Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Will Noel, Lia Codrington and Scott MacDougall examine the lessons to be learned from jurisdictions who have been making a successful transition to renewable energy. David Roberts talks to Cory Doctorow about the need to avoid letting clean energy fall into the enshittification trap that's ensnared so many other parts of our economy and society. Mark Paul, Holly Caggiano and Emily Grubert discuss a new survey showing that there's strong public support even in the U.S. for curtailing fossil fuel extraction. 

- Grant Smith reports that even OPEC is grudgingly acknowledging that demand for fossil fuels is headed for a precipitous decline - though the oil-soaked Canadian right figures to be the last group of people willing to acknowledge that reality. Peter Kalmus discusses the desperate need to stop giving oil barons and their lobbyists a veto over climate action. Ecojustice exposes how CNRL alone is blatantly violating its obligations to report carbon pollution at hundreds of Alberta sites, while Mike de Souza reports that even when the UCP government is aware of violations by oil companies its priority is to suppress the truth rather than enforcing the law. And Yue Qui, Aaron Sojourner and Paolo Volpin examine how mergers and acquisitions tend to signal more dangerous work environments in mines. 

- Jack Marley discusses how increasing desertification of land demonstrates the need to rapidly contain the climate breakdown. And Harriet Reuter Hapgood reports on new research showing how that the reach of drier conditions extends to over three quarters of the Earth's land.  

- Kate Yoder wonders whether talk of tipping points serves to encourage or demoralize people in the pursuit of climate action. And Paul Waldman warns of the dangers of politics based on shapeless disgruntlement. 

- Derek Robertson writes about the tech sector's plan for the Trump administration to foster a culture of impunity and corporate waste. Jarrett Renshaw, Rachael Levy and Chris Kirkham report on a particularly noteworthy example in Elon Musk's plans to eliminate reporting requirements for car crashes to ensure Tesla's carnage on the roads can't be studied or regulated.  

- Finally, Dhruv Khullar writes about the new gilded age of medicine in a system increasingly designed to exploit patients rather than treating them or supporting their health. Annie Waldman reports on UnitedHealth's choice to systematically limit access to treatments for autism. And Christina Jewett and Sheryl Gay Stolberg report on the attempt by one of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s associates to cancel any approval for polio vaccines as RFK is set to assume control over public health in the U.S.