Climate Change Is Pushing Fires to Higher Ground

By NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY SEPTEMBER 4, 2021

January 1, 1984 – December 31, 2017

Wildfires in the western United States have been spreading to higher elevations due to warmer and drier conditions.

Scientists have known for decades that climate change makes wildfires more common, larger, and more intense. Now an international team of scientists has demonstrated a new connection between fires and global warming. Using data from Landsat satellites, they discovered that wildfires in the western United States have been spreading to higher elevations due to warmer and drier conditions that are clearly linked to climate change.

Historically, forest fires have been rare in high-elevation areas—at least 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) above sea level. But when McGill University scientist Mohammad Reza Alizadeh and colleagues studied fires that occurred in the West between 1984 and 2017, they found blazes moving to higher ground at a rate of 25 feet (7.6 meters) per year.

Fires are now burning higher up on hillsides and mountainsides because areas that used to be too wet to burn are now drier due to warmer temperatures and earlier snowmelt. The study also showed that drier air—which makes vegetation dry out and burn more easily—is moving upward at a rate of about 29 feet (8.9 meters) each year. The researchers estimated that an additional 31,500 square miles (81,500 square kilometers) of the mountainous U.S. West are now more vulnerable to fires compared to 1984.

The map above illustrates where and how much fires have moved upslope in the western United States since 1984, according to the study by Alizadeh and colleagues. Shades of yellow, orange, and red show the intensity of the elevation gain by mountain range.

“Our research would not have been possible if it were not for decades of reliable Landsat data to help us look back in time,” said Alizadeh. “We hope these findings will encourage people to not only mitigate the effects of increased wildfire activity, but also to limit emissions and curb global warming.”

To evaluate fire characteristics in high-elevation regions, the researchers combined two Landsat-derived data sets—one that showed the locations of moderate to severe fires and one that displayed forest cover—with a digital elevation model. By overlaying these datasets, the team was able to analyze trends in forest fire elevation for different regions with similar ecological traits. They also compared their findings with measurements of vapor pressure (a measure of moisture in the air) and found a strong link between aridity and the elevation and size of forest fires.

The impacts of such high-elevation fires are numerous. Many mountain ranges serve as “water towers” for the western U.S.: snow accumulates on mountaintops each winter and then melts and runs down to river valleys as a summer water source. Fires can change how snow accumulates and melts, shifting when it is available in downstream reservoirs and rivers. That’s a problem for more than 60 million people in the western US who rely on this water source. Fire debris, ash, and chemical retardants also can pollute the water, reducing its quality for drinking.

High-elevation fires are also bad news for species native to those areas because the much of the plant life is not fire-adapted and may grow back differently, as a 2020 paper suggested. Streams near high-elevation fires can also become much warmer than those in similar areas without fires. Both conditions threaten native animals and plants that depend on cooler water and air.

Finally, many towns and cities located at high elevations are not necessarily accustomed to the threat of wildfires. “Areas in Canada and the western U.S. are experiencing droughts and heat waves, which increase the risk of fires,” said Mojtaba Sadegh, an assistant professor at Boise State University and a co-author of the paper. “This should raise the alarm for people to think more about what the future will look like if global warming continues at the same rate.”

“Moving forward, we can implement adapted forest management practices, create more fire-resilient communities, and use tactics like controlled burns,” Sadegh said. ”But because the root cause is climate change, the most important path forward is to prevent further degradation and warming, which requires both individual and collective action.”

NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using data from Alizadeh et al. (2021). Story by Ashley Balzer, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with Mike Carlowicz.

Fossil fuels’ price boom isn’t the victory it might seem

A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker is tugged towards a thermal power station. 

(REUTERS)

Updated: 06 Sep 2021

Bloomberg

Commodity prices don’t rise and fall based on the level of demand itself, but rather as a result of the mismatch between demand and supply

From the price action, you’d think that fossil fuels are back in business.

Since breaking above $100 a metric ton in May, the price of coal at Australia’s Newcastle port — a benchmark for Asia, which consumes about three-quarters of the world’s soot — has gone almost vertical, hitting a record $173.10 a ton Thursday. The key regional contract for liquefied natural gas, the Japan-Korea Marker, is in similar territory, hitting $18.02 per million British thermal units the same day. That’s not a record, but it’s still the third-highest spike LNG has ever seen, during what’s typically the low season for a commodity that tends to surge amid winter’s heating demands.

If you think of futures prices simply as a vote on the path ahead for the commodity in question, that should worry a world that needs to decarbonize. This view is simplistic, though. Commodity prices don’t rise and fall based on the level of demand itself, but rather as a result of the mismatch between demand and supply. A world in which fossil fuel consumption is on a long-term downtrend can still see handsome prices for fossil fuels in any period when supply falls faster than demand.


The current price spike has multiple sources. One is the diversion of Russian gas from Europe to Asia, while another is China’s coal-to-gas switch. Then there’s the relatively warm, dry summer that’s reduced hydro generation and increased pressure on air conditioners. Most important, though, has been the bounce back from 2020’s bout of economic sickness, which has sent electricity consumption surging — and with it, the dirtiest forms of generation.

One of the biggest drivers for growth in renewable power’s energy share over the past decade has been flat or declining electricity demand. Adding wind and solar capable of supplying 5% of a country’s grid power can drive a sharp reduction in emissions if output remains constant or falls. If, however, grid use climbs 5%, then all that new renewable capacity won’t make a shred of difference to emissions. If it climbs 14% year-on-year — as China’s did in July — then it’s likely to be fossil fuels that make up the shortfall.

That situation can turn even the economic disadvantages of coal and gas in their favor. For years now, the growth of renewable power with zero fuel costs has been pushing thermal generators out of use, dealing a severe blow to their economics. Fossil power plants need to be in operation for 60% to 80% of the time to turn a profit, but the last time China’s fleet hit that level was all the way back in 2011. For most of 2019 and 2020, the figure was well below 50%.

That very underutilization, however, means that there’s substantial ability to turn up the gas when demand starts surging. Delivering an extra megawatt-hour from a thermal generator operating at half capacity only requires finding some fuel on the global markets for coal and LNG. If you want to increase wind and solar generation beyond current levels, you’ll need to build a whole new power plant.


That sounds like bad news for decarbonization — and in the short term, it is. Still, the current price spikes also provide a reminder to generators of why the days of thermal power are numbered. At current prices for Newcastle coal, even the most efficient power plant will be paying upwards of $60 per megawatt hour just for its fuel. In the largest markets of China and India, the cost of brand-new wind or solar generation is half as much, or less. Even renewable power plants backed up with batteries to provide on-demand electricity are competitive with fossil fuels at current prices.

WHY JOE MANCHIN IS A DICK 

BIG OIL FRACKS HIS STATE

Shale natural gas production in the Appalachian Basin sets records in first half of 2021

Source: Graph by U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on state administrative data collected by Enverus Drillinginfo Inc.

---

Dry natural gas production from shale formations in the Appalachian Basin that spans Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio has been growing since 2008, and monthly production has recently set new record highs. Production in the region reached 32.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in December 2020, and it averaged 31.9 Bcf/d during the first half of 2021, the highest average for a six-month period since production began in 2008. The Appalachian Basin contains two shale formations, Marcellus and Utica, which accounted for 34% of all U.S. dry natural gas production in the first half of 2021. On its own, the Appalachian Basin would have been the third-largest natural gas producer in the world the first half of 2021, behind Russia and the rest of the United States.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. state-to-state pipeline capacity

---

Record-high dry natural gas production in the first half of 2021 was made possible by growth in pipeline takeaway capacity that allows natural gas produced in the Appalachian Basin to reach other demand markets, especially in the Midwest. From 2008 to 2020, total pipeline takeaway capacity from the Northeast increased from 4.5 Bcf/d to 24.5 Bcf/d, alleviating some congestion and supporting higher wholesale natural gas prices in the region. Most of the increase in takeaway capacity happened between 2014 and 2020, when pipeline capacity increased by 16.5 Bcf/d, much of which was directed to the Midwest.

Pipeline takeaway capacity from Appalachia to Canada and to the Southeast has also increased. Recent expansions of pipeline capacity in the Southeast are supporting growth in exports of U.S. liquefied natural gas.

Although natural gas pipeline capacity out of the Northeast has grown every year since 2014, the rate of increase has slowed and recently has not kept pace with growth in regional production. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is the largest natural gas pipeline currently being constructed in the region and is targeted to enter service in 2022. The pipeline will move natural gas from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, extending the Equitrans transmission system to the Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company’s Zone 5 compressor station 165 near Gretna, Virginia. It is designed to move 2.0 Bcf/d of natural gas and is intended to further alleviate pipeline congestion. Pipelines tend to be most full in the region during the late summer when consumption of natural gas within the region is typically at its lowest.

Principal contributors: Corrina Ricker, Warren Wilczewski

COMPANIES LOBBYING AGAINST INFRASTRUCTURE TAX INCREASES HAVE AVOIDED PAYING BILLIONS IN TAXES

Executives at JPMorgan Chase, FedEx, and others have spoken out publicly against Biden’s proposed tax increases.


President Joe Biden participates in a virtual meeting on Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at South Court Auditorium at Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Aug. 11, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images


Akela Lacy
September 6 2021, 

AN INFRASTRUCTURE PROPOSAL that would raise the corporate tax rate is facing opposition in Congress from companies that have dodged tens of billions of dollars in taxes over the last decade. Several such companies are lobbying against corporate tax increases and measures designed to crack down on tax havens in President Joe Biden’s economic proposal.

Biden’s American Jobs Plan would raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent to help fund projects to rebuild highways and roads, expand high-speed broadband, build and renovate schools, and expand and upgrade power lines. Meanwhile, his American Families Plan would allocate $1.8 trillion over 10 years for education, child care, and national paid leave. To help fund those programs, he proposed a 39.6 percent capital gains tax for millionaires — almost double the current rate of 23.8 percent — and an increase in the marginal income tax rate for the top 1 percent, from 37 percent to 39.6 percent.

Highway construction on Interstate 285 near the interchange with State Road 400 in Sandy Springs, Ga., on July 14, 2021.
Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Companies that use such practices to avoid taxes and lobbied earlier this year on issues related to tax rates in Biden’s American Jobs Plan include Walmart, Oracle, Accenture, Bristol Myers Squibb, Shell, and Walgreens. Executives at companies that have historically avoided paying taxes, like Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, FedEx, and DuPont, have spoken out publicly against Biden’s proposed tax increases.

Shell and Walgreens lobbied earlier this year on corporate tax issues in the American Jobs Plan. Walmart hired a lobbying firm tasked with “monitoring of tax proposals related to infrastructure” in the plan and proposed legislative efforts related to Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Accenture hired another firm to “monitor the American Jobs Plan as it relates to corporate taxes.” Oracle and Bristol Myers Squibb, a multinational pharmaceutical company, used the same firm hired by Accenture to monitor and lobby on similar issues in the proposal. Oracle also used that firm to monitor the American Rescue Plan, Biden’s first Covid-19 relief package, for provisions related to corporate taxes. Oracle spokesperson Jessica Moore said the company “has not lobbied on Corporate Tax issues since the new Administration.”

Nonprofit and media reports in recent years have found that those companies are among dozens of multinational corporations that have avoided tens of billions of dollars in taxes in recent years, and have used a variety of tax evasion mechanisms both in the U.S. and overseas, leading some to face fines and even criminal charges.

A Reuters report last year found that from 2018 to 2019, Shell reported $2.7 billion through offshore tax havens and avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. In 2019, Australia charged Shell $755 million for six years’ worth of taxes the company did not pay. The company reported that after getting tax refunds related to the closure of oil platforms, it paid no corporate income tax in the U.K. in 2018 on $731 million in profits. In 2013, India alleged that Shell had evaded taxes by underpricing a transfer of shares in 2009 by $2.8 billion.

A 2016 report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Citizens for Tax Justice, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Bristol Myers Squibb held $25 billion across 23 tax haven subsidiaries. In 2012 the company set up a tax haven subsidiary in Ireland, which the IRS later described as an “abusive” tax shelter that could allow the company to avoid paying $1.4 billion in taxes.

Between 2008 and 2014, Walmart held more than $23.3 billion in offshore accounts and avoided paying more than $4.59 billion in U.S. taxes, according to a 2016 Oxfam report. In an arrangement internally known as “Project Flex,” the company routed money through an allegedly fictitious Chinese subsidiary, Quartz reported, which allowed it to avoid paying $2.6 billion in U.S. taxes between 2014 and 2017. The 2016 report from the U.S. PIRG, CTJ, and ITEP also found that Walmart reported zero tax haven subsidiaries despite having as many as 75. A 2013 report from CTJ found that the company held $19.2 billion in profits in offshore tax havens and did not disclose the U.S. tax rate it would pay if that money were repatriated.



Related
Race and Taxes


A 2015 report from Americans for Tax Fairness found that Walmart put $76 billion of assets in 78 subsidiaries across 15 tax havens where the company did not have stores. The report found that in 25 of 27 countries where Walmart has stores, the company operates through shell companies held in tax havens. In Luxembourg, where Walmart does not have stores, the company has 22 shell companies to which it transferred ownership of more than $45 billion in assets since 2011. The report claimed that in 2014, Walmart took $2.4 billion in low-interest loans from its tax haven subsidiaries, allowing U.S. affiliates to access foreign earnings without paying U.S. taxes, which the report said “may transgress the intent of U.S. law.” A 2014 analysis by the same group found that Walmart avoids paying $1 billion a year in taxes by exploiting U.S. tax loopholes, and that the company used various methods to dodge paying taxes on $21.4 billion in offshore profits in 2013 — more than double the profits it dodged taxes on in 2008. A 2011 report from Good Jobs First found that Walmart used tax avoidance schemes, including deducting rent payments to itself, to avoid $400 million in local and state taxes each year.

Walgreens is among several major retailers that have been accused of using a legal tactic to reduce their property taxes by pursuing reductions in the assessed value of their properties. After public outcry, the company backed off a decision in 2014 to move its U.S. headquarters overseas, a change that would have allowed the company to avoid some $4 billion in taxes. The 2016 report from U.S. PIRG, CTJ, and ITEP found that Walgreens had 71 subsidiaries in tax havens, including 23 in Luxembourg alone.

Buildings stand at the Oracle Corp. headquarters campus in Redwood City, California, on March 14, 2016.
Photo: Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images


A 2016 Oxfam report found that Oracle held more than $38 billion in offshore accounts between 2008 and 2014 on which the company avoided paying $8.3 billion in U.S. taxes. The 2016 U.S. PIRG, CTJ, and ITEP report found that the company held $42.6 billion in five subsidiaries in offshore tax havens on which the company paid a 3.8 percent tax rate. The 2013 report from CTJ showed that in that fiscal year, Oracle held $20.9 billion in offshore tax havens on which if paid a 30 percent tax rate while the U.S. tax rate was 35 percent.

In 2019, Oracle Corporation Australia was charged more than $300 million for avoided, withheld, and backed taxes. Oracle Korea was fined $275 million in 2017 for alleged tax evasion that allowed the firm to dodge taxes for seven years by using tax havens abroad. A 2012 study commissioned by a member of the British Parliament found that Oracle had paid nothing in corporate taxes in the U.K. that year on a projected 446 million pounds in profits. Oracle declined to comment on these findings.

In 2019, Accenture paid $200 million in a settlement following reporting from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on leaked documents — the 2014 “Lux Leaks” scandal — revealing that major multinational companies avoided global taxes by entering into secret tax agreements with the government of Luxembourg. In 2010, acting through PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Accenture processed a transfer of intellectual property rights from Switzerland to Ireland through Luxembourg. Documents obtained as part of Lux Leaks showed that the value of the assets rose almost 600 percent in 48 hours from $1.2 billion to $7 billion, zero of which was taxed in Luxembourg. The company successfully lobbied the U.S. government in the early 2000s to move its place of incorporation to Bermuda to avoid taxes. When the government planned to change tax policies that would jeopardize Bermuda’s tax haven status, the company — which says it has no headquarters — moved its place of incorporation to Ireland. Accenture did not provide comment by the time of publication.

A 2012 report by the Sunday Times found that Accenture was able to lower its tax rate in the U.K. to less than 3.5 percent, while the nation’s standard rate was 24 percent.

Frederick Smith, chair and CEO of FedEx, speaks during the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Aviation Summit in Washington, D.C., on March 7, 2019.
Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Bloomberg via Getty Images


CONGRESS HAS BEEN struggling to pass the much-awaited bipartisan bill, and negotiations are ongoing (the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops last month put talks somewhat on hold). It’s unclear whether the measure will have enough support to pass. Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress but have had little luck moving forward on a number of Biden’s administrative goals even as calls to abolish the filibuster gain support.

Meanwhile, executives at other major companies that have reportedly dodged billions of dollars in taxes around the world have also spoken out against Biden’s plan to increase their taxes.

In April, Joseph Wolk, Johnson & Johnson’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, criticized the proposed corporate tax increase because it would make the U.S. “the highest-rated developed country in the world with respect to tax rates,” and said that the issue is something “we need a little more fact-based dialogue on and making sure that we remain competitive.” Following news of Biden’s proposal, strategists at JPMorgan Chase said the administration’s policies were “no longer so unambiguously positive.” Asked about Biden’s plan in May, JPMorgan Chase Chair and CEO Jamie Dimon said, “We already waste tremendous sums of money,” and the “notion that you can have uncompetitive corporate taxes and you can be a competitive nation is a little crazy.” FedEx Chair and CEO Fred Smith came out against Biden’s proposal in April and wrote in an email to staff that it would “reduce capital investment and significantly degrade U.S. competitiveness.” The same month, DuPont EVP and CFO Lori Koch said the proposed changes would put companies based in the U.S. “at a disadvantage” because they “would be subject to higher tax rates on their foreign earnings than their foreign competitors.”

Between 2013 and 2015, Johnson & Johnson reportedly dodged more than $1.7 billion in global taxes, including more than $1 billion in the U.S. alone, according to a 2018 Oxfam report. A 2016 report from the same group found that the company had avoided paying more than $16 billion in taxes between 2008 and 2014 by housing some $53 billion in offshore accounts. Johnson & Johnson did not respond to requests for comment.



Related
Tax Havens and Other Dirty Tricks Let U.S. Corporations Steal $180 Billion From the Rest of the World Every Year


JPMorgan Chase avoided $12 billion in U.S. taxes between 2008 and 2014 by holding more than $31 billion in offshore accounts, according to a 2016 Oxfam report. Another Oxfam report that year found that 96.8 percent of the bank’s foreign subsidiaries were housed in tax havens and that it only reported 0.9 percent of those on its 2014 10-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The report also noted that the bank estimated its deferred tax bill from offshore accounts at $7 billion. A 2013 report from CTJ found that in that fiscal year, the bank disclosed that it held more than $25 billion in offshore tax havens on which it paid a 23 percent tax, 12 points below the 35 percent corporate tax rate that year.

In 2015, French prosecutors filed criminal charges against a unit of the bank for “alleged complicity in tax fraud,” the Wall Street Journal reported. The case was later thrown out because of “clerical errors.” According to the 2014 Lux Leaks report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, JPMorgan Chase and FedEx were among companies that secured lucrative secret tax deals with the Luxembourg government that allowed them and other major companies to largely avoid global taxes. Members of the European Parliament subsequently investigated the country’s tax code and money-laundering schemes, and later took action to force Luxembourg to change its tax laws and follow new rules approved following the scandal. In 2012, the bank was in talks with the U.K. government to pay a 500 million pound settlement after it was found that the company used a tax-avoidance scheme there. The bank declined to comment.

FedEx used tax avoidance strategies that allowed the company to pay a negative 4.6 percent tax rate in 2018, according to a 2019 ITEP report. The same report showed that DuPont used government subsidies and tax avoidance strategies to pay a negative 54.8 percent tax rate in 2018 and avoided paying $119 million in taxes that year.

DuPont paid no net state income tax from 2008 to 2010, a net negative of $12 million, according to a 2011 report from ITEP and CTJ. A 2013 report from the same group found that the company held more than $13 billion in offshore tax havens. Before Dow Chemical and DuPont split in 2019, the merged companies agreed to pay a $1.75 million fine to the SEC after failing to disclose $3 million in perks given to Dow’s former chief executive.

The net effect of these tax dodges is catastrophic. According to a 2016 report by Kimberly Clausing, the Eric M. Zolt Chair in Tax Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law who was appointed in February as deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the Treasury’s office of tax policy, the U.S. loses more than $111 billion each year due to tax dodging by multinational corporations.

“Lobbyists have already created so many loopholes in our tax code that help the rich and powerful and big corporations,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, said in a statement to The Intercept. “The American people understand what’s going on here and this is our opportunity to put a stop to it. [Maine Sen.] Angus King and I are pushing for a corporate profits tax that is essentially a minimum tax for the richest companies — no loopholes — that will allow us to increase tax revenue and help pay for these infrastructure investments we badly need.”

 

Electoral reform: Is Trudeau's broken promise on any party's agenda?

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

NDP, Green Party have included electoral reform in their platforms

Avneet Dhillon · CBC News · Posted: Sep 06, 2021 

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh casts his ballot for the federal byelection in Burnaby South at an advance poll in 2019. Supporters of electoral reform want to change Canada's first-past-the-post voting system. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

This story came from audience members, like you, who got in touch with us. Send us your federal election questions and story tips. We are listening: ask@cbc.ca.

Not much has been said about electoral reform during this federal election campaign, six years after Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised to replace the first-past-the-post voting system.

But Canadians from across the country have emailed CBC News to express their frustration with an elections system they say still doesn't properly reflect how people vote.

• Use Vote Compass to compare the party platforms with your views.

Under first-past-the-post, voters pick one candidate in their riding and the person with more votes than any other candidate wins the riding. The successful candidate doesn't need to win a majority of votes to take the riding.

Advocates of electoral reform want this changed to some other voting system, such as proportional representation, which they say would reduce the practice of strategic voting and more accurately reflect voters' views.

What are the main party platforms on electoral reform?

Liberals

The Liberal Party's 2021 election platform makes no mention of electoral reform. When CBC News asked about the party's current stance on the issue, a Liberal spokesperson did not answer the question and instead offered this statement: 

"We all have a shared responsibility to protect and promote our democracy. This means working every day to engage and involve Canadians from all walks of life in our electoral process and democratic institutions."

"It looks like we're going to be stuck with first-past-the-post under a Liberal government," said political scientist Stéphanie Chouinard, an assistant professor at Canada's Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.

Conservatives

The Conservative Party's platform also does not include electoral reform.

One section of the platform states that the party "will end Trudeau's practice of … treating provinces differently based on whether they think they can win their votes."

CBC News reached out to the Conservative Party to ask whether this promise would embrace electoral reform. The party did not respond.

NDP

The NDP has committed to replacing our voting system with mixed-member proportional representation. The party has promised to make it part of their first mandate if elected.

Under mixed-member proportional representation, voters have to make two choices on a ballot: one for a candidate to represent them locally and one for a party.

The NDP's election platform states the party would establish an independent citizen's assembly to recommend the best way to put this voting system in place for the next election. After Canadians have had the chance to experience it, the party said, a referendum would be held to confirm the choice.

Green Party

The Green Party supports proportional representation but is not advocating for a particular model. 

"So long as they respect the principle of proportionality ... Mixed-Member Proportional, Rural-Urban Proportional, and more, could meet this criteria," a party spokesperson told CBC News in an email.

The Greens also support establishing a citizen's assembly on electoral reform.

• How would proportional representation have shaped the 2019 election results?

Is a referendum required for electoral reform?

No. Canada can replace its voting system without a nationwide referendum.

"This is not a constitutional change," said political scientist Max Cameron, a professor at the University of British Columbia who has advised policymakers on electoral reform.

Cameron added that he's in favour of holding a referendum only if it's well-designed.

• Find out who's ahead in the latest polls with our Poll Tracker.

"Here in B.C., we've had badly-designed referendums and that's killed electoral reform," Cameron said. "Every time we've had good citizens' assemblies and we've had three terrible referendums."

Provincial referendums on electoral reform have taken place in B.C. and on P.E.I. in recent years. Canadians in both provinces voted to keep the first-past-the-post system.

WATCH | Max Cameron on why Trudeau failed to implement electoral reform:

Political scientist on Trudeau's broken promise of electoral reform

4 days ago

0:57

Max Cameron, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia, explains why Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's 2015 promise of electoral reform was abandoned. 0:57

Has anything changed since the 2019 election?

In June, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs passed a motion to establish a national citizen's assembly on electoral reform.

The Liberals and NDP both voted in favour of the motion (the Green Party supports establishing this assembly as well, but Greens didn't have a seat on that committee). The Conservatives voted against the motion.

• Compare the party platforms and see where the parties stand on the issues important to you.

"This isn't going to bind the next Parliament," Cameron said.

"But it indicates that even among the political parties, when you get them in a committee to look at the issue, they can see some reason for actually going forward with a citizen's assembly."

Living in her car: Utility bills pushing some working Calgarians over the edge

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

Jade Cromwell had her life in order, then the pandemic hit and costs increased

Elise Stolte · CBC News · Posted: Sep 01, 2021 9:50 AM MT | Last Updated: September 1

Jade Cromwell has been living in her car, campgrounds and couchsurfing at friends houses since June because she couldn't afford to pay her utility bills. (Jade Cromwell)

Jade Cromwell had her life in order. 

At 34, she had her own landscaping company, a house on a rent-to-own contract and three roommates to help pay the bills. But each time COVID-19 cases surged in Alberta, the economic impact fell like a hammer and cracked her carefully arranged life a little more. 

Last fall, her company folded; her roommates also lost jobs and had to move out. Even when she got a new job in forestry education, it wasn't enough. Her utility bill was the final blow.

"I'm pretty conscious about my eco-footprint. But the bills just seem to stay at this steady $500 a month," she said. "That was pretty extreme. I didn't know how they were that high and it didn't seem to make sense, but it was mostly service fees.

"If they weren't there, I probably would still have my home. The utilities just destroyed it and wrecked my credit on top of it."

Cromwell broke the contract on her house and spent the summer living in a tent in a Bragg Creek campground. She's now living in her car and on friends' couches, trying to find something more secure before the winter hits.

Higher bills

She's not alone. Utility bills have been increasing across the province for several reasons, including the phase out of coal and a provincial decision to end the electricity rate cap.

The Trellis Society normally sees a spike in calls for help each spring as energy companies start trying to collect on outstanding bills from peak winter months, said Angela Clarke, Chief Strategy Officer with the organization that helps people access resources.

Normally, those calls dwindle by summer as utility bills take a dip. This year, they did not. 

"With COVID, we saw that everyone was home far more than they probably anticipated because of restrictions and things," Clarke said.

"People are spending more time in their homes. And so then what we're seeing is the unexpected impact of that. People saw an increase in their utility bills because their usage went up in a time when normally it wouldn't."

Jade Cromwell washed her clothes in the river while living at a campground this summer, hanging them to dry on a clothesline. (Jade Cromwell)

Unfortunately, Clarke says there's little they can do to help as there are limited funds available in the system to support with utility bills. 

"What we often find is if someone hasn't paid their utility bill for whatever reason, they maybe also haven't paid rent," Clarke said.

• Market watcher says multiple factors behind Albertans' surging power bills

"Maybe their phone bills have been disconnected, maybe they're short on groceries, maybe they haven't been able to pay school fees. So we're trying to look at it from a holistic view while assessing what the most urgent need is."

From campgrounds to parking lots

Cromwell said living in a campground for $200 a month this summer wasn't bad. But now that it's colder, she finds a Wal-Mart parking lot, folds the back seats down on her Chevy Cruze and sleeps with her feet in the trunk. It's not comfortable, but even in this, she's not alone.

She says there were probably four other people staying in the campground for similar reasons and there are others staying in the Wal-Mart parking lots. There's a Facebook page dedicated to what's called Vanlife and many have joined not because it's trendy, but a necessity. 

"They're like, well, at least I'll have a community," said Cromwell.

"Many people are in their cars now because they can't afford the way the world is going."

Cromwell said her boss at her new job has been extremely supportive. She's now hoping to work with a financial advisor to pay off the outstanding $1,200 debt and rent a warmer place soon.

"This isn't really living. It's just kind of surviving," she said. "My plan is to just, bit by bit, work with my bank and a financial adviser … so I can move forward and make sure that my credit isn't damaged too bad.

"And I guess try to make more conscious decisions when it comes to my utilities. I wasn't aware it was going to be so high. My strategy is just to find a better strategy and stay a bit more stable. The old way doesn't work anymore."

Clarke says she believes Calgary has hit a crisis tipping point with the volume of people struggling to pay their utility bills, but is hopeful from conversations she's had with utility companies saying they want to be part of the solution to the problem.

"Looking at distribution rates, services, maybe alternate options for people who are struggling with poverty or people who are accessing other types of support," Clarke said. 

Alberta’s use of British COVID-19 data was a miscalculation


SEPTEMBER 6, 2021

The Alberta government’s recent approach to COVID-19, ending nearly all public-health measures over the summer and refusing to change course as infections rose, was based on an optimistic principle: that vaccines changed the pandemic so dramatically. Given that the province could withstand a season. Significant increase in new cases without worrying about hospitals being overwhelmed.

Premier Jason Kenney and his chief medical officer of health, Dina Hinshaw, pointed to figures out of Britain as evidence that infections were “disrupted” with dire consequences; In other words, the spike in COVID-19 cases will no longer result in the same increase in hospitalizations. But Mr Kenny was forced to admit last week that those predictions did not come to pass in Alberta – a miscalculation that is now pushing hospital admissions to the peak of any previous wave and putting the health care system in a shambles. Threatens to bring it close to breaking point.

Experience in Alberta, where the government prides itself on imposing fewer pandemic restrictions than other provinces and recently urged the public to stop viewing COVID-19 as an emergency, has prompted other governments to take public-health measures. can serve as a warning for thinking of giving up altogether. . Experts say too few people have been vaccinated – not only in Alberta, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, but elsewhere in Canada – to skip public-health measures and act like that the pandemic is over.

Canada urged to increase vaccination rate, maintain public health measures, to avoid 15,000 daily COVID-19 cases next month

Kryderman: Alberta government’s lack of foresight has them stumbling block to halt fourth wave of COVID-19

In Alberta, that realization prompted the government to act on Friday, announcing the return of a provincewide mask mandate and a curfew on the sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants. The government is also paying anyone who hasn’t yet received their first or second dose of the vaccine $100 so they can eventually get a shot. The government previously delayed plans to end widespread testing, contact tracing and mandatory isolation.

The condition of hospitals in the province is deteriorating rapidly. Hospital and intensive care admissions have more than doubled in the past two weeks, and newly released modeling suggests these numbers could surpass their previous peak within weeks. On Friday, the province’s ICU beds were 95 percent full. Alberta has the highest rate of COVID-19 infections and hospital admissions per capita in the country.

Mr Kenny had repeatedly pointed to Britain defending Alberta’s approach. When infections spiked in Britain over the summer, hospital admissions did not increase as much. Hospital admissions rose in the UK in July and August, but government data shows they have been far below any previous peaks.

“Unfortunately, this has not been the Alberta experience,” Kenny said on Friday.

“Vaccines isolate individuals from severe outcomes dramatically at the individual level, but because of the large group of people who have no vaccine protection, we have seen the delta variant spread widely and in unvaccinated adults. gives serious results at very high rates.

Dean Carlen, a professor at the University of Victoria who is part of the BC COVID-19 Modeling Group, said hospitalizations in Alberta are rising slightly faster than in previous waves. The modeling group, which is also releasing estimates for Alberta, was warning that this would happen.

“There was really no basis to believe that this would be decoupling,” Prof. Carlen said.

He said it had been clear for some time that Britain was an outsider. He said there is significant and predictable pressure on their health care systems after a surge in infections in other jurisdictions in Europe and the United States.

Pro. Karlen also pointed out that most new infections are in unvaccinated people, so there was no reason to believe they wouldn’t end up in the same hospital as before.

“The situation has not really changed dramatically in any way to suggest that the demand for hospitalization will not be as high as it was before,” he said.

‘We're flying blind’: Contact tracers in Alberta concerned about province's approach as cases surge

'The (case) numbers that we're seeing in the news, you can triple it'

Author of the article: Brittany Gervais
Publishing date:Sep 05, 2021 • 

Health-care workers at the Richmond Road Diagnostic and Treatment Centre COVID-19 testing location. Friday, April 23, 2021. 

PHOTO BY BRENDAN MILLER /Postmedia

Contact tracers in Alberta are speaking out against the province’s decision to stop doing full investigations of COVID-19 transmission in the province, which they say is resulting in higher infections and more pressure on an already overwhelmed health-care system.

Among other responsibilities, contact tracers file lab tests of positive cases of COVID-19 to the province’s database, follow up with close contacts to ensure those who were exposed get tested and isolate, and notify schools and other organizations of reported outbreaks.

But on July 29, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced Alberta Health Services (AHS) scaled down case investigation and contact tracing teams, and that contact tracers no longer notify close contacts about exposure to COVID-19.

Since then, Alberta has seen case counts skyrocket from 1,626 to 13,495 cases. R-values between Aug. 16 and 22 range from 1.16 to 1.23 provincewide, meaning every infected person will infect at least one other person.

Of the new cases reported from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, about 83 per cent are classified as “unknown,” meaning contact tracers have not determined how they were spread.

Calgary emergency room physician Dr. Joe Vipond has been contacted by several contact tracers in Alberta in recent weeks, all voicing their frustration with not being able to collect more information from positive cases.

About 50 per cent of transmission from COVID-19 occurs with asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people, Vipond said. That’s one of the reasons why this is such a difficult disease and why contact tracing is essential.

“Even in Alberta in the first wave, contact tracing was an incredibly important part of the disease management and it seems to be given up here,” Vipond said.

According to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which studied how Taiwan did so well triumphing over COVID-19, case-based policies like contact tracing and quarantining, in combination with population-based approaches, led to that country’s success. As of Sept. 3, the island nation of 23.5 million had 106 active cases.

In Alberta, close contact information is no longer collected as part of the standard case investigation, unless the case is connected to such high-risk settings as acute and continuing care facilities.

The contact tracing workforce has decreased, with redeployed staff returned to original positions and some temporary contracts ended early, according to AHS. As of Aug. 31, there were approximately 1,300 case investigators and contact tracers.

Currently, investigators only ask about the person’s demographics, details about their employment, school or daycare, whether they attended these places in their incubation or infectious period, and whether the virus was acquired in the community or from a hospital, according to AHS.

“In recent weeks COVID-19 cases in Alberta have increased and we have scaled back up accordingly, with current and casual staff,” wrote AHS spokesperson Kerry Williamson in an email to Postmedia.

“Many staff who have temporary positions ending this fall have been receiving offers to extend their positions. We have been and will continue to extend temporary positions, as needed.”

The consequences of the policy decisions made by the province will mean COVID will spread rapidly through Alberta’s unvaccinated population, which includes kids under 12 years old, Vipond said.

“What possible reason could the province have to allow this to happen to the poor citizens of Alberta that, unfortunately, trusted them to govern?”

‘People need to know’

Postmedia was contacted by two contact tracers who wanted to speak out against the way Alberta is handling contact tracing amid the fourth wave of COVID-19. The identities of the tracers have been changed because they were not authorized to speak publicly about their experiences.

Angela has been working on the case investigation side of contact tracing for about a year. Most investigators from the past year are gone now, and work has become “very, very hectic,” she said.

“Pretty much everyone is burnt out, and I know a lot of cynicism has set in for a lot of people,” Angela said. “I feel like I’m working for the bad guy, it doesn’t feel right. People need to know.”

Even if information about close contacts is offered to investigators — if they attended a wedding or visited a family member, for example — tracers can’t collect that information.

If someone tested positive after coming back from a vacation, she can’t notify airlines about potential exposure. A parent is concerned that they’ve exposed their young daughter to the virus, but since she doesn’t have symptoms, she can’t be tested and doesn’t have to be kept home from school.

The province has ended its isolation hotels program, so tracers don’t have any resources to help people isolate, she said.

“Anything that is not in our script, we’re not supposed to write down. It’ll be deleted during the review process. I’ve heard of flight attendants who worked while infectious but there’s nothing we can do with that information,” she said.

“It’s driving me absolutely bonkers that it’s this weird secrecy thing, where we’re just calling and asking three questions and people think that we’re still tracing, and that they have all the information.”

Alberta Health confirmed that as of mid-August, travel information is no longer collected routinely as part of case investigation and therefore, flight information is not available to report to the federal government.

“The government has put a blindfold on us and we’re literally flying blind.”

Rachel works on the administrative end of contact tracing efforts, triaging data submitted from local and provincial labs, and filing reports into the province’s database.

Since the province’s announcement, she said her team has been cut down by half. Her contract ends this fall and she said she still doesn’t know if her contract will be extended. AHS has also advised contact tracers to look at other job postings within the organization.

“They’re encouraging us to go elsewhere. That’s really dangerous to me,” she said. “Do you think that if we lose all our tracers, and they go work elsewhere, do you think they’re going to be able to come back with all the shortages that we’re seeing everywhere else?”

Almost 80 per cent of the current active cases are linked to COVID-19 variants, most are linked to the Delta variant, Rachel said. Delta causes more infections and spreads faster than early forms of the novel coronavirus.

“I’m telling you right now, at 1,200 new cases a day, normally, there would be one or two more close contacts that end up being positive that follow from that. The (case) numbers that we’re seeing in the news, you can triple it,” she said.

The only reason tracers are able to keep up with their workload now is because they are only collecting basic information, she said. Unless there’s an outbreak, the province isn’t tracing cases in schools, in workplaces, or close contacts.

“I think a lot of people are going to get sick. There are going to be a lot of unnecessary illnesses, and we’re going to really overwhelm the ER and ICU,” she said. “We just threw the masks away and said, ‘To hell with everything.'”

On Friday, AHS CEO and president Dr. Verna Yiu said the province is postponing some non-urgent surgeries and procedures across all five health zones. In Alberta, 95 per cent of ICU beds are occupied, Yiu confirmed.

bgervais@postmedia.com
Twitter: @BrittGervaisAB