Musical interlude

Underworld - Techno Shinkansen

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Andrew Nikiforuk writes that Canada is currently failing to carry out any energy transition, as any expanded use of renewables is only being added to rising fossil fuel extraction and consumption. Natasha Bulowski writes about a new Senate committee report showing how our transportation infrastructure is ill equipped to deal with the climate breakdown. And Dan Hendry discusses how free transit for youth represents one of the most promising ways to create healthy transportation habits. 

- But Alex Steffen notes that the oligarchs at the centre of the Trump administration have plans to make massive profits off of the climate breakdown. And Michelle Cyca discusses how politicians in Canada (like elsewhere) are choosing to amplify conspiracy theories and disinformation in order to avoid having to engage with the climate crisis. 

- Owen Jones comments on the collapse of any "centre" element to right-wing parties across the western world - and the concurrent rise of increasingly extreme and antisocial figures. Karl Bode worries that the pollution of the U.S.' media ecosystem with disinformation may be terminal, while Michael Harris warns about Donald Trump's plans to destroy the news media (and how that may spill over into Canada). And Matt Pearce points out how two corporate outlets are looking to undermine the Associated Press as one of the last credible sources of news standing. 

- Ned Resnikoff points out how the success of a Housing First policy for U.S. veterans makes clear that there's a readily-available option to help homeless people generally. Ehsan Noroozinejad Farsangi and T.Y. Yang discuss the need for federal leadership in treating housing as a right - not merely funding new technologies and hoping other jurisdictions will fix the lack of avaiable homes. Phil Tank notes that the Moe government is choosing to utterly neglect the soaring homelessness counts in Saskatchewan's major cities. And Neil Howard discusses how strings attached to basic social supports serve primarily to divert resources away from people who need it toward bureaucratic controls. 

- Finally, Zhu Li et al. study how poverty is a distinct cause of diabetes (among other dangers to health and well-being). Nick Tsergas talks to Dr. Joss Reimer about the state of Canada's health care system - including the need to ensure that fixable issues of process and capacity aren't used as excuses to allow the spread of pay-to-play medicine. And Maya Miller and Duaa Eldeib point out the perverse incentives from the U.S.' for-profit insurance system, as people receiving mental health care see their coverage cut off because their treatment is too successful. 

Thursday Night Cat Blogging

Hosting cat.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- David Macdonald offers this year's report on CEO compensation in Canada - showing how company men are being handed obscene pay packages while workers on the ground are left to toil away for hundreds of times less. Paul Krugman points out the connection between enhanced worker power and reduced inequality which led to the U.S.' economic success after World War II - even as Donald Trump seeks to drag the country back to a gilded age which was far poorer for all but the wealthiest few. 

- Guglielmo Briscese and Maddalena Grignani study (PDF) the importance of public trust in public institutions - and the potential to substantially increase it by making useful information readily available. Don Moynihan writes that the Trump administration's plans are to make the federal government a toxic employer - and that there's precedent from his first term to see how that will play out. Jason Linkins discusses how the enshittification of the U.S.' civil service will harm the general public. And Jill Lawrence notes that the Republicans' determination to defund the IRS is the ultimate indicator of their phony populism - as the result is both to direct more tax enforcement toward those least able to pay, and to starve the government of resources as the wealthy humb their noses at their tax obligations. 

- Vijay Vaitheeswaran highlights how grid-scale storage is becoming readily affordable and feasible - making renewable energy into by far the most efficient option in places where governments aren't actively distorting power production to favour fossil fuels and other extractive industries. Holly Caggiano, Emily Grubert and Mark Paul discuss the strong U.S. public support to end dirty energy subsidies. And Eric Holthaus makes the case that the most meaningful climate action at the individual level is to opt out of the system that's superheating our planet to the extent possible. 

- Alexa Phillips reports that the fallout from Brexit includes the dumping of garbage ans sewage on UK beaches as the abandonment of EU standards led to a polluter free-for-all. And Walker Bragman points out how the alt-right is already seeking to politicize the avian flu - even as public health authorities shy away from both substantive action and public communication based on the contrived backlash to any and all responses to COVID-19. 

- Julia Metraux interviews Anita Say Chan on how techbros have become the new eugenecists. 

- Finally, The Groundbreaker makes the case for local-level organization as the necessary core of a progressive political movement. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your new year.

- Michael Mann and Peter Hotez write about the combined threat posed by climate change, pandemics and an anti-science message which makes it far more difficult to deal with real problems. Katharine Hayhoe offers a year-end summary of the state of the climate - featuring the juxtaposition of a climate breaking down faster than previously assumed with growing recognition that we have (but are failing to implement) means to stop the harm. And Holly Elser et al. study how the effects of wildfire smoke include increased risks of dementia and other brain damage. 

- Andrew Egger highlights how Republicans have become trained to reward chaos agents while seeing actual governance as a problem. Stephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopstein discuss how the plan for Donald Trump's second term is to replace any trace of public service with patrimonialism based solely on Trump's connections and interests. 

- Jared Yates Sexton offers his take on how Americans need to prepare for Trump's ascension to power. And Ian Dunt notes that the most important individual action will be to act with decency even in the face of a government bent on cruelty. 

- Finally, Paul Krugman discusses how social media fits into the culture of generating profits from addictions. And Thor Benson interviews Ryan Cooper about the options available to build a new information ecosystem beyond the poisoned social media giants. 

On resistance

Charlie Angus continues to receive plenty of well-deserved attention for his work trying to focus on the dangers of the impending Trump administration - including his latest op-ed in the National Observer. And others are also engaging in some discussion about what it means to stand up to Trump. But having previously theorized that there's an important role for the NDP to play as the political organizing hub for resistance in Canada, I do think it's worth recognizing what that could mean in practice - and why we can't expect any other party to take it on.

Let's start by making clear what doesn't count as resistance. It's low-hanging fruit to claim surface-level disagreement with some of Trump's attempts to grab Canada by force when the issue is raised directly, while working hand in hand with his anti-democratic project in substance. And indeed that makes for a useful test as to what constitutes meaningful resistance: anything the Cons are willing to direct at their Republican cousins is best dismissed as being for show rather than having any meaning.  

In discussing what options should be on the table, let's start by working on the structural obstacles to the protection of people endangered by Trump.

Most obviously, the Safe Third Country Agreement (put in place under a Lib government, and expanded in its application by Justin Trudeau) has become all the more risible when the U.S.' incoming administration is shrieking "mass deportation now!" as one of its organizing themes - making clear that safety and due process will not be available to anybody needing protection in or from the U.S. So it's worth putting pressure on the Libs to scrap their shameful agreement to ignore actual evidence, and instead make it a priority to ensure those who need to flee the U.S. have a safe place to go. 

Failing that, the NDP should make the issue into a key platform plank. There's an opportunity to create a contrast against the Libs' immigration cutbacks by advocating for an open door - and offering logistical assistance and community support to those looking to move north. 

Even where people may not qualify as refugees or asylum-seekers, it's both the right thing to do and a pragmatic choice to make sure that those with justified fears about Trump's America are able to find a home elsewhere. And it's in Canada's interest to welcome them - just as we've done by offering a place to previous waves of U.S. resisters. 

And just as for individuals at the personal level, it's also worth setting up landing spots for the causes and industries which are set to beat the brunt of Trump's ire. 

We know that Trump's administration is looking to destroy existing work in areas ranging from public health to medical research to clean energy - which represents both a severe potential loss for humanity as whole if it succeeds, and an opportunity for Canada to serve as a new base of operations if we make the case to offer a new base of operations. (And on this point too, the Libs' reaction thus far has been based primarily on conflict avoidance, rather than any plan which might provide an alternative to the Trump power structure.)

The main objection to the concept of taking in people and businesses from the U.S. is of course bound to be the one that gave rise to the Libs' immigration cutbacks in the first place, being the sense that we lack enough housing and other infrastructure already. But as an answer to that with some roots in existing policy proposals, I'd suggest that the idea of a civilian service corps be expanded beyond single-purpose uses, and put forward to meet general needs - including the repair and expansion of affordable housing (which could be the immediate priority), as well as longer-term work in the climate transition and the care economy. 

Finally, beyond policy advocacy and promises, I'll suggest that the NDP and its activists should be at the forefront of building organizational infrastructure for a cross-border resistance movement.

At the moment, there are obvious fault lines in the media and communication tools being used by people on both sides of the border. 

The U.S.' corporate media is signaling its willingness to comply in advance with Trump's directions; Canadians are only beginning to understand how the giant social media sites have become entirely unreliable as sources of information; and the general social media environment is in flux as Twitter/X has become too toxic for anybody paying even a modicum of attention, while the most promising replacement still has a long way to go in developing the kind of reach of its since-commandeered predecessor. And the U.S.' election result should serve as a warning that the connections in place to deliver information that doesn't serve corporate purposes aren't yet strong enough to reach the people who need to receive it.

But the rapid shift away from both X and the corporate press does seem to signal a substantial desire for alternatives to servants of the corporate elite. And in putting in the work to build and support those alternatives, there's a prospect not only of inching toward a less harmful information environment for this year's election, but also of setting up the foundations for the next set of primary information sources.

Meanwhile, the constant stream of news out of the Trump administration will also provide no end of opportunities to talk to people and engage them in the task of responding. And so Trump's ascent may also provide a spur to develop the type of person-to-person contact that may otherwise seem to be beyond our current capacity.

Obviously the above would represent a heavy lift which would need to be put in place in an extremely short period of time. And the strong and unfortunate likelihood is that we'll see the NDP follow its recent pattern of campaigning on small populist offerings and a general sense of "not like the other guys" - even when there's an obvious pivotal moment to be met.

But it's worth noting that even if it doesn't succeed in the short term, a demonstration of principle can pay off many times over in building a movement in the longer term: remember after all that the NDP's past surge in Quebec under the leadership of Jack Layton and Thomas Mulcair can be traced to Tommy Douglas' principled resistance to even a popular use of martial law. And given how justifiably dubious Canadians are about the Trump regime, I'd think there's reason for optimism that the right position - in rallying opposition to a force which demands it - can also be a political winner.

[Edit: added link.]

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that to end your year.

- Matthew Rosza examines how humanity as a whole is falling far short of its professed climate change commitments even though we have the technology to decarbonize rapidly. Tom Parkin and The Energy Mix each point out that the Trudeau Libs have both chosen to set weaker emission reduction targets than recommended by their own experts, and failed to produce a plan capable of even meeting those. David Vetter reports on the increased use of fossil carbon in infrastructure and consumer goods, creating yet another time bomb which will be released into the atmosphere. And Daryl Fairweather et al. find that homebuyers are eager to avoid floods and other climate-related risks - if they actually have information available to understand them. 

- Sammy Hudes discusses the need for a housing strategy to include more accessible accommodations. Larissa Kurz talks to frontline workers about the government choices which have exacerbated the homelessness crisis. And Andrew Boozary points out that homelessness comes at a steep economic cost in addition to its obvious damage to people's health and well-being. 

- Benjamin Mateus interviews Arijit Charkavarty about our failure to limit the foreseeable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. And Shrabasta Bhattacharya points out new research showing that COVID substantially harms kidney function, while Aisulu Karkabayeva et al. discuss how it has given rise to widespread autoimmune diseases. 

- Meanwhile, Caitlin Rivers discusses the lessons we should be learning in advance of the next large pandemic. 

- Finally, AL Kennedy offers a year-end message on the need to maintain hope - and to act like citizens of the world we want to see.

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- The UN sets out Antonio Guterres' New Year's message calling for us to divert course from the road to climate ruin. Hannah Osborne examines some of the grim impacts of the climate breakdown in 2024 (which only figure to get worse as action is delayed), while Julia Jacobo reports on the multi-trillion-dollar cost of climate disasters in a single year. But then Mark Olalde exposes how fossil fuel giants are determined to avoid paying any of the environmental costs they're creating for everybody else. 

- Oliver Milman reports on a new study showing the connection between car dependency and unhappiness in the U.S. David Zipper discusses how the U.S. is exporting its propensity for needlessly large and heavy vehicles. And Ricky Leong points out some recent Calgary examples as to how cities designed to privilege drivers over anybody else can be catastrophic for pedestrians. 

- Rob Csernyik reports on the rapid expansion of gambling in Canada - as governments consistently accept easily-foreseen social damage in exchange for their own hit of short-term revenue. 

- Jason Sattler offers a reminder that whatever other schisms might appear in the Musk-Trump administration, their shared hatred of workers will serve as a consistent organizing principle. And Annie Lowrey discusses the challenges facing parties confronted with anti-labour populism which speaks to grievances and false promises rather than any interest in workers' well-being. 

- Finally, Christopher Holcroft writes that the ultimate question in the 2025 federal election is whether Canada will be able to hold off an invasion by U.S. oligarchs. 

Sunday Afternoon Cat Blogging

Gamer cat.