April 22: Canada COVID-19: Deaths per day and Days to double total deaths

Date source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/tracking-every-case-of-covid-19-in-canada-1.4852102

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Data Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/tracking-every-case-of-covid-19-in-canada-1.4852102

Refugees and Veterans

Image credit: www.macleans.ca

As must be the case with many of you reading this, my father and grandfathers fought in the two world wars of the twentieth century. They, and our family, were fortunate that they survived, although my wife has an uncle in her ancestry who lost his life when his ship sank in a naval engagement, and my dad came out of the war minus one lung. Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand were not under direct attack or threat in the same way as were the countries of Europe and Britain. Their armies were fighting not so much for their own motherland as helping defend and liberate their allies and for the values and principles of world liberty and freedom from tyranny.

I find it disappointing, therefore, when I read so often in the social media that people are advancing an anti-refugee position by bemoaning how "our government" can find money to assist refugees but cannot properly assist "our vets". Please, let's keep the two issues separate. By all means, let us lobby for a better deal for our war veterans, but not on the backs of the most vulnerable. This is disingenuous and an insult to the very ones who died in the wars, who died for something far nobler than keeping "our country" free from refugees.

Monitoring the Magi

So, Ingrid is on top of this. Not only is she monitoring the progress of the Magi over field and fountain, moor and mountain, but she is also ensuring that the star with royal beauty bright is westward leading, still proceeding with an ETA of 6 January, 2020.

Field and fountain, moor and mountain

Field and fountain, moor and mountain

Westward leading, still proceeding

Westward leading, still proceeding

Star with royal beauty bright

Star with royal beauty bright

Guide us to thy perfect light

Guide us to thy perfect light

Raw Sewage in Canadian Rivers

So, here is my question: Are there or are there not provincial or federal laws or regulations prohibiting the release of  commercial and industrial waste and, especially, raw sewage into the rivers of Canada or, at least, the rivers and aquifers of Ontario?

If not, why not? If yes, how are they enforced?

I ask after being shocked to read the following article in Global News:

From https://globalnews.ca/news/6215303/oneida-london-safe-water/

Oneida Nation of the Thames tap water different than neighbouring non-Indigenous communities

Particularly disturbing are the following three paragraphs:

"18 years of water quality testing across Oneida First Nation sometimes shows striking levels of dangerous pathogens such as E. coli flowing from residential taps. Upstream, the nearby city of London dumps millions of litres of raw sewage into the Thames River that serves as the community’s water source…"

"The Thames River, which replenishes Oneida’s aquifer, is a dumping ground for waste, raw sewage and pollution. To avoid basement flooding during heavy rains, London’s wastewater system dumps rainwater and raw sewage into the river. In 2018, 266 million litres of raw sewage was released and flowed downstream through several First Nations communities, including Oneida.

"So far this year, more than 5.7 million litres of London’s raw, untreated sewage — including commercial and industrial waste — has been dumped into the river, according to city data.

London didn’t start notifying Oneida of sewage dumps until mid-2018, say Oneida leaders, including Chief Hill. Even then, Oneida is only notified after the dump has occurred, sometimes hours or days later."

Here, again, is my question: Are there or are there not provincial or federal laws or regulations prohibiting the release of  commercial and industrial waste and, especially, raw sewage into the rivers of Canada or, at least, the rivers and aquifers of Ontario?

If not, why not? If yes, how are they enforced?

I realise that the question is rhetorical. Doing just 2 minutes of searching on the Internet I found that:

• raw sewage overflowed into southern Ontario waterways 1,327 times in the 12 months ending March, 2018;
• the city of Toronto releases more than 1-billion litres of raw sewage into Lake Ontario in a single day;
• when excessive stormwater has nowhere to escape, it funnels into sewers causing them to overflow and spill untreated contents into lakes or rivers;
• there are provincial regulations but they are full of loopholes circumventing enforcement.

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-enviro-report-1.4903327

I have been following a Facebook group focusing on drinking water and other water availability issues in South Africa. They regularly bemoan the fact that, due to aging infrastructure, neglect and poor accountability, raw sewage is spilling into some of the dams sourced for drinking water. I have been feeling lucky to be living in Canada - a First World country after all. How presumptuous and arrogant of me.

A View on the Climate Crisis

A friend who knows I'm a climate change nut challenged me, asking my thoughts on a rather scathing newspaper op-ed. My response follows.

We have a climate crisis of global warming that requires urgent attention. I say this with confidence because it is not merely my opinion, or anyone else's opinion, but a fact established with evidence from science and attested to by climate scientists worldwide. This according to NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the USA.  (See https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/)

The economic impact of global warming is pretty-well incalculable, estimated in terms of a percentage of every country's GDP - certainly, therefore, in the billions of dollars - if not trillions. See https://www.britannica.com/science/global-warming/Global-warming-and-public-policy

Along with the global warming issue we have serious problems with air pollution that are having devastating effects upon vulnerable people whose lungs and breathing ability are already compromised, as well as people with cardio-vascular illnesses. We can only guess how much impact this is also having on childhood development, or life expectancy in the elderly. See, for instance: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/air-quality/health-effects-indoor-air-pollution.html

This too will have massive economic consequences. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), healthcare costs related to air pollution are expected to increase 8-fold in the fifty years from 2010 to 2060. See https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/the-economic-consequences-of-outdoor-air-pollution/executive-summary_9789264257474-3-en#page2

Thirdly, there is the contribution that environmental issues make to the "refugee crisis" that we hear so much about and feel the need to 'control' without thinking about controlling the causes of environmental degradation which is very much a root cause of migration for environmental refugees. According to Pope Francis: “Climate change is also contributing to the heart-rending refugee crisis. The world’s poor, though least responsible for climate change, are most vulnerable and already suffering its impact.” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/pope-francis-climate-change-environment-refugee-crisis-destroy-sin-a7221476.html

What to do?

First of all, what NOT to do! I honestly do not think it is at all helpful when people look at their neighbours in countries that are oceans and continents away, or just a province or two away, or "on the reserve", and point out that, since THEY are contributing so significantly to the problem, what is the point of politicians trying to force ME to make sacrifices - as with a carbon 'tax'? As I see it, that line of reasoning lets us all off the hook of sacrifice. Not only can we just leave the problem, then, for our grandchildren to solve but we can feel free to continue exacerbating the problem by pushing out limitless pollutants seeing as our contribution is so small - relatively speaking.

The other thing NOT to do is give greater credibility to politicians and economists and their populist journalist followers (left, right and centre) than the credibility we afford climate scientists. It is inexcusable that government bureaucrats implement environmental policy changes without consulting scientists. More inexcusable is when governments then gag their own publicly funded scientists and not allow them to publish their peer-reviewed research.

I use gasoline to drive my car. I would love to be driven in a clean-energy taxi. I use liquid natural gas to warm my house. (As I write, the temperature today has warmed up to a high of +2C - the highest it has been in the last 5 days.) I would love to warm my house with power from the sun or wind, but our local government cancelled, at great expense in penalties, the renewable energy program initiated by the previous  local government. My point is that there are some initiatives that cannot be undertaken by individuals without incurring prohibitive personal expense. Such initiatives require changes to infrastructure that can only be achieved by local and national governments. But the will has to be there. As I see it, partisan political loyalties, fueled by the things NOT to do that I describe above, are the major obstacles to people even seeing the need, let alone developing the socio-political will.

Let's get off the darkness band-wagon and switch on an LED candle, and try to influence the people around us to do the same. "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace... "