CITY STATE SINGAPORE

'Definitely didn’t see it coming': Yale-NUS and University Scholars Programme students, alumni react to news of merger


The entrance of Yale-NUS College. (Photo: Calvin Oh)



Ang Hwee Min@HweeMinCNA

Grace Yeoh@GraceYeohCNA
27 Aug 2021


SINGAPORE: Students from Yale-NUS College and the University Scholars Programme (USP) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have said they are shocked and confused at the news that the two programmes will merge.

Yale-NUS will close in 2025, ceasing Yale University’s collaboration with NUS, and its 2021 intake will be its last batch. The two programmes - Yale-NUS and USP - will be merged and will accept its first batch of students from 2022, NUS announced on Friday (Aug 27).

The original affiliation agreement signed in 2011 between NUS and Yale has always given either party the opportunity to withdraw in 2025, said the Connecticut-based university.

On its news site, Yale University said NUS announced its intention to withdraw four years in advance, which gives current students the chance to complete their undergraduate studies as planned.

Yale-NUS was established in 2011, and USP was established in 2001. Both programmes have residential colleges in UTown. Students currently enrolled in the USP will transit to the new college from January 2022.

Speaking to CNA at the Yale-NUS campus, first-year student Jordan (not his real name) said students were only informed on Thursday that classes would be cancelled on Friday, without further details.

Yale-NUS and USP students were given a Zoom link for a virtual townhall on Friday morning, which started shortly after the announcement of the merger.

"Some of (my friends) are sad. They turned down opportunities elsewhere to come here … those are good opportunities. So it’s a shame. I guess it’s a bit irresponsible," said Jordan.

Adding that it would have been more helpful if the school had told its students about the merger earlier, Jordan said: “People’s decisions would definitely change. I can guarantee that. But that’s the way the world works ... I think there’s a lot of people wanting to transfer now.”

Classes for the new academic year began at Yale-NUS and USP in August.

For Jordan, who is Singaporean but has lived overseas his whole life, coming to Yale-NUS was a dream - and he “didn’t even think about other schools”.

“Coming back to my home country, getting to know my country, and having an international curriculum. The reputation of Yale also definitely attracted me. But now it’s like I’m going to a non-existent college," he said.

He also expressed concern about applying for jobs in the future, as he thinks employers “will have to do some digging” for background on his university.

“I was frankly quite shocked when the announcement was made because I thought that the two programmes offered at Yale-NUS and USP were sufficiently distinct,” first-year USP student Chiew Chern Faye told CNA.

She hopes that the new college will bring about new and exciting learning opportunities for future cohorts, and that current students will be given “adequate support” to navigate this new development.

“Since developments are still ongoing, I am unsure of what exactly to expect in the new programme. However, I hope that it will bring about new opportunities and allow us access to more resources to facilitate our learning,” she said.

‘DEFINITELY DIDN’T SEE IT COMING’

After classes were cancelled and the townhall was announced, students were speculating about what the announcement would be, said a Year 3 USP student who only wanted to be known as Charlene.

“And then suddenly, when the townhall started, there were already news articles coming out on the merger itself. It was a concurrent shock because on the Telegram chat there were news articles, and the NUS president was also announcing it on Zoom,” she added.

“We were all very very surprised by this, we definitely didn’t see it coming.”

Charlene, as well as a group of other Year 3 students, were “quite concerned” at first about their graduation certificates, and how the new college would affect their prospects in the future.

“We entered USP for the USP experience and the prestige that comes with USP,” she added.

“Despite USP being quite a young institution of only 20 years, I think I was quite sad about (how) when we graduate, USP will no longer be here for us.

"It just feels like all the heritage that comes with USP might vanish alongside the merger with Yale-NUS."

Related:


No government interference in decision to cancel Yale-NUS module: Yale president

Yale-NUS underlines commitment to academic freedom after cancellation of course on dissent in Singapore

Moving forward, she hopes for more sessions or townhalls between the NUS admin and affected students with more information about what will happen in the future.

“As of now, the Q&A, even though they’re involving both USP admin and the NUS provost, they seem to be giving very vague answers, or they don’t seem to be giving us very concrete assurance of what’s going to happen,” said Charlene.

“They keep saying something is going to happen, but it’s just all very unclear, and all the details aren’t really there yet. I guess it’s just quite disconcerting.”

For future plans, she hopes the university will engage with students first on the initiatives before “throwing us into the depths of these announcements”.

Several final-year Yale-NUS students on campus expressed sadness about the loss of college culture.

The smaller size of Yale-NUS meant students felt “closer to management”, said 22-year-old student Alice, who declined to give her real name.

“Whatever we feel about certain things, we feel comfortable voicing it out. ... And if we scale up, I'm not sure how much support there will be in the future. I’ve just had a good time in this school and thinking how it will change (makes me) a bit sad,” she told CNA.

“This space is quite special, especially in Singapore … The founding faculty and admin knew what it was like to run a small liberal college,” said Henry (not his real name), 24.

“There’s a closeness that’s not contrived, but actually cultivated. I think a lot of people are saying they have no faith that they will be able to replicate it in a larger (setting).

“(Here at Yale-NUS), boys can wear dresses, and in orientation there were people who would dance in the rain. People can just do what they want and (other) people would leave you alone. I’m happy that there was this space, even if you weren’t so inclined to dance in the mud.”

Final-year student Lucas said he feels “doomed and lost”.

“What’s the point of anything now, if all I can say is that I’m from a failed experiment that no longer exists? Why was this not made more transparent?” the 24-year-old said.

Freshmen at Yale-NUS were also reminded to pay their university fees just before the announcement on Friday, he noted.

In an email sent to students on Aug 2 seen by CNA, the NUS Office of Finance said that the due date for the payment of tuition fees for the first semester of the 2021 academic year was Friday - the same day of the merger announcement - for all modes except GIRO.

Lucas felt news of the merger “trapped the freshmen”, and said he was advising all of them to drop out of the programme because of the “terrible planning”.

ALUMNI SURPRISED AND SAD

Alumni for both colleges also expressed shock and disappointment at the news.

An alumnus from the pioneer batch of Yale-NUS who only wanted to be known as Qistina said she was “genuinely shocked” despite having heard rumours of a merger.

Noting that NUS had also previously announced that it would form a new College of Humanities and Sciences in September 2020, she added that this news now “makes a bit more sense”.

The new NUS College of Humanities and Sciences

The NUS College of Humanities and Sciences was set up in 2021 as part of a push towards broad-based and interdisciplinary education.

Students admitted to the college belong to both the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science. They have access to majors and minors offered in both faculties, as well as the three types of four-year honours degree programmes - Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Social Sciences and Bachelor of Science.

NUS announced the new college in September 2020. At the time, the university said the proposed curricula structure will allow for “greater flexibility and the cross-pollination of disciplines” across the humanities, social sciences, science and mathematics.

“The rapid pace of change in many industries means that the old model of intense academic specialisation will no longer work for our young adults," NUS president Professor Tan Eng Chye had said.

“Rather, graduates into the workforce will need breadth of knowledge, depth, as well as the ability to integrate multiple disciplines to solve complex problems.”

Expand

“As an alumni, I don’t quite know yet how to process my relationship to an institution that will not exist in four years time. I don’t know how to process how my relationship with it will change, given that this is a completely new institution, and understandably it’s going to be very very different from the one that I knew and grew up in,” said Qistina.

She hopes that active student participation, which is a “core principle” at Yale-NUS, will continue on into the new college.

“I want the students to be able to take charge of their education and feel like they have a sense of ownership over it. In my batch, we definitely very strongly had the opportunity to do it because we were so new, we were the only ones who were experiencing everything for the first time,” Qistina told CNA.

“That’s something that, when I graduated, I wanted to continue. If they’re able to carry that into the new school, that would be wonderful because I don’t always see institutions giving students that autonomy.”

Another Yale-NUS alumnus from the pioneer batch who only wanted to be known as Mel told CNA: “Honestly, it is a mixture of shock and disappointment. USP is a great programme with its own merits, but Yale-NUS was always framed to us as an autonomous institution from the start.

“It was an experiment, but from the success and exciting outcomes of the first few batches, most of us felt that it was an experiment worth continuing. Unfortunately, we did feel like the carpet was suddenly pulled from under us with no warning.”

The tight community, the access to many disciplines and the diversity of people and ideas Yale-NUS students experience is “not something that can be easily recreated”, she told CNA.

“After graduation, I have not been able to find anything close to it, and it is something I have always missed, and will continue to miss.”

Although she is glad that interdisciplinary education paths are “gaining traction”, she hopes that the spirit of “thinking with different hats, critical thought and bravery to explore new paths” will continue to be embraced in the new college.

“I worry for the younger batches who are still in Yale-NUS, as they were sold a dream and a concept that they will only get half of. The culture will inevitably be different, since the school will be much larger, but we can only be optimistic about it,” Mel added.

“If anything, perhaps the choice that NUS made is reflective of the success of Yale-NUS - so much so that it decided to multiply it to a bigger audience. But there is still a sense of loss and heartbreak in the small special space that we created, as the sense of intimacy and purpose to make this project work will be lost.”

Yale-NUS College campus. (Photo: Yale-NUS College)

USP alumni Chan Meiyi said she was quite surprised by the announcement as both institutions are quite young, noting that USP and Yale-NUS were set up in 2001 and 2011 respectively.

“I feel that it hasn’t been a particularly long time since the university’s infrastructure has gone through changes,” said Ms Chan, who graduated in 2011.

“It’s barely been 10 years, so I don’t feel like either of the colleges or USP itself has had a sufficiently long time to grow really significant and meaningful roots in the community.”

USP’s small cohort size, especially before Cinnamon College was established, was a reason for the programme’s success and strong alumni ties, she added.

“The decision to terminate USP by merger for reasons of 'scale' is therefore quite disappointing,” said Ms Chan.

Adding that the merger announcement is “a bit surprising, somewhat disheartening”, she said: “I’m not very encouraged by it because it makes me question why there are so many changes in a relatively short amount of time for an academic institution.”

Ms Chan also noted that the common curriculum at the new college would be enhanced with science, technology, engineering and math elements.

“It’s a bit disheartening because the whole point of USP was not to privilege any particular discipline. It was to allow people from various disciplines to take classes in other disciplines,” she said.

“Once you’re saying that we’re going to be enhancing it with STEM aspects, or even to say we’re going to be enhancing it with humanities aspects, I would be questioning what the objective is now.

“In the past, USP was a very open-ended disciplinary programme. When you weigh it (more) in certain areas, to me, that’s a different programme. Now it has a slightly different agenda from what I was used to when I was a student.”

Climate activists want a new US central bank chief — here’s why

Current US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has drawn ire from Republicans for his policies regarding climate change, while progressives feel he hasn’t gone far enough to address the crisis.

Climate change activists want the administration of United States President Joe Biden to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with a more climate-friendly US central bank chief [File: Susan Walsh/AP Photo]

By Anna Davies
26 Aug 2021

Just call it bankerpalooza, virtual edition.

On Friday, central bankers, finance ministers, government officials, academics and financial market participants are set to discuss the biggest economic issues facing the United States and the world as part of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

This year’s gathering will be held virtually due to concerns about the fast-spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus.

But protestors eager to use the heavy-hitting economic policy event to shed a light on climate change concerns have already taken action in person.

Earlier this month, professional hikers and climate advocates associated with climate action organisation 350.org climbed to the top of Teewinot Mountain in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park and unfurled a banner that read “Stop the Money Pipeline”.

A team of professional climbers and climate activists ascended Teewinot Mountain in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park to drape a large ‘Stop the Money Pipeline’ banner and call for climate finance action [Courtesy: Erich Roepke/350.org]

The group is among several environmental organisations that are calling on policymakers to use Jackson Hole as an opportunity to commit to making domestic and global economic policy “steered toward a modern, clean energy economy to meet the demands of climate change”.


Here’s what you need to know about climate activists’ demands on the US Federal Reserve — and what they want to see happen with its current chair, Jerome Powell.
Rewind. What does the Fed have to do with climate change?

Plenty. The Fed, the US’s central bank, is responsible for oversight of the country’s financial system, and therefore has a role to play in pushing the US toward a greener economy — or not.

The Jackson Hole symposium will also be attended by government and finance officials from other nations who have the power to do the same.
What has the Fed said in the past about climate change?

In March, the Fed released a report that analysed financial stability risk arising from climate change. And last year, the Fed joined an international organisation of central banks and regulators to “coordinate on managing the risks that climate change poses to the financial industry”.

These risks include backing banks that invest in mortgages in houses in environmentally vulnerable areas, like those prone to flooding. Another risk is backing loans for oil and gas-based businesses that might fail if they’re unable to switch to renewable energy someday.

Does everyone like the Fed jumping in?

Nope. Like everything in the US’s highly polarised political climate, partisan disagreements on this issue abound.

Twelve Republican senators wrote a letter to Powell accusing the organisation of going “beyond the scope of the Federal Reserve’s mission”.

Powell addressed the backlash in an interview with the Economic Club of Washington, DC in April.

​​“The reason we’re focused on climate change is that our job is to make sure that financial institutions, banks, particularly the largest ones, understand and are able to manage the significant risks that they take,” Powell said. “We see it only through the lens of that existing mandate.”
What about progressives?

They’re not happy, either.

The US Fed received a grade of D- on a scorecard that was created by Positive Money, an advocacy group promoting a sustainable economy, and that was designed to rank central bank policies’ greenness across Group of 20 countries.

For context, China received the highest score, which was still a mediocre C.

However, the US, alongside most countries, did receive a 10 out of 10 from the group when it comes to “research and advocacy”. This, the organisation says, “shows that actions are failing to match up to words”.
So what do climate activists want to come from the Jackson Hole gathering?

Activists from 64 organisations, including 350.org, wrote to Powell urging several policy shifts.

First, they want fossil fuel investments to be phased out from the Fed, and policy adapted and formalised to incorporate climate risk. The groups are asking the US to take this step prior to the COP26 summit in November, when leaders from around the world will participate in a United Nations global summit on their plans to tackle climate change.

They also want to raise awareness about how central banks contribute to the climate crisis and see them change any policy and regulatory practices that are incompatible with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

Climate activists also hope to put pressure on the Biden administration to appoint a “real climate leader” as Fed chairman, replacing Powell. The nomination is expected around the Labor Day holiday, which takes place in early September.
So will Powell be replaced?

Fed watchers seem to think it’s unlikely that Biden will replace Powell, especially as he continues to be a calm presence in a volatile economy still recovering from the shocks caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

While other names have been bandied about, including current Fed Governor Lael Brainard, Wall Street is backing Powell for a second term.

Federal Governor Lael Brainard could replace Fed Vice Chairman Randal Quarles 

[File: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg]

The White House has not commented on whether it is considering a Powell replacement. A progressive alternate would potentially have huge ripple effects not only on Wall Street but across the world.

But climate activists may have an opportunity for progressive influence even if Biden renominates Powell. That’s because Fed Vice Chairman Randal Quarles’s term expires in October.

Fed watchers believe Biden will replace Quarles, and anticipate Brainard, who could prioritise climate change more, might be on that shortlist.

In the meantime, even though the central bank summit is virtual this year, activists hope leaders will pause to note the smoke in the air from the recent West Coast wildfires, Mike Wittig, a member of 350 Silicon Valley, said in a statement, adding “We hope that the evidence of climate change literally before and in their eyes moves the Fed to emergency action needed on climate change.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

This is how much the Big Six banks would have to pay if Trudeau's tax goes through

But the big losers could be bank shareholders

SNIFF; THERE IS A TEAR IN MY BEER, A CROCODILE TEAR

Author of the article: Stephanie Hughes
Publishing date:Aug 26, 2021 • 

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is pledging to raise corporate taxes on banks and insurance companies earning more than $1 billion per year. 

PHOTO BY GIGI SUHANIC/NATIONAL POST ILLUSTRATION

The Liberal Party is vowing to target bank and life insurance profits with a three per cent surtax on profits over $1 billion, a move they expect will free up an additional $2.5 billion a year in government revenue over the next four years starting from 2022.

Given the sizeable earnings the Canadian banks reported this week, the Big Six could end up contributing a significant amount to government coffers under the plan. But just how much would each bank be forced to pay?

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), which has reported year-to-date adjusted net income of roughly $12.2 billion, would likely pay the most. Though taxable income and reported income are not necessarily the same, an approximate calculation based on $11.2 billion in income above the threshold would see RBC forking over an additional $334.7 million on this year’s earnings so far.

Using this same methodology, Toronto-Dominion Bank would have to pay $285.5 million on their year-to-date net income, the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) could be paying the government approximately $191.9 million, the Bank of Montreal would owe about $137.9 million, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)’s surtax proceeds would amount to around $120.2 million, and National Bank would pay out around $42.0 million.



And that’s only through three quarters of fiscal 2021.

For the last full fiscal year — the pandemic stricken 2020, where earnings came under pressure — data from Bloomberg shows that Canada’s Big Six banks still earned between $2 billion and $12 billion in unadjusted net income. Based on the same methodology described above, calculations from Financial Post suggest TD would have paid the most at $326.9 million.

The Canadian Bankers Association yesterday criticized the Liberal plan for singling out financial services.

“The proposed tax increase would reduce income that would otherwise benefit the majority of Canadians who are bank shareholders, either directly through share ownership or indirectly through pension and mutual funds, including the Canada Pension Plan,” the Canadian Bankers Association said in a statement, adding that pension funds and RRSPs are some of the main beneficiaries of the billions of dollars that the banks pay in dividends each year.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

Trudeau accused of 'singling out' financial firms after pledge to tax banks, insurers

Trudeau vows 3% surtax on big banks, insurance to generate extra $2.5 billion

CIBC, TD earnings beat expectations but lending growth diverges

On Tuesday, the Canadian Labour Congress issued a report which advocated for higher taxes among high-earning corporations and wealthy Canadians as well as for the government to close tax loopholes, hoping to free up over $90 billion annually to address wealth inequalities.

— With additional reporting by Barbara Shecter

VACATION TIME UNUSED

Commentary: Does the pandemic make it harder to take long stretches of annual leave?


It isn’t always about having too much to do or not knowing where to draw boundaries. Many still believe leave is wasted without travel, says CNA’s Grace Yeoh.

Workers in the office. (File photo: iStock)



Grace Yeoh@GraceYeohCNA
27 Aug 2021


SINGAPORE: I am quite the hypocrite when it comes to fighting hustle culture.

Despite reminding my friends of the importance of rest amid the pandemic and busy seasons at work, and writing many times about tackling burnout, I haven’t taken annual leave since the start of this financial year. As much as I am entitled to do so, I suspect I don’t really want nor see a need to.

But it’s not for want of trying.

In an attempt to walk the talk for this commentary, I signed into my company’s HR portal several times, stared at the amount of leave I have remaining, selected a two-week block when I could afford time off … and closed the tab without submitting my leave application.

This conundrum isn’t unique to the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, I found myself unable to completely “switch off” my work brain during my leave. I was constantly brainstorming new ideas for stories, on account of being on social media.

Eventually, it became hard to take leave because I was convinced it was a waste of time, since I was still “working”.

And when the pandemic hit, it forced me to slow down in my daily work habits. I no longer needed long stretches of leave to recuperate like I did pre-pandemic when leave was set aside for obvious leisure activities, such as travel.

Either way, I was stuck with mounting pressure to clear my annual leave — but now, with the added feeling that I’d be wasting it if I spent it in Singapore.

WHY WE DON’T TAKE LEAVE

I’m not alone in my failure to clear leave.

It might have been easier to find reasons to take leave before the pandemic; few people took a two-week break without leaving the country or making major plans with friends and family.

Still, we know people who didn’t clear their leave and accumulated so much that they had to give it up.

Whenever friends struggled with clearing leave pre-pandemic because they had too much work and not enough time to complete it before their leave, I’d scoff and tell them work is never ending, so it’s pointless to heap such an unrealistic expectation on oneself.

They would cite common reasons for not going on leave: Guilt for “abandoning” colleagues, unspoken expectations to maintain constant productivity to remain in an employer’s good books, tying self-worth to work performance. Some would even humblebrag that they couldn’t afford time off, seeing being busy as a mark of competence.

Underlying these reasons, however, was an inability to draw boundaries, which only seems to have worsened almost two years into work-from-home (WFH). For many of us, work has become the default, and life is whatever that’s left over after we’re done for the day, however late that may be.

WE STILL CAN’T TRAVEL

Pre-pandemic, travel was synonymous with rest, so we reserved long stretches of leave for faraway adventures. As a result, being unable to travel has affected our leave plans.

In December 2020, CNA ran a story about companies that adjusted their leave policies because employees were struggling to clear their leave since being unable to travel for leisure.

“Many employees tend to not take annual leave when they are working from home, as they do not feel like they need a ‘getaway’ from the office environment,” Ms Jaya Dass, Randstad’s managing director for Singapore and Malaysia, had shared

The report added that some employees hoped to carry their leave forward to this year for leisure travel purposes. This was despite no clear sign that we’d be out of the woods.

When the COVID-19 multi-ministry task force announced on Thursday (Aug 19) that Singapore would launch its first vaccinated travel lanes with Germany and Brunei on Sep 8, my social media feed was filled with excited updates from friends mentally planning their next trip.

Even though the news was merely a baby step towards travelling again, it offered a glimmer of hope that long holidays and quarantine-free travel weren’t a pipe dream anymore.

Yet, the news also lulled me into a false sense of hope that the country I’d been holding out for could be next in line, making me more reluctant to spend my annual leave. I’d been saving my leave to visit loved ones in Malaysia despite their rising COVID-19 case numbers.

While it’s unrealistic to save my leave until Malaysia reopens for international leisure travel, the allure of travel is understandable. With travel, our daily environment is markedly different, enforcing at least a physical escape from work, if not a mental one.

Work from home has altered the way we view leave.

(Photo: Mimi Thian/ Unsplash)


But WFH means we remain in the same space that we work on leave, making it harder to detach from work. For instance, we might decide to check our email to mitigate the stress of clearing hundreds of emails at once upon return to work, and refusing this impulse is harder now since we’re within close reach of our work desk while on leave.

Even if we cave and attend to work just once a day, these minute actions pile up, preventing us from completely going on vacation. For some of us, we’d still feel on edge during our leave that we might even require another break to decompress from the break.

Ultimately, using a long stretch of leave to do anything "less than" travel feels futile and wasteful now.

CHANGING OUR PERSPECTIVE OF LEAVE

Regardless of whether we want to clear our leave, the reality is we need to. Those of us who experience inertia could start to look at annual leave in a different light.

For one, there’s no need to take a large chunk at once, even though this may have been our norm before the pandemic.

Instead, we could consider taking a day’s leave every alternate week, ensuring we work four-day weeks at least twice a month.

Related:


From unlimited leave to four-day weeks, some firms are embracing more flexible time-off policies


There have already been loud calls to implement a four-day work week, with some companies like Microsoft Japan already finding gains, according to a Forbes report from 2019. Workers were “happier” and there was also a “40 per cent gain in productivity”.

But rather than wait for policymakers or employers to decide what’s best for us, perhaps we can experiment with this idea ourselves.

For me, Wednesday is the best day of the week to go on leave, because it allows me to be hyper productive for a short two days, take a breather, then go full force again for a couple of days before the weekend.

Even though it might appear such a brief break barely allows us to destress before we dive right back into work the next day, this single-day leave isn’t about deep rest. It’s simply akin to a hydration pitstop in a marathon, replenishing our energy for the next leg.

Moreover, taking a day off on a constant basis, rather than accumulating leave only to take a few weeks at once, might give you something to look forward to regularly and help mental wellbeing in the long term.

Related:

Commentary: Cure to burnout requires a pervasive culture of rest

Alternatively, consider this radical approach: We don’t need to have a purpose for taking leave.

This is something I’ve always intellectually understood, but I only recently realised I never quite practised it. I took leave when I felt I’d earned my rest, such as after a productive few months or goals were met. And when I finally took leave, I needed my rest to be productive too, lest I “waste” my precious time off work.

But what if resting without a productivity-driven goal wasn’t a waste of time and was, in fact, liberating?

To many of us, especially people like me, this foreign concept takes some getting used to. But I want to learn to rest for its own sake, not because it will help me fulfill a great or meaningful purpose.

Taking leave could simply mean not having to set an alarm.

Grace Yeoh is a senior journalist with CNA.

1. The Right To Be Lazy

   www.slp.org/pdf/others/lazy_pl.pdf · PDF file

   The Right To Be Lazy BEING A REPUDIATION OF THE “RIGHT TO WORK” OF 1848 By Paul Lafargue Translated and adapted from the French by Dr. Harriet Lothrop. Published by the INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING CO., 23 Duane Street, New York 1898 PAUL LAFARGUE (1841–1911) AUTHOR’S PREFACE. In 1849, Thiers, as member of the Commission on Instruction in Elementary

‘Do-gooders’, conservatives and reluctant recyclers: how personal morals can be harnessed for climate action

August 25, 2021 

There’s no shortage of evidence pointing to the need to act urgently on climate change. Most recently, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed Earth has warmed 1.09℃ since pre-industrial times and many changes, such as sea-level rise and glacier melt, cannot be stopped.

Clearly, emissions reduction efforts to date have fallen abysmally short. But why, when the argument in favour of climate action is so compelling?

Decisions about climate change require judging what’s important, and how the world should be now and in future. Therefore, climate change decisions are inherently moral. The rule applies whether the decision is being made by an individual deciding what food to eat, or national governments setting goals at international climate negotiations.

Our research reviewed the most recent literature across the social and behavioural sciences to better understand the moral dimensions of climate decisions. We found some moral values, such as fairness, motivate action. Others, such as economic liberty, stoke inaction.

Those who prioritise economic liberty may be less willing to take climate action. Shutterstock

Morals as climate motivators

Our research uncovered a large body of research confirming people’s moral values are connected to their willingness to act on climate change.

Moral values are the yardstick through which we understand things to be right or wrong, good or bad. We develop personal moral values through our families in childhood and our social and cultural context.

But which moral values best motivate personal actions? Our research documents a study in the United States, which found the values of compassion and fairness were a strong predictor of someone’s willingness to act on climate change.

According to moral foundations theory, the value of compassion relates to humans’ evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel and dislike the pain of others.

Fairness relates to the evolutionary process of “reciprocal altruism”. This describes a situation whereby an organism acts in a way that temporarily disadvantages itself while benefiting another, based on an expectation that the altruism will be reciprocated at a later time.

Read more: Ordinary people, extraordinary change: addressing the climate emergency through 'quiet activism'

Conversely, a study in Australia found people who put a lower value on fairness, compared to either the maintenance of social order or the right to economic freedom, were more likely to be sceptical about climate change.

People may also use moral “disengagement” to justify, and assuage guilt over, their own climate inaction. In other words, they convince themselves that ethical standards do not apply in a particular context.

For example, a longitudinal study of 1,355 Australians showed over time, people who became more morally disengaged became more sceptical about climate change, were less likely to feel responsible and were less likely to act.

Our research found the moral values driving efforts to reduce emissions (mitigation) were different to those driving climate change adaptation.

Research in the United Kingdom showed people emphasised the values of responsibility and respect for authorities, country and nature, when talking about mitigation. When evaluating adaptation options, they emphasised moral values such as protection from harm and fair distribution of economic costs.

Moral reasoning helps shape climate beliefs, including climate scepticism. 

Joel Carrett/AAP

Framing climate decisions

How government and private climate decisions are framed and communicated affects who they resonate with, and whether they’re seen as legitimate.

Research suggests climate change could be made morally relevant to more people if official climate decisions appealed to moral values associated with right-wing political leanings.

A US study found liberals interpreted climate change in moral terms related to harm and care, while conservatives did not. But when researchers reframed pro-environmental messages in terms of moral values that resonated with conservatives, such as defending the purity of nature, differences in the environmental attitudes of both groups narrowed.

Indeed, research shows moral reframing can change pro-environmental behaviours of different political groups, including recycling habits.

In the US, people were found to recycle more after the practice was reframed in moral terms that resonated with their political ideology. For conservatives, the messages appealed to their sense of civic duty and respect for authority. For liberals, the messages emphasised recycling as an act of fairness, care and reducing harm to others.

Read more: Communicating climate change has never been so important, and this IPCC report pulls no punches

Reframing of messages can help encourage habits such as recycling. 

James Ross/AAP

When moralising backfires

Clearly, morals are central to decision-making about the environment. In some cases, this can extend to people adopting – or being seen to adopt – a social identity with moral associations such as “zero-wasters”, “voluntary simplifiers” and cyclists.

People may take on these identities overtly, such as by posting about their actions on social media. In other cases, a practice someone adopts, such as cycling to work, can be construed by others as a moral action.

Being seen to hold a social identity based on a set of morals may actually have unintended effects. Research has found so-called “do-gooders” can be perceived by others as irritating rather than inspiring. They may also trigger feelings of inadequacy in others who, as a self-defense mechanism, might then dismiss the sustainable choices of the “do-gooder”.

For example, sociologists have theorised that some non-vegans avoid eating a more plant-based diet because they don’t want to be associated with the social identity of veganism.

It makes sense, then, that gentle encouragement such as “meat-free Mondays” is likely more effective at reducing meat consumption than encouraging people to “go vegan” and eliminate meat altogether.
Looking ahead

Personal climate decisions come with a host of moral values and quandaries. Understanding and navigating this moral dimension will be critical in the years ahead.

When making climate-related decisions, governments should consider the moral values of citizens. This can be achieved through procedures like deliberative democracy and citizen’s forums, in which everyday people are given the chance to discuss and debate the issues, and communicate to government what matters most to them.

Authors

Jacqueline Lau
Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University

Andrew Song
Lecturer / ARC Discovery Early Career Research Fellow (DECRA), University of Technology Sydney

Jessica Blythe
Assistant Professor, Environmental Sustainability Research Centre, Brock University
Disclosure statement

Jacqueline Lau is affiliated with WorldFish—an international, not for profit research organization and part of the CGIAR that seeks to deliver research for a more food secure world, particularly for societies most vulnerable women and men. This research was supported by the ARC Centre for Excellence in Coral Reef Studies, and the CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems.

Andrew Song receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jessica Blythe receives funding from the Social Science Research Council (SSHRC).
Partners

University of Technology Sydney provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

James Cook University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

Brock University provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA-FR.

Scientists say the world urgently needs to cut methane emissions. The politics aren't as simple.

The Biden administration and some Democrats are shifting focus to methane, the greenhouse gas second-most responsible for heating the planet.


ITS H2SO4 AND METHANE; SOUR GAS

Natural gas is burned off near pumps in Watford City, N.D on June 12, 2014. 

| Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo


By ZACK COLMAN
08/24/2021 


The Biden administration’s emerging efforts to slash emissions of methane — a greenhouse gas triggering alarms across the globe — is setting the stage for a new clash among lawmakers, agricultural interests and the energy industry.

Carbon dioxide commands most of the attention when it comes to plans to combat climate change, but the Biden administration and some Democrats are shifting focus to methane, the greenhouse gas second-most responsible for heating the planet.

Methane emissions have boomed since 2007, largely from oil and gas production propelled by the fracking revolution, and atmospheric concentrations are at their highest level in 800,000 years, according to the latest United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Scientists around the world increasingly say that curbing the gas — which traps heat 86 times more effectively over 20 years than carbon dioxide — is the clearest near-term way to put the planet on a more sustainable temperature trajectory.

But wrestling methane is presenting a new round of political and practical complications for the Biden administration: Agriculture, including livestock and land-based systems, accounts for 40 percent of global methane emissions — spurring concern among Republicans and farm-state Democrats about regulatory efforts to tackle the problem.

Senate Democrats plan to include a so-called “methane polluter fee” in their $3.5 trillion budget resolution that would hit energy producers that vent or burn off excess methane and compressors used to pressurize and transport natural gas. Several also introduced legislation this month requiring refiners and oil and gas producers operating in the United States to pay into a fund based on a share of their global carbon and methane emissions.

"The methane polluter fee targets industry leakage, which even the fossil fuel industry has a hard time defending," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told POLITICO. "I think that the public more and more cares about climate change and people understand that methane is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas – indeed more powerful than carbon dioxide. So it seems like addressing it is a good thing."


Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Capitol Hill March 2, 2021. | Francis Chung/E&E News

Whitehouse said the Senate Budget Committee informed him that his bill with Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) will form the basis of the polluter fee. That legislation calls for a $1,800 per ton fee on oil and gas producers whose emissions rate perform worse than regional averages.

Environmental allies who have joined Democrats in challenging the fossil fuel industry's political power, misinformation tactics and for causing climate change also believe addressing methane is a winning political strategy.

“It’s to help the worst performers to clean up their act. It’s to get them to avoid paying the fee because we’re basically setting money on fire," National Wildlife Federation CEO Collin O'Mara said. "It’s great policy, but I also think it’s good politics to be incentivizing companies to reduce their waste, which in the long run is going to end up saving consumers money.”

Mark Brownstein, senior vice president for energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, drew connections to ongoing wildfires, droughts and floods in reasoning the public is ready to embrace a fee on methane emissions. He noted that already available technology can reduce oil and gas methane emissions 75 percent from current levels, and that the evolution of remote sensing by drone and aircraft has also reduced costs for curbing methane.

"Over a quarter of the warming we’re seeing right now is being driven by methane emissions from human activities," he said. "We know that by controlling methane pollution from the oil and gas industry we can make a major difference in addressing the climate problem that’s affecting all of us today. That’s the key issue.”

But Republicans are preparing to fight Democrats’ efforts by saying it would increase costs to everyday Americans for things like home heating, electricity and groceries.

A fee on methane emissions would function as an implicit tax hike on Americans with less disposable income, making it "violative" of Biden's pledge to avoid raising taxes on people earning less than $400,000, said Mike McKenna, a Republican lobbyist who works with energy companies.

“What the Republicans need to do is just remind everybody there has to be cheaper ways to do this," he said.

Some have taken to calling the proposed methane polluter fee a “cow tax” — tied to longstanding GOP efforts to portray Biden and Democrats as going after Americans’ hamburgers.

"Our hard-working livestock producers should not have to worry about being subject to onerous regulations and increased production costs," Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said this month on the Senate floor about Democrats' proposal for a fee on methane emissions. "This 'cow tax' will just result in higher food costs for Americans at the grocery store at a time when inflation already has caused prices to skyrocket."

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Capitol Hill Jan. 28, 2021. | Francis Chung/E&E News

The Biden administration is weighing in on the side of curbing methane emissions, teasing it has big plans it will soon announce, but understanding that it will walk a fine line in doing so as any comprehensive policy to curb methane would have to tackle agriculture. That presents challenges to Democrats wary of alienating rural and centrist voters. So the administration has been careful to avoid talk of new regulations for agriculture, where livestock like cows account for a large share of emissions, instead speaking in terms of carrots such as incentives and voluntary programs for agricultural methane.

On the energy side, EPA Administrator Michael Regan tweeted after the IPCC report release that “we are developing strong standards to reduce methane — a potent greenhouse gas identified by the IPCC for urgent action.” Those rules would build on Obama-era standards for controlling methane leaks at new and existing oil and gas operations. They are on track for completion in September and would utilize new technology to help locate so-called "super-emitting" methane leaks, according to an EPA spokesperson.

“Reading the tea leaves, I think this administration is likely to use its whole of government approach and make sure all of its relevant departments — including Agriculture and Energy — are doing everything possible to reduce this potent climate pollution,” said Sarah Smith, super pollutants director at environmental group Clean Air Task Force.

The Biden administration is calculating just how much damage methane causes. White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy's office is working on a social cost of methane, which would assign a monetary value to the benefits of reducing methane that the administration could use to justify regulations.

White House climate advisor Gina McCarthy and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during a press conference on President Biden's American Jobs Plan at a newly installed EV charging station at Union Station in Washington, D.C., April 22, 2021. | Francis Chung/E&E News

"We absolutely are looking at climate change and looking to ensure that we consider climate across the administration every action we take. And part of that is revisiting the social cost of carbon and the social cost of methane, which is an ongoing reassessment at this point," McCarthy said in a recent interview.

Another potential complication lies in the international approach to combating methane emissions. The governments of Japan and other countries and pressure from U.S. oil and gas firms are working to keep options for natural gas open for countries that currently run on coal, such as those in energy-poor Africa, since burning that fuel produces half the carbon dioxide when burned for electricity.

But greens say an instant switch to zero-emitting energy like wind and solar is all that can save the planet, arguing that methane leaks from producing and transporting natural gas outweigh its supposed climate advantage over coal.

Departments of Treasury, State and Energy also are putting the final touches on an international climate finance plan, which is expected to include an emissions performance standard that would guide investments in overseas projects, said Jake Schmidt, senior strategic director for international climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council and Kate DeAngelis, international finance program manager at Friends of the Earth.

The finance plan will likely include some exemptions that would allow fossil fuel finance — particularly oil and natural gas — in cases where it promotes development or national security objectives. Between 2008 and 2018, nearly two-thirds of the additional 47 gigawatts of energy capacity supported by bilateral U.S. finance went to fossil fuel projects, particularly natural gas, according to research published last week by researchers at Boston University Global Development Policy Center and Princeton University.

Environmental campaigners hope to limit exemptions and are pressing the Biden administration that any investments in natural gas, such as financing facilities in other countries to import liquefied natural gas, are inconsistent with its goals of keeping the planet from heating 1.5 degrees C — a case the IPCC report makes all the more clear, Schmidt said.

“What they’ve been signaling to folks is it’s going to be an aggressive standard, it’s going to be a strong signal to the rest of the world,” Schmidt said. “But we haven’t seen the details.”

Why politicians should read the grim climate report

The oil and gas industry contends it is self-motivated to stop methane leaks, given any escaping gas is something they would otherwise sell. But the burdens for detecting and repairing those leaks are less significant for larger producers that have said they are open to methane rules compared with smaller U.S. drillers who find regulations onerous — and potentially a death knell. The Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents small drillers, criticized EPA's efforts as a "'one-size-fits-all' approach" that is "inappropriate and disproportionally impacts conventional operations, low production wells, and small businesses."

Larger companies are concerned about their social license to operate given ever-restrictive climate rules and growing public angst to address rising emissions, said Kevin O'Scannlain, vice president of upstream policy with the American Petroleum Institute. API and major oil and gas companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil have thus advocated for methane regulations, though they also are still significant methane emitters.

API officials have met with top Biden administration personnel, including Regan and McCarthy, to discuss methane regulations.

"We are actively working with the administration in support of the direct regulation of methane from new and existing sources," O'Scannlain said in emailed responses, adding, "[W]e know there is more work to be done and federal policymaking can play a role."

But O'Scannlain said API does not support the Democratic push to impose a methane fee on oil and gas producers, which he said would be duplicative of existing regulations while failing to address emissions from agriculture.

Three sources from the oil and gas sector told POLITICO that they see Democratic proposals to include the fee in a $3.5 trillion Senate budget resolution as an avenue to imposing a price on emissions.

“It’s going to be tough,” said an oil and gas industry official, who asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations with companies. “This administration is moving without the wild fluctuations of the previous one on policy, and it seems to be moving directly.”

Ben Lefebvre contributed to this report.

 

Canadian private long-term care providers announce COVID-19 vaccine mandate for staff

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Employees not fully vaccinated by Oct. 12 to be placed on unpaid leave of absence

The Canadian Press · Posted: Aug 26, 2021 

Dr. Chris Lantz, medical director at several private Charlottetown nursing homes in Prince Edward Island, prepares to get vaccinated on Dec. 16, 2020 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Some of Canada's largest private long-term care operators will require COVID-19 vaccination for staff by Oct. 12. (Brian McInnis/The Canadian Press)

A group of major Canadian long-term care operators will require all staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19 this fall.

Chartwell Retirement Residences, Extendicare, Responsive Group Inc., Revera Inc. and Sienna Senior Living issued a joint statement on Thursday about the plan.

The group says employees who aren't fully vaccinated by Oct. 12 will be placed on an unpaid leave of absence.

Vaccination will also be required for new hires, students and other personnel working with the companies.

The home operators say they don't expect the new policy to impact staffing levels.

• Vaccines, experience making the difference at Alberta care homes under COVID-19 outbreaks

• Nursing homes with repeated violations continue to break law, despite Ontario's promise to crack down

"As rates of infection once again increase in communities across the country, unvaccinated staff are more likely to bring the virus to work," the group said in a statement. "The safety of our residents in long-term care and retirement homes, who trust us to provide the care and services they need, is paramount.

"This policy will increase their level of safety and improve quality of life for residents by reducing the need for isolation and disruption of daily activities that result from outbreak restrictions."

Provincial push

The timing comes as more provinces have discussed vaccine mandates, passports and certificates. In fact, the Oct. 12 date was laid out by British Columbia officials earlier this month as they announced a new public health order that would make vaccination mandatory and is a condition of employment for those working in long-term care and assisted living facilities.

Even in Ontario, which appears to be bucking the idea of a provincial-level vaccine passport, the government said last week it was issuing a directive to hospitals and community and home-care service providers to have strict vaccination and testing policies in place by Sept. 7 for all employees, staff, contractors, students and volunteers.

Thousands of long-term care residents have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began as homes across the country dealt with major outbreaks.

Family members of long-term residents have pushed for a mandate and enhanced safety measures, but after the B.C. announcement, the CUPE Hospital Employees' Union (HEU) warned about potential unintended consequences for staffing levels.

• Canada's nursing homes have worst record for COVID-19 deaths among wealthy nations: report

• Mandatory vaccines? Experts weigh rights of residents, staff in nursing homes

"In a recent poll of HEU members, 24 per cent said they were likely to leave health care over the next two years as a result of their experiences during the pandemic," the union said, adding that it encouraged its members to get vaccinated. "So while many health-care workers will support this measure, it will be controversial and it may push some to leave their jobs altogether."

A report released earlier this year by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), suggested that given the proportion of overall COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes — 69 per cent at the time — Canada had the worst pandemic record in the world with respect to long-term care facilities.

CIHI also says 54 per cent of Canada's nearly 2,100 long-term care homes are privately owned, with a slight majority of that total comprising for-profit companies. Ontario has the highest proportion of private ownership within the industry, it says, with 57 per cent of homes private for-profit and a further 27 per cent of the provincial total private non-profit organizations.

Conditions described in the facilities early in the pandemic provoked public outrage and led to political inquiries in provinces such as Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec, as well as recommendations for reform nationwide in the industry.

With files from CBC News

Fossils illuminate dinosaur evolution in eastern North America

Tyrannosaurus rex, the fearsome predator that once roamed what is now western North America, appears to have had an East Coast cousin. A new study describes two dinosaurs that inhabited Appalachia -- a once isolated land mass that today composes much of the eastern United States -- about 85 million years ago: an herbivorous duck-billed hadrosaur and a carnivorous tyrannosaur.

Date:August 25, 2021

Source:Yale University

Tyrannosaurus rex, the fearsome predator that once roamed what is now western North America, appears to have had an East Coast cousin.

A new study by Yale undergraduate Chase Doran Brownstein describes two dinosaurs that inhabited Appalachia -- a once isolated land mass that today composes much of the eastern United States -- about 85 million years ago: an herbivorous duck-billed hadrosaur and a carnivorous tyrannosaur. The findings were published Aug. 25 in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The two dinosaurs, which Brownstein described from specimens housed at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, help fill a major gap in the North American fossil record from the Late Cretaceous and provide evidence that dinosaurs in the eastern portion of the continent evolved distinctly from their counterparts in western North America and Asia, Brownstein said.

"These specimens illuminate certain mysteries in the fossil record of eastern North America and help us better understand how geographic isolation -- large water bodies separated Appalachia from other landmasses -- affected the evolution of dinosaurs," said Brownstein, who is entering his junior year at Yale College. "They're also a good reminder that while the western United States has long been the source of exciting fossil discoveries, the eastern part of the country contains its share of treasures."

For most of the second half of the Cretaceous, which ended 66 million years ago, North America was divided into two land masses, Laramidia in the West and Appalachia in the East, with the Western Interior Seaway separating them. While famous dinosaur species like T. rex and Triceratops lived throughout Laramidia, much less is known about the animals that inhabited Appalachia. One reason is that Laramidia's geographic conditions were more conducive to the formation of sediment-rich fossil beds than Appalachia's, Brownstein explained.

The specimens described in the new study were discovered largely during the 1970s at the Merchantville Formation in present day New Jersey and Delaware. They constitute one of the only known dinosaur assemblages from the late Santonian to early Campanian stages of the Late Cretaceous in North America. This fossil record period, dating from about 85 to 72 million years ago, is limited, Brownstein noted.

Brownstein examined a partial skeleton of a large predatory therapod, concluding that it is probably a tyrannosaur. He noted that the fossil shares several features in its hind limbs with Dryptosaurus, a tyrannosaur that lived about 67 million years ago in what is now New Jersey. The dinosaur has different hands and feet than T. rex, including massive claws on its forelimbs, suggesting that it represents a distinct family of the predators that evolved solely in Appalachia.

"Many people believe that all tyrannosaurs must have evolved a specific set of features to become apex predators," Brownstein said. "Our fossil suggests they evolved into giant predators in a variety of ways as it lacks key foot or hand features that one would associate with western North American or Asian tyrannosaurs."

The partial skeleton of the hadrosaur provided important new information on the evolution of the shoulder girdle in that group of dinosaurs, Brownstein found. The hadrosaur fossils also provide one of the best records of this group from east of the Mississippi and include some of the only infant/perinate (very young) dinosaur fossils found in this region.

Brownstein, who works as a research associate at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center in Stamford, Connecticut, has previously published his paleontological research in several peer-journals, including Scientific Reports, the Journal of Paleontology, and the Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society. In addition to eastern North American fossils, he currently focuses his research on the evolution of fishes, lizards, and birds. He is particularly interested in how geographic change and other factors contribute to how fast different types of living things evolve.

He currently works in the lab of Thomas J. Near, curator of the Peabody Museum's ichthyology collections and professor and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale. Brownstein also collaborates with Yale paleontologists Jacques Gauthier and Bhart-Anjan Bhullar in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

While Brownstein is considering pursuing an academic career in evolutionary biology, he says his research is driven by enjoyment.

"Doing research and thinking about these things makes me happy," he said. "Like biking, it's something I love to do."


Journal Reference:
Chase Doran Brownstein. Dinosaurs from the Santonian–Campanian Atlantic coastline substantiate phylogenetic signatures of vicariance in Cretaceous North America. Royal Society Open Science, 2021; 8 (8): 210127 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.210127

Yale University. "Fossils illuminate dinosaur evolution in eastern North America." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 August 2021. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210825143032.htm>.

 

Space: The wooden frontier

by Kyoto University

KyotoU's Koji Murata showing a metal-framed wood panel that will be sent to the ISS Kibo

 platform in late 2021. Credit: Kyoto University

Humans have relied on forests and trees—for shelter, food, and fuel—from the earliest times. As technology has advanced, timber has been utilized for buildings, ships, and railroads. And now we may be on the verge of taking wood into space.

Why wood? Building in space with futuristic, 'space-age' materials might seem to be the obvious choice: lumber's fragility and combustibility might seem counter-intuitive by comparison.

Therein lies the rationale for wood: as a natural, economical, carbon-based material, its production is considerably more sustainable than advanced alternatives, and its disposal—especially when dropped from orbit into the upper atmosphere—is complete and without harmful byproducts.

Moreover, earlier investigations—in earth-bound labs—have demonstrated wood's surprising ability to withstand a wide range of temperatures, from -150 to 150 degrees Celsius. Simulated near-vacuum conditions also resulted in negligible structural deterioration of the wood.

But the next step is to go beyond: to actually take wood into space.

"Wood's ability to withstand simulated low earth orbit—or LEO—conditions astounded us," explains Koji Murata, head of the space-wood research effort and member of the Biomaterials Design Lab at Kyoto University's graduate school of agriculture.

"We now want to see if we can accurately estimate the effects of the harsh LEO environment on organic materials."

Closeup of wood panel to be sent to ISS Kibo platform. Credit: Kyoto University

To accomplish this, Murata's team, including corporate partner Sumitomo Forestry and Japanese space agency JAXA, plans to send a selection of wooden samples from various plant species to the exposed experiment platform of the Kibo module on the International Space Station.

A frame holding the samples will be ferried to the station by the end of 2021 and then returned to earth for detailed analysis six months later.

"We particularly want to measure the degree of erosion resulting from atomic oxygen collisions with the fibrous material," continues Murata, referring to the fact that LEO is characterized by the presence of free oxygen atoms traveling at high velocity, which over time can cause damage to exposed surfaces.

"We also want to see the effects of cosmic rays and the vacuum of space on the mechanical properties of wood."

The results of the experiment are anticipated to provide clues for developing technology to protect wooden materials exposed in LEO, as part of a larger KyotoU effort—dubbed "LignoStella"—to launch a wooden satellite—"LignoSat"—in 2023.

Japanese pairing looking into using wood to build satellites

Provided by Kyoto University