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 readingTag: environment
Things 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
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Frustrated Farmer Faults Feckless Finance Phony for Folly
Forgive me for being frank. Scott Moe’s government is going to do Eff all. Bottom line is our GHG emissions are rising at a time we desperately need to be curbing them. One of Regina’s best economists is noting how we’re not doing enough, too. It’s the carbon budget that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ritika Goel, Vanessa Redditt and Michaela Beder discuss how the Ford PCs are cruelly taking health care away from the marginalized people who need it most. And CBC News reports on the preferred right-wing model of privatized profit centres threatening patients into paying
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Mammoth Ideas For Past, Present, and Future – Sweetish Meatballs
Bread, beef and milk will be artificially produced pic.twitter.com/4AYs2kHe3N — Paul Fairie (@paulisci) March 27, 2023 Not now, meatball created from long exti wait what? pic.twitter.com/gXbcHg4aGU — tern (@1goodtern) March 28, 2023 They took extinct mammoth DNA, repaired it with elephant DNA, used sheep stem cells for replication, and created
Continue readingThings Are Good: Open Source, 3D Printed, Pollution Monitoring
Efforts to monitor pollution levels around the world aren’t new, but what is new is a system created by MIT’s Senseable City Lab that anyone can make. Called Flatburn, the system is designed to be put on a vehicle to monitor pollution levels throughout a city, which will provide more
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Alejandro de la Garza writes about the devastation continuing to be wrought by COVID-19 in Lamb County, Texas even as the powers that be pretend the pandemic is in the past. And John Michael McGrath discusses why Ontario shouldn’t count on the Ford
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Al Shaw, Irena Hwang and Caroline Chen discuss how forest loss and changing interactions between people and wildlife could be the trigger for a future pandemic. Christian Elliott points out that thawing permafrost is likely to release neurotoxic methylmercury in addition to a
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: About eating meat
The Colorado River and those who depend on it are in trouble. A once-in-a-millennium drought now entering its third decade is shrinking water levels to disturbing numbers. The seven states and Mexico that rely on the Colorado are worried. As we should be. Two of the states, California and Arizona,
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