NRA mercilessly mocked after House passes Biden’s gun control bills
Conrad Duncan@theconradduncan
3/12/2021
UPVOTE

(REUTERS)


The NRA has been mercilessly mocked after the Democrat-controlled House passed two bills backed by Joe Biden to introduce stricter gun control laws in the US this week.

Democrats are pushing to enact the first major new legislation on gun control in more than two decades and passed bills on Thursday to require background checks on all firearms sales and transfers, and to allow an expanded 10-day review for gun purchases.

However, the bill will need bipartisan support in the Senate to become law – which is unlikely when Democrats control the upper chamber by the narrowest of margins.

That’s because gun control legislation requires a 60-vote majority in the Senate, unlike other fiscal-related measures which can be passed with just a simple majority of 51.

Nevertheless, the House’s decision to pass the bills has riled the NRA, who have consistently opposed attempts to introduce stricter gun laws in recent years…

The organisation received little support from some social media users, especially as the gun control group March for Our Lives notes that background checks for all gun buyers are widely-popular with voters…

This appears to be a reference to a 2013 Quinnipiac University telephone poll, which found 92 per cent of voters supported background checks compared to just 7 per cent who opposed them.

So even if these bills don’t pass the Senate this time, it looks like this issue is a losing battle for the NRA

On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she and her colleagues had promised survivors of shootings and family members who have lost loved ones to gun attacks that they would not give up until the background checks legislation was passed.

“The gun violence crisis in America is a challenge to the conscience of our country – one that demands that we act,” Pelosi told Congress.

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“These solutions will save lives.”

Covid-19: European countries suspend use of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after reports of blood clots

BMJ 2021; 372 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n699

(Published 11 March 2021)

Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n699

Jacqui Wise

Author affiliations

Denmark has temporarily suspended use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine as a precautionary move after reports of blood clots and one death. However, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the UK’s regulatory body have said that there is no indication that vaccination is linked to thromboembolic events.

Eight other countries—Norway, Iceland, Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Italy, and Latvia—have also suspended use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. The decisions are a further setback for Europe’s vaccination campaign, which has struggled to pick up speed, partly because of delays in delivering the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Danish Health Authority said that one person in Denmark had died after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine and that it would suspend the drug’s use for two weeks while the case was investigated. “It is important to point out that we have not terminated the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine—we are just pausing its use,” said the Danish Health Authority’s director, Soren Brostrøm.

On 10 March the EMA said that Austria had suspended the use of a batch of AstraZeneca vaccines after one person had multiple thrombosis diagnosed and died 10 days after vaccination. Another person was admitted to hospital with pulmonary embolism after being vaccinated and is now recovering. The EMA said that two other reports of thromboembolic event cases had also been received from that batch, which was delivered to 17 EU countries and comprised a million doses.

Close review

The EMA’s safety committee is reviewing the issue but said that there was currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects. It said that the information available so far showed that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people was no higher than that seen in the general population. It said that, as of 10 March, 30 cases of thromboembolic events had been reported among the five million people given the AstraZeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area.

Phil Bryan, vaccines safety lead for the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, said, “More than 11 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have now been administered across the UK. Reports of blood clots received so far are not greater than the number that would have occurred naturally in the vaccinated population.” He added that the agency was keeping the issue under close review but that available evidence did not confirm that the vaccine was the cause.

A spokesperson for AstraZeneca said, “Patient safety is the highest priority for AstraZeneca. Regulators have clear and stringent efficacy and safety standards for the approval of any new medicine, and that includes Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca.

“An analysis of our safety data of more than 10 million records has shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis in any defined age group, gender, batch or in any particular country with Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca. In fact, the observed number of these types of events is significantly lower in those vaccinated than what would be expected among the general population.”

Disease related clotting

Commenting on the decisions, Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said, “The problem with spontaneous reports of suspected adverse reactions to a vaccine [is] the enormous difficulty of distinguishing a causal effect from a coincidence.” He highlighted that covid-19 disease was very strongly associated with blood clotting and that there had been hundreds, if not many thousands, of deaths caused by blood clotting as a result of covid-19.

Adam Finn, professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol, said, “The position with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at the moment is that there is no sign anywhere, including the UK where very large numbers of doses have now been given, that blood clot related illnesses are happening any more frequently than usual.

“That’s reassuring, because it means either that the vaccine doesn’t cause blood clots at all or, at the very worst, that it’s an extremely rare event.”

Footnotes
Addendum: We amended this article on 12 March 2021 to add Italy to the list of countries mentioned in paragraph 2 and to include an updated statement from AstraZeneca in paragraphs 7 and 8. Paragraph 8 replaces the original sentence, “The safety of the vaccine has been extensively studied in phase III clinical trials, and peer reviewed data confirms the vaccine has been generally well tolerated.”

That dirty melting snowpack could  SHOULD Be considered a "chemical soup" 

Duration: 02:24 3/12/2021

Not only an eyesore but a possible source of allergies! Piles of melting snow are everywhere, Rachel Schoutsen looks into why one chemist has called them a "chemical soup".

Add atmospheric drying – and potential lower crop yields – to climate change toll

Drier air brought on by climate change could put a dent in crop yields, triggering smaller and slower-growing plants, a new study says.

“Globally, the atmosphere is drying as the climate warms up,” said Danielle Way, an associate professor of biology at Western University. “That’s been correlated with reduced crop yield.”

Because air wants to hold as much water as possible, it starts to pull moisture from plants as its dries, with potentially devastating impacts on crops and vegetation.

Way, working with researchers at the University of Minnesota, studied 50 years of data and 112 plant species, including wheat, corn and birch trees, to assess how they're affected by drier air.

The recently published findings show plants react to atmospheric drying — even if they don’t lack water in the soil — by triggering a drought-like response, growing smaller, shorter and slower.

“Basically, they’re trying to reduce how much leaf surface there is for the water to evaporate off of,” Way said. “They’re acting like they’re drought-stressed.”

It’s that phenomenon that could result in hiked-up farming costs and decreased crop productivity, Way warns, with spinoff effects on food costs and availability.

Green spaces and trees are also at risk of the phenomenon.

“This actually might be just as significant as having dry soil,” Way said.

While the study noted impacts on crops from India to the midwestern United States, Way said Southwestern Ontario’s farm belt would also be impacted by increased dry air.

“Northern countries like Canada are particularly at risk from climate change,” she said, adding the country’s temperature could rise six degrees Celsius in the next 80 years.

Atmospheric drying has been observed worldwide for the past 20 years and is expected to rise as global warming intensifies.

Although dry soil is still a challenge for farmers, Way said irrigation can address that issue. But there’s no way to humidify the air, making atmospheric drying a big risk.

On the positive side, Way said her research could be used in the development of crops more resistant to atmospheric drying. Within the study, the team found some plants, including certain varieties of wheat, are less stressed by dry air than others.

“That variation is something we can use to breed more drought-tolerant crop species to minimize the effect” of atmospheric drying, she said.

But the long-term and essential solution is to combat climate change, Way said, adding her research highlights some of the less visible impacts of global warming.

“The way to tackle this is to tackle climate change at that large scale,” she said.

Max Martin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, London Free Press

Geothermal test success has Albertans excited for the future of the energy source
Chris Chacon 
3/12/2021

A geothermal energy project near Grande Prairie, Alta., has hit a significant milestone that could shape the future of energy in the province.

© Terrapin Geothermics/Global News Image of a geothermal project.

"This is super exciting for us. This is confirmation on the thesis that we can produce geothermal energy in this province," said Terrapin Geothermics VP of Operations Marc Colombina.

The Alberta No. 1 geothermal energy project in the Municipal District of Greenview is managed by Edmonton-based Terrapin Geothermics to produce heat and energy.

The project received a $25.4-million boost in 2019 from the federal government's Emerging Renewable Power Program (ERPP), which also provided more than $15 million to a solar farm in southern Alberta.

Started in 2018, the project recently hit a major mark after finding temperatures needed to produce energy from natural heat in the ground.

"We had reading of 118 degrees C which is well above the 100 degrees needed to economically produce power," Colombina said.

Read more: Alberta intends to clear hurdles for development of clean geothermal energy


The Alberta No. 1 project expects to be providing clean heat and power to Alberta's energy mix by 2024. Colombina said this project will be able to power 2,500 homes.

"It's clean and renewable, there's no emissions from these low temperature systems, its has the smallest land foot print of any renewable energy," Colombina said.

He added it's the beginning of more to come in Alberta.

The new Blatchford community in Edmonton is already using geothermal energy and has a goal of being carbon-neutral. It began using this technology at the end of 2019 and is already powering homes.

Blatchford's Energy Centre One is part of a centralized district energy sharing system using geothermal, solar and other sustainable energy sources to provide energy for heating, cooling and hot water to homes and buildings.

"We are now approaching about 20 customers to the system. As the development grows we expect to (see) more customers connected to this district energy system using the heat from the ground from the geoexchange field," said Blatchford Director of Renewable Energy Systems Christian Felske.

Projects like the Blatchford Renewable Energy Systems and Alberta No. 1 are expected to create hundreds of jobs in Alberta.

"The benefit to it is not just that it's creating more jobs, it's the type of jobs that it's creating. It's specifically the jobs we've been losing as a result of low oil prices," said Business Council of Alberta chief economist Mike Holden.

The province has echoed this excitement, saying it sets the stage for a new and innovative industry, putting Alberta as a global leader in geothermal energy.

The Alberta Number One project expects to be selling power by 2024.

Notley's NDP opens wide lead on Kenney and UCP in latest poll
Bill Kaufmann 

3/12/2021

A governing Conservative Party battered by controversy trails the New Democratic Party by a whopping 2-1 margin, according to a recent poll.

And by a 14-point margin, more Albertans disapprove of the UCP government’s recent budget than support it, says the Leger online survey of 1,001 Albertans conducted March 5-8.

The poll found 40 per cent support for Rachel Notley’s NDP compared to 20 per cent for the governing UCP, with the Opposition party leading in all areas of the province.

f

© Provided by Calgary Herald Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley and Premier Jason Kenney.


While the NDP predictably dominated in the Edmonton region with 49 per cent support versus 14 per cent for the Tories, it’s their strength in Calgary and rural areas that’s noteworthy, said Leger’s executive vice-president, Ian Large.

“The UCP led in rural areas and Calgary but that seems to have receded, but there’s still a large number of undecideds,” said Large, noting 27 per cent of respondents didn’t give an opinion provincewide, that number rising to 32 per cent in areas outside the two large cities.

In the Calgary area, the NDP garnered 36 per cent of support versus 34 per cent for the UCP, which trailed its opposition foes 34 per cent to 24 per cent in rural Alberta.

In the 2019 provincial election, the UCP captured 55 per cent of the vote to the NDP’s 33 per cent and took 63 of 87 seats.

The government’s run into a political wood chipper with its handling of MLAs taking pandemic beach trips, provincial parks, a faltering economy and approval of coal mining in the Rockies’ eastern slopes.

But given there are two years until the next provincial election and probably brighter days ahead with the COVID-19 pandemic set to fade, Large said those voter trends are hardly carved in stone.

“What this government gets to own is the vaccination program, which is going quite well, and the economic recovery, which is coming,” he said.

“People will forget the missteps because they get to go dancing.”

A Calgary political scientist said he has no doubt the UCP trails the NDP but doubts it’s by 20 points.

And even if they did, a lot of that is likely a protest poll response that can be wooed back by a well-run COVID-19 vaccination rollout and a general end to the pandemic, said Duane Bratt of Mount Royal University.

“Even if the NDP gets 60 or 70 per cent of the vote in Edmonton, they’ve got 19 seats now so maybe they’ll get 20 there,” he said.

If the UCP dominates in the rural areas or smaller centres “and win a third of the Calgary seats, they can easily (win again),” he added.

But there’s no doubting the dramatic slide in fortunes for a UCP that’s led the NDP ever since the right-wing party was created in 2017, said Bratt.

“And there’s clear dissension in the (UCP) ranks,” he said, noting anger within the party over COVID-19 restrictions.

There’s a danger those on the UCP’s right flank could still leave for another right-wing party, given the questions being raised about Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership, said Bratt.

Dark political clouds rained on other parts of the Leger poll for the governing party.

Though there’s no majority opinion on last month’s 2021-2022 economic blueprint, 41 per cent of respondents said they disapprove of it, while 27 per cent gave their support.

But while only four per cent of those polled strongly approve of the budget, those staunchly opposed numbered 20 per cent.

It’s the fruit of a largely status quo budget with a projected $18.2-billion deficit for the coming year that pleased few on the left or right of the political spectrum, said Large.

“If you were looking for spending cuts or wrestling the deficit, you didn’t see that and if you were hoping for support for building roads or education, you wouldn’t see that either,” he said.

To many Albertans, of whom 32 per cent didn’t know or preferred not to answer, the budget was a non-event, said Large.

“This one kind of came and went. Nobody really noticed,” he said.

More noticeable, said Large, is the 33 per cent support for a provincial sales tax compared to 59 per cent opposed to one, though the vast majority of the latter were strongly against it.

Related
Braid: UCP in polling dumps but pandemic recovery could spark reversal of fortune

Younger Albertans more open to a provincial sales tax: poll

Braid: Kenney is stuck in an alternate universe of debt — and, possibly, a new sales tax

“Five years ago, it would have been 80 per cent opposed, but this has been a conversation for decades in Alberta,” he said.

“And when you blow past an $18-billion deficit, this is an option for more of us.”

Of those surveyed, 69 per cent agreed the government would have to cut spending next year, while 51 per cent said the province was right not to cut spending in its latest budget.

On Friday, the NDP announced it was launching its candidate nomination process in preparation for the 2023 provincial election, saying the UCP’s missteps have given them momentum.

“We have been getting a flurry of interest from people who want to get involved,” said the party’s provincial secretary, Brad Stevens.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

on Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn

LINE 5
Whitmer offers plan to supply propane after pipeline closes


TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration released a plan Friday to make sure Michigan will have enough propane if a controversial pipeline is shut down.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The strategy addresses a frequent objection to the Democratic governor’s demand that Enbridge Inc. decommission its Line 5, a leading carrier of natural gas liquids that are refined into propane to heat many Michigan homes.

It calls for more state investment in rail and propane storage infrastructure and pledges efforts to find new suppliers while working with the industry to deal with potential shortages. It proposes more energy efficiency and greater use of other sources, including renewables.

“Governor Whitmer has remained committed to ensuring the state’s energy needs are met when the Enbridge oil pipelines shut down, and this plan furthers that commitment while protecting consumers and their pocketbooks," spokeswoman Chelsea Lewis-Parisio said.

Enbridge dismissed the proposals as “wholly inadequate for replacing the propane or energy supply Michiganders currently depend on," adding that it would worsen pollution by requiring greater use of other transport methods that would increase customer costs.

Line 5 carries oil and gas liquids through northern Wisconsin, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and a portion of the northern Lower Peninsula. A 4 mile (6.4 kilometre) section divides into two pipes that cross the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Whitmer ordered the company last fall to close the 645 mile (1,038 kilometre) line by May, siding with environmental and tribal groups who say it's vulnerable to a rupture that could devastate the lakes.

Video: Natural gas needed for many years to come (cbc.ca)

Enbridge, which is fighting the governor's order in court, says the 68-year-old line is in good condition but that it wants to swap the underwater segment for a new pipe that would be housed in a tunnel beneath the lake bottom. The company has received state environmental permits for the project and is seeking others.

Enbridge says Line 5 fulfills 65% of propane demand in the Upper Peninsula and 55% statewide. For Love of Water, an environmental group, says those numbers are inflated and that a few truckloads or rail cars per day could replace what the pipeline supplies to the U.P.

Whitmer's strategy was based on an assessment of statewide energy needs by the Michigan Public Service Commission, as well as a 2020 report from a U.P. energy task force and recommendations of state departments looking for propane sources other than Line 5.

Retailers have begun developing arrangements less dependent on Line 5, some utilizing state grants for rail facilities, the plan says.

Whitmer's 2022 budget proposal includes $10 million to support rail transport of propane in the U.P. and $5 million for storage tanks near rail spurs. The state is exploring other steps such as injecting more propane into storage reservoirs and encouraging pre-buying to lock in supplies for residents and businesses.

The plan also includes heating assistance for needy families and protections against price gouging.

“For years, Enbridge and their allies have been spending millions of dollars to scare Michigan residents and create a fiction that the sky will fall and people will freeze without Line 5,” said Sean McBrearty of Clean Water Action. “Governor Whitmer’s team has proved them wrong once again. When Line 5 is shut down, our Great Lakes will no longer be at risk of a massive oil spill, and Michigan will still have all the energy resources we need.”

Mark Griffin, president of the Michigan Petroleum Association, said the group was studying Whitmer's plan but remained opposed to closing Line 5.

U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, a Republican whose district covers northern Michigan, said the plan would leave Upper Peninsula residents “out in the cold and is incredibly tone deaf to the needs of our constituents.”

John Flesher, The Associated Press

As spring thaws the Minnesota ice, a new pipeline battle fires up

By Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent 

3/12/2021

In the north woods of Minnesota, the mighty Mississippi River looks like a frozen creek. After a bitter February, you can stroll across it with more fear of windburn than thin ice. And if you stroll one particular spot near Palisade, you'll find giant pipe, heavy machines and competing signs. A few read "No trespassing" in block letters. The rest say "Water is life" and "Stop Line 3" in hand-painted colors. It is the latest front in the pipeline wars.

© Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images An anti-trespass notice is surrounded by signs protesting the construction on the Enbridge Line 3 crude oil pipeline.

BLACKSNAKE TOO 

Originally built in the 1960s, the Enbridge Line 3 crude oil pipeline snakes 1,097 miles from the tar sands of Canada to Superior, Wisconsin. 

Of the roughly 340 miles through Minnesota, the replacement pipeline includes new sections and added capacity and is cutting through some of the most pristine woods and wetlands in North America. In little camps along the way, a small-but-growing group of protesters is out to stop them, driven by ancient prophesy and the promises of a new President.

When Joe Biden killed plans for the Keystone XL pipeline within hours of taking the oath, many Native American tribe members and environmentalists saw it as validation for all the cold nights spent protesting another pipeline at Standing Rock. Though they failed to stop the oil now flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline, maybe this was a sign Biden would take their side in the David versus Goliath fight to stop Line 3. And maybe people would finally heed an ancient warning known as The Seven Fires Prophecy.

In Ojibwe tribal lore, an environmental moment of reckoning was predicted in the time of the Seventh Fire, when "the light skinned race will be given a choice between two roads," one green and lush, the other black and charred. A wrong choice, it was warned, would "cause much suffering and death to all the Earth's people." The Ojibwe are of the largest groups of Native Americans north of Mexico with tribal members stretching from present-day Ontario in eastern Canada all the way into Montana.

As a half-dozen female tribal elders sing and pray alongside the frozen Mississippi, it's obvious that for some bands, the fight is sacred and eternal. The question is how many will join them in the face of tougher legal challenges, increased pressure from police and the limits of the pandemic.

"There have been over 130 people arrested so far in just the last few months," tribal attorney and activist Tara Houska told CNN. Some are physically arrested at construction sites, but police also watch social media feeds to identify trespassing protesters and send summons in the mail. Before we walked the frozen river, Houska attended her hearing with a judge over Zoom and was ordered to post $6,000 bail.

"They seem to think that it's going to deter us from protecting the land. They are fundamentally missing the point of what water protectors are doing, which is willing to put ourselves our freedom, our bodies, our personal comfort on the line for something greater than ourselves," Houska said.

After living in Washington and fighting Dakota Access and Keystone XL, she is now hoping this movement helps convince the Biden administration that the Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency during the Trump administration were shoddy in their environmental impact studies and too hasty in issuing permits.

But Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge insists that it passed every federal, state and tribal test. The company has been rushing to complete the pipeline before politics or the courts can stop it. Of those 340 miles cutting through The Land of 10,000 Lakes, more than 40% is already in the ground.

"Line 3 is not like the Keystone XL pipeline," Enbridge Chief Communications Officer Mike Fernandez told CNN. "It already exists. And it already is an energy lifeline for literally millions of people in the US and in Canada. And the reality is, even as we see great growth in renewables, we're still going to need some fossil fuels 40 years to come."

But since Biden has built the first White House with a climate agenda at every agency, the biggest argument against the pipeline may be over the kind of energy running through Line 3. Unlike liquid Texas crude hidden in pockets of rock, Alberta's oil is part of the Canadian soil under the boreal forest. It can't be pumped unless it is steamed. As a result, it is the dirtiest and most destructive fossil fuel after coal.

A trip to the tar sands boggles the mind with its scale. Massive, man-made pits crawl with massive dump trucks, filled with what feels like sticky cookie dough and smells like asphalt.

Tens of thousands of tons are moved into massive processing plants each day where the goop is boiled and blasted with Athabasca River water heated with natural gas. To separate the flammable bitumen from the dirt and clay, it takes six gallons of fresh water to produce one gallon of tar sands gasoline and the lakes needed to hold the resulting toxic waste are among the biggest man-made creations in history.

The sheer amount of energy required to turn sticky earth into liquid fuel not only makes Alberta tar sand more expensive, it produces 15% more planet-cooking carbon pollution, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But to the workers building Line 3, pipelines are safer and cleaner than moving oil by truck or train. And if you stop Line 3, they argue, it does nothing to stop the world's voracious demand for the kind of fuels that burn.

"I think, frankly, people have been drawn to pipelines because it's easy to fight pipelines," said Kevin Pranis with the Laborers International Union of North America as cranes lifted 25,000-pound pipes as long as city buses.

"The truth is that the carbon emissions aren't coming from pipelines. They're coming from cars. And so if you really wanted to go directly to the source, you can protest car dealerships, you can protest gas stations. But the problem is, people like car dealerships and they like gas stations and they would be pretty angry about that."

While most of the 5,200 people building Line 3 are from oil states like Texas and Louisiana, "some 400 will be Native Americans," Fernandez told me. "We met with all of the First Nations along that pipeline. We listened, and as a consequence there are 320 or so route modifications."

Enbridge's tribal relations suffered in February, when two men working on Line 3 were caught in a human trafficking sting set up to protect underage Indigenous girls.

"The two individuals that that were arrested have been fired." Fernandez said. "We don't tolerate that kind of activity or behavior and it's prompted us to go to one of the contractors to say 'This is our expectation, that they be trained to a certain level.'"

Follow the pipeline route, and feelings can change by the tribe or the mile.

"You think that people that are scrambling at home, running out of gas with no heat, are thinking about climate change?" said Jim Jones. "They're thinking about how they're going to heat their home and put food on the table."

As a member of the Leech Lake Band of the Ojibwe and a former expert in cultural anthropology for the state, Enbridge hired Jones to walk the pipeline route and ensure no violation of Indigenous spaces or ruins.

"I'm at peace that I've done the best I can to protect what's important to us," he said. "And I can honestly tell you, as of today, nothing of historic context has been unearthed or disturbed."

After the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa struck a deal with Enbridge to run a part of Line 3 through their reservation, tribal leaders said they were put in an impossible position. Some tribes worked with Enbridge on the route, while others like Winona LaDuke of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe have nothing but scorn for Enbridge.

LaDuke laughed when told of Jones's promise. "He's looking for pot charts and arrowheads. We're live people."

LaDuke is a longtime environmental activist who twice ran for vice president on Ralph Nader's Green Party ticket, but after fighting for Indigenous rights against extractive energy companies for years, she never imagined the fight would come to her.

"Enbridge wants to criminalize us," she said. "I'm a grandmother, you know, graduated from Harvard, ran twice for vice president, at what point did I become a criminal? I'm just asking, 'How much risk should we as Americans take so a Canadian multinational can get a little richer at the end of the tar sands era?'"

She helped convince a sympathetic local to sell them a little piece of land where the pipeline intersects the Mississippi and as the weather warms, the protesters hope their number of tents, yurts and fly-fishing shanties will grow faster than Enbridge can drill under the frozen Mississippi.

"Our people say 'Don't pick a fight with Mother Nature. You can't win, and we're getting we're getting pounded. So why would you pipe the equivalent of 50 new coal fired power plants with this?" LaDuke said, pointing at Line 3.

"The tar sands is the gun. This is the trigger."




 

© Bill Weir/CNN

Kevin Pranis said pipeline construction is good work for laborers and that the oil that flows through is only harmful to the environment when used by consumers.

GIVES NEW MEANING TO PANSPERMIA
Proposed ‘Moon Ark’ would shoot sperm into space to save the Earth

Josh K. Elliott

3/12/2021

The first humans walked on the moon in 1969. Will the last humans be born on the moon in 2969, after we've totally screwed up our own planet?

© NASA/Newsmakers Earth is shown from the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

THIS PHOTO CHANGED HUMAN  CONCIOUSNESS 

AND GAVE BIRTH TO THE ECOLOGY MOVEMENT

That’s the thinking behind a new proposal from researchers at the University of Arizona, who are floating the idea of building a futuristic Noah's Ark-style complex on the moon.

The ark would be an underground facility staffed by robots, powered by the sun and stocked with loads of sperm, eggs, spores and seeds from 6.7 million species on Earth — just in case we totally kill ourselves and everything around us.

Read more: CN Tower-sized asteroid to pass Earth in fastest flyby of 2021

Researchers say such an ark would be a "modern global insurance policy" and a good investment in our future, especially since the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is already seeing some wear and tear from climate change. The facility houses a catalogue of seeds from around the world, but does not include human or animal samples.

Lead engineer Jekan Thanga presented the Moon Ark idea to a gathering of experts, including NASA, at the IEEE Aerospace Conference earlier this month, where he described it in a 20-minute presentation.

Thanga says the moon would be a good place to set up a fully automated ark, because the moon is not susceptible to the same weather shifts that we see on our planet. It's simply a cold, dead, boring ball, and it's dense enough to repel solar radiation if we hide things below its surface. That makes it a good place to stockpile samples in cryogenically frozen capsules.

Video: What does it take to be an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency?

Thanga cited a few of the ways we could easily screw things up on Earth, including our ongoing failure to reverse climate change and the potential for nuclear war.

"Earth is naturally a volatile environment," Thanga said in a news release from the university. "Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, that could have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet."

He says the notion of launching millions of samples into space might sound daunting, but some "back-of-the-envelope calculations" suggest it could be done in about 250 rocket launches. It took 40 launches to build the International Space Station, he points out.

"It's not crazy big," Thanga said of the project. "We were a little bit surprised about that."

Of course, we'd have to send humans there to do the construction work.

NASA and its partners plan to send humans back to the moon as part of the Artemis program in 2024. The program could potentially lay the groundwork for future bases on the moon, both manned and unmanned, although the idea of building an ark is likely far down the road.

Read more: Take a look around Mars with Perseverance rover’s HD photo panorama

The moon pie-in-the-sky idea combines several cutting-edge or theoretical concepts to image a self-sufficient "ark" on the moon.

Researchers say the facility could be built in the empty lava tubes and pits underground, and it could be powered by solar panels on the moon's surface. Magnets could be used to keep the samples cryogenically frozen, and sphere-shaped robots (like droid BB-8 from Star Wars) could be used to maintain the facility. Everything would need to be designed to operate at low temperatures, but the cold could be a good thing for keeping the frozen samples stable.

The Moon Ark is simply a proposal at this point, and there are no plans to actually start building it.

The researchers acknowledge that they still need to investigate the idea a lot more before a full plan can be assembled.

They also did not lay out plans for restarting life in the distant future, if that becomes necessary.

Read more: SpaceX to launch first all-civilian flight into orbit by end of 2021

All that raises the question: Who will bring humanity back?

Will it be a few surviving Noahs who don't die on Earth? Or will it be aliens who stumble upon the facility in some far-distant future?

Perhaps we need to answer an even bigger question first: If we screw things up once on Earth, do we deserve to come back for a second chance

ARYANISM IS CASTISM, RACISM, FACISM, HINDUTVA 

Silk slaves: India's bonded laborers are forced to work to pay off debts

By Sugam Pokharel and Tom Page, CNN

3/13/2021

The state of Karnataka, located in southwest India, is known for its silk. Mulberry trees grow in abundance, feeding silkworms and a centuries-old textile industry. But while silkworms prosper here, many people in the industry do not

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© Sugam Pokharel/CNN

In India, the average silk worker is paid less than $3 a day -- small compensation for an industry estimated to be valued at over $14 billion globally. Part of the workforce is trapped in bonded labor, a form of modern-day slavery in which people work in often terrible conditions to pay off debt.

© Sugam Pokharel/CNN Kiran Kamal Prasad, founder of Jeevika.

Bonded labor was made illegal in India in 1976, but it never went away. A 2018 report estimated around 8 million people in India were unpaid workers or held in debt bondage, though some campaigners believe the true figure is much higher. Exactly how many are involved in the silk industry is unknown.

In January 2020, the CNN Freedom Project visited Sidlaghatta, a silk hub some 65 kilometers northeast of Bangalore, Karnataka, and met Hadia and Naseeba. This mother and daughter were forced by their "master" to work 11 hours a day, for which they earned just 200 rupees (about $2.75) to repay a 100,000-rupee (about $1,370) loan that had since doubled in size.

© Sugam Pokharel/CNN Naseeba (left) and Hadia (right), photographed in January 2020.

Naseeba had been working for three years in a silk factory, her mother nine years, boiling silkworm cocoons and removing the threads from which silk is made. The steam was foul and their hands bled, she said.

Read: More on modern-day slavery from the CNN Freedom Project

"(The master) came and he said to my mother, if you will not repay the money then we'll have a rich man and you will have to go and sleep with that man," said Naseeba.

"I'm afraid of the owner, because he has given us (a) home to live in," she added. "Where should we go? We cannot go anywhere. We don't know what he will do with us after (sees) this video."

Hadia and Naseeba concealed their faces on camera and agreed to be identified by CNN only after they had received their release certificates.

In India, bonded laborers can approach authorities requesting a certificate of release. If an investigation finds their case to be genuine, they are issued the certificate, which proves their debt is cancelled and entitles them to government assistance. The process can be lengthy -- sometimes taking years -- and can require bonded laborers to come forward to authorities in the face of social pressures and intimidation.

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