Confederation College Environmental & Forestry Technician Program cluster
950 William St. P7C 4W1 Thunder Bay, ON, Canada

Now these are some resolutions we can all keep!

Good move, Fort Frances! Looking forward to this becoming reality in Thunder Bay at some point. In the meantime, remember we can all still make a difference by bringing our own bags when grocery shopping (or asking for paper), choosing items with minimal or no single use plastic and using reusable containers and beeswax wrap.

Another great job opportunity.

Any recent graduates with relevant experience looking for work? Check this out.

Couple of good jobs with the Lakehead Region Conservation Authority for any recent grads interested/available in the new year. https://lakeheadca.com/about/join-team

#COVID19 and #American #individualism: a #tragedyofthecommons. One position I have read and debated with friends and family goes more or less like this: -we ar...e a free country -the absolute risk of mortality from this virus is low for me and for my close friends & family -I should have the freedom to determine my own actions based on my own tolerance for risk As a general rule, our society DOES value these principles, within reason, so long as others are not put at risk or they choose to BUY INTO the same risk. People can choose to race cars, for instance, so long as they join an organization that sponsors this activity for like-minded individuals, and they don't do it on the highway. #COVID19 is different, though. It's highly transmissible, and while the mortality rate seems low to some people, it is still an order of magnitude greater than that of the flu (this is why we are opening another #ICU Monday). Without attempts at mitigation, the virus would run rampant, with even more deaths and even more financial ruin than we have already experienced. We don't have a #vaccine right now, and so mitigation efforts are focused on breaking chains of transmission. These chains of transmission are frequently initiated by low-risk individuals. People who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic. Infection then spreads to a household member or work contact, who dines indoors or attends a household gathering. It spreads from there to someone's grandmother, or a young man with poorly controlled diabetes, who then dies in the hospital. If you are infected but healthy, you will probably never see or know or learn of any of these people at the end of the transmission chain in which you were a link. And I understand that it is some comfort not to know that. I don't like to think about it either. And to be clear, I don't think it means people can't do ANYTHING. But the reality is that every time we draw from the social activity well during this pandemic, there is a cost, in terms of lives and livelihoods. Right now, household gatherings and indoor dining are contributing to rapid spread. All of these events draw from the well. This will inevitably result in the depletion of the social well for all, as increasingly stringent measures are enacted to limit deaths and preserve hospital capacity--another shared, and finite, resource. So the personal freedom argument, and the position espoused by many media figures, is really a #tragedyofthecommons.This refers to a situation in which individual users of a common good, acting exclusively in their self-interest, critically deplete this resource to the detriment of all. The concept originated in an 1833 essay that described the effects of unregulated grazing on "common land" ("commons") in Great Britain and Ireland. Other examples include overfishing, air and water pollution, and water use, as in the attached figure. I want to make the point that acting in your own or your family's self-interest usually does not mean that one is acting selfishly. Most of the time, a certain degree of self-interest is a GOOD thing, for the physical and financial and emotional health of you and those you care about. But this is one of those times when the libertarian argument not only causes great harm to many other people, but ultimately harms its proponents. Right now, maximizing individual freedom and choice will deplete the #commons of hospital beds, public health, and personal wealth. First it is freedom for me, and not for thee, as high rates of community spread limit the freedom and risk the health of the vulnerable. Eventually, it becomes freedom for no one. Right now, the #midwest is suffering a critical shortage of hospital beds. My next post is about a man who was transferred from south central MIssouri to the University of Iowa for EMERGENCY brain surgery. The surgeon, with whom I collaborate on research, is certainly a skilled surgeon. But the reason this EMERGENCY surgery required an inter-state transfer was because the hospital couldn't find any beds locally. According to the surgeon, the patient had about 30 more minutes before he would have died. There are many, many other neurosurgeons between this man's home town and mine. It is a tragedy of the commons that this man had to be transferred to my hospital. Many people are #maskingup and #PhysicallyDistancing right now. But too many are not, and our #hospitals are going to be overrun, unless we all do something now. We all need to #shrinkourbubbles. Right now, with rampant community spread, your "bubble" may overlap with more bubbles than you think (see a prior post). Be safe. Save the commons. Save the well, for all of our sake.