Flight Facilities feat. Jess - Foreign Language
Friday, October 27, 2023
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Sultan al Jaber and Vanessa Kerry offer a reminder that a climate breakdown in progress represents a foundational danger to human health and well-being. Geoffrey Diehl observes that the root causes of the crisis are greed and strictly-enforced ignorance. Miki Perkins points out that the response of governments has been to shovel more and more free money at the fossil fuel sector to keep spewing the carbon pollution, while Mitchell Beer reports on demands by carbon capture and storage operators for leniency as their promises fall by the wayside. And John Woodside reports on the Parliamentary Budget Office's findings that we could instead bring in billions by taxing windfall profits so the oil sector funds at least part of the cost of repairing its harm to our planet.
- Kaitlin A. Naughten, Paul R. Holland and Jan De Rydt examine the locked-in loss of ice from West Antarctica through the 21st century. And Catrin Einhorn highlights the scientists who are seeing their life's work disappear as the great extinction takes hold.
- Cory Doctorow discusses how intellectual property rights and software controls have resulted in our having meaningful ownership over very little of what we buy. And Ethan Sawyer reports that we can add Hallowe'en candy to the list of goods getting more expensive due to corporate greedflation.
- Finally, Robert Reich writes about the importance of fighting bullying in all of its forms as a precondition to any prospect of social justice.
Thursday, October 26, 2023
Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.
- William Ripple et al. offer a new and alarming state of the climate report. And Damian Carrington delves into their findings as to the precarious state of the Earth's living environment, while Becky Ferreira highlights their warning of societal collapse within the next century if we don't reverse the current course toward climate catastrophe.
- But if there's any doubt whether our corporate overlords care in the slightest about that imminent risk, Jessica Wildfire draws the connection between Thomas Malthus' explicit desire to eradicate the lower classes and the policy choices being pushed by today's political and economic elites.
- Michelle Gamage discusses how a shortage of health care workers is undermining the well-being of patients and remaining staff alike. And Cory Doctorow weighs in on the need for a well-resourced and effective civil service to protect the public interest.
- Jon Steinman muses about the prospect that people may become sufficiently fed up with exploitation by corporate grocery chains to revitalize the cooperative model for food supplies.
- Finally, Rohan Anand and M Eugenia Socias write about the strategies needed to respond to the toxic drug crisis - with a public health lens serving as the first and most important.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Ed Broadbent discusses how economic equality is a precondition to freedom for the majority of the population. Chris McGreal reviews Angus Deaton's book on the role of the corporatist assumptions of economists in fomenting a war on the poor. And John McDonnell warns that Keir Starmer appears to be hoping for his opponents to hand him the UK's next election while neglecting the need for policy that would actually improve the material conditions of the working class.
- Benjamin Shinger reports on the IEA's latest study concluding that fossil fuel consumption will peak in 2030 even without any policy steps to advance the transition to cleaner energy. And Fiona Harvey reports on a UN report calling for an end to new fossil fuel exploration by that time.
- Simon Enoch and Charles Smith discuss the cynical political calculation behind the Moe government's use of the notwithstanding clause to attack trans children, while Trudy Keil points out the distractions included in the legislation to obfuscate the reality that its only real effect is to further endanger vulnerable youth. And the Economist offers its own take on Scott Moe's choice to import the U.S.' culture wars to Canada.
- Finally, Adam Nichols reports on the contents of a leaked white nationalists' manual confirming the violent intent of the racist right. And Ryan Meili offers his take on how to respond to reactionaries.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- Jessica Wildfire examines the continued threat of COVID-19 even as governments have largely decided to stop recognizing its devastating effects on public health. And Tom Kitchin points out how the same phenomenon has played out even in New Zealand (which was once one of the few success stories in limiting the spread of COVID).
- Arthur Neslen reports on the suppression of the findings of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on the climate impacts of methane originating with livestock. And Isaac Shan Nay reports on the Ford PCs' choice to scuttle First Nations' conservation plans.
- Meanwhile, Matt Elliott discusses how Toronto's introduction of "traffic agents" serves mostly to highlight how pointless it is to shackle transportation policy with the requirement that cars take precedence over people.
- David Moscrop is justifiably frustrated with the Ford two-step of reluctantly backtracking from utterly indefensible policies only in the face of immense and sustained public pressure. Noah Smith argues that the U.S. needs a larger and better-resourced civil service to ensure policy decisions aren't based solely on politicians' whims or corporate profit motives. And Crawford Kilian reviews Chris Rufo's plans to destroy what's left of existing public institutions so you don't have to.
- Finally, Peter Zimonjic reports on the House of Commons Agriculture Committee's plans to again question corporate grocers about their price-gouging - though it's telling that the only apparent plan is to ask them to stabilize prices rather than delving into what can be done through government action. And Cory Doctorow examines how corporate meat suppliers have been colluding to drive up prices for decades without consequences.
Monday, October 23, 2023
Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Sonia Sodha discusses how children will bear the brunt of COVID's effects for years due to decision-makers have prioritized short-term profits and frivolities over their futures. And Clare Wilson reports on new research showing how investing in air filtration can limit the ongoing effects of the pandemic.
- Jennifer Lee reports on the strain being put on Alberta's health care system by yet another uncontrolled wave of COVID-19. Avis Favaro reports both on new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information showing that over a million patients left Canadian emergency rooms without care in the 2022-2023 year, and CIHI findings that soaring rates of errors and patient harms can be traced to increased overtime and use of private agency staff as a substitute for supporting health care workers. And Colette Derworiz reports on the first medical clinic to opt out of Saskatchewan's public health care system as the Moe government continues to offer nothing but neglect.
- Johan Rockstrom and Mary Robinson write about the desperate need to stop gambling with our living environment. And John Woodside discusses how carbon capture and storage is a lose-lose bet: serving at best as a fig leaf for increased fossil fuel production, and at worst as a constant threat to release exactly the carbon pollution it's theoretically supposed to contain.
- Finally, Peter Armstrong writes that while inflation is cooling down in theory, the combination of hiked prices and increased interest rates is still causing severe affordability problems for all but the wealthiest few. And Sophia Harris reports on the continued use of shrinkflation by the food industry to hide how people are getting less for what they pay.
Friday, October 20, 2023
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.
- Sigal Samuel discusses the potential to better target investments toward well-being - though it seems odd to criticize measures of health as a standard alongside GDP. And Cory Doctorow writes about Deb Chachra's observation that we should view infrastructure as a form of mutual aid.
- Carl Meyer reports on Suncor CEO Rich Kruger's dissembling and evasion in response to questioning about his company's plans to increase carbon pollution for decades to come. Markham Hislop highlights how the regular release of toxic chemicals into drinking water for the tar sands should be treated as an intolerable regulatory failure rather than merely a PR issue for the oil industry. And Shari Narine reports on the Assembly of First Nations' message that Indigenous involvement is vital to the development of climate change solutions.
- Douglas Main points out the glaring gap between the promise of recycling plastics, and the reality that plastic pollution is overwhelming our natural environment. And andrea bennett interviews Taras Grescoe about the need to work with natural ecosystems to secure our food supply, rather than presuming that industrialized monocultures controlled by greedy rentiers are our only option.
- Finally, Luke LeBrun exposes how the Cons invited violent extremists and conspiracy theorists into Parliament as "VIP" guests.
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- Arijit Chakravarthy and Martha Lincoln offer a reminder that COVID-19 isn't about to go away just because we're refusing to deal with it. And CBC News and Adam Toy report on renewed masking requirements in Manitoba and Alberta health care facilities respectively.
- Meanwhile, Roberta Lexier and Joe Vipond write about the need to respond to critical threats such as COVID-19 and the climate crisis with facts rather than fantasies. But Mike De Souza exposes how Danielle Smith is systematically preventing Albertans from having access to anything of the sort.
- Matthew Rosza asks why a climate breakdown which is making our planet uninhabitable is somehow being ignored rather than treated as the top news story of our time. And Andrew Nikiforuk points out how the Trans Mountain pipeline is proving to be an ever-deepening money pit (even as its best-case scenario would result in its worsening the climate crisis for the sake of enriching oil barons).
- Brian Doucet discusses the housing strategies which have helped to somewhat alleviate the shortage of affordable homes in some Canadian communities - with public housing authorities and protections for tenants serving as the most promising examples. But Rumneek Johal reports that real estate executives are shoveling massive amounts of cash at the federal Cons in an effort to ensure federal housing policy serves to goose their profits rather than meeting people's needs.
- Finally, Alex Purdye examines how greedflation is at the root of the growth of increasing food prices (and grocery chain profits).
Monday, October 16, 2023
Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Somasetty Suresh examines the symptoms associated with long COVID, while Elizabeth Cooney reports on new research hinting at the depletion of peripheral serotonin as one of its causes. And Jamie Ducharme points out that the CDC (and other public health authorities) still has much-needed recommendations as to isolation in place - even if few organizations are bothering to allow people to abide by them.
- Meanwhile, Peter Simons discusses how apparent "patient advocacy organizations" are often funded and controlled by pharmaceutical and medical supply companies seeking to goose their own sales.
- Seth Borenstein reports that even in the wake of multiple catastrophes caused by a climate breakdown in progress, the U.S. is producing more carbon-polluting oil than ever before. And Capital & Main highlights the inability of tree-planting to actually counter the harms from continued carbon pollution.
- Cory Doctorow writes about the long-awaited declaration of invalidity of Landmark Technology's patent which claimed exclusive rights over virtually every aspect of online business operations - while also pointing out the absurdity of allowing such grossly unproductive rentier capitalism to be as profitable as it's been for decades.
- Finally, Elijah Anderson discusses how any success and prosperity among Black Americans has been used to stoke white backlash.
Friday, October 13, 2023
Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week.
- Andrew Freedman examines how the climate breakdown is generating consequences far beyond those foreseen by previous projections. Seth Borenstein reports on the immense loss of Antarctic ice - and the danger it poses to coastal areas in particular. And Michael Mann points to the rise and fall of the Akkadian Empire as a precedent as to what can happen when heat and drought force people to migrate en masse.
- The IEA offers a roadmap to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, with an emphasis on a rapid conversion to clean energy. And David Vetter notes that the arguments used by petropoliticians looking for excuses to block renewable power sources lack any basis in reality.
- But Sarah Munoz discusses how the oil industry is bent on spinning the climate crisis as a matter of individual responsibility rather than social organization in order to keep on spewing carbon pollution for decades to come. And Chris Tomlinson reports on the increased demands on energy systems (and resulting cost to consumers) from power-hogging crypto miners, while Victor Tangerman points out that the use of AI technology may produce a similar effect.
- Devi Sridhar discusses how the UK Cons (like so many other right-wing parties) used the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to enrich cronies who lacked any ability to deliver what they were paid for.
- Finally, Cory Doctorow writes that we have every reason to be skeptical of corporate shows of progressivity - but that the appropriate response is for workers to organize and stand up to bosses on teir own terms, not to accept the reactionary position that nothing is worth improving.
Thursday, October 12, 2023
Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Damian Carrington reports on new research showing that the cost of damage caused by extreme weather is already upwards of $16 million per hour (and escalating). And Peter Kalmus writes about the need to wind down the fossil fuel industry rather than accepting the loss of a habitable planet.
- But Helena Horton reports that the UK Cons are joining other right-wing parties in trying to stop the ongoing transition to clean energy. Matt Simmons reports on the BC Energy Regulator's complete failure to enforce any regulatory requirements for gas pipeline construction, while Julia Simone-Rutgers reports on the systematic defunding of environmental monitoring and enforcement in Manitoba. And Andrew Nikiforuk discusses how the UCP is once again trying to sneak dirty coal projects past courts and the public alike.
- And while governments are going out of their way to cater to the sociopaths looking to sell off humanity's future to make a quick buck, Nina Lakhari, Damien Gayle and Matthew Taylor report that they're also using the power of the state to criminalize climate activism.
- David Climenhaga discusses how the UCP's choice of private telehealth providers has gone bankrupt, leaving millions without the health care they were forced to accept through corporate means.
- Finally, Mack DeGeurin does report on the approval of a right-to-repair law in California.
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Sameer Elsayed offers a primer on what people need to know about current COVID-19 risks. Mary Van Beusekom discusses the likelihood that long COVID is being underdiagnosed in children who may not have either the same symptoms as adults, or the vocabulary to describe them. And Theocharis Kromidas et al. examine the incidence of long COVID by occupation, with education and care workers facing a higher risk of long-term effects.
- Juan Cole theorizes that lawsuits against fossil fuel conglomerates could make for a turning point in the fight against climate breakdown. But Christopher Pollon warns that Canada's resource extraction sector offers a blueprint for corporate exploiters to avoid paying for the damage they inflict on our planet.
- Cory Doctorow discusses the information imbalance which makes it impossible for citizens to hold corporate wrongdoers to account. And Brewster Kahle writes that U.S. libraries are facing twin threats from greedy publishers and anti-knowledge extremists.
- But on the bright side, Amanda Marcotte points out how parents are pushing back against the bigoted right's attempted takeover of public schools.
- Finally, Jennifer Liu highlights how workers are bearing the massive cost of being pushed back to the office even after it's been proven they can work just as effectively through alternate arrangements.
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Friday, October 06, 2023
Tuesday, October 03, 2023
Friday, September 29, 2023
Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week.
- Chris Hedges discusses how the end of empire-based colonialism has only given way to an even more exploitative corporate version. And Cory Doctorow points out how surveillance capitalism inevitably turns its resources toward defrauding the people being monitored and manipulated.
- Matthew Rosza interviews Michael Mann about the need to pair accurate information about the threat posed by climate change with discussion of how it's possible to take positive action.
- Kevin Drum graphs the connection between lead contamination and murder rates in Washington DC. And Mira Rojanasakul reports on the rise of saltwater levels in New Orleans, with the foreseeable results including the salination of drinking water sources and the release of lead and other matter from pipes.
- Bob Weber reports on new polling showing a strong majority of Albertans opposed to the UCP's attacks on renewable energy. And Gary Mason calls out Danielle Smith's plan to use Albertans' retirement savings as a slush for for the oil industry as a Brexit-style calamity in the making.
- Finally, Emily Leedham reports on the Manitoba PCs' choice to offer only meaningless guesswork in place of any plan to ensure people have access to health care.
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