A simple diet change reduced diet-related greenhouse gas emissions of American adults between 2003 and 2018. The carobon footprint of their diets fell from 4 kilograms of CO2 equivalent to 2.45 kg CO2e over the 15 year study period. All it took was a slight reduction in meat consumption. As
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to start your week. – The Associated Press reports on Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s warning that the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Mary Papenfuss discusses how people living in Trump-supporting counties (with lower vaccination rates driven by COVID denialism) have thus far been twice as likely to die
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Irelyne Lavery reports on the increasing number of Canadians needing medical attention for the flu as COVID-related protections have been scrapped. And Wallace Immen reports on some of the possibilities to try to improve a health care system which has been put under
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The climate progress narrative is the newest tactic of global warming denialists
There’s no evidence that the vast majority of countries, particularly the world’s largest emitters, are on track to meet their emissions reductions commitments. So why are we pretending otherwise? Photo from Shutterstock. According to a paper published by the journal Nature at the beginning of this month, just a few
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Zak Vescera reports on the combination of high rates of hospitalization and virtually nonexistent vaccination that’s resulted from Scott Moe’s surrender to COVID-19. And Nicholas Larsen et al. add autonomic dysfunction to the list of post-COVID symptoms which are common even among people
Continue readingThings Are Good: Financial Times Made a Climate Change Game
When you think about climate change coverage in the Financial Times you may assume that they’re writing about how to profit from it; however, the tides have risen. The market-focused publication recently published a short and sweet game that explores how we can avoid climate catastrophe. Through a series of
Continue readingThings Are Good: EU Says No to Forever Chemicals
The dangers of microplastics and “forever chemicals” are well known and now legislators in the European Union are acting to protect their people from these primarily petroleum-based creations. New restrictions on what chemicals can be used and sold a in the EU will add to their already strong protections. The
Continue readingThings Are Good: Reducing Traffic Pollution Greatly Increases Health
It’s well known that vehicular traffic is deadly no matter where it is and how much of it exists. Even with all the evidence cities in North America put cars first with the occasional protections like bike lanes and pedestrian crossings. What we also need to talk about is the
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Steps to Take to Save the World from Catastrophic Climate Change
By now you’ve heard that the most recent IPCC report shows that humanity is in a dire situation and we need to act now to avoid making the planet uninhabitable to humanity. That is, if we keep doing what we’re currently doing with too much consumption and the use of
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: SaskPower: A Job Half Done
…is as good as none. If you’re impressed by SaskPower’s objective to reduce emissions by only half, by 2030, you’re setting the bar way too low. A big reason Saskatchewan is among the world’s worst per-capita polluters is because our electricity is a large lignite coal and fossil/natural gas component.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Winds of Change in Power Generation
Wars fought over oil and wars funded by oil sales are both problems we’ve seen in the 21st century. Fighting over a depleting planet-destroying energy source may soon be a thing of the past as we increase the use of renewable energy the world over. Expect the use of wind
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Winnie Wan Yee Tso et al. study the severity of the Omicron BA.2 COVID variant, and find that its rate of deaths and severe outcomes is no less severe than previous variants in children from 0-11 in particular. Guy Quenneville reports on the connection between
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Plague Update: BA.2 Taking Over
Our society has entered the phase of the pandemic where most people are trying to pretend that everything is normal, and there’s nothing dangerous about eating in restaurants or sending kids to school. It reminds me of the climate crisis, how we’ll still fly domestically, and buy SUVs, despite the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Instead of Pesticides, Use Plants
This is the year nobody should use pesticides, if you’re on the fence about using pesticides I’ll remind you that they do more harm than good. They negatively impact human health, kill unintended species, and even taint groundwater. Many smart gardeners already avoid using the killer chemicals and you too
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lauren Pelley and Adam Miller discuss the reality that Canada has never seen its previous COVID wave fully recede even as a new one looms, while the Ottawa Citizen asks people to exercise the responsibility and judgment that’s sorely lacking from their
Continue readingThings Are Good: Insulation is Better Than Oil
Insulation is a boring solution to the deadly consumption of oil inside your home. If you have a gas furnace or other fossil fuel heater then you can start reducing your consumption of the dead dino juice by better insulating your home. You can also go a step further and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney offers a grab-bag of defences, some unusual, against five environmental groups’ defamation lawsuit
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has filed his statement of defence in response to a defamation lawsuit by five environmental organizations, offering a grab-bag of defences for the comments that sparked the dispute. Among them, Mr. Kenney argues that by not specifically naming the groups he attacked in his social media
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – The Associated Press reports on the continued disparity in COVID-19 vaccinations between countries which is exacerbating the risk of new and more severe variants for everybody. – David Moore and Donald Shaw report on the threat of industrial chemicals at risk of being
Continue readingThings Are Good: How Oysters Protect Cities
We need to anything and everything to mitigate the impacts of climate change, some solutions are global and others are local. In the United States there’s a growing movement to grow oysters along coastal areas that previous generations destroyed. New York City is one such place, as is New Orleans.
Continue readingScripturient: Wild Fruits
When he died of tuberculosis in his mother’s home, in 1862, 44-year-old Henry David Thoreau had already made his mark on the world with the publication of several books and numerous essays, including Civil Disobedience, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, A Yankee in Canada,
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