AUSTRALIA

‘Back and ready’: Chris Minns leads Labor to power after 12 years in opposition at historic 2023 NSW election

Michael McGowan and Tamsin Rose

Guardian Australia
Sat, 25 March 2023


Labor is on track to form majority government in New South Wales after 12 years in opposition, with the party leader, 43-year-old former firefighter and political staffer Chris Minns, declaring the party is “back and ready to govern in this great state”.

As counting ended on Saturday night, Labor had picked up at least nine seats, enough to govern in majority and a better-than-expected result for the party after big swings in many previously safe Coalition seats.

The result means Minns will become the first Labor leader to win government from opposition in NSW for almost three decades and sees the Coalition relegated to the opposition benches in every parliament on mainland Australia.

The election had been fought by Labor on a few key issues including a promise to end the sale of public assets, removing the controversial public sector wages cap and for investments in health and education.

In a late-night speech delivered to a packed room of party faithful in a function room in the beachside suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands, in Minns’ seat of Kogarah in Sydney’s south, he said the election was “a decisive vote against privatisation”.

“We know the challenges are huge, the responsibilities are awesome but NSW Labor is back and ready to govern in this great state of NSW,” he said.

“We started effectively two years ago with a promise to the people of NSW that we would run an election campaign asking people to vote a positive vote for NSW Labor and not just a negative vote against the government.

“I’m proud to say today the people of NSW voted for the removal of the unfair wages cap. They voted for our nurses, our teachers … our paramedics and police.”

For the Coalition, the result marks a devastating blow. Dominic Perrottet had sought to reset the government after becoming premier in late 2021 after former premier Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation, and won plaudits for his push to reform poker machines in the state.

But the baggage of 12 years in government proved too much to overcome. Speaking on Saturday night, former Liberal prime minister John Howard paid tribute to Perrottet for running an “heroic” campaign.

“He put forward ideas. He was bold,” Howard said, saying the outgoing premier’s stance on problem gambling – something he called a “social evil” – was “admirable”.

In his concession speech, Perrottet announced he would stand down as the state’s Liberal party leader while hailing the three-term Coalition government’s record.

“It is a time to reflect. It is a time to rethink and ultimately to renew. To renew as leader of the parliamentary Liberal party, I take full responsibility for the loss this evening,” he said.

“But we as a party, we as a government should be very proud of what we have achieved together.

“Make no mistake, we’ve made history of being in government for the longest time since our party was formed. And our government has achieved so much in so many ways. We’ve kept NSW strong, free and fair.”

In their speeches, both leaders paid tribute to one another for a campaign which had largely avoided going negative.

Perrottet said he believed Minns would make a “fine 47th premier … because I believe that he will lead with the same decency and the same integrity that he has led with so far,” he said.

Labor had been keen to play the expectation management game earlier on Saturday, pointing out that despite polls favouring the party it had a narrow path to victory. It needed nine seats to form a majority, with only four on margins of less than 5%.

It had not held Goulburn – held on 3.1% – since 1965, and by the end of counting on Saturday night it remained too close to call.

But it didn’t matter. Labor gains in regional seats of South Coast and Monaro – both seats previously held by the Coalition on safe margins – as well as in Sydney’s west in Parramatta, Riverstone, Penrith, East Hills, Ryde and Camden – meant it was in a position to form government.

Labor also remained in the hunt for the seat of Balmain, held by the Greens since 2011.

The Liberal party also lost Wakehurst and Berejiklian’s former seat of Willoughby to independents Michael Regan and Larissa Penn.

It is only the third time Labor has won government from opposition in NSW – most recently in 1995, when Bob Carr won with a one-seat margin.

Labor’s path to victory relied on a narrow message focused on the Coalition’s record on privatisation, scrapping its controversial public sector wages cap and promises to lift spending on health and education infrastructure.

But the party was criticised for refusing to back Perrottet’s push on gambling reform, instead offering only a trial of the mandatory cashless gaming systems on 500 poker machines across the state.

Their victory will mark a blow for anti-gambling advocates, who had hailed Perrottet’s push on the issue as a generational reform in the pokies capital of Australia.

UK
Union leader urges TUC to unite in defying planned anti-strike law

Rowena Mason Whitehall editor
Sat, 25 March 2023 

Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

A leading trade union has called for a concerted campaign of defiance and civil disobedience against the government’s planned anti-strike laws.

Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), urged a coordinated campaign among trade unions of “mass non-cooperation and non-compliance” against the minimum service levels bill.

The legislation would make it compulsory for some employees to continue attending work throughout industrial action in a number of sectors.


Ministers would have the power to set levels of “minimum service” in the health service, fire and rescue services, education, transport, nuclear decommissioning and border security. The police, army and some prison officers are already banned from striking.

The FBU said non-compliance with the bill would be one of the most significant attempts by unions to defy employment law since the 1984-85 miners’ strike.

Related: Anti-strike bill ‘fails to meet UK’s human rights obligations’, MPs and peers say

Wrack called for an emergency meeting of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to launch a joint strategy to resist the legislation, arguing that demonstrations and sustained mass mobilisations could defeat the bill.

He said the strategy of non-compliance was needed because there was “no obvious route to challenge this attack through the courts”, describing it as one of the “most draconian attacks on the rights of working people in decades”.

“It’s a pernicious piece of legislation that’s in keeping with authoritarian regimes around the world,” he said.

“The government is deliberately attempting to strengthen the position of employers and severely weaken the position of workers. They are doing this for one purpose – to drive down wages … A mass movement of non-compliance can defeat this attack on working people by making the legislation unworkable.

“The TUC can lead this movement of resistance, first by calling an emergency congress, followed by a national demonstration, and a sustained campaign of non-cooperation.”

Unions are campaigning against the bill but many have stopped short of saying they would openly defy the legislation by continuing to strike in defiance of a minimum service requirement.

Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, said: “The bill is unworkable and almost certainly in breach of international law. If this nasty legislation gets on to the statute book, the TUC will fight it all the way, including through the courts. And we won’t rest until this bill has been repealed.

“Government and employers should be clear. The TUC and our unions will not stand by and let any worker be sacked for exercising their fundamental right to strike and for defending their pay and conditions.”

Related: UK strike calendar – service stoppages planned for March and April

The legislation is being scrutinised in the House of Lords after passing through the House of Commons.

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “The purpose of this legislation is to protect the lives and livelihoods of the public and ensure they can continue to access vital public services.

“We must maintain a reasonable balance between the ability of workers to strike and the rights of the public, who work hard and expect essential services to be there when they need them.”

A wave of strikes have taken place in recent months, with some unions moving closer to solving pay disputes but others still engaged in stoppages.

The Public and Commercial Services Union said on Friday that more than 3,000 civil servants in four government departments had announced a programme of continuous strikes from 11 April, affecting the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Forestry Commission, the Rural Payments Agency and the Marine Management Organisation.

Separately, midwife and maternity support worker members of the Royal College of Midwives in Northern Ireland said they would take strike action on the morning of 3 April.

UK
3,000 civil servants announce continuous industrial action in latest escalation of strikes

Lydia Chantler-Hicks
Sat, 25 March 2023

PCS members at a rally (PA Wire)

More than 3,000 civil servants in four government departments have announced a programme of continuous industrial action from April 11.

The action by members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) will hit the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), Forestry Commission, Rural Payments Agency and Marine Management Organisation.

It marks another escalation of the union’s long-running dispute over pay, pensions, redundancy terms and job security.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “This action further ratchets up the pressure on ministers to settle our dispute.

“Our members are showing no sign of backing down.

“They are standing up for themselves because they are fed up with being taken for granted.

“They demand the Government holds meaningful talks with us and puts some money on the table to give them a decent pay rise.”

A spokesperson for Defra, the Forestry Commission and Rural Payments Agency said the government is making efforts to minimise disruption caused by the action.

“We value greatly the work of our people, and regret the decision to take action,” they said.

“We are doing everything possible to minimise the impacts and we will continue to protect the environment at all times.”

The Marine Management Organisation has been approached by the Standard for a response.

Forward thinking: why daylight savings is here to stay in UK

Martin Belam
Sat, 25 March 2023 

Photograph: Tim Goode/PA

The ritual of clock-changing is upon us once again as British summer time begins at 1am on Sunday 26 March, when clocks go forward to 2am. Much of the population gets to lose an hour’s sleep – excluding those who work nights, those who are having a big night out, and those with pets and small children that don’t pay any heed to the clock anyway.

Sometimes known as “daylight savings time”, the clock-change moves the UK to GMT+1, resulting in more daylight in the evenings but less in the mornings. That is great news if you want to go out and do things in the evenings, less so if you have a job where you have to start early.

The stolen hour is given back on Sunday 29 October, when British summer time ends and the clocks go back at 2am to 1am, giving everybody the once-a-year chance to relive an hour. At least in 2023 most electronic devices automatically adjust, although you will probably still be mystified as to how to change the clock on your oven.

The ritual owes its origins in the UK to the first world war. The annual changing of the clock by an hour was first established more than 100 years ago under the Summer Time Act 1916, with the thought that lighter evenings might preserve fuel for the war effort. Despite its arcane origins, there seems little appetite in the UK to change the practice, regardless of there being scant evidence that it particularly contributes to saving energy or boosting the economy

In 2010, a parliamentary report looking at the prospect of permanently shifting an hour ahead concluded that “although we might expect overall energy use to be reduced by extending British summer time, the effects are likely to be small in magnitude … [and] the evidence quantifying these effects is not strong enough to conclude either way what the impact on the overall [energy] demand would be”.

So even though some states in the US and some European countries have been considering ending the concept of daylight savings time, it looks like the clock-change is here to stay in the UK.

UK

Cost of living: Mortgage-holders face 'biggest falls in income'

Ross McGuinness
Fri, 24 March 2023

Homeowners with mortgages could be the worst hit financially in the next two years, an economist said. 

People with mortgages are set to face the biggest falls in income, an economist has said.

The Resolution Foundation think tank predicts that mortgagors - or homeowners with a mortgage - will see their income drop by 8% on average over the next two years because of rising interest rates.

This equates to an average drop in income of almost £3,000, the think tank said, as the cost of living crisis continues.

The warning comes a day after the Bank of England raised interest rates from 4% to 4.25% following an unexpected jump in inflation - the rate at which the prices of goods changed - which rose from 10.1% in January to 10.4% in February.

The bank has been raising interest rates for about 15 months, with Thursday’s decision the 11th time in a row that the rate has increased.

On Friday, Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said in a blog post headlined: A Living Standards Maelstrom For Mortgagors': "There’s another phase ahead of us, in which rising interest rates are doing a lot of the work of crushing living standards.

"That will mean quite different outlooks for those in different housing tenures. The big news is that mortgagors – the highest income group – are set for the biggest income falls: 8%, or £2,900, on average over this year and next.

"That’s a big turnaround from the living standards windfalls of falling interest rates in the 2010s."

Income for people with mortgages is forecast to dip. (Resolution Foundation)

The figures were compiled by the Resolution Foundation using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

In what it called a "surprise", the foundation predicted that renters' income would stay the same or even grow slightly over the same period.

Read more: How much do houses cost in Britain's 'best place to live'?

Bell said: "As we look ahead, the cost of living crisis is getting more complicated in its distribution, even if the big picture remains blindingly obvious: it’s a disaster for Britain."

Earlier this week, the Resolution Foundation has said UK workers are £11,000 worse off per year because of 15 years of wage stagnation.

It calculated that, had wages continued to grow at the pace seen before the 2008 financial crash, the average worker would make £11,000 more per year than they do now, taking rising prices into account.

The think tank also found typical UK household incomes have fallen further behind those in Germany - in 2008, the gap was more than £500 a year, now it is £4,000.

Homeowners with mortgages could see their income fall by 8% over the next two years, a think tank has warned. (Getty Images)

Last week, the OBR, the government's official forecaster, said the UK is on track to avoid a technical recession, or two consecutive quarters of decline.

However, it said people are still expected to face the biggest fall in living standards on record, with real households’ disposable income per person due to tumble 5.7% over 2022/23 and 2023/23.

On Wednesday, the ONS said annual house price growth has slowed but rental prices have increased at their fastest rate since records started in 2016.

Average UK house prices increased by 6.3% in the 12 months to January 2023, down from 9.3% in December 2022.

The average UK house price was £290,000 in January 2023, which was £17,000 higher than 12 months earlier.

But private rental prices paid by tenants in the UK increased by 4.7% in the 12 months to February 2023, according to the ONS.

This represented the largest annual percentage change since comparable UK records started in January 2016.

RIP
Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, prophet of the rise of the PC, dies at 94


 Projection of Intel co-founder Gordon Moore

Fri, March 24, 2023 
By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Intel Corp co-founder Gordon Moore, a pioneer in the semiconductor industry whose "Moore's Law" predicted a steady rise in computing power for decades, died Friday at the age of 94, the company announced.

Intel and Moore's family philanthropic foundation said he died surrounded by family at his home in Hawaii.

Co-launching Intel in 1968, Moore was the rolled-up-sleeves engineer within a triumvirate of technology luminaries that eventually put "Intel Inside" processors in more than 80% of the world's personal computers.

In an article he wrote in 1965, Moore observed that, thanks to improvements in technology, the number of transistors on microchips had roughly doubled every year since integrated circuits were invented a few years before.

His prediction that the trend would continue became known as "Moore's Law" and, later amended to every two years, it helped push Intel and rival chipmakers to aggressively target their research and development resources to make sure that rule of thumb came true.

"Integrated circuits will lead to such wonders as home computers - or at least terminals connected to a central computer - automatic controls for automobiles, and personal portable communications equipment," Moore wrote in his paper, two decades before the PC revolution and more than 40 years before Apple launched the iPhone.

After Moore's article, chips became more efficient and less expensive at an exponential rate, helping drive much of the world's technological progress for half a century and allowing the advent of not just personal computers, but the internet and Silicon Valley giants like Apple, Facebook and Google.

"It sure is nice to be at the right place at the right time," Moore said in an interview around 2005. "I was very fortunate to get into the semiconductor industry in its infancy. And I had an opportunity to grow from the time where we couldn't make a single silicon transistor to the time where we put 1.7 billion of them on one chip! It's been a phenomenal ride."

In recent years, Intel rivals such as Nvidia Corp have contended that Moore's Law no longer holds as improvements in chip manufacturing have slowed down.

But despite manufacturing stumbles that have caused Intel to lose market share in recent years, current Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger has said he believes Moore's Law still holds as the company invests billions of dollars in a turnaround effort.

Morris Chang, the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, said Moore was a great and respected friend for more than six decades.

"With Gordon gone, almost all of my first generation semiconductor colleagues are gone," Chang said in a statement released via TSMC.

'ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR'

Even though he predicted the PC movement, Moore told Forbes magazine that he did not buy a home computer himself until the late 1980s.

A San Francisco native, Moore earned a Ph.D. in chemistry and physics in 1954 at the California Institute of Technology.

He went to work at the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory where he met future Intel cofounder Robert Noyce. Part of the "traitorous eight," they departed in 1957 to launch Fairchild Semiconductor. In 1968, Moore and Noyce left Fairchild to start the memory chip company soon to be named Intel, an abbreviation of Integrated Electronics.

Moore and Noyce's first hire was another Fairchild colleague, Andy Grove, who would lead Intel through much of its explosive growth in the 1980s and 1990s.

Moore described himself to Fortune magazine as an "accidental entrepreneur" who had no burning urge to start a company - but he, Noyce and Grove formed a powerhouse partnership.

While Noyce had theories about how to solve chip engineering problems, Moore was the person who rolled up his sleeves and spent countless hours tweaking transistors and refining Noyce's broad and sometimes ill-defined ideas, efforts that often paid off. Grove filled out the group as Intel's operations and management expert.

Moore's obvious talent inspired other engineers working for him, and, under his and Noyce's leadership, Intel invented the microprocessors that would open the way to the personal computer revolution.

He was executive president until 1975 although he and CEO Noyce considered themselves equals. From 1979 to 1987 Moore was chairman and CEO and he remained chairman until 1997.

In 2023 Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at $7.2 billion.

Moore was a longtime sport fisherman, pursuing his passion all over the world and in 2000 he and his wife, Betty, started a foundation that focused on environmental causes. The foundation, which took on projects such as protecting the Amazon River basin and salmon streams in the United States, Canada and Russia, was funded by Moore's donation of some $5 billion in Intel stock.

He also gave hundreds of millions to his alma mater, the California Institute of Technology, to keep it at the forefront of technology and science, and backed the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project known as SETI.

Moore received a Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President George W. Bush in 2002. He and his wife had two children.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Bill Trott and Rosalba O'Brien)

Startup says the seaweed blobbing toward Florida has a silver lining



Harri Weber
Thu, March 23, 2023

A brown macroalgae native to the Atlantic's Sargasso Sea is increasingly a menace to coastal ecosystems and communities across the Gulf of Mexico, ever since mats of the normally beneficial seaweed (known as sargassum) exploded in numbers in 2011. This is the backdrop for Carbonwave, which recently raised $5 million to put the hulking algae blooms to good use.

Researchers say farm and sewage runoff is likely driving the now 5,000-mile-wide "Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt." Climate change may also be playing a role.

There's no need to run screaming from sargassum, despite the tone of some stories covering the Florida-bound blooms. Still, they pose a threat to coral reefs and tourism-dependent livelihoods alike. When the stuff piles up on beaches, it rots, emitting skunky hydrogen sulfide.

The recent sargassum surges are forcing folks to find creative ways to get rid of it, and already, possible applications run the gamut. Researchers and entrepreneurs aim to turn it into syrup, bricks and even jet fuel. As for Carbonwave, the Boston- and Puerto Rico–based startup is using it in fertilizer, cosmetics and even faux leather

Backed by ESG-themed investment firms Natixis and Viridios Capital, as well as ocean-focused VC Katapult, Carbonwave says the new cash will help it scale production of its seaweed-based emulsifier for cosmetics. The startup said in a statement that it "has already sold half a ton" of its emulsifier, which it created as an alternative to petroleum-based ingredients. The company also claimed that its sargassum fertilizer "reduces the need of" climate change-driving nitrogen fertilizer.

CEO Geoff Chapin said Carbonwave makes these products through a "proprietary extraction process," which involves pressing the seaweed and removing the arsenic. The process yields a liquid fertilizer, while the leftover pulp forms the basis for the emulsifier and fake leather. The way Chapin tells it, the company uses "almost every part of the seaweed to make these products."

Carbonwave is part of a wave of startups vying to turn algae into environmentally friendlier products. For starters, there's H&M-backed Algiknit (now Keel Labs), which creates textiles; a slew of bioplastics companies, including Loliware and ULUU; and a firm called Umaro, which makes sea-bacon. Seaweed startups often focus on commercializing kelp in one way or another, but a few (like Carbonwave and Seaweed Generation) focus on sargassum.

"We need to put it to good use before it creates more ecological and climate harm," Carbonwave told TechCrunch.

The startup added that it may up its $5 million Series A with additional funding later on. It has secured at least $12 million to date.

PAGANS HAVE NO SUCH QALMS

‘Green’ burial alternatives, human composting get a hard ‘no’ from Catholic bishops

NATURE IS SACRED


Christine Rousselle
Fri, March 24, 2023 

A large faith conference is pushing back on "green composting" as a way to handle human remains.

It is improper to compost human remains and the practice is disrespectful to the body of the deceased, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement released Thursday, March 23.

"The guidance offered by the Congregation regarding burial and cremation reflects the Church’s overarching concern that due respect be shown to the bodily remains of the deceased in a way that gives visible witness to our faith and hope in the resurrection of the body," said the statement, authored by the conference's doctrine committee.

"Unfortunately, the two most prominent newer methods for disposition of bodily remains that are proposed as alternatives to burial and cremation, alkaline hydrolysis and human composting, fail to meet this criterion," the group added.

NEW YORK BECOMES THE 6TH US STATE TO GREEN LIGHT HUMAN COMPOSTING LAW

In 2019, Washington became the first state to legalize human composting.

Since then, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, California and New York have also legalized the practice, according to Smithsonian magazine.

A 2022 survey from the National Funeral Directors Association found that 60.5% would be interested in "green" funeral options — an increase from 55.7% the prior year.

Guests sit in the gathering space looking at a shrouded mannequin in front of the threshold vessel at Recompose, a green funeral home specializing in human composting, on Oct. 6, 2022 in Seattle, Washington.

It is believed that the cost of traditional funerals as well as the chemicals required for embalming are leading some to consider this option.

The bishops took issue with what happens to the human body after undergoing human composting or alkaline hydrolysis.

As opposed to cremation, where "all human remains are gathered together and reserved for disposition," alkaline hydrolysis and composting require that the remains be essentially scattered, they said.

‘HUMAN COMPOSTING’ ON THE RISE AS ‘GREEN FUNERALS’ BECOME INCREASINGLY POPULAR

"After the alkaline hydrolysis process, there are also remnants of the bones that can be pulverized and placed in an urn. That is not all that remains, however," they said in the statement.

Alkaline hydrolysis also produces "100 gallons of brown liquid" that was formerly human remains.

Human remains should be buried — either in a casket or in an urn — in a sacred place such as a cemetery, said the Catholic bishops.

"This liquid is treated as wastewater and poured down the drain into the sewer system (in certain cases it is treated as fertilizer and spread over a field or forest)," something that "does not show adequate respect for the human body, nor express hope in the resurrection," said the bishops.

The same is true for human composting, which leads "nothing left but compost, nothing that one can point to and identify as remains of the body."

The conference statement added, "The body and the plant material have all decomposed together to yield a single mass of compost. What is left is approximately a cubic yard of compost that one is invited to spread on a lawn or in a garden or in some wilderness location" — something that the bishops say "is not sufficiently respectful of the human body."

Human composting reduces the human body to soil, as seen above. Human composting is also known as natural organic reduction, terramation or recomposition.

"The body is completely disintegrated," said the bishops.

"There is nothing distinguishably left of the body to be placed in a casket or an urn and laid to rest in a sacred place where Christian faithful can visit for prayer and remembrance."

In the Catholic Church, burial is considered "the most appropriate way of manifesting reverence and respect for the body of the deceased."

It also "clearly expresses our faith and hope in the resurrection of the body."

While cremation is permitted as long as it is not "chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine," said the bishops, it is not permissible to scatter the ashes of the deceased, divide them among family members and friends, or store them in a home.

While cremation is considered an acceptable option, the container of the remains must be buried in a sacred place and not scattered, said the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Cremated remains "must be put in a sacred place, usually a cemetery, though it could possibly be a church or some other area that has been 'set aside for this purpose, and so dedicated by the competent ecclesial authority,'" noted the bishops.

Doing this "shows our respect for the last remains of the deceased and manifests our Christian hope in the resurrection of the body," they also said.

"The relationship between the living and the dead is not a purely private matter, but rather involves the entire Christian community," said the bishops.

With traditional burials, as well as burying ashes in a "sacred place," it is ensured that "those who died will not be deprived of the prayers and remembrance of their families and of the Christian community as a whole," they also noted.

"The Church earnestly recommends visits to cemeteries to pray for the dead, which is one of the spiritual works of mercy," the bishops added.

Amid deluge, California farmers flood their fields in order to save them



Don Cameron stands next to one of his flood capture projects on his Terranova Ranch in Helm, California

Fri, March 24, 2023 
By Mike Blake and Daniel Trotta

HELM, California (Reuters) - When Don Cameron first intentionally flooded his central California farm in 2011, pumping excess stormwater onto his fields, fellow growers told him he was crazy.

Today, California water experts see Cameron as a pioneer. His experiment to control flooding and replenish the ground water has become a model that policy makers say others should emulate.

With the drought-stricken state suddenly inundated by a series of rainstorms, California's outdated infrastructure has let much of the stormwater drain into the Pacific Ocean. Cameron estimated his operation is returning 8,000 to 9,000 acre-feet of water back to the ground monthly during this exceptionally wet year, from both rainwater and melted snowpack. That would be enough water for 16,000 to 18,000 urban households in a year.

"When we started doing this, our neighbors thought we were absolutely crazy. Everyone we talked to thought we would kill the crop. And lo and behold, believe me, it turned out great," said Cameron, vice president and general manager of Terra Nova Ranch, a 6,000-acre (2,400-hectare) farm growing wine grapes, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, olives and other crops in the San Joaquin Valley, the heart of California's $50 billion agricultural industry.

If more farmers would inundate their fields rather than divert precipitation into flood channels, that excess could seep underground and get stored for when drought conditions return.

California swings between disastrous drought and raging floodwaters. This season has been especially rainy, with 12 atmospheric rivers pounding California since late December, placing greater importance on flood control. More wet weather is forecast in the coming week.

Terra Nova's basins are filled with 1.5 to 3.5 feet of water, Cameron said Wednesday. He plans to eventually flood 530 acres of pistachio trees and 150 acres of wine grapes plus another 350 acres that are planted only when excess floodwater is available.

The state Department of Water Resources provided $5 million and Terra Nova another $8 million for the project, which includes a pumping system. So far there has been virtually zero return for the company, Cameron said, though it may acquire future water rights for its groundwater contributions.

Cameron "is definitely what we call the godfather of on-farm recharge. He's really the pioneer who began doing it first," said Ashley Boren, CEO of Sustainable Conservation, an environmental group with a focus on supporting sustainable groundwater management.

This mimicking of nature - letting water flow across the landscape - is the most cost-effective way to manage peak flood flows, experts say, while banking the surplus for drier days.

"It's not only going to benefit us, it will benefit our neighbors," Cameron said.

Cameron began his 30-year-old passion project before the state passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) of 2014, a law that sought to avoid a looming disaster from overdrafts.

Since then, policy makers have worked on economic incentives for more farmers to follow suit. Some water districts that are responsible for implementing SGMA have offered growers credits toward water rights in exchange for recharge. Pending state legislation would simplify permitting and guarantee water rights for participating growers.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on March 10 making it easier for farmers to divert floodwaters onto their lands until June.

There is no statewide monitoring of on-farm recharge, but Sustainable Conservation is keeping track of four water districts in the San Joaquin Valley that recorded 260 farmers replenishing their aquifers this year, returning at least 50,000 acre-feet (61.7 million cubic meters) back into the ground as of mid-February.

California, which has a strategic goal of adding 4 million acre-feet of storage, recently provided $260 million in grants to Groundwater Sustainability Agencies established under SGMA. The state received applications seeking $800 million, indicating demand for projects, said Paul Gosselin, deputy director of the state's Sustainable Groundwater Management Office.

Besides cost, growers face other obstacles to on-farm recharge. A farm must have access to the water, cannot hurt endangered species and cannot flood land subjected to certain fertilizers or pesticides or dairy farm waste.

In the Merced River Watershed, willing farmers could recapture enough future floodwater to replace 31% of the groundwater they are overdrafting under existing conditions, said Daniel Mountjoy, director of resource stewardship for Sustainable Conservation, who participated in a state study. That could jump to 63% with changes in reservoir management and infrastructure improvements, he said.

To achieve sustainability throughout the San Joaquin Valley, an estimated 750,000 to 1 million acres of irrigated farmland would have to be fallowed, Mountjoy said.

"We're at the beginning of a lot of momentum for groundwater recharge programs," said Gosselin, of the state groundwater office. "The last two years (of extreme drought) was a wakeup call for everybody."

(Reporting by Mike Blake in Helm and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif. Editing by Donna Bryson and David Gregorio)

WAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Republican Lawmaker Asks Lesbian Colleague if She’s a Pedophile

Donald Padgett
Thu, March 23, 2023 

Republican Lawmaker Asks Lesbian Colleague if She’s a Pedophile

A lawmaker in Rhode Island asked a lesbian legislator if she was a pedophile during a heated discussion over an equity and inclusion bill on Friday.

As reported by the Providence Journal, the State House was debating HB 5763 known as the Equity Impact Statement Act when Rep. Robert Quattrocchi asked Rep. Rebecca Kislak if she was a pedophile while questioning the cost and need for the legislation.

The exchange was caught on video and showed the chamber erupting in shock and anger moments later.

HB 5763 would require all legislation submitted to the general assembly to include an equity impact statement listing potential impact based on “race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex sexual orientation, gender expression, disability, age or country of ancestral origin.” The bill would further require listing historic disparities of these groups and existing efforts to correct them, as well as ensuring that the proposed legislation would not negatively impact these communities.

“It just seems like a lot,” Quattrocchi asked Kislak during the hearing. “You don’t feel that all the anti-discrimination laws that we have already, which are many, protecting all these classes that you’re, that are listed in this bill?”

He described the bill as “very, very broad” in its reporting requirements and questioned how it would be implemented.

“Do I have to take into account, for instance, religion?” Quattrocchi continued. “Do I have to take into account how it affects Satan and Satanists in Rhode Island? Or do I have to take into account with sexual orientation — how it affects pedophiles in Rhode Island? Anything like that?

“Well, first I want to appoint out that pedophile is not a sexual orientation,” Kislak answered coolly.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Quattrocchi reponded.

“So like my equity right now is pointing out that that was really offensive,” Kislak continued.

“Oh I didn't mean to,” Quattrocchi trailed off before asking, “Are you a pedophile?”

The chamber descended into chaos before Rep. Evan Shanley restored order. Quattrocchi immediately apologized and later called the incident a misunderstanding but also said he could provide no further comment.

“Because I have not been advised by the Speaker’s Office as to his intentions regarding this matter, I cannot offer further comment at this time,'” Quattrocchi said in a statement on Tuesday.

Out gay House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi described the question as “insulting” and “reprehensible” and said Quattrocchi’s statement was “a step in the right direction” but didn’t go far enough.

A coalition of LGBTQ+ advocacy and support groups signed a public letter on Tuesday condemning Quattrocchi’s question.

“Rhode Island has been a leader in recognizing and protecting equality for the LGBTQ+ community. The people of this state are proud of that legacy.” the letter stated. “Our representatives should be working to ensure safety, dignity, and equity for all residents, not perpetuating dangerous, false comparisons that undermine the humanity of LGBTQ+ people.”

In his statement on Tuesday, Quattrocchi said he had apologized to Kislak on at least four separate occasions, though Kislak disputed that claim.

“It is not an apology,” Kislak told The Journal.

You can watch the entire exchange below.

"Are you a pedophile?" asks RI Rep Robert Quattrocchi (Republican, District 41, Scituate) www.youtube.com

The GOP lawmaker who asked a Democratic colleague who is one of two openly LGBTQ members in the House if she was a pedophile doubled down on Thursday after he was removed from the legislative committee 

Katherine Gregg, The Providence Journal
Fri, March 24, 2023 

PROVIDENCE — The GOP lawmaker who asked a Democratic colleague who is one of two openly LGBTQ members in the House if she was a pedophile doubled down on Thursday after he was removed from the legislative committee in which the confrontation took place last week.

In a statement read aloud by the House clerk, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi gave this explanation for removing Rep. Robert Quattrocchi, R-Scituate, from the House Committee on State Government and Elections:

"While asking questions as a member of the committee, Representative Robert Quattrocchi made several references about the applicability of the legislation to 'Satanists' and 'pedophiles' and directly asked Representative Kislak, 'Are you a pedophile?' "

"Representative Quattrocchi’s statements to Representative Kislak during the March 17 hearing are not in keeping with the decorum or the integrity of this body. Use of suggestive and offensive language and the disparagement of an esteemed colleague will not be tolerated in this chamber.


"I hereby direct that Representative Robert Quattrocchi be removed as a member of the House Committee on State Government and Elections, effective immediately."

Rep. Robert J. Quattrocchi, R-Scituate
Quattrocchi: 'I won't bend a knee to a man or a woman. I'll bend my knee to God.'

In response, House Minority Leader Michael Chippendale accused Shekarchi of bowing under pressure from a "mob," and Quattrocchi gave a not-sorry speech on the floor in which he "confess[ed] to my guilt for calling out evil, an evil act against children.

"And because I did that, evil came for me through my answering machine in the most disgusting, vile, I don't even know how to describe it, language, whatever it is. Evil wished the rape of my children, my mother, my death, for me to be shot in the head."

He said some of the emails he received were even more vile.

"All this for asking questions, not making statements, not making accusations, not talking about any groups of people ... [but] doing the job that my constituents sent me here to do, using what I thought was my ... freedom of speech. Excuse me, what was left of it.

"So if God put me here to be a lightning rod, so be it," the Scituate Republican said. "I won't bend a knee to a man or a woman. I'll bend my knee to God, and [when] my time is done, I will accept God's judgment. That's the only judgment I care about."
What was the context of Quattrocchi's remark?

The action came in the wake of Quattrocchi's remarks to Rep. Rebecca Kislak, D-Providence, during the committee's hearing last Friday on Kislak's bill H 5763, which would require that lawmakers take into account the impact of their bills on people of different races, religions and sexual orientations.

"It seems very, very broad," said Quattrocchi, who was then still a member of the committee.

"In my thinking about [bills] that I want to present … do I have to take into account, for instance … how it affects Satanists in Rhode Island?" Quattrocchi asked. "Or do I have to take into account, with 'sexual orientation,' how it affects pedophiles in Rhode Island — anything like that?"

"Pedophile is not a sexual orientation," Kislak responded. And "that was really offensive."

"Oh, I didn't mean to. Are you a pedophile? I'm sorry," Quattrocchi said to Kislak, a Providence Democrat who describes herself as a lesbian.

In the days since, a number of advocacy groups have condemned Quattrocchi for using a hurtful stereotype to mischaracterize LGBTQ people, while Shekarchi himself called the remarks "reprehensible."

"It was insulting to a colleague of the House and it is not the kind of decorum I expect in the House of Representatives," said Shekarchi, who is gay.

Quattrocchi issued a statement on Tuesday attributing the controversy to what he called "a misunderstanding," but he had not publicly apologized as of the start of the Thursday House session.

Shekarchi said Quattrocchi needs to go the next step and publicly apologize "in whatever forum he wants but yes, there should be a public apology ... because the effect of his words were extremely hurtful to the LGBT community."

At that point, Shekarchi said, he was still evaluating his options.
House minority leader calls reaction 'a grave distraction'

Shekarchi's decision to remove Quattrocchi from the committee considering the "equity impact" legislation was described as a "measured and fair" response to uphold decorum by spokesman Larry Berman. It was also the least severe of the actions he could have taken, from censure on up, and was not unprecedented.

The response from House Minority Leader Chippendale, R-Foster:

"The reaction to, and resultant decision from the rostrum regarding the inartful exchange between two of our colleagues in a committee hearing six days ago has unleashed a whirlwind which is both a grave distraction from the important issues this institution is grappling with, and a 180-degree departure from the longstanding practice of the House.

"I fear that we have reached a point where the norms that govern this institution and which have made our debates over the years civil, if occasionally heated, have been irretrievably broken," Chippendale said.

Committee assignments are at the discretion of the House speaker, who has the power to appoint and remove a legislator, as was done as recently as last year. Shekarchi removed then-Rep. Carlos Tobon from the House Finance Committee after a WPRI exposé of his undisclosed financial activities.

Former Speaker Nicholas Mattiello removed several lawmakers from their committees who were unwilling to vote for the truck toll legislation, and replaced chairs who publicly criticized him. And the list goes on.

Quattrocchi remains on two other committees.

The stated goal of the legislation at the heart of the current dispute: "A simple and understandable statement demonstrating that the bill sponsor has taken into account the impact, positive or negative, that the legislation will likely have on Rhode Islanders based on their race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, age or country of ancestral origin."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Speaker removes from House committee a Republican who asked fellow lawmaker if she is a pedophile