Opinion

A tale of two Americas
Updated 10:44, 29-Aug-2020
Alessandro Golombiewski Teixeira
CGTN


Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, on June 14, 2020. /AP


Editor's note: Alessandro Golombiewski Teixeira is a National Thousand Talent Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, and a professor of International Business at Schwarzman College in Tsinghua. He is a former special economic adviser to the president of Brazil and former minister of tourism, and minister of development, industry, and foreign trade of Brazil. He was also president of the World Investment Association – WAIPA. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of CGTN.
April 2020 was Wall Street's best month in decades. The S&P 500 is now up roughly 55 percent from its March 23 low to a record high. U.S. President Donald Trump, who has made it clear he uses the stock market as a yardstick for his presidential success, is already peddling the story of America's great recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the New York Times, he has already claimed more than 360 times that since coming into power the economy is its "strongest ever."


But just like Trump's bombast, the apparent stock market triumph recently is merely a distraction from an American economy in dire straits. A public health crisis is making it impossible for society and the economy to function as usual due to the necessary social distancing. With tens of millions unemployed and a stalling economy, it is clear that the U.S. economy is far from being its strongest ever.

The gulf between the skyrocketing share prices and a stagnating economy continues to widen. On August 19, Apple's market value skyrocketed to more than two trillion U.S. dollars, cementing its place as the world's most valuable company. The astonishing valuation for this company comes only a few months after the U.S. Senate passed two trillion U.S. dollars coronavirus aid package stimulus bill for the entire U.S. economy.

And it's not just Apple seeing its market value soar to new heights. Well-established tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Facebook and Netflix continue to grow as consumers turn to tech.

Facebook's stock has climbed 65 percent since market bottom in March. These firms are riding a pandemic-induced shift to online services, as people around the world are forced to work, shop, and entertain themselves online.

Not only this, investors are betting that interventions from Washington will protect the long-term profitability of major companies, pushing up the market valuations further. This has generated enormous wealth for those investors with stakes in the likes of Apple. Warren Buffet is one, whose large stake in Apple has added 40 billion U.S. dollars to his company Berkshire Hathaway since March.

Apple's rapid rise to two trillion U.S. dollars in value, which comes just two years after it eclipsed the 1 trillion U.S. dollars mark, symbolizes how the pandemic is fundamentally reshaping the economy to profit a select few firms, mostly those in internet services.

Apple's stock has climbed nearly 58 percent this year, an increase prompted not by radical new product offerings but by investors' perceptions that the company will do very well in the long run. The disconnection of these firms from the broader economy reveals the grip big-tech has over consumers and investors alike. And Apple's valuation is actually less extreme than the valuations of other tech giants, like Netflix or Amazon.

A weekly economic index released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests that the pandemic has knocked the economy to a point even lower than during the recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is experiencing a growing string of bankruptcies and massive public deficits. On top of this, the anti-racism riots across the U.S. and failed governance by Donald Trump has pushed the nation to a breaking point.

When Apple reported results recently, its CEO Tim Cook recognized the hardship facing American families and businesses.

A customer leaves a retail store, which is going out of business, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Coral Gables, Florida, the U.S., on August 6, 2020. /AP

Job-losses resulting from COVID-19 "are concentrated among lower-paid workers, the same group that don't have the financial resources to ride out the bad times", as economist Paul Krugman points out in the New York Times. American people rely on stable markets and secure jobs - not investors' rosy projections for big-tech. In the end, big-techs are the winners and ordinary Americans are the losers.

One of the things laid bare by COVID-19 in the U.S. is the widespread inequality. Just like the contrast between the fate of big-tech vs the rest of America over the past few months, U.S. society is also becoming increasingly divided.

An article by Douglas Broom published on the website of the World Economic Forum, points out that the pandemic is highlighting inequalities in, firstly, access to healthcare and, secondly, internet access, is creating a digital divide between those with internet access and those without.

Not only this, but according to research from a team of economists from the University of Bonn, IZA and the University of Tilburg, higher-educated and skilled workers are also more likely to work in occupations where remote working is a possibility, opening up job opportunities for that sector, and thus contributing to the divide.

Therein lies the two versions of today's America: one endorsed by Trump and characterized by colossal market values of powerful technology companies, fueled by investors' predictions of future growth; the other, a story of a failed economic recovery, unemployment, and debt.

TOYS FOR BOYS

Edmonton councillors defend police armoured vehicle purchase

Police commission members point to different attitudes when decision was made

OSWALD MOSLEY LEADER OF THE BRITISH UNION OF FASCISTS RECOMMENDED CLEARING OUT THE LONDON UNEMPLOYED WITH TANKS AND FLAMETHROWERS 

Janice Johnston · CBC News · Posted: Aug 28, 2020

The $500,000 armoured vehicle model purchased two years ago by Edmonton police. It will be delivered in two weeks. (Cambli Group/Facebook)

The two Edmonton city councillors who served on the city's police commission when it approved the purchase of a $500,000 new armoured vehicle are defending the decision that Mayor Don Iveson has called "remarkably tone-deaf".

Councillor Scott McKeen said he doesn't remember a discussion about the armoured vehicle that was held in-camera in July 2017 or exactly what was said when the purchase was approved behind closed doors in February 2018.

The new Cambli Black Wolf will replace the 1978 vintage "Grizzly" that was donated to the Edmonton Police Service in 2007 by the Department of National Defence.

Edmonton police will continue to use the Ballistic Armoured Tactical Transport vehicle that was purchased new in 2013 from Michigan-based The Armored Group for $315,000.

Mayor blasts police purchase of new armoured vehicle as 'tone deaf'

Edmonton police face $11M budget cut amid calls to defund police
"I'm not enough of an expert to tell you that this purchase was the wrong thing to do," McKeen said. "I have to accept that Chief McFee and Rod Knecht before him were giving us their best advice with rationale for it that looked at public safety and officer safety."

McKeen admitted that the delivery next month of the Cambli Black Wolf "looks tone deaf".

"I think the mayor, like all of us, is suffering from secondary PTSD," McKeen said. "The phone calls and emails we're getting from everybody right now are very high pitched. People are angry, people are scared, people are frustrated and we're facing a barrage of that all the time." 

'Emotions were running really high at the time'

Councillor Sarah Hamilton was on the police commission in early 2018 when the purchase was approved. She said public sentiment was different at that point.

The city was still reeling from an attack in Sept. 2017, when Adulahi Sharif stabbed a police officer at Commonwealth Stadium then used a U-Haul van to injure four pedestrians in downtown Edmonton.

A damaged U-Haul truck lies on its side in a downtown Edmonton street after the Sept. 30, 2017 attacks. (Edmonton Police Service/Court exhibit)

"A lot of emotions were running really high as it related to properly funding the police," Hamilton said. "A lot of the messaging of the police service after that was about how the equipment and talent that they had at that time allowed them to safely apprehend the young man."

Sharif was taken into custody after the Edmonton police tactical team used a specialized vehicle to intentionally make contact with the U-Haul and push it over to its side.

Hamilton also pointed to the death of Const. Daniel Woodall in 2015 and the armoured vehicle that was used to safely extract his body.

Her biggest problem with the purchase is the lack of transparency.

"Decisions made behind closed doors are not serving either the interests of the commission or the interests of the public nor the interests of the service," she said. "I think transparency would have helped this."

Hamilton admitted the release of the information this week took her by surprise.

"I think it's fair to say that this story caught everybody off guard," she said. "I think fundamentally the question for us as a commission, as a council, is why and how did that happen?"

Coun. Sarah Hamilton was a member of the Edmonton Police Commission in February 2018 when the purchase of a new armoured vehicle was approved. (CBC)

Hamilton thinks the arrival in September of the new armoured vehicle might have been more palatable if the purchase was publicly announced after a contract was signed.

Police commission chair Micki Ruth told CBC News she has no good explanation for the secrecy surrounding the purchase.

"It's public money and so we'll be reviewing this," Ruth said.

The police chief was hired after the armoured vehicle purchase was approved, but he also believes it's important to be transparent about spending taxpayer money.

"This should not be hidden in any way, shape or form," Chief Dale McFee said.

Councillor Hamilton said she plans to make the issue of transparency a top priority at the next police commission meeting on Sept. 17.

PROFANING THE SACRED

Leonard Cohen’s Reps Say They Specifically Declined GOP Requests to Use ‘Hallelujah’ at Convention

AP

Representatives of the late Leonard Cohen’s estate and publishing company have both issued statements saying they declined requests for his song “Hallelujah” to be used at the Republican National Convention — even though it was played twice following the conclusion of Donald Trump’s speech Thursday night.

The estate’s attorney made a threat of legal action as part of her statement.

Said Michelle L. Rice, the Cohen estate’s lawyer: “We are surprised and dismayed that the RNC would proceed knowing that the Cohen Estate had specifically declined the RNC’s use request, and their rather brazen attempt to politicize and exploit in such an egregious manner ‘Hallelujah,’ one of the most important songs in the Cohen song catalogue. We are exploring our legal options.”


Rice got an extra jab in that Cohen fans will enjoy. “Had the RNC requested another song, ‘You Want it Darker,’ for which Leonard won a posthumous Grammy in 2017, we might have considered approval of that song.”

Cohen’s publishing company, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, said it, too, had been approached and then, apparently, subsequently ignored after saying no.

Confirmed Brian J. Monaco, Sony/ATV’s president and global chief marketing officer: “On the eve of the finale of the convention, representatives from the Republican National Committee contacted us regarding obtaining permission for a live performance of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’ We declined their request.”

The singer of the first version of “Hallelujah” that was heard, Tori Kelly, quickly took to Twitter after the conclusion of the telecast to assure upset fans that she had nothing to do with the usage of her recording — and, unlike the estate and publisher, she was apparently never approached about it.

“Seeing messages about my version of ‘Hallelujah,’” Kelly tweeted. “All i know is neither myself nor my team received a request.” (Kelly subsequently deleted her tweet, perhaps feeling heat from some Trump-supporting Twitter users unhappy that she was disavowing prior knowledge of the usage.)

Many Cohen fans were displeased when they heard Kelly’s recording of the song playing during the fireworks that capped Trump’s address — sandwiched right between “She’s a Grand Old Flag” and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” as pyrotechnics spelled out “TRUMP” and “2020” over the Washington mall.

Said fans were even less enthused when “Hallelujah” was quickly reprised, at greater volume, in a live, operatic rendition by Christopher Macchio, adjacent to “Ave Maria,” perhaps in the belief that Cohen’s song, too, is a religious one.

As the existence of a campaign event at the White House would itself indicate, with some claiming it violated the Hatch Act, the Trump campaign has not been one to stand on ceremony. Previous entreaties from musicians to stop using their music have been ignored, so perhaps the only surprise is that the campaign even asked. Neil Young recently became the first musician to file a lawsuit against the campaign after his requests to not have his music used by Trump fell on deaf ears. The Rolling Stones recently teamed up with ASCAP and BMI to publicly remind the campaign that it needs a specific political license, not just a venue license, to use their songs.

In contrast to the Democrats’ music-filled convention the previous week, there was almost no contemporary music of any sort played at the Republican convention before the twin “Hallelujah” airings Thursday night, which had led some observers to believe that perhaps the Trump campaign was taking more seriously musicians’ widespread objections. However, Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” had been played earlier Thursday as walk-on music for Ivanka Trump, despite John’s previously stated dismay at Trump campaign usage.

The only non-operatic performer to appear during the GOP convention was country singer Trace Adkins, who sang “The Star Spangled Banner” live on Wednesday following vice president Mike Pence’s speech.

Leonard Cohen Fans Not Pleased ‘Hallelujah’ Played After Trump's RNC Speech
Fans were confused why the haunting song was played not once, but twice.

By Samantha Beattie


AARON HARRIS/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Leonard Cohen sits for a portrait in Toronto on February 4, 2006.

Leonard Cohen fans were left feeling cold and broken at the end of the Republican National Convention Thursday night, as the Canadian singer’s “Hallelujah” was blasted during a patriotic fireworks display.

Tori Kelly’s cover of the introspective anthem was played following President Donald Trump’s speech, in which he made dozens of false or misleading statements and empty promises, and re-established that his campaign strategy for the fall presidential election will centre around fear.

The song was sandwiched between “She’s A Grand Old Flag” and “God Bless The USA.” The night ended with another version of the song, this time an operatic rendition of ’Hallelujah” by singer Christopher Macchio.

Fireworks spelled out “TRUMP” and “2020” above Washington Mall — a flashy spectacle Cohen fans were sure the gracious, humble artist, who was known to kneel before his audience, wouldn’t have supported.

Everyone in Montreal, home of Leonard Cohen, is traumatized rn by the use of "Hallelujah" at the RNC.— Roxanne Khamsi (@rkhamsi) August 28, 2020

i feel like leonard cohen wouldn't have signed off on this pic.twitter.com/936vfAdT60— molly conger (@socialistdogmom) August 28, 2020

On Friday, Cohen’s estate published a statement on Facebook expressing their feelings about the display, calling it a “brazen attempt to politicize and exploit” after the Cohen Estate had specifically denied the RNC’s request to use it.

“Had the RNC requested another song, ‘You Want it Darker,’” went the statement, “we might have considered approval of that song.”






Cohen died in 2016 at the age of 82, one day before Trump was elected president. While the Montreal-born singer didn’t publicly share his opinions on American politics in his final days, he did predict Trump would win, his son Adam Cohen said at a Junos gala in 2017.

Following Cohen’s death, media across the world published obituaries with the consensus that Cohen was too gracious and introspective to live during Trump’s America. Cohen’s manager Robert Kory described him as “unmatched in his creativity, insight and crippling candor, Leonard Cohen was a true visionary whose voice will be sorely missed,” as reported by Rolling Stone.

After the 2016 election, “Saturday Night Live” paid tribute to Cohen, as well as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, by opening with a solo scene of Kate McKinnon, dressed as Clinton, performing “Hallelujah” on a piano. The real Clinton said the skit nearly brought her to tears.

Ending this shitshow with Leonard Cohen really does rub salt in the wounds of anyone who knows anything about Cohen.— Max Burns (@themaxburns) August 28, 2020

Leonard Cohen is spinning in his grave...— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 28, 2020

On top of the obvious contrast between Cohen and Trump, fans were confused as to why the RNC chose to play the haunting Hallelujah not once, but twice.

Are trump and the RNC even remotely aware that Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is considered one of the most bitter break up songs ever written?— Les LeMieux, Sr (@leslsenior) August 28, 2020

Cohen released “Hallelujah” in 1984 after working on it for five years. Since then, it’s been covered more than 300 times.

“The world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah,’” Cohen said in a 1988 interview.

“That regardless of what the impossibility of the situation is, there is a moment when you open your mouth and you throw open your arms and you embrace the thing and you just say ‘Hallelujah!’”

Leonard Cohen wrote 80 verses in the original composition of "Hallelujah". He couldn't stop writing. The song grew into a reflection about love and loss and spirituality and empathy. Above all, it has space for countless views on what it means to be human.

The opposite of Trump.— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️‍🌈 (@cmclymer) August 28, 2020

Other fans thought it best to move on, as Cohen might have done, and find the silver lining.

At first I was deeply offended that Trump and the #RNC would dare coopt Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. But Cohen was a great believer in karma. He wouldn't rage over this. He'd look down the road, see what's coming for them, and smile sadly. Let's save our anger for other things.— Jeff Rybak🍁 (@JeffRybak) August 28, 2020

If you're upset about the RNC appropriating Leonard Cohen's music - you're justified, but that's the point.
They KNOW they're desecrating his music and his life. They know it's an insult to all he stood for. They're doing it on purpose.— Hasufin Heltain (@Hasufin) August 28, 2020

“There is a crack in everything,” Cohen sang in his 1992 song “Anthem.” “That’s how the light gets in.”

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Samantha Beattie Reporter, HuffPost Canada

NASA just announced in a blog post that SLS will cost 30% more

ANOTHER BOEING BOONDOGGLE 
LOW BALL BID GET CONTRACT OVERCHARGE

Space agency also “confident” in November 2021 launch date—sort of.

ERIC BERGER - 8/28/2020, 7:12 AM

Enlarge / The Space Launch System rocket core stage is shown installed on the top-left side of the B-2 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center.
NASA

In a fairly anodyne update on NASA's "Artemis" blog published Wednesday, the space agency's new chief of human spaceflight laid out progress made on key hardware programs.

"Already within my short time on the job, NASA is checking-off key milestones and marching swiftly toward Artemis I," wrote Kathy Lueders, who moved into the job after leading the Commercial Crew program. "That mission, the first uncrewed flight test of our powerful Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, is just a little more than a year away from launch."

Lueders next discussed preparations for a "Green Run" test of the SLS rocket's core stage this fall, possibly by the end of October. This test will take place at Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi, during which engineers for NASA and the core state contractor, Boeing, will ignite the clamped-down rocket's four main engines and fire them for eight minutes to simulate a launch and ascent into space.

New report: NASA spends 72 cents of every SLS dollar on overhead costs

After discussing this and other details, Lueders then rather casually let it slip that "NASA also aligned the development costs for the SLS and Exploration Ground Systems programs through Artemis I and established new cost commitments." The new development cost for SLS rocket is $9.1 billion, she said, and its budget for the initial ground systems to support the mission is now $2.4 billion.

Left unsaid: This represents a 33-percent increase for the rocket since 2017, when a "re-plan" of program estimated development costs for the rocket, including a single test flight, would be $7.17 billion. (This was detailed in a US General Accounting Office report published nearly a year ago.) This figure represents only direct development costs. NASA has received more than $20 billion from Congress since 2011 for SLS development and related activities.

At the time of the "re-plan" in 2017, NASA established a "December 2019-June 2020" date for the first test launch of the SLS rocket. This was a delay from earlier plans to launch it by the end of 2017.

In her update, Lueders said she was "confident" that a November 2021 launch date for the rocket is achievable. However, she cited a few caveats to this. For one, she said, "It is still too early to predict the full impact of COVID-19." She also said such a launch date is predicated on "a successful Green Run hot fire test."

NASA does not deny the “over $2 billion” cost of a single SLS launch

This latter caveat may be a rather big one. With this test, for the first time, NASA will be pushing the integrated core stage—consisting of four space shuttle main engines, large liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuel tanks, and all the plumbing needed to control the flow of chilled fluids—for the first time. While the agency has studied independent components, ensuring they work together is a big deal.

Engineers familiar with testing large, complex systems for the first time say there is a low probability of a perfect test or a major structural failure. However, the highest probability is that NASA and Boeing discover some problems that will at least require several months to address before the core stage is deemed ready for launch.

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.

1/3 OF MANITOBA'S COVI19 CASES ARE IN HUTTERITE COMMUNES

Union representing Lilydale workers calls for Calgary plant to shutter amid outbreak

A worker with a case of COVID-19 has been reported at the Lilydale plant located in the S.E. The plant is owned by Sofina Foods Inc. PHOTO BY BRENDAN MILLER /Postmedia

The union representing workers at another meat-processing plant in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak is calling on the Alberta government to temporarily halt operations.

Thomas Hesse, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, said workers at the Lilydale chicken processing plant in Calgary feel unsafe after 19 of the plant’s workers tested positive for the coronavirus.

“Health and government authorities, company officials, and union representatives have closely monitored this evolving situation,” Hesse said in a statement. “Unfortunately, in spite of recent interventions, positive case numbers continue to increase. Whatever is being done is clearly not enough. The risk of spread is too high, and the possible costs are too grave.”

Sofina Foods, which operates the Calgary Lilydale plant, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Balzac plant hit again as Calgary area sees spike in COVID-19 cases


Jason Herring Aug 29, 2020 
    

The main entrance to the Harmony Beef facility near Balzac, Ab, north of Calgary is shown on Wednesday, May 6, 2020. PHOTO BY JIM WELLS/POSTMEDIA
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Alberta reported 158 new cases of the novel coronavirus Friday, setting recent highs in single-day case counts in both the province and the Calgary region.

The Alberta Health Services Calgary zone is home to 89 of the new cases, the second-largest spike in COVID-19 cases in the region since May 2, when the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Alberta was subsiding.

Meanwhile, the 158 new cases mark the second-highest count in Alberta since early May, and the highest since July 17.

The new cases come from just under 11,000 tests, also nearly setting a new high-water mark in the province, with Alberta only having processed more tests in a single day once before. About 1.4 per cent of tests reported Friday returned positive, a rate on the high end of those Alberta has recorded over the past two weeks. In the Calgary zone, however, more than two per cent of tests returned positive.

Despite the surge in Calgary zone cases, the AHS Edmonton zone still leads the province with 544 COVID-19 cases. The Calgary zone has 435 of the 1,185 active cases in Alberta.

No new deaths from COVID-19 were reported Friday, leaving Alberta’s death count from the virus at 237. As of Friday, there are 44 Albertans in hospital with the coronavirus, seven of whom are in intensive-care units — a decrease in total hospitalizations from Thursday.

Also Friday, Alberta reported that a coronavirus outbreak at the Harmony Beef meat-processing plant had flared back up after previous cases at the same facility in March and May. Thirty-eight workers at the plant, just north of Calgary in Balzac, have tested positive for COVID-19 during this new outbreak.

A similarly sized outbreak took place at Harmony Beef in early May, and the plant suspended its slaughter in March after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency withheld its inspectors from the plant when a worker tested positive for COVID-19. About 440 people work at Harmony Beef.

Company spokesman Crosbie Cotton said it was disappointing to see the new cases. He said impacted workers are self-isolating and production at the plant will be reduced by 50 per cent next week.

“These are the first cases in four months. There hadn’t been one case,” Cotton said. “All of our safety steps we’ve implemented have been working. We gave employees a three-day weekend to thank them for their hard work and it appears this may have come back after the weekend.”

The union representing workers at another meat-processing plant in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak is calling on the Alberta government to temporarily halt operations.

Thomas Hesse, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, said workers at the Lilydale chicken processing plant in Calgary feel unsafe after 27 of the plant’s workers tested positive for the coronavirus.

“Health and government authorities, company officials, and union representatives have closely monitored this evolving situation,” Hesse said in a statement. “Unfortunately, in spite of recent interventions, positive case numbers continue to increase. Whatever is being done is clearly not enough. The risk of spread is too high, and the possible costs are too grave.”

Sofina Foods said the total number of staff who have tested positive rose after nine more employees tested positive following a second round of testing. All employees work on the same shift.

“Sofina Foods has been working diligently with AHS and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to properly manage this outbreak,” the company said in a statement. “This includes asking all employees on the shift to stay home while we continue assessing the needs for additional measures in order to contain any risk of further spread.”

The plant remains operational, they said, with no risk of food contamination.

High-profile coronavirus outbreaks at meat-processing plants gripped Alberta in the first few months of the pandemic.

An outbreak at Cargill’s High River plant was Canada’s largest, linked to more than 1,500 cases and three deaths.

The JBS meat-processing plant in Brooks, meanwhile, recorded more than 650 cases. Both outbreaks were resolved in late May.

Republican Convention Ignored Climate Threat, But Americans’ Attitudes Are Shifting

Many Americans have experienced climate-fueled disasters in the last four years and want to see federal action

By Scott Waldman, E&E News on August 28, 2020

President Donald Trump looks on after delivering his acceptance speech for the Republican Party nomination for reelection during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on August 27, 2020. Credit: Brendan Smialowski Getty Images


In four days of speeches lasting more than eight hours at the Republican National Convention, climate change was never mentioned as a threat to the country.

That silence stands apart from the climate alarm bells that have been sounding since Donald Trump accepted his first nomination for president four years ago.

Thousands of Americans have been killed in natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires during Trump’s first term in office. Each of those four years has been among the world’s hottest on record. Leaders of other nations have taken action as the United States ignores the issue.

Even Wall Street has begun to take notice of how climate change could affect economic growth.

None of that was apparent during the convention. Instead, Republican speakers insisted that the real concern was the climate ideas presented by Democrats. Many experts say that if climate change is left unanswered, it could cost trillions of dollars to the U.S. economy. Republicans said the real costs would come from Democratic plans to restrain the use of fossil fuels.

“Biden has promised to abolish the production of American oil, coal, shale and natural gas—laying waste to the economies of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Colorado and New Mexico,” Trump said. “Millions of jobs will be lost, and energy prices will soar.”

(Biden’s plan does not call for a fracking ban).

Those sentiments play well with Trump’s core supporters, but they’re askew from what most voters believe, including younger Republicans, according to polls. They don’t reflect the events that many Americans are either experiencing or seeing online: uncontrolled wildfires in California and the strongest hurricane to hit Louisiana in 160 years.


Even as an unrelinquishing pandemic has killed more than 180,000 people in the United States and kept millions of children across the country from returning to school, climate change remains on the minds of voters, polls show.

Here are five climate themes that have advanced since Trump accepted his first nomination in 2016.

NATURAL DISASTERS

More than 3,000 Americans have died in natural catastrophes during the past four years; most of them were victims of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The massive Category 5 storm killed an estimated 2,975 people in Puerto Rico and forced thousands to flee the U.S. territory. The devastation continues to have ripple effects three years later. Tens of thousands of people still live under leaky blue tarps. The island’s power supply, never reliable to begin with, has become far worse, and some parts of Puerto Rico were without power for a year.

That was the same year that Hurricane Harvey dumped 60 inches of rain on parts of Houston, becoming the wettest cyclone on record. Tens of thousands of homes were damaged, and about 70 people were killed. Harvey caused more than $100 billion in damage, making it one of the costliest disasters to strike the United States.

Record wildfires have also burned across the West. The 2018 Camp Fire in California was the deadliest; it killed 85 people and destroyed more than 10,000 homes. It was fueled by drought, an outcome of climate change. This week, California continued to battle the second- and third-largest wildfires in state history. Officials have connected the fires to climate change.

“All but three of the Top 20 Largest #Wildfires have occurred since 2000, with 10 of these large and damaging wildfires occurring in the last decade,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection tweeted yesterday. “As fire weather continues to become more extreme, California is adjusting to fight these larger and more destructive wildfires.”

HEAT

The Trump years have been some of the hottest since record-keeping began after the Civil War, according to NASA. After a record-warm July, this year may break the all-time annual heat record set in 2016.

That’s a likely outcome, said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. That’s notable because four years ago, the record warmth was fueled by El Niño, a band of warm water covering the tropical Pacific Ocean. That influence is absent this year, Schmidt said, and long-term trends point to rising heat.

“We know that the trend is moving up; on average, every decade is warmer than the last,” he said. “The changes we’re seeing now are so far outside what would be possible in an un-globally-warmed world.”

PUBLIC OPINION

Polling shows that voter concern about climate change has been growing for years and that it has not diminished as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Concern among some voters has spiked during Trump’s tenure. Before the virus, polling showed climate change was the second-most important issue for Democratic primary voters, behind only health care.

Now, responding to the virus and restoring the economy top the list. But the public still wants the federal government to address climate change, recent polling shows.

More Americans than ever—about 25%—view climate change as “extremely personally important,” according to a poll released last week by Stanford University, Resources for the Future and ReconMR. That number is twice as large as it was in 2006, said the poll, which surveyed 1,000 adults between May and August.

It also found that 82% of respondents want the federal government to act on climate change. And three-quarters of those surveyed said they had personally experienced the effects of global warming.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has offered a unique opportunity to learn how people feel about climate change when faced with a global crisis,” said Ray Kopp, vice president of research and policy engagement at Resources for the Future.

“The claim that we can’t do anything about climate change without crashing the economy, or that we need to focus only on the pandemic and not do anything on climate right now, simply doesn’t resonate with Americans,” he said.
THE U.S. (AND EVERYONE ELSE)

Since Trump pledged to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement in 2017, world leaders have pressed him to rejoin and to take the issue seriously. Among them are German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Last year, Trump said Prince Charles spent 90 minutes talking to him about climate change, trying to convince him to take stronger action and to once again make the United States a world leader. In response, Trump said he wanted “good climate,” but his administration has continued to roll back environmental safeguards meant to reduce emissions.

In December, Macron said other governments, including China, Russia and the European Union, would lead the world in reducing emissions.

The yearslong process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement won’t be done until November. Yesterday, Biden tweeted that if he wins the election, he would rejoin the pact on the first day of his presidency.

CLIMATE HITS WALL STREET

This week, it was announced that Exxon Mobil Corp. would be dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index. It’s a significant departure, as Exxon was the longest-tenured company on the Dow, having been listed for almost a century.

It’s also a reflection of how oil companies have taken a financial hit amid growing concerns about climate change and as a result of declining consumption due to the pandemic.

At the same time, some solar and wind companies have grown bigger than their fossil fuel competitors. The same factors that have weakened fossil fuel companies, including more aggressive climate targets, helped drive clean energy technologies.

On Wall Street, business interests are increasingly warning the Federal Reserve and other regulators that climate change could pose a significant risk to the economy.

Earlier this year, 40 investment firms and organizations that handle more than $1 trillion in assets urged Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to take action. They warned him that climate “threats have the potential to compound in ways we don’t yet understand, with disastrous impacts the likes of which we haven’t seen before.”

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

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Japan's 'flying car' gets off the ground with a person aboard

CGTN

The decades-old dream of zipping around in the sky as simply as driving on highways may be becoming less illusory.

Japan's SkyDrive Inc., among the myriads of "flying car" projects around the world, has carried out a successful though modest test flight with one person aboard.

In a video shown to reporters on Friday, a contraption that looked like a slick motorcycle with propellers lifted 1-2 meters off the ground and hovered in a netted area for four minutes.

Tomohiro Fukuzawa, who heads the SkyDrive effort, said he hopes "the flying car" can be made into a real-life product by 2023, but he acknowledged that making it safe was critical.

"Of the world's more than 100 flying car projects, only a handful have succeeded with a person on board," he told The Associated Press. "I hope many people will want to ride it and feel safe."

The machine so far can fly for just five to 10 minutes but if that can become 30 minutes, it will have more potential, including exports to places like China, Fukuzawa said.

This photo taken at the beginning of August 2020 and released by SkyDrive/CARTIVATOR 2020 shows a test flight of a manned "flying car" at Toyota Test Field in Toyota, central Japan. /AP


Unlike airplanes and helicopters, eVTOL, or "electric vertical takeoff and landing," vehicles offer quick point-to-point personal travel, at least in principle.

They could do away with the hassle of airports and traffic jams and the cost of hiring pilots, they could fly automatically.

Battery sizes, air traffic control and other infrastructure issues are among the many potential challenges to commercializing them.

"Many things have to happen," said Sanjiv Singh, professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, who co-founded Near Earth Autonomy, near Pittsburgh, which is also working on an eVTOL aircraft.

"If they cost 10 million U.S. dollars, no one is going to buy them. If they fly for five minutes, no one is going to buy them. If they fall out of the sky every so often, no one is going to buy them," Singh said in a telephone interview.

The SkyDrive project began humbly as a volunteer project called Cartivator in 2012, with funding by top Japanese companies including automaker Toyota Motor Corp., electronics company Panasonic Corp. and video-game developer Bandai Namco.

(Cover image via CFP)
Source(s): AP

Bacteria Could Survive Travel Between Earth And Mars When Forming Aggregates
Press Release - Source: Frontiers in Microbiology
Posted August 26, 2020 11:33 PM

The bacterial exposure experiment took place from 2015 to 2018 using the Exposed Facility located on the exterior of Kibo, the Japanese Experimental Module of the International Space Station. CREDIT JAXA/NASA

Imagine microscopic life-forms, such as bacteria, transported through space, and landing on another planet. The bacteria finding suitable conditions for its survival could then start multiplying again, sparking life at the other side of the universe.

This theory, called "panspermia", support the possibility that microbes may migrate between planets and distribute life in the universe. Long controversial, this theory implies that bacteria would survive the long journey in outer space, resisting to space vacuum, temperature fluctuations, and space radiations.

"The origin of life on Earth is the biggest mystery of human beings. Scientists can have totally different points of view on the matter. Some think that life is very rare and happened only once in the Universe, while others think that life can happen on every suitable planet. If panspermia is possible, life must exist much more often than we previously thought," says Dr. Akihiko Yamagishi, a Professor at Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences and principal investigator of the space mission Tanpopo.

In 2018, Dr. Yamagishi and his team tested the presence of microbes in the atmosphere. Using an aircraft and scientific balloons, the researchers, found Deinococcal bacteria floating 12 km above the earth. But while Deinococcus are known to form large colonies (easily larger than one millimeter) and be resistant to environmental hazards like UV radiation, could they resist long enough in space to support the possibility of panspermia?

To answer this question, Dr. Yamagishi and the Tanpopo team, tested the survival of the radioresistant bacteria Deinococcus in space. The study, now published in Frontiers in Microbiology, shows that thick aggregates can provide sufficient protection for the survival of bacteria during several years in the harsh space environment.

Dr. Yamagishi and his team came to this conclusion by placing dried Deinococcus aggregates in exposure panels outside of the International Space Station (ISS). The samples of different thicknesses were exposed to space environment for one, two, or three years and then tested for their survival.

After three years, the researchers found that all aggregates superior to 0.5 mm partially survived to space conditions. Observations suggest that while the bacteria at the surface of the aggregate died, it created a protective layer for the bacteria beneath ensuring the survival of the colony. Using the survival data at one, two, and three years of exposure, the researchers estimated that a pellet thicker than 0.5 mm would have survived between 15 and 45 years on the ISS. The design of the experiment allowed the researcher to extrapolate and predict that a colony of 1 mm of diameter could potentially survive up to 8 years in outer space conditions.

"The results suggest that radioresistant Deinococcus could survive during the travel from Earth to Mars and vice versa, which is several months or years in the shortest orbit," says Dr. Yamagishi.

This work provides, to date, the best estimate of bacterial survival in space. And, while previous experiments prove that bacteria could survive in space for a long period when benefitting from the shielding of rock (i.e. lithopanspermia), this is the first long-term space study raising the possibility that bacteria could survive in space in the form of aggregates, raising the new concept of "massapanspermia". Yet, while we are one step closer to prove panspermia possible, the microbe transfer also depends on other processes such as ejection and landing, during which the survival of bacteria still needs to be assessed.

DNA Damage and Survival Time Course of Deinococcal Cell Pellets During 3 Years of Exposure to Outer Space, Frontiers in Microbiology

Meteorite Study Suggests Earth May Have Been Wet Since It Formed

Press Release - Source: Washington University

Posted August 27, 2020 

An approximately 10-centimetre long piece of the Sahara 97096 meteorite, one of the enstatite chondrites studied. Water concentrations of around 0.5% by mass were measured in it, and part of the hydrogen was found to be located in the chondrules (the white spheres visible in the photograph). Sample belonging to the French National Museum of Natural History (Paris). CREDIT © Christine Fieni / Laurette Piani

A new study finds that Earth's water may have come from materials that were present in the inner solar system at the time the planet formed -- instead of far-reaching comets or asteroids delivering such water. The findings published Aug. 28 in Science suggest that Earth may have always been wet.

Researchers from the Centre de Recherches Petrographiques et Geochimiques (CRPG, CNRS/Universite de Lorraine) in Nancy, France, including one who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, determined that a type of meteorite called an enstatite chondrite contains sufficient hydrogen to deliver at least three times the amount of water contained in the Earth's oceans, and probably much more.
Enstatite chondrites are entirely composed of material from the inner solar system -- essentially the same stuff that made up the Earth originally.
"Our discovery shows that the Earth's building blocks might have significantly contributed to the Earth's water," said lead author Laurette Piani, a researcher at CPRG. "Hydrogen-bearing material was present in the inner solar system at the time of the rocky planet formation, even though the temperatures were too high for water to condense."

The findings from this study are surprising because the Earth's building blocks are often presumed to be dry. They come from inner zones of the solar system where temperatures would have been too high for water to condense and come together with other solids during planet formation.

The meteorites provide a clue that water didn't have to come from far away.

"The most interesting part of the discovery for me is that enstatite chondrites, which were believed to be almost 'dry,' contain an unexpectedly high abundance of water," said Lionel Vacher, a postdoctoral researcher in physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Vacher prepared some of the enstatite chondrites in this study for water analysis while he was completing his PhD at Universite de Lorraine. At Washington University, Vacher is working on understanding the composition of water in other types of meteorites.

Enstatite chondrites are rare, making up only about 2 percent of known meteorites in collections.

But their isotopic similarity to Earth make them particularly compelling. Enstatite chondrites have similar oxygen, titanium and calcium isotopes as Earth, and this study showed that their hydrogen and nitrogen isotopes are similar to Earth's, too. In the study of extraterrestrial materials, the abundances of an element's isotopes are used as a distinctive signature to identify where that element originated.

"If enstatite chondrites were effectively the building blocks of our planet -- as strongly suggested by their similar isotopic compositions -- this result implies that these types of chondrites supplied enough water to Earth to explain the origin of Earth's water, which is amazing!" Vacher said.

The paper also proposes that a large amount of the atmospheric nitrogen -- the most abundant component of the Earth's atmosphere -- could have come from the enstatite chondrites.

"Only a few pristine enstatite chondrites exist: ones that were not altered on their asteroid nor on Earth," Piani said. "In our study we have carefully selected the enstatite chondrite meteorites and applied a special analytical procedure to avoid being biased by the input of terrestrial water."

Coupling two analytical techniques -- conventional mass spectrometry and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) -- allowed researchers to precisely measure the content and composition of the small amounts of water in the meteorites.

Prior to this study, "it was commonly assumed that these chondrites formed close to the sun," Piani said. "Enstatite chondrites were thus commonly considered 'dry,' and this frequently reasserted assumption has probably prevented any exhaustive analyses to be done for hydrogen."

###

This work was possible thanks to the national museum collections of meteorites, including those at Field Museum (Chicago, USA), the French National Museum of Natural History (Paris, France), the Japanese National Institute for Polar Research (Tokyo, Japan), the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, USA), Natural History Museum (Vienna, Austria) and the CEREGE meteoritic collection (Aix en Provence, France).

Astrobiology