Reopening places such as restaurants, fitness centres, cafes, and hotels carries the highest risk for transmitting SARS-CoV-2, according to a modelling study based on data from the United States published in Nature. Reducing occupancy in these venues may result in a large reduction in predicted infections, the model suggests. The study also highlights disparities in infection risk according to socioeconomic status.
To assess how changes in movement might alter the spread of the virus, Jure Leskovec and colleagues use phone data (collected this spring) to map the movements of millions of people from different local neighbourhoods. They combined these data with a model of transmission. This allowed them to identify potential high-risk venues and at-risk populations. The simulations from their model accurately predict confirmed daily case counts in ten of the largest metropolitan areas (such as Chicago, New York City and San Francisco).
The level of detail of the mobility data allowed the researchers to model the number of infections occurring, by the hour, at nearly 553,000 distinct locations grouped into 20 categories — termed “points of interest” — that people tended to visit regularly. Their model predicts that a small number of these locations, such as full-service restaurants, account for a large majority of infections. For example, in the Chicago metropolitan area, 10% of the points of interest accounted for 85% of the predicted infections at points of interest. The model predicts that compared with higher-income groups, lower-income populations are more likely to become infected because they have not been able to reduce their mobility as substantially and because the places they visit tend to be smaller and more crowded, which increases the risk of infection. For example, grocery stores visited by lower-income individuals tended to have 59% more people per square foot than those visited by higher-income individuals, and their visitors stayed 17% longer on average.
By modelling who is likely to be infected at which locations, the authors were also able to estimate the effects of different reopening strategies, and they suggest that their model can inform reopening policies. For example, capping the occupancy of a venue at 20% of its maximum capacity is predicted to reduce new infections by over 80%, but would only reduce the overall number of visits by 42%.
Giving money to political parties, while older than Manitoba itself, has now erupted into something of a political storm in the province. And, to give context to the role of party donations, it's necessary to explain it in chronological order, going back a few months.
Colleen Munro, owner and president of Hugh Munro Construction Ltd., Winnipeg. (HMC) A company photo.
This summer, Opposition parties slammed the provincial government when a financial contributor to the PCs, Colleen Munro (above), got the green light to develop a controversial limestone quarry in the southeastern RM of Rosser. The Government-appointed Municipal Board, made up of at least two other PC party donors, approved the project, over-ruling opposition to the quarry, both from local residents and the duly-elected local council. (There is no appeal from Board rulings.)
As the Manitoba Liberal Leader, Dougald Lamont put it at the time, "If you want something done, all you have to do it to give lots of money to the PCs."
Now, PinP has uncovered a strikingly similar scenario - with a twist - in another part of the province. Except this time, the role that political donations may be playing has so far, flown beneath the radar.
Over the ongoing objections of several local residents, Canada's biggest pork processor, HyLifeFoods has just won approval to build a multi-million dollar hog factory near the Village of Elgin in the southwestern RM of Grassland. After initially rejecting the proposal, the local council there reversed itself and announced, last week, it was approving it.
The Reeve publicly claimed, the turnaround came only after winning concessions from the company. But, had the RM not reversed itself, it almost certainly would have faced a lengthy and expensive appeal before the Municipal Board. Given the precedent the Board set in Rosser, it surely seems approval would have been the final outcome, anyway.
My search of ElectionsManitoba records (see screen shots, below) reveals the following: three of four HyLife founders, Claude and Denis Vielfaure and an associate, Donald Janzen (above) of the southeastern Manitoba community of La Broquerie, have, since 2010, contributed almost 24 thousand dollars ($23,569.75) to the PCs.
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
$862.00
2010
(There is no record of the fourth founder, Paul Vielfaure, having made any contributions. And it doesn't show any of them donating to any party other than the provincial PCs. My search did not go further back than 2010.)
A Thai-based company took over controlling interest in HyLife last year. The three have now stepped down, at least from full-time duties at the company. But they remain a large part of the image it presents to the public.
For about a week, I've sent several messages to the three, inviting them to comment on my story. They have not answered at the time of this posting.
"He who pays the piper calls the tune?"
Over the years, HyLife and its forerunners (including HyTek and Springhill) - along with other players in the livestock industry - have received significant taxpayer support from governments at other levels and political stripes, in the form of grants and loans.
But, it's Manitoba's current Government, led by Brian Pallister's Conservatives, which has, arguably proven to be the friendliest to the hog industry.
Soon after coming to office in 2016, it set aside environmental regulations under the previous NDP which had been seen as roadblocks in the way of industry expansion.
One informed source tells PinP, "A plethora of bills have been introduced into the Manitoba legislature. There are more changes to the Planning Act proposed which are designed to further erode local government authority over planning decisions."
So, despite a pandemic, hog industry expansion in this province seems set to continue apace.
"I am again writing a letter to who it may concern about the Hylife Gibsons Nursery. I am a small farmer south of Elgin with land across the road from the proposed barn. This is all fine. What really turns me off greatly is how this sneaky, devious bunch would reapply for this barn after the neighbours and RM of Grassland said no to them the first time. It is very obvious how sneaky these people are to reapply in Harvest time when other real farmers are too busy to deal with it. That is just an ignorant thing to do. I do not want people in my area who are like this. We have enough crime in our area."
A polar bear navigates a dwindling ice pack. Photo by Andreas Weith
The melting of ice in polar and mountain regions around the world could lead to an additional 0.43 °C increase in global warming in the long term, according to a study published online in Nature Communications.
The loss of ice cover is known to influence air temperatures, for example through albedo changes (the amount of sunlight reflected from the Earth’s surface). Although the mechanisms that are responsible for increased warming are well understood, it isn't clear how large the contributions of different ice sheets and feedback mechanisms to global temperature changes are.
Nico Wunderling and colleagues use a simplified Earth system model in combination with different CO2 concentration levels to provide such an estimate. They find an additional median warming of 0.43°C in response to the loss of all ice sheets at CO2 concentrations similar to today's (400 parts per million). The contributions from different ice masses range from 0.05°C for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to 0.19°C due to the loss of Arctic summer sea ice.
However, these experiments do not consider changes in CO2 concentrations over time or feedback mechanisms that could have an impact on shorter time-scales. Furthermore, the authors note that this warming does not emerge over years or decades, but rather on a time-scale of centuries to millennia (although they highlight that the Arctic might become ice-free during the summer within the 21st century). Therefore, these results should be interpreted as idealized estimates of contributions of different ice sources and feedback mechanisms.
The Premier of Manitoba, Brian Pallister. A Gov't. photo.
The lengths to which the Pallister government is going to enable the unfettered exploitation of Manitoba's resources and massive expansion of its hog industry, should now be clear for all to see. For the past few years, it’s been rolling out, at significant taxpayer expense, the truly draconian measures it’s now taking, to make this happen.
While the writing has been on the wall, only now are the worst fears being realized. They expose this government’ naked contempt for the democratic rights of rural Manitobans who have the audacity to point out that these goals are misguided - that the emperor has no clothes.
Late last year, the Municipality of Rosser, near Winnipeg, rejected a bid for a gravel mine (euphemistically called a limestone aggregate quarry). The politically well-connected owner of the construction company proposing the mine (who made a substantial contribution to the Conservative Party of Manitoba last year), appealed. Then, along comes a newly-minted creation of the Pallister Conservatives, a "blue-ribbon panel," as it were, called the Municipal Board, and overturns the council’s decision. Anointed with quasi-judicial power and peopled with several of the "party faithful," it can, in the words of one savvy observer, "relieve local councils of their administrative burdens." And, it did. It overturned council's rejection and, surprise, surprise, ruled for the proponent!
So the mine, er, quarry, will now go ahead. There is no appeal.
So I guess the good people of the little, nearby community of Lillyfield, will just have to grin and bear it.
A gravel mine near the southwestern Manitoba community of Shoal Lake.
A PinP photo.
Believe me, I know a thing or two about gravel-mines. A big one near my home, in the picturesque Birdtail Valley (above), supplied raw product for a major roadbuilding project to the south of here last year.
Twenty-two wheelers take a break in Shoal Lake. A PinP photo.
Convoys of big dump-trucks rumbled past my front window in a seniors' complex for months (above), from morning ’til night, carrying their loads - hundreds of round trips a day to the site.
Never mind that diesel fumes are a major air pollutant which cause lung cancer; Or that the United Nations has long warned the construction industry to curb its greenhouse gas emissions "yesterday" if we are to make any dent in the climate crisis.
Would the cancellation of that single project have turned this global calamity around? Of course not.
But will a broader, worse-case climate scenario be in the cards if every community on Earth barges ahead as this government obviously wants us to? Absolutely!
The absence of "eco-wisdom" these events reveal on the part of our lawmakers, is breathtaking.
And Bill 19, the same legislation which tramples local autonomy (or, in the fertile mind of government, reduces red tape), has resulted in another outrage in another part of the province.
The HyLife killing plant in Neepawa, the largest pork processor in Canada. A corporate monolith based in Thailand with tentacles reaching into many corners of the world's food business, now owns controlling interest. A PinP photo.
The local, duly-elected Council in the RM of Grassland, near Brandon, has also voted decisively to reject another proposed project - this time a massive complex of hog barns proposed by HyLife Foods (above) near the Village of Elgin.
And surely, only the naive now believe the Municipal Board will rule any way other than it did in Rosser.
The Grassland Council simply doesn’t believe the tax revenue from the project will cover the cost of servicing it. And residents fear the increased traffic will bring dust and noise, disrupting their quiet, rural lifestyles.
They also worry about their water supply. That’s because the new complex will suck more than 100 thousand litres of water each and every day from the local aquifer. Twenty-four thousand pigs will be crowded into several large buildings.
That’s about thirty times the human population of my own little town of Shoal Lake. And each pig produces several times the waste of one person. Yet even here we struggle to keep nutrients from our sewage lagoon - which often exceed recommended levels - from entering the lake.
These likely help feed the growth of toxic algae which have been clogging up the lake water for years, tangling outboard motors and surely contributing to major fish-kills like the one we had here last year (above).
It's been common knowledge for some time that, wherever humans or pigs are gathered together, deteriorating water quality soon follows. So, if our small town can feel such an impact, imagine the potential for harm there!
And, as a new report from the World Wildlife Fund reveals: "The overall (pollution) threat in the Assiniboine-Red watershed and each of its four sub-watersheds (where the new barns will be built) is (already) “very high.” It blames much of this on "agricultural runoff!"
"BILL 19 THREATENS LOCAL CONTROL FOR RURAL COMMUNITIES."
Here is Hogwatch's prophetic, cautionary tale, word for word, as it appeared, two-&-a-half years ago.
"Bill 19 will silence the public. It will allow municipal leaders to get rid of conditional use hearings and Provincial Technical Reviews for factory hog barns. If local politicians take this route, the Province will have the only and final say on where hog factories can be built. The Government of Manitoba is and has been both a promoter and regulator of the hog industry. Bill 19 is the latest move to promote and de-regulate hog industry expansion. Why is Provincial control a problem? If conditional use disappears, local councils and rural people will not have any say in how factory hog operations perform. Municipalities will have no means of monitoring, enforcing conditions, and protecting local people and the environment from hog operations."
John Fefchak of Virden is another example of a voice that needs to be listened to, but is not. John is a veteran of the Canadian military and long-time critic of his province's factory-farming style of pork production. He sees the government’s almost messianic drive to be both a regulator of, and cheerleader for the industry, as an attack on the democratic freedoms he did his part to win in the deadly conflicts of the past. Yet, his frequent comments to the news media, including the farm press, are often censored.
And my local Shoal Lake newspaper, the Crossroads, is refusing to print this story which I put in the form of a letter-to-the-editor. The publisher, Ryan Nesbitt, claims it is "not local enough." He has also refused other letters I have submitted, about climate change, for the same reason.
It's encouraging that the Opposition is now taking up this issue. But I do hope it won't roll out as just another bit of political theatre. We need a profound public discourse on the very ways we develop our resources, produce our food, and exercise and protect our precious democratic rights, too. Is it all working? Or does it need to change? We all need to think about these things when the next election comes around.
Hainan gibbons started to use the canopy bridge 176 days after installation. Females and small juveniles were the faithful users.
The Hainan gibbon (Nomascus hainanus) is described as "The world's most critically endangered primate." In fact, its numbers are said to be much lower than any other primate on Earth, with only about 30 individuals remaining for the entire species. It's found in just a single block of forest on Hainan Island, China, and nowhere else.
The adult male is jet black with a hairy crest.
The female is golden yellow with a black crown patch. The immature gibbon is black, regardless of gender.
Like so many similar creatures, it travels through the forest canopy, tree-to-tree. But major disturbances, like roads or landslides, can produce major gaps or gorges which seriously restrict its movements. This, in turn, can make it harder for it to feed or breed, but easier to be killed by predators.
Professional tree climber in action constructing the canopy bridge, December 2015. Mountaineering-grade ropes were tied to sturdy trees to provide connectivity at the forest gap created by a landslide. All photos by Kadoorie Farm and Botanic.Garden.
So researchers decided to conduct an experiment. In 2015, they installed motion sensor cameras and enlisted the help of professional tree-climbers (above). They used strong ropes tied to sturdy trees to bridge a 15-metre-wide gully formed by a natural landslide. It had become a barrier separating two areas of gibbon habitat.
After a wait of almost six months, their efforts paid off. The gibbons - mostly mothers with younger members of the family - were first captured on the camera traps - actually using the bridge. (See top photo, above.) Adult males and larger juveniles seemed to prefer leaping across the gap together, instead.
Well over a year after the experiment began, more than two hundred photos and over fifty videos showed many gibbons belonging to the family group involved in the study, using the bridge. (Gibbons are territorial and live in family groups.)
As the authors conclude, "The study highlights the use and value of rope bridges to connect gaps in forest canopies. Although restoring natural forest should be a priority conservation intervention, artificial canopy bridges may be useful short-term solutions."
In an e-mail to PinP, the head of the study, Dr. Bosco Chan of the Kadoorie Conservation China Dept. in Hong Kong, explains further.
"Landslides created by heavy rains occur throughout Hainan Island, and I believe it is very common in areas affected by tropical cyclones throughout the world. So, yes I believe rope bridges can provide short-term solution to restore forest canopy connectivity in these places.
"In fact, artificial canopy bridges are quite widely applied in South America, Australia, and also see some attempts in Africa and more recently Asia, for natural disasters like the one we described, but also in forest fragmented by roads, pipelines and other artificial structures or disturbances.
"I do not believe the survivorship of this critically-endangered gibbon relies on building canopy bridges. But it surely helps alleviate impacts of forest fragmentation locally."
The findings were published earlier today inNature.
Siberian wildfire north of the Arctic Circle. Photo by Pierre Markuse. In the first six months of 2020, Siberia experienced a period of unusually high temperatures, causing wide-scale impacts including wildfires, loss of permafrost, and an invasion of pests. Story here.
The Great Egret in a wetland in southwestern Manitoba, Canada. Canadian populations are said to be declining. For decades, the egrets have had to contend with major habitat loss and degradation, as well as threats like contaminated runoff from farm fields. A PinP photo.
Restoring 30% of the world’s ecosystems in priority areas could stave off more than 70% of projected extinctions and absorb nearly half of the carbon buildup in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.
As the world focuses on dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, a landmark report in Nature pinpoints the ecosystems that, if restored, give us the biggest "bang for our buck" in terms of both climate and biodiversity benefits.
Despite being shown to be beneficial, shelterbelts are being systematically
destroyed by modern farmers. A PinP video.
Returning specific ecosystems in all continents worldwide that have been replaced by farming to their natural state would rescue the majority of land-based species of mammals, amphibians and birds under threat of dying out while soaking up more than 465 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Protecting 30% of the priority areas identified in the study, together with protecting ecosystems still in their natural form, would reduce carbon emissions equivalent to 49% of all the carbon that has built up in our atmosphere over the last two centuries. Some 27 researchers from 12 countries contributed to the report, which assesses forests, grasslands, shrublands, wetlands and arid ecosystems.
“Pushing forward on plans to return significant sweeps of nature to a natural state is critical to preventing ongoing biodiversity and climate crises from spinning out of control,” said Bernardo Strassburg, the study's lead author. “We show that if we’re smarter about where we restore nature, we can tick the climate, biodiversity and budget boxes on the world’s urgent to-do list.”
By identifying precisely which destroyed ecosystems worldwide should be restored to deliver biodiversity and climate benefits at a low cost, without impact on agricultural production, the study is the first of its kind to provide global evidence that, where restoration takes place has the most profound impact on the achievement of biodiversity, climate and food security goals. Restoration can be 13 times more cost-effective when it takes place in the highest priority locations.
The study focuses on the potential benefits of restoring both forest and non-forest ecosystems on a global scale. “Previous research has emphasized forests and tree planting, sometimes at the expense of native grasslands or other ecosystems, the destruction of which would be very detrimental for biodiversity and should be avoided. Our research shows that while reviving forests is critical for mitigating global warming and protecting biodiversity, other ecosystems also have a massive role to play,” said Strassburg.
The new report in Nature builds on the UN’s dire warnings that we’re on track to lose 1 million species in coming decades and that the world has mostly failed in its efforts to reach globally-set biodiversity targets in 2020, including the goal to restore 15% of ecosystems worldwide. Nations are re-doubling efforts to stave off mass extinctions in the leadup to the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 in Kunming, China, in 2021. That's when a global framework to protect nature is expected to be signed. This new report will inform the discussion around restoration and offer insight into how reviving ecosystems can help tackle multiple goals.
Researchers assessed almost three million hectares of ecosystems worldwide that have been converted to farmland. Of these, over half were originally forests, one-quarter grasslands, 14% shrublands, 4% arid lands and 2% wetlands. They then evaluated these lands based on animal habitats, carbon storage and cost-effectiveness to determine which swathe of lands worldwide would deliver the most benefits for biodiversity and carbon at the lowest cost when restored.
Researchers were further able to identify a global-level, multiple-benefits solution—unconstrained by national boundaries—that would deliver 91% of the potential benefit for biodiversity, 82% of the climate mitigation benefit, and reduce costs by 27% by focusing on areas with low implementation and opportunity costs.
When researchers looked at the benefits if the restoration were to take place at the national level—which means that each country would restore 15% of its forests—they saw a reduction in biodiversity benefits by 28% and climate benefits by 29%, a rise in costs by 52%.
“These results highlight the critical importance of international cooperation in meeting these goals. Different countries have different, complementary roles to play in meeting overarching global targets on biodiversity and climate,” Strassburg said.
Responding to fears that restoring ecosystems will encroach on the land needed for crop production, researchers calculated how many ecosystems could be revived without cutting into food supplies. They found that 55%, or 1,578 million hectares, of ecosystems that had been converted to farmlands, could be restored without disrupting food production. This could be achieved through the well-planned and sustainable intensification of food production, together with a reduction in food waste and a shift away from foods such as meat and cheese, which require large amounts of land and therefore produce disproportionate greenhouse gas emissions.
“As government officials gradually refocus on global climate and biodiversity goals, our study provides them with the precise geographic information they need to make informed choices about where to restore ecosystems,” said Robin Chazdon, one of the report authors.
The approach developed is already supporting implementation at national and local scales. It’s attracting the attention of policy makers, NGOs and the private sector due to the substantial cost-benefit increase of restoration efforts. “We intend to help restoration achieve massive scales by aligning socioecological and financial interests, simultaneously increasing impacts for nature and people while improving returns and reducing risks for investors,” said Strassburg.
Overall, the study provides compelling evidence to policymakers seeking affordable, efficient ways to meet United Nations goals around biodiversity, climate and, additionally, desertification, that restoration, when well-coordinated and carried out in combination with the protection of intact ecosystems and the better use of agricultural lands, is an unmatched—though currently underused—solution.
“Our results provide very strong evidence of the benefits of pursuing joint planning and implementation of climate and biodiversity solutions, which is particularly timely given the landmark meetings planned for 2021 of the associated UN conventions on climate biodiversity and land degradation,” Strassburg said.
“The study also demonstrates a crucial but hitherto-unexplored application of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species,” noted Thomas Brooks, Chief Scientist at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and a co-author of the study. “It will inform discussion next year at IUCN World Conservation Congress and fifteenth CBD Conference of the Parties regarding implementation of policy commitments, including the Bonn Challenge, the UN Decade of Restoration and the Sustainable Development Goals.”
“A new focus on prioritizing multiple outcomes of restoring ecosystems beyond forests, and beyond country level area-based targets, calls for intensifying international cooperation to realize globally important benefits of restoring the Earth’s precious ecosystems. We need to stimulate action for the sake of a healthy planet,” said Chazdon.
