A volcano-induced rainy period made Earth’s climate dinosaur-friendly

New evidence links ancient eruptions to climate changes that let dinos start a climb to dominance

During a 2-million-year-long rainy period in the Late Triassic, known as the Carnian Pluvial Episode (illustrated here), dinosaurs began to grow, diversify and take over.
© DAVIDE BONADONNA


By Megan Sever

SCIENCE NEWS
SEPTEMBER 30, 2021

The biggest beasts to walk the Earth had humble beginnings. The first dinosaurs were cat-sized, lurking in the shadows, just waiting for their moment. That moment came when four major pulses of volcanic activity changed the climate in a geologic blink of an eye, causing a 2-million-year-long rainy spell that coincided with dinos rising to dominance, a new study suggests.

Clues found in sediments buried deep beneath an ancient lake basin in China link the volcanic eruptions with climate swings and environmental changes that created a globe-spanning hot and humid oasis in the middle of the hot and dry Triassic Period, researchers report in the Oct. 5 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. During this geologically brief rainy period 234 million to 232 million years ago, called the Carnian Pluvial Episode, dinosaurs started evolving into the hulking and diverse creatures that would dominate the landscape for the next 166 million years.

Previous research has noted the jump in global temperatures, humidity and rainfall during this time period, as well as a changeover in land and sea life. But these studies lacked detail on what caused these changes, says Jason Hilton, a paleobotanist at the University of Birmingham in England.

So Hilton and his colleagues turned to a several-hundred-meter-long core of lake-bottom sediments drawn from the Jiyuan Basin for answers. The core contained four distinct layers of sediments that included volcanic ash that the team dated to between 234 million and 232 million years ago, matching the timing of the Carnian Pluvial Episode. Within those layers, the team also found mercury, a proxy for volcanic eruptions. “Mercury entered the lake from a mix of atmospheric pollution, volcanic ash and also being washed in from surrounding land that had elevated levels of mercury from volcanism,” Hilton says.

The rock record from 234 million to 232 million years ago, captured in these cores from an ancient lakebed in northern China, shows signs of wet weather almost everywhere. The cores also show evidence of volcanic activity. JING LU

Further evidence for the link between volcanism and environmental change during the Carnian Pluvial Episode came from corresponding layers in the core that showed different types of carbon, indicating four massive releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Finally, microfossils and pollens changed within the same core section, from species that prefer drier climates to ones that tend to grow in warm and humid climates.

The reconstructed history suggests that the volcanic pulses injected huge amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere, says coauthor Jacopo Dal Corso, a geologist at the University of Leeds in England. That boosted temperatures and intensified the hydrologic cycle, enhancing rainfall and increasing runoff into lakes, he says. At the same time, terrestrial plants evolved, with humidity-loving flora becoming predominant. As the rains created wet environments, turtles, large amphibians called metoposaurids — and dinosaurs — began to thrive.

Together, these diverse lines of evidence reveal that the Carnian Pluvial Episode was actually four distinct pulses of significant environmental change — each triggered by massive volcanic eruptions, Dal Corso says.

Pollens, spores and algae collected from the core sample from the Carnian Pluvial Episode reveal a change from more arid-loving plants and animals to more humid-loving plants and animals.PEIXIN ZHANG

The mercury and carbon data together suggest the increase in mercury came from a “major source of volcanism that was capable of impacting the global carbon cycle,” rather than local eruptions, the team writes. That volcanism likely came from the Wrangellia Large Igneous Province eruption in what is now British Columbia and Alaska, which has previously, but tenuously, been linked to the Carnian Pluvial Episode. If true, it means the Wrangellia eruption occurred in pulses, rather than one sustained eruption.

This paper marks the “first time that mercury and carbon isotope data are so well correlated across the Carnian Pluvial Episode,” says Andrea Marzoli, an igneous petrologist at the University of Padua in Italy who has studied Wrangellia but was not involved in this research. “The authors make a strong argument in favor of volcanically induced global climate change pulses.” However, Marzoli notes, “the link to Wrangellia is still weak, simply because we don’t know the age of Wrangellia.”

Alastair Ruffell, a forensic geologist at Queen’s University Belfast in Ireland not involved in this study, agrees, saying he’d like to see more evidence of cause and effect between Wrangellia and the environmental changes. This study offers some of the best proxies and data from terrestrial sources to date, but more terrestrial records of the Carnian Pluvial Episode are needed, he says, to “understand what this actually looked like on the ground.”

The climate changes marked a tipping point for life that couldn’t adjust, and those groups went extinct. Animals like dinosaurs and plants like cycads, says Ruffell, were “waiting in the wings” to seize their opportunity. A similar cycle of volcanic activity and environmental change starting about 184 million years ago may have paved the way for the biggest of all dinos, long-necked sauropods, to lumber into dominance

 (SN: 11/17/20).

Climate change makes Okanagan dam ‘inadequate for managing future floods’

By Kathy Michaels Global News
Posted October 1, 2021 

Okanagan dam is ready to be replaced, say water officials. 

Shelby Thom / Global News

Climate change has sped up the need to replace the Okanagan dam, the organization that offers leadership on water management throughout the valley says.


“As a result of climate change, Okanagan Lake level fluctuates more significantly than in the past and the infrastructure and operating plan are no longer adequate,” the Okanagan Basin Water Board said in a report given to provincial finance officials Wednesday.

Okanagan Lake reaches 22 cm above full pool after ‘relentless’ rain: dam operator – Jun 16, 2020

“In 2017, we had the worst flooding in living memory and in 2021 the lake was nearly the lowest level in its historical range.”

The report goes on to say that both flooding and drought are projected to become much more prevalent in the years to come, causing damage to both infrastructure and the natural environment, also causing harm to the Okanagan Nation Alliance’s efforts to restore sockeye, chinook and kokanee salmon populations.

READ MORE: Review of Okanagan water management needed to prevent flooding, water board says

Drought, the board said in the report, will challenge the agricultural economy and create “conflict between water users.”

The typical lifespan of this infrastructure is 70 to 80 years and the Okanagan dam is more than 60 years old

Flooding issues lead to Okanagan dam questions – Jun 8, 2017

“It is inadequate for managing future floods in its current state, given the increased volume and frequency of floods as a result of climate change and the province of B.C. needs to begin planning for its replacement,” reads the report.

READ MORE: Okanagan’s high snowpack cause for concern as flood season approaches

The board said it would like to see the government allocate $1 million annually for the next five years for a comprehensive review of the Okanagan Lake drainage system. The work would identify flaws in the current operation, and suggest what kind of improvements or new infrastructure are needed to manage the seasonal elevation changes in Okanagan Lake.

Additionally, it would like to see funding to prevent invasion by non-native zebra and quagga mussels and establish a permanent watershed security fund to support the protection of water sources.

Does an ally against climate change lie beneath our feet?

by Nick Klenske, Horizon: The EU Research & Innovation Magazine

Soil test: An agronomist takes notes in the field. Environmental protection, organic 

soil certification, research. Credit: © FCC AQUALIA SA

By enhancing soil's ability to store carbon, the ground we walk on could play an essential role in keeping carbon dioxide out of the air.

If we're going to fight the effects of climate change, we're going to have to get our hands dirty.

"With a huge potential to act as a carbon sink, the soil that sits right under our feet could be at the front lines of climate change," said Dr. Dragutin Protic, CEO of GILab, a company dedicated to developing solutions based on ICT and geoinformatics.

A carbon sink is a reservoir capable of accumulating and storing carbon for an indefinite period. In doing so, it lowers the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

According to Dr. Protic, who cited some recent scientific research, soil has the potential to remove an estimated 1.09 gigatonnes of CO2 per year.

From carbon sink to carbon emitter

Even though soil carbon sequestration appears to be a natural, no-regret solution to mitigating climate change, after decades of poor land management, Europe's soils have been significantly degraded. "Soil degradation leads to a reduction in soil organic matter (SOM), which is where carbon is stored," explained Dr. Protic. "In fact, according to recently published scientific research, nearly half of EU soils now have less than 2 percent SOM."

As a result, instead of capturing carbon, soil is releasing carbon into the air, setting the scene for a climate catastrophe.

"Europe's croplands are losing carbon at a rate of 0.5 percent per year," warned Jean-Francois Soussana, a researcher and vice-chair at INRAE, (France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment), and a member of the Mission Board on Soil Health and Food. "The picture is even more dire for peatlands which, as they are being rapidly drained, release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere."

In an effort to reverse this trend, both Dr. Protic and Soussana are leading efforts to preserve and enhance soil's carbon sequestration capabilities. "Increasing carbon sequestration in soil enhances its resilience to the rapidly changing climate," said Soussana. "It also improves the quality and fertility of agricultural soils, as well as contributing to food security."

Empowering soil sequestration smart farmers

As both researchers point out, storing carbon in soil organic matter requires healthy plants, high-quality soils and, most importantly, smart farmers. "It seems crucial to empower farmers and other stakeholders through effective knowledge creation and sharing," remarked Soussana.

One initiative helping to facilitate this knowledge exchange is the AgriCapture project. Led by Dr. Protic, the project is developing a platform that uses Earth Observation to help farmers and public authorities explore opportunities in regenerative agriculture—a method of producing food that has a positive impact on the environment.

Earth Observation uses remote sensing technologies, such as the EU's Copernicus satellite system, along with various ground-based techniques, to gather information about the Earth's physical, chemical and biological systems. Using this data, the platform will map soil carbon and monitor soil carbon sequestration across Europe.

"This will allow farmers to visually see how implementing regenerative agriculture practices could increase both carbon sequestration and farm profitability," explained Dr. Protic. "It will also allow farmers to monitor their carbon release/capture ratio to ensure that all carbon offsetting goals are being met."

The AgriCapture project is also working to verify and support the implementation of regenerative agricultural practices that, if successful, would result in the certification and generation of 'carbon credits."

"Considering soil's significant potential to act as a carbon sink, regenerative agriculture is a powerful tool for mitigating climate change," said Dr. Protic.

Putting farmers at the vanguard of carbon sequestration

Another initiative using data to drive soil carbon sequestration is CIRCASA. Led by INRAE, the initiative is working to build an integrated soil carbon balance monitoring system and foster international research cooperation on soil carbon.

According to Dr. Soussana, who leads the initiative, by bringing together data from satellites, soil surveys, long-term experiments and CO2 flux measurements, the system will empower farmers to be at the vanguard of soil carbon sequestration.

Beyond simply enabling farmers to monitor soil organic carbon, Soussana says the system can help teach us to create healthy soil by supporting nature-based carbon sequestration. "By ensuring that farmers know exactly how much carbon is being stored in their soil, they will be well positioned to make informed decisions that will lead to both healthy yields and a healthy planet," said Dr. Soussana.

Rehabilitating the carbon sink

Through initiatives like AgriCapture and CIRCASA, Dr. Soussana is confident that Europe will be able to enhance its soils' carbon sequestration levels, thus ensuring that soil remains a carbon sink and not a carbon emitter.

"We really do not have a choice, and we have to act now," stated Soussana. "Without carbon sequestration and the conservation of soils, I don't see a viable route to staying within the +2°C by 2030 as proposed by the Paris Climate Agreement or to achieving the ambitious goals of the European Green Deal."

Laying the foundation for a common EU framework to preserve, protect and restore soil, the Commission is adopting a new Soil Strategy this year.Tropical forest soils capture carbon under elevated nitrogen deposition

More information: New Soil Strategy: ec.europa.eu/environment/news/ … rategy-2021-02-02_en

Provided by Horizon: The EU Research & Innovation Magazine 

Carbon Capture’s Other Dirty Secret: Nowhere To Put It (Part 2 Of 2)

Failure to address CCS problems of magnitude, physics of underground storage, and resultant costs is a policy failure of staggering proportions.

ByMichael Barnard
Published 3 days ago

CLEAN TECHNICA

In Part 1 of this assessment, we saw that the magnitude of CO2 emissions were vastly larger than the largest and best sequestration facilities built to date, and further, that the majority were actually enhanced oil recovery facilities with significant net CO2 emissions end to end. We also saw that there’s significant competition for underground voids suitable to store gases that just want to escape. So much for problems one through three. In Part 2 we cover another geological issue, a basic physics problem with this entire scheme, an environmental problem and, of course, the reality about who is footing the bill. That’s problems 4 through 7.

The fourth problem is subsidence of underground areas where we’ve extracted fossil fuels and other substances. Nature abhors a vacuum, something obvious to Aristotle 24 centuries ago.

California’s great oil gusher image courtesy US Library of Congress

You might remember seeing images like this from the earlier days of oil exploration. Those underground caverns full of oil, gas, and even water were pressurized historically, until we poked holes in them, giving them a place to go. Now they aren’t pressurized in most parts of the world and we have to use increasing amounts of energy to extract the fluids we’ve become addicted to. Subsidence occurs globally wherever we extract things from underground, and subsidence is Nature abhorring that vacuum we’ve created and settling. You might also remember that Jakarta is sinking in large part due to subsidence due to ground water extraction.

When we make big holes in the ground, after a while they are much smaller holes in the ground. It’s as remarkable to think we have room for 2-3x the mass of what we extract underground as it is to think we’re going to put it back in places that are much smaller, or that we are going to create new voids underground sufficient for the scale of the concern.

The fifth problem is the amount of pressure required to accommodate vastly more mass of gas than of the liquids or solids we extracted. Gas is compressible, but you can’t compress it to the density of gas or solids. No matter how much we compress CO2, it will always take up a much larger volume than the gas, oil, coal, or water we extract, and a lot less than the salt in salt cavern we scrape out from underground. At 50 atmospheres of pressure, CO2 has a maximum density of about 157 kg per cubic meter, compared to light crude’s 875 kg per cubic meter or water’s almost a ton per cubic meter. So we’re supposed to put 2-3x the mass of CO2 into collapsing voids that used to contain solids or liquids that were much denser. You can’t make this math work.

But it gets worse. The deeper you go, the hotter things get, about 25 degrees Celsius per kilometer. That’s great for geothermal energy and hotsprings, but the hotter gas is, the less dense it is. Once again, physics. Two kilometers underground is much warmer than the surface, about 50 degrees Celsius on average, and the 157 kg drops to 125 kg at that temperature at 50 bar.

That’s why a massive K cylinder of hydrogen 1.5 meters long weighing 65 kg only contains 0.6 kg of hydrogen.

Gas isn’t dense, but we have created 2-3x the mass of all the fossil fuels we’ve extracted from the earth over the past 300 years, and it’s not like the Earth is some balloon with infinite space underground, unlike the atmosphere, which is a lot more elastic. More pressure equals more energy to compress the gas and an increase in the likelihood of the gas finding an escape route too, all too familiar who has ever filled up a balloon and then let it go to fly around the room. The Aliso Canyon leak didn’t occur because we pushed the “natural” gas out of underground storage, it was under pressure and just needed a path of escape.

The sixth problem is that making new underground caverns for storage usually involves flushing salt out of existing underground salt formations with massive amounts of water. Hundreds of cubic meters of water are pumped down into the ground each hour, often a couple of thousand meters, then hundreds of cubic meters of brine are pumped backed up and discarded. Where the geography allows it, this is done with sea water, but the number of accessible, near surface, and near sea water rock salt formations is diminishing, just as the number of places where you can stick a pipe in the ground and get pressurized crude shooting out has plummeted. In some places, they pump the waste brine back underground somewhere else (oh, look, another subsurface space demand). In others, they mix it with fresh water before discharging it back into freshwater rivers. The brines often contain rather toxic stews of chemicals in additional to what we think of as salt that we might put on our food, and salt is highly problematic in freshwater and on fertile soil regardless. There’s a reason the expression is to salt the earth, and it’s not because it makes things grow better.

All of this comes down to the final problem, which is that CO2 sequestration is very expensive and taxpayers are footing the bill. Drilling down two kilometers to a saline-capped region of rock to pump a measly 27 megatons of CO2 that was created by manufacturing hydrogen cost over a billion USD, 80% of that from the provincial and federal governments, along with over $30 million annually for operations. Equinor has graciously accepted what I estimate to be over a billion USD in tax breaks from Norway to put CO2 it pumped up from underground back underground at its Sleipner facility. The USA is giving enhanced oil operators who are extracting 2-3x the CO2 in the form of unburnt crude $12-$50 for each ton of CO2 that they “sequester” under the new oil and gas subsidy enacted in 2018, and under discussion to enhance it to $175 per ton. In discussion with a representative of Carbon Engineering a couple of years ago at a conference where I lost patience with the gaslighting going on and started questioning the narrative, the representative let slip that they will receive $250 per ton of CO2 from the USA and California for each ton of CO2 they pump underground for enhanced oil recovery at the Permian Basin facility that they are building with Oxy (née Occidental Petroleum).

The combination of failures to address the CO2 sequestration problems of magnitude of emissions, the physics of underground storage at scale, and the resultant costs is truly a policy failure of staggering proportions. It is willful blindness. And where there is willful blindness of this magnitude, it cannot be ascribed to benign ignorance.

US advances plan to protect Nevada flower near lithium project

Reuters | October 1, 2021 

Eriogonum tiehmii flowering heads. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a proposed rule on Friday to list the Tiehm’s buckwheat flower as an endangered species, the latest blow to ioneer Ltd’s plans to build a Nevada lithium mine that would supply the electric vehicle industry.


The move, which had been expected, will start a 60-day period for public comment once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register later this month. A final decision is expected within a year.

Anyone is free to send comments to the agency, which said in a statement that “more information is needed to conduct an economic assessment of potential impacts to the species.”

The endangered species designation would not necessarily block the project, but could impede permitting. Construction had been slated to start this year, with the mine opening by 2023.

The regulatory review reflects the ongoing tension between environmentalists and industry as the United States tries to wean its economy off fossil fuels and go electric.

Australia-based pioneer said it supports the agency’s move and is “highly confident that with a combination of avoidance, propagation and translocation, we can achieve the successful coexistence of Tiehm’s buckwheat and our environmentally significant project.”

The environmental group Center For Biological Diversity has long said the flower – found nowhere else on earth – must be preserved at all costs. The group called Friday’s move a “banner day for native plant conservation.”

The ongoing review has not stopped financing efforts or scared off potential customers, though.

South African miner Sibanye Stillwater Ltd last month bought half of the Nevada project for $490 million.

That deal came after South Korean battery maker Ecopro Co Ltd agreed in June to buy roughly a third of the project’s planned annual output of 7,000 tonnes of lithium.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Mexico gears up for international arbitration, searches for legal counsel
Reuters | October 1, 2021 | 

First Majestic’s La Encantada silver mine in Mexico.

 (Image: First Majestic Silver Corp.)

Mexico’s government has requested bids to hire legal counsel for international arbitration in two upcoming investor-state cases in which Mexico is the defendant and just as another ten cases could also be brought against the country, an official document showed.


The winning bid will advise the government during fiscal year 2022 in investor-state cases brought against Mexico by Canadian miner First Majestic Silver Corp, as well as U.S. oilfield services firms Finley Resources, MWS Management, and Prize Permanent Holdings, according to the Mexican Economy Ministry’s 97-page document outlining its request.

In March, Canadian miner First Majestic said it started legal proceedings against the government of Mexico following a prolonged tax dispute. Mexico has calculated that First Majestic owes 11 billion pesos ($544 million) in delinquent taxes.

The U.S. oilfield services firms also requested international arbitration in March regarding contracts entered into with a unit of Mexican state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex Exploracion y Produccion) in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

The winner of the bid may also provide services in the ten notifications of intent published by Mexico’s General Directorate of Legal Consulting for International Trade (DGCJCI) “if these become international arbitration,” it added.

The public document, which was posted on the Mexico’s e-Procurement system, said it will receive bids until Oct. 14 and that the contract would start from Jan. 1, 2022.

The ten investors that may initiate arbitration proceedings according to DGCJCI include AMERRA Capital Management; Doups Holdings; Sepadeve International; Gonzalo Mora Velarde; Primero Mining Corp; Dal-Tile International and Dal Tile Corporation; Jinlong Dongli Minera Internacional; Tralje International Finance; CMSA B.V. and Contecon Manzanillo; and Coeur Mining.

(By Anthony Esposito and Diego Ore; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Zambia’s Konkola liquidator arrested, calls money-laundering charges “baseless”
Reuters | September 30, 2021 | 8:26 am Intelligence Africa Copper

KCM concentrator. (Image courtesy of Konkola Copper Mines)

The state-appointed provisional liquidator of Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), Milingo Lungu, has been arrested and charged with laundering more than $2 million, Zambia’s money-laundering authority said on Wednesday.


“The money is said to have come into his possession by virtue of being the Provisional Liquidator for Konkola Copper Mines Plc,” the Drug Enforcement Commission, which handles such cases, said.

Lungu called the allegations levelled by the commission “baseless and untrue” in a statement issued by KCM’s corporate affairs department later on Wednesday.

“I welcome the opportunity to clear my name in Court,” Lungu said in the statement. “This will be done following due process and not in the Court of public opinion.”

The commission alleged that Lungu, acting with others, “did engage in theft” involving 110.4 million Zambian kwachas and $250,000 between May 22, 2019 and Aug. 15, 2021, and “obtained money by false pretences” amounting to $2.2 million.

“He has also been charged for money laundering for the said amounts,” the commission said.

Zambia’s previous government handed control of KCM to the provisional liquidator in May 2019, triggering a legal battle with Vedanta Resources, KCM’s parent company.

The government accused Vedanta at the time of failing to honour licence conditions, including promised investment. Vedanta has previously denied KCM broke the terms of its licence.

Lungu has been released on police bond and will appear in court soon, the commission said.

Vedanta declined to comment on the arrest.

(By Chris Mfula and Helen Reid; Editing by Emma Rumney and Timothy Heritage)

Why US nuclear plants are shutting down

Fide sparks anger with ‘gross’ breast enlargement sponsor for women’s chess

Chess governing body derided for ‘misogynistic’ deal

However, record deal welcomed by others in the game

‘Chess has struggled with sexism in the past, and this has done nothing to help prevent that.’

 Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images


Sean Ingle
@seaningle
Fri 1 Oct 2021

For a sport that has struggled to attract female players, the news that chess has just agreed the biggest ever sponsorship deal for the women’s game would usually be universally welcomed.

But the decision of chess’s governing body, Fide, to partner with the breast enlargement company Motiva is facing growing criticism from some female players, who have called the decision “gross” and “misogynistic”.

The new deal was announced earlier this week, with Fide announcing: “The agreement will continue through 2022, a year that has been designated as ‘The Year of Women in Chess’.”

However, several female players, speaking to the popular site Lichess, believe the move is blunder. “Shouldn’t chess – a game reliant on brains rather than breasts – be distancing itself from that kind of reductive and misogynistic line of thinking?” one anonymous female player said. Another was even blunter, calling the deal “gross”.

Those comments were backed by another titled female chess streamer, who told the Guardian: “Fide does not have a strong track record in empowering women and I find it degrading and humiliating that an activity like chess, which is so cognitive, is being sponsored by a company which primarily profits from women’s insecurities. I highly doubt Fide would bring a penis enlargement company to sponsor the men’s World Championship.”

Chess has only 39 female grandmasters out of around 1,300 overall, but in recent years it has done far more to promote the women’s game. The success of the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit has helped, with several top players, presenters and streamers – including Judit Polgar, Jovanka Houska, Jennifer Shahade and Alexandra Botez – also helping to broaden the game’s popularity.


Chess: Carlsen heads for Tour win as Nakamura moonlighting sparks debate

Some players believe Fide’s decision is a sacrifice too far. “I’ve already seen comments online from people saying that they hope prizes for women’s events will now include breast enlargement,” another anonymous titled female player said. “I’ve seen jokes citing specific top players’ names as those who could be improved by it. Chess has struggled with sexism in the past, and this has done nothing to help prevent that.” The players were speaking on condition of anonymity, Lichess said, because they often rely on Fide for invites to tournaments.

However, Fide’s new deal was welcomed by others, including women’s international master Sheila Barth Stanford. “We desperately need a sponsor,” the Norwegian said. “We play for less money than the men, which makes it more difficult to bet on chess. I hope it makes it easier for women to play professionally.”

Fide told the Guardian that it was the single largest corporate sponsorship ever signed specifically for women in chess, and the contract had been discussed by both the management board and the Fide council, “two bodies where women have a wider representation than they do in the chess community as a whole”.

It added: “Fide is not encouraging plastic surgery, but if an adult freely makes this choice, our organisation endorses Motiva, a company that has demonstrated its strong commitment towards women.”

‘It’s about brains, not breasts’: Chess bosses blasted after announcing breast enlargement sponsorship deal for women’s game

2 Oct, 2021  RT

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FIDE announced a new sponsorship deal for women’s chess. © Getty Images / Reuters

Chess governing body FIDE has faced anger from female players after announcing a major new sponsorship deal for the women’s game with a company that specializes in breast implants.

FIDE issued a carefully-worded PR release towards the end last month trumpeting the deal with Establishment Labs – owner of the Motiva brand which offers breast enlargement services.

“The partnership is the first-ever corporate sponsorship agreement specifically aimed at supporting women's chess events,” read the FIDE press release.  

“The agreement will continue through 2022, a year that has been designated by FIDE as ‘The Year of Women in Chess’.” 

However, the announcement soon came under fire from some female players who claimed the deal gave out the wrong impression.

“I wonder what’s the message FIDE wants to convey with this partnership,” one anonymous titled female player told popular chess website Lichess.

“We have a sport where men and women can compete on a level playing field which is also free from sexualized uniforms, and our ‘next great move’ is breast enlargement? That says a lot about FIDE officials' view of women.”

Another female player speaking on condition of anonymity added:“I’ve already seen comments online from people saying that they hope prizes for women's events will now include breast enlargement.

“I've seen jokes citing specific top players’ names as those who could be improved by it. Chess has struggled with sexism in the past, and this has done nothing to help prevent that. Where is FIDE punishing sexist comments, sexist attitudes?”

Another female titled player acknowledged that sponsorship was “hugely important for our game” but added that “FIDE should be more wise with their choice of sponsors, because it affects which message we are sending to the world.”

“I don't think breast implants is a proper message for our game; chess is a mental game and we care more about our brains than the shape of our body.”

One comment stated: “Shouldn’t chess – a game reliant on brains rather than breasts – be distancing itself from that kind of reductive and misogynistic line of thinking?”

Another concluded a diatribe against the deal by simply branding it “gross.”

In its defense, FIDE told The Guardian that it was “not encouraging plastic surgery, but if an adult freely makes this choice, our organization endorses Motiva, a company that has demonstrated its strong commitment towards women.”

Some also welcomed the move, with women’s international master Sheila Barth Stanford saying: “We desperately need a sponsor. We play for less money than the men, which makes it more difficult to bet on chess. I hope it makes it easier for women to play professionally.”

Fellow international master Elisabeth Paehtz of Germany said: “The main thing is support for chess. For me personally, I am happy if we have any sponsor for women in chess, and as long as it's not something connected to gender, racism, or drugs, or anything else like that, I would generally support that sponsor.”

Men still vastly outnumber women in the upper echelons of chess, with only 39 women being awarded the accolade of Grandmaster compared to around 1,300 players overall.  

However, women’s chess has received a boost in recent years through the likes of smash-hit Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit as well as through popular female streamers such as Alexandra Botez.

The biggest name in the current game – Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen – admitted last year that: “Chess societies have not been very kind to women and girls over the years. Certainly there needs to be a bit of a change in culture.” 

Energy transition faces metal supply deficit, Canada miners say

Bloomberg News | September 29, 2021 |

Hudbay Minerals’ Constancia mine in Peru.

 (Image courtesy of Hudbay Minerals)

The world needs more mines to meet demand for copper and other battery metals required to shift to less polluting energy sources — even if such moves are seen as environmentally unappealing, according to Hudbay Minerals Inc. financial chief.


Any credible prognosis shows that copper faces a structural deficit of five to seven million tons starting in the next three or four years, Hudbay Chief Financial Officer Steve Douglas said Wednesday at Bloomberg’s Canadian Fixed Income Conference. And yet, any energy transition can’t happen without copper, he said.

“The table is being set at least for those metals that will contribute to the decarbonization of the world,” Douglas said. “You’re going to have to either stimulate or allow to be built an awful lot of the extractive-type industries that would get the scarlet letter in the environmental side — you’re not going to decarbonize the world without it.”

The ability to build mines in a world where extractive resource industries has become more challenging as investors put greater weight on the environmental credentials of metals producers, while social issues including dealing with local communities have also been under the spotlight. That adds to industry challenges that include supply disruptions and rising costs of raw materials.

“We certainly have seen it in some of the commodities that have gone up and reached peak highs earlier this year, such as lumber, such as steel and such as iron ore that have since come down,” Iamgold Chief Financial Officer Daniella Dimitrov said during the panel. “Certainly that would suggest that the inflation that we’re seeing is supply-chain driven, disruption driven.”

Rising costs are affecting efforts by Toronto-based Iamgold to build a mine in northern Ontario, Canada.

“We started construction in July of 2020 and we certainly have seen some of the cost pressures that we’ve just talked about in copper, in steel, particularly also in labor,” she said, noting that Covid-19 impacts on productivity led to higher labor costs. “We’ve certainly seen it in energy as well, not just in Canada but in our operations in South America and in Africa as well.”

Shipping has also been a problem, an issue Hudbay is experiencing firsthand.

“We’ve had a couple of occasions where you’ve had to push folks to honor their contracts because of the costs of global shipping have just gone through the roof,” Hudbay’s Douglas said, adding that he’s heard stories of three and fourfold increases in global shipping. Shipping delays even affected Hudbay’s mill refurbishment at its Snow Lake operation in Manitoba, Canada.

“Delays cost money,” he said. “These delays definitely put a kink and add additional costs to what it is you’re trying to do.”

(By Yvonne Yue Li)