This and that for your Thursday reading. – Elizabeth Piper reports on Jeremy Corbyn’s much-needed declaration that under a Labour government, the financial sector will serve the public rather than the other way around. And George Monbiot comments on the role the left needs to play in reversing the accumulation
Continue readingTag: Tar Sands
Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Harriet Agerholm comments on the connection between income inequality and a growing life expectancy gap between the rich and the rest of us. – May Bulman notes that after a generation of austerity, children of public sector workers are increasingly living in poverty
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Horgan’s right on Kinder Morgan, even if he got Site C wrong
On Kinder Morgan, John Horgan is standing up for British Columbians — as he should (BCNDP/Flickr) Dear Premier Horgan, I’m still mad at you for carrying on with Site C Dam, based on the utterly bogus reasons you offered the public. But when it comes to Kinder Morgan, I’ve got
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Joe Romm discusses new research showing that man-made greenhouse gas emissions have ended an 11,000-year era of climate stability. – Thomas Walkom points out the contradictions in Justin Trudeau’s declaration that there will be no federal climate policy without new pipelines. And David
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Kochan takes a look at what workers would want done with the cost of corporate tax cuts if they weren’t being silenced by the U.S.’ corporatist political system. And Steven Greenhouse points out a new set of protests and strikes intended to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Nathan Akehurst writes that the Carillion collapse was just the tip of the iceberg in the corporatization and destruction of the UK’s public services. And Neil Macdonald points out that the Trudeau Libs are pitching privatized infrastructure as easy money for investors
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: $2,000,000,000.00 – Now There’s a Figure That Grabs Your Attention.
Two trillion dollars. I’m guessing that, even for you, that’s a lot of money. It’s the estimated liability of Alberta’s five largest energy producers according to the Parkland Institute, a think tank at the University of Alberta. “The Big Five need to start publicly disclosing their emissions modelling for the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom discusses Canada’s likely NAFTA decision between an even worse deal than exists now, and no deal at all – though it’s worth recognizing that the latter choice shouldn’t be seen as a problem. And Alex Panetta points out the Libs’ total
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Economic Policy Institute charts how inequality and precarity are growing in the U.S. – and how that can be directly traced to the erosion of organized labour. And the World Inequality Report examines the trend toward increasing inequality on a global
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Brent Patterson discusses how the Libs are putting the hands of their already-dubious “infrastructure bank” in the hands of people with a track record of turning public services into private cash cows. – David Suzuki takes note of another U.S. government climate
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dani Rodrik writes that politicians looking to provide an alternative to toxic populism will need to offer some other challenge to a system biased in favour of the wealthy and powerful: (P)oliticians who want to steal the demagogues’ thunder have to tread a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Andrew Jackson writes that widespread precarity in work is keeping wages down even as unemployment stays relatively low: (W)age pressures and inflation might remain persistently low even with a low unemployment rate due to the seemingly inexorable rise of precarious work. Marx’s reserve
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: I Missed This Last April. It Seems Justin Did Too.
This comes directly from the business page of Canada’s most oil-friendly newspaper, The Calgary Herald. It’s from April 24, 2017 to be exact. China’s ambassador to Canada tried to allay concerns about a possible free trade pact between the two countries, addressing worries surrounding state-owned enterprises snapping up oilsands assets.
Continue readingEarthgauge News: Earthgauge News – Oct. 15, 2017
Edition #2 of the new podcast Earthgauge News for the week of Oct. 15, 2017. A weekly Canadian environmental news podcast featuring the top environmental stories from across Canada and around the world. Join us here every week or subscribe in iTunes or your favourite podcast catcher.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Stephen Metcalf discusses the meaning and effect of neoliberalism: “(N)eoliberalism” is more than a gratifyingly righteous jibe. It is also, in its way, a pair of eyeglasses. Peer through the lens of neoliberalism and you see more clearly how the political thinkers most
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Roderick Benns interviews Ryan Meili about the value of a basic income in freeing people from perpetual financial stress. And Doug Cameron reminds us that we have a choice whether to show empathy toward people facing homelessness – even if far too many
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Larry Elliott reports on a Resolution Foundation study showing that while the UK’s 1% has fully recovered from the 2008 financial crash, the rest of the population hasn’t been so lucky and has faced extended stagnation at best: Families on low and
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline was based on faulty assumptions
One of the key faulty assumptions underlying Canada’s approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline is that Alberta’s bitumen is being unfairly discounted by U.S. buyers and that its price can be maximized by getting it to Asian markets. The post Approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline was based
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Shell bails on the tar sands
I read with interest Royal Dutch Shell’s decision to sell sell most of its stake in Alberta’s tar sands. It brought back memories. I toiled for Shell Canada during my days in the oil patch, now a long time ago, and the last project I worked on was in the
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Shell bails on the tar sands
I read with interest Royal Dutch Shell’s decision to sell sell most of its stake in Alberta’s tar sands. It brought back memories. I toiled for Shell Canada during my days in the oil patch and the last project I worked on was in the tar sands. Shell was a
Continue reading