This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Sandra Laville reports on a new actuarial study showing that the shocks expected on our existing path of climate breakdown could result in half of the world's economic activity disappearing before the end of the century, while Nikhil Venkatesh argues that anybody caring about long-term welfare needs to incorporate challenges to the capitalist forces which threaten it. And Sharon Kelly maps out the echo chamber used by the oil, plastics and agrichemical industries to try to prevent us from perceiving any option other than destruction as usual.
- Rebecca Shaw expresses surprise only at how embarrassing our corporate overlords are in seeking approval while destroying the planet, while Felix Salmon discusses how the wealthiest few now feel empowered to impose their worst impulses on everybody. And Amanda Marcotte discusses how Donald Trump's populist con job has given way to strictly-enforced oligarchy, while Marc Lee points out how Pierre Poilievre is yet another cynical politican pretending to speak for the working class in order to better serve his corporate masters.
- Grace Blakeley offers a reminder that the only viable response to concentrated wealth and power is collective action. And Andrea Pitzer discusses the need to move beyond worrying and speculating to shape the course of events.
- Noelle Allen writes that Canada doesn't need yet another "pro-business" prime minister when it's deference to corporate interests that has trapped so many people in precarity and despair to begin with. And John Clarke discusses how neoliberal austerity has fed the rise of the alt-right.
- Suzanne Rent interviews Scott Santens about the value of a basic income in giving people the ability both to say "no" to exploitation, and to say "yes" to causes worth pursuing.
- Finally, Simon Enoch points out how public libraries which are perpetually starved for funding serve far more people (and perform far more important functions) than the major event venues which are regularly showered with public money.
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