How Do You Wash Your Hands When There's No Water?

Handwashing is a lifesaver. As we are being reminded constantly in these days of pandemic, thorough handwashing with soap and water is one of the most effective barriers to the spread of disease.

Unfortunately, according to the UN, 40 percent of humanity are without basic handwashing facilities, i.e. soap and water available at home. And not only at home. Almost half of schools around the world lack handwashing facilities. A third of schools worldwide and half of schools in the least developed countries have no place for children to wash their hands at all. Even health facilities often lack proper hand hygiene due to a lack of water.

Consider, for example, the Central American Dry Corridor, the tropical dry forest region that runs along the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Panama. The region has suffered five straight years of drought as the climate becomes hotter and drier. According to Dr. Claudia Morales, a doctor at El Carmen hospital in Honduras, “Sometimes we run out of water and we have to buy some. Other times we can’t buy any.” Dr. Morales said the hospital has been forced to ration water for the last four years.

The idea of hospitals suffering water shortages that preclude proper hygiene is frightening. The thought of 40 percent of the world's population denied the most basic protection against disease as the pandemic descends upon them is horrifying.

Back to the 30s?

“We are facing a period of profound adversity unlike any we have since the 1930s,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said last week. The premier was referring to the province's economy which has, like the rest of the country, indeed like the rest of the world, been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. Unlike the rest of the country, however, Alberta's major industry was already tanking before the meat market in Wuhan launched the bug.

Strolling down 17th Avenue in the Beltline—the high street of Calgary's most vibrant neighbourhood—I do indeed witness intimations of the 30s. Its normally bustling shops, pubs, restaurants and coffee shops are disturbingly quiet, many closed. The scene causes a twinge of guilt. I have reluctantly given up my usual afternoon coffee and pastry or lunch, one of the highlights of my day. By depriving these shops of my business I am contributing to the suffering of their small business owners and their minimum-wage staff. But what can I do—the pandemic is upon us and social distancing is de rigueur.

The other day a friend and I were discussing how in our lifetimes society had consistently improved, and now in our dotage it seems to be reversing. And it's not just cranky old age. We aren't imagining Donald Trump, Brexit and the taint off fascism in the political air.

Harking back to the 30s struck a particular chord with me. I was born in Saskatchewan in 1934, in the heart of the Great Depression. That's where I came in. Is that where I'll go out?

Early in the 20th century, Saskatchewan was a province of exceptional promise. Here was the country's breadbasket with vast expanses of agricultural soil among the richest in the world. Then came the 1930s bringing depression, drought and plagues of grasshoppers. Wheat prices collapsed and the fertile land began to blow away. That was the Saskatchewan I was born into. Now here I am in Alberta 85 years later and this province, lately the richest in the federation, watches the price of its major product collapse and waits for its leading industry to dry up and blow away.

I could be pessimistic, wondering if hard times just have a thing for the Prairies. Yet I cannot overlook the fact that the "Dirty Thirties" catalyzed the rise of left-wing social movements on the Prairies, particularly the CCF (forerunner of the NDP), that ultimately resulted in great social progress including Medicare, the jewel in the crown of the welfare state. Perhaps this round of hard times will lead to another social awakening.

A Silver Lining to COVID-19?

As an optimist I tend to look for silver linings in the darker clouds. The other day I read an article saying some Italians remarked that they could finally hear birds sing and see blue skies as a result of the decline of industrial activity caused by COVID-19. Something good at least had come out of the pandemic. Of course, for the cynics, there was also an unintended message, i.e. the Earth would be a lot better place without human beings to muck it up, including causing monster viruses.

But back to the silver lining. Among the things the bug has shown us, two could have positive outcomes. One, we are seeing the interconnectedness of all of us. We are truly a global society. And two, our global society is a lot more vulnerable than we might like to think. The interconnectedness has been illustrated by the speed with which the virus traversed the globe, confirmed by the desperation with which we try to stop it. The vulnerability has been illustrated by how just one minuscule bug can fracture our society while seriously undermining our health and our economy. Is it possible that these two lessons could wake more people up to the climate crisis?

After all, global warming is ultimately a far more serious threat than COVID-19. Our need to recognize the vulnerability of global society and to act collectively is therefore also far greater. Global warming, too, can spread disease. And it has many more dirty tricks up its sleeve: more frequent and more intense fires, storms and droughts; rising sea levels with massive flooding of cities and even countries; the melting of glaciers with the consequent exhaustion of water supplies; the acidification of the oceans and the death of the world’s coral reefs; disruption of ocean currents ironically creating another ice age in Wesstern Europe; and so on ... and so on. Global warming could even become irreversible and then it's a countdown until planet Earth is uninhabitable for Homo sapiens.

This cascade of catastrophes is heading our way—or is upon us now. Will this nasty little bug wake up enough skeptics and deniers such that humanity will do what is necessary to avoid the apocalypse? We really shouldn’t need a wave of suffering and death to alert us to the need to save ourselves from ourselves, but the evidence convinces even my optimist self that we probably do. If the virus does this it will truly have brought a silver lining along with the misery.

Oil Capitals Hunker Down

To Calgarians, the city is starting to feel like a punching bag. Its primary industry suffers one body blow after another. Oil prices crashed at the end of 2014 as surprising growth in U.S. shale production boosted supply while OPEC refused to cut its output. Major investment firms, finally recognizing climate change, have been turning away from oil one after another. Teck Resources decided earlier this year to abandon its proposed Frontier tar sands mine. And now a double blow: the COVID-19 bug has dramatically reduced oil demand while Russia and OPEC end their production alliance and engage in a price war. One punch in the face after another leaves the oil capital of Canada reeling.

The degree of the assault is a surprise but the assault itself shouldn't have been. What is more surprising is that North America's other oil capital—Houston—is also taking a beating. After all, Texas is the home of the Permian Basin, a major producer of shale oil, the very product that has largely undone tar sands oil while doubling U.S. production in under a decade and making that country the world's largest producer. But of course the drop in prices brought on by that surge in supply has hit shale oil as well. And now the climate change and  COVID-19 effects and the Russia-OPEC price war are further hammering the shale oil business. And hammering Houston. The oil industry drives a third of the city’s GDP and directly employs a quarter-million workers. Shale oil producers, like tar sands producers, can't make money when crude sells at $31 per barrel.

Bobby Tudor, chairman of the Greater Houston Partnership, warned recently “The oil and gas business is not likely to be the same engine for Houston’s growth over the next 25 years that it’s been in the past 25 years,” and went on to add how climate change has put  the oil industry “out of favor at the moment, in most every corner of the investing and political world.” Familiar words to Calgarians.

Oil and gas aren’t going away overnight, but the handwriting is on the wall. Ninety-five percent of new capacity being added to the Texas grid is solar, wind or storage.

Both capitals ponder their futures as they struggle with their finances. Both talk about diversification, tossing around words like data science, software engineering, innovation centers and other greener industries. Both cities are well-educated and entrepreneurial so the potential is there. The early cultures of the two cities was Western. A trace of nostalgia remains in both cities illustrated by a certain penchant for cowboy boots and Stetson hats. It's now time for the boots and hats to mosey on down to greener pastures.

The Baby Boosters

According to the Worldometer (the world population clock), at 12:22 p.m. today the planet's population of Homo sapiens was 7,769,974,138 with a net gain (births over deaths) of 114,862 so far this morning. You might think this was more than enough of us, given that we are multiplying on the Earth like a fungus, devouring its resources.

But to some it seems there is never enough of our kind. “Give birth!” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared recently. “Every woman is to have six children! Every one! For the good of the country!” This from a man who has run his nation into utter dysfunction. Hospitals are barely functioning, women can't breastfeed properly because they are malnourished, and baby formula is unaffordable. But breed on, ladies. Perhaps he is just trying to replace Venezuelans faster than they can flee his corrupt, incompetent regime. So far about 4.5 million have fled.

In Hungary, President Orban offers IVF clinics, generous loans for couples who promise to procreate, and lifetime income tax exemptions for having four or more children, in order to encourage Hungarians to multiply.

Countries across Europe and other developed nations are instituting baby bonuses as their fertility rates decline. As Katalin Novak, Hungary’s minister of state for family, youth and international affairs, puts it, “Europe has become the continent of the empty crib.” In Eastern and Southern Europe, the declining rates are aggravated by young people seeking greener pastures elsewhere. These countries have legitimate worries about the economic ramifications of aging populations, but there is of course no shortage of young, industrious workers in the world. They are called immigrants and literally millions are desperately looking for places to make a fresh start.

But the repopulation is about much more than economics. It's also about building up the tribe. Vladimir Putin declares, “Russia’s fate and its historic prospects depend on how many of us there are … it depends on how many children are born in Russian families.” Putin, Orban et al. don't want people; they want racially correct people. It becomes some kind of population race.

It is one thing to provide children's benefits to assist lower income families, such as our Canada Child Benefit, but promoting population growth for growth's sake on a planet already swarming with excessive humanity is not just foolish, it's unsustainable and potentially suicidal.

The Cartel Still Rules ... Sort of

It isn't easy to convince nominally free-market Albertans that monopoly and government interference in the market made us rich, but of course they did. Nothing has contributed more to the province's coffers than OPEC, the oil-producing countries' cartel. OPEC's control of supply has kept oil prices well above what a free market would provide and that has kept Alberta's oil economically viable and made the province rich. It's fair to say that without OPEC there would never have been a tar sands industry.

Of course, the cartel's clout isn't what it was. It now controls only about 40 percent of the world oil market unlike the early '70s when it controlled 70 percent and first realized its monopoly power. Nonetheless, it still has muscle, particularly when it allies with another major producer. For the last three years it has teamed up with Russia to constrain supply and keep prices up. However that arrangement collapsed acrimoniously on Friday when Moscow refused to support deeper cuts to cope with the drop in demand caused by the coronavirus. OPEC answered by unleashing it own production. Oil prices have dropped accordingly.

Canada's oil patch is bracing for what Judith Dwarkin, chief economist at RS Energy Group, is calling a "toxic recipe" for prices. With the coronavirus effect and now OPEC freeing up supply, things are not looking good. Incentive to invest in oil declines even further. Can bankruptcies be far behind?

Do not be surprised if Jason Kenney blames both the coronavirus and the collapse of the Russia-OPEC deal on the diabolical machinations of the Prime Minister. Justin will stop at nothing.

On the Subject of Pandemics

The illness and death toll from the coronavirus, or COVID-19 as it is now known, steadily advances. As I write, the bug has sickened over 95,000 people and killed over 3,300, mostly in China. It still has a long way to go to match the flu which annually takes hundreds of thousands of lives globally, 3,500 on average in Canada alone. But both pale by comparison to the villain discussed in an article published by the European Society of Cardiology entitled "The world faces an air pollution ‘pandemic.’"

According to recent research by the Max Planck Institute, global air pollution caused an extra 8.8 million premature deaths in 2015, more than HIV/AIDS, parasitic and vector-born diseases such as malaria, and all forms of violence, including wars, combined. Even more than smoking (7.2 million deaths).

The researchers looked at the effect of air pollution on six categories of disease, including lung cancer, heart disease, and other non-communicable diseases including conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. They distinguished between human-made air pollution and pollution from natural sources such as desert dust and wildfire emissions. About two-thirds of the premature deaths are caused by human-made air pollution, mainly from fossil fuels. Five and a half million deaths a year potentially avoidable.

No viral diseases are as guilty. The bugs are nasty but by far the worst damage done to us we do ourselves. And perhaps first among our instruments of mischief are fossil fuels.

Is Kenney Coming After Our Pensions?

Premier Jason Kenney, ardent free market conservative, has started sounding a little like Peter Lougheed, a former premier with more progressive conservative leanings. Indeed Lougheed was once labelled "Peter the Red" by B.C. Premier Dave Barrett after he bought Alberta an airline. Lougheed never hesitated to dive into socialism when he saw an advantage for Alberta. In 1973 he established the Alberta Energy Company (AEC) to be owned equally by private shareholders and the Alberta government. It is Lougheed's AEC that has caught Kenney's eye.

And that's not all that has caught his eye. He is also gathering up civil servants' pensions under the umbrella of the government-owned Alberta Investment Management Company (AIMCo). The government has announced that the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund as well as funds managed by Alberta Health Services and the Workers’ Compensation Board are to be turned over to AIMCo for investment management.

Three other plans have also attracted government attention. The Local Authorities Pension Plan (LAPP), the Public Service Pension Plan (PSPP) and the Special Forces Pension Plan (SFPP) had recently become independent of government, to be equally managed by employers and union reps. This change, long sought by public workers, was introduced in legislation by the former NDP government. The change gave over 351,000 public sector employees, including government and municipal employees, health-care workers, firefighters and police officers, joint control of their pension funds.

The new government has now restored government control. It has mandated AIMCo as permanent investment manager with no discretion for the plans to make changes. Boards of directors, currently appointed by the sponsor groups, will henceforth be appointed by government.

And not only Alberta pension plans are under scrutiny. One of the items being examined by the province’s “Fair Deal” panel is Alberta taking control of its share of the Canada Pension Plan. A separate Alberta pension plan could then also be tucked into the warm embrace of AIMCo.

Kenney's pension-grabbing may stem from a concern about where future oil investment is going to come from. His concern is well-founded. Major investment institutions such as BlackRock and J.P. Morgan are making environmental concerns central to their investment strategies. Even Norway's massive sovereign wealth fund, which was built by oil revenues, is ditching its tar sands portfolio. Foreign oil corporations have been selling off tar sands assets to Canadian companies. Apparently even U.S. shale drillers, who have been leading a phenomenal growth in oil production, are now seeing the money pipeline drying up.

If the premier's plan is to open up a pipeline with our security blanket, we pensioners (I am a member and beneficiary of the LAPP) have great cause for worry. AIMCo is committed to its fiduciary duty to act solely in the best interests of the members, but the AIMCo Act explicitly states that it must follow directives issued by the Treasury Board. Presumably that includes directives aiming investment at tar sands mines. What irony for me, a long-time advocate of strong action on climate change, if my pension fund were used to fuel global warming.

Justifying Lougheed's decision, Kenney stated, “The Toronto banks and the foreign funds, they weren’t going to go there. A lack of access of capital was met by bold leadership and public participation.” Well, they aren’t going there today, either, but for very different reasons. As Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid put it, "The earlier premier was launching an energy economy with infinite prospects. Kenney is trying to preserve it." Bold leadership today is moving away from fossil fuels, not desperately clinging to the past.