Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Avi Lewis contrasts the real crises which demand our attention against the manufactured ones which are instead promoted by far too many of our political leaders:

Even for those of us who have not yet experienced personal loss and trauma from climate catastrophe, the juxtaposition of our genuine planetary emergency with cynically manipulated fake crises is getting painful. It’s gaslighting on a national scale. We are bombarded by endless coverage of the fake crisis in the oil patch while the real crisis of all life everywhere is so often rendered invisible.

We are living in a state of planetary emergency. It has been declared by scientists, Indigenous leaders, social movements, and communities that were already living in a state of daily emergency long before the extent of the climate catastrophe became clear. We have solutions that will truly benefit everyone — especially those most marginalized and under attack by the current extractive system, and those currently working in industries that need to be wound down.

But we can’t get started until this emergency is felt — viscerally — by a great many more people, especially the hardest to reach: our political leaders. That’s precisely what is happening in the United States, where a generation of complacent corporate Democrats is suddenly being challenged by a crowd of impatient millennials, bursting with the urgency of their generation, creating an emergency for the political status quo. Apparently, losing power is the only crisis that politicians can really understand.

 - David Moscrop argues that it's long past time for climate change defeatists to get out of the way of the people with the hope and vision necessary to do the work to avert total climate breakdown.

- Stephen Cornish observes that Husky's uncontrolled SeaRose oil spill shows how reckless it is to approve offshore drilling and other projects which threaten water with contamination. And Andrew Nikiforuk confirms that fracking operations have been the cause of earthquake activity in B.C., leading to at least a temporary shutdown. 

- George Monbiot exposes how the Koch brothers are buying political influence in the UK and elsewhere - and choosing to do so by funding hate. And Monia Mazigh comments on the resulting increase in hate crimes in Canada and the U.S. - even as right-wing parties blithely ignore the dangers they've created and exacerbated for minority-group members.

- Hamid Dabashi notes that Justin Trudeau's Potemkin progressivism is no better for our long-term hopes than the reactionary politics of Donald Trump and his ilk.

- Finally, Sam Pizzigati examines who stands to lose and gain from GM's massive job cuts.