'MAYBE' TECH

Australia’s Warrego hydrogen ute claims $50 million of order requests in just 4 days

SEPTEMBER 6, 2021
JOSHUA S. HILL

IMAGE SUPPLIED


Australian hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle start-up H2X Global says it has secured more than 200 orders for its Warrego hydrogen ute worth $50 million from around the globe, in just four daqys since it opened orders.

Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) have a long way to go to prove their long-term viability, and their ability to compete with battery electric options, with refuelling infrastructure being one of the biggest barriers.

But it would appear that, even though we are in the early stages of the development of FCEVs, that there are those who see the immediate and near-term value of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles.

The Sydney-based H2X last week announced that it will launch its high-priced Warrego Ute on the Gold Coast in November, ahead of deliveries slated for April, 2022.

That sparked immediate interest, and in the first four days since H2X opened orders last Wednesday, the company says it received more than 200 order requests, worth $50 million if the consumers follow through. The orders came from all over Australia, and from countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and Malaysia.

“Among the customers ordering the Warrego Ute are several significant energy companies and a number of private buyers,” H2X Global said in its press release, before quoting from one of those same private buyers.

“The Warrego is the vehicle that we believe the community of Green Energy Pioneers have been waiting for, especially with Hydrogen already at parity with diesel kWh for kWh,” said Haim Ptasznik is Director of Veida, a provider of Green Energy Solutions and Hardware, and one of the first purchasers of the vehicle.

“Not to mention, the problems that EV’s pose to the electrical network with grid congestion and excessive unpredictable demand disappear, with hydrogen as a supply.”

The Warrego is the first of a range of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles that H2X is planning to release over the next 24 months.

Featuring a 200kW motor system, 66KW and optional 90KW fuel cell systems, and generating output between 60KW and 100KW, the Warrego has a driving range of 500-kilometres on a mix of highway and city roads, and benefits from quick refuelling times of between 3 to 5 minutes.

“The pre-orders have exceeded all of our expectations,” said H2X Global CEO Brendan Norman.

“We knew they would be popular, but we’ve been blown away by the demand for the Warrego. Orders have literally been coming in from around the world. The word has got out that we’re on to something really special.”

BAYER/MONSANTO
U of A student selected for Bayer's 2021 Youth Ag Summit

Author of the article: Kellen Taniguchi
Publishing date: Sep 05, 2021 • 

Amanda Hardman, a University of Alberta student, 

is one of just two Canadians selected for the Bayer's 2021 Youth Ag Summit. 

PHOTO BY LARRY WONG /Postmedia

A Stony Plain teen is one of just two Canadians participating in the 2021 Bayer’s Youth Ag Summit (YAS).

The summit welcomes 100 delegates, aged 18-25, every two years and this year’s delegates come from more than 44 different countries.

Amanda Hardman, 19, is entering her second year at the University of Alberta and is studying sustainable agriculture. She said she knows her studies are a real-world problem and it’s something everyone feels an impact of and she’s excited to learn more at YAS when the delegates first meet this November.

“It’s going to be an amazing learning experience and I’m ready to soak it all in and take away as much as possible,” Hardman told Postmedia.

Hardman said a lot of her projects have focused on improving our food system and limiting waste, so when she heard about YAS she knew it was a good fit for her and submitted an application immediately.

More than 2,000 youth from nearly 100 countries applied for the Bayer’s fifth summit. Komie Hossini, corporate communications with Bayer, said applicants answer questions about their experience and motivation on why they want to attend the summit and submit a three-minute video pitch explaining their project idea fitting the summit’s theme of “Feeding a Hungry Planet.”

Hossini said each country has its own jury that goes through its applicants and grades them on a provided criteria which leads to the delegate selections. Emily Robb from Brandon, Man., is the second Canadian taking part in the summit.

Hardman’s project focused on finding an alternative to plastic clamshell packaging. The product she was working on used lettuce, she said, though other produce such as tomatoes could be used as well.

“Going through grocery stores, there’s a lot of plastic packaging and a lot of it is needless,” said Hardman. “Plastic clamshells are getting banned in places, so people are trying to come up with other types of food packaging and it’s not really effective. So my whole thing was if I can improve this, make it a little more sustainable, then I want to do that.”

Hardman said her project used a prototype made of sugarcane fibre sprayed with cellular nano crystals coming from wood pulp

.

Amanda Hardman, a University of Alberta student, is one of just two Canadians selected for the Bayer’s 2021 Youth Ag Summit. PHOTO BY LARRY WONG /Postmedia
Virtual summit

The pandemic forced YAS to go virtual for the first time this year and it will also be the first summit with YAS University — a program that allows delegates to complete weekly assignments that help with their individual project concept for 10 weeks following the summit beginning in January.

“It’s going to be interesting, we’re going to be learning a lot from industry professionals from across the world, so I am really looking forward to that,” said Hardman.

Hossini said usually delegates would spend a week together working side-by-side, on professional development and hear from speakers.

Bayer recognizes the importance of getting youth involved in agriculture careers, he added.

“This is a massive global problem where youth coming in at this age in the Youth Ag Summit, they’re the ones that have the opportunity to tackle it and in all honesty, in 2050 they’re going to be the ones tackling that problem,” said Hossini.

“There are opportunities in ag and there will be far more jobs than we can possibly fill, so I want youth to take a look at agriculture for their future

Make historic campaign to ban leaded petrol ‘blueprint to phase out coal’, says UN

Hailing end to toxic fuel additive, Guterres says same commitment is needed to eliminate other pollutants

Air pollution in Ivory Coast. In August Algeria became the last country to ban leaded petrol. Burning fossil fuels led to 8.7m deaths in 2018. 

Photograph: Legnan Koula/EPA

Global development is supported by


Peter Muiruri in Nairobi
Wed 1 Sep 2021 

The UN secretary general and environmentalists have welcomed a declaration by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on the end of leaded petrol in the face of years of “underhand” opposition.

As Algeria became the last country to stop selling the toxic fuel last month, the two-decade campaign to ban it has been called a “milestone for multilateralism”.

“Lead in fuel has run out of gas,” António Guterres said in a video broadcast.

The secretary general said the initiative had succeeded due to the “cooperation of governments in developing nations, thousands of businesses and millions of ordinary people”. The campaign was spearheaded by the global Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles, established at the 2002 world summit on sustainable development, which brought together 73 organisations representing fuel and vehicle industries, civil society and global experts.

Guterres said: “Today we celebrate a milestone in unilateralism, the culmination of united global efforts to rid the world of lead in petrol, a major threat to human and planetary health.

“This international success story comes after the 20-year public-private initiative led by [UNEP]. When the campaign began, 86 countries were still using leaded fuel. Today, there are none.”

He said the world should not relax after the successful campaign but should “now turn the same commitment to ending the triple crises of climate disruption, biodiversity loss and pollution”, starting with a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Inger Andersen, UNEP’s executive director, said the long struggle to get rid of leaded petrol could be replicated in eliminating other pollutants such as coal if studies on “agreeable alternatives” were done. Burning of fossil fuels was responsible for 8.7 million deaths in 2018, or one in five of all people who died in that year, a study found.

Andersen said: “Is this a blueprint to phase out coal? We will let science speak and tell us how it affects health or the countries’ GDP and local air pollution. We know that millions die each year due to coal pollution. What are the alternatives? How do we invest in them? In Africa, for example, we are working on electric mobility.

“Like any technological experiment, this will take time,” she added. “But it is an important element, not just in wealthy countries.”

A Piper PA-28-180 Cherokee. There are 167,000 piston-engined aeroplanes just in the US that still use leaded aviation fuel, despite efforts to find alternatives.

 Photograph: Alamy

However, Thandile Chinyavanhu, Greenpeace energy campaigner in South Africa, said the phase-out of leaded petrol showed the world could “absolutely phase out all fossil fuels” and that African governments must “give no more excuses for the fossil fuel industry”.

In the US, Janet McCabe, deputy administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, said the EPA was working with the Federal Aviation Administration to address the continued use of leaded fuel in some aircraft operating in the country.

The aviation body said there were 167,000 piston-engine aircraft in the country that use aviation fuel, or “avgas”. This is believed to be the only remaining transport fuel containing lead. This is to prevent serious engine “knock”, which can result in a sudden engine failure. Through various initiatives, the industry was supposed to identify an unleaded fuel by 2018 but the testing completion date was pushed back to 2021.

McCabe said: “There are no known safe levels of lead exposure but we are glad work is going on to test alternatives to aviation fuels in the US, especially now that we have a president who understands the value of tackling climate change. We need to use the same power of collective efforts to protect the vulnerable among us.”

Andersen said efforts to banish other pollutants may face similar challenges to those that slowed the Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles’ momentum to end leaded petrol, which included a sceptical transport industry and unbudgeted capital costs for governments that needed to recalibrate their refineries.


Air pollution linked to more severe mental illness – study

Andersen said: “For lead, we had to deal with the myths. Some said older cars could not function well without leaded petrol, that the engines won’t work. Then you had governments that had to spend resources they would rather not have spent to work on their refineries.”

Andersen said some corporations used underhand dealings to derail efforts to stop sales. She cited a 2010 case in a London court, in which directors of Innospec, a US chemicals firm, pleaded guilty to bribing officials in Indonesia and Iraq to secure contracts to supply tetraethyl lead, the fuel additive that had by then been phased out in many countries. Reuters reported that bribes in Indonesia were not only meant to secure sales but to “hinder legislative moves in Jakarta to ban the substance”.

But Guterres said countries should be inspired to coalesce around the cause of removing pollutants from the environment to “create a world of peace that works with nature, not against it”.

“We need international cooperation, compromise, solidarity – all guided by science,” the secretary general said.

Chinese firm serves up lab-grown pork in world’s top meat market

Chinese startup CellX unveiled a selection of lab-grown pork dishes on Friday and said it was aiming to produce the more environmentally friendly meat at competitive prices for the world’s top meat-eating nation by 2025.

Investors were invited to taste one of the prototypes produced in its Shanghai lab from cells harvested from China’s native black pig.

“The taste is on the bland side … but overall it’s not bad,” said Li Peiying, a guest who tested the minced pork blended with plant protein.

Cultured meat, or meat grown from animal muscle cells in a lab, could significantly reduce the environmental impact of farming animals, say its proponents, while also avoiding welfare issues and disease.

China in particular, which consumed 86 million tonnes of meat in 2020 or about 30% of global demand, is in urgent need of a cleaner meat supply to meet its carbon goals, says CellX.

Meat grown in the lab could also offer a more stable food supply to a market that has faced huge shortages and volatility following the outbreak of African swine fever in 2018.

But production costs in the nascent industry are still far higher than conventional protein, and analysts say consumers could balk at eating artificially grown meat.

In China, however, “there are lots of people wanting to try it,” CellX founder Yang Ziliang told Reuters.

Yang declined to comment on current production costs but said the company, founded just last year, was aiming to be cost competitive with animal meat by 2025.

A recent McKinsey report estimated cultivated meat could reach cost parity with conventional meat by 2030, as the industry increases scale and fine-tunes R&D.

Lab-grown chicken meat was sold to consumers for the first time in Singapore last year, but there are currently no regulations permitting its sale in China.

CellX, which raised $4.3 million earlier this year and is now seeking fresh funding, is also eyeing the global market, however.

“Our vision is to change the way meat is produced. This isn’t just a China issue, it’s a global issue, so for us to achieve our vision, we need to be a global company,” said Yang.

Hong Kong star Nicholas Tse is giving up Canadian citizenship amid Chinese crackdown on entertainment industry


Dual citizenship is banned in China, making it a topic of interest for ethnically Chinese celebrities of foreign nationality

China launched a campaign to crack down this summer on the behaviour of celebrities


Phoebe Zhang in Shenzhen
Published: 6 Sep, 2021

Nicholas Tse told CCTV that he is in the process of renouncing his Chinese citizenship. Photo: @chefnicookies

Hong Kong actor and singer Nicholas Tse is applying to give up his Canadian citizenship amid rising concerns that holding dual citizenship may be viewed as unpatriotic by mainland Chinese audience.

Over the weekend, Tse, who was in the wildly successful Chinese action movie
Raging Fire , told the CCTV programme Perception Room that he is in the
process of renouncing his Canadian citizenship.

“Whether it’s food, music or action films, I have the willingness and responsibility to spread Chinese culture to the whole world,” he said.

Nicholas Tse is a famous actor and notable singer/songwriter. Photo: Weibo

Tse said an online comment about Raging Fire “made his heart skip a beat” because it asked if he was Canadian: “I wondered, why would they say that?”

Tse’s father, Patrick Tse, and Tse’s manager, Mani Fok, told the Oriental Daily that they would respect his personal decision.

Tse was born in Hong Kong in 1980. His father was a famous actor at the time, as was his mother, Deborah Lee. He moved to Vancouver at a young age and moved back to Hong Kong with his family later.

His time in Canada allowed him to become a Hong Kong and Canadian dual citizenship holder. Mainland Chinese citizens cannot become dual citizens, so they must renounce a foreign citizenship if they hope to become a Chinese citizen, or renounce their Chinese citizenship if they would like to obtain a non-Chinese nationality.

China releases plan to ban ‘sissy idols’, promote a ‘correct beauty standard’
6 Sep 2021



Hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers hold dual citizenship, but Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said in February that the city would “strictly enforce” laws that do not recognise dual citizenship.

Although there is no official ban on Chinese stars with foreign passports on the mainland, the Chinese public occasionally criticises celebrities of foreign nationalities. Some stars have dropped foreign citizenship for a Chinese one to boost their career.

In July, US-born Arthur Chen Feiyu, the son of famous director Chen Kaige, swapped his American citizenship for a Chinese one, his studio said on Weibo.

Earlier this year, Beijing banned mentions of director Chloe Zhao’s Oscar wins. She was born in China and has spent a significant portion of her life in Britain and the US. She made comments critical of China in 2013, prompting people to question her nationality when Nomadland turned her into a household name after winning three Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards.

Chloe Zhao found herself at the centre of criticism in China after people discovered negative comments she made about the country in 2013. Photo: AFP

Liu Yifei, the China-born star of Disney’s Mulan, received criticism for giving up her Chinese citizenship.

Other top names who have changed their passports include Gong Li and Jet Li, now Singaporean, and director Chen Kaige, who is a US citizen.

No explanation as billionaire actress Zhao Wei scrubbed from Chinese internet
27 Aug 2021


Tse’s announcement and declaration of national spirit came amid a sweeping crackdown on the entertainment industry by the Chinese government.

Over the summer, several policies and online censorship targeted celebrities who had behaved poorly. The stars had been accused of crimes ranging from rape, tax evasion or behaviour and speech that hurt “public order and morals”.

Vicky Zhao Wei was removed from the Chinese internet in August for unknown reasons. Photo: Wanlimu

Kris Wu, a Chinese-Canadian singer, was detained by the Chinese police on August 16 after multiple women accused him of rape. He has been thoroughly censored on the Chinese internet.

Last month, billionaire actress Vicki Zhao Wei appeared to have been blacklisted by the government after her entire internet presence was scrubbed without explanation.

 British Columbia

Sea cucumber die-off near Vancouver Island prompts fears of wasting disease that nearly wiped out sea stars

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'There were hundreds of them. They were just white and dead in various states of decay'

Yvette Brend · CBC News · Posted: Sep 04, 2021 

A healthy sea cucumber has a rich red colour, spines and squishy skin. (Emaline Montgomery)

When Kathleen Reed descended for her usual weekly dive off the coast of Nanaimo, B.C., last Saturday she was shocked by how many dead sea cucumbers she saw.

Reed has completed more than 500 dives and says she'd never seen so many of the deep red echinoderms turned pale, limp and slimy.

"There were hundreds of them. They were just white and dead in various states of decay, littered all over the sea floor. It was shocking and really disturbing to see," said Reed.

Experts and harvesters fear that sea cucumbers found off the coast of Vancouver Island are being hit by an illness similar to sea star wasting disease, which swept through the B.C. population in 2015 and 2016, killing 96 per cent of the creatures.

A healthy sunflower sea star sits on cold water coral formations in Puget Sound. Research shows 5.75 billion sea stars along the West Coast have died in recent years. (Greg Amptman/Shutterstock)

Sunflower sea stars were hit particularly hard. It's estimated that some 5.7 billion sunflower sea stars died, bringing the species close to extinction. 

Symptoms first appeared as pale blotchy lesions or white spots on the skin and ended with the animal dissolving. 

• This slimy, squishy invertebrate could create a more sustainable aquaculture industry, researcher says

The symptoms are similar to those now affecting sea cucumbers along the B.C. coast. 

Sea stars and sea cucumbers are both echinoderms or spiny-skinned creatures. While sea stars hunt, sea cucumbers are bottom feeders; they act like a garbage truck, eating organic detritus — or waste — found in the sea floor sediment.

Biologists are studying why hundreds of sea cucumbers appear to be dying off near the coast of Vancouver Island. Some fear the echinoderms have been stricken with a wasting disease similar to that which killed off billions of sea stars in the last decade. (Kathleen Reed)

Sea cucumbers perform an important ecological role and could help clean up aquaculture sites, according to Emaline Montgomery, a research scientist at the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo.

More study is needed to determine what's causing this mass mortality event, but climate change is likely part of the explanation. 

• PHOTOS
  Sea star wasting disease among worst wildlife die-offs say scientists

Montgomery said that warmer water temperatures could play a role in stressing the animals, which may make them more susceptible to pathogens or viruses.

"Usually when sea cucumbers get stressed they might start to exhibit these bizarre symptoms where their outer body wall turns white. It gets kind of mucousy. It literally looks like their skin is disintegrating or melting," she said.

A sea star consumes the remains of a sea cucumber that appears to be wasting or melting off the shores of Nanaimo, B.C. (Kathleen Reed)

Seven years ago, sea cucumber wasting was reported in Friday Harbour in Washington state and near Admiralty Island in Alaska. Since then it's been noticed near one Washington aquaculture farm as well as in Howe Sound, near Sechelt, B.C.

• Sea star wasting disease: 'The more we study it, the less we understand'

A study last year led by Ian Hewson, a Cornell University biological oceanographer and expert in viruses of the sea, described an Alaskan outbreak.

Those sea cucumbers were stricken with "lesions and fissures and sloughing of epidermal tissues," then rapid "liquefaction."

Global market for sea cucumbers

Canada does about $30-million in sea cucumber trade. B.C. has about a one-third share of that market.

Thom Liptrot, president of the Pacific Sea Cucumber Harvesters Association, says divers pick the prickled creatures along about half the B.C. coast. 

B.C. has approved 85 licensed fishers who are allowed to take 16,000 pounds or 7,200 kilograms each, according to Liptrot.

Dried sea cucumber is shipped to China where it is used to treat everything from arthritis to heart disease and boost virility. Fresh sea cucumber can be flash-fried in garlic and butter and tastes "somewhere between a clam and a squid," Liptrot said.

Otters and sea stars also enjoy eating sea cucumbers, which sometimes escape by rolling.

This sea cucumber has turned partially white instead of its usual deep brick-red hue. It's not yet clear why this is happening. (Kathleen Reed)

Liptrot has had reports of dead sea cucumbers near Comox and Sechelt and now fears the elongated echinoderms are being hit by a wasting disease similar the one that nearly wiped out sea stars along the B.C. coast. 

"[The wasting disease] has been around a long time and it's taken out sea cucumbers before — but never a mass extinction like the sun star," he said.

'If we lose the vacuum cleaners of the sea ... we are in trouble'

Reed, an avid naturalist and diver, recalls seeing a few sea stars stricken with wasting disease, but said last Saturday's discovery was more devastating. 

• Rare deep-sea video captures 'carnivorous ravioli' starfish chowing down

On her Aug. 28 dive Reed said that every sea cucumber she saw between the depths of 10 and 25 metres appeared dead. She checked three spots that day: Dolphin Beach, Tyee Cove and Wall Beach, near Parksville.

Hundreds of sea cucumbers stricken with some affliction appear to be turning white and dying off the coast near Nanaim,o all the way to Nanoose Bay and Parksville, B.C. (Kathleen Reed)

While Reed did see some mottled animals after the heat waves earlier this summer, she said they now appear to be "just kind of melting in place" and littering the sea from Madrona Point all the way to Blueback Community Park — spanning the entire Nanoose Bay Peninsula.

"It was really, really concerning. I don't think I've ever been so concerned while diving. If those guys go — if we lose the vacuum cleaners of the sea — we are really in trouble," she said. 

Josh Freed: Labour Day, the forgotten child of holidays

We all know why we mark Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, Canada Day and St-Jean — but few still know why we do not labour on Labour Day.

Author of the article: Josh Freed • Special to Montreal Gazette
Publishing date: Sep 04, 2021 • 

People take part in a demonstration on Labour Day in Montreal, Monday, Sept. 7, 2020. 

"Today Labour Day has lost its meaning for most people. It’s simply a paid day off for almost everyone, perhaps the only holiday with no obligations," Josh Freed writes. 

PHOTO BY GRAHAM HUGHES /The Canadian Press

Happy Labour Day weekend, everyone!

I know you’re celebrating by roasting a Labour Day turkey. Or painting some Labour Day eggs. Or putting your family’s gifts under the Labour Day tree.

Sorry to belabour your Labour Day, but how exactly are we supposed to celebrate this holiday, apart from sitting on a porch drinking beer?

We all know why we mark Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, Canada Day and St-Jean — but few still know why we do not labour on Labour Day.

This annual event is the forgotten child of holidays, a mysterious long weekend that many think is a government-sanctioned Close-the-Cottage Day.

Others think it marks the official end of summer — the signal to go back to school, back to work, and back to more traffic and even fewer parking spaces.

That’s because long, long ago in a far-off time, most schools resumed classes after Labour Day weekend. But that’s not the case anymore, as our workaholic society jump-starts the kids’ school year in August.

Labour Day has become a somewhat out-of-sync school holiday that often interrupts the first week of classes and delays teachers learning their new students’ names.

Back to work? Canadians get a mere 10 days of vacation on average — second to last, along with Japan, in the industrialized world. Yet most of us don’t even take it all.

Even when we do take holidays, we are leashed to our workplaces by our cellphones, and LinkedIn by email, voicemail, Facebook and Twitterstorms. Especially this year, when many people with jobs are working remotely from home.

How can you go back to work when you never leave it? We probably need a National Day-Off-the-Internet Day.

Labour Day isn’t even the unofficial end of summer anymore, the traditional time for one last swim and barbecue, or to put away the sunscreen before the temperature drops.

Now the sun only gets hotter every month as we heat up Planet Earth. This September could well be hotter than August, which was hotter than July.

Officially, Labour Day honours labourers, although this, too, seems increasingly outdated, like the word “labour” itself. In truth, not that many Canadians actually labour for a living anymore in today’s Information Age. Fewer and fewer of us swing a pickaxe, or push a plough. Instead, we toil at typing. Send 10,000 emails. Yack on the phone. Zoom.

Many among us will do exactly the same things on Labour Day when we’re off the job, but happily perched at our computers, blurring the line between work and leisure.

We interrupt this column for a brief history lesson.

Labour Day was partly invented by Canadians, along with snowmobiles, ginger ale, frozen fish, the paint-roller and the green garbage bag.

It was inspired by a famed 1872 Toronto printers’ strike that finally decriminalized unions. To honour the event, workers held annual labour protests in September — until Canada declared Labour Day a public holiday in 1894. The United States soon followed.

Huge parades were held annually for decades afterward to remind us that workers had to fight for things we now take for granted, like safe workplaces, a mere eight-hour day and something called a “weekend.”

The parades faded away in the ’50s, but Labour Day still felt very relevant in Quebec when I was growing up in the ’60s, because unions were a force that changed, but also upended our lives.

Huge strikes were such a routine part of year-round life, you noticed when there weren’t any. There was Red Weekend, a 1974 firemen’s strike that left 25 fires burning out of control and hundreds of families homeless.

I still recall a huge Allo Police tabloid headline that read “MONTRÉAL BRÛLE!”

There was the 16-hour overnight police strike in October 1969 that led to looting, bank robberies and the legendary Murray Hill riot, with cowboy-style gunfights between cabbies and airport limo drivers.

As the Gazette reported: “Fires, explosions, assaults and a full-pitched gun-battle kept Montrealers huddled indoors as the reign of terror brought the city to the edge of chaos.”

There was the 1972 Common Front strike, which virtually shut down the province as teachers, postal workers, civil servants and others demanded raises — and a $100 minimum weekly wage.

Back then, labour leaders like Louis Laberge were rock stars and premiers bowed to them like royalty (when they weren’t jailing them). So Labour Day still had a powerful resonance.

End of history lesson.

Today Labour Day has lost its meaning for most people. It’s simply a paid day off for almost everyone, perhaps the only holiday with no obligations.

There are no turkeys to roast, no gifts to give, or guilt to feel if you didn’t. There are no New Year’s resolutions to pledge, Valentine cards to write, pumpkins to carve or national flags to wave.

Labour Day is simply a day at the cottage, or away camping or picnicking, or just goofing off in bed, a do-nothing day when most people don’t labour.

So enjoy it, everyone, and if you can — go jump in a lake.

joshfreed49@gmail.com

Labor Day demands supporting Nabisco's striking bakery workers

Oreos have no place at a pro-workers' Labor Day BBQ.

MSNBC / Getty Images

Sept. 6, 2021,
By Hayes Brown, 

MSNBC Opinion Columnist


This Labor Day, as you’re setting up the spread for the traditional end-of-summer barbecue and one last trip to the pool, here’s a suggestion: Leave the Oreos on the grocery store shelf.

The same goes for the Chips Ahoy! cookies, Ritz crackers and, uh, whatever Fig Newtons are. Nabisco produces all of these snack-time staples — and in five states, factory workers who actually make them have been on strike since Aug. 10.


That strike began when about 200 unionized workers walked out of a bakery in Portland, Oregon, and it now includes about 1,000 workers employed at bakeries and distribution centers in Colorado, Illinois, Georgia and Virginia. The workers are represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, the same union that backed a 19-day strike at a Frito-Lay plant in Kansas this summer.

The striking workers say that Mondelez, the company that owns Nabisco, is exploiting them after their contract expired in May:

Union leaders say Nabisco is trying to squeeze more hours out of its staff while paying less overtime, even as some workers are taking 16-hour shifts to help meet a pandemic-fueled surge in snack food sales. They also are raising concerns over two recent factory closures in Georgia and New Jersey, which the union says is part of a broader campaign to move low-wage work to Mexico. And they’re calling on the company to restore their pensions, which were supplanted by a 401(k) plan three years ago.

“A lot of folks were very close to retirement, and were able to do so under the old plan, but when the company pulled out that basically meant that they had to continue working. They were no longer eligible to retire,” Mike Burlingham, vice-president of the local union in Portland, told The Guardian. “It impacted all of us in a way that we can no longer count on this as being a place we can retire comfortably from.”

The proposed 12-hour shifts at certain factory lines call to mind the conditions that initially sparked the labor movement.

These changes are being suggested from management even as the company is performing well financially — Mondelez reported a 12 percent growth in revenue in the last quarter compared to the same time last year. Profits were up, too, thanks in part to “manufacturing productivity,” according to a company press release. And the chairman and CEO of the company, Dirk Van de Put, had a total compensation of $16.8 million last year while staffers were putting in double shifts.

(The company said in an Aug. 16 statement that it tried to negotiate in good faith with the workers, but the union rejected its offers.)

The proposed 12-hour shifts at certain factory lines call to mind the conditions that initially sparked the labor movement. Labor Day itself arose from a one-day strike in New York City in 1882, where thousands of workers marched from City Hall to an uptown park for a picnic. It was made a national holiday in 1894 as part of President Grover Cleveland’s attempt to shore up working-class voters in the midst of a massive railway workers’ strike.

As of Aug. 30, the strike has reportedly slowed down production, as three of the company’s four bakeries are taking part in the strike. Mondelez has reportedly been using nonunionized workers to help keep the factories' production lines flowing. (I’m not saying this means you should picture literal scabs when trying to eat one of the cookies these scabs produced, but … .) That in turn has provoked pro-union supporters to escalate their tactics, including blocking railroad tracks delivering baking supplies with their bodies — an unintended throwback to the protests that pushed Labor Day permanently onto our calendars.

But supermarkets have begun stocking up on Nabisco products to head-off any potential shortage of sugary and carb-filled treats, The Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 26. So, if you’re going to be enjoying the day set aside to recognize the labor movement in America, the least you can do is not buy Nabisco products to show some solidarity with the union members demanding better working conditions.

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.

Tyson Foods, unions strike deal over COVID-19 vaccine mandate

September 6, 2021

Source: Reuters

Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) said on Friday that labor unions have agreed to support its requirement for U.S. employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by November, and the company will offer new benefits to workers including paid sick leave.

Companies have been working to incentivize employees to get vaccinated through bonuses and other benefits as the highly contagious Delta variant drives an increase in U.S. coronavirus infections. In some instances, employees who do not get shots face penalties like higher insurance costs. read more

Tyson, the biggest U.S. meat company by sales, said on Aug. 3 that U.S. employees must get vaccinated, though the requirement for unionized plant workers was subject to negotiations. read more

The company has now won support from the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represent more than 80% of Tyson’s 31,000 unionized workers in the United States, it said in a statement.

Tyson runs slaughterhouses in rural areas where some residents have been reluctant to get vaccinated. In Iowa, where Tyson operates pork plants, 49% of residents are fully vaccinated, according to state data. Nationwide, 53% of the total population and 62% of people eligible for vaccines have been fully vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The UFCW, America’s largest meatpacking union, said it secured 20 hours of paid sick leave per year for Tyson employees as part of negotiations over the mandate. It is the first national U.S. agreement to provide paid sick leave to meatpacking workers, the union said.

All Tyson employees can begin earning the 20 hours starting on Jan. 1, the company said.

The UFCW initially expressed concerns over the mandate because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not fully approved vaccines, instead granting approval for emergency use. Last week, the FDA granted full approval to Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE’s shot. read more

Tyson said more than 90,000 employees, or 75% of its U.S. workforce of 120,000, have received at least one dose of a vaccine, up from about 56,000 before the mandate.

Some workers can be exempt from the mandate for religious or medical reasons, according to the UFCW.

MEDICAL JOURNALS WARN CLIMATE ACTION CANNOT BE PUT ON HOLD WHILE WE DEAL WITH COVID

These effects, which hit those most vulnerable like minorities, children and poorer communities hardest, are just the beginning.


AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

SEP 06, 2021 11:40:22 IST

Global warming is already affecting people's health so much that emergency action on climate change cannot be put on hold while the world deals with the Covid-19 pandemic, medical journals across the globe warned on Monday.

"Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world," read an editorial published in more than 220 leading journals ahead of the Cop26 climate summit in November.

Researchers said there was "mounting evidence that we are nearing or have already crossed" a number of climate tipping points.

Since the pre-industrial era, temperatures have risen around 1.1 degrees Celsius (34 degrees Fahrenheit).

The editorial, written by the editors-in-chief of over a dozen journals including the Lancet, the East African Medical Journal, Brazil's Revista de Saude Publica and the International Nursing Review, said this had caused a plethora of health problems.

"In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people older than 65 years has increased by more than 50 percent," it read.

"Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality."

It also pointed to the decline in agricultural production, "hampering efforts to reduce undernutrition."

These effects, which hit those most vulnerable like minorities, children and poorer communities hardest, are just the beginning, it warned.

As things stand, global warming could reach +1.5C on pre-industrial levels around 2030, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

And that, along with the continued loss of biodiversity, "risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse," the editorial warned.

"Despite the world's necessary preoccupation with Covid-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions."

In a statement ahead of the publication of the editorial, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: "The risks posed by climate change could dwarf those of any single disease."

"The Covid-19 pandemic will end, but there is no vaccine for the climate crisis.

"Every action taken to limit emissions and warming brings us closer to a healthier and safer future."

The editorial pointed out that many governments met the threat of Covid-19 with "unprecedented funding" and called for "a similar emergency response" to the environmental crisis, highlighting the benefits.

"Better air quality alone would realise health benefits that easily offset the global costs of emissions reductions," it read.

The authors also said "governments must make fundamental changes to how our societies and economies are organised and how we live."

Climate crisis: Over 200 health journals urge world leaders to tackle “catastrophic harm”

BMJ 2021; 374 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2177

(Published 06 September 2021)Cite this as: BMJ 2021;374:n2177

Linked Editorial

Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health


Jacqui Wise Author affiliations

More than 200 health journals have called on governments to take emergency action to tackle the “catastrophic harm to health” from climate change.

A joint editorial says that while recent targets to reduce emissions and conserve biodiversity are welcome, they are not enough and need to be matched with credible short and longer term plans.1

The editorial was published simultaneously on 6 September in 233 international titles including The BMJ, the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, the East African Medical Journal, the Chinese Science Bulletin, the National Medical Journal of India, and the Medical Journal of Australia. A full list of authors and signatories can be found here: https://bit.ly/3n1qzXB.

“As health professionals, we must do all we can to aid the transition to a sustainable, fairer, resilient, and healthier world,” the editorial says. “We, as editors of health journals, call for governments and other leaders to act, marking 2021 as the year that the world finally changes course.”

The editorial is being published ahead of next week’s UN General Assembly, one of the last international meetings taking place before the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November. It has been coordinated by the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, a coalition of leading UK health bodies.

Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ and one of the editorial’s coauthors, said, “Health professionals have been on the front line of the covid-19 crisis, and they are united in warning that going above 1.5°C and allowing the continued destruction of nature will bring the next, far deadlier crisis.

“Wealthier nations must act faster and do more to support those countries already suffering under higher temperatures. 2021 has to be the year the world changes course—our health depends on it.”

Transforming economies

Health professionals and health journals have been warning for decades about the severe and growing effects from climate change, including extreme temperatures, destructive weather events, and the degradation of essential ecosystems.

The impact of climate change disproportionately affects the most vulnerable people in society including children and elderly people, ethnic minorities, poorer communities, and people with underlying health conditions.

The editorial urges world leaders to transform societies and economies by supporting the redesign of transport systems, cities, the production and distribution of food, and markets for financial investments and health systems. This will need substantial investment but will have enormous positive benefits, it argues, including reduced air pollution, increased physical activity, and improved housing and diet.

Wealthier countries that have disproportionately created the environmental crisis must do more to support low and middle income countries in building cleaner, healthier, and more resilient societies, say the authors.

Eric Rubin, editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, said, “The environment and health are inextricably intertwined. The changing climate is endangering us in many ways, including its critical impacts on health and healthcare delivery. As medical and public health practitioners, we have an obligation not only to anticipate new healthcare needs but also to be active participants in limiting the causes of the climate crisis.”

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said, “The risks posed by climate change could dwarf those of any single disease. The IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report shows that every fraction of a degree hotter endangers our health and future. Similarly, every action taken to limit emissions and warming brings us closer to a healthier and safer future.”

References
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Atwoli L,
Baqui AH,
Benfield T,
et al. Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health. BMJ2021;374:n1734. doi:10.1136/bmj.n1734. https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1734.