Opinion: How the war on abortion rights is forcing companies to choose

Opinion by Jill Filipovic

 - Yesterday - CNN
© Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman/AP


American companies should seriously consider how and if they want to do business in states that treat their employees and their employees' families as second-class citizens.

As the Supreme Court prepares to potentially overturn or gut Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide, conservative states across the US are ramping up abortion restrictions in anticipation. Texas is so far the state with the most extreme law in effect, having banned abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually six weeks, before many women know they're pregnant, and implementing a private enforcement mechanism -- incentivizing citizens to snitch on each other, basically -- that could bankrupt anyone who so much as gives a woman a ride to an abortion clinic.


© Courtesy of Jill Filipovic

But Texas isn't alone: Oklahoma has also banned nearly all abortions, and several other Republican-led states are trying to outlaw the procedure at various stages and with various enforcement mechanisms as well.

In red states, it's open season on women's rights. Several Democratic-dominated states, on the other hand, are taking proactive steps to ensure abortion access. In Maryland, a new law means that trained medical professionals other than doctors will be able to legally perform abortions in the state. In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sued to fast-track a decision from her state's Supreme Court on protecting abortion rights.

Private companies, then, should make a choice: Do they want to invest and operate in states where half of the workforce cannot make their own choices about whether and when to have children -- choices that, from a pure business perspective, fundamentally alter a company's ability to retain talent and a cohesive, healthy staff? Or do they want to take steps to protect their employees -- and take their business to states where women are freer?

Already, women in the US have been prosecuted for allegedly having abortions; around the world, women routinely go to jail for what they say were miscarriages or stillbirths in nations where abortion is outlawed. In Texas, a 26-year-old woman was recently charged with murder over an alleged self-induced abortion. The state eventually dropped the charges, but the message is clear: Abortion is a crime, and in so-called "pro-life" states, women who end pregnancies may be treated like murderers.

Some companies are taking small steps to ease the burden on their employees living in states with these misogynist, reactionary laws. Yelp, for example, only has about 200 employees working in Texas, but will pay for them or their spouses to travel out of state for abortion care. Late last year, the company Salesforce announced that it will do the same. And Citigroup, which has some 8,000 workers in Texas, also said it will pay for them to leave to obtain abortions.

But Texas Republicans are not content with allowing private companies to assist their employees in the face of cruel laws. They're already threatening penalties for companies that pay for employees to end their pregnancies out of state. And have no doubt that abortion opponents are not content at stopping at red state borders.

It's not just abortion rights that conservatives are attacking. In Texas, parents who affirm their trans children may find themselves investigated by child protective services -- a directive that has led many Texas child welfare employees to resign or hunt for a new job. Alabama just criminalized prescribing or administering puberty blockers and hormones for anyone under the age of 18.

This is a risk for companies, too: Do they really want to do business in a state where their employees of childbearing age can't plan their families and may face serious financial or even criminal penalties if they end unwanted pregnancies? Or where their employees who are parents may find themselves under investigation and embroiled in a messy battle with the state simply for supporting their trans kid, or may even go to jail for providing their child with the medical care that a doctor recommends?

It's a tight labor market, and companies are competing for talent. Women now outnumber men on college campuses and in many graduate programs, and make up an increasing share of high-skilled workers. And yet many women don't move up the ranks as swiftly as men, and continue to face discrimination in pay and promotions.

A significant number of women, almost exclusively mothers of young children, found themselves pushed out of the workforce when Covid-19 shuttered schools and shut down childcare options. This is all bad for women, but it's bad for companies, too, when they cannot attract and retain the most talented workers when those workers are female.

Anti-abortion and anti-trans laws only magnify this dynamic. If women can't decide for themselves whether to carry a pregnancy to term, they also cannot plan their work lives. Being forced into motherhood means being forced out of work, or at least forced off one's planned track. Researchers have found that women who are refused abortions "experience a large increase in financial distress that is sustained for several years."

Even highly educated and relatively affluent women -- the type who may be working at a company like Yelp -- may be thrown badly off track by being forced to continue a pregnancy, and will likely face permanent hits to their income, not to mention their mental and physical health (the red states that seek to ban abortion also tend to have high rates of maternal mortality, and researchers have predicted that outlawing abortion could push US maternal mortality rates up by 21 percent).

Every person in the US should have a vested interest in keeping women healthy and free, but clearly anti-abortion lawmakers and the citizens who vote for them prefer to keep women's lives small, constrained and controlled.

Companies that rely on female workers and want not just a diverse workforce but the most talented possible workforce have a choice to make: Support their workers by paying for their full range of health care and any necessary travel to obtain that health care, and seriously consider whether they want to set up shop in states that go after the rights of women and trans people, or see their talent pool shrink along with the basic rights of women.

Disney heir comes out as transgender, speaks out against ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

Sarah Do Couto - Yesterday 

Global News

Charlee Corra Disney, one of the heirs of The Walt Disney Co., came out publicly as transgender and has condemned anti-LGBTQ2 legislation in the United States.

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Corra (who uses they/them pronouns) said their speech at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) annual gala in March was a public coming out for them.

Before the gala, Corra, 30, had been out as transgender personally for four years. Initially, Corra identified as gay before coming out as trans.

“I had very few openly gay role models,” Corra told the Los Angeles Times. “And I certainly didn’t have any trans or nonbinary role models. I didn’t see myself reflected in anyone, and that made me feel like there was something wrong with me.”

At the HRC event, Corra announced their family would match up to US$250,000 in donations to the HRC, the largest LGBTQ2 advocacy group and LGBTQ2 political lobbying organization in the United States.

This amount was later doubled to $500,000 by Roy P. Disney, Corra's father and the grandson of the company's co-founder.


The donation from the Disney family came after the HRC declined a $5-million donation from The Walt Disney Co., in early March. The HRC declined the donation because of the company's initial silence and inaction on the Florida "Don't Say Gay" bill, which has now been made law and bars instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through Grade 3.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek has since apologized for the company's silence

Still, as the Disney company faced public scrutiny and employee protests in regards to its initial silence on the "Don't Say Gay" bill, the Disney family is speaking out in support of LGBTQ2 rights.

“Equality matters deeply to us,” wrote Roy P. Disney in a statement, “especially because our child, Charlee, is transgender and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community.”

For this reason, the Sheri Disney — Corra's mother — told the Los Angeles Times she was disappointed by The Walt Disney Co.'s actions, "but had no doubt the company would make it right." She hopes the $500,000 donation will be a "bridge" to show the family's commitment to gay and trans rights.

“I feel like I don’t do very much to help,” Corra said. Corra does not work for Disney, but is a high school biology and environmental science teacher.

“I don’t call senators or take action. I felt like I could be doing more.”

Families, doctors contest Alabama transgender treatment ban

The Canadian Press
Monday

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Families with transgender teens sued the state of Alabama in federal court on Monday to overturn a law that makes it a crime for doctors to treat trans youth under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm their gender identity.

The two lawsuits — one on behalf of two families and another on behalf two families and the physicians who treat their children— pose legal challenges to legislation signed into law Friday by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.

“Transgender youth are a part of Alabama, and they deserve the same privacy, access to treatment, and data-driven health care from trained medical professionals as any other Alabamian," Tish Gotell Faulks, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said in a statement. Faulks added that lawmakers are using children, as, “political pawns for their reelection campaigns.” Ivey and legislators face primaries next month.

Unless blocked by the court, the Alabama law will take effect May 8, making it a felony for a doctor to prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to aid in the gender transition of anyone under age 19. Violations will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison. It also prohibits gender transition surgeries, although doctors told lawmakers those are not performed on minors in Alabama.

“The level of legislative overreach into the practice of medicine is unprecedented. And never before has legislative overreach come into pediatric examination rooms to shut down the parent voice in medical decision making between a parent, their pediatrician and their child,” Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, a medical provider and a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Ivey signed the legislation Friday, a day after it was approved by the Alabama Legislature. At a campaign stop Monday, the governor invoked religion when asked about her decision to sign the legislation.

“If the good Lord made you a boy at birth, then you are a boy. If the good Lord made you a girl at birth, then you are a girl,” she said. “We should especially focus our efforts on helping these young people become healthy adults just like God wanted them to be rather than self-induced medical intervenors.”

Asked if the law would survive a court challenge, she replied, “We’ll wait and see.”

The two lawsuits were filed by advocacy groups on behalf of families with transgender children, as well as by two medical providers. The children were not identified in the lawsuits because of their age,

“I know that I am a girl and I always have been,” one of the 15-year-old plaintiffs said in a statement provided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama. “Even before I learned the word ‘transgender’ or met other trans people, I knew myself."

In one of the lawsuits, parents described their fears that their transgender daughter, called “Mary Roe" in the suit, would harm herself or try to commit suicide if she loses access to the puberty blockers she began taking last year. “For Mary to be forced to go through male puberty would be devastating; it would predictably result in her experiencing isolation, depression, anxiety, and distress," the lawsuit states.

Similar measures have been pushed in other states, but the Alabama legislation is the first to lay out criminal penalties for doctors.

In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate as abuse reports of gender-confirming care for kids. And a law in Arkansas bans gender-affirming medications. That law has been blocked by a court, however.

Ivey also signed a separate measure that requires students to use bathrooms that align with their original birth certificate and prohibits instruction of gender and sexual identity in kindergarten through fifth grades.

Kim Chandler , The Associated Press

GIVES LIE TO CFIB CONTRARY ARGUMENT

Raising Ontario's Minimum Wage Was Followed By Rising Employment In The Past & Here's Why

Just as the Ford government announced its plans to increase Ontario's minimum wage in the fall, a recent study has found that more people have been employed after minimum wage increases.


NARCITY
Canada - Toronto Team - Apr 6

On April 5, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a non-partisan research institute, shared its findings of what happened when Ontario bumped up its minimum wage back in 2018.

According to the report, more people became employed across all industries with lower-than-average wages, with the exception of manufacturing and agriculture.

Funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the study noted a 1.7% increase in employment in 2018 and a rise of 2.8% in 2019, contrary to predictions that raising the minimum wage would be a "job-killer."

"When the $14-per-hour minimum wage was implemented in 2018, business lobbyists made dire predictions that it would lead to massive job losses. That simply didn't happen," CCPA said in the study.

They even found that it reduced the racialized wage gap, especially for women.

"The results are clear: raising the floor benefited all workers and reduced the racialized wage gap—especially for Black women—without lowering employment levels," said Grace-Edward Galabuzi, coauthor of the study and associate professor of politics and public administration at X University in Toronto.

And it's not just teens who stood to gain from higher salaries, the study noted.

"Seventy per cent of minimum-wage workers benefiting from a raise were adults, contradicting the notion that these workers are mostly teenagers at the start of their working lives," CCPA said.

"There was a sharp increase in the share of minimum-wage workers 25 years of age or older between 2017 and 2018, from 41 per cent to 50 per cent. This illustrates the large number of these adult workers just above the minimum wage who benefited from this increase."

The Ford government is looking to raise Ontario's minimum wage to $15.50 an hour, which is scheduled to kick in on October 1. This follows the recent increase to $15 per hour in January.

Pieces of former Brandon residential school left in Rome

The Canadian Press

A Peguis First Nation member honoured the legacy of her grandmother by placing rubble from the former Brandon Indian Residential School in St. Peter's Square after witnessing the Papal apology in Rome.

As part of her journey to Italy and back, documentary filmmaker Jade Harper brought rubble from the residential school to lay at the foot of the Vatican.

"The apology is a moment," Harper said. "A moment that brought some of us to tears, some filled with joy and relief and others with anger and grief. We must keep talking. We must keep singing and dancing. We must forge ahead and continue to reclaim our relations, our space and cultivate joy on the very lands that nourish us."

Harper departed from Treaty 1 Territory North of Winnipeg for Italy on March 24 and returned to Manitoba on April 4. She was part of a crew of three filming the experience of residential school survivors in Italy on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations.

It was a long and winding road bringing the rubble to Italy, as Harper had been holding on to the school bricks for seven years. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission came to an end in 2015, Harper decided she needed to visit the former Brandon Indian Residential School.

Her grandmother, Ruth Ratt, was forced to attend the facility from the age of five to 15 and perpetually attempted to escape too many times to count.

"Her experience, like many survivors, was awful. It was abusive," Harper said. "Going there was a way for me to acknowledge her experience. It felt empty … I tried to grasp the feeling as much as it felt just really lonely."

It’s believed there are 104 graves at the former Brandon Indian Residential School.

Harper offered tobacco, sang a song and conducted ceremony at the site. Before leaving, she was compelled to take rubble from the walls of the school.

The trip to the site ended up leading to more questions and feelings, Harper said. For the past seven years, she has been navigating her family history and the lasting impacts of colonialism that continues to impact modern-day life.

"Intergenerational trauma amongst our families is something we are still navigating."

When she returned home, Harper placed the pieces of rubble in a cloth bag with medicine: tobacco, sage, cedar and sweetgrass — tucking it away for safekeeping.

It felt like a reclamation being able to practise her culture when residential schools had attempted to strip it away from her ancestors, she said.

The rubble remained untouched, waiting for the right moment to be unveiled.

"A part of me felt a little bit afraid of it," Harper said. "Those walls have seen so much and so I wanted to protect myself from that. I wanted to wrap those pieces in medicine. It was cleansing and healing."

As she was packing for her trip to Italy, Harper decided she had to bring the pieces of rubble with her.

She was unsure where she would place the bricks at first, but she found a fountain in St. Peter’s Square on her last day in Italy.

"Water is our medicine and it’s very sacred," Harper said. "Women, our responsibility is the water and so I felt it was important to take those pieces with a piece of sweetgrass and my tobacco tie and take it to the fountain."

Placing the pieces helped her "feel still" in her heart, as she set down the tobacco and bricks and prayed for children, relatives struggling with the trauma, First Nation communities and others traumatized by residential schools.

"Everyone was bringing gifts for the Pope and I didn’t have any gifts because I didn’t feel it was necessary to be gifting anything," Harper said. "I was there because I wanted to help amplify the voices of residential school survivors and I felt like I was returning something that never belonged to us in the first place."

Harper attended the private audience with the Pope and was able to witness the apology in person holding her phone open with a photo of her grandmother.

The Canadian Press reported Pope Francis made a historic apology to Indigenous peoples for the "deplorable" abuses they suffered in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools and said he hoped to visit Canada in late July to deliver the apology in person to survivors of the church’s misguided missionary zeal.

Pope Francis begged forgiveness during an audience with dozens of members of the Métis, Inuit and First Nations communities who came to Rome seeking a papal apology and a commitment from the Catholic Church to repair the damage.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children in Canada were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s to isolate them from the influence of their homes and culture. The aim was to Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior, reported The Canadian Press.

The Catholic Church ran many of the Indian residential schools across Canada, including the Brandon facility from 1969 to ‘72. Nearly three-quarters of Canada’s 130 residential schools were run by Catholic missionary congregations.

The papal apology marked a significant historical moment, Harper said, that was only made possible by the courage of survivors who survived Canada’s attempted genocide of Indigenous people, cultures and traditions.

The apology can serve as a launchpad to talk about colonial history and the lasting impacts these actions continue to have on Indigenous communities. As these issues are understood, communities can work towards a healing path.

"Every apology has to have action. They have to take responsibility and those steps need to happen," Harper said. "I think it was important the Catholic Church around the world has seen their leadership [apologize] and acknowledge those harms."

» ckemp@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press

» Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp

Chelsea Kemp, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Brandon Sun

KANADA

Uptake slow on governance agreement but not unexpected, says grand council chief

Twenty-seven years of negotiations have resulted in five of 39 Anishinabek Nations signing a governance agreement with the federal government.

The first ratification votes for the Anishinabek Nations Governance Agreement (ANGA) got underway in February 2020 with 14 Nations taking part.

Of the five Nations that signed the agreement with Canada on April 6 —Moose Deer Point, Wahnapitae, Nipissing, Magnetawan and Zhiibaahaasing—only Moose Deer Point and Wahnapitae ratified the agreement with a first vote in February 2020.

Neither Nipissing nor Magnetawan met the voter threshold for that first vote, although those who did vote were in favour. The voter threshold is 25 per cent of eligible voters plus one. In February 2021, with no threshold required, a straight majority vote for both Nations ratified the ANGA.

Zhiibaahaasing held its vote mid-November to mid-December 2020 and ratified the ANGA the first time around.

Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Reg Nigonabe says he’s not surprised the uptake has been slow.

“Considering what the agreement gets into and the issues around the agreement in terms of the four pillars that it takes over from the Indian Act, we always find that there’s always hesitation,” he said.

The ANGA gives Nations the right to make their own decisions and laws about leadership selection, citizenship, government operations, as well as how best to protect and promote Anishinaabe language and culture.

Voting has also been impacted by “outside influences that have made an issue” of the ANGA, said Nigonabe.

The Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous think-tank out of Ryerson University, has been critical of the ANGA.

Right after the April 6 signings, Hayden King, executive director of the institute, tweeted that the ANGA “formalizes INAC’s custom code process as ‘self-government’ and sets a bad precedent for everyone else.”

In a written review before the February 2020 vote, King said “The self-government provisions are limited to what already exists in federal policy and the resources to implement self-government are few.”

Damien Lee, also of the Yellowhead Institute, was asked by a Fort Williams First Nation Elder to review the ANGA. He said the agreement was for self-government and not self-determination and “‘domesticates’ Anishinaabe sovereignty.”

“I think there’s always more power to be gained especially when you’re a First Nation,” said Nigonabe. “This governance agreement isn’t meant to be a final stopping place for these First Nations.”

He says Nations can develop other agreements or pursue other endeavours within the ANGA framework or change the ANGA.

He also points out that the ANGA opens a direct line of communication between these five Nations and Ottawa.

“(They) also have a relationship with the federal government. They have an implementation table and they have a ministers’ table to do that with the Canadian government now,” said Nigonabe.

The ANGA comes with government funding of a minimum $1.7 million in addition to a one-time implementation amount of $548,000.

This is not the first agreement with the federal government that has been put to member Anishinabek Nations in the past few years. In 2018, 23 Anishinabek Nations signed on to an education agreement and in 2021, 22 Nations signed on to the Child Well-Being Law.

“I think those ones were a little bit more of a high priority issue…There’s a lot of questions around elections and citizenship and management of operations. Those are big issues that people don’t want to rush into and I can totally understand that…until they’re ready. These First Nations found they were and they moved ahead on it,” said Nigonabe. “It’s exciting and an excellent opportunity for those five.”

There are three other Anishinabek Nations in the process of taking steps to ratify the agreement.

The Nations that have ratified the ANGA now need to pass their own laws to create their own governance system. However, says Nigonabe, those laws do not have to be in place before the ANGA comes into force.

It is expected that the federal government will pass legislation to bring the ANGA into effect no later than October.

The ANGA is the first self-government agreement of its kind in Ontario. Negotiations between Canada and the Ontario Union of Indians/Anishinabek Nations began in 1995 and led to an agreement-in-principle in 2007. That agreement was finalized in 2019.

Windspeaker.com

By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com

Shipping companies in the Black Sea are reportedly facing war-risk premiums as high as $5 million

gkay@insider.com (Grace Kay) -

© Provided by Business Insider

Merchant ships are targeted by Russian military. 

Vadim Ghirda/AP

Insurance companies are tacking on war-risk premiums, Bloomberg reports.

Vessels that travel the Black Sea face an elevated risk of damage from missiles and mines.

An insurer told Bloomberg the war-risk premiums could make prices unsustainable for customers.

War-risk premiums for cargo ships and tankers traveling the Black Sea have made the vessels nearly un-insurable and threaten to send prices even higher.

Insurance companies are tacking on premiums worth as much as 10% of a vessel's value for ships that traverse the Black Sea, according to a recent report from Bloomberg. The publication cited four people involved in the market, who said some underwriters are providing elevated prices in the hopes they are refused, while other insurers have left the market entirely.

Russia's attack on Ukraine has heavily impacted cargo ships that travel the Black Sea — a key route for oil and bulk food exports. Last month, a supply-chain expert told The New York Times the war could triple ocean-shipping rates at a time when the global supply chain is still reeling from the pandemic.

One of the insurers, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Bloomberg that the freight prices will be unsustainable for customers. Experts have previously told Insider that additional transportation costs will likely be passed on to customers. The conflict could send gas and food prices higher at a time when inflation in the US is near a four-decade high.


Related video: Nearly half of seafarers are directly affected by Ukraine war, says the International Chamber of Shipping (CNBC)

Before Russia's attack on Ukraine, there was almost no additional cost for ships in the Black Sea. But, now Bloomberg reports that the additional insurance cost would amount to about $5 million for a standard tanker worth about $50 million — 30% higher than the cost of hiring the ocean carrier itself.


Vessels traversing the Black Sea face an elevated risk of damage through striking a mine or becoming subject to a missile attack. When Russia first began invading Ukraine, multiple ships were struck by explosives and there were reports of Russia using some of the vessels as a "human shield." The ships could also become detained in the area, forcing the shipping companies to declare the cargo at a loss.

While shipping companies could choose to go without insurance, the decision could lead to significant risks for costs associated with oil leaks, cargo loss, and crew liability — all issues that could cause shipping company's costs to skyrocket.

Eytan Buchman, the chief marketing officer at Freightos, told Insider that ocean carriers are facing elevated prices from all sides as surging fuel prices are also adding to shipping costs.

"It's a ripple effect. In supply chains as a whole there's very little room for failure. All you need is one screw missing, one hiccup, and you have a problem," Buchman said. "Here we have a situation where logistics companies are facing multiple problems at once," he added.

Read the full report on rising insurance costs on Bloomberg's website.

Mines can become "huge carbon sinks," UBC researchers say

Isabella O'Malley, M.Env.Sc - 
The Weather Network

There is no shortage of environmental impacts associated with the mining industry, with some of the top concerns being the contamination of the soil, water, and air. Mining processes also release significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, which raises questions about how this industry will expand global operations while improving its sustainability.

ased March 2022, announced an ambitious roadmap for slashing carbon emissions over the coming years. “Powering the economy with renewable electricity” and a target of 100 per cent of new car sales being zero-emission vehicles by 2035 are some of the strategies the government will use to achieve their goal.

Researchers say that the steps needed to achieve such ambitious goals will put significantly more demand on mines, particularly those that produce the metals and rare earth minerals needed for products to achieve net-zero economies, such as solar panels and electric vehicles.

In fact, a study published in Nature reported that “the global area influenced by mining will almost certainly grow in extent and density in future, and the increased demand for renewable energy technologies and infrastructure will likely be one contributing factor.”

So, how can the mining industry reduce greenhouse gas emissions as demand soars?

A company founded by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) proposes one potential solution. Carbin Minerals, founded by Dr. Greg Dipple, Bethany Ladd, and Dr. Peter Scheuermann, is a carbon-capture company that partners with mines and uses their technology to turn tailings ponds into “huge carbon sinks.”

“So this technology is one where we're taking the waste from mine. So the tailings, which is the finely ground up rock that's leftover and the metals are removed. The waste minerals in the tailings are naturally reactive to the carbon dioxide in the air, but normally they would react very slowly. We have processes we use to enhance its reactivity,” Dipple explained to The Weather Network.

“When this material is exposed to the atmosphere, it naturally absorbs carbon dioxide in the air, and it turns that carbon dioxide into minerals. So it's essentially taking carbon dioxide and putting it into rock.”


Sampling carbonated tailings at Diavik Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories. (Gregory Dipple)

Carbin Minerals’ technology churns up the tailings to enhance their surface area, which is an action that will eventually be done by robots due to the health hazards that tailings ponds can present. This carbon capture process continues during the mine’s lifetime and then the rock storing the captured carbon remains buried in the ground when the mine closes.

Part of Carbin Minerals’ motivation for working with mines is the role that they will play in decarbonizing both Canada’s economy and the international supply chain.

“We are working with mines that generate critical metals or battery metals — that's an area where mining has to expand if we're going to electrify our transportation sector. If we can make those mines carbon negative, then we've decarbonized the supply chain for the metals needed in electric cars.”

Dipple notes that their technology can also be used for generating carbon credits.

“At the same time, we have provided a carbon removal benefit that can be transacted on as well. So we're reducing the embodied carbon footprint of electrical vehicle transport, as well as generating carbon removal credits for other industries. So there's a lot of jurisdictional, federal, and other levels of interest in developing those capabilities, because there'll be areas of significant economic growth likely.”


Carbonated tailings from Clinton Creek Mine, Yukon. (Gregory Dipple)

Dipple says that Carbin Minerals is working with a number of mining sites, both in Canada and internationally, and has operated their research lab on three continents. Their work has captured the attention of several companies and e-commerce platform Shopify signed on to a partnership with Carbin Minerals to remove 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“It's great to have a made-in-Canada story where you've got Shopify, who's Canadian, working with an industry like the mining industry, which is very important for Canada as well.”

CONTAMINATION CONCERNS FROM TAILINGS PONDS REMAIN

While carbon capture is one area for improved sustainability in the mining industry, many concerns about the impacts of tailings ponds remain, particularly the disproportionate impacts that they have on Indigenous communities both in Canada and internationally.

For example, a 2020 report from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) stated over 785,000 litres of fluid had leaked out of Alberta’s tailings ponds into the environment in 2017.

The CEC report noted that concerns about tailings ponds leakage dated back to the early 1970s, which raised concerns about heavy metals and other toxins contaminating waterways that both humans and animals rely upon.

"The tailings ponds leaking is a huge concern to the Dene Nation … It has been 47 years of leakage, and leakage we don't know the residual results of," Dene National Chief Norman Yakeleya had stated in a CEC press conference, as reported by CBC News.


Crude oil seen separated from sand for collection. Tailings ponds are used to separate the heavy oil bitumen from the sticky sand mined from around the area. Near Fort McMurray, Alberta. (dan prat/ E+/ Getty Images)

According to Natural Resources Canada, “an estimated 501 agreements were signed between mining and exploration companies and Indigenous communities or governments” between 2000 to 2020.

Additionally, MiningWatch Canada, a watchdog of the mining industry, works with Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous communities that are impacted by industrial mining operations. One solution that this group has participated in is the Safety First Guidelines for Responsible Tailings Management, which is “a set of sixteen guidelines for the safer storage of mine waste” that was created through the work of over 142 stakeholders.

“The guidelines aim to protect communities, workers, and the environment from the risks posed by thousands of mine waste storage facilities, which are failing more frequently and with more severe outcomes,” MiningWatch Canada stated in their 2020 Annual Report.

Thumbnail credit: Ferenc Cegledi/ iStock/ Getty Images Plus

THE REALITY IS THAT CCS IS NOT GREEN NOR CLEAN IT IS GOING TO BE USED TO FRACK OLD DRY WELLS SUCH AS IN THE BAKAN SHIELD IN SASKATCHEWAN
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-myth-of-carbon-capture-and-storage.html

ALSO SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CCS

Unifor secretary-treasurer Lana Payne running for national president to replace Dias


The Canadian Press
Yesterday 

DEER LAKE, N.L. — Unifor's national secretary-treasurer has joined the race to replace Jerry Dias as head of Canada's largest private sector union.

Lana Payne announced her candidacy for national president today on Facebook.

She says she made the decision after being urged to run by many union members, following Dias's retirement after he allegedly accepted money from a supplier of COVID-19 rapid test kits he promoted to members.

Payne says the past months have been difficult but have given her a new sense of resolve about the union's future and "the kind of leadership we will need to redress the hurt, rebuild trust, and build the hope and confidence we will need to take on the many fights ahead."

Two other candidates have announced plans to run for the position: Dave Cassidy, Local 444 president at the Stellantis Windsor assembly plant, and Scott Doherty, executive assistant to the national president.

The new leader will be elected to a three-year term at Unifor's constitutional convention in August.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2022.

The Canadian Press

Watch 'Dead' Sunspot Explode, Launch Solar Material Towards Earth

Ed Browne - Yesterday
Newsweek
© NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/AIA, EVE, HMI science teams

A cloud of solar debris was hurled towards Earth on Monday, and a NASA spacecraft caught the moment on camera.

The video shows how a dark, s-shaped line appears on the sun's surface for a brief moment. It then explodes, throwing what appears to be a cloud of material towards the camera.

The s-shaped structure was described by SpaceWeather.com as the corpse of a "dead" sunspot called AR2987. Sunspots are dark areas in the sun's atmosphere that are associated with intense magnetic fields. They are dark because the magnetic fields surrounding them deflect heat away, leaving them cool at the center.

Sometimes these intense magnetic fields suddenly change their alignment, releasing huge amounts of energy and solar material from the region of the sunspot. These eruptions, like solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), are the sources of significant space weather events like geomagnetic storms on Earth.



The 's' or sigmoid shape of the sunspot seen in the NASA video is a phenomenon that has been seen before, occurring shortly before eruptions. According to a report from NASA researcher Alphonse Sterling in 2000, these sigmoid shapes are present in more than half of all CMEs. Sterling noted they could play an important role in space weather forecasting.

On Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center released a G2-class moderate-strength geomagnetic storm watch which noted that a cloud of material ejected from the sun's Region 2987—the solar eruption outlined above—will likely hit Earth on April 14.

G2-class storms are common and do not usually cause any issues. They may be associated with possible changes to the amount of drag experienced by satellites in Earth orbit, some radio fading at higher latitudes and the appearance of the Northern Lights in U.S. states like New York and Idaho. The highest class of geomagnetic storms, G5, are much more extreme and can cause entire power grid systems to go offline.

On Sunday a G3-class geomagnetic storm occurred, leading to shimmering auroras that were spotted by a passenger on a plane traveling over Alaska.

We can expect solar activity to increase in the coming years as the 11-year solar cycle is yet to reach its peak, which is measured by the number of observed sunspots. This number rises and falls over time.

The current solar cycle is predicted to reach its peak some time between 2025 and 2026, after which solar activity will begin to decrease until the solar minimum is reached by around 2035.

CRIMINAL CAPITALISM 

Washington Commanders might have engaged in 'unlawful' financial conduct, Congress alleges to FTC

Tom Schad, USA TODAY - Yesterday 

The House Oversight Committee announced Tuesday that it has reason to believe the Washington Commanders and owner Daniel Snyder might have withheld or concealed ticket revenue and related funds as part of "a troubling, long-running, and potentially unlawful pattern of financial conduct."

In a letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, the committee said that as part of its ongoing investigation into allegations of a toxic workplace culture within the Commanders' organization, it obtained evidence that the team might have underreported some of its ticket revenue to the NFL. A portion of ticket revenue is pooled among NFL teams as part of the league's revenue-sharing agreement.

The committee also informed the FTC, which investigates deceptive business practices, that the team might have intentionally withheld "approximately $5 million" in refundable ticket deposits that it owed to fans and corporations.

"This new information suggests that in addition to fostering a hostile workplace culture, Mr. Snyder also may have cheated the team’s fans and the NFL," Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

"While the focus of our investigation remains the Commanders’ toxic work environment, I hope the FTC will review this troubling financial conduct and determine whether further action is necessary. We must have accountability."

In response to a request for comment, Commanders spokesperson referred USA TODAY Sports to the statement it released in late March, in which it categorically denied "any suggestion of financial impropriety of any kind at any time."

"We adhere to strict internal processes that are consistent with industry and accounting standards, are audited annually by a globally respected independent auditing firm, and are also subject to regular audits by the NFL," the team said. "We continue to cooperate fully with the Committee’s work."

NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said the league is also cooperating and has turned over more than 210,000 pages of documents to the committee.

"The NFL has engaged former [Securities and Exchange Commission] chair Mary Jo White to review the serious matters raised by the committee," McCarthy said.

In its letter, which spans 19 pages and was first reported by The Washington Post, the House Oversight Committee details how it received information about the alleged financial misconduct from Jason Friedman, a former sales executive who spent 24 years with the Commanders.

Friedman told the committee that, among other things, the Commanders used "two sets of books" for financial accounting – one of which underreported ticket revenue to the NFL. He also provided emails to the committee between himself and other team executives in which they appear to discuss reallocating ticket revenue, which they termed "juice."

One email exchange appears to reference counting "juice" from a Washington home game as revenue from a college football game between Navy and Notre Dame.

"Even though we sold $811,800 worth of tickets, we reported that sale to the NFL at a total of $721,600, leaving $162,360 of juice, of money that would just go right into the owner’s pocket and didn’t have to be exposed to the NFL revenue sharing program," Friedman told the committee, according to an excerpt of his interview included in the letter.

Friedman also claimed the Commanders would "improperly convert certain unclaimed security deposits into revenue for the team to use for other purposes."

According to the letter, Friedman told the committee that the team would require some fans or businesses to pay a refundable security deposit for a lease on premium seats, then fail to refund that deposit when the lease expired. Those deposits would also be converted into "juice," Friedman claimed.

"(Many) of (the customers) forgot about it," he told the committee, according to an excerpt included in the letter.

"In many cases, with corporate accounts, the attention name on the account would change over time. So the person who entered into the lease and agreed to pay the security deposit would be different from the person who was managing the account when the lease expired ten years later, and the new point of contact wouldn’t know to ask for the security deposit."

Attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent Friedman, described the House Committee's letter as "damning" saying it shows that the Commanders' misconduct "goes well beyond the sexual harassment and abuse of employees already documented."

A spokesperson for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, meanwhile, dismissed the letter as a poor use of the committee's time, describing Friedman as a "disgruntled ex-employee who had limited access to the team's finances."

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.

NFL Spokesman Releases Statement On Washington Allegations

Hunter Hodies - Yesterday The Spun

The Washington Commanders are once again in a negative spotlight.

Earlier this week, the U.S. House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission which claimed that there was evidence that the Commanders engaged in unlawful financial conduct.

The team allegedly withheld $5 million in refundable deposits from season ticket holders.

An NFL spokesperson has released a statement on these allegations and has confirmed that the league continues to cooperate with the Oversight Committee.

“We continue to cooperate with the Oversight Committee and have provided more than 210,000 pages of documents,” the statement read. “The NFL has engaged former SEC chair Mary Jo White to review the serious matters raised by the committee.”



A couple of months ago, a new investigation was launched because the NFL wasn’t been transparent enough about the team’s workplace misconduct.

Right now, it’s unknown when the investigation will conclude. Things may get worse before they get better down in Washington.

The post NFL Spokesman Releases Statement On Washington Allegations appeared first on The Spun.