Saugeen Ojibway Nation members hold ceremony to remind people of their responsibility to Earth and water

TEESWATER – Members from Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) held a Mother Earth Water Walk, beginning on the shores of Lake Huron and finishing at the site where the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) will begin borehole drilling in Teeswater.

The SON also came with a message for all people.

“The Saugeen Ojibway Nation was recognized to have free, prior, and informed consent on this project,” the organizers said in an announcement, referring to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

The organizers cited Articles 18 and 19 of UNDRIP:

- Article 18: Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own Indigenous decision-making institutions.

- Article 19: States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the Indigenous Peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior, and informed consent before adopting legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.

“We are in ceremony for all of humanity and creation. We have a place in this forever decision being made on behalf of future generations,” the group said in a statement on social media.

“As Anishinaabek we are governed to act from a spirit-led, heart-driven place while understanding that COVID-19 is a teacher. So, we pray also for the protection from this virus, while also receive the important lessons this moment in time offers us. We are deliberating on the risks and our fullest intention, while also being deliberate in our actions as sovereign Anishinaabek Bimaadzijig - Bzauniibiikwe, Grandmother and Ogichidaakwe.”

Mikwendaagozi Mama Aki: Remembering Mother Earth Water Walk is a grassroots response to the proposed storage of high-level nuclear waste in Teeswater, which is within the Saugeen Ojibway Nation Territory, their Facebook page said.

Organizer, Grandmother Bzaunibiikwe, whose English name is Helena (Joanne) Keeshig, spoke to the walkers after arriving in Teeswater.

"What is happening over there is not OK,” she said, pointing towards the proposed site, “but we are not going to achieve anything by being angry or upset.”

“Mother Earth loves us, no matter what. She continues to give to us, no matter what we do to her,” Keeshig said, choking back emotion.

Biidaabinokwe Jessica Keeshig Martin, one of the organizers of the water walk, wrote her thoughts and shared her knowledge on their Facebook page, asking friends and allies to join the growing movement.

“What we need is a plan to address legacy issues before looking at any long-term nuclear waste storage projects. Legacy issues are the historical and ongoing impacts of nuclear power generation in our Territory,” she wrote.

“We said no to the burial of low and intermediate level nuclear waste in our Territory in 2019,” adding, “I imagine we are going to say no to the burial of high-level nuclear waste in our Territory as well. I just don’t see this being a yes based on our previous decision.”

Martin provided some background, talking about the legacy issues and the lack of consultation historically.

“We were never consulted when the nuclear power industry came into our territory. Since the 1960s this massive industry has had impacts on our lands, waters, the animals and on our communities,” she wrote.

The Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has committed to working with SON on the legacy issues. Still, when the SON voted no to the proposed low-intermediate deep geological repository (DGR) on their territory, Martin said, "where is that process now? When we said no to the DGR did they walk away from this most important obligation?”

The walkers finished the water walk on April 14 with one final walk to the site where NWMO will begin borehole drilling soon to offer prayers and hold ceremony for the land and the rock.

The group offered sacred tobacco ties (one of the sacred medicines Indigenous people use for various reasons).

“Tobacco offerings taught the people from early childhood to always be respectful and to always show their gratitude to the Creator, to the spirit of the animal, to the spirit of the tree, to the spirit of the rock,” according to sgibnl.ca. This website shares the traditional teachings of Mide People. (Mide, short for Midewin, is a culturally rich way of life shared by the Anishinabek People)

“Through the people's shared belief that everything in creation has a spirit, a life force and is not to be taken for granted or exploited in any way, this teaches an appreciation for all these things. Tobacco offerings are a sign of respect and genuine appreciation for everything in creation.”

NWMO Regional Communications Manager – Indigenous Salima Virani told Midwestern Newspapers in an email, in response to the water walk, “it is important to note, we are on a journey of learning which is reciprocal. We are learning how the community wants to include ceremony and oral teachings with us, so we can co-create elements of the project that are built on the reciprocity of learning.”

The organization repeated its statement, saying, "they are currently engaging with Indigenous People, but we are working closely with the SON communities, keeping them informed on all aspects of our work in the area. Formal consultation is not required at this point in our work.”

Elder Verne Roote, a member of Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation Council, explained that the SON receives "education consultation" from NWMO, which is heard by a committee first, then reported to the SON council.

“A key component of Canada's plan is willingness – this project will only proceed in an area with informed and willing hosts working in partnership to implement the project; this includes Indigenous communities like SON,” Virani said.

“NWMO has made a commitment to SON that we would not select a site for the high-level waste deep geological repository without the consent of the SON Communities. This is a commitment that respects their right to free, prior, and informed consent. They are both engaging and consulting with us on the project.”

The NWMO released a story in March dedicated to water and Indigenous knowledge.

“Water is the most life sustaining gift on Mother Earth and is the interconnection among all living beings. Water sustains us, flows between us, within us, and replenishes us. Water comes in many forms and is the well-being of all creation. Water shapes the land and gives us the great gifts of the rivers, lakes, oceans, and the life water of women that we all come from," Elder Donna Augustine, chair of the Council of Elders and Youth, an independent advisory body for the NWMO, said.

"It is important that the NWMO understands and considers these teachings as it implements a project that may have an impact on that water that we all rely on for life.”

Mahrez Ben Belfadhel, outgoing vice-president of site selection at the NWMO, said, “We are fortunate because now we have a deeper understanding of the special spiritual relationship that Indigenous communities have with the land,”

He added, “We also understand that this rock is not just a piece of rock like we used to think, like I used to think. This rock represents the Grandfathers. The Grandfathers have a story to tell. It is our responsibility to listen carefully, respectfully, to understand that story.”

Elder Roote told people in a video posted on the water walk Facebook page that this was an awareness walk, not just for the people of SON, but for all people in the area affected by this decision.

Speaking about the waters of Lake Huron, he said, "this is the location where our people chose to live, centuries ago. One has to understand that this land was given by Creator, to us, the Anishinabek race of people.”

"The issue at hand is nuclear development in the Territory," he said. Roote spoke about the recent vote by SON, declining permission to build a low-intermediate level nuclear waste DGR.

The exact process needs to happen in Teeswater, he said, referring to the fact that the NWMO needs to have permission from SON.

The SON (Saukiing Anishnaabekiing) Territory spans from the northern point of the Bruce Peninsula, south to the Maitland River near Goderich, and east to Nottawasaga River near Collingwood.

The NWMO is tasked by the Canadian government to find a location to build a DGR to house Canada’s used nuclear fuel.

Their website says the NWMO is responsible for designing and implementing Canada's plan for the safe, long-term management of used nuclear fuel. The plan, known as Adaptive Phased Management, requires used fuel to be contained and isolated in a deep geological repository.

It also calls for a comprehensive process to select a site with informed and willing hosts for the project.

Cory Bilyea, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wingham Advance Times

4/22/2021

Fighting the feedback loop: why scientists are sounding the alarm on Canada’s melting permafrost

River banks have slumped, forests have been lost and buildings have shifted and cracked on soft ground. Lakes and ponds have drained in some places and formed in others where once-solid land has collapsed.

Permafrost, which underlies 40 per cent of Canada’s landmass, is continuously frozen earth beneath the surface layers that freeze and thaw with the seasons.

But with northern Canada warming about three times as fast as the rest of the world, climate change threatens the permanence of vast stretches of this frozen ground — and the ecosystems and communities it supports.

For the people living in the subarctic Dehcho region of the Northwest Territories, the changes have been stark.

“Our Elders definitely noticed a real change in how things look,” Dehcho First Nations Grand Chief Gladys Norwegian told The Narwhal in an interview. “They don’t have to be scientists to know, they just feel it and see it.”

While the impacts are felt most acutely in the North, permafrost thaw has implications for the global climate as well.

Scientists are now investigating how increased warming of the North could be part of a vicious feedback cycle known as the permafrost carbon feedback loop — the more the climate warms, the more permafrost thaws and potentially emits more greenhouse gasses, which further warms the climate and thaws more permafrost.

Permafrost holds twice as much carbon as the atmosphere, and roughly 15 per cent of that stored carbon is vulnerable to being released, Merritt Turetsky, director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, told The Narwhal in an interview.

While Turetsky said emissions from permafrost are small relative to human-caused carbon pollution, they are an added burden on a climate already in crisis.

“It is a threat to climate; it will create additional warming on top of anthropogenic emissions,” she said.

The risks to infrastructure in Dehcho communities loom in the future — potentially amplified by the permafrost carbon feedback loop — but permafrost thaw has already taken a toll in the region, Norwegian said.

“Our winters are getting shorter and warmer, snow is melting earlier in the year, and the permafrost is thawing,” she said. “These changes are seen in the flow of the streams, the thickness of the ice on the lake.”

“Many of our forests are dying off and being replaced by wetlands,” she said.

For traditional land users, who harvest food by hunting and fishing, these are worrying shifts that have made travel more dangerous, Norwegian added.

“It’s very unpredictable and it puts a lot of strain on all of us that still really depend on the land.”

And now, with even more emissions potentially being released as part of the permafrost carbon feedback loop, permafrost melt threatens to accelerate further. And with it, the effects on the already altered region could accelerate as well.

Whether greenhouse gases are emitted as a result of permafrost thaw depends on what’s frozen underground.

If the permafrost consists of sand, which contains very little carbon, then it may destabilize the ground when it thaws, but it won’t result in high emissions, Turetsky explained.

It’s a different story when the permafrost consists of peat and contains stores of carbon — the remnants of ancient plants and animals

As permafrost thaws, microbial communities wake up from a frozen slumber and begin to metabolize the carbon that’s stored in the soil, Lisa Stein, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Alberta, explained in an interview.

A diverse array of microbes breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, as humans do, Stein said.

Specialized microorganisms called methanogens, meanwhile, generate methane, a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide, as a by-product of metabolism.

The rich organic and waterlogged soils left behind as permafrost thaws in certain areas “are the perfect conditions for methanogens,” Stein explained.

“They survive and grow and divide because they’re making methane,” she said. “That’s actually how they make a living.”

In response, some scientists are now investigating the potential to use another set of specialized microbes that consume methane, called methanotrophs, to help counteract the methane-generating methanogens awoken by permafrost thaw.

Peat moss, for instance, has a microbiome that’s rich in microbes that consume methane, Stein said.

“The idea would be that if you can encourage the growth of peat moss, then you’re also encouraging the activity of methane-consuming microbes,” she explained. “It’s a carbon sponge, essentially.”

Growing more peat moss was just one of the potential responses to the permafrost carbon feedback loop discussed during a March dialogue series hosted by the Permafrost Carbon Feedback Action Group.

Mike Brown, a Vancouver venture capitalist focused on climate change, established the group in partnership with the Permafrost Association of Canada to help address the challenge of greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost.

The group plans to draft an “intervention roadmap” to guide policy responses to permafrost thaw in support of global efforts to slash carbon pollution.

“Emissions from permafrost can constitute a major global climate problem, one that’s potentially serious enough to make it much more difficult for us humans to achieve our net-zero carbon goals,” Brown said during his introductory comments to the dialogue series.

Over the course of the next century, permafrost thaw could emit as many greenhouse gases as deforestation and other land use change, Ted Schuur, a professor of ecosystem ecology at Northern Arizona University, said during the first webinar.

“When we think about climate change mitigation, which is keeping carbon out of the atmosphere, Arctic carbon emissions just makes that mitigation problem that much harder,” Schuur said.

The basic premise of solutions to the permafrost carbon feedback loop is simple: reduce permafrost thaw to reduce the emissions it releases. How to prevent permafrost thaw is where things get complicated.

In subsequent webinars, experts discussed ideas to help keep the Arctic cool and prevent further permafrost thaw, including land-use changes and the more controversial stratospheric aerosol injection.

One example of a land-use change came from northern Siberia, where Russian scientists have introduced Yakutian horses, reindeer, musk ox and other herbivores to Pleistocene Park to re-establish the grasslands of the mammoth steppe biome that was widespread during that last ice age.

The grasslands, which reflect more sunlight than the shrubs and forests they replaced, help keep permafrost cooler, John Moore, chief scientist at the College of Global Change and Earth System Science at Beijing Normal University, explained during the second webinar in the series.

While this type of landscape change could be included as part of a portfolio of options to help preserve permafrost in certain areas, Moore said it may not be a feasible solution on a broad scale.

Stratospheric aerosol injection, meanwhile, may offer broader cooling of Arctic and subarctic areas — but carries substantial risks.

Stratospheric aerosol injection is a type of solar geoengineering that involves spraying sulphate particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, mimicking the effect of particles released during volcanic eruptions.

While experts say stratospheric aerosol injection could conceivably cool surface temperatures in the Arctic, it risks acid rain, which is detrimental to ecosystems, and depletion of the ozone layer, which offers protection from dangerous UV radiation exposure.

“Every now and then we get a really large volcanic eruption that dumps aerosols into the stratosphere, so high up in the atmosphere. Those [aerosols] persist for a while and cool the planet,” Douglas MacMartin, a senior research associate at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, explained during the second webinar. “In principle, you could do the same thing by flying airplanes into the stratosphere.”

“Whether or not we should do it is, again, a more complicated question,” he added.

In an interview, Turetsky said she’s skeptical of geoengineering as a way to prevent permafrost thaw and questions whether these ideas would address or perpetuate the climate and environmental injustices that northern communities are grappling with already.

While Turetsky said she’s not opposed to more “brainstorming” on potential geoengineering solutions, the main focus should be on decarbonizing the economy.

“We cannot lose sight that anthropogenic emissions are the driver, by far, of climate change,” she said.

Brown, the chair and founder of the Permafrost Carbon Feedback Action Group, said the team will compile a final report on the dialogue series. But the group’s work won’t stop there.

They plan to meet with officials in the federal government, engage with partners in other Arctic countries and push to ensure the challenge of permafrost carbon is on the agenda at international climate meetings in the fall.

“The permafrost carbon feedback is a legitimate issue of concern and is an active area of scientific inquiry,” Cecelia Parsons, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said in an emailed statement in response to questions from The Narwhal.

The department “continues to work on advancing the incorporation of permafrost carbon feedback in our earth-system modelling to further our understanding of its influence on climate change,” she added.

One message that came through clearly during the discussions is the need for Indigenous and northern communities to be actively involved in the work to address both climate change broadly, and permafrost thaw in particular.

During the final dialogue, Natan Obed, president of the national Inuit organization Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, said he’s “talked about not wanting to be the canary singing in the coal mine alone.”

He wants to do more than ring the alarm bells.

“I also want to be part of the way in which we solve this challenge,” he said.

“We need to work together,” he said.

For the North, the challenge of permafrost thaw is about more than emissions: it also raises substantial concerns for infrastructure built on increasingly unstable land.

“Permafrost thaw is at the heart of the challenges that we are going to face in our communities and also in our homelands outside of our communities for the next generation — not only because of the risk of further elevated emissions,” Obed said.

Vital community infrastructure is under threat from permafrost thaw in Inuit Nungangat, the Inuit homeland in Canada. Adapting to these challenges is a key priority in the National Inuit Climate Change Strategy, which calls for investments in widespread hazard mapping, vulnerability assessments and infrastructure that can withstand the changing climate.

The Northwest Territories is facing similar challenges, with more than $1 billion worth of infrastructure at risk from permafrost thaw, according to Canada’s latest climate plan.

In the Dehcho region, First Nations have partnered with researchers, combining Dehcho knowledge with western science, to better understand and adapt to the impacts of climate change in the region.

Dehcho First Nations are working to develop a climate change strategy of their own and through the Dehcho Collaborative on Permafrost, a partnership with the Scotty Creek Research Station run by Wilfrid Laurier University, they are working with scientists to develop a regional permafrost map and monitor permafrost changes.

This work is critical: even if the world were able to wrestle the greenhouse gas emissions generated by people to zero tomorrow, more permafrost would thaw because of emissions that have already been emitted.

“Understanding what that change is going to look like is what occupies most of my effort,” Steve Kokelj, head of permafrost science at the Northwest Territories Geological Survey, told The Narwhal.

It’s a complex task.

“Permafrost thaw means very, very different things for different environments and consequently, it also means very different things for the people that live in the North, depending on where you are,” Kokelj said, noting some areas may experience landslides while others see conversion of forests to wetlands.

Either way, it’s an impact. “Understanding that variability is super important for society to be able to adapt,” he said.

Ultimately, if the goal is to save as much permafrost from extinction as possible, the best chance may lie in the drastic reduction of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

“Decarbonization might save some permafrost,” Turetsky said. And saving permafrost could reduce the impacts of the permafrost carbon feedback loop.

One thing is certain, continued growth of global emissions will result in the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems, with arctic and subarctic regions at particularly high risk for irreversible changes.

“Our Elders kept telling us that there’s something that’s going to come to warn us,” Norwegian said. “COVID is just a warning for us that there is more to come — and I think we all know that — if we don’t do anything for climate change.”

“We need to need to do things differently; we need to treat Mother Earth differently,” she said.

Ainslie Cruickshank, The Narwhal

WTF IS A CHRONOBIOLOGIST?!

Out of the cave: French isolation study ends after 40 days

LOMBRIVES CAVE, France — Ever wonder what it would feel like to unplug from a hyperconnected world and hide away in a cave for a few weeks? Fifteen people in France found out.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

After 40 days in voluntary isolation in a dark, damp and vast cave, eight men and seven women who took part in a scientific experiment emerged Saturday from their self-segregation in the Pyrenees.

With big smiles on their pale faces, the 15 participants exited the Lombrives cave to a round of applause and basked in the light of day while wearing special glasses to protect their eyes after so long in the dark.

“It’s really warm!” said one.

For 40 days and 40 nights, the group lived in and explored the cave without a sense of time. There were no clocks and no sunlight inside, where the temperature was 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) and the relative humidity stood at 100%. The cave dwellers had no contact with the outside world, no updates on the pandemic or any communication with friends and family above ground.

Scientists at the Human Adaption Institute leading the 1.2 million-euro $1.5 million) “Deep Time” project say the experiment will help them better understand how people adapt to drastic changes in living conditions and environments, something much of the world can relate to because of coronavirus pandemic.

In partnership with labs in France and Switzerland, scientists monitored the 15-member group's sleep patterns, social interactions and behavioural reactions via sensors. One of the sensors was a tiny thermometer inside a capsule that participants swallowed like a pill. The capsules measure body temperature and transmit data to a portable computer until they are expelled naturally.

The team members followed their biological clocks to know when to wake up, go to sleep and eat. They counted their days not in hours but in sleep cycles.

On Friday, scientists monitoring the participants entered the cave to let the research subjects know they would be coming out soon. They said many of the people in the group miscalculated how long they had been in the cave and thought they had another week to 10 days to go.

“It’s really interesting to observe how this group synchronizes themselves,” project director Christian Clot said in a recording done from inside the cave. Working together on projects and organizing tasks without being able to set a time to meet was especially challenging, he said.

Although the participants looked visibly tired, two-thirds of them expressed a desire to remain underground a bit longer in order to finish group projects started during the expedition, Benoit Mauvieux, a chronobiologist involved in the research, told The Associated Press.

Renata Brito, The Associated Press

RIP

Indonesia navy declares lost sub sunk, all 53 aboard 

BANYUWANGI, Indonesia — Indonesia’s navy on Saturday declared its missing submarine had sunk and cracked open, killing 53 crew members aboard, after finding items from the vessel over the past two days.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said the presence of an oil slick as well as debris near the site where the submarine's last dive on Wednesday off the island of Bali were clear proof the KRI Nanggala 402 sank. Indonesia earlier considered the vessel to be only missing.

Navy Chief Yudo Margono told a press conference in Bali, “If it's an explosion, it will be in pieces. The cracks happened gradually in some parts when it went down from 300 metres to 400 metres to 500 metres ... If there was an explosion, it would be heard by the sonar."

The navy previously said it believes the submarine sank to a depth of 600-700 metres (2,000-2,300 feet), much deeper than its collapse depth of 200 metres (655 feet), at which point water pressure would be greater than the hull could withstand.

The cause of the disappearance was still uncertain. The navy had previously said an electrical failure could have left the submarine unable to execute emergency procedures to resurface.

Margono said that in the past two days, searchers found parts of a torpedo straightener, a grease bottle believed to be used to oil the periscope, debris from prayer rugs and a broken piece from a coolant pipe that was refitted on the submarine in South Korea in 2012.

“With the authentic evidence we found believed to be from the submarine, we have now moved from the ‘sub miss’ phase to ‘sub sunk,’” Margono said at the press conference, in which the found items were displayed.

Margono said rescue teams from Indonesia and other countries will evaluate the findings. He said no bodies have been found so far. Officials previously said the submarine’s oxygen supply would have run out early Saturday.

An American reconnaissance plane, a P-8 Poseidon, landed early Saturday and had been set to join the search, along with 20 Indonesian ships, a sonar-equipped Australian warship and four Indonesian aircraft.

Singaporean rescue ships were also expected Saturday, while Malaysian rescue vessels were due to arrive Sunday, bolstering the underwater hunt, officials said earlier Saturday.

Family members had held out hopes for survivors but there were no sign of life from the vessel. Indonesian President Joko Widodo had ordered all-out efforts to locate the submarine and asked Indonesians to pray for the crew’s safe return.

The German-built diesel-powered KRI Nanggala 402 has been in service in Indonesia since 1981 and was carrying 49 crew members and three gunners as well as its commander, the Indonesian Defence Ministry said.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago nation with more than 17,000 islands, has faced growing challenges to its maritime claims in recent years, including numerous incidents involving Chinese vessels near the Natuna islands.

___

Tarigan reported from Jakarta, Indonesia. Associated Press writer Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

Edna Tarigan And Fadlan Syam, The Associated Press

NOT CLEAN NOR GREEN
Big Oil is just one industry hoping carbon capture will help it survive the new green economy

IT WILL BE USED TO FRACK OLD WELLS & HARD TO GET AT SHALE OIL



NBC SPECIAL NEWS SERIES CLIMATE IN CRISIS

Big Oil is just one industry hoping carbon capture will help it survive the new green economy
“There’s the thought that we should spend whatever it takes to keep global warming below 2 degrees C," one environmental expert said.

Carbon capture is a new kind of business many companies believe will help their industry survive in the net-zero economy.J. David Ake / AP file

April 23, 2021, 
By Leticia Miranda and Denise Chow

From Big Oil to Big Tech, companies are rushing in to a new kind of business they believe will keep their industry surviving in the new net-zero economy: carbon capture.

So-called carbon capture initiatives typically involve actively drawing carbon dioxide out of the air or scrubbing the heat-trapping greenhouse gas out of the emissions from factories and power plants. While the technology has been used for decades by oil manufacturers to pump more oil, only in the last several years have other industries started to embrace the technology as a way of combating climate change.

With the oil market still fragile after inventories reached historic highs early in the pandemic, carbon capture has become a major draw for fossil fuel titans as they scramble to stay afloat in a new green economy.

Darren Woods, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, told investors in March the company expects the market for carbon capture to grow by 35 percent each year, reaching $2 trillion by 2040. The company this week proposed a $100 billion carbon capture hub in Houston that it estimates would capture and store about 50 million metric tons of carbon a year by 2030 and possibly 100 million metric tons by 2040.

ExxonMobil is urging President Joe Biden to introduce tax breaks and a price on carbon that will help create a market for the company's new carbon capture business.

BP plans to capture up to 10 million tons of carbon each year through its carbon capture project in North East England called Net Zero Teesside.

“CCUS technology (carbon capture, utilization and storage) is ready to deploy now,” Joshua Hicks, a spokesperson for BP, told NBC News in an emailed statement. “We will continue to work with governments and corporations to create the business models essential for scaling up carbon capture deployment.”

Microsoft is exploring carbon capture through a negative emission project at a biomass plant in Denmark, the company announced last month. Tide, owned by Procter & Gamble, is studying carbon capture technology as part of its commitment to halve greenhouse gases at its plants by 2030.

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton director Antoine Arnault told investors last week that it will reduce its carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2026 through using 100 percent renewable energy and helping to “improve the soil's ability to capture carbon.”

“This is an ambitious project, but we need to have a holistic approach,” Arnault said.

The demand for carbon capture technology has boomed since 2018, when the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report that said the world would need to take “unprecedented” steps to avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change. The report warned that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 will require “large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal measures.”


It may be necessary to remove up to 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year by 2050 to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Climate models have suggested that even after transitioning to renewable energy and adopting other mitigation measures, it may be necessary to remove up to 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year by 2050 to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

That stark realization has fueled something of a paradigm shift, said Peter Kelemen, a professor of Earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University. f

“People’s thinking has evolved in terms of assessing the value of mitigation,” he said. “It comes from a clear-eyed assessment of what it takes to get global warming below 2 degrees C. There’s the thought that we should spend whatever it takes to keep warming below that level.”

But some scientists and industry watchers say that without carbon pricing, capturing carbon can become too costly and difficult to scale up. By one measure, an estimated 2,000-plus large-scale carbon capture facilities must be deployed by 2050, requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in investment and a hundredfold increase in the number of carbon capture and storage facilities in operation, according to Guloren Turan, general manager of advocacy with the Global CCS Institute, a climate change think tank.


To capture carbon from flue gas, a liquid solvent is used to absorb the carbon dioxide. Then the mixture is heated to remove the carbon dioxide for storage, which requires staggering levels of energy, said Joan Brennecke, a professor of chemical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.

“We need to have cap-and-trade or a carbon tax,” she said. “There needs to be incentives for companies to invest money in this.”

At the federal level, Biden aims to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in half, compared to 2005 levels, by 2030. To reach that goal, the administration announced a new international climate finance plan on Thursday that would spur the private sector to contribute to climate solutions across the country and developing nations.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday the agency has requested $1.2 billion from the administration for the green climate fund to spur private investment and $485 million to fund multilateral climate initiatives.

"We need to ensure that the financing will be there, both public and private, to meet the moment on climate change, and to help us seize the opportunity for good jobs, strong economies and a more secure world," Biden said Thursday.

Whether more clean energy policy at the state and federal levels will be enough to decarbonize the grid by 2035 remains to be seen, said Adam Wilson, U.S. renewable energy analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

“Current market forces will take the industry a long way on the path of a clean energy sector,” he said. “But it will likely take breakthroughs in emerging technologies to get to the finish line.

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-myth-of-carbon-capture-and-storage.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CCS

THE CONTINUING DISTRACTION OF CCS

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment (plawiuk.blogspot.com)

EV Charging Infrastructure in NORTH America Still Sucks

Mack Hogan 

ROAD & DRIVER

4/23/2021

Bombing down a winding road in the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E, it's easy to feel like the EV revolution is settled business. For all the hand-wringing about the bastardization of the Mustang name, the Mach-E is on its own merits exciting, fantastic to drive, and charming. Its tail-happy nature and brutal acceleration egg you on, lulling you into dreams of an EV wonderland that are instantly shattered once you see your state of charge. Too low to get home, you now must enter the hellscape of public EV charging in the United States

.

© Mack Hogan EVs are great to drive, easy to charge at home, and important for sustainability. But using one away from home is still a nightmare.

California, for its part, has this largely sorted. The fawning EV reviews coming out of the Golden State press understandably treat this as a solved issue. By the way they talk you'd expect to find a plug on every corner. Yet if that's even true in California it sure isn't worth a damn for the rest of us. Because 90 minutes outside of America's largest city, a quick search on the FordPass app shows that I'll immediately have to head 20 minutes in the wrong direction. It's a single-stall charger, which means if anyone arrives before me I'll be out of luck until they complete their prolonged top-off. Yet I arrive to an empty lot, with one ChargePoint charger seemingly installed as an afterthought alongside an array of a dozen Tesla Superchargers.

© Mack Hogan 2021 ford mustang mach e charging

Tesla's network of fast chargers is robust. The FordPass Charging Network claims to be the largest public charging network in America, with 16,000 stations, but it's a patchwork of multiple separate charging networks strung together in a single app. Its number of total stations is impressive, but even networks that beat Tesla on the basis of a sheer number can't compete with that company's network of conveniently placed and extremely fast chargers. Plus, as I learned, in some cases ChargePoint will tap into the inverter of an already-installed Supercharger station to save development costs. So even my Mach-E's charging station was built on Tesla's back, with charge pricing set by the suits in Silicon Valley.

You might assume that charge pricing is effectively irrelevant when it comes to EVs. After all, the ubiquity and affordability of electricity are core EV strengths. In practice, though, I was charged $13.29 to go from 44 percent to just above 80 percent. Total indicated maximum range went from 83 miles to 166 miles, meaning I paid $13.29 for 83 miles of range. Assuming you get 25 mpg and pay $3.00 a gallon for gas, you'd get 112 miles of range for the same price. And you'd be out the door in five minutes

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© Mack Hogan 2021 ford mustang mach e charging

Back in my EV, though, I had to kill 55 minutes in a movie theater parking lot in a pandemic. Anyone briefed on the official Mach-E literature should be surprised here. Ford claims that a 150-kW FordPass charger should jolt the base Mach-E from 10 percent to 80 percent in just 45 minutes. But that's only the standard-range car. The figure for an extended-range model like my tester is less impressive. Per Ford, it should be able to get 61 miles of range in 10 minutes from a DC fast charger. Yet even that bar proved impossible to clear since the battery charges slower as it approaches full charge. Plus, the Electrify America charger stubbornly refused to provide its full 150 kW payload despite 0 other vehicles charging at any linked station.

This experience alone isn't a dealbreaker. We know charging takes time and we know that coverage is worse when you get outside of major cities. But it confirms the stories I had already heard. Busted chargers, inexplicably long charge times, publicly listed chargers that are actually behind locked gates—the variety and severity of problems associated with public charging in America are staggering. Just a few weeks before, Road & Track editor-in-chief Mike Guy was nearly stranded by a Mach-E that directed him to a broken charger on his way back from the ski slopes.

Neither his journey nor mine is outside the realm of a New York day trip. A 100-mile run there and back is par for the course here, necessary to get to any good roads, campgrounds, or anything else that requires non-suburbanized land. Confine yourself to city streets and you'd expect to be living the charmed life. Every EV ad shows 20-somethings cruising through the urban expanses, laughing hysterically under illuminated street lights. The city is usually unnamed, but I can tell you with confidence that it isn't New York

.

 Mack Hogan 2021 ford mustang mach e charging

Check the FordPass Charging Network—again, America's largest EV charging network—and you'll find that the borough of Manhattan contains two fast chargers. One is at a BMW dealership and the other is at Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island, far from anywhere you'd actually be heading. The one at the BMW dealership has one stall and, per reviews, is frequently broken. I opted instead to work from our office for a day. The building is open, though no one on staff is required to go and no one really does. The underground garage has a level 2 charger, perfect for a workday charge.

It was inoperable. The garage has used the coronavirus-related slowdown to do some long-needed work, making the section with the single L2 charger inaccessible. Searching online for nearby slow chargers yielded nothing. The only ones listed are Tesla destination chargers, which I'd need an adapter to use. Many garages have L2 chargers, but the only way to confirm that is by calling around until you stumble onto one. Instead, I opted to build in a 45-minute detour to Queens Center mall on my way to my photoshoot with the Mach-E. A 30-minute top-off would give me enough range to make it out to the outskirts of Brooklyn for photos and back home with mileage leftover for the Ford fleet representative to drive the Mach-E back to its home base in Northern New Jersey.

Mack Hogan 2021 ford mustang mach e charging

Factor in the parking garage fee and the money I blew at Uniqlo and this charge was even pricier. But the Electrify America charger there at least reached its rated 150-kW speed, getting me in and out in as much time as it took to grab two new t-shirts and a pair of pants. The mall had a captive audience. In much the same way that the attached convenience stores are the real moneymakers for gas stations, the stores, movie theaters, and restaurants surrounding EV chargers will be the real winners.

The losers, at least for now, are the rest of us. Public charging infrastructure in the U.S. is too sparse, slow, and unreliable. I can't, in good conscience, recommend setting sail on a cross-country journey relying purely on any brand-agnostic charging network. Those with a sense of improv and an open schedule could surely make an adventure out of it, but anyone looking simply to arrive without hassle is best served by a plug-in hybrid for now. EVs are, at present, best left to their home territory and owned by people with at-home charging.

That doesn't make them unworkable for everyone else. If you care deeply about their many broad benefits—smooth torque, silent motoring, brain-scattering acceleration, new-school charm, cheap home charging, and lack of world-warming carbon emissions—you can make it work. The network is big and getting bigger, the kinks on their way to being ironed. These flaws in experience, big as they may be, will be solved. Make no mistake that this is the future. Just accept, too, that it's a challenge in the present.

THIRD WORLD USA

How racism undermined a Covid lifeline in Black neighborhoods

Dr. Eugenia South and Diane Regas

4/24/2021 

© Provided by NBC News

One year into the pandemic, we have found ourselves in the midst of a national mental health crisis. Forty-two percent of adults in the United States said in December they had experienced symptoms of anxiety or depression, and substance abuse such as opioid overdoses is surging across the country. There are many Covid-19-related factors underlying this crisis, including the harsh economic consequences of job loss, the constant threat of eviction and food insecurity. Minority communities have borne a disproportionate share of these pandemic burdens.

The good news is that relief is coming. Widespread vaccination will allow us to ease social distancing and rebuild the social fabric so vital to our mental health. And the recently passed stimulus bill will provide much-needed economic assistance. But as states and local governments decide how to spend their stimulus money, we urge policymakers to invest in the people and neighborhoods for whom deeply rooted racial inequities have only worsened over the last year.

One way forward is to dedicate a portion of spending on the physical infrastructure of our neighborhoods, specifically targeting green space: trees, parks, trails and schoolyards. Early in the pandemic, it became clear that being outside was the safest place to spend time aside from staying home. Many of us have found solace in nature. In fact, green spaces have seen record usage over the last year.

                                  

Houston churches, parks become virtual learning spaces in pandemic

Last summer in Buffalo, New York, for example, Lory Pollina, an artist and musician without air conditioning, relied on Delaware Park, a block away from his apartment, during hot spells. (The coronavirus kept cooling centers shuttered across the city.)

“There are trees around the lake and there’s usually a breeze,” he told The Trust for Public Land, which one of us leads. “Nature is very healing when the city is hot.”

Unfortunately, many people do not have access to clean and safe parks. According to data collected by The Trust for Public Land, more than 100 million Americans, including 28 million children, do not have a park within a 10-minute walk of home, and studies have shown that parks serving primarily people of color are half the size and serve five times more people than parks in predominantly white neighborhoods. Formerly redlined neighborhoods, subjected to decades of racist policies leading to disinvestment and decline, have the least amount of green space today.

As the economic crisis bears down, park disparities are likely to sharpen, since park agencies are often the first to be targeted in state and local budgets. According to the National Recreation and Park Association, 56 percent of park agencies have seen budget cuts already, and according to the National League of Cities, 71 percent of local governments foresee significant future cuts. And park conservancies, which have the ability to raise private funds for needed park maintenance and upgrades, are concentrated in wealthy, whiter neighborhoods.

Simply put, however, cutting park budgets means deprioritizing health in minority communities. Even before the pandemic, a growing body of research highlights the positive impact of green space on our health, particularly mental and social health. Work from the University of Pennsylvania Urban Health Lab demonstrated that creating new clean and green spaces in low-income Black neighborhoods leads to reductions in violent crime and nearby residents feeling less depressed and more positive about their overall mental health. People report going outside more to socialize with neighbors. Pregnant women with a history of depression or anxiety experience less stress during pregnancy when they live near more trees. And even if you don’t break a sweat, spending time in nature leads to reduced stress; better sleep; lower rates of diabetes and obesity in children; and reduced mortality.

That’s why, as an emergency room doctor and the leader of The Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit dedicated to creating close-to-home access to the outdoors, we are calling on policymakers to leverage stimulus funds to promote health equity through local greening projects.

For example, the city of Philadelphia received $3.3 billion from the federal stimulus budget for its city, schools and the transportation system. Some of this stimulus money should be directed to the parks and recreation budget to invest in new and existing parks in the poorest neighborhoods. Local residents could be hired by the city to undertake the work, for example, through job training programs like Power Corps PHL. And a portion of the money for schools should go toward the creation of green schoolyards.

In many American cities, public schoolyards are often nothing more than cracked, asphalt lots that overheat and stifle — rather than inspire — creative play. Top-to-bottom renovations, with design input from students, can turn schoolyards into vibrant green spaces and community assets. In Philadelphia, The Trust for Public Land has already overseen a dozen such schoolyard renovations. Opening all public schoolyards during nonschool hours nationwide would put a park within a 10-minute walk of more than 19.6 million people, including 5.2 million children, who currently lack access.

In addition, we urge Congress to pass the Parks, Jobs, and Equity Act. The recently introduced legislation, which has bipartisan support, would make a one-time historic investment of $500 million in local parks. (The Trust for Public Land is leading a coalition of more than 200 organizations in support of the bill.)

Addressing the mental health crisis facing the United States requires an intentional focus on spending for equity. We must, as a nation, make the decision to acknowledge and reverse the historical legacies of disinvestment and physical decay that continue to plague low-resourced, predominantly minority neighborhoods. Directing money from the stimulus and from the Parks, Jobs, and Equity Act toward parks and green space will boost local economic recovery while also building needed healthy neighborhood infrastructure.

FEAR & LOATHING USA
Gig workers fear carjacking, other violence amid spike in violence crimes

Many gig drivers carry stun guns, firearms and even wasp spray to fend off would-be attackers.

Willy Solis, an Instacart driver in Denton, Texas, fears for his safety as violence against the industry has spiked during the coronavirus pandemic. Nitashia Johnson / for NBC News


April 24, 2021,
By Cyrus Farivar


Just before Christmas last year, Willy Solis, a 42-year-old residential construction worker-turned-delivery driver, was hired to take a late-night $100 bottle of cognac to an apartment complex in Denton, Texas. Once Solis found the apartment, he met a stocky man who gave a name that not only didn't match the ID he showed, but it also wasn't the name of the person who placed the order. Confused, Solis called Instacart's phone support line.

Solis said that that angered the customer and his three male friends and that they ordered him to hand over the cognac. Even though he had qualms about it, Solis, under the direction of the Instacart supervisor who was still on the phone, gave them the bottle.


Solis sped off in his 2018 Nissan Sentra before the situation escalated. It wasn't the only recent time he had felt unsafe. Solis, who has worked for DoorDash, Shipt, Grubhub and other gig economy companies, said he also delivered to an apartment in Haltom City, outside Fort Worth, where a female Uber Eats driver was murdered in January.

Solis said that since then, he has stopped working after 9 p.m. and has considered carrying a gun. But he fears that if he violates gig companies' rules not to carry firearms, he could risk losing his job.

"I'm very fearful every time I go out," said Solis, who makes $800 to $1,000 a week before expenses and taxes. "I don't want to lose my life over a $100 bottle of cognac or a fast food order."

Solis has considered carrying a gun.Nitashia Johnson / for NBC News

Solis is one of 15 gig economy workers who spoke with NBC News and said they feared for their safety as violence against the industry has spiked during the coronavirus pandemic. Police in several major cities, including Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., say carjackings and car thefts, particularly against gig economy drivers, rose during the pandemic.

Some drivers say that despite the companies' best efforts, they are changing their hours, avoiding certain areas and even carrying weapons, like wasp spray, Mace, Tasers and firearms, to protect themselves.

"As the danger grows more and more, that's what's pushing me more towards the possibility of doing it," Solis said about carrying a gun.

It's a pattern that especially affects minorities working in the lower-paying jobs, said Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, who has extensively researched the taxi industry and the gig economy.

"A lot of these workers are subordinated racial minorities, and they are likely to bear the brunt of physical violence, because they are in public doing this kind of work," she said.

The problems have become widespread enough that the major tech companies have been stepping up to address them. Uber recently instituted safety measures to protect drivers, including more verification requirements for people who set up accounts with gift cards or other anonymous payment systems.

DoorDash spokesperson Campbell Matthews said in an email that the company is "deeply troubled by reports of increased crime" and that it intends to add an "emergency assistance button into the Dasher app to help connect Dashers to emergency services."

In a statement, Grubhub spokesperson Grant Klinzman echoed Matthews' remarks, saying the safety of the company's drivers "is our top priority" and that the company was "ready to support law enforcement investigations ... as they take steps to address the unacceptable spike in vehicle thefts."

Lyft spokesperson Ashley Adams said that the company considers safety to be "fundamental" and that "we are working closely with law enforcement to help keep drivers safe."

Instacart expressed similar concerns but said it hadn't "seen an increase in carjackings or assault towards shoppers."

"We take the safety and security of the entire Instacart community very seriously," Natalia Montalvo, a company spokesperson, said by email. "Shoppers have many resources available to them to ensure their safety and protection while shopping and delivering on the Instacart platform."
Rising crime

The attacks on drivers, which appear to have started last year, may be part of a larger trend of a rise in violent crime in major cities, according to research in November by the Police Executive Research Forum.

Chicago police found that there were 424 carjackings from January through March, more than double the 198 carjackings the same time last year. In San Diego, carjackings more than doubled last year, to 97, from 44 in 2019. In Minneapolis, carjackings also more than doubled, to 97, in the first three months of the year, compared to 39 in the first three months of last year. In Washington, carjackings more than quadrupled in the first quarter of this year from the first quarter of last year, to 102.

Such growth has happened elsewhere, too. In Cincinnati, 38 vehicles were stolen from Jan. 1 through March 20 in the "CUF" neighborhood near the University of Cincinnati. Emily Szink, a police spokesperson, said "many of those cars were left running and were delivery drivers," estimating them to be two-thirds of the 38 reports, or about 26.

But the spikes aren't universal: Police in Sacramento, California; Phoenix; Lansing, Michigan; and Dallas say they haven't seen such rises. It isn't clear why some cities are experiencing more of this type of crime than others.

Even before the rise in violent crime against gig workers, being a delivery driver was identified as one of the most dangerous jobs in America — typically as a result of traffic accidents — according to an analysis last year of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries.

Last month alone, several high-profile events shook the gig worker community. In New York City, Francisco Villalva Vitinio, a DoorDash delivery worker, was killed after he refused to give up his e-bike, which he needed for work, to would-be robbers. Authorities said Mohammad Anwar, 66, an Uber Eats driver, died at the hands of two teenage girls who investigators said used a stun gun on him in Washington. Days earlier, in Chicago, Javier Ramos, an Uber driver, was shot in the head and killed; police said his killer was a passenger he had picked up after 3 a.m.

Child kidnappings

On Feb. 6, Jeffrey Fang, 39, a DoorDash driver in San Francisco, left his silver Honda Odyssey minivan running while he made a delivery — leaving inside his 4-year-old daughter and his 2-year-old son, who speak only Mandarin. When he returned, he found a strange man sitting in the driver's seat.

Jeffrey Fang's mini-van was stolen with his two young children inside as Fang tried to make a DoorDash delivery this past February.Nina Riggio / for NBC News

Fang said he dragged the man, who he said snatched his cellphone, out of the car and chased him on foot to get his phone back. Fang lost the man, ending up a short distance away. When he returned, he discovered that his minivan had been stolen with his children inside. (The children and the car were recovered hours later, unharmed.)

"There are a lot of things that people need to know," Fang said, speaking of gig work in general. "It's not simple, and it's at times dangerous."

Small-town America isn't immune. In Rapid City, South Dakota, a 20-year-old DoorDash driver named Danielle — whose last name is being withheld as she fears reprisal from the company — said she has felt unsafe.

Danielle's two-year-old is a passenger when she works as a DoorDash driver.

She said that last month, when she was making a delivery with her 2-year-old son in the back, five men surrounded her car. As she sped away with her son in the back, "they tried opening my car doors and banging on my windows." The incident left her shaken, and she said she is thinking about buying a handgun, which she isn't legally allowed to do until her next birthday.

"I would feel a lot safer taking my son with me if I were carrying," she said. "In a time of need, I will be able to use it and defend myself and my son."
Deaths

Early on the morning of March 23, Javier Ramos, 46, an Uber driver, was found shot in the head in Chicago's Lawndale section, less than 8 miles north of Midway Airport. Police rushed him to a hospital; he was pronounced dead just over four hours later.

Lenny Sanchez, a longtime ride-share driver and labor organizer based in Chicago, tweeted the next day that Ramos had "tried to fight off his attackers." Ramos appeared to have been left for dead, having been run over by his own car, seemingly after a struggle.

Since the beginning of the year, Sanchez and the Independent Drivers Guild, a union, have been sounding the alarm online and at in-person rallies about carjackings of gig drivers in Chicago. He said many drivers he has talked to are scared and have changed how, where and when they work. Some gig workers are considering taking stronger measures.

"Drivers are brandishing their weapons to us. A lot of them are arming themselves," Sanchez said.

A vigil for slain Uber driver Javier Ramos on April 9.Chris Sweda / Zuma Press

While Sanchez applauded Uber's new efforts this year to keep drivers safer and said his group is seeking additional safety measures, he worried that Lyft drivers in Chicago and elsewhere face renewed threats, pointing to the recent killing of a Lyft driver in St. Louis.

He said he thinks Uber's changes have had an effect. "We know it won't be perfect, but we would like to see more, and we would like to see Lyft do more," he said. "We are seeing the criminals switch over to Lyft."

Lyft didn't respond directly to Sanchez's claim. Adams, the company spokesperson, said by email that it was "working to proactively identify" accounts that "we determine to be high-risk."

"In doing so, we look at a variety of account attributes, including the use of anonymous payment methods, which are more frequently linked to fraudulent accounts," she wrote. "Actions we take include temporarily and permanently deactivating accounts, as well as requiring additional validation before being able to order a ride."

Hortencia Ramos, Ramos' cousin, said her family has been devastated by his death, particularly his 9-year-old daughter. She described Ramos as an "entrepreneur always looking to set an example for his daughter," an observant Christian and someone who had a daily fitness and workout routine.

She said her family has been very disappointed with how Uber has handled her cousin's death; she said no one from the company had reached out to even offer sympathy, much less anything more substantive.

Jodi Kawada Page, an Uber spokesperson, said in a statement: "We are deeply saddened by this news. Our thoughts are with Javier's loved ones and we've reached out to the family to offer our support."

Law enforcement efforts

Law enforcement agencies have been stepping up. Chicago police have expanded a "vehicular hijacking task force" with state and federal agencies. Since the beginning of the year, Chicago police have published 30 news releases describing indictments of carjacking suspects, including those alleged to have targeted gig workers. The police department has even published two-page flyers in four languages — English, Spanish, Polish and Chinese — explaining how victims should respond to minimize harm.

Similarly, the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington reported a steady increase in carjackings, as well. In 2019, there were 142; last year they jumped to 345. There were 47 carjacking-related arrests in the first three months of this year, compared to just two during the first quarter of last year.

Police have put out flyers alerting people to the dangers of leaving their vehicles running while making deliveries.

"Over the last few months, we have worked to partner with delivery companies to get the word out to their drivers," Kristen Metzger, a police spokesperson, said by email.

The early efforts by police departments seem to be resulting in change. Last month, Cincinnati police even put up electronic signs to remind drivers to "Lock Car & Take Key," among other safety messages.

"Thefts of delivery driver vehicles left running have started to trend downwards, which means our messaging is working," Szink, the police spokesperson, said by email.

Longer consequences

But gig workers who have been victims may need more time before they feel safe again. Back in San Francisco, Fang has been taking a break from gig work. After the harrowing kidnapping of his children, supporters raised over $100,000 through GoFundMe, and DoorDash donated several thousand dollars to his family directly.

Jeffrey Fang in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco where his mini-van was stolen with his two young children inside.Nina Riggio / for NBC News

Still, Fang remains fearful of going back to work. During his time as an Uber driver, he said, guns were pointed at him multiple times. Nowadays, he carries a Taser in his car.

"Prior to the Taser, I had a knife in the car, but that was stolen," he said. "Especially after the February 6 incident and the spate of anti-Asian violence, I'm looking into getting a firearm."

When the pandemic hit and passenger rides largely dried up, he switched to food delivery, because he thought he would make more money and it would be safer.

"I felt it was OK to take the kids, even though I knew it was a risk, but I had no child care, and I felt the risk was minimized," he said, adding that he tried to stick to wealthy neighborhoods. His car and his children were taken in Pacific Heights, one of San Francisco's richest areas.

The car seat in Jeffrey Fang's mini-van.Nina Riggio / Nina Riggio for NBC News

Fang said he would like DoorDash's and other companies' leaders to consider the needs of working parents, particularly those who feel the need to drive at peak evening dinner hours.

"If they're getting paid six figures with ergonomic furniture and break rooms and all that — if you ask me, how about setting up child care service for dinner hours, like 4 to 10 p.m.?" he said. "So the driver can drop them off? For a billion-dollar company, that shouldn't be too costly."

THIRD WORLD USA
Low-wage Asian and Latinx workers struggled to get COVID-19 information and didn't feel comfortable reporting symptoms, survey finds

insider@insider.com (Juliana Kaplan)

 

© Provided by Business Insider William Perugini/Getty Images

A survey of primarily Asian and Latinx workers in California looked at their pandemic experiences.

Almost half of respondents worried they couldn't support themselves or family if they fell ill.

A third of all respondents didn't feel comfortable reporting COVID-19 symptoms to employers.


Asian and Latinx workers in California making less than the minimum wage were less likely to receive information about COVID-19 from their employers, according to a new report from Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus and UC Berkeley.

The report surveyed 636 primarily Asian and Latinx workers in November and December 2020, working mostly in a few industries: restaurants, janitorial and hospitality, and domestic and home healthcare. Broadly, about one in five of those workers reported making below the minimum wage.

Across all income levels, though, 49% of respondents said that, if they fell ill with COVID-19, they worried that they would not be able to support themselves or their families.

In some ways, the findings showed a similar situation to pre-pandemic conditions for these workers, according to Winnie Kao, one of the report's authors and senior counsel at Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus.

"I think that there were a lot of ways in which the findings on the information were not necessarily so different from the abuses and issues that we just see regularly," Kao told Insider. But there's obviously a whole new set of circumstances: "I think what was startling to us was to see them happening in the context of a pandemic when the stakes are so high, both for the workers themselves and for the public."

Workers - especially lower-wage women - also found themselves on the other side of negative interactions with people who did not follow COVID-19 protocols, according to the report.

Overall, 29% of workers said that they had these negative interactions with coworkers, customers, or clients. The situation was worse for women earning less; 33% of women in the report's two bottom income levels experienced this.

Research from the advocacy group One Fair Wage found that harassment has become more severe for female tipped workers during the pandemic; according to the UC Berkeley/ALC report, about 49% of respondents who work in restaurants experienced negative interactions with people not following COVID-19 protocols. Two of those respondents said they or a coworker were physically assaulted.

Among workers who were concerned about COVID at work, 41% did not raise it to their employers. Their main reasoning for not doing so: They didn't think anything would change. And a third of all workers didn't feel comfortable reporting symptoms to their employers.

The report recommends, among other measures, increasing access to vaccines, paid sick leave, and healthcare, as well as a clearer path to citizenship and equitable benefits for workers of all immigration statuses. It also calls for structural changes in enforcing labor laws and curtailing labor violations, as well as amplifying employees' voices in the workplaces, including through committees and unions.

"It was striking how few real practical options a lot of low wage workers have. And, particularly during this pandemic, there are some protections out there on paper," Kao said.

"But when you don't know about what those protections are, or what your rights are, or even if you know about them with them if the employer isn't following those requirements - what this survey has shown is that workers have little real practical recourse."
Read the original article on Business Insider

Portland Museum of Art workers in Maine vote to unionize

PORTLAND, Maine — Workers at a museum in Maine's largest city have voted to form a union.

Organizers said the votes were counted on Thursday by the National Labor Relations Board. The workers decided they want to be represented by United Auto Workers Local 2110, which organizes professionals and office staff.

Graeme Kennedy, director of strategic communications and public relations for the museum, told the Portland Press Herald that the museum is “dedicated to finding common ground throughout this process and will work with Local 2110 to ensure the museum’s vision and values, which are centred in inclusivity, equity, and transparency, are reflected in any agreement.”

The vote count was 16-10 in favour of joining the union. Meghan Quigley Graham, the learning and teaching specialist at the art museum, said the workers “look forward to building a better PMA for all current and future workers.”

The Associated Press