TWO YEARS IN THE MAKING

Canada authorises first plant-based COVID-19 vaccine

Medicago's two-dose vaccine can be given to adults ages 18 to 64

By PTI Updated: February 25, 2022 13:13 IST


Canada has become the first country to authorize use of a plant-based COVID-19 vaccine.

Canadian regulators said Thursday Medicago's two-dose vaccine can be given to adults ages 18 to 64, but said there's too little data on the shots in people 65 and older.

The decision was based on a study of 24,000 adults that found the vaccine was 71 per cent effective at preventing COVID-19 although that was before the omicron variant emerged. Side effects were mild, including fever and fatigue.

Medicago uses plants as living factories to grow virus-like particles, which mimic the spike protein that coats the coronavirus. The particles are removed from the plants' leaves and purified. Another ingredient, an immune-boosting chemical called an adjuvant that is made by British partner GlaxoSmithKline, is added to the shots.

While numerous COVID-19 vaccines have been rolled out around the world, global health authorities are looking to additional candidates in hopes of increasing the worldwide supply.

Quebec City-based Medicago is developing plant-based vaccines against multiple other diseases, and the COVID-19 vaccine may help spur more interest in this new method of medical manufacturing.

RIP

Oscar-nominated ‘MASH’ actor Sally Kellerman dies at 84

By ANDREW DALTON

 Sally Kellerman arrives at the premiere of "The Danish Girl" at Regency Village Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 21, 2015, in Los Angeles. Kellerman, the Oscar-nominated actor who played “Hot Lips” Houlihan in director Robert Altman's 1970 army comedy “MASH," died Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022, at age 84. Kellerman died of heart failure at her home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, her manager and publicist Alan Eichler said. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sally Kellerman, the Oscar and Emmy nominated actor who played Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in director Robert Altman’s 1970 film “MASH,” died Thursday.

Kellerman died of heart failure at her home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, her manager and publicist Alan Eichler said. She was 84.

Kellerman had a career of more than 60 years in film and television. She played a college professor who was returning student Rodney Dangerfield’s love interest in the 1986 comedy “Back to School.” And she was a regular in Altman’s films, appearing in 1970′s “Brewster McCloud,” 1992′s “The Player” and 1994′s “Ready to Wear.”

But she would always be best known for playing Major Houlihan, a straitlaced, by-the-book Army nurse who is tormented by rowdy doctors during the Korean War in the army comedy “MASH.”

In the film’s key scene, and its peak moment of misogyny, a tent where Houlihan is showering is pulled open and she is exposed to an audience of cheering men.

“This isn’t a hospital, this is an insane asylum!” she screams at her commanding officer.

She carries on a torrid affair with the equally uptight Major Frank Burns, played by Robert Duvall, demanding that he kiss her “hot lips” in a moment secretly broadcast over the camp’s public address speakers, earning her the nickname.

Kellerman said Altman brought out the best in her.

“It was a very freeing, positive experience,” she told Dick Cavett in a 1970 TV interview. “For the first time in my life I took chances, I didn’t suck in my cheeks, or worry about anything.”

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, but her best supporting actress was its only acting nod despite a cast that included Duvall, Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould.

The movie would be turned into a TV series that lasted 11 seasons, with Loretta Swit in Kellerman’s role.

Sally Clare Kellerman was born in 1937 in Long Beach, California, the daughter of a piano teacher and an oil executive, moving to Los Angeles as a child and attending Hollywood High School.

Her initial interest was in jazz singing, and she was signed to a contract with Verve records at age 18. She opted to pursue acting and didn’t put out any music until 1972, when she released the album “Roll With the Feeling.” She would sing on the side, and sometimes in roles, throughout her career, releasing her last album, “Sally,” in 2007.

She took an acting class at Los Angeles City College and appeared in a stage production of “Look Back in Anger” with classmate Jack Nicholson and several other future stars.

She worked mostly in television early in her career, with a lead role in 1962′s “Cheyenne” and guest appearances on “The Twilight Zone, “The Outer Limits,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” and “Bonanza.”

Her appearance in the original “Star Trek” pilot as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner won her cult status among fans.

 

HE'S NO OLIVER STONE
Sean Penn visits Ukraine to make documentary on Russian invasion

US actor and director Sean Penn is in Kyiv making a documentary about Russia's invasion, the Ukrainian president's office said Thursday.

© Provided by WION  Sean Penn 

wionnewsweb@gmail.com (Wion Web Team) - Yesterday 

The double Oscar-winner was photographed attending a government press conference in Kyiv, and could be seen meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in a video posted to the Ukrainian president's official Instagram account.

"The director came to Kyiv specifically to record all the events taking place in Ukraine and as a documentary filmmaker to tell the world the truth about Russia's invasion of our country," said a post in Ukrainian on the presidential office's Facebook page.

"Today, Sean Penn is among those who support Ukraine while being in Ukraine. Our country is grateful to him for such a display of courage and honesty."

Also read: Ukrainians, please forgive me! Russian actress Irina Starshenbaum on Russia-Ukraine conflict

The post added that "Penn demonstrates the kind of courage that many others, including Western politicians, lack."

Penn, who previously visited Ukraine and met with military staff in November, spoke with journalists and soldiers and "saw how we defend our country," the president's office said.

The 61-year-old star of "Milk" and "Mystic River" is making a documentary for Vice Studios, according to NBC News.

Neither Vice nor Penn's representatives immediately responded to AFP's requests for comment.

His latest visit comes as invading Russian forces pressed deep into Ukraine, with battles raging on the outskirts of Kyiv, and missiles and shells raining down on multiple Ukrainian cities.

Penn has previously attracted controversy as a result of his foray into politics and current affairs, especially after he and Mexican-American actress Kate del Castillo interviewed Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman while he was on the run.

In 2018, Penn was reported to be in Turkey making an as-yet-unreleased documentary about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate.

SWIFT, the global finance arm that the West can twist


SWIFT payments network (AFP/Kenan AUGEARD)


Thu, February 24, 2022

An exclusion from SWIFT, a very discreet but important cog in the machinery of international finance, is one of the most disruptive of the possible sanctions that the West could deploy against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Thursday for such a move after Russian forces invaded his country, as Western powers consider imposing additional sanctions on Moscow.

The White House has pointedly refused in recent weeks to exclude the possibility of barring Russia from the international system that banks use to transfer money, a move that would cripple Russia's ability to trade with most of the world.


European leaders were expected to discuss the measure at their emergency summit later Thursday as one possible option. An EU official briefing journalists suggested the measure would most likely be held in reserve for a future round of sanctions, should the EU need to escalate its punishment.

What is SWIFT?

Founded in 1973, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, actually doesn't handle any transfers of funds itself.

But its messaging system, developed in the 1970s to replace relying upon Telex machines, provides banks the means to communicate rapidly, securely and inexpensively.

The non-listed, Belgium-based firm is actually a cooperative of banks and proclaims to remain neutral.

What does SWIFT do?

Banks use the SWIFT system to send standardised messages about transfers of sums between themselves, transfers of sums for clients, and buy and sell orders for assets.

More than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries use SWIFT, making it the backbone of the international financial transfer system.

But its preeminent role in finance has also meant that the firm has had to cooperate with authorities to prevent the financing of terrorism.

Who represents SWIFT in Russia?

According to the national association Rosswift, Russia is the second-largest country following the United States in terms of the number of users, with some 300 Russian financial institutions belonging to the system.

More than half of Russia's financial institutions are members of SWIFT, it added.

Russia does have its own domestic financial infrastructure, including the SPFS system for bank transfers and the Mir system for card payments, similar to the Visa and Mastercard systems.

Are there precedents for excluding countries?

In November 2019, SWIFT "suspended" access to its network by certain Iranian banks.

The move followed the imposition of sanctions on Iran by the United States and threats by then Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that SWIFT would be targeted by US sanctions if it didn't comply.

Iran had already been disconnected from the SWIFT network from 2012 to 2016.

Is it a credible threat?

Tactically, "the advantages and disadvantages are debatable," Guntram Wolff, director of the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, told AFP.

In practical terms, being removed from SWIFT means Russian banks can't use it to make or receive payments with foreign financial institutions for trade transactions.

"Operationally it would be a real headache," said Wolff, especially for European countries which have considerable trade with Russia, which is their single biggest supplier of natural gas.

Western nations threatened to exclude Russia from SWIFT in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea.

But excluding such a major country -- Russia is also a major oil exporter -- could spur Moscow to accelerate the development of an alternative transfer system, with China for example.

bur-bp/rl/kjm

NBA's 2 Ukrainian players release statement denouncing Russian invasion
Jack Baer - Yesterday 

Sacramento Kings center Alex Len and Toronto Raptors wing Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, the only two Ukrainian players in the NBA, have released a joint statement condemning the Russian invasion of their homeland.

The pair called for unity among the Ukrainian people and prayed for their friends, family and others currently in the country.



The full statement in English:

A great tragedy befell our dear homeland Ukraine. We categorically condemn the war. Ukraine is a peaceful sovereign state inhabited by people who want to decide their own destiny. We pray for our families, friends, relatives and all the people who are in the territory of Ukraine. We hope for an end to this terrible war as soon as possible. Dear fellow Ukrainians, hold on! Our strength is in unity! We are with you! 

Alex Len & Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began early Thursday morning immediately after an effective declaration of war by Russian president Vladimir Putin, with air strikes against cities and military bases across the country and troops and tanks moving across the border from three directions.

Denunciation of the attack against a peaceful country has come in from around the world, as well as from inside Russia. Censuring has come from the realm of sports as well. UEFA has already been reported to be moving its Champions League final out of St. Petersburg following the attack, while four-time Formula 1 champion Sebastian Vetterl is skipping the Russian Grand Prix and calling for the race to be canceled.

Other Ukrainian athletes have spoken out against the attack, most notably the country's famed Klitschko brothers, who have promised to take up arms for their country.

Prosthetics craftsmen hope to 'repair humans' in ailing Venezuela

 

Thu, February 24, 2022

"I used to repair car tires. Now I repair humans," boasts Jose Bastidas, an amputee who left his auto repair job to make artificial limbs in Venezuela, where the health system has all but collapsed.

"Getting someone to walk is priceless," the 41-year-old told AFP at the Zona Bionica workshop in Caracas.

Bastidas joined the company as a trainee prosthetics manufacturer seven years ago after losing his right leg in a road accident.

"I don't earn much," he said, "but it is thrilling to see people stand up."

There are no statistics on the number of amputees in Venezuela, a country of 30 million people, where three out of four live in extreme poverty, according to a recent study.

The latest data, from 2008, showed that 130,000 people in Venezuela had a physical disability that affects mobility, including amputees.

Zona Bionica says the majority of its clients lost a limb due to a medical problem, such as diabetes, or traffic accidents.

Besides the physical and emotional shock, survivors also have to contend with the cost.

Except for a lucky few beneficiaries of philanthropy, most have to pay all or most of the $1,800 price for the cheapest prosthesis, which needs to be replaced every two years.

The average salary in Venezuela, battered by recession and hyperinflation, is about $50 per month.

- 'We lost a body part, not our lives' -

Heidy Garcia, 30, works in the back office of Zona Bionica, which also runs sponsorship campaigns for amputees in need.

Garcia lost her right leg due to a blood circulation problem four years ago, and proudly displays a personalized turquoise replacement limb under short pants.

"It is very hard at first," said Garcia, referring to phantom pain, cramps and having to get used to attaching the prosthesis, which she managed to acquire through a crowd-funding campaign.

"But you have to keep going and to accept. The mind is very strong."

Garcia said the fact that most of Zona Bionica's workers are amputees brings comfort to new patients.

"I encourage them. They get depressed, they have low morale, but we remind them that we lost a body part, not our lives," Bastidas said.

Cristhian Sequera Quintana, who had both legs amputated after a motorcycle accident in 2015, said that at first, "I did not really want to live."

"I needed help to bathe, to answer the call of nature," the 34-year-old told AFP.

But with the prosthesis, "things changed," said Quintana.

"Now I want to work and live. I want to continue fighting for myself, my son and my family."

pgf/jt/erc/mlr/des/sw

Battle for Brazil's Evangelical vote heats up

Brazil's leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, seen here in December 2021, is leading in national polls against Bolsonaro, but lagging behind in Evangelical support (AFP/NELSON ALMEIDA)


Marcelo SILVA DE SOUSA
Thu, February 24, 2022, 

The campaign for Brazil's October presidential elections has not yet officially started, but the candidates are already bending over backwards to woo a powerful constituency: Evangelical Christians.

Evangelicals, who are estimated to make up a third of Brazil's population, were core supporters in President Jair Bolsonaro's victory in 2018, and the far-right leader is doing his best to make sure he keeps hold of the bloc.

But leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who leads in the polls, is courting Evangelicals too, setting up a showdown for the fast-growing demographic in the Latin American giant.

"This is an administration that proudly says it believes in God... that defends Brazilian families," Bolsonaro said last month, summing up his pitch to Evangelical voters.

He had already delivered one key promise in July, following through on his pledge to place a "terribly Evangelical" judge on the Supreme Court by nominating Presbyterian minister Andre Mendonca.

Lula, the popular-but-tarnished ex-president (2003-2010), is not giving up the Evangelicals without a fight, though.

His Workers' Party plans to launch a podcast next month aimed at Evangelical listeners, and this week he met influential pastor Paulo Marcelo Schallenberger to enlist his help in crafting a strategy to win their votes.

Lula is particularly keen to assuage Evangelicals' fears on the question of values, given that many of them see the Brazilian left as too liberal on social issues, a party insider told AFP.

Third-place candidate Sergio Moro, a former graft-busting judge, has also joined the battle: this month he promised Evangelical leaders to follow a list of 14 moral principles, including maintaining Brazil's highly restrictive abortion laws.

"The candidates' actions show how important the Evangelical market is in Brazilian politics," said political scientist Andre Cesar of consulting firm Hold.

"Evangelicals have never had as much space as now," he told AFP.

- Bolsonaro bastion -

Bolsonaro's popularity has been sagging for months, dragged down by a struggling economy and his widely criticized handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

But he continues to enjoy broad support from Evangelical voters -- 44 percent to 32 percent for Lula, according to a poll published last week by PoderData.

That is almost the exact inverse of their poll numbers for the electorate as a whole: 40 percent for Lula and 31 percent for Bolsonaro.

Evangelicals played a decisive role in Bolsonaro's victory four years ago, when he won 70 percent of their votes in the runoff against Lula acolyte Fernando Haddad.

Bolsonaro is not an Evangelical himself -- he is Catholic -- but his wife is fervently Evangelical.

In 2016, he also had himself baptized by an Evangelical pastor in Israel's River Jordan.

The 66-year-old president "shares the same values as Evangelicals on homosexuality, abortion and the importance of the traditional family," said anthropologist Juliano Spyer, author of a book on Brazil's burgeoning Evangelical movement.

"He's not their absolute ideal candidate, but they see him as the best one out there."

- Value call -



Evangelical lawmaker Sostenes Cavalcante says he is confident the faithful will give their vote to Bolsonaro again.

"We haven't had to fight affronts to our values with this administration," he said.

Under Lula and the Workers' Party, he said, Evangelicals "were constantly fighting initiatives on legalizing abortion, gay marriage and sexualizing kids in schools."

However, Evangelicals are an awkward fit with the president's hardline base in demographic terms.

Mostly black, female and poor, they are ill at ease with some of Bolsonaro's stances, including his anti gun control policies.

Like all working-class Brazilians, they have also been hit hard in their wallets as the country has sunk into a malaise of recession and high inflation.

But according to Cavalcante, "even in an economic crisis, Evangelicals will be guided by their values."

msi/jhb/des/oho

AMERICAN EVANGELICAL POWER

'I lost my youth': Women jailed for miscarriages in El Salvador


Elsy, Kenia, Evelyn and Karen (L-R), freed after many years in prison for abortions they say they never had

 (AFP/MARVIN RECINOS)


Carlos Mario MARQUEZ
Thu, February 24, 2022

Kenia was 17 when, she says, she had a miscarriage after a fall and was sent to jail on suspicion of having had an abortion in El Salvador.

Nine years later, she is out after receiving a reprieve, but feels like she was robbed of her youth in a country with among the world's strictest abortion laws.

She was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

"I was deprived of my freedom for such an unjust reason," Kenia said this week at a press conference with three other women who were similarly punished.

"I lost my youth, I lost my family, all my aspirations were taken away from me," she said, in tears.

The four women, who wore face masks throughout the briefing, gave their real first names but withheld their surnames to avoid being further "stigmatized."

After her fall, Kenia recalled, "the last thing I remember seeing was lots of lights... I was in hospital on a stretcher and there were policemen guarding me and taking pictures of me."

One policeman told her he would make sure that she would "rot in prison" and "that is what happened," she said.

Kenia is one of 62 women to have had their "abortion" sentences commuted since 2009, thanks to the efforts of activist groups, said one such campaigner, Sara Garcia.

Ten remain behind bars, however, and two are still awaiting trial.

- 'Because we are women' -

El Salvador has had an outright ban on abortion since 1998, even in cases of rape or if the health of the woman or fetus are in danger.

Terminating a pregnancy can send a woman to jail for up to eight years, but Salvadoran judges often instead find women guilty of "aggravated homicide," which is punishable by up to 50 years in prison.

Many women are prosecuted after seeking medical help for complications in pregnancy, suspected of having attempted an abortion.

The law gives rise to "stigma and prejudice and creates conditions for women to be persecuted, denounced, prosecuted and unjustly imprisoned," said Morena Herrera of the ACDATEE abortion rights group.

Elsy, 38, was recently freed after "ten difficult years in prison" during which she was separated from her son.

Evelyn, 34, spent 13 years behind bars.

"This law is unfair," Evelyn said at the press conference. "We are considered criminals because we are women."

Karen, 28, recounted that she fell ill at home and woke up "in hospital, cuffed to a stretcher."

Even as a newly-free woman, she said she felt judged in El Salvador and regularly received "dirty looks."

"It is important to obtain the freedom of all women unjustly imprisoned, but we must also ensure that there are no more women reported at public hospitals," said Herrera.

cmm/mav/gm/mlr/des/oho

Plastic treaty would be historic for planet: UNEP chief



Curse of plastic: The beach at Hann Bay, a densely-populated district of the Senegalese capital Dakar (AFP/Seyllou)

Nick Perry
Thu, February 24, 2022, 11:40 PM·4 min read

The world has a rare opportunity to clean up the planet for future generations by uniting behind an ambitious treaty to tackle plastic trash, the UN environment chief told AFP.

Inger Andersen said a global plastics treaty being negotiated in Nairobi "holds the potential and the promise of being the biggest multilateral environmental breakthrough" since the Paris climate accords signed in 2015.

"This is a big moment. This is one for the history books," the executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) told AFP in an interview.

The framework for a legally binding plastics agreement is still being hammered out ahead of a UN environment summit starting on Monday in Nairobi, where UNEP is headquartered.

There are competing proposals being considered but more than 50 countries have backed calls for a treaty that includes tough new controls on plastics, which are largely derived from oil and gas.

This could include limits on the manufacture of new plastic, or the phasing-out of single-use products that choke oceans and marine life and take centuries to break down.

Delegates meeting in Nairobi are expected to agree on the broad template for a treaty and establish a negotiating committee to finalise the terms, a process that would take at least two years.

- 'Stop the plastic tap' -

Andersen said it was too early to speculate about specific details of the treaty but stressed it was "hopeless" to try to curb plastic litter without addressing the source.

Some 400 million tonnes of new plastic are manufactured every year -- a figure set to double by 2040.

Less than 10 percent of plastic is recycled, the rest burned or dumped on land where it often ends up in rivers and flows out to sea and drifts around the globe.

Large pieces of plastic are perilous for sea mammals and birds -- but even when the substance is broken down by the action of the sea into micro-particles, this too is absorbed by small organisms and passes up the food chain to fish or shellfish, which in turn are eaten by humans.

"Stopping the plastic tap is critical... If you continue polluting over here, and cleaning up there, that is a forever job," said Andersen, who was appointed UNEP head in 2019.

Many countries, including major plastic producers like the United States and China, have expressed general support for a treaty but not publicly endorsed any specific measures.

Dozens of major corporations including Coca Cola and Unilever have called for a global treaty, as have some of the world's largest plastics manufacturers.

But environment groups have warned that plastic giants were resisting efforts to cap production, and would try and steer talks in Nairobi toward reusing and recycling waste.

Andersen said she was buoyed by the commitments of industry -- but voluntary efforts had fallen short of tackling the crisis.

"We can't recycle our way out of this mess. That's clear," Andersen said.

It is already so pervasive that plastic has been found inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean, flecked through Arctic sea ice, and floating in the air we breathe.

"We must understand that plastic is part of our lives -– we use it in construction, in medicine, in places where we need it. But we also use it in places where we do not," she said.

- Time running out -

Binding targets and a common framework would ensure a level playing field so countries and corporations felt confident they were playing by the same rules, she said.

Past global protocols had phased-out mercury and ozone-depleting substances once common in household goods, demonstrating it was possible to achieve consensus across borders and spur economy-wide change.

Some of those conventions took a decade to enshrine, by which stage tens of millions of tonnes of plastic trash could have entered the sea.

Already the amount of plastic entering the world's waterways is expected to triple by 2040 unless drastic action is taken.

"We don't have ten years to do this, and we need to get it done, and fast," Andersen said.

A treaty proposal from Rwanda and Peru has attracted the most support ahead of the UN summit, with the 27-member European Union among dozens of co-sponsors.

The text is still being negotiated, as are two other draft treaty resolutions.

But it bodes well: Andersen said it was "very unusual" for a UN resolution to have such broad backing ahead of a plenary.

"I have to be sure that this thing will land, and land with a degree of ambition. We are going to push very hard."

np/amu/ri

Lessons on climate grief from the people of the sea ice

Issued on: 25/02/2022 - 

Climate change means ice often forms later and melts earlier 

JOE RAEDLE Getty Images North America/AFP/File

Paris (AFP) – Marilyn Baikie's remote Inuit community has more wisdom than they could ever want about ecological grief.

These "people of the sea ice" have endured years of dramatic warming that is ravaging their beloved landscape at the edge of the Arctic, forcing them to reimagine a way of life that goes back centuries.

"It affects how you live your life, it affects the things you do with your children, it really is affecting people's mental health," said Baikie, a community health worker in Rigolet, a coastal village of 300 people in Canada's Labrador region.

Before this region became one of the fastest-warming places on the planet, people could travel across frozen waters until spring, to fish or go deep into countryside that is a profound part of their identity.

Now they often worry the ice won't hold.

So when in winter the thermometer goes to up to zero -- or higher -- Baikie knows people will need extra support.

She and colleagues organise activities to ease stress and fill the "empty time" for people stranded by the warmth, like craft workshops and knowledge sharing between elders and young people.

Other local projects include mapping safe routes over the ice and taking an active part in climate monitoring.

Still, people feel isolated, Baikie told AFP in a recent video call.

"When you talk about it, it really tugs at your heart."
Solastalgia

But it was talking about it that made the Inuit elders -- including Baikie's mother -- among the first to sound the alarm about the wrenching grief wrought by climate change.

Opening up to researchers more than a decade ago, they described the land like a family member.

"People would say it's just as much a part of your life as breathing," said Ashlee Cunsolo, who was studying climate impacts on water quality before pivoting to wellbeing as a result of the strong testimonies.

A decade later, these experiences and coping strategies are part of a growing understanding of the mental health toll of environmental destruction.

An increasing number of people are affected by the impacts of climate change Andrej Ivanov AFP/File

"It's not just something anymore that people say: 'that's in the future, or that'll be in 20 years, or that's only in the north'," she said.

"It's really everywhere."

Cunsolo is one of the authors of a major UN report on climate impacts due to be released on Monday.

It is expected to underscore the severe global health implications -- physical and mental -- of warming and the need to adapt to the challenges ahead.

But unlike the spread of disease by growing numbers of ticks or mosquitoes, Cunsolo said the effects on people's minds are myriad and overlapping.

In Labrador, "it's slow, it's cumulative. It's about identity", she said.

Cunsolo calls this ecological grief, one of a range of new terms for environmental emotions that also includes solastalgia -- "the homesickness that you have when you're still at home".

Overall impacts range from strong feelings -- sadness, fear, anger -- to anxiety, distress and depression, while people caught in an extreme event might suffer post-traumatic stress disorder.

Canada alone has seen a catalogue of disasters in recent years, including floods, wildfires and what used to be a once-in-a-thousand-year heatwave.

"How do we support more and more people who are coping with this type of trauma? They're not isolated events anymore," said Cunsolo.
Climate anxiety

There is growing concern about climate anxiety in children and young people worldwide.

One survey of 10,000 16 to 25-year-olds in 10 countries, published in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health in December, found almost 60 percent were very worried about climate change.

In the Philippines that rose to 84 percent.

Manila-based researcher and psychologist John Jamir Benzon Aruta, who was not involved in the survey, said concerns are highest among young people with access to the internet and social media.

"They worry about how much stronger the typhoons will become, whether it's a safe place for them and their future children," said Aruta.

His research includes support for environmental defenders, in a country with one of the world's highest rates of murders of these campaigners.

Climate anxiety can be seen as a "normal response to the actual threat", he said, calling for therapies and responses that counteract feelings of helplessness.

People around the world are faced with a barrage of negative news and a popular culture saturated with dystopian visions of the future.

What they need, experts say, is hope.

Earth emotions

"There is a need to maintain a sense of meaningfulness in life and that's really the core of my interpretation and emphasis of hope," said Finnish researcher Panu Pihkala, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Pihkala, who stopped presiding over weddings and funerals in 2010, says his religious background has helped him contemplate these "deep existential issues" and host ecological grief workshops in Finland.

Even the creator of the term solastalgia, Glenn Albrecht, is looking to shift the focus away from the grief-laden term he created in 2003 as a response to the environmental destruction of coal mining in Australia.

His ever-expanding lexicon of "earth emotions" and concepts includes the hope that humanity will soon commence the "symbiocene" -- living in harmony with the planet rather than destroying it.

"We needed to reinvent the way we talk about our present and our future," he said in a recent online lecture.

In Labrador, Baikie said recognition of the emotional impact of climate change had not just given people an outlet for their feelings, but enabled research they hope will help others around the world.

She wants people and governments to shake off the idea that climate catastrophe is "inevitable".

"Every little bit counts and (if people) really devote money and attention to it, I think we could start seeing some changes," she said.

"The time has come to stop talking about it and to actually do something."

© 2022 AFP