Assorted content to end your week.
- Jillian Ambrose reports on a study showing that there's no reason to approve any new fossil fuel development to meet current demand forecasts - and every reason to reject new projects as they push us toward further climate breakdown.
- Gordon McBean discusses the need to hold the oil and gas sector accountable for decades of lying about climate change. And Max Fawcett writes about the perpetual dishonesty of the dirty energy industry in misrepresenting scientific research - but as Amanda Follett Hosgood reports, the public is being punished for the release of findings of misleading advertising.
- Meanwhile, Naveena Sadasivam reports on the dangerous quantities of methane being emitted by landfills.
- Mariana Mazzucato weighs in on the immense waste of resources involved in using massive amounts of energy on AI data centres. And Asaf Tchazor et al. warn that inaccurate information in AI-generated agricultural advice could precipitate food shortages - though it's apparently not yet at the point of recommending Brawndo for irrigation purposes.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla reports on Japan's move to make all publicly-funded research subject to open access.
- Finally, Martin Lukacs writes about the class war pantomime which clouds any real discussion of wealth and power inequality in Canada - including the fact that the Cons' corporate backers know better than to take Pierre Poilievre's posturing seriously:
The establishment media, in turn, have either amplified his anti-corporate message, or reinforced it by bemoaning it. In the Toronto Star, Susan Delacourt tut-tutted about the unfortunate “demonization” of “big business” (before admitting she’s close buds with lobbyists).
They’ve thus let Poilievre wear his chosen mantle, despite all the contradictory evidence: nearly half his governing council are lobbyists, every other week he is hobnobbing and fundraising in their presence, and his main advisor owns not one but two lobby firms.
But he’s keeping up the schtick because it’s working. A few weeks ago, he continued the corporate bashing in an op-ed in the National Post, telling business leaders to “cancel your lunch meeting at the Rideau Club,” “fire your lobbyist,” and “go to the people.”
A rare journalist at iPolitics decided to solicit the view of lobbyists themselves.
“The entire public affairs community in Canada smiled knowingly reading that National Post article,” one veteran lobbyist said . “A government led by Pierre Poilievre with his ministers will absolutely continue to engage the way they have with corporate Canada.”
In other words, they got Poilievre’s message: rest assured, the circus is for the rabble.
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