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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦

@shastingssimon.bsky.social

17K followers 1.1K following 3.6K posts

Currently on partial medical leave and Associate professor, Dept of Earth, Energy, and Environment, University of Calgary; co-director http://NZERI.ca; energy/carbon/innovation policy + bikes.

NZERI.ca;

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · Nov 8

Hi from Alberta where I’m a professor at University of Calgary in the dept of earth energy and environment. I’m a physicist turned mgmt consultant turned think tanker now researching the energy transition. I love e-bikes and etrikes. And I’m currently on med leave fighting breast cancer.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 2h

Volunteering at the fix it clinic this morning. Keeping clothing out of the landfill is a little but highly satisfying act of resistance 💪

A woman sits at a table behind a sign that says fabric fixers. She is focused on a sewing machine that has a pair of jeans on it.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 17h

Love it!

Fully vested?

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 17h

New cast on. Another vest. This time with a fun diamond pattern and seed stitch. I guess I will be wearing vests now.

#knitting #petiteknit #esthervest

A few inches of a vest on circular knitting needles. The yarn is off white/cream colour and the pattern of diamonds is starting to show up

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 22h

Just please no with the AI

Aside from all the issues with it, this woman should be way more worried than she is.

screenshot from a website for a massage and spa service in Calgary. There is a woman sitting with her eyes closed looking serene and it appears a mountain lion is giving her a massage, or at least standing over her shoulders.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 22h

I totally missed the y axis!

Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

It also doesn’t seem to give any indication of number of students? (Not that that is the only factor in costs but it plays a role)

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

This is the worst because as you say, ppl not on bikes are understandably annoyed that someone isn’t using the bike infrastructure but it’s totally unusable in practice

Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

Fixed that for you

Markings on a poorly constructed side to street bike ramp showing a much wider ramp at a less extreme angle, a physical barrier to prevent cars from parking in the space but also from hitting someone from behind and removing flex posts that would keep any kind of transport cargo or mobility device out

Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

I see many things. The ramp is way too narrow and at too much of an angle. The flex posts are obviously in the wrong place and should be not just moved but replaced with a real concrete barrier where the lane starts.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

And fuzzy alpaca vest is done! I quilted the knitting to the flannel lining and it worked very well. I think it will keep the knit from stretching out over time.
#knitting

Fuzzy light tan colour alpaca vest with dark buttons laying flat on a table

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks! Good point!

Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

damn it typo - like the carbon calculators 2.0

(which I learned about from @amywestervelt.bsky.social laist.com/news/npr-new...).

How Big Oil helped push the idea of a 'carbon footprint'

Your carbon footprint helps you identify actions you can take to personally fight climate change. It also shifts responsibility away from petrochemical companies. If that seems convenient for Big Oil,...

laist.com

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

retweeting because this is buried at the end of a too long tweet thread but I believe 100% that overusing warning labels is partially about downloading systemic issues including pollution and failure of health care/public policy onto individuals.

its like the carbon calculation 2.0

Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

The vast vast vast majority of ppl who see this warning label will never do this calculation. Hell I've done the calculation and I still feel guilty.

And it's also enabling the downloading of systemic issues (health disparities, pollution, etc) on people unfairly.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

phew this was a bit long, sorry. With that I'm done and I think I need to go get a drink 🍺

Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

I think we need to consider the general impact of making people feel bad for how they "caused" their cancer. This is also a real mental distress that will be experienced by 100% of people who get cancer, and in the vast majority of cases it was nothing they did (it was luck, systemic issues, etc)

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

So we are labeling beer bottles because of a 1% increase due to moderate drinking but not screening women with a 2-3% risk of developing cancer.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

*sidenote this is based on a flawed study but thats for another thread.

So let's look at the risks.
The risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 50 is like 2-3%.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

How so?
The justification* for the recommendation that women in Canada start breast cancer screening at the age of 50 is based on the downside of screening being the worry one has to go through when there is an abnormal finding that might be cancer but isnt. false positives

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

This could lead to people discounting risks for cancer that a much higher because they get risk overload (im looking at you CA/prop65). Again out of my wheelhouse but still.

But to come back to breast cancer, we actually recognize the risk of mental worry (someone gets me!_

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

Now sure, thats just breast cancer, there are other cancers too, and a risk is a risk, so why wouldn't we want to tell people so they can be aware and reduce their risk?

Well there is a downside to it all. One, if everything is a risk, how do we know what to worry about

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

Of course the underlying risk goes up over time, so the risk from drinking does as well. The lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is something like 12%.

So the additional risk of a breast cancer diagnosis from drinking "moderately" is about 1% over your life.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

Now I'm going to do some hand wavy not perfect math but it will get the point across.
My risk of getting diagnosed by that age was a bit less than 1% so lets call it 1%.

That means my risk of getting diagnosed specifically because I enjoy a nice IPA was, generously, 0.1%.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

lets get personal, I got diagnosed with breast cancer in my early 40s. According to the stats I can find my risk of getting diagnosed with breast cancer was "7–10 percent higher", it might have been up to 20% higher if I had drank more heavily than I did.

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Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

disclaimer: I understand alcohol is bad for lots of reasons and I am not qualified to say what kind of general measures that justifies taking.
But when it comes to cancer (again quick googling), I can find the stat that "up to six percent of cancer diagnoses are linked to cancer risk".

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