Our Own Worst Enemy review: a caustic diagnosis of America after Trump

Tom Nichols quotes Abraham Lincoln – on how American democracy can only be brought down from within

A Trump supporter carries a Confederate flag in the US

 Capitol on 6 January. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Lloyd Green
Sun 22 Aug 2021

Liberal democracy is under attack from within. Institutional trust erodes. Fewer than one in six Americans believe democracy is working well, nearly half think democracy isn’t functioning properly, and 38% say democracy is simply doing meh. Atomization, bowling alone and nihilism have converged at the ballot box.

The Reckoning by Mary L Trump review – how to heal America’s trauma

Republicans are hellbent on shoving the events of 6 January, when supporters of Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol, down a deep memory hole. GOP governors in Florida, Mississippi and Texas remain sanguine as Covid-19 dispatches children to intensive care. Seven months into his presidency, Joe Biden looks to some like Jimmy Carter redux, competence and judgment seriously doubted, allies strained and divided. FDR, he’s definitely not.

Into this morass parachutes Tom Nichols, with a meditation on the state of American democracy. Nichols grew up in a working-class home in Massachusetts and is now a professor at the US Naval War College and the Harvard Extension School. He is also a Never Trump conservative.

In his eighth book, Nichols is pessimistic.

“Decades of constant complaint,” he writes, “regularly aired in the midst of continual improvements in living standards, have finally taken their toll.”

The enemy, Nichols asserts, is “us”. Citizens of democracies, he writes, “must now live with the undeniable knowledge that they are capable of embracing illiberal movements and attacking their own liberties”.

As if to prove his point, Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, recently made light of Trump’s attempts to have the Department of Justice subvert the election result. Even with Trump out of office, Senator Lindsay Graham continues to play first golf buddy, Renfield to Trump’s Count Dracula. A majority of congressional Republicans voted against certifying the 2020 election.

In 2016, Nichols urged conservatives to vote for Hillary Clinton because Trump was “too mentally unstable” – far from the “very stable genius” he would later claim to be.

In Our Own Worst Enemy, Nichols quotes Abraham Lincoln on how threats to American democracy always come from within: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” Nichols sees the internet and the “revolution in communications” as the means by which we reached this dark point.

Public life has become ever more about dopamine hits, instant reaction and heightened animus. Our fellow citizens double as our enemies. Electronic proximity breeds contempt, not introspection. Social media and cable television provide a community for those who lack a three-dimensional version.

Nichols looks to ancient Greece for a reminder that nothing lasts forever. Admiringly, he quotes Pericles, the Athenian general and orator – but observes that Pericles was not around when his city state collapsed. He died two years earlier, behind “the besieged walls of Athens – from a plague”.

History can repeat itself.

In September 2016, writing in the Claremont Journal of Books under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus, Michael Anton declared the contest between Trump and Clinton the “Flight 93 Election”: a reference to the plane that came down in Pennsylvania on 9/11 when passengers attacked their hijackers. Clinton, he argued, simply had to be stopped. First principles of conservatism could therefore be jettisoned.

“Charge the cockpit or you die,” Anton thundered. “You may die anyway … There are no guarantees.”

What, he asked, must be done “against a tidal wave of dysfunction, immorality and corruption?” To Anton, for the right, respect for “democratic and constitutional niceties” was ultimately a sucker’s game. Culture was stacked against them.

After a stint as a Rudy Giuliani speechwriter, and other stops along the way, Anton joined Trump’s national security council.

Later this year the Claremont Institute will honor Ron DeSantis. At a press conference earlier this month, the Florida governor asked: “Would I rather have 5,000 [Covid-19] cases among 20-year-olds or 500 cases among seniors? I would rather have the younger.”

A few weeks later, the Sunshine State is getting the worst of both worlds.

Simple decency, it seems, is for losers. Amid the last presidential campaign, comparisons between the US and the Weimar Republic were rife. The January insurrection was seen as our “Reichstag fire”. The attackers came from the right.

Nichols absorbs and abhors it all. Not surprisingly, he takes particular aim at the populist right, which he says has been the “main threat” to liberal democracy over the past two decades. That is subject to debate, which Nichols acknowledges. Regardless, he writes that the populist right “is a movement rooted in nostalgia and social revenge”.

As if to make Nichols’ point, Lauren Boebert, the hard-right, QAnon-adjacent Republican congresswoman from Colorado, recently trashed Biden for having left America’s friends in Afghanistan in the lurch – after voting last month against granting 8,000 immigration visas to Afghans who assisted the US military.


‘We dodged a mortar round’: George Packer on America in crisis


Other GOP diehards who opposed the legislation include Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar. Greene and Gosar were charter members of the de facto white nationalist America First caucus. After a bomb threat on the Capitol this week, Brooks tweeted: “I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society.”

Considering what ails America, Nichols offers limited prescriptions. He supports bridging the gap between civilian and military life. The progeny of the coastal elites opt for Ivy League colleges over the service academies, reinstatement of the draft isn’t likely and notions of national service all too frequently amount to “little more” than a paid internship, he writes.

Concurrently, rightwing “Spartanism” breeds the unsustainable notion that “‘citizens’ and ‘soldiers’ are not the same people”.

Nichols urges America’s youth to spend a summer in uniform, exposed to military life and skills. Most won’t join the army, he thinks, but will come away with a better knowledge of the soldier’s life. Right now, he laments, “there is no longer any common experience related to national defense”.

Indeed. America has become one nation separated by a common language.


Our Own Worst Enemy is published in the US by Oxford University Press

Russian police detain journalists protesting TV channel's 'foreign agent' designation

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Demonstrators held signs outside of the country's top domestic security agency

The Associated Press · Posted: Aug 21, 2021 5:13 PM ET | Last Updated: August 21

Police detain a journalist with a poster that reads, 'We will not Stop Being Journalists,' in Moscow on Saturday, during a protest against authorities' decision to label a top independent TV channel as a 'foreign agent.' The journalists held individual pickets outside the main headquarters of the country's top domestic security agency, the FSB, on Moscow's Lubyanka Square. (Denis Kaminev/The Associated Press)

Russian police on Saturday detained several journalists who protested authorities' decision to label a top independent TV channel as a "foreign agent."

The journalists held individual pickets outside the main headquarters of the country's top domestic security agency, the FSB, on Moscow's Lubyanka Square.

They held placards such as "Journalism is not a Crime" and "You are Afraid of the Truth" to protest the Justice Ministry's move on Friday to add the Dozhd (Rain) TV channel and the online investigative outlet Vazhnye Istorii (Important Stories) to the list of "foreign agents."

Those detained were handed summons to attend court hearings on charges of violating rules of holding pickets, an administrative offence that carries a fine of up to $270 US.

"I'm against labelling the TV channel Dozhd as a 'foreign agent,"' said Farida Rustamova, a Dozhd journalist who picketed on Saturday. "I want to work and live freely in Russia. I want to have an opportunity to be a free journalist. I don't want my colleagues to be arrested, searched and labelled as an 'enemy of the people' or 'agents."'

A journalist surrounded by police holds up a poster in Moscow on Saturday. Several journalists who were detained were handed summons to attend court hearings on charges of violating rules of holding pickets, an administrative offence that carries a fine of up to $270 US. (Denis Kaminev/The Associated Press)

Yulia Krasnikova, a journalist at Vazhnye Istorii, denounced the authorities' move as unconstitutional.

"The fact that we don't want to write stories that other pro-government media do doesn't mean that we violate something and that we are some 'foreign agents,"' Krasnikova said. "I'm here to protest it and to support my colleagues."

Channel critical of Putin critic's arrest

The Justice Ministry acted under a law that is used to designate as "foreign agents" non-governmental organizations and individuals who receive funding from abroad and engage in activities loosely described as political.

The label implies closer government scrutiny and carries a strong pejorative connotation that could undermine the credibility of media outlets and hurt their advertising prospects.

Dozhd denounced the move as unfair and said it would appeal.

• Russian journalist worries he could be branded a 'foreign agent' under new law

• Russian 'foreign agents' law part of 'tit-for-tat response' with U.S.

The TV channel has been sharply critical of Russian authorities' crackdown on dissent and regularly carried live reports from opposition protests.

It has extensively covered the poisoning and the imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most high-profile critic, and the criminal cases launched against Navalny's allies.

Russian authorities have raised the pressure on the opposition and independent media ahead of the Sept. 19 parliamentary vote, which is widely seen as an important part of Putin's efforts to cement his rule ahead of Russia's 2024 presidential election.

 

Crazy Scenes from the Fairy Creek Blockades in B.C.

Over 600 people have been arrested trying to protect old growth tress on Vancouver Island

GRIPPED AUGUST 21, 2021

The dispute over felling B.C.’s ancient old growth forests is what fuelled the start of a blockade to stop private logging company Teal Jones in the Fairy Creek watershed on western Vancouver Island.

It’s been one year since a group of people opposed to the potential harvesting, and there’s been over 600 arrests. The people at the blockade come from all over Canada and from a variety of backgrounds.

Below are 10 scenes from the blockades this month, be sure to follow on Instagram to stay up to date. For more information visit here.

 

Categories: Gripped Outdoors Tags: Gripped Magazine-feature

Meet Bella, the new robot serving Richmond diners

Robot replacing servers

Nono Shen, Richmond News - Aug 22, 2021 /  | Story: 343597

Photo: Nono Shen

Zhengwen Hao, restaurant owner, says Bella is hardworking and never complains

A fairly new server has just joined the Hao’s Lamb Restaurant team in Richmond.

And whether she’s in a mood, is rushed off her feet or unhappy about the tip, Bella will always have a smile on her face.

That’s because Bella is a robot, complete with an upward-facing infrared camera and four trays, which she has been busy using to transport dishes to and from the kitchen to hungry diners at the restaurant near Aberdeen Centre.

Once Bella arrives at the table, another staff member helps her remove a dish from one of its trays.

After which, the human staff member hits a confirm button atop the robot’s touchscreen to send it back to the kitchen.

“Although Bella just joined our team, she is super helpful. She allows other human staff to have time to concentrate on other tasks, such as packing takeout orders, greeting guests, clearing tables and refilling water,” said Zhengwen Hao, restaurant owner.

The restaurant “has been operating more efficiently than before. But, as such a hardworking employee, Bella never asks for any tips from me,” laughed Hao, adding that Bella can sing Happy Birthday to customers, in Mandarin and English.

The BellaBot, initially developed by Chinese-based Company Pudu Robotics, was introduced by GreenCo Robots to the North American market, including Richmond.

Hao bought two Bellas amid the pandemic in hopes of easing up the labour shortage and help with social-distancing rules, but he didn’t expect that his Bella could also boost business.

He said younger customers have been trying to interact with Bella, while many others snap photos and video of his new “staff member” hard at work.

Liang Yu, president of Green Co Robots, told the Richmond News that many other local restaurants have invited robots to help them out during the busy season as the economy reopens.

One robot working at another Richmond hotpot restaurant has recorded that she has walked 10,000 metres and served up to 750 trays of dishes to customers within a day, said Yu.

“Robots are a great way to liberate human staff from meaninglessly repetitive and laborious work, allowing them to focus on other more complicated and interesting work, such as talking with guests.”

As for people concerned about the robots taking over from human servers, Yu said they are being introduced to help serve and make customers feel safer, with less human contact during the pandemic.

 

Cross-border Salish Sea study finds some answers to why wild salmon are dying off

Answers to salmon die off

Rochelle Baker , Local Journalism Initiative Reporter / Canada’s National Observer - Aug 22, 2021 / 7:37 am | Story: 343598

Photo: ADRIAN LAM, TIMES COLONIST

For millennia, the Salish Sea — the shared body of water linking southern B.C. and northwestern Washington state, and encompassing the Puget Sound, Juan de Fuca Strait and the Strait of Georgia — was abundant with salmon.

The keystone species is the bedrock of the entire ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest. All seven species of Pacific salmon populated the Salish Sea — sustaining a host of other iconic animals, such as bald eagles, ­southern resident killer whales and grizzlies, along with their surrounding aquatic and terrestrial environments and scores of Indigenous nations and cultures.

But, beginning in the late 1970s, salmon survival, particularly for chinook, coho, and steelhead — which migrate to the ocean like salmon, but can spawn multiple times — began a mysterious downward slide, especially in the marine environment, said Isobel Pearsall, ­director of marine science at the Vancouver-based Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF).

Some populations in Salish waters have plummeted as much as 90 per cent, and limiting fisheries, restoring habitat and improving hatchery practices weren’t­ ­making significant differences, Pearsall said.

It’s clear juvenile fish are particularly vulnerable, and that there is something particular to the Salish Sea impacting survival of the three species, which aren’t facing the same pattern of decline in other regions, she said.

In partnership with Long Live the Kings, another non-profit foundation south of the border, PSF launched a five-year research initiative involving 60 entities to understand what was driving some salmon stocks to extinction and what could be done to reverse it, she said.

Despite the dire situation salmon face, the key ­findings of the recently completed Salish Sea Marine Survival Project can act as a roadmap for priority action, research and policy, said Pearsall, co-ordinator of the initiative.

“It’s very easy to get pulled down into the doom and gloom of what we’re seeing around salmon declines,” Pearsall said. “But the [survival project] has highlighted the areas that we really want to focus on and that we know are crucial.”

The Salish Sea is weathering significant changes due to the climate crisis, such as warming waters, ­increasing risk from harmful algae and pathogens, shifts in the marine food web, and the decimation of estuary and foreshore habitats, the study found. Many of the changes affecting salmon are interlocked, Pearsall said.

“One might hope for a smoking gun and that there would be one major thing you could change to solve the whole issue, but that doesn’t seem to be the case,” she said.

However, the initiative concluded that salmon food supply and predation of young salmon are two key ­contributors to the declines of chinook, coho and steelhead when they first enter the marine environment.

The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project identified the key stressors causing declines of juvenile salmon.

Changes to the Salish Sea affect when, where and how much food is available for young chinook and coho, which influences their growth and mortality.

Drops in zooplankton and forage fish, especially herring, put young salmon at increasing risk, a ­situation compounded by the destruction of estuaries and nearshore habitat, which provide hiding spots and food for both the fish and their prey.

The finding suggests that protecting and restoring estuary and forage fish habitats on the foreshores of the coast should be a priority, Pearsall said.

As well, increased efforts to boost declining herring populations and study their distribution and movements are important.

Young salmon are also under pressure from a growing number of harbour seals in the Salish Sea, the project found.

While chinook and coho are a limited portion of the seals’ diet, the number of seals negatively impacts salmon survival rates, already under strain from human-caused climate change, Pearsall said.

The study doesn’t advocate for widespread culls, which would require the elimination of up to 50 per cent of the seal population, and the constant removal of a significant proportion every year after, to have any real effect on salmon, she said.

“It’s just untenable to make such a drastic move in an ecosystem that nobody fully understands,” Pearsall said. Other pressures and changes are also at play since abundant salmon stocks existed alongside large seal populations in the past, she added.

“I think we need to look at the anthropogenic changes that we’ve made that make the salmon more vulnerable to predation.”

That could include removing infrastructure such as log booms in estuaries where seals can wait for salmon without fear of being eaten themselves. Or by changing hatchery practices, such as the release of large groups of juvenile fish upriver, often in low water, which make young salmon easy pickings for creatures including ­raccoons and herons.

Implementing solutions that could ensure higher river or stream flows to provide more cover and cooler water to young salmon would give them a fighting chance against predators and increase their survival, Pearsall said. The holistic, collaborative nature of the Salish Sea project has resulted in a framework for stakeholders on both sides of the border to respond more effectively in a co-ordinated manner to make gains in restoring ­endangered salmon stocks, she said.

While the study tallies the range of pressures on salmon, it has also pointed out some practical action, Pearsall said.

“We’re letting people know that what they’re doing can have impacts, both negative and positive.

“There may be some things that are out of our ­control, but there are many immediate actions we can take.”

Toxic blaze: the true cost of crop burning

16 AUG 2021 STORY AIR
Photo: 2011CIAT/NeilPalmer / 16 Aug 2021

People around the world are bracing for what has become known as the season of smog.

With autumn around the corner, many countries are entering agricultural crop burning season, where farmers burn their fields to make way for a new crop, sending up plumes of toxic smoke.

These large areas of agricultural lands set ablaze every year are contributing to the air pollution that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), kills 7 million people a year including 650,000 children.

“Improving the quality of the air we breathe is absolutely necessary to our health and well-being,” says Helena Molin Valdés, Head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)-hosted Climate and Clean Air Coalition Secretariat. “It is also critical to food security, climate action, responsible production and consumption – and fundamental to equality. In fact, we can’t talk about the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development unless we are serious about air quality."

Black carbon

Many farmers consider agricultural burning the most effective and cost-efficient way to clear land, fertilize soil and prepare it for new plantation. However, these blazes and the wildfires that spread from them are the world’s largest source of black carbon, a threat both to human and environmental health.

Improving the quality of air we breathe is absolutely necessary to our health and well-being.
Helena Molin Valdés, Climate and Clean Air Coalition Secretariat

Black carbon is a component of PM2.5, a microscopic pollutant that penetrates deep into the lungs and bloodstream. PM2.5 increases the risk of dying from heart and lung disease, stroke and some cancers, causing millions of people to perish prematurely every year. In children, PM2.5 can also cause psychological and behavioural problems. In older people, it is associated with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and dementia. And because air pollution compromises respiratory health, it may also increase vulnerability to COVID-19.

Black carbon is also a short-lived climate pollutant, meaning that, although it exists only for a few days or weeks, its impact on global warming is 460–1,500 times stronger than carbon dioxide.


A better way

Slash and burn agriculture takes a heavy toll on Madagascar’s natural wealth. 

Photo: Global Environment Facility

Ironically, far from stimulating growth, agricultural burning actually reduces water retention and soil fertility by 25 to 30 per cent, and thus requires farmers to invest in expensive fertilizers and irrigation systems to compensate. Black carbon can also modify rainfall patterns, especially the Asian monsoon, disrupting the weather events necessary to support agriculture.

“Burned lands actually have lower fertility and higher erosion rates, requiring farmers to overcompensate with fertilizer,” says Pam Pearson, Director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, which has worked with farmers globally to introduce fire-free cultivation.

“The no-burn alternatives, such as incorporating stubble back into fields or even planting right through the stubble, almost always save the farmer money.”

Pearson notes that changing the long-established habit of burning agricultural waste will require education, awareness-raising and capacity-building for farmers. It is a lofty undertaking, but the impacts would be considerable and far-reaching. Reducing air pollution from farms in Northern India, for example, could prevent increased flooding and drought caused by black carbon accelerating the melting of Himalayan ice and glaciers – a life-changing outcome to the billions who depend on rivers fed by those mountains.

Worldwide effort

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition works in countries and with regional networks to promote alternatives to field burning. In India, for example, it provides farmers with information and assistance to access alternatives to crop fires, using satellites to monitor fires and track their impact, supporting policy interventions, subsidizing farmers and ultimately turning agricultural waste into a resource.

In Punjab, the coalition and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are looking at ways to turn the crop residue that would otherwise be burnt into a renewable fuel source. Creating a circular economy for such waste provides farmers with more income and reduces air pollution.
RELATED


STORY
International Day of Clean Air for blue skies underlines link between healthy air and a healthy planet

Countries around the world are working to reduce air pollution. That drive will be front and centre on 7 September, the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, which is designed to spur global action against dangerous particulates.

With an eye on global warming and food security, a project called the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture is mainstreaming farming into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The next round is to take place at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), this year.

To learn more about agriculture and air pollution, contact Tiy Chung: tiy.chung@un.org

Every year, on 7 September, the world celebrates the International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies. The day aims to raise awareness and facilitate actions to improve air quality. It is a global call to find new ways of doing things, to reduce the amount of air pollution we cause, and ensure that everyone, everywhere can enjoy their right to breathe clean air. The theme of the second annual International Day of Clear Air for blue skies, facilitated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is “Healthy Air, Healthy Planet.”

 

'A thrilling sign': Researchers discover secret colony of highly endangered marmots on Vancouver Island

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New colony in Strathcona Park of around 10 to 12 individuals has adults, yearlings and pups

CBC News · Posted: Aug 22, 2021 

There are about 200 Vancouver Island marmot in the wild, up from a low of 27 in 2003. (Marmot Recovery Foundation)

Researchers and conservationists are celebrating after the discovery of a group of Vancouver Island marmots that signals a great step forward in the recovery of the highly endangered species. 

Adam Taylor, executive director of the Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Foundation, said the discovery of the colony complete with adults, yearlings and pups in Strathcona Park was "a thrilling sign."

"We've been waiting years to see this," Taylor said. 

The Vancouver Island marmot is endemic to the island, and only lives in the high mountains in open alpine habitat. Their populations have plummeted in past decades because of habitat loss, reaching a low of 27 in 2003.

Because of captive breeding programs in the Toronto Zoo, Calgary Zoo and Mount Washington, there are now around 200 individuals in the wild population. 

Taylor says he believes this colony — which has 10 to 12 individuals — is descended from marmots reintroduced to Marble Meadows, about a kilometre away. 

Marmots typically disperse away from their natal colonies, but Strathcona Park has proved tough terrain for the species. They must build massive metres-deep burrows to hibernate in the winter and find enough food to build up the fat layers they need for hibernation. The marmots must also evade hungry predators. 

"Our expectations have been low, to be blunt. It's been a long time of trying to reintroduce these marmots, trying to reestablish colonies that we knew about," said Taylor. 

To see the marmots disperse on their own, pick their own habitat, and managed to successfully establish themselves — and the next generation — is incredible, he said. 

• Marmot pups born at Calgary Zoo boost endangered population to more than 200

• Vancouver Island's marmots survived extinction. Now, inbreeding is a concern

While there have been three new colonies discovered this year, Taylor said the species is still critically endangered. 

"We're still talking about just over 200 individuals in the wild," he said.

The summer has been difficult. Like many other species, the marmot has been hit by the drought, which has curtailed its much needed vegetation for the winter months. August and September are also typically dangerous months for predator activity.

Taylor hopes that the marmots continue their successful dispersal, moving from one colony to the next, reproducing successfully and otherwise thriving. 

"This isn't the end of the road for recovery for this species. It's a good step, though," he said.

With files from On The Island

Attack of the giant rodents or class war? Argentina’s rich riled by new neighbors

Hordes of capybaras have taken up residence at a gated community, sparking a debate on the environment and inequality

Capybaras, known locally as carpinchos, are the world’s largest rodent

, standing over one 60cm tall and weighing up to 60kg. 

Photograph: Mara Sosti/AFP via Getty Images

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
Sun 22 Aug 2021

Nordelta is Argentina’s most well-known gated community: an enclave of spacious homes for the rich amid a dreamy landscape of lakes and streams north of Buenos Aires.

But environmentalists question its very existence because it is built on the wetlands of the Paraná, the second most important river in South America after the Amazon.

Now, however, nature is fighting back against Nordelta’s well-heeled residents.

In recent weeks, the community has been invaded by capybaras, who have destroyed manicured lawns, bitten dogs and caused traffic accidents.

“They not only destroy gardens but their excrement has also become a problem,” one local man told the daily La Nación, complaining that local wildlife officials had prohibited residents from touching the large rodents.

Some Nordelta residents are reported to have responded by bringing out their hunting rifles, but many other Argentinians have taken to social media to defend the rodents – known locally as carpinchos.

In politically polarized Argentina, progressive Peronists see Nordelta as the enclave of an upper class eager to exclude common people – and with tongue only partly in cheek, some have portrayed the capybaras as a rodent vanguard of the class struggle.

“My total support for the Peronist carpinchos of Nordelta recovering
their habitat,” tweeted one internet wag.

Adult capybaras can grow up to one metre (3.2ft) in length, stand over 60cm (24in) tall and can weigh up to 60 kilos (132lb). They are naturally gregarious and live in groups of between 10 and 20 individuals.

Prominent ecologist Enrique Viale said it was a mistake to frame the rodent influx as an invasion. “It’s the other way round: Nordelta invaded the ecosystem of the carpinchos,” said Viale, who has been campaigning with many others for 10 years now for congress to pass a law to defend the wetlands from development.

“Wealthy real-estate developers with government backing have to destroy nature in order to sell clients the dream of living in the wild – because the people who buy those homes want nature, but without the mosquitoes, snakes or carpinchos,” he said.

These vast Paraná wetlands stretch from northern Argentina to the River Plate and the Atlantic Ocean, but have come under attack from urban sprawl as well as cattle and soy mega-farmers who are partly responsible for the wildfires that have destroyed vast areas.

“Nordelta is the supersized paradigm of gated communities built on wetlands. The first thing it does is take away the absorbent function of the land, so when there are extreme weather events, it is the poorer surrounding neighborhoods that end up flooded. As always, it is the poor who end paying the price.”

Vaccine passport debate spills into Alberta's streets

Timm Bruch

CTV News Calgary Video Journalist
Published Saturday, August 21, 2021 

NOW PLAYING
As immunization numbers in Alberta stall, some are calling for an added layer of protection. Timm Bruch explains.


CALGARY -- A debate over whether private businesses should ask for proof of vaccination before allowing access to Albertans is raging on.

Hospitalization numbers in the province ticked up this week, and they continued to reveal a trend: those who are fully vaccinated have far less risk of severe outcomes due to COVID-19.

As immunization numbers stall and the Delta variant impacts more residents, some in the province want an added layer of protection. They say that could come in the form of vaccination proof for admission to services.

"We're in the process of wrestling through the question now of whether or not vaccinations will be mandatory," Knox United Church Reverend Doctor Greg Glatz said. "Part of being a sanctuary, part of being a refuge, is being safe. The vaccination is a way to be safe."

The church is still primarily online, but when in-person worship resumes in mid-September, Glatz says it could ask for proof of vaccination from its congregation.

He says he's well aware of the impact that could have.

"While we are progressive in our theology, we attract people from a broad range of perspectives," Glatz said. "So we are trying to have that dialogue between different perspectives."

While Knox United hasn't yet made a decision, others have.

About 50 people gathered in Calgary's Tomkins Park to speak out against the potential of vaccine passports Saturday night.

They believe the move would take away some of their freedoms. Many at the rally held anti-vaccination signs and spoke of government overreach.

In Quebec, digital vaccine certifications will be required to enter some non-essential services starting in September. It will be used to allow access to events like festivals, and some restaurants, bars and gyms. The passport will store vaccine information that can be accessed through a QR code.

Large companies like Live Nation and MLSE announced this week they will require either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test at all of their events.

And the issue is already following candidates along the federal election campaign trail.

Alberta's premier made his views clear in July.

“We've been very clear from the beginning that we will not facilitate or accept vaccine passports," Jason Kenney said. "I believe that they would, in principle, contravene the Health Information Act and also possibly the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. These folks who are concerned about mandatory vaccines have nothing to be concerned about."

Legal experts say that if done correctly, vaccine passports do not violate privacy laws.

RELATED IMAGES



In this undated photo, provided by NY Governor's Press Office on Saturday March 27, 2021, is the new 'Excelsior Pass' app, a digital pass that people can download to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. (NY Governor's Press Office via AP, File)

ECOCIDE AT DEATH COW

Brazil Discusses Gas Pipeline From Vaca Muerta Shale With Argentina

By Charles Kennedy - Aug 22, 2021, 9:30 AM CDT

Brazil is in talks with Argentina about potentially building a $5-billion natural gas pipeline from the Argentinian Vaca Muerta shale play, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said during his weekly live broadcast.

"We are in negotiations with Argentina. Gas from Vaca Muerta. It will happen one day, because it is not easy to start importing gas, you need pipelines," Bolsonaro said, as carried by Reuters.

A pipeline is estimated to cost $3.7 billion in Argentina and another $1.2 billion in Brazil, as per Reuters estimates.

Bolsonaro didn't say how the project would be funded.

A gas pipeline from the prolific Vaca Muerta shale in Argentina's province Neuquén could be one option for reducing natural gas prices in Brazil, according to the Brazilian president.

This year, Brazil is importing a lot of liquefied natural gas (LNG) because of the worst drought in the country in nearly a century.

Brazil is importing so much LNG this year that volumes are close to levels usually seen in countries in Europe and Asia, as the South American country's electricity system grapples with the worst drought in 91 years.

Brazil's electricity mix is heavily dependent on hydroelectric power, which accounted for more than 75 percent of electricity generation in 2020, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Brazil has the largest installed hydropower capacity in South America and accounts for two-thirds of the continent's total hydropower capacity.

But this year, Brazil, the most populous country in South America, is experiencing its worst drought in 91 years and is struggling to keep the lights on with hydropower.

At the same time, Vaca Muerta in Argentina is recovering from the pandemic slump and is estimated to hold recoverable resources consisting of 16 billion barrels of oil and 308 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Those numbers make the Vaca Muerta the world's second-largest shale gas deposit.  

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com