Birds with bigger brains may cope with climate crisis better, study suggests

By Katie Hunt, CNN - Frida
© Adobe Stock


Thousands of birds die each spring and fall when they collide with Chicago's skyscrapers, which lie on a major migration path between Canada and Latin America.

But the birds don't die in vain. Since the 1970s, many of them have been collected from the street and cataloged by the city's Field Museum. This unique and detailed set of data has been a scientific windfall, revealing that North American migratory birds appear to be shrinking in response to climate change.

A new study of this data has highlighted an important nuance in this trend: Birds that have bigger brains, relative to their body size, are not shrinking as much as their smaller-brained counterparts.

The study is the first to identify a potential link between cognition and animal response to human-made climate change, according to the researchers from Washington University in St. Louis.

"As temperatures warm, body sizes are decreasing," said Justin Baldwin, a doctoral student at Washington University and author of the study that published this week in the journal Ecology Letters, in a news release. "But larger-brained species are declining less strongly than small-brained species."

Relative brain size is often considered an indicator of behavioral flexibility in birds, according to the research. The idea is controversial when it's applied to some other animals, Baldwin said, but it works for birds.

"Relative brain size correlates with increased learning ability, increased memory, longer lifespans and more stable population dynamics," Baldwin said.

"In this case, a bigger-brained species of bird might be able to reduce its exposure to warming temperatures by seeking out microhabitats with cooler temperatures, for example," he said.

The researchers analyzed information from 70,000 birds that died when they collided with buildings in Chicago between 1978 and 2016. They added brain volume measurements and life-span data for 49 of the 52 species in the database.

Birds that had big brains, relative to their bodies such as the song sparrow and other New World sparrows, had body-size reductions that were only about one-third of those observed for birds with smaller brains, the study found. Wood warblers (Parulidae) tended to have smaller brains and tended to shrink more.

"The authors from that amazing study shared their raw data ... which allowed us to add to it and discover more," Baldwin said via email.
Shape-shifters

It's not known exactly why birds are shrinking in size. Larger body size helps animals in cold places stay warm, while a smaller body retains less heat.

Bird wingspans may have increased to compensate for smaller bodies that produce less energy for the incredibly long distances traveled during migration, researchers have also found.

Similarly, other research has found that some animals are developing larger beaks, legs and ears that allow them to better regulate body temperature as the planet gets hotter. While most of the morphological changes have been in birds, bats and shrews have also been affected. Climate change has even altered human bodies.

However, downsizing comes at a potential cost for a bird, with an increased risk of falling prey to predators or making it harder to compete for resources with other bird species, said study coauthor Carlos Botero, assistant professor of biology at Washington University, in the statement.

It's in this context that having a larger brain may offer alternatives that are not available to small-brained species, he said.

"One of the first things that jumps out to me from these findings is that we can already see that climate change is having a disproportionate effect on species that have less capacity to deal with environmental change through their behavior," Botero said.

"This doesn't mean that climate change is not affecting brainy birds ... or that brainy birds are going to do just fine. What our findings suggest is that climate change can have a much stronger effect on the less-brainy birds."


© Adobe StockA Blackburnian warbler, pictured here, was another of the species of smaller-brained birds that were more strongly affected by climate change.


© Bilgin S. Sasmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesSince the 1970s, migratory birds that died after colliding with Chicago buildings have been collected and cataloged by the Field Museum. The data set is showing how birds are affected by climate change.

Smithsonian to show 120 orange statues of female scientists

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Smithsonian will commemorate Women's History Month in March by displaying 120 life-size neon orange statues depicting women who have excelled in the fields of science and technology.

The 3D-printed statues will be displayed in the Smithsonian Gardens and in select museums in the Smithsonian network from March 5-27. A statement announcing the display called it “the largest collection of statues of women ever assembled together.”

The statues will depict women who have excelled in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. These range from Jessica Esquivel, one of only 150 Black women with a PhD in physics in the country, to Karina Popovich, a college student who produced over 82,000 pieces of 3D-printed PPE for healthcare workers in the early days of the pandemic.

Each statue will feature a QR code that links to the personal story of the depicted woman. The statues have been previously displayed in Dallas, and a handful of them were in New York's Central Park Zoo.

Ellen Stofan, the Smithsonian’s under secretary for science and research, said in a statement that the exhibit, “provides the perfect opportunity for us to show that women have successfully thrived in STEM for decades, while also illustrating the innumerable role models young women can find in every field,

Forget Indiana Jones! Some of the most important archaeological discoveries in history are more fascinating than fiction. Here are 20 incredible finds that continue to inspire a sense of wonder and sometimes even outlandish theories. Who knows when the next major discovery will be made!

The women being honored were chosen by Lyda Hill Philanthropies and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They include: MIT astrophysicist Kelly Korreck; wildlife biologist Kristine Inman; microbiologist Dorothy Tovar; mathematics professor Minerva Cordero and U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team physician Monica Rho.

The display, entitled “#IfThenSheCan — The Exhibit” will feature the Smithsonian's oldest museum, the Arts + Industries Building — which only reopened last year after being closed to the public since 2004. During the opening weekend, all 120 statues will be displayed there and the Smithsonian Castle and the adjacent Enid A. Haupt Garden. After the opening weekend, the statues will be dispersed to different Smithsonian museums across the National Mall.

“These women are changing the world, and providing inspiration for the generation that will follow them,” said AIB Director Rachel Goslins in a statement.

___

This story corrects the name of the exhibit and clarifies the reopening timeline of AIB.

Ashraf Khalil , The Associated Press

With a pandemic stunting a student-led divestment movement, Ryerson holds firm on $8.9-million investment in fossil fuels

University of Toronto, Harvard, University of Guelph, and Simon Fraser University have one thing in common: they have all committed to total divestment of fossil fuels.

But Ryerson University, which holds $8.9 million (or five per cent of its total endowment) in fossil fuels is absent from the list. Ryerson is widely referred to as X University since announcing plans to change its name due to Egerton Ryerson’s role in creating Canada’s residential school system.

The university has no plans to divest, and now, with a pandemic restricting student organizing, actions and recruitment, there is little pressure on the administration to do so, says Evelyn Austin, former U of T student activist and co-ordinator for Divest Canada Coalition.

Instead, Ryerson has taken an environmental, social and governance (ESG) approach, school administrators told Canada’s National Observer via email. The school’s investments are handled by Fiera Capital Corporation, the university’s endowment fund manager, which uses ESG to evaluate environmental and social harm of investments.

Critics of the ESG model, including Austin, argue that ethical considerations of ESG are insufficient to combat the climate crisis. The model has no regulated, measured standards, she said. ESG ratings simply compare companies within sectors, for example measuring the impact of Suncor’s operations to say, BP oil.

Ryerson reportedly invests in Suncor, which operates in the tar sands and Chemical Valley, says Fossil Free Ryerson, the university’s most recent divestment organization, according to The Eyeopener. Ryerson did not answer questions from Canada’s National Observer about specific holdings.

Divest Canada considers ESG a false solution: “You just have to be not the worst fossil fuel company to be given a decent rating,” Austin says.

Austin also criticizes the depoliticization effect of ESG, where fossil fuel investments become a numbers game. For example, a university may pledge to lower greenhouse gas emissions of a portfolio by 10 per cent, as the University of Guelph did before committing to total divestment. Student divestment movements push for a bolder target of total divestment from fossil fuels.

Ryerson president Mohamed Lachemi told the Eyeopener the university currently has no tangible plans to divest, adding many universities with divestment plans “have multiple investment managers with committees who actively make decisions about asset mix strategies.” Ryerson, meanwhile, has a single fund manager handling its endowment, and the university “does not engage in active investment decision-making,” a spokesperson told Canada’s National Observer.

Both Lachemi and chief financial officer Joanna McKee, who oversees Ryerson’s financial planning, reporting, and investing, declined to be interviewed directly for this story.

However, Ryerson’s administration told Canada’s National Observer that Fiera Capital joined the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, which shifts responsibility of climate-driven investing to the asset manager, in this case, Fiera Capital.

Ryerson has made some shifts to monetarily address climate change. Since 2019, its investments in fossil fuel have shrunk by seven per cent, compared to the now inactive student group Fossil Free Ryerson’s initial campaign number of Ryerson’s $17.5 million in fossil fuel investments.

Ryerson also says it will be joining the University Network for Investor Engagement, a climate-aligned portfolio engagement program for universities. The website supports an ESG and reform approach to sustainability rather than divestment.

But critics argue ethical fossil fuel reduction of endowments cannot be reached through ESG reforms, particularly for public universities. Former divestment movements have targeted tobacco companies and South African apartheid. Like prior movements, fossil fuel divestment contends internal reforms are moving too slowly to confront the climate crisis and environmental racism.

The urgency to divest has only come after years of student-led campaigns. U of T’s divestment movement, for example, campaigned for nearly a decade before it succeeded.

Ryerson’s most recent divestment movement, Fossil Free Ryerson, was active until last spring. Canada’s National Observer reached out to MJ Wright, lead organizer for Fossil Free Ryerson, but he graduated and could no longer comment on the story.

Austin says the pandemic has severely hampered student movements. Campus closures have exacerbated student isolation and decreased student activity, causing a fissure in the institutional memory of student-led divestment movements.

Student pressure is still working to some degree, as evidenced by the pending name change and other structural shifts to combat colonialism.

But Austin asserts it is hypocritical for Ryerson University to decolonize its namesake and still invest in fossil fuels.

“These companies continue to be responsible for so much colonial violence in so-called Canada, and across the world,” she says.

| Corrections policy Updates and corrections February 11, 2022, 07:24 pm This article has been updated to clarify remarks made by Ryerson president Mohamed Lachemi to the Eyeopener and to correctly attribute those comments. Lachemi told the news outlet Ryerson does not regularly engage in active investment decision-making.

Matteo Cimellaro / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada's National Observer, Canada's National Observer

CANADA

Indigenous athletes among those aiming for medals at Beijing Olympics

There are five Indigenous athletes with Canadian connections that are chasing glory at the Beijing Olympics.

The Games, which officially began on Friday, Feb. 4 and continues until Feb. 20.

On Monday Jan. 31, Snowboard Canada officials announced that Liam Gill, a member of Liidlii Kue First Nation in the Northwest Territories, would be competing in Beijing. Gill had previously been named as an alternate for the Canadian squad and was not expecting to go to China for the Olympics. But he found himself packing his bags and heading to Beijing after one of his teammates in the halfpipe competition was forced to withdraw due to a recent injury incurred during training.

On Monday, Feb. 7 Alexandra Loutitt came to our attention earning a medal with the Canadian mixed ski jumping squad. While she didn't self-identify as Indigenous in her Olympic bio, the Gwich'in Tribal Council came out and claimed her as one of their own through her father Sandy Loutitt.

Besides Gill and Loutitt, the other Indigenous participants at the Olympics are Jocelyne Larocque, Jamie Lee Rattray and Abby Roque.

Though she is a member of Wahnapitae First Nation in northern Ontario, Roque was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., and will represent the United States in Beijing.

Since Canada and the United States are the two perennial powerhouses in women’s hockey, there’s a strong possibility Roque and the rest of the American squad will meet Larocque and Rattray, who are both Métis, and their Canadian teammates in the gold-medal match.

A closer look at Gill, Larocque, Rattray, Roque and Loutitt follows:

​LIAM GILL

Gill, who is 18, is considered a future star on the Canadian snowboarding team. But now he’s about to perform on the world’s biggest sporting stage.

Gill, who lives in Calgary, was forced to quickly pack his bags for Beijing after it was announced a two-time Olympian, Derek Livingston, would be unable to perform at the Games because of a recent lower-body injury.

Gill will be taking Livingston’s spot in the men’s halfpipe competition. Besides being the lone Indigenous member on the Canadian snowboarding squad, he is also the second youngest member of the team.

Another Calgary resident, Brooke D’Hondt, who is 16, is the youngest.

Gill previously represented Canada at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games, which were staged in Lausanne, Switzerland.

At those Games he participated in all three of snowboarding’s freestyle events, placing eighth in the Big Air competition, 11th in the Slopestyle and 13th in the Halfpipe competition.

​JOCELYNE LAROCQUE

Larocque, a 33-year-old who plays defence, is one of the veterans on the Canadian women’s hockey squad. She has been a member of the national squad since 2008.

And Larocque’s resume already includes a pair of Olympic medals.

She was a member of the Canadian squad that captured the gold medal at the 2014 Sochi Olympics staged in Sochi, Russia.

Larocque made history at those Games, becoming the first Indigenous woman to suit up for the Canadian women’s hockey club at an Olympics.

And then, four years later, she helped her squad win the silver medal at the PyeongChang Games. Canada was edged by the U.S. in a shootout in the gold-medal contest.

Larocque, who is from Ste. Anne, Man., has also earned eight medals (two gold, five silver and one bronze) at world women’s championships.

Larocque also had a stellar four-season playing career at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She served as the captain of the team during her senior year.

​JAMIE LEE RATTRAY

Rattray, who was born in Kanata, Ont., is a 29-year-old forward.

Though she made her first appearance with the national senior women’s team in 2014, she will make her Olympic debut in Beijing.

That’s because she didn’t crack the final Canadian roster for the 2018 PyeongChang Games.

Rattray, however, does have a handful of medals from world championships.

She was a member of the Canadian team that captured back-to-back silver medals at the 2015 and ’16 global tournaments.

Rattray also won a bronze medal at the 2019 tourney. And she was a member of the gold-medal winning side at the 2021 championships, held this past August in Calgary.

Rattray spent her collegiate years starring for New York-based Clarkson University, from 2010-14.

She has also excelled off the ice as she helped Canada win the bronze medal at the 2017 world women’s ball hockey championships.

​ABBY ROQUE

Roque, who has lived in the United States her entire life, will make her Olympic debut in Beijing.

The 24-year-old is a forward with the American squad.

Her Indigenous ancestry is through her father Jim, who is both a Canadian and American citizen.

Jim Roque is currently working as a scout for the National Hockey League’s Toronto Maple Leafs.

Born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Roque was a force during her collegiate years, 2016 through 2020, at Wisconsin University. During her final season at Wisconsin, she racked up a whopping 58 points, including 26 goals, in 36 contests.

For her efforts, Roque was one of three finalists that year for the Patty Kaizmaier Memorial Award. This trophy is annually presented to the top female collegiate players in the U.S.

ALEXANDRA LOUTITT

Alexandra Loutitt has jumped her way into the record books.

The 18-year-old, who is a member Nihtat Gwich'in based in Inuvik, was not a household name when she arrived at the Beijing Olympics.

But Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast have been learning more about her story now that she’s an Olympic medallist.

Loutitt, who was born and raised in Calgary, is a member of the Canadian mixed ski jumping squad that captured the bronze medal in Beijing on Monday, Feb. 7.

Loutitt’s teammates in Beijing were Abigail Strate, Matthew Soukup and Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes. This year’s Games marked the first time for the mixed-gender ski jumping competition.

Loutitt and her teammates, however, won the first ski jumping medal for Canada in any discipline since the Winter Games were launched in 1924.

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

Former Jamaican bobsledders excited to cheer on team after 24-year absence

Jayme Doll - Thursday

They first captured hearts in Calgary at the 1988 Winter Olympics as the underdogs with fierce dedication and drive to conquer what may have seemed like an impossible dream.

The Jamaican four-man bobsled team is back at the Olympics for the first time in 24 years.

Read more:
Jamaica’s 4-man bobsled team makes Olympics for 1st time in over 20 years

"You bring that Jamaican flare to the games and that makes it a pretty cool event," said Devon Harris, a member of the 1988 debut team.

"I just encourage them to enjoy the moment. It's one of those rare moments very few of us actually get to experience in life," he said from his home just outside New York City.

Harris said he's been texting with some of his former teammates, admitting while it's been a long time since he sat in a sled, there's always excitement when the Olympic season rolls around.

Video: Jamaican bobsled team needs coach to help get them to 2018 Winter Olympics

This is the first time in almost 20 years that Calgary's Lacelles Brown won't be competing at a winter Olympic Games in bobsled.

Brown has represented Jamaica and Canada. He said he'll be watching both teams closely and is very proud Jamaica is back on the track.

"It's about time. I think Jamaica has some really good athletes and putting it together and getting them back on track, it's nice to see," said Brown.

"If the Jamaican boys finish in the top 10, that's an accomplishment... I'm just being realistic. If the Canadian boys finish in the top five, I know they can medal. No pressure on them but I want them to medal," said Brown.

Jamaica's historic run in Calgary as the first-ever bobsled team from the island nation to compete has become iconic. Despite a horrible crash that flipped them upside down soaring down the track, they became heroes at the Games for pushing on.

"As we went over, I remember thinking: 'Wow, we are over. How embarrassing,' that was my thought... It didn't feel as bad as it looked," recalled Harris.

"If you can imagine failing in front of the entire world and totally embarrassed your country, and here are those people offering that emotional support, it means a lot. It still means a lot," said Harris, who said he holds a very special place for Calgarians in his heart.

The legacy and has stuck with the team through the decades.

Harris said it's been only recently he's really understood the impact his original team made on the world.

"This thing was way bigger than just four guys from Jamaica trying to bobsled. It was saying to people all over the world who had dreams that they thought maybe scary or ridiculous, it gave them permission to go and pursue those dreams."

"They'll never be an '88 team," Harris added. "I think we were special in just the way we embraced the challenge. It was hard. It had never been done before. We put the shoulder to the wheels and went."

Largest comet ever observed bumps Hale-Bopp from pedestal

Stephanie Pappas - Friday

Live Science

The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet, identified in 2021, is officially the biggest comet ever observed.

The new record, reported on the preprint website arXiv and now accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, bumps the Hale-Bopp comet from the top spot. Hale-Bopp was discovered in 1995 and became visible to the naked eye in 1996; it was about 46 miles (74 kilometers) across. Bernardinelli-Bernstein, also known as comet 2014 UN271, has now been calculated to be about 85 miles (137 km) across.

The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet is named after its discoverers, University of Pennsylvania cosmologist Gary Bernstein and University of Washington postdoctoral scholar Pedro Bernardinelli, who first spotted the comet in the Dark Energy Survey dataset. The images showing the comet date back to 2014, which is why that year is in the comet's official scientific designation. Bernardinelli and Berstein noticed the tiny dot moving as they studied images from subsequent years.

At that time, the comet was too distant for researchers to get a good gauge on its size, though they could tell it was likely quite large. The comet hails from the Oort Cloud, a cloud of chunks of ice and rock hovering at the edge of the solar system. Its orbit takes it as far as a light-year from the sun — and takes 5.5 million years to complete.

The comet is currently winging its way toward the interior of the solar system. It will get closest to Earth in 2031, though not too close for comfort: The comet will remain just outside Saturn's orbit, Live Science reported.

The new research was led by Emmanuel Lellouch, an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris, and used data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in South America, taken in August 2021 when the comet was 19.6 AUs away. (An AU is the distance between the Earth and the sun and translates to about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers.) Researchers studied the microwave radiation coming off the comet's bulk. From these reflected light wavelengths, the team could infer the comet's size. This is the longest distance at which this type of measurement has been done before, the researchers wrote in their new paper.

It's exciting to get a measurement while the comet is still so distant, the researchers added, because Bernardinelli-Bernstein will likely shrink significantly by the time it gets closer to Earth. As the comet gets closer to the sun, its tail of dust and gas will expand, and its main body will melt and shrink.

The comet will not be visible to the naked eye, as Hale-Bopp was at its closest approach, but scientists expect to learn a lot about Oort Cloud objects from the visitor. Large telescopes like the Atacama Array will allow scientists to learn more about the chemical composition of the comet as it passes, Lellouch and his colleagues wrote. They should also know more soon about the comet's temperature, spin and shape.

Originally published on Live Science.

Ottawa launches long-awaited competition for armed military drones

 The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The federal government has officially launched a competition for the purchase of armed drones after nearly two decades of delays and discussion around whether Canada should buy the controversial weapons.

A formal request for proposals was released Friday to the two companies shortlisted to bid on the $5-billion contract, which could see the Canadian Armed Forces launch a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles in the next few years.

A formal contract is not expected for another year or two, while the first drone isn’t scheduled for delivery until at least 2025, with the last to arrive in the early 2030s.

The request does not say how many vehicles the government plans to buy, and instead leaves it up to the two companies to say how their bids will satisfy the military’s needs while benefiting the Canadian economy.

It does reveal the aircraft will be based at 14 Wing Greenwood in Nova Scotia and 19 Wing Comox in British Columbia, while the main control centre will be in the Ottawa area. Yellowknife is also identified as a forward operating location.

The drone force will include around 240 air force members, with 55 in Greenwood, 25 in Comox and 160 in Ottawa.

While delivery is still years away, the fact the military has reached even this point represents a major step forward after almost 20 years of work to identify and buy a fleet of UAVs to conduct surveillance over Canadian territory and support missions abroad.

Aside from purchasing a small number of temporary, unarmed drones for the war in Afghanistan — all of which have since been retired — the military has never been able to make much progress on a permanent fleet.

That was despite drones taking on an increasingly important role in militaries around the world. A report in the Royal Canadian Air Force Journal in late 2015 said 76 foreign militaries were using drones and another 50 were developing them.

One major reason: no federal government had authorized adding drones as a permanent fixture within the military in the same vein as fighter-jet or helicopter squadrons until the Liberal government included them in its 2017 defence policy.

The government and military say the unmanned aircraft will be used for surveillance and intelligence gathering as well as delivering pinpoint strikes from the air on enemy forces in places where the use of force has been approved.

Some have previously criticized the decision to buy armed drones given concerns about their potential use in Canada and numerous reports of airstrikes by other nations, particularly the United States and Russia, causing unintended damage and civilian casualties.

The government has also said little about the scenarios in which force might be used, including whether drones could be deployed for assassinations. Officials have suggested they would be used in the same way as conventional weapons such as fighter jets and artillery.

"While the (drones) will be a medium-altitude long-endurance system with a precision strike capability, it will only be armed when necessary for the assigned task," the Defence Department said Friday.

"At all times, employment of precision strike capability will adhere to the Law of Armed Conflict, as well as any other applicable domestic or international laws. Use of force will be applied following rules of engagement applicable to the CAF."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2022.
Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

CANADA

Standards group calls for sweeping post-pandemic changes to how long-term care homes operate

Karina Roman

 - Friday-cbc.ca

A national standards association is calling for profound changes to the way Canada's long-term care facilities are run after the pandemic exposed serious weaknesses that contributed to thousands of deaths.

The package released today by the Canadian Standards Association runs to 338 draft recommendations for new long-term care standards.

Among other things, the CSA is calling for single rooms with private bathrooms for long-term care residents, dedicated hand-hygiene sinks and better contingency plans for staffing shortages when "catastrophic" events occur.

In the first few months of the pandemic, more than 80 per cent of Canada's known COVID-19 deaths happened in long-term care and retirement homes — the highest such rate among nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

According to the National Institute on Ageing's latest numbers, more than 16,000 residents of long-term care homes in Canada have died because of COVID-19. Thousands of staff members in long-term care facilities have been infected as well, and more than two dozen of them have died as a result.

"We really took a different approach in the development of these standards," said Alex Mihailidis, chair of the CSA Group technical subcommittee that developed the draft standards. He said the advisory group that came up with the standards included long-term care residents and family members.

"The hope here is that they all now have skin in the game … The hope is that they will lead the charge to see change from within," he said.

The CSA draft standards released today are part of a larger package of standards requested by the federal government last spring. The first part of that package, released at the end of January by the Health Standards Organization (HSO), proposed standards for the quality of direct care that covered things like staffing and residents' rights.
Infection control, private bathrooms

The CSA draft standards are comprehensive and include detailed infection control measures covering such things as PPE supplies, laundry and waste management and rules for cleaning a room after an outbreak or death.

They also cover aspects of day-to-day functions — such as helping residents eat, bathe and go outside — and visitation policies. They include a section on staff training and education as well.

The CSA document proposes new standards for the design of long-term care facilities themselves. It calls for single-occupancy rooms with private bathrooms and improvements to ventilation and medical gas systems.


© Evan Mitsui/CBC

Crosses representing residents who died of COVID-19 on the lawn of Camilla Care Community in Mississauga, Ont. on Jan. 13, 2020. The long-term care home was among those in Ontario hardest-hit by the pandemic.

Mihailidis said CSA drafted the standards with the goal of keeping residents safe while giving them more control over their lives.

"We kept in mind throughout … even though it's quite technical in some places, that these are people's homes," he said.

"We are not developing a standard for a hospital or medical facility. These are most likely the last homes that many individuals would be living in."

A right to privacy

Which is why the CSA document includes a section on respecting the rights of residents with the capacity to "consent to sexual and intimate acts" and to "engage in such activity as long as it is not illegal." The CSA also calls on long-term care facilities to offer residents privacy for "intimate acts" and "conversation."

But these standards won't automatically become binding when they're finally published in the fall because they're not in legislation yet.

The federal government has promised a new long-term care act that it insists will respect provincial jurisdiction over the long-term care sector. It's not clear whether provinces would be compelled to adopt and enforce the standards in that law, or whether they'd have the option of drafting their own revised standards.

And adopting and enforcing the CSA's recommended standards — especially the ones dealing with physical infrastructure and staffing — would be expensive.

"You can't meet a standard if you don't have the money," Michele Lowe, executive director for the Nursing Homes of Nova Scotia Association, told CBC News before the draft standards were made public.

"There's been this narrative that long-term care facilities and operators should have done better and they chose not to do better. But the reality in many of these cases is they didn't receive the funding from the department of health in those provinces."
The pandemic and the profit model

Larry Baillie's father Glenn Baillie died during a particularly dire long-term care home outbreak in Winnipeg in 2020. He said he agrees that funding is a big problem — but so is the industry's for-profit model.

"One year before (the pandemic), the physical therapist told me, 'We don't have enough money to provide care, but they had enough money to pay the shareholders,'" he said, adding he strongly supports the idea of national standards.

"Do not be fooled. For-profit means for-profit."

The Liberals promised $9 billion for long-term care during the last election, in addition to the $3 billion over five years already provided in the last budget.

"What price do we put on folks living in long-term care? These are our parents, our grandparents, as well as the workers that … are exposed as a result of going to work in the morning," said Mark Hancock, national president of CUPE, a union representing about 90,000 long-term care workers across the country.
New standards will be costly

The CSA is proposing different standards depending on whether a facility is an existing structure or a new build. For example, it calls on existing long-term care homes with rooms housing multiple residents to convert them into rooms for a maximum of two residents.

It says existing facilities should ensure they have a single room available to manage communicable infections or palliative care, and should provide private roll-in showers if resident washrooms don't have individual shower enclosures.

Mihailidis concedes that not all long-term care homes will have the resources to do everything the CSA recommends.

"We tried to provide as many different options and clauses and approaches so that if a home needs to pick and choose, they can do so," he said.

Hancock said he hopes to see the promised funds in the upcoming federal budget. He said he wants to see that funding linked to improved standards in the sector, even though health care is a provincial responsibility.

"We've seen in many cases that provinces are paying lip service to the federal government," he said. "So I think there's some real need to have teeth in these standards."

In the mandate letter Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos received when he took over the portfolio, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tasked him with introducing new legislation to improve the state of long-term care. The government has said such legislation would respect provincial and territorial jurisdiction but has not said when it will be tabled.

Larry Baillie said that what happened to his father and others in long-term care could have been prevented if Canada's health care policy valued seniors.

"We should … not look at them as an older person laying in a bed, but look at him as Glenn Baillie, owner of Spoke & Edge (ski shop) and president of Rotary," said Baillie. "We need to cherish them."

The proposed standards are subject to public input for the next 60 days.

Draft standards for LTC building design, infection prevention publicly released

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Experts have released a new set of draft standards for long-term care, this time focused on building design, materials and infection prevention and control.

CSA Group, formerly the Canadian Standards Association, developed the draft in parallel with care-giving standards from the Health Standards Organization, released two weeks ago.

Alex Mihailidis, chair of CSA Group’s technical subcommittee, says his organization's standards are more prescriptive and look at everything from the heating and ventilation systems to the types of technology that should be available to residents.

He likens HSO's standards to the software of long-term care, whereas CSA Group has looked at the hardware.

"If we can take any type of silver lining over the past two years when it comes to long-term care homes, it really taught us a significant lesson across many of the aspects in operations," Mihailidis said.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted serious systemic problems with infection prevention and control as well as other issues inside long-term care residences across the country.

Data gathered by The National Institute on Aging finds 16,345 long-term care residents had died of COVID-19, as of Feb. 8, since the pandemic began.

Throughout the process of developing the new standards, Mihailidis said, there has been a focus on improving the operations and safety of the residences while balancing the notion that people live in the spaces and deserve the comforts of home.

"They are not acute-care settings, they're not hospitals. How do we design long-term care homes, having that balance of quality of life versus infection prevention, control and safety?" he said.

The draft draws on best practices from around the world where increasingly long-term care is being designed as a cluster of neighbourhoods, with separate dining and multi-purpose rooms to help balance safety and quality of life. In the event of an outbreak, neighbourhoods can be contained without affecting the entire residence.

The standards also spell out specific requirements for such things as plumbing, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and security, he said.

While some of those requirements might sound most helpful for the development of new homes, Mihailidis said the goal is to make the new standards applicable to the more than 2,000 homes that already operate in Canada.

"The way we tried to do that really is by providing options or different approaches that homes can take and try to get as close to the standard as possible," he said.

The draft has been released for public review, with CSA group accepting feedback until April 11. The experts plan to then refine the standards and release a final version at the end of the year.

It is not yet clear how they will be implemented and enforced.

The HSO's standards for care are expected to be adopted by Accreditation Canada, which sanctions nearly 70 per cent of such homes in Canada.

That will not necessarily be the case for the CSA Group's more prescriptive look at what needs to be done to improve the residences themselves.

The federal government has promised to develop legislation related to the safety of long-term care, which could enshrine the standards in law. That would require the co-operation of provinces, which have jurisdiction over the homes.

"Where the enforcement's going to come, though, is from the residents, the families of the residents, the staff who work in these homes, and hopefully the operators themselves," Mihailidis said.

"This is really going to be a groundswell of bottom-up support from all these different stakeholders."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2022.

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

US judge strikes down Biden climate damage cost estimate

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to put greater emphasis on potential damage from greenhouse gas emissions when creating rules for polluting industries.

U.S. District Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana sided with Republican attorneys general from energy producing states who said the administration's action to raise the cost estimate of carbon emissions threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production.

The judge issued an injunction that bars the Biden administration from using the higher cost estimate, which puts a dollar value on damages caused by every additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

President Joe Biden on his first day in office restored the climate cost estimate to about $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions after the Trump administration had reduced the figure to about $7 or less per ton. Former President Donald Trump's estimate included only damages felt in the U.S. versus the global damages captured in higher estimates that were previously used under the Obama administration.

The estimate would be used to shape future rules for oil and gas drilling, automobiles, and other industries. Using a higher cost estimate would help justify reductions in planet-warming emissions, by making the benefits more likely to outweigh the expenses of complying with new rules.

Known as the social cost of carbon, the damage figure uses economic models to capture impacts from rising sea levels, recurring droughts and other consequences of climate change. The $51 estimate was first established in 2016 and used to justify major rules such as the Clean Power Plan — former President Barack Obama's signature effort to address climate change by tightening emissions standards from coal-fired power plants — and separate rules imposing tougher vehicle emission standards.

The Supreme Court blocked the Clean Power Plan before it ever took effect, and a more lenient rule imposed by the Trump administration was later thrown out by a federal appeals court.

The carbon cost estimate had not yet been used very much under Biden, but is being considered in a pending environmental review of oil and gas lease sales in western states.

In Friday's ruling, Cain wrote that using the climate damage figure in oil and gas lease reviews would “artificially increase the cost estimates of lease sales" and cause direct harm to energy producing states.

Economist Michael Greenstone, who helped establish the social cost of carbon while working in the Obama administration, said if the ruling stands, it would signal the U.S. is again unwilling to confront climate change.

“The social cost of carbon guides the stringency of climate policy,” said the University of Chicago professor. “Setting it to near-zero Trump administration levels effectively removes all the teeth from climate regulations.”

Republican attorneys general led by Louisiana's Jeff Landry said the Biden administration's revival of the higher estimate was illegal and exceeded its authority by basing the figure on global considerations. The other states whose officials sued are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Landry's office issued a statement calling Cain’s ruling “a major win for nearly every aspect of Louisiana’s economy and culture.”

“Biden’s executive order was an attempt by the government to take over and tax the people based on winners and losers chosen by the government,” the statement said.

The White House referred questions to the Justice Department, which declined to comment.

Federal officials began developing climate damage cost estimates more than a decade ago after environmentalists successfully sued the government for not taking greenhouse gas emissions into account when setting vehicle mileage standards, said Max Sarinsky, a professor at the New York University School of Law.

Not fully accounting for carbon damages would skew any cost-benefit analysis of a proposed rule in favor of industry, he said, adding that the social cost of carbon had been “instrumental” in allowing agencies to accurately judge how their rules affect the climate.

“Without a proper valuation of climate impact, it would complicate agencies’ good faith efforts to make reasoned conclusions,” Sarinsky said.

A federal judge in Missouri last year had sided with the administration in a similar challenge from another group of Republican states. In that case, the judge said the Republicans lacked standing to bring their lawsuit because they had yet to suffer any harm under Biden’s order.

Friday's ruling by Cain, a Trump appointee, follows a ruling by another Louisiana judge last summer that struck down a separate Biden attempt to address greenhouse gas emissions by suspending new oil and gas leases on federal lands and water. The judge in that case, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, is also a Trump appointee.

In a sign of the shifting politics on the issue, a federal judge in Washington rejected a lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico conducted largely in response to Doughty's ruling.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, threw out the lease sale, saying the administration did not adequately take into account its effect on greenhouse gas emissions.

____

Brown reported from Billings, Montana, and McGill from New Orleans.

Matthew Brown, Matthew Daly And Kevin Mcgill, The Associated Press

Trump-appointed judge bars Biden administration from using climate cost estimate

By Ella Nilsen, CNN - Friday

A Trump-appointed judge dealt another blow to Biden's climate agenda on Friday, barring the administration from using a metric that estimates the societal cost of carbon emissions.

US District Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana issued an injunction on Friday that prevents the Biden administration from using what's known as the "social cost of carbon" in decisions around oil and gas drilling on public land or in rules that govern fossil fuel emissions.

The metric uses economic models to put a value on each ton of carbon dioxide emissions, to help quantify the economic harm caused by the climate crisis: sea level rise, more destructive hurricanes, extreme wildfire seasons and flooding, for example.

Agencies then weigh that economic harm in decisions that involve things like emissions regulations or fossil fuel drilling approvals.

It was first implemented during the Obama administration and substantially weakened by the Trump administration. Biden revived the social cost of carbon on his first day in office, setting it at $51 per ton of CO2 emissions -- the same level as set by the Obama administration.

The Biden administration had not yet used the metric in many decisions, but was expected to release an updated figure later this month.

Ten Republican-led states brought the lawsuit against the Biden administration. In his ruling, Cain sided with the states, saying the administration's carbon cost estimate "will significantly drive up costs" while decreasing state revenue.

Cain added that his home state of Louisiana "will be directly harmed by the reduction of funds necessary to maintain the state's coastal lands."

The Department of Justice did not immediately return a request for comment.

Earthjustice attorney Hana Vizcarra, whose organization is not involved in the case, said she'd be surprised if the government's attorneys didn't appeal.

"I can't imagine not appealing this, if I were the Justice Department," Vizcarra said.

Vizcarra added there's not much legal precedent to support Cain's ruling, as a similar lawsuit brought by Republican states was tossed by an Obama-appointed federal judge in Missouri last year.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry praised the decision in a statement.

"Biden's attempt to control the activities of the American people and the activities of every business from Main Street to Wall Street has been halted today," Landry said. "Biden's executive order was an attempt by the government to take over and tax the people based on winners and losers chosen by the government."

This is not the first time a Trump-appointed judge has dealt a blow to the Biden administration's climate goals. In June, another federal judge in Louisiana blocked Biden's temporary pause on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands -- saying Biden had exceeded his authority.

That decision paved the way for the Department of Interior to hold a November auction for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though administration officials insisted at the time it ran counter to their climate goals, they maintained they had to follow the law. A federal judge in DC District Court later invalidated the sale.

Biden's administration will face perhaps the most serious legal challenge to climate policies later this month in a US Supreme Court case that could limit the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Outgoing chief archivist at center of ERA fight and Trump documents controversy

By Devan Cole, CNN - Friday

Recent controversies over the certification of the Equal Rights Amendment and improper record-keeping of Trump-era documents have pushed the nation's chief archivist, whose typical pro forma responsibilities render him unknown to all but the most knowledgeable Washingtonians, into the middle of several high-profile political dramas.

David Ferriero, who's set to retire in April, has been the head of the National Archives and Records Administration since 2009, where his duties typically entail overseeing the agency's three dozen facilities around the US that hold more than 13 billion pages of documents. His role is also to formally add amendments to the US Constitution -- which hasn't been put to use during his tenure, as the Constitution hasn't been amended since 1992.

Still, he's become a key figure for many progressives who are leaning on Ferriero to take the drastic step of interpreting a dispute — and thus directly contradict legal guidance issued by the Justice Department and a federal judge's opinion that the deadline for ratifying the ERA expired — about the status of the ERA and add it as the nation's 28th Amendment. Ferriero has made no public indication that he is willing to do so.

Ferriero and his agency, which maintain the US' vast trove of presidential records, have also become tangled up in former President Donald Trump's dubious handling of records from his time in office. The top archivist stressed earlier this week that the Presidential Records Act is "critical to our democracy" after CNN and other outlets reported that Trump would routinely rip up documents and that he took several boxes to his Florida residence after leaving the White House.

The push for Ferriero to certify the ERA represents perhaps the biggest test he's faced during his 12 years running NARA, and it forces the little known civil servant and Obama appointee into the center of a decades-long fight to enshrine equal rights for women in the Constitution.

US code places the power to actually amend the Constitution in the hands of the nation's top archivist, with federal law stating in part that the "Archivist of the United States shall forthwith cause the amendment to be published, with his certificate, specifying the states by which the same may have been adopted, and that the same has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States."

But the archivist "has delegated many of the ministerial duties associated with this function to the Director of the Federal Register," according to the National Archives' website, which says that when the Office of the Federal Register "verifies that it has received the required number of authenticated ratification documents, it drafts a formal proclamation for the Archivist to certify that the amendment is valid and has become part of the Constitution."

"This certification is published in the Federal Register and U.S. Statutes at Large and serves as official notice to the Congress and to the Nation that the amendment process has been completed," according to NARA.

Ferriero must now decide whether he's going to either side with backers of the ERA, who have been asking him to publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution as part of his ministerial duties, arguing that it has satisfied all the necessary constitutional requirements and in fact took effect last month, or a trio of Republican senators and others who are raising concerns over the legitimacy of the ratification process.

"In light of the calls for you to disregard your duty and certify the ERA, we write to ask for your commitment that you, and the acting Archivist who will take over in April, will not certify or publish the ERA," Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mitt Romney of Utah wrote to Ferriero, arguing that the ERA has "failed to achieve ratification by the states and is no longer pending before them."

Opponents have argued that three states that ratified the ERA in recent years are invalid because they occurred years after a deadline set by Congress passed, and they've pointed to five states' past rescissions of their ratifications as part of why the ERA is not ratified.

They've also pointed to Justice Department legal guidance, issued under the Trump administration in 2020, that said the deadline to ratify the ERA expired and that the archivist cannot certify it. They've also cited litigation surrounding the matter as another reason why the archivist cannot act on it.

In 2020, Virginia, Illinois and Nevada, the three latest states to ratify the ERA, sued Ferriero in an effort to force him to certify the amendment. A federal judge ruled in the case last March that the deadline for ratifying the ERA had expired.

"Plaintiffs' ratifications came after both the original and extended deadlines that Congress attached to the ERA, so the Archivist is not bound to record them as valid," Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote in his decision. The case is being appealed.

NARA declined CNN's request for comment on Thursday, saying it won't comment on the issue while the case is pending.
Democrats probe NARA over Trump records

As Ferriero grapples with how to handle the ERA issue, he is also weighing in on Trump's handling of records from his time in office, emphasizing that the federal law governing how presidential records are preserved must be adhered to by all presidents.

"The Presidential Records Act mandates that all presidential records must be properly preserved by each administration so that a complete set of presidential records is transferred to the National Archives at the end of the administration," Ferriero said in a statement this week. "NARA pursues the return of records whenever we learn that records have been improperly removed or have not been appropriately transferred to official accounts."

Congressional Democrats have launched a probe into the matter, with House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, asking Ferriero to provide information on 15 boxes from the White House that needed to be recovered by the NARA from Trump's Florida resort last month, as well as "the actions taken by President Trump to destroy or attempt to destroy (presidential records), and any actions NARA has taken to recover or preserve these documents."

Ferriero said in his statement that "the Presidential Records Act is critical to our democracy, in which the government is held accountable by the people," adding: "Records matter."
Longtime record-keeper

Ferriero announced in January that he would retire in mid-April after serving in the post under three US presidents.

He said in a statement that under his leadership, the agency has "become a leader in the government's transition to a digital future, electronic records management, and the principles of Open Government," adding that it's served customers by "increasing public access and engagement through the online catalog and social media; streamlining how we serve veterans; expanding access to museums, exhibits, and public programs in person and virtually; and establishing civic literacy initiatives."

Ferriero has found himself in national controversy before, having claimed "full responsibility" in 2020 for an altered photograph from the 2017 Women's March that censored signs referencing women's anatomy and Trump's name.

The altered photograph sparked outrage among Trump critics and historians, prompting the agency to issue an apology and later replace it with an unaltered one.

A veteran of the Vietnam War, Ferriero previously served as director of the New York Public Libraries, and had also worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke University, according to his official biography.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to provide additional context about the legal arguments surrounding the archivist's role in certifying the Equal Rights Amendment.