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The AIH Transcript for May 21, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: A 500-year flood in the middle of a pandemic. We reach a man in Central Michigan sifting through muddy waters and trying to understand why two troubled dams failed to spare his community.

CO: Growing concerns. The premier of New Brunswick says unemployed people in the province can and should fill the void left by his ban on temporary foreign workers. But farmers say that just won't work. And we reach a grower who will explain.

CH: As It Happens, the Thursday edition. Radio that guesses there's a sucker re-born every minute.

Michigan flooding

Guest: Mike Kole

CH: They're calling it a 500-year flood. On Tuesday in Central Michigan, torrential rains came down, sending water bursting over the banks of the Tittabawassee River. But the real disaster came later. The river breached two dams along the river, sending flood-water into nearby communities. Tens of thousands were forced to flee, and many are still living in emergency shelters. Mike Kole lives near the river in Sanford, Michigan. That's where we reached him.

CO: Mike, can you just first of all, describe what the first floor of your house looks like right now?

MIKE COLE: The current state it's in right now, pretty much there's a coating of mud on most all the flooring. Earlier today, we managed to scrape most of it out. And we've been running sand, so we're getting a lot of the moisture dried out. So, but there's still just kind of like a layer of silt on all the floors. We're cutting out drywall right now. We just started doing that. So we're gonna be just kind of gutting the house at this point. We've gotten all the furniture out. And you know, that way we can just work on the house.

CO: How high was the water in your house at peak?

MC: We kind of have different levels on the main floor, but at the lowest level, it got five feet high. And then the upper kind of there's a level a couple steps up, and that got about four feet high.

CO: Were you aware of I guess the structural problems with this dam, in particular the Boyce Hydro Power Dam, and this is one that broke. Did you know that it had these structural issues?

MC: So what we did know is that there, you know, was over the last few years, and this actually goes back pretty far, that the owner of Boyce Hydro wasn't doing all of the proper maintenance, upkeep and upgrades for these dams. And at some point, too, I know they had revoked his licence because they didn't think the dams could handle high floodwaters or withstand, you know, a major downpour. Apparently, he never really did much. But it surprises me because the dam that broke, which is, you know, upriver from us, they had just done repair work on that dam last year. So they had just you know, it seemed like they'd just fix that dam.

MC: Boyce Hydro said that the chances of a flood were about five in one million, even though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is saying that the dam and the other one were in the highest risk category for breaking.

MC: Wow! Well, that obviously wasn't right [laughing]. ‘Cause, you know, we're dealing with that aftermath now.

CO: It seems that authorities did know that there was a problem with that dam and with another one that's also been breached. What responsibility do you put on the authorities for not being more vigilant about those dams?

MC: I am very upset. I think it's with, you know, the FARC, that's like our regulatory commission that was, you know, doing the oversight of these dams. And they're the ones issuing, you know, a licence to operate and create energy. And if they knew there were problems like this, and they did nothing about it. You know, of course, there's blame with them. You know, that's blame with the owner, too. But it's the state that should be enforcing these rules and policies. That's why they're there. That's their job. I mean, they should be looking out for that. And so it's upsetting to know that.

CO: And looking out for you.

MC: Yes. And for everyone, you know, what happened here is just terrible. I mean, just people have lost their livelihoods now. And this is going to just take forever to come back from.

CO: You mentioned that you were one of the last to leave. Because didn't think that it would reach that high. This is they're saying this is a 500-year flood, not just one in a century, but one in five centuries flood. So what was it like as you watched that water creep toward your house?

MC: Well, it was coming up very slow at first, and then it turned out. I think more water that came... it like went over the Secord Dam, which is, you know, even more up river than the Edenville Dam that broke. And once that water started making its way to Sanford, gosh, it was going up like a foot every ten minutes. I mean, you could just turn your back and then, you know, look at it again, and it was higher. And, you know, we decided to leave right when it was getting to the top of the bank by our home.

CO: Seems that there's just so much going on, isn't there, for people in Michigan like yourself? I mean, you start with you're dealing with already… Well, COVID-19, the disease itself, that lockdowns, the people losing their jobs and their livelihoods. And now you have a 500-year flood. I mean, does it feel like you just can't get a break? [ both slightly chuckle]

MC: You know, if it does right now, I mean, if you just keep thinking, you know, 2020, what else can happen in this year alone? I mean, these are events that, you know, you just don't plan for. You don't even think about them. And to have them happen, you know, just all in the first half of one year, it's a lot. It’s, you know, more than any of us have ever dealt with at once in our whole life.

CO: And it's only May. [both laughing]

MC: Right.

CO: What else is 2020 going to do?

MC: Exactly. You know, you're kind of wondering like, you know, what's next? But, you know, I usually just still try to keep a pretty positive outlook. I mean, you know, I’m usually a pretty happy guy. And I just, you know, we'll get through it. I mean, luckily, we have a lot of friends and family. And, you know, we're all helping out today to get this house back in order. And, you know, just hope for the best.

CO: And you and your mum have someplace to stay?

MC: So right now we are staying in our camper. Luckily, that did not get flooded out. That was across the street. And it almost did. The water got up as high as the wheels, but then it didn't actually go into the camper itself. So that's where we stayed last night [chuckling]. And we may go stay with friends. We've had a couple offers from friends to come stay with them, which I probably will take them up on because, you know, I would like to shower, do laundry, [CO chuckles warmly] you know, get some normalness back.

CO: Well, Mike, I hope you can keep your spirits up. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

MC: Yes. Well, thank you. And I appreciate the opportunity.

CO: Bye.

MC: Bye.

CH: We reached Mike Kole in Sanford, Michigan. For more on this story, go to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient instrumental and birdsong]

NB Foreign Workers

Guest: Kent Coates

CH: This morning, a group of New Brunswick farmers held a virtual press conference. They want their premier to let the temporary foreign workers they rely on back into the province. Blaine Higgs banned foreign workers during the pandemic. As he told us last night, Premier Higgs had hoped their jobs could be filled by students and the unemployed. But that hasn't worked out as planned, so the premier told us he's rethinking that plan. Kent Coates hopes that rethink doesn't take too long. Mr. Coates owns Nature's Route Farm near Point de Bute, New Brunswick, and that's where we reached him.

CO: Kent, what's going to happen to your growing season if Premier Higgs does not open the door to the temporary foreign workers?

KENT COATE: Well, I've been thinking about that over the last three or four weeks. And I've come up with a little bit of a plan. The first thing I want to do is I want to eliminate the high Labour, low margin crops like green and yellow beans are the best examples. I don't really have a plan for the labour for this season at this point. I’m in this position where I have to choose between getting crops planted or making a labour plan. And there doesn't seem to be a good answer to that question at this point. So I'm pressing on with planting crops.

CO: All right. So you mentioned that you don't have a labour plan. Now, Premier Higgs believes you can have a labour plan that includes students, unemployed New Brunswickers, many of them now getting funding from a benefit from Ottawa, that these people should be available and could be available to you. How might that work in your experience?

KC: It doesn't leave me with a comfortable feeling in my belly. I grew my business for years and years based on local help. And eventually, we were really forced to go to a seasonal agricultural workers. And it was mind-boggling when we made that transition how much more effective my business became. Not because I ever had bad employees. I always had super employees. But I was able to hire professional labourers. And I grow organic vegetables. A lot of them are in the ground. It's hard work. We have to hand-weed and harvest. So it doesn't leave me with a comfortable feeling. I know I'll make something work. One of my plans to get through this season is to offload a lot of my office and volunteering work, so I have more time to do the physical labour that I have been able to hire in the past.

CO: But I just want to get back to why the local help... You tried, that you had, you hired people, you said they were good workers. So why can't you return to that?

KC: There are a few things that have happened in my experience. One is that it's hard work, which is there's no way around it. Certainly, everyone's body here is sore for the first few weeks that they work. The kickers for me are the fall harvest. Students are back at school. I can only employ a full complement of people until the end of October. So even if you're able to work full-time all season long, by the end of October, you know your job's coming to an end. And at that point, you're starting to look for a new job. And if you have a new job, it's a lot easier to take the new job than it is to be out in a carrot field when it's two degrees and damp and your fingers are cold. And I have been left time and again in that September and October time period, short-staffed. And the few committed staff that I have at that time of year, there's even more burden put on them as other people leave. And it's just been a recipe for burnout and in disaster, actually [slight chuckle]

CO: How much do you pay the foreign workers that you bring in?

KC: So the foreign workers are paid minimum wage. I provide housing, and I provide access to groceries once a week. And I provide like their airfare is covered when they get here and the Internet. They're really happy. It's not a high wage job. I've certainly paid more than minimum wage for local help in the past. It didn't seem to matter if I paid a lot more or a little more. The work at the end of the day is pretty similar. You have to be engaged at a higher level than paid to want to work in these jobs. [said with a slight chuckle]

CO: Do you think one of the issues is that people expect cheap food? And at some point, you're competing to get your produce into stores with food that can be brought in from other countries?

KC: Absolutely. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. There are lots of regions in the world that their cost of living is less than ours and their labour laws may not be as equal as ours. When we can bring food in from those regions in the world, we have to compete in a global commodity. It’s the place that we are in this day and age.

CO: We talked to the premier last night. He has this idea that the temporary foreign workers program was shut down because of the pandemic. But he regards this as an opportunity to rethink how New Brunswickers work in your province. This is a good time to do that. What do you think of that?

KC: I agree completely with that ideal. I would love to get to a point that those local workers were valued in society and that their work was valued in society. But at this point, I feel that there are a number of us who appreciate where food comes from, but globally, or provincially, we're obviously bringing in a lot of food from different labour markets for sure.

CO: I mean, if the idea is to come up with that ideal or that dream, then is this the time to be doing it? I'm just wondering [chuckle] how close you are to actually having a real problem if you don't get your labour force?

KC: That's a problem for me. All businesses around the world have had to change due to COVID-19. We've had new safety protocols. We've had new marketing strategies. To retool an entire labour strategy, which is my biggest challenge in farming, during a pandemic is not realistic. That's going to be a long-term strategy plan. And in my in my view.

CO: All right. Kent, I know you got lots of work, so I'll let you go. Thanks so much.

KC: Thank you.

CO: Bye.

KC: Bye-bye.

CH: Kent Coates runs Nature's Route Farm near Point de Bute, New Brunswick.

[Music: Folky guitar riff]

Nail Nose

CH: What's in your nose right now? Personal question, I know, but I'm pretty sure you'll confidently tell me, "Nothing, obviously." But is it obvious? Are you absolutely sure there's nothing in there? Because if you'd asked either of the people in today's stories from our archives if there was an object lodged in their noses, they would have insisted there was not. Right up to the point when they dis-lodged objects from their noses. The first nose belonged to Prax Sanchez. He went for a fairly standard medical test one day. But when he came out of the test, something came out of him. Mr. Sanchez spoke with Carol in April of 2009.

CO: Then did you have pain ever over those years?

PX: No, I never had no pain. A little over a year ago, I got dizzy and I went to emergency. And that's when they took CAT scan pictures. But they didn't find anything.

CO: Have you ever gone on an aeroplane where you had to go through a metal detector?

PX: Yes, I have.

CO: Did the nail in your nose set that off?

PX: I don't know if that ever did, but I know I was flying to Minneapolis about six, seven years ago. And up in Denver, they pulled me to the side. They kept me there with my arms open for about 15 minutes. I'm going to have to take off my shoes. And they used that machine.

CO: Um-hmm, that hand-held thing then?

PX: Right. They used it all over and he didn't ring. But then they searched, even my hair, they got their hands and went through my hair.

CO: So that nail must have set off the alarm then?

PX: They must've done something.

CO: But they didn't find anything on you then?

PX: No, they find anything.

CO: Since the nail has come out of your nose, do you feel different?

PX: No, I don't feel any different than before.

CO: Where is the nail now?

PX: On top of my dresser.

CO: And what are you going to do with it?

PX: I'm going to frame it and hang it up.

CO: [laughing] What does it mean to you to see that nail then?

PX: Just that I'm thankful that he's not in my body anymore.

CO: Yeah, getting a nail out of your nose is a good thing, isn't it?

PX: Well, yeah. [CO laughing] But they don't know how he got in there. And the doctors don’t know. It’s just a mystery.

CO: Mr. Sanchez, it's quite a story. Thanks for speaking with us.

PX: Okay.

CO: Bye-bye.

PX: Bye.

[/sc]

CH: That was Carol speaking with Prax Sanchez in 2009, about the nail that came out of his nose after an MRI. A few years later, in 2015, we got hold of Steve Easton of Camberley, England. He's not an especially nostalgic person, but he did keep one childhood toy in storage for decades. In his nasal cavity. But as he told Carol, he didn't even know it was up there, until it wasn't.

[Music: Sixties-style Britt-pop]

Part two: Covid propaganda bots, voting age bill

CO: Professor Carley, this number, 45 per cent, it seems like a lot, or is that sort of what you had expected?

KATHLEEN CARLEY: It's definitely not what we expected. Typically, in most events, whether they're elections or whatever, you see anywhere from 5 to 25 per cent bots. So this was way higher than we ever thought to see.

CO: And how do you know that as many as 45 per cent of the messages that are being tweeted about the coronavirus are actually made by bots?

KC: Well, to get that number, what we did was we built this technology that looks at lots of different factors about the message and about the user sending the message, things like their name, and the way it's written, whether there's a mismatch between the name and the image in terms of gender, the timing of multiple tweets by the same actor, the use of typos and various kinds of things will be characteristic of different kinds of bots.

CO: Now, we'll get to the message part of this. What exactly, what’s the general sense of the messages coming from all these bots?

KC: So there's lots of different messages that they're sending. It's not like they're all sending exactly the same thing. Some of them, all they're doing is retweeting messages by other groups or by other individuals, for example, around the state media accounts for Russia and China. There's 95 per cent of the top three tweeters are bots. But there's lots of other bots out there sending other kinds of messages. There's ones that are actually, you know, telling people to, you know, donate money to certain things, or there's ones that are actually out there just simply introducing a lot of people to each other by mentioning them. Lots of different kinds of things.

CO: There are a lot of messages kicking around, that it's fake, there is no coronavirus, it's a conspiracy, it's being created by cell phone towers, or the new 5G network.

KC: Yup.

CO: Which isn't even in place in many of these places. How much of that seems to be trending quite often is actually being trended by the bots?

KC: A lot of it. Because not only are 45 per cent of the actors bots, they're in very strategic positions in the network. So they're actually often very responsible for things that end up trending.

CO: You point out that this is more than you expected. Certainly, we've seen this before. We've seen the bots generating the false information, trying to stir things up and divide people. But what is it about this particular event, this pandemic, that seems to be so ripe for this kind of activity?

KC: One of the things that makes it very ripe for it is the fact that it is global, which means that it's a perfect opportunity for a different nation-states to position themselves using these bots to position their message. It's also affecting so many people. And people are so desperate that it's ripe for people to conduct fraud. And it's also, you know, at a time, you know, with the economic downturn, everything else that people are using these bots both in politicized ways to get out certain political messages and to attack certain at risk groups. So all of those factors combined to make this a very good nexus.

CO: And a dangerous one?

KC: Yes.

CO: We saw Reuters reporting a few months ago that Russian media had created, deployed a widespread disinformation campaign against the West with the impact of trying to create more panic and distrust around the coronavirus and around the messages from government. Are you principally seeing, or can you identify that most of these bot activities coming out of Russia?

KC: So attribution is very, very difficult. And a lot of times, you guess at that by looking at, does it match the playbook, the standard way that Russia tends to send out messages, or that Chinese sends out messages? And I would say that a lot of this activity does... I mean, some of it certainly seems Russian-based, some of it seems Chinese-based, but a lot of it just seems home-grown. There's a lot of this bot activity is not even... Is simply like rebroadcasting accurate information. Others of it is rebroadcasting inaccurate information. There's Conservative bots who are arguing against Liberals. And there's Liberal bots arguing against Conservatives. You know, it's across the spectrum.

CO: But the people who are reading that and ingesting it and are going out in the street and protesting, do you think that they believe that these trending messages are actually from people like themselves?

KC: I don't know. But it's very possible they do believe that they're from other people. It's also possible that they might not care who it's from. I mean, bots are also used just for general marketing and for any kind of, you know, spreading your message, recruiting people to your cause. If I want to build a bigger group, if I want to get a particular candidate elected, bots become in a way of getting that message out.

CO: What advice would you give to people who are consuming social media and want to believe when they see things trending or to join those movements?

KC: I would say go look to a credible site. Don't just trust what you see in social media. Go actually if it’s a health thing, go look at the health authorities. You know, if it’s a news thing, go look at credible news agencies. Don't just don't just assume because it shows up on your feed that it's true. The other thing I would say is that if they see disinformation, even if they think it's funny, don't respread it, because other people who don't know, may not know it’s humour. You're just adding to the problem.

CO: Very good advice. We'll leave it there. Professor Carley, thank you.

KC: My pleasure.

CO: Bye.

KC: Bye.

CH: Kathleen Carley is a professor in the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University. We reached her in Sewickley, Pennsylvania.

[Music: Sombre instrumental]

Afghan maternity ward attack

CH: Amina was just eight hours old when she was introduced to violence. Amina is a newborn baby who survived a brutal attack on a maternity ward at a Kabul hospital last week. Amina's mother, and twenty other new mothers, were killed by armed gunmen. Two newborn babies and a midwife were also killed. The Afghan government has blamed the Taliban, but the group has denied responsibility. Amina nearly died herself. She was shot in the leg. But thanks to surgery and quick-thinking doctors, she’s now recovering. When she came to Doctor Najeebullah Bina's operating table, she still didn't have a name. Doctor Bina named her Amina. He spoke to the BBC's Razia Iqbal this morning. Here's part of that conversation.

[sc]

NAJEEBULLAH BINA: It was a horrible situation and condition because it was the first time that I saw a newborn baby shot like this on the leg. Horrible. She was in total shock because she was bleeding a lot. At that point, the baby was brought by one member of her family — even, she didn't have a name. And we named her Amina.

RAZIA IQBAL: And in your view, on first examination, your view was that this baby, this newborn baby, was inevitably going to lose that leg?

NB: I was not sure. Because, first of all, it was my first time facing such a horrible case. Although, I did lots of war surgery during the last 20 years. But at this stage of baby, unimaginable. It's incredible, and I never saw. So that's why I was not sure what will happen. So, in any case, that was our fight to save her leg. Fortunately, thanks God, we could keep her leg. At that point, you don't think about the father. You don't think about the mother. You don't think about the rest of the world. I had only one objective: to save her leg.

RI: Amina’s mother died in this attack. There is, of course, an embodiment of hope in that Amina lived. And you saved her leg. And you've seen her today. How is she doing?

NB: Yes. I was with her this morning. She's doing great, in excellent shape. She got 200 grams weight since four days ago. So she's in a very good condition. And I'm sure she will be a very, very strong woman.

[/sc]

CH: That was Doctor Najeebullah Bina, an Afghan doctor speaking to the BBC's Razia Iqbal this morning from Kabul.

[Music: A few droning piano notes that are quite eerie indeed]

Voting age bill

Guest: Marilou McPhedran

CH: Kids these days, with their Tik Tok, and their "civic engagement", and their "youth activism". Marilou McPhedran thinks 16- and 17-year-olds are more than capable of understanding politics. Which is why she believes they should be able to vote in federal elections. The Manitoba senator says she has a bill ready to go that would lower the voting age. And she plans on tabling it when regular sittings return to Parliament. This weekend, the Senator and her youth advisory — the Canadian Council of Young Feminists — launched a campaign online called "Vote 16". We reached Senator Marilou McPhedran on Vancouver Island.

CO: Senator McPhedran, why should 16-year-olds be able to vote in federal elections?

MARILOU MCPHEDRAN: You know, Carol, the research shows us that Canadians that can vote, when it's clear that they started voting early, they stay engaged and they continue to be voters. And the logic from that is that if they are engaged younger, they will remain engaged longer. And I personally, and I know this is shared by many, have some real concerns about the vitality of our democracy. And think this is a very solid way of strengthening our democracy in Canada.

CO: I've seen these survey studies that show that if they vote for the first time when they're young, they continue to vote. But if they don't vote when they're 18, why would they vote when they're 16?

MM: I think there are many reasons for that. And I'm really giving you reasons that come from the youth advisors that are working with me on this project and on this new bill. And one of them is that 16-year-olds, for the most part, are still deeply engaged in the education system. And they are reachable in a way that many 18-year-olds are not necessarily. And the level of engagement on issues is very high in that age range. I am actually going to be lowering the age of my youth advisers to 15 as a result of this campaign. And the level of interest is very high. In Scotland, when they ran the referendum before they did lower their voting age to 16, they had a 75 per cent turnout among young people for that referendum.

CO: When you mention that what were the advantages of being 16, they're still in school, so they're able to get some civics studies, and they get sort of a civic engagement through that. But if the schools aren't doing that now, what difference does it make? I mean, aren't you depending on the idea that the schools will actually engage young people to politically think and to think in terms of actually casting a vote?

MM: You know, if you'd asked me that question five years ago, I would have tilted your way. But here's the thing. That's not actually how most young people communicate. And in many cases, that's not how they're learning. I think it's a very good thing if we ramp up civic education, many schools should be doing much more on that. And certainly, the teachers that are involved in this campaign support that. However, young people teach and learn from each other. And they do that largely through social media. And that's one of the main reasons that this campaign is social media-based. And much of this campaign is actually crafted by the youth advisers that are working with me. I think that the way in which young people mobilize, and that's one of the things we're doing with the campaign as a direct result of what the youth advisers have recommended. And that is, we're reaching out and recruiting mobilizers at the local level across the country, who will be part of the implementation plan at the local level by hosting youth circles and consultations and engaging the representative members of parliament and senators who also have an interest in this to participate. So I don't think this is a question of loading this all onto our schools. It's also a matter of being realistic about how young people learn. And so much of it is how they communicate with each other. When you mention that what were the advantages of being 16, they're still in school, so they're able to get some civics studies, and they get sort of a civic engagement through that. But if the schools aren't doing that now, what difference does it make? I mean, aren't you depending on the idea that the schools will actually engage young people to politically think and to think in terms of actually casting a vote?

CO: You mentioned your youth advisory group, and you have this thing called the Canadian Council for Young Feminists. What are they telling you as to why they want to be able to vote at the age of 16? What's motivating them?

MM: Well, you know, before you called, I was actually reading a paper written by a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old on this exact question, part of a whole network of UNESCO school students. And one of the points that they made in the paper was to say, look, we have a killing machine that we drive at the age of 16. We can enrol in the armed forces when we're 16. We can be sent off to fight at the age of 17. There are all kinds of indicators that, as one of them said, [chuckling] age does not mean wisdom. That we have a whole range of kinds of people who are already voting. Some of them engaged, some of them thoughtful, some of them not at all. And that really is part of the composite of a democracy. And lowering the voting age to 16, by their argument, and I agree with them, is really meeting young people where they are, where there is a readiness and interest. And again, going back to the research, the high probability that they will remain engaged in our democracy, in voting and paying attention to what's happening for a much longer period of their lives.

CO: The biggest argument that people give as to why young people at that age shouldn't be voting is that they're brains haven't developed enough, that they're not mature, they don't have the knowledge, the capacity to make good political choices. What do your young people say to those arguments?

MM: [laughing] Well, as one of them said, [said while continuing to laugh] doesn't that sound an awful lot like what they used to say about women and how women couldn't vote? You know, that's just ridiculous stereotyping. That really is not borne out by the evidence that's available.

It isn't going to work well to try and hold on to a rite, the rite to vote, and to have that from 18 up. It's not that long ago that we changed it. We went from 21 to 18. And exactly those same arguments were made then. And it's been good. It's been a good inclusion for our democracy and for Canadian society. And I would argue exactly the same thing for the benefits of inclusion and engagement and mobilization for 16-year-olds in this country.

CO: Senator McPhedran, we'll be watching as you table your bill, and see where it goes. Thanks for speaking with us.

MM: Thanks, Carol. Really appreciate the interest. Bye for now.

CO: Bye.

CH: That was Senator Marilou McPhedran. She's part of the Independent Senators Group. We reached her on Vancouver Island. You can find more on this story on our webpage, at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Up-tempo instrumental]

CH: On Ideas tonight, after As It Happens — an episode called "The Rise of the Glorified Spinster". Throughout history, the single woman has been ostracized and shamed… for failing to form a lasting bond with a man. Even today, women are labelled for failing to marry by a certain age. Dr. Monica Flegel is in the Department of English at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

CO: And there are some really spectacular eyewitness accounts of what the sky looked like when this meteorite, well I guess, broke up and landed in many fragments on the lake and elsewhere.

LW: Yeah. I mean, people thought it was a missile attack or something like that. You know, from the sound blast and all that kind of thing.

CO: I guess a lot of fragments in various places. Where has this little bit that you've been studying, where's it been for the past 20 years?

LW: Yeah. So in all, there were probably over 500 fragments collected from the Tagish Lake Meteorite. They’ve been distributed all around Canada. So the University of Alberta, University Calgary have some. The sample that I worked on is currently stored at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario. And it's very special because it's one of the few pieces that have actually been kept in a freezer. So it’s been kept below zero degrees Celsius. It's remained frozen for all of its 20 years here on Earth.

CO: Why does that matter?

LW: If we are looking at things like water, you need to be confident that anything you look at within that meteorite hasn't come from Earth. It's not contaminated. So if it's been brought up to room temperature, for example, we can't be sure that there isn't bits of Earth's atmosphere and Earth’s water seeping into that rock. So the fact it's been frozen the whole time, it’s remained solid. The liquids in it remains solid. We can be confident that any water we find in there or any chemistry linking to the water must have come from whatever parent body, whatever asteroid, Tagish Lake formed on over four and a half billion years ago.

CO: How porous is this rock that it's possible that water could actually get into it from the atmosphere?

LW: It's actually surprisingly porous. So my boss at The Royal Ontario Museum, curator Kim Tate, has said before that you can actually see this thing changing weight through the year between summer and winter, as this is absorbing various amounts of moisture from the atmosphere. So, it’s so critical to make sure that we're looking at a piece that hasn't been exposed to that kind of change.

CO: So when you say that this is a chance to look at something that is from the origins of our solar system, but aren't we on a piece of origin for the solar system, [chuckling] what is different between this rock and Earth itself?

LW: We are. So Earth is also nearly four and a half billion years old. It’s been kicking around [chuckling] for a fair chunk of time. The problem on Earth, if you like, is that we're very tectonically active. So we've got volcanoes, we've got earthquakes, we've got all these kind of amazing geological phenomena that are recycling the crust. So when plates are getting subducted, they're being pulled down into the hot mantle of the Earth and melting. And that means any evidence that would have been preserved there if gone, it’s melted and brought back up with as a volcano and fresh rocks are formed. And that means that throughout the four and a half billion year history of the Earth, the rocks have been recycled over and over and over again. And all that evidence is gone. So we need to look at bits of rock from much smaller planets. So the moon is a fantastic little time capsule. And beyond that, the meteorite record. So very small asteroids, such as the one that would have formed Tagish Lake, haven't been exposed to volcanism and earthquakes and all these kind of phenomena. So the rocks have been preserved for over four and a half billion years.

CO: And now, but you have a sense that this little bit of meteorite can actually reveal some secrets about how life began on this planet. Is that right?

LW: Um, we'd like to think so. So one of the amazing things with preserving meteorites and returned planetary samples is that your safeguarding them for future generations. And that's exactly what's allowed this study to go ahead. So a recent technique that we start to develop, especially here in Canada, at McMaster University, is atom probe tomography. And that allows us to pull apart a small bit of a mineral more than a thousand times smaller than a human hair. And look at the chemistry and what atoms are making it up. And so the finding of this technique that's allowed us to go into a 20-year-old Tagish Lake Meteorite here on Earth and make brand new discoveries for the first time.

CO: And so we didn't have this chance before. I mean, 20 years ago, when they found this rock, had it not been preserved the way it has, you wouldn't have it around for this new technology then?

LW: Exactly. So I think the Apollo missions showed this really well. So 50 years ago, obviously NASA led missions to the moon to bring back samples, less than half of that material is in the hands of scientists around the world. The rest has been safeguarded in the vaults at NASA to allow technology to build up and allow us to make these kind of new discoveries. So preserving meteorite records, right, like Tagish Lake in museums and making sure we're really looking after this material is key to keep science moving forward in the future.

CO: Okay. So how can it tell us what might have been the origins of life? Because this is one of the enduring mysteries, isn't it? I mean, we know a lot about what formed the solar system. We don't know how life began, and if it exists elsewhere. What does it tell you?

LW: So we pulled apart some very small minerals called magnetite, so-called because they're very magnetic. And in this case, they actually formed in a bubble of fluid. But going in at the atomic scale, we managed to pull apart the remnant fluid, which had been trapped along those boundaries. And we found it's very rich in sodium. And that's key because then we’re starting to talk about alkaline liquids. So the acidity of liquids, whether they're acidic or alkaline or neutral, P.H. would be critical for how quickly the building blocks of life, such as amino acids, could form and start to evolve into a sort of style that's needed for life on Earth.

CO: Amino acids, that’s the building blocks, right? That's where it all begins. So if you can see how that might have formed, then you get an idea of why we're here?

LW: Exactly. And one of the big theories for how we arrived on Earth is the theory of panspermia. So the idea that these building blocks of life actually were brought to the earth by comets are meteorites. So if we can start to trace that really early record of life and water elsewhere in the solar system, we might be to develop a better idea of how it arrived here.

CO: Neat! This is really great, Lee. And thank you for telling us about your research.

LW: No worries at all. Thank you for having me on.

CO: Bye.

LW: Bye.

CH: Lee White is a post-doc researcher with the Royal Ontario Museum's department of Natural History. He's also the lead author of a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We reached Mr. White in Toronto.

Ottawa terminal mother

AB: In a way, the pandemic has helped me to just slow down and appreciate the moments even more. But I do worry more about the future. And sometimes I catch myself when I'm with her just being worried that the time will be cut short. And maybe this time not by cancer, but by the novel coronavirus. And it's scarier to have two big possible health concerns floating out there that could end our time too early. Right now, I’m at a point where, you know, I can play with her, and we can have little adventures and laughs. And that's what I want. I want to be present with her. And I’d love to hold onto this right now in terms of how I feel and how her and I can interact and build our relationship.

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CH: That's 32-year-old mother and terminal cancer patient Alicia Barr speaking with Robyn Bresnahan, host of Ottawa Morning.

Green snow study

Guest: Matt Davey

CH: When you think about the Antarctic, you think white. Just endless, forbidding landscapes of white. But scientists have developed a large-scale map that shows Antarctica is looking a lot less monochromatic these days — thanks to blooming algae. Matt Davey is a plant physiologist at the University of Cambridge. The map he and his team developed gives us a rare first look at what's being called Antarctica's "green snow." We reached Matt Davey in Cambridge.

MD: Yeah, exactly. It's a beautiful sight to see when you’re down there. As a scientist, you know, you are in awe of these almost fields of these green blooms. And as well as the green blooms, you also get these big red coloured blooms as well, and sometimes orange and a bit of a nice palette of these colours. So we've only actually managed to map the green blooms. It’s technically more challenging to map the red ones and the orange ones from space. That's what we plan to do next. But yeah, it's an amazing sight to see when you're walking along, you know, you're walking along some mosses and lichens. And then you behold, there's this sort of white landscape with these amazing green blooms in front of you.

CO: As you mentioned, this is something that explorers, people on expeditions, long ago were saying that they could see these algae blooms. How different is it now, though? How much more widespread are they?

MD: That's a good question because this is the first systematic study of where they are. And so we know they have been there in the past, but we don’t have the data collated to actually know whether they've been increasing in their distribution or decreasing or they’ve remained the same. So now we have this baseline study. We hope to go back into past records — either from previous satellite imagery or temperature records — and just see whether it's possible for these blooms whether they've been increasing or decreasing or stayed the same.

CO: Now, though, we've done a number of stories on this program, as others have, about how much is changing in Antarctica because of climate change. We’re witnessing some very dramatic alterations, aren't we? So do you anticipate that with climate change that you're going to see an increase in this algae?

MD: Yeah, that's right. So the modelling Andrew Grey has been doing all of the data so far suggests that we might see a loss of some of these blooms on the lower levels. But with increasing temperatures, we might actually see larger blooms, and still growing on the higher ground. So with his modelling, we start to know where temperature increases might be and where this might lead to. So the algae actually need sort of slightly warmer, slushy snow to bloom. So as temperatures increase even more down there, I think this year has been one of the warmest in history, the slushy snow will become more common. And that will enable the snow algae to essentially bloom in other areas.

CO: We know that algae blooms, it's a bad word when you hear it, when it's off the coast of the Pacific coast of Canada, United States or the Gulf of Mexico. These are the effects of a lot of things, including agricultural runoff. And it's bad for the ecosystem and very damaging. Is that the same in Antarctica? Are these threatening the flora and fauna of the region?

MD: No, absolutely not. It's a very different process that you would see in say that the agricultural runoff blooms that we sometimes see around the world. They've been there for a long time, and it's already part of the natural ecosystem. So it's not damaging any other organisms. So if they do change in the future, we need to keep an eye on it. But they're certainly not in any way damaging at the moment. It's just, you know, a part of the natural ecosystem. And they get their nutrients from a lot of the feces from the penguin colonies and the seal colonies, so it's just part of the natural ecosystem down there.

CO: But also, algae absorbs CO2, does it not, from the atmosphere. So could it actually be something that's positive for the environment?

MD: So they do take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but that's the size of the blooms on a global scale, you know, they’re very, very small. And, you know, even if they tripled in size, it won't have any significant effect on reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the moment.

CO: It's not going to balance off what we're losing in the Amazon rainforest, in other words?

MD: No, not at all, no, [CO cuckles] unfortunately not.

CO: So what's next for your research? You said that this is a baseline. What do you want to watch next?

MD: That's right. Yeah. So what we'd like to do next is that now we've done that part of Antarctica on the peninsula, we want to map the rest of Antarctica around the coastline and see what the whole continental picture looks like. And then the other thing you want to do is analyze the other red blooms and the orange blooms that we get down there as well. So these are very striking, red an orange blooms, but they’re more difficult to analyse from the satellite imagery because you got a very reflective sort of white surface or from the snow. And you're trying to pick out this red signal or the orange signal from the imagery. So that’s more challenging to do. So that’s what we want to do next. And then we have a much clearer picture of what's happening on the terrestrial algae side of the continent, because there's only a few plants out there, theres mosses and lichens, which are also abundant in areas. But this is another part of the jigsaw with the primary producers.

CO: All right. Well, as we said earlier, the photos are so striking. We'll share some of those with our listeners. They’ll want to see it. And I appreciate speaking with you, Matt. Thank you.

MD: Okay. Yeah. Thank you for your interest. It's been good.

CO: Bye.

MD: Bye-bye.

CH: Matt Davey is a plant and algae physiologist at the University of Cambridge. We reached him in Cambridge, England.

[Music: Sad guitar riff]

SOD: Hairy Ass Crack

CH: From the video, it's clear Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves was prepared. His suit was pressed. He was perfectly centred between two flags. And he addressed the camera with all the pomp and circumstance a high school graduation ceremony deserves. But somehow, one name still managed to slip through the cracks. On Saturday, Governor Reeves went live on Facebook to read the names of students stuck at home for graduation because of the pandemic. It was a nice gesture. Everything was going smoothly. He had already rhymed off the names of multiple graduating classes. But then he came to his own alma mater, Florence High School. He took a deep breath. And you can bet the student who pranked him did too. Here's Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, with our Sound of the Day.

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CH:[chuckling] I beg your pardon? Can we hear that last name again?

[sc]

TR: Hairy Ass Crack

[/sc]

CH: Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves reading the names of state graduates live on Facebook — including a student by the name of Harry Azcrac. And that's A-Z-C-R-A-C for those keeping score at home. After the video went viral online, Governor Reeves tweeted, quote: "Harry's submitter has a bright future as a 'Simpsons' writer!" Unquote.

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May 21, 2020 Episode Transcript

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