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)
Saturday, December 25, 2021
ECOCIDE
Viewer photos, videos show what happened when fire erupted at Baytown's ExxonMobil refinery
New study reveals intensified housing inequality in Canada from 1981 to 2016
Neoliberal housing policies and financialization over the past four decades has helped transform housing in Canada from human necessity to an investment opportunity.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
December 23, 2021
Driven by the neoliberal belief in the superiority of the free market, the housing policy in Canada has shifted from a welfare-oriented policy to a market-oriented one over the past four decades, encouraging home ownership, deregulation and private consumption.
Housing financialization, the transformation of housing from a human right to an investment opportunity, has been driven by the federal government primarily through financial market deregulation and a financial practice called mortgage securitization.
Much of the debate about the housing crisis has focused on the market imbalance between supply and demand, citing factors such as foreign investment and lack of market supply. However, many housing problems today need to be viewed in the historical context of the housing system restructuring, which keeps housing and wealth inequality alive and well.
Using the historical census data of five metropolitan areas — Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton and Calgary — from 1981 to 2016, our study reveals deeply entrenched housing inequality in accessing affordable housing in the post-1990s neoliberal era. Both neoliberal housing policies and housing financialization are important contributors to this intensified housing inequality.
Canada’s housing system: from welfare to neoliberal regime
Until the mid-1980s, Canada had a welfare housing regime with strong state intervention in social housing supply — first in the form of public housing financed and managed by the government, then in community housing developed by a mix of community groups with government funding and finance.
This welfare-oriented regime was transformed into a neoliberal regime in the 1990s, when the federal government moved away from social housing and started relying primarily on the private sector for housing supply.
Federal expenditure on housing programs dropped from nearly 1.5 per cent in 1981 to slightly over 0.6 per cent of the total federal expenditure in 2016. Since then, the social housing sector has become more “core-needs” targeted, supporting people with special needs and leaving those in need of independent social housing to the private market.
Bill C-66 helped channel household savings into increasingly expensive housing markets, boosting housing demand and driving financial capital into the housing market.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang)
The 2000s marked the start of housing financialization in Canada. In 1999, responding to the demands of consumers and the financial sector, the federal government introduced Bill C-66 that aimed to turn the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) from home-builder to mortgage-insurer. With easier access to credits and lower interest rates, household savings were channelled into increasingly expensive housing markets, boosting housing demand and attracting financial capital into the profitable housing market.
More Canadian households face affordability problems over time
The neoliberalization of housing policy came with increased housing inequality. One outcome of housing financialization is the increase in residential mortgage debt to finance housing. The residential mortgage debt to GDP ratio rose from 26 per cent, to a whopping 68 per cent between 1981 and 2016.
Our study uses the shelter-costs-to-income ratio (CIR) to assess housing affordability. Overall, the average CIRs across these five census metropolitan areas fluctuated modestly between 25 per cent and 33 per cent throughout the census years. Yet, more Canadian households have experienced housing unaffordability problems over time. The share of renter households that spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing increased from 35 per cent to 42 per cent between 1986 and 2016. These numbers for owners increased from 14 per cent to 22 per cent during the same period.
Chart showing the share of renter and owner households that spend more than 30 per cent of income on housing. (Statistics Canada)
Greater inequality in accessing affordable housing in the neoliberal era
The more commodified a housing sector, the more access to housing one would expect to have, contingent on an individual’s economic status rather than citizenship. Indeed, the gap in affordable housing access between income groups has enlarged in Canada.
After taking factors such as household type and size and socio-demographic characteristics into consideration, we estimated that the average CIR for high-income households dropped from 46 per cent for low to middle-income income households, to 40 per cent post-2001. This suggests a greater gap in accessing affordable housing determined by income, and a more commodified housing sector in the neoliberal era.
Chart illustrating the predicted shelter-costs-to-income ratio of high-income households to low and medium-income households. (Author provided)
The reduced federal expenditure on social housing and increasing residential-debt-to-GDP ratio, induced by housing financialization, shows significant effects on the rising housing unaffordability, among other macroeconomic factors such as GDP growth and unemployment rates.
While the withdrawal of the federal funding increased housing costs for both income groups, housing financialization exacerbated housing unaffordability only for low to middle-income households, while benefiting high-income households by improving housing affordability for them. This reflects the private market’s incluination to respond to the housing demand of those with stronger purchasing power, leading to reduced housing supply for those at the bottom of the income ladder and reinforcing housing inequality between the two income groups.
The vulnerability of low-income renters and young homeowners
Housing commodification and financialization in the neoliberal era have had uneven impacts on Canadian households. Low to middle-income renters at all ages appear to encounter housing affordability stress, although their CIR remains relatively stable over time.
In contrast, the CIR for low to middle-income homeowners increased substantially over time. Young homeowners are the worst off due to easier access to mortgage loans and slow income improvement, representing a new form of housing vulnerability. While high-income homeowners have also experienced rising CIR over time, their CIR remain well below 30 per cent. High-income renters have seen improved affordability over the years.
Chart showing predicted shelter-costs-to-income ratio by age, tenure and income, 1981-2016. Low-income renters and low-income young homeowners are disproportionately impacted by rising housing unaffordability. (Author provided)
Housing gaps widest among women and immigrants
There are significant housing affordability gaps between different gender and immigrant groups. These disparities do exist regardless of housing tenure, but they were only present among low to middle-income households. While established immigrants tend to catch up with native-born Canadians, the gender gap persists among low-income households, regardless of immigrant status. This implies the existence of systemic barriers in low-income female-led households, such as male bias in the design and planning of the residential spaces in social housing.
Chart demonstrating predicted shelter-costs-to-income ratio in 2016 by sex, income and immigrant status for renters (a) and owners (b). Low-income recent immigrants and low-income female-led households are disadvantaged in affordable housing access. (Author provided)
Overall, Canada’s housing section is highly commodified, with income playing a major role in accessing affordable housing. To date, housing policies have mainly focused on market solutions, such as discouraging foreign investment or encouraging the market supply of affordable housing. However, the intensified market mechanism resulting from neoliberal housing policies has widened the housing disparity gap between the haves and the have-nots.
State institutions have been utilized and transformed to facilitate, rather than limit, the commodification and financialization of housing. It is vital for public policies to recognize the state as part of the housing problem and shift the policy narratives around housing unaffordability from simply a market disequilibrium problem, to a failure of state institutions.
Author
Yushu Zhu Assistant Professor, Faculty of Urban Studies and Public Policy, Simon Fraser University Disclosure statement Yushu Zhu receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Partners Simon Fraser University provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA-FR.
Provinces' next step on building small nuclear reactors to come in the new year
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Alberta joined Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick
Four provinces are exploring how to harness nuclear energy. Clockwise from top left are Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. (CBC)
Alberta's ministry of energy says the four provinces cooperating on nuclear reactor technology are aiming to release their strategic plan in the new year.
In August 2020, Alberta announced it would join Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick on a pre-existing memorandum of understanding to explore and eventually develop small reactors.
The small modular reactor (SMR) strategic plan, a collaboration between the four provinces, is in development now and Alberta says it's planning for the details to be released shortly.
"[The] provinces are aiming to release the plan in early 2022," Jennifer Henshaw, Energy Minister Sonya Savage's press secretary, said in a statement.
The group released a feasibility study in April which found SMRs could help Canada improve its domestic energy security and aid in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The upcoming strategic plan was originally expected to be completed in the spring of 2021.
Nuclear energy works by splitting atoms, which creates heat that can then be harnessed and turned into electricity.
"If you're going to get to net zero [emissions], there is no way to do this without nuclear. And given the importance of the oil sands in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, this may be the opportunity," Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University who is also an expert in Canada's history with nuclear energy, said.
Canada has committed to reaching that net zero target by 2050.
The operation of SMRs doesn't produce carbon emissions. However, its status as a fully clean energy has been criticized due to the dangers of disposing the radioactive waste.
Federal government looking at national nuclear supply chain
This fall the federal government put out a tender to study how Alberta and Saskatchewan could contribute to a national nuclear supply chain.
"Alberta Energy was engaged by Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) for the development of their SMR Supply Chain Study project," Henshaw said.
"Alberta Energy, the Alberta Utilities Commission and the Alberta Energy Regulator will be working together to identify and address potential areas of overlap, uncertainty and duplication between federal and provincial regulatory regimes."
Traditional nuclear reactors used in Canada can typically generate about 800 megawatts of electricity, or about enough to power 600,000 homes at once, assuming one megawatt can power about 750 homes. The term SMR, on the other hand, is applied to units that produce less than 300 megawatts of electric output. Some SMRs are small enough to fit into a school gym.
No SMRs have been built yet, but Ontario Power Generation says it's on track to have two established by 2028. A Saskatchewan report estimates it will have SMRs by 2032. The small reactors are cheaper and require less complex engineering.
SMRs could have the capacity to provide largely emission-free energy to oilsands facilities, according to a roadmap prepared last year by an intergovernmental committee and industry stakeholders. It warns that cost and regulatory hurdles could be serious roadblocks.
"I haven't heard Alberta-based oil and gas companies being so bullish on nuclear before. And so this is industry led, not government led," Bratt said.
He added collaboration between the provincial and federal governments is also essential, because while electricity is Alberta's jurisdiction, nuclear is in the national purview.
With files from Sarah Rieger and Hannah Kost
China advances in nuclear power with world's first small modular nuclear reactor
WION Web Team New Delhi Published: Dec 23, 2021
The application of SMRs has the ability to drastically cut down the consumption of fossil fuel energy in China
China is now home to the world's first small modular nuclear reactor. The Huaneng Group Co.’s 200-megawatt unit 1 reactor at Shidao Bay provides power to the grid in Shandong province.
The reactor can use nuclear energy for various functions including power generation. It can also be used in the mining sector, industrial parks and for high-end consumption industries.
The plant uses helium instead of water to produce power. Its fourth-generation reactor shuts down passively in case of any problem.
The small module reactors or SMRs, at 200 megawatts are nearly one-fifth the size of Hualong One, which happens to be China’s first homegrown reactor design. "SMRs should be less costly to build and operate, faster to implement and have shorter shutdown times during refuelling than traditional nuclear plants,” Jefferies analyst Bolor Enkhbaatar said.
The application of SMRs has the ability to drastically cut down the consumption of fossil fuel energy in China. This can further help in promoting energy conservation and carbon emission reduction.
A report by Bloomberg reveals that no country in the world is spending on a nuclear plant as much as China. The country is expected to invest $440 billion into new plants in the coming 10 years.
China has reportedly built 51 nuclear power units with 19 under construction. It currently has the world's third-largest park of nuclear reactors after the US and France and has invested in developing the nuclear energy sector.
(With inputs from agencies)
Poland narrows down nuclear sites
22 December 2021
The seaside towns of Lubiatowo and Kopalino in Poland's Choczewo municipality have been named as the preferred location for the country's first large nuclear power plant.
Lubiatowo-Kopalinio is a coastal location whereas Żarnowiec is lakeside (Image: PEJ)
The choice was announced by Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (PEJ), the government company that is progressing its policy to deploy up to six reactors at multiple sites by 2040.
PEJ said very detailed environmental and location studies have been conducted on the area since 2017, with the support of Jacobs as a technical advisor. Potential nuclear energy development in Choczewo has been a subject of public discussion since Poland's programme began in 2011. A nationwide effort to raise awareness of nuclear energy has seen three local information centres established in the area, among other efforts. The goal was to "enable everyone to form their own opinion."
The "substantive" work on an environmental impact assessment has been completed, PEJ said when announcing the siting preference. It noted that national and European legislation has evolved over the course of the study and this needs to be reflected in the final report. "Therefore, the report will be completed and submitted to the General Director of Environmental Protection in the first quarter of next year, after the amended regulations enter into force," it said.
The study began with 92 potential sites, said PEJ. They were assessed on "factors such as land characteristics, cooling water availability, location in relation to areas covered by forms of nature protection, including Natura 2000 sites, and existing and expandable infrastructure elements, such as energy, road and rail networks." (Natura 2000 is a coordinated network of protected habitat areas stretching across the EU.)
This confirmed that the province of Pomerania was generally suitable, and more detailed studies began both on Lubiatowo-Kopalino and Żarnowiec. These confirmed that the location of Lubiatowo-Kopalino "is the best option for the environment and safe for people," said PEJ.
"We want the entire investment process in the project of the first nuclear power plant in Poland to be transparent, responsible and to the highest standards from the very beginning," said Tomasz Stępień, chair of PEJ. The "long-term and comprehensive analysis" of locations where the power plant could be built has been a priority for the company in recent years, he added.
PEJ noted a recent opinion poll that showed 74% support for construction of nuclear power plants in Poland as well as 63% support among residents of Choczewo, Gniewino and Korkowa to build nuclear facilities in Pomerania province.
Lou Rudd on a previous expedition. Photo: Lou Rudd
This week in Antarctica features more drama. Another expedition has required an emergency evacuation, and the weather continues to frustrate Robert Packshaw and Jamie Facer-Childs.
Packshaw and Facer-Childs kite-ski expedition
Packshaw and Facer-Childs can’t seem to catch a break. “Patience and respect are qualities you need an abundance of here,” Packshaw wrote in a recent post. With only a smattering of good weather days, the duo will need all the patience they can muster.
Packshaw and Facer-Childs are heading south, but the prevailing wind has been blowing north. On some days, this means they travel long distances but make little progress. Day 37 was a good example; there was enough wind to travel and they clocked up 77km, but only 45 of those kilometres were toward the South Pole.
Forty days into the expedition, they have covered 1,328km.
Martin Hewitt and Lou Rudd
Hewitt and Rudd made it back to Thiels Corner, and ALE picked them up. Now back at Union Glacier, they hope that Hewitt’s Achilles tendonitis will clear up with lots of rest and anti-inflammatories.
If his Achilles tendon plays ball, Hewitt and Rudd plan to ski the last degree to the South Pole and then climb Mount Vinson.
Hewitt believes that his unevenly weighted sled and sastrugi (pictured here by Preet Chandi) led to his Achilles problem. Photo: Preet Chandi
Solo expeditions
In our last update, Preet Chandi was mulling whether to decrease her time skiing and get more sleep. Already ahead of schedule, she has chosen to keep pushing.
Chandi seems to be coping well, though she’s tired of the long uphill to the polar plateau: “Still lots and lots of uphill. At one point I was daydreaming about how it would feel going the other way with the wind behind me,” she said in a recent update.
Further south, Masatatsu Abe is either going a bit mad or is experiencing very different weather from the other expeditions. “The southern hemisphere has a high solar zenith around the summer solstice,” he wrote yesterday. “The maximum temperature is -4℃. It can’t be helped because it’s hot when there is no wind. Get naked and cool.”
Masatatsu Abe enjoying the warm weather. Photo: Masatatsu Abe
Abe is covering between 13 and 18km per day and has also experienced a few days with strong headwinds.
On December 21, he made a surprise find. Hundreds of kilometres from the sea, he found a bird on the ice. It was the first living thing Abe had seen in a month, but the bird wasn’t keen to hang out and flew off when he approached.
ALE guided group
The ALE guided group could have done with some of Abe’s warm weather. Team member Akshay Nanavati had to be evacuated due to fairly severe frostbite. “We were all cruising along when on the start of the seventh shift, I felt my right ring finger go numb,” Nanavati said. “I knew we only had two more shifts to go, I thought I’d just suck it up. But after a while, something was clearly wrong.”
Nanavati is now back at Union Glacier getting treatment. It looks like he’ll keep his fingers, but a long recovery period is ahead of him: “The doctor said if I expose these fingers to the cold any more, I’d lose them. My three fingers will essentially be out of commission for six months.”
Martin Walsh Martin Walsh is a freelance writer and wildlife photographer based in Da Lat, Vietnam. A history graduate from the University of Nottingham, Martin's career arc is something of a smörgåsbord. A largely unsuccessful basketball coach in Zimbabwe and the Indian Himalaya, a reluctant business lobbyist in London, and an interior design project manager in Saigon. He has been fortunate enough to see some of the world. Highlights include tracking tigers on foot in Nepal, white-water rafting the Nile, bumbling his way from London to Istanbul on a bicycle, feeding wild hyenas with his face in Ethiopia, and accidentally interviewing Hezbollah in Lebanon. His areas of expertise include adventure travel, hiking, wildlife, and half-forgotten early 2000s indie-rock bands.
Unprecedented die-offs, melting ice: Climate change is wreaking havoc in the Arctic and beyond
by Susanne Rust
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Forces profound and alarming are reshaping the upper reaches of the North Pacific and Arctic oceans, breaking the food chain that supports billions of creatures and one of the world's most important fisheries.
In the last five years, scientists have observed animal die-offs of unprecedented size, scope and duration in the waters of the Beaufort, Chukchi and northern Bering seas, while recording the displacement and disappearance of entire species of fish and ocean-dwelling invertebrates. The ecosystem is critical for resident seals, walruses and bears, as well as migratory gray whales, birds, sea lions and numerous other animals.
Historically long stretches of record-breaking ocean heat and loss of sea ice have fundamentally changed this ecosystem from bottom to top and top to bottom, say researchers who study its inhabitants. Not only are algae and zooplankton affected, but now apex predators such as killer whales are moving into areas once locked away by ice—gaining unfettered access to a spoil of riches.
Scientists describe what's going on as less an ecosystem collapse than a brutal "regime shift"—an event in which many species may disappear, but others will replace them.
"You can think of it in terms of winners and losers," said Janet Duffy-Anderson, a Seattle-based marine scientist who leads annual surveys of the Bering Sea for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Alaska Fisheries Science Center. "Something is going to emerge and become the more dominant species, and something is going to decline because it can't adapt to that changing food web."
A team from The Times traveled to Alaska and spoke with dozens of scientists conducting field research in the Bering Sea and high Arctic to better understand these dramatic changes. Their findings suggest that this vast, near-polar ecosystem—stable for thousands for years and resilient to brief but dramatic swings in temperature—is undergoing an irreversible transition.
"It's like the gates of hell have been opened," said Lorenzo Ciannelli, a fisheries oceanographer at Oregon State University, referring to a once ice-covered portion of the Bering Sea that has largely disappeared.
Since 2019, federal investigators have declared unexplained mortality events for a variety of animals, including gray whales that migrate past California and several species of Arctic seals. They are also examining large die-offs—or "wrecks," as avian biologists call them—in dozens of seabird species including horned puffins, black-legged kittiwakes and shearwaters.
At the same time, they are documenting the disappearance of the "cold pool"—a region of the northern Bering Sea that for thousands of years has served as a barrier that protects cold-water species, such as Arctic cod and snow crab, from subarctic species, such as walleye pollock and Pacific cod. In the last five years, many of these Arctic species have almost entirely disappeared from the northern Bering, while populations of warmer-dwelling fish have proliferated.
In 2010, a federal survey estimated there were 319,000 metric tons of snow crab in the northern Bering Sea. As of this year, that number had dropped by more than 75%. Meanwhile, a subarctic fish, the Pacific cod, has skyrocketed—going from 29,124 metric tons in 2010 to 227,577 in 2021.
Whether the warming has diminished these super-cold-water species or forced them to migrate elsewhere—farther north or west, across the U.S.-Russia border, where American scientists can no longer observe them—remains unclear. But scientists say animals seem to be suffering in these more distant polar regions too, according to sporadic reports from the area.
Which gets to the basic challenge of studying this ecosystem: For so long, its remoteness, freezing temperatures and lack of winter sunlight have made the region largely inaccessible. Unlike in temperate and tropical climates, where scientists can obtain reasonably accurate population counts of many species, the Arctic doesn't yield its secrets easily. That makes it hard to establish baseline data for scores of species—especially those with little commercial value.
"That part is really frustrating," said Peter Boveng, who studies Arctic seals for NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center. He said he and his colleagues wonder if the information they are now gathering is truly baseline data, or has already been shifted by years of warming.
Only recently have he and other scientists had the technology to conduct these kinds of counts—using cameras instead of observers in airplanes, for instance, or installing sound buoys across the ice and sea to capture the movement of whales, seals and bears.
"We're only just beginning to understand what is happening up there," said Deborah Giles, a killer whale researcher at the University of Washington's Center for Conservation Biology. "We just couldn't be there or see things in the way a drone can."
The dramatic shifts that Giles, Boveng and others are observing have ramifications that stretch far beyond the Arctic. The Bering Sea is one of the planet's major fishing grounds—the eastern Bering Sea, for instance, supplies more than 40% of the annual U.S. catch of fish and shellfish—and is a crucial food source for thousands of Russians and Indigenous Alaskans who rely on fish, birds' eggs, walrus and seal for protein.
"Globally, cold-water ecosystems support the world's fisheries. Halibut, all of the cod, all of the benthic crabs, lobsters…. This is the majority of the food source for the world," said NOAA's Duffy-Anderson.
The potential ripple effect could shut down fisheries and leave migrating animals starving for food. These include gray whales and short-tailed shearwaters—a bird that travels more than 9,000 miles every year from Australia and New Zealand to feed in the Arctic smorgasbord before flying home.
"Alaska is a bellwether for what other systems can expect," she added. "It's really just a beginning."
***
Flying along the southeastern coastline of Alaska's Kodiak Island, Matthew Van Daele—wearing a safety harness tethered to the inside a U.S. Coast Guard MH-60T Jayhawk—leaned out the helicopter door, scanning the beaches below for dead whales and seals.
The clouds hung low, so the copter hugged close to the sandstone cliffs that rise from this green island, which gets about 80 inches of rain and 60 inches of snowfall every year. Although few dead animals were spotted on this September afternoon, plenty of furry brown Kodiak bears could be seen bounding across open fields and along the beaches, trying to escape the ruckus of the approaching chopper.
"There's one!" yelled Van Daele, natural resources director for the Sun'aq Tribe, speaking through the intercom system to the chopper's pilots as he pointed to a rotting whale carcass on the beach.
The pilots circled and deftly landed on a little strip of sand, careful to keep the rotor blades from hitting the eroding wall of rock on the beach's edge.
Joe Sekerak, a NOAA enforcement officer, jumped out after Van Daele, holding a rifle should hungry Kodiak bears arrive to challenge the small team in its attempt to examine the whale carcass.
According to Van Daele, the whale had been dead several weeks; her body was in poor shape, with little fat.
Since 2019, hundreds of gray whales have died along North America's Pacific coastline, many appearing skinny or underfed.
Although researchers have not determined the cause of the die-off, there are ominous signs something is amiss in their high Arctic feeding grounds.
"We're used to change around here," said Alexus Kwatchka, a commercial fisherman who has navigated Alaskan waters for more than 30 years. He noted some years are cold, some are warm; sometimes all of the fish seem to be in one area for a few years, and then resettle elsewhere.
This fall has been extremely cold in Alaska; the town of Kotzebue, in the northwest, hit minus-31 degrees on Nov. 28—the record low for that date. This follows several years of record-setting warmth in the region.
What is new, said Kwatchka, is the persistence of this change. It's not like it gets super warm for one or two years and then goes back to normal, he said. Now the changes last, and he said he's encountering things he's never seen before—such as gray whales feeding along the beaches of Kodiak, or swimming in packs.
"Usually there are whales just scattered around the island," he said. "But I've seen them kind of bunched up and podded up, and I'm seeing them in places where I don't ordinarily see them."
In September, an emaciated young male gray whale was seen off a beach near Kodiak, behaving as though it were trying to feed, scooping material from the shallow shore bottom and filtering it through his baleen, a system many leviathans use to separate food from sand and water.
Three weeks later, that same young male washed ashore dead, not far from where he had been spotted previously.
Dozens of scientists validated Kwatchka's observations, describing these periods of intense ocean heat and cooling as "stanzas," which are growing more extreme and lasting longer than those of the past.
That's a problem, said Duffy-Anderson, because the longer you stress a system, the deeper and broader the impacts—and therefore the harder for it to bounce back.
While it's always possible the current stanza is temporary and the ecosystem could reset itself, "that is unlikely," said Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Due to atmospheric warming, the world's oceans hold so much excess heat that it's improbable the Chukchi Sea will ever be covered again with thick, multiyear ice, he said. Nor will we see many more years where the spring ice extends across the Bering, he said.
Even though Nome saw one of its coldest Novembers in 100 years of record keeping, and King Salmon—a town of roughly 300 near Katmai National Park and Preserve—recorded its all-time lowest November temperatures, "the escalator of warming is going up," Thoman said.
He conjured up an image of a 5-year-old running up and down an ascending escalator. "Somebody standing off of the escalator might say, oh, it looks like the kid is going down. But as we know, the escalator is continuing to go up."
"What we've seen in the Bering Sea in recent years is," he added, "unprecedented."
***
Lee Cooper and Jackie Grebmeier, researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, have visited these waters every year since the 1980s, when they were graduate students at the University of Alaska. Their initial proposal centered on one basic question: What makes these Arctic-like waters of the northern Bering Sea so productive?
It was tough work. So much of the ocean was frozen, and therefore inaccessible. Other researchers faced the same challenge.
"When we started out, we couldn't get north into the Bering Strait area because of ice until mid-June," said Kathy Kuletz, a bird biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who has been researching the northern Bering Sea and high Arctic since 2006 and studying Alaskan birds since 1978. "Even then, it wasn't until late June that you could get into the Chukchi. And that's certainly not been the issue ... since, let's see, about 2015 or so."
Researchers are focused on ice—or the lack of it—because the frozen ocean is the foundation of the region's rich ecosystems. It not only keeps the waters beneath it cool, but a layer of algae grows on the underside of these ice sheets—the key to the entire food web.
For eons, as the sun moved south in autumn and the temperatures dropped in the high latitudes, Arctic sea ice thickened near the North Pole. At its edges, it reached its frosty fingers into the inlets along the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, winding its way south through the Bering Strait and into the northern Bering Sea. By March, the northern Bering Sea was typically a vast field of white ice, its edges marked by broken sheets that had been pushed into a vertical position by whipping winds and churning currents below.
But for the last 50 years, as the region's warm stanzas have increased in duration and intensity, that seasonal ice has dwindled.
A 2020 study published in the journal Science documented a reduction in ice extent unlike any other in the last 5,500 years: Its extent in 2018 and 2019 was 60% to 70% lower than the historical average. In an Arctic report card released just this week, federal scientists called the region's changes "alarming and undeniable."
Long before the sea was named for the 18th century Danish cartographer and Russian naval explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering, the icy water body consisted of two distinct ecosystems—one subarctic, the other resembling the high Arctic. Fish in the subarctic zone—such as Pacific cod—were deterred by the frigid temperatures of the cold pool, which hover just below 32 degrees. But other fish—such as Arctic cod, capelin and flatfish—evolved to thrive in this environment, with the cold pool serving as a protective barrier.
Now that "thermal force field" has all but vanished.
Lyle Britt, director of the Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering division of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, leads annual trawl surveys in the Bering Sea, part of a U.S. effort to systematically monitor commercial fish populations and their ecosystems. The federal government has conducted a survey of the eastern Bering Sea every year since 1982—with the exception of 2020, when COVID grounded the personnel and boats. Federal surveying of the northern Bering Sea began in 2010 amid concerns about the loss of seasonal sea ice; the government has surveyed it a total of five times.
With each survey, Britt and his mariner colleagues navigate the sea as if tracing over the same piece of graph paper, year after year, with 520 evenly dispersed stations at 20-mile intervals. At each one—376 in the eastern Bering Sea and 144 in the northern Bering Sea—they stop to collect environmental data, such as bottom- and surface-water temperatures, as well as a sampling of fish and invertebrates, which they count and weigh.
Data from a Bering Sea mooring shows the average temperature throughout the water column has risen markedly in the last several years: in 2018, water temperatures were 9 degrees above the historical average.
Not only have the scientists noticed, so too have the fish.
Consider the plight of the walleye pollock—also known as Alaska pollock—one of the region's most important fisheries.
While adult walleye pollock are averse to super cold water, juveniles are known to gravitate to the interior of the cold pool. In this protective chilly dome, the young fish are not only walled off from cold-hating predators, but as their metabolisms slow in the frigid temperatures, they can gorge on and grow from the Arctic ecosystem's fatty, rich food sources.
With the cold pool gone, "there's no refuge" for small fish seeking to grow big, said Duffy-Anderson. "Instead, the adult fish can now move into those spaces."
So what has happened to the Arctic fish? Have they just moved north, following the cold water?
It's not that simple, said Britt. The northern Bering Sea is very shallow. When ice is not there to cover it, it warms up quickly—and can exceed temperatures detected in the subarctic southern Bering Sea.
"So we don't fully understand all the implications of why the fish are moving in the directions and patterns that they are," he said. But in some places—particularly the places that once harbored cold-loving fish such as Arctic cod and capelin—they are just gone.
In a healthy Arctic system, thousands of bottom-dwelling species—bottom fish, clams, crabs and shrimp-like critters—feast on the lipid-rich algae that falls from the ice to the bottom of the sea. But in a warm-water system, the algae gets taken up in the water column, said Duffy-Anderson.
The healthy system is highly energy-efficient—with sediment-dwelling invertebrates and bottom fish feeding on the rain of algae, and then birds and large-bodied mammals, such as walrus and whales, scooping them up.
"One of the things I'm really concerned about is ... that the whole food web dynamic kind of comes apart," she said. As warmer waters and animals infiltrate the system, "you put more links in the food chain, and then less and less of that energy is transferred efficiently. And that is what we're beginning to see."
Ice is also essential habitat for some Arctic mammals. As with gray whales, several types of ice seals—which include ringed, spotted and bearded seals—started showing up skinny or dead around the Chukchi and Bering seas in 2018, spurring a federal investigation. These Arctic-dwelling species rely on sea ice to pup, nurse and molt. Without it, they spend more time in the cold water, where they expend too much energy. Young seals are particularly vulnerable; their chances for survival plummet without the ice, said the Alaska Fisheries Science Center's Boveng.
There are also reports of killer whales—also known as orcas— showing up in areas they haven't been spotted before, feeding on beluga whales, bowheads and narwhals, said Giles, the University of Washington orca researcher.
"They are finding channels and openings through the ice, and in some cases preying on animals that have never seen killer whales before," she said.
Climate scientists worldwide have long warned that as the planet warms, humans and wildlife will become more vulnerable to infectious diseases previously confined to certain locations and environments. That dynamic could be a factor in the massive die-off of birds in the Bering Sea—experts estimate at least tens of thousands of birds have died there since 2013.
The culprit was avian cholera, a disease not previously detected in these high latitudes, and one that elsewhere rarely fells seabirds such as thick-billed murres, auklets, common eiders, northern fulmars and gulls.
Toxic algae associated with warmer waters has also been detected in a few dead birds (and some healthy birds) in the Bering Sea, said Robb Kaler, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—and may have been responsible for the death of a person living on St. Lawrence Island.
Kuletz, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist who has been observing birds in Alaska since the late 1970s, said she's never before seen the large-scale changes of recent years. In 2013, the dead birds did not show signs of being emaciated, but in 2017, hundreds to thousands more began to wash up dead on beaches with clear signs of starvation, she said.
"There've always been little peaks" of die-offs that would last a year or so, but then things would go back to normal, she said. "These animals are resilient. They can forgo breeding if they aren't getting enough nutrition."
Not all bird species are suffering. Albatross, which are surface feeders, are booming, underscoring for Kuletz the idea that there could be "winners and losers" in the changing region. Albatross do not nest in Alaska. They only come in the summer to feed, and are therefore not tied to eggs or nests while looking for food.
Yet for some scientists, it isn't easy to reconcile how a system in balance could so quickly go off the rails, even if some species adapt and thrive as others struggle.
"For me, it's actually very emotional," said Thoman, the University of Alaska climate specialist, recalling his elementary school days, when he read Jack London's "To Build a Fire" and other stories from the Arctic.
"The environment that he described, the environment that I saw going through National Geographics in the 1970s? That environment doesn't exist anymore."
Scientists Have Cultivated a “Miracle Microbe” That Converts Oil Into Methane
By MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR MARINE MICROBIOLOGY DECEMBER 23, 2021
Scientists have succeeded in cultivating an archaeon that converts oil into methane. They describe how the microbe achieves the transformation and that it prefers to eat rather bulky chunks of food.
Microorganisms can convert oil into natural gas, i.e. methane. Until recently, it was thought that this conversion was only possible through the cooperation of different organisms. In 2019, Rafael Laso-Pérez and Gunter Wegener from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology suggested that a special archaeon can do this all by itself, as indicated by their genome analyses. Now, in collaboration with a team from China, the researchers have succeeded in cultivating this “miracle microbe” in the laboratory. This enabled them to describe exactly how the microbe achieves the transformation. They also discovered that it prefers to eat rather bulky chunks of food.
In an oil field like this, Gunter Wegener and his colleagues found the microorganisms that now also live in their laboratory. Genetic information shows that they are widespread and even live in the deep sea. Credit: Yoshi Canopus
Underground oil deposits on land and in the sea are home to microorganisms that use the oil as a source of energy and food, converting it into methane. Until recently, it was thought that this conversion was only possible in a complicated teamwork between different organisms: certain bacteria and usually two archaeal partners. Now the researchers have managed to cultivate an archaeon called Methanoliparia from a settling tank of an oil production facility that handles this complex reaction all by itself.
Enzymes just in case
This “miracle microbe” breaks down oil into methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2). “Methanoliparia is a kind of hybrid creature that combines the properties of an oil degrader with those of a methanogen, i.e. a methane producer,” explains study author Gunter Wegener from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen.
Image from the epifluorescence microscope: Methanoliparia cells (green) from the laboratory cultures. The oil droplet that the archaea colonized can be seen as a reddish glow. The red dots display rare bacteria in the culture. Credit: Rafael Laso-Pérez/Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology; from: Zhou et al., Nature, 2021
Now that the researchers have succeeded in cultivating these microorganisms in the laboratory, they were able to investigate the underlying processes in detail. They discovered that its genetic make-up gives Methanoliparia unique capabilities. “In its genes it carries the blueprints for enzymes that can activate and decompose various hydrocarbons. In addition, it also has the complete gear kit of a methane producer,” says Wegener.
New pathway of methanogenesis
In their laboratory cultures, the researchers offered the microbes various kinds of food and used a variety of different methods to keep a close eye on how Methanoliparia deal with it. What was particularly surprising to see was that this archaeon activated all the different hydrocarbons with one and the same enzyme. “So far, we have only cultivated archaea that live on short-chain hydrocarbons such as ethane or butane. Methanoliparia, on the other hand, prefers heavy oil with its long-chain compounds,” says co-author Rafael Laso-Pérez, who now works at Spain’s National Center for Biotechnology (CNB).
“Methanogenic microbes that use long-chain hydrocarbons directly – we didn’t know these existed until now. Even complicated hydrocarbons with ring-like or aromatic structures are not too bulky for Methanoliparia, at least if they are bound to at least one longer carbon chain. This means that besides our other exciting results we have also found a previously completely unknown pathway of methanogenesis.”
It doesn’t look like much, but it’s full of surprises: Bottles like these harbor the cultures of Methanoliparia. Credit: Lei Cheng
Detectable from the oil tank to the deep sea
The Methanoliparia cells cultured for the present study originate from one of China’s largest oil fields, the Shengli oil field. However, genetic analyses show that these microbes are distributed all over the world, even down to the deep sea. “Our results hold an entirely new understanding of oil exploitation in subsurface oil reservoirs. Both the wide distribution of these organisms and the potential industrial applications make this an exciting field of research in the coming years,” Wegener concludes.
Reference: “Non-syntrophic methanogenic hydrocarbon degradation by an archaeal species” by Zhuo Zhou, Cui-jing Zhang, Peng-fei Liu, Lin Fu, Rafael Laso-Pérez, Lu Yang, Li-ping Bai, Jiang Li, Min Yang, Jun-zhang Lin, Wei-dong Wang, Gunter Wegener, Meng Li and Lei Cheng, 22 December 2021, Nature.
Environmentalists, MLA call for B.C. to fund protection of old-growth forests
Members of the Ancient Forest Alliance on the steps of the B.C. legislature are seen on Dec. 21, 2021
(CTV News)
Scott Weston CTV News Vancouver Island Journalist Published Dec. 22, 2021
On Tuesday, the Ancient Forest Alliance and BC Green Party MLA Adam Olsen held a briefing on the steps of the B.C. legislature demanding the province increase its funding for the protection of old-growth forests.
Staff with the Ancient Forest Alliance say there is an urgent need for substantial provincial funding to defer old-growth logging, particular for First Nations that are stuck deciding between supporting deferrals or maintaining logging revenue.
"We need to protect the last ancient stands of old-growth forests in B.C., but it's not as simple as the stroke of a pen or just passing a piece of legislation," said Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andra Inness.
"We need to support First Nations communities who are economically dependent on revenues from those old-growth forests," she said. "We need to supplant those revenues with economically sustainable alternatives, and that requires a significant funding commitment for the B.C. government."
Tuesday’s briefing comes after the province said in early November that it will work with First Nations to defer 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forest after a recommendation from an independent scientific panel.
'IMPOSSIBLE POSITION'
The Ancient Forest Alliance says that last week the B.C. government announced that most First Nations that responded to requests for deferrals have expressed an interest in discussing old-growth forest management with the province.
The conservation group says despite the positive response, the NDP government is failing to support the discussions with funding to offset the revenues from old-growth logging.
"We’re here to demand that the B.C. government commit significant funding in the upcoming budget in February to help First Nations to protect old-growth forests in their territories and develop their economies sustainably," said Inness. "Forests are the most carbon rich ecosystems on the planet, so in a climate change emergency we simply cannot afford not to do this."
Olsen says he is pleased to see the province move to protect B.C.’s most at-risk ancient forests but he says the commitment to First Nations communities that rely on the money generated from logging falls short.
"As long as they continue to come to the negotiation table with First Nations virtually empty handed, they won’t fully achieve it," said the Saanich North and the Islands MLA.
"Many Nations are dependent upon the revenues from logging in their territories, and the government is putting them in the impossible position of having to choose between old-growth protection and economic security," he said. "This does not advance conservation or reconciliation."
The Ancient Forest Alliance says the province has yet to announce new deferrals to halt old-growth logging in at-risk forests recommended by it’s Old Growth Strategic Review Panel. It says the B.C. government has allocated $12.6 million to support government-to-government negotiations on deferrals, but without financial support for compensation, First Nations may not support the proposed deferrals.
Inness says the financial commitment by the provincial and federal governments for the protection of BC’s ancient forests should be as much as $500 to $600 million.
"To be clear, we don’t expect all of that to come from the province," said Inness. "The federal government is coming to the table now with a significant funding contribution to expand protected areas across Canada, several hundred million of that will come to B.C. to expand protected areas here."
"There’s multiple sources where this funding can come from and we know Premier Horgan has acknowledged that significant funding is required, but he has yet to come to the table with it and that needs to happen now," she said.
Old-growth logging opponents urge B.C. to do more to protect the environment
December 22, 2021
A small crowd gathered on the grounds of the B.C. Legislature on Tuesday morning demanding more action from the provincial government to stop logging of old-growth forests.
While the demonstration was quiet and peaceful, another group is threatening more disruptive action if the NDP doesn’t do more.
“We have a broken relationship with the natural world that desperately needs to be restored,” said Andrea Inness of Ancient Forest Alliance, one of the speakers of the event.
Currently, the provincial government has committed to halting the logging of 2.6 million hectares of old-growth, and is working with First Nations to develop a new plan for sustainable forest management.
In the statement, B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development said, “we’re working with First Nations that want to move forward on immediate deferrals, continuing to engage with Nations who want more time or to talk through other processes, and continuing to reach out to Nations that haven’t responded.”
“We will support people and communities affected by upcoming temporary old-growth deferrals through a comprehensive suite of supports. We are committed to working in collaboration with First Nations, local communities, and industry to ensure we get this right,” the statement read.
It’s also promising about $12 million over three years to support First Nations through the process, but Inness says this isn’t enough.
“They haven’t committed the necessary funding to make that happen. So, these are empty promises that will come to nothing. So, we need to see, just like the Great Bear Rainforest, a significant conservation financing commitment from the government this budget,” she said.
“Asking them to respond to these requests without providing them with any kind of support to assist them in their analysis and planning is not a respectful and responsible way to go,” added Andy MacKinnon, a forest ecologist and Metchosin councillor.
They’re calling on the B.C. government to increase their funding to at least $300 million to support those most impacted by the old-growth forests deferrals.
While they acknowledge it is a lot of money, they said it’s imperative that the province provide more financial support.
“The impact of this is going to cost us far more than it would cost us to protect these ecosystems,” said Adam Olsen, the Green Party MLA for Saanich.
“When you take a look at the impact of floods and the impact of climate change on our province just this year, it’s going to cost us hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars to repair just from one or two storm seasons,” he continued.
The B.C. government said that in February, it will introduce Budget 2022 “which will continue to be responsive to the needs of people, businesses, and communities to see them through the pandemic and into a strong economic recovery that supports all British Columbians.”
Tuesday’s quiet demonstration was nothing compared to what has happened in the past with some groups taking more extreme measures to drive their point home, including shutting down the Patricia Bay Highway for hours.
The “Save Old Growth” civil resistance movement announced on Tuesday it will “begin a campaign of continuous disruption of the Trans Canada Highway” starting on January 10th if the government does not end all active old-growth logging.
“It really is unfortunate that we have to do this. And it’s regrettable that we do have to stop people that are just trying to provide for themselves and their families. They’re not the people destroying our world. It’s the people that employ them that are,” said Brent Eichler, an activist who is part of the movement.
“It is regrettable, but history shows us that this is the way to win,” he added.
He said they’ll be attempting to shut down the highway around the province, including on the island three times a week throughout the month.
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Lubiatowo-Kopalinio is a coastal location whereas Żarnowiec is lakeside (Image: PEJ)
