Editor's note: this post was originally published at Myles Kitagawa's personal blog space.

I guess it’s not going to be my first debate on CityTV’s breakfast television tomorrow morning ~ but it’s been a while.  The all-candidate’s forums of the 2001 municipal elections had a definite debate-like quality to them.  And one year Edmonton’s academic highschool debate champions challenged my MLA (member of the legislative assembly) and myself to a debate on climate change.  

So, tomorrow at 9am, CityTV is going to air a feature story on water fluoridation in Edmonton and producers decided to accompany it with a live debate on the issue featuring a local dentist and me.

I actually think it’s going to be kind of fun.

I’m not an anti-F activist.  All of the AlexJonesian idiocy about fluoride being a tool of the NewWorldOrder and it’s global depopulation project really annoys me. In fact, I believe that water fluoridation probably doesn’t hurt most people.

But just because something doesn’t hurt people isn’t an argument for public dollars being spent on it.

Topical application of fluoride is good for your dental health.  I think that is a fact and it is undisputed.  Applying fluoride to the surface of your dental enamel prevents tooth decay.

The issue is this: in a developed country like Canada, in a fluoridated community like Edmonton, we are paying three times for essentially the same treatment.  I pay my dentist for fluoride treatments once per year.  I pay for my toothpaste that I apply to my teeth twice per day.  And I pay as a citizen for the extremely weak fluoride solution of that passes over my teeth whenever I drink tap water.  The question is, is there any value to this extra water fluoridation expense that we’re all forced to pay collectively, when we already pay for more effective treatments individually.

I think a big part of the answer is found by looking at the last 30 years of dental health data for developed countries as gathered by the World Health Organization.  This information looks at 18 countries, 14 that do not add fluoride to their water and 4 that do.  What we see is a comparable improvement in dental health across all countries.  So, I think this third payment is actually wasted money.

But then we should consider that there are some people who should not be drinking fluoridated water.  American Dental Association and the Canadian Pediatric Society both advise that infant formula not be prepared with fluoridated water. So now we have people, the parents of newborns, who must in a sense pay a fourth time for fluoridation – this time to avoid it.

Then there are the people who wish to avoid fluoridated water because of the unanswered questions on how it might affect human health. There is really interesting research on the associations with silicofluorides in drinking water and human health effects.  There are several – including cancer and bone health - but I’ll only mention the ones that I think are really interesting and that’s those are the associations between fluoridated water and IQ – where fluoridated water reduces children’s ability to evacuate lead from their bodies, and an association with hyperactivity and reduced impulse control – both of which would indirectly lead to learning problems. 

Now Health Canada is correct – on a weight-of-evidence approach- there isn’t enough information in this research to make definitive conclusions.  But we’re discussing a treatment which is probably inferior, definitely redundant, to things were are already doing so there is no reason to continue to run this risk while the research continues.  And from an economic perspective,  we’re spending $600,000 per year in direct costs on this probably inferior, definitely redundant activity.  Which City Council could easily find other uses for that would be more appreciated by Edmontonians.

Editor's Note: Myles Kitagawa's personal blog can be found at mylesk.livejournal.com

According to a recent Pew Charitable Trust survey, 59% of people do not believe that 97% of scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is real. Their perception is that the ratio of scientists who confirm climate change to those who deny it is in the range of 50-50.

At a recent conference convened by the Alberta Ecotrust, speaker Dr. Justina Ray explained this grotesque outcome in her session on The Science Policy Gap. Media stories, Dr. Ray said, depend on conflict, and near-consensus situations contain very little of it. Consequently, if a reporter is going to write a conflict-based story about the science of climate change, he or she must escalate the validity of the 3% of deniers so that a story with an air of controversy might be produced. It follows that a public who relies on this distortion would conclude that the climate change is controversial when this is actually not the case.

Among the people who populate my life, there are a few correspondents who believe that climate change is a hoax - that it is a religion-like tenet held by people who have “drunk the ad hominem kool-aid” handed out by charismatic leaders like Al Gore and David Suzuki. Ad Hominem Kool-Aid is the beverage preferred by people who choose their beliefs based on who says what rather than a careful examination of what they are saying.

In contrast to these members of homo ad hominus, there are the Children of the Enlightenment who are described in the Ted Nordhaus/Michael Shellenberger essay, The Death of Environmentalism this way:  read more... »

As you know, Yard Food Day is a traditional post in honour of the first day that I eat something that is growing in my back yard, and in 2010, it is April 18th.

I've noticed that my chive plant has been growing for a few days now, and so technically, Yard Food Day could've been an omelet with some chives a few days ago, but that didn't happen.

Weedgeekery is shifting. Circa 1995, when Toxics Watch ran its "Lion's Tooth Festival" to celebrate the much maligned dandelion, there were few resources describing the uses of this valuable plant.

 
But today, there seem to be weedgeeks in the mainstream. My lunch recipe today was published in the April 7th, 2010 edition of the Globe & Mail's Food & Wine section: Salad of dandelion greens, pancetta and boiled eggs, a dish served at Montreal's Toque restaurant.

A quick ellipse.

At the 2009 Annual General Assembly of the Canadian Environmental Network, one of the presenters was local permaculture expert, Ron Berezan, who presented on the idea of no-till gardening. To help build up poor backyard soils, the no-till gardener applies layers of newspapers, leaves, and fall garden detritus to the yard to rapidly build up organic matter. I understand the initial layer of newspaper is supposed to suppress weed growth.

Of course, weedgeeks don't suppress their weed growth, so I left the newspaper part out.
The consequence of this omission is that what appeared to be ordinary, young dandelion plants growing atop a layer of leaves actually had 2 or 3 inches of sweet, tender, light-starved mid-ribs growing beneath them. Once picked, these plants resembled a true vegetable, kind of like a thin bok choy.

Notice the length of white underleaf in these plants: 

Compared to these which were growing directly out of the soil: 

My version of the Toque hot dandelion, pancetta and egg salad turned out like this:  read more... »

Today’s weedgeek post is a bit of a cheat because I didn’t make this product, but if I ever adopt brewing as one of my hobbies, this is definitely something I’d attempt as two of its main ingredients are prized crops in the Vacant Lot of Eden.

While riding home from a downtown meeting late last summer, I noticed a burdock growing at the southern approach of the Highlevel Bridge  read more... »