Air pollution in Europe still killing more than 300,000 a year, report finds


Premature deaths caused by fine particle air pollution have fallen 10 percent annually across Europe, but the invisible killer still accounts for 307,000 premature deaths a year, the European Environment Agency said Monday.

© Christophe Ena, AP Photo

If the latest air quality guidelines from the World Health Organisation were followed by EU members, the latest number of fatalities recorded in 2019 could be cut in half, according to an EEA report.

Deaths linked to fine particulate matter -- with a diameter below 2.5 micrometres or PM2.5 -- were estimated at 346,000 for 2018.

The clear reduction in deaths for the following year were put down partly to favourable weather but above all to a progressive improvement in air quality across the continent, the European Union's air pollution data centre said.

In the early 1990s, fine particles, which penetrate deeply into the lungs, led to nearly a million premature deaths in the 27 EU member nations, according to the report.

That figure had been more than halved to 450,000 by 2005.

In 2019, fine particulate matter caused 53,800 premature deaths in Germany, 49,900 in Italy, 29,800 in France and 23,300 in Spain.

Poland saw 39,300 deaths, the highest figure per head of population.

The EEA also registers premature deaths linked to two other leading pollutants, but says it does not count them in its overall toll to avoid doubling up.

Deaths caused by nitrogen dioxide -- mainly from cars, trucks and thermal power stations -- fell by a quarter to 40,000 between 2018 and 2019.

Fatalities linked to ground-level ozone in 2019 also dropped 13 percent to 16,800 dead.

Air pollution remains the biggest environmental threat to human health in Europe, the agency said.

Heart disease and strokes cause most premature deaths blamed on air pollution, followed by lung ailments including cancer.

In children, atmospheric pollution can harm lung development, cause respiratory infections and aggravate asthma.

Even if the situation is improving, the EEA warned in September that most EU countries were still above the recommended pollution limits, be they European guidelines or more ambitious WHO targets.

According to the UN health body, air pollution causes seven million premature deaths annually across the globe -- on the same levels as smoking and poor diet.

In September, the alarming statistics led the WHO to tighten its recommended limits on major air pollutants for the first time since 2005.

"Investing in cleaner heating, mobility, agriculture and industry improves health, productivity and quality of life for all Europeans, and particularly the most vulnerable," said EEA director Hans Bruyninck.

The EU wants to slash premature deaths due to fine air pollution by at least 55 percent in 2030 compared to 2005.

If air pollution continues to fall at the current rate, the agency estimates the target will be reached by 2032.

However an ageing and increasingly urbanised population could make that more difficult.

"An older population is more sensitive to air pollution and a higher rate of urbanisation typically means that more people are exposed to PM 2.5 concentrations, which tend to be higher in cities," said the report.

(AFP)

NOONE IS ILLEGAL

Critics: Greece criminalizes migration, prosecutes helpers

By ELENA BECATOROS

1 of 5

Hanad Abdi Mohammad, from Somalia, imprisoned migrant on the northeastern Aegean island of Chios, Greece, is seen in this undated photo in an unknown location. Among the inmates of Chios prison, a squat building nestled in the warren of narrow streets that make up this Greek island's main town, three young men have embarked on dramatically long sentences: 50 years for two of them, and a staggering 142 for Hanad Abdi Mohammad the third. But all three say their crimes were nothing more than finding themselves forced to take over the steering of floundering migrant boats after smugglers abandoned them at sea between Turkey and Greece. 

(AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)


CHIOS, Greece (AP) — Among the prison inmates of the Greek island of Chios, three young men from Afghanistan and Somalia are serving dramatically long sentences: 50 years for two of them, a staggering 142 for the third.

But these are not violent criminals, even according to their trial verdicts. They were convicted for steering inflatable dinghies carrying them and other migrants after they say smugglers abandoned them in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece.

“I didn’t think saving people is a crime,” said Hanad Abdi Mohammad, 28, a soft-spoken Somali charged as a smuggler after arriving in Greece last December and sentenced to 142 years.

Mohammad told journalists and European Parliament lawmakers visiting the three in prison last week that he had no choice but to drive the boat. The smuggler forced him to take over, hitting him in the face and threatening him with a gun before abandoning the dinghy in rough seas. And people’s lives were at stake. Even with hindsight, he said, “I would do it again, as long as I am saving lives.”

Critics say the men’s cases, as well as prosecutions or threats of criminal proceedings against aid workers, illustrate the expanding arsenal of techniques authorities in Greece and other countries are using to deter asylum-seekers.

“It’s not possible that someone who comes to claim asylum in Greece is threatened with such heavy sentences simply because they were forced, by circumstances or pressure, to take over handling a boat,” said Alexandros Georgoulis, one of the lawyers representing the three imprisoned in Chios.

Greek authorities, he said, “are essentially baptizing the smuggled as the smuggler.”

Mohammad’s journey is also a stark indication of the chaos asylum-seekers may experience as they migrate between two countries long divided by deep-seated mistrust.

Fearing for their lives after the smuggler fled, the nearly three dozen panicked passengers abandoned their quest to reach Greece. Mohammad says he called the Turkish coast guard repeatedly, begging for a rescue. But when it arrived, the Turkish patrol boat circled the migrants’ vessel sharply, sending water into the dinghy and gradually pushing it toward Greece. In the chaos, two women fell overboard and drowned.

The Greek coast guard rescued the survivors, and Mohammad helped other passengers onto the rescue boat. He admitted to having driven the boat after the smuggler left. It didn’t cross his mind that would lead to him being prosecuted as a smuggler.

Aid workers and volunteers have also found themselves in the crosshairs of Greek authorities. In one widely publicized case, Syrian human rights worker Sarah Mardini, a refugee herself, and volunteer Sean Binder were arrested and detained for months in 2018 on suspicion of espionage, money laundering and a litany of other offenses. They deny all charges, and say they were doing nothing more than helping rescue people.

It’s not just Greece. According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Germany, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece have initiated 58 investigations and legal proceedings since 2016 against private entities involved in search and rescue.

“I think it’s important to challenge these in the courts, to not at all sit back and accept that we should be cast as smugglers or spies because I offered CPR, (or) more often than not just a smile, to someone in distress,” Binder told the AP. “It is preposterous that we should be cast as criminals. I don’t accept it....It doesn’t matter who you are, you don’t deserve to drown in the sea.”

Binder and Mardini go on trial on the island of Lesbos on on misdemeanor counts of espionage, forgery and unlawful use of radio frequencies on Nov. 18. They face a maximum eight-year sentence, convertible into a fine. They are still under investigation for felonies which could carry 25 years.

Dimitris Choulis, a lawyer on the island of Samos who frequently represents asylum-seekers and is not involved in Binder’s case, thinks criminal prosecutions or threats of prosecution are partly designed to deter nongovernmental organizations from documenting practices such as the illegal summary deportation of migrants before they can apply for asylum.

“The only way to stop humanitarian organizations from watching what is happening in the Aegean is to criminalize rescue,” said Choulis, who along with Georgoulis is representing the three men imprisoned in Chios.

Greek officials strenuously deny the country performs illegal pushbacks despite mounting indications to the contrary. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis dismissed such claims again last Tuesday, saying his government follows a “tough but fair” migration policy.

Most cases involving NGOs are intended more to intimidate than to win convictions, Choulis argues, noting most remain in the investigative phase. Three years after his arrest, Binder has yet to be charged with any of the felonies he’s under investigation for.

In July, Greek police announced a felony investigation into 10 people, including four foreign NGO workers, on migrant smuggling allegations. No charges have resulted so far.

The short but often perilous sea crossing from Turkey to nearby Greek islands is a popular route into Europe for people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. To crack down on smuggling, Greece introduced a law in 2014 imposing severe penalties on people smugglers: 10 years imprisonment for each smuggled person, or 15 years per person if there was danger to life, and life imprisonment if someone died.

But smugglers quickly adapted. Instead of ferrying people themselves, they persuaded or forced their passengers to drive the boats, something borne out by numerous testimonies of arriving asylum seekers. The result has been the convictions of migrants as smugglers.

“Our prisons are full of asylum-seekers who drove a boat,” Choulis said. “This is absurd.”

Although the sentences are draconian - apart from Mohammad’s 142 years, Afghans Amir Zaheri and Akif Rasouli, both in their 20s, received 50 years each - actual servable time under Greek law is capped at 20 years, reducible to 12 with good behavior. With prison work counting toward sentence reduction, they could be released after about eight years.

Still, that’s a long time to spend incarcerated instead of building a new life.

Zaheri, accompanied by his pregnant wife and young child, and Rasouli arrived in the same boat about two years ago. From different parts of Afghanistan, they had never met before. Like in Mohammad’s case, the smuggler abandoned their dinghy and the passengers took turns steering, they said.

Both were tried as smugglers. They saw their court-appointed lawyer for the first time at their trial, which lasted just a few minutes. The judge spent a minute each asking them questions, Rasouli said.

“For one minute, 50 years,” he said. “I cried for one month.”

With new lawyers now representing them, Zaheri and Rasouli have an appeal hearing set for March. No appeal hearing date has yet been set for Mohammad.

____

Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed

___

Follow AP’s migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Ottawa, Alberta reach deal for 'affordable, quality child care,' province says

© The Canadian Press Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney are expected to announce details of a child-care agreement Monday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney are expected to announce details of a child-care agreement Monday morning.

A deal for "affordable, quality child care" has been reached, the province said in a news release Sunday evening.

Trudeau, along with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Karina Gould, will be joined by Kenney and Alberta Minister of Children's Services Rebecca Schulz at a news conference in Edmonton scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. MT on Monday.

Ottawa announced $30 billion over five years and $8.3 billion ongoing with the aim to create a quality and affordable child-care system as part of this year's budget, unveiled last April.

'A game changer'

The federal budget stipulates any new plan must meet three criteria:
Funds must go "primarily" to non-profit early learning centres.
Funds must pay for the training of early childhood educators.
The money must be spent to halve average child-care fees by the end of 2022 and reduce child-care costs to an average of $10 per day by 2026.

While she was not aware of details of the agreement ahead of Monday's news conference, Nicki Dublenko, chair of the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Alberta, said $10-a-day child care would be transformative.

"That in itself is a game-changer because [there are] people, typically women, that want to work, but they just can't afford it, especially with multiple children. All of their pay is going towards child care," Dublenko said.

"They talk about child care as being like mortgage payments that families have until their children get access to school."

 
Child care in crisis, Dublenko says

Families can pay upward of $1,200 a month per child in some areas of the province, especially in parts of northern Alberta, Dublenko said.

Dublenko said the Ottawa deal could not have come soon enough, as child care in the province has been "in a state of crisis" since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Some programs are still really suffering from low enrolment and the high costs from the pandemic," she said. "Families are really needing the support, and child-care programs are really needing the support to stay functioning."

The Alberta government launched negotiations with Ottawa in July, before the federal election was called.

In August, Kenney was demanding the federal government give the province unconditional funding for early learning and child care similar to what Quebec has negotiated.

The government representatives at the news conference will also be joined by Shannon Doram, president and CEO of the YMCA Calgary, and Heather Gomme, owner and director of It's a Child's World Family Day Home Agency.

'Significant gap in services:' City of Edmonton anticipates need for 350 additional shelter beds heading into winter, Sohi calling on province to fund Commonwealth Stadium 24-7 shelter

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Mayor Amarjeet Sohi speaks to reporters on Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, at city hall in Edmonton.


Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi is calling on the province to fund an additional 24-7 shelter at Commonwealth Stadium for the winter to address an anticipated 350-bed gap in overnight shelter capacity.

Sohi addressed media Friday afternoon about his request, days after the city released a report on the its homeless response outlining “a significant gap in services” if more shelter spaces aren’t added. Shelter beds have been reduced by about 35 per cent compared to last winter, but the number of residents experiencing homelessness has grown to 2,800 — an increase of more than 1,200 since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, there are 671 overnight shelter beds, but the city projects that 1,200 Edmontonians will need emergency accommodations throughout the winter. Other residents experiencing homelessness are considered to be “provisionally accommodated,” meaning they have found other places to stay and don’t require emergency shelters.

Additional funding requests to reopen three south-side shelters operated by the Mustard Seed and to extend the Spectrum Building shelter on the Northlands grounds throughout the winter are currently in front of the province, but that would only increase capacity to 853 beds.

To address the gap, Sohi said he has asked Premier Jason Kenney to provide the dollars needed to open a 24-7 shelter at Commonwealth Stadium, which would provide up to 150 additional spaces.

“As it stands, I am concerned that we won’t have enough shelter space to provide a warm space for people during the cold winter months,” Sohi told reporters. “My first meeting with the premier was very productive and I brought this issue up with him. There are currently applications in place to increase the capacity but those applications would still not be enough. If they made the funding available to us, we could work with them to open up Commonwealth Stadium.”

There is no timeline for a response from the Alberta government, Sohi said, noting he will be meeting with Community and Social Services Minister Jason Luan to further push the proposal and call for support. If the province doesn’t provide dollars for the Commonwealth shelter, Sohi said the city would unlikely be able to step up and do so on its own with its tight fiscal situation.

“I’m optimistic at this time that we will be able to secure that funding from the province. If that funding is not available, I don’t know what the solutions are going to be. As we all know, city finances are very limited, these are the responsibilities of the provincial government and I’m very optimistic it will be able to fulfil those obligations,” he said.

In a statement to Postmedia, Community and Social Services spokesman Justin Marshall said the province is working with the city and shelter providers regarding concerns about capacity and there will be more details on additional supports next week.

Dedicated day shelter space has also decreased by 56 per cent since last winter and may be further reduced in the new year if funding isn’t renewed for the three day-use sites currently being paid for by the city. The programs were set to end at the end of October, but city manager Andre Corbould extended the agreements until the end of the year with an additional $1.6 million. But to extend the three day-use shelters beyond 2021, additional agreements would need to be made during council’s budget discussions later this month.

Director of affordable housing and homelessness Christel Kjenner said the city is doing everything it can to ensure there is enough space for residents experiencing homelessness while also working with partners to secure permanent housing options.

“I’m concerned that the sector won’t have the capacity to meet the demand unless the province steps up with additional funding to open additional shelter beds,” she said in an interview with Postmedia. “Although there is a significant challenge, we have been having really positive discussions and throughout the course of the pandemic we’ve worked with the province to put together our resources and figure out a way to make sure everyone’s needs are met and I have no reason to believe that won’t happen again. But there’s just a series of decisions that need to be made.”
Supportive housing

The city is also continuing to support the long-term needs of residents experiencing homelessness through the addition of permanent, supportive housing sites. Five sites that were targeted for completion by the end of the year have been delayed as a result of supply chain disruptions with occupancy now expected next spring.

Two hotels are also slated to be converted into supportive housing developments through the federal government’s Rapid Housing Initiative. Niginan Housing Ventures plans to turn the former Sands Hotel on Fort Road into a 53-unit housing development with a focus on providing supports for Indigenous people, including 15 sites dedicated to women.

The Mustard Seed plans to convert the Days Inn on University Avenue into a housing development with a minimum of 72 units. The projects are expected to cost a total of $21.6 million, with $6.7 million being supplied by the city.

Council’s executive committee will debate the reports and determine next steps on Tuesday.

duscook@postmedia.com

twitter.com/dustin_cook3

UCP CAN'T MANAGE
ASIRT on the rocks: Faced with an 'unmanageable' workload, Alberta's police watchdog is shedding staff and falling further behind on files

This past February, the head of Alberta’s police watchdog went before the Edmonton Police Commission to sound an alarm.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal

 An ASIRT investigator checks out the scene of a 2019 shooting involving Edmonton police near 100 Street and 105A Avenue. The head of the agency says ASIRT is struggling under an ever-increasing file count, coupled with funding and staffing issues.

ASIRT, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, was at a “ critical breaking point ,” executive director Sue Hughson told commissioners during their monthly meeting. The agency’s already considerable backlog of cases was growing. Provincial funding shortfalls and staff vacancies were driving the roughly two-dozen investigators on her team to the brink, working “back-to-back-to-back” on police misconduct files across the province.

“When we’re calling at three o’clock in the morning to send them to Grande Prairie when they just got home the night before from another location … that becomes very taxing and it becomes very dangerous,” she said.

Nine months later, critics say ASIRT has passed the breaking point. More than a year after the murder of George Floyd shook public confidence in North American policing, ASIRT is still closing files from 2018 . Longtime staff are leaving. And even when an ASIRT investigation concludes a police officer ought to be charged, prosecutors oftentimes decline to take the file.

“There needs to be something done, and very quickly,” said Heather Steinke-Attia, whose client, Pacey Dumas is suing an Edmonton Police Service officer under ASIRT investigation for allegedly kicking him in the head. “Otherwise, this whole oversight body is just a facade. It’s just paying lip service to the idea that there (is) this independent body that’s investigating (police).”

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Sue Hughson, executive director of ASIRT, speaks to media on Jan. 24, 2019, after charging a police officer with assault causing bodily harm.

‘Not a priority’

ASIRT is staffed by current and former law enforcement officers who investigate cases where police kill or seriously injure someone, as well as “serious or sensitive” allegations of misconduct.

Since its founding in 2008 , ASIRT has laid criminal charges against 44 officers for everything from assault to sexual assault to fraud to criminal negligence causing death.

Over the years, ASIRT’s file load has increased steadily. Before Hughson took over in 2014, ASIRT was assigned an average of 32 cases a year. It now averages 72.

Backlogs have long been a problem, but the Dumas case brought the issue to the fore.

Dumas, a 19-year-old Indigenous man from northern Alberta, claims EPS Const. Ben Todd kicked him in the head during an arrest last December, necessitating surgery to remove a section of his skull. As of early November, Dumas was still missing a piece of skull, and Todd was still on the job, albeit under investigation. In response to the delay, Hughson said ASIRT was still handling files from 2018 and the backlog wasn’t going anywhere without additional staff and funding.

On the staff front, ASIRT has seen a number of recent departures, most notably assistant executive director Greg Gudelot , who left to head-up Saskatchewan’s police watchdog. In an email, Hughson referred to a “long line of retirements and resignations” in the past year, adding the agency was “grossly under-resourced and … struggling with an unmanageable workload.”

As for funding, the Alberta government cut more than three per cent from ASIRT’s budget since 2019-20, part of an estimated six per cent reduction in overall justice system spending. During the budget debate in March, UCP Justice Minister and Solicitor General Kaycee Madu said he was “confident” the agencies in his department would have the funding they needed. Assistant deputy minister Bill Sweeney added that the government is reviewing the Police Act, the legislation governing ASIRT, to see whether its mandate might be shrunk or expanded.

Amanda Hart-Dowhun, a lawyer representing the family of a person who died in EPS custody more than two years ago, said ASIRT’s funding problems send a message.

“It’s both striking and telling when we compare these delays with the average time that it takes for any non-police person to be investigated and charged with a crime,” she said in an email. “The lack of funding and the resulting delays show the people impacted, and the public, that prosecuting police officers accused of criminal offences is not a priority.”

Steinke-Attia, who previously worked for EPS, said delays also send a message to officers.

“They look at that officer every day, coming to work, putting on his uniform, and they see nothing’s happening.”

Many in law enforcement, for their part, support increasing ASIRT funding. Edmonton police Chief Dale McFee has said he supports increasing ASIRT’s budget and moving the internal police complaints process to a similar entity. Edmonton Police Association president Michael Elliott said officers under ASIRT investigation also want speedier resolutions.

Irfan Sabir, the Alberta NDP justice critic, argued the government’s focus is elsewhere, including on creating a provincial police force.

© Ian Kucerak Heather Steinke-Attia holds a photo of her client Pacey Dumas after he was hospitalized in late 2020. A lawsuit filed by Dumas and his family claims Edmonton police Const. Ben Todd kicked him in the head during an arrest last December. Dumas was never charged with a crime.

Standards of proof

Another source of frustration for ASIRT observers is the Crown’s hesitancy to prosecute ASIRT files.

ASIRT is able to lay charges on its own, but will only do so if the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service agrees there is a “reasonable likelihood” of conviction. ASIRT’s standard of proof is lower — Hughson, a former prosecutor, need only establish “reasonable grounds” to believe an officer committed a crime.

Between 2015 and 2020, ASIRT handled 352 files and concluded charges were warranted in 66. Just 22 of those — one-third — were taken up by the prosecution.

Other times, the Crown will take the file but withdraw or stay the charge after a short time.

ASIRT and the Crown have butted heads on several files in recent months. Most notably, in October, ASIRT decided a Sherwood Park RCMP officer with a history of assault complaints should be charged for slapping a handcuffed man in the face. The Crown disagreed, saying there was insufficient evidence.

Tom Engel, an Edmonton defence lawyer and police critic, said the disconnect between ASIRT and the Crown shows the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service needs a specialized group of prosecutors to handle charges involving police officers.

jwakefield@postmedia.com

twitter.com/jonnywakefield

WAGE THEFT
A former Sea World staffer, who says she was fired after 45 years, is suing the company for alleged age discrimination and decades of unpaid overtime

kshalvey@insider.com (Kevin Shalvey) 

 A Sea World staffer accused the company of firing her without cause after 45 years. John Raoux/AP Photo

A former Sea World employee who was fired after 45 years filed a lawsuit against the theme park.

Shari Sehlhorst alleged the company hadn't properly paid overtime during decades of employment.

Sea World did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

A woman who worked at Sea World in San Diego for 45 years has accused the company of firing her without cause. She's suing over what she alleges are years of unpaid overtime.

Shari Sehlhorst said in a lawsuit filed in US District Court in California that she started working at Sea World in 1976 as an admission and ride attendant. After holding several other roles, she joined the Environmental, Health & Safety Department in 1997. Her last title was environmental leader.

But Sehlhorst claimed in her lawsuit that Sea World fired her in October "due to 'restructuring.'" She alleged that this reason was untrue. Her complaint also alleged that she had raised issues about environmental concerns at the park in the days and weeks prior to her termination.

Sea World hired a woman "in her mid-20s" to replace Sehlhorst at a lower rate of pay, the complaint said.

Sehlhorst in her complaint accused Sea World of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, California Labor Code, and the Age Discrimination clause of the California Fair Employment & Housing Act. She also alleged the company hadn't properly paid her for overtime and work she did during lunch breaks.

"She worked six-seven days per week and averaged between 10-14 hours per day. Shari worked, on average, approximately 32 hours of overtime each week," the complaint said.

The complaint also accused the company of failing to keep accurate time records, stating that the "defendant knew Shari worked overtime without proper compensation," and the company "willfully failed and refused to pay her overtime wages at the required rates."

Sea World did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Sea World in early November filed a motion seeking to move the case into arbitration, rather than the courtroom. Sehlhorst and her lawyers "do not agree" that the case should be moved to arbitration, according to a court filing.

On Tuesday, the court set a hearing on the arbitration motion for January 31, 2022. In a joint filing on Tuesday, Sea World and Sehlhorst agreed to pause the timeline for discovery until that hearing.

Sehlhorst's complaint laid out the months prior to her termination.

In September, she strained muscles and tendons in her neck while lifting something, then was placed on "modified duty," the complaint alleged.

In October, she warned co-workers not to hose down a pathway, because the dirty water would drain into nearby Mission Bay, and then she notified management when the co-workers hosed the pathway down anyway, the complaint said. About a week later, she got the news that the company was "restructuring," the complaint alleged.

Sehlhorst filed her lawsuit with her husband, Dan Sehlhorst, as a co-plaintiff. The lawsuit claims Dan, another Sea World employee, who was furloughed during the pandemic, wasn't rehired because his wife had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The court complaint also said that Dan was told he'd be able to return to work, but after his wife's complaint he was told he "was not being considered for the project manager position even though he was qualified for it and performed the same position."

It alleged Shari's EEOC filing was "substantial motivating reasons" for the company's decision not to rehire Dan.

Scientists say new Alberta trails act threatens already-stressed environment

EDMONTON — Alberta scientists and environmentalists say proposed legislation governing backcountry trails on public lands will thwart efforts to restore nature and add one more stressor to an already overtaxed landscape.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Environment Minister Jason Nixon has said the Trails Act, awaiting second reading in the legislature, will not close any trails and will lay out a path for new ones.

But parts of the province are already over legal thresholds for so-called "linear disturbances" — anything from a road to a cutline to a pathway. And some wonder how the bill's intent to open new access will mesh with Alberta's promises to reclaim increasingly scarce habitat.

"What's missing from the Trails Act is trail closures in sensitive wildlife habitat," said Mark Boyce, a University of Alberta biologist.

Nixon made a point of saying there would not be closures when he introduced the bill.

"This will provide an increase in designated trails that meet environmental standards," he said. "What this act does not do is close trails."

But at least four peer-reviewed, government-funded studies have concluded that road and trail density are already harming populations of animals such as caribou, grizzly bears and bull trout.

 That's especially true in the province's southwestern foothills and mountains, where off-highway vehicle use has long been popular.

The Livingstone-Porcupine Hills plan for the area, a legal document, stipulates no more than 0.4 kilometres of trail for every square kilometre in the most sensitive zones and 0.6 kilometres everywhere else. Government estimates already put the density in the area at between 0.9 to 5.9 kilometres for every square kilometre.

In other parts of the province, such as the Bistcho Lake region in the north, only six per cent of caribou habitat is undisturbed by linear features. Alberta has signed an agreement with Ottawa to try to bring that up to 65 per cent.

Stream crossings also create problems by muddying downstream waters and damaging fish habitat. Nixon said crossings will be upgraded and cleaned up, but the Livingstone-Porcupine area alone has 3,000 of them.

"You go on almost any quad trail, you aren't going to go all that far before you have to cross a stream somewhere," said Boyce, who uses an off-highway vehicle himself. "Most of those are big mudholes."

In an email, Alberta Environment spokesman Paul Hamnett said the proposed act won't affect efforts to reclaim old cutlines and will follow any caribou sub-regional plans "that are in place."

"By designating trails and drawing recreation use to the desired trail network, the Trails Act will help prevent damage to public land that may result from the use of unintentional trails," he wrote.

But few parts of Alberta have completed sub-regional plans and Devon Earl of the Alberta Wilderness Association said no new trails should be allowed before that work is done.

"We need to have those plans in place first. It needs to be based on science."

Alberta Environment, despite a request, did not release any research undertaken before the Trails Act was tabled.

Fisheries biologist Lorne Fitch said the bill is "absolutely contrary" to the Livingstone-Porcupine plan, completed after more than three years of consultations.

"To arrive at a (sustainable) threshold will require a tremendous amount of reclamation of trails, not building of new ones," he said. "And that's the case up and down the entire eastern slopes."

The bill has also been criticized for the discretion it gives the environment minister to designate trails and decide which user groups have access to them.

University of Calgary law professor Shaun Fluker has called the bill: "A statute that consists almost entirely of permissive statements which authorize a minister ... to enact all the substantive legal rules sometime later outside of the legislative process."

Nixon has not responded to repeated queries about whether he is a current or past member of an off-highway vehicle group.

Fitch said the Trails Act reflects an ongoing problem in Alberta conservation.

"This is the problem with people who don't understand ecological thresholds and just want more — more logging, more OHV activity, more coal mines, more random camping — and still have native trout and grizzly bear and caribou," he said.

"This is another cumulative impact in a landscape that is already crying out for a reduction in land use."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2021.

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

EV tax credit ‘not good news’ for Canada, ambassador to U.S. says

Canada's ambassador to the U.S. stressed further that a proposed tax credit that encourages electric vehicle production in the U.S. would cause harm to Canada's economy.© Global News Kirsten Hillman Canada's Ambassador to the United States.

"It's not good news for Canada. It's also really not good news for the U.S.," Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said during an interview with Global News' Mercedes Stephenson on The West Block.

Read more: Melanie Joly, Canada’s new foreign minister, takes up EV tax credits with U.S.

The tax provision is currently under debate at the House of Representatives and has not been passed yet.

It calls for a $4,500 incentive for union-made vehicles and $500 for U.S.-made batteries. Vehicles would have to be made in the United States starting in 2027 to qualify for any of the $12,500 credit.

The tax credit has been criticized by Canadian politicians as potentially putting thousands of jobs in Canada at risk and hurting the integrated continental auto industry.

It will be an item of discussion during a "Three Amigos" summit between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico next week, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly has said. Joly also took up the tax credit matter with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently.

Video: ‘Three Amigos’ summit: Trudeau, Biden, López Obrador to all meet in Washington next week

Hillman agreed that the credit would disrupt the supply chain, but pointed out that disruption could also cost tens of thousands of American jobs.

"The degree of integration that we have in our auto sector will mean that that tax credit will disrupt our very efficient and effective supply chains in the auto sector, supply chains that literally tens of thousands of American jobs rely on," she said.

Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association has said the credits would hurt Canadian parts makers that employ some 43,000 American workers in 18 states.

Hillman said she and her team are working hard to get those facts to U.S. Congress and are also talking to the House of Representatives and the White House.

Read more: Canada will respond to tax credits for U.S.-made EVs if approved, Champagne says

"We're explaining to them that this tax credit just isn't in the U.S. interest," she said.

"It will hurt American jobs. It's inconsistent with their international commitments, including their most recent commitments under CUSMA."

Hillman said the proposal won't put more electric vehicles on the road but instead would "disrupt" the EV sector.

Canada's new industry minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, has also said Canada would respond "appropriately" if the tax credit were approved.

Read more: Canada says U.S. electric vehicle tax credit plan could harm industry, violate trade pact

“They understand that legislation like that would generate a response on the Canadian side,” Champagne said. “We have always responded appropriately to these types of legislation.”

When asked whether or not Canada is a priority for the U.S. as the country continues to pursue an "America First" philosophy, Hillman said the White House is still responsive when Canada comes calling.

"I'm able to contact them. So we are able to talk to them when we want to on things that matter to us and on things that matter to them," she said.

--with files from Reuters

Can lucid dreaming help us understand consciousness?

Some hope that lucid dreams can enhance performance in waking life.

 Photograph: agsandrew/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The ability to control our dreams is a skill that more of us are seeking to acquire for sheer pleasure. But if taken seriously, scientists believe it could unlock new secrets of the mind

David Robson
Sun 14 Nov 2021 07.00 GMT

Michelle Carr is frequently plagued by tidal waves in her dreams. What should be a terrifying nightmare, however, can quickly turn into a whimsical adventure – thanks to her ability to control her dreams. She can transform herself into a dolphin and swim into the water. Once, she transformed the wave itself, turning it into a giant snail with a huge shell. “It came right up to me – it was a really beautiful moment.”

There’s a thriving online community of people who are now trying to learn how to lucid dream. (A single subreddit devoted to the phenomenon has more than 400,000 members.) Many are simply looking for entertainment. “It’s just so exciting and unbelievable to be in a lucid dream and to witness your mind creating this completely vivid simulation,” says Carr, who is a sleep researcher at the University of Rochester in New York state. Others hope that exercising skills in their dreams will increase their real-life abilities. “A lot of elite athletes use lucid dreams to practise their sport.”

Sleep researcher Michelle Carr says she can tranform herself into a dolphin during her lucid dreams. “It’s just so exciting and unbelievable,” she says.

 Photograph: TEDX/YouTube

And there are more profound reasons to exploit this sleep state, besides personal improvement. By identifying the brain activity that gives rise to the heightened awareness and sense of agency in lucid dreams, neuroscientists and psychologists hope to answer fundamental questions about the nature of human consciousness, including our apparently unique capacity for self-awareness. “More and more researchers, from many different fields, have started to incorporate lucid dreams in their research,” says Carr.

This interest in lucid dreaming has been growing in fits and starts for more than a century. Despite his fascination with the interaction between the conscious and subconscious minds, Sigmund Freud barely mentioned lucid dreams in his writings. Instead, it was an English aristocrat and writer, Mary Arnold-Forster, who provided one of the earliest and most detailed descriptions in the English language in her book Studies in Dreams.

Published in 1921, the book offered countless colourful escapades in the dreamscape, including charming descriptions of her attempts to fly. “A slight paddling motion by my hands increases the pace of the flight and is used either to enable me to reach a greater height, or else for the purpose of steering, especially through any narrow place, such as through a doorway or window,” she wrote.

Based on her experiences, Arnold-Forster proposed that humans have a “dual consciousness”. One of these, the “primary self”, allows us to analyse our circumstances and to apply logic to what we are experiencing – but it is typically inactive during sleep, leaving us with a dream consciousness that cannot reflect on its own state. In lucid dreams, however, the primary self “wakes up”, bringing with it “memories, knowledge of facts, and trains of reasoning”, as well as the awareness that one is asleep.

She may have been on to something. Neuroscientists and psychologists today may balk at the term “dual consciousness”, but most would agree that lucid dreams involve an increased self-awareness and reflection, a greater sense of agency and volition, and an ability to think about the more distant past and future. These together mark a substantially different mental experience from the typically passive state of non-lucid dreams.

“There’s a grouping of higher-level features, which seem to be very closely associated with what we think of as human consciousness, which come back in that shift from a non-lucid to a lucid dream,” says Dr Benjamin Baird, a research scientist at the Center for Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And there’s something to be learned in looking at that contrast.”
It has been hard to get someone to lucid dream in the noisy, constrained environment of an fMRI scanner. But it can be done
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You may wonder why we can’t just scan the brains of fully awake subjects to identify the neural processes underlying this sophisticated mental state. But waking consciousness also involves many other phenomena, including sensory inputs from the outside world, that can make it hard to separate the different elements of the experience. When a sleeper enters a lucid dream, nothing has changed apart from the person’s conscious state. As a result, studies of lucid dreams may provide an important point of comparison that could help to isolate the specific regions involved in heightened self-awareness and agency.

Unfortunately, it has been very hard to get someone to lucid dream inside the noisy and constrained environment of an fMRI scanner. Nevertheless, a case study published in 2012 confirmed that it can be done. The participant, a frequent lucid dreamer, was asked to shift his gaze from left to right whenever he “awoke” in his dream – a dream motion that is also known to translate to real eye movements. This allowed the researchers to identify the moment at which he had achieved lucidity.

The brain scans revealed heightened activity in a group of regions, including the anterior prefrontal cortex, that are together known as the frontoparietal network. These areas are markedly less active during normal REM sleep, but they became much busier whenever the participant entered his lucid dream – suggesting that they are somehow involved in the heightened reflection and self-awareness that characterise the state.
fMRI scans showing areas of the brain activated during lucid periods in REM sleep. Photograph: Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry Munich, Germany

Several other strands of research all point in the same direction. Working with the famed consciousness researcher Giulio Tononi, Baird has recently examined the overall brain connectivity of people who experience more than three lucid dreams a week. In line with the findings of the case study, he found evidence of greater communication between the regions in the frontoparietal network – a difference that may have made it easier to gain the heightened self-awareness during sleep.

Further evidence comes from the alkaloid galantamine, which can be used to induce lucid dreams. In a recent study, Baird and colleagues asked people to sleep for a few hours before waking. The participants then took a small dose of the drug, or a placebo, before practising a few visualisation exercises that are also thought to modestly increase the chances of lucid dreaming. After about half an hour, they went back to sleep.
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The results were striking. Just 14% of those taking a placebo managed to gain awareness of their dream state, compared with 27% taking a 4mg dose of galantamine, and 42% taking an 8mg dose. “The effect is humongous,” says Baird.

Galantamine has been approved by Nice to treat moderate Alzheimer’s disease. It is thought to work by boosting concentrations of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine at our brain cell’s synapses. Intriguingly, previous research had shown that this can raise signalling in the frontoparietal regions from a low baseline. This may have helped the dreaming participants to pass the threshold of neural activity that is necessary for heightened self-awareness. “It’s yet another source of evidence for the involvement of these regions in lucid dreaming,” says Baird, who now hopes to conduct more detailed fMRI studies to test the hypothesis.

Prof Daniel Erlacher, who researches lucid dreams at the University of Berne in Switzerland, welcomes the increased interest in the field. “There is more research funding now,” he says, though he points out that some scientists are still sceptical of its worth.


‘When we dream, we have the perfect chemical canvas for intense visions’

That cynicism is a shame, since there could be important clinical applications of these findings. When people are unresponsive after brain injuries, it can be very difficult to establish their level of consciousness. If work on lucid dreams helps scientists to establish a neural signature of self-awareness, it might allow doctors to make more accurate diagnoses and prognoses for these patients and to determine how they might be experiencing the effects of their illness.

At the very least, Baird’s research is sure to attract attention from the vast online community of wannabe lucid dreamers, who are seeking more reliable ways to experience the phenomenon. Galantamine, which can be extracted from snowdrops, is already available as an over-the-counter dietary supplement in the US, and its short-term side-effects are mild – so there are currently no legal barriers for Americans who wish to self-experiment. But Baird points out that there may be as-yet-unknown long-term consequences if it is used repeatedly to induce lucid dreams. “My advice would be to use your own discretion and to seek the guidance of a physician,” he says.

For the time being, we may be safest using psychological strategies (see below). Even then, we should proceed with caution. Dr Nirit Soffer-Dudek, a psychologist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, points out that most attempts to induce lucid dreaming involve some kind of sleep disturbance – such as waking in the middle of the night to practise certain visualisations. “We know how important sleep is for your mental and physical health,” she says. “It can even influence how quickly your wounds heal.” Anything that regularly disrupts our normal sleep cycle could therefore have undesired results.
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Many techniques for lucid dream induction also involve “reality testing”, in which you regularly question whether you are awake, in the hope that those thoughts will come to mind when you are actually dreaming. If it is done too often, this could be “a bit disorienting”, Soffer-Dudek suggests – leading you to feel “unreal” rather than fully present in the moment.

Galantamine, a substance derived from snowdrops, can help to induce lucid dreaming: in one trial, 42% of users gained awareness of their dreams.

Photograph: Tibor Rosta/EPA

Along these lines, she has found that people who regularly try to induce lucid dreams are more likely to suffer from dissociation – the sense of being disconnected from one’s thoughts, feelings and sense of identity. They were also more likely to show signs of schizotypy – a tendency for paranoid and magical thinking.

Soffer-Dudek doubts that infrequent experiments will cause lasting harm, though. “I don’t think it’s such a big deal if someone who is neurologically and psychologically healthy tries it out over a limited period,” she says.

Perhaps the consideration of these concerns is an inevitable consequence of the field’s maturation. As for my own experiments, I am happy to watch the research progress from the sidelines. One hundred years after Mary Arnold-Forster’s early investigations, the science of lucid dreaming may be finally coming of age.
How to lucid dream

There is little doubt that lucid dreaming can be learned. One of the best-known techniques is “reality testing”, which involves asking yourself regularly during the day whether you are dreaming – with the hope that this will spill into your actual dreams.

Another is Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming (Mild). Every time you wake from a normal dream, you spend a bit of time identifying the so-called “dream signs” – anything that was bizarre or improbable and differed from normal life. As you then try to return to sleep, you visualise entering that dream and repeat to yourself the intention: “Next time I’m dreaming, I will remember to recognise that I’m dreaming.” Some studies suggest that it may be particularly effective if you set an alarm to wake up after a few hours of sleep and spend a whole hour practising Mild, before drifting off again. This is known as WBTB – Wake Back to Bed.

There is nothing particularly esoteric about these methods. “It’s all about building a ‘prospective’ memory for the future – like remembering what you have to buy when you go shopping,” says Prof Daniel Erlacher.

Technology may ease this process. Dr Michelle Carr recently asked participants to undergo a 20-minute training programme before they fell asleep. Each time they heard a certain tone or saw the flash of a red light, they were asked to turn their attention to their physical and mental state and to question whether anything was amiss that might suggest they were dreaming. Afterwards, they were given the chance to nap, as a headset measured their brain’s activity. When it sensed that they had entered REM sleep, it produced the same cues as the training, which – Carr hoped – would be incorporated into their dreams and act as reminders to check their state of consciousness. It worked, with about 50% experiencing a lucid dream.

Some commercial devices already purport to offer this kind of stimulation – though most have not been adequately tested for their efficacy. As the technology advances, however, easy dream control may come within anyone’s reach.

David Robson is a writer based in London. His next book, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life (Canongate), is available to preorder now

New dark matter theory has a terrifying explanation for the universe’s expansion
Just trying to keep the lights on




STORY BY
Tristan Greene

A new theory published in the APS physicsjournal seeks to explain the origin and proliferation of dark matter through the introduction of a simple concept: what if dark matter can turn regular matter into dark matter?

Up front: Physicists have long suspected that dark matter has either existed for as long as the universe or that it was created as a byproduct of the Big Bang event. We’re not quite sure, but that’s because nobody’s ever directly observed dark matter.

We assume it exists because we can see objects and events we can observe reacting to something mysterious. Scientists who believe in the dark matter theory (arguably, most physicists) tend to agree that the universe is probably mostly dark matter.

But there’s a problem. There seems to be far too much dark matter in the universe. Residual dark matter from the Big Bang or whatever doesn’t quite explain how the stuff seems to be everywhere.

Background: The team’s paper proposes some high-level mathematics to cope with dark matter at the universal scale, but trying to determine the physics of something you can’t observe is a tough nut to crack.

However, you don’t have to be an astrophysicist to understand that a universe where dark matter could turn regular matter into dark matter could be a short-lived one.

As anyone who has ever played Go knows, when two players are given a completely equal starting point, the one with the superior strategy wins.

But, a game of Go where only one player can flip the other’s pieces is a guaranteed victory for the player with advantage.

In other words: A universe where dark matter worked under the same rules as Romero zombies do (zombies can turn humans into zombies, but humans can’t turn zombies into humans) would be one that quickly filled with dark matter.

But there’s a catch! Our universe is expanding. The scientists explain how matter can persist in a universe where dark matter has all the power by pointing out that dark matter can’t convert regular matter if the cosmos is stretching away from it.

Quick take: The theory sounds pretty cool. I especially like the part where the universe is basically like Sandra Bullock in the movie Speed; if it stops expanding at a specific rate we’ll all be consumed by perpetual darkness.

But I do have to wonder: if the universe is expanding away from dark matter, what’s filling in the gaps?

Read the whole fascinating paper here on APS Physics.