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Politics and its Discontents: Lagging Far Behind

Jan

23

2018

While people love to hear our sunny Prime Minister reassure us with his rosy rhetoric, it is becoming increasingly evident that his words mean little when it comes to climate change. And the most shocking revelation, as reported by The National Observer, is that those notorious climate-change laggards, the Americans, are well ahead of us ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links

Jan

14

2018

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Julian Cribb reports on new research as to mass exposure to chemicals and pollutants: Almost every human being is now contaminated in a worldwide flood of industrial chemicals and pollutants – most of which have never been tested for safety – a leading scientific journal has warned. ...

Things Are Good: Courts vs. Climate Change

Jan

11

2018

New York City launched a lawsuit against some of the larger polluters on the planet to cover the costs the city faces due to climate change (projected to be over $20 billion USD). A decade ago this case would likely have been thrown out, today with the effects of climate change so overt this case ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links

Jan

10

2018

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Gerald Caplan writes about the existential threats to humanity which are being either escalated or ignored: We are rapidly approaching the same kind of escalation that led the world to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, with humankind on the very brink of nuclear war and nuclear destruction. ...

Politics and its Discontents: Simply Horrifying

Jan

10

2018

How many times do catastrophes like this have to happen before we cast aside our hubris and realize that we are nothing in the face of nature? Recommend this Post

Politics and its Discontents: What Humanity Has Wrought

Jan

5

2018

Only moronic literalists (a.k.a.Trump and those who are similarly incapacitated) will see this current deep freeze as a refutation of global warming. The rest will see it as part of an increasingly obvious pattern and, hopefully, weep. Recommend this Post

PostArctica: The Future

Jan

2

2018

The Future deserves a better explanation than the one we are currently offering

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

Dec

29

2017

Assorted content to end your week. – Richard Partington writes that the poorest Britons stand to bear the brunt of the next wave of technological change through further diminished employment prospects. But Peter Goodman points out that a stronger social safety net in Sweden (among other countries) tends to ensure that workers share in the ...

Politics and its Discontents: Facing Hypocrisy

Dec

20

2017

Last month, I read an article by the redoubtable George Monbiot that left me both shaken and, for a period of time, quite depressed. It forced me to face some unpleasant and inconvenient truths about people like me, and left me with the realization that when all is said and done, I am a hypocrite. ...

Accidental Deliberations: On points of agreement

Dec

17

2017

With both Ryan Meili and Trent Wotherspoon having run leadership campaigns before, both could be expected to have plenty to offer by way of policy. And that’s proven true – though not necessarily in a way that will give NDP members a lot of distinctions to help in sorting out their choice. To date, both ...

Politics and its Discontents: Nothing New To Report

Dec

12

2017

Here is a perfect illustration of why unfettered capitalism and ethics are incompatible: Canada’s national pension fund manager is among a group of Canadian companies that are undermining the federal government’s international anti-coal alliance by investing in new coal power plants overseas, an environmental organization says. Friends of the Earth Canada joined with Germany’s Urgewald ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

Dec

12

2017

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tom Parkin duly slams the Libs for a “middle class” tax message being used to sell a giveaway to the rich: Here’s the blunt facts: the tax cut by Finance Minister Bill Morneau gives $0 to anyone earning under about $45,000. Then the benefit starts phasing in. ...

The Disaffected Lib: WTF? Winter Storm Warnings in Texas, Mexico. California on Fire. High Arctic Melting.

Dec

7

2017

Think of it this way. You may not feel it but you are firmly in the grip of climate change. There’s nothing you can do to make it go away. It has a firm grip and it is going to tighten. It may not have gotten around to you yet as it has to others ...

The Disaffected Lib: "There Was No Rain"

Dec

7

2017

Climate change refugees are on the march and they’re coming not just from Africa or the Middle East or some low-lying atoll in the South Pacific, they’re migrating poleward in the Americas too. Todd Miller went to southern Mexico to interview climate migrants. Where are they from? Where are they headed? Given the dangers, why? ...

Accidental Deliberations: New column day

Dec

7

2017

Here, on how the Saskatchewan Party’s sad excuse for a climate change strategy (PDF) is really aimed at nothing more than excusing continued carbon pollution. For further reading…– I wrote just a couple of weeks ago about the Saskatchewan public’s strong appetite for real action against climate change – making it all the more embarrassing ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

Dec

6

2017

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Rick Salutin writes that Ontario’s provincial election shows that nobody is prepared to defend neoliberal ideas on their merits – which should provide an opening to start challenging them in practice. And Alice Ollstein examines how Donald Trump’s corporate giveaway looks like an unmitigated economic disaster in the ...

The Disaffected Lib: It’s Just a Sense, a Feeling.

Dec

5

2017

If there’s one thing we need to get much better at it’s learning to deal with the unexpected. It’s a huge understatement to note that, on so many fronts, we’re already passing through uncharted waters. Human lifespans being as brief as they are, life experiences can be very limited in depth and breadth. And so ...

Earthgauge News: Earthgauge News – Dec. 4, 2017

Dec

5

2017

Edition #7 of the Earthgauge News podcast for the week of Dec. 4, 2017. A weekly Canadian environmental news podcast featuring stories from across Canada and around the world. Join me here every week or subscribe in iTunes or your favourite podcast catcher. On the show this week: Global carbon emissions on the rise again ...

The Disaffected Lib: A Fitting End to a Country Grown Too Old

Dec

4

2017

Remember when North America was called the New World? Well, in some ways, it’s rather old, very old. The United States boasts of being the world’s oldest constitutional democracy and, even if that means brushing a few other nations such as Switzerland under the carpet, it clings to that claim. These are, however, technicalities. The ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

Dec

3

2017

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Matt Bruenig proposes a social wealth fund as a fix for the U.S.’ burgeoning inequality and income insecurity: We seem stuck in the same policy equilibrium we have been in for decades, with conservatives denying that there is a problem and pushing policies that would make it ...

Politics and its Discontents: An Increasingly Tattered Cloak

Nov

30

2017

That would be the one Justin Trudeau wraps himself in with such rectitude whenever he attempts to convince the public of his climate-change bona fides. Increasingly, both his cloak and his rhetoric are wearing thin. The latest example of the hollowness of his public persona comes with news that his government is doing something it ...

Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links

Nov

30

2017

This and that for your Thursday reading. – Matt Bruenig writes about the U.S.’ alarming growth in student debt – which combined with diminished career prospects is leading to dim future outlooks for far too many young workers. And Eric Grenier’s look at the latest release of data from Canada’s 2016 census shows a stark ...

The Disaffected Lib: Is Tesla a Death Sentence for Conventional Power Utilities?

Nov

27

2017

Elon Musk wagered he could build s 129 megawatt battery in Queensland within 100 days or it was free. Tesla built and installed the battery with plenty of time to spare and, with it, just might have served a death warrant on fossil energy electricity. Alternative clean energy, solar and wind, is already cheaper than ...

Politics and its Discontents: Note To Justin And Rachel

Nov

27

2017

Please explain again why your insistence that we need to build more pipelines is valid, given these facts: A new world record price for electricity set earlier this month signals a radical disruption in global energy markets — and Canada, whose economy was once powered by some of the world’s cheapest electricity, will not escape ...

Accidental Deliberations: New column day

Nov

23

2017

Here, on how the Saskatchewan Party’s climate obstruction is entirely out of touch with the province’s citizens. For further reading…– Abacus Data’s national poll of attitudes toward climate change policy is here, with the separate chart pointing out the views of Saskatchewan and Alberta respondents looking to be particularly significant.– And again, James Wilt has ...