House Oversight Committee schedules 2nd Big Oil hearing on industry's role in climate disinformation

By Rene Marsh, CNN 

The House Oversight Committee on Thursday issued its second round of appearance requests to the oil and gas industry in an investigation into the role it has played in the spread of climate disinformation.

© Jacquelyn Martin/AP Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, speaks at a committee hearing on the role of fossil fuel companies in climate change disinformation, October 28, 2021, on Capitol Hill.

House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, and Subcommittee on the Environment Chairman Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, sent letters to board members of four major oil and gas companies -- ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron -- requesting their testimony at a hearing slated for February 8.

It will be the committee's second hearing since it launched the investigation in September. The first hearing included Big Oil executives from ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., the American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce.

The committee said it was calling these board of directors members to testify because of their "key governance role in addressing the climate crisis by overseeing and guiding companies' climate strategies, promoting transparency, and holding management accountable to meaningful emissions reductions." The panel, according to the letter, wants "to evaluate the current state of fossil fuel industry climate pledges and any progress that still needs to be made to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and avert a climate catastrophe."

The committee requested the appearance of Alexander Karsner and Susan Avery for ExxonMobil; Jane Holl Lute for Shell; Melody Meyer for BP; and Enrique Hernandez for Chevron.

CNN reached out to the oil and gas companies for comment.

In October, oil company CEOs and the trade group American Petroleum Institute testified in a high-profile hearing on Capitol Hill, facing tough questions from Democratic lawmakers about when they had understood the impact of burning fossil fuels on the environment and whether they were transparent with the public about the danger of climate change.

Thursday's letters focus on the boards of directors for those companies, who Democratic lawmakers noted have billed themselves as climate change advocates and reformers who joined their respective boards to change the way the oil and gas companies do business.

"As I made clear in our October 2021 Committee hearing, we've only begun our investigation into the fossil fuel industry's role in causing the climate crisis and spreading disinformation on global warming," Maloney said in a statement.

The House Oversight Committee launched its investigation after an undercover video appeared to show an ExxonMobil lobbyist admitting the company fought climate policy and the science behind it.

Khanna told CNN the upcoming hearing will be a big moment for the industry.

"One of the reasons we want the board of directors to testify is we want to ensure that they and the companies are being accurate about the climate pledges and they're actually taking action consistent with those pledges," Khanna told CNN.

Several of the world's largest oil and gas companies have pledged to cut operational emissions -- though many of those goals do not include emissions from the fossil fuels produced and sold.

The letters not only invite the board members to testify but also request documents the committee says it has not received following a subpoena issued in October.

The companies have been complying with document requests to a certain extent, Khanna said, but the committee has not received what it considers the most critical documents -- those that show what the companies' scientific knowledge was when the industry said science around climate change was uncertain.

The panel, Khanna told CNN, is about a third of the way through its investigation, and it plans to also call social media companies and advertising agencies to testify about their roles in spreading climate change misinformation.

New graphic novel looks to connect kids to Mi'kmaq language


Brandon Mitchell, the author of Giju’s Gift: Adventures of the Pugulatmu’j, a graphic novel aimed at elementary school readers, is eagerly awaiting the book’s official publication.

“I'm super excited for this to come out,” Mitchell said in an interview with Windspeaker.com. “It feels so surreal that it's fast approaching.”

The book, published by HighWater Press, hits shelves on Feb. 22.

In the 88-page book, a young Mi’kmaw girl named Mali meets Puug, a Pugulatmu’j (Little People, the traditional land guardians). Puug has stolen the hair clip that giju’, meaning grandmother, had given Mali.

Puug and Mali go on a series of adventures together, including battling a Jenu, a giant. All the while Mali is looking to have her special hair clip returned.

With delays due to the pandemic, Mitchell said he’d been working on the book for nearly three years.

“I kind of almost forgot how much goes into it,” Mitchell said. “I couldn’t even give you the version numbers I went through. But this has just been such a rewarding experience.”

Those three years writing the book pale in comparison to how long Mitchell had been contemplating the concept for the book.

“This has been an idea that's been germinating for at least 15 years,” Mitchell said. “It was one of those things where I always had it in my back pocket.”

Approached by HighWater to pitch a creative idea, Mitchell said he knew immediately what he wanted to frame the book around.

“I always came back to this idea of having an adventure or a story with the Pugulatmu’j and incorporating the same themes that I incorporated with my previous creative work,” Mitchell said.

“I was honoured to be asked — thankful to be asked — if I had my own creative idea, as opposed to something that was based off of something else. I'm really grateful to have that opportunity.”

At the back of Giju’s gift, Mitchell provides a glossary of terms in Mi'kmaq with their English translations.

“I’ve always tried to incorporate our Mi'kmaq language into my work,” Mitchell said. “l see it as fun and rewarding, because when the kids see our language in stories, they're placing value on our language.”

Mitchell hopes that works like his book can help push readers towards exploring the language further.

“My goal is that it's going to encourage kids to realize the value of our language and learn it and use it,” he said.

While Mitchell is now based in Fredericton, the book’s setting is the area around his home community of Listuguj, Que., a First Nation located north of the New Brunswick border.

Mitchell said he enjoyed making sure the book's setting was an accurate representation of Listuguj, and one that local readers could identify with.

“That was kind of the fun part for me, just to help see that realized in the script and seeing that realized in the visuals, too,” he said.

The book is illustrated by Veronika Barinova, who Mitchell says he has developed a “great “partnership” with.

“I feel really confident whenever I'm writing something that I can hand it off and trust that she knows how to interpret what I'm writing,” Mitchell said.

His own experience studying animation and subsequently working in the field helped build his rapport with Barinova.

“One of the big things that we learned in animation was to be as descriptive as you possibly can when you're writing a script and kind of trust the illustrator,” Mitchell added.

Mitchell said his longtime interest in animation has given him inspiration for his distinctive narrative style.

“I grew up on Disney movies. I grew up on Pixar films,” Mitchell said. “I still watch Pixar films and they are like the gold standard when it comes to storytelling. They write for a general audience, and that’s how I try to approach my storytelling.”

And while Giju’s Gift is yet to be released, Mitchell is already working away at what he hopes to make into a trilogy in the Adventures of the Pugulatmu’j series.

“I just submitted my first draft of the second part of the story,” he said. “If everything goes well, I do have a third part in the outline.”

Windspeaker.com

By Adam Laskaris, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com

B.C. study links low river flows with lower chinook salmon productivity

VANCOUVER — A study that links low summertime water flows in a British Columbia river with lower productivity across 22 generations of a struggling salmon population could help guide how rivers are managed to support fish, the authors say.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The study published Friday in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence used data from 1992 to 2013 to examine changes in the productivity of early summer chinook in the Nicola River, a tributary of the Thompson River in B.C.'s southern Interior.


The modelling predicted fish that were spawned and later reared when the river's flows in August were 50 per cent below average had a 29 per cent lower productivity rate, referring to the number of offspring produced per spawning fish that survive to adulthood.

"The significance of this work is that we've been able to disentangle the influences of freshwater conditions from ocean conditions and really show that freshwater conditions are very important for this population," said lead author Luke Warkentin.

Adult chinook return to the river from the ocean to spawn, while their offspring spend a year in fresh water after hatching from eggs deposited in gravel nests.

"August is a really critical month, because you have low flows, you have fish coming in, holding and waiting to spawn, and you have high air and water temperatures," said Warkentin, who completed the research while studying at Simon Fraser University and now works as a biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The lower flows combined with high air temperatures mean the water heats up more quickly, to the point that it can be harmful to salmon, while also reducing the availability of deeper, cooler pools where the fish take refuge, he said.

Overall, the Nicola's average August flows were about 26 per cent lower during the two-decade study period than in the early part of the 20th century, the study notes.

It attributes the decrease to the impacts of climate change, water withdrawal and land use, such as logging, farming and urban development.

Warkentin said he hopes the study's findings will support a more holistic understanding of water management for the Nicola, recognizing the impact of low flows on a salmon population that's been assessed as endangered by the Committee for the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

The province manages the Nicola River's flows, working with federal fisheries officials, First Nations and other local authorities, while considering snowpack, water levels in lakes and reservoirs, the severity of any drought and demand from nearby communities and agricultural operations.

There is no set amount of water to support a healthy salmon population, said Richard Bailey, a retired Fisheries and Oceans biologist who contributed to the study.

Rather, the right flow is the one that creates the best opportunities for the fish to survive while taking into account surrounding conditions, he said, including air temperatures and the effects of wildfires and different land use.

Changes in the mountainous upper reaches of a watershed significantly affect the timing and intensity of spring runoff and the duration of drought, Bailey noted.

Melting snow and rain run more quickly off slopes that have been logged or scorched by wildfire, bringing sediment that clogs spawning grounds, raising the risk of flooding and leaving little water to trickle down over the summer, he said.

Re-establishing trees and vegetation higher in a watershed is crucial for rehabilitation work below, along riverbanks and floodplains, Bailey added.

The modelling also demonstrated that generations of Nicola chinook incubated during years with significant fall flooding had lower productivity, as floodwaters can crush or scour salmon eggs from the riverbed, Warkentin said.

The finding doesn't bode well for eggs that were incubating before last November, when a series of atmospheric rivers deluged southwestern B.C., causing widespread flooding. The Nicola River swelled and carved a new course, swallowing homes and chunks of the highway between Merritt and Spences Bridge.

"The flood in November was larger — based on the preliminary numbers I've seen — was larger than any of the floods on record in the fall that we looked at," Warkentin noted.

The Committee for the Status of Endangered Wildlife assessed Lower Thompson chinook as endangered in November 2020, including those that spawn in the Nicola. It recommended the population be listed under the Species at Risk Act, noting a "steep decline" in the number of mature fish from 2013 to 2018.

The chinook face numerous severe threats in their freshwater and marine habitats, including the effects of logging following an extensive outbreak of mountain pine beetle, wildfires, water withdrawal and climate change, the committee found.

It's up to federal cabinet to decide whether to list any species as threatened or endangered, designations that carry prohibitions against destroying critical habitat.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2022.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

Ghana explosion: Almost entire town leveled after explosives delivery truck crash

By Nimi Princewill, AnneClaire Stapleton, Stephanie Busari and Martin Goillandeau, CNN 


At least 17 people were killed in a blast in western Ghana on Thursday after a motorcycle collided with a vehicle carrying explosives, according to officials.

© Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly People sift through debris from Thursday's explosion in Apiate, in western Ghana.

"The reports that I'm getting from the bureaus, hospitals, is that [there are] roughly about 17 people that have passed away," Isaac Dasmani, the municipal chief executive for the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly, told local media.

An additional 59 people were injured in the explosion, according to AFP.

The blast appeared to have completely leveled Apiate, a small town in western Ghana. Kwadwo Bempah, who works in the area and heard the explosion, told CNN that nearly every building there had collapsed, trapping people and animals under rubble.

The dead, he said, were "all around."

"It is a real tragedy for Ghana," Bempah said.

Police said most of the victims have been rescued and admitted to various hospitals and clinics. No more details were released on their condition.

"The police and other emergency service providers have activated a full emergency recovery exercise," a police statement said. "We urge all to remain calm as we manage this unfortunate situation."

"The police have taken charge of the situation providing security to enable the emergency workers including the Ghana National Fire Service, NADMO and the Ambulance Service to manage the situation," another statement read.

"The public has been advised to move out of the area to nearby towns for their safety while recovery efforts are underway," it added.

The police statement urged nearby towns to open classrooms, churches and other buildings to accommodate surviving victims.

Apiate, Bempah said, is small and residential, with a population of no more than 10,000. "Most of the people are farmers and miners," he said.

In the initial aftermath of the accident, Bempah said the local community stepped in as first responders, pulling people and animals from collapsed debris and rushing the wounded to hospitals before ambulances arrived.

The explosives were being delivered to a nearby mine run by Chirano Gold Mines, according to a press officer for the company, Kwabena Owusu-Ampratwum.

"We are closely monitoring the situation and the rescue efforts," Owusu-Ampratwum said.

Ghana has witnessed a series of gas explosions in recent years, with one of the worst blasts killing more than 150 people in the capital Accra in 2015. The explosion occurred as hundreds of residents sought shelter at a gas station from heavy rains.

Last October, at least one person was killed and another injured in a gas-related explosion in Accra, local media reported.

In the same month, three people died in another blaze in the country's Ashanti region.

© Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly The aftermath of the devastating explosion is seen in Apiate on Thursday

.

© Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly Rescue workers arrive at the scene of the explosion in Apiate on Thursday.

IT HAD TO BE SAID
The president of Emirates says the 5G rollout that led to flights being canceled is 'one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible' situations he's witnessed

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean)

© Provided by Business Insider "This is one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible issues, subjects, call it what you like, I've seen in my aviation career," Emirates President Tim Clark told CNN Wednesday. Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images

The president of Emirates lashed out at US 5G rollout plans.

Tim Clark told CNN it was "one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible issues" he'd seen in his career.

Airlines including Emirates and British Airways canceled flights over 5G safety concerns.

The president of Emirates has slammed a 5G rollout plan in the US that prompted airlines to cancel flights.

"This is one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible issues, subjects, call it what you like, I've seen in my aviation career," Emirates President Tim Clark told CNN Wednesday.

His comments came after Dubai-based Emirates and other airlines announced Tuesday they would suspend flights to some US airports over safety concerns linked to a 5G rollout near airports. Verizon and AT&T agreed last-minute on Tuesday that they would delay the launch of 5G service near airports after airlines warned the technology could cause massive flight disruptions.

Despite the pause of the rollout, some airlines – including Emirates – continued to suspend flights.

Clark told CNN that 5G was being deployed differently in the US compared to other countries, and that Emirates wasn't aware until Tuesday morning of "the extent that it was going to compromise the safety of operation of our aircraft and just about every other 777 operator." He added that Emirates decided to suspend the flights "until we had clarity."

Many of the aircraft used on the affected routes are Boeing 777 airplanes. The Federal Aviation Administration Sunday published a list of Boeing and Airbus aircraft whose radio altimeter models were approved for performing low-visibility landings at many of the US airports where the 5G rollouts were due to take place. The 777 aircraft was not included in the January 16 list, although some 777 models have been included on updated lists.

Emirates said Tuesday that from Wednesday it was suspending flights to six of its 12 US passenger destinations and was switching another three routes from Boeing 777 planes to Airbus A380s "due to operational concerns associated with the planned deployment of 5G mobile network services." It said that this was based on Federal Aviation Administration advice and guidance from Boeing.

Emirates said Thursday that the FAA and Boeing had changed their guidance and that it would resume the canceled routes Friday and switch the A380s back to 777s Saturday.

Airlines including Air India, Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways, and British Airways also suspended some flights over the 5G rollout.

Ten major US air carriers had warned federal officials in a letter Monday that the scheduled 5G deployment could "potentially strand tens of thousands of Americans overseas" and grind the nation's commerce "to a halt."

This is because it could affect the aircraft's radio altimeter, which is used to determine a plane's altitude above ground level when landing or flying above mountainous terrain.

Verizon and AT&T said Tuesday they would continue with the rollout on Wednesday as planned but would voluntarily delay deploying the technology near airports. Both criticized the FAA, with an AT&T spokesperson telling Insider that the company was "frustrated by the FAA's inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services."

The bears and the bees: How honey is helping to save the spectacled bear

By Nell Lewis, CNN 

A bear cub with distinctive yellow circling about the eyes is caught on camera, deep in the dry forests of the Andes mountain range in Bolivia. Beside it, a glimpse of the shaggy black fur of its mother.© Ximena Velez-Liendo/Andean Bear Conservation Program

For six months, researchers had laid camera traps across a 600-square-kilometer area, trying to catch sight of the rare spectacled bear. But besides the occasional photo of an indistinguishable hairy figure with its head out of shot, the elusive species had avoided the lens.

The photo was a breakthrough for Bolivian conservationist Ximena Velez-Liendo and her team. "We were over the moon, because it wasn't just a bear, it was a breeding population," she says. "That was one of the happiest moments in my life."

Five years later, Velez-Liendo has gathered essential details on the enigmatic creatures and devised a strategy for protecting them.

As South America's only bear species, the spectacled or Andean bear is renowned worldwide thanks largely to Paddington Bear, the fictional character who hails from "deepest, darkest Peru." But in reality, populations across the continent are dwindling.

Fewer than 10,000 spectacled bears remain, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which lists the species as vulnerable. In Bolivia, the southernmost country in the world where spectacled bears are found and where Velez-Liendo's work is focused, there are believed to be around 3,000 individuals.

Severe drought, as a result of climate change, has led local farmers to replace agricultural production with cattle ranches, says Velez-Liendo. The bears, struggling to find food in their own shrinking habitat, encroach on this land and sometimes kill livestock, which leads to farmers killing the bears in retaliation. Deforestation and exploiting the land for oil and mining contributes to habitat loss, while drought unbalances the ecosystem, pushing the species closer to extinction.

Velez-Liendo wants to conserve the "majestic" and "charismatic" creatures to which she has devoted the last 20 years of her life. But her recipe for conservation involves an unusual ingredient: honey.

Bears and beekeepers

Based in the inter-Andean dry forest of southern Bolivia and funded by Chester Zoo and Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), the project not only monitors the region's bear population, but trains local people as beekeepers. The idea is that by generating a healthy income from honey, it offers an economic alternative to cattle ranching.

"The main threat (to bears) is definitely people," says Velez-Liendo, and "cattle are the main reason for people killing bears." But cattle ranching is not well suited to high elevations and produces small returns at significant environmental cost, requiring 20 times more land, water and resources than it does in the lowlands, she adds.

So the team set up community apiaries, where local people could learn and practise beekeeping. After the first honey harvest, people started building their own private hives. The honey -- branded "Valle de Osos," meaning "Valley of the Bears" -- went on sale, and money started to trickle in.

There have been three harvests since the beekeeping project began in 2018, producing 2,750 kilograms of honey and almost $20,000 in revenue, says Velez-Liendo -- more than double that generated by cattle.


Circle of life

At the same time, the process is teaching locals about the ecosystem and the bear's crucial role in maintaining it: by spreading seeds, the bears help to restore forests, which in turn helps to secure water supplies. "People need to see the benefit of protecting the bears," says Velez-Liendo, and through beekeeping, "we show them that by protecting the bear, they are protecting the forest, and by protecting the forest, they are protecting the bees."

© XimenaVelez-Liendo/AndeanBearConservationProgram Velez-Liendo (left) works closely with local communities on the project.

The project has been widely recognized as crucial in preserving the species, winning the 2017 Whitley Award for grassroots wildlife conservationists. Last month, the Whitley Fund for Nature announced it would fund Velez-Liendo for the next two years, as she works to create a "productive protected landscape" -- a management framework that respects traditional land-use while combining restoration and nature-positive economic activity.

She hopes that by presenting a viable framework, other countries with spectacled bear populations will follow suit. Conservation efforts are already underway across South America, including in Ecuador, where a bear corridor has been created north of the capital, Quito, and in Peru, where the Spectacled Bear Conservation Society (SBC) works with indigenous communities to create private protected areas, as well as offering alternative livelihood programs.

Read: 'Indigenous people have the knowledge': Conservation biologist Erika Cuéllar on restoring the planet

Community engagement is essential in long-lasting population change, agrees Canadian biologist Robyn Appleton, who founded the SBC in 2009. "If you don't have communities onside, you will not be doing any conservation," she says. "You could have the last bear in Peru, and it wouldn't matter."

By building relationships with local communities, Appleton says they have successfully reduced the use of slash and burn -- the clearance of land by burning all the trees and plants on it.

The important message to get across is that protecting the bear protects people, too. "We love the bears and we care about wildlife, but we also care about humans," says Appleton. "For us, it's about protecting a place -- protecting the humans, protecting the wildlife, protecting the ecosystem. They all work together."

Gardeners of the Andes

Spectacled bears play a vital role in the survival of the whole ecosystem, of which there is not much left. The dry forests of Bolivia, which flank the eastern Andes with shrubs and dense thicket, are critically endangered. According to research from the Arizona Center for Nature Conservation, only 6% remains intact.

Primarily vegetarian, spectacled bears feed on fruit, berries and cacti, and move up to five miles a day, dispersing seeds within the area as they defecate and generating new growth and biodiversity.

Read: Solving India's deadly conflict between humans and elephants

"Bears are the gardeners of the Andes," says Velez-Liendo. "In areas where bears have been exterminated, the quality of forest is extremely poor."

Thanks to Velez-Liendo's bear program, scientists are now more aware than ever of what other life exists within the ecosystem. Eight species of wild cats have been spotted on the site, including jaguars and pumas, and there have also been sightings of the critically endangered chinchilla rat.

"Because of all our efforts to protect just one species, we're protecting 31 species of mammals, about 50 species of birds, and 20 species of other amphibians," says Velez-Liendo. "By protecting bears we're protecting an entire ecosystem."

© XimenaVelez-Liendo/AndeanBearConservationProgram The honey's label references the bears, as they are at the root of the project, says Velez-Liendo.

© XimenaVelez-Liendo/AndeanBearConservationProgram This candid photo of a bear cub, taken by camera trap on 9 February 2017, marked significant progress for Velez-Liendo and her team.

Hundreds of academics ask Freeland to scrap carbon capture tax credit

"This is one of the largest groups I've seen sign a letter of this type in Canada," 

OTTAWA — More than 400 Canadian climate scientists and other academics are pleading with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to scrap her plan to create a tax credit for companies that build carbon capture and storage facilities.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Freeland floated the idea of the tax credit in last year's federal budget and consultations to design it ended just before Christmas.

A letter sent to Freeland Wednesday asks her to ditch the idea altogether, calling it a massive subsidy to the oil and gas industry.

"As well as undermining government efforts to reach net zero by 2050, the introduction of this tax credit would contradict the promise made by your government to Canadians during the election period to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies by 2023 as well as our international commitments under the Paris agreement," the letter reads.

"And once new subsidies are put in place, they are very hard to repeal."

Carbon capture, storage and utilization systems, known as CCUS, trap and isolate carbon dioxide emitted mostly from large-scale industrial operations and store it deep underground. Most projects currently use the added pressure created by the stored CO2 to push more oil out of the ground, known as enhanced oil recovery.

In Canada the biggest project is at the Boundary Dam coal-fired power plant in Saskatchewan, but there is also at least one project in the oilsands as well. Both include enhanced oil recovery.

Freeland has made clear enhanced oil recovery will not qualify for any tax credit but the academics want her to go further and limit its use only to industries that have no other options for reducing emissions, such as cement or steel. They want oil, gas, petrochemical and plastics producers to be excluded.

Adrienne Vaupshas, spokeswoman for Freeland, said in an email that the tax credit is about reducing emissions by at least 15 million tonnes a year.

That's about five per cent of the total emissions Canada needs to eliminate to hit its new targets for 2030 set last year.

"Consultations with the industry and other stakeholders with respect to the design of this CCUS measure have been positive and productive," Vaupshas said.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told The Canadian Press last fall that there is a role for CCUS in Canada, but it's not a solution for everything, and would only be supported if it captures all emissions.

The Boundary Dam project in Saskatchewan, for example, captures maybe 70 per cent, which also isn't good enough for the dam to pass muster on federal regulations requiring an end to unabated coal power by 2030.

"I would say to you, at this stage in Canada, CCS technology has not reached the level of commercial maturity nor cost maturity, that is likely going to be a solution before 2030," Wilkinson said.

Emily Eaton, an associate professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Regina, said even if CCUS technology cuts emissions during fossil fuel production, that oil and gas is eventually going to be burned somewhere.

"So the federal government, I think, really has a choice to make," she said. "Either join countries around the world and plan for a sort of managed phaseout of oil and gas or it can prop up this industry with this unproven technology and sort of extend the life and also the emissions of the fossil fuel sector indefinitely."

The letter also argues that carbon capture and storage is still unproven on a large scale, and is very expensive relative to investments in renewable energies like solar and wind power.

Last summer Canada's biggest oil companies said getting the oilsands alone to net-zero emissions by 2050 would cost about $75 billion and about half the cuts will have to be made with CCUS. They also said the government would have to shoulder a lot of the cost.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said in August it wanted the CCUS tax credit to cover 75 per cent of the cost.

Matthew Paterson is a politics professor with a focus on climate, who until recently worked at the University of Ottawa. Now at the University of Manchester in England, Paterson said there is a political tension in Canada that exists for governments trying to maintain both climate action and the fossil fuel industry, which accounts for more than five per cent of the Canadian economy.

"They're a really good test case of how if you don't pick a side you are failing from a climate point of view," Paterson said. "At some moment those conflicts between fossil fuel interests and climate action are pretty sharp."

Freeland's office has not yet responded to the letter writers. University of Victoria geography and civil engineering professor Christina Hoicka, one of the lead authors of the letter, said she was pleasantly surprised by how many people signed it in just a few weeks.

"This is one of the largest groups I've seen sign a letter of this type in Canada," she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 20, 2022.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Mount Royal professor makes fossil breakthrough in overlooked section of the Burgess Shale

Brodie Thomas 

The world-famous Burgess Shale fossil bed in Yoho National Park is continuing to reveal its mysteries to scientists more than a century after the site was first discovered.© Provided by Calgary Herald Paul Johnston at one of the stenothecoid localities near the Burgess Shale, Mount Field.

The shale’s two-dimensional fossil images have puzzled scientists for years as they have tried to determine what the 505-million-year-old creatures looked like in the real world.


However Paul Johnston, PhD and associate professor at Mount Royal University’s earth and environmental sciences department, used a unique technique to extract three-dimensional fossils from a mostly overlooked limestone deposit at the site.

“People tend not to bother with the limestone beds in the Burgess Shale because the best fossils tend to come from the shales,” said Johnston.

“I had to get down on my hands and knees because these fossils are small. And then I saw there were in fact some fossils, and with my hand lens I could see they had been replaced with silica during their long burial history.”

As a student, Johnston had used hydrochloric acid to extract fossilized shells from younger limestone deposits in Australia. He realized he might be able to do the same thing with these older deposits, and made an application to Parks Canada to try it.

“And voila — I was able to get these things out as three-dimensional objects,” he said.

Mount Royal University associate professor Paul Johnston extracted fossils from limestone at the Burgess Shale site in Yoho National Park.

What he had discovered was a new species of the mysterious Stenothecoids. Johnston named his discovery Stenothecoides rasettii , in tribute to Italian physicist Franco Rasetti, who worked with Enrico Fermi on the problem of nuclear fission and had a side interest in paleontology.

“(Rasetti) came up to Yoho National Park and he found Stenothecoids in rock strata older — below — the Burgess Shale,” said Johnston, adding that he often relies on Rasetti’s previous work in his own research.

With about 200 examples of the new Stenothecoid species in his possession, Johnston was able to make a breakthrough in the question that had puzzled scientists since Stenothecoids were first discovered: what exactly were they?

Previously, the best guess was that they were a type of mollusk, although some had suggested they might be brachiopods, while others wanted to create a new phylum to categorize them.

“I work on the evolutionary history of mollusks. Like other paleontologists, I couldn’t make them fit very well in the evolutionary tree of mollusks,” said Johnston.

However, one tiny hole that was common across his collection of fossilized shells revealed that the Stenothecoids were in fact more closely related to brachiopods, and were likely an early offshoot of that evolutionary branch.

“We were able to resolve that because the preservation was quite good and we could see anatomical details that really told the story,” he said.

He teamed up with brachiopod expert Michael Streng at Uppsala University in Sweden. Together they published their findings in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Coincidentally, the paleontologist who first found Stenothecoids in Nevada in the 1800s was the same person who discovered the Burgess Shale.

Paleontologist Charles Walcott was administrator of the Smithsonian Institution for 20 years. He noted his discovery of Stenothecoids in 1884, and later documented the Burgess Shale in 1909.

Johnston’s discovery brings Walcott’s two discoveries together in a unique way across time and geography.

“Obviously, Walcott didn’t look at the limestone component because he was busy with the shales,” said Johnston.

Johnston’s fossils will now reside at the Royal Tyrrell Museum and at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Saskatchewan challenges Alberta to build its half of permanent Fort McMurray-La Loche road

Jamie Malbeuf

© CBC Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe committed this week to finishing the eastern half of an all-weather road between La Loche and Fort McMurray.

The Saskatchewan government is calling on Alberta to commit to building it's portion of an all-weather road connecting Fort McMurray to La Loche.

The premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan signed an agreement to complete a permanent 110-kilometre road in 2005.

Currently the road is only passable in winter.

"Saskatchewan has been working diligently," Premier Scott Moe said this week. The province has completed 44 of 53 kilometres of road.

"What we have done here today… is committed to the final nine kilometres," Moe said Tuesday. So far Saskatchewan has spent about $6 million on the road, he said.

Many people in the north work in Fort McMurray and this would allow for easier ground access, Moe said.

"It allows us to share that labour pool more and provide jobs for everyone in a more ready fashion, and more accessible than what we have today," he said.

With new mining ventures coming in on the Saskatchewan side, the road would give workers in either community better accessibility to the neighbouring province.

"It's been too slow, admittedly, on both sides of the border," Moe said.

Moe sent a letter to Premier Jason Kenney asking him to commit to building Alberta's segment of the road.

"I haven't heard back as of yet, but I'm sure we'll have discussions about it in the days ahead," Moe said.

Kenney's press secretary Justin Brattinga said in an email, "We're currently examining the proposal from Premier Moe and will be providing a response soon."

The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo manages Alberta's half of the winter road, about 57 kilometres.

Kevin Weidlich, president and CEO of Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo Economic Development and Tourism, said he was "delighted" to hear about Moe's commitment.

"It's a long time in the works," Weidlich said. "One of the great issues that Fort McMurray struggles with, is it's generally at the end of a very long highway."

He said this road would connect the town to another northern town, making it more interesting for investors and businesses.

"It draws potential employees and people that would be willing to spend money, shop or work in Fort McMurray."

It would also allow those in northern Saskatchewan to access the Fort McMurray airport.

Weidlich said he would encourage the Alberta government to make a commitment to investing in infrastructure in the region, including other projects.

"The more the province invests in the region in terms of infrastructure, the greater the payoff in economic impact for the entire province," Weidlich said.

Coun. Keith McGrath has been an advocate for infrastructure projects in Fort McMurray for years, and in November he put forward a bylaw to create a Regional Transportation Committee.

"The Government of Saskatchewan is on the right track," McGrath said. "It's about linking people to jobs and industry, healthcare professionals, education."

'Made in China' KN95 Masks Distributed to Congress Leave Conservatives Outraged

WHY? THEY DON'T WEAR MASKS

Darragh Roche 

Conservatives have expressed outrage after it emerged that KN95 masks distributed to congressional offices were made in China, with House Republicans demanding answers from Speaker Nancy Pelosi

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© Ian Forsyth/Getty Images Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, walks through to the plenary with members of the U.S. Congressional delegation at COP26 on November 9, 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. Republicans have criticized Pelosi for the fact KN95 masks distributed to Congress are "Made in China."

More than 120 GOP lawmakers have signed a letter to Pelosi describing their "disbelief and outrage" that the masks were being handed out "when American alternatives are available."

Some have also been posting about their anger on social media, but Pelosi's office told Fox News on Thursday that the Architect of the Capitol was responsible for the purchase rather than any "House entity."

Nonetheless, Republican lawmakers blamed her for the decision to use Chinese-made masks.

"Speaker Pelosi sent out N-95 masks to every House office. Unfortunately, I can't read the instructions," tweeted Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin.

Steil shared a photo of one of the KN95 masks as well as a small certificate that came with it. The certificate was written in both Chinese and English.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has encouraged Americans to wear KN95 or N95 masks, explaining on its website that N95 masks offer the highest level of protection.

Rep. Troy Balderson of Ohio tweeted a video of the masks distributed in Congress, with the caption: "Speaker Pelosi's Capitol Hill mask mandate now comes with a complimentary KN95 emblazoned with MADE IN CHINA.

"No thank you, Madam Speaker. I support MADE IN THE USA!"

Rep. Bill Posey of Florida tweeted on Wednesday: "I wonder if @SpeakerPelosi knew before she purchased and distributed KN95 masks which prominently say 'MADE IN CHINA,' that a Florida company is currently making 2 million N95 masks a day, employing 350 Americans. #BuyAmerican #MakeAmerican."

Posey shared a Fox News article about the company, Advanced Concept Innovations in Polk County.

The Republican Office of the Committee on House Administration tweeted: "Why in the world is the House purchasing hundreds of thousands of KN95 masks that are made in China? Ranking Member @RodneyDavis and more than 120 other House Republicans are asking @SpeakerPelosi for answers."

That letter says if members are required to wear masks officials should "at least respect the institution and the taxpayers enough not to line the pockets of our adversary whose actions led to the current pandemic."

It continues: "Under your tenure, you have closed the Capitol to the American people, implemented COVID-19 protocols in the House that conflict with the Senate, and now, you have handed out masks from China when American alternatives are available.

"Quite simply, there is no reason that our elected officials and government workers should be given KN95 masks manufactured in China."

A spokesperson for Pelosi told Fox News on Thursday that "no House entity was involved in this purchase" and said the Architect of the Capitol had "made the purchase."

Newsweek has asked Nancy Pelosi's office and the Architect of the Capitol for comment.