1 Week, 7 Stories #51

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 am working on another writing project this month so I skipped last week’s edition, and your next one will arrive November 30th.

Keeping in mind I missed a week, where to start? How about another COP.

Indeed, we had another COP this week. This one is COP29 which stands for the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They need to work on their marketing because there always seems to be a COP event around the corner! This one was held in Baku, Azerbaijan and as with all COPs, the host country sets the initial direction of the meeting and sets the tone. Like last year’s meeting, that means another petro-state with a dodgy human rights record was leading the charge. (Climate activist Greta Thurnberg called it “beyond absurd”. Love her or hate her – she has a point.) Nevertheless, they set the big issue for discussion as climate finance. There will be upwards of 50,000 government officials, policymakers, investors and non-state participants trying to find the best tools to finance climate action plans – especially in developing countries. They will also need to come up with a figure to replace the $100 billion (USD) in funding which was to have been reached by 2020, but never realised.

What has proved to be significant this week are those not attending. More than 100 heads of state confirmed their attendance, but as? a story from Deutsche Welle points out, the leaders of the 13 countries responsible for 70% of the world’s climate change emissions will not be on hand. Also not attending was the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea who said? the lack of action from big countries made it a waste of his time. At least most countries have sent a delegation with only Afghanistan, Armenia, and Myanmar as the only ones not sending any official representatives. ?

However as the conference continued, Argentina’s 80-member delegation received word from President Javier Milei to come back home. Milei is a climate science denier and according to news reports is Trump’s “favourite president”. Also changing his mind on attending, is France’s Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher. The decision came after host country Azerbaijan criticized France and Netherlands for their “neocolonialism” and ignoring their overseas territories most affected by climate change.

So what will this latest meeting of the minds accomplish to make it worth the emissions it took to get the 50,000 plus attendees to Baku? Scroll up a couple of paragraphs to the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea’s decision or read what some COP veterans have to say about the failed process.

While we like to think that the best climate change message is a healthier planet, there might be a message with greater resonance. It’s all about the economy. A new report commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce put a cost on climate-related extreme weather events.

The study zeroed in on 4,000 of these events between 2014 and 2023 and concluded the cost to the global economy was more that $2 trillion USD. In Canada alone, a separate study in 2022 estimated that by 2030 Canada will be facing a loss of $35 billion to our GDP because of climate change. The costs covered in the reports include damage to infrastructure, property, agriculture, and human health and subsequent ripple effects to productivity and economic instability. ?

To drive home the economic message, Consumer Reports says that a typical baby born in 2024 in the United States will face a $500,000 USD impact over the course of their lifetime? because of reduced earnings coupled with cost-of-living increases.

Apart from the immediate damage and loss of life caused by extreme weather events, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario pointed out in 2023 that public infrastructure is designed, built, and maintained to withstand a specific range of climate conditions. Those conditions are based on historical data which have changed considerably and are now overwhelming current infrastructure. The conclusion was that across “all climate scenarios” a proactive strategy carries the lowest climate related costs.?

All these estimates are fraught with problems. Extreme weather events do not affect all regions the same. The health of national economies is subject to many factors and growing economies come with more emissions which further contribute to climate change. Regional studies do not always reflect global realities which skews the predictions. A 2023 paper in Nature Communications looked at collected data from extreme weather events and the estimated global costs and concluded that most models are underestimating those costs. Ultimately says a Harvard Gazette story, mitigating climate change passes the cost-benefit test for large economies.

Maybe tweaking the messaging around climate change to put more emphasis on dollars instead of sense will bring more politicians and companies onside.?

Last week 43 monkeys escaped from a private research facility in Yemassee, South Carolina. Alpha Genesis Inc. says it provides high quality “nonhuman primate products” for researchers around the world, yet somehow a door was left unlocked which allowed these nonhuman primates to roam around the city.? (while I am in the mood for handing out Comms advice - try not to give your company a sci-fi, conspiracy sounding name). The nonhuman primates in question are rhesus macaque monkeys which have been used to for more than a hundred years as part of research into everything from vaccines to organ transplants to behavioural studies. Since the great escape, 35 of the monkeys have been captured (as of this writing).

The escapees were not part of any research that involved infectious disease and pose no threat to the public, but animal rights group have raised an interesting question. You might be surprised to learn that there is a population of “free roaming” rhesus macaques on Morgan Island in South Carolina? which were intentionally put there in 1979 as a source of animals for research. Vox magazine points out that because there are already wild monkeys in South Carolina, the remaining monkeys may have a “legal claim to freedom”. US case law also suggests that capture alone is not sufficient claim to ownership.

You may recall that back in 2012 a rhesus macaque named Darwin slipped away from its owner while they were shopping at an Ikea store in Toronto. It was suitably attired for the shopping trip with a diaper and a shearling coat. Once captured in the store, Darwin was taken away from its owner because it is illegal to own a rhesus macaque in Ontario so there was no legal claim to the animal. (The monkey was transferred to a sanctuary on Ontario and as of last year least was doing fine.)

It is not in a monkey’s best interest to be detained as a pet, but monkeys kept for research like the ones in South Carolina have a much tougher life and have been the subject of numerous campaigns by animal rights groups. Last week hundreds of macaques landed in Canada as part of a shipment from Cambodia for Charles Rivers Laboratories (CRL). People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says that 8,000 of the monkeys have been imported by the company since early 2023. CRL is not allowed to import Cambodian monkeys into its US facilities. A CTV News story reported that the market value of imported monkeys into Canada was $84.4 million in 2023 compared to $14.5 in 2022, leading to suggestions the company passes the monkeys through Canada to the US. They deny the claim.

Meanwhile the search for the South Carolina monkeys continues and has brought worldwide attention to the shipment and use of monkey in research.

Friday, November 8th was a big day in France. The eight bells in the north belfry tower at Notre-Dame cathedral rung together for the first time since the April 2019 fire. That fire broke out on April 15th at around 6:30p and was not fully out until the next morning. It burned the cathedral’s spire and most of the roof, but the main structure and Catholic relics and works of art were saved. The cathedral was already in need of work because of its age and the fire hastened the urgency of reconstruction. The final total for the work stands at about $760 million USD (around $1 billion CAD).

The reconstruction was promised to be true to the structure’s design and met many challenges when you consider that the roof alone was made of long planks of 800-year-old wood. At the time the roof was constructed in 1220, the builders needed single pieces of wood each 100 metres (328 feet) long and cut from 13,000 individual trees. Trees of that size and quantity simply do not exist any longer. This CBC story offers an inside look at the restoration work.

The ringing of the bells was a test before the official re-opening of the cathedral on December 7th and 8th. Each bell has a name - Marie, Gabriel (the heaviest at 4 tonnes), Anne Geneviève, Denis, Marcel, Beno?t-Joseph, Maurice, and Jean-Marie (the lightest at 800 kilograms) and they were rung individually before the final test. ?

The exact cause of the fire has never been determined though arson has been ruled out. The ?restoration is not 100% complete but the re-opening will go ahead as planned and you can expect massive crowds.

We have heard about how climate change has affected the Antarctic with reduced sea ice cover, retreating glaciers, fewer krill available as food for seals and whales, and changes to the distribution of penguin colonies. Despite these changes it is still pretty cold down there and not the place for a beach vacation.

90 million years ago it was quite different.

A paper published this week in Antarctic Science has revealed the first discovery of Antarctic amber. Amber is fossilized tree resin and until now had been found on every continent except Antarctica. It was not a huge find, and the media release from the Alfred Wegene Institut in Germany said that anyone expecting large clumps of amber would be disappointed. The high-quality fragments found in a core sample from a research drilling rig in 2017 however are now seen as conclusive evidence of a swampy, conifer-rich, rainforest? (Google translate will help you with this link) near the South Pole.? Temperatures at that time would have been around 20 C (68 F) with plenty of rain. Around 55 to 34 million years ago it was more boreal type forest which morphed into cold tundra with sparse vegetation, and by about 2.6 million years ago vegetation had disappeared. The cooling was caused by decreasing levels of CO2 which as we know today, traps heat and warms up the planet. Shifts in wind patterns stopped warmer air coming in and ensured that the region remained cold.

Amber has been known since around 470 BCE and was used for jewelry because of its natural beauty and colour. It has also become a curiosity as there are often insects trapped and preserved inside chunks of translucent amber. ??With the continued warming of the planet perhaps future generations will once again enjoy balmy temperatures and see resin oozing from trees while they walk around 90°S latitude. Minus the penguins and seals of course.

In the Roaring Twenties the popular song Ain’t We Got Fun was first recorded. What was true then, just become more so this month.

There's nothing clearer,

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,

In the meantime, in-bеtween time, ain't we got fun

For all the wars and conflicts taking a toll on people, the many food banks going from stop gap measures to necessities, and an ever-increasing number of weather extremes, 2024 was still a record year for billionaires. That’s 10-figure wealth if you need a reminder.

There are 142 more of them than last year for a total of 2,781 and their combined wealth is more than ever at $14.2 trillion. Most of the gains for the year came in the top 20 so they certainly got richer. These numbers come from Forbes magazine which not only keeps track of the annual numbers, but also offers a real time dashboard of the daily winners and losers in case you are wondering if you know anyone who might have struck it rich.

Canada meanwhile is in rough shape overall with only 67? making the list with a combined fortune of $316.6 billion (USD) according to CTV News.

The World Inequality Report says that the richest 10% of the global population makes 52% of global income, and the poorest of the population makes 8% of it. Those numbers are based on income, but wealth (the value of your assets) is another matter because those richest 10% control 76% of all wealth around the world.

The results of the US election tipped the scales even further when a self-proclaimed billionaire won the presidency. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows the world’s 10 wealthiest people (they are all men btw) raked in an extra $64 billion in net worth the day after the election. When The Guardian broke down the numbers, they noted that it was the largest daily increase since 2012 when the index began tracking the numbers. Elon Musk did the best while Mark Zuckerberg took an 81-million-dollar dip.

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Earlier this year their were rumours that Elon Musk was interested in a Borg-like assimilation of the Truth Social platform created in 2022 by Donald Trump, with his own platform X (the one that used to be Twitter).? With Trump’s victory aided by Musk who is now a close ally, advisor, and who has been offered a role in improving government efficiency, the rumours are back – this time with more heft. ?Well known tech journalist, author, and podcaster Kara Swisher has gone so far as predicting it would happen which she also tagged as being an “incredibly corrupt” move.? The stock value of Truth Social enjoyed a significant jump the day after the election but has since slipped back down according to Forbes. ?As Musk exerts significant influence on X and Truth Social is essentially a media outlet for Trump, the conflicts of interest are too many to go into in a single edition of this newsletter. The New York Times and Newsweek take on a few of them.

The apparent manipulation of the X algorithm by Musk has further alienated users on X, including The Guardian newspaper. Like many, I have noticed that even though I do not follow the Musk account and have muted his posts, many of them still manage to make it through. Immediately following the election, TechCrunch reported an exodus of users from X to the Bluesky platform. Earlier this week the Bluesky app was the number 2 iPhone app, up from number 27. The majority of the new users are coming from United States, Canada, and the U.K. according to Bluesky and they are claiming higher engagement numbers.

Though I still maintain my X/Twitter account I now have set myself up on Bluesky and find it remarkably like what the pre-Musk Twitter experience was. (Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is one of the people behind Bluesky)

Musk and Trump and the US election may have changed the media forever as you'll hear In this video cast from the News Agents (their podcast is one of my favourites) with guest Don Lemon.

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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.

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