Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Emily Eaton, Andrew Stevens and Sean Tucker discuss how the corporate fossil fuel sector is blocking workers from pursuing sustainable jobs as part of a just transition. And Kate Yoder writes that there's an entirely plausible basis to hold big oil accountable for climate homicide. 

- Darrin Qualman writes that governments should focus on actual carbon emission reductions rather than treating agricultural "offsets" as a meaningful response to the climate crisis. And Julia-Simone Rutgers reports on Manitoba farmers who are taking wetland preservation into their own hands. 

- Dorothy Woodend reviews Food Inc. 2 - and concludes that the only problem with an updated look at the horrors of corporate food production is the apparent need to shoehorn in notes of optimism which seem wholly unwarranted. And Bill Marler discusses the gob-smacking revelation that children are suffering from lead poisoning due to a supplier's decision to add lead to cinnamon to increase the weight of its product. 

- Finally, Cory Doctorow discusses the dangers of the concentration of wealth and power in corporations which are too big to care about actual competition. And Doc Burford offers a thorough review and critique of the anti-social management philosophy which is taken as gospel among our current corporate class. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The World Health Organization has updated its guidelines for COVID-19 prevention and response - including recommendations for masking and isolation periods even when these have been largely abandoned by governments. 

- Mitchell Thompson reports on the Ford PCs' plans for health care privatization which include facilitating corporate providers in upselling costly and unnecessary services to patients. And the Star's editorial board and Robert Bell each highlight the lack of any justification for privatized surgical operations even without that additional source of greed-based health care. 

- Sean Tucker writes about the need for far more to be done to keep workers safe in Saskatchewan. And Zak Vescera discusses the insufficient policy response to one of British Columbia's most prominent workplace fatalities. 

- Patrick Greenfield reports on an investigation finding that one of the largest carbon offset funds in the world is based on phantom emission reductions (and may in fact be worsening the climate breakdown). Robert Reich calls out the media's failure to connect California's severe storms to climate change. 

- Meanwhile, Oliver Milman offers a reminder that the healing of the Earth's ozone layer represents an important success story in cooperative environmental policy - with the near-elimination of the use of the substances responsible as a vital element of the achievement. 

- Finally, Kelvin Chan reports on Oxfam's push for a windfall tax on food companies. And D.T. Cochrane points out how price increases on existing products can be expected to correlate with economic stagnation due to corporate herd effects.