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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

Mar

29

2017

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Scott Clark and Peter DeVries point out that with interest rates still at historically low levels, Canada would be far better off funding infrastructure for itself rather than locking itself into privatized structures: But that is not true at all at the federal level. The federal government funds ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links

Mar

5

2017

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Carol Linnitt notes that British Columbia’s provincial pipeline spill map has been conspicuously disappeared by the Clark Libs in the lead up to an election where environmental protection is a major issue. And Kathy Tomlinson is the latest to highlight both the glaring lack of reasonable fund-raising ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links

Mar

5

2017

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Carol Linnitt notes that British Columbia’s provincial pipeline spill map has been conspicuously disappeared by the Clark Libs in the lead up to an election where environmental protection is a major issue. And Kathy Tomlinson is the latest to highlight both the glaring lack of reasonable fund-raising ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

Mar

3

2017

Assorted content to end your week. – Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz write that we shouldn’t let governments and businesses off the hook for regressive policy choices by blaming technology. And Ben Tarnoff points out that any effects on the distribution of income and wealth can be dealt with through a fair tax system. – ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

Mar

3

2017

Assorted content to end your week. – Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz write that we shouldn’t let governments and businesses off the hook for regressive policy choices by blaming technology. And Ben Tarnoff points out that any effects on the distribution of income and wealth can be dealt with through a fair tax system. – ...

Things Are Good: Trees are Great for Cities

Jan

9

2017

Cleaning the air and keeping areas cool are what trees do best. A new study has looked into how best to use trees from a purely utilitarian standpoint. Essentially they drilled down to what trees do best and where they can thrive. The researchers cataloged the best places to plant trees based on factors like ...

Views from the Beltline: A carbon tax—an ethical imperative

Jan

9

2017

The following article was published in the Calgary Herald on January 7th under my byline. You can read it here, along with comments, or below. A carbon tax allows us to clean up after ourselvesLike most people, one of the life lessons I learned at my mother’s knee was that if you make a mess, ...

Views from the Beltline: A carbon tax—an ethical imperative

Jan

8

2017

The following article was published in the Calgary Herald on January 7th under my byline. You can read it here, along with comments, or below. A carbon tax allows us to clean up after ourselvesLike most people, one of the life lessons I learned at my mother’s knee was that if you make a mess, ...

Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links

Aug

20

2016

Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Danyaal Raza discusses how climate change is manifesting itself in immediate health problems. And John Vidal highlights the latest research on the rapid melting of Arctic ice – making it particularly appalling that Canada has abandoned its main Arctic port to rot. – Elizabeth McSheffrey notes that the ...

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

Aug

8

2016

Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Joseph Stiglitz writes about the continuing need to rein in the excesses of corporate-dominated globalization: The failure of globalization to deliver on the promises of mainstream politicians has surely undermined trust and confidence in the “establishment.” And governments’ offers of generous bailouts for the banks that had brought ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

Jul

26

2016

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Lana Payne comments on the combination of low wages and nonexistent security attached to jobs for younger workers. And Catherine Baab-Muguira examines the spread of the side hustle economy as a means of bare survival. – Roderick Benns discusses how the isolation of remote communities represents a ...

Accidental Deliberations: Polluted by crimes, but torn by no remorse

Jul

24

2016

Shorter Brad Wall on what’s truly important as an oil spill pollutes drinking water along the North Saskatchewan River: I only hope this monster running amok doesn’t make it harder to sell new reanimation technologies. Or in graphic form…

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

Jun

12

2016

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lisa Phillips writes about the desperate need for Canadian courts to ensure a fair tax system, rather than allowing technicalities and loopholes to win out over the principle that everybody should pay a fair share: With some exceptions, Canadian judges have defaulted to a literal reading of ...

Left Over: Wake Up and Smell the Corruption, Canada…….

May

31

2016

90 scientists and climate experts call on Trudeau to reject Pacific NorthWest LNG GORDON HOEKSTRA More from Gordon Hoekstra Published on: May 30, 2016 | Last Updated: May 30, 2016 1:41 PM PDT Analysis of the major flaws in Pacific Northwest LNG report The only politicians speaking out against these horrors are Green..and, as ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

May

31

2016

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Greg Jericho is the latest to weigh in on the false promises of neoliberalism: An article in the IMF’s latest issue of is journal Finance and Development notes that “instead of delivering growth, some neoliberal policies have increased inequality” and jeopardised “durable” growth. The authors note that ...

Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links

May

26

2016

This and that for your Thursday reading. – Andre Picard writes about the widespread poverty faced by indigenous children in Canada – and the obvious need for political action to set things right: The focus of the [CCPA’s] report, rightly, is on the children among the more than 1.4 million people in Canada who identify ...

Left Over: No Non-Polluting Victories on Victoria Day…

May

23

2016

Stephen Hume: Province’s secrecy puts people’s health at risk STEPHEN HUME More from Stephen Hume Published on: May 20, 2016 | Last Updated: May 20, 2016 3:25 PM Finally, the Mayor of Vancouver, BC, Gregor Robertson is earning the trust that voters have given him for a few years now…and possibly starting the ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

Jan

24

2016

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lana Payne highlights how Kevin O’Leary’s obliviousness to inequality makes him a relic. But Linda McQuaig notes that however distant O’Leary may be from the public, he’s not that far removed from all too many Conservatives. – Gerald Caplan points out that even a campaign where the ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

Jan

20

2016

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Robert Kuttner writes about the increasing recognition that extreme inequality arises out of power imbalances rather than any natural state of affairs: (I)nfluential orthodox economists are having serious second thoughts. What if market outcomes and the very rules of the market game reflect political power, not market efficiency? ...

Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links

Jan

16

2016

Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Errol Mendes points out that any commitment to securing human rights in our foreign policy is currently limited by the lack of any systematic attempt to see how those rights are being treated. And Rick Mercer rants about the Libs’ gall in misleading Canadians about the sales of ...

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

Jan

4

2016

Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Hugh MacKenzie reminds us how quickly Canada’s richest CEOs will exceed the income of the average Canadian worker on the year’s first work day. And James Surowiecki takes a look at how the U.S.’ corporate sector is fleeing any social obligations by sending profits offshore. – Stephen Kimber ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

Nov

10

2015

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Chris Hedges weighs in on the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s entrenchment of corporate control over mere citizens, while PressProgress highlights just a few of the more obvious dangers it poses. And Blayne Haggart points out that the TPP has nothing at all to do with free trade. TPP-like agreements ...

Bill Longstaff: The U.S. military’s war on the environment

May

13

2015

One of the American institutions most alert to the threat of global warming is the military. The Pentagon has issued several reports stating that the greatest threat to U.S. national security is climate change. Ironically, the military itself is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter. The Department of Defense devours about 330,000 barrels of oil ...

Things Are Good: Infrastructure That Cleans the Air

Apr

29

2015

Barcelona is going to build a road bridge which may be the cleanest bridge yet. Of course it’ll have pedestrian walks and bike paths, however, what makes the bridge really noteworthy is that it will clean the air. Concrete is notoriously energy-intensive to create so any carbon offset is beneficial. The Barcelona bridge will make ...

reeves report: Cost of Great Lakes Plastic Clean-Up Could Top $486 Million

Apr

24

2015

SHOULD THE FINANCIAL BURDEN of removing all plastic debris from the Great Lakes fall on the shoulders of the 36 million people within the basin, researchers now have an estimate of the cleanup costs: $486-million (US). Findings from the Ecohydrology Research Group at the University of Waterloo published this month in the Journal of Great Lakes Research has taken a critical step ...