The Polarstern, released too early from a floe, returned to the North Pole in August amid thin ice.STEFFEN GRAUPNER

By Paul Voosen Aug. 25, 2020

In March, soon after arriving aboard the Polarstern, a German icebreaker frozen into Arctic sea ice, Jennifer Hutchings watched as ice broke up around the ship, weeks earlier than expected. Even as scientists on the research cruise scrambled to keep field instruments from plunging into the ocean, Hutchings, who studies ice deformation at Oregon State University, Corvallis, couldn’t suppress a thrill at seeing the crack up, as if she had spotted a rare bird. “I got to observe firsthand what I studied,” she says.

Arctic sea ice is itself an endangered species. Next month its extent will reach its annual minimum, which is poised to be among the lowest on record. The trend is clear: Summer ice covers half the area it did in the 1980s, and because it is thinner, its volume is down 75%. With the Arctic warming three times faster than the global average, most scientists grimly acknowledge the inevitability of ice-free summers, perhaps as soon as 2035. “It’s definitely a when, not an if,” says Alek Petty, a polar scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Now, he and others are learning that a warming atmosphere is far from the only factor speeding up the ice loss. Strengthening currents and waves are pulverizing the ice. And a study published last week suggests deep heat in the Arctic Ocean has risen and is now melting the ice from below.

Ice has kept its grip on the Arctic with the help of an unusual temperature inversion in the underlying waters. Unlike the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, the Arctic gets warmer as it gets deeper. Bitter winters and chilly, buoyant freshwater from Eurasian rivers cool its surface layers, which helps preserve the underside of the ice. But at greater depths sits a warm blob of salty Atlantic water, thought to be safely separated from the sea ice.

As the reflective ice melts, however, it is replaced by darker water, which absorbs more of the Sun’s energy and warms. Those warming surface waters are likely migrating down into the blob, which robotic temperature probes, moorings, and oceanographic surveys show is steadily warming and growing. With enough heat to melt the Arctic’s ice three to four times over, the blob could devour the ice from below if the barrier of the cold surface layers ever dissipates.

Measurements from the eastern Arctic Ocean, published last week in the Journal of Climate, show the blob, usually found 150 meters below or deeper, has recently moved up to within 80 meters of the surface. Increased turbulence means some of that heat is now melting ice, says Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. “This heat has become, regionally, the key forcing for sea ice decay.”

The process, called “Atlantification,” is already well underway in the Barents Sea, north of Norway, where fingers of warm Atlantic water have spread north and risen, melting sea ice even in winter months. The invasion shows no sign of stopping, says Helene Asbjørnsen, an oceanographer at the University of Bergen who has helped chart this migration. “Ultimately we expect it to extend into the Arctic more.”

Going, going …

Summer Arctic sea ice covers half the area it did in the 1980s, and it could disappear by 2035. The ice faces threats not only from warming air, but also from waves, currents, and melting from below.

The $134 million Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), based on the Polarstern, is exploring another ice-destroying feedback. The ship froze itself into a floe in October 2019, to give the team a chance to observe the floe for one full year as the summer melt season shifted back into freezing. But the project ran into challenges. First came the COVID-19 pandemic, which made planned personnel rotations difficult. Then the ice drifted too far south too quickly. In late July, the day after the team pulled up its remaining instruments, the floe broke up and melted. “To me that is a big loss, and I’m pretty bummed about it,” says Matthew Shupe, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who helped lead U.S. contributions to the cruise. But, he added, there was a bonus: “We never planned to be around for that ‘death of an ice floe’ process.”


The Polarstern’s floe is not an isolated case. Remote sensing satellites show that over the past 20 years, ice has been drifting faster, potentially sweeping it into warmer waters, says Sinéad Farrell, a sea ice scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park. One reason for the change in pace could be faster currents in the Arctic Ocean, as ice melt exposes more water to the push of the wind, says Arild Sundfjord, a physical oceanographer at the Norwegian Polar Institute. “We think we see signs of that.”


Another factor could be an increase in the roughness of the sea ice, which allows wind to catch and propel it. MOSAiC scientists deployed GPS stations across the floe’s melange of first-year and thicker multiyear ice to monitor its speed and deformation. They suspect that as the ice becomes thinner and weaker, it is more prone to the crunch and crumble that builds up wind-catching ridges, Hutchings says, but they’re still resolving whether that is true. The turmoil took a heavy toll on the expedition, crushing some instruments like aluminum cans and destroying snow sampling sites. It was frustrating, Shupe says. “We don’t really control anything here,” he says. “The Arctic is telling us its story and we just need to be clever enough to document it.”


ICESat-2, a laser altimeter launched by NASA in 2018, will help extrapolate findings from MOSAiC to the rest of the Arctic. Unlike previous satellites, ICESat-2 can distinguish between ice floe cracks and melt ponds on top, and it is already showing stark differences between multiyear and first-year ice, Farrell says. In a surprise, the ICESat-2 team is finding that the multiyear ice overall is twice as rough as first-year ice. “It’s kind of like aging skin,” she says. “They get more wrinkly over time.” The satellite also seems to be capable of capturing waves amid the ice, and linking them to nearby storms, Petty says. It’s another worrying mechanism that could speed up ice loss, he says. “As waves break the ice apart, it gets more exposed to heat—and melts further.”


The retreat of the ice bodes ill for global climate, but it is making the Arctic easier to study. This month saw the start of the Synoptic Arctic Survey, which will knit together more than a dozen national Arctic cruises by ice breakers and other research ships. The survey will cover the Arctic’s entirety, providing a near-simultaneous picture of currents, life, and water conditions and chemistry, rather than a collection of regional snapshots over time. The pandemic delayed all but two of the cruises, which were planned for this summer: those of Japan’s Mirai and South Korea’s Aron. But once completed, the survey could answer basic questions, such as whether the Arctic is a net source or sink of carbon dioxide.


And it could not have been done in the ice-bound Arctic of old. “Now,” Sundfjord says, “we can go wherever, and whenever, we want.”

Portland protesters demonstrate at police union building, mayor's condo


Demonstrators set an object on fire near the boarded-up Portland Police Association building early Saturday, following a demonstration earlier in the evening in the lobby of Mayor Ted Wheeler's condominium building. Photo courtesy Portland Police Bureau

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Protesters took to the streets for the 93rd night in a row in Portland, Ore., demonstrating at Mayor Ted Wheeler's condominium building and at a separate location near the Portland Police Association building.

The Oregonian reported that the first demonstration, in the Pearl neighborhood near downtown, ended with a dance party Friday. At the second, multiple people were arrested early Saturday after someone set a large burning object near the police union building.

Portlanders have protested against racism and police brutality every night since May 28, with demonstrations drawing the ire of President Donald Trump and criticism over handling of crowds by both local police and federal law enforcement officials.

On Friday afternoon, Wheeler posted an image of a letter he wrote to Trump on Twitter declining the president's repeated offer to send federal law enforcement to Portland.

"We don't need your politics of division and demagoguery," Wheeler wrote. "We have already seen your reckless disregard for human life in your bumbling response to the COVID pandemic. And we know you've reached the conclusion that images of violence or vandalism are your only ticket to reelection."

"If the incompetent Mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, doesn't get control of his city and stop the Anarchists, Agitators, Rioters and Looters, causing great danger to innocent people, we will go in and take care of matters the way they should have been taken care of 100 days ago!" Trump wrote later that night.

The North Portland demonstration began at a neighborhood park as a vigil for Emmett Till on the 65th anniversary of his lynching in Mississippi.

Later that night demonstrators lit fires in two dumpsters placed in the street and set an object that appeared to be a mattress or box spring against the boarded-up police union building.

According to media and police reports, someone appeared to add accelerant to the object, causing the plywood on the building to catch fire.

Officers then demanded that protesters scatter and began making arrests. As of Saturday afternoon the Portland Police Bureau had not announced the number of people arrested or the names of arrestees.

Early Saturday morning, witnesses said a car drove by the demonstration and fired shots, according to a video of the scene posted to Twitter by an Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter. An observer found shell casings at the scene, but no one was hurt.

The demonstration in Wheeler's building was punctuated by an encounter between activists and former Minnesota Timberwolves executive David Kahn, who lives in the same building and said he was a friend of Wheeler's.

He offered to set up a meeting with Wheeler to discuss the situation, but activists declined, saying they wanted to talk to the mayor -- who did not emerge Friday -- directly.

Thousands of Mauritians protest government's handling of oil spill


People during a protest over the governments handling of the Wakashio oill spill in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, Saturday. Citizens and various political parties denounced the government's handling of the Wakashio case. Photo by Lura Morosoli/EPA-EFE

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Thousands of people marched through the Mauritian capital Saturday to protest the government's handling of a massive oil spill that has leaked an estimated 1,000 oil into the waters around the island nation since the end of July.

Some wore black and waved the national flag, where others wore T-shirts bearing the inscription, "I love my country. I'm ashamed of my government."

On July 25 a Japanese oil tanker, the MV Wakashio, was en route to Brazil when it hit a coral reef off the Indian Ocean, spilling oil near the small island nation.

In mid-August the ship broke in half, causing more oil to leak into the waters around Mauritius.

The affected area includes a sanctuary for rare wildlife, and the Mauritian government reported Friday that 39 dead dolphins have washed ashore on the island -- up from a reported 18 earlier this week.

Activists say the government could have done more to prevent the spill, and have criticized the decision to deliberately sink the ship after it split in half.

"They didn't do anything when the ship approached our coastline - 12 days they didn't do anything until the oil spill and now thousands of people and marine people are affected," a demonstrator told the BBC.

RELATED Japanese government under fire for Mauritius oil spill

Environmental activists have also criticized the Japanese government for failing to take responsibility for the damage caused by the spill.

The Mauritian government has promised to investigate the spill, and the captain of the ship has been arrested and charged with endangering safe navigation.

Demonstrators in other countries -- including Canada, New Zealand and Australia -- also took to the streets Saturday to show solidarity with protesters in Mauritius.

Ancient megadrought may explain civilization’s ‘missing millennia’ in Southeast Asia

Laos is now wet and verdant, but new findings suggest it experienced a 1000-year megadrought starting about 5000 years ago. FBXX/ISTOCK.COM

By Charles ChoiAug. 24, 2020 , 2:05 PM

A megadrought that lasted more than 1000 years may have plagued Southeast Asia 5000 years ago, setting up dramatic shifts in regional civilizations, suggests a new study of cave rocks in northern Laos. The researchers believe the drought began when the drying of the distant Sahara Desert disrupted monsoon rains and triggered droughts throughout the rest of Asia and Africa.

For years, archaeologists studying mainland Southeast Asia—an area encompassing modern-day Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam—have been puzzled by what they call “the missing millennia,” a period from roughly 6000 to 4000 years ago with little evidence of human settlements. University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Joyce White, a co-author on the new paper, says she and others long thought this was because researchers hadn’t yet pinpointed where people of the era lived. Now, she believes the settlements could be missing because a megadrought devastated their populations and drove them to find water elsewhere.

To re-create the climate of that time, White and her colleagues investigated stalagmites in Tham Doun Mai, a cave in northern Laos. Stalagmites are tapering pillars of rock that rise from the floors of caves; they slowly grow taller as mineral-rich water drips from cave ceilings—often after rainfall. By analyzing the content of the slowly deposited rock, researchers can gauge not only the age of the rock, but also how wet it was at the time.

Scientists first radioisotope dated sections of three stalagmites from 9500 to 700 years ago. They next examined oxygen isotopes in the rocks to see how rainfall might have varied over those times. When rain falls, drops bearing heavy oxygen-18 isotopes land before those holding lighter oxygen-16 isotopes. Frequent downpours let loose both isotopes, but arid places that see only spotty showers tend to be depleted in light oxygen. By looking for stalagmite layers that were enriched in oxygen-18, the researchers could identify times when the climate was dry.


Paleoclimatologist Michael Griffiths collects a sample of calcite growth that precipitated onto a glass plate left in Tham Doun Mai Cave in Laos for 2 years. KATHLEEN JOHNSON

The researchers found that rainfall in the cave was relatively steady for more than 4000 years before abruptly decreasing between roughly 5100 to 3500 years ago. That suggests the region may have experienced a prolonged, heretofore unrecognized drought that lasted more than 1 millennium, the researchers report this month in Nature Communications.

If so, it may have been part of a larger series of megadroughts that hit Africa and Asia between 5000 and 4000 years ago, says study co-author Kathleen Johnson, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California, Irvine. During this time, civilizations across western Asia and the Middle East went through major upheavals, such as the collapse of the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia and the abandonment of cities in the Indus Valley. The climate shift, which some have dubbed the “4.2-kiloyear event,” is the basis for the Meghalayan, a controversial new geological age. It coincided with—and may have resulted from—the end of the Green Sahara, when once-verdant north Africa became a desert.

To determine whether African desertification could be linked to the Southeast Asian megadrought, the researchers simulated the ancient climate, incorporating interactions among the oceans, the atmosphere, dust, and vegetation. They found that the drying of the Sahara might have increased airborne dust, pushing the Pacific Ocean into a prolonged El Niño–like cycle that disrupted mainland Southeast Asia’s summer monsoon rains. This in turn could have triggered a megadrought over large swaths of Southeast Asia and flooding across East Asia. This was, in essence, “a redistribution of moisture across Asia,” says Michael Griffiths, a paleoclimatologist at William Paterson University and lead author on the study.

Raymond Bradley, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, says the new study suggests the 4.2-kiloyear event—which many consider an abrupt climate shift—may have been part of a larger trend that began roughly 800 years earlier. He hopes the new study will spur researchers to review well-dated records from other regions across Asia to see where and when similar climatic shifts occurred. “Only then can we try to figure out why such changes occurred and how they might or might not be related to societal changes.”

To that end, Griffiths and his team are planning to explore caves in Vietnam and Thailand to get a better look at the period. And their answers may also inform modern-day climate projections, he says. “Perhaps studying the past can help illuminate our current situation in new ways.”

doi:10.1126/science.abe4757

Cannabis research database shows how U.S. funding focuses on harms of the drug

Utah State University researchers have grown cannabis plants since 2018, when hemp cultivation was legalized. ELI LUCERO/THE HERALD JOURNAL VIA AP

Cannabis research database shows how U.S. funding focuses on harms of the drug

By Cathleen O’GradyAug. 27, 2020 , 4:05 PM

A new analysis of cannabis research funding in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has found that $1.56 billion was directed to the topic between 2000 and 2018—with about half of the money spent on understanding the potential harms of the recreational drug. Just over $1 billion came from the biggest funder, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which doled out far more money to research cannabis misuse and its negative effects than on using cannabis and cannabis-derived chemicals as a therapeutic drug.

“The government’s budget is a political statement about what we value as a society,” says Daniel Mallinson, a cannabis policy researcher at Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, who reviewed the funding analysis provided to Science by the consultant who conducted it. “The fact that most of the cannabis money is going to drug abuse and probably to cannabis use disorder versus medical purposes—that says something.” The data confirm “word on the street” that government grants go to research that focuses on harms, says Daniela Vergara, who researches cannabis genomics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

However, overall cannabis research funding in the United States is rising steadily, from less than $30.2 million in 2000 to more than $143 million in 2018, and money to explore cannabis medical treatments is growing—although not as fast as funding for research on harms

The analysis is based on a database assembled by Jim Hudson, a consultant for medical research charities and government agencies, who collected publicly available grant data from 50 funders, including public agencies such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health and charities such as Canada’s Arthritis Society. Based on his own reading of the 3269 grants that included cannabis-related keywords, Hudson classified each into categories that captured the focus of the research.

Compared with the $1.49 billion spent by the United States over the 19-year period, Canada spent $32.2 million and the United Kingdom $40 million. Whereas U.K. spending was similarly dominated by research on the harmful effects of cannabis, Canada’s funding focused on the endocannabinoid system—the body’s own system of cannabinoid receptors and naturally produced endocannabinoids that bind to them.

In 2018, research on the potential harms of cannabis received more than 20 times more funding than research on cannabis therapeutics, according to an analysis of cannabis research grants from 50 public agency and charity funders.

The tools Hudson developed to access and sort the public grant data are ultimately destined for his consulting work on cancer research funding, but he says the much smaller field of cannabis offered a bite-size test drive. Hudson made the broad findings public on his website today, although the raw data behind the analysis are not. It’s the first attempt to consolidate cannabis grant data from a wide range of sources and classify it, says Lee Hannah, a cannabis policy researcher at Wright State University, and it’s useful to see “how the lion’s share in the U.S. remains focused on negative consequences and prevention.”

The analysis also hints at the legal hurdles to studying cannabis. In 2018, the $34 million spent by the three countries on cannabis medical treatments was dominated by research on cannabinoids—chemicals found in cannabis—rather than the cannabis plant itself.

This is probably in part because of practicality, Vergara says: It’s often easier for researchers to work with isolated compounds and create regulated doses than to use the whole marijuana plant with its psychoactive properties. But in the United States, it’s also difficult to get governmental permission to use the whole plant for research, she adds. Right now, the only legal producer of cannabis for research in the United States is the University of Mississippi, which grows cannabis that is less potent than recreational pot.

Although NIDA still dominates cannabis research funding, both nationally and internationally, new sources have appeared in recent years. The U.S. Department of Defense has spent a few million dollars on cannabinoid research over the past few years, and, in 2014, the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment created a medical marijuana research program. That’s part of a wider pattern of U.S. states legalizing cannabis and setting money aside for research despite ongoing federal restrictions, Hannah says.

The analysis isn’t an exhaustive picture of worldwide cannabis research, because it only captures public data from a short list of countries. Despite a reputation as a major center of cannabis research, Israel doesn’t feature, although Hudson hopes to expand the list of included countries and funders. The analysis of NIDA funding does not distinguish between money for outside scientists versus the institute’s own researchers. And Mallinson points out that there’s no record of the private research funding that has increased recently, like Harvard Medical School’s International Phytomedicines and Medical Cannabis Institute, which has received funding from Canadian cannabis producer Atlas Biotechnologies and other companies.

The limited funding for therapeutic research is part of a vicious circle, Mallinson says: Research is restricted because the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration lists marijuana as a Schedule I drug, meaning it is considered to have high potential for abuse and no evidence for medical benefits—but the threshold needed to demonstrate evidence of medical benefits is hard to reach because the research is restricted. “It’s difficult to break that,” Mallinson says.

Putting marijuana on the less-restricted Schedule II list, alongside such drugs as oxycodone, felt “inevitable” more than 10 years ago, Hannah says, but no change has yet materialized.

doi:10.1126/science.abe5328

New “Nano-Diamond” Battery Can Last Up to 28,000 Years
Beebom Staff -August 30, 2020


With several researchers and scientists working on various kinds of battery tech, we have seen some pretty long-lasting batteries for EVs and even smartphones. However, no matter how long these batteries last, they would lose their power, maybe in days or even months, after a charge. So now, a company has some bold claims which state that their new radioactive-waste-consuming batteries can last for thousands of years and too on a single charge!

According to a recent report, California-based battery-makers, NDB has developed a new type of battery that can use radioactive waste to generate electric power. Moreover, the company claims that these batteries can last up to 28,000 years.

NDB’s new “nano-diamond batteries” are a new type of battery that uses nuclear material as a source to create electrical energy. According to the company, these new batteries serve as little generators that can take radioactive waste materials from nuclear powerplants to convert it into electrical energy to power cars and electronic devices.
A Nuclear Waste-Consuming Battery

As per the report, the company used leftover radioactive graphite to create different kinds of diamonds with varying carbon levels. These residue radioactive graphite are pretty harmful if left untreated. So, the company takes the waste material and purifies it.

Then they develop a layered structure to make the batteries that can produce electricity. And according to NDB, they can manipulate the structure of the battery and make it in any size, like AA or AAA.

Now, if you are thinking about the radiation levels around you when you use this new battery, then do not worry. The company says that these batteries give off radiation which is less than the natural radiation of the human body. So, it should be safe to use the nano-diamond batteries.

The company also states that this technology can be scaled up to create these special batteries for future EVs. Generally, companies like Tesla take responsibility for their car batteries for up to eight years or for 100,000 miles.

However, NDB claims that with the technology scaled up, it can produce car batteries that will power an EV for around 90 years. Apart from cars, these batteries can also be hugely useful for medical devices like pacemakers.

Now, we are not sure when these batteries will actually make their way to the consumer market. Nonetheless, these kinds of new developments show that we are certainly not letting out environment down and are willing to protect it.

The company has released an explanatory video about these new batteries and the technology behind them. You can check it out right below.


SOURCE The Next Web

Minas Gerais asks court to block Vale assets worth $4.7 bn

Bruno Venditti | August 26, 2020

The aftermath of the disaster in Brumardinho after Vale’s tailings dam collapsed. Photo by Vinícius Mendonça/Ibama, Wikimedia Commons.

Brazil’s Minas Gerais state authorities and federal prosecutors have asked a judge to order Vale (NYSE: VALE) to pay for economic losses and other damages stemming from last year’s deadly Brumadinho tailings dam disaster, which killed 270 people.

The authorities have sent a joint petition seeking a judge’s order for the miner to freeze 26.7 billion reais ($4.78 billion) in assets for eventual restitution to the state.

They are also seeking 28 billion reais ($5.01 billion) in collective “moral and social” damages.

AUTHORITIES HAVE SENT A JOINT PETITION SEEKING A JUDGE’S ORDER FOR THE MINER TO FREEZE ASSETS FOR EVENTUAL RESTITUTION TO THE STATE

“This amount corresponds to the net profit distributed to shareholders in 2018, an amount that could have been applied to guarantee the safety of the dams,” prosecutors said.

According to Vale, $1.9 billion have already been presented in guarantees and judicial deposits.

“Vale reinforces that this is not a new public civil action but claims in the lawsuit, which has been in progress since January 2019,” the company said in a press release.

Vale said that it is not formally aware of the requests made and will comment on them in the records of the proceedings, within the period stipulated by the judge.

In July, a court decision suspended $1.5 billion in legal deposits that had been previously required in a case related to the deadly dam collapse.

In May, the city of Brumadinho suspended Vale’s operating license after health agents said that the company’s onsite activities had “not respected the rules of social isolation.”

A Minas Gerais state court in Brazil later revoked the decree after the company argued that the suspension was issued with the main purpose of serving as retaliation for non-payment of emergency aid to the entire population of the city.

The Fire Brigade of Minas Gerais will resume the search for still missing bodies of 11 victims of the disaster.

Earlier this year, state prosecutors charged Fabio Schvartsman, the chief executive at the time of the burst, and 15 other people with homicide. Schvartsman left his position at the company in March 2019.

Wage talks with Kumba Iron Ore hit deadlock, union says


Reuters | August 26, 2020

Sishen Mine, a Kumba Iron Ore mine in South Africa’s the Northern Cape Province. (Image by Graeme Williams, Media Club, Wikimedia Commons)

South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Wednesday said that wage negotiations with Kumba Iron Ore, owned by Anglo American, were deadlocked and the union had declared a dispute, a move that is one step short of a strike.

NUM, the majority union at Kumba, said the company had agreed a wage increase of 8% for the lowest-paid workers and 6.5% for the highest-paid, but the two parties had disagreed over sick leave.

“The company policy on sick leave provides workers with 120 days. To our dismay, in a round of negotiations, the company wants to do away with the benefit,” the NUM said in a statement.

The union’s declaration of a dispute means that a protected strike could go ahead if conciliation talks between the parties mediated by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration fail to break the impasse.

Kumba, which has mining operations in the Northern Cape province and a port operation in Saldanha Bay, said it was continuing negotiations with NUM.

“We trust that we will be able to reach an amicable solution soon, which will be in the best interest of both the employees and the company,” Kumba Iron Ore said in an emailed statement.

Negotiations with the two other unions, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and Solidarity, which are representated at Kumba’s operations, have been concluded.

(By Tanisha Heiberg; Editing by David Goodman and Barbara Lewis)

Rio Tinto’s weak response to cave blasts will trigger stronger reaction

Reuters | August 25, 2020

Rio Tinto was given permission to blast Juukan Gorge 1 and 2 under Section 18 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act. (Credit: Puutu Kunti Kurrama And Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation)

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Clyde Russell, a columnist for Reuters)

Rio Tinto may have inadvertently triggered the law of unintended consequences with its blasting of an Aboriginal heritage site at one of its Australian iron ore mines, and the subsequent slap on the wrists for some senior executives.

The board of Rio cut the bonuses of three senior executives including Chief Executive Jean-Sébastien Jacques as part of the company’s review into the destruction of two historically significant caves in Western Australia state, against the wishes of the Aboriginal traditional owners.

Rio, which overtook Brazil’s Vale as the world’s biggest iron ore miner last year, destroyed the Juukan Gorge caves in May as part of an expansion of its Brockman 4 mine.


REVIEW FOUND THERE WAS NO SINGLE “ROOT CAUSE OR ERROR” THAT RESULTED IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CAVES, RATHER IT WAS A “SERIES OF DECISIONS, ACTIONS AND OMISSIONS OVER AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME

While the blasting met legal requirements, Rio has faced a public and investor backlash for allegedly putting profits ahead of heritage, a view amplified by the revelation that the company had alternatives to destroying the caves but chose not to pursue them.

The Rio board review said there was no single “root cause or error” that resulted in the destruction of the caves, rather it was a “series of decisions, actions and omissions over an extended period of time.”

The board recommended improving procedures and setting up new processes to ensure this type of incident doesn’t happen again.

The board’s review likely fails what Australians refer to as the “pub test,” which means whether the average patrons of a typical bar believe the actions are reasonable and appropriate.

The loss of about $3.7 million in bonuses for the three executives is a very mild punishment, given their level of remuneration and the fact that Jacques, along with head of iron ore Chris Salisbury and Simone Niven, the executive responsible for corporate relations, bear responsibility for what has become a public relations disaster for the company.

The board’s soft-pedalling of the cave destruction was condemned by shareholder advocacy group the Australasian Corporate Centre for Responsibility, and several institutional investors.

While Rio will no doubt hope the issue blows over with the passage of time, it’s more likely that it leads to a renewed focus on environment, social and governance (ESG) issues.

Shareholders are becoming increasingly aware of the financial risks of companies that are viewed as not having leading ESG programmes and a culture of doing the right thing.

Social licence to operate, along with climate change, comes up often as the top concerns for miners, with a survey last year by consultants EY showing 44% of mining executives viewed keeping a social licence as their top concern.
Miners to change

Unfortunately, the Rio incident with the Juukan caves shows that miners may still have some way to go in order to be seen to be placing ESG issues at the heart of their operations.

Rio isn’t alone in this, with other leading mining companies seeming to fall short in this area, despite public commitments that it is their top priority.

Like Rio’s corporate affairs boss Niven, other miners have executives listed as having responsibility for ESG issues, such as outgoing BHP external affairs chief Geoff Healy, Tim Langmead at Fortescue Metals Group, Anik Michaud at Anglo American and Luiz Osorio at Vale.

Glencore is unusual among major miners in not having an executive with ESG responsibilities listed on its website.

But merely having an executive named doesn’t mean these people are among the most important decision makers in the companies they work for.

All the executives’ names above have additional responsibilities and none of them have a public profile worth speaking about.

In effect, they are largely invisible and take little or no public part in the debate over ESG issues.

This hardly speaks to mining companies that appear to view ESG issues as front and centre of their existence.

For companies to be taken seriously, it would likely take the appointment of senior executives, with real power over the decision-making process, to become involved in placing ESG at the heart of each company’s mission.

If Rio had somebody like this, somebody could have stopped the blasting even if the CEO wanted it to proceed, somebody who understood that the negative optics of blowing up the caves considerably outweighed the potential profits, then it may have avoided the current mess.

However, it’s likely that ongoing shareholder demands for increased ESG accountability, coupled with activism by interest groups, will force miners down the path of making ESG more than just the current statements of principle.

Codelco presses ahead with automation plans to bolster production

Reuters | August 28, 2020

Haul trucks at Codelco’s Gabriela Mistral mine are 100% autonomous. Credit: Codelco

Chile’s state-owned Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, will press ahead with plans to roll out automation of its mining operations as it seeks to maintain production levels into the future amid declining ore grades and the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic, its chief executive said on Friday.

The progress of Codelco’s digitalization agenda has strained relations with the unions because of the potential for technological advances reducing the need for manual labour.

Technological development is however critical to ensuring the longer-term viability of mining, Codelco CEO Octavio Araneda said in a seminar hosted in the capital Santiago.

COPPER MINERS IN CHILE ARE FACING A COMBINATION OF DECLINING ORE GRADES AND COSTLY OVERHAULS OF AGEING MINES

Copper miners are struggling globally with the ongoing disruption of the coronavirus pandemic, while in Chile they are also facing a combination of declining ore grades and costly overhauls of ageing mines.

“We are committed to a programme of introducing autonomous trucks in the pits. That’s a potent and challenging goal in terms of automation,” he said.

“That’s the big step still remaining to take, our are plants are already pretty automated.”

Codelco, which delivers all its profits to the state, increased production by 4.7% in the first half of the year even as it reduced staffing and adjusted shift systems to slow the spread of the virus in its operations.

But as Chile reached its peak of infections in July and the virus spread to its northern desert cities, Codelco’s unions reported around 3,000 cases and a handful of deaths, it was forced to stall development projects and smelters.

Araneda celebrated Codelco’s managing to reduce levels of the coronavirus among workers to an average of seven daily cases per day in a mass of 70,000 people, more than half of whom are asymptomatic.

Araneda said the company was prepared for a second wave.

“It is very likely that increases in the number of infections will happen in the country and the regions where we operate,” he said.

Chile this week surpassed 400,000 infections and more than 11,000 deaths from covid-19 though with a drop in daily infection and positivity rates, it has begun a cautious lifting of lockdowns and resumption of business activity in the capital and around the country.

(By Fabian Cambero and Aislinn Laing; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Canadian mine wages steady increase over five years

 August 28, 2020

Canadian Malartic mine is the country’s largest operating gold operation. (Image courtesy of Canadian Malartic.)

Canada’s mining industry has seen steady increases in wages over the past 5 years for energy fuel mines, metal mines, and industrial mineral mines.

These statistics are derived from five surveys conducted between 2016 and 2020 by MINING.COM’s sister company Costmine, a division of InfoMine USA, Inc, publisher of Mining Cost Service.

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They found that, of Canada’s mining industry wage statistics, metal mining showed the highest average increase in wages, though metal mines lagged slightly behind on the pay scale. Industrial mineral mines showed the next highest increase in wages and coal mines pulled in third for the smallest increase.

Source: Costmine

The energy mines’ lead in wages resulted, in part, from generous compensation packages offered by northern Alberta’s oil sands industry. For example, base pay for a heavy equipment operator was reported as high as C$52.06 per hour in 2020.

Average benchmark hourly base wages for select job titles over the 5 year period are shown in the following tables for comparison purposes. Wages are reported in Canadian dollars.

Source: Costmine

Benefit packages at Canadian mines are often generous. In addition to the Canada Pension Plan or Quebec Pension Plan in Canada, Universal health care plans are also mandated.

Many mines turn to bonus plans to make up for lower wages. Most plans today offer bonuses based on formulas that include safety, productivity, environmental protection, and achieving individual or team goals. Some also include commodity prices in the factoring. These plans can easily increase a miners pay 10 to 15% or more.

Source: Costmine

Metal mines are prime examples for supporting lower wages with bonus plans. In the 5 year period between 2016 and 2020, the number of bonus plans for surveyed metal mines ranged from 74% to 88% of metal mines.

Source: Costmine.

In comparison, only 27% of surveyed coal mines reported providing bonus plans in 2020; a number that has decreased from 44% in 2016 continues to fall far short of the reported number of metal mines providing bonuses. Industrial mineral mines fair a bit better than coal mines with 50% of mines reporting bonuses, but fewer of those mines are offering bonuses than in 2016.

The full report, titled Canadian Mine Salaries, Wages and Benefits, is available at Costmine.

Costmine would like to thank Brunel, co-sponsor on the 2020 Survey Results.

Freeport Indonesia workers end protest at Grasberg
Reuters | August 28, 2020

Grasberg mine on the island of New Guinea, one of the world’s biggest sources of copper and gold. (Image: Google Earth.)

Workers at Indonesia’s Grasberg gold and copper mine on Friday ended a protest demanding an easing of a coronavirus lockdown at the mine operated by a local unit of Freeport-McMoran Inc, a workers’ representative and the company said.

Mining operations were disrupted after protesters had blocked access to the world’s second-largest copper mine since Monday, calling on the company to resume a bus service to allow them to travel to a nearby town, and for a bonus payment.

Yonpis Tabuni, a workers’ representative, said by text message that all their demands had been met and the protest had ended.


FREEPORT EMPLOYS 13,000 PEOPLE IN TEMBAGAPURA, THE CLOSEST TOWN TO THE GRASBERG MINE

He shared a video showing workers opening up road blockades, partially shrouded by thick fog and rain, at the mine located at a mountain-top mining complex in the easternmost region of Papua.

“We have reached peace with the management,” said another worker who declined to be named, adding that the company had given them a written memo of the agreement. Freeport Indonesia confirmed on Friday the blockades had been removed after earlier saying the local government had given permission to ease lockdown restrictions.

Riza Pratama, a spokesman for Freeport Indonesia, said on Thursday the company and local government had agreed to ease curbs to allow workers to leave the mine area and visit the nearby town.

Local authorities would allow some workers to leave Grasberg each day after passing rapid test screening for the coronavirus, instead of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, he said.

They would also need to pass a temperature check upon arriving at the nearby town. Pratama said 4,600 workers who had not taken any leave since April would be prioritised. Freeport employs 13,000 people in Tembagapura, the closest town to the Grasberg mine. Of those, 389 had tested positive for the coronavirus and all but 28 had recovered, Pratama said on Wednesday.

(By Agustinus Beo Da Costa, Fransiska Nangoy and Ed Davies; Editing by Martin Petty)

Freeport to ease lockdown in bid to end protest at Grasberg

Reuters | August 27, 2020

Grasberg copper-gold mine Papua province, Indonesia (Image: NASA)

The Indonesian unit of Freeport-McMoran Inc said on Thursday it would ease a lockdown at its Grasberg gold and copper mine after a protest this week by workers angry over not being able to leave the mountain-top mining complex for months.

Mining operations have been disrupted after workers have blocked access to the world’s second-largest copper mine in the easternmost region of Papua since Monday, demanding transport out of the mine resumes and to receive a bonus for working during the pandemic.

Riza Pratama, a spokesman for PT Freeport Indonesia, said the company and the local government had agreed to ease curbs to allow workers to leave the mine area and visit the nearby town, but had yet to reach an agreement with workers on the policy implementation.


FREEPORT EMPLOYS 13,000 PEOPLE IN TEMBAGAPURA, THE CLOSEST TOWN TO THE GRASBERG MINE

Local authorities were allowing some workers to leave Grasberg each day when they passed rapid test screening for the coronavirus, instead of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, he said.

“They have to take rapid test when leaving, but there’s only a limited number of tests at a time and the number of buses is also limited,” he said. “That’s what we are trying to regulate now.”

The workers will have to also pass a temperature check upon arriving at the nearby town.

Pratama said 4,600 workers who had not taken any leave since April would be given priority, but a worker said the protest would go on until there was a written agreement.

“We will open the access only when we have the inter-office (memo) from the management in our hands,” said a worker who declined to be named for fear of repercussions.

The worker said a deadline had been set for 6 pm (0900GMT) for it to be issued, otherwise the protest would continue on Friday.

Freeport employs 13,000 people in Tembagapura, the closest town to the Grasberg mine. Out of these, 389 had tested positive for the coronavirus, with 361 of them now recovered, Pratama said on Wednesday.

(By Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Ed Davies)

Academia needs a reality check: Life is not back to normal
By June Gruber, Jay J. Van Bavel , William A. Cunningham, Leah H. Somerville, Neil A. Lewis, Jr.

Aug. 28, 2020

Academic scientists are facing an ominous start to the academic year. Some universities are welcoming students back to campus with detailed COVID-19 testing and prevention guidelines. Others have suddenly retracted in-person plans, moving to fully online courses as coronavirus cases spiked. “We all should be emotionally prepared for widespread infections — and possibly deaths — in our community,” a professor at Yale University wrote to students in a 1 July email.

The problems don’t end there. Many academics are also grappling with ongoing racial injustices and associated protests, wildfires, and hurricanes. We continue to see widespread effects on mental health, with roughly one-third of Americans reporting symptoms of clinical depression or anxiety. June and her colleague recently described the escalating mental health crisis as the next biggest coronavirus challenge.

We have struggled with our own mental and physical well-being—as well as challenges associated with canceled vacations, lack of child care, the illnesses and death of people close to us, and the mental weight of difficult conversations about racial injustices. We’ve also been worrying about our trainees and the undergraduate students in our classes. The academic and nonacademic job markets have cratered, and some of our colleagues and students have lost internships and job offers as organizations have been forced to cut expenses.

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To be absolutely clear: This. Is. Not. Normal.

And now, with the start of the semester upon us, we continue to receive a massive influx of emails from colleagues detailing service expectations, urgent meetings, new teaching expectations, research disruptions, and complex new policies. We are expected to create malleable teaching plans for in-person and online instruction, oversee the safety of in-person activities, and carry forth with our normal research programs and service duties.

All of this can feel incredibly overwhelming. That’s why we feel strongly that the scientific community needs to take a step back, once again, and recalibrate our expectations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some universities may be reopening. But with all the grim statistics and uncertainty, one thing is clear: Things may not be back to normal for many months to come (if ever). As we adapt our expectations for ourselves and others, we suggest three principles for facing reality during the upcoming semester:
Acknowledge that things are not normal

This is a moment for empathy and understanding. Don’t pretend that things are normal or that your lab can go back to “business as usual.” It’s important to openly discuss what is going on with your group members. As June noted in an earlier column, it is essential to support your own mental health, as well as that of your trainees and colleagues.
The previous Letter to Young Scientists


The team-written Letters to Young Scientists column offers training and career advice from within academia.



How to be an ethical scientist
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If you’re in a position of power, you may want to remind those in your research group that this is a stressful and unprecedented pandemic and that it’s OK for work to be slowed down or postponed altogether. You may also want to advocate for early-career scientists who are afraid to ask for extensions or remote options to reduce their risk of infection.

Consider changing your email signature or syllabus to acknowledge these issues and provide as much flexibility as possible for assignments, lectures, and meetings. Several of us have adjusted our email signatures or created automatic email responses as a small way of reminding people that things are not normal. For example, Jay’s autoemail reply reads, “Due to the coronavirus pandemic and a significant loss of childcare, I will not be able to respond to most requests without losing sleep or my sanity until things return to normal.” In her courses, June has implemented a COVID-19 adjusted syllabus statement to explicitly acknowledge the stressful times students face.

We cannot fully understand everyone’s experiences during this period of crisis. However, by sharing our own vulnerabilities and challenges, we can open the door for discussion. Even a small amount of empathy and accommodation can go a long way.
Respect child care and other personal needs

Six months into the pandemic, many parents are still dealing with the need to care for children at home full-time and to serve as homeschool teachers. Recent research indicates parents may be one of the highest risk groups for mental health distress during these times. This may be especially true for women, who often assume more household or child care duties.

June, Wil, and Jay have young children, and we’ve all been struggling. We consider ourselves to be comparatively privileged parents, with stable and flexible jobs. Our experiences underscore how hard it must be for scientist parents who are in more precarious employment situations.

Be kind to students and colleagues who have children, and who may be barely holding things together. Brainstorm flexible work schedules, provide explicit or default options to turn off their cameras on Zoom calls, and offer frequent check-ins to let them know you are there to support them during this challenging time.
Triage what work is essential and reasonable

Don’t hold yourselves, or your students, to the same standards as 2019. Be reasonable about what you can and cannot accomplish during this tumultuous time. Consider making a list of all your projects and responsibilities; then look that list over and identify what items can be either pushed back or dropped.

After Jay lost his child care and faced a tsunami of additional responsibilities at work, he had to recuse himself from four projects and defer a number of other projects until 2021. June let her lab know that she might be slower than usual in email responses while homeschooling her two young children. There is no shame in saying no to something you simply cannot handle under the circumstances. Indeed, saying no may be the only thing that allows you to focus on and accomplish your more urgent priorities.

We also suggest flexibility on the part of those in power. Faculty members and university administrators should think about changing their expectations for students, postdocs, and others who work under them. If possible, create individualized deadlines that meet people where they are.

Expecting the same output as in previous years, even though many people have less time and more stress than ever, is not a sustainable or humane solution. The world is not normal—so the way we do science cannot be normal either.

Send your thoughts, questions, and suggestions for future column topics to letterstoyoungscientists@aaas.org and engage with us on Twitter.

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doi:10.1126/science.caredit.abe5459


June Gruber

June Gruber is an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

WINDSOR ASSEMBLY PLANT WORKERS TO HOLD VIRTUAL STRIKE VOTE AT MIDNIGHT

GORD BACON

Sign at the FCA Windsor Assembly Plant on the corner of Drouillard Road and Tecumseh Road East in Windsor. (Photo by AM800's Teresinha Medeiros)

Workers at Windsor Assembly Plant are set to vote on a strike mandate, but the union hall will be empty.

More than 6,400 members will vote on whether or not to give Unifor Local 444 the legal right to strike virtually Sunday from 12 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.

Local President Dave Cassidy says it's going to be a first for the union.

"This is different. We usually meet with our members, talk with our members and we have a lot of face to face meetings, but because of COVID-19 we can't do that," says Cassidy.

Cassidy expects a ratification vote will still need to be held online.

"Instantaneously we'll have the results from it, but it's just a different world. Even when we do get a deal in place, and we will get a deal in place, then we'll have to ratify it the same way, electronically," he added.

With a lot of new faces in the plant, Cassidy made sure everyone understands a strike mandate doesn't mean there will be a job action.

"We've explained it enough, put communications in the facilities. Me and the plant chair spoke yesterday because there is some turmoil inside the plant with all the job changes," says Cassidy. "We have around 500 workers on lay off."

Cassidy says the current collective agreement expires just before midnight on Sept. 21.

He says getting another vehicle in production at the plant will be a major focus.

Talks with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) Canada are set to begin Monday in Toronto.

Current Physical Distancing Measures Are Based on 'Outdated Science', Say Researchers

CARLY CASSELLA
28 AUGUST 2020


A one-size-fits-all measure for physical distancing in the time of COVID-19 fails to account for numerous factors that could spread the virus further, more and more experts are coming to agree.


When coughing or shouting, recent systematic reviews have shown respiratory droplets can travel more than a couple metres. In one study, a violent exhalation of air spread some droplets eight metres away (26 feet) in just a few seconds.

A one- or two-metre rule could very well be sufficient in some situations, but scientists in the United Kingdom say we need a more nuanced model.

Right now, they explain, the rules we have don't take into account subtle factors like ventilation, time spent together, indoor or outdoor settings, mask use, or the type of social activity occurring - all of which could impact the spread of the coronavirus.

What's more, distancing rules often don't consider the size of airborne droplets, how much virus the droplets can carry, or how susceptible others are to these viral loads.

Nevertheless, most regulations for this pandemic fall between one and two metres, and the UK has recently reduced theirs to one metre or more.

Critics of stricter measures say we are being too cautious, and while that's probably true in some situations, in other cases, scientists argue we are likely not being wary enough.


"Instead of single, fixed physical distance rules, we propose graded recommendations that better reflect the multiple factors that combine to determine risk," the authors of the new analysis write.

"This would provide greater protection in the highest risk settings but also greater freedom in lower risk settings, potentially enabling a return towards normality in some aspects of social and economic life."

The review joins several other recent critiques of current social distancing rules. In July, hundreds of scientists co-wrote a comment piece urging the World Health Organisation (WHO) to reconsider its advice to "maintain at least one metre (three feet) distance between yourself and others."

"The WHO say that there is insufficient evidence to prove aerosol/airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is happening," one of the comment's authors explained.

"We are arguing that there is insufficient proof that aerosol/airborne transmission does not occur."

To what extent that occurs is another matter, but there's mounting evidence the coronavirus is airborne, even in tiny droplets, so the new analysis from the UK takes a similarly prudent approach.


Some recent reviews have found the risk of being infected with COVID-19 within a metre is roughly 13 percent, whereas beyond a metre, it's only 3 percent.

Still, the authors of this new analysis say estimates are based on flawed and often outdated science, some of which goes all the way back to the 1930s. All those decades ago, we predicted how far respiratory droplets can fly when a human coughs or sneezes. Yet that simple model doesn't examine viral load, different sizes of droplets that can travel over a range of distances, or the type of virus itself.

Without exhaled airflow, for instance, large droplets appear to travel at max two metres away, while small ones succumb to drag and evaporation much sooner. With exhaled airflow, on the other hand, clouds of small droplets have been shown to travel beyond two metres.

A study at a hospital in Wuhan, China even found traces of coronavirus hanging in the air roughly four metres away from patients.

Some infectious disease specialists aren't too worried by this, as smaller doses of airborne coronavirus may not pose as big a threat of infection.

A systematic review of social distancing measures, commissioned by the WHO, found that a metre or more of separation could decrease transmission risk by roughly 10 percent. Yet scientists in the UK argue those data are largely based on other coronaviruses, and only partially account for environmental conditions.

While it's hard to trace back individual infections to their precise source and the distance the person was at, there's reason to suspect respiratory droplets might play a part in the current spread of the pandemic - at least in some situations.

In meat packing plants, for instance, outbreaks have been particularly bad, and the authors say this is probably compounded by higher levels of worker contagion, poor ventilation, cramped conditions, background noise (hence, shouting), and not enough mask wearing.

The same sort of conditions might be expected in a pub or a live music venue, they add. We've already seen cluster outbreaks in gyms, call centres and churches, where people talk, pant or sing loudly.

At a choir practice in the United States, one symptomatic person was actually found to have infected at least 32 other singers, and possibly 20 more cases yet to be confirmed, even though the choir members were socially distancing.

These documented outbreaks require an explanation, the authors argue, otherwise they'll just keep happening.

Even as restaurants and bars reopen, countries like the UK are still telling people to stay at least a metre apart, and that could end up misleading the public, making people feel safer than they actually are in riskier situations.

"Physical distancing should be seen as only one part of a wider public health approach to containing the COVID-19 pandemic," the new analysis concludes.

"It should be used in combination with other strategies to reduce transmission risk, including hand washing, regular surface cleaning, protective equipment and face coverings where appropriate, strategies of air hygiene, and isolation of affected individuals."

The study was published in BMJ.

Power to the people: why clean energy must give more Australians a slice of the pie

Australians are far more welcoming of change than we expect, and are furious at having been shut out of being direct participants

Once operational, wind turbines and solar panels do not require the same level of active human involvement as traditional power stations like coal and gas Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

Ketan Joshi
@KetanJ0
Sat 29 Aug 2020

In August 2015, I spent a cold night at the old TAB Royal Hotel in Manildra (population: 765), near Orange in central New South Wales. It wasn’t familiar territory. A sign behind the bar yelled: “MEN: no shirt, no shoes, no service. WOMEN: no shirt, free drinks.”

My colleague and I, as part of the communications team for the renewable energy company Infigen, were there for an open day talking to community members about the company’s proposed solar farm nearby. The day had been quiet. A few locals wandered in, curious about our work, but mostly wielding questions about how they might get solar on their own rooftops. Our Sydney office staff had booked a more upmarket hotel in a larger town nearby for us, but once we arrived my colleague insisted on cancelling to stay at the Royal, which was only a few hundred metres from the planned site.

“I just want to support the really local businesses, you know,” my colleague told me. It is an important habit. When a solar or windfarm is being built, the people who build it stay nearby, they eat and drink at local shops, and they procure materials and services from local businesses. This is a significant boost for regional towns that, in the past few decades, have suffered a variety of stressors, including drought, and, more recently, a drop in tourism due to bushfires and Covid-19.
The number of jobs in the wind industry has remained steady, even though the number of wind turbines in Australia has increased

Supporting local business is necessary, but insufficient as a tool for ensuring full participation in the clean energy transition. Employment and economic benefits associated with development and construction are significant, but, once operational, wind turbines and solar panels do not require the same level of active human involvement as traditional power stations like coal and gas. Renewable energy is cheap partly because it requires little human intervention, and that low cost translates into lower electricity prices for everybody. It also means more money can be given back to the community in other ways.

Renewable energy jobs rely mostly on new growth, rather than existing projects. But the “jobs” narrative around renewable energy has, problematically, failed to provide clarity about this temporal skew. This is borne out in the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ figures on wind power employment, which show that the number of jobs in the wind industry has remained steady, even though the number of wind turbines in Australia has increased significantly (see graph below).

Photograph: NewSouth Books

The three categories of traditional sharing of benefits from wind power projects – landholder payment, community enhancement funds, and jobs and economic benefits during construction – bring important and positive changes to communities. But together they have been insufficient in addressing a powerful perception of injustice, disconnection and unfairness felt by those living near the big new manifestations of climate action.

Technologies, when built, are fiercely opposed, but are soon welcomed once their benefits are spread more equitably across neighbours. Andrew Dyer pointed out a precedent in the early days of mobile phone towers: “I think there’s lots of parallels. There’s a mobile phone tower 200 metres from our house. I don’t recall any protests or issues about that.”

Renewable energy is, for both wind and solar, a marker of change. Photograph: David Mariuz/AAP

He’s right. Public objections to mobile phone towers, like we saw in clips from the mid 90s, aren’t dominating the nightly news. Things have changed. “I think over time people are more accepting of something they know is a benefit. What’s changed attitudes to towers has been the smartphone – when you realise it’s not just a rich person in their Rolls-Royce with a car phone driving ‘cancer-causing’ mobile phone towers to be erected, it’s actually the thing that gives you Facebook access and lets you see what your nieces are up to, it makes you far more tolerant.”


Is there a way to make renewable energy as directly beneficial to those living nearby as mobile phones have been to those of us plugged into the world via social media? Dyer strikes at the heart of the problem. Renewable energy is, for both wind and solar, a marker of change. It is a physical and aesthetic alteration, as the landscape is transformed within months, in front of the eyes of those who have gazed at the same shapes for decades. It is an ideological change, as our species seeks to capture and utilise its lifeblood – energy – in a totally new way. It is a political change, whether we like it or not.

For so long, the narrative around opposition to renewables was that these people were resistant to change, but I challenge that. I argue that they are, in fact, far more welcoming of change than we expect, and are furious at having been shut out of being a direct participant in it. The benefits of renewable energy are already known by some, but they have not been properly made available to people who have been screaming out for a slice of the pie.


NSW government says renewable energy zone in New England could power 3.5m homes
Read more

In 2012, researcher Nina Hall led a report on behalf of the CSIRO into social acceptance of windfarms in Australia. She pointed to “psychological identification” as a key goal for local responses to renewable energy, as opposed to more passive “approval”.

“Psychological identification” strikes me as something that could be more simply described as love – a passionately happy and optimistic response to being granted the right to actively participate in the process of resolving the biggest problem in the world. “This effectively dissolves the us/them boundary,” wrote Hall and her colleagues.
 

Photograph: NewSouth Books

A paper by community energy researchers Jarra Hicks and Nicky Ison outlined significant opportunities for rural communities in Australia when participation in clean energy significantly increased. “While [community renewable energy] is a new sector in Australia, many opportunities exist for it to contribute to addressing climate change, community development and rural economic health,” they wrote.

The potential for greater participation is vast. Every new technological change required over the coming decade, including the growth of solar and transmission networks, new hydro and new batteries, could be subject to its own wind turbine syndrome–style campaign. Renewable energy needs to earn broader and stronger support from the communities that host it, through better participation and more equitable benefit sharing. Other countries have seized on the task of rapid construction of new forms of electricity generation, but largely avoided the serious and long-lasting delays that stem from community backlash. Australia has so much to learn from their experiences.


This is an edited extract from Windfall: Unlocking a Fossil-free Future, published on 1 September by NewSouth Books. $32.99