Veterans Affairs Canada has been overestimating the number of veterans for decades

Peter Zimonjic, Murray Brewster, Philip Ling - CBC

Veterans Affairs Canada has been overestimating the number of Canadian veterans for decades — and newly released census numbers suggest there may be 25 per cent fewer veterans than the federal government previously thought.


Veterans Affairs Canada says that it will rethink how it counts Canada's veterans after newly released census data reveal the department may have been overestimating its numbers for decades.

© Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

Statistics Canada and Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) are scrambling to reconcile the difference between their numbers, CBC News has learned.

According to the 2021 census, there are 461,240 veterans in Canada — a huge decline from the 617,800 former military members projected by VAC.

The explanation may lie in the way that VAC and Statistics Canada count veterans.

The most recent census contained a question about military service for the first time in 50 years. It asked respondents who were 17 years of age or older on May 11, 2021 whether they had ever served in the Canadian military.

VAC, on the other hand, arrives at its annual projection of the veteran population by using a mathematical model based on 1971 census data, the 1988 labour force survey and annual survival rates from Statistics Canada.

"This has caused VAC and Statistics Canada to re-evaluate the estimates we have been using for the past decades for the estimated veteran population," VAC spokesperson Josh Bueckert said in an email.

Other factors could be interfering with efforts to come up with an accurate picture of the veterans population.

Related video: Veterans dismayed over Canada’s refusal to award Victoria Cross

Duration 3:27   View on Watch

One of those factors is the incomplete picture provided by the 1951, 1961 and 1971 censuses upon which VAC partially bases its estimates. Previously, said Statistics Canada, the census only asked men aged 35 and older whether they served in the Canadian military or in other allied forces.

The 2021 census short form survey, which was sent out to all households, broadened its question to include anyone 17 and older regardless of gender. It asked them whether they served or are currently serving in the military.

Statistics Canada said a person could define themselves as someone who served in the Canadian military if they served with "the Regular Force or Primary Reserve Force as an Officer or Non‑Commissioned Member."

VAC rethinking the way it counts veterans

VAC's estimates were based on their definition of a veteran, which is anyone who completed basic training and was honourably discharged from the forces.

The census is also based on self-reporting. A VAC spokesperson said that approach also could provide an incomplete picture because some people who technically qualify as veterans may not have self-identified as veterans.

The discrepancy does not affect funding for Veterans Affairs Canada because its funding model is not based on the number of veterans in the country, said an official in Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay's office. The revised numbers could, however, affect how the department plans policy going forward.

In a media statement, VAC told CBC News that it would not provide any further updates on the number of veterans until it re-evaluates the way it counts former military members.

"Our department is working with Statistics Canada on continued verification of data collected through Census 2021, with the aim of producing the most accurate and comprehensive view of the Canadian veteran population that we possibly can," the statement said.

It's not the first time Veterans Affairs has had trouble with its calculations.

An accounting error decades ago led the department to shortchange former soldiers on disability benefits over a number of years — a mistake that eventually cost the federal government more than $165 million to correct.


Veterans affairs minister stands firm on record in face of anger, call to resign

Yesterday 

OTTAWA — Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay is standing firm in the face of anger and frustration at the Liberal government over ongoing delays, backlogs and staff shortages and a call for his resignation.


Veterans affairs minister stands firm on record in face of anger, call to resign© Provided by The Canadian Press

In an exclusive interview with The Canadian Press, MacAulay said Ottawa is making progress on a number of fronts when it comes to providing better and faster support to veterans after years of complaints and criticism.

That includes hiring hundreds of temporary staff in recent years and awarding a new $570-million contract to an outside organization for the provision of rehabilitations services to ill and injured veterans across the country.

"We have Veterans Affairs up to where it should be," MacAulay said. "And we want to continue to make sure it stays where it should be and to serve veterans in an appropriate manner."

Yet many veterans remain deeply frustrated at ongoing delays, backlogs and staff shortages at Veterans Affairs Canada, which advocates say are adding pain and stress for thousands of former service members already struggling with injuries and illness.

The rehabilitation services contract has also angered the union representing Veterans Affairs employees, which is calling for MacAulay's resignation.

MacAulay, who will represent the government during Friday's Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flies to an international summit in Cambodia, said he has no intention of resigning.

"My job is to do my job," he said. "And that's what I'm going to do and continue to do it."

The Liberal government has been criticized for years for not living up to its promises to ill and injured veterans. That includes its failure to bring back a lifelong disability pension awarded to those in the Second World War and Korea, but not Afghanistan.

More recently, veterans and others have complained about ongoing delays in the processing of disability claims, a longstanding shortage of case managers for those needing extra assistance and insufficient support for families and caregivers.

MacAulay has previously acknowledged that the government needs to do more to ensure veterans receive proper and timely support for illnesses and injuries sustained while in uniform, which he repeated this week.

Yet in the same breath, he cited several figures as evidence that the situation is improving. Those included a reduction in wait times for some types of disability claims and the hiring of hundreds of additional ⁠— mostly temporary ⁠— staff at Veterans Affairs.

"I hope they don't question the progress," he said. "You're fully aware that there has been some substantial progress."

MacAulay also blamed external factors for some of the department's ongoing problems, including a surge in applications for disability benefits and deep staffing cuts under Stephen Harper's Conservative government about a decade ago.

Meanwhile, he defended the contract with Partners in Canadian Veterans Rehabilitation Services, which came into effect this month despite fierce opposition and cries of alarm from the Union of Veterans Affairs Employees.

The government says the contract will help overworked case managers while ensuring veterans have access to a national network of 9,000 psychologists, physiotherapists, social workers and other help across the country.

The Liberals promised in 2015 that the average case manager would have no more than 25 veterans in their caseloads, as many struggled with 40 or more following the Conservative cuts.

The average today still sits closer to 35 when accounting for the dozens of case managers currently off on sick and stress leave, with some still having upwards of 40 or 50, according to the UVAE.

"On the contract itself, (the company) serves 14,000 veterans," MacAulay said. "They have approximately 9,000 medical experts in place across the country to provide the service they need. I don't think it would be very responsible to cancel that contract."

Yet the UVAE alleges the contract will have the opposite effect by adding another layer of bureaucracy with which veterans will have to contend while dramatically changing the role of case managers.

The union has also blasted the department's continued reliance on temporary staff to fix its problems. That issue has also been raised by auditor general Karen Hogan, who is calling for a long-term staffing and funding plan at Veterans Affairs.

The battle between the UVAE and MacAulay came to a head last month when the union wrote to Trudeau asking him to replace MacAulay because its members had lost faith in the minister.

Meanwhile, others are questioning MacAulay's clout at the cabinet table and the Liberal government's interest in veterans given their failure to fix many of the department's longstanding problems.

"Whenever MacAulay speaks, it's always the same thing: 'We think this is the highest priority, we're going to do everything we can,'" said Brian Forbes, executive director of the War Amps and head of the National Council of Veterans Associations, which represents 60 organizations.

"In our humble opinion, all of that is not enough. You've got to make systemic changes."

Asked about the resignation call and his own record, MacAulay cited several more figures about the billions of dollars spent on veterans since the Liberals came to power as well as the recent purchase of land in France to save Juno Beach from development.

"People can assess whether I'm the proper minister or not," he said. "I'm going to continue to do the job that I'm doing the best way I know how in order to make sure we serve veterans."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2022.

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

REMEMBERANCE DAY  11/11/2022

Organization continues search to identify Indigenous veterans in unmarked graves

The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte have a long history of military service ranging from the First and Second World War to Afghanistan, but Chief Donald Maracle had always known many of the First Nation's veterans lay in unmarked graves in the community's cemeteries.

THEY ALSO FOUGHT WITH THE BRITISH

AGAINST THE FRENCH AND YANKEES

Maracle said that's because many Indigenous veterans who returned from war were not afforded the same benefits provided to other veterans, and their families often couldn't afford proper headstones commemorating their service to the Crown.

"What's important for Canadians to remember is that native people could not be conscripted into the military because they didn't have the right to vote during the First World War and Second World War, they were not seen to be British subjects," he said. "Native people volunteered in numbers disproportionate to our population."

But with some assistance from a Canada-wide organization working to identify Indigenous veterans lying in unmarked graves, eight Mohawk veterans from the Great Wars now have proper headstones marking their military service.

Maracle says the grave markers and respect are long overdue.

"Even though it is some decades later, it's better late than never," he said.

The grave markers are the product of a project led by the Last Post Fund, which launched its Indigenous Veterans' Initiative in 2019 as an effort to advance reconciliation by identifying and providing proper headstones for those lying in unmarked graves. Its other function is to provide traditional Indigenous names and cultural symbols to existing military grave markers.

Through the initiative, the organization has researched thousands of Indigenous veterans in Canada, found hundreds of their unmarked graves and provided more than 165 grave markers. But Last Post Fund's executive director Edouard Pahud said they've only scratched the surface of the issue and need First Nations to provide research, oral history and expertise on their own communities to ensure more are recognized.

"It means a lot to the families and to the communities where there is that strong relationship [with military service]. They are thrilled to see the proper recognition and commemoration," said Pahud, adding some Indigenous communities are not fully aware of their own history of members who have served.

"Indigenous veterans are as deserving as our regular veterans in terms of having a proper commemoration and proper military markers."

The Indigenous Veterans' Initiative is based on a list provided by Yann Castelnot, an amateur historian from France living in Quebec, who compiled one of the largest databases of Indigenous soldiers, including nearly 15,000 who were born in Canada.

Pahud said he never would have known many of the people on the list were Indigenous, noting several had French or religious names imposed on them during their time at residential schools or adopted new names in order to enlist in the Armed Forces.

Since many traditional military markers have specific regiments on them, the initiative's researchers went to Cree artist Jason Carter to design culturally relevant symbols, based on the Seven Sacred Teachings, that families can opt to have etched into the stones.

In order to confirm that an Indigenous veteran is in an unmarked grave, the initiative will typically reach out to an Indigenous community to gauge interest in helping conduct research. Maria Trujillo, the Last Post Fund's Indigenous program coordinator, said identifying veterans is highly dependent on research from and oral histories within First Nations communities.

"It's amazing when I mention the name of a veteran and people immediately connect them to the community," said Trujillo, adding oral histories become key when researchers can't confirm an Indigenous veteran's service records. "They know their people really well and it's helped with the research."

As a result of this collaboration with First Nations, the Last Post Fund's list of Indigenous veterans has grown through word-of-mouth, as communities help add names to veterans not on Castelnot's original list.

The initiative also tries to stir up interest by writing articles, taking out advertisements in newspapers and magazines — many of them Indigenous-focused — and attending Pow Wows. A documentary on the initiative in collaboration with Indigenous filmmakers is also in the works.

To date, the Last Post Fund has researched less than 25 per cent of the total names on their list of Indigenous veterans. Much of the research so far has focused on western provinces since the initiative's creation, and Pahud and Trujillo have opted to make Ontario a larger focus in the coming years, since Castelnot's list shows there are more than 5,000 Indigenous veterans in that province alone. So far, the initiative has researched less than 20 per cent of those veterans.

"A lot of people are surprised when I call into the community and they're like, 'I didn't even know this existed, I didn't know we had access to this,'" said Trujillo.

She said interest in the initiative has grown naturally over time, adding feedback from veterans' families and First Nations communities leave her optimistic that more will hop on board by supporting its research.

"I really think if more people know about us, we're going to get more families contacting us directly."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2022.

———

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Tyler Griffin, The Canadian Press

Veteran graves of Alberta ghost town cemetery never left alone

Dan Grummett -  Global News

From her couch in a downtown Edmonton seniors home, Mary Lee squints through her magnifying glass at the binder on her lap.

The Mountain Park Cemetery is home to dozens of veteran's graves. Some are known and marked, others have never been identified.© Dayne Winter / Global News

It's mainly a photo album and it's as thick as a bed pillow. Lee turns through the pages, trying to read the captions underneath each picture that she wrote years ago.

"I can see there's colour, etcetera," said Lee. "But I can't tell the details."

The binder she's leafing through is actually less than half of what she's collected about Mountain Park Cemetery, the only remnants of a community abandoned 72 years ago.

More than 300 kilometres west of Lee and her binders, in the Alberta foothills, 31 small flags flap and flicker in what used to be called the "Valley of the Winds."
'It's gone back to nature'

Established in 1911, Mountain Park was a tight-knit coal mining community built on a hillside. Mainly accessible by train, it had a school, hospital, library, butcher shop, hockey rink and a cemetery.

Lee was born there in 1937.

"Everybody got along. We never locked our doors," she recalled.

Population peaked around 1,500 residents, some of whom fought in both the First and Second World Wars.

"We sent care packages over(seas) like you wouldn't believe," said Lee. "My mother made fruit cakes and everything and sent them over to the boys."

Read more:
Mom of last Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan chosen as Silver Cross Mother

Eventually, the oil and gas industry began to emerge in Alberta.

Alberta Coal Branch mining operations in Mountain Park wound down.

Flooding on the McLeod River cut off the integral railway.

In 1950, Mountain Park was abandoned. Lee recalled residents moving their entire homes from their foundation to other communities. Other structures were flattened.

Today, it's considered a ghost town.

"There's nothing there anymore. It's gone back to nature," said Lee.

To this day, the only visible evidence Mountain Park ever existed is its cemetery.

"We kind of forgot it was there."

Mary's reclamation project

Lee moved to Edson, west of Edmonton, after her Mountain Park days. But in the 1990s, the cemetery was suddenly back on her radar.

Another ex-resident was informed the cemetery was in jeopardy of being demolished by a mining company. A group, including Lee, began an initiative to save it.

After receiving a government grant, work began on the reclamation and Lee revisited the site for the first time in years.

"The buckbrush was up to my shoulders, probably. And as we cleaned it out, we were surprised what was there," recalled Lee.

The surprise came at the number of graves belonging to war veterans.

Lee sought out to determine exactly who the graves belonged to.

Some were unmarked or damaged. Wooden fences built to protect the plots needed to be rebuilt and repainted.

In the early 2000s, a cenotaph was erected in honour of Mountain Park's residents who served and sacrificed.

In the years following, Lee would return a few times per year to visit her parents and ensure the cemetery didn't become enveloped by nature.

But in time, time caught up with her. Lee hasn't been back since 2017.

A new form of recognition

Arleen Wambolt doesn't claim to know much about the history of Mountain Park. Wambolt was aware the cemetery had a military contingent and of Lee's efforts to preserve it all.

"It's amazing she took this on," said Wambolt of Lee.

Wambolt volunteers with No Stone Left Alone Foundation in Hinton. The initiative organizes youth to place poppies on the headstones of Canadian veterans each November.

Read more:

2021 No Stone Left Alone ceremony: ‘We will remember’

This year, she was tasked with bringing a commemoration ceremony to Mountain Park cemetery.

"It doesn't matter if the cemetery has one veteran or 1,000. It's honouring every veteran that served our country," said Wambolt.

At more than 6,000 feet above sea level, Mountain Park has the highest elevated cemetery in Canada. That can make weather and road conditions unpredictable, especially in the winter.

Wambolt knew the ceremony couldn't wait for November.

In August, she and some friends drove the winding gravel road to the cemetery. Instead of poppies, which would easily blow away, they planted poppy flags next to headstones. Wambolt counted 31 in total.

"It's just moving. You almost reflect at each one that you do it. You kind of thank them silently for their service," she said. "I kind of get chills when I do it."

The reason this is here is because of Mountain Park

The buzz of a whippersnapper fills the air with sound, as Paula (Resek) McKay chops down some overgrown grass. The Resek family had a home in Mountain Park pre-1950.

"My dad's house was up on one of those hills over there," said McKay, pointing to the hillside and former townsite west of the cemetery.

Read more:

Unmarked graves for veterans in southern Alberta to receive military headstones

She was careful not to damage the white cross of Sgt. Tony Resek, her cousin, who served with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Resek is one of the 31 markers Wambolt counted. No one seems to believe any of the veterans physically buried at Mountain Park actually died in combat. Many served and died in the First World War but others also served and returned to Canada to live out their lives.

Some returned to Mountain Park and they or their families requested to be buried at the cemetery upon their death.

"I think about all the young men from Mountain Park that answered the call to go to war," said McKay, who helped with the No Stone commemoration ceremony in August.

The August ceremony was missing a youth component.

Most of the broader area's school-aged children live in or close to Hinton and Edson on the Yellowhead Highway, according to Wambolt. Her hope is to work with county school divisions to organize a youth contingent to travel to Mountain Park to plant the poppy flags as soon as next year.

"I'd like to see more youth coming out here. Maybe through a field trip?" suggested McKay.

Longing to return

Lee would happily host a youth expedition to Mountain Park.

But while flipping through her photo album, she's reminded of why she cannot.

"I'm sitting here and I'm realizing how much of the vision is gone," said Lee, who is visually impaired.

But her memories are not fuzzy and the motivation behind her cemetery custodianship is as clear now as it was 25 years ago.

"That's part of the history from up there that should not die," she said, vowing to return one way or another.

"I'll tell you right now, that's where I'm heading back to. So you better look after it good," Lee said with a chuckle.

One of last living Black Canadian WWII veterans is from Sask.

Dayne Patterson - CBC - 11/11/2022

Alvie Burden is one of the last surviving Black Canadian veterans who served in the Second World War. A historian says stories like Burden's need to be told.

Alvie's youngest son Kelly sat beside his father in Armstrong, B.C., where Alvie now lives, prompting some of Alvie's stories and filling in some blanks. The conversation was occasionally punctuated by Alvie's hearty laughs.

"Don't ever go back to war, isn't that what you said before?" Kelly said.

Alvie chuckled. "Yeah. People [have] to learn to get along."

Alvie was living in B.C. when he joined the Canadian military at 19 years old, but since he was born in Tisdale, Sask., in 1922, he was sent off to the Prairies to join the Saskatoon Light Infantry division as a dispatch rider.
Reuniting with best friend from the military

Alvie was reunited this June with one of his closest friends from the war, Art McKim.

"I met him in Montreal, where we went on the boat to England and then to Sicily," Alvie said.

The two were in Quebec to train on machine guns. Alvie said they'd go downtown and meet French girls on their off time. He spent a lot of time in England with McKim on guard duty, according to Kelly.

Both friends ended up meeting girlfriends in Paisley, Scotland.

"We met them on the street," Alvie said.

"You were going to marry one weren't you?" Kelly asked him.

"Yup."

Kelly recounted how Alvie gave the woman a ring, but then later changed his mind. She gave the ring back, and it later ended up on the finger of Kelly's mother.

Alvie and McKim were waiting for a ferry in Sicily when they started "messing around" with gunpowder that had been left on the beach.

"The damn stuff went up in smoke," Alvie said. "Art, he had his eyes all full of sand."

McKim was temporarily blinded. Alvie had to lead him out of the area and help him to the hospital. It was the last time the men saw each other for decades.

Related video: 100-year-old veteran reflects on service in Second World War

Duration 4:53   View on Watch

Alvie spent years looking for McKim, even driving to where he thought Art was from.

They were finally able to track him down.

"It was a pretty big deal," Alvie said.

They didn't find out until they reunited that McKim's half-brother lived within an hour drive of Alvie, and his relatives played hockey with Kelly's son.

Injured in war

Alvie was driving over a ridge when an enemy tank shell landed behind him and sent him flying into the air.

According to Kelly, an allied tank straddled him to protect him as soldiers pulled him to safety.

He ended up with shrapnel in his head and wrists, and the embedded lead continued to fester.

Despite that, Alvie returned and started carrying machine guns on a half-track as the driver of a Bren gun carrier.

Black Canadian stories important to remember

Kathy Grant founded the website and Facebook page Black Canadian Veterans Stories as part of a promise to her father, a Second World War veteran, to honour the contributions of Canada's Black soldiers.

Since then, dozens of stories from Black veterans of various wars have been posted online.

Grant said she's been in situations where Black Canadians have been conflicted on Remembrance Day, asking what they had to celebrate. She would show them stories and pictures.

"We served," Grant said. "By putting these examples and showing we served … [even] after the war, it humanizes the soldiers by showing examples of us and not only showing examples of victims of racism."

Grant said there were about 1,300 Black Canadians who either enlisted or were conscripted to the military in the First World War, but in the early stages many were turned away by the commanding officer, who had the final say.

"There were hundreds that were turned away because of the commanding officer, but not because of policy," she said.

Things changed in the Second World War, and while some commanders still turned away applicants, Black Canadians joined the military much more easily.

"The majority of Black World War II veterans that I've interviewed indicated the racism … wasn't rampant, it was the odd occasion," she said.

"The racism that they would experience would be when they returned home from overseas, or also when they were stationed in certain towns during training, when they would go into bars or dancing or whatever."

She said her father was kicked out of a bar in Edmonton because of his skin colour, even though he was in uniform.

Grant believes Alvie is among fewer than five living Black Canadian Second World War veterans in the country.

While Alvie's uncle, Roy Burden, was in a segregated unit in the United States, Alvie said that during his time in the military, from 1941 until the end of the war in 1945, he didn't face race-related issues despite being the only Black Canadian in his company.

It was "all right, no problems," he said.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.

Bernie M. Farber: The Jewish-Canadian hero of the battle of 'Sterlin Castle'

Opinion by Special to National Post - 

During the Second World War, Canadian heroes came from every walk of life, a multitude of ethnicities, cultures and faiths. Perhaps though, the group that had most to lose if captured by the Nazis in battle were the Jewish men who signed up to fight in record numbers. European Jews were being slaughtered by Hitler’s madness as part of a modern genocide that saw the slaughter of over six million Jews between 1939 and 1945. Jewish allied soldiers captured by the Nazis were not treated as POWs. Instead, they were sent to concentration and death camps reserved for Jews, Roma and others caught in the Nazi ideology of genocide.


Details from© Provided by National Post

Such thoughts weighed heavily on those Canadian Jews who voluntarily chose to fight for Canada. Indeed, amongst the tiny population that made up Canadian Jewry at the time, 17,000 young Canadian Jews of fighting age — fully 20 per cent of the Canadian Jewish male population — enlisted in the Armed Forces. That was by far the highest percentage per capita of any minority ethnic/faith group in the country. Close to 700 lost their lives in battle and almost 200 were decorated for their courage. Amongst them was Lt. Mitchell Sterlin.

Mitchell Sterlin was born in Montreal in 1922. He was the son of Eastern European Jews who came to Canada in order to begin a new life. He was smart and outgoing, one of the few Canadian Jews of his time to secure a spot at the McGill medical school during a time of strict quotas against Jews. Sterlin could have avoided the war altogether as a result of his medical school position but chose to fight for his country and with the full knowledge of what was happening to his fellow Jews in Europe.

Following two years of part-time military training with the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps while at McGill, he enlisted for service in the spring of 1942. Receiving his commission in February 1943, now Lt. Mitch Sterlin was attached to the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) and set out to battle in June of that same year. Author and journalist Ellin Bessner noted in her remarkable biography of Sterlin ( Why a Canadian Army building is named after Lt. Mitchell Sterlin ) how he faced antisemitism even from within his own ranks.



Mitchell Sterlin could have avoided the war due to his medical school position but chose to fight for his country and with the full knowledge of what was happening to his fellow Jews in Europe.© McGill University Archives

“While en route to Sicily some of the other RCR lieutenants urged Capt. Ian Hodson of “D” Company to get rid of Sterlin because he was a Jew. Hodson reprimanded them in graphic terms about what would happen to them and how they would be returned to England if they said another negative word about Sterlin.”

Sterlin would live up to his captain’s faith in him. In December 1943 the RCR found themselves on Italy’s Adriatic coast where their eventual mission was to capture Ortona, a small seaport town. It was a brutal battle between German paratroopers and Canadian troops that became known as “Bloody December” for the violent hand-to-hand combat, mines and chaos of the surrounding area. It was here that Sterlin’s courage and tenacity became legendary.

Drenched by driving sleet and cold rain, and having to traverse landscape in which the Nazi forces had destroyed bridges, Sterlin’s “D” Company 16th Platoon were being bombarded. Sterlin and 10 of his men did not get the message that they were to retreat. Instead, they took refuge in a farmhouse where, with much smaller numbers than the German combatants, they engaged in fierce fighting. Two Canadians were killed during the battle. Nonetheless, with grit and valour, the Canadians won the day and the Germans surrendered. Following the battle, the area was nicknamed “Slaughterhouse Hill.”

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Sterlin was mentioned for his bravery in military dispatches and his commanding officers nominated him for the Military Cross, the Canadian medal awarded for “gallant and distinguished services in action.” However the papers were delayed as a result of the fighting. Sadly, only a few days after the battle of Slaughterhouse Hill, a German sniper shot Sterlin and he died on Dec. 19, 1943.

Regrettably, Lt. Sterlin never received his Military Cross, which to this day many feel he more than rightly deserved. As an ongoing tribute, the old farmhouse that was the centre of the battle became known as “Sterlin Castle.” And in the early 1990s the RCR marked the 50th anniversary of the Italian Campaign by donating an oil painting to regimental headquarters in Petawawa known as “The Defence of Sterlin Castle.” They also named the regimental HQ Victoria Barracks after Sterlin.

May the memory of Lt. Mitch Sterlin and all those who fought for freedom be a blessing this day.

Special to National Post
Bernie M. Farber is a human rights advocate, writer and speaker, and the former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

GAIA WOKE
Pacific tsunami warning declared for magnitude 7.3 earthquake east of Tonga

U.S. authorities declared a tsunami warning Friday for multiple Pacific Ocean territories for a 7.3 magnitude earthquake 211 kilometers northeast of Tonga, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.


Seism of 7.3 in Northeast Tonga - USGS© Provided by News 360

The earthquake was recorded at 11:48 a.m. (Spanish peninsular time) with a hypocenter about 25 kilometers deep, according to the report of the Earthquake Emergency Program of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), for its acronym in English.

Shortly afterwards, the US Tsunami Warning Center confirmed that the earthquake has unleashed high waves that pose a threat to American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Zealand, Niue, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Wallis and Futuna.

The center has warned that all of these territories could experience rising coastal waters over the next few hours and is advising people to stay away from the coast and harbors.

No fatalities or injuries have been reported so far.

Hurricane Nicole unearths suspected Native American burial site in Florida

Antonio Planas and Marlene Lenthang and Graham Lee Brewer - Yesterday 

 NBC News

Hurricane Nicole may have unearthed a Native American burial site dating back hundreds of years on a Florida beach, authorities said.

Six skulls and other smaller bones turned up on Chastain Beach on South Hutchinson Island, said Martin County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy John Budensiek.

Beachgoers found the remains, Budensiek said.

"Our medical examiner’s office is saying that they believe the bones are in excess of 200 years of age," he said, adding that investigators believe they may be the remains of Indigenous people.

Related video: Human remains appear on ancient Native American burial ground following Nicole

Duration 2:06   View on Watch

The bones of Native Americans were discovered in the area after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

“We do believe based on other findings over the years along that area that it’s likely to be an old Indiana burial site,” he said. “When we are dealing with remains like this, we try to preserve history. We are not exploring and digging any further into the area where the remains were found. We only recovered what’s been exposed by the water.”

Budensiek said he’s been in touch with the Seminole Nation of Florida about the discovery. If the site is a Native American burial site, it is federally protected, and criminal charges will be pursued against anyone who tries to disturb the area, Budensiek said.

No one with the county’s medical examiner’s office could be immediately reached Thursday afternoon.

Hurricane Nicole made landfall on Florida’s Atlantic Coast early Thursday near where the remains were found.

The storm landed just south of Vero Beach around 3 a.m. ET on the east coast of the Florida Peninsula on North Hutchinson Island with sustained winds estimated to be around 75 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

One of nature's great mysteries may now have an answer, according to new 'fairy circle' study

Taylor Nicioli - Yesterday - CNN

For over 50 years, ecologists have studied and debated the mystery of the Namib Desert’s “fairy circles,” circular patches, mostly barren of grass, that have spread across 1,100 miles in the arid grasslands of Southern Africa.

Despite their whimsical name, akin to the term “fairy rings” for circular patterns of fungi found in forested areas, there are no fairies at play here. Many theories have been put forth, but two have held the most merit. One theory has looked to blame termites for these dry patches, while the other considers the grasses’ evolution. Scientists have gone back and forth for decades, but a new study offers what may finally be evidence for a clear explanation.


An April 2022 drone image shows the NamibRand Nature Reserve, one of the regions in Namibia where researchers undertook grass excavations, soil-moisture and infiltration measurements. - Courtesy Dr. Stephan Getzin

Stephan Getzin, an ecologist at the University of Göttingen in Germany and lead author of the study, began his research on the fairy circles in 2000. In the years since, he has published more papers on the circles, and their origins, than any other expert.

What makes the fairy circles distinctive are the barren patches within them, but the growth of grasses around them is notable as well — they have found a way to thrive in what is considered one of the driest places in the world. In previous research, Getzin and his team hypothesized that plants in the circles’ outer rings had evolved to maximize their limited water in the desert.

And for the past three years, he has spent time in Namibia tracking the growth of the grasses to find more evidence for this theory. During the drought season of 2020, Getzin and his team of researchers installed sensors that could record the moisture of the soil at around 7.9 inches (20 centimeters) deep — and monitor the grasses’ water uptake.

“We were really lucky, because in 2020 there was not much vegetation, or actually, almost any grass vegetation in the fairy circle area,” Getzin said. “But in 2021, and this year, in 2022, there was a very good rainfall season, so we could actually really follow how the growth of the new grasses was redistributing the soil water.”


Getzin's coauthor, Sönke Holch of University of Göttingen, downloads data from a sensor in the Namib Desert in February 2021, when the grasses reached their peak biomass. - Courtesy Dr. Stephan Getzin

Analyzing the data from these rainfall seasons, Getzin’s team found water from within the circles was depleting fast, despite not having any grass to use it, while the grasses on the outside were as robust as ever. Under the strong heat in the desert, these well-established grasses had evolved to create a vacuum system around their roots that drew any water toward them, according to Getzin. The grasses from within the circles, which attempt to grow right after rainfall, meanwhile, were unable to receive enough water to live.

“A circle is the most logical geometric formation which you would create as a plant suffering from lack of water,” Getzin said. “If these circles were squares, or low, complex structures, then you would have a lot more individual grasses along the circumference. … The proportional area is smaller than if you grow in a circle. These grasses end up in a circle because that’s the most logical structure to maximize the water available to each individual plant.”

The study called this an example of “ecohydrological feedback,” in which the barren circles become reservoirs that help sustain grasses at the edges — though at the expense of grasses in the middle. This self-organization is used to buffer against the negative effects of increasing aridity, Getzin said, and is also seen in other harsh drylands in the world.

In response to the ‘termite theory’

The termite hypothesis, meanwhile, suggested that fairy circles are generated by sand termites that damage grass roots, and was well received among other scientists. However, a 2016 study of similar fairy circles in Australia found no clear links to the pests. Getzin’s latest research came to similar conclusions.

“We have an example where it rained only once, the grasses came up, and then after eight or nine days, the grasses only within the fairy circles had started dying,” Getzin said. “When we (excavated) these grasses carefully and looked at the roots, none of these grasses had any root damage by termites — but still, they died. Our results clearly state, no, these grasses die without termites.”



Twelve continuously recording soil-moisture sensors, installed at regular intervals at a 20-centimeter depth, track a section of the desert connecting two fairy circles. 

- Courtesy Dr. Stephan Getzin

Getzin and his team also found the roots from young plants within the circles to be longer than those on the outside. This suggests, according to Getzin, that the grasses had created longer routes in an attempt to find water — further evidence of their competition with the outside ring’s grasses in the water-scarce desert.

While the evidence brought forth from the study is a step forward, scientists — Getzin included — believe there is still more research that could be done. That said, Getzin told CNN that it’s time for him to move on to a new challenge.

“With the fairy circles in Namibia, as well as those seen in Australia, the plants are modifying the soil moisture distribution and thereby increasing their survival chances, and we can call this sort of ‘swarm intelligence,’” Getzin said. “Plants do make intelligent patterns and geometric formations, and I will continue to work in this direction.”

Near the fairy circle area in Namibia, for example, researchers have also found a different species of grass forming in large, circular rings after rainfall. “It’s a completely different grass genus, but it forms identical circular formations,” Getzin said. He is looking to research this process during Namibia’s next rainy season of 2023.

NO NAZIS FOUND INSIDE

The Strange Origin of the Hollow Moon Conspiracy Theory

Jessica Coulon - POP MECH.



The hollow moon conspiracy theory came about during the Apollo missions in 1969.

Conspiracy theorists misinterpreted the results of the astronauts’ seismic experiments, leading them to believe the moon was hollow.

Scientists said the moon rings “like a bell.” That’s because the vibrations from the moon’s seismic events, known as moonquakes, last much longer than those on Earth.

Conspiracy theorists once believed that the moon was hollow. Though that’s more likely than the moon being made out of cheese, it still seems pretty ridiculous by today’s standards. So where did that hollow moon theory—or rather, conspiracy—come from?

Surprisingly, it isn’t based in folklore, and the tale isn’t very old, either. The hollow moon theory first came about in 1969 during the Apollo 12 moon-landing mission.

NASA researchers sought to learn more about the composition of the moon. During the Apollo 12 mission, astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean set up a Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE) at the landing site as part of larger set of moon experiments known as the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP).

Once the Apollo 12 astronauts were safely back in the command module, they crashed the lunar module into the moon’s surface. The impact was the equivalent of detonating one ton of TNT and triggered what’s known as a “moonquake”—the first human-made moonquake to take place. The PSE seismometers recorded the resulting vibrations, which were much bigger and lasted much longer than the scientists had anticipated. They were far different from the earthquake vibrations we’re familiar with.


An Apollo 12 astronaut sets up the Passive Seismic Experiment on the moon, 1969.

© Bettmann - Getty Images

NASA continued its moonquake experiments during the Apollo 13, 14, 15, and 16 missions, with similar results.

At the time, the findings were surprising because they pointed to the moon being much less dense than Earth, and it is: the moon is only 60 percent as dense. That doesn’t mean the moon is hollow, but as with many things—like the moon landing itself—conspiracy theorists perpetuated that misinformation.

What Are Moonquakes?

The Passive Seismic Experiment seismometers placed during the Apollo 12 mission remained active until 1977, recording both natural and human-made moonquakes alike. In fact, moonquakes happen fairly regularly, as space debris like asteroids hit the moon more frequently than Earth, because the moon’s atmosphere is much less dense.

Scientists have pinpointed four types of moonquakes: deep sub-700-kilometer quakes, meteorite-caused quakes, thermal quakes, and shallow quakes occurring only 20 kilometers to 30 kilometers deep. Shallow moonquakes, like those triggered by NASA, last the longest and have the most devastating effects—some even measured up to 5.5 on the Richter scale. Shallow moonquakes do occur naturally on the moon, too, though scientists haven’t pinpointed what causes them yet.

Why Does the Moon “Ring” Like a Bell?

Here’s where things got lost in translation. “The moon was ringing like a bell,” Clive R. Neal, professor of civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, says of the experiment results in a NASA writeup. And that’s true from a scientific standpoint. Similarly, the writeup also compares moonquake vibrations to those of a tuning fork, which is a kind of acoustic resonator. “It just keeps going and going,” Neal says.

However, the moon does not literally sound like a bell ringing, nor is it hollow like one. But conspiracy theorists interpreted it in that manner.


A close-up of the Apollo 12 Passive Seismic Experiment.© NASA

On Earth, vibrations from earthquakes typically last only 30 seconds or so and no more than two minutes. That’s largely due to the amount of water present on the planet. As Neal explains, “Water weakens stone, expanding the structure of different minerals. When energy propagates across such a compressible structure, it acts like a foam sponge—it deadens the vibrations.”

Meanwhile, the NASA-induced moonquakes all lasted over ten minutes. The Apollo 12 moonquake’s shockwave took close to eight minutes to peak after impact and around an hour to fully cease. But we now know there’s a very good, scientific explanation for it. There isn’t much water on the moon that we know of—it’s mostly in the form of ice; and the moon is drier and a lot more rigid than Earth. So, the moon’s composition allows vibrations to “ring” and continue on for a much longer period of time.

The results were surprising at the time of the Apollo missions, but we now know more about the moon’s composition. Though we’ve ruled out the moon being hollow, we have a lot to learn still.

Terry Hurford, a NASA geophysicist, is working on the new Subsurface Lunar Investigation and Monitoring Experiment (SUBLIME), which would “map the moon’s core” and gather even more data on moonquakes for the Artemis program, for instance. “Our understanding of the moon’s interior remains rudimentary and is limited,” he says in a NASA article.

Was the Moon Landing faked? | Neil deGrasse Tyson 

 

A UFO Was Supposedly Spotted During the 2022 USO Air Show

Cassandra Yorgey - Yesterday -Exemplore

It was certainly faster than those planes.

One expects the planes to be the fastest thing at an airshow but not this time! An Unidentified Flying Object was caught on camera at the 2022 US Thunderbirds Air Show and was shown overtaking the airplanes that were performing. The small bright spot appears in the sky behind and to the right of the planes, then seems to pivot to fly parallel to them before whipping out the hyperdrive, whizzing past the planes, and disappearing off into the distance.

Click here to watch the video Pictures of UFO sightings over the Pacific

Did an alien show up to race, unbeknownst to the pilots of the planes? This possibility seems more likely than at any other point in history, as it comes on the heels of the Unites States Government finally admitting they have been collecting and studying reports of UFOs, which they call UAPs - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

Some skeptics to point to a camera lens flare as being the culprit of this speeding craft in the sky, but others debate that would not result in it speeding ahead of the jet planes. Still others claim it is a government drone flying at a lower altitude so it only appears to be going faster.

This is not the first time a UFO has made an appearance at an airshow. A strange spinning object was seen coming out of the water and flying off at a recent Miami Sea and Air Show that has left viewers convinced there are more to UFO stories than we fully understand yet.

Leading Iranian actor posts picture without hijab in support of anti-government protests

Celine Alkhaldi - Yesterday - CNN

Leading Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti posted a picture of herself on Instagram without the mandatory hijab to show support for ongoing anti-government protests that kicked off in Iran nearly two months ago.

In the photo, Alidoosti holds a sign that reads “Women, Life, Freedom” in Kurdish, a popular slogan that has been used in the demonstrations that have been largely led by women.

“Your final absence, the migration of singing birds, is not the end of this rebellion,” Alidoosti writes in her Instagram post.

The actor, who starred in Academy Award-winning film “The Salesman,” has previously shared a number of social media posts that are critical of the regime and has been a public supporter of the demonstrations. She is also known as a defender of women’s rights in Iran.



Alidoosti at the 75th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 26, 2022. - Boyer David/ABACA/Shutterstock

Earlier this week, Alidoosti vowed in another Instagram post to remain in her homeland, saying “I’m the one to stay, and I do not plan on leaving at all.”

“I will stand with the families of the prisoners and the murdered, and demand their rights,” Alidoosti says in that Instagram post.

Related video: Iran anti-Hijab row: Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti posts picture without headscarf

Duration 1:21  View on Watch

“I will fight for my home. I will pay whatever price to stand for my right,” she adds.

Alidoosti is one of several female Iranian actors to take off their mandatory hijab to protest the clerical establishment.

On Wednesday, Iranian actors Donya Madani and Khazar Massoumi also posted photos of themselves on Instagram without a headscarf on.

The Islamic Republic is facing one of its biggest and unprecedented shows of dissent following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained by the morality police allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.

Since her death on September 16, protesters across Iran have coalesced around a range of grievances with the regime. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have been stepping up efforts to end the uprising.

Around 1,000 people have been charged in Tehran province for their alleged involvement in the protests, state news agency IRNA reported.

As many as 14,000 people have been arrested in total across the country, including journalists, activists, lawyers and educators. Among them is dissident Iranian rap artist Toomaj Salehi, who faces accusations of crimes that are punishable by death, according to Iranian state media.

The “unabated violent response of security forces” has led to the reported deaths of at least 277 people, Javaid Rehman, special rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, said in an address to the UN Security Council Wednesday, a figure backed by reports from human rights groups.

Why Big Tech Is Throwing $1 Billion at Sucking CO2 From the Air

Imad Khan - CNET

A pair of 2,000-gallon water tanks standing 15 feet tall occupy a cordoned-off portion of a parking lot down the street from Georgia Tech University's Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory. They're being used to grow algae, but in an extreme and novel way.


Fans at Climeworks' Orca direct air capture facility in Hellisheiði, Iceland. Climeworks

© Provided by CNET

Clear bags filled with a green, mucousy substance float in water while hanging from metal pipes nearby. The bags have tubes sticking out of them, being fed both water and carbon dioxide. That substance, algae, is the key to this whole experiment.


Zooey Liao / CNET© Provided by CNET

Algae are photosynthetic organisms found in water that, like plants, eat up carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Algae alone produce 50% of the oxygen in our atmosphere. Researchers at Georgia Tech are seeing if it's possible to take existing carbon dioxide in the air, capture it and feed it to the algae. Once the algae is refined, it can be used in things from food to fuel.

As an environmental catastrophe looms, researchers are looking at unique solutions such as Georgia Tech's algae experiment to combat climate change. The UN is urging governments to bring carbon emissions down to net zero by 2050, a difficult task considering that 84% of the world's energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which is a significant source of the greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate crisis. Letting emissions get out of hand could lead to famine and more extreme weather events, but a rising population and increasing energy demands make it difficult to curb our output.

Direct air capture, or DAC, is a technological process that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air and serves as one part of a multifaceted approach to combat climate change. While the DAC industry is still in its nascent stage and has been criticized as too expensive, it's already embedding itself as an important technology, having secured support from governments around the world.

One person who has high hopes for this process is Chris Jones, chair of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech University. It's his team that's looking at products that can be made with the help of DAC, such as algae.

"We think of CO2 as a waste product. Direct air capture is the creation of the waste management business that handles that," said Jones. "Carbon started underground in the form of coal, gas and oil, and we're just putting it back underground, where it belongs."



Jose A. Bernat Bacete© Provided by CNET
A carbon countdown

Humans have dumped an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. Last year, carbon emissions rose by 6% to 36.3 billion tons, according to the International Energy Agency. An October UN Environment Programme report says global governments, especially richer, carbon-polluting countries, are "falling pitifully short." United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video message, "We must close the emissions gap before climate catastrophe closes in on us all."

The bleak analysis says that humans are on track to increase global temperatures 2.8 degrees Celsius by the year 2100, landing far above the 1.5 degree target set by the 2015 Paris agreement.



Algae inside photoreactor bags at Georgia Tech University. Thomas Igou / Georgia Tech University© Provided by CNET

"Every little digit that we shave off is a lesser catastrophic outlook," UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said to the Associated Press.

DAC isn't meant to clean up the atmosphere so that humans can continue polluting. It's not a magic solution that'll save humanity. But it is expected to play a major role.

The technology is an important topic of discussion at the COP27 conference happening in Egypt now.

"Direct air capture's role is in the long-term climate mitigation plan to bring down atmospheric CO2 levels once all CO2 emissions have stopped," said Carlos Härtel, chief technology officer at Climeworks.

As DAC tech develops, it'll prove useful as the world's energy infrastructure shifts to cleaner alternatives. But it'll need constant development, and government incentives could help.

The immediate goal for global governments is to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030. This will include shifting away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and moving toward wind, solar and nuclear. But that doesn't mean DAC doesn't have a role to play.

"We need to go to zero in terms of fossil fuel production and consumption, and then use the DAC to clean up the mess that we have already made," said Soheil Shayegh, a scientist at the European Institute on Economics and the Environment, or EIEE.

Duration 2:17

WION Climate Tracker | Study: CO2 emissions to hit an all-time high

View on Watch

Advances in DAC

In 1999, Klaus Lackner, a chemical engineer at Arizona State University, was the first to recognize direct air capture as a way of combating climate change.

Here's how it works: As air passes through a filter lined with chemicals, little bits of CO2 get captured. Once the CO2 is separated, it can either be stored underground or be used to make products, such as carbon fiber or the fizz in a soda. There are about 412 CO2 particles per million in the atmosphere, meaning giant fans have to suck in a lot of air to capture just one ton. While that number might seem small, CO2 was under 300 parts per million in preindustrial times.


Mineralized CO2 at Climeworks' Orca Facilitiy Climeworks

© Provided by CNET

There are now 19 DAC plants worldwide with Switzerland-based Climeworks, Canada's Carbon Engineering and the US' CarbonCapture pushing innovation in the field.

The largest DAC facility is Climeworks' Orca plant in Iceland. Orca is a $10 million carbon capture facility that aims to suck up 4,000 tons of carbon a year, or 0.00001% of annual emissions. And with government tax credits, the cost of capturing carbon will be more manageable for companies. Oil giant Occidental has plans to set up 30 DAC plants in Texas, where it hopes to store 3 billion metric tons of carbon underground.

Climeworks is already working on a second DAC facility 300 meters away from its first in Iceland called Mammoth. It's much larger than Orca, and meant to capture nine times more CO2.

DAC needs to scale up quickly. Right now, all 19 plants account for 0.01 metric tons of carbon capture per year. They need to reach 85 metric tons by 2030 and 980 metric tons by 2050 to help hit current climate targets, according to the IEA. Big Tech is also jumping on board, with Google, Meta and others investing nearly $1 billion into DAC.

Researchers are already imagining new ways of capturing carbon. One idea from the company CO2 Rail involves putting DAC carts on trains. CO2 Rail says that its DAC train carts could remove up to 3,000 tons of carbon per year. Students at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands are touring ZEM, or Zero Emission Mobility, a concept car that sucks up CO2 as it drives.

At Georgia Tech, algae growth was about 5% higher in lab experiments, showing that growing plants by utilizing captured carbon is both possible and not harmful.

There's debate around whether DAC should be limited to large plants near "sinks," or areas where carbon can easily be stored, like the volcanic rock in Hellisheiði, Iceland, where Orca and Mammoth are located. Georgia Tech's Jones envisions a future where small DAC machines the size of cars can be sprinkled around the world, some near major areas of carbon emission, like cities.

Whether it's big or small, DAC will take time to scale up.

"If you want to have it as a technical solution to carbon removal at the gigaton scale from 2050 on, you cannot wait until 2049," said Härtel. "We have to start today. We have no time to lose."

DAC is expensive and not a perfect solution

This year's Inflation Reduction Act, the most expansive climate legislation ever signed into law, gives a $180 tax credit per ton to companies that capture carbon and store it underground.

DAC is part of a larger strategy tied to the Inflation Reduction Act to move America away from fossil fuel dependency. The act includes $128 billion for renewable energy, $30 billion for nuclear power and $13 billion in electric vehicle incentives, along with billions in local government incentives.

Critics say policymakers are making a mistake by giving generous incentives for carbon capture, largely backed by the fossil fuel industry. Sucking up carbon requires expensive materials and large facilities. Funds meant for carbon capture could be put instead toward renewables, which would prevent carbon from being emitted in the first place.



Wind turbines, such as this one in France, are the top source of renewable energy among corporate buyers but solar energy is on the rise. 

Stephen Shankland/CNET

The cost of running the system is a constant concern. For example, it costs $800 to remove one ton of CO2 with Orca, according to Climeworks. The company did note that Orca is not yet optimized to run efficiently and that the cost will go down over time. How far it goes down is still being debated in the scientific community, but Climeworks says it's confident it will cost between $250 and $350 a ton in the 2030s.

The EIEE's Shayegh said the magic number per ton of carbon captured is $100, and that's before expenditures on conversion or in-ground sequestration. Best-case scenarios put the cost per ton for capture and conversion or sequestration at $250 by 2050, he added.

Härtel said costs need to go down to $150 per ton captured and sequestered. He feels that $100 per ton, in today's money, likely won't be possible by 2040. Given the slim margins, it's also why he feels having large facilities near sinks will be most cost effective, as opposed to small DAC machines scattered around the globe. It's also why Härtel is skeptical that downstream products made with captured carbon will make much of an impact since the scale of the problem is so large.

Those numbers don't impress experts who believe the money should be spent elsewhere.

"It is a bad idea to pick the tool that costs a lot and has very little effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide, even though it does reduce it," said Charles Harvey, professor of environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Because if you were to have used the resources for a different tool, like building wind, solar and power storage, you would have taken a lot more carbon out of the atmosphere."

In Harvey's view, taking carbon out of the atmosphere is far more difficult than not emitting it at all. He also worries that DAC is being used as a cover for fossil fuel companies to continue producing. It's actually possible to use captured carbon for enhanced oil recovery, known as CO2-EOR, a process through which carbon is turned into a near-liquid state and pumped underground where oil is. The CO2 fills the cracks underground, creates pressure, forces the oil up and makes it easier to extract. Refining and burning oil extracted by CO2-EOR can negate the benefits of CO2 sequestration, although the oil sold could offset the cost of capturing carbon.

"There's a reason why oil companies are promoting these ideas," said Harvey. "And that's because they want to avoid the option of just not burning as much oil."

We have to move now

This year has been riddled with climate disasters. Hurricane Ian hit Florida, China has endured a yearlong drought and Pakistan saw some of the worst flooding in history, with 1,735 deaths reported so far. There have been at least 29 $1 billion-plus climate events this year alone. These disasters will only increase in intensity as the planet warms.

DAC, along with greener energies, will take creative thinking, experimentation and financial incentives to net a return. Researchers at Georgia Tech are hoping DAC-induced algae growth can contribute to a circular carbon economy, sucking in CO2 and making products to offset costs.

As quickly as we need to cut our dependency on fossil fuels, humans "continue to find ways to waste energy in just really stupid ways that makes demand grow really fast," Jones said. Bitcoin mining alone uses as much energy as Argentina, and fossil fuels are still the cheapest and most readily available supply of energy. But that doesn't mean it needs to be our primary source of fuel forever.

"I think we're going to be stuck with fossil energy for the entirety of your and my life," he said. "And the question simply is, how quickly can we transition to renewables as much as possible and how do we make the fossil energy as clean and safe as possible? And that's where DAC comes in."