Climate change sees Swiss Alps add over 1,000 lakes: study

by Nina Larson

Glaciers in the Swiss Alps are in steady decline, losing a full two percent of their volume last year alone.

Climate change has dramatically altered the Swiss Alp landscape—at a quicker pace than expected—as melting glaciers have created more than 1,000 new lakes across in the mountains, a study published Monday showed.

The inventory of Swiss Glacial lakes showed that almost 1,200 new lakes have formed in formerly glaciated regions of the Swiss Alps since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850.

Around 1,000 of them still exist today, according to the study published by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag).

That is far more than the few hundreds the researchers had expected to find at the beginning of the project.

"We were surprised by the sheer numbers," Daniel Odermatt, head of the Eawag Remote Sensing Group that carried out the study, said in a statement.

He said the "marked acceleration in formation" was also surprising, pointing out that "180 have been added in the last decade alone".

Glaciers in the Swiss Alps are in steady decline, losing a full two percent of their volume last year alone, according to an annual study published by the Swiss Academies of Science.

And even if the world were to fully implement the 2015 Paris Agreement—which calls for capping global warming at at least two degrees Celsius—two-thirds of the Alpine glaciers will likely be lost, according to a 2019 study by the ETH technical university in Zurich.

The Eawag assessment showed that there was an initial peak in glacial lake formation in the Swiss Alps between 1946 and 1973, when nearly eight new lakes appeared on average each year.

After a brief decline, the lake formation rate surged between 2006 and 2016, with 18 new lakes appearing each year on average, while the water surface swelled by over 400 square metres (4,300 square feet) annually.

This, Eawag said, is "visible evidence of climate change in the Alps".

The comprehensive inventory was made possible by large troves of data gathered from the Switzerland's glaciers since the mid-19th century.

In total, the researchers were able to draw on data from seven periods between 1850 and 2016.

For each of the 1,200 lakes formed since 1850, the scientists recorded the location, elevation, shape and area of the lake at the different times, as well as the type of material of the dam and surface drainage.

Based on such basic information, researchers can estimate hazards, including the risk of a sudden emptying in the event of a dam failure.

Eawag warned that the growing number of glacial lakes increases the risk of such outbursts and thus the danger of flood waves for the settlements below.

Record-low snow accumulation on biggest Alpine glacier: study

 

Unsustainable Arctic shipping risks accelerating damage to the Arctic environment

by University College London

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The economic and environmental pros and cons of melting Arctic ice creating shorter shipping routes through the polar region are weighed up in ground-breaking research from UCL experts in energy and transport.

They conclude that policy makers must properly assess the environmental trade-offs and costs in addition to the commercial benefits and opportunities in Arctic shipping. The authors also want to see more incentives to drive technological developments that will accelerate the uptake of green fuels and technologies.

The Arctic is the fastest-warming region on the planet.

Shorter Arctic shipping routes, which mean less fuel used are already used by a handful of ships, when areas of the Arctic ice melt during the summer. But the period when these routes are navigable is predicted to extend with increases in global warming and, if warming fails to remain within the 1.5⁰C/2⁰C limit set out in the Paris agreement, permanent Arctic ice may be a thing of the past.

The research, published in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, looked at the financial competitiveness of Arctic shipping, considering the impact of emissions from these vessels on the environment.

They looked at two policy scenarios, one being business-as-usual, where there is no policy on emissions, and the other operating under an Arctic specific zero-emissions policy, where ships which could run using energy from renewable sources were considered.

When environmental costs are ignored, fossil fuel based residual fuel oil is cheaper than alternative fuels. However, when the environmental impacts of accelerating climate change and the adverse effects of ship emissions on human health are considered, residual fuel ships are no longer feasible because of their contribution to greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions.

The experts conclude that, in the second scenario, green ammonia fuel cell ships are the most commercially viable and that policies which facilitate the introduction of such zero carbon fuels and zero emission technologies should be encouraged. Green ammonia is an example of a fuel that can be emissions free in both its production and use, given a green electric infrastructure.

Lead author Joseph Lambert (UCL Energy Institute) said: "Significant change is under way in the Arctic region due to global warming and from a shipping perspective we should prepare for what this means through assessing all the opportunities, risks and trade-offs that aren't exclusively financial. These routes may become more financially competitive as global warming increases and Arctic ice retreats, but more factors must be considered. It is critical that the Arctic ice maintains its permanency—in order to stay within global warming targets and to protect the region's ecology."

Co-author Dr. Tristan Smith (UCL Energy Institute), who supervised the research, said: "This is a novel work that shows the economic costs alongside the environmental costs for the Arctic route, as well as showing how certain technology choices, that could be incentivised through policy, could significantly reduce the environmental costs that would otherwise arise from Arctic shipping. The paper shows a clear justification for governments to intervene now to prevent a melting Arctic's enabling of a reduction in shipping costs because of further acceleration of the degradation of this crucial ecosystem."

The researchers say impacts that need to be explored include the effects of ecological damage, and how policy can be structured to address the environmental concerns.

Permafrost carbon feedbacks threaten global climate goals

More information: Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, www.x-mol.com/paper/1416116890403282944

Provided by University College London 

 

New evidence of an anomalous phase of matter brings energy-efficient technologies closer

by Vanessa Bismuth, University of Cambridge

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers have found evidence for an anomalous phase of matter that was predicted to exist in the 1960s. Harnessing its properties could pave the way to new technologies able to share information without energy losses. These results are reported in the journal Science Advances.

While investigating a quantum material, the researchers from the University of Cambridge who led the study observed the presence of unexpectedly fast waves of energy rippling through the material when they exposed it to short and intense laser pulses. They were able to make these observations by using a microscopic speed camera that can track small and very fast movement on a scale that is challenging with many other techniques. This technique probes the material with two light pulses: the first one disturbs it and creates waves—or oscillations—propagating outward in concentric circles, in the same way as dropping a rock into a pond; the second light pulse takes a snapshot of these waves at various times. Put together, these images allowed them to look at how these waves behave, and to understand their 'speed limit.'

"At room temperature, these waves move at a hundredth of the speed of light, much faster than we would expect in a normal material. But when we go to higher temperatures, it is as if the pond has frozen," explained first author Hope Bretscher, who carried out this research at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. "We don't see these waves moving away from the rock at all. We spent a long time searching for why such bizarre behavior could occur."

The only explanation that seemed to fit all the experimental observations was that the material hosts, at room temperature, an 'excitonic insulator' phase of matter, which while theoretically predicted, had eluded detection for decades.

"In an excitonic insulator, the observed waves of energy are supported by charge neutral particles that can move at electron-like velocities. Importantly, these particles could transport information without being hindered by the dissipation mechanisms that, in most common materials, affect charged particles like electrons," said Dr. Akshay Rao from the Cavendish Laboratory, who led the research. "This property could provide a simpler route toward room-temperature, energy-saving computation than that of superconductivity."

The Cambridge team then worked with theorists around the world to develop a model about how this excitonic insulating phase exists, and why these waves behave in this way.

"Theorists predicted the existence of this anomalous phase decades ago, but the experimental challenges to see evidence of this has meant that only now we are able to apply previously developed frameworks to provide a better picture of how it behaves in a real material," commented Yuta Murakami, from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who collaborated on the study.

"The dissipationless energy transfer challenges our current understanding of transport in quantum materials and opens theorists' imaginations to new ways for their future manipulation," said collaborator Denis Gole, from the Jozef Stefan Institute and University of Ljubljana.

"This work puts us a step closer toward achieving some incredibly energy-efficient applications that can harness this property, including in computers," concluded Dr. Rao.

---

From a window to a mirror: New material paves the way to faster computing

---

More information: Hope M. Bretscher et al, Imaging the coherent propagation of collective modes in the excitonic insulator Ta2NiSe5 at room temperature, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd6147

Journal information: Science Advances 

Provided by University of Cambridge 

Iranian astronomers fear their ambitious observatory could become a ‘Third World telescope’


At 3600 meters on Mount Gargash, the Iranian National Observatory enjoys favorable seeing conditions. PARSA BIGDELI

By Richard Stone

Jul. 12, 2021 

For Sepehr Arbabi, the ceremony last week to inaugurate the Iranian National Observatory (INO) on a mountaintop in central Iran should have been a proud moment. The astrophysicist spent 13 years surmounting obstacles to help put the world-class optical telescope on a sound technical footing, including obtaining its primary mirror from Germany. “I felt this was like my baby, my child,” says Arbabi, who left the project 5 years ago and is now at the University of Würzburg.

But Arbabi and some colleagues fear that opaque project management and a shift in the nation’s political leadership pose threats to the $30 million INO—the biggest science project Iran has undertaken. “It feels like your child is drowning in front of you and you can’t help,” Arbabi says. Others say Iranian astronomers should get a chance to review changes in the telescope’s design and how it may affect scientific objectives, as well as clarify who will have access to the telescope.

Many agree the inauguration was “untimely,” as the Astronomical Society of Iran (ASI) declared in a statement. That’s because the INO has not yet installed two key pieces of the telescope: its 3.4-meter primary mirror and its adaptor-rotator, a sensor-packed component that tracks stars and sharpens images. Astronomers cannot begin the monthslong process of commissioning and calibrating the telescope until those elements are in place, meaning first light is unlikely to happen until 2023 at the earliest.

Iranian astronomers envisioned the INO as their ticket back onto a world stage they dominated 1 millennium ago, when Europe was in its Dark Ages and Persia was an astronomical powerhouse. For example, in the 10th century C.E. Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi first recorded the existence of the Andromeda galaxy in his famous book of constellations, and a short time later the polymath Abu Rayhan al-Biruni devised a novel method for determining Earth’s radius.
In the early 2000s, Reza Mansouri, a theoretical astrophysicist at Sharif University of Technology and the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) in Tehran, led the charge to build the observatory. He brought on Arbabi as a project engineer in 2004, enticing him to give up a plum job with Airbus in Germany to take the position.

The site chosen for the INO, 3600-meter Mount Gargash in central Iran near the city of Kashan, has minimal atmospheric turbulence and frequent cloudless nights. It is “exceedingly favorable” for astronomy, says Arne Ardeberg, an astronomer at Lund University who has assessed telescope sites around the world and visited Gargash in the late 2000s. He helped convince Iranian astronomers that the mountaintop, difficult to reach at the time, was the best spot for the INO, Mansouri says.


Reza Mansouri led the effort to build the Iranian National Observatory until 2016. RICHARD STONE/SCIENCE

Arbabi, meanwhile, was tasked with procuring the €1.95 million mirror from Germany, which required navigating a bureaucratic labyrinth of international sanctions placed on Iran because of its nuclear program. But politics at home cut short his tenure at the observatory. Despite his success overseeing the INO’s technical aspects, Arbabi says he was “always treated like a stranger.” IPM relieved Mansouri of the INO’s directorship in 2016, and Arbabi’s contract was not renewed a short time later.

Mansouri worries recent design changes may have hobbled the INO. Although he no longer has access to INO documentation, he contends that based on photos of the facility, “management has changed the original design drastically at the cost of image quality.” For example, he says, the mirror will not sit high enough above the ground to minimize thermal fluctuations, and the enclosure lacks ventilation louvers needed to reduce turbulence. He fears Iran will end up with “a Third World telescope instead of a world class one.” The INO’s current director, IPM astrophysicist Habib Khosroshahi, did not respond to requests for comment.

Another concern is how Iran’s change in government will affect the INO’s prospects. Iran’s current vice president for science and technology, Sorena Sattari, has backed the INO and spoke at the inauguration. Khosroshahi noted in Nature Astronomy in 2018 that observations made by the INO would be available to the international community. But President-elect Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative jurist who will take power next month, has not yet articulated his science priorities; his dispositions toward foreign collaboration and fundamental research are unknown.

Some Iranian astronomers remain optimistic. In addition to having exquisite observing conditions, the INO would fill a geographic gap in world-class telescopes—though the long delay in commissioning the INO means it will vie with a similar size optical telescope under construction in Turkey. Still, the “INO has a large potential to do many frontier kinds of research,” says astronomer Moein Mosleh, director of the Biruni Observatory in Shiraz, Iran, who is not affiliated with the INO. Plans call for using the telescope to probe galaxy formation and hunt for exoplanets, and training it on transient sources such as gamma ray bursts to try to pinpoint their locations.

Mosleh, who is also ASI’s president, says the society intends to huddle soon with the INO team to explore how to get a broader cross-section of Iran’s astronomical community “more involved” in the facility. From his vantage, he says, the INO is making “very good progress on the technical aspects.” But, “Defining the observational projects and the involvement of astronomers inside and outside Iran is also very important.”
Posted in:
Space

doi:10.1126/science.abl4136


Richard Stone
Richard Stone is senior science editor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Tangled Bank Studios in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
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Responses

We have supported the effort to design, build, create, and commission the 3.4m telescope at the Iranian National Observatory for some years as the International Advisory Board. Many people contributed to this project to move it from dream into development, including those interviewed and credited in Science’s article. We value their contributions. We have no comment or opinion on the political comments made in the article.

We would like to emphasize that the article undervalues the impressive dedicated and creative work of the local team who have designed, largely completed building, and are bringing into first light and commissioning what will be a state of the art facility. This is under the current leadership of Habib Khosroshahi. The INO team have developed what independent external review confirms to be an excellent telescope, dome, infrastructure and observatory.

The telescope has been designed by INO engineers, with initial supervision from an expert Swedish team. The INO team mastered the detailed design and supervised construction by local industry. In 2017, a full review was conducted independently by a team of a dozen scientists, experts, observatory directors and European Southern Observatory (ESO) engineers. The design was then frozen for construction.

Creating the first national example of an international-quality research facility is ambitious in the best of circumstances, with schedule and cost challenges being the norm as work is done to maintain high quality. The INO project team have worked in the difficult circumstances of Iran’s economy in recent years and, of course, COVID-19.

They have earned considerable credit and respect.

We remain confident that the Iranian National Observatory will deliver a timely research capability, which will support the research excellence of Iranian scientists and interested international collaborators.
The Iranian National Observatory International Advisory Board
Gerry Gilmore (chair, U.K.)
Pedro Alvarez (Canary Islands)
Martin Cullum (Germany)
Colin Cunningham (U.K.)
Piero Salinari (Italy)
Lorenzo Zago (Switzerland)

Peace Camp YEG launches new camp in river valley to serve Edmonton’s homeless


CTV News EdmontonStaff
 Saturday, July 17, 2021 

Peace Camp YEG launches 3rd homeless camp

Peace Camp 3 was launched by the non-profit organization on July 10 at Queen Elizabeth Park.

EDMONTON -- For the third time, non-profit organization Peace Camp YEG has launched a camp to serve Edmonton’s homeless population.

Officially launched on July 10, Peace Camp 3 is intended to be a safe space for those experiencing homelessness and offers shelter, food, and access to harm reduction supplies.

The camp is located at the city’s Indigenous Art Park along Queen Elizabeth Park Road.

Volunteers say the camp has returned since Edmonton is still experiencing a shortage of housing programs.

“It’s mainly as the name says: Peaceful,” Kay Del Rio told CTV News Edmonton.

“We’re trying to provide residents with the supplies that they need, whether its denture cleaner or food, tents, clothing – whatever we can provide in order to make sure that they’re taken care of.”

The peace camp currently has 20 residents.
RELATED IMAGES

A SOLUTION IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM
A breakdown of Alberta’s referendum

VOTE NO

JAMES KELLER
CALGARY
 JULY 18, 2021

Premier Jason Kenney argues a Yes vote in a referendum would give the province leverage to force the federal government to negotiate a new formula, constitutional change, or some other concession. AMBER BRACKEN/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Albertans will vote in a referendum this fall that will ask them whether equalization – the federal program designed to level the fiscal playing field among the provinces – should be removed from the Constitution.

The referendum was a key election promise from the governing United Conservative Party and was endorsed by the province’s “fair deal” panel, which was struck to examine Alberta’s relationship with the rest of Canada. The perception that equalization unfairly benefits other parts of the country, at Alberta’s expense, is a long-held source of resentment in the province that has only grown after years of economic decline in the oil sector.

Here’s what you need to know about the referendum, how the province got here, and what the government hopes to achieve.

What will Albertans be voting for?

The referendum, which will be held alongside municipal elections in October, will ask Albertans a “Yes or No” question: “Should Section 36(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982 – Parliament and the Government of Canada’s commitment to the principle of making equalization payments – be removed from the Constitution?” There will also be a referendum question on moving permanently to daylight savings time.

What is Section 36(2) and what is equalization?

The section in the Constitution that deals with equalization is a single sentence: “Parliament and the Government of Canada are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.”

The program is designed to ensure provinces can provide similar levels of service despite their different fiscal situations, and specifically their ability to raise money through taxes. That means a province like Nova Scotia, where incomes are comparatively lower than much of the rest of Canada, won’t have to choose between significantly reducing services or imposing extremely high taxes.

“The basics are really straightforward,” said Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary. “It’s a federal program that provides support to provinces with weaker-than-average economies. They generate less income than higher-income regions like Alberta, B.C., or Ontario. It’s harder for them to raise revenue without having to resort to abnormally high taxes.”

How does the program work?


While equalization is enshrined by the Constitution, the real details are determined by the equalization formula. The last major overhaul happened in 2007 under the Conservative government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper.

The formula starts by assessing each province’s fiscal capacity, or its ability to raise money.

“What it essentially does is ask: ‘How much would a tax point raise, say, PEI versus the national average?’ ” Dr. Tombe said.

Average household incomes in PEI are under $70,000, compared with nearly $100,000 in Alberta, he noted. So even if the two provinces had the same provincial tax rates, the PEI government would bring in a lot less money.

In reality, taxes in PEI are higher than in Alberta, and yet provincial revenues are considerably lower, per capita, than in Alberta.

Average household income in Canada, 2019

The formula takes into account other forms of revenue, including consumption and sales taxes and property tax. It also considers natural-resource revenues, either by fully excluding natural-resource revenues or excluding 50 per cent of those revenues, depending on which would benefit a province more.


It doesn’t matter if provinces actually raise that theoretical amount of money through taxes, just that they could. Dr. Tombe said Alberta’s finances would be in much better shape if it taxed at the same level as other provinces, but the government has chosen not to.

Dr. Tombe also said that it’s virtually impossible that any changes to the formula would result in any equalization money going to Alberta as long as incomes remain so much higher than the rest of Canada.

One myth about equalization is that provinces somehow send money to the federal government or other provinces to cover the payments. But the program is funded through the federal budget, whose revenues are largely made up of income and other taxes.

It’s not clear that ending equalization is really the government’s end goal, but Premier Jason Kenney argues a Yes vote in a referendum would give the province leverage to force the federal government to negotiate a new formula, constitutional change, or some other concession.

And Mr. Kenney’s main complaints aren’t even specifically about the equalization program. The Premier has railed against other provinces, notably B.C. and Quebec, that have opposed and attempted to block pipelines designed to carry Alberta crude. He has also accused the federal government of attacking his province’s oil industry with environmental legislation, such as Bill C-69, which overhauled the environmental assessment process.


The original election promise from 2019 promised a referendum only if the concerns about pipelines and environmental regulation weren’t met.

The Premier says Albertans have been happy to help the rest of Canada when times are good, but he says the federal government and other provinces shouldn’t benefit from the riches of Alberta’s oil sector while actively fighting against it.

The size of equalization: total payments to Canadian provinces



The referendum taps into a longstanding grievance in Alberta that the province is treated unfairly by the rest of Canada. Mr. Kenney and his United Conservative Party government are targeting equalization because it has become a powerful symbol in the province, even if most people may not understand the details, said Daniel Béland, a professor at McGill University and an expert on fiscal federalism.

“For many people in Alberta, equalization is synonymous with unfairness,” he said. “It’s a program that’s quite complex and also politicians talk about it in ways that are quite misleading – sometimes intentionally, sometimes because they themselves don’t actually understand it.”

What legal power does a referendum have?

In a word, none. Under provincial legislation, such a referendum is binding on the Alberta government, which must take reasonable steps to implement the result, but legal experts say a Yes vote would have no legal power to force the federal government to do anything.

Mr. Kenney asserts that a Supreme Court of Canada reference case from 1998 that dealt with Quebec secession set a precedent that the federal government must negotiate potential constitutional amendments with a province that holds a referendum with a clear question and a clear result.

Eric Adams, a law professor at the University of Alberta, said the Constitution already gives a province the right to propose changes and that the federal government and other provinces have an obligation to “acknowledge and address” the issue. A province doesn’t need to hold a referendum to do that, though Alberta has not made any such proposal.

“[Mr. Kenney] could send a letter, he could ask for this issue to be on the next first ministers’ agenda and he would have every right and ability to do so,” he said.

And even then, it’s not clear what the federal government and other provinces are required to do other than listen, he said, or what recourse a province would have if its government believed its concerns weren’t taken seriously.

The passage in the 1998 Supreme Court decision that Mr. Kenney frequently cites, which refers to an “obligation to negotiate,” appears to be limited to referendums on separation, Dr. Adams said.

“If the Kenney thesis is correct, it means that any time any province has a referendum on any matter in the Constitution, the outcome of that referendum at the provincial level then binds all of the rest of Canada to start negotiating the change to the Constitution,” he said.

“That’s a lot of power to place in the hands of the good people of Prince Edward Island.”

Even Mr. Kenney has acknowledged that a Yes vote in the referendum wouldn’t prompt immediate change.

“I’ve always said that a Yes vote on the principle of equalization does not automatically change equalization; it doesn’t remove it from the Constitution,” he said. “What it does is to elevate Alberta’s fight for fairness to the top of the national agenda.”

Is there any downside to a referendum?

Critics of the government, including the Opposition New Democrats, have dismissed the referendum as political theatre designed to distract from the province’s very real economic problems – none of which, they say, would be helped by a vote on equalization.

Politically, there is a risk referendum could backfire on Mr. Kenney if there is an overwhelming Yes vote with nothing to show for it, said Donna Kennedy-Glans, a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister who was a member of the “fair deal” panel.

Ms. Kennedy-Glans said she was personally opposed to holding a referendum but that the panel recommended it because it reflected what Albertans were saying. She said she worries the referendum could do more to stoke grievances in Alberta than address them.

“Even if we all said, ‘Yes, we’d like to have this clause removed from the Constitution,’ or, ‘We’d like to renegotiate it,’ it’s not a guarantee of anything,” Ms. Kennedy-Glans said.

“We’re setting expectations that can’t be met.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M THAT'S LEGAL
J&J mulls offloading lawsuits from Baby Powder to new company and bankrupting it: sources

By Mike Spector, Jessica DiNapoli and Dan Levine Reuters
Posted July 18, 2021 

WATCH ABOVE: Health Canada finds talcum powder may cause cancer, lung damage – Dec 5, 2018

Johnson & Johnson is exploring a plan to offload liabilities from widespread Baby Powder litigation into a newly created business that would then seek bankruptcy protection, according to seven people familiar with the matter.

During settlement discussions, one of the healthcare conglomerate’s attorneys has told plaintiffs’ lawyers that J&J could pursue the bankruptcy plan, which could result in lower payouts for cases that do not settle beforehand, some of the people said. Plaintiffs’ lawyers would initially be unable to stop J&J from taking such a step, though could pursue legal avenues to challenge it later.

J&J has not yet decided whether to pursue the bankruptcy plan and could ultimately abandon the idea, some of the people said. Reuters could not determine whether J&J has retained restructuring lawyers to help the company explore the bankruptcy plan.

J&J faces legal actions from tens of thousands of plaintiffs alleging its Baby Powder and other talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer. The plaintiffs include women suffering from ovarian cancer and others battling mesothelioma.

READ MORE: Johnson & Johnson asks U.S. Supreme Court to void $2B baby powder verdict

“Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. has not decided on any particular course of action in this litigation other than to continue to defend the safety of talc and litigate these cases in the tort system, as the pending trials demonstrate,” the J&J subsidiary housing the company’s talc products said in a statement provided to Reuters. J&J declined further comment.

Should J&J proceed, plaintiffs who have not settled could find themselves in protracted bankruptcy proceedings with a likely much smaller company. Future payouts to plaintiffs would be dependent on how J&J decides to fund the entity housing its talc liabilities.

J&J is now considering using Texas’s “divisive merger” law, which allows a company to split into at least two entities. For J&J, that could create a new entity housing talc liabilities that would then file for bankruptcy to halt litigation, some of the people said.

The maneuver is known among legal experts as a Texas two-step bankruptcy, a strategy other companies facing asbestos litigation have used in recent years.

0:53Johnson & Johnson to pay $72M in suit linking baby powder to ovarian cancerJohnson & Johnson to pay $72M in suit linking baby powder to ovarian cancer – Feb 24, 2016

J&J could also explore using another mechanism to effectuate the bankruptcy filing besides the Texas law, some of the people said.

A 2018 Reuters investigation https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer found J&J knew for decades that asbestos, a known carcinogen, lurked in its Baby Powder and other cosmetic talc products. The company stopped selling Baby Powder in the U.S. and Canada in May 2020, in part due to what it called “misinformation” and “unfounded allegations” about the talc-based product. J&J maintains its consumer talc products are safe and confirmed through thousands of tests to be asbestos-free.

The blue-chip company, which boasts a roughly $443 billion market value, faces legal actions from more than 30,000 plaintiffs alleging its talc products were unsafe. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear J&J’s appeal of a Missouri court ruling that resulted in $2 billion of damages awarded to women alleging the company’s talc caused their ovarian cancer.

0:22Health Matters: Johnson & Johnson being investigated for possible asbestosHealth Matters: Johnson & Johnson being investigated for possible asbestos – Feb 21, 2019

Plaintiffs’ lawyers view the two-step bankruptcy strategy as one that skirts potentially expensive settlements or judgments. Companies view it as a way to corral numerous lawsuits in one court for efficient negotiations that bankruptcy law dictates for asbestos liabilities. The company outside bankruptcy can reach a funding agreement with the entity navigating a court restructuring to cover future settlement payments.

In 2017, Brawny paper towels manufacturer Georgia-Pacific used the Texas law to move asbestos liabilities to an entity that later filed for bankruptcy in North Carolina.

READ MORE: Talc poses health risk in forms like baby powder, bath bombs: Health Canada

Bankruptcy cases filed to resolve litigation, including those related to asbestos, often take years, and almost never fully repay creditors. OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, for instance, is near resolving thousands of opioid lawsuits after two years of bankruptcy negotiations with a plan valued at more than $10 billion to address trillions of dollars in claims.

Another company, DBMP LLC, filed for bankruptcy last year to resolve asbestos liabilities and said the case could take up to eight years, according to a company press release.

J&J also faces litigation alleging it contributed to the U.S. opioid epidemic and recently recalled certain spray sunscreen products after discovering some of them contained low levels of benzene, another carcinogen.

The company in June agreed to pay $263 million to resolve opioid claims in New York. It has denied wrongdoing related to its opioids.

(Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; editing by Vanessa O’Connell and Edward Tobin)

 

Self-censorship hits Hong Kong book fair in wake of national security law

Far fewer politically sensitive titles are on display in the first such event since Beijing imposed sweeping new regulations

A man poses for a photo in front of books about Chinese President Xi Jinping on display at the Hong Kong book fair. Photograph: Vernon Yuen/Rex/Shutterstock

Associated Press

Thu 15 Jul 2021 

Booksellers at Hong Kong’s annual book fair are offering a reduced selection of books deemed politically sensitive, as they try to avoid violating a sweeping national security law imposed on the city last year.

The fair was postponed twice last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. It usually draws hundreds of thousands of people looking for everything from the latest bestsellers to works by political figures.

This year, far fewer politically sensitive books are on display. Vendors are curating their books carefully to avoid violating the national security law, which Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in June 2020. Authorities have used it to crack down on dissent, arresting more than 100 pro-democracy supporters in the region.

‘They can’t speak freely’: Hong Kong a year after the national security law

Read more

The law has drawn criticism for restricting freedoms not found on the communist-ruled mainland that were promised to the former British colony for 50 years after it was handed back to China in 1997.

Jimmy Pang, a local publisher who used to sell books about the 2014 pro-democracy demonstrations that became known as the “umbrella movement”, said many books critical of the government had disappeared.

“Every vendor will read through the books that they are bringing to the book fair to see if there is any content that might cause trouble,” said Pang, who is president of the Subculture publishing house.

“We don’t want to get into trouble that will affect the operation of the book fair, so we self-censor a lot this time. We read through every single book and every single word before we bring it here,” he said. Some books published by Subculture were pulled from the shelves of Hong Kong’s public libraries earlier this year. Those books are not available at the fair.

Now that authorities have used the national security law to quash dissent, publishers, distributors and even importers and exporters have become wary about the risks of publishing or dealing with potentially sensitive books, said Hui Ching, research director of the Hong Kong Zhi Ming Institute, a private, independent thinktank.

Political author Johnny Lau, author of a book about the Chinese Communist party and Hong Kong in the last century, said his book was not allowed at the fair this year – because of the political pressure from government policies.

“That‘s why we can only see publications which are (in) favour to the government,” he said.

Benjamin Chau, deputy executive director of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, which organises the fair, told reporters earlier this week that books written by pro-democracy authors could still be sold as long as they didn’t break the law.

Some visitors, such as Alex Chan, lamented the lack of such books this year. “Is the book fair still a place we can buy any kinds of books? Is Hong Kong still a place with freedom of speech or freedom to publish?” he said.

A number of publishers have gone ahead and displayed books about the 2014 protests and other politically sensitive topics.

“When we publish a book, we put a lot of effort into ensuring the content is legal. That‘s why we don’t think there’s a big problem and would still bring them,” said Raymond Yeung, a spokesman for publisher Hillway Culture Company. “We hope this will be an encouragement to our fellow publishers, to show that there’s still some people publishing books like this,” he said.

B.C. restaurants remove wild salmon from their menus as a political statement about over-fishing

ALEXANDRA GILL
VANCOUVER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED JULY 18, 2021  

PiDGiN executive chef Wesley Young prepares ocean-farmed king salmon from New Zealand in the Vancouver restaurant on July 7, 2020.

JACKIE DIVES/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

The spring salmon dish currently being featured at Vancouver’s PiDGiN Restaurant looks, at first glance, like a showcase of B.C. abundance.

Plump and thickly marbled, the bright-orange fish is marinated in sake kasu from Granville Island’s Artisan Sake Maker, served on a bed of fresh-picked zucchini from Burnaby’s Hannah Brook Farm and garnished with local sea asparagus.

But the spring salmon itself, a prized North Pacific variety also known as chinook and king, was ocean-raised at a sustainable aquaculture farm in New Zealand.

Yes, ocean-farmed in New Zealand – 12,000 kilometres away.

“This is a political statement,” says PiDGiN owner Brandon Grossutti, one of several impassioned restaurateurs who say it’s time to stop serving B.C.’s beloved wild salmon, which is now on the verge of collapse after decades of decline.

On June 29, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) abruptly closed 79 commercial Pacific salmon fisheries – accounting for roughly 60 per cent of the fishery and 80 per cent of landed volume – in British Columbia and Yukon.

The bombshell announcement, which blindsided the industry and left geared-up fishers reeling, isn’t just a temporary measure.

The closings will last “multiple generations,” says a statement from the DFO, which is now creating a commercial-licence buy-back program to permanently decrease the size of the West Coast salmon fleet and compensate harvesters for the loss.

In a statement, the federal government says it has been listening to the calls for change from Indigenous partners, harvesting groups and stakeholders – and is acting.

“What cannot be debated is that most wild Pacific salmon stocks continue to decline at unprecedented rates,” said federal Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan. “We are pulling the emergency brake to give these salmon populations the best chance at survival. But with fewer and fewer returning every year – disappearing before our eyes – we have to act now.”

The issues are deeply complex and nearly impossible for the average consumer to navigate given all the competing interests and current dearth of independent, sustainable-certification oversight.

But some B.C. restaurant owners and chefs say the short-term solution is straightforward and they are taking a stand by removing what little remains of this summer’s wild B.C. salmon runs from their menus.

“We have to lay off for a while,” says Ned Bell, a longtime sustainable seafood ambassador and former Ocean Wise executive chef.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Bell decided to take wild B.C. salmon off his menu at the Naramata Inn in the Okanagan Valley. He replaced the popular summer staple with lake trout from Kamloops.

“I’m not saying don’t eat wild Pacific salmon or that I’ll never put it back on my menu. Some runs and species are still doing quite well. But others are desperately in trouble.

“The problem is that consumers don’t really think about wild B.C. salmon in those specific, hyper-local terms – how it was caught, where it was caught, was a fair price paid to the fisher who caught it.

“And if we keep hammering them, our children’s children will not have any wild salmon at all. So for now, I’m just taking a pause.”

Andrea Carlson, executive chef of Vancouver’s Burdock & Co., came to the same tough decision several years ago when the returning salmon runs were “dismal” and she could no longer justify it as a sustainable seafood choice.

Wayne Sych, the corporate executive chef of Joe Fortes Restaurant, says he’s been looking for an alternative to frozen B.C. sockeye salmon.

“Just because the demand is there doesn’t mean we should be serving it year-round. We’re coming to a crossroads and this might be the year that bigger restaurants like ours take the plunge.”

For consumers, it’s getting harder to know the right choice from wrong.

There will still be small amounts of wild B.C. salmon available in restaurants and retail stores this summer – from “unimpeachable sources” says Christina Burridge, executive director of the B.C. Seafood Alliance.

“And the best thing that people could do for the folk who put their lives into these fisheries and are being eased out of it is to buy from them,” she adds, noting that the Barkley Sound sockeye run just came in three times over forecast.

But that Barkley Sound sockeye is “very skinny and doesn’t have much retail value,” says Jenice Yu, the owner of Fresh Ideas Start Here, a storefront and wholesale distributor. Ms. Yu is now leaning on her Japanese suppliers and bringing in extra Hokkaido sea urchin to compensate for “what was supposed to be my salmon season.”

Whatever sustainable B.C. salmon is out there will, in many grocery cases, be sold alongside Siberia sockeye from Russia, a fishery that is completely unregulated and not always advertised on the label.

Ocean Wise, the Vancouver-based conservation association that educates the public about issues surrounding sustainable seafood and rates fisheries with consumer-friendly “recommended” or “not recommended” logos, is waiting for more information about the DFO’s approach to wild-salmon management before it can provide any clarity.

“We have heard that this is just the first step,” says Ocean Wise fisheries manager Sophika Kostyniuk. “Closing these commercial and First Nations fisheries might relieve pressure in the short term, but it will absolutely not deal with all the complexities. I am hoping very much that we will soon start hearing about things like restoration of streams, culverts and dam removals, pollution mitigation and control, climate-change adaptation. What is the long-term vision and strategy?”

For now, Ms. Kostyniuk agrees with the chefs: “This might not be the summer to indulge in this particular fish.”

Ocean Wise has not been able to make solid recommendations on the B.C. sockeye, pink and chum salmon fisheries since 2019, when the industry body responsible for the Marine Stewardship Council certification of those fisheries voluntarily withdrew from the program owing to a lack of stock-assessment data, which the DFO usually provides.

Ocean Wise removed the three species of salmon from its list of recommended seafood and placed them under review. “We are still anxiously waiting for that data to become available,” Ms. Kostyniuk says.

Sonia Strobel, co-founder and chief executive of the Skipper Otto Community Supported Fishery says, “This whole story is a story of DFO mismanagement and of course the public is confused.”

Which brings us back to New Zealand. The idea of using native B.C. salmon, farmed in an open ocean on the other side of the world, might sound highly counterintuitive to many, especially when you add up all the carbon miles accumulated along the way.

But this isn’t the vilified Atlantic farmed salmon that might or might not be having a devastating impact on local wild stocks in B.C. – depending on which study you read and believe.

This is Big Glory Bay king salmon, raised in deep waters and fast-running tidal bays around Rakiura, also known as Stewart Island, 30 kilometres from the southern tip of New Zealand’s south island.

New Zealand’s remote salmon farms, which include the famed Ora King salmon from Marlborough Sounds, have achieved Best Aquaculture Practices certification from the Global Aquaculture Alliance. And they were the first open-net ocean-farmed salmon farms to achieve the green “best choice” rating from Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program.

It’s a premium fish used by many Vancouver sushi restaurants, including Miku and Sashimiya, as a more sustainable, consumer-friendly alternative to locally farmed Atlantic salmon. It’s also less expensive and more consistent – arriving fresh three times a week – than land-based farmed salmon.

For Mr. Grossutti, a former commercial fisherman, it’s the more palatable choice.

“We’ve done a really bad job of managing our fisheries, especially when it comes to salmon production,” he says. “I blame this squarely on the DFO’s mismanagement, not the fishers who pay the price for it.”

New Zealand, in his mind, has had a better approach.

“They shut down commercial fishing for a very long time until their stocks came back to a sustainable level. They’ve got this great aquaculture society. And we are using this beautiful product to congratulate them on how well they’ve managed their fisheries for the last 20 years.”

Prairie farmers call for disaster relief as drought, grasshoppers ravage crops and pastures


AMANDA STEPHENSON
CALGARY, ALBERTA
THE CANADIAN PRESS
PUBLISHED JULY 15, 2021

Farm hand Connor Hunt bales a hay crop near Cremona, Alta., on July 17, 2017.

JEFF MCINTOSH/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Farmers are calling for emergency disaster relief as drought ravages crops and pastures across the Prairie Provinces and beyond.

Scorching temperatures and little to no rainfall have left crops in poor condition across wide swaths of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In some parts of the country, grasshoppers have infested fields. Several municipalities have declared states of agricultural disaster and ranchers say they are running out of hay to feed their cattle.

On his ranch near Moose Jaw, Sask., Kelcy Elford said conditions are the driest he’s seen in more than 20 years. Much of the crop he planted for grazing didn’t germinate at all and the parched soil is cracking. Watering holes on his land are either going dry or are algae-covered, and some have become so alkaline they’re actually poisonous to cattle.

“When you look over some of the pastures it’s a brown, almost gold colour. Because the grass that did grow here cooked after it grew,” said Elford, who is president of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association. “In the areas where it’s quite bad it almost looks grey. There’s just no moisture there whatsoever.”

Drought conditions are also causing problems in Western Ontario and in B.C., where active wildfires are significantly impacting agricultural producers.

Brady Stadnicki, spokesman for national lobby group the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, said the situation is so widespread there are concerns it could result in a long-term reduction in the size of the Canadian cattle herd. He said CCA is hearing reports from ranchers across the country who say they may have to sell off up to 40 per cent of their herds before winter because they know they won’t have enough food for them.

“We’re hearing there’s some hay that isn’t even being sold at a price. It’s going for auction because it’s so valuable,” Stadnicki said. “There’s really big implications for the industry here. That’s a huge priority for us, to maintain that national cow herd.”

The government of Saskatchewan has already announced some drought relief, and will allow grain farmers with crop insurance to write off crops that have been damaged by sun and heat.

Cattle ranchers will then be able to go in and salvage what they can for feed. Saskatchewan is also providing more funding for water projects like wells and dugouts.

The CCA and other farm groups are pushing for other provinces to follow suit. They are also calling for emergency relief funding through the AgriRecovery framework, a federal-provincial disaster assistance program. The country’s agriculture ministers discussed the issue at a virtual federal-provincial-territorial meeting Thursday.

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in a statement that she was working closely with her provincial partners to monitor and respond to the evolving drought situation in the western parts of Ontario, the Prairies and British Columbia.

She said the federal government is ready to do what it can to make sure its programs are adequately responding to the crisis, including business risk management programs.

In particular, she said that provinces affected by the drought could invoke the late participation provision of AgriStability to allow more producers to access the support the program provides.

Bibeau said she has urged Prairie governments to match the federal offer to raise AgriStability compensation rate to 80 per cent, “which would benefit distressed farmers now more than ever.”

“This change would mean an added $75 million nationally into the pockets of farmers who need it the most every year,” Bibeau said following the meeting.

Dean Hubbard, who farms near Claresholm in southern Alberta, said the temperature hit 36C on his property on June 30 and is forecast to hit that same eye-popping number on Monday. There is no rain expected in at least the next 10 days.

“Our peas at this point have very few pods, and they’re so short I’m not sure how anyone would harvest them. The spring wheat is quite thin and very short,” Hubbard said. “There’s been no other year like this.”

Hubbard said in some parts of Alberta, even if rain comes now, it will be too late to salvage much of the crop.

“Mentally it gets pretty tough,” he said. “Just the fact of putting so much work into getting a crop and watching it wither up on you, to me that bothers me.”

This summer’s drought follows multiple consecutive years of below-normal precipitation in many parts of farm country. Experts say severe weather events will become more common in years to come due to climate change.