The Conversation – Canada – Page 32

July 31, 2025

Here’s how you can make your garden a safe and biodiverse space for urban wildlife

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ann Dale, Professor Emerita, Environment & Sustainability, Royal Roads University

Simple things like avoiding chemical pesticides and leaving leaves where they fall can help make your garden a more welcoming environment for wildlife and support biodiversity. (Jeffrey Hamilton/Unsplash)

Biodiversity is essential to mitigating and adapting to climate change, enhancing the resilience of ecosystems and safeguarding the ecological functions that all living beings depend on for survival.

There is little doubt that we are at a critical point in the loss of biodiversity in Canada with thousands of species currently in danger of disappearing, while global experts continue to warn about Earth’s ongoing sixth mass extinction.

As a response to the cascading climate crisis, wildlife habitat gardens have grown in popularity. These are spaces designed to attract and sustain local wildlife, and include efforts such as rewilded meadows, pollinator patches, rain gardens, naturalized lawns and others.

Cultivating a garden for biodiversity is not an all-in or nothing task. In fact, there is a wide range of simple actions anyone can take to regenerate and conserve biodiversity right at home.

We are currently organizing a biodiversity public literacy campaign at the National Environmental Treasure, a people’s trust fund devoted to funding Canadian environmental organizations.

Last year, we partnered with Prof. Nina-Marie Lister and the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University on their Bylaws for Biodiversity research, along with Nature Canada and FLAP Canada, to develop Gardening for Biodiversity resources.

Supporting biodiversity in your garden

flowers and green plants around a sign reading habitat garden — Educational, ecologically informed signage can help interpret the garden for visitors. These signs serve as a practical tool to share gardening practices and highlight the garden’s environmental benefits with the community.
(Nina Marie Lister)

Together, we’ve created a series of free, fact-based guides to help people learn how to cultivate biodiversity and support for wildlife habitat in private gardens.

This series currently includes four comprehensive booklets, each focusing on key aspects of biodiversity gardening:

While there are plenty of great garden practices out there, these are five easy and impactful ways to boost biodiversity and cultivate a garden safe for urban wildlife, taken directly from our booklets.

Use alternatives to pesticides

Pesticides in your garden can harm beneficial insects and can be detrimental to the environment, wildlife and human health. Instead of using chemical-based pesticides, try natural alternatives like biopesticides, horticultural oils and insecticidal soaps that can be just as effective.

Likewise, attracting predatory insects and wildlife into your garden who will actively feed on the harmful pest is also an effective starting point as this is a process of pest-control that occurs naturally in healthy ecosystems.

There are also DIY pesticides, such as sea salt spray, water-vinegar mixtures and coffee grounds.

yellow flowers in a garden — A rewilded habitat meadow featuring a selection of native wildflowers and habitat logs left to enrich the soil, support pollinators and offer seating for visitors.
(Nina Marie Lister)

Leave the leaves

Decomposing plant litter, like fallen dead leaves, tree bark, needles and twigs, is an important component of maintaining soil health, nutrient cycling and biodiversity.

By choosing to leave the leaves in your garden, you will support the variety of species who overwinter in them, from bees and caterpillars, to butterflies, spiders and more.

Prioritize pollinator-attractive plants

In addition to pollination, insects are beneficial for a variety of other reasons including for pest control, seed dispersal and decomposition.

The best way to attract insects largely depends on which insect you are trying to attract. But as a general rule, it is always a good practice to source plants locally and prioritize native species.

Next best to native plants are benign ornamentals and non-natives. Cultivating a diverse range of flowers, especially native plants and herbs, promotes a resilient ecosystem. It also helps natives out-compete invasive species and to reverse the downward trends of mass species decline.

Make your garden safe for birds

Birds contribute to healthy ecosystems: they pollinate plants, disperse seeds and prey on insects. Unfortunately, North American bird populations are experiencing a rapid decline due to habitat loss, degradation and other global pressures.

Aadopting bird-safe gardening practices offers a powerful way to combat these threats and support biodiversity conservation on a local scale. Beyond core habitat elements, additional practices can enhance the garden’s appeal to birds.

Organic gardening without pesticides or herbicides, keeping cats indoors, removing potential entanglement hazards and using bird-collision prevention markers on reflective surfaces can not only attract birds, but also ensure their safety as well.

A small chubby bird with an orange breast standing on a stone ledge in a garden — Birds contribute to healthy ecosystems: they pollinate plants, disperse seeds and prey on insects.
(Unsplash/Richard Bell)

Advocate for biodiversity

Although there’s been a growing movement toward more biodiversity-supporting practices, outdated municipal bylaws and enforcement policies continue to limit the potential of habitat gardens.

These disputes over the scope and application of bylaws have brought attention to various legal contradictions and outcomes that negatively impact progress on biodiversity recovery, all the while undermining and negating related environmental objectives on private land.

By advocating and encouraging your municipal leaders to adopt science-based biodiversity-supportive bylaws, you help to establish the legal frameworks and political agendas that directly impact long-term ecological health and promote sustainable development and the regeneration of biodiversity.

Ann Dale receives funding from the CRC Secretariat, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Hewlett Foundation.

Sabrina Careri 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. Here’s how you can make your garden a safe and biodiverse space for urban wildlife – https://theconversation.com/heres-how-you-can-make-your-garden-a-safe-and-biodiverse-space-for-urban-wildlife-261151

July 31, 2025

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

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Gabriela Perdomo, Assistant Professor, Mount Royal University

The response of Canada’s legacy news media to the Israeli government’s military action in Gaza for more than 640 days points to a problem within major Canadian news organizations, according to a new Canadian book, When Genocide Wasn’t News.

In the book, journalists — some writing under pseudonyms — say their newsrooms have been severely hampered by a culture of fear and an adherence to a notion of objectivity that no longer serves the public.

Israel’s relentless military actions in the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and taking of 251 hostages by Hamas should be prominently featured news. The Israeli Defence Forces’ illegal attacks on children, hospitals and aid workers should also be making constant headlines. But news coverage on these attacks is scarce or misleading.

I research and teach media, monitor the news and edit an online publication about journalism in Canada. My PhD thesis focused on Latin America and examined how the mandate to be objective can be confusing in times of war. I also explored questions about how journalists understand and apply objectivity in different contexts.

I found journalists who support peace efforts can easily be accused of being “biased” in favour of those promoting peace.

Not all wars covered equally

Not all wars are covered the same. Noureddine Miladi, a media and communications professor at Qatar University, found Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 received far greater coverage in mainstream media than the war in Gaza. Part of this difference in coverage lies in the ability to send reporters to cover events first hand, which is impossible in the Gaza Strip, where outside journalists are banned from entry.

Another major factor affecting coverage is how newsrooms understand and apply their norms, including objectivity. Journalism production is influenced and impacted by the dynamics of place and power that surround it.

As Carleton University journalism professor Duncan McCue argues, an unexamined adherence to objectivity can perpetuate colonial points of view. University of British Columbia journalism professors Candis Callison and Mary Lynn Young, authors of a book about journalism’s racial reckoning in Canada, also make this argument.

Accusations of antisemitism

Accusations of bias can have an outsized impact on reporting and be used to silence journalists.

According to some journalists, there is an atmosphere of fear when it comes to reporting on the Middle East in mainstream newsrooms in Canada. Some have self-censored in response to threats.

Not only do journalists say they are facing threats, they also face a context in which governments, such as the province of Ontario, are adhering to definitions of antisemitism that equate it to criticism of Israel.

In Canada, news organizations and individual journalists attempting to report on the violence in the Gaza Strip are being accused of antisemitism by groups such as Honest Reporting, according to the Canadian Press Freedom Project. This means almost anyone reporting on the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza will receive hundreds of messages claiming the report is antisemitic.

Since many scholars and the United Nations Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices have called the Israeli government’s methods “consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war,” urgent reporting is needed — and it’s not antisemitism to call out what experts have labelled global injustices.

Left-wing bias?

The culmination of decades of this type of criticism of news media has included a right-wing narrative that accuses media of a liberal bias. The trope of the liberal media as a threat has had a steady hold of the public imagination across North America since the Cold War.

Reporters who focused on stories about human rights, questioned the tactics and budgets of the military industrial complex or challenged the mistreatment of socialist activists as being unpatriotic were accused of having a liberal, left-wing, even communist, slant.

This isn’t a phemomenon limited to North America. Latin American politicians have a long history of using “left-wing bias” labels as a powerful tool to intimidate journalists.

What do journalists owe peace?

Research shows that audiences value objective journalism, or reporting that they deem non-partisan and keeps opinions at bay. But consumers also increasingly value journalism that is empathetic and emotionally resonant.

After United States President Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, journalism scholars recognized that a major failure of news coverage during the presidential campaign was not calling things what they were. For example, journalists used euphemisms such as “he misspoke” instead of reporting that Trump was lying, contributing to a crisis of relevance in journalism.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Israel-Gaza war has killed more journalistsr than in any other conflict it’s documented. But the allegedly deliberate targeting of journalists in Gaza, of whom at least 225 have been killed, has garnered little attention in newsrooms, despite calls by dozens of independent journalists to make the issue more visible.

This is another unprecedented set of events that should be reported on for Canadian audiences.

How will Canadian newsrooms do better? One idea could be that newsrooms join forces to fend off accusations of bias and antisemitism. They could start with reclaiming objectivity as a practice of information-gathering and moving away from objectivity as an ideal of dispassionate reporting.

They could also embrace, instead of fear, journalism’s liberal roots and reclaim journalism from a standpoint of clarity where actions against the rule of law, abuses of power, war profiteering, crimes against humanity — any illiberal acts — clearly fall on the wrong side of the liberal-democratic balance and therefore demand to be denounced. As veteran CBC journalist Carol Off has said, we need to denounce illiberal acts as anti-democratic ideology.

Every inhabitant of Gaza remains in imminent peril today, and the media have a responsibility to inform us about it.

Gabriela Perdomo 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. Flawed notions of objectivity are hampering Canadian newsrooms when it comes to Gaza – https://theconversation.com/flawed-notions-of-objectivity-are-hampering-canadian-newsrooms-when-it-comes-to-gaza-260552

July 31, 2025

From ‘God Emperor Trump’ to ‘St. Luigi,’ memes power the politics of feeling

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Stuart J. Murray, Professor of Rhetoric and Ethics | Professeur titulaire en rhétorique et éthique, Carleton University

Why do images of Donald Trump as a galactic emperor or Luigi Mangione as a Catholic saint resonate so deeply with some people? Memes don’t just entertain — they shape how we identify with power, grievance and justice in the digital age.

A meme is a decontextualized video or image — often captioned — that circulates an idea, behaviour or style, primarily through social media. As they spread, memes are adapted, remixed and transformed, helping to solidify the communities around them.

Trump, the meme pope

Days after Pope Francis’s death in April 2025, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself in papal regalia on Truth Social. The White House’s official X account then shared it, amplifying its reach.

Trump quickly dismissed it as a joke, but the image lingered.

Two days later, another emerged: Trump as galactic emperor, blending Star Wars aesthetics with the visual rhetoric of Warhammer 40,000, a popular dystopian sci-fi franchise featuring authoritarian rulers, imperial armies and endless war.

Trump memes like these once circulated semi-ironically in social media subcultures like Reddit and 4chan under the banner “God Emperor Trump.”

But what might previously have seemed like absurdist cosplay now carries the symbolic weight of executive power, blending religious and imperial imagery to project Trump as a mythical figure, not just a politician.

In-jokes

As I’ve argued in an article on MAGA and empathy, these memes draw on cultural codes not to parody power but to usurp it as instruments of official political communication.

Fact-checking can’t stop them. We know they are factually untrue, but they feel true and consolidate a shared sentiment among Trump’s base.

The meme is not a joke — it’s an in-joke only the in-group understands.

And that’s the point.

A meme is an accelerant, delivering compressed emotional payloads, short-circuiting debate and reinforcing people’s political identifications. Propelled by algorithms and designed to go viral, memes solicit immediate responses — outrage, loyalty, disgust, amusement.

Memes don’t ask what’s true or what’s just.

Instead, they curate — and encode — emotional alignment, replacing liberalism’s democratic ideal of reasoned public discourse with viral attachment: grievance recoded as identity.

Elon Musk and weaponizing empathy

On Feb. 20, 2025, days after Trump appointed Elon Musk to head his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Tesla founder appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of conservative activists and officials from across the U.S.

At the conference, Musk brandished a chainsaw, declaring: “I have become the meme!.” An image of him holding the chainsaw later actually became a meme.

The image projects libertarian efficiency and masculine bravado, but it more than just mocks bureaucracy — it glorifies cutting ties to domestic, global and humanitarian responsibilities.

Far from being merely a meme, it advances a policy of neglect that intentionally lets others die.

Experts estimate that DOGE’s purge of USAID could result in 14 million preventable deaths over the next five years, disproportionately affecting marginalized populations whose historical exploitation helped generate the wealth now wielded as power.

Individuals vs. the collective

But we are not meant to feel empathy. In early 2025, Musk called empathy “the fundamental weakness of western civilization,” claiming it is “weaponized by the left.”

Yet Musk doesn’t reject empathy entirely — only empathy for individuals, which he said risks “civilizational suicide.”

Instead, Musk believes we must have empathy for “civilization as a whole.” Such rhetoric — sacrificing individuals for the collective — recalls a chilling Nazi-era slogan: Du bist nichts, dein Volk ist alles (“You are nothing, your people are everything”). Musk has also drawn criticism for making public Nazi salutes and ethno-nationalist statements advocating for white people.

Mangione, the meme martyr

If Trump and Musk memes stage fantasies of absolute power, Mangione memes reply with fantasies of redemptive rupture.

Accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Mangione has been lionized in memes that champion vulnerability and social justice, opposing the billionaire class — figures like Trump and Musk — who put profits over people.

These memes appear to oppose the MAGA meme machine, encoding class struggle as quiet defiance and anti-authoritarianism. Unlike Musk’s chainsaw-wielding bravado, which seems to mask a fragile ego, Mangione memes project a humble, rebellious heartthrob.

Yet, like Trump and Musk, Mangione has become a brand. His face adorns T-shirts and “St. Luigi” prayer candles, capitalizing on the popular meme that emerged soon after his arrest. This commodification mirrors right-wing meme economies, even if the message differs.

Emotional saturation

Mangione memes have helped raise over $1.2 million for his legal defence.

They don’t just reflect feeling — they organize it, channelling it into cultural, political and literal currency, including a Luigi crypto coin ($LUIGI) and a musical.

These memes share MAGA meme tactics: relentless repetition and emotional saturation. Instead of encouraging thoughtful debate, they rally communities around shared grievances, acts of defiance and collective faith.

Feeling our way through the feed

From MAGA to Mangione, meme-mythologies often function as rationalizations of violence — whether framed as righteous, purifying or revolutionary. But what unites Trump’s papal cosplay, Musk’s chainsaw and Mangione’s martyrdom isn’t their message but their form.

Whether cloaked in MAGA nostalgia or social justice sentiments, memes that appear to resist power often reproduce the structures that made that power so intoxicating in the first place.

We’ve seen how official White House and Department of Homeland Security social media memes have become increasingly cruel, sinister, polarizing and even radicalizing.

Meanwhile, some liberals on the left continue to promote what is known as the “marketplace of ideas” — the belief that truth will prevail if all ideas are allowed to circulate freely. But reason doesn’t always triumph over power. And memes aren’t just ideas: they’re technologies that bypass deliberation to shape our feelings, identities and ways of communicating.

Consumed by media

We no longer “consume” media: we’re a function of the algorithms and AI powering today’s platforms. Like memes, AI tools like large language models can churn out plausible content that is nonetheless hateful, divisive and patently untrue.

Musk’s “I have become the meme” therefore reveals a paradox: he claims to master the meme, but no one can control its circulation or uptake. Trump and Mangione, too, are less individuals than avatars — produced by a digital culture that pre-shapes our perceptions of them.

The violence, however, is very real. If one violent act doesn’t justify counter-violence, it nonetheless structures and occasions it. Each side claims it is just.

Memes don’t ask: can we intentionally let others die and still be just? Answering this question is nearly impossible in a meme world. The answer will be a meme. And it will be a joke.

Stuart J. Murray receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. From ‘God Emperor Trump’ to ‘St. Luigi,’ memes power the politics of feeling – https://theconversation.com/from-god-emperor-trump-to-st-luigi-memes-power-the-politics-of-feeling-260388

July 30, 2025

Car tires are polluting the environment and killing salmon. A global plastics treaty could help

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Timothy Rodgers, Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Engineering, University of British Columbia

In the 1990s, scientists restoring streams around Seattle, Wash., noticed that returning coho salmon were dying after rainstorms. The effects were immediate: the fish swam in circles, gasping at the surface, then died in a few hours.

Over the next several decades, researchers chipped away at the problem until in 2020 they discovered the culprit: a chemical called 6PPD-quinone that forms when its parent compound, a tire additive called 6PPD, reacts with ozone.

6PPD-quinone kills coho salmon at extraordinarily low concentrations, making it one of the most toxic substances to an aquatic species that scientists have ever found.

Today, a growing body of evidence shows that tire additives and their transformation products, including 6PPD-quinone, are contaminating ecosystems and showing up in people.

Now, alongside the researchers who made that initial discovery, we’re calling for international regulation of these chemicals to protect people and the environment.

Our recently published research outlines the hazard posed by tire additives due to their demonstrated toxicity and high emissions near people and sensitive ecosystems, how current regulations don’t do enough to protect us, and how we can do better.

Tires are complex chemical products

Tires are far from simple rubber rings. They’re complex chemical products made to endure heat, friction and degradation. For example, 6PPD is in tires to protect them from ozone, which causes tires to crack.

Unfortunately, little attention was paid to these chemicals until scientists discovered the impacts of 6PPD-quinone and realized these chemicals could be hazardous.

Once they started looking, researchers found many tire additives, including 6PPD-quinone, in streams near roads, in dust and in the air — wherever there are roads, there is tire additive contamination.

Although 6PPD-quinone is most lethal to coho, it is also lethal to several other species of salmonids, and it may be toxic to aquatic plants and terrestrial invertebrates.

We know that exposure to tire wear particles and the chemicals that leach from them affect other aquatic species that are used as indicators of toxicological risk. This widespread contamination occurs because emissions of tire additives are high.

Every time we drive, we produce particles from tire wear, and those particles release additives into the environment. Tires lose 10-20 per cent of their mass over their lifetime. That means driving emits over one million tonnes of tire particles to the environment in both the United States and the European Union every year.

All those tire particle emissions represent a large source of chemicals to the environment and high human exposures, especially in cities. Researchers have started to find tire additives and their transformation products in people.

Although more research is needed on how tire additives affect people, 6PPD is classified as a reproductive toxin, and other tire additives and their transformation products have been associated with increased cancer risk in exposed populations.

Emerging research with mice indicates that some tire additives and their transformation products impact mammals, with studies showing neurotoxicity, damage to multiple organ systems and impaired fertility from 6PPD-quinone.

That’s why our team of environmental scientists is calling for urgent global action.

Plastics treaty

We’re not arguing that tires shouldn’t have additives, but those additives must be safer. That’s why we are calling for a process that replaces 6PPD and other tire additives with safer alternatives. Tire additives should be nonhazardous across their entire life cycle, and manufacturers should be transparent about what tire additives they are using and what their hazards are.

Next week, governments from around the world are meeting to negotiate a global treaty to end plastic pollution. We call for tires to be explicitly included in the treaty, and we want to see strong measures around plastic additives including tire additives.

We want to see:

Deadlines for phasing out hazardous chemicals;
The ability to mandate alternatives;
Transparency around the chemicals used in tires;
Independent panels for evaluating additive alternatives and for assessing additive effects;
Dedicated working groups focused on tire additives due to their large emissions and demonstrated ecological impacts.

The good news is that we’ve done this before. After scientists found a hole in the ozone layer, the world banded together under the Montréal Protocol to phase out the most damaging chemicals to the ozone layer. Today, the ozone layer is recovering, averting millions of cases of skin cancer and helping combat climate change. We need the same level of ambition and urgency now.

Making tires nonhazardous for the environment would help safeguard coho salmon populations, restoring traditional foods to Indigenous Peoples across the Pacific Northwest and protecting a species vital for aquatic ecosystems.

Since roads are built where people are, reducing the hazard from tire particle pollution would reduce one source of exposure to potentially toxic chemicals, and ensure a future where fewer people are impacted by chemical pollution. It’s time for global action on tire additives, before their impacts become even harder to ignore.

Timothy Rodgers receives funding from the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund.

Rachel Scholes receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the BC Knowledge Development Fund, and the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund.

Simon Drew receives funding from the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund.

– ref. Car tires are polluting the environment and killing salmon. A global plastics treaty could help – https://theconversation.com/car-tires-are-polluting-the-environment-and-killing-salmon-a-global-plastics-treaty-could-help-261832

July 30, 2025

‘Pay us what you owe us:’ What the WNBA’s collective bargaining talks reveal about negotiation psychology

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ryan Clutterbuck, Assistant Professor in Sport Management, Brock University

WNBA all-star players, led by Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark and the Minnesota Lynx’s Naphessa Collier, recently made headlines by wearing “Pay Us What You Owe Us” T-shirts during the pregame warm-up.

The T-shirts, which are now available for purchase, were a demonstration of players’ frustrations with the WNBA owners and the ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiation. The collective agreement sets out the terms and conditions of employment (like salaries and benefits) between the league and its players, and is set to expire Oct. 31, 2025.

Reportedly, players are asking for increased revenue sharing (the current agreement stipulates WNBA players receive only nine per cent of league revenue, relative to their NBA peers who receive 50 per cent), increased compensation (the average WNBA salary is US$147,745) and other benefits.

Central to these demands is the perception that, despite a surge in popularity, media attention and viewership, WNBA players are still being underpaid and are undervalued.

Negotiations for a new collective agreement are ongoing. But as the T-shirts and subsequent public statements from the players and the WNBA show, there is increasing frustration with how the process is unfolding.

What is ‘owed’ to WNBA players?

Debate over what is “owed” to WNBA players has intensified recently. ESPN commentator Pat McAfee, for example, has suggested the league should simply increase players’ salaries by US$30,000 per player, saying that contracts like Clark’s are “an embarrassment.”

But others argue this discussion should go beyond players’ salaries. Syracuse University sport management professor Lindsey Darvin writes:

“The question isn’t whether the WNBA can afford to pay players what they’re worth; it’s whether the league can afford not to make the investments necessary to realize its full potential.”

According to Darvin, because the WNBA is an economically inefficient — and arguably exploitative — business, its focus should be on increasing revenue, and not simply on reducing its labour costs. For example, with the goal to satisfy increasing market demands for the WNBA, strategies to increase revenue could include expanding the league to new markets, scheduling more games at the 3 p.m. Eastern time slot and increasing the number of regular season games from 44 to 60 or more.

In sport management classrooms and negotiation workshops at Brock University, we call this “expanding the pie” — working collaboratively, as opposed to combatively, to grow the game and the business so that both players and owners benefit over the long term. But this is easier said than done.

Information shapes negotiation outcomes

While it’s still early in the negotiation process, there are lessons that can be learned from this round of collective bargaining. One of those lessons has to do with making and receiving first offers. In particular, two psychological concepts are at play: information asymmetry and the anchoring effect.

Information asymmetry occurs when one party holds more relevant knowledge than the other. For example, in a typical job negotiation, the employer knows the number of applicants for the position, how much the company is willing to pay and what compensation trends look like across the sector. The candidate, by contrast, lacks most if not all of this information and thus enters the negotiation at a distinct disadvantage.

The question is: who should make the first salary offer? The general rule is that when you lack critical information, it’s better to let the other side make the first move.

In the case of the WNBA’s negotiations, the information asymmetry problem is not so obvious. The owners likely have a certain perspective on what is acceptable in terms of sharing league revenue and improving working conditions. But the players possess their own kind of leverage, regarding their willingness to protest or walk out entirely.

The league made its initial proposal to the players in early July, but it was not well received.

The ‘anchoring effect’ can skew negotiations

Another problem influencing negotiations is the “anchoring effect.” This occurs when an initial offer influences subsequent offers and counteroffers, and ultimately has an impact on the final outcome.

Garage-sale aficionados may recognize this tendency, as buyers often negotiate with the seller’s sticker price in mind, haggling to earn a 25 or 50 per cent discount on an item without considering whether the item is actually worth the cost. Here, the sticker acts as the anchor.

While sticker prices and first offers are not inherently malicious, some sale prices and first offers are intended to manipulate buyers and negotiators representing the other side. Savvy negotiators deploy strategic anchors, but even they can sometimes miss.

In maritime terms, anchor scour occurs when a ship’s anchor fails to catch hold and instead drags across the seabed, destroying ecosystems caught in its path.

In negotiations, a similar process can unfold. When initial moves and first offers fail to catch hold because they are perceived to be unfair by the other side, it can damage relationships and can make subsequent negotiations even more difficult.

Now, the WNBA may face the consequences of a poorly received anchor. According to WNBA player representative, Satou Sabally, the WNBA’s initial offer was a “slap in the face”.

New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart called the players’ meeting with the league on July 17 to discuss a new collective bargaining agreement a “wasted opportunity” while Chicago Sky player Angel Reese called the negotiations “disrespectful.”

It’s time to right the ship

Though it’s still early days, we expect negotiations to heat up in the coming weeks as the Halloween deadline to reach a deal approaches.

There is still time to right the ship, so to speak, but to do so, WNBA players and owners must internalize the potentially disastrous impacts that can come from negotiating over an imagined “fixed pie” instead of expanding it, and dropping anchors that fail to address the other sides’ key interests.

WNBA players and WNBA team owners now have, in front of them, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform professional women’s sport in North America, through creatively and collaboratively expanding the pie and paying the players what they’re owed.

Michele K. Donnelly has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Michael Van Bussel and Ryan Clutterbuck do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Pay us what you owe us:’ What the WNBA’s collective bargaining talks reveal about negotiation psychology – https://theconversation.com/pay-us-what-you-owe-us-what-the-wnbas-collective-bargaining-talks-reveal-about-negotiation-psychology-261731

July 30, 2025

Israel’s attack on Syria: Protecting the Druze minority or a regional power play?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Spyros A. Sofos, Assistant Professor in Global Humanities, Simon Fraser University

A new round of violence recently erupted in southern Syria, where clashes between local Druze militias and Sunni fighters have left hundreds dead.

In response, Israel launched airstrikes in and around the province of Sweida on July 15, saying it was acting to protect the Druze minority and to deter attacks by Syrian government forces.

The strikes mark Israel’s most serious escalation in Syria since December 2024, and they underline a growing trend in its foreign policy: the use of minority protection as a tool of regional influence and power projection.

The Druze minority

The Druze, a small but strategically significant ethno-religious group, have historically occupied a precarious position in the politics of Syria, Israel and Lebanon.

With an estimated million members across the Levant — a sub-region of west Asia that forms the core of the Middle East — the Druze have often tried to preserve their autonomy amid broader sectarian and political upheavals. In Syria, they make up about three per cent of the population, concentrated largely in the southern province of Sweida.

Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in late 2024 and the rise of a new Islamist-led government under Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Druze in southern Syria have resisted central authority.

Though not united in their stance, many Druze militias have rejected integration into the new Syrian army, preferring to rely on local defence networks. The latest wave of violence, sparked by the abduction of a Druze merchant, has been met with both brutality from pro-government forces and military retaliation by Israel.

Truly protecting Syrian minorities?

Israeli officials says they intervened to protect the Druze, which is not unprecedented. Over the past year, Israel has increasingly portrayed itself as a defender of threatened minorities in Syria — rhetoric that echoes past efforts to align with non-Arab or marginalized groups, such as the Kurds and certain Christian communities.

This strategy may be less about humanitarian goals and, in fact, much more deeply political.

By positioning itself as a regional protector of minorities, Israel could be seeking to craft a narrative of moral authority, particularly as it faces growing international outrage over its policies in the West Bank and Gaza. This is an example of what scholars refer to as strategic or nation branding by states to cultivate legitimacy and influence through selective interventions and symbolic gestures.

But Israel’s actions may not just concern image. They could also be part of a broader geopolitical strategy of containment and fragmentation.

The new authorities in Syria are seen as a significant threat, particularly because of the presence of Islamist factions operating near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. By creating what is in effect a buffer zone in southern Syria, Israel’s goal may be to prevent the entrenchment of hostile entities along its northern border while also capitalizing on Syria’s internal fragilities.

Strategic risks

With sectarian tensions resurfacing in Syria, the Israeli government probably sees an opportunity to build informal alliances with disaffected groups like the Druze, who may be skeptical of the new Syrian government. This reflects a shift in Israel’s foreign policy from reactive deterrence to proactive strategic disruption.

This approach is not without risks. While some Druze leaders have welcomed Israeli support, others — particularly in Syria and Lebanon — have accused Israel of stoking sectarian tensions to justify military intervention and advance territorial or security aims.

Such accusations echo longstanding criticisms that Israel’s involvement in regional conflicts is often guided less by humanitarian concern and more by cold strategic calculation.

This new phase in Israeli foreign policy also fits into a broader pattern I’ve previously written about — the increasing revisionism of Israel’s regional strategy under Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership. That strategy seemingly seeks to upend multilateral norms, bypass traditional diplomacy and pursue influence through direct engagement — often militarized — with non-state entities and marginalized communities.

Israel’s July 15 strikes, and an attack on Syria’s Ministry of Defence in Damascus the following day, have drawn strong condemnation from Arab states, Turkey and the United Nations.

While Israeli officials have justified the attacks as defensive and humanitarian, the intensity and symbolic targets suggest a deeper intention: to demonstrate operational reach, and, more importantly, actively engage in a redesign of the region with fragmentation and state weakness as the main objective.

Fragmentation of the Middle East

The United States, while expressing concern over the violence, has largely remained silent on Israel’s expanding role in Syria. This could further embolden Israeli actions in a region where international norms are being increasingly upended and traditional great power engagement is waning.

Sectarian clashes are likely to continue in Sweida and beyond as Syria’s central government struggles to reassert control. That means that for Israel, the opportunity to deepen its footprint in southern Syria under the guise of minority protection remains.

But despite its effort to present itself as a stable, moral presence in an otherwise chaotic neighbourhood, Israel could be undermining the very stability it says it wants to protect as it militarizes humanitarianism.

The world is not not just witnessing a series of airstrikes or another episode of sectarian violence in the Middle East. It’s watching a profound transformation in the regional order — one in which traditional borders, alliances and identities are being reshaped.

Amid this environment, Israel’s role could evolve not just as a military power, but as a revisionist nation navigating, and helping to bring about, the fragmentation of the Middle East.

Spyros A. Sofos 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. Israel’s attack on Syria: Protecting the Druze minority or a regional power play? – https://theconversation.com/israels-attack-on-syria-protecting-the-druze-minority-or-a-regional-power-play-261648

July 30, 2025

Canada could use thermal infrastructure to turn wasted heat emissions into energy

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By James (Jim) S. Cotton, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, McMaster University

Buildings are the third-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. In many cities, including Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary, buildings are the single highest source of emissions.

The recently launched Infrastructure for Good barometer, released by consulting firm Deloitte, suggests that Canada’s infrastructure investments already top the global list in terms of positive societal, economic and environmental benefits.

In fact, over the past 150 years, Canada has built railways, roads, clean water systems, electrical grids, pipelines and communication networks to connect and serve people across the country.

Now, there’s an opportunity to build on Canada’s impressive tradition by creating a new form of infrastructure: capturing, storing and sharing the massive amounts of heat lost from industry, electricity generation and communities, even in summer.

Natural gas precedent

Indoor heating often comes from burning fossil fuels — three-quarters of Ontario homes, for example, are heated by natural gas. Until about 1966, homes across Canada were primarily heated by wood stoves, coal boilers, oil furnaces or heaters using electricity from coal-fired power plants.

After the oil crisis of the 1970s, many of those fuels were replaced by natural gas, delivered directly to individual homes. The cost of the natural gas infrastructure, including a national network of pipelines, was amortized over more than 50 years to make the cost more practical.

two pie charts showing the source of Ontario's greenhouse gas emissions — Sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario.
(J. Cotton), CC BY

This reliable, low-cost energy source quickly proved to be popular. The change cut heating emissions across Ontario by roughly half throughout the 1970s and 1980s, long before climate change was the concern it is today.

Now, as the need to decarbonize becomes more pressing, recent studies not only emphasize the often-overstated emissions reductions benefits from using natural gas; they also indicate that burning this fuel source is still far from net-zero.

However, there’s no reason why Canadian governments can’t invest in new infrastructure-based alternative heating solutions. This time, they could replace natural gas with an alternative, net-zero source: the wasted heat already emitted by other energy uses.

Heat capture and storage

Depending on the source temperature, technology used and system design, heat can be captured throughout the year, stored and distributed as needed. A type of infrastructure called thermal networks could capture leftover heat from factories and nuclear and gas-fired power plants.

In essence, thermal networks take excess thermal energy from industrial processes (though thermal energy can theoretically be captured from a variety of different sources), and use it as a centralized heating source for a series of insulated underground pipelines connected to multiple other buildings. These pipelines, in turn, are used to heat or cool these connected buildings.

A substantial potential to capture heat similarly exists in every neighbourhood. Heat is produced by data centres, grocery stores, laundromats, restaurants, sewage systems and even hockey arenas.

In Ontario, the amount of energy we dump in the form of heat is greater than all the natural gas we use to heat our homes.

A restaurant, for example, can produce enough heat for seven family homes. To take advantage of the wasted heat, Canada needs to build thermal networks, corridors and storage to capture and distribute heat directly to consumers.

The effort demands substantial leadership from all levels of government. Creating these systems would be expensive, but the technology does exist, and the one-time cost would pay for itself many times over.

Such systems are already working in other cold countries. Thermal networks heat half the homes in Sweden and two-thirds of homes in Denmark.

pipes being laid under a city street — District heating pipes being laid at Gullbergs Strandgata in Gothenburg, Sweden in May 2021.
(Shutterstock)

The oil crisis of the 1970s motivated both countries to find new domestic heating sources. They financed their new infrastructure over 50 years and reduced their investment risks through low-interest bonds (loaned by public banks) and generous subsidies.

These were offered to utility companies looking to expand district energy operations, and to consumers by incentivizing connections to such systems. Additionally, in Denmark, controlled consumer prices served a similar function.

At least seven American states have established thermal energy networks, with New York being the first. The state’s Utility Thermal Energy Network and Jobs Act allows public utilities to own, operate and manage thermal networks.

They can supply thermal energy, but so can private producers such as data centres, all with public oversight. Such a strategy avoids monopolies and allows gas and electric utilities to deliver services through central networks.

An opportunity for Canada

Canada has a real opportunity to learn from the experiences of Sweden, Denmark and New York. In doing so, Canada can create a beneficial and truly national heating system in the process. Beginning with federal government leadership, thermal networks could be built across Canada, tailored to the unique and individual needs, strengths and opportunities of municipalities and provinces.

Such a shift would reduce emissions and generate greater energy sovereignty for Canada. It could drive a just energy strategy that could provide employment opportunities for those displaced by the transition away from fossil fuels, while simultaneously increasing Canada’s economic independence in the process.

Thermal networks could be built using pipelines made from Canadian steel. Oil-well drillers from Alberta could dig borehole heat-storage systems. A new market for heat-recovery pumps would create good advanced-manufacturing jobs in Canada.

Funding for the infrastructure could come through public-private partnerships, with major investments from public banks and pension funds, earning a solid and secure rate of return. A regulated approach and process could permit this infrastructure cost to be amortized over decades, similar to the way past governments have financed gas, electrical and water networks.

As researchers studying the engineering and policy potential of such an opportunity, we view such actions as essential if net-zero is to be achieved in the Canadian building sector. They are also a win-win solution for incumbent industry, various levels of government and citizens across Canada alike.

Yet efforts to install robust thermal networks remain stalled by institutional inertia, the strong influence of the oil industry, limited citizen awareness of the technology’s potential and a tendency for government to view the electrification of heating as the primary solution to building decarbonization.

In this time of environmental crisis and international uncertainty, pushing past these barriers, drawing on Canada’s lengthy history of constructing infrastructure and creating this new form thermal energy infrastructure would be a safe, beneficial and conscientious way to move Canada into a more climate-friendly future.

James (Jim) S. Cotton receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Caleb Duffield 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. Canada could use thermal infrastructure to turn wasted heat emissions into energy – https://theconversation.com/canada-could-use-thermal-infrastructure-to-turn-wasted-heat-emissions-into-energy-254972

July 29, 2025

Summer has brought both hope and questions for Ukraine amid Donald Trump’s posturing

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser University

United States President Donald Trump has recently issued various threats towards Russia amid his apparent mounting frustration with Russian leader Vladmir Putin. These threats also occur at a time when Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine may have an end in sight.

Some experts have suggested that 2025 is Russia’s best chance to win its war against Ukraine in a decisive manner. Russia has material advantages over the Ukrainians, whose international backers have not matched the pace of Russian arms manufacturing.

Recent analyses emphasize that Russian advances in 2025 have been the most successful since its early efforts in 2022.

What such perspectives fail to note, however, is the amount of territory that Russia has seized in 2025 is, from a strategic standpoint, negligible. On the surface, this bodes well for Ukraine.

Nevertheless, long-term indicators for Ukraine’s success, notably external support and personnel issues, are unresolved.

Russia’s 2025 offensive

Russia has been involved in extensive offensive military operations since the spring of 2025, but it had been pursuing such a venture much earlier.

The year 2025 introduced a political variable into both Russia and Ukraine’s calculations that likely caused the Russians to accelerate their timetable: Trump. Trump has pushed for peace in Ukraine, no matter the terms.

Trump’s original 50-day deadline for Russia to conclude a peace deal is at the start of September. Given this time span is likely the limit of Russia’s operational capacity, it means that Putin is incentivized to seize as much territory as possible in the interim. There are too many unknowns in terms of Trump’s pivot to a 10-12 day deadline to warrant further analysis.

The role of North Korea

Nevertheless, Russian forces in 2025 have not achieved a decisive breakthrough or altered the war in a demonstrable manner. Russia’s failed efforts to make significant gains this year are best witnessed in two phenomena: its drone campaign against Ukrainian cities and its alliance with North Korea.

The North Korean alliance was designed to counter weaknesses in Russia’s personnel and industrial base. Despite Russia’s increased recruitment efforts and offering large sums to enlist, it still faces personnel shortages.

North Korean soldiers offer Russia an advantage since casualties are unlikely to affect Putin’s political base or to disrupt the alliance between the two authoritarian regimes. The fact that North Korea is sending additional soldiers after its first wave suffered significant casualties indicates how Russia and North Korea view those soldiers as dispensable.

Ukraine’s effective counter-strategy

Russia’s purpose in conducting drone strikes on Ukrainian cities is to make up for its weakness on the battlefield. But Russian drone strikes on civilian infrastructure have not demoralized the Ukrainian population; rather, the opposite has occurred.

Russian drone strikes seem aimed at demonstrating its capabilities to Russian citizens after Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web embarrassed the Russian leadership.

Ukrainian officials in 2025 recognized the challenges the year would bring for its armed forces. Any direct engagements between Ukraine and Russia were likely to result in either the significant loss of Ukrainian territory or — and even more critically — personnel. Ukraine has maintained its units at the front lines, and has so far succeeded in avoiding either of these dire outcomes.

Instead, Ukraine has launched asymmetric attacks to divert Russian resources and maintain the morale of Ukrainians. Operation Spider Web was the most successful of these operations, as the attacks garnered domestic and international support while exposing Russian vulnerabilities.

Ukrainian forces have conducted several other actions with the goal of inhibiting Russian operations and boosting the morale of their people.

Ukrainian asymmetric attacks are not a genuine strategy for victory. But they could position Ukraine for greater success in 2026 and beyond. First Ukraine needs to address several factors to achieve this goal, in particular the domestic and international challenges it’s facing.

Ukraine’s domestic challenges

Ukraine continues to face an ongoing personnel shortage. Ukrainians need to have faith in their leaders to make the sacrifices needed for victory in the conflict, but the government’s recent actions have dampened domestic enthusiasm.

Specifically, while many Ukrainians accept the necessity of a wartime government, recent legislation that removed the independence of the government’s anti-corruption agencies sparked an uproar.

Recent demonstrations, the first large-scale protests against the Ukrainian government since Russia’s invasion, speak to the dismay the legislation engendered. One Ukrainian soldier even called the new measures a “fatal mistake.”

For Ukrainians to make sacrifices for the state, they must possess faith in their government. The Ukrainian government’s move to repeal the law is an important first step, but it must continue to work to build trust among the Ukrainian people.

Ukraine’s international challenges

While Ukraine’s government can directly control the domestic challenges it faces, it cannot do so internationally. The shifts of American policy under Trump is an example.

Ukraine could, however, diversify its efforts away from the U.S. It’s already started to do so, but it’s a slow and ongoing process.

In the interim, Ukraine must manage a mercurial American president and administration that has a penchant for using international affairs to distract from domestic concerns.

Ukrainian politicians have improved their ability to manage Trump since the infamous February Oval Office affair, evident by Trump’s recent announcement of sorely needed Patriot missiles being sent to Ukraine.

Ukraine is managing to survive what could be Russia’s last chance at decisive victory if Trump is serious about his ceasefire threats to the Russian regime. The future of the conflict, however, will depend on how Ukraine manages its domestic and international challenges.

James Horncastle 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. Summer has brought both hope and questions for Ukraine amid Donald Trump’s posturing – https://theconversation.com/summer-has-brought-both-hope-and-questions-for-ukraine-amid-donald-trumps-posturing-261646

July 29, 2025

How Disney classics help me teach real-world economics

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Junaid B. Jahangir, Associate Professor, Economics, MacEwan University

Disney celebrated the 75th anniversary of Cinderella in February this year, with the message that she didn’t just believe in dreams, but did something about them by going to the palace to get Prince Charming.

The message emphasizes individual persistence for a happy ending, and projects popular ideas often entrenched in how undergraduate students learn about economics — that success is based on individual talent and hard work.

The anniversary allowed the Disney store another opportunity to sell its wares, including a US$7,000 diamond engagement ring.

Cinderella’s castle remains a signature feature of the Disney logo. Her story, along with other Disney classics, has been also used by academics and popular commentators alike to teach economics and finance lessons.

I teach economics using Disney and Cinderella. My approach is grounded in scholarly, popular and student critiques of how economics is taught and of the myth of meritocracy — that people get what they deserve.

The focus in my course “Economics for Everyone” aims to critique traditional tenets of economic theory to discuss issues with inequality and also to teach economics in a way that is accessible and interesting to students representing diverse abilities and identities.

Disney celebrates 75 years of Cinderella.

‘Real-world’ economics

The idea of “real world” economics alludes to the push by student groups in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. They were concerned that while they were inundated with mathematical equations, their studies had not prepared them to address the state of the world.

As noted by Geoffrey Hodgson, a specialist in institutional and evolutionary economics, students created organizations and mounted demonstrations for alternative curricula.

In 2016, founding members of the Post-Crash Economics Society at the University of Manchester published The Econocracy: The Perils of Leaving Economics to the Experts. A global network, Rethinking Economics, was formed.

Some economics faculty responded that the discipline ought to focus on issues of inequalities, climate change, concerns about the future of work and financial instability.

Economist John Komlos focuses on the need for diverse or “real-world” issues in economics education while economists Jack Reardon and Maria Alejandra Caporale Madi write about a new “pluralist” economics. Political economist and economic historian Robert Skidelsky discusses why economics should include philosophy, history, sociology and politics.

Economists Sam de Muijnck and Joris Tieleman argue that economics textbooks sideline topics pertaining to power, racism, colonialism, exploitation and unequal life chances.

All these critiques lie at the heart of what I think of as “real-world economics.”

Beginning with situations, not math

Traditionally, in the first year of economics programs, students become deeply familiar with economic theoretical ideas that are posited as scientifically neutral or “value-free” models. However, as scholars like James Kwak and Komlos note, these theories are value-laden and promote neoliberal ideas that rest upon assuming the benefits of privatization, deregulation and small governments.

To teach first-year economics, instead of beginning with mathematical theories, I begin with real-world situations students are familiar with that speak to economic realities. The approach is inspired by Komlos and by a former student, Declan Jensen-Joyce, who asked me to emphasize diverse perspectives and real-world content.

I de-emphasize math at the introductory level, as many first-year students from varied disciplines (like business students majoring in accounting) have to take an introductory economics course. I emphasize a critical evaluation of mathematical models, an approach I sustain in advanced economics classes. Students who advance in economics are critically prepared to consider the limits of mathematical models.

Economics for everyone

The course I designed, “Economics for Everyone,” is offered for undergraduate students and also for senior citizens as part of the Edmonton Lifelong Learners Association. The class centres issues of economic inequality, worker exploitation and systemic discrimination.

I draw on mainstream (neoclassical) economic theory that emphasizes rationality, equilibrium and markets. I also draw on critiques of the field of economics from thinkers both within economics and from disciplines like anthropology, philosophy and history.

Using popular stories to reinforce concepts and ideas when teaching economics isn’t new. Especially since a seminal critique of the “chalk and talk” method — lots of math on a blackboard combined with lecturing — there has been a surge of research involving the use of games, video clips, popular books and other creative media to engage students.

Such methods of instruction are based on the recognition that they make economic content more relatable and increase student interest, break up lectures
and reinforce learning.

Levelling the playing field

The Disney message on Cinderella’s 75th anniversary is just one perspective.

In my class, I show a video clip to discuss the role of both luck and the importance of equality of opportunity in Cinderella’s happy ending. On the one hand, Cinderella’s good looks gave her luck. On the other hand, her opportunities could have been thwarted had it not been for interventions from outsiders.

For example, students learn that a level playing field was created when the Grand Duke allows Cinderella to try the slipper despite the unfair tactics of her stepmother, Lady Tremaine.

Disney Kids: Cinderella tries on the glass slipper.

Selected works of Komlos, as well as by philosopher Michael Sandel and political scientist Tom Malleson, accompany the message I endeavour to highlight to broach topics like democratizing the market system.

Economic freedom

Cinderella also allows us to recognize that people cannot exercise free choice unless they are economically free — as in the case of Cinderella, who must follow orders so she doesn’t end up on the streets.

This is specifically true in the case of racialized people, specifically, as I discuss, Black communities in the United States, who obtained freedom from legal bondage but continued to face economic constraints and hardship reinforced through many forms of white power, both violent and coercive.

Through The Princess and The Frog, a 2009 Disney musical, I consider the characters Tiana and Charlotte as children and as adults. I contrast the wealthy neighbourhood of Charlotte’s (white) family and Tiana’s neighbourhood of working-class Black families in order to teach the economics of racism.

This allows recognition of the systemic impact of neighbourhoods with poor schools and high unemployment on limiting upward social mobility. These themes also support discussing covert racism in the discipline of economics and how communities and systems of governance can mitigate inequalities.

How living standards emerge

Teaching about Pinocchio also helps me critique the economic principle that living standards are based on productivity.

For example, Stromboli enriches himself with gold coins by exploiting Pinocchio’s labour and keeping him in a cage. Examining this story allows an opportunity to broach the mistreatment of poor migrant workers in the Middle East with dismal living conditions.

Overall, various Disney animations allow me to broach real-world economic issues in a manner that captures the interest of students, young and old.

Junaid B. Jahangir 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. How Disney classics help me teach real-world economics – https://theconversation.com/how-disney-classics-help-me-teach-real-world-economics-259831

July 29, 2025

Ontario’s forest management is falling short on key sustainability test

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jay R. Malcolm, Professor Emeritus, Forestry, University of Toronto

Forest degradation is increasingly recognized as a major global threat. Such degradation refers to the gradual erosion of a forest’s ability to store carbon, support biodiversity and sustain livelihoods, including those of Indigenous Peoples.

International frameworks such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change now address degradation alongside deforestation.

While tropical forests have long been the focus, attention is also turning to temperate and boreal forests, where forest management is widespread and the potential for degradation is growing.

Some scientists have argued that if forest management is designed to be “ecologically sustainable,” then there should be little concern about degradation. But is this principle being upheld in practice? Our recent study in Ontario suggests otherwise.

Emulating natural forest disturbances

A widely used strategy to support ecological sustainability is to emulate natural disturbances; that is, to design human-caused disturbances so they fall within the range of variation observed in nature.

The ecological theory behind this approach is that species are adapted to cope with, or even benefit from, natural disturbances. In Canada’s managed boreal forests, for example, harvesting is explicitly designed to mimic natural fires, both in individual cutblocks and across the broader landscape.

In fact, this principle is enshrined in Ontario’s 1994 Crown Forest Sustainability Act that states:

“The long-term health and vigour of Crown forests should be provided for by using forest practice…that emulates natural disturbances and landscape patterns…”

The ecological sustainability of forest management is not a given: it is a hypothesis, and like any hypothesis, it must be tested. Are we actually managing forests in ecologically sustainable ways, or are we witnessing gradual forest degradation?

Our study examined the state of a 7.9 million hectare area of boreal forest in northeastern Ontario from 2012 to 2021 to test whether the provincial management regime was emulating natural disturbances, as required by law, or was instead prioritizing timber harvesting.

We used three indicators:

1) The rate at which forest was disturbed (including harvesting and fire).

2) The amount of relatively old forest (greater than 100 years old).

3) Modelled habitat for two species that have been used as indicators of sustainability: America marten and boreal caribou.

Our research did not find evidence that current practices in northeastern Ontario are emulating natural disturbances across the boreal landscape. Rather, the observed disturbance patterns appear to reflect strategies primarily focused on timber harvesting priorities.

What we found

A particular risk for boreal forests is a focus on timber production and economic returns over ecological goals. Such an approach is fundamentally at odds with the idea of emulating nature.

In particular, forests older than 100 years old have high ecological value in natural systems. They keep large amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere and provide habitat for myriad species. But if one is prioritizing timber, they are viewed as wasteful because they do not produce timber as rapidly as younger forests and are often targeted for removal. In that perspective, they are labelled “decadent.”

We found that the amount of forest disturbed per year was often higher than expected under natural fire regimes and, in some coniferous forest types, even exceeded the rates expected under a strategy that prioritized timber harvesting.

Relatively old forests were also much rarer than in natural landscapes: only 22 per cent of the forest in the study area was more than 100 years old compared to an average of 54 per cent in natural landscapes.

This amount was lower than even the most conservative threshold of natural variability.

Habitats for marten and caribou were similarly degraded and fragmented. Marten habitat covered just 36 per cent of the study landscape, compared to 76 per cent in a reconstructed natural landscape. For boreal caribou, habitat was even more compromised, covering only four per cent of the study area compared to 53 per cent in the natural landscape.

Strikingly, for caribou, levels of habitat disturbance — including disturbances from harvesting, fire and roads — exceeded 70 per cent of the landscape, jeopardizing the sustainability of the two caribou populations.

Surprisingly, the clearest evidence of forest management prioritizing timber occurred within zones meant explicitly to sustain caribou. Our modelling showed that such areas will contain even less caribou habitat in the future than they do today.

A path to an ecologically sustainable future

The Ontario government is currently revisiting its boreal management strategy — a welcome and timely development. But rather than relying solely on a virtual reality model (Boreal Forest Landscape Disturbance Simulator) to define natural landscapes as is currently the case, it is evident that policy must be grounded in empirical data from real, unmanaged forests.

Scientific research over the past several decades has identified forest management approaches that can deliver timber while also sustaining ecological services within natural bounds.

These strategies, however, rely on tools the province has yet to embrace, including longer harvest rotations, increased use of partial harvesting instead of over-relying on clearcutting, expanded areas set aside from logging, and explicit targets for amounts of forest up to 200 years of age or older.

Our findings indicate that forest degradation is already underway in the boreal forests of Ontario. Substantial changes to forest management are required to reverse this trend and safeguard the ecosystem services on which people and wildlife depend.

Jay R. Malcolm has received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Wahkohtowin Development GP Inc. (WDGP). The research also benefited from research on American marten habitat funded by Mitacs
and WDGP. WDGP played a role in defining the study area, but otherwise funders were not involved in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to submit the article for publication.

Justina C. Ray is President and Senior Scientist of Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.

– ref. Ontario’s forest management is falling short on key sustainability test – https://theconversation.com/ontarios-forest-management-is-falling-short-on-key-sustainability-test-261054