Why Can’t Canada Shake Neoliberalism?
It’s small comfort to recognize that most of the developed world remains in the clutches of neoliberalism. Introduced during the Reagan, Thatcher, Mulroney era, the neoliberal order has been acknowledged…
The Mound of Sound
Look What We Made
Think of it as an appetizer, a wee morsel to usher in the entre. Or think of it as a first installment on the butcher’s bill for catastrophic climate change.…
New Zealand’s Wellbeing Budget
In a consumer economy, priority is placed on stuff, ever more stuff. The measure of the economy is a function of consumption which is, more accurately, a process of extraction,…
Think Amerika Isn’t Fascist? Ask Hugh Culverhouse.
The Miami-based real estate investor has a soft spot for Alabama, the state where his family lived for generations, the place where he was born and raised. My family’s roots…
Arctic Coastline Retreats – a Metre a Day
A team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh ran tests on Herschel Island, just off the Yukon, to observe the rate of loss of coastal permafrost in the warming…
Watching America Biodegrade
It’s happening, right before our eyes, across America. Imagine you’ve been savaged by clusters of tornadoes, heavy rain has swollen your rivers to overflowing, your planted farm fields lie beneath…
Fintan O’Toole – Fascism’s Trial Run
There are few journalists with the intellect of the Irish Times’ Fintan O’Toole. Here’s an opinion piece from June of last year in which O’Toole writes that we’re in an…
An Amazing Protest Group – Led By Donkeys
Four guys from North London calling themselves “Led By Donkeys” have been posting billboards laying bare their despair of the “lies, lunacy and hypocrisy” of Brexit and the Brexiteers. For…
This is Great! When Boris Dumped on Trump.
Donald Trump has been effusive in his praise of Boris Johnson and supports his bid to replace Theresa May as the next Tory prime minister of the UK. I wonder…
Back When D-Day Was More Than a Photo-Op
D-Day memorials, today’s included, have been transformed into a photo-op for a gaggle of politicians, some of which should be ashamed not proud of their attendance. Sabre-rattlers, likeTrump, come to…
The Madness of Fish Farming
More than half the fish that reaches store shelves around the world today is farmed fish. There are some, quite a few in fact, who claim aquaculture will become increasingly…
On This, the 75th Anniversary of D-Day
A day of commemoration. Lest we forget.
On the Other Hand
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer says switching to a zero-carbon reality by 2050 would cripple the UK economy to the tune of a trillion pounds. Of course, Philip Hammond, also…
Freedom House Maps the Decline of Democracy
Freedom House has released a report, Freedom in the World, 2019: Democracy in Retreat. The illustration speaks volumes. So far it has been antiliberal populist movements of the far right—those…
Great, Now They’ll Be Blaming Us For It.
US scientists maintain there’s a direct link between the decline of sea ice in the Canadian Arctic and worsening summer severe weather events across the southern US. The study draws…
Oh Dear, It’s "World Environment Day"
I’ve done several environment- related posts today: Stiglitz on the Green New Deal; the Global Footprint Network and Earth Overshoot Day, 2019; human consumption of microplastics; the magnificent Greta Thunberg;…
Overshoot Comes Early in 2019
The Global Footprint Network has announced that Earth Overshoot Day, 2019 will fall on July 29th. If you’re wondering if that’s the earliest ever be assured it is. Last year…
Stiglitz on Climate Crisis
Nobel laureate, Joe Stiglitz, is my kind of economist. The former World Bank chief economist has devoted a lot of his career to fighting the scourge of inequality, he even…
It Will F#@k You Up. Yes, It Will.
Living in the age of climate crisis will mess you up in ways you might not even imagine, not now anyway. A report by 27 national science academies (trust me,…
Will the Spirit of Greta Be With Us This October?
Britons are stirring and Greta Thunberg gets a lot of the credit. Public concern about the environment has soared to record levels in the UK since the visit of Greta…