Scientists discover large rift in the Arctic's last bastion of thick sea ice 

by American Geophysical Union

In May 2020, a 3,000 square kilometer polynya was observed north of Ellesmere Island for the first time. The rift formed in the Last Ice Area, expected to be the last bastion of sea ice in the warming Arctic. Credit: NASA EOSDIS Worldview

A new study documents the formation of a 3,000-square-kilometer rift in the oldest and thickest Arctic ice. The area of open water, called a polynya, is the first to be identified in an area north of Ellesmere Island, Canada's northernmost island, and is another sign of the rapid changes taking place in the Arctic, according to researchers.

In May 2020, a hole a little smaller than the state of Rhode Island opened up for two weeks in the Last Ice Area, a million-square-kilometer patch of sea ice north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island that's expected to be the last refuge of ice in a rapidly warming Arctic.

The polynya is the first one that has been identified in this part of the Last Ice Area, according to a new study detailing the findings in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.

The formation of the polynya was unusual because of its location, off the coast of Ellesmere Island, where the ice is up to five meters thick.

"No one had seen a polynya in this area before. North of Ellesmere Island it's hard to move the ice around or melt it just because it's thick, and there's quite a bit of it. So, we generally haven't seen polynyas form in that region before," said Kent Moore, an Arctic researcher at the University of Toronto-Mississauga who was lead author on the study.

The surprise polynya formed during extreme wind conditions in a lingering anti-cyclone, or a high-pressure storm with high winds that rotate clockwise, Moore found. He combed through decades of sea-ice imagery and atmospheric data and found that polynyas formed there at least twice before, under similar conditions in 2004 and 1988, but no one had noticed.

Extreme wind conditions created the gap by pushing ice aside, which is common, said David Babb, a sea ice researcher at the University of Manitoba who was not involved in the study. But it's unusual for sea ice as thick as in the Last Ice Area to be blown around, especially far from the coast where winds tend to be weaker than near the coast, he said.

The new study shows the region may not be as resilient to climate change as previously thought.

A polynya grows in the Last Ice Area above Canada’s Ellesmere Island. The gap in the ice was open for around two weeks in May 2020 due to strong, anticyclonic winds in the Arctic. Credit: NASA EOSDIS Worldview 

"The formation of a polynya in the area is really interesting. It's sort of like a crack in the shield of this solid ice cover that typically exists in that area. So that this is happening is also really, really highlighting how the Arctic is changing," said Babb.

With Arctic ice getting thinner every year, polynyas could form more frequently, setting off a feedback loop of ice loss.

"The thing about thinning ice is that it's easier to move it around. As the ice gets thinner, it's easier to create these polynyas with less extreme forcing, so there is some evidence that these polynyas may become more common, or become larger, than they were in the past," Moore said.  And warmer temperatures mean that lost ice is not likely to be replaced.

Crack in Arctic armor

Polynyas form primarily through two ways: The ice is either blown out of the region or melts, forming the hole. They tend to form in the same locations year after year and typically grow near the coast, where the landscape can channel winds along the shore, blowing steadily in the same spot.

Polynyas are not necessarily bad for their local ecosystem on short timescales. Snow-covered ice doesn't let much light into the water beneath it, limiting how much photosynthesis can occur, and that slows productivity further up the food chain. When the ice parts, the ecosystem perks up.

"When sea ice is around, it's kind of like a desert. But when you get an area of open water, suddenly, all kinds of activity can occur. Seabirds go there to feed, as do polar bears and seals. They're incredibly productive regions," said Moore. That food-web boost historically filtered up to local Inuit populations who hunted in polynyas, according to Babb.

But the short-term boost for the local ecosystem doesn't outweigh the long-term, and irreversible, damage of sea-ice loss.

"There's a transient time where if we start to lose ice, there might be a net gain because it'd be more productive. But over the long term, as ice melts and moves offshore and species like walruses and seabirds, lose access to it, we lose that benefit. And eventually, it gets so warm that species can't survive," Moore said.Researchers find the dynamics behind the remarkable August 2018 Greenland polynya formation

More information: G. W. K. Moore et al, First Observations of a Transient Polynya in the Last Ice Area North of Ellesmere Island, Geophysical Research Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095099

Journal information: Geophysical Research Letters 

Provided by American Geophysical Union 

Polar bears could vanish by the end of the century, scientists predict


By Ben Turner about 21 hours ago

The dramatic disappearance of summer Arctic ice will have a lasting impact.

A polar bear (Ursus maritimus) stands on melting sea ice 

near Harbour Islands, Canada. (Image credit: Getty Images)

Arctic sea ice has been steadily decreasing since the beginning of satellite records in 1979, but a new study comes with a chilling (or perhaps, warming) prediction: By the end of this century, Arctic sea ice may disappear during the summer, which could drive polar bears and other ice-dependent species to extinction.

The "Last Ice Area" is a region containing the oldest, thickest Arctic ice. It spans an area of more than 380,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) from the western coast of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to Greenland's northern coast. When scientists named the 13-foot-thick (4 meters) ice region, they thought it would last for decades.

But now, under both the most optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for warming linked to climate change, the sea ice will dramatically thin by 2050. The most optimistic scenario, in which carbon emissions are immediately and drastically curbed to prevent the worst warming, could result in a limited portion of the ice surviving in the region. In the most pessimistic scenario, in which emissions continue at their current rate of increase, the summer ice — and the polar bears and seals that live on it — could disappear by 2100, researchers reported in a new study.

Related: Images of melt: See Earth's vanishing ice

"Unfortunately, this is a massive experiment we're doing," study co-author Robert Newton, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in a statement. "If the year-round ice goes away, entire ice-dependent ecosystems will collapse, and something new will begin."

Arctic sea-ice cover grows and shrinks each year, reaching its minimum extent at the end of the summer melt season in September before rebounding in the fall and winter to reach its maximum extent in March. But as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases increasingly contribute to the warming of the atmosphere, the span of the sea ice has yo-yoed between ever shrinking bounds — with the past 15 years bringing the lowest 15 sea-ice extents in the satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Sea ice north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The photo was taken just outside of the projected last ice area, which is too thick for ship ice-breakers to push through. (Image credit: Robert Newton/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory)

Worse still, the NSIDC reports that the amount of older, thicker Arctic ice that has survived at least one melt season is at a record low, around a quarter of the total recorded by the first satellite surveys 40 years ago.

A more dramatic decrease in ice coverage could have a crippling effect on the lives of the animals that dwell on, or under, the shifting ice network, including photosynthetic algae, tiny crustaceans, fish, seals, narwhals, bowhead whales and polar bears.

"Ringed seals and polar bears, for example, have relied on their dens in the ridged and corrugated sea-ice surface to stay approximately in one place," the researchers wrote.

Because they are specialized predators, polar bears (Ursus maritimus) would be especially vulnerable to extinction if the ice were to disappear. Adapted to lurk atop sea ice, the Arctic bears hunt by snatching unfortunate seals that come to the surface to breathe. Polar bears have jaws adapted for consuming soft blubber and meat; and though the bears have been seen shifting their diet to seabird eggs and caribou while on land, a 2015 study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment found that the calories they gain from these sources do not balance out those the bears burn from foraging for these animals, Live Science previously reported.


This rapid habitat shift could cause polar bears to become extinct or lead to more extensive interbreeding with grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis), whose ranges are expanding northward as the climate warms, Live Science previously reported. This process could eventually replace polar bears with hybrid "pizzly" bears. Nonetheless, in the more pessimistic, increasing-emission scenario, the researchers expect the summer ice and the ice-dependent ecosystem to disappear.

RELATED CONTENT

—Gallery: An expedition into iceberg alley

—On ice: Stunning images of Canadian Arctic

—The reality of climate change: 10 myths busted

"This is not to say it will be a barren, lifeless environment," Newton said. "New things will emerge, but it may take some time for new creatures to invade." The researchers suggested that fish and photosynthetic algae may make their way northward from the North Atlantic, although they are uncertain if the new habitat would be stable enough to support those organisms year-round, especially during the long, sunless Arctic winter.

Even a partially melted Arctic could also create a positive feedback loop: The water's surface is darker and more efficient at absorbing sunlight, meaning the melt would accelerate the overall rate of warming, in a vicious cycle.

On Aug. 9, a landmark report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a stark warning that Earth is expected to reach a critical threshold: a global temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) due to climate change within the next 20 years. A draft third section of the IPCC report leaked to the Spanish publication CTXT warned that global greenhouse gas emissions must peak in the next four years if global heating is to remain within 1.5 C.

The researchers published their findings Sept. 2 in the journal Earth's Future.

Originally published on Live Science.

 

“Resonance Theory” – Could Consciousness All Come Down to the Way Things Vibrate?

By TAM HUNT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA OCTOBER 14, 2021

What do synchronized vibrations add to the mind/body question?

Why is my awareness here, while yours is over there? Why is the universe split in two for each of us, into a subject and an infinity of objects? How is each of us our own center of experience, receiving information about the rest of the world out there? Why are some things conscious and others apparently not? Is a rat conscious? A gnat? A bacterium?

These questions are all aspects of the ancient “mind-body problem,” which asks, essentially: What is the relationship between mind and matter? It’s resisted a generally satisfying conclusion for thousands of years.

The mind-body problem enjoyed a major rebranding over the last two decades. Now it’s generally known as the “hard problem” of consciousness, after philosopher David Chalmers coined this term in a now classic paper and further explored it in his 1996 book, “The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.”

Chalmers thought the mind-body problem should be called “hard” in comparison to what, with tongue in cheek, he called the “easy” problems of neuroscience: How do neurons and the brain work at the physical level? Of course, they’re not actually easy at all. But his point was that they’re relatively easy compared to the truly difficult problem of explaining how consciousness relates to matter.

Over the last decade, my colleague, University of California, Santa Barbara psychology professor Jonathan Schooler and I have developed what we call a “resonance theory of consciousness.” We suggest that resonance – another word for synchronized vibrations – is at the heart of not only human consciousness but also animal consciousness and of physical reality more generally. It sounds like something the hippies might have dreamed up – it’s all vibrations, man! – but stick with me.

How do things in nature – like flashing fireflies – spontaneously synchronize?

All about the vibrations

All things in our universe are constantly in motion, vibrating. Even objects that appear to be stationary are in fact vibrating, oscillating, resonating, at various frequencies. Resonance is a type of motion, characterized by oscillation between two states. And ultimately all matter is just vibrations of various underlying fields. As such, at every scale, all of nature vibrates.

Something interesting happens when different vibrating things come together: They will often start, after a little while, to vibrate together at the same frequency. They “sync up,” sometimes in ways that can seem mysterious. This is described as the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organization.

Mathematician Steven Strogatz provides various examples from physics, biology, chemistry and neuroscience to illustrate “sync” – his term for resonance – in his 2003 book “Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life,” including:

• When fireflies of certain species come together in large gatherings, they start flashing in sync, in ways that can still seem a little mystifying.
• Lasers are produced when photons of the same power and frequency sync up.
• The moon’s rotation is exactly synced with its orbit around the Earth such that we always see the same face.

Examining resonance leads to potentially deep insights about the nature of consciousness and about the universe more generally.

External electrodes can record a brain’s activity.

Sync inside your skull

Neuroscientists have identified sync in their research, too. Large-scale neuron firing occurs in human brains at measurable frequencies, with mammalian consciousness thought to be commonly associated with various kinds of neuronal sync.

For example, German neurophysiologist Pascal Fries has explored the ways in which various electrical patterns sync in the brain to produce different types of human consciousness.

Fries focuses on gamma, beta and theta waves. These labels refer to the speed of electrical oscillations in the brain, measured by electrodes placed on the outside of the skull. Groups of neurons produce these oscillations as they use electrochemical impulses to communicate with each other. It’s the speed and voltage of these signals that, when averaged, produce EEG waves that can be measured at signature cycles per second.

Each type of synchronized activity is associated with certain types of brain function.

Gamma waves are associated with large-scale coordinated activities like perception, meditation or focused consciousness; beta with maximum brain activity or arousal; and theta with relaxation or daydreaming. These three wave types work together to produce, or at least facilitate, various types of human consciousness, according to Fries. But the exact relationship between electrical brain waves and consciousness is still very much up for debate.

Fries calls his concept “communication through coherence.” For him, it’s all about neuronal synchronization. Synchronization, in terms of shared electrical oscillation rates, allows for smooth communication between neurons and groups of neurons. Without this kind of synchronized coherence, inputs arrive at random phases of the neuron excitability cycle and are ineffective, or at least much less effective, in communication.

A resonance theory of consciousness

Our resonance theory builds upon the work of Fries and many others, with a broader approach that can help to explain not only human and mammalian consciousness, but also consciousness more broadly.

Based on the observed behavior of the entities that surround us, from electrons to atoms to molecules, to bacteria to mice, bats, rats, and on, we suggest that all things may be viewed as at least a little conscious. This sounds strange at first blush, but “panpsychism” – the view that all matter has some associated consciousness – is an increasingly accepted position with respect to the nature of consciousness.

The panpsychist argues that consciousness did not emerge at some point during evolution. Rather, it’s always associated with matter and vice versa – they’re two sides of the same coin. But the large majority of the mind associated with the various types of matter in our universe is extremely rudimentary. An electron or an atom, for example, enjoys just a tiny amount of consciousness. But as matter becomes more interconnected and rich, so does the mind, and vice versa, according to this way of thinking.

Biological organisms can quickly exchange information through various biophysical pathways, both electrical and electrochemical. Non-biological structures can only exchange information internally using heat/thermal pathways – much slower and far less rich in information in comparison. Living things leverage their speedier information flows into larger-scale consciousness than what would occur in similar-size things like boulders or piles of sand, for example. There’s much greater internal connection and thus far more “going on” in biological structures than in a boulder or a pile of sand.

Under our approach, boulders and piles of sand are “mere aggregates,” just collections of highly rudimentary conscious entities at the atomic or molecular level only. That’s in contrast to what happens in biological life forms where the combinations of these micro-conscious entities together create a higher level macro-conscious entity. For us, this combination process is the hallmark of biological life.

The central thesis of our approach is this: the particular linkages that allow for large-scale consciousness – like those humans and other mammals enjoy – result from a shared resonance among many smaller constituents. The speed of the resonant waves that are present is the limiting factor that determines the size of each conscious entity in each moment.

As a particular shared resonance expands to more and more constituents, the new conscious entity that results from this resonance and combination grows larger and more complex. So the shared resonance in a human brain that achieves gamma synchrony, for example, includes a far larger number of neurons and neuronal connections than is the case for beta or theta rhythms alone.

What about larger inter-organism resonance like the cloud of fireflies with their little lights flashing in sync? Researchers think their bioluminescent resonance arises due to internal biological oscillators that automatically result in each firefly syncing up with its neighbors.

Is this group of fireflies enjoying a higher level of group consciousness? Probably not, since we can explain the phenomenon without recourse to any intelligence or consciousness. But in biological structures with the right kind of information pathways and processing power, these tendencies toward self-organization can and often do produce larger-scale conscious entities.

Our resonance theory of consciousness attempts to provide a unified framework that includes neuroscience, as well as more fundamental questions of neurobiology and biophysics, and also the philosophy of mind. It gets to the heart of the differences that matter when it comes to consciousness and the evolution of physical systems.

It is all about vibrations, but it’s also about the type of vibrations and, most importantly, about shared vibrations.

Written by Tam Hunt, Affiliate Guest in Psychology, University of California Santa Barbara.

This article was first published in The Conversation.

What's the deal with WitchTok? We spoke to creators bringing magic to TikTok.
Sara M Moniuszko
USA TODAY



Kiley Mann was 10 when she was gifted her first set of runes, a Nordic divination tool, which sparked a lifelong journey into witchcraft.

"I've been studying spirituality and religion for about a decade now," she says, explaining witchcraft for her is the duality of both.

Now 19, Mann shares what she's learned with her 883,000 TikTok followers, from divination forms like tea leaves to working with tarot cards, runes and bone throwing.

Known by the username @oracleofthemoon, she is one of many TikTok users part of WitchTok, a niche section of the video-sharing app that revolves around magic and witchcraft. The hashtag #witchtok alone has amassed more than 19.8 billion views.

Why has it become so popular? We spoke to some of the personalities behind WitchTok to find out.

How WitchTok creators got started

Adam Wethington, 33, has been doing tarot since he was 15, but after losing his job at the start of the pandemic, he turned to readings as a form of income. He joined TikTok in December as a way to share his skills and is now known as Madam Adam to his 1.5 million followers, a reclamation of the "bully name that I got as a kid."


Wethington, whose pronouns are he/they, says their content, which has now become their full-time job, comes "from a level of truth that I think is resonant with a lot of people."

"I come at it in a way that some people call brutal honesty. I call it tough love," they add.

Mann, a full-time fine arts student whose pronouns are she/they, first started a TikTok account as a way to share their Etsy business, where they sell magical tools from crystals to herbs and homemade protection salts. The more their account grew, "the more comfortable I felt in solidarity to share more about my own practice, and it just kind of took off from there."

Honey Rose, 23, first got into tarot three years ago and has been studying magic ever since. Rose began their TikTok account under the username @thathoneywitch about six months before COVID-19 hit, reaching around 40,000 followers by February 2021. Now more than 124,000 people follow Rose's account, which they manage while also pursuing a Masters degree in forensic science full time.

While they sell tarot readings and ceramic cauldrons on the side, they've mostly found joy in the community by making friends they're "going to keep for a really long time."
Why WitchTok is so popular

WitchTok is a thriving community of creators who share a common link of magic and witchcraft.

Wethington describes it as a "fabulous TikTok community of spiritualists... from all different walks of life." He believes part of its popularity comes from the sense of control it can provide people during uncertain times brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

"WitchTok content is so relevant right now because we learned last year we can't control (things). All you can control is what you do, all you can control is what you think is truth in the world," Wethington explains. "We're in this great spiritual renaissance of enlightenment... Many of us are looking inward."

In addition to control, turning to spiritual practices during unprecedented times can also provide a sense of purpose, says Gabriela Herstik, author of "Inner Witch: A Modern Guide to the Ancient Craft."

"We live in this very intense, dark age... People want purpose, and they want connection," she says. "But beyond that, they want something that helps them connect to something larger than themselves. Something that helps them feel like there's a purpose, and magic does that. Magic is a way to align with your purpose, your power."

People who have been historically ostracized by religious institutions, such as those who identify as LGBTQ+, may also find community in this form of spirituality.

"I definitely think that if there's any queer people that are seeking spirituality, you don't have to call it 'witchcraft,' that's fine... But there are definitely spiritual things for you," says Wethington, who grew up Catholic before turning to witchcraft. "It's really a great opportunity for you to feel like you're connected to something real and grounded."

Rose echoes the refuge that marginalized groups can find in this community, sharing their own intersection of identities.

"I am a lot of marginalized groups. I am non-binary, I'm queer and I'm half Black... but magic has been the voice of people that are voiceless for a very long time," they explain. "Some people have a problem with traditional religions and traditional spirituality, as sometimes they go towards a more abstract form of spirituality, which can be witchcraft."

Herstik believes WitchTok's growth is also due to the accessibility it brings to these topics.

"I've been writing about witchcraft for seven or eight years at this point and I've seen it come up as a super powerful force in the in the Zeitgeist," she says, remembering when "being witchy" and "looking witchy" started to become trendy years ago, from tarot decks being sold in Urban Outfitters to "American Horror Story: Coven."

"Seeing it on TikTok was not very shocking. It just feels like a natural progression of what people have been really yearning for, which is accessible information around these esoteric topics that at any other point in history, before the internet, were super guarded and super hard to access."

Mann agrees while it's always been popular within certain communities, TikTok brings a "certain visibility," making people more "curious about what it's all about and how it can apply to their own lives.

"What makes people so curious about it is that this information was once regarded as kind of taboo, but now it's become more open to the general public," they add.

More: Witchy fashion is 2017's most exciting, subversive trend

Witchcraft's cultural roots

While WitchTok is rising in popularity, witchcraft itself is not a trend. Instead, it's been around for centuries and practiced by different groups around the world.

From hoodoo spiritually rooted in traditional African religions and Latin American and Afro-Caribbean practices known in Spanish as brujería to religions like Voodoo and Wicca, having endless things to learn about is part of what kept Mann intrigued at the beginning of her journey with magic.

"It's a community that's filled with knowledge, and there's just always new things you can learn about yourself, about others, about different cultures and religions is infinite."

Mann adds witchcraft is also much more diverse than you may see on TikTok. "Witchcraft by some name exists in virtually every culture, and everybody practices it differently, and most of the time what you see on the internet or on WitchTok is just the tip of the iceberg."

As a half-Black, half-Italian WitchTok creator, Rose has found comfort in connecting with their ancestors through magic.

They also agree in doing research to show appreciation and not appropriation towards certain practices.

"There's often the issue of cultural appropriation, and I've had to deal with that. Some people don't want to listen to people from those cultures, with their knowledge, they just don't want to listen, because they want to keep doing what they're doing." they add, pointing to issues surrounding white sage and dreamcatchers being used when the origins are rooted in indigenous cultures and practices.


It also helps to listen to witches and practitioners of color who speak to these topics. For example, in one of Rose's early videos, they explained the harm in using the term "black magic" to describe dark or evil magic.

Mann hopes WitchTok empowers people of different communities to share their stories.

"I think it's bringing more visibility to people of color, people of different religions, indigenous people, I think it's definitely allowing more worldly views to be shared and observed and respected," they say.

 British Columbia

Cannabis has been legal almost 3 years, yet retailers say banks are shutting them out

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

Industry experts say stigma continues to hold the industry back

Joel Ballard · CBC News · Posted: Oct 12, 2021 

Cannabis industry insiders say a lack of access to banking and financial services is limiting the sector's growth in Canada, where it has been legal for nearly three years. (CBC/Shawn Foss)

Nearly three years after Canada legalized cannabis, many retailers in B.C. say they still struggle to find access to basic financial services from banks.

International pressure and decades of stigma around cannabis still plague the fledgling industry, forcing shop owners to dig into their savings to open their small businesses and limiting the sector's growth, industry experts told CBC News.

Charles Varabioff, owner of Kingsway Cannabis in Vancouver, says finding a bank to take on his business account was next to impossible.

"I tried every single one of them. And every one [of the banks] was, 'No, no, no, no, no,'" he said.

• Lack of legal cannabis in B.C.'s 'access deserts' is helping illicit market thrive, retailers say

Branch managers would tell him the cannabis industry is too high risk, said Varabioff, who also owns a shop in Grand Forks, B.C.

"High risk? It's no more high risk than a casino, a bar, or a restaurant," he said. "We're legal, licensed [and] regulated by the city and the government. Canadian banking needs to get on board with this industry."

Most cannabis retailers unable to get chequing accounts

The Association of Canadian Cannabis Retailers (ACCRES) says 50 of its 52 members in B.C. have been denied access at traditional banks, and have turned to local credit unions instead. 

"We're not even talking about loans or credit cards," said Jaclynn Pehota, executive director of ACCRES.

"We're talking about very basic financial services like a chequing account. My members are still struggling, three years post-cannabis legalization in Canada."

Charles Varabioff chats with a customer at his shop, Kingsway Cannabis, in Vancouver. He says he has found it can be almost impossible to access financial services through a traditional bank and has invested about $250,000 of his savings into opening the shop. (Ken Leedham/CBC)

She said only two of her members in B.C. were able to access banking services with a traditional bank and that was due to their longstanding business relationships with the bank while operating in other industries.

"Even those folks were shocked by the treatment they received when they went into those institutions," Pehota said. "Having a conversation about a company that has the same director, same makeup, it's a legal product, same regulatory framework — and when they come in with a cannabis business the bank goes, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa,'" she said.

Across B.C., there are 400 legal cannabis retailers. Pehota believes there would be more if cannabis retailers could access financial support from banking institutions.

And this issue isn't isolated to B.C. Nationally, 95 per cent of the cannabis businesses it represents in Canada are affected by this issue, according to Pehota.

Cannabis hesitancy

Many of Canada's national banks also operate internationally. And although the retail of cannabis is legal in Canada, it's still illegal in many other countries.

Pehota believes the stigma of the industry — especially as it's viewed by international markets — has forced many Canadian banks to steer clear of the sector.

"Banks with American exposure specifically are very challenged by this particular file," she said. 

"I think we can't underestimate the impact of the stigma. We're talking about 80 years of prohibitionist rhetoric that has been very prominent in society."

Some states have legalized the recreational use of cannabis, but most have not. 

• Cannabis was legalized 20 months ago. But it appears to be business as usual for Vancouver's illegal pot shops

As well, she said, Canada is comparatively progressive in how it views the cannabis industry. Many international markets see the industry through a far more conservative lens.

Mike Schilling, president and CEO of Community Savings, agrees. His credit union represents more than 50 cannabis retailers in B.C.

"The banks are afraid of the extraterritorial reach of U.S. laws and this makes it more difficult for them," he said.

The association representing cannabis retailers in Canada says 50 of its 52 cannabis members in British Columbia have had to find banking services through credit unions. (Robert Short/CBC)

The cannabis retail sector is a fledgling industry with high regulatory oversight. Schilling believes traditional banks might see it as more work than it's worth.

"There's a lot of checks and balances we need to do," he said. "And I think the banks have made an economic decision that there is no big profit in this."

He said the shadow of prohibition still looms large over the industry, but thinks much of the fear is misplaced because the industry is largely populated by small business owners who are providing a service their community wants.

"If you wanted to launder money, which is probably the key concern, you could do that through a florist or a bakery," said Schilling. "The last place I would do it is through a cannabis retailer because that's what everybody's looking at."

CBC News reached out to all of Canada's major national banks to better understand the hesitancy.

In a statement, Royal Bank of Canada said that "with an evolving legal landscape for cannabis globally, RBC continues to evaluate business relationships on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration a number of factors to ensure compliance with laws and our internal risk parameters."

CIBC provide a similar response.

"We support emerging Canadian industries and seek to offer clients the best products and services to suit their needs.  For the cannabis sector, we review opportunities on a case-by-case basis," it said.

Untapped potential of the sector

Pehota said cannabis retailers are being frozen out by banks and that is putting undue burden on the new industry and its small business owners.

She says owners are having to reach deep into their savings because they can't secure credit cards or small business loans to help launch their storefronts from either banks or credit unions. Varabioff says it's an extra hurdle that many other types of small businesses aren't forced to jump.

He says he has sunk more than $250,000 in personal savings into opening Kingsway Cannabis.

• Cannabis retailers in B.C. seek green light to deliver pot and compete with illegal dealers

Without the backing of a larger bank, retailers who want to expand their brand outside of the province could face barriers. Credit unions are often local to a province or even a specific community. Pehota says it can create logistical difficulties when an institution doesn't have a national presence.

Overall, she says the hesitancy of national banking institutions is shortsighted, adding they're failing to see the potential economic opportunity created by legalization.

"It is B.C.'s sector to own," she said. "It has incredible potential to lift up all British Columbians and it's a real shame to me that we haven't seen banks recognize that fact and support this sector," she said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joel Ballard

Joel Ballard is a reporter with the CBC in Vancouver. You can reach him at joel.ballard@cbc.ca

 

Plant-based jet fuel could reduce emissions by 68%

by Allyson Mann, University of Georgia

A blooming field of carinata. Credit: Bill Anderson

Replacing petroleum-based aviation fuel with sustainable aviation fuel derived from a type of mustard plant can reduce carbon emissions by up to 68%, according to new research from University of Georgia scientist Puneet Dwivedi.

Dwivedi led a team that estimated the break-even price and life cycle carbon emissions of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) derived from oil obtained from Brassica carinata, a non-edible oilseed crop. The study was published in GCB Bioenergy.

"If we can secure feedstock supply and provide suitable economic incentives along the supply chain, we could potentially produce carinata-based SAF in the southern United States," said Dwivedi, associate professor in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. The aviation industry emits 2.5% of all carbon dioxide emissions nationwide and is responsible for 3.5% of global warming. "Carinata-based SAF could help reduce the carbon footprint of the aviation sector while creating economic opportunities and improving the flow of ecosystem services across the southern region."

Biden's sustainable fuel tax credit

Dwivedi's findings come at an opportune time. In September, President Joe Biden proposed a sustainable fuel tax credit as part of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge, which brings federal agencies together to scale up the production of SAF nationwide. Biden set the goal of a 20% drop in aviation emissions by 2030 and achieving a fully zero-carbon aviation sector by 2050.

The proposed tax credit requires a 50% reduction in life cycle carbon emissions—a standard that carinata exceeds, according to the team's findings.

The price for producing SAF from carinata ranged from $0.12 per liter on the low end to $1.28 per liter, based on existing economic and market incentives. The price for petroleum-based aviation fuel was $0.50 per liter—higher than carinata-based SAF when current economic incentives were included in the analysis.

"Current policy mechanisms should be continued to support manufacturing and distribution of SAF. The Grand Challenge announced by President Biden could be a game-changer in supporting carinata-based SAF production in the southern region," Dwivedi said.

Growing carinata in the Southeast

Dwivedi is part of the Southeast Partnership for Advanced Renewables from Carinata, or SPARC, a $15 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Through SPARC, researchers have spent the past four years investigating how to grow carinata in the Southeast, exploring questions related to optimum genetics and best practices for the highest crop and oil yield. With those answers in place, Dwivedi is confident about carinata's role in supporting the regional economy and environment.

"In the South, we can grow carinata as a winter crop because our winters are not as severe compared to other regions of the country," he said. "Since carinata is grown in the 'off' season it does not compete with other food crops, and it does not trigger food versus fuel issues. Additionally, growing carinata provides all the cover-crop benefits related to water quality, soil health, biodiversity and pollination."

The missing piece of the puzzle, according to Dwivedi, is the lack of local infrastructure for crushing the seed and processing the oil into SAF. His current research focuses on modeling the economic and environmental feasibility of producing and consuming carinata-based SAF across Georgia, Alabama and Florida by taking a supply-chain perspective.

"Our results would be especially relevant to the state of Georgia, which is the sixth-largest consumer of conventional aviation fuel in the country, hosts the busiest airport in the world, and is home to Delta, a leading global airline company," he said. "I am looking forward to pursuing more research for providing a sustainable alternative to our current model of air travel. Carinata has the potential to be a win-win situation for our rural areas, the aviation industry, and most importantly, climate change."Biden administration targets 20% drop in aviation emissions

More information: Asiful Alam et al, Break‐even price and carbon emissions of carinata‐based sustainable aviation fuel production in the Southeastern United States, GCB Bioenergy (2021). DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12888

Journal information: GCB Bioenergy 

Provided by University of Georgia