I was counselled the other day to approach the coming year with love, reconciliation and kindness and leave anger behind. I have taken this to heart. It seems there’s plenty of need for it, even today as we witness a truck driver protest travelling across Canada decrying public health measures against Covid-19, though 90% of their profession has been vaccinated. We live is such a crazy world that we don’t even know what passersby or unknown people at a meeting look like. Thank goodness for Zoom, though, at least we can see each other on a screen. It’s probably safe to say that just about everybody wants Covid over; but the virus has a different perspective. There is certainly no easy way out of this pandemic, and I need a new attitude, though that won’t be easy. I am entrenched in my evidence based paradigm and find it hard to accept those who have fallen prey to the lies and hoaxes on social media. It’s even happening on Spotify (good luck Neil Young!).
Hopefully, though, we won’t see another serious variant and go into a sixth wave of sickness and death. That, though, is still in the cards, and there’s already a subvariant of Omicron spreading fast around the world. And what about all the millions/billions of unvaccinated folks living in poverty around the world, especially in Africa? And the Americas too continue in real epidemic fashion, along with much of Europe. What’s the prognosis for us all? I find intriguing all the uncertainty of decision making that accompanies new knowledge - coming fast and furious, and am fascinated to see it evolve so quickly. I’m reminded that there is no vaccine for Zika, nor HIV. Apparently, in this month already, Canada will have the most Covid-19 deaths since last January, and 16 million medical procedures have been postponed in Ontario alone because of Covid occupancies. We are still in the thick of it, despite all our tools and the relaxing of mandates in many countries. What an incredible irony. Going forward travellers will have to get vaccinated to visit my country, not to protect us as we currently require, but to protect them from us.
On Twitter these days I follow ‘@extremetemps’ and retweet their postings regularly. It’s just so interesting and concerning to see how weather continues extreme in many areas of the world (just this week record highs in Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Dominica, South Africa and 12 countries have already set record highs since January 1). I know these tweets will just keep flying in at top speed, regardless of whether the weather is making headlines or not. Earth’s memory and subsequent action is written in atmospheric temperature and greenhouse gas (GHG) measurements, with them consistently getting higher and worse each year. Extreme heat, though, is the last thing on many Canadian’s minds right now as we continue to get incredibly frigid days, with one I recorded at -32C outside my front door a few days ago. And then there’s also our record snow falls of late, providing trails for skiing and lots to shovel, all good for trying to keep in shape while homebound (see EndShots).
With all the ‘variants of concern’ these days, whether environmental, political, social, financial or health related, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. But we can’t just get tired of them and fall into apathy. I need to remember that, and do my best to spread positive vibes.
And check out the few good vibes in today’s Planetary Health Weekly (#4 of 2022), including introducing again our new blogger, Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, from the University of Washington in Seattle. The link to his great first blog in last week’s issue didn’t work for the first couple of days so you’ll find it again below. Sorry for the poor launch.
Here’s wishing you good reading below:
CLIMATE CRISIS UPDATES:
UN chief: phase out coal is key climate priority,
UN Secretary General calls on wealthy nations to help key emerging economies accelerate the transition off coal worldwide,
“It’s going to get bumpy!”- Papua New Guinea sparked final day panic at COP26,
As the Taliban seizes control of Afghanistan, coal is a key source of revenue,
China’s coal production hit record levels in 2021,
U.S. emissions surges in 2021: here’s why is six charts,
Egypt names foreign minister Sameh Shoukry to lead COP27 climate talks,
Oil firms face workforce crunch as renewables beckon,
Nebraska public power district approves net-zero carbon by 2050 goal,
CORONAVIRUS UPDATES:
Covid-19 infection prevention and control (IPAC) in long-term care facilities in the Netherlands and Denmark: best practices, implementation, compliance,
Why doesn’t the government mandate an annual flu shot? The answer can be found in one word,
Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants,
‘Nocebo effect’: two-thirds of Covid jab reactions not caused by vaccine, study suggests,
So you finally got Omicron. Are you now immune from getting it again?
Tie pharma CEO pay to fair global Covid-19 vaccine access, investors say,
U.K. should ‘share Covid vaccine doses with world over further boosters at home,’
The coronavirus pandemic is far from over,
Ontario plans to use internationally-educated nurses will still leave some on the sidelines, THEN
Bezruchka's Blog #1
Bolsonaro’s violence against indigenous Amazonians is also an environmental catastrophe,
Climate change made North American heatwave 150 times more likely,
Climate change made the past seven years the warmest on record,
Ecojustice’s priorities for (Canada’s) parliament in 2022,
Jane Goodall and Robert Nasi: put forests at forefront of Covid-19 recovery,
New cloud-based platform opens genomics data to all: creation of Johns Hopkins-led team allows worldwide scientific collaboration,
The Government of Canada and the Epekwitk Mi’kmaq sign agreement toward establishing a new national park in Prince Edward Island,
Should bad science be censored on social media?
Big brands call for global pact to cut plastic production,
Canada chooses oil companies of Indigenous peoples,
Quote on heat extremes around the globe,
I am here: home movies and everyday masterpieces,
Visualizing nuclear power production by country & The big picture: abandoned nuclear power projects mapped,
Modern humans lived in eastern Africa 38,000 years earlier than thought,
Bitcoin energy consumption index,
New novel: Though the Earth Gives Way by Mark S. Johnson,
Canada is falling behind globally on public funding for universities – that’s a problem, and finally
ENDSHOTS of skiing along Ontario's Seguin Trail amid the 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
SEGUIN TRAIL, ONTARIO
Accessed from Horseshoe Lake Road across from PetroCan station, just south of Parry Sound off Highway 400
Addressing world and business leaders at the virtual World Economic Forum (17-21 January), United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, highlighted climate action in developing countries as one of the top three global issues requiring urgent attention, citing the targeted phase out of coal as climate priority number one.
Even if all developed countries keep their promises to reduce emissions by 2030, global emissions will still be too high to reach the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, the UN Chief said. According to UN-backed research, the world needs a 45% reduction in global emissions this decade, but they are presently on course to increase by 14% by 2030. Read more at UNFCCC.
Globally, nationally and locally, it continues to be mind-boggling. Covid-19, probably mostly Omicron, is still going crazy. Cases have spiked to the greatest increases ever. The situation is getting worse, with still too many unvaccinated. As we start 2022 the end seems no where in sight., though many restrictions are beginning to be lifted.
Over the last week there were about 25 million new cases (up ~20%) and 63,000 deaths (also up ~20%). About 155 million people received a vaccine, down about ~15%, while distribution still remains grossly distorted though it's improving a wee bit. In Canada deaths are up 31%, hospitalizations up 3%, ICU beds up 5% and cases are down 30% (though the accuracy of measurement is now in doubt with testing restricted).
See many more stats and charts in ENDSHOTS amid scenes while skiing Ontario's Seguin Trail.
"It is the plague in seemingly all sincerity." Bob Woodward
Question: In countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Developing (OECD) that have implemented best practices/standards for Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) of COVID‑19 in long-term care facilities (LTCFs):
What are the 3-5 best practices for IPAC?
How were these IPAC best practices implemented (i.e. what supports/tools/methods were used to encourage adoption)?
What steps were put in place to ensure compliance with IPAC measures over time to meet performance expectations (i.e. what measures/systems/processes increased adherence to best practices/standards)? Read more at Cancovid
More than 150,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the virus has "taken a terrible toll on our country," and offered his condolences to people who have lost friends and relatives. The UK is one of the most affected countries in Europe, second only to Russia, which has a reported death toll of almost 315,000. Globally, the UK is the seventh country to pass this grim milestone, following the United States, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru.
Upcoming Event: The China Institute (CIAU), Prince Takamado Japan Centre and Taiwan Studies Program at the University of Alberta invite you to attend a virtual book launch for The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox written by CIUA Senior Fellow and University of British Columbia Political Scientist, Yves Tiberghien. At this event Professor Tiberghien examines the factors that have contributed to the relative success of East Asian states in fighting Covid-19, despite their proximity to the original frontline of the pandemic and the absence of strong regional institutions.
Register Now
David Zakus asked me if I would do a blog for the PHW. I've known David from his days in Edmonton at the University of Alberta and follow the Weekly every Thursday. Some background about me and what I hope to cover, this being my first blog.
I was born in Toronto and attended the University of Toronto in the 1960s studying mathematics and physics. I went on to graduate school at Harvard University in mathematics but dropped out to go to medical school. I spent the intervening gap year in Nepal, walking the trails and writing the first trekking guidebook. This experience totally changed my direction from wanting to do mathematical modeling of cancer processes to wanting to provide appropriate medical care in Nepal and training local people to do this. I was able to get a perspective on this at Stanford Medical School and subsequently at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. I have spent over of ten years in Nepal. Efforts have included setting up a community health project a week's walk west of Pokhara in the 1970s and training locals there to deliver quite primitive care (e.g. cutting skin grafts with a razor blade). In the 1980s, in a project sponsored by the University of Calgary I set up a district hospital as a teaching hospital for Nepali doctors and supervised them. I also worked as an emergency physician in the U.S. Now I teach population health at the University of Washington's School of Public Health in Seattle.
Almost 30 years ago I went to public health school (Johns Hopkins) to better understand why the United States, by almost any measure of health, was behind all the other rich nations. My question was not answered but I came to appreciate the role of political and social forces in producing population health. I now teach courses where the 'patient' is the country. How do different countries achieve their levels of health? The easiest diagnosis I could make in the emergency department was that someone was dead. So my focus is on mortality. Today some 50 nations have lower mortality rates than the United States. To achieve this we spend more than twice as much per capita as any other nation on healthcare.
What I have learned in these thirty years is that healthcare and personal behaviors are not as important in producing health as we are led to believe. The longest lived country in the world, Japan, has more than twice as many men smoking per capita as does the U.S. And when doctors go on strike, morticians have less work to do.
I hope to cover topics on what produces health in human societies and how that is affected by the planetary environment. What needs to be done?
Please ask questions to guide me (sabez@@uw.edu). And stay with me every third Thursday of the month going forward. See you next on February 17.Find this blog and others at PHW Blogs
The power had flickered out just as the meeting at the Conference of Bishops worship space was set to begin. It was mid-August, and without working AC, Belém—the capital city of Pará in the Amazon, situated just south of the equator—was brutally hot and suffocatingly humid. That left the 50-odd social movement leaders, trade unionists, indigenous land defenders, feminists and educators to fan themselves with whatever flyers and pamphlets were around. There was an indignity beyond all the sweaty brows. “This is the product of a private company that robs us of our energy bills,” said an activist with the Movement of People Affected by Dams, a group started in 1991 to fight the privatization of Brazilian electricity that began under its military dictatorship. Read more at New Republic.
Credit: JENNIFER GAUTHIER/REUTERS/Alam The deadly and record-breaking heatwave last summer in North America would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to scientists who say they are very worried about the prospect of similar events occurring around the world.
Primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute. Credit: Milken Institute
One of the major problems in the world today is food security and the growing human population, said primatologist Jane Goodall in an address that was broadcast as part of the Global Landscapes Forum from Bonn, Germany.
Goodall first gained international renown for her landmark research into the behaviour of wild chimpanzees 60 years ago in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park. Her efforts became a lifelong passion, leading to broader activism related to concerns over deforestation, the bushmeat trade, trapping of live animals and habitat destruction. Read more at Forests News.
Members of Parliament from across Canada are back in Ottawa this month to get back to work drafting, debating, and voting on legislation. Laws and policies that must reduce Canada’s emissions, tackle toxic pollution impacting our daily lives, and reverse the loss of biodiversity must be at the top of the priority list for all elected officials!
Parliament officially returned at the end of November last year, when the Governor General outlined the priorities for the new federal government in the speech from the throne. The throne speech outlined the big challenges and opportunities that Canada faces and set out a high-level vision for how to tackle them. Read more at Ecojustice
Harnessing the power of genomics to find risk factors for major diseases or search for relatives relies on the costly and time-consuming ability to analyze huge numbers of genomes. Computer scientists have now leveled the playing field by creating a cloud-based platform that grants genomics researchers easy access to one of the world's largest genomics databases. Known as AnVIL (Genomic Data Science Analysis, Visualization, and Informatics Lab-space), the new platform gives any researcher with an Internet connection access to thousands of analysis tools, patient records, and more than 300,000 genomes. Read more at Science Daily.
The Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, along with Chief Darlene Bernard and Chief Junior Gould, co-chairs of the Epekwitk Assembly of Councils, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to formally work towards the establishment of a new national park reserve in the Pituamkek area (Hog Island Sandhills) in Prince Edward Island (PEI).
The sand dunes of Pituamkek (pronounced Bee-doo-um-gek) form one of the most ecologically significant coastal dune ecosystems in Eastern Canada. The Epekwitk Mi'kmaq have been stewards of these lands and waters since time immemorial, and the signing of this agreement affirms the Government of Canada's conservation goals in the cultural and historic significance of these islands. Read more at Newswire
And inaccurate or completely made-up claims about 5G and the origins of Covid-19 have been linked to violence and vandalism. Read more at the Guardian.
General view of plastic trash littering the polluted Potpecko Lake near a dam's hydroelectric plant near the town of Priboj, Serbia, January 29, 2021. Credit: REUTERS/Marko Djurica
International brands including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo called for a global pact to combat plastic pollution that includes cuts in plastic production, a key growth area for the oil industry.
World officials will meet at a United Nations Environment Assembly conference (UNEA 5.2) later this year to start negotiations on a treaty to tackle a plastic waste crisis that is choking landfills, despoiling oceans and killing wildlife. Read more at Reuters
A Wet'suwet'en fishing station on Bulkley River rapids at the entrance to the Moricetown Canyon. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Jerome Charaoui.
The contradictions couldn’t be more glaring.
While recent laws passed by the federal and the British Columbia governments pledge to transform relationships with Indigenous peoples, their actions indicate otherwise.
For example, in northern B.C., the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs of all five clans oppose incursion into their traditional, unceded lands by the Coastal Gaslink pipeline, all to no avail. Read more at Straight.
Quote Of The Week
A man stands by fans spraying air mixed with water to cool down along a street in Baghdad on June 30, 2021 amidst a severe heat wave. Credit: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images
Global average temperature isn’t always the most important measure, University of Michigan climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck said, after United States federal agencies released the Global State of the Climate report, ranking 2021 as the sixth-warmest year on record for the planet.
“As with politics, it is often what happens locally that matters most, and 2021 was one of the most deadly and destructive years on record because of the unusually warm atmosphere that is becoming the norm,” he said. “Extreme heat waves were exceptional in 2021, including the deadly Pacific Northwest U.S. and Canada heatwave that killed hundreds and also set the stage for fires that wiped out a whole town.”
Last year, the climate “was metaphorically shouting to us to stop the warming, because if we don’t, the warming-related climate and weather extremes will just get worse and worse, deadlier and deadlier,” he said. “Even tornadoes are now thought to strengthen as a result of the warming, and this effect probably also was the reason we had tornadoes in 2021 that reached northward into parts of Minnesota for the first time ever in December.”
March 28-April 1-3, 2022: CUGH 2022 Global Health Conference - All virtual: Healthy People, Healthy Planet, Social Justice (Los Angeles, California). Virtual Satellite Sessions: March 21-25, 2022
From the earliest cave paintings to TikTok, humans have found creative ways to document their day-to-day lives. I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces, a major new Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO, in Toronto) exhibition opening in April of 2022, is a revealing look at our universal need to capture, share and cherish the everyday. Featuring lost-and-found home movies from the Prelinger Archives, alongside celebrated artworks by the likes of David Hockney, Patti Smith, Claes Oldenburg, Annie Pootoogook, Arthur Jafa and Mary Pratt, as well as snapshots, photo albums, letters, television, grocery lists and social media, I AM HERE brings together a broad range of personal records from different time periods and locales to explore the shared human impulse to document life as it happens.
Co-curated by Jim Shedden, the AGO’s Manager of Publishing, and Alexa Greist, AGO Associate Curator and R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints & Drawings, the exhibition is a celebration of daily life and human creativity, replete with music and creative prompts. Among the artworks on display will be a digital collage of the more than 3000 submissions received from around the world as part of the AGO’s 2021 Portraits of Resilience exhibition.
Nearly 450 reactors around the world supply various nations with nuclear power, combining for about 10% of the world’s electricity, or about 4% of the global energy mix.
But while some countries are turning to nuclear as a clean energy source, nuclear energy generation overall has seen a slowdown since its peak in the 1990s. The above infographic breaks down nuclear electricity generation by country in 2020 using data from the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS).
Ontario’s Plan To Use Internationally-educated Nurses Will Still Leave Some On The Sidelines
Credit: Article
Internationally-educated nurses will now be able to put on their scrubs and start working in the field right here in Ontario.
But, even with the groundbreaking announcement that the province is turning to this group for help amid Omicron’s crushing blow on the health-care sector, some nurses like Karla Ducusin still won’t be able to practise. Ducusin worked as a nurse in the Philippines for over three years before moving to Canada in 2018. The 32-year-old has completed all of the licensing requirements that this program would fast-track, but the one holdup is immigration status.
The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index provides the latest estimate of the total energy consumption of the Bitcoin network.
NEW RESEARCH:“Preying on the poor?” (February 2022); how Bitcoin exacerbates social and environmental challenges for communities already experiencing multiple dimensions of deprivation.
Comparable to the small IT equipment waste of the Netherlands.
Single Bitcoin Transaction Footprints
**Carbon Footprint
1024.57 kgCO2
Equivalent to the carbon footprint of 2,270,800 VISA transactions or 170,762 hours of watching Youtube.
**Electrical Energy
2156.99 kWh
Equivalent to the power consumption of an average U.S. household over 73.93 days.
**Electronic Waste
345.40 grams
Equivalent to the weight of 2.11 iPhones 12 or 0.70 iPads. (Find more info on e-waste here.
***Note that the Index contained the aggregate of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (other forks of the Bitcoin network have not been included). The latter has been removed per October 1, 2019.
Did you know Bitcoin runs on an energy-intensive network?
Ever since its inception Bitcoin’s trust-minimizing consensus has been enabled by its proof-of-work algorithm. The machines performing the “work” are consuming huge amounts of energy while doing so. Moreover, the energy used is primarily sourced from fossil fuels. The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index was created to provide insight into these amounts, and raise awareness on the unsustainability of the proof-of-work algorithm.
A separate index was created for Ethereum, which can be found here.
What kind of work are miners performing?
New sets of transactions (blocks) are added to Bitcoin’s blockchain roughly every 10 minutes by so-called miners. While working on the blockchain these miners aren’t required to trust each other. The only thing miners have to trust is the code that runs Bitcoin. The code includes several rules to validate new transactions. For example, a transaction can only be valid if the sender actually owns the sent amount. Every miner individually confirms whether transactions adhere to these rules, eliminating the need to trust other miners.
A new doomsday novel explores a near future where climate change has driven a mass migration away from hurricanes and rising seas on the U.S. East Coast and raging wildfires in the West. The main character, Elon, has been wandering in the Midwest, and has lost virtually all faith in humanity, blaming the climate deniers, politicians and even himself for not doing more.
In his wandering, Elon stumbles upon a shelter where he connects with several other migrants. In their misery, they decide to share stories over the bonfire each night to escape from their realities. This new novel, Though the Earth Gives Way, was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mark S. Johnson, who currently works as a health and science reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Canada Is Falling Behind Globally On Public Funding For Universities. That's a Problem
Credit: Article
A labour shortage. A climate crisis. A world remade by COVID-19.
Canada faces many significant challenges emerging from the pandemic, yet we haven’t figured out how to wield the full power of one of our most potent yet under-the-radar economic and societal forces.
That would be the students either staying in this country or moving here to access some of the best universities in the world. These are the people who will carry out new research to address urgent problems such as climate change and the pandemic response; who will learn new skills and develop new businesses as technological disruptions reshape entire industries; and who will, at this pivotal juncture in the rebalancing of global economic powers, help to ensure Canada is at the leading edge of new and emerging talents and technologies.
Publisher and Editor: Dr. David Zakus Production: Aisha Saleem & Julia Chalmers Social Media: Mahdia Abidi, Shalini Kainth and Ishneer Mankoo Website, Index and Advisory: Eunice Anteh, Gaël Chetaille, Evans Oppong, Jonathan Zakus, Dr. Aimée-Angélique Bouka & Elisabeth Huang Blogs: Dr. Jay Kravitz and Aisha Saleem