The 20th century did not begin well. After the warm-ups of the Crimean and Boer Wars, Europe stumbled into World War I in 1914, a fatal combination of hubris and stupidity that killed about 17 million people. The trauma inspired an unflinching examination of the dark recesses of the human psyche in an effort to understand what happened. Dada, the mindless artistic expression of absurdity, was not a satisfactory answer. The philosophical loneliness of existentialism was arguably a nihilistic consequence of the monumental blunder of the First World War—a loss of any remnant of idealism and collective human wisdom.
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The Quadra Project: Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity is the ability of the human brain to adapt to new kinds of learning, a subject studied by David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford University. In an interview with Clare Wilson in New Scientist magazine (15 May 2021), he makes the passing comment that, “Mother Nature is taking a sort of gamble with humans, in that she drops our brains into the world half-baked and lets experience take over and shape them. Our babies have much less well-developed brains than other animals do at birth. All in all, this has been a successful strategy. We’ve taken over every corner of the planet, invented the internet—even gotten off the planet to the moon.”
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Hundreds of academics call for RCMP’s ‘immediate retreat’ from Wet’suwet’en territory
By John Woodside, National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Hundreds of academics have signed an open letter calling for government intervention in the wake of RCMP enforcement of an injunction granted to Coastal GasLink to build a pipeline through unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.
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The ‘elephant’ of fossil fuels is not even in the room at UN climate summit
National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The mere mention of fossil fuel phaseouts in the UN climate summit’s texts is not enough to save humanity or the planet, and the oil and gas lobby is weakening commitments in Glasgow even further, international environmental groups say.
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Oceans will determine if we sink or swim when it comes to achieving our climate goals
National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The world’s oceans suck up a huge chunk of human-caused emissions, but their role in mitigation strategies and targets is largely absent from critical negotiations underway at the UN climate conference in Glasgow, Canadian scientist Anya Waite says.
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