Washington NFL owner accused of harassment at hearing

Thu, February 3, 2022

Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee at a congressional hearing on Thursday (AFP/Patrick Smith) (Patrick Smith)

A former Washington Commanders employee told a US Congressional panel hearing evidence of workplace malpractice at the NFL franchise on Thursday that she was sexually harassed by team owner Dan Snyder.

Tiffani Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing executive with the NFL team, said Snyder had touched her thigh under the table during a team dinner before later "aggressively" trying to steer her into his limosuine.

The allegation -- the first of its kind against Snyder -- was made as Johnston spoke at a roundtable organized by the House Oversight Committee to address workplace misconduct and sexual harassment at Washington's NFL franchise.


The Washington Football Team -- renamed the Commanders on Wednesday -- were fined $10 million by the NFL last year after an investigation found evidence of sexual harassment, bullying and intimidation.

The allegations centred around several managers and executives who have since left the franchise, but Snyder had not been accused of inappropriate behavior before.

Johnston told lawmakers on Thursday how she had been forced to rebuff Snyder's advances during a team dinner, where she had been seated next to the multi-billionaire owner.

"I learned that placing me strategically by the owner at a work dinner after this networking event was not for me to discuss business, but to allow him, Dan Snyder, to place his hand on my thigh under the table," Johnston said.

"I also learned later that evening how to awkwardly laugh when Dan Snyder pushed me aggressively towards his limo with his hand on my lower back, encouraging me to ride with him to my car.

"I learned how to say no even though the situation was getting more awkward, uncomfortable and physical."

She said Snyder only desisted after his attorney intervened, warning him it would be a "very bad idea."

- 'Outright lies' -

In a statement quoted by several US media outlets on Thursday, Snyder apologized for the workplace culture at his team but strongly rejected allegations of personal wrongdoing.

"I apologize again today for this conduct, and fully support the people who have been victimized and have come forward to tell their stories," Snyder said.

"While past conduct at the team was unacceptable, the allegations leveled against me personally in today's roundtable -- many of which are well over 13 years old -- are outright lies.

"I unequivocally deny having participated in any such conduct, at any time and with respect to any person."

In separate testimony in Thursday's hearing, Melanie Coburn, the team's former marketing director, recalled an incident during a staff trip to Snyder's home in Aspen, Colorado.

She said that after returning to Snyder's house following an evening function, she was told to go to her room in the basement and remain there.

"I later learned from a colleague, who was there, that it was because the men had invited prostitutes back," Coburn told the hearing.

She described the workplace culture at the team's headquarters as "deplorable, like a frat party run by a billionaire who knew no boundaries."

The oversight committee chair, Carolyn Maloney, meanwhile accused National Football League chiefs of covering up for Washington and Snyder by failing to publicly release the report into wrongdoing at the franchise last year.

"After 20 years of sexual harassment and abuse at the Washington Football Team, the team and the league have tried to sweep all of this under the rug," Maloney said in her opening statement.

"After an investigation by a respected lawyer found rampant and serious abuses at the Washington Football Team, the NFL covered it up.

"In a break from recent precedent, the league refused to release a written report and let Mr. Snyder off with a fine and a slap on the wrist."

rcw/js

ECOCIDE

Round-the-clock care for Peru's oil-stained sea birds

An untold number of sea birds were killed by a massive oil spill off the coast of Peru. 

A dozen Humboldt penguins are being nursed back to life 

(AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)

The spill was described as an "ecological disaster" by the Peruvian government

 (AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)

With oil on their wings, birds cannot fly or feed, and they lose the insulation they need to keep warm (AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)



The slightest vestige of crude can affect a bird's digestive system

 (AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)

The spill was classified an 'ecological disaster' by the government 

(AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)


Carlos MANDUJANO
Thu, 3 February 2022,

Hand fed fish and given gentle yet rigorous baths, penguins and other sea birds are slowly regaining their strength at a Peruvian zoo after a major oil spill that claimed many of their friends.

Of about 150 oil-stained birds rescued alive after the January 15 spill of some 12,000 barrels of oil, half later died.

The survivors -- penguins, cormorants and pelicans -- are being nursed back to health and independence at the Parque de Las Leyendas zoo in Lima.


With oil on their wings, birds cannot fly or feed, and they lose the insulation they need to keep warm.

Even birds not directly contaminated with crude fell ill or died after eating fish that were.

- 'Very stressed' -

At the zoo, the rescued birds are fed fish -- for the penguins it is their preferred prey of silverside and anchovies.

They are given a special rehydration mixture through a tube, bathed, and dried with a towel.

"Many of them arrived in very bad condition, which makes it difficult for us to handle them," said Giovanna Yepez, one of the rescuers at the zoo.

"The animals were very contaminated... were very stressed," she added. "It is a very hard job."

But after two weeks of intensive care, the penguins at least "have tripled their food consumption," said Yepez.

"I believe the penguins are on the right track, they are clean and waiting for the impermeability of their feathers to return so they can be released."

Even when the feathers appear clean, the slightest vestige of crude inside the beak "can affect (the bird) through the digestive system, the liver," added veterinarian Giancarlo Inga Diaz, hence the need for patience and thoroughness.

- 'Disaster' -

The spill, described as an "ecological disaster" by the Peruvian government, happened when an Italian-flagged tanker was unloading oil at a refinery off Peru's coast.

Spanish oil company Repsol said the tanker was hit by freak waves triggered by a tsunami after a massive volcanic eruption near Tonga, thousands of kilometers away.

The oil slick was dragged by ocean currents about 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of the refinery, prosecutors said, killing countless fish and birds, polluting tourist beaches and robbing fishermen of their livelihood.

The Humbold penguin -- a species classified as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature -- lives in colonies on the Peruvian and Chilean coasts, feeding in the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the Humboldt Current which flows north from Antarctica.

Some 9,000 of the black-and-white flightless birds are known to exist in Peru.

They stand about 50 centimeters tall.

Peru has demanded compensation from Repsol for the spill at its refinery.

cm/fj/mlr/md

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Repsol says it will finish cleaning up Peru oil spill in late March

By Marco Aquino

© Reuters/ANGELA PONCE 

Workers clean up an oil spill at the beach as demonstrators take part in a protest outside Repsol's La Pampilla refinery in Ventanilla

VENTANILLA, Peru (Reuters) - Spanish energy firm Repsol SA said on Thursday it will only finish cleaning up a large oil spill off the coast of Peru in late March, pushing back an earlier timeline it had set of late February.

"That is an optimistic scenario," Jose Terol, a Repsol executive in charge of the cleanup told reporters during a visit to the company's emergency operations center.

The new timeline revises what company executives had said as recently as on Tuesday, that cleaning the beaches and the ocean would finish in late February.

Terol said the March deadline was tied to removing remnant oil from remote rocky cliffs, which are harder to reach due to strong waves.

The Jan. 15 oil spill of over 10,000 barrels of oil into the Pacific Ocean happened just north of Lima at Repsol's La Pampilla refinery, the country's largest.

Peru has called it the worst environmental disaster in recent memory and prosecutors have barred four top executives from leaving the country for 18 months.

Repsol has blamed the spill on unusual waves caused by a volcanic eruption thousands of miles away in Tonga, but the exact cause remains under investigation.

The government has accused Repsol of misrepresenting the size of the incident. Repsol first reported the spill involved 0.16 barrels before updating the figure to over 10,000, after the government's own estimate indicated the spill to be around 11,900 barrels.

Terol explained cleaning the ocean could end in mid-February if weather conditions allowed, while cleaning up the beaches would finish in late February.

"We estimate we'll be in an acceptable situation toward the end of March, more or less," Terol said.

He added that the oil had spread to an area of over 105 square kilometers (40.5 square miles), although it had dispersed into smaller stains.

Terol said Repsol had cleaned about 33% of the spill. The company said on Jan. 28 it had recovered 35% of all the oil spilled, a figure it has not updated since.

(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Karishma Singh)

Mexican kayaker on mission to clean up floating gardens




Kayaker Omar Menchaca collects garbage from the canals of Mexico City's floating gardens 

(AFP/CLAUDIO CRUZ)

Samir Tounsi
Thu, February 3, 2022

As dawn breaks over Mexico City's floating gardens, Omar Menchaca paddles his kayak through a maze of canals collecting garbage left by visitors to one of the last vestiges of the ancient Aztec capital.

In the silence of the early morning, before the hordes of tourists arrive, the 66-year-old retiree fishes plastic bottles and other debris from the waters of Xochimilco.

"I came here to train for my competitions," says the former athletics champion.

"Over time, unfortunately, I started noticing that these canals were full of garbage."

As his single-seater kayak glides by, herons and pelicans take flight in the morning mist.

In the distance, the Popocatepetl volcano, Mexico's second highest summit, rises more than 5,400 meters (17,700 feet) above sea level.

Menchaca seems to be far from the network of congested roads that serve Mexico City and its nine million inhabitants.

In fact, "the ring road is only 600 meters away," he says with a smile.

Menchaca regularly puts down his paddle and uses his bare hands to pick up garbage floating on the surface of the water amid aquatic flowers.

Xochimilco is a magnet for tourists who ride colorful gondolas through its network of canals and artificial islands created centuries ago by the area's indigenous peoples.

On weekends in particular, couples, families and groups of friends come to eat, drink and dance to the sound of mariachi music.

The reserve is home to endemic species including the critically endangered axolotl, a salamander-like amphibian.

Cleaning up the waste left by visitors is a constant battle for Menchaca, who offers tours during which he recounts the history of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

He likes nothing more than to see children copy him by collecting waste.

"Xochimilco is visited by around 6,000 people on weekends. Unfortunately, these people don't take care of the place," he says.

Conservationists also worry about the impact of development encroaching on the area, which is listed as a Wetlands of International Importance under an intergovernmental conservation treaty.

- 'If we do nothing' -

Menchaca curses when he sees boats equipped with outboard motors.

"The canals are not very deep, barely half a meter," he says.

"A boat with an engine that carries up to 40 people causes noise and pollutes the wetlands with oil and gasoline."

At midday, Menchaca returns to the pier from which he set off through a vast canal with a breathtaking view of Mount Ajusco, which rises to some 3,900 meters within the city limits.

His kayak is overflowing with garbage.

On the way he greets a man shoveling mud from the canal to use as a natural fertilizer.

"The people at the pier should pick up all the garbage and not Don Omar," says the 69-year-old, Noe Coquis Salcedo.

Back on dry land, Menchaca deposes of the debris in a dumpster near the parking lot.

He believes his efforts make a small difference helping to preserve the place for future generations, in addition to the work of the city authorities who say they are "constantly" maintaining the canals.

"The canals are paths," says Menchaca, enjoying a beer and enchilada in the January sunshine after his hours of physical exercise.

"That's why when I see this garbage, I try to collect it so that whoever passes afterward can enjoy a clean path," he adds.

Nearby young people in swimsuits dive from the top of a gondola moored at the pier.

"If we do nothing for our planet there will come a time when..." Menchaca says before pausing, his hands outstretched like a gesture of helplessness.

"There won't be much left for us to enjoy," he concludes.

st/dr/st

SA private military contractors bolster Russian influence in Africa

SA contractors are said to be aiding Russia's influence in Africa.

Gallo Images/Brenton Geach

• Russia's footprint in African countries has grown in recent years thanks to backing from private military contractors.
• Mercenaries are said to have been contracted from South Africa.
• These military contractors belong to the "Wagner group", which apparently has no legal status.

---

Russia's geopolitical ambitions in Africa have in recent years been backed by private military contractors, often described as belonging to the "Wagner group" - an entity with no known legal status.

Most recently, Western nations have condemned the alleged arrival of Russian mercenaries in Mali's capital Bamako, a claim denied by the junta that seized power in 2020.

As relations with France worsen, the military rulers may be looking for ways to make up for shrinking numbers of European troops fighting Mali's years-old jihadist insurgency.

"Mercs (mercenaries) working in Africa is an established norm" thanks in part to decades of operations by contractors from South Africa, said Jason Blazakis of the New York-based Soufan Group think-tank.

READ | Biden sends US troops to Eastern Europe amid Russia and Ukraine tensions

"The Wagner folks are walking through a door that has long been open to their ilk," he added.

No information is publicly available about the group's size or finances.

But around Africa, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington has found evidence since 2016 of Russian soldiers of fortune in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), Madagascar and Mozambique.

Botswana, Burundi, Chad, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are also on the CSIS's list.

In Africa "there is a convergence of many states' interests, including China's," Alexey Mukhin of the Moscow-based Centre for Political Information told AFP.

"Every state has the right to defend its business assets," he added.

'Hysteria'

Wagner does not officially exist, with no company registration, tax returns or organisational chart to be found.

When the EU wanted to sanction the group in 2020, it targeted Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin who is suspected of running Wagner.

It imposed further sanctions in December last year when mercenaries' arrival in Mali appeared certain - drawing accusations of "hysteria" from Moscow.

Western experts say military contractors are embedded in Russia's official forces like intelligence agencies and the army, providing plausible deniability for Moscow.

Their deployment to African countries aims to "enable Russia to... regain this sphere of influence" that fell away with the collapse of the Soviet Union, said CSIS researcher Catrina Doxsee.

The mercenaries' presence has been growing even faster since a 2019 Russia-Africa summit.

Moscow has been active "especially in what has traditionally been France's zone of influence" in former colonies like CAR and Mali, said Djallil Lounnas, a researcher at Morocco's Al Akhawayn university.

While military contractors sometimes shepherd Russian arms sales, the revenue "really pales compared with the profit they are able to generate from mining concessions and access to natural resources", Doxsee said.

That makes unstable countries with mineral or hydrocarbon wealth prime customers - such as in Syria where the mercenaries first became known to the wider public.

No questions asked

Lounnas said that another advantage for clients is a lack of friction over human rights and democracy that might come with Western partners.

"Russia has its interests. It doesn't ask questions," he added.

Reports of violence and abuse on the ground suggest that same latitude may extend to the mercenaries themselves.

In the CAR, the United Nations is probing an alleged massacre during a joint operation by government forces and Wagner fighters.

One military source told AFP that more than 50 people died, some in "summary executions".

Meanwhile the mercenaries' results do not always measure up to the hopes of the governments that hire them.

In Libya, Russian mercenaries suffered heavy losses in Marshal Khalifa Haftar's year-long attempt to conquer the capital Tripoli, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

Mozambique

And in Mozambique, the Russians retreated in the face of Islamic State group jihadists, ultimately losing out to South African competitors.

Although lacking language skills and experience with the terrain, Wagner "were picked because they were the cheapest", Doxsee said.

"They didn't have what it took to succeed," she added, noting that "they've had a fair few failures" across Africa.

Succeeding completely might actually harm the mercenaries' business model, which thrives on unrest, conflict and crisis.

"If a country such as the CAR hires them to train forces, to help them in their military efforts, it's in their interest to accomplish that just well enough to continue to be employed," Doxsee said.

"If they actually were to do it well enough to resolve the conflict, they would no longer be needed".

Row over 'machismo' in song by Brazil icon Chico Buarque


Mauro Pimentel

Joshua Howat Berger
Thu, February 3, 2022,

In 1966, the late bossa nova singer Nara Leao asked Brazilian music icon Chico Buarque to write her a song about a long-suffering woman waiting on her man.

Fifty-six years later, the widely loved song, "Com Acucar, Com Afeto" (With Sugar and Affection), is at the center of a firestorm in Brazil after Buarque said he had decided to stop singing it over criticism of machismo in its lyrics.

"The feminists are right," Buarque said in a documentary series on Leao's life that debuted on January 7 on Brazilian streaming platform Globoplay.

"I'm always going to agree with the feminists," added the singer, now a 77-year-old living legend of Brazilian popular music.

That triggered a tempest over "cancel culture," political correctness and feminism in a Brazil that is deeply divided heading into elections in October that will decide whether polemical far-right President Jair Bolsonaro gets a new term.

"This has reached the height of craziness! All because of the Feminists. CRAZINESS!" read one typical reaction on Twitter.

"That took a long time, didn't it?" went a typical reaction from the opposite camp.

"I always hated that shitty machismo-filled song. I think people who romanticize it are bizarre."

The song is written from the perspective of a woman who has prepared her man's "favorite sweet, with sugar and affection," but is stuck waiting for him to come home while he is out carousing at bars and ogling other women.

Despite it all, when he finally gets home, she sings, "I'll warm up your favorite dish... and open my arms for you."

- 'Suffering woman's song' -

"You have to understand that in those days, it never crossed our minds that that was a form of oppression, that women shouldn't be treated like that," said Buarque, an adored singer-songwriter known for his satin voice, blue-green eyes, heartthrob smile and a storied career spanning six decades.

"I'm not going to sing 'With Sugar and Affection' anymore, and if Nara were here, I'm sure she wouldn't sing it either," added Buarque, whose repertoire includes numerous songs written from a woman's perspective.

Leao, who died in 1989 at age 47, is considered one of the founders of bossa nova, the silky smooth musical genre that evolved from the Brazilian samba in 1950s Rio de Janeiro.

Buarque said she had asked him for a "suffering woman's song." He complied, and went on to sing it himself, as well.

But some commentators pointed out Buarque had not sung the song live since at least the 1980s, dismissing the row that erupted in the media, on social networks and in cultural circles as a trumped-up controversy.

"We need to pay attention to the fact that this episode was used to rail against feminism and social movements, supposedly responsible for censoring artistic creations and impose political correctness," columnist Amara Moira wrote on website BuzzFeed.

"None of that actually happened. But in these times of fake news and hair-trigger reactions, it hardly matters."

Whether the song and surrounding controversy are ancient history or not, they gave rise to a new musical creation this week.

On Wednesday, singer Viviane Davoglio and songwriter Iavora Cappa posted a revised version of the song to YouTube, called "Com Ternura e Com Afeto" (With Tenderness and Affection).

In their version, it is the female protagonist who goes out for a night on the town, then comes home to her crying man -- who warms up her favorite dish.

jhb/md

Tibetans protest 'Games of shame' at Olympic HQ

Robin MILLARD
Thu, February 3, 2022


Tibetan musician Loten Namling said he was dragging the Chinese flag 

because 'China destroyed my country. China destroyed my culture' 

(AFP/VALENTIN FLAURAUD)

Around 500 Tibetans marched outside the International Olympic Committee headquarters on Thursday, led by an activist on skis dragging the Chinese flag behind him, to protest against Beijing hosting the Games.

Tibetan demonstrators from across Europe marched the three kilometres (two miles) from the IOC building in Lausanne to the Swiss city's Olympic Museum, a day before the 2022 Winter Games' opening ceremony in the Chinese capital.

There were also demonstrations in other world cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Protesters in Lausanne, many carrying Tibetan flags, marched behind banners reading "Boycott Beijing Winter Olympics", "Stop human rights violations in Tibet" and "Games of shame".

Tibetan artist Loten Namling, who has lived in Switzerland for 32 years, led the procession on skis painted with the word "freedom".

"The reason why I'm dragging the Chinese flag is China destroyed my country. China destroyed my culture. Let them realise how painful it is for us," he said.

"Never, ever should they give the Olympics to mass murderers and dictators. It's time to say stop."

Demonstrators chanted "No rights, no Games" and "Beijing Olympics: genocide Games" as they marched past the Olympic rings.

Meanwhile, student activists got on the roof of the IOC entrance to hold up a banner reading "No Beijing 2022".

- Spotlight on sponsors -

One placard displayed a skier in front of a tank with the Olympic rings for wheels, replicating the famous photograph of the lone protester blocking a column of tanks during Beijing's deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Another said: "Don't let Beijing 2022 become Berlin 1936".

The lead-up to the Winter Games has been overshadowed by human rights concerns, the Covid-19 pandemic and even fears about the Chinese government snooping on athletes.

Karma Choekyi, president of the Tibetan community in Switzerland, organised the Lausanne protest.

She claimed the Olympics and their financial backers had turned a blind eye to the civil liberties situation in China.

"The Chinese communist regime is empowered and they feel this kind of Games legitimises their right to crack down on the human rights of the people under them," she said.

"We condemn the IOC and the sponsors for making this happen."

Tibet has alternated over the centuries between independence and control by China, which says it "peacefully liberated" the rugged plateau in 1951 and brought infrastructure and education to the previously underdeveloped region.

But many exiled Tibetans accuse the Chinese central government of religious repression, torture and eroding their culture.

- 'Inexplicable' hosting choice -

Wearing a Tibetan Buddhist monk's robes, Thupten Wangchen, a member of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, said they were not against the Olympics but against the choice of host.

"IOC: please, from now on, in future Olympics, choose a country which has human rights and freedom of religion," he said.

Karma Thinlay, president of the Tibetan Community France group, said it was "inexplicable" that Beijing had been awarded the Olympics for a second time, after the 2008 summer Games.

"The goal of the IOC is to build a better world through sport. Unfortunately it's not the case at all," he said.

Demonstrator Chime, 20, who described herself as stateless, said the Games holding their opening ceremony celebrations on Friday was "so sad".

"Is business, is the Olympics more important than people's lives? If we Tibetans are not human beings for you, then do it," she said.

In Los Angeles, around 50 people descended on China's consulate to protest the holding of the games in Beijing.

Kevin Young of the Santa Barbara Friends of Tibet, said the Games were a veneer for an abusive government.

"I don't want that the human rights violations, the torture in Tibet, Hong Kong, against the Uyghurs, gets minimised with this Olympic Games," he told AFP.

"We don't want to remain silent in the face of the oppression of the (Communist Party) regime.

rjm/cb-hg/jfx

Using military to end trucker protest 'not in the cards': Trudeau

More protests against Covid vaccine mandates, like the one seen here in Ottawa last Saturday, are expected this weekend (AFP/Lars Hagberg)
Lars Hagberg


Michel COMTE
Thu, February 3, 2022

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday poured cold water on sending in the military to clear protestors opposed to Covid vaccine mandates, whose convoy of big trucks are clogging Ottawa's downtown.

The city's police chief, under pressure from locals weary of harassment and incessant honking, had pitched the idea during a briefing the previous day.

"That is not in the cards right now," Trudeau told a news conference, adding that governments must be "very, very cautious before deploying the military in situations against Canadians."


Since Saturday, Canada's capital has been beset by protestors led by truckers opposed to mandatory Covid vaccines for traveling between Canada and the United States.

By midweek, their numbers had dwindled to several hundred from a peak of 15,000 over the weekend, but they continued to make their case against public health measures loudly.

Trudeau, who's isolating after contracting Covid, said it was up to police to deal with them, but added that the federal government is ready to provide support from federal police and intelligence services.

At the same time he urged protestors to go home, saying locals had had enough of the "significant disruptions" caused by the protestors.

- Honking at parliament -

Outside parliament, protestors -- whose leaders vowed at a news conference Thursday to stay until all Covid restrictions are lifted -- strolled between the big rigs, Canadian flags draped over their shoulders and waving anti-Trudeau placards.

"I am here supporting the protest for my children," Caroline Leader, who lives a two-hour drive from the capital, told AFP.

"They're six and eight, and I believe they deserve full freedom, bodily autonomy. They should be free to move around, to travel regardless of their medical choices or status," she said.

Manning a grill on the street and serving pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausages to protestors, local resident Shannon Laurent agreed that people "should be allowed to choose whether or not to get vaccinated."

The so-called "Freedom Convoy" set out from Canada's Pacific coast in late January, with supporters along the way joining them for the 4,400-kilometers (2,700-miles) drive.

Bal Tiwana, from Calgary, lamented not being able to travel as much as he used to, due to pandemic restrictions.

"Me and my wife used to travel all the time, and now can't get on a plane or drive across the (Canada-US) border to leave the country," he said.

Since November, anyone traveling by train or plane within Canada or departing from a Canadian airport must present proof of vaccination against Covid-19.

- 'Fatigue has set in' -

Although most Canadians (68 percent, according to an Abacus poll) do not support the protest, it's clear that many are growing increasingly frustrated by public health restrictions on their daily lives.

"Fatigue has set in," explained Roxane de la Sablonniere, a psychologist at the University of Montreal.

In Canada, most measures enacted by provincial governments remain very restrictive, among the toughest in the West -- including lockdowns, a curfew in Quebec that has now been lifted, and capacity limits on restaurants, bars and other public venues.

"The majority of the population does not support the truckers in Ottawa, but there is still a significant minority who identify with it," Daniel Beland, a politics professor at McGill University in Montreal.

And it's much higher than the 10 percent of Canadian adults who have not received Covid jabs, he noted.

This upcoming weekend, the Ottawa protest is expected to swell again, while similar demonstrations are planned in other cities including Quebec City and Toronto.

"Our movement has grown in Canada and across the world because common people are tired of the mandates and restrictions in their lives that now seem to be doing more harm than good," convoy organizer Tamara Lich told a news conference.

"We will continue our protest until we see a clear plan for their elimination," she said.

Meanwhile in Alberta, a group of truckers and farmers protesting vaccine mandates at a border crossing to the US state of Montana allowed traffic to partially resume Thursday.

tib-amc/mdl

Shpongle - All Albums 1998 - 2017

All albums in Shpongological order! 7 hours of great psychedelic/psybiant music: 

-Are You Shpongled? (1998)

-Tales of the Inexpressible (2001)

-Nothing Lasts...But Nothing Is Lost (2005)

-Ineffable Mysteries from Shpongleland (2009) 

-Museum of Consciousness (2013)

-Codex VI (2017)

 

Shpongle Static Live at Ozora 2019 (FULL ALBUM)

TwistedMusicUK

Shpongle Static out now: https://shpongle.lnk.to/Shpongle_Static Follow Shpongle: https://www.facebook.com/shpongle/ https://twitter.com/Shpongle Sign up for the Shpongle newsletter: http://www.shponglemusic.com/

The Costs Of Climate Change — A Short Overview


Photo by CLEANTECHNICA

By Maarten Vinkhuyzen

The costs of climate change are multiple. This article will limit itself to a few big budget items associated with the consequences of burning fossil fuels and partly with forestry and land use change.

The type of costs of climate change are:
The costs of damage, health costs and cleaning up after the polluters
The costs of adaptation, living in a warmer world
The costs of mitigation, changes we have to make to live in a warmer world
The costs of transition to a zero-emission economy, aka as the mitigation of the ongoing climate change
The costs of a reversal of global heating to a preindustrial climate

The cost of transition must be paid now and in the next two decades ahead. This is what McKinsey recently wrote about and Steve captured in a few articles. Think about 10% of the Global Gross Product for the next 30 years. This is the cheapest way forward. Spending less per year and taking longer for the transition will rise the other costs with way more than what is delayed in spending on this budget.

The other four are our legacy to our children’s children and all generations after them. It is the legacy of this age of waste and abundance in polluting. While it is our legacy, we are starting with paying them now. That is on top of the costs of transition.

Damage: Health (including less cognitive capacity), pollution, destroyed environments, and abandoned installations.

We have started paying these costs decades ago and do not ask the fossil fuel industry to pay them. The health costs are now huge, but will decline when we stop polluting. The costs for repairing and cleaning can also be met after we transition to a fossil fuel-free world. The world will have a lot of cleaning to do. It also includes the cost of reforestation and reclaiming land for efficient, clean, green agriculture.


Adaptation: The costs of living in a hotter world. More people on less land. Desalination of seawater. Mostly vegetarian diets. Agriculture without chemical fertilizer or pesticides. Many at the moment unknown costs and benefits.

We have started to foot this bill. We are running our HVAC systems more often. We have to rebuild more houses destroyed by hurricanes and flooding. We have more wildfires. We must desalinate a lot of water to compensate for the droughts. Getting used to many new neighbors or living in different lands after we relocate over a billion people. It could also be over two billion people relocated. For all the MBA types among you, consider this the rise in opex caused by the climate change.

Mitigation: Building dykes. Building desalination plants. Relocating a billion people or more.

The sea levels will keep on rising for a while until a new equilibrium is reached. This can be decades or even centuries after reaching a net-zero economy.

The Global temperature will keep rising as long a new greenhouse gasses reach the greenhouse layer. The warming Earth will initiate a number of positive feedback loops. Most feared is the greenhouse gas methane from the melting permafrost. Another is less reflection and thus more absorption of solar energy from smaller ice caps around the poles and less snow and glaciers in the high mountains.

A new equilibrium will be reached. The temperature raises of 1.5Kelvin or more in the reports and Paris agreement is only the raise caused by direct human activities. How much more will be added by the positive feed back loops is yet not known. A higher temperature from human activities creates much bigger feedback loops. Hello Wall Street gurus, this is the capex for living in a warmer world.

Transition: The costs of using mainly wind, water, and sun as the sources of energy. It is the cost of closing all fossil fuel energy plants, replacing all fossil full heating equipment in factories, buildings, and homes with electric or other zero emission equipment.

It is making and installing billions of solar panels on roofs, above parking lots, in solar farms, and at numerous other locations our creativity can find. It is building large forests of masts with big wind turbines on top.

Making batteries, batteries, and batteries for mobile and stationary storage. A new transportation grid to connect the places where the sun does shine, and the wind does blow, with the places people where live without the wind blowing or the sun shining. A new distribution grid with about 5 to 10 times the capacity of the current distribution grids in the western world for the whole world.

It also includes building the mines and supply lines to produce all the new goods we need in this new economy. Retraining all the workers of the old economy to become productive in the new one.

And this is likely not half of it. It is also the most urgent. The faster we transition, the less we send greenhouse gases into the greenhouse layer. The less we have to spend on the other for type of costs.

Reversal: We have no real idea how to do it. Nor do we have any ideas about the costs. It could be more than the other four costs combined.

Or perhaps we just like a warmer world. Or the Earth likes a stable, warmer climate without mammals, like it was in the time of the dinosaurs.

Conclusion: The next generations will not thank us for our legacy — ask Greta. We need more children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren now! The robots can not do it alone.

Making children and raising them are the best part of most people’s life. At least that is not an undue burden.

An alternative take on our changing climate, from a leading meteorologist

Global average temperatures have changed over the years. 

By Scott Duncan • Updated: 29/01/2022

Scott Duncan is social media's favourite meteorologist. Based in London, Scott primarily forecasts for energy and power markets across Europe, with a heavy focus on renewable energy. More recently, he turned his attention to improving communication of key weather and climate events to those not in the scientific community. His work has received international recognition and has gone viral on several occasions.

Plagued with exceptional heat waves and record-breaking extremes, 2021 came in as Earth’s 6th hottest year on record according to NASA). But how does 2021 compare to various decades in the past century?

In order to keep track of our warming planet, climatologists refer to an ‘average’ as a way of benchmarking the progression of global temperature. The preindustrial average (usually taken between 1850-1900) is used to track temperature change since the industrial revolution. And the global average temperature for the year 2021 was approximately +1.2°C warmer than this preindustrial average - according to Berkeley Earth.


While this preindustrial average remains very important for tracking human impact on our climate, the pre-industrial climate average may be difficult to comprehend, given that it is based on a period before our time. As the climate rapidly warms, our individual perception of ‘average’ can change. There is often public confusion around the ‘average’ global temperature in which meteorologists and climatologists refer to.

The pre-industrial climate average may be difficult to comprehend, given that it is based on a period before our time.

Let’s explore some of the different climate averages (often referred to as ‘baselines’) over the last century and see how they look compared to 2021, starting with the last decade.

Comparing the global average temperature of 2021 to the 10-year average of 2011-2020 yields - a map that looks like this.

Graphic showing global temperatures from 2011-2020.Scott Duncan

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The red represents where 2021 was warmer than the last decade average, and the blue shows where it was cooler. There is plenty of variability across the globe. For example, 2021 was cooler than the average of the last 10 years for many countries, including almost all of Europe.

This doesn’t necessarily say 2021 was a cold year, the last 10 have just been very warm. Unsurprisingly, the nine hottest years in recorded history (globally) exist within the last 10 years and 2021 lies in 6th place.

Notice the red shading over Africa, Asia and especially North America. 2021 was warmer than the average from the last 10 years. Meanwhile Australia, Southern Africa and the Pacific join Europe as cooler than this 10-year average.

2021 was cooler than the average of the last 10 years for many countries, including almost all of Europe.

Cooler than average conditions can be closely linked to La Nina, a climate phenomenon that cools the sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific/ (link for more info: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/oceans/el-nino)

However, comparing 2021 to just 10 years of data doesn’t tell us much about a longer-term average. Meteorologists and climatologists usually use climate baselines running over at least 30 years.

Graphic showing global temperatures from 1991-1920.Scott Duncan

Notice the slight amplification of the reds and muting of the blues.

This tells us that the average of 1991-2020 is cooler than that of the last decade. Let’s step further back and compare 2021 to the 1961-1990 baseline.

Graphic showing global temperatures from 1961-1990.Scott Duncan

2021 holds very few places on the planet that are cooler than the 1961-1990 baseline. Many places across the world (including Europe) appear relatively ‘cool’ when compared to the last decade but are considered ‘warm’ when compared to the 1961-1990 average.

The La Nina signal in the pacific appears weaker with the only noticeable land-based cold anomaly found locally in Antarctica. Antarctica recorded an unusually severe cold season in 2021. Some of the most striking reds around the Arctic indicate rapid Arctic warming or ‘Arctic Amplification’ (link for more info: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/81214/arctic-amplification).

The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the globe, latest research estimates that the Arctic has warmed four times faster than the global warming average rate since 1980.

Let’s step even further back…

Graphic showing global temperatures from 1931-1960.Scott Duncan

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When comparing 2021 to the 1931-1960 baseline, the La Nina signal in the Pacific has effectively disappeared.

Almost the entire planet is shaded red, flagging the fact that 2021 is warmer than the 1931-1960 average virtually in every country. Only the local cold core in Antarctica stands out on the warm planet.

Another way of looking at this climate baseline comparison can perhaps link our global warming trend to something more personal and relatable. Our grandparents and great grandparents would have rated 2021 an extremely warm year across the globe when comparing to a baseline from their youth.

Our grandparents and great grandparents would have rated 2021 an extremely warm year across the globe when comparing to a baseline from their youth.

Those of us born in the last couple of decades only have warm years to compare and rate 2021 among one of the cooler years in the last decade.

The fact that these climate baselines continue to warm, is the definition of climate change itself.