Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Jessica Glenza reports on a new survey showing that the overwhelming majority of U.S. youth are (rightly) worried about the climate crisis. Pamela Swanigan argues that an imminent existential threat needs to be met with a campaign of courage, rather than a mere invocation of hope. And Adam Hanieh reminds us that any effort to mitigate the climate breakdown in progress will be met with the accumulated wealth and clout of one of the most powerful industries on the planet - which is determined to keep up carbon pollution as usual regardless of the human cost.
- Carl Meyer reports that Canada's federal government is set to meet its schedule in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its own assets - making it all the more damning that private action continues to keep the country as a whole far behind schedule. And Felicity Bradstock discusses the rightful outcry against the UCP's determination to stifle clean energy.
- Drew Anderson takes a look at the Moe government's plans to pour money into a Lake Diefenbaker irrigation scheme based solely on wishful thinking about the value of corporate giveaways (coupled with absolute denial that clean water or a healthy environment matter at all). And Geoff Leo exposes how Jeremy Harrison and the Saskatchewan Party purged a Crown corporation of whistleblowers in order to allow cronies to take it over for their own profit while neglecting to mention their multiple conflicts of interest.
- Sheila Regehr and Ben Earle highlight the ample data showing that a basic income helps improve people's health and well-being without reducing their efforts to find work. But Kenan Malik is rightly aghast that multiple UK governments have shown more interest in pumping drugs into unemployed people in the hope it'll push them back to work than in recognizing even an ounce of human dignity.
- Finally, Gerry McGovern is justifiably frustrated with the proliferation of junk data, while Zachary Basu points out the deliberate spreading of disinformation from Elon Musk and the rest of the alt-right. And Julia Angwin decries the TikTokification of social media as people have lost the ability to see what they value rather than what tech giants want to serve up, while Geoffrey Fowler calls out Instagram and other platforms for stifling personal political messages.
