Dr Andrew Robertson spoke on the Consequences of Economic Crises.

Dr Debarati Guha-Sapir spoke on the Myths and Realities of Disaster Epidemiology. Dr. Gupta was presented with the Safar Award.

Roche hosted a special session on H1N1 virus, and generously made the slides available to the public:

The 2009 World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WCDEM) started off with a speech by the Hon. Stephen Point, the first Aboriginal Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.

Mr. Point emphasized the wisdom of the elders, and noted that he was repeatedly being warned that we are entering a time of increasing disasters.

A 1st Nations song and dance was also performed for the attendees.

Dr. Jonathan Patz gave a plenary talk on Health and Climate Change, pointing out that America and Canada were consumers of the largest amount of resources in the world, and therefore also had a responsibility to tackle the upcoming challenges of climate change.

Omar Ha-Redeye was interviewed by CPAC on the issue of Arctic sovereignty at the Policy Plenary of the 2009 Biennial Liberal Convention.

Omar Ha-Redeye gave a talk on the use of social media in politics, focusing on the Canadian scene, at the Miles S. Nadal Management Centre in the Ernst & Young Tower of the Toronto Dominion Centre.

Audio of the talk available here.

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada.

May spoke at Western Law as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series on How to fight climate change while restoring democracy.

See the article by Kamila Pizon on the talk.

Robert Shiller spoke about “Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology caused the Current Economic Crisis” at UWO Law.

Lee Hopkins of Better Communication Results picked up on this post from Social Media Mafia:

News fresh to hand:

From Social Media Mafia and a Facebook link courtesy of Omar Ha-Redeye comes this frightening correlation:

A new study suggests that Twitter is the root cause of the current economic malaise. Policy experts predict a Twitter moratorium may be declared for Summer 2009 as part of an effort to stimulate economic production and reverse GDP declines.

Doesn’t sound as exciting as it really is,

There are some interesting comments on the Volokh Conspiracy page about whether or not law professors should add their students as friends on Facebook. Exactly how close should you get with your students and still maintain your authority figure/teacher role? The same concerns arise with law students/junior associates at firms vis a vis senior lawyers. My sense is that being FB friends in those situations is far too close for comfort.

This is kindof a Law is Cool type of post. Sorry Omar for scooping it, but you guys seemed to be overly pre-occupied with groundhogs over there!

The January term ended today.

Classes resume after a week.

There are lots of updates needed for this site to reflect various activities and contemporary political changes, but they’ll have to wait until mid-Dec. after exams are concluded.