Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jacob Levy highlights the importance of “identity politics” – or more specifically, the willingness to fight against systematic inequality of all kinds – as part of an effective progressive movement. And George Monbiot writes that we should be returning to first principles when
Continue readingTag: climate change
Politics and its Discontents: Is A New Purge On The Horizon?
Few of us will forget the disdain with which the Harper regime regarded science, especially the science around climate change. Virtual embargoes that prevented scientists from releasing and discussing with the public their findings were commonplace; the permission that was required from a labyrinthine bureaucracy essentially ensured that no information
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Miles Corak offers a must-read paper on the two stories most often told about inequality in Canada, reaching this conclusion on the recent accumulation of wealth at the top of the income spectrum and the readily observable inequality of opportunity based on the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Dani Rodrik writes that today’s brand of trade agreement has little to do with economic theory as opposed to political power: What purpose do trade agreements really serve? The answer would seem obvious: countries negotiate trade agreements to achieve freer trade. But
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Next 1,000 Years
Stephen Hawking thinks we have a millennium on this planet. This is old news; Mound wrote about it a almost a year ago, but it’s making the round again (here and here and here and here) largely because he spoke about it at Oxford recently. I believe that life on Earth is
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Next 1,000 Years
Stephen Hawking thinks we have a millennium on this planet. This is old news; Mound wrote about it a almost a year ago, but it’s making the round again (here and here and here and here) largely because he spoke about it at Oxford recently. I believe that life on Earth is
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Carrying forward lessons from Northern Gateway
Thursday, December 8, 2016 Understandably, those opposed to the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain project have not been in a mood to celebrate this past week. At the same time as the Prime Minister announced the federal government’s approval of Kinder Morgan (and the Enbridge Line 3 project), he confirmed something
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: There’s Still Climate Denial?
This is from a local climate change group, Hamilton 350: But even better is the list of sources the post included: I swear, if I didn’t block the trolls I’d be at this all day every day. It is simply the most tedious thing on the planet. Rational people can
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: There’s Still Climate Denial?
This is from a local climate change group, Hamilton 350: But even better is the list of sources the post included: I swear, if I didn’t block the trolls I’d be at this all day every day. It is simply the most tedious thing on the planet. Rational people can
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Notley’s Climate Change plan earns Trudeau’s Pipeline approval
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced today the fate of three pipelines that have dominated political debate in Alberta over the past six years. Yes to Kinder Morgan Trans-Mountain Pipeline. No to the controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. Yes to the… Continue Reading →
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Trudeau’s pipeline approvals fail to recognize the “magnitude” of the climate problem
Thursday, December 1, 2016 The thing that frustrated me most when watching the Prime Minister’s press conference earlier this week approving the Kinder Morgan and Line 3 pipelines is that he – or at least his government – knows that these pipelines undermine Canada’s climate goals and move us away
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Miles Corak asks how we should see the growing concentration of income at the top of the spectrum, and concludes that we should be concerned mostly with the breakdown between personal merit and success among the extremely privileged: Connections matter. And for the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Janice Fine discusses how the decline of organized labour as a political force has opened the door for the likes of Donald Trump: Just when we need them most, the main institutions that have fought for decent jobs are a shadow of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Monbiot’s Impossible Crises
George Monbiot lists 13 crises, but warns you should only read the list if you’re feeling very strong. It’s an appropriate warning. He’s barely even talking about climate change here, so this list could be so much longer including the degradation of the oceans, poisoned waterways, messed up ecosystems… His
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Monbiot’s Impossible Crises
George Monbiot lists 13 crises, but warns you should only read the list if you’re feeling very strong. It’s an appropriate warning. He’s barely even talking about climate change here, so this list could be so much longer including the degradation of the oceans, poisoned waterways, messed up ecosystems… His
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Standing Rock Resistance
Chris Hedges is in Standing Rock, back to his original career as a war correspondent. The natives there are preparing for winter, and I’m struck by the contrast to the Occupy fight that dwindled away when things got cold. I’m curled up on the couch as I write that, so
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Standing Rock Resistance
Chris Hedges is in Standing Rock, back to his original career as a war correspondent. The natives there are preparing for winter, and I’m struck by the contrast to the Occupy fight that dwindled away when things got cold. I’m curled up on the couch as I write that, so
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Notley owes Alberta’s coal communities an in-person visit
Mr. Jean: Thank you. The NDP has found time to fly to Paris, to Morocco, but they haven’t found time to visit communities like Hanna and Parkland county. They haven’t taken the time to look in the faces of the… Continue Reading →
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Water as a Human Right
In a recent article in my local paper, Peter Shawn Taylor says that anyone who wants to stop Nestle from draining aquifers doesn’t understand economics and is hostile to capitalism. He implies that we can’t just label water a human right above the fray of the market without doing the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Roy Romanow writes about the dangers of focusing unduly on raw economic growth, rather than measuring our choices by how they actually affect people’s well-being: At the national level, the picture that emerges over the past 21 years is a GDP rebounding post-recession
Continue reading