Almost Too Much Good News Lately. Really.

Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
December 24, 2020

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How much good news can a girl take in one day?

For me, that day was Dec. 11, 2020. It was news from the public realm, the private realm and the one in between, the sports world.

All together, a day to remember.

First off, the Supreme Court of the United States, politicized and distrusted since DJT packed it with three right-winging judges, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Coney-Barrett, and amid fears that that court would side with him on every bizarre thing, issued a prompt rebuke of the wacky Texas-initiated motion to invalidate the election results in four American states.

The court said no, based largely on the hallowed American belief in states’ rights, with no interference from other states. Wars have been fought on that matter.

So, good on you, SCOTUS for upholding the law. I saw a good joke: “When will we come to the place where Corona is a beer, and Donald is a duck?”

Maybe that will happen before long, patient Canadian readers. We will watch closely other cases before that court, because their record on cultural matters is not a good one.

And take a break, Anderson Cooper, Daniel Dale, Chris Cuomo and Abby Phillip, those intrepid CNN warriors, who have educated their viewers and expressed their moral outrage for months over the ex-president and his threat to the integrity of the country. Good for you, Joe Biden, for holding your fire with such discipline, trusting, against many odds, in the process.

Good news No. 2

On Dec. 11, the same day, the federal government of Canada announced a meaty climate action plan that is “really courageous,” said Adam Radwanski in the Globe and Mail.

It is five years since we signed the Paris Accord and promised to cut our carbon emissions by 30% by the year 2030.

Environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced an ambitious, 10-year plan whereby carbon price is to go up by $15 a tonne each year after 2022 till it reaches $170 a tonne in 2030.

It will enable us to achieve our goal but it is a ”market mechanism” and will garner heavy opposition from Conservative premiers. However, the rebate part of the increase in costs is scheduled to go to Canadians quarterly.

Mark Jaccard of Simon Fraser University urged Canadian to rally behind the plan.  I tweeted Jaccard, asking him for bullet points I could publish.  There is going to be some pain in rising prices at the pumps, but there is going to be a whole lot of gain, say environmentalists. Not here at home but in other parts of the world, climate heat is making living impossible.

Perhaps the environmental minister has been reading Canada’s best popularizer of solid environmental information, Drew Monkman, who writes exclusively in The Examiner.  I am proud to share pages with him.

Let the Liberals go to the polls on this climate change plan. We are sufficiently worried about global warming that we will support them.

Good new three: same day, we got word that vaccines for COVID-19 had been approved and were being shipped to locations all over the world. The first injection was to an Englishwoman, who said it made her “feel great.” Two vaccines require freezing temperatures; the third can be at room temperature. I’ll wait my turn and wear my mask and turn down all invitations to parties.

Adding to all this good news, I watched my two teenage grandchildren in B.C. speak at a school assembly (Brentwood has in-person classes) in “cohorts,” and tell their peers about their handicapped 11 year-old-brother and the appropriate way to include him.

The icing on the Christmas cake: the Raptors, many new and lively, started playing again. What’s not to love about a brown-skinned guy with reddish hair named Malachi Flynn, who can pot three-pointers?

I’ll spend tomorrow reading Yuval Harari’s “21 Ideas for the 21st Century,” having my Swiss Chalet and attending a Zoom mass. Then, Merlot.

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