It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, October 12, 2020
Manitoba farm fined after worker suffers ‘serious’ injury A Carberry, Manitoba-based workplace is going to have fork over tens of thousands of dollars after the province served it with a fine for unsafe working conditions.
A farmer works a potato field in North Tryon, Prince Edward Island on Thursday, July 13, 2000. A national agriculture group says farming needs to be reformed, both to save the climate and save farmers. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
Back in April of 2018, a worker at Shilo Farms Ltd. suffered a serious hand injury while preparing potatoes.
Workplace Safety and Health says the potatoes travel along the conveyor to a seed-treating drum, and while the employee was taking a look at that drum, their hand came in contact with the conveyor's exposed chain and sprockets.
Workplace Safety and Health has deemed the company at fault for the accident and has fined them a total of $32,675.
A portion of the fine -- $2,000 -- will be used for public education on occupational safety and health.
At the time of the incident, Shilo Farms Ltd. employed around 40 people.
The province used Saturday's news release to remind workplace managers that safeguards need to be in place for all machines under the Workplace Safety and Health act.
All stop-work orders and penalties can be found online by going to the labour section of the government's website.
SASKATCHEWAN ELECTION Saskatchewanians argue for and against higher minimum wage Connor O’Donovan
At a campaign announcement Sunday morning, Saskatchewan NDP Leader Ryan Meili confirmed his party's commitment to phase in a $15 an hour minimum wage if elected.
"A higher minimum wage kickstarts local economies from the bottom up," Meili said in his Sunday stump speech.
The promise, which if implemented would likely mean Saskatchewan would no longer have the lowest minimum wage in Canada, is drawing mixed reactions from the community.
Restaurants Canada Western vice-president Mark von Schellwitz suggested a higher minimum wage could mean lost jobs, noting that restaurants are Saskatchewan's "third largest private employer" and that businesses are already struggling to employ the amount of workers they usually do.
"It would make our unemployment situation even worse as restaurants are struggling to keep people on payroll anyways," von Schellwitz said.
Justin Linder, who owns the Rotisserie in Regina, echoed that sentiment and said that a bump in wages would likely mean a bump in menu prices.
"I don't pay minimum wage to my employees because I feel like they're worth more than minimum wage," Linder said. "But there's no room in the budget right now as is and to pay people more — you're either going to have to pass it on to the customers or you're gonna have to absorb it. And right now you can't absorb that kind of increase. And I don't want to have to pay my customers more."
"We've been talking about a $15 an hour minimum wage in Saskatchewan for so long that now it actually needs to be more than $15," she said. "Fifteen dollars alone isn't a minimum wage but it's a good first step."
Desai pointed to a 2016 report, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy alternatives that suggested Saskatchewan's minimum wage is well below what it calls a "living wage".
The report obtained its "living wage" figure for Regina, $16.95 an hour, by estimating annual household living expenses for a "model family" of four.
"$11.45 does not go very far at all. It's ridiculous that anyone in this province has to live on that amount of money," said Desai. "Raising the minimum wage would mean more money in the pockets of the people most likely to spend that money in the Saskatchewan economy. It shows a commitment to people and to making life livable."
The NDP is also pledging to help some small businesses adapt to the proposed increase with a rebate program.
To qualify for the program, businesses would have had to have qualified for the small corporate tax rate in the previous year and have reported a taxable income of less than $200,000.
The rebates would be equal to 25 per cent of the cumulative increase multiplied by the number of minimum wage hours paid out.
26.25 cents per employee hour at $12.50 in 2021-22 ($1.05 increase in minimum wage)
51.25 cents per employee hour at $13.50 in 2022-23 ($1.00 increase in minimum wage)
76.25 cents per employee hour at $14.50 in 2023-24 ($1.00 increase in minimum wage)
88.75 cents per employee hour at $15.00 in 2024-25 ($0.50 increase in minimum wage)
Businesses in retail, accommodation and food services, and agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sectors.
In recent years the Saskatchewan Party has been raising the minimum wage nearly annually using a formula that considers changes to the Consumer Price Index and Average Hourly Wage in Saskatchewan.
According to the government of Saskatchewan website, the indexation formula "which helps ensure that all people benefit from the economic prosperity of the province".
When asked for comment on the NDP plan, Saskatchewan Party spokesperson Jim Billington replied with the following statement.
"The Saskatchewan Party has a plan for a strong economic recovery and more jobs. That plan is already working, as 8700 new jobs were created in September and Saskatchewan now has the lowest unemployment rate in Canada.
"Now is not the time to slow down that economic recovery and job growth by adding additional costs to small businesses, many of which are still feeling the impact of the pandemic. Even with the partial subsidy the NDP is proposing, this would still drive up the cost to small businesses, making it harder to retain and hire new employees.
"The Saskatchewan Party government has made life more affordable for those making minimum wage by significantly reducing their personal income tax. By doing so, we are able to put more money in the pockets of low income earners in a way that does not add to the financial burden on small businesses and kill jobs."
At this point in the campaign, the Saskatchewan NDP is the only provincial party to commit to increasing minimum wage.
More synchronized action needed to tackle COVID economic crisis, IMF's Georgieva says
WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - The international community must do more to tackle the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Monday, publicly calling on the World Bank to accelerate its lending to hard-hit African countries.
Some of the key events of the virtual and elongated annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank take place this week, with the most pressing issue how to support struggling countries.
"We are going to continue to push to do even more," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said during an online FT Africa summit.
"I would beg for also more grants for African countries. The World Bank has grant-giving capacity. Perhaps you can do even more... and bilateral donors can do more in that regard," Georgieva said in an unusual public display of discord between the two major international financial institutions.
No immediate comment was available from the Bank.
Georgieva last week said the IMF had provided $26 billion in fast-track support to African states since the start of the crisis, but a dearth of private lending meant the region faced a financing gap of $345 billion through 2023.
The pandemic, a collapse in commodity prices and a plague of locusts have hit Africa particularly hard, putting 43 million more people at risk of extreme poverty, according to World Bank estimates. African states have reported more than 1 million coronavirus cases and some 23,000 deaths.
G20 governments are expected to extend for six months their Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) which has so far frozen around $5 billion of poorer countries' debt payments, but pressure is on the main development banks and private creditors to provide relief too.
HOLDING ONTO GOLD RESERVES
Georgieva said the Fund was also pushing richer member countries to loan more of their existing Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the IMF's currency, to countries that needed support most, and was "very committed" to finding a way forward for countries like Zambia now needing to restructure their debts.
The United States has blocked Georgieva's early call for issuance of more SDRs, arguing that it would benefit mostly richer nations, not the developing countries that need it most.
Pledges to the Fund's Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust, which supports low-income countries, have totaled $21 billion to date, including $14 billion in existing SDR holdings, but more resources were urgently needed, an IMF spokeswoman said.
The IMF chief dodged calls by civil society groups for the IMF to sell off some of its extensive gold reserves, saying the Fund viewed them as an important "financial buffer."
Profit from selling less than 7% of the IMF’s gold could fund cancellation of all debt payments by the poorest countries to the IMF and World Bank for the next 15 months, the UK-based Jubilee Debt Campaign said in a new report issued Monday.
The IMF said its gold reserve of about 90.5 million ounces (2,814.1 metric tons) was worth about $137.8 billion at the end of December, compared to its historical cost of $4.4 billion.
Georgieva said countries in serious trouble must restructure their debts as soon as possible.
"This is the message for all countries in debt distress... If debt is not sustainable, please move towards restructuring, the sooner the better," she said.
Georgieva said transparency in lending was critical for all parties, and welcomed what she called "encouraging" statements by China to move toward a more consolidated view of the debts held by the Chinese government and other institutions.
"I believe that now is the moment in this crisis, to make ... transparency paramount and mandated to the extent possible everywhere," she said.
(Reporting by Marc Jones in London, and Andrea Shalal and David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Tom Arnold, Ed Osmond and Andrea Ricci)
Electric cars to triple market share in Europe amid COVID-19, researchers say
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Electric vehicles made up 8% of car sales in Europe in the first half of 2020, putting them on track to triple their market share this year, according to analysis by the NGO Transport & Environment (T&E).
While the novel coronavirus pandemic has seen overall car sales plummet, sales of electric cars - which T&E defined as both battery and plug-in hybrid models - have increased.
This saw electric cars more than triple their market share in the European Economic Area (EEA), compared with the first half of last year, T&E said.
Outright sales of such vehicles are expected to roughly double this year, to one million units, it said.
T&E attributed the sales increase to tougher European Union car emissions standards, which took effect this year, and post-pandemic purchase incentives in Germany and France.
The NGO expects carmakers to meet the 2020 emissions standards, which would see electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles triple their market share in 2020 to 10% of EEA car sales.
"It is because of the EU emissions standards, but it is also thanks to many investments carmakers made last year," report co-author Julia Poliscanova said.
The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) said electric vehicle sales have been boosted by national support schemes to foster economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic but that this trend was not necessarily a long-term one.
"It is difficult to make any predictions on future long-term shifts in consumer behaviour from such 'artificial' growth driven by subsidies," ACEA said.
T&E urged the EU to set tougher future emissions targets to ensure electric vehicles keep edging out polluting models.
Fuel-guzzling SUVs also increased their market share, to 39%, in the first half of 2020.
The European Commission has already outlined plans to further tighten car CO2 limits as part of its proposal for a tougher 2030 EU climate goal.
ACEA said policymakers needed to strengthen charging infrastructure and schemes to make zero-emissions vehicles affordable before considering tighter CO2 standards.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett; Editing by Ken Ferris)
Volts under the hood: U of C team wants to make electric car conversions easier
A team of students at the University of Calgary wants to make it easier to convert gas-powered vehicles to electric.
The Relectric Car Team is currently converting a 1966 Volvo into an electric vehicle, but as they do it they’re working on software and hardware solutions that could be applied to just about any vehicle.
Relectric founder Ratik Kapoor said the team’s goal is to make retrofitting an old vehicle about as affordable as purchasing a good used car.
“There are so many cars being scrapped every year when all they have is a scrapped engine or a blown head gasket,” he said.
Rather than discarding them, the Relectric team believes people should have an easy option to keep the frame of the vehicle on the road, while dispensing with the complicated and costly engine.
“Our team wants to make that price more affordable, so people can convert their Honda Civics,” said Kapoor.
The Relectric team is working on open source solutions to this problem. There is already a small community of people who retrofit cars — often classic cars — with electric engines and batteries.
Kapoor said two things are holding back the average backyard mechanic from doing this. One is the cost of batteries, and the other is the complexity of newer cars in which just about everything has a sensor wired to a central computer.
“What our team is trying to do is make a central controller,” he said. “It would take care of the motor, the batteries, and it would also integrate the stuff that you already had with our own custom sensors.”
Ratik Kapoor, Founder of Electric Car Team Schulich, poses for a photo. Kapoor is part of a team of students at the University of Calgary who are working on systems that will help people convert fuel cars to electric vehicles. Photo taken in March. Wednesday, March 11, 2020.
By making their software open source — freely available to anyone — Relectric hopes people anywhere will be able to work on the software and engineer solutions for specific circumstances.
“We’re hoping once we start putting some substantial stuff out there, people start using it and we can spark a community around EV conversions that integrates everything together and is more friendly to the end-user.”
Before the pandemic, the team was working in the basement of a local used electric car dealership.
Jim Steil offered his 1966 Volvo station wagon to the team as their project car. It was something he’d been hoping to do himself. After connecting with the team, he found their enthusiasm infectious.
“I saw myself in them, and it was almost like I had found a part of my family which I did not know existed,” said Steil. “Sometimes everything just lines up, and this was one of those times.”
But once the lockdown began, physical distancing requirements hindered their ability to meet and work on the car.
Kapoor said the team has been able to keep working on software solutions in the six months since. They’re developing touch-screen software that will give drivers feedback on their vehicle, including information on battery life and estimated range — the type of bells and whistles that come built into new electric cars but which are difficult to add to conversions.
Now that schools are back in session, Kapoor and his team are planning to get under the hood of the Volvo this fall with physical distancing protocols in place.
Amid growing anger and widespread protests, Bangladesh's government approved on Monday the use of the death penalty in rape cases. Led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the cabinet met online and approved changes to a law that will enable courts to sentence any convicted rapist to execution.
President Abdul Hamid was expected to sign the "Women and Children Repression Prevention (Amendment) Bill" into law on Tuesday, according to Law and Justice Minister Anisul Huq.
The country's existing laws mandate a life prison sentence for rape convictions, but now courts will be able to choose between that sentence and death. Bangladesh's parliament wasn't required to consider the change in the legislation as it's only an alteration of existing law.
The government drafted and passed the law after weeks of angry, unprecedented protests across the South Asian nation following a series of high-profile rapes.
Anger had been building against the government and the police for perceived inaction in several rape cases for months, but a 30-minute video of a woman being stripped and sexually assaulted by a group of men, which spread quickly across social media, triggered huge protests over the weekend.
The police have now arrested eight suspects for the assault that was caught on camera more than a month ago in Noakhali, about 120 miles southeast of the capital, Dhaka.
Only "acting tough"?
While the punishment is severe, several activists who joined the protests in Bangladesh and who have led the campaign for change told CBS News that the government's move is more a cop-out than a meaningful commitment to protect women.
They note say most protesters never demanded the death penalty, as many don't consider it a real solution to country's sexual violence problem.
"The government strategically chose a road that would let them escape accountability," Umama Zillur, a member of the Feminists Across Generations alliance, who has been fighting gender-based violence in Bangladesh for several years, told CBS News. "We will not accept this."
Zillur is one of the organizers of the #RageAgainstRape protests that rocked Bangladesh over the weekend. She said the voluntary participation of high school students was unprecedented.
"Nowhere in our demand did we ask for death penalty… because we know death penalty is going to reduce conviction rates, will increase murder after rape, and at the end of the day it's not going to help us in any way."
Activists believe rape often goes unreported in Bangladesh because of social stigma, a lengthy justice process, low conviction rates and fear of harassment by offenders.
Shahdeen Malik, a senior advocate (lawyer) at Bangladesh's Supreme Court, told CBS News that the conviction rate for rape cases in Bangladesh is less than 3%. He said that is due in large part to the country's police being unable or unwilling to properly gather and handle forensic evidence.
"They're poorly educated and they are not sensitized," said Malik, who represents defendants in cases that reach the high court. "Our police is a male dominated force which doesn't even consider rape a serious crime."
Zillur and Malik, like many others, believe the government isn't focused on fighting the root problem as much as it is easing the pressure from an angry public. They see the death penalty as a knee-jerk reaction to the protests.
Taqbir Huda, a Research Specialist at the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), noted to CBS News that under existing Bangladeshi law, the death sentence is already an option for gang-rape or rape-murder convictions.
"So death penalty for Noakhali incident was very much an available option," he said. "The government is trying to give an impression that they're acting tough."
"I won't be surprised if tomorrow the government decides to crack down on the protesters, telling them, 'why protest when we have already met your demands?'" said Malik, the Supreme Court lawyer. "Rape has become a culture"
Rather than the death penalty, protesters have called for systemic change in the country of 170 million people, where advocacy groups estimate that on average, almost four women are raped every day.
Rights group Ain o Salish Kendra, which keeps a tally of rape statistics in the country, says 975 women have been raped this year already, one fifth of them subjected to gang rape. Government data doesn't list the number of rapes specifically, instead lumping them together with a broad range of crimes against women under the category of "women and child repression."
Huda, the researcher and activist, said some of the key demands to address the problem include a law to protect witnesses; a wider definition of rape that includes marital rape; and government efforts to boost national awareness of the implications of sexual violence.
"We want long term solutions, not a situation where 20 years down the road we will be still protesting on the streets," said Huda.
"The problem is not that we don't have strong laws, the problem is that rape has become a culture in our country," Meera Sushmita, a student who participated in the weekend protests, told CBS News.
"It's so common and normal in Bangladesh for women being blamed for rape," she said. "People believe women are raped because of the way they dress, which is [considered] too modern for this country."
Sushmita, a member of an anti-rape network, is now focused on raising awareness through a public campaign, trying to educate people about consent and the seriousness of rape. She and friends spent Monday painting murals and slogans on walls around Dhaka, trying to get the message across.
Many young women in Bangladesh, including Zilur and Sushmita, have taken hope from the protests and the response to them. Now they're more determined than ever to keep pushing for the kind of change they say could make a real difference.
Belarus threatens to fire on anti-Lukashenko protesters
Belarus on Monday threatened to fire on protesters to break up demonstrations against President Alexander Lukashenko, as EU foreign ministers agreed to impose sanctions personally targeting the strongman leader.
The use of live firearms would mark a major escalation in the two-month standoff between Lukashenko and protesters, who have staged peaceful rallies against his disputed re-election in August and against the abuse and torture of detainees.
The warning came after security forces cracked down harshly on anti-Lukashenko protests on Sunday, prompting EU foreign ministers to agree it was time to sanction Lukashenko himself.
Later on Monday, officers used tear gas and stun grenades against a group of pensioners holding a regular protest march, prompting outrage from the opposition.
The protests broke out when Lukashenko claimed victory in August 9 elections over a popular opposition candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who claims to be the true winner.
Belarus's first deputy interior minister Gennady Kazakevich said in a video statement that "we will not leave the streets and law enforcement officers and internal troops if necessary will use riot control equipment and lethal weapons".
Police have so far only acknowledged using water cannon, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse the protesters.
Kazakevich claimed that protests had become "extremely radical", saying stones and bottles had been thrown at police on Sunday by protesters armed with knives, who built barricades and set fire to tyres. "This has nothing in common with civil protest," the deputy minister said, claiming that "groups of fighters, radicals, anarchists and football fans" were taking part
- Tear gas for 'grandmothers' -
Belarus was facing attempts to revive the "chaos of the 1990s" and foment the "colour revolutions" that have toppled pro-Kremlin leaders in other ex-Soviet states, he said.
His statement came as police have used some of the harshest tactics yet against protesters.
On Monday, burly men with black balaclavas and batons confronted a crowd of mainly middle-aged and older women carrying placards with slogans such as "the grandmothers are with the people", video footage by Tut.by independent news site showed.
"We deployed stun grenades from an Osa flare gun and fired tear gas when the citizens started to show aggression," Minsk police spokesman Roman Lashkevich told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.
"Today the regime crossed yet another line," Tikhanovskaya said in a statement, pointing out that older Belarusians had once been seen as Lukashenko's most loyal electorate.
The men were shown spraying from inside their vehicles as protesters angry at the detention of demonstrators threw flowers at them and shouted "Fascists!" and "Cowards!".
Later protesters in Minsk blocked roads and set tyres on fire, as military vehicles drove through the city centre, Tut.by reported.
During Sunday's mass protests, police deployed water cannon and stun grenades in Minsk, detaining more than 700 people across the country, the interior ministry said.
The crackdown ended any expectations that a prison visit by Lukashenko to hold over four hours of talks with critics held in jail at the weekend marked any change in approach.
Two entrepreneurs with links to the opposition who took part in the meeting were moved to house arrest after the talks.
Kazakevich's statement was the first time the authorities have explicitly threatened to use firearms against opposition demonstrators.
But the Nasha Niva independent newspaper on Sunday posted a video in which internal troops appeared to run towards demonstrators while threatening them with guns.
When protests broke out in August, police acknowledged opening fire on protesters in the southern city of Brest, killing one, though it was unclear whether live bullets were used.
They said they acted in self-defence as the men were armed with iron bars, but relatives of the dead man said he had simply been walking along the street.
- Lukashenko sanctioned -
European foreign ministers Monday agreed Lukashenko's name should join a list of 40 of his officials already sanctioned by the EU with travel bans and asset freezes, diplomatic sources said.
The EU had held back from penalising Lukashenko himself, hoping to persuade him to engage in dialogue with opposition forces to resolve the crisis. But the treatment of demonstrators on Sunday proved the last straw.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said earlier that the Belarusian leader should be among those sanctioned as "the violence continues, perpetrated by the Lukashenko regime".
The EU, along with the United States and other countries, has rejected the results of the August 9 election and said it does not regard Lukashenko as the legitimate president.
Lukashenko has been president of his country, wedged between Russia and the EU, since 1994, holding on to power through a combination of strongman tactics and sometimes wily diplomacy.
Analysts say the protest movement is keeping him under pressure but the continued backing of the security forces, and for the moment key ally Russia, is allowing him to stay in power.
burs-as-am/jj
Space Mining Should Be a Global Project—But It’s Not Starting Off That Way
Exploiting the resources of outer space might be key to the future expansion of the human species. But researchers argue that the US is trying to skew the game in its favor, with potentially disastrous consequences.
The enormous cost of lifting material into space means that any serious effort to colonize the solar system will require us to rely on resources beyond our atmosphere. Water will be the new gold thanks to its crucial role in sustaining life, as well as the fact it can be split into hydrogen fuel and oxygen for breathing.
Regolith found on the surface of rocky bodies like the moon and Mars will be a crucial building material, while some companies think it will eventually be profitable to extract precious metals and rare earth elements from asteroids and return them to Earth. But so far, there’s little in the way of regulation designed to govern how these activities should be managed.
Now two Canadian researchers argue in a paper in Science that recent policy moves by the US are part of a concerted effort to refocus international space cooperation towards short-term commercial interests, which could precipitate a “race to the bottom” that sabotages efforts to safely manage the development of space.
Aaron Boley and Michael Byers at the University of British Columbia trace back the start of this push to the 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which gave US citizens and companies the right to own and sell space resources under US law. In April this year, President Trump doubled down with an executive order affirming the right to commercial space mining and explicitly rejecting the idea that space is a “global commons,” flying in the face of established international norms.
Since then, NASA has announced that any countries wishing to partner on its forthcoming Artemis missions designed to establish a permanent human presence on the moon will have to sign bilateral agreements known as Artemis Accords. These agreements will enshrine the idea that commercial space mining will be governed by national laws rather than international ones, the authors write, and that companies can declare “safety zones” around their operations to exclude others.
Speaking to Space.com Mike Gold, the acting associate administrator for NASA’s Office of International and Interagency Relations, disputes the authors’ characterization of the accords and says they are based on the internationally-recognized Outer Space Treaty. He says they don’t include agreement on national regulation of mining or companies’ rights to establish safety zones, though they do assert the right to extract and use space resources.
But given that they’ve yet to be released or even finalized, it’s not clear how far these rights extend or how they are enshrined in the agreements. And the authors point out that the fact that they are being negotiated bilaterally means the US will be able to use its dominant position to push its interpretation of international law and its overtly commercial goals for space development.
Space policy designed around the exploitation of resources holds many dangers, say the paper authors. For a start, loosely-regulated space mining could result in the destruction of deposits that could hold invaluable scientific information. It could also kick up dangerous amounts of lunar dust that can cause serious damage to space vehicles, increase the amount of space debris, or in a worst-case scenario, create meteorites that could threaten satellites or even impact Earth.
By eschewing a multilateral approach to setting space policy, the US also opens the door to a free-for-all where every country makes up its own rules. Russia is highly critical of the Artemis Accords process and China appears to be frozen out of it, suggesting that two major space powers will not be bound by the new rules. That potentially sets the scene for a race to the bottom, where countries compete to set the laxest rules for space mining to attract investment.
The authors call on other nations to speak up and attempt to set rules through the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Writing in The Conversation, Scott Shackelford from Indiana University suggests a good model could be the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which froze territorial claims and reserved the continent for “peaceful purposes” and “scientific investigation.”
But the momentum behind the US’ push might be difficult to overcome. Last month, the agency announced it would pay companies to excavate small amounts of regolith on the moon. Boley and Byers admit that if this went ahead and was not protested by other nations, it could set a precedent in international law that would be hard to overcome. For better or worse, it seems that US dominance in space exploration means it’s in the driver’s seat when it comes to setting the rules. As they say, to the victor go the spoils.
EDD GENT I am a freelance science and technology writer based in Bangalore, India. My main areas of interest are engineering, computing and biology, with a particular focus on the intersections between the three.
The unending waste management challenge - are we at our wits' end?
Waste management would need a radical change. It could be achieved through the application of knowledge management tools and approaches in the waste management.
The problem of waste management has become persistent. It is a challenge that is growing in bounds and depths as the world's population surges. Are we at our wits' end?
Waste management would need a radical change. According to Beatrice Obule-Abila's doctoral dissertation at the University of Vaasa, Finland, this change could be achieved through the application of knowledge management tools and approaches in the waste management.
Daily, each of the 7.8 billion people inhabiting Earth generates approximately one kilogram of waste, which translates into 5.8 million metric tons of waste. This is about nineteen super-tankers. The problem is not being reduced. Waste generation is bound to continue to increase as the population and urbanization increases, and so are the challenges associated with managing waste, says Obule-Abila.
The doctoral dissertation by Beatrice Obule-Abila focuses on changing the paradigm of waste management by exploring the adoption of knowledge management framework, developing and deploying more knowledge management tools, systems, and approaches in seeking solutions to the problem of waste: so that waste no longer constitutes a nuisance, but a valuable resource.
Are financial incentives or socio-psychological factors the motive for the recycling of waste?
In developing the knowledge management framework that will spur the change in paradigm, Beatrice Obule-Abila answered several germane questions in her thesis. For example, are financial incentives or socio-psychological factors key drivers in promoting recycling and sustainable waste management?
The survey results affirmed that financial incentives are important in accelerating the recycling of municipal solid waste. It was also established that intrinsic and extrinsic factors related to socio-psychology can stimulate consumers' behavior towards adopting recycling and other methods of managing waste sustainably.
It is illuminating to discover that in Finland, incentivization, particularly financial incentives, plays an indispensable role in promoting sustainable recycling of municipal solid waste. Thus, financial incentives are prerequisites for attaining the European Union recycling target for municipal solid waste in Finland, says Obule-Abila.
The study further revealed that both income-earning and non-income-earning groups of consumers show interest in monetary incentives, as a factor spurring their recycling behavior.
The major driver in the recycling of municipal solid waste is a belief in the benefits of recycling waste while the minor driver for the recycling of waste is relative to its attached financial incentive.
Over all, consumers' behavior for the recycling of municipal solid waste is more driven by socio-psychological factors in Finland.
Knowledge management approach as a prerequisite for sustainable waste management
According to Obule-Abila, the knowledge management bridges the knowledge gaps in waste management through its integration to all the aspects of waste management.
The key outcome of the research - a waste knowledge management conceptual framework - lays the foundation for understanding the linkage and applicability of knowledge management in waste management.
The researcher outlined the various paths through exploration and adoption of knowledge management process towards attaining the various goals of waste management - which includes material recovery, energy generation, and the attainment of social, economic, and environmental sustainability.
This dissertation advances the insight of researchers, waste companies, government, particularly at the municipal levels, and a broad array of stakeholders to visualize the knowledge management tools, systems, and approaches used in the management of waste as the foundation of knowledge management.
The dissertation consists of six publications. Four publications apply literature review and synthesis, and two publications employ survey method.
Public Defence
The public examination of M.Sc. Beatrice Obule-Abila's doctoral dissertation "Knowledge management approach for sustainable waste management: Evolving a conceptual framework" will be held on Wednesday 14 October 2020 at noon.
The field of dissertation is Industrial Management. Professor Rodrigo Lozano (University of Gävle) will act as an opponent and Professor Petri Helo as a custos.
Obule-Abila, Beatrice (2020) Knowledge management approach for sustainable waste management: Evolving a conceptual framework. Acta Wasaensia 448. Doctoral dissertation. Vaasan yliopisto. University of Vaasa.
Thanks To Math Elizabeth Fernandez Contributor Science FORBES I write about the philosophy and ethics of science and technology.
Time travelers might not have to worry about creating a world where their parents never met. GETTY
It’s a worry of time travelers everywhere. What if they go back in time and do something terrible, like prevent their parents from meeting or killing their grandfather? Such a time-traveling “oops” could prevent them from ever being born. Therefore, they would have never existed to travel back in time in the first place.
This “grandfather paradox” has had want-to-be time travelers scratching their heads ever since we dreamed of traveling back in time. Does this mean that time travel is not possible? Does it mean that each decision we make creates several different branching worlds? This conundrum may have been cleared up (at least mathematically) by fourth-year undergraduate student Germain Tobar of the University of Queensland.
Irish artist Emmalene Blake's mural of characters Marty McFly and Doc Brown from the cult 80's movie 'Back to the Future' in South Dublin. (Photo by Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)
PA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES
Time Travel and Philosophy
One way to solve the grandfather paradox? Time travel isn’t possible at all.
This is probably the easiest, yet least fulfilling, of potential solutions. Time travel isn’t possible, let’s wash our hands of any possibility and forget about it. And this very well may be the case.
However, in general relativity, things called closed time-like curves can exist, and are a way to solve general field equations. It’s like stepping on a train, taking a wonderful trip through the mountains, and returning to the same spot you left off, both in space and in time. That means the moment where you step off the train is both in the past and future of when you got on the train in the first place. In a closed time-like curve, an object returns to the same place and time that it was in the past, completing a loop. It’s unclear if closed time-like curves exist in our universe, but if they do, mathematically, they would allow for time travel.
The moment you step onto the train is both in the past and the future of the moment you step off in a closed time-like curve.
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Then there’s option two. In this quantum mechanical model, each choice opens up another universe. If time travelers changed something in the past, they would enter another parallel universe. The original timeline would still exist, one among many branching worlds. In such a model, it might be very hard for time travelers to return to the universe they came from.
Finally - time travel is possible, but time travelers can only do certain things. A time traveler who went back in time, for example, could not kill Hitler, no matter what he tried. This raises all sorts of philosophical problems - does the time traveler still have free will? It’s difficult to say time travel is possible while simultaneously destroying freedom of choice.
Paradox-Free Time Travel While Preserving Freedom of Choice
That’s where young physicist Germain Tobar steps in.
Under the supervision of physicist Dr. Fabio Costa, Tobar came up with a way to mathematically preserve freedom of choice, while allowing for paradox-free time travel.
For example, let’s imagine there is a scientist in a laboratory with a time-traveling coin. The coin enters the laboratory at some point in the past as “heads” and leaves at some point in the future as “tails”. Tobar’s model fixes the boundary conditions - the point in time where the coin enters and leaves the laboratory - as always heads and tails. Then, his model allows the state of the coin to change when it is in the laboratory. Since the initial and final state of the coin is fixed, a paradox is avoided. However, anything can happen to the coin when it is in the laboratory. “For example,” says Tobar, “she [the scientist] can decide to always flip the coin, or always prepare heads regardless of what she got... it can flip, it can hit other coins, and so on.” But no matter what she did or how hard she tried, each time the coin time-travels through her lab, it will always leave as “tails”.
Let’s take another pertinent example. “Say you traveled in time, in an attempt to stop COVID-19’s patient zero from being exposed to the virus,” Costa says. “However if you stopped that individual from becoming infected – that would eliminate the motivation for you to go back and stop the pandemic in the first place.”
In Tobar’s model, no matter what you did, the virus would still escape somehow. “You might try and stop patient zero from becoming infected, but in doing so you would catch the virus and become patient zero, or someone else would,” says Tobar. “No matter what you did, the salient events would just recalibrate around you.”
Even time travelers couldn't stop the spread of the coronavirus. GETTY
That means that you have complete freedom of choice, but no matter how hard you tried, you could not stop COVID-19 from escaping.
But this is good news for Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Nothing he did could prevent his parents from falling in love and getting married, and eventually, allowing Marty to be born. Other things might change, like how they met, or what his father ate for breakfast that morning. But nothing could change their eventual meeting.
This doesn’t necessarily rule out other models of time travel, for example, a quantum mechanical one. “Some of the quantum approaches would indeed invoke the existence of multiple universes, which interact through the time machine, possibly creating alternate timelines,” says Tobar. Instead, Tobar and Costa’s model is classical and shows that if only one universe exists, it is possible to allow for paradox-free time travel.
This work has other implications as well, including the unification of quantum theory with general relativity. “One of the main issues is that, in such a theory, time seems to disappear, making the traditional, temporal view of dynamics unsuitable,” says Tobar. “Our work presents a different way to look at physical laws, which could find applications in theories of quantum gravity.”
Could closed time-like curves, and potentially time machines, exist in our Universe?
“Proposals so far involve exotic matter (with negative or infinite energy), and we don't know if such matter exists in our universe,” says Tobar. “An interesting consequence is that the CTCs [closed time-like curves] would only exist after a certain point in time, which means it would not be possible to time travel to before the first time machine was created. This would explain why we haven't seen any time traveler from the future yet.”
Elizabeth Fernandez Dr. Elizabeth Fernandez is the host of SparkDialog Podcasts (sparkdialog.com), which covers the intersection of science and society. She has a PhD in astrophysics