“When you create an environment that is unfriendly to women, it just makes it harder,” Richards added.
More than half of women between the ages of 18 and 44 said they would not apply for jobs in a state that banned abortion, Reuters reported, citing a PerryUndem poll.
Divisive state politics around abortion and religion in public schools caused attorney Hayley Hollands to leave the state for Colorado with her husband — a former oil worker, she told Reuters.
“It is kind of the first time I’ve reckoned with the idea that I don’t think I’m going to live in my home state ever again,” Hollands said.
Oil companies themselves have attempted to split the difference — quietly offering employees support to travel for health care without specifically mentioning abortion, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, they continue to donate largely to conservative candidates, employees complained.
“Companies say they value employee’s rights and yet finance politicians who violate my rights and wellbeing,” one engineer at oilfield service firm Halliburton told Reuters.
Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.
Today we’ll start in Puerto Rico, where residents are in danger of serious shortages. Then we’ll see why President Biden may be considering ousting the World Bank chief. Plus: A look at how aerosol pollution is worsening the effects of climate change.
“This is hypocrisy,” she added.
Puerto Ricans fear shortages as stores close
Businesses in Puerto Rico are shutting their doors as power outages caused by Hurricane Fiona persist across the island, The Associated Press reported.
Meeting basic needs: These closures have triggered fears about the availability of fuel and other necessities, according to the AP.
About 62 percent of 1.47 million customers still do not have power more than four days after the storm occurred.
Hand-written signs indicating closures are increasingly popping up on storefronts, eliciting frustration.
“There are a lot of people with a lot of needs,” one retiree told the AP. “If there is no diesel, we’re going to be very much in harm’s way.”
Some of those needs are life-or-death: Luis De Jesús Ramos, who has throat cancer and a tracheostomy, relies on electricity for survival, NBC News reported.
De Jesús Ramos needs a blender for liquid meals, a refrigerator, an adjustable bed for safe sleeping and various medical supplies.
“He really needs these things. It’s an emergency,” his daughter told NBC.
Health depends on electricity: After hearing about De Jesús Ramos’s condition, a team from Direct Relief Puerto Rico — an NGO that donates medical supplies — brought a generator to his home, according to NBC.
“Without electricity, there is no health,” Ivonne Rodríguez-Wiewall, executive adviser of Direct Relief Puerto Rico, told NBC.
Federal funding efforts: As Puerto Rico’s residents were still coping with the fallout from Fiona, President Biden on Thursday said that the federal government is “laser-focused” on the situation, our colleague Brett Samuels reported for The Hill.
The day before, he had signed an expedited major disaster declaration, to authorize federal funding for debris removal, rescue efforts and power and water restoration.
Biden pledges to stand by Puerto Rico: “To the people of Puerto Rico who are still hurting from Hurricane Maria five years later, they should know: We are with you,” Biden said.
“We’re not going to walk away,” the president added.
Biden considers removing head of World Bank
The Biden administration is considering ousting World Bank President David Malpass — a Trump appointee whose wavering this week on climate change angered many in the financial and environmental communities alike, Axios reported.
What did he say? Asked at New York’s climate week if he accepted the scientific consensus on climate change, Malpass hedged, according to CNN.
“I don’t even know – I’m not a scientist and that is not a question,” Malpass said.
He later told CNN “I’m not a denier” and circulated a note to staff blaming climate change on particular fossil fuels.
Leaving out oil and gas: Malpass added in his note that “coal, diesel and heavy fuel oil in both advanced economies and developing countries is creating another wave of the climate crisis,” Reuters reported.
Why it matters: Malpass’s message was poorly received due to an ongoing debate “about how all the capital sitting in the bank can be deployed more quickly and assertively,” Rachel Kyte of Tuft University’s Fletcher School told The New York Times.
Kyte added that this is particularly urgent “given the situation the world is in.”
She noted that Malpass’s original statement had come in the context of a subject that is “an open wound.”
Aerosols may worsen the effects of climate change
Aerosol pollution is exacerbating the impact of climate change — with dramatically different effects depending on where these contaminants are emitted, a new study in Science Advances has found.
What are aerosols? They’re tiny solid particles and liquid droplets emitted by industrial factories, power plants and tailpipes, the study authors explained.
Aerosols contribute to smog, and unlike carbon dioxide, they hang close to their emission source.
Some examples of aerosols include fine particulate matter — common in dust or wildfire ash — as well as sulfates, nitrates and sea salts.
Different contaminants, different behaviors: Although carbon dioxide and aerosols are often emitted simultaneously during fuel combustion, these substances behave differently in the Earth’s atmosphere, according to co-lead author Geeta Persad.
“Carbon dioxide has the same impact on climate no matter who emits it,” Persad, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement.
Astay concentrated near where they’re emitted — meaning that their effects on the climate system is location-dependent, Persad added.
Dramatic social costs: Depending on where they are emitted, aerosols can worsen the social costs of carbon — a measure for the economic toll greenhouse gasses take on society — by as much as 66 percent, according to the study.
Aerosols vs. carbon: The scientists drew their conclusions by probing the influence of aerosols in eight regions of the world: Brazil, China, East Africa, Western Europe, India, Indonesia, United States and South Africa.
They ran simulations with identical aerosol emissions in each region — mapping the effects on temperature, precipitation and surface air quality.
Then they connected this data with known links between climate and infant mortality, crop productivity and domestic economies.
Lastly, they calculated the societal costs of aerosol-driven effects and those of co-emitted CO2, as well as their combined effects.
What did they find? The scientists observed that emissions from some regions generate climate and air quality effects that range from two to more than 10 times as strong as others.
Yet despite these discrepancies, they stressed that aerosol emissions are always bad for the emitter and the planet.
Thinking beyond carbon dioxide: “The harmful effects of our emissions are generally underestimated,” co-lead author Jennifer Burney, a chair of global climate policy and research at the University of California San Diego, said in a statement.
“CO2 is making the planet warmer, but it also gets emitted with a bunch of other compounds that impact people and plants directly and cause climate changes in their own right,” Burney added.
A global push for carbon capture
A flurry of new carbon capture and storage proposals are arising around the world, as part of a global attempt to counter the impacts of fossil fuel dependence.
The specific reasons for these projects are as diverse as their locations, which range from Appalachia to China .
They are being built in an attempt to slow global warming, produce new fuels, prolong the lifespan of fossil fuel assets or create credits to sell on international exchanges.
Carbon capture refers to a broad set of processes by which the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is trapped for long-term storage or reuse in other industrial processes.
Drawing down: The U.S. government is scouting possible sites for a test facility that would aim to cut the cost of pulling down carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
The facility would be located on a Department of Energy campus in either Morgantown, W.Va., or Pittsburgh.
It would seek to drop the cost of capturing a ton of carbon dioxide below $100 — down from its current range of $400 to $1,000.
Worldwide focus: “It is technically feasible to suck CO2 out of the air. The issue is cost, and the issue is scale,” National Energy Technology Laboratory director Brian Anderson told the Gazette.
The laboratory wants to create methodologies for direct air capture that could be transferable to facilities around the world.
Direct air capture specifically involves pulling carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.
That’s distinct from carbon capture in general, which also includes siphoning the greenhouse gas from smokestacks.
“We want to be able to simulate conditions that go from Antarctica to equatorial Africa,” Anderson said.
OIL COMPANIES BUYING IN
With direct air capture still an expensive frontier technology, the principal drivers behind carbon capture are the firms that are a major source of current carbon emissions: oil companies.
Recycling Waste: Sinopec, China’s state-owned oil company, spun off a specialized subsidiary on Friday to invest in carbon capture technology, Reuters reported.
The company aims to capture and store 3 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2025 — two-thirds of which it plans to reuse.
China aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, which has driven companies like Sinopec to make big investments in carbon capture.
Making more oil: To pay for developing that technology, China is focusing in part on current usages for carbon dioxide, many of which do little to slow climate change.
Sinopec didn’t specify how its captured carbon dioxide would be used.
But the company currently plans to inject over 10 million tons of carbon dioxide into oilfields over the next decade — enabling it to produce an additional 3 million tons of oil, Reuters reported.
Looking south: Across the South China Sea, Indonesia’s state-owned energy company — Pertamina — plans to begin testing methods to permanently store carbon dioxide underground by the end of the year, Reuters reported.
The initiative is part of Pertamina’s attempt to cut its emissions by 30 percent by 2030 — a goal the company aims to achieve in part by capturing emissions from smokestacks and injecting them underground.
Britain aims to store up to 30 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, Reuters reported.
Such sites would be in caverns beneath the porous seafloor of the North Sea, between Britain and Norway.
British Petroleum, Norway’s state energy firm Equinor and Italy’s Eni all applied.
One firm, London-based Neptune Energy, aims to store more carbon than it emits by 2030.
Follow-up Friday
Revisiting issues we’ve covered over the past week.
Thirty whales survive mass beaching crisis in Tasmania
We reported on the tragic mass beaching in Tasmania of 230 pilot whales. Rescuers successfully saved just 32 — two of which died after running aground again, The Associated Press reported. The hundreds of remaining corpses will be “basically longlined or tied together, ready for disposal at sea,” an incident commander Brendon Clark said told the AP.
North Carolinians angry about proposed expansion of PFAS-producing plant
Scientists detected high levels of toxic “forever chemicals” — also known as PFAS — in school uniforms we covered earlier this week. Some North Carolinians expressed outrage on Friday about the proposed expansion of a Chemours factory that has leached PFAS into the nearby Cape Fear River, North Carolina Public Radio reported.
Malfunctioning water tank may have caused NYC arsenic crisis
Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you Monday.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe is promising a directive banning “biological boys” from using school changing rooms with “biological girls” if re-elected, a move the NDP’s Carla Beck says weaponizes vulnerable kids.
Moe made the pledge Thursday at a campaign stop in Regina. He said it was in response to a complaint that two biological males had changed for gym class with girls at a school in southeast Saskatchewan.
He said the ban would be his first order of business if he’s voted again as premier on Oct. 28.
It was not previously included in his party’s campaign platform document.
“I’ll be very clear, there will be a directive that would come from the minister of education that would say that biological boys will not be in the change room with biological girls,” Moe said.
He added school divisions should already have change room policies, but a provincial directive would ensure all have the rule in place.
Asked about the rights of gender-diverse youth, Moe said other children also have rights.
“What about the rights of all the other girls that are changing in that very change room? They have rights as well,” he said, followed by cheers and claps.
The complaint was made at a school with the Prairie Valley School Division. The division said in a statement it doesn’t comment on specific situations that could jeopardize student privacy and safety.
“We believe all students should have the opportunity to learn and grow in a safe and welcoming learning environment,” it said.
“Our policies and procedures align with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code.”
Asked about Moe’s proposal, Beck said it would make vulnerable kids more vulnerable.
Moe is desperate to stoke fear and division after having a bad night during Wednesday’s televised leaders’ debate, she said.
“Saskatchewan people, when we’re at our best, are people that come together and deliver results, not divisive, ugly politics like we’ve seen time and again from Scott Moe and the Sask. Party,” Beck said.
“If you see leaders holding so much power choosing to punch down on vulnerable kids, that tells you everything you need to know about them.”
Beck said voters have more pressing education issues on their minds, including the need for smaller classrooms, more teaching staff and increased supports for students.
People also want better health care and to be able to afford gas and groceries, she added.
“We don’t have to agree to understand Saskatchewan people deserve better,” Beck said.
The Saskatchewan Party government passed legislation last year that requires parents consent to children under 16 using different names or pronouns at school.
The law has faced backlash from some LGBTQ+ advocates, who argue it violates Charter rights and could cause teachers to out or misgender children.
Beck has said if elected her party would repeal that legislation.
Heather Kuttai, a former commissioner with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission who resigned last year in protest of the law, said Moe is trying to sway right-wing voters.
She said a change room directive would put more pressure on teachers who already don’t have enough educational support.
“It sounds like desperation to me,” she said.
“It sounds like Scott Moe is nervous about the election and is turning to homophobic and transphobic rhetoric to appeal to far-right voters.
“It’s divisive politics, which is a shame.”
She said she worries about the future of gender-affirming care in a province that once led in human rights.
“We’re the kind of people who dig each other out of snowbanks and not spew hatred about each other,” she said. “At least that’s what I want to still believe.”
Also Thursday, two former Saskatchewan Party government members announced they’re endorsing Beck — Mark Docherty, who retired last year and was a Speaker, and Glen Hart, who retired in 2020.
Ian Hanna, a speech writer and senior political adviser to former Saskatchewan Party premier Brad Wall, also endorsed Beck.
Earlier in the campaign, Beck received support from former Speaker Randy Weekes, who quit the Saskatchewan Party earlier this year after accusing caucus members of bullying.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan‘s provincial election is on Oct. 28. Here’s a look at some of the campaign promises made by the two major parties:
Saskatchewan Party
— Continue withholding federal carbon levy payments to Ottawa on natural gas until the end of 2025.
— Reduce personal income tax rates over four years; a family of four would save $3,400.
— Double the Active Families Benefit to $300 per child per year and the benefit for children with disabilities to $400 a year.
— Direct all school divisions to ban “biological boys” from girls’ change rooms in schools.
— Increase the First-Time Homebuyers Tax Credit to $15,000 from $10,000.
— Reintroduce the Home Renovation Tax Credit, allowing homeowners to claim up to $4,000 in renovation costs on their income taxes; seniors could claim up to $5,000.
— Extend coverage for insulin pumps and diabetes supplies to seniors and young adults
— Provide a 50 per cent refundable tax credit — up to $10,000 — to help cover the cost of a first fertility treatment.
— Hire 100 new municipal officers and 70 more officers with the Saskatchewan Marshals Service.
— Amend legislation to provide police with more authority to address intoxication, vandalism and disturbances on public property.
— Platform cost of $1.2 billion, with deficits in the first three years and a small surplus in 2027.
—
NDP
— Pause the 15-cent-a-litre gas tax for six months, saving an average family about $350.
— Remove the provincial sales tax from children’s clothes and ready-to-eat grocery items like rotisserie chickens and granola bars.
— Pass legislation to limit how often and how much landlords can raise rent.
— Repeal the law that requires parental consent when children under 16 want to change their names or pronouns at school.
— Launch a provincewide school nutrition program.
— Build more schools and reduce classroom sizes.
— Hire 800 front-line health-care workers in areas most in need.
— Launch an accountability commission to investigate cost overruns for government projects.
— Scrap the marshals service.
— Hire 100 Mounties and expand detox services.
— Platform cost of $3.5 billion, with small deficits in the first three years and a small surplus in the fourth year.
—
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct .17, 2024.
VANCOUVER – More than a million British Columbians have already cast their provincial election ballots, smashing the advance voting record ahead of what weather forecasters say will be a rain-drenched election day in much of B.C., with snow also predicted for the north.
Elections BC said Thursday that 1,001,331 people had cast ballots in six days of advance voting, easily breaking a record set during the pandemic election four years ago.
More than 28 per cent of all registered electors have voted, potentially putting the province on track for a big final turnout on Saturday.
“It reflects what I believe, which is this election is critically important for the future of our province,” New Democrat Leader David Eby said Thursday at a news conference in Vancouver. “I understand why British Columbians are out in numbers. We haven’t seen questions like this on the ballot in a generation.”
He said voters are faced with the choice of supporting his party’s plans to improve affordability, public health care and education, while the B.C. Conservatives, led by John Rustad, are proposing to cut services and are fielding candidates who support conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic and espouse racist views.
Rustad held no public availabilities on Thursday.
Elections BC said the record advance vote tally includes about 223,000 people who voted on the final day of advance voting Wednesday, the last day of advance polls, shattering the one-day record set on Tuesday by more than 40,000 votes.
The previous record for advance voting in a B.C. election was set in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when about 670,000 people voted early, representing about 19 per cent of registered voters.
Some ridings have now seen turnout of more than 35 per cent, including in NDP Leader David Eby’s Vancouver-Point Grey riding where 36.5 per cent of all electors have voted.
There has also been big turnout in some Vancouver Island ridings, including Oak Bay-Gordon Head, where 39 per cent of electors have voted, and Victoria-Beacon Hill, where Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau is running, with 37.2 per cent.
Advance voter turnout in Rustad’s riding of Nechako Lakes was 30.5 per cent.
Total turnout in 2020 was 54 per cent, down from about 61 per cent in 2017.
Stewart Prest, a political science lecturer at the University of British Columbia, said many factors are at play in the advance voter turnout.
“If you have an early option, if you have an option where there are fewer crowds, fewer lineups that you have to deal with, then that’s going to be a much more desirable option,” said Prest.
“So, having the possibility of voting across multiple advanced voting days is something that more people are looking to as a way to avoid last-minute lineups or heavy weather.”
Voters along the south coast of British Columbia who have not cast their ballots yet will have to contend with heavy rain and high winds from an incoming atmospheric river weather system on election day.
Environment Canada said the weather system will bring prolonged heavy rain to Metro Vancouver, the Sunshine Coast, Fraser Valley, Howe Sound, Whistler and Vancouver Island starting Friday.
Eby said the forecast of an atmospheric weather storm on election day will become a “ballot question” for some voters who are concerned about the approaches the parties have towards addressing climate change.
But he said he is confident people will not let the storm deter them from voting.
“I know British Columbians are tough and they’re not going to let even an atmospheric river stop them from voting,” said Eby.
In northern B.C., heavy snow is in the forecast starting Friday and through to Saturday for areas along the Yukon boundary.
Elections BC said it will focus on ensuring it is prepared for bad weather, said Andrew Watson, senior director of communications.
“We’ve also been working with BC Hydro to make sure that they’re aware of all of our voting place locations so that they can respond quickly if there are any power outages,” he said.
Elections BC also has paper backups for all of its systems in case there is a power outage, forcing them to go through manual procedures, Watson said.
Prest said the dramatic downfall of the Official Opposition BC United Party just before the start of the campaign and voter frustration could also be contributing to the record size of the advance vote.
It’s too early to say if the province is experiencing a “renewed enthusiasm for voting,” he said.
“As a political scientist, I think it would be a good thing to see, but I’m not ready to conclude that’s what we are seeing just yet,” he said, adding, “this is one of the storylines to watch come Saturday.”
Overall turnout in B.C. elections has generally been dwindling compared with the 71.5 per cent turnout for the 1996 vote.
Adam Olsen, Green Party campaign chair, said the advance voting turnout indicates people are much more engaged in the campaign than they were in the weeks leading up to the start of the campaign in September.
“All we know so far is that people are excited to go out and vote early,” he said. “The real question will be does that voter turnout stay up throughout election night?”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version said more than 180,000 voters cast their votes on Wednesday.
