Saturday, June 22, 2019

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne discusses the need for outrage about the lack of enforcement even of corporate tax obligations which have been slashed for decades. And Hassan Yussuff writes about the obvious merits of a universal pharmacare system, along with the wealthy few determined to stop anything of the sort since it might cut into their windfall profits:
(Y)ou can bet there are plenty of wealthy corporate shareholders who are very satisfied with the status quo and who will always put those inflated profits ahead of people’s health care needs.

In fact, a report by the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions earlier this year uncovered a 600% increase in lobbying by at least one major industry group between 2017 to 2018.

“The pharmaceutical industry sees the implementation of pharmacare as worthy of the deployment of unprecedented lobbying resources,” concludes the report.

Our governments, though, serve the public good, not private interests. That’s why the independent advisory council has provided the clearest blueprint yet for this major investment in the people of Canada.

Will our elected officials support this national vision? Or will they toe the industry line and support half-measures that will continue to line industry pockets while putting people’s health at risk?
- J. David Hughes and Laura Cameron each discuss how an ongoing climate crisis demands that we transition to clean energy rather than subsidizing and forcing the further extraction of fossil fuels. Holly Lake exposes the shoddy and biased "research" used to secure the approval of dangerous industrial projects. And Tristan Hughes calls out Justin Trudeau's attempt to triangulate in the face of a threat to our living environment as a particularly dangerous form of denialism.

- Rhiannon Moore points out that climate change and plastic pollution are both symptoms of the same problem of consumerism. And Sandra Laville discusses the costs to people and to the planet of a culture of cheap and disposable clothing.

- Finally, Scott Smith writes that the right to repair should be extended to include farm machinery to ensure farmers aren't at the mercy of large equipment monopolists.

1 comment:

  1. F68.109:05 a.m.

    "Tristan Hughes calls out Justin Trudeau's attempt to triangulate in the face of a threat to our living environment as a particularly dangerous form of denialism. "

    Sorry, words matter: "denialism" is not an adequate terminology here.

    "This is the pragmatic compromise for politicians unwilling to deny the existence of a climate crisis, but equally reluctant to restrain the fossil fuel industry."

    That's better...

    We indeed have to severely restrain the "fossil fuel" industry. There are many ways to do it. But thinking on a country per country basis is stupid and will only fuel and play into national antagonisms. It's a dead end.

    To me, the biggest issue is consumption of fossil fuels by the transportation sector. I'd be willing to endorse foreign military intervention to force the transportation sector to "abandon" fossil fuels.

    One of the first measure we ought to think of, and it would be highly symbolic in my opinion, would be heavy heavy heavy taxes on fossil fuel consumption by international maritime transportation and tankers carrying goods all around the world.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_transport#/media/File:Shipping_routes_red_black.png

    If we can't agree on implementing that, then indeed, I do not see how all this talk about "climate change" will have any real impact on the ground.

    Try to impose that, and you'll see real, clear-cut, denialism burgeoning everywhere on the globe. And that's the battle we really have to fight: imposing heavy taxes on maritime transportation at the cost of potential military intervention.

    Biggest marine companies:

    https://www.marineinsight.com/know-more/10-largest-container-shipping-companies-in-the-world/

    APM (Denmark), MSC (Switzerland), COSCO (China), CMA-CGM (France), Hapag-LLloyd (Germany), ONE (Japan), Evergreen Line (China), Yang Ming Marine Transport (Taiwan) Hyundai Merchant Marine (South Korea) PIL Pacific International Line (Singapore).

    So these are the country on which I'd personally deliver an ultimatum backed by military threat (if I could be sure to win...):

    Denmark, Switzerland, China, France, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South-Korea and Singapore.

    Alas, it's going to be a bit tough to win such a war. So we indeed have to put serious pressure on these GOVERNMENTS on that specific topic.

    People are fed up having to pay more taxes with their cars just to fix "climate change". They know it's plain bullshit. We need a change of discourse to put governments themselves (and not merely guilt-trip random people...) face to face with their responsibilities.

    Who nowadays is tackling this problem?

    https://theconversation.com/the-shipping-sector-is-finally-on-board-in-the-fight-against-climate-change-95212

    That's where public pressure and political talk about climate change should focus.

    So anyone reading this, whenever you discuss climate change with friends, always bring up the topic of the shipping industry. It's very serious business.

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