nationalobserver--2020-09-28--Both Republicans and Democrats used to love the carbon tax. So why are they giving up on it?

It was weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the country and kept Americans huddled inside .
So members of Oregon ’ s legislature were still showing up for work to haggle over language , introduce bills , and cast votes .
But on this particular morning , 11 of the 12 Republican senators in the 30-person body were nowhere to be found .
Sergeants-at-arms searched Capitol offices , then gave up ; eventually , the Senate was forced to adjourn , lacking the two-thirds majority needed to conduct basic business .
Today , however , both parties are largely silent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hostile .
On the Republican side , a lot has changed since 2008 .
Even as more Republicans — especially younger ones — say they care about climate change , the GOP ’ s proposals to tackle global warming have drifted toward the absurd .
Earlier this year , House Republicans vowed to address rising greenhouse gas levels by planting 1 trillion trees ; President Donald Trump famously called climate change a Chinese “ hoax , ” and has moved to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idea that , for more than a decade , was often at the forefront of plans to address climate change — and even held the promise of garnering bipartisan support .
Al Gore , the former vice president whose documentary An Inconvenient Truth became an unlikely smash hit , called the need for carbon pricing “ just as plain as day .
” Both Barack Obama and John McCain ran for president in 2008 promising to address climate change through a national cap-and-trade program .
A federal carbon tax drew support in recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Senator Bernie Sanders , corporate America ’ s sworn enemy .
With Oregon ’ s Republican senators in hiding , the effort failed .
H.B .
2020 joined a series of bills and ballot measures across the United States — from Massachusetts to Washington state — that proposed putting a price on carbon and have remained stuck in the waiting room of American politics , never turning into law .
The Republicans had bolted from Salem to avoid voting on a policy aimed at slashing planet-warming pollution .
The bill on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have put a price tag on carbon emissions — long considered one of the simplest and most efficient ways to cut greenhouse gases .
It seemed like a no-brainer for a state that , like many of its West Coast neighbors , has faced record-breaking heat waves , disappearing glaciers , and choking wildfires in recent years .
To those who spend their days thinking about money and markets , there ’ s a simple fix : Put a price on carbon to reflect its actual costs to the planet and human health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the thinking goes , individuals , corporations , and governments will not only use less energy , they ’ ll also boost wind and solar power , expand public transportation , and take other steps necessary to build a green economy .
Burning fossil fuels , therefore , creates a massive cost that no one is paying for — a “ negative externality ” in economist-speak .
“ Allowing people to emit CO2 into the atmosphere for free is similar to allowing people to smoke in a crowded room or dump trash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Nobel prize-winning economist William Nordhaus in 2008 .
Nicholas Stern , also an economist and the author of an influential 2006 report on global warming , has argued that climate change “ is the greatest market failure the world has ever seen.
” Although carbon dioxide itself doesn ’ t constitute a direct health threat , fossil fuel use also releases a slurry of toxic chemicals that can lead to asthma , strokes , heart disease , and cancer .
According to the World Health Organization , roughly 7 million people around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ linked to air pollution .
Smith was focused on 18th-century scourges , but he could just as easily have been talking about fossil fuels .
In the United States , around 16.5 million tons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere every single day from the burning of coal , oil , and gas .
( That ’ s more than twice the weight of the Great Pyramid at Giza . )
Those emissions create a dangerous , heat-trapping blanket around the world .
They melt glaciers , spur sea-level rise , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West and hurricanes that batter the Southeast .
In 1776 , the Scottish economist Adam Smith , writing in The Wealth of Nations , noted that certain goods like sugar , rum , and tobacco — which hurt their consumers and society as a whole — had nevertheless become “ objects of almost universal consumption.
” As a result , he said , they were “ extremely proper subjects of taxation.
” Somehow , over the past decade , what was once considered the policy-of-choice has gotten shunted to the sidelines .
With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , largely missing-in-action when it comes to climate change , Democrats have moved on .
But the carbon price might not be dead just yet : There are still those on Capitol Hill who still believe bipartisan climate action is in our future — and that taxing or capping carbon could be the solution .
Meanwhile , the insurgent left wing of the Democratic Party has cast carbon pricing aside in favor of more ambitious , large-scale ideas .
“ For far too long , ideas like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change , ” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , the popular Democratic congresswoman from the Bronx , wrote on Twitter last year .
“ They are inadequate.
” The party ’ s presidential nominee , Joe Biden , has proposed a massive , $ 2 trillion package that would eliminate emissions from the electricity sector by 2035 — but stopped short of recommending a carbon tax .
Similarly , a 538-page climate plan , released in June by Democratic members of the House , included only two caveat-filled pages on the idea .
“ Congress should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tool , ” the authors warned .
“ Carbon pricing is not a silver bullet.
” Joseph Majkut , director of climate policy at the Niskanen Center , a think tank in Washington , D.C. , told me that economists arguing over which option is better are like “ fans of rap music arguing over which Wu-Tang album is best.
” Both would ramp up prices on emissions over time , thereby lowering carbon pollution .
And both would — ideally — prevent the planet from burning up .
Such a price could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as states tax alcohol , cigarettes , and , in some parts of the country , marijuana ) , or through a more complicated setup known as “ cap-and-trade.
” In a cap-and-trade system , emissions are “ capped ” at a particular level , and polluters buy and trade permits to emit CO2 up to that threshold .
That lets the market determine the price .
More than 40 countries around the world have already implemented one policy or the other .
The European Union has a cap-and-trade system that covers all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Minister Justin Trudeau , Canada launched its carbon tax program in 2018 .
Successes in the U.S. have been scattered : California has a cap-and-trade program that began in 2013 , as do 10 Northeast states that belong to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative , founded in 2009 .
But national action has remained elusive , partly because any such plan would need to make it through Congress , a legislative body that has been torturously slow to recognize the threat posed by climate change .
The first time Tamara Staton visited the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she was in awe .
“ I was walking from the House side to the Senate side , in front of the Capitol , ” she said .
“ And I thought , ‘ Oh my gosh , this is what democracy is .
Our representatives , listening to what I care about.
’ ” For the first time in her life , Staton felt connected to the process of making policy .
“ I just wanted to shout to the world : ‘ You guys !
You just have to tell them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
The 46-year-old consultant and former teacher from Portland , Oregon , had traveled to Washington , D.C. , to lobby Congress to adopt a carbon tax .
She had spent three days in Congressional offices , pitching representatives and senators or their staffers , talking to both Republicans and Democrats about the need to save an overheating planet .
Now , seven years after her first trip , Staton realizes that it ’ s not as simple as just telling members of Congress what you want — the government moves slowly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that hasn ’ t left her feeling jaded .
“ I still think democracy is a lot less broken than I used to think it was , ” Staton said .
Part of that transformation was because of the productive meetings she had with Republicans .
To be sure , raising taxes isn ’ t exactly known as a conservative idea .
“ Read my lips : No new taxes ” was George H.W .
Bush ’ s famous line at the 1988 Republican National Convention .
For decades , seemingly every Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tax Reform ’ s pledge never to raise taxes or risk getting kicked out of the party .
Many proposals for carbon taxes , however , would make them “ revenue-neutral , ” meaning the government wouldn ’ t collect more revenue than before .
That could happen by cutting sales and income taxes , or by simply handing over all the money raised from a carbon fee to taxpayers .
The latter approach is favored by the Citizens ’ Climate Lobby , a nonpartisan environmental group that , for more than a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to lobby Congress , write op-eds , and rally grassroots support for a very specific revenue-neutral carbon tax .
Their proposal , introduced in the House as the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act , would start out by taxing carbon emissions by $ 15 a ton , and then ratchet the price up by $ 10 every subsequent year .
The proceeds would be returned directly to all Americans , with the average family of four receiving $ 4,410 in dividends in the 10th year of the program , according to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the vice president of government affairs at the Citizens ’ Climate Lobby , said that the policy would overwhelmingly benefit poorer Americans .
About two-thirds of Americans , he estimates , would be better off under the plan — they would get more back in dividends than they would lose paying the tax .
And it would cut carbon pollution by 40 percent within 12 years .
Staton said that the Republicans she has spoken to in Congress over seven years of lobbying tend to be intrigued by the idea of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it sidesteps traditional regulation , allowing the magic of market forces to do the lion ’ s share of emission-cutting .
“ They are curious about the market-based approach , ” she said .
“ They like the equality of the dividend .
They like that it highlights our ability to be independent decision-makers.
” The thing is , Republicans in Congress who back the idea tend to get bounced from office .
Bob Inglis , a former representative from South Carolina , introduced a bill in 2009 called the Raise Wages , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a carbon tax would offset a cut in payroll taxes — then was ousted from his House seat in the 2010 election .
“ In a way , I ’ m the worst commercial for it , ” Inglis told Grist , wryly .
Carlos Curbelo , a Republican climate advocate from Florida , also lost his seat in the House in 2018 , shortly after proposing similar carbon tax legislation .
And , while representatives and senators have proposed 10 carbon pricing bills in the last two years ( nine for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cap-and-trade system ) , only two Republicans have signed on as cosponsors : Representative Francis Rooney , a Republican from Florida , is a cosponsor on four , and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania has cosponsored one .
The bill pushed by the Citizens ’ Climate Lobby has 82 cosponsors , but Rooney is the only Republican — and he ’ s about to retire .
Staton believes that many Republicans are open to the idea of a tax — but are afraid to show support for it .
“ It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ climate , ” she said .
“ It ’ s dangerous politically.
” Richter of Citizens ’ Climate Lobby maintains that once the bill reaches double-digit numbers of Republicans , it will become the “ easy , good , durable solution.
” But what if those votes aren ’ t forthcoming ?
“ The political theory of the carbon price was always ‘ This is the way to get bipartisan support , ’ ” said Noah Kaufman , a researcher at Columbia University ’ s Center on Global Energy Policy .
“ And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people are losing faith in that.
” As the Citizens ’ Climate Lobby tried to coax sympathetic Republicans to come out of hiding , a new coalition was forming on the left .
They also wanted to stop climate change .
They also showed up at representatives ’ offices in the Capitol Building .
Their idea , however , was much bigger than a carbon tax .
In November 2018 , hundreds of young , serious-faced climate activists crowded into the Washington , D.C. , offices of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ slogans in all-caps : “ NO MORE EXCUSES ” and “ GREEN JOBS FOR ALL.
” Their goal ?
Get Pelosi to create a committee to plan the “ Green New Deal , ” a sweeping proposal to reshape the economy while tackling climate change .
The protesters were representatives of the Sunrise Movement , a youth-led activist group , and their sit-in generated huge waves of media and political attention .
( It didn ’ t hurt that they were joined , halfway through , by Ocasio-Cortez . )
Democrats , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to address climate change in over a decade , were suddenly faced with a plan , and an idea , more radical than they could have possibly imagined .
According to a resolution released by Ocasio-Cortez on the day of the protest , the Green New Deal should include plans to produce all electricity in the United States from renewable sources by 2030 , provide universal healthcare to all Americans , guarantee every American a job , and a whole lot more .
By the following summer , a Politico writer noted : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has moved more in the past eight months than it did during the previous eight years.
” One of the simplest explanations for the demise of the carbon price is that , faced with a Republican Party that hasn ’ t exactly embraced bipartisanship , the left has gotten , well , left-er .
Set against the sweeping , systemic changes advanced by Green New Deal supporters , taxing or capping carbon looks tepid and unambitious .
The focus of the Sunrise Movement and allied organizations is on tethering climate goals to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They ’ re not trying to unite Republicans and Democrats ; they ’ re trying to pull the entire party to the left .
“ The theory of change to some extent has shifted , ” said Parrish Bergquist , a professor of environmental policy at Georgetown University .
If advocates for the Green New Deal want to connect global warming to income inequality , public health problems , and racial justice , “ having a carbon tax kind of recedes into the background , ” she said .
There ’ s evidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In a paper published in May , Bergquist and her coauthors found that bundling climate policy with other goals — like a $ 15 minimum wage , expanded affordable housing , or a nationwide job guarantee — increased public support , particularly among Black and Hispanic Americans .
In some ways , that ’ s not surprising .
Although concern over global warming has climbed in recent years , it ’ s still only the 13th most significant issue for U.S. voters overall , according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health care rank much higher .
And although carbon pricing generally polls well ( 68 percent of Americans say that they would support a revenue-neutral carbon tax ) , that hasn ’ t translated to success at the ballot box , even at the local level .
“ The word ‘ tax ’ is really not something Americans are excited to sign up for , ” Bergquist said .
In left-leaning Washington State , voters struck down two separate carbon tax initiatives on the ballot , the first in 2016 and another in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 41 percent of the vote , while the second managed to scrape up 44 percent .
To defeat the most recent proposal , BP and other big businesses outspent supporters 2 to 1 .
Their ads depicted the carbon tax as unfair , too friendly to some industries , and sure to drive up families ’ energy bills .
Some activists on the left have made a similar argument .
“ As a movement , we believe that no one should be able to pollute our air for free , ” Zina Precht-Rodriguez @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , said in an email .
“ But we also believe that carbon pricing can unfairly put the burden of responsibility on the middle and working class who ’ ve been experiencing stagnant wages for decades.
” ( Economists say a well-designed carbon tax could benefit the working class through cash dividends . )
Some organizations and community groups argue that a carbon tax wouldn ’ t do enough to help Native American , Black , and Latino Americans who are already more likely to bear the costs of climate change .
Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1.5 times more fossil-fuel pollution than the population at large , a disparity that causes asthma , heart disease , and respiratory problems .
For many activists , the way to protect these communities is to invest heavily in renewable energy and keep fossil fuels from being extracted in the first place .
“ If we ’ re really serious about climate change , the very first question is , ‘ Is this policy going to keep fossil fuels underground ?
’ ” said Tamra Gilbertson , a staffer for the nonprofit Indigenous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ answer is ‘ No , ’ we ’ re going on the wrong track.
” Gilbertson singled out cap-and-trade , which , she argues , encourages companies to buy “ carbon offsets ” — funds for planting trees or clean energy that take them off the hook for some emissions — instead of slashing pollution where it matters most , around communities near power plants , for example .
“ We often say it ’ s like a ‘ Band-Aid response , ’ ” said Angela Adrar , the executive director of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve got a big wound , and carbon pricing is a Band-Aid response that is just not going to solve the crisis we ’ re in.
” In July , flanked by the red-and-white stripes of three American flags , Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden took aim at the current president ’ s record on climate change .
“ When Donald Trump thinks about climate change , the only word he can muster is ‘ hoax , ’ ” the former vice president said , squinting at a small audience of masked reporters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wilmington , Delaware .
“ When I think about climate change , the word I think of is ‘ jobs ’ — good-paying , union jobs.
” Biden ’ s climate plan , which he released earlier that day , is far from a capitalist critique , but it can still be seen as a scaled-back version of what many Sunrise Movement activists had been calling for .
( “ Joe Biden is campaigning on the Green New Deal — minus the crazy ” read one headline in Slate . )
Though there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care or a federal jobs guarantee , it does call for generating all of the country ’ s electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 , and spending $ 2 trillion over 10 years to get there .
The plan also promises that 40 percent of the benefits would go to historically disadvantaged communities — those Americans most vulnerable to heat , pollution , and extreme weather .
There ’ s no mention of a carbon tax , no cap-and-trade program .
That could partly be because the Biden camp doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And a campaign pitch isn ’ t a guarantee of what a Biden White House might actually propose .
“ From a political standpoint , why would you lead with the idea that you ’ re going to tax someone ?
” said Kaufman , the Columbia researcher .
“ You want to lead with all the things you ’ re going to give people.
” Still , besides economists and supporters of the Citizens ’ Climate Lobby , it ’ s hard to find many people who are excited about carbon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy that a lot of people like , but no one loves .
Nowadays , most Democrats would rather spend big and regulate ; most Republicans would rather ignore the heating planet altogether .
There are a few exceptions .
In August , Dick Durbin of Illinois , the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate , introduced a new carbon tax bill similar to the one pushed by CCL .
( Despite hopes of bipartisanship , he doesn ’ t yet have a Republican cosponsor . )
In mid-September , the Business Roundtable , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ powerful trade organizations , came out in favor of “ placing a price on carbon.
” The group , which includes ExxonMobil , Bank of America , and other corporate giants , said that the revenue raised should pay for investment in research and development of carbon-cutting technology , support for workers , and other complementary policies .
And Bob Inglis , the former representative from South Carolina , still hasn ’ t given up .
He now runs a nonprofit organization called RepublicEn ( the En stands for “ energy ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around South Carolina trying to persuade Republicans to reconsider their knee-jerk responses to global warming .
Inglis distinguishes between what he calls “ actual conservatives ” — those who believe in free-market principles and could get behind a carbon price — and the “ populist nationalists ” who have taken over the party under Trump .
“ A lot depends on how this election turns out , ” Inglis said .
If Trump loses , he says , the GOP will have an opportunity to reimagine itself .
Such a reappraisal could , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power back toward more dyed-in-the-wool conservatives willing to take action on climate change — provided it fits within a small-government , low-regulation framework .
Even if Trump wins , Inglis says he still expects to see a GOP reckoning , but pushed back to 2024 .
Inglis , for his part , has endorsed Biden .
For now , Democrats are forging ahead with a single-party vision that doesn ’ t include slapping a price on carbon .
If their party captures a majority in the Senate , both Kamala Harris and Joe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abolish the filibuster — the antiquated Senate rule that requires 60 of the 100 senators to pass most bills — in order to pass Green New Deal-like legislation .
If the filibuster is gone , and the Democrats retain their majority in the House , they ’ ll just need 50 votes in the Senate , no Republicans necessary .
Inglis still thinks that bipartisanship is the way forward .
For years , he told Grist , he didn ’ t believe that humans were heating the planet , until he finally saw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Great Barrier Reef .
He believes that other Republicans will follow in his footsteps , by accepting the reality of global warming , then supporting a commonsense , conservative solution .
“ The thing that I ask of the left is just to please let conservatives in on this conversation , ” he said .
And when the time comes that Republicans are ready to support climate action , “ I just hope there are going to be enough progressives who say , ‘ Hey , let ’ s give it @ @ @ @ @

With Oregon’s Republican senators in hiding, the effort failed. H.B. 2020 joined a series of bills and ballot measures across the United States — from Massachusetts to Washington state — that proposed putting a price on carbon and have remained stuck in the waiting room of American politics, never turning into law.
The Republicans had bolted from Salem to avoid voting on a policy aimed at slashing planet-warming pollution. The bill on the table, H.B. 2020, would have put a price tag on carbon emissions — long considered one of the simplest and most efficient ways to cut greenhouse gases. It seemed like a no-brainer for a state that, like many of its West Coast neighbors, has faced record-breaking heat waves , disappearing glaciers , and choking wildfires in recent years.
It was weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the country and kept Americans huddled inside. So members of Oregon’s legislature were still showing up for work to haggle over language, introduce bills, and cast votes. But on this particular morning, 11 of the 12 Republican senators in the 30-person body were nowhere to be found. Sergeants-at-arms searched Capitol offices, then gave up; eventually, the Senate was forced to adjourn , lacking the two-thirds majority needed to conduct basic business.
Today, however, both parties are largely silent on the idea, if not outright hostile. On the Republican side, a lot has changed since 2008. Even as more Republicans — especially younger ones — say they care about climate change, the GOP’s proposals to tackle global warming have drifted toward the absurd. Earlier this year, House Republicans vowed to address rising greenhouse gas levels by planting 1 trillion trees; President Donald Trump famously called climate change a Chinese “hoax,” and has moved to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement.
It’s an unexpected turn for an idea that, for more than a decade, was often at the forefront of plans to address climate change — and even held the promise of garnering bipartisan support. Al Gore, the former vice president whose documentary An Inconvenient Truth became an unlikely smash hit, called the need for carbon pricing “ just as plain as day .” Both Barack Obama and John McCain ran for president in 2008 promising to address climate change through a national cap-and-trade program. A federal carbon tax drew support in recent years from such strange bedfellows as ExxonMobil and Senator Bernie Sanders, corporate America’s sworn enemy.
Smith was focused on 18th-century scourges, but he could just as easily have been talking about fossil fuels. In the United States, around 16.5 million tons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere every single day from the burning of coal, oil, and gas. (That’s more than twice the weight of the Great Pyramid at Giza.) Those emissions create a dangerous, heat-trapping blanket around the world. They melt glaciers, spur sea-level rise, and fuel wildfires that ravage the American West and hurricanes that batter the Southeast.
In 1776, the Scottish economist Adam Smith, writing in The Wealth of Nations, noted that certain goods like sugar, rum, and tobacco — which hurt their consumers and society as a whole — had nevertheless become “objects of almost universal consumption.” As a result, he said, they were “extremely proper subjects of taxation.”
Somehow, over the past decade, what was once considered the policy-of-choice has gotten shunted to the sidelines. With Republicans, like the senators in Oregon, largely missing-in-action when it comes to climate change, Democrats have moved on. But the carbon price might not be dead just yet: There are still those on Capitol Hill who still believe bipartisan climate action is in our future — and that taxing or capping carbon could be the solution.
Meanwhile, the insurgent left wing of the Democratic Party has cast carbon pricing aside in favor of more ambitious, large-scale ideas. “For far too long, ideas like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade were touted as the premier solutions to climate change,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the popular Democratic congresswoman from the Bronx, wrote on Twitter last year. “They are inadequate.” The party’s presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has proposed a massive, $2 trillion package that would eliminate emissions from the electricity sector by 2035 — but stopped short of recommending a carbon tax. Similarly, a 538-page climate plan , released in June by Democratic members of the House, included only two caveat-filled pages on the idea. “Congress should consider a carbon price as only one tool,” the authors warned. “Carbon pricing is not a silver bullet.”
To those who spend their days thinking about money and markets, there’s a simple fix: Put a price on carbon to reflect its actual costs to the planet and human health. If fossil fuels are more expensive, the thinking goes, individuals, corporations, and governments will not only use less energy, they’ll also boost wind and solar power, expand public transportation, and take other steps necessary to build a green economy.
Burning fossil fuels, therefore, creates a massive cost that no one is paying for — a “negative externality” in economist-speak. “Allowing people to emit CO2 into the atmosphere for free is similar to allowing people to smoke in a crowded room or dump trash into a national park,” wrote the Nobel prize-winning economist William Nordhaus in 2008. Nicholas Stern, also an economist and the author of an influential 2006 report on global warming, has argued that climate change “is the greatest market failure the world has ever seen.”
Although carbon dioxide itself doesn’t constitute a direct health threat, fossil fuel use also releases a slurry of toxic chemicals that can lead to asthma, strokes, heart disease, and cancer. According to the World Health Organization, roughly 7 million people around the world die each year from causes linked to air pollution.
Video of What is cap and trade and why do some people hate it?
Such a price could work through a simple tax (much as states tax alcohol, cigarettes, and, in some parts of the country, marijuana), or through a more complicated setup known as “cap-and-trade.” In a cap-and-trade system, emissions are “capped” at a particular level, and polluters buy and trade permits to emit CO2 up to that threshold. That lets the market determine the price.
Joseph Majkut, director of climate policy at the Niskanen Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C., told me that economists arguing over which option is better are like “fans of rap music arguing over which Wu-Tang album is best.” Both would ramp up prices on emissions over time, thereby lowering carbon pollution. And both would — ideally — prevent the planet from burning up.
More than 40 countries around the world have already implemented one policy or the other. The European Union has a cap-and-trade system that covers all of its member countries. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada launched its carbon tax program in 2018. Successes in the U.S. have been scattered: California has a cap-and-trade program that began in 2013, as do 10 Northeast states that belong to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, founded in 2009. But national action has remained elusive, partly because any such plan would need to make it through Congress, a legislative body that has been torturously slow to recognize the threat posed by climate change.
The first time Tamara Staton visited the U.S. Capitol Building, in 2013, she was in awe. “I was walking from the House side to the Senate side, in front of the Capitol,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is what democracy is. Our representatives, listening to what I care about.’” For the first time in her life, Staton felt connected to the process of making policy. “I just wanted to shout to the world: ‘You guys! You just have to tell them what you want!’” she said.
The 46-year-old consultant and former teacher from Portland, Oregon, had traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress to adopt a carbon tax. She had spent three days in Congressional offices, pitching representatives and senators or their staffers, talking to both Republicans and Democrats about the need to save an overheating planet. Now, seven years after her first trip, Staton realizes that it’s not as simple as just telling members of Congress what you want — the government moves slowly, and political barriers abound.
Yet that hasn’t left her feeling jaded. “I still think democracy is a lot less broken than I used to think it was,” Staton said. Part of that transformation was because of the productive meetings she had with Republicans.
To be sure, raising taxes isn’t exactly known as a conservative idea. “Read my lips: No new taxes” was George H.W. Bush’s famous line at the 1988 Republican National Convention. For decades, seemingly every Republican in Congress has signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge never to raise taxes or risk getting kicked out of the party. Many proposals for carbon taxes, however, would make them “revenue-neutral,” meaning the government wouldn’t collect more revenue than before. That could happen by cutting sales and income taxes, or by simply handing over all the money raised from a carbon fee to taxpayers.
The latter approach is favored by the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan environmental group that, for more than a decade, has trained volunteers like Staton to lobby Congress, write op-eds, and rally grassroots support for a very specific revenue-neutral carbon tax. Their proposal, introduced in the House as the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, would start out by taxing carbon emissions by $15 a ton, and then ratchet the price up by $10 every subsequent year. The proceeds would be returned directly to all Americans, with the average family of four receiving $4,410 in dividends in the 10th year of the program, according to the group’s estimates.
Danny Richter, the vice president of government affairs at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, said that the policy would overwhelmingly benefit poorer Americans. About two-thirds of Americans, he estimates, would be better off under the plan — they would get more back in dividends than they would lose paying the tax. And it would cut carbon pollution by 40 percent within 12 years.
Staton said that the Republicans she has spoken to in Congress over seven years of lobbying tend to be intrigued by the idea of a revenue-neutral carbon tax. After all, it sidesteps traditional regulation, allowing the magic of market forces to do the lion’s share of emission-cutting. “They are curious about the market-based approach,” she said. “They like the equality of the dividend. They like that it highlights our ability to be independent decision-makers.”
The thing is, Republicans in Congress who back the idea tend to get bounced from office. Bob Inglis, a former representative from South Carolina, introduced a bill in 2009 called the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act — in which revenue from a carbon tax would offset a cut in payroll taxes — then was ousted from his House seat in the 2010 election. “In a way, I’m the worst commercial for it,” Inglis told Grist, wryly. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican climate advocate from Florida, also lost his seat in the House in 2018, shortly after proposing similar carbon tax legislation.
And, while representatives and senators have proposed 10 carbon pricing bills in the last two years (nine for a carbon tax, one for a cap-and-trade system), only two Republicans have signed on as cosponsors: Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican from Florida, is a cosponsor on four, and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania has cosponsored one. The bill pushed by the Citizens’ Climate Lobby has 82 cosponsors, but Rooney is the only Republican — and he’s about to retire.
Staton believes that many Republicans are open to the idea of a tax — but are afraid to show support for it. “It’s dangerous for them to come out on climate,” she said. “It’s dangerous politically.”
Richter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby maintains that once the bill reaches double-digit numbers of Republicans, it will become the “easy, good, durable solution.”
But what if those votes aren’t forthcoming?
“The political theory of the carbon price was always ‘This is the way to get bipartisan support,’” said Noah Kaufman, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “And I just think more than anything, people are losing faith in that.”
As the Citizens’ Climate Lobby tried to coax sympathetic Republicans to come out of hiding, a new coalition was forming on the left. They also wanted to stop climate change. They also showed up at representatives’ offices in the Capitol Building. Their idea, however, was much bigger than a carbon tax.
In November 2018, hundreds of young, serious-faced climate activists crowded into the Washington, D.C., offices of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. They carried yellow and blue signs with slogans in all-caps: “NO MORE EXCUSES” and “GREEN JOBS FOR ALL.” Their goal? Get Pelosi to create a committee to plan the “Green New Deal,” a sweeping proposal to reshape the economy while tackling climate change.
The protesters were representatives of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led activist group, and their sit-in generated huge waves of media and political attention. (It didn’t hurt that they were joined, halfway through, by Ocasio-Cortez.) Democrats, who haven’t had a comprehensive plan to address climate change in over a decade, were suddenly faced with a plan, and an idea, more radical than they could have possibly imagined.
According to a resolution released by Ocasio-Cortez on the day of the protest, the Green New Deal should include plans to produce all electricity in the United States from renewable sources by 2030, provide universal healthcare to all Americans, guarantee every American a job, and a whole lot more. By the following summer, a Politico writer noted: “The national discussion around climate change has moved more in the past eight months than it did during the previous eight years.”
One of the simplest explanations for the demise of the carbon price is that, faced with a Republican Party that hasn’t exactly embraced bipartisanship, the left has gotten, well, left-er. Set against the sweeping, systemic changes advanced by Green New Deal supporters, taxing or capping carbon looks tepid and unambitious. The focus of the Sunrise Movement and allied organizations is on tethering climate goals to a whole host of other Democratic priorities. They’re not trying to unite Republicans and Democrats; they’re trying to pull the entire party to the left.
“The theory of change to some extent has shifted,” said Parrish Bergquist, a professor of environmental policy at Georgetown University. If advocates for the Green New Deal want to connect global warming to income inequality, public health problems, and racial justice, “having a carbon tax kind of recedes into the background,” she said.
There’s evidence that this strategy could win votes. In a paper published in May, Bergquist and her coauthors found that bundling climate policy with other goals — like a $15 minimum wage, expanded affordable housing, or a nationwide job guarantee — increased public support, particularly among Black and Hispanic Americans. In some ways, that’s not surprising. Although concern over global warming has climbed in recent years, it’s still only the 13th most significant issue for U.S. voters overall, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The economy, COVID-19, and health care rank much higher.
And although carbon pricing generally polls well (68 percent of Americans say that they would support a revenue-neutral carbon tax), that hasn’t translated to success at the ballot box, even at the local level. “The word ‘tax’ is really not something Americans are excited to sign up for,” Bergquist said.
In left-leaning Washington State, voters struck down two separate carbon tax initiatives on the ballot, the first in 2016 and another in 2018. The first initiative garnered only 41 percent of the vote, while the second managed to scrape up 44 percent. To defeat the most recent proposal, BP and other big businesses outspent supporters 2 to 1. Their ads depicted the carbon tax as unfair, too friendly to some industries, and sure to drive up families’ energy bills.
Some activists on the left have made a similar argument. “As a movement, we believe that no one should be able to pollute our air for free,” Zina Precht-Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement, said in an email. “But we also believe that carbon pricing can unfairly put the burden of responsibility on the middle and working class who’ve been experiencing stagnant wages for decades.” (Economists say a well-designed carbon tax could benefit the working class through cash dividends.)
Some organizations and community groups argue that a carbon tax wouldn’t do enough to help Native American, Black, and Latino Americans who are already more likely to bear the costs of climate change. Black Americans, for example, breathe in 1.5 times more fossil-fuel pollution than the population at large, a disparity that causes asthma, heart disease, and respiratory problems. For many activists, the way to protect these communities is to invest heavily in renewable energy and keep fossil fuels from being extracted in the first place.
“If we’re really serious about climate change, the very first question is, ‘Is this policy going to keep fossil fuels underground?’” said Tamra Gilbertson, a staffer for the nonprofit Indigenous Environmental Network. “And if the answer is ‘No,’ we’re going on the wrong track.” Gilbertson singled out cap-and-trade, which, she argues, encourages companies to buy “carbon offsets” — funds for planting trees or clean energy that take them off the hook for some emissions — instead of slashing pollution where it matters most, around communities near power plants, for example.
“We often say it’s like a ‘Band-Aid response,’” said Angela Adrar, the executive director of the Climate Justice Alliance. “We’ve got a big wound, and carbon pricing is a Band-Aid response that is just not going to solve the crisis we’re in.”
In July, flanked by the red-and-white stripes of three American flags, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden took aim at the current president’s record on climate change. “When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is ‘hoax,’” the former vice president said, squinting at a small audience of masked reporters and photographers assembled in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. “When I think about climate change, the word I think of is ‘jobs’ — good-paying, union jobs.”
Biden’s climate plan, which he released earlier that day, is far from a capitalist critique, but it can still be seen as a scaled-back version of what many Sunrise Movement activists had been calling for. (“Joe Biden is campaigning on the Green New Deal — minus the crazy” read one headline in Slate.) Though there’s no push for universal health care or a federal jobs guarantee, it does call for generating all of the country’s electricity from clean energy sources by 2035, and spending $2 trillion over 10 years to get there. The plan also promises that 40 percent of the benefits would go to historically disadvantaged communities — those Americans most vulnerable to heat, pollution, and extreme weather.
There’s no mention of a carbon tax, no cap-and-trade program. That could partly be because the Biden camp doesn’t think those policies will galvanize the electorate. And a campaign pitch isn’t a guarantee of what a Biden White House might actually propose. “From a political standpoint, why would you lead with the idea that you’re going to tax someone?” said Kaufman, the Columbia researcher. “You want to lead with all the things you’re going to give people.”
Still, besides economists and supporters of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, it’s hard to find many people who are excited about carbon pricing. It’s become a policy that a lot of people like, but no one loves. Nowadays, most Democrats would rather spend big and regulate; most Republicans would rather ignore the heating planet altogether.
There are a few exceptions. In August, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, introduced a new carbon tax bill similar to the one pushed by CCL. (Despite hopes of bipartisanship, he doesn’t yet have a Republican cosponsor.) In mid-September, the Business Roundtable, one of the country’s most powerful trade organizations, came out in favor of “placing a price on carbon.” The group, which includes ExxonMobil, Bank of America, and other corporate giants, said that the revenue raised should pay for investment in research and development of carbon-cutting technology, support for workers, and other complementary policies.
And Bob Inglis, the former representative from South Carolina, still hasn’t given up. He now runs a nonprofit organization called RepublicEn (the En stands for “energy” and “enterprise”), and travels around South Carolina trying to persuade Republicans to reconsider their knee-jerk responses to global warming. Inglis distinguishes between what he calls “actual conservatives” — those who believe in free-market principles and could get behind a carbon price — and the “populist nationalists” who have taken over the party under Trump.
“A lot depends on how this election turns out,” Inglis said. If Trump loses, he says, the GOP will have an opportunity to reimagine itself. Such a reappraisal could, in theory, swing the balance of power back toward more dyed-in-the-wool conservatives willing to take action on climate change — provided it fits within a small-government, low-regulation framework. Even if Trump wins, Inglis says he still expects to see a GOP reckoning, but pushed back to 2024. Inglis, for his part, has endorsed Biden.
For now, Democrats are forging ahead with a single-party vision that doesn’t include slapping a price on carbon. If their party captures a majority in the Senate, both Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have voiced a tentative willingness to abolish the filibuster — the antiquated Senate rule that requires 60 of the 100 senators to pass most bills — in order to pass Green New Deal-like legislation. If the filibuster is gone, and the Democrats retain their majority in the House, they’ll just need 50 votes in the Senate, no Republicans necessary.
Inglis still thinks that bipartisanship is the way forward. For years, he told Grist, he didn’t believe that humans were heating the planet, until he finally saw the light during a trip to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. He believes that other Republicans will follow in his footsteps, by accepting the reality of global warming, then supporting a commonsense, conservative solution.
“The thing that I ask of the left is just to please let conservatives in on this conversation,” he said. And when the time comes that Republicans are ready to support climate action, “I just hope there are going to be enough progressives who say, ‘Hey, let’s give it a go.’”


nationalobserver--2020-09-28--The COVID-19 pandemic is changing how students cheat – and get caught

Campus lockdowns triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic led exam halls across the country to go virtual last spring .
At the University of British Columbia , math instructor Elyse Yeager and her colleagues were counting on about 1,000 first-year students to respect the honour system during their online finals .
What happened next is a snapshot of a problem educators are seeing exacerbated by the pandemic ; one with privacy , legal and ethical implications that are shaping the way students cheat , and get caught .
“ Within the first half-hour of the exam , basically every question was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Chegg – a U.S. company which began as a textbook marketplace and now offers “ 24/7 homework help ” – is one of the services emerging , with ostensibly greater prevalence than before , on the battlefront of academic integrity .
And professors are losing ground thanks to the virtual learning transition spurred by the pandemic .
• Trans Mountain pipeline expansion could be at least two months late • Doug Ford could win by losing his legal fight against the carbon tax “ Schools and colleagues of mine have been reporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ across the globe , that academic misconduct has skyrocketed , ” said Sarah Eaton , a University of Calgary associate professor , and editor at two academic integrity research journals .
But the opposite was true before the pandemic .
In fact , comparative studies in the last decade have shown that online courses experienced less cheating by students than those who took the same classes in-person , Eaton said .
Virtual participants tended to be mature students aged 30-and-up who selected an online delivery method .
Now , younger students are required @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would rather teach in a lecture hall , fueling “ resentment on both sides about having to be in an online environment when that ’ s not their preference , ” she said .
Today ’ s technology has also made the business of cheating more sophisticated than it was a decade ago , and more profitable .
`` Schools and colleagues of mine have been reporting consistently , not only in Canada but across the globe , that academic misconduct has skyrocketed , ” said @ DrSarahEaton of @ ucalgary Academic integrity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sell anything from homework completion to stand-ins for exams , as “ contract cheating companies.
” Even the most prestigious institutions are not immune .
Freedom of information requests filed by The Guardian revealed that cheating at top universities in the U.K. , including Oxford and Cambridge , shot up 40 per cent between 2014 and 2017 .
The spike was attributed to essay mills and other contract cheating services .
Researchers are also seeing evidence of blackmail by these companies , which can threaten to report students to their schools should they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cards , Eaton said .
She is aware , anecdotally , of administrators at the University of Calgary being contacted by such companies wanting to ‘ out ’ their former customers , the students .
She declined to name the companies .
Australian researchers found that almost 90 per cent of students surveyed in a February 2020 study did not know about the risk of blackmail by these companies .
The findings , published in the Studies in Higher Education journal , argue for creating a greater awareness of the blackmail issue among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At the University of New South Wales in Australia , for example , the campus student organization encourages those targeted by blackmailers to come forward for assistance .
One of those companies is Chegg .
Screengrab of service offerings on Chegg .
Photo via Chegg.com .
Headquartered in Santa Clara , Calif. , Chegg provides online tutoring and other subscription services , such as the monthly US $ 19.95 Chegg Study Pack , which gives users access to millions of homework solutions , expert Q & As , practise sets and explainer videos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chegg said it had 5.7 million paying customers and increased its service subscribers to a record 3.9 million – an almost 30 per cent increase from 2018 .
Chegg saw its business nearly double after schools closed in response to the pandemic , according to a New York Times interview with CEO Dan Rosensweig in June .
The company has an honour code policy and may cooperate with cheating investigations if the request comes from a dean ’ s office or the institution ’ s academic integrity office .
“ Firstly , while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students can pay people to do their papers for them online or share test answers and papers on peer-to-peer platforms , Chegg does not support this , ” said spokesperson Devonya Batiste , in an email .
She added that requests must be made on official , signed letterhead to be considered “ because we have to adhere to student privacy guidelines '' and `` we do not allow students to upload papers , get papers written for you etc .
Batiste added that Chegg partners `` with every single academic integrity investigation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' .
At UBC last spring , math instructor Yeager said she collected hundreds of weblinks to exam responses on Chegg and turned them over to the dean ’ s office .
She said Chegg eventually sent back user log information which contained personal data including IP addresses , emails and account names – though not necessarily real names – tracing back to 60 distinct users in the class .
Sample math exam question posted to Reddit shows apparent frustration of a professor .
Photo via Reddit .
In June , a physics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Chegg turned over account emails and user logs for students who were suspected of cheating on an exam , but not the names connected with the payment information for the account .
The professor declined to be interviewed .
According to posts circulated on Reddit , another professor at the university took a more direct approach after he apparently discovered his undergraduate math exam appeared on Chegg .
“ If you did use the service to cheat on the exam please save me the trouble and confess , ” he wrote in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to students , posted on at least two Reddit threads this spring .
“ Otherwise I promise I will do my best to see every single cheater expelled or at least never taking another math course again at U of T…Are you feeling lucky punks ?
” Screengrab of post made to U of T Reddit thread regarding email sent to math students .
Photo via Reddit .
“ Students proven to have used ‘ solutions websites ’ such as Chegg.com as an unauthorized aid on an assessment will be asked to meet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office to discuss their actions , ” said Sandy Welsh , U of T Vice-Provost for students , in a statement .
She confirmed that the university has been in touch with the company over its practises .
“ The University strongly discourages its students from sharing their instructors ’ copyrighted teaching materials online , and prominent wording to this effect is repeated frequently to students , ” Welsh said .
Not as simple as A 's , B 's and C 's Copyright laws protect original creative works .
“ In Canada @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is in the U.S. , so most things that we write are presumed to have copyright , ” said Saptarishi Bandopadhyay , an assistant professor at Osgoode Hall Law School .
One strategy for professors is to request takedowns of their exam questions , slide decks or other instructional materials from these websites based on copyright .
“ Legally , it 's probably more strategic for them to not exercise that much control over the forums , ” said Bandopadhyay , who teaches courses in copyright law and intellectual property .
“ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be to hold them liable , ” he said .
Miriam Martin , an assistant professor of teaching at the University of California Davis , first discovered these services in the spring , and now sees them everywhere .
It moved her to create a workshop to educate colleagues about these companies , how to not enable misconduct , and test and refine solutions for students .
“ While technology is an important tool in the detection of misconduct , I am concerned that entering a high-tech arms race with students will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be better spent toward improving student motivation and efficacy as learners , ” said Martin , a microbiology professor , in an email .
Miriam Martin , an assistant professor of teaching at the University of California Davis microbiology department .
Photo via Miriam Martin .
Getting to the root of why students cheat is important .
She points to helping reduce student anxiety by creating multiple low-stakes assignments , in the place of a few high-stakes ones , offering live support during exams , and helping students feel motivated to succeed at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ context of how it could be relevant to their future career .
Back at the UBC math department , the question of what level of diligence is enough to protect the grading system in these times is on Yeager ’ s mind , she said , evoking Goodhart ’ s law , named after a British economist .
The adage goes : “ When a measure becomes a target , it ceases to be a good measure.
” Professors are likely to be wrestling with this now more than ever .
“ Once @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such a good measure specifically because people will try to optimize the grade as opposed to optimizing the learning , ” Yeager said , “ and then the grade and the learning are no longer coupled in the way that we would hope .
”

And professors are losing ground thanks to the virtual learning transition spurred by the pandemic.
Chegg – a U.S. company which began as a textbook marketplace and now offers “24/7 homework help” – is one of the services emerging, with ostensibly greater prevalence than before, on the battlefront of academic integrity.
“Within the first half-hour of the exam, basically every question was answered on Chegg,” said Yeager.
What happened next is a snapshot of a problem educators are seeing exacerbated by the pandemic; one with privacy, legal and ethical implications that are shaping the way students cheat, and get caught.
Campus lockdowns triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic led exam halls across the country to go virtual last spring. At the University of British Columbia, math instructor Elyse Yeager and her colleagues were counting on about 1,000 first-year students to respect the honour system during their online finals.
“Schools and colleagues of mine have been reporting consistently, not only in Canada but across the globe, that academic misconduct has skyrocketed,” said Sarah Eaton, a University of Calgary associate professor, and editor at two academic integrity research journals.
Academic integrity researchers refer to these businesses, which sell anything from homework completion to stand-ins for exams, as “contract cheating companies.”
Today’s technology has also made the business of cheating more sophisticated than it was a decade ago, and more profitable.
In fact, comparative studies in the last decade have shown that online courses experienced less cheating by students than those who took the same classes in-person, Eaton said. Virtual participants tended to be mature students aged 30-and-up who selected an online delivery method. Now, younger students are required to appear virtually before their professors who would rather teach in a lecture hall, fueling “resentment on both sides about having to be in an online environment when that’s not their preference,” she said.
She is aware, anecdotally, of administrators at the University of Calgary being contacted by such companies wanting to ‘out’ their former customers, the students. She declined to name the companies.
Researchers are also seeing evidence of blackmail by these companies, which can threaten to report students to their schools should they end subscriptions or cancel their account payment cards, Eaton said.
Freedom of information requests filed by The Guardian revealed that cheating at top universities in the U.K., including Oxford and Cambridge, shot up 40 per cent between 2014 and 2017. The spike was attributed to essay mills and other contract cheating services.
Australian researchers found that almost 90 per cent of students surveyed in a February 2020 study did not know about the risk of blackmail by these companies. The findings, published in the Studies in Higher Education journal, argue for creating a greater awareness of the blackmail issue among students and within academic integrity training. At the University of New South Wales in Australia, for example, the campus student organization encourages those targeted by blackmailers to come forward for assistance.
“There is a really dark side to this industry,” Eaton said. “The discourse, it’s like ripping a page out of a propaganda book…The marketing for these companies is highly predatory, highly seductive, and students don't always know what they’re getting into when they sign up for the services.”
"Please save me the trouble and confess"
Some companies assist academic institutions in their student misconduct investigations.
One of those companies is Chegg.
Screengrab of service offerings on Chegg. Photo via Chegg.com.
Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., Chegg provides online tutoring and other subscription services, such as the monthly US$19.95 Chegg Study Pack, which gives users access to millions of homework solutions, expert Q&As, practise sets and explainer videos.
In its 2019 annual report, Chegg said it had 5.7 million paying customers and increased its service subscribers to a record 3.9 million – an almost 30 per cent increase from 2018.
Chegg saw its business nearly double after schools closed in response to the pandemic, according to a New York Times interview with CEO Dan Rosensweig in June.
The company has an honour code policy and may cooperate with cheating investigations if the request comes from a dean’s office or the institution’s academic integrity office.
“Firstly, while it is the unfortunate reality that many students can pay people to do their papers for them online or share test answers and papers on peer-to-peer platforms, Chegg does not support this,” said spokesperson Devonya Batiste, in an email. She added that requests must be made on official, signed letterhead to be considered “because we have to adhere to student privacy guidelines" and "we do not allow students to upload papers, get papers written for you etc. Batiste added that Chegg partners "with every single academic integrity investigation we receive from an official/correct university body".
At UBC last spring, math instructor Yeager said she collected hundreds of weblinks to exam responses on Chegg and turned them over to the dean’s office. She said Chegg eventually sent back user log information which contained personal data including IP addresses, emails and account names – though not necessarily real names – tracing back to 60 distinct users in the class.
Sample math exam question posted to Reddit shows apparent frustration of a professor. Photo via Reddit.
In June, a physics professor at the University of Toronto tweeted that Chegg turned over account emails and user logs for students who were suspected of cheating on an exam, but not the names connected with the payment information for the account. The professor declined to be interviewed.
According to posts circulated on Reddit, another professor at the university took a more direct approach after he apparently discovered his undergraduate math exam appeared on Chegg.
“If you did use the service to cheat on the exam please save me the trouble and confess,” he wrote in what Reddit users said was an email to students, posted on at least two Reddit threads this spring. “Otherwise I promise I will do my best to see every single cheater expelled or at least never taking another math course again at U of T…Are you feeling lucky punks?”
Screengrab of post made to U of T Reddit thread regarding email sent to math students. Photo via Reddit.
(The professor did not respond to a request for comment. The university declined to comment on the background of the Reddit posts or on personnel matters.)
“Students proven to have used ‘solutions websites’ such as Chegg.com as an unauthorized aid on an assessment will be asked to meet with their instructor and Dean’s office to discuss their actions,” said Sandy Welsh, U of T Vice-Provost for students, in a statement.
She confirmed that the university has been in touch with the company over its practises.
“The University strongly discourages its students from sharing their instructors’ copyrighted teaching materials online, and prominent wording to this effect is repeated frequently to students,” Welsh said.
Not as simple as A's, B's and C's
Copyright laws protect original creative works. “In Canada, the bar is lower than it is in the U.S., so most things that we write are presumed to have copyright,” said Saptarishi Bandopadhyay, an assistant professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.
One strategy for professors is to request takedowns of their exam questions, slide decks or other instructional materials from these websites based on copyright.
“Legally, it's probably more strategic for them to not exercise that much control over the forums,” said Bandopadhyay, who teaches courses in copyright law and intellectual property. “The more authority they can show…the easier it will be to hold them liable,” he said.
Saptarishi Bandopadhyay, assistant professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. Photo via York University.
Some professors are taking a proactive approach.
Miriam Martin, an assistant professor of teaching at the University of California Davis, first discovered these services in the spring, and now sees them everywhere. It moved her to create a workshop to educate colleagues about these companies, how to not enable misconduct, and test and refine solutions for students.
“While technology is an important tool in the detection of misconduct, I am concerned that entering a high-tech arms race with students will expend resources and good will that would be better spent toward improving student motivation and efficacy as learners,” said Martin, a microbiology professor, in an email.
Miriam Martin, an assistant professor of teaching at the University of California Davis microbiology department. Photo via Miriam Martin.
Getting to the root of why students cheat is important. She points to helping reduce student anxiety by creating multiple low-stakes assignments, in the place of a few high-stakes ones, offering live support during exams, and helping students feel motivated to succeed at an assignment by framing it in the context of how it could be relevant to their future career.
Back at the UBC math department, the question of what level of diligence is enough to protect the grading system in these times is on Yeager’s mind, she said, evoking Goodhart’s law, named after a British economist. The adage goes: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
Professors are likely to be wrestling with this now more than ever.
“Once grades become important, they stop being such a good measure specifically because people will try to optimize the grade as opposed to optimizing the learning,” Yeager said, “and then the grade and the learning are no longer coupled in the way that we would hope.”
Vjosa Isai / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada's National Observer


nationalobserver--2020-09-28--COVID-19 causing further delay for some overdue military procurements

While the federal government is pressing ahead with plans to buy billions of dollars worth of much-needed equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces , the Department of National Defence 's top procurement official says COVID-19 is further slowing down some already delayed purchases .
The past six months have seen a number of major milestones for Canada 's beleaguered military procurement system , including last week 's unveiling of the first of 16 new military search-and-rescue planes after 16 years of delays and controversy .
Procurement officials are also now reviewing three bids that were received from fighter-jet makers at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closer to selecting a replacement for the aging CF-18s following more than a decade of political mismanagement .
The list of recent successes also includes Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding having delivered the first of six new Arctic offshore patrol vessels in late July , while progress has been made on a number of other files , such as the long-overdue purchase of new engineering vehicles for the Army .
Yet some of those milestones would have been achieved earlier had it not been for COVID-19 .
And Troy Crosby , the Defence Department 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many other projects are being affected as well .
• Trans Mountain pipeline expansion could be at least two months late • Doug Ford could win by losing his legal fight against the carbon tax That includes the more than 100 military procurements — roughly half of them dealing with new equipment and the rest focused on building new infrastructure on Canadian Forces bases across the country — that were listed as already delayed before the pandemic hit .
`` COVID did n't speed anything up , '' Crosby said in an interview @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think everybody would understand that that 's going to have some impact .
And exactly what that impact is difficult to tell right now . ''
Delays in military procurements can have several impacts .
In some cases such the CF-18s , the Canadian Armed Forces is being forced to keep using equipment that was supposed to have been retired years ago .
In others , delays drive up the cost of the new purchases due to inflation .
The projects most likely to be delayed due to COVID-19 are those in production @ @ @ @ @ @ @ construction of new naval ships by Irving and Seaspan ULC in Vancouver , which have had to adopt physical distancing and other COVID-19 measures at their shipyards .
`` For the projects that are at a stage where the work is office-based ... once we got over that initial hump as everybody had to as we moved toward a remote-work posture , the work continued , '' said Crosby .
`` If you 're in a shipyard and you 're trying to advance the production of a ship given all of the physical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ considerations , that 's challenging . ''
Crosby has previously argued much of the frustration around military procurement is the result of unrealistic expectations born of a lack of understanding and appreciation for how the system — which is dealing with more projects than at any time in recent history — actually works .
COVID-19 has also prompted speculation the Liberal government could start cutting back on its promise , unveiled in 2017 , to spend $ 553 billion on the military over the next 20 years .
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the funding is `` secure . ''
Asked about the spending plan — which is contained in the Liberals ' defence policy and known as Strong , Secure , Engaged — Crosby said : `` Strong Secure Engaged continues to be our focus and it laid out a program of work and we 're trying to get that program of work delivered .
`` It 's been that way right through this whole COVID situation .
That has n't changed anything .
...
The people in the materiel group , the people we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 're all seized with the program forward . ''
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28 , 2020 .

While the federal government is pressing ahead with plans to buy billions of dollars worth of much-needed equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence's top procurement official says COVID-19 is further slowing down some already delayed purchases. The past six months have seen a number of major milestones for Canada's beleaguered military procurement system, including last week's unveiling of the first of 16 new military search-and-rescue planes after 16 years of delays and controversy. Procurement officials are also now reviewing three bids that were received from fighter-jet makers at the end of July as Canada inches closer to selecting a replacement for the aging CF-18s following more than a decade of political mismanagement. The list of recent successes also includes Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding having delivered the first of six new Arctic offshore patrol vessels in late July, while progress has been made on a number of other files, such as the long-overdue purchase of new engineering vehicles for the Army. Yet some of those milestones would have been achieved earlier had it not been for COVID-19. And Troy Crosby, the Defence Department's assistant deputy minister of materiel, acknowledges many other projects are being affected as well.
That includes the more than 100 military procurements — roughly half of them dealing with new equipment and the rest focused on building new infrastructure on Canadian Forces bases across the country — that were listed as already delayed before the pandemic hit. "COVID didn't speed anything up," Crosby said in an interview with The Canadian Press. "I think everybody would understand that that's going to have some impact. And exactly what that impact is difficult to tell right now." Billion-dollar land deals in Ontario raise corruption suspicions Delays in military procurements can have several impacts. In some cases such the CF-18s, the Canadian Armed Forces is being forced to keep using equipment that was supposed to have been retired years ago. In others, delays drive up the cost of the new purchases due to inflation.
The projects most likely to be delayed due to COVID-19 are those in production, Crosby said. Examples include the construction of new naval ships by Irving and Seaspan ULC in Vancouver, which have had to adopt physical distancing and other COVID-19 measures at their shipyards. "For the projects that are at a stage where the work is office-based ... once we got over that initial hump as everybody had to as we moved toward a remote-work posture, the work continued," said Crosby. "If you're in a shipyard and you're trying to advance the production of a ship given all of the physical distancing requirements and the health and safety considerations, that's challenging." Crosby has previously argued much of the frustration around military procurement is the result of unrealistic expectations born of a lack of understanding and appreciation for how the system — which is dealing with more projects than at any time in recent history — actually works. COVID-19 has also prompted speculation the Liberal government could start cutting back on its promise, unveiled in 2017, to spend $553 billion on the military over the next 20 years. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan told The Canadian Press earlier this month that the funding is "secure."


nationalobserver--2020-09-28--Indigenous communities in Russia are begging Tesla not to get its nickel from this major polluter

This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration Every year in August and September , the people of Ust ’ -Avam , a remote indigenous community located in the Taimyr region of the Russian Arctic , toss nets into the Avam River to catch tugunok fish , an important traditional food .
This year , the community stopped fishing early , around the start of the month .
There were no tugunok to be found .
Nor could locals find the fish at other common sites along the river basin fed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few miles north of the industrial city of Norilsk .
Gennady Shchukin , a member of the Dolgan ethnic group , has little doubt about the culprit : In late May , a reserve fuel tank at a power plant near Norilsk burst open , flooding local waterways with an estimated 23,000 tons of diesel oil .
The spilled oil drifted for miles , turning part of the Ambarnaya River that feeds Lake Pyasino bright red .
Norilsk Nickel , the Russian nickel mining company responsible for the spill , says it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But Shchukin worries the contamination is far more widespread than the company claims , and that his people will be living with the consequences for years .
“ We expect that the river was poisoned for a long period , ” Shchukin told Grist in Russian via a translator .
“ Maybe for several years there will be no fish in these rivers , and in the lake .
This is very difficult , of course , for indigenous people.
” But Shchukin isn ’ t sitting idly by .
Last month , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ indigenous activists and leaders that Shchukin heads up , launched a campaign to raise awareness of Norilsk Nickel ’ s impacts on their communities and to demand restitution .
Rather than focus on an obscure Arctic mining company , Aborigen Forum is appealing to someone more likely to grab international headlines : Elon Musk , the CEO of Tesla .
• Trans Mountain pipeline expansion could be at least two months late • Doug Ford could win by losing his legal fight against the carbon tax Nickel is a key ingredient in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to store more energy more cheaply .
Tesla , and other EV makers , need lots of it .
But Aborigen Forum wants Musk to commit that his company won ’ t buy any nickel that can be traced to Norilsk until the Russian megapolluter cleans up its act .
“ We don ’ t want the next industrial revolution of electric cars and clean energy developed for the price of indigenous peoples ’ rights and traditional lands , ” said Dmitry Berezhkov , a member of the Aborigen Forum network and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get Musk ’ s attention .
“ We think if Tesla could elaborate strategy and rules for itself in the field of human rights and indigenous peoples ’ rights with regards to nickel , it could be a good opportunity to influence the general nickel market.
” Aborigen Forum ’ s appeal to Musk was inspired by an appeal from the Tesla CEO himself .
In a second-quarter earnings call in July , Musk was asked what are the biggest constraints to Tesla ’ s battery production capabilities .
His response : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extent of the problem isn ’ t truly represented and the spill is much more dangerous than what is being portrayed to us , ” said Pavel Sulyandziga , a member of Aborigen Forum who lives in the United States , via a Russian translator .
Sulyandziga runs the Batani Foundation , an indigenous rights group .
“ There will definitely be an impact on the traditional way of life , especially fishing.
” Shchukin and others in the indigenous community also fear that reindeer , another traditional food source , could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Independent researchers share these concerns .
Writing in the Conversation in July , three Arctic researchers warned of potentially widespread ecological impacts due to the accumulation of toxins in the water and soil — even water and soil that were purportedly cleaned by the company .
“ Over months and years , these toxins will build up within the food chain , starting with the microscopic organisms and eventually causing health problems in larger organisms such as fish and birds , ” the researchers wrote .
After hearing Nornickel claim that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fuel by June , Elena Sakirko , an energy campaigner with Greenpeace Russia , decided to travel to Norilsk to conduct her own analysis .
Her team ’ s results were inconclusive .
Although the soil , water , and sediment samples they collected from Lake Pyasino and the Pyasina river didn ’ t show high levels of pollution , Sakirko and her colleagues were unable to sample in the locations where they expected to see severe contamination based on satellite data , due in part to police interference .
Several months later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done as complete of a cleanup as it says , but admits it ’ s hard to prove anything without a more rigorous analysis .
“ I think an accident of such scale , happening for the first time in this region , we can ’ t have the full picture of possible consequences without proper research , ” Sakirko said .
It ’ s against this backdrop that , when Aborigen Forum learned that Tesla ’ s CEO was calling for more environmentally friendly nickel mining , the group decided to hold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ August 6 , the form released an open letter to Musk asking that his company boycott nickel and other products from Nornickel until the company conducts a “ full and independent assessment ” of the damage from its past operations and the recent oil spill , compensates indigenous communities for damages , implements an environmental remediation plan for lands it has degraded , and develops guidelines for community engagement that are informed by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples .
Those guidelines should include obtaining “ free and informed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that will impact indigenous lands , something the Russian government hasn ’ t exactly made a priority .
The goal of the letter was to “ use a public name like Elon Musk as an instrument to attract more attention to the Arctic issue , and to the Arctic pollution and the rights of indigenous peoples , ” said Rodion Sulyandziga , a member of the Aborigen Forum and the director of the Center for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North .
As one of the world ’ s top so-called green @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ show and demonstrate a new approach in terms of environmental nature rights and local indigenous peoples ’ rights.
” Thea Riofrancos , a political scientist at Providence College in Rhode Island who studies conflicts around the extraction of metals required for green technologies , says that Aborigen Forum was smart to focus its campaign on Musk , both because of Tesla ’ s market power and because of the perception that sustainability is baked into its DNA .
“ Literally EVs are about decarbonizing , ” Riofrancos said .
“ So ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ‘ are they good for the climate , ’ ‘ are they good for local communities ’ are much more charged and salient questions than [ in ] industries that don ’ t have any claim to helping confront the climate crisis.
” Tesla did not respond to Grist ’ s request to comment for this story .
So far , neither the company nor Musk himself has made any public responses to Aborigen Forum ’ s appeal .
But activists aren ’ t giving up : A week after the letter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public to help signal boost it by posting supportive messages within their social networks using the hashtags # AnswerUsElonMusk , # NoNickelfromNornickel , and # DefendIndigenousArctic .
Berezhkov , the social media campaign director , says that Aborigen Forum is also reaching out to indingeous communities around the world , as well as youth activist groups , to garner additional support .
The group ’ s efforts are paying off : On September 7 , the Saami Council , an NGO representing a group of indigenous people who live in Finland , Norway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out a statement in support of Aborigen Forum ’ s appeal .
Indigenous rights organization Cultural Survival , meanwhile , is currently gathering signatures on its own open letter asking Tesla not to associate with Nornickel , which it delivered to the Palo Alto , California-based company on September 16 .
More than 70 indigenous , clean energy , climate , and mining justice organizations around the world have already signed on .
Berezhkov is hopeful that Tesla ’ s long-anticipated Battery Day , slated for Tuesday , September 22 , will draw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For months , industry watchers have speculated that Tesla will announce new details concerning its efforts to produce cobalt-free batteries , part of the company ’ s response to widespread concern over environmental and human rights abuses documented at cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .
“ We ’ ve seen shockwaves of scrutiny around cobalt sourcing having massive , sector-wide impacts , ” said Benjamin Hitchcock Auciello , a campaign coordinator at environmental nonprofit Earthworks , which signed the Cultural Survival letter .
The fact that a grassroots effort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nickel sector is now piquing the public ’ s interest , he said , “ really shows that there ’ s some momentum here.
” If the campaign causes Nornickel to lose out on a massive nickel contract , Auciello believes that will have an impact “ not only on their policies , but on the sector more broadly.
” It could , perhaps , be the first step toward the development of international standards for what responsibly sourced nickel looks like .
But whether any of that comes to pass is still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ context of whether Tesla or battery manufacturers can sideline Nornickel , I think that ’ s going to be very difficult still because there ’ s already a tight market , ” said Restauro , the BloombergNEF analyst .
And companies producing nickel from laterite ores in the South Pacific are likely to score just as badly if not worse in terms of their impact , Restauro said , because the process of refining these ores into high-grade nickel produces toxic waste tailings that may wind up getting disposed of at sea .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Reuters reported that Tesla was in talks with Canadian miner Giga Metals about helping it develop a low-carbon nickel mining operation , suggesting the electric carmaker indeed may be focused on procuring nickel from more environmentally-friendly , and local , sources .
To be clear , Aborigen Forum isn ’ t asking that Tesla or the larger EV industry boycott Nornickel forever .
The group just wants to have a say in how the company conducts business on indigenous lands .
Shchukin said that the best result of the campaign would be for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” with indigenous peoples that results in greater indigenous participation in environmental monitoring and in Nornickel providing more essential services , like healthcare and education , to local communities .
“ Right now , Nornickel has a chance of really building a good model of interaction and work with indigenous communities , ” said Sulyandziga of the Batani Foundation .
“ I ’ m very skeptical that they will do so , but I still hope for that .
”

But Shchukin isn’t sitting idly by. Last month, Aborigen Forum , a group of Russian indigenous activists and leaders that Shchukin heads up, launched a campaign to raise awareness of Norilsk Nickel’s impacts on their communities and to demand restitution. Rather than focus on an obscure Arctic mining company, Aborigen Forum is appealing to someone more likely to grab international headlines: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla.
“We expect that the river was poisoned for a long period,” Shchukin told Grist in Russian via a translator. “Maybe for several years there will be no fish in these rivers, and in the lake. This is very difficult, of course, for indigenous people.”
Gennady Shchukin, a member of the Dolgan ethnic group, has little doubt about the culprit: In late May, a reserve fuel tank at a power plant near Norilsk burst open, flooding local waterways with an estimated 23,000 tons of diesel oil. The spilled oil drifted for miles , turning part of the Ambarnaya River that feeds Lake Pyasino bright red. Norilsk Nickel, the Russian nickel mining company responsible for the spill, says it acted swiftly to contain the pollution. But Shchukin worries the contamination is far more widespread than the company claims, and that his people will be living with the consequences for years.
Every year in August and September, the people of Ust’-Avam, a remote indigenous community located in the Taimyr region of the Russian Arctic, toss nets into the Avam River to catch tugunok fish, an important traditional food. This year, the community stopped fishing early, around the start of the month. There were no tugunok to be found. Nor could locals find the fish at other common sites along the river basin fed by Lake Pyasino, which lies just a few miles north of the industrial city of Norilsk.
Aborigen Forum’s appeal to Musk was inspired by an appeal from the Tesla CEO himself. In a second-quarter earnings call in July, Musk was asked what are the biggest constraints to Tesla’s battery production capabilities. His response: nickel.
“We don’t want the next industrial revolution of electric cars and clean energy developed for the price of indigenous peoples’ rights and traditional lands,” said Dmitry Berezhkov, a member of the Aborigen Forum network and the coordinator of a social media campaign to get Musk’s attention. “We think if Tesla could elaborate strategy and rules for itself in the field of human rights and indigenous peoples’ rights with regards to nickel, it could be a good opportunity to influence the general nickel market.”
Nickel is a key ingredient in the cathodes of electric car batteries, allowing them to store more energy more cheaply. Tesla, and other EV makers, need lots of it . But Aborigen Forum wants Musk to commit that his company won’t buy any nickel that can be traced to Norilsk until the Russian megapolluter cleans up its act.
It is unclear whether that includes contracts with any companies supplying Tesla, such as South Korea’s LG Chem or Japan’s Panasonic ; neither company responded to a request for comment on the matter. Tesla and Nornickel also didn’t respond when asked about their relationship. But many Russian indigenous activists feel that Tesla shouldn’t be sourcing from Nornickel now, especially if it’s interested in nickel that is being mined, as Musk put it, in an “environmentally sensitive way.”
In 2018, Nornickel signed an agreement with BASF to supply nickel to a battery materials plant the German chemical company would be constructing in Finland. Once up and running, the plant is expected to furnish the European auto market with enough battery materials to support the production of 300,000 new EVs per year. Nornickel also has “a number of private contracts” with battery makers elsewhere around the world, according to Greg Miller, a nickel analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a lithium battery research firm.
Norilsk Nickel, also known as Nornickel, is one of the largest nickel producers on Earth. It claims to be the largest producer of so-called class 1 or high-purity nickel, the type coveted by battery manufacturers. Demand for high-purity nickel is predicted to surge as the electric car market grows. While it’s not clear how much of Nornickel’s product currently winds up in car batteries, it’s “definitely a direction” producers like it are looking at in terms of growth, said Allan Ray Restauro , a metals analyst at the clean energy consultancy firm BloombergNEF.
“Any mining companies out there: Please mine more nickel,” Musk said on the call. “Tesla will give you a giant contract, for a long period of time, if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way.”
In response to the accident, Nornickel claims it has taken a number of steps . In June it set out containment booms on the Ambarnaya River, which it says prevented the oil from seeping into Lake Pyasino, and removed 185,000 metric tons of contaminated soil. By mid-June, the company says it had removed 90 percent of the leaked fuel; by the end of October, Nornickel plans to have collected the rest and treated contaminated river shores.
When a diesel storage tank at a Nornickel-owned natural gas power plant ruptured on May 29, a chronic environmental affliction became an acute crisis. The leak, which prompted Russian president Vladimir Putin to declare a federal emergency in early June, has been described as the second-largest oil accident in modern Russian history; Greenpeace has compared it to 1989’s infamous Exxon Valdez spill. In July, Rosprirodnadzor, Russia’s federal environmental watchdog, estimated the spill had caused some $2.1 billion in environmental damage. (Nornickel disputes this figure .)
Members of Aborigen Forum, however, are doubtful of Nornickel’s rosy appraisal of the situation—based both on what they’ve witnessed on the ground and on their long history of dealing with the company. And while Nornickel also launched an “ethnological expert review” to assess the spill’s impact on local indigenous communities and created a new department for indigenous interactions, activists believe these measures are a sham. They say that indigenous voices critical of the company are routinely ignored. Nornickel didn’t respond to a request for comment on these claims.
“I fear that the extent of the problem isn’t truly represented and the spill is much more dangerous than what is being portrayed to us,” said Pavel Sulyandziga, a member of Aborigen Forum who lives in the United States, via a Russian translator. Sulyandziga runs the Batani Foundation, an indigenous rights group. “There will definitely be an impact on the traditional way of life, especially fishing.” Shchukin and others in the indigenous community also fear that reindeer, another traditional food source, could be poisoned or driven away by the contamination.
Independent researchers share these concerns. Writing in the Conversation in July, three Arctic researchers warned of potentially widespread ecological impacts due to the accumulation of toxins in the water and soil — even water and soil that were purportedly cleaned by the company. “Over months and years, these toxins will build up within the food chain, starting with the microscopic organisms and eventually causing health problems in larger organisms such as fish and birds,” the researchers wrote.
After hearing Nornickel claim that it had removed 90 percent of the spilled fuel by June, Elena Sakirko, an energy campaigner with Greenpeace Russia, decided to travel to Norilsk to conduct her own analysis. Her team’s results were inconclusive. Although the soil, water, and sediment samples they collected from Lake Pyasino and the Pyasina river didn’t show high levels of pollution, Sakirko and her colleagues were unable to sample in the locations where they expected to see severe contamination based on satellite data, due in part to police interference. Several months later, Sakirko remains doubtful that Nornickel has done as complete of a cleanup as it says, but admits it’s hard to prove anything without a more rigorous analysis.
“I think an accident of such scale, happening for the first time in this region, we can’t have the full picture of possible consequences without proper research,” Sakirko said.
It’s against this backdrop that, when Aborigen Forum learned that Tesla’s CEO was calling for more environmentally friendly nickel mining, the group decided to hold the billionaire to his word. On August 6, the form released an open letter to Musk asking that his company boycott nickel and other products from Nornickel until the company conducts a “full and independent assessment” of the damage from its past operations and the recent oil spill, compensates indigenous communities for damages, implements an environmental remediation plan for lands it has degraded, and develops guidelines for community engagement that are informed by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Those guidelines should include obtaining “free and informed consent” prior to embarking on projects that will impact indigenous lands, something the Russian government hasn’t exactly made a priority.
The goal of the letter was to “use a public name like Elon Musk as an instrument to attract more attention to the Arctic issue, and to the Arctic pollution and the rights of indigenous peoples,” said Rodion Sulyandziga, a member of the Aborigen Forum and the director of the Center for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North. As one of the world’s top so-called green companies, he said, Tesla can “show and demonstrate a new approach in terms of environmental nature rights and local indigenous peoples’ rights.”
Thea Riofrancos, a political scientist at Providence College in Rhode Island who studies conflicts around the extraction of metals required for green technologies, says that Aborigen Forum was smart to focus its campaign on Musk, both because of Tesla’s market power and because of the perception that sustainability is baked into its DNA.
“Literally EVs are about decarbonizing,” Riofrancos said. “So ‘are they good for the environment,’ ‘are they good for the climate,’ ‘are they good for local communities’ are much more charged and salient questions than [in] industries that don’t have any claim to helping confront the climate crisis.”
Tesla did not respond to Grist’s request to comment for this story. So far, neither the company nor Musk himself has made any public responses to Aborigen Forum’s appeal. But activists aren’t giving up: A week after the letter went live, Aborigen Forum asked the public to help signal boost it by posting supportive messages within their social networks using the hashtags #AnswerUsElonMusk, #NoNickelfromNornickel, and #DefendIndigenousArctic. Berezhkov, the social media campaign director, says that Aborigen Forum is also reaching out to indingeous communities around the world, as well as youth activist groups, to garner additional support.
The group’s efforts are paying off: On September 7, the Saami Council, an NGO representing a group of indigenous people who live in Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden, put out a statement in support of Aborigen Forum’s appeal. Indigenous rights organization Cultural Survival, meanwhile, is currently gathering signatures on its own open letter asking Tesla not to associate with Nornickel, which it delivered to the Palo Alto, California-based company on September 16. More than 70 indigenous, clean energy, climate, and mining justice organizations around the world have already signed on.
Berezhkov is hopeful that Tesla’s long-anticipated Battery Day, slated for Tuesday, September 22, will draw additional media scrutiny to the campaign. For months, industry watchers have speculated that Tesla will announce new details concerning its efforts to produce cobalt-free batteries, part of the company’s response to widespread concern over environmental and human rights abuses documented at cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“We’ve seen shockwaves of scrutiny around cobalt sourcing having massive, sector-wide impacts,” said Benjamin Hitchcock Auciello, a campaign coordinator at environmental nonprofit Earthworks, which signed the Cultural Survival letter. The fact that a grassroots effort to raise awareness of abuses in the nickel sector is now piquing the public’s interest, he said, “really shows that there’s some momentum here.”
If the campaign causes Nornickel to lose out on a massive nickel contract, Auciello believes that will have an impact “not only on their policies, but on the sector more broadly.” It could, perhaps, be the first step toward the development of international standards for what responsibly sourced nickel looks like.
But whether any of that comes to pass is still a big if.
“In the context of whether Tesla or battery manufacturers can sideline Nornickel, I think that’s going to be very difficult still because there’s already a tight market,” said Restauro, the BloombergNEF analyst. And companies producing nickel from laterite ores in the South Pacific are likely to score just as badly if not worse in terms of their impact, Restauro said, because the process of refining these ores into high-grade nickel produces toxic waste tailings that may wind up getting disposed of at sea.
That said, on September 11, Reuters reported that Tesla was in talks with Canadian miner Giga Metals about helping it develop a low-carbon nickel mining operation, suggesting the electric carmaker indeed may be focused on procuring nickel from more environmentally-friendly, and local, sources.
To be clear, Aborigen Forum isn’t asking that Tesla or the larger EV industry boycott Nornickel forever. The group just wants to have a say in how the company conducts business on indigenous lands. Shchukin said that the best result of the campaign would be for Nornickel to organize a “real negotiation” with indigenous peoples that results in greater indigenous participation in environmental monitoring and in Nornickel providing more essential services, like healthcare and education, to local communities.
“Right now, Nornickel has a chance of really building a good model of interaction and work with indigenous communities,” said Sulyandziga of the Batani Foundation. “I’m very skeptical that they will do so, but I still hope for that.”