It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, September 25, 2021
'There is no Planet B': Thousands march in Montreal to protest climate change
Friday's march was significant as Montreal's first large-scale environmental protest since the pandemic began.
Author of the article: René Bruemmer Publishing date: Sep 24, 2021 •
Many attendees of Friday's climate march said they were spurred to turn out because the recent federal election left them doubtful Canada’s political leaders are taking the issue seriously.
PHOTO BY DAVE SIDAWAY /Montreal Gazette
Thousands of mostly young Montrealers bearing placards reading “Wake up Mr. Trudeau” and “There is no Planet B” gathered on Mount Royal and then joined a spirited Global Protest for Climate Justice march that stretched for kilometres through the streets of downtown Friday.
They were part of the first major in-person Fridays for Future strikes — started by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg — to be held since the pandemic began, and which drew similar crowds in more than 1,500 cities. Thunberg attended a massive rally in Berlin on Friday.
Although nowhere near the size of the mega-march that overtook Montreal in September 2019 — when Thunberg, just 16 at the time, led an estimated 500,000 people in a call for action on climate change — Friday’s march was significant as the city’s first large-scale environmental protest since COVID-19 quelled outdoor congregations.
Many attendees, most of them masked, said they were spurred to turn out because the recent federal election left them doubtful Canada’s political leaders are taking the issue seriously.
“I think the greatest threat to our health in the 21st century is the climate,” said Audrey Claveau, a pharmacist and member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment who came to the mountain. Her young daughter held a hand-painted cardboard sign that read “I adore dinosaurs but I don’t want to end up like them.”
“I think it will affect much of the population,” said Claveau, “the aged, the asthmatic, those with health conditions, so it’s important to say it. And the government isn’t acting quickly enough.”
Claveau wants to see emissions cut drastically between now and 2030, and for government subsidies to oil and gas corporations to be halted.
Jenna Deer-Frainetti came to the monster rally in 2019, at the age of 15. Now a student at John Abbott College, she returned because “I don’t want to live on a planet that is burning,” she said. “Things are not progressing in the direction we wanted. There are more people in the younger generation that are getting involved, but I don’t think our government is doing enough. Especially with the recent election, I don’t think anything is getting done.”
She wants stricter carbon taxes to be implemented, clean drinking water to be available on all Indigenous reserves, and bans on sales of one-use plastics.
Friday’s Montreal march was organized by the Racial Justice Collective, Solidarity Across Borders, Coalition étudiante pour un virage environnemental et social and Pour le futur Mtl.
Organizers emphasized the idea that marginalized groups and developing nations are the ones that suffer the most from the effects of climate change. Abdoul Kane, spokesperson for Solidarity Across Borders, said the message is finally getting through.
“There is a large segment of the population that has a new awareness and that has decided to rise up to show to other Canadians what we are doing as a country is destroying the Earth and creating famines and a lot of problems in the world,” Kane said. “I think this is a good start to be able to start showing people that what we are doing is not good.”
Following the speeches, demonstrators walked down Parc Ave. and then west along Sherbrooke St. in a protest that was mostly peaceful. Montreal police reported three arrests: one for mischief, one for assault on a police officer and one for threats.
As protesters walked in the sun of an unseasonably warm late-September day, their signs, featuring images of the Earth on fire, countered the upbeat tone of the march.
Amid them, one protester carried a placard bearing just one word: “Panic.” rbruemmer@postmedia.com
Quebecers march in Montreal to demand better action on climate change
CTVNewsMontreal.ca Digital Reporter Friday, September 24, 2021
MONTREAL -- Quebecers across the province took part in a Canada-wide demonstration to demand action be taken against climate change Friday.
Activists said they want to #uprootthesystem and "demand for intersectional climate justice."
"I had really just been focusing on my own personal carbon footprint, my family, my school, but I saw that really what we need is to unite our voices to demand action from the people who can make a real difference -- from our political leaders and from large companies," said Shirley Barnea with Pour le Futur Montreal.
The youth-led and organized global climate strike movement started in August 2018 when then-15-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg started a school strike for the climate.
Soon joined by her peers, "they created the hashtag #FridaysForFuture, and encouraged other young people all over the world to join them. This marked the beginning of the global school strike for climate," the organization notes.
"Their call for action sparked an international awakening, with students and activists uniting around the globe to protest outside their local parliaments and city halls," the group explains. "Along with other groups across the world, Fridays for Future is part of a hopeful new wave of change, inspiring millions of people to take action on the climate crisis."
THREE ARRESTS
The Montreal police (SPVM) confirmed that three people were arrested during the protest, one for mischief, one for assault of a police officer and another for making threats.
"So three arrests were made by the Montreal Police Department side, no one was injured, and at this moment the protest is now over," said SPVM spokesperson Jean-Pierre Brabant.
WHAT THEY WANT
The group's message to political leaders includes asking: The Global North to cut emissions drastically by divesting from fossil fuels and ending its extraction, burning and use. "Colonizers of the north" pay their climate debt for their historic emissions. For genuine global recovery from COVID-19 by ensuring equitable vaccine distribution and suspending intellectual property restrictions on COVID-19 technologies. To recognize the tangibility of the climate crisis as a risk to human safety and secure the rights of climate refugees in international law. To recognize the impact of biodiversity on Indigenous communities. To stop violence and criminalization of Indigenous peoples, small farmers, small fisherfolk and other environmental and land defenders.
"Canada has such disproportionately large emissions compared to our population and such large historic emissions as well," Barnea states. "We're asking for Canada to be carbon neutral by 2030 to allow other countries to develop and reduce their emissions at a pace that is more comfortable."
POLITICIANS IN ATTENDANCE
Both the Quebec Liberals (PLQ) and Parti Québécois (PQ) have said they plan to attend the marches.
Liberal Leader Dominique Anglade, as well as "numerous" members of her party, will be in Montreal Friday.
The demonstration is set to take place starting at the Sir George Etienne-Cartier Monument at 1 p.m.
The PQ says it will have politicians in attendance at marches in Alma, Joliette and Quebec City.
Jonquière representative Sylvain Gaudreault will take part in the demonstration in Alma, which starts at 11:30 a.m. at the Green Plains behind the Mario-Tremblay Centre.
Joliette MNA Véronique Hivon will be at the march in Lanaudière, set to start at 12 p.m. at CEGEP régional de Lanaudière.
PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is expected to join those demonstrating in Quebec City starting at 1 p.m. from Place d'Youville.
Students take part in a climate change protest, in Montreal, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021.
Thousands of Quebecers call on provincial, federal governments to fight climate change
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Changes have to happen now, says Dawson College
student, because 'we know that our future is in peril'
CBC News ·
The march in Montreal was part of a global movement for climate justice. (Kwabena Oduro/CBC)
Thousands of people gathered in several different Quebec cities on Friday to press for stronger action action against climate change.
The demonstrations were part of a global movement inspired by the young Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
In Montreal, people of all ages came out to push for change, including the city's mayor, Valérie Plante.
"More than ever, the population is concerned about the climate crisis and asks governments to accelerate the ecological transition," she said on Twitter.
But there were plenty of kids participating. For example, nine-year-old Henri Amyot said he doesn't "want the world to burn because it's burning."
And eight-year-old Pacha Guillen said she doesn't want to live on a planet with so much garbage.
As part of the global movement, Fridays For Future, the demonstration in Montreal on Friday was one of thousands worldwide. (Kwabena Oduro/CBC)
Mia Kennedy, a member of Dawson College's Green Earth Club, said it's time for concrete action.
"I think that we are all really passionate about the environment," she said.
"Especially as young people, we know that our future is in peril, and that if we don't mobilize and don't act now, we may be dying of climate change."
Organizers are calling for carbon neutrality by 2030 in Quebec, and are hoping Canada will cut its emissions and be a leader among G7 nations.
The Fridays For Future movement began in August 2018, after Greta Thunberg and other activists sat in front of the Swedish parliament for three weeks. (Kwabena Oduro/CBC)
There were a lot of different signs being held up at the demonstration in Montreal on Friday. (Kwabena Oduro/CBC)
There were kids, adults and politicians participating in the Montreal rally Friday. (Kwabena Oduro/CBC)
The climate change demonstration in Montreal was part of the Fridays For Future movement which claims to have inspired similar protests in some 7,500 cities since 2018. (Kwabena Oduro/CBC)
Based on a report by Kwabena Oduro
Mandryk: Pandemic may be taking Moe's popularity to a crossroads
As COVID-19 problems are crashing down around him, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe keeps confounding his critics by remaining popular in the province.
This bucks the trend of other conservative leaders’ popularity cratering and has made it that much more puzzling.
Remember that now infamous (and much-parodied) December 2018 cover of MacLean’s magazine labeled The Resistance — the blue-suited pack of conservative leaders that included Moe, then-federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, then-Manitoba premier Brian Pallister, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford?
Well, two of the fab five opposing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax are gone and even the future of Scheer’s successor, Erin O’Toole, is now pocked with question marks after Monday’s federal election results. Some doubt Ford will survive the next Ontario election. And Kenney may not make it to the next Alberta election, if the upcoming United Conservative Party leadership review doesn’t go his way.
That Kenney is on the ropes and Moe isn’t is baffling when you consider both premiers followed the same ill-advised reopening strategy prior to getting hammered by the fourth wave. Now, both are facing a near collapse of their respective province’s emergency and surgical services within their health systems.
The momentum following Moe’s election win a year ago has remained with him up until now. Angus Reid’s quarterly polling on premiers’ popularity from June shows Moe near the top and a similar poll by Maru Public Opinion from this month shows Moe with a 63-per-cent approval rating — best in then nation.
However, one has to wonder whether seismic tremors of the past month surrounding COVID-19’s fourth wave may finally begin to shake Moe off that perch.
A Sept. 3-20 poll conducted by the Canadian Hub for Applied Research at the University of Saskatchewan shows about half of 402 Saskatchewan respondents are dissatisfied with Moe’s handling of the pandemic. It was hardly the overwhelming indictment that some might have expected. And given that dissatisfaction might come from anti-maskers/vaxxers too, it falls short of damning.
But 6.1 per cent saying they are “very satisfied” and 26.2 per cent answering “somewhat satisfied”, isn’t an overwhelming endorsement, either.
To this point, we’ve yet to see signs of this COVID-19 anger and hostility in Saskatchewan coalescing around a political alternative. The NDP and Ryan Meili remain unpopular.
However, given the toll COVID-19 has taken on Pallister, Ford and especially Kenney, the political question is: Can Moe retain his own popularity?
His problem right now is that the worst of fourth wave in Saskatchewan is yet to come.
Since July 31 (halfway through the open summer Kenney and Moe promised us), Saskatchewan has experienced 13,855 new COVID-19 cases (of 63,875 total) and 80 more deaths (658 total). Active cases have vaulted to 4,715 (from 479 on July 31) and hospitalizations to 273 (from 46).
As we watch cancelled surgeries and see ICU beds filling, we are hearing more horror stories that have a tendency to resonate for a long time.
Right now, those who voted for Moe are starting to grumble. Few conservatives are publicly defending him and some are privately wondering where Moe is getting his strategic advice.
For now, Moe has avoided the hammering his colleagues have taken. The question is: Will that continue to be the case?
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
THE US NAVY SAYS CHIROPACTORS ARE DOCTORS
A prominent anti-vax doctor, who falsely claimed the COVID-19 vaccine could make people magnetic, had her medical license renewed, report says
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny is an osteopathic physician who has spent years making unproven or exaggerated claims about vaccines.
Her license, first issued in 1984, was due to expire on October 1. It was renewed by the State Medical Board of Ohio on September 16.
Jerica Stewart, a spokesperson for the Board, confirmed to the Ohio Capital Journal that Tenpenny's license was automatically renewed until 2023.
"A recent renewal does not prevent the board from taking future disciplinary action," she said, according to the Ohio Capital Journal.
Tenpenny attracted nationwide media attention in June after she falsely told Ohio House Health Committee that the coronavirus vaccine could potentially make people "magnetized," Insider reported previously.
"You can put a key on their forehead. It sticks. You can put spoons and forks all over, and they can stick because now we think there is a metal piece to that," she said.
Tenpenny also falsely said that COVID-19 vaccines contain particles that connect a person to 5G mobile data networks.
The report caught the attention of President Joe Biden in July, who said: "These 12 people are out there giving misinformation. Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it."
Tenpenny's Twitter account was permanently suspended in June after the company said her COVID-19 vaccine claims violated its misinformation policy.
Insider reached out to Tenpenny for further comment but did not hear back in time for publication.
Stewart said the Ohio board renews medical licenses automatically to keep up with the 92,000 practitioners in the state.
She told Insider that the complaints it receives about physicians are usually confidential, although if a licensee is disciplined by the board, the action is public record. She did not comment specifically about Tenpenny's renewal.
An osteopath is a licensed physician who practices medicine using both conventional treatments and osteopathic manipulative medicine, which focuses on relieving pain and tension in the musculoskeletal system.
NDP ranks question leadership after election disappointments
The NDP is conducting a review of its national campaign to find out what happened with its ground game, which left the party with limited gains and in fourth place despite throwing $25 million into the pot to burnish its appeal.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh's campaign tour followed a planned path to grow the caucus, visiting 51 mostly Liberal-held or Conservative-held ridings. But the NDP is increasing its 24-seat count by only one seat.
"I'm disappointed that we didn't elect more MPs … and that we did not significantly increase the size of our caucus, because that was the goal," said Anne McGrath, the NDP's national director, in an interview with CBC News.
Some New Democrats want accountability, because they feel they lacked resources and training at the riding level to get the vote out.
"People talked about an orange wave coming, but the reality was there was no work being done on the ground," said Jessa McLean, the riding association president of York–Simcoe NDP in Ontario.
"There was nobody out there making sure that people who needed drives to the polls could do that, reminding them to get to the advance polls, to get to the final day, telling them how to do the mail-in ballots, walking them through it."
Calls for change in leadership
McLean, who ran unsuccessfully for NDP president earlier this year, said she wants McGrath to resign.
"If they keep her on, it's to put another checkmark beside this horrible strategy that saw us essentially lose ground," McLean said. "She has to go."
If the NDP's strategy doesn't change, McLean said, Singh should also step aside.
"If we just pour everything into his image, where will we be when he does leave," McLean said.
CBC News put those concerns to McGrath, who said that she has no plans to step down and that Singh isn't going anywhere.
"There is a special level of vitriol reserved for women in leadership positions in this country," McGrath said. "In my experience, it sometimes takes a few elections for things to gel."
McGrath, who was chief of staff to the former NDP Leader Jack Layton, noted that she went through four elections over the span of nearly a decade before triggering an orange wave that propelled into the role of Official Opposition by winning 103 seats in the 2011 vote.
She said Singh has grown as a leader since running in the 2019 federal election.
McGrath also noted that the NDP increased its share of the popular vote, from 16 per cent in 2019, to nearly 18 per cent in this election. She believes the party is laying the foundation for growth.
'More needs to be done to support local ridings'
But McGrath also believes a lack of on-campus voting, long line-ups for the ballot box and fewer polling station locations — some absent from Indigenous communities — suppressed the NDP vote.
"Part of the reason for having the election at this time was to keep the turnout numbers low in order to re-elect the incumbent government," McGrath said.
"I do believe that young voters and Indigenous voters, in particular, were disenfranchised."
McGrath said NDP fundraising is still strong and she feels confident the party will have the finances to put up a fight in the next election.
But McLean said NDP donations in York–Simcoe, a Conservative stronghold, ran dry after the party had to battle first in a February 2019 byelection, then the October 2019 election. She said the riding's resources were still depleted by the time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the August election call this year.
McLean said her riding can usually rely on Elections Canada campaign-expense reimbursements — money that commonly flows to candidates and helps electoral district associations or ridings — but New Democrat headquarters kept all the rebates in 2019 and again this year.
McLean said money is usually raised at nomination meetings, but her riding failed to hold one before the snap election was called for Sept. 20.
"We were left with almost no funds to start off this campaign, and we didn't find out who our candidate would be until a week into the campaign," McLean said.
"By the time we went to our members and said, 'Oh, we have a candidate now,' we looked completely unorganized. We didn't look like something that people wanted to plug money into."
The decision to keep Elections Canada campaign rebates was made by the NDP's federal council.
"We do take the rebates to be able to run an effective central campaign," McGrath said. "But I do agree that more needs to be done to support local ridings."
Why didn't likes appear to translate into votes?
Gabriel Masi, co-president of Jeunes NPD du Québec, said he would like to see the NDP grow its on-campus presence and thinks the party needs new young leadership at the top.
Having said that, Masi said the NDP's success in the future depends on Singh.
"If we didn't have a leader that people saw as a great person, I don't even think we would've done how we did," Masi said.
"It is incredibly dangerous to remove someone who is this popular."
Other New Democrats, who spoke to CBC, said they also support Singh, but they want him to spend more time talking about his plan and policies rather than attacking Trudeau.
They said they feel the party didn't pitch enough bold, progressive ideas to motivate voters, such as offering free post-secondary education or nationalizing telecoms.
Many New Democrats also believe strategic voting played against them, particularly in places such as the Greater Toronto Area, where the NDP was shut out.
Nearly half of the NDP's $25 million campaign budget was dedicated to advertisements, social media and online. Although the strategy didn't appear to result in a surge of new votes, Masi believes it was money well spent, especially in countering the prejudices some people may have against Singh. "His image was an asset to us," Masi said.
"We got a lot of comments from people in the Montreal-area saying I really like him, he's personable."
In the future, Masi said the party should take some of the money dedicated to social media and invest it in getting out the vote.
"The ground game organizing has to start now and we have to make sure that we have that local infrastructure," Masi said.
PERHAPS IT IS ALSO ABOUT WINNING A SECOND RIDING IN ALBERTA BEING MORE IMPORTANT THAN FIVE SEATS ELSEWHERE LIKE YORK SIMCOE
Edmonton leads country in missed payments among homeowners
Joel Schlesinger, for the Edmonton Journal Edmonton homeowners are tops in Canada for missed debt payments, a new study has found.
Combined, nearly three in 10 Edmonton consumers had missed a payment among the more than 874,000 credits scores examined across Canada. That’s compared with the national average of about two in 10.
“In the case of homeowners, Edmonton is about twice the Canadian average of about one in 10,” Graham says. “That’s despite the fact mortgage debt in Edmonton is below the Canadian average.”
Nationally, homeowners had an average mortgage of $359,597 compared with Edmonton homeowners at $314,863.
By comparison, Toronto homeowners carried an average mortgage of about $574,246 with only about three in 100 missing a bill payment.
Calgary also had higher incidence of missed bill payments, about 16 per cent of homeowners with mortgages averaging about $354,000. Calgary also had the highest level of non-mortgage debt among homeowners in Canada at $36,330 compared with the national average of about $34,000. Calgary had the largest amount of non-mortgage debt among non-homeowners at $23,762 compared with the national average of about $20,000. Edmonton had the second highest figure for non-mortgage debt at about $35,800 among homeowners and for non-homeowners at about $22,300.
Graham says the higher than average debt levels and missed payments could reflect the ill health of the Alberta economy over the past six years.
“There’s been a series of economic challenges, and that absolutely contributes,” he says.
Yet some metrics like higher levels of non-mortgage debt could reflect higher affordability in Edmonton as more people are likely to qualify for a mortgage.
“We are relatively fortunate in the Edmonton area in home prices compared to the larger markets in Canada,” says mortgage broker Jason Goodwin with Paragon Mortgage Inc. in Edmonton.
What’s more, he notes first-time buyers are more aware than ever of what they need to do to prepare to qualify for a mortgage.
Still, income requirements can be challenging with more part-time, seasonal and gig economy workers with fluctuating income, he adds.
In turn, more would-be buyers are looking for advice from professionals such as mortgage brokers to develop plans for a down payment and to budget while looking to family for help with a down payment.
Still, the study sheds light on how Alberta’s recent economic hardships have weighed on its housing market because of higher debt among consumers.
“You need to be able to make a down payment to buy a house,” Graham says. “So, if you’re carrying a lot of debt, that can make it harder to get that down payment.”
Saturday's letters: Alberta unions at risk from cabinet shuffle Edmonton Journal
Of all the things Premier Kenney has done, removing Minister Shandro from the health portfolio has got to be the best. Now we can optimistically improve our public health system versus Shandro’s approach to destroy it or privatize it. The unfortunate side effect will be Shandro’s anti-union ideology.
I can see his plan already of destroying our public service unions. And making union membership even more difficult in this business-oriented province. But let’s remember, it is unions who are working for us, the working folks. The UCP would still have us on a six-day work week with one week off per year.
Almost all our social and work-related benefits were championed by unions and implemented because of union influence. Union membership declined as neo-liberal political views influenced our governments, but they are still one of the few organizations working to improve our lot and keep ultra-right governments at bay
Code Clements, Cherry Grove
Avoiding vaccines makes no sense
To all those choosing not to vaccinate, would you be so keen to trust natural immunity if this were a pandemic of smallpox or polio? COVID can (and does) kill. Survivors of severe infection may be permanently debilitated.
Vaccines have saved more lives than any other public health measure except for the provision of clean drinking water. Avoiding vaccination makes as much sense as choosing to drink from a dirty ditch.
D.M. Gilchrist, Edmonton
Answers needed on pandemic decisions
Dear Conservative politicians: After living through the last 19 months, and seeing you playing with decisions about our health — physically and mentally — you are now breaking our hearts.
Having a parent in long-term care has been heartbreaking. While we will all not be getting back any of the precious times we missed, there is definitely little future for our loved ones. Our most vulnerable, while many are triple-vaccinated now, have lost the last few years of their life. This without comfort from family, and unable to even see their faces.
Many questions over the last 19 months on how things were handled. Questioning now, why vaccines were not mandated for all staff earlier, and why proof of vaccination is still not required to visit in LTC. Questioning, why proof of vaccination is still not required everywhere possible. These are sad times for all of us, and we need answers, actions and better direction.
Saxon Wolf, Edmonton
Schools shouldn’t cater to unvaccinated
I have ethical concerns and legitimate questions to which I have yet to get conclusive answers. When are school boards going to mandate all staff and support staff to show proof of full vaccination?
Schools have an ethical duty to keep all children safe but what measures have been put into place to ensure all students are safe from being infected by unvaccinated school employees including maintenance and transportation staff?
By school districts enforcing school-wide vaccination mandates, students, staff, parents, volunteers and community members that visit schools would be safe, while schools upheld their ethical duty to keep children safe.
Schools do not have an ethical duty to pander to the unvaccinated. The unvaccinated have an ethical duty to comply with all safety and emergency health regulations by getting themselves vaccinated. Stop thinking it is your choice. It is not your choice; it is your ethical responsibility.
Tanna Somerfield, St. Albert
THEY'RE BACK - THE WAR WAS NEVER ABOUT THEM
Taliban hang body in public; signal return to past tactics
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban hanged a dead body from a crane parked in a city square in Afghanistan on Saturday in a gruesome display that signaled the hard-line group’s return to some of its brutal tactics of the past.
Taliban officials initially brought four bodies to the central square in the western city of Herat, then moved three of them to other parts of the city for public display, said Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who runs a pharmacy on the edge of the square.
Taliban officials announced that the four were caught taking part in a kidnapping earlier Saturday and were killed by police, Seddiqi said. Ziaulhaq Jalali, a Taliban-appointed district police chief in Herat, said later that Taliban members rescued a father and son who had been abducted by four kidnappers after an exchange of gunfire. He said a Taliban fighter and a civilian were wounded by the kidnappers, and that the kidnappers were killed in crossfire.
An Associated Press video showed crowds gathering around the crane and peering up at the body as some men chanted.
“The aim of this action is to alert all criminals that they are not safe,” a Taliban commander who did not identify himself told the AP in an on-camera interview conducted in the square.
Since the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will re-create their harsh rule of the late 1990s, which included public stonings and limb amputations of alleged criminals, some of which took place in front of large crowds at a stadium.
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, one of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan, told The Associated Press this week that the militant movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.
“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”
The group’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative, hard-line worldview, even if they are embracing technological changes, such as video and mobile phones.
President Joe Biden’s administration signaled on Friday that the U.S. would not tolerate the Taliban’s return to their past punishment methods.
“We condemn in the strongest terms reports of reinstating amputations and executions of Afghans,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. “The acts the Taliban are talking about here would constitute clear gross abuses of human rights, and we stand firm with the international community to hold perpetrators of these — of any such abuses — accountable.”
Also Saturday, a roadside bomb hit a Taliban car in the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, wounding at least one person, a Taliban official said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. The Islamic State group affiliate, which is headquartered in eastern Afghanistan, has said it was behind similar attacks in Jalalabad last week that killed 12 people.
The person wounded in the attack is a municipal worker, Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Hanif said.
The Associated Press
Turnbull and Forrest push “green only” hydrogen, dismiss carbon capture
Andrew Forrest and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at an event in Canberra.
(AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and resources billionaire Andrew Forrest have joined forces to launch a new group that will advocate for the emerging hydrogen industry to focus solely on production using renewable energy.
The pair officially launched the Green Hydrogen Organisation on Thursday night as part of the New York Climate Week. They said that the new group would advocate for a global focus on hydrogen production using renewable energy, saying that ‘blue’ hydrogen – produced using fossil fuels – was a distraction.
Turnbull and Forrest were both critical of carbon capture and storage technologies, which they said had failed despite receiving huge amounts of government support, adding that industry must resist fossil fuel industry efforts to grow the amount of hydrogen produced using coal and gas.
“This is an organisation with a global mission to ensure that only green hydrogen is given the recognition as being the fuel of the future because the alternatives result in more emissions and actually tend to defeat the object of decarbonising the global economy,” Turnbull said during the launch.
“Hydrogen is the answer, but only if it is produced with renewable energy. If hydrogen is produced from gas or coal or with electricity generated by burning gas or coal, there is nothing clean about it,” he said.
“Now the fossil fuel sector, regrettably, but predictively has a vested interest in persuading us that they can produce so-called clean or blue hydrogen.”
Turnbull hit out at carbon capture and storage technologies, as Forrest has done previously, in direct contrast to the federal government, which is now pushing it as part of its technology roadmap and as a legitimate component of “blue hydrogen” made with gas.
“Carbon capture and storage has received billions of dollars in support over many years. There were high hopes for it,” Turnbull said.
“I had high hopes for it when I was Australia’s environment minister back in 2007. But it simply has not worked. It does not work consistently. In fact, it only works in very niche areas. And it’s failed. Blue hydrogen is a delaying exercise that we have to resist.”
In supporting the creation of the Green Hydrogen Organisation, Forrest – who has an estimated net worth of around $27 billion – said that he had not fully appreciated the threat posed by climate change at the time of forming Fortescue Metals, but had grown to appreciate the impact that major industrial consumers of fossil fuels were having on the environment.
“When I started the company, I didn’t really know a great deal about global warming. It was starting to be spoken about, of course, but it wasn’t taken seriously,” Forrest said.
“There was no societal expectations at all that you’d ever set up a huge industrial company, not using oil and gas, diesel and coal.
“But… I became serious about trying to understand global warming. So seriously, in fact, I sent myself back to school, I did a PhD in marine ecology.
“I began to understand that global warming literally has the oceans regurgitate its oxygen, it becomes barren… what we see just in the Anthropocene are major impacts now from climate warming, happening before our very eyes” Forrest added.
The organisation was launched as part of the New York Climate Week, timed to coincide with a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Several world leaders have used the UN meeting to strengthen their commitments to cutting global greenhouse gas emissions, including a commitment from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to cease his country’s support for the overseas construction of new coal fired power stations.
On Wednesday, China’s hydrogen industry body, which is supported and supervised by the government, called for 100GW of green hydrogen electrolysers by 2030 – a target that Forrest has in mind for his own green hydrogen ambitions.
However, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has made no new commitments, revealing that his government has yet to reach a position on whether it will join a number of key international allies in adopting a zero net emissions pledge for 2050.
Forrest made clear that he sees decarbonisation as the future of Australian, and international, industry.
“There is now an opportunity to use our industrial might – the fact that [Fortescue is] a heavy carbon-emitting company to use that as an example – to drive a wedge between the argument that if you’re a company, which society depends upon but you’re also heavy carbon emitter, then you have to still stay a heavy carbon emitter. That is a fallacious argument,” Forrest said.
Forrest also lamented the amount of funds spent on unsuccessful carbon capture and storage projects.
“Carbon sequestration has robbed the economies of the world of more money than any bank robber ever possibly could, then you’ll realise because it simply doesn’t work,” Forrest said.
Turnbull is already collaborating with Forrest through the latter’s clean energy spin-off – Fortescue Future Industries – which will drive the resources company’s push into renewable energy and green hydrogen production. The intention is to see the Fortescue group of companies shift from one predominantly built around iron ore and steel, to one focused on sustainable materials and renewable hydrogen.
Turnbull was appointed as Fortescue Future Industries’ chairman in February, with the subsidiary setting itself the ambitious goal of developing 1,000GW of new renewable energy projects globally, including plans for up to 40GW in Australia. Fortescue has also committed to invest at least 10 per cent of future earnings into the ‘future industries’ business.
The new Green Hydrogen Organisation will have a presence across Australia, the United States and Europe. It will be led by the former head of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Jonas Moberg. Michael Mazengarb is a journalist with RenewEconomy, based in Sydney. Before joining RenewEconomy, Michael worked in the renewable energy sector for more than a decade.
Andrew Forrest spearheads global green hydrogen push Bloomberg News | September 23, 2021 | Andrew Forrest (Credit: Ernst & Young)
Iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest and former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will spearhead a new global body to promote greater use of hydrogen produced from renewable sources, targeting a 25% slice of the world energy market by 2050.
The Green Hydrogen Organization, to be known as GH2, was unveiled in New York Thursday to coincide with climate and energy discussions between world leaders at the United Nations. The group will seek to engage with governments to establish energy policies that stimulate demand and markets for the fuel, it said in a document.
“Green hydrogen is the sleeping giant of the energy transition and I believe it will have a bigger impact on tackling climate change than any other technology,” Forrest, chairman of Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. and founding member of the GH2 Board, said in a statement.
Forrest says his Fortescue business is pivoting to become a major clean energy producer over the next decade, and is trialing programs that use hydrogen as a substitute for metallurgical coal in the steel-making process.
While hydrogen produced from solar and wind power is not currently able to compete on cost with fossil fuels as a major source of energy supply, it is widely touted as the best future option to decarbonize industries like steel, cement, fertilizers, shipping and aviation.
GH2, of which Turnbull will be chairman, will host an international Green Hydrogen summit in Barcelona next May 2022.
(By James Thornhill)
Two New, Rare Freshwater Mussel Species Discovered
An international team of scientists has discovered two new species of freshwater mussels endemic to the island of Borneo and established a new genus for them.
Khairuloconcha lunbawangorum and Khairuloconcha sahanae. Image credit: Zieritz et al., doi: 10.1002/aqc.3695.
Freshwater mussels are a crucial part of many freshwater habitats globally.
They live on the bottom of all kinds of freshwater habitats, where they filter algae, bacteria and other organisms from the water, thereby acting as biological filters and playing a major role in nutrient cycling.
They can remove algae, bacteria and other material at a rate of about one liter of water per hour per mussel.
Much of this material is subsequently transported to the benthos (organisms living on the bottom of the habitat), providing food for insects and other invertebrates, which thrive in mussel beds in terms of both abundance and diversity.
The island of Borneo has an exceptionally high number of freshwater mussels, with 15 of the 20 currently recognized native species being restricted to the island.
The two new species, named Khairuloconcha lunbawangorum and Khairuloconcha sahanae, are known from the basins of Limbang and Kinabatangan rivers, respectively.
“The new species are very rare, known only from a single site each (one in Sarawak, one in Sabah), and highly threatened by ongoing habitat destruction,” said Dr. Alexandra Zieritz, a researcher in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham and the School of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.
“One of these species is at especially high risk of extinction, as the only site it’s known from has already been dedicated for an industrial oil palm plantation.”
“We are in the process of preparing the paperwork with the University of Malaysia Sarawak to get this area protected.”
“This would not only help the unique biodiversity in this area but also the indigenous Lun Bawang tribe after which we named that species, Khairuloconcha lunbawangorum.”
The declines of existing populations of freshwater mussels on Borneo have likely been caused by industrial-scale deforestation and land-use change from primary rainforest to agricultural monocultures (predominantly oil palm plantations).
“These practices result in high levels of soil erosion, strongly increasing sediment yield (amount of sediment run-off), and organic and inorganic pollution (via agricultural run-off) of rivers, all of which negatively affects freshwater mussels directly, by degrading habitat quality, or indirectly by reducing host fish populations that they require to complete their life cycles,” the researchers said.
“Other potential drivers of declines in Borneo’s freshwater mussel populations include pollution from domestic and industrial sewage, hydrological alterations, mining, climate change and invasive species.”
The study appears in the journal Aquatic Conservation.
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Alexandra Zieritz et al. A new genus and two new, rare freshwater mussel (Bivalvia: Unionidae) species endemic to Borneo are threatened by ongoing habitat destruction. Aquatic Conservation, published online September 3, 2021; doi: 10.1002/aqc.3695
Researchers Identify Seven Behavior and Personality Traits in Cats
A team of scientists at the University of Helsinki has studied cat personality and behavior by collecting a large dataset of 4,316 cats from 56 different breeds, house cats and mixed breed cats, with online questionnaires.
Mikkola et al. examined the structure, test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity of a feline behavior and personality questionnaire and briefly examined the breed differences in personality and behavior. Image credit: Jan Mallander.
Cats have personalities, just like humans and other animals, with stable behavior differences between individuals.
Identification of a cat’s personality type is important as cats with different personalities have different environmental needs to reach a good life quality.
For example, active individuals may need more enrichment, such as playing, than less active individuals, and fearful cats may benefit from extra hiding places and owners’ peaceful lifestyle.
Cat behavior and personality have been studied with different approaches, for example, with owner-completed questionnaires.
The majority of these studies, however, lack a sufficient validation and reliability assessment of the questionnaires used.
“Compared to dogs, less is known about the behavior and personality of cats, and there is demand for identifying related problems and risk factors,” said first author Salla Mikkola, a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki and the Folkhälsan Research Center.
“We need more understanding and tools to weed out problematic behavior and improve cat welfare.”
“The most common behavioral challenges associated with cats relate to aggression and inappropriate elimination.”
In a questionnaire designed by the team, personality and behavior were surveyed through a total of 138 statements.
The questionnaire included five personality and two problematic behavior-related factors: activity/playfulness, fearfulness, aggression towards humans, sociability towards humans, sociability towards cats, litterbox issues, and excessive grooming.
“While the number of traits identified in prior research varies, activity/playfulness, fearfulness and aggression are the ones from among the traits identified in our study which occur the most often in prior studies,” Mikkola said.
“Litterbox issues and excessive grooming are not personality traits as such, but they can indicate something about the cat’s sensitivity to stress.”
“In addition to individuals, clear personality differences can be found between breeds. In other words, certain personality and behavior traits are more common among certain cat breeds.”
“The most fearful breed was the Russian Blue, while the Abyssinian was the least fearful,” said senior author Professor Hannes Lohi, also from the University of Helsinki and the Folkhälsan Research Center.
“The Bengal was the most active breed, while the Persian and Exotic were the most passive.”
“The breeds exhibiting the most excessive grooming were the Siamese and Balinese, while the Turkish Van breed scored considerably higher in aggression towards humans and lower in sociability towards cats.”
