Internet trends suggest COVID-19 spurred a return to earlier values and activities

Mentions of sourdough, sacrifice and death all surged as the pandemic took hold

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

Research News

 

IMAGE: UCLA PROFESSOR PATRICIA GREENFIELD view more 

CREDIT: ANTHONY ELGORT

American values, attitudes and activities have changed dramatically during COVID-19, according to a new study of online behavior.

Researchers from UCLA and Harvard University analyzed how two types of internet activity changed in the U.S. for 10 weeks before and 10 weeks after March 13, 2020 -- the date then-President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency. One was Google searches; the other was the phrasing of more than a half-billion words and phrases posted on Twitter, blogs and internet forums.

The study is the lead research article in a special issue of the journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies dedicated to the pandemic.

Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and senior author of the research, said the study determined that the pandemic inspired a resurgence of community-oriented values, with people thinking more about supporting one another. Use of the word "help" on Twitter increased by 37% in the period after March 13, while use of the word "share" increased by 24%.

Thinking about others

The research also found that use of the word "sacrifice" more than doubled on Twitter from before the pandemic to the period after March 13.

"'Sacrifice' was a complete nonstarter in U.S. culture before COVID," Greenfield said.

The change, the authors wrote, signified that Americans were placing more value on the welfare of others -- even if it meant putting their own lives at risk. One example was people's willingness to participate in the large Black Lives Matter demonstrations, even in the midst of a pandemic, said Noah Evers, a Harvard undergraduate psychology major and the study's lead author.

At the same time, there was strong evidence of the nation's collective mindset returning to a more rural form of society. The use of words referring to basic needs for food, clothing and shelter increased significantly across Google searches, Twitter, internet forums and blogs. For instance, Google searches increased by 344% for "grow vegetables" and by 207% for "sewing machine," while Twitter mentions of "Home Depot" increased by 266%.

Drawing conclusions about shifting psychology from search engine and social media activity might seem to be a stretch, but Greenfield said there are good reasons to put stock in the findings. For one thing, Greenfield said, "language provides a window into people's concerns, values and behavior." In addition, the same types of shifts were evident in both types of internet activity the authors studied.

Internet activity also revealed a dramatic increase in people's concerns about mortality. After March 13, when the death toll began increasing dramatically, search activity for the word "survive" increased by 47%, for "cemeteries" by 41%, for "bury" by 23% and for "death" by 21%.

And during the 10 weeks after Trump's emergency declaration, there were 115% more mentions on Twitter of the phrase "fear of death" than in the 10 weeks before.

"Death went from something taboo to something real and inevitable," Evers said, adding that he frequently discussed plans for death with his family for the first time during that period.

Survival mindset

Of all the words the authors analyzed, the one whose usage increased the most during the pandemic was "sourdough," as baking bread became a trendy pastime while people were instructed to stay at home.

Google searches for "sourdough" increased by 384% after the pandemic began, and Twitter mentions shot up by 460%. "Baking bread" surged as well: Google searches for the phrase increased by 265%, and Twitter mentions rose 354%.

"Given that bread is considered the most basic food, the fact that increases in 'sourdough' and 'baking bread' were so large across Google searches and social media suggests that the survival motive is an important factor in shifting values and activities during the pandemic," Greenfield said.

Greenfield said the psychological and behavioral changes remind her of social interactions she observed in an isolated Mayan village in Chiapas, Mexico, that she has studied since 1969. When she began her work there, life expectancy was very low, approximately 35% of children died before age 4 and basic resources like food were scarce.

"Death was very much a part of life," she said. "People would go to the cemetery every week to put food and drink on family graves and would look after one another," she said. "With greater focus on mortality and helping others, we're moving in that direction.

"It's remarkable how quickly these changes have occurred in the United States during the pandemic. As mortality rose during the pandemic and people lost their jobs, the lifestyles of 21st century America began, in many fundamental ways, to increasingly resemble those of that Maya village."

How lasting will the changes be? Greenfield expects the behavioral trends will likely reverse as the threat from COVID-19 recedes and Americans feel more prosperous and safer. However, based on the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, she predicts the changes will be more enduring for American teenagers and people in their 20s, whose values are more likely to be shaped by the pandemic.

Said Evers: "Perhaps this means that today's youth will, in the future, create a country more attuned to sharing and helping others, or just that baking sourdough bread will always have a special place in our hearts."

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The study was a family affair: Evers conceived the idea and methodology before developing it with Greenfield, his grandmother. The paper's co-author is Gabriel Evers, Noah's younger brother, a high school student at Crossroads School in Santa Monica who is spending the year at Mulgrave School in Vancouver, British Columbia. The brothers carried out the data analysis of Google Trends and social media; this is the second publication on which Noah Evers has collaborated with Greenfield.

 ASIATIC MODE OF PRODUCTION PRE DATES CAPITALISM

Like it or not, history shows that taxes and bureaucracy are cornerstones of democracy

Statistical analysis of 30-premodern societies links economic systems and democracy--and yields insights for today

FIELD MUSEUM

Research News

 

IMAGE: XU XIANQIN, VICE-MINISTER OF RITES, OVERSEEING THE IMPERIAL CIVIL SERVICE EXAM CIRCA 1587, DURING THE MING DYNASTY. view more 

CREDIT: 余壬、吳鉞描繪，徐顯卿題詠, PUBLIC DOMAIN, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The media has been rife with stories about democracy in decline: the recent coup in Myanmar, the ascent of strongman Narendra Modi in India, and of course ex-President Trump's attempts to overturn the U.S. presidential election--all of which raise alarms about the current status of democracies worldwide. Such threats to the voices of the people are often attributed to the excesses of individual leaders. But while leadership is certainly important, over the past decade, as established democracies like Venezuela and Turkey fell and others slid toward greater authoritarianism, political scientists and pundits have largely overlooked a key factor: how governments are funded. In a new study in the journal Current Anthropology, a team of anthropologists assembled data on 30 pre-modern societies, and conducted a quantitative analysis of the features and durability of "good governance"--that is, receptiveness to citizen voice, provision of goods and services, and limited concentration of wealth and power. The results showed that societies based on a broad, equitable, well-managed tax system and functioning bureaucracies were statistically more likely to have political institutions that were more open to public input and more sensitive to the well-being of the populace.

For more than a century, the accepted textbook account of democracy was that it was peculiarly modern, a purely Western phenomenon born of the "commercial restlessness" of European nations, with older agrarian/rural states viewed as static and authoritarian. However, the current crises of democratic "backsliding" have prompted a deeper dive by anthropologists and political historians into the core features, origins, and sustainability of modern democracy.

"The decline we are seeing today in many democratic governments is difficult to get a handle on," says Richard Blanton, professor emeritus at Purdue University, and the study's lead author. "In a sense, there's a fundamental tension at the heart of every democracy: the greater good versus individual self-interest. We wanted to identify the factors that motivate both leaders and citizens to maintain more egalitarian systems, given the potential of power to corrupt. As archaeologists, we know that the past always has lessons for the present." Blanton and his co-authors assembled data on 30 pre-modern societies, broke them down into numerically coded variables, and generated statistically significant scores for "good government" measures--public goods (like transportation infrastructure, wider access to water, and food security), bureaucratization (citizen voice, equitable taxation, official accountability), and controls over authorities (impeachment ability, limits on leaders' control of resources, institutions that checked each other's clout). The researchers, including Gary Feinman of the Field Museum in Chicago, Lane Fargher of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional-Unidad in Mérida, Mexico, and Stephen Kowalewski of the University of Georgia, were initially surprised by the results. The case studies covered thousands of years of human history and spanned the globe, from the Venetian Republic (1290 to 1600) to the early-mid Ming Dynasty (15th century) to the Asante Kingdom in West Africa (1800 to 1873), but despite the great diversity of geographical, cultural, historical, and social contexts, there was a positive correlation between the three metrics. Capable bureaucracies, public goods, and limits on rulers tended to occur together in relatively good governments, and were largely absent in more autocratic regimes. As Blanton says, "although what we call good governments were not common--only 27% of our examples had relatively high scores--it's clear that it is both a global and trans-historical social process that existed well before Western history and influence." This unexpected finding led the authors to reconsider the broader and causal factors that shape democracy.

CAPTION

Ming Emperor Xianzong (reigned 1464 - 1487) presiding over the Chinese Lantern Festival.

CREDIT

Imperial Ming Court, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Today we tend to equate democracy with elections, but electoral democracies are a fairly recent phenomenon. They are not the only way to assess the voice of citizens, and elections alone are not sufficient to ensure the public's voice in government, or that personal power of leaders is checked. "The key elements of democracies are not elections themselves," says the Field Museum's Gary Feinman, "but rather features like the rule of law, checks and balances on official power, and tools to assess the will of the governed."

Economics are key, the authors argue. Evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that authoritarian regimes have broad discretion over a nation's wealth, for both personal and political gain. In the study's more authoritarian examples, there were few limits on self-serving leaders, and little incentive to ensure equitable distribution of public goods, or to monitor government administration. "It's no coincidence that the legend of Robin Hood arose in 14th century England," says Feinman, "where our coding identified ill-conceived and oppressive taxing schemes that diverted wealth into private hands." Conversely, the statistical models show that the more democratic systems were marked by broadly based tax revenues, which were responsibly managed by governments. In short, taxpayers generally comply if they see that the government is meeting expectations, and government authorities are incentivized to ensure that revenues will be used for the public good, and not for private gain.

In the United States, these realities were recognized during the founding of our country and that has contributed to the relative longevity of our democracy, Feinman observes. "James Madison put checks and balances in the Constitution because the Founders knew they could not rely on the virtue of leaders alone. One of the key changes in transforming the Articles of Confederation into the Constitution was to give the federal government a stronger foundation to raise funds."

This also underlines the authors' point that leaders, whether virtuous or selfish, are less important than the economic foundations of government, provisioning of public goods/services, and the bureaucratic institutions needed for both. "Look at Iraq after Saddam Hussein," says Feinman. "You could institute voting, and power-sharing agreements, but without an equitable means of financing and provisioning, it didn't matter how much shifting of leaders occurred. The system failed." Likewise, although a majority of people in the U.S. and abroad see Donald Trump as a threat to American democracy and governance, the threats were four decades in the making, with the increasing inequity of the tax base, the devaluing of labor, the lack of infrastructure and public goods funding. "The market fundamentalism that was ushered in with President Reagan, Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s encouraged people to pursue financial self-interest with no restraint or regulation. Cutting taxes on the wealthy and starving government undermines democracy," says Feinman.

Like modern democracies, good governments have always been fragile and hard to maintain. Across time, neither monarchies nor democracies guaranteed good governance nor excluded its possibility. Rather, the main causal factor was the way that governance was fiscally funded. Above all, the authors of this article emphasize that politics and economics cannot be decoupled in understanding government quality. Nor can we assess by ideologies alone. Rather, we must look at the practice of governance and how it affects people. "Functioning bureaucracy and broad-based, equitable taxation are not stumbling blocks to good governance, as many on both the left and right have argued for years," says Blanton. "Rather, as our historical analysis illustrates, they are key legs of the stool."

For modern-day America and other faltering democracies, the implication is that the global turn toward market fundamentalism 40 years ago, which included reduced taxation rates and lowered values on labor, is likely a key cause of democratic backsliding over the same era. As Feinman notes, "in 1936 Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that 'political equality... [is] meaningless in the face of economic inequality.' But in fact, extreme economic inequality and the monopolization of resources required to fund government may render political equality unsustainable."

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THE NEW COMMONS

Deep seabed mining must benefit all humankind

Policy brief 'A comprehensive approach to the payment mechanism for deep seabed mining'

INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES E.V. (IASS)

Research News

As investors set their sights on the mineral resources of the deep seabed, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) is developing regulations that will govern their future exploration and possible exploitation. A new IASS Policy Brief, published in cooperation with the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), presents three recommendations to ensure that future deep seabed mining would be to the common benefit all humankind, as required by international law.

The ecosystems of the deep ocean are complex and provide a wide range of benefits to humankind. Oceans soak up carbon dioxide and act as a natural buffer to global warming in addition to regulating the climate and serving as an important source of food. Yet our knowledge of these vast and remote regions is limited. The authors of this new IASS Policy Brief call on policymakers to adopt a highly cautious and considered approach before approving potentially harmful activities such as deep seabed mining. All potential costs and risks to living and future generations must be considered, the authors argue.

The International Seabed Authority is currently developing regulations to govern the exploration and exploitation of the mineral resources of the international seabed (known as "the Area"). This governance framework will include a so-called 'financial mechanism' for the distribution of any benefits that might arise from seafloor mineral exploitation, as required by the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The current proposal for this mechanism focuses substantially on the financial burden facing contractors and fails to adequately consider the potential environmental and socio-economic harms.

The IASS Policy Brief "A Comprehensive Approach to the Payment Mechanism for Deep Seabed Mining" offers three messages to guide the development of the financial mechanism towards a more sustainable outcome and ensure that any revenues from deep-sea mining are managed on behalf of humankind as a whole:

1) Reflect the risks to the deep-sea environment

The deep ocean is a complex environment that provides numerous ecosystem services. A holistic accounting system based on true cost and natural wealth is needed to capture impacts on ecosystem resilience and identify any potential financial benefits. The financial mechanism should reflect all costs and risks associated with mining in the Area.

2) Be inclusive of stakeholder interests

The payment regime must be designed with foresight and be sufficiently responsive to the concerns and priorities of diverse stakeholders, including indigenous and civil society actors as well as future generations.

3) Deliver optimal returns to Humankind

The payment regime needs to be designed with the interests of Humankind, and in particular of developing countries rather than contractors at its centre. Ensuring optimal returns requires a financial model that delivers best possible cost structures and timing.

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Publication: Thiele T., Damian H.-P., Singh P.: A Comprehensive Approach to the Payment Mechanism for Deep Seabed Mining, IASS Policy Brief (January 2021), Potsdam, DOI: 10.48440/iass.2021.004

Scientific contact: Thorsten Thiele
Phone: +49 331 28822 360
Mail: torsten.thiele@iass-potsdam.de

For further inquiries: Sabine Letz
Press & Communications
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)
Phone: +49 331 288 22 479

The distribution of vertebrate animals redefines temperate and cold climate regions

UMEA UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: CLIMATE REGIONS IN THE WORLD view more 

CREDIT: ICELAB AT UMEÅ UNIVERSITY

The distribution of vegetation is routinely used to classify climate regions worldwide, yet whether these regions are relevant to other organisms is unknown. Umeå researchers have established climate regions based on vertebrate species' distributions in a new study published in eLife. They found that while high-energy climate regions are similar across vertebrate and plant groups, there are large differences in temperate and cold climates.

Climate determines how life organises across the world. Understanding which climatic conditions drive important changes in ecosystems is crucial to understanding and predicting how life functions and evolves.

Human well-being critically depends on the vertebrate diversity, and yet we don't know enough about the climates that promote the organisation of these species. We know for instance that dry environments promote the generation of deserts, and humid and hot environments allow evergreen forests to thrive. But what conditions drive the distribution of vertebrates like mammals, frogs, birds and more?

"To fill this gap, we studied the climates driving the organisation of vertebrates on Earth. We developed a network-based approach that connects species to their preferred climatic conditions. Then, we searched for climatic conditions preferred by similar vertebrate species," explains main author Joaquín Calatayud former post doc at Integrated Science Lab, Umeå University, and today working at King Juan Carlos University in Spain.

With this approach, the authors presented the climate regions that define the distribution of vertebrates. Climates with high-energy, such as deserts, tropical savannas, and steppes, were found to be similar across different groups of vertebrates and plants. This was not the case for temperate and cold climates. Regions characterized by those climates differed across all groups. For instance, warm-blooded birds and mammals define regions of polar climates that are not observed in the case of cold-blooded amphibians and reptiles. This suggests that inhabiting these climates requires possessing specific climatic adaptations that have not appeared in all groups.

"Our results indicate that specific climate classifications are required to study the ecology, evolution, and conservation of specific groups of species," says Joaquín Calatayud.

This study can build the basis for a better understanding of climate-driven ecological and evolutionary processes, leading to better conservation strategies, the authors say.

"Do ecosystem functions or evolutionary processes vary among climate regions? Do climatic regions hold a similar conservation status? These are some of the questions that our results could help to answer."

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Original article: Joaquín Calatayud, Magnus Neuman, Alexis Rojas, Anton Eriksson, Martin Rosvall: Regularities in species' niches reveal the world's climate regions. eLife 2021 (10:e58397). DOI: 10.7554/eLife.58397

Climate change concern unaffected by pandemic, study shows

COVID-19 has not made people any less concerned about climate change -- despite the pandemic disrupting and dominating many aspects of their lives, a study suggests

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

Research News

 

Covid-19 has not made people any less concerned about climate change - despite the pandemic disrupting and dominating many aspects of their lives, a study suggests.

Over a period of 14 months - including the first three months of the Covid-19 lockdown - neither concern about climate change nor belief in the severity of the problem declined in the UK, the research found.

Researchers compared responses to the pandemic with the financial crisis of 2008 to better understand how worries and priorities can change in a crisis.

In contrast to the economic collapse of 2008, which led to reduced concern with environmental issues, the pandemic has not decreased people's belief in the severity of climate change.

The findings shed light on how a concept called the finite pool of worry applies to climate change. The theory proposes that there are only so many things a person can care about, and when a major crisis happens, some concerns are replaced by others. However, in this case climate change was not replaced by other issues, researchers say

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh surveyed 1,858 people in the UK in April 2019 and asked the same questions again in June 2020.

The survey included five questions to gauge people's beliefs about the reality of climate change, and four about how severe they think it is.

The results showed only small shifts in public opinion. Participants' answers to four of the five questions about the reality of human-caused climate change showed slightly increased concern since the onset of the pandemic.

Only one of the four questions about the seriousness of climate change showed a slight reduction, while the other responses showed no marked change in views.

The results suggest that climate change may now be a permanent part of people's concerns, the researchers say.

Dr Darrick Evensen, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Science, said: "Following the financial crisis, it seemed that climate change was one thing that gave, and most people saw it as less of a problem. We are not seeing that same crowding out of climate change as an issue of concern now. This means heightened societal attention to climate change is here to stay."

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The study is published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2018936118

This study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Unconventional Hydrocarbons in the UK Energy System Programme.

It was carried out in partnership with the Universities of Exeter, Bath, Heriot-Watt and Stirling.

For further information, please contact: Joanne Morrison, Press and PR Office, tel +44 131 651 4266, joanne.morrison@ed.ac.uk

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are n

 

Unexpected decrease in ammonia emissions due to COVID-19 lockdowns

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

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IMAGE: CELEBRATION OF SPRING FESTIVAL IN CHINA. view more 

CREDIT: ZHENG LIN

Most Chinese working in the cities return to work today after a 7-day public holiday of Spring Festival. The annual Spring Festival, which also marks the start of Chinese New Year, traditionally begins with the second new moon following the winter solstice, usually in January or February. Like westerners on Thanksgiving and Christmas, people across China return to their hometown to reunite with family and friends. However, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 last year halted the largest holiday mobilization in the world. In response to the crisis, in late 2019, local governments launched lockdowns and behavior restrictions that reduced short-term economic and social activity. Despite the negative aspects of the pandemic, reduced human activity provided a unique opportunity for atmospheric scientists to study the impact of an unprecedented intervention on air quality.

COVID-19 lockdowns have reduced carbon dioxides, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides, all byproducts of fuel combustion used in transportation and manufacturing. These gases are closely linked to human activity, so not surprisingly, their atmospheric concentration responds quickly to economic change. Studies are showing significantly reduced airborne ammonia as well, despite the believed-to-be strong link to agricultural sources, especially in rural areas.

"We don't think this finding is surprising as the major source of ammonia in urban Beijing was found to be combustion sources rather than agricultural emissions," says atmospheric scientist Dr. Yuepeng Pan of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Still, some researchers are startled by the substantial decrease of ammonia amid lockdowns, given that idle agricultural activities during Spring Festival holidays typically reduce ammonia levels. In an earlier study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, Dr. Pan and his group tracked and corrected isotopic signatures of ammonia sources with updated active sampling. They found that that non-agricultural emissions contributed to 66% of ammonia in urban Beijing.

While debate continues regarding ammonia sources in the urban atmosphere, the lockdowns that canceled Spring Festival celebrations provided an unprecedented opportunity to check whether fossil fuel combustion is a major source of ammonia in the air within urban regions. Ideally, relatively low ammonia concentrations should be observed if vehicular emissions are reduced due to travel restrictions during the Spring Festival.

"In addition to nitrogen isotopic evidence, the new finding in lockdowns offers additional insight for the prioritization of future clean air actions on ammonia reduction," said Dr. Pan. However, quantifying this unique scenario remains challenging as meteorological processes may mask the effective change in observed ammonia concentrations.

Pan and his collaborators introduced machine learning algorithms to models that separated these meteorological influences. They confirmed that the actual atmospheric ammonia concentration dropped to a new minimum during the 2020 Spring Festival at both urban (Beijing) and rural (Xianghe) sites. In a scenario analysis without lockdowns, ammonia concentration calculations were 39.8% and 24.6% higher than the observed values in 2020 at urban and rural sites, respectively. Their recent findings are published in Atmospheric Research.

"Future control strategies should consider the emissions of ammonia from the transportation, industrial and residential sectors, considering that agricultural emissions are minor in cold seasons." remarked Pan.

The significant difference between the two sites indicates a larger reduction of ammonia emissions in urban areas than rural areas due to lockdown measures of COVID-19 which have reduced human activity.

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The ‘safe bets’ and ‘wild cards’ needed to meet Canada’s net zero emissions target

Christopher Ragan and Dave Sawyer 

Christopher Ragan is the Director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University, and the former Chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission. Dave Sawyer is an economist with EnviroEconomics and is a School Fellow with the Carleton University School of Public Policy

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© Used with permission of / © St. Joseph Communications. 'Wild card' technologies will be key to reaching net zero emissions (iStock)

The Canadian government recently announced its objective of achieving “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions for the country by 2050.We are not alone; many countries are adopting the same long-run goal. But do we know which technologies we need to get there, how challenging the road ahead will be, and what kinds of policies will be required?

The answer—surprising to some—is that we know more about this journey than we might think. Let’s start at the beginning.

If you are looking for one word to capture the essence of what must occur to eliminate our GHG emissions over the next 30 years, it would surely be “substitution”. We will need to substitute away from coal-fired electricity and use zero-emitting energy instead. We must substitute away from gasoline-powered vehicles and adopt electric vehicles in their place. We will need to substitute away from portable diesel generators in remote communities and use cleaner power sources, either on or off the grid.

In some parts of the economy, we will need to substitute toward a much greater use of low-carbon technologies which are currently available; in others we will need to substitute toward technologies we are only just beginning to envision. To take seriously the net-zero objective means embracing the path into the unknown.

When thinking about how much is unknown, however, it’s useful to make the distinction between “safe bets” and “wild cards”.

The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices (CICC) released a report last week which uses this language. “Safe bets” are those technologies we already see widely deployed, and that will continue to be important as we decarbonize towards net zero. Examples include electric vehicles, heat pumps, liquid and solid biofuels, and energy efficiency equipment. Doubling down on these technologies is really a no regrets approach to achieving net zero.

The “wild card” technologies identified by the CICC are in earlier stages of technological development; they become especially important after 2030 since there are limits to how much decarbonization can come from the safe bets. Wild card technologies include the use of hydrogen fuel cells for transportation and for industrial heat, carbon capture and storage, renewable natural gas, sequestration technologies such as direct air capture, and small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

There is no silver bullet among the various wild cards. They all have promise but they are all uncertain. To reach our net zero objective, we need to hold a fistful of these wild cards so that they can be deployed as needed, when ready. And that requires better understanding the emissions-reduction potential and costs of the various wild card technologies.

We have looked a little more closely at one of these wild cards: small modular reactors (SMRs). What is their potential to deliver emissions reductions for Canada?

Much of the focus on SMRs has been on their ability to supply clean electricity into the grid. But of equal importance is their potential to decarbonize industrial heat and power in Canada’s largest emitters such as oil sands, chemicals, and mining. These emitters face a daunting decarbonization challenge with a limited number of potential wild card technologies.

The results of our SMR simulations along the pathways to net zero were surprising.

For a wide range of cost and technical assumptions, SMRs were widely deployed in the industrial sector across a range of simulations. The SMRs substituted for several other high-cost wildcards such as hydrogen and renewable natural gas, which were then freed up to be used elsewhere for decarbonization. The net result was that SMRs captured a large share— about 20 percent—of the total heat and power requirements of the large industrial emitters. In the simulations, this resulted in emissions reductions from industry equivalent to taking 3.3 million cars off the road after 2035.

With industry doing more heavy lifting with SMRs, other sectors were then able to abate less and avoid higher cost abatement options. This reduced the overall costs of achieving net zero by 2050. In other words, adding SMRs to the set of technology options led to a more cost-effective transition.

What is the role of public policy amid all this uncertainty?

First, there is plenty on the policy front that is known. At the top of the list is the power of an economy-wide carbon price to reduce GHG emissions. Carbon emissions are now priced in all parts of Canada, and the federal government has recently announced that the price will rise to $170 per tonne by 2030. Few things energize the business model of any low-carbon technology better than an economy-wide carbon price. A rising carbon price drives the greater adoption of the safe bets.

But let’s also admit that not everything about policy is known. We will surely develop some policy tools and policy approaches that we’ve never created or experienced before. This will require policymakers to have open minds and for all of us to cut our elected leaders some slack as they venture into unfamiliar territory.

Governments are always nervous about putting taxpayers’ money at risk—and they should be. But carefully calibrated public investments in some technologies will likely be required if we are to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The right public investments may transform today’s wild cards into tomorrow’s safe bets.

DISARM, DEFUND, DEMOCRATIZE POLICE
Task force demands investigations by city, police and commission after homeless ordered from LRT station in cold snap

Lauren Boothby 

An independent task force is demanding the city, police, and police commission do a thorough and transparent investigation after police ordered homeless people out of an LRT station into the extreme cold on Sunday.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal A video circulating social media shows Edmonton police telling a group receiving help from a local homeless service provider to leave the Central LRT station. (SCREENSHOT/FACEBOOK)

The 16-member Community Safety and Well Being Task Force, which includes two police officers and a member of the police commission, said in a release on Wednesday actions by police at the LRT station show a lack of compassion for marginalized communities. The group is calling for accountability and empathy training for Edmonton police.


Mayor Don Iveson asked staff at a council committee meeting Wednesday to bring back a report on the city’s extreme-weather protocols and whether or not they are being implemented properly.

But task force member Marni Panas told Postmedia the mayor’s ask falls short.

“Just that they have policies and are reviewing those, that’s not good enough. We have to look at how policies are applied in interactions like this. In this case, all the policies failed these humans who were sent into the cold,” she said.

Rob Smyth, deputy city manager of citizen services, told councillors the incident does not reflect their values or the efforts of city staff and other social supports agencies, including police, who helped many find shelter during the cold snap.

He said staff were busy with outreach agencies so police were asked to patrol transit stations, and there is an “opportunity” to clarify city’s policies about what activities are allowed in public spaces.

The city will make a new set of shared standards with police regarding transit station enforcement that emphasizes compassion, he said.
Police open internal investigation

Edmonton police have opened an internal investigation, a public complaint has been filed, and the department is reviewing practices in response to the incident, acting chief Alan Murphy told councillors at the meeting.

Murphy apologized and said police should have helped those seeking shelter.

“We should have arranged transportation or helped in accessing the services our partnering agencies have in place to keep our most vulnerable safe and warm. We must do better, and for this we are sorry,” he said, reading statement.

Hope Mission calls police over encampment

A second incident over the weekend also drew the ire of the task force. Posts on social media show police sweeping a site where homeless people were camping near the downtown core.

“Members of the task force are all too familiar with similar experiences. These are not isolated incidents,” chair Annette Trimbee said in a news release. “As these disturbing events reveal, our work is important and the time for action is overdue.”

City spokeswoman Adrienne Cloutier told Postmedia police were called directly by Hope Mission to an encampment adjacent to its property. She said park rangers and peace officers were not involved but city cleanup crews attended.

Postmedia did not receive a response from Hope Mission by deadline.

EPS spokeswoman Cheryl Sheppard said in a statement Hope Mission called police about the encampment Saturday. Other nearby businesses also called and “expressed concern for their safety as a large fire was built in the days prior,” she said.

Police were on site while city cleanup crews worked. Officers don’t have a role in removing belongings from encampments, she said, and Hope Mission staff gave the people staying there alternative shelter options.

The actions do not appear to follow the city’s policies on active encampments. A city flow chart shows calls about encampments should be directed through 311 and responded to by park rangers followed by a visit from Boyle Street Outreach, although police and other first responders may be called as necessary.

Cloutier said the city will be adding a new contact to co-ordinate between the encampment response team and other agencies.

The mayor told reporters Wednesday he expects anyone moved from encampments should be supported.

“Clearing encampments that represent challenges to public safety is an unfortunate reality of the circumstances that we have here and council’s expectation is that be done in a very constructive and collaborative way that doesn’t criminalize peoples’ poverty and refers them to supports,” he said.

lboothby@postmedia.com

Hospital hygiene: A closer look reveals realistic frequency of infection

INSELSPITAL, BERN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

Research News

 

IMAGE: PROF. DR. MED. JONAS MARSCHALL, CHIEF PHYSICIAN, DEPARTMENT OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, INSELSPITAL, BERN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL AND CHIEF PHYSICIAN, HOSPITAL HYGIENE, INSEL GRUPPE, BERN: "FOR THE FIRST TIME, THIS STUDY PROVIDES... view more 

CREDIT: INSEL GRUPPE

The incidence of surgical site infections after an operation is an important quality indicator for hospitals. An overview from six European countries published in 2017 documented increased costs and, in some cases, significantly poorer surgical outcomes due to SSIs. The European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) and authorities in the U.S. have therefore defined criteria for recording and documenting the rate of surgical site infections per procedure. Swissnoso has issued binding guidelines for Switzerland based on these criteria. The study investigated to what extent surgical site infection rates correlate with the audit results in Swiss hospitals.

Seek and you shall find: low SSI rates with low audit score

The study was able to establish a clear correlation between a low surgical site infection rate and the results from on-site surveillance quality audits (audit score). The better a hospital scored on the 50-point audit, the more infection cases had been detected or reported. This was true for all three surgeries studied (knee and hip implants as well as colorectal surgeries). According to the study's lead author Andrew Atkinson: "The study shows that the quality of the respective surveillance systems must be systematically considered when interpreting surgical site infections - and this independently of the type of surgery and infection rate."

What exactly was measured?

The study analyzed 81 957 hip and knee surgeries from 125 hospitals and 33 315 colorectal surgeries from 110 hospitals. At least two external audits per hospital were carried out to assess surveillance quality. The study was based on the Swissnoso guidelines. The detailed audit results were ranked in an overall score between 1 and 50. The audits were carried out by three specifically trained investigators.

Results in detail

The following values refer to the median of the results. The SSI rate for knee and hip implants was 1.0% with an audit score of 37. As expected the infection rate for colorectal surgery was much higher at 12.7% with a slightly higher audit score of 38. It appeared that higher infection rates correlated with higher audit scores. A discernible range of scores among hospital types could be observed, with private hospitals forming a cluster in the lower range of audit scores and infection rates.

How can a possible systematic error be corrected?

The research team makes a specific proposal for future evaluations and national comparisons of surgical site infection rates. A computational correction (normalization) and inclusion of the audit score are proposed for discussion. Prof. Jonas Marschall summarizes: "For the first time, this study provides us with a basis for rendering the number of infections more comparable and better understood throughout Switzerland. Now we have to work hard to establish regular comparisons among Swiss hospitals even more meaningful and the incentive to be at the forefront even greater."

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AIR POLLUTION

Human impact on solar radiation levels for decades

ETH ZURICH

Research News

 

In the late 1980s and 1990s, researchers at ETH Zurich discovered the first indications that the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface had been steadily declining since the 1950s. The phenomenon was known as "global dimming". However, a reversal in this trend became discernible in the late 1980s. The atmosphere brightened again at many locations and surface solar radiation increased.

"In previous studies, we showed that the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface is not constant over many decades but instead varies substantially - a phenomenon known as global dimming and brightening," says ETH Professor Martin Wild of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science.

Natural variations or air pollution?

Yet little is known about the reasons for these fluctuations, which have been observed for decades. One particularly controversial point is whether the fluctuations are caused by air pollution, with aerosols blocking the sunlight, or whether they are a result of natural variations in the climate system.

A number of scientists suspected that cloud cover may have changed over the years, absorbing the sun's rays more effectively during the dimming phase than during the brightening phase.

This is why Wild and colleagues from other research institutes analysed measurements collected between 1947 and 2017 in the Potsdam radiation time series, which is renowned among climate researchers. The series offers one of the longest, most homogeneous, continuous measurements of solar radiation on the Earth's surface.

Dimming also occurred in cloud-free conditions

In this new study, they were able to show that rather than these fluctuations being due to natural changes in the cloud cover, they are instead generated by varying aerosols from human activity. The paper was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"In our analysis, we filtered out the effects of cloud cover to see whether these long-term fluctuations in solar radiation also occurred in cloud-free conditions," Wild explains. As it turned out, the decadal fluctuations in the sunlight received at the Earth's surface were apparent even when skies were clear.

The researchers identified aerosols entering the atmosphere due to air pollution as the major contributor to global dimming and brightening. "Although we'd already assumed as much, we'd been unable to prove it directly until now," he says.

Brightening after economic collapse

The fact that the transition from dimming to brightening coincided with the economic collapse of the former communist countries in the late 1980s supports the argument that these variations have a human cause. Moreover, around this time, many western industrialised nations introduced strict air pollution regulations, which improved air quality significantly and facilitated the transfer of the sunbeams through the atmosphere. Lastly, the atmosphere was recovering from the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which had ejected vast amounts of aerosols into the air in 1991.

Wild and his colleagues had already ruled out fluctuations in solar activity in an earlier study. "The sun itself had only an infinitesimal, negligible effect, which in no way accounts for the magnitude of the intensity changes that had been observed over the years at the surface," Wild says.

Dimming reduced evaporation and precipitation

Surface solar radiation is a key parameter for climate issues. Not only does it govern the temperature, it also has a fundamental impact on the water cycle by regulating evaporation, which, in turn, governs cloud formation and affects precipitation. During the global dimming, less water evaporated from the Earth's surface, causing precipitation to decline worldwide.

Solar radiation also affects the cryosphere, i.e. glaciers, snow and ice. "Glacial retreat accelerated when the atmosphere began brightening again," Wild says, adding: "It's also becoming increasingly important for the solar industry to gain a better understanding of these fluctuations when it comes to planning new facilities."

Germany's National Meteorological Service, the Deutscher Wetterdienst, operates an observatory in Potsdam that has been measuring solar radiation since 1937. This means the station boasts one of the world's longest radiation time series. "I'm extremely grateful to have access to decades' worth of data; after all, it is only thanks to measurement series such as this that we're able to record and show changes in our environment and climate," Wild says, adding that this makes it imperative to support monitoring networks around the world for prolonged periods of time. Admittedly, this task isn't particularly spectacular, making it difficult to secure funding. "But if we want to understand climate change and clarify the impact of human activities, we need time series that go back far enough," he says. To this end, ETH maintains the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA), an unparalleled database of surface energy fluxes worldwide.

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