(This column is a story I have written and told many times. I’m repeating it because for me Christmas without it would not be Christmas.)

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                                    O Night Divine!

Fresh fallen snow protested beneath the crush of my gumboots breaking trail down the unplowed lane. Dry, sharp squeaks, not unlike the cries of cheap chalk cruelly scraped against too clean a blackboard.

Skuur-eek, skuur-eek.

The boots ignored the sounds. They moved on, ribbed rubber bottoms and laced high leather tops creating a meandering wake in the ankle-deep snow. To each side of the trail, drifted snow leaned tiredly against the backsides of the bungalows, dropped there to rest by an impatient Christmas Eve blizzard.

Faint strains of music joined the squeaking as I approached our back fence. I stopped to hear the music more clearly, now identifiable as singing voices escaping through an open window. I shuffled forward and listened to the notes float out crisply and clearly, then mingle with smoke rising from the chimneys.

Notes and smoke rose together into an icy midnight sky illuminated by frost crystals set shimmering by thousands of stars, and the frosty moon.

I held my breath to hear better and determined that the music was the Christmas carol O Holy Night, and that the notes came from the window in my grandmother’s room. It was open to the cold because most people smoked cigarettes back then, and at gatherings cracked a window to clear the air.

They sang the first verse, and when they reached the sixth line, the other voices ceased and one voice carried on alone:

“Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices! O Niiii . . .iiight Diii…vine! . . . .”

That’s the part where the notes rise higher and higher until the singer reaches an awesome note.

The solo voice belonged to my grandmother, Louise LaFrance, and she hit that high note while sitting on the edge of the bed that was her prison. She was crippled with limb-twisting rheumatoid arthritis and suffered searing pain and the humiliation of being bedridden, a humiliation that included needing a bedpan to relieve herself and having her son-in-law lift her into the bathtub.

Each time she hit the high notes at the words ‘O Night Divine,’ a shiver danced on my spine.

When she finished singing O Holy Night, the other voices started up again, this time with Silent Night and other favourite carols. I went into the house and found Christmas Eve celebrants – my mom, dad and some neighbours – crowded into the 10-foot by 10-foot bedroom that was my grandmother’s world. They sang long into the night, mostly in French because the neighbours were the Gauthiers who seldom spoke English to my grandmother and mother.

The crippling arthritis had attacked my grandmother not long after my birth sixteen years before. It advanced quickly, twisting her fingers like pretzels, then deforming her ankles and knees.

She took up smoking to ease the pain. Late into the night I would hear her stir, then listen for the scrape of a wooden match against the side of a box of Redbird matches. Then the acrid odour of sulphur drifted into my room, followed by the sweetness of smoke from a Sweet Caporal.

Sometimes I would get up and go to her door and see the red tip of the cigarette glow brightly as she inhaled and I would go in and we would talk in the smoky darkness. Mostly the talk was about growing up and sorting through the conflicts between a teenager and his parents.

After the singing ended that night, my mother served tourtière, which I slathered with mustard. Then we gathered at the tree and opened our gifts.

I have long forgotten what I got that Christmas, and it doesn’t matter. My real gift came many years later, and was an understanding of how that frail and twisted body came to produce such powerful and sweet notes.

My gift was the realization that those high notes were not solely the products of the lungs. They were driven by something stronger than flesh – an unbreakable spirit.

They came from strength far beyond anything that a mere body can produce. They came from the will to overcome.

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It’s enough to drive a person to drink – if you can find anything to drink.

Ontario’s liquor board is the latest to announce that “supply chain issues” may result in some shortages this Christmas season.

Supply chain issues should get the Phrase of the Year Award. It is being used for shortages of everything from auto parts to toilet paper.

Toilet paper you can do without. There’s Kleenex, paper napkins, even leaves, if necessary. Anything reasonably soft can be a substitute.

Auto parts are a different story. If there are “supply chain issues” with auto parts, cars and trucks don’t run. In fact, some cars and trucks don’t get built. 

Evidence of that is found in scantily-stocked new vehicle lots. Some folks report having to compromise on the colours and options of vehicles they planned to buy.

Parts are a problem, as I have discovered. 

I bought a new Toyota SUV at the beginning of July. I ordered it with a trailer hitch, bug screen and roof rack crossbars. 

The bug screen and crossbars came in a month or two after I got the car. The hitch arrived sometime in early fall as I was getting itchy about pulling my boat out of the water.

The trailer hitch wiring harness still has not arrived, almost six months after buying the car. Any towing I do is without lights. I’m told that is legal during the day, but I’m not sure about that.

The hitches and wiring harnesses used by many vehicle manufacturers come from Curt Manufacturing in the U.S. I could have got one from them months ago but Toyota would have nulled my vehicle warranty because the Curt hitch and wiring harness would not have Toyota labelling and was not put on by Toyota.

I continue to wait, one of millions of victims of “supply chain issues.”

A trailer wiring shortage is minor compared to shortages of medical gear. Face masks, shields and other protective equipment are still in short supply in many places.

The pandemic has been blamed for continuing shortages. The most accepted story is that when the pandemic hit, factories shut down or reduced production because so many workers were ill or locked down.

Shipping companies then reduced their schedules because there were fewer goods to ship. This proved to be a poor decision because people around the world began working from home and buying home-office goods like printers, office chairs, video consoles.

Others with more time at home ordered renovating products such as paint and lumber. More cooking was done at home so there was a surge in demand for kitchen goods.

The spikes in demand created shortages. Prices of things that we could get increased.

That’s the commonly told story. There’s more to it than that.

To begin with, the pandemic began at a time of lean inventories. Goods were not overly abundant because companies had decided that reducing spending on building inventory increased profits. 

Secondly, a major part of the problem is that we rely too much on China for things we need. Canadian imports from China are estimated to be $75 to $80 billion a year. A Canadian company might make a terrific computer you want but cannot finish building it without a chip from China. 

We need to depend on ourselves more and use our own resources and people to make the things we need. Our federal government should think about that when negotiating trade agreements.

Meanwhile, shortages are not expected to end soon. Predictions are that there will be “supply chain issues” well into 2022, perhaps even longer.

We all will witness shortages this Christmas season, and not just at the liquor store. Several talent agencies have been reporting shortages of Santas for Christmas parties and shopping mall appearances.

Missing Santas are just one part of our nationwide worker shortage. A Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) study has found that more than one-half of small businesses do not have the staff required to run their stores.

Statistics Canada data shows more than one million job openings in September, 200,000 in the accommodation and food sectors and 131,000 in health care and social assistance services.

We’re all scanning the dark clouds of COVID-19 for a silver lining – a silvery puff to float us above the anguish of this nightmare disease and the madness it has brought.

I’ve found mine. It’s called ‘hitting mung.’ Sounds crazy but no crazier than the craziness devouring our world.

Mung are beans that Taoists used as a natural medicine. They would fill a sock with mung and use it as a club to beat tendons and muscles in their legs and arms. They believed this helped to repair injured parts and strengthen others.

South Koreans have given hitting mung a different twist. To them it is a slang expression meaning to reach a state of total blankness. Zoning out completely and rising above the mad world of COVID.

The Japanese also have been studying the art of zoning out and promote sitting in a forest as good medicine. They call it shinrin-yoku, which means taking in the forest atmosphere or forest bathing.

Hitting mung has become so popular in South Korea that there are places where you pay to sit and do nothing. You pay to sit on a chair or blanket and stare over a pond. Or into a forest, or a campfire. No talking, no music, no cellphones, no noise, period. Just staring.

If the weather turns nasty, hitting mung can be achieved in a movie theatre. ‘Flight,’ a film simulating a 40-minute airplane ride through the clouds is available in theatres across the country. It is advertised as a chance to “take a brief rest through the fluffy clouds.”

A ticket to sit and pretend you are flying through the clouds costs roughly $10 Canadian.

‘Flight’ is a sequel to ‘Fire Mung,’ which is 31 minutes of footage of a flaming campfire.

Hitting mung sounded like a great escape, so I took it up seriously. I am known to be a bit frugal, however, so I’m not paying for my hitting mung sessions. I simply walk into the woods behind our place, sit, stare and do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The forest is the best place to hit your mung. I thought about staring into a campfire, or out onto the lake, but decided that would just bring back bad memories of last summer’s wildfires, and the recent floods out West.

Trees make it easier to blank out your bad thoughts and anxieties because they are totally open-minded and relaxed. They live together happily, not discriminating because of species, size or colour.

The mighty oaks don’t look down on their weak and pulpy poplar neighbours. The gorgeous green balsams don’t snigger at the tamaracks turning yellow just before Christmas when people are paying big bucks for evergreens.

Trees are well rooted so they don’t run about hysterically like we humans. Sure, they may sway and moan when things get really windy but overall, they are calm and quiet creatures. 

They remind me of mothers. They are nurturers, providing shelter and food to insects, birds and small animals. They don’t get the respect they deserve sometimes but they don’t complain.

The common sense and mothering aspects of trees is seen occasionally in human populations. One example is the calm and caring approach taken toward the pandemic by women. 

During the early days of COVID-19 women leaders like New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Finland’s Sanna Marin, and Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen certainly outperformed macho male poster boys Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Boris Johnson and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.

Meanwhile, hitting mung is believed to be good for your body as well as your mind. Research indicates that chemicals released by forest plants boost human immune systems.

Family and friends don’t understand my enthusiasm for hitting mung. They can’t fathom how just staring and doing nothing for 45 minutes or an hour is healthy.

So, I don’t tell anyone when I go into the forest to hit my mung. I just sneak away quietly, perhaps carrying an axe, chainsaw or anything that makes it look like I am going out to work. 

I know that if I told them what I was really going to do, someone would suggest that time spent hitting mung could be spent more beneficially hitting the woodpile. Or the snow shovel.

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There’s another pandemic infecting Canadians, and millions of others around the world. It’s a pandemic-within-the-pandemic and medical experts say it will continue long after Covid-19 is brought under control.

Mental disturbances are increasing at an alarming rate. They are disrupting our daily lives with more violent crime, more domestic disputes, more divorces, and increasing rates of emergency medical calls.

Fatal opioid overdoses here in Ontario have increased 60 per cent since the Covid pandemic began. U.S. drug-related deaths are up roughly 30 per cent, hitting 100,000 between April 2020 and April 2021.

A poll conducted for the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences showed 69 per cent of Canadians believe our country is suffering a mental health pandemic. Twenty-eight per cent believe their own mental health has deteriorated.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that fear, lost income, isolation and bereavement resulting from Covid are triggering mental health conditions, and exacerbating existing ones. These are causing people to lose sleep, have increased anxiety and increase alcohol and drug use.

That is supported by a study in Lancet, a respected medical journal, estimating that cases of depression rose by 53 million globally in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Cases of anxiety rose by 76 million.

Women seem to be more affected than men. Of the additional 53 million cases of depression and 76 million cases of anxiety, two-thirds were in women. 

A British survey found women were spending roughly 50 per cent more time on housework and nearly twice as much time on child care as men. Millions of girls and young women in poorer countries have dropped out of school during the Covid pandemic.

A growing anxiety is developing over fears that pre-Covid “normal” never will return. One survey shows that 81 per cent, or four of five Canadians, think that the Covid pandemic has changed life forever.

With all this straining us mentally, we now have yet another Covid variant that might make life even more worrisome. The variant was discovered in South Africa and not much is known about it yet, except it has been named Omicron, is thought to be highly transmissible and has caused alarms on the stock markets, plus travel restrictions.

Travel restrictions usually are a barn door closed too late and that is the case here. Two Ontario cases were discovered on the weekend and more possible cases are being investigated.

We can expect Covid to be around much longer, producing new strains that frighten us. We can gain some control with masks, distancing and other restrictions, but this pandemic will not subside until more of the world gets vaccinated. 

Half the countries in Africa, source of the latest threatening variant, have less than two per cent of their populations vaccinated. One concern is growing vaccine hesitancy, especially among young African adults. 

Many poorer countries have not secured needed quantities of vaccine because vaccine manufacturers give priority to the wealthy countries who stepped up first with big bucks. 

We who have so much of everything must work harder at getting the vaccine to those who have so little of anything.

As for that second pandemic – let’s all get a grip on ourselves and hold onto what remains of our civility. I mean screaming at and threatening medical personnel, protesting in the streets, harassment of researchers?

If Covid is causing you to scream, try screaming into a pillow instead of someone’s face. 

Generations before us went through times as difficult as these without completely losing their heads.

The biggest threat from the mental health pandemic is what it can do to our futures. A breakdown of mental health requires huge amounts of attention, plus huge amounts of money, to set straight.

“We believe this is just the beginning and even greater pressure to support the mental health of the communities we serve is right around the corner,” Karim Mamdani, President and CEO of Ontario Shores, said recently.

He added: “This should serve as a warning for policy and decision-makers that the demands for mental health services will continue to increase at an alarming rate as we continue living through the COVID-19 pandemic and long after it is over.” 

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I’ve been struggling with a problem that many older cottage owners are facing.

Cottages used to be family heritage items passed from one generation to the next. Passing them on has become difficult – perhaps impossible – for many families.

Anyone inheriting a cottage in Ontario must pay estate administration tax (1.5 per cent of its value) and federal capital gains tax on 50 per cent of the dollar difference between the original cottage cost and its current value.

Cottage prices, like other types of real estate, have gone berserk so anyone inheriting a family cottage might be looking at paying tens of thousands – even hundreds of thousands – of dollars in fees and taxes. Families without that kind of big money are forced to sell the places.

I have considered this an isolated problem affecting the tiny portion of the population fortunate enough to own a cottage.

This week while reading Yuval Harari, the Israeli historian and intellectual, I realized that my problem is not an isolated one. Yes, it is small, and isolated to cottage country, but it is a reflection of a huge problem affecting all humanity. That problem is our demand for constant economic growth.

Harari, author of the bestselling books Sapiens and Homo Deus, writes that economic growth exploits natural resources, seriously changing the environment and human life. Climate change is bringing us flooding, droughts and wildfires, zoonotic diseases, mutating viruses, extinctions, and distress migrations. 

Our leaders jabber away at conferences, like the recent COP26, about needed restraint but little will change. Unchecked growth will continue because there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who don’t have what we have, and they want it.

India has 1.38 billion people, China 1.44 billion. Combined, that’s three billion people, most of whom do not have the lifestyles that we do – autos, nice houses, appliances, the Internet – all things that involve degrading the environment.

We’ve been working to limit the damage caused by growth but often we create new problems while trying to solve the old.

The battery revolution is an example. Power everything with batteries and you eliminate the huge environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels. Batteries, however, cause other environmental damage.

Battery operated devices require lithium and cobalt, two elements that are mined. Dust from cobalt mining contains particles believed to cause a variety of serious health problems. Mining waste often pollutes rivers, lakes and drinking water.

Lithium also is mined and like any mining has a toll on the environment, creating many tonnes of waste rock and industrial debris. Mining lithium also requires water – as much as 500,000 gallons per tonne of lithium, according to reports from South America.

Looking at a map it appears the world has an abundance of water, however, only three per cent of it is fresh and is being reduced quickly. 
The United Nations says that four billion people – roughly two-thirds of the world population – experience severe water shortage at least one month of every year. It also says that 700 million people worldwide could be displaced by severe water shortages in the next eight years.

All this makes the problem of passing along a cottage appear pretty insignificant.

Humanity always has worked to find solutions to problems and will continue trying to solve major ones like climate change, or lesser ones like unrealistic real estate prices created by the unquenchable thirst of economic growth.

Our history is filled with examples of brilliant solutions to seemingly impossible problems. Medicines eradicated devastating diseases. Artificial devices allowed millions of people with lost limbs to enjoy normal lives. Electricity freed us from living much of our lives in darkness. The printing press helped us build the ability to deal with new and difficult situations.

But we still must answer the big questions about growth. How long are we willing to continue the production and consumption of stuff that that is destroying our planet? Can we find ways to produce only what we really need and still dramatically reduce the damage we create?

Whether we find brilliant solutions to deal with the problems of growth, I guess will be found in – as author Harari puts it in Homo Deus – the history of tomorrow.

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We live in a world of negotiations. When you need a new auto, house or a better TV service you negotiate an agreement.

The purpose of negotiations is to reach an agreement that benefits both parties. In the case of an auto, the buyer wants the best product at the best price. The dealer seeks a sale that will sustain his or her business.

Then there are negotiations in which two parties negotiate for agreements that can help or hurt third parties who are not even part of the negotiations.

That’s what’s happening in Ontario between the Ford government and the province’s optometrists. Except there are no negotiations and thousands of third parties are hurting.

Optometrists withdrew services Sept. 1 for patients covered under the Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan (OHIP). OHIP funds eye exams of people 65 and older, children and teens and people with special conditions such as glaucoma and macular degeneration.

The Ontario government has underfunded eye exams for OHIP patients for decades. In 1989 it paid $39.15 for an OHIP eye exam. Today, 32 years later, it pays $44, an increase of less than $5 over three decades.

The Ontario Association of Optometrists (OAO) says that an independent accounting study found that the average cost of providing an eye exam now is $75.51 because of increases in rent, real estate, support staff salaries and more advanced and expensive diagnostic equipment.

The Ford government readily admits there has been underfunding and has offered a one-time $39-million payment to help alleviate the underfunding. It also has proposed a funding increase of 8.49 per cent, which according to my math would provide just under $48 for an eye exam.

As is the case in many difficult negotiations, each side is accusing the other of not wanting to negotiate in good faith.

I don’t know who is doing what or not doing what in this fight. I do know that the health of thousands of seniors, children, teens and people with special conditions is at risk because they cannot see an optometrist. (They can’t even pay out of pocket because optometrists are not allowed to take money from OHIP patients).

Eye exams are important because they detect serious diseases. They are especially important for children and seniors.

A child might be struggling in school without realizing she cannot read the blackboard, computer screen or paperwork because she needs glasses. A senior notices vision is not as sharp as it once was and attributes it to old age. The lack of sharpness might be caused by eye disease such as glaucoma or macular degeneration, which can lead to blindness.

More than one million Canadians now live with vision loss, according to new research commissioned by optometrist, ophthalmological and vision care groups. That number is expected to double within the next 10 years.

Also, eight million Canadians are living with an eye disease that could make them blind. These are diseases in which regular eye examinations provide early diagnoses and treatments. 

Gila Martow, Progressive Conservative MPP for Thornhill riding, criticizes her own government’s proposed fee increase as “heavy-handed” and delivered with a “take it or leave it” attitude. 

She says she is uncomfortable breaking ranks because she is an optometrist, but did so to draw attention to the dispute that has left tens of thousands without eye care. 

Bravo to her for declaring her conflict of interest. Because I am reporting on this subject, I should declare my own.

I have sight in only one eye and three months ago was diagnosed with macular degeneration and glaucoma in the good eye. I haven’t been able to see an optometrist since then because of the funding dispute.

My personal situation and Ms. Martow’s conflict are of little consequence to anyone. The main focus in all this must be the children who need eye care to ensure they have all the advantages needed for a solid education.

This eye care funding dispute has gone on far too long without the public attention needed to push the parties into negotiating an agreement. We all need to start talking about this – among ourselves, to our politicians and to the media.

Only public pressure will get this resolved.

If you managed to find regular snowploughing for the coming winter, it likely wasn’t easy and you likely are paying more for it.

Snowplough operators big and small have been hit hard in recent years with skyrocketing liability insurance premiums. The increases have forced some to quit the business.

Some operators report that annual insurance premiums of $5,000 have soared as high as $30,000 to $50,000 a year. One North Bay operator reported his premiums increased 200 per cent, while an Orillia contractor said his went up 250 per cent.

The insurance industry says premiums are rising because of increasing injury lawsuits filed by people claiming to have slipped and fallen on uncleared snow and ice. Payouts for slip and fall claims can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says that commercial liability coverage claims, which include snow and ice slipping incidents, increased 108 per cent in Canada between 2013 and 2020, going from $2.4 billion to $5.1 billion.

Some insurers now refuse to provide coverage to snow removal contractors, at any price.

Part of the problem has been the lengthy time limit for making liability claims against winter maintenance contractors. Anyone saying they suffered injury or property damage resulting from inadequate ploughing or sanding of private property has had two years to file a claim against the contractor’s insurer.

Property owners and winter maintenance operators have complained that they often face slip and fall lawsuits without ever having been informed that someone slipped and fell on the property.

One cited example is the notice of lawsuit filed against a business owner 23 months after the alleged incident. It was difficult to defend the suit because too much time had passed to look for witnesses, or ask staff to remember what had happened.

Municipalities, however, are given a 10-day statute of limitations for slip and fall claims. So, if you slip and fall on a town street or parking lot, you must tell the municipality within the 10-day period.

Muskoka-Parry Sound MPP Norm Miller found the 10-day versus two-year time limit difference between municipalities and private individuals and businesses so unfair that late last year he introduced a private member’s bill in the Ontario legislature. The bill, which was adopted, reduces the risk of liability by reducing the two-year period for making a claim to 60 days.

There is little evidence that the new law has reduced snowploughing liability premiums for this winter. However, it is expected to discourage frivolous and fraudulent claims, which might help to reduce premiums in coming years.

Meanwhile, there are fewer winter maintenance operators to do the ploughing and sanding this winter, which is forecast to be an especially snowy and icy one. One road association made 30 calls earlier this fall before finding a contractor available to plough and sand its road this winter.

Forecasters are predicting a snowy winter ahead because of unusual warming of the Great Lakes. They say that cold winter air passing over the warmer lakes will create much lake effect snow until the lakes begin freezing over in January or February, or perhaps not at all.

Air temperatures in the Great Lakes region have increased 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 60 years, resulting in declining ice coverage. And, the incredibly warm fall we are experiencing is adding to the prospect of little Great Lakes ice this winter.

Also, this is another La Niña year in which above-normal temperatures and significant snowfalls both are possible. Thaws and above average rainfall are forecast for January and February, interspersed with blasts of cold Arctic air, resulting in more icy surfaces.

Some folks will recall the 2007-2008 La Niña winter that brought a record number of snow events. That year the Great Lakes region recorded its third wettest winter in 61 years, with most of the precipitation being snow.  Muskoka reported 558 centimetres (that’s 18 feet!) of snow.

Also, current forecasts show no signs of an early spring. March is expected to be colder than usually, with above average snowfalls.

All in all, it’s not looking to be a winter in which anyone wants to be without snow clearing and ice sanding.

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Now that the gas-powered lawn mowers, grass trimmers and leaf blowers are being tucked away for winter, I’m wondering how many will be back out next spring.

A revolution in lawn and garden care is about to happen. Battery-operated lawn and garden tools are becoming increasingly practical and popular, creating major change in how we tend to our properties.

The shift to battery-powered tools already is well underway. 

Toolmaker Stanley Black and Decker estimates the volume of electric-powered lawn equipment shipped by North American manufacturers increased 75 per cent between 2015 and 2020. During that time electric went from 32 per cent to 44 percent of the overall lawn equipment market.

Market research shows that cordless, battery-operated lawnmower sales will grow by at least five per cent, and likely more, over the next few years. Worldwide sales of $1,067 million in 2019 are forecast to hit $1,311 million by 2025.

A division of MarketResearch.com says that the battery-powered lawn equipment sector is growing three times faster than gas.

That’s happy news for anyone who has tried to sit out in the October sun while a neighbour attacks fallen leaves with a gas-powered back-pack leaf blower that sounds like a jumbo jet.

Hearing loss campaigns say gasoline leaf blower noise from a distance of 15 metres (50 feet) ranges from 64 to 78 decibels. The blower operator hears 95 to 115 decibels. Noises 85 decibels and above can harm hearing.

Battery-powered leaf blowers are gaining popularity not just because they are quieter.

They are easy to start and stop and do not emit the pollution of gasoline blowers.

There’s no fussy mess of mixing oil and gas.

The California Air Resources Board estimates that operating a gas leaf blower for one hour creates as much pollution as driving a Toyota Camry 1,770 kilometres. And, the U.S. transportation department says that in 2018, Americans burned nearly three billion gallons of gasoline running lawn and garden equipment.

California, home to 14.4 million small engines used mainly in landscaping, has passed a law requiring them to be zero-emission by 2024.

The decline of gasoline blowers and mowers will eliminate some air pollution, but battery-operated tools bring other forms of environmental damage. These batteries require heavy metals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel and extracting these from the earth can be damaging to land, water, wildlife and people.

Much of the world’s lithium is found roughly 10 metres beneath the briny lakes of high-altitude salt flats. It is mined by drilling and pumping the brine to surface evaporation ponds where it becomes a salty mud containing lithium salts and other minerals. 

Pumping the brine requires water – as much as 500,000 gallons to produce each tonne of lithium. There also are concerns that the mining process can contaminate streams and farming areas.

One lithium extraction operation in Tibet poisoned a river killing fish and livestock, leading villagers to protest in the streets.

Another problem with recyclable batteries is how to recycle them after they are spent. Most now are simply thrown into garbage dumps.

In Australia, for example, only two to three present of lithium-ion batteries are collected for recycling. The North American and European rates are not much higher. 

This is a looming serious issue because many of the lithium batteries now in use are not near the end of their service lives. Eleven million metric tonnes of lithium-ion batteries are expected to expire by 2030, creating a huge issue of what to do with them.

Various companies are working on ways to recycle recyclable batteries but more money and brain power must be put to that effort or we will be simply replacing one pollution problem with another.

Solving the problem becomes more urgent when you consider that tools are not the only things now using batteries. The electric car market is surging with 2.6 million units sold in the first half of this year, representing 26 per cent of all global auto sales.

That growth will continue, creating millions of more battery cells requiring recycling instead of disposal in dumps. Forecasters say world electric vehicle sales are on track to surpass five million vehicles this year.

The clock ‘falls back’ one hour Sunday Nov. 7 when Daylight Saving Time (DST) is suspended for the winter months.

I’m not unhappy about that, but some people are. They hate the idea of changing their clocks every spring and every fall.

There is some evidence that the time changes that come with DST create some individual health concerns. Several clinical studies have reported increased risk of heart attacks and strokes with DST time shifts.

It is believed that time changes can upset circadian rhythms, which are physical, mental, and behavioural changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. These rhythms are natural processes that respond to light and dark and affect most organisms, including plants and animals.

Just one hour of time shift can make it harder to wake up in the morning and fall asleep at night on a set schedule. This can lead to loss of sleep and a decline in alertness, which have been linked to auto accidents and workplace injuries.

Ontario has voted to eliminate the semi-annual time changes but has not done so, saying that neighbouring Quebec and New York must do likewise to avoid confusion and complications.

Nine of 10 provinces and two of the three territories observe daylight time, which has been around in Canada for 113 years. It was first introduced in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay and my hometown) after businessman John Hewitson campaigned for it, saying people wanted to enjoy an extra hour of summer sun.

The idea of DST was attractive back then because candles and gas lamps were still used for lightning in many places. That extra hour of daylight gave workers more daylight for working and saved employers some money on lighting.

Those aren’t important factors nowadays but still one-quarter of the world observes daylight time. Some areas have gone to permanent daylight time, following it 12 months of the year and avoiding biannual time changes.

I like the idea of daylight time in the spring, when we get more daylight at the end of the day. However, I’m not so keen at this time of year when DST brings darkness about 5 p.m.

The darkness of November and December can be depressing, but it also can be uplifting.

The fall time change gives me a warm feeling of change. With the dark days comes the satisfaction of accomplishment. The docks are pulled for winter, the boat is serviced and stored, leaves are raked, summer furniture put away and the house and its surroundings are buttoned down for the first snowfalls.

Switching from summer to winter footing is hard work, but when done right it pays you back with that good feeling. And, when everything is put away and you are prepared for winter there is more time to do things that you were too busy to get to during summer.

There are books you wanted to read, movies you hoped to watch and calls to friends you had put off because summer is such a busy time.

The really uplifting part of autumn DST change and its early darkness is the down time it provides for reflection. Time to think about what’s been happening over the past year, and what might lie ahead.

There is so much happening in the world – and our individual lives – that it is good to have more time for reflection. Life moves quickly nowadays and having less time for thinking can lead to bad decisions.

This time of year also brings the excitement of knowing that after this period of shorter days another change is not far away. Come Dec. 21 – only 44 days after the start of autumn DST, Mother Nature starts the sun moving north again, creating increasingly longer days.

Longer and brighter days will bring more time for winter sports and other activities. As the sun gets warmer and stays up longer, we know that March and the time to ‘spring forward’ are not far off. 

Daylight time has been a controversial subject for an entire century. It has both benefits and disadvantages, but I have no interest in trying to figure out whether it’s a good or bad thing.

All I know is that we borrow an hour one night in spring and pay it back in the fall. 

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 Suddenly, the Royal family no longer bores me to tears.

I’ve yawned through years of watching the Queen deliver stultifying television addresses with her cut-glass upper-class accent. 

And, one time I spoke very briefly with her husband Prince Philip at a media event, and that conversation had me running to the free bar for a double vodka.Then, of course, there have been the long-running Royal soap operas of Charles and Diana and Camilla, and more recently the breakaway couple Harry and Meghan. Plus, Prince Andrew’s troubling connection to sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein.

I suppose watching and listening to the Royals has made for entertaining television. But the ongoing domestic or political situations of the Royals, or other members of the rich and famous world, are of little interest to me and have little impact in my working-class world.

However, my disinterest in Royal family happenings vanished quickly last Wednesday.

I was reading an awesome, and totally frightening, story on how climate change could destroy our planet. When I finished digesting the story, I flipped the digital pages and saw a short piece on Prince William interviewed on climate change.

When Royals speak on controversial issues, they hedge their words to avoid clear and direct statements. They don’t say exactly what they are thinking.

Well, William certainly said what he was thinking during the BBC interview. He criticized the space race and space tourism, saying the world’s greatest minds should focus on saving Earth instead.

“We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live,” he said.

His comments were aired the day after actor William Shatner and three other ‘space tourists’ took a short ride into space on a rocket built by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

It’s not known if Bezos and other space toy billionaires heard the remarks, but Shatner certainly did. 

Shatner shot back the next day saying the prince is missing the point. Space tourism, he said, is a baby step t o getting polluting industries, like those that produce electricity, off Earth and into space where they produce power that can be sent down to Earth.

Interesting, but I don’t think Prince William missed the point at all. The point is that trillions of dollars are being spent by the phenomenally wealthy on multi-million-dollar mansions and billion-dollar ego toys. That money could help to solve the climate crisis and other critical problems such as world hunger and disease. Not to mention poverty and the need for more education.

So, I say: Good on you, William! 

It’s time for William, other Royals and other members of the world’s rich and famous to become effective influencers on change with firm and clear messaging and direct actions.

“We can’t have more clever speak,” the prince said in the interview. 

News coverage of William’s criticism and Shatner’s response lacked context and made it appear the two are on opposite sides of a fence barking at each other.

The prince, however, is well aware that billionaire entrepreneurs like Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson are concerned about climate change and other problems and are donating money to help fix them. However, he feels that the huge amounts of money and effort being spent on space tourism would be better directed to climate change, which is an immediate critical problem.

Shatner believes that climate change is a serious problem that needs to be fixed, but that space tourism is a step towards finding ways of reducing emissions that are creating global warming.

So, they are not on different sides of the fence. They have different views on how to save the world but at least they are talking about it in public.

Speaking of context, it’s unfair for me or others to disparage the Queen and other Royals. The Royals have lived in a different world, but there is evidence that they are trying to change and become important parts of the real world that the rest of us inhabit.

Will’s comments on spending less on space exploration and more on our problems, are evidence of that.

They are everywhere.

In the 70 acres of bush that I call home in Haliburton County, I estimate there are nearly 300 of them, and many more just beyond my property lines. They have me surrounded and I have visions of them taking over the entire world.

An exaggeration? Well, wildlife researchers say that one acre of land could hold as many as 30 of them.  You do the math: the world has 37 billion acres of land and if each acre has 30 of them, they total 111 billion, outnumbering us humans by 104 billion.

So yes, chipmunks are taking over the world. My world at least. 

I can’t walk a short distance without having one or two scamper across my path. When I cut firewood with my chainsaw, one comes close and stares up at me with a look that says: “Why are you here making all that racket?”

When I’m eating lunch on the deck, another approaches with accusing eyes: “Sure, we let you share our land but you won’t share a morsel of your lunch!”

I don’t know where they all came from suddenly. There have been reports of chipmunk population explosions in parts of eastern Canada and the United States over the past two or three years. They have been regional increases, not widespread, with no definitive reasons.

Some wildlife experts say a milder winter and an abundance of acorns might be a reason. 

Chipmunks in Canada usually have one litter of newborns a year while in the warmer south they have two litters – one in the spring and one in the fall. There is a theory that warming temperatures are shortening winters, allowing for two litters a year in parts of Canada.

Chipmunk litters usually are four to six kits, so an extra litter a year could increase populations significantly.

These little guys are cute and charming and amaze us with their busyness. They never stop scampering about, looking for things to eat and digging tunnels.

They store seeds, bugs and acorns in their little cheek pouches, which researchers say can hold more food morsels than most people would imagine. A researcher found that one chipmunk packed 60 sunflower seeds into one of its pouches.

Other research has determined that a four-ounce chipmunk can gather and store up to eight pounds of food a year in its underground burrow. Tunnelled burrows are as much as three feet below the ground surface and can be more than 30 feet in length.

The extensive burrowing is an issue for some people. They say that large numbers of tunnelling chipmunks can damage retaining walls, deck supports and even house foundations. Others say there is no real evidence that chipmunk tunnelling causes much landscape structural damage.

They can, however, give gardeners grief. This year we had no sunflowers because they dug up all the seeds we planted – several times. They also love to nibble on ripening tomatoes.

The biggest knock against chipmunks simply being fun little cuties came this year from Lake Tahoe, California. The United States Forest Service closed several popular Tahoe sites when bubonic plague was discovered among chipmunks there.

Bubonic plague occurs naturally in some higher elevations and is found in small rodents, such as chipmunks, and their fleas. Humans are infected if they are bitten by those fleas.

Bubonic plague, also known as The Black Death, killed millions of people around the world centuries ago. Today it is treatable and curable with drugs.

When chipmunk populations explode and damage lawns, gardens and flower beds, some people demand extermination programs. However, we humans need to accept that we just can’t kill everything that disturbs our treasured modern lifestyles.  

The U.S. Forest Service understands that. When some Tahoe chipmunks were found with the plague last summer it said it would not start eliminating chipmunks. Controlling the fleas would be a better approach.

At any rate, chipmunks carrying the plague are not an issue in our part of the world. They pose no threat to us, if we watch them from a distance and don’t try to handle them.

As to them taking over the world, I guess that is an exaggeration. The little guys live only two or three years on average.

This is the golden time; the best days of the year.

Sparkling sunbeams spill from a brilliant blue sky. Golden bronze and crimson leaves catch them, then lose their weakening autumn grip and flutter to the forest floor.

It is prime time for walking the woods and breathing in the gifts of Nature’s beauty. 

It also is hunting season so I walk with a shotgun, although I have no intention of using it. It is an old Winchester 12-gauge featherweight, long-barrelled and pump action.

It was my dad’s duck gun, too heavy-duty for small game in the woods. I carry it not for hunting game, but for memories. Memories are more plentiful than partridge or rabbits.

There’s the memory of dad’s smile as he pumped spent cartridges from the Winchester and watched three mallards fall into a Northwestern Ontario pond. And, the blow to my shoulder the time he showed me how to shoot.

Sadly, those memories are being pushed aside by facts about how guns are changing our society. The times of guns as part of our heritage are disappearing into the chaos of gun violence.

Gun violence has been increasing steadily in Canada. Statistics Canada reports that criminal use of firearms increased 81 per cent between 2009 and 2019. There were 7,700 victims of crime involving firearms in Canada during 2017, the most recent year for which there are statistics. 

Toronto is the epicentre of gun crime, registering 462 of what police call ‘firearms events’ in 2020. Those events saw 217 people shot and killed or injured.

U.S. figures collected by the Gun Violence Archive are even more shocking. Gun violence is so rampant there that the place should be labelled a third world country.

So far this year there have been roughly 34,000 gun deaths in the United States. Another 31,000 people have been wounded. Those figures include 535 mass shootings and 22 mass murders. 

By year’s end there will have been between 85,000 and 90,000 shooting deaths and woundings in the U.S.

Children are not being spared. Gun violence became the leading cause of death of American children ages one to19 in 2018, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A year later, nine children and teens were killed with guns each day - a total of 3,371 young deaths by guns for 2019.

It is estimated that guns now kill more American children and teens than cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, HIV/AIDs, and opioids combined.

The figures keep climbing but many American politicians resist making laws to control the gun madness. Some, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, a presidential hopeful, try but can’t get the needed support.

“If a mysterious virus suddenly started killing eight of our children every day, America would mobilize teams of doctors and public health officials,” Warren wrote in her 2014 book A Fighting Chance. “We would move heaven and earth until we found a way to protect our children. But not with gun violence.”

Gun sales in the states have soared during the Covid pandemic. In March 2020, the first official month of the pandemic, nearly two million guns were sold in 31 days, the second highest number of guns sold in a single month.

Americans now own roughly 400 million firearms, compared with 5.5 million possessed by U.S. military and law enforcement agencies. Nearly one in five firearms are sold without background checks, which are not required for sales at gun shows, online or between private persons.

Canada has significant controls on guns, but few over the factors that help to create gun violence.  U.S. and Canadian geography and culture are so tightly tied together that what happens there often develops here.

There is growing demand in both countries that something be done about gun violence. It’s not likely that anything will be done soon in the U.S. but certainly there is a growing demand in Canada for politicians to do even more.

What worries me is that when our politicians do more to control guns, they usually end up with more restrictions on lawful gun owners, while criminals continue to get more guns for more crimes against society.

Watching all this I fear that our gun heritage soon will be just a memory.

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While we humans continue to fret and argue about climate change, animals have already started to adapt to it. 

That’s really no surprise because some folks, me included, believe that animals are smarter than humans. If not smarter, certainly more team oriented and more together in troubling times.

Animals are better at being flexible and watching out for each other. If the leader of a V of Canada geese gets tired or ill, another goose quickly takes his or her place. When danger is present, musk oxen gather in a circle of group defence.
Researchers say that some wild things already have started changing their behaviour to adapt to climate change. Some birds are migrating earlier, sea turtles are adjusting their routes and caribou are having their babies earlier in the spring. 

These changes are being made because seasons are out of whack. Summers are becoming longer while spring, autumn and winter are becoming shorter and warmer.

Research shows that the summer’s length in the Northern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes increased to 95 days from 78 between 1952 and 2011. Winter contracted from 76 to 73 days, spring from 124 days to 115 and autumn shrank from 87 to 82 days. 

That research is 10 years old but the past decade has been the warmest on record so the changes in the seasons no doubt have become even more dramatic.

This past summer is evidence of that. June’s heat wave, which was particularly extreme out West, has been recorded as the deadliest weather event in Canadian history.

B.C. reports that from June 24 to June 30 its paramedics responded to 772 heat-related illnesses, two-thirds of them age 60 or older. The province’s coroner service reported 569 heat-related deaths during the heat wave.

The warming world is not just causing some animals to change migration routes and other living habits. It also has them shapeshifting – changing their bodies to adapt to temperatures.

In some hotter regions, black decorations are starting to disappear from the wings of male dragonflies. The decorations attract females, but because they are black they draw unwanted heat into the insect’s body.

Dark-eyed juncos, those dark grey and white little birds common in our areas, have been growing larger bills in recent years. The bills of some Australian parrots have seen a four-to-10-per-cent increase in bill size. Some other birds have been growing slightly larger legs.

Bird bills and legs are not feathered and allow birds to dissipate body heat more efficiently. Birds living in hot climates have larger beaks and legs than northern birds but studies are showing northern beaks and legs are getting larger.

Climate change also is warming our waters, creating important changes. Deep and cold lakes once prized lake trout habitat are warming and becoming habitat for warmer water species such as pickerel.

For instance, I’m told that one of my former favourite lake trout fishing spots – Lake Clear in the Ottawa Valley – is becoming a hotspot for pickerel fishing.

Warming also is allowing longer growing seasons, but creates better conditions for insects that can damage crops. Extreme heat also could turn some agriculture areas into deserts.

More heat also will change our forests, changes that will affect birds, animals and insects that depend on trees for food and shelter. 

Some animals will be able to shapeshift to survive the changing climate. Many others won’t. The United Nations reported in 2019 that one million species of animals and plants already are at risk of extinction.

Shapeshifting is not something that will help humans adapt to a changing climate. Unlike elephants we can’t grow larger ears that are waved like fans to create breezes that cool the body.

Human bodies cannot evolve quickly enough to help us adapt to the climate changes that scientists are warning us about. 

We can, however, become more serous about changing our lifestyles to help slow climate change. Being more serious about climate change includes being louder and more demanding of immediate action.

Take it from Al Gore, environmentalist and former vice-president of the United States, who has said:

“The more noise you make, the more accountability you demand from your leaders, the more our world will change for the better.”

You gotta love autumn baseball, especially when the Blue Jays are providing such dramatic late-season entertainment.

Toronto’s team has given Major League Baseball (MLB) - the entire sport in fact - a needed boost out of the gloom that has come with two seasons of Covid constraints.

The youthful Jays have won 18 of their last 22 games, winning series over Oakland A’s, New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays and Minnesota Twins. And, some of those games were won with dramatic come-from-behind scoring outbursts in late innings.

There were difficult games to be played this week with more excitement and a possibility of the Jays making the playoffs. Whatever happens in coming days, these Jays have provided some great baseball watching.

It’s all been wonderful, with one exception: the spitting. Spitting during the deadliest infectious disease outbreak in 100 years.

Why spitting continues to be allowed in baseball is beyond me. One would have expected to see it finally disappear during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

MLB has banned spitting during Covid but no one seems to be paying attention. As far as I know there is no enforcement and no fines or suspensions for any players who continue to spit.

I messaged MLB officials to ask why spitting continues. Is the ban still in effect? I didn’t receive a reply.

Newsday, the Long Island New York newspaper, reported earlier this year that the MLB spitting ban remains in effect for the 2021 season.

The league, reporters who cover professional baseball and the folks who broadcast the games apparently are content to ignore the spitting issue.

Spitting has been a major part of baseball since the first pitch crossed a home plate. Spit has been used to soften new gloves, to get a better grip on the bat and to give pitchers a better feel and grip on the ball.

Spitting is believed to have started early in baseball history when games were played in hot, dusty locations. Players chewed tobacco to keep their mouths moist, spitting as they chewed. 

About 10 years ago, players and MLB agreed tobacco would not be chewed in the presence of fans. Then last year when Covid struck, MLB banned spitting and spitting paraphernalia like sunflower seeds, shelled peanuts and tobacco.

Some argue that spitting on the baseball diamond is not a serious problem in terms of spreading disease. Players are well separated for much of a game and other Covid protections are in place.

Some catchers certainly are not comfortable with the continued spitting. 

“People spit at home plate when I’m squatting and it blows in my face,” Washington Nationals catcher Kurt Suzuki said in a newspaper interview. “That stuff happens all the time. It’s nuts.”

Baseball park grass and sand are dotted with spit, and baseballs pick it up when they roll across the field. Pitchers continue to lick their fingers to improve grip.

Whether spit presents Covid dangers or not, spitting is a disgusting habit that does nothing to improve game viewing for fans.

It’s a habit that many players don’t want to give up. They argue it is a traditional part of the game, helps concentration and is difficult to stop.

Some observers say MLB is slowly adapting to changes that one day will see spitting eliminated from the game. However, they note MLB is a traditional institution, always slow to adapt; slower than the rest of the world adapts to any change.  

I accept that spitting is a traditional part of the game and that some efforts are being made to control it, or perhaps even eliminate it.

If the professional baseball leagues can’t eliminate it now, perhaps it’s up to the TV broadcasters to act to prevent viewers from having to see it. Perhaps they could be more diligent in cutting out frames in which players are spitting.

This baseball season has been a terrific one, and a great distraction from the Covid nightmare we have been living through. But it doesn’t make sense to see players spitting while the disease continues to spread.  

However, little in this Covid horror show has made any sense, including the confusing government attempts to bring it under control.

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 Dusk is falling over the federal election campaign. Soon it will be dark, the campaigning over, and an election result presumably known Monday night. 

But after listening to all the promises, all the hyperbole and examination of the issues, I’m still wondering why one of the real issues troubling Canada has not been whispered.

That issue starts with ’se’ and ends with ’ism’.

If you are thinking separatism, you are wrong. Talk of Quebec separation has been around since the beginning and will be with us long into the future.

I’m thinking sectionalism, in which groups of us huddle tightly into our own sections, thinking less and understanding less, about the lives our fellow Canadians huddled in their own sections.

Canada is one of the world’s most sectionalized nations. Look around. There’s Atlantic Canada, Central Canada, the Prairies, British Columbia and the North. All sectionalized by geology or language, culture or climate.

Atlantic Canada is off on its own, separated from Ontario and the West by Quebec with its French language and culture. The Prairie provinces are sectionalized by the vast wilderness of Northwestern Ontario and the Rocky Mountains which leave B.C. perched alone on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

Above all this is the barely populated North, separated mainly by geology and climate.

None of this is new. Canada always has been like this. 

However, it seems that the different sections, or regions, of our country are losing touch with each other. We don’t know each other as well as we used to and each section has been going its own way with less thought about the concerns, problems and dreams of the others.

This certainly has affected our politics. Our federal politics are controlled by one section – Central Canada. Sure, we elect MPs from all parts of Canada, but the power and decisions really lie with people from Central Canada, which is southern Ontario and Quebec.

For instance, the three politicians with any chance of becoming prime minister next week – Justin Trudeau, Erin O’Toole and Jagmeet Singh - all are products of the Central Canadian core: Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal.

In the last 100 years, 11 of 14 prime ministers have been from Central Canada. Richard Bennett was from New Brunswick (1930-1935), Alberta’s Joe Clark served less than a year in 1979-80 and Kim Campbell of B.C. did less than six months in 1993.

What our country needs is more ideas and more leadership from all sections of the country. We also need to know more about each other, and understand each other, so it becomes easier for us to work together.

Despite the marvels of modern communication technology, Canadians know less about each other than in the past.

Two years ago, Historica Canada, an organization dedicated to enhancing awareness of the country's history and citizenship, conducted a survey that shows just how little we know about ourselves and our history.

Sixty-seven per cent of those who completed the survey got a failing grade. 

Scores were particularly poor for questions about Canadian science and innovation. Most test takers did not know that the world’s first Internet archive and the Jolly Jumper baby exercise swing were Canadian inventions.

I suppose it is not critical that we all know that, or that most Historica survey takers did not know that the first recorded instance of Hallowe’en costume dressing in North America was documented in Vancouver in 1898. But knowing more about other regions and their people, even if it is just trivia, helps us to understand each other.

Complicating Canada’s sectionalism problem is the fact that most of the sections hug the American border. A majority of Canadians live within 160 kilometres of the U.S. border and have a huge amount of their facts, opinions, and ideas influenced by American culture.

We need to work at ensuring a unified Canadian identity and increasing sectionalism will not help us to do that. Allowing sectionalism to grow will make Canada a series of islands that do what they think best for themselves instead of the overall country.

Sectionalism is not the biggest issue we have considering what we’ve been going through with Covid and climate change. It is, however, something worth thinking about.

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