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MALE FERTILITY ‘PRECARIOUSLY CLOSE’ TO CLIMATE CHANGE EXTINCTION LIMITS

CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS 

THAT'S YOU

The loss of fertility in males as a result of climate change, particularly in the tropics, may be a better predictor of vulnerability to extinction

By Dr Belinda van Heerwaarden, University of Melbourne


As temperatures rise across the globe, species will increasingly face environmental conditions beyond their tolerance limits, posing a major risk to biodiversity, food production and health.

Understanding how much warming that each species can withstand, which species will be most at risk and their capacity to adapt to warmer conditions is one of the biggest challenges facing biologists today

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The buffer zone between current habitat temperatures and tolerance using male fertility is much lower than estimates using critical thermal limits in adults. Graphic: Supplied

But getting accurate predictions of species risk to climate change is not straightforward.

Some studies have used the buffer zone (or warming tolerance) between maximum habitat temperatures and the temperature at which adults stop moving or die (known as critical thermal limits) to forecast climate change risk across species from different habitats.

These studies suggest that tropical and sub-tropical species may be most at risk to climate warming because they are already experiencing maximum habitat temperatures close to those that incapacitate or kill them.

The complexities of predicting climate change effects
Read more

But whether critical thermal limits in adults are good predictors of species’ vulnerability to future climate change is not yet clear.

Emerging evidence suggests that thermal tolerance may be lower in other life-stages, and upper fertility thermal limits (that is, the temperature at which females or males become sterile) may be lower than critical thermal limits.

Although these studies hint that species may be more vulnerable than currently considered, we still do not know to what extent thermal traits are important in dictating current distributions and future vulnerability.

In our recent study, published in Nature Communications, we exposed different species of Drosophila flies to environmental conditions in the laboratory that mimicked climate change.

The loss of fertility in males occurs at temperatures much lower than lethal temperatures. Picture: Andrew Weeks/University of Melbourne

This helped us to examine whether tropical species are more vulnerable to warming and explore which measures of thermal tolerance are better at predicting extinction risk.

By following population growth and extinction, we found that tropical species indeed went extinct at temperatures lower than the widespread species. Despite living in the warm tropics, these species were no more heat tolerant than species with distributions extending much further away from the equator.

However, the loss of fertility in males - which occurs at temperatures much lower than lethal temperatures – was a better predictor of individual climate change vulnerability.
How do we protect our unique biodiversity from megafires?
Read more

Although critical thermal limits could accurately assess the geographical distribution of vulnerability (that tropical species are more vulnerable to warming), male fertility limits were much better at estimating individual extinction temperatures, suggesting that critical thermal limits may overestimate extinction risk.

Male fertility thermal limits also showed a greater association with current habitat temperatures and rainfall than critical thermal limits, revealing that male fertility may also be more important for dictating species current distributions.

So, how much closer are species to their male fertility limits than their critical thermal limits?

Some of the rainforest species we examined currently experience maximum habitat temperatures around 7 °C below their critical thermal limit or in other words, their warming tolerance is around 7 °C

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Tropical species went extinct at temperatures lower than the widespread species. PIcture: Belinda van Heerwaarden/University of Melbourne

In contrast, some species are already experiencing average temperatures during summer months within 1 °C of their male fertility limit.

So instead of a buffer zone of 7 °C, they may only be able to handle 1°C of warming before populations crash.

Given that species – particularly tropical species – appear to be living precariously close to their male fertility thermal limits, we also explored whether evolution (genetic changes across generations) or plasticity (immediate changes under different environments) might be able to buffer temperature increases.

Tracking the climate threat to Australia's unique ecosystems
Read more

We looked for signals of genetic adaptation and plasticity by comparing critical thermal limits (the temperature at which adults stopped moving) and male fertility in the Drosophila lines exposed to simulated climate warming for up to 26 generations as well as lines kept at temperatures reflecting current temperature fluctuations in tropical Australia.

Sadly, we found no increases in male fertility or critical thermal limits in the tropical or the widespread species exposed to warming. This suggests species may have limited adaptive potential to buffer future changes.

These findings, along with other studies pointing to the heat sensitivity of male fertility in organisms beyond Drosophila, suggest that male fertility may be the chink in the armour against climate change

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Tropical species appear to be living precariously close to their male fertility thermal limits. Picture: Andrew Weeks/University of Melbourne

The way we currently estimate climate change vulnerability could be underestimating extinction vulnerability.

Given that many species – particularly tropical species – may be much closer to their thermal limits, the 1.5 to 4 °C of warming currently projected may lead to much more biodiversity loss than most of us probably realise.

Banner: Getty Images

Leading European cultural figures call on EU to offer Scotland ‘path’ to rejoin

Brian Cox, Slavoj Žižek, and Elena Ferrante among signatories asking the EU to offer membership ahead of possible Scottish independence vote

Adam Bychawski

OPEN DEMOCRACY
29 April 2021, 6.45am

EU leaders must not allow Westminster to "bully" Scotland,

 said campaign organisers. |
Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / Alamy Stock Photo


More than 170 prominent European academics, authors and artists have backed a campaign calling for the European Union to offer Scotland a ‘path’ to membership as pressure mounts for another independence referendum.

The letter, which is signed by figures including Scottish actor Brian Cox, Italian writer Elena Ferrante, and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, urges EU leaders to make a “unilateral and open offer of membership” ahead of any independence vote.

Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum by a 62-38% majority. Campaigners have called for the country to have a second independence referendum in light of the vote. In 2014, Scotland voted against becoming an independent nation in a referendum, by a 55-45% majority.

The letter, which is addressed to European leaders and signed by figures from all 27 EU member states, asks for Scotland to be offered membership prior to a second independence referendum.

“Scotland – where every region voted Remain – must not be left on its own by Europe while being subjected to bullying by the UK government,” said Anthony Barnett, writer and co-founder of openDemocracy. Barnett organised the letter together with openDemocracy main site editor Adam Ramsay. openDemocracy is not involved in the campaign or endorsed it.

The signatories said that an offer from the EU would “make it possible for any referendum to be a clear, practical and democratic choice for Scotland between two unions: the EU or the UK.”

“The usual process is for the EU to respond to a membership request only when it comes from an independent country,” write the signatories.

“Scotland deserves a different process. While it is legally part of the UK, the Scottish government cannot negotiate with the EU. But the EU can declare that, because Scotland has already long been part of the EU, should it become legally and democratically independent it need not apply as a ‘new’ accession candidate,” they add.

Elections for the Scottish Parliament take place on 6 May. The Scottish National Party (SNP) has made a second independence referendum one of its key election pledges and argues that Westminster should accept an SNP majority as a valid mandate for a second independence referendum.

The letter points to EU provisions made in the Brexit deal for extending membership to Northern Ireland in the event of a vote for Irish reunification as a precedent for unilaterally offering Scotland a route to rejoining the EU.

“The EU has demonstrated already that it can recognise the unique circumstance created by Brexit. The European Council unilaterally confirmed at its Summit of 29 April 2017 that Northern Ireland would become part of the EU immediately should it ever vote in the future to join the Republic of Ireland,” said the letter.

The SNP pledged to hold a second referendum in its manifesto at the 2019 UK general election. After the party was reelected with an increased majority, leader Nicola Sturgeon formally requested the power to hold an independence referendum.

However, prime minister Boris Johnson refused the request on the grounds that key pro-independence figures had said that the 2014 referendum was a “once in a generation opportunity”.

‘Good news for internet users’: Elon Musk’s Starlink gets approval for satellites closer to Earth


By Chris Zappone

WA TODAY, AUSTRALIA
April 28, 2021 —

Elon Musk’s Starlink may be on the path to providing faster broadband to rural customers after a US ruling overnight allowed the company to operate part of its satellite fleet at a closer orbit to Earth.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) granted Starlink the rights to orbit 2814 satellites - yet to be launched - in lower orbits than originally planned.


Play video 1:48 Starlink visualisation orbiting Earth

Starlink as it appears in a visualisation of satellites orbiting Earth. (Courtesy of Saber Astronautics).

Starlink, a division of SpaceX, currently has 1300 satellites in orbit, as part of a planned network of 12,000 designed to blanket the Earth with high-speed space-based internet broadband coverage.

The new ruling will bring the 2814 satellites from a planned orbit of about 1150 kilometres to about 550 kilometres, cutting down on the delay in the broadband signal.


“It’s going to be good news for internet users (including many test users in regional Australia) as lag will be reduced,” said Professor Alan Duffy, program lead for SpaceTech Applications at Swinburne University.

In making their ruling, the FCC concluded that “the lower altitude of its satellites enables a better user experience by improving speeds and latency”.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk.CREDIT:AP

Starlink’s latency - the time required to move data from source to destination - is expected to fall by mid 2021 from about 20 to 40 milliseconds to milliseconds measured in the teens or even single digits.

That compares with 600 to 800 milliseconds for the NBN Sky Muster satellites, orbiting at a much more distant 36,000 kilometres.
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Starlink is among a handful of newly formed companies, including OneWeb and Amazon-backed Project Kuiper, that are offering broadband distributed by satellites in low-Earth-orbit. The technology, unproven at such scale, could potentially bridge the long-standing city-rural digital divide in Australia, the US and elsewhere. Australia has an estimated 2 million people who lack internet access at home.

Satellite-based broadband is made possible by combining existing technologies together in new ways. Starlink satellites are small and sent up in large batches by SpaceX rockets, which, being re-usable, make the cost of launch dramatically cheaper.

How these networks will function fully deployed is still unknown, including what sort of interference the competing networks could create for each other over time.

To gain FCC approval Starlink had to overcome objections by OneWeb, and Musk’s space rival, Jeff Bezos, whose Project Kuiper, which is also supporting an orbital-broadband network.

The companies cited the risk of interference as a reason to deny Starlink’s request.

“It is highly likely we will experience an interference issue at some point if all these satellites get up there,” Adelaide-based satellite designer engineer Julia Mitchell said.

Ms Mitchell, at satellite-manufacturer SITAEL Australia, said there were “hundreds of constellations planned”.

“Ultimately, there has not been a low-Earth-orbit constellation that has actually been profitable and not gone bankrupt at some point.

“Many start-ups fail, so [the companies lodging complaints with the FCC] now, may not actually be the people that put satellites up to offer internet services in the end,” Ms Mitchell said.

Starlink has about 320 customers in Victoria and New South Wales testing the equipment with another 7000 paid up and waiting for their gear, according to the Better Internet for Rural, Regional and Remote Australia site.

Professor Duffy said lower Starlink orbits will benefit astronomers by putting more of them into the Earth’s shadow, which “limits their reflection of sunlight that blind our optical telescopes”.

However, he’s not convinced thousands of new satellites won’t affect radio astronomy. “The biggest danger from the orbit is that it now sits much closer to crewed operations for the International Space Station as well as China’s future efforts with their own space station.”

The prospect of collisions is a threat to the overall safety of the orbit. This month a Starlink satellite nearly collided with a satellite operated by OneWeb, a UK-government-Bharti Global-backed internet satellite service.

Jason Held, chief executive of Sydney-based Saber Astronautics, which tracks satellites in orbit, said there was no real solution to “space traffic” issues today - which leads to near misses.

“It’s all barnstorming at the moment.”

 22 tonnes of COVID-19 supplies from Russia arrive in India

Suhasini Haidar, THE HINDU

NEW DELHI, 

APRIL 29, 2021 

A plane carrying the batch of medical aid for India to help the country tackle the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is pictured at Zhukovsky Airport in Moscow Region, Russia on April 28, 2021. Photo: Russian Emergencies Ministry via Reuters   | Photo Credit: Reuters

Cargo includes ventilators, oxygen concentrators and medicines

Two planeloads of COVID-19 supplies from Russia landed here on Thursday, comprising about 22 tonnes of ventilators, oxygen concentrators and medicines, including a Russian-made version of the widely used drug Favipiravir.

Also read: U.S. COVID-19 assistance en route to New Delhi

The cargo, that came as a grant from Moscow, followed a telephone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi late on Wednesday, in which the two leaders decided to upgrade contacts and institute a “2+2” format of talks between Foreign and Defence Ministers.

“Further development of bilateral relations of the especially privileged strategic partnership was discussed, including a schedule of contacts at various levels,” a statement issued by the Kremlin said, noting that Mr. Modi had thanked Mr. Putin for the aid, which is in “great demand” in India.

Also read: COVID-19 | France to send medical supplies to India

The Russian flights operated by Emercom included 20 oxygen production units, 75 lung ventilators, 150 medical monitors and 2,00,000 packs of medicine.

As The Hindu had reported earlier, Russia decided to cut back on a promise to deliver 3,00,000-4,00,000 injections of Remdesivir produced in Russia as part of a compulsory licence as it would violate the U.S. patent, and India now hopes to source about 4,50,000 vials directly from Remdesivir developer Gilead Sciences Inc. in the U.S.

The Russian aid is part of an international effort that now involves about 25 countries, and has meant a major policy shift for the government, which has refused to accept foreign aid for more than 17 years, as India faces an unprecedented number of Coronavirus cases, deaths and a shortage of oxygen and medicines.

Also read: Coronavirus | Oxygen, medical supplies likely from 15 countries

“Russia is closely watching the situation in India, which is becoming more and more alarming due to the Coronavirus pandemic,” said Russian Ambassador Nikolai Kudashev in a video statement, adding that Russia had appreciated India’s gesture in 2020 of making stocks of the drug HCQ available to the country.

“The only way to defeat Coronavirus is to unite and help each other,” he added.

India and Russia are also discussing how to ramp up production of Sputnik V vaccine, which is also being accepted in parts of the subcontinent like Bangladesh. Indian companies are expected to produce about 850 million doses of the vaccine annually, with production expected to begin in May.

“The leaders welcomed the registration of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in India and noted its high efficiency and safety,” the Kremlin statement on the Modi-Putin conversation read.

The decision to begin a 2+2 format of talks between Delhi and Moscow is significant as it comes ahead of a planned visit by Mr. Putin for the annual dialogue in the second half of the year. At present, India holds annual “2+2” consultations with its Quad partners — the U.S., Australia and Japan.

RUSSIA WAS A COLD WAR ALLY WITH INDIA, WHICH WAS A MEMBER OFH TE NON ALIGNED NATIONS. THE US AND PAKISTAN WERE ALLIES DURING THAT PERIOD.

CANADA

Black man refuses bank’s apology for ‘degrading’ treatment

Duration: 02:02 

A Black man has rejected TD Bank's apology for the way staff at an Ottawa branch treated him when he tried to cash cheques for his business, which he says was ‘degrading.’ It’s an experience other Black business owners have had while banking.

CBC 4/28/2021

TD BANK IS TDAMERITRADE IN THE USA

‘It felt like they were forcing me to quit’: HBC worker files wrongful dismissal suit

On a spring day 21 years ago, Yvette Mitchell walked into Hudson’s Bay Co.'s flagship department store in downtown Toronto with a resume.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

She loved fashion and wanted to work on the third floor — the epicentre of women's designer clothing in Canada.

She was hired on the spot.

"I was so excited," Mitchell said in an interview. "I had a great interest in fashion and thought where else to go than the Bay."

Two decades later, the retail veteran said she was in shock when the company unilaterally altered the terms of her employment, changing her permanent part-time status to that of an "auxiliary associate."

Mitchell, who had been on a temporary layoff since April 2020, last month received a letter from HBC outlining the status change.

It not only meant Mitchell would go from a guaranteed 30-hour work week to an arbitrary range of zero to 27 hours a week, she would also lose her health and dental benefits, five-weeks vacation and potentially her pension entitlements going forward, she said.

"I felt like they were forcing me to quit ... to hijack my severance pay," Mitchell said. "I felt really hopeless and lost."

She took her case to a lawyer, who has filed a statement of claim in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice alleging wrongful dismissal.

She is seeking damages for her lost benefits and pension entitlements, accrued vacation pay and lost salary and commissions, it said.

It's also seeking damages for the bad faith manner of termination and punitive damages.

The claim said Mitchell was sent home last March at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and in April was temporarily laid off due to a shortage of work amid ongoing store closures. Last month, she received a letter informing her that her position had changed.

The claim says the retailer engaged in "constructive termination," arguing that by unilaterally changing the terms of her employment during a temporary layoff, the company has not provided Mitchell with proper notice or severance pay.

The claims made in the filings have not been proven in court.

The company said in a statement that as it is an active litigation "it would be inappropriate to comment on the particulars of this case."

The Hudson’s Bay location in downtown Toronto has been either closed or under strict capacity restrictions since March 17, 2020.

But Mackenzie Irwin, an employment lawyer representing Mitchell, said it's illegal for an employer to make significant changes to an employee’s hours of work, pay or duties — even during the pandemic — unless they have consent from that person.

“What HBC is trying to do is change the terms of her employment such that they could potentially award her zero hours in any given week," said Irwin, an associate with Samfiru Tumarkin LLP in Toronto.

"It creates serious instability… and is quite palpably unfair.”

A worker has the right to treat sweeping changes to their job as a termination through constructive dismissal, and leave with an amount of severance based on their age, years of service and position, she added.

“Our firm has seen examples in the past where a company has drastically cut down a long-term employee's hours," Irwin said. "Once that individual has worked under this new arrangement long enough, they are let go from their job and offered an inadequate severance package based not on their previous qualifications, but instead their new and reduced hours of work."

A recent court decision — the first of its kind to deal with a COVID-19 layoff in Ontario — could be favourable to Mitchell's case, said employment and business lawyer Adam Savaglio.

The Ontario Superior Court decision confirmed that common law rules on layoffs override Ontario's Infectious Disease Emergency Leave legislation, he said.

"This decision where a constructive dismissal has been found as a result of a pandemic-caused layoff has swung the pendulum in favour of employees to the serious detriment of employers," said Savaglio, a partner at Scarfone Hawkins LLP.

"This has the potential to tie up the courts with more claims against businesses that haven't been generating income," he said. "It could be nuclear for businesses facing termination payouts, that are already struggling with forced closures and restrictions on business."

On Mitchell's case, Savaglio said there are some genuine issues raised in the claim, without even taking into consideration the recent court decision.

For example, he said an employer can't fundamentally change a contract without consideration or working notice to the employee, and that an individual’s time on layoff may not be considered “working notice."

Still, he said there are obligations for workers to mitigate their losses, such as attempting to find other comparable work.

Meanwhile, Mitchell said she's not alone. She said she knows of several other longtime HBC workers who have had the terms of their employment similarly altered.

In January, HBC said it was permanently laying off more than 600 workers as a result of ongoing lockdowns that have shuttered many of the retailer's stores across the country for months.

Many of those workers received a so-called working notice, which means they are expected to work until the termination date.

Employment lawyer Lior Samfiru, a partner with Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, called it "absurd" to offer working notices when stores are closed and said HBC should be providing severance pay.

For Mitchell, she said she was a loyal and dedicated employee for 21 years.

"They had a choice to package me out, to give me a severance and be done with it," she said. "Instead they've changed my position so that come September, they don't owe me anything — no benefits, no pension, not even hours."

"I've worked so hard," she said. "I just want what's fair."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 28, 2021.

Elliot Page Sits Down With Oprah And Talks About The ‘Horrible Backlash’ Facing Trans People

Corey Atad 

4/28/2021`



Elliot Page is sharing more about his coming-out journey.

© Photo: Apple TV+ Elliot Page and Oprah Winfrey

On Friday, April 30, Apple TV+ will debut a new interview with Page and Oprah Winfrey, in which the actor opens up about the issues facing the trans community.

RELATED: Elliot Page Blasts U.S. Anti-Trans Legislation As 'Upsetting, Cruel And Exhausting'

In a preview clip shared by Vanity Fair, Page talks about needing to "become comfortable" in his body before coming out publicly.

He also talks about the "horrible backlash" trans people are facing at the moment in the U.S., with many states passing anti-trans legislation.

“It felt important and selfish for myself and my own well-being, and my mental health, and also with this platform I have, the privilege that I have, and knowing the pain and the difficulties and the struggles I faced in my life, let alone what so many other people are facing," Page says. "It absolutely felt just crucial and important for me to share that.”

RELATED: Elliot Page Shares The 'Feeling Of True Excitement' About Coming Out As Trans

Page also told Vanity Fair about his decision to talk to Oprah: "It was something I needed to sit with for a moment because the backlash right now is so intense. But the rhetoric coming from anti-trans activists and anti-LGBTQ activists—it’s devastating. These bills are going to be responsible for the death of children. It is that simple. So [talking to Oprah] felt like an opportunity to use a wide-reaching platform to speak from my heart about some of my experience and the resources I’ve been able to access—whether therapy or surgery—that have allowed me to be alive, to live my life."

He added, "I don’t want it to sound like, 'Look at me.' It’s not that at all. Actually, I was really nervous. But I thought about it for a bit, and it just felt like, Okay, the GOP basically wants to destroy the lives of trans kids and stop the Equality Act. How do you not use this platform?"

Authoritarian Tech Is On the Rise | Opinion
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia 

NEWSWEEK 4/28/2021

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Life in a refugee camp is an unimaginable horror.

© PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images A man holds a mobile phone displaying the app StayAway Covid, in Lisbon on October 16, 2020.

It's the reality of thousands of people who fled war-torn countries, poverty, hunger and sometimes death. Greek refugee camps are often overpopulated, with scarce access to water, heat, food, or toilets, set up over contaminated soil. They are the closest thing to hell on Earth.

The pandemic worsened camps on several fronts. There has been a serious uptick in surveillance technologies administered to refugees since the pandemic started. Not only are refugees detained in inhumane conditions, but they are also subjected to strict surveillance inside and outside the camps, serving as guinea pigs for authoritarian technologies that are then used on the general population.

There are plans to increase and implement such invasive and often harmful tech on everyone.

From things that seem quite simple, such as forcing refugees to wear electronic ankle monitors in Canada and implementing voice recognition in Germany to discover migrants' origins, to video border surveillance in Greece and invasive uses of contact tracing technology, Big Brother is keeping tabs on refugees in camps worldwide.

Other technologies, like body heat scanners, iris scanners and social media scraping was used in refugee camps and on borders for years before the pandemic. They were prototyped then, before moving into mainstream use when the pandemic hit.

In January, I interviewed Petra Molnar, director of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. She spent time visiting refugee camps in Greece, on the island of Lesbos.

"The [Greek] government is ... basically weaponizing COVID to use it as an excuse to lock the camps down and make it impossible to do any research," she said.

Molnar said the situation was "quite bad in terms of things like access to health care, water, shelter. ... It's far from ideal. The Kara Tepe camp is windy, it gets flooded, [people have] no access to water. It's difficult to wash hands and isolate in any meaningful way."

The most invasive and harmful tech available, what Molnar called "sexy tech," was not being used within the camps. She said there are plans to use the tech eventually, which is already in use at the Greek border and in Europe.

From drones and cameras to facial recognition and voice recognition, rarely refugees are aware that their data is been collected and freely shared with other countries without their consent, with little care for their privacy and data security.

Refugees are often more concerned with survival and making it through the day than caring about how their biometric data is being collected, stored and shared.

According to Jan Theurich, a German journalist and member of the DunyaCollective who spent several months in Greece, refugees have more pressing needs, such as being able to drink potable water, not freezing to death in windy and humid camps, or not die in a fire caused by the use of smuggled electric heaters.

"This is a political catastrophe and then a humanitarian catastrophe. It's not just the pandemic, but there's a political will behind the situation creating a humanitarian catastrophe," he said.

Leaving the camps is not always the best choice as any financial support a refugee gets can run out quickly, causing them to find their own way. In the end, a lot of people decide to stay.

"It's like making a decision between getting the pest and cholera," Theurich said. One must remember that inside the camps, refugees "are the last ones to get information from the outside world. You can imagine the effect this all have on them—there's increase in self-harm behavior, domestic violence, rapes and harassment, also stabbings."

Several countries deployed surveillance measures, either to monitor compliance to social distancing and quarantine rules or to track the spread of COVID-19.

"If these measures are actually necessary and proportionate to confront the pandemic—if they are subject to public oversight and can be rolled back once the pandemic is over," then they should be implemented, said Marcus Michaelsen, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

We don't know what kind of tech is being used on us at any given moment. But we can guess, investigate and denounce governments and companies alike.

One type of tech focuses on contact tracing, with apps installed on our mobile phones to track and limit contagion.

"There are still lots of apps that pose a threat to citizens' right to privacy," said Samuel Woodhams, digital tights researcher at internet research firm Top10VPN.

At least 19 apps, with 4 million downloads combined, don't have dedicated privacy policies according to Woodhams, meaning that users cannot know for sure how their data is managed—or by whom.

Yet here we are discussing the rights of citizens. One can wonder what happens to the data of those who are running for their lives and those living in less-than-democratic countries. But the fact is that even so-called democracies have shady records when it comes to surveillance, which leads many to worry.

Contact tracing apps' location data are not precise enough to track the spreading of the virus but reveal a lot of personal information. The same is true for credit card data, facial recognition and CCTV cameras in public places.

Who collects the data and where will it all be stored? Is it sufficiently anonymized, protected against data theft and abuse out of potential economic and political interests?

The answers are generally far from what most people would expect—at least from those who have full confidence in the democratic ideals of their respective countries. In authoritarian and illiberal contexts, the pandemic accelerated the decline of internet freedoms, a trend in line with a broader crisis for democracy and shrinking civic space.

It is not to say that we don't need the means to track and prevent the spreading of diseases, or that we don't need to monitor borders and protect ourselves from terrorism and potential harm. We need better rules in place, transparency and accountability. Otherwise, the same measures used to protect us will end up harming society and create a virtual police state. We must know who is collecting our data and to what purpose. We as a society must be able to set boundaries and limits.

Otherwise, little by little, the differences between democratic states and authoritarian or illiberal ones will decrease and we will end up unwillingly giving up on our privacy—which is what is happening with refugees today, all over the world. The pandemic is being used to justify expanding sometimes draconian surveillance.

It is interesting that amid such heavy use of authoritarian tech, violation of privacy and 24 hour monitoring, some people prefer to fall for conspiracy theories about microchips in vaccines. Reality in itself is frightening enough.

Raphael Tsavkko Garcia is a Brazilian journalist based in Belgium. He holds a PhD in human rights from the University of Deusto (Spain).

CANADIAN HYDROGEN POWER

The anti-Tesla: Ballard bets the day has finally come for tech Elon Musk called 'mind-bogglingly stupid'

Driving 4/28/2021

© Provided by Driving.ca Randy MacEwen, president and CEO of Ballard Power Systems, in the company's headquarters in Burnaby, B.C..

As chief executive of Burnaby-based Ballard Power Systems Inc., the company that hopes to disrupt trucking, municipal transit buses, railways and shipping with its proprietary hydrogen fuel cell technology, Randy MacEwen has made countless sacrifices.

He spent this past Christmas quarantined in a guarded hotel suite in Shanghai for two weeks, doing burpees and calisthenics to pass the time — all the while waiting to venture into a country where, out of respect for the culture, he calls one of his closest business associates, “big brother.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time learning about the Chinese culture,” MacEwen told the Financial Post.

Indeed, it marked his 60th trip to China in an estimated 70-month period, a gruelling schedule made all the more so by a health pandemic that added mandatory quarantine periods at both ends of any trip.

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To him, it’s all part of the job of trying to build a sustainable business selling hydrogen fuel cells — technology that has sometimes been compared to the lithium-ion batteries that power Teslas and other zero-emission vehicles, though it has not yet established the same market foothold.

It may not have helped that a couple of years ago Tesla CEO Elon Musk derided hydrogen fuel cells as “mind-bogglingly stupid” and “staggeringly dumb” because using electricity to generate hydrogen, and then convert it to a fuel to power a car, results in high energy losses than just charging a battery that powers a car.

MacEwen has practice batting off this energy efficiency argument.

“There’s a saying, ‘when you make cheese you lose a lot of milk, but there’s a market for cheese,’ and it’s the same with hydrogen,” he said. “There is a market today and there will be a much larger market in the future.”

MacEwen, backed by research, estimates hydrogen can apply about 60 per cent or more of energy to vehicle propulsion, compared to estimates of only 25 per cent for the internal combustion engine. Nonetheless, using energy to charge a battery pack that powers a vehicle is considered the most energy efficient of the three, at an estimated 70 to 85 per cent.

“It’s massively more efficient than the legacy incumbent technology,” MacEwen said, “so it’s a massive leap forward.”

Regardless, as more and more countries announce ambitious climate change initiatives, investor excitement around green technology, including hydrogen fuel cells, is reaching a frenzy. Ballard has benefitted as much as any company, with its stock surging up by 1,000 per cent over a two-year period, from $4.75 in February 2019 to $49 earlier this year, before settling down to a cooler 484 per cent as of April 27.

While hot markets make it easier to raise funding, they don’t make the other part of McEwen’s job — selling hydrogen fuel cell vehicles — any easier.
Always on the Brink


Founded in 1979, Ballard Power Systems was an early entrant in the hydrogen fuel cell space, and the company has spent decades perched on the brink of a major breakthrough. It seems perpetually in investment mode, and has generated earnings losses throughout much of its 40-plus year history.

Still, over the years, Ford Motor Company and Daimler AG have both invested tens of millions of dollars into Ballard, convinced it was poised to disrupt the internal combustion engine’s almost century-long dominance of transportation.

Near the start of the millennium, its stock rose to $165 per share, only to crash below a dollar a little more than a decade later, around the time it became evident that companies developing lithium-ion electric battery technology, such as Tesla, would capture the market for zero-emission sedans and passenger vehicles

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In response, Ballard pivoted to heavy-duty vehicles, such as municipal buses and cargo trucks. The company says lithium-ion battery technology is not yet viable for vehicles that need to carry heavy loads, operate under extreme temperatures and travel long distances without refuelling, but that hydrogen fuel cell batteries are.

“Nobody foresees being able to charge a battery for a double trailer truck in less than two hours, even 10 or 15 years from now,” said Ned Djilali, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Victoria, who has consulted for Ballard. “There’s too many inherent issues related to heat transfer. There’s only so much heat you can push through a battery.”

A hydrogen fuel cell car, meanwhile, can be refuelled in roughly the same time and manner as an equivalent ICE vehicle.

Skeptics of hydrogen energy point to the many challenges that remain, from the cost of creating infrastructure, to the inefficiencies in fuel cell cars compared to pure lithium-ion battery cars, not to mention the combustible nature of hydrogen. Then, there’s also the problem that an estimated 98 to 99 per cent of global hydrogen is produced using fossil fuels — meaning it’s not a low-carbon solution yet.

Of course, even if hydrogen fuel cells gain market share in heavy-duty vehicles, as Ballard hopes, the market for commercial trucks and buses is relatively tiny.

MacEwen estimated there are only four million new commercial truck sales globally per year, about 47 per cent of which are in China.

“What’s happening in China, of course, is it’s just growing unbelievably,” said MacEwen, “and there’s a very big emphasis on reducing dependence on foreign technology.”

That makes the market a tough nut to crack for western companies.

Nonetheless, of the 3,300 commercial buses and trucks powered by Ballard’s hydrogen fuel cell technology, about 3,100 are driving on Chinese roads, according to MacEwen.

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Key to the company’s success, he said, is the “friendships” he forged with business leaders there, notably Tan Xuguang, chairman of Shandong-based Weichai Power Co. Ltd, one of the largest diesel engine manufacturers in the world.

“I call Chairman Tan — ‘Dàgē,’ which means big brother,” he said.

In 2018, Weichai agreed to plunk $163 million into Ballard to become its largest shareholder, controlling what is now about a 15 per cent stake in the company — an investment that has already multiplied several times.

Last year, through a joint venture that’s 49 per cent controlled by Ballard and 51 per cent by Weichai, the two companies commissioned a plant in Shandong province capable of producing 20,000 hydrogen fuel cell stacks per year.
‘I’ve Heard a Lot About You’

Now, MacEwen, who doesn’t speak Mandarin, has to find customers in China.

Learning about Chinese business and culture has been an education and a journey, he said.

Where a simple Powerpoint presentation might suffice to win a business deal in Canada, MacEwen said Chinese business executives want to develop a friendship with their prospective partners.

Everything from where people sit, to how you pay homage to the local region and the stories you tell about other executives at the table matters in China, he said.

“There’s a really cool saying, ‘jiyaung’,” MacEwen explained. “Basically, what it means is ‘I’ve heard a lot about you. In fact, you’re probably famous, and for a very long time, I’ve been really interested to meet you; and finally, after all this time, it’s my great honour to meet you.’”

It’s a phrase he said he leaned on heavily, upon finally emerging from his hotel on Jan. 2nd, and beginning a 10-city tour across the country via high-speed rail and other transport.

He found the buses and rail stations were packed, airports were still flying full capacity inside the country and even restaurants were just as busy as usual.

“Business is booming,” he said.

Last year, China accounted for US$54.2 million of Ballard’s roughly US$103.8 million in revenues, with Europe at US$36.4 million.

MacEwen said he’s hopeful the European market will grow in size to match China, with each comprising about 40 per cent of total sales.

The remaining 20 per cent of sales will be in North America, mainly California where the state government has issued strict dictums to clean up emissions from its heavy-duty vehicle market.

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Canada, meanwhile, a longtime centre of research for hydrogen fuel cells technology and also a top 10 global producer of hydrogen, doesn’t figure as a huge market for Ballard yet.

That could change, of course.

In December, the federal government released a national hydrogen strategy that emphasizes increasing production of blue hydrogen, which is created using fossil fuels but the emissions are captured and stored, or reused.

Josipa Petrunic, president of the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium, said there’s no doubt that hydrogen fuel cell buses will play a role in certain communities in the country.

For buses that travel hundreds of kilometres without returning to the depot, and only have a couple of minutes to charge up when they do return, a lithium-ion battery vehicle can’t fulfill the function, Petrunic said.

“A fuel cell bus carries enough hydrogen to furnish the bus with energy for four-, five- six-hundred kilometres,” she said. “And so you’re kind of at a diesel bus comparison, but the problem is it’s three times the price and somebody’s got to build all the hydrogen.”

Petrunic added that across Canada, and other parts of the world, hydrogen production is increasing. As the scale of the market grows, the costs for hydrogen and also operating a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle are expected to decline.

Rob Hales, an equity analyst for Morningstar who covers Johnson Mathey, one of many companies now dabbling in hydrogen fuel cell technology, said more than 30 countries including some of the largest economies, are looking at hydrogen energy as a way to reduce carbon emissions.

Those companies are putting billions of dollars toward increasing production and research — all of which should lower the cost, he said.

Green hydrogen, the least carbon intensive, produced with renewable energy, is still very price prohibitive, he said.

“It doesn’t make sense right now economically,” said Hales. “It’s just a matter of: will it make sense in the future if we throw enough money at it because that’s what we want for the environmental benefits?”

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In any case, it’s clear that there are plenty of opportunities for Ballard. In March, the company announced it would deliver six hydrogen fuel cells to Calgary-based Canadian Pacific Rail. The dollar value of the deal was too small to be material, and never disclosed.

Nonetheless, Ballard projects that the rail market could be worth $4 billion by 2030, and that nearly diesel powered locomotive could easily be converted to hydrogen fuel cell technology.

In April, the company announced that Sierra Energy Corp., a private company in California, plans to issue a purchase order for Ballard fuel cells later this year for a zero emission switching locomotive, partially funded by a US$4 million grant from a state energy agency.

The rail business would be the smallest of what Ballard estimates is a US$130 billion market for its technology by 2030, with trucks comprising the largest chunk at US$100 billion and buses and marine vessels splitting the remainder.

Bank of Montreal analysts pegged the truck market at US$85 million in a report earlier this year, and wrote that Ballard already has a leading market share in China, Europe and North America. It expects several years of losses while it ramps up for future growth, and expects government policies to support growth.

MacEwen estimated the company has invested $25 million in the past 18 months in expanding its capacity in Burnaby to produce membrane electrode assembly, fuel cell stacks and modules and currently has around 800 employees.

Even as it waits for the growth, the company’s imprint on Vancouver is obvious: there’s a small cluster of hydrogen-related companies in the city, many founded by former Ballard engineers or spun off from the company.

“Many of us have been around this for 20 years talking about the opportunity and future of driving a fuel cell car,” said MacEwen. “We’re now doing it.”

In Jaffa, gentrification stokes discord as Arabs pushed out


TEL AVIV, Israel — A turreted former Catholic girl's school in Jaffa is being transformed into an exclusive Soho House club. Around the corner, a historic ex-convent is now a five-star hotel. Across the street, the glittering towers of the Andromeda Hill luxury residences overlook the Mediterranean.

But farther down Yefet Street, working class Arabs of Jaffa's Ajami neighbourhood face a starkly different reality. With housing prices out of reach, discontent over the city's rapid transformation into a bastion for Israel's ultra-wealthy is reaching a boiling point. The crisis has taken on nationalistic overtones, with some Arab residents accusing the government of trying to push them out to make way for Jews.

“Ninety per cent of people here barely make a living, from hand to mouth, they don’t have enough to eat," said Jaffa resident Ibrahim Tartir. "For a young man looking to get married, it’s 5,000, 6,000 shekels ($1,800) for rent, not including water and electricity and the rest. How much does he earn? 6,000 a month. How can he live?”

Jaffa, the historic port at the core of the greater Tel Aviv metropolis, is home to around 20,000 Arab residents, remnants of the Palestinian population that lived there before Israel’s establishment in 1948. The district has undergone extensive gentrification in recent decades with government encouragement.

That trend has accelerated in the past several years as real estate prices have skyrocketed amid surging demand. As wealthy Israelis and foreigners move from other areas of Tel Aviv into Jaffa, its mostly working-class Arab residents have been pushed out. This has added ethnic tensions to an economic phenomenon familiar in other cities around the world.

“We’re reaching a point where Arab people can’t buy houses unless they are very rich,” said Youssef Masharawi, a Jaffa native and professor of physical therapy at Tel Aviv University. He said young Arabs in Jaffa have nowhere to go, unable to afford to start families in their hometown and facing discrimination in nearby Israeli cities with overwhelmingly Jewish populations.

The stress is starting to reach a breaking point.

Long smouldering tensions erupted last week after the rabbi and director of a pre-military religious seminary in the predominantly Arab neighbourhood of Ajami were assaulted by two Arab residents while visiting an apartment for sale.

Moshe Schendowich, chief executive of the Meirim B’Yafo seminary, was injured in the incident. He said that while there have been some disagreements with Arab neighbours, those conflicts "should be solved with speech, with talking, not with violence.”

Although the seminary says it isn’t out to push anyone out, some residents view it with suspicion. Its head rabbi is a former West Bank settler and was formally affiliated with Ateret Cohanim, a group that takes over Arab properties in Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers. The yeshiva’s website says its aim is to “strengthen Jewish identity and the voice of the Torah, (and) strengthen communities” in Jaffa.

The incident ignited an already flammable situation. In the days following, Arab residents and Jewish supporters faced off against Jewish nationalist counter-protesters. The demonstrations devolved into clashes with police.

Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai condemned the violence but insisted “what we are seeing is not a nationalist conflict between Jews and Arabs.


“It is the product of ongoing frustration of a whole generation of Jaffans that can’t continue to live there,” he said.

But in Israel, nationalist conflict is never far away.

Before Israel's establishment in 1948, Jaffa was a predominantly Arab city of some 100,000 people. During the war surrounding Israel's creation, tens of thousands of Palestinian residents fled or were forced from their homes.

Under a 1950 absentee property law, the new Israeli government confiscated thousands of empty properties and handed them to state-run public housing companies. Many of the Palestinians who remained in Jaffa ended up in these properties.

Since 2011, the Israeli government has pushed to sell off these properties to develop more housing. Although occupants are given an opportunity to buy these homes, the prices are often too high, forcing many longtime residents to move out.

Amidar, a public housing company that manages the buildings, said there is no intention to expel people. "The properties are offered for sale first to tenants at a significant discount and with professional guidance" and most are purchased by residents, it said.

Even with generous terms, however, many low-income residents cannot afford to buy their homes. Many properties have been bought up by developers, resulting in low-income Arab residents being forced out.

On Wednesday, Tel Aviv City Hall announced that it would be opening registration for an affordable housing lottery for 28 units in Jaffa for Arab residents.

“In addition to the project, approval has been granted for a public housing renewal program in Jaffa’s Ajami neighbourhood,” city hall said in a statement. “The program will enable 100 existing tenants to remain in renovated properties while increasing supply by a further 200 apartments.”

Ravit Hananel, a professor of urban policy at Tel Aviv University, said the Israeli government has been ridding itself of public housing since the 1980s as it abandoned the country's socialist roots and adopted neo-liberal, capitalist policies.

She said the government pledged to address housing issues after mass social justice protests in 2011. But she said the response has been to push for more privatization, further hurting the disadvantaged.

While this is the case across the country, Jaffa’s rapid gentrification is not simply a case of rich against poor, said Abed Abou Shhadeh, a Tel Aviv city councilman from Jaffa.

“It has a national background behind it, and it’s part of the conflict,” said Abou Shhadeh.

While some try to depoliticize the issue, he said "it’s more than a class war. There’s a very deep rooted political tension happening at the same time, which makes it much more difficult to come with a fair and equal solution.”

Organizers of a recent protest wrote on Facebook that the “economic expulsion and gentrification that’s pushing the Arab community — and also poor Jewish residents — out of the city for the sake of real estate deals continues what was started in 1948." Graffiti on city walls say in Hebrew and Arabic: “Jaffa is not for sale.”

Masharawi, the Jaffa-born professor, called for the construction of affordable housing for young Arabs in Jaffa. He said he was determined to stand his ground against the rising tide of change.

“I will never leave Jaffa even if I am going to die within a small room in the end," he said. “This is my home, my house, my way of life.”

Ilan Ben Zion, The Associated Press