Unprecedented, madness, more disappointment, desperation, despondency, sabotage, new normal, omnicrisis, devastating, hottest, fastest, largest, historic, highest, lowest, catastrophic.
This edition is dedicated to the memory of close friend Keith O’Rourke of Ottawa.
HI,
Being in Mexico this past week it’s been hard to keep focused on the climate crisis and global health issues, though it’s been interesting to keep up with news about the start of COP15 Biodiversity Conference (or NatureCOP) just getting underway in Montreal, to which I plan to get to in a week’s time. It’s hard to truly understand what’s going on when all around, for the moment, everything just seems relatively normal (though increasing Covid-19, its new mutations and the flu epidemic counter this fantasy). While travelling some of the country by bus, the similarities to a few decades ago when I last did land travels is delightful. Certainly, though, the cities are bigger (as is the country now at almost 130 million), and neighbouring towns continue to be integrated into urban sprawl (just like in Toronto). The land I passed for six hours yesterday is as dry as back then, everyone is still hustling to make ends meet, and ‘help wanted’ signs in store windows are just as obvious here as in Ontario, as is the food inflation. The Pacific seaside where I was last week is cluttering up with buildings and condos, just as at Toronto’s lakeside, but the surf continues to role in and the sea birds are numerous living off the sea’s bounty. Climate crisis events seem less here than in Canada, especially western and eastern Canada, but Covid-19 has struck hard (330,000 deaths) and is still on the minds of many as evidenced by quite a few people donning masks, and the bus company’s website highlighting their buses’ advanced ventilation systems. But, most of all, the love and joy of life and festivals live on here in Mexico.
Please do read on in today’s Planetary Health Weekly (#49 of 2022) for:
- CLIMATE & BIODIVERSITY CRISES UPDATES:
- Amount of ocean heat found to be accelerating and fueling extreme weather events,
- What is COP15 and why does it matter for all life on the planet?
- The Energy Charter Treaty lets fossil fuel firms sue governments – but its future is now in question,
- Leadership does not equal GFANZ,
- Italian economy faces threat from climate change according to central bank,
- Officials fear ‘complete doomsday scenario’ for drought-stricken Colorado River,
- How to design a formula to pay for climate loss,
- Humans are driving one million species to extinction,
- SPECIAL SECTION ON DEGROWTH (Part 2/2):
- Shrinking the economy to save the world,
- Do we need to shrink the economy to stop climate change (and biodiversity loss)?
- Economic growth - can we ever have enough? ( 27 minute video), and
- A world map of CO2 emissions,
- CORONAVIRUS UPDATES:
- The astounding physics of N95 masks (excellent 3 minute video),
- Covid-19 conspiracy theories discussion on Twitter,
- ‘China’s Dr. Fauci’ calls for change in zero-Covid focus as cities roll back strictest curbs,
- China caught in a Covid-19 bind as winter approaches,
- Boston University Covid researchers combine omicron spike protein with original virus,
- XBB, BQ.1.1, BA.2.75.2 — a variant swarm could fuel a winter surge,
- ‘The more you submit’, the more we get paid’: How fintech fueled Covid aid fraud in the U.S., THEN:
- The world is drowning in plastic – here’s how it all started,
- Milner on Biodiversity, Blog #9: "Faith vs. Reason",
- U.S. gun death rates hit highest levels in 2022,
- Japan births at new low as population shrinks and ages,
- New mRNA vaccine targeting all known flu strains shows early promise,
- Rolls-Royce successfully tests hydrogen-powered jet engine,
- There is no such thing as clean oil: storm of the century, an annual event?
- The planet desperately needs that UN plastics treaty,
- 'Valley of the Birdtail': how two Manitoba communities came together to build a road toward reconciliation,
- Quote from COP15 by António Guterres on humanity's destructiveness,
- Upcoming event: The Centre for International Child Health at BC Children’s Hospital and the BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre is hosting the 5th Annual Global Health Conference on Thursday, January 26, 2023,
- New movie: "To The End", directed by Rachel Lears,
- IPUMS (University of Minnesota) health surveys,
- What is SAFE Cities?
- In meteorite Alberta researchers discover two minerals never before seen on Earth,
- New book: "Inside the Orphan Drug Revolution" by James A. Geraghty,
- Teen brains aged faster than normal from pandemic stress, and lastly
- ENDSHOTS of explicitly relevant murals by Mexican José Clemente Orozco (in 1937) on the human condition at the MUSA Museum of the Arts at the University of Guadalajara, México.
Always so much to learn. Do keep on reading. Best, david
David Zakus, Editor and Publisher
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IN COMPLETE SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINE SEEKING PEACE AND VICTORY AND IN DISBELIEF IN WHAT RUSSIA CONTINUES TO DO |
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AND WITH THE BRAVE PROTESTERS IN IRAN (AND QATAR) |
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Credit: AL-Monitor, Ozan KOSE |
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CLIMATE & BIODIVERSITY CRISES UPDATES |
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Credit: Lucas Jackson/Reuters
The amount of heat accumulating in the ocean is accelerating and penetrating ever deeper, with widespread effects on extreme weather events and marine life, according to a new scientific review.
One of the report’s authors said the devastating floods in eastern Australia had likely been made worse by warming oceans. The risks would continue to rise as the ocean took up more heat, the report said.
More than 90% of the heat caused by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels is taken up by the ocean.
The rate of warming in the top 2km has doubled from levels in the 1960s, the article in the journal Nature Reviews: Earth and Environment said.
According to the review the extra heat is accelerating sea level rise, intensifying extreme rain events, melting ice, adding energy to cyclones and changing where they form, and causing more intense marine heatwaves.
Marine habitats including coral reefs were being threatened and the heating meant oceans were less able to take carbon out of the atmosphere.
Even under the most ambitious scenarios for action on greenhouse gas emissions, the review said the ocean’s heating will at least double from current levels by the end of the century.
“Ocean warming is already causing flooding rains, melting ice and rising sea levels, as well as damaging coral reefs and ecosystems,” said Prof Matt England, a review co-author and oceanographer at the University of New South Wales. “Without emissions reductions, this is only going to get much worse.”
Fifteen scientists from Australia, New Zealand, China, the United Kingdom, France and the United States carried out the review which looked at historic changes in ocean temperatures at different depths and examined the results of climate models of future changes.
All ocean basins were getting hotter, but heating was most pronounced in the southern ocean and the Atlantic, the review found. From the 1990s, heating was also detected deeper than two kilometres.
Dr Kevin Trenberth, a co-author and distinguished scholar at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, said: “The best indicator of the planet’s warming is the global ocean heat content.
“The ocean is the memory of all this global heating … This ocean warming is indeed relentless with huge consequences for sea level rise. The effects on weather systems is that they can become bigger, more intense and last longer.” Read more at The Guardian
SEE ALSO:
At National Observer: What is COP15 and why does it matter for all life on the planet?
With COP15 in Montreal rapidly approaching, governments are gearing up to create targets on biodiversity for the next decade. The world has so far failed to meet any UN targets on halting the loss of nature, yet awareness of the challenge is greater than ever. Here we examine why this UN meeting matters and how it could herald meaningful action on nature loss.
What is COP15? Nature is in crisis and for the past three decades, governments have been meeting to ensure the survival of the species and ecosystems that underpin human civilization. The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 saw the creation of three conventions: on climate change, desertification and biodiversity. The aim of the convention on biological diversity (CBD) is for countries to conserve the natural world, its sustainable use, and to share the benefits of its genetic resources.
At the Conversation: The Energy Charter Treaty lets fossil fuel firms sue governments – but its future is now in question
European governments are finally starting to abandon a treaty that could stop them taking much-needed climate action and that protects the interests of fossil fuel companies and investors.
The energy charter treaty (ECT), which has been signed by 53 European and Asian countries, was drafted to protect energy firms in formerly Soviet countries from falling into state ownership and being subject to excessive regulation.
But the ECT has become outdated. The continued protection of fossil fuel investors – and the suing of governments for millions of euros – contradicts the efforts of European countries to curb their emissions in line with the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The legitimacy of the treaty has also come under fire.
At Environmental Finance: Leadership Does Not Equal GFANZ
There has been little evidence of leadership or reduction of fossil fuel financing in the giant coalition of investors and banks, argues Michael Northrop.
Banks and investors have already committed to financing more fossil fuel development than the planet's atmosphere can safely absorb, according to London-based Carbon Tracker.
If we have a chance of keeping average global heating below 1.5°C – a boundary scientists warn us we must not cross if we hope to prevent global catastrophe – many existing fossil fuel development plans will need to be abandoned.
In other words, we are past the point of waiting. We must stop additional new fossil fuel development today.
At Reuters: Italian Economy Faces Threat from Climate Change - Central Bank
Rising temperatures risk stunting the growth of the Italian economy over the coming decades, with sectors such as agriculture and tourism among the hardest hit, a Bank of Italy research project said on Wednesday.
The study highlighted the wider impact of climate change, saying that businesses in parts of the country prone to landslides and flooding were more likely to fail than those in other areas.
At Washington Post: Officials Fear ‘Complete Doomsday Scenario’ For Drought-Stricken Colorado River
The first sign of serious trouble for the drought-stricken American Southwest could be a whirlpool.
It could happen if the surface of Lake Powell, a man-made reservoir along the Colorado River that’s already a quarter of its former size, drops another 38 feet down the concrete face of the 710-foot Glen Canyon Dam here. At that point, the surface would be approaching the tops of eight underwater openings that allow river water to pass through the hydroelectric dam.
The normally placid Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, could suddenly transform into something resembling a funnel, with water circling the openings, the dam’s operators say.
At Reuters: How to design a formula to pay for climate loss
There will be no joy if countries get help for climate damage from a fund promised at COP27, but the planet still fries. This is why the recent United Nations climate conference in Egypt ended with a lot of hand-wringing. The European Union, in particular, had hoped to tie together the two issues of fighting climate change and supporting countries which suffer disasters, but failed.
It’s not too late. The key is to design a formula with the right incentives. The basic principles should be that carbon polluters pay less into the fund if they cut carbon emissions - and those who suffer damage receive less if they don’t reduce theirs.
At Nature: Humans are driving one million species to extinction
Up to one million plant and animal species face extinction, many within decades, because of human activities, says the most comprehensive report yet on the state of global ecosystems.
Without drastic action to conserve habitats, the rate of species extinction — already tens to hundreds of times higher than the average across the past ten million years — will only increase, says the analysis. The findings come from a United Nations-backed panel called the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
According to the report, agricultural activities have had the largest impact on ecosystems that people depend on for food, clean water and a stable climate. The loss of species and habitats poses as much a danger to life on Earth as climate change does, says a summary of the work, released on 6 May.
SPECIAL SECTION ON DEGROWTH (Part 2 of 2)
At the Nation: Shrinking the Economy to Save the World America, I’m afraid to report, teeters on the precipice of inexorable decline. Our once limitless horizon is suddenly contracting, our outlook increasingly grim. Ross Douthat, The New York Times’ preeminent moral handwringer, lives in fear of the “stagnation, loneliness, alienation” our future has in store.
At NY Times: Do We Need to Shrink the Economy to Stop Climate Change?
If there is a dominant paradigm for how politicians and economists today think about solving climate change, it is called green growth. According to green growth orthodoxy — whose adherents populate European governments, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank and the White House — the global economy can both continue growing and defuse the threat of a warming planet through rapid, market-led environmental action and technological innovation.
But in recent years, a rival paradigm has been gaining ground: degrowth. In the view of degrowthers, humanity simply does not have the capacity to phase out fossil fuels and meet the ever-growing demand of rich economies. At this late hour, consumption itself has to be curtailed.
At BBC: Economic Growth - can we ever have enough? (27 minute video)
As the twin storms of economic turmoil and worsening climate change grip the UK and many other countries around the world, Analysis examines the future of economic growth. Does it offer a route out of economic malaise, or have its benefits reached a ceiling for developed countries? And can further growth be environmentally justified, or do we urgently need to halt - or even reverse - growth to limit the effects of climate change? Can so-called “degrowth” ever be possible? Edward Stourton talks to economists and thinkers from around the world to appraise whether there’s still a central role for growth in the 21st century.
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Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Visual Capitalist, November 29, 2022 |
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From Twitter December 5, 2022 |
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The pandemic continues all over the world and is now complicated by epidemic flu and RSV (most common in children). Children's hospitals in Canada and elsewhere are overflowing with cases, presenting another dire outcome and hit to the medical system. Information about Covid-19's prevalence and outcomes is increasingly hard to find, and many erroneously feel it's over. It is far from over. Covid is still a life threatening disease associated with many complications; it's infecting and killing many. New variants are continually on the rise. Many health authorities call for widespread public health measures, but it remains confusing and little adhered to. Collective action, data reporting and leadership have mostly disappeared.
Over the last week, cases are up about 30% to 600,000/day (though this is sorely under-reported); deaths are up to about 1700/day; and vaccinations are way up to about 3.4 million/day.
Vaccination, despite ongoing concerns about waning effectiveness and slander against it, along with other proven public health measures, remain the best ways to keep yourself and others safe from serious consequences. It's especially important to do everything you can not to get the disease. Get all the shots/boosters you can, and practise other public health measures (like masking) especially indoors with crowds.
See below for a few global stats and current hotspots.
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Above and below from Twitter - December 5, 2022
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"It is the plague in seemingly all sincerity." Bob Woodward |
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Credit: Getty Images To say that WW II hooked the world on plastic like it was an opioid would be an insult to opioids. You can treat a person addicted to a drug, but you can’t get plastic out of humanity’s system—ever. Being honest, plastic is a miracle material. Get rid of single-use plastics like shopping bags, to be sure, but not plastic syringes and other medical devices, not plastic wiring insulators, not the many components in our cars and electronics.
Level any criticism at the petrochemical industry about how they’re drowning the world in plastic and the first thing they’ll remind you is just how useful the stuff is. It’s our fault as consumers that we’re misusing plastic instead of recycling, which is a bit like opioid manufacturers blaming patients for getting hooked on their drugs. Like opioids, plastics make everything better in the moment, temporarily masking the ravages of addiction. Just ask the folks jumping for plasticine joy in a two-page spread in the August 1, 1955, issue of Life Magazine, “Throwaway Living: Disposable Items Cut Down Household Chores,” which must have struck even a vaguely reasonable reader as preposterous. The photo features a radiant nuclear family with arms outstretched, as if worshiping the items falling all around them—plates, cups, utensils, bins, a disposable diaper. “The objects flying through the air in this picture,” the story reads, “would take 40 hours to clean—except that no housewife need bother. They are all meant to be thrown away after use.”
Men need not worry about being left behind in this brave new disposable world, the article hints, thanks to “two items for hunters to throw away: disposable goose and duck decoys.” This is the central paradox of plastic: The material is exceedingly valuable in its versatility, yet worthless in that it can be chucked in the bin after one use. Read more at Wired
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Credit: Public Health Notes
If there’s anything that defines the 21st Century it is perhaps the disturbing rise of evidence-free decision-making, ‘not driven by reason at all but by emotion’ as the influential British novelist Jonathan Coe has it, or that people “have had enough of experts” as UK MP Michael Gove has claimed. Instead of reasoned argument, decision-makers seem increasingly wanting to make reality bend to their will, as if constancy of belief was sufficient and optimistic promotion a substitute for hard evidence. In the face of overwhelming scientific findings, measures to counter global heating or the biodiversity crisis are regarded as optional, with decisions determined more by political timetables than observable facts on the ground. While hardly a recent phenomenon, the dismissal of ‘experts’ and scientific evidence seems in recent years to have become the norm, especially where expert evidence conflicts with political dogma. As a result, actions which should have been started decades ago can be side-lined in favour of more electorally palatable matters, as if what US Vice-President Al Gore once referred to as the ‘inconvenient truth’ of climate change can just be wished away. Meanwhile the arguably equally serious biodiversity crisis is accorded even less attention than global heating – in fact it continues to be exacerbated by political decisions. Although Britain is acknowledged to be one of the most nature-depleted nations on the planet, the Government is currently promoting legislation to abandon a raft of environmental regulations specifically designed to maintain and protect national biodiversity.
In spite (or perhaps because) of this, threats to biodiversity at a local level have at least spurred some debate. I recently took part in a discussion about planning and ‘Biodiversity Net Gain’ (BNG), hosted by a local Council in South London. BNG is a buzz- phrase which has developed from ‘environmental mitigation’. Like ‘carbon offsetting’ it sounds like a good thing, but I believe that too often it falls into the same category of obfuscation – a greenwashing process to pull the wool over the eyes of the public about environmental damage caused by modern development. The problem with most aspects of modern life – energy generation and use, food production, transport of goods and people, housing, waste-disposal – is that they are all extremely damaging to the global environment in their present form. They don’t have to be, but the way ‘development’ has worked historically means that they are. This is why, two hundred years or so since the industrial revolution, there is an urgent need for many of these damaging aspects of modern life to be halted, curtailed or substantially rethought before the planet’s biosphere ceases to function in the many ways we have come to depend on – such as a reliable climate, manageable weather and predictable food sources.
New terms such as biodiversity net gain have a pseudoscientific ring about them as if they were subject to precise measurement and general acceptance. Certainly, the concept of biodiversity net gain has some potential merit - but not as it is currently applied. At its simplest level, the idea is that if, say, a swathe of ancient natural forest has to be sacrificed to make way for a road or a new railway line, compensation for the damage can be arranged by some habitat in the local area being ‘enhanced or created’. Where there were once aged trees and ancient woodland, young saplings can be planted, new ponds can be dug and wildflower seed spread across the land. Irreplaceable habitat replaced by landscaping or even ‘blandscaping’. And of course, the resultant fragmentation of the local habitat may also cause the permanent loss of those species which require a minimum single block of habitat. All this ‘mitigation’ activity can be dressed up as ‘leaving the natural environment in a better state than before’ according to a government booklet produced to sell the concept of BNG.
Sadly, of course, these actions do not actually compensate for the loss of long-established habitat but replace it with something young, un-formed and possessing none of the biodiversity and ecosystem processes which have taken centuries or even millennia to develop. By concentrating on one or two target species like a rare butterfly or protected newt, a ‘biodiversity score’ can be concocted (by developer-funded ecologists, not independent assessors) promoting the dangerous belief that all is well, that the proposed development isn’t harmful at all, and that developers, planners and politicians are all really on the side of nature. ‘Carbon offsetting’ schemes are somewhat similar but with even less scrutiny. This is because they are usually located in remote parts of the global South. A metal mine in Madagascar was recently ‘offset’ by claiming to have ensured the protection of a standing forest from future clearance; so not actually enhancing anything but assuming credit for preventing possible, and so far theoretical, future damage.
Particularly alarming is the emphasis on ‘enhancing or creating’ new nature rather than ensuring the protection of existing habitats, surrounded as such approaches are by considerable promotional froth. In fact it is often impossible to replace like with like, and instead of pretending that this is possible we should approach such challenges from a different perspective. For example, instead of clearing an ancient forest, we should choose a less environmentally sensitive route for a road or railway line, one that avoids the destruction of rich natural habitat.
A further issue is the concentration on individual poster species such as particular butterflies or, in the tropics, large carnivores, due to an apparent misunderstanding of the idea of biodiversity. Such focus on the charismatic has a tendency to produce what might be termed the ‘zooification’ of nature, namely the creation of isolated, remnant natural ‘exhibits’ more as a PR exercise than an actual contribution to protecting natural biodiversity. This is fine for publicity posters or spectacular postage stamps, but often results in realities that are not for celebration – the soya field with the single brazil-nut tree too far from the nearest forest for pollinating bees ever to reach it; the fragments of woodland left too small for populations of small mammals or woodland birds to survive; the attempts to create new habitats by transporting loads of topsoil to a new site with different drainage. Rather lesspublicity is thus accorded to the damage done - the canopy destroyed, ancient trees lost, biodiverse meadows damaged, local watercourses polluted, public opinion ignored.
The discussion with the environmental team from south London was interesting as far as it went, limited to a focus of individual small sites considered in isolation. Yet these sites are not isolated. They sit within the context of a changing climate, with the likelihood of droughts and higher temperatures, as well as more frequent storms and possible flash floods. Tackling the biodiversity crisis needs a more holistic approach, one that takes not just the rare butterfly but also its whole dynamic habitat; the community of its food plant as well as all the other associated organisms, considering all of these in climatically changing conditions and including interconnectedness with other similar sites. Biodiversity Net Gain and Carbon Offsetting could become useful concepts, but only if far more sophisticated (and expensive) means of assessment are employed, depending less on optimistic belief and bluster but rather on the complexity of inconvenient scientific truth.
Edward Milner, London, England
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Credit: Keith Srakocic/AP
The U.S. gun death rate last year hit its highest mark in nearly three decades, and the rate among women has been growing faster than that of men, according to study published Tuesday.The increase among women — most dramatically, in Black women — is playing a tragic and under-recognized role in a tally that skews overwhelmingly male, the researchers said.
“Women can get lost in the discussion because so many of the fatalities are men,” said one the authors, Dr. Eric Fleegler of Harvard Medical School. Among Black women, the rate of firearm-related homicides more than tripled since 2010, and the rate of gun-related suicides more than doubled since 2015, Fleegler and his co-authors wrote in the paper published by JAMA Network Open.
The research is one of the most comprehensive analyses of U.S. gun deaths in years, said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard University’s Injury Control Research Center. Read more at Politico
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Credit: Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Corbis via Getty Images
The number of babies born in Japan this year is below last year’s record low in what the the top government spokesman described as a “critical situation.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno promised comprehensive measures to encourage more marriages and births.
The total of 599,636 Japanese born in January-September was 4.9% below last year’s figure, suggesting the number of births in all of 2022 might fall below last year's record low of 811,000 babies, he said.
Japan is the world’s third biggest economy but living costs are high and wage increases have been slow. The conservative government has lagged on making society more inclusive for children, women and minorities. Read more at ABC News
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Credit: (Matt Rourke/The Associated Press)
A new mRNA vaccine targeting all known flu strains in a single shot is showing early promise in animal studies and is opening the door to a wide range of possibilities with the vaccine technology — including potentially preventing the next influenza pandemic.
University of Pennsylvania researchers published their findings in the journal Science last week, showing the vaccine produced high levels of antibody protection in mice and ferrets against all flu strains, which could one day help pave the way for a universal flu shot.
The research rapidly lifts mRNA technology to new heights and builds off the progress made in the COVID-19 pandemic in accelerating the development of the new vaccine platform, which has already been effectively used in billions of people worldwide. Read more at CBC
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Credit: REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
Britain's Rolls-Royce said it has successfully run an aircraft engine on hydrogen, a world aviation first that marks a major step towards proving the gas could be key to decarbonizing air travel. The ground test, using a converted Rolls-Royce AE 2100-A regional aircraft engine, used green hydrogen created by wind and tidal power, the British company said on Monday.
Rolls and its testing programme partner easyJet are seeking to prove that hydrogen can safely and efficiently deliver power for civil aero engines. Read more at Reuters
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Credit: Article
In September 2022, Hurricane Fiona crashed into the east coast of Canada leaving a path of destruction in its wake. High winds, in excess of 100 km/hour, battered homes and blasted ocean waves onto land, eroding coastlines, ripping roofs off their trusses, and dragging structures out to sea. Trees and powerlines were felled leaving thousands of people without power for more than a week, blocking roadways, and crushing buildings. Emergency kits meant to last for 72 hours ran dry and people risked the dangerous post-storm conditions to resupply. Store shelves were quickly emptied of emergency supplies as people panic-purchased whatever was available. Generators were a high-demand item, and people idled in line for gasoline for hours only to find that the pumps had run out. Hardest-hit communities were placed under a state of emergency in the days and weeks following. Read more at Council of Canadians
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The Planet Desperately Needs That UN Plastics Treaty |
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Credit: MIRAGEC/GETTY IMAGES
Last week in Uruguay, scientists, environmentalists, and government representatives—and, of course, lobbyists — gathered to begin negotiations on a United Nations treaty on plastics. It’s only the start of talks, so we don’t know how they will shape up, but some of the bargaining chips on the table include production limits and phasing out particularly troublesome chemical components. A draft resolution released in March set the tone, acknowledging that “high and rapidly increasing levels of plastic pollution represent a serious environmental problem at a global scale, negatively impacting the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development.”
Which is a bureaucratic way of saying that plastic pollution—both macroplastics like bags and bottles, and microplastics like fibres from synthetic clothing—is a planetary catastrophe of the highest order, and one that’s getting exponentially worse. Humanity is now churning out a trillion pounds of plastic a year, and that’ll double by 2045. Only 9 percent of all the plastic ever produced has been recycled—and currently the United States is recycling just 5 percent of its plastic waste. The rest of it is either chucked into landfills or burned, or escapes into the environment. Wealthy nations also have a nasty habit of exporting their plastic waste to economically developing nations, where the stuff is often burned in open pits, poisoning surrounding communities. Plastics are also a major contributor of carbon emissions—they're made of fossil fuels, after all. Read more at Wired
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SPOTLIGHT ON INDIGENOUS WELLNESS |
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Valley Of The Birdtail: How Two Manitoba Communities Came Together To Build A Road Toward Reconciliation |
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There’s a common question posed to the co-authors — one Indigenous, the other not — of Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town and the Road to Reconciliation. It goes something like this: how does a non-Indigenous person deal with the fear of acting on reconciliation?
Andrew Stobo Sniderman, the non-Indigenous co-author of the book, finds the question absurd. Non-Indigenous Peoples created the mess of colonization, and so it’s their responsibility to take us out of it, Sniderman said the morning after a book tour event in Ottawa last week. Douglas Sanderson, the Indigenous co-author, has a more charitable view: he thinks Indigenous Peoples should teach their non-Indigenous counterparts how to walk with them because “it’s a relationship.” Read more at National Observer
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Credit: New Scientist
“Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction. This conference (COP15) is our chance to stop this orgy of destruction.”
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations
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- December 7-8, 2022: The 4th International Conference on Rare Diseases (Vienna, Austria)
- December 7-19, 2022: COP15 UN Biodiversity Conference (Montreal, Canada)
- Thursday, January 26, 2023 from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm PST: The Centre for International Child Health at BC Children’s Hospital and the BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre is hosting the 5th Annual Global Health Conference
- April 14-16, 2023: CUGH's Annual Global Health Conference - Global Health at a Crossroads: Equity, Climate Change and Microbial Threats
- May 23-25, 2023: The Battery Show Europe (Stuggart, Germany).
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FYI#1 SPOTLIGHT ON MEDIA: NEW MOVIE |
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"To The End" Directed by Rachel Lears |
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Filmed over four years of hope and crisis, TO THE END captures the emergence of a new generation of leaders and the movement behind the most sweeping climate change legislation in U.S. history. Award-winning director Rachel Lears (Knock Down The House) follows four exceptional young women— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Varshini Prakash, climate policy writer Rhiana Gunn-Wright, and political strategist Alexandra Rojas— as they grapple with new challenges of leadership and power and work together to defend their generation’s right to a future.
From street protests to the halls of Congress, these bold leaders fight to shift the narrative around climate, revealing the crisis as an opportunity to build a better society. Including up-to-the-minute footage that culminates in 2022’s landmark climate bill, TO THE END lifts the veil on the battle for the future of our world, and gives audiences a front seat view of history in the making.
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Credit: Article
IPUMS Health Surveys, from the University of Minnesota, provide free individual-level survey data for research purposes from two leading sources of self-reported health and health care access information: the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
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FYI #3 |
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What Is SAFE Cities? |
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Credit: Article
SAFE (Stand Against Fossil Fuel Expansion) Cities is a movement of neighbors, local groups, and elected officials working to keep their communities SAFE from fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry’s harmful practices and reckless plans for expansion threaten the well-being of communities and people around the world.
That’s why the SAFE Cities campaign is connecting local efforts to limit fossil fuels into a global call for action and supporting community leaders to adopt SAFE policies that phase out fossil fuels and fast track clean, more efficient energy solutions for all.
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FYI #4 |
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In Meteorite, Alberta Researchers Discover Two Minerals Never Before Seen On Earth |
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Credit: University of Alberta
A meteorite expert from the University of Alberta was part of a team of researchers that discovered at least two new minerals never before seen on Earth.
Chris Herd, a professor in the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and curator of the University of Alberta’s meteorite collection, was contacted a couple years ago about trying to classify a 15-tonne meteorite found in Somalia, the ninth-largest meteorite ever found.
“In the course of doing the classification — describing this new rock for science — I came across some inclusions, some potential different, interesting minerals inside the meteorite. What we’ve now discovered is there are at least two new minerals in this meteorite from Somalia that have never been discovered before.
“Most people in my profession will go through their career and not even find one new mineral. Here, just by virtue of examining this meteorite… we came across two,” Herd said.
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FYI #5: DECEMBER READING - NEW BOOK |
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"Inside the Orphan Drug Revolution" by James A. Geraghty |
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Credit: Book Cover
An ‘orphan’ disease is a rare condition that has been abandoned by the pharmaceutical industry. Fewer than 10 drugs were approved for orphan diseases in the United States in the 1970s — but since the 1983 Orphan Drug Act, there have been more than 900. Some have been developed by biotech companies where entrepreneur James Geraghty has held senior roles over four decades. His informative, sometimes passionate, account mixes patients’ struggles with business, medicine, politics and technology.
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FYI#6: SPOTLIGHT ON EDUCATION |
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Teen Brains Aged Faster Than Normal From Pandemic Stress, Study Says |
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Credit: Shutterstock
The stress of pandemic lockdowns prematurely aged the brains of teenagers by at least three years and in ways similar to changes observed in children who have faced chronic stress and adversity, a study has found.
The study, published last week in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, was the first to compare scans of the physical structures of teenagers’ brains from before and after the pandemic started, and to document significant differences, said Ian Gotlib, lead author on the paper and a psychology professor at Stanford University.
Researchers knew teens had higher “levels of depression, anxiety and fearfulness” than “before the pandemic. But we knew nothing about the effects on their brains,” said Gotlib, who is director of the Stanford Neurodevelopment, Affect, and Psychopathology Laboratory. “We thought there might be effects similar to what you would find with early adversity; we just didn’t realize how strong they’d be.”
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Murals (ca. 1934-35) by José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949) on the Human Xondition at the MUSA Museum of the Arts at the University of Guadalajara |
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Guadalajar, Jalisco, México |
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At University of Guadalajara’s Paraninfo (Auditorium) behind the stage and on the dome, Orozco employed a fresco technique he developed involving the use of mineral pigments applied to a moistened lime and sand plaster.
With the help of Jorge Martínez and Francisco Robríguez “Caracalla”, Orozco completed “The People and Their False Leaders” behind the stage and “The Creator and the Rebel Man” on the walls behind the stage, in 1937.
These powerful works reflect both the University’s commitment to culture and humanism and the artist’s critical view of the political and social realities of his time, which also strike particular relevance to 2022.
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Behind the stage he created:
"The People and Their False Leaders"
The miserable ones, who suffer without hope; the fiery masses, crying out slogans; and the false leaders who, with the use of weapons and arguments from flawed theories, defend their own dominance.
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One the dome (above) he created:
“The Creator and the Rebel Man”
The wise man or scientist, a five-dimensional man who thinks, questions, inquires, reflects and rejoices; the teacher who guides and instructs; and the rebel who, doomed by his limitations, is heaved into the void.
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Descriptions from the free pamphlet at the museum entrance. |
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Photo Credits: David Zakus |
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THANKS FOR READING THE FREE
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