February 1, 2010

It's Monday, February 1st.

In a new video, Osama bin Laden has warned of the dangers of global warming and lashed out at the United States for causing it.

Currently, He also asked that people stop calling his home a cave. It's a carbon sink.

This is The Current.

Snow Science - Cypress

We started this segment with a clip of Bruce McArthur. He lives on Vancouver's North Shore ... about half-an-hour's drive from downtown Vancouver and close to Cypress Mountain. Cypress is the site of the Olympic snowboarding and freestyle skiing events. But there's barely any snow. And the Opening Ceremony is less than two weeks away. He spoke with with freelance journalist Jenn Moss.

Warm, wet weather has already melted a lot of the snow on Cypress Mountain. And the forecast for this week is more rain and temperatures hovering around 8 degrees. That has a lot of people very worried. But Vancouver's Olympic organizers aren't giving up. They're moving snow down from higher elevations. As we heard in that tape, helicopters are dropping bails of hay to help shape the course. And Tim Gayda, the Vice President of Sport with the Vancouver Organizing Committee is confident they'll have snow where it needs to be.

Snow Science - Olympic Historian

This isn't the first time that warm weather has threatened a Winter Olympics. So for some historical perspective, we were joined by David Wallichinsky. He's an Olympic historian and sports commentator. He was in Santa Monica, California.

Snow Science - Panel

The 1988 games in Calgary were the first Winter Olympics where artificial snow was used. And Russell Schnell was one of those who made it possible. He was part of a group of scientists who figured out how to create artificial snow from the bacteria found on a plant in Alberta. Russell Schnell is now the Deputy Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Global Monitoring Division in Boulder, Colorado. Today he was in Clayton, Missouri. And Raymond McConville is a family doctor in Vancouver and a member of snowguns.com, an online forum for snow-makers around the world.

Snow Science - Rant

And we gave the last word on this subject to Bruce Arthur. He's a sports reporter with the National Post. And he knows a thing or two about Vancouver winters.

Listen to Part One:

The Value of Nothing

The next time you congratulate yourself on getting a steal-of-a-deal on a pair of shoes or a coat, stop and think about what that item cost to make and who put that price tag on it. Or think about food, the fast food sold by people on minimum wage grown by people who are going broke. And juxtapose that with news like the trader profiled in the Globe and Mail on the weekend who bragged about making 82-thousand dollars in one split second.

Raj Patel has been looking at examples like that. He's an economist who has worked for the World Bank and the World Trade Organization and he's come to the conclusion that we've entrusted our entire way of life to a system that doesn't really know the value of much. He outlines his ideas in a new book called, The Value of Nothing: Why Everything Costs So Much More Than We Think. Raj Patel joined us in our Toronto Studio.

Listen to Part Two:

Spirituality in Hospitals

We started this segment with the answering machine at what used to be the Spiritual Care Office at Chilliwack General Hospital. Last November, the Fraser Health Region laid off 14 spiritual care practitioners who were working in hospitals east of Vancouver. Ever since, local faith groups have been working together to try to bring back the spiritual care programs at their local hospitals. And that has sparked a debate about the role that spirituality and religion should play in publicly funded hospitals.

Gloria Woodland was one of the people who lost her job in November. She was the Director of Spiritual Care for the Fraser Health Region. She was in Vancouver.

Spirituality in Hospitals - Pastor

As she mentioned, spiritual care practitioners often work with people who aren't necessarily church-goers ... people such as Al McPherson. Just before Christmas, he and his family had to make the difficult decision of whether to take his 45-year-old sister Lori, off of life support. We aired a clip.

Hans Kouwenberg is the pastor who helped Al McPherson and his family. He's with the Calvin Presbyterian Church in Abbotsford. And he's spearheading a coalition working to have spiritual care practitioners reinstated. Hans Kouwenberg was in Vancouver.

Spirituality in Hospitals - Hospital

To explain why the decision was made to lay off the spiritual care providers, we reached Arden Krystal. She's the Vice-President of Clinical Operations for the Fraser Health Region. She was in Vancouver.

Spirituality in Hospitals - Ethicist

The broader issue here revolves around the spirituality should play in public health care and what -- if any -- obligation publicly funded hospitals have to meet the spiritual needs of their patients. For his thoughts on that, we were joined by Michael Gordon. He's a medical ethicist at the University of Toronto. He's also the Medical Program Director of Palliative Care with the Baycrest Geriatric Health Care System in Toronto.

Listen to Part Three: