Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University
Keep on Commuting
April 5, 2022
Gino McTuff’s journey to the library
March 29, 2022
Keep on Commuting
April 5, 2022
Gino McTuff’s journey to the library
March 29, 2022
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is one of the deadliest viruses in the world and has claimed over 35 million lives to date. Recently, Nitika Pant Pai, Associate Professor at the McGill Department of Medicine and researcher at The Research Institute McGill University Health Centre has helped develop a new app called HIVSmart! designed to reduce the spread of this lethal virus. HIV attacks human CD4 T-cells—a type of white blood cell that usually protects us from disease. Without these immune cells, HIV patients are defenceless against other infections and succumb to illnesses that healthy patients would otherwise be able to fight off.
HIV is most commonly transmitted through unprotected sex; however, it can also be passed on through contact with blood. For example, drug injections with previously used and contaminated needles can also spread the virus.
One of the most fatal aspects of HIV is the lack of immediate symptoms, leaving carriers unaware that they have been infected—contributing to the spread of the disease. Unfortunately, the stigma associated with getting tested for HIV prevents people from getting tested as often as they should. HIVSmart! targets this problem to help with the diagnosis.
For the past five years, Pai has been working on making HIV testing more accessible to those who need it most. Pai’s HIVSmart! is a mobile app that guides an individual through the process of performing their own HIV screening test whenever necessary.
For Pai, HIVSmart! would be an essential component of the HIV screening process.
“People can certainly test themselves without an app, but the experience of testing and linkage to care is incomplete,” Pai said. “HIV self-testing devices have issues with interpretation, and many testers need help. Certainly after the test, if they find themselves positive, they need counselling and support.”
For those who test positive, HIVSmart! would provide a 24-hour helpline and confidential linkages to healthcare facilities, as well as access to counsellors.
The app has gone through over 30 prototypes and has been tested in at-risk populations in Canada and South Africa. Although not yet available to the general public, HIVSmart! is currently completing a clinical trial, and Pai hopes that it will be accessible soon. It will be free for those who live in low-income countries and will offer at least six languages.
Pai views the clinical trial as only the first step toward a big future for the HIVSmart! app.
“We recently signed a partnership with an influential organization (The International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, or IAPAC) to use HIVSmart! in over 80 high-burden cities worldwide in the initiative to end the HIV epidemic,” Pai said. “We would like to believe that it will be used by many different organizations around the world!”
IAPAC is an association dedicated to the global battle against HIV. In 2014, it began its Fast-Track City initiative, based on what they call the 90-90-90 and zero goal. This goal hopes to attain 90 per cent of people living with HIV to know their HIV status, 90 per cent of the diagnosed individuals to be on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for their HIV, and 90 per cent of those on ART to achieve viral suppression. The 90-90-90 and zero goal can also combat negative attitudes toward the virus through stigma elimination trainings offered to healthcare providers in these Fast-Track cities.
Pai’s app will be an essential step to IAPAC’s first and last goals, as HIVSmart! will greatly aid in the diagnosis of HIV status while avoiding much of the stigma present in more public settings.
McGill students have already helped Pai in her fight against HIV. In 2011, a group of students helped evaluate the app’s strategy. She encouraged students to get involved in the battle against HIV.
“Spread the word,” Pai said. “I will be happy if [McGill students] believe in our social mission [….] We need to do more to reach the underprivileged in low and high income settings.”
With the use of HIV self-testing, aided by HIVSmart!, Pai is hopeful that the HIV epidemic will soon cease to spread at such a dangerous rate and take fewer lives.
Critics must balance linguistic priorities with human impact when discussing Air Canada’s faux pas
April 7, 2026
The pattern behind Hassan’s denial of entry
April 7, 2026
Quebec’s proposed legislation regarding the regulation of marijuana—set to be legalized federally on July 1, 2018—will likely be the harshest in the country, amassing much criticism since it was tabled on Nov. 16. On one side, the Quebec Liberal Party has come under attack from news sites, such as Vice, and marijuana activists for being too strict; on the other, opposing parties, like the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), have called Bill 157 too permissive. Yet, as they stand, Quebec’s proposed weed laws strike an advantageous balance between mitigating the potentially dangerous aftershocks of marijuana legalization—like a spike in youth consumption and DUIs—and being liberal enough to accommodate for responsible consumers and decrease the incentive for the retention of a significant black market. Bill 157 is strict, but not without reason.
The key specifics of the bill include a legal age of 18, zero tolerance for driving under the influence, no unregulated growing, a possession limit of 150 grams per person, and no privatization. In a province where only 46 per cent of the population supports marijuana legalization—compared to 54 per cent nationally—it’s not surprising that the specifics of weed’s transition into the legal market are controversial.
One of the major issues raised by the CAQ is the proposed legal age. The evidence of weed’s detrimental effects on the growing brain’s mental health, neurocognitive performance, and neurological structure are well documented; therefore, the CAQ has advocated for raising the minimum legal age to 21. Yet, given the disproportionate percentage of marijuana users between the ages of 18-22, making the legal age 21 would only encourage black market distribution—and all of the potential health and crime issues that surround it. These include the addition of potentially dangerous adulterants to weed, and violent distribution rivalries. The Quebec Liberal Party’s proposed legislation concedes that young people will inevitably smoke, regardless of legality. By not making the legal age too high, it improves the government’s ability to ensure health standards for young smokers.
Unlike Alberta, Quebec has rejected the privatization of the marijuana dispensary industry, instead opting for full government control. The weed-friendly side of the debate has deemed this measure draconian. Jodi Emery, marijuana activist and co-owner of Cannabis Culture Magazine, is quoted in the National Post as saying that Bill 157 “sounds like prohibition” and “denies Quebec residences many of their different rights and freedoms.” Yet, citizens benefit because the Quebec government will retain its power over the sale of marijuana, and therefore be able to more successfully limit underage consumption and regulate safety standards, such as THC and CBD content levels, the main psychoactive ingredients in cannabis.
Also to its credit, Quebec has categorically banned unregulated marijuana growth for personal use, and has set the legal possession limit at 150 grams, but these stipulations have incensed both those who believe the bill is too strict and those who argue it’s too permissive. Marijuana activists say that this will cause unnecessary criminalization, while CAQ justice critic Simon Jolin Barrette says the 150-gram limit is too high. Ultimately, legalizing weed—and normalizing its consumption—will almost certainly cause an increase in its use among people younger than 18. If people are allowed to grow their own weed or possess large amounts, then it would likely fuel that market.
Regarding driving under the influence, the province has declared that there will be zero tolerance. While this may seem unnecessarily punitive given that there is a legal limit for drinking and driving above zero, marijuana affects people differently, making it difficult to determine a standard legal limit. Therefore, severe DUI laws are critical for limiting the threat of increased weed-related collisions.
Despite the vehement opposition it has faced, Quebec’s proposed legislation for the regulation of legal weed is thoroughly socially responsible. Bill 157 mitigates the risk of a persistent and significant black market, does nothing to impede reasonable consumption, and gives the provincial government the most possible power to ensure public health and safety. While the laws are undeniably strict, they are necessary to limit the negative effects of a likely explosion in marijuana consumption. While more lenient laws may be appropriate in the future, as people acclimatize to the availability of marijuana, Quebec—and Canada as a whole—is not yet culturally prepared for more liberal weed regulations.
Two Thanksgiving sweet treats to bring some of home to Montreal
November 19, 2024
Two cozy recipes to start the fall off right
September 24, 2024
Love-themed recipes to celebrate Valentine’s Day
February 13, 2024
For many McGill students, weekday breakfasts do not exist; mornings entail waking up and heading right out the door to class. Students might dream of bacon, eggs, and luscious stacks of pancakes, but sadly, often wind up settling for a packaged and processed bar from the bottom of their backpacks. To save you from mundane morning snacks, The McGill Tribune has compiled easy breakfast cookie recipes that you can make ahead of time and grab for those on-the-go mornings. All three recipes are easy, nutritious, and delectable—ensuring a happier start to any student’s crazy schedule.
Makes 18 cookies
Ingredients
2¼ cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup creamy peanut butter
⅓ cup unsweetened applesauce
¼ cup maple syrup or honey
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 large egg
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350.
Combine the oats, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and chocolate chips in a large bowl. Stir with a spoon.
Combine peanut butter, applesauce, maple syrup, brown sugar, and the egg in a medium-sized bowl. Whisk until smooth.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until thoroughly mixed.
On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, add the mix in tablespoon-sized dollops. Flatten the dough balls with the back of a spoon to flatten them into rounds.
Bake the cookies for nine to 10 minutes.
Let the cookies cool for a few minutes. Then, enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Chef Savvy.
Makes 12 cookies
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup grated carrot
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350.
Combine the oats, flour, sugar, and baking powder in a large bowl and stir. Sprinkle the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt into the mix as you stir.
Add the milk, maple syrup, egg, and vanilla extract into the mix and stir with a whisk or large spoon.
Use a tablespoon to scoop batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Pat the cookies down with the back of a spoon to flatten them into rounds.
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until firm.
Let the cookies cool for several minutes. Then, bon appétit!
Recipe adapted from She Likes Food.
Makes one mug cookie.
Ingredients
½ medium-sized banana
1 ½ tablespoons peanut butter (crunchy or creamy)
½ tablespoon honey (or agave nectar)
1 tablespoon milk
4 tablespoons oats (rolled or quick)
1 tablespoon chocolate chips
Instructions
In a large microwaveable mug, mash the banana with a fork.
Stir the peanut butter, milk, and honey into the mug. Mix well, until smooth.
Add in the oats and chocolate chips. Stir until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.
Microwave the mug mix for 45 seconds to one minute, or until firm to the touch on top (cook time may vary based on microwave wattage).
Let the mug cool for one minute. Then, eat away!
Recipe adapted from Bigger Bolder Baking.
On Nov. 24, McGill’s Department of Psychology hosted Canadian psychologist, journalist, and broadcaster Susan Pinker, who delivered this year’s Macnamara Lecture in McGill’s McIntyre Medical Building. Pinker spoke about her latest book, The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact can Make us Healthier, in which she underlines the importance of face-to-face social contact. What she calls “the village effect” is a metaphor for the social interactions humans need to thrive and survive.
“There’s new evidence from a fairly new field, social neuroscience, that shows that the type of social contact that we all have affects our ability to remember, our resilience, and even how fast tumors grow,” Pinker said.
According to Pinker, many years of social science research shows that the number one factor on our health above getting flu vaccinations, exercising regularly, or eating healthy is our social interactions.
This research studied a whole population (40-60 thousand people) for seven years. Individuals’ features, such as their weight, age, number of children, lifestyle, number of friends and smoking habits, were recorded. At the end, the subjects ranked factors based on their effect on life expectancy: The two most important factors being social integration, followed by close relationships.
As Pinker explains, close relationships occur when people can count on one another in the case of an existential crisis, and share a closer bond with each other than anyone else. Social integration includes the casual or weak bonds, in addition to close relationships.
“[Social integration includes] the people you meet when you walk your dog, the people you say ‘hi’ to cleaning out the snow, [and] the librarian you talk to when you head out to the library,” Pinker said. Most people find these interactions useless, although they are the most important lifestyle predictors.
In her book, Pinker presents numerous other studies that reveal the importance of social interactions. For example, Pinker’s study on women with breast cancer suggests that women suffering from the illness are four times more likely to survive if they enjoy regular, face-to-face contact. Furthermore, men suffering from a stroke received more benefits from regular interaction with other men than from medication.
Pinker also addresses the modern growth of human loneliness: A quarter of the population reported that they have no one to talk to. At the same time, we live in a world where people are more connected than ever, through social media and apps like FaceTime and Skype.
Studies show, however, that digital interactions cannot replace in-person communication.
“During actual face-to-face contact, a person will release a whole series of neurotransmitters and hormones that foster trust, reduce stress, kill pain, and induce pleasure,” Pinker said.
Further brain scans show that in-person contact increases brain activity in areas linked with social intelligence and emotional reward in a way that digital contact does not. While person-to-person contact is crucial for human well-being, social media provides more opportunities for digital interactions. These technologies restrict humans from what they need: Real, human contact.
Pinker’s lecture emphasizes that all humans require social relationships. Making time to meet people in person, rather than Skyping, emailing, texting, or messaging, will benefit both parties. Take the time to appreciate even the smallest of human interactions: As insignificant as they may seem, they go a long way in increasing health, promoting well-being, and increasing life expectancy.
A final note from the Editor-in-Chief of Volume 45, for the record
May 14, 2026
Oh, the places I’ll go (but not stay)!
April 7, 2026
Great pitch, terrible news
March 31, 2026
On Nov. 2, DNAInfo, Gothamist, and four sister news websites in other American cities were shut down. Prior, these sites provided hyperlocal news coverage of their respective cities, including New York and Chicago. Their websites now display an ominous message by owner Joe Ricketts, citing profitability as the cause of the shutdown.
“At the end of the day [these sites are] a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure,” Ricketts’ message reads.
Ricketts, who previously founded the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, bought the group of sites from their original founders in 2009. He isn’t the only one looking to newspapers as a business venture. Beginning in the 1970s, corporate owners of national newspapers, such as the Chicago Tribune, have bought up smaller publications and scaled back newsroom personnel in an effort to offset the trend of diminished print advertising. Postmedia’s Nov. 27 announcement that it will be closing all but one of the 24 small publications the company is acquiring from Torstar Corp. is a case in point.
As a result, truly local reporting is disappearing at an alarming rate, largely because its value as an essential news source is seen as secondary to its bottom line. The loss of print advertising and the subsequent failure of smaller newspapers to become profitable online are both causes of small papers’ decline. But, part of the blame also falls on corporate publication owners who have yet to acknowledge and find solutions to these problems.
In a 2009 article for The Nation, John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney argued that this corporatization of the media—namely, the widespread emergence of corporate ownership and consolidation of newspapers—is to blame for the current precariousness of local journalism. Local reporting was the first to face cuts when its coverage didn’t drive profits. What corporations fail to understand is that this type of reporting provides the greatest value in a form other than profits.
A lot of local reporting can be fairly characterized as boring. Reporters who cover local government meetings would hardly call it glamourous. However, their work is important in the larger context of keeping politicians accountable within communities by creating a public record of government meetings and affairs. Samuel Stein writes in The Village Voice that local reporting in Gothamist and DNAInfo cover the “political minutiae” that larger media outlets do not, “which is often where the most telling details lie.”
Moreover, journalists from larger media outlets often use public records compiled by local reporters to inform their own reporting. In fact, many TV news stories are simply reproductions of stories that appeared in local newspapers first. Julia Wick, a former writer for LAist, the Gothamist’s Los Angeles equivalent, described her work as important to the larger fabric of city-wide and even national news coverage in a Nov. 6 CityLab article.
“Some of the work we did might have seemed small, but the ‘small’ local stories we covered would often end up being part of larger patterns and louder stories,” Wick wrote.
Despite being an important part of the larger news food chain, local reporters are underpaid, overworked, and seen by owners as reporting stories that don’t matter as much as national or international coverage, because they generate less attention from readers. Ricketts made this fact abundantly clear when he shut down the sites only a week after the staff voted to unionize under the Writer’s Guild of America East.
Gothamist and DNAInfo, both relatively recent attempts at hyperlocal, online reporting, failed to solve the problem of monetizing local news in the digital age. However, a solution is desperately needed to prevent the newsscape from losing its valuable local news coverage. This will require media owners dedicated to keeping local news afloat, and recognition that local news sources are not only business enterprises, but also providers of an essential public service.
Ricketts’ farewell letter praises the work these publications have done. He closes with his hope that “someone will crack the code on a business that can support exceptional neighborhood storytelling,” yet, he is unwilling to face this challenge himself. Gothamist and DNAInfo were shut down because Ricketts did not want the staff to unionize. Nichols and McChesney proposed, in the same Nation article, that government subsidies should prop up local journalism as a public good. They recognize the idea as a “controversial position,” but when corporate ownership of news has failed news consumers as severely as it has, perhaps it’s time for a radical solution.
SPHR remembers Gaza Solidarity Encampment ahead of Nakba Anniversary Protest
May 13, 2026
Parc-Extension tenants rally against abusive rent hikes, demanding effective rent control
April 7, 2026
Thousands of activists took to the streets of downtown Montreal on Nov. 12 for the Large Demonstration Against Hate and Racism. The protest, which began at Place Émilie-Gamelin and involved over 160 local groups, lasted three hours as marchers energetically condemned the rise of far-right ideologies in Quebec.
According to the protest’s Call to Action, the organizers of the demonstration felt compelled to act following a number of discriminatory events in Quebec’s recent history. Among them were the passing of the Quebec Charter of Values—a set of regulations to restrict public workers from wearing religious symbols proposed by the Parti Quebecois (PQ) in 2013—and the Quebec City Mosque shooting in January 2017, during which six members of the Muslim community were fatally shot in a religiously-motivated hate crime. The Call to Action also called out politicians for apathy toward racist and xenophobic sentiment that is festering in Quebec today.
Bringing together approximately 5,000 participants, the demonstration remained largely peaceful. Anas Bouslikhane, an official spokesperson for the protest, intended for the demonstration to provide a platform for minorities in the province.
“We are seeing more crystallization of racism because of efforts from the far-right and from xenophobic groups to normalize this kind of discourse,” Bouslikhane said. “[This discourse tells people] that it is ok to criticize people [for their] racial, cultural, and religious beliefs.”
Given the deep-rooted legacy of student activism in Quebec, it was only fitting that student presence at the march was strong. Both McGill and Concordia sent contingents to the protest, who marched together down Ste.-Catherine street in the hour before the demonstration’s official start at Place Émilie-Gamelin.
In the months leading up to the protest, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) showed support by signing the demonstration’s Call to Action and passing a motion to endorse the protest at its Oct. 12 Legislative Council meeting. The motion was largely motivated by concern over alt-right propaganda within the McGill community. Carl Plowright, a second-year masters student in English at McGill who attended the demonstration, emphasized that the noticeable growth of far-right ideologies on campus was no longer an issue students could ignore.
“[Far-right ideologies] have absolutely reached campuses,” Plowright said. “I think there is definitely no question that students have both suffered the repercussions of the far-right and have actively been involved in unacceptable behaviour.”
The motion to endorse the demonstration also mandated SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Connor Spencer to organize a McGill delegation to attend. A firm advocate for student voices, Spencer highlighted the importance of student activism in Quebec, especially with regards to the passage of Bill 62. Known as the “religious neutrality law,” Bill 62’s provision banning the use of face coverings when receiving public services was widely criticized for implicitly targeting Muslim women who wear niqabs or burkas.
“When the student movement stands up and says something, people listen,” Spencer said. “We still don't know what this bill is going to look like […and] the Minister of Higher Education hasn’t decided whether it is going to affect university campuses, […but] it is important that [while everyone is] figuring out what Bill 62 is, we take a very strong stance and denounce racism.”
Vincent Mousseau, VP Internal of the Social Work Student Association (SAWA), marched with the McGill contingent at the demonstration. Mousseau reflected on how Bill 62 would limit access to employment in the field of social work in an interview with The McGill Tribune.
“[Bill 62] is going to directly affect not only the people who we are able to help on the front line as social workers, but also the rising islamophobia [from] this culture [that] is going to have a mass effect on our students,” Mousseau said.
By participating in the demonstration, marchers from McGill say that they aspired to raise student awareness of events occurring in the city beyond the campus. Jed Lenetsky, an organizer at Divest Mcgill, explained the importance of student engagement in such activism.
“Groups that are involved in doing social justice work at McGill really have the responsibility to take that work off campus,” Lenetsky told the Tribune. “McGill does not exist in a vacuum. If we are going to oppose right-wing ideology and fight for social justice on campus, we also have to do so off-campus.”
Lenetsky also called attention to the fact that McGill itself contributes to regressive ideologies, citing the administration’s decision to not divest from fossil fuels as evidence.
“[The McGill Administration] said that fossil fuels do not cause grave social injury,” Lenetsky said. “By saying that, they ignore the loss of lives and the loss of livelihoods that are going to be experienced and are experienced as a result of climate change. They are really echoing this colonial ideology that some lives outweigh other lives and other experiences.”
Beyond the frame of the demonstration, Li Li, a member of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), emphasized that activists must stand up for ethnic histories that are sometimes overlooked.
“I think, if people are willing, they can first go online and research how long different ethnicities have been [in North America],” Li said. “You have Chinese who helped build the railways. You have the Indigenous people who were here before anybody else.”
To maintain momentum in the weeks following the protest, Bouslikhane emphasized the importance of open and honest dialogue about the far-right on campus.
“I think McGill students have an important place in this work,” Bouslikhane said. “There are a lot of people from different origins at McGill […and] I encourage students to talk to each other [….] We shouldn’t be silent about [denouncing far-right ideologies.] Being complacent is being silent [and] that could lead to very tragic events.”
To avoid falling complacent to everyday injustices, Mousseau suggested that McGill students support Montreal-based organizations such as Solidarity Across Borders, which provides aid to groups affected by racism and racist immigration policies.
“We have shaped politics in this province and in this country. We need to continue doing that,” Mousseau said. “We won’t tolerate racism and fascism in our cities, and we won’t tolerate them in our country.”
‘Journalism After Gaza’ panel discusses media bias and the future of reporting in Palestine
April 26, 2026
Winter 2026 report card: On-campus dining
April 7, 2026
Finding home in Montreal
April 7, 2026
It’s no secret that humans have a problem with waste. Globally, we waste CDN $31 billion on uneaten food annually. The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 42 per cent of greenhouse gases come from the production of plastic packaging and goods. As a student, I’m prone to contributing to these waste levels, largely because of my busy schedule. With little time to cook, I often grab meals on the go; coffee in disposable cups or sandwiches wrapped in plastic packaging, which I then toss without a thought about the landfill.
It wasn’t until I realized how much waste I was producing on any given day that I decided it was time for a change. In an effort to be more environmentally-friendly, I undertook a six-day challenge to go “waste-free.”
As simple as that sounds, it actually required a substantial amount of effort. Going “waste-free” entails producing as little trash as possible; people who live waste-free don’t use items that can’t be recycled or reused. To work this into my own life for the week, I brought my own lunches to school and limited how much takeout food I ate. I also made sure to always have reusable containers, an extra tote bag, and an empty reusable water bottle on hand to avoid consuming disposable products. I also tried more specific daily challenges—and while my success in doing so varied, the amount I learned from each one remained constant.
For the first day of the challenge, I made my own toothpaste, shampoo, and body wash. I stored them in reusable Tupperware containers and Mason jars, foregoing the plastic packaging that comes with store-bought products. While the products were not difficult to make, the necessary ingredients—like essential oils—were more costly than the packaged alternative. The body wash and shampoo turned out well and made my skin and hair feel softer. But in a standard week, I don’t know if I’d have the time or energy to make these over buying them. The toothpaste I made tasted chalky—I accidentally added too much baking soda—so I gave up and used my regular toothpaste. I was disappointed that it didn’t work and I’d recommend measuring out the ingredients carefully to anyone trying out this technique. Regardless, the toothpaste consistency might take some getting used to.
My closet is overflowing with clothing that I don’t currently wear. It was only fitting that on the second day of this challenge, I clean out my chaotic closet and rid my life of this waste for good. Rather than ditching them in the garbage, I lugged my unused clothes to the Salvation Army in hopes that someone could repurpose them. In purging my closet, I realized just how wasteful some of my purchases were. While I tend to buy individual items I like without considering when or how I’ll wear them, I’m learning that when I shop, I need to think more about how to re-wear certain pieces—and thrift stores are certainly an option.
On the third day, I challenged myself to take lecture notes on my laptop instead of writing them by hand, which I usually do. Hand-writing notes helps me retain information, but at the end of each semester, I find that I’ve accumulated heaping piles of paper with notes that I’ll never read again. Even though laptops come with the distractions of the Internet, it’s an easy way to cut down on paper use.
Because so much of the waste I accumulate throughout the day are small tidbits that I use without realizing, I made a point to cut down on miscellaneous waste like straws and receipts. Not using straws was fairly easy because I carried a reusable water bottle around with me, but receipts are often printed automatically. For half the day, cashiers printed them out, and I’d have to recycle them. I realized that I needed to tell cashiers in advance that I didn’t want my receipt before it got printed. Though this adds an extra challenge, it’s easy and worthwhile to implement in the future.
Instead of celebrating the week’s end with our usual Sephora face masks, my friends and I made our own face masks out of natural ingredients. This cut out waste from unnecessary plastic packaging entirely. We used simple, inexpensive ingredients that we found at the grocery store: Honey, yogurt, and avocado. Avocado is deeply nourishing for the skin, while yogurt is great for refining pores. While the masks had a chunky consistency that we weren’t used to, they were much cheaper than those at Sephora, making this an easy practice to incorporate into daily life without breaking the bank. Pro-tip: Buy honey in bulk at Frenco.
While I typically buy my groceries from a supermarket, which involves packaging galore, I went to Jean Talon market on the last day of my challenge to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. I came equipped with reusable bags to carry groceries, the trick to shopping plastic-free. Out of all of the week’s challenges, this was my favourite. In the same trip, I was able to support local farmers and treat myself to ice cream at Havre aux Glaces—which I ate out of my own Tupperware I’d brought with me.
My main takeaway from this experience is that there are numerous small ways to cut down on waste in everyday life, which I hope to maintain long beyond the end of the challenge. However, it is important to note that some methods of waste-free living are more reasonable than others. Buying clothes second-hand is cheaper than the alternative, but buying all groceries at local markets can take time and planning, which many students lack. Going waste-free can help students declutter their lives—while treating the planet right.
Climate change is altering seasonality as we know it; the average American winter has shrunk by more than one month over the last century. While this has received plenty of attention as a positive phenomenon for sun-starved North Americans, the impact that shorter winter seasons and changing photoperiods—the interval in 24 hours during which a plant or animal is exposed to light—have on the blooming and fruiting of plants has received little attention from scientists.
Skeptics have raised the question of whether differences in the timing of these events are a response to climate change, but winters that have progressively higher average temperatures have also correlated with prematurely blooming plants.
Data on these events is typically measured via surveys, which document the occurrence of early blooming events. However, they fail to indicate exactly when these events happen, limiting understanding of the scale of variation in timing caused by climate change.
A collaborative effort between researchers from McGill and Utah State University has uncovered a solution to the problem. On Nov. 6, the team published a study on a new statistical indicator that measures the effect of climate change on plants by extracting meaningful data on early blooms—taking into account when the plant first leafs-out, flowers, or sets fruit.
Research interests of McGill Associate Professor in the Department of Biology Jonathan Davies, a co-author of the study, range from the biogeography of disease, to plant responses to climate change. His previous work has demonstrated that warming experiments underestimate the extent to which plants are affected by climate change, and that significant differences exist between the observational data and experimental data of these experiments.
The lead author of the paper, William Pearse, assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Utah State University, commented on the current limitations of warming studies.
“Plant phenology, [or the study of periodic biological phenomena that are correlated with climatic conditions], provides a powerful symbol of how climate change is impacting our environment, and these changes can be observed both in nature and in the crops we plant and grow to feed ourselves,” Davies said in an interview with The McGill News Room on Nov. 6. “Because we have short memories, it is difficult, however, to determine whether the changes we observe today are unusual or if they simply represent natural variation from year-to-year.”
In an email to The McGill Tribune, Pearse elaborated on the difficulties involved in studying plant phrenology in a lab setting.
“Measuring is time-consuming,” Pearse wrote. “To be absolutely certain that you knew when a flower first opened, you’d have to return to it each day, maybe even more frequently, and record whether it was open or not.”
The new statistic estimator obtains meaningful data on phenological change by comparing past and present blooming times.
“Previously, it was difficult to measure phenology because it required so much intensive survey work,” Pearse explained. “Our metric […] makes it easier to collect even more data on phenology.”
Davies highlighted that big data collected by naturalists and herbaria—collections of dried and preserved specimens—are both important data resources for studying the effect of climate change on plants.
“These dusty specimens can provide new insights into how human activities have altered today’s climate, by contrasting the time a flower bloomed in the past, to observation in the present day,” Davies said.
Studies have shown that increases in variation are characteristics of natural systems approaching a state of change, or environmental limit. For Pearse, annual variations in blooming are important to study because flowering plants may have a limit.
“Flowers can’t just keep flowering earlier and earlier as the world warms under climate change,” Pearse said. “This increase in variation could be indicative of flowers approaching that limit. Of course, we need more studies to look into this.”
