Environment

Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc. Announces Completion of Exchange Offers Relating to its Preferred Stock

IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: IMH) (the “Company”) today announced the completion of its previously announced offers to each holder of the Company’s 9.375% Series B Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock, par value $0.01 per share (“Series B Preferred Stock”) and each holder of the Company’s 9.125% Series C Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock, par value $0.01 per share (the “Series C Preferred Stock,” and together with the Series B Preferred Stock, the “Preferred Stock”) to exchange all outstanding shares of Preferred Stock for certain stock and warrant consideration (the “Exchange Offers”).

In conjunction with the closing of the Exchange Offers, the Company will issue approximately (A) (i) 6,142,213 shares of Common Stock and (ii) 13,823,340 shares of the Company’s 8.25% Series D Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock, par value $0.01 per share (the “New Preferred Stock”) in exchange for the shares of Series B Preferred Stock tendered in the Exchange Offer for the Series B Preferred Stock, and (B) (i) 1,188,106 shares of Common Stock, (ii) 950,471 shares of New Preferred Stock, and (iii) 1,425,695 Warrants to purchase the same number of shares of Common Stock in exchange for the shares of Series C Preferred Stock tendered in the Exchange Offer for the Series C Preferred Stock.

In addition, in connection with the petitions (the “Plaintiff Series B Award Motions”) for a court award of attorney’s fees, expenses or other monetary award to be deducted and paid from the Company’s payment of distributions or other payments to the holders of the Company’s Series B Preferred Stock in the matter Curtis J. Timm, et al. v Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc. et al. (the “Maryland Action”), the Company will deposit, no later than November 2, 2022, approximately (i) 13,311,840 shares of New Preferred Stock and (ii) 4,437,280 shares of the Company’s Common Stock in the custody of a third party custodian or escrow agent (the “Escrow Shares”). The allocation of the Escrow Shares will be made by instruction from the Circuit Court of Baltimore City upon final disposition of all outstanding matters in the Maryland Action, including the Plaintiff Series B Award Motions.

D.F. King & Co., Inc. served as the Information Agent and Solicitation Agent for the Exchange Offers and the accompanying solicitation of consents from the holders of Preferred Stock, and American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, LLC served as the Exchange Agent.

This announcement is for informational purposes only and shall not constitute an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell the shares of Preferred Stock, an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any shares of the Company’s Common Stock, par value $0.01 per share, warrants to purchase Common Stock, or shares of the Company’s 8.25% Series D Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock, par value $0.01 per share, or a solicitation of the related consents. The Exchange Offers were made only through, and pursuant to the terms and conditions set forth in, the Company’s Schedule TO, Prospectus/Consent Solicitation and related Letters of Transmittal and Consents.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements, some of which are based on various assumptions and events that are beyond our control, may be identified by reference to a future period or periods or by the use of forward-looking terminology, such as “may,” “capable,” “will,” “intends,” “believe,” “expect,” “likely,” “potentially,” “appear,” “should,” “could,” “seem to,” “anticipate,” “expectations,” “plan,” “ensure,” “desire,” or similar terms or variations on those terms or the negative of those terms. The forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations. Actual results may differ materially as a result of several factors, including, but not limited to the following: acceptance of a plan for regaining compliance with the NYSE American’s listed company standards; impact on the U.S. economy and financial markets due to the outbreak and continued effect of the COVID-19 pandemic; our ability to successfully consummate the contemplated exchange offers for our outstanding preferred stock and receive the requisite consents for the proposed amendments to our charter documents to facilitate the redemption from holders of our outstanding preferred stock who do not participate in the exchange offers; any adverse impact or disruption to the Company’s operations; changes in general economic and financial conditions (including federal monetary policy, interest rate changes, and inflation); increase in interest rates, inflation, and margin compression; ability to successfully sell aggregated loans to third-party investors; successful development, marketing, sale and financing of new and existing financial products, including NonQM products; recruit and hire talent to rebuild our TPO NonQM origination team, and increase NonQM originations; volatility in the mortgage industry; performance of third-party sub-servicers; our ability to manage personnel expenses in relation to mortgage production levels; our ability to successfully use warehousing capacity and satisfy financial covenants; our ability to maintain compliance with the continued listing requirements of the NYSE American for our common stock; increased competition in the mortgage lending industry by larger or more efficient companies; issues and system risks related to our technology; ability to successfully create cost and product efficiencies through new technology including cyber risk and data security risk; more than expected increases in default rates or loss severities and mortgage related losses; ability to obtain additional financing through lending and repurchase facilities, debt or equity funding, strategic relationships or otherwise; the terms of any financing, whether debt or equity, that we do obtain and our expected use of proceeds from any financing; increase in loan repurchase requests and ability to adequately settle repurchase obligations; failure to create brand awareness; the outcome of any claims we are subject to, including any settlements of litigation or regulatory actions pending against us or other legal contingencies; and compliance with applicable local, state and federal laws and regulations.

For a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see our latest Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q we file with the SEC and in particular the discussion of “Risk Factors” therein. This document speaks only as of its date and we do not undertake, and expressly disclaim any obligation, to release publicly the results of any revisions that may be made to any forward-looking statements to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances after the date of such statements except as required by law.

About the Company

Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc. (IMH or Impac) provides innovative mortgage lending and real estate solutions that address the challenges of today’s economic environment. Impac’s operations include mortgage lending, servicing, portfolio loss mitigation, real estate services, and the management of the securitized long-term mortgage portfolio, which includes the residual interests in securitizations.

For additional information, questions or comments, please call Justin Moisio, Chief Administrative Officer at (949) 475-3988 or email Justin.Moisio@ImpacMail.com.

Website: http://ir.impaccompanies.com or www.impaccompanies.com

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Do we really care more about Van Gogh’s sunflowers than real ones? | George Monbiot

What does it take? How far must we go to alert other people to the scale of the crisis we face? Only one answer is clear: further than we have yet gone. We are hurtling towards planetary tipping points: the critical thresholds beyond which Earth systems collapse. The consequences are unimaginable. None of the horrors humanity has suffered, great as they are, even hints at the scale of what we now face.

Everywhere I see claims that the “extreme” tactics of environmental campaigners will prompt people to “stop listening”. But how could we listen any less to the warnings of scientists and campaigners and eminent committees? How could we pay any less attention to polite objections by “respectable” protesters to the destruction of the habitable planet? Something must shake us out of our stupor.

The response by the media and government to the two Just Stop Oil activists who threw soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery in London speaks volumes. Decorating the glass protecting the painting with tomato soup (the painting itself was, as the protesters calculated, undamaged) appears to horrify some people more than the collapse of our planet, which these campaigners are seeking to prevent.

Activists throw tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at National Gallery – video

Writing for the Mail on Sunday, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, claimed: “There is widespread agreement that we need to protect our environment, but democracies reach decisions in a civilised manner.” Oh yes? So what are the democratic means of contesting the government’s decision to award more than 100 new licences to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea? Who gave the energy secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a democratic mandate to break the government’s legal commitments under the Climate Change Act by instructing his officials to extract “every cubic inch of gas”?

Who voted for the investment zones that the prime minister, Liz Truss, has decreed, which will rip down planning laws and trash protected landscapes? Or any of the major policies she has sought to impose on us, after being elected by 81,000 Conservative members – 0.12% of the UK population? By what means is the “widespread agreement” about the need for environmental protection translated into action? What is “civilised” about placing the profits of fossil fuel companies above the survival of life on Earth?

Suella Braverman blames ‘Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati’ for disruptive protests – video

In 2018, Theresa May’s government oversaw the erection of a statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, which holds a banner saying “Courage calls to courage everywhere”, because a century is a safe distance from which to celebrate radical action. Since then, the Conservatives have introduced viciously repressive laws to stifle the voice of courage. Between the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act that the former home secretary Priti Patel rushed through parliament, and the public order bill over which Cruella Braverman presides, the government is carefully criminalising every effective means of protest in England and Wales, leaving us with nothing but authorised processions conducted in near silence and letters to our MPs, which are universally ignored by both media and legislators.

The public order bill is the kind of legislation you might expect to see in Russia, Iran or Egypt. Illegal protest is defined by the bill as acts causing “serious disruption to two or more individuals, or to an organisation”. Given that the Police Act redefined “serious disruption” to include noise, this means, in effect, all meaningful protest.

For locking or glueing yourself to another protester, or to the railings or any other object, you can be sentenced to 51 weeks in prison – in other words, twice the maximum sentence for common assault. Sitting in the road, or obstructing fracking machinery, pipelines and other oil and gas infrastructure, airports or printing presses (Rupert says thanks) can get you a year. For digging a tunnel as part of a protest, you can be sent down for three years.

Even more sinister are the “serious disruption prevention orders” in the bill. Anyone who has taken part in a protest in England or Wales in the previous five years, whether or not they have been convicted of an offence, can be served with a two-year order forbidding them from attending further protests. Like prisoners on probation, they may be required to report to “a particular person at a particular place at … particular times on particular days”, “to remain at a particular place for particular periods” and to submit to wearing an electronic tag. They may not associate “with particular persons”, enter “particular areas” or use the internet to encourage other people to protest. If you break these terms, you face up to 51 weeks in prison. So much for “civilised” and “democratic”.

Who are the criminals here? Those seeking to prevent the vandalism of the living planet, or those facilitating it?

Whenever I visit the National Gallery, I can’t help but wonder how many of the places in its treasured landscape paintings have been destroyed by development or agriculture. Such destruction, which Truss, Braverman and the rest of the government now plan to accelerate, even in our national parks, is commonly justified as “the price of progress”. But if someone were to burn or slash the paintings themselves, it would be an abhorrent act of brutality. How do we explain these double standards? Why is life less valuable than the depiction of life?

Sometimes the tension is explicit. John Constable’s idylls of rural peace were painted at a time of tremendous conflict and destruction, as communities and landscapes were torn apart by landlords’ enclosures. He bemoaned not the erasure of the “changeless” places he painted, but the reaction to it, lamenting the riots and rick burning that ensured there was “never a night without seeing fires near, or at a distance”. Constable’s response to the destruction, in his later years, was to paint remembered landscapes: those, in other words, that had already been obliterated. Like the current government, he celebrated past glories while attacking measures, such as the Reform Act, to improve life in the present.

In raising these issues, I don’t seek to deny the value of art or the necessity of protecting it. On the contrary“: I want the same crucial protections extended to planet Earth, without which there is no art, no culture and no life. Yet while cultural philistinism is abhorred, ecological philistinism is defended with a forcefield of oppressive law.

The soup-throwing and similar outrageous-but-harmless actions generate such fury because they force us not to stop listening, but to start. Why, we can’t help asking ourselves, would young people jeopardise their freedom and their future prospects in this way. The answer, we can’t help hearing, is that they seek to avert a much greater threat to both.

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Tricon Announces Normal Course Issuer Bid

TORONTO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Tricon Residential Inc. (“Tricon” or the “Company”) (NYSE: TCN, TSX: TCN), an owner and operator of single-family rental homes and multi-family rental apartments in the United States and Canada, announced today that the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”) has approved its notice of intention to make a normal course issuer bid (the “Bid”) for a portion of its common shares (“Common Shares”) trading on the TSX, the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”) and/or alternative Canadian trading systems, as appropriate opportunities arise from time to time. The Bid will be made in accordance with the requirements of the TSX and applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws. Tricon is adopting an automatic securities repurchase plan in connection with its Bid that contains strict parameters regarding how its Common Shares may be repurchased during times when it would ordinarily not be permitted to purchase Common Shares due to regulatory restrictions or self-imposed blackout periods. Tricon may begin to purchase Common Shares on October 18, 2022.

As of October 7, 2022, there were 273,760,820 Common Shares issued and outstanding, and Tricon’s public float was 265,591,538 Common Shares. Pursuant to the Bid, Tricon intends to acquire up to 2,500,000 Common Shares, being approximately 0.94% of the public float of Common Shares, in the 12-month period commencing October 18, 2022 and ending on October 17, 2023. Purchases under the Bid will be funded through available cash and made by Tricon through the facilities of the TSX, the NYSE and/or alternative Canadian trading systems, in accordance with the TSX’s applicable policies and applicable regulatory requirements, including Rule 10b-18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The price that Tricon will pay for any Common Shares will be the market price of such Common Shares at the time of acquisition. Under the Bid, Tricon may purchase up to 160,449 Common Shares on the TSX during any trading day, which is 25% of 641,796 (the average daily trading volume for Tricon’s Common Shares on the TSX for the six months ended September 30, 2022). This limitation does not apply to purchases made pursuant to block purchase exemptions. Rule 10b-18 contains similar volume-based restrictions on daily purchases on the NYSE, subject to certain exceptions for block repurchases. Common Shares that are purchased under the Bid will be cancelled upon their purchase by Tricon.

Tricon believes that the repurchase of a portion of outstanding Common Shares is an appropriate use of available resources and is in the Company’s best interests. “Our primary capital allocation priorities of debt repayment and positioning our balance sheet for future growth remain unchanged,” said Gary Berman, Tricon’s President and CEO, “but we believe that buying back some of our shares is a worthwhile use of cash in the current share price environment.”

About Tricon Residential Inc.

Tricon Residential Inc. is an owner and operator of a growing portfolio of approximately 41,000 single-family rental homes and multi-family rental apartments in the United States and Canada with a primary focus on the U.S. Sun Belt. Our commitment to enriching the lives of our residents and local communities underpins Tricon’s culture and business philosophy. We strive to continuously improve the resident experience through our technology-enabled operating platform and innovative approach to rental housing. At Tricon Residential, we imagine a world where housing unlocks life’s potential. For more information, visit www.triconresidential.com.

Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by such terms such as “may”, “might”, “will”, “could”, “should”, “would”, “occur”, “expect”, “plan”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “intend”, “estimate”, “predict”, “potential”, “continue”, “likely”, “schedule”, or the negative thereof or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Some of the specific forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the number of Common Shares to be acquired under the Bid and other related matters. Tricon has based these forward-looking statements on factors and assumptions about future events and financial trends that it believes may affect its financial condition, financial performance, business strategy and financial needs. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon assumptions that management of Tricon believe are reasonable based on information currently available to management, there can be no assurance that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Tricon’s control, including, among other things, the risks identified in materials filed under Tricon’s profile at www.sedar.com from time to time. The forward-looking statements made in this news release relate only to events or information as of the date hereof. Except as required by applicable Canadian law, Tricon undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

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Less Turnover, Smaller Raises: Hot Job Market May Be Losing Its Sizzle

Last year, Klaussner Home Furnishings was so desperate for workers that it began renting billboards near its headquarters in Asheboro, N.C., to advertise job openings. The steep competition for labor drove wages for employees on the furniture maker’s production floor up 12 to 20 percent. The company began offering $1,000 signing bonuses to sweeten the deal.

“Consumer demand was through the roof,” said David Cybulski, Klaussner’s president and chief executive. “We just couldn’t get enough labor fast enough.”

But in recent months, Mr. Cybulski has noticed that frenzy die down.

Hiring for open positions has gotten easier, he said, and fewer Klaussner workers are leaving for other jobs. The company, which has about 1,100 employees, is testing performance rewards to keep workers happy rather than racing to increase wages. The $1,000 signing bonus ended in the spring.

“No one is really chasing employees to the dollar anymore,” he said.

By many measures, the labor market is still extraordinarily strong even as fears of a recession loom. The unemployment rate, which stood at 3.7 percent in August, remains near a five-decade low. There are twice as many job openings as unemployed workers available to fill them. Layoffs, despite some high-profile announcements in recent weeks, are close to a record low.

Walmart and Amazon have announced slowdowns in hiring; others, such as FedEx, have frozen hiring altogether. Americans in July quit their jobs at the lowest rate in more than a year, a sign that the period of rapid job switching, sometimes called the Great Resignation, may be nearing its end. Wage growth, which soared as companies competed for workers, has also slowed, particularly in industries like dining and travel where the job market was particularly hot last year.

More broadly, many companies around the country say they are finding it less arduous to attract and retain employees — partly because many are paring their hiring plans, and partly because the pool of available workers has grown as more people come off the economy’s sidelines. The labor force grew by more than three-quarters of a million people in August, the biggest gain since the early months of the pandemic. Some executives expect hiring to keep getting easier as the economy slows and layoffs pick up.

“Not that I wish ill on any people out there from a layoff perspective or whatever else, but I think there could be an opportunity for us to ramp some of that hiring over the coming months,” Eric Hart, then the chief financial officer at Expedia, told investors on the company’s earnings call in August.

Taken together, those signals point to an economic environment in which employers may be regaining some of the leverage they ceded to workers during the pandemic months. That is bad news for workers, particularly those at the bottom of the pay ladder who have been able to take advantage of the hot labor market to demand higher pay, more flexible schedules and other benefits. With inflation still high, weaker wage growth will mean that more workers will find their standard of living slipping.

But for employers — and for policymakers at the Federal Reserve — the calculation looks different. A modest cooling would be welcome after months in which employers struggled to find enough staff to meet strong demand, and in which rapid wage growth contributed to the fastest inflation in decades. Too pronounced a slowdown, however, could lead to a sharp rise in unemployment, which would almost certainly lead to a drop in consumer demand and create a new set of problems for employers.

Recent research from economists at the Federal Reserve Banks of Dallas and St. Louis found that there had been a huge increase in poaching — companies hiring workers away from other jobs — during the recent hiring boom. If companies become less willing to recruit workers from competitors, and to pay the premium that doing so requires, or if workers become less likely to hop between jobs, that could lead wage growth to ease even if layoffs don’t pick up.

There are hints that could be happening. A recent survey from another career site, ZipRecruiter, found that workers have become less confident in their ability to find a job and are putting more emphasis on finding a job they consider secure.

“Workers and job seekers are feeling just a little bit less bold, a little bit more concerned about the future availability of jobs, a little bit more concerned about the stability of their own jobs,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter.

Some businesses, meanwhile, are becoming a bit less frantic to hire. A survey of small businesses from the National Federation of Independent Business found that while many employers still have open positions, fewer of them expect to fill those jobs in the next three months.

More clues about the strength of the labor market could come in the upcoming months, the time of year when companies, including retailers, traditionally ramp up hiring for the holiday season. Walmart said in September that this year it would hire a fraction of the workers it did during the last holiday season.

The signs of a cool-down extend even to leisure and hospitality, the sector where hiring challenges have been most acute. Openings in the sector have fallen sharply from the record levels of last year, and hourly earnings growth slowed to less than 9 percent in August from a rate of more than 16 percent last year.

The pollutants caused by massive generators add to the many environmental woes of the Middle East.

They literally run the country. In parking lots, on flatbed trucks, hospital courtyards and rooftops, private generators are ubiquitous in parts of the Middle East, spewing hazardous fumes into homes and businesses 24 hours a day.

As the world looks for renewable energy to tackle climate change, millions of people around the region depend almost completely on diesel-powered private generators to keep the lights on because war or mismanagement have gutted electricity infrastructure.

Experts call it national suicide from an environmental and health perspective.

“Air pollution from diesel generators contains more than 40 toxic air contaminants, including many known or suspected cancer-causing substances,” said Samy Kayed, managing director and co-founder of the Environment Academy at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

Greater exposure to these pollutants likely increases respiratory illnesses and cardiovascular disease, he said. It also causes acid rain that harms plant growth and increases eutrophication — the excess build-up of nutrients in water that ultimately kills aquatic plants.

Since they usually use diesel, generators also produce far more climate change-inducing emissions than, for example, a natural gas power plant does, he said.

The pollutants caused by massive generators add to the many environmental woes of the Middle East, which is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the impact of climate change. The region already has high temperatures and limited water resources even without the growing impact of global warming.

The reliance on generators results from state failure. In Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, governments can’t maintain a functioning central power network, whether because of war, conflict or mismanagement and corruption.

Lebanon, for example, has not built a new power plant in decades. Multiple plans for new ones have run aground on politicians’ factionalism and conflicting patronage interests. The country’s few aging, heavy-fuel oil plants long ago became unable to meet demand.

Iraq, meanwhile, sits on some of the world’s biggest oil reserves. Yet scorching summer-time heat is always accompanied by the roar of neighborhood generators, as residents blast ACs around the clock to keep cool.

Repeated wars over the decades have wrecked Iraq’s electricity networks. Corruption has siphoned away billions of dollars meant to repair and upgrade it. Some 17 billion cubic meters of gas from Iraq’s wells are burned every year as waste, because it hasn’t built the infrastructure to capture it and convert it to electricity to power Iraqi homes.

In Libya, a country prized for its light and sweet crude oil, electricity networks have buckled under years of civil war and the lack of a central government.

“The power cuts last the greater part of the day, when electricity is mostly needed,” said Muataz Shobaik, the owner of a butcher shop in the city of Benghazi, in Libya’s east, who uses a noisy generator to keep his coolers running.

“Every business has to have a backup off-grid solution now,” he said. Diesel fumes from his and neighboring shops’ machines hung thick in the air amid the oppressive heat.

The Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people rely on around 700 neighborhood generators across the territory for their homes. Thousands of private generators keep businesses, government institutions, universities and health centers running. Running on diesel, they churn black smoke in the air, tarring walls around them.

Since Israel bombed the only power plant in the Hamas-ruled territory in 2014, the station has never reached full capacity. Gaza only gets about half the power it needs from the plant and directly from Israel. Cutoffs can last up to 16 hours a day.

WAY OF LIFE

Perhaps nowhere do generators rule people’s lives as much as in Lebanon, where the system is so entrenched and institutionalized that private generator owners have their own business association.

They are crammed into tight streets, parking lots, on roofs and balconies and in garages. Some are as large as storage containers, others small and blaring noise.

Lebanon’s 5 million people have long depended on them. The word “moteur,” French for generator, is one of the most often spoken words among Lebanese.

Reliance has only increased since Lebanon’s economy unraveled in late 2019 and central power cutoffs began lasting longer. At the same time, generator owners have had to ration use because of soaring diesel prices and high temperatures, turning them off several times a day for breaks.

So residents plan their lives around the gaps in electricity.

Those who can’t start the day without coffee set an alarm to make a cup before the generator turns off. The frail or elderly in apartment towers wait for the generator to switch on before leaving home so they don’t have to climb stairs. Hospitals must keep generators humming so life-saving machines can operate without disruption.

“We understand people’s frustration, but if it wasn’t for us, people would be living in darkness,” said Ihab, the Egyptian operator of a generator station north of Beirut.

“They say we are more powerful than the state, but it is the absence of the state that led us to exist,” he said, giving only his first name to avoid trouble with the authorities.

Siham Hanna, a 58-year-old translator in Beirut, said generator fumes exacerbate her elderly father’s lung condition. She wipes soot off her balcony and other surfaces several times a day.

“It’s the 21st century, but we live like in the stone ages. Who lives like this?” said Hanna, who does not recall her country ever having stable electricity in her life.

Some in Lebanon and elsewhere have begun to install solar power systems in their homes. But most use it only to fill in when the generator is off. Cost and space issues in urban areas have also limited solar use.

In Iraq, the typical middle-income household uses generator power for 10 hours a day on average and pays $240 per Megawatt/hour, among the highest rates in the region, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.

The need for generators has become ingrained in people’s minds. At a recent concert in the capital, famed singer Umm Ali al-Malla made sure to thank not only the audience but also the venue’s technical director “for keeping the generator going” while her admirers danced.

TOXIC CONTAMINANTS

As opposed to power plants outside urban areas, generators are in the heart of neighborhoods, pumping toxins directly to residents.

This is catastrophic, said Najat Saliba, a chemist at the American University of Beirut who recently won a seat in Parliament.

“This is extremely taxing on the environment, especially the amount of black carbon and particles that they emit,” she said. There are almost no regulations and no filtering of particles, she added.

Researchers at AUB found that the level of toxic emissions may have quadrupled since Lebanon’s financial crisis began because of increased reliance on generators.

In Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, miles of wires crisscross streets connecting thousands of private generators. Each produces 600 kilograms of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases per 8 hours working time, according to Mohammed al Hazem, an environmental activist.

Similarly, a 2020 study on the environmental impact of using large generators in the University of Technology in Baghdad found very high concentrations of pollutants exceeding limits set by the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization.

That was particularly because Iraqi diesel fuel has a high sulphur content — “one of the worst in the world,” the study said. The emissions include “sulphate, nitrate materials, atoms of soot carbon, ash” and pollutants that are considered carcinogens, it warned.

“The pollutants emitted from these generators exert a remarkable impact on the overall health of students and university staff, it said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Your Business & Political News

Environment

Impac Mortgage Holdings, Inc. Announces Completion of Exchange Offers Relating to its Preferred Stock

Do we really care more about Van Gogh’s sunflowers than real ones? | George Monbiot

Tricon Announces Normal Course Issuer Bid

Less Turnover, Smaller Raises: Hot Job Market May Be Losing Its Sizzle

The State of Jobs in the United States

Economists have been surprised by recent strength in the labor market, as the Federal Reserve tries to engineer a slowdown and tame inflation.