HI,
Warm greetings from COP26 in Glasgow. It’s been a great experience since I arrived four days ago. I’ve learned a lot, heard some great speakers (especially the Youth attendees), been motivated, yet also feel some creeping melancholy. Despite the giant conference the future still is so uncertain. I can’t help but think, despite all the promises and commitments of funding and actions, that we’re still just grasping for straws. While being set on trying to limit global warming to 1.5C, that seems now to be an illusion, despite it being the widely accepted target set to prevent global disaster. We are still pumping into our atmosphere 40 billion tons a year. And then I read that there are over 500 fossil fuel representatives here, all likely paid super well to protect their market and extravagant lifestyle. But as I reflect on 1.5C, I can’t help but think that our 1.2C warming already is enough, more than enough, as it already is the cause of tremendous harm to body, mind and soul of humans and animate life alike all over the world.
We’ve already gone too far, we’ve already been suckered into a lifestyle built on substances (mined so irresponsibly) that are destroying the life, beauty and fullness of Earth, including the most prolific inhabitant, us). This past year’s extreme natural disasters alone are evidence enough of that. What we’re trying to do here in Glasgow, and all over the world, is limit the progression of these disasters to not too much more than we already experience. And while I have hope that this conference will produce some results, and I heard lots of great ambitions and commitments, I’m also of the thinking that they won’t be enough, even if enacted (which is highly suspect considering history, but am hoping for sure). The suffering and dire prognoses that I’ve heard about will continue, year after year, for longer than my allotted time. It sorrows me to think this. It sorrows me to know that I’m part of the problem. And I couldn’t believe that my coffee at the conference was served in a plastic cup.
People from all over the world are here: all countries, all religions, all colours, autocrats and democrats, many languages and Indigenous peoples, all with a common goal, trying to work together to bring forward a positive and healthy future, leaving no one behind in surviving by controlling the climate crisis, which so many here have given personal testament to.
Like with the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, the scientific advisory body) for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the 1992 governing treaty involving all countries of the world), the final COP26 communique which will come tomorrow (Nov. 12), will be a consensus of all 197 Parties to the Convention, demonstrating huge global effort and unity. Considering the diversity of the Parties, I can only hope that it will be what is needed.
Today, as we remember those who’ve served and died for our freedom in wars against tyranny, let’s not forget we all have that same obligation as citizens, i.e., to persevere individually and collectively to preserve the great freedoms and Earth that we’ve inherited.
In today’s Planetary Health Weekly (#45 of 2021) you will read and see about:
- FOLLOWING COP26 (and see also ENDSHOTS at the end of this newsletter):
- Fires, deforestation and global heating turn 10 UNESCO forests into carbon sources,
- Cost Rica’s electric grid powered by 98% renewable energy for 7th straight year,
- World’s richest 1% cause double CO2 emissions of poorest 50%, says Oxfam,
- How climate change is impacting oxygen levels in the Ocean,
- Water shortages are a major risk of climate change – Alberta may already be seeing warning signs,
- Canadians to remain among world’s top energy users even as government strives for net zero,
- CORANVIRUS UPDATES:
- WHO won’t reveal how many of its staff have been vaccinated,
- Noam Chomsky says the unvaccinated should just remove themselves from society,
- Covid ‘long haulers’ struggle to work amid labour shortage,
- Immune response of neonates born to mothers infected with SARS-CoV-2,
- Unvaccinated nurses open wellness centre in Kamloops, B.C.,
- How a failed deal with China to produce a made-in-Canada Covid-19 vaccine wasted months and millions,
- Vaccines, masks? Japan puzzling over sudden virus success,
- 6 in7 coronavirus cases in Africa are not being detected – WHO study suggests, THEN
- Plastic pollution dumped into ocean will triple by 2040,
- Carbon storage deep in the sea could be boosted by supercharged compounds,
- Study explores which carbon capture technology has the best benefits,
- Artificially altered clouds could help the Great Barrier Reef,
- Toronto adopts plan to create Black food sovereignty – first of its kind in North America,
- Canadian company uses plastic and fishing gear to make synthetic lumber,
- Confucius would have been a climate activist,
- How a Canadian city ended homelessness with a simple idea,
- Surviving day school abuse, death and reconciIiation,
- Quote of the climate crisis by the CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute,
- Podcasts that make the climate crisis personal,
- B.C. fish farming may be in hot water due to climate,
- Supporting sustainable seafood choices through accurate labelling and traceability from harvest to plate,
- The ‘Bacon Tree’ eating carbon in the Eastern Cape, South Africa,
- Multidimensional inequalities: international perspectives across welfare states,
- It’s a Covid world: ‘We just want to meet people and be able to party again’ (15 minute video), and lastly
- ENDSHOTS with scenes and latest news from COP26.
More next week about my take-aways from COP26. Please keep reading. Best from Glasgow, david
David Zakus, Editor and Publisher
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Outside the main entrance to COP26, Glasgow, Scotland |
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Credit: Rodrigo Soares / Unsplash
Forests in at least ten UNESCO world heritage sites have become net sources of carbon since the turn of the millennium due to wildfires, deforestation, and global heating, says a new report.
Protected areas such as Yosemite National Park in the U.S., the Greater Blue Mountains area in Australia, and the tropical rainforests of Sumatra in Indonesia are among the sites that have emitted more carbon than they absorbed since 2001 as a result of human activities, according to research by the World Resources Institute, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and UNESCO.
Analysis of changes in carbon stores in forests on another 247 sites found 166 were net sinks, with the remaining 81 nearly neutral.
Overall, the sites absorbed and stored 190 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year, equivalent to roughly half of the U.K.’s annual emissions from fossil fuels. But the analysis found human pressures on landscapes and the climate crisis were likely to continue to degrade sites, breaking up habitats, making them less resilient and biodiverse.
SEE ALSO:
At Tico Times: Costa Rica’s Electric Grid Powered By 98% Renewable Energy For 7th Straight Year
At the Guardian: World's Richest 1% Cause Double CO2 Emissions Of Poorest 50%, Says Oxfam
At the National Post: Noam Chomsky Says The Unvaccinated Should Just Remove Themselves From Society
At Weather Network: How Climate Change Is Impacting Oxygen Levels In The Ocean
At CBC: Water Shortages Are A Major Risk Of Climate Change. Alberta May Already Be Seeing Warning Signs
At CBC: Canadians To Remain Among World's Top Energy Users Even As Government Strives For Net Zero
AND see ENDSHOTS at the end of this newsletter for latest news and photos from COP26.
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SARS-CoV-2 & COVID-19 UPDATES |
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Globally, as almost since the very beginning, the situation continues to be very serious in many countries, especially those in central east Europe and the UK.
Over the last week there were about 3.3 million new cases and 51,000 deaths (both higher). About 218 million people received a vaccine (up ~10%), or an average of some 30 million doses per day - continually impressive, though distribution is still grossly distorted, favouring the wealthy countries.
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"It is the plague in seemingly all sincerity." Bob Woodward |
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A health worker administers a dose of Janssen COVID-19 vaccine by Johnson & Johnson in the Medina neighbourhood in Dakar, Senegal Credit: Leo Correa/AP
The World Health Organization will not reveal the number of its own staff who are vaccinated against COVID-19, the Associated Press reported. "We won't have that because it's confidential," Dr. Margaret Harris, a World Health Organization spokeswoman told the AP.
WHO has been pushing for greater vaccine access across the globe, and has encouraged people to get vaccinated as soon as they're able. The organization is a leader in COVAX, a program to help send vaccines to countries that need them the most. The agency also keeps track of data published by countries on vaccination rates and reports on it but while some of WHO's leadership – like Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – have said they've been vaccinated, medical privacy rules have made it difficult for the agency to release more data on how many employees have gotten their shots. In April of this year, WHO said it does not support COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Read more at Business Insider
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Children will, on average, suffer seven times more heat waves and nearly three times more droughts, floods and crop failures due to fast-accelerating climate change, a new report finds. Credit: Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters
Despite the growth of biodegradable materials and bans on single use plastics, a recent study finds that there could be 600 million tons of plastic in the oceans by 2040, which is equivalent to the weight of over three million blue whales.
Recycling has become increasingly popular over the years, but the study says that the complex composition of plastic materials limits the ability for technologies to easily sort and reprocess them.
For example, black plastic cannot be recycled in Canada because technologies do not recognize them on the sorting belt and pizza boxes cannot be recycled if they are greasy. Many people are in the habit of checking for the optimistic recycling symbol, but the reality is that many recycling facilities cannot save multi-material plastics and 86% of discarded plastics in Canada end up in landfills.
The researchers say that their ominous projection is plausible due to several factors including the rapid growth in plastic production, the prevalent ‘throw-away’ culture and insufficient capacities of waste management systems at a global level.
Single use plastics are projected to increase by over 40% in the next ten years and the amount of plastic flowing into oceans each year will more than double by 2040. However, the researchers reassure us that 78% of plastic pollution can be solved in just two decades by using current knowledge and technologies.
The researchers projected several global outcomes based on different plastic solutions between 2016 and 2040 and found five possible scenarios: ‘Business as Usual’, ‘Collect and Dispose’, ‘Recycling’, ‘Reduce and Substitute’, and an integrated ‘System Change’ scenario that features all of the possible interventions. The reality that plays out will be determined by the level of effort that governments and corporations invest in solving the plastic crisis. Read more at Weather Network
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Carbon dixoide hydrates in a test tube. Credit: University of Texas at Austin/ ExxonMobil
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin are developing a technology that they hope can speed up the rate that the deep sea stores carbon.
Oceans absorb roughly 30% of the carbon dioxide that is released by humans and can keep the captured carbon stored away for hundreds of years. However, this natural process takes time and scientists say that there could be a way to speed this up.
There are two main mechanisms that oceans use to capture this greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide dissolves into the oceans and forms carbonic acid, hydrogen ions, and bicarbonate ions. Some of this carbon is transported to great depths by ocean currents, whereas other carbon is ingested by microorganisms like phytoplankton that eventually die and sink down to the ocean floor.
The University of Texas researchers are working in partnership with ExxonMobil and say that their aim is to increase the amount of carbon that can be sucked out of the atmosphere to prevent the Earth from warming to dangerously high levels.
The researchers mixed carbon dioxide with water at high pressure and low temperature, which causes the water molecules to change their structure and “act as cages” that trap carbon dioxide. Read more at Weather Network
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Climework’s carbon capture plant in Iceland. The captured carbon dioxide is processed and treated so it can be pumped deep below the Earth’s surface where it will be permanently stored. Credit: Climeworks
Current carbon capture technologies focus on extracting carbon dioxide from the air and either store it permanently underground or filter the compound so that it can be added to materials such as concrete.
Researchers from the University of Michigan say capturing carbon dioxide and using it to make materials like concrete, fuels and plastics could generate revenues in excess of $800 billion each year by 2030. However, some of these materials have greater climate benefits than others, so the researchers conducted a study to explore which of these technologies has the most positive impacts.
The study evaluated 20 potential uses of captured carbon dioxide and organized them into three categories: concrete, chemical and minerals. Of these uses, only four had more than a 50% chance of creating a net climate benefit. The study says a net climate benefit occurs when “the emissions avoided by using carbon capture and utilization technology outweigh the emissions generated while capturing the carbon dioxide and making the final product.” Read more at Weather Network
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The seawater mist travelling across the ocean and slowly mixing up into the clouds. Credit: Brendan Kelaher/SCU
The Great Barrier Reef often appears in headlines when mass coral bleachings are detected, such as the memorable 2018 study that reported half of the reef had died since 2016. Many of us have become accustomed to these dire updates, but scientists say that there is reason to have hope.
A news feature published by Nature details the work that an Australian research team is doing to artificially alter clouds in hopes of blocking the reef from sunlight.
Researchers from Southern Cross University in Coffs Harbour are currently testing technologies that can be used to preserve the world's largest coral reef system. Daniel Harrison, an oceanographer and engineer, is leading a research project that is taking place on a repurposed ferry boat equipped with a mobile science laboratory. The boat sails 100 kilometres offshore and is then anchored so a cone-shaped turbine can generate a plume of seawater mist. The theory is that the brine droplets will evaporate and cool the plume as it floats across the ocean’s surface and eventually mixes upwards into low-lying clouds.
“Three-hundred and twenty nozzles spewed a cloud of nano-sized droplets engineered to brighten clouds and block sunlight — providing a bit of cooling shade for the coral colonies below. Scientists used sensors aboard the ferry, drones and a second boat to monitor the plume as it migrated skyward,” the news feature explains. Read more at Weather Network
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Credit: The Star
Toronto city council has just approved a five-year plan to deal with food insecurity in the Black community in a culturally sensitive way. The plan is the first of its sort in North America and lays out a multi-million dollar commitment to advance food sovereignty in Black communities over the next five years.
Melana Roberts, a policy development officer with the city’s Confronting Anti-Black Racism unit (CABR) who worked on the plan, said the team did not come across anything similar globally — a Black-led food plan funded municipally. “We can’t just have a charitable approach to this,” Roberts tells the Star. “We need a human-rights-based approach that's based in not only addressing the challenges Black communities face, but positioning them as leaders.”
The plan to create this support system was a collaboration between existing community groups.
Anan Lololi, co-founder of Afri-Can FoodBasket and food justice activist, is the person who first started suggesting that sovereignty is a better angle to tackle the issue from. “Food sovereignty is the right for people to (have) healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecological and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems,” Lololi said.
The group will use the funds to develop new city-supported, Black-led food insecurity initiatives, support existing Black-led and Black-serving initiatives like Afri-Can FoodBasket and overhaul systems the city already runs to help create Black food sovereignty. Read more at the Star
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Ghost gear is shredded into fine strands of plastic. Credit: Elizabeth Chiu/CBC
Mike Chassie presses his nose up against a load of plastic lumber and takes a sniff. He's inspecting the newest product made at his family's business, Goodwood Plastic Products in Fort Ellis, N.S.
"Smells great to me," Chassie said last week outside the building where the synthetic timber is manufactured. "It doesn't have any of the smell that you would think you'd get from that ghost gear."
That ghost gear, lost or discarded fishing equipment, was three kilometres of old, thickly-woven, plastic fishing rope covered in marine life, and recently fished out of the sea by a diving company working near its home base in Mahone Bay, N.S. The plastics recycler OK'd the fishy-smelling delivery for its newest venture: commercializing synthetic lumber made out of ghost gear. Read more at CBC
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Credit: Rob Web
According to Confucius, behaviour determines our character, not the other way around. And the ancient sage would not have condoned modern consumerism, its indulgence and hedonism; the ethical discipline he demanded would likely have been friendly to the environment.
Perhaps I should qualify and say instead that Confucius would likely have been such an activist. I make this claim because lately, I have been experimenting and asking myself what so-and-so would do in such a situation.
Since I am no longer a Christian, it doesn’t seem right to ask that of Jesus. So, instead, I now try: what would Confucius do, in this case, about climate change? Read more at SCMP
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Credit: United Way
When Medicine Hat, a city in southern Alberta, Canada, pledged to put an end to homeless in 2009, there were many sceptics who thought it couldn't be done. A good six years later, the city says it has fulfilled its promise with the help of a surprisingly simple idea: giving every person living on the streets a home with no strings attached.
While traditional housing programs ask that prospective participants get clean and seek psychological treatment before being admitted into the system, the Housing First approach doesn't make any of these demands. Whoever is in need of a permanent place to stay will get help, no matter what their circumstances are. "We take the stance that people are worthy of a home and it is a fundamental human right to have shelter and a roof over one's head," Jamie Rogers, who ran the Housing First program in Medicine Hat told the BBC. "Of course it is recovery-oriented, and we help and support people in making different choices in their life, but we don't withhold housing because of who they choose to be."
Since April 2009, the community of about 64,000 collectively housed 1,013 individuals; 705 adults and 308 children. Apart from the obvious success of getting people off the street, Housing First also brought with it a number of unexpected positive effects. In Medicine Hat, emergency room visits and run ins with police have dropped while at the same time court appearances went up. Once people felt that somebody cared about them and they mustered up the necessary motivation to begin dealing with their past in a positive way. Read more at Good Net
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Ray Haipee is a survivor of day school in Ahousaht, B.C. Credit: Brittany Guyot/ Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) News
APTN News obtained documents from the federal government that, for the first time, uncover the mystery around what officials called day schools.
Of course the schools had little to do with education. They were set up to assimilate First Nation, Inuit and Métis children into Canadian society. What hasn’t been known until now is the conditions at these 699 schools across the country, and how many died there. This series answers some of those questions about another relatively unknown, dark chapter in Canadian history. Read more at APTN News
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Credit: AP |
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“With the world already suffering from climate-driven extreme weather events, a rapid clean-energy transition also has the virtue of being the safest route ahead. If we fail at this historic task, we risk not only wasting trillions of dollars but also pushing civilisation further down a dangerous and potentially catastrophic path of climate change.
We now face what may be our last chance to correct for decades of missed opportunities. Either we will continue to waste trillions more on a system that is killing us, or we will move rapidly to the cheaper, cleaner, more advanced energy solutions of the future.
But the results are clear: bad predictions have underwritten trillions of dollars of investment in energy infrastructure that is not only more expensive but also more damaging to human society and all life on the planet.
We must not allow any further delay...it is essential that world leaders understand that we already have cleaner, cheaper energy solutions ready to deploy now.
Hitting our 1.5 degrees target is not about making sacrifices; it is about seizing opportunities. If we get to work now, we can save trillions of dollars and avert the climate devastation that otherwise will be visited upon our children and grandchildren.”
Jules Kortenhorst, CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute
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- October 31 - November 12, 2021: 2020/2021 UN Climate Change Conference UNFCCC COP26 - Postponed in 2020 and now in progress (Glasgow, Scotland).
- November 11, 2021: Evidenced Based Research
Being Carried Out in Low and Middle Income Countries ADAPT will host their second online conference for Physios in Global Health.
- Registration closes Nov 19, 2021: Executive Course on Global Health Diplomacy, 2022. Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
- March 28th-April 1st, 2022: Healthy People, Healthy Planet, Social Justice. (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
- October 31 - November 4, 2022: 7th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (Bogotá, Colombia)
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FYI#1 SPOTLIGHT ON MEDIA |
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Podcasts That Make The Climate Crisis Personal |
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Credit: Anna Marynenko
That's the power of narrative audio storytelling. And that's why the podcast format makes climate stories far more compelling than they might be on paper.
Inherited, for example, brings us the stories of young climate activists in their own voices. In the fourth and final episode of the pilot season, they speak of their dreams for a world in which climate change has been solved and of their bittersweet realization that prior generations have so badly failed them.
Audio storytelling is crucial to empowering people to better understand and respond to climate change. But like social media, it can also be weaponized as a tool for distraction, deception, and disinformation. Unless the same rigors of fact-checking and federal regulation apply, the podcast risks becoming the latest battleground in the climate info wars.
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B.C. aquaculture operations that raise Atlantic salmon similar to the Grieg Seafood operation in Barnes Bay (above) will likely face significant challenges due to climate change. Credit: David Stanley (CC BY 2.0)
British Columbia farmed salmon may be pushed off people’s plates by climate change in the coming decades.
Global warming is likely to significantly reduce the areas suitable for the farming of Atlantic salmon along the West Coast, according to a recent UBC study.
Tropical or subtropical regions are likely to see the biggest declines in the number of species they can farm in oceans due to climate change, said Muhammed Oyinlola, the study’s lead author.
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FYI #3 |
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Supporting Sustainable Seafood Choices Through Accurate Labelling And Traceability From Harvest To Plate |
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Credit: Sea Choice
In addition to accurately identifying environmentally sustainable seafood, proper labelling and traceability can also identify and uncover seafood that has social and/or economic implications.
Weak labelling and traceability regulations can leave gaps where economic fraud, Illegal, Unregulated, Unreported (IUU) seafood, and labour abuses can enter the supply chain. Mislabelled species, whether intentional or not, can also have serious health implications if the consumer has specific sensitivities, is pregnant, or if the substituted species is unsafe for human consumption. IUU fisheries undermine legal catches, deplete species at an unknown rate, and can be hotbeds for labour abuses and social issues.
Traceability, therefore, ensures that the product information and label is accurate and accompanies the seafood product from harvest to plate. More businesses and consumers are demanding traceable seafood products with details about their origin, to ensure the product meets their standards.
SEE ALSO:
At Sea Choice: SEAFOOD LABELLING: Let’s Stop Eating in the Dark
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FYI #4 |
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The 'Bacon Tree' Eating Carbon In The Eastern Cape, South Africa |
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Spekboom in Addo. Credit: Nick Dall
On a recent trip to the 630-square-mile Addo Elephant National Park, dense thickets of spekboom (a fleshy shrub with purple stalks and leaves like bloated ticks) made it hard to spot the elephants, lions and rhinos that call this slice of paradise home. Driving home from the park, however, I passed through mile upon mile of yellowed grassland dotted with sheep and goats. Not realizing it then, my drive was actually a form of time travel.
Only 100 years ago, spekboom thickets covered a Connecticut-size swath of Eastern South Africa. And ecologist Anthony Mills is hellbent on turning back the clock. If successful, his mass planting project could capture 750 million metric tons of CO2 — enough to offset Germany’s annual carbon emissions and still be able to leave a tip.
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FYI #5: NOVEMBER READING |
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"Multidimensional Inequalities: International Perspectives Across Welfare States" by Bent Greve |
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Credit: Book Cover
'Multidimensional Inequalities' is a deep dive into the historical contexts and contemporary realities that negatively influence society and its structures. It is often overlooked that inequality is not just about income and wealth but rather a broad spectrum of intersecting factors. This book focuses on each aspect individually, analyzing its effect on welfare systems around the world, and informs about the instruments available to reduce inequality.
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FYI#6: SPOTLIGHT ON EDUCATION |
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It’s A Covid World: ‘We Just Want To Meet People And Be Able To Party Again’ (15 minute video) |
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Credit: Amelia Gillard
There’s no denying that the Covid-19 pandemic has shaken the whole world. We were all isolated, our dreams were put on hold and we lost loved ones. We speak to a group of students from Kenya, Reunion Island, Bristol (UK) and Madagascar about how their lives were affected in their corners of the world.
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AT COP26, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
NOVEMBER 8-11, 2021
Some of the Latest News and Scenes from this UN Climate Change Conference
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Outside the main entrance
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Quebec's Climate Change Ambassador (3rd from left) |
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Canada's new Minister of Environment and Climate Change (on far left above and below) |
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Many country displays but not from Canada |
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NEXT YEAR - COP27 IN EGYPT |
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Photo Credits: David Zakus |
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