Juggling Dynamite

This month the World Health Assembly elects the next Director-General of the World Health Organization(WHO) and over 200 experts in health, medicine, biology, policy and climate research have signed a letter urging the WHO to acknowledge that factory farming of animals is a major impediment to the health of not just the animals and our planet, but global human health.   The letter (which you can read in full here) includes a series of policy recommendations:

• • • Ban the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in animal farming and provide incentives to meat producers to dispose of antibiotics and animal waste in ways that prevent environmental contamination.
    • Stop subsidizing factory farming.
    • Adopt nutrition standards and implement education campaigns that warn of the health risks of meat consumption.
    • Finance research into plant-based alternatives to meat.

  See: 200 Health and science experts have powerful message about factory farming.

• The most powerful thing individuals can do to be part of the solution?  Stop buying the products that come from animal factory farming.  In general that means avoiding fast, big box, mass produced food.  It’s pretty simple.

Housing with related finance and spending have driven some 84% of Canadian GDP over the past 7 years, as prices leapt and domestic buyers prostrated themselves on credit.  By province, the impacts were greatest in the largest growth centers–BC and Ontario–as shown here.  However as Alberta and Saskatchewan are now discovering, what debt fueled frenzies give, they also take back in the mean reversion period.  More payback is coming.

Meanwhile, as more information is revealed in the Home Capital story, there is more evidence of industry wide fraud, reckless practices and wilful blindness by institutions and regulators alike.  See In Home Capital’s Mortgage Mess: blame the “unlucky” brokers:

Between 2013 and 2016, suspected instances of fraud among mortgage brokers jumped 52 percent in 2016 from five years prior, according to Equifax, a consumer credit and research firm. Nearly two-thirds were from Ontario.

While insiders apparently call the brokers who got caught submitting fraudulent information not criminals but just “unlucky brokers”, in truth it is the Canadian economy and taxpayers who will end up paying for this dark chapter of rampant speculation and credit abuse.  While some are downplaying the risks by saying defaults are still low, we should consider that the country is not yet back in recession, and the stock market has not yet entered the next bear market.  Once that gets underway, as in 2008-09 and 2001-02, we will discover where all the debt bombs are buried.  Only Canada got off light in the last two global downturns, this time, we are unlikely to be so “lucky”.

Many people are aware we need to clean up the oceans.  Some are moving ahead with doing so.   See: A billionaire is giving away his fortune to clean up the oceans.

And also: A 22 year old raised 30 million for ocean clean up project.

The Ocean Cleanup uses a boom to capture plastic and keep it in areas where a boat can come and periodically pick it up. The pipe moves with the waves and uses floating anchors. Critics are skeptical of the system’s compatibility with the extreme forces of the ocean and its potential impact on ocean life.

The system should be fully deployed in 2018. $30 million has been raised for the cleanup.  Here is a direct video link.

As soon as we acknowledge that billions are needed to clean up the mess, it focuses thinking on who should be bearing the costs for doing so.  The answer is those who make the profits producing and filling the packaging. This will realign all business models to account for the waste they produce and encourage smarter, cost-effective solutions.  As in the old days, if we use packaging to sell our products, we have to responsible for collecting, reusing and recycling it.  You produce it, you own it.  This will also naturally encourage biodegradable and minimal packaging solutions.  All smarter than the current approach.