Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac offer a stark look at the plausible worst-case scenario for a climate breakdown over just the next thirty years. And Zarah Sultana argues that in the UK (as elsewhere), we need to demand transformative politics to respond to our social and environmental crises:

The scale of the climate crisis means moderation won’t cut it. The only answers are radical. Socialists across borders will need to link up to campaign for an international Green New Deal. It will tax the super-rich and take on polluting profiteers who wreak havoc from Brazil to Bangladesh. It will create new, green industries that will save our communities while saving our planet too. None of it will be possible without confronting the existing order, where 100 companies are responsible for 70 per cent of global pollution. Our lives are threatened by their pursuit of profit. 
 
Call it ‘taking back control’ if you like — taking control away from the billionaires and winning it for workers in every corner of the planet. This means being clear that our allies are the dispossessed everywhere, and our enemies arrive by limousine not dinghy, with green politics as a new class politics for our age.

My generation grew up being told there was no alternative to cuts and declining opportunities. That was miserable enough. Now that dismal economic model is putting our planet in peril.

We can be the generation that rises to this existential challenge. We can end the cycle of capitalist destruction. As our planet burns, we must make good on the promise of an old socialist hymn: We will bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old.

- Andrew Nikiforuk suggests that federal approval of the Teck Frontier mine could provide Alberta with a lesson in when to stop digging - though the danger is that even allowing Jason Kenney to oversee development could further destabilize the ground for everybody.

- Andrew MacLeod highlights how the RCMP has been interfering with free reporting in the course of its Wet’suwet’en raids - presumably with reference to its documented concern about allowing activists to with public support.

- Finally, Amir Barnea makes the case for Canada Post to offer affordable banking and financial services to people left behind by the financial sector.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Dylan Matthews writes about the growing body of evidence showing that minimum wage increases boost pay for lower-income workers while having no effect on the availability of jobs. And Paul Karp and Amy Remeikis report on new research challenging the explanation for reducing Australian superannuation rates in the name of wages.

- The Sutton Trust's polling shows how a strong plurality of UK voters see significant deterioration both in the equality of opportunity, and in the standard of living for future generations. But Grace Blakeley highlights the massive gains which can be achieved through UK Labour's plans for a transition to a green economy.

- Sharon Riley reports on the health and environmental risks imposed on Alberta landowners by the province's existing network of pipelines - particularly ones which are intended to be abandoned by their operators. 

- Andrew MacLeod discusses the importance of accountability and responsiveness to whistleblowing in ensuring that public institutions actually serve their intended purposes.

- Finally, Glen Pearson writes about the need for progressive leaders and activists to be willing to cooperate - though it's well worth noting which parties have shown their inclination to work together toward shared policy goals, and which has stubbornly rejected the concept.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Paul Willcocks discusses British Columbia's two-tiered education system and the role it plays in exacerbating inequality - which is well worth keeping in mind as Saskatchewan deals with the fallout from the Wall government's refusal to fund public schools. And Charlie Smith reviews Andrew MacLeod's A Better Place on Earth as an important contribution to understanding the reality of poverty and inequality in B.C.

- Meanwhile, David MacDonald highlights new Statistics Canada data showing how parental income tends to influence children's opportunities:

Previous estimates in Canada put our income transmission at 23%, but the new report pegs it at 32% . Put another way, a third of what you’ll make in your best years can already be predicted by what your parent made in their best years. That means that both advantage and disadvantage are passed down generationally from parent to child.

In Canada, our income transmission rate isn’t quite as bad as the US, where half of a person’s income is pre-determined by what their parent made. So, what does that mean for the rags-to-riches “American Dream?” Well, it’s actually a bit of an impossible dream. Of developed nations, the US is actually one of the countries where it’s least likely for children to move from abject poverty to millionaire’s row.
...
If you look only at the intergenerational income transmission of rich parents to their kids, it’s far higher than the average, at 45%. This means that half of the keys to the top 1% club in Canada are passed from parent to child. Since this linkage is so strong, it also means that it’s much more difficult for someone whose parents were middle class (or low income) to work their way up into the top 1%.

- Noah Smith comments on the IMF's belated recognition that forced austerity is generally an obstacle to economic development, not a factor promoting it. And Tracy Brown Hamilton outlines the Netherlands' upcoming study of the effect of a number of basic income models.

- Alison writes about the first meeting of Canada's parliamentary committee on electoral reform - with particular emphasis on Nathan Cullen's work to encourage direct public participating in the proceedings, coupled with Jason Kenney's determination to stifle it.

- Finally, Andrew Mitrovica points out the mathematical certainty that the Libs' idea of oversight for Canada's surveillance state will be insufficient.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Vancouver Sun interviews Andrew MacLeod about his new book on inequality in British Columbia. And Tanara Yelland talks to Guy Standing about the need for governments responsive to the needs of the precariat:

One central demand Standing makes is for the establishment of a universal basic income. Having the Canadian government provide all citizens (or all residents regardless of citizenship status, if you want to get really radical) would allow people to live without fear of things like starvation and homelessness, and would actually, according to research done on the subject, lead to low-income people working more. 

The current employment insurance system in Canada, which pays a portion of a person's last salary but ends payments once they've found work paying 20 percent more than their benefits, disincentivizes people from accepting work that might be temporary or with unstable hours. Getting a meager yet reliable amount from the government makes far more sense than taking a job whose hours you can't depend on—especially when you know that should your job end, it will be a month or more before you see any new benefit money coming in.

"In effect," said Standing, "the system for the precariat has a huge disincentive for people taking low-wage jobs and punishes them for doing so. That is thoroughly unfair."

- Meanwhile, Sarah Kendzior discusses how payday lenders exploit unstable work and unreliable income.

- Ian Welsh offers an important suggestion as to how the left needs to respond to the UK's election of a Conservative majority, while Gerard Di Trolio sees the NDP's emergence in Alberta as a prime example as to how challenges to corporate orthodoxy can be as politically beneficial as they are socially necessary. And Roderick Benns writes that Naheed Nenshi and Don Iveson are among the emerging group of politicians willing to tackle burgeoning poverty and inequality head-on - while noting that other levels of government will need to participate to develop truly effective policies.

- Peter Beinart proposes a name-and-shame approach to the outsized influence of the filthy rich in U.S. politics.

- And finally, Maude Barlow studies the Harper Cons' concerted effort to stifle citizens' voices in Canada.