Friday, May 19, 2023

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- David Slater and Charles Rusnell write about the unconscionable lack of any meaningful discussion of the climate breakdown in Alberta's provincial election even as much of the province has been ablaze and/or facing extreme air quality warnings. Brad Plumer reports on a new study showing how temperatures are likely to soar even further in the next 5 years even as emission targets are pushed far past that point. And Nicole Kearney and Hannah Blair discuss the health impacts of fossil gas as its pushers try to avoid any discussion of either its harms or the obvious alternatives. 

- Meanwhile, Deonie Allen, Melanie Bergmann and Steve Allen examine how microplastics have collected in shockingly large quantities in Arctic ice algae, offering a reminder that there's nowhere on the planet that's escaping the effects of the reckless disposal of waste without regard for its impact on the environment. 

- Sam Pizzigati points out that the wealthy haven't always run roughshod over workers in the U.S.' class war - and that in fact the country isn't far removed from an era where the working class made massive gains (until the full weight of the rich was focused on taking those off the table). But Gillian Petit and Lindsay Tedds note that the UCP is planning to distort Alberta's tax system to further favour wealthy males over everybody else. 

- Corin Faife reports on the dystopian prospect of AI-driven debt collection, simultaneously reducing the cost of constant harassment to near zero and taking any hint of humanity out of the drive to squeeze money from people already lacking it. 

- Finally, Linda McQuaig highlights how the Ford PCs' health care privatization schemes - like those in other provinces - are making care both more expensive for the public and worse for patients. 

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