Month: August 2016

The Disaffected Lib: Who Knew? The Anthropocene Is Here. It Arrived in 1950.

The results are in. After extensive research and debate a team of scientists has concluded that Earth has moved into a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, and they’ve backdated its arrival to 1950.

This is the first geological epoch triggered by a lifeform and it turns out that was just one of countless thousands of species. It was us, you and me and the folks who came before us. That’s why it’s called the Anthropocene, because it’s man-made.

The previous geological Epoch, the Holocene, lasted a mere 12,000 years. Before that, epochs lasted from 1.5 to 20 million years at a stretch. The Holocene, which I like to think of as the ‘Heaven on Earth’ epoch featured a relatively gentle climate perfectly suited to things such as the development of human civilization which, not surprisingly, it did. Then, not content with a good thing, we went ahead and rubbished it.

To define a new geological epoch, a signal must be found that occurs globally and will be incorporated into deposits in the future geological record. For example, the extinction of the dinosaurs 66m years ago at the end of the Cretaceous epoch is defined by a “golden spike” in sediments around the world of the metal iridium, which was dispersed from the meteorite that collided with Earth to end the dinosaur age.

For the Anthropocene, the best candidate for such a golden spike are radioactive elements from nuclear bomb tests, which were blown into the stratosphere before settling down to Earth. “The radionuclides are probably the sharpest – they really come on with a bang,” said [professor Jan Zalasiewicz, chair of the Working Group on the Anthropocene]. “But we are spoiled for choice. There are so many signals.”

Other spikes being considered as evidence of the onset of the Anthropocene include the tough, unburned carbon spheres emitted by power stations. “The Earth has been smoked, with signals very clearly around the world in the mid-20th century,” said Zalasiewicz.


Other candidates include plastic pollution, aluminium and concrete particles, and high levels of nitrogen and phosphate in soils, derived from artificial fertilisers. Although the world is currently seeing only the sixth mass extinction of species in the 700m-year history of complex life on Earth, this is unlikely to provide a useful golden spike as the animals are by definition very rare and rarely dispersed worldwide.

In contrast, some species have with human help spread rapidly across the world. The domestic chicken is a serious contender to be a fossil that defines the Anthropocene for future geologists. “Since the mid-20th century, it has become the world’s most common bird. It has been fossilised in thousands of landfill sites and on street corners around the world,” said Zalasiewicz. “It is is also a much bigger bird with a different skeleton than its prewar ancestor.”


…The term Anthropocene was coined only in 2000, by the Nobel prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen, who believes the name change is overdue. He said in 2011: “This name change stresses the enormity of humanity’s responsibility as stewards of the Earth.” Crutzen also identified in 2007 what he called the “great acceleration” of human impacts on the planet from the mid-20th century.



…Prof Chris Rapley, a climate scientist at University College London and former director of the Science Museum in London said: “The Anthropocene marks a new period in which our collective activities dominate the planetary machinery.

“Since the planet is our life support system – we are essentially the crew of a largish spaceship – interference with its functioning at this level and on this scale is highly significant. If you or I were crew on a smaller spacecraft, it would be unthinkable to interfere with the systems that provide us with air, water, fodder and climate control. But the shift into the Anthropocene tells us that we are playing with fire, a potentially reckless mode of behaviour which we are likely to come to regret unless we get a grip on the situation.”



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The Disaffected Lib: Them’s Fighting Words

You can go but the furniture stays, all of it.

That’s sort of the message from German economy minister, Sigmar Gabriel, in response to Brexit, the UK’s departure from the European Union.

The world now regarded Europe as an unstable continent, said Gabriel, who is the deputy to chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s governing coalition.

“If we organise Brexit in the wrong way, then we’ll be in deep trouble, so now we need to make sure that we don’t allow Britain to keep the nice things, so to speak, related to Europe while taking no responsibility,” Gabriel said.


…EU leaders are refusing to countenance a “Europe a la carte” by letting Britain select the parts of its future relationship that it may like, such as access to the bloc’s single market of 500 million consumers, while dispensing with EU principles such as the free movement of people.

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Kersplebedeb | Kersplebedeb: Sterilization of indigenous women an act of genocide, new book says (repost)

An Act of Genocide, Colonialism and the Sterilization of Aboriginal Women was written by Karen Stote, an assistant professor of women and gender studies at Wilfred Laurier University in Ontario.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at Sterilization of indigenous women an act of genocide, new book says ………..READ MORE

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Things Are Good: Men Shouldn’t Worry About Being Breadwinners

Gender stereotypes and expectations aren’t good for anybody, and there’s more and more evidence that men who worry about having to be the primary income earners hurts their health. The old way of thinking that a man had to earn more than his partner in a heterosexual relationship no longer makes sense. Thanks to the […]

The post Men Shouldn’t Worry About Being Breadwinners appeared first on Things Are Good.

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Wise Law Blog: 140Law: Legal Headlines for the week of August 29, 2016

Here are the leading headlines from Wise Law on Twitter

A video posted by Wise Law Office (@wiselaw) on Aug 29, 2016 at 7:33am PDT

– Garry J. Wise, Toronto
Visit our website: www.wiselaw.net

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Politics and its Discontents: Groaning Beneath The Yoke

Last week, that paragon of rectitude, impartiality and righteousness (irony alert!), The Fraser Institute, performed its annual service to all Canadian by reminding us of the tax yoke under which we all groan:

This non-profit, tax-payer subsidized ‘independent’ think tank without a political agenda was keen to share details of our collective burden:

The Fraser Institute calculates that the average Canadian family paid $34,154 in taxes of all sort last year, including “hidden” business taxes that are passed along in the price of goods and services purchased.

The study’s authors conclude that visible and hidden taxes would have been equal to 42.4 per cent of the cash income for an average Canadian family in 2015, estimated at $80,593.

By comparison, the study estimates the average Canadian family spent $30,293 on housing, food and clothing last year — about 37.6 per cent of the family’s total cash income.

Thanks to a largely compliant and/or lazy mainstream media, this is now being accepted as a factual and grievous injustice. However, leave it to Press Progress to provide some much-needed balance and perspective:

Although the Fraser Institute claims the average family spends 42% of its income on taxes, less than one-third of that number actually refers to federal and provincial income tax.

The Fraser Institute inflates its numbers by tacking on average costs for health insurance, pensions and employment insurance (as if they’re all one in the same thing) and further pads their numbers by including corporate taxes and oil and gas royalties for some reason.

Fraser Institute defends their curious methodological choices by arguing “the cost of business taxation is ultimately passed onto ordinary Canadians.”

Is that true? To the extent that taxes on corporate profits are passed along to anyone, a US study shows four-fifths of the corporate tax burden would be passed onto income earners in the top 20% – in other words, even by the Fraser Institute’s own logic, it’s not being passed on to the “average Canadian family.”

In a similar vein, that outlier of the mainstream media, The Toronto Star, offers offers this counsel about the alarmist report:

– it deceptively includes corporate taxes, which are largely shouldered by richer Canadians.

– as a share of Canada’s economy, taxes are now at a low rarely seen over the last three decades.

– the portion of income going to taxes has increased by only 7 per cent since 1961.

The biggest flaw in the Fraser report, typical of the kind of right-wing propaganda it regularly disseminates, is the glaring omission of what we get for those tax dollars:

A 2009 report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that middle-income Canadians enjoy public services, from education to health insurance to pensions, worth about $41,000 annually per family – or roughly 63 per cent of their income. Conversely, we have watched as decades of tax cuts have led to eroding public services, but also to rising inequality, persistent homelessness, traffic gridlock and crumbling schools.

So clearly, that yoke under which the Fraser Institute would have us believe we all slave isn’t quite the burden they have presented. Indeed, many would not call it a yoke at all, but rather a representation of the values we hold dear as a society. But I guess the Fraser Institute lacks both the will and the tools to measure such vital intangibles.

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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

– Jim Hightower argues that there’s no reason the U.S. can’t develop an economic model which leads to shared prosperity – and the ideas are no less relevant in Canada:

Take On Wall Street is both the name and the feisty attitude of a nationwide campaign that a coalition of grassroots groups has launched to do just that: take on Wall Street. The coalition, spearheaded by the Communication Workers of America, points out there is nothing natural or sacred about today’s money-grabbing financial complex. Far from sacrosanct, the system of finance that now rules over us has been designed by and for Wall Street speculators, money managers and big bank flimflammers. So, big surprise, rather than serving our common good, the system is corrupt, routinely serving their uncommon greed at everyone else’s expense.
…
The coalition’s structural reforms include:
1. Getting the corrupting cash of corporations and the superrich out of politics with an overturning of Citizens United v. FEC and providing a public system for financing America’s elections.

2. Stopping “too big to fail” banks from subsidizing their high-risk speculative gambling with the deposits of  ordinary customers. Make them choose to be a consumer bank or a casino, but not both.

3. Institute a tiny “Robin Hood tax” on Wall Street speculators to discourage their computerized gaming of the system, while also generating hundreds of billions of tax dollars to invest in America’s real economy.

4. Restore low-cost, convenient “postal banking” in our post offices to serve millions of Americans who’re now at the mercy of predatory payday lenders and check-cashing chains.

– Juliette Garside reports on the EU’s efforts to get the U.S. to agree to basic reporting to rein in offshore tax evasion. And Heather Long points out Joseph Stiglitz’ criticisms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as enriching corporations at the expense of citizens.

– Amy Maxmen notes that a non-profit system can develop new drugs far more affordably than the current corporate model – and without creating the expectation of windfall profits that currently underlies the pharmaceutical industry.

– Jordan Press offers a preview of a federal strategy for homeless veterans featuring rental subsidies and the building of targeted housing units – which leads only to the question of why the same plan wouldn’t be applied to address homelessness generally.

– Alan Shanoff comments on the many holes in Ontario’s employment standards (which are generally matched elsewhere as well).

– Finally, Dougald Lamont highlights the many ways in which the Fraser Institute’s anti-tax spin misleads the media about how citizens relate to Canadian governments.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

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Northern Reflections: But For Fortune

A little more than a year ago, the lifeless body of little Alan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach. His image went viral and struck a cord around the world. Last week, the image of another battered child — Omran Daqnesshes, also a victim of the war in Syria — went viral. It reminded us of the depravity of which we are capable. But it should also remind us, Crawford Killian writes, of our duty to refugees and the benefits they bring with them:

If we treat them as unavoidable nuisances and a drain on our resources, they will become a drain indeed: underschooled, underemployed, alienated, linked to the rest of the country only through the police and social services bureaucracy.

But if we treat the thousands of Alan Kurdis and Omran Daqneeshes as an incredible stroke of luck, an opportunity to energize and sustain the country as a prosperous democracy, we will do very well indeed. They will enliven our classrooms, break our sports records, start new industries and do business around the world in English, French and Arabic.

Yes, they will bring unique problems that our schools and universities will have to deal with. But we’ve dealt with the traumatized and uprooted for at least 60 years, ever since we absorbed almost 40,000 Hungarians in a few months after the 1956 uprising. The University of British Columbia even took in a whole Hungarian school of forestry. We’re a lot better at it than we realize.

The argument against accepting refugees is always the same — they’re not like us. But, if our memories are long enough, we’ll remember that we’re all refugees. And, but for fortune, we’d be refugees today.

Image: thetyee.ca

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Montreal Simon: Michelle Rempel and the Whitewashing of Stephen Harper

Well it seems that Michelle Rempel got what she wanted. Got comedian Mark Critch to surrender.

With a deranged Twitter rant, and a volley of vulgar words. 

Comedian Mark Critch has removed a photo mocking former prime minister Stephen Harper from his Instagram account following a barrage of tweets from a Conservative MP that included obscenities.

Which is both sad and pathetic.

But what the wretched Rempel will NEVER succeed in doing is bullying other Canadians into whitewashing the legacy of this pathetic loser.
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Dead Wild Roses: The DWR Feminist Quote of the Day – On Objectification

“there’s no such thing as “taking control” of being objectified. the women who say that through stripping or other forms of performative sexuality they are regaining control of their own objectification aren’t understanding the concept of control. control is gained through power, power is systematic and industrialized, power is not a feeling. you can feel good […]

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