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The AIH Transcript for July 9, 2019

Hosts: Robyn Bresnahan and Marcia Young

Prologue

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: Hello I'm Robyn Bresnahan, sitting in for Carol Off.

MARCIA YOUNG: Good evening. I'm Marcia Young. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

MY: Tonight...

RB: In-security measures. Politicians are promising action -- but one of the millions of Desjardins customers whose data was breached says those assurances don't leave him reassured.

MY: Temper tantrum. A Russian scientist announces his plan to edit human embryo DNA to prevent deafness. But a Canadian bioethicist says that kind of genetic meddling should remain unheard of.

RB: Eviction noticed. Italy closes what was once its biggest camp for migrants. But the Mayor of Palermo tells us his country should be doing more not less to help asylum seekers.

MY: Third party animal. Twice, the late Texas billionaire Ross Perot ran for president on a platform of homespun wisdom and anti-Washington sentiment -- and millions of Americans appreciated the approach of a man on the outside looking up.

RB: Make like a tree after you leave. In the UK too many dead people means too many cemeteries. So our guest has a solution -- plant the dearly departed alongside roads, and plant saplings on top of their remains.

MY: And bird baby bird disco inferno. A cockatoo named Snowball became an international star for his ability to shake a tail feather. But new research shows he's actually self-choreographed some extremely fancy footwork...uh claw-work. As It Happens. The Tuesday Edition. Radio that invites you to the talent show.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Snowball the cockatoo is blowing scientists' minds with his 14 unique dance moves

Desjardins Breach

Guest: Pierre Langlois

MY: Pierre Langlois is declaring victory. Mr. Langlois was one of the millions of customers who had their banking data stolen by a disgruntled employee of the Desjardins Financial Group last month. He launched a petition calling on Ottawa to take action to protect the victims and their social insurance numbers. It racked up tens of thousands of signatures in just a few days. Now Mr. Langlois says he's heard enough from the federal government to close the petition down. We reached Pierre Langlois in Quebec City.

RB: Mr. Langlois you wrote a post on Facebook today saying victory at last. What did you mean by that exactly?

PIERRE LANGLOIS: Well basically we were trying to get actions from the government to improve the social insurance number system that is used for identity because this one was weak. And yesterday, following the attention that we got from the petition that bring more than 93,000 signature, we've got the attention from Mr. (Andrew) Scheer who called for an extraordinary meeting to discuss that. So that's one achievement.

RB: You definitely have the attention. But do you have any kind of commitment because your petition was calling for new social insurance numbers to be issued to the millions of victims of this breach. But the federal minister said that's not going to happen. So how come you're abandoning that demand?

PL: No. I mean the petition was requiring for an action that will address the threat that 2.7-million people are facing due to the weakness of our social insurance number system for identity. That could include replacing social insurance network. It was not purely social insurance network replacement -- it was one of the potential solution. Out of the 90,000 people sign, no one said that they just want to have a new number. What everybody said is that they want to be protected. They don't want to feel abandoned. And I'm sure that if the government comes with a solution that gives them back their security that has been stole from them then they will not write 90,000 petitions. They will be happy.

RB: So you're basically saying that you want the government to be looking at the social insurance number system. Like what happened to you and millions of others just by having this information stolen that you are at risk of identity theft.

PL: And for the rest of our life. And there is no way this could be corrected with the actual system because the system is defective, unsecure at the base. So really giving you numbers -- replacement numbers -- doesn't change the fact that this new number is at the same risk than all the other ones.

RB: So are you thinking about something like a biometric system or something that has more security to it?

PL: Exactly. And this is what I said. Now people start talking about that. And this exists in Estonia. This exists even in a country like India. So that exists -- it is just that there was no political -- how to say -- interest or pressure to do so. And the idea was really to take the opportunity which is a sad opportunity that arise from what happened with Desjardins to raise the issue and make the government take its responsibility because identity cannot be left to bank -- financial institution. Identity is the responsibility of the government.

RB: Have you ever found out where your personal information -- I mean what was stolen from you: names, address, birth date, social Insurance number, email address, information about your transaction, habits -- have you ever found out where that information went?

PL: I would say it's fairly impossible to find out because contrarily to let's say something biometrics a nine digit number -- everything which is just information like that goes across the word on the darknet at the speed of light and there is no way you can stop the distribution of it. There's no way. Purely it's a file that once you give it to one you can give it to 100, can give it to a 1000. The only thing I can tell you is that on my personal side I've been fraud three weeks ago on the Airbnb -- I'm not sure if it was related to that, and everything went well -- I fixed that quite quickly with my credit card. But I received also an SMS in French coming from Maryland telling that my Desjardins day account was locked and I need to log. I mean I've received much more phishing, SMS, phoning since ever.

RB: And there is a criminal investigation underway -- and the federal and the provincial privacy commissioners are investigating. Who do you hold responsible for what you and the millions of other victims have experienced here?

PL: You talk about who's responsible...well that's the problem. Desjardins is responsible because they gave access to the information: the social insurance number, the address, the birth date, all of that to a marketing consultant or something like that. How come that person to do a market segmentation needs to have your social insurance network? So they are responsible for their deficiencies to ensuring the security of the data. But there is another responsibility which is the government which has been letting a unsecure identity manner being the foundation of the identity of Canadians.

RB: What is your biggest fear of how your information could be used?

PL: Well the financial information in some aspect but the social insurance number is the worst thing that could happen because this could be used to buy a house, this could be used to get the passport, this could be used for everything and this never never expire. It could happen in 30 years, in 40 years, and my kids have been also affected and they are only 20 years old. And if nothing changed they will have to live with that for the rest of their life.

RB: Well Mr. Langlois it was good of you to talk to us. I wish you all the best. And who knows maybe this will result in a change.

PL: Well if it doesn't I mean they will hear back from us.

RB: Okay. Bye bye.

PL: Thank you. Bye.

MY: Pierre Langlois is one of the Desjardins Financial Group customers whose data was stolen by a disgruntled employee. He was also the author of a petition demanding that the government take action to protect him and the millions of other victims. We reached Mr. Langlois in Quebec City. This afternoon, the House of Commons Public Safety Committee announced that it will be holding an emergency meeting about the Desjardins breach on Monday.

[Music]

Ross Perot

MY: Before there was the Tea Party railing against the Washington elite, long before President Donald Trump's "drain the swamp" campaign -- there was Ross Perot. The folksy-oddball Texas billionaire made history in 1992 by running for president as an independent anti-establishment candidate -- and getting almost 20 percent of the vote. Ross Perot died today following a leukemia diagnosis. He was 89. During his run for president against incumbent George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Mr. Perot made a virtue of his outsider status. Here's what he sounded like on the campaign trail.

SOUNDCLIP

ROSS PEROT: See I've got a theme song for our campaign.

[Music plays "We're Crazy" and crowd cheers]

ROSS PEROT: There are millions of crazy people in this country -- I don't know what we're going to do about it.

MY: But the status of his mental health was not his only pitch to voters. He promised to tackle the country's economic woes by raising taxes and cutting spending and the deficit. He bought blocks of TV time and explained his plans using a pile of charts and a pointer he called a "voodoo stick." Here's Ross Perot again during the presidential debate in October 1992 responding to a question about his qualifications.

SOUNDCLIP

ROSS PEROT: Well they've got a point. I don't have any experience in running up a 4-trillion dollar debt.

[Crowd laughs]

ROSS PEROT: I don't have any experience in gridlock government where nobody takes responsibility for anything and everybody blames everybody else. I don't have any experience in creating the worst public school system in the industrialized world. The most violent crime ridden society in the industrialized world. But I do have a lot of experience in getting things done. So if we're at a point in history where we want to stop talking about it and do it...I've got a lot of experience in figuring out how to solve problems, making the solutions work, and then moving on to the next one. I've got a lot of experience not taking ten years to solve a 10 minute problem. So if it's time for action I think I have experience that counts. If there's more time for gridlock and talk and finger pointing I'm the wrong man.

MY: Ross Perot speaking during the 1992 presidential debates. He came in third as an independent candidate. Mr. Perot died today -- five months after a cancer diagnosis. He was 89.

[Music]

Embryo Editing

Guest: Francoise Baylis

MY: A Russian molecular biologist says he plans to edit human embryos regardless of the objections of the international scientific community. Denis Rebrikov says he has found five couples with genetic deafness who want to conceive children who can hear. So he's taking on the embryo editing project despite the widespread backlash last year against a Chinese scientist who announced he'd edited the genes of twin girls. Francoise Baylis is a bioethicist who serves on a World Health Organization committee that's developing standards for editing the human genome. She teaches at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and that's where we reached her.

RB: Professor Baylis what can you tell us about this Russian biologist?

FRANCOISE BAYLIS: Well I think he's a person with excessive hubris and confidence -- somebody we might call a braggart. He's wanting to do science that everybody pretty much says is irresponsible because it's too risky. And his response has been -- and I'm quoting him now -- "I think I'm crazy enough to do it."

RB: What exactly does he want to do?

FB: What he wants to do is to take human embryos in the lab and genetically modify them before they're transferred to a woman so that the child that would be born would carry this genetic modification. Now I'm telling the story in kind of vague abstract terms because I don't think anybody's quite sure what modification is going to make. And the reason for saying that is in June he said he was going to make a modification to the CCR5 gene in order to provide immunity to HIV infection. A month later he said he's going to modify a different gene -- this is the GJB2 gene in order to provide protection from deafness. So I don't know what he's really going to do. He seems to be kind of shopping around a lot of ideas.

RB: Is he associated with a particular university or...

FB: He's a credible scientist. He's a credible scientist at a university. He says he's going to get the appropriate approvals before he moves forward. But at the same time he seems to have this kind of cavalier approach that no matter what he's confident he can go forward and he can do this science and everybody's going to be happy at the end.

RB: What are you most concerned about when it comes to his plan to edit human embryos?

FB: Well I have a number of concerns. Several of them I think are shared globally. And these are concerns about the science. That really you're talking about modifying a human being at the embryonic stage in a context where we don't know that this science is safe. We don't know that it's effective. The two classic examples people give of potential problems are something we call 'off-target effects' and that means the scientist goes in to try to make a change to the gene and inadvertently makes a different change. And so then you can have a very serious problem or outcome. Another kind of problem is what you would call an 'on-target effect' where you actually got to modifying the right gene but it had other unintended consequences: one might be initiating cancer. So I think what all the scientific community is saying pretty much in one voice is it's premature -- you don't know what you're doing.

RB: Can you help us understand why these couples would need gene editing to prevent their children from inheriting the deafness?

FB: Well I think one of the interesting things in that statement is the word 'need' because I don't actually think they need anything. What they might is 'want.' And the only reason I want to be specific about that from the very beginning is I think we have moral obligations as a society to respond to needs. If you need shelter, if you need food, if you need health care...we should respond. But if these are things that are in the category of wants, I don't have the same kind of moral obligation to respond to your wants. Now beyond that the particular kind of deafness that he is targeting is a situation whereby if both parties in the couple have this mutation then all of their children will have the same mutation. Now what he is proposing to do is to make a modification such that the child would not be deaf. What's interesting and controversial about this is that many people in the deaf community think that this is a misguided perspective and that's because they don't see deafness as a disability. They just see that as diversity -- as a different way of being in the world, and they have a rich language, and they have a rich community, and a rich way of living. And that somehow this is kind of calling that into question and the only way to have a flourishing life is to be a part of the hearing majority.

RB: If you knew that you were going to have a child who was going to be deaf and there might be a procedure that could limit that or could change that, wouldn't you be potentially excited about that?

FB: No. I'd be potentially worried that I could be introducing many things that are worse. The bottom line is we don't know what a child will or will not bring into the world. And of course we have a number of examples of children who appear to have limitations who make amazing contributions who have wonderful lives and some of them are not all going to be Stephen Hawking but they just may make a massive difference within one family unit in terms of their understanding about what's important in life. We certainly have that evidence from a number of families who have children with Down syndrome who say that they have thoroughly enjoyed and wouldn't make any difference to the situation they find themselves in. And these are people who have chosen to have children with Down syndrome even after they've had genetic testing that provides them with choices.

RB: If you are saying that the international scientific community has some major problems with this Russian biologist's plans, who has the authority to actually stop him?

FB: At this point in time it would only be the Russian government. And that's because we don't actually have any kind of international ethics court if you will. In those cases we have to rely on the different jurisdictions to implement their own rules and regulations.

RB: What has the Russian government said about this?

FB: At this point there hasn't been a response. And so we're not even 100 percent sure what would be the ethical and/or legal hurdles he would have to overcome. There are a number of international initiatives underway trying to address both the ethics and the governance of this science and what I think is really at some level offensive is to have a single scientists saying I don't care about what work is being done internationally I'm just going to do what I think I can do.

RB: Professor it was good to talk to you today. Thank you.

FB: Thank you.

MY: Francoise Baylis is a professor of philosophy and bioethics at Dalhousie University. She was in Halifax. And we've got more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Super 8 Motel Toxic Gas

MY: Without knowing it, they were breathing in a potentially toxic gas. Now dozens of people staying at a Super 8 motel in Winnipeg have been taken to hospital. 15 are in critical condition. The average level of carbon monoxide in a home is .5 to 5 parts per million. Above 200 parts per million, people start feeling sick and headachey. At the Super 8 emergency crews detected levels of carbon monoxide up to 385 parts per million. Justin Schinkel is the motel's owner. He spoke to reporters earlier today.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN SCHINKEL: This has never happened here before. We first were aware of the gas leak maybe 10:30-ish. The hotel manager gave us a call and said that we have a gas leak. At that point you don't quite know how big or small the gas leak is.

REPORTER: When you got the call what was going through your head out about people staying here and...

JUSTIN SCHINKEL: Oh it's the worst imaginable feeling. Like all of the sudden something bad like this happens -- you don't know the extent of it. So again, we're just super happy that the first responders are so helpful and they've been able to get here so quick and help us out here.

REPORTER: Were upgrades being done on the system prior?

JUSTIN SCHINKEL: No. No. We recently had a fire inspection -- it was all good.

MY: That's Justin Schinkel speaking about a carbon monoxide leak today at his Super 8 Motel -- west on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg -- that sent dozens of people to hospital.

[Music]

Dancing Cockatoo

Guest: Ani Patel

MY: He vogues. He headbangs. And he doesn't have the standard problem of not knowing what to do with his hands while he's dancing because he doesn't have any. Snowball is a male cockatoo who became internet famous more than a decade ago for dancing to a Backstreet Boys song in an online video. Not long after that, he went from YouTube sensation to scientific marvels -- studied for his ability to bust a move. And yesterday a group of researchers published a new paper saying Snowball appears to have taught himself no fewer than 14 original moves. Ani Patel is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Tufts University, and one of the co-authors of that study. We reached him at his office in Boston.

RB: Professor Patel how did you first discover Snowball's special talent?

ANI PATEL: I saw him dancing to music on a video in 2008. And I would have been studying human movement to music. We hadn't seen any other cases of animals actually spontaneously moving to the beat of music -- something we see in every single human culture. Not even non-human primates -- our close genetic relatives -- or dogs or cats who are familiar animal companions. And yet here it seemed like there was a species that could do this. The question was, is this real? I mean this was just a video on the Internet so we didn't know if somebody was dancing off camera or if the music had just been overlaid on top of a video. So we wanted to know if it was true that an animal such as a human could sense a beat and complex music and move its body in time with the beat. And so I contacted the owner -- Irena Schulz -- who owns the bird shelter where he lives and said can we do an experiment because this is actually very interesting. Thankfully she said yes. So we did our first experiment and found that he could do it -- and published that first paper showing it was true. There was another species that could do this.

RB: So Snowball was basically keeping in time to the music, adjusting when the music sped up and slowed down. But then you had more questions after that. So what did you seek out to investigate after that?

AP: After that first study his owner, Irena, noticed that he was making some new movements to music when she danced with him. And so we decided to try and study that properly because that was the second interesting parallel to humans. When we dance we don't just bob our heads we move in all kinds of complex ways. And if this was true of him too this would suggest that what he is doing is actually even richer than we had originally thought -- almost kind of a cognitive act where he's choosing between complex actions when he moves to music.

RB: When you say he was started doing new moves can you describe some of those moves?

AP: Yeah. So in our paper we had a table where we named these different moves. And so we had things like the "headbang" where he throws his head back and forth -- up and down very vigorously. We had "the vogue" which was named after Madonna where he moves his head from side to side -- back and forth across one of his feet -- that's been lifted in the air. And so it's quite astonishing that he has 14 different moves that none of which were ever trained. He was never trained to make specific movements to music. I had never given him any kind of food or reward for his behavior. It all emerged through social interaction with humans.

RB: What music were you playing for Snowball when all this was happening?

AP: So we filmed him dancing to two songs -- kind of hits from the 1980s. Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" and Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust."

RB: How unusual is this within the animal kingdom?

AP: Well he's not unique in the parrot world. There are other videos on the Internet and we provide some links in our paper to other videos of parrots moving to music with diverse movements. It's very unusual outside of parrots or humans. In fact what's particularly striking to us is that we don't see this in other primates. And so to us it's remarkable that this convergence of this response to music occurs in us and in this very distantly related animal. And I think it has something to teach us about the evolution of dancing in the course of human evolution. This suggests that the impulse to dance to music is not just an arbitrary invention of human culture like you know coffee cups or bicycles or the many other wonderful things we've invented. But it's an impulse that arises when certain cognitive and neural capacities come together in an animal's brain -- and parrots have that convergence and we have it but very few other animals probably have it.

RB: This is not the end of the road when it comes to your research on Snowball. I understand that Billy Idol is going to help you out with your next bit of research. Can you tell us about this?

AP: Yeah. So we're fascinated by the social aspect of Snowball's movement to music. He doesn't do it for food reward. He seems to do it for social bonding with his human owner. And if you think about it the social part is a huge piece for humans as well when we dance. I mean people are all happy to listen to music on their own devices these days. But when it comes to dancing, people don't typically put on music at home and dance by themselves -- they go out and seek partners and social situations. And so the social side, is that important for him as well? So we've done an experiment where we have him hearing music either with nobody in the room -- just the camera -- or with somebody there giving him attention and encouragement or with somebody actually dancing with him. And we want to see if that context affects how much he dances and how he dances.

RB: And the soundtrack for that is Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself?"

AP: One of the songs that we used is Dancing With Myself. We thought that was just too perfect you know not to use for that study.

RB: Professor Patel it was good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

AP: Thank you. All right. Bye bye.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself"]

MY: Ani Patel is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Tufts University, and one of the co-authors of a new study on Snowball the dancing cockatoo. And we've got video of Snowball doing his thing on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Part 2: Public health expert calls for 'green burials' on roadsides and other unused land

Salvini Migrant Centre Closed

Guest: Leoluca Orlando

MY: It was once Italy's biggest centre for migrants, housing thousands of asylum seekers. But today, Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini was on hand as the Mineo migrant centre closed its doors -- most of its inhabitants have been moved weeks and months prior. The closure is the latest move by Mr. Salvini who leads the populist right-wing League Party -- to stem migration to Italy. It comes hours after an Italian customs boat arrived in Sicily carrying dozens of rescued migrants. Francesca Donato is a politician with Mr. Salvini's League Party. She spoke to the BBC about the closure of the Mineo migrant centre.

SOUNDCLIP

FRANCESCA DONATO: The centre has been closed because it was a very bad place to stay. The centre was surrounded by Mafia people. And there were sex trade inside the centre -- even with underage girls. And the drugs traffic and so on. We want to arrive to a point when the asylum requests will be dealt to directly in the African sites because the people who have the rights to arrive here must be transferred to Europe in a secure way and not letting them be trafficked by traffickers.

MY: Leoluca Orlando is the Mayor of Palermo in Sicily which is where we reached him.

RB: Mr. Orlando we just heard of Francesca Donato explain why the Mineo migrant centre needed to close. In your view, was it the right decision to close the centre?

LEOLUCA ORLANDO: To close the centre is the right decision because this centre is not to be open. There are really place of torture. The question is of what happens after the centre is closed. Because now people living there were became invisible. It means they will have no identity -- not any opportunity to have license permit, not any opportunity to sign the normal contract. That it would fall in the hands of organized crime.

RB: You have said that the boats of migrants will keep coming. But where will these people go now?

LO: Where the people going now nobody knows because the people who arrive in Italy --they try just to escape. They try just to go away. They fall in the hands of organized crime. I mean I think in this moment the government is not stopping criminality but just producing condition of criminality.

RB: Well the government is saying that this centre had to be closed down because of the prostitution, the drugs, the fact that it was infiltrated by organized crime -- that it is more fair to disperse these people around Europe than to keep them into a camp basically.

LO: I completely agree that this centre (should) be closed. But the people living there are human beings. We want to let people -- human beings -- have human rights [inaudible] being able to be controlled legally and not be obliged to live in a prison that finally was closed.

RB: Right. When you say that these people needed to be treated like human beings, what do you think that the government should be doing differently?

LO: The government is just -- first of all just to let the commandant of the ship to be able to reach safe harbour and not to try to send these people who have been rescued to Libya -- it is not safe harbour. The second is to permit to the mayors to give [inaudible] license to everybody -- letting these people be recognized having an address. I think people should be able to sign a contract to work, and then to have residence permit. This system -- his legislation -- in Italy, in Europe, is [inaudible] migrant in slaves. Slaves were in many case condemned to death.

RB: So you're saying that these people need to be able to get off the ships -- the ship captain should not be arrested, that they have to be allowed to land and port in Italy, and be given residence permits. However the government and with some support of the Italian people have really painted this as these people coming in replacing Italian people with other workers. What do you say to that?

LO: First of all let's decide our starting point. My starting point is the migrants are human beings. Migrants have human rights. Migrants are like my brothers, my sisters, my brothers, my uncle. I think that we need to respect human rights. The partisan -- fighting against the fascists, the way of minorities. But now we are proud that there were Italians who are well in opposition to fascism. I speak about Palermo -- I got majority. I was elected six times in Palermo.

RB: But do you agree with the government when they say that the migrants that come into Italy that they just cannot simply handle the number -- the sheer number -- and the resources that it would take, that it is fair to disperse these migrants throughout other countries in Europe?

LO: I completely disagree with the government because they play another game -- they play with other rules. They do not respect international conventions. They do not respect human rights of the people. For me the migrants are human beings.

RB: You think that Italy can handle all these migrants that are coming in?

LO: I think that Italy is just to welcome everybody. Letting everybody to be registered, to be known, have an official address, and not to be just invisible just like now they are.

RB: How can Italy handle everybody as you say? Do you have the resources to do that?

LO: [Chuckles] The resources...we are speaking about the respect of human rights. I think that is another question. First of all, people coming just in Italy -- people coming to Europe -- they walk, they produce income, they pay taxes. And in Europe, we need the people. We need people because we are reducing the number of people living in Europe. We need mobility -- it is a great fantastic opportunity.

RB: But your position is so at odds with the government's position -- rightly or wrongly. But Mr. Salvini and his party have really been able to galvanize so much support for this anti-immigration stance. I mean do you fear blowback from Italians?

LO: I have no fear because to have fear produces violence. I don't want to ever to contaminate, to spread fear, because in spreading fear we produce violence.

RB: Mr. Orlando we'll have to leave it there. Thank you very much for your time.

LO: Thanks a lot.

MY: Leoluca Orlando is an independent politician and the Mayor of Palermo.

[Music

Sir David Attenborough

MY: "We cannot be radical enough." That was the message naturalist Sir David Attenborough delivered to British lawmakers earlier today. Mr. Attenborough was speaking to a UK parliament committee about how to address the climate emergency. Here's how Mr. Attenborough responded when asked about his government's target to reach zero carbon emissions by 2050.

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: That is not the way of focusing the problem. We cannot be radical enough in dealing with these issues in places at the moment. The question is what is practically possible. How can we take the electorate with us in dealing with these things because it costs money in realistic terms -- I mean dealing with these problems -- we've got to change our lifestyle. Dealing with the problem is going to cost internationally. It's going to cost money. And so the question is how fast can we go is how fast can we carry the electorate with us. The most encouraging thing that I see of course is that the electors of tomorrow are already making acts themselves -- their voice is very very clear and that is a source of great comfort in a way. But also of justification and reality that these people -- young people -- now are recognising that their world is what's the future. I'm okay you know for the next decade. I'm okay. And all of us here are okay because we won't face the problems that are coming. But in the problems in another 20 -30 years are really major problems that are going to cause great social unrest and great changes in the way that we live -- in what we eat and how we live, and so on. That's going to happen.

MY: Mr. Attenborough went a step further when asked about the shift in public perception towards climate change suggesting that in the near future polluting the planet may become as morally reviled as slavery.

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: There was a time in the 19th century when it was perfectly acceptable for civilized human beings to think that it was morally acceptable to actually own another human being as a slave. And somehow or another in the space of I suppose about 20 or 30 years -- by the middle of the 19th century able to become intolerable if suppose that anybody could suppose that. Now there is a huge change in the public perception -- if you like in public perception of moralities. And I suspect that we are right now in the beginning of a big change. Young people particularly are the stimulus that's bringing that about in which people are slowly beginning -- members of the public -- are understanding to chuck plastic into the ocean is an insult. To have the nerve to say this is our rubbish and then we'll give you money -- and if you could spread it on your land instead of ours in the far east is intolerable. And for some reason or the other, young people see that very clearly now. And that's a source of great hope to me.

MY: That was Sir David Attenborough speaking to British lawmakers earlier today about the need for swift and radical action on climate change.

[Music]

Green Burials

Guest: John Ashton

MY: Too many dead people. Not enough trees. What is the UK to do? Dr. John Ashton has an idea. He's a public health expert who thinks it's time to let go of the Victorian concept of graveyards. Instead, he wants to have people's remains buried along road embankments and cycle paths with a tree to mark the spot. We reached John Ashton in Liverpool, England.

RB: Dr. Ashton give us a sense of the scale of the problem here. How crowded are cemeteries in the UK?

JOHN ASHTON: In the towns and cities the cemeteries are running out of space. The Victorian places -- and you have some of those in Canada -- they built municipal cemeteries in the middle of the 19th century because of the rapid growth of the towns and for public health reasons because of the importance of hygienic burial and so on. Now most of those in the UK -- and I suspect in many other countries in Europe and the developed world -- are due to be full in the next five or six years. So we got a problem there.

RB: Now under your plan I mean would people be cremated or would you still see them buried in caskets along the sides of roads and in brownfield sites?

JA: No. I mean I think -- I've been deliberating about this for some years actually but it was prompted by this news coming from Washington State that they're going to start composting bodies. They found a technique for composting bodies in 30 days or something. And then you can be used as mulch for planting trees and plants. I don't think that's ever going to be more than a niche activity. A green burial generally involves outdoors burial in landscape and planting a tree in commemoration. There's a drift away from caskets. You know caskets themselves are biologically a problem. A lot of the stuff that goes along with us -- are just an environmental nuisance or contaminants. And the embalming process itself is toxic to land. So that's something that people are turning away from. And the price now of funerals where people have a traditional burial in a churchyard because space is becoming so restricted, price of funerals are going through the roof. So families are really wanting to find ways of having simpler funerals -- simpler ceremonies. And my argument is, if we do this outside on an open space or land that may not be suitable for anything else but can be brought back into green space, this will reduce the cost for families as well.

RB: I mean I understand your point of view that these cemeteries are becoming very full but they are beautiful. If you think of Highgate Cemetery in London or Kensal Green -- I mean that they are just beautiful cemeteries where you can go have a peaceful moment. I suppose you can't really do that along a motorway if trying to commemorate someone.

JA: I think it depends on how you approach this. The two London cemeteries you mentioned are two of the seven so-called Magnificent Seven in London. They came about as a result of the cemeteries movements in the mid-19th century. And yes they're great assets. They're continuing problems about maintenance of course. The cemeteries once they're full and once you've had several generations since anybody in the family is being buried that becomes an issue. It's simpler if you've got woodland -- it's simple to maintain. So there can be places that's like an open park land with trees, with woods, where people can go out on walking, cycling, you know not too far from the town but maybe in a part of the area which is not conducive to any other use but which could be remediated and planted up as woodland and as I say contribute to the solutions for ecological catastrophe that we're all facing.

RB: Even if somebody is all for environmentalism and they love this idea of having a tree planted when their loved one dies. How do you think you change the culture around being buried at a traditional gravesite?

JA: It's changing. You know I don't know how it is in Canada but in the United Kingdom green burial sites are springing up around the country but there's no systematic network. They tend to be private enterprises. And what I'm arguing really is that we need a government initiative to require local authorities -- the public bodies -- to include green burial areas within the structure plans. That's all local authorities have to do with their zoning arrangements and that they should also be required now to designate areas for planting as woodland burial sites. You know that would be the way to go forward anyway.

RB: Would you still see a headstone or a place to mark the spot?

JA: No -- headstones are a disaster really. But nowadays you just need a digital set of numbers that tells you where your relatives are. You can have it on your iPhone and you can find the tree and you can go and sit under the tree and have your picnic with the family -- the way the French have always done with cemeteries.

RB: So it's almost like having a GPS coordinate to go and find your loved one. What will the historians say to this idea?

JA: Well I think that you know this is very much in keeping with the movements of what's happening with the trends towards greening. I don't know what children there are in your family but the younger generation is really up through all of this. You know the group that are behind the millennials -- when it comes to be their turn, they'll be saying why didn't the generations before get into this sooner and quicker and on a bigger scale.

RB: Where will you be buried?

JA: Well my wife and I have permission from the Environmental Health Departments locally for four people to be buried on a field that we own near own house in the village in South Lake District. It's on the top of a hill which we own -- a small hill with a good view of the village so that when we are gone we'll have a good view and well drained. And you know it's a good spot. And what I will do probably in due course is get a planning permission through so if other members of the family would like to be planted in the same place. I've already planted about 800 trees in this area actually. So it's already well underway.

RB: So in a way you're doing your part for the planet even after you're gone.

JA: Well that's the thing. You see this can be your last gift to those who are coming after into the planet is to donate a tree and be planted under it. And that's not a bad legacy.

RB: Dr. Ashton it was good to talk to you. Thank you.

JA: Thank you very much.

MY: Dr. John Ashton is a public health expert. We reached him in Liverpool. And we have more on this green burial idea on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Nuntii Latini

MY: Here's something you won't be hearing on Finnish public radio anymore.

SOUNDCLIP

[Person speaking in Latin]

MY: That was part of the final broadcast of "Nuntii Latini" every Friday for the past three decades just after the 6 o'clock news -- the five minute Latin news bulletin aired for all of Finland to hear. It started out as a joke. In the late 1980s a Finnish TV and radio host was speaking to a wine society. He decided to give his speech in Latin despite the fact that he didn't speak it. It wasn't great but it got him wondering about an entire newscast in Latin. From there Nuntii Latini was born. It went on to have a huge fan base -- far beyond Finland. One of the show's long-time producers Outi Kaltio told The Guardian "Lots of people have studied a little Latin in school but others just like languages and are interested. It's fun and a rewarding way to see what you can understand to recognize Donald Trump or Theresa May in Latin." With the original producers retiring this year, Finland's public broadcaster decided to axe the show. The final episode aired June 14th.

[Music]

Uber Services

MY: Last week a drunk guy in Utah called an Uber to take an injured baby Lesser Goldfinch to a wildlife rehab centre. And in February, in New Mexico, an Uber driver was questioned by local police after dropping a guy off at a gas station which that guy robbed. Makes you wonder if there's anything Uber can't do besides turn a profit which it's nowhere near doing well. Well to clarify, the ridesharing company does not offer either an Uber wildlife or an Uber crime service but the services it does offer are getting increasingly complicated. You've got Uber Black: professional driver, temperature control, a guaranteed black vehicle for maximum pretentiousness. Below that Uber Comfort: A roomier vehicle. Then there's Uber X: The default service. And the cheapest of all Uber Pool: where you share a car with some stranger who may insist on listening to Kenny G and be holding a shoe box full of something putrid. And now in all cases for a little more you can have a "quiet ride" meaning your driver won't talk. Oh plus -- as of today in Manhattan -- there's Uber Copter which will deliver you to JFK Airport. So Uber may be hemorrhaging money at least a billion dollars in the first quarter but it won't stop expanding so keep an eye on your app for I don't know Uber Riding Mower, Uber Shetland Pony. Uber Piggyback. All possible ways you can get to your destination or be driven to distraction.

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July 9, 2019 Episode Transcript

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