1 Week, 7 Stories - Newsletter #55

Every edition features 7 stories from the past week. I’ll draw on my background in media, journalism, agriculture, biotech, and renewable energy to come up with an interesting selection and to offer some context.

As we get closer to a holiday break and the end of the year, there always seems to be last minute shopping. We’ll start there with the Biden Administration’s to-do list as they get ready to close the doors on their tenure.

Thanks to an Interior Department decision on Monday, energy companies can do some post holiday shopping for drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge starting January 9th. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service describes the area in the northeastern corner of Alaska as a critical home to migratory and resident wildlife. It is the largest designated wilderness within the National Wildlife Refuge System and lies about 2300 kms (1400 mi) from the Yukon Border.

While its name implies some form of protection for wildlife that is not entirely true. According to the Protect the Arctic website, the coastal plain was left unprotected due to “political pressure”.  Protection was further eroded in 2017 with a provision buried in the Tax Act requiring the sale of oil and gas leases to generate revenue. 

This is the second drilling lease sale since the Tax Act and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation has opposed the sale because of its cultural significance and its importance as wildlife habitat for many species including the Porcupine caribou herd. The herd migrates every year from the Northwest Territories and Yukon to the Alaska refuge for calving. A 2400 km (1490 miles) journey. The Bureau of Land Management media release says important polar bear denning and Porcupine Caribou Herd calving areas will not be part of the leases being offered.

There is both hope and danger for the Refuge.

An active coalition of environmental groups have been lobbying against the sale and drilling in the area. Those groups have been joined by national and international banks and insurers including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and American International Group which have said they will not fund oil and gas development in the Arctic. Past sales have seen little interest from energy companies with few bidders bringing in less that 1% of the projected revenue. 

The threat? The Trump administration which opened up the first sale.   A December 2nd story in The Guardian notes that not only are animals such as polar bears put in harm’s way, but Donald Trump has referred to the refuge as the United State’s “biggest oil farm”.

Lost in the news shuffle this week was the story of an oil spill in the Kerch Strait. The Kerch Peninsula is on the eastern edge of Crimea with the Sea of Azov on one side and the Black Sea on the other. It was occupied by Russia in 2014 as part of its annexation of Crimea. The strait is between 4 and 15 kms wide (2.4 – 9.3 miles) and separates the peninsula from Russia, making it an important navigation route.

Last weekend 2 Russian tankers were damaged during a heavy storm and drifted before running aground. This BBC story includes video footage released by Russia’s Southern Transport Prosecutor's Office which shows one tanker split open with only the bow visible above water. The 2 ships are believed to have spilled about 9,000 tons of low-grade fuel oil into the water. Then on Wednesday of this week another ship sent out a distress call in the same area saying it had a damaged cargo tank which also contained oil. A Deutsche Welle story says that not only is clean-up not high on Russia’s priority list, but more winter storms will make any clean-up efforts difficult.

While it is difficult to be conclusive given the secrecy and misinformation that surrounds Russian activities, a Reuters story says the incidents may be indicative of Russia’s “shadow fleet”.  Because of sanctions, Russia has needed to find ways to move cargo, weapons, and oil in and out of the country. The shadow fleet generally consists of older ships operating under flags of convenience from non-sanctioned countries which transmit false location information, turn off their transponders, or conduct ship-to-ship transfers in areas where they can escape detection.

The recent accidents involving ships carrying oil have prompted a dozen Western countries to announce this week that they will “disrupt and deter” which includes boarding and sanctioning any ship if it cannot prove it is insured.

Political ramifications of these events have their own implications, but the environmental fallout associated with global conflicts is starting to mount up.

What a better way to beat the winter cold and inject a sense of an old-fashioned Christmas than a story about apples. Nice crisp apples to be eaten right away, turned into a pie, or become mulled cider. So when I saw this BBC story on a -18 C day (plus a wind chill), I had to share. Tucked away in the south of England is a special orchard that is home to 2,000 apple varieties. That sounds like a lot of different kinds of apples but it is just a drop in the bucket when you consider that there are at least 7,500 apple varieties around the world. (Here is an incredible database of apple varieties).

The United Kingdom’s National Fruit Collection in Kent is basically a living apple library of all apples (and other fruits) that are or have once been grown in the UK. There are similar living collections in other countries to help preserve and protect plant genetic resources. Canada does not have anything comparable, though we do have some protection through Plant Gene Resources Canada in Saskatoon SK, Canadian Potato Gene Resources in Fredericton NB, and the Canadian Clonal Genebank in Harrow ON.

Why these types of facilities are necessary has been in the works for thousands of years. Probably about 12,000 years once our neolithic ancestors started to seek out more reliable food sources beyond their hunter gatherer lifestyle. This meant selecting for desirable traits and replanting only the best seeds suitable for where these new farmers lived. Today however as we ship food around the world and grow it in the most efficient manner, the biodiversity that came with new farming communities scattered around the world is lost. Preserving varieties is important so we have somewhere to turn to in event of war, crop diseases, or climate disasters which radically reduce the crops we have come to depend on.

According to statistics from a Canadian study funded by the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada, someone ends up in a hospital or emergency department with a stroke every 5 minutes. More people are surviving a stroke, but an aging population means the overall numbers continue to rise. Ischemic strokes are the most common and the Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations (CSBPR) for Acute Stroke Management lays out the guideline for health professionals to deliver the best care.

A new study led by a University of Calgary researcher believes it has found a new tool to add to stroke management. An ischemic stroke stops the blood flow to the brain and the study will test whether a new drug will act as a neuroprotectant for brain cells to reduce neurological disability from the reduced blood flow. It would not replace drugs which dissolve the blood clots in the brain but would slow the loss of brain cells and buy time for other treatments to work.

A 2023 paper in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences said that neuroprotectants are promising but there was not enough data from “bench-to-bedside”.

The double-blind U of C trial will add to the data by studying up to 600 patients from as many as 15 hospitals. Half the patients will be given the standard treatment and the neuroprotectant, the other half will receive the standard of care and a placebo. Almost one million people in Canada are living with the effects of a stroke and it is a leading cause of adult disability. New treatment protocols may well reduce those numbers in the years ahead.

The incoming Trump administration already has journalists and media owners apprehensive about the future of their business. They have been nervous since election night, but recent events have raised the stakes. First there was the settlement of the lawsuit against ABC by the president elect. The $15 million (USD) accompanied by an apology meant that ABC and its parent company Disney would not be in litigation with a sitting president. Not a good look for Disney. The lawsuit was filed after a March TV segment in which journalist George Stephanopoulos said that Donald Trump had been “found liable for rape”. A jury in a civil case said Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carrol, but there was no finding of rape. This CNN story will take you through some of the reasons ABC agreed to settle.

With that under the Trump legal team’s belt, they said this week they are suing the Des Moines Register newspaper and its pollster.  There may have been some merit in the case against ABC, but this new lawsuit could signal how the next 4 years will hit the media. An NBC NEWS story says the lawsuit accuses the paper, and pollster J Ann Selzer, of consumer fraud and election interference. The paper published its poll showing Trump was trailing by 3 points, mere days before election night in the US. It turned out to be dismally wrong, but love ‘em or hate ‘em polls are a legitimate fact of life year-round and especially at election time. Politicians, including Donald Trump conduct them, quote them, ignore them, or make decisions based on them. Whether they are right, wrong, or fall somewhere in between, a reputable pollster makes their best effort to get it right. Win or lose, these types of lawsuits and the cost of fighting them may start to sink some media initiatives.

But wait, we have more.  

Voice of America is a media network funded by the US government. It broadcasts around the world across TV, radio, and digital platforms in 48 languages. It first switched on its transmitters in 1942 and is considered to be arms length from the government. In 1976 President Gerald Ford signed the VOA charter to protect the independence and integrity of the broadcaster’s programming. That charter says:

(1) VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective, and comprehensive.

(2) VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.

It is further guaranteed by the 1994 International Broadcasting Act which prohibits interference by US government officials.

That may all be changing with the appointment of Kari Lake to lead VOA. She is a former broadcaster, a staunch Trump ally, and failed in her attempts to represent Arizona in the senate and to become its governor. According to media reports, she has referred to journalists as “monsters”. Here is how VOA initially covered the announcement, which staff heard about through a social media post for the president elect. VOA is one of several media outlets including Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and Radio y Televisión Martí which are overseen by the United States Agency for Global Media. That organization will also soon be subject to a yet to be named Trump loyalist.

Add all this up, and as a Guardian story said this week, public broadcast journalists should brace for “political inquisitions”.

In late November Russia added a new weapon to the war in Ukraine when it deployed a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile known as the "Oreshnik" (the hazel). This month Belarus said some of the new missiles would be based there is 2025. Belarus is already home to Russian nuclear weapons according to President Alexander Lukashenko.

Not to be outdone in the missile race, the United States completed a successful flight of its latest conventional hypersonic missile. (that link is a Stars & Stripes story, but you can also read the US DoD, media release) The new weapon is a joint effort by the Army and Navy and the test was completed on the day of the Army-Navy football game.

Not surprisingly this means Russia will respond by increasing mass production of its missile according to Politico this week. 

A hypersonic missile is generally considered to be  a missile that can reach at least five times the speed of sound, manoeuvre quickly at those speeds, and complete its mission without leaving the earth’s atmosphere. Russia and China have already deployed these missiles and a US Congressional Research briefing this month says the Pentagon has asked for an increase in funding for development of comparable systems. The UK and Australia are also collaborating on the development of hypersonic weapons technology.

According to LiveScience, a U.S. Navy stealth ship will be upgraded to carry an experimental hypersonic weapon. Hypersonic missiles are usually launched from an aircraft or boosted by a rocket so this could be an attempt by the U.S. to gain an edge in a race where it is currently lagging behind.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

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I’m available for contract and freelance work with not-for-profits and charities. With 40 years of experience behind me and lots of time ahead of me, I’m here to help you make a difference in your media relations, public relations, and general communications needs.

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