Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your New Year's reading.

- Bartley Kives reports on the most deadly year of the COVID-19 pandemic yet. And the BBC reports on the admonition that vulnerable people in Wales should avoid going to hospitals due to the lack of measures in place to avert the spread of COVID-19.

- Meanwhile, Rowan Williams writes that we should take the principle of "nobody is safe unless everybody is safe" and apply it to economic decision-making - though the most plausible interpretation is that exactly that message has been cut out of pandemic decision-making to prevent it from being considered elsewhere as well. N.J. Hagens points out (in a March 2020 piece) that we need to see the economy as a subset of a sustainable living environment, rather than treating the environment as a luxury within an economy built to maximize the immediate extraction and concentration of wealth. And James Meadway warns that anybody expecting 2023 to be better for personal budgets than the previous year may be in for a rude surprise.

- Brian Osgood examines the state of the U.S. labour movement at the end of 2022 - with overall unionization rates still looking grim, but with some reason for hope in new forms of organization and widespread public support which could change the bigger picture in short order.

- Finally, Chuka Ejeckam highlights how the far right is trying to capitalize on socio-economic disruption. But John Burn-Murdoch discusses how millennial voters are shattering the expectation that voters will become more conservative with age.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jillian Horton discusses the lack of any meaningful effort to make education safe at the point when provincial governments should be planning for the start of the school year., while Lynn Giesbrecht reports that the Moe government in particular is taking zero responsibility (and offering nothing more than bare-bones suggestions) toward the health of students. And Ian Sample and Heather Stewart report on the concern of some UK experts that their Con government is encouraging the spread of COVID now based on the misguided belief that it will somehow relieve pressure on the health care system later.

- Meanwhile, Macintosh Ross writes about the especially galling lack of interest in public health reflected in the decision to barge ahead with the Tokyo Olympics over the objections of Japan's residents.

- Christy Ferguson highlights how the UCP's inquiry supposedly aimed at messaging about the Alberta tar sands has instead tried to delegitimize any action to help the climate anywhere in the world. And Chuka Ejeckam laments the fact that we're far beneath any reasonable pace of action in trying to salvage our living environment.

- Max Fawcett writes about the end of any illusion that there's any value in rushing to develop natural gas as a "bridge" to renewable energy which is already more affordable while avoiding greenhouse gas emissions.

- Finally, Lois Ross is justifiably outraged that Health Canada is planning to increase the amount of glyphosate permitted in Canada's food supply.