Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Near-record 'dead zone' predicted in Gulf of Mexico
Rich Banks stands along a jetty in Galveston, Texas, photgraphing waves in the Gulf of Mexico, on June 15, 2015. (Cody Duty / Houston Chronicle)
The Associated Press
Published Monday, June 10, 2019 6:38PM EDT
NEW ORLEANS -- Scientists are predicting a near-record Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" where the water holds too little oxygen to sustain marine life.
"A major factor contributing to the large dead zone this year is the abnormally high amount of spring rainfall in many parts of the Mississippi River watershed," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a news release Monday. That led to record amounts of water carrying large amounts of fertilizer and other nutrients downriver, it said.
The nutrients feed algae, which die and then decompose on the sea floor, using up oxygen from the bottom up in an area along the coasts of Louisiana and Texas.
The low-oxygen, or hypoxic, area is likely to cover about 7,800 square miles (20,200 square kilometres) -- roughly the size of Slovenia and all the land in Massachusetts, NOAA said. A Louisiana-based team has estimated the dead zone will be 8,700 square miles (22,560 square kilometres).
It will be measured during an annual July cruise by Nancy Rabalais of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
The record set in 2017 is 8,776 square miles (22,700 square kilometres).
Scientists had said earlier that widespread flooding made a large dead zone likely this year.
A task force of federal, tribal and state agencies from 12 of the 31 states that make up the Mississippi River watershed set a goal nearly two decades ago of reducing the dead zone from an average of about 5,800 square miles (15,000 square kilometres) to an average of 1,900 (4,900).
"While this year's zone will be larger than usual because of the flooding, the long-term trend is still not changing," University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Don Scavia, professor emeritus at the School for Environment and Sustainability, said in a news release. "The bottom line is that we will never reach the dead zone reduction target of 1,900 square miles until more serious actions are taken to reduce the loss of Midwest fertilizers into the Mississippi River system."
Rabalais has been measuring the hypoxic zone since 1985.
Storms before last year's mapping cruise reduced that hypoxic zone to about 2,720 square miles (7,040 square kilometres), about 40% the average size that had been predicted, and among the smallest recorded.
Researchers find Canadian Arctic island coast collapsing up to a metre a day
Researchers found the permafrost coastline of a Canadian Arctic island was collapsing at a rate of up to a metre a day. (Photo: Jeffrey Kerby)
Published Tuesday, June 11, 2019
The frozen coastline of a Canadian Arctic island is eroding at up to a metre a day as a warming climate leads to longer summers, new research has found.
Researchers say the rate of collapse they found is six times faster than the average for the previous 65 years.
“Big chunks of land were breaking away and waves were eating them away,” said the study’s co-author Isla Myers-Smith, a geoscientist at the University of Edinburgh. “They were often gone by the next day.”
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A researcher inspects the coastline of Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk in the Yukon. (Photo: Gergana Daskalova)
Myers-Smith was part of an international team that flew drone-mounted cameras to survey the tundra coast of Herschel Island, also known as Qikiqtaruk, off the Yukon coast in the Canadian Arctic. It is an unoccupied but historically significant island of about 116 square kilometres.
The researchers determined that summer storms are sweeping away coastal permafrost at a higher rate because it is being exposed for longer periods. Sea ice melts earlier and re-forms around the island later than it used to due to climate change, the researchers explain in their article published in the journal The Cryosphere.
Researchers mapped the area seven times over 40 days in the summer of 2017 and built computer models based on drone photos. They showed that the coast had retreated by an astounding 14.5 metres during the period, sometimes as much as a metre a day.
Researchers also compared the results with surveys taken between 1952 and 2011 that showed the 2017 rate of erosion was more than six times the historical average for the area.
The research team included university researchers, government scientists, and local park rangers from England, Germany, Netherlands, the United States and Canada, along with community members who live and work in the Arctic.
A Vancouver native, Myers-Smith has been travelling to Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk to study plants since 2008 and has spent every summer there since 2013. She leaves again for the island in a few weeks.
The research team - dubbed Team Shrub - was studying changes in vegetation in 2017 when it witnessed big shifts in the coastline that it hadn’t seen in previous years, she told CTVNews.ca.
While coastal erosion is natural and inevitable, it’s important to document the rate, she says. Similar acceleration has been found along the Alaska coast.
“As the Arctic continues to warm faster than the rest of our planet, we need to learn more about how these landscapes are changing,” said study lead Andrew Cunliffe, a geography professor at the University of Exeter.
“Using drones could help researchers and local communities improve monitoring and prediction of future changes in the region.”
Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk is uniquely suited to study because there has been a history of ecological documentation and it is located above the treeline but south of the extreme Arctic.
“Scientists expect to see lots of ecological change there,” said Myers-Smith.
The island’s Pauline Cove was at one time a significant settlement for Indigenous people and later served as a community for European and American whalers starting in the late 1800s. It was also an outpost for the Hudson’s Bay Company between 1915 and 1937. The island continues to be used by the Inuvialuit for hunting and fishing but the last permanent, year-round residents left in 1987.
A dozen structures survive on the island, including Indigenous sod homes and whaling buildings, which continue to be threatened by coastal erosion. It’s also home to a territorial park.
In 2008, the World Monuments Fund placed Herschel Island on its 100 Most Endangered Sites watch list, citing rising sea levels, eroding coastline and melting permafrost as imminent threats.
Who's behind the anti-Andrew Scheer ad airing during Raptors game?
Michael D'Alimonte, Power Play producer
Published Monday, June 10, 2019 6:23PM EDT
Last Updated Tuesday, June 11, 2019 12:17PM EDT
If you watched Game 5 of the NBA Finals in Canada, you might have seen a 30-second ad from an organization called Engage Canada attacking Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.
Where did the group get the cash to pay for a Toronto Raptors playoff commercial that could cost upwards of $50,000? The group is hesitant to say.
Tabitha Bernard, a spokesperson for Engage Canada, said in a written statement that the group’s ad campaigns are meant “to fight back against the dominance of corporate interests” on the airwaves.
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Conservative Party of Canada leader Andrew Scheer announces his immigration policy at an event hall in Toronto, Tuesday, May 28, 2019. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston)
The ad that ran during Monday night’s Raptors game accuses Scheer of “hiding something” and says that, if elected, he “would follow Ontario Premier Doug Ford” when it comes to health care and education cuts.
The group describes itself as a “grassroots organization.” Corporate records and archived union documents show that it is comprised of veteran political strategists and individuals with strong ties to some of Canada’s largest union groups.
Formally created in December 2014, according to incorporation documents, Engage Canada orchestrated a targeted ad campaign against Stephen Harper in the lead up to the 2015 federal election.
Using the tagline “Not There For You,” the group released several TV advertisements criticizing Harper’s tenure as prime minster.
“With the Conservatives, you and your family just aren’t in the picture” said one Engage Canada TV ad focused on income inequality. “The Harper Conservatives, they won’t be there for you,” said another focused on health care.
But Engage Canada was nowhere to be found on Election Canada’s list of registered third party advertisers as part of the 2015 election.
Engage Canada spent all of its advertising dollars before the election was called, meaning the group never had to register as a third party advertiser and disclose any financial details.
It looks like the group may be employing the same strategy this time around with Scheer, said Erin Crandall, an Acadia University professor who studies Canadian election law.
“If Engage Canada takes the same approach as the 2015 election, to stop advertising before the regulatory period, then we’re not going to have any insight into donors” said Crandall.
Engage Canada also used social media channels to bypass election advertising regulations in the last election cycle, said Crandall.
“If you can do all the big ad spending before the regulatory period, and then stick the ads up on social media where it doesn’t cost anything, then you’ve been able to strategically spend more than you would have been able to otherwise,” she said.
Monday night’s Raptors game is a prime example. Any and all production costs tied to the ad, and the price of the highly-coveted NBA finals airtime, do not need to be released by the group.
Since the ad money is being spent before pre-writ period, Engage Canada does not need to disclose any financial details.
And, short of Engage Canada releasing its own financial documents, it’s next to impossible to know where, exactly, the money to fund the group’s TV, radio and social media ads is coming from. Engage Canada told CTV News it is “funded entirely by donations, large and small, from individual Canadians, organizations, and groups across the country…including labour unions."
Two current directors of the group, corporate records show, are political campaign veterans Kathleen Monk, former campaign director to Jack Layton, and Dave Gene, former deputy chief of operations to Dalton McGuinty.
Monk confirmed she and Gene are active directors of the group in an emailed statement.
As of May 25, days before Engage Canada launched its anti-Scheer ad campaign, the group gained two new directors: Peter Kennedy, former Unifor national secretary-treasurer, and Igor Delov, executive assistant to the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario.
Unifor national president Jerry Dias asked union members to donate to Engage Canada during a speech made at a Unifor Ontario Regional Council meeting in December 2015, archived records show.
An executive member of the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario also asked their members to fund Engage Canada’s efforts.
“Partnering with Engage Canada, we could help reach more voters and defeat the federal Conservative government in the next federal election,” reads a 2015 letter from Patrick Dillon, business manager for the trades council, sent to the group’s many members.
When asked what relationship Engage Canada has with Unifor and other unions, Bernard said that “Unifor is one of many of Engage Canada’s donors.”
Bernard added that “it would be inaccurate to suggest that Unifor is our only funder” and acknowledged that other labour unions are financial donors to Engage Canada.
Bernard did not, however, elaborate on the amount that Unifor or other union groups have donated to the group in the past, or more recently.
Scheer and Unifor’s leadership have been publicly at odds recently due to the controversy surrounding the union group’s involvement in the panel to choose which news organizations will receive new tax credits.
The Conservative leader says that including an anti-Conservative union on the panel will undermine its credibility and give Prime Minister Justin Trudeau an edge in the upcoming election.
“Unifor is a highly partisan group with highly aggressive and partisan goals,” said Scheer during question period on May 29.
"Scheer puts the very principles of truth and democracy at risk with this own brand of fake news" said Unifor national president Jerry Dias in a written response to Scheer's comments.
From CTV Kitchener's Max Wark: If you caught any of the many political ads during Game 5, get ready—experts say you can expect many more.
Trying to align him with Doug Ford might have backfired for whoever made the ads.
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