SUNDAY SERMON

Some Scientists Believe the Universe Is Conscious

Sounds like a bad trip ... but what if it's true?

BY CAROLINE DELBERT

PM

JUN 10, 2021

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Is the universe a conscious being, like a gigantic widely dispersed human brain?
Scientists have long questioned how consciousness and science mix.
Two mathematicians have turned one theory into a crunchable math model.

In upcoming research, scientists will attempt to show the universe has consciousness. Yes, really. No matter the outcome, we’ll soon learn more about what it means to be conscious—and which objects around us might have a mind of their own.
➡ You think science is badass. So do we. Let’s nerd out over it together.

What will that mean for how we treat objects and the world around us? Buckle in, because things are about to get weird.
What Is Consciousness?

The basic definition of consciousness intentionally leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It’s “the normal mental condition of the waking state of humans, characterized by the experience of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, awareness of the external world, and often in humans (but not necessarily in other animals) self-awareness,” according to the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology.

Scientists simply don’t have one unified theory of what consciousness is. We also don’t know where it comes from, or what it’s made of.

However, one loophole of this knowledge gap is that we can’t exhaustively say other organisms, and even inanimate objects, don’t have consciousness. Humans relate to animals and can imagine, say, dogs and cats have some amount of consciousness because we see their facial expressions and how they appear to make decisions. But just because we don’t “relate to” rocks, the ocean, or the night sky, that isn’t the same as proving those things don’t have consciousness.

This is where a philosophical stance called panpsychism comes into play, writes All About Space’s David Crookes:

“This claims consciousness is inherent in even the tiniest pieces of matter — an idea that suggests the fundamental building blocks of reality have conscious experience. Crucially, it implies consciousness could be found throughout the universe.”

It’s also where physics enters the picture. Some scientists have posited that the thing we think of as consciousness is made of micro-scale quantum physics events and other “spooky actions at a distance,” somehow fluttering inside our brains and generating conscious thoughts.

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The Free Will Conundrum

One of the leading minds in physics, 2020 Nobel laureate and black hole pioneer Roger Penrose, has written extensively about quantum mechanics as a suspected vehicle of consciousness. In 1989, he wrote a book called The Emperor’s New Mind, in which he claimed “that human consciousness is non-algorithmic and a product of quantum effects.”

Let’s quickly break down that statement. What does it mean for human consciousness to be “algorithmic”? Well, an algorithm is simply a series of predictable steps to reach an outcome, and in the study of philosophy, this idea plays a big part in questions about free will versus determinism.

Are our brains simply cranking out math-like processes that can be telescoped in advance? Or is something wild happening that allows us true free will, meaning the ability to make meaningfully different decisions that affect our lives?

Within philosophy itself, the study of free will dates back at least centuries. But the overlap with physics is much newer. And what Penrose claimed in The Emperor’s New Mind is that consciousness isn’t strictly causal because, on the tiniest level, it’s a product of unpredictable quantum phenomena that don’t conform to classical physics.

So, where does all that background information leave us? If you’re scratching your head or having some uncomfortable thoughts, you’re not alone. But these questions are essential to people who study philosophy and science, because the answers could change how we understand the entire universe around us. Whether or not humans do or don’t have free will has huge moral implications, for example. How do you punish criminals who could never have done differently?

Consciousness Is Everywhere

In physics, scientists could learn key things from a study of consciousness as a quantum effect. This is where we rejoin today’s researchers: Johannes Kleiner, mathematician and theoretical physicist at the Munich Center For Mathematical Philosophy, and Sean Tull, mathematician at the University of Oxford.

Kleiner and Tull are following Penrose’s example, in both his 1989 book and a 2014 paper where he detailed his belief that our brains’ microprocesses can be used to model things about the whole universe. The resulting theory is called integrated information theory (IIT), and it’s an abstract, “highly mathematical” form of the philosophy we’ve been reviewing.

In IIT, consciousness is everywhere, but it accumulates in places where it’s needed to help glue together different related systems. This means the human body is jam-packed with a ton of systems that must interrelate, so there’s a lot of consciousness (or phi, as the quantity is known in IIT) that can be calculated. Think about all the parts of the brain that work together to, for example, form a picture and sense memory of an apple in your mind’s eye.

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The revolutionary thing in IIT isn’t related to the human brain—it’s that consciousness isn’t biological at all, but rather is simply this value, phi, that can be calculated if you know a lot about the complexity of what you’re studying.

If your brain has almost countless interrelated systems, then the entire universe must have virtually infinite ones. And if that’s where consciousness accumulates, then the universe must have a lot of phi.

Hey, we told you this was going to get weird.

“The theory consists of a very complicated algorithm that, when applied to a detailed mathematical description of a physical system, provides information about whether the system is conscious or not, and what it is conscious of,” Kleiner told All About Space. “If there is an isolated pair of particles floating around somewhere in space, they will have some rudimentary form of consciousness if they interact in the correct way.”

Kleiner and Tull are working on turning IIT into this complex mathematical algorithm—setting down the standard that can then be used to examine how conscious things operate.

Think about the classic philosophical comment, “I think, therefore I am,” then imagine two geniuses turning that into a workable formula where you substitute in a hundred different number values and end up with your specific “I am” answer.

The next step is to actually crunch the numbers, and then to grapple with the moral implications of a hypothetically conscious universe. It’s an exciting time to be a philosopher—or a philosopher’s calculator.

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India’s marginalised girls fighting child marriage

More than 1,200 girls in Rajasthan start a movement against child marriages, which saw a spike during the COVID pandemic.

Priyanka Berwa convinced her parents to put off her marriage and started a movement [Devendra Kumar Sharma/Al Jazeera]

By Parth MN
9 Jun 2021

Rajasthan, India – “I want to study at least up to 12th standard (grade)” was Saira Bano’s heartfelt cry when her parents started looking for a groom for her in October 2020.

It had been a tough year for her parents in their remote northwestern Indian village. Since a nationwide lockdown to check coronavirus was imposed in March 2020, Saira’s father has not been able to find much work.

He earned about 1,200 rupees ($17) a week as a labourer in pre-COVID times, which barely kept the family afloat. And when that stopped too, he thought it was better to marry Saira off instead of spending the family’s limited resources on her education.

Saira is 17.

“We are six brothers and sisters,” she said over the phone from her village of Kudgaon in Rajasthan state’s Karauli district.

“We have always lived in poverty. After COVID, it has become even more difficult to sustain the household.”

Around the world, about 12 million girls a year are married off before they turn 18, according to the United Nations. Nearly 30 percent of South Asian women aged 20 to 24 were married before 18.

The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the crisis.

While the Indian government has not maintained comprehensive data, international organisations say child marriages could be a major fallout of the pandemic.

By June last year, merely three months into lockdown, about 92,203 interventions had been made by ChildLine, an agency that protects children in distress and is part of the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Thirty-five percent of those interventions were about child marriages.

While Saira understood her father’s helplessness, she did not give in.

“I was really upset,” she said. “I want to be a teacher when I grow up. I want to help young girls become independent women. But I did not know how to convince my father.”

Saira Bano, 17, says she wants to be a teacher and help other girls become independent [Devendra Kumar Sharma/Al Jazeera]

She soon became aware of a group of girls from marginalised communities who were starting a campaign to create awareness around child marriage in Karauli.

“That got my hopes up,” said Saira. “I attended their meeting, and learned that the state government has a scholarship scheme in place to ensure girls like me don’t drop out of school.”

She got the group and the activists supporting them to talk to her father.

“They explained the drawbacks of child marriages,” said Saira. “It took me two months to convince him. But he finally agreed. It has been six months now, and he has not talked about marriage to me.”

Were it not for that intervention, Saira’s father would not have come around. That group has saved more than one girl from child marriage in Karauli.

A brave step in a notorious state

In October 2020, after convincing her parents to put off her marriage, Priyanka Berwa, 18, a Scheduled Caste girl from Ramthara village in Karauli, decided to keep going. Nine girls joined her and they started a campaign against child marriage called the Dalit Adivasi Pichhada Varg Kishori Shiksha Abhiyan (Movement for Education of Dalit Tribal Backward Groups’ Girls).

Dalits, formerly referred to as “the untouchables”, fall at the bottom of India’s complex caste hierarchy, while tribes and other so-called “backward groups” have been provided special protection by India’s constitution.

“We realised that almost every girl our age was facing the same challenge that we did,” said Priyanka.

“Nobody wants to educate girls after 10th grade (high school) here in any case. The pandemic made it worse. The schools are shut, not many here have smartphones for online education, and people are out of work. I was lucky to have convinced my parents.”

It was a brave step, for the state of Rajasthan is particularly notorious when it comes to the outlawed practice of child marriages.

According to the 2015-2016 National Family Health Survey, 35.4 percent of women between 20 and 24 in the state were married before they turned 18. The national average stood at 27 percent at that time.

Rajasthan’s initiative to provide free college education to girls aims to curb the practice.

Priyanka used to visit her mother, Urmila, 34, where she worked, cleaning the premises of a local NGO called Alwar Mewat Institute of Education and Development (AMIED).

“They always treated me with love and care,” said Priyanka. “They didn’t discriminate between boys and girls. I thought I could ask for their help.”

AMIED activists stepped in and explained to Urmila how early marriage and early pregnancy are related to malnutrition among young mothers, and contribute to premature deliveries and maternal death.

Urmila then convinced her husband, who is often ill, meaning Urmila supports the household.

“That probably made it easier to convince him,” she said. “My parents married me off at 14. I remember how scared and clueless I felt. I have spent more than half my life looking after my daughter. I don’t want her to live the kind of life that I have led. I want her to live for herself. I want her to follow her dreams.”

Priyanka also wants to be a teacher and ensure that girls in her area are able to study.

“I was fortunate to have had access to the activists at AMIED. What about those that didn’t?” she said.

“Therefore, slowly the 10 of us brought in two to three girls from each village, and they, in turn, convinced more girls from their villages to join us. When we had enough people, we started going from village to village, plastering slogans against child marriage and creating awareness through street plays.”

Priyanka is currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree in arts. Like her mother, she cleans homes to earn extra money. “I have managed my education while working,” she said. “But I want every girl in the state to study at least up to 12th standard.”

The movement that started with 10 girls has now become a force of 1,250 in Karauli – all aged between 13 and 18 and belonging to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Class communities, which are among the most disadvantaged in India.

When Neelam’s potential groom’s family visited, she told them she was not interested in getting married [KK Mahawar/Al Jazeera]

They managed to convince their parents and are now going door-to-door to convince more elders and community leaders in the villages.

“There are challenges,” said Noor Mohammad, founder of AMIED. “But the girls have started a conversation around child marriage, and we are seeing a serious pushback.”

Mohammad said the girls even set up email accounts and wrote personal stories to the state’s chief minister.

“So they are also creating pressure politically. They have reached out to people outside their district and are determined to make it a pan-Rajasthan movement. They are the leaders, we are just helping them out,” he said.

The growth of the movement has made the girls more confident, said Neelam Mahavar, 17, a Scheduled Caste girl who lives in Naroldam village in Karauli.

When the parents of her potential groom had come to see her, she told them she was not interested in getting married.

“I told them I want to study. The boy’s parents said: ‘She’s an arrogant girl,’ and walked off,” Neelam giggles.

“My parents thought if something happened to them, who would look after me and my sister. My father lost work as a tailor after the lockdown.”

However, Neelam and her 13-year-old sister Khushi have told their parents that marriage is the last thing on their mind and that they are more than capable of looking after themselves.

“My sister wants to become a collector (top bureaucrat in a district). She is hardworking and has faith in herself,” she says.

“And I want to be a teacher. Nobody thinks of boys as a burden. Even today, elders in the community believe that girls become wayward if they study more. I want to change that mindset. I want to tell the girls in Rajasthan that they are in no way inferior to boys.”

SEE HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Peru’s Castillo on verge of winning presidency after tight race

Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States says vote was a ‘positive electoral process’ and no ‘serious irregularities’ were detected.

Peru's left-wing presidential frontrunner Pedro Castillo of the Peru Libre party, gestures to his supporters from the balcony of his party headquarters in Lima on Thursday as few remaining voters from the election are counted [Gian Masko/AFP]

12 Jun 2021

Peru’s presidential election frontrunner Pedro Castillo was poised for victory, despite legal wrangles over the ultra-close vote count that had ignited tensions in the Andean nation.

“We call on the Peruvian people to stay alert,” Castillo told supporters on Friday night in the middle of last-minute legal disputes over the tight vote count.

According to local media, electoral authorities had considered changing rules to allow right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori to challenge the validity of some 200,000 votes, but ultimately declined to make the changes in the afternoon, following intense pressure from Castillo’s camp.

In a boost for Castillo and a blow to Fujimori, the Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States said the vote was a “positive electoral process” in which “serious irregularities” were not detected.

“The Mission has not detected serious irregularities,” said the preliminary report of the group headed by former Paraguayan foreign minister Ruben Ramirez.

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Castillo is ahead of Fujimori by only 60,000 votes with 99.6 percent of votes counted.

Castillo, an elementary school teacher who has fired up support from poorer, rural Peruvians, had raised concerns about plans by the opposition to nullify votes in underserved areas where he had majority support and sought clarity from the electoral body about the process.

The comments underscored rising tensions in the copper-rich nation that has been on tenterhooks since the vote last Sunday.

Castillo has 50.2 percent of the ballots, narrowly ahead of Fujimori, who has made unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.

‘Knife-edge election’

Peru’s electoral jury has not commented during the day on the media reports that said it was considering changing the rules.

Vladimir Cerron, head of Castillo’s Free Peru party, was even more strident, saying on Twitter that “the people must rise up” in defence of the vote. He had earlier claimed victory for Castillo in the knife-edge election.

The country’s electoral authority has yet to confirm a winner, but most observers and some regional left-leaning leaders, including from Argentina and Bolivia, have congratulated Castillo as the victor, prompting protests from Peru’s government.

Supporters of Peru’s presidential candidate Pedro Castillo gather behind a police barricade outside the National Jury of Elections in capital Lima on Friday [Angela Ponce/Reuters]

“Several presidents in the world are congratulating the victory of Pedro Castillo, in other words, he has solid international legitimacy,” Cerron wrote.

Fujimori has yet to concede the election and her supporters have called for protests against the result.

The daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori, she has doubled down on unsubstantiated allegations of fraud, and members of her party have said they will not concede until all votes are counted and appeals concluded, which could still take days.

Castillo himself has also stopped short of proclaiming himself the winner.

The election has bitterly divided Peruvians among class lines, with higher-income citizens supporting Fujimori while many low-income Peruvians supported Castillo, including in key mining regions of the country, the world’s number two copper producer.

Castillo was not a member of the Free Peru party before his presidential run. It is still unclear whether he would adopt its far-leftist stance for the economy if in power.

In recent days, he has recruited Pedro Francke, a moderate left economist as his adviser.

AL JAZEERA 
SOURCE: AFP, REUTERS

Prosecutor requests prison for Peru presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori

Florencia Trucco, Claudia Rebaza and Tatiana Arias
CNN Digital
Published Thursday, June 10, 2021 

The lead prosecutor in an ongoing Peruvian corruption case urged a judge on June 10 to send presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori back to preventive prison in connection with an ongoing corruption case, even as votes continue to be tallied. 

(Leonardo Fernandez/Getty Images South America)

The lead prosecutor in an ongoing Peruvian corruption case urged a judge Thursday to send presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori back to preventive prison in connection with an ongoing corruption case, even as votes continue to be tallied.

Fujimori has dismissed the request as absurd. "The prosecutor knows where I live, I'm not going to flee," she said.

She currently trails Pedro Castillo, a high school teacher who has never held public office, in a knife-edge race to be the next president of Peru. Turnout in Sunday's election was 77%.


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Jose Domingo Perez, the lead prosecutor in what is called the Odebrecht corruption case, argued Thursday that Fujimori had violated restrictions in the case, which has been under investigation since 2018. According to state-run news agency Andina, Perez accused Fujimori of breaching "the rule of conduct" that prohibits her from communicating with case witnesses.

During a press conference Wednesday, Keiko Fujimori was seen with Miguel Torres, an Odebrecht case witness, according to Andina. Torres was introduced as the lawyer and spokesman for Fujimori's party, Fuerza Popular.

Fujimori, daughter of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, has been the subject of a long-running corruption investigation since 2018. Prosecutors recently asked a court for a 30-year jail term on charges linked to organized crime and money laundering. She has denied the allegations and has not been formally charged.

She was released from preventive prison for the second time in five months in May 2020 under conditions that included a ban on communicating with others involved in the investigation.

If Fujimori wins the election, the investigation into her would be suspended until her mandate ends in 2026, prosecutors in the case have said.

At the last presidential elections in 2016, Fujimori lost to former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski with 49.9% of the votes against 50.1% for Kuczynski.

Since then, Peru has witnessed great political volatility. Last year, interim President Francisco Sagasti became the country's fourth president in less than five years after Congress voted to oust popular ex-president Martin Vizcarra and Vizcarra's replacement, Manuel Merino, resigned.

Peruvians are most concerned about how the country will recover from the pandemic, which has exposed rampant inequality that persists despite significant increases in gross domestic product (GDP) and decreases in average poverty rates in recent decades.

Both candidates have proposed reforms related to the key mining sector, but Fujimori is relying on government benefit packages to attract voters while Castillo has floated structural changes to the economy.

Communism, Leninism to attend brother Socialism’s Indian wedding

These are names of the sons of a district-level communist leader in Tamil Nadu state, with the youngest set to marry Mamata Banerjee on Sunday.

Pictures of the invitation to the wedding, embossed with hammer-and-sickle emblems, have gone viral on social media [File: Jagadeesh NV/EPA]

11 Jun 2021

Even little Marxism will not miss out when Socialism gets married in southern India this weekend with his big brothers Communism and Leninism in attendance.

All are the progeny of A Mohan, a district secretary of the Communist Party of India in Tamil Nadu state where left-wing ideology still burns red hot.

“My first son was born during the fall of the Soviet Union and everywhere in the news I was reading that this was the end of communism,” Mohan told AFP news agency.

“But there is no end for communism as long as the human race lives on, so I named my first-born Communism,” he said.

His next two sons were named Leninism – whose five-month-old son Marxism will also attend the nuptials on Sunday – and Socialism, the groom.

Pictures of the invitation to the wedding, embossed with hammer-and-sickle emblems, have gone viral on social media.

Socialism to wed Mamata Banerjee

Socialism’s bride-to-be, meanwhile, is P Mamata Banerjee, named by her grandfather after firebrand chief minister of West Bengal state, who recently defeated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing party in state elections.

The fact that this other Banerjee also ended several decades of communist rule in 2011 in West Bengal to become its chief minister is not spoiling the party.

India leaned more towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and names such as Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Pushkin and even Pravda – the name of the USSR’s state newspaper – are not unheard of, particularly in the south.

Tamil Nadu’s current chief minister is MK Stalin, named by his father in honour of the Soviet communist dictator just days before he died in Russia.

Mohan said that there was nothing unusual about his sons’ names. Some of his comrades gave their children names such as Moscow, Russia, Vietnam and Czechoslovakia, he said.

But he admitted that his boys, especially Communism, were sometimes teased at school. One hospital refused to admit Communism when he was three years old.

“They were scared of the name Communism and initially I faced a lot of troubles. But over time, things smoothed out,” he said.

All three sons, now in their 20s, are fellow members of the local communist party, and Leninism named his son after none other than German philosopher Karl Marx.

“Now I am waiting for a granddaughter from one of my sons, who I will name Cubaism,” Mohan added.

IT'S NOT A SEA IT'S IN THE DESERT

Swarm Of Earthquakes Hits The Salton Sea Area

The largest of more than a dozen small quakes within minutes was magnitude 4.6 temblor.


Paige Austin, Patch Staff

Posted Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 9:57 pm PT

Updated Sat, Jun 12, 2021 at 1:54 pm PT

The ongoing swarm of more than a dozen quakes epicentered near Niland including two greater than magnitude 4.0. (Shutterstock)

SALTON, CA — A series of medium-sized earthquakes hit the Salton Sea area in quick succession Friday night.

The ongoing swarm of more than a dozen quakes epicentered near Niland including three greater than magnitude 4.0. A magnitude 4.6 quake struck southwest of Niland at 9:39 p.m. just 12 minutes after a magnitude 4.0 quake struck in the same area, according to the US Geological Survey. A magnitude 4.1 quake struck again at 9:49 p.m.

Residents across Southern California reported the shaking.

The town is also near the San Andreas fault, but Jones said that the initial swarm wasn't close enough to the fault raise concern, said Seismologist Lucy Jones.

"Tonight's swarm is closer to the San Andreas, but still not in "triggering range". All foreshocks in California have been within 10 km of their mainshock and most were within 3 km," Jones tweeted. "This is still 20+ km away."

The uptick in quakes follows a week of hundreds of small quakes in the area. The were 603 tremblors over the last weekend, alone. The largest of those quakes was a magnitude of 5.3 on Saturday.

"A potentially bigger quake is ALWAYS possible to be triggered by any quake. Happens 5% of the time," said Jones..

READ MORE: Earthquake Swarm Rattles California's Salton Sea

In 2016, a series of earthquakes in the region prompted the U.S. Geological Survey to issue a warning of the increased risk of a large quake in Southern California because more than 200 temblors epicentered less than four miles from the San Andreas Fault near the Salton Sea.

"Past swarms have remained active for 1 to 20 days, with an average duration of about a week," the USGS previously reported.

"Unfortunately, 'they continue until they stop' is our only definitive description," Jones added on Saturday. "It is usually within a day, and today's swarm is already quite a bit less active. It is probably dying off but could swing back into action."

The weekend earthquakes were felt in Imperial County and as far as San Diego County.

 ALBERTA 

KENNEY & UCP POLL NUMBERS PLUMMET

CTV NEWS JUNE 10, 2021

ALBERTA

Piikani First Nation protests idea of coal mining

Anti-coal mining rally faces unexpected roadblock

Sean Marks CTV News Lethbridge Video Journalist

Published Saturday, June 12, 2021 8:30PM MDT

Members of an Alberta First Nation gathered to urge the government to scrap the idea of coal mining in the eastern slopes of the Rockies.

CALGARY -- Following months of preparation, members of the Piikani 'Mountain Child Valley Society' (MVCS) were shocked to find out that there were new restrictions placed on their anti-coal mining rally at the last minute.

The rally, which began with a protest convoy from Crowsnest Lake to Brocket, was organized to bring awareness to mining in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

Sixty cars, decorated with protest signs, left the Crowsnest Pass at 10 a.m. to spread their concern across Southern Alberta.

They were heading to the rally, which was set to begin at 11:30 a.m. in the river valley on Piikani Nation land.

However, rally organizer and chair of the MVCS, Adam North Peigan, was informed that only band members would be allowed to attend the rally.

"Our chief and council have imposed a media ban as well as a ban on any non-nation members being able to attend the rally," said North Peigan.

"It's unfortunate that chief and council have done that and it's really, really a sore spot in our leadership."

North Peigan had arranged for multiple non-nation members to speak at the rally including MLA's from Lethbridge and Edmonton, as well as anti-coal activist and country music star, Corb Lund.

After having to change the location prior to the event, North Peigan says he believes this was done because of the chief and council's support of the Grassy Mountain mine.

"I call out on Chief Stan Grier and members of council to get behind the members of Piikani Nation," he said.

"We are the true rights holder to this ancestral land that's looking to being desecrated by coal exploration in our ancestral land."

Piikani Nation elders were also present to speak towards their feelings on what is happening in the eastern slopes.

"I'm sad, the elders are sad," said Wilfred Yellow Wings Sr.

"The people that are gathering to support no mines are all here."

We spoke with Piikani Nation who said the decision to make the rally a band-only event was due to a concern for the health and safety of its members.

In a statement they said:

"The Piikani Nation has worked for over five years to be confident that the Grassy Mountain mine will pose a minimal risk to its lands, waters, culture and traditional way of life. Through agreement with the project proponent, it has created strict legal obligations for the mine to protect the environment and its sacred sites.

The Piikani Nation has not provided its consent to any other coal mine.

With respect to the protest planned on Piikani reserve lands, the Nation is only preventing off reserve members from entering the community to protect its members from the pandemic.

Any suggestion that the Piikani Nation is stopping members from voicing their opinions on Piikani decisions is categorically false.

The simple fact is that the Piikani Nation can't risk a COVID outbreak in its community. It has made considerable sacrifice and allocated significant resources over the last year to prevent outbreaks in the community and the devastation that the virus inflicted in other communities and the world."

Those who were not able to attend the event still took the time to express their concerns about mining exploration and what it means for the lands and water sources in Southern Alberta.

PROTESTERS LINE THE HIGHWAY OUTSIDE PIIKANI NATION

"Everyone is worried about access to water and giving away billions of liters of water to coal mining companies that are going to use it and potentially really abuse it for 10 to 12 years and a couple hundred jobs is just not worth it for the jobs we are putting at risk now," said Shannon Phillips, MLA for Lethbridge-West.

"We should be able to make a living off the landscape, trust the water that we drink and protect the wildlife, the traditional land uses and the communities that rely on this watershed."

MLA for Edmonton-Gold Bar and NDP Environmental Critic Marlin Schmidt was also in attendance.

"We know that here in southern Alberta, we don't have enough water and that we need to keep the water that we do have clean, and the coal mines threaten both of those things."

Anti-coal activist, country music star and Lethbridge resident Corb Lund showed up as well express his opposition.

"I've looked into the coal issue a lot in the rockies here in Alberta, and I just think it's a terrible idea for lots of reasons," he said.

"For financial reasons and for safety reasons and for ecological reasons. It's a terrible idea."

The rally was still able to be seen and heard from the highway, with many Piikani band members in attendance to listen to the words of North Peigan on the shores of the Old Man River.

"We need to do what we need to do to protect mother earth now and for future generations."

Lund will be hosting another anti-coal event for media on June 16 at the foot of Cabin Ridge in the Mount Livingston Range to give people a close-up view of a proposed coal development zone and speak to the effect it will have on the families who live and work in the area.

 

Pine Island Glacier's ice shelf is ripping apart, speeding up key Antarctic glacier

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Research News

VIDEO: THE ICE SHELF ON ANTARCTICA'S PINE ISLAND GLACIER LOST ABOUT ONE-FIFTH OF ITS AREA FROM 2017 TO 2020, MOSTLY IN THREE DRAMATIC BREAKS. THE TIMELAPSE VIDEO INCORPORATES SATELLITE IMAGES FROM... view more 

CREDIT: JOUGHIN ET AL./SCIENCE ADVANCES

For decades, the ice shelf helping to hold back one of the fastest-moving glaciers in Antarctica has gradually thinned. Analysis of satellite images reveals a more dramatic process in recent years: From 2017 to 2020, large icebergs at the ice shelf's edge broke off, and the glacier sped up.

Since floating ice shelves help to hold back the larger grounded mass of the glacier, the recent speedup due to the weakening edge could shorten the timeline for Pine Island Glacier's eventual collapse into the sea. The study from researchers at the University of Washington and British Antarctic Survey was published June 11 in the open-access journal Science Advances.

"We may not have the luxury of waiting for slow changes on Pine Island; things could actually go much quicker than expected," said lead author Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. "The processes we'd been studying in this region were leading to an irreversible collapse, but at a fairly measured pace. Things could be much more abrupt if we lose the rest of that ice shelf."

Pine Island Glacier contains approximately 180 trillion tons of ice -- equivalent to 0.5 meters, or 1.6 feet, of global sea level rise. It is already responsible for much of Antarctica's contribution to sea-level rise, causing about one-sixth of a millimeter of sea level rise each year, or about two-thirds of an inch per century, a rate that's expected to increase. If it and neighboring Thwaites Glacier speed up and flow completely into the ocean, releasing their hold on the larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet, global seas could rise by several feet over the next few centuries.

These glaciers have attracted attention in recent decades as their ice shelves thinned because warmer ocean currents melted the ice's underside. From the 1990s to 2009, Pine Island Glacier's motion toward the sea accelerated from 2.5 kilometers per year to 4 kilometers per year (1.5 miles per year to 2.5 miles per year). The glacier's speed then stabilized for almost a decade.

Results show that what's happened more recently is a different process, Joughin said, related to internal forces on the glacier.

From 2017 to 2020, Pine Island's ice shelf lost one-fifth of its area in a few dramatic breaks that were captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites, operated by the European Space Agency on behalf of the European Union. The researchers analyzed images from January 2015 to March 2020 and found that the recent changes on the ice shelf were not caused by processes directly related to ocean melting.

"The ice shelf appears to be ripping itself apart due to the glacier's acceleration in the past decade or two," Joughin said.

Two points on the glacier's surface that were analyzed in the paper sped up by 12% between 2017 and 2020. The authors used an ice flow model developed at the UW to confirm that the loss of the ice shelf caused the observed speedup.

"The recent changes in speed are not due to melt-driven thinning; instead they're due to the loss of the outer part of the ice shelf," Joughin said. "The glacier's speedup is not catastrophic at this point. But if the rest of that ice shelf breaks up and goes away then this glacier could speed up quite a lot."

It's not clear whether the shelf will continue to crumble. Other factors, like the slope of the land below the glacier's receding edge, will come into play, Joughin said. But the results change the timeline for when Pine Island's ice shelf might disappear and how fast the glacier might move, boosting its contribution to rising seas.

"The loss of Pine Island's ice shelf now looks like it possibly could occur in the next decade or two, as opposed to the melt-driven subsurface change playing out over 100 or more years," said co-author Pierre Dutrieux, an ocean physicist at British Antarctic Survey. "So it's a potentially much more rapid and abrupt change."

Pine Island's ice shelf is important because it's helping to hold back this relatively unstable West Antarctic glacier, the way the curved buttresses on Notre Dame cathedral hold up the cathedral's mass. Once those buttresses are removed, the slow-moving glacier can flow more quickly downward to the ocean, contributing to rising seas.

"Sediment records in front of and beneath the Pine Island ice shelf indicate that the glacier front has remained relatively stable over a few thousand years," Dutrieux said. "Regular advance and break-ups happened at approximately the same location until 2017, and then successively worsened each year until 2020."

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Other co-authors are Daniel Shapero and Ben Smith at the UW; and Mark Barham at British Antarctic Survey. The study was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, NASA and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council.

CAPTION

Pine Island Glacier ends in an ice shelf that floats in the Amundsen Sea. These crevasses are near the grounding line, where the glacier makes contact with the Antarctic continent. The photo was taken in January 2010 from the east side of the glacier, looking westward. This ice shelf lost one-fifth of its area from 2017 to 2020, causing the inland glacier to speed up by 12%.

CREDIT

Ian Joughin/University of Washington

G7 climate decisions among ‘most important in human history,’ says David Attenborough

Environmentalist to deliver message to leaders at summit in Cornwall

G7 leaders face some of the most important decisions in human history as they tackle the  G7 leaders face some of the most important decisions in human history as they tackle the climate change crisis, Sir David Attenborough said.

The environmentalist will address the leaders gathered in Cornwall on Sunday as they set out plans to reverse biodiversity loss and to fund infrastructure development around the world.

Boris Johnson is also launching a £500 million “blue planet fund” to protect the world’s oceans and marine life.

The leaders of the G7 - UK, US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy - will make a series of environmental commitments in Carbis Bay

Sir David will deliver a message to the G7, plus guests Australia, India, South Korea and South Africa, at a session on climate and nature.

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In advance of the session, he said: “The natural world today is greatly diminished. That is undeniable.

“Our climate is warming fast. That is beyond doubt. Our societies and nations are unequal and that is sadly plain to see.

“But the question science forces us to address specifically in 2021 is whether as a result of these intertwined facts we are on the verge of destabilising the entire planet?

“If that is so, then the decisions we make this decade - in particular the decisions made by the most economically advanced nations - are the most important in human history.”

Mixed in with the environmental intentions of the G7 is an attempt to reassert the values of the leading democracies around the world.

The “build back better for the world” plan will bring together G7 countries to develop an offer for high quality financing for vital infrastructure, from railways in Africa to wind farms in Asia.

The move is part of an attempt to counter Beijing’s “belt and road” initiative which has spread Chinese influence around the world.

The new approach is intended to give developing countries access to more, better and faster finance, while accelerating the global shift to renewable energy and sustainable technology..

The prime minister said: “Protecting our planet is the most important thing we as leaders can do for our people.

“There is a direct relationship between reducing emissions, restoring nature, creating jobs and ensuring long-term economic growth.

“As democratic nations we have a responsibility to help developing countries reap the benefits of clean growth through a fair and transparent system.

“The G7 has an unprecedented opportunity to drive a global Green Industrial Revolution, with the potential to transform the way we live.”

G7 nations are expected to commit to almost halve their emissions by 2030 relative to 2010. The UK has already pledged to cut emissions by at least 68 per cent by 2030 on 1990 levels, the equivalent to a 58 per cent reduction on 2010 levels.

The countries will set out the action they will take to slash carbon emissions, including measures like ending all unabated coal use as soon as possible, halting almost all direct government support for the fossil fuel energy sector overseas and phasing out petrol and diesel cars.

The G7 will also endorse a nature compact, aimed at halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 - including supporting the global target to conserve or protect at least 30 per cent of land and oceans by the end of the decade.

Mr Johnson has also launched the UK’s blue planet fund, with £500m to help countries including Ghana, Indonesia and Pacific island states tackle unsustainable fishing, protect and restore coastal ecosystems like mangroves and coral reefs, and reduce marine pollution.

The fund will run for at least five years.