Physicists predict Earth will become a chaotic world, with dire consequences

Paul Sutter - Yesterday 
Space

Humans aren't just making Earth warmer, they are making the climate chaotic, a stark new study suggests.

The new research, which was posted April 21 to the preprint database arXiv, draws a broad and general picture of the full potential impact of human activity on the climate. And the picture isn't pretty.

While the study doesn't present a complete simulation of a climate model, it does paint a broad sketch of where we're heading if we don't curtail climate change and our unchecked use of fossil fuels, according to the study authors, scientists in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Porto in Portugal.

"The implications of climate change are well known (droughts, heat waves, extreme phenomena, etc.)," study researcher Orfeu Bertolami told Live Science in an email. "If the Earth System gets into the region of chaotic behavior, we will lose all hope of somehow fixing the problem."

Related: It's 'now or never' to stop climate disaster, UN scientists say

Climate shifts

Earth periodically experiences massive changes in climate patterns, going from one stable equilibrium to another. These shifts are usually driven by external factors like changes in Earth's orbit or a massive surge in volcanic activity. But past research suggests we are now entering a new phase, one driven by human activity. As humans pump more carbon into the atmosphere, we are creating a new Anthropocene era, a period of human-influenced climate systems, something our planet has never experienced before.

In the new study, researchers modeled the introduction of the Anthropocene as a phase transition. Most people are familiar with phase transitions in materials, for instance when an ice cube changes phase from a solid to a liquid by melting into water, or when water evaporates into a gas. But phase transitions also occur in other systems. In this case, the system is Earth's climate. A given climate provides for regular and predictable seasons and weather, and a phase transition in the climate leads to a new pattern of seasons and weather. When the climate goes through a phase transition, this means that Earth is experiencing a sudden and rapid change in patterns.

Logistics problems

If human activity is driving a phase transition in Earth's climate, that means we are causing the planet to develop a new set of weather patterns. What those patterns will look like is one of the most pressing problems of climate science.

Where is Earth's climate headed? That depends significantly on exactly what our activity is over the next few decades. Drastically reducing carbon output, for example, would lead to different outcomes than changing nothing at all, the researchers wrote in the study.

To account for the different trajectories and choices that humanity could make, the researchers employed a mathematical tool called a logistic map. The logistic map is great at describing situations where some variable — such as the amount of carbon in the atmosphere — can grow but naturally reaches a limit. For example, scientists often use the logistic map to describe animal populations: Animals can keep giving birth, increasing their numbers, but they reach a limit when they consume all the food in their environment (or their predators get too hungry and consume them).

Related: The 5 mass extinction events that shaped the history of Earth

Our influence on the environment is definitely growing, and it has been for over a century. But it will naturally reach a limit, according to the researchers. For example, the human population can only grow so large and can only have so many carbon-emitting activities; and pollution will eventually degrade the environment. At some point in the future, carbon output will reach a maximum limit, and the researchers found that a logistic map can capture the future trajectory of that carbon output very well.

Everything is chaos

The researchers explored different ways that the human logistic map could evolve, depending on a variety of factors like our population, introduction of carbon reduction strategies and better, more efficient technologies. Once they found how human carbon output would evolve with time, they used that to examine how Earth's climate would evolve through the human-driven phase transition.

In the best cases, once humanity reaches the limit of carbon output, Earth's climate stabilizes at a new, higher average temperature. This higher temperature is overall bad for humans, because it still leads to higher sea levels and more extreme weather events. But at least it's stable: The Anthropocene looks like previous climate ages, only warmer, and it will still have regular and repeatable weather patterns.

But in the worst cases, the researchers found that Earth's climate leads to chaos. True, mathematical chaos. In a chaotic system, there is no equilibrium and no repeatable patterns. A chaotic climate would have seasons that change wildly from decade to decade (or even year to year). Some years would experience sudden flashes of extreme weather, while others would be completely quiet. Even the average Earth temperature may fluctuate wildly, swinging from cooler to hotter periods in relatively short periods of time. It would become utterly impossible to determine in what direction Earth's climate is headed.

"A chaotic behavior means that it will be impossible to predict the behavior of Earth System in the future even if we know with great certainty its present state," Bertolami said. "It will mean that any capability to control and to drive the Earth System towards an equilibrium state that favors the habitability of the biosphere will be lost."

Most concerning, the researchers found that above a certain critical threshold temperature for Earth's atmosphere, a feedback cycle can kick in where a chaotic result would become unavoidable. There are some signs that we may have already passed that tipping point, but it's not too late to avert climate disaster.

Originally published on Live Science.

Cigarette ads were banned decades ago. Let's do the same for fossil fuels

Peter Dietsch, Professor, Philosophy, University of Victoria -

The Conversation

There is no reasonable disagreement that humanity needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. People might argue over how large a reduction is necessary or about the best ways to achieve it, but almost everyone agrees it has to be done.

The available science suggests that technological fixes alone will not do the trick. We need to reduce the consumption of high-emission goods and services, those made from fossil fuels or that rely heavily on them.

And yet, advertising for such goods and services is everywhere, encouraging fossil-fuel consumption: flights to Rome, pickup trucks and SUVs, cruises to Alaska, steak from Argentina and so on.

Should such advertising for fossil-fuel-intensive goods and services be prohibited? This would only be consistent with how we deal with other products whose consumption causes serious harm, such as tobacco. For example, the United Kingdom banned TV advertising of cigarettes in 1965, the United States banned cigarette ads on TV and radio in 1970, and Canada has banned all forms of tobacco advertising since 1989.
The harm principle

A core principle of liberalism holds that individuals should not be constrained in their actions, unless these actions cause harm to others. For instance, you are not allowed to drive through a residential neighbourhood at 100 kilometres per hour, because this would put the lives of others at risk.

Now, you might rightly point out that when you take a flight to a sunny beach in Mexico, you are not putting the lives of others at risk, at least not in the same, direct way. However, there is a collective action problem here: If everyone takes a flight to a sunny beach in Mexico, the aggregate emissions from all the flights will lead to a warmer planet, extreme weather events and will not only harm others but put lives at risk.


© (Shutterstock)

The emissions from cars, trucks and other gasoline-burning vehicles put lives at risk.

It is controversial whether this mediated harm from your flight to Mexico is enough to justify stopping you from going to Mexico. Instead, I propose to apply a weaker and less controversial version of the harm principle: When the actions of individuals cause significant harm to others, even indirectly and mediated through aggregate effects, then as a society we should abstain from encouraging these actions.

We know that the emissions from fossil-fuel intensive goods and services put lives at risk. We also know that, overall, advertising encourages their consumption. Therefore, on this version of the harm principle, we should ban advertising for fossil-fuel intensive activities.

An important precedent


Related video: FDA Proposes Ban on Menthol Cigarettes  PBS NEWS

As the World Health Organization points out, “tobacco kills nearly six million of its users each year.” Because of the harm smoking causes, its proven link to several forms of cancer in particular, states have taken measures to discourage it.

These measures include a comprehensive ban on all advertising for tobacco products under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. They are further justified because of the second-hand effects of smoke, that is, the health risks for people other than the smoker themselves.

The number of people dying from climate change is already comparable to smoking-related deaths. One study estimates that between 2000 and 2019, more than five million people a year died due to the effects of climate change. With the frequency of heat waves, severe storms, floods and other extreme weather events set to increase due to climate change, this number will only grow in the coming years.

Given what societies have done on tobacco, it would only be consistent to ban advertising for fossil-fuel-intensive activities. In addition, the status quo is also inconsistent with the alleged commitment of governments to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Governments around the world have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, in an effort to meet the Paris Agreement goal to limit warming to 1.5 C. Yet, they tolerate advertising for activities that are clearly counterproductive to achieving this ambitious goal. This is akin to a drug rehabilitation centre putting up posters everywhere telling its patients how great it feels to take drugs.

Where to start?

Coming up with a definition of a fossil-fuel intensive activity is a bit more complex than providing a definition of smoking, but it can be done. Here is a plausible starting point: Define a certain threshold of emission-intensity that qualifies the good or service for the ban.

For example, given that an average passenger vehicle emits about 2.3 grams of carbon dioxide per litre of gasoline, one might ban advertising for any vehicle that emits more than that, and subsequently lower the threshold to further encourage innovation. That same standard would then be applied to other means of transport such as flights, leisure boats, cruises. Similar thresholds for other categories of goods and services such as red meat or construction could also be defined.

Read more: The fossil fuel era is coming to an end, but the lawsuits are just beginning

Politically, the proposal faces two significant challenges: industry pushback and political reluctance to ask voters to rein in their lifestyle. Once again, valuable lessons can be learned from tobacco.

The trigger for change might lie in legal action that gives voice to the fundamental interests of members of future generations — those who are being harmed by fossil-fuel advertising today. We owe it to them not to encourage activities that will kill them.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
Thank you for not driving: Climate change requires anti-smoking tactics

How did orthodontists sell orthodontics?

Peter Dietsch receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and from the Humboldt Foundation. He is a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.

HERE IT COMES...CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

BILL 96

Quebec's use of notwithstanding clause in language law opens constitutional debate

 The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — When federal Justice Minister David Lametti reacted last week to the adoption of Quebec's language law reform, he took aim at the provincial government's proactive use of the notwithstanding clause to shield the law from constitutional challenges.

Lametti and other critics of Bill 96 say the government's use of that clause — Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — shuts down debate and prevents a proper judicial review of the legislation. The proactive use of Section 33, which permits a government to override certain provisions of the Constitution, is an "unintended negative consequence in our political system," he said.

The Quebec government, meanwhile, says its use of the clause is legitimate and necessary to protect laws that are supported by the majority of Quebecers. The government calls Section 33 "the parliamentary sovereignty provision."

Bill 96, among other things, limits the use of English — one of Canada's two official languages — in the public service and permits inspectors to conduct searches and seizures in businesses without warrants. The proactive use of Section 33 means the courts cannot declare Bill 96 unconstitutional because of its potential violations of certain fundamental rights included in the Charter.

The two other recent cases where the notwithstanding clause was invoked outside of Quebec — by the Ontario government in 2021 and by Saskatchewan in 2017 — it was used to override court decisions. Quebec is the only province to invoke the clause before judicial review.

The notwithstanding clause, Lametti told reporters, "was meant to be the last word in what is, in effect, a dialogue between the courts and legislatures. It wasn't meant to be the first word."

Emmett Macfarlane, a political science professor at the University of Waterloo who studies the Supreme Court's role in shaping public policy, said there's nothing in the Charter that outlines when Section 33 can be used. He said, however, that he doesn't think its pre-emptive use was envisioned when the Charter was drafted in 1982.

"Quebec is right to say, legally, we can use it pre-emptively and they're at least partially right to say the notwithstanding clause is a parliamentary sovereignty provision, but it's also an unprincipled use of the notwithstanding clause," Macfarlane said in an interview Friday.

"It's a political manoeuvre to avoid having that negative judicial ruling that would be inevitable if they hadn't used the notwithstanding clause."


Quebec adopts controversial Bill 96 language reform

Constitutional lawyer Julius Grey argued before the Superior Court against Quebec's secularism law — known as Bill 21 — which bans certain government employees from wearing religious symbols at work. That case is before the Court of Appeal. He said in an recent interview that the question as to how Section 33 can be used will be decided when the case reaches the Supreme Court.

Grey said he hopes the high court will rule that provinces can't use the clause as they please.

"Parliamentary sovereignty is precisely what the Charter wants to get away from," Grey said. "We all understand that parliamentary sovereignty has certain dangers — the rule of the majority can turn into the tyranny of the majority."

Benoît Pelletier, a cabinet minister in the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest, said he supports the Quebec government's use of the notwithstanding clause, a tool he said is "at the heart" of the separation of powers in Canada's legal system.

Section 33, he said, was included in the Charter to preserve parliamentary sovereignty but also to maintain the balance of power between the judiciary and the government.

For Pelletier, the proactive use of the provision isn't a problem because the courts can still review the legislation — a Superior Court ruling on Bill 21 that upheld most of the law was more than 200 pages, he said. In that ruling, Superior Court Justice Marc-André Blanchard found that Bill 21 violates fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of religion, but he couldn't strike those elements of the bill down because the law was shielded by Section 33.

Pelletier said he thinks the Quebec government is making "moderate" use of Section 33. "As a province, or as a nation, or as a political unit, it's normal that Quebec makes collective choices that are different from those of the other provinces."

Patrick Taillon, a constitutional law professor at Université Laval, said Quebec has been something of a "champion" of using Section 33. The province has used it more than others, he said in an interview Friday, "because it allows our elected officials to exercise a certain form of autonomy."

The Supreme Court, he added, has already upheld the preventive use of the notwithstanding clause, in a 1988 decision involving Quebec's French-language signage legislation. That decision made clear that the court's role was not to decide whether it was right or wrong to use Section 33 but only whether it conformed to the Constitution.

Macfarlane said it's not just Quebec's use of Section 33 that concerns him. The Ontario government's 2021 use of the notwithstanding clause to protect a campaign finance law was also problematic, he said.

"I don't think other provinces are immune to these populist impulses," he said. "But there obviously is something distinct about Quebec's record with the notwithstanding clause relative to all the other provinces.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2022.

Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press

The First Great White Shark Of The Year Has Made It To Canada & He's Almost 1,000 Pounds
Canada Edition (EN) - Friday
Narcity

An absolutely massive great white shark has finally made his way to Canada and he's the first one to arrive for the summer season!

Ironbound, an adult white shark who measures 12 feet 4 inches and 998 pounds, is now swimming around Canadian waters just south of the southwestern part of Nova Scotia.

"This mature male white shark provides a great example of site fidelity, returning to the same region in Nova Scotia year after year," shark research organization OCEARCH said in a tweet on May 26.

At the beginning of May, he started to make the journey north along the U.S. east coast and he was called "the leader of the pack" for leaving earlier than all of the other sharks.

Usually, the animals start to leave southern waters from mid to late May and then arrive in northern waters at the beginning of June so Ironbound really got a jump on the trip.

Great white sharks congregate in Atlantic Canada during the summer and fall months before heading back down south for the winter.

That's because the waters in the region are a "feeding aggregation" for the animals, according to OCEARCH.

Ironbound was first tagged by OCEARCH in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia back in 2019. He's named after West Ironbound Island which is near Lunenburg.

Since then he has been swimming from Nova Scotia, down the U.S. east coast, around Florida into the Gulf of Mexico and then back to Nova Scotia again every year.

He typically stays pretty close to the coastline but he has ventured out into deeper waters a few times.

Another great white shark named Mahone has been "hanging offshore" near Newfoundland recently and he's been slowly getting closer to Nova Scotia.

While Ironbound tends to swim near the coast, Mahone moved away from the U.S. east coast in April and started swimming north further out in the Atlantic Ocean.

His tag last pinged on May 26 at 8:57 p.m. southeast of Nova Scotia's Sable Island.

If you want to watch where these sharks swim around Atlantic Canada, OCEARCH has an online great white shark tracker that you can use!

Kootenay Rockies one of only three places in Canada to achieve biosphere certified destination status

The Kootenay Rockies have achieved yet another level of excellence.

The region — which includes Nelson and the West Kootenay — is a biosphere certified destination, only the third such region in the nation to achieve the honour.

Bestowed by the Responsible Tourism Institute — an international certification body that maintains an memorandum of understanding with UNESCO, is affiliated to the World Tourism Organization and is a member of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council — biosphere destinations are committed to continuous improvement guided by the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations, including combating climate change, protecting the environment, supporting economic growth and respecting culture and social values.

The term biosphere certified destination means the region is committed to the ongoing improvement of sustainability in the region, said Sylvia O’Connor, destination development coordinator with Kootenay Rockies Tourism (KRT).


“The certification is based on established standards in areas that include climate change, environment, social, economy and culture — and guarantees compliance and continuous improvement through a private, voluntary and independent certification system — which is evaluated on an annual basis,” she said.

“The certification allows a region to showcase how they take sustainability seriously, but also ensures they are accountable to make necessary and ongoing improvements.”

 CLICK ON TO EXPAND

The process

KRT began its sustainability journey in 2019, said O’Connor.

“This last year the KRT team worked on the biosphere designation to submit evidence of what the destination has achieved so far towards the sustainable development goals,” she said. “The biosphere certification process is quite rigorous.”

The process also highlighted areas of improvement for KRT to continue working on.

Other regional destination management organizations have pursued the designation

Another tool in the toolbox

Having been named a biosphere certified destination would help KRT and others market the region as a destination by attracting visitors who also value sustainability and share the same values on responsible travel, said O’Connor.

“However, most importantly, we are also building a tourism industry that is sustainable for our host communities,” she said. “Our hope is this will increase our visibility to visitors who understand and value the importance of sustainable tourism practices within a destination.

The biosphere certification is an ongoing process, O’Connor pointed out, with the destination working every year to become more sustainable.

“So, we plan on working through these action items for continued betterment. We also want this to open the dialogue with stakeholders about how we can continue to work together as an industry to make tourism more sustainable.

Sources:

https://mailchi.mp/kootenayrockies.com/2113363-2113468

https://www.biospheretourism.com/en/biosphere-certification/83

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Kootenay Rockies Tourism | Official Site

Kootenay Rockies | Super, Natural BC (hellobc.com)

More information

- The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations

Timothy Schafer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Nelson Daily

Return of salmon part of Columbia River Treaty negotiations: First Nations

First Nations are asking for the return of the salmon to the entire Columbia River system as part of the Columbia River Treaty negotiations, including the upper portion of the Arrow Lakes, in order to reclaim their culture.

In a Zoom meeting on May 16 for the latest installment of the Columbia River Treaty negotiations, Chief Keith Crow of the Smelqmix, Lower Similkameen Indian Band, called for greater consideration of salmon in the river system.

“The Columbia River Treaty has been one of the biggest infringements within our territories, infringement of the treaty that was never negotiated with us,” he said.

The benefits that Canada and B.C. have received from the treaty have been tremendous, Crow said, but at the expense of the salmon and First Nations cultural traditions.

He pointed to the Columbia River salmon restoration initiative — which started three years ago — as an example of reversing that trend.

“I think it is another major piece to bringing the salmon back up the Columbia all the way into the Upper Arrow,” he said, which is a goal of the Smelqmix Nation.

Jay Johnston of the Penticton Indian Band agreed. Although the Columbia River Treaty was formed on two points — energy production and flood control — it has never considered the effect on First Nations.

“(I)t left out not only many voices in the (Columbia) Basin and around the river, but it also left out the environment and the ecosystems and the cultural values that are so critically important to all of us,” he said.

Several First Nations have been “working hard” to ensure that the intentions of indigenous nations are included in the renewed treaty, said Johnston, something which was long overdue.

“The voice of indigenous peoples is crucial and is finally coming about in a way that will affect the treaty in a positive and beneficial way,” he said. “Most indigenous communities living along the river system have had to share in the burden, not the benefit, of the river system.”

Salmon is crucial to all First Nations in Canada and in the Basin, Johnston said, and the Okanagan are salmon people.

“The salmon is not just about sustenance and nutrition, it’s also about cultural values and ceremonies, and bringing salmon back is also about re-invigorating of social networks in terms of distribution of food, the ceremonies around the distribution of the food, the teachings from the elders to the youth, the connection of youth back to elders and the community members,” he said.

“All those networks that have been inactive because of the lack of salmon have been re-introduced and re-invigorated as a result of the salmon coming back. It makes stronger, deeper, healthier communities, as a result.”

The sockeye salmon are now returning in numbers that started around 1,000 to now hundreds of thousands, Johnston pointed out.

But the impact of the dams on the river system has to be considered in the new agreement, said Sandra Luke of the Ktunaxa Nation — band councillor from Yaqan Nukiy (Lower Kootenay Band) in Creston.

“The Nation really hopes to reduce the impacts of the Columbia River Treaty operations on our cultural, our waters and our lands … all living things,” she said.

She has been involved with the Columbia River Treaty for the past six years, and noted that the Libby Dam has collapsed the white sturgeon population in Kootenay Lake and the Kootenay River.

“Sturgeon used to be very important to us and we hope a renewal of the treaty will result in improved river conditions for (sturgeon) and other species,” she said.

Nathan Matthew, Secwepemc Nation observer in the Columbia River Treaty negotiations, said the treaty negotiators have some important work to do in order to right history.

“The treaty and the construction of the dams are truly the biggest infringement on the lives of indigenous nations ever in our history, and some of the discussion that we have in terms of how to reconcile, how to bring things up to date in terms of the current commitments of government, it’s not easy, so it’s a really great challenge,” he said.

Going from non-existence of rights to the really quite clear statements of government that they are going to reconcile with the current constitutional and legal frameworks that are out there is really a big task, Matthew stated.

First Nations have the right to the lands — under the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People which Canada signed — the territories and the resources that they have owned, occupied or otherwise used, he added. Article 29 of the declaration says indigenous people have the right to the protection and the productivity of the environment and their lands.

Matthew said the idea that the cultural and ecological values are key to the negotiations, including benefit sharing and the re-introduction of the salmon.

“How do we participate together with Canada and British Columbia and the United States in how the rising and the falling and the flowing of the water through the system impact indigenous interests, and how those operations can be changed so as to provide greater benefits and greater help to indigenous peoples and health to the ecological environment,” he said. “So we have a very clear mandate to protect the land and the resources.”

Kathy Eichenberger, executive director of B.C.'s Provincial Columbia River Treaty team, said the pace of the negotiations was slow, but it now contained cultural values that needed to be sorted out.

“However, to provide this benefit we expect that it is values appropriately and that we are also able to achieve the increase flexibility in the other areas of the treaty that … for our own domestic goals, including ecosystem benefits and indigenous cultural values and socio-economic objectives, considerations that were not talked about in the original treaty.”

Bringing the salmon home

Bringing the Salmon Home: The Columbia River Salmon Reintroduction Initiative brings together five governments — the Syilx Okanagan Nation, Ktunaxa Nation, Secwépemc Nation, Canada and British Columbia — who have made a visionary agreement to explore salmon reintroduction into the upper Columbia River region.

The Letter of Agreement was signed at an official ceremony on July 29, 2019 in Castlegar. This is a three-year renewable commitment by the five governments to work together to look at the feasibility and options for reintroducing salmon into the Canadian side of the Columbia River.

The long-term vision is to return fish stocks for indigenous food, social and ceremonial needs, and to benefit the region’s residents and ecosystems as a whole.

Source: https://columbiariversalmon.ca/

Timothy Schafer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Nelson Daily

Indigenous filmmaker says he was refused entry on Cannes red carpet for his moccasins

The Canadian Press

Yesterday

TORONTO — A Dene filmmaker says he was "disappointed" and "close to tears" when security at the Cannes Film Festival blocked him from walking the red carpet while dressed in a pair of moccasins.


© Provided by The Canadian PressIndigenous filmmaker says he was refused entry on Cannes red carpet for his moccasins

Kelvin Redvers, a Vancouver-based producer who attended Cannes as part of a delegation of six Indigenous filmmakers, says he was refused entry to the carpet for Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s "Les Amandiers" last Sunday because festival staff didn't approve of his traditional Indigenous footwear.

He says he was only allowed to walk the carpet if he swapped out his moccasins for a pair of formal shoes that Cannes deemed appropriate.

Redvers obliged, but he says he hopes speaking out about his experience leads Cannes organizers to rethink what counts as formal wear when it comes to representing different cultures on their red carpets.

"Whenever there's an opportunity — if there's an award show or a special event — it's really important for me to be able to bring in a bit of my Dene heritage," he said.

"My goal was to wear my suit, and my bowtie and my Dene moccasins, which are formal, they're cultural. And they're still sort of elegant and classy. I had no reason to believe that they wouldn't fit on the red carpet."

Cannes is notoriously strict about formalwear at many of its red carpet premieres – requiring a black tie for men and evening gowns for women – however, some traditional formal wear is accommodated, such as Scottish kilts and Indian saris.

The festival once outlined some of the formalwear expectations on their website, but in recent years — after a number of controversies, including one involving women wearing flats instead of heels — the official guidelines have all but disappeared online.

Before the Sunday screening, Redvers says he gathered with his fellow filmmakers to take photos in their tuxedos and moccasins. The group, who were in Cannes with the support of Telefilm, the Indigenous Screen Office, and Capilano University's FILMBA program, then headed to the red carpet.

After getting past the first security checkpoint, Redvers pulled off his pair of street shoes and stepped into his moccasins. That is when security at a second checkpoint stopped him.

Various levels of Cannes red carpet officials were brought in to assess the situation, Redvers says, while a French-speaking member of his cohort tried to explain to security, "this is cultural wear, this is traditional. They were just not hearing it."


Related video: Cannes security turned away this Dene filmmaker for wearing moccasins (cbc.ca)


"Eventually one security guard just hit his breaking point," Redvers says.

"He just switched and was ... furiously demanding immediately that I leave, in an aggressive and angry tone, saying, 'Leave, leave, you must leave now.'"

Representatives for the festival did not respond to requests for comment.

After the heated moment, Redvers decided he still wanted to attend the screening, so he took off his moccasins and went into the theatre.

"I was so disappointed, like, it was actually distracting during the movie," he says.

"I just couldn't stop thinking about not being allowed to represent my culture on the red carpet on this world stage."

"I was pretty close to tears and quite upset," he added.

After members of Telefilm and the Indigenous Screen Office complained to Cannes about the treatment the filmmakers received, Redvers says leadership agreed to meet with them and apologize for the negative experience.

"I think it was a productive meeting," he said.

"It's an educational time because they just didn't understand what moccasins were and why they were important. (They) just kind of thought of them as slippers, which is what they said a few times."

Cannes officials invited him to wear his moccasins at the red carpet premiere of David Cronenberg's "Crimes of the Future" the following night. When one security guard rejected his footwear at that screening, a higher-up staff member intervened and let him onto the carpet.

"That was probably the most satisfying moment of the festival," he says.

"To be able to rock the mocs on the red carpet."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2022.

David Friend, The Canadian Press

U.S. proposal could change the way oil companies report their carbon footprint


The Canadian Press


CALGARY — The officially disclosed carbon footprints of Canada's largest oil companies could balloon in size if tough new climate rules proposed earlier this year by a U.S. regulator come into effect.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's proposal — which at this point has not been enacted and faces stiff opposition from industry groups and conservative lawmakers — would require publicly listed companies to account for their total "life-cycle" greenhouse gas emissions.

The rules would apply not only to publicly listed companies south of the border, but also to the more than 230 Canadian companies that are listed on U.S. stock exchanges. (Among these are Canadian energy giants like Enbridge Inc., Suncor Energy Inc., Imperial Oil Ltd. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.)

Under the new proposal, companies would have to disclose their Scope One and Scope Two emissions (terms that encompass the greenhouse gases produced directly by a company's operations, as well as indirectly through the generation of energy the company purchases such as electricity to power the business).

But they would also have to publicly account for their Scope Three emissions, meaning all the other greenhouse gases they produce indirectly, including emissions produced by customers when they use a company's product.

In other words, for oil producers, Scope One and Two emissions are the emissions the company makes itself (the methane emitted directly from a well, for example, or the electricity an oilsands producer uses to power its massive facilities). Scope Three emissions are the emissions an oil company causes when it sells its product (when a driver burns gasoline in a car, for example).

"The moment we ask companies to report Scope Three, we're now focusing on the carbon intensity of the product itself," said Tima Bansal, Canada research chair in business sustainability at the University of Western Ontario's Ivey Business School."It’s not the carbon intensity of their process – which they can reduce and can reduce quite substantially — it’s the carbon intensity of their product.”

Many Canadian energy producers have begun reporting their Scope One and Scope Two emissions in the years since the 2015 U.N. Paris agreement on climate change.

These numbers often form the basis of some of the industry's own aggressive emissions reduction targets, such as Pathways to Net Zero — an alliance of the country's biggest oilsands producers that have jointly set the goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The companies behind that initiative (Suncor, Cenovus, CNRL, Imperial, MEG Energy, and ConocoPhillips Canada) have laid out a road map to net-zero that includes the large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage technology, and they're asking for government support to help do it.

However, their plan only addresses Scope One and Two emissions. In fact, the oil and gas industry as whole has been very reluctant to talk about the emissions produced by the combustion of its product itself.

"Reporting Scope 3 emissions continues to be a challenge at this time and will prove difficult to provide in a timely manner, if at all," wrote the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in a recent submission to the Canadian Securities Administrators. (The CSA is currently mulling its own set of proposed climate disclosure rules, though the Canadian version would allow companies to opt out of Scope 2 and 3 disclosures as long as they explain their reason for doing so.)

"We believe this (Scope 3 disclosure) would not only add additional burden to industry, but is also not practical in that upstream oil and gas producers don’t have knowledge or control over the end use of their sales products," the industry lobby group wrote.

While only a very small minority of Canadian oil and gas firms are even attempting to report Scope 3 emissions right now, it's already apparent that having to disclose these numbers would massively increase the size of the carbon footprint that companies must report to investors and the public.

For example, Cenovus Energy — which began disclosing its estimated Scope Three emissions in 2020 — says its Scope One and Two emissions in 2019 amounted to 23.94 million tonnes of C02. But Scope Three emissions, generated by the final use of the company's products by customers, amounted to an estimated 113 million tonnes.

Duncan Kenyon, director of corporate engagement with climate change activist group Investors for Paris Compliance, said more than 80 per cent of emissions from fossil fuels fall under the umbrella of Scope Three — that is, they're produced when the product is consumed.

"I hear it all the time from (oil companies), that Scope Three is 'not our problem, it's the consumers choice,' " Kenyon said. “But you can’t be a Paris-aligned, climate believer if you’re going to say that 80 per cent is someone else’s problem.”

“It also undermines the claims that ‘oh well, if we capture it all and put it underground, we’ll be OK for 2050,' " he added. "Because no, you won’t.”

Oil and gas companies have been returning major dividends to shareholders in the past year thanks to surging global energy demand, so it's easy to question why investors would care about the Scope Three issue at all.

But Kenyon said ESG (environmental, social and governance) focused investors view climate change as a real business risk, and want to know how prepared a company is to adapt to what is coming. For example, an energy company actively working to reduce its Scope Three emissions would aim to increase the percentage of renewables in its portfolio.

“If you do bring in Scope Three disclosure, it becomes apparent really fast where your company is in the decarbonization game," he said. "And then you have to decide what kind of a company you want to be in five years, 10 years or 25 years."

In issuing the regulator's proposal in March, SEC chair Gary Gensler said greenhouse gas emissions have become a commonly used metric to assess a company's exposure to climate-related risks that are reasonably likely to have a material impact on its business.

"Investors get to decide which risks to take, as long as public companies provide full and fair disclosure and are truthful in those disclosures," Gensler said in a news release. "Today, investors representing literally tens of trillions of dollars support climate-related disclosures because they recognize that climate risks can pose significant financial risks to companies, and investors need reliable information about climate risks to make informed investment decisions."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2022.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SU, TSX:CVE, TSX:IMO, TSX:CNQ, TSX:MEG, TSX:ENB)

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

Ukrainian language schools in Western Canada were shaped by shifting settler colonial policies

Andrea Sterzuk, Professor of Language and Literacies Education, University of Regina -
The Conversation

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of people studying Ukrainian globally via the language learning app Duolingo has grown: figures from March 20 showed a 577 per cent increase.

In Canada, there is also new interest in learning Ukrainian.

As solidarity with Ukraine grows, Canadians may be curious to know more about the history of Ukrainian-language schools in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, spanning roughly 125 years.

Ukrainian-language education in the Prairies has been shaped by national, provincial and territorial policies. In Canada’s settler colonial context, these policies have shifted over time in how they accommodate, marginalize and privilege settler languages other than English.

Colonial settlement

Following Canadian Confederation in 1867, interconnected approaches and policies were consolidated and developed to displace Indigenous Peoples from their lands. Canada used dispossession to make the territory that would become Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba available for European settlement.

As historian James Daschuk explains, “clearing the plains,” entailed using starvation against Indigenous people to clear the way for settlement.

In 1876, Canada passed the Indian Act, designed to assimilate and control First Nations.

After the Red River Resistance of 1869-70, the Manitoba Act transferred land from the Hudson’s Bay Company to the Dominion of Canada.

Read more: Louis Riel's trial from 135 years ago continues today with competing cultural stories and icons

The Canadian government created a system called Métis scrip to provide Métis families already living in the area with titles to their lands (land scrip) or money in exchange (money scrip). The process was slow, complicated and served to extinguish Métis title to land.

Métis scrip commissions coincided with the numbered treaties (1871-1921), which pertained to lands from Lake of the Woods in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west, and to the north, as far as the Beaufort Sea.

Read more: Let Indigenous treaties -- not the duty to consult -- lead us to reconciliation

In this era, as historian Kenneth Taylor notes, Canadian immigration law was “explicitly racist in working and intent”: it discouraged and prohibited non-white and non-European immigration in several ways.

The 1910 Canadian Immigration Act provided the Ministry of the Interior with the authority to ban entry of people of any race “deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada.” Immigration officials used this section to limit Black settlement in the Prairies. Prior to this policy, roughly 1,500 Black settlers moved to the Canadian Prairies and research has documented long Black community histories and ongoing presence there.

While there were well-established Chinese communities in British Columbia prior to 1923, and Chinese immigration to the prairies between the 1870s and 1923. Widespread Asian immigration to the prairies did not happen until the 1960s due to to federal legislation including 1908 amendments to the Immigration Act and exclusionary 1923 amendments to the Chinese Immigration Act.

While the promotion of Eastern European immigration was not without some controversy, the recruitment of these early “agricultural immigrants” became government practice.

Canada opened the door to the first wave of Ukrainian settlement in 1890.

400 Ukrainian schools

Ukrainians arriving during this period were pushed out of Ukraine by overpopulation, poverty and foreign domination, and pulled to Canada by the prospect of what Canada billed as free farm lands and jobs.


© (BiblioArchives/Flickr)Poster advertising free farms of 160 acres for settlers in Manitoba, Canadian North-West (present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan) and British Columbia, from circa 1890.

At the time of this wave of settlement, western Ukraine was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ukrainians from Galicia, Bukovyna and Transcarpathia were officially called Ruthenians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

From their arrival, Ukrainians directed most of their organized effort to maintaining their language. By 1915, there were roughly 400 Ukrainian schools in Western Canada.

‘Laurier-Greenway Compromise’

How were Ukrainians able to create Ruthenian bilingual schools and teacher training programs?

An 1896 agreement for bilingual schooling in Manitoba called the Laurier-Greenway Compromise holds part of the answer.


© (R-A7229/Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan)Ukrainian or central European farm family in front of their barn, seen circa 1910 in Saskatchewan, location unknown.

This regulation stated that when there were 10 or more students who spoke French or another language, the school could provide instruction in a language other than English. This policy made it possible to establish Ukrainian bilingual schools in Manitoba, and influenced their creation in Saskatchewan and Alberta too.

Teacher shortages

Another reason for the creation of Ukrainian schools was a teacher shortage in Ukrainian districts. Historian Orest T. Martynowych explains that English-speaking teachers were unwilling to work in Ukrainian communities due to “prejudice, a sense of cultural superiority and more lucrative positions elsewhere.”

To address the shortage, the provincial governments assisted young Ukrainian men in qualifying as teachers. The Ruthenian Training School opened in Manitoba in 1905 and operated for 11 years. Similar programs opened in Saskatchewan in 1909 and in Alberta in 1913.

In Manitoba, the province also produced a Ukrainian bilingual school textbook called the Manitoba Ruthenian-English Reader.

As historian Cornelius Jaenen notes, the success of bilingual Ukrainian education programs angered influential members of society who wanted schools to assimilate immigrants towards building an English-speaking Prairies.


© (BiblioArchives/Flickr)

Ukrainian women cutting logs, Athabasca, Alta. Year unknown.

‘Enemy aliens’

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 further threatened these programs as Eastern Europeans fell under surveillance and suspicion. The issue of bilingual schools became mixed up with the question of “enemy aliens,” which included people from Germany, the Turkish Empire, Bulgaria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The same year, the government of Alberta declared itself opposed to bilingualism in its school system.

By 1916, the option for bilingual schooling was also removed in Manitoba. Saskatchewan waited until 1919 to introduce a regulation naming English as the sole language of instruction.

English-only status quo

For the next 50 years, the Prairie provinces maintained an English-only status quo, resulting in considerable language shift in Ukrainian and Francophone communities and many other immigrant language communities also.

During this time, 66 Indian residential schools operated in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba under federal responsibility. First Nations children were taken from their families to attend these institutions and forced to learn English, systematically resulting in Indigenous language loss.

As a result of Métis scrip, many Métis people were living on road allowances, settlements they created on unused portions of Crown land. There, multilingual Métis people maintained community languages, including Michif and other Indigenous languages. Between the 1920s and 1960s, however, provincial governments forcibly dispersed these communities, introducing a period of rapid language shift to English.

Ukrainian children were often not permitted to speak Ukrainian at school. Adults faced workplace discrimination and many Ukrainians anglicized their family names.
New era of bilingual Ukrainian schooling

In 1969, Canada introduced the Official Languages Act, and the Multiculturalism Policy followed in 1971. Soon, the Prairie provinces’ education acts were changed to allow languages other than English to be used for instruction in schools again.


© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Ukrainian Canadian Senator Paul Yuzyk discussed Canada as multicultural nation a year after Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson launched the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963.

These developments led to a new era of Ukrainian bilingual Prairie schools. In 1974, advocates established a bilingual Ukrainian program in Edmonton. In 1979, programs in Manitoba and Saskatchewan classrooms followed.

Today, Ukrainian bilingual programs are once again found in school divisions in all three provinces. Ukrainian learning opportunities also include heritage language classes for children (Ridna Shkola), summer camps, preschool programs (Sadochok) and adult language classes.

As Canada begins to receive displaced Ukrainians, Ukrainian language education programs can help bridge communication gaps.

Laws, culture and languages

Language policies and language-in-education policies shape the ability of individuals, families and communities to maintain minoritized languages. When languages are under-protected by policy — or intentionally attacked through cultural genocidal policies, as in the case of Indigenous languages in Canada until recently — language loss is difficult to prevent.

Confronting settler colonial legacies is a reminder of why the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada urgently advocated policy to bolster Indigenous language resurgence.

In the case of the Ukrainian language, today’s programs exist due to changes in federal policies, provincial education act amendments and the hard work of Ukrainian Canadian communities who have maintained their language despite many obstacles.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
How heritage language schools offered grassroots community support through the pandemic

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This year's canola crop is the most expensive ever planted, say Alberta farmers

Liam Harrap -

There is a lot riding on this year's canola crop in Alberta, according to the producers who plant and harvest it.


A canola field near Olds, Alta. In just a few decades, canola has become one of the world's most important oilseed crops.

YES THAT IS A DEER IN THE CANOLA FIELD

Last summer's heat wave caused significant challenges across Western Canada, and some farmers in Alberta say they are hoping to take advantage of this year's high prices to make up for previous losses.

"This is by far the most expensive crop we've ever grown," said Roger Chevaux, farmer and chair of the Alberta Canola Producers Commission.

Input costs for growing the crop has skyrocketed but Chevaux also said he's never seen canola sell this high in his 35 years of farming.

Last year, canola was selling at around $12 per bushel, Chevaux said. This year, it's at $25.

Chevaux's fertilizer costs are at $2,300 per tonne — up from $850 last year. Fuel prices, including diesel, have also surged since last year. In the last month alone, a litre of diesel has climbed by 35 cents.

"We've got more at risk this year than we've ever had before," Chevaux said on CBC's Edmonton AM.

The war in Ukraine is one of the factors driving up canola prices said Erin Harakal, a commodity broker with Agfinity.

Ukraine is a large producer of sunflower oil and some people might be turning to canola oil to make up the shortage, said Chevaux. Russia is also a major global supplier of fertilizers, but shipments to Canada are now restricted due to trade sanctions.

With high canola prices, Harakal said some producers are hesitant to sell. Instead, they are hoping to get an even better price the next day.

"There's a fear of missing out," she said.

Last week, China lifted its three year ban on Canadian canola.

In March 2019, the Chinese government blocked canola shipments from Canadian companies Richardson International Ltd. and Viterra Inc. by suspending their licences, alleging the detection of pests in canola shipments.

However, the restrictions followed the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver.

Chevaux said having open trade is crucial for Alberta canola producers.

It's possible that China opening its markets to Canadian canola again could drive up prices even higher, he said.

"It's always good to have more competitors out there to compete for our product," said Chevaux.

Before China restricted trade, the Chinese market made up 40 per cent of Canada's canola exports.

While Chevaux is hopeful for the future of canola in Alberta, he does worry about the recent ban of Huawei from working on Canada's fifth-generation network over security concerns.

The move puts Canada in line with key intelligence allies like the United States, which have expressed concerns about the national security implications of giving the Chinese tech giant access to key infrastructure.

"Our hope, of course, is the Chinese government doesn't react and punish us again," said Chevaux.

"But I guess time will tell."

Last weekend, Chevaux finished seeding his canola crop at his farm in Killam, Alta., roughly 168 kilometres southeast of Edmonton. Further north, he said farmers might be waiting to finish seeding due to rain. But in southern Alberta, conditions are dry.

"We're always hoping for the rain to come at the right time for us to get a good crop."