Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Fiona Harvey writes that as we rebuild after the coronavirus pandemic, there's no reason to pretend that prosperity requires continued reliance on greenhouse gas emissions. David Roberts examines how a coherent climate plan is finally emerging in the U.S. And Max Fawcett writes that the pipeline posturing that has represented one of the primary talking points of Canadian petropoliticians will soon be obsolete no matter how desperately they try to cling to fossil fuels.

- Emily Holden reports on the dirty fossil fuel money behind the U.S. protests against public health orders. And Jeff Gray exposes how Doug Ford is using the pandemic as a pretext to offer giveaways to his developer donors without public consultation or review.

- George Monbiot highlights how the privatization of health and long-term care is at the root of the UK's coronavirus catastrophe. And Aaron Wherry writes that it's about time to include long-term care in our public health care system where it should have been all along, while John Michael McGrath opines that Ontario can no longer hide from the consequences of decades of austerity and deregulation.

- Patty Winsa examines the types of workers hit hardest by COVID-19, while Alex Ballingall focuses on the particular challenges facing care workers with insecure immigration status. Matthew Boesler and Reade Pickert note that even people who have retained their jobs have often been confronted with pay cuts and deteriorating working conditions. And Iglika Ivanova and Kendra Strauss examine who stands to benefit from the availability of sick leave (and by implication, who's being forced to work even while sick in its absence).

- Finally, Sharon Lindores reports on the favourable Canadian response to international discussion of a four-day work week.