It is worth considering a 2023 report authored for the David Suzuki Foundation by Daniel Horen Greenford, a postdoctoral researcher at Concordia University. It is titled ‘Debunking LNG as a Climate Solution.’ Unfortunately, it contains a great deal of bad news for people who care about future generations…
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IN-SIGHTS: Greenwashing hinders climate solutions
Greenwashing promotes false solutions to the climate crisis that distract from and delay concrete and credible action…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Susan Riley points out the glaring gap between the urgency of the climate crisis, and the Canadian political response which (Charlie Angus aside) ranges from mealy-mouthed corporatism to outright sabotage. And Gillian Steward calls out the UCP’s continued climate denial which is preventing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andre Picard highlights the dangers of treating the return of measles (and other threats to health exacerbated by anti-science zealotry) as something to be mocked rather than taken seriously. And John Paul Tasker discusses the widespread frustration Canadians are experiencing trying to
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: A caterpillar turning into a butterfly?
I write often about climate change and tend toward pessimism about humankind’s efforts to avoid disaster. But there are good stories that show progress. Will they be enough? Only if we have the will to go against powerful vested interests and implement 21st century technologies…
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Truth and science versus lies and greed
Owners of social media platforms profit from tidal waves of hate and disinformation. Boy, do they profit. According to Forbes, Facebook’s Zuckerberg is worth C$230 billion, while co-founders Saverin and Moskovitz share C$50 billion. Twitter’s Elon Musk is said to be worth C$275 billion, while Google founders Page and Brin
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Climate Misery and Hope
Despair limits future actions, but knowledge is power. We must know and act in order to stave off despair. A depressing thread followed by an uplifting video today: Writer Matthew Todd wrote, “Sooner or later we’re going to have to face the reality that conservatism and capitalism are killing us. It’s not
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Zombie fires, part 2
The people of British Columbia will soon pay $3 billion a year in carbon tax. Yet actions of governments, fossil fuel producers, financiers, and people holding extreme wealth ensure that climate change is dealt with more by words and empty promises than by meaningful actions.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Armine Yalnizyan offers a warning about the spread of the tapeworm economy in which corporate profiteers wriggle their way into public services and siphon off resources. – Julia Velkova discusses how reliance on tech monopolists undermines the capacity to decide and deliver on
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Have they ever lied to us before? Yes, and they’re lying now
In the 2024 Throne Speech, the government of David Eby claimed that “greenhouse gas emissions are down 5 per cent from six years ago.” The claim is simply untrue. It is made by ignoring vast sources of emissions.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: ‘Zombie fires’ burning at an alarming rate in British Columbia
If you are a climate change denier, better miss this BBC report. If you are not, feel sad for future generations…
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Responding to a super-rich plutocrat
Regular IN-SIGHTS reader Ken Holowanky wrote a letter to the Times Colonist in response to a diatribe by Gwyn Morgan, a man called “Shale Gas Baron” in The Tyee’s headline for a 2011 article by Andrew Nikiforuk. With the letter writer’s permission, I will repeat the it. But first, a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Amy Peng et al. examine the profound positive impact of mask mandates in reducing the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario. And Sheena Cruickshank warns about the avoidable harm we can expect as so many respond to the political and social signals to abandon
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Rachael Lyle-Thompson discusses how children are happier in countries with social safety nets which reduce the anxiety level around them. And Eric Galbraith et al. find that satisfaction levels in small-scale Indigenous societies may be just as high as in the wealthiest countries
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Climate Projections and Anticipatory Grief
Media aren’t free to report on it honestly, and politicians won’t act on it. How can we possibly remain optimistic? Matthew Todd wrote about the possibility that the Gulf Stream could collapse in the next few years based on an study in Science Advances: “The day has come when the Daily
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Motivating Annoyance of Willful Ignorance
I’ve been thinking about my old students today as I read the news. I taught about the Israeli occupation in Palestine for a good 20 years, under the media bias and propaganda curriculum section of my course. I had been reading about genocidal types of activity since my professor told
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Stephanie Bouchoucha et al. offer a reminder that Australia (like other jurisdictions) needs to do far better in reducing the harm caused by an ongoing pandemic. And researchers presenting to the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine have found widespread long COVID among people who
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Oliver Milman reports on new research showing that shipping, aviation and industry are the three areas where carbon emissions are remaining at their existing levels or growing on a global basis. But Barry Saxifrage notes that Canada is a climate scofflaw as the
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Climate concerns in 2024
Across Canada in 2023, wildfires burned 18.5 million hectares (45.7 million acres). That is eight times the 25-year average reported by Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. But fire and resulting air pollution are only part of the problems presented by climate change…
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Normal and Nihilism
We like to think we’ve returned to normal, but Covid and climate change will become more and more of a challenge to ignore. Biorisk consultant Conor Browne responded to a post about “this universally adopted phenomenon of people never mentioning the Covid word is really mind-blowing,” with this comment: “And
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