Industry minister suggests Rogers outage could weigh on $26-billion Shaw deal


Fri, July 15, 2022 


CALGARY — New comments from federal Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne suggest last week's massive outage at Rogers Communications Inc. could weigh on the telecom provider's proposed $26-billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc.

In an interview in Calgary, Champagne said last Friday's outage that saw more than 12 million Canadians lose cell phone and internet service will be on the mind of regulators tasked with making a decision on the Rogers-Shaw merger.

"This is certainly going to be on my mind, and the mind of all Canadians. We just went through one of the most serious outages I can remember," said Champagne, who was in Calgary Friday to attend the Stampede and meet with Alberta business leaders.

"So this is going to be on the mind of the different people who need to make a decision.”

While the Rogers-Shaw transaction already has approval from shareholders and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, it still needs to be approved by the Competition Bureau as well as by Champagne's department, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.

Champagne's comments came the same day Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor Inc. were widely expected to reach a definitive agreement on the sale of wireless carrier Freedom Mobile — a $2.85-billion deal that was intended to help appease regulators mulling the Rogers-Shaw merger.

The deal would see Quebecor buy all of Freedom's branded wireless and internet customers, as well as its infrastructure, spectrum and retail locations. Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor have argued that their agreement would effectively keep alive a "strong and sustainable" fourth wireless carrier in Canada because the deal would expand Quebecor's wireless operations nationally.

But on Friday afternoon, Rogers said a definitive agreement had not yet been reached, though all three parties continue to pursue the divestiture of Freedom Mobile on the terms set out in the previously disclosed agreement.

"Negotiation of the definitive transaction documents is progressing as expected, and the parties will provide an update in due course," said Rogers spokeswoman Chloe Luciani-Girouard in an email.

Champagne said he can't comment on the merits of the proposed Freedom Mobile divestiture. But he said he's been very clear from the start that he will not permit the wholesale transfer of spectrum from Shaw to Rogers, and the companies will have heard his message.

Earlier this week, Champagne met with Rogers and several other telecom providers and directed them to come up with a crisis plan to improve resiliency in the sector in the event an outage like last Friday's happens again. The plan must include agreements on emergency roaming, a "mutual assistance'' framework and a communication protocol to "better inform the public and authorities during telecommunications emergencies."

But while network resiliency was the top priority at that meeting, Champagne said on Friday that competition in the sector is an important and related issue.

"We (the federal government) are going to continue to push for competition, because competition also provides a level of resiliency," he said. "Because if you have more choices, that will improve resiliency."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 15, 2022.

Companies in this story: (TSX:RCI.B, TSX:SJR.B, TSX:QBR.B)

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

House of Commons industry committee to investigate Rogers outage

Fri, July 15, 2022 


OTTAWA — The House of Commons industry committee agreed Friday to study the massive Rogers outage that left millions of Canadians in a communications blackout for more than 15 hours last week.

MPs on the committee agreed unanimously during a special meeting to probe what happened.

The July 8 outage affected Rogers mobile and internet users, knocked out ATMs, shut down the Interac payments system and prevented calls to 911 services in some Canadian cities.

The committee will hold at least two meetings by the end of the month and invite officials from Rogers, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Committee and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne to testify.

It wants answers about the cause of the outage, its impact and best practices to avoid future outages and to better communicate with the public during such emergencies.

In an email, a Rogers spokesperson confirmed company executives will attend the hearings.

"We will work collaboratively with the members on the standing committee on industry, science, and technology to provide details on the cause of the outage and the actions we are taking to enhance the reliability of each of our networks moving forward, including through formal mutual support agreements," the spokesperson said.

Laurie Bouchard, a spokesperson for Champagne, said his office was aware of the invitation and that they "will continue to collaborate with the committee."

In an email, a spokesperson for the CRTC said they would respond to an invitation from the committee "in a timely fashion."

Champagne has called the outage "unacceptable" and directed the country’s major telecom companies to reach agreements on emergency roaming, assisting each other during outages and a communication protocol to better inform Canadians during emergencies.

He gave them 60 days to reach a deal.

The CRTC is also investigating the outage.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 15, 2022.

Companies in this story: (TSX:RCI.B)

Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

Buffalo market reopens to debate over healing, sensitivity


Fri, July 15, 2022



BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Cariol Horne started her morning outside the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, placing white roses at a colorful memorial to the 10 Black people slain there two months ago by a white gunman.

Across the fenced-off parking lot, the supermarket chain's president and employees were preparing to lead media on a preview of the refurbished store, a day ahead of its Friday reopening to the public.

Count Horne, a 54-year-old activist and retired Buffalo police officer, was among those in the neighborhood who say it's too soon.

“We’re pretty much shopping on people’s blood,” she said. “I think that this is more about putting people to work rather than letting them heal. … Just two months ago, these people were running for their lives.”

Yet even Horne carries the mixed emotions of seemingly everyone in the community, where the store has doubled as a gathering spot for two decades.

Her 97-year-old father, a World War II veteran, lives close enough to the market to shop there on his own. The produce at Tops is fresher than the foods available at smaller convenience stores and bodegas in the neighborhood, she said. She gets it.

How do you decide how, when or even whether to let the site of a mass atrocity return to being what it was before it was a crime scene? How do you help people move forward without erasing the memory of an event that devastated so many?

It’s hard enough to answer those questions when it’s a school, a church, a synagogue. It’s a different sort of hard when it’s a place of business, especially one as central to a community as Tops is to east Buffalo.

It took six months for a movie theater to reopen in Aurora, Colorado, after a mass shooter killed 12 people there in 2012. That was one theater in a 16-screen suburban cineplex.

Tops is the social hub of its neighborhood. That's why frequent shoppers, the store’s managers and employees, community leaders and those who lost loved ones in the hail of bullets two months ago tell The Associated Press simply: It’s complicated.

On the one hand, residents fought for years to win a grocery store on Buffalo's east side, which had long suffered from disinvestment and lackluster economic activity. The arrival of Tops in 2003 was a godsend to an area that had been considered a food desert.

On the other hand, polishing store fixtures and floors is a far cry from addressing the systemic inequality and unhealed trauma in east Buffalo's Black community, several residents said.

Tops President John Persons said Thursday that the company began hearing from customers, community members and civic leaders the day after the May 14 shooting. Almost immediately, the company started running a free shuttle from the neighborhood to other Tops stores.

Ultimately, the management team felt confident that store associates and most area residents needed and wanted the store to reopen.

“I’ll be honest, those are the people that we really wanted to listen to, the people that were in the neighborhood, the people that were in the Jefferson Avenue neighborhood and the immediate community to find out what their thoughts were,” Persons said.

On Friday morning, store associates handed single carnations to customers as they entered the newly reopening store. Some also received Tops gift cards — the store planned to hand out more than 200 of them, a representative confirmed.

“The key to life is to get back to living,” said shopper Alan Hall, who lives two blocks away from the Jefferson Avenue store. “We're happy that it's open. It looks good. It's well stocked. Of course, there's still that undercurrent of grief, which will never leave. But it's good to be back.”

The store has a calming palate of muted grays and greens. Over the entrance are Adinkra symbols, one representing peace and harmony, another hospitality and generosity and a third, farewell and goodbye.

“Everything you see here was taken down to the bare walls,” Persons said. “It’s all fresh product. This is all new equipment. All throughout, from the ceiling to the floor has been repainted or redone.”

It is also made to be safer, with a new emergency evacuation alarm system and additional emergency exits. Outside, the parking lot and perimeter have new LED lighting.

Fragrance Harris Stanfield, a customer relations employee of Tops, returned to the store Thursday for the first time since the shooting. She initially struggled to get past the foyer, just inside the entrance.

“I couldn’t really pass the threshold. At that point, it just was extremely overwhelming, very emotional,” Stanfield said. “But everyone was so supportive and they knew I needed a moment.”

What calmed her were the water fountains flanking a memorial and poem displayed in tribute to the shooting victims. At the base of the fountain, a sign reads, “To respect the requests of some of the victims’ loved ones names are not included on this memorial.”

Tops says it is working with state, city and community leaders to create a permanent public memorial to be installed outside the store.

Stanfield said she understands why some believe it’s too soon to reopen.

“I think there’s still a place of mourning and grieving,” she said. “We’re still kind of in a blaming space, where they need somewhere to focus that energy. And so it’s just being focused here, which is completely understandable.”

Near the store’s entrance, signs labeled “community counseling” hung from pitched tents. On Thursday, residents looked on from behind the fence, some of them angrily, as Tops managers hosted the press event.

Part of the anger stems from a sense that not enough effort was made to seek enough voices from the community.

“No one’s come door to door to ask the people, who live within a mile, or four blocks, or even two blocks of Tops, ‘Are you comfortable with this? What do you want here?’” said David Louis, another activist who, like Horne, recognizes that others miss not just the goods on Tops' shelves but the good in its aisles.

“This is such a family store, it’s so close to everyone’s homes,” said Louis, who frequently walked the four blocks to the store wearing Crocs and house pants. “When I’m in Tops, I know that these people aren’t judging me.”

Robert Neimeyer, director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, said reopening a site of a mass atrocity can be like walking a tightrope. The Buffalo market, in particular, isn’t just a typical business, he said.

“It really is a kind of linchpin of that community, and so it has enormous cultural and practical significance,” Neimeyer said. “It’s just as important a place to live as it is to mourn.”

Still, he said, “Not every site of mass homicide in the United States can become a 9/11 memorial, whether it’s in Uvalde or Buffalo.”

He said the store managers would send a strong message to the community if Tops funneled a portion of the proceeds from grocery sales to a scholarship fund.

“In that way, even shopping in the store becomes a commemorative act,” Neimeyer said.

Mark Talley, the son of Buffalo shooting victim Geraldine Talley, said he grew up going to the Tops on Jefferson Avenue with his mom. Now, he’s hoping to honor her memory through advocacy, community service projects and a fledgling nonprofit organization.

The 33-year-old also attended the Tops preview event Thursday and said he understands why there are mixed feelings.

“When I was first asked this question weeks after it happened, I said, ‘No, I want the Tops closed. I want it to just be dedicated to all the loved ones there,’” Talley said.

“But if you do that, then you just succumb to defeat,” he said. “I don’t want the east side of Buffalo to seem weak. I want us to become stronger than that. Let’s just build it back up.”

___

Associated Press writer Carolyn Thompson contributed to this report. Morrison is a New York City-based member of the AP's Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.

Aaron Morrison, The Associated Press

TikTok's head of cybersecurity is stepping down amid rising privacy concerns on the Chinese-owned app

Samantha Delouya
Fri, July 15, 2022 

SOPA Images/Getty Images

TikTok's chief security officer is leaving the company.

This comes amid the US government's renewed calls to look into whether TikTok poses a security risk.

Reports last month that TikTok employees in China accessed US user data caused backlash in Washington.

TikTok's chief security officer is leaving the role in September amid renewed calls from members of the government to look into the social media app's ties to China.

A TikTok spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the decision to replace Roland Cloutier as Chief Security Officer is unrelated to any data-privacy concerns.

TikTok, which is currently the fastest growing social media company, has often faced scrutiny for being owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

Last month, Buzzfeed News reported that US user data had been repeatedly accessed by TikTok employees in China based on leaked audio from internal company meetings.

The report resulted in backlash from Washington, with an FCC commissioner calling on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from its app stores.

TikTok confirmed in a letter that its China-based employees have access to US user data, but only through an "approval process."

CEO Shou Zi Chew sent a note to TikTok employees about Cloutier's exit as chief security officer, writing that "part of our evolving approach has been to minimize concerns about the security of user data in the U.S., including the creation of a new department to manage U.S. user data for TikTok. This is an important investment in our data protection practices, and it also changes the scope of the Global CSO role."

Cloutier will officially step down from his role as Chief Security Officer in September and transition to an advisory role at TikTok.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New lawsuit claims Skittles 'are unfit for human consumption' due to the presence of chemical toxin the company has said it would stop using

Dominick Reuter

Fri, July 15, 2022 

Joey Hadden/Insider

• Mars Inc., the maker of Skittles, is facing a lawsuit in California over its use of titanium dioxide.

• The ingredient is known to be toxic, and the company promised in 2016 to stop using it.

• Titanium dioxide helps give colors a brighter appearance, and is commonly used in mineral sunscreen.

Skittles is facing legal action over its use of a toxic chemical found in artificial coloring.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in the Northern District of California, plaintiff Jenile Thames claims that Skittles-maker Mars Inc. is deceiving customers and putting their health at risk over its continued use of titanium dioxide for its candy's trademark hues. The suit also takes issue with the package design, which it says hinders the efforts of "reasonable consumers" to inform themselves.

Mars pledged in 2016 to phase out the use of titanium dioxide, or TiO2, stating at the time that it would remove the chemical and all artificial colorings from its products over the next five years.

The lawsuit says Thames purchased a package of Skittles in April of this year that still contained TiO2. The chemical is also currently listed in the product's online ingredient lists, including at major retailers like CVS.

A Mars spokesperson told Insider the company does not comment on pending litigation.

Titanium dioxide is commonly used in industrial applications such as paints, plastics, inks, adhesives, and roofing materials. It is also a popular component of mineral sunscreens.

The use of TiO2 in food is more controversial, and safety regulators have noted that the nanoparticles that make it so effective as a sunblock are indigestible by humans. Researchers have found its presence in the body has led to a host of health ailments, including alterations to DNA, chromosomal damage, inflammation, and cell neurosis.

A full ban on TiO2 in food products went into effect in France in 2020, and the European Union has a similar policy slated to go into effect next month. Mars has said it would comply with France's law, according to the lawsuit.

Thames' lawyers are seeking class-action status that covers all of Skittles' US retail customers, a number they say is too numerous to estimate. Skittles sold an estimated $185 million in the US in 2017, making it the nation's top non-chocolate chewy candy.

Alberta to 'kickstart' industrial, oilpatch carbon capture projects with $40-million fund

Meghan Potkins
Fri, July 15, 2022 

no0715carbon-capture

Nearly a dozen carbon capture projects from Alberta’s oilpatch and industrial sectors will receive an injection of cash from the provincial government aimed at accelerating the deployment of more than $20 billion in capital spending on emissions reduction.

Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) announced this week it would provide more than $40 million to 11 carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) projects across the province through its Carbon Capture Kickstart fund.

“What we’re really trying to do is catalyze a lot of the technical work that needs to be undertaken (to) actually see carbon capture technologies deployed,” ERA CEO Justin Riemer said in an interview with the Financial Post.

“What’s exciting about this is that there are a range of sectors that are taking advantage of this opportunity and pursuing plans for Class 3 (cost estimates) and Class 4 feasibility studies to assess the readiness for carbon capture in the energy sector, oil and gas, oilsands, fertilizer sector, cement (and) electricity.”

Among the recipients of the funds are energy producers, including a consortium of oilsands companies proposing a major trunkline and carbon sequestration hub, as well as individual carbon capture projects from Suncor Energy and Strathcona Resources. Funds will also go to projects proposed by Enmax, Lafarge Canada and Nutrien.

The funding comes from Alberta’s carbon levy on large industrial emitters. Five of the projects will also receive additional funds from Natural Resources Canada to advance engineering and design work.

The cash boost is part of a suite of recent government announcements — including the federal government’s new investment tax credit for carbon capture — aimed at pushing companies to reaching the point of making a final investment decisions sooner when it comes to carbon capture.

Experts say there’s no time to waste if Canada’s large emitters are to meet the daunting greenhouse gas targets laid out in the latest federal emissions reduction plan. Those include a requirement that Canada’s oil and gas sector achieve a reduction of 31 per cent from 2005 emissions levels over the next eight years.

The speed at which some large emitters are now pursuing carbon capture came as a surprise, said ERA executive director Justin Wheler. First-generation projects in Canada such as the Shell Quest carbon capture project, or SaskPower’s Boundary Dam carbon capture project took seven to 10 years to get up and up and running.

“(These latest projects) are targeting getting these facilities done in half the time (and) the only way to do that is to start today on the detailed engineering and economics,” Wheler said. “That’s why I called it a kickstart: it’s a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things, but it’s really targeted at getting getting people moving today.”

Still, the projects are extraordinarily expensive and face an existential risk in the form of the political uncertainty around carbon pricing in the future.

The Pathways Alliance — formerly known as the Oilsands Pathways to Net Zero alliance — is in the early stages of evaluating a massive $46.33-million investment in a carbon capture project in northern Alberta.

The proposal involves 11 separate projects tied into a pipeline that would carry carbon to a sequestration hub. The group — comprised of Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy, ConocoPhillips Canada, Imperial Oil, MEG Energy Corp. and Suncor — will receive $5 million from the Kickstart fund to help advance engineering on the project that could capture around 12 million tonnes of emissions a year in its first phase.

Kendall Dilling, president of the Pathways Alliance, said the energy sector is cognizant of the need to get moving on projects if it is to maintain the goodwill of governments and Indigenous communities.

“The Pathways (Alliance)’s raisons d’être is to do stuff. To get steel in the ground, to get building (solutions) to address our greenhouse gas emissions,” Dilling said. “There’s only so long that you can plan and talk and design. It’s important to get to execution.”

• Email: mpotkins@postmedia.com | Twitter: mpotkins

Mark Carney says Canada should make a 'big bet' on carbon capture

Marisa Coulton
Fri, July 15, 2022 

mark-carney-gs0715

Canada should make a “big bet” on carbon capture to lower emissions from the oil and gas sector, Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada told delegates at the International Economic Forum of the Americas in Montreal, which brought together business leaders from around the world to discuss the green transition in the private sector.

“For Canada as a whole, we need to make a big bet, or I should say investment rather than a bet, in carbon capture in Western Canada to address the 25 per cent of our emissions that come from the oil and gas sector,” he said on Tuesday. “It’s necessary, in and of itself, to address that.”

Carney added that Canada has the opportunity to be “front and centre” in the “reordering and rewiring” of the global economy.

“As the world is being rewired, we’ve got clean energy, we’ve got amazing human capital, we’ve got stability, we’ve got fantastic trading relationships around the world,” he said. “And all of that gets leveraged.”

Over the course of the conference, carbon capture emerged as one of the more promising mitigation methods in the fight against climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines carbon capture as “a process consisting of the separation of (carbon dioxide) from industrial and energy-related sources, transport to a storage location and long-term isolation from the atmosphere.” In other words, instead of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, energy producers will capture and store it.

The IPCC has said that carbon capture has “considerable” potential, and will likely need to be a part of emissions reductions efforts going forward. The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, an Arlington, Va.-based environmental non-profit said carbon capture is now “viewed as the only practical way to achieve deep decarbonization in the industrial sector.”

Energy producers are catching on, helped in part by the Canadian government, which committed $10 billion to carbon capture in the 2022 budget. Companies will be able to take advantage of an investment tax credit that will reduce the cost of carbon-capture projects by 50 per cent to 60 per cent.

“We’re working with universities and other companies to pilot a carbon capture from stacks in our refineries,” said Kevin Scott, chief refining and supply officer at Saint John, N.B.-based Irving Oil Ltd. “(It’s) one of the few and first projects of its kind in the world to actually capture the CO2 out of emissions and then work with others to figure out how we’re going to sequester those.”

But carbon capture has its downsides, too. For one, it’s more expensive than releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. It also has environmental risks.

Belgian battery company announces $1.5-billion investment in Ontario

According to an IPCC report, the captured carbon could either be pumped into the ocean or buried underground. Storing the carbon underground would be relatively low risk, but adding CO2 to the ocean will “alter the local chemical environment” and cause “the mortality of ocean organisms.” The pipelines used to transport the CO2 over long distances would also run the risk of leakage.

Critics say that carbon capture will merely prolong oil and gas production in Canada.

At the conference, Carney said he was impressed by the rapid uptake of hydrogen fuel across various industries. Hydrogen does not directly contribute to climate change when released into the atmosphere, but it does compound the impact of other gasses in the atmosphere, thereby contributing to indirect warming.

But until the economy has been appropriately rewired, “we need a system that is focused on transition,” Carney said.

Financial Post

Shinzo Abe’s assassin forced to give up college after mother's $722,000 donation to Unification Church, says uncle


Jane Nam
Fri, July 15, 2022

The uncle of Shinzo Abe’s suspected shooter Tetsuya Yamagami stated that Yamagami’s mother had donated approximately 100 million yen ($721,875) to the Unification Church, leading to the family’s alleged financial ruin.

Yamagami reportedly told police that he had targeted the former prime minister due to Abe’s affiliation with the Unification Church, which Yamagami blamed for bankrupting his mother due to its forceful donating practices.

On Friday, the uncle, who is the 77-year-old older brother of Yamagami’s father, shared that Yamagami’s mother first joined the church in 1991 after her husband’s suicide in 1984.

She made multiple donations to the religious group throughout her time as a devoted member, including proceeds from the sale of the family’s property and house.


More from NextShark: NYT Reporter Warns Conservative Writer Andy Ngo is a ‘Real Threat’, Should Be Censored on Twitter

Despite becoming bankrupt in 2002, she continued giving to the church, albeit in smaller amounts, under the principle of “world peace and unification.”

“I believe she was a very important follower of the church. She was under mind control,” the uncle said.

He added that the family was thrown into poverty and Yamagami was forced to give up college due to financial ruin.

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“He was extremely smart just like his father,” the uncle recalled of Yamagami. “He was also hardworking and I only have good memories of him.”

Church officials stated at a news conference on Monday that it had no direct relationship to Abe, although it did with other lawmakers through an affiliated organization.

It also insisted that it had returned 50 million yen ($360,929) back to her, while claiming there were also no records of her donations to the organization.

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The Unification Church was first founded in South Korea in 1954 by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who was heavily influenced by the Confucian idea that world peace begins with harmonious families.

The church is known for its mass weddings, in which leaders officiate thousands of new couples at once in a single gathering, and its influence over conservative political parties.

Yamagami reportedly planned to kill the church’s religious leaders first but changed his target to Abe after watching a video message sent by Abe to one of the Unification Church’s affiliates.

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COVID-19 also prevented him from being able to travel to South Korea, where many of the seniors are.

Yamagami told police that he began experimenting with making his own firearms around spring of last year and had initially thought of making a bomb instead of a gun.

Featured Image via Vice

German climate activists aim to stir friction with blockades

Climate Direct Action

Climate activist Lina Schinkoethe, right, and her mother Solvig Schinkoethe, second from right, sit with their hands glued to the ground during a protest with the group Uprising of the Last Generation in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 21, 2022. The group claims the world has only a few years left to turn the wheel around and avoid catastrophic levels of global warming. 

AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

FRANK JORDANS
Fri, July 15, 2022

BERLIN (AP) — “It’s absolutely crazy to stick yourself to the road with superglue,” admits Lina Schinkoethe.

And yet, the 19-year-old recently landed in jail for doing just that, in protest at what she believes is the German government's failure to act against climate change.

Schinkoethe is part of a group called Uprising of the Last Generation that claims the world has only a few years left to turn the wheel around and avoid catastrophic levels of global warming.

Like-minded activists elsewhere in Europe have interrupted major sporting events such as the Tour de France and the Formula One Grand Prix in Silverstone in recent weeks, while others glued themselves to the frame of a painting at London’s Royal Academy of Arts Tuesday. But Schinkoethe's group has mainly targeted ordinary commuters in cities such as Berlin who, on any given day this summer, might find themselves in an hours-long tailback caused by a handful of activists gluing themselves to the asphalt.


Their actions have prompted outrage and threats from inconvenienced motorists. Tabloid media and some politicians have accused them of sowing chaos and harming ordinary folk just trying to go about their business. Some have branded them dangerous radicals.

Schinkoethe says the escalation in tactics is justified.

“If we wanted people to like us then we’d do something else but we’ve tried everything else,” she told The Associated Press. “We’ve asked nicely. We’ve demonstrated calmly.”

She recalls joining the Fridays for Future protests led by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg which saw hundreds of thousands of students worldwide skip school and rally for a better world.

“I really hoped something would change, that politicians would react and finally take us and the science of climate change seriously," she said. "But we're still heading for a world that’s 3 to 4 degrees Celsius (5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit) warmer.”

Such a rise in global temperatures is more than twice the 1.5-C (2.7-F) limit countries agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate accord. While progress has been made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, experts agree the goal is still far out of reach.

Scientists agree that the world has no time to waste in cutting emissions, but have tried to counter 'doomism' by arguing that the world isn’t heading for one single cliff edge so much as a long, steep slope with several precipitous drops.

“Each tenth of a degree matters,” said Ricarda Winkelmann, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research near Berlin.

“If we really start acting now and reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, chances are that we can limit some of the most severe climate impacts,” she said.

Such messages are lost on many of those caught up in the blockades.

At two protests witnessed by The AP in June and July, several truckers got out of their cabs to berate the activists. One physically hauled two protesters off the road.

Other drivers, some of whom weren't affected by the blockade, also hurled abuse at the activists. A few expressed support for the climate cause but questioned the way the protests were conducted.

“They need to find a different way to do this than to block other people,” said one driver on his way to work, who would only give his name as Stefan.

Berlin's mayor has called the street blockades “crimes,” while the city's top security official is demanding that prosecutors and courts mete out swift convictions. So far, no cases have gone to trial.

Still, Schinkoethe believes she has no choice but to keep going.

“We need to generate friction, peaceful friction, so that there’s an honest debate and we can act accordingly,” she said.

That sentiment was echoed by Ernst Hoermann, a retired railway engineer and grandfather of eight who has been traveling to Berlin from Bavaria regularly to take part in the protests.

“We basically have to cause a nuisance until it hurts," he said as a police officer tried to unstick him from the road with the help of cooking oil.

Similar protests have resulted in weeks-long prison sentences in Britain, where the government has sought court injunctions to preemptively stop road blockades by the group Insulate Britain.

Hoermann, 72, said he isn't afraid of fines or the prospect of prison.

“Not compared to the fear I have for my children,” he said.

Last Generation has recently tried to focus attention on Germany's plans to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea.

Despite having the most ambitious climate target of any major industrialized nation, Germany's center-left government is scrambling like other European countries to replace its Russian energy imports and avoid painful fuel shortages in the coming years.

Schinkoethe says the number of people participating in the group’s actions has grown from 30 to 200 in six months, and argues that the blockades follow the tradition of civil disobedience seen during the U.S. civil rights movement and the fight for women's suffrage.

“What we’re doing is illegal," she said. “At the same time it’s legitimate.”

Manuel Ostermann, a senior member of one of Germany’s police unions, accused the group of committing crimes while portraying themselves as victims.

“Where the process of radicalization gets going, extremism isn’t far off,” he wrote on Twitter.

Members of Last Generation have tried to counter that, citing U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who earlier this year said that “the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels.”

"I’m going to keep going until the government locks me and the other activists up for their peaceful protests, or gives in to our demands,” said Schinkoethe.

 

U.S. cannot fulfill climate change pledges if Manchin won't vote for clean energy, experts say

Ben Adler
·Senior Editor
Fri, July 15, 2022

If Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., will not vote for a budget reconciliation bill that includes the measures to reduce climate change in the version passed by the House of Representatives last year — as the Washington Post reported Thursday night that he would not — it virtually guarantees that the United States will fail to meet its international commitments to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, experts say.

As part of his efforts to galvanize a strong global agreement to avert catastrophic climate change by staying below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) in Glasgow, Scotland, last year, President Biden pledged that the U.S. would reduce by at least half its emissions from a 2005 baseline by 2030. Due to the energy sector’s reduction in coal use, the nation is already almost halfway to that goal, with emissions having dropped by about one-fifth since 2005. But getting the rest of the way there is impossible without legislation that hastens the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, according to modeling by economists, scientists and policy wonks.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin with Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, both of West Virginia. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)

“This appears to be the final installment in the collapse of Democratic hopes for a major legislative package on climate for the 117th Congress,” Barry Rabe, a professor of environmental policy and public policy at the University of Michigan, told Yahoo News in an email about Manchin’s reported stance. “Despite bold initial promises, Congress has once again failed to deliver on a climate bill. This clearly imperils any prospects to honor President Biden’s emission reduction pledge and further challenges American credibility in global climate deliberations.”

On Thursday, the Rhodium Group, a research and data analytics firm specializing in energy and the environment, issued a study showing that the U.S. is on pace to reduce emissions 24% to 35% below 2005 levels by 2030. Absent significant new policies, in other words, the best-case scenario is that the U.S. gets 70% of the way towards Biden’s goal of cutting emissions in half, and it is just as likely to get halfway to the goal.

Manchin had previously signaled support for provisions in the budget bill, formerly known as Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, that would subsidize the deployment of clean energy and electric vehicles. Democrats wanted to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years on tax credits for purchases such as rooftop solar panels, electric cars and tax credits on incentives for projects such as advanced battery storage and cleaning up industrial processes. Congressional Democrats and Biden had already agreed to drop other climate provisions, such as the Clean Electricity Performance Program, which would have provided incentives for electric utilities that switched to clean energy sources such as wind and solar power, at Manchin’s request.

Solar panels on a rooftop in Los Angeles. 

(Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images)

Previous studies by organizations such as the World Resources Institute (WRI), a leading global environmental think tank, had found that the U.S. could meet Biden’s emissions target, just barely, with the package of climate provisions Manchin had indicated he could support, possibly in exchange for approval of more fossil fuel infrastructure projects.

“Failure to enact a climate-smart budget package would be a devastating setback to achieving the United States’ pledge to cut emissions in half by 2030,” said Dan Lashof, director of WRI United States, in a statement on Friday. “Research shows that strong financial investments, like those under consideration in the budget reconciliation package, are essential for the U.S. to achieve that timeline.”

But on Thursday evening the Washington Post reported that Manchin had told Democratic leaders he would not vote for a bill that includes spending on climate change or tax increases on wealthy individuals and corporations to pay for it. “Senator Manchin believes it’s time for leaders to put political agendas aside, reevaluate and adjust to the economic realities the country faces to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire,” said Manchin’s spokesperson Sam Runyon.

On Friday morning, the West Virginia Democrat told a local radio station in his home state that he is open to backing the climate change policies if inflation eases next month. “I said, ‘Chuck, can we just wait until the inflation figures come out in July ... and then make a decision what we can do and how much we can do?’” Manchin said, referring to a conversation he had with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “[Schumer] took that as a no, I guess, and came out with this big thing last night. And I don’t know why they did that. I guess to try to put pressure on me, but they’ve been doing that for over a year now. It doesn’t make any sense at all. As far as I’m concerned, I want climate, I want an energy policy.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. (Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)

If Manchin doesn’t provide his crucial vote, however, and Republicans gain control of at least one chamber of Congress in November’s midterm elections, there is no hope for legislation to address climate change. And without legislation, the federal government has limited tools at its disposal to reduce emissions. Only Congress can tax and spend. And contrary to Manchin’s reasoning about inflation, a 2021 study by the Rhodium Group found that American households would save an average of about $500 per year on energy bills if the climate package were passed.

“We need to make it more affordable for everyday Americans to get off of fossil fuels,” Leah Stokes, a political scientist who specializes in environmental policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Yahoo News. “Fossil fuels are expensive, they are driving inflation. The bill would have been really great for everyday Americans’ pocketbooks. It would have helped them close the gaps, so that they could afford an electric vehicle, so that they could afford an electric heat pump. There were all these investments that were going to make it easier for utilities to build wind and solar, that were going to make it easier to retire dirty, expensive fossil fuel plants. It really was about helping to invest in climate solutions, so that we can move at a faster pace.”

Using executive authority under existing laws such as the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency can require stronger pollution controls and the Department of Interior can restrict fossil fuel development on federal land, but those moves — assuming they survive the inevitable legal challenges from the fossil fuel industry — will only reduce emissions at the margins.

President Biden speaking in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday. 

(Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“One of the tragedies of the past 18 months is that the Biden administration has been wary of upsetting these delicate negotiations with Senator Manchin and so they have held back on using the full force of their executive authority,” Stokes said. “That’s not the case going forward, the Biden administration will be acting. It will be much more aggressive on everything from Clean Air Act regulations to limiting fossil fuel development. There’s no reason to delay anymore. So we could be in a slightly better place, if and when the Biden administration kicks into high gear on climate change.

“But getting to the goal is difficult,” she added. “And there is modeling that has estimated what does it mean if the Biden administration uses all the regulations it can and it tends to be, it gets us like five percentage points closer to the goal. So if we’re at 35%, it gets us to 40%, optimistically.”

“We are not currently on track to meeting our international climate commitments or our environmental justice commitments,” Jamal Raad, executive director of Evergreen Action, a climate advocacy group, told Yahoo News. “A major investment was necessary over the next decade to supercharge our transition to clean energy and bring down the cost of wind and solar and ramp up renewable energy production. Without that major investment, it’s hard to see how we meet our commitments.”

Manchin called out by climate change's powerful voice: 'A modern-day villain who drives a Maserati and lives on a yacht courtesy of the coal industry'

Provided by Dow Jones

Jul 16, 2022

By Rachel Koning Beals

MANN VS. MANCHIN

Oft-quoted Penn State University scientist and published author Michael Mann says Sen. Manchin is sinking global climate action by shrinking U.S. role

That's a swing from oft-quoted Penn State University scientist and published author Michael Mann, responding Friday to reports that Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia would get in the way of legislative progress for the Biden administration's push to slow climate change.

President Joe Biden, as part of a sweeping spending bill that's been reduced to the dregs of its nearly $2 trillion beginnings, wanted to give Americans incentives for pollution-fighting electric cars, solar energy and more.

Read: Activists swarm Joe Manchin's Maserati as he tries to leave parking garage

"Given the U.S.'s role as the leading all-time carbon polluter, it is difficult to see global action on climate without U.S. leadership," added Mann, the prominent climatologist, speaking to The Guardian. By some measures, China is considered the world's largest polluter, with the U.S. in second, depending if a per-capita comparison is used.

Solar stocks were hit hard Friday by Manchin's opposition to climate spending.

Mann later tagged Sen. Manchin in a tweet, half-heartedly joking he "held back a bit" in his characterization of Manchin's lobbyist and election-contribution affiliations. The senator has a powerful spot as chair of the energy committee.

West Virginia newspaper coverage of Manchin's seaworthy vessel has characterized it as more houseboat than yacht, citing boating experts that say the "Almost Heaven" doesn't quite rank as a luxury liner.

Manchin, often referred to as a "moderate" Democrat but one known to back the traditional energy output of his home state and generally siding with Republicans in pushing U.S. energy independence from the Middle East and Russia, has made clear his reluctance to keep climate change and energy proposals in a last-ditch budget reconciliation bill.

Manchin has said high inflation shouldn't be worsened by what he sees as policy driving up gasoline prices.

"No matter what spending aspirations some in Congress may have, it is clear to anyone who visits a grocery store or a gas station that we cannot add any more fuel to this inflation fire," Manchin said earlier this week.

Manchin last year blocked the roughly $2 trillion version of the Democratic-drafted Build Back Better bill, pressing for a smaller plan. That bill's considerable climate focus was deemed the largest-ever U.S. effort on the pressing issue and was roundly praised by other industrial economic giants.

In all, Biden and fellow Democrats have spent nearly two years trying to get Manchin, a critical vote in a closely divided Senate, to agree to a huge package of support for renewable energy(ICLN) and electric cars(TSLA)(F). Democrats now appear to have run out of time, with the end of the fiscal year looming in September and November's midterm elections increasingly likely to see congressional control switch to the Republicans, according to polling. New surveys do show a tougher road suddenly for the GOP in Senate races.

At least one policy analyst saw a slim chance some form of energy tax credits might squeak through in a November interim session. And Biden vowed new executive orders to make up the congressional gap on climate.

Republicans, and Democrats typically from states linked to traditional energy, aren't as staunchly against mitigating climate change using both government and private-sector prowess as they've been in earlier decades, surveys show.

But the party broadly wants efforts that favor nuclear energy, natural gas, and carbon capture and storage in the energy mix.

Read: Carbon capture, nuclear and hydrogen feature in most net-zero emissions plans and need greater investment: report

And they want polluters such as China and India to play a bigger role in curbing emissions. With climate change, and most private-sector endeavors, they back lighter regulation. In fact, the conservative-majority Supreme Court just ruled on limiting the EPA's reach in demanding fewer emissions by power plants.

-Rachel Koning Beals

SEE 

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/07/dem-says-manchin-blocking-energy-tax.html

Trump lost, and the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, group of prominent conservatives concludes after exhaustive study

Weston Blasi - Yesterday 

© APTrump lost, and the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, group of prominent conservatives concludes after exhaustive study
KEY WORDS
‘Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case.’

Related video: New conservative-led report debunks every single Trump claim of election fraud
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That’s an excerpt from a 72-page report titled “Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election,” just out from a blue-ribbon panel of American conservatives.

The report sets out to analyze the many fraud claims that the Republican former president, Donald Trump, and his allies have offered to explain Trump’s loss by 7 million–plus votes (306-232 in the Electoral College) to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Among the noted figured behind the report are retired federal appeals court judges Thomas B. Griffith, J. Michael Luttig and Michael W. McConnell; former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who served under President George W. Bush; former U.S. senators John Danforth and Gordon Smith; longtime Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg; and veteran Republican congressional chief of staff David Hoppe. Each one has been elected as a Republican, been appointed to their office by a Republican, or is otherwise associated with the GOP.

From the archives (June 2022): Conservative legal scholar, Pence lawyer, other witnesses tell Jan. 6 committee of ‘crazy,’ anti-democratic scheme to hand Trump a second term

Also see: Paul Ryan was ‘sobbing’ and ‘horrified’ while watching the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, book says

“Once they had lost, Trump and his supporters had an obligation to recognize that the election debate was over,” the report states. “Questions of election legality must be resolved dispassionately in courts of law, not through rallies and demonstrations.”

Weeks after Biden’s win — called by major-media decision desks on Nov. 7, 2020, four days after Election Day, and affirmed by the Electoral College on Dec. 14 — Trump supporters infiltrated the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, immediately following a Trump rally near the White House dubbed “Stop the Steal” and, not coincidentally, as Congress was meeting to certify Biden’s electoral victory. The attack on the Capitol complex halted for hours that bedrock democratic process and led to millions of dollars’ worth of damages and more than 140 injuries along with five deaths. The incident is being investigated by a bipartisan House committee, which has been holding public hearings over the past several weeks.

The “Lost, Not Stolen” report highlights Nevada, a state that Biden won in 2020, as one notable site of baseless fraud claims.

According to the report, Trump and his legal team called Nevada “the big treasure trove of illegal balloting,” but were not able to produce evidence to support such a claim. The Nevada secretary of state, a Republican, highlighted just 100 cases of potential fraud out of the 1.4 million votes cast in Nevada during the 2020 election. Biden won Nevada by more than 33,000 votes.

Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud have continued to be aired as recently as this week, as he sought to cast new doubt on the Wisconsin result, appearing to believe that a state court’s ruling restricting the use of ballot drop boxes could, and should, be applied retroactively — notwithstanding, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel observed, that Trump’s 2016 win in the state over Democrat Hillary Clinton would also be placed in jeopardy.

Biden beat Trump in the Badger State by some 20,600 votes in 2020, while Trump outpolled Clinton by just under 22,750 votes four years earlier, when Gary Johnson and Jill Stein combined to draw about 140,000 votes.

From the archives (June 2022): Trump attorney general William Barr calls vote-fraud claims ‘bullsh—,‘ ‘bogus’ and ‘idiotic’: ‘I didn’t want to be a part of it’

Trump is not alone in believing, or professing to believe, the 2020 election was not legitimately conducted. In polls cited by Politifact, a majority of self-identifying Republicans have said they do not think Biden was “legitimately elected.” One Quinnipiac poll conducted six months after the election found as much as two-thirds of Republicans agreeing with the claim that Biden’s election to the presidency was not legitimate.

See also: Elon Musk tells Trump to ‘hang up his hat and sail into the sunset’

The “Lost, Not Stolen” report comes as Biden’s overall approval rating has fallen from percentages in the mid-50s in April 2021 to below 40% of late, adding credence to what many self-identifying Republicans have described as a gut feeling that Biden could not have won 81.3 million votes (to Trump’s 74.2 million). Biden’s average favorable rating, at 42.2%, is also underwater.

See: Most Democrats want an alternative to Biden in 2024, poll finds

Not helping is a persistently high inflation rate, which the Federal Reserve, echoed by the Biden White House, had expected to be “transitory” and to have moved well lower by this summer. Instead, according to June data, inflation, as measured by the consumer-price index, has climbed to a 41-year high of 9.1%.