The oft-maligned Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change is, admittedly, something of a strange bird. It doesn’t conduct climate change research. It merely collects the research undertaken by universities, government agencies and NGOs, digests the important stuff and then issues advisory reports to governments. The IPCC reports are usually off-mark. They
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cartoon life: Sketches / 17
Filed under: art Tagged: climate change, global, warming
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Our Anti-Democratic Democracy
This morning, in my print edition of The Toronto Star, I saw the following headline: Canadian scientists to be placed in isolation. While it turned out to be a story about the evacuation of a Canadian medical team helping to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, for a brief moment I
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – David Reevely writes about the stench of corporate corruption hanging over a privately-sponsored premiers’ conference. And Paul Willcocks nicely contrasts the professed belief by politicians that campaign contributions don’t unduly policy against the expectations of everybody else affected by the political system –
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper Great Insane Tour of the North
Well there he was, thundering over the tundra, on the last day of his Great Photo-Op Tour of the North.The Dark Knight Nerd on the warpath. Taking part in a military exercise designed to portray him as a Great Strong Leader.Declaring that the greatest threat to his beloved Arctic are the Russians.An
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: These Pictures Reflect The Peril Of Our Times
Click here to find out what has them so worried. Recommend this Post
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Harper govt muzzles Arctic scientists from discussing polar ice melt
Read this Aug. 18 Postmedia story from Margaret Munro on the chill Canada’s Arctic scientists have felt when trying to discuss record polar ice melt with the public. Federal scientists who keep a close eye on the Arctic ice would like to routinely brief Canadians about extraordinary events unfolding in the North. But newly
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Double Bind of Climate Change
I’m still hopeful that we will see a workable, international agreement on climate change in 2015 but why does that have to feel like a pensive Charlie Brown with Lucy holding the football? And why does Lucy remind me of Stephen Harper? A new research study from Norway’s Centre for International
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Robert Jay Lifton discusses the “stranded ethics” of a fossil fuel industry which is willing to severely damage our planet in order to protect market share: Can we continue to value, and thereby make use of, the very materials most deeply implicated in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Matthew Yglesias writes that while increased automation may not eliminate jobs altogether, it may go a long way toward making them more menial. And Jerry Dias recognizes that we won’t see better career opportunities emerge unless we make it a shared public
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Surf’s Up – On the Arctic Ocean
Well, it turns out every cloud does have a silver lining. A major impact of climate change has been the rapid loss of Arctic sea ice. The absence of sea ice, in turn, has led to the development of big waves which are, in their turn, contributing to the break
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – John Abraham and Dana Nuccitelli discuss the worrisome spread of climate change denialism, particularly around the English-speaking developed world. But lest we accept the theory that declining public knowledge is independent of political choices, Margaret Munro reports that the Cons are suppressing
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Why the English-Speaking World Resists the Reality of Climate Change
You would think if you were a country particularly prone to being mugged by severe storm events of increasing intensity, frequency and destructiveness you might be just as particularly receptive to overwhelming scientific evidence of the causes. However if you happen to be one of the major English-speaking countries you
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Climate Change Adaptation
As the effects of climate change become more pronounced, adaptive measures will need to taken alongside of measures ameliorating the rate of change (if that is in fact still even possible). One such step has been undertaken in California, a state that has been especially hard hit by drought. Orange
Continue reading350 or bust: Saturday At The Movies
Jon Brooks is a Canadian singer-songwriter. If you haven’t heard him yet, you are in for a treat. Here he is talking and singing about hope.
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: It’s So Hot Out That…
It's so hot out you can't even hear the #climatechange Deniers making jokes about "Where's Global Warming?"…— Saskboy K. (@saskboy) August 14, 2014 Yes, it’s so hot out you can’t even hear the #climatechange Deniers making jokes about “Where’s Global Warming?”… you know, because when it’s -30 you hear the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Tibetan Plateau – Asia’s Armageddon?
To Asia’s three nuclear powers, the Tibetan plateau represents life or death. China, India and Pakistan are all dependent on the headwaters of rivers that are fed by the glaciers in Tibet. The geo-political enormity of these rivers drove China to invade and occupy Tibet in 1950. What happens in
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