Evidence Indicates There’s Another Planet the Size of Mars in Our Solar System

If it's there, the rumored Planet 9 may have company.

By  Brad Bergan

Sep 27, 2021

A rogue planet with a flash of an eclipsed star, and a cosmic background.




             

Our solar system has more surprises in store.

The eight official planets aren't the only ones that survived the formation of our solar system, and the Earth might have another sister planet lurking somewhere in interstellar space, in a "third zone" of the solar system, according to a recent paper published in the journal Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

This means that, if Planet 9 is out there, it might have a Mars-sized company.

Computer simulations hint at a Mars-sized twin beyond Neptune

The new study examines data from the mysterious third zone of the solar system, and suggests that, beyond Neptune, there might be something the size of Mars lurking in the darkness. Modern astronomy categorizes all known planets in our solar system into three types. You're on one of the first, since the Earth is one of the four rocky inner planets that orbit the sun within the main asteroid belt that separates Mars and Jupiter. The second group is the outer solar system, and is also the realm of the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These accumulated unspeakably large quantities of gas and ice around what scientists suspect are rocky cores.

But the third region of our solar system lies beyond what we typically include in casual conversation about the local planets. Out beyond Neptune is the realm of dwarf planets like Pluto, Sedna, Eris, and even tinier bodies, like comets. But this is all wrong, according to the researchers of the recent study. "It seems unlikely that nature created four giant planet cores, but then nothing else larger than dwarf planents in the outer solar system," said Kathryn Volk from the University of Arizona and Brett Gladman, of the University of British Columbia, in the study. To fully grasp how the solar system came into being, scientists employ computer simulations to see if special initial conditions or events might evolve into a solar system like ours.

The hypothetical rogue world isn't Planet 9

Multiple models that most closely approximate our real solar system start with at least one extra planet in a baffling position, according to Volk and Gladman. These models hint that the outer solar system used to house one or more rocky planets, roughly the size of Earth or Mars, in addition to the colossal gas and ice giants we now have. But over time, the interaction of these rocky wanderers with the outsized gravity fields of the gas giants nudged them into a far-out orbit, or even on an exit trajectory, away from the entire neighborhood. "I agree that it is likely that a Mars planet was there initially," said Planetary Scientist David Nesvorny of the Southwest Research Institute, in an Inverse report. "[B]ut the question is whether it has survived and if we have any evidence for it."

"Our simulations found that in about half of the cases" of simulated solar systems like ours, "all of the Mars-scale planets in the outer solar system were ejected into interstellar space," said Astrophysicist Scott Tremaine, of the Institute for Advanced Study, in the Inverse report. "But in the remaining half, one 'rogue' planet was left in an orbit similar to that of the detached population of the Kuiper Belt objects." If this novel rogue planet exists, it won't be Planet 9, which is a much larger body some scientists suspect exists even farther in space beyond Neptune. But while more modeling could help us pin down where the Mars-sized rogue is lurking, ultimately the only proof will be: To find it.

COPS SACRFICE SPIRIT ANIMAL
Rare white stag killed by police after running through Merseyside streets

FOR THE SAKE OF AUTOMOBILES

Maya Wolfe-Robinson
Mon, 27 September 2021

A rare white stag was killed by police on Sunday evening after it spent hours running through a Merseyside town, despite animal welfare experts urging officers to let it find its way home.

Merseyside police say that they were unable to find an organisation who could help safely recover the deer from Bootle, and so were forced to euthanise it out of concerns for motorists.

The first report of the white deer – which, according to the British Deer Society are normally of the unusual fallow species – was made to police at 8.45am on Sunday morning, before it was spotted on several busy roads in Bootle town centre.


Paula, an NHS worker from Crosby, filmed the stag galloping past a car showroom. She told the Liverpool Echo that she spotted the stag fleeing a police officer on her way into work.

“It must have been quite scared and I genuinely have no idea where it was from,” she said.

Police said they later secured it inside an industrial estate, where it was assessed by a vet who monitored its welfare and attempted to help the armed response officers to control it. A spokesperson for Merseyside police said they were unable to find assistance to safely recover the deer – despite making “several inquiries” – and “as the hours went by the deer became more distressed”.

The RSPCA said that it advised officers to leave the deer to make its own way home, explaining that deer sightings in urban areas are becoming increasingly common.

But the police said that there was “no option to let the deer wander as it could be a danger to motorists and members of the public in the area”, particularly as the hours of darkness approached.

“As a result a decision was made in the early evening to euthanise the deer,” Merseyside police said in a statement.

The RSPCA said that where public safety is a consideration, it is a decision for the police. One option could have been to sedate the animal, and move it to a safer place to be released, but that would have taken some caution in a public area to avoid the deer being startled and running when hit by the anaesthetic dart. “This could create a bigger public safety and animal welfare issue,” the animal welfare organisation added.

A spokesperson said: “Although deer traditionally live in forests, moors and parkland, they are becoming more common in urban environments across the UK. We do see deer in city centres – they usually live in large park areas but will follow canal paths and tramlines to make their way in and out of the cities.”

Videos and photos appeared on social media showing the white deer, going through a park and then on an industrial estate.

In 2019, a deer was spotted in Manchester city centre, running through the busy Oxford Road area and swimming in the canal. An RSPCA spokesperson at the time said it managed to get free and run away from officers.

A 1988 Climate Warning Was Mostly Right

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- On a 98-degree June day in Washington in 1988, physicist James Hansen told a U.S. Senate committee that “global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.” Hansen, at the time director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, elaborated that “with 99% confidence we can state that the warming during this time period is a real warming trend.”

Those assertions made headlines around the world, and can be said to have started the public and political discussion over global warming (the scientific discussion was already well under way) that continues to this day. They also caught Hansen some flak from fellow climate scientists who thought he had expressed himself with more certainty than warranted. Indeed, the scientific paper on which Hansen based his testimony, which he wrote with seven co-authors and was published that August in the Journal of Geophysical Research, cautioned that it was not yet certain that the warm temperatures of the 1980s were the product of the greenhouse effect.

Still, the paper did speculate that it might become clear soon, and provided detailed forecasts (which Hansen also discussed briefly in his Senate testimony) of how much global temperatures could be expected to rise under three emissions scenarios. The annual forecasts ran through 2019, meaning that we can now judge in full how on-target they were.

As benchmarks I’ve used the global land-ocean temperature averages maintained by NASA’s Goddard Institute, where Hansen held the top job until 2013 — but also, because I know I will get emails from readers asserting that NASA can’t be trusted, those of Berkeley Earth. The latter organization was founded in 2010 by a University of California at Berkeley physicist who was somewhat dubious of the NASA data (and got a big chunk of its early funding from the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, which has a history of backing climate-change skeptics). As you can see below, its temperature estimates, while lower than NASA’s, aren’t much lower.

Scenario A, which assumed that the greenhouse-gas emissions-growth rates of the 1970s and 1980s would “continue indefinitely,” turns out to have been way off on the high side. Scenario C, which envisioned “draconian emission cuts,” is way off on the low side. But Scenario B, in which greenhouse-gas emissions-growth rates slowed “such that the annual increase of the greenhouse climate forcing remains approximately constant at the present level” is definitely in the ballpark.

In 1988, Hansen and his co-authors termed Scenario B “perhaps the most plausible of the three cases,” so it does seem like the fairest one to judge them by. Scenario B turns out to have quite accurately predicted the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide through 2019. Its temperature forecast nonetheless came out a little high because it overestimated the atmospheric concentrations of methane — which have proved extremely hard to predict — and of chlorofluorocarbons, which began to level off and then decline more quickly than pretty much anyone expected after the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

Correct for that, as Zeke Hausfather of UC Berkeley, the Breakthrough Institute and Berkeley Earth and his three co-authors did in a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters last month,(2) and “the results are consistent with the observations.” That is, the model used by Hansen and his co-authors in 1988 did a good job of predicting how much warming would be caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, it just failed to predict with perfect accuracy what those concentrations would be. Hausfather and his co-authors made similar corrections to 15 other detailed warming forecasts made from 1970 through 2007 and found that all but three had proved “skillful” in extrapolating temperature changes from greenhouse-gas concentrations. As Gavin Schmidt, Hansen’s successor at the Goddard Institute and one of Hausfather’s co-authors, put it in a blog post summarizing the results: “Gosh, maybe we know something about climate after all!”

It should be noted that seven or eight years ago, after global average temperatures had barely risen for a decade, these warming forecasts weren’t looking quite so accurate. “People were thinking, ‘Something’s going on,’” Schmidt recalled when I paid him a visit this week, with climate scientists trotting out alternative explanations ranging from decadal ocean variability to tiny particles (aka aerosols) in the atmosphere to problems with the temperature record. “Then you have the three warmest years on record in a row, and everybody stops talking about it because it’s stupid.”

I happen to really dislike it when people use the phrase “the science is settled” in reference to climate change. Science, if it’s actually science, should never be entirely settled. Researchers seem to be very much in the early stages of figuring out how to predict greenhouse-gas-induced changes in the climate beyond just increases in global average temperatures — and some of those changes may simply not be predictable. But it’s now been 124 years since Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius hypothesized that higher atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations would bring higher global temperatures, and 50 years since scientists began building detailed climate models around that notion. When James Hansen said in 1988 that he was virtually certain that humans were warming the earth’s climate “he went out on a limb,” Schmidt says now. That limb, however, has yet to break.


To contact the author of this story: Justin Fox at justinfox@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stacey Shick at sshick@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He was the editorial director of Harvard Business Review and wrote for Time, Fortune and American Banker. He is the author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

New approach to recycling plastic could change the way we reuse waste

Rob Waugh
·Contributor
Mon, 27 September 2021

Trucks deal with a mountain of rubbish in Bangkok - but could a new recycling method offer hope? (Getty)

Every person will discard two metric tonnes of plastic in their lifetime.

But a study has suggested a new way to deal with plastic waste.

The Swiss research suggests a proof-of-concept idea of a new approach to plastic recycling – inspired by the way nature 'recycles' the components of organic polymers present in our environment.

Proteins inside organic polymers are constantly broken down into parts and reassembled into different proteins.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) believe that this approach could work with plastics too.

Researcher Simone Gavieri wrote: "A protein is like a string of pearls, where each pearl is an amino acid. Each pearl has a different colour, and the colour-sequence determines the string structure and consequently its properties.

"In nature, protein chains break up into the constituent amino acids and cells put such amino acids back together to form new proteins, that is they create new strings of pearls with a different colour sequence."

Read more: Why economists worry that reversing climate change is hopeless

Professor Francesco Stellacci, of EPFL, said: "We selected proteins and divided them up into amino acids. We then put the amino acids into a cell-free biological system that assembled the amino acids back into new proteins with entirely different structures and applications."

Giaveri and Stellacci successfully transformed silk into a protein used in biomedical technology.

Stellacci said: "Importantly, when you break down and assemble proteins in this way, the quality of the proteins produced is exactly the same of that of a newly-synthesised protein. Indeed, you are building something new."

Stellacci said it would take time to develop a working method to recycle plastic in this way.

Read more: A 1988 warning about climate change was mostly right

He added: "It will require a radically different mindset. Polymers are strings of pearls, but synthetic polymers are made mostly of pearls all of the same colour and when the colour is different the sequence of colour rarely matters.

"Furthermore, we have no efficient way to assemble synthetic polymers from different colour pearls in a way that controls their sequence."

Research this year found that thousands of rivers, including smaller ones, are responsible for most of the plastic pollution worldwide.

Previously, scientists believed that 10 large rivers – such as the Yangtze in China – were responsible for the bulk of plastic pollution.

Read more: Melting snow in Himalayas drives growth of green sea slime visible from space

In fact, 1,000 rivers – just 1% of all rivers worldwide – carry most of the plastic to the sea.

The research means that areas like tropical islands are likely to be among the worst polluters, the researchers said.

The study by non-profit organisation The Ocean Cleanup used measurements and modelling to work out that 1,000 rivers worldwide are behind 80% of plastic emissions.

90-Year-Old Fisherman Collects Plastic Pollution From the Ocean for Two Decades

By Claudicet Pena on September 26, 2021


By looking at Wayan Nyo’s eyes and the wrinkles in his face, you can tell almost immediately that he has an interesting story to share. He is a 90-year-old fisherman who lives in Indonesia and is part of a beautiful culture that is extremely passionate about protecting the ocean.

Throughout his childhood and the decades that followed, Nyo spent his most of his life on the waters. Each day, he would gather his nets and mesh sacks to set his small boat on the coast of Bali. There he would listen to the waves, read the weather, track fish, and learn the rhythm of the ocean currents. The turquoise waters used to be a prime location for fishing; however, for the past 21 years, the fisherman has devoted his life to collecting what feels like a never-ending amount of plastic pollution from the ocea

San Francisco-based director Dana Frankoff decided to document Nyo's cause in a short film titled Voice Above Water. The documentary gives voice to the story of how one human is using his resources to make a difference. The film depicts the journey of one man who turned his trade of fishing into one of cleaning the ocean so that future generations to come will once again be able to fish and feed their families and community.

The short yet powerful film has won a comprehensive list of several awards so far, including the recent First Time Film at the 2021 International Ocean Film Festival and Best Short Documentary at the 2021 San Luis Obispo Film Festival. Frankoff, who is just as passionate about marine conservation and promoting sustainable changes in the world, says that Wayan’s story is a “reminder that if we all play our part we can accomplish something much greater than ourselves.” The fisherman and his commitment to combating water pollution in Indonesia is undoubtedly inspiring.

Watch the trailer for Voice Above Water, a short documentary about a 90-year-old man who turned his trade of fishing into one of cleaning up ocean pollution.

Thunberg slams 30 years of climate 'empty words'

Issued on: 28/09/2021 - 

Speaking just weeks ahead of a crunch UN climate summit in Glasgow, Thunberg accused governments of "shamelessly congratulating themselves" for insufficient emissions cutting pledges and finance promises 

MIGUEL MEDINA AFP

Milan (AFP)

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg opened a youth climate summit on Tuesday by lambasting three decades of government inaction, accusing world leaders of having "drowned" future generations with "empty words and promises".

Speaking weeks ahead of a crunch UN climate summit in Glasgow, Thunberg accused governments of "shamelessly congratulating themselves" for insufficient pledges to cut emissions and promises of financing.

Hurling leaders' own words back at them, the 18-year-old laid bare to delegates at the Youth4Climate event in Milan the gap between words and action.

"There is no Planet B, there is no planet blah, blah, blah," Thunberg said to warm applause.

Echoing a speech by COP26 summit host Boris Johnson in April, she continued: "This is not about some expensive politically correct dream of bunny hugging, or build back better, blah blah blah, green economy, blah blah blah, net zero by 2050, blah blah blah, climate neutral blah blah blah.

"This is all we hear from our so-called leaders: words, words that sound great but so far have led to no action, our hopes and dreams drowned in their empty words and promises," said Thunberg.

The three-day event in Milan gathers some 400 youth activists from nearly 200 countries, who will submit a joint declaration to a ministerial meeting at the end of the week as a lead-in to COP26 in November in Glasgow.

"Our leaders' intentional lack of action is a betrayal of all present and future generations," said Thunberg.

She said governments had been "shamelessly congratulating themselves while still failing to come up with the long overdue funding" for developing nations.

COP26 is being billed as vital for the continued viability of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which saw countries commit to limit global temperature rises to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius.

The landmark deal aims for a safer warming cap of 1.5C.

But six years after the accord was struck, countries still haven't agreed how it will work in practice.

Among long-overdue issues still outstanding for COP26 is how each country's carbon cuts will be counted, as well as how the fight against climate change is financed.

Nations already suffering from extreme floods, droughts and storms supercharged by rising seas have called on developed countries at COP26 to make good on a decade-old promise to provide $100 billion each year to help them recover and adapt.

Host Britain says it wants the Glasgow summit to keep the 1.5C temperature goal in play, specifically by seeking a global agreement to phase out coal power.

However the United Nations this month said that the latest round of country emissions reductions plans still puts Earth on course for a "catastrophic" 2.7C of warming.

© 2021 AFP

Youth call time on decades of 'empty' climate promises


Issued on: 28/09/2021 - 

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate called for urgent climate action, as well as funding for vulnerable countries to help them adapt

 Miguel MEDINA AFP

Milan (AFP)

Youth activists on Tuesday called out decades of "empty words and promises" from world leaders as they demanded action -- and money -- to tackle global warming ahead of a pivotal UN climate summit.

With just weeks to go before the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, seen as crucial to the viability of the Paris climate agreement, campaigners used the opening of a three-day event in Milan to lambast governments' failure to address the crisis.

Swedish wunderkind Greta Thunberg slammed governments for "shamelessly congratulating themselves" for insufficient pledges to cut emissions and promises of financing.

Hurling leaders' own words back at them, the 18-year-old laid bare to delegates at the Youth4Climate event the gap between words and action.

"There is no Planet B, there is no planet blah, blah, blah," Thunberg said to warm applause.

Echoing a speech by COP26 summit host Boris Johnson in April, she continued: "This is not about some expensive politically correct dream of bunny hugging, or build back better, blah blah blah, green economy, blah blah blah, net zero by 2050, blah blah blah, climate neutral blah blah blah.

"This is all we hear from our so-called leaders: words, words that sound great but so far have led to no action, our hopes and dreams drowned in their empty words and promises," said Thunberg.

Some 400 youth activists from nearly 200 countries gathered in Milan will submit a joint declaration to a ministerial meeting at the end of the week, as a lead-in to COP26 in November in Glasgow.

"Our leaders' intentional lack of action is a betrayal of all present and future generations," said Thunberg.

She said governments had been "shamelessly congratulating themselves while still failing to come up with the long overdue funding" for developing nations.

Ugandan youth activist Vanessa Nakate echoed Thunberg's exasperation at leaders' lack of urgency.

"How long must children sleep hungry because their farms have been washed away, because their crops have been dried up because of the extreme weather conditions?" she asked attendees.

"How long are we to watch them die of thirst and gasp for air in the floods? World leaders watch this happen and allow this to continue."

- 'Show us the money' -

COP26 is vital for the effective implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which saw countries commit to limit global temperature rises to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius.

The landmark deal aims for a safer warming cap of 1.5C.

But six years after the accord was struck, countries still haven't agreed how it will work in practice.

Among long-overdue issues still outstanding for COP26 is how each country's carbon cuts will be counted, as well as how the fight against climate change is financed.

Nations already suffering from extreme floods, droughts and storms supercharged by rising seas have called on developed countries at COP26 to make good on a decade-old promise to provide $100 billion each year to help them recover and adapt.

COP26 President Alok Sharma told delegates on Tuesday that the summit was a chance for nations to make good on their finance pledges

 MIGUEL MEDINA AFP

COP26 President Alok Sharma told delegates on Tuesday that the summit was a chance for "developed countries to make good on their promise of money to support developing countries dealing with rising impact of climate change".

Host Britain says it wants the Glasgow summit to keep the 1.5C temperature goal viable, specifically by seeking a global agreement to phase out coal power.

However the United Nations this month said that the latest round of country emissions reductions plans still puts Earth on course for a "catastrophic" 2.7C of warming.

"It's time for our leaders to stop talking and start acting, it's time for the polluters to pay, it's time to keep promises," said Nakate.

"No more empty promises, no more empty summits, no more empty conferences. It's time to show us the money."

© 2021 AFP

The Tech Billionaires Taking On Climate Change

By Felicity Bradstock - Sep 27, 2021, 

• Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos have all made commitments in 2021 to fund the fight against climate change
• Some of these tech billionaires are coming under fire for failing to invest in the most effective areas
• Meanwhile, the ‘space billionaires’ are being called out for the high-emissions nature of their favorite hobbies

In recent years we’ve seen several tech billionaires back environmentally friendly innovations in a bid to tackle climate change, but will these famous innovators really be the ones to bring about change?  Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other leading entrepreneurs often make the headlines for their ground-breaking technologies, unexpected ventures, and charitable donations, frequently making investments as large as some countries’ GDPs. More recently, it seems these billionaires are eager to lead the fight against climate change and provide the technology and research necessary to make a difference.

This September, Gates announced that he had secured over $1 billion dollars in funding from seven U.S. firms to combat climate change. The funding from Microsoft, BlackRock, General Motors, American Airlines, Boston Consulting Group, Bank of America, and ArcelorMittal will be managed by his organization Breakthrough Energy, which he established in 2016.

Gates hopes to drive a “new industrial revolution” through the organization’s Breakthrough Energy Catalyst project, to help the world avoid a climate disaster through investment in carbon capture, green hydrogen, long-duration energy storage, and sustainable aviation fuel. “Half the technology needed to get to zero emissions either doesn’t exist yet or is too expensive for much of the world to afford,” Gates stated, suggesting “Catalyst is designed to change that and provide an effective way to invest in our clean technology future.”

This has been the focus of 2021, with several other tech billionaires getting involved in the battle. Last year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledged $10 billion to launch his Bezos Earth Fund, which will provide grants to scientists battling climate change. He encouraged other companies to donate to the fund stating that “Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” and “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.”

Related: Oil Prices Near $80 On Tight Global Supply

And on the same day Gates announced his new funding, Bezos revealed that his Earth Fund would be contributing $1 billion to conserve and protect vulnerable areas of the world. The announcement included statements of support from world leaders such as UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed; British Prime Minister Boris Johnson; Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez; and U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry. 

At the beginning of 2021, Elon Musk joined the ranks of climate change leaders by offering $100 million to the person or organization that could create the most effective carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. Elon Musk’s Tesla has led the EV market for years, but now it appears he is also interested in looking for innovative new ways to tackle climate change beyond his EVs.

These kinds of grand public gestures could provide the impetus that the world needs to act on climate change, following recent reports from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Organisation, which both suggest that an energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives is imminently necessary and not happening fast enough to prevent a crisis. 

But how meaningful are these efforts and will they receive the backing needed from governments and companies around the world to truly tackle climate change? 

But can billionaires really beat climate change?

Several experts suggest that the recent efforts of some of the world’s richest men may be misplaced. For example, San Francisco-based non-profit Project Drawdown reminds us that twelve of the top 20 climate solutions relate to either agriculture or forests, and while Bezos, Gates, and Musk focus on new technologies, funds may be better placed in reforestation projects and agricultural change. Many leading climate change organizations agreed, suggesting that funds should be spread across both new technologies and nature-based solutions.

At the same time, it doesn’t help that these tech billionaires are spending far larger amounts on personal projects that seem to run counter to their climate goals. For example, Musk has recently come under fire for his space ambitions regarding his $74 billion Space X program. Meanwhile, Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic adventures received similar criticism, with Bezos’ trip to space being described as “a spectacle of grotesque wealth.”

When the launch of just one rocket produces as much as 300 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which can remain in the earth’s upper atmosphere for years, the hypocrisy of these apparent ‘climate saviors’ engaging in a space race is clear for all to see. Carbon emissions from rockets are currently substantially lower than those that come from the aviation industry, but making space travel commercial could soon change that.

While the efforts of these tech billionaires to make meaningful change in the battle against climate change are commendable, their pet projects appear to be undermining any climate strategies that they may be pursuing. As for how they choose to invest that funding, questions remain over whether these billions could be better spent elsewhere.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

French Greens choose Yannick Jadot as their candidate for 2022 presidential election

Issued on: 28/09/2021 - 

Yannick Jadot in Nantes, France, on June 24, 2021. 

© Sebastien Salom-Gomis, AFP

Green voters on Tuesday chose former Greenpeace activist Yannick Jadot to be their candidate for France’s April 2022 presidential election.

Jadot won the vote by a narrow margin, winning 51.03% of the votes against 48.97% for the self-styled radical Sandrine Rousseau.

The 54-year old EU lawmaker wants France to devote 20 billion euros ($23.43 billion) per year to the transition to a more environment-friendly economy, progressively end intensive animal farming and establish a new wealth tax.

Born in a village in northern France, Jadot worked a few years for NGOs in Burkina Faso and Bangladesh before getting increasingly involved in politics back home while heading several environment-focused NGOs, including the French branch of Greenpeace.

The French Greens lack the firepower of their German counterparts and no opinion poll sees Jadot as a serious challenger to President Emmanuel Macron.

But the question is whether the self-styled consensus builder, who wants to attract voters beyond the remits of the small Greens party, could emerge as a leader of the fragmented French Left - for that election and beyond - and weigh on the political debate.

(REUTERS)

Sudbury

33 of 39 miners stuck in Vale mine in northern Ontario are now out, rest expected by midday

Elevator system at Totten Mine was damaged Sunday afternoon, leaving miners trapped

CBC News · Posted: Sep 28, 2021 

Update on mine rescue operation in Worthington, Ont.
Most of the miners who were trapped underground at the Totten Mine in Worthington, Ont., near Sudbury, are now back on the surface, says Shawn Rideout of Ontario Mine Rescue. The operation continues to free those still underground. 7:07

Thirty-three of the 39 miners trapped underground at a mine in northern Ontario have climbed to the surface, and the rest are expected to join them by midday Tuesday.

The workers have been stuck in Totten Mine near Sudbury since Sunday afternoon, when an accident damaged the elevator, known as a cage, that normally carries them in and out of the mine.

The workers were stuck at levels of between about 914 and 1,219 metres underground. Toronto's CN Tower, in comparison, is about 550 metres in height.

Mining company Vale announced on Monday night it was "relieved and delighted to see these individuals returning to surface safe and sound."

Vale spokesperson Danica Pagnutti spoke to one of the miners.

"He was in good spirits and happy to have some pizza to take home and just looking forward to getting home to his family and relaxing, but generally in really good spirits," she said.

"The miners are all healthy and eager to go home."

AUDIO Vale rescuing 39 employees trapped in Sudbury, Ont., mine since Sunday

PHOTOS Explore Sudbury's Totten Mine with CBC's Morning North

'Light at the end of the tunnel'

Shawn Rideout, who is co-ordinating the rescue effort for Ontario Mine Rescue (OMR), said there's "light at the end of the tunnel" as he expects to have the remaining six on the surface by 11 a.m. ET Tuesday.

"We are taking it slow so that we're not pushing anybody past their energy level," Rideout said. "At this point, they've been underground for more than 48 hours, so we are taking it slow."

The trapped miners are climbing up a series of ladders, some from as far down as 1,200 metres. They will be assisted by OMR officers, one for every miner, and met by medical staff when they reach the surface.

The miners who have already been brought to surface are in good spirits, Rideout said.

"Everybody's doing fine here ... the workers come up, they are obviously happy to see the sunshine. but it's smiles all around and everything's progressing very well."

Vale rescuing 39 employees trapped in Sudbury, Ont., mine since Sunday afternoon

Mon., September 27, 2021,

Vale says it is rescuing 39 employees stuck underground in its Totten Mine in Greater Sudbury in northern Ontario. (Vale - image credit)

Thirty-nine Vale employees have been trapped underground in the Totten Mine in Sudbury, Ont., since Sunday, the company says.

The workers are safe and are currently mobilizing to exit the mine via a secondary egress ladder system, the company said in a news release.

Vale said there was an "incident" at its mine in the western reaches of Greater Sudbury on Sunday afternoon that took the conveyance for transporting employees offline.

The 39 employees working underground at that time immediately went to a refuge station.

Vale said it has been in constant communication with the employees and is doing everything it can to ensure their safety.

More than 24 hours after an incident at a northern Ontario mine trapped them underground, the first of the dozens of miners began returning to the surface late Monday.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

An official with mining company Vale, Gord Gilpin, said in a statement that they were "relieved and delighted to see these individuals returning to surface safe and sound.''

Vale had said earlier in the day that a rescue team had reached the 39 workers, who were in several different ``refuges'' between 900 and 1,200 metres underground at Totten Mine, located about 40 kilometres west of Sudbury, Ont.

No one was injured, and Vale said it expected all 39 employees to return to surface in the coming hours.

The company said the workers became stuck after a scoop bucket being transported underground on Sunday detached and became hung up in the shaft, rendering normal conveyance for transporting employees unavailable.

The employees could still get out, the company said, but it meant they faced a long climb up a secondary egress ladder system with support of Vale's mine rescue team.

The company said the trapped miners had access to food, water and medicine. A spokesman for the United Steelworkers said that some of the trapped miners needed insulin.

Kalem McSween, a spokesman for the province's Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development, said in an email that an inspection team will investigate the incident once the rescue operation is finished.

Manitoba

Long-lost John Lennon interviews from Winnipeg-born journalist go up for auction

Ken Zeilig’s tapes, spanning 91 minutes with Lennon and Yoko Ono, could fetch nearly $53K

Caitlyn Gowriluk · CBC News · Posted: Sep 27, 2021

Ken Zeilig worked as a freelance journalist for decades before his death in 1990. He's pictured here in his studio in the 1980s. (Submitted by Leo Zeilig)

Growing up, Leo Zeilig had always known the story of how his dad once snagged a series of interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the late 1960s.

But it wasn't until recently, while stuck at home during pandemic lockdowns last year, that his sister stumbled across a box tucked away in her Los Angeles basement and they finally discovered what had become of those recordings from their late father, Winnipeg-born freelance journalist Ken Zeilig.

Inside the box were 12 reel-to-reel tapes holding three interviews — 91 minutes — of unaired audio of the iconic couple.

"They were the tapes of the interview of legend," Leo recounted from London.

"This incredible archive, this treasure trove of interviews, was just gathering dust."

The family was able to make digital copies of the recordings to hold on to for sentimental reasons, Leo said.

But the tapes themselves are now set to go to auction this week, where they're expected to fetch between $34,000 and nearly $53,000 CAD, U.K.-based auction house Omega Auctions says on its website.

Martin Zeilig holds up photos of his late brother, Ken Zeilig, whose long-lost interview tapes of John Lennon and Yoko Ono are going up for auction this week. 

(Karen Pauls/CBC)

"This publicity that we're getting for the tapes feels like a real honouring of my father and his work — his extraordinary work and legacy," Leo said.

Ken's younger brother, Martin Zeilig, said he thinks his brother would be relieved to know that someone finally discovered his tapes.

"My hunch is that he would say, 'Finally. Finally, these tapes are going to be heard,'" Martin said in an interview in Winnipeg.
From Winnipeg to the Wedding Album

Martin said his brother was "fiercely proud" of his roots in the Manitoba city, where he grew up in the North End and became a teacher before moving to London and studying journalism and filmmaking.

Ken's work took him across Canada and the world over a span of several decades, including jobs at CBC, Martin said. He died of cancer in Winnipeg in 1990.

Martin said he's glad the unaired tapes are finally going to be shared, and that people will know "it was a journalist who was originally from Winnipeg who did these amazing interviews."

One of the reel-to-reel tapes up for auction is pictured. (Omega Auctions)

Leo said getting to listen to the tapes more than 30 years after his father's death was surreal.

In one of the interviews, he said, his father told the couple how much their Wedding Album, which had just come out, meant to him and his wife at the time — Leo's mother.

"There's this wonderful meeting of the three of them at that point in the interview when they're all expressing their feelings about love and sharing a life of being together," he said.

"And, of course, to hear it about your parents in an interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono is extraordinary."
A 'tenacious' journalist

Ken's family says they're not sure why only a few minutes of audio from the tapes was ever aired anywhere.

They also don't know exactly how the journalist was able to lock down not just one, but three interviews with the famous duo at their home in 1969 and 1970 — right before The Beatles broke up.

Why the Beatles remain relevant 50 years after breaking up

But knowing Ken, they're not surprised, either.

"My father was exceptionally tenacious, so if he wanted an interview, [he'd] get it. And he would use all his contacts to get it," Leo said.

\Musician John Lennon and artist Yoko Ono perform in their first public appearance as the Plastic Ono Band at Toronto's Varsity Stadium in September 1969. 

(The Associated Press)

It's how Martin remembers his brother, too.

"He had those qualities to make people want to talk to him. He was charming. He was very forceful, but not in a sort of hostile way. And he was interested. He was very interested in people," Martin said.

"He had this capacity to draw things out of people that they might not otherwise say to anyone else."
More auctions possible

Ken's family says they're interested to see who goes home with the tapes after they're auctioned off.

And with the money from the impending sale, Leo said he hopes they'll be able to digitize and auction off the originals of more of his father's "astonishing" back catalogue of recently discovered interviews.

Handwritten lyrics for Beatles' song Hey Jude sell for $910K at auction
When the world learned that John Lennon was gone

"Every major cultural, political figure of the 1960s, '70s and '80s, my father interviewed," he said.

"It's incredibly rich, from Alfred Hitchcock to Audrey Hepburn."

Ken Zeilig's interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono will be auctioned on Tuesday.


The tapes of some long-forgotten interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono done by a Canadian journalist are going up for auction in the U.K. The 91 minutes of audio recording could fetch more than $50,000. 2:32

Long Lost John: unheard Lennon tape goes on sale in Denmark


Issued on: 28/09/2021 

Plucky Danish students braved a snowstorm in remote Jutland to snare an exclusive with Lennon and Yoko Ono for their school paper - AFP/File

Copenhagen (AFP)

A 1970 tape of John Lennon singing a hitherto unheard song called "Radio Peace" and expressing frustration at his Beatles image to a group of Danish schoolboys goes under the hammer on Tuesday in Copenhagen.

The 33-minute tape was recorded on January 5, 1970 when the former Beatle spent winter in a remote corner of Jutland in western Denmark with his wife Yoko Ono.

Back then four eager boys, writing for their high school newspaper, braved a snowstorm in the hope of interviewing their idol.

They clinched the interview. The topics ranged from the couple's peace campaign, the Beatles, Lennon's hair and his frustration with his image as part of the "Fab Four".

Lennon and Ono were famous for staging lie-ins and singing songs of peace as the Vietnam War raged.

"We went into the living room and saw John and Yoko sitting on the sofa, it was fantastic. We sat down with them and were quite close to each other," Karsten Hojen, one of the tape's owners, told AFP.

The sellers say Yoko Ono herself could buy the tape AFP/File

"I was sitting next to Yoko Ono and John Lennon was sitting next to Yoko and we talked, we had a good time," said Hojen, who is now 68.

Lennon and his wife arrived in Denmark in December 1969 to sort out the future of Ono's five-year-old daughter Kyoko, who was living with her father in northern Jutland.

By then, the Beatles had recorded their last album, Abbey Road, and even though it was not official, the group had parted ways.

- For a museum or Yoko? -

Although Lennon and Ono spent their first week in Denmark incognito, the press found out and the singer organised a news conference that coincided with the first day of the school term.

Hojen and his friends convinced the headmaster to let them skip class to talk peace and music with the singer, a few months before the Beatles officially disbanded.

The cassette will go under the hammer along with Polaroid photos of the schoolboys and John and Yoko 

Ida Marie Odgaard Ritzau Scanpix/AFP

Hojen and his friends said they decided to part with the audio cassette because they could not imagine sharing it among their numerous children.

"We would be happy if a museum was interested, or why not Yoko Ono herself?" the cultural consultant said.

The recording is of decent quality.

"You have to sit back and take some time to listen to it and hope for the best," said Alexa Bruun Rasmussen, director of branding at Bruun Rasmussen Auction House which is handling the sale.

"They actually play 'Give Peace a Chance', but with different words," she said.

The recording also includes the unreleased song "Radio Peace", and is "heartfelt" and "unique", Bruun Rasmussen said, adding that the tape and photos could fetch up to 40,000 euros ($46,000).

"John Lennon is talking to young schoolboys, they share the passion of the peace message. And it comes across clearly that there's a connection between them," she said.

Polaroid pictures of the meeting will also be auctioned with the tape

 Ida Marie Odgaard Ritzau Scanpix/AFP

Although Hojen has recounted that winter day in detail to his children and grandchildren, he will no longer have any trace of it after the sale as the owners have not digitised the recording.

© 2021 AFP

1970s unpublished John Lennon recording to be auction in Denmark

• An unpublished 1970 audio recording of John Lennon will go under the hammer in Copenhagen on 28 September.
• The recording was taken by four men who were teenagers when they met The Beatles' singer, who was spending part of the 1969-1970 winter in a small town on Denmark's west coast.
• The asking price for the 33-minute recording has been estimated at between 27 000 and 40 000 euros (R450 000 - R670 000).

A 1970 audio recording of John Lennon singing a hitherto unpublished song during a visit to Denmark will go under the hammer in Copenhagen on 28 September, the auction house said Tuesday.

The asking price for the 33-minute recording has been estimated at between 27 000 and 40 000 euros (R450 000 - R670 000).

It has been put up for sale by four men who were teenagers when they met The Beatles' singer, who was spending part of the 1969-1970 winter in a small town on Denmark's west coast.

"The tape is totally unique because it's a conversation. It took place after a press conference with the four schoolboys and some journalists, and John Lennon plays a few songs for them," Alexa Bruun Rasmussen of the Bruun Rasmussen auction house told AFP.

"One of them, Radio Peace, has never been published," she said.

"It's a little piece of Danish history and when we listen to it, we can sense that John Lennon felt cosy in Denmark. He could be left alone and just be," she said.

At the end of December 1969, Lennon visited Denmark with Yoko Ono to spend time with Ono's daughter from another relationship, Kyoko, who was living with her father in northern Jutland at the time.

The visit, which lasted several weeks, went largely unnoticed at first. But once his presence was discovered, the star called a press conference.

Due to a series of unforeseeable events and bad weather, the four high school students ended up interviewing Lennon after the press conference, in an informal setting.

"I believe they were experiencing 'hygge'," the currently on-trend Danish art de vivre of making everyday life cosy and convivial, joked Bruun Rasmussen.

During the interview, conducted just months before The Beatles broke up, the teens were mainly interested in Lennon's peace activism.

"With the auction, they want to pass on the message John Lennon stood for," Bruun Rasmussen said.

She noted the "old-fashioned" charm of the recording, which is being sold with photos of the meeting and the issue of the school newspaper featuring the interview.

"To listen to the 33 minutes of the tape you need an old-fashioned cassette player and I guess that nostalgia part will add to its value."

Lennon was shot dead by an apparently delusional gunman, Mark David Chapman, who had earlier asked for an autograph, in New York in 1980.

Coolant leak 'likely' sparked giant Tesla battery fire in Australia
Issued on: 28/09/2021 - 

It took firefighters three days to bring the blaze under control after a fire broke out in a 13-tonne lithium 'Megapack' battery at the Geelong site 

Handout FIRE RESCUE VICTORIA/AFP/File

Sydney (AFP)

A three-day blaze that completely incinerated two giant Tesla batteries at a vast energy storage site in Australia was probably sparked by a coolant leak, safety regulators said Tuesday.

The fire broke out on July 30 in a 13-tonne lithium "Megapack" battery, which is the size of a shipping container, and then spread to a second battery at the site near Geelong, in Victoria state southwest of Australia's second city Melbourne.

It took firefighters three days to bring under control. No injuries were reported.

"The most likely root cause of the incident was a leak within the Megapack cooling system that caused a short circuit that led to a fire in an electronic component," said a technical probe by the safety regulator Energy Safe Victoria.

The fire spread within the first battery and then to the adjacent battery, it said in the review, which relied on a Tesla investigation, an examination of the scene, video footage and data from the incident.

The battery site -- one of the largest globally -- is designed to store energy produced by renewables and send power to the grid.

The state regulator said it had told Telsa that it had "no objection" to work resuming on commissioning the Victoria Big Battery project, built by French renewable energy firm Neoen using Tesla batteries.

Following the technical review, Energy Safe Victoria said it would now determine if there were any safety breaches and, if so, decide on any enforcement action.

The safety regulator said Tesla must provide the final results of its own investigation into why the fire spread to the second battery.

It said both Tesla and Neoen had cooperated in the probe.

The probe found that the first battery to catch fire was in service for 13 hours before being switched to an "offline" mode, which turned off its monitoring system and prevented alarms from being sounded.

It recommended a series of changes to prevent a new fire including checking each battery's cooling system for leaks and improving the alarm and surveillance systems.

Designers were working to "fully mitigate" the risk of fire spreading from one battery to another, it said.

© 2021 AFP