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The Current Transcript for January 29, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

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Prologue

[Music: Theme]

THOMAS BACH We just have to ask for patience and understanding. And we are asking for this patience, you know, from the athletes, from the National Olympic Committees, the Japanese people.

MATT GALLOWAY: Patience is a tricky word when it comes to this summer's Olympic Games in Tokyo. Athletes are trying to be patient after the games were postponed last year. Polls suggest that 80 per cent of people in Japan have run out of patience. And they want the games cancelled or delayed again. And then there's that pandemic thing. In 30 minutes, how athletes are coping with the uncertainty around their biggest moment and why, in the end, it may be money that wins the day. Also, this morning, whether it's a flight to Japan or across this country, further travel restrictions are, we're told, coming. Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard will be here to talk about what they might do in this fight. And later,

AVI LOEB: The most interesting question in astronomy, in my view and perhaps in science altogether, is whether there is life elsewhere? And not just primitive life, but intelligent life.

MATT GALLOWAY: Avi Loeb believes there is intelligent life out there and that it knows we're here. In an hour, the astrophysicist makes the case for why he thinks a giant cigar-shaped thing that passed by the Earth was sent by aliens. And what he makes of the criticism from his fellow sky watchers. We begin, though, with developments on another existential issue, how the new U.S. president plans to tackle climate change and what that means for us here in Canada. Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. This is "The Current".

[Music: Theme]

Biden’s plans for climate change and what they mean for Canada

Guests: Michael Mann, Patrick Payton, Merran Smith

JOE BIDEN: Today is Climate Day at the White House, which means that today is Jobs Day at the White House. We're talking about American innovation, American products, American labour. We're talking about the health of our families and cleaner water, cleaner air and cleaner communities. We're talking about national security. America leading the world in a clean energy future. It's a future of enormous hope and opportunity.

MATT GALLOWAY: Joe Biden has started his presidency at a furious pace, signing a series of executive orders to tackle the climate crisis. The list includes pausing and calling for a review on all leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands, making climate change a national security issue, calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies and pledging to protect 30 per cent of America's land and water by the year 2030. While these moves from the White House are different from those of its previous occupants, many are asking if executive orders are indeed the best way to create real change. Michael E. Mann is distinguished professor of Atmospheric Science and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. He's also the author of "The New Climate War". Michael Mann, good morning.

MICHAEL MANN: Good morning. It's great to be with.

MATT GALLOWAY: It's great to have you back on the programm. You have called what Joe Biden has been announcing the boldest plan ever put forward by a U.S. president. Why?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, because it's just so comprehensive. In the past, for example, under Barack Obama, where there was an effort to to use executive actions to do something about climate, much of that action was really sort of siloed into just a couple of agencies, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency. And so often, climate action has been seen as sort of a niche issue that's confined to just, you know, one or two sectors of our government. And what Biden has done is incorporate climate action into every single department, every single government agency, every single cabinet appointment that's been somebody who understands that climate change now impacts every facet of our lives and carbon emissions come from every facet of our life. So we have to incorporate climate action across the government, and that's what they've done here.

MATT GALLOWAY: He said that he would make climate change a national security issue. What does that actually mean?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, well, he doesn't have to do that because it is a national security issue. [both chuckling] But indeed, Joe Biden has embraced the fact that because it's a national security issue, look, climate change is what our national security experts refer to as a threat multiplier. It takes existing tensions and competition for resources, food, water, space, and it heightens that competition, and it increases conflict. And many of our leading military experts have said that climate change is indeed the greatest national security threat we face in the future. And so Biden recognizes that. He recognizes that it has to be incorporated into our discussions of security, our international relationships with other actors around the world. And John Kerry, who he's appointed as the special envoy on climate, the so-called climate tsar, will have a seat on the National Security Council, which has never happened before. And that really means that climate change is at the table, has a seat at the table when we talk about the security threats that we face in the future and how to mitigate those.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just briefly, reflect on what he said at the beginning of that little clip that we played. That the line in this announcement is about creating jobs and building the economy of the future. Is that a realistic message to send to Americans in 2021?

MICHAEL MANN: It is. And we've allowed for too long sort of the critics... in my book, "The New Climate War", I call them the "inactivists", the forces of inaction who have sort of turned away from outright climate change denialism because it just isn't credible anymore. But they're still trying to block progress. And one of the things that they do is to try to introduce this fallacy, this sort of false choice, that somehow we have to choose between jobs and the environment or jobs and climate action. And Joe Biden is fundamentally sort of challenging that flawed notion by pointing out, first of all, most of the jobs now in the fossil fuel industry; the Keystone XL pipeline provides, you know, maybe 100, roughly 100 jobs or so. Renewable energy provides the potential for far greater numbers of jobs because the fossil fuel industry has really become very automated, and there just aren't that many actual jobs for people. Green energy, renewable energy offers much, much greater opportunity. But there's another point here as well.

MATT GALLOWAY: Right.

MICHAEL MANN: And it is addressed in Biden's plan. We do have to make sure that as we transition away from fossil fuels, people in those communities, fossil fuel states and in localities and communities don't get left behind. And so one of the aspects of this plan is funding for what they're calling a civilian climate corps, basically to hire people to actually restore the environment from the damage that was done by fossil fuel extraction, to convert brownfields into hubs of economic activity. And so he doesn't want those communities to get left behind in this transition. And that's that's really important here.

MATT GALLOWAY: Let me ask about that transition now. I'm going to ask about, you know, being left behind. A question to Patrick Payton, who is the mayor of Midland, Texas, who's been listening to our conversation. Mr. Mayor, good morning to you.

PATRICK PAYTON: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MATT GALLOWAY: In Midland, Texas, how important is the oil and gas sector to that economy?

PATRICK PAYTON: Well, it'd be no understatement to say that it's the backbone of the industry, not just in Midland, Texas, but out here in the entire Permian Basin, which stretches into New Mexico as well.

MATT GALLOWAY: And so when you hear Joe Biden say that climate change is this existential threat that he wants his government to tackle, but that the changes that he is proposing and signing in through executive orders are about creating, you know, good paying jobs in the economy of the future. Given what you've just said, what's your reaction to that?

PATRICK PAYTON: Well, it doesn't surprise me. We knew that that was going to come from Joe Biden, just as it came from Barack Obama. And just as things were done differently by Trump. What concerns me the most is we're still not having a longer conversation about energy security. And then as... as it... as it would pertain to this conversation, then how it would help our environment. The fact of the matter is, president after president, through Barack Obama, through Donald Trump, and now through Joe Biden, all they've done is sign executive orders and make really just movements, whether that's through cabinets or placements in other places of governance. But nothing happens at the legislative level. All we do is have these amazing speeches about how we're going to have jobs. But out here, 200,000-plus people are going to go to work this morning, and they're going to go drill for oil and gas. They're also going to be working in the wind energy and solar energy. And the average salary is going to be over 100,000 dollars a year. We're going to make it possible [chuckle] for people to use natural gas to power the electricity that's going to charge their... their Tesla. So out here, we're just going to keep doing what we do, anything that's going to happen by this administration, until it happens at the legislative level, until something really takes place, all we're doing is just trading executive orders. And we've been doing that for 16 years now.

MATT GALLOWAY: Do you believe there should be a transition, as they call it, towards clean energy?

PATRICK PAYTON: Well, I do believe that we have to have a conversation about all of the above. And when people talk about a transition, we act like this is going to happen in two years or four years. And it's not, because of the developing world, not just the United States. And so when people speak about a transition, what we're open to in the Permian Basin is a conversation about all of the above. What we're tired of is being told that fossil fuels are the enemy of mankind. When the fact of the matter is when people talk about climate change and that this is the most important human crisis that we face, I would counter that with there's a bunch of people, like well over a billion people, that may never even have electricity today. So let's calm the rhetoric a little bit, and let's finally sit down and say through the use of fossil fuels, how do we move forward, and how do we move forward with an abundance of energy that's cheap, reliable, plentiful and available to everyone as we move forward and get to alternative energy sources? What I don't see is a lack of... or what I don't see is just a willingness to have this conversation to move forward.

MATT GALLOWAY: So what would... just before I let you go, what would you want to see then from the White House to tackle climate change, but also give concern to what you're speaking about and the people that you represent in your community?

PATRICK PAYTON: Well, what we'd like to see from the White House is sounding more like a West Texas broken record here is let's get around the table and let's have a legitimate conversation that when we start doing press conferences and press releases, we're not putting out this narrative that says we're going to destroy the world in the next five years if we don't get away from fossil fuels. And there was some honesty about the fact that we're not going to get away from the abundance of fossil fuels and especially natural gas any time very soon, but that we can begin to work on a holistic plan that includes cheap, abundant and reliable energy. That might include nuclear. It might include hydro. It will include wind and solar as we move forward into a future that to use the term that's used quite often, that is greener and possibly healthier. And it's just going to take a willingness to get around the table and not get up at the podium and say the oil and gas companies are killing the world and killing people when the fact of the matter is our air has never been cleaner here in the United States. And most of that has come through the work of the oil and gas industry.

MATT GALLOWAY: Patrick Payton, good to speak with you. Thank you.

PATRICK PAYTON: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Patrick Payton, the mayor of Midland, Texas. Michael E. Mann, author of "The New Climate War", is still with us. What do you make of what you just heard, Michael E. Mann?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, I was saddened. I have to say that the mayor from Midland is misguided on this issue. And this is precisely the sort of thinking that got us into the mess that we're now in.

MATT GALLOWAY: So how do you... how do you reconcile that? Because it seems as though, I mean, two people are saying two very different things. So how do you how do you find the common ground in the space between the two? He says get people around the table.

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. And that's actually what's happening. So part of the problem is that the rhetoric coming from those who don't want to move on is, for example, we've got to get people at the table. Well, that's what Joe Biden is doing. He is working with Congress. The, obviously, you know, executive actions are the only thing that you have to advance solutions when you have a Congress that's unwilling to act. And, you know, Mitch McConnell, when he controlled the Senate for four years, refused to ever even bring a meaningful climate bill to the floor for a vote. And so that changes now. Joe Biden will be negotiating with Congress. He's got a Democratic, you know, Senate now to work with him. They will use what's known as reconciliation if they need to, which means just 50 votes. And they've got those 50 votes plus the tie-breaking vote from the vice president to advance climate legislation. So it will happen. The first step is to use executive actions, first of all, to reverse the executive actions from the Trump administration.

MATT GALLOWAY: Right.

MICHAEL MANN: Which literally dismantled 50 years of environmental protection by Richard Nixon, by George Bush and by Ronald Reagan. Reverse the damage, move forward, work with Congress for a legislative solution. And let's have an honest conversation. The fact is that climate change is already leading to catastrophic impacts. Most reasonable people see that. They know that. That's why there's overwhelming support for climate action now among Republicans, especially younger Republicans. Roughly 70 per cent of Republicans below the age of 40 recognize that climate change is a crisis and want to see action. We have to move away from that outdated thinking. Unfortunately, that fossilised thinking that we heard from the mayor.

MATT GALLOWAY: Well, where does that leave the 200,000 people that he's talking about, though? And, I mean, we see this conversation happened here in Canada as well, where places like Alberta and Saskatchewan, an economy that in some parts is tied to fossil fuels. And people say these steps are important, but how do you make the steps without devastating the economies that the mayor is talking about?

MICHAEL MANN: Yes. So the problem is that there's a lot of false rhetoric. There are relatively few jobs now in the fossil fuel industry. Coal has undergone a death spiral over the last four years. Was that because of Donald Trump's war on coal? No, [chuckling] it was because market forces alone are rendering coal and other fossil fuels uncompetitive in the open market, in the free market. If we have a fair level playing field in the market, they're just not competitive anymore. Look, we stopped whaling for whale oil back in the 1800s because something better came along. And that was fossil fuels. Well, we now have something better than fossil fuels. That's renewable energy. And it's... it was once said that, you know, the Stone Age didn't end for want of stones. And the Fossil Fuel Age won't end for want of fossil fuels. It'll end because we've found something better, cleaner that can provide a lot more jobs. And let's move forward. Let's not revert backward, as unfortunately some would like to do.

MATT GALLOWAY: Are you confident, just in the remaining seconds that we have, are you confident that I don't want to say these two sides, but in some ways, it is that there are different conversations happening in some ways in a different language. That there will be some sort of reconciliation beyond simply the executive order so that people can at the very least agree on what they're talking about and then agree to move forward.

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, that's what Joe Biden is really trying to do. He's trying to have a national conversation about this, which is very refreshing. He's got a press officer now, White House press secretary, who has a press conference every day, [chuckling] something, you know, under the Trump administration, we rarely heard questions taken from the press. And so, you know, that's what he's trying to do. He's trying to have a conversation. Some people are resistant to being part of that conversation. They want to go back to the old ways. But I think most people want to move forward. I think there's a lot of support for his agenda to grow the economy and do so in a way that maintains a clean environment.

MATT GALLOWAY: Michael E. Mann, good to speak with you. Thank you.

MICHAEL MANN: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Michael E. Mann, author of "The New Climate War" and distinguished professor of Atmospheric Science and director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Penn State University. Climate activists here in Canada have been watching President Biden's changes closely. Merran Smith is executive director of Clean Energy Canada. It's a think tank at Simon Fraser University. She's in Victoria, British Columbia. Merran, good morning to you.

MERRAN SMITH: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY: You've said that Joe Biden's plan is an opportunity for Canada. How so?

MERRAN SMITH: Yeah, well, Canada actually has a lot of green, clean energies and things that the United States wants. So, first of all, clean energy. Our grid is right now 82 per cent zero-emission electricity. We're exporting it from B.C., Quebec and Manitoba to the U.S. So there's real opportunities there for us on the clean energy front. Also, on the clean technology front, we have some of the world's leading cleantech companies in transport. We've got Hydrogenics and Ballard in BC. We've got Quebec-based Lion Electric buses. You know, we're selling electric buses and electric trucks to things like Amazon has just ordered them. And then thirdly, we have a lot of low-carbon products that the U.S. needs to build this clean energy future. So the metals and minerals needed to make electric vehicles and batteries. We have the world's most carbon aluminum. We've got steel, cement. And we could be linking up our clean energy to our goods and services that we have and making them low-carbon. And that's the signal the U.S. is sending. They want to buy clean, low-carbon products. And we're here next door to them and could be delivering them. Those are big opportunities.

MATT GALLOWAY: If this is our race to lose, as you've said, what does the government need to do now to respond?

MERRAN SMITH: Yeah, that's a really good question. You know, the Trudeau government has done some good things on climate, put in place a carbon price, the coal phase out, a clean fuel standard. But we have been very slow to really pick up the pace on transitioning to the clean energy economy. So what do we really need to do? We need to do more and we need to do it faster. We need to send this clear signal that we're seeing that the United States is doing about the direction that we're going in. A couple of things we could do really concretely, you know, I talked about this clean industry. Our natural resource sectors like mining and our manufacturing for steel, cement, the auto sector. We really could be focussing on those, you know, oil and gas has got a lot of attention in this country. It's time to focus on these key backbone industries of the company and make them cleaner and market ourselves as having clean products. So that's one thing.

MATT GALLOWAY: Yeah.

MERRAN SMITH: Transportation is another one. A quarter of our carbon pollution in Canada comes from transportation. And that's growing. We've talked about, you know, putting in place some electric vehicles, but we could be doing this much faster. And Canadians actually want electric vehicles. So the demand is there. What the problem is, is the supply. So we need some policies for the government to take action to create a zero-emission vehicle mandate. You know, we have one in British Columbia, and there's one in Quebec. And we see results. Nine per cent of car sales, new car sales in B.C. In 2019, were electric vehicles, about eight per cent in Quebec. So if you've got the right policies, you know the transition happens, but it doesn't happen without government support, clear policy signals, clear investment timelines and milestones. And that's what we need. You know, the Trudeau government, as I said, they've done some very good work on climate, but we need some clear signals and some action.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just in a couple of seconds, that's all we have, really. Are you expecting or hoping to see that in the federal budget that the finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, will present this spring?

MERRAN SMITH: Yeah, well, I think that if Canada wants to be a leader in the climate world, we need to be sending a really clear signal out that, yes, Canada is going to be putting its effort and its emphasis on the clean energy future. And that means putting in place investments through the budget, and also clear signals that the government is going to act. The government is going to be buying low-carbon goods and services. They're going to be putting in place the electric vehicles in Canada Post, in our electric buses, in our school buses, I mean. The kinds of signals that we're seeing Joe Biden put in place.

MATT GALLOWAY: Merran Smith, it's great to talk to you. Thank you very much.

MERRAN SMITH: Thank you. Have a great day.

MATT GALLOWAY: And you. Merran Smith, executive director of Clean Energy Canada. Your CBC News is coming up next. And then, [Music: Olympic Theme] pandemic or not, to the International Olympic Committee says the postponed Tokyo Games are still going ahead for 2021. We'll speak with athletes and more about whether this is a good idea or not. I'm Matt Galloway. This is "The Current"

Canadian athletes stay focused on Tokyo, despite Olympics uncertainty

Guests: Maggie MacNeil, Jordie Steen, David Shoemaker, Morgan Campbell

MATT GALLOWAY: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. And you're listening to "The Current".

[Music: Theme]

MATT GALLOWAY: Still to come, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb believes it's naive to think that humans are alone in the universe. In 30 minutes, he'll take us on an interstellar scientific journey beyond our stars. But first, sharing the podium with a pandemic.

[Music: Theme]

ANNOUNCER: He's got to clear this... no! And the gold medal goes to Canada's Derek Drouin.

ANNOUNCER#2: [Cheering] So Rosie MacLenan wins back-to-back Olympic Titles.

ANNOUNCER#3: You big red beauty! It's bronze again for Canada. They have beaten Brazil in Sao Paulo.

MATT GALLOWAY: Olympic medal moments like those are meant to get your heart pounding, to lift your spirits and fill you with pride as athletes clad in the red and white celebrate a once in a lifetime moment. But in the midst of a global pandemic, some people are asking what those moments will cost in dollars, but also in health. The Tokyo Olympics have already been postponed once, and despite a recent report in the Times of London, this week, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said the games will go on.

THOMAS BACH: We are not speculating of whether the games are taking place. We are working on how the games will take place.

MATT GALLOWAY: And yet, athletes have been living in limbo ever since the games were called off last summer. Jordie Steen is a wrestler. Maggie MacNeil is on Canada's swim team. Both have qualified for this year's Olympic Games. Good morning to you both.

JORDIE STEEN: Good morning.

MAGGIE MACNEIL: Hi.

MATT GALLOWAY: Jordie, what do the Olympics mean to you? I mean, going to the Olympics, and we'll talk about your history in that, but what is the idea of going to an Olympic Games mean to you?

JORDIE STEEN: It's been probably the most important thing for me for the last ten years. I moved away from home. I started training. In the last two years, I've finished my schooling. I ended up actually quitting my job and just trained to make the team and see how far I go with it. So, it means quite a bit.

MATT GALLOWAY: What about for you, Maggie? When did you start to dream of swimming in the Olympic Games?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: I guess I started thinking about the Olympics when I started competitive swimming when I was eight. I just had finished coming off watching the Beijing Olympics. I feel like that really got my head kind of thinking about what I wanted to accomplish as I got further along in the sport.

MATT GALLOWAY: And so you've been training for years for this moment, thinking that these Olympics would be your opportunity, Maggie, to be in the pool like the swimmers that you saw in Beijing. What goes through your head when you hear that the games may be cancelled again this summer, Maggie?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: I think there's a lot of rumours and different happenings swirling around right now, but I think it's just important to focus on training. It's important just in case the Olympics do happen, which I definitely hope they will, as opposed to not being prepared if you change your mindset and they still happen.

MATT GALLOWAY: Is that easier said than done to keep it out of your mind?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: For sure. I think definitely all the news reporters are making this one of the main stories right now. But I think it's definitely important now than ever to just put my head down and work towards July.

MATT GALLOWAY: What about for you, Jordie? The rumours have been swirling around, and then this Times piece comes out saying that behind the scenes, the games look like they're going to be off. When you heard about that, what went through your mind?

JORDIE STEEN: We've been hearing things on and off for... for the last year. And I find if I focus on them, it just draws way too much attention away from my training, things I need to work on on the mats. I could blow a knee out tomorrow and not be able to compete. So I can't think of the worst-case scenario. I just go to think of the best-case scenario.

MATT GALLOWAY: Would you feel safe in going and participating in these Olympics in the midst of a pandemic, Jordie?

JORDIE STEEN: I think... I think I would. I would trust our staff, and I trust the Olympic Committee and... and everybody around us would do a great job of keeping us safe.

MATT GALLOWAY: What about for you, Maggie? I mean, we're all, you know, staying home for the most part. Would you feel safe getting on a plane and going to the other side of the world to compete?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: Yeah, just like what Jordie was saying. I think the COC definitely has the health of the athletes in mind, especially when we were the first to pull out of the games had they proceeded last year. So I know that they're definitely focussed on keeping us safe. And I think if the games happen, it'll be in a very safe and controlled environment.

MATT GALLOWAY: I want to talk about that environment in a moment. Jordie, you have a history when it comes to your family of competing in the Olympic Games. No surprise that you're interested in going because it seems to run through your blood. Take a listen to this.

ANNOUNCER: Well done, Canada. They needed a morale boost in their team [cheering] and it's gone to a great guy in David Steen.

MATT GALLOWAY: A great guy in David Steen. Your dad, [laughing] that was in 1988 when your dad got the bronze medal. Competing is one thing, but your family also has this experience in missing out on games. Tell me more about that, and what happened eight years before that?

JORDIE STEEN: Yeah, there's a bit of a curse we have going. My... my father's father, my grandfather, he made the standard at the time to... to make the Olympic team, but wasn't able to go because I guess they... they were sending a smaller team, and he didn't make the cut. And my father's first Olympic team that he made, Canada ends up boycotting it. So, we've kind of had a history of games, you know, was getting cancelled, like the unforeseen things happening. So it seems to be a bit of a curse in the family.

MATT GALLOWAY: What do you take from that in terms of your own situation, in terms of trying to... to stay focussed, but also prepare for... for the situation that you find yourself in?

JORDIE STEEN: I think it's good because I'm around resilient people. I've kind of heard their stories and heard how they dealt with it. And then when I have my own time, right, I can't sit and pout. I need to focus on what I need to do. Just hope that it's going to keep going. And if not, I'm still going to train, and I still want to get better. So it's the only way I got to look at it because I like it any other way, I might just go crazy.

MATT GALLOWAY: Maggie, tell me about training. I mean, to Jordie's point, does it keep you from going crazy when you can stay in the pool and work really, really hard?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: It definitely does. I mean, swimming, where you're staring at the bottom of the pool for four hours a day, it does give you time to think. But it also is a place for me to kind of go and clear my head and not worry about the schoolwork that I have to do or anything else I have to do on my to-do this. I can kind of just go and be one with the water and focus on that.

MATT GALLOWAY: One of the things about training for an Olympics is that you have a destination point. You mentioned the games being postponed last year. What does that mean in terms of your training? Where does that leave you in terms of the work that you're putting in, Maggie?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: I think the work has been the same and the training has been the same. I think definitely paying a lot more attention to the technical and, like, the mental aspects of it. But, as a result, like this year is just another year to train and get better is kind of how I'm looking at it.

MATT GALLOWAY: So does the extra year give you more time to kind of get better?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: Definitely, for sure. I've got time to kind of improve the things I needed to work on and practice in patience and resilience and strength that way.

MATT GALLOWAY: What about for you, Jorde? I mean, there's the disappointment of not going last year, but does that extra year give you a chance to to sharpen things up even more?

JORDIE STEEN: Yeah, of course, there's disappointment, but I found it really cool because I've never had this much time to focus on one tournament. Normally, there's qualifiers just to... just to make the team, to go somewhere. So to have close to a full year to focus on one tournament and beating 16 guys in a bracket has been a lot of fun.

MATT GALLOWAY: This is happening, this conversation, but also the possibility of the games as the pandemic continues to rage in parts of the world. There has been speculation that perhaps athletes should get vaccinated before they go to Japan. In addition to having an Olympic history, Jordie, your parents, who were both Olympians, are now first responders. What do you make of the idea that... that athletes should perhaps be prioritized when it comes to getting the vaccine so that they can go and compete for those of us who are stuck at home on the couch?

JORDIE STEEN: I mean, I don't... I don't know about being prioritized. I think if they decide that we need to get vaccinated, it's probably for the best to help keep the people of Tokyo safe. And if the experts, if that's what they're saying, I'll defer to their judgement. And I would go without a vaccine if they thought it was OK, and I would go with one. I'm just going to focus on trying to beat everybody... everybody I can. I mean, I can't control the vaccine, I can't control the spread, I can't control any of that stuff. I can just control my training, my environment and what I'm doing day-to-day.

MATT GALLOWAY: We hope that you get there to compete. But there is the possibility that these games could be cancelled. Do you create any space in your mind for that, Jordie? And I mean, if you do, how do you wrap your head around the fact that this part of the Olympic dream may not come to pass this year?

JORDIE STEEN: Yeah, that's... that's a heavy question. It definitely creeps in my mind. It would be a bit of a tragedy myself [chuckling] if it didn't go through. I think I just try to stay as optimistic as possible, just immerse myself in the training because, yeah, it would be tough. It would be really tough. And I don't know where I would go right after that. I would just try to look at the next chapter and see if I can do another one, probably?

MATT GALLOWAY: I was gonna say, is the next chapter and being in your fighting prime, I mean, the next games are scheduled for Paris in 2024. That would still be in the frame for you?

JORDIE STEEN: Yeah, for sure.

MATT GALLOWAY: What about for you, Maggie? I mean, so much of this is about focussing on what you can and can't control and being in that moment. But is there a little part of your brain that... that has to start to come to terms with the possibility that this may not happen?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: I think I've always come to terms with it ever since it was postponed last year. I'm definitely young enough in my swimming career that I would definitely stick it out until 24.

MATT GALLOWAY: Do you start to let yourself think about what might happen in the pool if these games go ahead?

MAGGIE MACNEIL: I mean, I'm trying not to think about it too much. I've kind of learned to live in a moment if COVID has taught me anything. So I think living it day-by-day is better than kind of dwelling on what might or might not happen in the future.

MATT GALLOWAY: I look forward to shouting at the TV and cheering you both on whenever you compete. It's great to talk to you both. Thank you.

JORDIE STEEN: Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

MAGGIE MACNEIL: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Maggie MacNeil, current world champion in the 100 metre butterfly. Jordie Steen is a wrestler. Both have qualified for the Olympic Games scheduled to take place in Japan this summer. A poll taken earlier this month in Japan found that 80 per cent of the people asked one of these games to be cancelled or at the very least postponed again. Meanwhile, the Japanese government is saying it's confident that the games can be held safely. That is the position the Canadian Olympic Committee is also taking. David Shoemaker is the CEO and secretary-general of the COC. David, good morning to you.

DAVID SHOEMAKER: Good morning, Matt. Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Thanks for being here. Why in the midst of a global pandemic, would you be confident that these games can actually happen this summer?

DAVID SHOEMAKER: We're confident, and we're fully focussed on the games going ahead, but we, of course, don't have a crystal ball. So we're doing our utmost to focus on preparing the team for the games in Tokyo, but really listening to the best advice of our chief medical officer and a group of doctors and scientists to help us, you know, lead the way, and... and be guided by the health and safety of the athletes and their coaches.

MATT GALLOWAY: What was your reaction when you saw the report in The Times last week saying that officials were close to pulling the plug on these games?

DAVID SHOEMAKER: Often, You know, when... when you see headlines in the world of the Olympics, we... we know about them ahead of time. And in this case, I was in a meeting, and it caught me by surprise. Of course, as you can imagine, we quickly gathered and said, what do we know? And we had athletes contacting us directly. I listened to Jordie and Maggie just a moment ago. You can imagine the nerves that they would have when they read these reports. And so we... we had to put out a statement. It wasn't sophisticated, it's just we're unaware of, you know, such a decision, and we'll comment more when we learn more.

MATT GALLOWAY: The president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, said there is no plan B. How is that not wildly reckless, given the unpredictability of [chuckling] COVID and the curveballs that you talked about?

DAVID SHOEMAKER: His chosen language, and I know here at the COC, we have been, ever since March of last year, scenario planning for a number of different contingencies because we think that's the most responsible thing to do. The IOC next week is putting out its playbooks. In effect, we're firmly into plan B is my interpretation. I mean, there are very significant modifications to the Olympic Games. That will be unveiled, quarantines for athletes before getting on flights, testing of athletes before they get on flights, testing of athletes upon arrival, and a very sophisticated bubbling system that they'll refer to as nodes in Tokyo, fashioned off of what we've learned in pro sport. Let's say, you know, what we saw in Orlando with the NBA, designed to keep athletes, coaches, mission team members and the population of Japan safe.

MATT GALLOWAY: Maggie and Jordie talked about trusting in you and the COC. to protect them. Part of this is about vaccinations. Dick Pound, a member of the IOC, and of course, Canadian Olympian himself, said he thought it would be reasonable in some countries, including this country, to let Olympic athletes jump the vaccine queue. Do you think that athletes should be able to jump the queue and get the shot first so that they can go and compete?

DAVID SHOEMAKER: We believe strongly that Canada's most vulnerable and frontline workers must be the priority for vaccine. We, in fact, are preparing for a games without vaccines.

MATT GALLOWAY: The vaccines are important, in part not just for the athletes, but also the people in Japan. There are concerns that an influx of travellers from around the world will drive COVID numbers in Japan. Surveys have found the majority of the Japanese public would prefer it if these games were actually cancelled or postponed. Is it fair to the people there to show up if they don't want you there?

DAVID SHOEMAKER: I can appreciate the concern. You know, we're talking about a population that's nearly half of the United States. And... and the COVID infections in Japan are roughly half of the number of COVID infections in Canada. And so while I have read reports of... of a of an overloaded hospital system in Japan, they don't want to bring athletes from around the world and create a situation of community infection from athletes. That is why the IOC has worked so closely with the organizers in Tokyo to create this system, this bubble system, this node system. And I think that's why they will be so careful in a decision around fans attending the games.

MATT GALLOWAY: I mean, the.... you know, surveys suggest that something like as many as 80 per cent of the people in Japan who were polled say they don't want these games to go ahead. So does that weigh on you at all when you're making the decision as to when or whether to send Canadian athletes?

DAVID SHOEMAKER: Opposition to the [chuckling] games is not a new thing. I will anchor my sentiment about Tokyo this summer in this notion that, and I believe strongly in this, that it can be a real symbol of the world recovering from COVID. And for athletes like Jordie and Maggie, a beacon of hope for Olympic dreams. Ten years in the making for Jordie, or four hours a day in the pool for Maggie. I think it's really very important for them, but also important for Canadians. You know, 91 per cent of Canadians tuned in to the last summer games. And I think that can be very meaningful for as a symbol and as part of our hope in this recovery from the pandemic.

MATT GALLOWAY: So how do you go about supporting the athletes' mental health if there is the possibility that these games end up postponed or cancelled entirely?

DAVID SHOEMAKER: We've devoted more to mental health support to our athletes this year probably than in the prior ten years combined through our medical experts, through our network of Canadian Olympic and Paralympic sports institutes across the country. We've also really leaned heavily on Marnie McBean, decorated Olympian, Order of Canada winner and our chef de mission for Tokyo, who's been sending messages to our athletes on a regular basis. You know, she counsels them to maintain their focus and deal with the ups and downs. I don't think anyone should minimize how difficult it is [chuckle] for an athlete to not know whether, in fact, they're going to the games.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just finally, I mean, to the point about resources, I love Olympic Games. I love watching them. I've been to some. It's an extraordinary thing to see when an athlete, you know, exceeds what they thought was possible and they wrap themselves in that flag. But there's a lot of money at stake here as well, something like a billion dollars in TV revenues for the IOC. And eye-watering amounts of money that Japan has spent in trying to be able to pull these games off. What do you say to people who say that the reason these games are going ahead is not for the reasons of sports and the reasons of bringing a nation or world together, but it's really just about the money that's at stake here?

DAVID SHOEMAKER: I mean, you're right, there are eye-watering sums that the Japanese government and the Tokyo Metropolitan government has invested. We at the Canadian Olympic Committee. We're privately funded by 27 marketing partners, and we reinvest over 70 per cent of our proceeds into a sport system. And so, while there are finances at stake, including for us, it's not for the profit of shareholders, but it's for a sport system that we think has a meaningful impact on young boys and girls across the country. And so we think it's very important, even if pegged in a financial context.

MATT GALLOWAY: We'll talk again. In the meantime, David, really appreciate your time this morning. Thanks.

DAVID SHOEMAKER: Thanks so much, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: David Shoemaker is chief executive officer and secretary-general of the Canadian Olympic Committee. So, yes, athletes dreams and health are certainly on the line in all of this, but so is a lot of money, for Japan, for the International Olympic Committee and for advertisers. Morgan Campbell is a senior contributor for CBC Sports. He's been listening in. Morgan, good morning to you.

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Hey, good morning, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: What do you make of what you heard from David Shoemaker there about the importance of these games going forward?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Well, look, as you guys hinted, it's a business. Yes, they're... they're... they're a gathering place. They're a party for all of humanity, and they're a forum to watch the best athletes that you've heard of, and then a few that you haven't heard of, but you're about to fall in love with. They are all of these things. But they're are also a business, which is why the IOC stands to forfeit a billion dollars in broadcast revenue if these games don't happen this year. So as much as COVID-19 will probably still be a factor and will shape people's lives in July when this is happening, no other aspect of the pro sports industry is going to stay on the sidelines that long and cancel two consecutive seasons because there's too much money tied up in these broadcast contracts. So this thing is going to go ahead one way or the other.

MATT GALLOWAY: Do you think it's the right thing to do? I mean, ethically and morally, is it right to throw a party like this in the midst of a global pandemic?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Olympics technically are amateur sport because the athletes don't get an appearance fee, don't get prize money from the Olympics. But make no mistake, this is for-profit-sporting. You're talking about for-profit sport. Ethics become very flexible.

MATT GALLOWAY: In some ways, it seemed like Dick Pound, IOC member and Canadian Olympian, let his inside voice come out in saying that athletes should get priority for vaccines. There are a lot of people who are saying the right thing, saying, no, it needs to be first responders. It needs to be people who are vulnerable. Do you think that athletes should be prioritized for the vaccines?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: I have no problem with athletes getting vaccinated first under certain circumstances. Think about the Olympics as a business. And this business demands that people travel from all over the world. But travelling is dangerous. And the way travel with less risk is to have a vaccine. Now, it's for the IOC to say, well, we got a billion dollars on the line [chuckling], you know, we need all these people here. And the best way to get them here is if they're vaccinated because that makes the host city feel better, and it diminishes our chances of becoming a super spreader event. Cool! So then, if the IOC now wants to make a deal with Moderna or Pfizer and say we, the IOC, will pay for these vaccinations, that's cool. But what's happening is like, why should the IOC sit back and let the public health infrastructure of all these other countries elevate these Olympians ahead of everyone else? Otherwise, I don't see how you justify it, you know, in the context of our public health infrastructure.

MATT GALLOWAY: Or the public health infrastructure, not just here, but elsewhere. I mean, we know --

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Everywhere in the world.

MATT GALLOWAY: We know that the Olympics aren't an equal playing field. We know that this pandemic has not hit people evenly. How much will that be part of these games in a different way, perhaps, than it would be in games past?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: When you look at any sport, any large level pro sport or for-profit sport that has decided to try to press on through this pandemic so much as what determines success or failure is managing how you deal with the virus. And, in general, people in cities with more money can ride this thing out better than people without the resources can. Let's say something happens with the Olympics like what happened with the Australian Open when some of these flights wind up becoming vectors for the coronavirus. So let's say one person gets on Team Kenya's flight with the coronavirus, and by the time they land, ten people have it. And the same thing happens with Ethiopia, all it is is two planes and a bunch of infections. But on the playing field, now,the leaderboard looks different in every running race from 1,500 metres all on up, right?

MATT GALLOWAY: The best runners in the world who suddenly aren't able to compete?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Yeah! Because the goal becomes something different. The champion isn't just the person that runs fastest. It's the person who has managed COVID the best and runs fastest. Or has come from an environment where COVID is managed the best and runs fastest. And that's two different things.

MATT GALLOWAY: We know that in addition to nationally in terms of how this pandemic has disproportionately affected people, male and female athletes have been impacted differently during the pandemic. Tell me about that, and how you think that might affect the games in Tokyo?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: When you think about how much larger of an industry men's pro team sports are? I guess the benefit is that you can set up a bigger and more luxurious, secure campus for the NBA, let's say, than you can for the WNBA. WNBA players were tweeting pictures of how rundown some of their rooms were [chuckling]. And the other problem is because there's so much more money at stake in these mainstream pro men team sports, there's a lot more incentive to pretend the pandemic isn't happening and play as normal of a schedule as possible. Instead of respecting the fact that we're in the middle of a global public health emergency and accepting the fact that, you know what? It's OK to delay the season. It's OK to play a shortened season. It's OK to make all kinds of compromise if it means people are safer. But again, when you introduce that much money into the equation, it changes the outcome.

MATT GALLOWAY: Look into your crystal ball. What's going to happen this summer? Do you think that we'll see Tokyo, 2021?

MORGAN CAMPBELL: There's no question. One of the lessons that we learned from the NFL, from NCAA basketball, is that it doesn't matter who gets sick, how many people get sick, as long as you have this event, you can pat yourself on the back for saying you didn't give up and this thing was successful. Ten years from now, when so many of these young student-athletes who have contracted the coronavirus, if these men and women develop serious long-term complications, then we're all going to shrug, and we're going to ask ourselves if it's worth it? But for right now, and for the story of the Olympic broadcasters are going to tell about these games if they happen, it's going to be a story of triumph over adversity, blah, blah, blah. All of us have have... have our price, right? A billion dollars, that's a healthy price. And even if you don't condone it, it makes sense.

MATT GALLOWAY: Morgan, good to talk to you as always. Thank you.

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Anytime.

MATT GALLOWAY: Morgan Campbell, senior contributor to CBC Sports, we played that little clip of Penny Oleksiak winning gold at the beginning of this conversation. A lot of people remember where they were, perhaps, when they were watching that. Those Olympic moments are real. Should we in the midst of this pandemic, be sending Canadian athletes to the Olympics? Should the games go ahead? Or could this be, you know, the bit of relief that people actually need in the midst of a lot of bad news? You can email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca. Or send us a note on the Twitter: @TheCurrentCBC. Your regional update is next. And then, after that,.

["Come Sail Away" by Styx/Rock]

MATT GALLOWAY: In 90 seconds, the Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb takes us on a journey beyond our stars. And asks the big question, are we alone in the universe? I'm Matt Galloway. "The Current" will be right back.

Harvard scientist on staying open-minded about alien life; Andre Picard

Guests: Avi Loeb, Andre Picard

MATT GALLOWAY Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to "The Current".

STEPHEN COLBERT: Let's talk about something smaller in a way.

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: Sure.

STEPHEN COLBERT: But in sort of mentally another thing that will keep you up at night and kind of make your brain explode is this thing came from deep space, not in our system, not from your Oort Cloud or your Kuiper Belt.

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: For the first time ever, an object from inter stellar space has been observed to visit our solar system.

MATT GALLOWAY That's Stephen Colbert and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2018. And they're debating the origin of that thing.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Now, this thing's got to be like a ship, right?

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: No, no. cigars don't come journeying into the solar system. So.

STEPHEN COLBERT: [crowd laughs] Which is why it has to be an alien spaceship.

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: [chuckling] So, so.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Yeah.

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: Asteroids, we know.

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: Many of them, if not most of them, are loosely held together rubble piles.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Uh-huh.

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: And if they come near gravitational sources, tidal forces can stretch them. The signal we get from it is elongated, but it's probably a rubble pile stretched into that shape.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Um-hmm.

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: Because you don't get that by... by nature. You don't get that.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Yeah, that's why it's manmade. [crowd laughs].

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: Alien made.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Alien made.

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: You want that to be aliens. That's what... fess up! You want that to be aliens.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Of course I want that to be aliens!

NEIL DEGASSE TYSON: OK!

MATT GALLOWAY [laughing] What that thing actually was continues to be the source of great debate. Regardless, it got a name. The name is or Oumuamua, which is the Hawaiian word for a "messenger arriving from afar". Avi Loeb has an idea of what it was, an idea that has a lot of other scientists thinking that that was really out there. Avi Loeb is an astrophysicist who has done pioneering research into black holes and cosmology, worked alongside the likes of Stephen Hawking and is the Frank B. Baird Jr. professor of science at Harvard University. His new book is called "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth" Avi Loeb, good morning.

AVI LOEB: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MATT GALLOWAY Thank you for being here. Where would you come down in this debate that we just heard between the scientist and the talk show host?

AVI LOEB: Well, actually, I wouldn't call Neil deGrasse Tyson a scientist because for the past 12 years or so, he hasn't written a single scientific paper.

MATT GALLOWAY That's a little bit of shade, scientific shade there.

AVI LOEB: Between two people that publicize science. And where I come from, is actually the scientific evidence that we have. And that's what guided my inference. And we can discuss why I concluded this object could potentially be of artificial origin based on its weird properties. It didn't look anything like a comet or an asteroid that we saw before from the solar system.

MATT GALLOWAY So why don't you just briefly describe what a Omuamua was? What was it?

AVI LOEB: Omuamua was the first object that we spotted near the Earth that came from outside the solar system. And we know that because it moved too fast to be bound to the sun, it was discovered by the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii. And as a result, the name that it was given means scout in the Hawaiian language, oumuamua. And at first, astronomers thought, just like Neil deGrasse Tyson was trying to argue that it's probably a comet. And the only problem with that idea is that there was no cometary tail. Comets are rocks covered with ice, and when they get close to the sun, the ice warms up and evaporates. And you see a cloud of gas behind the object. And unfortunately, we haven't seen anything like gas behind it. And the Spitzer Space Telescope looked very deeply and couldn't trace any carbon-based molecules or dust around this object to a very high significance. So, in fact, there is no way that this object could have been a comet. So it's definitely not a comet of the type that we are familiar with. And then, astronomers said, OK, so maybe it's just the rock. The problem with that is that it showed an excess push away from the sun, which is usually associated with cometary evaporation. The rocket effect pushes the rock away from the sun, but but there was no cometary tail. So the question arose as to what gives it this extra push. And the third thing is, as it was tumbling, the brightness from this object, from reflected sunlight changed by a factor of ten. And that means as the object is tumbling, the length of the object projected on the sky was at least ten times longer than it was wide, projected on the sky. And just keep in mind that even if you have a piece of paper tumbling in the wind, even though the paper is razor thin, what is projected as you look at it is usually not razor thin because it's unlikely for it to be exactly as drawn. And so a factor of ten to one between the long axis and the short axis in the image that you see is quite extreme. Now, in the famous cartoon, it was depicted as if it's cigar-shaped.

MATT GALLOWAY Right.

AVI LOEB: And that's what Neil deGrasse Tyson was talking about. That's wrong. Detailed analysis of the light reflected from the object shows that with a 91 per cent confidence level, it's most likely flat. Disk shape, not cigar shape.

MATT GALLOWAY So in terms that that even I, a humble radio host, could understand. What do you think... if it wasn't those things, what do you think it was?

AVI LOEB: Yeah. So I... the only thing I could think of that explains the extra push is that it's pushed by reflecting sunlight. And for that, it has to be very thin, like a sail. And we are familiar with a sail on a boat that is being pushed by the wind, the reflecting air. And the same thing happens when light bounces off a surface. It gives it an extra push. And this is called a light sail. And we are currently developing this technology for space exploration. It offers the advantage of not needing to carry the fuel. And so it's quite possible that what we saw is a technological artefact, a light sail or... or even just a surface layer of some technological spacecraft.

MATT GALLOWAY So when you say technological artefact, I mean, it's not like it would be like some sort of probe that's coming to look at us. It's something that... something, you know, something else created that is passing by us?

AVI LOEB: Right. It was created artificially. Now, nature doesn't produce such thin structures. And, you know, other... other astronomers that that took seriously those weird properties of this object. Try to explain it. But all the scenarios that were suggested invoked something that we have never seen before, like a football-field-sized chunk of frozen hydrogen, a hydrogen iceberg. We've never seen anything like it before. And also, it would have not survived the journey. And another suggestion was maybe it's a cloud of dust sort of that is 100 times less dense than air. Again, it would not likely survive the journey, but anyone that tried to explain what we observed had to explain it in terms of something that we have never seen before. And keep in mind, this is the very first object that we see visiting our solar system from outside. And so I said, you know, if it's nothing that we have seen before, why not contemplate the possibility that it's of artificial origin? Now, the only people that claim business as usual of those that do not pay attention to the details of the evidence that we have.

MATT GALLOWAY There are a lot of people who when you said that, why not say that it might be something of artificial origin? There are a lot of people who said that, you know, the math doesn't add up, the science isn't there, the evidence isn't there. Natalie Starkey analyses comets and asteroids at the U.K.'s Open University and on the podcast Star Talk Radio, she said this.

NATALIE STARKEY: I love the old Carl Sagan saying extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And we don't have the evidence to really strongly support the idea that this is an alien spacecraft or some alien spaceship junk or something like that. What we have to do first is rule out all the more natural observations that we make, all the more actual ideas about what this thing could be.

MATT GALLOWAY Avi Loeb, without that extraordinary evidence, as Carl Sagan loved to talk about, why do you believe what you do?

AVI LOEB: OK, well, I discuss it in my book.

MATT GALLOWAY Yeah.

AVI LOEB: And what people call extraordinary is in the eyes of the beholder. Some people regard black holes as extraordinary. Others would say no, black holes are just a consequence of Einstein's gravity. What we need to pay attention to is evidence. And when the evidence shows something anomalous, and this is scientific evidence, just to remind you. And this in this scientist that you just... we just listened to I haven't seen a paper that she wrote about this subject. I wrote maybe a dozen papers on this object and on the scientific evidence that we have. So the people that dismiss the evidence just because it's not extraordinary enough, are those people that do not attend to the evidence at all! They haven't written a single paper on this subject. They just dismiss it because of prejudice, because it takes them out of the comfort zone. And I can mention an anecdote I had... we had a seminar at Harvard about this object, Oumuamua. And at the end of the seminar, I left the room together with a scientist, a colleague of mine, that worked for decades on rocks within the solar system. And he said to me, this object is so weird, I wish it never existed. Now, I was appalled by this because in science you should accept whatever nature shows you, because sometimes, nature's imagination is greater than ours. We should be open-minded. Instead, what you see are people like that scientist that we just listened to that would not even pay attention to the evidence, would never write a paper on this evidence. I mean, Neil deGrasse Tyson did not write even a paper in astrophysics in general. I'm not talking just about the subject, OK? And they would make categorical statements if they defend science. But, in fact, if you look at the details, they didn't even do the science related to this subject.

MATT GALLOWAY Your book is...

AVI LOEB: I wrote papers that were accepted for publication in the main prestigious journals. And, in fact, my first paper on this object was accepted within three days for publication. And I'm discussing this object just like I discuss any other scientific topic that I worked on, like Black holes, the early universe. And we should engage in dealing with the facts, the evidence, rather than with a prejudice. Now, I don't think we need extraordinary evidence to say that something is unusual. If there is an anomaly that shows up in the data, we should discuss possible explanations for this.

MATT GALLOWAY Let me just ask you about... because, and I apologise for interrupting, but you talked about the idea of prejudice. And somebody had described your book as in some ways a plea to keep an open mind. Do you need to have that open mind, that sense of wonder in the work that you're doing, that.. that desire almost to believe and to have to be proven otherwise?

AVI LOEB: It's not a matter of belief. To me, doing science is maintaining your childhood curiosity. You're basically supposed to learn from nature through... through the evidence that nature gives you something new. So many times, scientists prefer to be in their comfort zone, so they prefer to stay within what they know already and not accept that they may be wrong, OK? But if you look, for example, at the career of Albert Einstein. In the last decade of his career, when he was the most experienced scientist ever, and the most brilliant scientist of the 20th century, he made three fundamental mistakes. He argued that black holes don't exist. He argued gravitational waves don't exist. And he argued that quantum mechanics doesn't have a spooky action at a distance. These were all proven wrong by experiments later on. Now, when you are working at the frontiers, you are sometimes wrong. That's the lesson one has to learn. And one has to keep an open mind, rather than ridicule any suggestion that takes you away from what you believe in, because that's what the philosophers did to Galileo when he argued, if you look through my telescope, you will realize that the earth moves around the sun. And they said, no, we know that the sun moves around the earth, and they put him in house arrest. And the only thing that that accomplished was to maintain their ignorance. You know, reality doesn't really care whether we ignore it or not. We just maintain our ignorance by refusing to accept anomalies.

MATT GALLOWAY We're just about out of time. We just have a few seconds left. Do you think that Oumuamua was a one-off or would you expect more of these things to pass by us?

AVI LOEB: Oh, many more because we looked only for a few years. You know, when I find an ant in the kitchen, I get alarmed because there must be many more out there.

MATT GALLOWAY And so if there are more out there, what should we be doing to ensure that we have the technology not just to see it the next time perhaps it comes by, but to do something else?

AVI LOEB: Oh, it's very simple. We just need to find an object on its way towards us rather than away from us. And when it comes in our direction, we just need to send the spacecraft equipped with a camera that will take a photograph of this object. Close up photo. You know, there is this saying a picture is worth a thousand words. I'm sure that my colleagues that are very critical right now, when they see a photograph of something that doesn't look like a rock, they would be convinced.

MATT GALLOWAY Will that happen in your lifetime?

AVI LOEB: Yes, it would happen within a few years if we just use our telescopes rather than put blinders on our eyes and claim that we know the unseen advanced, like many of these people say.

MATT GALLOWAY Avi Loeb, it's a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you very much.

AVI LOEB: My pleasure.

MATT GALLOWAY Avi Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. professor of science at Harvard University. His new book is called "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth".

[Music: Ambient]

MATT GALLOWAY You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. After warning on Tuesday that new travel restrictions are coming, well, the prime minister made good on his word, announcing that airlines, including Air Canada, WestJet, Sun Wing and Air Transit have cancelled all services to the Caribbean and Mexico starting this Sunday through to the end of April. He also announced mandatory quarantine for three days for those returning to this country while they await test results. They will have to pay for that quarantine on their own. And prime minister suggesting could be upwards of two thousand dollars. All of this in an effort to encourage Canadians to stay home, and specifically not hit the beach during March break as this pandemic fatigue that many people are experiencing hits new heights. In the meantime, COVID and these new variants keep spreading. There are questions as to whether the masks that we're wearing are doing enough to protect us. And there are fights over vaccines rollout and distribution at home and abroad. There's a lot going [chuckling] on here to walk us through it is and mail health columnist André Picard. Andre, good morning.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY Tell me about these travel restrictions as you understand them. What difference do you think they will make in curbing the spread of COVID-19 here in Canada?

ANDRE PICARD: I think a lot of this is symbolism. We're doing a lot of stuff now, just not getting a lot of attention. There's not a lot of enforcement. So I think the message from the prime minister is, listen, we're cracking down now. We hear you, people are tired of seeing people going off to the sun. There's a lot of symbolism here. As you know, the pandemic in Canada really took off after March break last year. So the message is here, nobody's going away for March break. We're shutting down all of a sun destinations. And then there's a little bit more stringent measures about people returning. You know, this three mandatory days in in a hotel. We thought that was going to be 14. But what we have is three mandatory days in hotel and then 14 days in quarantine, which already exists. But they say it's going to be enforced much more stringently now.

MATT GALLOWAY Now, who's thinking of travelling from March break? I mean, we're in the midst of a pandemic. I get that it's gone on for months and people are tired. But are people really thinking of taking trips, you know, to the Caribbean to go and lay on a beach in Jamaica somewhere?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, sadly, yes. If you go to an airport, a big airport, Toronto or Montreal, there's big line-ups for these sun destination flights out, big newspaper ads advertising there's great sales. So people are saying, hey, why not? So it's this mixed messaging about, you know, go, go, go, and then don't go. So I think there's some clarity now. And the prime minister's giving credit to the airlines saying, you know, they're doing this voluntarily. But I think that was long overdue. They've been irresponsible for quite a number of months now.

MATT GALLOWAY What about travel within this country? We were speaking earlier this week about one of the new COVID variants that has been... I mean, Barrie, Ontario is kind of ground zero for that. And in speaking with an infectious disease specialist, she suggested that, you know, roadblocks in some ways be put up so that this variant is not spreading to other parts of the province and perhaps other parts of the country. Should there be more restrictions on travel between provinces as well? Like, the mandatory quarantines in the Atlantic region and in Manitoba?

ANDRE PICARD: Yes, we've had the Atlanta bubble. Manitoba now is cracking down on travel from other provinces. Other provinces are mulling it. You know, BC's talked about it. Alberta has ruled that. BC has said it's too complicated. So I don't think it'll happen. But I think the message again is don't do it. We're going to give you some grief, even if it's not official. So, you know, if you take a province like Manitoba, there's literally only four roads into the province. Pretty easy to regulate. Same with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia. Those things easy to regulate. Ontario, Quebec, BC, it's much more complicated, a lot more routes. So I think there's just going to be more messaging about don't doing this, but not formal measures.

MATT GALLOWAY So much of this is about these new variants. And it's not just one. It's not just a variant from the United Kingdom. People are talking about one from South Africa, perhaps from Brazil as well. How concerned do you think we should be about those variants?

ANDRE PICARD: I think the variants are concerning. There's lots of evidence that they spread more readily. So that's the big concern. They don't seem to be more deadly. But if more people are catching the coronavirus, there's going to be more people hospitalized, more deaths that sort of follow. So I think it is concerning, particularly concerning because it's coming at a time where things are actually going better. Our case numbers are coming down pretty sharply, and then we have this black cloud coming. Well, maybe they're going to spread a lot more quickly again. And the numbers could shoot out even more dramatically than we've ever seen.

MATT GALLOWAY Are you encouraged by that? The numbers coming down, such as you see them?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think we're in this kind of paradoxical time where there's this really good news, but then these threats. So it's hard to be too optimistic, but I think we have to also not let this get us down too much, because the reality is the old fashioned stuff works, you know, wearing a mask, physical distancing, not gathering in crowds, washing our hands, all that works against every variant. And that's what we have to stick to. I think it's a kind of a back to basics time again.

MATT GALLOWAY Are the masks that we're wearing working? There has been concern, and particularly in Europe, around the cloth masks perhaps not offering adequate protection against these new variants. So do we need to change up the masks that we're wearing?

ANDRE PICARD: A mask, no matter what it is, it's better than no mask. But yes, there's a movement towards Canada is now recommending a three ply mask, SO a little more... Little thicker mask. The U.S. is calling for double masking. So there are a lot of movements to have better masks. We don't have standards. Those are overdue. you know, when you're buying one in a store, you don't know what you're getting, how good it is. So all of this stuff is evolving. But I think for the public, the message is wear a mask, try and wear a better one if you can. But the other stuff has to be done as well.

MATT GALLOWAY All of this is being done to try to win the foot race against these variants. And essentially, run the clock until the vaccines are widely available. There is a lot of anxiety around whether these vaccines are going to be widely available in a short period of time. There are delays with the rollout. There's this disagreement between the EU, which just approved AstraZeneca and that company. And talk that the European Union wants to restrict any attempt by AstraZeneca to move vaccine doses manufactured there to other countries, presumably countries like Canada, if we ever approve that, until the supply obligations for the EU member states are met. How worried are you that the vaccine contracts that we have might end up being violated because of what people call vaccine nationalism?

ANDRE PICARD: I think the vaccine nationalism is a concern, but I think it's a short-term one. I think we're kind of in this fear and panic mode because there's not much vaccine coming off the production lines. That's going to be resolved by April. So, I think, for the next couple of months, it's going to be a lot of stressors. I don't think we should get overly concerned about whether we get 32,000 doses today or 42,000. That doesn't matter in the long run. And it's still everything points to by the end of March, we're going to have everything we were promised, which isn't enough to about six million doses. But we're going to get a little slower. We're not going to get it in the same order. So there's all these technicalities. But if we keep our eye on the long game with vaccines, and that's what vaccines are about, getting this done in the long-term, I think things are looking not near as bad as they seem in the daily news headlines.

MATT GALLOWAY Well, let's talk, just before I let you go, about the daily news headlines, I said at the beginning when I introduced you, there's a lot going on. You wrote a column about how we should in some ways interpret all of this conflicting news. And you quoted a quotation about mindfulness saying you can't stop the waves, you can learn to surf. What does that say to you?

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, I quote from John Kabat-Zinn, a mindfulness guru. And the message is really just to go with the waves, go with the flow. You can't.... all the things you can't control, don't worry about those. Do the things you can control. Stay at home, wear your mask. Don't go off to a Caribbean vacation. Do that stuff, and the other things will have to take care of themselves. So I think it's that keep your eye on the long ball, and hang in there. Things are going to get better, I think in the pretty short-term.

MATT GALLOWAY Andre, we will take your optimism. Great to talk to you, as always. Thank you.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY Andre Picard, The Globe and Mail health columnist. We'll talk more about mask's next week on "The Current", by the way. In the meantime, that's it for "The Current" for today, and for this week. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's "Q". Before we go, you may have heard the news that the great actor Cicely Tyson died yesterday. She was 96. She had an incredible life, and a remarkable career, won a Tony, Emmys, an honorary Oscar, was a fierce advocate for Black artists, pushed back against demeaning portrayals of Black people on screen all the way back from her work in the film "Sounder" in 1972, to her work in the miniseries "Roots", to being on Broadway when she was 90 years old. She also challenged a lot of stereotypical beauty constructs around Black women and what Black women should look like just by wearing an afro. In wearing an afro, she made in many ways a revolutionary statement, but also proved to be a point of inspiration for Black women through generations, something that she talks about in her autobiography that came out just this week. The book is called "Just As I Am". She was speaking with Tom Power about it on "Q", earlier this week, if you missed it, a great conversation, she talks about the secrets to living a long life at the end of that interview. And it's really, really quite something.

MATT GALLOWAY We'll leave you today with the gospel song of the same name as Cicely Tyson's autobiography. This is the great mighty Mahalia Jackson. And "Just As I Am". I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Take good care. Have a good weekend. And I'll talk to you on Monday.

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January 29, 2021 Episode Transcript

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