Grappling with post-pandemic anxiety

Guest: Steven Taylor

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It is not a natural disaster. It is a manmade disaster. We have to get our heads around that and we have to make changes so that we don't continue down this path. B.C. is not safe.

MARK KELLEY: Extreme. Temperatures and devastating wildfires in B.C. have shaken Canada and the rest of the world. The climate is getting unbearably hot. Are we ready for the consequences of that heat? And are we taking enough steps to stop it from getting worse? In 30 minutes, I'll speak to someone who knows what 50 degrees Celsius feels like and can explain what we need to do to prepare for it. Also this morning.

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We're here for a reason and obviously we've dug ourselves a little bit of a hole here, but we have a job to do and we're going to do everything we can to stay in this thing and fly out to Tampa on Tuesday.

MK: The Habs are hanging on by a thread in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Is this wild run finally done? Please say no. But we begin with Canada's great reopening and how it might not all be smiles and celebrations for everyone. Good morning. I'm Mark Kelley, moonlighting for Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MK: We have waited so long for Lockdown's to end with wax poetic about getting back to normal and missing the way things used to be, but now as provinces are actually starting to ease up on covid-19 restrictions, some people are finding they're not quite ready. After so much social distancing, masking, avoiding crowds, backing away from hugs and handshakes. Getting back to a pre-pandemic routine is causing some anxiety.

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VOICE 1: My name is Nichola Gerling from British Columbia. I think a lot of my anxiety comes down to how things are shifting. So going back to playing soccer, for instance, that was a huge part of my life pre pandemic, and I'm very excited to get back to that. But I'm also anxious about how much time that takes up and what it's going to take away from that I started doing during the pandemic.

VOICE 2: My name is Carol Rybinski and I own Time Valley cafe the biggest fear, as you know, is it going to be my name out there or the ground zero for this. We want to do everything right right now. I feel like I'm balancing between my personal feelings and the business feelings like we do need to have more people for myself and other businesses to keep going. But balancing that with really wanting people to be safe and these new variants that keep coming up. So, yeah, I feel like I'm a little bit torn. I wouldn't have minded if they just put it off a little bit longer than I wouldn't have to sort of feel like it's up to me to make sure no one catches it.

MK: For others, like Danielle Weale, who has a daughter with cystic fibrosis, that anxiety comes from a different place. For her family, getting back to normal may have a real downside.

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Her entire life will be the six feet apart rule. It's been really kind of nice to be able to see the rest of the world can view things from what we deal with on a daily basis. It's stressful and it's kind of sad to know that that's probably going to be the first thing that people forget. It's like if we take her out in a stroller and say we have a little sign on their thing, like, please keep six feet away or please keep your distance. I think prior to covid, maybe that was a little more respected because people weren't used to it. So people would maybe notice it and and take it a little more seriously or be a little more respectful of it. Whereas now everybody's used to being told, oh, make sure you stay six feet apart. And I think a lot of people are just tired of it. So they may not be as mindful when it comes to the people that still need to continue with that rule.

MK: Here to help us understand more about this anxiety is Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of British Columbia, also the author of The Psychology of Pandemic's Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease. Steven, good morning.

STEVEN TAYLOR: Good morning, Mark.

MK: Well, you just heard three different ways that people are feeling anxious about the reopening. What do you what do you make of their their concerns? Their anxiety?

STEVEN TAYLOR: What we're seeing, all sorts of reaction, some people can't wait to burst back to their previous social lives, as some people do have some degree of apprehension for those people who are feeling a little anxious, I would just say, take it easy, give yourself some time, and people will come out of this at different speeds. So for most of the people who are feeling anxious, I would expect that they would gradually adjust. But there will be some people who have very severe anxiety that will need some professional help to help them re-enter after the pandemic passes.

MK: Well, tell us about that, Stephen, and why does the notion of normal instil fear in some people?

STEVEN TAYLOR: Well, I guess it's not so much normal. It's a transition period and transition periods can be very stressful. And so suddenly we're going through a period where we're all wearing masks, we're staying apart, and suddenly we're going into stores or elevators and wearing masks are recommended, but not mandatory. So for people, it's not surprising that this transition is a little anxiety provoking, at least initially.

MK: Yeah, I came into the building in the early hours, the wee hours this morning, and I came out of the elevator. I came face to face with a colleague and my first reaction was to take a step back. I mean, so is there this this element that we're all going to be dealing with right now where even the simple thing of coming across a friend is going to create a bit of a barrier until we know how to how to get beyond that?

STEVEN TAYLOR: Yes, that's true, Mark. I guess it will be days or perhaps a couple of weeks of this transition where it will feel a little awkward with people wondering about the the etiquette around things like getting into elevators with other people in there. But the human beings are adaptable. We've survived countless pandemics in the past, and this little transition period should pass fairly smoothly for most people.

MK: What is it is at the root of that anxiety?

STEVEN TAYLOR: It's complicated. It depends broadly on two things. One is your past history. And we're finding in our research and research done by other people that people with a past history of anxiety or emotional problems, such as generalised anxiety disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder, those people tended to be having a particularly tough time during the pandemic. That's one group. The other group of people are people who've experienced some kind of traumatic event during the pandemic and that could be getting sick and hospitalised with covid 2019 for those sorts of people that are at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder. And that can be it's very treatable, but it can be chronic if not treated.

MK: I understand for people, as you say, who have experienced a traumatic event that this to me would be expected. But isn't the pandemic in and of itself a traumatic event for a lot of people?

STEVEN TAYLOR: For some people, but we shouldn't trivialise trauma. The experiences that some people have gone through, they've been hospitalised. I would think they're dying and people coughing over them. They've had other sorts of terrible things happen. Those are very different from the experiences of most people during covid-19 and most people have not been infected. So you can go through this pandemic having very, very different experiences from another. And some people have had very distressing experiences.

MK: Steven, we have another clip. This one's from Paula Schuck from London, Ontario. She told us about her teenage daughter, who's now anxious about doing things like grocery shopping.

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We've grown accustomed, I guess, to living with a lot of anxiety, and we've just kind of been anxious and raw this whole time. So now going back out into the world, I mean, I see moments where my kids seem like they might be OK with it and other moments where it's really, really overwhelming. Last night we went, for instance, because we brought up a few things and I thought it would be relaxing sort of for her. But we were there for maybe 10 minutes when she literally looked at me and said, you know what, we need to go. I'm done. And you can see a much less tolerant teenager than she used to be. Like the noises, the sounds, the number of people in a grocery store, all of it can just really set her on edge. It wasn't even a busy time. So for me, I think, holy smokes, what's it going to be like when we're, you know, all back out there?

MK: What do you make of that Steven, Paula's daughter feeling, you know, much less tolerant teenager, as her mom put it. How do you recreate how do you recapture that tolerance in that trust?

STEVEN TAYLOR: Well, I can't talk about specific cases, but in general, for people who are stressed out, they're going to be anxious and irritable. And so, yes, you're going to see that difficulty around crowded places like supermarkets and so forth. That's it. However, given a bit of time and encouragement for most people, they can make a successful readjustment. They will find that their anxiety levels. Right, particularly if they take the pressure off themselves. If you feel like you need to wear a mask when you're going outside at the moment, go ahead and do so. It's your choice, your degree of risk tolerance that you're prepared to accept.

MK: I also think about younger kids, Steven, and how they've been so close to their parents throughout the pandemic and, you know, parents who have gone out of their way to create this safety bubble for their kids. And now we're at a point where, you know, a lot of those parents want to push the kids out the door and say, you know, run and be free as you should as a young kid. But do you think there could be an element of separation anxiety between the kids and their parents?

STEVEN TAYLOR: Yes, they can. Separation anxiety is really common amongst young children, and it's typically mild or if it is a little more severe, typically passes. So with this pandemic, of course, we've been encouraged to stay at home, to shelter in place. And and children have, as you say, not being able to run out and be free to go out and socialise with friends. And so, yeah, we do expect to see a little more separation anxiety. But I would suggest that parents, with some gentle encouragement, can get their children at the gym having playdates with other kids, and that should help them get through this transition period where they are spending more time out with their peers and friends and not so much time at home with their parents.

MK: I'm wondering about that time at home. Is that fear coming from the kids or are the kids picking that up from their parents?

STEVEN TAYLOR: Yeah, it's a good question. It's often a little bit of both. So anxious children, well, they tend to have anxious parents because they share the same genes and environment and so forth. So, yes. So you can't get a household of people who are anxious around this transition period as well.

MK: OK, Steve, in our next clip comes from Shaw Moen. He's the CEO and co-founder of Nine Mile Legacy Brewing in Saskatoon.

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The economic, climate and consumer confidence that may cause some anxiety for me, just not really sure how many people are going to be to support our local economy. So, you know, I have had piles of sleepless nights over the last year and a half worrying about the safety of my team and my stakeholders and community members. I've gone great. You wouldn't believe over the pandemic. Totally exhausted. You know, you take a look at a picture of me before the pandemic and the picture now, and I can't deny it for sure.

MK: What do you make of that? Because here's what strikes me listening to Shawn, that there are things you can control, like social distancing or mask wearing, you know, things that are up to you. But there are things you can't control, like the economy. If you're a business owner, you're hoping things bounce back, but that's really beyond your control. What do you do about that?

STEVEN TAYLOR: What do you do about that? Look, I think this case highlights the fact that the two people can go through this pandemic and had completely different experiences, and so in his case, it's was socio economic impact. That's the biggest concern. And that's been a real concern for small businesses. And as you point out, see the lack of control or lack of predictability that makes these things very difficult. I think there are no easy answers to these issues, but I'm not surprised that Sean is losing sleep over things like this. I guess all people can do is to do their best to follow the labour code, to make sure your employees are safe and so forth, and and try and soldier on as best as you can.

MK: You know, from province to province right now, the re-opening process is rolling out differently and at varying speeds. How much do you think our anxiety is connected with how much we trust our leaders to be making the right decisions about opening up?

STEVEN TAYLOR: Trust in leaders is hugely important. We saw in 2020 that people who follow the advice of Donald Trump were drinking hand sanitiser or injecting bleach or those sorts of things. And so if you don't trust your your authorities, you're not going to follow their advice. Cases of Ebola, for example, in the 90s, in the 2000s, when people were asked to go on lockdown in West Africa, the people who didn't trust the health authorities would follow you advice. So obviously, our leaders need to be seen as dependable and transparent and consistent for people to follow their advice.

MK: But, you know, along with trust comes certainty. And as a society, we crave certainty. It gives us some sort of stability. It gives us guardrails. And I'm wondering now, you know, I've heard people and I met them over the weekend where they say, I saw you double taxed and you could see that they were looking for that kind of certainty. But we don't we're not wearing a sign that shows that we're double back. So does that uncertainty right now of knowing whether your double backs are not double taxed, is that going to play a factor as well and in our attempts to return to normal?

STEVEN TAYLOR: It will. And it's because uncertainty is a pervasive abstract stressor during pandemic's uncertainty pervades all aspects of pandemics, even from before a pandemic is declared, the uncertainty of will it become a pandemic. So at every step of this pandemic, uncertainty has been a big player. And to people who have a lot of difficulty tolerating uncertainty, it's a personality trait called intolerance of uncertainty. For people who have a lot of difficulty with uncertainty, they tend to worry a lot and tend to be very anxious. And I'm guessing that this will be the next step for them, worrying about whether a person may come in contact with who's not wearing a mask is double vaccinated or whether they're an asymptomatic carrier or things like that. So, yes, this is a difficult time for people with a high degree of intolerance, of uncertainty.

MK: OK, Steven, our next clip is from 27 year old Tasha Stansbury from Ottawa.

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Social anxiety is something that has been present in my life for a really long time, and it tends to be more intense right after like long periods of solitude or of not being exposed to large crowds of people. So, you know, for a year and a half, not really seeing people around, even when I'm outside, like having people, you know, actively trying to avoid each other in the street and having a certain amount of space and then having that kind of taken away all at once. It's a little bit intense. I still haven't gone out. I don't really intend to. I'm still not comfortable like putting myself into that crowd. But I can feel my heartbeat speed up. I can feel my breathing, get a little bit faster, speed walk to try to get through the crowd as quickly as possible and try to kind of like swerve to give people as much room as possible. It's just like the standard behaviour that we have become accustomed to crossing people on the street. You know, you give a wide berth, you walk quickly to cross paths with them as fast as possible. And now a lot of times it feels like I'm the only one who's still doing that. Like the norm has been readjusted and my brain hasn't quite caught up yet.

MK: What do you make of that? She says she hasn't left her home yet. Well, how do you help ease someone back through her through the front door at this stage?

STEVEN TAYLOR: I think the first step is to understand the nature of the problem. People can be reluctant to leave their homes, all kinds of reasons. And Tasha described social anxiety around that. It is a question of your own risk tolerance of how much are prepared to push yourself to go out. There's no rights here. If people want to take their time and make this a more gradual re-entry because of their anxiety levels, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, that's something we would certainly consider.

MK: But how does one feel safe, I mean, safe is a sort of a you know, it's a very personal definition. How do you how do you re-establish this notion of safe when people have such varying concerns out there?

STEVEN TAYLOR: Hmm, I guess this pandering highlights the fact that there's no such thing as 100 percent safety, that everything entails some degree of uncertainty. If I'm walking up the street across the road to go to the coffee shop because there's some uncertainty, there's no guarantee I'll get there alive and won't be run over by a cement mixer. So we all accept some degree of uncertainty in our lives and we often just don't think about it. We just assume our world is safe. And it's only when some stress comes along like a pandemic and with complications like variants and the fact that pandemics don't end neatly, that they're messy, that they're still circulating infections. That can lead people to re-evaluate their lives and realise, oh, I'm having to tolerate some degree of uncertainty in my life. And that gets back to the choice of one's risk tolerance to ask yourself how much risk you prepared to accept. And there are pros and cons of this. If you choose to accept very little risk in your life, you're going to be stuck at home. You're going to be missing out on things because of that. So it's a personal decision. And for some people, it will take them a little bit of time to warm up to going back out to life as it was before.

MK: I guess there are a lot of people out there who are dealing with their levels of anxiety and they want to know that it's normal - if I can use that word or it's expected, I guess would be maybe a better word. As I was doing my homework for this, I came across this term Post Covid Anxiety Syndrome. Is that a real thing?

STEVEN TAYLOR: No, no it's not.

MK: But I read lots of articles on it. I had to believe it was true.

STEVEN TAYLOR: Well, there's lots of articles on unicorns, too, but that doesn't make them true

MK: Good point.

STEVEN TAYLOR: No, what we're talking about is plain old anticipatory anxiety. We're out doing something huge, something that's social, getting out. There is some degree of vague risk associated with it. There's no promise of 100 percent certainty. And so we're going out doing something new. And so it's normal or expected to feel some degree of apprehension about doing this.

MK: OK, well, and because I have an expert on the line, I'm going to throw another term at you. How about post-traumatic growth?

STEVEN TAYLOR: Yes, that's a possibility, and that's been around for a long time. In fact, we published research on that just recently. Post-Traumatic growth is where you don't just bounce back after a stress, you grow as a human being. So we assessed about a thousand people a few months ago, during covid, none of whom had been infected, by the way. And we also [unintelligible] any silver linings out of this pandemic. And most of them said, yes, that they had grown to have a greater appreciation for friends and family, a better appreciation for the little things in life, a feeling of a stronger stress resiliency, a deepening spiritual beliefs. So they have been silver linings for many people during covid. Now, the big question is, will those benefits be enduring? So you might feel more stressed, resilient. Is that going to be something that carries forward into the future? I'm hoping it does, because we're seeing right now that we've got all kinds of challenges to deal with, such as climate adversities.

MK: What would prevent it from carrying on into the future? Is it beyond the pandemic? Is that what's going to undermine it if there's a, you know, like the Delta variant wave?

STEVEN TAYLOR: It could be part of the issue is that people too readily forget the past. If you go back to the 1980s so-called Spanish flu pandemic, it was rapidly forgotten at a societal level. So there were some people who were scarred for life as a result of what they experienced during that pandemic. But people just too rapidly forgot. They focussed on the things that were immediately in front of them, the immediate stresses. And I think that could be one of the things, one of the reasons why we don't learn the lessons of past pandemics.

MK: Steven, great to talk to you today and thanks so much for your insight.

STEVEN TAYLOR: Thanks very much, Mark.

MK: Steven Taylor, clinical psychologist and professor at the University of British Columbia, the author of The Psychology of Pandemics Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease. The CBC News is next. Then.

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You know what a lot of people in the fire fire community are talking about is that nothing's going to happen until a lot of people are killed. And that's unfortunate because, you know, we've had so many signals in the past.

MK: There have been a lot of warnings, but we are still not moving fast enough when it comes to adapting to extreme heat and worsening wildfires. In six minutes, a climate change scientist on how we can get to where we need to be. I'm Mark Kelley. You're listening to The Current.

Tragedy in fire-ravaged Lytton, B.C., could be catalyst for global action on climate change, expert says; and Habs fans remain hopeful as Montreal Canadiens head to Game 4 of Stanley Cup finals

Guests: Mark Maslin, Lynne Chlala, Stuart Ashton

MK: Hello, I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current.

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MK: Well, the Habs might be on their last legs in the Stanley Cup finals, but that just means the fans are getting louder, rowdier and more superstitious. Coming up, we'll hear from some super fans who are getting super stressed. But first, what British Columbia is telling us about a warming planet.

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MK: The world's attention turned to a tiny town, population 250 last week, that town is Lytton B.C. First, it smashed Canadian temperature records three times, the highest being over 49 degrees Celsius. Then it was tragically overtaken by an out-of-control wildfire.

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People in Canada and B.C. feel like they're living in a temperate climate and it has been a temperate climate. This is a warning. We're the canary in the coal mine. Climate change is happening now. It's happening fast. And things are it's just that that's that's the lesson from this. Everything seems the same and seems fine until it changes in an instant and everything's gone.

MK: That was Gordon Murray and everything is gone for him. He lived in Lytton and fled the flames to safety in Vancouver. He told us his home had burned down. For him, being the canary in the coal mine, as he put it, is personal for the rest of the world. It's a warning. Joining me now is Mark Maslin. He's a climate change professor at University College in London. Good morning.

MARK MASLIN: Good morning, Mark.

MK: From what we've learnt, two people have been confirmed dead in Lytton, hundreds died in a sudden deaths in the heat waves across B.C. When you hear about this, when you hear about these temperature records now in the fire evacuation, what what goes through your mind when you hear this?

MARK MASLIN: I think it's real terro. I mean, what really upsets me is we've had many of these warnings before about extreme heat waves and climate change, and people are only now just starting to listen. And so I think for me, it is awful what's happened in British Columbia. But I'm really hopeful that firstly, the Canadian government and then other governments around the world will suddenly take notice and go, hang on, it's happening on our watch. We need to do something about it now.

MK: I was reading someone describing this as cognitive dissonance where it may be happening, but it's it's happening somewhere else and therefore, you take some sort of comfort in that. You know, this has been seen as a wake up call or a warning. Why is it being so long for people who actually listen to that warning?

MARK MASLIN: I think there's been lots of things I think one is that is only in the last five to 10 years that we're starting to get these extreme weather events which are occurring again and again, which are actually now the public are turning around, going, you know, I'm seeing climate change. I can see it in my own garden. I am seeing it all around me. And I think that has helped. I also think, of course, there is this huge lobbying of the fossil fuel industry that goes, no, no, no, nothing wrong here. Nothing's happening. No, no, no, no. It's just natural climate. I'm sorry, 49 degrees in the middle of British Columbia is not natural.

MK: So if this is a warning, who needs to hear it?

MARK MASLIN: So I think there are two groups of people that need to hear the sort of warnings, the first is governments and companies whereby we can think about mitigating, i.e. reducing our carbon footprint. And we've seen some incredible pledges around the world. So Europe, the U.S., Britain are all going to go net carbon zero by 2050. Even China has said we're going to peak our emissions by 2030 and then we will hit zero by 2060. So that's all fantastic. But we need to actually put policies in to actually get to the point of the same rhetoric. And that actually means Canada, USA, Europe needs to reduce the amount of emissions by about half in the next nine to 10 years, which is a huge undertaking. But we can do it. The other group is, again, health professionals, mayors, public policy people to think about how do we adapt to these extreme events. How do we support and look after our vulnerable people in cities and in areas that can be affected by extreme weather.

MK: I wonder, Mark, though, that does it take your town to burn down for some people to get the message? I mean, what does what's happening in a town of 250 people in Canada? Why does that matter to the rest of the world?

MARK MASLIN: I think why it matters is because people respond to individual stories, the idea that the planet is warming up seems so far fetched. The idea that each of us individually can affect the climate just seems really silly because we're so small and we feel individually insignificant. But when we see actual families houses being really badly affected, people are dying. And I have to say, one of the real problems with heatwaves and we call them silent killers because actually most of the people that passed away during extreme heat waves aren't necessarily recorded. And we don't see because it's mainly the - and I have to say this carefully - the mature or the elderly people who pass away at night-time because they can't actually manage their body temperature when they're asleep. And so when you look at the excess deaths, as we've gotten used to with covid, you can see the heat waves causing huge peak in that excess death, but we don't notice it. So this canary in the coal mine, this one village, this one town really screams at us. This is real. Climate change is real. We need to deal with it.

MK: I know, Mark, you've experienced a severe heat in the Rift Valley in Kenya. Tell me about what it feels like in the in the effect on the human body.

MARK MASLIN: You know, I cannot feel for those people that have actually- I mean, for me, when I've been doing fieldwork and research in Africa, I've been very fortunate that it's only in the late afternoon you get these incredible temperatures in the high 40s. And I'm really lucky because at some point all I'm doing is lying in the shade, panting, literally panting, drinking water to rehydrate and just keeping my fingers crossed that the big four by fours turn up all the time so we can get into the air conditioned cars. The idea that people have had to survive these temperatures without air conditioning, without all those extra bits of civilisation that we take for granted, you know, I just absolutely feel for them. This is, it's like being in hell on earth. It really is. I cannot tell you that. And also, the thing about Africa is it was a dry heat. I think what people forget is when it gets more humid, the human body's ability to deal with the extreme heat drops. And so, therefore, if you have the combination of hotter temperatures and more humidity, which we will do to climate change, our body just cannot cope with those sort of conditions.

MK: I experienced 50 plus degree heat in Afghanistan when I was there reporting on Canadian troops, and so I felt it. But what struck me as I looked around and this was a, you know, a dry and desolate country where there was not a green leaf in sight, at least where I was. So, yes, there's the effect on on the body, as you're mentioning. But I also wonder about the effect on on the planet when we're talking about growing, for example, agriculture huge in Canada, what the impact will be of this this extreme heat.

MARK MASLIN: One of the things that we are most worried about in the future is food security, because what people forget is that about half the food produced in the world is produced in the tropics and the subtropics by small farmers. They own a small amount of land. They make food, they grow food, and they work outside and they pass it on and sell it to the local towns and cities. Now, as we're getting hotter and more humid conditions, we've already tracked the number of days that have been lost. Are you physiologically? Cannot work outside has increased. And so therefore we're really starting to get these warning signs that food production in the actual sort of tropics and subtropics is going to become more and more problematic because we all have this view of farming, which is it's huge fields with air conditioned tractors, but actually the majority of food produced in the world isn't produced like that. So that's my greatest nightmare.

MK: There's also a bit of a push and pull to this, because on the one hand, as you're saying, we need to do things to mitigate this. We need to do things to prevent the heat from from getting more intense. On the other hand, isn't there also a question of what we need to do to adapt to this? So in terms of infrastructure, are there steps that should be made to be prepared for more extreme heat?

MARK MASLIN: Oh, absolutely, and actually some of them are can be really quick to be put in. So after the huge heat wave in 2003, northern Europe, where 70,000 people died, the French realised that they got it completely wrong and restructured how they thought about health care. And so these are really simple things you can put in once you work out where are your vulnerable people and that is your elderly people. And if you have your wonderful of meteorological agency saying there's a heat wave coming, you contact them and you make sure that you can move them into places that have air conditioning in case you start to look after them and you make sure that the vulnerable are then picked out. You also don't think a little bit longer term about infrastructure. So it's about thinking about building houses and retrofitting houses that can actually cope with the cold of Canada, but also extreme heat. Now, this is a win win because one of the things we want to do is move away from gas and oil for actually heating homes and move to heat exchangers. And heat exchanges are great because they just work off electricity. You can have renewable electricity actually powering them, but they heat the home in winter when you need it, and then it also cools the home in summer. So it really thinking through these things, we also, weirdly enough, we had to think about how do you make your power cables, how do you actually make your vote and your railways. Because, of course, we saw in British Columbia that some of the power lines just failed because they literally melted in the heat. So we have to think about all the structures. And lastly, we then have to think about how do you design your cities. How do you actually make your cities colour green roofs, making sure that you have air corridors through cities and things like that, all of which not only makes the city more healthy to live in and actually improves the environment, the people actually live it.

MK: But that makes me wonder then, in your opinion, Mark, is is extreme heat here to stay? Is it Litten today? And in another village. Another town tomorrow.

MARK MASLIN: Absolutely, whether it's going to be Siberia, as it was last year, whether it's going to be Europe as it was in 2008 or whether it's going to be the West Coast of the Americas in 2021, extreme heat waves, extreme wildfires, more droughts, intense winter storms, heavy rainfall. We're putting more energy into the climate system. And, of course, their forecast for it's got to go somewhere. And so what's happening is we're going to get more extreme weather events in places that we don't usually get them. And, of course, we humans, we can actually adapt to almost every condition. But we have to have some warning. We have to have some preplanning. We have to have the right infrastructure to actually deal with the climate that's going to be thrown at us in the future.

MK: You're someone shouting from the rooftops that what you're talking about is a lot of change. Do you get the feeling those politicians you mentioned before are starting to listen?

MARK MASLIN: I have to say, I'm an optimist, I'm hearing lots of fantastic things from politicians all around the world, but also I'm hearing things from companies. So you're seeing huge companies actually making incredible pledges and meeting it about reducing their carbon footprint. But I think that actually what's happened is that we have individuals, people who are actually saying enough is enough. I don't want to be that village. I don't want to be in that heat wave. And actually, because they realise now that all the things that we're suggesting we should do are win win. So it's about well, if we actually take away sort of like diesel petrol cars and put in electric cars, air pollution suddenly improves markedly. So our children don't have to worry about asthma so much. You know, all the things that we are suggesting to deal with climate change, both to reduce our carbon footprint, but also to adapt to it, are Win-Win. They improve people's lives. They make them healthier. And also they actually make them want to be in the area they are. And I promise you, they all say money.

MK: Mark, great to get your insight today, thank you so much.

MARK MASLIN: Thank you.

MK: Mark Maslin is a climate change professor at University College in London.

[Music]

MK: I'm Mark Kelly and you're listening to The Current. Well, it's nail biting time in Montreal as the Habs look to bring Lord Stanley's Cup north of the border for the first time in almost three decades. But the Montreal Canadiens trail, the defending Stanley Cup champion, Tampa Bay lightning three nil as we get set for game four tonight. Two people who still think the Habs can repeat the magic of 1993. Joining me now, Lynne Chlala is a self-proclaimed Habs super fan. Stuart Ashton is one of the partners in McLain's pub, just a short walk away from the Bell Centre. Good morning to you both.

STUART ASHTON: Morning.

LYNNE CHLALA: Good morning.

MK: Lynne. I hear you managed to get tickets to Friday night's game. Tell me, what was it like walking into the Bell Centre that night?

LYNNE CHLALA: I've got to share it with my eight and a half year old son because we didn't season ticket holders for a while now and the heart pounding pandemonium inside and outside. It was pretty overwhelming, but it was pretty awesome. And it was cool to be able to share it with the little guy who's a huge hockey fan and a hockey player, too.

MK: OK, so now what was it like walking out of the Bell Centre after the game?

LYNNE CHLALA: Well, you know, it was pretty calm. People were still, you know, as compared to some other playoff series I've attended and some, you know, some other times when they have to have fortunes didn't look so great. I found that people were still relatively upbeat. Now, whether that's because of the, you know, prevailing feeling that, you know, that they weren't even supposed to make it this far. So let's celebrate while we still can, or the fact that this team has pulled miracles out of its collective hat before. Perhaps they're going to do it again. But it was it was sad, but it wasn't defeated, which was actually a welcome relief as the long suffering fan.

MK: I'm with you. I'm a Montrealer. I've been suffering for a while, too. So we're all in this together. Hey, Stuart, tell me about the crowd at your pub on Friday night and just give me a sense of the mood and how important the Stanley Cup run has been to the city of Montreal.

STUART ASHTON: Well, I think in general for the city of Montreal, it's just been incredible, the with the vaccine rollout and everything coming into play, first reopening and restaurants reopening, it just has worked so well at our place. It was electric. It was incredible. The capacity just louder than three, four times faster. It was so loud and beautiful.

MK: Wonderful experience for you and Stuart, for non sports fans out there. Just just give us your your sense of why this is important. You know, why people should be getting wrapped up in the Stanley Cup excitemen.

STUART ASHTON: Well, I think basically everyone's been bottled up, locked up for so long. This is one collective collective experience that we share together and it's just, you know, for a lot of [unintelligible].

MK: Lynne, you attended the 1993 Stanley Cup run.

LYNNE CHLALA: I did.

MK: When the Habs won the cup, and I remember that. Well, tell tell me, what are your memories of that time and and the parallels you may feel this year?

LYNNE CHLALA: So I attended that game with my mom. We bought tickets from a unauthorised reseller, and I'll put it that way. And I remember she looked at me and said, we can get tickets for tonight's game or we can be late and be late on the rent, or we could be on time with the rent. And I remember looking at her saying, to heck with the rent, let's go.

MK: Oh, God, love you.

LYNNE CHLALA: I know it was it was pretty much my mom's always been the coolest. So that just, you know, that feels it. So I remember we were sitting in the section that had a lot of the Los Angeles Kings families and players that we only Habs fans in that tiny little section. But everybody kept pointing over at us because we were in our jerseys. And I just remember the feeling of magic and that, you know, that quiet confidence in some ways a lot of the fans had that, you know, these guys had the 10 games in a row and over time. No matter what, they were going to be able to pull this off. And I remember saying while skating around with the cup, I remember the total pandemonium. Afterwards, we had a convertible and there was local Montreal legend Kid Mercury playing his horn in the back of our cars. We made our way down to Captain Street before the looting. Just want to make that clear. So, I mean, it just it was such a magic part of my teenage years and even, you know, to go back to what Stuart was saying, that this that this is so important to the city, you know, even non sports fans, it's fun to get wrapped up in something that's bigger than our little lives and ourselves. And we've been wrapped up in something that's been incredibly serious and deadly and heartbreaking for so long that it's just been a welcome breath of fresh air and a joy to the city that was so desperately needed after the pandemic. So this couldn't have come at a better time.

MK: Yeah, I agree with that. I just wonder, though, Stuart, this has been an incredible and unexpected run for the Montreal Canadiens. No. One, I don't think anyone predicted that they would be in the finals. But if I only throw it out there as a possibility, if the team is swept. Will that undo the magic of the Stanley Cup run?

STUART ASHTON: Oh, that's a great question. I don't think they're going to get swept so hard to answer, but I don't think it'll undo the magic, the young talent on the team and the just the excitement of this playoff run. Everyone, this whole lot of fans, definitely I see it at the pub. So many people are into it. I think it will not do the magic, though.

MK: How do you feel, Lynne?

LYNNE CHLALA: Completely agree. I know that there are some teams fandoms from who may have gotten eliminated by the Habs who would love to see the magic get undone, at least based on some of the stuff I'm seeing on Twitter. But I really do think that this brought something special to the city when the city so desperately needed it. And people are looking confidently at this team for the first time in several decades. So I don't think that the magic will be undone. Be disappointing for sure. I do not want the lightning to, you know, touch Lord Stanley's mug on our home turf. But I don't think that it'll undo the magic at all.

MK: Well, there's someone else who doesn't want to miss the attempt to touch the cup in Montreal, and that's Tampa's mayor. I was reading how she hopes the lightning will, quote, take it a bit easy, end quote, on the Habs tonight, so her team can win on home ice. And I thought if there's if there's something worse than losing as far as the Habs are right now, it's being pitted when. What do you make of that?

LYNNE CHLALA: That's ridiculous, that's bulletin board fodder. Clearly, she's not huge sports fan or somebody who's ever played competitive sports because that's the kind of quote that you stick on the bulletin board and that you use to rally the troops before a game. That's a pretty- that's a big quote.

MK: Yeah. Yeah. It popped out at me as I was reading it this morning. Hey, Stuart, it's only the 1942 Leafs, the only team to ever overcome a three nothing deficit in the Stanley Cup Final one team in history. Do the Habs have to channel their their inner 1942 Leafs tonight?

STUART ASHTON: Oh, yeah, I think I wouldn't...

MK: And I hate to put it that way.

STUART ASHTON: To say the least. No disrespect to them, but I think, yeah, we've got the ghosts of the past in our locker room. I think we can do it.

MK: What's your prediction for tonight, Stuart?

STUART ASHTON: Well, I think the Habs they're going to win, I want to score, but I believe that they're all showing up tonight.

MK: Lynne, you still believing you still feel good about tonight?

LYNNE CHLALA: I do feel good about tonight. Not sure about the series. I'm still biting my nails down to the quick, but I do feel good about tonight's game.

MK: OK, I'm channelling your confidence and I'm holding on to it as well. Nobody wants to see a sweep, but I think even Tampa fans to me may not want to see a sweep. We're always hoping for a good competition to you both. Enjoy the game tonight and don't stop believing.

LYNNE CHLALA: So definitely not. Have a great, great day and go Habs to go.

STUART ASHTON: Go Habs go.

MK: All right, go Habs to go. All right. You got it. Thanks to both of you. Good luck to the Habs tonight. You can watch, of course, on CBC television, eight o'clock Eastern Time, 5:00 p.m. Pacific. Lynne Chlala, as they have super fan Stuart Ashton is one of the partners of MacLaine's pub. They spoke to me this morning from Montreal. Well, that's our programme for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Unforecast, the summer show about the food we eat and what it reveals about the culture and politics baked into it. Your host is one of The Current producers, also restaurateur, Samira Mohyeddin. And I'm Mark Kelley. And I'll be here with you for the next couple of weeks, filling in for Matt Galloway. Thanks so much for listening to The Current.

The Current Transcript for July 1, 2021

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