The Conversation – Canada – Page 5

May 7, 2026

For preschoolers, fear of new foods is common — and responding can feel anything but simple

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jessie-Lee McIsaac, Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Early Childhood: Diversity and Transitions, Mount Saint Vincent University

Feeding children can be challenging. It is sometimes hard to know if you’re getting it right.

We want the best for our children, and we often think that means making sure they eat the right amounts of the right foods. Research tells us that we also need to think about how we’re supporting children to eat, and the messages they receive about food.

With more children attending child care for the vast majority of their day, early learning settings are critically important for promoting children’s optimal growth and development during foundational years.

Opportunities for nourishment in these settings are especially important as more than one in four children experience food insecurity at home.

What does responsive feeding mean?

Children are born with the ability to recognize their own hunger and fullness.

Over time, this capacity may shift as cultural and social beliefs around feeding young children — and financial stress or food insecurity — can result in caregivers overriding children’s internal cues by controlling their food intake. This can involve pressuring them to eat, restricting food or using food to reward behaviour.

It takes time for young children to learn about different foods and textures. Some children are adventurous eaters who may be excited to try new foods and accept them more quickly. Other children may be naturally more cautious eaters and need support or extra time.

A responsive feeding environment allows children to communicate their feelings of hunger and fullness, and in this way encourages children to regulate their own eating.

When caregivers respect a child’s autonomy, children can build comfort with a wide variety of foods and textures. This allows children to practise self-regulation by responding to feelings of hunger and fullness, and develop a lifelong healthy relationship with food.

Responsive feeding in child care

We established the CELEBRATE Feeding project, which stands for Coaching in Early Learning Environments to Build a Responsive Approach to Eating and Feeding.

Our project has worked with child-care programs in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. It supports early childhood educators to build their confidence and skills in responsive feeding — while fostering the joy of eating through an environment that celebrates diversity and inclusion.

We developed the CELEBRATE Feeding Approach as a flexible framework to support key educator behaviours in priority areas of change. These areas include mealtime routines and how educators talk about food throughout the day.

Educators discovered their powerful impact through role modelling when they sit and eat the same foods as children.

When we support children in having control of what and how much goes on their plate, they build autonomy with their decisions about the food as well as physical and fine-motor skills.

Reducing pressure

Through CELEBRATE Feeding, educators reshaped their language to reduce pressure on children to eat more or less, or to eat certain foods.

This meant moving away from coercing, praising or rewarding children based on what they were eating. Children may take a bite when pressured to eat, but in the long-term this pressure can backfire and make them less willing to accept the food.

We encouraged educators to focus on more neutral language by avoiding labelling foods as good or bad, and not pressuring children to eat more or less of certain foods.

Table talk

Educators also engaged children in conversations at the table that were not just about food. Focusing on connection and fun at the table, rather than worrying about what children are eating, can especially help children who may be stressed at mealtime because of household food insecurity or because they have been labelled as difficult or picky eaters.

We want to create a safe, positive environment for children to enjoy a variety of foods and avoid attaching feelings of guilt and shame to food.

Encouraging food exploration

Educators were coached to provide repeated opportunities for children to explore foods, without the expectation to eat or taste. This was achieved through meals and play, gardening, cooking, sensory activities and food-related books, songs and materials.

Children explored food through sight, smell, touch and taste in positive and joyful ways to support their curiosity and confidence as competent eaters.

Basil Bunny video, created in partnership with Celebrate Feeding at the University of Prince Edward Island and ‪@Tunesandtalltales‬.

Shifting perspectives around eating

Changing our approach around food can be hard. As adults, our own personal values and beliefs around food have been shaped throughout our lives. Our cultural and social beliefs around food, financial stress or food insecurity influence what we say and do when we’re with children.

Engaging families in this process and keeping equity and inclusion at the forefront can help create food environments that support everyone.

One director of a child-care program told us that in every facet of a child’s life, educators viewed children as capable and confident except when it came to food. Participating in the CELEBRATE Feeding project was a game-changer for shifting perspectives for her and her team.

A perspective shift means that we need to trust that while adults’ concern for children’s nutrition is genuine and well-meaning, children are capable of practising self-regulation by responding to feelings of hunger and fullness.

Prioritizing curiosity and joyfulness

Educators have been overwhelmingly receptive to rethinking their approach to feeding children by prioritizing curiosity and joyfulness rather than coercion and obligation.

We are continuing to share these messages through professional development and resources on our website.

While it sometimes feels hard to get it right when feeding children, we encourage caregivers to take a breath and aim for connection at the table.

Creating trust, confidence and enjoyable food memories are perhaps more important for long-term health than one resentful bite of broccoli.

Jessie-Lee McIsaac has received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the CELEBRATE Feeding project and other research. She has also received project funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Public Health Agency of Canada, Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Foundation, and the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Her research program is undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs program. McIsaac is a board member of a non-profit child care centre in Nova Scotia.

Our Celebrate Feeding intervention used the Nourishing Beginnings program from the Dairy Farmers of Canada as one training opportunity for educators. While Dairy Farmers of Canada is an industry group, Nourishing Beginnings was designed to align with evidence-based responsive feeding and child nutrition guidelines. The workshop offered to educators during our intervention was delivered by our Coaches (Registered Dietitians) with support from Dairy Farmers of Canada Dietitians. No team members received personal financial benefit from Dairy Farmers of Canada related to their work with CELEBRATE Feeding.

Julie E. Campbell receives research funding from the Government of Nova Scotia

Melissa (Misty) Rossiter received project funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and has been supported by a Jeanne and J.-Louis Lévesque Research Professorship in Nutrisciences and Health.

– ref. For preschoolers, fear of new foods is common — and responding can feel anything but simple – https://theconversation.com/for-preschoolers-fear-of-new-foods-is-common-and-responding-can-feel-anything-but-simple-280899

May 7, 2026

What the jet fuel crisis means for your summer flights and travel plans

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By John Gradek, Faculty Lecturer and Academic Program Co-ordinator, Supply Network and Aviation Management, McGill University

For many residents in the Northern Hemisphere, the advent of the summer season has always signalled travel. Travel with family, travel with friends, adventure travel, sightseeing travel, travel by automobile, travel by train, travel by air.

Air travel for Canadians this summer is looking to be one of the most turbulent seasons in decades, squeezed by a U.S. travel boycott that began in early 2025 and a global aviation fuel crisis triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

What might air travel this summer look like, and what should passengers expect when making travel plans?

Canadians are still boycotting the U.S.

Since early 2025, Canadians have shunned travel to the United States in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and repeated remarks about Canada becoming the “51st state.”
Canadian return trips from the U.S. are down 32 per cent compared to March 2024, according to Statistics Canada. Canadians instead preferred domestic or other international travel locations.

The air travel industry has taken notice. Canadian airlines cut capacity to the U.S. by 10 per cent in the first quarter, according to aviation data firm OAG. Air Transat even plans to end all its U.S. flights by June.

Air Canada expanded flights to and from Mexico and has introduced new air routes. WestJet has also announced new domestic routes for the summer, along with adding additional flights between Eastern and Western Canada.

To characterize these plans as aggressive would be an understatement.

The ongoing fuel crisis

On Feb. 27, the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran began. Iran’s subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil normally moves — has sent aviation fuel prices soaring, affecting supplies destined for Asia and Europe.

Since the war began, jet fuel prices have risen nearly 70 per cent, according to the Platts Global Jet Fuel Index. Air carriers have been forced to adjust their capacity plans and increase airfares.

Several global regions are facing imminent shortages of aviation fuel. Several Asian and Western European countries have begun to ration fuel products such as gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel as local reserves dwindle.

Some carriers have begun to implement capacity reductions in response to rationing measures, impacting both aircraft and staff levels.

Spirit’s collapse as a warning

Financial turmoil has now become the the subject of heated conversation in airline boardrooms, with any number of initiatives being considered to conserve liquidity in an environment that threatens the survival of many carriers.

The clearest illustration of that pressure came May 2 when Spirit Airlines shut down. Spirit ranked eighth among U.S. airlines by seats offered in 2025. Its closure has left roughly 17,000 employees without jobs and stranded tens of thousands of passengers who held tickets for future travel.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the airline “was in dire straits long before the war with Iran,” but the fuel price spike removed any remaining margin for survival. Spirit Airlines CEO Dave Davis told The Wall Street Journal the airline’s recovery plan would have succeeded if not for the Iran war and soaring fuel prices.

Spirit’s exit will remove one of the few remaining ultra-low-cost options for American travellers, and could push fares higher across the industry.

Its closure has brought the aviation fuel cost crisis into immediate focus with both regulators and the travelling public. Are other U.S. carriers at risk of the same fate as Spirit? Are other airlines globally at risk as well?

What this means for summer 2026 travel

For Canadians planning summer travel, the picture divides roughly along domestic and international lines.

Airlines have increased fares to recover fuel cost increases, cut services on routes that have become unprofitable and begun redrawing growth schedules to reflect geopolitical uncertainties.

For travellers contemplating international travel this summer, airfares have increased substantially. Domestic Canadian fares are also higher than 2025 levels, though the increase is more modest.

Demand on domestic routes has remained strong, and carriers have given no indication of softening. Competition among carriers — a key driver of lower airfares — has been muted at best, with airlines focused on profitability and, in some cases, survival.

Like all such crises, this aviation fuel crisis will eventually end. The question of when is the subject of debate and consternation. The International Air Transport Association has noted that even if the Strait of Hormuz were to reopen, recovering normal jet fuel supply could take months.

For travellers still finalizing summer plans, the central question is how much risk they can tolerate. Further capacity cuts are possible if not likely, and passengers will get minimal notice if flights are cancelled.

Those who want a straightforward, low-stress trip would do well to look closer to home and stick to domestic flights. Those with more flexibility and appetite for uncertainty will find that international travel this summer will be one for the record books.

John Gradek 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. What the jet fuel crisis means for your summer flights and travel plans – https://theconversation.com/what-the-jet-fuel-crisis-means-for-your-summer-flights-and-travel-plans-281093

May 7, 2026

We developed a biodegradable wash that can remove pesticides and keep fruit fresh longer

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tianxi Yang, Assistant Professor, Food Science, University of British Columbia

Such washes can help remove pesticides and keep produce fresh, appealing and more likely to be eaten. (Unsplash/Melissa Askew)

Many grocery shoppers know the routine: bring fruit and vegetables home, rinse them, dry them and hope they stay fresh long enough to be eaten. But fresh produce is delicate. Grapes shrivel, apple slices brown and berries can spoil quickly.

At the same time, many people worry about what may remain on the surface of fruit they buy, including pesticide residues.

Cleaning and freshness are usually treated as separate problems that require different treatments. Washing feels like a simple act of control. But it’s not quite that simple.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends rinsing produce under running water and says soap, detergent and commercial produce washes are not recommended. Water helps, but it does not solve every problem.

Our new study suggests those goals may be combined. We developed a dual-function biodegradable wash that is able to remove surface pesticide residues and form a thin protective layer to help fruit stay fresh for longer.

The timing matters. Around one quarter of fruits and vegetables are lost or wasted globally each year. For fresh produce, even small gains after harvest can matter because quality can change quickly during shipping, storage and daily use at home.

What’s inside and how does it works?

Food science professor Tianxi Yang explains how the biodegradabe wash works. (UBC)

The wash developed in the study is made from starch nanoparticles, tannic acid and iron. Starch is a plant-based material often used in food science because it can form films. Tannic acid is a plant compound found in many foods and plants. Iron helps connect tannic acid into a fine network on the surface of the starch particles.

In plain terms, starch provides the base, tannic acid adds useful plant chemistry and iron helps hold the structure together. During rinsing, this structure can interact with some pesticide molecules on the fruit’s surface and helps wash them away.

When immersed, the same wash can form a very thin coating layer. This is not meant to be a heavy wax-like layer. It is closer to a light surface film that can slow water loss and help maintain appearance. That matters because people often decide whether to eat or throw away fruit based on how it looks and feels.

Removing surface pesticide residues

The cleaning results were strong. On apple surfaces, the wash removed more than 85 per cent of thiabendazole, compared with 48 per cent for tap water, 65 per cent for baking soda and 61 per cent for native starch.

Thiabendazole is a fungicide used on some fresh produce post-harvest. We also tested two other pesticides. The wash removed 93 per cent of the acetamiprid residues and 89 per cent of imidacloprid from apple surfaces. These results suggest the wash can work across more than one type of pesticide residue, rather than only one special chosen compound.

There is, however, an important limit. The study focused on residues on the fruit surface. Some pesticides can move into plant tissue while the fruit is growing, which makes them much harder to remove after harvest.

A better wash should not be understood as a way to erase all pesticide exposure. It’s a tool for reducing what’s on the surface of a fruit or vegetable.

Keeping produce fresh longer

a grape and apple slice at different stages of decay — Grapes and apples dipped in the UBC wash lost less moisture and browned more slowly compared to samples not treated with the wash.
(Tianxi Yang/UBC Media Relations)

The second part of our study looked at freshness. Over 15 days, untreated grapes lost around 45 per cent of their weight, while grapes treated with our wash system lost only 21 per cent. Fresh-cut apples also lost less weight over 48 hours, dropping from 17 per cent in untreated samples to nine per cent.

Those changes can impact what people buy. Treated grapes looked fresher after storage, and apple slices stayed lighter for longer. That kind of change matters outside the lab because produce that looks dried out or browned is less likely to be eaten.

The coating also showed an ability to slow oxidation and inhibited a test bacterium in laboratory experiments. This doesn’t mean the wash has completed all the safety tests needed for consumer use. However, it does suggest the coating may do more than simply sit on the surface.

What this could mean in practice

For now, a realistic use for our wash would likely be in post-harvest processing plants, not kitchen sinks. Processing facilities can control washing time, concentration, water handling and disposal more carefully than households can. We estimated the raw-material cost is less than US$0.032 per apple. Meanwhile, we are actively working on developing a household spray formulation for consumer use.

More work is needed. The wash should be tested on more fruits and vegetables, under commercial conditions and through the regulatory steps required before real-world use.

Still, the idea is useful because it reframes the problem. A fruit wash doesn’t have to be only a rinse. It could clean more effectively and then keep working, helping produce stay fresh, appealing and more likely to be eaten.

The research discussed in this article received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Ling Guo and Tzu-Cheng (Ivy) Chiu 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. We developed a biodegradable wash that can remove pesticides and keep fruit fresh longer – https://theconversation.com/we-developed-a-biodegradable-wash-that-can-remove-pesticides-and-keep-fruit-fresh-longer-280902

May 7, 2026

Donald Trump’s chaotic mess: When U.S. power serves the ‘sultan,’ global rules erode

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Christopher Collins, Fellow, Geopolitics, Cascade Institute, Royal Roads University

Historically, the United States hasn’t always been easy to deal with, but it was consistent. Even countries that disagreed with American policies knew there was a logic underlying its actions, and this predictability gave the country some credibility.

But now, under U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration, American foreign policy has become haphazard and contradictory, driven by a leader who believes his ability to exercise power around the world is constrained only by his own morality.

This is new and, for observers around the world, perplexing. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently said: “Washington has changed. There is almost nothing normal now in the United States.”

Trump maelstrom

Some, like U.S. Vice President JD Vance, are labouring to erect a retroactive, pseudo-intellectual scaffolding around this chaotic mess, seeking to frame it as a coherent doctrine. But it’s become increasingly clear there’s no grand plan, just a Trumpian maelstrom of impulsive reactions, extractive transactions and personal grudges that shift with the news cycle.

To understand this political dysfunction, a German thinker from more than 100 years ago, Max Weber, offers a helpful guide.

Most famous today for his theory of “the Protestant work ethic,” Weber’s writing also explored the concept of “patrimonialism.”

This is a system of governance in which a ruler treats the state as personal property, governs by whim and uses the state’s resources to reward cronies and enrich family. Drawing largely on his understanding of the Ottoman Empire, Weber called the most extreme form of this system “sultanism.”

Reading Weber today, it seems the best description of how the U.S. engages the wider world could be termed “sultanism with American characteristics.”

Loyalty over experience

Consider Iran. Following the start of Operation Epic Fury, the Trump administration cycled through so many conflicting war aims that CNN was able to assemble a montage of the contradictions.

Senior administration officials worked feverishly to build a strategy around the operation, but it soon became clear that this “war of choice” was started based on little more than the president’s whim.

Weber’s framework extends to the people around Trump. In sultanistic systems, staff are selected based on loyalty, not merit, and serve the ruler, not the state.

As Weber wrote, this leads to “an administration and a military force which are purely personal instruments of the master.”

We see this pattern vividly illustrated by the Trump administration’s approach to staffing senior roles, including those leading high-stakes diplomatic negotiations.

Look at Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer and longtime Trump friend with no foreign policy experience, who has served as the administration’s lead envoy on some of the most sensitive negotiations in the world.

Or Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who, despite having no background in foreign policy, was entrusted with key roles in Middle East diplomacy, while his investment firm pursues deals with the same Gulf states he is negotiating with on behalf of his country.

Serving the sultan

These are not appointments that a merit-based system would produce. But right now in America, officials serve the sultan, not the republic, which is why their speeches are regularly given for an “audience of one.”

Furthermore, in seeking the sultan’s favour, appointees regularly debase themselves on television, such as when Kevin Warsh, Trump’s pick to be the next head of the Federal Reserve, refused to admit Trump lost the 2020 election.

This sultanistic pattern of rewarding loyalty and punishing defiance is expanding. Federal disaster relief, long treated as a non-partisan obligation of the government, has become a stark illustration of this logic.

Since the start of his second term, Trump has approved just 23 per cent of disaster funding requests from blue states, compared to 89 per cent for red states. In some cases, the conditionality for disaster aid has been made explicit: for example, in 2025, as fires ravaged Los Angeles, Trump threatened to withhold aid unless California enacted voter ID laws — a condition with no relationship to disaster recovery.

This fear of punishment also helps explain why, fearing for their businesses, many media companies are bowing to “the court of King Trump.”

‘Orgy of corruption’

Finally, Weber’s framework sheds light on what may be the most defining feature of the Trump administration: a blurring of the lines between public office and private enrichment. Under sultanism, the distinction between the ruler’s personal wealth and the state’s treasury is, at best, notional.

Trump and his team have governed accordingly, with perhaps the most egregious example being hundreds of millions of dollars of insider trading around the Iran war. In a healthy democracy, this “orgy of corruption” would be investigated and prosecuted. But in a patrimonial system this is simply how things work: the state exists to serve the ruler and his inner circle.

This is what the world must now manage. A sultanistic system does not respond to appeals to shared values or long-standing agreements. It responds to leverage, personal relationships with the ruler and transactional incentives.

Policymakers and business leaders increasingly understand they are dealing with a court that rewards fealty and punishes defiance. That’s why the Swiss gave Trump a gold bar in exchange for lower tariffs, and why the Qataris gave him a “palace in the sky.”

In 2026, appeals to shared democratic values or common national interests are pointless; bring the sultan something he wants or face punishment. Weber helps explain why.

Christopher Collins 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. Donald Trump’s chaotic mess: When U.S. power serves the ‘sultan,’ global rules erode – https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-chaotic-mess-when-u-s-power-serves-the-sultan-global-rules-erode-281941

May 6, 2026

Countries must back commitments to transition from fossil fuels with action

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Philippe Le Billon, Professor, Geography Department and School of Public Policy & Global Affairs, University of British Columbia

The first international Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels concluded on April 29 in Santa Marta, Colombia. Stemming from the failure of the last COP meeting in Belèm, Brazil, to address the necessity of reducing reliance on fossil fuels, the intergovernmental event was co-organized by Colombia and the Netherlands and gathered delegations from 59 countries.

The conference included countries advocating for a phase-down of fossil fuels, such as Costa Rica, Denmark, Spain, France and Kenya within the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.

It also included countries highly exposed to climate change, such as Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and Bangladesh, all members of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, as well as major oil-producing countries like Brazil, Canada, Norway and Nigeria. Canada carefully refrained from using the word fossil fuels in its very cautious plenary declaration.

As expected, the conference did not produce binding commitments or a negotiated agreement. Its goal, for now, is more modest: to provide a space more flexible than United Nations climate COPs. That aims to enable frank discussions on the practical realities of phasing down fossil fuels and foster a coalition capable of pushing future COPs toward more concrete action, as states agreed during COP28 in 2023.

Many participants framed the Santa Marta conference as a historic turning point, echoing the optimism that followed the Paris Agreement and COP28’s call for transitioning away from fossil fuels. However, the limited tangible outcomes of these past commitments suggest caution.

Will Santa Marta mark the beginning of a genuine transformation, or remain another symbolic milestone?

A turning point or familiar rhetoric?

The very existence of a summit dedicated to phasing down fossil fuels is unprecedented — particularly one hosted by a Global South country like Colombia, with an economy that remains significantly dependent on oil and coal export.

However, many proposals discussed in Santa Marta have already been raised at previous conferences, such as the 2025 African Climate Summit and the 2023 Summit for a New Global Financial Pact. Since then, calls for global action to address climate change and help climate-vulnerable countries have largely failed to translate into concrete policies.

This raises the risk that Santa Marta may reproduce what scholars describe as “incantatory governance” — a model that combines ambitious global goals with flexible, largely voluntary instruments and an optimistic narrative designed to mobilize international consensus without necessarily delivering structural change.

Four dynamics to watch

Whether Santa Marta becomes more than rhetoric will depend on four key dynamics.

Will participating countries remain in informal, non-binding coalitions, or will they form more structured and co-ordinated groups focused on phasing down fossil fuels, similar to how OPEC organizes oil-producing states? Recent academic work suggests that such coalitions could play a decisive role in shaping global efforts to phase down fossil fuels.
The credibility of this process will hinge on whether countries adopt binding national measures, such as bans on new exploration licenses, rather than relying solely on voluntary commitments. A meaningful transition will require combining incentives (like subsidies for renewables and electrification) with constraints (taxation, regulation and prohibitions), all within the framework of a just transition. Tools like the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Tracker can help monitor and assess fossil fuel-related policies around the world.
The momentum generated in Santa Marta must withstand domestic political shifts that could weaken commitments. This is particularly relevant for oil-producing countries like Colombia, where future governments may adopt different positions. At the same time, persistent distrust remains due to the gap between climate finance promises made by wealthy countries and the funds actually delivered.
Effective action will depend on stronger co-ordination among governments, civil society and the scientific community. Notably, the parallel academic conference and the People’s Summit for a Fossil-Free Future at Santa Marta produced detailed and actionable proposals aligned with the scale of the climate crisis. Bridging these initiatives with formal policy processes will be essential to move from rhetoric to implementation.

From commitments to action

The conference in Santa Marta is an important step toward building political coalitions to phase out fossil fuels. But its long-term significance remains uncertain. Without binding commitments, political continuity and co-ordinated action, it risks becoming another instance of empty climate diplomacy.

Turning this moment into a movement will demand structural reforms, credible policy tools and sustained political will. International negotiations and clear roadmaps are crucial.

A follow-up summit is planned for 2027 in the South Pacific, co-chaired by Tuvalu and Ireland. In the meantime, three working groups have been established. One to develop national and regional phase-down roadmaps. Another is to address macroeconomic dependence on fossil fuels and strengthen public financial capacity. And a third is focused on decarbonizing international trade.

Santa Marta could mark the beginning of a major shift in climate negotiations, one clearly focused on ultimately phasing out fossil fuels.

The authors 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. Countries must back commitments to transition from fossil fuels with action – https://theconversation.com/countries-must-back-commitments-to-transition-from-fossil-fuels-with-action-282118

May 6, 2026

Canada’s first Inuit-led university is coming to Nunavut — here’s why it matters

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Daniel Sims, Associate Professor of First Nations Studies; Adjunct Professor of Education, University of Northern British Columbia

The small community of Arviat, Nvt., has reportedly been selected to host the main campus of Inuit Nunangat University, the first Inuit-led university in Canada. The institution is expected to open in 2030.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), which represents Canada’s 70,000 Inuit, passed a resolution to develop the university in 2017, “marking a significant step toward self-determination in higher education.”

The vision and plans for the university reflect a common saying among the Indigenous Peoples of the Prairies: “Education is the new buffalo.” It alludes to the importance of buffalo to Indigenous Peoples prior to the animal’s near-extinction in the late 19th century, and the importance placed on education today.

This emphasis on education is partly a response to colonial policies that systematically denied Indigenous Peoples access to quality education for generations.

The consequences of that history are still seen today. While there is a gap in employment rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous adults overall, the gap essentially disappears for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

In this context, the establishment of a university is more than the creation of educational institution. It’s a way to combat the injustices of the past and develop the Indigenous economy, which also helps fund Indigenous self-determination.

Not the first Indigenous university

Inuit Nunangat University will not be the first Indigenous-led university in Canada. That distinction is most often attributed to the First Nations University of Canada in Saskatchewan, which started as the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College in 1976.

The university itself does not appear to claim the distinction on its website, perhaps because of the long history of Indigenous-led post-secondary institutions that predate or parallel it across Canada, from the Wilp Wilxo’oskwhl Nisga’a Institute in Gitwinksihlkw, B.C., which is federated with the University of Northern British Columbia, to Kiuna College in Odanak, Que.

The existence of these institutions reinforces the value Indigenous Peoples see in education — a statement that may surprise those who associate Indigenous education primarily with the residential school system.

Yet, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report mdae clear, the schools were incredibly poor at actually educating Indigenous children; those who succeeded academically did so despite the system rather than because of it. The schools were designed primarily around assimilation and labour, not academic learning.

That failure, and the determination to correct it, is one of the reasons why members of Saddle Lake Cree Nation occupied the Blue Quills Indian Residential School in Alberta in 1970 and demanded the right to run it themselves

Elder Louis Lapatack from Saddle Lake Cree Nation speaks about life at the Blue Quills Residential School. (City of Edmonton)

After a 17-day sit-in, then-minister of Indian Affairs Jean Chrétien transferred operations to the Blue Quills Native Education Council. The council eventually transformed it into the Indigenous-run and operated University nuhelot’įne thaiyot’į nistameyimâkanah Blue Quills.

Education as a form of investment

Many First Nations, Métis nations and Inuit communities fund post-secondary education for their members, often through partnerships with Indigenous Services Canada. There is a broad recognition that investing in education benefits the nation and community, and the number of Indigenous Peoples obtaining a bachelor’s degree or higher has been increasing.

That is one reason for the numerous Indigenous led post-secondary institutions across Canada. Another is that, while Indigenous Peoples are theoretically free to attend any post-secondary institution in the world, many institutions are not located near their communities.

This matters more than it might initially appear. According to the 2021 Census, there is a clear correlation between remoteness and lower levels of post-secondary education. The share of Indigenous adults with a post-secondary qualification was significantly higher in areas closer to economic centres.

Building schools to be closer to home, rather than expecting Indigenous students to travel or move away from home, is the logic behind Inuit Nunangat University.

Designing from the inside out

There are also benefits to having institutions under Indigenous control. Indigenous-led post-secondary institutions can develop curriculum and programs that are directly tailored to the needs and desires of their communities.

They also treat Indigenous knowledge systems as foundational rather than supplementary. For generations, Indigenous ways of knowing were delegitimized. Western disciplines defined what counted as knowledge, and Indigenous Peoples who entered those institutions were expected to set aside their own epistemologies.

Most Canadian universities are attempting to address this through changes grouped under the term “Indigenization,” but questions remain about whether such changes actually address underlying colonial structures or simply work around them.

Indigenous post-secondary institutions are, in principle, better positioned to make more fundamental changes. Nowhere is this better seen than in the six proposed faculties of Inuit Nunangat University, which reflects an Inuit take on programs and courses that differs from the standard structure of Canadian universities. This includes Inuktut language immersion.

Other Indigenous institutions have already led the way on language-based degrees. The Nicola Valley Institute of Technology and the aforementioned Wilp Wilxo’oskwhl Nisga’a Institute have created language-based degrees for Nłe?kepmx and Nisga’a in partnership with the University of British Columbia and University of Northern British Columbia respectively.

A barrier dismantled

Between 1876, when the Indian Act was first passed into law, until its 1920 amendment, status Indians lost their Indian status if they earned a degree and/or worked in certain professions.

For decades after, the most significant barrier to education was the failure of the Indian Residential School system to actually educate Indigenous children. Both forms of exclusion have now been formally dismantled, though their effects persist in the gaps that remain.

More and more Indigenous Peoples are pursuing post-secondary education, and institutions designed specifically to support that pursuit are a central part of how those gaps close. The Inuit Nunangat University, opening in Arviat in 2030, will be part of that process.

Daniel Sims is a member of the Tsay Keh Dene First Nations. Currently he holds an Insight Grant as well as an Explore Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to research failed economic developments and concepts of wilderness in Tsek’ehne traditional territory (the Finlay-Parsnip watershed).

– ref. Canada’s first Inuit-led university is coming to Nunavut — here’s why it matters – https://theconversation.com/canadas-first-inuit-led-university-is-coming-to-nunavut-heres-why-it-matters-281616

May 6, 2026

The peptide problem: Hype is outrunning the evidence

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Stuart Phillips, Professor, Kinesiology, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Skeletal Muscle Health, McMaster University

Health Canada recently warned Canadians not to buy or inject unauthorized peptide drugs sold online, naming products that include BPC-157, CJC-1295, ipamorelin, TB-500 and retatrutide.

The advisory notes these products are being marketed online and on social media for anti-aging, weight loss, injury recovery, sleep, mental focus and general “wellness,” and that Health Canada has already seized several of them.

Peptides, short chains of amino acids (the building blocks of protein), are no longer marketed only to bodybuilders and elite athletes.

A scroll on Instagram and TikTok quickly reveals a broader wellness market in which influencers, including medical doctors, naturopaths and personal trainers, pitch compounds such as BPC-157 and TB-500. The hook? These self-injected compounds are recovery shortcuts, reduce wrinkles, “melt” belly fat and are “anti-aging” with strong and incredible effects.

The problem? Few, if any, of these substances have been tested in human trials.

As a case example, body protective compound 157 (BPC-157) is scientifically interesting. Reviews published in 2025 describe a body of research dominated by animal and cell studies, with signals suggesting effects on angiogenesis (the growth of blood vessels), growth-factor signalling (mainly growth hormone) and musculoskeletal healing.

In one systematic review, 544 papers were screened, 36 met the inclusion criteria, and 35 of those were in rodents or cells; only one involved humans in a musculoskeletal context.

Plausible hypotheses

That is the tension at the heart of the current peptide boom: plausible biology can generate excitement long before it generates reliable clinical evidence. Caution is warranted because animal findings do not reliably map onto what happens in people. Molecular pathway diagrams and rodent healing results are useful for generating scientific hypotheses, but they aren’t evidence that a product improves outcomes in human patients.

Most potential products tested in rodents do not make it to market. The “translational squeeze” — the number of products that begin rodent trials compared to the number that successfully progress from rodent trials to human trials, and from human trials to regulatory approval — is estimated to be greater than 20 to one.

Published human evidence for BPC-157 remains trivial. A retrospective knee-pain report included 16 patients; an interstitial cystitis pilot trial enrolled 12 women; and a recent intravenous safety pilot involved just two healthy adults.

These studies are too small and poorly controlled to establish whether the peptide outperforms natural recovery, the placebo effect or conventional rehabilitation. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled hamstring-strain trial has now been registered, which is exactly the kind of study still missing from the evidence and efficacy base.

Placebo effect and regression to mean

The social power of peptide testimonials is easy to understand. Pain, soreness and recovery are subjective and highly variable outcomes.

The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health notes that randomized, placebo-controlled trials are the gold standard because they help determine whether apparent improvement is due to the treatment or to chance. Harvard Health puts the related point bluntly: placebo effects can ease symptoms like pain, fatigue and nausea, but they do not shrink tumours or lower cholesterol.

Symptoms that are severe when people first seek help often improve by the time they are next measured, simply because of natural fluctuation, a phenomenon known as regression to the mean. So when someone injects BPC-157 and feels better two weeks later, several explanations compete: time, rehabilitation, expectation (the person has just spent money on a peptide and perhaps publicly committed to trying it), and regression to the mean. A testimonial saying “it worked,” can generate a hypothesis; it cannot settle causation.

For these reasons, regulatory warnings deserve more attention than influencer enthusiasm. Health Canada states that unauthorized injectable peptides are illegal in Canada, have not been assessed for safety, efficacy or quality, and may contain too much, too little or none of the claimed ingredient.

Notably, labels such as “For Research Use Only, Not for Human Consumption” do not make these products legal for human use.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classified BPC-157 as Category 2 for compounding due to adverse immune system reactions, peptide-related impurities and insufficient safety information to determine whether it would cause harm when administered to humans.

Purity certificates and conspiracy theories

A common rejoinder from people buying peptides online is that third-party certificates of analysis show the powder they receive is pure and free of contaminants. That reassurance does not survive scrutiny.

The “third-party” labs that produce these reports are often the vendors themselves and offer assurances of 98 per cent purity, which might seem impressive but would not meet any reasonable drug standards. And what exactly is the other two per cent? The consumer is asked to take the claims of purity as proof, while the peptide-related impurities that concern regulators remain invisible to the end user.

There is a deeper irony embedded in this practice: if buyers believed these products were safe, properly characterized and manufactured to the standards expected of pharmaceutical-grade products, they would not need to commission independent purity tests. The reliance on outside certificates of analysis is itself an admission that the normal guardrails of identity, potency, sterility and quality control are absent.

The conspiracy theory is that useful peptides are ignored by pharma companies because peptide drugs cannot be patented and become real medicines. The facts do not support that.

Semaglutide (used in GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy) is a peptide drug, and tesamorelin is an FDA-approved synthetic growth hormone-releasing factor analogue. Peptide therapeutics are not an exotic category that mainstream drug development cannot handle.

What makes BPC-157 different is not that peptide medicine is impossible. But it’s been more than three decades since researchers began studying BPC-157, and public evidence remains dominated by animal- and cell-based papers and small human pilot studies. Journalistic investigation has also noted that much of the BPC-157 literature traces back to a single Croatian research group, another reason to be careful about mistaking repetition for independent confirmation.

Safety concerns

Jurisdictional and approval rules vary across regulators, but a global scan reveals that only a scant few peptides in BPC-157’s broader therapeutic class have achieved any clinically approved use.

A recent FDA 503A update in the U.S. should not be mistaken for a change in that picture. The FDA’s current safety page continues to cite concerns about immunogenicity, peptide impurities and limited safety data, and the agency has stated that a substance may still pose significant safety risks.

BPC-157 or other peptides may yet prove useful for a specific condition, at a specific dose and route of administration. The right response is not to dismiss that possibility, but to insist on the blinded, placebo-controlled human trials that could actually settle the question.

Until then, buying vials of dry powder, reconstituting it in sterile water, and injecting the cocktail with online-purchased needles will not provide proof of anything. It is high-risk, uncontrolled human self-experimentation.

Stuart Phillips owns shares in Exerkine. He receives funding from Nestle, Optimum Nutrition, Danone, and Nutricia. He is affiliated with WndrHlth, Liquid IV, and Myomar.

– ref. The peptide problem: Hype is outrunning the evidence – https://theconversation.com/the-peptide-problem-hype-is-outrunning-the-evidence-280715

May 6, 2026

College students are noticing their AI-smoothed writing sounds strong — and not like them

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nurul Hassan Mohammad, PhD Candidate, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Generative AI has become a part of everyday student life in Canada. While institutions focus on misconduct and detection, a deeper shift is happening, one that concerns identity.

A recent KPMG Canada report finds that 73 per cent of students use generative AI for schoolwork, and nearly half say it is their “first instinct.” Also significant is the finding that many students also report feeling uneasy, worried that their use may be seen as cheating.

The study is based on a survey of 684 university, college, vocational and high school students within a larger sample of 3,804 Canadians (aged 18+), on how people are adopting generative AI.

In my doctoral research on STEM education in Ontario colleges, I’m exploring how AI is transforming not only how students write but also how they perceive voice, legitimacy and what it means to be themselves.

Academic policies can define what constitutes cheating, but they do not address a more subtle concern: if AI helped write my assignment, will I still be seen as capable, and will my work represent me?

Identity takes shape through writing

Writing is more than a technical skill. It is one of the primary ways students structure and elaborate ideas, demonstrate competence and position themselves as emerging professionals.

This is particularly significant in STEM, where programs are often closely linked to specific career paths. Students are expected to begin positioning themselves as future professionals through how they communicate and present knowledge.

At the same time, STEM fields are often seen as primarily technical or data-driven, with writing treated as secondary. Yet research shows that communication is central to scientific practice, shaping how knowledge is constructed, interpreted and shared.

A Black person's hands seen on a laptop keyboard. — Communication shapes how knowledge is constructed, interpreted and shared.
(Allison Shelley/EDUimages), CC BY-NC

AI is part of envisioning career paths

Even beyond this, when science students write assignments, they also undertake what social and cultural theorists describe as “identity work.”

Through writing, students build narratives that let them explore how they might belong in particular worlds or professional fields. In my research, I examine how STEM programs operate as cultural worlds with implicit rules about what counts as smart, credible and legitimate participation.

Students interpret rules and adjust how they portray themselves in their work. This identity work is shaped by prior experiences, confidence with disciplinary language and alignment between personal interests and the STEM career paths they see as being available to them. AI is now part of that process.

‘Kinda generic’

In my research, I have observed college STEM classes, taken field notes and spoken with a cohort of students multiple times over a two year period about their work.

I often hear a version of the same concern: the AI-generated draft is technically strong, but “it does not sound like me.” This concern reflects the insight that “voice” or “sound” in writing is a signal of legitimacy.

In my collaborative work on cultivating student agency, I use the idea of “becoming alive within science education” to describe moments when students can bring more of themselves — their perspectives, ways of thinking and experiences — into how they learn and express ideas.

Yet institutions often favour more standardized forms of writing. AI can intensify this by making a fluent, generic style instantly available. For some students, this lowers barriers and supports access. For others, it feels like self-erasure.

One student put it this way:

“It’s better writing, yeah, it sounds good and helps get a better grade. But it’s kinda generic. Like anyone could’ve written it, not just me.”

This recurring pattern in the data points to a broader tension: phrasing, structure and tone in writing carry traces of identity, traces AI can smooth or erase.

How we think about ourselves

Many of us have likely noticed that AI tools can improve the quality and efficiency of writing and may also lead to more uniform outputs, reducing variation in how ideas are expressed. These concerns are echoed in education guidance.

UNESCO warns that AI systems can shape how knowledge is produced and expressed, raising questions about human agency and originality. Canadian policy discussions similarly highlight both the opportunities and risks of AI for student learning and authorship.

Taken together, these insights suggest how beyond only assisting human writing, AI shapes how voice is expressed and how we think about ourselves.

Policy catching up

Canadian post-secondary institutions are still determining their approach to AI.

Many policies aim to balance flexibility with oversight, allowing limited AI use while emphasizing disclosure and addressing risks such as fabricated citations, bias and privacy issues.

Yet institutions also acknowledge challenges in enforcement.

As policies evolve, uncertainty remains. Students must navigate what is permitted, what constitutes their work and whether it truly reflects who they are.

STEM and belonging

In Canada, participation in STEM fields remains uneven across gender and other social dimensions such as race, Indigenous identity, socioeconomic status and immigrant background.

Many students already question whether they belong, making recognition deeply consequential.

If AI-generated writing becomes the implicit standard for “good work,” students may begin to locate competence in the tool rather than in themselves.

Students who rely on AI may question the authenticity of their success, while those who avoid it may feel at a disadvantage.

What can educators do?

Rethinking learning design is important. Students should not have to guess what is acceptable. Assessments should focus on process that makes students’ thinking visible, not just product.

Significantly, writing in one’s own voice must be treated as a skill worth developing.

In practice, this can be as simple as asking students to explain how they used AI in an assignment, or compare an AI-generated paragraph with their own and discuss what changed in tone, clarity and reasoning.

Instructors might also ask students to revise AI-polished text so it reflects their own thinking, or to identify where their interpretation and uncertainty matter. These and other small shifts help foreground not only what students produce but also how they think and position themselves in their work.

AI is here to stay. The question is whether STEM classrooms will help students use these tools without losing their voice, their agency and their sense of belonging.

Nurul Hassan Mohammad 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. College students are noticing their AI-smoothed writing sounds strong — and not like them – https://theconversation.com/college-students-are-noticing-their-ai-smoothed-writing-sounds-strong-and-not-like-them-279436

May 6, 2026

‘The farther away, the better’ is the problematic logic behind U.S. third-country deportations

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Guillermo Candiz, Assistant Professor, Human Plurality, Université de l’Ontario français

Since January 2025, the Donald Trump administration in the United States has signed bilateral agreements with 27 governments to deport migrants to countries where they have no ties.

This process is known as third-country deportation, and it’s created a system that operates as migration deterrence. These agreements also transfer responsibility for managing migrant lives to the Global South.

In February 2025, the Trump administration sent two chartered planes carrying 200 people from countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and China to San José, Costa Rica.

During our ongoing research that involved fieldwork in Costa Rica in 2025, we interviewed two families who were on board one of the planes. They had been shackled during the flight.

Alerted that the first deportation from the U.S. was to take place, Costa Rican journalists and human rights activists awaited the arrival at the airport. The Costa Rican agents closed the window blinds of the planes before removing the shackles.

Migrants given no information

As the migrants we interviewed told us — and as documented by Human Rights Watch — none of the people sent to Costa Rica spoke Spanish. They weren’t informed where the flights were headed or where they’d be taken upon arrival. No translators were present when the first plane landed, and only a few were available upon the arrival of the second flight.

U.S. authorities expelled the migrants without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum. Although some third-country deportations had occurred prior to February 2025, they had typically been carried out on a much smaller scale.

The deportation of non‑citizens to Costa Rica set the stage for 27 bilateral agreements later signed by the Trump administration with governments across Latin America, Africa and Central Asia. What initially appeared to be an exceptional measure had, within a year, become a preferred approach to migration management.

‘Border spectacle’

In 2025, the U.S. deported approximately 675,000 people. Among them, around 15,000, or two per cent of the total, were sent to third countries.

Given the relatively low numbers involved, the objective is not the removal of large populations of unwanted migrants. Instead, these deportations function as what American migration scholar Nicholas De Genova terms “the border spectacle of migrant victimization.”

Such spectacles are designed to generate fear. They encourage some asylum-seekers already in the country to leave and aim to deter others from attempting to cross into the U.S. altogether.

The principle rationale for this border regime was made explicit by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in July 2025: “The further away, the better, so they can’t come back across the border.”

This statement wasn’t just rhetoric — it reflected U.S. policy.

Creating uncertainty about where migrants might be sent — whether Eswatini, South Sudan, Rwanda, Costa Rica or Cameroon — was central to the strategy. It served both to deter would-be migrants in their home countries and to pressure those already in the U.S. to pursue what the administration called “self-deportations.”

Why do Global South states sign on?

To push countries in the Global South to accept deportation agreements for non-nationals, the U.S. relies on four forms of pressure: direct payments, visa restrictions, tariff threats and conditions on foreign aid.

Ghana, for example, secured the lifting of consular restrictions in August 2025 after agreeing to co-operate on deportations.

When Costa Rica signed its third-country deportation agreement in March 2026, President Rodrigo Chaves stated that he was “helping the economically powerful brother of the North” in order to avoid American tariffs on Costa Rican free-trade zones.

Eswatini agreed to receive deportees in exchange for financial transfers and improvements in its bilateral relationship with the U.S. Rwanda, for its part, capitalized symbolically on the model by incorporating it into its regional diplomatic strategy.

Taking on costs

Yet these negotiations are deeply one-sided. While the countries in questions may achieve short‑term gains, they also take on additional, uncompensated costs.

As we learned through our interviews of migrants in Costa Rica, for example, 85 migrants of the approximated 200 received in February 2025 remained in the Central American country. That’s because they could not return to their countries of origin for fear of persecution, imprisonment or forced military recruitment.

Some later resumed their journey to the U.S. and successfully claimed asylum there. Others required access to medical care, work permits and other forms of assistance.

Beyond granting temporary residency permits with limited rights, Costa Rica lacks the resources to ensure the safety and security of these migrants and to adequately address their needs.

The Trump administration’s reduction in international humanitarian aid has further undermined Costa Rica’s refugee protection regime.

For migrants, this state of prolonged waiting marked by legal uncertainty has resulted in psychological distress. Several interviewees reported panic attacks, depression and insomnia.

Beyond the United States

This emerging border regime is not uniquely American. In March 2026, the European Parliament endorsed the so-called return hubs mechanism, which opens the door to offshoring asylum processing.

Italy, for example, has had migrant detention hubs in Albania for more than a year.

Canada has reconfirmed its own Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S.

Canada also passed Bill C-2 and Bill C-12 in 2025, legislation that substantially restricts access to asylum. What’s more, it reduced its refugee resettlement targets by 30 per cent for the 2026–28 period.

This doesn’t constitute a replication of the U.S. model, but it does reflect a convergence. Different mechanisms are increasingly aligned in the same direction: the progressive erosion of the right to asylum.

Mobilization

It’s therefore important to ask whether some refugee claimants deported to the U.S. may subsequently face third‑country deportations to other states.

In March 2026, more than 30 human rights organizations issued a joint statement calling for an end to chain deportations to Costa Rica. It explicitly accused the Costa Rican state as being complicit in — and directly responsible for — American violations of its asylum law and its international obligations under the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, protests recently erupted against the anticipated deportation of 1,100 Afghans from the U.S. to the country.

UN human rights experts have also expressed alarm about the risk of torture, enforced disappearance or arbitrary deprivation of life in some third countries.

Across the globe, migration scholars, human rights organizations and allies must do more than voice concern — they need to co-ordinate, organize and actively resist this emerging border regime before it becomes entrenched.

Guillermo Candiz receives funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

Tanya Basok receives funding from Social Science and Humanities Research Council

– ref. ‘The farther away, the better’ is the problematic logic behind U.S. third-country deportations – https://theconversation.com/the-farther-away-the-better-is-the-problematic-logic-behind-u-s-third-country-deportations-281687

May 5, 2026

In the age of AI, human creative output is becoming a luxury

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nathan Murray, Assistant Professor, Department of English and History, Algoma University

Imagine two identical spoons. One is hand-wrought from silver by a skilled metalworker. The other, a base-metal facsimile, was mass-produced by a machine. Which would you value more? Most of us would say the handmade spoon.

In 1899, more than a century ago, American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen used this very example to explain how we assign value, or his theory of conspicuous consumption, in which he contended that bourgeois consumption was driven primarily by a desire to display wealth to others. Even if these spoons were indistinguishable, explained Veblen, the hand-made spoon, once identified, would be more highly valued.

This is in part because “the hand-wrought spoon gratifies our taste, our sense of the beautiful, while that made by machinery out of base metal has no useful office beyond a brute efficiency.” But for Veblen there is another factor more important than any aesthetic judgment: costliness.

The hand-wrought spoon is preferred above all, Veblen suggested, because it is a means of demonstrating wealth. However, as we enter a world in which almost anything, including art, writing and music, can be machine-wrought, it seems that Veblen may have misjudged his spoons.

We don’t value human creations solely for their beauty or their price tag. We also value them because they embody deliberate labour and expertise.

AI-generated writing is judged differently

Our own research has shown that even highly trained writing educators cannot reliably distinguish between AI-generated and human-written essays. In fact, one study has shown that general audiences may actually prefer blander AI-generated poetry over more difficult, human-written poetry.

But while public taste may favour the simple and formulaic, the disclosure of artificial authorship is enough to make most people recoil.

In a recent study involving a series of experiments, participants were asked to compare pieces of AI-generated creative writing, including poetry and fiction. In each case, they were told that some passages were human-written and some were AI-generated. Across 16 experiments, respondents consistently devalued the writing labelled as AI-generated.

The authors of the study call this the “AI disclosure penalty.” It is possible to conclude from the study that audiences unfairly judge AI-generated content, but we disagree. This bias towards human creation is inherent to our relationship with art. When people believe something was made by a machine, they like it less.

Some argue that AI can democratize creativity by lowering barriers to production and enabling more people to participate in cultural expression. But the evidence suggests that when authorship becomes effortless, perceived value declines.

The importance of effort and experience

Art costs something. Both John Milton and James Joyce believed that their writing had cost them their eyesight. John Keats believed that the emotional exertion of writing poetry would worsen his tuberculosis and cost him his life. They kept writing anyway. We resent the machine because its creations cost it nothing.

When an algorithm generates a story about heartbreak or an essay on human struggle, it is trading in stolen emotions. AI has never felt pain, suffered a loss or wrestled with the frustration of a blank page, so its output, no matter how technically smooth, feels fundamentally deceptive.

People hate the idea of being moved by a parlour trick. In addition, many of us have a deep, instinctive revulsion to the industrialization of our inner lives. As Joanna Maciejewska observed, “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

We happily accept machines stamping out our car parts and toasters because efficiency is the goal, but applying that same cold logic to human expression strips away the vulnerability, risk and stakes that make art mean anything in the first place.

This becomes more consequential as AI-generated content floods the digital media landscape.

Why human work is becoming more valuable

Our media ecosystem has evolved so that paying directly for much of the content we consume is optional. In an era of streaming music, television and film, we rarely own the product we consume, and creators receive pennies on the dollar compared to previous economic models.

To make matters worse, media companies are increasingly pushing AI-generated content in the form of tens of thousands of social media posts, books, podcasts and videos every day and encouraging artists and content creators to supercharge the quantity of their output by relying on AI.

Much of this output is highly formulaic — produced at scale and designed for rapid, low-engagement consumption. It is an endless, flavourless paste of clichés and nonsense, meant to be mindlessly consumed by doomscrolling thumbs and immediately forgotten. Despite working in an era in which payment is optional amid a deluge of slop, many artists, journalists and writers are making a living because enough of their audience chooses to support the work of real human creators.

The “AI disclosure penalty” reminds us that the consumption of art is not tied to purely aesthetic considerations but involves a need to connect with and appreciate the effort and labour of others.

Consumers have long been willing to pay more for goods labelled “handmade,” “handcrafted,” “artisanal” or “bespoke” on the understanding that those goods were made using traditional techniques that took more effort and human skill.

As generative AI turns writing, art and digital media into frictionless, infinitely replicable outputs, human cognitive effort is undergoing a profound shift. It is becoming an artisanal good that consumers must choose to support and value.

The Industrial Revolution transformed hand-made furniture and hand-woven textiles into premium markers of craftsmanship and authenticity. The AI revolution is doing something similar for intellectual and creative labour — audiences are beginning to place a premium not necessarily on the competent execution of a poem or an essay, which a machine can generate in seconds, but on the invisible friction, the lived experience and the deliberate toil of the human mind behind it.

In a landscape increasingly saturated with instant content, the verified effort of a human creator is shifting from a baseline expectation to a highly coveted, bespoke quality. Ultimately, what we value about art is not whether it’s perfect, but its ability to connect us with another human being.

Nathan Murray has received funding for his research from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Elisa Tersigni has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

– ref. In the age of AI, human creative output is becoming a luxury – https://theconversation.com/in-the-age-of-ai-human-creative-output-is-becoming-a-luxury-276514