This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jackie Ruryk reports on the push by public health officials to have people take precautions against COVID-19 and seasonal illnesses only after there’s already been a massive degree of uncontrolled spread. And Alanna Smith exposes how Danielle Smith’s UCP is so deeply
Continue readingTag: climate change
Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Katherine Wu discusses how the U.S. is facing a particularly grim set of winter illnesses as people have failed to get vaccinated against known threats, while Lauren Pelley reports on the low number of Canadians who got new COVID-19 vaccines this fall. Ewen
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Ryan Meili discusses how a blinkered focus on austerian “efficiency” and exit strategies prevents the development of care systems capable of meeting long-term needs. And Dione Wearmouth reports on the fallout from the UCP’s insistence on putting performative politics over even those
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Geoffrey Johnston examines how the latest wave of COVID-19 is swamping Ontario’s health care system while its cumulative effect is reducing life expectancies. Philip Moscovitch discusses the dangers of repeat COVID infections. And Zaki Arshad, Joshua Nazareth and Manish Pareek offer a reminder
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Lookers and Thinkers
Can we teach how to think and problem solve our way out of a total collapse? I’m curious why some people are facing it all head on, reading the news and studies and watching the clips about Covid, climate and so many conflicts. I wonder if I’m one of the
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: COP28 and the great transition
Maybe it took an oilman to do it. When Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber of the United Arab Emirates was appointed President of the UN Climate Change 2023 Conference (COP28), environmentalists threw up their hands in despair. Al Jaber was also head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. And the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Damian Carrington confirms the consensus among climate experts that the outcome of the fossil-dominated COP28 was an utter failure, while Paige Vega interviews Bill McKibben about the reality that it’s long past time to be counting on empty and vague words to reverse a breakdown in progress
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jessica Wildfire examines how employees are being illegally forced to put their health at risk by employers determined to impose policies which facilitate the spread of COVID-19. And Craig Ellingson and Chelan Skulski report on the Alberta Medical Association’s warning that the province’s health
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The One with the Apocalypse
I recently watched a few things, back to back, to distract me from the news. One was openly apocalyptical, as so much is these days. Is it a trend, or is the output the same, but I just never gravitated to it so much?? I’ve also noticed a rise in
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Not governed by reasonable people
Given the ultimate consequences, reasonable people should be applying the precautionary principle on climate and environmental matters. I suppose that means our governments are not populated by reasonable people.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Solar geoengineering, yes or no?
Responding to a mention of climate scientist Michael Mann (U of Pennsylvania), reader Tim Smith linked to an article by independent researcher Robert Chris and Hugh Hunt (Cambridge). It is titled: The […]
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Staggering. Unnerving. Mind-boggling. Absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.
I spent time recently listening to and reading Chris Turner, a Calgary based journalist and author of numerous books. Turner has become a climate change optimist. In contrast, I lean toward climate pessimism, the belief that causes will not be fully addressed, at least until catastrophe severely affects powerful groups
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Matthew Rosza reports on the continued toll of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including over 1,000 deaths per week in the U.S. alone along with massive numbers of hospitalizations. Lauren Pelley highlights how health care workers are being burdened with unmanageable case loads and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Adam King discusses how governments and employers have memory-holed some of the most important lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic as to the need for paid sick leave to ensure workplaces don’t exacerbate the spread of dangerous diseases. – Debbie Cenziper, Michael Sallah
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Living in a Nightmare
“Many describe living in a sort of waking, powerless nightmare where an obvious catastrophe is unfolding but society just blithely ignores it.” That’s from this Guardian article from May 2022 that could have been written today, and possibly needs to be written every day to wake us up: “People have
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The cost of emissions just went up
With gorgeous blue prairie skies all too often transformed into smoky shrouds, we have just experienced a summer that brought climate change home. We are aware of the fires, the floods, the storms, the droughts, the heat waves, the rising sea levels, the effects on our health, but what’s the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Nandini Gautam discusses the World Health Organization’s research showing how COVID-19 damages the human immune system. And Adam Kucharski takes a look at historic accounts of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic as a grim foreshadowing of how history books will look back on the public
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: A captured government
An excerpt from a newsletter published by a international non-governmental organization is worth attention. Toronto Star reports the Danielle Smith convoy that travelled to the 28th United Nations Climate Change conference in Dubai actually involved 150 government and petroleum industry representatives.,,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Damian Carrington reports on Antonio Guterres’ warning to COP28 that we’re already in the midst of a climate collapse. Katelyn Reinhart discusses new research showing how existing climate studies underestimate the effects of extreme heat. And Nicholas Beuret writes about the unequal responsibility
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Mark Sumner discusses the World Health Network’s recognition that the damage from COVID-19 includes harm to people’s immune systems which has made the effect of other diseases more severe. – Patrick Metzger examines how the climate crisis is accelerating faster than anticipated. And
Continue reading