Mexico agrees to review US workers' rights complaint


Tue, May 31, 2022

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government said Tuesday it has agreed to review a labor complaint filed by the United States under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade pact.

The complaint filed earlier this month said workers’ rights to freely choose their union may have been violated at a Panasonic Automotive Systems factory in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Mexico’s Economy Department said in a statement it would meet with the parties in the dispute to determine if there were any violations of labor codes.

Activists say that even though employees at the plant voted in April to join an independent union, the company continues to work with the old union.

All three of the U.S. labor complaints filed against Mexico so far under the trade pact involve Mexican workers' efforts to replace old-guard unions that have long signed contracts behind workers’ backs and kept wages low.

In April, workers at the Panasonic Automotive Systems factory voted overwhelmingly to be represented by a new union.

Employees at the maquiladora, as the border plants are known, had long been represented by a union affiliated with the Confederation of Mexican Workers.

The new Independent National Industrial Union of Mobility Services won with 1,200 votes to 390 for the old union.

But the company has not respected that decision, said Susana Prieto, a federal congress member who is a lawyer and labor activist.

“Even though they chose a union, the company continues to work with the ‘protection’ union that they got in against the workers' wishes,” Prieto said.

Calls to Panasonic Mexico's headquarters for comment went unanswered.

Mexico has recently adopted laws saying employees have a right to vote by secret ballot on contracts and union representation.

In February, in another border city, Matamoros, employees at a U.S.-operated Tridonex auto parts assembly plant in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, overwhelmingly voted to have an independent union represent them.

Workers at a GM plant in the northern Mexico city of Silao voted to oust the old-guard Confederation of Mexican Workers and replace it with an independent union.

Such votes, while still scattered and few in number, could eventually stem the outflow of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico, as it becomes harder for employers to guarantee low wages by signing contracts with the old-guard Mexican unions. Many Mexican workers make 10% to 15% of wages for similar jobs in the U.S.

Mexico accepts U.S. request for labor probe into Panasonic



Mon, May 30, 2022

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Economy Ministry has accepted a U.S. request to probe alleged labor abuses at a Panasonic auto parts plant in the northern border city of Reynosa, it said on Monday.

The request from the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) earlier this month marked the third U.S. labor complaint under a new trade deal that aims to improve workplace conditions in Mexico.

Mexico's Economy Ministry said it sent its response on Thursday and will review the case with the Labor Ministry to determine if worker rights had been violated under the 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

The Mexican union that petitioned for the inquiry, SNITIS, has accused Panasonic of signing a union contract behind workers' backs and of firing several dozen employees who protested.


Panasonic Corp of North America said it "respects and supports" rights to free association and collective bargaining and that it did not believe they had been denied. The unit of the Japanese conglomerate added it would cooperate with Mexican authorities.

Record renewables output helps India ease coal shortage in May

Workers clean photovoltaic panels inside a solar power plant in Gujarat

Wed, June 1, 2022
By Sudarshan Varadhan

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Record green energy output reduced Indian dependence on coal in May, despite 23.5% growth in power demand, contributing to a rise in utilities' coal inventories, a Reuters analysis of government data showed.

Surging supply from renewables will go some way towards mitigating India's coal shortage amid extraordinarily rapid growth in demand, which has forced the country to reopen mines and return to importing the fuel.

The share of renewable energy sources in power output rose to 14.1% in May from 10.2% in April. Coal made room for it, dropping to 72.4% of Indian generation from 76.8%.


Coal's share was still higher than 70.9% in May 2021, however.

Power shortages, driven entirely by demand and not declines in supply, narrowed to 0.4% of requirements in May. This compared with 1.8% in April, an analysis of daily load despatch data from federal grid regulator POSOCO showed.

Demand in the financial year to March 2023 is expected to grow at the fastest pace in at least 38 years.

Utilities' coal inventories at the end of April were at their lowest levels in years, but they rose 6.3% in May to 23.3 million tonnes, helped by renewables stepping up to carry more of the national electricity load.

Climate activists have blamed a delay in installation of renewable energy capacity for the April power shortfalls, the worst electricity crisis in more than six years. India, the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, is 37% short of its target for end-2022 green electricity capacity.

Electricity demand in May was 23.5% higher than in the same month last year and up 11.9% on May 2019, the data showed.

Wind energy generation, which typically picks up from May and tapers in August, was 51.1% higher in May than a year before, while solar power output increased 37.8%, the data showed. Generation from all renewable sources rose 44.1% from a year before, the fastest pace in at least 30 months.

Analysts say the respite from power cuts in May is temporary and India's power crisis is unlikely to be resolved soon. India faced its worst power cuts in over six years in April.

"Officials also know very well that monsoons impact mining and transport. Yet, no preemptive action was taken to resolve this crisis," the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said in a note last month.

"A lower pre-monsoon coal stock at power stations indicates the possibility of another power crisis in July-August 2022," the CREA said.

Because demand peaks during the daytime, higher generation from solar, India's main renewable energy source, is particularly important for easing the strain on an ageing fleet of coal-fired power stations. It also conserves coal for night-time generation and reduces pressure on the rail network.

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Bradley Perrett and Bernadette Baum)

Enforcement begins on Alberta's K-Country pass; NDP Opposition promises to axe it

TAX BREAKS FOR THE RICH USER FEES FOR THE REST OF US

EDMONTON — The Alberta government has begun enforcing a pass for visitors to the popular Kananaskis Country mountain parks, but the NDP Opposition says it will scrap the fee if the party wins next year's election.



Leader Rachel Notley says having to pay $15 a day or $90 a year for personal vehicles is unfair to lower-income people and their families.

“These parks, they belong to all Albertans, and we won’t put up barriers or Albertans, regardless of their income, to experiencing this outdoor gem,” Notley said Friday.

“If (Albertans) elect an NDP government, we will repeal the Kananaskis pass and make sure K-Country is open and accessible to all.”

The fee was introduced a year ago with an extended grace period, but Environment Department spokesman Paul Hamnett said Friday the pass is now being enforced.

Staff will be scanning licence plates and issuing $150 tickets to anyone who doesn’t have the proper pass and who is not exempt from payment as are area residents and recipients of Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped.

The United Conservative government says the pass has generated $13.3 million, all of which is to be reinvested in the region.


It says the money has been used to hire more conservation officers, upgrade and operate facilities — including information centres and the Canmore Nordic Centre — groom trails and cover other expenditures.

The area gets about five million visitors a year.

"With increased visitation comes increased pressure on services, facilities, infrastructure and the landscape, and the Kananaskis Conservation Pass is having a real impact to support Albertans while protecting this special part of our province," Hamnett said in a statement.

Notley said an NDP government would continue to fund improvements.

In the meantime, she said, more clarity is needed to determine if current payouts are the promised upgrades or are simply fulfilling already scheduled budget increases.

“We have no way of knowing what they’re announcing these days are in fact incremental increases in investment to the park or in fact whether it’s just business as usual,” said Notley.

Environment Minister Jason Nixon introduced the fee a year ago. He said it was to pay for maintenance and wear-and-tear in the increasingly popular 4,200-square-kilometre wilderness area made up of several provincial parks west of Calgary.

The provincial election is scheduled for May 29, 2023.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Opinion: “It is what it is” — the quiet, progressive death of Alberta’s health-care system

Dr. Gabriel Fabreau - 
Calgary Herald

In real life, most hospital deaths look nothing like the dramatic accounts portrayed on TV. My patients generally die slowly, bit by bit.


Dr. Gabriel Fabreau is sounding the alarm about the declining state of Alberta's health-care system. He is a general internist at the Peter Lougheed Centre in Calgary and an assistant professor at the O’Brien Institute for Public Health at the University of Calgary.

Since the pandemic’s start, we’ve worried about the health system’s dramatic collapse but, like my dying patients, we’re witnessing a slower death; a system imperceptibly degrading until one day, like a cancer-riddled body, it just stops working entirely.

After two years of COVID-19, our hospitals have never been worse off. Recently, Dr. Vesta Michelle Warren, the Alberta Medical Association president, wrote to the province’s physicians: “ The system is in crisis .”

Hospital staff, past burnout, can’t provide the high-quality care we expect of ourselves. Instead, we are resigned. Staff shrug their shoulders and sigh, “It is what it is.” This defeated slogan symbolizes a fatalism I’ve never seen before.

The quality of care in Alberta is degrading, increasingly unsafe and often without dignity.

Patients wait hours, even overnight , for help after calling 911 — but there’s no one to come because paramedics are trapped in ambulance bays and hospital hallways caring for patients. Our emergency departments lack space to accept another sick person. They are clogged with admitted patients because the hospital is full and we’re out of beds .

Under constant pressure, emergency physicians send sick patients home instead of asking for admissions. Hospital managers, tasked with maximizing beds, beg physicians to discharge patients daily. We acquiesce and send home sick or frail patients to make room for others who are sicker. We know prematurely discharging patients increases their risk of bad health outcomes and readmissions. These patients return, often by ambulance. Thus, the tragic cycle starts anew.

In Alberta, 568 physicians left in 2021 and 461 fewer family physicians are accepting new patients. Alberta has the most unfilled family medicine residency positions in Canada at 32. A primary care physician shortage means people can’t see the doctors who manage their ambulatory care sensitive conditions — common conditions that can destabilize and cause preventable hospitalizations.

Most tragically, we’re seeing missed cancers, illnesses so advanced they are now incurable. We know delayed diagnosis and treatment increase cancer deaths . Canadian research predicts over 21,000 excess cancer deaths by 2030. Preventable deaths because patients couldn’t or didn’t have appropriate cancer screening.

COVID-19 is still straining our hospitals. “Mild” post-vaccine COVID-19 infections often suddenly worsen multiple chronic illnesses of the heart, lung and kidney, causing emergent hospitalizations. Further, new Canadian research shows one in nine patients hospitalized with COVID-19 is readmitted or dies within 30 days. These admissions and deaths are uncounted in public COVID-19 statistics .

But health care’s biggest threat is the constant shortage of nurses. The remaining staff are now often asked to work 16-hour shifts. To cope, some units at my hospital re-implemented emergency pandemic guidelines that allow nurse-to-patient ratios to increase to 1:8. This means providing only “essential care.”

My nursing colleagues are frustrated, disheartened and demoralized. I am watching them lose their commitment to go above and beyond for patients. Front-line nurses with 20 years of experience are impossible to replace but are retiring years earlier than planned . These nurses run our hospitals, train new nurses and guide our resident physicians. Hospitals are nothing but very expensive buildings without them.

Like my patients with life-threatening but still curable illnesses, our hospitals need aggressive treatment now to be resuscitated. The cure has two basic components: increase workforce supply and reduce hospital demand.

Canada has among the lowest physician and an average nurse supply per capita among high-income countries. Both workforces are running on empty: over half of physicians and more than 75 per cent of nurses in Canada are burnt out.

To increase supply, we must hire, train and recruit more health-care workers. First, we must invest in supporting, training and credentialing the estimated 250,000 foreign-trained health-care workers already in Canada who are desperate to employ their skills. We worked together successfully in community outreach during COVID surges and vaccine clinics . Second, we need pan-Canadian licensing for existing health-care workers to increase staffing flexibility. Finally, our provincial government must re-invest in and repair relationships with primary care as ever-more Albertans lack family doctors.

To reduce hospital demand, we must stop pretending COVID-19 is over. Wastewater surveillance shows Canadian COVID transmission is cresting. This gives us a short reprieve until fall to prepare. We must use this time to focus on improving indoor ventilation and uptake of booster doses.

Alberta lags woefully behind the rest of the country with the lowest booster rates. Unsurprisingly, we also share the highest infection rates and excess mortality in Canada, the latter despite our younger population.

To improve vaccination rates, health systems must invite communities and family members to participate. We did this in northeast Calgary , a joint effort with local agencies, health-care workers and community volunteers. In our hardest-hit , highly racialized and low-income neighbourhoods, we achieved near-universal first-dose vaccination. Then, inexplicably, the program was halted, and children’s and third-dose vaccination rates plummeted.

Most Canadians may not realize our health-care system is sick. But the day they need care, they will. On that day, inevitably and tragically, they or their loved ones will come in with an ailment or injury, and they will be shocked at the skeletal remains of a system that was once a source of national pride.

Our universal health-care system is failing. Its death will not be a loud, dramatic collapse but a slow, progressive, agonizing one.

Dr. Gabriel Fabreau is a general internist at the Peter Lougheed Centre in Calgary and an assistant professor at the O’Brien Institute for Public Health at the University of Calgary .

Starbucks closed a New York store 'illegally' after its workers unionized, a report says

stabahriti@insider.com (Sam Tabahriti) 

Starbucks workers have unionized in dozens of US stores. 

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Starbucks workers' union filed a complaint against the company, saying it closed a store illegally.

The workers accuse the coffee chain of retaliating against them for unionizing, Bloomberg reported.

The store being permanently closed is in Ithaca, New York state.

Starbucks' decision to permanently close a store in Ithaca, New York, has prompted its workers' union to accuse the company of retaliation for recent union activism, Bloomberg reported.

The union filed the complaint about the "illegal" closure to the National Labor Relations Board on Friday.

Reggie Borges, a spokesperson for Starbucks, told Insider that the closure was due to facilities, staffing, and "time and attendance" issues.

"We open and close stores as a regular part of our operations. With deep care and urgency, we continuously work to create the kind of store environment that partners and customers expect of Starbucks."

According to the report, Starbucks attorney Alan Model emailed the union to inform of the closure, saying: "As you know, there have been many issues with regard to the condition of the store (e.g., the grease trap) and it does not make sense to further operate the store."

One employee, Evan Sunshine, told Bloomberg: "Starbucks won't get away with retaliating against us like this. Whatever it takes, however long it may take, we will persevere."

Three Ithaca stores have voted to unionize in the past few months, along with more than 50 Starbucks stores nationwide.

Other workers from other giants have either attempted or succeeded in unionizing, such as Apple workers who filed to do so in April but later withdrew their request amid alleged intimidation.

Amazon, however, pulled off a surprise victory, marking the retail giant's first unionized warehouse.

Employees at the Ithaca store, near the Cornell University campus, voted to unionize in April. The drive was prompted by an overflowing grease trap that had spilled wastewater and oil onto the floor, according to Bloomberg.

Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, has helped Starbucks workers to unionize, and they said it would support the staff.

Gary Bonadonna, a regional leader for the union, told Bloomberg that the closure was a "blatant act of war" against the union's members, adding: "We have their backs."

Marcos-Linked Stocks Post Windfall Gains in Election Month



Ian Sayson
Mon, May 30, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Investors who bought stocks tied to Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his family ahead of the Philippines’ presidential election this month have enjoyed windfall gains as he coasted to victory.

Three of the nation’s five best performing equities in May were linked to Marcos. PhilWeb Corp., a gaming company owned by his brother-in-law Gregorio Araneta III, soared more than 60% in its best monthly gain in more than seven years. The businessman’s Araneta Properties Inc. returned about 50%, as did Prime Media Holdings Inc., owned by the family of Marcos’ cousin Deputy House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Nickel miner Marcventures Holdings Inc. and its shareholder Bright Kindle Resources & Investments Inc., two other firms linked to Romualdez, also outperformed the country’s stock benchmark. Shares of both companies rose at least 8%, while the Philippine Stock Exchange Index climbed 1%.

Expectations the stocks would fare better under a Marcos presidency lured investors, like Kevin Khoe, 48, who started buying PhilWeb in January as surveys showed Marcos consistently leading by a wide lead over his rivals.

Khoe, a former stock analyst and who has been trading equities since 1994, named PhilWeb the best play among so-called “Marcos stocks” because he saw catalysts beyond politics. PhiWeb has strong earnings, liquidity and is poised to benefit from the economy’s reopening, he said.

Every election, investors focus on companies that might gain “accommodation” under a new president, according to Alex Timbol, a former stock broker who’s been an equities investor since 1987. Such firms are favorably valued by the market during a president’s six-year term, but are punished toward the end if they fail to show “they can thrive on their own ability,” he said.

“Speculators like empty companies because they can believe anything, it’s like pointing at the sky and imagining whatever they want,” said Timbol, who prefers Marcventures among the Marcos-linked stocks, citing its earnings recovery and rising nickel prices. “Traders should be astute to identify those opportunities and see where it’s going.”

SPACE WAR
China's military scientists call for development of anti-Starlink measures


SOPA Images via Getty Images

Mariella Moon
·Contributing Reporter
Wed, June 1, 2022

China must develop capabilities to disable and maybe even destroy Starlink internet satellites, the country's military researchers said in a paper published by the Chinese journal Modern Defense Technology. The authors highlighted the possibility of Starlink being used for military purposes that could aid other countries and threaten China's national security. According to South China Morning Post, the scientists are calling for the development of anti-satellite capabilities, including both hard and soft kill methods. The former is used to physically destroy satellites, such as the use of missiles, while a soft kill method targets a satellite's software and operating system.

In addition, the researchers are suggesting the development of a surveillance system with the ability to track each and every Starlink satellite. That would address one of their concerns, which is the possibility of launching military payloads along with a bunch of satellites for the constellation. David Cowhig's Translation Blog posted an English version of the paper, along with another article from state-sponsored website China Military Online that warned about the dangers of the satellite internet service.

"While Starlink claims to be a civilian program that provides high-speed internet services, it has a strong military background," it said. Its launch sites are built within military bases, it continued, and SpaceX previously received funds from the US Air Force to study how Starlink satellites can connect to military aircraft under encryption. The Chinese scientists warned Starlink could boost the communication speeds of fighter jets and drones by over 100 times.

The author warned:

"When completed, Starlink satellites can be mounted with reconnaissance, navigation and meteorological devices to further enhance the US military’s combat capability in such areas as reconnaissance remote sensing, communications relay, navigation and positioning, attack and collision, and space sheltering."

Between hard and soft kill, the researchers favor the latter, since physically destroying satellites would produce space debris that could interfere with China's activities. The country previously filed a complaint with the United Nations about the Tiangong space station's near-collision with Starlink satellites. Apparently, the station had to perform evasive maneuvers twice in 2021 to minimize the chances of collision. Destroying a few satellites also wouldn't completely take out the Starlink constellation, seeing as SpaceX has already launched over 2,500 satellites at this point in time.

Michael Flynn’s Identity Was Not Improperly Revealed By Obama Officials, A Secret DOJ Report Has Found



Jason Leopold
Tue, May 31, 2022,

A Justice Department probe found that members of the Obama administration did not seek to reveal the identity of Michael Flynn “for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons,” a newly disclosed report reveals.

The document details the results of a monthslong investigation into the so-called unmasking of Flynn, who briefly served as national security adviser to then-president Donald Trump before he resigned in February 2017 in the wake of the revelation that he had lied about phone conversations he held with Russia’s ambassador to the US.

Republicans later accused officials in the Obama administration of using their positions to reveal anonymized names in classified documents, known in the intelligence community as unmasking, in order to target individuals in Trump’s orbit. In May 2020, Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, ordered an investigation into the practice of unmasking. That review, conducted by John Bash — at the time the US attorney for the Western District of Texas — was finished the following September without finding any evidence of wrongdoing.

Although Bash’s conclusions, including his decision not to prosecute anyone, were first reported in late 2020, the report itself has not previously been seen by the public. The full 52-page document, which had been classified top secret, was obtained by BuzzFeed News in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and is being shared here for the first time in its entirety.


The probe was one of several ordered up by Barr scrutinizing the origins of federal investigations into ties between Trump and the Russian government. On Tuesday, a federal jury acquitted a Democratic lawyer who had been charged with lying to the FBI in one of those probes, overseen by special prosecutor John Durham.

In his case, Bash employed a team of two prosecutors, three FBI agents, and one FBI analyst to review unmasking requests made to the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and the FBI between March 1, 2016, and Jan. 31, 2017, and to conduct interviews with 20 government employees involved in intelligence briefings. He examined whether anyone in the Obama administration had improper motives when seeking to reveal the true identities of US citizens — including Flynn — whose names were not disclosed in classified intelligence reports.

Bash, who left the Justice Department in October 2020, found no such activity.

“My review has uncovered no evidence that senior Executive Branch officials sought the disclosure of” the identities of US individuals “in disseminated intelligence reports for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons during the 2016 presidential-election period or the ensuing presidential-transition period,” Bash’s report says.

A central focus of the probe was the leak showing that Flynn had been in communication with then–Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak prior to Trump’s inauguration, and whether Flynn’s involvement was revealed through an unmasking request from a government official.

But Bash’s review of unmasked intelligence reports about the calls found that the FBI did not in fact disseminate any that contained Flynn’s information, and that a single unmasked report that did contain Flynn’s information did not describe the calls between him and Kislyak. “For that reason, the public disclosure of the communications could not have resulted from an unmasking request,” Bash’s report concludes.

Intriguingly, the prosecutor did find that “the FBI shared transcripts of the relevant communications outside the Bureau without masking General Flynn’s name,” but notes that he did not investigate those incidents any further because “evaluating that dissemination, and determining how the information was provided to the media, is beyond the scope of this review.” Bash's report contains no information about who shared those transcripts and who received them.

Although Bash writes that he had not found a justification to conduct a criminal investigation into anyone who was involved in the unmasking process, he says he was “troubled” by “how easy it is for political appointees of the incumbent administration to obtain nonpublic information about individuals associated with a presidential campaign or a transition team.”

“There exists a significant potential for misuse of such information— misuse that could be difficult to detect,” Bash writes. His report recommends that the intelligence community should consider implementing “certain prophylactic safeguards for unmasking requests that relate to presidential campaigns or transitions, including a more demanding substantive standard for granting those requests, special notification requirements, and a centralized approval process.”

Fact check: Contemporary, human-driven warming has different ramifications than past warming


Kate S. Petersen, USA TODAY
Tue, May 31, 2022

The claim: The Arctic was warmer 6,000 years ago and 90% of glaciers were smaller or absent

A recent academic paper reported evidence that summer temperatures in the Arctic were warmer 8,000 to 10,000 years ago than they are today. It said this spurred glacial melting that peaked about 6,000 years ago.

One blog post called the existence of such past warm periods an "inconvenient fact" for "climate alarmists."

"New Study: Arctic Was Much Warmer 6000 Years Ago… 90% Of Glaciers, Ice Caps Smaller Than Present Or Absent," reads the blog link in an April 11 Facebook post.

The Facebook post received more than 200 interactions. Versions of the blog were also shared on Reddit and Twitter, though the Twitter account was later suspended.


But, the post is misleading. Paleoclimatologists, who study the earth's climate history, have documented periods of warming and cooling. Warm summer temperatures in one of the periods referenced in the paper – the early Holocene period – were caused by normal variation in the Earth's orbit around the sun, whereas today's warming trend is driven by human behavior.

In other words, there are different causes and different long-term ramifications for the two different periods of warming, according to researchers.

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USA TODAY reached out to social media users who shared the claim for comment. The blog author, who also posted the link on Twitter, could not be reached.
Past periods of warming useful for understanding modern and future climate patterns

Despite what the blog post implies, the existence of past warm periods does not contradict modern climate science, Laura Larocca, the study's lead author and postdoctoral fellow at Northern Arizona University, told USA TODAY.

"Evidence of past periods of warmth from paleoclimate archives is not an 'inconvenient fact,'" Larocca said in an email. "We are learning quite a lot from past warm periods about our rapidly warming world and about what we can expect in the future."

In fact, one of the main goals of Larocca's study was to place contemporary human-driven Arctic glacier retreat into a long-term context, she said.

Her paper provides evidence that Arctic summer temperatures roughly 2° Celsius higher than present-day ultimately caused the loss of a significant number of land terminating mountain glaciers and ice caps. Losses peaked about 6,000 - 7,000 years ago when more than 90% of the glaciers disappeared or were reduced in size.

Other Arctic ice masses such as the Greenland ice sheet and sea ice were not evaluated in the study.

Fact check: Warming varies across oceans and atmosphere, doesn't contradict climate change

Larocca emphasized that Arctic summer temperatures due to human-driven global warming are projected to be even warmer by the end of this century than they were thousands of years ago.

"Summer temperatures only moderately warmer ... than today drove major environmental change across the Arctic including the widespread decline and loss of small mountain glaciers," she said. "This is an important point because future, end-of-century temperatures are expected to exceed early Holocene values in most locations, portending the eventual loss of most of the Arctic's small glaciers."
Current warming has different causes and ramifications than past warming

Michelle Stirling, the communications manager for Friends of Science, who posted the claim on Facebook, told USA TODAY that contemporary warming is not "extreme or unusual" when examined in the context of Earth's geological record.

However, while the study affirms that Arctic summers were warmer in the the period referenced in the paper, that warming was caused by predictable changes in Earth's orbit which exposed the Northern Hemisphere to more solar radiation in the summer, Larocca said.

As Earth's orbit continued to change, Arctic summers cooled and glaciers began to advance. Currently, Earth's orientation to the sun in its orbit would support the expansion of glaciers, she said. However, warming driven by human behavior is causing a retreat.

Twila Moon, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told USA TODAY that these disparate causes mean that ancient and contemporary periods of warming have different ramifications.

"Today’s loss of glacier ice is occurring for different reasons than the loss that occurred 6,000 years ago," Moon said in an email. "Unfortunately, that means that we cannot expect natural changes to shift us towards glacier stability or growth over coming centuries or millennia, not to mention the next decades."

Another difference is that contemporary human-driven warming is progressing at a much faster rate than in the past, Samantha Bova, a paleoclimatologist and assistant professor at San Diego State University, told USA TODAY in an email.

"Modern rates of carbon emissions and warming are faster than anything we have observed over Earth history for at least the last 65 million years," she said. "Rapid rates of change mean, for example, that the biosphere (global ecosystem) doesn’t have very much time to adapt to new conditions."

Additionally, modern glacier melt, which partially drives sea level rise, poses unique threats to modern human populations, said Larocca.

Fact check: False claim that Arctic, Antarctic ice reached record highs

Unlike thousands of years ago, millions of people live in coastal cities threatened by rising sea levels. Further, she said, millions of people rely on mountain glaciers for water.

However, Moon emphasized that human behavior can still influence future outcomes for Arctic glaciers.

"In the same way that human activities are causing today’s rapid ice loss and temperature rise, human activity can also shift to reduce the current causes of warming and limit ice loss into the future," she said.
Our rating: Missing context

Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the claim that the Arctic was warmer 6,000 years ago and 90% of glaciers were smaller or absent. According to researchers, warm temperatures in the early Holocene period were caused by variation in Earth's orbit around the sun, whereas today's warming trend is driven by human behavior. Thus, the ramifications of the two periods of warming are different.
Our fact-check sources:

Laura Larocca, April 17-18, Email exchange with USA TODAY


Samantha Bova, April 27-May 13, Phone interview and email exchange with USA TODAY


Twila Moon, May 13, Email exchange with USA TODAY


AFP, May 6, Article misrepresents study on Arctic ice to question climate change


Climate of the Past, March 30, Arctic glaciers and ice caps through the Holocene: A circumpolar synthesis of lake-based reconstructions


Science, Dec. 14, 2021, The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world


NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed May 16, Ice sheets


The New York Times, Aug. 20, 2020, Loss of Greenland Ice Sheet Reached a Record Last Year


NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, April 1, 2021, Video: Greenland Ice Mass Loss 2002-2020


Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Dec. 21, 2020, Past Warmth and Its Impacts During the Holocene Thermal Maximum in Greenland


Carbon Brief, April 28, 2021, Melting glaciers drove ‘21% of sea level rise’ over past two decades


EPA, April 2021, Climate Change Indicators: Coastal Flooding


EPA, accessed May 17, Average number of coastal flood events per year chart


NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed May 17, Carbon dioxide


NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed May 17, Arctic sea ice extent


University of California Museum of Paleontology, Jan. 17, 1996, The Holocene Epoch

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Past climate records do not contradict climate science

Fact check: Cherry-picked data behind misleading claim that Arctic sea ice hasn't declined since 1989



Kate S. Petersen, USA TODAY
Mon, May 30, 2022

The claim: Images show floating Arctic sea ice has hardly changed in decades

Arctic sea ice, which is frozen sea water that floats on top of the ocean's surface, grows and melts during the year. Like ice sheets and glaciers, Arctic sea ice is disappearing because of climate change.

Arctic sea ice minimum extent – its size at the end of the summer melt – has declined 13% per decade since the late 1970s, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center and NASA data.

However, some social media posts use images from the National Snow & Ice Data Center's public online data tool, Sea Ice Index, to suggest that Arctic sea ice extent has not meaningfully changed in decades.


For example, one social media post includes two images that supposedly illustrate little change in/ Arctic sea ice extent. One is labeled "13 May 1989." The other is labeled "13 May 2022." The images appear very similar.

"See a difference worth losing sleep? Neither do I. Yet, every few days I see in the press that 'as the Sea Ice continues to disappear' yah da yahda," reads the caption of a May 14 Facebook post featuring the images.

The post was shared more than 1,500 times in four days.

However, the post is misleading. Although Arctic sea ice is declining overall due to human behavior, it is still possible for two individual days, years apart, to have similar sea ice coverage, according to researchers. This is because Arctic sea ice extent is variable and informed by season and weather patterns, not just long-term climate trends. However, the overall downward trend is clear.

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USA TODAY reached out to social media users who shared the claim for comment.
Sea ice extent variable across seasons and years, but still declining overall

Arctic sea ice change can only meaningfully be measured in terms of long-term trends, not its status on two individual days, Bonnie Light, the chair and senior principal physicist at the University of Washington Polar Science Center, told USA TODAY.

"Picking single days out of two different years in a climate record is not informative," she said in an email. "It would be analogous to saying that it was raining on 19 May 1989 but then sunny on 19 May 2022 and therefore rain – at that particular location – has lessened or stopped entirely."

Satellite surveillance since the late 1970s shows that Arctic sea ice is clearly declining, but that doesn't mean that each day there is less ice than the day before.

This is because Arctic sea ice extent is impacted by long-term climate trends, such as the warming caused by human behavior, but also by weather and other natural variability in Earth's climate systems, according to Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at National Snow & Ice Data Center.

In 2021, for example, weak summer cyclones brought cloudy, cooler weather to the Arctic, which helped slow sea ice melt, Meier told USA TODAY in an email. This resulted in the September 2021 minimum extent being larger than the previous year – seemingly defying the downward trend.

However, the average minimum extent for the decade between 2011-2020 was roughly 36% smaller than it was between 1981-1990, according to data Meier provided.

Fact check: Short term global temperature fluctuations do not negate climate science, overall warming

It is these longer-term trends that researchers have identified as being caused by human-driven climate change.
Post cherry-picks misleading data

While sea ice extent has declined in all months, some months have been more impacted than others thus far, Light said.

This means the social media claim, which compares a date in May 2022 to the same date in May 1989, is particularly misleading.

May is a month that has exhibited less extent loss over time than other months, such as August, September and October, according to National Snow & Ice Data Center data.

Because of this, "May is a much easier time to find similar days in 1989 and 2022, than September," Meier said. Further, May of 1989 had the lowest extent of any May between 1979-2001, making it particularly easy to find a comparable day in 2022.

Another issue is that the National Snow & Ice Data Center images used in the social media post, show sea ice extent, but not volume – which has also been decreasing.

Thus, comparing only the extent data from two timepoints decades apart is misleading because the total amount of ice present is likely to be very different, even if the extent is roughly the same, said Meier.

Fact check: NASA did not deny warming or say polar ice has increased since 1979

"You can’t cherry-pick two years and then cherry-pick two days within those years and make any kind of conclusive comparison," he said.
Loss of sea ice exacerbates global warming

Long-term Arctic sea ice losses exacerbate global warming through the Arctic ice-albedo feedback cycle.

Sea ice reflects more of the sun's energy than water – it has a higher albedo.

Fact check: False claim that Arctic, Antarctic ice reached record highs

Therefore, as ice coverage decreases, more and more of the sun's energy is absorbed by the ocean – warming it up.

"The more ocean exposed, the larger the potential for absorption of sunlight directly into the ocean, which fuels further ice melt," Light said.
Our rating: Missing context

Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the claim that images show Arctic sea ice extent has hardly changed in decades. Arctic sea ice has declined significantly since the late 1970s. However, sea ice extent is still variable due to seasonality and weather patterns. The extent on two individual days is not adequate to establish a pattern, according to researchers. This claim is based on cherry-picked data from a year with a lower than average extent during a time of year when ice losses are relatively minimal.
Our fact-check sources:

Bonnie Light, May 19, Email exchange with USA TODAY


Walt Meier, May 20, Email exchange with USA TODAY


AFP, May 18, Facebook post misinterprets data to suggest Arctic ice is not declining


NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed May 18, Arctic Sea Ice Extent


National Snow & Ice Data Center, accessed May 18, Sea Ice Index


National Snow & Ice Data Center, April 3, 2020, Thermodynamics: Albedo


NASA, April 20, 2020, Ice-Albedo Feedback in the Arctic


Polar Science Center, accessed May 19, Home page


NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed May 19, The Effects of Climate Change


NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed May 20, Ice sheets


NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed May 23, The Causes of Climate Change


National Snow & Ice Data Center, accessed May 23, Sea Ice Index: Compare trends

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Arctic sea ice declining, cherry-picked data misleading