Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Alex Hemingway offers a reminder of the urgent need for a wealth tax - and the opportunity to fund important social priorities by implementing one. But Cory Doctorow points out how our economic system is structured to favour people seeking to get rich off of avoiding responsibility - including through the same firms being responsible for performing audits as for advising corporations on how to beat them. 

- Gwynne Dyer writes about the threat to our living environment posed by warming oceans, while Isla Myers-Smith notes that the release of greenhouse gases from permafrost stands to accelerate the cycle of warming and extreme weather. 

- But while the world burns, Carl Meyer reports on how the UCP has allowed oil lobbyists to take any discussion of even distant and loophole-riddled net-zero emission targets off of their policy agenda. And Trina Moyles reports on the direct connection between the UCP's cuts to firefighting and the calamitous wildfires which struck last week.

- Meanwhile, Jason Markusoff discusses how the UCP under Danielle Smith is now controlled by Take Back Alberta, which is pushing the limits of anti-science and authoritarianism even compared to both the UCP and the past Wildrose party. 

- Finally, Emma Bowman comments on how the dehumanization of homeless people results in many avoidable deaths - even if few receive as much publicity as Jordan Neely's.