REPUBLICAN ALBERTA

Thursday's letters: Show the science for dropping restrictions

Edmonton Journal 

Dr. Hinshaw and the UCP suggest elimination of all restrictions for COVID are based on science and data. Perhaps they could provide that science and data for us fools that are so ill-informed. I see rising case rates and increasing R values. Not that reassuring.

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© Provided by Edmonton Journal Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw gives a COVID-19 pandemic update from the media room at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton, on Wednesday, July 28, 2021.

Delta variant predominant — more virulent, perhaps more deadly, reported increased viral load in fully vaccinated. No answer here but still worrisome. No testing program — better not to know the incidence and spread.

No required isolation mandate — OK for the infected person to share public transport or sit at the next table in a restaurant. No masks or social distancing — the unvaccinated students are free to share the virus with fellow students or bring it home. U.S. rates skyrocketing.

Maybe I am not that smart. Show me the science and data.

Larry Hunka, Edmonton

Hinshaw pressured on COVID protocols?

From hero to zero in one afternoon! Dr. Deena Hinshaw, who has given Albertans the strength, guidance, and confidence to get through three waves of the pandemic, has just signed the death sentence for many Albertans by recommending all restrictions be removed. And just at a time when infections are on the rise and the Center for Disease Control is introducing stricter mask mandates.

Although we all heard her give the recommendation, I just cannot believe it was her recommendation but rather given by acquiescence to political pressure. The minister of health must have just returned from a trip to Florida, either meeting with their governor who is in total denial, or visiting Fantasyland.

But don’t worry, Premier Kenney is outraged. Not at this ridiculous policy change but with the federal government over Senate choices. Unreal!

Don Davidson, Edmonton

Stop moving COVID goalposts

From the start of the pandemic, I followed government guidelines. When asked to vaccinate, we both did. Even though we are both double-vaccinated, we are still told to mask up for public events. Now the goal posts are moving again due to some sort of COVID variant. I’m sure I speak not only for myself when I say, enough is enough. The health community needs to adopt a coherent and consistent strategy to get us there.

John Trusz, Edmonton

'It wasn't a hoax': NC man converts Halloween skeletons, graves into COVID-19 vaccine message
Sarah Polus 1 hour ago

A North Carolina man is repurposing Halloween decorations to urge people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Jesse Jones put up the display, featuring skeletons and tombstones that bear warning messages about vaccine hesitancy, including "I listened to Trump," "It wasn't a hoax" and "I got my news from Fox," outside of his Raleigh home. He hopes the display will catch people's attention, and inspire them to be vigilant about the pandemic.

A 13-foot tall skeleton in his yard has a sign hanging on it that reads, "Not vaccinated, see you soon, idiots!"

"The fact (is) that we didn't take this seriously," Jones told ABC 11 News. "My wife lost her mom due to COVID and she was a woman who spent her entire life looking after people - and she died completely alone in a hospital without being able to see one relative for 14 days."

He added, "It was a nightmare. No one should go through what my wife went through watching her mom die like that."

Jones said those who are not getting vaccinated are "endangering America."

"If you are not vaccinated, you are not a patriot," he said, according to ABC 11. "I need to look after you, you need to look after me. If everybody would just wear a mask, distance, be an American, be a patriot, and follow the rules, this would go away very quickly."

Half of Canadians believe social media has hurt open debate: Poll
Christopher Nardi 

POSTMEDIA

© Provided by National Post In this photo illustration a notification from Twitter appears on tweet by U.S. President Donald Trump that the social media platform says violated its policy on May 29, 2020 in San Anselmo, California.

OTTAWA – Half of all Canadians believe that social media has hurt open debate in the country, according to a new poll that reveals a stark generational and partisan divide on free speech.

The new Postmedia-Leger poll surveying Canadians on the state of free speech as the country gears up for an expected federal election found a large majority think that social media companies should be forced to monitor and remove content they consider hateful.

If anything, the poll — which surveyed 1,519 Canadians online between July 23 and 25 — shows that respondents hold divided (if not sometimes contradictory) views on the state of free speech in Canada and what should be done to address it.

For example, nearly half of all respondents (45 per cent) say that speech is more restrictive today that it was between five and 10 years ago. But a nearly equal part (38 per cent) believes the opposite, arguing that speech is even freer now than it was within the past decade.

The data also show that many Canadians are concerned about the future of free speech in the country, with 40 per cent saying they suspect it will be harder to speak freely on controversial topics within the next decade

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“There’s a feeling amongst Canadians that … something’s being restricted a bit. Or that maybe sometimes the discussion can be a little bit one-sided,” says Andrew Enns, executive vice-president at Leger. “And if you put your hand up to offer a position on the other side, you can get into trouble.”

But when asked if any of a list of eight potentially controversial topics — such as abortion, Indigenous issues and reconciliation, racism or COVID-19 lockdown rules — was completely off the table for discussion in Canada, almost all respondents said no.

“None of these stood out as a real, ‘we can’t talk about it.’ People feel like it’s still reasonably tolerated to debate,” Enns said. “Many Canadians have this feeling that something’s not quite right when it comes to the open and free debate of controversial topics. But they’re not exactly sure where that’s happened.”

But free speech is “one of those hallmarks of what makes us kind of proud to be Canadian. And these findings didn’t strike me as a resounding affirmation of that,” Enns added.

Enns was surprised to see that no less than 50 per cent of Canadians believe that social media — meant to be a platform for the exchange of ideas and discussions — has in fact hurt open debate, not encouraged it.

Most Canadians now believe more regulation and policing is necessary when it comes to addressing online hate speech.

The poll shows that 69 per cent of Canadians believe social media companies should be forced to identify and remove hateful content, and 46 per cent of respondents say the federal government should have the power to determine what is hate speech and regulate it. The Liberal government proposed a series of controversial bills in the spring aiming to regulate programming distributed by media streaming services and social platforms online.

But a deeper dive into the poll results shows significant divides both along generational lines as well as the political spectrum.

For example, Canadians aged 35 years and older are both more likely to say that free speech is more restricted now than decade ago (49 per cent) and that social media has hurt open debate (55 per cent).

On the other hand, barely over one third of Canadians under 35 would agree to both those points.

Conservative party supporters are also much more pessimistic about the current state and future of free speech in Canada, according to poll data.

More than half of them believe that it will be harder to speak freely on controversial topics in five to 10 years from now, compared to 33 per cent for Liberal supporters and 30 per cent for New Democrats.

Six out of 10 Conservatives also believe that free speech is more restricted now compared to one decade ago. That’s significantly higher than the polling average of 45 per cent.

According to Enns, there are two major factors behind Conservative supporters’ results: the fact that they are generally slightly older voters, and the party’s aggressive messaging over the spring claiming the Liberals were attacking free speech with their bills regulating online content.

“I think that revved up some of the engines with respect to freedom of speech and the implications of this government’s legislation,” Enns said.

Canadians want a wealth tax and are willing to vote for it

A majority of Canadians believe wealth inequality should be tackled by increasing taxes on the wealthy and large corporations and even said it could influence their vote, according to a new poll.

The Abacus Data poll, released Wednesday morning, was focused on tax fairness in Canada, including the NDP’s proposed one per cent tax on wealth over $20 million from its 2019 election platform. It was commissioned by the Broadbent Institute and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), and surveyed 1,500 Canadians aged 18 and older from July 13 to 19.

The poll found 89 per cent of Canadians want to see a wealth tax of one per cent paid by the wealthiest Canadians as part of Canada’s pandemic recovery, with 92 per cent in support of closing tax loopholes and making it harder for corporations to strategically book profits in tax havens.

“Proposals to tax the rich are a near consensus right now, as far as support goes in Canada,” said Katrina Miller, program director for the Broadbent Institute.

Miller said she has never seen support as high as this on polling for other strong progressive proposals. The poll is considered accurate to within plus or minus 2.6 per cent.

“What we're seeing is an unbelievable upswell of interest and urgency amongst Canadians to make our tax system more fair… They want a fairer Canada post-pandemic, we need a way to pay for it, and this is the way that Canadians are choosing,” said Miller.

For a majority of Canadians, this issue crosses party lines and political ideology, she said.

Eighty-nine per cent of Canadians surveyed said they would definitely or probably consider voting for a party that promises to take concrete action to make sure everyone pays their fair share and increase taxes paid by the wealthiest Canadians and large, profitable corporations.

This view was shared by 97 per cent of NDP supporters, 92 per cent of Liberal supporters and 84 per cent of Conservative supporters.

Peter Julian, the NDP finance critic, said the poll results validate public acceptance of one of his party’s key taxation recommendations.

In November 2020, Jagmeet Singh introduced an opposition day motion to implement a one per cent tax on wealth over $20 million and an excess-profits tax on “big corporations profiteering from the pandemic.” It was defeated 292-27, with the Liberals, Bloc Québécois, and Conservatives voting against.

Julian said the poll results tell him all parties should take note. “Both the Liberals and Conservatives are vulnerable because they have blocked every NDP attempt to put in place a wealth tax or fair taxes.”

Most Canadians — including just over 50 per cent of Liberal supporters — indicated they don’t think the Trudeau government has done enough to reduce income and wealth inequality and to ensure everyone pays their fair share of taxes.

In an emailed statement, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s press secretary Katherine Cuplinskas said the government has “introduced significant measures to make Canada fairer and more equitable for all” through “a tax cut for the middle-class, higher personal income taxes for the wealthiest Canadians, and the Canada Child Benefit.”

She noted the Liberals’ fall economic statement committed to “implementing a tax on multinational digital giants; introducing a luxury tax; limiting stock option deductions in the largest companies; and implementing a tax on the unproductive use of domestic housing that is owned by non-resident, non-Canadians.”

Although the Liberal government has taken some positive steps, David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data, said it’s clear Canadians feel it’s not enough.

“This poll really points to an environment where if this debate does take off during a campaign, the Liberals are not immune to criticism that they haven't actually delivered on some of the rhetoric that they often talk about,” said Coletto.

The poll also found no leader or party has a clear advantage when it comes to tax fairness, income and wealth inequality or affordability with preference for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals and Jagmeet Singh and the NDP both landing between 21 per cent and 24 per cent on all three issues and Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives clocking in at 15 to 17 per cent.

One-third of Canadians surveyed were unsure which party would take the best action.

“A whole bunch of Canadians are now sitting (and) waiting to see who's (going to) make the biggest commitment and the commitment that they most believe in,” said Miller. “When it comes to this election, the issue of fair taxation, of taxing the rich, is fair game, and all parties should be looking to double down.”

In July, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) released a report that estimated a one-time wealth tax of three per cent and five per cent on Canadians with net wealth exceeding $10 million and $20 million respectively could raise between $44 billion and $61 billion.

But Miller said Canada needs a wealth tax like the NDP proposed, one that is ongoing and provides permanent funding and revenue for investments in universal programs like pharmacare.

The PBO estimated the NDP’s wealth tax would generate $5.6 billion in 2020 to 2021, but using more recent data on asset values and lower, more up-to-date research on tax avoidance and evasion, the CCPA estimated $10 billion to be generated in the first year.

Marc Lee, senior economist for the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), agrees there is a serious need for an annual wealth tax. He said because the state of inequality is so high right now, the idea of a one-time tax to help build out of a pandemic and address infrastructure, climate, and housing needs does hold promise.

One year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian billionaires increased their wealth by $78 billion, according to the CCPA, using data from Forbes’ “real-time billionaires” listing.

Unsurprisingly, over half of Canadians surveyed think the pandemic has worsened inequality. Lee thinks this helps explain the wide consensus across party lines seen in the poll.

“Once inequality gets beyond a certain level, it just stretches all understandings of fairness,” said Lee. He said right- and left-leaning individuals alike can understand the need to address the extreme inequality Canadians find themselves mired in, it just remains to be seen whether politicians will respond with concrete action.

Julian said he believes this issue will be one of the most important, fundamental issues through this next election campaign, when so many Canadians are struggling.

“We see unparalleled misery across this country as people struggle through the pandemic, and yet the wealthy get off scot free,” he said.

“Canadians are saying enough is enough. We need to put in place a fair tax system because we need to make sure everyone has their basic needs met, and that we build a society that's a far more equitable society that existed prior to COVID.”

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

'Bring Your Own Brigade' Film Review: Scorching Doc Asks Hard Questions About the Uptick in Brutal Wildfires

William Bibbiani 

THE WRAP

5/8/2021

It rather famously only takes a few minutes for Pixar's animated classic "Up" to reduce audiences to tears, a record which could be broken by Lucy Walker's brutal new documentary "Bring Your Own Brigade." After a brief introduction to a survivor of a horrifying California wildfire, the film cuts to similar apocalyptic blazes all over the world, and in particular the image of a helpless koala bear on fire, crying out in pain, until it's saved by human hands.

© TheWrap Bring Your Own Brigade

Walker's documentary sometimes spares us the gruesome details and terrifying life-or-death despair of wildfire victims. But "Bring Your Own Brigade" also spends much of its first act immersed in the inferno of California's Camp Fire of 2018, with cell-phone footage of citizens unable to escape gridlock as their cars begin to overheat in the surrounding flames. Panic is in the air, everyone seems to be about to die, and 911 calls fill the soundscape with desperate voices burning alive in their own homes.

It's an upsetting and shocking way to begin any film — and it may be too much for some viewers — but Walker is in complete control. The terrors of the Camp Fire and Malibu Fires, which roared concurrently in the deadliest day for wildfires in California history (so far), aren't abstract concepts. They're not statistics. They're human tragedies, and "Bring Your Own Brigade" is more than willing to force you into these nightmare scenarios, burning down the audience's emotional defenses to convey the gravitas and immediacy of these ongoing, escalating disasters.

Nobody can claim that Walker, who previously directed the unflinching Oscar-nominated shorts "Waste Land" and "The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom," doesn't have a strategy. In a voice-over, she promises that this is a story with hope in it, but after an opening salvo of apocalyptic annihilation, it's hard to believe that's where "Brigade" is headed. It may be so overwhelming that we want to shut down our senses altogether in an attempt to defend our minds from existential panic.

After the fires die down, "Brigade" starts asking difficult questions about why these disasters are increasingly powerful, deadly, and dangerous. And while global climate change is certainly a factor, the film spends more time analyzing the insidious and short-sighted decisions that escalate the danger: European immigrants to America who emphasized fighting all fires instead of allowing controlled burns, and lumber companies that plant so many young trees so close together that fires spread further and further and faster and faster.

And while it may seem hopeful to know that we can reduce the severity and danger of wildfires, since we're the ones who made them worse in the first place, that sense of hope Walker promised seems elusive once the human element kicks in. The same communities that endured unspeakable loss refuse, only a short time later, to vote for regulations that would protect their homes. Even the simple, inexpensive solution of keeping flammable gardens a minimum of five feet from houses becomes a locus for local controversy, as citizens fight to keep their communities "quirky" at the cost of personal safety.

Walker, a British filmmaker who moved to California and openly discusses her outsider's perspective, describes this tendency as distinctly American. Her choice of expression — "self-immolation under the mantra of personal freedom" — echoes loudly long after the credits roll.

"Bring Your Own Brigade," named after an incident where Kim Kardashian saved her own house from the blaze by hiring a private firefighting team, is a film about burning ourselves down. It's a film about hubris, selfishness, failed bureaucracies, and a stubborn inability to learn from past mistakes. One can't help but wonder if, perhaps, the horrors of the fire should have been saved for the final act of the film, to remind us harshly all that what we value today will seem worthless tomorrow, when all that really matters is survival at all costs. Because we are certainly trapped in a cycle, and only breaking that cycle will do a lick of good.

Walker's film may struggle to find the hope it promises, but it never loses the sight of the individual stories playing out amidst the disasters: Families suffering from enormous loss, people opening their homes to the newly homeless, harrowing tales of personal sacrifice, and sad stories about firefighters sifting through ashes in search of the bones of personal friends. The plight of incarcerated Americans forced to fight fires as a modern slave labor force is mentioned, but frustratingly unexplored, possibly for lack of time, or possibly to stay focused on the root cause of these disasters.

Nobody makes a movie like this unless they care about humanity. It's too easy to turn away, run away, and make a film about puppies that save Christmas instead. It takes a lot of love to produce a film as confrontational about our failings as"Bring Your Own Brigade." It takes a lot of love to show us the horrors we inflict upon ourselves in an effort to jumpstart our capacity for empathy and our need to make changes that positively effect our future. But it's a tough love, stained by disappointment, and it can be very painful to accept.

"Bring Your Own Brigade" opens in US theaters August 6 and on Paramount+ and CBSN August 20.

Greece is burning: experts blame it on climate change

Scientists warn of Gulf Stream collapse leading to ‘climate catastrophe’ in Canada, world

David Lao 

 In this Aug. 16, 2019, file photo, NYU student researchers sit on top of a rock overlooking the Helheim glacier in Greenland. As warmer temperatures cause the ice to retreat the Arctic region is taking on new geopolitical and economic importance, and not just the United States hopes to stake a claim, with Russia, China and others all wanting in. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

As climate scientists release new evidence pointing to the possible "collapse" of the Gulf Stream, experts are warning that its disappearance would usher in a "calamitous climate catastrophe" not just for Canadians living on the east coast, but for hundreds of millions more people worldwide.

The warning comes amid a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, which found evidence of the Gulf Stream losing "stability" over the course of the last century. Should the stream continue to lose strength and eventually collapse, the study's author warned of "severe impacts on the global climate system."

The stream is essentially part of a larger overall current called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a huge river of warm, salty water that originates from the American tropics in Mexico and flows through the upper layers of the Atlantic, eventually passing Newfoundland and Labrador and into the Nordic seas off the coast of Scandinavia and the U.K.

Read more: Report warns of ‘large gaps’ in Canada’s preparedness for climate change disasters

Some of the warm water would eventually go up into the Arctic, while some would become more dense after losing heat and moisture to the atmosphere, eventually starting to sink and ultimately returning towards the equator to heat up again, much like a "conveyor belt."

In a press release from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, the study's lead author, Dr. Niklas Boers, described the current as one of Earth's "key circulation systems," but pointed to the stream as currently being at its weakest in the last 1,000 years.

The AMOC has been speculated to undergo two modes: the first of which is described as a strong current that helps the gush of warm water from the tropics maintain large parts of Europe's current climate, while the second is described as a weak mode, which if activated is considered to be one of the world's climate tipping points towards catastrophic damage.

Boers' research pointed to the collapse of the stream from its currently strong mode to the weak mode as due to a number of factors, including the increased flow of fresh water from the melting Greenland ice sheet and sea ice from glaciers in the north, much of which is caused by the effects of global warming.

“I wouldn’t have expected that the excessive amounts of freshwater added in the course of the last century would already produce such a response in the overturning circulation,” Boers said in the press release.

“We urgently need to reconcile our models with the presented observational evidence to assess how far from or how close to its critical threshold the AMOC really is.”

Read more: Group of scientists concludes climate change made B.C., Alberta heat wave 150 times more likely

According to University of Toronto professor Kent Moore, the waning strength of the stream could have dire consequences not just for Canada's coastal communities, but for potentially hundreds millions of people worldwide.

Moore pointed to what he calls the most well-known evidence of a shift from strong to weak mode in the Gulf Stream — an event that occurred near the end of the Earth's last ice age, around 13,000 years ago.

As large swaths of ice began to melt from the ice sheets in North America, the sudden influx of previously frozen fresh water being dumped into the ocean prevented the heavier saltwater in the stream from sinking and returning to the equator, resulting in a weaker current.

Video: 49% of Canadians believe climate change must be urgently addressed: Ipsos poll

The result, according to Moore, was a cataclysmic event that sent what is considered Europe today into a “deep freeze” for about 1,000 years. As the Gulf Stream "shut down," so did the flow of warm waters which brought brought warmth to the Scandinavian seas off the European continent.

Should the same "shut down" happen today, prompted by global warming, Moore said that the resulting consequences would also have a devastating effect on millions around the world — including parts of Canada.

Read more: Day After Tomorrow? Study says global warming slowing key ocean current, could make for more extreme weather

Sea levels around communities in Canada's Atlantic and the American northeast would rise while rain and weather patterns, which millions of people rely on to help provide crops and food, could shift within mere decades.

"So the impacts to Canada would be extreme," said Moore. "I'm pretty sure that the Maritimes would become cooler because there's not that source of warmth offshores, and sea levels would rise."

According to Moore, however, the real problem arising from the loss of the Gulf Stream would be the rapid decrease in temperatures across Europe -- resulting in a massive displacement of 50 million people there who would essentially no longer be able to live and thrive there.

"That's the real issue — what will we do? How will we support those individuals?" asked Moore.

"Thinking globally, that would be the largest impact, just a total disruption to the whole thing — like almost every aspect of our life."

Video: Canada’s wildfire season “graphic reminder” of climate crisis

As for how to prevent or slow the stream from collapsing, Moore said that it would be very unlikely for humans to find a way to "engineer" their way out of it.

Instead, he pointed to mitigating the effects of global warming as being the only approach.

"Even if we maintain temperatures as they are today, Greenland will still continue to melt because it's just warm, and so to prevent Greenland from getting warmer, we need to reduce our use of CO2," he said.

"And that's really the only way to make sure that this transition doesn't happen and avert what would really be a calamitous climate catastrophe"

Study warns of 'irreversible transition' in ocean currents that could rapidly freeze parts of North America

A large system of ocean currents in the Atlantic – which includes the Gulf Stream – has been disrupted due to human-caused climate change, scientists reported in a new study published Thursday. If that system collapses, it would lead to dramatic changes in worldwide weather patterns.

© Julio Cortez, AP Images A beachgoer walks along the water as waves crash in Manasquan, N.J. Swells are up from recent hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, including Jose, which is expected to stay out to sea, according to meteorologists.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, transports warm, salty water from the tropics northward at the ocean surface and cold water southward at the ocean bottom.

“The Atlantic Meridional Overturning really is one of our planet’s key circulation systems,” said the author of the study, Niklas Boers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

Findings from a similar 2018 study drew comparisons to the scientifically inaccurate 2004 disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” which used such an ocean current shutdown as the premise of the film. At the time, study authors said a collapse was at least decades away but would be a catastrophe.

A potential collapse of this ocean current system would have severe consequences around the globe, authors of the new study said.

If this circulation shuts down, it could bring extreme cold to Europe and parts of North America, raise sea levels along the U.S. East Coast and disrupt seasonal monsoons that provide water to much of the world, the Washington Post said.

It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets, according to the Guardian.

Researchers who study ancient climate change have also uncovered evidence that the AMOC can turn off abruptly, causing wild temperature swings and other dramatic shifts in global weather systems, the Post said.

August 3: There's a 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico this summer that's bigger than Connecticut

July 20: What is La Niña? Does it bring more snow? How climate pattern could affect US weather.

The study was published Thursday in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature Climate Change.

Climate models have shown that the AMOC is at its weakest in more than 1,000 years, Reuters reported. However, it has not been known whether the weakening is due to a change in circulation or the loss of stability.

"The difference is crucial," said Boers, "because the loss of dynamical stability would imply that the AMOC has approached its critical threshold, beyond which a substantial and in practice likely irreversible transition to the weak mode could occur."

By studying key data from the AMOC, scientists determined that the recent weakening is likely linked to a loss of stability: "The findings support the assessment that the AMOC decline is not just a fluctuation or a linear response to increasing temperatures but likely means the approaching of a critical threshold beyond which the circulation system could collapse," Boers said.

The study said that a number of factors are likely important for the disruption of the AMOC – factors that add to the direct effect that the warming of the Atlantic Ocean has on its circulation. These include freshwater inflow from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, melting sea-ice, increasing precipitation and river run-off.

Freshwater is lighter than saltwater and reduces the tendency of the water to sink from the surface to greater depths, which is one of the drivers of the overturning.

Other climate models have said the AMOC will weaken over the coming century but that a collapse before 2100 is unlikely, Reuters said.

Levke Caesar, at Maynooth University in Ireland, who was not involved in the research, told the Guardian: “The study method cannot give us an exact timing of a possible collapse, but the analysis presents evidence that the AMOC has already lost stability, which I take as a warning that we might be closer to an AMOC tipping than we think.”

Study lead author Boers told the Post that "it’s one of those events that should not happen, and we should try all that we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. This is a system we don’t want to mess with."

Contributing: The Associated Press

How France Secured Major Oil And Gas Projects In Iraq

By Simon Watkins - Aug 04, 2021

Even more so than Iran, Iraq remains the greatest relatively underdeveloped oil (and gas) frontier in the Middle East. It is little wonder, then, that it has been and remains the focus of an ongoing power struggle between the U.S. and its allies on the one side and China and Russia (via Iran) on the other. In all of these central Middle Eastern tussles, especially involving Iraq and Iran, France has liked to see itself in the role of the ‘honest broker’, not especially aligned to either side, as was notably demonstrated by its attempts to stop the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and then to stop the U.S. from unilaterally withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (‘nuclear deal’) with Iran in 2018. Given this, it is not surprising that France’s flagship energy company, TotalEnergies, has secured a massive deal with Iraq to advance four major projects across the country, all linked to its huge oil and gas resources.  

In broad terms, the prize for France is exceptional. Officially, Iraq holds a very conservatively estimated 145 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves (17 percent of the Middle East’s total, around 8 percent of the globe’s, and the fifth-biggest on the planet), plus nearly 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (the 12th largest in the world), according to figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Unofficially, the figures are likely to be much higher.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry has stated a number of times that the country’s undiscovered resources amount to around 215 billion barrels and this was also a figure that had been arrived at in a 1997 detailed study by respected oil and gas firm, Petrolog. Even this figure, though, did not include the parts of northern Iraq in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, administered by the KRG. Prior to the recent rise in exploration activity in the KRG area, more than half of the exploratory wells in Iraq had been drilled prior to 1962, a time when technical limits and a low oil price gave a much tighter definition of a commercially successful well than would be the case today. Based on the previous limited exploration and development of oil fields in the KRG area, the proven oil reserves figure was first put at around 4 billion barrels. This has been subsequently upgraded by the KRG to around 45 billion barrels but, again, this may well be a very conservative estimate.

The key logistical problem in the south of Iraq that has precluded an advance in crude oil production to its 7 million barrels per day short-term target or to the longer-range targets of 9 million bpd and even 12 million bpd is the completion of the Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP), and this is one of the four projects now taken over by TotalEnergies. The project involves taking and treating seawater from the Persian Gulf and then transporting it via pipelines to oil production facilities for the purposes of maintaining pressure in oil reservoirs to optimize the longevity and output of fields. The long-delayed plan for the CSSP is that it is used initially to supply around 6 million bpd of water to at least five southern Basra fields and one in Maysan Province, and then built out for use in further fields. 

Both the longstanding stalwart fields of Kirkuk and Rumaila – the former beginning production in the 1920s and the latter in the 1950s, with both having produced around 80 percent of Iraq’s cumulative oil production – require major ongoing water injection, with reservoir pressure at the former having dropped significantly after output of only around 5 percent of the oil in place (OIP). Rumaila, in the meantime, had produced more than 25 percent of its OIP before water injection was required because its main reservoir formation (at least its southern part) connects to a very large natural aquifer which has helped to push the oil out of the reservoir.

Although the water requirements for most of Iraq’s oilfields fall between these two cases, the needs for oilfield injection are highest in southern Iraq, in which water resources are also the least available. To reach and then sustain Iraq’s future crude oil production targets over any meaningful period, the country will have total water injection needs equating to around 2 percent of the combined average flows of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, or 6% of their combined flow during the low season. While withdrawals at these levels might appear to be manageable, these water sources will also have to continue to satisfy other, much larger, end-use sectors, including agriculture.

Before the latest ward of this contract to TotalEnergies, there were always only two companies with a realistic chance of taking on the giant CSSP work: U.S. supermajor ExxonMobil, and its China equivalent, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). However, it was understood by all involved that only the U.S. company had all the technology, equipment, and expertise required to complete the entirety of the CSSP on its own, with CNPC involved for various geopolitical reasons and for funding. Early in 2018, though, negotiations between Iraq’s Oil Ministry and ExxonMobil over the CSSP broke down, leaving the road open for CNPC but its progress since that point has been unclear, to say the least. As with so many major oil and gas projects in Iraq, it seems that the real reason why ExxonMobil was unable to proceed with the CSSP plan was that the risk/reward matrix was too skewed towards the risk side, specifically risks arising from the endemic corruption in the country, highlighted repeatedly as the prime cause of project failures in Iraq by Oilprice.com.

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The prospects for TotalEnergies’ second major project of the four – collecting and refining associated natural gas at the five southern Iraq oilfields of West Qurna 2, Majnoon, Tuba, Luhais, and Ratawi,- appear to be better than for its involvement in any stage of the CSSP, though. Another separate project to further develop the Ratawi is the third of the four major projects to be given to TotalEnergies.

To begin with, there is a clear economic imperative for Iraq in that currently this vast resource of associated gas is simply burnt off, akin to burning cash. It could instead be easily monetized into gas exports or used to generate power in Iraq’s chronically underpowered grid. This would also mean that precious crude oil would not have to be used to generate power and instead could be exported, which would additionally go some way to alleviating the severity of the cash crunches that Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has faced since taking office. As it stands, Iraq still ranks as one of the worst offenders for flaring associated gas in the world, after Russia, burning off around 16 billion cubic meters last year, despite it joining in 2017 the United Nations and World Bank ‘Zero Routine Flaring’ initiative aimed at ending this type of routine gas flaring by 2030.

The associated gas project is expected to produce at least 300 million standard cubic feet of gas per day and double that after the second phase of development. The agreement between Iraq and TotalEnergies follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding on 27 January to develop various large-scale projects, including associated gas developments in Ratawi in the south, Diyala in the east, and Anbar in the northeast. TotalEnergies already has ongoing experience of working across Iraq, holding a 22.5 percent stake in the Halfaya oil field in Missan province in the south and an 18 percent stake in the Sarsang exploration block in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north.

Successfully capturing associated gas rather than flaring it will also allow Iraq to revive the also long-stalled US$11-billion Nebras petrochemicals project with Shell, which if it went ahead in a correct linear fashion could be completed within five years and would generate estimated profits of up to US$100 billion for Iraq within its 35-year initial contract period. This theoretically greener approach to its energy resources is also seen in the last of the four projects to be undertaken by the French company, which will be the construction and operation of a 1,000-megawatt solar energy plant.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

Study of Middle East DNA Reveals Complex Human History in the Region

Isaac Schultz 11 hrs ago

A team of geneticists has sequenced 137 modern human genomes from the Middle East, shedding new light on how humans arrived in the region and how those populations changed as areas dried up.

© Image: FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP (Getty Images) The 2,600-year-old rock-cut tombs of Al-Khuraiba, in Saudi Arabia.

The research goes a long way in a region where precious little is left of a fossil record. The recent aridification of the Arabian peninsula, especially, means that bones can get so brittle they can simply disintegrate when archaeologists pick them up, as Mathew Stewart, a zooarchaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Human History, recently told Gizmodo. Genetic evidence is easily lost to time. The team’s results draw on modern samples from eight different groups in the Levant, Iraq, and Arabia. Ancient genomes that had previously been constructed were also included in their analysis, which is published this week in the journal Cell.

“The Middle East is an important region to understand human history, migrations, and evolution: it is where modern humans first expanded out of Africa, where hunter-gatherers first settled and transitioned into farmers, where the first writing systems developed, and where the first major known civilizations emerged,” said Mohamed Almarri, a geneticist at the Sanger Institute in England and lead author of the study, in a Cell press release. “However, despite this importance, the region has been historically understudied in genomic studies.”

Expansions out of Africa, agricultural developments, and even climatological events can be interpreted from the genomic data, Almarri’s team said. Looking at ancient genomes from past Middle Eastern populations, the team determined that populations were able to grow as people began to settle down and started farming.

© Photo: HAZEM BADER/AFP (Getty Images) A Palestinian farmer on the West Bank in June 2020.

The researchers used a relatively new sequencing approach, called linked-read sequencing, that allowed them to reconstruct population histories as far back as 100,000 years ago. Geneticists can use the approach to analyze more of the genome, in this case identifying millions of genetic variants unique to Middle Eastern populations.

The researchers found that Middle Easterners descend from a population that left Africa between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. That makes a mini-mystery of the 88,000-year-old human finger bone found at a prehistoric lake site in Saudi Arabia; it may be that bone belonged to a human group that dispersed early and did not contribute to the modern gene pool in the region. Many anatomically modern humans left Africa earlier, but these genetics suggest that modern Middle Eastern populations descended from the group that left Africa around 50,000 years ago.

“Our study fills a major gap in international genomic projects by cataloguing genetic variation in the Middle East,” said co-author Chris Tyler-Smith, also a geneticist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, in the Cell release. “The millions of new variants we found in our study will improve future medical association studies in the region. Our results explain how the genetics of Middle Easterners formed over time, providing new insights, which complement knowledge from archaeology, anthropology, and linguistics.”

 Photo: NOAA (Getty Images) A satellite image of Saudi Arabia and environs in June 2007.

Almarri and his co-author Marc Haber, a geneticist at the University of Birmingham in England, said in an email that a benefit of the research is being able to connect archaeological and ancient climate data with shifts in local population genetics. Population bottlenecks in Arabia 6,000 years ago and in the Levant 4,200 years ago point to moments when the verdant east began to dry up, the study authors said, with rapid aridification causing decreases in population sizes.

Based on when different groups mixed thousands of years ago, the team also evaluated how Semitic languages might have spread beyond the Levant, specifically pointing to the Bronze Age as a major point of intermixing, based on coincident timing between some of the genetic variations and previously determined dates for language divergence and evolution. The researchers also noted that Arabian populations have a much lower amount of Neanderthal ancestry than other Eurasians, indicating there was less admixture between our extinct close relatives and Arabian humans.

“It is exciting to see so much new genomic data from a crucial part of the world. It is interesting to see the genetic coherence of recent social groups, and, as the authors say, for things like understanding modern health, it is important to have good sampling of people around the world,” Huw Groucutt, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History who wasn’t involved with the recent study, said in an email. He added, however, that there are limitations to genomic studies and that the recent team’s interpretations should be considered just that.

The team intends to follow up the research with a look at adaptation signals in the dataset, which could indicate how populations in the Middle East learned to survive in their environments when the region dried up. The recent discovery of a trove of animal bones, including human remains, in a Saudi lava tube will likely help in efforts flesh out this genetic portrait of the Middle East.

More: Hyenas Left a Massive Pile of Bones in a Saudi Arabian Lava Tube

'World's oldest' coin factory discovered in China
Jillian Kramer 6 hrs ago

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Archaeologists excavating the remains of Guanzhuang—an ancient city in China’s eastern Henan Province—have discovered what they believe is the oldest-known coin mint, where miniature, shovel-shaped bronze coins were mass produced some 2,600 years ago.

Their research, published today in the journal Antiquity, gives weight to the idea that the first coins were minted not in Turkey or Greece, as long thought, but in China.

The walled and moated city of Guanzhuang was established about 800 B.C., and its foundry— where bronze was cast and beaten into ritual vessels, weapons, and tools—opened in 770 B.C., according to Hao Zhao, an archaeologist at Zhengzhou University and the paper’s lead author. But it wasn’t for another 150 years that workers began minting coins outside the southern gate of the inner city.

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Using radiocarbon dating, the team determined the mint began operating sometime between 640 B.C. and no later than 550 B.C. While other research has dated coins from the Lydian Empire in what is now Turkey to as early as 630 B.C., Zhao notes that the earliest mint known to have produced Lydian coins dates to sometime between 575 B.C. and 550 B.C.

The Guanzhuang mint, Zhao says, “is currently the world’s oldest-known securely dated minting site.”

During their excavation, the researchers found two spade coins—which look like shrunken versions of the gardening tool—and dozens of clay molds used to cast them. One coin was in near-perfect condition: Just shy of 6 inches long and about 2.5 inches wide, the bronze coin weighed about 27 grams, or less than six sheets of standard-size computer paper.

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Strong evidence, not proof

Coins are often found “bundled together and completely lacking any of the original context of their production or their use,” says Bill Maurer, a professor of anthropology at the University of California Irvine and director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion. “But in this case, you’ve got the whole mint, and you’ve got the casts that were used.”

The completeness of the discovery is what’s remarkable, says Maurer, who was not involved in the research. Finding both coins and their molds is what allowed the researchers to radiocarbon date the mint, lending weight to their assertion that it’s the oldest known in the world.

Coins are typically discovered isolated or hoarded away from where they were made, stashed in the rafters of a house or buried in a hole in the ground, Maurer says, “completely divorced from any sort of context that you can definitively say was associated with the coins themselves.”

If such coins are found with evidence of fire damage, researchers can radiocarbon date them—but they won’t be sure “if that burning has anything to do with the time period during which the coin was used,” Maurer explains, or if the coins were instead burned in a haphazard fire.

But here, “you've got a foundry which is full of carbon residue associated with the production of the item itself,” Maurer says, which can prove how old the coins and mint actually are.

George Selgin, director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, says that while the discovery is impressive, “It doesn't change our basic understanding of when the first coins were produced. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that China did it first.”

That’s because while this research proves how old this particular Chinese mint and its coins are, it doesn’t definitely conclude that the Chinese remnants are older than the Lydian coins “often cited as an alternative starting point for coinage,” says Selgin, who was also not involved in the research.
Trade or taxes?

Zhao and his team speculate that the mint’s location—close to the presumed seat of the official city administration—could signal that “the minting activities were at least acknowledged by the local government.” But they hasten to add that conclusions can’t yet be drawn: “Political involvement in spade-coin production [remains an issue] for further research,” they wrote.

There are two prevailing theories about the origins of money: that it was created so that merchants and customers could barter, or so that governments could collect taxes and debts.

Maurer says while the discovery proves nothing, what it “demonstrates—in the routinization, the standardization, and the mass production of these items associated with a political center— lends weight to the hypothesis that anthropologists and archaeologists have long held: that money emerges primarily as a political technology, not an economic technology.”