1 Week, 7 Stories #33
Looking up - way up, and looking back - way back.
Every edition features 7 stories, from the past week. I’ll draw on my background in media, journalism, agriculture, biotech, and renewable energy to come up with an interesting selection and to offer some context.
I wrote in a previous edition that despite its history of problems, 2 astronauts were still willing to be strapped into the Boeing Starliner and blast-off to the International Space Station.
I’m starting off with a follow-up to that story and it is a story of more problems.
There are worse places to be stuck than the International Space Station. The views are great and there are no mosquitoes to bother you, but for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams their flight cancellation has broader implications than missing US July 4th celebrations back home.
The pair blasted off from Cape Canaveral on June 5th after a series of delays. Not just delays for the crewed mission, but years of delays and problems after being awarded a contract in 2014 to provide a reusable vehicle to ferry crews to the ISS. SpaceX was given a similar contract at the same time and flew its first official mission in 2020.
When the Starliner finally made it to the ISS last month things were looking up, but then new problems were revealed after the successful docking. Instead of an 8-day mission, the return flight was postponed until further notice because of a problem with the capsule’s thrusters. When considering the return schedule, NASA said it would not happen until after an already scheduled spacewalk on July 2nd. That spacewalk was scrubbed after a leak appeared in a spacesuit umbilical line, so it is not just Starliner technical problems needing a space mechanic.
The astronauts are in no danger and if the worse case scenario was that the thruster problems could not be overcome, they could hitch a ride back with Boeing’s competitor or even a Russian capsule. NASA says there are plenty of supplies on the ISS to support the extra guests for some time.
There has been no indication of when any new timelines will be announced except that NASA has said the mission could be extended as much as 90 days in needed.
David Bowie’s Space Oddity might be something on everyone’s mind when that time comes:
“Check ignition
And may God's love
Be with you”
Closer to earth, we are hearing more stories of severe flight turbulence being experienced by travellers, sometimes with extreme consequences.
Earlier this week an Air Europa flight from Madrid to Montevideo was diverted to Natal, Brazil after turbulence rocked a Boeing Dreamliner and injured 40 people. In May, a passenger died when a Singapore Airlines plane hit an air pocket which sent it upwards then forced it to pitch down 1,800 metres (6,000 feet) in less than 3 minutes. Also in May, a Turkish Airlines crew member suffered a broken vertebra after she hit the ceiling of the aircraft when it encountered turbulence near Izmir, Turkey, then was thrown to the floor. The Royal Aeronautical Society reports that such turbulence-related incidents are not new, but they are on the rise.
Turbulence can be as severe as these examples or no more than an annoyance when you feel a jolt just as you are starting your coffee. It is associated with shifting weather fronts, wind shear, thunderstorms, and other weather phenomena that create irregular motion of the air. Officially it can be classified as light, moderate, severe, and extreme. While it can be forecast or predicted, the problem is that it can also be unexpected, leaving no time for you or the flight crew to react. Even when it can be predicted, narrowing it down to where your flight is in real time is difficult. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has developed a tool for pilots but it is not precise, especially for “clear air turbulence” that is not associated with the usual weather conditions. According to a story in Mashable, that unique and less predictable form of turbulence is definitely getting worse. The link to climate change is not yet conclusive but as the story points out, as the atmosphere get more turbulent because of warming air, the instance of severe turbulent events will be more frequent and intense. Not to mention the simple fact that as more flights are in the air and more people are travelling, the chances of hitting a severe and unexpected event are greater.
And if you are not strapped in, good old physics and gravity mean you are going to be tossed around. No way around it.
As the pre-flight announcement usually advises, “please wear your seatbelt at all times”.
In June, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced a country-wide strategy to reduce food loss, wasted food, and to increase recycling of organics. The background documents said that about 66 million tons (59 million tonnes) of wasted food were generated in food retail, food service, and residential sectors, and most of that waste was sent to landfills. In Canada more than 55 million tons (50 million tonnes) is wasted and almost half of that is at the household level. According to the World Food Programme 20% of food produced for people is lost or wasted. Apart from the nutritional waste and wasted meals, food that ends up in landfills rots and produces methane.
The US announcement said that it would initiate consumer education programs, test new approaches to reduce waste across the supply chain, support more organics recycling programs, and expand the market for products made from recycled organic waste.
There are lots of programs to learn from, starting with the latest Artificial Intelligence technology. A Bloomberg News story this week said that more data and AI to help manage the data can help restaurants, caterers, and buffets track what is being thrown out. The AI powered waste bins (never thought I would be typing that one!) with cameras and scales can provide detailed information on what is being disposed of and whether it is cooked or chopped. Apart from reducing environmental impacts, it can reduce costs which is the ultimate incentive for commercial kitchens.
Here in Canada, the ’Too Good To Go’ app has launched its own campaign to help users figure out if it is safe to eat something past the best-before date. Food that is past that date may not be as fresh or taste quite as good, but it is still safe to eat. (an expiry date however is different and should be followed) The campaign will put stickers on food items and the app will read the sticker and help consumers determine if the food is okay to eat. They call it Look-Smell-Taste and hope we will use our own senses to help make a decision before throwing food away.
In the US the Chipotle fast food chain has been working on reducing waste and says that nearly half of all trash is either being composted or recycled. It is also focusing more on composting and encouraging customers to make sure that the right waste ends up in the right bin before they leave the restaurant.
The Pacific Coast Collaborative has committed to a 50% reduction in wasted food by 2030 among its members in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California. A story in WasteDive (a business journalism site), says that the group has cut the rate of unsold food and reduced wasted food by a quarter.
When it comes to our food supply chain it all comes back to data collection. Knowing how much and when to buy, judging portion size, efficient storage and packaging, and as Forbes magazine points out more “life cycle thinking”, are all key to solving the problem.
Climate change deserves the bad rap it gets most of time but getting conclusive answers can be difficult and slow.
Some organizations want to get the cause-and-effect information out more quickly, while still ensuring it is accurate. The latest to address the challenge is Environment and Climate Change Canada and its new rapid extreme weather event attribution pilot program. It brings together meteorology, weather observation, and climate science and uses data going back to the 1800s and all we know about the climate of today to understand how events such as heat waves, wildfires, drought, and floods are related to climate and where there may be no direct link.
A widely syndicated Canadian Press story used the example of the bridges destroyed during the 2021 British Columbia floods.
"If you're rebuilding those bridges, it's useful to know whether the event was made more likely by human-induced climate change, and also to know how that likelihood might change in the future."
Apart from helping governments make decisions (such as where to build those bridges), having accurate information from reliable sources about the effects of climate change is important if we are going to deal with it. If the policy makers, the public, and journalists cannot make the link between what they experience and how climate changes affect their lives, they are not going to change their behaviour. Deutsche Welle used 3 examples from around the world to illustrate what can and cannot be linked to climate change.
The new Environment and Climate Change Canada initiative is similar to, and works with, World Weather Attribution which is a partnership between Imperial College London, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. The WWA provides what it calls robust and scientific answers to questions about links between climate change and severe weather events within weeks or even days, after such events. I have their ‘Reporting extreme weather and climate change: A guide for journalists’ on my computer to help me in my stories and writing.
Apart from helping to make sense of local weather conditions, global weather patterns, and climate, these initiatives will also help you when you are at the pool or the beach to say (as USA Today put it) "Yep, it's climate change."
A recent CBC story pointed out that Canada is the only G7 country where the buying and selling of raw milk is illegal, yet the demand is there and rising. As you can probably guess from the name, raw milk is unpasteurized. Not so much farm to fork as it is udder to glass. Pasteurization was first used in 1862 and slowly made its way into the commercial sale of milk in Canada starting at the municipal level in 1914. It did not become mandatory in our country until 1991. Pasteurizing milk is a straightforward process that involves heating it up to 72C (161 F) for 16 seconds then cooling it quickly. Simple enough, and you’ll cook your hotdogs to a higher temperature for longer this weekend.
Those who find that process to be unnecessary buy unpasteurized milk from a vendor selling it out of the trunk of a vehicle or join a ‘cow share’ program to get the raw stuff.
Proponents of raw milk say pasteurization alters the taste and reduces nutritional value. The science does not support the claim, or claims that it can cure or treat asthma or allergies, or reduce lactose intolerance. People looking for natural alternatives seem to subscribe to the views of New Brunswick politician Frank L. Potts, who opposed the introduction of pasteurization in 1922 and said
Unpasteurized milk can be fatal. For instance between 1912 and 1937 about 65,000 people in England and Wales died of tuberculosis that originated from bovine sources according to a peer-reviewed paper in Nutrition Today. Fans of raw milk point out that when transferred to sterile containers and kept cool, milk can be kept safe, however they fail to consider that the sterile environment is inside the cow. The moment it is milked for human consumption the raw milk is exposed to contamination from the udder, skin, milking equipment, and handling. The CBC story mentioned earlier refers to the street customers coming with their own mason jars to fill with raw milk. The forecast for next week here in Calgary includes temperatures in the 30C range so filling a mason jar brought from home in extremely warm weather is asking for trouble.
One of the latest public health concerns is the spread of Avian across US dairy herds. CNN reported this week that 7 states have confirmed avian flu in dairy herds in the last 30 days and there have been 4 confirmed cases of people contracting the disease from exposure to dairy cattle. Canada has had no signs of avian flu in dairy herds that have been tested. Pasteurization kills bacteria in milk (which incidentally comes from dairy cattle), so for those filling up mason jars with raw milk from the van parked in the street, remember that it did not likely come from one of those herds that was tested. You have no idea what you are drinking.
The Hudson’s Bay Company for many years was as Canadian as maple syrup, the RCMP, and hockey. Over the last couple of decades however, it has been harder to stay loyal to ‘The Bay’. The company received its Charter in 1670 as a fur trading business making it the oldest business in Canada. Its fortunes were built in the North but a Cabin Radio story this week says the company won’t even ship to the Northwest Territories. The company say this is temporary but according to the story, has not said why or when shipping of online orders will resume.
HBC’s first post in present-day NWT was in 1803 but it closed its last store in Yellowknife in the 80s. The first Bay store in Banff opened in 1935 and its last closed in 2023. The Burnaby, BC store also closed in 2023 and its Regina store will be gone by 2025. The downtown Calgary store went from 6 floors to 3, and the Montreal location is slated for re-development which will likely include downsizing as well.
Its corporate structure is not for the faint of heart. HBC is a holding company which describes itself as operating at the “intersection of technology, retail operations and real estate”. It is the majority owner of Saks, Saks Off 5th, The Bay (which it calls an ecommerce marketplace), Hudson’s Bay brick & mortar stores, HBC Properties and Investments, and this week said it was buying Neiman Marcus to combine it with Saks Fifth Avenue. The new company will be called Saks Global and no sooner had I figured that purchase out, but another story popped up saying Amazon would be taking a stake in Saks Global.
No wonder there is no time left to ship online purchases to the Canada’s North.
Archaeologists have made an exciting find in a cave in Indonesia. Two headlines this week might help you think about what they really did find.
From Phys.org
World's oldest artwork discovered in Indonesian cave
And from NBC News:
World’s oldest cave painting is at least 51,200 years old, scientists say
This is not a critique of the headline writers, but the first headline does a better job of underscoring the significance of the find dating back at least 51,200 years. In an open access article published this week in Nature, the authors say it is “is now the earliest known surviving example of representational art, and visual storytelling”. Its age makes it more than 5,000 years older than another “figurative artwork” also found in the area several years ago.
The new find seems to show humans or human-like figures, interacting with a wild pig. It was discovered in 2017 but dating cave images is difficult, and it was only with the help of new technology that made it possible to release the latest news with some certainty. An article in The Conversation, by 4 of the Nature article authors, says that figurative rock art offers “visual insights into ancient cultures, beliefs and societal practices.” They point out that “Something is happening in this artwork”.
I had a tough time seeing what the archaeologists see but The Conversation article does a good job of helping you understand the depiction.
Just trying to imagine the scene in a secluded cave 52,000 years ago where humans were drawing on rocks is enough to make this story fascinating. Trying to understand their motivation moves it to a whole new level of imagination.
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I’m available for contract and freelance work with not-for-profits and charities. With 40 years of experience behind me and lots of time ahead of me, I’m here to help you make a difference in your media relations, public relations, and general communications needs.