ALBERTA

Advancing hydrogen use in transportation


Photo 160742721 © Julien Viry | Dreamstime.com

By rdnewsNOW staff
Jan 25, 2023 | 

Alberta’s government says it is seeking input on developing hydrogen fuelling stations to help support future low-emission transportation needs.

The government says Alberta is currently the largest hydrogen producer in Canada and research suggests that the province can produce some of the lowest-cost clean hydrogen in the world. The growing use of hydrogen fuel electric vehicles and hydrogen-diesel dual combustion vehicles is also said to provide an opportunity to reduce emissions in Alberta’s transportation sector while supporting the province’s growing hydrogen economy.

Alberta Energy says it is seeking expressions of interest to help the government gauge the potential for a provincial network of hydrogen fuelling stations owned and operated by the private sector.

“Alberta has the potential to be a global hydrogen leader. To help make that reality, we need to have the infrastructure in place to support its use. Hydrogen fuelling stations could power heavy-duty commercial vehicles, help reduce emissions and support future adoption in other mobility sectors. We are a province driven by innovation, and I look forward to reviewing the proposals,” says Pete Guthrie, Minister of Energy.

“This represents an important initial step forward on the road to a lower-emission future. I’m looking forward to seeing the input we receive from stakeholders and potential partners in this innovative enterprise. Once again, Alberta is leading the way in this cutting-edge opportunity,” adds Dale Nally, Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction.

Officials say the expression of interest is focused on the heavy-duty transportation sectors because they are the most likely to be early adopters of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. Industry will be asked to provide information including potential locations, capital and operating costs, delivery and storage, and safety considerations. In addition, the expression of interest is expected to gather information to assess the potential for the infrastructure to be used for general commercial and personal use of Albertans.

“As the largest producer of hydrogen in Canada, Alberta is uniquely positioned to be a leader in the hydrogen economy. Hydrogen fuelling stations could present many advantages to the heavy-duty transportation sector such as rapid refuelling, longer travel distances and the ability to support heavy payloads. This paves the way for more jobs and economic growth in Alberta and across Canada,” says Devin Dreeshen, Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors.

In 2021, the government says Alberta released its Hydrogen Roadmap, which outlines the province’s vision to deploy Alberta-produced hydrogen across domestic and global markets. Transportation was identified as a major market to integrate clean hydrogen. To help ensure this market grows in the future, officials say a reliable fuelling network that meets the needs of Albertans and industry is required.

More information on the expression of interest and Alberta’s Hydrogen Roadmap is available at alberta.ca.

NEED TO ADD WIND

New high-efficiency diesel plant opens in N.W.T. community

Wed, January 25, 2023


ŁUTSEL K'E — A new high-efficiency diesel power plant has opened in Lutsel K'e in the Northwest Territories.

It's expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 100 tonnes every year and allow for the future addition of renewable energy.

The new plant replaces an aging one and is on a different site outside of the community to reduce noise for residents.

The federal government contributed more than $8.7 million to the project with total costs estimated to be around $14.9 million.

Lutsel K'e is on the east arm of Great Slave Lake and is one of many communities in the North that are reliant on diesel for power.

The Lutsel K'e Dene First Nation installed a 35-kilowatt solar array in 2014 and has been exploring other renewable energy options.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 25, 2023.

Imperial Oil gives OK to $720M renewable diesel project near Edmonton

Amanda Stephenson, BNNBloomberg/The Canadian Press

CALGARY — Imperial Oil Ltd. is going ahead with a $720-million project to build a renewable diesel facility at its Strathcona refinery near Edmonton.

The project, first announced in August 2021, is expected to produce 20,000 barrels per day of renewable diesel once it is complete.

That will make it the largest facility of its kind in Canada, upon its expected completion in 2025, and one of the largest renewable diesel complexes in North America.

"We would consider ourselves world-class. When you look around the world, there are not many (renewable diesel) plants at 20,000 barrels per day or higher," said Jon Wetmore, Imperial's vice-president for downstream, in an interview Thursday.

Renewable diesel is the term given to a biomass-based fuel that is chemically equivalent to petroleum diesel. This means it can be transported directly in petroleum pipelines or sold at retail stations without any infrastructure modifications or fuel blending.

Renewable diesel can be made from vegetable oil, animal fats, used cooking oil or even algae. In Imperial's case, the Strathcona refinery facility will use locally sourced vegetable oils — such as canola, soybean and sunflower.

Imperial will also be partnering with Pennsylvania-based Air Products — which is building a hydrogen facility near Edmonton — to supply hydrogen via pipeline to the Strathcona refinery. The low-carbon hydrogen will also be used in the production of the renewable diesel.

As a non-fossil fuel-based product, the renewable diesel produced at the Imperial facility is expected to reduce annual greenhouse emissions by about three million tonnes compared to conventional fuels, the company said.

A significant portion of the production from the Strathcona renewable diesel facility will be sent to British Columbia to support the province’s plan to lower carbon emissions, and the company also plans to use renewable diesel in its own operations as part of its emission reduction plans.

The facility's construction will create about 600 direct construction jobs, Imperial said.

"A big day for Alberta, for Canada, and above all for workers with this new step forward from Imperial Oil," federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said on Twitter.

"This investment will create and support jobs, lower emissions, and help ensure Canada’s economic prosperity."

The news was also praised by clean energy think-tank the Pembina Institute, which called it a "positive announcement."

Pembina, as well as other environmental organizations, has been critical of the Canadian oilsands industry over the last year for what the think-tank believes is the industry's failure to move quickly on decarbonization plans during a period of high commodity prices and record profits for oil companies.

Imperial, for example, reported its 2022 third-quarter profit more than doubled compared with a year ago, totalling $2.03 billion — an impressive figure that's been used as ammunition by critics who believe the company, and others like it, can afford to invest more into environmental initiatives.

Imperial is also a member of the Pathways Alliance, a consortium of oil and gas companies that have committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from operations by 2050. Among that group's proposals is a massive carbon capture and storage network in northern Alberta, though a final investment decision for that project has not yet been made.

Jan Gorski, the Pembina Institute's oil and gas program director, said in order to thrive in a net-zero world, Canadian energy companies need to diversify away from fossil fuels, while at the same time reducing the carbon footprint of their oil and gas production methods.

The renewable diesel announcement, Gorski said, falls into that first category.

"It's a perfect example of that," Gorski said. "But we’re still waiting to see investments in reducing emissions from their existing operations."

Wetmore said from Imperial's perspective, renewable diesel is just one piece within a "layered" emissions reduction challenge.

“Decarbonization is such a diverse set of issues that there is no one item here that is a silver bullet that can be done quickly and easily," he said. "If that was the case, the oil industry would have already moved on to the very, quick urgent projects that we could drive home very quickly.

"(Renewable diesel) can be implemented sooner than things like carbon capture, and some of the technologies that are not quite ready."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2023.

Companies in this story: (TSX:IMO)

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

Canada invests in clean energy initiative converting agricultural waste into diesel fuel

Author of the article: James Bonnell
Published Jan 26, 2023 • 

(L-R) Cibele Halmenschlager, Hanan El-Sayed, Andrea Kent, Francis Drouin, Dr. Arno De Klerk, and Dr. Walter Dixon pose at the University of Alberta lab. 

Photo by James Bonnell.

On Jan. 24, 2023, Parliamentary Secretary to the federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Francis Drouin, visited the University of Alberta to tour the Greenfield Global laboratory and learn more about their clean fuel, agricultural waste reclamation project.

“I was glad to witness the hard work of the researchers at the University of Alberta,” said Francis Drouin. “The collaboration between academia, industry and farm organizations is a driving force to advance renewable fuels while at the same time solving the issue of farm waste. I’m glad to see the Department of Agriculture and Agriculture-Food contributed an initial investment of $2 million to get this project started. The benefits will be good news for farmers.”

Greenfield Global received funding of nearly $2 million under the Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) program to develop new clean technologies that convert agricultural waste into renewable diesel fuel. Greenfield is collaborating closely with scientists from the University of Alberta on this project.

The Jan. 24 tour began with an overview of the project, followed by a review of fuel samples and a demonstration of the conversion process.

Hanan El-Sayed, Senior Process Engineer with Greenfield Global shows a sample of the diesel fuel to Francis Drouin, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. 

Photo by James Bonnell.

“For decades Greenfield has been at the forefront of biofuels production in Canada and as we continue to improve our products we’re also looking more into research and development,” said Andrea Kent, VP Industry and Government Affairs, Greenfield Global. “Today’s announcement is so exciting because this project with Greenfield and the University of Alberta is looking at waste to renewable fuel.”

“This project is able to take agricultural waste that would otherwise be destined for a landfill and end up being garbage — and we’re able to use the expertise that’s coming from the University of Alberta, and the track record and ability to deliver that Greenfield brings to the table, to work towards renewable diesel, and eventually get all the way to renewable, sustainable aviation fuel.”

Through this process, agricultural waste is distilled into a renewable and clean fuel that emits mitigated greenhouse gas emissions and has a reduced environmental impact.

Cibele Halmenschlager, Laboratory Manager at the University of Alberta explains the conversion process to Parliamentary Secretary Francis Drouin. 

Photo by James Bonnell.

“It’s a bookend approach to attacking carbon emissions,” explained Kent. “On one side of it you have this agricultural waste or byproduct that is going to be destined for a landfill, and that is going to release methane gas, a really predominate greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. And on the other end you have the fuel portion of it, which is going to reduce the carbon intensity of the fuels that we use today.”

Greenfield Global representatives say that the conversion process produces synthetic diesel fuel that has a greater than a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as compared to traditional fossil fuels.

In the current phase of the project, Greenfield has been using livestock manure as their feedstock waste product, but the company says that any waste product could be used to produce the same clean fuel.

“Our process is agnostic, so we don’t depend on just one waste type, we are flexible to use any other types of feedstock,” said Hanan El-Sayed, Senior Process Engineer with Greenfield Global. “For example forest residues, municipal solid waste, separated organics, or sewage sludge even. That’s really what is unique about the process.”

The Greenfield project is part of an investment of over $15.2 million under the ACT program to support the adoption of clean technologies for 47 projects throughout Canada.

The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced the program in May 2022, stating, “The fight against climate change aims to not only reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, but also to help producers innovate and adopt more sustainable agricultural practices. New investments in the Agricultural Clean Technology Program will support their acquisition of energy-efficient equipment to increase their agricultural productivity and net profits, while improving food security in Canada.”

“I think when you look at how the future of energy is going to look, it is going to have a myriad of technologies, it is going to have a variety of fuels,” concluded Kent. “There is nothing overnight, there is no one solution or technology that is going to get us the economy and protect the environment at the same time. But what I think is the ideal, and what this project is striving for is really having that flexibility built in at the onset. So it can be applied to a variety of wastes depending on commodity cycles, depending on weather formation, or other needs that are coming from agriculture, while also providing a technology pathway that is reliable and still ends up up in that reliable, low-carbon fuel.”

jbonnell@postmedia.com

Advising others on crucial life choices ‘immoral’ says Cambridge philosopher

Story by Matthew Weaver •The Guardian

Giving friends and relations advice about crucial life choices such as whether to take a new job or start a family is immoral, according to a new paper by a Cambridge philosopher.



Dr Farbod Akhlaghi, a moral philosopher at Christ’s College, argues that everyone has a right to “self authorship”, so must make decisions about transformative experiences for themselves.

In a new paper for philosophy journal Analysis, he argues that this right to “revelatory autonomy” is violated even by well-meaning advice from friends and family about crucial life decisions.

Akhlaghi argues that it is impossible to know if a friend’s life will benefit from a transformative experience – such as new job, the birth of a child or a university course – until after the event. And that it is for them to find out.

Crucially, he argues, it is only by making these choices independently that we can know ourselves.

In the paper, entitled Transformative experience and the right to revelatory autonomy, Akhlaghi writes: “It is not the value of making a choice as such but, rather, that of autonomously making choices to learn what our core preferences and values will become. For autonomously making transformative choices when facing them, deciding for ourselves to learn who we will become, gives us a degree of self-authorship.”

The paper says this right creates a correlative “moral duty in others not to interfere in the autonomous self-making” of their friends.

Akhlaghi argues it is only justifiable to interfere in someone else’s transformative choice by competing moral considerations such as if harm is likely to be done others.

Commenting on the paper he said: “The ability to see that the person we’ve become is the product of decisions that we made for ourselves is very import.

“There are lots of different reasons why we might seek to intervene – some selfish, others well-meaning – but whatever our motivation, we can cause significant harm, including to the people we love most.”

He argues that even those who accept the right to revelatory autonomy in others risk violating this right if they attempt to advise friends on a particular course of action.

Akhlaghi says: “Offering reasons, arguments or evidence as if one is in a privileged position with respect to what the other person’s experience would be like for them disrespects their moral right to revelatory autonomy.”

Akhlaghi suggests that the more likely a choice is to affect someone’s ‘core identity and values’, the stronger the moral reasons required for interfering in their decisions. So advising a friend on whether to eat a cheeseburger or not is easier to justify than advising them on whether to go to university, he writes.

I got laid off from Amazon. The lack of transparency about why certain people were let go made the whole process extremely robotic.

Story by sdelouya@insider.com (Samantha Delouya) •


Amazon recently announced a layoff of 18,000 employees. 

Amazon laid off a total of 18,000 employees over the past couple of months, more than expected based on reports.

 
The final round of layoffs came on January 18. Insider spoke with a recruiter who was part of those layoffs.

 
She said the process felt "extremely robotic" and wished the company had been more transparent about its plans.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with a former Amazon employee laid off on January 18 as part of the company's 18,000-person job cut. She spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her career, but Insider has verified her identity and former employment. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

It sucked to find out I was laid off over email. I know it was probably timed to go out to everyone at the same time, but it was a very generic email, which didn't feel great.

The first email came early in the morning on January 18, saying something along the lines of "layoffs are coming, we're here to support you," and then an hour later, I got the email confirming they eliminated my position.

For the past year, I've worked as a technical recruiter at Amazon Web Services, and I loved it so much. It's just devastating to have gotten laid off. When you find a team that is so supportive, it's really hard not to take it personally when these kinds of things happen. I thought I was doing well, and I had pretty high numbers for what I was doing.

After receiving the initial email informing me that I was laid off, I heard from my organization's higher-ups and later from HR. It felt extremely robotic.

Related video: Amazon to end its "AmazonSmile" charity program, 

WNY nonprofits feeling brunt of company's latest change (WKBW Buffalo, NY)

Program designed to help nonprofits all over the country is now gone,

Duration 2:17

View on Watch

This whole process has been extremely frustrating because of the lack of transparency we were provided. I know Amazon is a giant company, and I know the logistics of a more personalized approach would have been a nightmare, but on the other hand, we are human beings. This is our livelihood.

I expected more job cuts ever since our CEO, Andrew Jassy, put out a statement 2 weeks ago that more layoffs were coming on the 18th.

It was terrifying. All of us were on edge for 2 weeks, but I was in denial. I thought I was safe.

Although I worked in recruiting and Amazon had been on a hiring freeze since November, we had projects that we were working on, and we were keeping busy.

Most of the time I worked at Amazon, it didn't feel like a giant corporation. I'm sure everyone says they were on the best team, but I truly believe I was on one of the healthiest teams I've ever experienced.

I'm just speculating, but I wonder if the higher-ups would have even told us that layoffs were coming if it hadn't been leaked first. It felt like they weren't going to tell us until the day before.

Over those 2 weeks after the story about additional layoffs leaked, there was no clarity from management. I didn't know if it would be random, performance-based, or based on tenure. The lack of transparency made it feel like I was just a line item instead of a human being.

WEF DAVOS 2023
A Catastrophic Mutating Cyber Event Will Strike the World in 2 Years, Report Says

A World Economic Forum report says business leaders believe a catastrophic, COVID-like cyber event is coming in 2 years.© Getty Images

Story by Tim Newcomb • 

A World Economic Forum report says business leaders believe a “catastrophic cyber event” is coming.

Cybercrime will grow from a $3 trillion industry in 2015 to a $10.5 trillion industry by 2025.

The unpredictable nature of cybercrime increases threats.

The 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, has filled us with lots of uplifting predictions, like how companies will soon decode our brain waves. The latest warns of a global catastrophic cyber event in the very near future.

“The most striking finding that we’ve found,” WEF managing director Jeremy Jurgens said during a presentation highlighting the WEF Global Security Outlook Report 2023, “is that 93 percent of cyber leaders, and 86 percent of cyber business leaders, believe that the geopolitical instability makes a catastrophic cyber event likely in the next two years. This far exceeds anything that we’ve see in previous surveys.”

Add in the extreme unpredictability of these events—Jurgens cited a cyberattack recently aimed at shutting down Uranian military abilities that unexpectedly also closed off parts of electricity production across Europe—and the global challenges are only growing.

“This is a global threat,” Jürgen Stock, Secretary-General of Interpol, said during the presentation. “It calls for a global response and enhanced and coordinated action.” He said the increased profits that the multiple bad “actors” reap from cybercrime should encourage world leaders to work together to make it a priority as they face “new sophisticated tools.”

One country that recently saw a massive cyberattack, Albania, is now working with larger allies in warding off the criminals, serving as a laboratory of sorts for folks to realize what is coming.

Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, spoke during the presentation, saying that the growth of the cybercrime industry—from $3 trillion in 2015 to an expected $10.5 trillion in 2025—means that if cybercrime was a state, it would be the third largest global economy after the U.S. and China.

That means the crime coming could truly be catastrophic.

Rama cited the global response to COVID-19 and said a cyberattack could be much more substantial:

“Let’s imagine an exponential multitude of viruses that mutate everyday exponentially while not threatening our body, but the bodies we live in, our organizations, our countries, our system, then, you know, it could be just apocalypse. It’s about viruses that can not only block our way of living, but can control it and deviate it.”

Bank of Canada: rising female participation helping tackle labor shortage

OTTAWA, Jan 25 (Reuters) - More women have joined the Canadian workforce recently, helping offset labor shortages, and one reason could be a program by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to cut child-care costs, the Bank of Canada said on Wednesday.


Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem conducts an end of year fireside chat in Vancouver© Thomson Reuters

The central bank said the annual growth of the labor force had shrunk to about 0.9% over the 2020-2022 period from 1.4% in 2017-2019 because of an aging population and the interruption of immigration flows in 2020.

"The recent rise in the participation of prime-age Canadians, especially women, has somewhat offset the effect of aging," it said, noting the participation rate for prime-age women was at a near record high 84.9%, and the increase had been notable for women with young children.

This could in part be due to a multi-billion dollar program the federal Liberal government introduced last year to cut the costs of child care and encourage more women to work, it said.

"The increase in the participation of prime-age women has expanded the labor force by almost 100,000, helping ease firms' labor shortages and hiring challenges," the bank said in its quarterly Monetary Policy Report.

Immigration is another factor helping mitigate the effects of a tight labor market. About 480,000 newcomers joined the labor force between December 2020 and December 2022.

"Increased immigration alone cannot eliminate an economy-wide imbalance between labor supply and demand," it said, citing the increase of labor supply and the number of consumers.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren, editing by Steve Scherer; Reuters Ottawa bureau, +1 647 480 7921; david.ljunggren@tr.com)

Harry Rakowski: The science behind why COVID variants are better and better at evading vaccine immunity

Opinion by Harry Rakowski • Thursday - National Post

After three painful years, COVID-19, while not over, is finally a manageable, endemic disease, yet debates surrounding its origin and how it’s being managed are still highly politicized. It is therefore not surprising that there is an ongoing, politicized debate about the cause of the unusually frequent viral mutations that are now occurring and the value of ongoing bivalent boosters.

There are two important issues at play here: Why are the new bivalent boosters not performing as well as hoped in reducing the number of new infections? And is vaccination somehow driving the evolution of the virus to more easily evade antibody neutralization?

Allysia Finley, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, recently wrote a column stating that, “Growing evidence … suggests that repeated vaccinations may make people more susceptible to XBB and could be fuelling the virus’s rapid evolution.” She concludes that, “The Biden administration’s monomaniacal focus on vaccines over new treatments has left the highest-risk Americans more vulnerable to new variants.”

Yet this not an accurate description of the present situation. Boosters aren’t fuelling the pandemic. They don’t cause the virus to mutate, the virus just outsmarts the antibodies produced and new mutations lead to more breakthrough infections.

There are important lessons to be learned from understanding how this virus is unique. The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is a never-before-encountered coronavirus belonging to a large family of viruses named after the crown-like spikes on their surface.

Previous coronaviruses generally caused colds, but rarely resulted in death. Only twice before have coronaviruses caused much more serious disease, namely in the SARS outbreak of 2002 and MERS, which was identified in the Middle East in 2012.

In neither case was vaccination available, nor was rapid viral mutation a worrisome feature that might facilitate frequent reinfections or ongoing worldwide spread. To get a sense of why SARS‑CoV‑2 is different, it is helpful to understand the course of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and how it ended.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic infected about one-third of the world’s population and resulted in 50-million deaths worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States. A unique feature was its high mortality rate in healthy people.

The Spanish Flu was caused by an H1N1 influenza virus. With no available vaccines, the pandemic lasted two years and finally petered out as the high number of infected people led to herd immunity. The virus simply ran out of people it could continue to infect who could then spread it further. As well, cellular immunity from previous infection protected against future bad outcomes. The virus never went away , it simply became one of the causes of the much more benign seasonal flu.

Every so often, new variants, perhaps as the result of cross-infection from animal hosts, has led to more severe, but limited, flu outbreaks. This is what happened with the H1N1 virus that caused the swine flu pandemic of 2009.

Jeffery Taubenberger, one of the scientists who studied the Spanish Flu virus, determined through genetic sequencing of preserved pathology specimens from 1918 that, “Every single human infection with Influenza A in the past 102 years is derived from the one introduction of the 1918 flu.”

While this pattern will likely also eventually happen with SARS‑CoV‑2, there are still questions over how vaccines have influenced new variants.

Related video: Are vaccines holding up against the new COVID variant XBB.1.5? Here's what we know. (USA TODAY)  Duration 1:37   View on Watch

The mRNA vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer initially appeared to work well in preventing infection. The antibodies produced in response to two vaccine shots could bind to, and neutralize, invading viruses, thus reducing the chance of infection by 95 per cent, in human trials.

The story didn’t end as expected, though. Antibody levels produced by either vaccine, or in response to an infection itself, waned over a period of around six months. Then new, more contagious variants arose and spread rapidly. Yet the initial variants that fuelled new outbreaks didn’t just arise from countries with high levels of vaccination.

Influenza viruses commonly mutate and evade the benefit of annual flu shots. In a similar way, the original Wuhan strain also evolved and mutated in an attempt to infect more people. While many mutations had a neutral effect, those in the spike protein allowed easier cell entry and viral replication and thus dominated.

As new variants of concern developed, they were assigned Greek letters. The first variant of concern, the Alpha variant, which originated in England, was associated with more infections, even in vaccinated people, but memory cell-based immunity continued to protect against hospitalization and death.

Then the Delta variant, which originated in India before many people there were vaccinated, quickly became dominant. It was both more contagious and more deadly. During this phase of the pandemic, Delta became COVID on steroids and a disease of the unvaccinated. The response was to give booster shots of the original vaccine to bump up antibody levels. Yet as the virus continued to mutate, booster protection from infection again fell dramatically.

In the fall of 2021, the Omicron variant, which was first detected in South Africa, a country with low vaccination rates, became dominant, since it was the most contagious variant yet. This led to most people in North America becoming infected, or re-infected, regardless of vaccination status. The response was to produce Omicron-specific boosters, initially targeting the BA.1 Omicron variant, then the BA.4/5 variants that arose.

The hope was that these boosters would produce antibodies both for the original viral strain and the rapidly mutating Omicron variants and would thus provide significant protection from infection. Unfortunately, the ability of the boosters to prevent human infection proved to be dramatically lower than with previous strains. The benefit became even smaller as newer Omicron variants sprung up, especially now with the dominating XBB.1.5 mutation.

The reason for the continuing decline in bivalent boosters limiting infection is likely due to “immune imprinting,” the idea that the immune response to either previous infection or to receiving a vaccine limits an individual’s future response to new variants. The immune system thus prefers to recall existing memory cells rather than produce new responses when the old and new variants are closely related. We produce antibodies that fight the older strains more effectively than the evolving ones that now dominate.

Thus, new strains that develop will continue to rapidly evade the antibodies produced by repeated vaccinations and we will continue to get diminishing returns. The more we try and prevent new infections with more and more booster shots, the less effective they will likely become in preventing infections themselves.

What is critically important, however, is that vaccination continues to greatly decrease the risk of hospitalization or death, despite the rise of ever-mutating new Omicron sub-variants. Despite what Finley suggests, viral mutations happen naturally and are not directly caused by vaccines.

The XBB family of mutations likely originated when two forms of the virus combined in an individual to form a new strain. This new strain started to dominate because it was more immune-evasive. Vaccination is unlikely to have played a major role in this process, as evasion from immunity can come from both the declining benefits of vaccination and natural infection.

We can’t panic when the press hypes every new variant. While they cause more infections, only a small percentage of people have bad outcomes. In healthy people who have been infected in the past, or previously vaccinated, most will now only develop cold- or flu-like symptoms.

We have to now accept that ongoing vaccination will have limited benefit in preventing infection from ever-mutating viruses and hope that they continue to provide protection against bad outcomes. Hopefully, the lesson from the end of the Spanish Flu is that this virus will eventually become little more dangerous than a common cold or a typical flu. Ongoing vaccination for those older people or those at higher risk is reasonable. Ongoing vaccination for younger, healthier people is of limited value.

We need to focus on improving the capacity and resilience of our health-care system, rapidly develop new antiviral therapies to protect the vulnerable once infected and take the fear and politics out of the process.

National Post
Dr. Harry Rakowski is an academic Toronto cardiologist and commentator.

Secwépemc land defenders, arrested for opposing TMX, receive outpouring of support in ‘Vancouver’

Story by The Canadian Press • 


Eight land defenders who are facing jail time for opposing the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project (TMX) in unceded Secwépemc homelands are receiving support from allies in “Vancouver.”

Gathering at a community hall in Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories, Indigenous leaders, artists and Youth took part in a fundraiser event to help with legal fees for two ongoing court cases stemming from arrests in October 2020.

The total money raised during the Secwépemc Sovereignty Fundraiser on Jan. 19 is still being tallied, but organizers estimate about $5,000 is being added to an existing fund to support land defenders during sentencing — scheduled to take place in the Tk’emlúps (Kamloops) court from Feb. 21 to 24.

Rueben George of Tsleil-Waututh Nation, who has spent years fighting TMX in his community’s own unceded homelands, expressed his gratitude for his fellow land defenders standing up against colonial forces.

“I’m proud of you,” he said, adding that the land defenders are putting their own freedom on the line to try to make things better for others.

“It’s the elements that we’re fighting for — the water, the earth, the land and everything that exists that carries a spirit,” he said.

“That’s what we know and understand. But they don’t. And we’ll teach them.”

The event included performances by Indigenous Youth and artists including Manuel Axel Strain, who is Musqueam, Simpcw and syilx, and Kwiis Hamilton of the Nuu-chah-nulth and Sto:lo First Nations.

Following the performances, the eight land defenders took to the stage to express their gratitude for the support from the crowd that packed the hall’s main space.

During their nearly three years in court, the land defenders have been self-represented. But some are now planning to hire lawyers for the sentencing and appeal processes, with the intention of also completing a Gladue report, said Secwépemc Hereditary Matriarch Miranda Dick.

“The impacts that we’re facing are just so detrimental to our salmon and our way of life,” said Dick.

“The way that we look at it, everything floats down river, meaning that we’re protectors of our sacred waters and our headways of the salmon.”

In November 2022, during a talk at UBC Okanagan, Dick highlighted “Canada’s” colonial infringement of breaking ancient Secwépemc law by building the pipeline that would cross 518 km of the nation’s homelands.

“When we say that they have no jurisdiction, you look at Canada as wanting to impose law onto us,” she said.

“We never signed, ceded or surrendered our territories.”

Dick, along with her father, Hereditary Chief Saw-ses, are each looking at one to three months of jail time. Land defenders such as Secwépemc Matriarch April Thomas and Red Deer Billie Pierre of Nlaka’pamux Nation are looking at three to six months.

Despite the sentence that she’s facing, Pierre said that she was thankful to be a part of the salmon, water and land ceremonies that ultimately led to her arrest.

“One day, I’m sure all of our descendants are going to be thankful for what we’ve all done,” said Pierre.

“Whatever or however we slowed this down, how much extra we’ve made this project cost — all our work has been a labour of love.”

For Thomas, she said that it means a lot to her to see the support from so many people from different walks of life.

“It shows that I’m not alone. As long as one of us has that spirit inside of us, they can’t ever kill our people,” said Thomas. “And they won’t, because our next generation’s coming up.”

Thomas outlined a number of different ways that allies can continue to support land defenders and contribute to the cause: preparing meals, collecting medicines, fundraising, assembling legal strategy, and more.

“If we all just put our minds together and put our ideas out there and contribute, I know we can shut this pipeline down,” she said.

Aaron Hemens, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Discourse