CURRENT NEWS ON ECOLOGICAL WELLNESS AND GLOBAL HEALTH

 Volume 7, Number 47      https://planetaryhealthweekly.com      November 25, 2021

HI,

I’m still trying to process my experience at COP26, now almost two weeks after it’s concluding gavel. While on the one hand a number of important decisions were made; on the other the conference didn’t seem to move the meter on greenhouse gas emissions one little bit. Where does that leave me and us? I feel that I first must realize that this conference was one of mainly politicians and lobbyists trying to make decisions for their countries, their businesses, the health and safety of their citizens and their own personal/corporate interests. Yes, there were large youth and civil society voices but they were mainly outside the main gate. Some of the decisions like cutting back on methane release, setting dates to achieve national net zero carbon emissions, ushering in electric vehicles, not further financing the construction of fossil fuel infrastructure other than within national boundaries, were good, but they were all accompanied by implementation dates into the future, barely nothing now. I can’t also help but feel they’re woefully inadequate. Perhaps they were just enough to try to keep all sides happy, striking the needed compromise to attain commitment. The saddest part, though, is that there still are sides, with each having powerful promoters. In the end, only one side will win, though it too will be off into the future and probably too late. But, let’s go forward with hope.

Parallel and simultaneous to all this is the Covid-19 pandemic continuing its spread and hostility to millions, though with raising vaccination rates the intensity of sickness and death is diminishing, but globally and regionally (i.e., Europe, South Africa) cases are up. It is likely fair to say that, according to hospitalization rates, only those unvaccinated are suffering a serious form of this disease and dying. But there are those, part of a small minority, who continue to ignore these data, mock science, won’t learn from what is happening around them, and who lack common sense to hold and propagate their anti-vax positions. How can one of the greatest health achievements of humankind now be so derided? These positions are now getting violent and causing a giant chasm in the society and politics of many states. Luckily and how interesting it is that the national leadership found around the world, across the whole political and wealth spectrum, is wholly united around the need for vaccines to continue finding their way into the arms of everyone in order to solve the situation. I take note that Cuba is now the most highly vaxxed country in the world. Violent national protests, ignoring of laws and regulations, and obstinate denial of facts will only continue to prolong the pandemic and harm many struggling communities and businesses and cause great mental health problems. The height of all this arrogance and ignorance are the attacks on health workers just doing their jobs and on business leaders looking out for their workers, clients and bottom line.

So again today: one crisis with a long-term horizon of much more hurt than what’s being felt today; and the other, hopefully a short(er)-term one seriously affecting millions now, but hopefully soon to diminish.

My bottom line is to maintain my motivation to keep working for planetary health. Humans, animals and the environment are all intimately connected, as you will see again in the stories in today’s edition of the Planetary Health Weekly (#47 of 2021) including: 

• More COP26 Follow-up: 
  • China urges rich nations to take the lead on coal phase-out, Mia Mottley: the ‘fearless’ leader pushing a global settlement for the climate frontlines, 
  • Mia Mottley: The 'Fearless' Leader Pushing A Global Settlement For The Climate Frontlines
  • Donor countries set to reach $100bn climate finance target in 2023 – three years late, 
  • China and US announce agreement to cooperate at COP26 – as it happened, 
• CORONAVIRUS UPDATES: 
  • Biden administration will invest billions to expand coronavirus vaccine manufacturing, 
  • Worrying variant of coronavirus, with many unknown mutations, driving resurgence of infections in Gauteng (South Africa), 
  • Pfizer will allow its Covid treatment pill to be made and sold inexpensively in 95 poorer nations. A similar deal was made by Merck last month, 
  • The flawed science of antibody testing for SARS-CoV-2 immunity, 
  • Vaccination status and the detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection in health care personnel under surveillance in long-term residential facilities, 
  • Tracking Coronavirus vaccinations around the world, THEN 
• Lake Superior is one of the fastest warming lakes on the Planet, 
• How climate change and extreme weather are crimping America’s pie supply. Supply chain problems and climate change each take a fat slice of holiday pies, 
• From the heart of the Amazon: a supreme court battle over who decides the future of the rivers and forests, 
• New model from India better predicts solar cell output power in all weather, 
• Underwater sculptures stop illegal fishing, 
• B.C. paused a lot of old-growth logging; now what? 
• Is there really a climate emergency? 
• U.S. Dept. of Energy invests in UToledo solar technology research, 
• The silent strength of Indigenous renewable energy micro-grids, 
• Quote by António Guterres at COP26 on the state of the world,
• The problem with our maps, 
• What was COP26? A slog, a spectacle – and for one youthful delegation, an opportunity. We went looking for hope in Glasgow. We found it in Panamá, 
• Rhetoric and frame analysis of ExxonMobil’s climate change communications, 
• Domestic cats helping spread dangerous parasite to wildlife, UBC study finds, 
• New book: “Living Well on a Finite Planet: Building a Caring World Beyond Growth” from the Commons Network, 
• Young medical students want to learn about Planetary Health, 
• Academic freedom and its constraints: a complex history, 
• Sleeplessness and anxiety: PhD supervisors on toll of Covid pandemic, and lastly, 
• ENDSHOTS of handouts I received while at COP26.

Please do keep reading. Best, david

David Zakus, Editor and Publisher

                                                                                                         Credit: Adam Dean / Panos Pictures

As COP26 drew to a close (on Nov 13), Chinese media highlighted Beijing’s contribution over the last fortnight in Glasgow. “The Chinese delegation took a constructive attitude, actively communicated and negotiated with all parties,” said CCTV’s main evening news bulletin on Sunday. “[It] provided China’s wisdom and China’s solution …”

But when China and India chose the last few hours of negotiations to push for the language on coal to be diluted from “phase out” to “phase down,” both countries came under nearly immediate fire from commentators. COP president Alok Sharma later urged both countries to “explain themselves and what they did to the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world.” Read more at National Observer

SEE ALSO: 

At Climate Change News: Mia Mottley: The 'Fearless' Leader Pushing A Global Settlement For The Climate Frontlines

At Climate Change News: Donor Countries Set To Reach $100bn Climate Finance Target In 2023 - Three Years Late

At The Guardian: China and US Announce Agreement to Cooperate at Cop26 – As It Happened

Source: Johns Hopkins University https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/ma...

Globally, the situation is as severe as ever, and even more so in Europe. Protests there against the vaccine mount as infection spreads.

Over the last week there were about 4 million new cases (down by ~7%) and 50,000 deaths (down ~8%). About 220 million people received a vaccine (about the same), or an average of some 22 million doses per day -  continuing impressive, though distribution is still grossly distorted, favouring the rich and the wealthy countries. It is interesting to note that about as many Covid-19 vaccinations have been given as there are people on the Planet.

A health worker holds a coronavirus vaccine vial at Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Nov.14.  Credit: Narendra Shrestha/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The White House is aiming to spur the production of at least 1 billion doses a year. The funds will support companies that make mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer and Moderna, by helping them expand their capacity by funding facilities, equipment, staff and training. Read more at Washington Post

READ MORE COVID-19 STORIES:

At Daily Maverick: Worrying variant of coronavirus, with many unknown mutations, driving resurgence of infections in Gauteng, South Africa

At NY Times: Pfizer Will Allow Its Covid Pill to Be Made and Sold Cheaply in Poor Countries

At Jama Network: The Flawed Science of Antibody Testing for SARS-CoV-2 Immunity 

At Jama Network: Vaccination Status and the Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Health Care Personnel Under Surveillance in Long-term Residential Facilities 

At NY Times: Tracking Coronavirus Vaccinations Around the World

       Credit: Posnov/ Moment/ Getty Images

Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and its volume is around 10% of all the freshwater that exists on the planet. Many local and international communities rely on the lake for economic, cultural and recreational reasons, but warming temperatures are threatening widespread changes to the waterbody.

A study from York University (Toronto) reports that since 1992, lakes in the Northern Hemisphere have been warming six times faster than any other time period in the past century. The situation is particularly concerning in Canada, where the researchers say that Lake Superior is the second fastest-warming lake in the world.

“When we were calculating our trends, we had to double and triple check because they were so fast. And we haven't seen that translate in any of our previous studies as well. So that was the alarming part, how fast things are changing,” Sapna Sharma, Associate Professor at York University and lead author of the study, told The Weather Network. Read more at Weather Network

Credit: Zack Wittman for The Washington Post

For months, supply chain issues and labor shortages have been putting the squeeze on Mike’s Pies, a popular commercial bakery in Tampa. Florida that’s been selling pies based off owner Mike Martin’s mother’s recipes for three decades.

But another powerful factor — climate change — is heightening those challenges. Its impact is less visible but more enduring, and its consequences are playing out right as the food industry is struggling to avoid holiday season shortages.

Many of the ingredients in Mike’s Pies’ pies — wheat, berries, honey, soybean oil, among numerous others — have been hit hard by climate and weather effects, including droughts, wildfires and power shutdowns around the world. That’s sending prices soaring and, combined with a scarcity of workers and other hurdles, is causing mayhem throughout the global food supply chain. Read more at Washington Post

Credit: Amazon Frontlines

On November 15th 2021, just days after the COP26 climate conference ended, Ecuador’s Indigenous movement hosted judges from the country’s highest court for a historic hearing deep in Indigenous Amazonian territory, a first in Ecuadorian history. Indigenous leaders from across the nation, as well as government officials (opponents in the original case), presented oral arguments as the Court looks to set national precedent on perhaps the two most important rights for Indigenous guardianship of our planet’s largest rainforest.

As detailed in a communication just published by Ecuador’s Indigenous Movement, the case concerns first, “the right for Indigenous peoples in Ecuador to decide what happens in our territories, that is to say our essential right to self-determination and Free, Prior and Informed Consent, recognized internationally but not yet recognized, respected or applied in Ecuador.” And second, “the Rights of Nature, that is to say, the right of rivers, forests, mountains, and animals to exist without threats, contamination or destruction.” With 70% of the Ecuadorian Amazon in Indigenous hands and a new conservative ex-banker President promising to double oil production and rapidly expand mining in the Amazon, this ruling could be a game-changer. Read more at Amazon Frontlines

 Credit: Shoolini University

The world is in dire need of a large-scale transition away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable energy sources to prevent an environmental crisis. Thanks to recent advances in various scientific and engineering disciplines, solar cells have become a rising star in the field of renewable energy, reaching operational costs and performance close to those of the conventional electric grid.

However, in spite of the remarkable strides made in photovoltaics (PV) technology, the performance of the solar cell itself is only one part of the equation. For solar power projects to be funded and rolled out, decisionmakers need to know ahead of time how much energy the installed PV systems will provide, both for technical and administrative reasons. And for this new modelling from India will help. Read more at Solar Daily

SEE ALSO AT ENGERY DAILY: French, Chinese Firms Restart Argentina Lithium Project

Credit: Sineenuch J/Shutterstock

Trawling is a fishing method that involves dragging a weighted net along the seafloor behind the boat. It’s an indiscriminate catch-all method that can be very profitable. “At the beginning when you start fishing with trawl nets, you get a lot of benefits,” says Ricardo Aguila, senior adviser and expedition leader at the nonprofit conservation organization Oceana.

But fish stocks in an area quickly decline from trawling, for a number of reasons. The method sometimes captures endangered sharks (a keystone species) or turtles along with the intended fish targets. It captures young fish that haven’t grown large enough to be marketable, knocking out multiple generations in an area and depleting an area’s stocks for years to come. Trawling nets also ruin the important infrastructure of the seafloor as they drag along the bottom.

One of the most effective solutions is to physically prevent trawling through artificial reefs,” Fanciulli says. “So I started working on this project, trying to combine the protection of the seabed with something that could also give an added value to our environment, something as beautiful as a sculpture.”

Concrete blocks — or sculptures — can break weighted trawler nets that get caught up in them, so are a significant deterrent. They can also act as artificial reefs, providing corals, sponges and other sea life a place to latch onto, and as hiding places that Fanciulli says reduce the mortality of juvenile fish and crustaceans. The underwater museum even provides different kinds of shade and lighting, and can affect temperature around them, allowing more species to thrive.

“In recent years, thanks to the submerged sculptures, some species that we have not seen for some time have returned, such as groupers and lobsters,” he says. For Fanciulli, who began running fishing tours for tourists some time ago, this also has an economic component. Not only do the sculptures improve fish stocks for artisanal fishers, but they create an “extraordinary environment for divers.” Read more at Discover Magazine

Garry Merkel, who helped craft BC’s new approach to managing forests, at the Nov. 2 unveiling of logging deferrals. ‘People need to see that this is actually happening and that they’ve got a place.’ Credit: BC Government Flickr

In June, as Fairy Creek protests filled headlines, the B.C. government pressed pause on some old-growth logging in the area. Now the province has reached for the brakes again, potentially setting aside 2.6 million hectares of at-risk old growth across the province, pending the approval of First Nations.

“Deferral” is the government’s term for these interruptions. Rather than banning logging outright, the province claims to be modelling a more collaborative approach with First Nations, who can ask that logging in their territories be temporarily halted while bigger conversations around land use take place.

Some say this signals the beginning of a “paradigm shift” in how B.C.’s ancient forests are managed, while others express skepticism the ingredients for change are on the table, after decades of deregulated forest policy.

Union of BC Indian Chiefs president Grand Chief Stewart Phillip described the announcement as “a big puff ball,” because it puts the onus on First Nations to make difficult decisions without the proper supports in place. Read more at the Tyee

 Credit:  Angus Mordant/Reuters Files

Full disclosure: I believe climate change is real and humans contribute to it. But that statement only displays my personal virtue. It does not measure how serious the problem is, nor does it suggest the actions or the costs required to solve it. But these latter details are really the only meaningful discussion points in climate policy. That said, Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s first order of business as the new mayor of Calgary — “to declare a climate emergency” — is a bit long on virtue and short on substance. Read more at Calgary Herald

                                                                    Dr. Zhaoning Song holds a perovskite solar cell minimodule he developed with Dr. Yanfa Yan. The higher-efficiency, lower-cost solar cell technology could revolutionize energy generation around the globe. Credit: Solar Daily

In the race against climate change, physicists at The University of Toledo (Ohio) are pushing the limits of solar electricity to ensure a clean energy future. Through an innovative project that combines two types of solar cells and harvests light not only from the sun, but also light reflected off the ground, researchers are creating technology to develop stronger and longer-lasting solar panels.

UToledo is a world leader in the investigation of an advanced material called perovskites, a compound material with a special crystal structure that can be used to create less expensive and highly efficient solar cells.

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded UToledo a one-year, $300,000 grant to advance research that could lead to the integration of promising perovskite solar cell technology into existing production lines for cadmium-selenide-telluride (CST)-based solar cells, maximizing the performance of thin-film tandem solar cells and reducing the costs of energy. Read more at Solar Daily

Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm of the Vuntut Gwitchin Government in the Yukon, Canada, shared a video message at COP26 about the nation’s successful renewable energy micro-grid project, a solar panel array, Sree Vyah, meaning “sun snare” in the Gwitch’in language

For the first time since the 1970s, silence descended on the tiny, isolated village of Old Crow in Canada’s Arctic in August. For generations, the community of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in the Yukon, about 100 kilometres east of the Alaskan border, had suffered the incessant drone of diesel-powered generators to meet its electricity needs.

But the fly-in community, 120 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, was quiet for the first time in decades as the nation brought its solar energy micro-grid online, said Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm at an official COP26 side event . “We can now enjoy silence and hear our animals and the crows caw from across our village for the first time in 50 years,” said Tizya-Tramm in a video address to a panel discussing Indigenous renewable micro-grids (REMs) at the UN climate conference in Glasgow.

Hosted by the Canadian non-profit, Indigenous Clean Energy (ICE), panellists shared how renewable micro-grids developed and operated by and for Indigenous nations reflect traditional worldviews, foster sustainable economic development and Indigenous sovereignty all while addressing the climate crisis. Read more at National Observer

 Credit: Visual Capitalist

Maps shape our understanding of the world—and in an increasingly interconnected and global politic and economy, this geographic knowledge is more important than ever.

Unfortunately, billions of people around the world have a skewed perception of the true size of countries thanks to a cartographic technique called the Mercator projection. Used just about everywhere, from classroom wall maps to navigation apps, the Mercator projection is the way most of humanity recognizes the position and size of Earth’s continents and countries.

In 1569, the great cartographer, Gerardus Mercator, created a revolutionary new map based on a cylindrical projection. The new map was well-suited to nautical navigation since every line on the sphere is a constant course, or loxodrome. In modern times, this is particularly useful since the Earth can be depicted in a seamless way in online mapping applications.

That said, in this projection style, the sizes of landmasses become increasingly distorted the further away from the equator they get. One trade-off for the utility of Mercator’s map is that it pumps up the sizes of Europe and North America. Visually speaking, Canada and Russia appear to take up approximately 25% of the Earth’s landmass, when in reality they occupy a mere 5%.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez of Panamá speaks at a plenary on Day 13 of COP26. Credit: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Monterrey is organized, passionate and 29 years old — young for the lead negotiator of a nation (America’s top negotiator, John F. Kerry, turns 78 next month). Monterrey and Panamá occupy what passes for moral high ground inside the conference; the country of just over 4 million identifies as one of only three nations on the planet to be carbon negative. Monterrey is an insider — and was namechecked by Barack Obama during his Glasgow speech Nov. 8 — but his goals align with the protesters outside the barriers of COP26. He and they are desperate to persuade bigger nations to slash their emissions faster and to support vulnerable nations that disproportionately suffer climate effects.

In the final 48 hours of COP26, the young Panamá negotiator pinballed between meetings and hugged his way through the main corridor, exuding a mood that clashed with the drudgery of the conference and the dread of this epoch- as he welcomed youth into his official delegation.

“There’s a sense of optimism,” Monterrey said, headed for coffee Thursday morning, but would optimism be enough?

Credit: Article

This paper investigates how ExxonMobil uses rhetoric and framing to shape public discourse on climate change. We present an algorithmic corpus comparison and machine-learning topic model of 180 ExxonMobil climate change communications, including peer-reviewed publications, internal company documents, and advertorials in The New York Times. We also investigate advertorials using inductive frame analysis. We find that the company has publicly overemphasized some terms and topics while avoiding others. Most notably, they have used rhetoric of climate “risk” and consumer energy “demand” to construct a “Fossil Fuel Savior” (FFS) frame that downplays the reality and seriousness of climate change, normalizes fossil fuel lock-in, and individualizes responsibility. These patterns mimic the tobacco industry's documented strategy of shifting responsibility away from corporations—which knowingly sold a deadly product while denying its harms—and onto consumers. This historical parallel foreshadows the fossil fuel industry's use of demand-as-blame arguments to oppose litigation, regulation and activism.

Credit: Simon Little / Global News

Should you keep your pet cat indoors? New research from the University of British Columbia is adding ammunition to the argument the answer is “yes.” The study, led by veterinarian and UBC adjunct forestry professor Amy Wilson, focuses on the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which is common in cats and potentially harmful to wildlife.

The researchers looked at more than 45,000 cases of toxoplasmosis in wild animals and found a heightened presence of the parasite among wildlife living near dense urban areas. “Toxoplasma has an interesting life cycle in that cats and domestic cats and wild cats are at the centre of its life cycle,” Wilson said.

“When you see a pattern that you have increased infection rates and with high human densities, then with high human densities, you’re going to see higher numbers of domestic cats. So that’s what we concluded was one of the factors leading to the infection rates because they’re loading the environment with increased numbers of eggs.”

 Credit: Commons Network

Commons Network is proud to publish Living Well on a Finite Planet: Building a Caring World Beyond Growth. This report is the result of a two-year exploration of the post-growth movement, merging planetary health thinking, feminist economics and fieldwork from Dutch healthcare and caring commoning practices.

The degrowth story is about societies that are becoming slower by design, rather than by disaster. It describes a shift to a world that is more autonomous, ecologically sufficient and caring. We argue that a careful degrowth transformation requires a new discourse of health and care, guided by different dynamics and practices.

Why this story, why now?

The COP26 promises a global temperature rise of 2,4 degrees celsius. This means a global health disaster that will hit the most vulnerable the hardest. A future of sea-level rises, drought, floods, heatwaves and storms means more civil wars, famines and violently displaced communities. We are sacrificing so much, just to achieve more economic growth.

In our new publication, we show that the ideology of ‘growth as good’ – and the growth-focused system it upholds –  is the lead cause of rising inequalities and ecological destruction. We explore what it means to move beyond growth, towards a vision for a society that is centered around care, autonomy and sufficiency.

Looking for ‘sparks’ of degrowth

Throughout the report, we ask the question: If a growth-centered economic system is making us and the planet sick, what can we do to transform it? We introduce the reader to the key features of the degrowth narrative and explore what we can learn from the growing movement of self-organizing caring citizen collectives – or commons –  that display various facets of degrowth. We show that degrowth envisions a world that is already in the making in places where these commoning practices are flourishing.

At caring commons, health and care are approached holistically, with a focus on promoting collective autonomy and community solidarity. They aim to be needs-driven, integrative, collaborative and self-governing. They nurture trust, reciprocity and diversity, all while holding a commitment to remain locally-grounded. The caring commoning practices we present are prefiguring a socioecological transformation that moves beyond the need for economic growth.

Meanwhile, although any real transformation will be animated from the bottom-up, we will need bold politics as well, rooted in political courage. This is why we discuss three degrowth-promoting policy strategies that support and promote the organisation of care through commons in a structural way.

We acknowledge that the proposals discussed are ambitious, under today’s growth regime. These ideas could transform not only the way we live and work, but how we relate to each other and the natural world. But we hope that readers will find comfort and hope in the fact that most of these new ideas and models are already being put into practice by communities all over the world. It is up to us to help them flourish.

Credit: Morgan Sharp / Canada's National Observer

While floods and other extreme weather events take up most of the popular attention on climate change’s health impacts, some medical students want to learn, and in turn teach, that it goes much further than that.

Vidya Anathakumar, a 21-year-old medical student at the University of Glasgow, says we often hear about global heating and floods but not the specific related health problems; where failed crops create food shortages that weaken people’s immune systems, for example, or diseases like malaria get longer seasons and spread easier and farther from their historical homes near the equator.

“All of this has a really big impact on people’s health and also their mental health,” she said, just to the left of the stage where Greta Thunberg and a string of Indigenous, youth, and labour representatives were taking turns speaking to the assembled crowd at a climate rally on Friday, November 5. “I’m here protesting because the climate crisis is a health crisis. And that’s something that’s not really spoken about enough” or taught enough in our medical school curriculum.

SEE ALSO: 

At Simon Fraser University: Academic Freedom and Its Constraints: A Complex History

Sleeplessness And Anxiety: PhD Supervisors On Toll Of COVID Pandemic

AT COP26, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

"HANDOUTS ON DISPLAY"

NOVEMBER 8-12 2021

Amid a few poignant quotes