Why is life on Earth still taking second place to fossil fuel companies?

George Monbiot

Effective action against climate breakdown is near impossible while governments are vulnerable to lawsuits

Extinction Rebellion protesters, London, 8 September 2020. Photograph: Guy Bell/REX/Shutterstock

Thu 19 Aug 2021 

The human tragedy is that there is no connection between what we know and what we do. Almost everyone is now at least vaguely aware that we face the greatest catastrophe our species has ever confronted. Yet scarcely anyone alters their behaviour in response: above all, their driving, flying and consumption of meat and dairy.

During the most serious of all crises, the UK elected the least serious of all governments. Both the Westminster government and local authorities continue to build roads and expand airports. An analysis by conservation charity WWF suggests that, while the last UK budget allocated £145m for environmental measures, it dedicated £40bn to policies that will increase emissions

Astonishingly, it is still government policy to “maximise economic recovery” of oil and gas from the UK’s continental shelf. According to the government’s energy white paper, promoting their extraction ensures that “the UK remains an attractive destination for global capital”, which is “the best way to secure an orderly and successful transition away from traditional fossil fuels”. It’s hard to imagine a more perverse argument. But when you pursue incompatible aims, the first casualty is logic.

So, as our house burns, the government sends in the tanker trucks to spray petrol on the flames. Doubtless unswayed by the donations the Conservative party has received from oil and gas companies, Boris Johnson appears to be on the point of approving the development of a new oilfield – the Cambo – in the North Sea. Yet, as climate scientists have long explained, there is no realistic prospect of preventing more than 1.5C of global heating unless all new fossil fuel development is stopped. In fact, existing projects need to be retired. Nor can we achieve the government’s official aim of net zero emissions by 2050. This target, incidentally, in another sign of the gulf between knowing and doing, bears no relationship to the temperature goals in the Paris agreement. It urgently needs to be replaced with a more stringent measure, but no one in power is prepared to discuss it.

The same goes for almost every government. As soon as Joe Biden’s green promises collided with business as usual, they collapsed in a crumpled heap. Since he pledged to ban new drilling and fracking on federal lands, his administration has granted more than 2,000 new permits. His national security adviser has demanded that Opec+, the oil cartel, increase production, to reduce the cost of driving the monstrous cars that many Americans still buy. We were told that Biden’s modest talk concealed an appetite for radical action. But talk sets the boundaries of action, and those who promise low deliver lower.

Unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground, any commitment to stop climate breakdown is merely gestural. The atmosphere does not respond to gestures. It is unmoved by promises, unimpressed by words. It has no factions that can be set against each other, no voters who can be fobbed off and distracted.

This is one of the reasons why governments hate and shun what climate science tells them. If they took it seriously, they would tailor policy to scientific advice. But such constraints on political choice are perceived as intolerable, not only by politicians, but by the philosophy on which our democracies are founded.

Or are they? On behalf of commercial interests, governments are all too happy to be constrained. A UK oil company is currently suing the Italian government for the loss of its “future anticipated profits”after Italy banned new oil drilling in coastal waters. Italy used to be a signatory to the Energy Charter Treaty, which allows companies to demand compensation if it stops future projects. The treaty’s sunset clause permits such lawsuits after nations are no longer party to it, so Italy can be sued even though it left the agreement in 2016. This is one of many examples of “investor-state dispute settlement”, that makes effective action against climate breakdown almost impossible. It represents an outrageous curtailment of political choice, with which governments like ours are entirely comfortable. I’m not sure how we can escape such agreements, but government lawyers should be all over this issue, looking for a way out. Otherwise, future corporate profits remain officially more important than life on Earth.

The global emergency requires a new politics, but it is nowhere in sight. Governments still fear lobby groups more than they fear the collapse of our living systems. For tiny and temporary political gains, they commit us to vast and irreversible consequences. MPs with no discernible record of concern for poor people, and a long record of voting against them, suddenly claim that climate action must be stymied to protect them.

The Treasury refuses to commit to the spending needed to support even the government’s feeble programme. Johnson, charged with transforming the global response to climate breakdown at the November summit in Glasgow, blusters and dithers, seeming constitutionally incapable of making difficult decisions.

No government, even the most progressive, is yet prepared to contemplate the transformation we need: a global programme that places the survival of humanity and the rest of life on Earth above all other issues. We need not just new policy, but a new ethics. We need to close the gap between knowing and doing. But this conversation has scarcely begun.

• George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

The case for onboard carbon dioxide capture on long-range vehicles

Proposed method can be implemented based on existing technologies

"And, of course, the infrastructure eventually has to be developed to off-load the CO2 and either sequester or use it."

Date: August 18, 2021

Source: Northwestern University

Summary:

A research team offers a practical way to make ships CO2 neutral -- or even CO2 negative -- with CO2-capturing solid oxide fuel cells. After 'burning' traditional carbon-based fuels, the fuel cell generates concentrated CO2 that can be stored on-board the ship. From there, the CO2 can either be sequestered or recycled into a renewable hydrocarbon fuel

FULL STORY

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When people talk about how to eliminate vehicles' carbon dioxide (CO2) emission, often the conversation often focuses on electrifying cars, trucks and buses. Yet cargo and tanker ships, which are responsible for 3% of all CO2 emissions, are rarely a part of the discussion.

Now a Northwestern University research team offers a practical way to make ships CO2 neutral -- or even CO2 negative -- with CO2-capturing solid oxide fuel cells. After "burning" traditional carbon-based fuels, the fuel cell generates concentrated CO2 that can be stored on-board the ship. From there, the CO2 can either be sequestered or recycled into a renewable hydrocarbon fuel.

The team presents its analysis in "Viability of vehicles utilizing on-board CO2 capture," published today (Aug. 18) in the journal ACS Energy Letters. In the paper, the team looks at various factors, including fuel storage volumes and mass requirements for a wide range of vehicle classes -- from light-duty passenger vehicles to tanker ships -- and compares onboard CO2 capture to battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell options.

"It might be harder for people to see onboard CO2 capture as climate friendly because it uses conventional, carbon-based fuels," said Northwestern's Scott A. Barnett, senior author of the study. "People tend to assume hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles are more climate friendly. In reality, they often are not. Electricity might come from burning coal, and hydrogen is often produced by natural gas, which generates a lot of CO2 in the process."

An expert on solid oxide fuel cells, Barnett is a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering. He coauthored the paper with Travis Schmauss, a Ph.D. candidate in his research group.

Why batteries aren't a viable solution

Responsible for producing about a gigaton of CO2 each year, ships can consume up to 250 tons of fuel per day. While it might seem tempting to replace this massive amount of fuel with batteries, that's simply not an option.

"Some tanker ships require enough fuel to circumnavigate the globe as a part of their regular multivoyage operation," Barnett said. "We calculated that the battery pack for a long-range tanker would take up more room than the storage capacity of the ship. A hydrogen fuel tank also would be too large. When it comes to long-range vehicles, carbon-based fuel combined with on-board CO2 capture is arguably the best way to make these vehicles CO2 neutral."

The proposed method also has potential advantages for shorter-range vehicles. Battery electric and hydrogen fuel cells, however, are already being implemented for those vehicle types, so the researchers instead suggest implementing a CO2-neutral range extender.

Storage solution

To store the CO2 on board, Barnett's team has proposed a patent-pending dual-chamber storage tank. One chamber stores a carbon-based fuel. After the fuel cycles through the fuel cell to create energy, the CO2 byproduct is pressurized and introduced into the second chamber. The partition between the chambers can move -- shrinking the fuel chamber as the fuel is used, making space for CO2 in the other chamber.

"The solid oxide fuel cell is critical because it burns the fuel with pure oxygen, yielding a concentrated CO2 product that is storable," Schmauss said. "If we just burned the fuel with air, it would be heavily diluted with nitrogen, yielding too much gas to store. When the concentrated CO2 is compressed, it can be stored in a volume not much larger than that needed for the fuel, which saves space."

"This technology really doesn't have any major hurdles to making it work," Barnett added. "You just have to replace the fuel tank with the double-chamber tank and add CO2compressors.

And, of course, the infrastructure eventually has to be developed to off-load the CO2 and either sequester or use it."

Moving toward net-zero

With this scenario, the researchers say it is possible to make long-range vehicles CO2 negative. This is possible with bio-fuels, such as ethanol, because the plants used to produce the fuel have consumed CO2 from the atmosphere. Then, after the vehicle has used the fuel, the captured CO2 is removed from the ship and sequestered underground or used in producing a renewable fuel. If a vehicle uses a fossil fuel instead of a bio-fuel, then the resulting overall cycle is closer to net-zero.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Northwestern University. Original written by Amanda Morris. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Travis A. Schmauss, Scott A. Barnett. Viability of Vehicles Utilizing On-Board CO2 Capture. ACS Energy Letters, 2021; 3180 DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.1c01426

Northwestern University. "The case for onboard carbon dioxide capture on long-range vehicles: Proposed method can be implemented based on existing technologies." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 August 2021. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210818153720.htm>.

:

    

GM workers in Mexico reject union in win for US free trade pact

A previous vote at the General Motors plant in Silao in April was thrown out after Mexico found irregularities in the election held by the union, a chapter of the country’s largest syndicate, the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM).

Employees at a huge General Motors plant in Silao in the state of Guanajuato voted in favour of terminating their contract, allowing them to choose a new union

 [File: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg]

By Andrea Navarro

Bloomberg

19 Aug 2021

Workers at a General Motors Co. truck plant in Mexico voted to cancel their union contract after the U.S. initiated a dispute against conditions at the factory, a historic victory for the North American free trade agreement.

Employees at the huge GM plant in Silao, Guanajuato, voted 3,214 for, and 2,623 against, terminating their contract, allowing them to choose a new union. In Mexico, giant labor confederations have struck deals for decades with companies that have kept worker pay low, angering Mexico’s North American partners.

The vote emerged as an important test case for new labor provisions under the revamped North America trade deal, known as USMCA, which the U.S. cited to file its labor dispute. And as one of the three GM plants that produce highly profitable pickup trucks, the plant is critical to the company’s balance sheet.

As part of the USMCA, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s administration pushed through a law in 2019 that requires unions to hold votes by secret ballot to validate their labor contracts. This is meant to drive out the unions that don’t legitimately represent workers. Of 1,504 elections at plants across the country, only six have ended in contracts being terminated.

A previous vote at the GM plant in April was thrown out after Mexico found irregularities in the election held by the union, a chapter of Mexico’s largest syndicate known as CTM.

That led U.S. trade chief Katherine Tai to ask Mexico to probe labor issues at the GM truck plant in Silao, amid concerns that workers’ rights were being denied, opening a thorny bilateral issue. It was the first time the strategy had been used in the trade deal between the nations and Canada.

Representatives for Mexico’s Labor Ministry, the Electoral Institute and the International Labor Organization were on site to oversee the vote, which took place Tuesday and Wednesday.

The plant has more than 6,000 unionized workers and is located about 215 miles (350 km) northwest of Mexico City.

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

 

Canadian Nobel scientist's deletion from Wikipedia points to wider bias, study finds

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Physicist Donna Strickland's case wasn't unique: A new study suggests why women's profiles get erased

Manjula Selvarajah · CBC News · Posted: Aug 19, 2021 

Nobel-winning physicist Donna Strickland is shown in a lab at the University of Waterloo on Oct. 2, 2018. When Strickland won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, she didn't have an entry on Wikipedia. (University of Waterloo)

Wikipedia — the world's largest online encyclopedia — celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. One of the biggest collaborative efforts in human history, thousands of volunteers around the world create and edit the content on its pages.

And those editors even have camps with competing philosophies: the deletionists who have high standards for content versus the inclusionists who take a broader view to what makes it in.

But all is not well in the Wikipedia world.

A new study by American sociologist Francesca Tripodi shows that its volunteer editors nominate women's pages on Wikipedia for deletion at a higher rate than men's pages.

It found that women make up only 19 per cent of all profiles, but account for a quarter of page-deletion recommendations.

Tripodi uncovered the discrepancy by analyzing logs from Wikipedia's "articles for deletion" process from the start of 2017 until the end of February 2020. It's the process by which volunteers can examine articles under scrutiny, add to discussions about the merits of an article, and determine whether an article should be kept, deleted or merged into an already-existing page.

The case of the Canadian Nobel prizewinner

A well-known example is what happened to Canadian scientist Donna Strickland, who couldn't be found on Wikipedia immediately after she won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018 (although she does have a Wikipedia page now.) 

"People started realizing, 'Oh my goodness, here is this extremely remarkable Nobel Prize winner who doesn't have a Wikipedia page. How is that possible?'" Tripodi recalled.

"But then [they] realized, 'Oh dear, it's even worse than we thought.' Because she did have a Wikipedia page. But it was nominated for deletion and then deleted." 

There is some contention over why Strickland's page was deleted.

Why it happens

Some critics say it was gender bias, while others say it was a problem with notability, a gauge editors use to determine if a topic deserves a Wiki page. Wikipedia editors must be able to verify facts about any Wiki entry against published reliable sources, from publications to the press.

Interpretations of what is notable lead to gender inequality on the platform, said Tripodi, who is an assistant professor and a senior researcher at the Centre for Information Technology and Public Life at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"So there's already this first layer of difficulty when it comes to adding women, because there's just less material out there in the world that is required in order to establish notability on Wikipedia," she said.

A blackout landing page is displayed on a laptop screen inside the offices of the Wikipedia Foundation in San Francisco in this 2012 file photo. (Eric Risberg/The Associated Press)

Another issue is that most of Wikipedia's editors are men.

According to a Wikimedia report in 2018, 90 per cent of contributors to its projects are men.

Strickland's case wasn't an anomaly, said Tripodi. "What I discovered is even women who are meeting these notoriously difficult hurdles of notability are still twice as likely to be considered non-notable and nominated for deletion."

Efforts to fix gender imbalance face hurdles

Over the years, women have tried to fix the gender imbalance on Wikipedia, running edit-a-thons to change that ratio.

Tripodi said these efforts to add notable women to the website have moved the needle — but have also run into roadblocks.

"They're welcoming new people who've never edited Wikipedia, and they're editing at these events," she said. "But then after all of that's done, after these pages are finally added, they have to double back and do even more work to make sure that the article doesn't get deleted after being added."

• Wikipedian-in-residence takes up post at Montreal's Concordia University

• 'With my laptop and enthusiasm': This physicist is adding hundreds of women scientists to Wikipedia

Virginia Balcom is the executive director of Simon Fraser University's business accelerator Venture Labs. Her team partnered with a local women's organization to run a virtual edit-a-thon around International Women's Day this year.

She and the team are proud of the Canadian entrepreneurs and scientists they added to Wikipedia during the event, including Stephanie Simmons, founder and chief quantum officer for Photonic Inc., and Teara Fraser, founder and CEO of Iskwew Air. 

But they did worry that the submitted profiles would be reviewed by editors for notability, then downgraded and not published, she said.

Volunteers participate in an 'edit-a-thon' at Ingenium in Ottawa in 2019, adding more women scientists to Wikipedia to mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. (Ingenium)

Balcom recalled a frustrating debate by editors over the page of a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University and whether or not she was notable.

"But the good news was that in the end, they decided there was enough third-party reliable support and her profile is also now published," Balcom said. "Women are often not the ones covered in media … and therefore they don't have the notability requirements that some of the editors in Wikipedia are leaning on." 

Tripodi heard the same story from other edit-a-thon groups, saying women editors spoke to her about the additional labour they have to put in to get the profiles they create of prominent women to stay on the site.

Steps toward change?

The Wikimedia Foundation, which funds Wikipedia, acknowledges that articles on the online encyclopedia are not representative of the impact that women have had throughout history, saying that mirrors the world's gender biases.

In a statement to CBC News, the foundation said research like Tripodi's is "critical to understanding the scope of the issue so we can collectively find ways to address it."

For example, the foundation launched a campaign this past March during Women's History Month, called Project Rewrite, to raise awareness about and address the lack of source material about women.

Women editors have increased 30 per cent in the past year, thanks to volunteer-led initiatives, it added.

It matters whether Wikipedia and its editors get this right, said Tripodi, because Wikipedia is "the go-to for what we know or what we want to know."

"And so when women go absent from those spaces, we are erased from that historical memory," she said. "Both now … and in the future."

With files from Emily Chung

 

U.S. Politics Are Weighing On Canada’s Oil Industry

By Felicity Bradstock - Aug 18, 2021, 

Alberta is taking hit after hit following the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline and international pressure to curb oil production in the coming years, as the oil-rich state PROVINCE insists it needs to maintain its thriving oil industry to survive. 

First, it was the cancellation of a huge oil infrastructure project, the $8 billion, 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline expansion, that was supposed to run from Alberta to Nebraska, carrying an estimated daily average of 800,000 bpd of oil.

The project had gone back and forth, initially being canceled by President Obama but then being re-approved by President Trump. However, when President Biden came into office this year, with climate change at the top of his political agenda, the hopes of a pipeline were once again dashed. 

Then, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released their landmark report this May, “Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector”, calling for the curbing of oil production, the end to new exploration projects, and the gradual transition to net-zero carbon emissions alongside the greater use of renewable energy alternatives. This point was reiterated this month in the IPCC climate report. 

As Alberta’s oil sands industry is extremely carbon-heavy, creating three to five times as many CO2 emissions per barrel of oil equivalent due to the difficult extraction process, western Canada was hit hard by this international encouragement to move away from oil. 

Canada’s reputation has been tarnished from repeated calls to cut carbon and the failure of so many of the country’s oil pipeline projects. So much so that the Financial Post labeled the country “a graveyard of mega pipeline projects.”

However, Alberta is home to the world’s third-largest oil deposit, still thought to have around 173 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil, which has led Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to say that giving up oil would be impossible for the oil-rich state. 

In response to international pressure for Canada to rein in its oil production over the coming years, Kenney stated, “It is a utopian notion that we can suddenly end the use of hydrocarbon-based energy,”. Rather, “The challenge is to shrink carbon and CO2 output, and Alberta is increasingly a world leader in that respect.”

And Canada is now critiquing President Biden’s decision to cancel the Keystone pipeline in response to his government’s recent calls for the curbing of OPEC+ cuts to stabilize oil prices. 

Last week, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan issued a statement warning of the impact of ever-increasing gasoline prices, asking OPEC+ to reconsider their current production cuts in order to improve oil prices. 

Sonya Savage, Alberta’s energy minister, responded to the U.S. request to OPEC+ by reminding Biden’s government of the damaged relationship and lost potential of the U.S.-Canadian oil industry, “The Biden administration pleading with OPEC to increase oil production to rescue the U.S from high fuel prices months after canceling the Keystone XL pipeline smacks of hypocrisy.”

Related: Wall Street Bullish On Oil Despite Losing Streak

Kenney added, via a tweet, “Why is the US government blocking energy imports from friendly Canada, while pressing for more imports from Opec dictatorships & Putin’s Russian regime?”

Meanwhile, production levels in Alberta somehow seem to keep on increasing despite the multitude of challenges that have been thrown their way this year. Oil production in Alberta has risen beyond that of pre-pandemic 2019 levels, averaging 3.53 million bpd between January and June this year. 

Oil sands extraction accounts for around 86 percent of this production figure, as previously underused facilities are now achieving their full potential. Alberta’s oil exports have also been higher in the first half of 2021, up 4 percent in 2020 and 1.7 percent in 2019. 

In addition, oil sands could begin exports next month thanks to updated infrastructure. Enbridge Inc.’s Line 3 760,000 bpd oil pipeline connecting Alberta with Wisconsin could commence operations as early as September 15, replacing an older pipeline that delivered just 390,000 bpd. 

But Canada is not ignoring calls to act on climate change as it goes ahead with its oil projects. For example, one way in which Alberta might tackle international criticism to win back favor for the oil industry is through heavy investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. Suncor Energy highlighted the need for more extensive government subsidies to develop CCS technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs) to reduce carbon emissions without cutting oil production. 

Likewise, Cenovus Energy CEO Alex Pourbaix stated “There is not a dial on the wall where we can dial 'low carbon',”, further “To decarbonize significantly takes capital - massive quantities of capital over many years."

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hopes to continue developing the country’s oil industry at the same time as cutting carbon, as he has so often signaled,  with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels, his government will have to take these recommendations from oil firms on board.

While Canada’s oil industry received hit after hit, it appears to be resilient enough to withstand the blows. Even so, Trudeau will have to consider greater investment in CCS technologies to support the sector in the face of increasing international criticism, and Biden may have to reconsider his tough stance on Canadian oil to manage the long-term stability of oil prices in a time of turbulence. 

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

 

NDP candidates say party’s plan would end cuts to northern health care

Sudbury candidate Nadia Verrelli and Nickel Belt candidate Andréane Chénier issue joint statement

1 h By: Sudbury.com Staff

Nadia Verrelli (left) is the NDP candidate in Sudbury, while Andréane Chénier is the party’s candidate in Nickel Belt. Supplied

Local federal NDP candidates say if elected, leader Jagmeet Singh would “end the legacy of cuts to our public health care system started by the Conservatives and continued by Justin Trudeau.” 

Only the NDP will invest in front-line health care in Northern Ontario, said NDP candidates Nadia Verrelli (Sudbury) and Andréane Chénier (Nickel Belt), in a news release.

“Years of consecutive Conservative and Liberal cuts have left northern health care stretched thin,” said Verrelli. “Jagmeet Singh's plan to stop these devastating cuts and invest in hiring more nurses and front-line health care workers is what northern families need now.”

Singh was in Alberta on Aug. 19 where, joined by nurses and health-care workers, he announced that an NDP government would create a $250-million Critical Shortages Fund to address the shortage of nurses and health care workers across Canada and ensure that provinces also commit funding specifically for health care workers. 

The NDP said the federal fund would help train and hire 2,000 nurses.

Singh also vowed to hire more nurses and to stop premiers from “attacking Canadian health care.”

Good news, said Nickel Belt candidate Chénier.

“In Ontario, northern health care has been cut from all sides. Doug Ford continued 15 years of Liberal cuts to our public health care system, he made deep cuts to long-term care and he wants to cut our public health units that have been there for us during this pandemic,” said Chénier.

“Justin Trudeau never reversed Conservative cuts and during this COVID crisis our hospitals, nurses and frontline health workers have been exhausted. This election we can reverse those cuts, strengthen our health care system with more nurses and front-line health workers for northerners and our families.”