SCOTUS has been horribly busy recently

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is on a roll, and things are getting scary.

Hot on the heels of last week's rancorous and attention-grabbing repeal of 50-year old Roe v Wade right-to-abortion law, the Republican-packed SCOTUS has been extremely busy repealing any number of other laws that have held sway for decades, in an apparent attempt to render the federal government powerless to improve the lot of ordinary Americans:

• It struck down a 108-year old New York state gun law that restricted the carrying of concealed firearms in public, which will probably lead to more guns on city streets at a time when America is still reeling from a slew of mass shootings.
• It has severely curbed the federal government's ability to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants, and circumscribed the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set the rules on greenhouse gas emissions, putting federal climate policy and the government's ability to meet its international climate change obligation in serious doubt (and if the EPA can't actually protect the environment, what is it supposed to do?).
• It ruled that a Washington state school board could not disallow a football coach from very publicly praying on the pitch after a game, choosing to see it as a private moment of devotion rather than a public demonstration of religious faith.
• It has narrowly upheld Joe Biden's attempts to dismantle the cruel and humane Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" immigration rule, but with a sting in the tail - the case must be sent right back to the lower court Trump-appointed judge who was responsible for willfully misunderstanding and mis-applying federal immigration law in the first place.
• It ruled that victims of excessive force by US border agents are not entitled to receive compensation, even if the excessive force contravenes constitutional rights.
• In an another attack on the legal rights of individuals, the court ruled that a "Miranda warning" (notification of a suspect's right to remain silent) is not ensured by the Fifth Amendment, and that such a warning is a police rule but not a right.
• It hasn't happened yet, but SCOTUS is due to rule on a North Carolina case that challenges the ability of a state's supreme court to block gerrymandered changes to the state's congressional and legislative maps that clearly advantages one political party (guess which one). It is being called by some, the "biggest threat to US democracy since January 6". And you just know how that one is going to go...

ALL of these cases were decided on a strict Republican vs Democrat basis, thus proving, if it were ever in any doubt, that the US's top court is now hopelessly lost in party political strife, and any legal and ethical arguments take a firm back-seat.

And, as the scariest-of-the-scary right-wing SCOTUS judges, Clarence Thomas, warns, they are just getting started. You can probably expect attacks on personal privacy, due process, same-sex relationships and marriages, access to contraception, and any number of rights and other matters that everyone thought were settled for good and all.

Toronto performs well in Sustainable Cities Index

In Corporate Knights' latest Sustainable Cities Index, my city of Toronto comes out surprisingly well, at No. 9 out of 50, with an overall grade of B. It does particularly well in the categories of Air Quality, Sustainable Policies, and Climate Change Resilience.

Of course, it is not in the same league as Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Lahti (Finland), London, Helsinki, Tokyo and Vancouver, which make up positions 1 through 8 on the Index, and earn a resounding A grade. But it's nice to think that we are not doing too badly.

Direct air carbon capture not a silver bullet for climate change

If anyone was banking on direct air carbon capture technology to save us from runaway climate change, here's a rather large slap in the face. Yes, direct air capture (DAC) works, but it is suspiciously similar to titling at windmills.

The world largest direct air carbon capture faculty, which is currently under construction by Swiss company Climeworks AG in Iceland, and nicknamed "Mammoth", will be capable of extracting 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide direct from the air each year, and deposit it safely underground (or mix it into cement, or use it to produce jet fuel or yoga mats or even fizzy drinks, as some other projects promise). 

That might sound like a lot, and it is nine times more than Climeworks' "Orca" plant, which is currently operational. But it actually represents just 0.0001% of the 36 billion tons of CO2 we as a planet spew into the atmosphere each year. Climeworks sells carbon credits to companies like Microsoft, Audi, Shopify and Boston Consulting Group, but, at €1,000 a ton, they are some of the world most expensive carbon credits (although they do look good on press releases and annual reports). I have not been able to ascertain the actual cost of the plant, other than news of a $627 million partial "funding round", but you have to know it is hugely expensive

At the scale of this (huge and extremely expensive) plant, we would need a million such plants to get us even close to net zero carbon, and that's before we start to reduce our currently unsustainable atmospheric carbon load of 420 parts per million down to a slightly more sustainable 350 ppm. A step in the right direction maybe, but such a small step as to be almost unnoticeable. Climeworks is nothing if not ambitious, and says it plans to build bigger and bigger plants, and to extract a million tons of CO2 from the air annually by 2030, and a billion by 2050.

DAC is currently having quite a cultural moment, exemplified by US President Joe Biden's recent announcement of $3.5 billion for several DAC hubs in the USA, and plans for the first truly large-scale American plant southwestern USA. The most recent Canadian federal budget announced a 60% tax credit for DAC projects. But challenges and problems still abound, including the fact that DAC plants themselves are notoriously power hungry, and not all new projects will be able to utilize Iceland's enviably prodigious geothermal resources, the way Mammoth and Orca do. 

Now, I don't like to dump all over positive news, and I understand that this would be just one plank of many in a climate change mitigation plan (no-one, other than detractors, is claiming that DAC is intended to single-handedly cure all our evils). But we do need to be practical about this, and question whether throwing this kind of money into direct air carbon capture is actually the right thing to do. It seems to me that, dollar for dollar, euro for euro, the money might be better spent on other greenhouse gas mitigation projects. 

I also worry that "negative emissions technologies" of this kind just give high-emitting companies an excuse to keep on polluting, especially given that the technology, while promising, is not guaranteed to become commercially successful. As even DAC companies admit, cutting emissions should always be our first, and overriding, priority.

The difference between Great Britain, the United Kindom and the British Isles

Speaking of Britain, I know it's something I should know as a British citizen, but I can never keep it straight in my head, so let's see if writing it down helps: the difference between Great Britain, the United Kingdom and the British Isles.

Great Britain, often shortened to GB or just Britain, is a legal and political designation that includes England, Wales and Scotland. The United Kingdom (UK) includes England, Wales and Scotland, but also Northern Ireland (in fact, the official name of the sovereign nation, what it says on my passport, is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"). The British Isles, on the other hand, is a purely geographical term with no legal or political standing, comprising England, Wales Scotland, the whole of Ireland, as well as the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey and the Isle of Man (these latter islands being Crown Dependencies).

In practice, "Britain", "Great Britain" and "the UK" are used interchangeably, even in government documents, which is why things get confusing. In most cases, it doesn't really matter that much, unless of course you are taking to an Irish person (and, increasingly, a Scot or a Welsh person, many of whom don't want to anything to do with England, Britain or the United Kingdom).

Why is Britain still bound by the European Court of Human Rights?

Britain shocked and exasperated the world (again) recently, when it announced a hare-brained plan to ship its unwanted asylum seekers to human rights-challenged Rwanda. Nothing daunted, Her Majesty's Government persisted with the plan, and would have sent its first flight of refugees to the central African country were it not for a last minute reprieve granted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which grounded the flight indefinitely. Still apparently undaunted, and despite the acute embarrassment of most of its citizens, Britain plans to appeal the ruling.

But, wait, hasn't Britain irrevocably exited the European Union? How can there ECHR still hold sway over the country?

Well, it turns out that the European Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution at all. It was established by the Council of Europe in 1950, long before tyhe EU was even a thing. As a  current member of the Council of Europe, Britain is therefore subject to the provisions and decisions of the ECHR.

The Council of Europe is a completely separate entity from the European Union, although it is often confused with it (maybe partly because the EU adopted the Council of Europe's flag for its own, and even its anthem). Britain was a founding member, along with Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Over the years, many more countries joined, and today it boasts 46 members, compared to the EU's 27, including several EU holdouts like Switzerland and Norway (even Russia was a member for a few years until it was expelled in 2022 over its invasion of Ukraine).

So, there you have it, Council of Europe. Different from European Union. Score: Europe 1, Britain 0.

The Canadian carbon offsets scheme explained

The Canadian government is introducing new legislation on carbon offsets, as part of its ongoing fight against carbon emissions and climate change, and it's complicated. The most recent episode of CBC'S What On Earth attempts to simplify, explain (and critique) it . The relevant section begins at minute 18:15 of the podcast audio, and ends at 26:30.

Industry has been given carbon intensity targets, but not all companies will be able to achieve these targets by changing their processes and actually emitting less carbon. So, as a workaround, companies can pay the federal government a fee, essentially a carbon tax, which it is hoped companies will be so averse to doing that they will renew their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint. So far, so straightforward. Not a perfect system, but certainly a step in the right direction.

Canadian companies can also now buy carbon offsets to "make up" for their continued carbon emissions. The changes are being introduced piecemeal, over a period of time, industry by industry. This month's new rules, for example, specifically target garbage landfills, which emit quantities of harmful methane. Some landfills already capture their methane emissions, but many don't. If these emitters can prove to the government that they are capturing or destroying greenhouse gases, then under the new rules they can earn an offset credit, which they can then sell to other companies that are not meeting their emissions targets. Other carbon reduction areas include planting trees, sequestering carbon in soil, direct air capture, etc.

The problem is that, while emissions can be measured, measuring and proving a REDUCTION in emissions is really hard. It can only be measured by comparing actually emissions with some hypothetical emissions that might have applied if the activity were not in force. 

The scheme also requires what is known as "additionality" - credit can only be earned for something that would not have been  done anyway, in the normal course of business. This is also hard to prove.

Also required is "permanence" - the offset can not be something that is capable of being reversed later, and, of course, it is really hard to guarantee how long a carbon reduction is going to remain in force. This is particularly an issue in the forestry sector, e.g. planted trees may later burn down, or be harvested, or be infected by an insect and die.

All of this is very much a carrot, rather than a stick, approach. It is intended, in the government's words, to provide "a market-based incentive to undertake innovative projects to reduce greenhouse gases". Arguably, direct regulation may be more effective, but the government is clearly trying to tread softly around industry and give them the chance (and the appropriate conditions, encouragement and regulatory environment) to do the right thing. Whether we have the time to take this approach is debatable. 

And, of course, the whole idea of carbon offsets is a tricky one anyway. Non-conforming wealthy companies can effectively just pay their way out of trouble, and can even increase their carbon emissions if they so choose. Arguably, offsets don't reduce emissions at all, they just balance them out between different companies and sectors. Can we afford the time to play around with this complicated stuff for so little benefit?

How do we decide what is an invasive species?

Here's an interesting discussion on just how we should define and categorize invasive species, a topic that has always been a little fraught, but is coming under increasing scrutiny as climate change affects the nature around us. As with so many other discussions, there are purists and pragmatists, and it is hard to definitively agree or disagree with either side.

The context of the article is little Small's Creek ravine, a cute but diminutive natural ravine and wetland, right here in our own neighbourhood, that has come under development pressure from a new rail line that (it is argued) Toronto desperately needs. In order to make way for a new retaining wall for the expanded GO Transit Lakeshore East line, Metrolinx has recently cut down hundreds of mature trees, an act that many local people and environmentalists have loudly criticized.

As part of their justification, Metrolinx claims that, "268 trees were identified for removal, and of those, 206 were invasive species", mainly Norway maples and Manitoba maples. Most people applaud efforts to get rid of invasive plants like garlic mustard, dog-strangling vine, European phragmites, giant hogweed, etc, that are rapidly taking over our parks and even our wilder areas, even though these efforts seem doomed to failure in the long term. But when it comes to trees, the issue seems less clear-cut (sic!)

No-one denies that non-native species represent a threat to local native species, whicb may not be able to compete. But such is life: survival of the fittest, and all that. If we applied the same kind of purity test to human migration, we would be accused of xenophobia and racism, even eugenics. Is it justifiable to apply the same lens to our natural environment?

And just because Manitoba maples are native to Manitoba not Ontario, does that make them totally unwelcome here? As global warming (heating) takes hold and our climate changes, some species that are historically native are finding it increasingly hard to survive in their ancestral homelands. Other species, which may be more resilient or more used to warmer/wetter/drier conditions, may be better adapted to thrive in a particular area. Is it so wrong to allow them to? Many species - from deer to lobsters to armadillos to maple trees - are on the move ("range-shifting" or "climate-tracking") as climate change accelerates and habitats change. Do we have to protect EVERY last native species, even when the climate writing is quite clearly on the wall? 

And what constitutes "native" anyway? Our natural environment has always been in a state of flux, and species come and go with alarming regularity over longer time periods. Should "native" mean species that were around in the 1800s? At the time of European settlement? A thousand years ago? Ten thousand? Should we only protect those species that are at risk specifically from human development? What about those that are only locally at risk, but are thriving elsewhere in Canada (or in the world)? Is the ecosystem that results from invasive species necessarily inferior to the old one, or just different? Who are we to say? These are knotty problems, with no single, definitive answer.

As the article (and other similar articles, like this one in Vox) points out, many biologists and Indigenous land stewards are starting to question the conventional wisdom on native and invasive species. Many scientists see habitat shift as a good and necessary thing, and not all non-native species become problematic (some may even be beneficial). There is also a recognition among some that Norway maples and Manitoba maples and invasive plants like buckthorn still provide shade, clean air and soil protection, and help out cities deal with climate change and carbon concentrations. And if they grow better than historically local plants, then maybe that is how it is meant to be. And we do, after all, need railway lines (and even new housing).

The idea of "invasion" and "invasiveness" has been a defining paradigm in environmental management and policy for decades now, and is ingrained in the consciousness of the general public, as well as many scientists. But that, like the climate, may be changing.

Your target body temperature may be wrong

If, like me, you have always taken 37°C (98.6°F) to be the human body's average, and therefore target, temperature, you may have been labouring under a misapprehension.

The widely-used 37°C metric actually dates back to 1850, when a German physician took a survey of the armpit temperatures of 10,000 people. However, back in the 19th century, people typically had poor hygiene, low life expectancy, and chronic diseases like TB and autoimmune conditions were rife, all of which resulted in a slightly higher body temperature. As we have become generally healthier over the last 170 years, our average body temperature has also fallen.

A new study of 100,000 individuals by a Dutch doctor suggests that a better guide to average body temperatures would be 36.4°C (97.5°F), and even this is falling by about 0.03°C (0.05°F) each decade that passes. This also has implications for the clinical definition of fever, which is usually taken to be 38.4°C (101°F).

It should also be noted that body temperatures naturally change throughout the day, with night and morning temperatures lower than evening temperatures. Also, menstruating women tend to have higher temperatures, older people tend to have lower temperatures, etc, so this is not a very exact science.