's always like, 'Oh, what are you doing here?'"

Whether selling produce at markets or performing as cowboys at the Calgary Stampede, Black farmers have a long history in Canada, Scott says.

"If you go to Niagara-on-the-Lake, at one point in the 1850s, a huge chunk of the population there were Black farmers," she said. If you visited St. Jacob's, Ont., around the same time, many of the vendors selling at markets would have also been Black farmers.

"But if you don't know the history, and you go today, it's like, 'Oh, Black people weren't here.'"

Jacqueline L. Scott is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Toronto who studies the intersection of race and nature. (Submitted by Jacqueline L. Scott)

From city to country

Young farmers like Haghighi are fighting to upend that assumption.

Spurred by a love of food and the COVID-19 pandemic, Haghighi started Raining Gold Family Growers late last year. She focuses on ecologically minded farming methods — there is no tilling to reduce weeds and efforts are made to reduce water use. This summer, she employed two BIPOC workers.

Raining Gold began with a backyard garden at Haghighi's Toronto home in the midst of the city's first lockdown.

"I had no idea what I was doing — zero," she said.

With the help of YouTube and books, she had grown a "jungle" of food: tomatoes, peppers and "crazy cucumber plants that would have overtaken my house" by the end of her first summer.

When friends announced they were moving east from Toronto to Prince Edward County, a two-hour drive away, Haghighi and her husband, Bryce, took notice. The pair scraped together their savings for a down payment on land in the county.

Grown at her quarter-acre plot in Prince Edward County, Haghighi sells produce from microgreens to tomatoes in subscription boxes and at local markets.

But marketing herself as a woman of colour farmer in the rural county of about 24,000 residents has been a source of pushback from locals and hateful comments online, she said.

"One of the things that was very difficult was that people would look at us and would assume that we weren't from here or assume that we don't live down the street, and therefore we don't get to receive the same treatment that the other white folks would be getting," she said.

Scott said those perceptions can cause BIPOC farmers to feel as though they "have to prove their credibility, their competence as farmers, because they are not what we are expecting to see."

Changing the food system

When she started Lucky Bug Farm in Erin, Ont., earlier this year, Aliyah Fraser says she wanted to prove there is space in the food system for BIPOC farmers.

"We are the ones who think outside of the normal box of just the way that things are done, and I think if there are more of us in the food system, we can just create greater change," said Fraser, 25.

Scott stands beside a plaque commemorating the history of Black settlement in Ontario's Oro Township. (Submitted by Jacqueline L. Scott)

At the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., market where Fraser sells produce such as collard greens and Scotch bonnet peppers, she's one of the only Black growers.

While reception to Fraser's offerings has been largely positive, she says some shoppers visit the stall and "assume that I'm not the grower until I say those words," often believing that her partner, who is white, is the farmer.

"We're [Black farmers] always bumping up against other people's assumptions and expectations for us and having to really set the record straight often. And I mean, that's just a form of racism."

Scott notes that the majority of vendors at farmers' markets are white, while Black and brown agriculture workers — many from Latin American and Caribbean countries — are in the background.

"It's sold as this wholesome, healthy, alternative way of producing food. But it is white people who are doing the selling. It's mainly white people who are buying," Scott said. Black and brown people "very rarely get the public face, the public image."

Fraser says as a Black farmer, people often make assumptions about her role in agriculture. (Donalee McIntyre)

Accessing land, resources for BIPOC farmers

An additional barrier is the significant overhead costs associated with starting a farm — and historically low rates of rural land ownership among people of colour, Fraser says.

In fact, 2016 Statistics Canada data found that women are more likely than men to rent or lease land.

Fraser has been renting a quarter-acre of land since February but will move to a new plot where she feels more supported, not only as a Black farmer but as someone new to agriculture.

"I have luckily found a space for next year where the landowners are white, but they understand that it takes time to build a business and they understand that it takes time to build soil, and they understand that farming and food growing for market is really tough," she said.

Resources are top of mind for Haghighi. In addition to starting Raining Gold, purchasing the family's property in Prince Edward County provided an opportunity to set her children up for the future.

"Creating generational wealth for our children is of utmost importance to us because we don't come from any financial privilege at all, and we don't want our kids to have the same issues that we did," she said.

Given the challenges she's faced — and worries about her kids — Haghighi says she's not sure if she will stay in Prince Edward County for the long term.

But she says it's clear there's interest for the kind of farm she runs.

When Haghighi posted an online ad for two farm crew members that encouraged BIPOC individuals and those who face systemic barriers to traditional farming to apply, she says she received more than 300 responses.

"It's funny when other old, white men farmers say, 'Well, nobody wants to work on my farm,'" Haghighi said. "I think that people really resonated with the job posting and with me as a potential employer.

"People do want to do this ... there's just no opportunity for it."

Written by Jason Vermes. Interviews with Aminah Haghighi and Jacqueline L. Scott produced by Zoe Tennant.

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Nfld. & Labrador

In the frigid depths of the Labrador Sea, these scientists are studying coral in novel ways

Local researchers on CCGS Amundsen spent 28-day mission in northern waters


Jane Adey · CBC News · Posted: Sep 26, 2021 
Maxime Geoffroy is a research scientist at the Marine Institute in St. John's. He's the chief scientist aboard a research vessel that explored the depths of the Labrador Sea this summer. (Maxime Geoffroy/Twitter

Two heads are better than one at solving a problem, as the old saying goes.

Well, imagine the strides in ocean science when 36 researchers come together on a month-long deep-sea mission.

That's exactly what happened this past summer on board the Canadian research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, as part of its annual science program.

The trip eyed the deep-water corals of the northern Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay, seeking to reveal answers to mysteries about how ecosystems far, far below the surface actually operate.

This is a type of coral called a sea pen, taken from an area called the Hatton Sill at a depth of 698 m. Sea pens live on soft areas of the ocean floor, anchoring themselves in the sediment with what's called a peduncle. 
(Submitted by Barbara Neves)

Maxime Geoffroy, a fish specialist with the Marine Institute in St. John's and chief scientist for the mission, describes the 28-day journey as a holistic approach to science. He says having such a wide variety of scientists on board one vessel — from geologists to people analyzing water nutrients — can bring researchers a new understanding of the complexity of the ocean.

"If I'm looking at fish and I don't really look at the habitat where they could spawn near the bottom, then I lose a whole perspective of their lifecycle," he said.

"But if I can sit at lunch with a specialist of the bottom habitat, and have a discussion about why these fish are there ... then it brings a whole new perspective about what we could expect in the future, in terms of reaction to the environment."
Deep water corals

Barbara Neves, a research scientist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in St. John's, studies corals.

While trees on land act as a habitat for birds, insects and mammals, on the sea floor, corals have the same important function, she explains.

"So you might see shrimp or fish or little bivalves or little worms that live in association with them, because they want them to as a place to rest or to feed or to hide," said Neves.

Research scientist Barbara Neves on board the CCGS Amundsen.
 (Submitted by DFO)

Researchers hope to be able to confirm basic ecological questions about whether or not deep-sea corals feed on the same kind of food as corals closer to shore.

Neves says this expedition was also critical for widening their knowledge base about the distribution and variety of corals, as well as answering questions about the depth limits of corals and how quickly the tree-like animals grow.

"We've seen sites that we had never visited before, and we saw a lot of very amazing biodiversity on the sea floor. And we did some experiments that we had never conducted before," she said.


A remotely operated vehicle allowed coral researchers to see, up close, deep-sea corals living on the sea floor. (Submitted by DFO)

One experiment involved what Neves calls a staining chamber.

The arm of a remotely operated vehicle places a round chamber over the top of a coral, covering the animal. A deflated balloon, filled with dye, sits inside the chamber.

An external handle triggers a needle to puncture the balloon and then the dye is released, staining the coral.

"We left it there for a few hours. Then, we recovered the chamber later and we plan on going back to that site in about two years to recover that coral, and then examine the skeleton that now will have a stain mark," said Neves.

Watch scientists in action aboard the CCGS Amundsen:



Watch deep-sea experiments in the Labrador Sea
A team of scientists are studying coral in new ways in the frigid waters off Labrador. 4:10

According to Memorial University researcher Evan Edinger, deep sea corals are oceanographic recorders. Edinger studies corals and other organisms that make their skeletons from calcium carbonate.

"We bring back these coral skeletons, we can look at both how fast they're growing and how long the corals live, but also what the corals can record in terms of oceanographic change," said Edinger.

Trees on land have growth rings, and those rings can help reconstruct change in climate over time. Edinger says corals have growth rings, too.

He says their experiments will hopefully give further clarity on how often deep-sea coral growth rings are formed.

"To figure out whether the growth lines are formed annually, which is what we think, or if there are some annual growth rate for more than one ring per year, that actually matters quite a lot," said Edinger.

"We want to be able to understand what the growth rings mean and exactly how old these species are, so that we can understand just how vulnerable are the ecosystems that they're built around."
Ocean acidification

As the climate changes, the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide. This means the ocean environment becomes more acidic.

The more acidic the water becomes, the more difficult it is for corals to form their skeletons.

"Think of osteoporosis, but apply it to coral skeletons that are under conditions of ocean acidification," Edinger said.

Memorial University researcher Evan Edinger studies corals.
 (Submitted by Barbara Neves)

"They can make a skeleton, but their skeleton isn't going to last very long in terms of actually building a habitat. So how does that change affect the organisms that build habitat for other organisms? Well, we don't know. We're trying to figure that out."

Because of the collaborative nature of this deep-sea voyage, coral scientists have a better chance of answering those kinds of questions.

While some scientists focused on corals, there were other scientists collecting water samples to measure the dissolved calcium carbonate that corals depend on for growth.

While the at-sea time for scientists aboard the CCGS Amundsen was lengthy, the work of poring over the collected material will be even lengthier.

Geoffroy says the data analysis could take one to two years before it's complete.





Researchers watch the mission from inside a control room. (Submitted by Barbara Neves)

An remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, places a staining chamber on top of a deep-sea coral. (Amundsen Science)
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Deep storage: UVic leads plan to pump carbon into rock under sea floor off Island

Darron Kloster / Times Colonist
SEPTEMBER 26, 2021 

Kate Moran, president of Ocean Networks Canada and lead on the Solid Carbon Project, says many of the systems that will be used in the demonstration already exist, such as the drilling technology, pipelines and injection wells and carbon-capture technology. “The potential is enormous,” she says. ADRIAN LAM, TIMES COLONIST

Scientists warn that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are driving the Earth toward a point of no return when it comes to the dire consequences of climate change.

But what if you could pump those gases into rock deep below the ocean floor?

The University of Victoria and its Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions and Ocean Networks Canada divisions are preparing a demonstration project off the coast of Vancouver Island to do just that. The demo, which could be ready for the Cascadia Basin by 2024, could eventually lead to sequestering gigatonnes of emissions around the globe that are driving climate change.

Technology is now being refined to outfit a floating drilling platform with turbines that would gather carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and push it through a pipe to holes bored into the basalt formation. There, scientists say, CO2 would react with minerals and crystallize into rock over time, with hundreds of metres of sediment acting as a sealant.

Since about 90% of the ocean crust is basaltic rock — a porous formation from cooling volcanic lava — researchers say locking up carbon this way could put a ­“serious dent” in the billions of tonnes of emissions caused by humans each year. It’s currently estimated that human activity adds about 51 gigatons (51 billion tons) of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere each year.

“The potential is enormous,” says Kate Moran, president of Ocean Networks Canada and lead on the Solid Carbon Project. She said many of the systems that will be used in the demonstration already exist, such as the drilling technology, pipelines and injection wells and carbon-capture technology — not to mention human resources in the oil and gas industry.

“Several of those companies see it as a transfer of their business and workers into green businesses,” said Moran, adding a Japanese company has already offered a ship for the demonstration.

It’s estimated a demonstration project would cost between $30 million and $60 million, with private companies stepping up and governments likely to follow, said Moran.

The Cascadia Basin, an area more than 100 kilometres off the coast of the Island on the Juan de Fuca Plate, is one of the most studied ocean floors in the world, said Moran.

The centre of the basin is about 2,600 metres deep and a sub-sea platform by Ocean Networks Canada shows a crust of volcanic rocks under a 200-metre-thick blanket of sediment.

She said decades of government surveys for seismic studies have left existing bore holes that can be used in the demonstration.

Science used in Iceland

The science of turning CO2 into rock is already being used in Iceland, but on a much smaller scale. CO2 is injected in a dissolved state and it mineralizes rapidly, within two years, at shallow depths.

Geo-chemical simulations conducted by scientists at the University of Calgary, a research partner with UVic’s Pacific Institute of Climate Change, have demonstrated that “gigaton-scale” carbon dioxide storage is possible when plumes of captured CO2 are directly injected into deep ocean basalt. There, the CO2 reacts with minerals, and over time, forms a solid carbonate rock.

The results have been published in the Environmental Science & Technology journal.

University of Calgary associate professor Ben Tutolo said the Iceland method of rapid mineralization using dissolved CO2 is water-intensive, costly and difficult to scale up.

“The reaction doesn’t have to be completed in days or even months, as long as the CO2 doesn’t escape before the process is complete, even if it takes centuries,” Tutolo said.

He noted that aquifers beneath the ocean floor are typically topped with more than 300 metres of “very impermeable” sediment, and tests using tracers have shown the water in these aquifers has lasted for thousands of years and is not interfering with the sea water.

“Even if it did, two and a half kilometres of sea pressure [depth] give its lots of chances to dissolve.”

Tutolo said human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are driving the Earth toward “tipping points at which dire consequences of climate change will be inevitable.”

He said scaling up the technology could help make a “significant dent” in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 through utilizing the vast quantity of global sub-seafloor basalts, with the capacity to store up to 250,000 gigatons.

Emissions reductions still needed

Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions executive director Sybil Seitzinger said the findings could be “game-changing” in climate action.

But technologies like this won’t replace the need for urgent emission reductions if we are to limit average global temperature increase to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, said Seitzinger.

Earlier this year, the United Nations warned climate change is happening so rapidly that soon there will be “no place to run, no place to hide” on the planet.

And Moran said the spectre of climate change is hitting close to home, especially as people experience flooding , heat domes and wildfires. “That will only accelerate,” she said.

There is also ongoing work on the social, regulatory and investor acceptance of the plan.

The next steps for the Solid Carbon Project will include further investigation of the mineralization processes, efficient well injection strategies and ocean system architectures — all leading up to a planned pilot-scale injection into the Cascadia Basin by the middle of the decade.

dkloster@timescolonist.com
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'Reduce community transmission': Alberta's former top doctor calls for more action on COVID-19


Adam Lachacz
CTVNewsEdmonton.ca 
Digital Producer
Updated Sept. 26, 2021 

EDMONTON -

Alberta's former chief medical officer of health and a critical care physician penned a letter Sunday urging action from the province to slow community spread of COVID-19.

As hospitalizations continue to climb and the Canadian Armed Forces prepares to assist with patient transfers out of the province, Dr. James Talbot and Dr. Noel Gibney say the province needs to take action this week “to prevent more disease, deaths, and suffering.”

“Albertan’s hospital system, especially ICUs, are under more killing stress than at any time in the province’s history,” the pair of doctors said in a letter to the province’s new health minister.

“We are within days of being forced to implement a triage protocol which will force health care workers to make life and death decision on who will get scarce resources, like ventilators,” they wrote.

The doctors recommend mandating vaccine passports for entry into non-essential businesses and making vaccines mandatory for all provincial employees and agencies, like Alberta Blue Cross and the Workers Compensation Board.

COVID-19 in Alberta: 11 deaths, as ICU patient count hits record high on Friday

A Flourish chart

In their letter, the doctors also said that while those measures increase vaccine uptake, “urgent actions” are necessary to “rapidly deal with the urgent crisis in Alberta” of rampant community spread of COVID-19.

To slow case growth, the doctors recommended the provincial government:
transfer ICU patients to ICUs in other provinces immediately;

restore contact tracing of patients who test positive for COVID-19;

mandate masking inside schools, including when students are seated at their desks

implement a series of “fire break” closures and restrictions for a minimum four weeks

 that shutter all night clubs, casinos, bars, indoor dining, and indoor exercise facilities; and create capacity limits for places or worship, stores, and malls.

A Flourish chart

The letter was addressed to Health Minister Jason Copping who took over the portfolio this week from Tyler Shandro.

“Even if you were to implement the measures that we recommend today, it will take at least four weeks for them to have an effect on ICU beds,” the letter said. “Time is of the essence. Albertans deserve better.”

CTV News Edmonton reached out to Copping for comment.


DOCTORS ASK PROVINCE TO SAVE THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

In an interview with CTV News, Talbot attributed the situation Alberta is experiencing to the open for summer plan.

“When the government in July got rid of all the precautions, at the same time they guaranteed that this fourth wave was going to happen and that it would be so strong and that it would put intense pressure on the health care system,” he said.

“And then in August, when their own projections showed that, that’s exactly what was going to happen. They choose not to inform the public and as a consequence, there was a lost opportunity for individuals and businesses to make better choices.”

Talbot said the rise of deaths and hospitalizations in the province is a concerning trend that needs to stop and is entirely preventable.

“The longer the minister delays in taking action, the more people are going to join that total,” he added.

“The 20 per cent (who are unvaccinated) are clogging up our hospitals now and they’re depriving the rest of Albertans the opportunity to have a functioning health care system that’s there for them when they need it.”

The letter intended to show the sense of urgency that is needed to address the increasing amount of pressure hospitals are facing, Talbot said.

“We know the (measures we recommended) have worked in the past,” he said. “So we’re asking the minister to recognize that there’s a crisis and that there’s a need, an urgent need for action on the part of the government.

“We want to see the minister act with a degree of urgency that’s required to help save that system.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson



'We're in massive trouble': Prominent Alberta doctors call for 'fire break' lockdown, mandatory vaccines for employees

Alberta's ICUs are facing immense pressure as the number of patients needing care continues to rise during the fourth wave of COVID-19
Author of the article:Jason Herring
Publishing date:Sep 26, 2021 • 54 minutes ago • 3 minute read • 60 Comments
Calgary ICU staff working on patients in a crowded ICU. 
PHOTO BY SUPPLIED BY AHS

Two prominent Alberta doctors are calling for a provincewide “fire break” lockdown and mandatory vaccinations for all employees in a letter to the province’s new health minister.

These measures and more are needed to address the “crushing COVID-19 burden being borne by Alberta and Alberta Health Services,” wrote Dr. Noel Gibney and Dr. James Talbot in the letter to Health Minister Jason Copping on Sunday. Gibney is a critical-care specialist and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, while Talbot served as Alberta’s chief medical officer of health from 2012 to 2015.

“Alberta’s hospital system, especially ICUs are under more killing stress than at any time in the province’s history,” the letter states.

“All Albertans have and do depend on our acute-care hospitals. We are within days of being forced to implement a triage protocol which will force health-care workers to make life and death decisions on who will get scarce resources, like ventilators.”

Alberta’s ICUs are facing immense pressure as the number of patients needing care continues to rise during the fourth wave of COVID-19.

As of Sunday morning, AHS said there were 302 patients in Alberta’s 368 available ICU beds, the majority of whom have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. On Friday, the last day data was available, Alberta had 1,061 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, including 243 in ICUs.

Including the 195 surge beds Alberta has brought online to deal with the strain, Alberta’s ICU capacity sits at 82 per cent. But the ICUs are operating at 175 per cent of their baseline capacity.

Last week, Dr. Verna Yiu, AHS president and CEO, said part of the reason why Alberta ICUs have been able to keep pace with new admissions is because of the number of deaths that are occurring daily. Over the past seven days, Alberta has reported an average of 14 daily deaths from COVID-19.

The letter from Talbot and Gibney calls for Copping to implement seven measures, including immediately beginning transfers of Alberta ICU patients out-of-province, making vaccine passports mandatory to access all non-essential services and making vaccines mandatory for all employees of essential and non-essential businesses.

It also calls on the province to restore contact tracing of patients who test positive for COVID-19 and to mandate masking indoors in schools, including in classrooms.

As for the so-called fire break, the doctors are asking for the four-week closure of nightclubs, casinos, bars and indoor dining at restaurants, the closure of gyms and indoor sports, and strictly limiting capacity at stores, malls and places of worship.

Talbot said in an interview with Postmedia the measures are now necessary because of intense pressure on Alberta’s hospital system across all five health zones. That pressure is inhibiting immunized Albertans from getting care, including the cancellation of all non-urgent surgeries, he said.

“No matter how you want to score this one, we’re in massive trouble,” Talbot said.

Dr. James Talbot, co-chair of the Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association strategic COVID committee. 
Postmedia, file

“With every day that (Copping) doesn’t take action, we’re looking at another 15 Albertans dead, more pressure on the ICU system and potentially making triage decisions of life and death which are not appealable by the families of the people who are told they are going to be denied service because there isn’t an ICU bed for them.”

As of Friday, 82.3 per cent of eligible Albertans are partially immunized against COVID-19, and 73.4 per cent are fully immunized. Those numbers have seen a boost in the last week after Alberta announced its vaccine passport system, dubbed the “restrictions exemption program.” Among Albertans of all ages, 70 per cent have at least one shot and 62.4 per cent have two.

Talbot argued the one-in-five eligible Albertans who haven’t gotten vaccinated are “clogging up” the hospitals for those who need elective surgeries or critical-care treatment.

He said the letter is directed to Copping with hopes the new health minister can chart a new course on Alberta’s COVID-19 response.

“There are two major jobs a health minister has,” Talbot said. “The first is to protect the health of Albertans and the second is to keep the acute-care health system functioning. And both of those are in peril.

“I don’t know how much more information the minister will require to recognize now is the time to take urgent action.”

Copping’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

— With files from the Edmonton Journal

Doctors defend AHS head Dr. Yiu after MLA questions fourth-wave handling

'This is completely extraordinary. I don't think any health authority should be expected to handle this significant of an increase in ICU capacity. This is not something that should be a requirement for any health authority, but they are rising to the challenge'

Author of the article: Jason Herring
Publishing date: Sep 26, 2021 • 

Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services. 
PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM/POSTMEDIA


#ThankYiu

That’s the message Alberta doctors shared on Twitter this weekend as they applauded the work of Alberta Health Services president and CEO Dr. Verna Yiu during a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that has put considerable pressure on the province’s intensive care units.

The trending hashtag came in response to Facebook posts on Saturday from UCP MLA Shane Getson, who said Albertans should be “getting more bang for our buck” from AHS when dealing with the current wave.

The MLA for Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland suggested in posts Alberta had the capacity to increase ICU beds by more than 1,000, a number referenced by Premier Jason Kenney early in the pandemic.

Getson’s Facebook page appeared to have been taken offline Sunday afternoon.

Shane Getson's posts on Facebook now appear unavailable. He made a series of posts criticizing Alberta Health Services for not being able to expand to 1,000 ICU beds to meet demand in the fourth wave. pic.twitter.com/Ddiinvuzov— Catherine Griwkowsky (@CGriwkowsky) September 26, 2021

Edmonton emergency physician Dr. Shazma Mithani was one doctor who took to social media to support Yiu. She argued Getson’s posts could signal members of government trying to shift blame for Alberta’s ongoing COVID-19 crisis to AHS.

“This is because of the poor policy decisions of government,” Mithani said. “AHS is not the one to blame here. Dr. Verna Yiu is not the one to blame here. They are bending over backwards and moving heaven and earth to make ICU beds.

“The only reason they have to do this is because of the poor leadership and the poor policy and decision-making by our provincial leaders, our elected officials.”

AHS said Sunday morning Alberta has created 195 surge beds for ICU patients, bringing its total number of ICU beds to 368. There were 302 patients in the ICUs, the majority of whom had COVID-19. Alberta’s ICUs are operating at 175 per cent of their baseline capacity, but at 82 per cent of the surge capacity.

Mithani said the limiting factor in creating more ICU spaces is staffing them, with many health-care workers redeployed to work in critical care, reducing the number of beds that can be created compared to previous waves.

“This is completely extraordinary,” she said. “I don’t think any health authority should be expected to handle this significant of an increase in ICU capacity. This is not something that should be a requirement for any health authority, but they are rising to the challenge.”



The online support for Yiu extended beyond health-care workers and even to the doctor’s former patients.

Twitter user @BrokenDaffodil tweeted that Yiu had “saved my kidney and my life.”

“If you’ve ever met Dr. Yiu, then you know she makes the scariest moments seem livable and translates fear into hope,” the user tweeted.

— With files from Ashley Joannou


GO AHEAD PUNISH ME
Kenney tells radio host that lockdown would punish people already vaccinated

Rob Drinkwater
Publishing date: Sep 26, 2021
Premier Jason Kenney during a news conference regarding the surging COVID cases in the province in Calgary on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. 
PHOTO BY AL CHAREST / POSTMEDIA

EDMONTON — Premier Jason Kenney rejected calls for a “hard lockdown” during an appearance on a radio program Sunday, the same day that his province’s former top doctor signed a letter calling for immediate “fire break” measures to deal with surging cases of COVID-19.

Kenney told radio host Roy Green that a lockdown would make “no sense for the 80 per cent of the population that is vaccinated,” and who he said are much less likely to transmit the disease and are far less likely to be hospitalized.

Further, he said the roughly 20 per cent who aren’t vaccinated and are behind the surge in cases are less likely to follow public health measures.

Alberta’s former chief medical officer of health, Dr. James Talbot, and critical care specialist Dr. Noel Gibney, signed an open letter Sunday to the province’s new health minister, Jason Copping, calling on the minister to take action to “prevent more disease, deaths, and suffering.”

They called for measures that include the transfer of ICU patients to other provinces now in order to relieve pressure on hospitals and delay the need for triage protocols.

They also called for a set of “fire break” closures and restrictions for a minimum of four weeks for bars, gyms, casinos, indoor dining and sports facilities.

“We are within days of being forced to implement a triage protocol which will force health care workers to make life and death decisions on who will get scarce resources, like ventilators. Those that do not are likely to die,” said the letter from the doctors, which began with congratulations for Copping on his appointment to the health portfolio last week.

“Albertan’s hospital system, especially ICUs are under more killing stress than at any time in the province’s history.”

Alberta has more than 20,000 active COVID-19 cases and is seeing well over 1,000 new cases each day.

On Friday, the Canadian Armed Forces prepared to bring in air transport and staff to deal with the COVID-19 crisis overwhelming Alberta’s hospitals.

Kenney told Green that Ontario was in a similar predicament with COVID-19 in the spring, despite having much more intensive restrictions in place. He also noted that Alberta took in patients from Manitoba earlier this year, despite what he called a hard lockdown there.

He also continued to defend his government’s elimination of restrictions on July 1, which many have blamed for the surge.

“I don’t think we were wrong to drop public health restrictions in the summer, on July 1. We saw the numbers continue to go down for five to six weeks after that,” Kenney told Green.

“How could I have possibly justified what the Opposition and others wanted, which was continued damaging restrictions when there was no evidence to support that?”

Talbot and Gibney also called for mandatory vaccine passports for entry to non-essential businesses, as well as mandatory vaccination of government employees and other arm’s length bodies.

This month, Alberta implemented a “restrictions exemption program” which allows businesses to operate with almost no COVID-19 rules as long as they ask for proof of vaccination. Those choosing not to request immunization records must abide by stricter public health rules.

But Kenney’s United Conservative government has been criticized for downloading the decision, causing confusion and forcing compliant businesses to face the wrath of anti-vaccination customers.

“Your government’s own policies are responsible for collaborating with COVID in creating this killing surge,” the doctors’ letter stated.

“Continued inaction is not moral or ethical.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2021.


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POLITICAL PRISONER
Israel releases Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar from prison
Issued on: 26/09/2021 
Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar visits her daughter's grave in the occupied West Bank after her release from an Israeli jail where she spent two years in detention 
Abbas MOMANI AFP

Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)

Israeli authorities on Sunday released from jail Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar after two years in detention.

Jarrar, 58, was sentenced to two years in March 2021 for belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Israel and the United States label a "terrorist" organisation.

But the Israeli military did not find evidence Jarrar had taken part in violent acts.

She had been detained without charge since 2019 when she was arrested along with several other Palestinian figures following an attack that killed an Israeli teenager. Israel blamed the attack on the PFLP.

Jarrar was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, or parliament, as part of the PFLP.

On Sunday the group congratulated Jarrar on her release, describing her as a "comrade in arms" known for her "patience and tenacity".

After leaving jail Jarrar visited the tomb of her daughter Suha who died in July, an AFP correspondent said.

At the time, Israeli prison authorities refused to allow Jarrar to attend the funeral.

Jarrar has been arrested and jailed many times and often held without charge in what Israelis call administrative detention.

Israeli administrative detention orders allow suspects to be held without charge for renewable six-month periods.

Israel says the procedure is intended to allow authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, with the aim of preventing crimes in the meantime.

But the system has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups and members of the international community, who say Israel abuses it.

© 2021 AFP
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