British Columbia

Sea-to-Sky bus strike hits 10-week mark with talks in neutral, causing widespread frustration

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

Drivers, residents, students have been impacted by the strike; many say they want it to end

Liam Britten · CBC News · Posted: Apr 09, 2022 

Workers are picketing at the B.C. Transit depot in Whistler, pictured here, and another depot in Squamish. They are seeking better wages and benefits, while the length of the strike has surprised many in the community. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Spencer Wickenden has a straightforward opinion on the now-10-week-old bus strike in B.C.'s Sea-to-Sky region.

"It sucks," said Wickenden, an Australian who works at a sports bar in the Whistler Village.

"I think it's a joke."

Like many low-wage workers in the pricey Sea-to-Sky area, Wickenden relied on bus service to get around, but due to the strike, that hasn't been possible. Instead it's led to inconvenience and extra costs.

Spencer Wickenden describes the 10-week-old bus strike as 'a joke.' (Shawn Foss/CBC)

"Rents are expensive out here as everyone knows," he said. "And you're making 15 bucks an hour. I mean, it's pretty rough."

About 80 bus drivers with Unifor have been on strike since Jan. 29. They are demanding better wages and benefits from their employer, Pacific Western Transportation, a contractor of B.C. Transit's operating bus service in Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton.

The drivers want eventual wage parity with drivers in Metro Vancouver, and have been on the picket lines demanding it with only HandyDart service running in the meantime.

The two sides have not negotiated in weeks, causing widespread frustration.

Only HandyDart transit vehicles, serving people with disabilities, remain on the road. The remaining B.C. Transit vehicles in the region have been parked for weeks. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

'Non-stop, non-stop, keep going'

Sydonie Spence came to Whistler from Manitoba to work in a hotel and, of course, get plenty of time on the slopes.

She also used the bus while it was running, but the extended job action has her re-thinking her future in Whistler.

Hotel worker Sydonie Spence says it's a struggle for low-wage workers to make ends meet in Whistler and the bus strike is adding to that misery. (Shawn Foss/CBC)

"In the summer it won't be as bad because I have a bike," Spence said. "But in the winter it might affect my plans on staying here. 

"I'd love to stay for another season, but if the buses aren't around, I can't afford to live here. And that's just the reality of it."

Nadia Jelenec, 16, is a high school student who works at a fast food restaurant. She said many service workers are forced to shell out for cabs — if they can find one.

"They're obviously really busy now," Jelenec said, proven by one look at a taxi stand in the Whistler Village.

Nadia Jelenec, 16, says going to work in the Whistler Village is a challenging — and expensive — proposition without bus service. (Shawn Foss/CBC)

Cabbie Joey Loren has been among a constant stream of taxis sometimes waiting just seconds for another passenger to hop in.

"Like, super busy," is how Loren described his work during the strike. 

"Non-stop, non-stop, keep going."

Taxi driver Joey Loren says the bus strike has made him a busy man as tourists and workers seek to get around the region. (Shawn Foss/CBC)

Kids 'devastated'

A man walks down Highway 99. The mayor of Whistler has said there has been an uptick of hitchhiking and people dangerously walking on the road since the strike began. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

On Thursday afternoon, parents lined up in their cars to pick up their kids from Whistler Secondary, with some saying the lines have grown quite a bit during the strike.

Lucy Pomroy of Pemberton — a half-hour drive away — was there to pick up her daughter.

"That has become a big challenge, driving back and forth to get them to socializing or activities or school," Pomroy said.

Lucy Pomroy lives in Pemberton, about a half-hour drive away from her daughter's high school. She says parents are paying more for gas and spending more time as chauffeurs during the bus strike and kids are less autonomous. (Shawn Foss/CBC)

"The kids are really sort of devastated because it takes away some independence from them to make decisions for themselves to go where they want to go."

Ryder Huxtable, 17, who was leaving school, said teenagers without a car are bugging their parents for rides, walking long distances or simply missing out on after-school activities.

"It's horrible," Huxtable said. "I want to see the buses back sooner."

Ryder Huxtable, a 17-year-old student at Whistler Secondary, said some of his classmates are missing out on after-school activities with no bus service to get them home. (Shawn Foss/CBC)

No signs of progress

The people CBC spoke to all largely expressed sympathy for the drivers in the dispute.

At a picket line in front of a locked-up B.C. Transit bus depot, driver Rolly Schultz said that tracks with what he's hearing.

Whistler bus driver Rolly Schultz said he believes the drivers have community support but he's surprised they've been striking as long as they have. (Shawn Foss/CBC)

He said drivers are not backing down but the long time without work has been stressful.

"I'm not having income," Schultz said. "I have to pay my bills with savings, my mortgage with savings. It's not an easy situation for myself and everybody else here."

Employer Pacific Western has said that it has offered fair deals to the union, and asked if the union would agree to binding arbitration. That request was not agreed to.

Workers are pictured at the picket line in Whistler Thursday. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Unifor, the drivers' union, has accused the company of "stubbornness" on outstanding issues. A union spokesperson has confirmed there are no upcoming talks planned.

B.C. Transit has said little during the debate aside from assuring customers it is monitoring the situation and apologizing for inconvenience.

• As bus strike drags on in Sea-to-Sky region, residents say they're losing patience ⁠— and money

• Bus strike in Sea-to-Sky region sees plenty of frustration but little progress after 5 weeks

B.C. Labour Minister Harry Bains said he is urging the parties to get back to talking and is offering mediation services through the Labour Relations Board.

• Bargaining to resume over contract for Sea-to-Sky transit workers, union says

• Transit workers in Sea to Sky region go on strike after dispute over wages and benefits

Meanwhile, people like Wickenden just want buses back on the road.

"It's just carrying on too long now," he said. "They need to do something about it."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liam Britten

Digital journalist

Liam Britten is an award-winning journalist for CBC Vancouver. You can contact him at liam.britten@cbc.ca or follow him on Twitter: @liam_britten.

Ukraine war tests evangelicals' support for Putin as leader of conservative values

By Melani McAlister, George Washington University


From left to right, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, his wife ,Svetlana, then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, attend an Easter service in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on April 24, 2011. UPI File Photo | License Photo

April 8 (UPI) -- In February, evangelical leader Franklin Graham called on his followers to pray for Vladimir Putin. His tweet acknowledged that it might seem a "strange request" given that Russia was clearly about to invade Ukraine. But Graham asked that believers "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."

The backlash was fast and direct. Graham had not solicited prayers for Ukraine, some observers commented. And he had rarely called on believers to pray for U.S. President Joe Biden.

A significant subset of the U.S. evangelical community, particularly White conservatives, has been developing a political and emotional alliance with Russia for almost 20 years. Those American believers, including prominent figures such as Graham and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice see Russia, Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church as protectors of the faith, standing against attacks on "traditional" and "family" values. At the center is Russia's spate of anti-LGBTQ laws, which have become a model for some anti-transgender and anti-gay legislation in the United States.



Now, with Russia bombing churches and destroying cities in Ukraine, the most Protestant of the former Soviet Republics, American evangelical communities are divided. Most oppose Russia's actions, especially because there is a strong evangelical church in Ukraine that is receiving attention and prayers from a range of evangelical leaders.

Nonetheless, a small group of the most conservative American evangelicals cannot quite break up with their long-term ally. The enthusiasm for Russia is embodied by Graham, who in 2015 famously visited Moscow, where he had a warm meeting with Putin.

On that trip, Putin reportedly explained that his mother had kept her Christian faith even under Communist rule. Graham in turn praised Putin for his support of Orthodox Christianity, contrasting Russia's "positive changes" with the rise of "atheistic secularism" in the United States.

But it was not always so. Once upon a time, American evangelicals saw the Soviet Union and other communist countries as the world's greatest threat to their faith.

They carried out dramatic and illegal activities, smuggling Bibles and other Christian literature across borders. And yet, today, Russia, still a country with low church attendance and little government tolerance for Protestant evangelism, has become a symbol of the conservative values that some American evangelicals proclaim.

Bible smuggling

Starting in the 1950s, but intensifying in the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. and European evangelicals presented themselves as intimately linked to the Christians who were suffering at the hands of communist governments.

One evangelical group that emerged at this time was "Open Doors," whose main aim was to work for "persecuted Christians" around the world. It was founded by "Brother Andrew" Van der Bijl, a Dutch pastor who smuggled Bibles into the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Brother Andrew and other evangelicals argued that what Christians in communist countries really needed were Bibles -- reflecting how important personal Bible reading is in evangelical faith.

Brother Andrew turned the smuggling into anti-communist political theater. As he headed toward the border in a specially outfitted vehicle with a hidden compartment that might hold as many as 3,000 Bibles, he prayed. According to one ad that ran in Christian magazines, he said:

"Lord, in my luggage I have forbidden Scriptures that I want to take to your children across the border. When you were on earth, you made blind eyes see. Now I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see these things you do not want them to see."

Van der Bijl's memoir, God's Smuggler, became a bestseller when it was published in 1967.

Taking Jesus to communist world

By the early 1970s, there were more than 30 Protestant organizations engaged in some sort of literature smuggling, and there was an intense, sometimes quite nasty, competition between groups.

Their work depended on their charismatic leaders, who often used sensationalist approaches for fundraising.

For example, in 1966, a Romanian pastor named Richard Wurmbrand appeared before the Senate judiciary committee's internal security subcommittee, stripped to the waist and turned to display his deeply scarred back.

A Jewish convert and Lutheran minister, Wurmbrand had been imprisoned twice by the Romanian government for his activities as an "underground" minister before he finally escaped to the West in 1964.

Standing shirtless before U.S. senators and the national news media, Wurmbrand testified, "My body represents Romania, my country, which has been tortured to a point that it can no longer weep. These marks on my body are my credentials."

The next year, Wurmbrand published his book, Tortured for Christ, which became a bestseller in the United States. He founded his own activist organization, "Jesus to the Communist World," which went on to engage in a good bit of attention-grabbing behavior.

In May 1979, for example, two 32-year-old men associated with the group flew their small plane over the Cuban coast, dropping 6,000 copies of a pamphlet written by Wurmbrand. After the "Bible bombing," they lost their way in a storm and were forced to land in Cuba, where they were arrested and served 17 months in jail before being released.

As I describe in my book The Kingdom of God Has No Borders, critics hammered these groups for such provocative approaches and hardball fundraising. One leading figure in the Southern Baptist Convention complained that the practice of smuggling Bibles was "creating problems for the whole Christian witness" in communist areas.

Another Christian activist, however, admitted that the activist groups' mix of faith and politics was hard to beat and had the ability to draw "big bucks."

After communism: Islam, homosexuality

These days, there is little in the way of swashbuckling adventure to be had in confronting communists. But that does not mean an end to the evangelical focus on persecuted Christians.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, advocates turned their attention to the situation of Christians in Muslim-majority countries. Evangelicals in Europe and the United States increasingly focused on Islam as a competitor and a threat. Putin's war against Chechen militants in the 1990s, and his more recent intervention on behalf of Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria, made him popular with Christian conservatives. Putin claimed to be protecting Christians while waging war against Islamic terrorism.

Meanwhile, Putin's policies of cracking down on evangelism do not seem to overly bother some of his conservative evangelical allies. When Putin signed a Russian law in June 2016 that outlawed any sharing of one's faith in homes, online or anywhere else but recognized church buildings, some evangelicals were outraged, but others looked away.

This is in part because American evangelicals in the 2010s continued to see Putin as being willing to openly support Christians in what they saw as a global war on their faith. But the more immediately salient issue was Putin's opposition to LGBTQ+ rights and nontraditional views of the family.

Graham was among those who waxed enthusiastically about Russia's so-called gay propaganda law, which limits public material about "nontraditional" relationships. Others, such as the World Congress of Families and the Alliance Defending Freedom, have long been cultivating ties with Russian politicians as well as the Russian Orthodox Church.

Putin allies on defensive

In the 21st century, then, the most conservative wing of evangelicals was not promoting its agenda by touting the number of Bibles transported across state lines, but rather on another kind of border crossing: the power of Putin's reputation as a leader in the resurgent global right.

Now, the invasion of Ukraine has put Putin's allies on the defensive. There are still those, including the QAnon-supporting 2020 Republican candidate for Congress Laura Witzke, who explained in March that she identifies "more with Putin's Christian values that I do with Joe Biden." But Graham emphasized to the Religion News Service that he does not support the war, and his humanitarian organization Samaritan's Purse sent several teams to Ukraine to operate clinics and distribute relief.

For the moment, Putin's status as the global right's moral vanguard is being severely tested, and the border-crossing advocates of traditional marriage may find themselves on the brink of divorce.

This article includes material from a piece published on Sept. 4, 2018.

Melani McAlister is a professor of American studies and international affairs at George Washington University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UK's Sunak admits to having US green card while in office amid fury over wife's tax status

Chancellor's wife holds non-domiciled status, which exempts her from paying tax on foreign income

Rishi Sunak, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, poses for the media 

as he leaves 11 Downing Street in London. AP

Neil Murphy

Apr 08, 2022

Rishi Sunak has admitted holding a US green card while chancellor, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was unaware his Cabinet colleague’s wife holds the tax-reducing non-domiciled status.

Mr Johnson said the chancellor is doing an “outstanding job” on Friday and denied damaging leaks about the Sunaks’ tax affairs were coming from within No 10.

Mr Sunak, an MP since 2015, released a statement admitting to holding a US permanent resident card until October, 12 months after becoming chancellor, in February 2020.

He has been under intense scrutiny after it surfaced that his wife, Akshata Murty, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, holds the non-domiciled status that exempts her from paying tax in the UK on foreign income.

A spokeswoman for the MP for Richmond, Yorkshire, released a statement confirming a Sky News report that he held a green card while chancellor until seeking guidance before his first US trip in a government capacity in October last year.

The US inland revenue says anyone who has a green card is treated as a “lawful permanent resident” and is considered a “US tax resident for US income tax purposes”.

She said Mr Sunak continued to file US tax returns, “but specifically as a non-resident, in full compliance with the law”, having obtained a green card when he lived and worked in the country.

“As required under US law and as advised, he continued to use his green card for travel purposes,” the spokeswoman said.

“Upon his first trip to the US in a government capacity as chancellor, he discussed the appropriate course of action with the US authorities. At that point it was considered best to return his green card, which he did immediately.

“All laws and rules have been followed and full taxes have been paid where required in the duration he held his green card.”

The prime minister defended Mr Sunak when coming under sustained questioning at a Downing Street press conference alongside German leader Olaf Scholz.

On the green card, Mr Johnson said: “As I understand it, the chancellor has done absolutely everything he was required to do.”

In this photo taken on February 9, 2022, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak poses with his wife, Akshata Murty, during a reception to celebrate the British Asian Trust at The British Museum in London. AFP

The prime minister denied having knowledge of Ms Murty's tax status and added that No 10 has not been briefing against Mr Sunak, who is seen as the front-runner for any possible Conservative leadership election.

“If there are such briefings, they are not coming from us in No 10 and heaven knows where they are coming from,” Mr Johnson said. “I think that Rishi is doing an absolutely outstanding job.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who had called for Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to investigate the a “huge conflict of interest” of the US residency, implied Mr Sunak should be fired.

“Never mind a green card — it’s time to give Rishi Sunak the red card,” Sir Ed said.

Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden questioned why Mr Sunak kept the green card after becoming MP and whether it gave him “any tax advantage”.

Mr Sunak criticised the “unpleasant smears” about his wife’s tax affairs during an interview with The Sun and suggested it was a Labour smear campaign, something the party denies.

But his allies told newspapers they suspect No 10 of trying to undermine him.

The chancellor met his wife while he was studying at Stanford University. They married in 2009 and own a home in Santa Monica, California.

Ms Murty, the fashion-designer daughter of a billionaire, confirmed she holds non-domiciled status after The Independent revealed the arrangement on the day a national insurance increase hit millions of workers.

Mr Sunak said his wife was entitled to use the non-domiciled arrangement as she is an Indian citizen and plans to move back to her home country to care for her parents.

He insisted she is not attempting to pay less tax, saying “the dates don’t make a difference”, amid speculation she potentially avoided up to £20 million in UK tax.

Ms Murty is reported to hold a 0.91 per cent stake in Infosys, an IT business founded by her father, and has received £11.6m in dividends from the Indian firm in the past year.

Non-domiciled status means she would not have to pay UK tax at a rate of 39.35 per cent on dividends. India sets the rate for non-residents at 20 per cent, but this can fall to 10 per cent for those who are eligible to benefit from the UK’s tax treaty with India.

Public records show Infosys has received more than £50m in UK public sector contracts since 2015.

Ms Murty pays an annual levy of £30,000 to the UK government to keep her non-domiciled status, her spokeswoman said.

Updated: April 08, 2022, 1:22 PM

Tigers kill more than 100 people in India in three years

But number of fatal attacks fell in 2021

A Bengal tiger in a cage at Alipore Zoological Garden in Kolkata. AFP

Taniya Dutta

Apr 05, 2022

More than 100 people in India have been killed in tiger attacks in the past three years.

Junior environment minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey told the Indian Parliament on Monday that 108 died between 2019 and last year.

Tigers are a protected species in India, which has nearly two-thirds of the global population.

India's last official count in 2018 found 2,967 tigers, up from 1,411 in 2006 when the government began aggressive conservation efforts.

But the cats are still considered an endangered species because of the threat of poaching and shrinking habitats that cause human-animal conflicts.

“The human-tiger interface has always been there and needs to be addressed in an ongoing manner because there are human-dominated landscapes around the tiger areas,” Dr Rajesh Gopal, secretary general of the Global Tiger Forum, told The National.

“For encounters, there are surveillance systems, and capacity building of frontline workers but if the community is not geared up or not supported or something is lacking, it becomes a vicious circle.”

Mr Choubey said Maharashtra recorded the most deaths, with 56.

The western state has nearly 400 tigers and five tiger reserves.

In Uttar Pradesh, 17 people were killed in tiger attacks: eight in 2019, four in 2020 and five last year, the minister said.

But Mr Choubey said a total of 14 people were killed by tigers last year, a decrease from 50 in 2019.

He said the government was taking steps to reduce conflict by dispersing tigers and relocating them.

A tiger walks past a vehicle carrying tourists at Ranthambore National Park, India.

Expansion of human settlements into tiger habitats and their killing for illegal trade poses a constant threat to their survival.

At least 126 tigers died last year, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the highest in many years.

Some of the deaths were blamed on poachers and others were attributed to accidents and natural causes.

Nearly 60 tiger deaths of the 303 between 2018 and 2020 were caused by poaching, the authority said.

Tigers are poached for their fur, teeth and bones which are smuggled to China for traditional medicines.

India declared the tiger its national animal in 1971 and made harming them or trading body parts a criminal offence.

The government also introduced aggressive initiatives for their conservation, including planning new tiger reserves and relocating human settlements from the animals' habitats.

But the fatal tiger-human conflict continues.

A teenage boy was mauled to death in Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh, on Monday in a suspected tiger attack. On the same day, authorities in northern Uttarakhand sent hunters to kill a tiger blamed for killing at least six people in the past three months near Nainital.

Experts say the fatal conflict between man and the wild cats can be curbed by restricting the presence of humans near or within tiger reserves and educating local communities.

The Tyger

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

AMERICA; HOME TO SPIRITISM

Vanessa Hudgens Opens Up About Her ‘Ability’ To Speak To Spirits

Melissa Romualdi - Thursday
ET Canada


Vanessa Hudgens is shedding light on her obsession with ghosts.

The "tick, tick...BOOM!" actress, who's "accepted the fact" that she can "see and hear things" beyond the grave opened up to Kelly Clarkson about the multiple run-ins she's had with spiritual beings over the years.

"I remember getting ready for school when I was eight years old, and there was... you know those ducks [toys] that you pull [the string]? There was one of those on the dining room table, and I started walking, and it just started going alongside me," Hudgens recalled during her Tuesday appearance on "The Kelly Clarkson Show".

"I kind of shut it down for a while because it's scary," she continued. "The unknown is scary. But recently I was like, 'No, this is a gift and something that I have the ability to do, so I'm going to lean into it.'"


The 33-year-old star uses a "spirit box," which allows her to analyze "radio frequencies really quickly."

"Something about the electricity that it creates allows spirits to speak through it," she explained.

Hudgens also looked back on "High School Musical", the 16-year-old film that brought her fame, noting that musicals "don't go out of style" as she described her "grandma taste" in classic music.

She even talked about the new man in her life, professional baseball player Cole Tucker of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

"I know how the game works now," Hudgens revealed, saying how her baseball knowledge has increased since attending games as a young girl with her late father.


The actress previously touched on her experiences with ghosts and spirits during a 2011 interview with People.

At the time, Hudgens recalled hearing footsteps at an old house on set of "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" in North Wilmington, North Carolina.

"One of the oldest, most haunted places in North America.

"I was chasing around my ghost for like 10 minutes solid, and then it got way too freaky, and I just left," she said at the time.

Facebook-owner Meta says it is considering steps to curb Russian government misinformation

© Reuters/DADO RUVIC

By Elizabeth Culliford - Thursday

(Reuters) - Facebook-owner Meta has removed hacking campaigns, influence networks and scam operations amid the war in Ukraine, according to a report released on Thursday by the social media company, which also said it was reviewing additional steps to address misinformation from Russian government pages.

"We're constantly reviewing our policies based on the evolving situation on the ground and we are actively now reviewing additional steps to address misinformation and hoaxes coming from Russian government pages," said Meta's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, on a call with reporters.

Russia has battled big tech companies to control online information flows after its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, which Moscow calls a "special military operation." It has banned Facebook and Instagram, and throttled Twitter by slowing its service. Twitter said this week it will not amplify or recommend Russian government accounts to users.

In its first quarterly adversarial threat report, Meta said government-linked actors from Russia and Belarus had engaged in cyber espionage and covert online influence operations, including an influence operation linked to the Belarusian KGB.

It said there had been other continued attempts from networks it had previously disrupted, including further efforts by the threat actor Ghostwriter to hack the Facebook accounts of dozens of Ukraine military members.

Meta said in the report it had also removed a network of about 200 accounts operated from Russia that coordinated to falsely report people, mostly in Ukraine and Russia, for violations like hate speech or bullying.

The mass reporting was primarily coordinated in a cooking-themed Facebook Group which had about 50 members when Meta took it down in March.

Meta said it had also removed tens of thousands of accounts, pages and groups trying to use the war in Ukraine to scam users and make money by driving people to ad-filled websites or selling them merchandise. It said spammers around the world had used tactics such as streaming live-gaming videos or reposting popular content including other people's videos from Ukraine to pretend they were sharing live updates from the crisis.

Meta detailed other takedowns including the removal of two cyberespionage operations from Iran, an influence campaign in Brazil that posed as environmental activists defending deforestation in the Amazon, and a network in the Philippines that claimed credit for bringing down and defacing news websites.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in New York; Editing by Sandra Maler)

ZOMBIE CRYPTO

Facebook’s Plans for ‘Zuck Bucks’ Crypto Rise From the Dead
Matt Novak - Thursday
Gizmodo

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is still planning to create a digital currency, according to a new report from the Financial Times. The news comes after Facebook was said to have abandoned its cryptocurrency plans this past February—a project originally called Libra when it was first announced in June of 2019, but rebranded as Diem after facing intense scrutiny from politicians around the globe.

Mark Zuckerberg’s dream to release a digital currency seemed to be nixed after politicians smelled blood in the water and grilled Facebook leadership about their plans. One congressman, Democrat Brad Sherman of California, even told a Facebook executive during hearings in 2019 that a currency being released by the tech giant would be worse than 9/11. Sherman called the hypothetical currency “Zuck Bucks,” a name that’s apparently stuck internally at Facebook.

But Zuckerberg still wants to make his fake money a reality, provided he can find a way to do it without getting heat from governments around the world. The Times writes that staffers at Meta are trying to find the “least regulated way to offer a digital currency,” a tack that shouldn’t surprise anyone coming from a CEO enamored with the phrase “move fast and break things.”

Facebook declined to address whether the new report was true, delivering a vanilla statement about how the company is always striving for yadda yadda yadda.

“We have no updates to share today. We continuously consider new product innovations for people, businesses, and creators. As a company, we are focused on building for the metaverse and that includes what payments and financial services might look like,” a Meta company spokesperson told Gizmodo by email.

Creating currencies has traditionally been the domain of governments, though private companies have dabbled in creating their own exclusive currencies in the past. The most horrendous example from the 19th century was known as company scrip, a kind of privately issued money paid to employees that could only be redeemed at company-owned stores, often in company-owned towns.

Previously, private individuals who tried to create their own currencies were shut down by the U.S. government, like the case of Liberty Dollar in the 2000s, dollars and coins created by libertarians who tried to make a currency backed by gold and silver. But creating your own currency is no longer seen as an inherently fraudulent activity, thanks to the mainstream popularity of Bitcoin and the web3 wave. Facebook wants to capitalize on that in every way possible, especially since executives have bet on the metaverse as the company’s future.

Zuck’s plans for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), first announced in March, are apparently still happening, with Instagram possibly introducing the feature in May, according to the Times. What does that mean in practice? We still don’t know. Non-fungible tokens are little more than a receipt to a hyperlink, despite the popular misconception that they’re something akin to digital trading cards.

But all of that confusion could be the key to Facebook’s potential success with web3. No one knows what it really is, and the cryptocurrency space is filled with plenty of scammers. If Meta can launch its own token and brand it as an innocuous way to pay for trivial things, it could be a launching pad for much larger ambitions. One day you’re spending three Zuck Bucks on a new cartoon avatar and the next thing you know you’ve just bought a car on Facebook Marketplace with the same currency.

Stephane Kasriel, the head of Meta’s finance division, reportedly wrote a memo in January, cited by the Times, that makes it clear the world’s biggest social media company wants to figure out a way to capitalize.

“We’re making changes to our product strategy and road map . . . so we can prioritize on building for the metaverse and on what payments and financial services will look like in this digital world,” Kasriel wrote, according to the Times.

Zuck is clearly intent on making his own money. The only question is whether the third time’s the charm.

Updated with comment from Meta at 10:03 a.m. ET.

The Bitcoin Mining Showdown In New York’s Wine Country

Lindsay Muscato - Thursday

TIME

When I reach Rick Rainey on the phone, he’s barreling down a highway in his Subaru with samples of Riesling in tow. “I’m out here spreading the Finger Lakes love,” he tells me—which means, he’s testing his winery’s wares on potential buyers and acting as de facto ambassador for his rural pocket of New York, known as a wine-country escape with unique glacial lakes (and brutal winters). But the area has also become a flashpoint because, like a growing number of areas across the U.S., it’s contending with an unfamiliar neighbor: Bitcoin.

For people like Rainey, who spends a lot of time thinking about dirt and weather, the company in question, Greenidge Generation Holdings, represents an outside force that hogs energy and water resources to mine cryptocurrency. For one thing, it sucks in and spits out millions of gallons of water each day, as a consequence of its steam-powered turbines. Rainey says: “You come to the winery, you sit down, and I hand you a glass. It’s tangible. It’s very there. The Bitcoin thing—it’s millions of gallons of warm water being dumped back into the lake every day and we all go, ‘For what, again?’”

And he’s not alone. When it comes to understanding Bitcoin, though, it’s clear environmental advocates know what it is, because they’ve had to become experts over the last year in their fight for more oversight of the former power plant-turned-Bitcoin-mining operation.

The intricate details of Bitcoin’s global environmental impact have long been debated, unpacked in online conversations, white papers, and studies. Critics say mining is wildly inefficient, using as much energy as some small countries. Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures wrote last year: “Bitcoiners are forced to defend the costs of this industry while the critics enjoy an apparently conscience-free right to selectively question the energy uses of specific industries.”

But now these abstract, longstanding debates feel, as Rainey says, very there.

A version of this story first appeared in the Climate is Everything newsletter. To sign up, click here.

Concerns are coalescing not just in New York but in Kentucky, West Virginia, Oregon, Texas, and more—questioning how much local economies are really benefiting from crypto mining, especially given the energy and environmental impact tradeoffs. Oregon’s Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, Senate Finance Committee chair, is probing crypto-mining companies to show they’re having the promised positive impact on distressed communities. And on March 29, a coalition of heavy-hitting environmental activists launched a new campaign, Change the Code, Not the Climate, demanding that Bitcoin reduce its environmental footprint.

While powerful crypto players like Ethereum are working to dramatically reduce their energy use, it’s easier said than done for Bitcoin.


The Greenidge Generation power plant in Dresden, N.Y. 

Courtesy Marissa Solomon

And for Yvonne Taylor, vice-president of Seneca Lake Guardian, an organization opposing Greenidge, it’s not just about the broader climate impact—local impacts are front and center, too. “They’re going to be emitting over a million tons of CO2 equivalents into the atmosphere every year, in addition to harmful particulate matter,” she says. In farm country, she says, that’s a huge problem for delicate crops like grapes.

Another major concern includes the intake and discharge of millions of gallons of lake water, as Rainey mentioned. Residents argue that returned lake water is warm enough to cause problems for wildlife, and some have even said that parts now feel like a hot tub. Greenidge, however, fiercely denies these claims. The company says in a statement, “We fully adhere to our existing air and water permits and will continue to do so.”

“One thing the Greenridge story really highlights is the materiality of these technologies,” says Elizabeth Renieris, professor of tech ethics at the University of Notre Dame, “Just as with the conversations around data, AI, and cloud computing before, blockchain and cryptocurrencies often rely on ethereal terms … to obscure the physical and material impacts of the tech, including, in this case, very real environmental and social impacts.”

“I’ve never once said you shouldn’t invest in cryptocurrency,” says Rainey. “Do whatever the hell you want to do. I also have the right to push back. We will do what anyone would do, to protect a backyard. This is a climate on the edge.”

Recently, advocates against Greenidge thought they were facing something of a precipice. They expected a major decision from New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, which could have denied an upcoming air permit renewal or even declared a moratorium on this kind of crypto mining. Instead the Department of Environmental Conservation delayed a decision until later this summer. It’s the second time this permit renewal has been pushed forward.

But it’s a decision that can’t afford to wait, says Taylor, and not just for her area— it’s one to watch for the country at large. She says that New York’s green laws are bolder than most, and the Finger Lakes region, though rural, is also partially wine-country-rich, and has more sway than some other places with crypto plants.

“This is a test case for how other underutilized or decommissioned power plants across the state are going to fall, and frankly, beyond,” Taylor says. “You’ll see dozens revving up and reopening again to guzzle fuel and cause problems in other communities. We’re kind of ground zero.”

Shell raises Russia writedown to as much as $5 billion

By Ron Bousso

LONDON (Reuters) - Shell will write down up to $5 billion following its decision to exit Russia, more than previously disclosed, while soaring oil and gas prices boosted trading activities in the first quarter, the company said on Thursday.

The post-tax impairments of between $4 billion and $5 billion in the first quarter will not impact the company's earnings, Shell said in an update ahead of its earnings announcement on May 5.

Shell, whose market capitalisation is around $210 billion, had previously said the Russia writedowns would reach around $3.4 billion. The increase was due to additional potential impacts around contracts, writedowns of receivables, and credit losses in Russia, a Shell spokesperson said.

Shell shares were down 1.2% at the start of London trading.

The start of 2022 marked one of the most turbulent periods in decades for the oil and gas industry as Western companies including Shell rapidly pulled out of Russia, severing trading ties and winding down joint ventures following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Shell said it will exit all its Russian operations, including a major liquefied natural gas plant in the Sakhalin peninsula in the eastern flank of the country.

Shell did not provide any guidance on the future of its stakes in Russian projects.

Benchmark oil prices soared to an average of more than $100 a barrel in the quarter, their highest since 2014, while European gas prices hit a record high.

The unprecedented volatility in commodity prices in recent months has pushed several traders to the brink as they scrambled to sharply increase downpayments for oil and LNG cargoes.

Shell, the world's largest liquefied natural gas trader, said earnings from LNG trading were expected to be higher in the quarter compared with the previous three months. Earnings from oil trading are set to be "significantly higher" in the quarter.

Cashflow in the quarter would be negatively impacted by "very significant" outflows of around $7 billion as a result of changes in the value of oil and gas inventories.

Shell's fuel sales averaged 4.3 million barrels per day in the quarter, down from 4.45 million bpd in the previous quarter, Shell said. LNG liquefaction volumes were slightly higher on the quarter, averaging 8 million tonnes.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by Jason Neely and David Holmes)

Edmonton Journal

Opinion: Edmonton finally undertaking ecological thinking

Raquel Feroe , Kristine Kowalchuk , Rod Olstad , Mary Lou McDonald - 

Edmonton just got a whole lot healthier. On Monday, city council approved two policies that were long overdue: ending the aerial spraying of wetlands around the city (which we’d been spending over half a million dollars a year on, during a global biodiversity crisis) and committing to a 2023 cosmetic pesticide ban (preventing the non-essential use of pesticides).


A Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly feeds on some flower nectar in Edmonton on the first day of summer in 2021.

The former means protecting the birds, dragonflies, and other species that naturally control mosquito populations. Edmonton has apparently had an aerial mosquito spraying program since 1974. Well, Canada and the U.S. have lost nearly one third of birds since 1970, and scientific research points to the collapse in insect numbers as a main cause. The greatest decline has been in “aerial insectivores.” Bank swallows, for example, were once common in Edmonton’s river valley; after a 98-per-cent decline in the last 40 years, however, they are now a threatened species. As every elementary school child knows, we can’t simply remove the base of the food chain.

Most Edmontonians get this. In a 2019 survey , citizens’ top priorities in city “pest” and “weed” management were:

Health of wildlife, including pollinators that might be exposed to pesticides: 93 per cent;

Health of the public that might be exposed to pesticides: 85 per cent;

Health of aquatic ecosystems that might be exposed to pesticides: 85 per cent.

Thankfully, a majority of council listened to citizens and voted for ecological (and economical) thinking. An even greater majority — 12 to one — voted in favour of a cosmetic pesticide ban beginning next year. This will ensure that the landscape alternatives the city is undertaking — including permaculture, naturalization, and urban gardening — will not be undermined by pesticide use. Currently, pesticides sprayed on lawns, golf courses, and university grounds drift in the air, enter the waterways, and accumulate in the soil. What would be the point of planting wildflowers or vegetables if we continued poisoning the birds, bees, and butterflies they are meant to support, and need support from, to be healthy?

Over 180 cities across Canada already have cosmetic pesticide bans — some for over 20 years. They’ve done so to protect human and environmental health. Health Canada registers pesticides based not on “safety” but rather on “acceptable risk,” and is in court now for re-registering glyphosate, deemed a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization. The provinces, meanwhile, only enforce Health Canada’s regulations (and a scathing recent audit showed Alberta’s deficiency in even doing this). So cities have acted.

Edmonton, however, continued to allow pesticides linked to cancer and other diseases, especially in children. A 2017 city audit found that between 2010 and 2016, city pesticide use more than doubled. Despite promises since then, increases have continued — sometimes by outrageous amounts. For example, use of acephate (linked to lower IQ in children) increased 7,016 per cent from 2019 to 2020. The city injects this product into boulevard trees even though the chemical is 10 times more toxic to birds than DDT. What happens if a woodpecker eats an insect from a treated tree?

Pesticide use occurs even in the river valley, despite the fact it is a high-use, ecologically sensitive area, and despite the fact pesticides should not be used next to rivers. Kudos to city council for saying “no more.”

The health emergency we face today is not a need to control inconvenient “pests” or “weeds” but harm from pesticide exposure, disease caused by destruction of nature, and antimicrobial resistance (superbugs). The World Health Organization has now adopted a “One Health” approach to acknowledge that human and environmental health are inseparable — that the best way to protect ourselves is through supporting healthy ecosystems. Going to war against nature leads to far greater problems (including for us) that we urgently need to recognize.

The pathway is clear. Stop spraying, and start protecting nature. Restore wetlands for dragonflies. Allow the bank swallows to rebound. Plant resilient turf on golf courses. Celebrate organic food growing. Such a shift in turn enables new possibilities. In Montreal, citizens are reclaiming back alleys for planting gardens, supporting pollinators and birds, and creating safe places for kids to play.

These are possibilities our city can now embrace. It was a major win that Edmonton is finally joining other cities in undertaking ecological thinking.

Dr. Raquel Feroe and Kristine Kowalchuk are with Pesticide Free Edmonton; Rod Olstad is with the Edmonton Chapter, Council of Canadians; Mary Lou McDonald is with Safe Food Matters.