Author: The Mound of Sound

This graphic depiction from The New York Times indicates our worsening predicament.  The black bars represent the Earth’s capacity to deliver the resources that sustain humanity. The battery is fully charged in January. By March, it’s down to 60 per cent. That drops to 20 per cent in June. And

This graphic from The Guardian depicts what a world at 4 degrees Celsius (above pre-industrial levels) will mean for humanity. If it looks grim, it is. The red zone, as we have been warned repeatedly, including densely populated India, Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa including the Horn of

Over the past couple of years I’ve been exploring early progressive thought. Yesterday I stumbled across the following passage that immediately hit a chord: The misery of the people is not caused by individuals, but by an order of Society by which they are bound together in a way that

They’re the Old School chapter of the GOP, conservative Republicans alarmed at how their party, the‘party of Lincoln’ succumbed to rightwing extremists, misogynists, xenophobes, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, racists and bigots of every description also known as ‘Trump’s base.’ These Patricians conveniently forget who it was that allowed that camel

Bill Morneau was not the problem but a symptom of a greater failure known as the Trudeau government. With his finance minister out, resigning both his cabinet post and his seat in the House of Commons, Justin Trudeau is looking weak, wounded, vulnerable. He’s got Mark Carney waiting in the

The anti-mask/anti-vaccine crowd routinely downplays the severity of the Covid-19 virus. Some like to compare the current pandemic, now in its seventh month, to the Spanish Flu of 1918 that kept killing until April, 1920, 26 months in total. There is no comparison between the two. We have better healthcare

Many of us live in dread of Covid-19 creeping into our children’s classrooms. Little kids, getting sick, bringing the virus back home to their siblings, parents, perhaps grandparents. Scary stuff. But it doesn’t seem to scare the older kids, those returning to college and university campuses. They’re getting back and

Yale prof, Timothy Snyder, is probably best known for his book, “On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.” (available free on PDF here) He’s considered something of an expert on authoritarianism and despots. In today’s Washington Post, Snyder warns Americans that if they want to salvage what remains of

The last decade was the hottest on record but this decade, the 2020s, is blowing the doors off it.   And, when it comes to heat, America remains Number One. What could be the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth – 130F (54.4C) – may have been reached in Death

For the first time in the history of the US Weather Service the agency has issued a “fire tornado” warning. The Reno office of the National Weather Service warned Northern California of a fiery tornado Saturday afternoon that had sprung up near a large, fast-moving wildfire in the Sierra.  That’s

With Mark Carney hovering in the wings is the writing on the wall for Trudeau finance minister, Bill “Job Churn” Morneau? There have been  a few reports of friction between the prime minister and Morneau over Canada’s burgeoning deficit. Morneau has always been true to his class. He was definitely

One of the great ecological challenges of this century will be to save our stocks of farmland from soil degradation. While the degree of soil degradation varies from country to country, even Canadian farms are not immune. Eight or nine years ago I did a couple of online courses on

The US FDA has approved a new Covid-19 detection test that is said to be less costly, fast, more accurate and, best of all, non-invasive. A COVID-19 saliva test is being lauded by public health officials as a way for more people to get quick and accurate results in coronavirus testing,

It is increasingly hard to believe how we ignore the climate breakdown even when it’s on our own doorstep. Our federal government has proclaimed a climate state of emergency but judging by its indifference to this looming catastrophe it’s obvious they’re not treating it as an emergency. This pandemic that

The rightwing government currently in power in Greece is testing a new solution to unwanted refugees cluttering up its beautiful islands – haul them back out to sea. The Greek government has secretly expelled more than 1,000 refugees from Europe’s borders in recent months, sailing many of them to the

Those bastards! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, better known as the CDC, report that those who contract, survive and recover from the Covid-19 virus receive immunity. That immunity lasts three months. That’s it. Just three months. “People who have tested positive for Covid-19 do not need to quarantine

Huffington Post’s White House correspondent, SV Date, is usually a spectator when Donald Trump stages a press conference. Trump, like his press secretaries, tend to invite questions from a select few. So when Trump called upon Date, the HuffPo scribe had just one question, the only question he will ever

It’s not that the Covid-19 pandemic is as cataclysmic as the Black Death or even the Spanish Flu of 1918. There’s a good chance it won’t be – BUT… The very best minds tell us that Covid-19 is just a dress rehearsal, a glimpse into a future of pandemics and

One thing the Covid-19 pandemic has brought home is that for-profit nursing homes have proven less safe for the elderly in their care. It’s not just a Canadian problem either. From the Sydney Morning Herald. The chances of an elderly resident contracting COVID-19 in an aged care home decreases substantially