HI,
Up/down, good/bad, Yin/Yang…This past week sure brought a few strong emotions. First was when having supper with two great old friends and colleagues in Quebec City and discussing, among many things including politics of the world the dire situation of global health in Canada, particularly the lack of calls for proposals (other than for Covid) and the difficulty with education now so much being confined to at home webinars and zoom calls, rather than real field work with communities and families around the world, building relationships, friendships and networks. From my experience that’s where learning really happens. Looking forward, with the likelihood of travel restrictions, both formal and personal, likely to continue for many months, even a couple more years, global health education, research and development will certainly also continue to be negatively impacted. Our conclusion: we need to think about and implement new forms of global solidarity and education. But what are they? There is certainly the need for serious discussion and meeting of minds on this.
So with the high of dining with such great friends and conversation over Corsican dishes, I then fell into a kind of despair when reading a story of huge floods and community displacement and destruction in South Sudan. About eight years ago I travelled it capital, Juba, with a super team of six colleagues from the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, at the invitation of the university’s Vice-Chancellor. We had high hopes of developing a program to help their struggling medical school. But, upon arrival our hopes were quickly dashed when finding that the university had been closed for at least the previous three months. Needless to say - no one had informed us! But we made good use of our days there visiting many multilateral and NGO programs, and actually departing with high hopes that we could put something good together. Alas, subsequent political conflict and civil war dashed that plan; and now reading of how the poorest people in the world have had what still remained of their lives further destroyed by immense floods only further saddened my heart - bringing back those melancholic memories and a dose of despair. Such are the days of global health, which continue with such uncertainty, despite enhanced need. Just to list the environmental disasters currently underway and ruining lives is indeed distressing. Now, along with all the former health problems, formerly rare but now rapidly occurring environmental disasters must be planned for, with adaption interventions to complement mitigation activities and making good on our promises to help those, hanging onto so little in life, wondering why.
Trying to answer that existential question continues to be a goal of the Planetary Health Weekly, where we work to expose the ‘why’ – the ‘what’ is happening around us. The challenges are only intensifying, in both impact and number, and the yin and the yang of our emotional journeys. Do continue on with today’s edition (#49 of 2021) to read about:
- AFTER COP26:
- Parliamentarians must make sure climate commitments are met after COP26,
- Seeing the forest for the cities with Scott Francisco (podcast),
- ‘Rich nations must pay for African conservation efforts’ say African leaders at COP26,
- Top Australian super funds shed active oil and gas giant Woodside holdings,
- Linking climate and biodiversity,
- CORONAVIRUS UPDATES:
- Canada should focus on vaccine equity – not travel bans, human rights advocate and doctors say,
- The coronavirus in a tiny drop,
- Half of India’s adult population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19 (and over 85% of adults have the first dose),
- Stephanie Nolen was reporting on variants in South Africa – then Europe’s travel ban sidelined her,
- Superspreader event at Ontario restaurant leads to 42 positive COVID tests and warnings about new restrictions,
- WHO recommends against the use of convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19,
- Update on Omicron, THEN
- ASAP no time to wait to break HIV stigma, students say,
- Through the eye of a needle: an eco-heterodox perspective on the renewable energy transition,
- Climate change forces ski resorts to get creative,
- Why the toilet needs an upgrade,
- How building a network of wildlife crime law enforcement is reducing the illegal wildlife trade,
- United Airlines flies first passenger aircraft using 100% biofuel engine,
- An unorthodox solution of Europe’s electricity crisis,
- The database of fossil fuel divestment commitments made by institutions worldwide,
- Tuberculosis outbreak in Pangnirtung, Nunavut,
- Quote on the folly of shareholder engagement in the fossil fuel industry for former US SEC commissioner,
- New events including the: 6th International Covid-19 Studies Conference, the 2022 Canadian Conference on Global Health, and the 24th World Conference on Health Promotion,
- Short Film “Howling – Call of the Wild” (about the Algonquin wolf),
- Visualizing the global electric vehicle market & The race for EV dominance,
- Hong Kong Consumer Council finds cancer-causing substances in all 60 biscuit types subject to testing,
- An Everglades Park ranger’s entire day, from fieldwork to feeding farm animals,
- Two new books: Luz at Midnight by Marisol Cortez & The Sound of the Sea – Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans by Cynthia Barnett,
- Newly installed President Vivek Goel leads Waterloo University into bold new futures, and lastly
- ENDSHOTS of Winter Wonders at Hamilton’s Royal Botanical Gardens amid some latest Covid-19 stats and charts from Canada and around the world.
I hope you’ll keep reading. Best, david
David Zakus, Editor and Publisher
|
|
|
|
Cold Wintery Sunrise, Whitefish Lake, Ontario |
|
|
|
December 9, 2021 just before 8AM, -17C |
|
|
|
Credit: The Elders Mary Robinson addresses the Inter-Parliamentary Union, asking delegates to take bold action to close the gap to 1.5°C.
It is an honour and a privilege to be here with you today. The eyes of the world are on Glasgow, including those of the millions of electors to whom the parliamentarians gathered in this splendid hall are accountable.
I keep asking the question: are our leaders really in crisis mode? Is your parliament in crisis mode? Is the committee that you sit on in your parliament in crisis mode?
If you come from a developing country, the answer is more likely to be yes.
The obligations upon everyone attending COP, but particularly those who have been elected to positions of authority, are not only moral but deeply practical.
They speak to the social contract that lies at the heart of parliamentary democracy: women and men in whom the public have placed their trust have a responsibility to act in the best interests of their constituents and the wider society they represent.
Mary Robinson delivered this speech at the 2021 Global Conference on Health and Climate Change event at COP26 on 7 November 2021. Read the speech at the Elders
SEE ALSO:
At 36 City: Seeing the Forest for the Cities with Scott Francisco (podcast)
At the Independent: ‘Rich Nations Must Pay For African Conservation Efforts’ Say African Leaders At COP26
At Australian Financial Review: Top Australian Super Funds Shed Active Oil And Gas Giant Woodside Holdings
At Science: Linking Climate And Biodiversity
Areas of potential cooperation between the scientific communities linked to the IPCC and IPBES include the development of socioeconomic and environmental scenarios with an integrative perspective—to make visible and quantify, to the extent possible, interlinkages between climate change and biodiversity loss, and their implications for sustainable development. These interlinkages are captured, at least partially, in the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. A comprehensive consideration of the Indigenous and local knowledge contributions in responding to these global challenges, as well as the development of research capacities on these topics, especially in developing countries, are other issues to be prioritized as part of the joint efforts.
|
|
|
|
SARS-CoV-2 & COVID-19 UPDATES |
|
|
|
Globally, the situation is getting worse, again. How can this be? Especially in Europe, and now the variant Omicron capturing so much attention, named after the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet (bypassing Xi). How exasperating!
Over the last week there were about 5 million new cases (up lots, ~25%) and 56,000 deaths (up 10%). About 250 million people received a vaccine, or an average of some 35 million doses per day - continuing impressive, while distribution remains grossly distorted, favouring wealthy countries and the rich. But kudos to Cuba for being the world vaccination leader!
|
|
|
|
"It is the plague in seemingly all sincerity." Bob Woodward |
|
|
|
Credit: Michael Probst/Associated Press
Health and infectious disease specialists are calling for the government of Canada to focus on global vaccine equity, not travel bans, as it takes measures to respond to news of the omicron variant of COVID-19.
The doctors, along with a human rights policy specialist who spoke to CBC this week, said the federal government can and should increase its vaccine shipments to low-income countries sooner than planned, encourage more vaccine production and advocate for rules to make pharmaceutical companies release vaccine recipes.
And doing so is in the best interest of everyone, they said.
"If you don't want to be altruistic ... and if you only want to be self-interested, it's in your interest to have everybody on this planet vaccinated as soon as possible," said Dr. Ross Upshur, a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the department of family medicine at the University of Toronto. Read more at CBC
|
|
|
|
Credit: Some of the impressions Pedro, a student from Brazil, has had of Toronto since arriving in 2019. Photos supplied
It's one thing to be out about being gay and yet another huge step to speak publicly about an HIV diagnosis, says one young man in Toronto who's walking that road.
“It’s like a second closet,” Pedro said in a recent WhatsApp conversation, using a pseudonym and eager to keep some identifying information private. “I've already gone through the first (with) sexual orientation, coming out as gay ... and I embrace it! I’m always speaking out.
“I think I could do more (to talk about HIV and AIDS) but the stigma holds me ... and I feel ashamed,” said the 29-year-old from Brazil who moved to Canada in 2019, a little more than six months after getting the diagnosis he has not shared with his immediate family. Read more at National Observer
|
|
|
|
Credit: Article We add to the emerging body of literature highlighting cracks in the foundation of the mainstream energy transition narrative. We offer a tripartite analysis that re-characterizes the climate crisis within its broader context of ecological overshoot, highlights numerous collectively fatal problems with so-called renewable energy technologies, and suggests alternative solutions that entail a contraction of the human enterprise. This analysis makes clear that the pat notion of “affordable clean energy” views the world through a narrow keyhole that is blind to innumerable economic, ecological and social costs. These undesirable “externalities” can no longer be ignored. To achieve sustainability and salvage civilization, society must embark on a planned, cooperative descent from an extreme state of overshoot in just a decade or two. While it might be easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for global society to succeed in this endeavor, history is replete with stellar achievements that have arisen only from a dogged pursuit of the seemingly impossible. Read more at MDPI
|
|
|
|
Photo: PIXABAY
Utah is known for its dry, powdery snow. The absence of humidity in the air gives skiers and snowboarders what Utah calls “The Greatest Snow on Earth”, but Jordan Smith, director of the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism at Utah State University, said climate change is affecting snow quality.
“The future will ultimately be dependent upon what we do to limit our carbon emissions going forward,” Smith said. “If we're not able to do not able to do that in a significant way, it's most likely going to be a future where winter conditions comprise more dense snow.” Read more at Utah Public Radio
|
|
|
|
Credit: AdstockRF
In the U.S. and other places, the waste water infrastructure is aging and not well suited for dealing with many of the challenges that lay ahead in the future. Chelsea Wald has spent over 8 years researching the toilet, and discovered it needs a BIG upgrade. Read more at Wired
|
|
|
|
Credit: Space for Giants
The European Union’s Biodiversity Strategy aims to put Earth’s biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030, and in doing so to unlock a myriad of benefits for people, the climate and the planet.
Part of this Strategy involves bringing an end to the illegal wildlife trade. Believed to be worth over an estimated £15 billion annually, the trade exacerbates existing pressures and has contributed to the unprecedented rate of extinction of species and biodiversity loss.
The illegal wildlife trade not only undermines good governance and economic stability and, in doing so, exploits local communities. For many countries, policing the illegal wildlife trade is a particular challenge because of the borderless nature of crime. As these criminal syndicates move across borders, a joined up approach to law enforcement is crucial so that we are able to find a way forward. Read more at Independent
|
|
|
|
Credit: Representational image. Wikimedia Commons
The US-based carrier United Airlines on December 1 made aviation history when it operated the first-ever commercial flight on 100 percent sustainable fuel in one of two engines.
The flight operated from Chicago's O'Hare airport to Washington on Wednesday.
"Aviation history is cleared for takeoff. The world's first passenger flight using 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is en route to @Reagan_Airport," the company said in a tweet.
The jet engine of the aircraft was fuelled with non-petroleum feedstocks, which unlike petroleum use leftovers from agriculture, wood mills and other sources.
The flight carrying 100 passengers, operated with one of United's new Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets with 500 gallons of sustainable fuel in one engine and 500 gallons of traditional jet fuel in the other.
Sustainable aviation fuels have the potential to deliver the same performance of petroleum-based jet fuel with a fraction of the carbon footprint.
"Today's SAF flight is not only a significant milestone for efforts to decarbonize our industry, but when combined with the surge in commitments to produce and purchase alternative fuels, we're demonstrating the scalable and impactful way companies can join together and play a role in addressing the biggest challenge of our lifetimes," United CEO Scott Kirby said in a statement.
The fuel was supplied by World Energy, North America's only commercial biofuel producer. Read more at First Post
|
|
|
|
Credit: Maria Galvin/Shutterstock
Frans Timmermans was placed in an uncomfortable position during a recent debate at the European Parliament on the ‘Fit for 55’ climate package. Challenged on rising electricity prices, the European Commission vice-president and climate lead claimed that ‘only about one fifth of the price increase can be attributed to CO2 prices rising’—blaming ‘shortage in the market’ for the rest.
It was an unconvincing defence of the European Union’s flagship emissions-trading system (ETS). And it did not stop the Polish MEP Anna Zalewska from charging that ‘the prices of ETS are driving up, but unfortunately prices of energy are driving up as well’. Fifty million Europeans were ‘energy poor’, she claimed, and citizens were asking about price increases ‘because it’s them who’re going to unfortunately pay for the ambitions of the EU’. Read more at Social Europe
|
|
|
|
Credit: Article
The divestment commitments database is maintained by Stand.earth in partnership with 350.org. It is the most comprehensive database of fossil fuel divestment commitments made by institutions globally.
Total divestment commitments include full commitments, partial commitments, and divestments from coal & tar sands. The total assets under management committed to divestment are the cumulative value of the assets of individual institutions using the latest publicly available data on or from those institutions. These include the institution’s own reported size of endowment, annual and financial reports, and information posted on the institution’s websites.
The true amount of money being pulled out from fossil fuels is almost certainly larger since not all divestment commitments are made public.
In prior years, the assets tabulated in this database were solely calculated based on their value at the time of the commitment by the institution. As the age of the divestment movement has grown, this has meant that the total financial impact of the movement has been underestimated–the vast majority of institutions have seen their assets grow, in some cases, quite significantly, since the time of their commitment. To better reflect the true current value of the movement, this database was updated in October 2021. Read more at Divestment Database
|
|
|
|
SPOTLIGHT ON INDIGENOUS WELLNESS |
|
|
|
The community of Pangnirtung, Nunavut (pop.: ~1500). Credit: CBC
The Chief Public Health Officer is advising the residents of Pangnirtung that due to a recent increase in the number of active tuberculosis (TB) cases in the community, the Department of Health is declaring an outbreak of tuberculosis.
Until recently Health staff had been able to establish definitive links between all cases in Pangnirtung and manage the situation with usual public health follow-ups. However, the growing number of cases and the challenges in establishing how or where all the cases were exposed suggest that enhanced public health follow-up of the situation is necessary. Therefore, the situation is being declared an outbreak as of November 25, 2021.
Community members who have been exposed to an active TB case, or who have TB symptoms should visit the Health Centre for screening. The following are symptoms of active TB:
- a cough that lasts longer than three weeks;
- feel very tired;
- have lost your appetite;
- have a fever or are experiencing night sweats;
Anyone with these symptoms should go to the Health Centre as soon as possible for screening. TB is a treatable disease with medications available within your community. If you have any questions please contact your local health centre. Read more at Nunavut Gov.
|
|
|
|
An ExxonMobil oil refinery, the second largest in the U.S., is pictured on February 28, 2020 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Credit: Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images |
|
Despite decades of shareholder engagement, the fossil fuel industry continues to be the most powerful obstacle to government action on climate change. The fossil fuel industry has been the main funder of climate denier organizations, and the industry funds and lobbies politicians against climate policy.
Shareholder engagement promotes the image of fossil fuel companies as good corporate citizens, and strengthens their political power to fight climate legislation. This is exactly opposite the strategy of divestment, which aims to weaken the political power of fossil fuel companies by calling them out as bad actors, and thereby win climate legislation. Former US Security and Exchange Commission commissioner Bevis Longstreth in Climate Change and Investment in Fossil Fuel Companies: The Strategy of Engagement Won't Work explains it this way:
"Indeed, engagement is likely to assist Big Oil and Big Coal in postponing the day when governments limit the burning of fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency reckons that, if governments act to compel adherence to the carbon budget, necessary to have a chance of holding the planet to only a 3.6 F rise in temperature from pre-industrial levels, it will cause Big Oil and Big Coal to lose about $1 trillion a year. Engagement with institutional investors like Harvard gives the fossil fuel giants the protective cover they need to stretch out the transition process to renewables for as long as they can. It legitimizes talk over action."
PS: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is a large independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market manipulation. Wikipedia
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- January 16-17, 2022: 6th International Covid 19 Studies Conference (New York, USA). By Institute of Economic Development and Social Researches)
Open to all covid-19 and pandemic studies from all disciplines. Presentations will be in disciplinary sessions, inp-erson and online participation.
- March 28th-April 1st, 2022: Healthy People, Healthy Planet, Social Justice. (CUGH Virtual Satellite Sessions: March 21st-25th, 2022)
- April 1-3, 2022: CUGH 2022 Global Health Conference - Hybrid: Healthy People, Healthy Planet, Social Justice (Los Angeles, California). Virtual Satellite Sessions: March 21-25, 2022; In-person Satellite Sessions: March 31, 2022
- April 23 - 25, 2022: 8th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (online streaming)
- May 14-15, 2022: Canadian Conference on Global Health (Montreal, Quebec)
- May 15-19, 2022: 24th World Conference on Health Promotion (Montreal, Quebec)
- October 31 - November 4, 2022: 7th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (Bogotá, Colombia)
|
|
|
|
|
|
FYI#1 SPOTLIGHT ON MEDIA |
|
Short Film: Howling - Call of the Wild (the Algonquin Wolf) |
|
|
|
Credit: Steve Woods
Howling is a film about people co-existing with the Algonquin Wolf, and the on-going battle to secure the future for this species and the environment that supports them. It explores the successful work done to date to create a protected home for the wolf, the threats to that recipe for success, and how people around the globe are finding ways to learn about and interact with the Algonquin Wolf.
Thanks for watching our short film and for your comments. The primary goal of our series of films is to call attention to ways that we can directly experience Canada’s nature, including shining a spotlight on how we can contribute to making a positive impact. The common thread that binds our films together is their setting in the geography that defines our brand – Canada’s wilderness. Our belief is that finding ways to experience this world, and contribute to its sustainability, is a cause worth pursuing.
The Muskoka Roastery contributes 1% of annual sales each year to a variety of organizations. For this film we made a donation to wolfawareness.org whose mission is to “develop positive attitudes towards wolves and to foster an appreciation for the environment of which all of us are a part.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Electric vehicles (EVs) are a key piece of the net-zero carbon future puzzle, and the electric vehicle market is growing exponentially.
Countries and governments around the world are recognizing the importance of these zero-emission vehicles and consequently including them in their decarbonization plans. But some countries are far ahead in the EV race, while others are yet to fully embrace EV adoption.
SEE ALSO at VisualCapitalist:
Visualizing the Race for EV Dominance
|
|
|
|
FYI #3 |
|
Hong Kong Consumer Council Finds Cancer-Causing Substances In All 60 Biscuit Types Subject To Testing |
|
|
|
Credit: Handout
- Watchdog says study of biscuits, crackers and wafers shows carcinogens presence across the board, even though it is possible to avoid introducing the contaminants
- 40% of products carry misleading labelling, raising major concerns for those with health conditions relying on accurate information
|
|
|
|
|
|
FYI #4 |
|
An Everglades Park Ranger’s Entire Day, From Fieldwork To Feeding Farm Animals |
|
|
|
Credit: Yvette Cano Twitter
In this episode of On the Grind, Director of Education at the Everglades National Park Yvette Cano breaks down her entire routine—including how she balances tending to her 5-acre family farm with her teaching job. She starts the day off by picking ginger from her garden for tea and feeding her koi fish pond. She shares her passion for veganism and sustainability and how she has managed to reach 40,000 more learners worldwide by teaching from the swamp virtually.
|
|
|
|
|
|
FYI #5: DECEMBER READING (TWO NEW BOOKS) |
|
"Luz at Midnight" by Marisol Cortez AND "The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans" by Cynthia Barnett |
|
|
|
Credit: Books
Luz at Midnight. By Marisol Cortez
In February, winter storms blitz the city with cold and sleet so extreme it freezes “the river hard enough to skate on for the first time in over 100 years,” and rolling blackouts plunge residents into a melancholy, powerless unknown. Just two months later, summer arrives, with heat so extreme it “stays and stays, inert and unmoving as death.… Come May Day it would be impossible, inescapable—in your house, in your lungs, in the folds of your body filling with sweat thick as glue.” Hurricanes turn into flooding and bitter cold into suffocating heat, all of which portend further power outages—not simply because of a climate spinning out of control, but because when the grid fails, there is money to be made—and institutional interests are ready to cash in.
“It was the time of no money and no job and nothing anyone wanted to eat in the house,” writes Marisol Cortez in her dazzling debut novel, Luz at Midnight. “It was a time when they could only wait, limbs slingshot cocked like starting-line runners, for what would come next.”
What comes next in Cortez’s elegantly layered, evocative story about love and despair, catastrophe and redemption could hardly be a surprise to the characters who, with eyes wide open, inhabit this deeply troubled world. Set in San Antonio, Texas, at a time of climate crisis, there are too few options left for those with the least means and too much pollution, waste and excess all around; their demands for change and justice seem hopelessly confined to press releases and poster boards. Yet amidst the darkening rhythms of the day-to-day grind, a love story delicately, slowly germinates between two people at a crossroads. Their newfound relationship—and the tender, slow dance through which they cultivate it, in twists, turns and occasional pirouettes—is a defiant signal of presence and connection in a world rife with too little of both.
Citlali Sanchez-O’Connor, who goes by Lali, is a young mother and community activist who has just completed a PhD and returned home to San Antonio, Texas, with a new awareness of the “complex political interweaving of oil and water and money and colour, some new rootedness in place or rightness, like falling in love or coming home.” Through her academic research she endeavours to “sketch out a preliminary understanding of San Antonio’s political ecology, the political ecology of home, synthesizing fragments of analysis from various sources to refract the present moment through the light of the past." But her path is complicated—in part by simply having to make ends meet day-to-day for her daughter, Nena, and because the activist organization she has joined, El Centro, is plagued by disorganization and its own endemic culture of injustice. El Centro’s blind faith in “actions” belie the lived experience of working mothers of colour like Lali and seem all of a piece of how toxic institutionalized power structures, whether progressive or not, impact and shape public life.
Joel Champlain is a journalist at Volt, an alternative newspaper seemingly destined like all others to be bought out by a big corporation and gutted. He suffers from bouts of crushing depression while seeking to expose the false promises of a new rare-earth mining process that purports to advance a swift transition from fossil fuels. Joel, also raising a daughter, struggles with an overpowering feeling of emptiness in his life. Then he meets Lali. “I’m doomed, though, if I can’t believe in even this one small chance between people, desperately grabbing for each other as they hurtle past, propelled by the force of ancient stars long exploded.” Tracking their story is a stray dog named Luz—an evanescent character at once a means for solace and a symbol of dislocation and impermanence.
San Antonio is just as much a main character of the novel as any other, its history of colonialism and the exploitation of its Indigenous peoples and natural resources haunting the novel’s present age. “Billowing shreds of many-hued plastic bags are snatched in the barbed wire coils atop its keep-out fence, like items of clothing pinned to a wall in memorium.”
Throughout Luz at Midnight, Cortez masterfully crafts together a kind of mix-tape medley that blends narrative with poetry, diary with prose, playwriting with journalism, all of which seamlessly intersect to lift up glimpses of wonder, call out acts of hypocrisy, or bring home moments of truth. Beyond the dark scrim that has descended on this world, there are flashes of beauty so brilliantly rendered they illuminate all that we stand to gain by taking them in, and all we stand to lose if we don’t. “Imagine this: the secret logic of a flock of birds in flight, swooping, swerving according to their own inner time signature. Somewhere, someone with the right knowledge must have traced its architecture, plotted it carefully, unwound its inner springs to reveal the mechanism, the rhythm, the organization. It couldn’t be random.”
Nor could the fragile love story that develops between Lali and Joel—its impermanence a possibility at every turn. And yet … with innocence lost, and nothing left to lose, they take each other in once more.
—Jonathan Hahn
See also:
The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans. By Cynthia Barnett
At the beginning of her magnificent new book, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans, nature writer Cynthia Barnett offers an invitation that might not sound appealing to the uninitiated: “Consider the mollusks.” I’ll admit that before reading The Sound of the Sea, I hadn’t considered them, not really. I enjoy beachcombing as much as the next person, and I’ve often been stunned by the beauty of shells in the sand. Yet somehow (and this is truly embarrassing) I had never appreciated the simple fact that every single shell—from the prized queen conch to the seemingly humble cowrie—was once a living creature’s home. As early American malacologist Thomas Say put it, “The shell is only their habitation.” The carapace we find on the shore is just part of the mollusk’s story.
The best nature writers excel by taking something that is overlooked or hiding in plain sight—some natural phenomenon right overhead or directly underfoot—and investing it with meaning. That’s what Barnett accomplished with her last book, Rain, a globe-spanning cultural history of precipitation that was long-listed for the National Book Award. Now, Barnett pulls off a similar feat with seashells. She starts with wonder, imbues that with knowledge, and then alchemizes it all into awe, leaving the reader struck with a blow of revelation. “To stare into the spiral top of a whelk or cone shell,” Barnett writes in one of her many fine-tuned lines, “is to see the swirl of the Milky Way.”
The Sound of the Sea has encyclopedic ambitions, and it seems to touch on just about every aspect of marine mollusks and their shells. In this book, there’s paleontology, biology, history, anthropology, myths, and even a glimpse into the future, as Barnett considers how the climate emergency and the continued destruction of marine environments threaten the next generations of shell-making creatures. As Barnett concludes, we can discover “the story of the world in a shell.”
Readers will make discoveries on nearly every page. I learned, for example, that bay scallops have 22 “electric-blue eyes”; that Shell Oil got its name because the family that started the company earned its first fortune as shell dealers; that cowrie shells were one of the first international currencies and helped grease the trans-Atlantic slave trade (Ghana’s national currency, the cedi, comes from a local word for cowrie); that the lightning whelk is one of the few spiraled shells that winds left instead of right; and that those whelks were collected and crafted (by the millions!) into elaborate cities by the pre-Columbian Calusa culture.
Barnett presents all this and more with an impressive yet unfussy erudition. Whenever the text risks mounding too high with facts, Barnett spikes her writing with a bit of poetry. Describing “the ocean’s softest song” on Florida’s Sanibel Island, she writes, “As each wave pulls back to sea, a sparkly tinkle rises from the rumble; the roil of tiny shells. They ring from the quiet end of the aural spectrum, place of fairy-dust notes and first rains.”
This is a book that deserves to be read in its natural habitat—at the seashore, with your toes buried in the sand, surrounded by the most commonplace wonders you could possibly imagine.
—Jason Mark
|
|
|
|
|
|
FYI#6: SPOTLIGHT ON EDUCATION |
|
President Vivek Goel Leads Waterloo University (Ontario) Into Bold New Futures |
|
|
|
Credit: UWaterloo
A new era of leadership for the University of Waterloo officially begins. Vivek Goel was installed as the University of Waterloo's seventh President and Vice-Chancellor on November 8, 2021.
Hundreds of viewers tuned in virtually to the ceremony that took place live at Engineering 7, where President Goel was formally endowed the duties and responsibilities of office.
“Emerging from the pandemic, we find ourselves at a crossroad, just as our founders experienced in the post-War era,” Goel said. “As we look to build back after so much disruption, universities are and will continue to play an important role in economic recovery and ensuring society is more resilient in the future.”
“We are not only concerned about solving today’s most pressing challenges, but anticipating those to come, developing approaches and solutions to equip ourselves accordingly, and therefore working towards a better future for our world,” he said. “As we look forward, we should also think about humanity’s and society’s futures, and help define the world that we want to live in, rather than letting technology shape our future as has been the case in recent decades. […] Imagining the kind of world we want to live in will drive what kind of university we want to be.”
President Goel is recognized in Canada and around the world as a leading academic administrator (former UToronto Provost and VP Research and Innovation), public-health researcher (founder of Public Health Ontario), health-services evaluation expert, and champion for the use of research evidence in health policy making.
|
|
|
|
|
|
WINTER WONDERS - ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS
(HOLIDAY SEASON LIGHT SHOW)
HAMILTON, ONTARIO, DECEMBER 4, 2021
Amid Latest Covid-19 Stats and Charts from Canada and Around the World
|
|
|
|
Photo Credits: David Zakus |
|
|
|
|