Thursday, March 23, 2023

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Dave Hansen et al. discuss the attempt in progress by publishers to attack the Internet Archive in order to restrict access to materials. And Walled Culture examines the problem of trying to preserve any "public domain" at all when the profit motive militates toward turning everything into a limited-access profit centre. 

- In a similar vein, Taylor Noakes implores Doug Ford to learn from the success of Montreal's Parc Jean-Drapeau as a model for land use, rather than turning public park land into a developer's plaything. But Elizabeth Payne reports that Ford's determination to monetize his stay in power extends to limiting hospitals' ability to operate in order to divert staff to for-profit surgical businesses.  

- Nicholas Hune-Brown writes that the housing crisis (and the lack of an effective response) can be traced largely to the fact that artificial scarcity represents a windfall for a lucky few. 

- Arielle Samuelsson discusses the IPCC's latest climate report, including its recognition that oil and gas use has to be reduced for us to have any hope of limiting the damage to our planet. Oxford University Press points out new research confirming that tax policy alone can't be expected to get carbon pollution down to a liveable level. And Brian Kahn reports on an emerging academic view that fossil fuel companies can and should be held criminally responsible for knowingly causing deaths. 

- Finally, Scientific Frontline takes note of research into new water treatment to remove "forever chemicals" from the water we drink. 

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