OUCH!
LILLEY: Poilievre shills conspiracy theories to sell memberships
Brian Lilley 
Toronto Sun

Candidate Pierre Poilievre makes a point at the Conservative Party of Canada English leadership debate in Edmonton Wednesday, May 11, 2022.

Stephen Harper wouldn’t be considered good enough for a cabinet position in a government led by Pierre Poilievre.

In his latest pitch for votes from the fringe, the Conservative leadership candidate said that he won’t accept ministers attending the annual summit of the World Economic Forum.

Of course, Poilievre’s campaign co-chair, John Baird should be fired since he attended and spoke for Canada at the WEF in 2014.

The World Economic Forum, founded 51 years ago by German academic Klaus Schwab, has held an annual summit drawing government and business leaders from around the world. Lately, though, it has become the focus of legitimate concerns over the influence it wields and the subject of several conspiracy theories.

Schwab’s call to have a “ Great Reset ” in the economy as part of the recovery from COVID-19 has been the focus for those who see the WEF as an organization with too much power. There are regular claims that the WEF controls governments, including Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, and fixes elections.

None of this is true, but it’s shared widely online, and it’s the people who buy into these conspiracy theories that Poilievre is trying to attract in his bid to win the leadership of the Conservative Party. He posted a video clip of one of his recent speeches where he said a Poilievre government wouldn’t allow participation at the annual summit.

“And that is why I have made it clear that my ministers in my government will be banned from participating in the World Economic Forum,” Poilievre said to great applause from the crowd.

“If you want to go to Davos, to that conference, make it a one-way ticket. But you can’t be part of our government and working for a policy agenda that is against the interests of our people.”


This video, and Poilievre’s new “policy” on the World Economic Forum, is nothing but garbage aimed at sucking in people who believe half-truths or outright lies.

When Stephen Harper or his ministers went to Davos, they weren’t working for a policy agenda that was against the people of Canada, they were selling Canada.

This is a conference attracting top business leaders, the kind of people who make investment decisions on where to locate plants and offices. Being there helps bring in new companies, new investment and new jobs to Canada.

“Canada’s rock-solid economic fundamentals make our country a top destination for global investors. At the WEF, we showed this to the world once again,” then-foreign affairs minister John Baird said after representing Canada at the WEF in 2014.

Was Baird working against the interests of Canada when he went?

The people Poilievre is pitching to with this message truly believe this shadowy organization has actual power in Canada and those who have attended have been indoctrinated by Schwab. I don’t think Stephen Harper was when he spoke to the forum about the need to control government debt, rein in spending and make decisions for future economic growth and prosperity.

In his 2012 address , Harper took his vision for where western democratic countries should be heading directly to those business and government leaders. Harper spoke of the investment climate his government was creating, the need to be able to export our energy to Asia and beyond, the need to reform social programs so that they were on a solid footing instead of following Europe’s path to fiscal instability.

Under a Poilievre government, Canada wouldn’t be selling itself on one of the most important stages in the world.

Poilievre is a smart man; he knows that what he’s saying on this file is nothing but gibberish. He doesn’t need to flirt with and encourage the acceptance of conspiracy theories to win the leadership, but that’s what he’s doing.

The Conservatives need a serious leader to challenge Trudeau and the Liberals. If Poilievre wants to be leader, he should smarten up and leave this garbage for the internet trolls.

Conservative Party member resigns membership over racist email

Richard Raycraft - 

A Conservative Party member who sent a racist email to the Patrick Brown leadership campaign has resigned his membership, ending the party's investigation into the matter.


© Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press

A man is silhouetted walking past a Conservative Party logo before the opening of the Party's national convention in Halifax on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018. The party has ended an investigation into a racist email because the sender resigned their party membership.

The former party member expressed support for Nazism and Adolf Hitler and made racist remarks about several ethnic groups in the email sent last week to the Brown campaign, after the campaign denounced the racist "white replacement" conspiracy theory in an email.

The party launched the investigation in response to a complaint the Brown campaign filed. It informed leadership campaigns Sunday night about the resignation, according to public affairs strategist Chisholm Pothier, who is working for the Brown campaign.

Michelle Rempel Garner, a Conservative MP and co-chair of Brown's campaign who first brought the email to public attention, welcomed the news on Twitter.

"Glad to see that person resign their membership as a result of the investigation. If there's one thing we all should agree on, it's that there's no home for racism in @CPC_HQ," she tweeted.

The email writer stated in the email that they support Pierre Poilievre, Brown's rival for the Conservative leadership.

Poilievre said in a statement after the email was made public that the member should lose their party membership, and that racism has no place in his campaign or the party.

Buffalo mass shooting exposes ‘blind spots’ over white terrorism: expert

Amanda Connolly - Yesterday 
Global News
© AP Photo/Joshua Bessex


The Buffalo supermarket mass shooting by an apparent white supremacist lays bare what one expert is calling the "blind spots" in how authorities treat white and far-right terrorism.

In an interview with The West Block's Mercedes Stephenson, Queen's University assistant professor Amarnath Amarasingam said researchers studying violent extremism, like him, are learning from the plethora of records the alleged shooter left behind on how he prepared for the deadly attack.

"I can guarantee you, if this was a young Muslim or a young person of colour walking around a grocery store, taking pictures and drawing out a map of what the inside of the grocery store looks like, it would have resulted in a lot more than a security guard kind of wagging his finger at him," Amarasingam said.

"I think some of our blind spots of what white terrorism looks like, what far-right terrorism looks like, it needs to be reassessed. And that's why I think the Buffalo attack is quite interesting or important for future counterterrorism."

Read more:

Canada must be ‘vigilant’ about race replacement conspiracy threat: minister

Amarasingam, who is one of the leading Canadian researchers on radicalization and violent extremism, described the records left behind by the attacker, now in police custody, as "quite unique."

They include not only a so-called manifesto outlining his professed reasons for attacking the supermarket and killing 13 people, the majority of them Black, but also roughly 700 pages worth of what Amarasingam described as a sort of "diary" of daily postings on the gaming platform Discord.

Those postings describe killing a cat, surveilling the Tops grocery store that the shooter allegedly later attacked, and his user account being flagged by Discord when he tried to upload the manifesto of the far-right extremist behind the deadly Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shootings.

Read more:

What is white replacement theory? Police probe conspiracy’s role in Buffalo shooting

Police in the U.S. have described the supermarket attack as "racially motivated" and it is now being investigated as a federal hate crime. The Associated Press reported the alleged shooter had spent time on websites propagating the "great replacement" or "white replacement" conspiracy theory. That's the baseless conspiracy theory that governments in countries where white people have held political and demographic power are deliberately trying to displace white people by bringing in non-white immigrants.

Read more:

Buffalo mass shooting was act of domestic terrorism, attorney for victim’s family says

Long relegated to the fringe corners of the internet, the conspiracy is spreading online and gaining mainstream attention as far-right figures on cable and social media platforms spread it to their audiences.

Amarasingam said the theory's new prominence comes amid "a current of this kind of populist anxiety or demographic panic around what increased immigration means."

And Canada is not immune, he noted, adding the Quebec City mosque attack and the attack on a Muslim family in London, Ont., were influenced by similar rhetoric. One of the prominent figures in the Ottawa blockade earlier this year, Pat King, had also posted similarly-themed content.

"So this idea that kind of far-right presence doesn't exist in Canada, I think is a result of willful blindness or at least amnesia," he said.

Read more:

Canada’s spy service boosts attention to ‘ideological’ domestic extremism

Race replacement theory is part of the spectrum of far-right conspiracies raising growing concern among police and national security agencies, prompting them to focus on the threat posed by ideologically motivated violent extremism.

The term, often shortened to IMVE, refers to a broad swath of anti-immigrant, anti-government, antisemitic, and anti-women extremist ideologies with overlapping and deep roots in white supremacy.

IMVE is a major concern for Canadian national security authorities.

Global News reported in March that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service now spends as much time monitoring domestic ideological extremism as it does the threat posed by religious terrorist groups like Daesh and al-Qaeda.

A United Airlines worker picked a fight with a CFL player and it did not go well

Arun Srinivasan

YAHOO SPORTS

MAY 23,2022

A wild video has emerged of Calgary Stampeders receiver and ex-NFLer Brendan Langley brawling it out with a United Airlines employee. (Photo via Twitter/DMNTnasa)

(Warning: Article contains video with violent subject matter)

Calgary Stampeders wide receiver Brendan Langley was arrested and charged with simple assault Thursday after getting into a fight with a United Airlines employee.

The employee slapped Langley in the face, prompting Langley to look around and ensure that everyone saw that he wasn’t the instigator, before landing several punches that sent the employee over the airline counter. The employee then got up, with the right side of his face bloodied, and tried to engage Langley to fight him once again.

It's certainly a good thing for the airline worker that Langley decided not to re-engage. This was a beat down.

The airline employee was not arrested for his role in the scrap.

"He works at the airport and he assaulted me," Langley said.

The conflict reportedly started when Langley tried to transport his luggage by using a wheelchair, instead of the designated luggage carts.

Langley was a third-round pick of the Denver Broncos in 2017 but played sparingly, primarily on special teams. During his tenure with the Broncos, Langley was involved in the second of two infamous brawls between Aqib Talib and Michael Crabtree in a November 2017 game between the Broncos and then-Oakland Raiders.

The 27-year-old, who was initially drafted as a cornerback, converted to wide receiver and signed with the Stampeders in February.

Passenger’s punch knocks United Airlines worker through the counter, NJ video shows

Screengrab via @tigermelons on Twitter


Julia Marnin
Mon, May 23, 2022

In this article:

Brendan Langley
|WR|#13

A passenger’s powerful punch knocked a United Airlines worker through the ticket counter and bloodied his face at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey during a dispute, video shows.

“You want some more? He wants more,” the passenger is heard shouting after the worker gets up during the nearly minute-long clip shared to Twitter capturing the pair fighting. It is unclear what the brawl was about.

The ticketed passenger, identified as Brendan Langley, 27, of Georgia, was arrested after the May 19 incident resulted in the United Airlines customer service representative getting sent to the hospital, a Port Authority media representative confirmed to McClatchy News in a statement. Port Authority oversees transportation in New Jersey and New York.

Beforehand, a verbal argument occurred, and “during the dispute, a scuffle ensued, and the ticketed male passenger punched the United rep. in the face causing a laceration above his left eye,” the statement said.

Langley, who is a professional football player and wide receiver for the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders, was charged with simple assault, according to the Port Authority spokesperson.

The video clip begins with the fight already in motion with both men appearing to exchange slaps in the face. Then, Langley is seen repeatedly punching the worker’s face as the employee puts his fists up in apparent defense.

Ultimately, one of Langley’s punches sends the worker flying over the counter, causing his head to bleed, and he is seen hitting the ground, the video shows. After the worker gets back up, the clip ends with Langley appearing to walk away.

“United Airlines does not tolerate violence of any kind at our airports or on board our planes and we are working with local authorities in their investigation of this matter,” an airline spokesperson said in a statement provided to McClatchy News.

The employee has since been fired, the spokesperson said.

The Newark airport is roughly 13 miles west of New York City

Huawei ban won't solve the problem of Chinese spying on Canada, experts say

Anja Karadeglija - Saturday

© Provided by National Post“Just a simple ban on Huawei isn't going to fix (Canada's security vulnerabilities). China doesn’t need Huawei to spy on us.”

OTTAWA — Banning the use of equipment from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE in Canada’s 4G and 5G infrastructure will help make the country somewhat safer — but in no way solve the problem of potential espionage, security experts say.

The fact is that all telecommunications equipment has security vulnerabilities, says Stephanie Carvin, an associate professor of international relations at Carleton University.

“And just a simple ban on Huawei isn’t going to fix that. China doesn’t need Huawei to spy on us.”

On Thursday, the Liberal government announced that companies would have to strip Huawei and ZTE equipment from 5G networks by 2024 and 4G networks by 2027. Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne told reporters that Canadian telecoms won’t be “permitted to include in their networks products or services that put our national security at risk.” He said the ban would “make our network safer, not only for now but for generations to come.”

Christopher Parsons, a senior researcher at University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, said the security benefits will have more to do with geo-political interests than cybersecurity. If Canada had continued using Huawei and ZTE equipment and they became dominant, that would have given the Chinese government leverage over Canada, he said.

But on the cybersecurity front, the Chinese government “will continue to be very effective in engaging in espionage and other operations against the government of Canada and other countries, regardless of the telecommunications network equipment they use,” Parsons said.

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, said she’d hoped the government would go as far as the U.S. and outright ban all of the company’s products, such as consumer items like cellphones.
Canada to ban Huawei from country's 5G, 4G networks, in line with Five Eyes allies
Terry Glavin: There’s no Huawei ‘ban’ until we get it in writing

Canadians who are wondering about their Huawei cellphone in the wake of Thursday’s decision should consider whether they’re likely to be targeted, Parsons said.

“If you’re a CSIS officer, probably not the best of ideas” to have a Huawei phone, he said. But if you’re someone with a regular job “and life in Canada, you’re probably not at any substantive risk.”

What Canada needs is a wider strategy to address cybersecurity issues, both Parsons and Carvin said.

“We need a strategy to better understand what Canada wants to do from a cybersecurity perspective,” and that strategy needs to intersect with Canada’s foreign policy goals, including our policy toward China, and an industrial strategy, Parsons said.

Parsons said Canada also needs a “way of doing a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the different equipment in our critical infrastructure,” such as telecom and banking.

In addition to announcing the ban Thursday, the government said it will introduce a legislative framework for protecting critical infrastructure in the finance, energy, telecom and transport sectors.

“We can’t just ban our way” into better cybersecurity, Carvin said. She said it appears that the government “is going to take this more comprehensive approach overall, and that’s good.”

But, she cautioned, Canada is going to have to act much more quickly in the future, instead of taking years to issue a decision like it did with Huawei.

Canada was the last of the Five Eyes alliance — which consists of Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand — to ban the equipment.

The federal Liberals first announced a security review of Huawei equipment in September 2018. For much of that time, a key factor in the delay was China’s use of hostage diplomacy, as China held two Canadians in prison in retaliation for Canada arresting Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on behalf of the U.S. The two Michaels were released in September 2021.

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said in a statement China “expresses its grave concerns and strong dissatisfaction” with the decision. The statement accused Canada of “acting in collusion with the United States to suppress Chinese enterprises” and called “Canada’s so-called security concerns… nothing but a cover for political manipulation.”

China could retaliate in a number of ways, experts said. For its part, the embassy warned that “China will evaluate this development in a comprehensive and serious manner and take all necessary measures to protect the legitimate and legal rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.”

Carvin said the worst-case scenario and “something I really would hope would not be the case, would be retaliation against Canadian citizens in particular.”

Fen Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University, said it’s hard to say whether China will react immediately or wait to respond.

In addition to angry words and a potential “dressing down” to our diplomats in Beijing, China could take further trade actions, Hampson said.

He said when it comes to commercial ties with China, Canada has an imbalance of trade. “We buy a lot more from them than we sell to them. The selling job just got a lot harder,” he said.

The decision won’t be a “death knell” for Canada’s relationship with China, Hampson said, but a continuation of the trajectory that was on a downward slope.

“At the end of the day, we’re not going to see big dividends in trade and economic ties with China, and I think a lot of Canadian companies are understandably very wary now of doing business in China because of the fear that their corporate representatives could find themselves in jail.”

Church of Scotland general assembly votes to allow same-sex marriages


Severin Carrell 

Scotland editor -
The Guardian


The Church of Scotland has voted to allow same-sex marriages, after fresh warnings that its historical opposition had increased the church’s decline towards irrelevance.

The church’s general assembly, its decision-making body, voted by 274 to 136 on Monday to allow its ministers and deacons to opt in to officiate at same-sex weddings, ending a centuries-old prohibition.

The church’s legislation will be updated to remove references to a marriage taking place between a husband and wife, and refer instead to “parties”.

Some ministers said within minutes of the vote that they had immediately applied to be registered to carry out same-sex weddings, including the Rev James Bissett, a chaplain to the Royal Air Force’s air cadets.

The move was also welcomed by equalities campaigners and other church groups. The Scottish Churches Trust said the first weddings would take place soon.

The vote makes the Church of Scotland the largest church in the UK to allow gay marriages, increasing the split within the Protestant faith. It has already allowed gay ministers to marry.

Faced with the threat of a global revolt within the Anglican communion, the Church of England has consistently refused to approve same-sex marriages.

In 2017 the Scottish Episcopal church, which is Anglican, voted at its synod to approve same-sex marriages, becoming the first in Scotland to do so. The Church of Wales has indicated it may follow suit in several years’ time. Methodists, Quakers and the United Reform church already conduct ceremonies.

The measure had already been supported in an indicative vote by Church of Scotland presbyteries, which are its local governing bodies, but critics warned it could increase its internal rifts and leave the church open to legal action.

Related: Gay minister's appointment divides Church of Scotland

The Rev Scott Rennie, a minister at the centre of a bitter and protracted dispute in the church over the employment of openly gay clergy 13 years ago, told the general assembly he was heartened that despite the fear and uncertainty surrounding the proposal, it now had majority support.

“Marriage is a wonderful thing,” Rennie said. “My marriage to my husband, Dave, nurtures my life and my ministry, and frankly I do not think I could be a minister of this church without his love and support. It is always there in the background. Same-sex marriage is like opposite-sex marriage and it has its joys and sorrows, its glories and its tensions. It’s pretty normal, really.”

Another speaker, Craig Dobney, told the general assembly that its past opposition to gay marriages had alienated people: a primary school near his church had stopped using it after the church refused to appoint a gay minister. “I worry that our churches have become irrelevant to our communities,” he said.

There were warnings from opponents that the measure could expose ministers who opposed it to pressure and ostracism from equalities activists. Some are expected to call for stronger protection for traditionalists in church legislation at the general assembly on Wednesday.

The Rev Alistair Cook said he opposed the measure and would continue to refer to marriages taking place between a man and a woman. He said it was disingenuous to suggest this was a matter for individual ministers; this was church policy. “That is a deep theological change for the church,” he said.

The Rev Ben Thorp, another critic, said there would be continuing tensions for ministers and presbyteries, since more than a third of presbyteries had voted against it. Churches that refuse to participate risk being targeted by groups supportive of same-sex marriage, he said.

“It won’t be the end of the journey,” he said. “It won’t stop the decline of the church. It won’t make us suddenly more attractive to younger people. We will continue to be divided.”

The general assembly’s vote comes against a background of steeping declining numbers of church marriages in Scotland and a sharp fall in religious observance.

Swiss Re, UBS among founding buyers in carbon removal scheme

: Logo of Swiss bank UBS is seen in Zurich

Sun, May 22, 2022
By Susanna Twidale

LONDON (Reuters) - Insurance firm Swiss Re and banking giant UBS are among five founding buyers of credits from a scheme set up by a Swiss company to drive down the cost of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Even with pledges of huge reductions in emissions, many scientists believe extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by planting forests and using technology will be essential to meet global goals set under the Paris climate agreement to curb climate change.

Swiss carbon project developer South Pole's NextGen facility has committed to buying 1 million carbon removal credits from a range of projects by 2025 to help provide them with secure revenue streams and drive down the cost of the technologies.

“With this we can start moving these technologies down the cost curve, ideally the price levels you see today will come down in a similar way to what we have seen with solar PV,” South Pole CEO Renat Heuberger told Reuters in an interview.

The cost of solar PV modules for renewable solar power have fallen by around 90% since the end of 2009, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, as the technology and supply chains developed.

Current carbon removal technology costs can range from around $50 to $400 a ton, depending on the type of project.

Founding buyers in NextGen will include Boston Consulting Group, private banking firm LGT, shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL), Swiss Re and UBS, South Pole said, without specifying how many credits each company had committed to, or at what price.

Many companies have set emissions reduction targets that will require them to purchase carbon offset or removal credits to compensate for emissions they are unable to cut themselves.

“This effort is a part of MOL’s broader goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050,” Takeshi Hashimoto, President & CEO of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd said in a statement.

(Reporting by Susanna Twidale; Editing by Mark Potter)

EXPLAINER: What are the key climate themes at Davos?



People walk in front of the congress center where the World Economic Forum take will place, on the eve of the event in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2022. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from May. 22 until May. 26, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

PETER PRENGAMAN
Sun, May 22, 2022

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — While the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine will be focuses of the World Economic Forum’s gathering of business and government leaders, so too will climate change. It's captured the world’s attention in unignorable and devastating ways.

The acceleration of rising temperatures, the ferocity and costliness of major weather events, and the impact, particularly on people in developing countries, have pushed the issue from one of science to something that touches every aspect of life, including (or, perhaps especially) business and economics.

Of the roughly 270 panels Monday through Thursday, one-third are about climate change or its direct effects. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate and Alok Sharma, president of last year's international climate conference COP26, are among the climate leaders expected in the Swiss resort town of Davos.

At the forum’s first in-person gathering in two years, the climate panels are as varied as the issue. They range from combating “eco-anxiety" to helping debt-ridden countries finance a renewable transition. Here's a look at some broader themes that are likely to emerge:

ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, GOVERNANCE

Several panels will wrestle with an approach to investing that considers the environment and other key factors. Known by the acronym ESG, it's become a force, with trillions of dollars invested in companies that meet certain criteria.

When it comes to climate change, ESG can be important. For individual investors all the way up to firms and government agencies that analyze how companies operate, disclosures and public declarations are paramount. They can be the basis of evaluating a company’s emissions, environmental impact and financial risks tied to climate change.

They are also controversial and raise questions: Should certain declarations be mandatory? Should they be standardized and regulated, and by whom? Or has the ESG movement already gone too far, ultimately hindering investment and doing little to rein in greenhouse gas emissions?

Viewpoints sometimes fall along political lines. In the U.S., many Republicans call them “woke,” while many on the left, particularly environmentalists and campaigners, argue that ramping up reporting and transparency could lead to real change.

Many managers of some of the world’s largest mutual funds have argued ESG is essential to evaluate risk. Just last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the approach had “been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”

ENERGY TRANSITION AND ‘NET ZERO'

The world’s top climate scientists have warned that significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions this decade is necessary to minimize warming and avoid the most devastating effects to the planet. That will require major changes in how business is done, from the way products are produced to how they are transported.

Several panels will look at areas where businesses have successfully transitioned much of their energy portfolio to renewables, the role of finance and government to incentivize or mandate changes, and strategies to keep businesses accountable. Despite heightened consciousness and pledges by businesses, emissions are going up worldwide.

“Moving climate debate from ambition to delivery” is a title of one panel that sums up the enormous challenge.

Sessions will look at sectors, like decarbonizing shipping and aviation, renewable transition plans and the challenges of achieving them in countries like China and India. There will be discussion of strategies to ensure major shifts are inclusive and consider people in historically marginalized countries, which are feeling some of the most intense effects of climate change.

An important current through all the discussions will be identifying what “net zero” is — and isn’t — when looking at pledges from companies and countries. Moving away from fossil fuels like coal and oil to renewables like solar and wind can reduce emissions and get a company closer to goals of taking an equal amount of emissions out of the atmosphere as it puts in.

But a transition to renewables often makes up only a small part of company plans. Many rely on balancing their carbon footprint by investing in forest restoration or other projects. While better than nothing, experts note that depending on carbon offsets doesn’t represent a shift in business practices.

WAR IN UKRAINE AND THE FUTURE OF ENERGY

Russia's war in Ukraine will loom large at the conference. When it comes to climate change, the conflict raises two central questions: How should countries respond to energy shocks from reducing or being cut off from Russian oil and gas? And will the war hasten the transition to renewable energies or help fossil fuel companies maintain the status quo?

Since the war began, there has been no shortage of businesses, environmentalists and political leaders trying to influence the answers to those questions, which will carry over to Davos.

“Energy Security and the European Green Deal” is one panel where participants are expected to argue that the way forward is away from fossil fuels. But European countries, some of which are heavily reliant on Russia for energy, also are scrambling to find other sources of natural gas and oil to meet short-term needs.

While no sessions explicitly make the case for a doubling down on reliance on fossil fuels or expanding extraction or exploration, if the last few months are any guide, those points of view will certainly be present.

___

Peter Prengaman is the Associated Press' global climate and environmental news director. Follow him here: http://twitter.com/peterprengaman

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Explosive Tonga volcano 'surprisingly intact'


Jonathan Amos -

 BBC Science Correspondent
Sun, May 22, 2022, 


Seabed change

The Tonga underwater volcano that produced a spectacular eruption in January remains astonishingly intact.

A New Zealand-led team has just finished mapping the flanks of the seamount, which many people thought might have been torn apart in the ferocity of the event.

But structurally, Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai hasn't changed that much.

The Tonga eruption produced the biggest atmospheric explosion recorded on Earth in more than a century.

It generated tsunamis across the Pacific and in other ocean basins around the world. It even lifted the clouds over the UK, 16,500km away. Mercifully, only a handful of people lost their lives in the kingdom of Tonga.
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New Zealand's National Institute for Water and Atmospheric (NIWA) Research has now managed to get in close with a ship to map the post-eruption shape of Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai (HTHH) and of the surrounding seafloor.

Professor snorkels over Tonga volcano


Tonga eruption was 'record atmospheric explosion'


Robot boat to map Tonga volcano aftermath

Although there's clearly been a lot of ash deposition and movement of sediment, the volcano continues to stand tall.

The expedition leader, NIWA marine geologist Kevin Mackay, said he was taken aback by what he'd seen in the Research Vessel (RV) Tangaroa's sonar data.

"Given the violence of the eruption on 15 January, I'd expected the edifice to either have collapsed or been blown apart, and this is not the case," he explained.

"While the volcano appeared intact, the seafloor showed some dramatic effects of the eruption. There is fine sandy mud and deep ash ripples as far as 50km away from the volcano, with gouged valleys and huge piles of sediment."

The Tangaroa in front of the two parts of the caldera rim that sit above the ocean surface

From its 22,000-sq-km survey, the Tangaroa team calculates that about 6 to 7 cubic km of material have been added to the seafloor.

This is ash and rock that was initially ejected by the volcano into the air but which then fell back down into the water and descended the flanks of the submarine mountain to run out over the ocean bottom.

These density, or pyroclastic, flows were the major factor in generating the tsunami waves that inundated local islands, Mr Mackay told BBC News.

The volcano and surrounding seafloor was last mapped in 2016

The 1.8km-high HTHH was last surveyed in 2016. Combining the previous data with Tangaroa's new information has allowed scientists to make a "difference map".

The deposition of all the new material is marked in red (see top image). Blue indicates where material has been lost. This is mostly from around the neck of the volcano. The researchers say 2 to 3 cubic km has come away from the upper portions of HTHH.

In addition to the sonar survey, the Tangaroa's crew also studied the local ocean ecosystem.

On seamounts to the south of HTHH, sealife continues to flourish

Unsurprisingly, the flanks of the volcano are now devoid of biology, but the team only had to travel about 15km to find fish and mussels thriving on other seamounts.

"Both of these examples imply a resilience of animal populations in the region," said NIWA fisheries expert Dr Malcolm Clark. "And this is important because it can give insights into how the eruption can affect the surrounding sealife and what the possible chances of recovery might be."

The researchers also tested the water column for physical and chemical characteristics, including temperature, nutrients and oxygen concentration. In places, the ash-fall has had a fertilisation effect and triggered plankton blooms. But the flip side is that researchers could identify, too, zones where oxygen in the water has become depleted.

The team took thousands of pictures and collected hundreds of samples during the cruise, including 115 sediment cores and 250kg of rock, some of which was newly formed in the eruption.

The RV Tangaroa did not survey directly over Hunga-Tonga's opening, or caldera.

This will be left to a robot boat developed by the UK company Sea-Kit International. The 12m uncrewed surface vessel, called Maxlimer, is currently in Singapore en route to Tongatapu, the main island in the Tongan archipelago.

Because the boat can be controlled at a distance, it will be permitted to operate for extended periods over the caldera. The caution is warranted because the volcano appears still to be active.

NIWA marine ecologist Dr Sarah Seabrook said this was evident from a persistent ash layer near the volcano at a depth of about 200m.

"Our initial analyses on the origin of the ash layer suggest that it is not a remnant of the January eruption, but may instead show the volcano is still venting. That is, it's actively releasing volcanic ash, albeit on a far smaller scale," she explained.

Sea-Kit's USV Maxlimer will fully map the caldera

The information from Maxlimer's multi-beam sonar equipment is expected to be particularly instructive. A naval ship that sailed across the caldera recently found the depth of water over the caldera had increased dramatically.

Pre-eruption there was only 150-200m of seawater. Post-eruption there is now 800m or more of water. HTHH's magma chamber was hollowed out.

"Maxlimer definitely has the ability to measure that deep," said Mr Mackay. "And what we're really hoping is that once we get a really accurate map of the caldera, we can confirm those volumes of material that we've already initially indicated."

The RV Tangaroa's month-long mapping project was funded by the Nippon Foundation of Japan and organised by NIWA, together with Seabed2030, which is an international effort to properly chart Earth's ocean floor.

Consumers defy inflation to support economy. For how long?

Dan Gabel, right, and fellow musicians perform in downtown Boston, Tuesday, May 10, 2022. Gabel has canceled Netflix and other streaming services and tried to cut back on driving as the costs of gas, food, and other items, such as the lubricants he uses for his instruments, has soared. In the photo, from left to right, are Eric Baldwin, banjo; Ed Goroza, sousaphone; Josiah Reibstein, trombone; and Gabel, trumpet.

 (AP Photo/Steve LeBlanc)More

CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and ANNE D'INNOCENZIO
Sun, May 22, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — With prices across the economy — from food, gas and rent to cars, airfares and hotel rooms — soaring at their fastest pace in decades, you might think Americans would tap the brakes on spending.

Not so far. Consumers as a whole are showing surprising resilience, not only sustaining their spending but increasing it even after adjusting for inflation. In April, the government said, retail sales outpaced inflation for a fourth straight month. It was a reassuring sign that consumers — the primary drivers of America’s economy — are still providing vital support and helping allay concerns that a recession might be near.

Yet at the same time, there are signs that some people, especially in lower-income households, are starting to cut back, by shifting to lower-priced or alternative items or by skipping some purchases altogether as inflation shrinks their disposable income.

Last week, for example, Walmart, which caters to price-conscious consumers, reported that more of them were favoring lower-cost store brands of lunch meat over pricier national brands and buying half-gallon cartons of milk rather than full gallons. Likewise, Kohl's, a mid-priced department store, said its customers were spending less on each visit.

All of which has spotlighted a question floating over the economy: How long will consumers as a whole continue to spend at healthy levels — even if through gritted teeth — despite the pressures they're feeling from inflation near 40-year highs? The answer will be key to whether the nation can avoid a recession as the Federal Reserve moves to sharply raise borrowing rates.

By most measures, consumers have downshifted from last year’s blowout spending, which was fueled by stimulus checks and other government aid after the brutal pandemic recession. This year, noted Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist at the MasterCard Economics Institute, steadily surging prices have dimmed Americans’ outlook for the economy.

Even so, Meyer said, there is some cause for optimism.

"There’s still plenty of reasons to believe in the resilience of the consumer,” she said, pointing to America's robust job market and the solid pay increases many people are receiving. “There is a certain amount of frustration as they navigate the environment we’re in. But they’re still spending.”

Consider that even while consumer sentiment as measured by the University of Michigan plunged nearly 30% over the past year, Americans’ spending outran inflation during that time. Economists at Michigan noted that there has been a “historic disconnect” between sentiment and actual consumer behavior.

Some economists warn that steady consumer spending won't likely last in the face of the Fed's aggressive credit tightening. And if consumer spending does stay strong, the Fed might eventually have to jack up rates even further to cool the economy and slow inflation. Earlier this month, in its quest to quell inflation, the Fed raised its benchmark rate by a half-percentage point and signaled additional large rate hikes to come. Some fear the economy could slide into recession next year.

Still, several trends are driving Americans' spending, including rising pay, savings amassed during the pandemic and a rebound in credit card use. Those savings and continued wage gains, economists say, could fuel healthy spending throughout this year.

Consumers have been shifting much of their spending away from appliances, electronics and exercise equipment — the kinds of goods many splurged on early in the pandemic while hunkered down at home — to travel, entertainment and other services. The intensity of that shift has caught many retailers off guard and contributed to some negative earnings reports.

Brian Cornell, Target's CEO, said that chain “did not expect to see the dramatic shift” in spending away from TVs, appliances and patio furniture and toward luggage, restaurant gift cards and other items that reflect Americans' increased desire to leave home and spend.

Southwest Airlines has said that surging demand for air travel will keep it profitable through this year. Though average fares jumped 32% in the first quarter from a year earlier, the carrier said it's seen no sign of curtailed demand.

For many people, the opportunity to travel after two years of restrictions is outweighing the financial pressures of higher prices.

Mike and Marsha Dyslin, who live in San Jose, flew to Washington, D.C., last week to visit their daughter, Sarah, a graduate student at Georgetown University.

“She’s been out here at school for two years, and we haven’t visited the whole time because of COVID," Marsha Dyslin said. “Your priorities change.”

To save on gas, Mike Dyslin said they've been driving their Toyota Prius more than their SUV but otherwise haven't made major changes in their spending habits.

Soaring gas and food prices have led other consumers, though, to start pulling back. The national average cost of a gallon of gas has jumped to $4.59, up a painful 50%-plus from a year earlier, according to AAA.

Walmart has said its shoppers are visiting its gas stations more frequently but filling up less each time. And Kohl's last week reported a drop in the payment rate for its store cards after a year in which customers made sizable payments. Higher levels of card debt raise the risk of increased delinquencies.

Dan Gabel, a musician in Millbury, Massachusetts, has pared his entertainment spending as costs have soared far beyond what he earns. Gabel, a big-band leader and trombonist, is facing soaring prices not just for gas but also for many items he needs for work — from dry clearing band uniforms to lubricant for maintaining instruments to the cost of paper and ink to print music scores.

To save money, Gabel, 33, and his partner, an opera singer, have dropped HBO and Netflix. Though the music gigs have been steady, Gabel now takes the train, if he can, rather than drive when he performs out of town.

“We're feeling the crunch,” Gabel said. “It's all these little things that do add up.”

Nationally, though, the overall resilience of consumer spending illustrates a trend that can perpetuate inflation: Though people hate higher prices, they often keep paying them if their wages are also rising.

“Inflation doesn’t cure itself,” said Laura Veldkamp, a finance professor at Columbia University. “If the prices of goods and wages rise together, then that doesn’t necessarily bring down demand.”

Across the economy, median wages jumped 6% in April from a year earlier, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. That was the largest increase since 1990, though it was below the inflation rate of 8.3%.

A surprisingly large portion of workers, though, are receiving pay gains that exceed inflation: About 45% did so in March compared with a year earlier, according to research by the Indeed Hiring Lab.

Nick Bunker and AnnElizabeth Konkel, economists at Indeed, called it “remarkable” that that figure was so high given the level of inflation. It shows, they said, how desperate many employers are to find and keep workers with unemployment just 3.6% and posted job openings near record highs.

Many other consumers have had to draw on their savings to keep spending. The national saving rate has fallen to about 6%, below pre-pandemic levels, after having reached 16.6% in 2020, the highest on records dating to 1948, and 12.7% in 2021.

And with more Americans turning to credit cards for spending, household debt rose 8.2% in the first three months of this year compared with a year earlier. It was the biggest such increase since early 2008, when the economy was entering a recession.

Economists say, though, that overall debt hasn’t yet reached problematic levels. They estimate that households still have about $2 trillion in savings beyond what they would have had based on pre-pandemic trends.

And Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, notes that household debt is equal to 86% of disposable income, sharply lower than its peak of 116% in 2008.

“Never bet against the U.S. consumer," Ashworth said.

____

D'Innocenzio reported from New York. AP Writer Steve LeBlanc contributed to this report from Boston.

Kazakhstan Cuts Iron Supplies To Russian Steelworks

Editor OilPrice.com
Sun, May 22, 2022,

Kazakhstan’s largest iron ore-enricher has cut supplies to a major steelworks in Siberia as the repercussions of international sanctions against Russia disrupt economic ties between these two members of the Eurasian Economic Union, a free-trade zone.

The Sokolov-Sarybai Mining Production Association in northern Kazakhstan was the main supplier of ore to the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steelworks until Russia invaded Ukraine.

Known by the acronym SSGPO, the Kazakhstani plant, based in Rudniy, was supplying 70 percent of the ore sourced by the steelworks in Magnitogorsk, which lies just 340 kilometers away. The Russian plant, often shortened to MMK, obtained the rest from suppliers in Russia.

Because of the halt in supplies from Kazakhstan, MMK has been forced to source ore from nearly 2,000 kilometers away, Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper reported on May 17, citing anonymous sources from both companies.

“Problems with supplies of iron ore arose at MMK after the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine and large-scale sanctions against the Russian Federation,” the newspaper said, using the euphemism for the war that Russian media are legally required to write.

Related: Global Supply Chains Will Never Be “Normal” Again

Reports of SSGPO halting shipments to Russia emerged in April, Vedomosti noted.

MMK majority shareholder and chairman Viktor Rashnikov is the target of international sanctions, which the company has dismissed as “groundless.”

Firms in Kazakhstan have no obligation to implement international sanctions against any person or entity in Russia. However, many are wary of contagion from damage to their trade with foreign buyers or their reputations if they do business with Russian companies.

MMK is sourcing replacement ore from two enriching plants on Russia’s border with Ukraine. They are owned by Alisher Usmanov, a Russian oligarch who is under international sanctions, via his Metalloinvest steel company.

“There are no disruptions with raw material [supplies],” an anonymous source from MMK told Vedomosti. The company “has already moved to purchasing greater volumes of iron ore from Russian producers.”

The Kazakhstani company has not commented, but it must be casting around for buyers for the ore it was formerly selling to MMK.

That previously amounted to 7-8 million metric tons annually, according to Vedomosti. That sum is equivalent to about a quarter of the nearly 31 million tons the enricher produces every year.

The search for new customers comes at a time when the international appetite for steel is subsiding. The World Steel Association forecast last month that demand would rise just 0.4 percent this year, compared to growth of 2.7 percent in 2021.

Falling demand comes against the backdrop of “global spillovers from the war in Ukraine, along with low growth in China,” where strict coronavirus lockdowns are in place, the association said.

By Eurasianet.org