Celebrating? May maybe. Hemp for sure!

May is just around the corner and a time to celebrate.  May 1st was once a time to gather on the commons to watch children dancing round the maypole. Free. Fun. Frivolous. This year May initiates a celebration, acknowledgement that we've weathered Covid as indications are that Covid has abated and that masks and mandates, protests and lockdowns, are history. Time to demask and smile. Time to get out and travel again. Maybe...

While Covid raged on, our newsletters and webinars covered a range of global threats in addition to Covid - visit KEInetwork.net  We explored the forces and source of change in our scanning of the environment for low probability high impact events - black swans.  There was a series on climate change and decarbonization.  We touched on inflation, supply-line disruptions, and shortages real and anticipated in agri-foods and energy. And more recently we even dared to peek ahead to learn about what the leader - Klaus Schwab, and the collective leaders, of the World Economic Forum had in store for us. The follow-on discussions were civil and sobering, revealing our apprehension with top down, utopian undertakings - appealing on the surface, but often warranting totalitarian controls.

While exploring these global forces and their implications, none of us anticipated that one man - Vladimir Putin, could change it all. In the blink of an eye, Russia's insecurity and subsequent "special military operation" - the invasion of the Ukraine, a war would unravel decades of progress in establishing international trust. Now May - specifically May 9th, looms large as Putin's target date for securing victory and triggering a Reset of the world order. Ours is now a world anxious about food supplies and energy. A world unprepared for the breakdown in trust leading to the withdrawal of nations into regional alliances.

If you would like to know more and share your views, then join us as we re-broadcast and discuss Jane Boulden's Conference Board of Canada's podcast "How the war in Ukraine is Disrupting the Rules-Based International Order" and the implications for Canada. Thursday April 28th at 4:00PM MST - just click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85896241732

"Exploring the World of Hemp Opportunities"

Industrial Hemp - NOT Cannabis

On a more celebratory note, the Alberta Hemp Alliance's Conference on April 21/22 in the Renaissance Hotel at the Edmonton International Airport - visit KEInetwork.net succeeded on a number of fronts furthering the development of Alberta and western Canada's industrial hemp industry.

First, there was the sell-out, the gathering of over 200 farmers, advisors, and suppliers; researchers and investors; government - municipal and provincial representatives. Their shear presence contributed to an increase in awareness of the vast industrial hemp opportunities and a strengthening of the network of industry interests.  Then there was the announcement by the Alberta Government HERE and HERE of funding, further derisking investment, increasing the province's economic diversity, and attracting two major companies helping to fortify whole plant usage and decortication processing. A specific concern - repeated throughout the Conference, was the failure of Canada Health to differentiate industrial hemp from cannabis.

Overall, industry optimism was palatable - several standing ovations and excitement about increasing Alberta's acreage devoted to industrial hemp over the next 5 years to 333K, up from 40K - a stretch but continuing to position Alberta as a leader in industrial hemp.

Nuclear Watch

Social license restored - fusion by 2030

Innovation

Core to economic resilience

Energy Transition

Respecting the environment

Inflation

Higher and longer

Supply Chains

Disruptions continue

ESG Activism

Values-based advocacy

AI & VR - Metaverse

An illusion or new reality?

AGEism

Signaling an economic decline

Warehousing seniors has to stop! - Editor