CURRENT NEWS ON ECOLOGICAL WELLNESS AND GLOBAL HEALTH

 Volume 9, Number 3        https://planetaryhealthweekly.com          January 19, 2023

Hi,

What keeps coming back to mind, during these days of angst over the climate, ecosystem degradation and loss, together with a still ongoing pandemic, a horrific war in Europe, famine in Africa, hangings in Iran, injustices all over, are songs from my youth. The most prominent at the moment is Joni Mitchell’s 1970 hit Big Yellow Taxi:

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

They took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
No, no, no

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

Hey, farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don't care about spots on my apples
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please!

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise to put up a parking lot

She really did nail it, 53 years ago! Being a teenager and young man during the latter 60s, and 70s and 80s so many more songs still ring fresh in my mind when working on the Planetary Health Weekly every week. “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye in 1971 is another of my all-time favourites.

Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today, yeah

Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today

Written during the American war in Vietnam, how relevant too it is today considering all the systemic racism, the criminal abuse that Russia continues to inflict on Ukrainians everyday and conflicts elsewhere. Another one stuck in my mind is by Toronto artist Bruce Cockburn from 1984 who got his inspiration for “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” during a visit to a Guatemalan refugee camp in Mexico.

[Verse 1]
Here comes the helicopter—second time today
Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
How many kids they've murdered only God can say, hey

[Chorus]
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
I'd make somebody pay

[Verse 4]
I want to raise every voice—at least I've got to try
Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes
Situation desperate, echoes of the victims’ cry

[Chorus]
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
If I had a rocket launcher
Some son of a bitch would die

How often do I battle this feeling creeping out of my deepest recesses when listening to the news. The list could go on but I’ll end with another, more about reconciliation and the best way forward. “Get Together” by The Youngbloods in 1967 was written in the mid-1960s by American singer-songwriter Chet Powers (stage name Dino Valenti).

Love is but a song we sing
Fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

…

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Why, in light of now hundreds of billions of dollars of climate destruction annually, clear science telling us what’s going on, knowing our paving, chemicals and deforestation are destroying our world, does it all continue? Countries and banks announce new coal mine developments, oil companies continue their deception and lies, and all of us are still stuck/mired in a fossil fuel economy and lifestyle. As the head of the UN said lately: “We must end the addiction to fossil fuels and to stop our self-defeating war on nature."

There is much that we all can do, despite the strong countervailing forces. My ultimate, though, that I conclude with today, is not a song, but the amazing words of Martin Luther King Jr. from a few years earlier (1963) during a march on Washington, D.C., which had a super-sized impact on my life:

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check.

…

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

…

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning.

…

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

…

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

Yes, my life of work in many countries around the world only reinforces in me, along with all these inspirational words, that we must respect all life. We have no right to wantonly harm and destroy Earth for gross profit. I still have a dream in 2023. 

Best, david (and Happy Birthday today to my son Jonathan!)

David Zakus, Editor and Publisher

• CLIMATE & BIODIVERSITY CRISES UPDATES: 
  • Can geoengineering fix the climate? Hundreds of scientists say not so fast, 
  • Exxon scientists knew about global warming for decades while company denied it, 
  • Scaling carbon capture with an abundant material (ceramics), 
  • How to make plastic less of an environmental problem, 
  • Bulgaria rolls back plans to phase out coal amid fears over energy and job security, 
  • Protesters are trying to save abandoned German village set to be bulldozed for coal mine, 
  • Is Indonesia’s plan to save Jakarta by building a new capital a ‘massive ecological disaster’? 
  • Salmon farming: calls for boycott of Scottish producers ‘dripping with the blood of seals’, 
  • Swiss right-wing party tries to block climate law, slamming ‘alarmism’ of ‘green ideologists’, 
  • Could Ireland hold a referendum on giving nature the same rights as people? 
• CORONAVIRUS UPDATES: 
  • Kraken, Elon Musk and dead Canadian doctors: disinformation surges 3 years into the pandemic, 
  • A lasting legacy of Covid: far-right platforms spreading health myths, 
  • China says 60,000 people have died of Covid since early December, but questions remain, 
  • We need a revolution in clean indoor air, 
  • Long Covid can be debilitating, even for healthy kids, 
  • Covid white elephants? Hong Kong isolation facilities with 40,000 beds left empty as quarantine numbers dwindle, 
  • Top engineers and scientists dying at an unprecedented rate in China after lifting of Covid controls, 
• BEZ’S BLOG #13: “Population Health and Political Updates”, 
• What is bacterial meningitis, the illness that killed Jeff Beck? 
• Pollinator deficits, food consumption and consequences for human health, 
• Navigating sustainability trade-offs in global beef production, 
• One million trees (in Belfast, Northern Ireland), 
• New York’s vegetation is absorbing a promising amount of carbon dioxide, 
• A major oil exporter is hosting a UN climate summit – opinions are divided, 
• One Chinese province spent $22 billion on eliminating Covid before policy u-turn, 
• Open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau from the chiefs of Ontario on perpetuating climate injustice against First Nations,
• Quote on the 'social end' of the Covid-19 pandemic, 
• The MLK speech you haven't heard - the first time MLK spoke at the Lincoln Memorial, 
• ‘Show the world what Canada can do’: automakers take notice of home-built concept EV after CES reveal, 
• I helped pick up 6,000 dead birds last summer - this is what I learned about the horrors of bird flu, 
• 10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint, 
• New book: “Health in the Climate Emergency: A Global Perspective” from the InterAcademy Partnership  
• Nobel laureate launches the Trust in Science and Technology Research Network at University of Waterloo, and lastly 
• ENDSHOTS of A Sunny Day of X-country Skiing at Arrowhead Provincial Park.

Credit: Charlotte Observer/MCT/Getty Images

As global heating escalates, the US government has set out a plan to further study the controversial and seemingly sci-fi notion of deflecting the sun’s rays before they hit Earth. But a growing group of scientists denounces any steps towards what is known as solar geoengineering. 

The White House has set into motion a five-year outline for research into “climate interventions”. Those include methods such as sending a phalanx of planes to spray reflective particles into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, in order to block incoming sunlight from adding to rising temperatures.

Several American researchers, somewhat reluctantly, want to explore options to tinker with the climate system to help restrain runaway global heating, even as they acknowledge many of the knock-on risks aren’t fully known. “Until recently, I thought it was too risky, but slow progress on cutting emissions has increased motivation to understand techniques at the margins like solar geoengineering,” said Chris Field, who chaired a National Academies of Sciences report last year that recommended at least $100m being spent researching the issue.

“I don’t think we should deploy it yet and there are still a ton of concerns, but we need to better understand it,” Field said. “Climate change is causing widespread impacts, it’s costing lives and wrecking economies. We are in a tough position; we are running out of time, so it’s important we know more.”

Credit: Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images

In a damning new paper, a team of international researchers has found that scientists employed by multinational oil and gas company Exxon were strikingly accurate in their predictions of global warming — for almost half a century.

"We find that most of their projections accurately forecast warming that is consistent with subsequent observations," the paper reads.

That's despite the company consistently casting doubt on efforts to study climate change, The New York Times reports, a shocking and very financially convenient double standard at one of the worst offenders and polluters in recent history.

The company's scientists were eerily accurate in their projections made between 1977 and 2003 of how burning fossil fuels would end up causing global temperatures to rise. In fact, as the NYT notes, some of their projects turned out to be even more accurate than other independent and government models.

Their projections were within just 0.2 degrees Celsius of actual temperature increases per decade. Exxon scientists also accurately dispelled "the prospect of a coming ice age," according to the paper, despite the fact that Exxon repeatedly referred to the possibility in public.

"We now have airtight, unimpeachable evidence that ExxonMobil accurately predicted global warming years before it turned around and publicly attacked climate science and scientists," Geoffrey Supran from Harvard University, lead author of the paper, told the NYT in a statement. "Our findings show that ExxonMobil’s public denial of climate science contradicted its own scientists’ data," he added.

Credit: NGK Insulators

For most people, 'ceramics’ conjures up images of kilns and pottery, tableware and tiles, or perhaps super-sharp specialist kitchen knives.

But fewer realise that the ceramic industry keeps the modern economy ticking. For example, ceramics are the most commonly used insulators in electric systems, vital for power transmission and distribution. Vehicles would choke the skies with toxic gases without the ceramic substrates used in modern catalytic converters. And ceramic components are also essential for producing semiconductors, which are the building blocks of modern computing.

This abundant and versatile material, invented more than 25,000 years ago, now has another vital role to play. As the global economy commits to carbon neutrality by mid-century, it’s becoming clear that ceramics could help us decarbonise our future.

“Compared to rival polymer membranes, ceramic membranes can achieve high accuracy in separating out molecules under conditions of high temperature and pressure, while being resistant to solvents and corrosion,” says Ryohei Iwasaki, NGK’s executive vice president and head of Corporate NV (New Value) Creation.

In a test simulating industrial exhaust gases, the newly developed membrane achieved a CO2 separation factor for simulated industrial exhaust gas approximately five times that of conventionally developed membranes. The company hopes to commercialise the technology to capture emissions at factories and power plants by 2030.

Equally pressing is the need to capture emissions already released into the air. All signs point to growing momentum for the technology of DAC, or direct air capture of greenhouse gases.

NGK hopes to meet this challenge by developing an atmospheric CO2 adsorption module based on its HONEYCERAM* technology for automotive ceramics. Iwasaki sees very high market potential for such a product once demand takes off for DAC. When orders do come in, Iwasaki explains, NGK’s automotive ceramics factories across the globe can be rapidly repurposed to produce these products for DAC.

A prototype sorting unit tested by the smart-packaging initiative HolyGrail 2.0 could improve the separation of plastic waste. Credit: Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0

Mango Materials is part of a growing effort among scientists, non-governmental organizations and companies large and small to make plastics more sustainable. “We have a long, long way to go,” says Molly Morse, a biopolymers engineer and chief executive of Mango Materials. The company produces less than 45 tonnes of P3HB annually, a mere nurdle-sized amount of the estimated 400 million tonnes of plastic produced every year. Plastic can be found in food packaging, building materials, electronics, clothing and a host of other aspects of modern life.

The plastics industry depends on non-renewable resources. More than 90% of global plastic production consists of primary plastics — which are newly manufactured, rather than recycled — made from petroleum products. This reliance requires a huge amount of energy and produces greenhouse-gas emissions. By 2050, emissions from plastic production could amount to 15% of the estimated carbon budget needed to keep global warming below 1.5 °C.

Plastics also create a massive waste management issue. “The sheer volume of waste that’s created is unlike any other supply chain,” says Katherine Locock, a polymer chemist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Melbourne, Australia.

Roughly 70% of the plastics that have ever been produced have already been discarded. Single-use plastic, especially packaging, makes up around 40% of plastic production in Europe. Yet the most widely used plastics persist in landfill sites or the environment for decades or even centuries after being thrown away.

Source of Global Data above: Johns Hopkins University https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/ma...

The pandemic continues and we now distinctly see China on the map. Information, though, about Covid-19's presence and outcomes in our communities is increasingly hard to find, and many erroneously feel it's over. It is not. 

Covid is still a life threatening disease for many and is associated with many complications. Collective action, data reporting and leadership have all but disappeared. 

Over the last week, reported cases are down about 15% to 300,000/day; deaths are still trending at about 2300/day; and vaccinations continue at about 3.7 million/day. 

In Canada we are having over 2000 cases/day and over 40 deaths/day.

Vaccination, despite ongoing concerns about waning immunity and much misinformation, along with other proven public health measures, remains the best ways to keep yourself and others safe from serious consequences. Get all the shots/boosters you can, and practise other public health measures (like masking) especially indoors with crowds.

See below for a few more global and country stats and current hotspots:

Source of the three following figures: https://www.nytimes.com/intera...

Louise Feddema, pictured with her daughters Delaney and Jaylynn Barth. Feddema is included in the Canadian doctor death conspiracy, despite the fact she died by suicide. Credit: Delaney Barth

The bogus theory – promoted by a small group of Canadian doctors who have spent the pandemic falsely claiming or suggesting that the vaccine kills or harms people – insists, without proof, that the vaccine may have played a role in the death of an ever-growing number of physicians.

Global News has spent months investigating the list of doctors and speaking to their families and has found no link of the COVID vaccine to any of their deaths. Where Global News was able to determine the most likely cause of death, it was most often cancer, heart attack or suicide. At least one wasn’t even vaccinated.

And some family members say beyond the lies about their loved ones, they themselves have also become the target of hate mail and abuse.

But, the truth cannot contain the spread of the theory which, along with other COVID falsehoods – is no longer confined to the fringes of the internet. After Twitter dismantled its tools to root out COVID disinformation in November, disinformation accounts and bad actors that were previously banned from the website reemerged under Elon Musk’s ownership. And, much like the virus and its new subvariant XBB.1.5, that disinformation is now spreading with reckless abandon.

The bacterium Neisseria meningitidis is shown. It spreads when people in close contact share saliva or spit. Credit: Article

After contracting bacterial meningitis, legendary rock guitarist Jeff Beck died on January 10 at the age of 78, according to a statement posted to his official social media accounts and confirmed to CNN by his agent.

“On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing,” the statement read. “After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday. His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss.”

Unbelievable as it may be, death can occur within hours of contracting bacterial meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord. The swelling is typically caused when an infection attacks the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. However, most people recover from the illness, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Those who do recover can have permanent disabilities, such as brain damage, hearing loss, and learning disabilities,” the CDC noted on its website.

Symptoms of the illness can mimic the flu or Covid-19 and include a headache, fever, nausea or vomiting, brain fog, sensitivity to light, sleepiness or trouble waking, and a stiff neck. “Meningitis can be acute, with a quick onset of symptoms, it can be chronic, lasting a month or more, or it can be mild or aseptic,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.

See a doctor immediately if you or a loved one have a sudden high fever, a severe headache that doesn’t ease, confusion, vomiting, or a painful, stiff neck with limited range of motion. Babies are more susceptible than other age groups, according to the CDC. Signs to look for include irritability, vomiting, inactivity, feeding poorly, abnormal reflexes and a bulging “soft spot,” or fontanel, on the head. Call the doctor immediately with any concerns.

Credit: Cornell Cooperative Extension

Background:

Animal pollination supports agricultural production for many healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes, that provide key nutrients and protect against noncommunicable disease. Today, most crops receive suboptimal pollination because of limited abundance and diversity of pollinating insects. Animal pollinators are currently suffering owing to a host of direct and indirect anthropogenic pressures: land-use change, intensive farming techniques, harmful pesticides, nutritional stress, and climate change, among others.

Objectives:

We aimed to model the impacts on current global human health from insufficient pollination via diet.

Results:

Globally, we calculated that 3%–5% of fruit, vegetable and nut production is lost due to inadequate pollination, leading to an estimated 427,000 (95% uncertainty interval: 86,000, 691,000) excess deaths annually from lost healthy food consumption and associated diseases. Modelled impacts were unevenly distributed: Lost food production was concentrated in lower-income countries, whereas impacts on food consumption and mortality attributable to insufficient pollination were greater in middle- and high-income countries with higher rates of noncommunicable disease. Furthermore, in our three case-study countries (Honduras, Nepal and Nigeria), we calculated the economic value of crop production to be 12%–31% lower than if pollinators were abundant (due to crop production losses of 3%–19%), mainly due to lost fruit and vegetable production.

Discussion:

According to our analysis, insufficient populations of pollinators were responsible for large present-day burdens of disease through lost healthy food consumption. In addition, we calculated that low-income countries lost significant income and crop yields from pollinator deficits. These results underscore the urgent need to promote pollinator-friendly practices for both human health and agricultural livelihoods.

Credit: Rockin’Rita

Beef production represents a complex global sustainability challenge including reducing poverty and hunger and the need for climate action. Understanding the trade-offs between these goals at a global scale and at resolutions to inform land use is critical for a global transition towards sustainable beef. Here we optimize global beef production at fine spatial resolution and identify trade-offs between economic and environmental objectives interpretable to global sustainability ambitions. We reveal that shifting production areas, compositions of current feeds and informed land restoration enable large emissions reductions of 34–85% annually (612–1,506 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹) without increasing costs. Even further reductions are possible but come at a trade-off with costs of production. Critically our approach can help to identify such trade-offs among multiple sustainability goals, produces fine-resolution mapping to inform required land-use change and does so at the scale necessary to shift towards a globally sustainable industry for beef and to sectors beyond.

Credit: Article

New research has revealed that green efforts in New York City are paying off. Tree canopies account for 22% of New York and shrubs or grasses spread across 12%. Most of this vegetation is found in smaller gardens, random patches in vacant lots, and stand-alone trees along the roads. Parks only constitute 10% of the greenery in New York, showing how the small efforts of many individuals are paying off. Scientists analyzed carbon dioxide levels during the summer of 2018. Early in the morning, carbon levels rose but fell later in the day thanks to the absorptive power of plants. 40% of emissions were absorbed by vegetation and frequently offset emissions from traffic alone.

Credit: Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images

This year’s COP28 climate summit is mired in controversy, being held in one of the world’s biggest oil exporting nations – the United Arab Emirates – and headed by one of the most prominent faces in its oil industry.

Environmental activists have cried foul, arguing that the climate debate has been hijacked by the fossil fuel lobby to protect the profit-maximizing agendas of petrostates.

The UAE’s involvement has sparked a discussion on whether there’s a place in the climate space for countries that rely primarily on fossil fuel exports for their income. And opinions are split.

Sultan Al Jaber, who will preside over the November summit, wears two very prominent hats in the UAE. Aside from being the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), he is also the UAE’s climate envoy, tasked with spearheading its energy policy. He took on the climate portfolio over a decade before becoming a top oil executive, helping launch the state’s clean energy company Masdar in 2006 and bringing the International Renewable Energy Agency’s headquarters to Abu Dhabi in 2009.

The message the UAE is sending is that both fossil fuels and renewable energy must be part of the global energy mix, and that one does not have to replace the other.

                      Credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images

A number of regional governments in China have revealed the enormous sums they’ve spent on fighting the pandemic, reinforcing a previous state media report suggesting that mounting costs were a key reason why the country abruptly abandoned its zero-Covid policy.

On January 8, when China reopened its borders and formally downgraded its management of Covid as a serious infectious disease, the state-owned Xinhua News Agency published an article disclosing the main reasons behind the leadership’s change of thinking on their Covid policy.

“It is difficult to eliminate the coronavirus, and the social cost and price of Covid prevention and control are rising,” it said.

Last week, local governments across China began to convene for annual legislative sessions laying out their respective policy goals for the year. The meetings will culminate in the national parliamentary session to be held in March, in which the premier is expected to disclose the nation’s GDP growth target, as well as its budget plans and other goals.

                      Credit: Nation Talk

January 17th, 2023 (from the Chiefs of Ontario)

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

Canada bears responsibility for the climate crisis that is driving humans to the precipice of a global catastrophe. While the Government of Canada has begun to acknowledge this crisis and has enacted some measures to try to help pull humanity back from the edge, two major problems characterize government action. Current measures are misleadingly presented as enough when they are far from that, and Canada continues to harm those who can do the most to help lead us out of this mess.

The Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA) is one such measure. Enacted in 2018, it imposes a Fuel Charge on carbon-emitting fuels, such as oil, gas, and natural gas, as a monetary incentive for us to reduce and eventually stop the production and use of these “bad fuels.” Still, Canada’s highest-emitting sector, the oil and gas industry, receives special accommodations in national and provincial programs for large emitters, which enable them to pay lower carbon tax rates than most other sectors of the economy. This happens through programs such as the federal Output-Based Pricing System and provincial incentive programs.

Rather than targeting institutional and systemic change, Canada’s policies and messaging to the broader public places the onus of combatting climate change on individual citizens. It markets its strategies on climate change as being good for everyone’s wallets and good for the climate and environment. The average household in Ontario spent $362 on the GGPPA Fuel Charge in 2020 and received $436 back in the rebate (The Climate Action Incentive Payment). The GGPPA charge on carbon emitting fuels will be raised each year from the current rate of $50 per metric tonne to $170 per metric tonne by 2030. While pollution pricing is an important tool, its impacts are highly uneven and do not target major emitters.

                                                                                                                                                      A paramedic attends to a patient in the hallway at the Humber River Hospital on January 25, 2022. Eight provinces saw more COVID-19 deaths this year than in any other year, including Ontario. Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS

University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman points out that, historically, pandemics tend to have a social end before they have a medical end.

“I think what’s really happened with the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, and globally, is we’ve reached kind of a social end. That does not mean for a minute that medically this is over. Epidemiologically, it’s not.”

Additionally, Bowman said that over the past three months, the arrival of other viruses, such as RSV and influenza, in large volumes, has led to confusion about what is COVID and what isn’t. He says that as the general public begins to perceive the risk of a pandemic as something that’s not a direct threat to them individually, society will move on.

“It’s kind of a moral failure on our part in that we moved on even though the most vulnerable people in our society were really in harm’s way. In the early days of the pandemic, we kept hearing that we’re all in this together … That was never really true.”

As thousands gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial, a young Southern reverend named Martin Luther King Jr. stood behind the podium. “We must meet hate with love,” he implored his audience in a lofty baritone. A murmuring of approval could be heard. “We must meet physical force with soul force.” A slightly louder chorus of amens and affirmation. But, for the most part, there was a sea of silence over the National Mall — reverential silence.  

Credit: OZY

This is not the speech you’re thinking of. On the same spot in Washington, D.C., six years later, King would permanently write his name in the annals of American history. But on this particular day in May 1957, he did not have a dream to share, but a demand to America’s leaders: Give us the ballot. King was the headline speaker at what was billed as the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, a hastily organized religious gathering meant to test the waters of large-scale public civil rights demonstrations — and to give the charismatic preacher his first national audience. Although far less well-known than his I Have a Dream address, the Give Us the Ballot speech was no less eloquent, and perhaps as consequential.

The Prayer Pilgrimage did not immediately speed up the pace of justice in the nation’s capital, but it did launch King to the forefront of the civil rights movement, and it showed that large, peaceful marches and demonstrations could work. The event proved to be the perfect lead-up to King’s triumphant return to the Lincoln Memorial six years later.

An electric concept vehicle designed and built in Canada was revealed at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, on Jan. 5. Credit: PETRINA GENTILE/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Among the excitement around new electric and connected vehicles, including an all-electric Ram pickup and a futuristic concept from BMW at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, was a car designed and built entirely in Canada. It’s aim is to showcase Canadian talent and expertise in zero-emission vehicles and connected and autonomous technology. “Fifty-six Canadian suppliers put together a new concept prototype vehicle – zero emission, Level 3 autonomous, lightweight [with] advanced technology that will show the world what Canada can do in material sciences and applied technology,” said Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association (APMA) President Flavio Volpe. The vehicle is meant as an example of an EV an automaker could produce 50,000 of a year and costs less than $60,000 for consumers to buy and major players are taking notice.

When Volpe and Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli took the wraps off the silver concept SUV on Thursday amid the throngs of international journalists, there were a few unexpected guests, including Stellantis chief executive officer Carlos Tavares and General Motors Canada president Marissa West.

“Impressive,” said West after the reveal. “There’s a lot of talent in Canada.” After speaking with Volpe and Fedeli, Tavares also seemed interested, but isn’t committing to manufacturing it. When asked if he plans to build it, he said, “No, not this one. It’s a novelty. But I’m learning. That’s why I [came to] see it.”

Project Arrow began nearly three years ago to the day when Volpe announced the venture at CES in 2020. Initially, 535 Canadian companies expressed interest in participating in Project Arrow. Even the design came from a cross-country competition won by Carleton University students in Ottawa.

The National Trust team of rangers clear deceased birds from Staple Island, one of the Outer Group of the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland. Credit: Owen Humphreys/PA

In the past year, avian flu has ravaged colonies of seabirds in the UK. Gwen Potter, a National Trust countryside manager working on the Farne Islands, was among those who donned hazmat suits on the frontline.

In May last year, our seabirds were starting to settle, having flown here from all over the world. It is an explosion of life, sound and smell – and it looked as if it was going to be a really good year.

On the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, the most numerous bird is probably the puffin, we’ve also got a lot of guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, arctic terns, sandwich terns, common terns, loads of other fantastic seabirds. It’s such a spectacle seeing all these birds fly in. The cliff-nesting birds are jostling for space, they’re really crushed up against each other.

You never take it for granted when you see the first birds coming back. Some have particular behaviours that you only see then. Kittiwakes, for example, do something called food begging. It’s a display to their partner where they kind of fluff up their wings and go “cheep cheep cheep” and show off their really bright throats. It is really cute.

In a good year, we have 100,000 pairs. They start pairing up when they come back, and I always wonder if they were with the same partner last year; many of the species mate for life and might not have seen each other over winter. Humans don’t belong everywhere, and this island is for birds. It is a privilege to be there and witness it.

The first bird flu reports came in from north Scotland in May. It did make our ears prick up because it is not something we’ve seen before in our seabird colonies. Bird flu tends to thrive in cooler temperatures and isn’t generally a problem during the summer – at least not in this country. Then it just started moving down the coast. We started to get really worried, as it got closer and closer.

By the time it got to the Bass Rock off the coast of Edinburgh, we were hearing about gannets dying en masse. Then we saw one or two gannets on the Farne Islands, which you don’t normally see. They were sitting on the edge looking out to sea. They didn’t look right. It’s hard to tell from a boat, but they looked ill. They probably came from the Bass.

Initially, it was a couple of birds, and then a couple of days later, it was a lot. I went to the outer islands and saw an area of cliff usually covered in guillemots. There was one sitting there in the middle of it, and then just dead birds and rock. Some adults died where they were nesting, and there were lots of dead chicks, too. Whether they died of the disease or their parents died and they starved as a result, we don’t know.

See also at Bloomberg: Bird Flu Outbreak Sparks Record Slaughter of 10 Million Animals in Japan

Credit: Michael Parkin for The Washington Post

Here’s the thing: Small changes alone won’t save our planet. To keep the Earth from warming above the critical 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) limit, climate action needs to happen at an institutional level. The Washington Post has built a tracker to keep you up to date on all of President’s Biden’s environmental actions.

But that doesn’t mean you should feel helpless, or that your actions aren’t worthwhile. Taking steps to lower your own carbon footprint may help ease your climate anxiety by giving you back some power — and even the smallest of actions will contribute to keeping our planet habitable.

With that in mind, here are 10 places to start:

1. Create less food waste

2. Ditch your grass

3. Save coral reefs by packing smartly for your beach vacation

4. Shop sustainably by buying less

5. Protect our forests

6. Trade in for an electric car

7.  Weatherize your home

8. Learn about the link between climate change and racial equity

9. Consider carbon offsets

10. Pass it on.

                                                                                                                                               Credit: Book Cover

Climate change is having a range of impacts on health today that will become more severe unless urgent action is taken. Vulnerable populations will see their health increasingly undermined by both direct impacts, such as from extreme heat, and indirect ones, e.g. from less food and nutrition security. To produce science-based analysis and recommendations on a global scale, outstanding scientists from around the world – brought together by the world’s science academies under the umbrella of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) – have teamed up to collect and evaluate relevant evidence.

The three-year project involving well over 80 experts from all world regions also examined a number of climate mitigation and adaptation actions that could bring significant improvements to health and health equity.

Credit: University of Waterloo

The spread of disinformation and misinformation — often fuelled by skepticism — is on the rise. Combating this trend and understanding why some people deny, doubt or resist scientific findings and explanations is crucial to addressing the complex and existential issues impacting our societies.

The University of Waterloo’s new Trust in Science and Technology Research Network brings together researchers and practitioners from across disciplines to improve communication with the public and build trust in science and technology. Under the leadership of the inaugural co-directors, Dr. Donna Strickland, recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher, Canada Research Chair in Science, Health and Technology Communication, it is the first multidisciplinary research network of its kind in Canada to tackle this important issue.

January 14, 2023