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The Current Transcript for December 5, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We're left with a very difficult decision whether to impose a short term curtailment in production that is aimed at stabilizing the market and protecting jobs, or whether to watch from the sidelines and hope for the best.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Not all of the oil patch likes it. Not all of the oil patch needs it. But Rachel Notley's decision to curb Alberta oil production, by hundreds of thousands of barrels a day, sends a message across the country. Alberta is not afraid to intervene to stop the loss of millions in revenues due to a glut of supply and no quick way to pipe it all out for export. That's the short term plan. What's the long game? The Alberta premier joins me in just a moment. And then this was the scene of a boxing match in Quebec City Saturday night.

SOUNDCLIP

[Cheering]

Another combination. And now Stevenson is hurt. Stevenson in big trouble. Stevenson is down. And the referee is stopping the fight. That's it. It's over.

AMT: As Boxer Adonis Stevenson lies in a medically induced coma, debate swirls over whether a sport - where the whole aim is to knock out your opponent - can, should continue. Now that we know what we know about brain injury. We'll hear from a doctor who was on duty ringside at that fight. And from Mitch Chuvalo son of the legendary George Chuvalo who sees his father's condition today and questions what the sport is doing. Hear them all in half an hour. We're also talking about the ground beneath your feet today because in many parts of the world it is sinking, thanks to water and mineral extraction and climate change. And:

SOUNDCLIP

Thank you, Justin Trudeau. That's way more than I was expecting. This is amazing.

AMT: The Prime Minister's tweet to a South African fundraiser has won praise from Trevor Noah and scorn from the conservative opposition. But lost in all the Twitter talk is the story of where that money's going. We meet the woman running Education Cannot Wait, in an hour. I'm Anna- Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Oil production cuts are part of a bigger plan, says Rachel Notley

Guest: Rachel Notley

SOUNDCLIP

Beginning on January 1st, the province of Alberta will mandate an across the board reduction of 325,000 barrels per day in production or roughly 8.7 percent.

AMT: That was the bold move from Premier Rachel Notley this week, ordering a cut in Alberta's bitumen and crude oil production. It is meant to buck up the price of Canadian oil which has been trading at a discount compared to the North American benchmark. It also draws more attention to what's being described as Canadian oil price crisis, something conservative leader Andrew Scheer blames squarely on the federal Liberals.

SOUNDCLIP

What we're seeing is a systematic strangulation of energy sector by this Liberal government. They don't believe it. You look at their senior officials they say they want to transition Canada out of the energy business altogether. And I am very worried that this is the direct result of a series of policy choices that this government has made.

AMT: This week some major oilfield players expressed concerns over the Premier's market intervention. But she has the support of opposition leaders in her province. And Canadian crude prices did improve following her announcement. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is with me from Edmonton. Hello.

RACHEL NOTLEY: Hello, how are you?

AMT: Well I'm curious to know what you're thinking. There has been talk since October of curtailing production. What finally led you to believe this was the right course of action for the province?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well we knew that - we were in a position where you know. The economy, the Canadian economy as a whole, was losing upwards of 80 million dollars a day as a result of this incredible discount in Western Canadian Select that we were receiving. And it was just not sustainable for our energy industry. It wasn't sustainable frankly for Albertans who own this resource. And so it wasn't an easy decision as you know there wasn't consensus within the industry but we felt that a range of difficult decisions. This was the best one because it would bring some certainty and some organization to an otherwise unpredictable and very negative situation.

AMT: You have acknowledged there are risks to slashing production. Where do you expect to see the most pain as a result of this decision?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well I mean I think obviously it's not so much about being in pain. We know that there are certain producers who were doing quite well with the deep discounts and they won't do as well. But they'll still be able to recover the kind of profits that they were expecting to in the absence of this discount problem. And as for the rest of the industry what we know is that it will allow them to manage. The prices will go up and then they will they'll be able to sort of see what the need for curtailment will be down the road, so they can plan more effectively and ultimately we are hoping we're also going to see jobs protected through this action, and that's fundamentally important to us.

AMT: I was just going to ask you do you still expect to see job cuts and decreased spending in the industry this winter, as some companies were planning to do despite this?

RACHEL NOTLEY: I think we might see a few but I doubt it. The cuts in spending that may still occur but that was a result of a number of different issues. But in terms of employment we're hoping that by taking this action we won't see any further cuts, and that as we get a few months into the new year we'll see companies bringing people back to work. So that's absolutely the projections that we were working on.

AMT: What have you said to industry players such as Suncor and Husky who feel market should dictate and not the government?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well again as I said you know we've outlined the challenges that we have and they're fully aware of them. They know this. We've had conversations with them. We certainly listen to some of the concerns they raise. And I think accommodated them to what degree we could, in that this is a temporary measure. We're reviewing every month to make sure there's no unintended consequences. The baseline that we set that takes into account to some of the concerns that were raised with us by those larger integrated producers. So you know we're being as responsible as we can, understanding of course that their choice would have been to have just let the market play out. But you know as I say we're trying to walk a reasonable line and that's all we can do.

AMT: And as you monitor, when will you know the time is right to lift the oil cut regulation?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well basically it comes down to balancing out supply and takeaway capacity. So you know we've got a reasonably good idea of what the current supply is, how much is in storage and how much we've got to clear so that supply and takeaway capacity come back into balance again. We no longer are dealing with distressed barrel economics. And that is the process that was creating these ridiculous low prices. And so we'll get back into the pipeline, more like the rail economics actually, which is still not optimal but it's much better than where we were. And so when we get there that's when we'll dial it back and we anticipate it will be sometime in 2019 when we get there.

AMT: And I want to pick up on something that you mentioned just a few moments ago and that is that some companies have remained profitable. The Parkland Institute in the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives have identified five, the five that dominate the oil sands industry. They say their aggregate gross profit was 46.6 Billion dollars, close to the Alberta government’s revenues of 47.3 billion last year. So how do you square that? Those profits seem very large.

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well definitely, there's no question that they do. And as I say, three of the bigger integrated producers were actually making or doing well with this situation because they were buying the feedstock at the very depressed price and then being able to sell their refined product at a much higher price. But you know at the end of the day what we need to do is make sure that the industry as a whole is able to see value for their investment, and a certain and predictable path forward. And so that's what this was about. And we of course also need to make sure that Albertans get full value for this resource. The other thing that is critical to all of this is that Albertans are getting the value, both in the short term, as well as in the medium and long term.

AMT: And the royalties are you talking about specifically.

RACHEL NOTLEY: Talking about the royalties. But then in the longer term it goes beyond that though because we really are aggressively pursuing an agenda to increase the activity of upgrading here in Alberta, because we need to be doing more of that. It's a multigenerational conversation around many many kitchen tables throughout this province around the need to do more in upgrading. But it's not something that we've been particularly aggressive on as a province for the last couple of decades. And so our government is taking some pretty significant action to change that so that we're not having those frustrated conversations decades from now.

AMT: So for people who don't speak in the oil patch, what is upgrading?

RACHEL NOTLEY: So just making sure that you know the product you get out of the ground, that you do more to it that you refine it. So it can be anything from simply refining it to be a product that's easier to put into the pipes, up to and including making plastics and everything in between: gasoline, diesel all that kind of stuff. So just getting more value from the product and doing more with it, here in Alberta, and creating good jobs that go along with it in the process.

AMT: And that's your long term solution.

RACHEL NOTLEY: That's absolutely one of the two, that along with more pipelines, because pipelines are much more environmentally sound, much less expensive and have much - as I said - much lower greenhouse gas emissions. And so that's the long term way we should be shipping the product. We just are out of pipelines right now.

AMT: And of course we have heard the conservative opposition leader Andrew Scheer criticizing the federal Liberal government for failing to get new pipelines built. Is that how you see it?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well I mean the way we see it here in Alberta is that it's actually the product of the failed efforts of successive federal governments. You know the current government hasn't gotten the job done with respect to TMX, but quite frankly the previous government under Prime Minister Harper also failed on this. So you know it's a longstanding problem. It's been almost 70 years since a pipeline to Canadian tidewater has been built. So you know it's a long term process that has brought us to this point.

AMT: What do you want the federal Liberal government to do?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well what we've said is that they need to step in and continue to support Alberta's energy industry and the working people who make their living from it. And so in the medium term - So we know of course that they bought the pipeline TMX when investors got nervous earlier this year and that was a good thing. But in the medium term, we are going to need to invest in rail in order to keep the market clear, to keep that balance in place that I was talking about earlier. And so we would like the federal government to assist with that. We would also like for them to create more certainty around the consideration of new projects by removing the uncertainty that exists through both those C-69 on Bill C-48. So those are the key positions that we've been taking to the federal government over the last while.

AMT: So there is legislative action the government can take that would work long term for Alberta.

RACHEL NOTLEY: Absolutely. I mean, as I say, I mean we support you know on a [unintelligible] a bill like the C-69, we understand and support the objectives that the Federal Government are pursuing, in terms of ensuring that there is a better level of public trust within communities across the country as these kinds of projects are being considered. But at the same time, we need to come up with a set of rules that investors can understand and understand how they're going to apply and that have beginnings and middles and ends. And that's not what we see yet in bill C-69 and that is why we need the changes that we've been advocating for some time.

AMT: And when it comes to the purchase of trains or the leasing of trains, which is it, purchase or leasing?

RACHEL NOTLEY: It's a combination. Leasing for sure.

AMT: And you've asked Ottawa to help pay for some of that. What response have you received?

RACHEL NOTLEY: We've not gotten a clear response yet. They say they're still looking at it but you know we can't afford to wait. You know every week that goes by without us moving forward on negotiating those terms is another week at the other end of the process, where we don't have capacity, and where we get back into the stress barrel economics. And so we are acting, but what we need from them is to hurry up and get to the table and offer some assistance. So we haven't gotten that yet. What we've gotten is they're looking at it.

AMT: I'm guessing you never wanted to oversee the creation of a system where you had to actually ship out so much oil by rail.

RACHEL NOTLEY: You know it was absolutely not ever our objective. I mean you know people sometimes forget. I mean our government has worked very very hard to make progress and to bring in a system. Our Climate Leadership Plan. Here in Alberta, which I would argue is country leading now in terms of the work that is happening throughout our province to bring down our emissions. And so this is counter-intuitive but at the same time we can't throw people jobs under the bus as it were. And that's what happens when we have the kind of delays that we've been having around pipelines and so to stop gap measure and hopefully not one that we have to rely on for very long.

AMT: We know that Enbridge will have a line three pipeline by the end of 2019. Will that alleviate some of this?

RACHEL NOTLEY: It will in the very early medium term. So we know that line-3 will clear the market but we also know that with the delay that we know is happening right now, it was PMX that will be right back into difficult situations, a few months after line-3 comes on. So that's the point behind our investing in rail is to ensure that it is there to make up that difference between the time that Line-3 is filled and TMX and or Keystone comes online.

AMT: And now of course you mentioned the climate leading that Alberta is doing all of this is unfolding with the backdrop of the UN Climate Change Summit in Poland. We know in October the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said time was running out to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And what Canada needs to do under the Paris climate agreement. How does Canada, Alberta build new pipelines and try to reach those goals?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well as I've often said, as I've said at the outset I mean we've brought in some very aggressive actions here in Alberta. Right now for instance Alberta burns about 60 percent of the coal that is burned throughout Canada. Our government brought in a plan to phase that out completely by 2030. We're investing in renewable energy. Our electricity will be 30 percent generated by renewable energy again by 2030. We've put a cap on emissions from the oil sands, the legislated cap. So we're doing a number of things here to reduce our emissions and then major investments in just energy efficiency throughout society as a whole. But none of that comes for free, and our argument has always been that progress on fighting climate change must be paired with respect and appreciation for the jobs of working people across this country. And so pipelines are actually a progressive move forward. As I say they reduce emissions as a means of transportation and they don't result in any more emissions, because they said you put the cap on it in place and what's happening is our energy industry is already investing in taking carbon out of every barrel. And so with that overall mechanism in place, we're well-placed to continue the work on reducing our emissions. But we can't do it by simply keeping the oil in the ground and pulling the plug on everything, because that kind of disruption that comes from callously throwing to the side the hundreds of thousands of working people who rely on our energy industry across this country is the kind of disruption that will absolutely prevent a country like Canada from making real progress on this issue.

AMT: You and other provincial premiers, along with the territorial premiers, will be meeting with the Prime Minister Friday. You've pointed out along with Premier Moe of Saskatchewan that this isn't even on the agenda.

RACHEL NOTLEY: That is quite true. It is not. And as I indicated when I was in Ottawa last week we would be asking the federal government to adjust the agenda. You know there's a provision right now helping the agenda at the very end for the Premier's to offer up their own little matters, but I don't think that that gives a appropriate level of time and service in respect to the significance of this issue to the overall Canadian economy. And so that is why Premier Moe and I have made that request and we are hopeful that we'll have an opportunity to have a proper conversation about something that is so important to jobs and prosperity from coast to coast to coast.

AMT: How much anger or frustration is there in Alberta over the perception that Ottawa, and other parts of the country, aren't taking what's happening in Alberta seriously enough?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well I mean I think there is a fair amount of frustration. I mean I think Albertans have done everything right. Again as I say the work that happened in the last three years around taking action to prevent climate action or climate change is almost revolutionary in the depth and breadth of it and it is frustrating to see people not thinking through the problem all the way and not understanding the implications of the problems in our energy industry and the consequences of those problems to folks not just here in Alberta but as I say across the country. And it just seems we need to deliver that message over and over and over again.

AMT: Rachel Notley, thank you for your time.

RACHEL NOTLEY: Thank you.

AMT: Rachel Notley, premier of Alberta and we reached her in Edmonton. Let us know what you think of what she had to say. Tweet us @The CurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. The CBC News is next, and then, it is not the only sport with some inherent risk. But unlike hockey or football, boxing begins and ends with the act of beating up on your opponent. After a gruesome result from a fight in Quebec City on the weekend we're going a few rounds with the morality of boxing. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

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Brain injuries are 'a natural consequence' of 'dangerous' boxing: George Chuvalo's son

Guests: Jean Dore, Richard Wennberg, Mirchell Chuvalo

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come. New Orleans is sinking and so are plenty of other places around the world. The phenomenon of sinking land, known as subsidence, is caused by many things from mining to extracting water and eroding wetlands and climate change now appears to be exacerbating the problem of subsidence. That sinking feeling and half an hour. But first a major blow to the sport of boxing.

SOUNDCLIP

[Cheering]

[Announcer speaking in French]

AMT: Those are the sounds of the final seconds in a boxing match in Quebec City last Saturday night. Canadian-Haitian Boxer Adonis Stevenson was on his way to defending his WBC lightweight heavy title. His opponent was Ukrainian fighter, Oleksandr Gevozdyk. After a pummeling at the end of the 11th round Adonis Stevenson went down and stayed down. He ended up leaving the venue in a stretcher. Adonis Stevenson is currently in a medically induced coma at a Quebec City Hospital because of concerns about injuries to his brain. And Saturday night's fight has once again raising questions about this sport. It was this past March that New Brunswick fighter David Whittom died while in a medically induced coma, also the result of boxing injuries. Medical professionals are calling for changes to the sport. Some going as far as to call for boxing to be stopped altogether. To discuss this I'm joined by Dr. Richard Wennberg, a neurologist with the University Health Network in Toronto. He's in our Toronto studio. And Dr. Jean Dore, a professor of kinesiology and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Laval. He was there, ringside at the Quebec City fight, and he is in our Quebec City studio. Welcome gentlemen.

JEAN DORE: Morning.

RICHARD WENNBERG: Good morning.

AMT: Jean Dore I want to start with you. You were at the fight on Saturday night as a second line doctor. First of all, what is a second line doctor?

JEAN DORE: Well I was there and hired by the gym organization to fix little problem, if they would occur on top of major other problems that could have happen on the ring or in the rink. So I had minor issues with cuts and little bruises that I had to take care of, while the show was going on so to speak. And this is basically it. I was there really as a second line doctor. I wasn't involved with the decision of having Mr. Stevenson transfer to the hospital.

AMT: Okay. Can you describe those last moments of the fight though?

JEAN DORE: Well I heard you speaking before we came on the air on the air. You have to know that he was badly bruised on the rink when this happened, and he fell down and he had trouble getting up and that maybe lasted a little longer than usual. But he came back on his feet and he was walked back to his dressing room, and he was okay until many minutes later where he apparently started to have the symptoms again. And this is where they decided to transfer him to the hospital using the local paramedics that were on site.

AMT: So it wasn't directly right there in the ring. It was he got up and walked and then it was after.

JEAN DORE: Absolutely. We call it the lucid interval. It's probably what happened to him at this point.

AMT: And do you think the situation was handled well by referees and support staff?

JEAN DORE: Absolutely. I have no question in my mind. This was done properly. The referee had only a few seconds to intervene. And this is exactly what he did. And afterward when this gentleman was carried to-- or he was walked back to his locker room was fine all right. And he was checked by the [unintelligible] doctor which I happened to be knowing and everything was fine with him. And it's only minutes later that the situation turned around and his condition deteriorated where it decided to transfer him to the hospital.

AMT: When you witness an incident like that does it give you misgivings about being involved in such a violent sport?

JEAN DORE: Well it's a violent sport but there's many other violence sports in Canada including ice hockey and football. And we have to look at the entire picture and how many people are getting a good result of training from boxing, even if they're not participating in two fights. So before we say we want to ban the sports I want to put a hold on that. And we certainly won't fix that problem this morning but well we can ask questions and maybe try to find some solutions regarding the safety of the sports. But that's going to be something else that will have to be decided in the next upcoming months or years.

AMT: How did you get involved? How did you get involved as a ringside doctor?

JEAN DORE: I well have been doing amateur boxing as a site doctor for 15 years in Quebec. It's a very popular sport here in the city. And almost every weekend you can attend one of these amateur boxing event. Then need a doctor to be on the premises, if they want to be proceeding with these kind of events. It's a mandatory situation or a demand from the ‘regie’ des sports.

AMT: Well let's bring in Dr. Richard Wennberg into this discussion. When a boxer gets knocked out what's happening to their brain in that situation?

RICHARD WENNBERG: Well it could be more than one thing. Most typically it would be a concussion and so a knockout or even a technical knockout is by definition an acute brain damage. So the functioning of the brain has been impaired to the point where are the fire can't, either protect themselves due to coronation or vision problems, or in fact as consciousness has been cut off due to damage to either the entire brain or the deep parts of the brain that sort of hold the switch there. And that is usually the worst that happens. And we know of all the both the acute but also the long term damages that can come with concussion; tragic episodes like happened to Adonis Stevenson are pretty rare, especially amongst championship level fighters. And I do not know the details of this current state but usually that is a more severe injury than a concussion. Usually that is some sort of intracranial hemorrhage bleeding has actually happened, either in the brain, or between the lining surrounding the brain and the brain, or sometimes an artery gets severed from a skull fracture and the blood can build up. That is sometimes why there's that initial problem which is part of the concussion and partly maybe initial bleeding. And then this lucid interval that Dr. Dore mentions, and then a subsequent deterioration as blood accumulates.

AMT: And that's why he would be put in a medically induced coma.

RICHARD WENNBERG: The coma - there would be a few things done. The coma - one of the goals is to just decrease the metabolic demand of the brain. And so decreasing energy allows there to be less need for glucose and blood flow. And one can try to minimize the activity of the brain and do other things to reduce swelling.

AMT: What's the force of a hit to a boxer's head? What's that like?

RICHARD WENNBERG: Well it can be immense. I mean I just totally coincidentally a week ago read something about the force of Rocky Marciano's punch and - I can't remember - he was the equivalent of many tons - someone that calculated - to the heads, so you know, imagine getting hit by a car for example.

AMT: The American Neurological society has some stats that say a pro boxer’s punch can be 52 times the force of gravity.

RICHARD WENNBERG: That certainly sounds reasonable yes.

AMT: So it's a hard hit when it hits it.

RICHARD WENNBERG: It is a very hard hit and the forces then are imparted to the brain which moves freely inside the skull. And the human head and brain can take quite a force if it's hit in a way that the brain doesn't rotate around one of its axes, either the vertical one or the horizontal one or on an angle. Hitting on the top of the head or right smack in the face it is far less damaging because the brain doesn't move nearly as much. But the punches that are often taken to the side of the face with the head twisting around like this or especially the classic uppercut type of punch will will do the most damage.

AMT: So when you heard about what happened to Adonis Stevenson, what did you think?

RICHARD WENNBERG: Well it was you know an uncommon but not unheard of tragic episode that has happened for decades or hundreds of years in the sport of boxing. It happens in other sports too. American football perhaps is the next most common but it happens in equestrian sports and other things.

AMT: But boxing is the only sport where actually the goal is to knock someone out. Do you think it's ethical for the sport to continue?

RICHARD WENNBERG: You know I share some of Dr. Dore's concerns at the social level and - strictly speaking as a neurologist and the damage done to the brain, by not just boxing but especially boxing, for the reason you say that the killer blow is the knockout punch. The goal is to inflict brain damage on someone, is really the prototype of an unsafe sport for brain function. And there is no doubt but that if one chooses to go into boxing, as a sport and actually fights, your brain will not be the better for it. It might come out good enough and all the other benefits of being involved in the sport might outweigh that. But the more you are in it, the longer you are in it there will be repercussions that you may have to deal with and they could be serious, in addition to the smaller risk of an absolute disaster happening and dying in the ring which could happen to any two fighters when they go in the ring. It doesn't happen often but it is. They are risking their lives to the fight.

AMT: Jean Dore you treated the New Brunswick boxer David Whittom, who we mentioned in the introduction, who died in March. Having experienced his tragedy, do you worry at all that you give medical sanction to a dangerous activity?

JEAN DORE: Well it's been an issue with our conscience for many years, yes, and more recently with all the knowledge that we've gained regarding the assessment and management of concussion. It's ita big thing now. You said that I was managing his case, actually, he was the guy that did show in my clinic to get his approval and test done just to make sure he was okay so to speak before he was entering the ring. So they come up with some blood work that has to be done and other useless tests like a CAT scan or MRI just to see if everything is okay. But we know and Dr. Wennberg probably knows as well as I know that these tests, especially the CAT scan and the MRI are absolutely useless in terms of preventing any problems regarding the management of concussions. This is still something that we are doing on a regular basis here across Canada, in terms of pre-fight demands and it doesn't give any information regarding the status of a brain of a fighter. And it's still going on. We'll have to work it out in the near future I guess and see why we're doing that. We should be doing other investigations like neuro-psychological evaluation which are giving much more information regarding the status of a brain of somebody.

AMT: Before or after the boxing match starts?

JEAN DORE: It could be both at home actually. Boxers could have like a baseline test and then it could be redone years or months after boxing even to see if their recovery is completed.

AMT: So I'm just going to play one more clip here. I've got a clip of professional Montreal Boxer Jean Pascal talking about the Stevenson incident.

SOUNDCLIP

It's just an accident. It's part of the risk. It's part of the sport. And like I said I'm very very sad for Stevenson and right now and the only thing that we can move our fingers and keep Stevenson in our prayers.

AMT: 'Part of the risk. Part of the sport'. Richard Wennberg those comments tell you about the culture of boxing?

RICHARD WENNBERG: Well almost everything and as I said before as a neurologist it is I cannot, in good conscience, say this is a recommended thing to do for brain function because as I said it will damage many many parts of the brain. And the longer you are there, the worse it will be. On the other hand, it wouldn't be fair if we didn't remember just how much boxing has been at stage for much of the drama and the inspiration that people who have watched it - both in fiction and in fact over the past hundreds of years. I mean metaphorically getting up off the map to accomplish something, boxing has been the epitome of that. And for those who were born with an aptitude for it and the talent for it, their lives - the lucky few - they made something of their life that would never have happened without boxing.

AMT: Jean Dore, do you want to speak to that? What are the advantages that you see to sport?

JEAN DORE: The advantages of getting in shape, but as soon as you get in the ring and you start boxing it becomes somehow more likely that you're going to sustain some kind of injuries and that's unfortunate but that's the risk of the sport. And that's exactly what General Pascal was saying. He was saying basically that these pro boxers - especially pro boxers because amateur is pretty different. And pro boxers, they all know when to get on the ring that they're putting himself at risk, a severe risk actually. But in amateur boxing we see concussion and we see minor injuries but not to the extent of what we see in the pro boxing. It's a totally different way of refereeing and applying the rules.

AMT: And Jean Dore, what about the arguments that for many boxers the sport is the pathway out or up economically, socially?

JEAN DORE: Absolutely. I was listening to Dr. Wennberg and he said it itself. I mean for a lot of people it was the way out of the street and to get their things together and to find a role for themselves in life and a way to sustain themselves. I think it's probably a very good thing that happened to a lot of kids in this country and other countries in the past. But there's other stuff that people could do as well; getting to army, or train for some of any of the other sports as well. But boxing for some reason over the years has been known to be attracting these kind of people that were in trouble. And there was a way to get them out of the street.

AMT: Well we're almost out of time here. Just very briefly Richard Wennberg given what we know about brain trauma now, should this sport change drastically or should the sport be banned?

RICHARD WENNBERG: I don't know that my doctor's final word on this. Certainly if we want to preserve brains in their best function one would not permit this sport to continue. But whether or not that's a realistic goal, it could just move to other jurisdictions, other countries, carry on forever. And whether a more natural evolution could see it becoming less and less a thing might be the more probable.

AMT: We have to leave it there. Gentlemen thank you for your time today.

JEAN DORE: Thank you for having me.

RICHARD WENNBERG: Thank you.

AMT: That is Dr. Richard Wennberg a neurologist with the University Health Network in Toronto. He's with me in the studio. Jean Dore is a professor of can ecology and the faculty of medicine at the University of Laval. He's in our Quebec City studio.

SOUNDCLIP

GEORGE CHUVALO: I still felt I had a good shot with Ali and anyway, it turned out to be a good fight because most folds didn't think I would go 15 rounds with him. But it was a tough 15 rounds and he goes down in the history books as one of the better title fights.

DWIGHT DRUMMOND: A lot of people expected you to get knocked out by this guy. A lot of people were surprised, not only your stamina for the 15 rounds, but that because he been putting people down.

GEORGE CHUVALO: Yes, but I got a hard head. I know I have a hard head because my grade 5 teacher told me that.

[Laughter]

AMT: Well that is the great George Chuvalo 2016 interview with the CBC's Dwight Drummond on the fiftieth anniversary of his fight with Muhammad Ali at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. That bruising battle has become legendary in Canadian sports but the punishment the Canadian boxer endured in the ring took a toll long after he hung up his gloves. Mitchell Chuvalo is the son of George Chuvalo. He joins us on the line from Toronto. Hi.

MITCHELL CHUVALO: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: That interview took place just two years ago. What do you think when you hear your father recalling that fight?

MITCHELL CHUVALO: George has retained a great sense of humor. He's now in cognitive decline but he holds onto that sense of humor .and he's diminished rapidly since that interview. But that one moment in time for George is still etched deeply into his space time continuum. He has trouble now contextualizing things, knowing what day it is, knowing where he is, but that all the reference always brings him back to. Some degree of being lucid. So I'm torn. I know that my father suffered brain damage due to boxing but I also know that his life in boxing established who he was as an individual. And he is, still to this moment, very quite, quite proud of that.

AMT: So that's tough isn't it?

MITCHELL CHUVALO: Very difficult. Very difficult.

AMT: Did he suffer any serious obvious brain injuries during his fighting career?

MITCHELL CHUVALO: What it is interesting, Anna Maria, when I listen to the two doctors talk about brain injury actually the brain itself the lining of the brain or the arteries of the brain. And they talk about rotation being a factor in demonstrating and accelerating brain injury. When you think about my father he is such a metaphorically of a piece of Canadian bedrock. It's just you know coming forward and not getting hit on what the doctors were consider to be the vulnerable part of the brain - pardon me of the of the head - the chin and having his head rotate. So he was never, I always still believes, never diagnosed with a concussion. But you think of the thousands of sub-concussive hits my father suffered over a career; 97 professional fights. I know that that contributed to his cognitive decline. So showed up years later, he was always in great condition for his fights. So he had damage to his eye sockets and optic floor and things of that nature, but my father was never- I don't ever remember my father being in danger or being knocked out or even knocked down.

AMT: And we know we know so much more about brain injury today than we did when he was at his peak.

MITCHELL CHUVALO: Absolutely. No MRIs back then. I always tell people you know Muhammad Ali had always had a doctor in his corner but that didn't save him from suffering tremendous brain injury that led to his cognitive decline later in life. And you know if the best, you know, the most well known and most medically supported fighter suffers brain damage. What about all those individuals who don't get that kind of support? Right?

AMT: So what did you think when you heard about what happened to Adonis Stevenson?

MITCHELL CHUVALO: A lot of things went through my mind. I've been around boxing all my life and I didn't want it to end tragically. So I know of all the names of the fighters who died in the ring. There are benchmarks along the history of my being involved with boxing. Benny Kid Paret, our own Stewart Gray here in Canada, Duk-Koo Kim the Korean who fought Boom-Boom Mancini, Cleveland Denny, fought our great Canadian Gaetan Hart. Those individuals all died in the ring. So I have a hard time when I hear Mr. Pascal, the Quebecois fighter, talked about it being an accident what happened to Mr. Stephenson. I don't think it was an accident. I think it's a natural consequence of being involved in a very dangerous sport and I don't know what we can do about it.

AMT: Do you think it should be banned?

MITCHELL CHUVALO: Well the danger Anna Maria any time you ban something it goes underground right. And I think it's sport boxing as a vehicle for the underclass in our society. I think that's deeply true - if you look at the history of boxing in North America, in the United States and Canada, for American kids, Italian kids, Jewish kids - all recent immigrants fought their way to the top literally. But I think there are other vehicles. I think of myself, the greatest thing my father ever did for me perhaps, I remember I was in the boxing gym one time and I was training. I trained to played football and the one individual saw 'Hey. George' they said to my dad 'he looks good. He's going to be a fighter' and my father turned to them and said 'no this kid's going to go to school'. And I think the most beautiful thing he ever did for me was allowing for a vehicle that I didn't have to fight. He had to fight perhaps. I didn't have to. And he acknowledged that and that was a pathway out of my ever having to do it. So you know he recognized that, and that was his great gift to me actually.

AMT: You teach at the University of Toronto Schools now am I right?

MITCHELL CHUVALO: I do yes.

AMT: And you're surrounded by kids some of whom probably know about your dad's career and the place he holds and in legend. What would you advise a young person who tells you he or she is thinking of becoming a boxer?

MITCHELL CHUVALO: Our brains make us human. I'm surrounded by a lot of high achieving motivated kids here who obviously value what their minds are going to do potentially. I think the training for boxing is a fabulous thing and it's kind of hypocritical for me to tell a kid not to do it because I've enjoyed and cheered on fighters all throughout my life. But I would say make sure it's very upfront and very clear that you're aware of the cost benefit analysis and that has got to be constantly going on. I've seen fighters all my life, local fighters, people who fought for Canada for the Canadian title, people who fought internationally. I don't know of one, Anna Maria, who hasn't suffered some kind of cognitive distress later in life. And if you know that going with your eyes wide open--

AMT: We have to leave it there. I hear the music. We're running out of time but we really really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today. Thank you.

MITCHELL CHUVALO: Wonderful. Thank you.

AMT: Mitch Chuvalo, son of Canadian legendary heavyweight boxer George Chuvalo in Toronto. This is The Current stay with us.

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Canada's $50 million pledge will educate 350,000 children, says global fund director

Guest: Yasmine Sherif

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. This past weekend’s Global Citizen Festival in South Africa saw performances by Ed Sheeran and Beyonce. And there was some Canadian content too by way of a tweet.

SOUNDCLIP

BONANG MATHEBA: And moments ago, none other than the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau responded. He said 'Hey Trevor. I'm sorry I can't be with you but how about Canada pledges 50 million US dollars to educate kids'.

[Loud cheers]

TREVOR NOAH: Yes.

BONANG MATHEBA: Yes. Thank you so so very much to Canada.

TREVOR NOAH: Wow. 50 million dollars. I would've taken 200 and ran. But thank you, Justin Trudeau. That is way more that I was expecting. This is amazing. Give it up for Justin Trudeau one more time, everybody.

BONANG MATHEBA: Yes.

TREVOR NOAH: 50 million dollars pledged, It's not often you see a world leader using his Twitter to make the world a better place. That's a nice change of pace. Thank you Canada.

BONANG MATHEBA: [Laughs]

AMT: And there it was the tweet heard round the world. The South African born Daily Show host Trevor Noah was MCing the concert, together with TV host Bonang Matheba. The concert was honoring Nelson Mandela's legacy and the 50 million dollar pledge from Canada was celebrated at the show and re-tweeted tens of thousands of times online. But back in Ottawa it was seized on by the opposition.

SOUNDCLIP

We have a TV personality that Trudeau seems to want to respond to directly to jump in the story. And there we are, Canadian taxpayers are spending 50 million dollars on a program.

AMT: That's conservative leader Andrew Scheer we now know those funds were already set aside this summer, at the G7 summit, as part of the government's promise of four hundred million dollars in aid to education outside Canada. Lost in all the criticism and kerfuffle was where that money is actually going; to something called Education Cannot Wait. Yasmine Sherif is its director. She's in Brussels at UNESCO's global education meeting and that's where we reached her. Hello.

YASMINE SHERIF: Hello. Hello.

AMT: How did you hear about Canada's funding to your organization?

YASMINE SHERIF: When we've been in discussion with Canada, that is a long term partner to Education Cannot Wait which is a global fund for education in emergencies and crisis. It's not a charity. It's a global fund within the broader multilateral UN system hosted by UNICEF. And for this particular contribution, we've been in discussions since the G-7 summit in June and got the confirmation a few weeks ago.

AMT: OK so by the time the tweet came out you already knew that money was earmarked for your programs.

YASMINE SHERIF: Yes.

AMT: Now tell me about Education Cannot Wait. What do you do?

YASMINE SHERIF: Well we are a global fund that was created by the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. We're [unintelligible] identified to reach children and the youth in the crisis countries, affected by conflict and natural disasters and the epidemics, amounting to 75 million, whose education - primary and secondary education - has been disrupted. They may never have attended school at all. There was a clear consensus at the global level that we are falling behind with those children and especially the girls and the adolescent girls who are suffering and enduring harsh realities in conflicts and disasters, like Syria, like Yemen, like Afghanistan.

AMT: Right. You know I remember the conversations that started a couple of years into the Syrian war about how many children had no school experience at all. That everything was just put on hold. So that's the kind of thing that you try to keep that education going in some way for those children affected so tragically by conflict.

YASMINE SHERIF: Well we are not an implementing agency. We are a global fund but we work very closely with civil society, especially many very strong Canadian NGO and also with our development partners. We have 13 development partners: all the Scandinavian countries, UK, Canada, US and others are supporting this agenda passionately to bring an end to illiteracy and also an end to very poor education that does not prepare - especially girls and young women - for life and survival in a war that is rather competitive and difficult for them, put aside the fact that they are in disasters and war countries.

AMT: Do you solely fund education for girls or you're funding boys as well?

YASMINE SHERIF: No we're first year report indicates that it's 50/50. But given the fact that girls and adolescent girls are falling behind - We call them in the language of crisis those left [unintelligible] behind because of gender inequalities, because of the empowerment by the mere fact of their gender. They are making special prohibitions in all our programs to target them as a priority to bring the girls into school to provide the right environment and ensure that they be given priority, together also are who have disabilities.

AMT: And what does it cost to put a child, to give them an education for a year? What kind of money, roughly, on average, does it cost to educate a child in those kinds of circumstances?

YASMINE SHERIF: From our estimates it's about 112 US dollars per child. And this is a very very low figure. If you start looking at the industrialized countries, we are speaking about thousands and thousands of dollars per child.

AMT: And so the 50 million dollars from Canada, what does that mean to your organization and the communities you serve?

YASMINE SHERIF: It means an incredible push forward to actually close that gap. This will allow us to reach close to half a million. About three and a half to 400,000 children will benefit from the Canadian generous contribution. And Canada, as a partner to Education Cannot Wait, is our second largest doner today, after Denmark. So the Canadian people are making an investment to the world and also that will come back and pay off for all of us. You know when you invest in education of a girl, in a very abnormal situation of a crisis, it's not a cost. It's an investment in that person's life. And it's also an investment in humanity. I mean all our own countries and our own security and sense of justice and fairness in this world. So it's an incredible step forward.

AMT: Well Ms. Sherif thank you for telling us about the program.

YASMINE SHERIF: Thank you to you.

AMT: Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait. She's written a book called A Case for Humanity: An extraordinary Session. We reached her in Brussels.

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Parts of Tehran are sinking into the ground at 25cm a year, says scientist

Guests: Christa Russell, Mahdi Motagh

AMT: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Indonesia's capital city is sinking. Jakarta sits on a swampy plain and has sunk four metres in the past three decades. Today 40 percent of the city is below sea level. The government's move....

VOICE 2: Subsidence is ground and that is settling below us. Here, for example, our ground is dropping here between six to eight inches per year. Subsidence really does a lot of damage to our wells, to our canals and the...

VOICE 3: These fields in California's Central Valley have been sinking by more than one foot per year. That means that about five years ago these fields would have been above my head.

AMT: The earth is disappearing right beneath your feet. It is one of the risks of climate change you may not have heard of before but from Jakarta to California, from Rio de Janeiro to New Orleans subsidence or sinking ground is a very real and growing threat. Manmade activities, such as water and oil extraction, can cause the phenomenon. It's being exacerbated now by climate change. A new study looking at subsidence in Iran has found that the capital city and its outskirts are subsiding at a rate of 25 centimeters per year. In other words, Tehran, home to more than 8 million people, is sinking. I'm joined now by one of the authors of that study Mahdi Motagh is a professor in radar Remote Sensing at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Leibnitz University Hanover. And he joins us from Potsdam, Germany. Hi.

MAHDI MOTAGH: Hello.

AMT: So tell us a little bit more about subsidence and how it happens.

MAHDI MOTAGH: As we've discussed alternative beginning of the program, the main cause of the substance in Iran is not much different from the causes of subsidence in other parts of the world. So over past several decades the government of Iran has invested a lot on developing agriculture and to provide food security for its own people. But this has come at a certain expense and the price that has been paid has been over use of groundwater resources to meet the need for industrial and agricultural development. And as a result now we are seeing that the ground surfaces are reacting to these overexploitation. And we are seeing subsidies at a rate that you mentioned about 25 centimeter per year in some parts of the city and also outskirts of the city.

AMT: That sounds like an awful lot, 25 centimeters a year.

MAHDI MOTAGH: Indeed it's a lot, yes. I mean although I should say that there are also other parts of the world, like for example some parts in California that are even subsiding more you know. For example a recent studies showed that says some parts of California already are subsiding even at a rate up to 50-60 centimeter per year. So it really depends on the amount of water that has been extracted and also on the geological conditions. So in Tehran what we see is a lot - I mean definitely 25 centimeter per year is a lot, but there are rates even higher than that. Like Mexico City for example, or parts of California.

AMT: So is it because the land is contracting because it's drying? Or is it collapsing because those layers are being pulled away like layers of water or layers of mineral?

MAHDI MOTAGH: Not completely. This water has been stored in some porous space. When we extract water, under normal conditions if we extract water and then the aquifer as you know gets feeded by natural rivers or precipitations, so these prosperous bases remain healthy. So when we extract water we have subsidence and then when for example we have the natural recharge so we have subsidence. But when we went over exploit the water resources, then the porous places you know we lose its structure. The porous spaces in the rock materials will lose its structures and will be damaged. And this is what we are seeing now happening. So subsidence is one issue, but losing actually the storing capability of the water in the aquifers is maybe even a more serious issue which really fixed you know long term sustainable development in many groundwater basins, including those in Iran.

AMT: Can you actually see it? Like what do you see in the areas that are affected?

MAHDI MOTAGH: So for our studies we use a satellite radar technology and through the satellites we can detect any tiny motion on the earth with a centimeter and sometimes millimeter precision. So what we see here we see that over the last 20 years, so we use all different satellite sensors. And what we see that over the last 20 years so we see a continuous subsidence at the rate of 25 centimeter per year, affecting major parts of the Tehran city, home to 8 million people. Around 10 percent of the Tehran city has been affected by this phenomenon. A large portioning in West part of the Tehran city. Some famous counties there which are used where agriculture have totally been affected, but also some counties in Varamin in south east of Tehran which also have been affected.

AMT: So you can measure with satellite technology. If I was standing there would I see something? Would I be afraid of a sinkhole? Tell me what I would see.

MAHDI MOTAGH: I mean what we can see different things I mean with these satellite technology in principle we can measure the distance of the targets on the ground to the satellite. And when these distend changes because of the deformation, we can track, we can track these changes.

AMT: Right, so what do I see on the ground? Like just looking, can you notice if you're just with the naked eye?

MAHDI MOTAGH: So yes definitely. I mean in some parts especially when you go to agriculture areas so we see huge cracks, fissures, big fissures have been developed a lot. In some parts of the city, especially at the border- the border zone where in one side we know we have no subsidence and in the other side we have subsidence. These are critical zones. So infrastructure, houses, pipelines which have been located in these zones, we can see. We can see some actually damages to such infrastructure.

AMT: Like what? Cracks? What would you see, cracks?

MAHDI MOTAGH: Yes, cracks or uneven pavement or even we have observed for example for our research also tilting buildings. And in one example which we have observed, the whole house had to be demolished completely because it was tilted so much. So the authority had to completely destroy it.

AMT: What kind of told us that take on the people living there, in an area that sinking like that?

MAHDI MOTAGH: So of course it's a sort of hazard. It affects the safety but of the people. But you know the effect of the subsidence is not uniform. So we cannot say that for example in Mexico City or in California or even all the people have been affected by subsidence. It really depends on the type of infrastructures, the amount of subsidence that has happened. For example in some agricultural areas we have seen some farmers have been really affected because this earth fissures you know affects their lands. So they lose their lands. And then of course they depend on land for coal for their everyday living. So this is something serious especially for those who are dependent on agriculture for their lives.

AMT: What can Iran or other countries do to counter this?

MAHDI MOTAGH: Actually as I mentioned this is not a problem only for Iran. It comes with the development. For example we have seen also in California, for example Tokyo, for example, that from 1900s to 1970s. So they had four meter of subsidence because of overexploitation of groundwater resources. So but what they did after was they stopped this process. They stopped this process afterwards so the rate of subsidence became less and then suddenly stopped. Although the aquifers could not be recovered. So that the best strategy would be actually to implement a sort of revise policy for water management. Because for the case of Iran, in a lot of cases, they have built a lot of dams yard to provide water for the development. But these dams also they may function in one way but they also especially in arid and semi-arid regions they can have serious environmental consequences. The dams stopped the food off the water to the downstream. And then if you have lack of precipitation than the aquifers on the downstream. They will be put under so much pressure. You know and then they can be depleted quickly and this can affect you know the long term water supply for the people.

AMT: Mahdi Motagh we have to leave it there. We've got somebody waiting in the wings to tell us what they're trying to do to face this in another part of the world. But thank you for what you've told us today. Thank you.

MAHDI MOTAGH: Thank you.

AMT: That is Mahdi Motagh professor in radar remote sensing at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Leibnitz University Hanover. He is in Potsdam, Germany. Subsidence is a global problem you heard him say that. It's particularly serious today in Louisiana where researchers say the state is sinking and fast. They may have a solution to the problem though in manmade oyster reefs.

SOUNDCLIP

So what we are doing right now is the guys are unrolling the geo-fabric. And once we install it and get it secured, then they'll pick up the baskets. This is the first time we do the baskets like this. They're holding up very well. They weigh about 2000, about 4000 pounds of these. There's two cubic yards of oyster shells in them. The escalator with the attachment grabs some off the bars and sets him in the water. We have guys in the water who keep them straight and keep them lined up. Hopefully within a few years they'll have a good of oyster growth on them.

AMT: Well that's the sound of a team off the Gulf Coast of Louisiana putting an oyster reef into the water and the hope is that it will help stop coastal erosion. My next guest is one of the scientists involved in that oyster reef project. Christa Russell is a coastal scientist at the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. She's a biologist focused on coastal ecology and conservation and she joins us from New Orleans. Hello.

CHRISTA RUSSELL: Hello. Good morning.

AMT: So what's causing the subsidence in Louisiana?

CHRISTA RUSSELL: Cumulation of things so some subsidence in Louisiana is completely natural. We live in and Delta deltas are dynamic systems and so there's natural thinking associated with how a Delta grows. So our river deposits sediment when it overflows. Its banks that sediment slowly subsides and sediment is constantly replenished by that river overflowing. So to some thinking is completely normal we would expect that in an estuary like ours. The problem is that we sort of do things as humans to interfere with how nature normally works. So we have really heavily lobbied our river which is important or we would flood, we would not be able to live where we live if we didn't lobby our river the way we do. But because of that it can't naturally overflow its banks anymore so we're seeing that sinking but we're not adding any new sediment on top of that. In combination with that stinking problem we have sinking from oil and gas extraction. You're saying earlier when you remove things from the ground the ground sinks. So anytime you remove liquid from the ground, that is going to happen. We also have a problem with sea level rise and with saltwater inundation. So as we cut these canals for oil and gas extraction or for navigation we're basically providing thoroughfares for saltwater to move into traditionally fresh areas. When that kills off the vegetation, it kills off their roots and those roots are really important for holding onto our land. So our subsidence is this issue of both subsidence and sea level rise and other erosion and land loss all combined together.

AMT: So, again, some of that is a human cause and then on top of it. Climate change issues.

CHRISTA RUSSELL: Exactly. So some parts of the world are seeing really high rates of subsidence. In Louisiana in general we're looking at about 9 millimeters a year. That's not that big or doesn't sound that big, but we're not just thinking. We're also getting that jump of sea level rise to with our land loss. So we're looking at between a foot and a half or so of loss over the next 50 years on the low end. That's a pretty significant difference. A lot of our coastal areas will be completely untenable. It's a foot and a half of water is suddenly over.

AMT: Well New Orleans is under sea level isn't it? That's part of the problem, too. That exacerbates on another whole level again. I want to ask you about an island off the Gulf Coast. Is it Isle de Jean Charles?

CHRISTA RUSSELL: Yes. Isle de Jean Charles yes.

AMT: What's happening here?

CHRISTA RUSSELL: So that island historically has been home to the Isle de Jean Charles tribe. It's an original American tribe. Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw. So that area historically has been a place where they've settled there, largely a fishing community. They relocated there heavily after the Indian Removal Act back in 1830. So basically that was marshy area that we would say that the folks who were not original to this state would say is not a tenable place to live. But in that area this tribe was working the land. They were fishing and they had a good thing going for a while. But that area is experiencing erosion at such an incredibly high rate that it's no longer acceptable for them to live there. So, whether you like this term or not, they are the first climate refugees in the United States. So the entire tribe is actually being relocated as a community. They have to do that by 2022 when their funding goes through. So they're in the process now of trying to- They found a location in trying to set up how do you move an entire community and maintain that cultural structure instead of just letting people disperse.

AMT: Right. Okay so you've got all of these this confluence of very unfortunate environmental events that you've just outlined for us. How does that oyster bed scene that we heard earlier addressed some of that? How are you trying to address it with the oysters?

CHRISTA RUSSELL: Sure. Our oyster shell recycling program, in a nutshell, takes oyster shell that would normally be thrown away from a New Orleans area restaurants and recycle it. So that oyster shells are really important natural resource for many reasons. But the big one for us is that baby oysters need something hard to settle on. We are an estuary near Delta, which means our soils are by definition not hard. So that oyster shell is basically the [unintelligible] material. Think of it as soil for your garden right. So they need that to settle. So we are building these structures with oyster shells that are almost like a wall but it's a living wall. We call these things living shorelines for that reason. So we stretch that oyster wall along the shoreline. It slows down wave energy and reduces erosion to the [unintelligible] as they protect. It is slowing down erosion which is slowing down land loss. They all provide this suite of ecosystem services that a traditional concrete bulkhead wouldn't because they're alive. So oysters are incredible filter feeders that can go through- adult oyster can go to 50 gallons of water in a day. It's pretty incredible for something that's only you know five or six inches long. And they helpful to the water, improve that water quality. They provide habitat and food for lots and lots of organisms including some very important commercial fish species. And they can also help provide some services as far as removing nutrients from the water. So we have this issue with the Mississippi carrying everything from 32 states down into the coast of Louisiana. Some of that is nutrient that doesn't need to be there. They kind of help with removing that nutrient from the water as they filter feed.

AMT: So what's the risk here, if it's the kind of work you're doing along with other efforts doesn't change things in terms of the rate of what's going on there?

CHRISTA RUSSELL: So in Louisiana and particularly we've lost an area the size of the state of Delaware over the last hundred years. If we don't do anything, and I mean absolutely nothing, we're standing to lose twice that and half the time, which is pretty impressive. You're not just losing land. You're not just losing where people can live but you're losing that culture and that history too. And this state is incredibly important for the seafood industry of the entire United States. We are second only to Alaska in seafood landings because we have so much estuary. We have so much workable coast. We also bring in a significant portion of oil and gas into the United States through deep water port through New Orleans. So that it's not just us. It's everybody we're all tied together in this.

AMT: It's fascinating. It's good to hear you're working on it. Actually it's shocking to hear him how much has gone on that we haven't been paying enough attention to. So thank you for talking to me.

CHRISTA RUSSELL: Thank you.

AMT: That is Christa Russell. She's a coastal scientist and biologist at the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and she joined us from New Orleans. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio 1 for Q, Okay we talk climate change. This is what Q is doing. You're going to hear about an art installation inside the town square of the Ghost City near Chernobyl in Ukraine - another man made issue there but I'll leave it at that. We'll let Tom deal with that one. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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