Sabotage, new normal, omnicrisis, devastating, hottest, fastest, largest, historic, highest, lowest, catastrophic...
HI,
How can it be, as was recently reported, that concern over environmental and climate crises issues is falling, and that even the current climate crisis, as mild as it really is, is already overwhelming our collective ability to respond? One could ask, sarcastically, how much lower can concern and our response get? But, if concern and action are indeed declining we’re heading into the abyss even faster than most informed folks believe. The big annual UN climate conference, COP27, is soon to take place at a beach and diving resort in Egypt. and let's wait and see what happens. It will be hosted and chaired by Egypt, without much word about its environmental record and, equally important, its abysmal human rights record. That as many as 50,000 political prisoners and detainees have had their freedom taken away by the government of Egypt is probably not known widely. Does it matter? What have human rights got to do with plundering the environment and the endangering of the lives of billions today and into the future?
To me, the connection between the two is intimate, stark and obvious. By denying rights, inherent to the person not earned, is today the same as digging for new oil, sending more plastic into Ocean, cutting down all remaining old growth forests, let alone standing by and watching 20% of the Amazon go up in smoke. It's a total affront to the planet. That one can be imprisoned for saying you don’t like a politician or policy (like refusing to wear a headscarf) shouldn't be happening. Neither should dangerously plundering Earth nor not wanting to change your business model just because of profit. The right to life and freedom is inherent in the battle against climate and biodiversity crises, and both must be advocated.
We should be concerned that representatives of all nations and concerned environmental agencies and advocates will soon be coming together in the sun and surf of a huge human rights abuser at COP27. There will hopefully be protest, but it won’t be coming from those with the greatest power, for they have already compromised. Ecocide, direct attacks on human rights and environmental abuse will continue unabated during the conference. I, too, wonder what climate emergency will coincide.
It’s hard to understand how 'we' can achieve progress on the environment without progress on human rights; and bringing them together to advance humankind, and promoting them through the concept of planetary health.
We now see how giving in and acquiescing to a bully starting in 2014 has led to world turmoil today. The same with the 2015 Paris Agreement. All agreed and then most didn't keep their commitment, and now we’re paying the entrance fee to Act One of the horror show of a lifetime. When are our representatives and the world’s presses and journalists going to realize that declining concern for future life and livelihood is on their shoulders? They must step up to the plate and start delivering, regardless of the backlash. They should, for one, be informing about how profitable the green energy transition will be as repeated many times by the current US president and others.
Adding to your information about it all, read on in today’s Planetary Health Weekly (#43 of 2022):
- CLIMATE & BIODIVERSITY CRISES UPDATES:
- Humans have wiped out 70% of animals in 50 years,
- Antarctica’s collapse could begin even sooner than anticipated,
- New Jersey takes Big Oil to court for climate lies,
- ExxonMobil building plethora of oil, natural gas prospects in Stabroek offshore Guyana,
- Guyana rakes in biggest quarterly windfall from oil production,
- EPA owes Guyana more than country has been provided with,
- A rare but dangerous flesh-eating bacteria is infecting (flooded) Florida residents,
- France joins other European countries in pulling out of treaty protecting (fossil) energy investments,
- Number of sharks killed per year,
- CORONAVIRUS UPDATES:
- Scientists deny making deadly horror Covid in lab,
- Why virus denial is wrong (excellent about virology),
- Incidence of severe Covid-19 illness following vaccination and booster with BNT162b2, mRNA-1273 and Ad26.COV2.S,
- Moderna announces update to 2022 supply agreement with GAVI that secures access to updated variant-specific Covid-19 vaccines for low-and-middle income countries,
- Equivalency of protection from natural immunity in the Covid-19 recovered versus fully vaccinated persons,
- CDC officials describe intense pressure and job threats from Trump White House,
- The nightmare XBB Covid variant that beats our immunity is finally here,
- Covid-19 cases rising again in Germany, Canada: new variant BQ.1 accounts for one in ten cases in the U.S.,
- German health minister urges stepped-up Covid-19 measures, THEN
- Crisis in Central America: food security and decent housing among people’s unmet critical needs,
- China introduces three-child policy to alleviate problem of ageing population,
- Tragedy in small Michigan town once again demonstrates how lethal conspiracy theories can be,
- Vietnam moves to boost green agriculture,
- Zimbabwe headed for bumper wheat harvest,
- The ‘world’s largest capacity’ floating wave energy device will be tested in Scotland over the next four years,
- How I learned to stop worrying and love Just Stop Oil protesters,
- Bio, circular, green – Thailand’s BCG offers APEC sustainable economy,
- Whose land?
- Quote of the Week by Vincent Van Gogh on the value of paintings,
- The BBC at one hundred,
- What does the future look like for Monkeypox?
- Inside the race to kill an invasive menace - before it gets to a town near you,
- Visualized: the world’s population at 8 billion,
- How Canada’s oil sands ‘bankrolled the assault on truth,’ New book: "The Petroleum Papers - Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change" by Geoff Dembicki,
- Rethinking global health topics To advance social justice in undergraduate nursing education, and lastly
- ENDSHOTS of Autumn Denouement in Seguin, Ontario.
I hope you’ll keep reading. Best, david
David Zakus, Editor and Publisher
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SUNRISE AT WHITEFISH LAKE |
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IN COMPLETE SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINE SEEKING PEACE AND VICTORY |
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AND WITH THE BRAVE WOMEN OF IRAN |
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CLIMATE & BIODIVERSITY CRISES UPDATES |
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Credit: GETTY IMAGES
Humans have wiped out almost 70% of animal populations in almost half a century, conservationists have found. World Wildlife Fund - UK said the decline showed “the lights are flashing red”. It warned that the destruction was undermining the fight against climate change.
The group’s Living Planet Report, published every two years, is the most comprehensive assessment yet on the decline in wildlife. The study found that wildlife numbers around the world fell by 69% on average from 1970 to 2018. Read more at The Times
See More:
At Scientific American: Antarctica's Collapse Could Begin Even Sooner Than Anticipated
The Thwaites Ice Shelf begins where the massive Thwaites Glacier meets the West Antarctic coast. The shelf is a floating slab of ice, several hundred meters thick, extending roughly 50 kilometers into the Southern Ocean, covering between 800 and 1,000 square kilometers. For the past 20 years, as the planet has warmed, scientists using satellites and aerial surveys have been watching the Thwaites Ice Shelf deteriorate. The decline has caused widespread alarm because experts have long viewed the Thwaites Glacier as the most vulnerable part of the larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice shelf acts as a dam, slowing its parent glacier’s flow into the ocean. If the shelf were to fall apart, the glacier’s slide into the sea would greatly accelerate. The Thwaites Glacier itself holds enough ice to raise the global sea level by 65 centimeters (about two feet). The loss of the Thwaites Glacier would in turn destabilize much of the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with enough ice to raise sea levels by 3.2 meters—more than 10 feet.
At ExxonKnews: New Jersey Takes Big Oil To Court For Climate Lies
Ten years ago, Superstorm Sandy barreled into the east U.S. coast, becoming one of the most infamous and destructive hurricanes on record. The storm caused $30 billion in property damage and resulted in the deaths of 38 people in New Jersey alone — a harbinger of climate disasters to come.
Now, the Garden State is fighting back against the climate crisis’ biggest perpetrators. Today, New Jersey became the latest of seven states to sue ExxonMobil and other Big Oil companies, seeking to make them pay for lying about the harm their products would cause to the climate — and for the innumerable costs residents have faced as a result.
At TankerTerminals: ExxonMobil Building Plethora of Oil, Natural Gas Prospects in Stabroek Offshore Guyana
Lau Lau-1 well, in 4,793 feet of water, encountered 315 feet of hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone reservoirs. This and another nearby discovery add to estimated recoverable resources for Stabroek, which extends across 6.6 million acres, at 10 billion boe.
At Oil Now: Guyana Rakes In Biggest Quarterly Windfall From Oil Production
Guyana’s Central Bank – the operational manager for the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) – disclosed on Monday that third-quarter inflows amounted to GY$102.82 billion (US$493.18 million). This comprised of profit oil totalling GY$92.18 billion (US$442.12 million) and royalties totalling GY$10.64 billion (US$51.06 million). The receipts of oil revenues into the fund for the period July to September 2022 represented the highest quarterly inflows.
At Kaieteur News: EPA Owes Guyana More Than Country Has Been Provided With
Guyana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been failing on its mandate to protect the country as oil and gas production takes off, but in addition to that, the body has also not been transparent with citizens as information relating to the sector is lacking in various regards.
This is according to Shadow Natural Resources Minister, David Patterson who explained that the agency must do better. He was at the time fielding questions from the media at a picket exercise, organized by a group of public-spirited Guyanese, who were demanding that the agency respond to a letter it received since August last, in which 54 persons raised serious environmental safety concerns.
At NPR: A Rare But Dangerous Flesh-Eating Bacteria Is Infecting Florida Residents
Parts of Florida hit hardest by Hurricane Ian are seeing nearly double the normal number of infections from a flesh-eating bacteria that thrives in brackish floodwaters. According to the Florida Department of Health, the state has seen 65 cases of Vibrio vulnificus infections and 11 deaths from the bacterium in 2022. Lee County, where Ian made landfall on Sept 28 as a category 4 storm, accounts for 45% of the cases.
What is Vibrio vulnificus?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that Vibrio vulnificus lives in warm seawater and is a type of foodborne illness-causing bacteria called "halophilic" because they require salt to survive. The bacteria population increases during the warmer summer months and may also see a boost after sewage spills into coastal waters, as it did during Hurricane Ian. The storm brought more than 17 inches of rain over West-Central Florida, leading to surges of up to 12 feet.
At Reuters: France Joins Other European Countries In Pulling Out Of Treaty Protecting Energy Investments
France will join other European countries such as Spain and the Netherlands in pulling out of the Energy Charter Treaty which protected investments in the energy sector, said President Emmanuel Macron on Friday. "We have decided to pull out of the Energy Charter Treaty," said Macron at the end of a European Union summit in Brussels. The treaty, which has more than 50 signatories including the European Union, was designed to secure energy supplies and grants protection to companies investing in the energy industry.
At American Oceans: Number of Sharks Killed Per Year
What if we told you that sharks aren’t nearly as harmful to humans as humans are to sharks? There is some evidence in favour of this point. An estimated 100 million sharks are killed per year throughout the world, a startlingly high number and one that is greater than the recovery rate of these populations.
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SARS-CoV-2 & COVID-19 UPDATES |
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Globally, nationally and locally, the pandemic continues in many countries. Many erroneously feel it's over, whereas it continues. Covid is still a life threatening disease associated with many complications and infecting many. If you think it's going away just look at the numbers, when you can find them. Collective action, data reporting and leadership have all but disappeared.
Over the last week, cases are about 800,000/day (though reporting is under-reported but double from last week); deaths are still at about 1600/day; and vaccinations are down to about 1.3 million/day with way too many not getting their boosters, including children.
Vaccination, despite ongoing concerns about waning immunity and huge slander against it and lies about deaths and vaccine ineffectiveness, along with other proven public health measures, remain the best ways to keep yourself and others safe from serious consequences. 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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"It is the plague in seemingly all sincerity." Bob Woodward |
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Focus on Food Security in Central America with Carlos Jimenez |
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Crisis in Central America: Food Security and Decent Housing Among People’s Unmet Critical Needs, IRC reports |
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Replanting beans destroyed by Hurricane Julia. Credit: Carlos Jimenez
Thousands of Central Americans are experiencing a humanitarian crisis including food insecurity, violence and displacement. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns that covering people’s most basic needs remains a challenge and calls for the international community to allocate funding to deliver a comprehensive response. The IRC analyzed data collected from an emergency cash relief program implemented in the first half of 2022, which reached over 3,000 people in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Based on the information shared by the participants, the IRC found that for them, the main challenges were:
1. Being unable to pay for basic needs such as food. Before receiving the emergency cash support, 97% reported they did not have the resources to fully pay for essential goods, utilities or services to ensure long term survival and minimum living standards.
2. Being forced to adopt negative coping strategies. The lack of sufficient income meant that, to meet their immediate food security needs, 50% of people adopted coping strategies that reduced their future productivity. A relevant percentage of the surveyed people (40%) reported resorting to “crisis” coping strategies, which means being forced to sell any productive assets they might have, while 10% reported “emergency” actions, which are difficult to reverse, like selling their land.
3. Suffering hunger and inadequate nutrient intake. On average, 44% of families reported eating two or less meals a day before receiving the economic support. Based on the Food Consumption Score, it was determined that 1 in 4 families experienced poor food consumption, meaning that the inhabitants of the household were unable to eat at least staples (like maize, rice or plantains) and vegetables on a daily basis.
4. Lacking safe or decent housing. Despite the emergency support, 29% of families reported that they lived in places where they could not feel safe and at peace. In fact, 40% expressed they did not have an adequate space, considering factors like warmth, fresh air and protection against extreme weather conditions.
Read more at Rescue
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Credit: Reuters - Kim Kyung-Hoon
China's government has announced it is scrapping a policy limiting couples to two children and will now allow them to have three. The change, a few months ago, was approved during a Politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, according to official news agency Xinhua. The government said the problem of an ageing populace was deepening and the change would help to improve the structure of China's population and maintain its advantage in human resources.
The policy change will come with "supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country's population structure, fulfilling the country's strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources", Xinhua said. Among those measures, China will lower educational costs for families, step up tax and housing support, guarantee the legal interests of working women and clamp down on "sky-high" dowries, it said, without giving specifics. It would also look to educate young people "on marriage and love". Read more at ABC
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Credit: Getty Images
For decades, people have thought of conspiracy theories as harmless amusements. But the past six years have demonstrated their extraordinary toxicity: Conspiracy theories are incredibly dangerous to democracy, primarily because they destroy the shared reality necessary for it to function. By untethering people from reality, conspiracy theories poison relationships on every level, from national to local to the family itself.
As a recent incident in Michigan demonstrates, their ability to tear families apart is especially devastating. In the town of Walled Lake, a 53-year-old man named Igor Lanis became so wrapped up in QAnon and other Trumpist conspiracy theories—particularly the former president’s claims to have won the 2020 election—that he finally erupted at his family because they failed to fall down the rabbit holes with him, went on a rampage with a handgun and a shotgun, and gunned them down before being shot by police on his front lawn. Read more at Daily Kos
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Credit: VNA
Vietnam has been seeking ways to further promote green agriculture development as the demand for products that are safe for health and the environment is forecast to rise strongly. According to Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan, Vietnam's agriculture sector has recorded strong and comprehensive development, and great achievements in recent years, with the food output increasing rapidly in both quantity and quality, ensuring the needs of domestic consumption and export.
To effectively address challenges related to the shrinking of cultivation land, the increasing demand of food, the excessive use of inorganic fertilizers and chemical pesticides in agricultural production, and post-harvest losses, a series of solutions have been proposed. Read more at Vietnam Plus
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Credit: DW
The global shortages caused by the war in Ukraine have pushed some countries to focus on producing more of their own food. As a result, Zimbabwe is on course to reap its largest wheat harvest ever. DW's Privilege Musvanhiri reports.
Watch the 3 minute video at DW
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Credit: Ocean Energy / YouTube
Irish firm Ocean Energy has signed up to a collaboration project with 14 industry and university partners in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Spain. The project will test its OE35 floating wave energy device at scale over the next four years.
Ocean Energy develops wave energy technology to harness the power of the ocean for renewable energy in a bid to improve the security of energy supplies and also to help ease the energy transition. The new €19.6 million ($19.2 million) project, called WEDUSEA, is co-funded by the EU Horizon Europe Programme and Innovate UK, and it aims to enable viable mass market wave energy technology, as per a press release. Read more at Interesting Engineering
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Credit: Evening Standard
For a few brief seconds my breath caught in my throat as I watched those two young Just Stop Oil activists hurling tins of tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers last week. I was shocked. My initial reaction, though, was short-lived after I learnt it was protected by glass.
What did surprise me, though, was the level of criticism from young progressives. Such people are usually sympathetic to the climate movement. Instead they felt that this particular stunt was beyond the pale. Many questioned why the protesters, who were later arrested for criminal damage, were targeting art — after all, it’s hardly Van Gogh’s fault that the planet is burning.
According to Just Stop Oil themselves they were showing that paintings about nature are more valued than nature itself in a climate emergency. And the near collective meltdown in response has only proved their point. Especially when contrasted with reactions to the Government’s decision to greenlight 100 new oil and gas projects in the North Sea, for example, or the ending of the moratorium on fracking, which were muted in comparison.
Art is sacred, and we should protect it. It is intrinsic to who we are, to the point where even the threat of its desecration viscerally offends us. But there is no art on a dead planet.
If we care so much about art, why has there been more pearl-clutching about a can of soup being thrown at a glass-protected painting than the Seine bursting its banks in 2018 and nearly wiping out the entirety of the Louvre?
The wider question about whether such measures risk alienating the public and rendering the protest counterproductive, is also wrong-headed.
Protesting is not always about being liked. Sometimes it’s about causing chaos so people are forced to pay attention, which invariably means some people will be pissed off. Extinction Rebellion could hardly be described as popular, but following their protests, polls showed that more people considered the climate crisis a priority. The Suffragettes, the US Civil Rights Movement — these groups were unpopular and disruptive in their time, but does that negate their value?
It is easy, from our comfortable distance to the climate crisis in the West, to say that we support Just Stop Oil’s cause but not their methods. It is not so easy for the 16 million Somalians facing acute food insecurity as a result of a climate change-induced drought, the worst the country has faced for 40 years. The 33 million Pakistanis affected by flooding this year do not have the privilege of dipping in and out of the climate movement when they deem it palatable either.
The reality, whether we want to admit or not, is these are teenagers risking imprisonment because they are so desperate for someone to listen to them about the existential threat of climate change. They deserve our support. Read Emma Loffhagen's piece at Evening Standard
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Bio, Circular, Green – Thailand’s BCG Offers APEC Sustainable Economy |
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Credit: Article
Thailand is preparing to welcome the 21 APEC members to Bangkok next month with a new business code of conduct that espouses a Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) economic model.
The BCG model is both environmentally-friendly and responsible, the Foreign Ministry’s senior APEC official Cherdchai Chaivaivid said during an interview with The Nation. The director-general of the Department of International Economic Affairs noted that the upcoming summit will take place in the depths of a global economic meltdown and some unprecedented geopolitical tensions. Read more at the Thaiger
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SPOTLIGHT ON INDIGENOUS WELLNESS |
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Credit: Article
Whose Land is a web-based app that uses GIS technology to assist users in identifying Indigenous Nations, territories, and Indigenous communities across Canada. The app can be used for learning about the territory your home or business is situated on, finding information for a land acknowledgement, and learning about the treaties and agreements signed across Canada. Educational videos are available to watch that will give you a better understanding of why land acknowledgements are important, and the way Indigenous people view their relationship to land. The app consists of six different maps of Indigenous territories, Treaties, and First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities. Each community's location will eventually host a land acknowledgement video, and other information that the community would like to include on their page.
The app will be used as an educational tool to create dialogue around reconciliation. It will be a starting point for conversation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens across this country about land, territorial recognition and land acknowledgement.
Whose Land is the product of a shared vision between BOLD Realities, TakingITGlobal, and Canadian Roots Exchange, who identified the need to create a platform to increase knowledge and awareness of Indigenous territories, communities and Treaties and to help create dialogue around Indigenous territory recognition and acknowledgement.
Whose.land was pleased to partner with Native-Land in the development of our platform. We worked closely with the Native-Land team to build on their existing data rather than re-creating their work. When our research efforts identified gaps in their data, they were contributed back and have been incorporated into their platform as well, forming an improved data set that we are both committed to sharing openly. We also contracted Native-Land's founder Victor Temprano to develop some of the mapping customizations that powers our different homepage map views. We have also made use of the Residential Schools Location Dataset from the York University Dataverse, created by Rosa Orlandini. Read more at Whose Land
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In thinking about those young protesters who hurled tomato soup at a glassed in Vincent Van Gogh painting, he himself said:
"…it is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures."
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
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- On-going until October 31: International Health Trends and Perspectives (IHTP, a new journal based at Toronto Metropolitan University, (formerly Ryerson University, Toronto) is dedicating a special issue to the topic of Planetary Health to highlight research, theoretical and community based contributions of scientists, scholars and activists globally. It is inviting manuscripts that are solutions and equity-focused. See the call for papers and details here: https://bit.ly/3tDixHT
- October 22-25 (virtual) and October 28-30 (in-person) StellenboschU-CUGH African Global Health Conference, 2022 (Cape Town, South Africa)
- October 31- November 2: Planetary Health Alliance Annual Meeting (Boston and Virtual)
- October 31 - November 4, 2022: 7th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (Bogotá, Colombia)
- November 6-18, 2022: COP 27 UN Climate Change Conference (Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt)
- November 21-23, 2022: Canadian Conference on Global Health Join us in Toronto for the 28th Canadian Conference on Global Health (CCGH). This year's hybrid event will explore the theme of: "Inclusive Global Health in Uncertain Times: Research and Practice".
- December 7-8, 2022: The 4th International Conference on Rare Diseases (Vienna, Austria)
- December 7-19, 2022: COP15 UN Biodiversity Conference (Montreal, Canada)
- 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 |
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The BBC At One Hundred |
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Credit: CJR
October 18 was an atypical day for the BBC: the special content marked one hundred years since the broadcaster was born. The BBC began life as a private company, albeit a monopoly set up with government approval; “industrialists were trying to sell radio receivers to the general public,” The Guardian’s Jim Waterson explains, “but no one wanted to hand over money for an expensive piece of kit if there wasn’t anything to listen to.” If October 18 is the BBC’s formal birthday, it did not actually broadcast anything until a month or so later, when an announcer read a short news bulletin, twice, in case people were taking notes. (Per Waterson, the bulletin featured a story on a flailing new prime minister whose days would soon be numbered. Plus ça change.) Even this first broadcast didn’t generate much coverage from the rest of Britain’s media. It would be several more months before the BBC even got its own offices.
“Very few people would have noticed” the BBC’s founding at the time, David Hendy, the author of a recent history of the broadcaster, said on a (you guessed it) BBC podcast recently. “There is a founding moment in 1922, but in many ways it’s not a single date so much as a whole year of activities where this technology, which has been around for years, becomes something else: it ceases to be a private means of communication, and it becomes something which is part of a national project.”
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What Does The Future Look Like For Monkeypox? |
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Credit: Nature (Data source: WHO)
Almost six months after monkeypox cases started to rise globally, vaccination efforts and behavioural changes seem to be containing the current strain — at least in the United States and Europe. But the situation could still play out in several ways, say researchers. The outbreak might fizzle out over the next few months or years. Or the virus could become endemic outside Africa by reaching new animal reservoirs, making it nearly impossible to eradicate.
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FYI #3 |
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Inside The Race To Kill An Invasive Menace—Before It Gets To A Town Near You |
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Credit: KATIE ARMSTRONG, NG STAFF. SOURCE: NYSIPM; PA DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE
Native to China, this striking, black-and-red planthopper showed up in the U.S. for the first time in 2014, perhaps stowed away on an international shipment of decorative stone bound for Berks County in eastern Pennsylvania. The species has also been found in South Korea and Japan. (Read how invasive species are taking hold in U.S. national parks.)
Over the last eight years, spotted lanternflies, which use their straw-like mouthparts to slurp the juices out of trees, have colonized 45 counties within Pennsylvania and established satellite populations in 13 other states, from Connecticut and North Carolina as far west as Indiana. They’ve also invaded the public consciousness. In 2020, a spotted lanternfly crawled across President Joe Biden’s shoulder at a campaign stop in Wilmington, Delaware. And in October, the species made a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live.
As the insect spreads, it has the potential to wreak havoc on crops and other agriculture, feeding on over 70 different kinds of plants and trees in the U.S. alone. They have a taste for certain species, namely tree of heaven—also an invasive species from Asia—as well as native species, such as black walnut, several species of maple, hops, and grapevines.
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FYI #4 |
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Visualized: The World’s Population At 8 Billion |
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Credit: Visual Capitalist
At some point in late 2022, the eight billionth human being will enter the world, ushering in a new milestone for humanity.
In just 48 years, the world population has doubled in size, jumping from four to eight billion. Of course, humans are not equally spread throughout the planet, and countries take all shapes and sizes. The visualizations in this article aim to build context on how the eight billion people are distributed around the world.
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FYI #5: OCTOBER READING - NEW BOOK |
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How Canada’s Oil Sands ‘Bankrolled The Assault On Truth’ |
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Credit: Book Cover
Imperial Oil might not be a household name in the United States, but the company, which is mostly owned by ExxonMobil, is a big name in Canada. There, it’s one of the major players in Canada’s oil sands — the name for the vast fields containing a tarry mixture of sand, water, and the thick, heavy oil called bitumen — that were first mined in 1967. These oil sands, sometimes called “tar sands,” which lie in northern Alberta, are one of the largest oil reserves in the world.
But the oil that comes from them is distinctive in several ways. Oil sands’ unique texture means it takes more money and energy to refine than traditional crude. In addition, its oil is some of the most carbon-heavy in the world, with up to 20 percent higher emissions, and that has drawn the attention of climate advocates. Because of these factors, as Geoff Dembicki explains in his new book The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change (Greystone Books), oil sands producers and refiners, like Imperial Oil or Koch Industries, are particularly vulnerable to any efforts to mitigate climate change that would increase the already higher costs of extracting and refining bitumen.
Dembicki’s book illuminates for the first time how these industry players profited from Canada’s oil sands and then spun those profits into international networks of climate denial that would help extend the oil sands’ lifetime. “Bitumen from Alberta bankrolled the assault on truth led by companies such as Koch Industries and Exxon,” he writes.
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FYI#6: SPOTLIGHT ON EDUCATION and CLIMATE CRISIS ADVOCACY |
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Rethinking Global Health Topics To Advance Social Justice In Undergraduate Nursing Education |
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Credit: Ingimage
Social justice is about fairness, equal rights, opportunities, and the right to good health. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) code of ethics calls on nurses to “advocate for equity and social justice in resource allocation, access to health care, and other socioeconomic services” (International Council of Nurses, 2021, p. 7). A social justice framework provides nurses with a theoretical understanding of ways to confront oppressive structures and unfair processes that reproduce inequities (McGibbon and Lukeman, 2019). However, it is lacking in the undergraduate nursing curricular (Abu, 2020; Thurman and PfitzingerLippe, 2017; Valderama-Wallace and Apesoa-Varano, 2020).
COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of social justice in understanding and addressing health disparities by amplifying how environmental conditions have increased the risk in some populations. For instance, people living in multi-generational households and those in precarious working conditions have a higher risk of exposure than others in more affluent situations (Green et al., 2021). Within a social justice agenda, there is a need for nurse educators to design courses that highlight how contextual factors influence health more so than genes.
An integrated standalone global health course in the undergraduate nursing curricular offers one platform to teach social justice. This course can deepen student's understanding of how unfair, unjust, and inequitable policies, systems, and structures create social conditions that determine the health and wellbeing of people (Abu, 2020).
Many undergraduate nursing curricula lack a core course in global health, although this is a requirement in undergraduate medical curricula (Rowson et al., 2012). For example, in British Columbia (Canada), the Bachelor of Science (BSN) program at the University of Victoria (UVic) has a compulsory undergraduate global health course. In contrast, the nursing program at the University of Fraser Valley (UFV) has three classes on global health interwoven with other nursing courses throughout the BSN program.
Although there are many ways to teach global health content, we believe a dedicated course in global health at the undergraduate level provides another opportunity for students to strengthen their resolve in social justice. Teaching global health through a critical lens offers the opportunity to promote transformative action to disrupt unfair systems (Valderama-Wallace, 2017).
The paper aims to propose seven core topics foundational to an undergraduate global health course along with teaching strategies using the “think global and act local” approach (Ibrahim et al., 2014). The seven proposed core topics are: 1) interconnectedness of our world, 2) global and local health inequities, 3) power and privilege, 4) colonialism, 5) racism, 6) planetary health, and 7) intersectoral collaboration. We suggest these topics based on our social location as immigrants, professional experiences as global health practitioners, and nurse educators within the local context in British Columbia, Canada.
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WHITEFISH LAKE and HAWKRIGG LANE
SEGUIN, ONTARIO
October 26-27, 2022
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Photo Credits: David Zakus |
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