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Trump Pledges to ‘Save Your Fracking’ and Biden Says No Ban — But Most Pennsylvania Voters Oppose Fracking
Posted October 26, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 8 mins“To all the people of Pennsylvania, hear this warning,” President Trump said at a campaign rally last week in Erie, Pennsylvania. “If Biden’s elected, he will wipe out your energy industry.”
“Only by voting for me,” Trump added, “can …
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Retirement Fund for Many California Firefighters Battling Wildfires Puts Money in Coal
Posted September 27, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 12 minsThis week, the Creek Fire in California officially became the largest single wildfire in the state’s history — and the blaze remained just 32 percent contained.
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‘As the World Burns’: Q&A With Author Lee van der Voo on Her New Book About a Landmark Youth Climate Lawsuit
Posted September 29, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 13 minsEarlier this year a pair of judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to dismiss the groundbreaking American youth climate change lawsuit Juliana v. United States. But the case is not yet over — while the 21 young people wh…
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Saturday Stories: Considering Risk and Great Fences
Posted September 19, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Aaron E. Carroll, in The New York Times, with a useful read on how most of us have been considering and responding to risk backwards.
Tomás Pueyo, also in The New York Times, on the need for great fences.
Photo: Ongayo / CC BY-SA (https://creativeco…
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Messenger of the gods
Posted July 19, 2020 by Anonymous
The last time Comet NEOWISE was visible in our sky, Stonehenge had not yet been built.Comets used to be seen as messengers of the gods, sent to tell us something important. This time, maybe its just “wear a mask and keep your distance!”
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Saturday Stories: COVID Winter, Circular Errors, Mutations, And Obesity
Posted September 12, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Irfan Dhalla, in The Globe and Mail, on COVID and the rapidly approaching Canadian winter.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on the recurrent errors being made that hamper progress on COVID.
Edward Holmes, in The New York Times, covers the mutating SARS-CoV2…
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A Right-Wing Think Tank Is Behind the Controversial Great Barrington Declaration Calling for COVID-19 Herd Immunity
Posted October 26, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 12 minsAn open letter that emerged earlier this month opposing COVID-19 shutdowns and calling for a “herd immunity” approach to addressing the coronavirus — which already has claimed over 220,000 American lives — is one of the latest example…
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IDEAS THAT MATTER: The COVID Crisis–Are The Youths Trying to Kill Us?
Posted August 22, 2020 by bigcitylib
I have often felt sad over the state of The Youths. What with robots coming for their jobs and Climate Change, their future seems lacking. But by the time its obvious that their lives will be a dystopian dead-end I will myself be retired an…
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The Koch Operatives Behind the Trump Energy Department’s Renewables Research Censorship
Posted October 28, 2020 by Ben Jervey
Read time: 5 minsTwo Trump Energy Department appointees with deep ties to Koch Industries and the Koch donor network have been burying reams of agency research that looks favorably on renewable energy, according to an in-depth investigation by Grist an…
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This Massive Facebook Solar Project Will Power Shell’s Fracking Operations in Texas
Posted October 21, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 10 minsIn the heart of the Permian oil patch in West Texas, a massive $416 million solar array began converting sunshine to electricity this summer. One of the project’s main financiers has a very familiar name — Facebook.
Tags: Permian…
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Voting for delusion
Posted September 12, 2020 by Anonymous
As I read this short piece at No More Mister Nice Guy, I felt increasingly horrified:
It’s often said that Trump’s approach to everything is “transactional.” I think Trump’s approach to reality is transactional. The truth is the truth when it serves his purposes. In those moments, Trump believes in reality. But in other moments, not only does he walk out to a podium and contradict reality, he does so without necessarily believing that he’s lying. As I’ve said in the past, Trump doesn’t believe in truth. There are (as we see them) facts, lies, and true and false interpretations of reality, but to Trump they’re all equally valid. He’ll use any of them to shape reality, and he’ll believe whatever he’s saying at the time, even if it contradicts what he said six hours ago. In part this is because, as Yastreblyansky says, he believes in the Power of Positive Thinking and therefore thinks confidence can shape reality. In part it’s because it’s important to him to be his audience’s daddy, someone who dominates us the way his father dominated him.
This is the man that millions of Americans voted for. And will vote for again.
I’m reading more stories now about Americans who don’t believe COVID is actually real – they think its all a Democratic plot, and that millions of Americans are just getting the flu, and hundreds of thousands are dying of something they already had like heart disease.
I don’t know what they think people are getting sick from in other countries around the world, but probably they aren’t even aware that other countries actually exist.
And I’m reading stories now about how people in small towns in Oregon and Washington and California think that Antifa, not campers or lightning, is the cause of the fires that are destroying their homes.
I hear from friends in Oregon that, per local media, some claims ‘antifa is starting forest fires’ have been traced to magabros hearing ‘blm’ on radio scanners and not realizing it means Bureau of Land Management
— David Burbach (@dburbach) September 11, 2020
Its absolutely crazy.
Anyone else make this mistake recently? 😳#climatechange #wildfires #apocalypse2020 #motordumb #yycbike pic.twitter.com/Gn1TljmSgu
— REWORKS (@ReWorksYYC) September 12, 2020
Apparently AP style now says you can use “less” even when “fewer” is correct and so 2020 continues to plumb new depths.
— Jonathan Gitlin (@drgitlin) September 11, 2020
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Saturday Stories: 7 Months In, Magical Thinking, Long Haulers, And Weighing Kids In School
Posted August 22, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Andrew Joseph, Helen Branswell, and Elizabeth Cooney, in STAT, review all that we currently know about COVID-19 and the pressing questions that remain
Gregg Gonsalves, in The Nation, on the mortal need to resist magical thinking.
Ed Yong (god he’s fantastic), in The Atlantic (who can’t be paying him enough), on the need to understand the COVID long haulers to truly understand the pandemic.
Me, in Medscape, on why I think it’s an incredibly awful idea to weigh kids in schools (as is the plan in the UK) to track their COVID gains.
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Saturday Stories: Peer Review, #Masks4All, Talking To Kids, And The Public Health Of Protests
Posted June 27, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Simine Vazire, in Wired, on the failings of scientific peer review
Kimberly A. Prather, Chia C. Wang, and Robert T. Schooley, in Science, on how to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV2 (tl;dr – wear a mask)
Kate Julian, in The Atlantic, on how to talk to kids about the sad, scary, and unjust issues permeating society today.
Tara Haelle, in Forbes, on why public health experts support Black lives matter protests.
Photo By Mike Shaheen – https://www.flickr.com/photos/63015897@N02/49979513917/, CC BY 2.0, Link
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Saturday Stories: The COVID files
Posted May 23, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Dr.Sudheer Singh Chauhan, Internal Medicine Physician and Associate Program Director IM Residency Program at Jamaica Hospital, New York, died of COVID19 on May 19th. May his memory be a blessing |
Tavis Apramian, in the CBC, on why you must discuss how you want to die with your family.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how America’s patchwork approach to containing COVID19 is likely to challenge any hope of near term success
Kai Kupferschmidt, in Science, on why only some people are COVID super spreaders
Natalie Kofler and Françoise Baylis, in Nature, on the perils, pitfalls, and disparities of “immunity passports”.
David Fisman, in The Globe and Mail, on what Canada needs to reopen safely and how at least now, it doesn’t appear that we have it.
Ian Sample, in The Guardian, with a rather depressing piece on COVID19 vaccine related challenges and realities.
And if you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here’s a segment I did with CTV’s The Social on the very real impact these scary times has on our physical and mental well being
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Palate cleanser
Posted October 30, 2020 by Anonymous
I’m so nervous about the US election, I can hardly think about anything else, and yet thinking about the US election does absolutely no good at all for anyone including me.
So here’s some recent funny stuff just to lighten my mood, for the next few minutes at least:
From the Toronto Sun:
An innocent pumpkin couple look on in horror, mouths agape and transfixed, as their only son is devoured in front of them. pic.twitter.com/LEAmDFozEp
— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) October 22, 2020
Best thing I’ve seen in a few days.
“Wear A Mask” to “Be Our Guest”
Brilliant… pic.twitter.com/qGoYlLmKjA
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) October 18, 2020
Why do Trumpers keep saying they are going to leave the USA if Biden wins?
Aren’t most of their trailers on blocks?
— Renee Libby (@ReneeAlida) October 12, 2020
Giving Donald Trump a second term would be like giving Jeffrey Dahmer a second refrigerator.
— Andrea Junker ® (@Strandjunker) October 23, 2020
Wait for it 😳👍
— M-A. StayFuckin’Legit🔥5daysTickTockMF 🇨🇦☘️🇨🇦 (@BagdMilkSoWhat) October 6, 2020
What heaven probably looks like.. pic.twitter.com/LBjuAh0iP9
— Land of cuteness (@landpsychology) October 29, 2020
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Sports will be back, sort of
Posted June 25, 2020 by Anonymous
I think the realities of getting back to sports are becoming clearer as we begin to understand that Corona Virus is not going away any time soon.
Yes, we are going to be able to play and watch sports again!
But no, we won’t actually be able to watch the games in person — though maybe eventually we can as long as absolutely everyone wears a mask absolutely all the time. And no shouting!
Hmm — would that even work?
Or would the silence just be too creepy, like those bizarre photos of a chamber orchestra playing to a theatre full of plants?
I’ve been watching the Ultimate Tennis Showdown and its fun to see a newer, quicker version of tennis, though its a little odd to hear the fake crowd noises after each shot.
Likely when sports do get going again, each sport will have to deal with continual interruptions as individual athletes come down with COVID-19 and stop playing until they are well again.
There is one thing about the sports shutdown that I will miss — the #LifeCommentaries on twitter, when sports announcers kept themselves busy by posting videos narrating ordinary life as sporting events:
Dogging.#LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/05A64OcSKP
— Twittbr3 (@Twittbr3) June 18, 2020
1500mm Heat#LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/fmsIWfcfAK
— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) April 14, 2020
Sooty looking for a clean sweep in the Regional Common Gymnastics pic.twitter.com/ycInWuMVTH
— Ladbrokes (@Ladbrokes) June 15, 2020
Commentators have been turning their hands (and socks) to absolutely anything lately! pic.twitter.com/xj86k27LUI
— Ladbrokes (@Ladbrokes) June 14, 2020
Some sports are slower. More about the strategy. pic.twitter.com/JMBaGJ1tSd
— Andrew Cotter (@MrAndrewCotter) April 9, 2020
International 4×4 Pushchair Formation Final. Live. #LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/BGGh01m1k1
— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) March 17, 2020
LIVE SPORT!
Today’s episode is based largely on me chasing our dog Yogi round the garden. Enjoy! 😂
Chin up people; hope you have a good weekend. 🐶😊#lifecommentary #goodboy #youbaddog pic.twitter.com/kvcgoYSr3N
— Andrew Coley (@Andrew_Coley) March 20, 2020
It was an honour to be asked to appear on this year’s unique USA @ESPYS show on @espn.
Among some incredibly poignant films, I helped provide a spot of levity as @mPinoe introduced my take on the likes of @rogerfederer @serenawilliams @lindseyvonn and @SebToots in lockdown. 🎙 pic.twitter.com/Jo1bptLV5z
— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) June 23, 2020
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Exxon and Other US Oil Companies Lag in Responding to ‘Existential Threat’ of Energy Transition, Report Warns
Posted October 13, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 minsU.S. oil majors like Exxon and Chevron are failing to grapple with the energy sector’s transition away from polluting fossil fuels and refusing to disclose potential risks to their portfolios from assets that may become “stranded,” or …
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Public Health has failed us all
Posted June 28, 2020 by Anonymous
Over the last week, I have come to understand that the COVID 19 pandemic will be known as the worst North American public health failure ever.
Here’s why:
Remember five months ago, way back in February, when COVID cases first began showing up in North America?
That is also when doctors in Europe, who were already dealing with dozens of cases, started reporting that, unlike other recent viruses, transmission of COVID 19 appeared to be happening from people who didn’t know they were sick and who did not display any symptoms.
It is impossible to find and quarantine such people, because nobody knows who they are. They themselves don’t even know they are carrying the virus.
The only way that someone without symptoms can be stopped from transmitting a respiratory infection is for everyone to wear a mask, so that the infected people are prevented from spraying infectious droplets every time they speak, cough, sneeze, etc.
So if, back in February, we had all been told to wear homemade masks whenever we were out and about (like many people already do in Asia, by the way) this simple act would have protected the friends and families and coworkers and clients of the hundreds of people across North America who were already infected but didn’t know it – the dentists, the doctors, the choir members, the conference attendees, the nursing home staff, the teachers, the social workers, the waitresses, etc etc
And thus, COVID 19 virus would not have infected hundreds of thousands. And thousands of the people who died would have lived instead.
But what happened when, back in February, European doctors started reporting that symptom-less people were infectious?
Well, nothing.
Faced with these early reports of symptom-less transmission, public health authorities like the World Health Organization, and the CDC and Canada Public Health did not leap into action.
They squabbled. They denied the evidence. They quibbled about terminology. The New York Times report goes on:
Interviews with doctors and public health officials in more than a dozen countries show that for two crucial months — and in the face of mounting genetic evidence — Western health officials and political leaders played down or denied the risk of symptomless spreading.Leading health agencies including the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control provided contradictory and sometimes misleading advice. A crucial public health discussion devolved into a semantic debate over what to call infected people without clear symptoms.The two-month delay was a product of faulty scientific assumptions, academic rivalries and, perhaps most important, a reluctance to accept that containing the virus would take drastic measures.The resistance to emerging evidence was one part of the world’s sluggish response to the virus. It is impossible to calculate the human toll of that delay, but models suggest that earlier, aggressive action might have saved tens of thousands of lives.Countries like Singapore and Australia, which used testing and contact-tracing and moved swiftly to quarantine seemingly healthy travelers, fared far better than those that did not.
And another thing happened too, at the same time.
Even without a lot of evidence, even without contract tracing and quarantining travelers and other government measures, there was one crucial step that everyone could have taken without any government program at all – wearing a homemade mask.
It seems like at least some of those who work in public health in North America also believed that the situation with COVID 19 was so urgent that wearing masks couldn’t hurt and might help.
But they decided not tell us.
While public health officials hesitated, some doctors acted. At a conference in Seattle in mid-February, Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University professor, said his research suggested that Covid-19’s rapid spread could only be explained if there were infectious patients with unremarkable symptoms or no symptoms at all.In the audience that day was Steven Chu, the Nobel-winning physicist and former U.S. energy secretary. “If left to its own devices, this disease will spread through the whole population,” he remembers Professor Shaman warning.Afterward, Dr. Chu began insisting that healthy colleagues at his Stanford University laboratory wear masks.Doctors in Cambridge, England, concluded that asymptomatic transmission was a big source of infection and advised local health workers and patients to wear masks, well before the British government acknowledged the risk of silent spreaders.
But back in February, there wasn’t enough PPE to go around and all the medical masks we had were desperately needed by medical staff.
So Public Health authorities had a choice — they could have been truthful, and told us that masks might help but the general public had to use homemade masks to save the medical ones for the health profession.
But this message was too complicated and people were already hoarding toilet paper, and homemade masks might “give us a false sense of security” because we’re all just so stupid that we wouldn’t stay home anymore and besides, we likely wouldn’t wear then correctly anyway. So it was just so much easier to us not to bother with masks at all, that they weren’t necessary for anyone who wasn’t already sick.
The American authorities, faced with a shortage, actively discouraged the public from buying masks. “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams tweeted on Feb. 29.
Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!
They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
https://t.co/UxZRwxxKL9— U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) February 29, 2020
In other words, they lied to us.
And the politicians those public health authorities were advising — the governors and premiers and presidents and prime ministers – ended up passing on those lies because they didn’t know any better.
So now here we are in June.
And now the public health authorities say, “Oopsie!! Hey, you guys, we tell you now that you really should wear masks after all, because everyone would be just so much safer.”
Only its too late. Hundreds of thousands have already died. And millions are confused by the changing stories and the untruths and the squabbling and now they don’t believe anything that public health authorities are telling them. And the people who own stores and manage events and work in offices and teach in schools are just as confused. So they don’t know whether to require masks or not.
Back during the Spanish Flu, public health failed because they just didn’t know how to organize public health administration and do the scientific studies and analyze policy options and communicate widely with the public.
Now, we have all that. We have a huge public health infrastructure with thousands of experts worldwide whose whole purpose in life is to keep people safe.
But in North America, they failed us.
“Why doesn’t the public trust us” sob the people who sold a cynical lie about masks being innefective to the press
— Kurt, myself today (@Freidland2) June 28, 2020
So first they didn’t recognize the truth, and then they didn’t trust us enough to tell us the truth when we needed it.
And now they’re going to blame that on us too:
[CDC head] Azar also pushed back on the idea that the new surge in cases is a result of reopening the country too fast, arguing, “That’s not so much about what the law says on the reopening than what our behaviors are within that. If we act irresponsibly, if we don’t social distance, if we don’t use face coverings … we’re going to see spread of disease.”
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Saturday Story: Just One This Week. A Must Read If You Haven’t Yet
Posted August 8, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Ed Yong, in the Atlantic, with the sadly all too believable (yet still unbelievable) story of how SARS-CoV2 defeated America
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- Saturday Stories: Vaccine Reality Check, Early Warning Failure, And Maybe We Should Talk About Ventilation
- Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects
- Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
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Celebrate
Posted July 5, 2020 by Anonymous
Trudeau’s uplifting message on Canada Day:
Canada is an amazing place to call home, and its people make it even better. We’re always there for each other – in good times and bad – and we always will be. And that’s worth celebrating. Happy Canada Day, everyone! https://t.co/SDC41cWOY0 pic.twitter.com/2OKNyxGEqe
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) July 1, 2020
Biden’s inspiring message on Independence Day:
Our nation was founded on a simple idea: We’re all created equal. We’ve never lived up to it — but we’ve never stopped trying. This Independence Day, let’s not just celebrate those words, let’s commit to finally fulfill them. Happy #FourthOfJuly! pic.twitter.com/1WrATlx8Xl
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 4, 2020
Here’s another good one, from Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Happy birthday, America. Thank you for letting me live the American Dream. We must fight every day to make sure that dream is as true for a Black child born in Minneapolis as it was for a white bodybuilder born in Austria. via @attn pic.twitter.com/rM95vb3twC
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) July 4, 2020
And nothing in either of Trump’s speeches is worth repeating. But here’s a summary, in case you missed them both:
As Frederick Douglass delivered a swiff and swippy victory in Operation Desert Storm in Vietnam, protected against the oranges of totalittotalitotarianism, with super duper missiles and stock rocket records. God bless the United Schates and rid us of Obamanacare.#TrumpIsUnwell
— Trent Capelli 🇨🇦 (@TrentCapelli) July 5, 2020
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School Daze
Posted August 8, 2020 by Anonymous
From Reddit: pic.twitter.com/QNLRl937V8
— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️🌈 (@CathieCanada) August 6, 2020
Oh dear, I think we’re in trouble now.
The Sask school plan is based on wishful thinking – it imagines that COVID is symptomatic, that students with symptoms can just stay home or go home, and that nobody else (teachers, parents, staff) will get sick.https://t.co/lh4Je7b64F— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️🌈 (@CathieCanada) August 5, 2020
I don’t have any children or grandchildren in school these days, and thank heavens for small mercies.
One thing that really impresses me about Saskatchewan is how consistently we’ve been able to come up with the worst plan in Canada on a broad range of policies, from suicide prevention to school reopening. Truly inspirational.
— glengarry glen busey (@birlios) August 5, 2020
I think this mom has it right:
After a lot of conversations & thinking, we have decided the safest thing we can do for our son is keep him home in Sept. He will be learning via the CBE online hub. I will have to give up my job as they require me back in person as of Sept, but I know this is the right choice.
— Lucy 🇨🇦 (@TheBlueGem3) August 7, 2020
The School Safe “plan” in Saskatchewan is based on wishful thinking:
What I don’t understand is why employers in the business sector are not demanding a better plan for schools. If their employees cannot be at work because they have to stay home with their kids, won’t that cause the economy to shut down again? #skpoli #sasked #covid19sk https://t.co/VOy9q6bhEc
— Maren Beaton (@maren_beaton) August 7, 2020
Parents aren’t happy:
What I am curious on (if it’s been mentioned anywhere, let me know) is what happens if one staff or kid tests positive? Is every single person in school that has come into contact with that one positive case going to be sent for testing and isolation till test results come back?
— Bort (@Kfb28) August 7, 2020
Neither are doctors:
Saskatchewan’s doctors press for safer return-to-school plan – Premier Moe says he’s open to changes: https://t.co/dHuAVThnNO @SMA_docs @keepskkidssafe @GordWyant Dr. Shahab @SaskHealth @CBCSask
— Dennis Kendel (@DennisKendel) August 8, 2020
I am concerned that the Sask Party seems to be reducing the whole School debate to a discussion of whether or not to make masks mandatory, while the Sask Medical Association is asking for a much broader look at school problems:
[SMA says]“Closed spaces with poor ventilation, crowded spaces with many people, and close-contact settings with close-range conversations are not uncommon in schools and these realities need to be front and centre in back to school plans.” Education Minister Gord Wyant said Friday that, in response to the association’s concerns and recommendations from the Public Health Agency of Canada, the province is looking at making masks mandatory.
And it is, of course, not just the schools themselves that are problematic. Its also the impact that COVID increases in schools would have on the rest of us.
I spent four months staying away from people, stores, restaurants, everything. So will I have to go back to that kind of life if there is community COVID spread here again? Yes, I’m afraid so.
I spent my evening sobbing in the park with my husband and mother-in-law about how it will now be unsafe to see our families as soon as schools reopen.
There is no plan.
Our province has failed.
— Amy (Lawson) Empringham (@lawsonames) August 5, 2020
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Button, button, who’s got the button?
Posted July 26, 2020 by Anonymous
Well, this is a little strange.
Today the Globe and Mail published a story about how Canada’s pandemic early warning system within the Public Health Agency of Canada has been muzzled under the Harper Conservatives in 2014, and how the Liberals had said they would change this but then they never did. So as a result, the epidemiologists in the early warning system, called the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), were silenced just when Canada needed them the most.
Other than not actually telling us which the individuals or offices are responsible for the muzzling, its an explosive article:
Early detection is as much an art as it is a science.The disease is hiding, but the signals are detectable.Acting quickly can have a big impact on the outcome. With COVID-19, the signals began small, but grew louder.“We all had enough warning,” she said. “We saw what happened in China, in Italy,” Dr. St. John agrees. “The signal was there,” he said.However, few people outside GPHIN knew Canada’s early warning alert system had effectively stopped working, just when it was needed most.When Ms. Thornton, the vice-president in charge of the alerts, appeared before a House of Commons committee in May to face questions about Canada’s handling of the pandemic, she was asked how the government had tracked the spread of the virus.Ms. Thornton referenced GPHIN and the work it did. Though she made no mention that GPHIN had not issued a single alert in the previous 12 months. Nor did she mention that analysts had been assigned to other work, or that GPHIN had not sounded any further alarms on COVID-19 developments after the outbreak became known – even though the department’s own guidelines required as much.As far as the committee knew, Canada’s surveillance system had been operating as it always had.It’s not easy to know the consequences of such decisions, but Mr. Garner, the former senior science adviser at Public Health, says he believes Canada’s early response to the outbreak – which has been criticized for being slow and disorganized – was a product of the many changes he saw made to the department.Those changes helped move Public Health’s focus away from science, he said, which slowed down its ability to react effectively – and with maximum urgency.“All of these things have tragically come home to roost,” Mr. Garner said.“Not to be overdramatic, but Canadians have died because of this.”
A pretty damning indictment of the Public Health Agency of Canada, and of the Canadian government.
But then I also found this: in April, the CBC published a story that said GPHIN had been undergoing a technical upgrade in 2019, and that’s why it hadn’t issued alerts about COVID19 until the end of December.
CBC News has obtained a series of internal public health agency documents and slide-presentation decks — including one given by a senior epidemiologist from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) last November on the eve of a pandemic that has since killed tens of thousands and crippled the world economy.
The documents bring into sharper focus the kind of information key decision-makers had at their fingertips as the outbreak started in China and raise questions about how seriously global pandemic preparedness was being taken within the federal government.The records show GPHIN was in the middle of a long-overdue technology upgrade as the virus was spreading.Despite almost four years of work with the National Research Council of Canada, the early warning system was — as of last fall — still in need of “improvement in the geographical and time tagging algorithm,” according to a Nov 12, 2019 presentation to a WHO conference in Seoul, South Korea by senior epidemiologist Florence Tanguay.That algorithm is crucial to the system’s ability to sort through as many as 7,000 online articles per day to spot disease outbreaks around the globe.The network also was awaiting an “expansion to new data sources,” such as social media feeds.From its inception in the late 1990s, GPHIN had relied on news wire services and later local media articles posted online.
So now I’m not sure what was going on in Canada last January and February.
Maybe GPHIN was issuing timely and accurate reports on the emerging virus but Public Health Canada was minimizing their analysis and not sending the reports up the ladder to government.
Or maybe because GPHIN was basing its alerts on wire services, its reports were no longer regarded as reliable enough for PHAC and government to count on.
Either way, it does sound like somebody maybe dropped the ball, doesn’t it?
And I hope there might now be some attempt to figure out what really happened.
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After Calling for Climate Action, US Chamber of Commerce Pushes Pro-Fossil Fuel Agenda
Posted September 29, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 5 minsA new campaign targeting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its lobbying on climate change issues published a report today criticizing the pro-business lobbying and advocacy group for continuing to push for pro-fossil fuel policies desp…
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Saturday Stories: Some Anti-Racism Resources #BlackLivesMatter
Posted June 6, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| May his memory be a blessing |
Corrine Shutak, in Medium, with 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice.
A non-bylined Google Doc of anti-racism resources for white people.
Quakelabs’ collection of Canadian specific anti-racist resource.
Farrah Penn, in Buzzfeed, with 23 Phenomenal Young Adult Books By Black Authors From The First Half Of 2020
The University of Toronto’s Office of Inclusion and Diversity with their collection of recent stories and resources on anti-racism.
@antisocialbritt, on Twitter, with her thread of children’s books that discuss racism.
@bronze_bae, on Twitter, with her thread of young adult books that discuss racism.
Photo By Lorie Shaull – https://www.flickr.com/photos/number7cloud/49959004213/, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link
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End of August Doldrums
Posted August 31, 2020 by Anonymous
What a strange week!
I’ve been trying to decide what to post here for this week, and haven’t really got anything organized.
Down South, the Republican Convention came in like a lamb and left like a lamb too, and nobody seems to really remember anything about it.
Hurricane Laura came and went too, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Two more hurricanes are on their way. Oh, great!
More Black people were shot needlessly, and more protests are underway, and now Trump is talking about going to Wisconsin and nobody wants to see him there. I wonder if he ever gets embarrassed by how useless he is at any kind of leadership?
Following the example of the Kenosha shooter – who was just “helping the police” by killing two people and wounding a third – we are seeing more MAGA people driving their pickup trucks and waving their flags at the protests, and so more people are getting shot. This isn’t going to end well.
As Twitter keeps mentioning, it’s bizarre for Trump to be talking about how the protest violence is Biden’s fault, when it is happening under Trump’s watch. Of course, Trump never takes responsibility for anything so why would he ever take responsibility for the violence of his own supporters?
And here in Canada we have a new Conservative leader — Erin (AKA Eric) is not making a good first impression as he refuses to confront the haters in his own party. You know, I seem to remember that it was Trudeau, who is supposedly just a whimpy drama teacher according to the Cons, who didn’t hesitate to boot people out of the Liberal caucus for any accusation of misconduct, and who refused to let anyone run under the Liberal banner if they were not pro-choice, and who refused to give federal money for student employment to any organizations that preached against abortion.
O’Toole doesn’t seem to realize that a leader who goes along with jerks and assholes because he doesn’t want to offend anyone is not a leader that Canadians will respect or support.
And now school is getting underway, and it will be a disaster. Give it a week or two, for COVID to start passing between children and teachers and the families, infecting and killing across Canada.
COVID is the honey badger – it don’t care.
Everybody basically KNOWS this is going to happen. But we all seem to be in some sort of mass-hypnosis fugue Tinker Bell state where we think if we just BELIEVE hard enough and WISH hard enough and HOPE hard enough then everything will be JUST FINE.
Yesterday the Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer said we have to change our “summer bubbles” when school starts — basically, what he was saying in an incredibly convoluted and indirect way, is that Grandma and Grandpa have will have to stop seeing the grandkids once they go back to school.
Oh, what a week!
But then I watch this:
Some things you need to stand back and just watch. Bald eagle 🦅 being released back into the wild. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/HgziUJ2Dbo
— Jim Osman (@EdgeCGroup) August 8, 2020
and this
I’m melting seeing them. pic.twitter.com/JlJ5IeccLX
— Life on Earth (@planetpng) August 22, 2020
Now I feel better.
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As Trump Scorned Covid-19 Precautions, Climate Deniers Echoed and Expanded that Message
Posted October 2, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 7 minsLate Thursday night, President Trump said on Twitter that he and first lady Melania Trump had both been diagnosed with Covid-19. The news came on the heels of reports that senior aide Hope Hicks had been symptomatic and tested positive…
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Trump’s COVID Denial Mirrors Romney’s Climate Denial in 2012, Hurting Election Bid
Posted October 9, 2020 by Steve Horn
Read time: 7 minsOriginally published by The Real News Network.
Back in 2012, climate science denial created an “October Surprise” moment for the presidential election and a turning point against the presidential prospects of Republican candidate Mitt…
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An Outstanding UN Speech from Trudeau
Posted September 26, 2020 by Anonymous
Trudeau addressed the United Nations today and his speech was simply outstanding: Other people have posted, but ICYMI10 minutes worth watching. Headline Politics: PM Trudeau Addresses UN General Assembly – September 25, 2020 | CPAChttps://t.co/M4CO0c9q…
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Saturday Stories: Vaccine Chaos And What Did You Expect?
Posted October 3, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, on why vaccine chaos may be loomingDavid Frum, also in The Atlantic, asks, what did you expect?
Related StoriesSaturday Stories: Vaccine Collaboration, Racism and COVID Coverage, a…
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Hurricane Delta Compounds Oil Pollution Left By Hurricane Laura in Louisiana’s Wetlands
Posted October 16, 2020 by Julie Dermansky
Read time: 7 minsHurricane Delta made landfall in Creole. Louisiana, on October 9, 13 miles east of where Hurricane Laura struck 43 days before. It touched down in an
area packed with oil and gas wells, pipelines, and rigs.Tags: Hurricane Delta
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Saturday Stories: The Scamedemic, The “Great” Barrington Declaration, Sweden, And The John Snow Memorandum
Posted October 17, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Tony Scott, in SFGate, on how he used to call it the ‘scamedemic’. He doesn’t anymore. Marc Lipsitch, Gregg Gonsalves, Carlos del Rio, and Rochelle P. Walensky, in The Washington Post, on the why the so-called Great Barrington Declaration i…
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Fossil Fuel Companies Keep Getting Sued Over Climate Impacts. Here’s Where the Cases Stand
Posted October 7, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 9 minsSeptember saw a flurry of new lawsuits filed by cities and states against major fossil fuel companies over the climate crisis and the resulting impacts that are already being felt. After Hoboken, New Jersey sued Big Oil and its largest…
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Top Law Firms Called Out for Serving Fossil Fuel Industry Clients in New Climate ‘Scorecard’
Posted October 1, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 4 minsWith lawsuits against major fossil fuel producers over climate damages on the rise, a new report and initiative examines how prestigious law firms are enabling climate breakdown. The student-led initiative, Law Students for Climate Acc…
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Detroit Knew: GM and Ford Were Aware of Climate Risks Decades Ago Too, Investigation Reveals
Posted October 28, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 10 minsGroundbreaking reporting this week by E&E News revealed that, similar to major oil companies like Exxon, American automakers Ford and General Motors (GM) engaged in early cutting-edge climate science research and that the companie…
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Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects
Posted July 25, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
 |
| Dr. Anna DeForest |
John Woodrow Cox, in the Washington Post, with a heartbreaking story about 3 coronavirus orphans.
Anna DeForest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, with what I would describe as an absolutely must read piece highlighting the crushing devastation COVID is wreaking on front-line physicians.
Maggie Koerth, in Five Thirty Eight, explains how every decision is a risk, and how every risk is a decision.
Hilda Bastian, in Wired, explains why there needs to be frank transparency around any possible COVID19 side effects even if they’re minor.
Related Stories
- Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
- Saturday Stories: Is It Airborne?, Exhausted Experts, Sweden, Cancer During COVID, And Schools
- Saturday Stories: No Heroes In Science, Selflessness, School Reopening, And Vaccine Developments
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Palo Alto Paying Over $20,000 Annually to Natural Gas Trade Group Fighting Climate Action
Posted October 7, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 9 minsNearly a year ago, the city of Palo Alto — home to Stanford University and the unofficial capital of Silicon Valley — joined a handful of other California cities in enacting an all-electric building mandate. City leaders touted the new…
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Weighty Matters 2020-09-05 05:30:00
Posted September 5, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Mark Earnest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, on becoming a plague doctor.
James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on why herd immunity isn’t a strategy.
Jesmyn Ward, in Vanity Fair, on losing her husband to COVID.
Jon Cohen, in Science, interviews Moncef Slaoui, the head of operation Warp Speed who says he’ll quit if politics trump science on vaccine safety and distribution.
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August funny
Posted August 2, 2020 by Anonymous
OK, its been one of those weeks, so here’s some funny stuff:
My son is wearing a MAGMA cap and a Vote Trump 2020 button. He’s been spat on, punched and verbally abused. I hate to think what will happen when he leaves the house.
— Humanist. (@kennuck) August 1, 2020
I sunburn easily. https://t.co/k9APKRxFn9
— Brent Butt (@BrentButt) August 2, 2020
Republican politician Louie Gohmert, who claims to have caught COVID-19 from wearing a mask, is now claiming he got pregnant after several people told him to go fuck himself.
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) July 30, 2020
If you are not wearing a mask because you are afraid your brain won’t get enough oxygen, I’m sorry to tell you, that ship has sailed.
— Chip Franklin (@chipfranklin) July 29, 2020
“Jesus Christ, what’s Trump done NOW?” https://t.co/5ZhOGjnKWr
— Harry Turtledove (@HNTurtledove) July 24, 2020
#MeanwhileInCanada pic.twitter.com/tY1gFbE1f6
— Meanwhile in Canada (@MeanwhileinCana) July 30, 2020
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Court Tosses Youth Climate Lawsuit Against Canada
Posted October 30, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 minsThe Federal Court of Canada has decided to dismiss a climate lawsuit based on constitutional rights and brought by 15 young Canadians against the federal government. The decision, issued October 27, effectively denies the youths the ch…
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Dumkirk
Posted September 7, 2020 by Anonymous
Yes, I know in the overall scheme of things, the sinking of some of the boats in Trump’s boating parade this weekend is pretty trivial.
But there’s nothing like trivial to make Twitter come alive.
The hashtag of the event is #Dumkirk:
Over the weekend, five boats sank at an event put on by Trump supporters near Austin, Texas. The traffic created choppy waters that submerged several boats. https://t.co/BUX5nDp1sK
— NPR (@NPR) September 7, 2020
This is the worst defeat the Confederacy has suffered in 155 years. https://t.co/VrpmNB0Zxq
— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) September 6, 2020
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) September 7, 2020
“Cascading failure through unintended consequences is a perfect metaphor for the Trump presidency.” https://t.co/9NuEzs8tjW
— Jacqueline Keeler (@jfkeeler) September 6, 2020
Boater fraud? https://t.co/yJZXlZGWkF
— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) September 6, 2020
The new Trump ad needs work.#Dumkirk #TrumpBoatParade #BoatersForTrump #LakeTravis #BoatParade #sink #Texas #MAGA #laketravisboatparade #MAGAts pic.twitter.com/cWMlHiDGyZ
— John Óg (@johnogpdx) September 6, 2020
FUNNY ALERT
DEVONS ( MY SON) DAD IS MAGA , HE TOLD DEVON TO START GOFUNDME FOR SURGERY , HE’D HELP , HE DIDNT !!!
WELL .. YESTERDAY , HIS FECKING BOAT SANK IN LAKE TRAVIS ! 🤭🤭😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
TALK ABOUT GOOD KARMA
😂😂😂😂😂😂🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂💞!— CeCeResistance (@gumboqueen3030) September 6, 2020
I have never loved a picture more. pic.twitter.com/hrcZsuUJM6
— Lauren Hough (@laurenthehough) September 7, 2020
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