Big Six banks join Mark Carney-led Net-Zero Banking Alliance


Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press

We can drive 'an investment boom' if we deliver on climate goals: Mark Carney

Mark Carney, vice vhair of Brookfield Asset Management, also Former Governor at the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, joins BNN Bloomberg and Bloomberg TV to discuss the climate talks underway at the UN General Assembly this week and the investment opportunity that stems from pursuing global climate goals of moving towards lower carbon emissions.

TORONTO -- Canada's Big Six banks together announced Friday that they will join the global Net-Zero Banking Alliance championed by former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.

The commitment by the banks, which include Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia and TD Bank, comes ahead of the UN climate summit set to start in Glasgow at the end of the month and where a major focus will be on finding the finances to fund the climate promises.

The industry-led alliance commits signatory banks to aligning their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050, as well as to setting intermediate reduction targets for 2030 or sooner.

The alliance, part of the wider Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero that is chaired by Carney, also requires members to publish emissions data and take a “robust approach'' to carbon offsets.

Carney said in a statement that the financial systems needs to transform to ensure a “prosperous and just transition to net-zero'' and that by joining the alliance, Canadian banks are “bringing their deep expertise and strong balance sheets to drive solutions for the sustainable economy.''

The alliance has, however, come under criticism for not going far enough, including ads published last week by more than 90 environmental groups that urged Carney to be more ambitious with membership requirements.

The groups want to see more immediate targets laid out to phase out fossil fuel funding, a prohibition on financing any new fossil fuel projects, and a goal of halving financed emissions by 2030.

Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, said in an email Friday that Canadian banks have to do more than join the alliance.

“The world is accelerating toward a zero-carbon economy and Canadian banks are still playing catch up. Until they commit to a near-term phasing out of all financial support for fossil fuels and to fully respect Indigenous rights, they will still be part of the problem.''

Dave McKay, chief executive of RBC, said in a LinkedIn post that the bank would work with businesses, including fossil fuel companies, to establish and accelerate their climate plans.

“This includes working with clients in emitting sectors, whose reduction strategies and increased investment in renewables and clean tech projects are critical to reaching Canada's emissions targets.''

Canada's big banks have made various other climate commitments in the past, including in the past year individual pledges to achieve net-zero by 2050 by all the banks except Scotiabank, which had said it agreed in principal but had not until Friday specifically committed to the goal.

The six banks join Vancity and HSBC in the alliance, which were the only banks operating in Canada to sign on when it was first announced in April, as well more than 60 other banks that together represent more than US$40 trillion in assets.

Global Energy Crisis Hits Singapore as Power Provider Goes Bust

Stephen Stapczynski and Dan Murtaugh, Bloomberg News

Boat Quay during lockdown in Singapore. Photographer: Lauryn Ishak/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- A record-breaking spike in electricity prices is short-circuiting Singapore’s efforts to liberalize its power sector, in the latest sign that the global crisis is delivering a blow to both energy suppliers and their customers.

Electricity supplier iSwitch Energy will cease power retail operations on Nov. 11 due to “current electricity market conditions,” the company said on its website Wednesday. Existing customers will be transitioned to SP Group, Singapore’s state-owned power provider.

The surge in wholesale electricity prices is erasing profits for many independent retailers in Singapore, according to James Whistler, the global head of energy derivatives at Simpson Spence Young, which brokers electricity futures. “There is clearly a gas shortage that is causing issues, pipeline capacity is low and LNG supplies might not have been coming through either.”

Singapore is the latest victim of a global fuel shortage that has sent power prices rallying in the U.K. and triggered widespread electricity curtailments in China. Suppliers that aren’t hedged against the volatile price moves can end up having to buy energy at a much higher cost than they have sold to customers.

The threat to the industry is similar to what has been happening in the U.K., where several smaller energy providers have gone out of business as they struggle to cope with a rally in gas and power prices. Despite a shortage of gas, there is still enough to provide electricity to consumers in Singapore. ISwitch said that service wouldn’t be interrupted.

Nonetheless, the development complicates Singapore’s effort to liberalize its power sector in a bid to boost competition. From November 2018, the government allowed all consumers across Singapore to pick power providers, resulting in a proliferation of independent retailers to rival the state-run utility. The departure of smaller players will give consumers fewer choices and potentially higher monthly bills.

Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry earlier this month advised households to conserve electricity as fuel prices have skyrocketed.

Grid operator SP Group and the Energy Market Authority, which oversees the power market, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Singapore generates nearly all of its electricity with imported natural gas, either via pipeline or liquefied carrier. While spot prices for liquefied natural gas are trading at a record high, Singapore has been largely insulated from the rally due to its dependence on long-term contracts, which are primarily linked to the price of oil.

However, record-high LNG spot rates appear to have started boosting Singapore’s power futures contracts through the next year, according to SSY’s Whistler.

“It seems clear that based on where spot prices are, where the futures prices are trading, LNG benchmarking has made its way into Singapore,” he said. “That’s a shift from where I think Singapore thought they were.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

The Inconsistent Ethics of Whale Research

Countries that formally oppose whaling also routinely fund scientific research that relies on the products of whaling


Scientists around the world work with samples collected by commercial whalers. 

Photo by Arctic Images/Alamy Stock Photo

.by Kieran Mulvaney
October 6, 2021 | 

Nearly 40 years after a majority of the member states of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted in 1982 to suspend commercial whaling indefinitely, whaling continues, albeit to a lesser extent—as does scientific research using the products of that whaling. And according to a new study, that research is not confined to scientists from whaling nations: researchers from countries whose governments boast staunch anti-whaling policies are also working with whaling companies to procure meat, tissue, and other whale products for research.

The study’s authors reviewed 35 peer-reviewed papers and conference abstracts describing research that relied on products from Icelandic whaling since 2003, when that country resumed whaling following an 11-year hiatus. They argue that their findings highlight “the need for improved ethical guidelines for whale research involving samples or data from controversial sources such as Icelandic whaling.”

Of 59 institutions involved in the research identified in the study, almost half were from four countries—Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries supported the 1982 vote and formally objected to the fact that when Iceland resumed whaling in 2003 it did so after rejoining the IWC. Of the papers the authors looked at, approximately half were partly funded by government grants from one or more of those countries.

The goal of the paper is not to name and shame the individual scientists who are using the products of whaling in their research. Instead, study coauthor Vassili Papastavrou of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, who wrote the paper with independent whale researcher Conor Ryan and Peter Sand at LMU Munich in Germany, argues that the thicket of ethical and legal issues surrounding whaling is too tangled to expect individual scientists to navigate it by themselves.

“There’s a whole load of international law around whales and the decisions that have been taken, and these are all beyond the skill set of the average academic,” Papastavrou insists. “We’re not saying what’s right or wrong. We’re not the arbiters. But there really is a need for a proper set of ethical guidelines to help everyone involved work out what to do.”

The issue is more than one of mere inconsistency, says Hal Whitehead, a biologist and whale expert at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia who was not involved in the study. While some researchers may excuse using the products of whaling on the grounds that those whales were going to be killed anyway, their very involvement may make future whaling more likely, he says.

“It is a problem when the science that is being done on the products of whaling is being used to justify the whaling,” he says.

Two guidelines, Papastavrou argues, would prevent a situation in which governments with anti-whaling policies are funding research that relies on the whaling they oppose.

For one, says Papastavrou, “I think any government funding should have a requirement for a proper ethical examination of what the research is. And is what you’re proposing to do legal in your own country?” The latter would, he argues, bring such research into line with standards established in the past few decades by the medical research community, which now prohibits offshoring medical trials to countries with less strict regulations. Additionally, he and his coauthors quote an American Medical Association guideline that states, “If data from unethical experiments can be replaced by data from ethically sound research and achieve the same ends, then such must be done.”

One of the scientists whose work was included in the analysis, Alex Aguilar at the University of Barcelona in Spain, questions what he sees as Papastavrou and his colleagues’ assumption of a consensus that commercial whaling is unethical. Aguilar argues that commercial whaling “is a perfectly acceptable activity for many IWC member countries.”

Aguilar also points out that the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s guidelines for the treatment of marine mammals in field research state that, where possible, activities such as hunting “should be utilized as a source of material for scientific studies of marine mammals.”

In contrast, another researcher whose work was cited by Papastavrou and colleagues says that he does feel there should be “more ethical guidelines instituted by journals as well as professional societies.”

The researcher, who asked not to be named out of concern for unintentionally embarrassing or besmirching colleagues, previously was attracted by the idea that using meat and tissue samples to procure data about whale biology could potentially lead to better conservation efforts.

More recently, however, his stance has changed. “Aided not only by my own conscience and evolution as a scholar, but also from a sea change in scientific methods and perspective, I am now much less comfortable using such tissues of questionable provenance than ever before. Not only would I not use such tissues again, but I would be happiest if no one did.”

Chile’s Kelp Forests Seem Nearly Unchanged Since the Voyage of the Beagle

In a changing world, South America’s subantarctic kelp forests hold firm

The location and size of Chilean undersea forests of giant kelp have been remarkably stable for at least two centuries. Photo courtesy of Alejandra Mora Soto

.by Jake Buehler
October 15, 2021

Biting winds sail off the Pacific past craggy peaks and seaside cliffs. Below, the olive-green and brown tangles of giant kelp canopies swirl and sway just under the ocean’s surface. This is Chile’s Magallanes Region, situated along the frigid southwestern tip of South America, and here the rhythmic lapping of waves makes time feel like an unending loop, never moving forward. This is especially true for the kelp forests—they’ve been here, seemingly unchanged, for centuries.

With kelp forests around the world declining because of climate change and overharvesting, the reason why Chile’s subantarctic giant kelps have persisted so well is a mystery. It’s one that scientists, including Alejandra Mora Soto, a Chilean biogeographer at the University of Oxford in England, are just beginning to unravel.

Giant kelp is the world’s largest algae, capable of growing dozens of meters long. The species is found in cool coastal waters in both the northern and southern hemispheres and is the most widely distributed kelp on Earth. Mora Soto was entranced by the lush Chilean kelp forests and wanted to know how they had changed over time. But these forests have been relatively unstudied, and there was very little information about their geographical extent.

Using a combination of satellite and aerial drone imagery, Mora Soto and her colleagues mapped the kelp forests off Chile and those around the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island. But to see how much they had changed, she also needed to step back in time. Mora Soto had read about the same kelp forests in Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle. She examined old nautical charts of the region, including those created by the Beagle’s captain, Robert FitzRoy, to see how the forests had changed over the past 200 years. When she compared these older charts—which still smelled like the sea—with the modern ones, they were strikingly similar. Many of the 300 subantarctic kelp forests in the survey have been growing in the same place, covering nearly the same area, for almost two centuries.

Researchers compared images taken by drone, such as this one, with older nautical charts to see how the distribution and size of kelp forests had changed over time. Image courtesy of Alejandra Mora Soto

But why were these monstrous algae so persistently plentiful?

Mora Soto and her team developed a list of characteristics, such as the wave exposure, currents, and steepness of the sea bottom, that could potentially influence the size of the kelp forests. Comparing these factors with forest size, they found that in many areas, forests that face ocean currents whipping past the region are larger than forests in more sheltered invaginations of the coast. This may be because water movement and turbulence agitate nutrients in the environment, which the kelps absorb.

Kelp forests also seem stable in the region’s quiet fjords, clinging to the vertical walls of cliffs as they plunge into the depths. Here, freshwater runoff from melting glaciers causes the water to be murkier, with more variable salinity, than locations on the outer exposed coast. Previous research suggests that the kelps living in fjords have adapted to these changing conditions by evolving workarounds that aid photosynthesis, allowing them to persevere as the glaciers above them liquefy.

But the main reason for South America’s southernmost kelp forests’ long-term persistence is that the region has had a relative lack of marine heatwaves, Mora Soto says. Giant kelp suffers once ocean temperatures reach around 15 to 17 °C. The heat can partially cut off the kelp’s supply of nutrients by dampening upwelling from deep waters. But the subantarctic kelps don’t appear to have experienced these temperatures in recent decades, in contrast to other kelp ecosystems around the world.

Adriana Vergés, a marine ecologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia who was not involved with this research, says that if researchers can identify the factors that have helped these southern kelp forests persevere, they can potentially export that knowledge to other kelp ecosystems.

“There’s a lot that we can learn from pristine ecosystems,” says Vergés. “If we want to truly understand the resilience of kelp forests, studying systems that have been persistent and well preserved for centuries can be immensely useful.”

However, giant kelp ecosystems vary considerably throughout their global range, so the lessons that can be drawn from Chile’s unexpectedly hardy kelp forests may be limited.

“The only thing in common for kelp forests are the kelp itself,” says Mora Soto, noting that unlike their counterparts along the Pacific coast of North America, the southern kelp forests don’t have any sea otters, salmon, or herring. Because southern forests have food webs that include different species, it is difficult to compare the ecology of kelp forests across hemispheres.

Cayne Layton, an ecologist at the University of Tasmania in Australia who also wasn’t involved in the study, adds that the survey only looked at the kelp part of the kelp ecosystem. Anything else that may have changed, such as the abundances of species living in the ecosystem, wouldn’t have been detected by this study.

Though the kelp itself appears to have been stable for the past 200 years, it is facing new challenges. Local salmon aquaculture operations in particular are a potential threat. The excess food and animal waste from the fish farms causes an influx of nutrients, which may have a hand in driving massive toxic algal blooms.

In the summer of 2021, the Argentinian province of Tierra del Fuego banned open-net-pen salmon farming in Patagonian and subantarctic island waters. Mora Soto says Chile should do the same. Chile has more kelp forests than almost any other country in the world, she says, “and we’re not protecting them.”

Letting Carbon Sink with the Fishes

Fish fall to the seafloor when they die, sequestering carbon in the deep. Our penchant for catching big fish is breaking the cycle.

by Amorina Kingdon, Kelly Fretwell, and Meigan Henry

October 13, 2021 | 

Fisheries generate their share of environmental concerns, but carbon emissions are rarely among them.

Gaël Mariani, a PhD candidate in marine ecology at the University of Montpellier in France, was wondering if ocean fisheries might emit more carbon than one might think. Specifically, he was researching natural marine processes that policymakers might leverage to sequester excess carbon, when he became curious if catches were short-circuiting one such process: the carbon pump that kicks in when fish die naturally in the ocean, instead of snagged in nets and on hooks.

Most marine corpses, including fish, fall to the seabed. (Dead whales are referred to as “whale falls,” and smaller bits of decayed organisms fall as “marine snow.”) This movement channels some carbon out of the upper ocean and sequesters it in the deep for hundreds, even thousands, of years. But what if the fish is caught instead?

Mariani and his colleagues studied global catches of large fishes such as rays, tuna, billfish, and sharks from 1950 to 2014. They found that the sheer biomass of all those fish corresponded to 37.5 million tonnes of carbon that has ended up in the atmosphere. If those fish had remained in the ocean, even though some would have been eaten and their biomass would have remained in the upper ocean, more than half of their constituent carbon would instead have been stored in the seabed. (If you’re wondering, one tonne of carbon dioxide would fill a cube about the size of a three-story house.)

This short animation breaks down the process.

Critically, Mariani also found that nearly half of these fishes were taken by fisheries that aren’t profitable without government subsidies.

Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, says that while Mariani’s totals aren’t that large compared with the carbon emissions of other sectors, the subsidies signify to him that the costs and benefits of the deep-sea fishing industry should be reconsidered, both ecologically and economically. “It’s not feeding the world,” he says.

Worm points out another reason beyond carbon sequestration to let fish fall. “It also brings carbon to a community that is also incredibly food starved,” he says. That’s important because climate change is reducing the nutrients that reach the deep sea through global trends like a shift to conditions that favor smaller plankton species, and increased stratification among ocean layers so that changes in salinity and temperature become physical barriers to sinking nutrients.

So, while accounting for fish falls can’t replace the benefits of emissions cuts, tallying the carbon in tumbling tuna or senescent sharks could inform better fisheries policy, and result in a bit less carbon in the air and a few more nutrients in the deep.

Eco-friendly, lab-grown coffee is on the way, but it comes with a catch

Beanless brews can cut deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions dramatically – but what will happen to workers in traditional coffee-growing regions?

Coffee cell cultures, right, and roasted coffee, left, produced in a lab by VTT, a Finnish research institution. 

Photograph: VTT

Supported by


Nadra Nittle
Sat 16 Oct 2021

Heiko Rischer isn’t quite sure how to describe the taste of lab-grown coffee. This summer he sampled one of the first batches in the world produced from cell cultures rather than coffee beans.

“To describe it is difficult but, for me, it was in between a coffee and a black tea,” said Rischer, head of plant biotechnology at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, which developed the coffee. “It depends really on the roasting grade, and this was a bit of a lighter roast, so it had a little bit more of a tea-like sensation.”

Rischer couldn’t swallow the coffee, as this cellular agriculture innovation is not yet approved for public consumption. Instead, he swirled the liquid around in his mouth and spit it out. He predicts that VTT’s lab-grown coffee could get regulatory approval in Europe and the US in about four years’ time, paving the way for a commercialized product that could have a much lower climate impact than conventional coffee.

The coffee industry is both a contributor to the climate crisis and very vulnerable to its effects. Rising demand for coffee has been linked to deforestation in developing nations, damaging biodiversity and releasing carbon emissions. At the same time, coffee producers are struggling with the impacts of more extreme weather, from frosts to droughts. It’s estimated that half of the land used to grow coffee could be unproductive by 2050 due to the climate crisis.

In response to the industry’s challenges, companies and scientists are trying to develop and commercialize coffee made without coffee beans.

VTT’s coffee is grown by floating cell cultures in bioreactors filled with a nutrient. The process requires no pesticides and has a much lower water footprint, said Rischer, and because the coffee can be produced in local markets, it cuts transport emissions. The company is working on a life cycle analysis of the process. “Once we have those figures, we will be able to show that the environmental impact will be much lower than what we have with conventional cultivation,” Rischer said.

American startups are also working on beanless coffee. In September, Seattle-based Atomo Coffee released what it called the world’s first “molecular coffee” in a one-day online pop-up, charging $5.99 a can.

The startup, which has raised $11.5m, makes its coffee by converting the compounds from plant waste into the same compounds contained in green coffee. Ingredients, including date seed extracts, chicory root, grape skin as well as caffeine, are roasted, ground and brewed. This method results in 93% lower carbon emissions and 94% less water use than conventional coffee production, as well as no deforestation, according to Atomo.

Tanks in Atomo’s factory. The food tech startup is making beanless coffee from plant waste. Photograph: Atomo

“The industry has known about the deleterious effects of coffee farming for a long time, whether we’re talking deforestation or major water usage,” said Atomo’s co-founder Jarret Stopforth. “[Before starting Atomo] I was thinking to myself, ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this.’”

Atomo’s facility can produce about 1,000 servings of coffee a day. The goal is to increase that to 10,000 servings a day over the next 12 months, said Stopforth, and in two years to move into a facility that can produce 30m servings of coffee a year. Stopforth says that Atomo will start the initial phase of the new factory build within the next three months.

Alternative coffee companies like Atomo not only have the potential to help tackle the climate crisis but to benefit the industry generally, said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Take arabica beans, said Charlebois. “You need specific climatic patterns, and it’s much better if you’re more in control in a laboratory environment than just trying to rely on Mother Nature.” Technology can help stabilize production and make it more predictable, he said.

But it’s unclear how many people would be willing to give up conventional coffee for one of its beanless counterparts. A 2019 survey by Dalhousie University found that 72% of Canadians say they would not drink lab-grown coffee.

Maricel Saenz, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Compound Foods said she was working to “reinvent” coffee and to show people why doing so matters. Compound Foods, which has secured $4.5m in seed funding, says it recreates coffee farm production in the lab. The startup uses microbes and fermentation technology to grow a variety of flavors and aromas, Saenz said.

Maricel Saenz, founder of Compound Foods, which makes beanless coffee. 

Photograph: Compound Foods

Preliminary results from a carbon life cycle analysis indicate that the company’s coffee produces a tenth of the greenhouse gas emissions and water use of traditional coffee, Saenz said. She plans to introduce her product by late 2022 and expects pricing to be similar to specialty coffees. “As we improve our processes, we aim to decrease our prices,” she said.

As the population grows and pressure increases on natural resources, Saenz said, “we need to be producing food in more efficient ways, using a lot of the biotechnology and fermentation tools that are now at our disposal.”

But Daniele Giovannucci, president and co-founder of the Committee on Sustainability Assessment, a consortium that focuses on agricultural sustainability, is concerned that scaling up lab-grown coffee could affect the livelihoods of the millions of workers in the traditional coffee industry, especially in countries such as Ethiopia where coffee is central to the economy. “What’s going to happen to all these people?” Giovannucci asked. “What are they going to do, because this is a key cash crop?”

There’s a risk, he said, that lab-grown coffee could create significant socio-economic problems that could drive even greater climate change effects. “It is not clear if, in the end, its net effect may worsen global sustainability, along with many millions of lives.”

Saenz, who is from Costa Rica, a coffee-exporting country, said, “I know many coffee producers, so it’s something that I definitely worry about.” But, she added, “the number one threat that coffee farmers have today is climate change” – whether that’s heat that disrupts ripening times, or unexpected frosts as Brazil experienced in the summer, which severely damaged crops.

Saenz said her company will collaborate with non-profits to support small coffee farmers transitioning to more sustainable agricultural practices, including providing training and crop insurance.

While lab-grown coffee shows real promise, said Charlebois, the politics should not be underestimated, especially as so many farmers depend on conventional methods of producing crops and many of them live in developing economies. “Scalability is not an issue for lab-grown coffee,” he said, “but regulations and general acceptance of the technology will be greater challenges.”

Climate study linking early Māori fires to Antarctic changes sparks controversy

Research tying Māori activity 700 years ago to Antarctic changes sparks debate in New Zealand over Indigenous inclusion in science

A study published in Nature linked high concentrations of black carbon, dating back 700 years, to activity by early Māori people in New Zealand. Photograph: Krys Bailey/Alamy Stock Photo

Tess McClure in Christchurch and Eva Corlett in Wellington
Thu 14 Oct 2021 00.27 BST

Deep in the ice of a remote Antarctic peninsula, a group of researchers found evidence that fires started by early Māori wreaked changes in the atmosphere detectable 7,000km away. In New Zealand, the research sparked a heated controversy of its own – over Indigenous inclusion in scientific enterprise, and what scientists owe the people whose history becomes a subject of their research.

The research, published this month, examined ice cores from the Antarctic peninsula. Scientists found high concentrations of black carbon, dating back 700 years. Atmospheric modelling narrowed the possible sources to New Zealand, Patagonia or Tasmania – but only in New Zealand did charcoal records match the timeframe. The deposits coincided with Māori arrival in New Zealand, and showed downstream effects of Māori using fire to clear the land.

The finding was unexpected, says Prof Joe McConnell of the Desert Research Institute, who led the study. “What really surprised us about this was that it appeared to be human activities that made such a big impact,” McConnell says. “It really emphasises how interconnected the planet is – that even early people arriving in New Zealand could have a noticeable effect on atmospheric chemistry 7,000km away is really quite a surprising finding.”


Pygmy pipehorse discovered in New Zealand given Māori name in ‘world first’

New Zealand doesn’t have a natural cycle of burning, and its plants are less fire adapted, McConnell said. “So when humans brought fire to the landscape, it had a pretty dramatic change.”
Advertisement

While the emissions were small compared with many current-day fires, he said, they were notable coming from a small island. “If you compare it to what’s coming out of the Amazon [burning] now, for instance, it’s small by comparison,” McConnell said. “What was surprising to us was that New Zealand’s got a relatively small land area, and the emissions for such a small land area were pretty large.”

Also surprising was how emissions from Māori arrivals compared with subsequent European ones. “The burning emissions from New Zealand were comparable in the 16th century to what they were soon after European arrival in New Zealand,” McConnell says. “So we were surprised – we expected to see more of an impact from European arrival. And we did not.”

The team published the article in Nature, one of the world’s most prominent scientific journals. But the reception in New Zealand was mixed, with several Māori academics raising concerns that it did not have Māori members of its research team.

Dr Priscilla Wehi, director of Te Pūnaha Matatini research centre, said via Science Media Centre the finding was “scientifically spectacular” but raised concerns about “helicopter science, where research is led and conducted by those who live and work far from the subject of their work”.

“How much better could this have been, were it more inclusive in its approach?” she asked.

Associate prof Sandy Morrison of the University of Waikato called the paper “devoid of context, devoid of cultural understandings”. “It reeks of scientific arrogance with its implicit assumption that somehow Māori have a lot to account for in terms of contributing to carbon emissions.”

Morrison told the Guardian she had been shocked by the paper, which did not collaborate with Māori researchers. “Surely you want to check and just examine the context before you go writing around people,” she said.

“You come so far in terms of working alongside scientists in New Zealand and then you get [this] from the international ones.”

Over the past two years, there has been increased discussion and controversy over mātauranga Māori – Indigenous knowledge systems – and their role within the sciences in New Zealand. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which funds much of the country’s scientific research, unveiled Vision Mātauranga about 10 years ago. Its principles would be embedded across all the ministry’s priority investment areas. In practice, that meant crown-funded research had to include partnerships and consultation with Māori, as well as a broader re-orientation to integrate Māori knowledge into research and learning. More recently, changes were proposed to New Zealand’s curriculum to give parity to mātauranga Māori with other bodies of knowledge.

“For a long time Māori had been talking about [the fact] that we will do our own research – and at minimum, that a relationship with us … should be cultivated way before anybody wants to write about us,” Morrison said. “That seems to have caught on in the New Zealand research scene, but not so much internationally.”

The paper’s authors, none of whom were from New Zealand, were taken by surprise at the backlash.

“I was definitely surprised,” McConnell says. “We didn’t start out in any way, shape, or form, to investigate the impact of Māori-related burning and we’re not trying to criticise or in any way, shape, or form Māori stewardship of the land.” No one had disputed the paper’s findings on the black carbon, he said.

“This idea of helicopter science – our research is not based in New Zealand … it’s based in Antarctica, and there are no indigenous inhabitants in Antarctica. So, I don’t think we would have done that any differently,” he said.

“In the scientific world [and] the scientific method, the response would be: if someone disagrees with our findings, they should write a paper and get it through peer review, or comment, and tell us what we did that was wrong … Whoever has the most solid arguments is who moves forward. That’s what the scientific method is all about. But this is not a science debate, I don’t think.”

Dr Dan Hikuroa, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, said “It’s not that the science is wrong. It’s just that the findings could have been richer.”

“The science looks to be repeatable, rigorous and pretty standup,” he said. “I think it’s the broader context – which much of the science community is now recognising. That although one of the hallmarks and pillars or the strength of science is that it does operate to produce knowledge, it actually operates within a social system.” That awareness, Hikuroa says “is really missed here”.


‘A neat trick’: critics aim to shift Aotearoa debate, but historical fidelity no longer matters

The integration of mātauranga Māori, he says, can make scientific findings stronger – and increase the diversity of scientific teams. He points to other research, also profiled in Nature, which used mātauranga Māori documentation of groundwater and plant life to document historic groundwater flows to assess the risk of future contamination.

“There’s more than one way of knowing and being and making sense of the world that we could draw from and use when we’re trying to make important decisions – including the way we conduct our research, the kind of teams we build, the kinds of the questions we ask, and the ways we seek to answer those questions,” he says.

“The argument that says, ‘I’m a certain scientist that does things a certain way, so therefore I don’t have to consider these things’ is not holding up as well as it used to.”

Nurses union finalizes collective agreement with Manitoba government after over 4 years without a contract

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

Deal will help recruit, retain staff, protect nurses from

 'inordinately' long shifts: Manitoba Nurses Union

CBC News · Posted: Oct 14, 2021 

Nurses are pictured in the medical intensive care unit at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre. The union that represents Manitoba nurses and the Manitoba government reached a collective agreement Thursday. (Mikaela Mackenzie/Winnipeg Free Press/The Canadian Press)

Thousands of nurses in Manitoba can breathe a sigh of relief after their union helped seal the deal on a long-term collective agreement with the province after more than four years without a contract.

The Manitoba Nurses Union, which represents more than 12,000 nurses in the province, finalized a vote to ratify a tentative deal with the provincial government Thursday.

"It truly was a long four-and-a-half years without a collective agreement," MNU president Darlene Jackson said in a statement. "There is still work to be done to address the significant weaknesses in our health-care system, but the improvements in this contract are a necessary and positive first step in addressing nurses' serious concerns."

The union said the focus of its bargaining committee was to reach a fair agreement that emphasizes the importance of staff recruitment and retention, wage increases, other financial incentives and a commitment to a "better work/life balance."

Manitoba continues to experience a critical nursing shortage that preceded the pandemic but was exacerbated by the crush of COVID-19 patients in hospital, MNU said. That caused mandatory overtime for nursing staff at some facilities and redeployment in other cases.

The union says the new deal includes protections against "inordinately long consecutive hours of work and durations of standby."

It addresses shift premiums, overtime, meal and isolation allowance, academic allowance entitlement, the union said, as well as earmarking $4 million annually devoted to recruiting and retaining staff.

The Manitoba government congratulated nurses and their union on the agreement.

"This mutual agreement is a testament to the hard work and commitment of the leadership and negotiating teams of both sides," Premier Kelvin Goertzen and Health Minister Audrey Gordon said in a joint statement.

"Throughout this unprecedented pandemic, our dedicated nurses have heroically delivered the care that all Manitobans depend upon. Once again, we salute them for their abilities, their compassion and their unwavering sense of commitment when their special skills have been needed most."

Edmonton doctors mark Opioid Memorial Weekend by speaking out against stigma, calling for more access to services

Author of the article:Lisa Johnson
Publishing date:Oct 15, 2021 •

Participants in International Overdose Awareness Day march through Edmonton on Aug. 31, 2021. PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM /Postmedia
Article content

Edmonton-area doctors are commemorating the lives lost in a spike of drug poisonings in Alberta by speaking out against the stigma related to drug use and calling for more access to services that address it.

On Friday, volunteers placed purple ribbons in neighbourhoods where an opioid death has occurred for Opioid Awareness Weekend, including in Edmonton, Wetaskiwin, and Ponoka.

Dr. Ginetta Salvalaggio, co-chairwoman of the Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association’s opioid poisoning committee, said at a virtual availability that doctors are seeing an ongoing escalation of overdose deaths in the Edmonton Zone.

“Every poisoning death is a preventable tragedy. We want that acknowledged by decision-makers,” said Salvalaggio, who said the people who do not survive tend to be those who are most isolated and alone.

“The stigma around this needs to end,” she said.

The latest data from the Alberta government shows that between January and July of this year, 898 Albertans have died of an accidental drug poisoning. Of those, 821 deaths have been from an opioid poisoning.

This marks a 22 per cent increase over the same time period in 2020, which saw 735 accidental drug poisonings.

Dr. Cayla Gilbert, a rural family physician, echoed the need to address and break down the stigma around drug use, saying the problem is “ubiquitous” across both rural and urban areas.

“This is something that is happening in everyone’s backyard,” she said.

She said Albertans need access to timely data so health-care professionals can respond to the crisis, an expansion of access to safe consumption services, and better access to safe supply.

“We want more data … we want more understanding and more willingness to address that in our province,” said Gilbert.

The province stopped reporting neighbourhood-level overdose data in its quarterly drug poisoning reports in 2020, when the number of overdose deaths in the city core far surpassed every other area of the city. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has been critical of harm reduction services , and his government has been largely focused on building up addictions treatment and recovery spaces.

In April, the Boyle Street Community Services supervised consumption services were closed permanently, redirecting users to other facilities.

“We know that when we closed that central site … we saw a spike in overdose deaths, in poisoning deaths,” Salvalaggio said.

Last Friday, the provincial government announced it is looking at opening a new safe consumption site in the Strathcona area, although it is still in the early stages of planning. Salvalaggio said she applauded the decision to look at the new site, but called for reinstating and expanding existing services north of the river because people cannot travel far distances to access services.

When asked what neighbourhood-level data the provincial government has to suggest that Strathcona is in more urgent need of a new supervised consumption site than the downtown core, Eric Engler, press secretary to mental health and addictions associate minister Mike Ellis, said Friday in a statement that he “rejected the premise” of the question.

“Nobody is stating that anywhere in Edmonton is more in need of services than Downtown where the shelters are centralized. Downtown currently has two community supervised consumption sites that are not at capacity. It is clear there is an unmet need south of the river and so that is the first location being considered for expansion to meet the geographic need,” said Engler, adding that anyone using substances at home alone is encouraged to download the Digital Overdose Response System (DORS).

The app became available in Edmonton last week and aims to curb overdoses by alerting emergency medical services if a user is unresponsive.

How an investigation into Beirut's port explosion is rattling Lebanon's elite, stirring memories of civil war


Analysis by Tamara Qiblawi, CNN

Updated  Sat October 16, 2021

Lebanon in crisis after worst violence in years 

(CNN)For many in Lebanon, Thursday's scenes from central Beirut brought a sense of deja vu.
Snipers shot people from rooftops. Masked gunmen fired back with rocket-propelled grenades and B7 rockets. Terrified schoolchildren took cover in corridors. And to top it all off, the violence was all playing out along the capital's former "Green Line," a major battle front that divided Beirut's Christian east from the predominantly Muslim west during the 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

It was enough to send shivers down the spine of a people still reeling from collective traumas both fresh -- such as last summer's Beirut port blast -- and old. The wounds of the civil war continue to fester, and to watch smoke billowing from buildings covered in pockmarks from battles long past was almost too much for ordinary people to bear.

Yet for all the harrowingly familiar optics of Thursday's fighting, the political environment is new. The violence did not pit Muslim against Christian. Nor are the motivations sectarian. Instead, the violence has emerged from a fault-line that is divorced from those terrible realities.

Men help evacuate an elderly woman after gunfire erupted, in Beirut, Lebanon October 14, 2021.

The probe into the port explosion that killed more than 200 people is at the heart of Thursday's tumult. The investigation -- the biggest ever legal challenge to Lebanon's ruling elite, who are also a holdover from the civil war -- is widely seen as a potential milestone, a tool through which the country can begin to shed its blood-drenched past.

Neither the masked gunmen who emerged from a Hezbollah-organized protest against the port probe, nor the unknown snipers who appeared to be posturing as defenders of the investigation, have a vested interest in Lebanon moving forward or finding answers from the devastation of August 2020. Hezbollah and its ally Amal have accused the Christian right-wing party and former militia, the Lebanese Forces (LF), of being behind the sniping -- an allegation the LF has rejected.

Thursday's fighters appear keen to keep the tiny Mediterranean country stuck in the past, just when the population has overwhelmingly voiced support for a better future. The judge leading the investigation into the probe, Tarek Bitar, has emerged as a champion of those people. Hezbollah, on the other hand, has positioned itself as Bitar's most vociferous opponent.

People of all religious stripes were casualties of the August 2020 explosion. Across Lebanon's religious spectrum, people want justice. In that same vein, Hezbollah — which has not been prosecuted in the probe so far — has led a political offensive on behalf of a multi-religious elite.

Bitar has sought to question top officials across the board, and has recently issued arrest warrants against three former ministers — a Sunni Muslim, a Shia Muslim and a Maronite Christian.

The divisions therefore do not play out along Lebanon's age-old confessional lines. Instead some say observers ought to be looking at the implications of the probe itself. The investigation into the Beirut blast has rattled the political elite in a way that the blast itself, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, could not.


Photos: Gunfire erupts during protest in Beirut
A man runs for cover as gunfire breaks out at a protest in Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday, October 14.

The ruling class appears to be shaking in its boots, after having unsuccessfully petitioned to remove Bitar from his position. This is the same elite that survived a civil war, thanks to an amnesty law that marked the end of the conflict, and was largely unfazed by the October 2019 nationwide popular uprising and the devastating economic catastrophe that followed.

The ramifications of the probe could extend beyond Lebanon and to the Arab world at large. This is a region well-known for brazenly undermining its judiciary, even as the appetite for accountability among an increasingly frustrated Arab youth continues to grow.

If, against all odds, Bitar can see his investigation through, then he could be setting a precedent for the entire region. Arab leaders should take note.