How scientists are creating stronger coral reefs faster than ever

Story by Li Cohen • Yesterday 

A new project in the Caribbean is setting out to save coral reefs – and the world.
Ocean Shop Project, spearheaded by climate scientist Doctor Deborah Brosnan,
Duration 2:34
CBS News
It takes hundreds of years for coral reefs to grow. Scientists found a way to do it in months.
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The Ocean-Shot Project, spearheaded by climate scientist Dr. Deborah Brosnan, launched in 2021 to develop a "massive, first-of-its-kind" coral reef restoration initiative in the Caribbean country Antigua and Barbuda.

"We lose more coral reefs in a day that we can restore in a decade," Brosnan told CBS News. "Our progress towards protecting coral reefs – which ultimately protect us – is too slow. So Ocean-Shot is about literally rebuilding the reefs, the architecture of the reefs, for the future."

What sets this project apart from other coral reef restoration projects is its focus – the architecture of the reef itself. While many initiatives prioritize saving the corals, Ocean-Shot tacks on the additional focus of developing the base for those corals to grow and thrive.


Ocean-Shot is growing more resilient coral species and developing reefs in the Caribbean in an effort to help marine ecosystems – and humanity – combat the climate crisis. 

Credit: Ocean-Shot

Coral secretes calcium carbonate, creating a sort-of concrete around itself that becomes the structure for the reef. But that process can take "hundreds and thousands of years," Brosnan said. And with coral bleaching events only anticipated to become more intense in the coming decades as global and ocean temperatures warm, this can be a problem for reefs that need to be able to recover.

"What we're doing is we're saying, 'let's learn from the corals, let's learn from nature,'" Brosnan said. "And let's make this happen quickly."

To make that happen, her team is creating reef structures in a lab and then planting them in the ocean, a process that Brosnan likened to "gardening." The team is also planting "resilient corals" among the structures that have already survived several bleaching events.



Ocean-Shot deployed a coral reef into the ocean near Antigua and Barbuda, an effort that has already brought in new marine life to the area.

 / Credit: Ocean-Shot

Nearly six months ago, her team deployed their first set of these structures, called modules, into the ocean around Antigua and Barbuda. And it's already seeing significant success.

"We've got 97-98% survival of the corals we've transplanted. And we now have 26 new species that have moved in by themselves ...everything from parrot fish to commercial fish to commercial lobster," Brosnan said. "We saw a whole ecosystem start to recognize these reefs as home and just move right on in. So what it told us is that if we provide the living structure, the ecosystem will respond in return."

Thriving coral reefs doesn't just help marine life thrive, Brosnan said, but it also helps humanity survive.

Coral reefs are essential to protecting coastlines from erosion, and when reefs are close to the ocean surface, Brosnan said they can break up about 95% of incoming wave energy. This allows for the power of strong waves to break up before hitting shore, protecting those on the coast as well as beaches as a whole and making communities and coastlines more resilient against rising sea levels and climate change, she said.

Coral reefs are also a crucial source of food and income for more than half a billion people across the world, according to NOAA, with the net economic value of reefs estimated to be "tens of billions of U.S. dollars per year."

Cooperating with billionaire philanthropist and entrepreneur John Paul Dejoria was an essential part of this project's success, Brosnan said, as was the support of the country's prime minister, Gaston Browne. Brosnan said the project could be scaled up around the world with enough support.

At the end of the day, Brosnan said, "our planet is at stake."

"We're helping the reef through this transition of what our planet used to be like, to what it really is like today and what it's going to be like in the future," she said. "Corals are more resilent. If we create the right conditions for them, they will thrive."

Canada watchdog pans gov't emissions-tracking, tree-planting efforts

Story by By Nia Williams • Yesterday

(Reuters) -Canada is failing to track the impact of specific government climate regulations on carbon emissions and is unlikely to meet a commitment to plant 2 billion trees by 2031, reports from the country's official environment watchdog said on Thursday.

By 2030, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government aims to cut emissions 42-45% below 2005 levels. Canada's national greenhouse gas inventory report, released last week, showed the country managed an 8.4% cut in 2021.

But the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Jerry DeMarco, presented five performance audit reports that criticised many aspects of Canada's climate and biodiversity policies.

"When I look at all of the...reports that have flagged these grave concerns over the years, it's clear that we have been repeatedly ringing the alarm bells. Now, these bells are almost deafening," DeMarco told a news conference in Ottawa.

DeMarco said Canada's failure to track how specific policies impact emissions means the federal government does not know whether it is using the right tools to meet its climate targets.

Related video: Environment watchdog 'frustrated and disappointed' over Canada's emissions track record (The Canadian Press)

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The Weather NetworkWhat’s lacking from Canada's emissions report

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Global NewsCanada falling short of pledge to plant 2 billion trees by 2030: audit

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He also warned Natural Resources Canada fell well short of the goal of planting 60 million trees in 2022, which put in jeopardy its 2 billion trees by 2031 goal.

DeMarco said while it was still possible for the government to get back on track meet its 2031 target with "significant changes", the carbon sequestered by the trees would be less than forecast.

"They will not be able to meet their target for carbon sequestration by 2030, which means they have to find real reductions elsewhere, whether it's oil and gas, transportation or something else, to reach their 40 to 45% (emissions cut) target by 2030," DeMarco said.

In a statement, Canada's Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the government would "double down" on tree-planting efforts and implement many of the commissioner's recommendations.

Canada's Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault said the government would refine its reporting of carbon emissions.

"We won't stop fighting climate change while we figure it out reporting methodologies," Guilbeault told reporters in Ottawa. "The bottom line is that Canada is bending the emission curve downward."

(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; editing by Diane Craft and David Gregorio)

Climate change is fueling deadly heat waves in India. It’s putting the country’s development at risk, study says

Story by Helen Regan •  CNN news - Yesterday 

Deadly heat waves fueled by climate change are threatening India’s development and risk reversing its progress on poverty alleviation, health and economic growth, a new study has found.

Heat waves have already critically impacted the country, leading to power outages, increased dust and air pollution, and accelerated glacial melt in the north of India, researchers from the University of Cambridge said in the study published in the journal PLOS Climate on Wednesday.

Since 1992, more than 24,000 people have died because of heat waves in India, the study said.

And the impacts are expected to get worse as heat waves become more frequent, intense and lethal due to the climate crisis.

“India is currently facing a collision of multiple cumulative climate hazards,” said the researchers.

“Long-term projections indicate that Indian heat waves could cross the survivability limit for a healthy human resting in the shade by 2050.”

The study shows that millions more people in India are vulnerable to climate change than first thought. More than 90% of the country could be severely impacted by heat waves, falling into an extreme heat “danger” zone, according to the heat index, the study found.

The heat index is how hot it feels and considers both air temperature and humidity to assess the heat’s impact on the population.

Last year, India experienced a searing heat wave, during which parts of the country reached more than 49°C (120°F).

In 2022, India experienced its hottest April in 122 years and its hottest March on record, the study said. And it experienced extreme weather on 242 out of 273 days between January and October 2022, the researchers found.

Such repeated heat stress will upend millions of lives and livelihoods.

“Estimates show a 15% decrease in outdoor working capacity … during daylight hours due to extreme heat by 2050,” the study found. “The increased heat is expected to cost India 2.8% and 8.7% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and depressed living standards by 2050 and 2100, respectively.”

By mid-century, 70 Indian cities are expected to have more than 1 million inhabitants, according to the study.

Extreme heat will pose a threat to the energy security and health of those people, and reverse progress in inequality and poverty reduction, the researchers found.

“My family in Kolkata is suffering from current heat waves leading to frequent load shedding,” said the author of the study, Dr Ramit Debnath, in a reference to enforced power outages that reduce strain on the grid. “The climate-energy nexus is becoming more relevant,” he added.

Typically, it’s the poorest and most vulnerable who will suffer the most.

Heat waves will “have unprecedented consequences on the low-income population” the study said. As an example, the authors point to the rapidly urbanizing capital New Delhi, which “has a high level of construction activities, mostly involving a low-income labor force, who are also at severe risk from heat wave impacts.”

While India has a “climate vulnerability index” through which it assesses its vulnerability to the climate crisis, the authors believe this underestimates how heat waves impact the country’s development.

India has committed to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a list of 17 objectives that include cutting poverty, hunger, inequality and disease, as well as promoting health, education and sanitation.

By not understanding the true threat of heat waves on its population, India risks missing out on those goals.

The study’s co-author Professor Ronita Bardhan said the recommendations could be used to build heat resilience for low-income housing as “these communities are most vulnerable to heat impacts.”

“Heat-health packages for low-income and slum dwellers are specifically critical as we show heat waves have devastating impacts on urban sustainability,” she said.

Another practical application is urban greening strategies around highly dense areas, which “can provide relief from urban heat island effects,” Bardhan said.

The authors stress “urgency” in recommending India update its extreme weather assessment to include the heat index and its impact on India’s sustainable development.

“India has demonstrated tremendous leadership in scaling up heat action plans in the last five years by declaring heat waves a natural disaster and mobilizing appropriate relief resources,” the authors said.

But “as the heat waves in India and the Indian subcontinent become recurrent and long-lasting, it is high time that climate experts and policymakers reevaluate the metrics for assessing the country’s climate vulnerability.”

World could face record temperatures in 2023 as El Nino returns

Story by By Kate Abnett • Yesterday

 People take a break under a cooling mist, in Tokyo© Thomson Reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The world could breach a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, fuelled by climate change and the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, climate scientists say.

Climate models suggest that after three years of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return to El Nino, the warmer counterpart, later this year.


A woman speaks on a mobile phone as she walks through a market on a hot summer day in New Delhi© Thomson Reuters

During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow down, and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean temperatures.

"El Nino is normally associated with record breaking temperatures at the global level. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 is yet known, but it is, I think, more likely than not," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service.


A dried-up creek bed is seen in a drought-affected area near Chivilcoy

© Thomson Reuters

Climate models suggest a return to El Nino conditions in the late boreal summer, and the possibility of a strong El Nino developing towards the end of the year, Buontempo said.

Related video: El Nino Likely To Strike This Monsoon Season: Will 2023 Be A Drought Year For India? (Moneycontrol)  Duration 3:17   View on Watch

The world's hottest year on record so far was 2016, coinciding with a strong El Nino - although climate change has fuelled extreme temperatures even in years without the phenomenon.

The last eight years were the world's eight hottest on record - reflecting the longer-term warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute, said El Nino-fuelled temperatures could worsen the climate change impacts countries are already experiencing - including severe heatwaves, drought and wildfires.



In an Argentine field, green shoots mask scars of drought

"If El Niño does develop, there is a good chance 2023 will be even hotter than 2016 – considering the world has continued to warm as humans continue to burn fossil fuels," Otto said.



Vines are seen at Petersons vineyards in Hunter Valley

© Thomson Reuters

EU Copernicus scientists published a report on Thursday assessing the climate extremes the world experienced last year, its fifth-warmest year on record.

Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022, while climate change-fuelled extreme rain caused disastrous flooding in Pakistan, and in February, Antarctic sea ice levels hit a record low.

The world's average global temperature is now 1.2C higher than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said.

Despite most of the world's major emitters pledging to eventually slash their net emissions to zero, global CO2 emissions last year continued to rise.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, editing by Deepa Babington)

EMOTIONAL PLAGUE

America's Loneliness Epidemic Is Fueling The Far Right, Sen. Chris Murphy Says

Story by Daniel Marans • Yesterday 


Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is a mainstream progressive known for supporting a tougher U.S. approach to Saudi Arabia and stricter gun safety regulations.

In December, though, he began taking up a cause not typically on Congress’ agenda: an epidemic of loneliness in the United States that Murphy believes is quietly at the heart of the bitterness and violence wracking the country.

“We’re all searching for the reasons why there’s been a retreat to very hair-trigger hostility and violence in this country,” Murphy told HuffPost in a phone interview in March. “We’re all trying to understand why Donald Trump did so well despite the fact that he focused all his energy on tax cuts for the very elite.”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of things that unite Americans that we refuse to see, and one of those things is the way that many of us are increasingly feeling very lonely, very isolated and increasingly disconnected,” he added.

In discussions in the press and with colleagues, Murphy makes the case that the rise of social media and the isolating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have turbocharged the United States’ already-depleted communal infrastructure and norms. That has, in turn, helped fuel growing rates of mental illness, substance abuse, violence and even, some studies show, right-wing extremism.



Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) speaks about a bipartisan bill to rein in gun violence in June 2022. The bill's passage gave him hope for more collaboration between Democrats and Republicans.© Provided by HuffPost

Rather than dismiss the uptick in right-wing extremism as evidence of some Americans’ incorrigible inclination for racism and sexism, Murphy sees the American loneliness epidemic as a phenomenon that can help explain that rise in a way that leaves room for constructive solutions without excusing hateful behavior.

“When you’re alone or lonely, that’s often followed by anger, and that’s understandable. We’ve all felt lonely in our life, and we know how frustrating that feels and how it can easily lead to anger,” Murphy said. “The right has offered an off-ramp for that anger. They have offered connections and identity based around hate messages and division.”

“That’s not where people want to go naturally,” he added. “I think folks who end up being attracted to these hate groups could be offered a much more constructive identity or a much more constructive set of connections. But they don’t see that often.”

For now, Murphy is engaged in an awareness-raising exercise without a clear set of policy goals. He aims to convince policymakers to join him but also to demonstrate to disaffected Americans that he is taking their concerns seriously.

“My hope is that we can just spend some time talking about how we feel,” he said. “If disconnected people out there feel like people in government understand how they feel and care about how they feel, then maybe they’ll be open to a conversation about policies that can help.”

There’s a lot of things that unite Americans that we refuse to see, and one of those things is the way that many of us are increasingly feeling very lonely, very isolated and increasingly disconnected.Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

Murphy tipped his hand ever so slightly toward a suite of community-reviving policies that he anticipates both parties can get behind.

“You’re talking about reining in the rough edges of technology, especially as it applies to our lovely kids. You’re talking about rebuilding healthy local communities. You’re talking about supporting churches and civic groups and local newspapers,” Murphy said. “All those things are not easily separated into ‘right’ or ‘left.’ That’s what’s so attractive about this issue.”

Murphy’s initiative comes amid growing research about how loneliness is affecting Americans’ mental health.

About seven months after U.S. society reorganized in response to the coronavirus pandemic, 36% of Americans reported feeling lonely “frequently” — up from 25% before the pandemic, according to an October 2020 survey conducted by Harvard University.

The rate of loneliness among American young people has become a particular cause for concern. More than 3 in 5 — or 61% — of Americans ages 18 to 25 reported frequent loneliness in the Harvard study, compared with 24% of Americans ages 55 to 65.



Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), left, talks to Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) during a late March hearing on Capitol Hill. Murphy sees room for common ground on policies to combat loneliness.© Provided by HuffPost

In retrospect, Murphy believes governments did not adequately weigh the costs of school closures and other pandemic-related measures on youth mental health.

“You’d be foolish not to look back on our decision to keep many schools closed for upwards of two years and see it as a mistake,” said Murphy, who nonetheless rejects the idea that Democrats were more committed to school closures than Republicans. “It is a rewrite of history to pretend that this was a partisan issue.”

He followed that up with a caveat that Democratic-run school systems may have stayed closed longer toward the end of the pandemic, but said “Republican states were closed for a long time, too.”

Scholars have also identified a link between younger Americans’ loneliness and their heavy use of social media, which often reduces the frequency of more rewarding, in-person social interactions. Experts have found that social media has played a role in increased depression and loneliness among adolescent girls.

“It’s possible that girls are even more isolated than boys because boys’ online experience is often collaborative through online gaming — Fortnite or Minecraft — whereas girls’ online experience is often alone, scrolling through social media,” Murphy said.

At the same time, evidence suggests that among adults, men have been hit harder by the loneliness epidemic than women. The suicide rate among men, always higher than among women, also went up considerably more than the women’s rate in 2021.

“When you lose the ability to naturally connect through churches, or social clubs, or even the workplace, that often is a bigger problem for men than women,” Murphy said. “Because without those easy, natural connections, through work and institutions, men don’t do as well as women in seeking out connection proactively.”

There was no one precipitating event in Murphy’s life that prompted him to take this issue more seriously. As the father of two sons — one adolescent and the other preadolescent — Murphy has noticed the effect of technology on young people’s interactions and the world they inhabit.

I think Republicans supported that bill in part because they share my concern for where this country is heading and the new stresses that surround our kids.Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)


What’s more, Murphy credits his work crafting a bipartisan gun control and mental health bill in the Senate last June for giving him hope that Democrats and Republicans can take additional steps to address the country’s loneliness crisis. The Connecticut senator was elected shortly before the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The fight to reduce gun violence has been a defining feature of his two terms in the Senate.

“I think Republicans supported that bill in part because they share my concern for where this country is heading and the new stresses that surround our kids,” he concluded.

Murphy’s interest in loneliness is also the product of his efforts to understand the appeal of far-right ideology to young people. To that end, the Connecticut senator spent the summer consuming literature and media by and about the “New Right,” a broad term for the unconventional forms of right-wing ideology gaining traction among some young men, in particular. The designation typically includes welfare state-supporting Catholic fundamentalists like Sohrab Ahmari and monarchists like Curtis Yarvin, but also mainstream economic populists like popular YouTube host Saagar Enjeti.

Although Murphy says that the New Right is “in many ways very dangerous,” because of what he describes as the movement’s “antidemocratic” and “theocratic elements,” he sees room for common ground in the movement’s insistence on community taking precedence over unbridled capitalism.

“If you study the developing New Right inside the conservative movement, you’ll see early signs of a potential realignment amongst people in this country who may not share the same views on abortion or civil rights, but who do believe that our economy and the state of American kids and families have become so unhealthy that government has to take some new action,” Murphy said.

“To the extent I think there’s a realignment coming, it only comes through a rejection of neoliberalism,” he said, referring to the ideology behind the laissez-faire capitalist policies that have taken root in the United States since the 1970s. “Changing the incentives inside the market [is] not going to cure the psychological rot in this country.”

'This was fear': Imperial CEO hears of impacts from oilsands leaks, apologizes

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 


OTTAWA — The head of Imperial Oil heard Thursday how a nine-month delay before informing downstream communities about a seeping tailings pond on a company oilsands mine created weeks of fear and rumours.



"This was not uncertainty, this was fear," Conservative member of Parliament Laila Goodridge told Imperial CEO Brad Corson, who was testifying before the House of Commons environment and sustainability committee.

The hearing was struck after two releases of toxic oilsands tailings water from the Kearl mine north of Fort McMurray, Alta. The committee was questioning Corson on why it took so long for First Nations and governments to find out what was happening with both the tailings pond seepage and overflow from a mine containment pond.

Goodridge, who represents Fort McMurray, said she visited one of the First Nations communities during that nine-month gap.

"I had elders telling me, 'We don't know what's going on, but don't drink the water,'" she said. "There was just a vacuum of information.

"People were afraid."

Corson repeatedly apologized for keeping people in the dark.

"I am deeply apologetic," he said.

"Imperial strives to build strong and lasting relationships with Indigenous communities based on mutual respect, trust and shared prosperity. We have broken this trust."

Seepage, originally described as discoloured water, was discovered in May. Corson acknowledged Imperial knew by August it was tailings, which have since been found to have left levels of toxic chemicals exceeding environmental limits in immediately adjacent waters.

But no notification was provided until February to leaders of six area First Nations.

"We did not speak directly with the leaders and we did not provide regular updates," he said. "We didn't want to go back to the communities until we fully understood the situation and had a plan."

Corson faced repeated questions about what Imperial was doing to clean up the mess.

He repeated findings that suggest no effects to area wildlife or to downstream drinking water.

He blamed the overflow on equipment and process failures, and the seepage on a layer of groundwater that was shallower than anticipated.

He said the company has 200 people working on remediation. It has dug trenches to intercept the ongoing seepage and installed more than 300 wells to pump it out and monitor its composition. It won't happen again, he said.

"I do believe (the pond) is a safe structure," he said.

Michael McLeod, an MP from the Northwest Territories riding of Deh Cho downstream from Kearl, was skeptical.

"As long as (the tailings ponds) exist, we're under the threat of leakage," he said.

"I've had the reassurances all my life that this isn't going to happen. Yet here we are."

Corson said he supported plans from federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault to create a working group with different levels of government, First Nations and industry to improve communication around what goes on in the oilsands. The group would also address concerns about seepage from all oilsands tailings ponds.

"The concept of bringing stakeholders together ... to work together to improve the communication process and to improve the management of tailing for this industry is positive," he said.

On Monday, the committee heard from First Nations leaders, who expressed fear and anger about how their communities were left ignorant about what was going on while their people continued to use lands next to the releases. They said the Alberta Energy Regulator has lost its credibility and called for it to be disbanded.

Next Monday, the committee expects to hear from Laurie Pushor, head of the Alberta regulator.

The committee hearings are one of three investigations going on into the Kearl releases. Alberta's Information Commissioner has begun a probe into whether the regulator had a duty to inform the public as soon as it heard about the problem, and the regulator's board is commissioning its own third-party review.

The environmental group Greenpeace is also calling for Imperial to be charged over releases of the toxic wastewater.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 20, 2023.

— By Bob Weber in Edmonton

The Canadian Press

Hydro-Québec scores legal victory in Maine over $1B US transmission line project

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada • Yesterday 

Hydro-Québec has scored an important legal victory in a courtroom south of the border to allow its $1-billion US transmission-line project in Maine to go ahead.


Maine Superior Court has ruled in favour of Hydro-Québec and its U.S. partners in a court case regarding the utility's project to build a transmission line.© Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press

The transmission line, which would span 336 kilometres between Quebec and Maine, is a pivotal part of the provincial utility's plan to sell hydroelectricity to the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

On Thursday, Maine Superior Court ruled in favour of Hydro-Québec and its U.S. partners. According to local media reports, the court found that the project already had the necessary permits prior to being rejected by 59 per cent of voters in a referendum in November 2021. Work was suspended a few weeks later.

Last August, the Maine Supreme Court ruled that referendum was unconstitutional. It also sent the case back to the Superior Court level in order to have a ruling on the issue of permits.

Related video: Hydro-Québec needs to bury power lines to minimize future outages, expert says (cbc.ca) Duration 3:17 View on Watch

Hydro-Québec's partner in Maine, NECEC, has already spent nearly $450 million US on the project, which is about 43 per cent of the total projected cost, according to documents presented in court.

If the project were abandoned, Hydro-Québec estimates that it would lose nearly $530 million on top of potentially losing $10 billion in revenue over 20 years.

The utility also claimed it had spent an additional $160 million as of the end of last year in connection with agreements it has struck in connection with the project.

The utility has said that the deal with the state of Massachusetts would reduce greenhouse gases by three million tonnes, the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road.

"We are satisfied with the ruling. This was our biggest legal obstacle to the project," said Lynn St-Laurent, a spokesperson for Hydro-Québec.

Hydro-Québec had initially hoped for the transmission line to be up and running by December 2022, but the legal wrangling caused significant delays.

St-Laurent said it's too early to know when work can resume and when the project will be completed, especially since there is a possibility that Thursday's ruling will be appealed.

Microsoft agrees to buy $50m Foxconn parcel in Wisconsin

Story by The Canadian Press • Wednesday


MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Microsoft has agreed to buy a $50 million parcel of land in southeastern Wisconsin meant for Foxconn after the world's largest electronics manufacturer failed to fulfill grandiose promises to build a massive facility that would employ thousands of workers.



Microsoft plans to build a $1 billion data center on the 315-acre (127-hectare) parcel in Mount Pleasant, a village of about 27,000 people in Racine County, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Milwaukee. It's unclear how many people the center might employ. Paul Englis, Microsoft's director of global community research and engagement, told the Racine County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that such centers typically employ 300 to 400 people.

The village already is home to a Foxconn Technology Group manufacturing facility. The Taiwan-based company is best known for making Apple iPhones. The company announced plans in 2017 to build a $10 billion facility in Mount Pleasant that would employ 13,000 people.

Wisconsin's governor at the time, Republican Scott Walker, and then-President Donald Trump praised the decision, with Trump boasting the plant would be the “eighth wonder of the world.”

The state agreed to provide Foxconn with nearly $3 billion in tax breaks. The company never delivered on its promises and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers scaled back the tax breaks to $80 million contingent on the number of jobs created and investments. The company qualified for just $8.6 million in tax credits last year after creating 768 eligible jobs and making a $77.4 million capital investment by the end of 2021.

According to a fact sheet describing the Microsoft project compiled by southeastern Wisconsin economic development groups, the parcel of land is part of a tax-increment financing district that includes the Foxconn campus. Property taxes collected in such districts can be used to subsidize development.

Foxconn spent $60 million to help Mount Pleasant officials buy the property to create the district, said Mia Tripi, a spokesperson for the village and Racine County.

Foxconn would receive the proceeds from the land sale to Microsoft as partial reimbursement of what Foxconn spent to acquire land for the district in 2017, according to the fact sheet. Microsoft would be eligible to recoup 42% of property taxes paid on new construction, up to $5 million annually.

Microsoft must begin the first phase of construction by July 2026 and begin the second phase by July 2033.

The tech sector has been contracting after pandemic-era expansions brought on a boom in demand for workplace software. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, hasn't been immune to the trend, announcing in January that it planned to cut 10,000 workers and consolidate leased office locations. Company officials said then that the layoffs amounted to less than 5% of their total employee base.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Paul Englis spoke to the Racine County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday — not Thursday.

Todd Richmond, The Associated Press

Is Pierre Poilievre deliberately muddying the waters on the CBC's Twitter label?

Story by David Said, PhD Candidate/Researcher, Political Science, University of Guelph 

THE CONVERSATION • Yesterday 

Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, is attempting to mislead Canadians into believing that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an untrustworthy news source after it was labelled “government-funded media” by Elon Musk’s Twitter.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in March 2023.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

In response, CBC paused its activity on Twitter, objecting to any suggestion the government has any control over its journalism.

Poilievre is suggesting Twitter’s designation is proof the CBC lacks editorial independence and is a Liberal government propaganda tool.

But that’s not what Twitter’s label is actually suggesting. For Poilievre to try to persuade Canadians that the label confirms CBC is an extension of the Liberal government is disingenuous and improperly discredits the legitimacy of government-funded enterprises.

Public plea

In early April, Poilievre made a public request to Musk to label the CBC “government-funded media,” saying Canadians should be protected against disinformation and manipulation by state media. From the outset, Poilievre was conflating news organizations that receive government funding as public broadcasters to state media outlets, which are controlled editorially by ruling governments.

After the request was granted, he again took to Twitter to signal that the public broadcaster has officially been exposed as “government-funded media,” thereby suggesting that it can no longer be considered trustworthy.

What Poilievre apparently forgot to mention is that there are important differences in Twitter’s seemingly arbitrary verification labels. Failing to explain these differences suggests he’s just trying to score political points or, worse, is intentionally misleading Canadians.

According to Twitter’s media account label policies, there’s a distinction between the “government-funded” and “state-affiliated” labels.

The “government-funded” title is used to indicate that some or all of the media outlet’s funding is provided by government.

The “state-affiliated” label, on the other hand, is used to describe media outlets that are directly controlled by the state in terms of editorial content via a variety of ways, including financial resources, direct or indirect political pressure or control over the production and distribution of media content.

Not a warning

The “government-funded” label doesn’t appear to suggest any sort of warning or raise cause for concern about the outlet’s objectivity and independence. Instead, it reads simply as describing a media entity that receives funding from the government.

The “state-affiliated” label, however, is an indication of political interference in a media outlet’s journalism.

Poilievre appears to deliberately conflate the two labels, which suggests he wants Canadians to believe that the Liberal government is exerting direct political control over the CBC because it receives funding from the government.

Not only is this misleading but it appears to exploit three connected challenges:

Most Canadians are unaware of how government agencies and systems work;

The majority of Canadians get their news from social media;

Younger Canadians are more trusting of information received from social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Grasping the nuances

Not everyone understands the nuances of how Canadian government works and fewer recognize the complexity of the institutions that make up the administrative state, which the CBC is part of as a Crown corporation.

In order for the public to be protected against disinformation, the complexities of the Canadian government shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand the way they apparently were by a spokesperson for CBC. That spokesperson insisted that all Canadians know the CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded and its editorial independence is protected by law via the federal Broadcasting Act.

Like many other Crown corporations — including Canada Post, Via Rail and the Bank of Canada — the CBC is a state-owned enterprise designed to carry out functions at an arm’s length from the government. Crown corporations operate similarly to large for-profit companies, but they’re public organizations that fulfil both commercial and public policy objectives.

In light of this, there’s nothing unsurprising or scandalous about designating the CBC as “government-funded” since it’s a Crown corporation, not the arm of a political party. The CBC has cast a critical eye on governments of all stripes and at all levels since its inception, whether those governments were Conservative, Liberal or NDP.

The CBC logo is projected onto a screen in Toronto in 2019

 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin

Taxpayer funds

Nearly two-thirds of the CBC’s funding come from taxpayers and is therefore subjected to parliamentary oversight. The public broadcaster maintains editorial independence, regardless of what party’s in power, and receives its funding through a vote in Parliament.

Overlooking this fact makes it easier to believe that the CBC perpetuates “Trudeau propaganda,” which is no more true than if the CBC is accused of peddling “Poilievre propaganda” if he wins the next federal election.

This doesn’t mean the CBC, like any news organization, is without flaws — and perhaps there’s cause to re-evaluate the role Canada’s national broadcaster plays in the country’s rapidly evolving society.

But misleading Canadians by conflating Twitter’s media account verification labels, as Poilievre has done, is not the way forward.

While Poilievre is correct that Canadians should be shielded from disinformation and manipulation, they should also be cautious of politicians misleading them on complex issues regarding the independence and impartiality of government agencies.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

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Clorox to cut 4% of non-production workforce

Story by Reuters • 

(Reuters) - Clorox Co on Thursday said it would cut about 200 positions, or 4% of its non-production workforce, as it looks to keep a lid on costs amid worries of an economic slowdown.


The Pine-Sol manufacturer joins a list of companies - from tech firms to retailers such as Bed Bath & Beyond Inc and Wayfair Inc - that have reduced their workforce in the face of growing recessionary fears in the United States.

"We're on track to generate ongoing annual savings of approximately $75 million to $100 million, with benefits beginning this fiscal year," Chief Executive Officer Linda Rendle said in a blog post.

"Transformation isn't a one-time event, and we'll continue to implement changes as we execute this transformation," she added.

The household staples maker said in February that it had planned for more layoffs over the next few months in a bid to rein in costs.

In September, Clorox said as a result of its streamlining efforts, it had eliminated nearly 100 positions in 2022, or roughly 2% of its non-production workforce.

As of June 30, 2022, the company employed about 9,000 people worldwide, with 72% in the United States.

(Reporting by Granth Vanaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)