Tany Yao is sixth Alberta UCP MLA confirmed to have travelled abroad amid COVID-19

© Facebook Fort McMurray - Wood Buffalo MLA Tany Yao.

On Sunday, UCP officials said that Tany Yao is the latest MLA connected to the party who has left Canada during the holiday season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yao, who represents constituents in the riding of Fort McMurray - Wood Buffalo, is currently out of the country.

A spokesperson for the United Conservative Party said he is in Mexico and cannot be reached.


"We are attempting to contact [Yao] to advise him to return as per the premier’s directive," Tim Gerwing said Sunday. "We have no other information at this time."

Yao is now the sixth MLA who has been confirmed to have travelled. Three high-level staffers for the UCP also left Canada.

Read more: Alberta’s COVID-19 travel controversy brings attention to Kenney’s recall legislation promise

The other elected officials who the party has confirmed travelled recently include Jason Stephan, the MLA for Red Deer-South, who visited Arizona, as well as Jeremy Nixon, MLA for Calgary-Klein and Tracy Allard, the minister of municipal affairs, both of whom visited Hawaii.

Pat Rehn, the MLA for Lesser Slave Lake, also visited Mexico. Tanya Fir, MLA for Calgary-Peigan travelled to Las Vegas.

Three high-level staffers also left the country: the premier's chief of staff Jamie Huckabay visited the U.K., while Michael Forian and Eliza Snider, both press secretaries for ministers in the party, went to Mexico.

The UCP has come under heavy fire over the past several days after Premier Jason Kenney did not discipline those in his party who left Canada, despite advice from both the provincial and the federal government to avoid non-essential travel amid the pandemic.
Kenney said at a news conference Friday he was instead issuing a new “clear directive” to government officials, including support staff like press secretaries, not to travel internationally.

The premier added at the time that he did not have exact details on how many officials have left Canada.

“I don’t have a comprehensive list of everybody amongst the hundreds of government political staff and senior officials and others who may have travelled abroad… I regret not having issued a very clear directive against international travel.”

Read more: #ResignKenney trends on Twitter after at least 8 Alberta MLAs and staff travel over holidays

The officials travelled while Alberta was under strict restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 that prevented many people from celebrating Christmas with their families

VIDEO Alberta political expert weighs in on UCP travel controversy

Ontario Finance Minister Rod Philips previously resigned Thursday after returning from a two-week vacation in the Caribbean. On Friday, the federal NDP removed MP Niki Ashton from her critic roles after she travelled to see her ill grandmother in Greece.

On Sunday, two Liberal MPs resigned from their government roles after travelling abroad.

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The Trans Mountain project faces a year of challenges and opportunity

David Thurton CBC 

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson Ian Anderson, president and CEO of Trans Mountain, speaks during an event to mark the start of right-of-way construction for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project in Acheson, Alta., Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019.

After a hiatus of about two weeks, construction on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is expected to resume today.

The return to work marks the beginning of a critical year for the federal government-owned pipeline. In 2021, the project plans to make significant progress on work to twin the existing 1,500 kilometre Alberta-to-British Columbia pipeline. Hiring and project spending are expected to increase as additional sections of the pipeline are built.

But 2021 could bring with it more headaches and setbacks for the pipeline's Crown corporation and the project's owners — Canadian taxpayers.

Safety lapses tell a story

Trans Mountain ended 2020 on a relative high note. Construction accelerated as the worksite COVID-19 caseload remained relatively low, and the existing pipeline also remained full. Trans Mountain's CEO Ian Anderson said that, coming off a bleak year for the industry — when a bottle of olive oil was worth more than a barrel of Canadian oil — the project's performance was a surprise.

"I fully expected to lose some volume but we didn't," Anderson told CBC News in a year-end interview.

Anderson spoke to CBC before Trans Mountain Corporation took the surprising step last month of halting project construction temporarily. (Trans Mountain declined CBC's requests for follow-up interviews.)

But the sudden shutdown was likely the last resort, said a former top energy industry executive in Calgary.

"Major construction projects never want to stop once they get going," said Dennis McConaghy, a former executive vice president at TransCanada, now called TC Energy.

The abrupt move to halt construction on Dec. 18 happened after a worker was seriously injured at a work site at Trans Mountain's Burnaby Terminal in British Columbia. Few details have been released but, in announcing the shutdown, Anderson referred to safety incidents he called "unacceptable" and "inconsistent" with his corporation's safety record.

In October, a contract worker on the project, Samatar Sahal, was struck and killed by a piece of equipment.

Trans Mountain hasn't said whether these latest incidents are one-offs or point to systemic problems with the project. But the pipeline corporation said it has spent the last several days reviewing updated safety plans contractors have developed.

"This safety stand-down provided time for Trans Mountain, its contractors and its employees to re-focus on safety," said a statement issued by the corporation on Thursday. "We are confident construction will commence on a staggered basis over the coming week."

A frequent critic of the expansion said that, while worker safety should always be the paramount concern, the pause and the recent decision to part ways with some contractors are early signs of problems.

"Obviously, no one wants to see any risks to the workers in terms of occupational health and safety. Those to me suggest rushing through and trying to meet these deadlines," said Eugene Kung, a staff lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law. "And to me, what that means ultimately is likely higher project construction costs and a delayed in-service date."
What killing Keystone XL means for TMX

This month, U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden assumes office after campaigning to kill the Keystone XL pipeline — a pipeline construction project that would stretch from Hardisty, Alta. to Steele City, Nebraska.

The Alberta government has pinned its hopes on the completion of that project. The province said it would invest $1.5 billion in Keystone as equity in 2020, backed further by another $6 billion project level credit facility in 2021.

While the trouble facing Keystone XL might be a setback for Canada's oilpatch and the Alberta government, it could offer a further compelling argument for Trans Mountain's backers, who are always defending the pipeline against fierce criticism.

"It is highly likely that Joe Biden will find some way to disable construction of the Keystone XL in the United States," said McConaghy, who oversaw the Keystone XL project for Trans Canada. "I say that with a great deal of sadness, disappointment and anger."

"So as far as 2021 is concerned, I think the efforts to get TMX built get even more critical than they were before."

The fate of Keystone XL will have little impact on Trans Mountain because Trans Mountain already has guaranteed long-term contracts with shippers for 80 per cent of its capacity, Anderson told CBC News.

"I don't think there is a material direct effect of Keystone XL or Line 3 on Trans Mountain," Anderson said. "I think the markets we're serving are different. And I think the attractiveness of those markets is what our shippers are looking for."
When might Indigenous communities buy into Trans Mountain?

While the federal government is embarking on its third year of ownership of the Trans Mountain pipeline project, its stated plan is to sell it.

Both Trans Mountain and the federal Department of Finance say the pipeline hasn't been "de-risked," with only 20 per cent of the $12.6 billion project complete. So no sale is likely in the near term.

In the meantime, the government is engaging with more than 120 Indigenous groups to talk about future ownership or some other form of economic participation.

© CBC Crews connect two pieces of pipe near Edmonton in March as part of the Trans Mountain expansion project.

The head of the National Coalition of Chiefs said he expects First Nations and Métis leaders will at least decide this year what their economic participation in the Trans Mountain project would look like. The coalition has been working with communities interested in sharing the pipeline's economic benefits.

"I think 129 communities are going to decide amongst themselves that they want to move forward with a certain percentage, or a large percentage," said Dale Swampy, president of the coalition. "I think that's important. It'll give the government some headway about how they are going to deal with this."

A Department of Finance report concluded that a form of revenue-sharing or a purchase of an equity stake in the pipeline would be Indigenous communities' "preferred" options for participating in the project.

Both options come with advantages and disadvantages in terms of revenue, and in terms of how much Indigenous communities are willing to bear the risk of a spill, said Swampy.

IN THE HOOD
Alberta Avenue Community League working to turn park into memorial for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls

Dylan Short 

The Alberta Avenue Community League is embarking on a multi-year process to turn an unnamed park into a memorial for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal

 Supporters of a project, including 2020 Stars of Alberta Volunteer Award winner Kathy King, centre, to turn an unnamed park near 90 Avenue and 120 Street into a memorial for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls join together for a photo in Edmonton on Dec. 31, 2020.

Liz John-West, a member of the community league, said the idea came as a City of Edmonton staff member reminded them there are several unnamed parks in the community. Upon reflection, she said the group decided to pick a park and develop it into a tribute to the women and girls from the community who have been lost.

“A lot of the women have been taken from Alberta Avenue neighbourhood,” said John-West. “It would be so neat to kind of create a place of honouring these women, at the same time kind of use this opportunity to educate the public.”

A park located near 90 Street and 121 Avenue has been tapped to be developed. It has three connecting pathways that the community league would like to incorporate into the memorial.

John-West said they are currently working with the City of Edmonton to move through the park naming process and development approvals. The park is expected to take three to five years to complete and while it is still in the earliest phases of planning, the league wants Indigenous leaders from around the community to guide the memorial.

“The other track is the naming piece and we want to gather elders together to help us to name this park,” John-West said.

The group has already begun fundraising after holding a silent auction and receiving community donations to go towards the park. John-West, who helped develop Giovanni Caboto Park, said the park could cost around $750,000 by the time it is completed.

The funds will be used to help pay artists for work featured in the park, though John-West says no decisions have been made on what art will be used.

“I thought it was just a really neat opportunity to create this awareness,” John-West said.

© Ian Kucerak Supporters of a project, including 2020 Stars of Alberta Volunteer Award winner Kathy King, centre, to turn an unnamed park near 90 Avenue and 120 Street into a memorial for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls join together for a photo in Edmonton on Dec. 31, 2020.

Neighbourhood residents have not yet been consulted on the development as it is still in the earliest phases of planning, John-West said, but the City of Edmonton has assigned a project coordinator to help guide the group through the next steps to get their approvals.

Mary-Ann Thurber, a spokeswoman with the City of Edmonton, said the process to decide on a name requires “significant public engagement” before one can be picked. She said no formal application has yet been submitted.

“While the city understands the significance of this name, and is committed to working with the community to support this project, we are still very early in the process,” said Thurber in an email.

The national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls released its final report in 2019 , delivering 231 calls for justice. Many of those recommendations call for more awareness around the issue and a better understanding among Canadians of Indigenous cultures and history.

dshort@postmedia.com

The US is getting an official women’s history museum

The Smithsonian Women’s History Act will establish a women’s history museum on the National Mall. Supporters say it’s long overdue.

By Anna North  Dec 30, 2020, 

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Visitors walk the National Mall in Washington, DC, on March 13, 2020.

 Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images

It has gotten less attention than expanded unemployment insurance or the battle over stimulus checks, but tucked into the year-end legislation passed by Congress last week was a provision that could change the way the United States commemorates its history.

The legislation included the Smithsonian Women’s History Act, the culmination of a years-long effort to establish a women’s history museum in Washington, DC. Backed by Democrats like Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York and Republicans like Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the act authorizes the creation of the museum on the National Mall, funded by a combination of federal and private money.

“For too long, women’s stories have been left out of the telling of our nation’s history, but with this vote, we begin to rectify that,” Maloney said in a statement last week.

The omnibus legislation also included a provision to establish a National Museum of the American Latino, which will focus on “Latino contributions to life, art, history, and culture in the United States.” Both will be located on or around the National Mall, with an exact location to be specified within two years, according to CNN.

The bills establishing the museums were blocked earlier this month by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who argued that they were divisive. “At this moment in the history of our diverse nation, we need our federal government and the Smithsonian Institution itself to pull us closer together and not further apart,” he said.

But many say that, on the contrary, the museums are long overdue. “Having a museum that features women’s experiences in US history should not be a controversial undertaking by any stretch of the imagination,” Kali Nicole Gross, a professor at Emory University and Rutgers University and co-author of A Black Women’s History of the United States, told Vox. “The fact that it is shows that we have a long way to go still.”

The legislation is the culmination of a years-long process

The idea of a women’s history museum has been before Congress since at least 1998, when Maloney introduced legislation to study the issue. It didn’t pass then, but a congressional commission on the matter was created in 2014, according to CNBC.

Then, in February 2020, the House passed the Smithsonian Women’s History Act to establish the museum. But passage of both this bill and legislation to establish the Museum of the American Latino was blocked in the Senate by Lee, who said the US does not need “separate but equal museums,” according to CNN.

The Smithsonian “should not have an exclusive museum of American Latino history or a museum of women’s history or museum of American men’s history or Mormon history or Asian American history or Catholic history. American history is an inclusive story that should unite us,” he added.

But many disagreed, and both proposals ended up included in the omnibus legislation passed last week that included $600 stimulus checks and other Covid-19 relief.

Lawmakers have applauded the plans for both museums, expressing hope that they will tell the stories of Americans too often left out of history classes and textbooks.

“With this vote, Latinos and Latinas across our nation will finally have their stories, struggles, and impact on our country validated by the United States Congress,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said in a statement after the legislation’s passage.

And Maloney said in a statement that it was “fitting” that the bill establishing the women’s history museum was passed “as we mark the centennial of the 19th Amendment and in the year in which we elected our first woman vice president.”

There’s a lot of work left to be done

The museums will likely take years to build. The National Museum of African American History, the most recent addition to the Smithsonian, was authorized by Congress in 2003 and opened in 2016, CNN notes.

And in the planning process, the key will be an “expansive view” of women’s history, Gross said, including women of different abilities, trans and queer communities, and the experiences of women from all walks of life: “women who were performers, women who were writers, women who were seamstresses, women who were farmers, women who were domestics,” she explained. “I want it all.”

Such an expansive view could also extend to more experiential ways of teaching history, Gross said, including the history of street harassment in the US. “From the first women starting to work and having to navigate public streets, there were all kinds of perils,” she explained, especially for Black women. “They carried hatpins; they learned how to use their purses and bags defensively to protect themselves.”

It will be interesting to see if the museum could find a way to recreate or use “that embodied experience” to teach about the misogyny that has been a major part of American history, Gross said.

Neither the women’s history museum nor the Museum of the American Latino will start from zero. According to the Washington Post, they will build on the work of the American Women’s History Initiative, established in 2018, and the Smithsonian Latino Center, founded in 1997. The Women’s History Initiative has launched several exhibitions and has continued to produce virtual events during the pandemic, including forthcoming programs on female spies during World War II and sexism in science.

Officials at the Smithsonian say their work on such programs will help make the new museums a success. “The Smithsonian has unparalleled experience building national museums, and is already doing significant work to tell the stories of American Women and Latinos,” the institution said in a statement to CNN. “We look forward to building two world-class museums to further amplify these stories and help our country learn more about the impact that women and Latinos have had on the fabric of our nation.”

And however they approach the task ahead, the goal should be to make sure “that any woman can walk into that museum and learn about something that they can relate to,” Gross said.

Climate change is disrupting the Arctic eco-system as parts of the sea aren’t freezing

Research into tiny zooplankton at the centre of Arctic food web reveals changing habits that could impact the entire eco-system

By Tom Bawden
January 3, 2021 

The copepods are choosing not to hibernate (Photo: SAMS)

The tiny zooplankton at the centre of the Arctic food web are being forced to end their winter ocean hibernation early in areas where the sea ice is melting – throwing the entire local eco-system into disarray, a team of scientists has found.

The plankton, known as copepods and measuring just 5mm long, have traditionally dived a few hundred metres down into the water to hibernate in the winter, when there is no natural light as the sun is constantly below the horizon.

And they have typically returned to the surface when the ice has melted, the light returned and the algae they eat come into bloom.

But in areas where the sea ice melted in the summer and never froze back, it appears that these creatures are being forced to radically change their lifestyles.
Thawing ice

The thawing of the ice has thrown nature into disarray, making the timing of the spring bloom vary from one year to the next and so much harder to predict.

As a result, the plankton appear to be coming up to the surface early – in some cases as early as January – to make sure they don’t miss out on their algae breakfast when the spring bloom appears.

The environment is changing 

(Photo: BJ KIRSCHHOFFER/POLAR BEARS INTERNATIONAL/AFP/Getty)

Even if that’s far too early, they seem to be working on the basis that it’s better to be early and wait than risk being too late and finding no food left when they surface.

This change in habit is not undertaken lightly, given the energy required in getting up to the surface – so ideally you don’t want to hang around too long for your breakfast after the journey up, according to Laura Hobbs, of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).
No small trip

“Getting up to the surface isn’t trivial, it takes a huge amount of energy. If we scale that up into human terms that’s the equivalent of swimming fifty miles or so. Swimming all that way too early uses up a lot of energy, and it’s then a long time to wait for your next meal,” said Dr Hobbs, also of the University of Strathclyde.

She has calculated that swimming up from 200 metres is about 40,000 body lengths of a copepod.

In some cases, copepods may be choosing to forgo their hibernation altogether, staying close to the surface throughout, to make sure they don’t miss out, Dr Hobbs said.

She has analysed 10 years’ worth of data collected by SAMS, The Arctic University of Norway and the University Centre in Svalbard from Kongsfjorden, a fjord in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, after the ice melted once and for all 14 years ago.
Breakfast dilemma

“The location in which we gathered our data has been ice free since 2006, meaning more light can penetrate the ocean, causing the spring bloom to begin early,” said Dr Hobbs.

“Imagine you’ve been getting up for breakfast at 8am but one day you find the food’s all gone. Can you bank on enough food being there if you ‘lie in’?

“It’s maybe better to get up earlier, say 4am, and risk having to wait a long time. Over a year of the copepod’s life cycle, missing breakfast completely is fatal.”

Copepods are one of the most abundant creatures on the planet and their high fat content make this zooplankton a crucial part of the ocean food web, providing fodder for fish, insects and even other zooplankton.

It’s unclear exactly what the effect of their changing habits will be on the broader environment in which they live but since they lies at the centre of the eco-system it seems likely to be considerable, researchers say.

Fires, floods, hurricanes, and locusts: 2020 was an epic year for disasters

A record number of billion-dollar disasters struck the US in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

By Umair Irfan Dec 30, 2020

The skies over Mallacoota, Australia, turned red as smoke from bushfires spread across the country on January 4. Justin McManus/The Age/Fairfax Media/Getty Images


The Covid-19 pandemic was unfortunately not the only natural disaster of 2020. There were so many that it’s easy to forget everything that happened this year. Here is a brief sampling of 2020’s weather-related events:

The year began with a series of bushfires in Australia that forced thousands to flee, and killed at least 29 people and more than a billion animals. The fires that sent smoke around the world had ignited amid weeks of record-breaking heat and drought.

Swarms of locusts descended on East Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, threatening food supplies for millions of people in the spring. The swarms were triggered in part by torrential rainfall in East Africa.

This summer, California experienced its worst fire season on record in terms of area burned, as well as its largest single wildfire on record. Colorado also had its largest wildfire in history, and blazes in Washington and Oregon created an unprecedented disaster.

A record number of wildfires this summer swept through the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands, spanning Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. Many of these blazes were illegally ignited to clear land for agriculture, and spread because of hot and dry conditions in an area that’s usually wet.

A powerful storm known as a derecho swept through South Dakota, Nebraska, Illinois, and Iowa in October and became the most costly thunderstorm in US history, causing an estimated $7.5 billion in damages.

Storms like Typhoon Vamco brought deadly flooding in Vietnam. 

Huy Thanh/AFP/Getty Images

Typhoon Goni became the largest tropical storm to ever make landfall when it struck the Philippines in October, whipping the country with winds reaching 195 miles per hour.
More than 100 people died in Vietnam in October amid the worst flooding in decades, triggered by tropical storms and typhoons.

The Atlantic Ocean experienced its most active hurricane season on record, with 30 named storms as the season closed in November. The hurricanes wrought destruction across the Caribbean and Central America, while forcing thousands to evacuate in the United States. More than 400 people were killed by Atlantic tropical storms this season.

In the waning days of 2020, Tropical Storm Chalane struck the coast of Mozambique, bringing heavy rains and 75 mph winds to a region that is still recovering from the devastating strike by Cyclone Idai last year.

These disasters were deadly and destructive, and several of them nudged records even higher. But while their origins are in nature, humanity’s actions are what made these events truly devastating. From continuing to build in high-risk areas, to failing to evacuate people at risk, to changing the climate, disasters often end up with a far higher toll than they would otherwise. As populations increase in vulnerable areas and with climate change pushing weather toward greater extremes, the risks are poised to grow.

2020 was the year of the compound disaster

Covid-19 was lurking in the background of most natural disasters this year. Since the pandemic began, efforts to contain it complicated everything from locust control pesticide spraying to organizing camps for wildland firefighters.


And people fleeing disasters faced extra challenges as they tried to maintain social distance in shelters that tend to force people into close proximity.

“The threat of Covid-19 transmission means we need to be additionally vigilant in protecting both our emergency response teams and the people they are helping,” said Oxfam Philippines’ Country Director Lot Felizco, in a statement about Typhoon Goni in November. “The loss of critical facilities, vulnerabilities from lack of adequate food and shelter, poor conditions in evacuation centers, and ongoing displacement means we have to ensure response actions do not increase Covid-19 risks on top of other disease outbreaks.”

At the same time, disasters made it harder to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 1.8 million people around the world. The pandemic also devastated the global economy, and many local disaster responders saw budget cuts and layoffs just as their communities needed support the most.

Shelters like this one in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, have had to take Covid-19 precautions while also aiding survivors of storms like Hurricane Genevieve, which struck the Pacific coast of Mexico in August. Alfredo Martinez/Getty Images

“Yes, it’s a health crisis,” said Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, a social scientist who studies disasters at the RAND Corporation. “It’s also an economic crisis, and it’s a social crisis.”

Disasters in 2020 also compounded when extreme weather struck repeatedly. Louisiana, for instance, saw a record five major storms make landfall this year, including Hurricane Laura, the strongest storm to strike the region in 150 years.

Meanwhile, back-to-back wildfires across the western United States not only destroyed homes and businesses, but cast smoke over huge swaths of the country, turning skies orange and making breathing the air as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes in a day. That dirty air in turn worsened risks for Covid-19, a disease that afflicts the airways. “Exposure to air pollutants in wildfire smoke can irritate the lungs, cause inflammation, alter immune function, and increase susceptibility to respiratory infections, likely including COVID-19,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The events this year showed that disasters aren’t singular events, but overlapping and intersecting phenomena. In the future, disaster planners will have to better account for how many things can go wrong at once, and that areas may not have time to fully recover from one catastrophe before the next one strikes.

Disasters in 2020 were expensive, and that’s partly our fault

Around the world, more than 40 disasters led to at least a billion dollars in damages each. The United States in particular set a record for the number of billion-dollar disasters this year, with at least 18 such events. These include not just hurricanes and wildfires, but droughts and heat waves. Hurricane Laura was one of the costliest events of the year for the US, with upward of $12 billion in damages.

The number of billion-dollar disasters in the US set a new record in 2020. NOAA

The dollar amounts, however, don’t tell the whole story. Poorer people are often more seriously harmed by storms, floods, and fires. But because their property is valued lower, the price tag can understate the scope of the destruction. Damage to facilities like offices and factories also often show up as more costly than damage to people’s homes. So the places with the costliest disasters aren’t necessarily the places that are suffering the most.

At the same time, the economic harms of disasters are mounting in part because more people and property are in harm’s way. For example, about 40 percent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of a coastline. About 40 percent of the US population lives in a coastal county. The number of people in these areas is growing, bringing with them more homes, offices, and industries. That means that when storm surges and hurricanes arrive, they’ll extract a higher toll.

Similarly, people in the western United States are continuing to build in fire-prone regions. That not only raises the destructiveness of wildfires when they burn, but it also increases the likelihood of igniting those fires in the first place, since the vast majority of wildfires are ignited by human activity. One study found that 645,000 homes in California will be in “very high” wildfire severity zones by 2050, based on current trends.

All the while, people are changing the climate. Emission of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels is amplifying the raw ingredients of many of these disasters — air temperature, ocean temperature, and rainfall — and pushing them to be more destructive. Climate change doesn’t “cause” disasters, but it makes it likelier for them to reach greater extremes.

Scientists in recent years have gained a better understanding of how to attribute extreme events to climate change caused by humans. For example, a study from the World Weather Attribution research consortium investigating Australia’s bushfires found that climate change increased the likelihood of the conditions that fueled the blazes by at least 30 percent.


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Why we’re more confident than ever that climate change is driving disasters

Climate change is also shaping how these disasters unfold. One climate change signal that’s been emerging in recent hurricanes is rapid intensification, which NOAA defines as a gain of 35 mph or more in wind speed over 24 hours. That was visible this year in Hurricane Laura, which surged from Category 2 to Category 4 strength over several hours.

Between 1982 and 2009, the number of Atlantic tropical storms that have rapidly intensified increased significantly, in part due to human-caused climate change, according to a 2019 study in the journal Nature Communications. Climate models also show that rapid intensification will increase as average temperatures rise.

It’s clear, then, that the impacts of disasters stem from forces of nature as well as humanity’s decisions. However, because people are driving many of the factors that make extreme weather so devastating, people can also take steps to reduce these impacts. That can take the form of relocating away from high-risk areas, building seawalls and protective infrastructure, and investing more in disaster management so communities can recover faster. And over the long term, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will help avert the most extreme disaster scenarios.

But the impacts of the disasters this year will linger for a long time as people look to rebuild their lives and cope with the trauma. “Disasters change people, they change communities, and they change societies,” said Clark-Ginsberg. That means the shadow of 2020 will likely stretch well into 2021 — and beyond.

Israeli soldier shoots and paralyzes Palestinian man in dispute over power generator

By Abeer Salman, CNN 

An Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian man, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down, after an altercation over a portable electric generator, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

© Mussa Qawasma/Reuters Members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) arrive at the site where a Palestinian house was demolished near Hebron in the West Bank on November 25, 2020.

Video of the incident, which occurred on Friday near Hebron in the south of the West Bank, appears to show Haroun Abu Aram, 24, along with three other men, attempting to hold on to the generator while Israeli soldiers seek to take it away.

The tussle continues until, off-camera, a single gunshot is heard, followed by screaming, before the camera moves to reveal Abu Aram lying motionless on the ground.

The video has been widely circulated by Israeli human rights organizations and in Israeli and Palestinian media.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said soldiers were involved in a routine operation "to confiscate and evacuate an illegal building in the village of At-Tuwani." Israeli forces regularly evacuate and demolish Palestinian homes in the Palestinian Territories that are built without a permit from Israeli authorities.

The statement said the army was aware of reports a Palestinian had been injured by live fire during the operation and was carrying out an investigation.

The army statement also said the operation had been carried out in the face of rock-throwing by about 150 Palestinians, though this cannot be seen in the two-and-half-minute video of the incident circulating on social media.

Mohammed Ribe, the head of the local village committee, told CNN that Abu Aram's own family house had been demolished a month ago and that he had been trying to protect his neighbors' property when the IDF moved to empty their house during Friday's operation.

"Haroun was trying to help his neighbors to get their generator back when he was shot in the back of his neck," Ribe said.

A statement from the hospital in Hebron where Abu Aram is being treated said he had been shot in the neck, damaging his nerves and spine and leaving him paralyzed in all four limbs.

The hospital added that breathing was only possible with a ventilator.

"This barbaric aggression is part of the ongoing Israeli occupation targeting of people ... with the aim of increasing the pressure and restrictions on them to forcibly expel them, and empty the area of them, in order to seize it in its entirety in favor of [Israeli] settlements," the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement following Friday's shooting.

According to Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, Abu Aram's own home in the same village was demolished by Israeli authorities on November 25.

Video B'Tselem says is from that operation, circulated by the rights group, shows bulldozers pushing over a series of simple concrete and metal buildings, as well as pulling up a pipeline used to supply water to local communities, according to the rights group.

Palestinians say these home demolitions are part of an attempt to drive them off the land.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel demolished 664 Palestinian buildings in Area C of the West Bank during 2020 and displaced 572 people.

Israel says the buildings are erected illegally, but Palestinians, the UN and rights groups say it is almost impossible for Palestinians to gain planning permission from Israeli authorities to build in Area C, which is under full Israeli control.

 

Israeli Soldiers Killed 48 Palestinians, Including Two Women And Eight Children, In 2020

 JAN 2, 2021

Israeli soldiers killed 48 Palestinians, including two women and eight children, during the ongoing and escalating violations against the Palestinian people, in the year 2020, the Martyrs’ Families Coalition has reported.

Mohammad Sbeihat, the secretary of the coalition, has reported that, despite the difficult conditions in 2020, mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic, Israeli soldiers have escalated their attacks and violations against the Palestinian people, their homes and lands, and their holy sites.

Sbeihat stated that the soldiers have killed 48 Palestinians, all of them civilians and not members of any armed resistance group, and added that besides the eight children and the two women, the soldiers also killed one Palestinian with special needs.

The report revealed the main following facts:

1. 48 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli occupation soldiers.

A: Two of them were women.

B: 46 are from several parts of the West Bank.
C: 12 from several parts of the Gaza Strip.

D: Eight children were killed, the youngest Ali Ayman Abu Alia, 13, and was killed on December 4th in the al-Mughayyir village, near Ramallah.

E: The oldest Palestinians is Sa’adi Mahmoud al-Gharabily, 75, from Gaza city, who died in Israeli prisons on July 8th due to medical neglect, after spending 26 years behind bars.

2. The number of slain Palestinians who are married is 14; 13 men and one woman.
3. The Average age of the slain Palestinians in 28.
4. The number of Palestinians who were killed by missiles or shells is 3.
5. The number of Palestinians who died in Israeli prisons in 2020 is 6.
6. Two Palestinians were killed during Israeli bombardment in Syria.
7. One Palestinian, Eyad al-Hallaq, from Jerusalem, was a person with special needs.

Israel is still holding the remains of thirteen Palestinians who were killed in 2020, which brings the number of corpses Israel has been holding over the last five years to 73, in addition to 254 who have been buried in the “Numbers Graveyards” since the year 1968.

South African game reserves forced to cull animals as Covid halts tourism

The visitors driven across the 10,000 or more hectares of the Nambiti game reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province see what they think is an unchanged, and unchanging natural landscape.

Njabulo Hodla, the assistant manager of the reserve, sees something else: thickening undergrowth that someone must cut back, tracks which need clearing, fences to repair and animals that will have to be culled eventually, each another victim of Covid. “It’s tough, really tough. I’ve never seen a season like it,” said the 31-year-old, who has worked at Nambiti since 2008

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© Photograph: TravelMuse/Alamy 

Three kudu in Nambiti game reserve in KwaZulu-Natal where visitor numbers have slumped.

Across the continent Covid has hit South Africa the hardest with more than a million confirmed cases and 29,000 deaths according to official figures. As elsewhere in Africa, the pandemic has wreaked massive economic damage, with thousands of businesses failing and tens of millions unable to earn a living. The economy shed 2.2m jobs in the second quarter of 2020.

The huge tourist industry – which employs around one in every 20 workers and provides just under 3% of GDP – has been devastated.

Once the December holiday season meant tens of thousands of foreign visitors spending hundreds, even thousands, of dollars every day. Now, with the rate of new infections in the country soaring as authorities struggle to check a second wave, no one expects the tourists to come back soon.

South Africa’s 500 or so private game reserves are often in more remote and impoverished parts of the country. They spend considerable amounts each month to feed and care for the animals. Many have been forced to close permanently, lay off staff and sell, or even shoot, animals. Other have survived – just.

“Reserves like ours went from quite a nice income supporting 300 jobs and a massive conservation project to literally nothing. We fell off a wall,” said Clarke Smith, chairman of Nambiti. “We are still feeling the pain … and the impact on the region is very marked.”

Nambiti is a community-owned project, unlike many, so a substantial proportion of profits and an annual lease are paid to local villages. This year, these revenues are much reduced and, with many employees of the reserve still on reduced hours or at home, the coming months will be very difficult.

“Instead of an end-of-year bonus, people are taking home only half a salary, or nothing,” said Hodla, who grew up in one of the nearby villages. “The communities round here are just on the line. The reserve plays a major role. Everyone knows someone who works here.”

Many fear that if the crisis continues for many more months, hundreds of thousands of hectares across South Africa that have been converted to more lucrative game reserves in recent decades will revert to cattle or cereal farming – with a massive loss of habitat for endangered animals and other species.

But if the business of wildlife conservation has been hit badly, so too has that of safeguarding other parts of the country’s heritage.

Like many parts of rural South Africa, the north of KwaZulu province suffered from acute unemployment, massive health problems including TB and HIV, and deep poverty even before the pandemic. Industries have been gutted in recent decades, with many mines and factories closing.

In some places, such losses have been partially compensated by what has been a booming trade in battlefield tourism. Tens of thousands of British visitors have come to walk the sites where British troops fought Zulus in the bloody war of 1879 that consolidated the imperial hold on southern Africa.

The battlefields of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift are the main attraction for British tourists usually old enough to be fans of the 1964 film Zulu that dramatised the story of the catastrophic British defeat and last-ditch stand at the sites.

This winter – or summer in the southern hemisphere – both battlefields are “empty”, the memorials, graves and museums deserted.

“There is no work. We are just sitting there. The situation is so bad. There is a drought and no crops in our fields, and a sack of mealie [maize flour] costs twice as much as it did back in the spring,” said Dalton Ngobese, a local guide, who has not worked since March.

With the tourists gone, so too are the hawkers who sold ethnic craft, snacks and water. A portion of the entrance fee to the battlefield site goes to schools, so this source of revenue too has dried up.

The accommodation lodges were shut for much of the summer, and have only recently reopened, welcoming far fewer guests. The lodges provide jobs and also fund support programmes for local students, charitable foundations, orphanages and other projects.

“If we are suffering, the entire community takes a knock,” said Shane Evans, manager of the Isandlwana Lodge, which hosted groups touring the battlefield.

In the village of Isandlwana, there is resignation. With so few jobs locally, men have traditionally travelled to Johannesburg, six hours’ drive north, to work in mines or, more recently, hotels. But both industries are suffering too and most of Isandlwana’s residents who had jobs have lost them.

Government aid has been patchy, and a huge burden for a country still battling the legacies of the racist, repressive apartheid regime. The ruling African National Congress, in power since 1994, is accused of incompetence and corruption, but also has to deal with a flagging economy, tens of millions of people in poverty and massive debts. A job support programme has been guaranteed until the end of the year, but money is slow to come through.

One consequence in the villages around Isandlwana is that crime is rising, with cattle theft and burglary getting worse, said Ngobese. A recent drought has meant local communities around the battlefields have been unable to plant the crops that traditionally supplement incomes and diet.

Nellie Buthelezi’s husband was among those laid off by the local government in swingeing job cuts earlier this year, while the lodge where she works has been shut since March. The 41-year-old mother of four has lived in Isandlwana all her life and cannot remember times ever being as bad.

“Food is expensive, and it goes so fast. We’ve got no money for rent,” she told the Observer. “We just hope to God for a better new year.”

Famous animal activist Jane Goodall is urging Edmonton City Council to “free Lucy the lonely elephant” and let her retire “in a more humane setting

© Provided by ET Canada EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA

Goodall is best known for her 60-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.

She posted a video message Tuesday, asking that Lucy be transferred from the Edmonton Valley Zoo to a sanctuary in Tennessee.

“Lucy is a very lonely elephant,” Goodall says in the video. “Of course there are people who care about and love and care for Lucy but that can’t make up for the lack of elephant companionship.”

READ MORE: Animal rights group ranks Edmonton zoo fourth-worst for elephants

Goodall says elephants are highly intelligent and extremely social and Lucy is the only elephant at the zoo. The activist says elephants develop friendships that last throughout their lives, they recognize each other, are sentient and share similar emotions to humans: joy, sorrow, grief and pain.

“Each day she spends at the zoo is another day of sadness, and especially during your long, cold, dark winter,” Goodall says.

“There’s a wonderful and accredited sanctuary in Tennessee that’s offered to take her in. I know there are concerns as to whether Lucy is healthy enough to be moved but other older elephants have been successfully transported over long distances.

“I beg of you to invite an independent veterinarian with an appropriate knowledge of elephants to examine Lucy and determine how best she can be prepared for and supported for her journey.”

Lucy, a 45-year-old Asian elephant, has lived at Edmonton’s zoo since 1977. The zoo has long maintained that moving her to a sanctuary would worsen her condition or kill her.

READ MORE: Latest examination recommends Lucy stay at Edmonton Valley Zoo

In 2016, Lucy’s condition was reviewed by an independent veterinarian. At the time the vet said Lucy was suffering from dental and respiratory issues even then, but if the zoo chose to move her she was “highly likely” to “potentially” die en route to a sanctuary.

The latest examination, performed in November 2019 by the University of Calgary School of Veterinary Medicine, showed that Lucy has several respiratory and molar issues.

According to Lindsey Galloway, executive director of the Edmonton Valley Zoo, moving the elderly elephant would be “unethical.” Instead, the zoo plans to make changes to her enclosure and routine to make her as comfortable as possible.

The zoo reportedly plans on reaching out to outside experts who specialize in working with geriatric elephants to learn more about what could be done for Lucy.

READ MORE: Bob Barker takes Free Lucy campaign to elephant’s Edmonton zoo

Animal rights activists have been calling for Lucy to be moved for a number of years, citing things like the elephant’s cramped space, Edmonton’s cold weather and the fact that Lucy is alone as reasons to relocate her.

The November 2019 examination found results continue to show that Lucy the elephant should not be moved to a sanctuary.

READ MORE: City of Edmonton defending Lucy’s care after ‘dishonourable mention’ on Worst Zoos for Elephants list

However, in her video, Goodall stresses Lucy should be in a place “where she can enjoy the companionship of other elephants.”

“It seems to me that after the four decades Lucy has ‘worked’ for your city, she has earned her retirement in a more humane setting.”

READ MORE: New ‘Jane Goodall Act’ seeks to ban ivory imports, hunting trophies

The Jane Goodall Act was recently introduced in the Senate of Canada. Sen. Murray Sinclair said he has teamed up with primatologist Goodall to propose a law to protect captive animals and ban imports of elephant ivory and hunting trophies into Canada.

Sinclair says the bill would ban new captivity of great apes and elephants unless it’s licensed and for their best interests, including for conservation and non-harmful scientific research. That would allow courts to issue orders to move them to new care or to improve their living conditions.

Bill S-218 had its first reading on Nov. 17.

“This is exactly the sort of inappropriate conditions the Jane Goodall Act would prohibit, and why it is so necessary,” Sinclair said. “A key element of the act, the ‘Noah Clause,’ authorizes the federal cabinet to extend legal protections to additional captive, non-domesticated species through regulation.”

Goodall encourages supporters of the Jane Goodall Act to send a letter to members of Parliament and the Senate.