Health Homes and Climate

The relationships between health services, housing needs, and the climate crisis are many. The tension between market based action and government control in these areas compels us to carefully analyze trends and progress.

Health and Housing in Climate Crisis

The Ottawa Citizen reports on privatization of orthopedic surgery that may be impacting staffing for hospital health care. Elizabeth Payne reports:

“We are not able to provide the service we want for oncology patients because nurses are working in a higher paid environment,” said the unnamed source. “My view is that this is confirming the concerns that we are limited in terms of the service we can provide in the public system because nurses are obviously being poached by this private clinic.” (Payne, 2023)

Nicole Munro, at Saltwire, contributes an article on West End Mall redevelopment in Halifax.

By the time the master plan is finished, Coun. Shawn Cleary (Halifax West Armdale) said, the inclusionary zoning bylaw should be in place at about the same time, giving HRM the power to ensure there is a percentage of affordable units included.

While Cleary suspects most of the units will be market-based rents, he said the inclusionary zoning bylaw would allow some affordable units.

“We’ll have the power to actually say, ‘No, no, you don’t have a choice. You’re going to have this per cent of those units that have to be affordable.’” (Halifax's West End Mall Redevelopment Will Go on Despite Pushback, Councillor Says, 2023)

Matt McGrath, environment correspondent for BBC News, contributes an article about fossil fuel emissions falling in worldwide electricity generation.

One significant player impacting the overall trend is China. Around 50% of the global addition of wind power came from China and about 40% of the world's new solar came from from the country that's also the world's biggest use of coal power.

"There is a chance that at the rate that China is building wind and solar and all types of clean generation, that they achieve that peak in coal generation earlier than 2025, which would be significant," said Mr Jones.

Energy experts acknowledge that curbing fossil fuels in power generation could well be a "turning point", but much more remains to be done. (McGrath, 2023)

We monitor important trends as we ponder the best economic approach to address these serious concerns that impact the common good.

References

Halifax's West End Mall redevelopment will go on despite pushback, councillor says. (2023, April 12). SaltWire. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/business/halifaxs-west-end-mall-redevelopment-will-go-on-despite-pushback-councillor-says-100843479/ 

McGrath, M. (2023, April 11). Climate change: Fossil fuel emissions from electricity set to fall - report. BBC. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65240094 

Payne, E. (2023, March 21). Surgeries at for-profit orthopedic clinic already impacting hospital staffing, some insiders say. Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from https://ottawacitizen.com/news/surgeries-at-for-profit-orthopedic-clinic-already-impacting-hospital-staffing-some-insiders-say 

No Easy Solution

 The suppression of freedom and persecution of dissidents by China, particularly in Hong Kong, has increased tension in the Catholic Church between the exercise of moral leadership and the benefits of developing diplomatic relationships with political regimes that practice abuse of people and their natural rights.

Church in society and politics

 

Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, author of The Liminal Papacy of Pope Francis: Moving toward Global Catholicity, comments that there are no easy solutions to satisfy all concerns in the Vatican-China deal.

 

In other words, the moral authority of the papacy is different from other churches also because some instruments of state power are a key aspect of the activity of the Holy See. (Think of the Holy See's diplomatic missions in almost every country in the world, the diplomatic missions accredited to the Holy See, its status as a permanent observer at the U.N., and its signature of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.) As China expert Michel Chambon wrote in February 2018, before the Vatican-China agreement was announced: "when journalists and other activists frame this encounter [between the Vatican and China] as an issue about morality only, they indeed belittle the legal aspect of such dialogue. More or less consciously, they insidiously deny rights to the Holy See, and therefore to the Holy Father himself, to stand as a sovereign entity. In their eyes, the pope should only be a moral leader telling the world what 'the good' is about. This approach is highly problematic, and those who are Catholic should carefully question it." For a brief period of time in 2014 I taught in Hong Kong, where I still have friends. It is distressing to see what is happening and could happen to that city and the church there, as well as to know what is happening to ethnic and religious minorities in other parts of China.1

Michel Chambon, University of Notre Dame, writes that The Holy See, China, and the question of sovereignty in the Sino-Vatican dialogue should not be used by Hong Kong people to serve their own needs.

 

 the question of sovereignty is at the core of the Christian message. Those who turn to Christ embrace him as their Lord and work for the coming of his kingdom. They are not building a 'paradise on earth,' a world of absolute equality without a center and a master. They are collaborating for the coming of Christ's kingdom. Thus, the sovereignty of the pope is not only a worldly strategy to protect him and the church against secular powers; it is also a theological category to show this factual lordship of Christ, which is already but not yet fully present in this world.In the Catholic tradition, unlike in the Protestant ones, the lordship of Christ is not only a matter of personal and moral commitment but speaks to the socio-political order. It is objectified and externalized in a legal construction that goes beyond individuals and their particular nation-states through the sovereignty of the pope. No political order, even the modern and liberal one, can fully reflect the presence of the kingdom. The independence of the pope acts as a reminder of this already but not yet achieved presence of Christ's sovereignty. It is not the separation of two worlds, the religious and mundane ones; it is the Catholic way to point out the effective presence of the Lord in our only world today.2 

Michael Pompeo, United States secretary of state, and top Vatican diplomats are reported to have had a recent ‘respectful’ exchange of views on China. In a Sept. 18 essay at First Things, Pompeo argued that the agreement had failed to protect Catholics from the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on believers.

 

In an article published on the front page of the Sept. 30 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, Andrea Tornielli said that the initial two-year pact had led to new episcopal appointments approved by Rome, some of which were also officially recognized by the Chinese government.

 

“Even though contact was blocked in recent months due to the pandemic, the results have been positive, although limited, and suggest going forward with the application of the agreement for another determined period of time,” the editorial director of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication wrote in the article, which was posted on the Vatican News website Sept. 29. “The goal of the Provisional Agreement, therefore, has never been merely diplomatic, much less, political, but was always genuinely pastoral. Its objective is to permit the Catholic faithful to have bishops in full communion with the Successor of Peter who are at the same time recognized by the authorities of the People’s Republic of China.”3

Cardinal Joseph Zen, the retired bishop of Hong Kong, told CNA (Catholic News Agency) earlier this month that the Church’s silence on human rights abuses in China as it sought to extend the deal would harm efforts to evangelize the country. Pompeo said that he planned to discuss human rights violations in China, and urge Vatican officials to speak out about Chinese persecution of religious groups.

 “The Church has an enormous amount of moral authority and we want to encourage them to use that moral authority, to improve the conditions for believers, certainly Catholic believers, but believers of all faiths inside of China, and so that’s the conversation that we’ll have,” he said.4

Catholic theology holds that the lordship of Christ is not only a matter of personal and moral commitment but speaks to the socio-political order. We need to consider how the role of traditional diplomacy helps the mission of the Church to make Christ present in our society and politics for the promotion of the common good.

 

References

 

1	(2020, September 17). No easy solutions: a response to Weigel's critique of the .... Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/no-easy-solutions-response-weigels-critique-vatican-china-deal
2	(2018, February 20). The Holy See, China, and the question of sovereignty. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://international.la-croix.com/news/politics/the-holy-see-china-and-the-question-of-sovereignty/6983
3	(2020, October 1). Pompeo and top Vatican diplomats have 'respectful' exchange .... Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pompeo-and-top-vatican-diplomats-have-respectful-exchange-of-views-on-china-95518
4	(2020, September 29). Vatican official hails 'positive' results of China deal amid report .... Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-official-hails-positive-results-of-china-deal-amid-report-that-holy-see-delegation-is-heading-to-beijing-37651

 

 

 

Exotic meat sales are a “huge economy” risking pandemics

Karin Brulliard of the Washington Post reports that late last year, a horseshoe bat coronavirus is thought to have leaped in China,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/KR2CSHCEQAI6VGOHDX6UEQNC7Y.jpg&w=1440

scientists say, where commerce in exotic animals is driven by luxury tastes in game and demand for parts used for medicinal purposes.

 At a “wet market” in Wuhan linked to an early cluster of coronavirus cases, at least one store sold creatures including wolf cubs and masked palm civets for consumption. Such markets, experts say, feature stressed and ill animals stacked in cages, bodily fluids sprinkling down, as well as butchering — prime conditions for viral spillover…
“One of the key interfaces for these spillover events to occur are markets and the international trade of wildlife,” Chris Walzer, executive director for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s global health program, told reporters on Thursday.
In Africa, dwindling populations of large mammals mean game is increasingly from smaller species, including rodents and bats, said Fabian Leendertz, a veterinarian who studies zoonotic diseases at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. While some is consumed for subsistence or traditional purposes, exotic meat sales are also a “huge economy” in the fast-growing megacities, Leendertz said...
“That’s something I would stop first,” he said. “The risk is not because the meat travels … but it results in higher hunting pressure and higher contact rate for those who go hunting and those who take it apart
Lyme disease, caused by a bacteria, spreads more easily in the eastern United States because fragmented forests have fewer predators, such as foxes and opossums, that eat mice that host Lyme-spreading ticks, studies have found. Building leads to a closer coexistence with some wild animals, including bats, Leendertz said.”1

These scientists warn unless humans change how we interact with wildlife, the next pandemic is already on the way.

Reference

1(2020, April 3). The next pandemic is already coming, unless humans change .... Retrieved April 4, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/04/03/coronavirus-wildlife-environment/  

Trump China and Filipino sailors in The Intelligence

IN THE end, President Donald Trump’s tariff threat did what he had hoped: Mexico has pledged to tighten immigration flows. But such weaponisation of tariffs bodes ill for the future. China’s “green Great Wall” of trees—a bid to halt desertification—may be doing more harm than good. And, we meet some of the Filipino sailors who keep the global shipping industry afloat. Runtime: 21 min