Switzerland's solar dam: Why are mountains and snow the perfect mix for solar energy?

FOR THE SAME REASON THEY ARE MELTING

Angela Symons
Tue, 7 February 2023 


A snaking wall of solar panels has been attached to Switzerland's longest dam. The solar dam is helping the landlocked nation maximise its green energy production in the winter months.

The Lake Muttsee dam, in the central Swiss canton of Glarus, is over 7,800 feet (2,400 metres) above sea level and is surrounded by snow-capped peaks - something that the team behind the AlpinSolar project says is a key benefit.

Why are alpine solar plants so effective?

"One of the qualities of alpine solar plants is that, especially in winter, they produce up to three times more electricity than a comparable facility in the midlands," says Jeanette Schranz, communications lead for renewables at Swiss energy producer Axpo.

The dam's almost 5,000 solar panels produce 3.3 million kilowatt hours of energy per year, enough to supply around 700 houses. Installation of the panels was completed last year and production at the site has already begun.

The reflection from the snow helps solar power production at the AlpinSolar dam. 

- REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

Schranz says Switzerland's mountains are less affected by fog in colder months, meaning the panels see more sun than they would at lower altitudes.

"The reflection from the snow also helps," Schranz says, adding that "solar panels like the cold and have a higher yield in cooler temperatures."

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AlpinSolar is part of a larger vision for Axpo, which says it aims to install 4,200 solar projects in Switzerland's mountains and lower-lying regions by 2030.

Switzerland's government is also making it easier for solar energy to become more prevalent. Last year the federal parliament amended the country's Energy Act to fast track the approval process of new solar plants that aim to produce significant levels of energy during the winter months.

Solar power is an important part of Switzerland's green energy transition.

- REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

The country's drive towards more green means of energy production is tied to its decision to phase out nuclear power. In June 2011 parliament resolved not to replace any existing reactors, which was confirmed in a 2017 referendum.

Schranz says a balanced power mix is key to Switzerland achieving the transition to green energy. “Alpine solar plants can also make an important contribution here.”

Study: 15 million people live under threat of glacial floods

Tue, February 7, 2023 



As glaciers melt and pour massive amounts of water into nearby lakes, 15 million people across the globe live under the threat of a sudden and deadly outburst flood, a new study finds.

More than half of those living in the shadow of the disaster called glacial lake outburst floods are in just four countries: India, Pakistan, Peru and China, according to a study in Tuesday’s Nature Communications. A second study, awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal, catalogs more than 150 glacial flood outbursts in history and recent times.

It's a threat Americans and Europeans rarely think about, but 1 million people live within just 6 miles (10 kilometers) of potentially unstable glacial-fed lakes, the study calculated.

One of the more devastating floods was in Peru in 1941 and it killed between 1,800 and 6,000 people. A 2020 glacial lake outburst flood in British Columbia, Canada, caused a tsunami of water about 330 feet (100 meters) high, but no one was hurt. A 2017 glacial outburst flood in Nepal, triggered by a landslide, was captured on video by German climbers. Alaska’s Mendenhall glacier has had annual small glacial outburst floods in what the National Weather Service calls “suicide basin,” since 2011, according to study lead author Caroline Taylor, a researcher at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.

Heavy rains and a glacial lake outburst flood combined in 2013 in India to kill thousands of people. A 2021 deadly flood in India that was initially attributed to a glacial lake outburst wasn’t caused by one, studies later found.

Scientists say so far it doesn’t seem like climate change has made those floods more frequent, but as glaciers shrink with warming, the amount of water in the lakes grows, making them more dangerous in those rare situations when dams burst.

“We had glacier lake outburst floods in the past that have killed many many thousands of people in a single catastrophic flooding event,” said study co-author Tom Robinson, a disaster risk scientist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. “And with climate change glaciers are melting so these lakes are getting bigger, potentially getting more unstable.”

Dan Shugar, a geoscientist at the University of Calgary who wasn't part of the two studies, said much of the threat depends simply on how many people live in a glacial flood zone.

“In a warming world we certainly expect more and larger glacial lakes,” Shugar said in an email. “But the threat that these lakes might pose critically depends on where people are living and what their vulnerabilities might be."

Robinson said what’s different about his study is that it’s the first to look at the climate, geography, population, vulnerability and all these factors to get “a good overview of where in the world is the most dangerous places'' for all 1,089 glacial basins.

At the top of the list is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa basin in Pakistan, north of Islamabad.

“That’s particularly bad,” Robinson said. “Lots of people and they’re very, very vulnerable” because they live in a valley below the lake.

The trouble is that scientists are focusing too much attention on the Pakistan, India, China and the Himalayas, often called High Mountain Asia, and somewhat ignoring the Andes, Robinson said. The second and third highest risk basins are in Peru's Santa basin, and Bolivia's Beni basin, the paper said.

After the deadly Andes flood in the 1940s that region “was sort of a leader” in working on glacial flood outburst threats, but in the last decade or so, High Mountain Asia has taken over because of the high population, said University of Dayton geology professor Umesh Haritashya, who wasn’t part of the studies.

India ranks high in the threat list not so much because of the physical setup but because of “a huge number of people downstream.”

Three lake basins in the United States and Canada rank high for threats, from the Pacific Northwest to Alaska, but aren’t nearly as high as areas in Asia and the Andes with few people in the danger zone. They are in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula — distinct from the Mendenhall glacier near Juneau — northeast Washington and west central British Columbia.

“This ranking is a good checklist for further research,” said Oliver Korup of the University of Potsdam in Germany, who co-authored the list of glacial lake outburst floods.

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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press

German court rejects climate lawsuit against automaker BMW


Tue, February 7, 2023 


BERLIN (AP) — A German court on Tuesday rejected a lawsuit by environmental campaigners seeking to force automaker BMW to stop selling vehicles with combustion engine by 2030.

The group Environmental Action Germany, also known by its German acronym DUH, argued that manufacturers such as BMW pose a threat to people's right to property, health and life if they continue making vehicles that produce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Munich regional court ruled Tuesday that while the plaintiffs' arguments couldn't be dismissed from the outset, “at present there is no threat of illegal encroachment” of their rights.

Judges noted that German and European lawmakers, spurred partly by a 2021 ruling by Germany's top court, have taken numerous measures to achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord. As such there was no absence of laws that would warrant civil action against BMW “at last not at this time,” they said.

The Munich-based automaker welcomed the ruling, saying efforts to cut emissions should be determined by democratically elected parliaments, not in the courts.

DUH said it was satisfied the court had recognized the permissibility of their lawsuit in principle. It plans to appeal the ruling.

The group said vehicles sold by BMW in 2021 were responsible for more emissions of planet-heating carbon dioxide than countries such as Finland or Portugal produce in a year.

A similar lawsuit against Mercedes-Benz was rejected by a German court last year and the appeal is pending.

A third lawsuit, against energy company Wintershall Dea, is scheduled to be heard in August.

The Associated Press

Hong Kong transgender men win appeal over status change

Mon, February 6, 2023 



HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s top court ruled Monday that full sex reassignment surgery should not be a prerequisite for transgender people to have their gender changed on their official identity cards, in a move that is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the transgender community.

A transgender activist, Henry Edward Tse, and a person identified only as Q appealed to the court last month over the government’s refusal to change the genders on their ID cards because of their decision not to have full sex reassignment surgeries.

Tse and Q are both transgender men who have had their breasts removed, received hormonal treatments and lived their lives as males with professional support and guidance as well as psychiatric treatment.

The judgment by the Court of Final Appeal is expected to have a wide impact on the LGBTQ community because many of its transgender members consider having the operation unnecessary and risky.

The two went to court because existing government policy only allows transgender men to change their official gender if they have removed their uteruses and ovaries and constructed male genitalia. Only those who cannot undergo the surgical procedures due to medical reasons can be exempted.

Both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal dismissed judicial review proceedings brought by Tse and Q. The two were allowed to go to the Court of Final Appeal.

In a judgment made public Monday, the court said the government's policy was unconstitutional and imposed an “unacceptably harsh burden.” They also said that the policy was “disproportionate" in its encroachment upon the rights of the two to gender identity and physical integrity.

The judges also said any administrative issues that usually arise tend to pertain to a transgender person's outward appearance and not the appearance of their genital area, and that leaving the gender on their identity card unamended “produced greater confusion or embarrassment."

Tse welcomed the ruling, saying many transgender people have been longing for a “final victory” for years.

“Now I have a male ID card, it will be a lot easier for me to access gender-segregated spaces,” he said. “I wouldn’t be questioned and humiliated by being outed by my ID that’s incongruent to who I am.”

Liam Mak, co-founder and chairperson of local transgender youth organization Quarks, described the win as an “important milestone” for the transgender community in Hong Kong.

“We believe that the gender identity of oneself should not be tied to medical intervention, we should ensure minimal to no medical intervention in the policy,” said Mak. “Given that every individual has different preferences or decisions in their own gender transition journey, I hope that the government will be referencing the advice from the court to protect the right of all transgender people.”

___

Associated Press journalist Alice Fung contributed to this report.

Zen Soo And Kanis Leung, The Associated Press

Nearly 10 years after rail disaster, Lac-Mégantic residents watch new series but some say it's 'too soon'

Tue, February 7, 2023 

Yvette Cellard was one of the residents who watched the first screening of a new limited series on the Lac-Mégantic rail explosion on Monday evening. (Rachel Watts/CBC - image credit)

Emerging from a school auditorium on Monday evening, Yvette Cellard stood in the exact same spot she did nearly 10 years ago.

Cellard awoke to the sounds of explosions on July 6, 2013 and showed up at the local school to volunteer when she heard the news.

That's when a train carrying crude oil crashed into the centre of Lac-Mégantic, Que. killing 47 people in what went down as one of the worst rail disasters in Canadian history.

"I was writing the names of people missing … I was one of the first arriving and we were at the table, right there," said Cellard, pointing to the doors of the school.

On Monday night, she was back in the school and among the group of residents to see the first episode in a limited TV series titled Mégantic for its first public viewing.

Released by Club Illico, the eight-episode series follows the community that was shaken, the lives lost and the people who volunteered to help pick up the pieces. Part of it is based on true stories, while other parts are fiction.

Like many other residents of Lac-Mégantic and surrounding towns, Cellard says she had mixed feelings about the series at first, which has received a significant amount of pushback from residents since its announcement.

Martin Bilodeau/Radio-Canada

Series was 'big issue in town'

Although Cellard was emotional before the film, she says she was glad she saw it.

"Something told me not to go and other things told me I had to go. So I just followed my instinct … I wanted to know if I was able to look at this," said Cellard.

Resident André Tanguay says the series was "a big issue in town," making him and his wife, Diane Boulet, wonder if they should attend in the first place.

"We decided that the best way to do it [was] to go, look at it and then make your own decision on that. We know some people who said 'we don't want to go, we don't want to hear about it' but I think that we have to cope with what happened, we have to look forward and the [way] to look forward is [to] make peace with the past," said Tanguay.

"It's not about making the best movie in town or getting an award, it's about how simple people, working people cope with something that's bigger than them. We are resilient and that's what the whole series is going to be about."

Rachel Watts/CBC

Boulet says she "adored" the humanity that was portrayed in the series, and how it followed individuals' lives — adding that she hopes to recommend it to her group of friends who didn't attend.

But some residents won't be convinced to look at it.

'It's too soon' say some residents

Yolande Boulet-Boulanger is among the group who was against the creation of the series from the start.

Sitting in her home located on the border of Frontenac and Lac-Mégantic, she recalled losing her grandson, Frédéric Boutin, in the tragedy in 2013.

"I have a difficult time talking about him. He was 19 years old… in the peak of his youth," said Boulet-Boulanger.

Rachel Watts/CBC

Her grandson was sleeping in his apartment when the explosion happened. She says he was a "prisoner" in his apartment, trying to get out through the fire escape — his body being discovered outside the building in the alley.

When she heard about the creation of this series, Boulet-Boulanger says her family didn't want Boutin's story to be included.

"It's too soon. It's a bit cruel," said Boulet-Boulanger with a pause. She notes that she didn't appreciate how it is fictitious and questioned the creators' motives.

Submitted by Isabelle Boulanger

Donald Stewart, her neighbour and a resident of Frontenac, Que. says he can appreciate the effort put into the series but doesn't see "the sense in it."

"Why don't they just leave it as it is? They are commemorating the 10th anniversary but in 25 years the feelings are still going to be there. I don't see anything good coming out of this," said Stewart.

Rachel Watts/CBC

Five-year project incorporated locals' testimonies

Sylvain Guy, the writer of the series, says he understands residents' apprehension.

"If it were me, well it's hard to say, but I don't think I would have liked to watch it," said Guy, putting himself in the shoes of families who lost loved ones.

Although some will never want to see it, he says he has received positive feedback on how this type of storytelling could benefit families.

"For many people … They wanted people to remember, they wanted to tell their story. That was very important for them," said Guy.

"For instance, I met the mother of a firefighter who committed suicide three months after the tragedy and each time people were talking about Mégantic, it was always the 47 people that died and her son was always left out so she wanted to tell her story."

Rachel Watts/CBC

The project, which took five years from start to finish, incorporated testimonies from families and friends, said Alexis Durand-Brault, the director. He says he heard 40 different stories from people who lost loved ones.

"I could have done 30 episodes," said Durand-Brault, adding that they could only use about 10-15 per cent of what they heard.

"We had to chop some of this stuff up, we couldn't show everything that we wanted but also it would have been irresponsible if we were to have put everything that we heard on the screen because it's very very overwhelming," said Sophie Lorain, one of the producers.

Rachel Watts/CBC

'Trauma-burdened town' supported by social workers

It's part of why public health got involved and deployed social workers to be in attendance on Monday's first screening.

Isabelle Samson, the director of public health for the Eastern Townships, says her team created pamphlets and did research about how best to support residents.

"These things don't happen everyday that a series comes out in a trauma-burdened town," said Samson.

"What the literature tells us is that there's no reason to put a warning and for people not to watch it but we have to give them information to make a clear choice. So that's what we did."

Rachel Watts/CBC

Outside the auditorium, social workers created a welcome space for those needing counselling.

She notes that they expect people to have "strong emotions" watching the show, but should be wary of "red flags" that may be warning signs of mental health stress.

"If you start getting more anxious, stressed and this anxiety lasts way beyond the episode and to the next day and they prevent you from doing the things you are usually able to do, that's another red flag," said Samson, adding that people should be encouraged to view the show surrounded by people who support them and remember that the characters are fictitious.

"Yes, there's a lot of true bits to it clearly, but there's a lot of fictional aspects to it as well so we have to keep that in mind. And that's going to be a challenge to decipher the reality from the fiction."

Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press

ECOCIDE

Crews release toxic chemicals from derailed tankers in Ohio



EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (AP) — Crews released toxic chemicals into the air from five derailed tanker cars that were in danger of exploding Monday and began burning it after warning residents near the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line to leave immediately or face the possibility of death.

Flames and black smoke billowed high into the sky from the derailment site late in the afternoon, about an hour after authorities said the controlled release would begin.

The slow release of vinyl chloride from five rail cars into a trough that was then ignited created a large plume above the village of East Palestine but authorities said they were closely monitoring the air quality.

“Thus far, no concerning readings have been detected," Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said at a brief evening news conference about three hours after the venting and burning procedure began.

However, he urged Pennsylvania residents within a 2-mile (3.2 kilometer) radius of the derailment site to shelter in place and keep their doors and windows closed through the evening as a precaution in case of wind shifts.

Shapiro also said he had spoken to President Joe Biden, who had offered “the full support of the federal government" to Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine earlier ordered evacuations in the area of the derailment that has been smoldering since Friday night. Authorities believed most, if not all, residents in the danger zone had left but they were knocking on doors one more time before releasing the vinyl chloride inside the cars, he said.

“You need to leave, you just need to leave. This is a matter of life and death,” DeWine said at news conference.

Officials warned the controlled burn would send phosgene and hydrogen chloride into the air. Phosgene is a highly toxic gas that can cause vomiting and breathing trouble and was used as a weapon in World War I.

Scott Deutsch of Norfolk Southern Railway earlier said doing this during the daytime would allow the fumes to disperse more quickly and prevent the rail cars from exploding and sending shrapnel and other debris from flying through the neighborhood.

“We can't control where that goes,” he said.

The process involves using a small charge to blow a hole in the cars, allowing the material to go into a trench and burning it off before it's released in the air, he said. The crews handling the controlled release have done this safely before, Deutsch said.

About three hours into the procedure, Norfolk Southern Railway issued a statement saying that experts and first responders had breached the rail cars, chemicals were burning off and the cars were expected to drain for several more hours.

The site is very close to the state line, and the evacuation area extends into a sparsely populated area of Pennsylvania. About half of the 4,800 residents in East Palestine had been warned to leave over the weekend before officials decided on Monday to use the controlled release.

Shapiro said the evacuation zone includes about 20 Pennsylvania residences. Pennsylvania State Police went door-to-door to assist the last remaining residents and ensure they leave.

Shapiro later said he’d been told that residents with a mile (1.6 kilometers) of the controlled burn had left.

Forced evacuations began Sunday night in East Palestine after authorities became alarmed that the rail cars could explode after a “drastic temperature change” was observed in a rail car.

Residents were packing overnight bags, loading their pets into cars and searching for hotel rooms Monday morning. Police in the village moved out of their communication center as the threat of an explosion increased.

Police cars, snow plows and military vehicles from the Ohio National Guard blocked streets leading into the area.

About 50 cars, including 10 carrying hazardous materials, derailed in a fiery crash Friday night, according to rail operator Norfolk Southern and the National Transportation Safety Board. No injuries to crew, residents or first responders were reported.

Five were transporting vinyl chloride, which is used to make the polyvinyl chloride hard plastic resin in plastic products and is associated with increased risk of liver cancer and other cancers, according to the federal government’s National Cancer Institute

Federal investigators say the cause of the derailment was a mechanical issue with a rail car axle.

The three-member train crew received an alert about the mechanical defect “shortly before the derailment," Michael Graham, a board member of the NTSB, said Sunday. Investigators identified the exact “point of derailment,” but the board was still working to determine which rail car experienced the axle issue, he said.

Mayor Trent Conaway, who declared a state of emergency in the village, said one person was arrested for going around barricades right up to the crash. He warned people to stay away and said they'd risk arrest.

“I don't know why anybody would want to be up there; you're breathing toxic fumes if you're that close,” he said.

___

Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press journalists Kantele Franko, Gene Puskar and Brooke Schultz in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed. Schultz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Patrick Orsagos And John Seewer, The Associated Press

Mon, February 6, 2023 

In Peru’s Andes, anger hardens as fast election hopes fade

Alexander Villegas
Tue, February 7, 2023 


People line up to buy domestic gas after weeks of anti-government protests impacting goods, transport, business and the operation of some key mines, in Cuzco

By Alexander Villegas

JULIACA, PERU (Reuters) - Protests and roadblocks in Peru's southern Andes have hardened after Congress failed to bring forward elections, jamming up much of the region, which is rich in copper and historic Incan sites like Machu Picchu.

Congress has rejected multiple bills for early elections, a key demand by protesters, including shelving a proposal by President Dina Boluarte on Friday.

Protests have snarled the Andean nation, with clashes between demonstrators and security forces leaving 48 dead. It is the worst violence in Peru in two decades, and threatens to destabilize one of region's most reliable economies.

Reuters spoke to dozens of protesters across multiple blockades in southern Peru on Monday, some occupied by a handful of protesters while others had dozens, who see no solution besides continued protests after Congress' repeated failure to bring elections forward to 2023.

Congress is unusually fragmented. It has 13 voting blocs, caused in part by rules that allow a group of five lawmakers to easily create a new one. The two largest parties have just 24 and 15 seats respectively, making it hard to reach majorities needed for legislation.

Adelma Quispe, a protestor in the southern town of Ayavire, said protests would have calmed down if there had been an agreement on snap elections.

"But not anymore," Quispe said, standing behind a blockade of rocks, Peruvian flags and more 20 protesters at the exit of Ayavire.

"So now, we have to fight until the last person, we have to fight until the very last one," Quispe said, adding that the blockade won't stop until Boluarte resigns, new elections are called and a referendum is held for a new constitution.

Peru, the world's second-largest copper producer, has been hit by social unrest since the Dec. 7 ouster of leftist President Pedro Castillo.

Dozens of protesters have been killed in clashes with security forces, mostly in the nation's rural south, a poor region despite the mineral wealth.

"We want to denounce that so many of our brothers have been killed," said Leonardo Zamata, a protester blocking the entrance to Humachiri, a town near the southern city of Juliaca. “How could this not hurt us, the most humble people?"

Zamata added that his town wouldn't lift the blockade until there were new elections. Zamata, Quispe and others say they have collected money to send people to protest in Lima, but are dedicated to maintaining blockades in their towns.

Throughout the region, protesters said they can survive on local crops and livestock, and outlast the capital until their demands are met.

"(Boluarte) has to resign. Until then, we'll keep fighting," Quispe said. "The Peruvian people will never get tired."

(Reporting by Alexander Villegas. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Hurricane deaths at nursing home: accident or manslaughter?

Mon, February 6, 2023 



FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla (AP) — A Florida nursing home administrator charged with causing the overheating deaths of nine patients after Hurricane Irma in 2017 went on trial Monday, with a prosecutor calling him a “captain who abandoned ship” while his attorney said he's a “scapegoat” for failures of the electric company to restore power.

Prosecutor Chris Killoran told the six-member jury that Jorge Carballo is guilty of manslaughter because he failed to give adequate direction to his staff at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills after power to the facility's air conditioning system was lost. He said Carballo went home even as it became “ridiculously hot” inside the 150-bed, two-story facility and failed to order his patients' evacuation to Memorial Regional Hospital across the street, which had working air conditioning.

Prosecutors must prove Carballo acted recklessly and showed gross and careless disregard for his patients' safety. Carballo, 65, could face 15 years in prison if convicted, although a sentence of that length would be unlikely as he has no previous record. He was originally charged with 12 deaths, but three cases have been dropped. Charges were also dropped against three of his employees, who will testify against him.

“This is a case of a captain who abandoned his slowly sinking ship, and left not only his crew but the passengers to fend for themselves,” Killoran said. As temperatures rose inside the center, Carballo “basically did nothing,” he said.

“He had his staff buy some fans to push some hot air around and had some portable AC units installed,” he said, but that wasn't done properly, making the temperatures on the second floor where the deaths occurred even worse.

But defense attorney James Cobb said Carballo did everything within his power to protect his patients. He had his staff notify Florida Power & Light that the air conditioning's power was down right after it happened and several more times over the next two days, Cobb said, but the company didn't send a crew until an executive saw news reports about patients dying. He said the problem took 10 minutes to fix.

He said Carballo was following published research that shows moving frail, elderly patients comes with a high risk of death.

“This case can be boiled down to one word — scapegoat," Cobb said. The attorney previously won the acquittal of two New Orleans nursing home owners who were charged after 35 patients drowned during flooding in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.

Cobb, scoffing at Killoran's characterization of Carballo abandoning ship, showed the jury two photos of Carballo working with his staff during the emergency. He said Carballo is on trial to avoid placing the blame where it belongs — on the power company.

“Hurricanes are unpredictable. Stuff happens during hurricanes that can't be planned for. If something happens that can't be planned for, you do the best you can,” he said.

The victims, ranging in age from 57 to 99, had body temperatures of up to 108 degrees (42 degrees celsius), paramedics have reported.

The deaths began three days after Irma knocked out a transformer that powered the cooling system. Otherwise, the facility never lost power.

A state report said that before the storm hit on Sept. 10, 2017, Carballo and his staff made appropriate preparations. They purchased extra food and water and fuel for the generator.

Administrators also participated in statewide conference calls with regulators, including one where then-Gov. Rick Scott said nursing homes should call his cellphone for help.

After the air conditioner failed, Carballo and his facility manager contacted the power company. When that didn’t work, they called Scott’s cellphone and county and city officials. No help came.

Temperatures that week were in the upper 80s (about 31 degrees Celsius). On Sept. 12, two days after the storm, patients from the nursing home began arriving at Memorial Regional's emergency room with temperatures of 103 degrees (39.4 Celsius) and above.

About 6 a.m. on Sept. 13, after more patients arrived, Memorial's then-head nurse Judy Frum and her assistant, Tracy Meltzer, walked to the home to offer assistance. Both testified Monday that when they entered, the heat struck them and the home's staff seemed frantic. Paramedics were already there.

“It was really hot. I can only relate it to opening a car door and the heat hits you in the face,” Frum said.

Meltzer said that when she reached the second floor, she found two men dead in one room and a woman lying in a diaper filled with urine and feces. She heard one of the home's nurses say, “They are dropping like flies. We have to get these people out of here.” After she, Frum and paramedics conversed, the fire department decided to evacuate the home and take everyone to the hospital, where a mass casualty alert was called.

“Patients were being compromised to the heat. Some were expired. We made a group decision to take patients out of the building,” Frum said.

Under cross-examination, Carballo attorney David Frankel tried to get Frum and Meltzer to concede that they over-reacted and that the patients would have been better off staying at the home. At one point, Frankel insinuated that by calling a mass casualty alert, the nurses had attracted national media attention to the situation it otherwise wouldn't have received.

Frum and Meltzer responded they could feel the heat, see dead patients and others in distress.

“It was not a safe place to be. We removed the patients from harm," Frum said.

The trial is expected to last about three weeks.

Terry Spencer, The Associated Press

Canada's first Indigenous languages commissioner hopes to be operating by summer


Mon, February 6, 2023



OTTAWA — Canada's first commissioner of Indigenous languages said Monday he hopes to have his office fully operational by the summer — about two years after it was first announced.

Ronald Ignace appeared before a House of Commons committee that is studying the issue of Indigenous languages.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has prioritized revitalizing Indigenous languages as one of its goals in advancing reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities across the country.

It passed the Indigenous Languages Act in 2019, which mandated the creation of a languages commissioner.

Ignace was appointed to the role in June 2021, along with several directors, and told MPs that the main focus to date has been on staffing up the office.

"The complexity and significance of our mandate and responsibilities requires us to take the appropriate time and steps needed to establish a solid foundation for this organization," he said.

Because such a post has never before existed, Ignace said the group is building the office from the "ground up" and needs to take the time to get it right.

He says work has begun on researching what the status of Indigenous languages looks like in Canada, adding once that office is up and running, it would fulfil its reporting requirements on the matter.

Statistics Canada says data from the 2021 census shows the number of Indigenous-language speakers in the country has dropped overall, but noted some growth among the generation of those eight years old and younger.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 6, 2023.

Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

Tracing fishing gear to protect North Atlantic right whales is positive step: experts

Mon, February 6, 2023 


FREDERICTON — Much can be learned about the evolving habits of endangered North Atlantic right whales by tracing pieces of fishing gear from which the animals are freed, say researchers.

Gear that was disentangled from a whale in United States waters in January was traced back to the southern coast of Nova Scotia, Canada's Fisheries Department said in a recent news release.

"This is the first North Atlantic right whale entanglement confirmed to be connected to Canada’s lobster fishery in over five years," the department said.

Andrea Morden, manager of the whales team at the Fisheries Department, said fishers have been required to tag their gear since 2020. Since then the department has received 11,675 lost gear reports, she added.

Whale entanglements can be reduced by knowing what's out there — even if no one knows exactly how much gear is floating around the oceans, Morden said in an interview Monday.

"Commercial harvesting has been going on in Canada for as long as Canada's been around," she said.

"It's hard to say how much gear … was being lost before lost gear reporting requirements came into effect."

Dalhousie University biology professor Boris Worm said that by tracing gear, researchers can determine what parts of the ocean present the greatest risk for entanglements — a leading cause of injury and death for the whales.

"Then we can double down our conservation efforts in that particular region."

He said he was interested in learning the gear had been traced back to the southern coast of Nova Scotia, because conservationists hadn't been focusing on those waters.

"We haven't surveyed it as much as the Gulf of St. Lawrence," he said. "So it's really important information to know where we have to direct our monitoring and conservation efforts."

Michael Moore, a marine mammal scientist from Massachusetts, agreed that being able to trace gear is helpful.

"Having the gear marked certainly highlights where risk is now occurring," said Moore, with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a non-profit dedicated to ocean research, exploration and education.

Worm said researchers began noticing a shift in the right whales' summer feeding habitat about 10 years ago, when the animals gradually moved northwest from around the Gulf of Maine, which includes the Bay of Fundy and south of Nova Scotia, to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

"It was as if the whales were looking for a new supermarket," he said.

Moore noted the asymmetry between the number of remaining North Atlantic right whales, which is about 340, and the thousands of ropes criss-crossing parts of the ocean.

"A fisherman can rightly say he's never seen a whale, but a whale can rightly say he's seen gear every day," he said. "And that mismatch of perspective makes it so hard."

While tracing gear is useful, he said it doesn't necessarily mean animals won't be entangled in the same area again. Entangled animals suffer from stress, the inability to feed and injuries that might even affect reproduction, he said.

Worm and Moore said that the survival of the endangered right whales depends in large part to fishers moving to ropeless gear.

Moore published a paper last month in the journal of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, in which he argued that consumers should buy seafood that is ethically sourced — including from fishers who use ropeless gear.

A balance is needed, he said, between the needs of the fishing industry and consumers and the survival of large marine life, as crabs, fish and other seafood may not exist in an ocean without whales.

"We have to take the longer view," Moore said. "If we were to realize that through killing off large whale species that are endangered or changing habitats so that animals can no longer live there, at some point in time the human race is going to recognize that they are left alone on the planet."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 6, 2023.

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press

Right whale found entangled in Canadian lobster fishing gear in U.S. waters

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/right-whale-found-entangled-in-canadian.html

2 workers dead after incident at Vancouver company's gold mine in Ghana

Mon, February 6, 2023

An image taken from Vancouver company Galiano Gold's 2021 sustainability report shows the tailings storage facility at its Asanko Gold Mine in Ghana. (Galiano Gold - image credit)

A Vancouver-based gold mining company is reporting the deaths of two contractors at its operation in the West African country of Ghana.

On Monday, Galiano Gold released a statement announcing that the two workers had been killed a day earlier in an unspecified "incident" near a tailings storage facility at the Asanko Gold Mine.

"On behalf of Galiano Gold, we offer our sincerest condolences to the family, friends, and co-workers of our two colleagues," the company's president and CEO, Matt Badylak, said in the statement.

The company says both contractors were pronounced dead at the scene.

Krista Muhr, an investor relations adviser for Galiano Gold, said she couldn't share any further information about what happened while an investigation is underway.

Galiano Gold says it has notified authorities in Ghana. The last death reported at the mine was in 2015 when a contractor was killed.

Rodrigue Turgeon, co-lead for the Canada national program for the industry watchdog Mining Watch Canada, called for an independent investigation into what happened.

"While we still know too little about the causes of the human catastrophe, it is unfortunate that once again the 'Zero Harm' precautions taken by another Canadian mining company abroad are not sufficient to ensure the safety of all workers," Turgeon said in a written statement.

"Canada must take responsibility for the impacts of its mining corporations operating abroad. Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the deceased contractors."

The Asanko mine is managed and operated by Galiano Gold in a joint venture with the South African firm Gold Fields Ltd.

According to Galiano Gold, about 2,600 people work at the mine, of whom 99 per cent are Ghanaian.

The firm was named the mining company of the year in December by the government of Ghana.

CBC News has reached out to Ghana's Minerals Commission for comment.