Thursday, October 14, 2021

 

Physicists propose a new method for defending the Earth against cosmic impacts

Physicists propose a new method for defending the Earth against cosmic impacts
Credit: Alexander Cohen

In February of 2013, skywatchers around the world turned their attention toward asteroid 2012 DA14, a cosmic rock about 150 feet (50 meters) in diameter that was going to fly closer to Earth than the spacecraft that bring us satellite TV.

Little did they realize as they prepared for the once-in-several-decades event that another bit of celestial debris was hurtling toward Earth, with a more direct heading. On Feb. 15, 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor, a roughly 62-foot (19 meter)-diameter asteroid exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, as it entered Earth's atmosphere at a shallow angle. The blast shattered windows and damaged buildings, and nearly two thousand people were hurt, though thankfully no one died.

"It turned out that two completely independent asteroids were coming by that day," said Philip Lubin, UC Santa Barbara professor of physics, and one of the many scientists anticipating 2012 DA14's near-Earth rendezvous. "One of them we knew was going to miss the Earth. The other one, we didn't even know it was coming."

For Lubin and scientists like him, incidents like these underline the importance of robust planetary defense—the detection, tracking, characterization and ultimately defense against potentially dangerous asteroids and comets. City-threatening events like Chelyabinsk are rare, happening about once every 50 to 100 years, but they are potentially devastating. The most recent of these occurrences was the Tunguska Event, an airburst over eastern Siberia in 1908, which flattened hundreds of square miles of forest. Rarer still, but nevertheless possible, are objects that threaten mass-extinction, such as the Chicxulub impactor, which wiped out the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago, or the more recent (12,800 years ago) airburst that caused widespread burning and the onset of an "impact winter" called the Younger Dryas.

However, one cannot discount the possibility of larger objects coming uncomfortably close to Earth in the near future: Apophis, with its 1,214-foot (370 meter) diameter, is due to make a close pass on Friday the 13th in April 2029, while Bennu, at 1,608 feet (490 m) in diameter, is expected to perform a similar pass in 2036. Though they are not anticipated to hit Earth, even relatively small changes in their orbit could cause them to enter gravitational pockets called "keyholes" that can place them on a more direct trajectory toward Earth.

"If it goes through the gravitational keyhole, it will generally hit Earth on the next round," Lubin said.

Strategies for planetary defense have progressed from research into better methods for understanding the threats, to efforts to deflect potential hazards and change their orbits, including a strategy developed by Lubin's group, which proposed the use of lasers to push threatening objects out of Earth's way.

In two papers on the topic of terminal planetary defense submitted to the journal Advances in Space Research, accompanied by an opinion piece published in Scientific American, Lubin and co-researcher Alexander Cohen lay out a more proactive method for dealing with dangerous extraterrestrial space debris. The project is called PI, which affectionately stands for Pulverize It.

Preparing for the inevitable: Do or do not?

"While we often say that nothing in life is certain but death and taxes, we can certainly also add human extinction to this list," Lubin said. "There is a large asteroid or comet lurking in our solar system with 'Earth' written on it. We just do not know where it is or when it will hit."

In the last 113 years, the Earth has been hit by two large asteroids that could have threatened the lives of millions, had they struck over a major city. However, humanity was lucky. In light of this very real threat, it is time to seriously plan for and execute a planetary defense program, the researchers say. PI allows for a logical and cost-effective approach to the ultimate environmental protection program.

Divide and conquer

Key to the PI strategy is the deployment of an array of penetrator rods, possibly filled with explosives, laid in the path of the asteroid to "slice and dice" the threatening object. The penetrator rods—about 4-12 inches (10-30 cm) in diameter and six to ten feet long—fragment the asteroid or comet nucleus as it crashes into them at extreme speed.

Crucially, instead of deflecting the object, the strategy is to let the Earth take the hit, the researchers said, but first to disassemble the asteroid into smaller pieces—typically the size of a house—and let the fragments enter the Earth's atmosphere. The atmosphere can then absorb the energy and further vaporize the house-sized pieces into small debris that do not hit the ground.

Since the original asteroid now enters the atmosphere as a large, distributed cloud of small fragments, they spatially and temporally distribute the energy of the impact, which de-correlates the blast waves created by each fragment. This vastly reduces the threat from catastrophic to more of a "fireworks display," complete with light and sound.

"If you can reduce the big events, which are dangerous, into a bunch of little events that are harmless, you've ultimately mitigated the threat," Cohen said.

"What's unique about this method is that you can have incredibly short response times," Lubin added. "A problem that other techniques like asteroid-deflecting methods have is that they are severely limited in their response times. In other words, they rely on getting an asset to deflect the threat all the way out to the  long before it comes close to the Earth."

Instead, the PI "slice and dice" method intercepts asteroids or comets as they approach the Earth and could be deployed by launch vehicles that already exist today, such as SpaceX's Falcon 9 and NASA's SLS for larger targets. According to the physicists' calculations, smaller targets like the Chelyabinsk meteor could be intercepted just minutes before impact using much smaller launchers similar to ICBM interceptors, while targets that pose a more serious threat, like Apophis, could be intercepted just 10 days prior to impact. Mitigation times this short are entirely unprecedented, according to the researchers.

The best defense is a good offense

Another part of the program is to consider a proactive approach to protecting our planet, the researchers said.

"Much as we get vaccinated to prevent future diseases, as we are now so painfully aware, we could vaccinate the planet by using the penetrator arrays like the needles of a vaccine shot to prevent a catastrophic loss of life in the future," Lubin said.

In this approach, the same system can be used to proactively eliminate threatening objects like Apophis and Bennu to protect future generations.

"It is not well appreciated that large and threatening objects like the Apophis and Bennu asteroids are extremely serious," he continued. "Should they strike, each of them has an energy at impact equal to all of the nuclear weapons on Earth combined. Imagine all of the Earth's nuclear arsenal being detonated in a few seconds. With PI we can prevent this scenario."

This new approach, according to Lubin and Cohen, could make planetary defense quite feasible and "easy as PI," and would allow for a logical roadmap to a robust planetary defense system.

"Extraordinarily rapid response is possible," Lubin said. "We don't see any technological showstoppers. It's synergistic with the current generation of launch vehicles and others that are coming out." Additionally, Lubin added, the method "would be in great synergy with future lunar operations," with the moon potentially acting as a "forward base of operations."

"Humanity could finally control its fate and prevent a future mass extinction like that of the previous tenants of the Earth who did not bother with , the dinosaurs."

Only slight chance of asteroid Bennu hitting Earth: NASA
More information: Project website: www.deepspace.ucsb.edu/project … al-planetary-defense
Papers: www.deepspace.ucsb.edu/project … al-planetary-defense
Provided by University of California - Santa Barbara 

You Can Blow Up an Asteroid Just a few Months Before it Hits Earth and Prevent 99% of the Damage

So far, the battle between life on Earth and asteroids has been completely one-sided. But not for long. Soon, we’ll have the capability to deter asteroids from undesirable encounters with Earth. And while conventional thinking has said that the further away the better when it comes to intercepting one, we can’t assume we’ll always have enough advance warning.

A new study says we might be able to safely destroy potentially dangerous rocky interlopers, even when they get closer to Earth than we’d like.

Humanity faces a dilemma regarding asteroids. We’ve identified many of the potentially dangerous ones, but not all of them, especially smaller ones. We know there must be undetected small asteroids out there, and they can still cause a lot of damage. An asteroid’s potential damage is due not just to its size, but also its angle of impact, its velocity, and its density. (Check out Purdue University’s asteroid impact simulator.) As a general rule of thumb, an asteroid the size of a football field could wipe out a city like New York.

NASA and other space agencies are concerned when it comes to Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs). The US Congress gave NASA a mandate to identify and catalogue 90% of NEOs 140 meters (460 ft) in diameter or larger. Sometime in 2026, NASA plans to launch the NEO Surveyor mission to find more asteroids in our neighbourhood. But it’s doubtful we’ll ever have a complete picture of all the asteroids that could do us harm. The Universe is full of surprises.

NEO asteroid
An artist’s conception of a NEO asteroid orbiting the Sun. Credit: NASA/JPL.

The preferred method of dealing with an asteroid headed for Earth is to deflect it as one chunk using a non-explosive kinetic impactor. But we need advance warning of the asteroid’s approach to do that. If we know decades ahead of time that an asteroid is on an Earth-impacting trajectory, then we need only launch a low-mass impactor. But what if an asteroid is heading straight for Earth and we don’t have enough lead-up time? What if we have less than one year until impact?

“If we spotted a hazardous object destined to strike the Earth too late to safely divert it, our best remaining option would be to break it up so thoroughly the resulting fragments would largely miss the Earth.”

Study co-author Michael Owen, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

We’ll have to blow the thing up best we can and hope that the fragments don’t strike Earth.

But blowing an asteroid up as it’s approaching Earth is a risky maneuver. The asteroid could split into a dangerous swarm of fragments. There’s also a host of technical risks. Attaching an explosive nuclear device to a rocket and launching it into space is not without risks.

A team of researchers has published a study that delves into the issue. It’s titled “Late-time small body disruptions for planetary defence” and it’s published in the journal Acta Astronautica. The lead author is Patrick King from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In the study, the term “late-time” refers to less than one year from impact.

Blowing up an asteroid might not be that difficult, in some ways. In this study, the authors wanted to focus on what happens after one is blown up. What happens to all the fragments? “Our focus is on following to a high degree of accuracy the orbits of the fragments following the disruption of a hazardous body on an Earth-impact trajectory, and if they result in any Earth impacts, estimate the scale of the consequences,” they write. This is particularly important since so many asteroids are of the “rubble-pile” type, and only loosely held together.

The study simulated a 100-meter asteroid approaching Earth and then being disrupted with a one-megaton explosive device. The explosive device wouldn’t actually strike the asteroid, it would be detonated a few meters above the surface. A detonation like that doesn’t make the asteroid disappear; it just breaks it into smaller pieces, which should pose less of a threat if all goes well.

The asteroid Bennu was used in this simulations because it's so well-studied. In this image Bennu is seen from a distance of 24 km (15) miles captured by the PolyCam on OSIRIS-REx. The image is a mosaic constructed of 12 images. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.
The asteroid Bennu was used in these simulations because it’s so well-studied. In this image, Bennu is seen from a distance of 24 km (15) miles captured by the PolyCam on OSIRIS-REx. The image is a mosaic constructed of 12 images. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.

They also simulated five different impact scenarios based on five real-world asteroids. They chose Apophis and Bennu because both of those asteroids are so well-studied. The team chose 343158 Marsyas because it has a retrograde orbit and has a very high relative velocity, and also passed within 0.5 AU of Earth, making it an interesting and extreme scenario. They chose 5496 1973 NA (a minor planet) because of its highly inclined orbit, and because it passed within 0.08 AU in 1973. They also used PDC 2019, the hypothetical asteroid used in the 2019 Planetary Defence Conference.

This table from the study outlines some of the conditions for each impact scenario. Image Credit: King et al 2021.
This table from the study outlines some of the conditions for each impact scenario. Image Credit: King et al 2021.

The simulation’s outcome is promising.

“One of the challenges in assessing disruption is that you need to model all of the fragment orbits, which is generally far more complicated than modelling a simple deflection,” lead author King said in a press release. “Nevertheless, we need to try to tackle these challenges if we want to assess disruption as a possible strategy.”

The team simulated the 100-meter asteroid in five different scenarios. In all five scenarios, the disrupting device was detonated when the asteroid was two months away from Earth. Also in all five, 99.9% of the asteroid’s mass missed Earth.

The hydro simulation in Spheral that provided the basis for the analysis: 1 Megaton at a few meters standoff distance from a 100-meter diameter asteroid (with Bennu shape). Colors denote velocities. The legend is cm/us, which is equivalent to 10 km/s. Image Credit: King et al 2021
The hydro simulation in Spheral provided the basis for the analysis: 1 Megaton at a few meters standoff distance from a 100-meter diameter asteroid (with Bennu shape). Colours denote velocities. The legend is cm/us, which is equivalent to 10 km/s. Image Credit: King et al 2021

This study doesn’t change the fact that kinetic impacts are preferred when it comes to asteroid deflection. The further away an asteroid is when it’s detected, the better. A smaller kinetic impactor is enough. But this study is aimed at late-time small bodies. There isn’t enough time to launch a kinetic impactor with enough mass if we don’t have enough lead time.

But it does show that nuclear devices can be part of humanity’s arsenal in the struggle against asteroids.

“We focused on studying ‘late’ disruptions, meaning that the impacting body is broken apart shortly before it impacts,” he said. “When you have plenty of time — typically decade-long timescales — it is generally preferred that kinetic impactors are used to deflect the impacting body.”

But this study is focused on late disruptions, situations where we don’t have enough time to send an impactor. It’s important that we understand the ramifications of shattering an approaching asteroid into pieces. To help them understand all this, study co-author Michael Owen wrote a piece of software called Spheral. Spheral was able to model not only the nuclear disruption of the asteroid but also all of the resulting fragments.

This video shows the hydro simulation in Spheral that provided the basis for the work. Credit: King et al 2021.

After the explosion, the fragments were subject to each others’ gravity and the gravity of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. The team found that the fragments formed a coherent stream in space.

“If we spotted a hazardous object destined to strike the Earth too late to safely divert it, our best remaining option would be to break it up so thoroughly the resulting fragments would largely miss the Earth,” Owen said. “This is a complicated orbital question though — if you break up an asteroid into pieces, the resulting cloud of fragments will each pursue their own path around the sun, interacting with each other and the planets gravitationally. That cloud will tend to stretch out into a curved stream of fragments around the original path the asteroid was on. How quickly those pieces spread out (combined with how long until the cloud crosses Earth’s path) tells us how many will strike the Earth.”

NASA is about test the kinetic impactor method of asteroid protection with its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. Its launch is scheduled for November 24th, 2021.

The “Double” in the name refers to the double asteroid Didymos. Didymos is about 780 meters in diameter, but it has a little companion named Didymoon. Didymoon is DART’s target, and it’s only about 160 meters in diameter. Most of the asteroids that pose a threat are a similar size to Didymoon. The DART spacecraft itself is the kinetic impactor, and it’ll be sent to collide with Didymoon while sensitive telescopes watch and see what happens.

Artist’s impression of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft speeding toward the smaller of the two bodies in the Didymos asteroid system. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Artist’s impression of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft speeding toward the smaller of the two bodies in the Didymos asteroid system. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

But there’s no real way to test a nuclear detonator on an asteroid. Maybe in the future, we could test one on an asteroid approaching another planet. The sci-fi-minded can easily envision that. But real-world testing on an asteroid anywhere in Earth’s vicinity is a bad idea. Too many things could go wrong. People would never accept it.

For now, we have to rely on simulations like the ones in this study, and future studies that build on this one and refine it.

“Our group continues to refine our modelling approaches for nuclear deflection and disruption, including ongoing improvements to X-ray energy deposition modelling, which sets the initial blowoff and shock conditions for a nuclear disruption problem,” said co-author Bruck Syal. “This latest paper is an important step in demonstrating how our modern multiphysics tools can be used to simulate this problem over multiple relevant physics regimes and timescales.”

More:

Planetary Defense Is Good—but Is Planetary Offense Better?

A new approach could mitigate the most damaging effects of an imminent asteroid or comet strike—or ensure many threatening objects never get close to striking Earth in the first place


October 13, 2021
Credit: Erik Simonsen Getty Images


Less than eight years from now, on Friday the 13th of April 2029, a 370-meter-wide asteroid called Apophis will pass by the Earth, coming nearer to our planet than geosynchronous satellites. But despite the calendrical bad omen, this will be a lucky day: Apophis will not strike our planet—this time, anyway (its orbit ensures Apophis will visit us again in 2036, 2051, 2066 and so on). In 2029, this asteroid’s passage will instead be a cosmic close shave, the equivalent of a speeding bullet brushing against the hairs on your head—in which the “bullet” carries the equivalent impact energy of all the world’s nuclear arsenals combined.

Such dangerous liaisons are shockingly frequent. On September 30, 2054 and September 23, 2060, an even larger asteroid packing an even more potent wallop, the half-kilometer-wide Bennu that was recently visited by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, will also swoop close to Earth.

Neither Bennu nor Apophis are large enough to be existential threats—their impacts could destroy cities and devastate geographical regions but would not send humanity spiraling into extinction like the 10-kilometer-wide impactor that snuffed out the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. Still, these asteroids remain especially worrisome because the further into the future we look, the harder it becomes to know with certainty whether or not any particular encounter will result in a disastrous impact event. Both objects are so-called “gravitational keyhole” threats—the possibility that during a close pass they will traverse a small, specific region of near-Earth space in which our planet’s gravity tweaks their trajectories just so to cause a future encounter to end in an Earth impact. In short, they each pose a chronic-but-hazy threat, one so insidious that it could lull us into a state of false complacency about the all-too-real risks.

We do not have to accept this anxiety-inducing status quo. Rather than merely biting our nails each time these and other potentially hazardous space rocks fly by, we should consider another option, a “plan B.”


A LAST LINE OF DEFENSE


Our current approach to planetary defense boils down to wishful thinking that nothing bad will happen soon and that we will eventually figure out a solution. So far, we have been focused on “situational awareness” in order to understand the threats. This is necessary but not sufficient for actually protecting the Earth from asteroids. And the standard next step—deflecting potential threats so they will not hit us—has problems of its own, chiefly that successful deflection often requires intervention many years in advance. In this mode, many space rocks found hurtling toward imminent impact with Earth would already have slipped through all our defenses. There is, however, another way, one that promises to radically change our ability to protect ourselves.

The basic principle is simple to understand. Imagine you are Roger Rabbit playing a dangerous game of chance, choosing between two unopened doors. Behind door number one you get a 500-kilogram grand piano being dropped on your head from a height of one kilometer. Behind door number two you get 500 kilograms of foam balls dropped on you from the same height. Which do you choose? If you are Roger you might choose door number one, but a Scientific American reader would choose door number two. Why? Both possess the same mass and potential energy, but basic intuition suggests that large numbers of foam balls will not cause the same damage to you as one piano. Fragmenting the mass into smaller portions ensures that each will carry far less energy, and will also allow the atmosphere to more effectively slow each fragment’s fall. This is a rather precise analogy to our proposed planetary-defense method, which we affectionately call “PI” (pronounced like Ï€), which is short for “Pulverize It!”

A diagram of the authors’ proposed “Pulverize It!” planetary defense system. Rocket-launched “interceptors” (left) deploy ahead of an incoming asteroid (right), breaking it into smaller fragments that then disintegrate and burn in Earth’s upper atmosphere (bottom). 
Credit: Alexander N. Cohen (UCSB), Peter Cohen

Our idea (which is detailed in several technical papers submitted for peer-reviewed publication and available on our Web site and arXix) is to effectively pulverize any threatening asteroid into a large number of smaller fragments circa 10 meters or less in diameter. This is possible because asteroids have low surface gravity and most are easy to breakup and disperse. For all but the largest impactors (greater than a kilometer wide), such fragmentation could be achieved using barrages of nonnuclear interceptors launched from Earth or its vicinity using existing launch systems and associated technologies. Our same system using small nuclear penetrators is also an option for large threats.

Once fragmented, the incoming impactor’s energy would be efficiently converted into heat, sound and light by the Earth’s atmosphere, which would act much like a bulletproof vest absorbing a blast of buckshot. Our analysis shows this approach works incredibly well at mitigating imminent threats: An impactor the size of the 20-meter-wide space rock that broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February 2013 could be intercepted a mere 100 seconds prior to impact, whereas one the size of the Tunguska impactor (50 meters in diameter) would require interception some five hours prior to impact. Something the size of Apophis could be dealt with 10 days prior to striking Earth, and something as large as Bennu would need to be fragmented 20 days in advance. These are extraordinarily short intercept times compared to deflection approaches. Even shorter times would be enabled with more energetic interceptors if required.

Of course, a knowledgeable reader may realize we have not told the entire story. Both the previously mentioned Chelyabinsk and Tunguska impacts were airburst events, after all, and in both cases surrounding natural and artificial structures sustained significant damage. This damage chiefly came from the sonic-boom-like acoustic blast waves emitted by the bodies as they broke apart in the atmosphere.

Our PI approach would not eliminate airbursts, but by shattering incoming bodies before they enter the atmosphere the resulting small fragments would be spread out over larger geographical areas and would each produce much smaller blast waves and critically that arrive at different times. Just as you’d expect to have bruising and soreness from a bulletproof vest absorbing a buckshot blast, so too would one expect some damage to still occur on the ground from the acoustic shock wave and associated flash of light and heat as a threatening asteroid’s tumbling fragments burned up in the skies overhead. But this damage would be slight in comparison to the alternative; for a Chelyabinsk-like impactor, a person on the ground would experience a series of loud “booms” and see a series of optical flashes—a “sound and light show” with some broken windows, rather than a cataclysm that lays waste to a city, region or country.

DEMONSTRATIONS AND DETECTIONS


Despite our system’s ability to leverage existing technologies and launch vehicles, its creation would nevertheless require major investments. In short, this would be expensive. But even so, the cost-benefit ratio is remarkably favorable given the almost incalculable damage that would be associated with failing to prevent an asteroid strike.

Furthermore, its creation would allow us more flexibility in dealing with known impact threats, now and on into the distant future. Much as mass vaccination programs are used to proactively prevent against pandemics, PI offers a way to proactively address many asteroids that, while potentially hazardous in their Earth-crossing orbits, pose no immediate threat. While likely a controversial approach, it is little different from other proactive threat management we practice in life. We could mitigate threats such as Apophis and Bennu on any given close pass before they spark full-blown emergencies. It is within our power to do so. Whether we do so or not is not just a technical issue but one of policy and cooperation and common agreement. This is an area where international cooperation could benefit the entire planet; much like the current emphasis on collectively solving Earth’s climate and pandemic crisis, we come together to solve the “impact” crisis, too.

Mitigating a Chelyabinsk-size threat could be done using a relatively small rocket that is not much larger than those developed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles. Mitigating Apophis or Bennu can be done with a single larger launcher such as NASA’s forthcoming Space Launch System, SpaceX’s Starship rocket, or even smaller vehicles carrying high-speed upper stages for rapid transit beyond the vicinity of Earth’s moon. Multiple interceptors would be desirable to boost chances of success. A future planetary defense system might deploy interceptors in orbit or on or around the moon for an “always at the ready” rapid response approach. In this sense a planetary defense system could be analogous to existing national missile defense systems.

PI has a logical test path, from ground demonstrations using asteroid “mock-ups,” to in-space testing on “synthetic targets,” all the way to disruption attempts for small, minimally threatening asteroids and other validating exercises before any actually threatening target is engaged and mitigated.

However, we cannot mitigate that which we cannot see. NASA and other space agencies are doing an excellent job of finding and tracking those asteroids that are significant threats, but currently these efforts are generally limited to objects typically larger than Apophis. There are many smaller as-yet-undetected threats that exist, as the Chelyabinsk airburst showed so clearly in 2013. Without a suitable, separately developed “early warning system,” PI and any other planetary defense method would offer suboptimal protection. PI is just one piece of this urgent puzzle: To properly protect the Earth, we must fully open more eyes on the skies.

For more information: www.deepspace.ucsb.edu/projects/pi-terminal-planetary-defense.

AUTHORS

Philip Lubin is a professor of Physics at UC Santa Barbara whose primary research has been focused on studies of the early universe as well as applications of directed energy for planetary defense and relativistic propulsion.

Alexander Cohen is a research scientist in the Department of Physics at UC Santa Barbara. Having graduated with a B.S. in physics in 2019, Cohen now researches applications of directed energy, primarily for spacecraft propulsion and planetary defense from asteroids.
There's No Way Venus Could Ever Have Had Oceans, Astronomers Say

Artist's impression of Venus. (MArk Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)
SPACE

MICHELLE STARR
13 OCTOBER 2021

Let's be honest: in the Solar System, there really is no good place for humans that isn't Earth. But that doesn't mean all bad places were created equal; and Venus is about as inhospitable as a temperate-zone rocky exoplanet can get.

In recent years, evidence has been mounting to suggest that this was not always the case. That, once upon a time, in its wild, wayward youth, Venus could have been habitable, with a lovely climate and even liquid oceans.

Well, maybe we should forget all that. According to new research modelling the climate of Venus and of Earth in their early years, Earth's so-called sister planet would never have cooled sufficiently to allow the condensation of water into liquid.

Once a toxic hell-planet, always a toxic hell-planet, it seems.

Venus is a lot like Earth in many ways. It's a similar size and composition, and once, when the Sun was younger and cooler, it should have had a more temperate climate.

Now, it's anything but temperate. Venus's sky is filled with thick clouds of sulfuric acid, and its atmospheric pressure at 0 altitude is almost 100 times greater than Earth's. If that weren't bad enough, it's lander-meltingly hot, with an average surface temperature of 471 degrees Celsius (880 degrees Fahrenheit).

But because of the similarities between the two planets, scientists think that Venus could be a sign of what's in Earth's future, as the Sun's brightness continues to rise.


This is especially relevant if Venus was once more like Earth, with liquid oceans, and previous research has found evidence that this could have been the case, especially when the Sun was around 30 percent dimmer (and therefore cooler) than it is today.

This faint, young Sun, however, presents a paradox: At those temperatures, Earth should have been a frozen ice ball, yet we have evidence that liquid water was present relatively early.

A team of researchers led by astronomer Martin Turbet of the University of Geneva in Switzerland has now not only shown that Venus was never like Earth, but found a resolution for the faint, young Sun paradox.

"We simulated the climate of the Earth and Venus at the very beginning of their evolution, more than 4 billion years ago, when the surface of the planets was still molten," Turbet said. "The associated high temperatures meant that any water would have been present in the form of steam, as in a gigantic pressure cooker."

In order for this steam to condense into clouds and rain down on the surface, Venus would have had to have cooled for several thousand years. This could only have happened if clouds formed to block solar radiation from the Venusian surface.

The team's climate modelling showed that clouds could have formed on a baby Venus – but only on the cooler night side of the planet. Not only would this not prevent solar radiation from reaching the day side, it would have made the planet warmer by generating a powerful greenhouse effect on the night side.

This would mean that water vapor could never have condensed in the atmosphere, let alone in sufficient quantities to rain down on the planet to fill entire oceans over millennia. This validates the notion of "steam Venus" that was first proposed in 2013 using simpler modelling.

Interestingly, though, the team's work showed that "steam Earth" could also have happened, even with a weaker Sun. In fact, if the solar radiation had been any stronger, Earth could have ended up like Venus.

Rather than freezing a liquid Earth, the research showed, the faint young Sun would have allowed our steamy planet to cool enough to allow for water to condense into liquid.

Exactly how Earth and Venus ended up on such different evolutionary paths is far from confirmed, however, and a mystery that planetary scientists would love to solve. Even if it doesn't have implications for our future, it may help us find other habitable worlds, out there in the wider Milky Way galaxy.

"Our results are based on theoretical models and are an important building-block in answering the question of the history of Venus," said astronomer David Ehrenreich of the University of Geneva.

"But we will not be able to rule on the matter definitively on our computers. The observations of the three future Venusian space missions will be essential to confirm – or refute – our work."

The research has been published in Nature.
Covid-19 demonstrated “potency” of public spending, says IMF

 – 10/13/2021 



The coronavirus crisis has caused a much greater increase in public and private debt than the global financial crisis, the IMF said on Wednesday (13), stressing a “great financial divide” between countries that have access to finance and the that does not have.

Debt was generally put to good use during the pandemic, according to Vitor Gaspar, head of fiscal policy at the IMF, protecting Covid-19 families and businesses, speeding recovery and improving economic prospects.

Almost 90% of the active fiscal support mobilized during the Covid crisis was taken over by advanced economies and China. While these countries also had better access to vaccines, the IMF said it demonstrated the value of being able to support economies with public spending during a crisis.

By comparison, the lack of access to cheap credit has undermined prospects for emerging and developing countries, according to Gaspar. “The financial gap seems to translate into economic prospects. And in the case of low-income countries [a grande divisão] seems to create difficulties that persist in the medium term.”

“In 2020, fiscal policy proved its potency,” added Gaspar, as the poorest countries now face greater long-term economic losses from Covid-19, with depressed tax revenues and underlying worsening public finances.


In the IMF’s Fiscal Monitor, published on Wednesday (13), advanced economies did not emerge from the pandemic unscathed, with debt levels expected to stabilize at just below 100% of national income. However, this was less than expected six months ago.

Deficits are also likely to return to manageable levels as economies recover to normal production levels, close to their pre-pandemic trend. The IMF has not recommended that these countries take additional steps to reduce deficits.

When investing in the future, Gaspar said the pandemic has already shown that loans for “well spent” capital spending will have a positive return, boosting economic performance and not increasing the long-term debt burden.


“Vaccination at this point in Covid-19 is likely to be the highest-returning global public investment to date,” said Gaspar, adding that in many poor countries investment to help people adapt to global warming has had very high returns.

The IMF conducted a simulation exercise to assess the likely effects of the Biden government’s proposed infrastructure and family support programs in the US, in conjunction with the European Union’s recovery fund.

These huge programs added together will add 0.7% to the level of the global Gross Domestic Product in the coming years, in the assessment of the IMF, increasing investments and real interest rates in the process, with the benefits felt more intensely in the USA, in the EU and in raw material exporting countries.​

The IMF warns of growing threats to global economic recovery


The IMF is warning that threats to the global eocnomic recovery are growing along with a ‘dangerous divergence’ in recoveries between richer and poorter nations.

IMF chief Gita Gopinath said on Tuesday that the 'foremost priority' is to vaccinate at least 40 percent of the population in every country by the end of this year 
[File: Rodrigo Garrido/Reuters]

By Al Jazeera Staff
12 Oct 2021

The International Monetary Fund did not mince words in its latest outlook for the global economy released on Tuesday, warning that the threats to the economic recovery from last year’s COVID-19 disruptions are growing, along with a “dangerous divergence” between richer and poorer countries.

The IMF revised its headline forecast for global growth this year down slightly by 0.1 percent to 5.9 percent while leaving its projections for 2022 unchanged at 4.9 percent.

“This modest headline revision, however, masks large downgrades for some countries,” said the fund, noting that “the outlook for the low-income developing country group has darkened considerably due to worsening pandemic dynamics.”

IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath elaborated on those pandemic dynamics in a virtual news conference on Tuesday, saying that global supply shortages in the face of resurgent demand are triggering commodity price inflation that is being passed on to consumers.

“Food prices have increased the most in low-income countries where food insecurity is most acute, adding to the burdens of poorer households, and raising the risk of social unrest,” she noted.

Moreover, emerging and developing economies are facing tougher financing conditions as debt levels climb, inflation soars and their currencies weaken against the US dollar – compelling them to raise interest rates in a bid to keep inflation expectations in check.

Gopinath added that challenges like rising food inflation, food insecurity and increased risk-taking in financial markets are underpinned by the pandemic’s “continued grip” on global society.

“The foremost priority is, therefore, to vaccinate at least 40 percent of the population in every country by the end of this year, and 70 percent by the middle of next year,” Gopinath said.

Almost 60 percent of the population in advanced economies are fully vaccinated and some people are even receiving booster shots. At the same time, roughly 96 percent of the population in low-income countries have yet to receive a single COVID jab, the IMF noted.

The recovery gap between richer and poorer countries is expected to widen, with the IMF calling for advanced economies to regain their pre-pandemic trend path next year and exceed it by 0.9 percent in 2024.

By contrast, the fund predicted economic growth in emerging and developing economies – minus China – would remain 5.5 percent below pre-pandemic forecasts in 2024, “resulting in a larger setback to improvements in their living standards”.

While the IMF saw inflation reverting to pre-pandemic levels by the middle of next year, a more granular analysis reveals a wide disparity in the outlook between nations.

For advanced economies, the fund believed headline inflation would peak in the final months of this year and decline to about 2 percent by mid-2022. For emerging market and developing economies, headline inflation is expected to peak at 6.8 percent later this year before falling to about 4 percent by the middle of next year “with risks tilted to the upside over the medium term”.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

'Great financing divide' between rich, poor nations slows recovery - IMF

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Economic growth in poorer countries will likely lag pre-pandemic expectations for years, given gaps in vaccination rates, revenue growth and the ability to borrow, the International Monetary Fund said in its Fiscal Monitor report released on Wednesday.

Global debt levels increased to a record $226 trillion in 2020, a $27 trillion jump in just one year that far exceeds the $20 trillion cumulative gain seen over the two years during the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, the report showed.

About 90% of that increase came from advanced economies, plus China, with emerging and developing economies far less able to access financial markets for their spending needs, and also more vulnerable to possible interest rate rises, Vitor Gaspar, the IMF’s head of fiscal policy, told Reuters in an interview.


“The great vaccine divide, climate change, and the great financing divide are global problems that demand global action,” he said, warning that low-income countries face compounding challenges that could slow growth prospects for years.

The pandemic has exacerbated the “already considerable” financing gaps facing low-income countries before the crisis, Gaspar said, adding that emerging and developing economies were also more vulnerable to changes in global interest rates.

That meant they could see borrowing costs rise faster than expected once central banks start to remove monetary support seen during the pandemic, the report said.

Global government debt has stabilized at a record $88 trillion, just below 100% of gross domestic product, with fiscal and economic developments varying widely, depending on local vaccination rates, the stage of the pandemic, and the ability of governments to access low-cost borrowing.

Overall, the report said, an estimated 65 million to 75 million more people will fall into poverty by the end of 2021 than would have been the case without the pandemic.

Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Christian Schmollinger

World’s growth cools and the rich-poor divide widens

Worldwide poverty, hunger and unmanageable debt are all on the upswing. Employment has fallen, especially for women, reversing many of the gains they made in recent years.



By: New York Times |
October 13, 2021 

A street in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Poverty in many nations is on the upswing.
 (Mauricio Lima/The New York Times)

Written by Patricia Cohen and Alan Rappeport

As the world economy struggles to find its footing, the resurgence of the coronavirus and supply chain chokeholds threaten to hold back the global recovery’s momentum, a closely watched report warned on Tuesday.

The overall growth rate will remain near 6% this year, a historically high level after a recession, but the expansion reflects a vast divergence in the fortunes of rich and poor countries, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest World Economic Outlook report.


Worldwide poverty, hunger and unmanageable debt are all on the upswing. Employment has fallen, especially for women, reversing many of the gains they made in recent years.

Uneven access to vaccines and health care is at the heart of the economic disparities. While booster shots are becoming available in some wealthier nations, a staggering 96% of people in low-income countries are still unvaccinated.

“Recent developments have made it abundantly clear that we are all in this together and the pandemic is not over anywhere until it is over everywhere,” Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, wrote in the report.

The outlook for the United States, Europe and other advanced economies has also darkened. Factories hobbled by pandemic-related restrictions and bottlenecks at key ports around the world have caused crippling supply shortages. A lack of workers in many industries is contributing to the clogs. The U.S. Labor Department reported Tuesday that a record 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August — to take or seek new jobs, or to leave the workforce.

In the United States, weakening consumption and large declines in inventory caused the IMF to pare back its growth projections to 6% from the 7% estimated in July. In Germany, manufacturing output has taken a hit because key commodities are hard to find. And lockdown measures over the summer have dampened growth in Japan.

Fear of rising inflation — even if likely to be temporary — is growing. Prices are climbing for food, medicine and oil as well as for cars and trucks. Inflation worries could also limit governments’ ability to stimulate the economy if a slowdown worsens. As it is, the unusual infusion of public support in the United States and Europe is winding down.

“Overall, risks to economic prospects have increased, and policy trade-offs have become more complex,” Gopinath said.

The IMF lowered its 2021 global growth forecast to 5.9%, down from the 6% projected in July. For 2022, the estimate is 4.9%.

The key to understanding the global economy is that recoveries in different countries are out of sync, said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “Each and every economy is suffering or benefiting from its own idiosyncratic factors,” he said.

For countries like China, Vietnam and South Korea, whose economies have large manufacturing sectors, “inflation hits them where it hurts the most,” Daco said, raising costs of raw materials that reverberate through the production process.

The pandemic has underscored how economic success or failure in one country can ripple throughout the world. Floods in Shanxi, China’s mining region, and monsoons in India’s coal-producing states contribute to rising energy prices. A COVID outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City that shuts factories means shop owners in Hoboken, New Jersey will not have shoes and sweaters to sell.

The IMF warned that if the coronavirus — or its variants — continued to hopscotch across the globe, it could reduce the world’s estimated output by $5.3 trillion over the next five years.

The worldwide surge in energy prices threatens to impose more hardship as it hampers the recovery. This week, oil prices hit a seven-year high in the United States. With winter approaching, Europeans are worried that heating costs will soar when temperatures drop. In other spots, the shortages have cut even deeper, causing blackouts in some places that paralyzed transport, closed factories and threatened food supplies.

In China, electricity is being rationed in many provinces and many companies are operating at less than half of their capacity, contributing to an already significant slowdown in growth. India’s coal reserves have dropped to dangerously low levels.

And over the weekend, Lebanon’s 6 million residents were left without any power for more than 24 hours after fuel shortages shut down the nation’s power plants. The outage is just the latest in a series of disasters there. Its economic and financial crisis has been one of the world’s worst in 150 years.

Oil producers in the Middle East and elsewhere are lately benefiting from the jump in prices. But many nations in the region and North Africa are still trying to resuscitate their pandemic-battered economies. According to newly updated reports from the World Bank, 13 of the 16 countries in that region will have lower standards of living this year than they did before the pandemic, in large part because of “underfinanced, imbalanced and ill-prepared health systems.”

Other countries were so overburdened by debt even before the pandemic that governments were forced to limit spending on health care to repay foreign lenders.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, there are fears of a second lost decade of growth like the one experienced after 2010. In South Africa, over one-third of the population is out of work.

And in East Asia and the Pacific, a World Bank update warned that “COVID-19 threatens to create a combination of slow growth and increasing inequality for the first time this century.” Businesses in Indonesia, Mongolia and the Philippines lost on average 40% or more of their typical monthly sales. Thailand and many Pacific island economies are expected to have less output in 2023 than they did before the pandemic.

Some developing economies are doing better than last year, partly because of the increase in the prices of commodities like oil and metals that they produce. Growth projections ticked up slightly to 6.4% in 2021 compared with 6.3% estimated in July.

“The recovery has been incredibly uneven,” and that’s a problem for everyone, said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust. “Developing countries are essential to global economic function.”

The outlook is clouded by uncertainty. Erratic policy decisions — like Congress’ delay in lifting the debt ceiling — can further set back the recovery, the IMF warned.

But the biggest risk is the emergence of a more infectious and deadlier coronavirus variant.

Gopinath at the IMF urged vaccine manufacturers to support the expansion of vaccine production in developing countries.

Earlier this year, the IMF approved $650 billion worth of emergency currency reserves that have been distributed to countries around the world. In this latest report, it again called on wealthy countries to help ensure that these funds are used to benefit poor countries that have been struggling the most with the fallout of the virus.

“We’re witnessing what I call tragic reversals in development across many dimensions,” said David Malpass, the president of the World Bank. “Progress in reducing extreme poverty has been set back by years — for some, by a decade.”



ON ITS WAY
Future Gabriola Island EV ferry B.C. bound from Romanian shipyard



The sun is setting on the MV Quinsam's time in waters around Gabriola Island, with new hybrid-electric vessels set to replace the aging ship in 2022
. (Alex Rawnsley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff


Oct 13, 2021 

NANAIMO — The last of BC Ferries’ new Island class vessels is on its way to local waters.

Temporarily dubbed ‘Island 6’, the ship left its Romanian shipyard on Monday, Oct. 11 and is expected to take upwards of two months to complete the cross-Atlantic trek.

The ferry, along with one of its twins, is set to replace the MV Quinsam on the Nanaimo Harbour to Gabriola Island route.

“Like the three Island Class ferries that came before it, approximately one-third of Island 6’s journey is expected to be completed by using battery power with the main engines stopped,” a release from BC Ferries read.

The hybrid-electric vessel is designed to be able to run in a full electric mode, once charging capabilities on shore are installed.


“Electric propulsion is quieter, smoother and more efficient compared to the traditional diesel propulsion of the vessels the Island Class will be replacing, and these ships will improve customer service by adding more capacity and frequency of service,” Capt. James Marshall, vice president of shipbuilding and innovation, said.

Island class vessels carry just under 50 vehicles, slightly less than the Quinsam, however the company plans to run two vessels on the route in 2022, effectively doubling capacity.

People can follow the ship’s progress to B.C. by clicking here.

The Gabriola-Nanaimo run is constantly plagued by sailing delays, largely due to accumulated time spent loading and unloading the ship.

Between June and August 2021, at least 50 service notices for sailing delays were posted on the run, with the route being an average of 28 minutes late.

Many times, the Quinsam fell so far behind its schedule, the company would cancel a round trip in order to resume normal operations.

A new schedule was implemented in September in a bid to stem the delays.

Steven Earle, chair of the Gabriola Island Ferry Advisory Committee, previously told NanaimoNewsNOW the solution is a lot more complicated than just adding sailings.

The first boat typically leaves Gabriola Island at 5:15 a.m. with crossings regularly until a final 11 p.m. departure from Nanaimo.
AB SOVERIGN WEATH FUND
'I'm going to lead differently here': Evan Siddall rocked the boat at CMHC, but looks to calm the waters at AIMCo

'You lead based on what the what the circumstances suggest'

Author of the article:Barbara Shecter
Publishing date:Oct 13, 2021 •
CMHC CEO Evan Siddall in 2015. 
PHOTO BY GALIT RODAN/BLOOMBERG FILES


Evan Siddall built a reputation as an outspoken and sometimes controversial figure during his seven-year tenure CEO at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

So when he arrived in Edmonton in July as the freshly appointed chief executive of Alberta Investment Management Corp., a traditionally quiet manager of pensions, endowments and government fund assets, that was being buffeted by some controversies of its own, he probably felt right at home.

AIMCo was working to steady its nearly $120-billion ship — and relationships with some 30 clients — after a $2.1 billon loss last year on a volatility strategy when markets were rocked by the declaration the global pandemic.

It was also locked in a public battle with Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund, which had been forced by legislation passed in 2019 to use AIMCo as its sole investment manager. AIMCo and ATRF initially failed to reach an agreement on the terms of their new arrangement, so these were imposed on them through a government order in January.

The asset manager was at the centre of a few political storms, too, the biggest brought about when Alberta Premier Jason Kenney mused that he might pull Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan, putting the spotlight on AIMCo as the likely future manager of those funds.

Then last month, another Canadian pension giant, Caisse de depot et Placement du Quebec, thrust divestment — a sensitive issue in oil-rich Alberta — back into the spotlight with a declaration it would sell off all assets that produce crude oil products by the end of next year.


AIMCo picks former CMHC CEO Evan Siddall as leadership overhaul continues



In his first major interview since taking the helm at AIMCo, Siddall — who pledged to keep a lower profile in his new assignment — said he thinks he has helped smooth the waters so far.

For one thing, he says, his arrival helped AIMCo and Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund forge a new negotiated management agreement in September, just a few months after he arrived. He is quick to point out, though, that he doesn’t think this reflects poorly on previous management, particularly given that the relationship was akin to an “arranged marriage” that one side was clearly unhappy about.

“I did have the advantage of, if there was a pile of something people were standing in, they were overwhelmed by the stench of that I suppose, and I wasn’t,” Siddall said.

“Sometimes a good hockey team changes the coach and the team plays better; it has nothing to do with anything other than cosmetics but, yeah, that is part of the story for sure.”

But with much work underway at AIMCo, including completing the implementation of a series of recommendations to the board from outside experts to beef up risk management and make changes to the culture following last year’s volatility loss, there can be no promises of smooth sailing.

For one thing, AIMCo is unlikely to follow any sort of divestment strategy, preferring to invest in and capitalize on Alberta’s homegrown strength and expertise in energy throughout any transition to a lower carbon economy, Siddall said. That could raise questions about whether the Crown corporation is being directed by government, which has its own reasons for wanting a healthy oil and gas industry. But Siddall is quick to dispel this idea.

“I’ve had no conversation, not a single conversation with the government, where they instructed us as to how to position ourselves in the energy sector,” he said. “It’s an investment decision.”

There’s money to be made by those with long-term, patient capital (and) insight into the energy sector

Siddall said he believes “there’s money to be made” by those with “long-term, patient capital (and) insight into the energy sector” including cutting-edge clean technology. It is an echo of what AIMCo chair Mark Wiseman told the Post last year. Wiseman joined the Alberta pension manager’s board in July 2020 and encouraged Siddall to apply for the CEO job after Kevin Uebelein stepped down before the end of his employment contract this year.

“That’s AIMCo. If it’s anybody it’s AIMCo,” Siddall said. “We have a home-field advantage that we’re going to take advantage of and that, in my mind, does not include divestment.”

In spite of his strong views and his reputation, Siddall said he intends to work mostly behind the scenes, with public statements confined mainly to required appearances before a government standing committee.

“I’m going to lead differently here,” he said “You lead based on what the what the circumstances suggest.”

Still, a lower public profile doesn’t mean accepting the status quo.

Some legislation in Alberta over the past few years has aimed to extend the arms-length relationship between AIMCo and the provincial government, and Siddall — and Wiseman — are hopeful they can drive that wedge further to clarify for clients that AIMCo exists to make money for them and “not to be a tool of government.”

“I think the current government’s quite clear on that and that’s good, and the more we can clarify that the better,” Siddall said, though he declined to weigh in on what, if anything, he thinks the UCP will do.

My sincere answer is we don't talk about it (and) I don't want to talk to them about it. That’s a political question



“It’s their decision, not ours, and all we can do is tell them how we could be more independent and the sorts of things that they might consider,” he said. “So we’ve done that, and they will decide whatever they want decide.”


He also demurred when asked about the possibility of Albertans’ portion of the Canada Pension Plan being severed from the national pension scheme and brought under the AIMCo umbrella, something Alberta Premier Jason Kenny has touted and his United Conservative Party-led government is studying.

“My sincere answer is we don’t talk about it (and) I don’t want to talk to them about it,” said Siddall. “That’s a political question.”


However, he noted that AIMCo is proving it can handle more assets under management.

“Our job is to build an organization that can do what we’re asked to do, period,” he said, adding that the pension manager is successfully integrating the ATRF assets and additional assets of the Workers’ Compensation Board. It will soon be adding the investment assets of Alberta Health Services, with current assets under management rising to $153 billion from $118.6 billion at the end of last year.

Something like a CPP transfer would not happen overnight in any event, Siddall said, which would leave AIMCo plenty of time to complete its work on integration and risk management — if the government chooses to go that route.

Jim Keohane, seen pre-retirement, sees some “mania” in the markets, which leaves long-term investors with questions about where to put their money.
 PHOTO BY TYLER ANDERSON/NATIONAL POST FILES

In the meantime, he is getting to know the board of directors, about half of them in person. One such meeting was a two-hour conversation with Jim Keohane about how he ran the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) for eight years as CEO before retiring last year.

In an interview last week, Keohane told the Financial Post that today’s markets resemble past bubbles, propped up by liquidity from policy and monetary interventions. He also sees elements of “mania” in the markets, leaving long-term institutional investors with few safe places to invest.

Siddall doesn’t disagree.

“It’s hard to make money,” he said, noting that AIMCo’s job is to satisfy its pension, endowment and government fund clients by beating benchmarks — or doing less badly in poor market conditions — as well as keeping ahead of inflation and managing interest rate risks.

“Asset prices where they are and so much cash flying around… both through central bank support and fiscal support, it’s just priced all assets ridiculously,” Siddall added.

Siddall said the key for investment professionals, including those at AIMCo, is to “keep some dry powder around for dips… You’ve got to just look for opportunities to make money for your clients.”

He leaves such matters primarily in the hands of his chief investment officer. For now, he says, the view is that inflation is transitory, though they are keeping a keen eye on that, and suggests that central bankers will begin to rein in quantitative easing.

“My goal (is) to set a strategy for the institution to make sure we’re in the right businesses, to make sure we’ve got the right capital and people behind those businesses, and that we have a decision-making function that is excellent,” he said. “And so we’re working on improving that.”


TIME TO FLATTEN DEFENSE HIERARCHY

Incoming Canadian Army commander under investigation for sexual misconduct


Lt.-Gen. Trevor Cadieu, who was to take command of the Canadian Army, is now under police investigation after allegations were raised about sexual misconduct, this newspaper has confirmed.

Author of the article: David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Oct 13, 2021 •
File photo/ Lt.-Gen. Trevor Cadieu, pictured in 2017, is under police investigation, Postmedia has confirmed. 
PHOTO BY ED KAISER /Postmedia

Lt.-Gen. Trevor Cadieu, who was to take command of the Canadian Army, is now under police investigation after allegations were raised about sexual misconduct, this newspaper has confirmed.

Cadieu has denied any wrongdoing.

The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service has taken a statement from one former military member, a woman, about the allegations against Cadieu, and other statements are in the process of being collected. It is unclear when the investigation will be finished.

“The allegations are false, but they must be investigated thoroughly to expose the truth,” Cadieu told this newspaper. “I believe that all complaints should be investigated professionally, regardless of the rank of the accused. I have already voluntarily provided information to the National Investigative Service, and I continue to await additional opportunities to cooperate fully with their investigation.”

Cadieu said he had provided detailed information and correspondence to investigators, and “I have taken other measures to prove my truthfulness and innocence.”

Cadieu was recently promoted to lieutenant general and slated to take over command of the army. A change of command ceremony that was to have taken place in early September was cancelled at the last minute, shortly after Acting Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre was informed about the CFNIS investigation.

“I know that these false claims will, as intended, create doubts about my ability to lead in this environment,” Cadieu told this newspaper. “While I have devoted every day of my career to making fellow members feel respected and included, Canadian Army soldiers deserve a leader who is unencumbered by allegations and can lead at this important time when culture change, addressing systemic misconduct and preparing tactical teams for operations must remain the priority effort.”

Cadieu said he had asked Eyre to consider selecting another leader for that position as soon as was practical.

National Defence noted in a statement to this newspaper that Eyre was notified on Sept. 5 that the CFNIS investigation had opened an investigation into Cadieu regarding “historical allegations.”

As a result, the change of command ceremony was postponed. “The postponement of the ceremony is not an indictment of LGen Cadieu,” National Defence noted in its statement. “However, in light of the ongoing investigation, a decision was made to allow the justice system to pursue the matter in accordance with the rule of law.”

Over the last 10 months, the Canadian military has been rocked with allegations of sexual misconduct by senior leaders.


Retired chief of the defence staff Gen. Jon Vance faced a number of sexual misconduct allegations and in July was charged with one count of obstruction of justice.

In August, Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin was charged with sexual assault.

Military police are still investigating Vice Admiral Haydn Edmundson after a former member of the navy alleged she was sexually assaulted.

Maj.-Gen. Peter Dawe was put on paid leave in early May after it was revealed he wrote a positive character reference to try to influence the sentencing of an officer convicted of sexual assault.

The senior military leadership quietly brought Dawe back to defence headquarters in September to work on sexual misconduct review files. But defence sources, who questioned the ethics of putting Dawe in such a new role, tipped off this newspaper. The resulting anger from sexual assault victims forced the Canadian Forces to temporarily remove Dawe from his new job and raised new questions about whether the senior leadership was serious about dealing with sexual misconduct.


The Liberal government has not yet decided what to do with Adm. Art McDonald, who is still technically chief of the defence staff, although he only served in that job for a couple of weeks. McDonald temporarily stepped aside Feb. 25 after military police launched an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.


In August, police stated their investigation did not find evidence to support laying charges. Shortly after — in what many observers see as a major public-relations gaffe — McDonald’s lawyers released a statement noting the officer was coming back to his job even as the federal government pointed out it still hadn’t decided his future.

The Liberal government responded by putting McDonald on leave and promoting Eyre to full general. McDonald has claimed that he has the “moral authority” to lead the military.

Eyre has received criticism that he represents the status quo of an organization that has fought against real change when it comes to dealing with sexual misconduct. Military personnel took to social media to challenge Eyre for refusing to punish Dawe as well as for his decision to welcome back Vice Adm. Craig Baines as head of the navy. Baines came under fire after going golfing with Vance in a “public display of support” for the retired general.

Eyre has claimed there is no room for sexual misconduct in the military. But his critics say his reassurances are starting to ring hollow, particularly in the wake of the decision not to discipline any of the navy officers who joked about kinky sex and bondage during an official conference call. An investigation, released in September, confirmed that such comments were made and that they “demonstrated the sexualized culture that the (navy) must continue to confront.” No explanation, however, was provided on the decision not to discipline any of those involved. Earlier this year, though, parliamentary committees investigating sexual misconduct in the military heard about a system where complaints by victims were ignored and the perpetrators were protected.
#VOTENO
Opinion: The case against Premier Kenney’s equalization referendum

Author of the article: Trevor Tombe
Publishing date: Oct 13, 2021 • 
  
Trevor Tombe writes that voting No to the equalization question on Oct. 18 is important; to do otherwise risks long-term damage to our federation, to our politics and to the province, while being a costly distraction from Alberta's real and growing challenges.

Proposals to amend the Constitution are very serious matters. They are at the heart of what kind of country we want to live in. And for the first time in nearly 30 years — when a national vote on the Charlottetown Accord was held — Albertans will vote on an important constitutional question: do we support removing the very principle of equalization payments from Canada’s Constitution?

That principle, enshrined in Section 36(2) of the Constitution , is simple: the Government of Canada is “committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.”

This means ensuring all Canadians — regardless of which province they live in — can access reasonable public services without having to bear abnormally high tax rates to fund them.

Premier Peter Lougheed called this a crucial aspect of Confederation . Today, Premier Jason Kenney is asking you to reject it.

Canada’s equalization program is not perfect, of course. No policy is. But its goal — its very principle — is worth defending. It is not only fair, but it also benefits Alberta.

It’s true that Alberta doesn’t directly benefit from equalization payments, and hasn’t since 1964. But this isn’t because we are victims. It’s because Alberta is a high-income province.

Our economy is stronger , our average incomes are higher , and our government’s ability to raise revenues is above any other province in Canada. Despite years of struggle since oil prices dropped in late 2014, this remains true today. If Alberta had P.E.I.’s personal income tax rates, for example, we could fund our entire health-care system on that alone. But P.E.I. falls well short and needs another 10 point sales tax on top of that to fund health care. Without equalization, P.E.I. would need a sales rate of nearly 25 per cent to make up for it. Alternatively, it could double its already high income taxes. Alberta is luckily spared such difficult circumstances.

We are not and should not be an equalization-receiving province.

But Alberta does indirectly benefit from equalization. If you retire in Nova Scotia, for example, you rely on its health care. When a Canadian moves to Alberta, as nearly 2,000 people per week now do , they bring their education with them. We benefit from quality public services elsewhere in Canada. And were it not for equalization, pressure for federal delivery of health and education would mount. If you favour provincial autonomy in Canada, then a program like equalization makes this possible.

It’s precisely because the very principle of equalization payments is sound that proponents want you to ignore the question and base your vote on a long list of other grievances from carbon taxes to federal spending decisions to partisan dislike of a certain federal politician. A Yes vote, the argument goes, creates “leverage” in future negotiations with Ottawa about all these unrelated issues. This logic is flawed, for at least two reasons.

First, in an important ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada has wisely stated that “(a) referendum result, if it is to be taken as an expression of the democratic will, must be free of ambiguity both in terms of the question asked and in terms of the support it achieves.” If the vote means something other than the question being asked, its result will mean very little and achieve even less. If Premier Kenney wanted to talk about something other than removing Section 36(2), then he asked the wrong question.

Second, no province can amend the Constitution on its own. A referendum vote provides no power to Alberta, legal or otherwise, that we don’t already have. Our premier can — in multiple venues — propose, negotiate and engage thoughtfully any time he wants. Past leaders have done so with great success before. Recent reforms to health and social transfers, to stabilization payments and to the equalization program itself have improved federal transfers significantly. In fact, federal transfers to provincial governments are structurally more evenly distributed than at any point in Canadian history outside of the Second World War .

Of course, there are genuine frustrations in Alberta. Some concern federal policy. This is inevitable in a large and diverse country like Canada. But we don’t need a referendum to improve policy. We need elected representatives willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work on our behalf.

Many more frustrations, though, concern provincial policy. Our economy has disappointed, the government’s pandemic handling could have been better (especially recently), and Alberta’s budget is a complete mess. These concerns are very real. But none have anything to do with equalization.

Solutions require action at home and a government willing to focus on them. Inflaming tensions, shifting blame and polarizing issues have not served Alberta well. This referendum offers more of the same.

At worst, it risks long-term damage to our federation, to our politics, to the province. And at best, it’s a costly distraction from Alberta’s real and growing challenges. Vote No to the equalization question on Oct. 18.

Trevor Tombe is a professor of economics at the University of Calgary and research fellow at the School of Public Policy.

THUMBNAIL PHOTO  Gavin Young/Postmedia

THE GANG THAT COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT
Some Albertans experience glitch in COVID-19 vaccine record QR code app

By Emily Mertz Global News
Posted October 13, 2021 

WATCH
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announces the launch of a government-supported verification app to check proof of COVID-19 vaccination with a QR code.

Some Albertans who have received a third dose — or booster — of the COVID-19 vaccine reported Tuesday the new app to scan their immunization record in QR code form wasn’t working.


READ MORE: Alberta launches app to read COVID-19 vaccination QR code

For someone who’s had three doses — receiving their third within the last two weeks — the Android version of the new AB Covid Records Verifier scans successfully, however on an Apple device, it can show up as an “X”.

An Alberta Health spokesperson confirmed to Global News Wednesday that the issue was only affecting the Apple version of the app. Alberta Health expects “the app to update very soon with this issue resolved.”



WATCH Albertans try new proof-of-vaccine QR code scanner app

“In the meantime, Albertans can continue to show their paper and electronic records when accessing businesses and venues participating in the Restrictions Exemption Program, including the ones obtained through Alberta.ca/CovidRecords, MyHealth Records or the paper records obtained at their vaccination appointment,” the statement read.

“The transition to vaccine records with QR codes as the only valid proof of vaccination takes effect on Nov. 15. This transition period allows Alberta Health to address any technical issues as they arise.”

READ MORE: Premier Kenney says Alberta will keep COVID-19 vaccine passport into at least early 2022

The AB Covid Records Verifier quietly made an appearance on the Google Play and Apple App store Tuesday morning before the Alberta government introduced it at a news conference that afternoon.


Daily COVID-19 numbers

On Wednesday, Alberta Health confirmed 652 new cases of COVID-19 out of about 8,620 tests.

There were 38 new deaths related to COVID-19 reported Wednesday. While they occurred over the last six days, they were reported to Alberta Health in the last 24 hours, Dr. Deena Hinshaw explained.

The last time that many deaths were reported in one day was on Jan. 12.


Alberta’s death toll from COVID-19 now stands at 2,901.
ANWSERS THE QUESTION HOW MANY ALBERTANS HAVE YOU KILLED KENNEY

As of Wednesday, there were 1,027 people in hospital with COVID-19, 236 of whom were being treated in ICU.

“Of the 236 in ICU, 91 per cent are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated,” Hinshaw said.



There are currently 14,218 active cases of COVID-19 across the province.

“I’d like to remind everyone that we all have the ability to take small actions every day that will benefit our communities,” Alberta’s chief medical officer of health added.

“The most important thing we can do is to get vaccinated, and stay home if we’re feeling even a little bit unwell.

“Vaccines are safe, effective and save lives,” Hinshaw said.

“If you have not yet gotten your first or second dose, please do so right away. Book your shot today at http://alberta.ca/vaccine.”

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