Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Shiri Pasternak examines the history of enemies lists as a mechanism to oppress minority groups and stifle dissent. And Adam Serwer distinguishes between cowardice which is at least based on genuine fear, and the chickenshit elites who are eager to sell out to fascists to avoid the slightest inconvenience. 

- Rachel Abrams talks to Eric Lipton about the corruption involved in the Trump regime's sellout of U.S. tech policy. And Kate Niederhoffer et al. discuss how AI "workslop" is trashing productivity, while Victor Tangerman writes about new research showing that the excess power consumption from AI is even worse than anticipated as longer and more complex requests give rise to increased incremental energy usage.

- Julia Conley discusses a new report showing how a small group of fossil fuel producers (including Canada) are planning dirty energy expansion which on its own will place existing climate commitments out of reach. And John Woodside reports on Catherine McKenna's warning that we can't trust the oil industry to live up to its climate promises. 

- Finally, Arthur Bledson points out how remote communities are increasingly turning to renewable energy as both a more affordable and more secure option than clinging to a fossil fuel addiction. And Patrick Commins reports on a new study showing that Australia's power costs would be soaring if it had limited itself to dirty energy. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Linda McQuaig writes about Catherine McKenna's rare (if belated) honesty about the extent to which Canadian policy is dictated by fossil fuel tycoons. And Susanne Rust and Ian James report on the corporate sector's plans to gut health and safety regulations in the U.S. 

- Grant Robertson and Kathryn Blaze Baum report on the combination of reliance on algorithms and self-regulation that led to a large and preventable outbreak of deadly listeria. William Gavin reports on a U.S. Senate committee report documenting Amazon's alarming propensity for work injuries (and deliberate executive choices to prevent workers from protecting themselves), while Hannah Critchfield and Juan Carlos Chavez investigate Florida's wave of heat deaths which employers have concealed from authorities. Jeremy Fuster reports on Disneyland's $233 million wage theft settlement. And Yuye Ding et al. study the effects of mandatory return-to-office policies, which produce a predictable brain drain which employers seem happy to accept in order to temporary slash costs. 

- Jon Queally reports on Donald Trump's plans to privatize the U.S. Postal Service - and the growing movement to save it. And Dru Oja Jay discusses how the same fight is playing out in Canada, with the Libs choosing to strip away the bargaining power of workers using collective action to argue for enhanced public service rather than dysfunction and precarity. 

- Emily Bell highlights why there's no reason to trust the self-serving propaganda of corporate media owners. Steven Beschloss calls out the wealthy and privileged Americans who are bowing before a Donald Trump dictatorship rather than using their resources to fight for a functional society, while Scott Dworkin examines a few of the forms of press complianc. And Greg Sargent interviews Anne Applebaum about the potential domino effect of ABC's failure to fight a strong defamation case on principle, while Jonathan Last notes that the extraction of protection money looks like one of the central pursuits of het second Trump administration. 

- Finally, Dale Smith discusses how 2024 can only be seen as a year of creeping (following by sprinting) authoritarianism. And Laura Barron-Lopez and Cynthia MIller-Idriss discuss the surge of public misogyny following the U.S.' election, while Taj Ali writes about the recruitment of young men into the toxic "manosphere".

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Julia Conley reports on the continued accumulation of riches in the hands of a few, as the total wealth of billionaires has more than doubled worldwide over just the last 9 years. And Susan Riley points out that the right's supposed solution to economic anxiety will only make matters worse by diverting even more wealth upward. 

- The Hatchet discusses how price-fixing and profit-taking is the norm across the food supply chain - with manufacturers being no less guilty than major grocery chains. And Dustin Godfrey reports that independent grocers without the clout of a corporate conglomerate are struggling to survive the combination of supplier price increases and deep-pocketed competition.  

- Solarino Ho points out the inevitable consequences of putting housing in the hands of billion-dollar corporations who are both ruthless (to the point of collusion) in extracting the highest possible rent and fees, and utterly unconcerned with tenants' well-being. And Kathy Moreland writes that Doug Ford's plan to punish homeless people does nothing to help them. 

- Krista Carr discusses what the Libs' choice to exclude people receiving disability payments from their general rebate continues to say about erasure by design. 

- Alice Marwick writes that the concept of mainstream media is increasingly becoming obsolete, based on both the availability of viewpoint-driven sources (if currently tilted toward the right) and many people's decreased interest in accessing news as a separate category of content. And Andrew Potter muses about the implications of artificial intelligence being able to mimic any distinct or creative voice. 

- Ron Johnson highlights what cities lose when they purge bike infrastructure in favour of car-centric urban design. And Dan Sheehan calls out how American public space has long been set up to endanger pedestrians.  

- Finally, Catherine McKenna discusses her collaboration with the fossil fuel sector in what it pretended to be a commitment to long-term climate policy - as well as her subsequent realization (obvious though it seemed to some of us all along) that oil barons ultimately have no interest in being good-faith participants in averting climate disaster if it means the slightest haircut to their profit margins.  

On mixed signals

Cam argues that the Libs' latest messaging on carbon pricing is a mistake in the sense of a political gaffe. And watching only the headlines today, that take would appear to be borne out.

But I'll respond that while a posture of studied ambiguity about carbon pricing may represent an error in strategy, it does reflect a deliberate choice.

And to be clear, an utter lack of clarity as to their plans for carbon pricing is exactly the message the Libs have chosen to offer:

In a news conference Monday morning, McKenna used careful phrasing to say that the current plan has no “intention” of going past $50 per tonne since it ends in 2022, but then added that decisions about future price increases will be made after discussing it with provincial governments.

“In 2016, we negotiated for a year with provinces and territories that included a price on pollution until 2022,” she said. “So there’s no intention to go up beyond that, any decision would be made in discussions with provinces and territories and stakeholders.”

She was asked specifically if she’s ruling out price increases beyond 2022, but didn’t respond directly. “All we’ve done is we’ve negotiated until 2022, so I’m not in a position to negotiate anything past that,” she said. “I think that there’ll be an election in 2023 and I think that might be a discussion for that election.”

While it's true that the Cons were quick to seize on the shift in position, the more important gap between the Libs' position and other policy options is that on the other side.

After all, it's generally recognized that the existing carbon price falls far short of representing a viable answer to our climate crisis - leaving the Libs vulnerable to significant challenges from the NDP (and the Greens) offering far more thorough proposals to a growing pool of voters whose desire for meaningful climate action will influence their ballots.

By deliberately failing to take any position, the Libs figure to be trying to take the best of both worlds: their environmentally-branded candidates (echoed by the Cons) can hint at increased carbon prices they haven't committed to, while the national campaign can point to the lack of any promise and accuse the Cons of fearmongering for asserting as a certainty something which isn't actually in their platform.

Unfortunately, that political ploy will serve only to muddy the waters for voters who demand more than deliberate obfuscation (along with counterproductive choices) in confronting the most serious challenge of our time. And anybody serious about reining in our carbon pollution will need to make clear that the Libs can't claim the benefit of their consciously-cultivated doubt.

Update: And this is surely exactly what the Libs were after - credit as a party to "fight climate change" from a prominent environmental voice, without actually presenting a plan or even a promise to develop one. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne comments on the war being waged by Canada's right-wing governments against workers.

- Dion Rabouin writes about the product of decades of giveaways to the rich - as the obscenely wealthy literally can't find any use for massive amounts of money other than to hoard it, even while refusing to pass any of it along. And Elizabeth Capelle discusses both how housing has become financialized, and how to reorient our view of it to serve the interests of people beyond the 1%.

- Frederick Hewitt points out how some of the most several long-term dangers of a climate breakdown involve the types of food supply disruptions which proved the undoing of past civilizations. Christopher Flavelle notes that the increasing recognition of the dangers of climate change is leading to higher costs and lower use of insurance to guard against foreseeable risks. And while Susan Delacourt wonders whether the climate crisis will lead to full social mobilization, the most telling part of her column is the thoroughly uninspired (and uninspiring) response from the Lib government:

My colleague here in the Star’s Ottawa bureau, Alex Ballingall, asked Environment Minister Catherine McKenna this week about whether wartime examples could inspire more collective public action on climate change.

“Look, I mean, I am very supportive of more ambition on climate change. I hear good ideas every single day. I mean I think the idea that you need to link climate action with people and making sure that you are focused on how do you improve lives is critical,” McKenna told Ballingall. But the minister also said that any ambition has to be tempered with, yes, affordability. “People want action on climate change but they want life to be affordable and at the same time creating good jobs.”

So, not exactly Dunkirk or D-Day, at least not yet. Bill Nye may need a bigger blowtorch.

- Finally, Bruce Campbell comments on the need for a public inquiry into the Lac-Mégantic disaster and points out some of the questions which remain unanswered to this day. And Penelope Simons notes that the Libs' distaste for corporate accountability is endangering Canada's global reputation.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ann Pettifor rightly questions the supposed gains from austerity in belatedly balancing budgets only at the expense of avoidable social devastation. And the CCPA documents the billions of dollars in lost assets and thousands of jobs slashed in Saskatchewan even when Brad Wall was promising not to attack the province's public services (and simultaneously driving Saskatchewan into a deficit).

- Omar Khan writes about the racial and ethnic pay gap in the UK. And Stephen Buranyi points out that algorithmic recruitment practices only figure to make it more difficult for less-privileged applicants to find work, while John Harris notes that big data is creating the risk of similar issues in other areas of life.

- Stuart Trew discusses the fossilized view of energy which Canada continues to take in NAFTA negotiations. And Catherine McKenna's attempt to excuse Canada's falling far short of emission targets based on the bare hope that it will catch up later looks to signal both a lack of understanding of the underlying science of climate change which continues to get worse in the meantime, and a lack of seriousness in addressing it.

- Meanwhile, new research in the Lancet documents the massive gains in health which would be achieved by meeting the Paris climate change targets.

- Finally, Robin Sears comments on the need for government involvement in providing more basic services and supports through higher revenues - and the fit between that governing philosophy and the demands of a growing activist movement.

Faith no more

Shorter Catherine McKenna on the Libs' response to the National Energy Board misleading the public about its insider dealings with lobbyists on Energy East:

Clap sunnier! Clap sunnier!