It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, October 03, 2021
GHOSTED
Contractor seems to have ‘abandoned’ North Shore wastewater plant, says Metro Vancouver
By Simon Little Global News Posted October 3, 2021 1:28 pm
Construction on the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant. North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant
Officials with Metro Vancouver say the contractor building a new billion-dollar wastewater treatment plant on the North Shore appears to have “abandoned the project.”
“On Wednesday, September 29, without notice, Metro Vancouver learned that the contractor of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant Project, Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP, significantly reduced staff working on the project,” Metro Vancouver spokesperson Amanda McCuaig said in an email.
Metro Vancouver says it revised its contract with Acciona in 2019, giving it two-and-a-half additional years to complete the project, with a new target date of the end of 2023.
“While Metro Vancouver has continued to uphold the terms of the contract, including making all payments due, Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP has fallen behind meeting key milestones,” McCuaig said.
Concerns about raw sewage leaking into Fraser River – Apr 28, 2020
Acciona did not respond to a request for comment.
Metro Vancouver said it remained “committed” to the project, and were reviewing options on how to proceed. It was unclear how the current setback would affect the project timeline.
Earlier this year, Metro Vancouver revealed the final cost of the project had ballooned to more than $1 billion with an in-service date of 2024, up from an estimated cost of $700 million with a 2020 completion date in 2017.
When completed, the new facility will serve North and West Vancouver, as well as the Squamish Nation.
It’s designed to replace the current wastewater plant under the Lions Gate Bridge, which was built in 1961.
Sudbury
French River man discovers geological formation in his backyard
Social Sharing
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Reddit
LinkedIn
A rock "pot" or "kettle" is a cylindrical geological formation found in granite
THESE CAN ALSO BE FOUND IN CASTLEGAR, NELSON B.C. RIVERS
CBC News ·
David Lichty lives in Monetville, southeast of Greater Sudbury, and discovered a geological formation members of the nearby Dokis First Nation call rock “pots” or “kettles” in his backyard. (Supplied by David Lichty)
When David Lichty noticed a unique rock formation in his backyard, he started digging.
"I first exposed a bunch of rocks and there was a section of rock that looked a little different, had a different curve to it, and I thought, 'What is this?'" he said.
Lichty lives in Monetville, southeast of Greater Sudbury. What he discovered was a geological formation members of the nearby Dokis First Nation call rock "pots" or "kettles."
What Lichty found looked like a perfect circle in the granite that had a hollow core. It took him a week of digging to reach the bottom, around four metres below his backyard.
David Lichty's children play in a formation called a rock "pot" or "kettle" he discovered in his backyard. Video credit: David Lichty 0:28
At one end he measured the diameter to be around two metres, and a bit under two metres at the other.
Lichty said uncovering the formation brought out his inner child.
"I think you feel kind of like an archaeologist, I suppose," he said. "Am I going to reach the bottom? And at what point do I quit? But I don't know, I'm pretty driven at times, to my wife's chagrin."
Formations are sacred to Dokis First Nation
After he uncovered the formation, Lichty invited Norm Dokis, a knowledge keeper with the Dokis First Nation, to take a look.
"It was quite fascinating," Dokis told the CBC. "I was comparing it to some of the rock formations at the Dokis First Nation, where I'm from, and I appreciate David getting a hold of us because these rock pots are sacred for our people."
Dokis said similar rock pots were found near canoe portage points. They were places where his people would ask for safe passage. Because the formation resembles a pipe bowl, it was also common to lay tobacco at those locations.
David Lichty dug four metres below his backyard, in Monetville, Ont., to uncover a cylindrical geological formation in the granite. (Supplied by David Lichty)
Because he has young children, Lichty said he will put a barrier around the formation.
"The idea was to have a nice rock garden for my kids to have a safe place to climb on rocks, and I've got this really deep hole," he said.
Arctic sea ice hits 2021 minimum
This summer’s minimum ice cover was twelfth-lowest ever — and scientists warn that the long-term trend towards shrinking continues.
Tosin Thompson Arctic animals such as polar bears rely on sea ice. Although this year’s annual minimum extent was relatively high, ice cover is shrinking as global temperatures rise
Credit: Ekaterina Anismova/AFP via Getty
Arctic sea ice has passed its minimum extent for this year, shrinking to 4.72 million square kilometres on 16 September, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has reported.
Owing to a cool and cloudy Arctic summer, this year’s annual minimum was the highest since 2014 — ice covered nearly 1 million square kilometres more than last year’s extent of 3.82 million square kilometres, which was the second-lowest ever observed (see ‘Ice cover’). But it is still the twelfth-lowest sea-ice extent in nearly 43 years of satellite recordings, and scientists say that the long-term trend is towards lower ice cover.
“Even with global warming and the overall downward trend in sea ice, there is still natural variability,” says Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at NSIDC, who is based at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Source: NSIDC
The minimum Arctic sea-ice extent is declining at a rate of 13.1% per decade. “Including this year, the last 15 years have had the 15 lowest minimum Arctic extents on record,” Meier says. The lowest minimum extent on record was set in 2012, after a very strong storm sped up the loss of thin ice that was already on the verge of melting.
“The average of all the years is steadily decreasing while the average global mean temperature is increasing,” says Steven Amstrup, chief scientist of Polar Bears International in Bozeman, Montana. He adds that, although there might be higher sea-ice extents in any given year, the frequency of “bad” ice years with a low minimum sea-ice extent is increasing. “Better ice years are increasingly anomalous in the long-term trend,” Amstrup says. A cool summer
Arctic regions experienced a cooler, cloudier summer season than usual this year, which was partly caused by patterns of low atmospheric pressure in the Northern Hemisphere.
In June and July, weak low pressure in the central Arctic prevented warmer, southern winds from being drawn into the area. This kept the air cold and stopped some of the ice from melting. Low pressure also causes the formation of clouds, which block sunlight. This can further slow down melting.
In August, the low-pressure system shifted to the north of Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, producing air temperatures that were 2—3 °C lower than average. And last year’s winter winds had pushed older, thicker ice into both seas. “So going into the summer, the ice there was thicker than it had been in recent years, and that made it a bit more resilient,” says Meier. “However, there is also likely a climate-change aspect,” he adds. “There is less older ice overall and the ice cover is thinner. Thinner ice is more easily pushed around by the winds and currents.”
A transient increase in sea ice might create better conditions for species that use the ice to hunt, says Amstrup. “But it’s that downward trend of ice sea, caused by an increasing frequency of bad ice years, that determines the ultimate fate of polar bears and other sea-ice-dependent wildlife.”
ATCO plans two Calgary solar farms in bid to give customers 'decarbonization' options for electricity
Author of the article: Brodie Thomas Publishing date: Sep 29, 2021 •
An artist's rendition of the ATCO Group's Deerfoot solar project to be built at the corner of 114 Avenue and 52 Street SE in Calgary.
PHOTO BY CNW GROUP/ATCO LTD
The ATCO Group announced plans Wednesday to build two solar installations in Calgary with the capacity to power more than 18,000 homes.
The solar farms, to be built in the city’s southeast, will be as large as about 170 football fields. They will contain 175,000 bifacial solar panels and will offset 68,000 tonnes of carbon a year.
Karen Nielsen, senior vice-president of North American renewables for ATCO, said each panel will collect energy from both sides — with one pointed toward the sun and the opposite side collecting ambient light.
“When land and our footprint is so important, we’re trying to extract as much generation as we can out of that land,” said Nielsen.
The Deerfoot project, at 114th Avenue and 52nd Street S.E., will produce 37 megawatts and is currently in the permitting phase. The Barlow project, at Barlow Trail and 114 Avenue S.E., will produce 27 megawatts and has already received permit approval.
t
An artist’s rendition of the ATCO Group’s Barlow solar project to be built at the corner of Barlow Trail and 114 Avenue SE in Calgary. PHOTO BY CNW GROUP/ATCO LTD
ATCO hopes to begin construction on both early next year, and have them up and running by the fourth quarter of next year.
Nielsen said the two locations are former industrial sites that have limited use for other construction.
“They were at the time part of a fertilizer plant,” said Nielsen. “So we’re taking land that is really limited in terms of its usefulness for construction and we’re turning it into something that’s very useful.”
ATCO is working on design optimization to ensure the placement of panels is as efficient as possible. Nielsen said once that’s complete, the company will place orders for the panels. She’s hopeful supply chains that have been disrupted at times by the global pandemic will co-operate.
This is not ATCO’s first foray into renewable energy. The company recently acquired a solar project near Empress in eastern Alberta, and has completed two solar projects in Canada’s North. It has what it calls a “growing renewable portfolio” in Canada, Mexico, Chile and Australia.
“The acquisition of three major solar projects shows how important we believe it is to provide customers with the opportunity to decarbonize their energy consumption,” said Bob Myles, executive vice-president of corporate development at ATCO.
“Whether it’s the far North or an urban centre, ATCO is delivering on our strategy to help communities accelerate their transition to clean energy in a safe, affordable and reliable manner. These solar projects are also prime examples of the kinds of opportunities we’ll continue to pursue as we grow our renewables portfolio.”
Nielsen said this will be a unique project because many solar and wind energy installations are in rural areas, while this one will be highly visible from major roads in the city.
She said ATCO is committed to energy sustainability, and bringing that to consumers.
“We know intuitively our friends and neighbours want to live more sustainably. We see our goal as providing them with the solutions so they can make the choices to live the way they want.”
Yukonomist: A firewood shortage in the middle of the forest
The Wall Street Journal is a fine newspaper, but its Markets section doesn’t have what you really need this time of year: good coverage of the firewood market.
Pick your word. Yukon buyers are agog, gobsmacked, bouleversé, or worse at news that a prominent local firewood provider is charging $500 per cord.
Just a few years ago, you might have picked up a cord for $250 or less.
This is one of those landmark moments. Like how your grandfather still complains about the day gasoline hit a dollar a gallon.
If you are on a budget and live in an older home that burns a half-dozen cords a winter, pricey firewood is a major problem.
So, has firewood joined tech stocks, real estate and Bitcoin in the pantheon of financial bubbles?
No. People aren’t yet borrowing money to buy firewood in the hope of flipping it for $600 later.
But even if it is not a bubble, what is going on?
It comes down to good old supply and demand. There is not a lot of good data on either firewood supply or demand. People cut their own wood. There are lots of small operators and many cash transactions.
Back in firewood’s heyday, every house in Whitehorse used to burn wood for heat, and a sternwheeler might burn two cords an hour during its three- or four-day trip up from Dawson City.
These days, one market insider I spoke to estimated that Whitehorse burns around 10,000 cords of wood per year. If everyone paid $500 per cord, that would make firewood a $5 million-a-year business.
Despite the popularity of electrical heat in new construction, lots of people with older homes see firewood as a way to dodge high bills for oil, propane or electricity. Some also like how it avoids climate-change inducing fossil fuels. Demand has probably been growing in recent years along with our population.
However, an economist would not expect steadily growing demand to cause a price spike in a market like firewood. The Yukon has lots of trees and anyone, including customers, with a pickup and a chainsaw can get into the business.
There must be more going on.
The Yukon Statistics Bureau says gasoline is about 30 per cent more expensive than a year ago. Bigger operators with diesel equipment have seen that fuel rise 25 per cent. And there is a labour shortage, so wages and profits need to be a bit higher to keep people in the business compared to other employment opportunities.
But this still doesn’t seem like enough to explain $500-a-cord firewood.
Perhaps COVID-19 is responsible, like outbreaks shutting down lumber mills or semiconductor shortages closing down car factories?
No, instead it looks like we can blame it on an Administranium outbreak in the Yukon’s multi-level governmental apparatus. As reported in the News in August, “opening up new areas for timber harvest has been an uphill battle, with applications taking between 400 and 600 days to be approved.” The owner of Caribou Crossing Wood Supply said they would be importing logs from British Columbia.
Go to Google Earth and look at a satellite photo of the Yukon. You’ll see a lot of trees. If we’re importing logs, it makes me think I should quit my day job and start exporting ice to Greenland.
Similar to the way our government leaders managed to create a land shortage in a territory the size of France with a population of 40,000 people, we now have a wood shortage while living in the middle of the forest.
Myles Thorp, executive director of the Yukon Wood Products Association, said in early August that “When we started the process, it was inconceivable that we would be sitting here three years later … and still looking at no permits coming out of that thing for five years due to the administrative processes.”
So who is accountable? As is usual with Administranium outbreaks, everyone and no one. YESAB, territorial departments and First Nations governments are in the mix. The wood permits aren’t stuck with low-level bureaucrats. The issue is on the desks of territorial ministers and YESAB’s top-level executive committee.
An industry voice I spoke to described it as a joint territorial government and YESAB problem.
The territorial minister involved, John Streicker, told the News in August that “The industry had put in for some large blocks and they’ve been taking long through the YESAA system.”
Since Thorp’s comments, there has been some movement. On September 10, YESAB chair Laura Cabott sent a 203-page report on a large timber harvest plan near Haines Junction to the Yukon government for a decision. YESAB recommended approval, subject to 30 mitigation and six monitoring measures.
So far, however, the efforts of our multi-level governmental apparatus haven’t resulted in lower prices in the market. A local firewood player told me he still has access to wood and is charging less than $500 per cord, but that he is still deluged in desperate calls and turning away new customers.
So far, so unfortunate for families that rely on wood heat. Ditto for biomass suppliers, who are supposed to be one of our private-sector economic growth opportunities. But it’s good news for fossil-fuel providers, since people will rely more for heat on oil, propane and LNG-fuelled electricity.
Meanwhile, the Yukon government’s climate change plan mentions biomass 19 times as part of a plan to ramp up wood burning to reduce fossil-fuel emissions. It targets 20 large commercial and industrial biomass heating systems around the Yukon by 2030. If the average Yukoner can’t get enough reasonably priced firewood, what is going to happen when major buildings start sucking in firewood in industrial quantities?
The good news is that regular Yukoners can distance themselves from the Administranium outbreak by getting a personal firewood permit and cutting their own. Keep at least two metres from YESAB, and wear kevlar pants, ear and eye protection, and don’t forget to oil your chainsaw regularly.
Keith Halliday is a Yukon economist, author of the Aurore of the Yukon youth adventure novels and co-host of the Klondike Gold Rush History podcast. He is a Ma Murray award-winner for best columnist.
KENNEY KILLED WHO? UCP DEATH PANELS
Corbella: Unvaccinated are being given better care than the vaccinated needing medical care
'Our health-care pie is not unlimited in size and so we are being forced into the awful position of deciding who gets care and who does not'
Author of the article: Licia Corbella Publishing date: Sep 29, 2021
A steady wave of ambulances enter the Foothills hospital in Calgary on Monday, September 27, 2021.
PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOWICHUK/POSTMEDIA
First the numbers, then the stories. Here’s hoping one, or the other, or both, will encourage the unvaccinated to get their shots.
During Tuesday’s lengthy COVID-19 update, Premier Jason Kenney pointed out that while only 17 per cent of eligible Albertans are unvaccinated, they make up 92 per cent of all intensive-care patients clogging our hospitals, proving that this devastating fourth COVID-19 wave really is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
These would be devastating numbers under normal circumstances, but because of this official public health emergency, Alberta has had to add 197 ICU surge spaces. Without these additional spaces, our ICUs would be at 184 per cent of capacity.
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw had many other numbers in her update Tuesday, saying there are currently 1,100 people in hospital, including 263 in the ICU, and 18 more deaths were reported over the previous 24 hours.
But in case numbers don’t paint a compelling enough picture for those who are hesitant to get a vaccine, it’s time to hear about the cost their choice is having on other Albertans who need vital health care and can’t get it because the unvaccinated have overwhelmed our health-care system.
Dr. Edward Les, a pediatric emergency room physician in Calgary and a clinical assistant professor at the University of Calgary, says while all people should be treated with love and compassion — including those who refuse to get vaccinated — “there’s a component to this discussion that receives short shrift, time and time again — and that is that the necessary medical and surgical care of those who are responsibly immunized is being severely curtailed by the pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
About 75 per cent of all surgeries for Alberta children have been postponed to ensure all skilled hands can be on deck for people who wouldn’t need to be in the medical system if only they had been vaccinated.
Ward 6 Coun. Jeff Davison, who is running to be mayor in the Oct. 18 municipal election, recently revealed that his six-year-old daughter’s much-needed kidney surgery was delayed.
Davison confirmed to Postmedia reporter Meghan Potkins that his little girl suffers from a rare condition known by the medical acronym VACTERL association.
“Before we get to the surgery, there has to be an evaluation,” Davison said. “But the letter AHS sent us said that she will not even be seen for evaluation until February. Our system is now being overrun by people who refuse to believe that COVID is real. What happens if she does get into an emert
Calgary City Coun. Jeff Davison pictured with his six-year-old daughter.
Davison says his daughter’s kidney surgery has been delayed due to COVID-19.
PHOTO BY COURTESY /Jeff Davison
Every parent knows that watching your child suffer is a special kind of hell. Worrying that your child’s health is being forever harmed as you wait is an added layer of agony. So, multiply Davison’s anguish by many hundreds.
Les’s wife is also a physician — with a specialty in obstetrics and gynecology.
“She has had to cancel her so-called elective surgery schedule indefinitely — to be clear, elective does not mean unnecessary,” said Les.
“Consider the women she had scheduled to receive hysteroscopies — a procedure to examine the inside of the uterus to delineate the cause of abnormal uterine bleeding — some of these women will prove to have endometrial cancer, where early diagnosis may very well be critical to long-term survival,” said Les.
He says he has a friend whose bile duct cancer surgery was postponed.
As a survivor of triple-negative breast cancer myself, I fully understand the anxiety that such a diagnosis causes for the patient and their family.
Les understands it all too well, too, as he was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer called Chordoma in 2007.
“I can tell you just as sure as I’m sitting in my car at the moment, that if I had had that really complex diagnosis of a very rare cancer, instead of in January 2007 I had it in January of 2020, I’m not sure the outcome would be the same, given how topsy-turvy the medical-care system has become because of the pandemic and all of the ensuing restrictions.”
What is the cost of the loss of life and potential, and the increase in suffering, anxiety and severity of disease? It’s incalculable.
Les says while he agrees with my Tuesday column calling on us to narrow the divide between those of us who are vaccinated and those who are not, he wants to qualify that support.
“When we have the capacity in our health-care system to care for all, we absolutely should provide care for all — no need to triage who gets life-saving care and who does not.
“But we are in crisis. Our health-care pie is not unlimited in size and so we are being forced into the awful position of deciding who gets care and who does not.”
He says my example of drunk drivers, drug addicts, smokers and alcoholics receiving care without judgment — as they should — “are well conceived, but they miss the mark, in my view. Never has there been a time when a pandemic of smokers with lung cancer or COPD, for example, have all presented at once, overwhelming the capacity of our hospitals and intensive-care units and crowding out the essential care of thousands of other patients.”
He agrees that it is morally and ethically reprehensible to deny care to anyone, since all humans have equal worth.
“Yet,” he argues, “by that same metric, is it not morally and ethically reprehensible to deny much-needed medical and surgical care to COVID-immunized patients in favour of care for those who, whatever their motivation, have refused to pick up a readily available tool to prevent their critical disease?”
Yes it is. This is a heart-wrenching, highly emotional discussion.
Les says “a triage system that doesn’t punish the responsibly vaccinated” should be implemented, and he thinks that instead of a vaccine passport, an immunity passport (based on being doubly-vaccinated or with proof of recent infection, as the Israelis do) could act as “a two-pronged prod to the unvaccinated to step up and receive this safe and highly effective vaccine.”
The triage system we have now is putting the unvaccinated ahead of needy children and others who have done what they can to keep others safe by being vaccinated. We’re likely too under the gun to figure this all out during this wave, but we have to get it right for the future.
Licia Corbella is a Postmedia columnist in Calgary.
THE GANG THAT COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT 'Rendering it useless': Alberta releases proof of vaccination QR code without an app to scan it
Author of the article:Kellen Taniguchi Publishing date:Oct 01, 2021 • 2 days ago • 2 minute read • 20 Comments
Kelly Gordon uses B.C.'s verification app to checks vaccination status at Romer's restaurant in Vancouver. PHOTO BY NICK PROCAYLO /Postmedia Article content
Albertans can now download their restriction exemption program QR code, however, it cannot be scanned yet
According to the provincial website, the AB COVID Records Verifier app will be launched to scan the codes soon.
“The UCP has had weeks to develop a secure vaccine passport system. Every day without one further risks public health, the personal information of Albertans and damage to our economy,” said Deron Bilous, NDP critic for economic development and innovation in a Friday news release.
The development of a QR code comes on the heels of the provincial government receiving criticism when it first launched its restriction exemption program card because it was too easy to edit and potentially falsify the document. Meanwhile, Manitoba, Quebec and B.C. have all introduced scannable QR codes for proof of vaccination and Saskatchewan launched its QR code system on Wednesday.
“There is no reason for delays from the UCP. Other jurisdictions have already moved forward with this and Alberta is falling behind. As a result, they’re downloading responsibility on to businesses in the middle of this crisis,” said Bilous. “We need leadership from the government. We need a simple, secure and scannable vaccine passport.”
Premier Jason Kenney said in a Facebook live session on Sept. 16 that a QR code would be available in the near future in addition to the wallet-size printable proof of vaccination document.
“We’re hoping that by early October, the current target day is Oct. 1, you’ll also be able to go on there and download an app, I should say there will be an app which you’ll be able to download and through that get a QR code on your smartphone or print out a QR code,” Kenney said.
He added the codes will be machine readable and show a person’s name and vaccination status.
Alberta’s NDP Opposition has been calling for a scannable vaccine passport since August and Friday’s news release calls the now available QR codes “useless.”
“On Friday, the government launched a QR code for proof of vaccination, but failed to provide the accompanying app to read the code, rendering it useless,” reads the release.
When the world actually solved an environmental crisis
If you haven’t heard about the ozone hole in years, that’s because scientists did a pretty good job saving us from ourselves.
In 2006, the Antarctic ozone hole was equal to the record single-day largest area of 11.4 million square miles reached on September 9, 2000.
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
In 1985, atmospheric scientists in Antarctica noticed something troubling. For decades, they’d been measuring the thickness of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, the layer of gas that deflects much of the sun’s radiation. Starting in the 1970s, it had started plummeting. By the mid-1980s, they observed that it was on track to be wiped out in the next few decades.
Their discovery was cause for worldwide alarm and unprecedented action. In short order, the international community marshaled its resources — scientific, economic, diplomatic — to mount a campaign to ban the chemical that caused the damage, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and to restore the ozone layer.
Fast-forward to today: The ozone is on the path to recovery, if not fully restored. That progress hasn’t been without setbacks. The ozone hole is shrinking on average, but some years are bad ones — the hole was notably larger in 2020, following a 2019 when it was unusually small. Researchers have also raised suspicions that the rate at which atmospheric CFCs are falling suggests not all signatories to a treaty banning new production of CFCs are abiding by the agreement. And there have been unintended consequences in phasing out CFCs with a different chemical that has hurt our fight against climate change (more on this below).
But the damage we wrought last century has been reversed. Even with the complications and caveats, the world’s response to the ozone crisis should be seen as an instructive, even inspiring, success story — one that can perhaps inform our response to the climate crisis.
That’s the thrust of this year’s Future of Life Award from the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit that studies how to reduce risks to our world. The 2021 award, handed out last month, went to three people who played a significant role in our triumph over the depletion of the ozone layer: atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon, geophysicist Joseph Farman, and Environmental Protection Agency official Stephen Andersen.
This year’s award harks back to a crisis that unnerved — and galvanized — humanity in the 1980s and ’90s. The ozone layer reduces how much radiation makes it to the surface of the Earth. Without it, sunshine would be significantly deadlier to life on the planet. The primary culprit for its thinning, researchers discovered, was CFCs, a chemical compound that was present in everything from aerosol cans to refrigerators to solvents. As CFCs degrade in the upper atmosphere, they can break down ozone.
Aqua Net, a beloved 1980s hairspray brand, was one of the products that was correlated to the ozone hole because of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, a chemical compound that was present in everything from aerosol cans to refrigerators. Aqua Net mousse Commercial
“Projections suggested that the ozone layer would collapse by 2050,” the Future of Life Institute’s Georgiana Gilgallon told me. “We’d have collapsing ecosystems, agriculture, genetic defects.” The sudden plunge in atmospheric ozone heralded a coming disaster.
But the world responded. With consumer boycotts, political action, a major international treaty called the Montreal Protocol, and a huge investment in new technologies to replace CFCs in all their commercial and industrial uses, new CFC production was brought effectively to a halt over the 1990s and early 2000s. It took a while to phase out existing devices that used CFCs, but CFC emissions have been steadily falling since the protocol went into effect.
“We see this as potentially the first instance in which humanity recognized and addressed a global catastrophic risk,” Gilgallon told me. There is still much to be done and some new problems to contend with, but measurements from the present day make it clear that the process of healing the ozone layer is well underway.
The ozone “hole,” explained
Ozone is a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms. (The oxygen we breathe is made up of just two.) There’s not much ozone floating around in the layer of atmosphere that we breathe — a good thing, since it’s actually a lung irritant and linked with respiratory disease.
But there’s a lot of it in the stratosphere (comparatively speaking, at least; it’s still only a tiny fraction of the overall air). It’s that layer of ozone that absorbs ultraviolet (UV) radiation, especially the specific wavelengths called UV-B.
UV-B radiation is what causes sunburns, and in high concentrations it causes more problems than that. It can lead to many kinds of cancer by damaging our DNA; most plants and animals also suffer when growing in a high-UV-radiation environment.
In the 1970s, researchers noticed that the ozone layer had started thinning, especially around the poles. (With the ozone layer constituting only about three in a million atoms in the stratosphere in the first place, “hole” is technically a misnomer — the “ozone hole” was really just an area where ozone levels had dropped by more than 30 percent in a decade.)
By the time the thinning of the ozone layer was measured, researchers Mario Molina and Sherry Rowland had already established the probable cause: CFCs.
CFCs were everywhere, and as far as everyone knew, they were the perfect chemical: nonreactive, cheap, and highly effective in a wide variety of manufacturing applications. They were building up in the atmosphere, but it was thought that since they were nonreactive, it couldn’t be a problem.
The problem was that CFCs break down in the upper atmosphere. And the chlorine in CFCs was actually reactive, binding with ozone to make oxygen and chlorine monoxide.
Molina and Rowland’s 1974 paper in Nature laying out the problem prompted discussion and debate, and environmental activists started pushing for change. But it didn’t move governments to coordinated international action. At the time, the exact implications of Molina and Rowland’s theory were hotly contested. Many researchers believed that ozone depletion would be a problem only on a time scale of centuries. There were some early worrying measurements that were dismissed as flukes.
What the measurements in the Antarctic taken a decade later showed definitively is that it was happening much, much faster than that. “Sometime around the late ’70s, it started dropping like a rock — [there] was more ozone depletion than Molina and Rowland had ever imagined,” Solomon said. From diagnosis to global action
The fight in the 1980s against the depletion of the ozone layer had several stages that might seem familiar to those trying to unite the world to combat other problems.
First, there was the challenge of determining that there was in fact a threat and that CFCs were the cause. The initial work there was done by Molina and Rowland. But from the 1985 measurements taken by Joseph Farman — a geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey — and his colleagues, it looked like the ozone layer was vanishing much faster than their models predicted.
Susan Solomon was the lead researcher on the team that figured out how the chlorine from CFCs was breaking down so much ozone. In 1986 and 1987, she led the National Ozone Expedition to Antarctica to collect the evidence that would confirm her theory. Scientists had originally thought that, while chlorine would interact with ozone, the process was naturally limited — after all, there weren’t that many atoms of chlorine loose.
Solomon and her team claimed that the process by which chlorine broke down ozone actually wasn’t as limited as initially thought and that the ozone breakdown could quickly spiral out of control: The chlorine monoxide that formed from chlorine’s interaction with ozone would then break down, releasing the chlorine atom to go break down more ozone.
“You can destroy hundreds of thousands of ozone molecules with one chlorine atom from a CFC molecule in the timescale that this stuff is in the stratosphere,” Solomon said.
The next stage of the fight was then convincing the world to do something about the problem. In 1986, UN negotiations began on a treaty to ban substances that reacted with ozone in the upper atmosphere, mainly CFCs. Stephen Andersen, at the time an official in the US Environmental Protection Agency, was a major figure in the negotiations. “He really made it happen,” the Future of Life Institute program director David Nicholson says
.
MIT Professor Mario Molina, left, with his wife, chemist Luisa Molina, after winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his research on the effects of man-made chemicals on the ozone layer. Molina was a co-recipient along with Frank “Sherry” Rowland. AFP via Getty Images
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was agreed upon and opened for signature in 1987. It went into force in 1989. Countries gradually began phasing out CFCs. Andersen’s team, Nicholson says, “systematically identified hundreds of solutions for phasing out CFCs from hundreds of industry sectors,” making it possible to shift manufacturing processes worldwide to chemicals that weren’t ozone-depleting.
Those chemicals in some cases have presented their own problems. For refrigerants, the world shifted to hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which endanger the ozone layer much less. Like the CFCs they replaced, though, HFCs are potent greenhouse gases — thousands of times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in our atmosphere. Twenty years ago, HFCs were an environmental step forward, allowing us to phase out CFCs. Today, policymakers and scientists are trying to phase out HFCs as well. Human ingenuity can solve our problems, but it can also create new ones as it does.
Falling consumption of CFCs (blue) and other ozone-depleting substances, which were also restricted by the Montreal Protocol in a worldwide effort to save the ozone layer. Our World In Data
And keeping the ozone intact buys us time in the fight against climate change. Yes, HFCs are a potent greenhouse gas. But CFCs contributed to global warming as well: They were powerful greenhouse gases in their own right, and by destroying the ozone layer, they contributed to warming by allowing more energy to reach the planet’s surface. One study found that ozone-depleting chemicals drove half of Arctic warming in the 20th century.
With that said, HFCs are still a big climate problem. In recent years, governments have been working to extend the hugely successful Montreal Protocol to phase them out too. It’s fair to say that, in some ways, the global fight against the ozone crisis was a complicated story, one that continues to be written.
But in other ways, it does offer some bracing clarity. The sheer speed with which the world went to work and enacted a global treaty to address a pressing environmental problem is, to contemporary eyes, downright bewildering. To a public accustomed to decades-long stalemates over climate policy, hearing how countries quickly lined up to sign an accord to save the planet may feel almost like a rebuke of our failures.
In many ways, the international community of the 1980s had an easier problem. CFCs were industrially useful, but there were substitutes; cost-effective substitutes for fossil fuels are coming into production now, decades into the climate crisis, but they certainly didn’t exist when we first started addressing it.
Politicians were more united in addressing the ozone layer than they’ve proven in addressing climate change. The Senate ratified the Montreal Protocol 83–0. Margaret Thatcher, not generally known for her friendliness to regulation, was a leader in the push for the Montreal Protocol and the effort to enable compliance by poor countries.
By contrast, politicians today (especially in the US) are fiercely divided over the proper government role in ending climate change, and the public is divided along partisan lines as well.
The picture we’re left with by the fight to heal the ozone layer is that specific individuals played a huge role in changing humanity’s trajectory but they did that mostly by enabling public activism, international diplomacy, and collective action. In the fight to improve the world, we can’t do without individuals and we can’t do without coordination mechanisms. But we should keep in mind how much we can do when we have both.
Saskatoon
Advocates shocked by Catholic list claiming $28M of 'in-kind' help for residential school survivors
CBC News has obtained a ledger revealing details of the Catholic Church's $25-million worth of in-kind compensation to residential school survivors. Critics say many items are designed to convert Indigenous people rather than allow them to restore their own culture and spirituality. (Gerald Herbert/The Associated Press)
Questions are being raised about the Catholic Church's claim it provided $28 million worth of "in-kind" compensation to residential school survivors.
CBC News has obtained the log detailing the in-kind claims for dozens of Canadian Catholic entities party to the landmark 2005 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA).
Survivors and advocates interviewed say they're shocked, as many of the listed services are nothing more than attempts to evangelize and convert Indigenous people.
The list includes bible-study programs, placement of priests and nuns in remote northern communities, services under the frequently used label of "religiosity" and religious-document translation.
"It's distressing to see this. This is ordinary church religious work repackaged as in-kind services and reconciliation. This is not legitimate," said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, a former judge and director of the University of British Columbia's Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre.
Some of the items include several hundred thousands of dollars for an Ottawa scholarship program for Indigenous students and support for a Regina drop-in centre for mainly Indigenous women and children.
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, a former Saskatchewan provincial court judge and director of UBC's Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, said the vast majority of $25 million claimed by the Catholic Church as an in-kind service to survivors is 'not legitimate.' (Mike McArthur/CBC)
But Turpel-Lafond and others say millions more are questionable and some contradict the spirit of reconciliation. The following contributions are among those made between 2007 and 2010, according to the log:
$696,000, by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith, for community work and presence in the Northwest Territories by religious sisters and fathers.
$600,000, by the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of James Bay, for community work and presence by persons ministering in three communities in northern Ontario, in addition to work that can be classified as "religiosity."
$540,000, by the Sisters of Instruction of the Child Jesus, for community work and presence in First Nations reserves and urban environments in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and B.C. by religious sisters. A variety of services was offered in addition to work that can be classified as "religiosity."
$465,150, by Les Oeuvres Oblates de l'Ontario, for community work and presence by pastors.
$360,000, by Les Résidences Oblates de Québec, for translation of Jewish and Christian scriptures into Innu.
$263,900, by the Missionary Oblates of Grandin, for a biblical studies program in Alberta; university courses offered by a team that explore culture and faith, God's love, social justice, women in scripture, sexuality, hope, healing, etc.
$256,800, by OMI St. Peter's Province, for community work and presence in two Mi'kmaq communities in Nova Scotia by a pastor and one assistant.
When asked for comment, Regina-based lawyer James Ehmann, who has represented various Catholic entities in court matters over the years, said he can no longer speak for them. The corporation formed by the churches to oversee the 2005 deal has since been dissolved.
Ehmann noted in an email that the Catholic Church's claims were evaluated by a committee that included members from Catholic entities, the federal government and the Assembly of First Nations. It's unclear whether that committee approved the items in the document obtained by CBC News.
Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation elder A.J. Felix says the Catholic Church and other groups should disclose every document in their possession related to the residential school system immediately. He says Indigenous people should be given the resources to heal themselves. (Jason Warick/CBC)
Residential school survivor and Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation Elder A.J. Felix said these claims should have been flagged and rejected — and Catholic officials should have known it was wrong to even make them.
"Because of the misery that we had, the hardship that we had, the violence that we experienced, the sadness and the deaths that we went through, somebody has to be accountable," Felix said.
The in-kind services were one of three promises made by the Catholic Church entities in the IRSSA. They also promised to give "best efforts" to raise $25 million for support programs, though stopped after raising less than $4 million, and they promised to contribute a lump $29-million cash payment, but came up millions short.
The Church has repeatedly declined to provide details of the $25-million promise of in-kind services, other than to state publicly that the amount was exceeded.
Earlier this week, bishops from across Canada issued an apology to residential school survivors and promised a renewed $30-million fundraising campaign to provide support programs and other initiatives.
Felix, Turpel-Lafond and others say while it appeared the Catholic Church was taking some steps forward, the latest revelations show the truth is still being hidden — and those gestures are not enough.
"We've had apologies before. If it took money to destroy us, to destroy our way of life, it's going to take money to rebuild what we've lost. Our plan is to regain what we lost," Felix said.
While leading Alberta's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Premier Jason Kenney has encountered opposition, including protestors claiming their freedoms have been violated. (Jason Franson, Todd Korol)
Many who oppose COVID vaccine passports adamantly insist such programs infringe upon rights and freedoms — often citing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It has been mentioned again and again, in Alberta and across the country, as protestors opposed to vaccine passports yelled abuse at health-care workers in front of hospitals, marched in the streets by the thousands, likened mandates to the horrors suffered by Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and harassed staff at participating businesses until some temporarily closed.
But they'd likely face tough odds if they tried to use the charter to challenge vaccine passports — except, perhaps, in rare and specific circumstances, some legal experts say.
Meanwhile, governments that delayed passports and stricter health measures to keep from infringing upon our rights may be vulnerable to possible — albeit improbable — challenges that inaction on COVID-19 violated those rights, instead.
Here's a look at how the charter might help or hinder legal arguments for both sides of the debate.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms — heavily promoted by then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau — was eventually entrenched into the Canadian Constitution in 1982, and protects many rights and civil liberties.
But there's a common misunderstanding of how the charter works, says Carissima Mathen, a professor of law at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the Constitution.
The charter does not apply to everything that happens in Canada.
It applies only to governments, their agents and their laws.
Canada reached a historic milestone Nov. 5, 1981, with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and every province but Quebec agreeing on ways to give the nation an independent constitution embracing a charter of rights and an amending formula. (Ron Poling/The Canadian Press)
"[The charter] is a way to hold the state accountable for laws and decisions that may be oppressive," Mathen said.
This means charter challenges to a vaccine mandate could apply only if that mandate was implemented by the state, and only government employees can bring charter challenges directly against their employers.
In other words, if a business required employees to get vaccinated because it was following a government rule, the employees couldn't challenge the company directly under the charter — they'd have to go after the government for its policy.
But this stipulation has not stopped the charter from being cited, at times indiscriminately, by protestors. And some sections come up more often than others.
Life, liberty and security of the person
The charter's Section 7 has been heavily referenced by some in their challenge against vaccine mandates.
It protects the right to life, liberty and security of the person.
However, it includes a critical, and seemingly overlooked, limitation.
A valid claim under Section 7 can be made only if it can be proven that the life, liberty or security of the person was violated in a way that contravenes principles of fundamental justice, says Jennifer Koshan, a professor in the faculty of law at the University of Calgary.
"If a person was going to try to make a claim that a vaccine passport violated their freedom, violated their liberty, they would have to show that that was done in a way that was arbitrary, or that went too far," Koshan said.
With the charter's application to the state in mind, how would Section 7 fare against vaccine mandates?
Let's look at some examples in Alberta.
Proof of vaccination in Alberta
The UCP government's restrictions exemption program began Sept. 20. It offers non-essential businesses like restaurants a choice: opt in, ask patrons for proof of vaccination, and duck health restrictions — or opt out, and adhere to measures such as capacity limits and curfews.
The City of Calgary, on the other hand, implemented its own vaccine passport bylaw on Sept. 23 that legally requires non-essential businesses to ask patrons for proof of vaccination.
'A lot of businesses felt that leaving it up to them, making it sound like they were the ones making the decision, was leaving them open to belligerent and angry people. Now they can say it's a city bylaw, they have no choice,' Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said about the bylaw. (Mike Symington/CBC)
In these instances, patrons of businesses enforcing mandates could argue their liberty is being infringed upon by the government policies under the charter — but it would be unlikely to amount to a violation of the principles of fundamental justice, Koshan says.
If mandates do not require that the employees of participating businesses be vaccinated — such as those under Alberta's restrictions exemption program and Calgary's vaccine passport bylaw — there is nothing for staff to challenge under the charter.
And if a private employer were to independently opt to require its employees to be vaccinated, it would not be an action taken by the state — and so the charter would not apply there, either.
Coercion and occupation
Challenges that would be more viable under the charter could be levied at government employers such as Alberta Health Services and the City of Calgary, which have mandated employees be fully vaccinated by Oct. 31, 2021.
But as with all vaccine mandates in Canada, these employees aren't being forced to get the jab — they are still being presented with a choice.
They can choose to work somewhere else.
"The question would be whether that's still a form of coercion, even if it's indirect," Mathen said.
"You might be able to get over that hurdle and show that the state is putting pressure on you to make a certain kind of decision."
Images of purported firefighters and police officers linking arms outside of City Hall circulated online after an anti-vaccination demonstration on Sept. 7. Fire Chief Steve Dongworth later said the department was 'completely embarrassed and ashamed.' (@JaneQCitizen/Twitter)
But under Section 7 alone, Mathen says, this would still likely not be enough for vaccine-mandated employees to be successful.
The courts have been very clear that it does not include a right to a specific occupation, she said.
"You'd have to make a broader argument that is unrelated to the mere fact that you want to work in a particular place," Mathen said.
"The one other possible right I would see that as being most implicated by a vaccine mandate could be an equality argument."
Equality rights under the charter
The equality rights protected under the charter's Section 15 emphasize the right to be free of discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
In order to argue that your rights under the charter's equality guarantees have been violated, a person would have to show a link between the mandate and one of these personal characteristics, Mathen said.
"It can't just be you're being treated differently from other people because you don't want to get vaccinated," she said.
In Montreal, thousands of people gathered on Aug. 28 protesting public health measures, including the province's vaccination passport system and mandatory vaccines for health-care workers. (Jean-Claude Taliana/CBC)
However, Alberta's restrictions exemption program and Calgary's bylaw both seem to accommodate potential disability challenges by accepting documentation of a medical exemption for vaccines.
"I also think that raising general concerns about equity would be difficult because, you know, [vaccines are] widely available, they're free," Mathen said.
"The state has made a lot of efforts, I think, to ensure access to the vaccine as much as possible."
But another essential component of the charter would present yet another hurdle to clear.
Even rights and freedoms under Section 15 are not absolute — and are likely to be constrained when pitted against the broader interests of society.
Reasonable limits
The charter's Section 1 states that all of its rights and freedoms are subject to reasonable limits.
Although the charter's purpose is to protect the individual from the majority's wishes in many circumstances, Mathen says this gets analyzed differently when upholding individual charter rights would present a clear risk to public health.
And while people have the right to behave as though COVID isn't a big deal for themselves, Mathen said, they don't have the right to behave as though it isn't a big deal for everyone else.
"In the case of vaccine mandates by state employers, there'd be pretty strong protection for those decisions … given everything we've gone through," Mathen said.
"With all of the evidence we have about the harms of COVID … and the particular challenges posed by [the delta variant], I would think that the balance would probably be on the side of [upholding mandates as] a reasonable limit."
For the fourth day in a row, hundreds gathered outside Calgary's McDougall Centre on Aug. 2 to protest the Alberta government's decision to largely drop health restrictions for COVID-19. (Julie Debeljak/CBC)
Indeed, Alberta is now well-versed in the harms of COVID and challenges of delta.
The province currently accounts for almost half the active cases in Canada, despite only having about one-tenth of the nation's total population.
And when considering the landscape of COVID in Alberta now — and what led to this point — a different question emerges about the charter and its purpose to hold governments accountable.
The province's COVID inaction
When Alberta dropped virtually all health restrictions on July 1, reported cases of COVID-19 in Alberta soon skyrocketed.
A wave of hospitalizations and delayed surgeries followed. And on Sept. 23, Alberta Health Services CEO Verna Yiu said the reason ICU beds have remained available at all is because each day enough are vacated by the dead.
In fact, it was reported on Sept. 28 that Albertans are dying from COVID-19 at more than three times the average Canadian rate.
As Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, admitted in a Zoom conference with Primary Care Network Physicians on Sept. 13, the province is in crisis — and it's because the provincial government did not maintain health restrictions that could have kept its citizens safe.
WATCH | Number of ICU patients the highest in the province's history
Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services, says there are 310 Albertans in ICU, of which 226 patients have COVID-19. Yiu says it's tragic that they can only keep pace with ICU admissions because some have passed away. 1:18
According to the federal government, under the charter's Section 7, the right to life can be engaged when state action imposes death or an increased risk of death, either directly or indirectly.
Security of the person, meanwhile, can be engaged when state action has the likely effect of seriously impairing a person's physical health.
Could those who became seriously ill during COVID's unfettered fourth wave — or whose surgeries were delayed, or whose family members died — challenge the state under Section 7?
"That's a very interesting question, and it really gets to the essence of how we perceive our rights and freedoms in Canadian society," Koshan said.
Vriend vs. Alberta
It deviates, Koshan says, from the traditional view that rights and freedoms are there to protect us from government action that could infringe on them.
But sometimes, government inaction can violate rights and freedoms. An examplehappened in Alberta during the 1990s, when sexual orientation was not protected in human rights legislation.
Back then, if someone was discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation — say, fired from their job— they were not able to bring forward a human rights complaint, Koshan says.
WATCH | April 2, 1998: Discrimination based on sexual orientation ruled illegal
After college instructor Delwin Vriend was fired for being gay, he successfully sued the Province of Alberta, a case that set a precedent for sexual orientation rights in Canada. 1:40
"There was a case that went to the Supreme Court of Canada called Vriend in 1998, which decided that in the circumstances of that case, government inaction did amount to a breach of the equality rights of the charter," Koshan said.
The argument this time, Koshan said, could be that the government's inaction resulted in deprivations of security of the person and, in some cases, their right to life.
So, let's lastly review some of the timeline of the government's response to Alberta's fourth wave.
Section 7 and a life-and-death crisis
The province lifted most public health restrictions on July 1, after more than 70 per cent of eligible Albertans received their first dose of vaccine.
Some doctors cautioned at the time that reopening was risky, and the plan had been drafted before the arrival of the highly transmissible delta variant.
By the end of July, health and infectious disease experts began raising the alarm that COVID was already spreading faster in Alberta than at the peak of its third wave.
Hinshaw told the media on Sept. 15 that the government began to realize in early August that its reopening plan — which hinged on the decoupling of COVID cases and hospitalizations — wasn't working.
Yet that realization was followed by a weeks-long disappearance from public pandemic updates by Premier Jason Kenney, then health minister Tyler Shandro and Hinshaw until a collective COVID announcement on Sept. 3 — over a week after new daily cases climbed past 1,000.
Resisting mounting pressure to implement a vaccine passport system, Kenney instead offered unvaccinated Albertans a $100 incentive to get the shot, and reintroduced some mandatory masking restrictions and a liquor curfew.
Amid a raging fourth wave and looming ICU bed shortages by Sept. 15, Kenney declared a state of public health emergency and announced the restrictions exemption program.
Both the Canadian Medical Association and the Alberta Medical Association issued calls on Sept. 29 for short lockdowns to protect the province's crumbling health-care system.
Though members of the Canadian Armed Forces and Canadian Red Cross will be sent to assist Alberta's hospitals, the government is not currently considering additional health measures, Kenney said Sept. 30.
The Canadian Press's Dean Bennett asked why Kenney still feels he has the luxury of time and isn't giving doctors the lockdown they're asking for.
"The crisis that we are dealing with comes overwhelmingly from the unvaccinated population," Kenney said.
"We need to address that, which is what the current measures seek to do. We will take additional action if it is necessary."
Drawing a link
Like claims against vaccine mandates, pursuing a charter claim against the province would have its challenges.
For one thing, courts have historically been more reluctant to find charter breaches because governments have done too little, rather than too much, Koshan says.
For another, it would have to be proven that the rights protected under Section 7 were violated in a way that contravenes principles of fundamental justice.
"I find it an intriguing argument, but I'm doubtful that the courts would go there," Mathen said.
And a third challenge would likely be an evidentiary one, Koshan said.
"That comes down to a question of whether you would have enough scientific evidence, as well as causal evidence, to draw a link between the inaction and the harms that were ultimately done," she said.
And if that link could be drawn?
"There's certainly some argument to be made," Koshan said, "if governments … aren't taking proper actions to protect their populations."
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69944137/GettyImages_814989712_copy.0.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22875389/Screen_Shot_2021_09_24_at_12.53.28_copy.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22875867/allyears_final.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22875445/GettyImages_1228950745_copy.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22890893/Screen_Shot_2021_09_30_at_10.08.58_AM.png)
