Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Benjamin Israel, Jan Gorski, Nina Lothian, Chris Severson-Baker and Nikki Way highlight the reality that increased extraction from the tar sands is fundamentally incompatible with any attempt to meet reasonable greenhouse gas emission targets. And Jonathan Watts reports on new research from the UN Environmental Programme showing that the fossil fuel industry has caused far more carbon pollution than previously recognized.

- Alex Verman calls out Canada's front of friendliness covering up a pattern of aggressive exploitation by the mining industry:

Canada is continuing its practice of colonialism and primitive accumulation. What’s more, Canada is violating international laws around military occupation and around the rights of Indigenous people. Right now, as I write this, members of Wet’suwet’en nation are still resisting, facing mass arrest and state violence, to protect their lands from privatization at the barrel of a gun. But for Canada, this is business as usual. The siege on Wet’suwet’en is a microcosm of what makes Canada “Canada.” The logic of resource extraction, led by private companies and enforced by the state, is what motivates Canadian policy and justifies Canadian national identity. Canada is three mining companies in a trench coat, wearing a stupid hat and carrying a gun.

Scratch the surface, and that’s all that’s underneath it. Canada is fake. But the consequences are real.

- Samuel Alexander muses that capitalism can't be squared with an adequate response to our environmental crises. And Umair Haque worries that we're exhibiting the patterns of a society without a future.

- Finally, Primrose Riordan and Jamie Smith write about the control exerted by Australia's coal lobby even in the wake of its devastating wildfires. Bob Edwards points out the UK's massive subsidies to offshore drilling operators. Michele Bertelli reports on Italy's dumping of massive amounts of plastic waste in Malaysia. And Andrew Nikiforuk examines the identified environmental destruction to be expected from the Teck Frontier mine if it ever goes ahead.

Musical interlude

Tame Impala - Is It True

New column day

Here, on the attempt at a hostile takeover of the U.S.' political system - and the need for Saskatchewan to update its campaign finance rules to avoid the same fate.

For further reading...
- Libby Watson wrote about the decline of the U.S.' public financing system once candidates decided they could raise more money from other sources. 
- Edward Helmore reported on Tom Steyer's move to buy his way into one set of Democratic presidential debates. And FiveThirtyEight's ad buy tracker is just one of many sources showing the wildly disproportionate ad spending by Steyer and Michael Bloomberg.
- Leslie Albrecht discusses Bloomberg's leveraging of his wealth through multiple types of donations into political support. And Bloomberg News has been serving the cause of its owner with headlines like "Bloomberg Campaign Says It’s a Two-Man Race for the Nomination".
- Finally, David Dayen writes about the risk of people supporting Bloomberg solely as a matter of partisan loyalty. And Tom Scocca argues that Bloomberg is the cause of the U.S.' democratic illness, not a cure.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- John Miller takes note of the corporate media's bias against Wet'suwet'en land defenders and others engaged in demonstrations in solidarity. Stuart Trew comments that we shouldn't let demands for convenience override the ongoing need for reconciliation. Paige Raibmon writes about the obvious error in writing Indigenous law out of the "rule of law" for the purpose of delegitimizing land defenders. And Jennifer Ditchburn points out the absurdity of relying on the concept of the rule of law at all as a means of undermining well-recognized Indigenous rights, while Stephen Maher points out how the CPR's history is intertwined with the subjugation of Indigenous peoples.  

- Laurie Macfarlane writes about the need to discuss how wealth is accumulated - including the growing roles of inheritances and luck - in order to build a movement to ensure that it's put to positive social purposes. Daniela Gabor worries that the EU's plans for a green economic transition are being designed mostly to further enrich the wealthy, rather than focusing on either environmental improvements or distributive justice. And Stefan Stern points out how much better off we'd be if the rich paid more in wages and taxes rather than claiming to be philanthropists.

- But on the bright side, PressProgress highlights British Columbia's plan to raise an extra $200 million per year by ensuring that its highest-income residents pay something closer to their fair share of the price of a civilized society.

- Finally, both the Globe and Mail's editorial board and Rob Breakenridge join the chorus calling for the UCP to shut down its backfiring war room. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Horizontal cats.

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.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Monika Dutt offers a reminder that some of the best investments we can make in improving public health are aimed at social factors:

As a physician, I often see people at high risk of poor health because they live in poverty. We know that poverty contributes to higher rates of many conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, depression, and even children having difficulty in school.

It is simply harder to be healthy when you lack a decent income. Many people can’t afford their medications, adequate housing, activities for their kids or nutritious food — some of the staples for being healthy. This is a serious concern in a place like Cape Breton, where there is such a high rate of poverty.

To reframe how we think about poverty and health, we need to consider what is needed to create healthier communities. One important aspect of that is the elimination of poverty.

- Michael Swan points out the Ford government's moves to turn welfare into a profit centre. Matt Elliott highlights the unfairness of the TTC's plans to crack down in forcing extremely high fines on people who lack the money for transit. And Antonietta Corado writes about her path from relative security to homelessness. 

- Emily Leedham discusses how the law is all too often stacked in favour of capital and against the interests of labour and other groups of citizens.

- Amber Bracken challenges the attempts of outside actors to portray and stoke division within the Wet’suwet’en. And Kate Gunn and Bruce McIvor offer a primer on the law involved in the use of unceded land.

- Finally, George Monbiot discusses how ongoing policy choices which destroy the natural environment are exacerbating flooding in the UK. And Collin Gallant notes that Alberta may be able to resolve part of its vast problem of abandoned oil wells by turning well sites into solar installations.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Heesu Lee reports on Greenpeace's estimate that air pollution costs the world nearly $3 trillion every year. And Damien Cave writes that this year's wildfires have permanently changed Australia as people knew it.

- Meanwhile, Alice Bell warns against trusting oil barons when it comes to developing policy to combat climate breakdown. Ian Austen talks to Christopher Flavelle about divestment - including the fear people have of speaking out due to the petronationalism emanating from Alberta and elsewhere. And Paul Dechene traces how Regina managed to invite a climate denialist to keynote a sustainability conference.

- Alex Boyd recognizes the historical significance in Indigenous protests in support of Wet’suwet’en sovereignty over its land targeting railways across the country. And Doug Cuthand weighs in on the importance of First Nations standing up for their land.

- Owen Jones writes about the dangers of treating a university education as a commodity to be delivered by the most precarious workforce possible.

- Rod Myer discusses how the rise of the gig economy is endangering the very concept of retirement, while Euan Black notes that older workers are facing consistent age discrimination even as they're told retirement isn't an option. And Omar Mosleh wonders whether the job action at Co-op's Regina refinery will represent a watershed moment for Canada's labour movement.

- Finally, Joel Lexchin writes that among the other compelling reasons to develop a national pharmacare program, it may be necessary merely to counterbalance the increases in drug costs arising out of the Libs' trade concessions.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Don Pittis writes about Thomas Piketty's take that Bernie Sanders may be exactly what the U.S. needs.

- Laurie Penny wonders whether we're yet capable of overcoming the culture of complicity around the powerful men daring the justice system to hold them to account for immoral abuses of others. Laura Bassett questions why Mike Bloomberg expects a pass on dozens of examples of harassment and discrimination. And PressProgress calls out Andrew Wilkinson for minimizing the harm suffered by survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

- Elisha Dacey reports that after seeing the benefits of a strong film industry, Manitoba is making its film tax credit permanent. And Zak Vescera reports on Scott Moe's willingness to forgo federal health care funding in order to leave Saskatchewan on the hook for the privatization of medical services which has led to a doubling of waitlists.

- Charlie Smith points out that liquid natural gas projects too make little sense from a sheer business perspective even if one assigns zero value to both Indigenous rights and environmental protection.

- Finally, Scott Schmidt discusses the importance of speaking out against harmful government choices rather than silently acquiescing in social destruction - and while his focus is on the UCP, the message is one worth applying generally.

Musical interlude

Andy Shauf - Try Again

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Andrew Leach and Martin Olszynski go into detail about the calculations around the Teck Frontier mine - and particularly how any pricing assumptions which could make development viable are far out of date.

- Kate Yoder points out how the fossil fuel industry has been producing massive amounts of fake news among its other forms of pollution. And Jen Gerson weighs in on the laughable propaganda emanating from the UCP's war room.

- Meanwhile, PressProgress documents the connections between the kamikaze campaign which helped install Jason Kenney in power, and the UCP's attempts to have the federal government foot the bill for orphan oil well liabilities which would otherwise fall on some high-profile party funders.

- Martin Lukacs and Shiri Pasternak report on the nearly immediate attempt by businesses and the B.C. government to abolish Aboriginal title as soon as it was recognized by the Supreme Court. And Andrew Nikiforuk discusses how Canada's colonial legacy continues in the forcible takeover of Wet’suwet’en land.

- Finally, David Moscrop writes about the need for protest to challenge injustice built into the status quo. And Emily Riddle offers a reminder that we can fully expect police forces to defend entrenched power.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Ed Broadbent and Andrew Jackson highlight how among its other advantages, a national pharmacare program would prevent workers from being tied to jobs by a need to preserve coverage through work:

On top of the unnecessarily high and rising cost of private insurance, the same parliamentary report reveals that 88 per cent of private insurance plans have co-pays or annual deductibles, which means that drug costs are partly covered out-of-pocket. Further, as employer-sponsored drug plans are generally much better than plans paid for by individuals in terms of drugs covered and co-pays, the evidence also shows that private insurance coverage is well below average for younger and lower-income families.

Good employer plans certainly still exist, notably for full-time permanent employees working in the public sector and for large employers. Most unionized workers have decent coverage. But these kinds of jobs are increasingly difficult to find.
...
It seems highly probable that the proportion of workers covered by employer drug plans has been falling, and that the quality of these plans is eroding. The labour movement strongly supports a national pharmacare program not just to provide coverage to those who lack it, but also to reduce cost pressures on employers that work against increasing wages at the bargaining table. When companies provide drug plans, they have less income to allocate for wages for their workers.
...
The introduction of a universal, single-payer, pharmacare system has many good arguments to commend it. One of the most powerful, though least mentioned, is that the current employer-based benefit system is eroding. We should deal with that problem rather than pretending it doesn’t exist. National pharmacare is needed as soon as possible before even more Canadians find themselves lacking the means to afford the drugs they and their families desperately need.

- Michael Hobbes writes about the normalization of white-collar crime in a U.S. economy governed by little more than self-interest. And Duncan Cameron discusses the appeal of Bernie Sanders' message of "not me, us!" in response to the failures of capitalism at its most exploitative.

- Duane Bratt wonders when a large proportion of Alberta's population will start paying attention to the rigged process which saw Jason Kenney assume the helm of the UCP. And David Climenhaga notes that Kenney's government stands out among Canada's provinces in presiding over massive job losses.

- Finally, CBC examines the simple steps to safer communities in designing around pedestrians rather than vehicles. And Oliver Moore reports on a drop in fatalities in Toronto from a lowered speed limit alone.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Jeff Spross calls out the absurdity of gutting protections for health and safety in the name of "regulatory certainty" - particularly when that really only means businesses know they can get away with as much damage on the public as they can inflict.

- Alice O'Keeffe writes about the importance of child care to set children and families up with opportunities to succeed. And CBC News reports on Don Davies' bill to finally introduce a national school nutrition program.

- Hilary Agro makes the case for drug legalization to avoid maximizing the harm from drug use.

-  Ellen Barry writes about the growing number of municipalities looking at free transit as a means of building a safer, more affordable and more environmentally friendly city. And Jolson Lim points out that Canadian mayors are pushing for dedicated transit funding as part of the federal budget.

- Finally, Paul Krugman offers a reminder of the Republicans' hypocrisy over deficits - which of course applies equally in Canada as right-wing governments gut public services to only partially paper over the holes they've created in budgets with reckless giveaways to the corporate sector. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Downed cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Fiona Harvey writes about the perfect storm of environmental crises leaving us at risk of societal collapse. And Tim Flannery calls out the deception and denial from Australia's government after it has contributed to setting its own country ablaze.

- Mark Olalde and Ryan Menezes report on California's old and abandoned wells - signalling that the problem of the public being forced to foot the bill for the exploitation of oil resources goes far beyond Alberta.

- Steve Lambert notes that Scott Moe's scheme to ship oil through Manitoba has been suggested - and rejected - before. Vassy Kapelos and John Paul Tasker report on the latest estimates showing the cost of Trans Mountain to be ballooning. And Cameron Fenton makes the case against approval for the Teck Frontier tar sands mine.

- PressProgress points out the unwillingness of Public Safety Canada, CSIS and the RCMP to properly label far-right extremism and terrorism. And Andrew Nikiforuk laments the choice of colonialism over reconciliation as both the B.C. and federal governments push a natural gas pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en land.

- Finally, Emily Needham reports on Scott Banda's choice to ally himself and the Co-op system with bigots and white nationalists in order to attack the workers who have made his corporation massive profits. And David Climenhaga examines Jason Kenney's propaganda network which is now being turned against health care workers.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Annie Lowrey writes about the affordability crisis which has left most Americans in dire financial straits even as aggregate economic numbers look reasonably strong:

(B)eyond the headline economic numbers, a multifarious and strangely invisible economic crisis metastasized: Let’s call it the Great Affordability Crisis. This crisis involved not just what families earned but the other half of the ledger, too—how they spent their earnings. In one of the best decades the American economy has ever recorded, families were bled dry by landlords, hospital administrators, university bursars, and child-care centers. For millions, a roaring economy felt precarious or downright terrible.

Viewing the economy through a cost-of-living paradigm helps explain why roughly two in five American adults would struggle to come up with $400 in an emergency so many years after the Great Recession ended. It helps explain why one in five adults is unable to pay the current month’s bills in full. It demonstrates why a surprise furnace-repair bill, parking ticket, court fee, or medical expense remains ruinous for so many American families, despite all the wealth this country has generated. Fully one in three households is classified as “financially fragile.”
...
What is perhaps most frustrating is that the Great Affordability Crisis is amenable to policy solutions—ones most other rich countries adopted decades ago. In other developed economies, child care, early education, and higher education are public goods, and do not require high-interest-rate debts or endless scrambling by exhausted young parents to procure. Other wealthy countries have public-health systems that cover everybody at far lower cost, whether through socialized or private models. And numerous proposals would transform residential construction in this country, including one that just failed in California’s legislature.

- Jordan Yadoo and Noah Buhayar report that the disconnect between wages and housing costs is spreading from the U.S.' largest urban areas across the country. Andrew Longhurst writes about British Columbia's need for far more public assisted living. And CBC News reports that the City of Regina's public posturing about reducing homelessness has led to zero funds being allocated.

- Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez discuss the need for a wealth tax to rein in the distortion of the U.S.' economy and political system by the richest few. And Jereon Kraaijenbrink points out why even some of the .1% are making a public push for a more fair tax system which would result in their contributing more.

- Meanwhile, Christo Aivalis is the latest to highlight how the Libs' "middle class tax cut" in fact does little for the people who most need the federal government's help. Sam Jones reports on the findings of the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights that Spain has left people to struggle in poverty even as its economy has recovered from recession. And Phillip Inman reports on new research into the continuing increases in the number of UK workers living in poverty.

- Finally, Tim Harford is optimistic about the prospects of a dematerialising economy which allows for social progress while limiting the environmental damage done by economic growth.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Carson Hammond and Rob Rousseau each make the case that Canada needs a left movement for change comparable to the wave of U.S. activism propelling Bernie Sanders toward a presidential nomination.

- Brigid Delaney argues that we need to stop settling for messages of self-care, and instead work toward building social supports which aren't operated according to capitalist principles.

- Nora Loreto writes that we should treat Tim Horton's as a typically exploitative fast-food chain, not a matter of national identity.

- Gerry McCartney, LyndaFentona, GeorgeMorris and PhilMackie introduce the concepts of "superpolicies" which produce positive feedback looks beyond their immediate effects, and "policy-omnishambles" which result in multiple negative consequences. And in a prime example of the latter, Peter Erickson, Harro van Asselt, Doug Koplow, Michael Lazarus, Peter Newell, Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran study (PDF) how fossil fuel subsidies distort our energy choices while also pushing us toward climate breakdown.

- Finally, Frank Graves and Michael Valpy write about the disappearance of moderation within the Conservative Party. And McKay Coppins looks in detail at the widespread disinformation campaign being deployed in lieu of any pretense that support for Republicans can be based on facts or valid principles.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Robert Reich comments that Democrats who failed to recognize and respond to a rigged economic system share in the blame for the rise of Donald Trump's toxic populism. And George Monbiot notes that Trump is just one of many strongmen-in-the-making daring anybody to stop them from running roughshod over the world:

These are experiments in absolutism. They don’t amount to fascism in their own right. But in conjunction with the elevation of preposterous and desperate men, the denigration of minorities and immigrants, political violence, mass surveillance and widespread mockery of liberalism and social justice, they suggest that some countries, separately and together, are beginning to head towards the darkest of all political places.

The normalisation of impunity is possibly the most important step towards authoritarian rule. Never let it be normal.

- Katharina Pistor makes the case that corporate limited liability only warps incentive structures to shift risks and costs from corporations to the public.

- Adam Hunter reports on the doubling of Saskatchewan's MRI waitlist as the Sask Party has pushed privatized service rather than expanding public capacity. And Patrick White highlights the unfairness of unconscionable fees for telephone access in prisons.

- Van Badham writes that climate denialism has evolved from pretending nothing is happening to our planet at all, to somehow claiming we'll be better off with extreme weather and an endangered natural environment.

- Finally, Shawn Jeffords reports on Doug Ford's plans to allow Ontario's natural forests to be decimated. And Dorothy Woodend reminds us that individual choices make far less difference in contributing to plastic pollution than systemic corporate waste.

Musical interlude

Metric - Dressed to Suppress

New column day

Here, on how the costs of approving the Teck Frontier tar sands mine likely include locking Canada into another cycle of public subsidies for a dying oil sector - making it clear that it isn't in the public interest.

For further reading...
- Tzeporah Berman has previously questioned how any approval could be reconciled with a meaningful response to the climate crisis. And Bill McKibben rightly recognizes that approval for Frontier is utterly contrary to any claim to climate leadership.
- Andrew Willis reported on Teck's conditions to actually develop the Frontier site even if it's permitted to do so.
- Joanna Partridge has reported on fund manager BlackRock's plan to divest from coal and other fossil fuels. And Nick Cunningham discusses how the financial sector is taking climate risk and expense into account in determining whether projects will be funded and/or insured.
- Finally, in case there was any doubt that Canada's petropoliticians will happily throw as much public money as they can get their hands on into subsidizing dirty fossil fuels, the Canadian Press reports on Scott Moe's plan to fund new pipelines which lack any apparent use while continuing to slash Saskatchewan's public services.