It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, September 12, 2022
Newly released image from James Webb telescope reveals Orion Nebula in 'amazing detail'
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Astronomers eager to study image and better understand
The inner region of the Orion Nebula as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument. This is a composite image from several filters that represents emissions from ionized gas, hydrocarbons, molecular gas, dust and scattered starlight. Most prominent is the Orion Bar, a wall of dense gas and dust that runs from the top left to the bottom right in this image. (NASA, ESA, CSA/Data reduction and analysis: PDRs4All ERS Team; graphical processing S. Fuenmayor)More than 1,300 light-years from Earth lies a stunning area of dust and gas called the Orion Nebula. On Monday, a team of astronomers from around the world released the most detailed image ever of this rich star-forming region taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Els Peeters, an astronomer and professor at Western University in London, Ont., who is one of the principal investigators for the JWST observing program known as PDRs4AlI, said she's thrilled by the image.
"It's just the amazing detail, how sharp the images are, all this filamentary structure," she told CBC News.
The composite image — which used several filters — was taken using JWST's NIRCam instrument. It shows a seemingly wind-swept region of blue gas, a bright star lighting up gas around it and, most prominently, an area of dense dust and gas, known as the Orion Bar. But most interesting are the filaments, globules and young stars.
This annotated image of the Orion Nebula taken by JWST shows planet-forming disks of gas and dust around a young star. These disks are being dissipated or 'photo-evaporated' due to the strong radiation field of the nearby stars. Almost 180 of these externally illuminated photoevaporating disks around young stars (aka Proplyds) have been discovered in the Orion Nebula, and HST-10 (the one in the picture) is one of the largest known. The orbit of Neptune is shown for comparison. (NASA, ESA, CSA, Data reduction and analysis : PDRs4All ERS Team; graphical processing S. Fuenmayor & O. Berné)
While the region — only a small part of the larger Orion Nebula, which is one of the closest star-forming regions — has been studied using other telescopes, most notably the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST sees in infrared light that is able to see beyond optical light, peering through thick dust, revealing what the human eye can't see that is hidden.
It's this that Peeters is most interested in exploring. Her team has been studying the region since 2017 and has been eagerly awaiting the new image. Previously, her team had used NASA's Spitzer space telescope, which can also see in infrared — but not nearly with as much resolution as JWST can provide.
But this is more than just a pretty picture. It's part of a study to explore how stars and planets form, shedding more light on how our own solar system and planet formed. It's looking to our origin.
"We have never been able to see the intricate fine details of how interstellar matter is structured in these environments, and to figure out how planetary systems can form in the presence of this harsh radiation," Emilie Habart, an associate professor at Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in Paris, said in a statement.
The inner region of the Orion Nebula as seen by both the Hubble Space Telescope, left, and the James Webb Space Telescope, right. (NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRs4All ERS Team; image processing Olivier Berné/HST image: NASA/STScI/Rice Univ./C.O’Dell et al. )
Meanwhile, Peeters said that massive, young stars — and even those already in star-forming regions — give off intense ultraviolet radiation in the surrounding clouds. This can change not only the shape of the cloud but also its chemical composition. She and her team want to understand how that works and how it could affect further stellar and planetary formation.
Some interesting finds in this image are also protostars, which are stars that are just beginning to form.
"You can see in Orion a blazing star nursery there, plenty of young stars. We [also] see a few protostars in this image. And so eventually, over time in some of these disks will form planets," Peeters said, but added, "Probably not in our lifetime."
This understanding of how gases and radiation play such an integral role in the formation of stars doesn't end with this new image. The teams are still waiting for spectroscopic data, which will reveal the specific chemical elements contained in and around the region.
"If you want to understand the star formation in the universe, and your planet formation, you need to understand the basics," Peeters said. "And so the Orion Bar is kind of a laboratory: You go there, find out what's going on and then you apply it to other areas."
And it's also part of answering the big questions, she said.
"Where do we come from? Are we alone?" she said. "I think, in that sense, understanding star formation, planet formation is part of that puzzle."
Frank Drake Has Passed Away, but His Equation for Alien Intelligence Is More Important Than Ever
How many intelligent civilizations should there be in our galaxy right now? In 1961, the US astrophysicist Frank Drake, who passed away on September 2 at the age of 92, came up with an equation to estimate this. The Drake equation, dating from a stage in his career when he was “too naive to be nervous” (as he later put it), has become famous and bears his name.
This places Drake in the company of towering physicists with equations named after them, including James Clerk Maxwell and Erwin Schrödinger. Unlike those, Drake’s equation does not encapsulate a law of nature. Instead, it combines some poorly-known probabilities into an informed estimate.
Whatever reasonable values you feed into the equation (see image below), it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we shouldn’t be alone in the galaxy. Drake remained a proponent and a supporter of the search for extraterrestrial life throughout his days, but has his equation really taught us anything?
The expanded Drake equation. Image Credit: author provided
Drake’s equation may look complicated, but its principles are really rather simple. It states that, in a galaxy as old as ours, the number of civilizations that are detectable by virtue of them broadcasting their presence must equate to the rate at which they arise, multiplied by their average lifetime.
Putting a value on the rate at which civilizations occur might seem to be guesswork, but Drake realized that it can be broken down into more tractable components.
He stated that the total rate is equal to the rate at which suitable stars are formed, multiplied by the fraction of those stars that have planets. This is then multiplied by the number of planets that are capable of bearing life per system, times the fraction of those planets where life gets started, multiplied by the fraction of those where life becomes intelligent, times the fraction of those that broadcast their presence.
Tricky Values
Frank Drake. Image credit: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA
When Drake first formulated his equation, the only term that was known with any confidence was the rate of star formation—about 30 per year.
As for the next term, back in the 1960s, we had no evidence that any other stars have planets, and one in ten may have seemed like an optimistic guess. However, observational discoveries of exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) that began in the 1990s and have blossomed this century now makes us confident that most stars have planets.
Common sense suggests that most systems of multiple planets would include one at the right distance from its star to be capable of supporting life. Earth is that planet in our solar system. In addition, Mars may have been suitable for abundant life in the past—and it could still be clinging on.
Today we also realize that planets don’t need to be warm enough for liquid water to exist at the surface to support life. It can occur in the internal ocean of an ice-covered body, supported by heat generated either by radioactivity or tides rather than sunlight.
There are several likely candidates among the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, for example. In fact, when we add moons as being capable of hosting life, the average number of habitable bodies per planetary system could easily exceed one.
The values of the terms towards the right hand side of the equation, however, remain more open to challenge. Some would hold that, given a few million years to play with, life will get started anywhere that is suitable.
That would be mean that the fraction of suitable bodies where life actually gets going is pretty much equal to one. Others say that we have as yet no proof of life starting anywhere other than Earth, and that the origin of life could actually be an exceedingly rare event.
Will life, once started, eventually evolve intelligence? It probably has to get past the microbial stage and become multicellular first.
Intelligence may confer a competitive advantage over other species, meaning its evolution could be rather likely. But we don’t know for sure.
And will intelligent life develop technology to the stage where it (accidentally or deliberately) broadcasts its existence across space? Perhaps for surface-dwellers such as ourselves, but it might be rare for inhabitants of internal oceans of frozen worlds with no atmosphere.
How Long Do Civilizations Last?
What about the average lifetime of a detectable civilization, L? Our TV transmissions began to make Earth detectable from afar in the 1950s, giving a minimum value for L of about 70 years in our own case.
In general though, L may be limited by the collapse of civilization (what are the odds of our own lasting a further 100 years?) or by the near total demise of radio broadcasting in favour of the internet, or by a deliberate choice to “go quiet” for fear of hostile galactic inhabitants.
Play with the numbers yourself—it’s fun! You’ll find that if L is more than 1,000 years, N (the number of detectable civilizations) is likely to be greater than a hundred. In an interview recorded in 2010, Drake said his best guess at N was about 10,000.
We are learning more about exoplanets every year, and are entering an era when measuring their atmospheric composition to reveal evidence of life is becoming increasingly feasible. Within the next decade or two, we can hope for a much more soundly based estimate of the fraction of Earth-like planets where life gets started.
This won’t tell us about life in the internal oceans, but we can hope for insights into that from missions to the icy moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. And we could, of course, detect actual signals from extraterrestrial intelligence.
Either way, Frank Drake’s equation, which has stimulated so many lines of research, will continue to give us a thought-provoking sense of perspective. For that we should be grateful.
David Rothery I became Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University in November 2013, having been a Senior Lecturer in Earth Sciences since 1994. Before that I was a Lecturer here. I am now in the Department of Physical Sciences, but until 2011 was in the former Department of Earth Sciences. During 1999-2004 I was Director of Teaching and Geosciences Programme Director. I have also been Leader of the IAVCEI Commission on Remote Sensing, and in 2005 I was appointed to the PPARC Solar System Advisory Panel and the BepiColombo Oversight Committee. In May 2006 I was appointed UK Lead Scientist (now lead Co-Investigator) on MIXS (Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer), which is the only UK Principal Investigator instrument on BepiColombo, the European Space Agency mission to Mercury to be launched in 2017. I chair ESA's Mercury Surface and Composition Working Group. I was also a member of the Science Advisory Panel for C1XS, the X-ray spectrometer on Chandrayaan-1 (launched 22 Oct 2008). In 2006-7 I served on the ESSC/ESF Ad Hoc Group on Definition of a science-driven European scenario for space exploration. My research interests centre on the study of volcanic activity by means of remote sensing, and volcanology and geoscience in general on other planets. My landmark book 'Planet Mercury: From Pale Pink Dot to Dynamic World' was published by Springer-Praxis on 14 Dec 2014. I also wrote 'Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tsunami, A complete introduction' (new edition 2015) and 'Geology, A complete introduction' (new edition 2015) for Hodder's 'Teach Yourself' series, and 'A Very Short Introduction to Planets', Oxford University Press (2010). A companion volume 'A Very Short Introduction to Moons' was published in November 2015.
Scientists Want to Know If Earth Once Harbored a Pre-Human Industrial Civilization
Stav Dimitropoulos August 30, 2022
Photo credit: Mark Stevenson/Stocktrek Images - Getty Images
The Silurian hypothesis asks whether it might be possible to find evidence of a pre-human industrial civilization in Earth’s geologic record—even one that might have existed millions of years ago.
The astrobiologists who developed the thought experiment concluded that there is not strong evidence in Earth’s geologic record to support such a claim.
However, we still lack the scientific methods that would allow us to dive deep into Earth’s behaviors over such a long time span, so we may want to keep an open mind.
Complex life on our planet has existed for at least 400 million years. Yet as a species, we only managed to create an industrial civilization around 300 years ago. But, what if an earlier industrial civilization existed on Earth millions of years ago? If that were so, how would we be able to prove it—or disprove it? This is the crux of the Silurian hypothesis, a fascinating thought experiment that appeared in a study published in 2018 in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
“Is it common for any civilization that reaches our level of energy use to trigger their own version of climate change? I was wondering. If there are alien civilizations, would they also trigger climate change?” Frank ponders. With this whirlwind of thoughts in mind, Frank visited the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Sciences (GISS), an elite climate-science facility at the University of Columbia, New York. He wanted to share his thoughts with climate researchers, and surely expected lots of raised eyebrows and skeptical stares in the process.
“I went into the meeting with Gavin A. Schmidt [a climatologist and the director of NASA GISS], and started talking about aliens. And then Gavin stopped me and said, ‘Wait a second. How do you know we’re the only time there’s been a civilization on our own planet?’’’Frank tells Popular Mechanics. The question was an “Aha!” moment for Frank, mostly because it allowed him to consider revisiting facts he had taken for granted.
Evidence in Earth’s Geologic Record
Photo credit: United States Geological Survey, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Homo sapiens first appeared on Earth about 300,000 years ago. In the unlikely case that such an old industrial civilization had existed, it would predate the species to which we all belong. It was then that Schmidt called the idea the Silurian hypothesis, paying homage to the sophisticated reptilian humanoids awoken by nuclear testing after 400 million years of hibernation in a 1970s episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The study authors decided to laser in on the time period from four million years ago to 400 million years ago.
Going back hundreds of millions of years to find traces of a potential pre-Homo Sapiens civilization is not a piece of cake. “After a few million years, Earth is pretty much resurfaced. You’re not going to have any statues, buildings, or anything left,” Frank says. Fossil records will be virtually nonexistent as everything will have crumbled to dust. The only evidence would come in the form of chemical imprints. “You’d have to look at each layer of rock, and then try and detect trends—look for changes in things like the carbon or oxygen isotopes, which are tracers of things like carbon dioxide. An industrial civilization would dump lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, just like we do,” Frank says. Plastic or nanoparticles would also be good indicators of an industrial civilization that occurred in time immemorial.
Schmidt and Frank were intrigued by the period of geological history known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), because something peculiar happened on our planet during it, 56 million years ago: Earth’s average temperature soared to 15 degrees Fahrenheit above what we have today, and the world became a temperate and iceless place. They investigated the carbon and oxygen isotope ratios from the PETM and indeed saw spikes, but they also saw declines, and all of these over a few hundred thousand years, which is nowhere near the speed at which carbon is currently suffocating the atmosphere. Frank says the PETM’s chemical differences pointed to a long-term climate change.
They also reviewed other “abrupt events” throughout time that are visible in the geologic record, including ocean anoxic events—when an ocean becomes depleted of oxygen—and extinction events. Unsurprisingly, and perhaps slightly disappointingly, they were not indicative of an industrial civilization, either.
Applying Occam’s Razor
“The hypothesis that Earth may have harbored long-extinct industrial civilizations and that existence may be recorded in the geologic record associated with climate change signatures is fascinating, however, even the authors are not sold on the likelihood of it being true,” Stephen Holler, an associate professor of physics at Fordham University in New York City, tells Popular Mechanics.
A great rule of thumb exists in science, and it goes by the name Occam’s razor. In the 14th century, English Franciscan philosopher and theologian William of Ockham proposed that the likeliest solution to a problem is the simplest one. “That is very likely the case here,” says Holler. “We can largely explain the geologic record in terms of natural phenomena, so there is no need to invoke lost civilizations.”
However, if an earlier industrial civilization did exist, and its extinction was the result of catastrophic climate change due to industrial activities, then we should heed the warnings because, as a civilization, we stand at the precipice. “It will be a hard landing when we go over the edge, and we very well might not survive,” says Holler.
Greater Sustainability Leads to Fewer Signs
There is an oxymoron to the Silurian hypothesis: the more sustainable a society is in the way it generates energy and manufactures resources—arguably, the more advanced a society is—the smaller the footprint it will leave on the planet. Yet, this smaller footprint would translate to few markers on the geologic record for that period. For example, the more plastic or persistent synthetic molecules we produce, the higher the chances future civilizations will find traces of us. (Our society produces 300 million tons of plastic each year worldwide—almost the equivalent of the weight of the entire human population!). Even if we wipe ourselves off the face of Earth with a nuclear catastrophe, long-lived radioactive particles will endure in the soil eons later, signaling we had existed.
“With the Silurian hypothesis, we articulated the kinds of signals that our civilization would leave if we disappear and somebody looks for our civilization 10 or 20 millions of years from now,” Frank says.
But most of all, the experiment demonstrated certain shortcomings in our current scientific apparatus. “In case an earlier species’s industrial activity was particularly short-lived, we would not be able to detect it in ancient sediments with the tools and methods we have now,” Frank explains. “If you want to look for evidence of a previous civilization, you’d have to do studies that nobody’s done and develop novel methods—for example, you’d have to figure out ways to look at the rock record on a much finer timescale.”
Remember, we are talking about millions of years of evolution of complex life and an unsparing Earth that grinds down everything in its wake. And though both Frank and Schmidt don’t really believe an industrial civilization existed before our own, the main takeaway of the Silurian hypothesis, Frank says, is that if you’re not explicitly looking for something, you might not even see it.
Given the immense time period that dinosaurs existed for, why did none of them develop sentience?
One thing that sets humans apart from other animals – as far as we know – is that we are sentient.
Not only do we have large brains and keen intelligence, but we are self-aware.
We are conscious: we sense the world around us in an advanced way, and know that we exist, and that others exist.
Our species has been around for just a few hundred thousand years, a newcomer on the geological scene. So why didn’t dinosaurs develop sentience during their evolutionary run that exceeded 150 million years?
First off, we assume they didn’t, because they didn’t leave records of things like writing, language and other sentient thought processes in the fossil record. But we do know from CT scanning of fossil skulls that many dinosaurs had very large brains.
Could these large brains have eventually become sentient? Maybe, if the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact didn’t knock out dinosaurs in their prime and pave the way for our mammalian ancestors.
IF THEY HAD THEY WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE THIS
Art, anatomy, and the stars: Russell and Séguin’s dinosauroid1
Abstract It takes a bold, innovative mind to publish an exercise in speculative evolution pertaining to an alternative timeline. Dale Russell’s studies of the troodontid Stenonychosaurus and of ornithomimid theropods, published in 1969 and 1972, inspired him to consider the possibility that some theropod dinosaur lineages might have given rise to big-brained species had they never died out. By late 1980, Russell had considered the invention of a hypothetical descendant of Stenonychosaurus dubbed the “dinosauroid”. There is likely no specific inspiration for the dinosauroid given Russell’s overlapping areas of interest, but his correspondence with Carl Sagan and his involvement in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence program were likely of special influence. The early-1980s creation of a life-size Stenonychosaurus model with Ron Séguin gave Russell the impetus to bring the dinosauroid to life. Authors have disagreed on whether the dinosauroid’s creation was an exercise in scientific extrapolation or one of speculative fiction, and on whether its form reflects bias or an honest experiment: Russell justified his decisions on the basis of the dinosauroid’s anatomy being adaptive and linked to efficiency, but he also stated or implied that the human form may be considered a predictable evolutionary outcome among big-brained organisms, and expressed a preference for directionist views that posit humans as close to the pinnacle of evolution. Both derided and praised at the time of its construction, the dinosauroid is undergoing a resurgence of interest. Given that its aim was to spark discussion and invite alternative solutions, it can only be considered an extraordinary success.
Abstract We review the distinguished and varied career of our friend and colleague, palaeontologist Dr. Dale A. Russell, following the recent news of his death. Dale relished his work and approached his research — whether it be on mosasaur systematics, dinosaur extinction, or the evolution of animal intelligence — with great gusto. A deep and contextual thinker, Dale had a penchant for metanarrative rarely equaled in these times of increased research specialization. This quality, combined with his outgoing and collaborative nature, allowed Dale to make friends and colleagues with highly varied research interests throughout the world. We remember Dale fondly and cherish the opportunity to share the stories of his adventures (and misadventures) across the globe.
Introduction Dale Alan Russell (Fig. 1) died on 21 December 2019, six days short of his 82nd birthday. Dale was the first modern student of Canadian dinosaurs, revitalizing their study following the fabled decades of collection by Charles M. Sternberg and his contemporaries. During his 30-year tenure at the Canadian Museum of Nature (previously the National Museum of Canada, and the National Museum of Natural Sciences), he described dinosaurs from Canada, China, North Africa, and elsewhere (Appendix A, Table A1). He sought to understand both the dinosaurs themselves and the environments in which they lived. His restless energy drove him to explore remote regions of the world, from the Canadian High Arctic, to the New Caledonian cloud forest, from the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco and the Rift Valley of the Lake Turkana region of northern Kenya, to the deserts of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia in China. He endeavoured to understand dinosaur habitats by exploring modern analogues to Cretaceous lowland habitats in Florida, Louisiana, and North Carolina, where he documented swamp cypresses, magnolias, turtles, and alligators in their natural habitats. He was among the first palaeontologists to give serious consideration to an extraterrestrial cause of dinosaur extinction (Russell and Tucker 1971), nearly a decade before the Alvarez hypothesis gained traction. Dale is remembered not only for his fertile imagination, his becoming modesty, and his nearly manic sense of humour, but also for his enthusiasm on matters botanical. Not only did he learn about his fungi and plants of interest (figs, ferns, etc.), but he cultivated them both at home and in the office, consumed them, and induced his friends and co-workers to consume them (fiddlehead fern soup, anybody?). He is remembered with great affection by all who knew and admired him.
WION Climate Tracker: iPhone 14 accounts for 61 kg of carbon dioxide emissions
Sep 12, 2022
Few days have passed since apple launched its latest flagship lineup. Multiple things have been said about whether the iPhone 14 is worth spending hundreds of dollars or not.
Tamarack Becomes Largest Player In Clearwater Play After $1.1B Acquisition
Calgary-based Tamarack Valley Energy Ltd will acquire Deltastream Energy Corp in a CAD$1.425-billion (nearly US$1.1 billion) deal that renders it the largest producer in the Clearwater unconventional heavy oil play in Canada’s Alberta province.
The acquisition will add 23,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent to Tamarack’s production next year, according to the company.
"With this transaction, Tamarack will become the leading public Clearwater business, with an exceptional combined asset base,” Bill Slavin, Managing Director, ARC Financial, which owns 85% of Deltastream, said.
Deltastream is a pure play on Clearwater, a new shale oil play where development began only six years ago. The play has been characterized by rapid growth in those six years, with production reportedly rising from 4,300 bbl/d in 2017 to some 60,000 bbls/d in 2021 and estimates of 70,000 bbls/d by the second quarter of this year, according to JW Energy.
The deal will see Tamarack acquire Deltastream for $825 million in cash, $300 million as a deferred acquisition payment and $300 million in equity, which includes 80 million Tamarack shares, according to a press release. Clearwater is eyed by investors due to economics that promise a fast payout of less than six months under today’s oil prices, with Tamarack Valley CEO Brian Schmidt calling it the most economic oil play in North America.
“Deltastream brings scale and a leading economic development drilling inventory, comprised of high quality, long life assets with low sustaining capital requirements that enhance capital allocation flexibility,” Schmidt said in the release.
Tamarack has been rapidly expanding its footprint in Clearwater, and this latest deal follows one in April that saw the company enter into an agreement to acquire privately owned Rolling Hills Energy Ltd, for ~$74 million. That deal positioned Tamarack for drilling rights covering upwards of 590 square miles.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
Edmonton affordable housing residents say they wait months, years for vital repairs
Katarina Szulc - CBC
Some Edmontonians living in homes owned by a government-funded provider of affordable housing say their complaints about mould and other problems have not been addressed quickly enough.
They live in townhouses managed by Civida, formerly known as Capital Region Housing, which receives millions of dollars in funding each year from the province and the City of Edmonton.
Marianne Snoek moved into the Menisa 1 townhouse complex in Mill Woods in August 2017. Even though her move-in inspection report noted black mould in the basement, she said she had no other option.
"I signed documents under duress, meaning I was stressed out, and didn't have anywhere to go," Snoek said. "I didn't know that it was going to spread the way it did."
Over the years the mould began to spread from the basement, to the kitchen, to the walls in her children's bedrooms.
Snoek said she asked Civida for a solution to the mould problem frequently over the years — over the phone, to the site manager in person and during annual inspections. But Snoek said no one showed up to contain or treat it.
According to Health Canada's website, mould can be caused by a major moisture problem or leak in an exterior wall, foundation or plumbing system. Side effects can include eye, nose and throat irritation, coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, fatigue and headaches.
Mould can worsen symptoms of asthma and trigger allergic reactions. In children and infants, mould can cause coughing and bleeding in the lungs, according to Ontario's Ministry of Health.
On July 26 of this year, Edmonton-Mill Woods MLA Christina Gray contacted Civida on behalf of Snoek, urging the housing provider to treat the mould in Snoek's home.
In emailed correspondence, Civida told Gray it had sent out a work order to complete mould remediation.
But more than a month later, Snoek said, none of the mould had been treated.
Civida told Gray that to prevent more mould from spreading and growing, it would install eavestroughs throughout the complex that same week. Snoek said workers had taken down old eavestroughing several months earlier.
When CBC visited the Menisa 1 complex in late August, there were no eavestroughs. Black mould was visible inside Snoek's home.
"It's incredibly important that these Albertans are listened to and they need to be responded to," Gray said. "Civida needs to be more responsive than we've seen so far."
In a statement to CBC, Civida said it takes mould "very seriously." It said reports of mould are investigated "and when needed, Civida creates a plan for remediation."
Civida also said it works with tenants to identify solutions "up to and including alternate housing during the time required to repair the property."
Snoek said she and Gray asked Civida for alternate housing, but that Civida did not respond to their request.
Civida says it manages more than 4,500 subsidized units for people with lower incomes, and more than 700 near-market and market-priced rental homes, all in the Edmonton metro region.
Civida receives more than $25 million in provincial funding each year.
To become eligible for community housing, prospective tenants must meet income criteria under the Alberta Housing Act. Rents range from $130 per month up and average approximately $400 per month. Tenants in near-market housing pay rents set at 10 to 20 per cent below current market rates.
The organization, which says over 13,000 people are living in Civida homes, began in 1970 as the Edmonton Housing Authority. In 1995, its name changed to Capital Region Housing. In April 2021 it was rebranded as Civida. Civida's property portfolio includes provincially-owned housing and other buildings owned by the City of Edmonton.
This fiscal year, the Alberta government will provide $19.2 million to support Civida's operations, and $5.4 million for maintenance on provincially owned buildings Civida runs. The city provides another $600,000 a year to maintain city-owned buildings managed by Civida.
In a statement to CBC, Civida says it plans to spend $11 million on operating maintenance this year and another $13.3 million on capital maintenance.
The province says that since 2020, Civida has received an average $4.1 million per year in grants for properties that are municipally-owned. Last year, the City of Edmonton provided Civida with $2.5 million in funding from the province to rehabilitate 236 city-owned housing units.
'My mental state has gone downhill'
CBC spoke with five residents in three Civida buildings about their own concerns. Many expressed worry over possible backlash and declined to speak on the record.
In response to concerns raised by Snoek, Alberta's Ministry of Seniors and Housing said it is working with Civida to address the issues and provide support.
"It is our understanding that contractors have been on site undertaking remediation work in response to concerns expressed by tenants and this work is ongoing," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
"We will continue to monitor the situation as we do with all our housing assets."
In an emailed statement, Alberta Health Services (AHS) said an Environmental Public Health inspector responded to a complaint at the Menisa 1 complex in July.
AHS could not confirm if the complaint was for Snoek's unit or say how many complaints have been made about Civida-run housing units.
Snoek, meanwhile, said she continues to live in unhealthy conditions. Mould and constant worrying have caused her health to decline, she said.
"My mental state has gone completely downhill, my physical state, everything," she said.
At the end of August, Snoek gave notice she intended to find a different place to live.
She moved out of Menisa 1 on Sept. 9.
Mould not the only problem
Skyler Morgan lives in Civida's Rundle Heights 2 complex in northeast Edmonton.
Morgan, who is deaf and has mobility disabilities, first sought permission from Civida in April to install a mobility ramp and additional hand railings.
"I'm disabled but I just can't lift a lot of things," Morgan said. "My walking device is heavy. [My doctor] wants to put me on an electric one and I can't lift it up the stairs and I can't leave it outside because somebody's going to steal it."
Sam Mason, accessibility co-ordinator with the advocacy group Voices of Albertans with Disabilities, has been working to help push Morgan's requests forward.
Mason said she has multiple reports of people with disabilities in Civida housing not having their needs met.
"Another person I'm working with is requesting a stairlift to get into their basement, which is essentially just a piece of equipment that would be no different than getting a bookshelf anchored to a wall… In that case, it feels a little bit even more unjustified," Mason said.
She said after months of back and forth, Civida eventually stopped answering and didn't submit the needed paperwork for permission to install the ramp or hand railings for Morgan.
"I have had trouble getting hold of anyone in response to this," Mason said. "I was informed that they had agreed over email that it was fine… And then the trail has just kind of gone silent on how we can get hold of anyone responsible."
Civida said it does its best to match applicants with housing adapted to their specific needs, but that it is "not always feasible, due to the lack of accessible units in Civida's housing stock, to meet all the requirements for every applicant."
In Morgan's case, she was not living with disabilities when she applied for Civida housing.
Morgan received a work notice from Civida stating that hand railings would be installed on Sept. 12. However, she has yet to hear back about the ramp.
Morgan said Rundle Heights 2 has become her home. She said she takes care of her place, including a vegetable garden she tends with a neighbour.
She just wants more timely action.
"It makes me feel very angry," Morgan said. "Especially because I'm constantly having to fight for disabled rights. Coming from a housing corporation that's supposed to help the disabled, it's flabbergasting to me."
Fleeing Russian Tank Crashes Into Tree in Video Viewed Over 1M Times
A Twitter video mocking the retreat of Russian soldiers in Ukraine has gone viral on social media.
The video, which was posted on the Calibre Obscura Twitter page, an organization that hosts a website dedicated to arms and war news, was captioned: "Amazing video of a Russian T-72 fleeing Ukrainian troops, discarding men and then crashing into a tree."
Duration 0:45
Ukrainian Forces Recapture Territories In The Kharkiv Region
The video shows a tank, reportedly belonging to the Russian army, driving down a road before passing what is indicated in the video to be a Ukrainian soldier is spotted on the side of the road.
After noticing the Ukrainian soldier, Russian soldiers on the outside of the tank jump from the moving vehicle into the dirt. while Yakety Sax, better known as the theme to The Benny Hill Show, plays in the background.
After the soldiers have all jumped from the outside of the tank, it continues to drive down the road before swerving and crashing into a tree.
At this moment, Yakety Sax transitions into Frolic, the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm, a popular choice for videos that end in awkward moments.
The video was posted on Friday of last week and has since garnered more than 1.3 million views.
The tank crash video comes as Ukraine has launched a surprise counteroffensive in the areas around Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city. In recent days, Ukrainian forces have seized control of key cities such as Izyum and Kupyansk, forcing Russian soldiers to retreat.
Earlier this month, the Defense of Ukraine's Twitter page also took to mocking Russian soldiers for retreating in the face of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The Twitter page posted a 40-second video issuing an ultimatum to Russian soldiers and said they should leave Kherson Oblast in Ukraine or face death.
The video was set to the 1932 song Run Rabbit Run and showed footage of Russian soldiers appearing to be fired upon by missiles, artillery fire and snipers.
It mockingly called the Russian soldiers "guests" and plays footage of an alleged Russian soldier warning against Ukrainian forces.
Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, banking on his vast military to propel him to a quick victory. However, Ukraine met Russian troops with a stronger-than-expected defense effort, bolstered by aid from allies, including the United States.
Despite worldwide condemnation due to alleged human rights abuses committed by the Russian military and a lack of justification for the war, many in Russia rallied around Putin. However, these Ukrainian victories have seen some hardline pro-Russia bloggers, who for months cheered on the Russian leader's invasion, turn on him.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ukraine's Ministry of Defense for comment.
'Misgendering' incident plunges Green Party of Canada into renewed turmoil
Just one year after its partial meltdown during the 2021 federal election, the Green Party of Canada is once again in crisis over an incident of “misgendering.”
Green Party of Canada Interim Leader Amita Kuttner said the Zoom “misgendering” incident was “reflective of a larger pattern of behaviours that a few in the party are perpetuating.”
Tristin Hopper
National Post
It all started at a Sept. 3 media event in Vancouver kicking off the party’s leadership contest. In a Zoom appearance, Interim Leader Amita Kuttner was identified using a caption bearing the pronouns “she/elle.”
Kuttner, 32, identifies as non-binary and pansexual (attracted to all genders and orientations), and goes by they/them pronouns. In a subsequent statement , Kuttner slammed the “misgendering,” saying the incident “made me feel hurt and isolated” and hinted that it was “reflective of a larger pattern of behaviours that a few in the party are perpetuating.”
The statement added, “in moments like these I wonder — how can I ensure other people’s safety if I can’t even ensure my own?”
Kuttner’s statement was followed by a joint letter — signed by leadership candidates as well as the party’s two MPs, Elizabeth May and Mike Morrice — calling for a “restorative process” to root out “harassment” within the Greens. “The September 3 incident was but the latest in a number of similar behavioural patterns that Dr. Kuttner has faced throughout their tenure,” it read .
Green Party President Lorraine Rekmans was the first to resign. A volunteer who estimated that she has worked 40-hour weeks for the past year on party business, Rekmans implied in a Saturday resignation letter that leadership candidates were subtly blaming her for the “she/elle” mistake.
Although the joint letter explicitly cleared Rekmans of responsibility for the incident, Rekmans wrote that she is “constantly distracted by claims of harm.”
“I was surprised that the contestants would use (the Sept. 3 media event) to attack the Party they were running to lead,” she wrote, adding, “I find that some in GPC, wish to cling to the image of a political party that is the same as all the other political parties in Canada, fuelled by money, and controlled by people who wield power.”
Krystal Brooks, the Ontario representative to the party’s federal council, also resigned. In a lengthy Sunday Facebook post , Brooks criticized the party for continuing its leadership race even while candidates were calling for an investigation into “systemic” harm within the party. The contest should have been postponed “pending the investigation,” wrote Brooks.
Brooks then attached emails showing that Morrice and May had apparently threatened to resign and sit as independents if the leadership contest was delayed. May, notably, is running as a candidate in that contest.
“I … recognize how deep the manipulation went prior to this event by Interim Leader, Dr. Amita Kuttner, although I’m not certain if you were aware that you were doing this or if you too were being manipulated,” wrote Brooks, adding “I have lost all faith in Caucus and those who they choose to hide behind.”
Notably, both resignees are Indigenous, with Rekmans having been celebrated only 12 months ago as “the first Indigenous woman to be president of a national political party in Canada.”
Amidst all this, Kuttner launched a fundraiser last Wednesday intending to spite Jonathan Kay, an editor with Quillette and occasional National Post columnist. Kay had tweeted that the misgendering controversy sounded “exactly like satire,” prompting Kuttner to ask supporters to donate $68,000 to counter Kay’s “hate.”
As of press time, the fundraiser has pulled in $226.69, $10 of which was donated by Kay himself.
The whole misgendering fracas is occurring as the party struggles to recover from its disastrous performance in the 2021 federal election.
Several months before the election, then-leader Annamie Paul had gone public with accusations that she had been repeatedly subjected to “anti-Semitic” and “racist” attacks from within the party (Paul is Jewish and Black).
Paul then limited her campaign almost exclusively to her personal bid for a seat in Toronto Centre. She would ultimately win just 3,921 votes, putting her in a distant fourth place behind the NDP, the Conservatives and the victorious Liberal candidate (who won 23,000 votes).
Although the Green Party retained both of its MPs, its share of the popular vote dropped off a cliff in the 2021 vote. In 2019, under May, 1.2 million Canadians had cast Green ballots. Under Paul, that was down to just 400,000 — the party’s worst showing since 2000.
