Saturday, March 18, 2023

Saturday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Alejandro de la Garza writes about the devastation continuing to be wrought by COVID-19 in Lamb County, Texas even as the powers that be pretend the pandemic is in the past. And John Michael McGrath discusses why Ontario shouldn't count on the Ford government allowing any progress on indoor air quality - no matter how obvious that step would seen as a means to prevent readily-avoidable health problems.

- Steven Johnson writes about the tragically flawed inventions of Thomas Midgley - including the adoption of his leaded gasoline solely because it allowed for patent protection in contrast to a safer substitute. And Ben Webster, Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Lucas Amin report on the aviation industry's predictable refusal both to acknowledge the question of how vapour trails contribute to climate change, and to do anything but obstruct the research which would be needed to provide a fuller answer.

- Fiona Harvey reports on new research showing that fresh water demand will exceed supply by 40% as soon as 2030. And Kevin Philipuppilai reports on the soaring price tag for the Trans Mountain pipeline as escalating costs have to financed at far higher interest rates.

- Steve Burgess offers his take on the reasons for the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, while Henry Mance focuses on the right's attempts to blame diversity for a phenomenon plenty familiar to corporations dominated by privileged white men.

- Finally, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association examines how the Communications Security Establishment has been systematically prioritizing the sharing of information with foreign security services over Canadians' privacy - frequently to the point of breaking the law.

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