Author: The Mound of Sound

In his weekly column, Chris Hedges writes that Donald Trump has inflicted a mortal wound on the very foundation of America’s economy, the world’s acceptance of the US dollar as the global reserve currency. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, although Iran had abided by the

Israelis approaching Jerusalem are being greeted with an 8-storey poster of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu beneath a caption, “a different league.” To Haaretz correspondent, Bradley Burston, these towering campaign posters send a message. Netanyahu and his followers have lost what it means to be Jews. They’re MAGA people and

One aspect of climate change that is often missing from our conversation is how much of it is already locked in. Until we find some mechanism to extract atmospheric greenhouse gases, not just a lot of CO2 but a big percentage of it, most of it, a massive amount of

For many millennials and their parents, this election will be like no other. Many of those millennials now have infants, toddlers, newborns and their parents have grandbabies. This year it is morally imperative that those new parents and grandparents do what they’re supposed to do, protect their young and all

Michael Ferguson has succumbed to cancer.

Britain is caught in a holy hell of a Brexit quagmire.  Among British MPs, everyone has an idea and no one can get traction. Some want a second referendum on the EU. Some want an easy-exit deal. Some want Theresa May to go back to Brussels, cap in hand, begging

It is a fight that lasted several years but the proposal to build a coal port to ship thermal (dirty) coal from the Fraser Surrey Docks is dead. From Dogwood: After six long years of community pushback, the Port of Vancouver has cancelled its permit for the controversial U.S. thermal

Recently PostMedia ran a petro-friendly article accusing British Columbians of being hypocritical when they point fingers at Alberta for greenhouse gas emissions. It was a pretty one-sided piece. I responded by linking to a report from the Conference Board of Canada that featured this graph of per capita emissions by

In the opening years of this century, our new millennia, some historians predicted that the 21st century would be a “century of revolution.”  Almost 20 years in, it’s looking as though they were right. We’ve already had our share of game changers. Among them were the terror attacks of September

He sure talks a good game but, time after time, Justin Trudeau’s promises prove empty. The numbers come from the latest climate pollution projections report,”Canada’s Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollutant Emissions Projections 2018.” Each year, the government tallies up its projections, and each year the picture has gotten worse. Back in

Aviation Week reports that the oldest F-35B could be put out to pasture in 2026. There’s a problem with the too-good-to-be true Joint Strike Fighter. Structural defects may leave the Lightning II with a paltry service life of just 2,100 hours of flight time. To put that in context, Lockheed,

The question is how degraded has the Salish Sea already become from shipping traffic out of Canada’s largest port, Vancouver. Indigenous groups from Canada and the US want hard answers before Trudeau even thinks about launching an armada of bitumen laden supertankers through those same waters Indigenous groups in Canada

Two elite Paris police officers have been convicted of raping a Canadian woman who had been invited to tour their police headquarters. They each won a 7-year stretch in the Greybar Hotel. Emily Spanton, 39, waived her right to anonymity to pursue the case.  She told the trial she had

Today there are 16,000 desalination plants in operation converting sea water into fresh water for countries beset by water insecurity.  Finally the United Nations is reporting what critics have known for years – these plants are an ecological nightmare. In addition to the energy they consume, often generated from fossil

It’s the law. Canadian energy companies must clean up old wells and cannot rely on bankruptcy as a mechanism to pillage the public. The top court’s ruling released Thursday overturns two [Alberta] lower court decisions that said bankruptcy law has paramountcy over provincial environmental responsibilities in the case of Redwater

The simple fact is that we live in an age of rapid technological change that is largely alien to older people. Think back to when you had to set the flashing clock on your grandfather’s VCR.  Same, same only a generation later and vastly more complex. I watched a seasoned

Most of Canada is in a deep freeze as the Polar Vortex sweeps down from the Arctic. It’s cold. It’s killer cold. It’s also your new normal or at least the early-onset start of what will become your new normal. My experience suggests that a lot of Canadians still don’t

This is methane gas trapped in the ice of Abraham Lake, Alberta. Across the north, methane gas and CO2 are being released from the thawing permafrost and from lake beds and sea beds.  Here’s an example.

Russia, why would Russia want to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump and the fixing of the 2016 presidential election? US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office said on Wednesday that self-proclaimed hackers in Russia stole evidence prosecutors had turned over confidentially to a Russian firm accused of funding

In his 2008 book, Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats, author Gwynne Dyer wrote of a brutally militarized border between the United States and Mexico. This was not Dyer’s imagination at work. It came from his considerable sources at the Pentagon where securing the US from