Saturday, June 01, 2019

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The NDP has released its Power to Change climate plan, including steps to create green jobs and give effect to Indigenous rights while meeting emission reduction targets needed to contribute to the international fight against climate breakdown. And Christo Aivilis offers his first impressions, while Jolson Lim focuses on the plan for fare-free, zero-emission public transit which would combine substantial environmental benefits with improvements in affordability for the people who need it most. 

- Meanwhile, Sean Holman implores the media to start treating the climate crisis as an emergency. And David Roberts points out how California has managed to make substantially more progress on energy efficiency than the rest of the U.S., while also examining the lack of a reasonable basis to push natural gas expansion as a "bridge" to a clean energy economy. 

- Kim Samuel notes that a higher nominal GDP isn't actually leading to improved well-being for the people being told that everything's fine. Anne Gaviola highlights how an undue obsession with homeownership results in both poor policy choices, and financial stresses on younger workers feeling social pressure to pursue it. And Zi-Ann Lum reports that Canadian life expectancies are stagnating due to an opioid crisis created by predatory capitalists. 

- Brian Merchant argues that we shouldn't blame faceless technology for job losses when it's the choice of executives to push workers out the door. Terri Gerstein reports on Colorado's steps to crack down on wage theft rather than taking it as a given that unscrupulous employers will get away with denying pay to their workers. And PressProgress points out that Jason Kenney is doing the bidding of his corporate masters by slashing wages and overtime pay and placing obstacles in the way of unionization.

- Finally, Quentin Fottrell writes about the connection between social class, overconfidence and undue advantages in employment.

3 comments:

  1. The problem I have, Craig, with the NDP and their climate epiphany is that, with an election just months away, it's obvious opportunism. There's no way the NDP will form government. Those days are gone. Their green makeover is aimed at one thing, preventing the Green Party from bleeding support from the NDP. The NDP is in the basement where it belongs and it'll stay that way even if it manages to subvert the Green Party. It's the old NDP 'dog in the manger' ploy and it stinks. You know the doctrine of "late invention." That applies to politics as much as it does to law.

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  2. Sorry, Greg, for calling you Craig. I know better.

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  3. So you're saying the NDP shouldn't be allowed to pursue green policies?

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