clock

Saturday November 6, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 6, 2021

Many conservatives have a difficult relationship with science

Many scientific findings continue to be disputed by politicians and parts of the public long after a scholarly consensus has been established. For example, nearly a third of Americans still do not accept that fossil fuel emissions cause climate change, even though the scientific community settled on a consensus that they do decades ago.

June 17, 2021

Research into why people reject scientific facts has identified people’s political worldviews as the principal predictor variable. People with a libertarian or conservative worldview are more likely to reject climate change and evolution and are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

What explains this propensity for rejection of science by some of the political right? Are there intrinsic attributes of the scientific enterprise that are uniquely challenging to people with conservative or libertarian worldviews? Or is the association merely the result of conflicting imperatives between scientific findings and their economic implications? In the case of climate change, for example, any mitigation necessarily entails interference with current economic practice.

We recently conducted two large-scale surveys that explored the first possibility – that some intrinsic attributes of science are in tension with aspects of conservative thinking. We focused on two aspects of science: the often tacit norms and principles that guide the scientific enterprise, and the history of how scientific progress has led us to understand that human beings are not the centre of the universe. (Continued: The Conversation) 

 

Tuesday April 10, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 10, 2018

Three countries ‘fairly close’ on NAFTA, Trump says as Mexico touts ‘80 per cent’ chance of deal

U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S., Canada and Mexico are “fairly close on NAFTA,” adding that they “have a chance to make a deal.”

March 7, 2018

Trump’s words before a cabinet meeting on Monday were his most optimistic to date on the probability of a successful renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

They corroborated the optimism earlier in the day from Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo, who told a Mexican television station that there is “a very high probability, about 80 per cent,” of an agreement in principle by “the first week of May,” Reuters reported.

Guajardo, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland met in Washington last week for high-level negotiations that took the place of a full-scale negotiating round. Freeland said Friday that the talks were “intensive” and “constructive,” but she declined to offer her assessment of the chances for a deal.

January 24, 2018

It is not clear what exactly an “agreement in principle” would mean. Negotiations would be far from complete, even if such an agreement were announced. As of last month, the three countries had concluded only six of the planned 30-plus chapters of the agreement.

“The finish line is not even close on NAFTA,” Laura Dawson, director of the Canada Institute at Washington’s Wilson Center think tank, said last week.

The Trump administration appears to be in a rush because of the Mexican presidential election on July 1, in which the leading candidate is a left-wing NAFTA skeptic, and because of the U.S. congressional election in November, in which Democrats generally more skeptical of trade deals than Republicans could win back control of one or both chambers of Congress.

An agreement in principle, Dawson said, could “give all parties some political cover.” (Source: Toronto Star) 

Published in the Peterborough Examiner

SaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSave

Saturday November 3, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday November 3, 2012

End of Daylight Saving Time fills insomniacs with dread

The end of Daylight Saving Time this weekend mostly brings an extra hour’s sleep to a sleep-deprived society — but actually hurts the people who need sleep most.

This is the night when people with insomnia suffer even more than usual, then have to listen to their friends and family talk about how refreshing it is to catch up on sleep.

This paradox comes from the fall ritual of turning back the clock one hour. At 2 a.m. Sunday we officially move back to 1 a.m., adding one hour to the night.

In effect, we create a single 25-hour day, to be balanced out by a 23-hour day next spring.

For a society that tends to stay up too late at night, this is a bonus: just this once you can fall asleep at midnight, get up at 7 a.m., and still get eight hours’ sleep.

But for an insomniac, it’s the same poor-quality sleep as usual, followed by a day with an extra hour of being awake. In addition, it upsets their “circadian rhythm,” the mental cycle of day and night that tends to operate poorly to begin with in people with insomnia.

“Where people are normally getting an extra hour of sleep or sleep opportunity, for someone with insomnia this could actually be worse,” says Dr. Elliott Lee, a sleep expert at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.  (Source: Ottawa Citizen)