Summer 2021 edges out 'Dust Bowl' as hottest ever for contiguous U.S.

By Zachary Rosenthal, AccuWeather


Flames engulf a small cabin during the Caldor fire near Lower Echo Lake, California, on August 30. California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Utah all experienced their warmest meteorological summers of all time this year. 

File Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 10 (UPI) -- As the sweltering summer of 2021 draws to a close, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed what you might have been thinking: This summer was an unusually hot one.

During meteorological summer, which occurs from June 1 to Sept. 1, the average temperature across the contiguous United States was 74.0 degrees Fahrenheit -- 2.6 degrees above average.

By an extremely narrow margin, the heat this summer exceeded the record heat that occurred during the "Dust Bowl" summer of 1936, when hot and dry conditions baked parts of the Midwest and Canadian Prairies and caused devastating impacts.

Summer 2021 broke records across the country, with 18.4% of the contiguous United States experiencing the warmest summer in recorded history. Five states -- California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Utah -- all experienced their warmest meteorological summers of all time, with 16 other states experiencing one of their top-five hottest summers.

Many notable heat waves hit the country this summer, including a record-setting June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest that crumbled infrastructure in Portland, Ore.

Temperatures in Portland hit an unprecedented 116 degrees, a figure that cities like Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore have never come close to hitting.

In Canada, the mercury reached an unbelievable 121 degrees in Lytton, British Columbia, which set a new record for the highest temperature ever recorded in the country. Just a few days later, a wildfire engulfed nearly 90 of Lytton, with days of hot and dry conditions turning the area into a tinderbox.

A second heat wave torched the Pacific Northwest in August, with temperatures 15 to 25 degrees above normal. Temperatures in Portland hit 102, while Bellingham, Wash., broke its all-time heat record by hitting 100.

In the Northeast, a June heat wave brought multiple 90-degree days to urban areas like Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Multiple heat waves ended up targeting parts of the Midwest and Northeast, with Minneapolis experiencing a nine-day stretch of days above 90 degrees in early June and Washington, D.C., enduring a seven-day stretch of 90-degree weather in July.

While the weather this summer was certainly hot, it is still tough to compare it to the Dust Bowl summer of 1936, which brought the combination of brutal heat, drought, biblical dust storms and vast insect infestations, all of which came together to destroy crops and make life miserable for many Americans.

RELATED Farmers in Canada report massive crop damage in heat wave

From June 19 to Aug. 21, some parts of the country recorded a temperature at or above 100 degrees, excluding weather stations in deserts like Death Valley.

From June through August 1934, Fort Smith, Ark., experienced 53 days with a daily high temperature of 100 degrees or higher, roughly quadruple the average number of days the temperature tops out at 100 there. Topeka, Kan., endured 47 days with 100-degree readings, also about four times its average, and Oklahoma City recorded 45 days at 100, about seven times more than normal.

Meanwhile, Columbia, Mo., recorded 34 100-degree days that year, close to triple what it ordinarily experiences. Making matters worse, there was no air conditioning at the time.

Dust filled the skies from the Midwest all the way to the Eastern Seaboard, causing conditions so blinding that trains would accidentally miss their stops. Doors and windows had to be sealed shut to prevent dust from getting inside homes. When too much dust settled in attics, ceilings were at risk of collapsing.

While the summer of 2021 was hot, it was more wet than dry and dusty across much of the country. Even as parts of the West continue to suffer from sweltering heat and dry conditions, the country had its eighth-wettest meteorological summer on record. Mississippi had its wettest summer of all time, and Alabama, Massachusetts, Michigan and New York had a summer that ranked among their five wettest.

Texas sues 6 school districts with mask mandates in defiance of gov's order
By Joshua Fechter, The Texas Tribune


Workers at a public library in Plano, Texas. change out signs requiring a mask to enter on March 9 in preparation for changes in the state's mask mandate made by Gov. Greg Abbott. File Photo by Ian Halperin/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 10 (UPI) -- For the first time in the Texas mask wars, Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing six school districts that have defied Gov. Greg Abbott's ban on local masking orders.

Paxton on Friday sued the Elgin, Galveston, Richardson, Round Rock, Sherman and Spring school districts for requiring students, teachers, school employees and visitors to don face coverings while on their premises, which he dubbed "unlawful political maneuvering."

"If districts choose to spend their money on legal fees, they must do so knowing that my office is ready and willing to litigate these cases," Paxton said in a statement. "I have full confidence that the courts will side with the law -- not acts of political defiance."

The governor's executive order bars local officials from compelling people to wear masks. Until this week, Abbott and Paxton have been on defense as several school districts, cities and counties in the state's major metropolitan areas have sued over the order -- or outright ignored it.

Some 85 school districts and six counties have instituted mask mandates of some kind in defiance of Abbott's ban, citing the need to protect schoolchildren too young to get the vaccine amid the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.

The legal push-and-pull between the state's Republican leadership and local officials has led to a patchwork of rules about mask-wearing across the state as judges uphold, revoke and reinstate the various requirements, creating confusion for Texans about whether they or their kids must wear a mask.

Abbott had called on Texas lawmakers to send him a bill that would definitively stop school officials from requiring students, teachers and other school employees to wear face coverings. But the prospect never gained steam in the Legislature.

Abbott and Paxton for weeks have threatened local governments and public schools that adopted masking rules with legal action -- a threat Paxton made good on this week.

Round Rock Independent School District officials did not comment on the lawsuit, but said in a statement that the mask requirement "is helping their schools stay open."

"We do work closely with both our local health authorities in Williamson and Travis counties who advise us that masks remain an essential tool in stemming the spread of COVID-19 in our classrooms," Round Rock ISD officials said.

Spring Independent School District officials haven't yet seen Paxton's lawsuit, they said in a statement. adding they only learned about it through a press release from the attorney general's office.

"Spring ISD will let the legal process unfold and allow the courts to decide the merits of the case," officials said.

Richardson Independent School District officials declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

The remaining school districts did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In at least one lawsuit filed Thursday evening, Paxton asked a Galveston County judge to temporarily halt Galveston ISD's mask mandate, arguing that Abbott has the power to override local emergency orders.

Additional reporting by Brian Lopez, The Texas Tribune

ORWELLIANISM IS ALIVE IN TEXAS

Texas Gov. Abbott signs law against tech firms banning users for content


Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs into law a controversial bill that opponents say will give the government the power to regulate speech online. Photo courtesy Office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott


Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill that prohibits large social media companies from banning users over their political opinions, attracting the criticism of free speech activists.

House Bill 20 targets social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and aims to prevent them from banning users over their politics. It also requires the companies to disclose their content management and moderation policies and implement a complaint and appeals process for content they remove.

The bill also permits users who were restricted or deplatformed to sue the companies and allows the attorney general to file suit on their behalf.

"Freedom of speech is under attack in Texas," Abbott said Thursday in a recorded statement. "There is a dangerous movement by some social media companies to silence conservative ideals and values. This is wrong and we will not allow it in Texas."

Companies must also remove illegal content with 48 hours while restricting email service providers from interfering with the sending or receiving of emails based on their content.

"In Texas, we will always fight for your freedom of speech," he said. "It is now law that conservative viewpoints cannot be banned on social media."

The bill is similar to one Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in May and was halted from going into effect in late June by District Judge Robert Hinkle, who said it imposed "sweeping requirements" on some social media companies in violation of their constitutional rights.

RELATED U.S. attorney general announces lawsuit against Texas abortion law

He said it forces companies to host speech they don't agree with and prevents them from voicing their own opinions.

The laws in both states were pursued in the wake of Facebook and Twitter banning the accounts of former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol building.

Steve DelBianco, president of NetChoice, a trade association of businesses that filed a suit seeking to block the Florida law, condemned the Texas version of the bill as an attempt to regulate online speech.

"This bill abandons conservative values, violates the First Amendment and forces websites to host obscene, antisemitic, racist, hateful and otherwise awful content," DelBianco said in a statement. "Moderation of user posts is crucial to keeping the Internet safe for Texas families, but this bill would put the Texas government in charge of content policies."

According to a poll conducted by NetChoice, 61% of Republicans in the state don't want the government to force social media companies to host content that offends users while 74% said they think the government should allow social media to remove offensive posts to make their sites more family and workplace friendly.

Adam Kovacevich, founder and chief executive of the Chamber of Progress, a trade group that represents technology companies, said HB20 will put more hate speech, scams, terrorist content and misinformation online.

"When you force social media platforms to pull their referees," he said in a statement, "the bad guys are going to throw more fouls."

 

Black holes found to exert a pressure on their environment

by Neil Vowles, University of Sussex

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Physicists at the University of Sussex have discovered that black holes exert a pressure on their environment, in a scientific first.

In 1974 Stephen Hawking made the seminal discovery that black holes emit thermal radiation. Previous to that, black holes were believed to be inert, the final stages of a dying heavy star.

The University of Sussex scientists have shown that they are in fact even more complex thermodynamic systems, with not only a temperature but also a pressure.

The serendipitous discovery was made by Professor Xavier Calmet and Folkert Kuipers in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sussex, and is published today in Physical Review D.

Calmet and Kuipers were perplexed by an extra figure that was presenting in equations that they were running on quantum gravitational corrections to the entropy of a black hole.

During a discussion on this curious result on Christmas Day 2020, the realization that what they were seeing was behaving as a pressure dawned. Following further calculations they confirmed their exciting finding that quantum gravity can lead to a pressure in black holes.

Xavier Calmet, Professor of Physics at the University of Sussex, said: "Our finding that Schwarzschild black holes have a pressure as well as a temperature is even more exciting given that it was a total surprise. I'm delighted that the research that we are undertaking at the University of Sussex into quantum gravity has furthered the scientific communities' wider understanding of the nature of black holes.

"Hawking's landmark intuition that black holes are not black but have a radiation spectrum that is very similar to that of a black body makes black holes an ideal laboratory to investigate the interplay between quantum mechanics, gravity and thermodynamics.

"If you consider black holes within only general relativity, one can show that they have a singularity in their centers where the laws of physics as we know them must breakdown. It is hoped that when quantum field theory is incorporated into general relativity, we might be able to find a new description of black holes.

"Our work is a step in this direction, and although the pressure exerted by the black hole that we were studying is tiny, the fact that it is present opens up multiple new possibilities, spanning the study of astrophysics, particle physics and quantum physics."

Folkert Kuipers, doctoral researcher in the school of Mathematical and Physical Science at the University of Sussex, said: "It is exciting to work on a discovery that furthers our understanding of black holes—especially as a research student.

"The pin-drop moment when we realized that the mystery result in our equations was telling us that the black hole we were studying had a pressure—after months of grappling with it—was exhilarating.

"Our result is a consequence of the cutting-edge research that we are undertaking into quantum physics at the University of Sussex and it shines a new light on the quantum nature of black holes."'

Black holes? They are like a hologram

More information: Xavier Calmet et al, Quantum gravitational corrections to the entropy of a Schwarzschild black hole, Physical Review D (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.104.06601

Journal information: Physical Review D 

Provided by University of Sussex 

Scientists discover mysterious ‘quantum pressure’ emanating from a black hole
Is a parallel universe pushing back?




STORY BY
Tristan Greene

Did you know Neural is taking the stage this fall? Together with an amazing line-up of experts, we will explore the future of AI during TNW Conference 2021. Secure your online ticket now!

Scientists from the University of Sussex recently stumbled upon a startling discovery: black holes emit quantum pressure.

What’s quantum pressure? Nobody’s quite sure, but it’s very exciting!

Up front: To put this discovery into perspective, the last time someone discovered a new mechanical facet of black holes was when Stephen Hawking determined they emit thermal radiation in 1974.

The Sussex researchers were conducting a study on a Schwarzchild black hole – considered the simplest of all black hole types – when they stumbled across a mathematical outlier.

Per a press release:

The serendipitous discovery was made by Professor Xavier Calmet and Folkert Kuipers in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sussex.

Calmet and Kuipers were perplexed by an extra figure that was presenting in equations that they were running on quantum gravitational corrections to the entropy of a black hole. … Following further calculations they confirmed their exciting finding that quantum gravity can lead to a pressure in black holes.

Background: Einstein’s theory of relativity doesn’t really cover this. In essence, the Sussex team’s managed to add an extra layer of information to our existing knowledge of black holes.

Between Einstein’s theory of relativity, Hawking‘s observations on black hole temperatures, and the new research attempting to define the quantum pressure of black holes, we’re starting to bring the physics of singularities into focus.

Quick take: What we don’t know about black holes could fill an entire universe. It’s long been assumed that nothing, not even light, can escape a singularity. But that assumption may not be able to account for quantum pressure.

Where does quantum pressure come from? How does a black hole – a bunch of matter condensed into a single, infinitely small point – manage to exert pressure as well? How intrinsically related to this measurement of pressure is the thermodynamic radiation of a black hole?

What does this mean for multiverse theories involving ‘white holes‘ in an opposite, parallel universe existing as a mirror reflection of our universe’s black holes? Is the white universe pushing back against our black holes?

We have so many questions!

But this is early work and it’ll take years for other science teams to confirm these results and come up with novel uses for the data.

You can read the entire paper here.

[Related: Immortality or spaghetti? Why parking your spaceship inside a black hole is a huge gamble]

 

66% Of Gulf Of Mexico Oil Production Still Offline On Friday

By Julianne Geiger - Sep 10, 2021, 4:30 PM CDT

The largest deepwater crude oil terminal in the United States has reopened in full after Hurricane Ida struck force a closure, a spokesperson said on Friday, according to Reuters.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port has been closed since August 28 in anticipation of Hurricane Ida.

But while LOOP LLC is back in business, 65 (11.61%) Gulf of Mexico platforms remain evacuated, and 66.36% of all Gulf of Mexico oil production remains offline—or 1.2 million barrels per day. 75.55% of all natural gas production also remains shut-in as of Friday, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

Oil production in the United States was seriously affected last week, sinking to just 10 million barrels per day—a level not seen since February.

Hurricane Ida is the worst hurricane that the U.S. offshore industry has seen in the Gulf of Mexico in 16 years, when Hurricane Katrina disrupted oil production on some level for many months, according to Zerohedge.

But Hurricane Ida has caused the largest-ever initial loss of crude oil production that the GoM producers have ever see.

Although LOOP reports that it is open, Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking data shows no vessels docked in port on Friday. However, there is one VLCC, bound for Asia, waiting to load crude oil.

Royal Dutch Shell declared a force majeure on numerous contracts on Thursday, canceling some export cargoes after Mars offshore facilities were damaged.  At least two of the cargoes that were canceled were destined for China.

Additional VLCCs, including from China, are headed to LOOP for crude loadings for this month.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

DAILY SCIENCE
Insects and fallen trees are a potent duo when it comes to climate change
Climate change and declining insect populations could alter how wood rots in forests around the world, scientists say. The implications are big.

By Warren Cornwall
September 8, 2021

When tallying up the myriad things sending planet-warming gases into the atmosphere, don’t overlook bugs.

While humans drive up the overall levels of greenhouse gases by burning fossil fuels, a variety of natural forces shape how the planet “breathes” – absorbing and releasing carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping molecules. Plants and oceans soak up CO2. Forest fires and volcanoes release it.

Now, scientists have added another important but neglected piece of the puzzle: decaying trees and the insects that feed on them. In a globe-spanning experiment, researchers have found that decaying wood releases more carbon each year than what humans produce by burning fossil fuels. Insects drive nearly a third of that activity by speeding wood decay.

“The study highlights the role played by dead wood in the global carbon cycle and the functional importance of insects in the decomposition of wood,” said Jörg Müller, head of research at Germany’s Bavarian Forest National Park. “In this way, we are closing another gap in the global modelling of carbon cycles.”

It’s no secret that rotting wood releases carbon. But much less was known about how quickly it happens around the world and what factors influence it. Such information is important as scientists work to understand and model the ebb and flow of greenhouse gases in a world being reshaped by climate change. So Müller and 73 other scientists teamed up create a global map of how wood rots.

To do this, researchers took baton-like half-meter long sections from 142 different native trees at 55 different sites on every continent but Antarctica, selected to provide a range of latitudes, temperatures and precipitation levels. They laid the wood out in the forest and tracked its fate for up to three years. To monitor the effects of insects, some samples were stored in insect-proof mesh boxes, while others were left exposed.

Using the forest as a laboratory came with its share of headaches. In one location, a test site had to be shielded from passing elephants. Others were struck by forest fires or floods.

Despite the difficulties, the researchers emerged with enough data to create a detailed dead wood atlas. All told, they found that decaying wood releases around 10.9 billion metric tons of carbon per year, approximately a seventh of all the carbon trapped in dead wood around the world, and equal to 115% of annual carbon emissions from fossil fuels, according to the study published in Nature on Sept. 1.

But what happens to a tree when it falls in the woods depends a lot on the location. Most of the action is in the tropics. The scientists found that 93% of the carbon is released from tropical forests, thanks to a combination of more wood, warmer temperatures and an abundance of wood-eating insects such as termites. In one year, wood at test sites in the tropics typically lost nearly a third of its mass. By contrast, in the boreal forests of the far north, it decayed at just 3% each year. All told, insects played a role in 29% of the carbon released from decaying wood, largely in the tropics.

Climate change could make dead wood an even bigger factor. The experiment revealed a strong connection between warmer temperatures and faster breakdown of wood, likely because microbes and insects become more active as they warm. As the climate warms further, the “results indicate that wood decomposition rates are likely to increase,” the scientists write.

The future of dead wood could also be influenced by the decline of global insect populations. Insect numbers on land have fallen by around 9% per decade, according to a 2020 paper in Science. To understand the implications for wood decomposition, however, would take a more detailed picture of how different organisms interact with each other as they consume wood, according to the researchers.

The new research shows yet another way the shifts in temperature and biodiversity could ripple through key global systems. “Both climate change and the loss of insects have the potential to alter the decomposition of wood,” said Sebastian Seibold, lead author of the new paper, and co-director of research at Berchtesgaden National Park in Germany. “And therefore, the carbon and nutrient cycles worldwide.”

Seibold, Et. Al. “The contribution of insects to global forest deadwood decomposition,” Nature. Sept. 1. 2021. Image: Jean and Fred via Flickr

Opinion: A symbol of the US' decline as a world power

September 11, 2001, marked a historic turning point. Twenty years later, the US' withdrawal from Afghanistan is a sign that the erstwhile global policeman wants to put domestic policy first, says DW's Ines Pohl.

The 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington DC killed almost 3,000 people — and may have marked the end of an era

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 struck at the heart of America. In more ways than one. Never before had there been an attack of this scale on US soil. They were unprecedented both in the number of victims they caused and in the precision with which the terrorists destroyed major symbols of the country's economic and military world dominance in just an hour. It is probably only thanks to a handful of courageous passengers that a fourth plane did not end its deadly flight at the White House or the Capitol after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Today, 20 years later, the shock, the existential trauma, would seem almost forgotten — and certainly will have been by anyone younger than 30, who will have few memories of the day and its aftermath. But even for most of those Americans who live far from New York and Washington, DC, the whole train of events has been consigned to history.

DW's Ines Pohl is based in the US

Airport security measures might still be a pain, but people have become used to the long queues, take off their shoes without question and are used to paying exorbitant prices for a bottle of water once they have cleared security.

The 20th anniversary of the attacks would probably have made little difference to this virtual historical oblivion. But then President Joe Biden linked the US' withdrawal from Afghanistan to the fateful date of September 11. He said that all US troops would have left the country by that date this year. He probably did so in a bid to suggest that the mission had been brought to a successful conclusion.
Afghanistan is far from being a success

But in view of thefootage from Kabul, it is hard to talk about a foreign policy success. And on the domestic front, the ongoing debate about what to do with refugees from Afghanistan has once again fanned the flames of Islamophobia. Once again, as in the years directly following the attacks, Muslims have become political pawns who are being instrumentalized in the dirty election campaign ahead of the midterms. Images of the attack 20 years ago are being promulgated with precisely this intention.

It often makes sense to look at the past in order to understand the present. In September 2001, George W. Bush had not been president for even a year. He received a lot of approval for declaring he would use all necessary means to track down the person behind the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden.

Billions flowed into the so-called war on terror. Intelligence agencies and the military received state-of-the-art equipment and plenty of funding. The narrative went that the US was at risk of external attack and everything must be done, once and for all, to put an end to the threat.

And at first, this narrative was largely accepted by the population. But with each passing year, as the images of the collapsing towers continued to fade, the willingness to sacrifice more lives and funds on wars with seemingly no end in sight dwindled. The political elite was caught in a trap. It could no longer justify the wars by saying they were to combat terrorist networks, at least not since the 2011 killing of bin Laden in Pakistan.

So, gradually, the focus of justification efforts shifted towards the support of democratic forces with the goal of turning Afghanistan into a country with a Western form of government. As had happened with Vietnam, the US once again made the mistake of believing that it could export its political system and protect the world from communism, extremism and terrorism.

9/11: NEW YORK CITY, 20 YEARS LATER

Silent commemoration

Since its opening in 2014, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum has welcomed millions of visitors. It commemorates the nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attacks and the victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Each year on September 11, relatives gather and read the names of those killed. Tourists and visitors also come to remember.

123456789

The dream is over

This dream is over. Biden has made clear that US foreign policy should serve only US interests. US military involvement will be scaled down even more. The president will devote himself to domestic needs such as improving infrastructure and tackling the climate crisis.

In terms of foreign policy, there is really only one issue that still carries weight for the US, which is its power struggle with China. In Syria, the US has already left the field to Russia and it is also holding back in Libya. Even Israel is trying to become less dependent on its strongest ally by building ties with the Arab states. It is unclear how long these new alliances might hold.

But in the meantime, many experts fear that the further the US moves away from the global game, the lower the barrier inhibiting states from carrying out preemptive strikes will become.

Twenty years after the terrorist attacks, the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center symbolize the disappearance of the world's global policeman. And they are an urgent warning that there will have to be new alliances if the emerging and widening vacuum is not to be filled by anti-democratic forces.

Watch video42:31 9/11 - The unheeded warning

As leaders debate systemic racism, Singh reflects on run for PM as person of colour

By Nick Wells

The Canadian Press
Fri., Sept. 10, 2021

BURNABY, B.C. - Being in the running to become Canada’s prime minister is “surreal” given his experience growing up looking very different from how he used to picture the country’s leaders, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says.

Singh told a virtual event that he was made fun of for his appearance as a child and would have never imagined himself as an elected official, given how many political leaders are not people of colour.

“I know people had it a lot worse,” he said on Instagram Live. “But if you asked me, ‘What did a leader look like?’ I would’ve described every other prime minister before.”

His comments came after he opposed Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet’s comments equating the experience of Indigenous people to the treatment of Quebecers.

In Thursday night’s English-language debate, 18-year-old Marek McLeod, a first-time voter from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., asked federal party leaders how they would restore trust after more than 150 years of “lies and abuse” to Indigenous people.

In his response, Blanchet said that no one should tell any nation what to do and that every nation, including Quebec, should be recognized as such and treated like an equal.

Singh said Friday in Ottawa that he wouldn’t equate the injustices faced by Indigenous people to those faced by Quebecers.

“I wouldn’t make that equivalence, so I don’t agree with that portion, but it is true to say that francophones across Canada face systemic discrimination because of the language they speak,” he said.
.
“They can’t access services in their language, they can’t access education in their language, that’s a real challenge.”

Systemic racism and discrimination are found across Canada and can be seen in the fact that many Indigenous communities don’t have clean drinking water, Singh said.

The NDP leader, who has been fending off accusations by Blanchet that he is not doing enough to denounce “Quebec bashing,” is fighting to improve the party’s poor showing in the province during the last election, when they eked out just one seat.

Singh also revealed the NDP will release the full costs of its campaign promises on Saturday, just over a week before election day on Sept. 20.

The NDP will be the last of the three major parties to release its costing, but Singh said Canadians already know what the NDP are proposing, including universal pharmacare, affordable childcare, dental care and a tax on the wealthy to pay for its campaign promises.

Singh arrived in Burnaby, B.C., on Friday afternoon to participate in advance voting. He spoke briefly with reporters afterward, talking about the strange nature of casting a ballot in his own name.

“What a cool feeling. It’s a giddy thing,” he said, adding that it seemed “silly” to feel so excited about voting for himself.

He took selfies and spoke with supporters before leaving for the Instagram Live chat.

Singh told the virtual event that immigrants to Canada are often afraid or insecure about demanding change, and he wants to amend that.

“I feel there’s this insecurity sometimes when they’re new to Canada and sometimes they don’t want to rock the boat or complain,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘This is your home.’”

He added that he disagrees with the election being called as Canada deals with the fourth wave of COVID-19 and shops struggle with a loss of business.

“It was a horrible decision and Justin Trudeau should’ve never done it,” Singh said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2021.

BERNIER'S PPC FOLLOWERS

Known white nationalists, far-right groups among election protest organizers, expert says

Nicole Bogart

CTVNews.ca Writer
Thursday, September 9, 2021

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is escorted by his RCMP security detail as protesters shout and throw rocks while leaving a campaign stop at a local micro brewery during the Canadian federal election campaign in London Ont., on Monday, September 6, 2021. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

EDMONTON -- Since the beginning of the federal election campaign, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has been dogged by groups of vocal protesters shouting obscenities, hurling racist and misogynistic slurs, and carrying graphic signs.

Some of the people attending these protests are the same cast of characters who have been staging anti-lockdown, anti-mask and anti-vaccine protests throughout the pandemic, according to observations from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. Others are newcomers, joining in to oppose vaccine mandates and other COVID-19-related election promises.

But at the heart of the protests are prominent members of what experts describe as far-right, pro-insurrectionist hate groups who subscribe to a range of extreme views.

“They’re talking about hanging journalists, hanging the political opposition,” Elizabeth Simons, deputy director of The Canadian Anti-Hate Network, told CTVNews.ca by phone Thursday.

“This is a hard pill for people to swallow, but we would describe this as an anti-democratic and pro-insurrectionist movement.”

A ‘GROWING MOVEMENT’ DATING BACK TO PRE-PANDEMIC PROTESTS

According to Simons, many of the prominent voices involved in this movement can be traced back to the 2017 protests over M-103, a motion that called on the House of Commons to condemn Islamophobia.

“When the anti-M-103 movement started to gain traction, that was really when the so-called ‘patriot movement' took to the streets in significant numbers,” she said. “Their next lightning rod was the Yellow Vest Canada movement. We saw significant numbers online, over 100,000 members in some groups and significant street level protest.”

When the pandemic hit, many of the same individuals began participating in the COVID-19 conspiracy movement, ​Simons says based on observations her organization made when comparing footage of the protests. These individuals often capitalized on legitimate grievances caused by the pandemic like economic concerns related to lockdowns.

“Once it gets to the pandemic, we have a number of serious and legitimate grievances. But the underlying kind of tenor is that it’s a hate movement,” Simons said.

“As it's been growing, we have more and more bad actors, actual neo-Nazis, white nationalists and hate group members who recognize the divide, are ready to exploit it and they're ready to recruit.

"This didn’t come out of nowhere.”

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network has identified known white nationalists in attendance at the Sept. 6 campaign stop in London, Ont. that ended in gravel being thrown in Trudeau’s direction, including Tyler Russell, leader of the far-right group Canada First. Several individuals affiliated with the People’s Party of Canada were also identified.

But Simons described the group as largely non-partisan, noting that Conservative politicians like Ontario Premier Doug Ford have also been targeted by key members of the movement.

“When we say that they're non-partisan, what we mean is that they're really not connected to any one party, but if there was a party that they were throwing their support behind, it would be the PPC,” Simons said.

“Anyone that supports health mandate, or supports vaccines is their enemy… they see [Trudeau] as a good opportunity, but they’re also going after others.”

PROTESTS BEING PLANNED ON FACEBOOK, TELEGRAM

As both the campaign and protests heat up, The Canadian Anti-Hate Network has continued to track conversations among the groups, many of which appear to take place on Telegram, a heavily encrypted messaging platform that has surged in popularity among right-wing groups and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists.

Channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are also being used to plan protests and share campaign event itineraries and plot the tracks of campaign buses.

Russell, for example, took to Discord, a messaging app made popular by gamers, ahead of the Sept. 6 event to say he was aware that Trudeau was bound for London, claiming “we have a guy following the bus.”

One prominent Facebook page that acts as an online gathering point for protesters in Ontario, boasting nearly 5,000 members, routinely posts links to media advisories asking users for details about Trudeau’s whereabouts.

“Watch out for decoys,” reads a comment on one post. “In order to keep the angry mob away from him, they will have a plan B to look good at a comfortable location at the last minute.”

While Facebook offers a wide reach for these groups to find new supporters, platforms like Telegram provide shelter from the restrictions Facebook places on content like COVID-19 misinformation and hate speech.​

"We do not tolerate hate or harassment on Facebook. We proactively remove content that violates our policies when we detect it, as well as when it is reported to us. This includes content that has any potential for real world harm. We are continually reviewing activity on our platform for potential violations and take action in line with our Community Standards," a Facebook spokesperson told CTVNews.ca via email.

Although Facebook does not limit its users from planning protests, its user agreement prohibits harassment, including "calls for death, serious disease or disability, or physical harm aimed at an individual or group."

PEOPLE WITH GENUINE CONCERNS ‘AT RISK’

Simons says that she’s also concerned about Canadians with genuine grievances getting involved in protests that puts them – in some cases unknowingly – shoulder-to-shoulder with hate groups.

“It’s really doing our dialogue a disservice if we chalk all of the vaccine hesitancy up to these types of people. There are people who do have very genuine concerns and they’re at risk of being sucked into these movements.” she said.

“It's scary to see it playing out the way it is on the campaign trail. But these people are not just going to go away when this campaign is over. There's always going to be surface-level, legitimate grievances like the economy, the working class and what have you."

"[But] the more people are feeling disillusioned and anxious about those things, the more people are at risk of being sucked in. And right now, we have this massive network of people with all kinds of belief systems, and not all of them are hateful right now.”

Edited by Ryan Flanagan

‘Anger and frustration’: PPC 

support climbs in final weeks

 of election campaign

Fri., September 10, 2021, 

The People’s Party of Canada has gained momentum in polls in the final weeks of the federal election campaign. The PPC’s rising popularity comes as anti-vaccine protests greet some party leaders at stops across the country. The party, led by former Conservative MP and cabinet minister Maxime Bernier, opposes vaccine mandates and lockdown restrictions.

On this episode of Crisis Management, Jeff Lagerquist and the Public Policy Forum’s Sean Speer discuss what’s driving the PPC’s popularity, and what factors Canadians are weighing as they get ready to cast their votes in the federal election.

For more exclusive content from the show, download the Crisis Management podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

 PERSONAL FINANCE

Opinion: Bank of Canada sending retirement savers to the wolves

It’s up another rung on the risk ladder for retirement investors who need growth to get their portfolios to those sunset-sailboat retirements in the brochures.

This week the Bank of Canada held its benchmark interest rate at one quarter of one per cent for the foreseeable future. For borrowers that means yet another reprieve on paying down debt. For savers it means either settling for a near-zero return on fixed-income or venturing further into the murky waters of equity markets for income.

It’s the continuation of a trend going on twelve years when central banks slashed interest rates to near zero to unfreeze global money markets in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. Since then there has been plenty of talk about gradually increasing rates but the pandemic lockdown threw cold water on that.

ADVICE FOR THOSE WHO SOLD THE FARM / SMALL BUSINESS AND LIVE OFF THE INCOME AKA COUPON CUTTERS

It’s also a far cry from the early 1980’s when lenders were rewarded. At the time a guaranteed investment certificate (GIC) paid double-digit returns. Even with inflation, retirement investors could generate returns and pad the risk from the equities in their portfolios with a significant portion of their savings in safe fixed income products like government bonds. At the time, the general rule was to set aside a percentage of your portfolio in fixed income equal to your age to ensure the money would be there as you near retirement. In other words, half of your savings would be in fixed income when you turned 50 years old.

That rule has fallen by the wayside over the past decade; forcing savers to search for yield from dividend paying equities, which are being supported to a large degree by low borrowing rates. Unlike fixed income, dividends are paid at the discretion of the company and the underlying stock is subject to price changes at the discretion of the market.

FOR THE REST OF US IF WE HAD A PUBLIC SECTOR OR INDUSTRIAL UNION WE BARGAINED FOR DB PENSIONS AS DID PRIVATE SECTOR UNIONS WHO USE SUN LIFE AND MANULIFE FOR BENEFITS AND PENSIONS

The stakes are even higher as more Canadian workplace pension plans shift from the safety of guaranteed payouts from defined benefit (DB) pensions to defined contribution (DC) pensions, which expose retirement savings to the whims of broader equity markets.

According to Statistics Canada, 48.4 per cent of employed men and 34.5 per cent of employed women were covered under a DB pension plan in 1977. At the time, DC pensions were virtually non-existent.

Today the proportion of DB pensions has plunged to 21.4 per cent for men and 28.7 per cent for women. DC pensions and DB/DC hybrid pensions now apply to nearly 14 per cent of employed men and just over ten per cent of working women.        

Overall workplace pension coverage has also declined over the years, leaving more Canadians having to supplement their retirement savings by further investing in often volatile financial markets through their registered retirement savings plans (RRSP) and tax free savings accounts (TFSA).

Even with yields near zero, retirement experts say prudent investors still need a good chunk of their savings in fixed income to stave off a significant and prolonged drop in equity markets. If cash and fixed income reserves run dry older investors in, or nearing, retirement who need to draw on a reliable source of cash for day-to-day living expenses could be forced to sell equities in a down market; leaving less money invested to grow over time and see them through retirement.       

One of the few options to maintain that safety cushion are short term GICs laddered (or spread out) over a few years. They only pay about one per cent but frequent maturities will create as many opportunities as possible to latch on to higher yields when they come.

If they ever come.

Dale Jackson

Personal Finance Columnist, Payback Time

BNN/BLOOMBERG

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