Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Meghna Charkabarti interviews Branko Milanovic about the destructive amount of inequality embedded in capitalism as it’s currently structured. Connor Kilpatrick and Bhaskar Sunkara argue that the corporate class has only tolerated an acceptable distribution of income and wealth when it’s been accompanied by
Continue readingTag: oil industry
Views from the Beltline: The ghost of Bible Bill Haunts us still
In the late ’30s and early ’40s Alberta’s premier was the colourful William Aberhart, known as “Bible Bill” for his bible studies classes and radio sermons. Founder of the Social Credit Party, Bible Bill introduced a variety of legislation during his term, some good, some not so much. An example
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lily Patchelder and David Kamin study the policy options available to increase public revenue by focusing on the wealthy, and find that there are multiple viable options: The U.S. will need to raise more revenues in order to reduce these disparities, finance
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Taylor Scallon discusses how GDP numbers fail to capture the precarious circumstances facing far too many Canadians. Kerri Breen reports on Ipsos’ polling showing a majority of Canadians seeing the political system as being rigged in favour of a privileged few. But in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kate Aronoff asks how much destruction is needed before we’ll start taking climate change seriously – though the answer at this point looks to be that no amount of damage will be enough to move a substantial number of politicians off their insistence
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Mia Rabson reports on a new Climate Action Network report card showing that Canada’s plans for greenhouse gas emissions are as bad as any in the G8, projecting to lead to the same 4 degree temperature increase which would result from from Donald
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Robinson Meyer writes about the latest IPCC report on how our climate crisis endangers the land we rely on. And George Monbiot responds by noting that it understates the need for changes in how we produce and consume food, while the Canadian Press
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The surreallity of life in Alberta
Living in Alberta, I sometimes get the feeling I live in a place shifted a few degrees off centre from reality. For example, in the real world we are faced with the overarching threat of global warming, a crisis we have brought down upon ourselves. But, despite near unanimous agreement
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – George Monbiot writes that the fossil fuel companies most responsible for endangering our living environment are also polluting our politics: …What counts, in seeking to prevent runaway global heating, is not the good things we start to do, but the bad things we
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Kate Lyons points out the health effects of our climate breakdown, including childhood deaths and the stunting of growth. Pheobe Weston reports on research showing that new heat waves are pushing temperatures past what the human body can handle. And Matthew Yglesias
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: A tar sands story
Canadian Natural Resources, Canada’s largest oil and gas producer, has set an ambitious goal regarding greenhouse gas emissions. It has announced that by applying advanced technology, including carbon capture and storage, it will attempt to reduce the emissions from its tar sands operations to effectively zero. A laudable goal. This
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Niki Ashton writes about Justin Trudeau’s glaring failure to understand the importance of parity in services and genuine nation-to-nation recognition as core elements of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. – Helena Hanson points out that voters are entirely unsatisfied with both Trudeau and Andrew
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Erika Beauchesne discusses the benefits of a wealth tax as both a means of reducing inequality, and a source of revenue for public priorities: Canada’s NDP has proposed a one per cent tax on wealth over $20 million as part of its
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne points out the options to make life genuinely affordable for Canadians – while noting that the Cons’ usual tax baubles don’t make the list. And PressProgress both reveals Doug Ford’s plans to slash Ontario’s already-insufficient housing supports, and lists Brian Pallister’s
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Alberta isn’t immune to global warming
Living in Alberta one often gets the impression that when it comes to energy and the environment, promoting the oil industry is top priority while dealing with global warming is an afterthought. The premier has said he accepts that anthropogenic climate change is real, but he never shows much interest
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Geoff Dembicki interviews Leah Gazan about the need to put people over corporate profits in our political system. – Dale Eisler writes about the need for our conversation around climate change to focus on an honest appraisal as to how we can rein
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Owen Jones offers a needed reminder that no matter how often it gets trotted out as a basis to ignore the ideological underpinnings of parties oriented toward the concentration of wealth and power, the concept of compassionate conservatism is nothing more than a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes about the perilous future we’re leaving to future generations – as well as the hope we should draw from young activists demanding better. – Sven Biggs debunks a few of Justin Trudeau’s excuses for using public money to buy and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Mark Rice-Oxley points out the observations of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Health as to the stress and mental illness caused by austerity. Robert Booth reports on the recognition that yet another round of giveaways to the rich and clawbacks from everybody
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
This and that for your mid-week reading. – Rick Salutin discusses the needed rise of left-wing populism in the U.S.’ presidential campaign (and elsewhere). – Ed Finn highlights how policies designed around austerity and competition are designed to prevent people from cooperating toward the common good. And Erlend Kvitrud points
Continue reading