Gen Z on how to save the world: young climate activists speak out

With courage and ambition, those born into the reality of global heating are leading the way in confronting it. Ahead of the crucial Cop26 conference, we talk to young activists around the world. Introduction by author Olivia Laing

Sun 17 Oct 2021


From left, top to bottom: Vic Barrett, José Adolfo Quisocala, Anjali Sharma, Noga Levy-Rapoport, Ella Meek, Fionn Ferreira, Marinel Ubaldo, Aadya Joshi, Lesein Mutunkei, Isabel Wijsen, Scarlett Westbrook, Melati Wisjen, Amy Meek, Yusuf Baluch, Iris Duquesne, Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, Disha Ravi, Autumn Peltier, Jamie Margolin, Mya-Rose

Autumn Peltier, 17, Canada

First Nations activist Autumn Peltier.

 Photograph: Maryam Southam Photography

“I was eight years old and attending a water ceremony in a First Nations community not far from mine,” says Autumn Peltier, recalling the moment that spurred her to become a clean-water advocate. “I went to the bathroom and all along the hallways there were signs that read ‘Do not drink the water’ and ‘Boil water advisory in effect’.” Quizzing her mother afterwards, she learned that the drinking water in this community, in northern Ontario, Canada, had been contaminated for 24 years.

Now, aged just 17, Peltier is chief water commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation. She first attracted attention when, at the Assembly of First Nations in 2017, she told prime minister Justin Trudeau that she was “very unhappy” with his record on water protection and oil pipeline projects.

The following year, she addressed world leaders at the UN General Assembly on the subject of water pollution. “Those platforms tell me that my message is being heard and Canada has to answer at that level,” she says. “It shows me I’m being effective for the water, the children and our rights as indigenous people of this land.”

If you could make one change… “I would encourage any new member of parliament to spend a week on the land and in a community that can’t drink water and live in the houses that need repairing. Have the ones in power experience what we are fighting for and why we do this advocacy work.” KF

READ THE OTHER BIOS HERE

Gen Z on how to save the world: young climate activists speak out | Environment | The Guardian

LONG READ

The dark side of wellness: the overlap between spiritual thinking and far-right conspiracies

‘It is very easy to get drawn in’: Rein Lively, aka QAnon Karen. 

Illustration: Hayley Warnham/The Observer

Extreme right-wing views and the wellness community are not an obvious pairing, but ‘conspirituality’ is increasingly pervasive. How did it all become so toxic?

Eva Wiseman
Sun 17 Oct 2021 

It was the afternoon of 4 July 2020, and Melissa Rein Lively’s video was about to go viral. A PR executive in Arizona, she already had the appearance of a person for whom a viral video was part of the plan, but with the super-groomed blondeness better suited to a branded beauty tutorial than a clip of face masks being torn from their racks. “Finally we meet the end of the road. This shit is over, we don’t want any of this any more!” she screams, holding the phone camera in one hand and tossing face masks with the other, in a video that swiftly became known as QAnon Karen. When two employees at the Scottsdale branch of Target confront her, she continues, “Why? I can’t do it cause I’m a blonde white woman? Wearing a fucking $40,000 Rolex? I don’t have the right to fuck shit up?”

Rein Lively had always thought of herself as a spiritual person. Her interests were grounded in “wellness, natural health, organic food”, she lists for me today from her home in Arizona, “yoga, ayurvedic healing, meditation, etc.” When the pandemic hit she started spending more time online, on wellness sites that offered affirmations, recipes and, on health, the repeated message to “Do your research.” She’d click on a video of foods that boost immunity and she’d see a clip about the dangers of vaccines. “A significant number of influencers previously focused on wellness and spirituality,” she noticed, “seemed to become dominated with what we now understand to be QAnon content.” QAnon is the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is fighting a deep-state cabal of Satanic paedophiles. It originated on far-right message boards before entering online wellness communities, where it found a largely female following, who continue to share phrases like “Save the Children”. The phrase was first used by QAnon believers spreading the false claim that Hillary Clinton abused children and drank their blood. Today that phrase is seen on social media posts by yoga teachers and wellness influencers speaking out against human trafficking.

“Much of what I read took a hard stance against the pharmaceutical industry and western medical philosophy, and was particularly critical of individuals like Bill Gates, who seemed to have an incredible amount of influence and involvement in public health policy,” continues Rein Lively. At first, she enjoyed what she was reading. She liked learning. She liked the community. She liked the idea that there were patriots in the government who were working quietly to help save the world. But as she clicked on and read about imminent genocide under the guise of a health crisis, she felt herself changing.

A number of influencers who previously focused on wellness and spirituality have become dominated with QAnon content

Rein Lively

In 2011, sociologists Charlotte Ward and David Voas coined the term “conspirituality”. Ward defined it as “a rapidly growing web movement expressing an ideology fuelled by political disillusionment and the popularity of alternative worldviews”. It describes the sticky intersection of two worlds: the world of yoga and juice cleanses with that of New Age thinking and online theories about secret groups, covertly controlling the universe. It’s a place where you might typically see a vegan influencer imploring their followers to stick to a water fast rather than getting vaccinated, or a meditation instructor reminding her clients of the dangers of 5G, or read an Instagram comment explaining that vaccines are hiding tracking devices. It’s a place where the word “scamdemic” might comfortably run up the side of a pair of yoga pants (88% polyester, £40, also available in “Defund the Media” print, “World Hellth Organisation” and “Masked Sheeple”, in millennial pink).
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While the overlap of left-wing, magazine-friendly wellness and far-right conspiracy theories might initially sound surprising, the similarities in cultures, in ways of thinking – the questioning of authority, of alternative medicines, the distrust of institutions– are clear. But something is happening, accelerated by the pandemic – the former is becoming a mainstream entry point into the latter. An entry point that can be found everywhere from a community garden to the beauty aisle at a big Tesco. Part of what makes a successful influencer is the ability to compel their followers to trust them, and they do that by sharing their lives, their homes, their diets, their concerns. It’s become clear, both by the products they buy and the choices they make, that many people trust their influencers more than their own doctor.

The wellness industry today is reportedly worth $4.5trn, with Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop brand worth $250m alone; in May, on the Goop site Paltrow curated a list of products recommended by her “functional medicine practitioner” to help ease long Covid, including an $8,600 necklace, for “hiking in”. This is a growth market, an industry that draws on ancient traditions to offer solutions to people who feel unlistened to and uncared for by modern medical practices. It can be stirred into tea, or pressed into the skin, or lit in the evening, or worn round the wrist. It is shaped as a quest. And as the pandemic chewed its way across the world, those following certain wellness channels closely noticed a shift in tone.

One night, Melissa Rein Lively saw a meme: an image of Polish Jews being put on a train in 1939, edited so they were wearing face masks. The caption said: “First they put you in the masks, then they put you in the box cars.” The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, she says, “It was the most disturbing image I think I have ever seen. Everything I was learning and everything I have ever been afraid of connected in a way that convinced me that at least some semblance of what I was reading was true.” She was becoming convinced that nothing was really what it seemed; that there was a carefully constructed narrative being told, which was designed to control society. “I was willing to expand my thinking and consider a completely alternative theory, especially during a time of unprecedented chaos. What if nothing was what it seemed?” It was shocking, she says, and horrifying, and also, “Oddly comforting. What I had felt I knew was true, and others knew the same thing. The ‘truth’ as I saw it, was infuriating and I felt compelled to help others ‘awaken’ .” Which is when she went to Target and started shouting.

Research conducted during the pandemic suggests a link between Covid-related uncertainty, anxiety and depression and an increased likelihood of believing conspiracy theories. A report from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate showed the most-followed social media accounts held by anti-vaxxers increased their followers by more than 7.8m in 2020. They have used the anxiety around Covid vaccines, the speed with which they were authorised, the politics that surrounded them and the systemic racism that led to communities of colour losing trust in the medical establishment, to spread their message. We are living in odd and untested times, when influencers and Facebook algorithms draw vulnerable people underground through the tunnels of the internet.

There are, however, silver linings. One benefit of the rise of conspiracy theories is the rise of conspiracy-theory explainers. Dr Timothy Caulfield works tirelessly, occasionally with a note of weariness, to explain and debunk misinformation. He’s studied the subject for decades, but has never seen it taken as seriously as it is right now; the World Health Organisation is calling this an “infodemic”. “The toleration of wellness pseudoscience has helped to fuel the current situation,” he says. The key to changing minds is to debunk it before it takes on an ideological spin.

‘These ideologies provide a sense of community – and someone to blame’: 

Abbie Richards. 

Illustration: Hayley Warnham/The Observer

“There is a strong correlation between the embrace of ‘wellness woo’ and being susceptible to misinformation. And as conspiracy theories and misinformation become increasingly about ideology, it becomes easier to sell both wellness bunk and conspiracy theories as being ‘on brand.’ In other words, if you are part of our community, this is the cluster of beliefs you must embrace – Big Science is evil, supplements help, you can boost your immune system, vaccines don’t work…” He could go on. “I truly hope that one of the legacies of the pandemic is a greater understanding of the harm that tolerating pseudoscience can do. The good news is that we are seeing more and more individuals get involved in the fight against misinformation.”

Like Abbie Richards, a chirpy Lena-Dunham lookalike whose disinformation videos have gone viral on TikTok. She has become famous for her “conspiracy theory pyramid”, which she uses to lead viewers away from reality, through things that really happened (like the FBI spying on John Lennon), to “the antisemitic point of no return”. She is fabulous. In the “Monological thinking” section, she explains how everything is connected to a rejection of authority. “If you don’t believe in climate change, you’re saying you don’t trust the scientists. If someone is feeling discontented, these ideologies provide them with a sense of community, and someone to blame,” she says.

Where Richards simplifies big ideas, offering them sugar-coated with a glass of Coke, the Conspirituality podcast, presented by a journalist, a cult researcher and a philosophical sceptic, goes deep, unravelling the “stories, cognitive dissonances and cultic dynamics” in the yoga, wellness and new spirituality worlds every week over a soft-spoken hour. It is dense and fascinating, and moves in and out of topics alternately Instagramable and apocalyptic within two breaths. Certain thoughts stay with me. “If you keep getting enlightened, are you ever really enlightened? When you attempt to integrate a holistic practice into a capitalist society, more is always demanded.” And, “Conspirituality is an ideology, but it’s also a financial racket and it’s also a way of being with other people.” As I listen, I become aware of how the intimate nature of a podcast encourages me to think about the subjects with a particular empathy – aside from the words spoken, the speaking itself encourages the listener to consider their own vulnerability to misinformation.

Conspirituality is an ideology, but it’s also a financial racket

Watching Melissa Rein Lively’s videos is disturbing. In one she calls police Nazis, in another she uses the N-word repeatedly. That summer, she says now, she’d begun, “to experience a rapid mental health spiral. On 4 July, I experienced a mental break that peaked at a Target store.” Mental illness is not uncommon in conspiracy theorists. In February, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism reported that over two-thirds of the 31 QAnon followers who’d been charged around the January insurrection in Washington, DC experienced severe mental health conditions. Many of the women sampled became involved in QAnon after learning their child had been abused.

Rein Lively was hospitalised for 10 days. Her husband filed for divorce. “I was shamed and harassed online as the internet called for me to be ‘cancelled’. I was close to the edge of suicide.” In hospital she worked with therapists unpicking unresolved trauma, including the death by suicide of her mother. “The instability and chaos of the pandemic brought back all of those life experiences. I was forced to re-experience them and ultimately seek help.”

Today, she is reunited with her husband, her Instagram a rainbow of bikini shots and videos about mental health. Does she feel differently about wellness and spirituality now? “I do. I think it is very easy to get drawn into that world. People fail to realise that wellness and spirituality is ultimately an industry. There are a lot of useful lessons,” she says, but, “I think it’s best to take them with a grain of salt.” Caulfield sees Rein Lively as “a good example of how we need voices within the communities. People who understand the values and experiences of people who have embraced wellness and conspiracies.” It’s never been more important, he believes, for wellness influencers to use their influence well.

Revealed: more than 120,000 US sites feared to handle harmful PFAS ‘forever’ chemicals

List of facilities makes it clear that virtually no part of the US appears free from the potential risk of air and water contamination with the chemicals

Water samples from Clover Flat landfill in Calistoga, California, have confirmed the presence of PFAS chemicals.

 Photograph: Courtesy of Brian Lilla

Carey Gillam and Alvin Chang
Sun 17 Oct 2021 

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified more than 120,000 locations around the US where people may be exposed to a class of toxic “forever chemicals” associated with various cancers and other health problems that is a frightening tally four times larger than previously reported, according to data obtained by the Guardian.


Chemicals used in packaging may play role in 100,000 US deaths a year – study

The list of facilities makes it clear that virtually no part of America appears free from the potential risk of air and water contamination with the chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

Colorado tops the EPA list with an estimated 21,400 facilities, followed by California’s 13,000 sites and Oklahoma with just under 12,000. The facilities on the list represent dozens of industrial sectors, including oil and gas work, mining, chemical manufacturing, plastics, waste management and landfill operations. Airports, fire training facilities and some military-related sites are also included.

The EPA describes its list as “facilities in industries that may be handling PFAS”. Most of the facilities are described as “active”, several thousand are listed as “inactive” and many others show no indication of such status. PFAS are often referred to as “forever chemicals” due to their longevity in the environment, thus even sites that are no longer actively discharging pollutants can still be a problem, according to the EPA.

The tally far exceeds a previous analysis that showed 29,900 industrial sites known or suspected of making or using the toxic chemicals.

People living near such facilities “are certain to be exposed, some at very high levels” to PFAS chemicals, said David Brown, a public health toxicologist and former director of environmental epidemiology at the Connecticut department of health.

Brown said he suspects there are far more sites than even those on the EPA list, posing long-term health risks for unsuspecting people who live near them.

“Once it’s in the environment it almost never breaks down,” Brown said of PFAS. “This is such a potent compound in terms of its toxicity and it tends to bioaccumulate … This is one of the compounds that persists forever.”

A Guardian analysis of the EPA data set shows that in Colorado, one county alone – Weld county – houses more than 8,000 potential PFAS handling sites, with 7,900 described as oil and gas operations. Oil and gas operations lead the list of industry sectors the EPA says may be handling PFAS chemicals, according to the Guardian analysis.

In July, a report by Physicians for Social Responsibility presented evidence that oil and gas companies have been using PFAS, or substances that can degrade into PFAS, in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), a technique used to extract natural gas or oil.

Water samples from Clover Flat landfill in Calistoga, California, have confirmed the presence of PFAS chemicals. 

Photograph: Courtesy of Brian Lilla

‘Permeating all industrial sectors’

The EPA said in 2019 that it was compiling data to create a map of “known or potential PFAS contamination sources” to help “assess environmental trends in PFAS concentrations” and aid local authorities in oversight. But no such map has yet been issued publicly.

The new data set shows a total count of 122,181 separate facilities after adjustments for duplications and errors in listed locations, and incorporation and analysis of additional EPA identifying information. The EPA facility list was provided to the Guardian by the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), which received it from the EPA through a Freedom of Information request. (Peer is currently representing four EPA scientists who have requested a federal inquiry into what they allege is an EPA practice of ignoring or covering up the risks of certain dangerous chemicals.)

“This shows how PFAS is permeating all industrial sectors,” said Peer’s executive director, Tim Whitehouse.

PFAS chemicals are a group of more than 5,000 man-made compounds used by a variety of industries since the 1940s for such things as electronics manufacturing, oil recovery, paints, fire-fighting foams, cleaning products and non-stick cookware. People can be exposed through contaminated drinking water, food and air, as well as contact with commercial products made with PFAS.

The EPA acknowledges there is “evidence that exposure to PFAS can cause adverse health outcomes in humans”. But the agency also says that there is only “very limited information” about human health risks for most of the chemicals within the group of PFAS chemicals.

EPA officials have started taking steps to get a grasp on the extent of PFAS use and existing and potential environmental contamination, as independent researchers say their own studies are finding reason for alarm. Last year, for instance, scientists at the non-profit Environmental Working Group issued a report finding that more than 200 million Americans could have PFAS in their drinking water at worrisome levels.

The EPA is expected to announce a broad new “action plan” addressing PFAS issues on Monday. The list of facilities handling PFAS is one part of the larger effort by the agency to “better understand and reduce the potential risks to human health and the environment caused by PFAS,” EPA deputy press secretary Tim Carroll told the Guardian.

“EPA has made addressing PFAS a top priority,” Carroll said. “Together we are identifying flexible and pragmatic approaches that will deliver critical public health protections.”

Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and an expert on PFAS, said the EPA compilation of more than 120,000 facilities that may be handling PFAS and other recent moves shows the agency is taking the issue seriously, but more work is urgently needed.

“Unfortunately, where PFAS are used, there is often local contamination,” Birnbaum said. And while the EPA appears to be trying to get a handle on the extent of exposure concerns, progress “seems very slow”, she said.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) asserts that PFAS concerns are overblown.

Major manufacturers have backed away from the PFOS and PFOA-related chemicals that research has shown to be hazardous, and other types of PFAS are not proven to be dangerous, according to the chemical industry organization. “PFAS are vital” to modern society, according to the ACC.

But public health and environmental groups, along with some members of Congress, say the risks posed to people by industrial use of PFAS substances are substantial.

Four US lawmakers led by Rosa DeLauro, chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, wrote to the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, on 6 October about their concerns regarding PFAS contamination of air and water from industrial facilities, saying: “For too many American families, this exposure is increasing their risk of cancer and other serious health problems.”

More than 150 advocacy groups also sent a letter to Regan calling for urgent action to address industrial discharges of PFAS chemicals, noting that many of the chemicals “have been linked at very low doses to serious health harms”.

Fears and foamy water

One of the sites on the EPA list is the Clover Flat landfill in Calistoga, California, a small community in the Napa Valley area that is popular for its vineyards and wineries. The landfill sits on the northern edge of the valley atop the edge of a rugged mountain range.

Clover Flat has taken in household garbage, as well as commercial and industrial waste since the 1960s, but over time the landfill has also become a disposal site for debris from forest fires.

Though the EPA list does not specifically confirm Clover Flat is handling PFAS, the community has no doubt about the presence of the toxic chemicals. A May 2020 water sampling report requested by regional water quality control officials showed that PFAS chemicals were present in every single sample taken from groundwater and from the leachate liquid materials around the landfill.

Close to 5,000 people live within a three-mile radius of the landfill, and many fear the PFAS and other toxins taken in by the landfill are making their way deep into the community.

Napa Valley resident Dennis Kelly lives downhill from the landfill and worries about contamination from the waste.

 Photograph: Courtesy of Brian Lilla

Geoffrey Ellsworth, mayor of the small city of St Helena in Napa county, said multiple streams cross the landfill property, helping rains and erosion drive the chemical contaminants downhill into creeks and other water sources, including some used to irrigate farmland. He has been seeking regulatory intervention but has not been successful, he told the Guardian.

A small group of Napa Valley residents have been working on a documentary film about their concerns with the landfill, highlighting fears that exposures to PFAS and other contaminants are jeopardizing their health.

“The water is full of foam and looks soapy and smells funny,” said 69-year-old Dennis Kelly, who lives on a few acres downhill from Clover Flat. His dog Scarlett has become sick after wading through waters that drain from the landfill into a creek that runs through his property, Kelly said. And for the last few years he has suffered with colon and stomach cancer.

Kelly said he fears the water is toxic, and he has noticed the frogs and tadpoles that once populated the little creek are now nowhere to be found.

How to Build an Offshore Wind Farm

These huge construction projects can feature turbines taller than some skyscrapers

By Benjamin Storrow, E&E News on October 15, 2021

Aerial view of the construction site of an offshore wind farm in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province of China. Credit: Liang Wendong Getty Images

Let’s talk about building an offshore wind farm. For starters, it’s not your average construction job.

Vineyard Wind I, the country’s first major project, is planning to use turbines longer than the John Hancock building, which is Boston’s tallest skyscraper at 790 feet. And whoa, boy, these things are heavy. Just take the nacelle—that's the long narrow piece that houses the motor and sits right behind the blades. It weighs a whopping 794 tons. That’s almost as much as two fully loaded 747 airplanes.



Today, we’re going to break down how to actually install an offshore wind turbine. Let’s get started.

PICK A FOUNDATION

The type of foundation a developer uses generally reflects the depth of the surrounding waters. In the Vineyard Wind project area—some 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard—water depths range from 115 feet to almost 200 feet deep. That’s relatively shallow as far as these things go, which means you can use something called a monopile for your foundation.

A monopile is a steel tube that is driven into the seabed. Vineyard Wind’s monopiles will measure up to 34 feet in diameter and 312 feet from end to end. About half the structure will be buried beneath the seabed, according to the company’s federal environmental permit.

In deeper water, developers use something known as a jacket. Jackets are sort of like tripods. They have three or four legs that are anchored to the seafloor. Vineyard’s permit provides for up to 10 jackets.

PICK A TURBINE

Offshore wind turbines have been getting bigger. A lot bigger.

Consider this example: The five turbines used at the Block Island Wind Farm off Rhode Island are each capable of producing 6 megawatts of electricity. They measure about 300 feet from waterline to rotor and boast 242-foot-long turbine blades.

Now contrast that to the turbines Vineyard Wind plans on using. They will be able to generate 13 MW and measure almost 500 feet from the waterline to rotor. Its blade stretches more than 350 feet—that’s almost as long as a football field. Just one turbine can generate enough power for 16,000 homes.

PICK A BOAT

There are about 50 boats in the world capable of installing offshore wind turbines, according to the Government Accountability Office. These ships are sometimes called jackup boats because they have legs that are lowered onto the seafloor and lift the vessel up and out of the water when installing a turbine.

There are two challenges with jackup boats. The first: None of them are American. That’s problematic because the United States has a law prohibiting foreign-flagged vessels from traveling between American ports.

Developers have a way around the law. When Deepwater Wind built Block Island Wind Farm, it used a Maltese-flagged ship named the Brave Tern. The Brave Tern anchored off Rhode Island and was fed parts and equipment by a small fleet of barges and transport vessels.

Vineyard Wind plans on using a similar strategy. Its problem is that there are few jackup boats with cranes tall enough and strong enough to install the Haliade-X. In fact, there are only three boats in existence today capable of installing a Haliade-X, according to researchers at Tufts University. Vineyard Wind contracted with the Deme Group, a Belgium-based company that owns one of them: a 438-foot vessel named the Sea Installer.

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

Paul Murphy is one of the few Americans with experience building an offshore wind farm. He oversaw the construction of the Block Island Wind Farm and is one of the people leading Ørsted A/S’s South Fork, Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind developments off southern New England. We asked him how to actually assemble one of these projects.

His advice: “The best way to build a project in the middle of the ocean is to spend as little time in the middle of the ocean as possible.”

That means doing a lot of the work onshore. In Ørsted’s case, its first two projects will be put together at a staging ground in New London, Conn. Vineyard Wind will use the Marine Commerce Terminal in New Bedford, Mass.

Typically, the tall part of the turbine known as the tower comes in three, 100-foot-tall sections, Murphy said. Those are stacked and welded together onshore and outfitted with all the necessary cables and electric wiring.

They are then floated out to the wind development and installed using one of those massive jackup boats. Once the tower is securely fastened to the ocean floor, the nacelle, which houses the motor, is placed on top of it, and each of the three turbine blades are attached.

Of course, this just covers installing the actual turbines. Developers also need to run transmission cables between the turbines and into an offshore substation, which then feeds electricity into a main transmission cable running to the mainland.

All sounds simple, right?

Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2021. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

A new fossil discovery may add hundreds of millions of years to the evolutionary history of animals


A recent fossil discovery in the Mackenzie Mountains, NWT may change how we consider animal evolution. (Shutterstock)

October 17, 2021 

Ever wonder how and when animals swanned onto the evolutionary stage? When, where and why did animals first appear? What were they like?

Life has existed for much of Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, but for most of that time it consisted exclusively of bacteria.

Read more: Life on Earth was nothing but slime for a 'boring billion' years

Although scientists have been investigating the evidence of biological evolution for over a century, some parts of the fossil record remain maddeningly enigmatic, and finding evidence of Earth’s earliest animals has been particularly challenging.

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Hidden evolution

Information about evolutionary events hundreds of millions of years ago is mainly gleaned from fossils. Familiar fossils are shells, exoskeletons and bones that organisms make while alive. These so-called “hard parts” first appear in rocks deposited during the “Cambrian explosion,” slightly less than 540 million years ago.

The seemingly sudden appearance of diverse, complex animals, many with hard parts, implies that there was a preceding interval during which early soft-bodied animals with no hard parts evolved from simpler animals. Unfortunately, until now, possible evidence of fossil animals in the interval of “hidden” evolution has been very rare and difficult to understand, leaving the timing and nature of evolutionary events unclear.

This conundrum, known as “Darwin’s dilemma,” remains tantalizing and unresolved 160 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species.
Required oxygen

There is indirect evidence regarding how and when animals may have appeared. Animals by definition ingest pre-existing organic matter, and their metabolisms require a certain level of ambient oxygen. It has been assumed that animals could not appear, or at least not diversify, until after a major oxygen increase in the Neoproterozoic Era, sometime between 815 and 540 million years ago, resulting from accumulation of oxygen produced by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae.

It is widely accepted that sponges are the most basic animal in the animal evolutionary tree and therefore probably were first to appear. Yes, sponges are animals: they use oxygen and feed by sucking water containing organic matter through their bodies. The earliest animals were probably sponge-related (the “sponge-first” hypothesis), and may have emerged hundreds of millions of years prior to the Cambrian, as suggested by a genetic method called molecular phylogeny, which analyzes genetic differences.

Read more: Finding a rare fossilized comb jelly reveals new gaps in the fossil record

Based on these reasonable assumptions, sponges may have existed as much as 900 million years ago. So, why have we not found fossil evidence of sponges in rocks from those hundreds of millions of intervening years?

Under the right conditions, soft sponge tissue made from spongin fibres can create a distinctive fossil. (Elizabeth C. Turner), Author provided

Part of the answer to this question is that sponges do not have standard hard parts (shells, bones). Although some sponges have an internal skeleton made of microscopic mineralized rods called spicules, no convincing spicules have been found in rocks dating from the interval of hidden early animal evolution. However, some sponge types have a skeleton made of tough protein fibres called spongin, forming a distinctive, microscopic, three-dimensional meshwork, identical to a bath sponge.

Work on modern and fossil sponges has shown that these sponges can be preserved in the rock record when their soft tissue is calcified during decay. If the calcified mass hardens around spongin fibres before they too decay, a distinctive microscopic meshwork of complexly branching tubes results appears in the rock. The branching configuration is unlike that of algae, bacteria or fungi, and is well known from limestones younger than 540 million years.
Unusual fossils

I am a geologist and paleobiologist who works on very old limestone. Recently, I described this exact microstructure in 890-million-year-old rocks from northern Canada, proposing that it could be evidence of sponges that are several hundred million years older than the next-youngest uncontested sponge fossil

.
This may be an 890 million year old sponge fossil. (Elizabeth C. Turner), Author provided

Although my proposal may initially seem outrageous, it is consistent with predictions and assumptions that are common in the paleontological community: the new material seems to validate an extrapolated timeline and a predicted identity for early animals that are already widely accepted.

If these are indeed sponge fossils, animal evolution can be pushed back by several hundred million years.

The early possible sponges that I describe lived with localised cyanobacterial communities that produced oxygen oases in an otherwise low-oxygen world, prior to the Neoproterozoic oxygenation event. These early sponges may have continued living in similar environments, possibly unchanged and unchallenged by evolutionary pressure, for up to several hundred million years, before more diverse animals emerged.

The existence of 890-million-year-old animals would also indicate that biological evolution was not substantially affected by the controversial Cryogenian glacial episodes — so-called “snowball Earth” — that began around 720 million years ago.

My unusual fossil material may provide a new perspective on Darwin’s dilemma. However, radical new ideas are generally not fully accepted by the scientific community without vigorous discussion; I expect lively controversy to ensue. At some point, probably years in the future, a consensus may develop based on further work. Until then, enjoy the debate!

Author

Elizabeth C. Turner
Professor, Earth Sciences, Laurentian University
Disclosure statement
Elizabeth Turner receives funding from Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (Canada).
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IATSE Strike Tentatively Averted After Deal Is Reached — But Some Union Members Aren't Happy

Several film and entertainment workers have expressed frustration 

over the deal struck late Saturday night to avoid an Oct. 18 strike

By Abigail AdamsOctober 17, 2021 

CREDIT: MYUNG J. CHUN/LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY

IATSE has averted a nationwide strike for now.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees announced late Saturday that it had reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) for a new film and TV contract. 

"Everything achieved was because you, the members, stood up and gave us the power to change the course of these negotiations," the union said Saturday in a statement to members.

About 60,000 members of the union, which represents thousands of TV and film production workers across the industry, had threatened to strike on Oct. 18 and shut down much of Hollywood if they were unable to negotiate improved working conditions, benefits, and compensation for their upcoming contract. 

RELATED: Juliette Lewis Shares Dark Side of Acting While Supporting IATSE Strike: 'Overworked and Exhausted'

In late September, the IATSE sent letters in California and New York warning that "a strike would effectively shut down" film and television production in the two states, according to Deadline.

However, some members of the union apparently are not pleased with the proposed 3-year deal, according to comments posted on social media. 

IATSE said in a statement Saturday night that the new contract addresses various "core issues" such as meal breaks, rest periods, and a living wage for those at the lower end of the pay scale.

Under the new contract, 10-hour rest periods are required daily without exclusions. Weekend rest periods of 54 and 32 hours were also negotiated. Other items achieved include improved working conditions for streaming, the expansion of sick leave benefits nationwide, and employer-funded benefits for the term.

CREDIT: CHRIS PIZZELLO/INVISION/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK

IATSE president Matthew Loeb had said the union would go on strike on Oct. 18 if a deal was not reached. He called the deal "a Hollywood ending."

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"We went toe to toe with some of the richest and most powerful entertainment and tech companies in the world, and we have now reached an agreement with the AMPTP that meets our members' needs," Loeb wrote in Saturday's statement.

CREDIT: CHRIS PIZZELLO/INVISION/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK

But some union members say on social media that several important items, such as length of shooting days and changes to new media (streaming) compensation, are not mentioned in the proposed deal. 

Several workers have expressed their frustrations in a post on an Instagram page called "IATSE Stories," where film and entertainment workers can share their experiences and "build solidarity" with others in the industry.

Some members also commented on the IATSE's announcement on Twitter. A ratification vote will now likely come at a later date, per Variety.

RELATED: What You Need to Know About the Potential IATSE Strike

However, Mike Miller, Vice President and Motion Picture Director for IATSE, believes that both union members and employers will "benefit" from the deal.

"This settlement allows pre-production, production and post-production to continue without interruption," Miller said in the statement. "Workers should have improved morale and be more alert. Health and safety standards have been upgraded."

Enbridge fails to meet aquifer cleanup deadline in Minnesota

The Associated Press
Sunday, October 17, 2021 


The Enbridge logo is shown at the company's annual meeting in Calgary, Alta., Wednesday, May 9, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Enbridge has failed to meet a deadline set by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for cleaning up a site where an aquifer ruptured during construction of the Line 3 oil pipeline, DNR officials said.

The agency had given the company until Friday to repair the damage that caused the artesian aquifer near Clearbrook to leak at least 24 million gallons of groundwater.

Regulators will require compensation for the additional time it takes to stop the groundwater flow.

The DNR has already ordered Enbridge to pay US$3.32 million for failing to follow environmental laws.

Regulators also announced they are investigating two separate sites where the company may have caused additional groundwater damage, the Star Tribune reported.

A company spokeswoman says Enbridge is co-operating with the Minnesota DNR to correct uncontrolled groundwater flows at Clearbrook, and is working with officials while they evaluate two other locations.

Line 3 starts in Alberta, Canada, and clips a corner of North Dakota before crossing Minnesota en route to Enbridge's terminal in Superior, Wisconsin.

Winona LaDuke, who heads the Honor the Earth Indigenous environmental group, called the company's failure to meet the deadline alarming. "If Enbridge can't meet basic safety requirements, they should not be allowed to operate a pipeline," she said, adding that it "doesn't bode well for the future."

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Rolls-Royce launches mtu hydrogen solutions for power generation

- From 2022 mtu Series 500 and Series 4000 ready for 25% hydrogen

- From 2023 mtu engines and conversion kits available for 100% hydrogen

MANKATO, Minn., Oct. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Rolls-Royce is further developing its mtu gas engine portfolio for power generation and cogeneration to run on hydrogen as a fuel and thus enable a climate-neutral energy supply. Already today, gensets powered by mtu Series 500 and Series 4000 gas engines can be operated with a gas blending of 10 percent hydrogen. Beginning in 2022, operation with a hydrogen content of 25 percent will be possible. "After intensive tests on test benches and pilot installations at customers in 2022, Rolls-Royce will continuously market new mtu Series 500 and Series 4000 gas engines beginning in 2023 for use with up to 100 percent hydrogen, and on a design to order basis conversion kits to allow already installed gas engines in the field to run on 100% hydrogen," said Perry Kuiper, President Sustainable Power Solutions at Rolls-Royce Power Systems.

Power plants with hydrogen engines support energy transition

"The decarbonization of power generation requires reliable, flexible, but also climate-neutral, power plants to supplement the fluctuating generation from wind and sun. We assume that natural gas will initially be the primary fuel in the development of the hydrogen ecosystem, but we see hydrogen as technically and economically possible. That is why we continue to develop our gas engines for use with green hydrogen - whether as a 10 or 25 percent admixture or for 100 percent," explains Andreas Görtz, Vice President Power Generation at Rolls-Royce Power Systems.

Rolls-Royce builds expertise for H2 ecosystem

In addition, fuel cells powered by 100% green hydrogen can play an important role in future energy supply in combination with renewable energies. At its Friedrichshafen headquarters, Rolls-Royce's Power Systems division has installed a 250-kilowatt fuel cell demonstrator, which will be used to test and present future CO2-free energy systems to customers. The entire hydrogen ecosystem, including the infrastructure for supply, conversion, test benches and future production, is also being mapped in the company's own plants, thus building up expertise.

Rolls-Royce focuses its climate protection program Net Zero at Power Systems on new technologies and fuels

With its climate protection program "Net Zero at Power Systems", Rolls-Royce's Power Systems division has set itself the target of saving 35 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 using new technologies. This near-term target plays an important role in the Rolls-Royce Group's ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 at the latest. In addition to new technologies, a key element in achieving these targets is the certification of key mtu engine products to run on sustainable EN 15940 fuels such as e-diesel and second-generation biofuels as early as 2023.

Press photos are available for download from https://www.mtu-solutions.com/eu/en/news-and-media/media-center.html

About Rolls-Royce Holdings plc

Rolls-Royce pioneers the power that matters to connect, power and protect society. We have pledged to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in our operations by 2030. We joined the UN Race to Zero campaign in 2020, and have committed to ensuring our new products will be compatible with net zero operation by 2030, and all products will be compatible with net zero by 2050.

Rolls-Royce Power Systems is headquartered in Friedrichshafen in southern Germany and employs around 9,000 people. The product portfolio includes mtu-brand high-speed engines and propulsion systems for ships, power generation, heavy land, rail and defence vehicles and for the oil and gas industry as well as diesel and gas systems and battery containers for mission critical, standby and continuous power, combined generation of heat and power, and microgrids.

Rolls-Royce has customers in more than 150 countries, comprising more than 400 airlines and leasing customers, 160 armed forces and navies, and more than 5,000 power and nuclear customers.

Annual underlying revenue was £11.76 billion in 2020 and we invested £1.25 billion on research and development. We also support a global network of 28 University Technology Centres, which position Rolls-Royce engineers at the forefront of scientific research.

Rolls-Royce Holdings plc is a publicly traded company (LSE:RR., ADR: RYCEY, LEI: 213800EC7997ZBLZJH69).

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rolls-royce-launches-mtu-hydrogen-solutions-for-power-generation-301401101.html

SOURCE Rolls-Royce Power Systems

Facebook announces 10,000 EU jobs to build 'metaverse'

Issued on: 18/10/2021 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been a leading voice in Silicon Valley hype around the idea of the metaverse, which would blur the lines between the physical world and the digital one 

Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

Facebook on Monday announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build the "metaverse", a virtual reality version of the internet that the tech giant sees as the future.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been a leading voice in Silicon Valley hype around the idea of the metaverse, which would blur the lines between the physical world and the digital one.

The technology might, for example, allow someone to don virtual reality glasses that make it feel as if they're face-to-face with a friend -- when in fact they are thousands of miles apart and connected via the internet.

"The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social, and economic opportunities. And Europeans will be shaping it right from the start," Facebook said in a blog post.

"Today, we are announcing a plan to create 10,000 new high skilled jobs within the European Union (EU) over the next five years."

The European hires will include "highly specialised engineers", but the company otherwise gave few details of its plans for the new metaverse team.

"The EU has a number of advantages that make it a great place for tech companies to invest -- a large consumer market, first class universities and, crucially, top quality talent," the blog post said.

- Distraction from bad news? -

The announcement comes as Facebook grapples with the fallout of a damaging scandal, major outages of its services, and rising calls for regulation to curb its vast influence.

The company has faced a storm of criticism over the past month after former employee Frances Haugen leaked internal studies showing Facebook knew its sites could be harmful to young people's mental health.

The Washington Post last month suggested that Facebook's interest in the metaverse is "part of a broader push to rehabilitate the company's reputation with policymakers and reposition Facebook to shape the regulation of next-wave Internet technologies".

But Zuckerberg also appears to be a genuine evangelist for the advent of the metaverse era, predicting in July that Facebook will transition from "primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company" over the next five years.

Facebook bought Oculus, a company that makes virtual reality headsets, for $2 billion in 2014 and has since been developing Horizon, a digital world where people can interact using VR technology.

In August it unveiled Horizon Workrooms, a feature where co-workers wearing VR headsets can hold meetings in a virtual room where they all appear as cartoonish 3D versions of themselves.

- Blurring the lines -

Metaverse enthusiasts point out that the internet is already starting to blur the lines between virtual experiences and "real" ones.

Stars such as pop diva Ariana Grande and the rapper Travis Scott have performed for huge audiences, watching at home, via the hit video game Fortnite.

In Decentraland, another online platform widely seen as a forerunner to the metaverse, you can already get a job as a croupier in its virtual casino.

"No one company will own and operate the metaverse. Like the internet, its key feature will be its openness and interoperability," Facebook said in its blog post.

It is not the only company pouring millions into developing the technology that could turn a fully-fledged version of the metaverse into reality.

Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, announced earlier this year that it had raised $1 billion in new funding, with some of that money set to support its vision of the metaverse.

© 2021 AFP