Students from the Edwards School of Business braved it all to raise money for the Children’s Hospital Foundation. The frozen chosen jumped into a frigid pool of water to raise money for the annual event Chillin’ For Charity. Altogether over $7000 was raised which is doubled by N. Murray Edwards.

See the photo.

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TANNARA YELLAND
Associate News Editor

New buildings are going up all over campus, leaving some to wonder why the old ones weren’t good enough.

The most recent sacrifice to modernity is the Medical Research Building, formerly located beside the College of Dentistry building. It was deconstructed to make room for the E Wing of the expansive Academic Health Sciences building complex. The Academic Health Sciences project is a multi-building development intended to provide adequate space and facilities for students in the health sciences.

Rather than renovate existing buildings, the university has chosen to remove them and begin anew.

The Medical Research Building was opened only 51 years ago, in May 1958. It was built for $783,000; with an inflation rate of 4.03 per cent per year, that would amount to just under $6 million today, or just over one quarter of the cost of the new building.

Yet the E Wing is expected to cost over $121 million.

The cost of the entire project has not been released as some parts have not yet been tendered and the university might not receive competitive bids if the expected costs are released.

Brett Fairbairn, University of Saskatchewan provost and vice-president academic, called the Medical Research Building “a very old, constrained facility” and added that it had asbestos in it.

The health sciences — nursing, medicine, physical therapy, dentistry, pharmacy and nutrition — are currently revamping their programs to include a more interdisciplinary approach to learning, which the E Wing is designed to accommodate.

The D Wing being constructed opposite the Arts Building will house the research facilities, and the E Wing will have both large and small classrooms and a new library.

“The different things that are in the space reflect the academic design of the programs,” Fairbairn said.

He was also careful to draw a distinction between demolition and deconstruction. Deconstructing a building means that some of it is saved for re-use. Some of the field stone, red granite and tyndall stone from the old building will be used in the construction of the E Wing, and some of the building’s concrete will be broken down and used for road construction on campus.

Fairbairn was excited about the Academic Health Sciences project, saying it will be “the biggest teaching and learning project in the university’s history when you include all the different components of it.”

The E Wing, for which ground was broken on Oct. 13, 2009, is expected to be fully operational for the beginning of the 2013 fall term. Construction should be done by October 2012, but it will take some time to move everything into the classrooms and offices.

Also being taken down during deconstruction is the underground MRI facility that connects to the Royal University Hospital.

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photo: Robby Davis

KEITH MCLAUGHLIN
Meliorist (University of Lethbridge)

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. (CUP) — Since the emergence of antidepressant drugs in the early 1980s, more and more cases of depression are being reported. According to Dr. Brad Hagen, a clinical psychologist and faculty member at the University of Lethbridge, the reason for the skyrocketing rates of depression are a matter of heated debate.

“Depending on how you look at it, depression either started becoming more common or recognized, or it became marketed,” said Hagen.

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A new survey focuses on crime perception, law students win awards in a national mediation competition and a new music video hopes to remove stigma in criminalized Aboriginal women dealing with substance abuse.

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DAVE SHORE
The Cord (Wilfrid Laurier University)

WATERLOO, Ont. (CUP) – Picture this: your close friend is sitting with a present in her lap, your gift as part of your group of friends’ secret Santa swap.
Little does she know you’ve bought her the perfect gag gift: a tube of lubricant and a pair of furry handcuffs.

You try to stifle your anticipation as she unwraps the present, and then the whole room bursts into laughter as she shows everyone with embarrassment and amusement the hilarious gift you’ve given.

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RORY MACLEAN
News Editor

With a commitment to only “minor adjustments” to greenhouse gas emissions targets from Ottawa, Canadians won’t likely see a change in the Harper government’s position following the international climate conference in Copenhagen.

The summit is being held Dec. 7 to 18 to draft a new agreement to replace the 1998 Kyoto Protocol for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The protocol, which expires in 2012, called for a 5.2 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2012, though the agreement was not legally binding.

Canada was a signatory of the 1998 agreement but, having made little effort toward its commitment, began to back away from it in the mid 2000s.

According to Mark Jaccard, an environmental systems analyst and economist, simply setting targets without having clear, effective policies in place will not do much anyway, can mean political suicide

Jaccard argues the policies that have been most popular in Canada — trying to curb emissions by improving technological efficiency — can not sufficiently reduce emissions.

Technological efficiency can cause a rebound effect, where consumers begin demanding more because efficient devices are cheaper. For example, governments might provide a subsidy for people to buy an energy efficient fridge, but people might just keep their old one too — the beer fridge effect.

Those who were already going to buy a more energy-efficient product can also take advantage of a subsidy, reducing its effect. Those limited resources should be spent to stimulate those who wouldn’t have otherwise bought the energy efficient product.

Some products, like certain fuel guzzling automobiles, have a status attached to them that advances in efficiency will not affect.

Efficiency cannot achieve significant reductions in emissions. Aside from choosing energy options like wind, hydro and solar, the only way to make people pollute less is to make it expensive.

The problem is pursing the policies necessary to actually reduce emissions can mean political suicide, says Jaccard.

“In a capitalist economy, it can’t be free to emit,” but politicians do not want to be seen to endorse a price increase, he said.

Following Kyoto, his firm was hired to model the cost of a carbon pricing scheme for the federal Liberal government. They knew that putting a price on carbon was the only option to reduce emissions, said Jaccard. But when he returned with an estimate that it would cost $150 per tonne of emissions reduced until 2010, the Canadian government balked.

Instead, they spent money on a Rick Mercer-led ad campaign for the One Tonne Challenge asking Canadians citizens to take the lead, he said.

Upon taking power Harper called the Kyoto targets unrealistic and refused to follow through on them.

Jaccard says he does not blame them, however.

“Politicians are the nexus of our contradictions. We want to save the planet but we don’t want a high price of gasoline.”

The political cost of proposing a carbon pricing scheme can be seen in the flameout of Stéphane Dion, former Liberal leader. He was quickly shuffled out of the position after the carbon tax he endorsed proved exceedingly unpopular.

Few actually doubt that something needs to be done to combat climate change. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a global body of scientists that assesses the most recent information on the potential impacts of climate change — has predicted an average global rise in temperature of 1.4 C to 5.8 C degrees between 1990 and 2100. The greatest changes are expected to occur at the poles.

Canadians’ confidence in the effectiveness of the international treaty process to set binding emissions targets is limited.

Over half of all Canadians would like to see the Copenhagen summit result in a legally-binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gases but few expect this to happen, according to an Angus Reid poll.

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photo: Flickr / Ian Britton

TANNARA YELLAND
Associate News Editor

University of Saskatchewan students may soon be getting national publicity for their stance against Conservative Member of Parliament Brad Trost.

Trost, who represents the Saskatoon-Humboldt riding, recently began distributing a petition asking the federal government to stop funding the International Planned Parenthood Foundation. His main contention is that the IPPF offers abortion to women in developing countries.

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