Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Andrew Nikiforuk discusses the 10 inescapable laws of pandemics – and the grim future they portend in light of our pitiful response to the social challenges posed by COVID-19. And Jessica Wildfire writes that the effects of repeated COVID infections on people’s immune
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IN-SIGHTS: Climate crisis failure
According to IEA, Canada’s per capita emissions of methane are almost three time the global average, more than half from the energy sector. Methane releases in Canada are likely worse than reported because the energy industry and government regulators have had little interest in publishing accurate measurements.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Emissions gap is really an emissions canyon
Progress in dealing with climate change is too slow to meet stated climate goals. The world is on course to see global temperatures rise as much as 2.9°C above preindustrial levels if current climate action commitments remain unchanged. Canada is headed for 5.7°C in 2100 according to Berkeley Earth.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Crawford Kilian discusses what Canada’s long-term climate policy needs to look like as it becomes abundantly clear that relying primarily on consumer-based carbon pricing has failed both as a means of reducing carbon pollution, and as a political calculation. Celeste Young and Roger Jones discuss
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Archie Mitchell and Adam Forrest report on the revelation from the UK’s COVID inquiry that now-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was entirely eager to let people die, and considered it more important to control scientists than COVID-19 itself. And Luke LeBrun highlights how
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Responsibility for the climate endgame
Evidence is overwhelming that human activities contribute to climate change. Food, water, housing, civil infrastructure and essential services are impacted. Health and long-term survival of living forms are threatened. Continued increases in troublesome emissions threaten an extreme catastrophe beyond adaptation…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Elizabeth Payne reports on yet another COVID-19 wave in Ottawa which is far exceeding both the case numbers and harmful effects of seasonal viruses. And Brian To-Dang et al. confirm that the lasting coronary artery impacts of a COVID infection. – Nicole Mortarillo
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Compassion as the Antidote for Capitalism
A Taylor Swift fan took the brave position of calling out the beloved superstar, and everyone else involved, for the death of Ana Clara and many in need of medical attention at her concert Friday night in Rio: “First of all, Taylor made sure fans had water during the show.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Party Like It’s 1699
It feels like there are three realities out there. It’s not just three separate groups of people, because lots of people straddle a couple or even all these realities. One reality is full of facts and figures. Climate change is being exacerbated by continued fossil fuel use and beef farming. The pandemic
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Are Canadians surrendering to climate change?
Maybe federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is on to something. He shows little interest in the overarching issue of the day—climate change—while trashing the carbon tax, a key instrument in dealing with it. And the popularity of his party continues to grow. The Conservatives now lead the Liberals by 11
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Crawford Kilian reviews Ryan Meili’s A Healthy Future as an important account of the insufficient political response to the COVID-19 pandemic, while David Climenhaga calls out the absurdity of Preston Manning’s prescription for disaster in pushing for even to be done to protect
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Putting the Brakes on Car Culture
I’m sure I’ve used that title before!. It’s a funny time of year for this, but lots has been reported recently on the trouble with cars. Part of it may have started from this video put out by the RCMP, depicting the car fatality issue as if it’s equally a problem caused
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Al Jazeera reports on the World Meteorological Organization’s analysis showing that greenhouse gas emissions reached yet another new high in 2022. Fiona Harvey reports on the findings in the World Resources Institute’s State of Climate Action report, including the reality that transitional steps are several times
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Legislating Kindness
If kind, other-centred behaviour isn’t entirely natural to us, then should it be legislated (more than it already is)? Many old timey philosophers agree that happiness is predicated on an increase in pleasure and decrease in pain, and that just seem like common sense. Yet all too often the choices
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Cory Doctorow discusses how the concentration of wealth and power in corporate hands represents a threat to individual freedoms and the pursuit of social justice. And Pete Evans reports on new Statistics Canada showing that the gap between the wealthy few and
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Warnings issued and ignored years ago
Had they paid attention to science years ago, political and industrial leaders would have known the world was heading for a crisis. Climate change is widely recognized as an existential threat, but they either paid no attention or did not care…
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Culture of Uncare or Pandemic of Inhumanity
Psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe coined the term “culture of uncare” to explain intentional efforts to sever links from one another and from the environment. She calls it “severing links,” but the word that comes to mind is alienation. We’ve been alienated from our environment, from our work, from others, and from
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Adam Bienkov highlights the evidence from the UK’s COVID-19 inquiry which has demonstrated the utter neglect for public health from Boris Johnson and the political system around him, while Andrew Nikiforuk offers a reminder that the pandemic is still roiling around us. And Tinker
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Bryan Harris, Steve Bernard and Chris Campbell discuss the danger that a drying Amazon rain forest will accelerate the climate breakdown. – Jordan Omstead reports on Canada’s place of shame as one of the countries looking to increas carbon pollution in the
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Deader than a doornail
According to the godfather of climate science, the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, is “deader than a doornail.”
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