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What’s It Like to Graduate Into a Recession? We Asked the Class of 2009
Posted April 2, 2020 by Anonymous
The coronavirus has sparked an economic freefall. People who graduated a decade ago tell the class of 2020 what to expect.
Astronomy
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Scientists Think They’ve Found a New Type of Star-Destroying Black Hole
Posted April 2, 2020 by Becky Ferreira
A new analysis of Hubble data has revealed the best candidate yet for a type of black hole that nobody has seen yet, and it gave itself away by tearing a star apart.
General
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10 Million Americans Lost Their Jobs In Two Weeks Because of Coronavirus
Posted April 2, 2020 by Anonymous
Economists who study unemployment expected the new figures to be a bloodbath — but they didn’t think they would be this bad.
General
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Why Games Have Always Obsessed Over Pandemic Authoritarianism
Posted April 2, 2020 by Anonymous
Plagues and the politics of endless crisis.
General
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DoorDash Doesn’t Know Which Restaurants Are Open, and Drivers Pay the Price
Posted April 2, 2020 by Joseph Cox
During the coronavirus pandemic, some DoorDash drivers are being paid around just $3 an hour due to the errors and slow support.
Football
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Does Tom Brady Think COVID-19 Was Sent to Make Us All ‘Chill Out’?
Posted April 2, 2020 by Anonymous
“Maybe the world is telling us to slow down a little bit, you know?” he said.
Agriculture
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China May Have Beaten Coronavirus, But Now It Could Be Facing a Food Crisis
Posted April 2, 2020 by Anonymous
“China’s agricultural industry has collapsed.”
General
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‘Yoga With Adriene’ On Her Rising Popularity During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Posted April 2, 2020 by Anonymous
As more people are trying to stay healthy while not being able to leave their homes, YouTube’s yoga star becomes more popular than ever.
General
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Thousands of People Are Building a 1:1 Recreation of Earth in ‘Minecraft’
Posted April 2, 2020 by Anonymous
The Earth in Minecraft is one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken in the game.
General
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I Followed a Kilo of Cocaine From Field to Street
Posted April 2, 2020 by Anonymous
In a new book, Kilo: Inside the Deadliest Cocaine Cartels, war correspondent Toby Muse reports on the human stories behind the drug’s passage across Colombia, from coca leaf pickers and jungle chemists to cartel sicarios and speedboat smugglers.
General
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Court Rules EPA Can’t Keep Secret Key Model Used in Clean Car Rule Rollback
Posted April 1, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 3 mins
A federal appeals court ruled April 1 that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had no basis to withhold one key part of a computer model used by the agency to develop its less stringent greenhouse gas emission standards for new vehicles. The ruling came just one day after EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a final rule rolling back clean car standards set under the Obama administration.
General
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Industry Infighting as Oil and Gas Seek Government Help
Posted April 1, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 7 mins
The $2 trillion stimulus bill that the U.S. Congress rushed to pass in order to respond to millions of job losses provided a once-in-a-generation opportunity for corporate lobbying. The oil and gas industry has been no exception, but some of the proposed initiatives are dividing the industry.
General
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Fighting floods and fires while a pandemic rages on
Posted April 1, 2020 by Anonymous
Forest fires have left colourful scars on the hills near Dease Lake, B.C. (Photo: Richard Eckert/Can Geo Photo Club)
Spring floods and summer forest fires are facts of life in some parts of Canada. Normally, emergency services in high-risk areas are well prepared to deal with the natural disasters common to their landscapes.
But as the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency agencies are stretched to their limits.
General
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Featured Teacher: Michelle Parrish
Posted April 1, 2020 by Anonymous
Michelle Parrish, whose background is teaching middle school, has switched her focus to support other teachers across her board by providing resources and guidance to bring Indigenous history and knowledge into the classroom. (Photo: Michelle Parrish)
Michelle Parrish spent a good portion of this past winter travelling around northern Ontario with Can Geo Education’s Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada Giant Floor Map, going from school to school in her district to help teachers bring Indigenous history and knowledge into their classrooms.
General
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What are maps really saying about COVID-19 in Canada?
Posted April 1, 2020 by Anonymous
The number of reported Canadian cases of COVID-19 by regional health authority focusing on the parts of each authority where people actually live. (Map: Chris Brackley/Can Geo)
If there’s one thing that’s true about COVID-19, it’s that the scale of direct transmission is local. Which is to say that to acquire the virus you must come in personal contact with it. The safe zone, we are told, is two metres. If you are more than two metres from the virus, you are almost assured not to get it.
General
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Trump Admin Weakens Clean Car Standards Despite Its Analyses Showing Rule Favors Big Oil Over Health, Climate
Posted March 31, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 9 mins
The Trump administration today announced the final rule that rolls back Obama-era clean vehicle standards, a move that, according to the government’s own analyses, is expected to benefit the oil industry and harm consumers, public health, and the climate.
Experts also warn it will result in litigation and global market inconsistency to the detriment of automakers.
General
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Scientists find fragment of ancient continent in northern Canada
Posted March 31, 2020 by Anonymous
Baffin Island, where a fragment of one of Earth’s ancient continents was found. (Photo: iStock)
The Earth’s ever-changing physical geography has intrigued humanity for centuries, with scientists working to explore the history of ancient landforms and how they diverged to form the continents we know today. Now, researchers in Canada can add a new piece to this puzzle.
General
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Can Geo Education launches new Online Classroom
Posted March 31, 2020 by Anonymous
Across the country, schools and businesses have shut down to help control the spread of COVID-19, and Canadians are making an effort to “flatten the curve” by staying home and practicing physical distancing. The closure of schools has placed exceptional pressure on millions of families, who are now faced with the challenge of homeschooling while juggling other responsibilities.
General
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Chamber of Commerce’s Energy Members Silent After Group Opposed Using Wartime Law to Produce Medical Supplies
Posted March 30, 2020 by guest
Read time: 6 mins
By Dave Anderson, Energy and Policy Institute. Originally posted on Energy and Policy Institute.
Major electric utilities and fossil fuel producers that are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce remained silent when asked whether they supported the lobbying group’s controversial opposition to using the Defense Production Act to address a shortage of medical supplies and equipment crucial to fighting the coronavirus.
Some of those same energy companies, and their trade associations, have for years lobbied for the use of the Defense Production Act to bail out struggling coal plants.
General
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Oil Refineries Face Shutdowns as Demand Collapses
Posted March 30, 2020 by Anonymous
General
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Will Pandemic Relief Become a Petroleum Industry Slush Fund?
Posted March 30, 2020 by guest
Read time: 14 mins
By Amy Westervelt, with additional reporting from Emily Gertz, Drilled News. Originally published on Drilled News.
Recently, President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin both made clear their intentions to include some sort of bailout for the oil and gas industry as part of the federal government’s emergency economic response to the coronavirus pandemic.
General
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$3 Billion ‘Bailout’ for Oil Producers Dropped From Economic Stimulus Package
Posted March 30, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 6 mins
Bucking President Trump’s directive for buying oil to fill up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), Senate Democrats last week nixed what they say was a $3 billion bailout for oil producers from the coronavirus economic stimulus bill that passed the Senate on March 25. An earlier version of the $2 trillion relief bill favored by Senate Republicans allocated $3 billion for filling up the SPR to aid a struggling oil sector.
General
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The big bad wolf?
Posted March 30, 2020 by Anonymous
Timber wolves in captivity at the Haliburton Forest & Wild Life Reserve’s Wolf Centre. The centre aims to educate the public about the animals and the role they play in their ecosystem. (Photo: Sharon Gallina/Can Geo Photo Club)
The year was in its last few bone-chilling hours when Peter Schleifenbaum got the call that a timber wolf from his 324-square-kilometre forest sanctuary near Haliburton, Ont., was on the loose. At first, he wasn’t too worried. Alarms like that happened every few months and, so far, all had been false.
General
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The 49th parallel: Our defining line
Posted March 30, 2020 by Anonymous
The Rainbow Bridge is a Canada-U.S. border crossing in Niagara Falls. (Photo: Alyssa Malette/Can Geo Photo Club)
Most international borders adhere to some sort of logic. They follow coastlines or rivers, watersheds or natural barriers. They make sense. Not so the 49th parallel.
The border from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies was set in October 1818, and was later extended all the way to the Pacific Coast. A Procrustean solution that causes more problems than it solves, it plays havoc with water reservoirs and mountain routes along the way, which more naturally fall north and south.
General
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Saturday Stories: Some Of This Week’s Most Important #COVID19 Reads
Posted March 28, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Jennifer Yang, in The Toronto Star, speaks with 3 of Toronto’s health care heroes.
Adam Rogers, in Wired, explains what convalescent plasma is and how it might help treat COVID19.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, being Ed Yong and writing an incredible piece on how this pandemic might end.
David Enrich, Rachel Abrams and Steven Kurutz, in The New York Time, on the sewing army rising up to help.
Helen Branswell, in STAT, summarizing all the we’ve learned to date about the SARS-CoV2 virus.
Daniela J. Lamas, in The New York Times, writing as a critical care physician in Boston on the unfathomable reality she’s facing there.
Siddhartha Mukherjee, in The New Yorker, on how the coronavirus behaves inside of our bodies.
General
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Exxon May Crush Bailout Hopes for Suffering Fracking Companies
Posted March 27, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 10 mins
The Washington Post reported March 10 that the Trump administration was considering some type of financial help for the failing U.S. shale oil and gas industry, “as industry officials close to the administration clamor for help.” Those officials — billionaire shale CEO Harold Hamm was likely among them — seemed desperate for government assistance because, as DeSmog has documented, their deeply indebted businesses have lost billions of dollars during the fracking boom. Even before the recent oil price war and COVID-19 pandemic, these companies could hardly stay afloat, making cries for some type of corporate welfare likely unavoidable.
But that’s not the same message across the entire oil and gas industry.
General
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Yet Another Study Confirms: Electric Cars Reduce Climate Pollution
Posted March 27, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 mins
Electric cars are better for the climate than gas-powered vehicles in nearly every part of the world. That’s the clear, unequivocal finding of the first study that conducted a global examination of the current and future greenhouse gas emissions of electric vehicles (EVs) and gas-powered cars. This study directly refutes myths perpetuated by climate science deniers and EV antagonists, who claim that EVs are really not all that green.
General
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Deforestation in the 19th century changed the chemistry of Lake Ontario
Posted March 27, 2020 by Anonymous
A misty Toronto skyline is seen from Tommy Thompson Park in the city’s east end. (Photo: Oli Moorman/Can Geo Photo Club)
Lake Ontario’s ecology experienced a major shift in the 19th century as logging and land management practices changed, according to new research by Eric Guiry, a postdoctoral fellow at Trent University.
Published in the Journal of Limnology and Oceanography, Guiry’s research suggests nitrogen levels in the lake increased in the 1830s after at least 800 years of stability due to widespread deforestation in its watershed.
General
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Sleepwalking and hallucinations: A Canadian’s journey in the world’s toughest footrace
Posted March 26, 2020 by Anonymous
Steven Jackson heading to Inuvik on day five of the 6633 Arctic Ultra, a gruelling 617-kilometre footrace from the Yukon to the Northwest Territories. (Photo courtesy 6633 Arctic Ultra)
On day four of the world’s toughest footrace, Steven Jackson was marching along an ice road in the Northwest Territories when he looked to the side and saw what looked like petroleum railway cars rolling alongside him, stretching far into the distance.
Above him, he could hear an unsettling buzz of drones, and far to the right, he could see a Romanian opponent being interviewed by a documentary crew. Jackson knew there was no railway beside this lonely, frozen stretch of road, but his exhausted brain had begun to conjure visions from the snowbanks.
General
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Federal Judge Tosses Dakota Access Pipeline Permits, Orders Full Environmental Review
Posted March 25, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 6 mins
Today, a federal judge tossed out federal permits for the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), built to carry over half a million barrels of Bakken crude oil a day from North Dakota, and ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a full environmental review of the pipeline project.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg indicated that he would next consider whether to shut down the current flows of oil through DAPL while the environmental review is in process, ordering both sides to submit briefs on the question.
General
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Why Public Health Experts Support These Youth Suing the US Government Over Climate Change
Posted March 25, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 mins
Leading experts in the medical community, including two former U.S. Surgeons General, recently filed supporting briefs backing a youth climate lawsuit against the federal government because, like the current coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis poses “unprecedented threats to public health and safety.”
General
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Louisiana’s Cancer Alley Community At Increased Risk of COVID-19
Posted March 25, 2020 by Julie Dermansky
Read time: 6 mins
“Our people aren’t prepared for a pandemic,” Robert Taylor, executive director of the Concerned Citizens of St. John The Baptist Parish, told me a couple of days before the governor of Louisiana issued a stay-at-home order due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 in the state.
“Many of us have cancer and weakened immune systems from the chemical onslaught we endure everyday. This could be a death sentence for many of us,” Taylor said.
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General
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Announcing the winners of the 2019 Canadian Wildlife Photography of the Year Competition
Posted March 25, 2020 by Anonymous
This photo by Maxwel Hohn, titled “Painted Pillars of Campbell River,” was selected as the winner of the Urban Wildlife category in Canadian Geographic’s 2019 Canadian Wildlife Photography of the Year Competition.
A Canada lynx kitten stares intently over the top of a snowbank, surveying its surroundings. A northern pygmy-owl seems to frown amid a whirl of snowflakes. An underwater pillar decorated with sea stars, anemones and urchins rises toward the dim glow of the surface. Canada’s biodiversity is breathtaking in its beauty and variety, but it’s also vulnerable to climate change and the encroachment of human activities on critical habitat.
General
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#DieForTheDow is trending
Posted March 25, 2020 by Anonymous
Age-wise, I am on the wrong side of the “let’s save the economy by throwing grandma to the wolves” argument. So I have to say, I disagree with it!
And with COVID-19, it won’t work anyway.
Because it isn’t only the grandmas who get sick and die. Its the doctors, the nurses, the teachers, the stock brokers, the policemen, the bartenders, the teenagers on a beach.
Many of the shitmonkeys advocating #DieForTheDow are legislators who have proven (but mysterious) ways of getting tested for COVID19 that your average person doesn’t. Have NO doubt: these shitmonkeys will also have first dibs on increasingly scarce ventilators & other treatments. https://t.co/2HZJpqXDwM— Sailin’ Dame (@YerseniaP) March 24, 2020
If you need a wake-up call, here it is: My husband was on a large conference call of American med school deans last night. One asked about legal coverage for pulling people off ventilators to give to others more likely to survive. I.e., not being charged with murder. Here we are.— Alice Dreger (@AliceDreger) March 24, 2020
The choice is between:– a very hurtful major recession caused by social distancing, managed by stimulus
or
– a economic collapse caused by the breakdown of our health system due to millions of deaths, tens of millions of hospitalizations, that cannot be managed by stimulus
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 24, 2020
At the end of all this, let’s try to remember that the geniuses who told us not to worry about coronavirus are the same geniuses telling us not to worry about #climatechange— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) March 16, 2020
General
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Op-Ed: The US Must Protect Communities and Workers But We Need Our Leaders to Stop Bending to the Oil and Gas Industry
Posted March 24, 2020 by guest
Read time: 6 mins
By Megan Milliken Biven
Imagine a sovereign nation with nearly 29 million citizens and the eleventh largest economy in the world. Now imagine that this nation’s legislature only met to represent its citizens and their interests once every two years. The work of governance, regulation, and oversight are instead shifted to a relatively unknown cadre of boards. Boards whose leadership is a revolving door of the industries the government is supposed to regulate. If this were Venezuela, we Americans would deem it a corrupt Banana Republic and demand international intervention.
The hypothetical nation described here is in fact Texas. One of those state boards is the Railroad Commission of Texas, a little-known agency that oversees oil and gas activities across the state. Ryan Sitton is both current Railroad Texas Commissioner and founder of an oil and gas consulting company. Sitton, who recently lost reelection, regulates the very activities he personally profits from. On March 19, he published an opinion piece in Bloomberg, “The U.S. Must Protect Free Markets in the Oil Price War,” which calls for protecting not free markets, but the oil and gas industry in Texas.
His article asks the federal government to allow oil and gas companies to behave like the OPEC cartel and limit oil production, raise prices on already suffering Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, and continue with a status quo energy policy.
General
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As Coronavirus Worsened, Trump Admin Pushed Offshore Drilling and Gas Exports
Posted March 23, 2020 by Steve Horn
Read time: 6 mins
With major cities and states issuing stay-at-home orders as coronavirus cases have swept throughout the United States, the Trump Administration opened the floodgates for more offshore drilling and issued a permit for a long contested gas export project.
On March 18, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held a lease sale for 397,285 acres of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico that attracted bids by companies such as BP, Chevron, Shell, Total, BHP Billiton and a slew of smaller independent drillers. A day later, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) handed a permit to the long-embattled Jordan Cove LNG export facility, located in Coos Bay, Oregon.
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General
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North Dakota’s Carbon Capture Project Tundra Another “Expensive Greenwashing” Attempt to Bail Out Coal Power
Posted March 21, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 4 mins
Carbon capture technology has generated a lot of controversy–but little private investment–due to its lack of profitability and efficiency. So why is a proposal to retrofit an aging coal-powered plant in North Dakota with smokestack scrubbers receiving millions of federal taxpayer dollars?
Ask Senator John Hoeven (R-ND), who has directed more than $30 million in Department of Energy funding to Project Tundra.
General
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Saturday Stories: Still Just Coronavirus Links – Guessing It Might Be This Way For A Little While At Least
Posted March 21, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Gretchen Reynolds, in The New York Times, answers questions as to the safety of exercising in the face of COVID-19
Cornelia Griggs, in The New York Times, a critical care physician in New York, explains why she needs you to know that the sky is falling.
Yascha Mounk, in The Atlantic, tries to explain why people aren’t staying home despite incredible risks and ramifications of not doing so.
Ashleigh Tuite and David Fisman, in The Globe and Mail, both infectious disease epidemiologists, with their thoughts on how we might slow the burn of the COVID-19 forest fire.
Aaron E. Carroll and Ashish Jha, in The Atlantic, with their thoughts on how we can beat this coronavirus.
Pam Belluck, in The New York Times, needs you to know that though children uniformly have much milder cases of COVID-19 than adults, some will become seriously ill.
Manny Fernandez, in The New York Times, with a sobering read on how the coronavirus will impact the already impoverished.
General
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Coal Industry Group Asks Federal Lawmakers to Cut Funding for Black Lung Program, Citing COVID-19
Posted March 20, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 5 mins
The National Mining Association (NMA) on Wednesday called on President Donald Trump and federal lawmakers to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by cutting a tax used to support coal miners affected by black lung disease, to cut funding to clean up high-priority abandoned coal mine sites, and taking other steps that would financially benefit the coal mining industry.
General
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Shell’s Latest Annual Report: More Greenwashing?
Posted March 19, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 8 mins
Two years after internal documents surfaced showing that Royal Dutch Shell, like ExxonMobil, knew about climate dangers decades ago, the oil giant released its latest annual report outlining its business strategy and approach to addressing climate change. Despite clear warnings from scientists, global health experts and even central banks of impending climate-driven crises, Shell’s report largely sends a message that everything is fine and the company’s “business strategy is sound.”
