Author: The Mound of Sound

Law professor and environmental activist, Gus Speth, hit the nail on the head when he observed that science cannot solve climate change that threatens life on Earth. “I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good

I don’t know who did what in the SNC-Lavalin scandal that has ensnared Justin Trudeau. The question seems to be did the prime minister twist the arm of then Justice Minister Jody to take Lavalin off the hook and then retaliate against her for defying him by banishing her to

It’s bad enough that the Trudeau government overpaid for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline just when the boys from Texas were about to throw in the towel. It’s bad enough that it will take decades of transmitting climate killing, high-carbon bitumen to world markets to cover the cost of that

I thought there was something familiar when I read that Trump’s nominee for Interior Secretary has pledged to balance energy and the environment. That’s what Justin Trudeau pledged, to balance the economy and the environment. This time it’s coming from Dave Bernhardt, a former oil industry lobbyist, who as the

Apparently Liberals care, or at least some of them care. The Conservatives, always looking for something, anything to distract the voting public from Chuckles the Scheer, care – a lot. Jagmeet cares, hoping this will weaken his Liberal opponent in the upcoming by-election. Folks who care are taking sides. Do

There’s money to be made out of chaos. That’s the whole point of disaster capitalism and those who play that game see vast potential in the UK plummeting into a “no deal” Brexit. Guardian enviro-scribe, George Monbiot, sees Britain’s well-to-do doing even weller if they can steer Britain into a

It will take an hour of your time but, when you’re done, Fintan O’Toole will help you understand why Brexit has so bedeviled Theresa May, the British House of Commons and the EU. It all comes down to one thing – Ireland.

It’s been all over the news lately, partially digested, often spiced up with a double dose of spin, but what is the Green New Deal? Here it is, in its entirety. It’s only 14 pages, not a tough read. Does it sound radical? Sure it does – to a world

This must seem odd coming from me but it would be unfair of me not to mention Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed in today’s New York Times, “Thank God for Canada.” The veteran NYT columnist even calls Canada today’s “moral leader of the free world.” I guess, coming from Trumpland, Canada looks

Nukes are all the rage these days. The US and Russia just trashed the IRBM or intermediate range ballistic missile treaty inked by Reagan and Gorbachev back in the good old days. But wait, there’s more. A Russian diplomat warns that the New Start treaty signed by Obama and then

The five hottest years on record have been the last five years on record. Five for five. What’s that mean to you? NASA scientists confirmed in a report Wednesday that 2018 was one of the hottest years on record, continuing what the New York Times called “an unmistakable warming trend.” 

When Trump launched his trade wars he didn’t pay much attention to those Americans likely to become his collateral damage. Among those were America’s farmers. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s trade antics were the straw that broke the farmers’ back, triggering a wave of bankruptcies across America’s farm

Who can forget those halcyon days in late 2015 when Justin Trudeau and Cathy McKenna swept into the Paris climate summit, helping to set the goal of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius? If the nations could just cut emissions enough we might be able to hold warming to

If, by mojo, you mean every bully’s stock in trade, the ability to instill fear in others, the answer seems to be “yes.” It’s usually a bad day for a bully when the crowd stops fearing. The New York Times argues that is precisely what’s happening to Donald J. Trump.

The Washington-based rights group, Freedom House, has released its 2019 report on the global state of democracy and it’s not pretty. Democracy is again in retreat although most of us probably realized that anyway. Sweden came in first with a perfect score of 100. Canada did almost as well with

Despite glasnost and all the disarmament talk since Reagan and Gorbachev inked the IRT, the world is still up to its arse in nuclear weapons.  There are silo-launched ICBMs like the US Minuteman. The Russians and Chinese are fond of mobile ICBMs that can be hauled up and down highways

Recent revelations that the Trump administration doesn’t know how many thousand migrant children it might have separated from their parents or even where they wound up were shocking enough. But the Trumpsters showed they’re not even ashamed of their disgraceful abuse of these kids. When the American Civil Liberties Union

It’s a classic con – two sets of books. There’s one set “cooked” for public consumption to mislead investors, creditors and regulators and another set of books that reveals the skulduggery no one else must ever see.  Swindlers use it all the time. So too do politicians, especially those with

A couple of days ago I argued that the Liberals and the Conservatives and, for that matter, the NDP did not deserve your vote in this year’s federal election. In the piece, entitled, “This Year, This Vote, Is Different. It Matters Like It Never Mattered Before,” I said this time

Michael Harris deserves some sort of prize for this line:  Unless Doug Ford campaigns for him in a thong, things couldn’t get worse for Andrew Scheer in the 2019 federal election. Writing in The Tyee, Harris makes short work of Scheer and his hapless campaign. Polling poorly in Quebec, British