01-00 Clear As Mud
For two summers, in the 1960s, I attended “Teachers College” to become a more effective staff member of the Ryerson University in Toronto. And they told me that my job was to help students understand what they do not know. And this is what I am trying to do with this new series on “cold…
01-01 General
We know how influenza hits us in the winter and is spread by person to person contact. Well we all have to prepare for a whole range of diseases getting new life as our weather warms and changes. Understanding how changing temperatures will impact infectious diseases is a technical subject. But it is not the…
01-01 Grenada
Sometimes you can explain a serious and complex issue with a story. It was a visit to Grenada in 2019, as part of a cruise in the Southern Caribbean, that I was thrown back to the cold war politics of October 1983 when the United States invaded Grenada. What started it all was the tour…
01-01 Production-Sharing
During the 1970s, what we call globalism was referred to as production-sharing. It was about US firms investing in South Asia to make labor-intensive components for their products and to create jobs for the armies of young people coming into the labor markets. Three amazing experiences in Manilla in 1977 helped me understand the beginnings…
01-01 Yitzak Rabin
Chatting with dozens of Israelis a week after Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated, I would judge the population was experiencing shame as much as sorrow. It was a public shame that their debate over making peace with the Palestinians was so ugly that it brought a young right-wing “nutmeg” out of the woodwork with an…
01-02 Basics
The global integration of ideas is not a global conspiracy but the product of companies looking for business opportunities. It was 65 years ago that I graduated as an engineer and started my first job with Imperial Oil, an arm of ESSO, a global fossil fuel giant. My opinion then has not changed over the…
01-02 Person to Person
Each year we get vaccinated for this year’s influenza variants. A virus that is transmitted from person to person. Hopefully milder winters linked to climate change will mean milder flu seasons. There is one thing most of us understand about influenza is that it hits in the fall and winter when it is cold and…
01-02 South Korea
“Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right thing.” This is a quote from Peter F Drucker, one of the most prestigious management consultants of his time. His books were required reading for me as a graduate student in business at the University of Toronto in 1962. He was the key-note speaker at…
01-02 The Western Wall
"For those of you planning a second visit to the old city of Jerusalem, please do not enter the Muslim section on Friday, which is their Holy Day. You will be putting yourself in physical danger." This story is about a visit to the old city of Jerusalem following participation in an international congress in…
01-03 Antisemitism
On our family trip to Ireland in 1947, on the famous Queen Elizabeth cruise ship, I was introduced to John David Eaton, the President of the T Eaton Company, or Eaton’s, as it was called. It was Canada’s major employer at the time. He and my father seemed to be great friends. I was only…
01-03 Change
Although a lot fishing, farming and manufacturing is coming home, we still can see globalism when it comes to the transfer of data, ideas and chatter using new technologies. Globalism is changing. When you are old you live through change. The only thing that is constant is change. And when it comes to globalism, it…
01-03 Jakarta
It was a funny feeling meeting government ministers and department heads in Jakarta in 1994 in advance of the 24th International Small Business Congress, and meeting nothing but generals. When I asked one general if there was a left-wing party in Indonesia, he said, “No, we killed them all back in 1965 when the world’s…
01-03 Vector
There are mosquitoes, ticks and sandflies that can carry infectious diseases. And they are all moving north as our climate warms. This means places like Miami are not just threatened by rising oceans but by diseases normally found only in the tropics. If you have lived in cottage country as a child, you know a…
01-04 Crimea
It was so amusing listening to our tour guide in Moscow introduce herself as a Professor of English at the Moscow State University, and someone who did not know anything about her new job. She was transferred into her new role at the last minute because of the booming tourist trade and the shortage of…
01-04 The Ukraine War
Wars have consequences. Oil that the USA imported from Russian now comes from Venezuela. 400 global companies operating in Russia like McDonalds and Starbucks close their doors. Europe builds LNG ports for receiving liquefied natural gas, and the USA builds LNG ports for exporting natural gas. And nations like Canada and Australia up their capacity…
01-04 Zoonotic
Something like 60% of all diseases are spread from animals to humans and are referred to as zoonotic diseases. Rabies, anthrax and influenza are the most common diseases from animals. And from mosquitoes we are most familiar with Malaria, Dengue, West Nile and Lyme diseases. And our warming climate increases the threat. Anyone living in…
01-05 Cuba
In remembrance of our father, my brothers and I piled into a single room on a cruise ship once a year, with the good company of a box of Cuban cigars. It was the 1980s. We had fun with the many Americans that wanted to either buy one or inhale the smoke. Of course, this…
01-05 Water-Borne
Cholera is a disease created by a water-born bacteria that can be found anywhere there is contaminated water. It causes nasty diarrhea and dehydration. And if not treated quickly can cause death. The most recent cholera epidemics were in Haiti and Yemen. If there is one water-borne disease where the link with climate change is…
01-06 Plant Pathogens
Along with every plant specie there are a hundred possible plant pathogens that can provide a threat. And for commercial agriculture the game is spraying with herbicides for plant pathogens and pesticides for nasty bugs. It is no wonder there is an explosion of urban farming that provides vegetables that have not been sprayed. I…