Canadians have lots of reasons to be skeptical about increased defence spending

Story by Eric Van Rythoven, Instructor in Political Science, Carleton University • Yesterday 

THE CONVERSATION

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the media during a visit with members of the Canadian Armed Forces at CFB Kingston in Kingston, Ont., in March 2023.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Leaked documents from the Pentagon have revealed what many suspected: Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has no intention of meeting the NATO defence spending target of two per cent of GDP.

The story is hardly surprising — the last time Canadians saw this level of spending was under Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government in 1990.

The report sparked a wave of recriminations over the poor state of Canada’s defence and security funding.

Read more: Justin Trudeau and NATO: The problem with Canadian defence isn’t cash, it's culture

Complaints about the country’s lacklustre spending has become something of a time-honoured tradition. Canadians are told they are ignorant and complacent to the dangers of the world and need to spend more.

But what if we have the script backwards?

What if the problem isn’t public ignorance, but rather a defence and security community that refuses to face some hard truths about Canadian politics?

What if, instead of simply chastising Canadians, we spoke candidly about what may be entirely valid reasons for skepticism?

Confronting these hard truths may just be the first step in building genuine public buy-in for defence spending that has eluded the country for decades.

Threat inflation abounds

For the last two decades, Canadians have seen a variety of defence and security figures dramatically inflate threats well beyond any reasonable point.

We were told Afghanistan was vital to fighting terrorism (it wasn’t), that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (they didn’t) and that fighting ISIS was the “greatest struggle of our generation” (not even close). But when the dust settles and these claims are revealed to be suspect, it’s understandable why the Canadian public might be skeptical.

The uncomfortable truth is that for many in the defence and security community and others who offer commentary — including journalists, politicians and pundits — there are strong incentives for dramatic language and apocalyptic visions because it drives clicks and boosts profiles.

But at the collective level, they can cause a credibility deficit that hurts their ability to speak to the public.

Afghanistan’s lessons

With a considerable cost in blood and treasure, the Afghanistan mission is a bitter memory for many Canadians. Despite these sacrifices, Canada never received the recognition it craved from NATO allies.

That’s why it’s not surprising that in 2012, 69 per cent of Canadians believed the mission was “not worth the human and financial toll.” With the Taliban’s eventual takeover of the country, that number is likely even higher.



Pallbearers carry the casket of a soldier from a Hercules transport aircraft after arriving at the Halifax airport in April 2002. Pte. Richard Green died with three others after an American fighter jet mistakenly dropped a bomb on Canadian troops in Afghanistan.© (CP PHOTO/Andrew Vaughan)

The lesson learned for a generation of Canadians is that there are limits to contributing to NATO simply to appear as a “good ally.”

The fact that we’ve embraced a polite national silence and never had any real accountability for the failures in Afghanistan is a lingering disappointment. Now add to this a string of cringe-worthy procurement failures and utterly disgraceful sexual misconduct in the military.

Is it any mystery why some question whether this system is worthy of more money?

Read more: What's taking Canada's Armed Forces so long to tackle sexual misconduct?

Cost-of-living crisis

In 2022, food bank use was at an all-time high in Canada. Homeless encampments are an increasing feature of our cities. And now the average rent in Toronto, the country’s largest city, has crossed the $3,000 threshold.

The reality is that the cost-of-living crisis is a political juggernaut with no signs of abating.

For much of the Canadian public, this is by far the biggest priority. That leaves little bandwidth for increased defence spending.


24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s official residence, is seen on the banks of the Ottawa River. Health and safety concerns led the National Capital Commission to move out staff.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Meanwhile, the prime minister’s residence is crumbling into a rat-infested, mouldy death trap. The plane the prime minister uses is so old the seats were designed with ashtrays in the arm rests.

We live in a country where the taxpayer is considered sacred and any even remotely questionable spending is considered profane.

That means that unless it serves a very specific constituency, some spending is often not worth the risk of criticism for politicians.

Addressing what matters to Canadians

Meanwhile, other immediate issues like the effects of climate change are top of mind. More than 500 Canadians died from the 2022 heat dome in British Columbia alone.

Politicians and pundits can discuss cyber security all day long, but it won’t mean much to someone whose roof was just ripped off in the latest derecho.

If politicians can’t speak to how Canadians actually feel and experience insecurity, citizens won’t listen to them on defence and security issues.

That doesn’t mean public buy-in for increased defence spending is impossible. But there must be political leadership that speaks candidly to the concerns and skepticism of Canadians.

It means there needs to be real and meaningful progress on transparency and accountability — at all levels. It means exercising restraint and not sensationalizing every single danger in the news cycle. It means speaking to how Canadians actually feel and experience insecurity, rather than simply telling them what it means.

We can do all of this and more. Or we can go back to naively admonishing Canadians for not spending enough on defence and security. We already know how well that’s working out.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

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New B.C. program aims to help farmers adapt to climate change

Story by Taya Fast • Yesterday

B.C.'s Perennial Crop Renewal program will, among other things, help vineyards plant different varieties of grapes best suited to the area.© Global News

With challenges such as atmospheric river events, heat domes and cold snaps, B.C., farms have been hard hit by extreme weather events in recent years.

On Sunday, the provincial government announced a new program to help farmers adapt to the changing conditions.

The Perennial Crop Renewal program is set to revitalize hazelnut, grape, berry, and tree-fruit production and increase the competitiveness and resiliency of B.C. farm businesses all while supporting food security.

"The Perennial Crop Renewal Program is about renewal and ensuring our farmers are profitable and have sustainable production in the long run," said Pam Alexis, B.C., Agriculture and Food Minister.

"Our producers have faced recent challenges, such as extreme weather and disease, and by supporting them so they can plant more resilient, climate-friendly crops, we will improve their bottom line and strengthen both the food economy and food security in B.C."

The program will provide $15 million over the coming years to support multiple sectors with potential agronomic and market opportunities.

“Funding will help farmers adapt to environmental and market conditions by supporting the removal, diversification or planting of perennial crops, ensuring British Columbians enjoy local produce for years to come,” read the provincial government's release.

The amount of funding and the project goals will vary by sector. Crops such as apples, cherries, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, and hazelnuts are eligible for the program.

According to the ministry, this program will specifically help the wine grape industry with replanting different varieties of grapes best suited to the area.

Last year's cold snap resulted in significant damage at many wineries and vineyards, particularly in the South Okanagan.

“This program is a great opportunity for us to look at what we could be doing with what we have planted and make those changes to adapt,” said Wine Growers British Columbia president and CEO Miles Prodan.

“I think this funding will be critically important to the success of our industry.”

Video: Fifth annual B.C. Wine Industry Insight conference

BC Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Development, Roly Russell, added that this program is a good first step to providing more support to BC farmers.

“[The program] is particularly around navigating some of the market changes, some of the climate changes, and get them transitioning into new varietals,” Russell said.

The program will be administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. Applications and more details for the Perennial Crop Renewal Program can be found on the BC IAF website.

"IAF has built a strong relationship with B.C.'s perennial crop sectors since our inception more than 25 years ago," said Jack DeWit, chair of the foundation's board of directors.

"Using our administrative expertise, we look forward to continuing to work with and support the sectors to deliver these complex programs."

Source of hydrogen sulfide gas reported in north eastern Alberta still not identified

Story by The Canadian Press • 

A poisonous, corrosive and flammable gas has been detected near a TC Energy pipeline roughly 70 kilometres west of Fort McKay, Alta.

The company received complaints of odours in the “remote area” on April 27, which it then reported to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), according to a note the AER sent to area First Nations on Saturday.

That same day, TC Energy shut down the White Spruce Pipeline “out of an abundance of caution” to investigate the odour, according to an emailed statement TC Energy media relations sent to Canada’s National Observer Monday evening. The company, in collaboration with the AER, “determined the source of the odour is not related to the operation of our asset,” noting its monitoring did not detect any pressure drops or other indications of a release from the pipeline. On Saturday, April 29, the pipeline resumed operations.

TC Energy and AER’s inspection found the source of the smell is hydrogen sulfide, a dangerous gas often characterized as smelling like rotten eggs. It occurs naturally in oil and gas wells and is found during the drilling and production of crude oil and natural gas.

Also referred to as sewer or swamp gas, hydrogen sulfide poses many health risks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns exposure can irritate the eyes and respiratory system and cause apnea, coma, convulsions, dizziness, headache, weakness, irritability, insomnia and upset stomach, depending on the dose and duration of exposure. Inhaling high concentrations can produce “extremely rapid unconsciousness and death.”

“We take that one really — like really, really — seriously,” Daniel Stuckless, director for Fort McKay Métis Nation, told Canada’s National Observer in a phone interview Monday evening. “It's not something you want to have happen in low-lying areas where that gas doesn't get a chance to lose its concentration in the natural environment.”

A TC Energy representative left Stuckless a voicemail at about midday on Friday to let him know about complaints of an odour in the area, and the following day, the AER notice identified it as hydrogen sulfide. Stuckless said in his experience, TC Energy is “forthcoming” when something goes wrong and has “one of the better notification protocols.” For this reason, he thinks TC Energy wasn’t aware the gas was hydrogen sulfide when the company left the voicemail.

Even though there may not have been anyone in the area, Stuckless says incidents like this one always revive the fears people have about safe consumption of land resources in their traditional territory.

The AER’s note from Saturday morning said “further inspection is ongoing to determine the source, as the pipeline is licensed as a sweet crude pipeline.” Sweet crude refers to oil that has small amounts of hydrogen sulfide — less than half a per cent — compared to crude oil. Hydrogen sulfide can cause serious corrosion issues for pipelines, particularly in higher concentrations.

“The AER will continue to oversee the area to ensure our priorities of public health and environmental safety,” it reads. The provincial energy regulator says it has also notified First Nation and Métis communities in the area, as well as Alberta Environment and Protected Areas and Environment Canada and Climate Change.

More information will be provided when it comes available, according to the AER.

Last week, the AER publicly apologized and pledged to improve communication and transparency at a recent parliamentary committee meeting on the Kearl tailings leaks, which stands in stark contrast to the recent communication Stuckless described.

“We actually received word from the AER that they won't be providing any information above and beyond what they're providing through their stakeholder output,” he said. After the hearings, which garnered national attention, it seems odd to him for AER “to lock down communication and only send out canned statements once they're available and not ask or take questions from stakeholders.”

If there’s a spill, the nation wants to know what was spilled, he said. If wildlife are affected, they want to know what species; if it's close to a community, they want to make sure a health official is on the case. Stuckless cited examples of typical questions they would pose to the regulator. “These are not uncommon or unreasonable asks, and for some reason, now we're being shut out.”

“I thought … the committee hearings in Ottawa were going to raise the standard,” said Stuckless. “But it appears now a week later, we've lowered them. And now we're not talking at all. So it doesn't sound like it's a great move in the right direction.”

Fort McKay First Nation and ECCC did not immediately return a request for comment before the time of publication.

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

Nova Scotia

Stop work order remains in place as investigators probe fire at Donkin mine

Story by Tom Ayers • Yesterday 

Coal production in Donkin, N.S. is on hold for now while Nova Scotia's Labour Department investigates a fire in Kameron Coal's underground mine.

The province says no one was in the mine when the fire broke out on Sunday and there were no injuries.

The fire is out, but it has left behind a lot of questions.

Gary Taje, a retired underground coal miner and a former mine rescue team member from Alberta, said any fire — no matter how small — is cause for concern.

"Any fire underground in a coal mine is extremely serious, not just from the flames themselves, but potential for igniting gases and explosion," he said.

James Edwards, District 8 councillor for Cape Breton Regional Municipality and a member of the Donkin mine's community liaison committee, said the fire involved the conveyor system.


Gary Taje, a retired underground coal miner from Alberta, says if no one was in the mine at the time of the fire, he wonders why was the conveyor system was running.© Tom Ayers/CBC

Taje said that raises a key question, if no one was in the mine at the time.

"If the mine is idle, if there's no production, the question I would have I guess is why was the conveyor running?" he said.

Mine conveyors can become jammed by dust accumulation or other debris, such as rocks or coal. But they also should have an automatic shutoff system in case the belt stops moving, Taje said.

Gary O'Toole, senior executive director of Nova Scotia Labour's safety branch, said that question is part of the department's investigation.

The province issued a stop work order affecting underground operations at the mine on Sunday and inspectors were on site Monday.


O'Toole would not confirm whether the conveyor was the source, but said inspectors are looking into that and other factors.

"I can't confirm at this time the specific site of the fire or its cause, but certainly the questions that you have are the questions that we will have as part of our investigation," he said.



Gary O'Toole, senior executive director with the Department of Labour's safety branch, says the stop work order will remain in place until the province is satisfied the mine is safe.© Rob Short/CBC

O'Toole could not say when the department might have answers.

"We really need to take the time to conduct that investigation and assess the situation and really understand thoroughly what led to the cause of that fire."

The stop work order will stay in place until the province is satisfied the mine is safe to resume production, he said.

Kameron Coal did not respond to requests for comment.

O'Toole said smoke was reported coming from the mine around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday and the department was notified around 7 p.m.

By 9:45 p.m., the department tweeted that the fire was under control.

Taje said any fire that takes a couple of hours to extinguish is a big fire and should be taken seriously.

He said the mine rescue team likely had to contend with heat and smoke in a confined space for several hours.

"It's not easy and it's a little bit scary," Taje said.

"Fortunately, no one was injured and no one succumbed to the gases produced by this fire. And the men that went down with the machines that they had, they're brave people that did their job to ensure that no one would suffer or the mine would not suffer."

Past warnings, orders and penalties

Mine operator Kameron Coal Management received 23 warnings, 28 compliance orders, and 11 administrative penalties or fines in its first four months after reopening in mid-September 2022.

The mine is not unionized, despite efforts by the United Mine Workers of America.

Taje, a former union executive member, said some of the mine operator's previous conflicts with the province have involved dust accumulation and the conveyor system, but O'Toole said he could not immediately confirm that.

The number of warnings, orders and penalties is not surprising given the complex nature of underground mining, O'Toole said, but the province will be reviewing past regulatory violations as part of its investigation.

NDP MP wants climate lens applied to issue of Arctic security

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 

A recent parliamentary report on Arctic security missed the mark, according to one MP, by failing to recommend solutions tackling a huge threat to the Arctic: climate change.

“The New Democratic Party is profoundly disappointed with the report’s lack of climate policy,” NDP MP Lindsay Mathyssen wrote in a supplemental opinion at the bottom of the report, released on April 24. “The New Democratic Party tried to push for the consideration of climate change as the existential threat to Arctic security, but unfortunately the committee was opposed.”

The Arctic is warming at about four times the global average rate. Melting sea ice, rapid coastal erosion, increased precipitation, degrading permafrost, deteriorating infrastructure and the migration of invasive species are all fallout from this rapid warming, Jody Thomas, national security and intelligence adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, told the committee on Dec. 8.

“Climate change remains the most prominent and visible threat to the Arctic and all its inhabitants,” said Thomas. Several other witnesses also highlighted climate change as the most pressing threat to the Arctic, according to the report’s section on climate change, which spans two pages.

None of its 26 recommendations explicitly deal with climate change, which Mathyssen characterized as a “glaring gap.” The closest it comes is one recommendation to “rapidly increase the pace of development and deployment of clean and renewable energy sources, including possibly small modular nuclear reactors for the Canadian Arctic in order to provide the clean energy necessary to support NORAD modernization and to stabilize local energy infrastructure needs.”

Ice melt caused by climate change is creating new sea lanes, which have caused increased traffic in Canadian Arctic waters. The loss of permafrost is increasing the possibility of accessing in-demand resources like oil, gas and precious minerals. Witnesses expressed concern that ice melt could make the Arctic easier to access for other nations “that do not share our values.”

However, climate change isn’t necessarily going to make the North more accessible at sea, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, told the committee.

He says climate change makes navigation in the Arctic “more unpredictable and in some ways more dangerous” because it “move[s] the ice up against the western edge of the Arctic archipelago,” displaces icebergs and “can create storms and other phenomena that complicate the situation in the North.”

The federal government works in silos, so there is often debate over what is within the purview of the Department of National Defence and what should be left to Environment and Climate Change Canada, Mathyssen said in an interview with Canada’s National Observer. Because of the areas of overlap between silos, some members may not think it's necessary to include specific climate change recommendations, but Mathyssen disagrees.

“In order for us to actually address what's needed, we need to really tear down those silos and talk about it in a more fulsome way,” she said.

National defence issues — for example, the recent $19-billion investment in a fleet of F-35 fighter jets — should be viewed through a climate lens, said Mathyssen.

“The military itself is excluded from Canada's climate change goals,” said Mathyssen. The federal government has a strategy to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from its buildings, vehicles and procurement activities by 2050.

National security fleets — such as aircraft, marine vessels and tactical land vehicles used by DND, the RCMP and the Canadian Coast Guard — are exempted from the strategy’s 2025 interim target, a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report from 2021 noted. These types of vehicles account for a “far larger” share of emissions than conventional administrative vehicles, which are required to be 80 per cent hybrid or zero-emissions vehicles by 2030, according to the report.

DND accounted for 46 per cent of the federal government’s total greenhouse gas emissions in the 2021-22 fiscal year, according to data from the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory. The second-biggest slice came from Public Services and Procurement Canada at 11 per cent. Correctional Service Canada accounted for 10 per cent.

DND has set a net-zero emissions target for 2050. A progress report tabled last October taking stock of its progress on environmental objectives showed that together, DND and the Canadian Armed Forces had reduced their overall emissions by nearly 36 per cent since 2005.

In its report, the committee put forward several recommendations “aimed at enhancing Canada’s ability to monitor and operate in a warming Arctic, address search and rescue demands which are predicted to grow as a result of climate change, and build local, community-based capacity through infrastructure investments and support for the Canadian Rangers,” reads a joint, emailed statement from Liberal MPs Bryan May, Jennifer O'Connell, Darren Fisher, Charles Sousa and Emanuella Lambropoulos. These were in recognition of climate change being a driver of instability in the Arctic, they said.

“Furthermore, this report consistently points to the need to involve Indigenous partners in all aspects of Arctic defence and security.”

Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs on the committee did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

Opinion: Science alone won't save us from climate crisis

Opinion by Stephen Cohen, Special to Montreal Gazette

 • Yesterday 9:13 a.m.

At last month's Earth Day rally in Montreal, this protester's message — fear for the future — reflected a common sentiment among young people, writes Vanier College professor Stephen Cohen.

© Provided by The Gazette

The recent Synthesis Report at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change painted a grim picture, but it surprised no one who has been paying attention. Will it be possible to engineer our way out of global warming using advanced technology? Well, no.

We will not be capable of controlling our planet with science for the foreseeable future. If we wish to have a foreseeable future, we need to model our behaviour after civilizations that have lived in harmony with the sustaining features of Earth for hundreds of years: namely, Indigenous people. This does not mean we must abandon science and technology. It simply means we must refocus it.

We must rethink our socio-political and economic systems; they must have sustainability sewn into their fabric. This echoes the federal government’s April report: What We Heard: Perspectives on Climate Change and Public Health Canada. In a finite system, growth is madness. Perpetual growth is suicide.

Recently, a physics colleague at Vanier College taught a sustainability course. The experience left him disheartened because the students did not believe humanity had the wherewithal to change. They lacked faith in our species, and who can blame them? In their lifetimes, we have taken as many steps back as we have forward.

I understand my colleague’s sadness. As a teacher, I know the students’ morale is our morale. And frankly, if today’s young people have thrown in the towel, we are indeed a lost species.

One shining light has been our response to a very different existential crisis: COVID-19. We saw a threat, and pivoted. It was not pretty, and not without hardship, but as a species confronting a dangerous threat, we made sweeping changes to adapt to the situation, for better or worse.

Perhaps you have heard of the frog-in-the-pot analogy. In March 2020, we were frogs dropped into a pot of boiling water. Like frogs might, we managed to escape, albeit with burns.

Our current situation, where the problem of our finite resources is being exacerbated, represents a different threat. In this one, we are frogs in warm water that is getting warmer. It will eventually boil. In this scenario, a frog would likely meet its demise. It would not instinctively react and jump out of the pot.

But we have an advantage over the frog. We have tools, like thermometers, and we understand the reasons for the warming of the water. We can forecast, with limited but reasonable accuracy, the rate of warming that will occur if conditions go unchanged. Armed with this, we can be smarter than a frog. We can evolve our thinking, act responsibly, and earn the right to wield the powerful tools that science has unleashed.

It is essential that we react to our biosphere crisis with the same resolve as we did the pandemic. But a sweeping response will happen only if a critical mass of people at all levels of society truly understand the severity of the situation. The solutions to this threat are less scientifically complex than engineering a vaccine. We just need to learn to get out of the way. We need to exist within nature rather than attempt to manipulate it. It is less about new science than it is about smart design.

Perpetual growth of a species is impossible in a system with finite resources. One way or another, our population will plateau and then decline at some point this century. But how will that journey look? Will the descent entail pain and hardship? Will it end at zero? Or will we allow Earth’s natural mechanisms to stabilize before it is too late?

Will today’s children come to know a world whose balance has been restored? Countless humans today have not given up. Please be one of them.

Stephen Cohen teaches physics at Vanier College. His first book, Getting Physics: Nature’s Laws as a Guide to Life, was published this year.

FAA sued over SpaceX Starship launch program following April explosion

Story by Lora Kolodny • Yesterday - CNBC

Environmental and cultural-heritage nonprofits sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday over the agency's dealings with SpaceX.

Among other things, the five plaintiffs allege the FAA failed to conduct an appropriate environmental review before authorizing SpaceX to move ahead with its Starship launch plans in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX conducted a test flight of the largest rocket ever built on April 20, resulting in extensive launchpad damage, and hurling heavy debris into sensitive habitat nearby.


The SpaceX Starship explodes after launch for a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on April 20, 2023.

© Provided by CNBC

Environmental and cultural-heritage nonprofits sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday, alleging the agency violated the National Environment Policy Act when it allowed SpaceX to launch the largest rocket ever built from its Boca Chica, Texas, facility without a comprehensive environmental review, according to court filings obtained by CNBC.

SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy test flight on April 20 blew up the company's launchpad, hurling chunks of concrete and metal sheets thousands of feet away into sensitive habitat, spreading particulate matter including pulverized concrete for miles, and sparking a 3.5-acre fire on state park lands near the launch site.

The lawsuit against the FAA was filed in a district court in Washington, D.C., by five plaintiffs: The Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, SurfRider Foundation, Save Rio Grande Valley and a cultural-heritage organization, the Carrizo-Comecrudo Nation of Texas.

The groups argue the agency should have conducted an in-depth environmental impact statement (EIS) before ever allowing SpaceX to move ahead with its Starship Super Heavy plans in Boca Chica.

"The FAA failed to take the requisite hard look at the proposed project and has concluded that significant adverse effects will not occur due to purported mitigation measures," they wrote in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs argue the agency waived the need for more thorough analysis based on proposed "environmental mitigations." But the mitigations the FAA actually required of SpaceX were woefully insufficient to offset environmental damages from launch events, construction and increased traffic in the area, as well as "anomalies" like the destruction of the launch pad and mid-air explosion in April, they said.

The plaintiffs also are seeking to force the FAA to revoke the launch license they previously issued to SpaceX and require an EIS before issuing another one.

In their complaint, the attorneys note that the FAA's own chief of staff for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation in June 2020 said the agency was planning an EIS. Later, "based on SpaceX's preference," the lawyers wrote, the federal agency settled on using "a considerably less thorough analysis," which enabled SpaceX to launch sooner.

Despite the particulate matter, heavier debris and fire, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said this weekend on Twitter Spaces, "To the best of our knowledge there has not been any meaningful damage to the environment that we're aware of."

The exact impact of the launch on the people, habitat and wildlife is still being evaluated by federal and state agencies, and other environmental researchers, alongside and independently from SpaceX.

National Wildlife Refuge lands and beaches of Boca Chica, which are near the SpaceX Starbase facility, provide essential habitat for endangered species including the piping plover, the red knot, jaguarundi, northern aplomado falcon, and sea turtles including the Kemp's Ridley. Kemp's Ridley is the most endangered sea turtle in the world, and the National Wildlife Refuge contains designated critical habitat for the piping plover.

Boca Chica land and the wildlife there, namely ocelots, are also sacred to the Carrizo-Comecrudo tribe of Texas.

As of last Wednesday, researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had not found any carcasses of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act on the land that they own or manage in the area. However, the researchers were not able to access the site for two days after the launch, leaving open the possibility that carcasses could have been eaten by predators, washed away or even removed from the site.

Access to the state parks, beaches and the National Wildlife Refuge area near Starbase, by tribes, researchers and the public, are of particular concern to the groups challenging the FAA.

The plaintiff's attorneys noted that in 2021, Boca Chica Beach was closed or inaccessible for approximately 500 hours or more, based on the notices of closure provided by Cameron County, with a "beach or access point closure occurring on over 100 separate days." That high rate of closure, which the FAA allowed, "infringes upon the ability of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas to access lands and waters that are part of their ancestral heritage," the groups argued.

The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Environmental groups sue FAA over SpaceX Texas rocket launch



CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Wildlife and environmental groups sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday over SpaceX’s launch last month of its giant rocket from Texas.

SpaceX’s Starship soared 24 miles (39 kilometers) high before exploding over the Gulf of Mexico on April 20. The rocket’s self-destruct system caused the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) rocket to blow up, as it spun out of control just minutes into the test flight.

An attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs, said the groups are suing over what they consider to be the FAA’s failure to fully consider the environmental impacts of the Starship program near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. They asked the court to throw out the five-year license the FAA granted to SpaceX.

The FAA declined comment, noting it doesn't comment on ongoing litigation. The agency is overseeing the accident investigation and has ordered all SpaceX Starships grounded until it's certain that public safety will not be compromised.

Over the weekend, SpaceX founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, said his company could be ready to launch the next Starship in six to eight weeks with the FAA's OK.

No injuries or significant damage to public property were reported from any of the rocket wreckage or flying pad debris. A large crater was carved into the concrete pad, as most of the rocket's 33 main engines ignited at liftoff.

The launch pad is on a remote site on the southernmost tip of Texas, just below South Padre Island, and about 20 miles from Brownsville.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported last week that large concrete chunks, stainless steel sheets, metal and other objects were hurled thousands of feet (hundreds of meters) from the pad. In addition, a plume of pulverized concrete sent material up to 6.4 miles (4 kilometers) northwest of the pad, the service noted.

It was the first launch of a full-size Starship, with the sci-fi-looking spacecraft on top the huge booster rocket. The company plans to use it to send people and cargo to the moon and, ultimately, Mars. NASA wants to use Starship to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2025.

Joining the Center for Biological Diversity in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, are the American Bird Conservancy, Surfrider Foundation, Save RGV (Rio Grande Valley) and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas.

“It’s vital that we protect life on Earth even as we look to the stars in this modern era of spaceflight,” the Center for Biological Diversity's Jared Margolis said in a statement. “Federal officials should defend vulnerable wildlife and frontline communities, not give a pass to corporate interests that want to use treasured coastal landscapes as a dumping ground for space waste.”

Over the weekend, Musk said changes are being made at the launch pad to avoid what he called a dust storm and “rock tornado" at the next launch.

“To the best of our knowledge there has not been any meaningful damage to the environment that we’re aware of,” Musk said.

Musk has promised to make improvements to the next Starship before it flies. The self-destruct system will need to be modified, he said, so that the rocket explodes immediately — not 40 seconds or so afterward, as was the case with this inaugural run, he said.

His remarks were made to a subscriber-only Twitter chat Saturday night that was later posted by others online.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

Godfather of AI' quits Google to warn of the tech's dangers
Story by AFP • Yesterday 

AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has quit his job at Google and is now warning of the dangers of the technology used by apps such as ChatGPT

A computer scientist often dubbed "the godfather of artificial intelligence" has quit his job at Google to speak out about the dangers of the technology, US media reported Monday.

Geoffrey Hinton, who created a foundation technology for AI systems, told The New York Times that advancements made in the field posed "profound risks to society and humanity".

"Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now," he was quoted as saying in the piece, which was published on Monday.

"Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That's scary."

Hinton said that competition between tech giants was pushing companies to release new AI technologies at dangerous speeds, risking jobs and spreading misinformation.

"It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things," he told the Times.

In 2022, Google and OpenAI -- the start-up behind the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT -- started building systems using much larger amounts of data than before.

Hinton told the Times he believed that these systems were eclipsing human intelligence in some ways because of the amount of data they were analyzing.

Related video: Google's main issue is not productizing their AI capabilities like their peers, says Richard Kramer (CNBC)    Duration 6:06  View on Watch

"Maybe what is going on in these systems is actually a lot better than what is going on in the brain," he told the paper.

While AI has been used to support human workers, the rapid expansion of chatbots like ChatGPT could put jobs at risk.

AI "takes away the drudge work" but "might take away more than that", he told the Times.

The scientist also warned about the potential spread of misinformation created by AI, telling the Times that the average person will "not be able to know what is true anymore."

Hinton notified Google of his resignation last month, the Times reported.

Jeff Dean, lead scientist for Google AI, thanked Hinton in a statement to US media.

"As one of the first companies to publish AI Principles, we remain committed to a responsible approach to AI," the statement added.

"We're continually learning to understand emerging risks while also innovating boldly."

In March, tech billionaire Elon Musk and a range of experts called for a pause in the development of AI systems to allow time to make sure they are safe.

An open letter, signed by more than 1,000 people including Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, was prompted by the release of GPT-4, a much more powerful version of the technology used by ChatGPT.

Hinton did not sign that letter at the time, but told The New York Times that scientists should not "scale this up more until they have understood whether they can control it."

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Mind-Reading Technology Can Turn Brain Scans Into Language

Story by Dennis Thompson 

 by HealthDay


MONDAY, May 1, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- A mind-reading device seems like science fiction, but researchers say they’re firmly on the path to building one.

Using functional MRI (fMRI), a newly developed brain-computer interface can read a person’s thoughts and translate them into full sentences, according to a report published May 1 in Nature Neuroscience.

The decoder was developed to read a person’s brain activity and translate what they want to say into continuous, natural language, the researchers said.

“Eventually, we hope that this technology can help people who have lost the ability to speak due to injuries like strokes or diseases like ALS,” said lead study author Jerry Tang, a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin.

But the interface goes even further than that, translating into language whatever thoughts are foremost in a person’s mind.

“We also ran our decoder on brain responses while the user imagined telling stories and ran responses while the user watched silent movies,” Tang said. “And we found that the decoder is also able to recover the gist of what the user was imagining or seeing.”

Because of this, the decoder is capable of capturing the essence of what a person is thinking, if not always the exact words, the researchers said.

For example, at one point a participant heard the words, “I don’t have my driver’s license yet.” The decoder translated the thought as, “She has not even started to learn to drive yet.”

The technology isn’t at the point where it can be used on just anyone, Tang said.

Training the program required at least 16 hours of participation from each of the three people involved in the research, and Tang said the brain readings from one person can’t be used to inform the scans of another.

The actual scan also involves the cooperation of the person, and can be foiled by simple mental tasks that deflect a participant’s focus, he said.

Still, one expert lauded the findings.

"This work represents an advance in brain-computer interface research and is potentially very exciting," said Dr. Mitchell Elkind, chief clinical science officer of the American Heart Association and a professor of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University in New York City.

"The major advance here is being able to record and interpret the meaning of brain activity using a non-invasive approach," Elkind explained. "Prior work required electrodes placed into the brain using open neurosurgery with the risks of infection, bleeding and seizures. This non-invasive approach using MRI scanning would have virtually no risk, and MRIs are done regularly in brain-injured patients. This approach can also be used frequently in healthy people as part of research, without introducing them to risk."

Powerful results prompt warning that 'mental privacy' may be at risk

Indeed, the results of this study were so powerful that Tang and his colleagues felt moved to issue a warning about “mental privacy.”

“This could all change as technology gets better, so we believe that it's important to keep researching the privacy implications of brain decoding, and enact policies that protect each person's mental privacy,” Tang said.

Earlier efforts at translating brain waves into speech have used electrodes or implants to record impulses from the motor areas of the brain related to speech, said senior researcher Alexander Huth. He is an assistant professor of neuroscience and computer science at the University of Texas at Austin.

“These are the areas that control the mouth, larynx, tongue, etc., so what they can decode is how is the person trying to move their mouth to say something, which can be very effective,” Huth said.

The new process takes an entirely different approach, using fMRI to non-invasively measure changes in blood flow and blood oxygenation within brain regions and networks associated with language processing.

“So instead of looking at this kind of low-level like motor thing, our system really works at the level of ideas, of semantics, of meaning,” Huth said. “That's what it's getting at. This is the reason why what we get out is not the exact words that somebody heard or spoke. It's the gist. It's the same idea, but expressed in different words.”

The researchers trained the decoder by first recording the brain activity of the three participants as they listened to 16 hours of storytelling podcasts like the "Moth Radio Hour," Tang said.

“This is over five times larger than existing language datasets,” he said. “And we use this dataset to build a model that takes in any sequence of words and predicts how the user's brain would respond when hearing those words.”

The program mapped the changes in brain activity to semantic features of the podcasts, capturing the meanings of certain phrases and associated brain responses.

The investigators then tested the decoder by having participants listen to new stories.

Making educated guesses based on brain activity

The decoder essentially attempts to make an educated guess about what words are associated with a person’s thoughts, based on brain activity.

Using the participants’ brain activity, the decoder generated word sequences that captured the meanings of the new stories. It even generated some exact words and phrases from the stories.

One example of an actual versus a decoded story:

Actual: “I got up from the air mattress and pressed my face against the glass of the bedroom window expecting to see eyes staring back at me but instead finding only darkness.”

Decoded: “I just continued to walk up to the window and open the glass I stood on my toes and peered out I didn’t see anything and looked up again I saw nothing.”

The decoder specifically captured what a person was focused upon. When a participant actively listened to one story while another played simultaneously, the program identified the meaning of the story that had the listener’s focus, the researchers said.

To see if the decoder was capturing thoughts versus speech, the researchers also had participants watch silent movies and scanned their brain waves.

“There's no language whatsoever. Subjects were not instructed to do anything while they were watching those videos. But when we put that data into our decoder, what it spat out is a kind of a description of what's happening in the video,” Huth said.

The participants also were asked to imagine a story, and the device was able to predict the meaning of that imagined story.

“Language is the output format here, but whatever it is that we're getting at is not necessarily language itself,” Huth said. “It’s definitely getting at something deeper than language and converting that into language, which is kind of at a very high level the role of language, right?”

Decoder is not yet ready for prime-time

Concerns over mental privacy led the researchers to further test whether participants could interfere with the device’s readings.

Certain mental exercises, like naming animals or thinking about a different story than the podcast, “really prevented the decoder from recovering anything about the story that the user was hearing,” Tang said.

The process still needs more work. The program is “uniquely bad” at pronouns, and requires tweaking and further testing to accurately reproduce exact words and phrases, Huth said.

It’s also not terribly practical since it now requires the use of a large MRI machine to read a person’s thoughts, the study authors explained.

The researchers are considering whether cheaper, more portable technology like EEG or functional near-infrared spectrometry could be used to capture brain activity as effectively as fMRI, Tang said.

But they admit they were shocked by how well the decoder did wind up working, which led to their concerns over brain privacy.

“I think my cautionary example is the polygraph, which is not an accurate lie detector, but has still had many negative consequences,” Tang said. “So I think that while this technology is in its infancy, it's very important to regulate what brain data can and cannot be used for. And then if one day it does become possible to gain accurate decoding without getting the person's cooperation, we'll have a regulatory foundation in place that we can build off of.”

More information

Johns Hopkins has more about how the brain works.

SOURCES: Jerry Tang, graduate research assistant, University of Texas at Austin; Alexander Huth, PhD, assistant professor, neuroscience and computer science, University of Texas at Austin; Mitchell Elkind, MD, MS, MPhil, chief clinical science officer, American Heart Association, and professor, neurology and epidemiology, Columbia University, New York City; Nature Neuroscience, May 1, 2023

BM to pause hiring, plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI - Bloomberg News

(Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said in an interview the company expects to pause hiring for roles as roughly 7,800 jobs could be replaced by Artificial Intelligence in the coming years, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

IBM did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.