Boeing’s New CEO Regrets Blasting Predecessor as Backlash Grows

Julie Johnsson and Anders Melin Bloomberg March 7, 2020

(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun said he regretted berating his predecessor in an interview with the New York Times this week, backtracking almost immediately from a harsh critique that rattled employees of the embattled planemaker.

“I am both embarrassed and regretful about the article,” Calhoun wrote in a message to senior executives at the company, referring to a story that appeared March 5. “It suggests I broke my promise to former CEO Dennis Muilenburg, the executive team and our people that I would have their back when it counted most.”

The about-face suggests an attempt at damage control just two months after Calhoun took over as CEO following a decade of service on Boeing’s board. The new boss’s first extensive print interview as CEO left many inside Boeing dumbfounded and angry, said current and former employees. The article spread like wildfire both inside the company and among the wide network of Boeing alumni, and a stunned “wow” was a common response, one of the people said.

A veteran of General Electric Co. and Blackstone Group Inc., Calhoun, 62, is one of only a handful of outsiders to ascend to the top job at Boeing. His chiding of Muilenburg and other executives were especially meaningful given the setting: a leadership center outside of St. Louis that was modeled on GE’s famed Crotonville campus north of New York.

“Regarding Dennis, he is a friend, and I was personally invested in his success -- and still am,” Calhoun wrote a day later in the memo, which was viewed by Bloomberg News. “I explicitly stated to the reporters that I helped select the leadership team I have on the field and that they had my full support. I gave names. This discussion failed to make it into the story.”

‘Pot of Gold’

Calhoun has pledged to be transparent and to move decisively in steering Boeing out of one of the worst crises in the company’s century-long history, two fatal crashes of its 737 Max that killed 346 people. He didn’t mince words in the interview with the New York Times.

Muilenburg made bets that were too risky, including pushing jet production rates to record heights, Calhoun told the newspaper. That ended up damaging relationships with customers, regulators and suppliers, he said.

“If anybody ran over the rainbow for the pot of gold on stock, it would have been him,” Calhoun said of Muilenburg. The array of issues he now must deal with “speaks to the weakness of our leadership,” Calhoun said.

Given Calhoun’s status as a longtime board member, his comments potentially give plaintiffs’ attorneys and victims’ families leverage by validating some of the most damaging allegations against Boeing. Calhoun may also have opened himself to being hauled before Congress to explain just how much worse the situation at Boeing is than he knew when he was chairman or lead director.

Damaged Credibility

“It was damaging to his credibility and the company,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group. “Saying your predecessor was motivated by ‘gold’ to cut corners? That’s as damaging as it gets.”

The harsh rebuke was probably a calculated move by Calhoun to distance himself from previous decisions and clear the runway for Boeing’s recovery, said Gene Grabowski, a partner at crisis communications firm kglobal, in comments before the apology. Trouble is, it strained credulity.

For a decade, Calhoun had been among the most outspoken and influential directors on Boeing’s board, one of the people said. Calhoun was lead independent director before replacing Muilenburg as chairman last year, and his opposition was enough to kill company initiatives. Years ago, Calhoun had been in the running to replace Jim McNerney as Boeing CEO. Instead, Muilenburg got the nod.

“It’s a risky strategy,” Grabowski said. “Because of his long tenure on the board, Calhoun surely must have had a good idea of what was going on inside the company. If he didn’t, he would have been negligent.”

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The Desert Town That’s Home to U.S. Drones and People Smugglers
Katarina Hoije Bloomberg March 7, 2020


(Bloomberg) -- Moctar raised his right hand above his head and from an almost impossible height poured hot tea into a glass as he recounted his latest trip to Libya transporting migrants seeking to make the hazardous Mediterranean crossing to Europe.

The 72-hour journey across the border from Niger to Libya was perilous, with the list of potential dangers including attacks by bandits and Islamist militants to the more mundane of crashing into sand dunes or simply running out of gas. Luckily he reached his destination.

He then stuffed his Toyota Hilux with pasta, canned tomatoes, sugar, flour and cooking oil for sale back home. It was one of dozens of such excursions Moctar, 30, has made over the years from Agadez, a sprawling cluster of low, sand-colored compounds huddling in the desert of northern Niger. Now it’s also the front line of both Europe’s anti-migration efforts and the fight by U.S., French and African forces against the spread of Islamist militancy.

Increasingly, Moctar, who is not being identified in full because of the nature of his work, and other smugglers are finding times tough because of the crackdown on trafficking by the Nigerien authorities in cooperation with European nations. Sometimes he turns to smuggling the opioid tramadol, which is popular in neighboring Nigeria.

“The trafficking of migrants continues, the only difference is now sometimes I fill up the car with drugs, mostly tramadol, when I can’t find enough migrants,” he said. “If you’re taking the risk of breaking the law, there’s no point holding back. You might as well go big, at least that’ll make it worth the risk.”



Agadez’s role as a hub for trans-Saharan trade dates back centuries — from salt caravans in the 15th century to illicit convoys of migrants.

“People here live off migrants, it’s how we feed our families,” said 38-year-old Andre, who’s been driving migrants from Agadez, a city of about 100,000 people, to southern Libya since 2007, but these days struggles to find work. “The authorities treat us like criminals when we are just trying to do our job. I know at least two dozen people who have become bandits for lack of work.”

Today Agadez is playing a new role in the region as home to Air Base 201, where American forces target insurgents affiliated to al-Qaeda and Islamic State in cooperation with the French military throughout the Sahel, an arid area on the southern fringe of the Sahara. The expanded U.S. profile in the region was highlighted in 2017 when four American soldiers died in an ambush in Niger.

“With Mali and Burkina Faso having lost control of large swaths of territory and the presence of the jihadists’ bases, the risk is that they link battlefields across the Sahel,” said Frank Van der Mueren, head of the European Union’s civilian capacity-building mission in Niger, known as EUCAP Sahel Niger.

Niger is now seen by the Europeans as a strategic partner and a “lock on the door’’ for security in the Sahel, he said.

The Nigerien authorities passed a law in 2015 that made trafficking in migrants a criminal offense and reinforced border patrols. A quarter of the 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in aid the EU has provided Niger over the 2017-20 period has gone to policies to curb migration.

The Nigerien measure followed an agreement between African and European leaders to a common approach to address the root causes of migration amid a surge of arrivals by sea and on land at the EU’s external borders, with more than 1 million asylum seekers and migrants trying to reach EU member states that year.

In 2018, the EU border control authority Frontex opened its first Risk Analysis Cell on the continent in Niger’s capital, Niamey, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) southwest of Agadez.

The efforts appear to be working. In 2018, illegal crossings on the Niger route plunged by 80% to 23,000, the lowest number since 2012, according to Frontex.

At the same time, migration has now picked up along a western route through Morocco, and prompted smugglers to forge new, more dangerous routes through its eastern neighbor Chad, the European Council on Foreign Relations said in an October 2019 policy brief.



And some of Niger’s tougher measures on migration have fueled concerns that they’re worsening security.

“The largely military approach has pushed the traffic underground and reinforced criminal networks, including the militias in Libya and some terrorist groups,” said Mohamed Anacko, the president of Agadez’s regional council.

Competition over drug trafficking routes between ethnic militias in the tri-border area between Niger, Chad and Libya further risks destabilizing northern Niger.

“The situation in Libya boosts the development of transnational border crime and the circulation of arms that reinforces the armed actors and feeds into the conflicts across the Sahel,” said Niger’s interior minister, Mohamed Bazoum. “The conflict in Libya is fuel on the fire.”

The exploration of new gold deposits and oil with the construction of a $5 billion oil pipeline by the China National Petroleum Corp., from the Agadem fields in northeastern Niger, brings its own risks. Small-scale gold mining is an increasingly important source of revenue for jihadists operating in the Sahel, including Niger.

In northern Niger, most people live off farming, construction work, seasonal migration to Libya and the migrants who still pass though. At one point, young men left to fight with the rebels in Libya, until the spread of Islamic State made the situation there too dangerous.

Until 2015, migration-related activities contributed as much as $100 million per year to the regional economy around Agadez, according to the International Crisis Group, citing local authorities in a recent report. At one point, the industry was estimated to support more than half of the households in the town.

Authorities managed local conflicts by turning a blind eye to former ethnic Tuareg rebels-turned-smugglers running unofficial travel agencies and moving people, gold, drugs and pasta across the desert. Travel agents made as much as $5,000 a week, employing drivers, cooks, guards and coaxers who picked up migrants from bus stops and brought them to so-called ghettos, or migrant housing, in town.

Today, they’ve seen their revenue dwindles.

Dealing with illegal migration by banning the movement of contraband goods and people could be counter-productive, said William Assanvo, an analyst with the Institute for Security Studies in Dakar, Senegal.

“In some areas, contraband and illicit activities is simply the way in which people are making an income and how the economy is structured,“ Assanvo said.

The U.S. drone base hasn’t been much help, either. For a few months in 2017, Agadez residents were bused to the base to help elongate the airstrip for the armed drones that started taking off last year. When that was done, the offers of work quickly dried up.

“First, the tourists stopped coming,” said Surajh Rabiou, a craftsman selling jewelry and wooden carvings near the town’s mosque. “Then Europe decided to shut down migration, so we lost that income too. Now the American troops are here, but they don’t buy my jewelry like the tourists used to do.”

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Gulf of Alaska cod losing sustainability certification label

The Canadian PressMarch 7, 2020

KODIAK, Alaska — Shoppers will no longer see a blue-sticker label on Gulf of Alaska cod after its sustainability certification is suspended starting in April.

The label designates which fish are sustainably caught.

Alaska's Energy Desk reported Friday that the Marine Stewardship Council, which sets standards for sustainable fishing, will suspend the label starting April 5.

“What the MSC certification really does is along the supply chain it allows for there to be traceability,” council spokeswoman Jackie Marks previously told Alaska's Energy Desk. “And at the end of the supply chain, allows that product to have the MSC blue fish label on it signifying to consumers that it has been caught sustainably.”

Gulf of Alaska cod have had the certification for about 10 years. The impacts of losing certification are unclear.

An independent audit found there were not enough young cod entering the gulf fishery, which led to the suspension. But auditors blame a climate change-caused heatwave from 2013 to 2016 for reducing gulf cod by more than half and pushing them to near-overfished status last year.

“GOA Pacific cod stock and fishery continue to be extremely well managed and monitored,” the report said.

“We believe that responsible management should be rewarded and hope this unfortunate situation will be a catalyst for the MSC program to make changes to address future scenarios such as this,” Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation executive director Julie Decker said in a statement Friday.

In January, Marks said distinguishing climate change-caused fishery suspensions is worth taking another look at, though no actions have been taken yet.

The Gulf of Alaska previously accounted for as much as 25% of the state's cod market, but after the crash, gulf cod now make up less than 10%, according to the foundation.

The majority of the state’s cod — sold fresh or frozen, and processed for foods like fish and chips — comes from the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands fisheries. Both remain MSC-certified.

The Associated Press

Record Winter Warmth Is Raising Pressure on Forecasters

Jonathan Tirone Bloomberg March 7, 2020

Record Winter Warmth Is Raising Pressure on Forecasters

(Bloomberg) -- Record winter warmth around the globe has raised pressure on weather forecasters from utilities and financial markets that depend on models to work out the economic impact of climate change.

Abnormally high temperatures led to billions of dollars of lost revenue for energy producers, which have curtailed fuel supplies because everyone from homeowners to heavy industry didn’t need as much heat as usual. Europe was particularly affected with temperatures some 3.4 degrees Celsius (6.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal. Those extreme variations are sharpening the focus on the systems meteorologists use to predict seasonal patterns weeks or even months in the future.

“Our work is becoming more and more relevant,” said Alberto Troccoli, who heads the World Energy and Meterology Council and is developing new forecasting tools with companies including Enel SpA and the National Grid Plc in the U.K. “Demand has always been driven by climate, but there’s even more scope now to examine how production is impacted by climate change.”

This year’s unprecedented winter heat was capped last month by the second warmest February on record both in Europe and globally, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The European Union program uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world for its monthly and seasonal forecasts and found that the current winter is the warmest on record.

“This was a truly extreme event in its own right,” Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said in an emailed statement. “Now more than ever, the role of Copernicus is becoming more important” as “these sorts of events have been made more extreme by global warming.”

Copernicus seasonal weather models performed pretty well heading into this winter. Utilities and power producers checking the outlook in November would have seen there was a 70% chance of higher-than-normal temperatures in northern Europe and a 90% probability around the Mediterranean basin. Other forecasters saw it differently, expecting that cold air from the Arctic would flow down into Europe as it usually does. Both AccuWeather Inc. in Pennsylvania and Maxar, a Maryland-based commercial forecaster, predicted this year’s winter would be colder than the last one, suggesting that U.S. heating costs would likely be elevated.

“Our models are not perfect but they give you a good indication,” said Troccoli, who runs the Copernicus energy operational service the provides tools to analyse the role that climate plays in energy supply and demand. The seasonal weather model run by Copernicus has been refined over three decades to ensure accuracy to “a pretty good extent,” he said.

Troccoli is an Italian scientist who published “Weather & Climate Services for the Energy Industry” last year. Now, he’s mapping new data sets to show how monthly changes in atmospheric pressure systems impact economic activity.

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With painted faces, artists fight facial recognition tech

The Canadian Press March 8, 2020

With painted faces, artists fight facial recognition tech

LONDON — As night falls in London, Georgina Rowlands and Anna Hart start applying makeup. Instead of lipstick and eyeliner, they’re covering their faces with geometric shapes.

Rowlands has long narrow blue triangles and thin white rectangles criss-crossing her face. Hart has a collection of red, orange and white angular shapes on hers.

They’re two of the four founders of the Dazzle Club, a group of artists set up last year to provoke discussion about the growing using of facial recognition technology.

The group holds monthly silent walks through different parts of London to raise awareness about the technology, which they say is being used for “rampant surveillance.” Other concerns include its lack of regulation, inaccuracy and how it affects public spaces.

Some 19 people attended the most recent event in the East London neighbourhood of Shoreditch, and anyone can take part in the walks, in which participants have to paint their faces in a style called CV Dazzle.

The technique, developed by artist and researcher Adam Harvey, is aimed at camouflaging against facial detection systems, which turn images of faces into mathematical formulas that can be analyzed by algorithms. CV Dazzle - where CV is short for computer vision - uses cubist-inspired designs to thwart the computer, said Rowlands.

“You're trying to kind of scramble that by applying these kind of random colours and patterns,” she said. “The most important is having light and dark colours . So we often go for blacks and whites, very contrasting colours , because you’re trying to mess with the shadows and highlights of your face.”

A similar technique was used extensively in World War I to camouflage British naval ships and confuse opponents about the actual heading or location of the ships.

To test that their designs work, they use the simple face detection feature on their smartphone cameras.

“I can see that I’m hidden, it’s not detecting me,” Rowlands said, checking her phone to see her face doesn't have a square around it.

The rise of facial recognition technology is being tested and spreading in developed democracies after aggressive use in some more authoritarian countries like China.

Britain has long been used to surveillance cameras in public spaces to counter security threats, and London is ranked as having one of the world’s highest concentrations of closed-circuit television cameras. But that acceptance is being tested as authorities and corporations increasingly seek to deploy a new generation of cameras with facial recognition technology while activists, lawmakers and independent experts raise concerns about mass surveillance, privacy, and accuracy.

Opposition to algorithmic surveillance is not limited to Britain. Russia activists were reportedly arrested last month for holding a similar face paint protest over Moscow’s facial recognition cameras. Hong Kong pro-democracy activists routinely use face masks in street protests to hide their identities. Rights groups in Serbia and Uganda have opposed government projects to install Chinese-supplied cameras.

Other designers have come up with countermeasures like sunglasses that reflect infrared light to blind cameras.

“There is a movement of resistance against facial recognition that we are actively participating in and we want to kind of further initiate,” said Rowlands.

Rowlands, Hart and two other artists founded the Dazzle Club in August, following news that London’s King’s Cross district — a busy transport hub where many big offices are being built rapidly — had quietly experimented with live facial recognition cameras without public knowledge or consent, sparking a backlash.

London police recently started using live facial recognition cameras on operational deployments. Last week officers arrested a woman wanted for assault after the cameras picked her out of a street crowd on a busy shopping street. Police say new technology is needed to keep the public safe and images of innocent people are deleted immediately.

Public attitudes to facial recognition technology in Britain appear to be mixed, according to one survey last year, which found most people said they don’t know enough about it but nearly half said they should be able to opt out.

The Dazzle Club’s founders say they’re worried about the effect that the technology has on people in public if cameras are collecting their biometric data — facial images — without clearly explaining what’s being done with it.

“We’re having to adjust our behaviour in public space in a way that I think is problematic,” said Hart.

___

Read more AP stories on developments in technology at https://apnews.com/apf-technology

Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press

Child care, education, housing at heart of affordability fears, Morneau told
The Canadian Press March 8, 2020


Child care, education, housing at heart of affordability fears, Morneau toldMore


OTTAWA — Finance Minister Bill Morneau was told weeks into the Liberals' second mandate that Canadians are most worried about affordability in areas where governments have a lot of power over prices — particularly child care.

The Canadian Press obtained the November presentation through the Access to Information Act.

Though wage growth has stayed ahead of inflation over the past 15 years, officials told Morneau that the costs of "highly visible items" like child care, education, and prescriptions have surged faster.

The documents note that "differences in policy prioritization" among provinces have led to wide gaps in affordability and access to child care.

Morneau was also provided policy options, but the recommendations were not released because officials say they are sensitive government advice.

The federal finance minister is weeks away from delivering his first budget of the Liberal government's minority mandate, which he has said will prioritize climate change and easing Canadians' worries about the cost of living.

Officials wrote that there is an argument to invest more in child care because of its connection to increases in women's ability to work, and incomes.

The budget is supposed to include details on a Liberal campaign promise to create 250,000 before- and after-school care spaces. Combined with a pledge to cut fees by 10 per cent, the Liberals estimated the measures would cost $535 million a year.

The presentation can be seen as making a case for more government action in areas where costs are determined by public policy, said David Macdonald, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Unlike the prices of things like clothes and gasoline, which move

"In that sense, affordability isn't something the market can help with. Instead of getting government out of the way, we need to get it in the way of rising costs for Canadians," said Macdonald, who studies the cost of child care in Canada.

Macdonald co-wrote a report in 2017 that surveyed child-care costs across the country. Although prices depend on the age of the child, spaces cost about $1,000 a month on average.

But the variation was huge among provinces: in Quebec, where the government subsidizes child-care very heavily, median fees were under $200 a month; in Toronto, a space for a pre-schooler cost $1,212 a month and one for an infant was $1,758 a month.

There are also expectations the budget will increase the value of the Canada Child Benefit for children under age one, a pledge the parliamentary budget officer estimated would cost $252 million in its first year.

Garima Talwar Kapoor, policy and research director at Maytree, an anti-poverty foundation, said child benefits are critical to increasing family incomes, but it is less clear how much they address child-care costs.

"If I were in government and were trying to address the child-care affordability challenges that families face, I'd ask whether further investments in child benefits ... alleviate child care concerns, or whether systemic responses to child-care spaces are needed," she said.

Inflation in housing costs has stayed just behind median wage growth, helped by "downward pressures from falling interest rates" that have lowered the cost of ownership, the presentation said.

Costs remain high in many cities owing to a shortage of places to buy or rent, though.

Finance officials calculated Toronto is the most unaffordable city in Canada, followed closely by Vancouver, in an analysis that compared average weekly wages in 12 cities once adjusting for the cost of living in each place.

Elsewhere in the country, there are "uncertain and regional effects of policy response on jobs and cost of living" when it comes to the federal approach to environmental concerns.

Looking ahead, about one-quarter of people nearing retirement might not have enough money to pay for their golden years, notably those without workplace pension plans, the document says. Meanwhile, even the expanded Canada Pension Plan may not "fully offset the decline in private pension coverage, leaving workers more exposed to risk."



If people aren't saving on their own for retirements, that might eventually reduce tax revenues coming into the federal treasury and increase money going out through old-age security payments, said Jennifer Robson, an associate professor of political management at Carleton University in Ottawa. That would be tough on the federal budget.

She said it's not clear whether an expansion of the Canada Pension Plan — by raising benefit amounts but also premiums over time — will be enough.

"Government can actually do quite a lot for people at the bottom end who don't have pensions," Robson said, "but the ones that they tend to think about are the ones in the middle."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2020.

Who's greener? Mine fight pits electric cars against flower

The Canadian PressMarch 7, 2020

Who's greener? Mine fight pits electric cars against flower

RENO, Nev. — The rare Tiehm's buckwheat stands less than a foot tall (30 centimetres ) in Nevada's rocky high desert, its thin, leafless stems adorned with tiny yellow flowers in spring.

To the Australian company that wants to mine lithium beneath the federal land where it grows, the perennial herb is a potential roadblock to a metal badly needed for electric vehicles and the global push to reduce greenhouse gases.

To environmentalists determined to halt the open pit mine, it's a precious species that exists nowhere else in the world.

And to plant ecologists, it's a scientific challenge to try to grow the wildflower from seeds in a greenhouse.

Whose mission is a nobler shade of green depends on who you ask.

The competing interests appeared to find some common ground earlier this year at the remote site about 200 miles (320 kilometres ) southeast of Reno. Ioneer Ltd. has spent millions exploring the site, which it says is one of the world's biggest undeveloped lithium-boron deposits.

But the Center for Biological Diversity withdrew its lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in January after Ioneer ended its exploration activities and agreed to provide the group notice before resuming any work at Rhyolite Ridge in rural Esmeralda County.

Still, Ioneer remains committed to the mine it says is expected to produce 22,000 tons (19,958 metric tonnes) of lithium carbonate needed for electric car batteries like the ones Tesla makes east of Reno, create 400 to 500 construction jobs and 300 to 400 operational jobs.

And environmentalists insist the legal battle is just beginning.

“The storm is brewing on the horizon,” said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering the centre 's petition, filed in October, to add the flower to the federal list of endangered species. And the Nevada Division of Forestry announced this week it would soon start gathering public comments to help determine whether to take its own action to protect the plant.

“If you look at a map of the lithium deposits and a map of the buckwheat, there's really no way to build the mine without wiping out the buckwheat," Donnelly said. "We fully anticipate a fight for many years to come."

The company acknowledges Tiehm's buckwheat hasn't been documented anywhere else on earth, but denies the mine would lead to its extinction.

Company officials say they've been researching the plant since 2016, going to great lengths to ensure its protection and examining how it's fared during previous mining operations at Rhyolite Ridge, near the small town of Tonopah, over the past 80 years.

They recently spent $60,000 for a yearlong study at the University of Nevada, Reno. Scientists there are growing hundreds of seedlings in a greenhouse to determine whether it's feasible to transplant them into the wild to bolster the limited population, an estimated 43,000 plants covering a total of 21 acres (8.5 hectares).

“We have always been aware of the buckwheat. It didn’t come as a surprise,” Ioneer President Bernard Rowe told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Australia.

All site activity has been undertaken with the "protection of the buckwheat first and foremost in mind,” Rowe said. He added the company's mitigation strategy “will ensure protection and, in fact, the expansion of the buckwheat population.”

“We're seeing evidence of that at the greenhouse at UNR," Rowe said. “We've got a reasonably high degree of confidence we can successfully propagate these plants and protect them.”

University researchers are doing their best to replicate the harsh desert conditions with poor soil quality at the greenhouse where they planted 3,276 Tiehm seeds in January.

“We torture them. We want them to know life is hard, starting now," said Beth Leger, a UNR plant ecologist who has done extensive research on invasive cheat grass and native plants of the Great Basin region.

She and her graduate assistant Jamey McClinton hoped as many as 600 would germinate, but were pleasantly surprised when 900 had sprouted by mid-February.

“We didn't even know if it would grow in a greenhouse,” said McClinton, who did her master's work on the related but distinct Crosby buckwheat and isn't aware of anyone else trying to grow Tiehm's.

The slow-growing flowers have fragile roots that dry out easily and make up 70% of the plant.

“We know they are very tolerant of horrible soil. That's unusual,” Leger said. "What we don't know is how it will grow in other kinds of soil."

Leger, who also serves as director of UNR's Museum of Natural History, said those who dismiss the flowers as weeds unworthy of all the fuss don't understand the value of biodiversity.

“Weed is a human construct. A weed is a plant that grows anywhere a human doesn't want it,” she said, adding biodiversity is “magic” and a safeguard against future loss.

The research funded by Ioneer is examining the possibility of transplanting plants as well as growing new ones from seedlings to be planted at or near the mining site.

As far as transplanting, Leger said, “I don't think it's an awesome idea.”

“To establish a real population,” McClinton added, "you have to grow them from seedlings on their own."

But Donnelly said the new research appears to be aimed at finding an alternative site "to keep the species alive so Ioneer could destroy its habitat.”

He acknowledged a difference between transplanting plants and growing them from seeds, but said it's "beside the point, really.”

“A species is more than a set of genetic material. A species is inextricable from its habitat," Donnelly said. "To allow a species' habitat to be wiped out and put it someplace else, is functionally allowing it to go extinct.”

Scott Sonner, The Associated Press

UBS Bank won’t fund new offshore Arctic oil, gas projects
GOOD NEWS!
The Canadian Press March 7, 2020




KENAI, Alaska — A multinational investment bank has ended support for offshore drilling in the Arctic amid efforts to tackle climate change, a move that could affect future funding for oil and gas projects in Alaska, a newspaper said.

Switzerland-based UBS Bank joined several other investment companies in pulling funding and support for new offshore projects in the region, the Anchorage Daily News reported Friday.

The firm has “committed to no longer provide financing where the stated use of proceeds is for new offshore oil projects in the Arctic," the bank said in a statement.

Multiple U.S. banks including Wells Fargo & Company, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have also announced similar policy shifts stating they were no longer supporting new projects in the region.

More company investors have pulled support since the world's largest asset manager BlackRock urged companies in January to emphasize steps they are taking to combat climate change, the newspaper said.

An analysis of banks conducted by environmental group Rainforest Action Network revealed that UBS Bank invested about $300 million in Arctic oil and gas projects between 2016 and 2018.

The announcements highlight efforts to consider the affects the projects have on the environment amid concerns from Alaska Native groups and conservation organizations. But some have argued these new policies could hurt projects that Alaska relies on for future revenue.

Major oil companies in Alaska are not dependent on banks for their projects because they often use their own cash flow or sell assets, but the announcements could make it difficult for smaller operators to receive loans to borrow money for future plans, said Larry Persily, former federal co-ordinator for Alaska gas line projects under President Barack Obama.

Low oil prices could also threaten projects in Alaska, he said.

The Associated Press

Edmonton doctors say they're ill-prepared for a coronavirus outbreak

CBC March 6, 2020

EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENTS LIKE KENNEY'S AND TRUMPS' WANT TO YOU TO PRAY THE CORONAVIRUS AWAY.

The Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association (EZMSA), which represents 1,600 doctors, says family doctors are ill-prepared to deal with a coronavirus outbreak because the province isn't providing enough guidance and information.

Alberta reported its first presumptive case of COVID-19 on Thursday. The patient is a woman in her 50s who lives in the Calgary health zone. She was on board the Grand Princess cruise ship before it was quarantined off the coast of California.

According to Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, the woman is in isolation at home.

On Thursday afternoon, EZMSA released an open letter to the provincial government asking for more information, resources and guidance to deal with coronavirus.

Dr. Don Wilson, community doctor president of the EZMSA, says the province has not contacted family doctors with an adequate plan or information to prepare their clinics.

"My concerns are even more poignant. What is the plan?" he said. "How are we going to protect physicians, health care staff and our own staff and officers from the risk of getting this particular problem?"

Craig Ryan/CBCMore

Hinshaw says the province has been working with Alberta Health Services, the Alberta Medical Association, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta and primary health care networks to get information out.

"Certainly we're taking that very seriously," she said. "I was concerned to see that message, but it is a great opportunity to work closely with that group and make sure that our messaging is getting out."

Little information and no equipment provided, says doctors

Wilson said family physicians who work at local clinics are given little information to prepare for the virus.

"When it comes to infectious diseases, community physicians are the frontline. We're the ones that see it and the problem with that is we really don't have a lot of information," he said.

Wilson said he and his colleagues need information that's timely and they've been relying on the media for updates.

"We're not really sure what our role is in the greater health system during these things," he said.

Wilson said medical staff also haven't received a proper list of personal protective equipment for staff, which increases their risk of getting COVID-19.

"The World Health Organization has also stated that frontline healthcare workers must receive this equipment," he said.

"We're supposed to somehow keep our practices open and ... be paying for personal protective equipment, that is not only very expensive, but to be honest we're having difficulty getting a hold of."

Wilson said he also wants to know how the province plans to provide equipment for staff.

The open letter written by EZMSA has 14 demands. It requested the province to include community doctors in the outbreak planning process, as well as provide guidance to answer public questions.

"They're not bringing community physicians to the table here so that we can sit down there and at least give our take on the situation," said Wilson.

The letter also called for a plan to bring temporary doctors in for an additional workforce to meet demand.

Hinshaw said the province posted a frequently asked questions document on the Alberta Health Services website that doctors can refer to.

"We are using multiple means — faxes, emails, word of mouth, working with PCNs [primary care networks] and we have been for multiple weeks," Hinshaw said.

"Clearly, we need to ramp up our efforts and we need to work closely with partners to get that message out."

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FRIDAY 

Early morning earthquake shakes up Montreal

CBC March 6, 2020

Some residents in the Montreal region were jolted awake early this morning by a small earthquake.

Earthquakes Canada says the 3.3 magnitude quake struck at 3:22 a.m. The epicentre was located about nine kilometres northeast of downtown Montreal.

"It did occur right under the island of Montreal, toward the east end of the island," Nick Ackerley, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada told CBC's Daybreak. "It was widely felt."

Many people took to social media, saying it felt like a small, brief explosion.

It's not uncommon for small earthquakes to be loud, especially when they're that close, Ackerley explained.

"There's two things that are happening. One is that the seismic waves travel from the rupture underground toward you," he said.

When those waves hit the surface, they turn into sound, he said. That would explain why so many people reported hearing a loud noise. Shaking is usually the symptom of a larger earthquake that's more likely to cause damage.

"We have a lot of magnitude-three earthquakes in Canada, every year, all the time," he said.

"The thing that's a little bit unusual is for it to happen right under an urban area, so that lots of people feel it."

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