O Canada- Final Reflections

With my year abroad in Toronto drawing to a close, I have some final reflections.

Firstly, I have come to love Canada so much. It is a brilliant country with friendly people; an overall positive idea of a Canadian identity; and a new liberal government that seems to be moving in the right direction towards social and environmental justice. Drawing back to my very first blog post, I feel I have become closer to understanding what it means to be Canadian and have a Canadian identity. I have also seen plenty of maple, but alas no moose.

In terms of studying at the University of Toronto, I am very happy with the knowledge I have gained. From the regional geographies of Canada, the USA, North America generally, and Latin America, I have critically covered a whole two continents that I had never studied in depth before.  I developed my GIS skills and also took a course "Multicultural Perspectives on the Environment" that looked into environmental problems in the developing world. I appreciate having had the opportunity to study under a continuous assessment system, as I hope that the good habits I've picked up here (studying more intensively throughout the week from the very beginning of the term) will continue back at UCL. I also have come to appreciate both the advantages and disadvantages of the UK/UCL academic system.

Quite a few of my blog posts have focused on aspects of the global warming threat which is a reflection of the fact that I was deeply engaged with the material we were learning on the causes of global warming, the potential impacts and what people can do to help. Coupled with the other module that had a lasting effect on me -Culture, History, Landscape-, has led me to be far more critical of capitalism's role in producing social inequality and exacerbating the potential global warming impacts. As a result, I have finally found a potential research and career route that I want to follow- global warming and how we can productively frame and communicate the threat to the public, governments and large corporations.

Lastly I must add that I have met so many interesting exchange and domestic students from all over the world. From Canada and the USA to Brazil, Chile and Argentina, Japan and South Korea, Israel, New Zealand and a whole bunch of countries in Europe, I have made many international friends who have all given me wonderful memories filled with laughter and fun.

source: ecanadanow.com

Playing Hide and Seek with the Canadian Identity

At the start of my Year Abroad and this blog, I asked myself what does it mean to be Canadian? Here's what I've learnt about Canadian identity over the 8 months I have lived in, observed, and academically studied Canadian society.

Before I came out to Canada, I read a couple of humorous quotes about the elusive Canadian identity to get a feel for the country, and one quote that stuck with me was:

"Canadians have been so busy explaining to the Americans that we aren't British, and to the British that we aren't Americans that we haven't had time to become Canadians"- Helen Gordon McPherson

This quote stuck with me because it refers to the insecurity in the Canadian identity while identifying the Canadians as trapped between old colonial ties to Britain and slightly newer ties to the increasingly dominant USA. Indeed, old colonial ties to Britain are evident in the fact that Canada is part of the Commonwealth; the Queen appears on the money; and while I was in the capital Ottawa, a bell-ringing show at parliament included the British National Anthem (I noticed the absence of the French National Anthem....). On the topic of the French, I have noticed slight mockery between the French and the British parts of Canada, but I like to believe this is all in (relatively) cheerful jest rather than serious antagonism, and that overall despite historical tensions and various Quebec independence referendums, the Francophone and Anglophone parts of Canada recognise the benefits in sticking together. To give an example of the (relatively) cheerful jest between the French and English; while I was in Quebec City, the tour guide showed us around the citadel and explained the history. Being the only English person in the group, she would always point to me whenever the English in the story did anything bad to the French, and while it was all rather funny, there was still a perceptible undertone of "Oh those damn British".

The Americans have been on the scene for a long time too, with the British Empire in Canada fighting off American invaders most famously in 1812 when newly independent Americans were seeking to annex Canada and kick out the British from the continent completely. Had the Americans succeeded in their invasion, Canada would be yet another few states of the USA! Indeed,
I get the feeling that even today, a lot of the Canadian identity comes from defining itself against the American identity in the hopes of resisting being swallowed up by America's cultural hegemony.

Dittmer and Larson (2007) use the example of comic books, with Captain Canuck being created in 1975 as the Canadian counterpart to Captain America to help form and intensify Canadian nationalism. As opposed to the all-American comic books in Canada before, Captain Canuck's adventures happened in Canadian places, he spoke both official languages (English and French), and there were plenty of Canadian in-jokes. The creation of Captain Canuck stemmed from collective fears of American dominance and also the perceived need to unify the different identities within Canada (the anglophones; the Quebecois; the First Nations; and the immigrants) into one overarching national unity (Dittmer and Larson, 2007).

Even more recently, as I've already alluded to in my previous blog, Canadians are continuing to define themselves against the Americans through the contrast of Trudeau, Canada's liberal new Prime Minister, and the increasingly successful Republican bid of Donald Trump who plays on politics of fear and encourages xenophobia. In fact, Canada works with a "cultural mosaic" form of multiculturalism that encourages ethnic groups, languages and cultures to co-exist within an overarching sense of Canadian identity, while America works with the "melting pot" form of multiculturalism that expects immigrants to assimilate into a single American identity (Magosci, 1999). Multiculturalism forms the next part of my analysis of Canadian identity.

I was delighted to see Captain Canuck on a bottle
of maple syrup in a gift shop-  a wonderful merging of
Canadian symbols! 

Multiculturalism forms another basis for the Canadian identity, with Canada being considered a world leader in multiculturalism (Nagra and Peng, 2013). Possibly because of this need to act on Canadian multicultural idealogy, Canada is one of only three Western countries (the other two being Germany and Norway) that has taken in its fair share of Syrian refugees. As in any country, there are contradictions between the multiculturalism ideology and the lived discrimination and racism faced by immigrants (discussed with regards to temporary migrant agricultural workers in another previous blog post), but overall Canada has immigrants from all over the world who all retain their cultural heritage (as evidenced by Koreatown, Chinatown, various Serbian/Croatian/Ukrainian/Estonian churches and cultural centres in Toronto etc.) yet still want to be considered within the discourse on Canadian identity (Woods, 2006). Indeed, the Canadian multiculturalism idealogy has succeeded in creating dual identities among immigrants; Nagra and Peng (2013) show how multiculturalism is used by young Canadian Muslims to resist discrimination and pressures to assimilate while creating a dual Canadian-Muslim identity. Multiculturalism thus comes to define Canadian identity and create it.

Canada also seems to be waking up to the gross injustices their First Nations have endured since colonisation, from the residential schools that took aboriginal children away from their families in order to "civilise" them, to the disproportionate poverty and violence facing First Nation women. Yes, there is a long way to go in righting the wrongs of the past but Trudeau in particular has called for creating more respectful relationships with the First Nations, thus suggesting Canada is once again moving towards positive relationships and cultural respect for the First Nations, a move which would be in line with their supposed asset of multiculturalism.

Otherwise, symbols are used to create the Canadian identity. Maple is the obvious one, with Canada cashing in on the maple trademark through a variety of maple-themed products from maple syrup and maple fudge to maple bacon, maple sausages and maple-scented  candles. While this is a great tourist gimmick, it also promotes Canadian pride in a product that is stereotypically seen as Canadian. The flag is also flown significantly more than I have ever seen any flag flown in any European country, perhaps creating regular visual reminders in the Canadian landscape of a need to be proud in the flag and the country, thus producing a Canadian identity. 

Overall, uniting the country as an imagined community through the use of a Canadian identity is an important way of managing the diverse populations in Canada, from the Anglo-Canadians to the Quebecois, the First Nations and various immigrant groups (Mackey, 2000). From what I have seen, the Canadian identity is built on defining itself against the American identity; an emphasis on Canadian forms of multiculturalism, and national symbology. The Canadian identity certainly doesn't express itself as loudly as the national identities of some other countries, but Canadians do have a quiet sense of confidence in who they are, and as Dittmer and Larson (2007) suggest, this identity is slowly becoming louder as the confidence grows. 

Having said all of this, I acknowledge that this discussion of Canadian identity here focuses mainly on an idea of Anglo-Canadian identity; there are yet more subtleties to engagement with Canadian identity by the Franco-Canadians; the First Nations; and various other immigrant groups. 

Syria's Climate Refugees

I've continued watching the unfolding of the Syrian refugee crisis from out here in Canada, and was particularly interested when the professor in my "Global Warming" course suggested that the refugee crisis could be the first large-scale movement of "climate refugees". Although we only briefly touched on this suggestion in the course, I decided to extend this idea into more research for a blog post.

Firstly a climate refuge is somebody who must leave their home because of the effects of climate change and global warming. The Syrian refugee crisis can be traced back to severe droughts between 2007-2010 when widespread crop failure, death of livestock, and rising food prices forced mass migration of farming families to urban centres (Kelley et al. 2015). Severe 3- year droughts like the 2007-2010 drought are estimated by various climate models to have become 3 times more likely since the start of anthropogenic forcing than by natural variability alone (Kelley et al. 2015). While there were undoubtedly many other factors that led to the start of the Syrian civil war and subsequent refugee crisis (such as corrupt leadership and inequality), climate change can be seen as the triggering factor since the 2007-2010 drought forced huge numbers of vulnerable people into already tense and overpopulated cities (Welch, 2015). Tensions erupted, civil war broke out and millions fled.

So if climate change did trigger the Syrian civil war and the resulting exodus of Syrian refugees, it is important to look at what climate models predict for the Middle East in the future. Four important factors include:

1) Temperature

As shown in Figure 1 below, although the Arctic is expected to warm the fastest, the Middle East has one of the highest temperature increases for a populated region. Temperature increases here are expected to increase by 2-3.5°C by a relatively soon 2046-2065.

Figure 1.
Source: IPPC, 2007. 

2) Precipitation

Warmer temperatures intensify the global hydrological cycle, thus increasing the globally averaged precipitation, evaporation and runoff (Wang, 2005). However, the amount of precipitation does not increase everywhere and in the Middle East, precipitation is likely to decrease (Wang, 2005). This is bad for agriculture as decreases in precipitation and general changes within precipitation patterns in the region will affect existing agricultural routines of planting and harvest, thus impacting food security.


3) Soil Moisture

Warmer temperatures will alter precipitation patterns and increase the atmosphere's evaporative demand in the Middle East, which will in general reduce soil moisture levels (Wang, 2005). Reduced soil moisture will reflect changes in agricultural water availability, thus impacting crop productivity and food security (Wang, 2005).


4) Wetbulb Temperature

The wetbulb temperature (TW) is the lowest temperature of the skin that can be achieved through evaporation. Since the normal core body temperature in humans is 37°C and the skin temperature is 35°C, if the air temperature is greater than 35°C, the skin temperature can be kept at 35°C or cooler through perspiration. If the wetbulb temperature becomes too high however (because the air temperature is too high, the air is very humid, or a combination of both factors), it can be difficult for the human body to lose sweat through evaporation to cool itself. During this past decade, no where on Earth has experienced a wetbulb temperature of more than 30°C (which is acceptable considering 32-33°C is realistically the highest wetbulb temperature the human body can survive), but with the planet warming, higher wetbulb temperature maximums may become frequent, endangering the lives of many, particularly the elderly and the sick. Figure 2 below shows a worst case scenario where the climate sensitivity is high and minimum steps have been taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in a 10°C warming and wetbulb temperatures exceeding 32-33°C in many places around the globe, including the Middle East.

Figure 2.
Source: Sherwood and Huber, 2010. 

So according to climate models, the Middle East will get higher temperatures, altered precipitation patterns (generally leaning towards less precipitation), lower soil moisture and increasing wetbulb temperatures, all of which will decrease water security, food security, ability of the human body to survive and increase tensions over scarcer resources. If the current Syrian refugee crisis is indeed because of drought, we may see more climate refugees as water stress and food insecurity increase further, along with heat stress.

A note about the 2015 Paris Agreement

The 2015 Paris Agreement has been hailed by the many as a significant step forward against global warming and I've seen many of my own peers praising the agreement's decision that the global warming target should be a limit of 1.5°C rather than 2°C. But the reality is that even with the lowest, most optimistic greenhouse gas emission scenarios for the future, we're still looking to have greenhouse gases peak at the equivalent of a CO2 doubling. The climate sensitivity (the eventual global average warming for a fixed doubling in the concentration of CO2) is estimated with 90% confidence to fall between 1.5-4.5°C, so considering greenhouse gas concentration increases that have occurred so far are equivalent to a 75-100% increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentrations, we are already committed to a 1.5-4.5°C warming. Even if the climate sensitivity turns out to be low, a 1.0-1.5°C warming is far from safe, with eventual consequences including several meters sea level rise, widespread ecosystem damage and increasing drought and water stress (which we're already seeing with our current 0.8°C observed warming, as evidenced by the Syrian crisis above).

Thus the Paris Agreement's decision to limit warming to 1.5°C is not helpful to global warming efforts. We cannot just pick a number and say warming will stop at that number; it is nature and the climate sensitivity that will determine just how dramatic warming will be for a doubling in CO2 (or its heat trapping equivalent of greenhouse gases). The Paris Agreement would have done better to focus on encouraging all countries to reduce their anthropogenic CO2 or all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by for say, 2060-2080. Indeed, the original draft text for the Paris Agreement planned to discuss reducing emissions to 0, but its removal shows obvious avoidance of disrupting current models of unlimited economic growth that use fossil fuels, while focusing on catchy numbers (1.5°C) to reassure the general public that the governments are supposedly doing the best they can.

Realistically, if we want to minimise the possibility of future large scale climate refugee migrations, we need to reduce emissions to net zero as soon as possible.

The GPA: The Canadian Student's Nightmare

In my second semester, I've come to understand more fully how the grading systems work in Canadian universities. Arts and Sciences degrees at U of T take 4 years, with students mostly taking 5 modules in the two yearly semesters over 4 years to add up to the required 20 credits to graduate. (Summer school, essentially a third semester, exists but it carries additional fees). For each module completed, the student receives a percentage which can then be turned into a Grade Point Value (GPV). The Grade Point Average (GPA) is then the average of all the GPVs, and is the score that defines how well you did in your degree. The table below shows a rundown of the marks:

Percentage	Letter Grade	Grade Point Value
85-100 80-84 77-79 73-76 70-72	A/A+ A- B+ B B-	4.0 3.7 3.3 3.0 2.7
Pattern continues down until F which is a fail
0-49	F	0.0

Basically with the GPA, every module that you take will be one credit towards your 20 credits to graduate. That means that if you fail a module or don't do that well in it, the mark will essentially "haunt you forever" (I'm using a phrase one of my Canadian friends used when explaining the system to me) as even if you retake the module, the original mark will still be recorded and lower your GPA. There is a credit/no credit system that allows students to take 2 modules (in total) that count towards the 20 credit graduation but not the GPA, although the catch here is that the no credit module cannot be a module required for the major you are enrolled in.

Having spoken with my Canadian buddies, I think I've decided that I prefer the UK degree system. The Canadian students are so terrified of taking a module that lowers their GPA that many tend to pick "easy" modules that they are more confident they can do well in. For example, one Canadian started taking an economics module only to drop the module in the first 2 weeks because they'd encountered slightly unfamiliar statistics material. The Global Warming course I'm taking is quite difficult and from an enrollment of 208 we dropped significantly in numbers after the first set of test marks when many decided they'd already messed up chances for a good module percentage; many of the remaining people in the Facebook group for the course wish they'd dropped it in order to save their GPA. One of my friends in the Global Warming course always wanted to do the course but took it strategically in his fourth and final year once his graduate applications were sent off so that if the GPA did  go down it wouldn't matter as much.

This is the problem: sure, the credit/no credit system allows people the choice of 2 modules that interest them without impacting the GPA, but overall, there is far too much strategic thinking in which courses to take, with the result being that many Canadian students take modules that are "easy", rather than modules that genuinely interest them. In the case of the person who dropped the economics module because of unfamiliar statistics concepts, the fear of the GPA stunted the broadening of their academic knowledge of concepts that they were probably perfectly capable of understanding. In this sense I like that UCL takes the median score as it means you do tend to take modules you're interested in, knowing that if you do badly in a couple of modules, your overall degree classification won't be affected by these outlier marks.

Another point is that at U of T, from the very beginning in first year, your modules count towards your final degree, with the same weighting as modules taken in all other years. While I do think the expectations of first and second year modules here are slightly lower than at UCL (having taken a number of second year courses here that seemed a lot less conceptually difficult than second year courses at UCL), the fact remains that students have to be on it from Day 1 in order to keep that GPA up. At UCL, they cut you some slack and first year counts for very little, allowing you to adjust to university life and learn how to write and think more academically without as much pressure.

Finally, just the idea of taking 5 modules each semester for 4 years is stressful! It's a lot of work (compare it to UCL where we usually only take 4 modules each semester!) and this workload intensity from continuous assessment throughout the semester is not helped by the anxiety Canadian students face in trying to not lower there GPA.

Overall, while the UK degree system has it's own challenges, I feel it is more conducive to learning and academic growth because there is not the same extent of fear as in the Canadian system.