Monday, December 12, 2022

 COP15

Indigenous people recognized as leaders at biodiversity summit, but not equals in negotiations

Indigenous lands contain about 80% of Earth's remaining 

biodiversity

CBC News · 
A large sign reads: COP15 in front of Montreal's palais des congres. A person walks past the sign. Trees in the photo are bare.
There is a large Indigenous contingent at COP15, the UN biodiversity summit, with at least 497 of the 15,723 people registered to attend representing Indigenous nations or organizations. (Jaela Bernstien/CBC)

Behind the rainbow-tinted windows of Montreal's Palais des congrès, the hallways of the sprawling downtown convention centre hum with activity as international delegates hurry from one meeting to the next during the United Nations biodiversity summit, COP15. 

A total of 195 nations plus the European Union have a seat at the negotiating table as world governments meet on the traditional land of Kanien'kehá:ka Nation to hash out a global biodiversity framework. The framework aims to save nature from the brink by cutting pollution, ensuring sustainable forestry and agriculture practices, and protecting at least 30 per cent of land, freshwater and oceans by 2030.

There is a significant Indigenous presence on the ground, with at least 497 of the 15,723 people registered to attend the summit representing Indigenous nations or organizations.

But none of those Indigenous nations have decision-making status.

"We always have to have this sponsor to speak for us. It's as if we are children," said Jennifer Corpuz, who is a representative for the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity at COP15.

Indigenous nations are not among the list of parties with status under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. Put simply, they don't have equal status during negotiations compared to a country like Canada.

Indigenous lands contain about 80 per cent of the world's remaining biodiversity, while making up about 20 per cent of the Earth's total territory, according to the UN. Many scientists, environmentalists and world leaders have recognized their leadership as environmental stewards, and experts on how to best live in harmony with nature.

"We need to work side-by-side with the most effective guardians of biodiversity — Indigenous Peoples," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said to the press during his opening remarks on the first day of negotiations at COP15. 

Yet getting a seat side-by-side other nations is not always guaranteed, Corpuz said. 

"It's quite ironic. Sometimes we just feel like it's lip service." 

A woman with brown hair stands upright looking at the camera. She wears a beaded headband and long dangling earrings.
Jennifer Corpuz, a representative for the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, said she would like to see enhanced status for Indigenous peoples during UN negotiations at the biodiversity summit. (Jaela Bernstien/CBC)

Corpuz is Kankana-ey Igorot and comes from the mountainous northern region of the Philippines. She said in the large plenary meetings, where all parties come together, Indigenous representatives can speak out and share their point of view. But when negotiations break into smaller groups for detailed discussions, the process gets more complicated. 

"We can only participate at the discretion of the co-lead," Corpuz said. In other words, they need permission to enter the room and sit at the table. 

Sometimes they are allowed to join, other times they are refused entry. She said if Indigenous representatives want to propose a change to the biodiversity framework, they have to be supported by at least one party.

"It has happened many times before that we make our proposals and nobody supports it, and so it just gets carried away on the air," Corpuz said. 

"Why not let the best protectors of nature speak out at this conference?"

During this conference, she said countries seem to have been listening to their advice so far. But she said Indigenous people should have the right to speak on their own merit. 

Cultivating the land since the dawn of time

A man with dark brown hair is standing, looking at the camera. He is wearing a beige vest with green lining and a matching green shirt underneath. He is smiling and showing off a pin of a snowshoe on his vest.
Jérôme Bacon St-Onge, vice-chief of the Innu Council of Pessamit, points to a decorative snowshoe brooch pinned to his vest. Traditionally, Innu made their snowshoes using the caribou they hunted, but dwindling herd sizes mean they no longer hunt the animals that are integral to their traditional way of life. (Jaela Bernstien/CBC )

Jérôme Bacon St-Onge, vice-chief of the Innu Council of Pessamit in Quebec, agrees it is a bit absurd.

"We have been in the Americas since time immemorial, we have cultivated the land, lived on the land, and occupied the land since the dawn of time, but we don't have legal status at the United Nations."

He drove eight hours from his community on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River to attend the conference, and said he plans to do what he can to push for the recognition of Indigenous-led conservation.

"Our presence here at COP15 is to share our message of territorial protection and to lead governments to take concrete actions," he said. 

From the other side of the world, Chief Viacheslav Shadrin travelled to Montreal to share a similar message. 

"We are here to find solutions to help nature … and to help us, all of humankind," he said. 

Shadrin is Chief of the Yukaghir Council of Elders and comes from the Republic of Yukaghir Council of Elders in Russia's Arctic. 

He said Indigenous people, as guardians of nature, should have a larger role in negotiations. While they are being increasingly recognized as leaders on the world stage, he said there is more work to be done.

"We must take part in all decision-making processes," Shadrin said. "We must receive more rights." 

The global biodiversity summit runs until Dec. 19, with the arrival of ministers mid-week for the high-level segment of negotiations. Discussions are expected to culminate in what many hope will be an ambitious plan to protect nature over the next decade. 

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Comment: Conserving forest, grassland and wetland ecosystems in British Columbia has global impact

A nature-positive future is a people-positive future.

Gates Creek property near the B.C. town of D’arcy. NATURE CONSERVANCY OF CANADA

A commentary by the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s regional vice-president in B.C.

Governments, scientists and conservation experts are gathering in Montreal for a global summit on nature, called COP15. There, they will set a course to end nature loss around the world and to create a nature-positive future. But what does that really mean for us, here in British Columbia?

I know deep in my bones that nature gives us everything we need to survive, because we are part of nature, after all. So, a nature-positive future is a people-positive future.

When I look around my local landscape in the East Kootenay, I can see the growing impact of our activities on the forests, waterways and open spaces that surround our towns and cities. I believe most of us know we need to find a better balance in how we coexist with these places.

Consider our wetlands, for example. Across the province, marshes, bogs, estuaries and other wetland ecosystems are vanishing as our human footprint expands. The loss has been substantial in places like the South Okanagan and Vancouver Island, where more than 85 per cent of historical wetland habitat has been drained, filled or otherwise damaged. And still these places are under increasing pressure from development, overuse and climate change.

But why does this really matter?

Like all of nature, wetlands are a crucial player in the life-sustaining processes of our planet. They help feed us, by nurturing fish, birds and pollinators. They quench our thirst, filtering our communities’ drinking water. And they protect us, storing vast amounts of carbon and retaining water during spring melts and summer droughts.

Our well-being is intimately tied to the health of the natural world around us. And we’re at a point now where nature’s health is ailing.

Over the last half-century, bird, pollinator and other wildlife populations have declined due to habitat loss and other factors. When these species disappear, lose their range and cease to interact, our natural world is weakened and with it our natural defences against climate change are weakened as well.

But we can reverse these trends. In fact, we’re well underway.

Since 1974, NCC and partners have protected and restored close to 3,000 hectares of wetlands across B.C. This year we witnessed the success of our wetland restoration work in the internationally recognized Creston Valley Wetlands, when endangered northern leopard frogs started using the reconstructed ponds, less than a year after we created them.

This success goes to show that nature can be incredibly resilient when we choose to work with it, rather than against it.

There’s no doubt we need to do more, faster, to protect these places and the plants and animals that give them life. That’s why the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has ambitious conservation targets: to double our impact and support Canada toward its goals of conserving 30 per cent of our country’s lands and waters by 2030.

Of course, it will take a whole-of-society approach to achieve these critical outcomes. That’s why NCC is bringing together communities, non-profits, Indigenous leaders, governments and corporations to accelerate nature protection through projects like Bonanza Marsh.

The Bonanza Marsh Conservation Area is an intact, thriving wetland on Slocan Lake, which NCC announced last June. This conservation project safeguards one of our province’s most valuable ecosystems and is a reminder of what we can achieve when we work together.

As COP15 focusses our attention on the state of our natural world, I hope that we come together to create healthy, thriving ecosystems in B.C. and around the world.

The values that will carry us into such a future – collaboration, big-thinking, empowerment, and determination – are values embraced by NCC, our partners and supporters, and everyone who is working collectively to chart nature-positive future for all beings.

Nancy Newhouse

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provora-nibbler

 







'Nibblers and Lions': B.C. researchers discover new 'supergroup' on tree of life
The microscopic predators are thought to have diverged from other forms of life roughly a billion years ago.

A group of researchers working in British Columbia and Russia have discovered a new supergroup on the tree of life — microscopic predators that both swallow whole and nibble their prey to death. 

The discovery, published in the journal Nature Wednesday, reveals 10 strains of what the researchers are calling provora, or “voracious predators” — complex single-cell organisms collected during a decade-long hunt across the planet's seas, beaches and lakes. Together, they begin to fill a blind spot in cellular evolution and bring scientists one step closer to piecing together the tree of life.  

“It’s like saying that we just discovered animals existed for the first time,” said Patrick Keeling, a professor of biology at the University of British Columbia and one of 12 co-authors on the study. 

Roughly five micrometres long, provora measure less than a third of the width of the smallest human hair. That makes them invisible to the human eye. 

But peer down at one through a microscope, and you will see a complex cell possibly chasing down prey with the swish of a flagella — microscopic tails that can whip cells into motion. 

There wouldn’t be much distinguishing the two classes of provora: nebulidia and nibbleridia. But watch them for a time and you would see two different beasts. 

“They have different behaviours. One group eats its prey. It literally just swallows cells whole. The other has a tooth — they’ll gang up in a swarm and nibble it to death,” said Keeling, who prefers calling provora ‘nibblers and lions.’

That prey includes other complex cells, which themselves eat bacteria. If the microscopic world were transposed to the Serengeti, it would be like lions eating wildebeest, and wildebeest eating grass, said Keeling.

Only in the case of provora, there’s a vast world of larger predators ready to devour and pass on its nutrients up the food chain. 

The star of life? 

The discovery of the new supergroup marks a major advance in the understanding of the diversity of life, but it also underscores how much we don’t know about ecosystems playing out at a microscopic scale. 

Keeling has been working his whole career to piece together the history of life on the planet. In recent years, he says scientists have found the diverse kingdoms of animals and fungi — two separate twigs on the tree of life — share a close evolutionary relationship. Until recently, the two kingdoms were thought to make up one of six supergroups of complex cellular life.  

That is, until nibblers came along. Their discovery adds a seventh supergroup, a branch so different it likely diverged from the tree of life a billion years ago, said Keeling. 

“They’re as different from each other as humans are from bakers’ yeast,” he said. 

Since its earliest conceptions, the tree of life has been reworked as scientists learn more. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution still underpins human’s understanding of how life has changed over billions of years.  

But at the viral or bacterial level, research into lateral gene transfer — which involves one organism absorbing stray genes from its environment rather than its parents — has led some to rethink whether a branching tree accurately represents how life has evolved on this planet. 

Keeling, whose PhD supervisor W. Ford Doolittle was a major contributor to the understanding of lateral gene transfer in the evolution of certain cells, says a version of the tree of life still has explanatory power when trying to envision the planet’s web of complex life.  

Consider a star instead, suggests Keeling. Provora would represent a ray striking from one point to another.

“It’s a new branch,” the researcher said.







Scouring the planet for invisible predators

The discovery would never have been possible without exploration. Over a decade ago, Keeling met Russian scientist Denis Tikhonenkov at a conference. Soon Tikhonenkov was travelling from Russia to British Columbia every year for four months at a time to collaborate with his Canadian colleagues. 

One of the first discoveries of a provora was almost by accident. Tikhonenkov had arrived at Keeling’s lab at UBC and thought he would see what would sprout up if he added some growing medium to a dirty piece of equipment left behind by another scientist. What came to life was unlike anything they had ever seen. 

“We sequenced and took pictures. But it didn’t fit anywhere in the tree. We thought, 'Gosh, is this an orphan? Has everything related to it gone extinct or is this the tip of the iceberg?'" said Keeling. “It turns out it was the latter.” 

In the coming years, the researchers would collect provora samples across the world, from the Arctic Ocean to the coral reefs of Curaçao and the Red Sea. One species — dubbed Ubysseya fretuma — was found 220 metres below British Columbia’s Strait of Georgia between Richmond and Gabriola Island. 

Much of the work would be impossible to complete in the same way in recent years. First, the COVID-19 pandemic restricted travel; second, Russian and Canadian scientists, once close colleagues, are increasingly separated by the war in Ukraine, says Ryan Gawtyluk, a biologist at the University of Victoria who helped sequence the provora’s DNA.

Some of the samples in the study were taken from Sevastopol Harbour, where the Russian Navy keeps its Black Sea Fleet. In November, a coordinated naval drone attack is thought to have damaged a frigate near the harbour, and this week, Russian forces claimed to have shot down an aerial drone after a powerful explosion was heard nearby, according to one Ukrainian news outlet. In short, war has returned to Russian-occupied Crimea, making science a near impossibility, says Gawtyluk.

“Sending DNA and RNA for sequencing, it would definitely be difficult now,” he added. “It probably wouldn’t have been possible.” 

Both B.C. scientists say Tikhonenkov has a knack for finding tiny creatures. When or if the researchers can once again carry on their work could impact what more is learned of the new supergroup. And there’s a lot more provora waiting to be discovered, suggests the group’s genetic analysis.   

“There’s a rare biosphere of predators out there that are numerically rare but important,” said Gawtyluk. “We just don’t know what’s there.” 

Supergroup illuminates evolution and crisis

Finding the rest of the provora supergroup would help give scientists a fuller picture of how life evolved. Because there are no fossils of microbes, scientists like Gawtyluk have to work backwards from what’s living now, deducing what life's common ancestor might look like — or as Keeling put it, “basically billion-year-old archaeology.” 

“These very open-ended studies involve flipping over rocks, digging in the dirt and scraping the ocean floor,” said Gawtyluk. “Sometimes you hit it big and find things that fundamentally helps you understand the evolution of life on this planet.” 

But to understand the breadth and diversity of microscopic life also matters to those who still inhabit the Earth, says Keeling. 

Species across the planet are going extinct at a rate not seen since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Nearly 200 countries are currently working toward a global agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss — nature’s life support system — at the COP15 summit in Montreal. Keeling says, through it all, we must not forget about lifeforms invisible to the naked eye. 

“There’s a system on this planet that makes it habitable to us and everything else we love,” he said. “The foundation of this system that keeps us alive is not dolphins and marmots on Vancouver Island. 

“It’s microbes.”  

A provoran, dubbed 'nibblers' and 'lions,' visualized by scanning electron microscopy. Ten strains of the microscopic predator indicate the supergroup of complex cellular organisms represents the latest branch on the tree of life.

Microbial predators form a new supergroup of eukaryotes

Nature (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

Molecular phylogenetics of microbial eukaryotes has reshaped the tree of life by establishing broad taxonomic divisions, termed supergroups, that supersede the traditional kingdoms of animals, fungi and plants, and encompass a much greater breadth of eukaryotic diversity1. The vast majority of newly discovered species fall into a small number of known supergroups. Recently, however, a handful of species with no clear relationship to other supergroups have been described2,3,4, raising questions about the nature and degree of undiscovered diversity, and exposing the limitations of strictly molecular-based exploration. Here we report ten previously undescribed strains of microbial predators isolated through culture that collectively form a diverse new supergroup of eukaryotes, termed Provora. The Provora supergroup is genetically, morphologically and behaviourally distinct from other eukaryotes, and comprises two divergent clades of predators—Nebulidia and Nibbleridia—that are superficially similar to each other, but differ fundamentally in ultrastructure, behaviour and gene content. These predators are globally distributed in marine and freshwater environments, but are numerically rare and have consequently been overlooked by molecular-diversity surveys. In the age of high-throughput analyses, investigation of eukaryotic diversity through culture remains indispensable for the discovery of rare but ecologically and evolutionarily important eukaryotes.

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Class-action lawsuit against Fortnite to go ahead in Canada

Judge sided with the plaintiffs, saying they "have a valid product liability claim against" Epic Games

News by Marie Dealessandri Features Editor
Published on Dec. 12, 2022

A class action lawsuit against Epic Games will be going ahead in Canada.

The lawsuit was first initiated in 2019 by Montreal-based legal firm Calex Legal on behalf of the parents of two minors who claimed that Epic Games knowingly created Fortnite to be as addictive as possible.

Now, judge Sylvain Lussier has sided with the plaintiffs, agreeing that that claim "does not appear to be frivolous or manifestly ill-founded," with the legal proceedings to now go ahead as the plaintiffs "have a valid product liability claim against the defendants."

"The court concludes that there is a serious issue to be argued, supported by sufficient and specific allegations as to the existence of risks or even dangers arising from the use of Fortnite," the judge said, as reported by The Independent.

However, the judge did not agree that Fortnite was deliberately created to be addictive.

"The court finds that there is no evidence for these allegations of the deliberate creation of an addictive game. This does not exclude the possibility that the game is in fact addictive and that its designer and distributor are presumed to know it."

Meanwhile, Epic Games argued that there isn't enough evidence pointing towards the existence of video games addiction (relying on findings from the American Psychiatric Association).

But the judge argued that "the fact that American psychiatrists have requested more research or that this diagnosis has not yet been officially recognised in Quebec does not make the claims in question ‘frivolous’ or ‘unfounded'.”

Epic added that it plans to "fight this in court."



Marie Dealessandri
Features Editor
Marie Dealessandri joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2019 to head its Academy section. A journalist since 2012, she started in games in 2015 at B2B magazine MCV. She can be found (rarely) tweeting @mariedeal, usually on a loop about Baldur’s Gate and the Dead Cells soundtrack.



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RENT INCREASES ARE INFLATIONARY

Low-income renters in Canada can apply for a one-time payment of $500 Monday. Here’s what you need to know

Housing advocates say the $500 one-time payment will do little to help Canadians amid rising costs due to rising inflation.

Naomi OliverDecember 11, 2022

To apply for the tax-free $500 state boost, Canadians must be at least 15 years old and have paid rent in 2022 equal to at least 30 percent of their 2021 net income.
 Roger McClean/iStockPhoto/Getty Images

Finding a home in Canada has become more difficult as housing costs have skyrocketed in recent years due to interest rates and rising immigration. Beginning this week, low-income Canadians can apply for a one-time, tax-free $500 state boost to the Canada Housing Benefit program, which aims to benefit an estimated 1.8 million renters, including students.

Applications will open on Monday morning on the federal government’s website. Here’s what you need to know.

Who is eligible for the $500 payment?

To qualify for the top-up grant, Canadians must be at least 15 years old and have paid rent in 2022 that is at least 30 percent of their 2021 net income. To be eligible, families must also have a net income of $35,000 or less, while eligible individuals are limited to a net income of $20,000 or less. Applicants must also have submitted their 2021 tax returns and be able to show that they are paying their own rent.



Only Canadian citizens are eligible for the benefit.

How to apply for the Canada housing benefit program

Applicants can apply on the federal government’s website, where they will be asked to submit documentation through a series of online questions. Canada’s Treasury Department said applicants will be asked for their address(es), landlord contact information and the amount of their rent payments in 2022. The Canadian Revenue Agency may contact selected applicants to verify the information in their applications.

Before submitting an application, the Treasury Department has asked applicants to ensure they have access to their CRA accounts and have set up a direct deposit with the agency.
Understanding the real estate crisis in Canada

Major cities in Canada have been gripped by a deepening national crisis as housing costs skyrocket province by province and the rising cost of living makes affordable housing even less of a reality for many Canadians, particularly those living in major cities like Toronto live and vancouver. Homelessness has reached crisis proportions in many cities, shelters are chronically overcrowded and waiting lists for public housing are long.

Rents have risen sharply since the Bank of Canada began raising interest rates in a bid to control inflation.

To top it off, Canada’s population is set to swell in the coming decades from 38.2 million in 2021 to over 52 million in 2043, according to Statistics Canada – and it’s unclear if the country will be able to keep up.

In April, the federal government acknowledged the looming crisis and announced a series of new measures in the 2022 budget, including $10 billion, to make housing more affordable for Canadians. Economists say spending money on affordable housing will have a significant impact on affordability for the lowest-income Canadians. But they fear that providing money for first-time home buyers and other such measures will push up prices in an already overheated housing market

What the experts think

Housing advocates say the $500 one-time payment will do little to help Canadians amid rising costs due to rising inflation.

“A means-tested one-off payment of $500 for some low-income renters will do nothing to alleviate a housing crisis caused by enabling landlords to charge rents so high that nearly 300,000 renter households are unaffordable.” to extremely prohibitive housing costs have Toronto alone,” said Cole Webber, a community legal worker at Toronto’s Parkdale Legal Clinic, who helps renters fight back against home renovations — when a landlord evicts a tenant by claiming he going to do major renovations.

Mr. Webber pointed to debt restructuring and above-benchmark rent increases as problems plaguing Canadian renters.

Source: www.theglobeandmail.com
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I Played Chess With Strangers On The NY Subway

 

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How history keeps repeating itself, and the ways it hasn't: Alberta's COVID-19 pandemic
A woman wearing a protective mask walks through a shaft of light during the COVID-19 pandemic in downtown Toronto on Thursday, November 12, 2020 
(The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette).

Kyra Markov
Assignment Editor

Published Dec. 11, 2022 5:24 p.m. MST
As of Dec. 5, more than 1,000 people were in hospital with the coronavirus, compared to 383 on the same day last year, and 625 in 2020.

In November, 162 people died from the virus in our province, 29 more than last November. In 2020, 262 people died ahead of the first COVID-19 vaccines arriving on Dec. 14 of that year.

Yet, almost none of the public health measures that were in place when hospitalizations were this high in the fall of 2021, or the first few months of 2022, remain, including mask mandates and mandatory isolation.

Why is that?




VIGILANCE FATIGUE

“It’s hard to live in a heightened state of alertness around disease. At some point, people want to get back to normal,” said Liza Piper, environmental historian.

A breakdown and readiness to move on could also be seen during the 1918-19 influenza epidemic, commonly known as the Spanish flu, according to Piper, who uses they/them pronouns.

“People moved on very quickly from it,” they said, “there weren’t continued efforts to mitigate the flu.”

"People are willing to deal with restrictions on their behaviours up to a point.”

Piper is a professor of history at the University of Alberta and teaches a class on pandemics and epidemics from ancient times to the present.

They also pointed to another example: the Black Death, which refers to the first few years of the second plague pandemic in the Middle Ages.

“People didn’t live in a state of heightened alert, but over the decades and the centuries as the plague reappeared, new measures were put into place, new measures were refined, quarantines were elaborated.”

According to Pamela Downe, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, pandemics almost always follow the same pattern for the first six to eight months.

She says an initial sense of concern turns into fear once cases emerge locally, then a strengthening of community cohesion happens. But once the rate of transmission goes down, she says people become exhausted and begin yearning for their old way of life.

“You often see an early relinquishing of some of the previous restrictions, concerns, and vigilance. We’re in that stage now in a prolonged way,” Downe said of the Canadian public.



That prolonged stage is causing new societal behaviours to emerge, says Downe. As a medical anthropologist, she studies epidemiological patterns, as well as community and cultural responses to diseases.

“We’re seeing something very different here in Canada than we have before so it’s interesting and new ground for those of us who study it,” said the anthropologist.

Although she is not surprised that individuals are feeling increased fatigue from the pandemic, what’s different is that entire communities are coming together to talk about that fatigue and about wanting to move on.

“First of all, I think that’s a desire for social cohesion and finding like-mindedness,” said Downe, “trying to make sense of conflicting information that’s being presented to us by public health authorities… [and] other sources that are not authoritative sources, but circulate with great expediency and over far distances.”

“We are seeing the effects of inconsistent messaging, where people are choosing the method that best aligns with their priorities, their desires, their understanding of the pandemic itself.”

CONVERGENCE OF DISEASE

The other thing that’s unique about this pandemic is its overlap with other illnesses.

“We really are in a new kind of territory in this regard where now we are seeing an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic… getting punctuated with other outbreaks of other diseases, such as RSV, influenza,” said the anthropologist.

An infectious diseases doctor who works at the University of Alberta Hospital says the convergence of diseases is concerning.

“Right now, we’re really in a difficult situation because we have slightly higher than normal amounts of COVID circulating in the community resulting in hospitalizations, but we also have all of our other usual respiratory viruses that are circulating,” said Dr. Stephanie Smith.



Although COVID-19 is showing some indications of moving towards an endemic state in terms of mortality rates, Smith highlighted that hospitalizations are still higher than what would be expected from an endemic virus.

“The reality is we’re still at a point in the hospital setting where it’s not quite business as usual. We’re still seeing a higher burden than normal,” the doctor said.

But whether the coronavirus is endemic doesn’t change much, according to Smith.

“Essentially, we’ve removed all public health restrictions, so we’re really treating this virus as endemic in this point of time.”

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

The combined effect of COVID-19 and other viruses circulating in the province is taking its toll on pediatric hospitals.

The Stollery Children’s Hospital ICU in Edmonton has remained at nearly 100 per cent capacity since mid-November. Respite staff were recently redeployed to the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary to assist with acutely ill pediatric patients, according to Alberta Health Services. 



Dr. Smith is unsure if Albertans will apply any of the knowledge obtained during the pandemic to the current situation.

“The tools that we have learned to use in the pandemic are things there’s not great uptake on right now,” she said.

“When you look at both masking and vaccination, there’s excellent studies that show very clearly that they both provide good protection,” explained Smith. “These are meant to be tools that we can use to prevent transmission of infection and to keep people healthy and keep people safe.”

“It is unfortunate that it’s become this kind of polarizing issue and has become so politically charged.”

Piper says that making sure that we have effective and robust public health bureaucracies is critical to dealing with viruses when they return or become more severe.

“What is perhaps a bit disheartening is… rather than being happy with the way we came up with good tools to mitigate the pandemic… and think about how to use them going forward, we see things like, ‘We never want to have mask mandates again,’ ‘We don’t want to do online learning again,’" Piper said.

"That is the opposite of building on the experience and knowledge we gained in the pandemic."

“There’s not a political will to build on the lessons that we have learned in this or past pandemics,” said anthropologist Pamela Downe. 



She says that the COVID-19 pandemic revealed vital ways Canada could prepare for the future, including building a stronger healthcare infrastructure, improving capacities for vaccine manufacturing and distribution, as well as having greater stocks of PPE.

But she’s not convinced that the knowledge obtained over the last two and a half years will be applied in the short, or long term.

“We really have lost that initial phase of we’re in this together, stronger community cohesion, and now we’re thinking more individually about it,” said Downe of public health measures.

“In order to enhance and to advocate for greater mask-wearing, we need to somehow gain that collective sensibility once again,” the anthropologist explained. “This is where strong leadership comes in. Where we could constantly be reminded that we are in this together.”

Downe says that although each pandemic differs, a crucial element always stays the same.

“Humans have survived past pandemics for one reason, and one reason only, and it is our communities,” she said.

“It is the community that pulls together, takes care of people during pandemic times, that has led to human survival, and we need to be reminded of that.”
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Spain and France Say Planned Undersea Pipeline will Cost €2.5bn

 

Barney Jopson in Madrid and Leila Abboud in Paris 
FINANCIAL TIMES

 Spain and France have put a €2.5bn price tag on a new undersea pipeline between the countries, which will carry only hydrogen and no longer natural gas as originally planned.

 Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez provided the estimated cost for the project and said the pipeline would be operational by 2030 on Friday, speaking at an Alicante summit where he unveiled details with French president Emmanuel Macron and Portugal’s prime minister António Costa. 

 European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who was also present at the summit of European countries that border the Mediterranean Sea, gave her support for the pipeline, a key signal as the countries seek the “maximum” possible EU funding for it.

  The hydrogen pipeline, which will run from Barcelona to Marseille, is likely to be one of Europe’s biggest and most expensive infrastructure projects in response to an energy crisis caused by huge cuts in Russian energy exports. 

The EU has prioritised hydrogen as an alternative energy source as it aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to at least 55 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030. 

 The decision to build hydrogen-only infrastructure marks a change from October when France and Spain unveiled the idea and said it would first ship natural gas before carrying hydrogen once green technologies related to the gas had matured. 

The shift should make it easier to access EU funding, which is strictly limited for fossil fuel infrastructure. “The rules for applying for European funding require that it’s only a hydrogen pipeline. So that’s the expectation at the moment,” said one Spanish government official. 

 The three countries will apply for EU funds for what are known as Projects of Common Interest, which can cover up to 50 per cent of qualifying initiatives. The application deadline is December 15, with a decision expected early next year.

 However, given the exclusion of natural gas, and the time it will take to build, the undersea pipeline will not ease Europe’s current energy problems. “This is not a piece of infrastructure that is meant to solve the current crisis. It is about the ecological transition in the future,” said the Spanish official.

 But there are doubts about the scale of long-term demand for “green” hydrogen — which Spain and Portugal plan to produce from water using energy from renewable sources — and the wisdom of transporting it over long distances as opposed to making it close to where it is needed. “Significant uncertainties have emerged about the project’s purpose, demand, technology, costs, financing, and overall need,” wrote Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. 

 A document issued by the governments of Spain, France and Portugal on Friday said the undersea project — initially dubbed BarMar and now named H2Med — would be able to transport 10 per cent of Europe’s expected hydrogen consumption by 2030. 

 It also described the €2.5bn figure as a “preliminary cost estimation” to be confirmed by future analysis. Portugal is involved because the countries plan a separate overground pipeline to connect it to Barcelona, which is likely to be able to carry some natural gas, the official added. 

 The undersea project emerged from a rift between Madrid and Paris over a proposal for the so-called MidCat pipeline across the Pyrenees, which Spain said could have helped deliver more gas to the rest of Europe from late 2023. 

 France disputed that timeline and opposed MidCat on environmental grounds, sparking a diplomatic dispute that also drew in Germany, which supported the pipeline as a way to replace gas supplies that had been cut by Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The spat ended only when France and Spain abandoned MidCat and announced the alternative undersea project.
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