That & That roundup
A collection of smaller THIS & THAT articles from the March-April 2007 issue.
News Courthouse confidential
Author Derek Finkle won’t give up secret sources without a fight
Derek Finkle, the author of the best-selling book No Claim to Mercy, which follows the police investigation of Robert Baltovich, may have to hand over his research materials to prosecutors or face jail time. Finkle, who’s fighting the injunction, sees the move as a threat to the future of investigative journalism, as do the many press freedom organizations supporting him.
“By being compelled to hand over his material, Derek Finkle’s confidential sources could be revealed during the trial process,” says PEN Canada’s national affairs chair, Christopher Waddell.
Court threats to journalist-source confidentiality contracts could mean journalists will have a tougher time getting the information they need, not to mention find themselves embroiled in expensive and lengthy court procedures.
“I think if I had known that my research was going to be used to prosecute or defend him, I probably wouldn’t have done the book,” says Finkle, who is also the editor of Toro magazine.
Baltovich was convicted of the second-degree murder of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, in 1992, and given a life sentence. However, he was later granted a re-trial for later this year, partly due to information in Finkle’s criticism of the police investigation.
Finkle’s lawyer expects it will take at least a few months for the court to make a final decision. —Andrea Chiu
List Four things that may not be as good for you as you think
Juice
We all know that while juice is a beverage, “juice beverages” aren’t necessarily juice. However, Minute Maid Pink Grapefruit, which does contain the juice of its namesake, somehow manages to contain almost no vitamin C. Vegetarians, take note: the juice uses cochineal, a dye derived from Dactylopius coccus—a red beetle-like insect—to achieve its pretty colour.
Multigrain or seven-grain bread This may sound like a healthier alternative to a slice of Wonder Bread, but this may not be the case. It is often made with refined white flour, which has been stripped of most of the nutrients found in whole grains.
Sunscreen We slather on the sunscreen to protect ourselves, but the chemicals found in sunscreen may have some negative side effects of their own. Preliminary research indicates that benzophenone, one of the most common UVA-protecting chemicals, mimics estrogen. It is easily absorbed into the body, where it can disrupt the human endocrine system. There are also concerns about benzophenone’s impact on wildlife; it can survive sewage treatment and, when released back into the water supply, settles on the ocean floor to be consumed by bottom-feeding fish, some of which go on to grow ovarian tissue in their testes.
Water Water may be the most healthy thing to drink, but too much of a good thing can lead to a condition known as hyponatremia, or “water poisoning.” Hyponatremia occurs when too much water is consumed in too short a time, diluting important electrolytes like sodium and potassium. Symptoms of water poisoning are very similar to dehydration—muscle cramps, nausea and disorientation. Left untreated, it can lead to seizures, coma or even death. —Sarah Ferguson and Stacy Lee Kong
What ever happened to … acid rain Blame it on the rain
Twenty years ago you couldn’t open a newspaper without reading about acid rain—the toxic mixture of pollution and precipitation that devastated forests and lakes across Canada in the 1970s and 1980s.
Now the issue seems to have completely disappeared. So, did we actually solve the problem?
Well, we have made some progress: In eastern Canada, emissions of sulphur dioxide have declined by more than 60 percent since 1980, when trees and fish all over Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes were dying at alarming rates. (Some of the early improvements were illusory. Sudbury’s moonscape originally started regenerating because Inco built a smokestack so high that it dispersed emissions as far away as—seriously—Greenland.)
One big reason for this turnaround was the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain, CCAR was one of the first environmental groups that included the public health sector and tourism industry. “It wasn’t just the usual suspects,” says Dan McDermott, former acid rain co-ordinator for Greenpeace International. “They were organized and media-savvy.” It didn’t hurt that a number of the lakes affected were in prime cottage country.
CCAR’s efforts paid off. In 1991 George Bush I and Brian Mulroney signed the Canada-U.S. Air Quality Agreement (AQA) pledging to end acid rain.
Unfortunately, it is now evident that scientists overestimated how much acid rain our soil and lakes can withstand. Environment Canada now warns that without stricter limits, an area of eastern Canada equal to the United Kingdom and France combined could be damaged, and up to 95,000 lakes acidified.
Scientists also predict that acid rain will start to become a problem in the West (which is not covered by the AQA). Why?
Says Chris Severson-Baker of the Pembina Institute, “With the growth of the oil and gas industry, Alberta has become the biggest emitter of nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide emissions.” —Zoe Cormier
WTF?
Late last year, Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier told the Canadian Press that the idea of a Canadian election in the upcoming months “is exactly what we would not like to see.” Maybe we didn’t get the memo but isn’t this whole mission in Afghanistan about championing democracy?
