Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Nicolas Banholzer et al. study the dramatic impact of COVID-19 measures in schools - with a mandatory mask policy reducing transmission by nearly 70%, and air cleaners by 40%. And Maryam Zakir-Hussain discusses new research showing the unequal impacts of long COVID, with people working in the health and education sectors and/or living in poorer areas facing a greater burden.

- Bob Woods discusses the work to be done to ensure that the products of wind and solar energy are themselves recycled - though the potential to do so signals another massive advantage over dependence on non-renewable power sources. 

- Nina Lakhani reports on research showing that if oil companies made reparations for the harm they've caused to communities, they'd be paying at least $209 billion per year (instead of rolling in public subsidies to keep polluting). And Bill McKibben warns that we're in the midst of a dangerous experiment on the effects of rapidly-warming oceans which may exacerbate the expected effects of climate change.

- Finally, Nathaniel Meyersohn writes about the immense impact of mandatory parking requirements on the development of car-dependent culture in the U.S.

On fossilized assumptions

The comparative cost of different power options in the real world:

The world’s best solar power schemes now offer the “cheapest…electricity in history” with the technology cheaper than coal and gas in most major countries.

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Across the U.S., renewable energy is beating coal on cost: The price to build new wind and solar has fallen below the cost of running existing coal-fired power plants in Red and Blue states. 

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Building new wind and solar plants will soon be cheaper in every major market across the globe than running existing coal-fired power stations, according to a new report that raises fresh doubt about the medium-term viability of Australia’s $26bn thermal coal export industry.

While some countries are moving faster than others, the analysis by the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a climate finance thinktank, found renewable power was a cheaper option than building new coal plants in all large markets including Australia, and was expected to cost less than electricity from existing coal plants by 2030 at the latest.

The default assumption in Saskatchewan's fossilized media:

And even if they were to, there is the messy problem that we still must burn coal for the lion’s share of our electrical needs because solar and wind remain costly and we aren’t blessed with hydroelectric resources.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Stephen Buranyi laments the reality that the public's increased awareness and concern about our ongoing climate breakdown isn't being reflected in political decisions. And Noah Smith writes that while the rapid drop in prices for renewable energy may help us avoid the worst possible climate outcomes, we shouldn't doom ourselves to the massive damage expected from a business-as-usual scenario.

- Erin Baerwald calls out the gross inaccuracy of Doug Ford's anti-wind crusade. Jeremy Klazsuz reviews Jason Kenney's year of attacks, while Scott Schmidt discusses the threat the UCP's war room poses to the public's freedom of expression. And Morgan Modjeski reports on the laughably overwrought shrieks of protest in response to a fairly standard Oxbow Christmas pageant which dared to include environmental themes.

- Eion Higgins reports on the spread of the #wouldyoushootmetoo hashtag in response to the news that the RCMP was prepared to shoot to kill peaceful land defenders.

- Chelsea Whyte discusses the tragic - and entirely avoidable - return of measles to the U.S. as a result of antivaxxers.

- Finally, Heather Mallick points out the economic and environmental damage we do by relying on Amazon. And Brendan Kennedy reports undercover on the working conditions facing Amazon's delivery drivers.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ezra Klein discusses how a corporate focus on buybacks and dividends rather than actually investing capital leads to less opportunities for workers. Nora Loreto offers her take on precarious work in Canada. And Lynne Fernandez and Kirsten Bernas make the case for a living wage in Manitoba and elsewhere.

- Paul Krugman writes that if the Republicans manage to take both houses of Congress, we can expect them to turn voodoo economics into the default means of evaluating policy choices.

- Murray Mandryk crunches some numbers and finds that the main effect of the much-ballyhooed SaskPower carbon capture and sequestration project is to transfer a massive amount of money from the public to the oil sector. And SaskWind follows up by pointing out that it's already possible to secure better value for money investing in wind power.

- Andrew MacLeod exposes how the B.C. Libs want to take another step in silencing non-profits - this time by giving outsiders (and particularly those with enough money to fund constant court proceedings) the ability to force any non-profit to comply with their view of the public interest. And Vaughn Palmer notes that it's nothing new for the Clark Libs to bully people using the power of the state and the public purse.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg writes that the purpose of the latest Iraq war is simply to defend the legacy of failure arising out of previous ones. And the Star-Phoenix' editorial board argues that it's time to stop the march to war before it's too late.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Sum Of Us deserves plenty of credit for highlighting Enbridge's attempt to delete a thousand square kilometers of treacherous and sensitive islands in order to sugar-coat the dangers of shipping oil out of Kitimat. But it's also worth noting that the issue goes beyond the precise site chosen as the first and cheapest option: as Enbridge itself has claimed in its attempt to assuage people who stand to be affected by the pipeline inland, there's far more risk involved in shipping oil products by tanker than by pipeline wherever they choose to place the port. And that means the greater outrage is the Cons' utter negligence in doing everything they can to encourage tanker traffic.

- Meanwhile, John O'Connor points out the difference between the Cons' refusal to study or regulate  the genuine dangers of reckless oil production and use, and their determination to find fault with cleaner and safer wind power alternatives.

- Erin catches Don Morgan in a whopper of a lie about the state of Saskatchewan manufacturing since his government took power:

Saskatchewan newspapers report:

“Certainly in professional, scientific and technical areas and in the mining and the manufacturing sector (the job numbers) are very strong,” Don Morgan, minister of advanced education and labour relations, told reporters at news conference Friday.

On Friday, Statistics Canada reported that Saskatchewan manufacturing employment dropped by 900 last month and declined by 600 over the past year. Since Morgan’s Sask. Party government took office, our province has lost 5,100 manufacturing jobs. By what measure is manufacturing employment “very strong”?

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It’s easy to understand why Sask. Party politicians would like to claim strong manufacturing employment. They are trying to characterize “Dutch disease” as an eastern Canadian preoccupation. In reality, manufacturing job losses have afflicted all regions of Canada, including Saskatchewan.

- Finally, Bill Curry reports on the radical anti-worker advice that looks to form the basis for the Cons' next budget. But it's worth noting that even the Cons' corporate allies are using inequality language as both a goal and an excuse to attack labour just as brutally as their Republican counterparts:

Labour issues surface in several discussion categories, with the general view that Canadian workers are overpriced. “Need to address wage differentials in labor market among countries; we are losing jobs to other countries,” the memo reads. “Right to Work legislation should be pondered as it creates inequities in productivity; US example was provided.”

In the United States, about two dozen state governments have passed right-to-work legislation, which allows workers to opt out of paying union dues. Critics call the measures a form of union busting.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Dave Coles writes that the Harper Cons are using their power to protect the privacy of international arms dealers, while at the same time demanding stringent reporting requirements for labour unions and their members:

Labour unions are among the few institutions that can and do provide a counterbalance to the power of corporations. Yet the Conservatives are not requiring companies that bargain with trade unions to file detailed reports to the Canada Revenue Agency on their salary, political or lobbying spending. Additionally, they are not requiring other professional associations that collect fees or dues from their members, such as the Canadian Medical Association for example, to follow the terms of Bill C-377.

They are only requiring the institutions created to represent the interests of millions of workers across the country to file these detailed records. There is no other way to interpret this than as an attempt to disarm a political opponent.

Much like what Habib Massoud was hinting at when talking about those involved in the arms trade, the detailed reporting required by Bill C-377 will be burdensome, costly and threaten the privacy rights of many individuals, companies and organizations that work with unions. Incredibly, under the proposed legislation, labour-associated pension and benefit plans will be required to publicly disclose “the name and address” and a “description” of benefits paid to individuals greater than $5,000. This could include personal medical information.

- Barrie McKenna notes that Jim Flaherty is once again using the power of the federal government to let banks do whatever they want without consequences. And unfortunately Canada's government is far from the only one which is utterly failing in its obligation to defend the public interest in dealing with banks.

- And indeed, the U.K. is standing out in its emphasis on corporate "property", going so far as to make the names of seasons off limits for anybody other than Olympic sponsors:

Wearing purple caps and tops, the experts in trading and advertising working for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are heading the biggest brand protection operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £20,000.

Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including "gold", "silver" and "bronze", "summer", "sponsors" and "London".

- Finally, Erin Weir contrasts the Wall government's willingness to put public money into a new stadium in Regina against its missed opportunity to invest in renewable power. And the Globe and Mail points out the coincidence that the federal Cons are funding attacks on wind power while refusing to acknowledge massive health, safety and environmental risks associated with non-renewable resource extraction.

A chance to be heard

For anybody interested in appearing before the Standing Committee on Crown and Central Agencies to talk about Saskatchewan's energy strategy, the witness guide is here (warning: PDF), and the deadline to let the committee know you're interested in speaking at the round of hearings from the 6th to the 19th is noon today. So now would be the time to make a request if you haven't already.

Unfortunately, the process doesn't provide any guarantee that any particular witness will be heard by the committee, which will put together its own witness list based on the requests it receives. But this still looks to be one of the few ways in which the Wall government will ever hear from anybody outside its corporate bubble - so I'll encourage anybody interested to make that known.

Blowing in the wind

The fact that the Wall government's refusal to develop wind power within the province is now costing Saskatchewan workers their jobs certainly deserves plenty more attention:

News of 150 layoff and work-share notices being issued for this October at the wind tower department of Hitachi Canadian Industries in Saskatoon shows that the Wall government’s inaction on wind power expansion is costing our province both economically and environmentally, NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter said today.

“Hitachi’s layoff notices were sparked by a lack of orders this fall for towers used in wind power projects. In other parts of Canada, the problem is arranging financing for wind power projects in an economic downturn. In Saskatchewan, the problem is a lack of political will and leadership on the part of the Wall government,” Lingenfelter said.

After almost two years in government, the Sask Party has yet to produce a single megawatt of new wind power in Saskatchewan. Between 2002 and 2006, the former NDP government built 172 Megawatts of wind power capacity — enough electricity to power more than 73,000 homes.

Of course, Wall himself has spent much of the last year talking about a supposed economic "booster shot" to avoid exactly the kind of job losses currently being suffered at Hitachi. And given the province's obvious need both to preserve jobs in the current downturn and create them in expanding industries for the longer term, there surely can't be any excuse for his government's choice not to invest a reasonable price in an industry which serves both purposes, while wasting time trying to shove nuclear power down the province's throat.

But apparently Wall's government is so committed to making nuclear the only choice for power generation that it's willing to throw away jobs rather than investing in an obvious opportunity to develop wind power. And the province as a whole stands to lose out in the long run.

On windows of opportunity

Audrey has already posted about the Saskatchewan NDP's call for the Wall government to take advantage of a buyer's market for wind turbines to boost the province's wind generation capacity. But let's look a little more closely at the story, and particularly why the problem faced in T. Boone Pickens' effort at building a wind farm wouldn't figure to apply in Saskatchewan:

Lingenfelter noted that SaskPower built the Centennial Wind Power Facility for approximately $270 million, a fraction of the cost per kilowatt that the Sask Party’s multi-billion dollar nuclear reactor plans would cost. He said it is well past time that Brad Wall expanded on the NDP’s common sense approach to renewable energy production through wind power.

“Wind power expansion might never be more cost effective than right now as the global recession has driven down the price of wind turbines and overall construction costs.” Lingenfelter said. “I know that American billionaire T. Boone Pickens, for example, is looking to sell up to 687 General Electric turbines to power utilities in the United States and Canada because transmission line problems have stalled construction of the world’s largest wind farm in the state of Texas. Why isn’t the Wall government jumping on this and other opportunities to expand our wind power production at lower costs?”

Lingenfelter pointed to commitments made by the Obama administration that would see 20% of US electricity generated by wind power by 2030. He said there is no reason why Saskatchewan couldn’t reach the same target even sooner.

The transmission line issue is described in more detail here - and there isn't much room for doubt that whatever concerns there are about transmission costs can't be used as an excuse to delay renewable energy in Saskatchewan. After all, the Wall government has made clear that it's entirely prepared to pour billions of dollars into additional transmission capacity for the benefit of Bruce Power.

So with some work on our transmission lines looking to be an inevitable step in any event, the choice is fairly clear between taking advantage of an obvious opportunity to move toward renewable energy at the best possible time, or tethering Saskatchewan's future to nuclear power alone with no regard for the costs involved. And it's a truly sad commentary on the Sask Party government how little likelihood there seems to be that the former will even be seriously considered.