Musical interlude

Adina Butar - Whisper

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Damian Carrington offers a glimpse of what would be in store if we continue to spew carbon pollution as projected and end up at 3 degrees of warming or more, rather than quickly reining in greenhouse gas emissions. And Christina Figueres makes the case to adopt an attitude of stubborn optimism even in the midst of a crisis which makes it easy to despair. 

- Aly Hyder Ali writes that part of Canada's contribution needs to include a national cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector. And Mitchell Beer discusses how electrifying and decarbonizing Canada's road transportation system will more than pay for itself. 

- Alex Robinson takes note of the World Bank's road map toward a more sustainable food system - and as with the energy sector, ending subsidies to particularly dirty industries is both the most obvious step, and the one facing the most resistance from entrenched corporate interests. And Marc Fawcett-Atkinson reports on the federal government's refusal to do anything to respond to identified dangers from the ubiquitous use of glyphosate herbicides and pesticides.

- Roger Marolt discusses his experience with long COVID arising from his fifth COVID-19 infection this year. And Rochita Ghosh points out new research showing that the expanding list of COVID symptoms includes damage to vision.

- Finally, Cory Doctorow writes about the problems with treating AI material generation as an issue of intellectual property enforcement (which implies the primacy of existing content owners), rather than one of the well-being of creative workers.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Sueellen Campbell highlights how record-breaking temperatures are being covered around the globe, while Sarah Collins discusses new research showing that the northern hemisphere's summer of 2023 was the hottest in millenia. And Qi Zhao et al. examine the growing death toll from heatwaves around the world even before the unprecedented warming of the last few years. 

- Michael Mann and Katharine Hayhoe make the case that the antidote to doom is doing. But Natalie Alcoba reports on the torrent of threats and abuse directed at Charlie Angus for proposing even the most modest limits on climate-destroying propaganda. And Drew Anderson reports that the UCP's reality denialism extends to an outright refusal to accept direct evidence that their ban on renewables was entirely the result of a political order, while Neel Dhanesha takes a look at the "news mirages" being set up by dirty energy operators to substitute fossil fuel PR for any actual reporting which might expose their pollution or corruption. 

- Hazel Sheffield reports on new research showing that UK corporations hiked their prices far beyond the rate of any cost increases to goose their profits at public expense. 

- Finally, Kate Dubinski discusses a study confirming that the costs of homelessness impose an even greater burden on an already-overwhelmed health care sector. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Crumpled cat.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ian Welsh discusses how institutions under the thrall of neoliberal ideology are incapable of achieving any end other than the further enrichment of the wealthy. And Clement Nocos writes that affordability is ultimately an issue because of corporate price gouging and a lack of working-class organization to rein in business excesses.  

- Yushu Zhu, Hanan Ali, Meg Holden and Natasha Mhuriro examine the contributions that community housing can make which can never be replicated by for-profit developers. And Jessica Burgess reports on the particularly egregious example of a landlord who evicted vulnerable tenants to turn units into AirBNB profit generators even while putting on a show of hosting a charity event to combat homelessness. 

- Andre Picard writes about the snowballing crisis in caregiving - and the right-wing governments who are looking to hide the problem or turn it into a corporate cash cow. 

- But while the UCP for one neglects its own responsibilities, Dave Cournoyer examines how Danielle Smith is determined to micromanage every other institution in Alberta to prevent them from acting in the public interest. 

- Finally, Osita Nwanevu discusses how student protestors tend to have the most reliable moral compasses around - even if they can count on being treated with reactions ranging from dismissal to violent repression in their own time. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- William Becker rightly argues that the U.S.' practice of prioritizing fossil fuel donor profits over the health of the public and the planet represents the biggest energy scam in its history. Norm Farrell discusses how Canada is similarly one of the world's biggest climate laggards, due largely to the subsidies and carveouts handed to the oil sector. And Jeffrey Simon reports on the nascent efforts to ensure that fossil fuel companies pay at least part of the cost of the harms they've inflicted - with particular reference to the effect of the 2021 heat dome on an Oregon county. 

- Meanwhile, Anders Wijkman discusses the need to stop emphasizing material consumption if we're ever going to rein in the climate crisis (among other environmental catastrophes in progress).

- Asher McShane reports on the need to prioritize sustainability over cheapness in food production. But Martin Lukacs examines how Canadian food policy continues to be dictated by a few giant grocery corporations whose owners have seeded the Libs and Cons alike with massive donations. 

- Allison Jones reports on Ontario's need for tens of thousands of additional health care workers over the next few years - even as the Ford PCs' top priority is to conceal the problem. 

- Finally, Charlie Angus calls out Pierre Poilievre's politics of intimidation, including both his choice to ally himself with the likes of Alex Jones and the Diagolon extremists, and his choice to build a violent rag machine for his own purposes. 

Musical interlude

The Ambientalist - Lost Language

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Damian Carrington reports on the response to the consensus among climate scientists that we're headed for climate catastrophe, including the UN's recognition that there's no higher-stakes issue for humanity. Matt McGrath, Mark Poynting and Justin Rowlatt discuss how the oceans are headed for yet another record-breaking year of heat. And the Canadian Press reports that British Columbia is facing unprecedented threats to its natural waterways due to years of extreme heat and limited precipitation. 

- Meanwhile, Phil Tank offers a reminder that the Sask Party's choice to blow billions on carbon capture and storage has produced little result other than to delay action which would actually reduce carbon pollution.  

- Matt Gurney implores Doug Ford to stop exacerbating his province's health care crisis by refusing to offer reasonable compensation to family doctors. 

- Katie Dangerfield reports on new research into the myriad health risks of ultra-processed foods. 

- Craig Lord reports on the Bank of Canada's recognition that renters rather than property owners are facing the greater level of financial stress. 

- Finally, Geoffrey Picketts writes about the utter lack of reason behind separatist rhetoric in Alberta and Quebec - though there's probably nothing more pathetic than Saskatchewan's "me-too" equivalent which replicates the economic social and risks of separatism, while replacing any theory of self-determination with complete subservience to Alberta puppetmasters. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Damian Carrington reports on the consensus among climate scientists that the fallout from the climate crisis looks to include at least 2.5 degrees of global warming. And Jason Hickel comments on the gap in impacts between the wealthy few who are responsible for most carbon pollution, and the less wealthy people who are facing its worst effects. 

- Lucas Chancel reviews Ingrid Robeyns' Limitarianism as providing a useful framework as to the necessary limits on the accumulation of wealth. And Gabriel Zucman rightly argues that at the very least, the need to properly tax wealth and excess income is conclusively established by the fact that U.S. billionaires are now paying a lower effective tax rate than the working class. 

- Meanwhile, Ashley Burke, Kate McKenna and Andrew Ryan report on the glaring contradiction between Pierre Poilievre's message criticizing lobbyists as a matter of political positioning, and his eagerness to have them assemble wealthy donors to funnel money toward him. 

- Andre Picard calls out the Ford PCs for devoting their energy to suppressing damning evidence of the crisis in health care, rather than making any effort to ameliorate it. 

- Finally, Rani Molla examines the lengths car makers have gone to in making it impossible for consumers to protect their privacy while using a new vehicle. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Curled-up cat.

Life in plastic

One of the more significant subjects I've included in my link posts over the past few years is that of plastic contamination. We're learning more and more about the accumulation of plastic in our bodies and the environment, as well as about a growing list of harms caused as a result. 

So naturally, the Cons are looking to undermine any and all regulation of consumer plastics with campaign blending of misinformation and denialism. 

The misinformation side involves a blatant lie of omission as to what Corey Tochor's anti-regulation bill would do. 

Contrary to what you'd think from Tochor's presentation, the scope of the bill is not in any way limited or targeted to the regulation of straws in particular. Instead, its purpose and effect is to eliminate all existing federal regulation of plastics in any form. Which means that any steps to limit even the most dangerous and easily and cheaply substituted plastic products would be trashed.

Needless to say, that outcome would represent a source of cheap and dirty profits for an oil sector which is looking to plastics as a substitute market in the event the world takes any meaningful steps toward reducing the burning of dirty fuels. But how to justify yet another naked attempt to foist the costs of fossil fuel profits on the public in the form of avoidable personal risks?

Tochor has that covered as well, combining an absolute lack of willingness to acknowledge the immense and growing scientific consensus around the dangers of plastics for people and the environment, with an attempt to treat developing concerns about a single substitute (which itself arise out of insufficient study of chemicals in consumer products) as mandating that the entire toxic plastic edifice be allowed to keep growing without regulation. 

All of which makes for a single bill reflective of the entire Con political mindset: using a small but salient public complaint as the basis to gut public protections, all in order to ensure that the oil sector can rake in money at the expense of people's health and well-being. And the combination of dishonesty and disregard for the public should serve as a warning of what would follow if the Cons can take control of Canada's regulatory apparatus.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Joe Vipond and Steve Bentley write about the need to treat the climate breakdown in progress as a serious problem requiring immediate action rather than a game. David Thurton reports on the Libs' inexplicable choice to eliminate the federal government's ability to carry out environmental assessments based on carbon pollution with multi-jurisdictional impacts. And Steve Hanley points out that the fossil fuel sector's response to the development of satellites capable of tracking methane releases has been to direct its "innovation" toward new steps to conceal its continued emissions. 

- Mark Olaide and Nick Bowlin expose how Oklahoma courts and regulators alike went out of their way to prevent the oil industry from paying the cost of its contamination of a family farm. And Drew Anderson reports on the UCP's choice to ban new renewable energy for threatening the hegemony of the fossil fuel sector. 

- Meanwhile, Justine Calma discusses how environmental journalists face disproportionate and increasing threats of violence for daring to expose the reality of corporate malfeasance. 

- Adam King discusses how Canada's latest income survey shows a deteriorating standard of living for the working class - driven largely by the withdrawal of supports in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. 

- Finally, Alex Hemingway points out that it will be impossible to meaningfully alleviate Canada's housing crisis without massive investment in public and not-for-profit homes. 

Musical interlude

Royksopp - Stay Awhile

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jessica Wildfire comments on the elite panic which has seen information suppression become the norm in order to maintain the status quo for the general public while the wealthiest few try to insulate themselves from obvious dangers. And Larry Elliott writes that if billionaires appear to be afraid of the concept of a global wealth tax, it's because there's no justification for them to escape paying their fair share to sustain the societies which have provided them with obscene riches. 

- The Canadian Labour Congress highlights new polling confirming that Canadians recognize the crucial role of worker organization, and want to remove barriers to unionization. And Jen Kostuchuk and Anelyse Weiler point out the need for improved protections in the midst of a climate breakdown where extreme heat and other threats to health and safety are becoming more common. 

- Stephanie Cooke discusses why nobody should be pretending to take nuclear power seriously as anything but a delay tactic to prevent the deployment of renewable energy. And Brett Forester reports on a toxic sewage discharge at the Chalk River nuclear reactor in February which was never publicly disclosed at the time. 

- Finally, Linda Farthing discusses how Mexico's forests are far healthier than most due to their protection by community and Indigenous stewards. And Drew Anderson reports on the UCP's imposition of politically-driven commands to the Alberta Electric System Operator to back a ban on renewable power despite recognizing that it was ill-advised. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Markham Hislop offers up his apologies for cheerleading for the TransMountain pipeline - both due to its immensely increased price tag, and for its imminent obsolescence if we even remotely approach a workable response to the climate crisis. John Woodside calls out Chrystia Freeland for refusing to take even the baby step of acknowledging that dirty energy development shouldn't be eligible to be treated as clean investments, while Environment Defence responds to the failure of yet another much-ballyhooed carbon capture project which was supposed to counter the emissions from fossil fuel production and use. And Geoffrey Deihl wonders whether the oil industry's insistence on allowing climate change to worsen unchecked will force us to subject the Earth to a reckless experiment in atmosphere manipulation. 

- Meanwhile, Leana Hosea and Rachel Salvidge report on the rapidly-rising levels of "forever chemicals" in human bodies. And Sharon Lerner reports on the EPA's sudden reversal in dealing with acephate - as ProPublica's revelation that it planned to use sketchy data on non-living subjects to allow for increased use seems to have pushed it to instead implement a ban. 

- Pat Van Horne surveys some of the health experts who are pushing for a Canadian pharmacare program that ensures the availability of all essential medicines. 

- Talia Barnes explores how consumer products are increasingly designed to subject people to the control of corporations.  

- Marc Lee and DT Cochrane examine how Canada's tax system has remained regressive over the past two decades - including with decreased contributions by the wealthiest 5%. 

- Finally, Linda McQuaig points out how much of Canada's media has been working overtime to either conceal or normalize Pierre Poilievre's cultivation of ties to the far right. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thom Hartmann discusses how conservative policies and rhetoric both kill people even looking only at  homicides and suicides. Cory Doctorow points out how the conservative impetus to exacerbate inequality has resulted in the housing crisis - including through new means for the wealthy to take homes away from workers. And Jessica Wildfire highlights the inherent unsustainability of any attempt to use wealth or privilege to vanish from a society which is in the midst of breaking down under the logic of extractive capitalism. 

- Meanwhile, Gaye Taylor takes note of the steps Canadian cities are taking to try to reduce the foreseeable number of heat-related deaths which we can expect in the midst of a fossil-fueled climate breakdown. And Annie Nova writes about the immense financial cost of climate change for the people being born today. 

- David Olive writes that there's no valid objection to the Libs' plans to modestly increase the tax inclusion rate on capital gains, while Max Fawcett rightly argues that if anything Canada should be doing far more to ensure the rich pay their fair share. 

- Norm Farrell discusses the propensity of megaprojects to take on a life of their own which results in our missing out on more efficient and effective alternatives. 

- Kim Siever challenges the claim that business owners are entitled to a disproportionate share of profits based on their being the only parties taking on risk. And David Moscrop interviews Alex Hemingway about the far superior results of worker-owned firms by numerous standards - including the job security and resilience which are normally treated as the main reason for serving the interests of capital. 

- Finally, Jared Wesley discusses how the UCP is a threat to democracy - though it's worth noting that every justified criticism represents an element of the playbook of right-wing parties across the continent. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Shadowy cat.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Stan Cox writes about the looming eco-collapse - and its connection to a relentless focus on top-heavy "growth" with no regard for well-being or sustainability.  

- Dharna Noor reports on the U.S. House oversight committee's investigation showing how the oil industry has blocked any climate progress while engaging in performative public greenwashing. Tory Shepherd reports on what it takes for a climate denialist ad to be pulled for being misleading or deceptive. And David Zipper discusses how U.S. policy has encouraged car bloat and increased pollution (based in no small part on lobbying from both the fossil fuel sector and the auto industry).

- Meanwhile, Cloe Logan reports on the growing number of Quebec municipalities working on reducing fossil fuel infrastructure in new buildings.

- Jeffrey Kluger writes about the reality that he - like nearly everybody - is accumulating plastic toxins in his body at an alarming rate. And Benjamin Shingler reports on the halting progress toward a global plastics treaty. 

- Finally, Melvin Backman discusses how U.S. CEOs' pay continues to rise far faster than that of other workers. And Norm Farrell offers a reminder that minimum wage increases tend to produce more as well as better jobs. 

Musical interlude

Shallou - Fading

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Benji Jones writes that the long-predicted mass death of coral reefs due to climate change is coming to pass even as the climate breakdown continues to escalate. Adam Bailey highlights the obscene amounts of money still being thrown at fossil fuels - and the opportunity cost of spending to lock ourselves into dirty energy rather than building a clean future. And Kevin Jiang asks why Canadian governments are ignoring readily-available plans to make indoor air healthy for children. 

- Matteo Cimellaro reports on the work being done by Indigenous leaders to call out the use of the Arctic region as a dumping ground for plastic waste and other dangerous substances. And Maria Paula Rubiano discusses new research showing that exposure to chemicals in plastics results in an increased risk of cancer (among other dangers to health). 

- Ed Zitron writes about the deliberate process which resulted in Google undermining the usefulness of its search engine in order to extract value from users and advertisers alike. And Stephen Moore is nostalgic for the sense of curiosity and excitement which has been ground down by the corporate takeover of online activity.  

- Luke LeBrun talks to economists about the typical false debate playing out over fair taxation - as overwrought Con attacks on feeble Lib plans ignore the reality that there's room to ensure the rich contribute far more to the sources of their wealth.  

- Finally, Arno Kopecky discusses how Pierre Poilievre is bent on seeing the next election fought over a false portrayal of carbon pricing - to the exclusion of any issues which could actually improve people's lives to any meaningful extent. And Christopher Holcroft writes about the risks of normalizing Poilievre's contempt for truth and democracy.