Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andre Picard highlights how the response to COVID-19 has been complicated - if rendered all the more important - by the recognition that people can expect to be reinfected if exposed to it. Lena Sun, Dan Keating and Joel Achenbach discuss how the U.S. has now seen over half of its population infected, while Paul Campos writes about the jarring increases in mortality rates that have wiped out 70 years of health progress among younger adults. 

- Seth Borenstein reports on the UN's research showing that there are all the more disasters to come due to a climate on the brink of breakdown. And Colleen Slevin and Deepa Bharath report on climate activist Wynn Bruce's self-immolation - which while less eagerly reported than similar actions in the face of government repression reflects an equally justified depth of concern about the consequences of accepting the status quo. 

- Meanwhile, AUPE points out that the UCP's reaction to the increased prevalence and risk of wildfires has been to slash its firefighting budget and assume without evidence that it can count on a shorter wildfire season. 

- John Anderson offers a helpful reminder of the subsidies still being shoveled toward the fossil fuel industry which is using public money to cook our planet while systematically enriching the least scrupulous people alive. And John Paul Tasker reports on Environment Minister Jerry DeMarco's warning that the Libs' emission reduction promises are based on wishcasting, rather than realistic plans to actually cut emissions and ensure a just transition for workers. 

- Finally, Paris Marx writes that Elon Musk's Twitter takeover shows how our current platforms for conversation are little more than billionaires' playthings, while Joshua Potash reminds us of Musk's selective interest in free speech which includes arbitrary action against labour and environmental voices as well as anybody who points out even the most glaring of flaws in his own self-promotion. Max Fawcett makes the case for increased regulation of the social media sites that currently dominate the flow of information, while Edward Ongweso Jr. and Ben Burgis each argue that we should instead be setting up open and publicly-administered alternatives.