SARCOSUCHUS: THE 40-FOOT-LONG PREHISTORIC MONSTER CROCODILE THAT HUNTED DINOSAURS

BY DYLAN HOFER/NOV. 27, 2022

Planet Earth has been home to some of the most beautiful and terrifying creatures that we can think of, some of which are long dead, left for people today to piece together how grandiose they actually were. One of those creatures was the Sarcosuchus, also known as the "super croc." These colossal beasts weighed more than 17,000 pounds and were 40 feet long, primarily preying on dinosaurs, according to 

Most of these fossils have been found in West Africa, and date back 113 million years ago to the Cretaceous period (via Science Focus). This would've predated the dinosaur extinction by roughly 50 million years, and makes the fossils roughly 23 million years older than the infamous tyrannosaurus rex, better known as "T-Rex," according to the American Museum of Natural History. It is believed that these beasts traveled through expansive river deltas that connected Africa and South America when they were one continent. During this time, giant fish that got the size of great white sharks called coelacanths also shared the water with the Sarcosuchus, which might've led to some resource conflict.

SARCOSUCHUS'S DIET

It is believed that Sarcosuchus's diet probably contained a little bit of everything. What made these creatures unique was that when they were younger, their snouts were often elongated and narrower, and as they grew older, the snout became flatter, which might have allowed them to eat bigger prey, such as dinosaurs. Scientists hypothesize that the Sarcosuchus probably ate fish in the rivers when it was younger, and as it got to be an adult, its diet would expand to whatever it could get in its mouth, according to Science Focus.

Scientists struggle with fully understanding the Sarcosuchus due to the fact that there is no living descendant of the beast. No other animal has such a unique snout, and on top of that, there are no ball-and-socket joints in this creature like in other crocodiles. But these aren't the only fundamental differences between the Sarcosuchus and its modern-day cousins; things such as age and growth were also very unique to the "super croc" (via Prehistoric Wildlife).

DIFFERENCES WITH DISTANT RELATIVES

Lillac/Shutterstock

The fossils that have been found of fully grown Sarcosuchus adults have shown that these creatures could very well live up to 40 years old, and it's likely they could be even older than that, according to Prehistoric Wildlife. This contrasts with modern crocodiles today, given that most live to be up to 25 years. Another interesting feature of the Sarcosuchus was that it seemingly never stopped growing, unlike other crocodiles that stop growing once they reach a certain age, similar to humans. Scientists believe that these ancient crocodiles were able to grow to whatever size their food supply allowed, much similar to the Titanoboa, a 2,500-pound snake that roamed the swamps during the time of the dinosaur (via Prehistoric Wildlife).

Clues about their teeth and jaws have also been able to help scientists in understanding how these fearsome creatures caught their prey, since they have thinner teeth, and their upper jaws curve down allowing them to hook onto fish more easily. Scientists will need more time and research to understand the true monstrosity that was the Sarcosuchus.

INJURIES OF CLASS

Ontario apologizes to miners, families for harm caused by McIntyre Powder

Story by Kate Rutherford, Jonathan Migneault • Yesterday 

Ontario Labour Minister Monte McNaughton gave a long-awaited apology Wednesday afternoon to mine workers who were exposed to McIntyre Powder for over three decades and their families.

From 1943 to 1979, miners in northern Ontario were forced to breathe in the black ground aluminum dust before they started their shifts.

Their employers told them the powder would protect them from the lung disease silicosis, but many of them developed neurological disorders and lung issues years later.

In 2020, researchers recommended the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB) recognize that miners forced to inhale McIntyre Powder were at a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease.

Early in 2022, the province made the changes to allow families and miners who developed Parkinson's tied to McIntyre Powder inhalation to file claims and be compensated for occupational disease.
'Tragedy should not have happened'

"While we know an apology will not bring your loved ones back, it will not ease the pain and sadness so many of you have faced. This tragedy should not have happened to you," McNaughton said in the Legislature, with a group of about 30 people, including former miners exposed to McIntyre Powder and their families, in attendance.

"It should not have happened to your loved ones. And to each and every one of you, on behalf of the people of Ontario, we are truly sorry."

Sudbury MP Jamie West, who has advocated for individuals affected by McIntyre Powder and their families, said, "We are here to tell you we are sorry."

"The use of McIntyre Powder was sanctioned by the government of Ontario. It was not fair for the 25,000 Ontario miners. It was not fair for their friends, for their families."

West said this would be an important day in Ontario mining history.



Janice Martell started the McIntyre Powder Project to prove there was a potential link between inhaling the powder and neurological disease. Her advocacy helped lead to the Ontario government's apology on Wednesday.© Yvon Theriault/Radio-Canada
Family advocacy

Janice Martell started the McIntyre Powder Project to prove there was a potential link between inhaling the powder and neurological disease. Her father, Jim Hobbs, inhaled the powder while working as a miner and died in 2017 of Parkinson's.

Martell has collected the health records of more than 27,000 former miners for the McIntyre Powder Project registry.

Before the apology, former miners who inhaled the powder while on the job, along with their families and supporters, gathered at the United Steelworkers Hall in Sudbury to board a bus headed to Toronto so they could attend in person.

Peter Gary Zarichney was one of them.



Peter Gary Zarichney was exposed to McIntyre Powder when he worked in the at Rio Algom mines in Elliot Lake, Ont.© Kate Rutherford/CBC

He remembered his time working underground in Elliot Lake in the early 1970s for Rio Algom, and how the air would be blackened with McIntyre Powder.

"We would come in at the beginning of the shift, and we would go take our street clothes off and then we would come back into the dry [room] where our clothes would be hanging," he told CBC News.

"And as soon as we got in there, they would set the McIntyre dust canisters off and you couldn't see in the room other than about a couple feet."

Zarichney said he and his friends would try to sneak off before they dusted the room with McIntyre Powder, but they were always caught.

He said he now has early dementia and lung problems. His father also worked in the mines for more than 30 years.

"He had a black lung, and he had dementia, and plus he had cancer," Zarichney said.

His daughter, Rosemarie Zarichney, said she remembered one day, when she was a child, her father told her mom she couldn't wash his work clothes at home anymore.

"So I knew there was something not OK about that," she said.

"Why would my dad all of a sudden not want his clothes, his mining clothes, in the house with us or in the laundry with ours?"

Rosemarie said she only understood much later why her father took that stance.

"They were told to do things that weren't OK and it was so that they could support us," she said.

"They should have known these things. There should have been studies, there should have been an understanding before they made them do this, this kind of thing, just to earn a living, to go home and support their families. And a lot of them are living with the after-effects."


Ken Brezenski was briefly exposed to McIntyre Powder when he worked as an apprentice. His father, in the photo, was exposed for 27 years.© Kate Rutherford/CBC

Ken Brezenski was exposed to McIntyre Powder for two years while working underground as an apprentice in the early 1970s.

"You couldn't take your clothes home to wash them," he said. "Like you wore your clothes until they literally fell off your body."

Brezenski said he now has several health issues, including some damage to his lungs and brain. His father worked as a miner for 27 years, and Brezenski said his life was cut short because of exposure to McIntyre Powder on the job.



Chantal Bryce's father, who was exposed to McIntyre while working as a miner, died in June. Chantal wanted to go to Toronto to hear the apology in person.© Kate Rutherford/CBC

Chantal Bryce was at the Legislature for her father, David St. Georges, who died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) six months ago.

In addition to his lung problems, Bryce said her father also had cancer of the bladder and kidney.

She called him a "gentle giant" who would have made his way to Queen's Park on Wednesday had he lived long enough.

Bryce said her father was in palliative care in April, when Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas pushed the province for an official apology for McIntyre Powder survivors and their families.

At the time, House leader Paul Calandra said the government would need more time to make a proper apology.

"The families do deserve an apology, absolutely," he said. "But we can't do it in less than 24 hours."

Bryce said her father felt some relief that things were moving forward, but was also disappointed an apology didn't happen in April.

SURPRIZE GAY FASCISTS EXIST

A Gay Man Is Behind Tucker Carlson's Hate-Filled Agenda, LGBTQ Journalist Writes

Story by Josephine Harvey • 

The senior executive producer of Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, which makes a habit of demonizing and stirring up hate against LGBTQ people, is an out gay man, according to veteran journalist Michelangelo Signorile.

The information is shocking given Carlson’s sentiments toward the community ― and particularly in light of the recent violence in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Last week, days after a gunman killed five people at a gay nightclub there, Carlson hosted a guest who founded the so-called “Gays Against Groomers” hate group. The guest, Jaimee Michell, said the Colorado attack was “expected and predictable” and suggested anti-LGBTQ violence would continue “until we end this evil agenda” of gender-affirming care.

The following day, Carlson attacked Democrat Pete Buttigieg for speaking out about the shooting, claiming the transportation secretary “lied” about his sexuality by not coming out publicly earlier.

In recent years, Carlson has pushed false, fearmongering narratives about “groomers,” trans people and drag queen story hours, supporting an onslaught of hostile legislation and policies targeting LGBTQ people and embracing harmful tropes that have fueled a spike in harassment, threats and violence against their community. And Carlson’s history of homophobia dates back years before that.

Behind Carlson’s promotion of that rhetoric on the nation’s most-watched TV program is Justin Wells, the senior executive producer of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and vice president of Tucker Carlson Digital Products. According to Wells’ website, he leads the entire Tucker Carlson team across platforms.

“It’s beyond horrific to think a gay man has helped to shape and widely disseminate a message of hate against LGBTQ people,” wrote Signorile, a Sirius XM host, former editor-at-large of HuffPost Gay Voices and inductee to the Association of LGBTQ Journalist’s Hall of Fame.

“This story is not, however, about a warped closet case, tormented by self-loathing, hiding his true self while bashing those like him. And thus, this story is not an outing, which involves exposing someone who covers up their sexual orientation while publicly presenting as heterosexual — though it certainly may be a startling revelation to a great many. It is, rather, about connecting the dots regarding a reality that seems to have been hiding in plain sight.”

According to Signorile, Wells has been married to another man for almost a decade, and they openly celebrated their wedding with family and friends.

On his show, Carlson often hosts members of minority groups he reviles ― such as the “Gays Against Groomers” talking head ― who embrace his agenda against their communities. Wells’ leadership, Signorile argued, serves only to embolden Carlson further, giving him permission and validation for vilifying LGBTQ people.

Wells did not immediately return a request for comment.

Read Signorile’s reporting in his substack newsletter, The Signorile Report.


HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 17: Tucker Carlson speaks during 2022 FOX Nation Patriot Awards at Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood on November 17, 2022 in Hollywood, Florida.

 (Photo by Jason Koerner/Getty Images) (Photo: Jason Koerner via Getty Images)© Provided by HuffPost

https://archive.org/details/pinkswastikahomo0004edlive

Night of the Long Knives - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Night_of_the_Long_K...

The Night of the Long Knives or the Röhm purge (German: Röhm-Putsch), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: Unternehmen Kolibri), was a purge that took ...

Cause: Hitler's desire to consolidate his power ...

Location: Nazi Germany

Date: 30 June to 2 July 1934

Also known as: Operation Hummingbird, Röhm ...

‎Ernst Röhm · ‎Purge · ‎Gustav Ritter von Kahr

• 
  

  Victims of the Night of the Long Knives - Wikipedia

  https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Victims_of_the_Night...

  
  

  The Night of the Long Knives was a purge in which Adolf Hitler and the regime of Nazi Germany targeted members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary ...

The Night of Long Knives - The Holocaust Explained

https://www.theholocaustexplained.org › night-of-long-...

The Night of Long Knives, also known as the Röhm Putsch, was the purge of the SA leadership and other political opponents from 30 June 1934 to 2 July 1934.

The Nazi Party: The Night of the Long Knives

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org › the-night-of-the-l...

The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point in the history of Hitler's Germany. Hitler had made it clear that he was the supreme ruler of Germany who had ...

Röhm Purge - Holocaust Encyclopedia

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org › article › roehm-purge

Jun 28, 2021 — The purge is known as the “Night of the Long Knives” or “Operation Hummingbird.” These murders cemented an agreement between the Nazi Regime and ...

Fox Falsely Claims Majority Of Voters Think Biden Admin ‘Less Ethical’ Than Previous Ones

POSTED BY ELLEN -7841.60PC ON NOVEMBER 27, 2022 · newshounds.us

In reality it is a minority of voters who think that.

A recent Fox News poll found that 42% of voters think the Biden administration is less ethical compared to previous administrations. But 58% found that the Biden administration is either more ethical (36%) or about the same (22%). In other words a majority of voters don’t think the Biden administration is less ethical than previous administrations

Fox News displayed a graphic with the results during last week’s “Big Saturday Show.” Host Nicole Saphier read the results accurately. But someone gave the video the title, “Majority of voters think Biden admin is 'less ethical' compared to previous ones: Fox News poll.”

Whoever posted the same video to YouTube was either smarter or more focused on the Fox propaganda. There, the video was titled, “GOP lays out 'roadmap' to investigate Hunter Biden: Duffy.”

You can watch the YouTube version below, from the November 19, 2022 The Big Saturday Show.

(H/T reader Andrew S.)

Seahorses have one of the coolest origin stories of all life on Earth

One of the ocean's worst swimmers has managed to adventure across the world.

Heather Wake
11.28.22

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

How did seahorses spread across the globe if they can't swim well?

We all know that seahorses are some of the most unique and fascinating creatures that Mother Nature has to offer.

For one thing, they’re gorgeous. Who has ever looked at a seahorse, with all its vivid colors and delicate, otherworldly shapes and gone, meh? No one, I tell you.

Plus they’re basically the mascot for cool, supportive dads everywhere. Not every creature in the animal kingdom can say that.

Yet, for as much as we know about the seahorse, there are even more thrilling stories swimming around—particularly when it comes to how it got here in the first place.

A video published by PBS Eons explains that today, seahorses are found in all of the world's oceans. And yet, they are pretty terrible swimmers. So how on Earth could they have traveled such far distances to spread across the globe?

As it turns out, the answer is possibly hiding even further below the surface.

Throughout at least the last 55 million years, the ocean floor around southeast Asia has been whirling with tectonic plate activity, with the most important shift happening at the end of the Cenozoic era.

As deep channels between continents became more shallow and surfaces were thrust upward toward the sun, more aquatic plant life was able to grow and expand. Experts think that meadows of seagrass in particular helped ancient seahorses travel away from the waters of the Indonesian region (where they likely originated) and across the world. Yep, just like land horses, seahorses wildly gallop into unknown terrain. Actually, they prefer to simply hold onto traveling seaweed and raft into unknown terrain. Still majestic though.

You can watch the full video here:

How Plate Tectonics Gave Us Seahorses

The surge in seagrass might have even caused seahorses to trade in the long, horizontal shape of most traditional fish for their signature upright posture. As the video explains, the grass beds might have supported their ambush hunting technique, allowing them to obtain a longer reach and blend in with the grass blades before striking. Ambush hunting seems OK for a seahorse, but kind of terrifying if you think of land horses doing the same thing. Thank goodness the latter are herbivores.


PBS Eons is a virtual treasure trove of lesser known evolutionary stories. Its YouTube channel covers everything from the domestication history of cats to why we have 10 toes. If you’re looking to go down the coolest educational rabbit hole ever, you can check out its videos here.

The Making of Incels

“These guys didn’t become desirable because only women admire social status and wealth. It’s also men that make those things so important.”

November 28, 2022 by RileyA 


I’ve come across a few incels in real life. Previously I wrote about Themcels, because I really don’t think it’s as gendered as people make out.

But here, I’m going to talk about incels. The cis males who are involuntarily celibate and have formed an ideology about why that might be.

In the Beginning

I’ve known a few incels in my time. Most I’ve known of before we even had a word for it. “Nerds”, or “geeks” if they were smart. The others were just “Losers”. None of these were positive terms.

But at some point, it became clear that the nerdier, geekier guys were actually likely to be a pretty good catch in the grand scale of things. So just being brainy rather than brawny became sexy simply because those guys were ending up pretty powerful in some way.

They were making money, gaining social status, and of course, there was some guarantee that their lack of social skills and frequent experiences of bullying will make him more empathetic (and/or docile). A genuinely nice, successful guy who won’t stray far from home.


Artist Credit: Ben Griffith on Unsplash

So “nerds” and “geeks” became a valid dating choice as it became “hot” to be bookish. But only because these guys started to won the game of capitalism in ways that gave them social power and clout. It gave them something that people wanted.

That’s often why these guys would start to be rewarded with sexual and romantic interest later in life. Their peers needed time to truly appreciate their accolades as they earned them. It’s only when they’re at the top of their field after 40 or 50, they become an aspirational figure to all. Men want to be them and women want to marry them.

To be perfectly clear here, these guys didn’t become desirable because only women admire social status and wealth. It’s also men that make those things so important.

If men respected each other regardless of their social and financial standing, then we wouldn’t have been instrumental in creating the standards so many of us struggle to fulfill. Those of us who can achieve those standards, wouldn’t be so frightened of not being able to sustain their success.

Incel vs Nerd/Geek


Artist Credit: MD Mahdi on Unsplash

As a “nerd” or a “geek”, you still have to have some traits which incels (and Themcels for that matter), lack. For one, you sort of have to be brilliant. You can’t be mediocre and expect to be socially desirable despite your nerd/geek status.

The other thing is that you need the ability to interact with people in a way that promotes attachment and bonding. “Nerds”, “geeks” and, of course, incels, are more likely to lack these skills. Some of that is due to conditions like Autism or ADHD. Some of it is environmental. Sometimes it’s a mixture of both.

The people who are able to overcome these odds and succeed by societal standards, despite being one of these guys, are now the only nerds and geeks. It’s a positive label. It shows you’re not a shallow guy. It shows you’re interesting. It showcases your earning potential.

Those who can’t overcome those odds are now “incels”, characterized by their inability to secure a mate. As much as people like to say it’s only incels that focus on their lack of sexual intimacy, the truth is that lack of sex is commonly used as an presumptive insult against men to emasculate them by everyone.

Society greatly values partnered people and therefore insinuating someone cannot get a partner implies they lack value. Other people find the incel’s lack of sex as pathetic as he does, despite their protests that it’s his personality they find repulsive. We are all conditioned to feel that way about single people.

Family Life


Artist Credit: Gabriel Tovar on Unsplash

All the incels I’ve known have genuinely had unhealthy home lives. Sure, maybe from the outside it may appear like they come from a well-to-do middle-classed white family with two parents in a long term marriage. But people who know them know differently.

They know the father is emotionally if not physically abusive, or that the parents set unrealistic expectations for the children, or otherwise stunt their emotional development. They might be privy to the generational cycle of inequality and the resulting trauma which has led them to where they are now.

A lot of people rebuke when you speak about the mothers’ of incels. Often, the mother becomes the abuse victim of their incel son, in place of the partner they yearn for, but would have no idea how to love. I understand the urge to not focus on the mother. It’s part of incel ideology to blame women for all suffering.

However, most incels I know personally were raised by a single mother. And while incels may think I’m saying that makes it her fault, I’m actually pointing to the absence of a co-parent (usually the father, a cis man) as a reason why the emotional and developmental needs of the that child were not met. The deadbeat dad.

“Their father was never a positive or supportive presence for his children or co-parent”

His absence contributes to the mother’s likelihood of being poor, sick, stressed and abused. It says whether she will have access to the resources in time to steer her son away from Inceldom. They may have their own history of trauma from their younger lives. They may still be experiencing trauma now.

The ones who weren’t raised by single mothers may as well have been. Purely because their father was never a positive or supportive presence for his children or co-parent. So again, the incel was raised in an environment that was not conducive with healthy emotional or social development. It was their father’s presence, rather than absence, that damaged them.


Artist Credit: Jack Sharp on Unsplash

The incels Ive known have had a fairly stable upbringing, in that, nothing sudden and traumatic impacted their lives, in addition to their crappy homelife. They had at least one parent they could rely on for food, shelter and basic safety.

Not all incels are that lucky. Their ability to trust others has been damaged by the people that were meant to care for them. They’ve experienced systemic discrimination. Consequently, they’re even less able to engage with interventions designed to overcome their barriers than the average guy.

Something like trusting a therapist enough to meaningfully engage is an almost impossible feat. Throwing it out there to the incels I know would be futile. It’s essentially goading them about their inability to help themselves. That sits wrong with me.

We don’t approve of mocking people who are compelled to harm themselves, unless they are men and are unable to secure relationships.

The Partnered Incel

One of my friends says that in her country, the incels are married men. It’s never totally clear what she means about anything, but I think she is referring to how culture dictates whether the incel actually gets access to a relationship (read: sex) or not.

Marriage, or at least long term partnership, is a cultural norm where she is from. Thus more of the incels, if not most of them, are indeed partnered.

We don’t have this norm all over the West any more. In small pockets, yes — it’s still normal to settle down with your childhood sweetheart, even outside of religious obligation. So like in her country, the incels in these pockets are often partnered.

They’re incels because still hold the same ideology, just without the yearning for sex. We call them Red Pill Types, MRAs, and sometimes just “local men”. That’s what they are in some places: the majority of men in that area. Usually because one of those factors that create such men is prevalent in that region. Poverty is a common culprit.

Divorce will make them the same as their single incel peers.

Are You Excusing Incels?

No, I just think we should extend our empathy and understanding to everyone. That doesn’t mean condoning harm, but I can see what leads to other groups of people into harmful behavior. I empathize with their plight.

We have compassion for those people, even when we condemn their actions. We show some understanding, on the progressive Left, at least, of why they feel marginalized. We see that their (often extreme) deviance is motivated by survival and fear.

We’re trying to stop seeing them as “thugs”, “criminals” or “vagrants”. We try and see them as people suffering the perils of poverty, racism, ableism and other forms of discrimination. We understand how aspects of their identity leave them vulnerable to exploitation.

It doesn’t mean we allow them to shirk accountability for the harm they cause, but we don’t pretend that their actions occured in a vacuum. Sometimes it feels like men are expected to be more resilient to abuse, mental illness, trauma and exploitation than anyone else. We need to remember that little boys, even little white boys, aren’t more powerful than the adults around them.

—
This post was previously published on medium.com.

Editorial: Congress can help struggling families by reviving the expanded child tax credit


Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), flanked by 

fellow Democratic senators, speaks during a news conference on the child tax credit 

on July 15, 2021.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

BY THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD

NOV. 28, 2022 

For a brief, six-month period last year, something life-changing happened for tens of millions of American families: They started receiving automatic monthly payments of as much as $300 per child to use for whatever they needed.

But Congress allowed the payments to expire in January, ending an expanded child tax credit that slashed child poverty and could have been a source of financial stability as inflation makes almost everything more expensive.

Lawmakers now have the opportunity to correct that mistake, by acting during Congress’ lame-duck session to revive this pro-family policy.

The effects of these benefits, which began in July 2021, were swift and dramatic. The child poverty rate fell nearly in half, from 9.7% in 2020 to 5.2% in 2021, and food insecurity plummeted, as families used the money to cover essentials such as groceries, rent, utility bills and child care.


OPINION
Editorial: LAUSD’s efforts to address learning loss should inspire hope, not chaos and frustration
Nov. 14, 2022

But those gains faded quickly once the payments ended and families felt the hit of financial hardship almost immediately. There were 3.7 million more children in poverty in January 2022 than in December 2021. By February, more households with children reported having difficulty covering their expenses. By July, food insecurity had jumped back up too.

Democrats in Congress are pushing to include the enhanced child tax credit in an end-of-the-year package of legislation, and it’s important that they act now, before the GOP takes control of the House. When the child tax credit was expanded in 2021, it was part of the American Rescue Plan pandemic relief bill that passed without a single Republican vote.

Keeping families with children out of poverty should not be a partisan issue. Republicans have supported expanding the child tax credit in the past, and some, including Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), have proposed their own plans for monthly payments. The idea should be even easier to sell now because it is no longer theoretical. It’s a proven policy that made life better for more than 60 million children, if only for a few months.


OPINION
Editorial: Abortion rights triumphed from coast to coast
Nov. 9, 2022

Democratic lawmakers have proposed pairing the enhanced child tax credit with a corporate tax break that would undo a provision of the 2017 tax law signed by President Trump restricting the use of credits for research and development expenses that has been a focus of complaints from business leaders. One group of Democrats opposes the inclusion of any corporate tax breaks unless the child tax credit is reinstated. This is a righteous demand, and it should be at the top of both parties’ agenda for the lame-duck session.

It’s likely that any bipartisan deal that emerges will include changes to restrict eligibility to target mostly low-income families or add a work requirement. But there is value in keeping the credit as expansive as possible, as a near-universal benefit to families with children. Children shouldn’t be the victims of their families’ financial circumstances that can change overnight with the loss of a job, housing, a caregiver, or any number of other reasons.

There may also be debate over how to offset the roughly $100-billion annual cost of expanding the child tax credit. But it should be stressed that investing in our children pays dividends, generating about eight times as much in benefits to society, through improved health, increased future earnings and reduced reliance on other government benefits such as food stamps.

Predictable monthly payments are so powerful because they leave it to families to decide how the money would best be spent. Families know best and Congress should empower them to make those decisions once again.

War puts cleanup of Russia’s radioactive wrecks on ice

By Charles Digges | November 28, 2022
 

The Soviet submarine K-159 sank on August 30, 2003 while being towed to be dismantled, killing 9 people. (The Bellona Foundation)

When Russia assumed the rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2021, Moscow brought the environmentally minded eight-nation body an ambitious proposal. Over the next 14 years, it would raise from the depths of the Arctic a toxic array of rusting nuclear garbage—including two entire nuclear submarines—that had been dumped during the Soviet era.

The project was estimated to cost about $394 million at current exchange rates and had the backing of Vladimir Putin. His Arctic development plan ordered the retrieval of the subs and the accompanying radioactive waste by 2035.

Russian gas, oil, and mineral conglomerates wanted the wrecks cleared away from nascent Arctic shipping routes. Fishermen from either side of Russia’s border with Scandinavia, concerned that radioactive leakage from the submarines’ reactors would contaminate fisheries, also celebrated the news. It was a rare alignment of the stars, pleasing environmentalists, business interests, the Kremlin, and European governments all at the same time.

By November 2021, discussions were underway with the powerful European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, which promised to help fund a preliminary review to establish how the subs should be lifted.

Then, in February, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Since then, the West has imposed a raft of sanctions against Moscow, and the intergovernmental buzz on the Arctic submarine and radioactive junk lift has gone silent.

Norway was among the first to step back, ceasing scientific exchanges with Moscow as soon as May and pausing funding to its decades-old bilateral nuclear safety commission with Russia in June. Days later, Moscow retorted tartly, saying it, too, was ceasing its work with the commission over the “unfriendly line” Norway had taken since the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine.

For an alliance that had weathered political tremors as turbulent as Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the rift was profound. Even when mutual distrust between East and West had been high, Norway and Russia had been able to reach above the politics to safely dispose of the most toxic elements of Cold War history. But the invasion of Ukraine proved to be a last straw.

Moscow insists that it will lift the submarines on its own. But does it stand any chance of doing so by itself? And if it can’t, what is at stake?

A history of cooperative cleanup. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States built more than 400 nuclear submarines, assuring each superpower the ability to fire nuclear missiles even after their land-based silos had been decimated by a first strike. The fjords and coastlines around Murmansk adjacent to NATO member Norway became the hub of the Soviet Northern Fleet, and a dumping ground for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.

 

Murmansk, Russia (aristidov/Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0)

After the Iron Curtain fell, the disturbing scale of this legacy came to light. It was revealed that at Andreyeva Bay, a nuclear submarine refueling site just 60 kilometers from the Norwegian border, 600,000 metric tons of irradiated water leaked into the Barents Sea from a nuclear fuel storage pool in 1982. The site contained 22,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies pulled from more than 100 subs, many kept in rusted containers stored in the open air.

Fearing contamination, Norway spearheaded a sweeping cleanup effort with other Western nations. Combined they spent more than $1 billion to dismantle 197 decommissioned Soviet nuclear subs that rusted dockside, still loaded with spent nuclear fuel. One thousand Arctic navigation beacons powered by strontium batteries were replaced, many with solar powered units provided by the Norwegians.

What is still in the sea? Like numerous other countries, including the United States, the Soviet Union had a habit of dumping its radioactive problems at sea.

The 1993 White Book—a sort of confession to this dumping published by crusading ecologist Alexei Yablokov when serving as Boris Yeltsin’s environmental minister—outlined the scope of the problem, though for years its revelations continued to be viewed by many in the Russian government as state secrets.

A 2019 feasibility study for the sub lifting project, drawn up by the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority with the help of other European nuclear safety agencies, confirmed Yablokov’s data and laid bare what the Soviets had intentionally sunk: 18,000 radioactive objects, including 19 vessels and 14 nuclear reactors.

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While the radiation emitted by most of these cast offs has been smothered to near background levels thanks to decades of built-up undersea silt, a study by the Russian Academy of Sciences nonetheless identified 1,000 objects that still produce high levels of gamma radiation.

Ninety percent of that radiation is emitted by six objects that Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear firm, has deemed urgent and targeted for lifting: two nuclear submarines; the reactor compartments from three nuclear submarines; and the reactor from the legendary icebreaker Lenin.

 

Of 1,000 underwater objects still emitting high-level gamma radiation, 90 percent is from just six objects. (Map by Thomas Gaulkin / Datawrapper / OpenStreetMap contributors)

“We consider even the extremely low probability of radioactive materials leaking from these objects as posing an unacceptable risk for the ecosystems of the Arctic,” Anatoly Grigoriev, Rosatom’s head of international technical assistance, said in July.

The two nuclear submarines—which together contain one million curies of radiation, or about a quarter of that released in the first month of the Fukushima disaster—pose the greatest challenge to lift and have received most of the press.

The first of these is the K-27. Launched in 1962, the 360-foot sub suffered a radiation leak in one of its experimental liquid-metal cooled reactors after just three days at sea. Over the next several years, the Soviet navy attempted to repair or replace the reactors, but in 1979, they gave up and decommissioned the vessel.

Too radioactive to be dismantled conventionally, the K-27 was towed to the Arctic Novaya Zemlya nuclear testing range in 1982 and scuttled in one of the archipelago’s fjords at a depth of just 33 meters. The sinking took some effort. The sub was weighed down by asphalt to seal its fuel-filled reactor and a hole was punched in its aft ballast tank to swamp it.

But the fix won’t last forever. The sealant around the reactor was only meant to stave off radiation leaks until 2032. More troubling still is that the K-27’s highly enriched fuel could, in the right circumstances, generate an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction leading to a significant local release of radiation.

The other submarine, the K-159, was in use from 1963 to 1989. It was added to the toxic subsea catalog in 2003, after the Cold War’s end. But its position north of Murmansk, astride some of the Barents Sea’s most fertile fishing grounds and busiest shipping lanes, has made it a source of special anxiety. Already a 305-foot rust bucket from years of neglect, the K-159 sank while being towed to a Murmansk shipyard for dismantlement, killing nine sailors who were on board to bail out water in transit.

Unlike the K-27, however, no safeguards to secure the K-159’s two reactors were put in place before it sank, meaning it went down loaded with 800 kilograms of spent uranium fuel.

The danger the subs pose to the environment. Expeditions to the subs in recent years haven’t revealed serious upticks in contamination beyond background radiation levels. A joint Norwegian-Russian mission to the K-159 in 2018 discovered breakage along the sub’s hull, but, as in years previous, reported no elevated radiation levels in sediment and seawater samples.

Similarly, a Russian expedition to measure radioactivity around the K-27 this past October, which charted contamination levels in glaciers surrounding Novaya Zemlya, found nothing amiss.  

 

Photo: JOINT NORWEGIAN-RUSSIAN EXPERT GROUP for investigation of Radioactive Contamination in the Northern Areas

But experts from both sides of the Russian border say that such circumstances won’t last. Officials at the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority insist that leaks from the K-159 are only a matter of time—and that even rumors of increased contamination could damage the Arctic fishing industry.

Alexander Nikitin—a former Russian Navy submarine captain with Norway’s Bellona Foundation who sat on Rosatom’s public advisory council before it disbanded over the Ukraine war—agreed. In his accounting, the subs will continue to degrade and slowly release cesium 137 and strontium as water seeps into the reactors.

A 2013 study by Norway’s Institute of Marine Research used computer simulations to model what impact that might have on local populations of cod and capelin, Norway’s Arctic cash crop. The study showed that if all the radioactive material from the K-159’s reactors were to be released in a single “pulse discharge,” it would increase the levels of slow-decaying cesium 137 in the muscles of cod in the eastern Barents Sea at least 100 times.

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That would still be below limits set by the Norwegian government following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. “Here the question is that some of the radionuclides leached out of the reactors can get into fish—and the fish onto someone’s dinner table,” Nikitin said. “It’s difficult to estimate the impact.”

Even low doses, he said, would be enough to scare consumers off Norwegian fish. As of 2021—a decade after the Fukushima accident — there were still 15 countries banning the import of seafood from Japan, despite numerous studies establishing acceptably low concentrations of radionuclides in fish caught in that area.

By one estimate, a ban on fish from the Kara and Barents Seas could cost the Norwegian and Russian economy a combined $140 million a month—an economic hardship that some say would be worse that any direct environmental damage.

Will Russia do it alone? Moscow has stumbled in its first solo steps on this project. As recounted with unusual candor by Atomnya Energia, a Russian nuclear industry trade publication supported largely by Rosatom itself, the project can’t even secure financing from Russia’s Ministry of Finance, which called Rosatom’s cost projections “insufficiently substantiated.”

“But how can I substantiate the cost of work that has never been done before?” the publication quoted Rosatom’s Grigoriev as lamenting. Russia also blew past a deadline to deliver an overarching road map outlining how the project would be undertaken due to bureaucratic confusion and squabbles.

One problem: Russia lacks the kind of special vessels that can lift a submarine. The last time the country attempted such an operation, the Kursk, a 17,000-metric ton vessel, sank during a military exercise in August 2000. That botched rescue attempt fueled indignation at Putin, who was then less than a year into his first presidential term.

After delaying the arrival of Norwegian rescue divers to the Kursk for nine days, during which time the surviving crew perished, the Kremlin was quick to invite the Dutch companies Mammoet and Smit International to coordinate the technically demanding raising of the wreck a little more than a year later.

With the Dutch, and anyone else, almost surely unwilling to help, Russia is alone with trying to build its own salvage vessels to lift the K-27 and K-159—ship construction that would inflate the estimate cost of the lifting operation by another several million dollars.

Numerous designs for such a ship have been batted about—employing anything from balloons to giant pincers to lift the subs—but nothing has come of them. At the July conference, Oleg Vlasov, who heads Malakhit, Russia’s federal marine engineering bureau, complained that he didn’t have enough technical information about the wrecks from Rosatom, despite the numerous expeditions to them, to even begin designing such a vessel.

“We’ve been talking too much and for too long,” Oleg Vlasov, who heads Russia’s federal marine engineering bureau, warned Rosatom in July. If Russia doesn’t act soon, he said, the vessels will become so enfeebled in their watery graves that it might be safest to leave them where they are.

It is this scenario that Nikitin finds the most likely after the invasion of Ukraine.

“The issue of lifting these sunken objects will continue to be postponed and obscured, and the authorities will begin to explain that they don’t pose a serious threat, and that over time they’ll become safer, and so on,” he said.

He added that none of the Rosatom meetings about the sub lift that he attended prior to the invasion of Ukraine had focused on Russia building its own vessels to lift the subs. Rather, they focused on which countries to ask to lift them.

But Nikitin and other members of Russian civil society who made up Rosatom’s public council won’t be attending more such meetings in the foreseeable future. And transparency on the Russian side—honed over many difficult years—might be one of the biggest environmental casualties of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.