Hi,
Ok, isn’t it bad enough that our governments give oil and gas industries billions in subsidies, as if they are homeless and hungry? And to note that they produce a product without full cost responsibilities, though accountability for such lifespan or Scope 3 liabilities is gaining traction everyday. These companies mine an ancient substance from Earth, do lots of ingenious things to it, sell it for as much profit as possible without causing a rebellion, and then almost totally walk away from the messes they leave behind in downstream CO2 pollution, abandoned wells and pits, disgusting tailing ponds, huge deforestation, even decapitation of mountains; all of this leading to one of the greatest existential threats ever to humanity. They leave future ramifications to the government and general population, current and future, with all their concomitant suffering. It’s really not fair that they get away with it all and amass huge fortunes, while taking us all to the cleaners and the grim reaper.
Each one of us has great power, the power to make changes in our own lives. We have resilience and can mount resistance. Others and situations can influence our decisions, but at the end of the day, any decision we make is our own. For sure there are many more influences, including genetics and a variety of social determinants. But we make our decisions for good or for bad.
Just as it’s important to fight infections at their source, the battle against wonton continued pollution of our atmosphere and destruction of biodiversity must also go right to the source. We all know what it is. Why then is it still calling many of the shots? Hopefully their actions will be seen as criminal as a growing number of court cases against them claim.
That will take a long time, time which is slipping away, time which we really don’t have. Just witness what has greeted the new year of those in California and Western Australia (as below). 2023 isn’t waiting around; it’s sprinting right off the starter block. We can do something about it. Agency and power is in each one of us. The only way forward to stop and reduce the growing disaster(ssss) is doing whatever we, each and every one of us, can. No matter the size of the impact it all counts.
All the while thinking of what you can do, read on in today’s Planetary Health Weekly (#2 of ’23) of what’s happening around the world and in our own backyards:
- CLIMATE CRISIS & BIODIVERSITY UPDATES:
- COP15 Biodiversity Summit: paving the road to extinction with good intentions,
- El Niño is coming – and the world isn’t prepared,
- UK’s record hot 2022 made 160 times more likely by climate crisis,
- Satellites detect no real climate benefit from 10 years of forest carbon offsets in California,
- Flooding strands communities – hits Western Australia supermarket shelves,
- More back-to-back storms are on the way for California, where a parade of atmospheric rivers have already left at least 18 dead,
- CORONAVIRUS UPDATES:
- Omicron variant XBB.1.5 is the most contagious yet,
- China is likely seeing 1 million Covid cases, 5000 deaths a day,
- China reopens its border for the first time since 2020,
- Is ‘Long Covid’ similar to ‘Long SARS’?
- Why are so many people dying? Reaping the anti-vaxx whirlwind,
- Pandemic worsens resistance to antibiotics in India,
- Why in Ontario and in Canada, 2022 became Covid’s deadliest year?
- ‘Big uptick’ in Ottawa’s Coronavirus wastewater levels in recent days,
- Covid-19 today in the USA, THEN
- Milner on Biodiversity (Blog #10) ‘The UN Biodiversity Treaty’,
- How a ‘totally insane’ warm spell is upending winter around the world and How a wildly warm winter is rippling through Europe and the U.S.,
- Ten years on from fatal gang rape, India’s women are haunted by a sexual violence epidemic,
- Researchers announce breakthrough in brain cancer vaccine trial,
- This start-up has just won 1 million pounds for its seaweed-based plastic alternative,
- Circular economy: human hair recycled to clean waterways in Belgium,
- Fossils should pay trillions to store carbon through 2050, ex-industry execs say,
- EU to impose world-first ‘carbon tariff’ on environmentally damaging imports,
- EU agrees new law to kick deforestation out of supply chains,
- Australia to hold referendum on Indigenous ‘voice’ in 2023,
- Quote on risky child's play,
- Women Plus Water 2023 lecture series,
- Civil society inclusion in a new financial intermediary fund: lessons from current multilateral initiatives,
- The polar vortex – facts and information,
- Mapped: the world’s countries compared by 20 key metrics,
- New book: "A Poison Like No Other - How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies" by Matt Simon,
- State of the World’s Midwifery 2022 – East and Southern Africa Region, and lastly
- ENDSHOTS of 'A Sunny Afternoon Winter Walk'.
Do keep reading. Best, david
David Zakus, Editor and Publisher
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SUNRISE OVER WHITEFISH LAKE |
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IN COMPLETE SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINE SEEKING PEACE AND VICTORY |
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Professor N. Kozlov (1814-1894). The first lecture on anatomy in the medical faculty of Kiev University in 1841. Artist: N. Marchenko in "The Way (Ukrainian) Artists See It" by A. Grando (1994) |
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AND WITH THE BRAVE PROTESTERS IN IRAN |
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CLIMATE & BIODIVERSITY CRISES UPDATES |
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Twitter: January 10, 2023 |
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The head table gets set to open the high level segment at the COP15 biodiversity conference, in Montreal, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. Credit: Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP
The good news: Every country on Earth except the United States and the Holy See just committed to 23 targets intended to put the world on a path toward living in harmony with nature by 2050.
The bad news: The tepid agreement is two years late and $670 billion short of what’s needed.
Capping a series of contentious digital and in-person negotiations for more than two years, the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) just adopted the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework.
I was in Montreal observing COP15, in a room with hundreds of people and a word-processing document projected onto a screen, every word of which had to be agreed upon by all parties, who took turns suggesting edits.
Some delegates pushed for the bold actions necessary to save life on Earth, like committing to immediately halt extinction and preserve ecosystems. Others defended deforestation and wildlife exploitation. One delegate went so far as to say that it would be cruel to developing nations to protect intact ecosystems.
Given the vastly divergent positions, it’s a win for the natural world that the conference president was able to muscle through any agreement. But the devil is in the details, and the details here aren’t enough to get us out of the mess we’ve created.
COP15’s global commitment to protect 30 percent of lands and waters is a pivotal breakthrough, but there’s no agreement on what qualifies as protected. And given the climate and extinction crises, scientists say we need to protect at least half the Earth to ensure a livable future for wildlife and human communities. The clock is ticking.
One bright spot in the framework is the centering of Indigenous rights — a rebuke to colonialism’s reprehensible legacy. For the first time, the new targets on land protection and use of wildlife include recognizing and respecting the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
But in a clear signal that we’re still not taking threats to our own survival seriously enough, COP15 backtracked on the commitment to end extinction. The previous framework, the 2010 Aichi targets, called for preventing extinction of known threatened species by 2020. Like most other 2010 targets, this one was not achieved, and that failure hung over Montreal.
Instead of doubling down and creating a better game plan, delegates lowered the goalposts and kicked the can down the road.
Read more at: The Hill
SEE ALSO:
At Wired: El Niño Is Coming—and the World Isn't Prepared
In 2023, the relentless increase in global heating will continue, bringing ever more disruptive weather that is the signature calling card of accelerating climate breakdown.
According to NASA, 2022 was one of the hottest years ever recorded on Earth. This is extraordinary, because the recurrent climate pattern across the tropical Pacific—known as ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation)—was in its cool phase. During this phase, called La Niña, the waters of the equatorial Pacific are noticeably cooler than normal, which influences weather patterns around the world.
One consequence of La Niña is that it helps keep a lid on global temperatures. This means that—despite the recent widespread heat waves, wildfires and droughts—we have actually been spared the worst. The scary thing is that this La Niña will end and eventually transition into the better-known El Niño, which sees the waters of the equatorial Pacific becoming much warmer. When it does, the extreme weather that has rampaged across our planet in 2021 and 2022 will pale into insignificance.
Current forecasts suggest that La Niña will continue into early 2023, making it—fortuitously for us—one of the longest on record (it began in Spring 2020). Then, the equatorial Pacific will begin to warm again. Whether or not it becomes hot enough for a fully fledged El Niño to develop, 2023 has a very good chance—without the cooling influence of La Niña—of being the hottest year on record.
A global average temperature rise of 1.5°C is widely regarded as marking a guardrail beyond which climate breakdown becomes dangerous. Above this figure, our once-stable climate will begin to collapse in earnest, becoming all-pervasive, affecting everyone, and insinuating itself into every aspect of our lives. In 2021, the figure (compared to the 1850–1900 average) was 1.2°C, while in 2019—before the development of the latest La Niña—it was a worryingly high 1.36°C. As the heat builds again in 2023, it is perfectly possible that we will touch or even exceed 1.5°C for the first time.
But what will this mean exactly?
At The Guardian: UK’s record hot 2022 made 160 times more likely by climate crisis
The record-breaking heat in the UK in 2022 was made 160 times more likely by the climate crisis, indicating the dominant influence of human-caused global heating on Britain.
Last year has been confirmed as the UK’s hottest on record, with the average annual temperature passing the 10C mark for the first time. Scientists at the Met Office calculated that such heat is now expected every three to four years. Without the greenhouse gases emitted by humanity, such a warm year would be expected only once every five centuries.
The 10.03C recorded in 2022 beat the previous record of 9.88C set in 2014, and is 0.89C above the average of the last three decades. All the UK nations set new record annual temperatures.
The world’s longest instrumental record of temperature is the 364-year-long Central England Temperature and this also set a new high in 2022 of 11.1C.
Scientists were shocked in July when the daily temperature record passed 40C for the first time, obliterating the previous high of 38.7C. The hot summer led to thousands of early deaths. A cold spell in December made little difference to the overall average annual temperature.
At The Conversation: Satellites detect no real climate benefit from 10 years of forest carbon offsets in California
Many of the companies promising “net-zero” emissions to protect the climate are relying on vast swaths of forests and what are known as carbon offsets to meet that goal.
On paper, carbon offsets appear to balance out a company’s carbon emissions: The company pays to protect trees, which absorb carbon dioxide from the air. The company can then claim the absorbed carbon dioxide as an offset that reduces its net impact on the climate.
However, our new satellite analysis reveals what researchers have suspected for years: Forest offsets might not actually be doing much for the climate.
When we looked at satellite tracking of carbon levels and logging activity in California forests, we found that carbon isn’t increasing in the state’s 37 offset project sites any more than in other areas, and timber companies aren’t logging less than they did before.
The findings send a pretty grim message about efforts to control climate change, and they add to a growing list of concerns about forest offsets. Studies have already shown that projects are often overcredited at the beginning and might not last as long as expected. In this case we’re finding a bigger issue: a lack of real climate benefit over the 10 years of the program so far.
But we also see ways to fix the problem.
At The Energy Mix: Flooding Strands Communities, Hits Western Australia Supermarket Shelves
As “once in a century” flooding in northwestern Australia overruns roads—straining food supply chains and isolating communities—experts and industry groups say the country’s freight transport networks must be made more climate resilient.
At CNN: More back-to-back storms are on the way for California, where a parade of atmospheric rivers have already left at least 18 dead
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SARS-CoV-2 & COVID-19 UPDATES |
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The pandemic continues. However, information about Covid-19's presence in our communities and outcomes is increasingly hard to find, and many erroneously feel it's over. It is not. Covid is still a life threatening disease associated with many complications and it's still infecting and killing many. Collective action, data reporting and leadership have all but disappeared.
Over the last week, reported cases are up by about 10% to 350,000/day; deaths are up sharply by over 50% to about 2300/day; and vaccinations are way up from 1.4 to 6 million/day.
Vaccination, despite ongoing concerns about waning immunity and much misinformation, along with other proven public health measures, remain the best ways to keep yourself and others safe from serious consequences. Get all the shots/boosters you can (see chart below), and practise other public health measures (like masking) especially indoors with crowds.
See below too for a few global stats and current hotspots:
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"It is the plague in seemingly all sincerity." Bob Woodward |
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Credit: Shutterstock.
A highly contagious subvariant of Omicron called XBB.1.5 is now the dominant strain spreading in the United States. Early data suggests it’s more evasive than other variants, efficiently dodging previously acquired immunity and raising concerns among public health officials about a possible winter wave.
In December alone, XBB.1.5 grew from causing fewer than 1 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases nationwide to more than 40 percent, rapidly out-competing other variants. In northeastern states it caused more than 75 percent of all cases for the week beginning December 25, although there is no data yet to indicate whether it causes more severe disease.
“It is the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for COVID-19 response at the World Health Organization, during a news conference. Scientists estimate that someone infected with XBB.1.5 can cause 60 percent more infections than a person infected with its parent strains.
XBB.1.5 was first detected in New York and Connecticut in late October but has since been detected in at least 29 other countries. While it accounts for less than 5 percent of current cases worldwide, it seems to be doubling within eight to 15 days, making it the fastest-spreading SARS-CoV-2 variant to date. In fact, XBB.1.5 might be far more widespread, according to Kerkhove, since it’s difficult to tell as genomic sequencing efforts for monitoring the SARS-CoV-2 have declined around the world.
XBB.1.5 descended from variant XBB.1, which arose from XBB—the fusion of two Omicron BA.2 variants. Its grandparental strain, XBB, and its parental strain XBB.1—responsible for a surge of COVID-19 cases in parts of Asia in October and November 2022—were able to evade immunity conferred by previous infections and the bivalent boosters that were specifically designed to block Omicron variants, according to a report published in Nature in December. In Singapore, XBB subvariants caused a large number of breakthrough infections and reinfections, although hospitalization rates remained low.
It’s too early to know how the current bivalent booster—which targets previous Omicron strains BA.4 and BA.5, as well as the original coronavirus would protect against XBB.1.5. However, recent research on the parental strains of XBB.1.5 led by Mehul Suthar, an immunologist at Emory University School of Medicine, shows that people who got the bivalent booster, as well as those who were recently infected with an Omicron variant, had slightly higher levels of protective antibodies.
"Bivalent boosters seem to be working the way they are supposed to," says Suthar, by shifting our immunity towards Omicron variants. He speculates that the bivalent booster would provide some protection against XBB.1.5, based on its similarity to other Omicron variants. But his research also suggests that even the bivalent booster may not block XBB.1.5 breakthrough infections.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that bivalent boosters reduced COVID-19 hospitalizations by more than 90 percent through November, which is the latest data available. This means even if the boosters may not prevent infections, they may still save lives.
Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have risen by 17 percent in the last week, according to the latest CDC data, leading scientists to worry that even without causing more serious disease, a highly contagious XBB. People ages 65 and older are the most vulnerable to the complications due to COVID-19. Yet, just slightly more than a third of these Americans have received the bivalent booster, leaving them vulnerable to XBB.1.5. When it comes to the U.S. population, nearly 85% of those eligible have not received the bivalent shot.
Read more at National Geographic
SEE ALSO:
At Bloomberg: China Is Likely Seeing 1 Million Covid Cases, 5,000 Deaths a Day
China is likely experiencing 1 million Covid infections and 5,000 virus deaths every day as it grapples with what is expected to be the biggest outbreak the world has ever seen, according to a new analysis.
The situation could get even worse for the country of 1.4 billion people. This current wave may see the daily case rate rise to 3.7 million in January, according to Airfinity Ltd., a London-based research firm that focuses on predictive health analytics and has been tracking the pandemic since it first emerged.
At DW: China reopens its border for the first time since 2020
China is bracing for an uptick in travel as people enter the mainland from Hong Kong for the first time in years. China's easing of travel restrictions come as communities celebrate the Lunar New Year festival.
At Oxford Academic Press: Is ‘Long Covid’ similar to ‘Long SARS’? BACKGROUND
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
In 2002–03, a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus caused a pandemic. It was described as a novel virus, meaning that it seemed to be unrelated to other viruses directly. Worldwide there were approximately 8000 cases and over 800 deaths. Toronto (Ontario, Canada) had the largest outbreak outside of Asia, with 251 cases and 41 deaths, with health care workers making up 43% of the cases.
Covid
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded about 500 million Covid-19 cases and 6 million deaths globally, up to mid-April 2022 [2]. How many people have suffered from Long Covid [also called post acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC)]? We have both too much evidence and insufficient evidence. There are many, many articles published. There is incomplete agreement as to criteria for inclusion, symptoms, severity of symptoms and length of time symptoms have persisted. There is the question of what proof of Covid is required (is a self-reported test adequate?) and whether the study setting is in the community or whether it is post hospitalization. In the UK, the official register provides a prevalence of ongoing post-Covid symptoms at about 8% of cases (1.8 million people [3] post 22.3 million cases [4]). A recent Lancet preprint [5] (i.e. preliminary, not yet accepted for publication and without peer review) systematic review and meta-analysis including 196 studies and 120,970 participants showed that long COVID may affect more than half of the patients, after a median of 6 months from the diagnosis. It is expected that with time, the exact numbers will become more clear. However, it is now already clear that the numbers are very significant. To deal with those staggering numbers of people with ongoing Long Covid symptoms, innumerable rehabilitation programs have sprung up. However, since Long Covid is new, there is no knowledge as to what:
- Makes a good rehab program for this population;
- What is cost-effective;
- What services are needed and helpful;
- What are the short-term and long-term outcomes with and without rehabilitation?
These questions cannot yet be answered. However, if as seems likely, Long Covid is similar to the long-term outcomes post SARS, then predictions can be made. Since the term ‘Long Covid’ seems to have taken hold, I will retrospectively refer to the collective symptoms post 2003 as ‘Long SARS’. It should be noted that all the Long SARS patients in my experience were ‘severe’, as all our patients were very sick, hospitalized and many went through the ICU. The literature on Long Covid includes all levels of severity from asymptomatic to fatal. Severity of illness has not yet been established as a risk for Long Covid but it remains as a possibility.
It is clear that Long SARS (post SARS ongoing symptomatology) exists, persists (apparently permanently) and can be devastatingly life-changing for some. Sufficient similarities exist between Long SARS and Long Covid (PASC) in symptoms, findings and course over time (so far) that one can predict that it is very highly likely that some Long Covid disability will persist permanently. For those interested in rehabilitation, it is once more noted that the peer group support was very highly valued by the patients. Those wishing to treat Long Covid remotely (such as with telehealth) should consider this. All of the foregoing information is provided as a personal opinion to help guide treatment and counseling
At The Nation: Why Are So Many People Dying? Reaping the Anti-Vaxx Whirlwind
Back in September, my Yale colleagues Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Jason Schwartz published a preprint of a paper called “Excess Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the Covid-19 Pandemic.” This trio linked 2017 voter registration in Ohio and Florida with mortality data in those same states from 2018 to 2021 at the individual level. During this period, the excess death rates were 76 percent higher among Republicans than among Democrats. Once vaccines came online for Covid-19, the gap in deaths widened—with excess death rates 153 percent higher among Republicans than among Democrats. The study also showed that these excess deaths were concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates. Other research shows similar partisan divides in acceptance of Covid-19 vaccination and other mitigation measures, as well as mortality during the pandemic.
What is now becoming clear is that this resistance to vaccination is leaching out of the soil of the same partisan divides—and spreading beyond aversion to Covid-19 immunization. Party affiliation is now becoming more and more associated with hesitancy toward immunization against such common childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, polio and chickenpox. Recent polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that more than a third of parents—up from less than a quarter in 2019—now oppose school vaccination requirements. Once again, this resistance to vaccination is concentrated among Republicans or those that lean that way; 44 percent of such parents now say they want out of these routine vaccination requirements.
Vaccine hesitancy has been an ongoing problem in the United States for decades—and while routine childhood vaccination rates overall have been historically high here, there have long been pockets of parents refusing vaccination, whose views span the political spectrum from liberals in San Francisco, Marin County, and Vashon Island near Seattle to libertarians and conservatives to religious groups including the Amish in Ohio and Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. It’s in these same places and among these same communities that we recently, in the years just before Covid, saw outbreaks of childhood scourges like measles.
This all speaks to the need to go into communities, work with them, know them, and support those who can help shift opinion, rather than continuing to pursue top-down initiatives in which this local knowledge and power is overlooked. Building trust is vital to overcoming vaccine hesitancy—and if you think about whom you trust with decisions about your life, it’s people you know personally, people you respect—and who you believe have your best interests at heart. This is why family physicians are so important in conversations about vaccination with parents—and why they also need the resources to help them have precisely the conversations that have become more difficult for so many providers during Covid-19.
At DW: Pandemic worsens resistance to antibiotics in India
Resistance to antibiotic drugs was already a problem in India before the pandemic. Doctors say it's gotten a lot worse.
At The Star: Why in Ontario and in Canada, This Became COVID’s Deadliest Year
At CBC: 'Big Uptick' in Ottawa's Coronavirus Wastewater levels in recent Days
Covid-19 Today in the USA (from CNN January 12, 2023)
The Biden administration on Wednesday (Jan. 11) again renewed the Covid-19 public health emergency, a provision that gives the administration the authority to respond to the pandemic as cases are again on the rise. The public health emergency gives the federal government wide-ranging authority over a number of Covid-19-related areas, including data tracking and allowing pharmacists, rather than physicians, to administer the Covid-19 vaccine. The renewal comes amid the emergence of the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant and a spike in new cases. The latest numbers show that the seven-day average of weekly new Covid-19 cases is up 16.2% compared with the previous week, according to the CDC.
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MILNER ON BIODIVERSITY - BLOG #10 |
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"The UN Biodiversity Treaty" |
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Credit: Eden District Council
My grandchildren will be at least 77 by the end of the century. Will there be any true ‘Nature’ left in the world by then? The alarm raised by this question is not helped, I fear, by the celebrations over the UN Biodiversity Charter signed by 196 nations at Montreal last month. The predominant model of development involving the commodification of Nature and the transformation of natural habitats for profit rolls on with little chance of any change – indeed the Treaty has avoided any serious consideration of how we reached the current biodiversity crisis. Under the Treaty, forest destroyers, swamp drainers and bottom trawlers all have until 2030 to wreak their havoc. ‘Pledges’ involving dates in the far distant future have a tendency to mean very little; none of the UN biodiversity targets for the decade 2010 to 2020 were met. What hope is there that the new ‘pledges’ will be redeemed? As individuals, though, we can all help pressurise our politicians into doing what they’ve signed up to.
The root cause of the current destruction – the economic system that values growth and profits over everything else – is not recognised as relevant to countering the immense biodiversity losses. It may be an inconvenient truth but ultimately the ambitions of politicians and businessmen to control Nature for profit will have to be curtailed. But not yet, apparently. Even recognition of the major factors driving biodiversity loss has yet to be achieved. The world’s major rainforests are rapidly approaching potential tipping points; already 20% of the Amazon has been deforested. But even the most ambitious plans so far envisaged are limited to reducing the rate of destruction, not halting and reversing it. At what point will it be agreed that we have reached ‘peak deforestation’ and that restoration must take precedence? Or that the annual oceanic fish catch has reached a total limit? That no more swamplands are to be drained, mangrove coasts be destroyed, pristine environments violated? Going beyond reductions in the rates of destruction but damaging activities halted altogether?
The current UN framework seems to me unlikely ever to deliver such a change; it is the product of a gathering of politicians who are directly or indirectly beholden to precisely the economic forces that have caused the destruction and continue to promote it. As I have argued before (Blog7) I think pledges and targets are a waste of time without political will, which probably means public pressure. Nations, or rather, their political representatives sign up to international treaties without any serious consideration of the policy implications entailed, while an unquestioning media celebrates these events with headlines. The true test of major treaty agreements – take peace treaties for example – is that government policies change, sometimes almost overnight, once the treaty is signed and a timetable established. Troops are ordered to stop firing; forces withdraw to demarcated lines and so on. This doesn’t seem to happen with environmental treaties. Has anyone reported changes in government environmental policies anywhere as a direct result of The Kunming-Montreal Treaty being signed? Perhaps it is too soon to judge, but distressingly several signatory governments, far from changing policies in line with the new agreement, appear to have doubled down on damaging policies contrary to the new agreement, even going so far as to object to possible changes.
In the UK several recent Government announcements appear to be steps backward. Target dates for clean water in rivers – UK rivers being universally below legal standards for pollution – have been ‘relaxed’ from a laughable 2032 to an absurd 2064. As it is, virtually the only monitoring of UK streams and rivers is now undertaken by volunteer citizens, funding for the Government’s own Environment Agency having been so reduced. It is widely accepted that virtually none of the UK’s so-called ‘protected areas’ of land or sea are sufficiently safeguarded, and many are reportedly in poor condition. The mass-deaths of sea creatures in recent months off the North-east coast of Britain has been linked to pollution released by dredging for the construction of a new freeport. One might expect that this would be a red flag for a government that had just signed the Kunming-Montreal Agreement. Instead, research has been obstructed on the spurious grounds that one of the researchers is involved with the Green Party. Frankly it would be surprising if any researchers trying to grapple with UK Government’s current environmental policies weren’t persuaded to join the greens in pure frustration.
If anything, the Malaysian Government has revealed a more worrying trend; they have objected to new rules set by the EU to ban palm-oil from deforested land as a brake on free trade. It is precisely the conflicting claims of biodiversity vs. free trade that makes the Kunming-Montreal Treaty so problematic. In the same manner HSBC’s shareholder-driven decision to stop further investments in fossil fuels has raised the ire of right-wing commentators and politicians in the US.
As it stands I am unconvinced by the Kunming-Montreal Treaty because what is really needed appears to be politically unacceptable – a resetting of the agenda so that protecting and enhancing the environment becomes one of the driving forces of government. It is perhaps too much to expect the imminent cancellation of major dams, roadbuilding, mangrove destruction or tourism projects in pristine areas, but more serious consideration of the environmental impact of such schemes is long overdue. Perhaps it might help if governments appointed a biodiversity or sustainability chief with genuine powers to influence policy. Eco-Business reports that the Singapore Government has done just that, with Mr. Tim Tuang Liang already in place as Chief Sustainability Officer with a mandate to ‘drive the Green Plan in realising a sustainable, resource-efficient and climate-resilient Singapore’. Whether promoting and enhancing biodiversity is specifically part of his brief is not reported but that is what is needed: a reconsideration of the competing claims of business and free trade with the protection and enhancement of Nature…and a political environment in which such a change is possible.
Edward Milner, London, UK
Read more Milner On Biodiversity at PHW Blogs
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Artificial snow is seen January 4, 2023 on a ski slope in Wildhaus, Switzerland. Like other parts of Europe, Switzerland has experienced relatively warm weather over the past week. Credit: Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone/AP
Across much of the Northern Hemisphere, this winter is a lot warmer than usual.
Europe is experiencing a record-shattering warm spell, with meteorologists calling the current heat wave “totally insane” and “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology.” On New Year’s Day, at least seven nations experienced their warmest January weather on record, with some cities in Spain and France sweating as temperatures rose to over 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
And despite a bone-chilling storm that passed over much of the United States around Christmas, temperatures remain higher than average in much of the South and New England. In New York City, visitors to Central Park got a taste of shorts weather as temperatures hit 66 degrees Wednesday.
As the globe warms, winters around the world are changing. Since 1970, winter in the United States has warmed faster than any other season, leading to early blooms, shortened winter sports seasons and disrupted hibernations for wildlife.
Read more at: Washington Post
See also at Washington Post: How a Wildly Warm Winter is Rippling Through Europe and the U.S.
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Activists in Kolkata join a demonstration against India's rape culture to mark 10 years since the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi. Credit: PIYAL ADHIKARY/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The attack and death of a student on a bus in Delhi shocked the world in 2012, yet minimal progress has been made to protect women.
Like so many women in India, Sunita has been groped in public. Her experience is a common one: she was sexually assaulted on a bus as she travelled to work in Delhi.
After a few minutes into the journey, she felt a man pressing his body against hers. His breath was heavy on her neck, but Sunita could not move on the packed vehicle. “It was very scary but I expected it would happen,” she says. “It has happened to so many of my friends. They had warned me.”
Such is the prevalence of sexual violence in India, that millions of women like Sunita live in a constant state of anticipation, waiting for the inevitability of a crime that they can neither prevent nor report.
But despite the country’s reputation as one of the most dangerous places in the world for women, where rape, molestation and casual harassment is normalised across society, there has been minimal progress in tackling a silent epidemic that has raged for decades.
Flashpoints of anger and rage among Indian women have threatened to change the status quo, but such moments have been fleeting.
Indeed, ten years have now passed since the brutal rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman, known as Nirbhaya, on a moving bus in Delhi. An eruption of nationwide protests followed, during which demonstrators held placards criticising the country’s police, burnt effigies of rapists and held candlelit vigils extending long into the night.
Several months after the horrific incident, the Indian government overhauled its laws around sexual violence, introducing much lengthier jail sentences for rape, for example. At the time, it was seen as a turning point for India. But, a decade on, little has changed.
Read more at The Telegraph
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Credit: Medical News Today
Lifespan researchers say they have made a major breakthrough in fighting brain cancer. The Lifespan Cancer Institute held a news conference at Rhode Island Hospital to present results from a vaccine trial for glioblastoma, the most common and lethal form of brain cancer.
According to researchers, the Phase III clinical trial of the DCVax-L cancer vaccine shows that it can expand the life of patients with both newly diagnosed and recurrent glioblastoma.
“The nice thing about it is it’s non-toxic. Just like getting a vaccine for the flu or COVID that we are all familiar with,” said Dr. Steven Toms, director of the Brain Tumor and Stereotactic Radiosurgery Program.
“You get an injection a few times a month to start and then monthly for a few months and it seems to activate the patient’s neuroimmune cells to attack the cancer and reduce the chances of this malignancy coming back and killing the person,” he continued.
Read more at: WPRI 12 News
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Credit: EuroNewsGreen
More than six billion tonnes of untreated plastic waste currently litter our streets and fill our seas. Just six per cent of all the plastic ever produced has been recycled and 12 per cent incinerated.
Global awareness of the problem is growing and many are searching for a truly sustainable alternative.
The founders of London-based start-up Notpla believe they have an answer. Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez found their solution in the sea. Their plastic alternative is made from seaweed and plants. It's totally natural, completely biodegradable and can be used to make a range of packaging from bubbles to hold liquid to linings for food containers.
Since 2014 they have made 36,000 capsules filled with sports drinks to hand to runners at the 2019 London Marathon. They’ve also created more than a million takeaway food boxes for Just Eat and have the potential to replace over 100 million plastic coated containers in Europe in the future.
Seaweed also captures carbon twenty times faster than trees and their farms boost fish populations, creating new opportunities for local communities.
Read more at: EuroNews
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Patrick Janssen, co-founder of the organisation Dung Dung, shows a tile made from recycled human hair. Credit: REUTERS/Yves Herman
A Belgian NGO is using human hair clippings to absorb environmental pollutants.
The Hair Recycle Project is led by Belgian non-profit Dung Dung, which develops waste recovery schemes that support a circular economy. For this project, clippings are collected from hairdressers across the country. The hair is then fed into a machine that turns it into matted squares. These can be used to absorb oil and other hydrocarbons polluting the environment. They can also be made into bio-composite bags.
The mats can be placed in drains to soak up pollution in water before it reaches a river. They can also be used to deal with pollution problems due to flooding and to clean up oil spills.
A single kilogram of hair can absorb seven to eight litres of oil and hydrocarbons. Since hair is nitrogen rich, it can be used as a garden fertiliser. Various companies are also experimenting with hair as a building material. On its website, the Hair Recycle Project lauds the powerful properties of hair: one strand can support up to 10 million times its own weight.
Isabelle Voulkidis, manager of the Helyode salon in Brussels, is one of dozens of hairdressers across the country that pay a small fee to the project to collect their hair cuttings. "What motivates me, personally, is that I find it a shame hair is nowadays just thrown in the bin, when I know that so much could be done with it," she says.
Read more at: EuroNews
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Credit: skeeze / Pixabay
A group of former oil and gas executives and academics is
calling for the industry to pay tens of trillions of dollars through 2050 to
take full responsibility for every tonne of carbon it produces.
In a paper published
this morning in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the group
calculates the cost and emission reduction potential of a “carbon takeback
obligation” that would require fossil producers to permanently store a tonne of
carbon for every tonne they take out of the ground, without expecting taxpayers
to foot the bill.
Fossil producers’ responsibility under a takeback obligation
would include the downstream or “Scope 3”
emissions that occur after a fossil fuel shipment reaches its final user, and
account for about 80% of the carbon in a barrel of oil. The paper says carbon
storage under a takeback mechanism would cost about US$1 trillion in 2025,
calculated in 2005 dollars, rising annually to exceed $10 trillion in 2050.
(With inflation, $1 trillion in 2005 is the equivalent of
$1.53 trillion today.)
“The simple expression of it is that if you
take carbon out of the ground when there’s too much in the atmosphere, you
don’t want to make things worse. So if you take it out, you should be
responsible for permanent storage of an equivalent amount,” said study
co-author Hugh Helferty, a former corporate strategy research manager at
ExxonMobil now serving as co-founder and president of Houston-based Producer
Accountability for Carbon Emissions.
“Companies have substantial capability to help
solve the problem and can be a big part of the solution,” Helferty told The Energy
Mix. “What they need is the incentive to do it.” (including regulation/legislation,
editor comment).
Read more at: The Energy Mix
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SPOTLIGHT ON TWO NEW POLICIES |
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EU to Impose World-first ‘Carbon Tariff’ on Environmentally Damaging Imports |
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The blast furnaces of Tata Steel seen from the beach in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. Credit: Robin Utrecht/ABACAPRESS.COM
The European Union has just struck a first-of-its-kind deal to impose a carbon tariff on imported goods.
Known as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), its aim is to prevent companies from moving polluting activities to countries with weaker environmental rules.
It also protects European companies from being undercut by cheaper, less environmentally friendly products being imported from elsewhere.
The new bill will be “the first of its kind”, according to the European Parliament.
The CBAM will initially cover carbon intensive industries like iron and steel, cement, aluminium, fertilisers and the production of electricity. Imported hydrogen was also added to the deal after lawmakers pushed for its inclusion during negotiations.
“CBAM will be a crucial pillar of European climate policies,” Mohammed Chahim, the EU’s lead negotiator, said in a statement.
“It is one of the only mechanisms we have to incentivise our trading partners to decarbonise their manufacturing industry.”
Oxfam is calling for the bloc to ensure that money made from CBAM is channelled into climate finance for poor countries. The NGO also says that poorer nations or Least Developed Countries (LDCs) should be given an exclusion or exemption period.
Read more at The Energy Mix
See also at: EURACTIV: EU Agrees New Law to Kick Deforestation Out of Supply Chains
LANDMARK LAW: In the early hours of 6 December, 2022 – and right before the start of COP15 – the European legislators agreed on a landmark anti-deforestation law, EurActiv reported. The law will require all producers and traders to prove that their products were “produced on land that was not subject to deforestation after 31 December 2020” and furnish due diligence statements, or else risk import and export bans. The law also directs companies to collect “precise” geographic coordinates of the land where their commodities were raised. The European Commission plans to set up a benchmarking system that would assess countries’ deforestation risk. The law “ has yet to be formally approved”, Vox reported, adding that it “is a really big deal…and could help clean up the supply chains of multinational companies”. It also has the potential to “inspire anti-deforestation regulations in other large economies, such as China and the US”, Vox continued.
FOREST COVERED: The EU law currently extends to a wide range of commodities: from beef and chocolate to coffee, soy and wood, as well as products derived from these commodities, such as leather or furniture, per EurActiv. EU lawmakers managed to expand the scope of commodities to include palm-oil derivatives, rubber, charcoal and printed paper, but biodiesel and maize are currently not included in the regulation. Significantly, the law’s definition of forest degradation also applies to primary forests being converted to plantations. However, it excludes areas such as scrublands and biodiverse savannahs, such as the Cerrado. But EurActiv pointed out that the included areas can be reviewed two years down the line.
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SPOTLIGHT ON INDIGENOUS WELLNESS |
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Australia to Hold Referendum on Indigenous 'Voice' in 2023 |
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese argues that the constitutional change would help Australia 'come together as a nation and take the hand that First Nations people have extended to us'. Credit: Loren Elliott/Reuters
Australians are to decide in a referendum to be held in 2023 if the country’s constitution will be changed to give an institutional voice to the long-suffering Indigenous population.
The government made the announcement on Wednesday, and if successful, it would not only be the first acknowledgement of Indigenous people in the constitution but also rectify their historical exclusion from parliamentary processes.
The proposed “Voice to Parliament” aims to give Indigenous Australians a greater say in national policy-making, as they battle poorer health, lower incomes and higher barriers to education.
Indigenous Australians are not currently mentioned in the constitution – adopted in 1901 – and any move to change that is politically contentious.
The centre-left Labor government was elected in May and had promised to hold a referendum on the issue, but had shied away from setting a date until now.
Read more at Aljazeera
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Credit: Mike Hewson
"The concepts and benefits of 'free play', 'nature play' and 'risk play' in public space are well documented however they have rarely been so comprehensively embedded and expressed in public space as they are at Rocks on Wheels in Southbank."
Jocelyn Chiew, director of the City Design Studio at the City of Melbourne, Australia
Read more at Dezeen: Mike Hewson installs giant boulders on wheels for "risk play" space in Melbourne
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FYI#1 SPOTLIGHT ON MEDIA |
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Women Plus Water 2023 Lecture Series |
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Credit: Women Plus Water, Global Water Futures, University of Saskatchewan
Women Plus Water increases the visibility of women in water and engages people through the annual lecture series, expert list, and mentorship opportunities to learn about the gendered impacts of water research, management, and decision-making. Women Plus Water gives women, young professionals, and allies of all identities opportunities for professional development while empowering a global network of water experts committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in water.
All lectures are at 12:30 - 1:30 PM CST (Saskatchewan time)
GWF Young Professionals networking opportunities will follow at 1:30 - 2:00 PM
Date
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Topic & Host
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January 12
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Water Diplomacy Navigating the Space Between Common Goals and Competing Visions
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February 9
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Women Water Networks Catalysts for Change
In honour of the United Nations International Day for Women and Girls in Science (Saturday, February 11, 2023)
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March 9
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Flood Warnings and Maps Water Models and Tools in Practice
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March 23
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The Climate Crisis is a Water Crisis
In honour of World Water Day (March 22, 2023)
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April 20
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Civil Society Action for Sustainable Water Futures
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Credit: KFF
Key Findings: Global leaders appear poised to approve the creation of a new financing mechanism for pandemic preparedness and response (PPR) activities. Support for such a mechanism grew as the profound fault lines exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic became clearer. The U.S. government has strongly supported the idea of creating a financial intermediary fund (FIF) for PPR at the World Bank, a proposal now endorsed by the G20, the WHO, and others, with the World Bank expected to vote on such a proposal this month. Despite this momentum, however, many questions remain about a new FIF including its governance and operations and the extent to which civil society will be formally included. A white paper on the FIF, recently released by the World Bank, contains a brief mention of civil society as potential observers to a FIF governing board, though some have critiqued that as insufficient. To help inform ongoing discussions, we sought to examine and draw lessons from existing institutions on how they engage with civil society formally, as part of their governance, as well as through other avenues.
We analyzed 14 major multilateral global health and related institutions to assess how civil society, including from the global South, has been engaged in their governance, implementation/programming, and monitoring. We examined the following metrics of civil society inclusion to assess more formal engagement: board representation; voting rights; global South representation required; formal representation on committees; support for participation in governance; and requirements to fund civil society as part of program implementation. For those institutions that included formal board representation, we also looked at the share of seats reserved for civil society.
Our key findings are summarized as follows:
** Civil society inclusion and engagement in the governance and operations of multilateral global health institutions has grown over time, especially since the Millennium Development Goals era, and as part of the global HIV movement in particular.
** The degree and nature of civil society engagement varies considerably. Three of the 14 institutions met all six metrics of formal civil society inclusion assessed (the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Global Partnership for Education; and the Stop TB Alliance) and three met five metrics (GAVI, UNAIDS, and Unitaid). On the other end of the spectrum, three institutions met none (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations; the RBM Partnership to End Malaria; and the World Health Organization).
** On board representation specifically, six of the 14 institutions have formal seats for civil society, the strongest measure of inclusion, ranging from 3.5% to 15% of board seats. Five of the six provide voting rights, and four of the six specify that at least some portion of civil society representation be from the global South. In addition, the six with formal board seats also require civil society representation on their primary governance committee(s).
** All 14 multilateral global health initiatives, including those with no formal civil society representation on their governing board or committees, provide other opportunities for civil society engagement. Specific approaches and processes employed can bolster or limit civil society’s influence in governing decisions. For example, civil society representatives who are able to participate in advisory or working groups, or regional subgroups, can feed into and shape institutional governance. Other avenues, such as those that are more ad hoc, are seen as providing fewer opportunities for engagement or influence.
** At the same time, and even among those initiatives with formal representation on governing boards, civil society representatives confront a number of challenges, including a lack of financial and administrative support while managing a substantial burden of work, a steep learning curve for new representatives, and difficulties representing broad constituencies fairly and effectively.
** To address some of these challenges, some initiatives, but not all, have created mechanisms to directly support civil society engagement in governance, implementation and/or monitoring activities. Many of these have been instituted and expanded only in recent years.
Taken together, these findings offer new insights into how civil society has been included in major multilateral global health and related organizations that are in operation today, including the trend towards greater and more formal inclusion over time, and may inform ongoing global discussions about the creation of a new financing mechanism for PPR.
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FYI #3 |
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The Polar Vortex - Facts and Information |
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Credit: National Geographic
Above the Arctic hovers a counter-clockwise spinning mass of cold air that grows and shrinks with the changing seasons—the polar vortex. When this vortex dips toward the equator, it brings with it blasts of freezing air.
The record-breaking cold front that recently struck continental U.S. and Canada is the result of an unusually far south polar vortex says Bob Ovarec, a lead weather forecaster with the National Weather Service. "As that system is reforming to the south, it’s helping push all the cold air south and eastward, so a lot of parts of the country are going to see some dramatic temperature changes," says Ovarec.
In extreme cold, frostbite can attack exposed skin in minutes, and prolonged exposure leads to hypothermia. At least 21 people died as a result of a 2019 polar vortex outbreak. The polar vortex is a well-documented, long-existing pattern, but some scientists say climate change could be making it unstable, with potentially serious consequences.
How does the polar vortex work?
The vortex is constantly spinning in a counter-clockwise direction around the North Pole. During the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, the edge of the vortex sits at a higher latitude, and in winter months, it edges south.
At the bottom edge of the vortex is the polar front, or polar jet stream. The polar jet stream moves from west to east, which is why the northeastern portions of North America are often hit the hardest by polar vortex weather. (Read about the difference between weather and climate.)
Jet streams are propelled forward by temperature differences and the Earth's rotation. Wider temperature differences create faster-moving winds.
Those jet streams tend to sit at the same altitudes that planes fly, 30,000 feet off the ground, and pilots will often catch them to travel faster and save fuel. Jet streams can also usher in weather changes like cold fronts and heat waves.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a strong polar jet stream moving roughly along the same latitude as the vortex makes the vortex more stable and traps cold Arctic air within the Arctic Circle. But occasionally the polar jet stream weakens, moving around the globe in a wavy pattern called arctic oscillations with peaks and troughs that allow warmer southern air to move north, and cold Arctic air to rush south.
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FYI #4 |
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Mapped: The World’s Countries Compared by 20 Key Metrics |
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Credit: Visual Capitalist
Which countries have the largest populations? What about the rural versus urban population divide? And which countries have the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), military expenditures, or tech exports?
Instead of comparing countries by one metric, this animation and series of graphics by Anders Sundell uses 20 different categories of World Bank data to compare countries. The data was sourced in July 2022 and contains the latest available data for each country.
See all the animations and read some context on eight of the 20 categories, and share some facts on the top ranking countries for each category.
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FYI #5: JANUARY READING |
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"A Poison Like No Other - How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies" by Matt Simon |
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Credit: Book Cover
It’s falling from the sky and in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health, but the studies are alarming.
In A Poison Like No Other, Matt Simon reveals a whole new dimension to the plastic crisis, one even more disturbing than plastic bottles washing up on shores and grocery bags dumped in landfills. Dealing with discarded plastic is bad enough, but when it starts to break down, the real trouble begins. The very thing that makes plastic so useful and ubiquitous – its toughness – means it never really goes away. It just gets smaller and smaller: eventually small enough to enter your lungs or be absorbed by crops or penetrate a fish’s muscle tissue before it becomes dinner.
Unlike other pollutants that are single elements or simple chemical compounds, microplastics represent a cocktail of toxicity: plastics contain at least 10,000 different chemicals. Those chemicals are linked to diseases from diabetes to hormone disruption to cancers.
A Poison Like No Other is the first book to fully explore this new dimension of the plastic crisis, following the intrepid scientists who travel to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to understand the consequences of our dependence on plastic. As Simon learns from these researchers, there is no easy fix. But we will never curb our plastic addiction until we begin to recognize the invisible particles all around us.
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FYI#6: SPOTLIGHT ON EDUCATION |
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The State of the World's Midwifery 2022 - East and Southern Africa |
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Credit: UNFPA
(Editor’s note: I led a midwifery training the trainers program in Ethiopia from 2016-18 and believe strongly in the potential of midwives and the importance of their education.)
Investment in the midwifery workforce has been shown to yield significant returns in terms of improved health and social outcomes. For example, a recent study concluded that universal coverage of midwife-delivered interventions would reduce mortality rates by two-thirds. In the East and Southern Africa (ESA) region, this translates to 1.2 million lives saved per year by 2035. There is growing recognition that creating jobs for health workers not only improves population health indicators such as mortality and morbidity rates, but also supports sustainable economic growth and progress towards the SDGs, including gender equality.
The State of the World's Midwifery: East and Southern Africa Region report calls for investment in four areas: (i) health workforce planning, management, and regulation and, in the work environment, (ii) high- quality education and training of midwives, (iii) midwife-led improvements to SRMNAH service delivery and (iv) midwifery leadership and governance. It also includes recommendations for advancing midwifery, in five main areas.
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A SUNNY AFTERNOON WINTER WALK |
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Hawkrigg Lane, Seguin, Ontario |
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Photo Credits: David Zakus |
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THANKS FOR READING THE FREE
PLANETARY HEALTH WEEKLY
Current News on Ecological Wellness and Global Health
To Subscribe and access Archives of all Past Issues & Yearly Indexes GO TO: planetaryhealthweekly.com
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