Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mandi Baker, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, University of Manitoba

The new year starts for many by making resolutions to live healthier lives. This can mean getting fitter by joining a gym, signing up to Pilates classes or starting a new diet.

For many, these resolutions are hard to maintain and the new habits slip away. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why our best intentions fail; the kids get sick so you can’t get out for a class, the costs of equipment or membership become too steep, and kale just isn’t cutting it for dinner anymore. In the end, motivation for our new habits runs out.

---

Read more:
The science behind building healthy habits can help you keep your New Year’s resolution

---

When we choose activities for our leisure that do not bring intrinsic enjoyment and/or satisfaction, we find it hard to preserve. External motivations, like gaining a reward (a particular body shape) or avoiding a consequence (minimizing the risks related to heart health), can only take us so far.

When we do things that we truly love, that are aligned with our values and/or sense of self, or we would do even if no one was watching, then the chances of maintaining those physical activities are much higher. That means the goal of resolution-setting is to find the things that tap into our intrinsic motivations.

How we frame health

Another challenge to sticking with new health-related habits, is the very individual way that health is framed. Health is positioned as being not only an individual’s responsibility, but that the individual is to blame if they are unwell. While the medical model serves a purpose in identifying problems and addressing them, applying a deficiency-model rationality obscures critical awareness about the complex and many ways that social factors impact health.

Social models of health, such as The Social Determinants of Health by Dahlgreen & Whitehead (1991), demonstrate that not only do our physiology, lifestyle choices, social and community networks matter, but socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions do too. This shifts the responsibilities for health away from loading individuals up on guilt to shared collective responsibilities among all strata of community, government and institutions for a population’s health.

The notion that health is an individual problem, or deficiency, can be isolating, making the work of an individual’s wellness goals an effort that they feel they must do alone, and against broad systemic constraints.

Sociologists have long warned us of how these ideas, among others, lead us to think and treat ourselves poorly when it comes to moving our (fabulous and functional) bodies. Blaming ourselves or seeing physical activity, fitness and health as beyond our reach is both demoralizing and demotivating. Let alone added layers of social, economic, geographical and political inequities. This can be as heavy, if not heavier, than anything you might “lift” at the gym.

Getting physically active

Getting physically active for the first time, or after years, or only after the holidays means exercising your mental prowess. This list offers some insights into how to do the mental exercise to get your body moving and enjoying it:

• Be in your body: be embodied. Often made popular by mindfulness movements, the idea is to slow down your sophisticated mental processing to focus on your five senses and simply be in the moment. This teaches our nervous systems to take a break from processing stressful stimulus.

• Get active for no other reason than to enjoy yourself! Leisure theory tells us that seeking external rewards can make free time feel like work. Look for physical activity that brings you joy — make it the thing you look forward to rather than dread.

• Focus on what your body can DO rather than how it looks. Views of beautiful, attractive or healthy bodies constantly change. Focusing on what your body can and does do (a strengths-based approach to vitality) can be a subtle yet powerful mental shift to improve your quality of life.

• Find your activity people. Get active with people who share your philosophies about health. Find supportive people who don’t judge, who understand motivation’s ups and downs, who acknowledge that bodies come in different shapes and sizes AND that bodies are capable and beautiful things of joy.

• Get outside. Science tells us that heart rates and worrying (anxiety, depression and rumination) come down when spending just a little time in nature. No need for remote corners of the Earth — just a walk down the street can make a big difference.

Engaging in physical activities that are joy-filled is not only a pleasure but can be a political act of hopefulness and self-respect. It acts to resist social norms about individuating discourses about health and associated assumptions of body shape, size and fitness.

Celebrating bodies in their diversity, getting out and enjoying movement, representing that healthy bodies are diverse and getting active with friends can all be political acts that celebrate countercultural ideas about health.

Movin’ and groovin’ with friends celebrates community and the value-altering, motivational shift of joy-filled embodiment and physical activity.
This subtle shift in thinking, and moving, could be the puzzle piece you’ve been missing for maintaining healthy habits.

Mandi Baker receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and has received funding from summer camps organisations and government bodies such as the Departments of Jobs, Precincts and Regions in Victoria, Australia, the Australian Camps Association and the YMCA Camps Victoria, Australia. She is affiliated with the Canadian Camps Association, the American Camp Association and Outward Bound Vietnam.

– ref. Your new health habit may be just a mental shift away – https://theconversation.com/your-new-health-habit-may-be-just-a-mental-shift-away-271923

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hetty Roessingh, Professor, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary

The Alberta government recently introduced Bill 6, a proposed amendment to the Education Act, that it says will “prioritize literacy and numeracy and ensure the province’s youngest learners receive the help they need as early as possible.”

Large classes with students who have a range of learning needs, including tailored learning plans, are among the factors that can make it difficult for teachers to ensure each child’s needs are being met. Implementing early literacy and numeracy tests with the intent of early intervention for at risk learners has intuitive appeal.

If passed, Alberta’s Bill 6 legislation would mandate reading and math tests from kindergarten to Grade 3, effective by fall 2026. According to ministry officials, its goal is to identify learning gaps early using short, simple and non-graded activities.

The announcement has received swift and forceful reaction from academics, the Alberta Teachers’ Association and senior-level school administrators.

Their concerns relate to the validity and reliability of the tests, how they were developed and their instructional value. Critics also raise concerns over the lack of teacher consultation and involvement, additional time teachers will need to administer and score the tests and whether the test results will change teaching and learning practices.

Questions also remain about whether schools will need additional resources to address learning gaps identified by way of the tests, since the bill doesn’t include any mention of this. The $11 million dollar pricetag of Bill 6 may not reap the insights needed to identify and meaningfully intervene for young children at risk.

Why early literacy matters

The testing proposed in Bill 6 misses important dimensions of literacy development. Early reading proficiency depends largely on two skills: phonemic awareness (the awareness to notice and work with different sounds) and phonics (mapping sounds to letters).

These foundational concepts and skills are learned by the majority of young children by the end of Grade 2, including English language learners (ELL) and children disadvantaged by socio-economic status. Exposure to two languages may heighten ELLs’ keen perception of sounds, helping them to apply their knowledge of how letters and their sounds relate and different letter patterns to correctly pronounce written words.

A learning-to-read school book I had as a child, Friends and Neighbours, is still on my bookshelf. As a newly arrived immigrant to Canada at age four from Indonesia, I was relatively proficient in conversational English by Grade 2. I learned the process of reading, including how to sound out letters and their English language patterns, by drawing on the vocabulary I developed and by interacting with native English-speaking children in the neighbourhood, on the playground and in the classroom.

However, a child’s strengths in recognizing and working with the sounds that make up individual words — phonemic awareness and phonics — may provide a false sense of security. These strengths can mask the needs of children at risk of reading failure as they transition to Grade 4, when the focus shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. At this stage, vocabulary knowledge becomes critical.

Beginning in Grade 4, the litmus of reading success is a child’s ability to comprehend increasingly complex and academically demanding texts. The testing proposed in Bill 6 misses the important role of vocabulary knowledge in this process.

The fourth-grade slump

The well-documented “fourth-grade slump” refers to the drop in reading performance many students experience around Grade 4. Children must shift from learning to read to reading to learn — a shift that is dependent on vocabulary depth and breadth.

A seminal 2003 study from researchers Jeanne S. Chall and Vicki A. Jacobs underscored the crucial role of vocabulary knowledge in reading success in Grade 4. They found that disadvantaged learners in Grades 2 and 3 scored as well as peer learners from higher socio-economic backgrounds.

At this early stage of reading development, phonemic awareness and phonics provides an important foundation for learners. The researchers found that it is not until Grade 4 that scores decelerate for children from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Without attention to vocabulary knowledge, young children may find themselves woefully under-prepared for the accelerating demands of Grade 4.

What Bill 6 overlooks

Given decades of research on reading development, Bill 6’s current focus is too narrow and offers only limited utility in early identification of young learners who will be at risk by Grade 4. Most children readily learn these skills already. The relative minority who struggle with these skills respond well to direct, explicit and intensive interventions.

To support students effectively, Alberta must measure vocabulary knowledge among young children. In addition, handwriting should also be assessed. Handwriting plays an enormous role in unlocking vocabulary in Grade 3, and as a skill, unfolds from kindergarten to Grade 3 years along a developmental continuum.

Devising tools to assess vocabulary and handwriting is more than a matter of short, simple and non-graded activities. More comprehensive assessments, such as studying samples of children’s writing on a familiar and engaging topic, would provide much more useful data for transforming classroom pedagogy and practice.

Such assessments would take more time to administer and score, but they would be a far better use of $11 million than narrow assessments that capture only the tip of the iceberg of what matters for long-term literacy success.

Hetty Roessingh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Alberta’s proposed $11-million reading tests won’t actually help struggling learners – https://theconversation.com/albertas-proposed-11-million-reading-tests-wont-actually-help-struggling-learners-269791

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Igor Grossmann, Professor of Psychology, University of Waterloo

It’s that time of year when the internet turns into a giant group chat about self-improvement. New year, new you. Better habits. Better boundaries. A year older, and maybe wiser.

Right on cue, the wisdom hucksters appear. They are the “one weird trick” crowd — the gurus with a microphone, a smirk and a promise of instant ascendance if you just buy the book, sign up for the training program, use their AI tool or subscribe to their Substack.

But there is no “enlightenment pill” that works overnight and never wears off. The evidence points the other direction: wisdom isn’t a permanent halo you wear. It’s a set of mental processes you can practise — and lose — depending on whether it’s a calm Tuesday or a stressful Sunday.

To understand why we often fail to be wise when we need it most, we must stop treating wisdom like a fixed personality trait.

What is wisdom?

In modern psychology, wisdom isn’t an ethereal, mystical quality. It’s made of specific metacognitive skills — mental processes that help us navigate the crazy uncertain world we live in.
These include:

• Intellectual humility: Admitting you could be wrong or that your knowledge is limited.

• Recognition of uncertainty: Understanding that situations can unfold in many different ways.

• Consideration of diverse viewpoints: The ability to see how a situation looks from another side.

• Integration and compromise: Searching for solutions that balance competing interests rather than just scoring points.

These mental processes are ways of thinking that matter when life gets messy — whether dealing with interpersonal conflict, political disagreement or financial challenges. But here is where the “magic pill” story starts to collapse.

Wisdom isn’t a fixed personality trait

If you have ever successfully navigated a complex political disagreement at work on a Thursday, only to lose your temper over a broken dishwasher on a Sunday, you know that wisdom doesn’t work like a software update.

For a long time, psychologists treated wisdom as a stable personality trait, as something you have, like blue eyes or extraversion. The assumption is that if you measure a person once, you’ve basically captured who they are.

But major scientific advances, including a new yearlong study our team just conducted, suggest that this is exactly where the culture goes wrong.

We often use static snapshots to make big claims about how people change over time. This practice risks committing an “ecological fallacy,” which is the trap of assuming that what makes one person different from another (between-person differences) explains how a single person changes over time (within-person change).

Translation: Just because “wiser people” on average are doing better doesn’t mean each individual becomes wiser in the same way, on the same timeline or for the same reasons.

New research: Wisdom acts like a system

To test this idea, our team conducted a year-long, multi-wave study of nearly 500 North American adults. The results recently appeared in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

We asked participants to reflect on real adversities — social conflicts, health scares, job losses — as they occurred over the course of a year.

Participants rated their use of four core wisdom features: intellectual humility, recognizing uncertainty and change, consideration of diverse viewpoints and searching for compromise.

The headline results are disruptive for anyone selling instant transformation.

First, wisdom fluctuates. While personality traits like extraversion or neuroticism remained stable, wisdom features fluctuated significantly from moment to moment. You can be wise on Thursday and a fool on Sunday.

Second, it’s a network, not a monolith. We found that wisdom is best modelled as a network of loosely interconnected skills rather than a single underlying “wisdom trait.”

Third, context matters. People were generally wiser when reflecting on social conflicts than when dealing with personal health issues or trauma.

Most importantly, we found that patterns between people didn’t match patterns within individuals over time. What predicts who is generally wiser doesn’t necessarily predict how individuals become wiser.

Therefore, if you’ve ever thought to yourself “I know what the wise thing is… why can’t I do it when I’m emotional?” — congratulations! Your lived experience is more scientifically accurate than half the pop-science advice market.

The good news about wisdom

If wisdom isn’t an update you install, is there anything you can actually do?

Yes. In our yearlong study, we found a specific predictor of growth. When people reported higher-than-usual self-distancing at one point in time, they reported higher levels of wisdom-related features three months later.

In other words, when people step back and view a difficult situation from a third-person perspective, they are more likely to reason wisely in the future, including by practising intellectual humility, searching for compromise and recognizing uncertainty and change.

That finding is correlational. But in a separate experiment published in Psychological Science, we tested whether training in distanced reflection changes wise reasoning.

For one month, participants kept a daily diary about the most important issues of the day. One group wrote typically (first-person), while the other group was trained to write about their daily challenges using the third-person (for example, asking “What did Chris feel?” rather than “What did I feel?”).

The result? The group trained in distanced reflection showed significant increases in wise reasoning about interpersonal challenges compared with the control group. This shift in language helped broaden their self-focus, breaking the egocentric cycle that often blocks wisdom.

How to practise wisdom (no app required)

So, what do you do practically when life gets heated? Based on this research, here’s a toolkit of repeatable practices for spiralling arguments, regrets or looming decisions in the year ahead:

1. Practise self-distancing. Instead of asking “Why am I like this?” try asking “What is [Your Name] missing right now?” It might feel awkward, but it helps with your mental geometry: you are widening the frame.

2. Ask the humility question. Ask yourself: “What would change my mind here?” If the answer is “nothing,” you aren’t reasoning but defending a position.

3. Allow two truths to coexist. Wisdom is rarely a knockout punch; it is usually an integration. Ask: “What is true on my side, and what might be true on theirs?”

Will this make you instantly wise forever? No. That’s the point. Wisdom is closer to physical fitness than a magic pill: it is trainable, context-dependent and annoyingly easy to lose when you’re tired, stressed or flooded with emotion.

The more evidence we gather, the clearer the message: if someone is promising enlightenment now, they aren’t teaching wisdom. They are selling false certainty. And certainty is often the opposite of what wisdom requires.

Igor Grossmann receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight Grant 435-2014-0685), John Templeton Foundation (grant 62260), and Templeton World Charity Foundation (grant TWCF-2023-32568).

Jackson A. Smith receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) through the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

– ref. Why you’re wise on Tuesday and foolish on Sunday: Practising wisdom in uncertain times – https://theconversation.com/why-youre-wise-on-tuesday-and-foolish-on-sunday-practising-wisdom-in-uncertain-times-272230

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Leda Stawnychko, Associate Professor of Strategy and Organizational Theory, Mount Royal University

As the new year starts, it’s natural to feel torn between gratitude and restlessness. December often disrupts routines: fewer meetings, quieter inboxes and a rare chance to take stock and reflect.

During this time, people may feel pride in how far they have come, alongside a growing sense that the path they are on no longer fits.

This discomfort is especially common at stages of life when professionals expect to feel more settled, yet instead feel stagnant. It’s easy to dismiss such feelings as impatience or a lack of commitment.

But research on adult learning and development suggests that feeling stuck is often a signal of growth. It’s evidence that our internal development has outpaced our external circumstances.

In educational research, this tension is often described as a disorienting dilemma: an experience that unsettles our assumptions and highlights a mismatch between how we see ourselves and the contexts we are in.

While these moments are often uncomfortable, they act as necessary catalysts for meaningful learning and change, motivating people to reassess their goals, values and direction. Seen this way, yearning for new beginnings is a rational response to growth.

Diagnosing the source of restlessness

If you’re ready for change but unsure of where to begin, a useful first step is clarifying what is driving the sense of restlessness. Is it the work itself, the people you work with or the broader organizational culture?

When organizations are generally supportive, growth doesn’t necessarily require leaving. Change may be possible within the same environment. In these cases, conversations with supervisors can reveal opportunities that are not immediately obvious, such as stretch assignments, special projects or support for further learning.

Research shows that people who stay with organizations over the long term often do so because of strong relationships, a good fit with their broader lives and what scholars call “job embeddedness” — the financial, social and psychological benefits of the position that make leaving costly.

But when the cost of staying is stifling your growth, it’s worth exploring how you might either renegotiate growth where you are or thoughtfully prepare to move on.

Re-evaluating what matters now

Whether you’re considering a shift within your organization or beyond it, taking time to reassess your needs, goals and values is essential. What mattered to you earlier in your career may not matter in the same way now. Income, learning, flexibility, stability and meaning all rise and fall in importance across life stages.

Clarifying your values does not mean choosing one priority forever. It simply provides a clearer map for evaluating opportunities.

Some people prioritize mentorship or employer-supported education. Others need predictable schedules, strong health benefits or flexibility to care for family members.

Understanding what matters most now helps narrow your options and reduces the paralysis that often accompanies big decisions.

Focusing on activities rather than titles

Another way to gain clarity is to imagine your ideal role without fixating on job titles.

Titles can be misleading and often mask the day-to-day reality of the work. Instead, focus on activities. How will you spend most of your time? What skills will you be using day to day?

One useful question is what activities you would gladly do without being paid. These often point to core strengths and motivations worth taking seriously. Organizational psychologists describe this as intrinsic motivation — the internal drive to engage in an activity because it is inherently satisfying.

For example, early in my career, I began to notice a pattern in my volunteer work. I was consistently drawn to supporting professionals through moments of career transition, conflict and change. Over time, that realization helped me recognize that mentoring and coaching were activities I already valued enough to do for free.

With that insight, I began targeting roles in my own career that rewarded those same activities, ensuring that my work consistently included elements that felt both meaningful and energizing.

Preparing for the next step

Once priorities and interests are clearer, look closely at the qualifications and experiences the roles you are drawn to actually require and begin developing them intentionally.

This can occur through low-risk avenues, including projects in your current job, entrepreneurial or side work, volunteer roles or targeted learning opportunities.

Consistently taking small, purposeful steps can help you systematically bridge the gap between your current capabilities and the demands of your next chapter. By actively cultivating these skills, you transform a period of restlessness into a constructive phase of professional readiness.

As you consider what comes next, use your network strategically to learn and ask questions. New beginnings unfold through conversations, experiments and choices made over time.

Also pay attention to the beliefs shaping your actions. Assumptions about what you can or cannot do can limit options more than skills ever do. Feeling stuck is an invitation to evolve and may mark the start of an exciting new chapter you can begin writing today.

Leda Stawnychko receives funding from SSHRC.

– ref. Feeling stuck at work as the New Year begins? It may be a sign of professional growth – https://theconversation.com/feeling-stuck-at-work-as-the-new-year-begins-it-may-be-a-sign-of-professional-growth-270878

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Lisa Kowalchuk, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Guelph

Like much of the western world, Canada is facing a crisis in waste disposal as landfills reach their capacity. In Ontario, a live countdown gives municipal landfills just eight more years before they are full. We urgently need to reduce our garbage.

The scramble for a solution has governments considering and even approving questionable alternatives like incineration and opening new or dormant landfills in rural areas.

Colleagues and I conducted a study between 2022 and 2024 with a non-profit service provider called the St. James Town Community Corner in Toronto, and found an overlooked opportunity for greater waste diversion among renters in multi-residential buildings.

Our research team included Trisha Einmann, a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Guelph, Alaa Mohamed, a client engagement worker with The Neighbourhood Organization and Aravind Joseph, a former co-ordinator with The Neighbourhood Organization.

St.James Town is a vibrant, densely populated neighbourhood with a high proportion of immigrants, racialized people and those with lower-than-average household incomes. At its core are 19 rental towers of 14 to 30 storeys that house about 18,500 people.

Policymakers must bring multi-residential buildings fully into the effort to divert household waste from landfill, so that communities like St. James Town can be part of the solution.

Residential building waste

There is a glaring need to increase the amount of waste diverted from landfills in Ontario, where the institutional commercial and industrial sector generates 60 per cent of the province’s waste, yet the sector’s diversion rate is only 15 per cent.

The residential sector also merits attention. Here, the overall diversion rate of 50 per cent is highly uneven between multi-residential buildings and single family dwellings.

While nearly 47 per cent of Torontonians reside in multi-residential buildings of five storeys or more, they divert just 27 per cent of their waste from landfills, compared to 61 per cent for single-family homes.

Our research

In our study, we focused on two St. James Town high-rises: a social housing building and a privately owned rental building.

We conducted a resident survey, focus groups and interviews with experts and authorities to understand residents’ values, practices and challenges related to household waste.

The vast majority of our 103 survey respondents — 93 per cent — agreed or strongly agreed that sorting waste is very important; 91 per cent agreed that it protects the environment; and 78 per cent said it is part of their daily routine. These figures were virtually the same for private and social-housing renters, and were higher for immigrants than those born in Canada.

Just over half of our respondents, however, found it inconvenient or difficult to sort waste, and the challenges they identified confirmed the spatial and infrastructural hurdles documented elsewhere.

In high-rises like those in St. James Town, which were built before waste separation programs were commonplace, the typical disposal option is the single, narrow garbage chute on each floor and tall bins in an outdoor enclosure for bulky waste or recyclables. Apartments typically lack space to store sorted waste.

Landlords are off the hook

Another barrier to better waste management was the lack of managerial willingness to work with concerned residents, a crucial ingredient in achieving greater waste diversion in multi-residential buildings.

In the private building, the fundamental problem was the absence of managerial commitment to waste diversion, making it impossible for residents to divert waste there.

This is rooted in past municipal decisions and current provincial policy. City service obligates the separate collection of all major waste types. In 2009, the City of Toronto allowed private multi-residential buildings to choose private instead of municipal waste services so that they could avoid the expense and hassle of collecting organics.

Multi-residential buildings that contract with private haulers (40 per cent in Toronto) become subject to the regulation governing waste in the commercial and industrial sector, which omits organics and calls for “reasonable efforts” to participate in recycling.

This weak wording and minimal enforcement by the province allows the hollowest of gestures toward recycling on the part of landlords.

In the privately owned building in our study, there were outdoor blue bins, but no separate bins for non-recyclable trash, and the blue bins were observed to contain all manner of waste. Unsurprisingly, we saw the hauling company combining blue bin and compactor content together, though the property manager claimed otherwise.

Participants at both buildings complained of an information vacuum. In the private building, 63 per cent of survey respondents reported disposing of organics in the trash chute at least some of the time; for recyclables this was 28 per cent.

The fact that people were sorting organics before putting them in the trash chute suggests they believed it will be properly sorted by the waste management company after collection. This belief was also shared by one of the maintenance staff at the building who deals with waste.

This echoes a tendency observed elsewhere, and likely reflects a misguided belief that the waste will eventually be sorted at a facility.

Many respondents told us they aren’t being properly directed on where to put any of the different forms of waste, including hazardous items. For example, in the private building, there was nothing to tell them that there’s no organics collection, or what can and cannot be recycled.

Misplaced or unsorted waste reflects the lack of information residents receive. Without stronger regulations, landlords have little incentive to invest in waste management to keep recycling separate from trash.

Waste management and housing conditions

With a savings-above-all approach to waste management, the practices of some can make surroundings unpleasant for others. In disposal areas and other common spaces, residents frequently complained of the smell and of cockroaches from organic waste piled up by the chutes, or bedbugs from furniture and other items left in hallways.

Some were reluctant to have visitors. Some also worried about batteries in the garbage, a justified concern given that 71 per cent of survey participants across both buildings sometimes dispose of batteries in the trash or blue bins.

Tenants are often fearful to take such concerns to landlords or government.

There are, of course, other major contributors to landfill waste that we should not overlook: the over-production of non-recyclable plastics and under-regulation of the industrial, commercial and institutional sector.

But policymakers must also recognize the challenges facing renters in multi-residential buildings. Failing to address these will result in more waste ending up in ever-growing landfills.

Lisa Kowalchuk receives funding from the University of Guelph Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada institutional grant.

– ref. Reducing household waste poses serious challenges in residential high-rises – https://theconversation.com/reducing-household-waste-poses-serious-challenges-in-residential-high-rises-270406

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rackeb Tesfaye, Knowledge Mobilization Lead and Senior Scientist at the Bridge Research Consortium, Simon Fraser University

As Canadian federal election candidates prepared for their final debate in April 2025, youth across the country were preparing for collaborative conversations around timely and potentially divisive issues for the National Ethics Bowl at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg.

Ethics Bowl Canada is a non-profit organization that hosts competitions where high school and university students explore complex ethical issues through respectful dialogue in teams.

Rather than trying to undermine their opponents’ arguments, as in traditional debates, Ethics Bowl competitors win by engaging constructively, responding positively to reasonable criticism and refining or amending their views.

Polarization and engaging with disagreement

The Public Policy Forum’s 2023 report Far and Widening: The Rise of Polarization in Canada documented serious issues around how young people think about their futures. It highlighted that, among young people’s concerns like pandemics, climate emergencies and a declining economy, their deepest fear for Canada’s future is growing political and ideological polarization.

The erosion of trust in institutions like government, industry and media contributes to people seeking alternative sources of information.

Alternative sources sometimes contribute to healthy social empowerment and democratic participation. But we are also living with cascading misinformation — sometimes sewn by groups seeking to destabilize society — with harmful effects. Through algorithmic filtering we’ve seen a growth of ideological echo chambers.

Philosophers like John Stuart Mill, John Rawls and Seyla Benhabib have long proposed that engaging with diverse and sometimes contrary points of view is part of what legitimizes democracy.

Conflict and disagreement are healthy parts of a democracy. But these need to be engaged with productively.

How the Ethics Bowl works

The Ethics Bowl is a “gamified” way of engaging in deliberative dialogue about civic issues. More than 1,500 high school and university students now participate in Ethics Bowls each year.

Ethics Bowl teams conduct research on cases created by philosophers and subject matter experts, and then form their opinions and arguments on them. Teams of three to five students then participate first in regional competitions, where they present their arguments, listen to other arguments, provide comments and respond to feedback.

A panel of judges (including philosophers, subject matter experts and community members) scores the teams. Their rubric rewards acknowledging nuance, refining positions and being respectful. Regional winners then compete nationally.

Evidence shows thinking and talking about ethics alone can be a driver for social change. The Ethics Bowl is also an intervention that allows participants to develop their civic discussion skills.

Research shows that engaging in this kind of dialogue can help participants acquire civic virtues, such as tolerance, respect for diverse viewpoints and willingness to engage in conversation.

Vaccines as a timely topic

While the legitimization of anti-vaccine rhetoric continues in the United States, Canada is not immune to divisiveness around vaccines.

Since the pandemic, Canada has seen a rise in vaccine hesitancy, a resurgence of measles and a shift in COVID-19 vaccine accessibility.

Among young people in Canada, vaccination is now one of the most polarizing topics of discussion.

To support young people reflecting upon ethical tensions around vaccines, Ethics Bowl Canada partnered with the Bridge Research Consortium (BRC), a national consortium of social scientists and humanity scholars. BRC scholars have a broad range of expertise to support public trust and equitable access to new vaccines.

Vaccine case studies

BRC Bioethicists developed timely case studies for the National Ethics Bowl:

• One case deals with family disagreements around vaccine mandates.

• Another case centres on navigating the use of preventative health measures on farms, including preventive vaccinations for farmers and the culling of animals, if an avian influenza (H5N1) outbreak leads to a pandemic. This case was inspired by the first confirmed positive case of H5N1 on an ostrich farm in British Columbia, which made worldwide headlines.

Participants in the National Ethics Bowl found these cases the most challenging in the competition. One participant said:

“Public health is not something we often think about.”

A graphic illustration visually captured the many themes and reflections emerging from six teams discussions, and a version with links to the case studies is available on the Ethics Bowl website.

Engaging in civil dialogues is a transformative experience for students. As one teacher explained:

“These discussions matter. This type of dialogue has the power to change individuals.”

They also contribute to a sense of belonging. One high school student shared:

“Being around people who care about real world issues feels good.”

An educational model to train scientists

Scientists have also been caught in the crosshairs of political partisanship on vaccines. Despite a decline of trust in many institutions, scientists are still trusted sources of information by the public globally.

As evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, confidence in and the adoption of immune-based innovations moves at the speed of trust. Yet, rather than a loss of trust, scientists are losing influence to other information sources.

The need for scientists to strengthen trust and resonate with the public among the sea of other voices was addressed by a second mini Ethics Bowl with science graduate students in Montréal in June 2025. Before the event, 86 per cent of the science graduate students indicated they rarely or sometimes discussed the ethical implications of their work.

Student participants were part of RAMP-UP, a Québec-based research initiative developing reliable, scalable and adaptable biomanufacturing processes to produce vaccines and immunotherapies ahead of a future health emergency.

This mini ethics bowl was a teaching and learning tool to support students’ deeper engagement with the moral and ethical implications of their work, and to instil more socially informed science engagement.

Science researchers deliberate ethical concepts

As part of the full day of the mini Ethics Bowl training, students were introduced to ethical and philosophical concepts and engaged with experts in multiple disciplines. They competed in an Ethics Bowl with their peers discussing the above described vaccine-related case studies.

As captured in an illustration of events, not only did students feel stimulated and learn new knowledge, they came away calling for more integration of the social sciences and humanities in their education.

They also reflected on other ethical tensions in their work — like pharmaceutical companies profiting from their research.

We recommend this novel model of learning be introduced into curricula for scientists working on polarizing topics like immunology.

How to engage in productive dialogue

From election periods to holiday dinners with family, here is a blueprint for how people can collectively engage in productive dialogues:

1. Disagreement isn’t a failure: Instead of viewing someone disagreeing with you as having failed in some way (perhaps by being irrational), view them as an intellectual equal. Rational processes can result in more extreme (farther in content from other opinions) and radical (more strongly held) opinions. The processes that produce more extreme and radical opinions can also work on you.

2. Listen and try to understand: Be curious about, and interested in, interpreting what your conversation partner is saying with empathy. This can allow you to evaluate their points more fairly. Empathizing might allow you to better understand where others are coming from.

3. Set realistic expectations: People rarely change their minds during a conversation. But if sustained conversation focuses on practical issues, as opposed to foundational values, parties change their minds more often while reflecting between conversations.

Cem Erkli, program co-ordinator for Ethics Bowl Canada, and Pierre-Jean Alarco, knowledge mobilization officer for RAMP-UP, co-authored this story.

---

Immunity and Society is a new series from The Conversation Canada that presents new vaccine discoveries and immune-based innovations that are changing how we understand and protect human health. Through a partnership with the Bridge Research Consortium, these articles — written by experts in Canada at the forefront of immunology, biomanufacturing, social science and humanities — explore the latest developments and their impacts.

Rackeb Tesfaye receives funding from the Bridge Research Consortium (BRC), part of Canada’s Immuno-Engineering and Biomanufacturing Hub, which in turn is funded by the Canada Biomedical Research Fund, Canada Foundation for Innovation and the BC Knowledge Development Fund.

Nicolas Fillion is chair of the board of Ethics Bowl Canada.

– ref. More dialogue, less debate: At an ‘Ethics Bowl,’ students learn to handle tough conversations – https://theconversation.com/more-dialogue-less-debate-at-an-ethics-bowl-students-learn-to-handle-tough-conversations-271822

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Taylor Snowden, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Neuroscience, Université de Montréal

If you scroll through TikTok or Instagram long enough, you’ll inevitably stumble across the line: “Your frontal lobe isn’t fully developed yet.” It’s become neuroscience’s go-to explanation for bad decisions, like ordering an extra drink at the bar or texting an ex you swore not to.

The frontal lobe plays a central role in higher level functions like planning, decision-making and judgment.

It’s easy to find comfort in the idea that there’s a biological excuse for why we sometimes feel unstable, impulsive or like a work in progress. Life in your 20s and early 30s is unpredictable, and the idea that your brain simply isn’t done developing can be oddly reassuring.

But the idea that the brain, particularly the frontal lobe, stops developing at 25 is a pervasive misconception in psychology and neuroscience. Like many myths, the “age 25” idea is rooted in real scientific findings, but it’s an oversimplification of a much longer and more complex process.

In reality, new research suggests this development actually extends into our 30s. This new understanding changes how we view adulthood and suggests that 25 was never meant to be the finish line in the first place.

---

No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

Read more from Quarter Life:

• Why Gen Z and millennial consumers feel disillusioned — and how they can drive real change

• Moving abroad in your 20s can leave you with two identities – here’s how to cope

• How your brain keeps falling for the latest beauty fads – and what you can do about it

---

Where did the ‘age 25’ myth come from?

The magic number stems from brain imaging studies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In one 1999 tudy, researchers tracked brain changes through repeated scans in children and teens. They analyzed grey matter, which consists of cell bodies and can be thought of as the “thinking” component of the brain.

Researchers found that during the teenage years, grey matter goes through a process called pruning. Early in life, the brain builds an enormous number of neural connections. As we age, it gradually trims back the ones that are used less often, strengthening those that remain.

This early work highlighted that grey matter volume growth and loss is key for brain development.

In influential follow-up work led by neuroscientist Nitin Gogtay, participants as young as four had their brains scanned every two years. The researchers found that within the frontal lobe, regions mature from back to front.

More primal regions, like areas responsible for voluntary muscle movement, develop first, while more advanced regions that are important for decision-making, emotional regulation and social behaviour had not fully matured by the final brain scans around age 20.

Since the data stopped at age 20, researchers couldn’t say precisely when development finished. The age of 25 became the best estimation for the assumed endpoint, and eventually became enshrined in the cultural consciousness.

What newer research reveals

Since those early studies, neuroscience has moved on considerably. Rather than looking at individual regions in isolation, researchers now study how efficiently different parts of the brain communicate with one another.

A recent major study assessed efficiency of brain networks, essentially how the brain is wired, through white matter topology. White matter is made up of long nerve fibres that link different parts of the brain and spinal cord, allowing electrical signals to travel back and forth.

Researchers analyzed scans from more than 4,200 people from infancy to 90 years old and found several key periods of development including one from age nine to 32, which they coined the “adolescent” period.

For anyone well into adulthood, it may feel jarring to be told that your brain is still an “adolescent,” but this term really just signifies that your brain is in a stage of key changes.

Based on this study, it seems that during brain adolescence, the brain is balancing two key processes: segregation and integration. Segregation involves building neighbourhoods of related thoughts. Integration involves building highways to connect those neighbourhoods. The research suggests this construction doesn’t stabilize into an “adult” pattern until the early 30s.

The study also found that “small worldness” (a measure of network efficiency) was the largest predictor for identifying brain age in this group. Think of this like a transit system. Some routes require stops and transfers. Increasing “small worldness” is like adding express lanes. Essentially, more complex thoughts now have more efficient paths throughout the brain.

However, this construction doesn’t last forever. After around the age of 32, there is a literal turning point where these developmental trends switch directions. The brain stops prioritizing these “expressways” and shifts back to segregation to lock in the pathways our brains use most.

In other words, your teens and 20s are spent connecting the brain, and your 30s are about settling down and maintaining your most used routes.

Making the most of a brain under construction

If our brains are still under construction throughout our 20s, how do we make sure we are building the best possible structure? One answer lies in boosting neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire itself.

---

Read more:
What is brain plasticity and why is it so important?

---

While the brain remains changeable throughout life, the window from age nine to 32 represents a prime opportunity for structural growth. Research suggests there are many ways to support neuroplasticity.

High-intensity aerobic exercise, learning new languages and taking on cognitively demanding hobbies like chess can bolster your brain’s neuroplastic abilities, while things like chronic stress can hinder it. If you want a high-performance brain in your 30s, it helps to challenge it in your 20s, but it’s never too late to start.

There is no magical switch that turns on at age 25, or even 32 for that matter. Like your brain, you’re in a decades-long construction project. Stop waiting for the moment you become an adult and start making active choices about how to support this project. Make mistakes, but know that the concrete hasn’t set quite yet.

Taylor Snowden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. No, your brain doesn’t suddenly ‘fully develop’ at 25. Here’s what the neuroscience actually shows – https://theconversation.com/no-your-brain-doesnt-suddenly-fully-develop-at-25-heres-what-the-neuroscience-actually-shows-271826

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Deanna Needell, Professor of Mathematics, UBC. Co-Director Programs, Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, University of British Columbia

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. In fact, each reader of this article could have multiple AI apps operating on the very device displaying this piece. The image at the top of this article is also generated by AI.

Despite this, many mechanisms governing AI behaviour remain poorly understood, even to top AI experts. This leads to an AI race built upon costly scaling, both environmentally and financially, that is also dangerously unreliable.

Progress therefore depends not on escalating this race, but on understanding the principles underpinning AI. Mathematics lies at the heart of AI and investment in these mathematical foundations is the critical key to becoming a true global AI leader.

How AI shapes daily life

AI has rapidly become part of everyday life, not only in talking home devices and fun social media generation, but also in ways so seamless that many people don’t even notice its presence.

It provides the recommendations we see when browsing online and quietly optimizes everything from transit routes to home energy use.

Critical services rely on AI because it’s used in medical diagnosis, banking fraud detection, drug discovery, criminal sentencing, governmental services and health predictions, all areas where inaccurate outputs may have devastating consequences.

Problems, issues

Despite AI’s widespread use, serious and widely documented issues continue to showcase concerns around fairness, reliability and sustainability. Biases embedded in data and models can propagate discriminatory outcomes, from facial detection methods that perform well only on light skin tones to predictive tools that systematically disadvantage underrepresented groups.

---

Read more:
Beyond bias: Equity, diversity and inclusion must drive AI implementation in the workplace

---

These failures continue to be reported and range from racist outputs of ChatGPT and other chatbots to imaging tools that misidentify Barack Obama as white and biased criminal sentencing algorithms.

At the same time, the environmental and financial costs of deploying large-scale AI systems are growing at an extremely rapid pace.

If this trajectory continues, it will not only prove environmentally unsustainable, it will also concentrate access to these powerful AI tools to a few wealthy and influential entities with access to vast capital and massive infrastructure.

Why mathematics?

To address issues with a system, whether it’s fixing a car or ensuring reliability in an AI system, it’s crucial to understand how it works. A mechanic cannot fix or even diagnose why a car isn’t operating correctly without understanding how the engine works.

The “engine” for AI is mathematics. In the 1950s, scientists used ideas from logic and probability to teach computers how to make simple decisions. As technology advanced, so did the math, and tools from optimization, linear algebra, geometry, statistics and other mathematical disciplines became the backbone of what are now modern AI systems.

These methods are certainly modelled after aspects of the human brain, but despite the nomenclature of “neural networks” and “machine learning,” these systems are essentially giant math engines that carry out vast amounts of mathematical operations with parameters that were optimized using massive amounts of data.

This means improving AI is not just about continuously building bigger computers and using more data; it’s about deepening our understanding of the complex math that governs these systems. By recognizing how fundamentally mathematical AI really is, we can improve its fairness, reliability and sustainable scalability as it becomes an even larger part of everyday life.

Canada’s path forward

So what should Canada do next? Invest in the parts of AI that turn power into dependability. That means funding the science that makes AI systems predictable, auditable and efficient, so hospitals, banks, utilities and public agencies can adopt AI with confidence.

This is not a call for bigger servers; it’s a call for better science, where mathematics is the core scientific engine.

Canada already has a national platform to advance this work: the mathematical sciences institutes the (Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, The Centre de recherches mathématiques, Atlantic Association for Research in the Mathematical Sciences, Banff International Research Station connect researchers across provinces and disciplines, convene collaborative programs and link academia with the public sector.

Together with Canada’s AI institutes (Mila, Vector, Amii) and CIFAR, this ecosystem strengthens both foundational and translational AI nationwide.

Canada’s standing in AI was built on decades of foundational research, work that preceded today’s large models and made them possible. Reinforcing that foundation would allow Canada to lead the next stage of AI development: models that are efficient rather than wasteful, transparent rather than opaque and trustworthy rather than brittle. Investing in mathematical research is not only scientifically essential, it is strategically wise and will strengthen national sovereignty.

The payoff is straightforward: AI that costs less to run, fails less often and earns more public trust. Canada can lead here, not by winning a computing power arms race, but by setting the scientific bar for how AI should work when lives, livelihoods and public resources are at stake.

Deanna Needell has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (US).

Kristine Bauer receives funding from NSERC to support her research program in pure mathematics. She is affiliated with the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.

Ozgur Yilmaz receives funding from NSERC and PIMS.

– ref. How can Canada become a global AI powerhouse? By investing in mathematics – https://theconversation.com/how-can-canada-become-a-global-ai-powerhouse-by-investing-in-mathematics-271796

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Fatme Abdallah, PhD Candidate, English and Writing Studies, Western University

Writer and lawyer Saeed Teebi released an Instagram video on Sept. 30, 2025, announcing the publication of his new book, You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times.

In the video, Teebi acknowledged that while his book publication day should have been a happy one, he grappled with celebrating a moment of success while accounting for and living with “everything that is going on in Palestine.”

As a researcher of Palestinian prison literature who has been tracking the intermittent hostage exchanges between Israel and Gaza during the recent ceasefire agreement, Teebi’s struggle to articulate his feelings seemed familiar.

It echoed the experiences of Palestinians released from prison who could not celebrate their newfound freedom while their homeland was still under siege.

As Teebi narrates in his book, both sets of grandparents were survivors of the 1948 Nakba when when more than 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the mass exodus that accompanied the founding of the state of Israel.

As Teebi writes, they moved on a “tour of degradation through various Arab states” before they “stumbled” to Kuwait in the 1950s, where Teebi was born and lived as a child. At age 12, the family was stranded in California during a family trip when Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. Teebi and his family lived for a time in the United States before coming to Canada when he was a youth.

The book is Teebi’s personal and political efforts to come to terms with the failures and powers of language to narrate a Palestinian story that can stand for itself, free of the constraints that attempt to silence it.

A story ‘against narrative’

Just days before the book’s publication, a United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory officially labelled Israel’s actions a genocide after a staggering death toll in Gaza.

Teebi’s witnessing of what he calls “an unending corpse exhibition” against the world’s latent, often ineffectual responses brought him to the realization that until that point, his identity and history had been confined by the “little prisons everywhere” made from language.

For someone who describes himself as having “an abiding faith in language,” the “dark times” Teebi refers to in the title of his book were ones of reckoning: the language to name Palestinian experience broadly and mass death in Gaza had irrevocably failed to stop genocide.

---

Read more:
Flawed notions of objectivity are hampering Canadian newsrooms when it comes to Gaza

---

Teebi notes how amid the reluctance of western media and governments to use the term “genocide,” even as some genocide scholars saw evidence of this phenomenon as early as late 2023, Palestinians were forced to “haggle” over vocabulary rather than mobilizing diplomatic pressure to prevent “massacres” from happening.

In so doing, the book draws a clear analogy between Israeli practices of apartheid and related censorship of language which Teebi terms “linguistic apartheid.” This echoes Palestinian literature’s concern with resisting discourse that dispossesses Palestinians of their land-based identities.

‘Prisons of what we can and can’t say’

Teebi, like journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, is concerned with how conventional narratives can be used to justify ethnic cleansing.

In Coates’ book The Message, which partly reports on his summer 2023 visit to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he writes that western language about Palestine has elevated “factual complexity” over morality or justice. The end goal was “to forge a story of Palestine told solely by the colonizer.”

Teebi writes that there have been long-existing “prisons of what we can and can’t say” about Palestine that repressed any attempt to engage in historical or political debate. Some of these “prisons,” he notes, were enforced by an “abundance of caution” on the part of his late migrant father, a doctor who expressed an “obsessive drive to rebuild” after the family was displaced from Kuwait.

Such “prisons” were a response to, and buttressed by, the dominance of an Israeli-centric narrative of Israel’s founding in the West, which has made it so that every Palestinian story appears as a counternarrative that “carries the whiff of subversiveness.”

A Palestinian story must inevitably carve space against the presiding mythology of a land without people for a people without a land.

Between real and linguistic prisons

As I read the book in preparation for an interview with Teebi at a launch at Western University on Nov. 10 — where he was the 2024-25 writer-in-residence — I was struck by how deeply prison imagery shaped his memoir.

Prisons targeting Palestinians operate materially in Occupied Palestine, but often only discursively, or linguistically, in the West.

Teebi acknowledges that the former “are [much] worse prisons”, yet his book is nonetheless a response to the linguistic prisons that obscure Palestinian stories behind claims of neutrality, proportionality or legality:

“When every popular conception of you is that of someone in chains, you begin to feel the chains even if they aren’t physically there. You narrate yourself not in spite of the chains, but around them.”

Between witnessing and imagining

When Palestinian American writer Sarah Aziza wrote the article “The Work of the Witness,” now included in the anthology The Best American Essays of 2025, it had only been three months into the genocide in Gaza.

I had then been convinced of the power and necessity of witnessing.

Yet as lands and bodies in Gaza were devastated, I increasingly believed witnessing offered no solution.

I was both gratified and dismayed that Teebi seemed to agree when, in You Will Not Kill Our Imagination, he wrote that witnessing is “the hoariest of writerly clichés.”

While Teebi’s book attempts to define “the effects of the genocide on Palestinian art and imagination,” it is also a reflection of how people in exile might resist the prisons imposed by a society dominated by anti-Palestinian narratives.

For Teebi, this entails embracing the “engine” of imagination — telling a Palestinian story that refuses the confines of counter-narrative.

A Palestinian story that must be told

Most important of all, Teebi tells a personal and political narrative, unqualified and unapologetic, a testament to the defiance of a Palestinian story that insists on being told.

In a number of talks, Teebi states that he had never intended to write a memoir: being so personal imposed upon him both honesty and vulnerability. Yet the moment compelled him to challenge the societal constraints that had kept his identity in check and to affirm, openly, deliberately and imaginatively, his Palestinian identity: he had broken free from the metaphoric prisons reining in his imagination.

When I suggested this to him in our interview, he laughed, saying: “If you want to call me a prison breaker, I’ll take it.”

Task of writer-in-exile

The writer-in-exile, Teebi insists, must do more than bear witness, a task carried out more forcefully by those living through this genocide. The exile who writes owes something to the stories of their loved ones who have lived, fought for and honoured an increasingly precarious future.

And so the exile who writes must witness ethically by committing, without hesitation, to this future; the exile who writes must imagine dismantling the prisons that bind their language; the exile who writes must imagine fiercely, granting themselves unrestrained freedom to speak, act and live.

I will end with these words by Mahmoud Darwish:

“Prison deprives one of the sight of a tree and the sea. Freedom is the imagination capable of recalling them both in prison, making the invisible visible. No, that is what poetry does. Poetry, then, is an act of freedom.”

To merely witness prison, argues Teebi, is not to resist it; one must instead imagine beyond its constraints in the exercise of freedom.

That, for Teebi, is the quintessential work of the writer: to imagine a future beyond the societal and linguistic prisons that exile enforces.

Fatme Abdallah receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

– ref. Author Saeed Teebi writes beyond exile in his memoir of Palestine and writing in dark times – https://theconversation.com/author-saeed-teebi-writes-beyond-exile-in-his-memoir-of-palestine-and-writing-in-dark-times-270130

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Samuel Lloyd, PhD Candidate, Department of Psychology, University of Victoria

2025 has been a year of setbacks for Canada’s climate policy. In November, the federal and Alberta governments signed a memorandum of understanding to remove strict climate policies in the province and to support the construction of a new pipeline from Alberta to northern British Columbia.

The government also cancelled the federal carbon tax this year, while ending funding for home energy-efficiency programs and delaying sales mandates for zero-emission vehicles.

These steps have pushed Canada even further from meeting its climate goals, which were already too weak to limit global warming to 1.5 C, as outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement.

What’s behind these changes and why is Canadian progress on tackling climate change so slow? Put simply, it’s because climate action threatens the profits of the fossil-fuel industry, and they’ve spent the past 50 years doing everything they can to prevent it.

While the industry has used many tools in this endeavour, perhaps its most effective has been its propaganda machine — a global network of foundations, think tanks and lobbyists known as the Climate Change Counter Movement.

In our newly published study, we review the academic and non-academic literature to map how this movement has used its influence to delay climate action in Canada.

---

Read more:
Why Mark Carney’s pipeline deal with Alberta puts the Canadian federation in jeopardy

---

The Climate Change Counter Movement

For years, the movement’s main strategy was to deny that climate change was happening or to claim that humans weren’t causing it. However, as summers got hotter and wildfires, floods and hurricanes became increasingly common, this narrative became less convincing.

The propaganda machine then adopted a new tactic. Rather than denying climate science, it exploited legitimate debates about how climate policy should be designed to sow confusion, cause political deadlock and suggest policies that don’t threaten their profits.

Three examples of these new narratives are particularly widespread in Canada: fossil-fuel solutionism (that fossil fuels can be part of efforts to tackle climate change), “whataboutism” and appeals to well-being.

Together, they uphold the claim that fossil fuels are a necessary and unavoidable part of everyday life and that Canadian fossil fuels are less carbon-heavy than those produced in the rest of the world, meaning that supporting the Canadian fossil-fuel industry would supposedly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

These arguments are logically flawed — fossil fuels are incompatible with a world below 1.5 C warming. They’re also based on a falsehood, because oil from the Canadian oilsands is roughly 21 per cent more polluting than conventional crude oil.

Another common argument is that fossil fuels are essential to the Canadian economy, but this narrative overstates the costs of transitioning away from fossil fuels and understates the enormous costs of allowing climate change to continue unmitigated.

While these narratives do originate from elite members of the Climate Change Counter Movement, our case study found evidence that they’re already being repeated by members of the general public and might even explain why many Canadians falsely believe that a clean energy future could include fossil fuels.

How can we tackle false fossil-fuel narratives?

1. Know ourselves

If we want to challenge false narratives about fossil fuels, we should begin by reflecting on how the Climate Change Counter Movement might have affected us already. Fossil-fuel propaganda is everywhere, and it’s hard to avoid internalizing some of it. It’s also important to consider whether challenging the fossil-fuel industry might expose us to physical or financial danger before taking action.

2. Know our enemy

Next, it’s important for us to learn as much as we can about the Climate Change Counter Movement. Who are its members? What propaganda are they spreading, and where are they spreading it? Which narratives work and which don’t? Answering these questions will be the work of academics, journalists and citizen researchers, who can take cues from efforts like the Corporate Mapping Project in their approach.

3. Target them directly

Once we have that information, we can use it to hold the fossil-fuel industry legally (and thus financially) accountable for their role in delaying climate action. Examples of these kinds of lawsuits are appearing all over the world, including in Canada where the Sue Big Oil campaign is uniting B.C. municipalities in suing fossil-fuel companies for their role in the escalating costs of climate change.

These campaigns not only discourage future meddling, but also move funds directly from the fossil-fuel industry to the communities they’ve affected, allowing them to build their own defences against future attacks.

4. Heal our wounds

However, even if lawsuits successfully discourage future activity by the Climate Change Counter Movement, we’ll still need to undo the damage they’ve already done to our society. Their efforts have left the public polarized, untrusting of governments, confused about fact versus fiction and feeling hopeless. We must reinvest in our communities and heal these societal wounds. Climate assemblies, an approach to government which emphasizes public engagement, offer a promising pathway towards many of these goals.

5. Pick our battles

It’s also vital for governments to continue advancing climate action, even when public appetites have been damaged by propaganda campaigns. They can do this by strengthening policies that are relatively unknown, yet still effective and popular.

These policies have not been exposed to the same levels of propaganda as others like the carbon tax and are therefore still popular, while also being effective enough to account for the majority of emission reductions in Canada, the United Kingdom and California.

6. Challenge the structural roots of their power

Finally, we need to remove the root of the fossil-fuel industry’s economic and cultural power. Within our current economic system, this means redirecting financial flows away from the industry by removing fossil-fuel subsidies and implementing stringent compulsory policies to realign markets with climate goals.

The Climate Change Counter Movement is several steps ahead of us, but it hasn’t won yet. If climate change is to be stopped, we have to stop ignoring the elephant in the room and unite against the fossil-fuel industry.

Samuel Lloyd received funding from the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions for the research project that inspired the research in this article. He wrote that paper while receiving funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund as part of the University of Victoria-led Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative.

Katya Rhodes receives funding from Canada First Research Excellence Fund as part of the University of Victoria-led Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative.

– ref. Fossil-fuel propaganda is stalling climate action. Here’s what we can do about it. – https://theconversation.com/fossil-fuel-propaganda-is-stalling-climate-action-heres-what-we-can-do-about-it-272227