The UN weather agency has recently reported that the CO2 emissions are the highest they have been in 800,000 years. (Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/co2-levels-record-1.4378091) While it is fair to say that global climate change has been one of the leading concerns for the global community, this news may still come as a surprise. Personally, I found it shocking that despite all the effort to battle climate change, CO2 levels rise rapidly. After all, most of the climate change articles talk about improvements in green technology. So how come for all of our solar panels, electric cars and renewable energy, greenhouse gasses keeps rising?

What are the consequences of mainstream media focusing primarily on positive news, in regards to the climate change? Positive news in general makes us feel more accomplished, it makes us feel that we are on the right track to our goals…When it comes to the topic of climate change, this type of thinking is dangerous. It is dangerous because it makes us believe that we are doing a good job battling climate change. It makes us believe that if keep doing what we are doing, we will reach our goals. However, the most recent news by the UN weather agency shows us that it is not at all the case. Apparently, we are not even close to our goals.

There seems to be a discrepancy between what we believe and what the real situation. We think that driving Teslas and investing in a solar panel is enough, while it turns out that the situation is worse than ever. We, as a global community, have not done enough to deserve the feeling that things are going to be fine. Once there is a steady decline in the CO2 levels, maybe we will have the luxury of having this mentality. But today is not the day.

What can we take away from all this? One thing is clear: we cannot allow ourselves to be ignorant of what the real situation is, no matter whether it is positive or negative. Mainstream media is a powerful tool to sway the public opinion. As such, it should not be making us feel better about battling global climate change. It should be telling us facts as they are. Today, the fact is that we are in danger of leaving the world a lot less habitable for the future generations.

Ever since the events of 2014, when Ukraine exiled its corrupt, pro-Russian government and Russia annexed Crimea, the relationship between the two countries are tense. To most, the fundamentals are obvious: Ukraine is taking a pro-Western approach (by working on joining the EU) and Russia is very much against it and it makes sense. After all, despite the Cold War being long over, there is still a stand-off between the West and Russia. Ukraine longing to join the West would mean a significant loss for Russia.

As a result, a big part of the struggle between Ukraine and Russia is taking place online, rather than on battlefields or in diplomatic meetings. More specifically, it has take a form of cyber attacks that Russia is now infamous for. While the impacts of cyber attacks by Russian hackers may not be too clear, it is not the case in Ukraine. Such cyber attacks have been responsible for government website and even electricity outages in Ukraine. While this may not sound like drastic damages, the implications of these attacks are significant.

They are significant because Ukraine is a vulnerable country, trying to establish its new government and more importantly, its  independent national identity. If Ukraine is to do so, it cannot remain vulnerable to cyber attacks simply because it undermines its position as a country. We have seen that cyber attacks caused major debates about the democratic processes in the United States, one of the most powerful country in the world. This alone shows that cyber attacks could be a powerful tool to disrupt governments and economies and the sooner Ukraine starts prioritizing cyber attacks as a threat, the sooner it will be able to achieve its national goals.

So UBC has laid out its transportation plan , which was adopted in 1999 with some tweaks in 2014. On paper it seems like a progressive, green initiative, which fits in perfectly into the larger UBC and Vancouver-wide sustainable development plans.

It has 3 big targets:

1. Make UBC a walking, cycling and busing university by 2040. (Which means that at least two thirds of commuting to be done by those means)
2. Reduce one person per car driving to UBC.
3. Maintain the number of private vehicles at UBC below the 1997 levels.

It is 2017 now and since it has been more than 17 years since the original approval of the plan, surely there has been some progress made towards achieving the aforementioned goals. However, as a student who has been at UBC every year since 2011, it is hard to see the changes. A quick note that everything said from this point forward is a personal opinion.

In reality, there has not been any improvement in the speed or comfort of commuting to UBC in years. All the efforts to get rid of cars on campus end up resulting in increased parking fees, which does not matter. Most of the students who drive to UBC either are very well-off and do not care for increases in parking fees (judging by the average value of cars parked at UBC) or students who legitimately do not have a choice of commuting by other means. What this looks like in daily life on campus is that most of the cars on campus look like they are straight out of a car show. Not only it is hard to see the reduction in numbers, it might matter to UBC that there are lots and lots of cars on campus that are not only eco-unfriendly but actually quite more damaging to the environment than a Toyota Camry. As a car enthusiast, I see way too many cars that pass me by on campus that have 500+ horsepower V8 engines. So when I hear that UBC is trying to eliminate driving to campus, all I see is that it is trying to eliminate it for those students who are already not doing it for a variety of reason, including financial limits.

This message is only reinforced by the fact that UBC keeps building new parking lots. If we are to reduce the number of private vehicles on campus, I have hard times trying to fit new parking lots into the UBC transportation plan. The only plausible explanation that I have for doing that is profit maximization. Considering that so many of the students who live on campus, and by definition, should not require a car, it is surprising that there are lots of people who do live on campus and drive a $100,000, which is parked conveniently at UBC parking lots. I am sorry UBC, but it is hard to take the transportation plan seriously when every move you make screams profit maximization.

Issue that does not make the news headlines often is the global water scarcity. With water being at the very basis of human needs, it may be surprising for some that 1.2 billion people do not have access to clean water.  Every year, 3.5 million children under the age of 5 die of waterborne diseases.

Some believe that the answer to the above issues is water privatization. At the forefront of this thinking is Nestle, the company who has a track record of morally-deficient policies and practices, namely having a cyber  monitor Internet criticism and shape discussions in social media and battling the labeling of GMO-filled products.

The basic idea behind water privatization is to have multinational beverage companies with  water-well privileges over citizens. While this may look like a viable solution due to economic properties of private firms, such as abundance of funds to establish quality control, already developed distribution channels, there are some major fundamental issues with such a policy.

The first and foremost goal of large, multinational organizations is to make profits. There is no reason to think that Nestle or Coca-Cola company are not going to extend their profit-oriented mentality to fresh water markets. One single thing to take away from this is that private companies are economic, and in economics, equality or fairness are not a concern. Distribution water for profit, by definition, cannot solve the shortage of fresh water around the globe.

Secondly, privatization of water implies that access to drinkable water is not a basic human right. As wrong as it sounds, this point of view is not even hidden. For example, the chairman of Nestle has openly said that access to fresh water is not “a public right”. So by Nestle’s definition, not every human being should be able to drink safe, drinkable water because some do not deserve it. If fresh water sources are privatized, it is not us, the people, who will be deciding whether we can drink safe water when we need it. It will be the small number of rich executives.

Lastly, when a specific fresh water source is privatized, it means that no one but the owner of the rights have access to that water. It is up to that owner, whomever that may be, to decide whether they want to share it with the public or not. It just so happens that many villages, towns and in some cases even countries have access to just 1 fresh water source. So if it privatized, the public does not have any alternative. In essence, privatization of water can only worsen the already-existing fresh water scarcity.

What to take out of this reading is that the issue of water privatization needs to gain widespread knowledge before it is too late. In light of so many different events happening around the globe, water privatization is lost somewhere and it is not a part of the biggest debates and narratives. While private companies, like Nestle, are quietly advancing their agenda to privatize fresh water supplies around the world, there needs to be a strong public opposition to make sure it does not happen. Reading and talking about it is the first step towards successful opposition of companies that want to take away some of the most fundamental human rights, access to safe drinkable water.