Activision Blizzard fired 20 employees for 'patterns' of harassment and discrimination

tsonnemaker@insider.com (Tyler Sonnemaker) 

 Associated Press Associated Press

Activision Blizzard has fired 20 employees over harassment and discrimination issues.

Activision disciplined another 20 employees and announced a variety of internal changes.

The changes follow a lawsuit, SEC investigation, and employee walkout over widespread cultural issues.

Video game giant Activision Blizzard has fired 20 employees and disciplined another 20 workers over harassment and gender discrimination issues, the Financial Times first reported Tuesday.

Frances Townsend, Activision's chief compliance officer, told the FT that a months-long investigation had determined certain employees had exhibited "patterns" of misconduct that justified termination, while others were reprimanded for behavior the company believed could be addressed through additional training.

Townsend also told the FT that most of the misconduct happened off-site at events involving alcohol, and that several game developers and managers were let go, but that no one from Activision's board was fired.

In a memo sent to staff and published on its website Tuesday, Townsend announced a variety of internal changes, including that Activision will triple its spending on training resources, hire 19 full-time roles for its ethics and compliance team, and restructure its investigations team to be separate from its human resources and employee relations teams.

The announcement comes as Activision has faced widespread allegations of gender-based harassment and discrimination that have sparked employee backlash in recent months.

In July, the state of California sued Activision, following a two-year investigation into the company, accusing it of fostering a "pervasive frat boy" culture where women are paid less for the same jobs that men perform, regularly face sexual harassment, and are targeted for reporting issues.

The suit also said that female employees at Activision face "constant sexual harassment," from "having to continually fend off unwanted sexual comments" to "being groped," and that no action was taken on issues reported to human resources and management.

Townsend and other Activision executives, including CEO Bobby Kotick, initially downplayed the claims in the lawsuit, leading more than 2,000 employees to co-sign a letter calling the company's response "abhorrent and insulting."

Kotick later issued a statement calling the initial responses "tone deaf," but hundreds of employees still walked out the following day to demand more systemic changes.

In September, the Securities and Exchange Commission opened its own investigation into Activision over how the company handled employees' allegations, issuing subpoenas to multiple employees. Activision has said it is cooperating with the SEC's investigation.

Some of the changes employees called for over the summer, such as dropping mandatory arbitration clauses from employee contracts, were not addressed in Townsend's memo on Tuesday.

Townsend told the FT that more changes are coming and that "Kotick and the Board basically gave me a blank check."

Review: A fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener

© Provided by The Canadian Press

“Orwell’s Roses,” by Rebecca Solnit (Viking)

Weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” shot to the top of bestseller lists. Suddenly, it seemed, readers wanted to reacquaint themselves with a world in which “war is peace” and “two plus two equals five.”

That historical moment was not the impetus for Rebecca Solnit’s invigorating new book, “Orwell’s Roses,” although she briefly touches on the Orwellian dimensions of the last administration. Instead, it grew out of a casual conversation with a friend about a newspaper column Orwell wrote in 1946 about the fruit trees and rosebushes he planted around his rural cottage outside London.

Soon Solnit and her friend were on the internet, trying to find out if they were still there. That, in turn, led to a visit to the cottage, where Solnit found out that while the trees were gone, the roses were thriving, decades after Orwell’s death.

The discovery “filled me with joyous exaltation,” she writes, as did “the fact that this man most famous for his prescient scrutiny of totalitarianism and propaganda” was an avid gardener. It also sent her back to his novels and essays, making her realize that all his writing, even the most political, is suffused with a passion for the natural world.

Solnit, a prolific author whose essay “Men Explain Things to Me” has been credited with inspiring the term “mansplaining,” describes that Orwell essay as a “triumph of meandering” — and the same might be said about this book. It is not a biography in the traditional sense, although she revisits significant episodes of his life, from serving as a British officer in Burma to fighting against the fascists in the Spanish civil war.

Along the way, she touches on a wide range of subjects including photographer Tina Modotti’s pictures of roses, Stalin’s obsession with growing lemons in the winter and the brutal conditions of the rose industry in Colombia. She also reckons with Orwell’s slave-owning ancestors and shows, as gently as possible, how he was the unwitting beneficiary of not just colonialism but also the patriarchy. Finally, she attempts to connect his love of plants and trees to contemporary thinking about climate change.

At times her digressions and literary flourishes are maddening, but she always returns to the startling brilliance and clarity of Orwell’s work. She ends with a sensitive reconsideration of “1984” that, if you haven’t done so already, will make you want to reread it, too.

Ann Levin, The Associated Press

Rob Zombie Shares First Look at The Munsters Remake: 'Newly Completed 1313 Mockingbird Lane'

Vanessa Etienne 1 day ago

The Munsters remake is officially on the way!

On Monday, director Rob Zombie shared a first look at the reboot for the classic sitcom, confirming that the cast will include Jeff Daniel Phillips as Herman Munster, Sheri Moon Zombie as Lily Munster, and Dan Roebuck as The Count.

Zombie shared photos of the three sitting in front of the newly constructed set while wearing their iconic costumes and makeup from the original TV show.

RELATED: Halloween Kills Kills Box Office with $50 Million Opening While The Last Duel Loses Battle

"Since Halloween is rapidly approaching I thought it was the perfect time to MEET THE MUNSTERS! 🎃 Direct from the set in good old Hungary 🇭🇺 I present Herman, Lily and The Count sitting in front of the newly completed 1313 Mockingbird Lane . ☠️ 🎃," he captioned the post.

© Universal Studios via Rob Zombie/Instagram Rob Zombie gives fans a first look at Herman, Lily, and The Count from the replica of the iconic set in Hungary

Though additional information about the remake has been tightly under wraps, the filmmaker has shared a few updates on social media about the project over the past several months.

In June, the Zombie first announced that he would be working on the reboot, calling it a project he's "been chasing for 20 years."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The following month, he teased possible costume designs for the characters, including the sleepwear for the characters of Lily and Herman. Zombie wrote in the caption: "What do Herman and Lily wear to bed? Perhaps something like this! Check out some wardrobe designs by our amazing costume designers. 🦇🦇🦇☠️☠️☠️."

He later shared that the 1313 Mockingbird Lane set and Mockingbird Heights neighborhood would be built from scratch as a replica to the original 1960s sitcom. The design was finished in September.

RELATED: The Munsters Star Beverley Owen Dies at 81

"1313 is looking good! Lots of work left to do, but it is getting there! Takes a lot of work to build an entire neighborhood. ☠️," Zombie wrote on Instagram alongside photos of the set.

The original series aired on CBS from 1964 to 1966. As of now, there is no official release date for The Munsters, however, the film will be released in theaters and on Peacock for streaming, per CNN.

AS LONG AS THERE ARE NO CLOWNS IF THERE ARE EVERBODY DIES 

USC to apologize for sabotaging its Japanese American students' educations in WWII

The University of Southern California announced last week that it will make amends for its discrimination against Japanese Americans during World War II, when the U.S. government deemed the community a national security threat.

© Provided by NBC News

USC President Carol Folt will award posthumous degrees and apologize to the students of Japanese descent whose schooling was interrupted when they and their families were forcibly displaced and put into concentration camps. At the time, the university refused to release transcripts for students who wanted to transfer, sabotaging their chances to complete their educations. USC is now trying to identify the families of about 120 students who were affected during the 1941-42 academic year.

“I think we’re starting to understand … there’s things that have happened in the past that are not things that we’re proud of,” Folt told NBC Asian America. “It only does good to acknowledge that — to find the source of problems, to apologize, but maybe even more importantly ... to make sure that these sorts of issues do not happen.”

Many college students were left with uncertain futures after President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, mandating the removal and subsequent incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese descent who lived in the designated “military zones” along the West Coast. The National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, formed by organizations, college administrators and several Quaker religious groups, encouraged schools in other parts of the country to accept students of Japanese descent, most of whom were children of Japanese immigrants, known as nisei

.

© Franklin D. Roosevelt Library/National Archives Image: Newspaper headlines of Japanese Relocation after Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library/National Archives)


The council was largely successful. Schools on the West Coast released the students’ transcripts, helping many students graduate from other colleges, said Brian Niiya, the content director of Densho, a nonprofit Japanese American history and education organization.

The council “allowed for some thousand of the nisei students to leave camp and to continue with their education on the outside. So that was a really important step,” Niiya said. “Others, though, were never able to continue with their education.”

Some students chose to remain with their families in concentration camps, and others joined the military to prove their loyalty to the U.S. But some who wanted to continue their studies found that schools like USC stood in their way, Niiya said. Under the leadership of Rufus B. von KleinSmid — the university’s president at the time, whose name has since been stripped from campus buildings because of his racist beliefs and his support for eugenics — USC campus officials withheld the documents.

Not only were many USC students forced to abandon their studies during the war, but when Japanese American students tried to re-enroll at USC or obtain their transcripts afterward, they were also allegedly told to start their college educations over again. Some have said officials claimed that their paperwork had been lost.

“California had been the center of the anti-Japanese movement for decades since the early 1900s. It’s safe to say that the vast majority of Californians, including those in power ... were supporters of the incarceration or the removal of Japanese Americans,” Niiya said. “It’s not surprising or remarkable that this university president would have those views. That was just the mainstream at that time.”

Niiya said USC’s newest efforts to make amends are the result of the Japanese American redress movement that began in the 1970s. Activists sought reparations and apologies for the government’s role in Japanese Americans’ loss of their civil liberties. Niiya said that for many, restitution came in the form of back pay that was restored or service time for employees who had been fired. As time went on, the movement pushed for honorary degrees for students.

USC had previously given honorary degrees to surviving students in 2012 after a 2009 law required California public universities to do so. But the school wouldn't give the same honor to those who had died, citing a policy against awarding posthumous degrees. Under Folt, it made an exception.

She said the plan was set in motion after she got a letter from Jonathan Kaji, the president of the school’s Asian Pacific Alumni Association, which has been pushing for such action since 2007. Holt said it was Kaji, who had protested the previous awards ceremony because it didn’t honor those who had died, who laid bare the injustices to her.

“I just immediately thought, ‘I don’t know how it happened, but this is something we can acknowledge and make right,’” Folt said. “My efforts were on fixing it, rather than trying to understand why it didn’t happen before.”

Folt said the university is working with several Japanese American community organizations to find the families of former USC students and is calling on the public to help. She said the degrees and the apology will be presented to descendants at an awards ceremony next spring.

Even though the ceremony comes 80 years after the students were forced to leave school, Niiya said, it is an important step in both healing and moving forward.

“For individual families, it’s really important in many cases that the grandparents or great grandparents are getting this posthumous recognition,” Niiya said. “But I think on a broader level, it’s just a way to keep this incarceration story at the forefront, just as a reminder ... to continue to be vigilant in what we do now.”

After lecture is canceled, free speech debate roils science academia


A prominent climate physicist has resigned from one of his roles at the University of California, Berkeley, after he said faculty members would not agree to invite a guest lecturer to the school who had come under fire for his political views.

© Provided by NBC News

Denise Chow 4 hrs ago

The lecturer, Dorian Abbot, a geophysicist, has been criticized for opposing affirmative action programs and other initiatives to promote diversity, equity and inclusion at colleges and universities. He has been the subject of boycotts and opposition from left-leaning students and at academic faculty meetings.

In a statement on Twitter, the physicist, David Romps, said Monday that he is stepping down as director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center, or BASC, “at the end of this calendar year or when a replacement is ready, whichever is sooner.” Romps will remain a professor in the school’s department of earth and planetary sciences, a university spokesperson said.

The incident has added to the debate about when, if ever, it is appropriate to suppress speech on college campuses.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology this month rescinded a lecture invitation to Abbot, a geophysicist and associate professor at the University of Chicago, amid public backlash over an op-ed he co-wrote in Newsweek that argued in favor of a “Merit, Fairness, and Equality” framework on campuses as an alternative to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which he said sought “to increase the representation of some groups through discrimination against members of other groups.” Last year, Abbot also denounced the riots that erupted in Chicago after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. He addressed those comments in a post published Oct. 5 on Substack.

Abbot was scheduled to deliver the prestigious Carlson Lecture at MIT’s department of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences about his research on climate science and the potential for alien planets to support life.

Romps, who did not respond to a request for comment, said his request to the faculty followed the MIT cancellation.

Romps said he asked faculty members whether the school could invite Abbot “to speak to us in the coming months to hear the science talk he had prepared and, by extending the invitation now, reaffirm that BASC is a purely scientific organization, not a political one,” he wrote on Twitter.

He said that discussions remained unresolved and that his colleagues’ unwillingness to include guest lecturers who have divergent political beliefs goes against the school’s mission.

“Excluding people because of their political and social views diminishes the pool of scientists with which members of BASC can interact and reduces the opportunities for learning and collaboration,” he wrote, adding that such actions signal that “some opinions — even well-intentioned ones — are forbidden, thereby increasing self-censorship, degrading public discourse, and contributing to our nation’s political balkanization.”

Abbot said in an emailed statement: “Professor Romps is an extremely brave proponent of academic freedom. There are very few people willing to openly defend academic freedom, let alone resign an important directorship in support of it. If we had a few more leaders and administrators like Professor Romps, we wouldn’t be having a crisis of academic freedom in our universities.”

Dan Mogulof, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley, said the school believes diversity of perspective is “absolutely essential.”

“UC Berkeley’s administration regrets that the director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center has decided to resign given that faculty members affiliated with the Center have not yet fully discussed and considered — much less decided — whether to extend an invitation to the speaker in question,” Mogulof said in a statement.

RIGHT WING LOBBY 
Keith Whittington, a professor of politics at Princeton University and the chair of the academic committee of the Academic Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit free speech organization, said decisions to shy away from lecture topics or figures who represent opposing viewpoints or have controversial personal politics risk compromising the principles of free speech that universities are meant to uphold.

“That could shrink the scope quite dramatically of what kinds of ideas and opinions can be discussed on college campuses,” he said.

But equating the cancellation of a school’s public lecture to censorship oversimplifies the matter, said Phoebe Cohen, a paleontologist and associate professor of geosciences at Williams College. She said concerns over whether such actions curtail free speech on campuses are overblown.

“It becomes this battle cry of free speech and academic freedom, but he has academic freedom,” Cohen said of Abbot. “He is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, and he has, but that doesn’t mean that he’s free from consequences.”

And while universities should uphold academic freedoms, Cohen said, institutions also have a responsibility to consider the communities their students and faculties are a part of.

“It comes down to who is being harmed,” she said. “Universities don’t have a responsibility to platform people who are harming others.”

Still, Whittington said, Abbot’s case differs from other cancellations because the views expressed in his op-ed were unrelated to the topic of his planned lecture at MIT.

“We’re not talking about some outside provocateur that a student group brought to campus,” Whittington said. “We’re talking about a distinguished scientist who was invited to give a scientific talk and people were saying he can’t do that because he also happens to hold political beliefs they disagree with.”

Whittington and his colleagues at the Academic Freedom Alliance sent a letter Monday asking MIT to take action to address and rectify the situation.

Australia's chief scientist wants to make academic research publicly available

Aimee Chanthadavong 3 hrs ago

Australia's chief scientist Dr Cathy Foley has proposed to make academic research openly and freely available, believing it will help unlock further in-country collaboration, commercialisation, and innovation.

© Getty Images/iStockphoto

female lab technician doing research with a microscope in the lab. coronavirus

"I've been saying research is the superpower to be able to make any society … to be able to weather any changes that come across us, and we've seen our fair share in the last few years," she said, speaking during the virtual Collaborate Innovate 2021 event.

"But what we have in Australia is about AU$12 billion … in research and yet to be able to read that, we're paying … between the order of AU$400 million to probably AU$600 million a year in order to be able to see this -- and it's only able to be read by people who are either paying for a page by page or a journal article by journal article, or being able to have a subscription through their organisation.

"If we're looking at what we're trying to achieve as a country, where we want to be evidence-based in all the decisions that we make, why is it then that research is only available through these paywalls … and so I was wondering could we actually envisage a scheme where we can use the funds that are in the system already, make them available to a central implementation body that negotiates agreements to have open access of research from all publishers, leading us to access research or journals," she continued.

Foley hopes that if such a scheme were to exist, it would mean that every person based in Australia -- from individuals, industry, government, and other researchers -- would be able to access research or academic information.

In addition, Foley said she wants to see Australian-led research papers be made available to the rest of the world too, highlighting that opening up access would help build stronger relationships between the research community and other sectors.

"If you think about the importance of scientific publication and peer review, it's absolutely critical to gain that trust … this is why I think open access is really important because we need to make sure that everyone understands what information comes from and can be trusted," she said.

The proposal of open access, says Foley, is currently undergoing the final stages of prospective analysis. Foley added she has already put forward a proposal to the National Science and Technology Council, who have been "very positive and are supporting it".

You Can Watch Hundreds Of Polar Bears Migrate Through Manitoba On This Camera (VIDEO)

If you've finished binge-watching Squid Game on Netflix and are in need of something new to watch, let us introduce you to this live cam where you can check out fluffy polar bears

.

© Provided by Narcity Canada Edition (EN) 9 hrs ago

The Polar Bear Cams from Polar Bears International (PBI) will track hundreds of the majestic white creatures as they migrate across Churchill, Manitoba, and you can already see a few of them hanging out and generally relaxing.



Video player from: YouTube (Privacy Policy, Terms)Polar Bear Tundra Buggy powered by EXPLORE.org www.youtube.com

According to PBI, at this time of the year, the bears gather in that area to wait for the water to freeze so they can resume hunting seals after their summer fast.

Because they're typically solitary creatures, PBI says that the bears only gather in Churchill for a short period of time, so you'll want to keep an eye on the cam to spot them while you can.

The Polar Bear Cams are part of the company's Polar Bear Week initiative that runs from October 31 to November 6.

"This year, we're launching a campaign to fund the development of Bear-dar 'Detect and Protect' systems to alert communities of approaching bear," PBI said of the initiative. "The goal is to reduce conflict between polar bears and people—keeping both from harm."

Sudan's key Red Sea ports coveted by regional powers

From Washington to Moscow, Tehran to Ankara, Sudan's strategic Red Sea ports, blockaded for a month by protesters, have long been eyed by global powers far beyond Africa's borders.

© Ashraf SHAZLY Ahmed Abdelaziz, professor at Port Sudan University, said Sudan's Red Sea islands were 'vulnerable to illicit activities'

Blessed with natural resources such as gold and rich in maritime biodiversity, the picturesque region of white sands and mangroves stretches some 714 kilometres (444 miles) -- from Sudan's borders with Egypt in the north to Eritrea in the south.

© Ashraf SHAZLY Suakin is one of many Red Sea islands held by Sudan which analysts see as 'integral to the country's national security'

"Sudan's Red Sea ports are a trade hub for neighbouring landlocked countries like Chad, Ethiopia and central Africa," Ahmed Mahgoub, head of Port Sudan's southern terminal, told AFP

.

© ASHRAF SHAZLY Members of the Beja ethnic group of eastern Sudan wave the flag of the Beja Congress political group as they demonstrate outside the Osman Digna port

But traffic through Sudan's main maritime nerve centre Port Sudan has been paralysed since anti-government protests broke out in mid-September amid disenchantment with the region's political and economic marginalisation.

So since October much of the trade has been re-routed via other regional ports, mostly in Egypt.

The protests are just the latest chapter in decades of intense tribal and factional infighting driven in part by Sudan's shifting political alliances under ousted president Omar al-Bashir.

He was deposed in April 2019 after mass protests against his three-decade iron-fisted rule.

Demonstrators say they oppose an October 2020 peace deal between Sudan's post-Bashir transitional government and rebel groups as "it does not represent" them.

- Militarily strategic -

The protests in the east have also triggered unrest in the capital Khartoum, where pro-military demonstrations erupted on Saturday demanding the dissolution of the embattled transitional government.

But for foreign powers who covet Sudan's Red Sea coast, the region has strategic military dimensions.

It hosted Iranian fleets for decades under Bashir, to the dismay of Tehran's regional rival Saudi Arabia, whose Red Sea port of Jeddah lies opposite Port Sudan on the other side of the waterway.

© Ashraf SHAZLY A man carries coral on the island of Suakin in eastern Sudan

And in 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bashir negotiated the building of a naval base in Port Sudan, to be staffed by up to 300 military and civilian personnel and to include nuclear-powered vessels.

That same year Bashir also signed a 99-year lease for the island of Suakin with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a move that angered Egypt and other rival Sunni Muslim powerhouses worried about Ankara's spreading regional influence.

© Ashraf SHAZLY Sudan's Red Sea islands could be used as observation outposts or for conducting military manoeuvres, one expert said

The deal provides for building maintenance, docks for ships and renovating Ottoman-era edifices on the island.

Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II is said to have dubbed Suakin the "white city" as it is home to spectacular buildings made of porous coralline limestone quarried from coral reef.

Suakin is one of many Red Sea islands held by Sudan which analysts see as "integral to the country's national security".

The islands cover a total area of 23,100 square kilometres (8,9100 square miles), equivalent to the size of Djibouti, said Shaimaa Abdelsameea, a professor at the Red Sea University.

- 'Race for control' -

These islands could be used as observation outposts or for conducting military manoeuvres, she noted.

"They are however all uninhabited, making them vulnerable to illicit activities including smuggling," said Ahmed Abdelaziz, a professor at Port Sudan University.

Sudan had sought to cement its ties with Russia under Bashir to offset the crippling sanctions imposed by Washington against his autocratic regime.

And last year, Moscow announced the signing of a 25-year agreement with Khartoum to build and operate the base in Port Sudan.

However in June, Sudan said it was still "reviewing" the deal after it found that some clauses were "somewhat harmful".

The move came as Khartoum pushed to solidify ties with the United States following Bashir's ouster.

In December, Washington removed Khartoum from its crippling State Sponsors of Terrorism list, a designation that had long strangled Sudan's economy.

The lifting of sanctions took place after a meeting between former US president Donald Trump and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Senior US military officials have since visited Sudan.

"The Red Sea is a key waterway for the movement of American fleets," according to Abdelsameea.

"It links the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and the Fifth in the Arabian Gulf," she said.

"So the race for control over Sudanese ports is very natural."

ab-mz/ff/jkb

#ECOCIDE
3M to pay $99 mn to settle dispute over harmful chemicals
AFP

The US group 3M, which among other things manufactures anti-Covid protective face masks, said Tuesday it will pay $99 million to settle complaints related to health and the environment

.

© JUSTIN SULLIVAN 3M will pay $99 million to settle complaints related to health and the environment

"3M has reached a collaborative agreement to resolve ongoing litigation and negotiations related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) near 3M's Decatur, Alabama facility," the company said in a statement.

Lawsuits had been filed against 3M in three US states - Alabama, Illinois and Minnesota - as well as in Germany and Belgium, charging that its products contain potentially harmful chemicals known as PFAS which are present in wide variety of products such as Teflon, paints, packaging or textiles.

The agreement was signed with the city of Decatur, Morgan County, plaintiffs from Saint John, and the Tennessee Riverkeeper organization, said the manufacturer of post-it notes, adhesive tape and Covid face masks.

"Through these agreements, subject to final approval, 3M will support activities to address PFAS that 3M manufactured or disposed of, as well as to enhance the quality of life for Decatur residents," the group said.

3M said in April 2019 that it had set aside $548 million to settle the dispute, as well as another dealing with complaints against its coal mines in Kentucky and West Virginia.

jul/mav/jh/caw

Climate change: The world is banking on giant carbon-sucking fans to clean our mess. But can they save the planet?

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN Video and Photos by Temujin Doran, CNN Design by Carlotta Dotto, CNN

 

The windswept valleys surrounding the Hengill volcano in southwestern Iceland are dotted with hot springs and steam vents. Hikers from all over the world come here to witness its breath-taking scenery. Even the sheep are photogenic in the soft Nordic light.

© Temujin Doran/CNN Climework's Orca project at the Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant in Iceland opened last month.

Right in the middle of all that natural beauty sits a towering metal structure resembling four giant Lego bricks, with two rows of six whirring fans running across each one. It's a contraption that looks truly futuristic, like something straight out of a sci-fi film.

Humans have emitted so much carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere that machines like this are being used to literally suck the gas back out, like giant vacuum cleaners, in an attempt to slow the climate crisis and prevent some of its most devastating consequences.

The Orca plant — its name derived from the Icelandic word for energy — is what is known as a "direct air carbon capture facility," and its creators and operators, Swiss firm Climeworks and Icelandic company Carbfix, say it's the world's largest.

The aim of Orca is to help the world reach net zero emissions — where we remove as much greenhouse gas from the atmosphere as we emit. Scientists say that simply cutting back on our use of fossil fuels won't be enough to avert catastrophe; we need to also clean up some of the mess we've been making for hundreds of years.

© Temujin Doran/CNN Dr. Edda Aradóttir is a chemical and reservoir engineer and the CEO of Carbfix.

Orca is a depressing symbol of just how bad things have become, but equally, it could be the tech that helps humanity claw its way out of the crisis.

"We, as humans, have disturbed the balance of the natural carbon cycle. So it's our job to restore the balance," said Edda Aradóttir, a chemical engineer and the CEO of Carbfix. "We are assisting the natural carbon cycle to find its previous balance, so for me, at least, this makes total sense — but we have to use it wisely," she said.

It opened last month and currently removes about 10 metric tons of CO2 every day, which is roughly the the same amount of carbon emitted by 800 cars a day in the US. It's also about the same amount of carbon 500 trees could soak up in a year.

It's a fine start, but in the grand scheme of things, its impact so far is miniscule. Humans emit around 35 billion tons of greenhouse gas a year through the cars we drive and flights we take, the power we use to heat our homes and the food — in particular the meat — that we eat, among other activities.

All this CO2 accumulates in the in the air, where it acts like the glass of a greenhouse, trapping more heat in the atmosphere than Earth has evolved to tolerate.

That's where the technology used for Orca, called carbon capture and storage (CCS), comes in.

"Carbon capture and storage is not going to be the solution to climate change," Sandra Ósk Snæbjörnsdóttir, a Carbfix geologist, told CNN.

"But it is a solution. And it's one of the many solutions that we need to implement to be able to achieve this big goal that we have to reach."

She added: "First and foremost, we have to stop emitting CO2 and we have to stop burning fossil fuels, the main source of CO2 emissions to our atmosphere."

How the 'magic' happens

The Orca machines use chemical filters to capture the heat-trapping gas. The "fans," or metal collectors, suck in the surrounding air and filter out the CO2 so it can be stored.

Carbon dioxide's concentration in Earth's atmosphere has likely not been this high at any other point in the last 3 million years, according to NASA scientists. But at levels over 410 parts per million, to actually capture a meaningful amount of CO2, a huge amount of air needs to pass through these machines.

"What is happening is that CO2 in the air is an acid molecule and inside the collectors we have alkaline. Acids and alkaline neutralize each other," Climeworks co-CEO Christoph Gebald told CNN. "That's the magic that happens."

In two to four hours, the surface of the filter is almost completely saturated with CO2 molecules — as if there are "no parking slots left," as Gebald puts it.

"Then we stop the airflow and we heat the internal structure to roughly 100 degrees Celsius, and at that temperature, the CO2 molecules are released again from the surface, they jump off back to the gas phase and we suck it out."

Because of the high temperature that is needed for the process, the Orca plant requires a lot of energy. That's a problem that's easily solved in Iceland, where green geothermal power is abundant. But it could become a challenge to scale globally.

The machines at Orca are just one way to remove CO2 from the air. Other methods involve capturing the gas at source — like the chimney of a cement factory — or removing it from the fuel before combustion. That involves exposing the fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to oxygen or steam under high temperature and pressure to convert it into a mixture of hydrogen and CO2. The hydrogen is then separated and can be burned with much lower carbon emissions. However, methane emissions could be a problem when the process is used on natural gas.

The carbon that comes out of CCS can be used for other purposes, for example to make objects out of plastic instead of using oil, or in the food industry, which uses CO2 to put the fizz in drinks. But the amount that needs to be captured vastly exceeds the world's demand for CO2 in other places, which means the majority of it will need to be "stored."

At Orca, this happens just a few hundred meters away from its vacuum in several igloo-like structures where the gas is mixed with water and injected around 800 meters underground. There, the CO2 reacts with sponge-like volcanic rocks and mineralizes, while the water flows away.

Emissions crisis

The latest state-of-the-science report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed that the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half over the next decade and achieve net zero by 2050 to have any chance of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The higher temperatures rise beyond 1.5 degrees, the more the world will experience an increase in extreme weather events — both in strength and frequency — like droughts, hurricanes, floods and heatwaves.

CCS technology sounds like the perfect solution, but it remains highly controversial, and not just because of the amount of energy it needs. Its critics say the world should be aiming for zero emissions, not net zero.

But scientific consensus is pretty clear: some level of carbon capture will soon become necessary. The IPCC estimated that even if emissions decline dramatically, to keep temperature increases below 2 degrees will require the removal of between 10 billion and 20 billion tonnes of CO2 every year until 2100.

"I don't think carbon capture is a silver bullet, because there is no silver bullet," said Nadine Mustafa, a researcher that specializes in carbon capture at the department of chemical engineering at Imperial College London, and is not involved with Orca.

"It's not that we are going to fix everything by using renewables, or that we're going to use carbon capture and storage and we're going to fix everything with that. We're going to need everything, especially because we're already behind on our goals."

The oil and gas link

Opponents of CCS argue the technology is simply another way for the fossil fuel industry to delay its inevitable demise.

While they are not involved in the Orca plant, fossil fuel giants dominate the sector. According to a database complied by the Global CCS Institute, a pro-CCS think tank, an overwhelming majority of the world's 89 CCS projects that are currently in operation, being built or in advanced stages of development are operated by oil, gas and coal companies.

Oil companies have had and used the technology to capture carbon for decades, but they haven't exactly done it to reduce emissions — ironically, their motivation has been to extract even more oil. That's because the CO2 they remove can be re-injected into oil fields that are nearly depleted, and help squeeze out 30-60% more oil than with normal methods. The process is known as "enhanced oil recovery" and it is one of the main reasons why CCS remains controversial.

Fossil fuel companies are also investing in the newer carbon capture tech that removes CO2 from the air — like Orca's machines do — so they can argue they are "offsetting" the emissions that they can't capture in their usual processes. It's one way to delay fossil fuels' inevitable demise as the world transitions to renewable energy sources.

There is another way to look at it.

Fossil fuel companies have the big bucks to invest in this expensive tech, and considering fossil fuels are by far the main driver of climate change, it can be argued that they have a responsibility to foot the bill for what could be the biggest environmental disaster clean-up in human history.

The global fossil fuel industry is worth trillions of dollars. In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, publicly listed fossil fuel companies raked in $250 billion in profits, according to data compiled for CNN by Refinitiv. That figure doesn't include Saudi Aramco, the world's biggest oil company, which was not publicly listed until December 2019. On its own, the company made $88 billion that year.

"This is a group who could transition to providing this service to society at large," said Graeme Sweeney, chairman of the Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP), which is one of the more powerful advocates for CCS in Europe. The group acts as an advisor to the European Commission, from which it also receives part of its funding, and comprises research groups, the European Trade Union Confederation, as well as many of the world's biggest oil companies, including Shell, Total, Equinor, ExxonMobil and BP.

The way Sweeney sees it, providing this tech could even be a chance for the fossil fuel industry to begin to atone for the climate crisis.

"It would be, in a sense, odd, if that was not the contribution that they made," said Sweeney, who previously worked for Shell for three decades.

Asked whether CCS should be used to allow more fossil fuel production in the future — something climate activists worry about — Sweeney said: "If we regulate this appropriately, then it will produce an outcome which is compatible with net zero in 2050 ... what's the problem?"

One remaining risk in this technology is the impact that storing the carbon may have on the Earth, or at least its immediate environment. In its special report on carbon capture and storage, the IPCC said that by far the biggest risk comes from potential leaks. A sudden and large release of CO2 would be extremely dangerous. In the air, a CO2 concentration of around 10% is deadly, but even much lower levels can cause health issues.

It's a massive risk to take.

But the idea of using deep sea storage is not new and it has been used for some time. At Sleipner, a gas field in Norway, CO2 has been injected underground since 1996. The site has been monitored closely, and apart from some issues during the first year, it has not shown any problems in its 25 years running.

Snæbjörnsdóttir, who heads the CO2 mineral storage at Carbfix for Orca, said the mineralization process they use in Iceland eliminates the risk of leaks. And the basalt — which is volcanic rock — around the plant makes for an ideal geological storage.

"These rocks are very permeable, so they are kind of like a sponge, and you have a lot of fractures for the CO2-charged fluid to flow through, so it mineralizes quite rapidly," Snæbjörnsdóttir said.

Standing next to the injection site, Snæbjörnsdóttir grabbed a piece of crystallized calcium carbonate, known here as the Icelandic spar, and held it against the sunlight. "This is nature's way of turning CO2 into stone, in its most beautiful way," she said as tiny reflections of light from the rock danced on the walls around her.

"Once you have mineralized the CO2, it stays there forever."