Scientists scramble to harvest ice cores as glaciers melt

By Cassandra Garrison, Clare Baldwin and Marco Hernandez

© Reuters/MEGAN JELINGER 

(Reuters) - Scientists are racing to collect ice cores – along with long-frozen records they hold of climate cycles – as global warming melts glaciers and ice sheets. Some say they are running out of time. And, in some cases, it’s already too late.

Late last year, German-born chemist Margit Schwikowski and a team of international scientists attempted to gather ice cores from the Grand Combin glacier, high on the Swiss-Italian border, for a United Nations-backed climate monitoring effort.

In 2018, they had scouted the site by helicopter and drilled a shallow test core. The core was in good shape, said Schwikowski: It had well-preserved atmospheric gases and chemical evidence of past climates, and ground-penetrating radar showed a deep glacier. Not all glaciers in the Alps preserve both summer and winter snowfall; if all went as planned, these cores would have been the oldest to date that did, she said.

© Reuters/MEGAN JELINGER

But in the two years it took for the scientists to return with a full drilling set-up, some of the information that had been trapped in the ice had vanished. Freeze-thaw cycles had created icy layers and meltwater pools throughout the glacier, what another team member described as a water-laden sponge, rendering the core useless for basic climate science.

The sudden deterioration “tells us exactly how sensitive these glaciers are," said Schwikowski, head of the analytical chemistry group at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland. "We were just two years too late."

The mission on Grand Combin underscores the major challenge scientists face today in collecting ice cores: Some glaciers are disappearing faster than expected. The realization is prompting renewed urgency, causing those who specialize in harvesting ice cores to accelerate missions, rethink where to target next, and expand storage capacity.

(Click here 

https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-CHANGE/ICE-CORES/zjvqkjkjlvx/index.html

 to see a Reuters interactive graphic showing how scientists extract ice cores and retrieve historical climate records.)

Almost all of the world’s glaciers are shrinking, according to the United Nations. In its most comprehensive climate report to date, published in August, the UN concluded that “human influence is very likely the main driver of the near-universal retreat of glaciers globally since the 1990s.” The report also said that without immediate, large-scale action, the average global temperature will reach or exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial temperature average within 20 years.

The pace at which glaciers are losing mass is also increasing. A study published in April in the science journal Nature found glaciers lost 227 gigatons of ice annually from 2000 to 2004, but that increased to an average of 298 gigatons a year after 2015. A gigaton is the equivalent of one billion metric tons. One gigaton of ice would fill New York City's Central Park and stand 341 meters (1,119 feet) high.

About 10% of the land area on earth is currently covered with glacial ice, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

If a glacier is melting and no longer accumulating snow, it means it also isn’t capturing atmospheric gases from today for scientists to study in the future.

Two years ago, the south peak of Sweden’s Kebnekaise mountain lost its designation as the country’s highest point after a third of its summit glacier melted.

For Schwikowski, the disappearance of glaciers isn’t just a professional blow; it’s an emotional hit, too. "The mountains look different without them, barren," she said. In the Alps, the mountains without glaciers are "absolutely frightening."

“COMPLETE SHOCK”

Last September, Schwikowski stood bundled in snow gear as wet cylinders of ice were winched out of the boreholes on Grand Combin. The wetness surprised her, she said. Frigid meltwater drained from ice core pieces that should have been solid. And the core, which should have been translucent, had sections that were perfectly clear.

Ice cores like those from Grand Combin have helped scientists illustrate humanity’s impact on earth's climate by providing a record of greenhouse gases dating back well before industrialization. The ice preserves tiny air bubbles – direct evidence of past atmospheres. Ice also captures air pollutants, pollen and other temperature and precipitation measures in a single archive, all on the same time scale, sometimes at the resolution of individual seasons.

Another member of the Grand Combin expedition, Italian climate scientist Carlo Barbante, said the speed at which the ice on the Alpine massif had melted in the last few years was “much higher than it was before.” Finding the wet cores was a "complete shock," he said.

As a result, Barbante and other scientists - including Schwikowski - sped up plans to extract a core from the Colle Gnifetti glacier on the summit of the Alps’ Monte Rosa, a few hundred meters higher than Grand Combin. In June, several months earlier than originally scheduled, they launched. The two cores they drilled were of good quality, Barbante said

.

Barbante said he is also hoping to organize a trip to Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain and the only possible ice core site left on the continent, next year or the year after. One study cited in the recent UN report calculated that present-day warming has already set in motion melting that will eliminate all glaciers on the mountain by 2060.

A 2009 discovery by American scientist Douglas Hardy of the mummified remains of a 19th century pig on one of the highest points of the mountain’s glaciers suggests some of the climate history the scientists are hoping to retrieve is already gone. "The implication of that is that we've lost [the] last 200 years’ worth of recorded time," said Hardy.

Duration 3:20 Scientists scramble to harvest ice cores as glaciers melt

Barbante and Schwikowski are part of a scientist-led group called Ice Memory that is trying to build an archive of ice cores from glaciers around the world. Ice Memory is endorsed by the UN’s main cultural agency, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

So far they have drilled in Europe, Bolivia and Russia. The cores are temporarily being stored in Europe, but the plan is to ship them to Antarctica for long-term storage because the site wouldn’t depend on power, which could suffer an outage.

"A hundred years from now, when the Alpine glaciers will be completely disappeared, we will have the samples" for future generations of scientists, said Barbante.

EXPANDING ICE STORAGE

Beyond greenhouse gases, scientists say they may be able to use ice cores to study the DNA of ancient bacteria and viruses that could reemerge as the world warms. Frozen insects and plant pollen could also reveal histories of the world’s forests and their fire cycles.

Another team of scientists, whose findings were published in July in scientific journal Microbiome, found viruses nearly 15,000 years old in two ice core samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China. The findings identified genetic codes for 33 viruses, at least 28 of which were new to scientists.

That team of scientists included U.S.-based ice core paleoclimatologists Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson, who are husband and wife.

Lonnie Thompson said the speed at which ice is disappearing has driven plans to expand his ice core storage facilities at Ohio State University, which he began fundraising for last year. He hopes to raise $7 million. So far he has raised about $475,000 through donations and pledges, according to the school’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. The renovation will double the facility’s storage capacity to more than 13,550 meters of ice cores.

Some of the cores Thompson and his team have collected are the only remaining ice from some glaciers. Two of the six ice core sites on Kilimanjaro in Africa that his team drilled back in 2000 have disappeared. So have sites they drilled in 2010 in Papua, Indonesia. Others will likely be gone within 50 years, said Thompson.

In some cases, lakes formed on the glaciers’ surfaces as the ice melted, a red flag that indicated melting could be faster than models previously predicted. He said it was a wakeup call that cores needed to be harvested as soon as possible.

“Ice has a wonderful archive of not only the climate, but also the forcings of climate," the major causes of climate change, Thompson said. “Those histories are at risk as the earth warms and the glaciers retreat.”

(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison in Mexico City, Clare Baldwin in Hong Kong and Marco Hernandez in Singapore; Edited by Simon Scarr, Katy Daigle and Cassell Bryan-Low)

BACKGROUNDER

After the 'bazooka', Bank of Japan dismantles the work of its radical chief

ALL CAPITALI$M IS STATE CAPITALI$M

WELL IT'S TIME TO GO

© Reuters/KIM KYUNG-HOON FILE PHOTO:

 Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda attends a news conference in Tokyo

TOKYO (Reuters) - After years of shock-and-awe stimulus, the Bank of Japan is quietly rolling back radical policies introduced by its bold chief Haruhiko Kuroda and pioneering controversial new measures that blur the lines between central banking and politics.

The unwinding of Japan's complex policy is driven by Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya, insiders say, a career central banker considered the top contender https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/boj-kuroda-economy to replace Governor Kuroda whose term ends in 2023.

Amamiya and his top lieutenant Shinichi Uchida have worked behind the scenes to make Kuroda's complicated policy framework--a product of years of unsuccessful attempts to revive stagnant consumer prices--more manageable, and eventually return Japan to more normal interest rate settings, even as the economy struggles with the pandemic.

The BOJ's dwindling monetary options mean the two ambitious technocrats are instead pushing the bank into schemes bordering on industrial policy, such as those designed to encourage bank sector consolidation and green finance.

The most decisive and latest swing in policy direction, though not formally communicated, came in the BOJ's March meeting when it announced it would no longer commit to a fixed programme of risky asset purchases, an inconspicuous sign it was slowing its monetary support.

"With the March move, the BOJ laid the groundwork for an eventual policy normalisation," said a close associate of Kuroda with knowledge on the central bank's policy deliberations.

This account of events around the March meeting is based on interviews with more than two dozen incumbent and former central bank and government officials, ruling and opposition lawmakers and academics with direct or indirect knowledge of monetary policy decisions. The BOJ declined to comment for the story and declined a request by Reuters for interviews with Amamiya and Uchida.

"The current stimulus can't stay forever and must be rolled back at some point," said a former BOJ policymaker who was involved in the March decision. "That's always in the mind of career central bankers."

Officially, the change in March was aimed at extending the lifespan of stimulus policies championed by Kuroda, the man once seen as a bold visionary who could shock the economy out of deflation with his "bazooka" asset-buying programme.

However, insiders say there was another motive: to pave the way for an eventual retreat from these very policies.

While that intention was hidden from markets, it would mark a symbolic end to Kuroda's bold experiment based on the text-book theory that forceful monetary action and communication can influence public price expectations and drive inflation higher.

"It's as if the BOJ is trying to prove itself by doing something new all the time," said former BOJ deputy governor Hirohide Yamaguchi. "What's become clear is that the BOJ can't affect and mould public mindset like jelly."

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's decision to step down this month could make questions around BOJ communication, ultra-loose policy and Kuroda's eventual successor hot issues for Japan's next leader.

Once seen as a symbol of decisive monetary easing, Kuroda appears to be taking a back seat with recent BOJ forecasts predicting inflation will miss the bank's elusive 2% target well beyond his term ending in 2023.

He has also acknowledged the need to address the strains ultra-low interest rates have on financial institutions.

Only half of his six speeches so far this year were about monetary policy, in contrast to his first year as governor in 2013, when all but two of his 15 speeches focused on monetary policy.

With his emphatic advocacy for 2% inflation fading, Kuroda is writing a memoir touching on topics ranging from encounters with various overseas policymakers, to pizza he ate during a business trip to Naples, according to his associates.

"He probably enjoys reading books on philosophy more than chairing board meetings," one said jokingly of the bookish governor.

UNSCRAMBLING EGGS

The planning for an eventual exit from Kuroda-era stimulus remains closely held and has not been part of the bank's official communication.

But a gradual retreat has been under way since 2016, when the BOJ replaced a pledge to pump money at a set pace with a policy controlling interest rates.

A fan of classical music known as "Mr. BOJ" for drafting numerous monetary easing schemes, Amamiya has since early last year been orchestrating a more concerted rollback of the very stimulus he helped Kuroda create.

Details would be worked out by Uchida, who, like Amamiya, has been groomed to move up the BOJ ranks armed with "a wealth of ideas and an extremely sharp mind," say people who have worked with or under him.

The challenge was to mitigate the rising cost of prolonged easing to financial institutions, without giving markets the impression the BOJ was headed for a sharp exit from easy policy.

Amamiya gave the go-ahead to a controversial scheme unveiled in November, under which the BOJ pays 0.1% interest to regional lenders that boost profits or consolidate.

It was a nod to complaints from regional banks the BOJ's negative rate policy was narrowing already thin margins, and reflected concern among policymakers that chronically low rates could destabilise the banking sector.

"It's essentially a scheme to compensate regional banks for the blow from negative rates," one source said.

By mid-2020, the bureaucrats were also debating ways to address what has been their biggest headache: the BOJ's huge holdings of exchange-traded funds (ETF) that exposed its balance sheet to potential losses from market swings.

For years, the government relied on the BOJ to set a price floor for Japan's stock market, discouraging central bankers from ditching a pledge to purchase ETFs at a set pace.

But as stocks kept rising, the political mood shifted. Lawmakers began to complain about the distortion the BOJ's huge presence was causing in the share market.

Last year, an opportunity arose: after ramping up buying to ease market turbulence caused by the pandemic, the BOJ began to scale back purchases and found markets taking the tapering in stride.

That convinced BOJ officials the bank could terminate buying without upending markets, as long as it gave assurances that it would still intervene in times of crisis.

"The BOJ made an absolutely right decision by starting with an ETF taper in heading toward an exit from easy policy," said former trade minister and opposition heavyweight Banri Kaieda, who was once a vocal proponent of aggressive monetary easing.

BLURRED LINES

The next step would be to raise interest rates--the first hike since 2007--and mop up excess cash from the market.

The March move laid the groundwork for that step. But a rate hike could take years due to subdued inflation and will likely be left to Kuroda's successor, sources say.

"If the BOJ is lucky, the debate (on raising rates) could begin from around 2023," former BOJ executive Eiji Maeda told Reuters.

"But this won't be policy normalisation. It will merely be a shift away from an extraordinary stimulus towards a more sustainable monetary easing," said Maeda, who was involved in the drafting of the current stimulus.

Selling the BOJ's huge ETF holdings will be even tougher. While bureaucrats have internally brainstormed ideas, there is no consensus on when and how this could be done, sources say.

To be sure, policymakers both inside and outside the BOJ say stimulus of some kind is still needed to support the struggling economy, and that is unlikely to change when Suga steps down.

That would leave the central bank in a holding pattern, even as its global peers eye exits from crisis-mode stimulus, and force the BOJ to use unconventional initiatives outside the monetary toolbox to juice the economy.

Those include a scheme unveiled in July, which offers cheap funds to banks that lend to activities aimed at battling climate change.

That plan meshes with Suga's pledge to make Japan carbon-neutral by 2050, a sign the BOJ is controversially aligning its policy with government priorities.

Such a proposal is typical of Amamiya, who knows which way the political wind is blowing and can adapt flexibly to shifts in popular opinion, say people who have worked with him.

"We ought to avoid intervening in asset allocation as much as possible. But there's no simple, ever-lasting line you can draw on what's acceptable or not," Amamiya said in July.

"As economies become more sophisticated...the requirements of economic policy become more complex and difficult too."

Such forays into quasi-government policy highlight the BOJ's current lack of conventional policy ammunition and take it into uncharted waters politically.

Miyako Suda, a former BOJ board member, said many of the bank's new programmes leave it with less autonomy over when to withdraw stimulus than they have with conventional policy tools.

"It's no longer a decision the BOJ alone can make," she said. "When the government and the BOJ are working side by side heading for the same direction, things go fine - the problem is when the two part ways."

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Additional reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto, Takaya Yamaguchi, Kaori Kaneko, Kentaro Sugiyama and Takahiko Wada; Editing by Sam Holmes)

Exclusive: Private equity-backed Canadian oil producer Strathcona in talks to buy Caltex Resources -sources

By Shariq Khan and Rod Nickel 

(Reuters) - Private Canadian oil and gas producer Strathcona Resources is in advanced talks to buy rival Caltex Resources for around C$700 million ($552.97 million), adding to its enhanced oil recovery portfolio in Saskatchewan, four sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters.

Caltex attracted interest from at least half a dozen public and private oil companies after the Calgary-based firm hired an investment bank to run a sale process earlier this year, one of the sources said.

 FRACKING 

Caltex deploys enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a method of production that injects polymers or carbon into the ground to extract hard-to-reach oil, extending the lifespan of oilfields.    

ALSO PLAN TO USE METHANE FROM CCS 

 

Canadian EOR companies say the technology required for such projects is expensive and they do not qualify for carbon capture tax credits, as in the United States, placing them at a disadvantage. 

COMING AFTER THE ELECTION 

Deal talks could still fall apart, cautioned the sources, who requested anonymity as the discussions are confidential. Caltex, Strathcona and its owner Waterous Energy Fund did not respond to requests for comment.

Oil and gas operators across North America have embarked on a wave of consolidation this year, hoping to scale up and cut costs to capitalize on rising oil prices after COVID-19 lockdowns last year shrank demand.

Tourmaline Oil Corp bought Montney shale-focused Black Swan Energy Ltd in June, while Whitecap Resources Inc purchased Quantum Energy Partners-backed Kicking Horse Oil & Gas Ltd in April.

Strathcona was formed last year by the merger of two Waterous-backed companies, Strath and Cona. While several private equity firms have also sought to exit their investments to capitalize on the rebound, Waterous Energy Fund has been among the most active buyers in the Canadian oil patch.

It spent C$1.6 billion on nine deals since 2017, according to a Fitch Ratings report published in July, including a controlling stake in Osum Oil Sands in March which it merged into Strathcona three months later.

A person familiar with privately owned Caltex's operations said the company's output totals around 12,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, a fraction of Strathcona's output.

Caltex has two facilities: Druid, which produces heavy oil near Kerrobert, Saskatchewan, and Greater Bodo, a polymer-based EOR site that produces crude along the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary.

Strathcona, which produces 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, also deploys enhanced oil recovery in Saskatchewan.

($1 = 1.2659 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by Denny Thomas and Matthew Lewis)

Biden's employer vaccine rule is good policy, but it also shows we need to go even further with mandates

jbarro@businessinsider.com (Josh Barro) 

 U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about combatting the coronavirus

 pandemic in the State Dining Room of the White House on 

September 9, 2021 in Washington, DC. 

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

President Biden rolled out a new rule that employers with 100 or more workers must mandate the vaccine or require weekly testing.

This adds to local and state-level rules requiring vaccinations in industries like healthcare and food service.

This is a good part of a "swiss cheese" policy to increase population-wide vaccine rates.

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

How "sweeping" is the Biden administration's plan to require every business with 100 or more employees to mandate COVID vaccination or weekly testing for their workers? It is sweeping.

But it's not clear to me it's that much more sweeping than other, less controversial policies already mandating vaccination for large populations. That is to say, other government bodies have imposed mandates that affect a larger percentage of the population they have under their jurisdiction that Biden would with his mandates (in Biden's case that would be the entire US population).

Implicitly, these mandates have two purposes: they seek to increase vaccination rates within a specific context involving specific transmission risks, but they also seek to increase vaccination rates in the general population and reduce general rates of COVID transmission by identifying substantial chunks of the population that can be pushed to get vaccines.

As you look around the country, you see cities and states already mandating vaccination - or strongly inducing it by otherwise imposing onerously frequent testing for the unvaccinated - in a variety of contexts:

Governments are requiring their own employees to get vaccinated. Employers have a particular interest in getting their employees vaccinated, as this reduces sick days, health care costs, and the spread of disease in the workplace. This applies also to the government as an employer.

Governments are requiring employees in particularly sensitive fields to get vaccinated. Many jurisdictions have imposed regulations requiring or inducing vaccination for workers in healthcare and education. New York City requires vaccination for workers in restaurants, bars and entertainment venues. These regulations apply to a mix of government and private-sector employees and are based on the idea that workers in these contexts have high levels of interpersonal contact or have contact with people at especially great risk from COVID.

Governments are requiring students at various institutions to get vaccinated. Many states are requiring vaccination to enroll at public universities, and the Los Angeles Unified School District will even require vaccination for K-12 students aged 12 or older. Congregate settings like colleges and prisons are especially at risk for COVID outbreaks, justifying this regulation.

Some governments are requiring customers of certain establishments to prove vaccination. This is less widespread than employment-based requirements, but jurisdictions including New York City and San Francisco have begun requiring proof of vaccination to enter bars, restaurants and gyms. This is based on the idea that these are contexts where COVID spread is especially likely.

None of these policies is uncontroversial, but they're within the realm of policies being considered and implemented in jurisdictions around the country. They tend to poll pretty well, too.

A "swiss-cheese" approach to getting people vaccinated

If you combine all the employment- and school-related categories with localized mandates already in place or on the way, you're talking about a really large fraction of the working-age American population that could be subject to a vaccine mandate. There are about 17 million Americans who work in healthcare, 12 million who work in food service establishments, and 24 million who work for some part of the government. Roughly 20 million Americans are enrolled at colleges and universities.

If you add in the universe of people who dine at restaurants, you're talking about a larger fraction of the population that could be subjected to these mandates than the roughly 100 million workers who would be covered by Biden's blanket employment-linked mandate.

Biden's policy is a sensible extension of the local policies we have seen, that would do more to increase vaccination rates because of its sheer scope. But he needs to make sure it holds up in court.

As Jonathan Adler of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law notes, OSHA's legal authority to require vaccines is likely extensive but not unlimited; the administration will have to be careful to tailor this rule to situations where employees face "grave danger" from COVID at the workplace - a standard that would hard to be meet when covering, for example, employees who work entirely from home. Limiting this rule to those actually at grave risk at work will likely shrink its scope below 100 million workers.

But that's all the reason to come up with more rules for other contexts (and indeed why Biden's announcement included several other simultaneous new areas of mandate).

OSHA's authority extends to the specific risk of getting COVID at work. But other government entities (not to mention private organizations) have authority over a variety of other areas of specific risk. If you put enough policies aimed at specific risks together - including a version of the OSHA rule designed to survive legal scrutiny - we'll end up with a better mandate policy that does as much as possible to combat the general risk of COVID in the whole population.

I see what gives people pause about the mandate, but these are unusual times

All of these mandates impose significant burdens on the often private entities that get charged with enforcing them. And while mandatory vaccinations are already common in schools, in the military, and for some types of international travel, in many of these settings people are unused to being told they must have received a specific medical intervention in order to be present.

And Biden's proposal is a federal policy, overriding the prerogatives of state and local governments to decide where vaccination should be required. Still, the federal government has valid interstate interests to assert here on behalf of the national public, because what happens in one state doesn't necessarily stay there.

Virus outbreaks travel across state lines. The economic impact can spread even more widely than the virus itself - the Delta wave has produced more pronounced negative economic effects in regions of the country with high vaccination rates and low incidence rates, likely because that is where members of the public are more concerned about rising case counts. And the federal government is a payer, through the Medicare and Medicaid programs, of costs generated by outbreaks.

I would not contend, as the ACLU has, that vaccine mandates are not an infringement on civil liberties. They are. But in this instance, the benefit to be reaped from a vaccine requirement is large and the cost to individuals who are coerced into vaccination is small (indeed, they benefit from receiving the vaccine). So it's good that the Biden administration is looking for legal tools to do so, and it should keep finding more.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Whirlpool is offering to pay workers $1,000 to get vaccinated against Covid-19

By Matt Egan, CNN Business 

 Whirlpool Corp. logos are seen before being attached to washing machines at the company's manufacturing facility in Clyde, Ohio, U.S., on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. The U.S. Census Bureau is scheduled to release business inventories figures on December 11. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The new vaccine incentive, confirmed by Whirlpool to CNN, underscores how Corporate America is trying to win over vaccine-hesitant workers.

The vaccine bonus comes as the Biden administration prepares an emergency rule that will require large companies, like Whirlpool, to ensure their entire workforce is vaccinated or subject unvaccinated staff to weekly testing. Biden officials say companies that don't comply could face fines of up to $14,000 per violation.

Whirlpool was already offering employees a smaller vaccine incentive but increased it to $1,000 last week.

Chad Parks, a company spokesman, said the stepped-up vaccine bonus will apply to workers who were previously vaccinated as well as newly vaccinated ones. He declined to say how much the previous incentive was for.

"Our employees' health and safety remains our top priority," Whirlpool said in a statement. "Throughout this pandemic they have been working tirelessly to serve our consumers, who are depending on our products more than ever to clean, cook and provide proper food and medicine storage in their homes, and we are working to ensure we can deliver."

The $1,000 vaccine incentive by Whirlpool matches one launched earlier this summer by Vanguard, one of the world's largest asset managers. Vanguard's $1,000 incentive applies to the company's roughly 16,500 US employees who show proof of vaccination by October 1.

A number of other companies have offered more modest incentives to get vaccinated. Kroger has said vaccinated employees will get a one-time payment of $100, while Bolthouse Farms offered a $500 bonus.

United Airlines workers with religious objections to the Covid vaccine will be placed on unpaid leave

United Airlines told employees that they will be placed on indefinite unpaid leave if they refuse to get a Covid vaccine for religious reasons.

© Daniel Slim/AFP/Getty Images 

A United Airlines Airbus 320-232 is seen parked at Dulles Washington International Airport (IAD), in Dulles, Virginia on August 14, 2021.

By Chris Isidore, CNN Business 

The company's vaccine mandate is much tougher than those imposed by many other companies, or the ones announced by President Joe Biden Thursday. The federal mandate, and many already announced at other companies, give employees a choice between getting vaccinated or getting weekly Covid tests. At United, it's essentially vaccination or termination.

Although United is granting accommodations for employees who have a valid medical or religious reason not to get vaccinated, it disclosed this week there would be costs for those who cite their religious belief as a reason not to be vaccinated.

"Given our focus on safety and the steep increases in Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths, all employees whose request is approved will be placed on temporary, unpaid personal leave on October 2 while specific safety measures for unvaccinated employees are instituted," said United's memo to employees. "Given the dire statistics...we can no longer allow unvaccinated people back into the workplace until we better understand how they might interact with our customers and their vaccinated co-workers."

United said a decision on whether to accept an employee's religious objections to vaccination would be made on a case-by-case basis.

"We are working hard to ensure the safety of our employees and customers while accommodating those employees who have sincerely held religious beliefs," said the airline's statement.

United has 67,000 active US employees covered by the mandate. Virtually all non-management employees are represented by a union.

The major unions at United did not object to the airline's original statement on a vaccine mandate in August. It was unclear whether most of the unions are ready to challenge the airline's stance on unpaid leave for their members with religious objections to the vaccine. Some did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.

"We are reviewing our legal and contractual options to support these pilots," said the Air Line Pilots Association in response to a question.

However the Teamsters union, which represents more than 6,000 mechanics at the airline, said simply that it "does not accept United Airlines' position on this issue."

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has advised employers they can impose vaccine mandates on their employees. But the agency also said that claims of religious objections should typically not be disputed by an employer and should be "generally presumed or easily established."

Still, no major religious denomination is on record opposing vaccination, despite some individual clergy members who have raised objections.

Even the Christian Science Church, which teaches its members to use prayer rather than medicine to maintain their health in most cases, has not come out with a prohibition on the use of the vaccine by its adherents. It s statement calls for members to have "respect for public health authorities and conscientious obedience to the laws of the land, including those requiring vaccination."

United employees placed on unpaid leave do not receive other benefits, such as medical insurance, although they can maintain coverage by paying the full premium themselves under Cobra. They do maintain their seniority with the company during the unpaid leave. And seniority is a major factor in determining employees' work conditions, compensation and hours of work in the airline industry.

United employees who have a medical reason for not getting vaccinated will be placed on medical leave, which depending on the details of union contracts can include pay, said United spokesperson Leslie Scott.

-- CNN's Kwegyirba Croffie contributed to this report

#UNIONIZEGOOGLE

A Google manager recommended the company fire 7 temporary workers rather than give them benefits, a report says

insider@insider.com (Isobel Asher Hamilton)

© Provided by Business Insider An employee walks past the Google logo. 

Ng Han Guan/AP Photo

The New York Times and The Guardian reported that Google underpaid contract workers.

A Google manager recommended firing seven contract workers to avoid giving them benefits, per the report.

The company said it hired six full-time and dismissed one with three months' pay.

A Google manager recommended firing a group of contract workers rather than giving them benefits such as sick pay, according to a joint report from The New York Times and The Guardian into the company's so-called "shadow workforce."

The Netherlands introduced a law in 2019 entitling contract workers to the same benefits as their salaried peers. The Times saw an email from Google compliance manager Alan Barry addressing the change, which affected at least seven contract workers.

"This is a situation we ought to avoid," Barry said in his email, and recommended Google fire the seven contract workers, per the report.

Google only dismissed one of the contract workers, with three months' pay, and hired the rest to full-time positions, the company told The Times.

WAGE THEFT
The company also underpaid contract workers, according to the report. Google's compliance department realised it was underpaying workers but chose not to immediately compensate them, according to the report.

Google's chief compliance officer Spyro Karetsos told Insider in a statement that the company will conduct a review of how it pays its contractors.

"We're doing a thorough review, and we're committed to identifying and addressing any pay discrepancies that the team has not already addressed. And we'll be conducting a review of our compliance practices in this area. In short, we're going to figure out what went wrong here, why it happened, and we're going to make it right," Karetsos said.

Contract workers make up a massive chunk of Google's workforce - in 2020, The New York Times reported the company had 130,000 contracted or temporary workers, compared to 123,000 permanent staff.

Some Google contractors have said they are treated as second-class workers by the tech giant. In 2019, a group of contracted Google workers in Pittsburgh unionized, saying they received less pay and far fewer perks than their salaried colleagues.

Insider's Nick Bastone reported in 2019 that contract workers were blocked from communicating with full-time employees, had to wear red badges, and were not allowed to invite friends and family to lunch.

Trudeau pledges to cut Canada's oil emissions even as country keeps pumping more

THE LIBERALS HAVE NOT DONE IT YET

By Rod Nickel

CAPITALI$M IS NOT SUSTAINABLE

Petro-Canada's oil refinery glows at dusk in Edmonton

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's promise to reduce Canada's oil sector emissions starting in 2025 looks unlikely to slow the growth of crude production, environmental activists and oil companies say, raising questions about how effectively the pledge will help meet the country's goals to slow climate change.

Trudeau is in a close race with the Conservatives, and some voters are demanding decisive climate action

 https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/canadas-infernal-summer-puts-climate-change-forefront-election-2021-09-01

He promised late last month, if re-elected on Sept. 20, to immediately cap emissions from the oil and gas sector, which is responsible for 26% of national emissions, and require lower emissions in five-year intervals, starting in 2025.

The sector's emissions have stayed roughly flat since 2014, although oil sands emissions have risen.

The pledge would force the world's fourth-largest oil and gas producer to shift focus away from curbing emissions mainly on a per-barrel basis to cutting absolute emissions. Countries with much smaller production, including Denmark and France, have banned oil and gas exploration, while Norway's oil industry has voluntarily pledged to cut absolute emissions 40% by 2030 from 2005 levels.

The Canadian government has authority to set emissions levels, but it has less ability to influence oil production, which Trudeau's pledge does not address.

Regardless of who forms the next government, Canada is likely to keep raising oil production to satisfy growing global demand, while also cutting emissions, said Tim McMillan, president of Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

"Canada should play a larger role in global supply," he said.

Canadian oil production will expand for nearly two more decades, the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) forecast last November.

Trudeau's pledge comes with numerous unknowns, including the rate of emissions decline it wants and how the government would enforce the lower levels.

"The announcement they made is too vague to really inspire confidence," said Cam Fenton, Canada team leader at environmental group 350.org.

Curbing emissions from oil extraction while allowing production to rise would not be meaningful, since most of crude's associated emissions occur when it is used in combustion engines, Fenton said.

Instead, the promise will cause oil companies to increase pressure on Trudeau to pay for carbon capture facilities, he said. The federal Natural Resources Department aims to provide incentives for at least two massive carbon capture projects by 2030.

The Liberals' main rival, Erin O'Toole's Conservatives, have promised less aggressive national emissions cuts, and not singled out the oil and gas industry.

Canadian oil companies are increasing production incrementally, rather than proposing big projects that receive greater government scrutiny.

Surge Energy Inc plans to boost production by 3-5% annually in the next few years, while reducing overall emissions with projects that it is still evaluating, such as capturing gas instead of flaring it, said Chief Financial Officer Jared Ducs.

"We've tried to get in front of this," he said.

The federal government can regulate emissions more easily than oil production, which is largely provincial jurisdiction, said Caroline Brouillette, domestic policy manager at Climate Action Network Canada.

"If this is done right, it could be big - but we've heard big talk from this party before," she said of Trudeau's promise.

Clamping down on emissions could spur greater investment in technology firms to curb emissions, but also drive up the cost of the polluting commodity itself if a shortage emerges, said Jason Mann, chief investment officer of EdgeHill Partners, which owns shares in several Canadian oil producers.

Coal prices, for example, have shot up, encouraging more production, he said.

Adam Waterous, chief executive of Canadian private equity firm Waterous Energy Fund, said Trudeau's promise may be helpful to helping the oil industry focus on ways to reduce emissions.

"If you start making near-term deadlines, then you have a much more realistic path," Waterous said.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; additional reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Alberta doctors press government to strengthen restrictions as ICU admissions rocket

CALGARY — Alberta doctors called on the government to restrict unvaccinated people from indoor public spaces on Monday, as COVID-19 intensive care admissions reached an all-time high.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Numbers released by the province show 198 Albertans with COVID-19 were receiving intensive care — surpassing the previous record of 182 admissions in May. Alberta Health Services, as of Monday morning, said the number was even higher, at 202.

Alberta Health Services also said intensive care capacity was operating at 90 per cent with surge spaces added. Without additional surge beds, capacity would be at 148 per cent.

In an open letter, 65 intensive care physicians urged the United Conservative government to take urgent action to protect the health system.

“It is our opinion that the current measures do not go nearly far enough to interrupt transmission or reduce barriers to vaccination. It is also our opinion that the current state of health-care capacity in Alberta is so dire that waiting to see the results of current, less stringent measures will result in devastating consequences,” reads the letter.

“To prevent broad restrictions like those required in earlier waves, we are calling for immediate implementation of certificates of immunity that individuals must provide to enter any indoor public spaces for the purpose of accessing anon-essential service.”

Over the weekend, the province recorded 4,740 new cases: 1,659 infections on Friday, 1,497 on Saturday and 1,584 on Sunday. Government data showed 803 Albertans were in hospital with the virus.

Alberta also continued to have the highest count of active infections in the country with 18,395.

As health-care workers across the country battle a fourth wave of the pandemic, protesters rallied against public health restrictions at various hospitals, including the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary and the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.

In Calgary, dozens of people crowded a street corner where staff and patients entered the facility. With signs decrying vaccine passports and claiming abuses of human rights, some asserted they were protesting on behalf of front-line staff.

Police controlled the crowd and broke up a few altercations between the anti-restriction group and counter-protesters who blasted metal music. One said they hoped the music would drown out anti-mask and anti-restriction rhetoric.

At least two people were taken away by officers.

Alberta Health Services said in a statement that it had strengthened security at the two hospitals to help patients and staff enter and exit safely. Fencing was also added around the sites.

The Calgary Police Service said it conveyed a list of expectations to protest organizers. In a statement, the force said it would not tolerate any behaviour that hindered people from entering or leaving the hospital and would have officers there to monitor — with backup available, if needed.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, Justice Minister Kaycee Madu and Alberta Health Services have been critical of hospital protests.

"While Canadians are entitled to peaceful protest, one can still question the appalling judgment of those protesting across the country today," Kenney said in a statement.

"It is outrageous that a small minority feel it’s appropriate to protest at hospitals during the pandemic, while our health-care workers continue to tirelessly battle the global menace of COVID-19.”

The overwhelming majority of Albertans facing serious illness as a result of COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

As of Sunday, just over 79 per cent of the eligible population, those 12 and older, had received one vaccine dose, with slightly over 71 per cent fully vaccinated.

Registration also opened Monday for people who get a first or second dose of COVID-19 vaccine to claim a $100 debit card. The government earlier announced the plan to incentivize vaccine uptake.

As of Monday afternoon, government spokeswoman Lisa Glover said 3,216 people had registered for the debit cards.

“There are some early signs the incentive program may be having a positive impact but as with any new initiative, it will take some time to see the full effect on people’s choices.

The incentive applies to anyone who gets a shot between Sept. 3 and Oct. 14.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2021.

Alanna Smith, The Canadian Press

Artificially altered clouds could help the Great Barrier Reef, experts say

Isabella O'Malley 6 hrs ago

The Great Barrier Reef often appears in headlines when mass coral bleachings are detected, such as the memorable 2018 study that reported half of the reef had died since 2016. Many of us have become accustomed to these dire updates, but scientists say that there is reason to have hope.

A news feature published by Nature details the work that an Australian research team is doing to artificially alter clouds in hopes of blocking the reef from sunlight.

Researchers from Southern Cross University in Coffs Harbour are currently testing technologies that can be used to preserve the world's largest coral reef system. Daniel Harrison, an oceanographer and engineer, is leading a research project that is taking place on a repurposed ferry boat equipped with a mobile science laboratory.

© Provided by The Weather Network

A plume from the vessel's sprayer jets. (Brendan Kelaher/SCU)

The boat sails 100 kilometres offshore and is then anchored so a cone-shaped turbine can generate a plume of seawater mist. The theory is that the brine droplets will evaporate and cool the plume as it floats across the ocean’s surface and eventually mixes upwards into low-lying clouds.

Video: Making clouds brighter could benefit the Great Barrier Reef (The Weather Network)

Embedded content: https://players.brightcove.net/1942203455001/B1CSR9sVf_default/index.html?videoId=6271537452001

“Three-hundred and twenty nozzles spewed a cloud of nano-sized droplets engineered to brighten clouds and block sunlight — providing a bit of cooling shade for the coral colonies below. Scientists used sensors aboard the ferry, drones and a second boat to monitor the plume as it migrated skyward,” the news feature explains.

© Provided by The Weather Network

The seawater mist travelling across the ocean and slowly mixing up into the clouds. (Brendan Kelaher/SCU)

The researchers say that the cloud of seawater mist was not enough to significantly alter the clouds, but preliminary data indicates that their process could be capable of brightening clouds. “We are now very confident that we can get the particles up into the clouds. But we still need to figure out how the clouds will respond,” Harrison said.

The news feature says that Harrison’s research is the world’s first field trial of marine cloud brightening and is part of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), which received $6 million in funding from the Australian government in 2018. However, the news feature notes that Harrison’s experiment has received skepticism and criticism from climate scientists due to the limited amount of published research on the topic of marine cloud brightening.

© Provided by The Weather Network

Broadhurst Reef with the research vessel in the distance. 

(Brendan Kelaher/SCU)

Marine cloud brightening gained support from RRAP because of the possibility that it could theoretically bring direct relief to specific regions of the coral reef system. This could be particularly useful during a localized heat wave that is severely affecting a vulnerable portion of the reef.

As reported by the news feature, Harrison stated that more experiments and modelling are needed to provide clarity around how much relief marine cloud brightening could bring to the Great Barrier Reef. While Harrison is confident in the future potential of this technology, he emphasizes the need for governments to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

“There are only so many clouds available, and there is only so much you can brighten them. Eventually, climate change just overwhelms things,” Harrison said.

Thumbnail credit: Alejandro Tagliafico/SCU

Tesla opens a showroom on Native American land in New Mexico, getting around the state's ban on automakers selling vehicles straight to consumers

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean) 

© Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images

Tesla opened its first showroom in New Mexico, on Native American lands.

The location lets it bypass a state ban on selling straight to consumers, The Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

At the center, people can test Teslas before they buy or get their vehicles serviced.

Tesla opened a sales, service, and delivery center in New Mexico on Native American land, The Santa Fe New Mexican reported last week.

The move allows it to bypass legislation that bars automakers from selling their vehicles straight to consumers in the state, rather than through third-party dealers, the publication reported. Nambé Pueblo in Santa Fe County isn't subject to the state law.

Prospective customers can test Teslas at the center, and Tesla owners can take their cars there for repairs, the report said.

This is the first Tesla sales, service, and delivery center in the state, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said.

Two Santa Fe residents told The New Mexican that in the past they'd had to take their Tesla Model Y Performance to El Paso, Texas, when it broke down, a journey of about 300 miles.

To make the center in New Mexico, Tesla repurposed a defunct casino in Nambé Pueblo, Grisham said.

Phillip Perez, the governor of Nambé Pueblo, told the publication, "We are proud to be the first tribe to have Tesla on Indian lands."

The Tesla Owners Club of New Mexico, which says it has more than 500 members, was set up in 2015 to campaign for a Tesla sales and service center in the state.

Brian Dear, the founder and president of the club, told The New Mexican that the new Tesla center "changes everything for owners" and would help boost electric vehicle sales.

"It's a gigantic thing for New Mexico," Dear said. "It's such a significant milestone."

Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a member of New Mexico's Senate, has been pushing to overturn the law restricting who can sell vehicles in the state.

In 2019, he sponsored a bill to allow non-franchised car manufacturers, such as Tesla, to sell and service their vehicles in New Mexico. He told The New Mexican that the state's auto dealers had "absolutely opposed" the legislation. The bill ultimately fell through.

Other states also ban direct vehicle sales - in May, The Drive reported that Tesla had to ship Texas-made cars to other states before it could sell them to Texans.
Read the original article on Business Insider

U.S. whistleblower Chelsea Manning challenging secrecy laws barring her from Canada

© Provided by National Post 

Former U.S. soldier and whistleblower Chelsea Manning speaks at the digital media convention

Adrian Humphreys 

POSTMEDIA

Chelsea Manning , the former U.S. soldier whose leak of thousands of U.S. documents changed the public’s view of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is challenging Canada’s secrecy laws — saying the way they are being used to keep her out of the country threatens the public’s right to know important information that embarrasses the government.

Manning, a 33-year-old American citizen, served notice of intent to raise a constitutional challenge of two laws that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is using to prevent her from visiting Canada.

“It would appear to put nearly every political, national security, and foreign affairs reporter in Canada at some risk of a criminal charge and life imprisonment on a routine basis,” lawyers Joshua Blum and Lex Gill write in a notice of challenge filed on Manning’s behalf.

Blum and Gill, representing Manning at a hearing of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) next month, say the government’s application of security and criminal code laws to her case mean the same laws could also be wielded to silence whistleblowers and journalists, undermining Canada’s constitutional rights and freedoms.

The connection between Manning and public interest journalism in Canada comes from the government saying the Security of Information Act — that criminalizes passing information that could harm Canada to foreign entities or terrorist groups — applies to Manning’s case, when what she was convicted of doing was passing public interest information to media organizations as a whistleblower, her lawyers say.

The government’s position “threatens freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the starkest and most obvious terms,” write Blum and Gill.

Chelsea Manning denies betraying the U.S., feels like she lives in a 'dystopian novel'

Chelsea Manning barred from Canada after conviction for leaking classified documents equated to treason

Manning, one of the best-known American whistleblowers, leaked a vast trove of documents through Wikileaks to major news organizations around the world.

Manning was an intelligence analyst in the U.S. military, deployed to Iraq in 2009. While regularly reviewing on-the-ground activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, she was concerned the reality of what was happening contrasted sharply with what was being portrayed to the public.

Manning leaked records from the U.S. military’s internal incident reports revealing undeclared civilian deaths, complicity in torture, and significant human rights abuses.

Among the leaked material was an explosive video from a U.S. military helicopter in Iraq. It shows soldiers killing ten civilians, including two children and two Reuters journalists. The video contradicted official statements the helicopter was shot at before soldiers opened fire.

Manning also leaked an enormous trove of diplomatic cables that sparked thousands of news stories around the world; among the revelations were incidents and accusations of domestic and international corruption.

“Much of what the public knows today about the reality of the U.S. ‘War on Terror’ and the crimes perpetrated in Iraq and Afghanistan would have remained entirely secret were it not for Ms. Manning’s act of whistleblowing,” Manning’s lawyers say in filed material.

“Without adequate information about the true cost of these wars, neither the press nor the public were capable of making informed decisions about foreign policy.

“The respondent’s actions are part of a long tradition of public interest whistleblowing, without which many crimes and abuses carried out by states and other powerful actors would never see the light of day.”

Manning was arrested for these leaks, convicted under the U.S. Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and sentenced to 35 years in prison , the longest sentence ever issued in the United States for leaking.

In 2017, after seven years in prison, Manning’s sentence was commuted by U.S. President Barack Obama.

That same year, Manning tried to come to Canada to visit friends in Montreal and arrange a series of speaking engagements.

At the border crossing, she told CBSA officers about her U.S. conviction. CBSA equated her U.S. charges to a Canadian charge for treason and refused her entry.

That set off a series of attempts by Manning to be allowed into Canada.

In 2018 she was allowed in to speak at a conference. A government assessment at the time said Manning’s crimes “were of a time and place, little real harm resulted.”

After a weekend in Montreal that May, she returned to the U.S. without incident, documents say.

If Manning thought this meant she was welcome in Canada, she was mistaken.

It appears someone wasn’t pleased with her visit and CBSA declared her inadmissible to Canada. After a challenge in Federal Court, the government agreed to refer her case to the IRB for a hearing, filed documents say.

“This proved to be false,” Manning’s lawyers write. An Access to Information request showed that CBSA “unlawfully held the file and never sent the matter to the tribunal for a hearing.”

Under threat of another court challenge, Manning’s case was finally referred to the IRB.

No longer claiming Manning’s crimes were equivalent to treason, CBSA instead tagged her for violations under the Criminal Code of unauthorized use of a computer and section 16(2) of the Security of Information Act.

That section of the secrecy laws declares it an offence to intentionally and without lawful authority share information with a foreign entity or terrorist group that harms Canadian interests.

Manning’s lawyers say neither of these laws are equivalent to what Manning was convicted of in the United States. Manning’s disclosures were not out of greed nor malevolence towards the West, her lawyers say.

A charge of “aiding the enemy” against Manning was rejected by the U.S. military court.

The Canadian government’s argument appears to reject public interest disclosure as a mitigating factor and equates a leak to a news agency with passing military secrets to al-Qaeda or an enemy state.

“This is the fundamental reason why constitutional and international human rights law uniformly guarantees that freedom of expression must protect listeners as well as speakers,” Manning’s lawyers argue.

“In the instant case — and while a source or whistleblower’s constitutional right to impart information is doubtlessly also at play — it is the public’s right to know that is most fundamentally at issue.”

Manning’s lawyers also argue the law is overly broad; as worded, it extends the same blanket protection over all information the government “is taking measures to safeguard.”

“This could range from truly sensitive classified documents, all the way to run-of-the-mill data that happens to be password protected,” the lawyers say.

“This indeterminacy is constitutionally impermissible, in part, because of the chilling effect its application could have on legitimate newsgathering.”

Gill said the materials filed in the case speak for themselves, when asked for comment on Manning’s challenge.

CBSA declined to comment on the specifics of the case.

“CBSA takes its responsibility to maintain the integrity of the border and to ensure that those who are not eligible to enter Canada are prevented from doing so, particularly where there are concerns of serious inadmissibility for criminality or national security,” said Jacqueline Callin, a CBSA spokeswoman.

Manning’s admissibility hearing is scheduled for Oct. 7.