It’s funny. Also sad, because it’s so believable. thebeaverton.com/2023/05/ucp-promises-to-build-giant-gas-powered-fans-to-clear-alberta-skies/ Smoke over Calgary and Regina. pic.twitter.com/a0lFKFh3Vs — John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 22, 2023
Continue readingTag: environment
A Puff of Absurdity: The Need to Grow
When I taught civics and we discussed Canada’s immigration policy, that we typically take in about 250,000 newcomers each year, but over 600,000 apply, many students would suggest we need to take them all. They’d prefer an open door policy that maybe only stops the criminally-minded from entry. My follow
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Antoine Flahault et al. offer a reminder that we can’t afford to be complacent about an ongoing COVID pandemic which continues to cause serious and sustained harm on a mass basis. And in case we needed another reminder of the aftereffects of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Fiona Harvey reports on the World Meteorological Organization’s warnings that we’re more likely than not to breach 1.5 degrees of global warming over the next five years. And Alex Wigglesworth reports on new research concluding that 40% of the land burned by wildfires
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Karl Nerenberg writes about the Parkland Institute’s research showing how privatization has undermined Alberta’s health care system. And Mitchell Thompson warns that the UCP has a similar plan to turn what’s already a housing crisis into a profit extraction extravaganza at the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: 1.5° in the Next Five Years
I’ve been to many marches and protests for the environment. Most recently, the call to action was around changing policies enough to cut GHGs in half by 2030 in order to keep us under 1.5°C by 2100. Now we’re predicted to hit that marker in the next five years!! The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Omar Mosleh discusses the growing damage being caused by repeated wildfires in Canada, while David Wallace-Wells writes that there’s no escape from the air pollution being spread across the continent. And Don Pittis points out how public accounts which don’t assess the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The terrifying math of the incoming El Niño
Tree ridge in flames during the 2018 Woolsey Fire that burned in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, California. Photo courtesy Peter Buschmann/United States Forest Service/Wikimedia Commons. One and a half degrees is dead. The world will blow past that milestone in the next year. At least, that’s what climate scientist
Continue readingThings Are Good: Don’t Move to Paradise, Make a Paradise Instead
A man in New Zealand thinks it’s better to create your own piece of paradise than to move to a natural one and just taking it over. Back in 1987 Hugh Wilson moved to a neglected part of the country where the natural environment was not doing well and has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Matthew Oliver, Mark Ungrin and Joe Vipond write about the overwhelming evidence that masks offer protection from airborne viruses – even as anti-public-health forces attack them as part of their general denialist project. And Dan Diamond reports on expert warnings that in the
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Wildfires and Gordon Lightfoot
“Do the best with what you’ve got.”—Gordon Lightfoot News of Gordon Lightfoot’s death, while not unexpected, still came as a shock. We didn’t think he’d live forever; truth be told we didn’t think about him very much anymore, then boom! he was gone. And I’ve been thinking about him
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Are we on a path to sustainability?
Humanity’s biggest challenge is sustainability. How does our avaricious species live within the natural constraints of the planet? Certain global trends suggest we may inadvertently be answering that question. Superficially appearing to be matters for concern, these trends may to the contrary be setting us on a path to sustainability.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Will Stone writes about the role viral reservoirs may be playing in both prolonging individual long COVID symptoms, and allowing for the development of new variants. Simran Purewal, Kaylee Byers, Kayli Jamieson and Neda Zolfaghari highlight the need for people talking about
Continue readingThings Are Good: New Method Destroys Forever Chemicals
Forever chemicals get their name because there’s no natural way they decompose and we don’t know of efficient ways to break them down, that’s changing though. Researchers at UBC have found a way to destroy one family of forever chemical known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. PFAS are found
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Trevor Hancock discusses the need to treat the economy as a means to human well-being, rather than an end worth sacrificing our health and our living environment. – Henry Killworth writes about new research confirming that the lost sense of smell arising out
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Gondek, Notley and Smith: An important conversation
Last week Calgary Economic Development presented its Report to the Community. The highlight of the event was Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s conversations with Rachel Notley and Danielle Smith. Gondek asked each leader 4 pre-set questions and 2 questions from the audience. She talked with Notley first and Smith second. It was
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: With climate indicators ‘off the charts,’ UN chief calls policies of rich nations a ‘death sentence’
Photo by Billy Wilson/Flickr The World Meteorological Organization warned Friday that climate change indicators are “off the charts,” one day after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told officials from wealthy countries that their refusal to halt fossil fuel expansion amounts to a civilizational “death sentence” and pleaded with them to
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: Canada’s War on the Environment
Canada has declared war on the environment. That is the only conclusion one can draw after viewing Tamara Lorincz’s presentation at the most recent annual meeting of Peace Alliance Winnipeg (of which I am a proud member). In her talk, Tamara discusses the key lessons contained in three reports –
Continue readingThings Are Good: Machine Learning Improves Enzyme Eating Plastic
A bacteria that eats plastic may sound too good to be true since we have so much plastic waste littering the planet. The rouble with plastic eating bacterias is that they aren’t efficient nor can they survive long outside the lab. So a research team turned to machine learning, or
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – The John Snow Project discusses how government minimization of the ongoing risk of COVID-19 – including the removal of what few policies remained to limit its spread – is pushing people to neglect the continued danger. And Josh Lynn reports on the latest
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