MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report)—Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports. The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of
Continue readingTag: climate change denial
Politics and its Discontents: In Some Ways, It Must Be Nice To Be An Idiot
That way, you get to say anything that comes into your near-empty head. Recommend this Post
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Who needs old-time climate change deniers when we’ve got the ‘New Climate Denialism’?
PHOTOS: Shannon Daub, associate director of the CCPA’s British Columbia office and co-director of the Corporate Mapping Project, at the mapping project’s 2017 Summer Institute at the University of Victoria this week. Below: CCPA B.C. Director Seth Klein (Twitter) and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. VICTORIA, B.C. Just because there are
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Climate Drewhaha: financing a documentary with a point of view is advocacy, not defending free speech
PHOTOS: Wildrose Energy Critic Drew Barnes, at right, on the steps of the Alberta Legislature one cold day in 2016. Below: Wetaskiwin-Camrose NDP MLA Bruce Hinkley (Camrose Canadian photo), Calgary Currie MLA Brian Malkinson, and National Post commentator and documentary maker John Robson (screenshot). Is Wildrose Energy Critic Drew Barnes
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Bill Nye Attempts To School Tucker Carlson
… but finds he is not an apt student. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Bill Nye Attempts To School Tucker Carlson
… but finds he is not an apt student. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Hoax With Impact
Even though global temperature records are being set, it must be reassuring to many in Trumpland that climate change is but a Chinese hoax. Now, if only Mother Nature would read the memo: And now, scenes from the apocalypse in California: Recommend this Post
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: It’s Getting Shorter
We’ve known for at least twenty-five years that the time we have to reverse global warming is limited. David Suzuki writes: We can’t say we weren’t warned. In 1992, a majority of living Nobel prize-winners and more than 1,700 leading scientists worldwide signed a remarkable document called “World Scientists’
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s carbon tax: Science is political when it doesn’t suit Wildrose agenda; politics is scientific when it does
PHOTOS: Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips at yesterday’s Edmonton press conference on the imposition Jan. 1 of the NDP Government’s carbon tax. Below: Wildrose Electricity and Renewables Critic Don MacIntyre. Both are CBC photos. Alberta has had a carbon tax for two days now and as Environment Minister Shannon Phillips
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Beguiling Words
The propaganda machine of the extreme right has scored a double hit, it would seem. Not only do they and their racist brethren have Breibart-founder Steve Bannon warmly ensconced in the White House as chief strategist and Senior Counselor to Donald Trump (whether he will also be keeping the president’s
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: It’s Later Than We Think
The news on climate change is not good — and it’s getting worse. The mainstream media are beginning to get the message. Ole Hendrickson writes: The headline of a recent Washington Post article says “The North Pole is an insane 36 degrees warmer than normal as winter descends.” Scientists are
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: More From The Conservative Braintrust
Well, we know what an abomination Kellie Leitch is as a Conservative leadership hopeful, but what about Brad Trost? The pool, it would seem, is very, very shallow: Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Very Small Victory
In a seemingly endless battle, even small victories deserve to be noted. And it is indeed a small victory on the climate-change front that The Star’s public editor, Kathy English, reports on in today’s edition.
In dismissing a complaint against the Toronto Star’s publication of a New York Times report about repercussions of climate change on the Louisiana coast, Canada’s National NewsMedia Council has affirmed two important principles.
First, the council indicated that fair and accurate reporting on some subjects — most importantly, climate change — need not engage in what is known in journalism as “false balance” – that is, a perceived need for journalists to seek out “the other side” of a controversial issue when the overwhelming scientific consensus strongly supports one side.
False balance wrongly seeks to provide equal weight to two sides of an argument when in fact the evidence-based information indicates there is no real argument.
In adjudicating the complaint, brought by Georgetown resident Pav Penna in response to a New York Times article attributing climate change as a reason for the relocation of residents of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, the Council told Penna
… it is a journalistic standards organization, not “an arena for assessment of or debate on deep science” and pointed out that the article did not say that climate change is the sole reason for changes on Isle de Jean Charles.
“Journalistic standards related to fairness and balance has been satisfied in the article’s noting of factors such as subsidence and channel cutting,” it stated. “Council finds this is a reasonable balance considering the weight of scientific and expert views.”
In the greater scheme of things, this victory perhaps means very little, but at least it establishes the principle that fair and balanced reporting does not require the inclusion of those that hew to ‘junk science’ and other similar crackpot ideas that seek to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is not simply ‘a theory among theories,’ but rather an established fact.
Those who take exception are, of course, free to read the favourite organs of the far right, including The Sun and The National Post, both of whom rarely let facts get in the way of a good screed.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Taking On Sarah Palin’s Idiocy
I would say Jimmy Kimmel does a pretty good job:“I have a theory,” Kimmel said. “I think maybe Sarah Palin wants global warming. It’s cold in Alaska. It would be welcome up there. But, the idea that she knows more than 97 percent of scientists …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: And To Round Up The Week
Yet one more reminder of our collective folly:Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Four Days In A Wild Weather Week
I admit I am a bit of a weather geek. To witness nature’s fury and our powerlessness in its face is truly humbling. However, the other reason for my fascination with our increasingly volatile and destructive weather is the rueful recognition of our col…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Some Americans Sure Do Love Their Ignorance
Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz says we should follow the scientific evidence about climate change, and then goes on to ignore it with confabulation and obfuscation. In Cruz world, it is all just a cover for the government’s desire to have tot…
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Canada, twisted by the distorted beliefs of neoconservative prairie reformers, rid itself of Stephen Harper
Don Maroc Monday night most of the world went to bed seeing Canada with an arrogantly evil smirk on its formerly amiable face. By the next morning all they could see was a million-dollar Read more…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: On The Way Out
https://www.pinterest.com/ It’s not easy to tell the truth — particularly when people don’t want to hear it. Linda McQuaig caused something of a political firestorm awhile
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Angry For Good Reason
Every evening at 6:30, I try to take about 10 minutes to watch NBC Nightly News, the object of my interest not American politics but the apocalyptic imagery of the West Coast wildfires. Every night seems to bring reports of new conflagrations and tragedy, and every night my anger grows,
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