Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Timothy Naimi, Director, Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research; Professor, School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria

Research has revealed a steep increase in liver disease in recent years. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence of health harms from alcohol, including drinking at levels that were previously considered “moderate.” These developments make a persuasive case for viewing alcohol consumption from a public health perspective.

As an internal medicine physician and alcohol epidemiologist, I’m interested in the overlap between liver disease and alcohol use among patients and in the general population. As it turns out, these topics are closely related, but maybe in surprising ways.

The liver is essential: humans need it to live. The liver contributes to metabolism and food storage, produces proteins that help with blood clotting and plays a vital role in the immune system.

At the cellular level, alcohol is a toxic substance that is metabolized (broken down) primarily in the liver. When the dose of alcohol is too high, liver cells become inflamed and damaged (liver inflammation is called hepatitis).

Over time, inflamed or damaged cells are replaced by fibrosis, which is the replacement of normal liver tissue with scar tissue, resulting in cirrhosis, or severe scarring and liver dysfunction. Cirrhosis can be fatal on its own and can also lead to liver cancer.

How does alcohol contribute to liver disease?

Liver disease caused by alcohol is referred to as alcohol-related liver disease or ALD, previously called alcoholic liver disease. The heaviest drinkers, often those who have alcohol use disorder (AUD), can develop cirrhosis and liver failure.

But alcohol-related liver disease does not only affect people with AUD/heavy drinking. A growing body of evidence suggests chronic alcohol use at lower levels may also impact liver function and lead to disease, particularly among those with other risk factors for liver disease.

Patterns of alcohol consumption are also important, including among those who may not consume high amounts of alcohol on average. For example, binge drinking (defined as men consuming five or more drinks or women consuming four or more drinks per occasion) is a pattern of consumption that is very damaging to the liver because it results in high blood alcohol concentrations.

Binge drinking can be harmful to the liver, even among people who don’t drink very much on average or don’t have an alcohol use disorder.

Why are deaths from liver disease increasing?

Deaths from liver disease have been increasing dramatically in Canada and the United States over the past two decades. A key factor is increased alcohol consumption during the same period, but this has been trending down over the past couple of years. Between 2016 and 2022, Canadian deaths from alcohol-caused liver disease increased by 22 per cent.

But alcohol isn’t the only key contributor to the rise in deaths from liver disease. Another is the rise of a condition called metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD.

Despite the complicated name, MASLD is a type of liver disease that is caused by the same metabolic disturbances that have accompanied the rise of overweight and obesity coupled with inadequate physical activity. This is the same set of risk factors that have led to the increase in diabetes. So one can conceive of MASLD as the liver equivalent of diabetes.

Hepatis C, which is a blood-borne viral infection that can be acquired through injection drug use and needle sharing, is another important contributor to liver disease and cirrhosis.

Even though medical terminology has historically differentiated between alcohol and non-alcohol-related liver diseases, alcohol contributes to the progression of supposedly non-alcoholic liver disease, including MASLD and hepatitis C.

My colleagues and I studied patients with MASLD from the U.S.-based Framingham Heart Study. We found that even among non-heavy drinkers, there was a dose-dependent relationship between the amount of alcohol use and the severity of both liver inflammation and fibrosis.

Similarly, even low levels of alcohol use can hasten the development of liver cirrhosis among those with hepatitis C. For example, research has shown that in patients with hepatitis C, there is an 11 per cent increase in risk of cirrhosis with each one-drink increase in average drinks per day.

Preventing and reducing alcohol-caused harms to the liver

Beyond providing medical care for individual patients with known liver disease, steps need to be taken upstream within the health system. These include screening around alcohol use in primary care, counselling interventions for those with risky drinking habits and treatment for those with alcohol use disorders. To do this effectively, there needs to be more resources available for all of these interventions.

However, treating individuals does not address the larger public health issue: measures are needed to lower alcohol consumption at the population level.

This is a cornerstone of preventing and reducing liver disease and its resulting disability, hospitalizations and death. And the most effective way to reduce alcohol consumption is through alcohol control policies that:

• Make alcohol more expensive (for example, alcohol taxes and minimum prices);
• Less available (such as restrictions on hours of sale, or the number of locations that sell alcohol), or
• Less desirable socially (such as limits on advertising and marketing or sports sponsorships).

In previous research, we found that states with 10 per cent stronger or more restrictive alcohol policies had lower ALD mortality rates. Furthermore, states that increased restrictiveness by even five per cent showed subsequent reductions in ALD.

Liver harm caused by alcohol is a public health problem. Collectively, we need to take better care of our livers by taking steps to reduce alcohol consumption in the population.

Timothy Naimi 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 alcohol contributes to the epidemic of liver disease – https://theconversation.com/how-alcohol-contributes-to-the-epidemic-of-liver-disease-262902

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Luna KC, Assistant Professor, Global and International Studies, University of Northern British Columbia

Youth protesters in Nepal are in the global spotlight for their angry response to the government’s sweeping social media ban in an apparent attempt to silence their dissent. The government’s actions ignited mass protests — led largely by Gen Z, a cohort made up of young people born between 1997 and 2012.

The Gen Z movement represents a turning point for Nepal politics. The protesters had three key demands: end corruption, end nepotism and reform the country’s political systems.

Their uprising led to the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli and several government ministers. Sushila Karki was then appointed interim prime minister, and the protests have since died down.

Why is the Gen Z protest unique?

Nepal’s Gen Z movement is different from other movements in Nepal.

First, it is led by young people. Second, social media is their main means of communicating their dissent and their agenda.

These protesters are angry that working-class young people are struggling to meet basic everyday needs (food, shelter, jobs, health care, etc.) and facing rising inequality, discrimination and poverty.

That’s in contrast to the children and grandchildren of Nepal’s high-profile elite politicians, accused by the protesters of living in the lap of luxury. Gen Z protesters have demanded information about the source of income of Nepal’s ultra-rich politicians and their families, and called for a thorough investigation.

Why are Gen Zs so frustrated?

For a long time, Nepal, with a population of 29.5 million, has been trapped in a poverty cycle. It is ranked 143rd globally in the Human Development Index (2024).

The unemployment rate in 2024 for youth aged 15-24 was 20.82 per cent, and it’s growing. Reports also suggest that more than 1,500 adults leave the country every day in search of work.

In 2021, the Nepal census found that 7.1 per cent of the population was working outside the country and has a median age of 28.

In 2023, Nepali workers sent remittances of US$11 billion back home. In fact, estimates suggest that almost 25 per cent of Nepal’s GDP is from remittances.

There is also growing concern about Nepali worker deaths as people take dangerous jobs; more than 700 workers died from 2018 to 2019 Gen Z frustrations are linked to how their parents leave the country in search of work and do the most high-risk and lowest-paid jobs abroad, which they believe is in stark contrast to the lives of #NepoBabies and #NepoKids.

Gen Z’s digital tactics

Some Gen Z social media users tracked the accounts (on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook) of the children and grandchildren of ultra-rich politicians and shared or reposted images and videos of their luxurious lifestyles.

That included photos taken on high-end vacations in Europe, shopping for designer brands like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci and Cartier, as well as their stays in family properties worth billions.

Social media engagement surged on posts with these images and with hashtags that included #Nepobaby, #NepoKids, #PoliticiansNepoBabyNepal and #Corruption.

Some Gen Zs also made short videos on TikTok and Facebook highlighting corruption, inequality, poverty and nepotism; those videos also went viral.

All of these issues resonated with many Nepali Gen Zs, spurring them to join the protest movement.

Social media ban

Before Sept. 8, Gen Z’s protests were peaceful and mostly took place online. But when the government instituted a ban on social media, Gen Z erupted, with many claiming that the decision was aimed at silencing their voices.

Gen Z is the social media generation, and the ban was regarded as a violation of their rights. They soon took their demands to the streets from the screen, calling for the resignation of the prime minister.

The protest turned into a battlefield as police killed 19 school-aged students on the same day; hundreds were also injured. As of now, the Gen Z protester death toll is 72.

Aftermath

The prime minister resigned on Sept. 9, but the situation further worsened. Protesters burned down key government buildings, including parliament and court buildings, private businesses, banks and the homes of politicians and business people across the country.

After a series of talks between the chief of the Nepal army, Ashok Raj Sigdel, Nepali President Ram Chadra Poudel and Gen Z leader Sudan Gurung, an interim six-month government was formed. Karki was appointed the first female prime minister of the country.

The interim cabinet’s priorities include the upcoming election in March 2026, tackling corruption, investigating the killings of Gen Z protesters as well as the destruction of public and private property.

The power and perils of social media

Before the Nepal protests, dissenting youth in countries that include Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar have used social media to air their grievances.

A study has shown how social media plays a role in empowering youth, amplifying marginal voices and building transnational solidarity. Examples include some of the most popular global social movements like #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, #MahsaAmini.

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But its role in protest movements can also be problematic.

Amid the Gen Z protests in Nepal, reports of disinformation and misinformation are spreading. A video claiming 35 human skeletons were found in a store was posted on Sept. 13 by a Facebook user with 63,000 followers, fuelling panic among the protesters. The claim was determined to be false.

Gen Z protesters in Nepal and beyond are clearly having some success in bringing about social and political change. But with the growth of artificial intelligence, creating fake content is no longer difficult, and false information can proliferate quickly amid this generation.

Luna KC 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. Gen Z protests brought about change in Nepal via the powers — and perils — of social media – https://theconversation.com/gen-z-protests-brought-about-change-in-nepal-via-the-powers-and-perils-of-social-media-265365

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Patricia Collins, Associate Professor, Queen’s University, Ontario

Many Canadians over the age of 40 likely remember spending their childhoods playing on the street and moving around their communities on their own or with friends. And, according to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 11, cities should in fact be places where all residents, including children, can thrive — they have as much right to occupy and use urban streets as motorists do.

However, children today are less active and independently mobile and aren’t engaging in as much outdoor free play.

In Canada, a major reason for this trend is that we’ve deprived children of their right to the city, including the freedom to safely play and move about on the streets near their homes and schools without the need for adult supervision.

Innovative interventions such as School Streets are critically needed. School Streets are temporary, car-free zones created in front of schools during peak drop-off and pick-up times to improve student safety and encourage walking and cycling

Yet, our research has found that they often face stiff resistance. By closing streets adjacent to schools to cars, School Streets confront drivers with a reimagined and restructured public space they may not be ready to embrace.

Planning cities for cars, not kids

The stripping of children’s rights to the city is a centuries-old project in North America.

Prior to the mass production of the automobile, children could often be found playing on city streets. But as automobile ownership became commonplace, growing numbers of children were being injured and killed by motorists.

Rather than limit where automobiles could travel, urban planners and public health officials advocated for the creation of other places for children to play, hidden away from traffic, such as neighbourhood parks.

This automobile-centric approach to city planning created a societal shift in attitudes about the kinds of spaces considered appropriate for kids to play and move about. Consequently, we now view it as normal not to see or hear children on city streets.

By disempowering children in terms of where they can go in cities, our society has developed assumptions that children are not sufficiently responsible or competent to navigate their communities.

Children’s mobility in car-centric cities

Ironically, as we have become more fearful of allowing children to move about freely, driving children to their destinations has increased in response to this fear. We have largely confined children’s movement in cities to vehicles.

Consequently, we now face an immense societal challenge in enabling children to move independently in their communities, particularly in spaces commonly occupied by children, like outside of primary schools.

In terms of the journey to school, research has shown that risky driving behaviours by parents during morning drop-off times — like letting them out in unsafe areas, obstructing views, making U-turns and speeding — are commonplace.

These behaviours are associated with an increased risk of children being struck by motorists. Hazardous conditions around schools, combined with widespread perceptions that children do not belong on the street and are incapable of getting to school on their own, reinforce the already low rates of walking or bicycling to school among children in Canada.

Innovating cities for children

School Streets can address both issues: reducing the real dangers posed by automobiles in spaces occupied by children while also helping all citizens reimagine how, and by whom, streets can be used.

Typically implemented by municipal governments or not-for-profits, School Streets enable children to come and go safely from school. Though they’re common in many European cities, their uptake in Canada has been slower.

From 2020 to 2024, we led a study entitled Levelling the Playing Fields, in which we systematically evaluated School Street interventions operating in Kingston, Ont. and Montréal. The findings from this study helped launch the National Active School Street Initiative (NASSI).

Funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, NASSI helps Canadian cities learn about and implement School Streets. Through NASSI, year-long School Streets were launched in September 2025 in Kingston, Mississauga, Ont. and Vancouver.

In September 2026, additional year-long School Streets are expected to launch in Kingston, Mississauga, Vancouver and Montréal, while four-week pilots are planned for Ottawa, Peterborough, Ont., Markham, Ont., Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary.

Reactions to innovating cities for children

Launching and sustaining School Streets requires support from a broad range of people, including municipal councillors and staff, school administrators, teachers, parents, residents, and police departments.

In our work in Kingston and Montréal, we encountered many champions of School Streets whose support was instrumental in launching and sustaining these interventions. However, we also faced resistance to varying degrees. In some cases, this resistance came after interventions were launched, and in other cases, it was sufficient to prevent the intervention from launching at all.

Rather than acknowledging the benefits School Streets could offer, the resistance was often framed around risks to children — precisely the problem School Streets aim to address.

We were told that School Streets would diminish children’s awareness of road safety, put children at risk of being run over by rogue motorists and was inherently risky because children don’t belong on the street. We suspect these arguments were not truly about risks to children, but rather an unwillingness to share power, space and opportunities with children in urban settings.

We also heard a range of arguments shaped by what’s known as motonormativity — a form of unconscious bias in automobile-centric societies that assumes car usage as a universal norm and aligns solutions with the needs of motorists.

In this vein, we heard that School Streets excluded children whose parents needed to drive their child to school; that residents and visitors would be unacceptably delayed by the street closure; that school staff would be deprived of nearby parking; that children occupying the street would be too noisy and cause damage to parked vehicles; and that automobile congestion would be pushed to other streets.

The most troubling argument made against School Streets was that there were more deserving children in other neighbourhoods, presenting a thinly veiled Not-In-My-Backyard attitude.

School Streets are intended to enable children to reclaim their right to the city. Many members of our society, however, are not yet ready to afford children these rights because they conflict with strongly held perceptions about the places children are meant to occupy.

For the Levelling the Playing Fields Study, Patricia Collins received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (project grant number PJT-175153). For the National Active School Streets Initiative, Patricia Collins receives funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Patricia Collins was previously affiliated with Kingston Coalition for Active Transportation, a not-for-profit group that was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the School Streets in Kingston. She is no longer a member of that group.

For the Levelling the Playing Fields project Katherine L. Frohlich received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Funding numer PJT175153. For the NASSI project Katherine Frohlich receives funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

– ref. Cars versus kids: How resistance to change limits children’s right to the city – https://theconversation.com/cars-versus-kids-how-resistance-to-change-limits-childrens-right-to-the-city-263254

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Dean Curran, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Calgary

People’s lives are more enmeshed with digital systems than ever before, increasing users’ vulnerability and insecurity. From data leaks like the 2017 Equifax data breach to the more recent cyberattack on British retailer Marks & Spencer, business operations and data on the internet continue to be vulnerable.

There are good reasons to believe that little will be done about these risks until a massive society-wide crisis emerges.

My research suggests that there are significant failures in our current approaches to risk and innovation. Digital technologies remake social life through new technologies, communication platforms and forms of artificial intelligence. All of which, while very powerful, are also highly risky in terms of malfunctioning and vulnerability to being manipulated.

Yet, governments are generally unable to distinguish between what are actually valuable contributions to society and what are intensely socially damaging.

A massive social experiment

The digital economy includes “those businesses that increasingly rely upon information technology, data and the internet for their business models.” The companies dominating the digital economy continue to undertake a massive social experiment where they keep the lion’s share of the benefits while shunting the risks onto society as a whole.

This could lead to a systemic digital crisis, ranging from a widespread breakdown of basic infrastructure, such as electricity or telecommunications due to a cyberattack, to an attack that modifies existing infrastructure to make it dangerous.

There are significant similarities between the current trajectory of the digital economy and the 2008 financial crisis. In particular, what we are increasingly seeing in the digital world, which we saw in the pre-crisis financial world, is what American sociologist Charles Perrow called “tight coupling.”

Perrow argues that when systems exhibit high levels of interconnection without sufficient redundancy to compensate for failures, it can lead to catastrophic consequences.

Likewise, high levels of complexity are generally considered to make highly interconnected systems riskier. Unanticipated risks and connections can lead to failures cascading across the system.

Increasing interdependence

Our existing digital economy shares many of these characteristics. The digital economy is characterized by a business model that focuses on businesses getting as large as possible as quickly as possible.

The lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis and the current digital economy share both the amplification of interdependency alongside the reduction of redundancy. In the case of finance, this proceeded through massive borrowing to leverage earnings, leaving a smaller ratio of money left to cover any possible losses.

In the digital economy, this need to continually collect data increases interdependencies among datasets, platforms, corporations and networks. This increased interdependency is fundamental to the core business model of the digital economy.

The undermining of redundancy in the digital sphere is manifested in the “move-fast-and-break-things” ethos in which digital companies eliminate or acquire competitors as quickly as possible while eliminating analog alternatives to their own digital networks.

Last, these digital behemoths and their rapid growth increase the complexity of the digital economy and the monopolistic networks that dominate it.

Obvious warning signs

There is a key difference between the 2008 financial crisis and the contemporary digital economy. Unlike in the lead-up to the crisis, where a partially finance-driven prosperity quieted any obvious warning signs, the warning signs in the digital economy are front and centre for everyone to see.

The 2017 WannaCry and NotPetya malware attacks each caused billions of dollars in damages. More recently, the CrowdStrike failure in 2024 cancelled thousands of flights, and even took television stations off the air. Constant hacks, ransomware attacks and data leakages are warning signs that this is a deeply fragile system.

AI has taken many of these vulnerabilities into overdrive, while adding new risks, such as AI hallucinations and the exponential growth in misinformation. The speed and scale of AI are expected to intensify existing risks to confidentiality, system integrity and availability.

This is potentially the most significant, though unfortunate element in this story. There is massive system risk, yet they are not addressed directly, and the processes heightening these risks continue to accelerate.

This suggests a deeper problem in our politics. While we do have some ability to regulate after the damage is done, we struggle to prevent the next crisis.

Dean Curran received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. The warning signs are clear: We’re heading toward a digital crisis – https://theconversation.com/the-warning-signs-are-clear-were-heading-toward-a-digital-crisis-264529

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

Once considered a universal good, empathy now divides as much as it unites. Empathy has long been viewed as a straightforward strength in leadership, but it has recently become a political flashpoint.

Some conservative voices, including billionaire Elon Musk, have criticized empathy, with Musk calling it a “fundamental weakness of western civilization.”

Joe Rigney, a theology fellow at New Saint Andrew’s College in Idaho, has gone further, calling it a “sin”. He argues “untethered empathy” can distort moral judgment because it may lead to people excusing harmful behaviour simply because they sympathize with the person experiencing it.

Few qualities in public life have undergone such a dramatic shift in perception as empathy. Once celebrated as both a marker of moral character and an essential leadership skill, empathy now sits at the centre of polarized debates about governance and policy.

The so-called “war” over empathy reveals not only divided views of leadership but also deeper anxieties about how we connect with one another. These tensions raise important questions about the history, promise, pitfalls and future of empathy.

What is empathy?

The modern term traces back from the German term einfühlung, which was first used in the context of esthetics to describe the emotional response a person feels when imagining themselves moving through a painting, sculpture or scene of natural beauty.

The English term “empathy” was coined in 1908. What began as a way of describing how people relate to art later moved into psychology and leadership as researchers began to study how people identify with the feelings of others.

From there, empathy evolved into a cornerstone skill in business and management to help leaders connect more deeply with others and improve both relationships and performance.

For decades, this was presented as a clear asset. Today, however, that same capacity is viewed by some as a liability rather than a strength.

Why empathy matters

Empathetic leaders can translate this capacity into practical advantage. In organizations, empathy fosters innovation by creating psychological safety — the sense that people feel they can take interpersonal risks, such as sharing ideas without fear of ridicule or retaliation.

Research shows teams learn faster and perform better when people feel safe to speak up. Empathy supports that safety by making listening genuine rather than performative. For example, when leaders regularly ask “What perspectives are we missing?” they signal that speaking up carries little risk. Empathy also strengthens collaboration by enabling leaders to recognize diverse perspectives and weave them into collective problem-solving.

By supporting growth and risk-taking, it reinforces succession pipelines and helps employees step into new responsibilities. Through deep listening and thoughtful responses, empathetic leaders build trust, inspire commitment and help teams remain resilient in the face of change.

Beyond the workplace, empathy also contributes to broader human flourishing. Findings vary across studies, but empathetic people tend to be happier, form stronger friendships and excel in their work. Health-care patients, employees and romantic partners all report higher satisfaction when empathy is present.

Still, despite its many benefits, empathy is not immune to distortion in workplaces, politics and society at large.

The paradox and politics of empathy

Empathy carries an inherent paradox: people can feel genuine compassion while also recognizing the practical limits of what can realistically be offered.

In workplaces, for example, managers may empathize with employees seeking flexibility while also facing pressure to deliver results. Leaders often face difficult questions about fairness when resources are tight and not everyone’s needs can be met.

In politics, a similar dilemma arises. Leaders may, for example, express concern for refugees fleeing conflict while balancing that compassion against constraints on housing, health care and employment in the host country. Here, empathy can clash with competing obligations.

Beyond these limits, empathy can also be distorted when it lacks ethical grounding. Without self-awareness and judgment, it can lead to compassion fatigue or even be used strategically as a tool of manipulation and control. For example, after a child in Texas died from measles, anti-vaccine influencers used the case to stoke outrage and influence public opinion.

Research on negotiations highlights a related risk. Being able to understand someone else’s perspective can help reveal the other side’s constraints and lead to better deals, but feeling their emotions too deeply can pull negotiators off their strategy.

These concerns echo in the broader culture. Critics of empathy argue it has been politicized or weaponized to enforce conformity, with those who fail to display it toward certain groups being portrayed as weak or immoral.

The future of empathy

Although findings are mixed, some studies suggest that empathy, especially among younger generations, has been in decline over the past few decades.

The reasons for this are debated, ranging from the rise of digital communication to broader social and political polarization. Regardless of the cause, the perception of decline has fuelled renewed interest in its study.

Empathy does not mean blindly agreeing with everyone or absorbing every emotion. It calls for listening with genuine curiosity, asking perspective-seeking questions and creating space for others to share their truths.

Simple practices such as naming emotions, noticing body language or imagining how a situation might feel to someone else can strengthen our capacity to connect.

When practised ethically and with courage, empathy has the potential to extend from private virtue to collective strength, and be used to rebuild trust, bridge divides, sustain communities and keep leadership anchored in humanity.

Leda Stawnychko has received SSHRC funding.

Kris Hans 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. Empathy is under attack — but it remains vital for leadership and connection – https://theconversation.com/empathy-is-under-attack-but-it-remains-vital-for-leadership-and-connection-265468

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Samuel Mugo, Professor & Associate Dean, Development, Department of Physical Sciences, MacEwan University

Farmers are under pressure. Fertilizer costs have soared in recent years. Tariffs are increasing equipment costs and cutting Canadian farmers off from key foreign markets. And climate change is bringing its own set of challenges.

Meanwhile, agriculture is also facing calls to reduce emissions. The industry is responsible for about 10 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the federal government has set an ambitious goal: reduce emissions from fertilizer use by 30 per cent by 2030.

Farming is tough even during the best of times. Rising costs and the dangers posed by climate change will only make it even more challenging in the years to come.

That’s where our work comes in. At MacEwan University, through our spin-out company PimaSens, we have developed Agrilo — a low-cost soil testing sensor paired with a smartphone app.

Our goal is simple: give farmers clear, real-time guidance on fertilizer use so they can save money, boost yields and protect the environment.

How the sensor works

Agrilo takes technology we first built in the lab and translates it into an easy-to-use diagnostic tool for the field. Unlike traditional soil testing, which often requires sending samples to a lab and waiting days for results, Agrilo provides answers in minutes.

Farmers collect a small soil sample, react it with a pre-filled solution, place droplets onto a paper-based or vinyl colorimetric sensor, and capture the result using their phone camera. The Agrilo app then interprets the colour change, quantifies nutrient levels, and generates fertilizer recommendations tailored to the field.

Each Agrilo sensor costs about $10 and is designed to detect a specific nutrient or soil property. The full suite includes sensors for: nitrate, phosphate, potassium, pH, sulphur, magnesium, manganese, calcium, boron, iron, natural organic matter, cation exchange capacity and more.

Farmers can select the tests most relevant to their crops and soils. These results feed directly into Agrilo’s smartphone app, which analyzes patterns and suggests the most optimal fertilizer adjustments.

This precision is critical. Overuse of fertilizer wastes money and increases greenhouse gases, while underuse limits yields. Getting the balance right improves farm efficiency and protects ecosystems.

With fertilizer shortages, soil degradation accelerating and climate concerns mounting, there is an urgent need for practical solutions that can be deployed quickly and affordably.

For farmers, the value is clear:

● Healthier soil through balanced nutrient application.

● Higher crop yields from optimized fertilizer use.

● Lower costs by reducing waste.

● Reduced environmental harm from nutrient runoff and fertilizer-related emissions.

The research behind the tool

Our sensors and platform have been validated in peer-reviewed research with the Agrilo version simplified for ease of use by farmers. We also hold a provisional patent, with a full filing in progress. This ensures that the innovation is both scientifically sound and protected for scaling.

Agrilo was created to be both affordable and accessible. Conventional soil testing often costs hundreds of dollars and involves long wait times. Agrilo delivers the same type of data — validated against results from traditional labs — at a fraction of the cost and in real time.

This opens up opportunities not just for Canadian farmers but also for communities worldwide, including schools and small scale farmers in the Global South.

One of the most exciting aspects of Agrilo is its versatility. Beyond the farm, Agrilo doubles as an education platform. In classrooms, students can learn hands-on how soil nutrients affect crops, food security and ecosystems.

Using the same colorimetric sensors as farmers, students can connect textbook science to real-world environmental challenges — making soil chemistry, agriculture and sustainability more tangible.

Globally, fertilizer use has increased by 46 per cent since 1990. About one third of the world’s soils are already degraded, with degradation continuing to accelerate.

By making precision agriculture practical and affordable, we can help address these challenges at scale — showcasing how research developed in Canadian labs can benefit farms, classrooms and communities worldwide.

Looking ahead

Our team is continuing to refine Agrilo. We are already testing the platform with farmers and partners in Canada, Kenya, Costa Rica and beyond.

At the same time, we are building partnerships with schools and international organizations to use Agrilo as both a farming tool and a hands-on educational resource. Several high schools in Alberta have started to try out the Agrilo tool to enhance applied science learning.

Ultimately, our vision is to make precision agriculture accessible to everyone — not just large-scale industrial operations. With the right tools, all farmers can play a critical role in feeding the world sustainably, protecting ecosystems and helping their countries meet their climate goals.

Samuel Mugo is a co-founder of PimaSens. He receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Mohammed Elmorsy is a co-founder of PimaSens. He has received research funding related to this work through Riipen and Alberta Innovates Summer Research Studentships.

– ref. How researchers are making precision agriculture more affordable – https://theconversation.com/how-researchers-are-making-precision-agriculture-more-affordable-265366

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Daryl Janzen, Observatory Manager and Instructor, Astronomy, University of Saskatchewan

Whether space-time exists should neither be controversial nor even conceptually challenging, given the definitions of “space-time,” “events” and “instants.” The idea that space-time exists is no more viable than the outdated belief that the celestial sphere exists: both are observer-centred models that are powerful and convenient for describing the world, but neither represents reality itself.

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Read more:
What, exactly, is space-time?

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Yet from the standpoints of modern physics, philosophy, popular science communication and familiar themes in science fiction, stating that space-time does not exist is contentious.

But what would it mean for a world where everything that has ever happened or will happen somehow “exists” now as part of an interwoven fabric?

Events are not locations

It’s easy to imagine past events — like losing a tooth or receiving good news — as existing somewhere. Fictional representations of time travel underscore this: time travellers alter events and disrupt the timeline, as if past and future events were locations one could visit with the right technology.

Philosophers often talk this way too. Eternalism says all events across all time exist. The growing block view suggests the past and present exist while the future will come to be. Presentism says only the present exists, while the past used to exist and the future will when it happens. And general relativity presents a four-dimensional continuum that bends and curves — we tend to imagine that continuum of the events as really existing.

The confusion emerges out of the definition of the word “exist.” With space-time, it’s applied uncritically to a mathematical description of happenings — turning a model into an ontological theory on the nature of being.

A totality

In physics, space-time is the continuous set of events that happen throughout space and time — from here to the furthest galaxy, from the Big Bang to the far future. It is a four-dimensional map that records and measures where and when everything happens. In physics, an event is an instantaneous occurrence at a specific place and time.

An instant is the three-dimensional collection of spatially separated events that happen “at the same time” (with relativity’s usual caveat that simultaneity depends on one’s relative state of rest).

Space-time is the totality of all events that ever happen.

It’s also our most powerful way of cataloguing the world’s happenings. That cataloguing is indispensable, but the words and concepts we use for it matter.

There are infinitely many points in the three dimensions of space, and at every instant as time passes a unique event occurs at each location.

Positionings throughout time

Physicists describe a car travelling straight at constant speed with a simple space-time diagram: position on one axis, time on the other. Instants stack together to form a two-dimensional space-time. The car’s position is a point within each instant, and those points join to form a worldline — the full record of the car’s position throughout the time interval, whose slope is the car’s speed.

Real motion is far more complex. The car rides along on a rotating Earth orbiting the sun, which orbits the Milky Way as it drifts through the local universe. Plotting the car’s position at every instant ultimately requires four-dimensional space-time.

Space-time is the map of where and when events happen. A worldline is the record of every event that occurs throughout one’s life. The key question is whether the map — or all the events it draws together at once — should be said to exist in the same way that cars, people and the places they go exist.

Objects exist

Consider what “exist” means. Objects, buildings, people, cities, planets, galaxies exist — they are either places or occupy places, enduring there over intervals of time. They persist through changes and can be encountered repeatedly.

Treating occurrences as things that exist smuggles confusion into our language and concepts. When analyzing space-time, do events, instants, worldlines or even space-time as a whole exist in the same sense as places and people? Or is it more accurate to say that events happen in an existing world?

On that view, space-time is the map that records those happenings, allowing us to describe the spatial and temporal relationships between them.

Space-time does not exist

Events do not exist, they happen. Consequently, space-time does not exist. Events happen everywhere throughout the course of existence, and the occurrence of an event is categorically different from the existence of anything — whether object, place or concept.

First, there is no empirical evidence that any past, present or future event “exists” in the way that things in the world around us exist. Verifying the existence of an event as an ongoing object would require something like a time machine to go and observe it now. Even present events cannot be verified as ongoing things that exist.

In contrast, material objects exist. Time-travel paradoxes rest on the false premise that events exist as revisitable locations. Recognizing the categorical difference between occurrence and existence resolves these paradoxes.

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Can we time travel? A theoretical physicist provides some answers

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Second, this recognition reframes the philosophy of time. Much debate over the past century has treated events as things that exist. Philosophers then focus on their tense properties: is an event past, present or future? Did this one occur earlier or later than that one?

These discussions rely on an assumption that events are existent things that bear these properties. From there, it’s a short step to the conclusion that time is unreal or that the passage of time is an illusion, on the identification that the same event can be labelled differently from different standpoints. But the ontological distinction was lost at the start: events don’t exist, they happen. Tense and order are features of how happenings relate within an existing world, not properties of existent objects.

Finally, consider relativity. It is a mathematical theory that describes a four-dimensional space-time continuum, and not a theory about a four-dimensional thing that exists — that, in the course of its own existence, bends and warps due to gravity.

Conceptual clarity

Physics can’t actually describe space-time itself as something that actually exists, nor can it account for any change it might experience as an existing thing.

Space-time provides a powerful description of how events happen: how they are ordered relative to one another, how sequences of events are measured to unfold and how lengths are measured in different reference frames. If we stop saying that events — and space-time — exist, we recover conceptual clarity without sacrificing a single prediction.

Daryl Janzen 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. Space-time doesn’t exist — but it’s a useful framework for understanding our reality – https://theconversation.com/space-time-doesnt-exist-but-its-a-useful-framework-for-understanding-our-reality-265952

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Martin Danahay, Professor, English Language and Literature, Brock University

The United States military under the Donald Trump administration has sunk three Venezuelan boats that were allegedly ferrying drugs. American officials branded the people on the boats “narcoterrorists.”

The term “narcoterrorist” conflates the U.S. internal “war on drugs” and external “war on terror” and suggests drug smuggling is punishable by death without trial.

Canada, incidentally, has followed the lead of the U.S. by designating a list of drug cartels as terrorist organizations. This means Canada is now involved in the expansion of violence against people associated with drug smuggling or drug use when they’re labelled terrorists. It also aligns Canada with the American “war on drugs.”

The problem with the language of war

The problem with both terms — the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror” — lies in how they serve to justify killing people. Violence is portrayed as an appropriate response to a threat from an “enemy” rather than an attack on people who may or may not be linked to drugs or terrorism.

The attacks are carried out without the submission of evidence, and it’s almost impossible to verify claims of guilt after the fact.

A brief look at the origins of the U.S. war on drugs shows how the term “war” can be used to normalize acts of oppression or violence.

It began in June 1971 when President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy No. 1” and announced a co-ordinated federal campaign against narcotics as part of a “law-and-order” campaign. His emphasis on fighting crime played upon his belief that “people react to fear, not love.”

Drugs and politics

While fear of drug use predated his presidency, Nixon made the issue a central part of his domestic policy. He framed his efforts as a fight to protect public health and safety as the justification for increasing the scope of police actions against drug sellers and users.

The Shafer Commission, appointed by Nixon, recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1972, but he ignored its findings and instead enacted more punitive anti-drug legislation.

Portraying drugs and drug users as a threat was a central part of Nixon’s law-and-order campaign. Privately, however, aides later revealed that his drug policy was also used to target political opponents, particularly anti-Vietnam War activists and Black communities — by associating them with drugs and justifying an increase in policing.

Nixon continued drug enforcement in the U.S. as well as through international policies aimed at curbing drug production. His administration’s war on drugs was not just a social order initiative, but a political strategy that weaponized drug policy to consolidate power and marginalize opponents.

Nixon aide John Ehrlichman later revealed the explicitly political nature of this campaign. By linking heroin to Black communities and marijuana to anti-war activists, the administration could discredit those groups and justify heavy policing and incarceration.

The “war on drugs” therefore relied on racist attitudes to justify its heavy enforcement of Black communities.

People, not enemies

By branding the initiative a war on drugs, Nixon turned people addicted to drugs into enemies and implicitly made acceptable levels of oppression that would not be tolerated under normal circumstances.

But drugs are not a force that an army can defeat. The war on drugs has been a failure and become the longest “war” in U.S. history.

The idea of a war on drugs erases people from the equation and dehumanizes them. Similarly, the war on terror emphasized an emotion, namely terror, and used that emotion to justify U.S. military actions abroad, including the ill-fated Iraq War.

The recent attacks on Venezuelan boats alleged to be transporting drugs follow this pattern of justifying acts of violence in the name of combating drugs. Both exploit an understandable fear of drug addiction or of a terrorist attack, and use that emotion to silence criticism of acts of violence as illegal and inhumane.

Decades later, Nixon’s campaign to demonize drugs has now coalesced with the war on terror, even though the term “war” seems inappropriate in both cases.

Invoking war hastens decisions and short-circuits debate, because in a military conflict, decisiveness is crucial to avoid defeat. While initially declaring a war on drugs or terrorists may rally people in the short term, in the long term, it damages both domestic social policy as well as international relations.

Due process

In the recent strikes against Venezuelan ships, the U.S. could have apprehended the boats in international waters and brought the people on board to trial.

This was the procedure during the recent Operation Pacific Viper in the east Pacific, when the U.S. Coast Guard boarded vessels and detained people accused of smuggling cocaine.

The U.S. could have followed the same procedure with the boats from Venezuela, but calling the people on board “narcoterrorists” implicitly justified characterizing them as enemy combatants in the war on drugs.

They were civilian vessels, not part of the Venezuelan military. There may or may not have been drugs on board, and the people may not have been drug smugglers, but the world will never know for certain because the U.S. military killed them and sank their boats.

The language of war in such cases justifies actions made for political motives and undermines the rule of law. Overall it is part of a wider use of the term war by Trump, who recently also seemed to declare war on the city of Chicago.

It’s all of an ongoing weaponization of the term “war” to assert dominance and justify violence, whether internally against American cities or externally against people the government calls “narcoterrorists.”

Martin Danahay 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. Not enemies, but people: Why the world needs to rethink the language of war – https://theconversation.com/not-enemies-but-people-why-the-world-needs-to-rethink-the-language-of-war-265466

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Liv Yoon, Assistant Professor, School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia

In June 2021, British Columbia experienced an extreme climate event. A heat dome trapped hot air over the province, pushing temperatures to record highs for several days, killing more than 600 people.

A closer look at the numbers revealed something even more startling: people with schizophrenia — just one per cent of the population — made up 15.7 per cent of the deaths. This statistic underscores a troubling truth: climate change does not affect everyone equally.

Research by the BC Centre for Disease Control found that during the heat dome, people with schizophrenia had roughly three times the risk of dying compared to those without schizophrenia, more than any other chronic condition. Even before introducing housing or other critical social determinants of health, this diagnosis alone carried a much higher mortality risk.

Without targeted action, the most marginalized will continue to face the greatest risks. The heat dome revealed how schizophrenia combined with poverty, precarious and poor-quality housing, medication effects, stigma and social isolation led to a uniquely lethal risk.

As heatwaves grow more frequent and intense with climate change, public health and housing policy must shift from expecting people to cope on their own toward ensuring people are able to stay cool enough.

How schizophrenia increases heat risks

In a recent study, we interviewed 35 people with schizophrenia who lived through the 2021 heat dome for a more granular look at what it took to survive. Participants described suffering the physical effects (fainting, heat rash, exhaustion) and worsening symptoms like hallucinations, disrupted sleep and emotional distress.

Symptoms such as paranoia caused many to avoid news coverage, government warnings or even caretakers. This means many never received — or trusted — urgent alerts issued during the heat dome, and knowledge gaps were common.

For many, public cooling centres felt unsafe or unwelcoming due to previous experiences being stigmatized and feared because of their schizophrenia diagnosis. The stigma around schizophrenia also discouraged many individuals from seeking medical care or other public supports.

Homelessness or poor housing quality was another significant factor that compounded vulnerability. Many interviewees lived in older apartments without air conditioning. Others were unhoused and had to cope without shade, water or safe places to rest. For these reasons, staying cool indoors was not an option for many.

The result was a tragic overlap: people with the fewest resources to cope with extreme heat were also the least able to access help.

Why individual advice isn’t enough

Public health advice for heatwaves often focuses on individual actions: seek shade, buy a fan or check in on neighbours. While important, these messages assume equal access to information and resources — but evidence shows that many people with schizophrenia experience significant barriers to accessing them.

This way of thinking reflects a broader societal tendency to treat health as a matter of personal responsibility: that in the heat, each of us is on our own to prepare. But the disproportionate number of deaths among people with schizophrenia illustrates the flaw in this approach.

Our interviews revealed that many indeed internalized their struggles during the heat dome as personal shortcomings, when in reality, the problem was systemic: inadequate housing, limited access to care, widespread and debilitating social stigma and the lack of tailored public health strategies.

A different approach

To prevent the tragedies of 2021 from happening again, policymakers and experts need to view access to cool, safe spaces as a basic right. This means moving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach for advice, to one addressing the realities faced by those most at risk.

To be clear, this rights-based approach does not mean abandoning practical individual measures that save lives, such as opening public cooling centres or reminding people to drink water. These remain essential in the short term. But on their own, they are not enough.

To truly protect people with schizophrenia and others at high risk, these responses must unfold within a broader vision that treats access to safe temperatures as a basic right.

That means investing in affordable, climate-resilient housing and ensuring cooling centres are welcoming and accessible for all. It also means addressing stigma around mental health challenges, tailoring health advice to account for anti-psychotic medications and supporting outreach through trusted community networks.

We need both immediate interventions that provide relief during a heatwave and structural changes that address the root causes of vulnerability. Without this dual approach, responses to heatwaves will leave the same people exposed when the next extreme event arrives. Our goal should not be fewer deaths; we should aim for no deaths.

Structural solutions needed

The 2021 heat dome was tragic — more so because deaths were not inevitable. They were the result of overlapping vulnerabilities that our current housing and welfare systems fail to address. People with schizophrenia are not inherently more vulnerable to heat; they are made more vulnerable by the obstacles that shape their lives.

This means that solutions must also be structural. We need to change how we think about extreme heat; it is not just a natural hazard. It is a reflection of how social systems are failing people, especially those on the sharp edges of inequality.

Viewing cooling as a right means investing in societies that are more resilient to heat. This means governments investing in safer and more accessible housing for all, building welcoming public spaces, fostering a society where neighbours know and care for each other and allowing people with lived experience to play a central role in shaping future heat-health planning.

Liv Yoon received funding from Health Canada’s Climate Change and Health Office for the study that informs this article.

Samantha Mew 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. People with schizophrenia were hit hard by B.C.’s deadly 2021 heat dome – https://theconversation.com/people-with-schizophrenia-were-hit-hard-by-b-c-s-deadly-2021-heat-dome-265173

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rylan Graham, Assistant Professor, University of Northern British Columbia

Canada’s mid-sized cities — those with populations between 50,000 to 500,000 — have long been characterized as low-density, dispersed and decentralized. In these cities, cars dominate, public transit is limited and residents prefer the space and privacy of suburban neighbourhoods.

Several mounting issues, ranging from climate change and the housing affordability crisis to the growing infrastructure deficit, are challenging municipalities to rethink this approach.

Cities are adopting growth management strategies that promote density and seek to curtail, rather than encourage, urban sprawl. Key to this is intensification, a strategy that prioritizes adding new housing in existing and mature neighbourhoods instead of outward expansion along the city’s edge.

City centres are often central to intensification strategies, given the abundance of vacant or underused land. Adding more residents supports downtown revitalization efforts, while simultaneously curbing urban sprawl.

Challenges of intensification

Despite the adoption of bold policies, our research shows that implementation remains a challenge. In 2013, Regina set an intensification target requiring that 30 per cent of the housing built each year would be located within the city’s mature and established neighbourhoods. But between 2014 and 2021, the target was missed each year, and almost all growth occurred at the edge of the city in the form of new suburban development.

This disconnect is not particularly unique and is often referred to as the “say-do gap,” where development outcomes differ from intentions. This presents real challenges for cities trying to shift away from low-density suburban growth towards higher-density development.

Because Canada is a suburban nation, dense and compact mid-sized cities are atypical. A series of barriers further entrench this, including low demand for high-density urban living, difficulties in assembling land, aging infrastructure and overly rigid planning rules and processes that stifle innovation.

The failure to implement higher-density development raises the question: is intensification in mid-sized cities more aspirational than viable?

Success stories

Several mid-sized cities have experienced recent success with intensification. This has been marked by a flurry of downtown development activity, including new condos and rental towers.

Between 2016 and 2021, the number of downtown residents in Canadian cities increased by 11 per cent, exceeding the previous five-year period of 4.6 per cent.

Among the success stories is Halifax, which had a 25 per cent increase — the fastest downtown growth in Canada. Kelowna was not far behind, with a 23 per cent increase in its downtown residential population.

Other mid-sized cities, including Kingston, Victoria, London, Abbotsford, Kamloops and Moncton, also experienced above-average growth over this period.

Evolving downtowns

This growth can be attributed to several factors, one of the most important being downtown livability: the presence of amenities and services that meet the needs of residents. Many downtowns have evolved to cater primarily to the needs of daytime office workers at the expense of residents, who live — or might like to live — downtown.

Kelowna, however, offers an alternative experience shaped by intentional efforts to make the downtown friendly to residents. Restaurants and cafes line the streets, mixed among services including medical offices, fitness studios and even a full-service grocery store, a rare find in a mid-sized city as many downtowns have become food deserts.

Cultural and civic amenities, including the central library, city hall, museums, galleries and entertainment venues — including a 7,000-seat arena — are downtown. The downtown also borders Okanagan Lake, offering access to recreational and natural amenities. Beyond convenience, the mix of amenities and services in Kelowna makes for a vibrant downtown, which is key to increasing the appeal for downtown living.

Other cities can take inspiration from Kelowna by re-imagining and reshaping the downtown as a vibrant urban neighbourhood — and not solely as a place where people come to work. Municipalities can complement these efforts by reforming overly complex and rigid regulations that impede intensification — not just downtown, but in other neighbourhoods too.

Reforming and clarifying regulations

Our research shows that while many developers support intensification in principle, they often favour low-density suburban development because it provides more predictable returns and approvals processes than downtown mixed-use developments. Many developers also lack the expertise to take on these more complex and riskier projects.

Unsurprisingly, developers in mid-sized cities want the same things as those in larger cities: clearer rules, faster approvals and financial incentives to build denser development in the locations planners are calling for, like downtowns. While developers have long advocated for these changes, governments are now responding with greater urgency.

The housing accelerator fund, introduced by the federal government in 2023, provides municipalities with millions in funding to support housing construction. In exchange, municipalities have reformed zoning regulations, introduced fiscal incentives and expedited the approval process.

In British Columbia, provincial legislation was introduced to permit up to four housing units on parcels that previously only allowed detached or semi-detached dwellings, and up to six units of housing on larger lots in residential zones near transit. The requirement for site-by-site public hearings has also been removed.

In B.C.’s larger cities, legislation was introduced to remove parking minimums and permit taller buildings and increased housing densities around transit hubs.

Regulatory reforms and improved approval processes aim to streamline development. While these are important changes in making mid-sized cities denser and more compact, the gap between planning ideals and market realities remains wide.

A major factor is opposition from residents and councillors, who frequently resist dense development because of perceptions and concerns about increased noise and traffic and lowered property values. This suggests there is work to be done beyond downtown investments, and regulatory and approval reforms to further facilitate intensification.

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Changing cities

Nonetheless, the surge of recent development activity and downtown population growth — in Halifax, Kelowna and elsewhere — reflect important milestones in the evolution of mid-sized cities.

This signals a notable departure from the longstanding narrative that frames these cities as low-density with depleted downtowns.

Recent developments give reason to be cautiously optimistic about a future where Canada’s mid-sized cities become denser and more compact, and with vibrant and liveable downtown cores.

Rylan Graham receives funding from SSHRC and the British Columbia Real Estate Foundation.

Jeffrey Biggar receives funding from SSHRC, MITACS, and the Province of Nova Scotia

– ref. Dense, compact urban growth is favoured by mid-sized Canadian cities – https://theconversation.com/dense-compact-urban-growth-is-favoured-by-mid-sized-canadian-cities-262848