'Canada is becoming a riskier place to insure,' says IBC vice president

Iva Poshnjari, BNN Bloomberg

Extreme weather events such as the wildfires prompting evacuations the Northwest Territories this week will likely lead to costlier home insurance premiums, according to the vice president at Canada’s Insurance Bureau, particularly in Western Canada where wildfires have intensified.
 
The country is suffering from climate change impacts that will leave insurers no choice but to raise protection costs, Craig Stewart, vice president of climate change and federal issues at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, told BNN Bloomberg.
 
“Unfortunately, Canada is becoming a risker place to insure,” he said in a television interview on Thursday. “It’s quite possible that those in Western Canada will see their premiums going up as the auctorial analysis is undertaken after all these wildfire events.”
 
MOUNTING PAYOUTS
 
Over the last 15 years, insured loss payouts in Canada have climbed roughly five-fold, with last year reaching a record $3.4 billion in payouts, Stewart said. 
 
“We’ve seen insured losses rise from about an average of $400 million a year in payouts prior to 2009, to over $1 billion dollars a year from 2010 to about 2018,” he said.
 
“Now we’re seeing losses total about $2 billion on average per year.” 
 
The losses are not attributed to just one catastrophic event, Stewart explained. They are due to a combination of intensified floods, wildfires and hail storms among other extreme weather patterns that have intensified over the years due to climate change.
 
REBUILDING CHALLENGES
 
To make matters more complicated, rebuilding communities destroyed in remote regions of Canada poses its own set of challenges, Stewart noted. 
 
“There just isn’t a lot of contractors. We’re already having a labour shortage of homebuilding contractors in this country right now,” he warned. 

WORKERS CAPITAL

Canada pension joins startup at US$100M reforestation fund

Peter Millard, Bloomberg News

Canada's largest pension fund has joined a project to produce carbon credits by planting more than 100 native tree species on degraded land in Brazil's Amazon region. 

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board will invest as much as US$30 million in a reforestation fund managed by Sao Paulo-based Mombak Gestora de Recursos Ltda., said Peter Fernandez, chief executive officer of the carbon-removal startup. 

The investment from the Canadian pension fund, and a smaller outlay from the Rockefeller Foundation, brings Mombak's first reforestation fund to its US$100 million target, Fernandez said. The Canadian fund will also invest US$500,000 in Mombak. 

The startup is tapping a shift in voluntary carbon markets where buyers pay more for projects that actually remove carbon, rather than so-called avoidance offsets that, for example, generate credits by keeping existing trees standing. 

“The price of carbon credits went high enough to scale a business,” Fernandez said in an interview, adding that Mombak is focused on selling credits to high-end buyers who want “no question whatsoever” that carbon removal occurred.  

It is already pre-selling carbon credits at more than US$50 each, a premium in voluntary markets. Carbon credits represent a ton of removed carbon or avoided emissions. Mombak will continue raising money for Amazon reforestation projects and expects to deploy US$1 billion in the next three to five years.

The Amazon Reforestation Fund also includes AXA IM Alts and Bain Capital Partnership Strategies. The end buyers of the credits, not the investors, use them to offset their emissions.

“We expect that the value of high-quality, verifiable, nature-based carbon removal credits such as the ones produced through The Amazon Reforestation Fund will continue to rise,” said Bill Rogers, the global head of sustainable energies at CPP Investments, as the Canadian pension fund is known.

More office workers call in sick on Aug. 24 than any other day

Mia Gindis, Bloomberg News

A man with a headache is seen in this image. (Pexels)

Perhaps it's the inexplicable craving for a day off ahead of the big Labour Day holiday. Perhaps it really is a stomach bug, or that more recent fiend — the coronavirus. And of course, it might just be the blues at the end of summer.

Whatever the reason, Aug. 24 is when American workers most often tell their bosses they simply cannot work that day.

The other day workers typically fail to show up? Feb. 13, usually around the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day. Tough to guess why.

These dates came from a study by Flamingo, a firm which helps companies manage employee absences and medical leaves, which analyzed data on sick days taken by American workers over the past five years.

Some 300 businesses with over 10,000 employees participated in the study which found an average 0.9% of those employees were out sick on Aug. 24, a higher percentage than on any other day of the year, according to David Hehenberger, Flamingo’s founder.

People cited stomach bugs more than half the time as the reason for calling in ill, with the majority of sick-day requests mentioning symptoms such as vomiting or diarrhea. These issues surpassed coronavirus, which accounted for about a quarter of total absences. Injuries like broken bones and muscles strains, which caused 6% of people to stay home from the office, were also cited.

Beyond physical ailments, Paaras Parker, chief human resources officer at payroll software company Paycor, said her organization observed a notable uptick in workers staying home with anxiety or stress-related conditions, which accounted for almost 9% of sick leaves in the Flamingo survey. “It's not necessarily that they have strep or a fever, but that they need a day for themselves,” she said.

With employee burnout reaching a post-pandemic high earlier this year, workers feeling emboldened to take mental-health sick days is a “welcome change” in workplace attitudes, Parker said.

The advent of remote work is also changing the culture around sick leave. A new survey by WFH Research shows that workers feeling ill but without an option to work remotely are nearly twice as likely to come to the office with symptoms as their hybrid counterparts.

That spells trouble on the health front as return-to-office mandates harden and office densities increase, contributing to a rise in breeding grounds for contagious illnesses such as influenza and the common cold. “People clearly feel more comfortable working from home when they're coughing or when their nose is very stuffy,” said Jeff Levin-Scherz, population health leader at insurance company WTW, formerly Willis Towers Watson. “If they feel well enough to work, they can feel more comfortable knowing they're not going to pass anything to anybody else.”

But for employees that are still tied to the office, he stresses the importance of continuing  good  hygiene such as hand-washing and insisting their companies consistently check air quality, practices that became routine during the pandemic.

“These days, where many knowledge workers just don't come to the office, some of these efforts to make healthier workplaces might actually be amenities that help encourage people to show up,” Levin-Scherz said. He adds that perks like access to healthy food and exercise facilities could serve a dual purpose of boosting employee health as well as office attendance.

In any event, it’s never a good practice to poke holes in an employees’ reason for claiming a sick day, Parker said. “I don't think it's our place to guess why somebody is taking time off, but to realize that human beings need time off and to create environments and policies that allow them to exercise this right when need be,” she said.

Kerry Washington, Martin Sheen shout for solidarity between Hollywood strikers and other workers

Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Kerry Washington and Martin Sheen, a pair of fictional former politicos, turned Hollywood's strikes into a rousing campaign rally Tuesday with speeches celebrating unity across the industry and with labour at large.

“We are here because we know that unions matter,” said Washington, who played a political fixer on ABC’s “Scandal.” “Not only do we have solidarity within our union, we have solidarity between our unions, because we are workers.”

The rally outside Disney Studios in Burbank, California, coming more than a month into a strike by Hollywood actors and more than three months into a strike by screenwriters, was meant to highlight their alliance with the industry's other guilds and the nation's other unions, including the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO.

“The audacity of these studios to say they can’t afford to pay their workers after they make billions in profits is utterly ridiculous,” Los Angeles County Federation of  per cent President Yvonne Wheeler told the crowd. She added a dig at Disney's CEO, who has become a target of strikers. "But despite their money, they can’t buy this kind of solidarity. Tell Bob Iger that.”

Sheen, who played the president for seven seasons on “The West Wing,” was joined by most of the show's main cast members on the stage as he emphasized that the toll being taken as the strikes stretch out.

“Clearly this union has found something worth fighting for, and it is very costly,” Sheen said. “If this were not so we would be left to question its value.”

Washington also sought to highlight that high-profile guild members like her were once actors who struggled to find work and make a living, as the vast majority of members still are. She ran through the issues at the heart of both strikes, including compensation and studios and streaming services using artificial intelligence in place of actors and writers.

“We deserve to be able to be paid a fair wage. We deserve to have access to healthcare. We deserve to be free from machines pretending to be us," Washington said. “The dream of being working artist, the dream of making a living doing what we want to do, should not be impossible.”

The alliance of studios, streaming services and production companies that are the opposition in the strikes says it offered fair contracts to both unions before talks broke off that included unprecedented updates in pay and protections against AI.

Talks have restarted between the studios and writers, who went on strike May 2, though progress has been slow. There have been no negotiations with actors since they went on strike July 14.

TORONTO

Metro seeks injunction against striking workers preventing deliveries to stores

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press

Metro Inc. is seeking an injunction against striking employees who are picketing its warehouses and preventing deliveries to stores in Ontario, the grocer said Friday.

As the secondary picket lines continue for a third day, the union's actions are generating "significant" food waste, spokeswoman Marie-Claude Bacon said in a statement.

"We owe it to our customers across the province to ensure access to the food they need," she said. 

Workers started picketing two of the company's distribution warehouses on Wednesday, disrupting the flow of fresh products to the grocer's Metro and Food Basics stores across the province. 

The secondary pickets came midway through the fourth week of a strike by more than 3,700 workers at 27 Greater Toronto Area stores.

Consumers will notice empty shelves for certain products, namely produce, meat and dairy, at stores across the province, Bacon said in an interview.

"At some point it's going to be too late to be distributed in our stores and it's going to be wasted," she said. 

Secondary picketing is when striking workers picket at locations other than their own workplace. Unifor started doing this in the week leading up to the warehouse demonstrations at Metro-owned stores not included in the current dispute, Unifor national president Lana Payne told reporters on Wednesday outside one of the distribution centres. 

"Frontline grocery workers at Metro will continue their brave fight for decent work and pay over the weekend until the employer comes back to the table with a serious wage offer," Payne said in a statement Friday when asked about the grocer's request for an injunction. 

The injunction will be heard on Monday, meaning that's the earliest it could be granted, Bacon said. 

But it's not guaranteed that it will be granted, said Larry Savage, a professor in the labour studies department at Brock University. 

Though Metro called the union's blockage of the warehouses illegal, he said that's not necessarily the case.

Secondary picketing is legal and is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but a court may deem it illegal if it involves what the court considers to be "wrongful action," which could include criminal conduct, Savage said. 

While Bacon acknowledged secondary picketing is legal, she characterized the round-the-clock blockade with no trucks allowed in or out as illegal. 

She said in the interview that Unifor has refused to agree on implementing a protocol for the warehouse pickets before the injunction is heard on Monday, one that might allow for some limited movement of products in the meantime. 

Payne called the warehouse picket lines "legal and necessary" in her statement Friday.

The request for an injunction is the latest move in what's been an increasingly heated week for the labour conflict between Metro and the striking workers. 

Metro on Wednesday said it filed an unfair labour complaint against Unifor, arguing the union wasn't bargaining in good faith by not returning to the table to negotiate. 

"The union should act responsibly and be at the table to discuss Metro’s offer," Bacon said in a statement Friday. 

Unifor, meanwhile, has said it's waiting for a better wage offer before it resumes talks. 

“If there is one group of workers who deserve respect, decent pay and decent work, it is grocery store workers in this country,” Payne told reporters on Wednesday. 

Metro workers have said they want to get their pandemic 'hero pay' of $2 an hour back in bargaining. 

This strike began after the workers voted down a tentative agreement that was recommended by their bargaining committee, one that the union described as their best in decades. 

That shows how central the 'hero pay' issue is to them in this fight, Savage said.

"Yes, it's about money. But more importantly, for these workers, it's about respect. Because having that pandemic pay yanked away sent a very clear message to those workers that their labour wasn't being respected." 

Metro workers picket two GTA distribution

warehouses in fourth week of strike



The Canadian Press


Striking Metro workers in the Greater Toronto Area are now picketing two of the grocers' distribution warehouses, a move the company said is preventing deliveries of fresh products to stores across the province.

Unifor Local 414 president Gord Currie and national president Lana Payne met workers at a secondary picket at a warehouse in Toronto's west end.

"If there is one group of workers who deserve respect, decent pay and decent work, it is grocery store workers in this country," Payne told reporters.

Workers in red Unifor ponchos yelled and waved flags in the drizzling rain, earning honks from some passing drivers.

Currie said the rain wouldn't dampen workers' spirits in the fourth week of their strike.

"How did these people go from being heroes when COVID was on to zeros?" he said.

More than 3,700 workers at 27 Metro stores across the GTA have been on strike since July 29 after rejecting a tentative agreement recommended by their bargaining committee.

Over the past week, the workers have stepped up their efforts against Metro beyond the 27 stores, said Payne.

"We have had increased picketing at a number of other stores not represented by Unifor," she said, in addition to the two warehouses Wednesday.

"In case this employer was not getting the message before today, they're getting it now."

Metro spokeswoman Marie-Claude Bacon called the move "unacceptable" and asked workers to come back to the bargaining table.

"Metro has a serious offer to present to the employees’ bargaining committee and the union; Metro will not be able to present an offer and resolve the labour conflict if the union refuses to bargain," she said in a statement.

The warehouses supply all Metro and Food Basics stores in Ontario and the pickets are preventing deliveries of fresh products to all of its stores, said Bacon.

"The distribution centres and the impacted stores are not on strike and their operations, which are critical, should not be interfered with," she said.

"No solution has ever emerged from such pressure tactics."

Asked whether the grocer is planning to seek an injunction against the secondary pickets, Bacon said it's looking into it.

Last week, Metro asked a government-appointed conciliation officer to step in and help the two sides resolve their dispute, but Unifor disagreed with the request, saying it’s waiting for Metro to bring a stronger wage offer to the table. Both the union and employer need to agree to have the officer step in.

Unifor has said that the workers are asking for a fair share of the company's rising profits, with many workers demanding their pandemic "hero pay" of $2 an hour be reinstated.

Metro has said the tentative agreement workers rejected included paid sick days for part-time workers, improvements in benefits and pensions and significant wage increases.

Metro workers had voted 100 per cent in favour of striking before bargaining even began. Unifor has said it hopes to use this agreement to get similar gains for upcoming negotiations with the major grocers over the next two years.

At the picket, Payne said the striking Metro employees aren't only fighting for themselves.

"They are fighting for every grocery store worker from the East Coast to the West Coast," she said.

"I want to be clear. There is something happening in this country right now," added Payne.

"These workers have set fire to the labour movement right now."

TVO employees walk off the job Monday after 

negotiations stall

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press

Dozens of workers at Ontario’s public broadcaster walked off the job Monday morning after months of bargaining.

"We're living in a time where hard work is not paying off the way it used to for previous generations," said Meredith Martin, TVO's branch president with the Canadian Media Guild (CMG). 

The union represents around 70 journalists, producers and education workers at the Ontario organization. Some employees at the broadcaster are represented by Unifor and are not part of the current bargaining process. 

Earlier in August, almost 96 per cent of CMG members at TVO rejected an offer from the employer. The workers have been in a legal strike position since Friday morning. 

The two biggest issues at hand are wages and contract work, according to representatives for both the workers and the employer.

One of the main sticking points is the use of contracts to fill permanent positions, the union previously said. It has also said the wages on offer are well below what’s needed for workers to catch up to the surging cost of living. 

Members have received below-inflation wage increases for the past 10 years, CMG said in a previous press release, including three years of wage freezes. 

The union said workers deserve meaningful increases after seeing their wages capped by the one per cent limit imposed by Ontario provincial wage restraint law known as Bill 124, which capped salary increases for public sector workers at one per cent a year for three years. The law was declared unconstitutional last year, though the province has appealed the decision. 

Last Tuesday, the union said the wage increases on offer amounted to 2.75 per cent, 2.5 per cent, and 1.75 per cent increases over three years with a potential 1.75 per cent raise for a fourth year. 

That's unchanged, said Martin.

Mitch Patten, TVO’s vice-president of corporate and community affairs, said the organization prefers not to publicly get into the details of offers and counteroffers made during negotiations, but reiterated that TVO believes a fair agreement can be reached.

"We are confident that we can reach agreement on these issues at the table," he said. 

TVO has been negotiating for months to find an agreement that is fair for employees and is "respectful of the public and donor dollars TVO manages," the organization said earlier Monday in a press release. 

"While it is unfortunate that we have not yet been able to come to a collective bargaining agreement with our CMG employees, TVO Media Education Group remains committed to continuing discussions with CMG and finding a resolution," CEO Jeffrey Orridge said in the release. 

TVO viewers may notice changes to upcoming current affairs content, but will be able to watch other programs and documentaries as well as access content on TVO's app, website and newsletter, and education content on platforms like TVO Learn, the organization said. 

TVO airs current affairs shows including “The Agenda with Steve Paikin,” but also has a mandate to provide learning resources that follow the provincial school curriculum. 

The Ministry of Education has given an order to only create temporary contract jobs at TVO, even for permanent work, the union said in a previous release, adding that it has been told it won’t get a deal without this concession. 

“These are public sector jobs that the government is trying to turn into gig work and CMG members at TVO cannot abide it,” the union said in a statement on Tuesday. 

“By keeping workers in precarious contracts, TVO is denying workers health benefits, dismantling job security, and impairing the stability needed to deliver strong public services for all Ontarians.”

Patten disputed the claim that TVO has received such an order from the ministry, and said the organization is looking for more flexibility so it can use contract staff to support the growth of new and developing initiatives, with the hope that some can become permanent down the line. 

He said in the last year, TVO has created 20 new permanent full-time roles, most of which were previously contract roles, and said that demonstrates the organization's intentions when it comes to contract workers. 

Some striking Metro workers were at the picket line Monday morning outside TVO's headquarters in solidarity, said Martin. 

The Canadian Media Guild also represents some employees at The Canadian Press.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 21, 2023.

 

Canada Post loses more than $250M in second quarter

Canada Post continued to bleed cash last quarter, as losses ballooned by 59 per cent.

In a release Friday, the Crown corporation reported a before-tax loss of $254 million for its second quarter versus $160 million in losses a year earlier.

The country's main postal operator says revenue dropped by $78 million, or six per cent, year-over-year due to declines across all lines of business.

Canada Post says an increasingly competitive market for parcel delivery continued to dent revenues throughout the first half of 2023, while transaction mail and direct marketing deliveries also fell amid businesses' strained promotional budgets.

The cost of operations at Canada Post rose by 1.7 per cent, or $31 million, in the quarter ended June 30 compared to the same period a year earlier, due mainly to higher non-capital investments in technology and operations.

Canada Post, which last reported a full-year profit in 2017, announced a transformation plan in June that targeted the e-commerce market for parcel delivery but ruled out staffing cuts.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 25, 2023.

 

TIFF set to lose lead sponsor Bell after a nearly three-decade partnership

The Canadian Press

A person walks past the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Bell Lightbox in the Entertainment District of Toronto on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. , THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

The Toronto International Film Festival is set to lose Bell as its leading sponsor.

Bell has been a festival partner since 1995 and has its name on TIFF's downtown headquarters, located in the heart of the entertainment district on King Street West.

Bell spokesperson Ellen Murphy says those naming rights end when the sponsorship expires at the end of December. Murphy says the communications giant opted not to renew the contract.

News of Bell's departure comes as organizers and film buffs brace for a reduced celebrity presence at next month's festival due to ongoing Hollywood strikes.

Last year, sponsors contributed about $13.4 million, which amounted to 28 per cent of its total revenues. TIFF's split with Bell was first reported by the Toronto Star.

The 11-day movie marathon kicks off Sept. 7 with Hayao Miyazaki's long-awaited animated feature film, "The Boy and the Heron."

TIFF said in a statement that the 28-year partnership has greatly contributed to its growth and success.

"Earlier this year, we mutually agreed that this partnership would come to a close at the end of 2023," TIFF communications VP Judy Lung said Friday by email.

"We extend our sincere gratitude to Bell for their unwavering support, dedication and collaborative spirit and look forward to working with them in new ways."

In a statement, Bell said Friday it's grateful to have been a part of the annual festival that draws top films and talent from around the world.

"Earlier this year, we decided that the end of 2023 would be the right time to step back from our partnership with TIFF and opted not to renew our sponsorship in order to invest in other opportunities that are core to our business," Bell said.

"We are confident TIFF will continue to develop and showcase the world’s leading content to inform, educate and entertain the best audience in film."

BNN Bloomberg is owned by Bell Media, which is a division of BCE.

 

Octopus Moms Nest at Thermal Springs to Improve Odds of Survival

Courtesy MBARI

PUBLISHED AUG 24, 2023 4:34 PM BY THE CONVERSATION

 

[By Amanda Kahn and Jim Barry]

Two miles below the ocean surface off Monterey, California, warm water percolates from the seafloor at the base of an underwater mountain. It’s a magical place, especially if you’re an octopus.

In 2018, one of us, Amanda Kahn, was aboard the research vessel E/V Nautilus when scientists discovered the “Octopus Garden.” Thousands of pearl octopuses (Muusoctopus robustus) were curled up into individual balls in lines and clumps. As Nautilus Live streamed the expedition online, the world got to share the excitement of the discovery.

We now know why these amazing creatures gather at this and other underwater warm springs.

Scientists with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute take viewers on a journey to Davidson Seamount in a video narrated by Jim Barry, an author of this article. Credit: © MBARI.

In a new study involving scientists from several fields, we explain why octopuses migrate to the Octopus Garden. It’s both a mating site and a nursery where newborn octopuses develop faster than expected, giving them the best shot at survival in the deep, cold sea.

Life in the Octopus Garden

Female octopuses seek out rocky cracks and crevices where warm water seeps from the rocks. There, they vigilantly guard their broods. Subsisting off their energy reserves alone, these mothers will never eat again. Like most cephalopods, they make the ultimate sacrifice for their offspring and die after their eggs hatch.

The Octopus Garden, at the base of Davidson Seamount about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of Monterey, California, is the largest of a handful of octopus nurseries recently discovered in the Eastern Pacific. Many have been found near hydrothermal springs where warm water seeps from the seafloor.

The Octopus Garden is about 2 miles deep near Davidson Seamount, an inactive volcano off the Central California coast. It is inside the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Illustration by Madeline Go/MBARI, basemap created via ArcGIS Online, sources: Esri, USGS | Esri, GEBCO, DeLorme, NaturalVue | California State Parks, Esri, HERE, Garmin, SafeGraph, FAO, METI/NASA, USGS, Bureau of Land Management, EPA, NPS

We wanted to know what makes these environments so appealing for nesting octopuses.

To solve this mystery, we assembled geologists, biologists and engineers. Using Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s deep-sea robots and sensors, we studied and mapped the Octopus Garden during several visits over three years to examine the links between thermal springs and breeding success for pearl octopuses. We found nearly 6,000 nests in a 6-acre (2.5-hectare) area, suggesting more than 20,000 octopuses occupy this site.

A female pearl octopus brooding her eggs at the Octopus Garden. Credit: © 2020 MBARI

We witnessed male octopuses approaching and mating with females. We cheered for the successful emergence of hatchlings, which looked like translucent miniatures of their parents. And we mourned the deaths of mothers and their broods.

When a nest became empty, it was quickly filled by a different octopus mother. We saw that nothing went to waste at the Octopus Garden. Dead octopesus provided a vital food source for a host of scavengers, like sea anemones and snails.

Warmer water speeds up embryo development

A new generation of octopuses must overcome at least two hurdles before hatching.

First, they must develop from egg to hatchling. They start as opaque, sausage-shaped eggs cemented to the rocks. Over time, tiny black eyes, then eight little arms grow visible through the egg capsule. Second, crucially, they must not succumb to external threats, including predators, injuries and infections. The longer the incubation period, the greater the risk that an embryo might not survive to hatch.

A portion of a photomosaic produced following surveys of the Octopus Garden with MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle Doc Ricketts and the Low-Altitude Survey System sensor suite from the Seafloor Mapping Lab at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, or MBARI. The photo allowed researchers to count nests and estimate the total. Credit: © 2022 MBARI

For octopus species living in warm, shallow waters, brood periods are only days to weeks long. But a very different scenario plays out in the abyss. Near-freezing temperatures dramatically slow metabolic processes in coldblooded animals like octopuses. The longest-known brood period for any animal actually comes from another deep-sea octopus species, Graneledone pacifica, with a mother tending her nest for a remarkable 4½ years. An octopus nursery for this species was recently discovered off the west coast of Canada.

At Davidson Seamount, where ambient water temperatures are 35 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 degrees Celsius), we would expect pearl octopus embryos to take five to 10 years, or possibly longer, to develop. Such an extended brooding period would be the longest known for any animal, exposing an embryo to exceptional risks.

Instead, temperature and oxygen sensors we were able to slip inside octopus nests documented a much warmer microenvironment around the eggs. On average, the temperature inside octopus nests was about 41 F (5.1 C), considerably warmer than the surrounding waters. We predicted that octopus embryos would develop faster in this warmer water.

Each octopus has distinctive markings that scientists quickly learned to identify. Credit: © 2022 MBARI

Distinctive marks and scars helped us identify individual mothers. Over repeat visits we tracked the development of their brood. Although we did expect faster growth in the warm water, we were stunned to find that eggs hatched in less than two years. Nesting in thermal springs clearly gives pearl octopuses a boost.

But nesting in thermal springs is a potentially risky strategy. Once eggs are laid, they’re cemented to the rock. We know little of the thermal tolerance of pearl octopuses or their embryos, but even a short exposure to overly warm waters could be lethal to developing embryos, wiping out any hope of successful reproduction for that mother. Indeed, one of the first recorded deep-sea octopus nurseries may have experienced unpredictable fluid flow.

Nurseries highlight risks to seafloor habitat

The thermal springs at the Octopus Garden are part of a ridge flank hydrothermal system. Here, water percolating beneath the seafloor picks up heat from Earth’s mantle before it’s channeled out from volcanic rock outcrops like Davidson Seamount. These systems have become an emerging focus in seafloor geology, though only a few have been discovered so far.

Unlike hydrothermal vents, which form at ridge crests and belch plumes of hot water that are detectable hundreds of meters above the bottom, thermal springs on ridge flanks are cryptic. These springs seep warm water that dissipates only meters above the bottom, making them exceedingly difficult to find and only visible by a slight shimmer in the water.

Our yearlong recordings from thermal springs at the Octopus Garden demonstrate these may be stable environments, with the potential to release warm fluids for thousands of years. Such stability benefits not only pearl octopus, but also the community of life that thrives alongside the nesting mothers.

A male octopus walks through the Octopus Garden. Credit: © 2019 MBARI

The recent discoveries of octopus nurseries off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, also near hydrothermal springs, suggests these areas may be more common than previously thought. It also highlights that hydrothermal springs may be vital biological hot spots.

The deep sea is the largest living space on Earth, and that expansive size can hide the importance of localized hot spots like these. Davidson Seamount and its Octopus Garden are protected as part of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, but many more biological treasures like thermal springs may be at risk, especially as deep-seabed mining proposes to scrape large understudied swaths of seafloor. We hope the octopus mothers we’ve met at this nursery inspire everyone to rethink stewardship for the yet-undiscovered hidden gems that may be lost.

Amanda Kahn is Assistant Professor of Invertebrate Ecology at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, San José State University

Jim Barry is a Marine Ecologist at MBARI, San José State University.

This article appears courtesy of The Conversation and may be found in its original form here. 

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

 

Despite Sanctions, Russia's Arctic LNG 2 On Track for Startup in 2023

The first gravity based structure and liquefaction train of the Arctic LNG 2 plant arrives in the Gulf of Ob, August 2023 (Novatek)

PUBLISHED AUG 21, 2023 5:17 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Despite sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project is on track to go live at the end of this year, according to Chinese state oil and gas company CNOOC. The first liquefaction train arrived at its destination in the Gulf of Ob last week and is already in commissioning. 

The giant LNG project initially relied on Western technology providers like Technip and Siemens, but these firms had to back out due to sanctions last year, taking their extensive experience in sophisticated energy projects with them. The first train was about 90 percent complete when they departed in 2022, but developer Novatek has been able to get the first liquefaction plant finished with the substitution of Chinese suppliers. 

China has a significant investment in Arctic LNG 2, both as a financial backer and as a future customer. CNOOC holds a 10 percent share, and CNPC holds an additional 10 percent. France's TotalEnergies and Japan's Mitsui hold another 10 percent each. 

The massive plant was built atop a concrete gravity-based structure (GBS), which was floated from Murmansk to the Arctic port of Sabetta in July and intentionally sunk onto a prepared permanent site last week. Commissioning is under way for the first plant now, and the two additional plants are under construction. 

Image courtesy Novatek

According to Novatek executive Maxim Mikhalev, the second train's GBS has been finished and topsides are under construction at the firm's yard in Murmansk. Overall completion was at about 80 percent as of late April, putting train two on track for delivery to the Gydan Peninsula in 2024. The shoreside infrastructure at the port of Ultrenneye is nearly fully complete, the company says. 

Some Ukrainian leaders have called for full Western sanctions on Russian LNG projects. Western secondary sanctions - that is, measures targeting all participants in a sanctioned activity, regardless of nationality - would help cut into Russian state revenues, according to Ukraine Parliament member Andrii Zhupanin. So far, Ukraine's allies have refrained from using secondary sanctions, which can have serious unintended side effects on markets and neutral nations.  

"Secondary sanctions are necessary to compensate for an obvious weakness of existing primary provisions that preclude U.S. and EU companies from participating in Russian LNG infrastructure buildout, which is implicitly inviting Chinese companies to take their place," Zhupanin argued in a recent op-ed. "The introduction of secondary sanctions on Russia’s LNG sector in full swing, in particular, to force a full stop of the Arctic LNG-2 project, is the obvious necessary step that the EU and the US must implement to uphold [their] stated security and climate policies."