Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Al Jazeera reports on the World Meteorological Organization's analysis showing that greenhouse gas emissions reached yet another new high in 2022. Fiona Harvey reports on the findings in the World Resources Institute's State of Climate Action report, including the reality that transitional steps are several times short of what's needed to avert a climate catastrophe. (On that front, Chuck Squatriglia reports on the promise of acceleration by the US and China - but it's far from sure that will be the subject of either sufficient follow-through by the parties or general acceptance by climate obstructionists.) And Mike Joy highlights how there's no prospect of offsetting continued carbon pollution from fossil fuels with tree-planting or other sequestration schemes.  

- Casey Ross and Bob Herman expose how the U.S.' largest health insurer is using algorithmic decision-making to cut off needed rehabilitation for patients. And Helen Santoro reports on another insurer's lobbying efforts to avoid covering mental health care in Michigan. 

- Katherine Rowland interviews Naomi Klein about how profit-based individual wellness culture has served as a platform for anti-social misinformation. 

- Finally, Amanda Marcotte writes about the suicide of a gender non-conforming Republican mayor after he was outed and made the subject of public abuse by the GOP's anti-LGBTQ+ media. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Steven Woolf examines the inescapable connection between political choices and avoidable COVID-19 deaths between U.S. states. And Christopher Blackwell discusses how the pandemic may never end in prisons where authorities are even less interested in ensuring the health of the people whose lives depend on their decisions. 

- Luke Savage makes the case to tax the windfall profits being greedily accumulated by the fossil fuel industry. And Scott Schmidt writes that the Kenney UCP's refusal to consider any budgeting philosophy other than crushing austerity even in the midst of an oil boom proves that there's no time it will ever invest in the well-being of Albertans. 

- Naomi Klein discusses the use of toxic nostalgia to keep us tethered both to the continued of fossil fuels, and the extractive mindset needed to overlook its harms. And Philippe Fournier writes about surveys showing a large number of Con and PPC members who have fully bought into Trumpism. 

- Tim Louis writes about the growing scientific consensus around the reality - and imminent danger - of climate feedback loops. 

- Finally, David Moscrop argues that it's long past time to decriminalize drug use and focus on harm reduction rather than gratuitous criminalization and stigmatization. 

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Ed Yong discusses how the field of public health has been marginalized by the false assumption that the task of keeping people healthy shouldn't play a role in our political choices.

- Nadeem Badshah reports on Greta Thunberg's message to countries participating in COP26 that we can't afford any more climate denial.

- Olamide Olaniyan interviews Naomi Klein about the hope for a breakthrough in applying an ethic of care to our natural and human environments. Alexander Kaufman reports on new research confirming that investments in renewable energy produce several times more jobs than comparable spending on fossil fuels. And Alexander Verbeek reports on the U.S.' recognition that a climate breakdown represents a severe security threat (among other calamitous outcomes).

- But Sandy Garossino writes that we shouldn't let the underwhelming contents of UCP's anti-environmental inquiry override our outrage at an abuse of power. And Andrew MacLeod reports on B.C.'s willingness to allow oil and gas companies to procrastinate (and likely welch) on their obligation to clean up their messes.

- Finally, Alan Freeman discusses how Stephen Harper is cozying up to dictatorships for financial gain even while continuing to operate behind the scenes of Canada's conservative parties. And CBC News reports on the Sask Party's push to hold a fire sale of Crown lands to undermine both public interests and treaty rights - and the work of Betty Nippi-Albright and others in trying to stop them.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Lynn Giesbrecht talks to Alexander Wong about the Moe government's refusal to prepare for a fourth wave of COVID-19 that's been readily obvious to anybody willing to pay attention. Ed Yong writes about the efforts of long-haul COVID patients to have policymakers acknowledge their need for support and treatment. And Michela Antonelli et al. find that the benefits of vaccines include reducing the likelihood of long-duration symptoms, while David Cole and Daniel Mach make the case that mandatory vaccination is a freedom-enhancing option compared to forcing people to endure the avoidable risk of a debilitating disease. 

- Meanwhile, Armine Yalnizyan examines some of the social changes that have arisen out of the COVID and climate crises. 

- Sarah Chaney Cambon and Danny Dougherty discuss how Republican cuts to COVID benefits served only to plunge people into poverty without seeing any improvement in job growth. Leah Willingham and Jay Reeves point out that people without resources have faced the worst of Hurricane Ida due to their inability to escape emergency circumstances. And Jessica Bruno writes about the gap between the income people need to thrive in the GTA as currently structured, and the amount most residents actually bring in. 

- Jacqui Germain interviews Naomi Klein about disaster capitalism in the midst of far too many examples of its operation. And Megan Brenan reports on the continued growth in popularity of unions in the U.S. as people recognize the need for collective action to counter corporate power. 

- Chris Ensing reports that an explosion near Wheatley, Ontario may be just the start of the carnage resulting from abandoned gas wells. And Alex Bozikovic discusses how denser cities are an essential part of any plan to avert climate disaster.  

- Finally, Damian Carrington reports on new research showing that air pollution is cutting short the lives of billions of people. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- ABC News reports on the risk that the Delta COVID-19 variant can be spread through "fleeting" exposure rather than prolonged proximity. Daniel Boffey reports on the push to speed up vaccination rates in Europe in response. And Attila Somfalvi and Alexandra Lukash report that Israel is reinstating its mask mandate after realizing how much more danger the Delta variant poses. 

- Seth Klein wonders whether Jonathan Wilkinson will ever parallel the role of C.D. Howe in assembling the full force of Canada's economic capacity to serve a vital end in the fight against climate breakdown - though the more likely result for appears to be the Libs continuing to echo the "phony war" prior to full mobilization. John Woodside reports on the PBO's conclusions that the federal government is far from having any realistic plan to reach Canada's existing emission reduction commitments. And Michelle Gamage writes about the importance taking into account the climate disaster of forest emissions in assessing what needs to be done. 

- Tom Parkin examines how Justin Trudeau has chosen to delay any legislation against conversion therapy for political purposes. 

- Bianca Mugyenyi discusses the need to organize to transform Canada's foreign policy into a force for human rights and environmental protection. 

- Penelope Mason reports on the call by a top IMF official for the richest people in Latin America to pay far more in taxes to fund equitable development.  

- Finally, Naomi Klein interviews Doreen Manuel and Kanahus Manuel about the deliberate choice to steal Indigenous children from their families and communities as part of a colonial land grab. And Brendan Kennedy and Alex Boyd talk to Indigenous leaders in Saskatchewan about the children's gravesites yet to be discovered. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Marcin Osuchowski et al. highlight the importance of updating our understanding of COVID-19 rather than presuming it behaves the same way as previously-studied diseases. Sandy Barnard writes that we can't blame service workers for deciding they're best off not risking their lives for poverty wages from employers who don't value their health or well-being. And Gavin Fridell argues that Canada can't keep clinging to the unethical position that intellectual property monopolies over publicly-developed vaccines are more important than controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.

- Naomi Klein writes about the intersection of crises in California as climate breakdown-fuelled wildfires are leaving people without any ability to find scarce housing.

- CBC News talks to Angela Carter about the reality that Newfoundland and Labrador is past the point where it can count on oil revenues to fund a just transition. Jeff Lagerquist reports on a new survey showing how Canada is falling behind other countries in investing in clean energy. Arjun Makhijani and M.V. Ramana highlight why small nuclear reactors aren't a viable part of a transition to clean power. And Sharon Riley examines how the global steel industry is moving away from the use of coal - even as Jason Kenney and other try to peddle strip mining for that purpose now that they've given up the pretense of needing coal power.

- Elizabeth Thompson reports on PIPSC's recognition that the federal government is making the choice not to ensure that sufficient resources are available to investigate offshore tax evasion.

- Finally, Sabrina Eliason writes about the urgent need for improved child care and developmental supports to make life easier for Alberta parents.

Tuesday Morning Links

 This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Andrea Reimer examines the power dynamics at play in government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the limits of formal political power where it isn't paired with knowledge and networks. And the Globe and Mail's editorial board rightly questions the dubious math behind the choice of Doug Ford (like many other conservative premiers) to accept widespread disease and death rather than taking meaningful steps to rein in the coronavirus.

- Shaun Lintern reports on new research showing that long COVID results in substantial numbers of hospitalizations and deaths beyond the ones recognized at the time a person is first infected.

- Eric Reguly discusses how compulsory licensing is an entirely viable option to ensure that pharmaceutical manufacturers aren't able to withhold COVID vaccines from less wealthy countries.

- Naomi Klein writes that Texas Republicans (and other right-wing parties) fear a Green New Deal in no small part because it provides an alternative to the dangerous combination of small government and large-scale corporate control. And Joel Laforest writes about Jason Kenney's losing bet on Keystone XL in particular (and an indefinite oil boom more generally). 

- Bob Weber reports on the nine-figure property tax bill which the oil sector has left unpaid to rural municipalities. And Jillian Ambrose reports on the massive waste emissions from UK offshore oil platforms.

- Finally, Marc Spooner writes about the dangers of performance-based funding in setting up warped and short-sighted incentives for universities.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Marco Ranaldi and Branko Milanovic study the relationship between inequality of inputs and inequality of outcomes - finding in particular that countries with relatively equal sources of income reliably produce comparatively fair income levels as well. And they also note that it's possible to achieve greater equality by ensuring the regular redistribution of concentrated wealth - reflecting Matt Elliott's case for Toronto to follow through on a vacant residence tax. 

- But Juliana Kaplan and Dominic-Madori Davis remind us that charity on the part of people who retain extreme wealth and power shouldn't be treated as a substitute for structural equalization.

- Marc Lee and Seth Klein discuss the need for oil and gas royalty regimes to account for an industry on the wane. And Roger Harabin reports on new research showing how the UK can eliminate the vast majority of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 based on an eminently affordable investment - though sadly the Trudeau Libs are falling far short of even their own unambitious promises to build a greener energy system. 

- Of course, any transition to clean energy also has to reckon with the fossil fuel industry's propaganda machine. On that front, Naomi Klein calls out Jason Kenney's latest conspiracy-mongering around any effort to plan a clean energy transition. And David Lapp Jost writes about the culture of death it has deliberately fostered in the U.S. to devalue the lives of drivers, pedestrians and people affected by pollution in order to keep the emissions spewing.

- Finally, Taylor Balfour asks how many more Saskatchewan people will die of the opioid epidemic (as her sister did). And Sarath Peiris implores Scott Moe to finally start listening to public health experts rather than letting short-sighted business lobbyists condemn his constituents to death as a result of COVID-19.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lauren Dobson-Hughes discusses how we're paying the price for the failure of governments to protect their citizens from the collective action problem of a pandemic. And Shawn Moen points out how COVID-19 has exposed many people to multiple underlying crises which need to be reckoned with.

- Meanwhile, Gregory Beatty notes that the CERB has reminded us both of the value of an easily-accessible basic income, and the risks of assuming that a cash payout will be sufficient to address a broad range of social needs. And Bonnie Allen reports on the people now unable to pay rent due to the Moe government's decision to punt them off of provincial assistance without making any plans to restore benefits when the CERB came to an end. 

- Abacus Data is the latest pollster to find a strong majority of Canadians (of all party preferences) in favour of a wealth tax. 

- Darrin Qualman, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, André Magnan and Mengistu Wendimu examine how concentration and inequality among prairie farms are affecting both the agricultural sector, and the structure of rural life. And Kanahus Manuel and Naomi Klein discuss the "land back" movement to restore unceded territory to Indigenous control.

- Finally, Alex Ballingall reports on the prospect that federal child care funding might soon be attached to national standards - though it's a thorough indictment of decades of Lib promises that they've never bothered to reach that step before.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (via Behind the Numbers) examines how women are bearing the brunt of homelessness and insecure housing in the midst of a pandemic, while Victoria Gibson reports on the increasing number of children in Toronto's homeless shelters. Ben Miljure reports on just one of the landlords ignoring any prohibition against evictions to try to force people out of a home. Conor Dougherty warns of the impending wave of evictions as the U.S.' protections for tenants expire. And Naomi Klein warns about the risks facing a lockdown generation - while noting that housing solutions which worked during the Great Depression would provide more support than the government is bothering with now.

- Meanwhile, Nill Kaplan-Myrth discusses the need for the workers and experts in all areas of social policy to work together in solving the social problems which have been exposed by COVID-19. Marta Zaraska is hopeful that we can emerge from the pandemic with a renewed focus on kindness and social responsibility. And the Guardian points out a plan by Stephen Machin and Lee Elliot Major to ensure the wealthiest few pay their fair share to fund the assistance people need.

- Kiera Krogstad expresses her disappointment in the Moe government's sad excuse for a back-to-school plan from the perspective of a high school student, while Carla Shynkaruk reports on the plight of a family with an immunocompromised child. Adam Miller surveys a group of experts on what's missing from provincial plans so far, while Tess Kalinowski reports on the thorough federal-level recommendations which aren't reflected in provincial choices. And Jack Power and Jack Horgan-Jones report on Ireland's large-scale teacher hiring and capital grants to ensure that distancing is possible within schools.

- Finally, David Shukman writes about the impending future in which the summer is too hot for humans to survive over large swaths of the planet. And Moira Warburton reports on the collapse of the Milne Ice Shelf as just the latest climate disaster which shows how we're failing to avert a complete breakdown of our natural environment.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Radheyan Simonpillai discusses new polling showing how COVID-19 has caused stress on multiple levels. Al Etmanski writes about the importance of continuing to operate based on a mindset of caring for each other even once the worst of the pandemic is over. And Katharine Viner interviews Naomi Klein about the dangers of merely returning to the status quo after a crisis which has exposed its unconscionability.

- Paris Marx suggests that governments respond to the factors which have led to both failed real estate investment and housing insecurity by turning vacant AirBNB properties into affordable housing.

- Moira Wyton discusses the widespread tragedy of drug overdose deaths in British Columbia, with hundreds of people now losing their lives every month. And Zak Vescera reports on the record number of overdoses taking place in Saskatoon even as Scott Moe's government refuses to fund any harm reduction.

- Meanwhile, Marie Agioritis and Jenny Churchill comment on the need to properly fund mental health and addictions services. And Erin Seatter points out the movement among health professionals calling for police funding to be diverted to public health supports.

- Finally, Thomas Walkom discusses the folly of fearmongering over deficits at a time when government support is necessary to sustain both citizens and businesses through a public health emergency.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Ronan Burtenshaw discusses the British public's strong support for a New Deal featuring higher wages and more fair tax contributions by the rich as the UK plans for a recovery from the coronavirus. But Naomi Klein calls out how COVID-19 is instead being used to give all the more power to tech billionaires who only want to remake society to enhance their power and goose their profits.

- The Economist points out the increasingly-glaring gap between the real economy and the stock market. And Chuck Collins discusses how the wealthiest few in the U.S. are only getting richer through the pandemic which has left nearly everybody else in a precarious financial position, while J.C. Pan likewise recognizes that billionaires are swallowing the rest of the economy whole.

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman highlights the reasons why Republicans are determined not to help Americans facing hunger and hardship.

- Victoria Gill reports on Mark Carney's recognition that self-isolation won't save us from the effects of a climate breakdown. And Nina Lakhani discusses new researching showing that dangerous heart and humidity are on the rise.

- Finally, Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze observes that a full building retrofit program would work wonders both in ensuring sustainable development and reducing the damage we do to our planet. And Sean McElwee, Julian NoiseCat and John Ray note that U.S. voters are all the more supportive of a Green New Deal in light of the need for massive public investments to sustain and rebuild economic activity in any event.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Laura Flanders interviews Naomi Klein about the connection between the climate crisis and inequality - including her recognition that any attempt to address the former without simultaneously responding to the latter is doomed to fail:

But there are a lot of people who say, “Got it, we understand. We have to deal with racism and homelessness and health care, but right now we have a pollution, environmental recycling, consumer problems. Let’s just focus with that, with plastics or with the supply chain.”

Right. And frankly, I think that that has been the approach of the mainstream green movement for a long time. Sometimes said explicitly, sometimes sort of sotto voce, which is like, “Look, let’s just save the planet first and then we’ll deal with, you know, racism and inequality and gender exclusion and sort of just wait your turn.” And that doesn’t go over very well because for people who are on the front lines of all of those other crises, they’re all existential. I mean, if you can’t feed your kids, if you’re losing your house, if you are facing violence, all of it is existential.

And so, we just have to accept that we live in a time of multiple overlapping intersecting crises and we have to figure out how to multitask, which means we need to figure out how to lower emissions in line with what scientists are telling us, which is really fast. And we need to do it in a way that builds a fair economy in the process. Because if we don’t, people are so overstressed and overburdened because of 40 years of neoliberal policy, that when you introduce the kinds of carbon-centric policies that try to pry this crisis apart from all the others, what that actually looks like is you’re going to pay more for gas, you’re going to pay more for electricity. We’re just going to have a market-based response. And so, it’s perceived as just one more thing that is making life impossible.

- James Purtill writes about the lack of trust people throughout the developed world have in the likelihood that the efforts of workers will be rewarded - and the frustration they've developed with the capitalist system which has produced that disconnect. And Nicole Aschoff highlights how corporations are downright eager to sacrifice people's lives in the name of maximizing their short-term profits.

- Doug Cuthand writes that the increasingly disproportionate share of Indigenous people within Canada's prison population reflects ongoing discrimination within a colonial society. And Justin Brake reports on the RCMP's treatment of public support for Indigenous land protection as a threat to be beaten back through the power of the state.

- Finally, Max Fawcett points out that the UCP's plans to tie university funding to post-graduation income are particularly ill-suited for a boom-and-bust economy where the degrees which seemed most valuable a decade ago are turning into dead ends now.

Friday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Grace Blakeley discusses how the financialization of the economy has enriched a few at the expense of everybody else. And Blakeley and Harry Quilter-Pinner point out how social care in particular is suffering for having been turned into a profit centre.

- David Macdonald examines the anticipated effect of the NDP's wealth tax. George Monbiot proposes to go much further by setting an effective limit on individual wealth. And John Michael McGrath suggests that taxes on property flipping could both generate valuable revenue while also restraining excesses in housing speculation.

- Naomi Klein comments on the need for an ambitious Green New Deal, rather than the limited market mechanisms which are front and centre in Canada's discussion of climate policy. Andre Mayer points out that there's no conflict between the goals of transitioning to a clean economy and ensuring the availability of good jobs. And Andrew Nikiforuk reminds us that the people engaged in climate strikes aren't asking for anything more than for the rest of the world to catch up with what plenty of jurisdictions have already managed to achieve.

- Finally, Sarah Berman discusses what we'd see if Canada actually approached the fight to save a habitable planet as if it were a war.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- The L.A. Times' editorial board comments on the need for everybody to pitch in toward a just transition which preserves a habitable planet - including by moving away from reliance on fossil fuels. But Natalie Hanman interviews Naomi Klein about what instead looks to be the start of barbarism which dehumanizes the people facing the worst effects of a climate breakdown.

- Kelly Grant reports on a plan for Toronto's University Health Network to build affordable housing to address some of the causes of ill health - signalling the lack of supports available outside the health care system. And Richard Schneider laments how many mental health issues are addressed through criminal courts.

- Torsten Bell discusses how any proposal to eliminate the UK's inheritance tax would provide grossly disproportionate benefits to the wealthy - offering a reminder of how Canada is exacerbating intergenerational inequality by lacking one to begin with.

- Finally, John Ashton writes about the need for public activism across Alberta to challenge the Kenney UCP's plans for austerity and attacks on workers.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Chris Jackson presents a new Ipsos survey showing that the majority of American workers face stress issues at work. And Arthur White-Crumley reports on a spate of injuries at Evraz' Regina steel mill.

- Rob Ferguson reports on Doug Ford's attempt to ram through major health care restructuring (including a focus on privatization) without allowing the public a chance to fight back. And Elianna Lev talks to Danyaal Raza about the predictable harm from privatizing health care services.

- Meanwhile, Sherri Brown weighs in on Ford's appalling decision to limit per-child funding for autism based on the expectation that nobody deserves more of a chance than will fit into an arbitrary spending cap.

- Naomi Klein discusses the battle lines between advocates for a Green New Deal, and defenders of polluting the planet for the sake of further enriching present-day fossil fuel investors. And Marc Lee examines the future of carbon pricing in Canada.

- Finally, Craig Scott highlights how "trust us" is nowhere close to a sufficient response from Justin Trudeau as his government covers up its attempts to protect SNC-Lavalin from prosecution. And Adam Hunter reports on Ryan Meili's push for a review of Saskatchewan's dealings with SNC-Lavalin.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Michael Harris writes that we shouldn't expect politicians to lead the way toward the action we need to combat climate change. Katie Dangerfield reports on new research showing that the economic effects of carbon pricing are modest, while ignoring climate change will have massive costs. But Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood examines how the USCMA figures to lock in a fossil-fuel economy while failing to pay even lip service to our most fundamental challenge.
 
- Amanda Agan and Michael Makowsky study the social effects of a higher minimum wage, including a decrease in criminal recidivism.

- The CP reports on Doug Ford's latest move to prioritize cheap intoxicants over necessary public services.

- Finally, Naomi Klein discusses Donald Trump's standing as the U.S.' most glaring example of dynastic privilege being used to suppress the hopes of anybody who doesn't share the same fortune. And Christo Aivalis comments on the ongoing relevance of Mouseland as a metaphor for Canadian politics:

The story of Mouseland—which can be seen here in animated form—described a society where mice formed the majority of the population, and yet consistently elected governments comprised of cats. Those cats—be they white cats or black cats or spotted cats—passed laws that benefitted them, often to the detriment of the mice majority.

The story turns for Douglas when a little mouse comes along with a bold idea, which is that instead of electing a government of cats, they should choose their leadership from amongst themselves. Of course, that little mouse was branded a dangerous subversive and was locked up, but as Douglas says, “you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can’t lock up an idea.”

The allegory is clearly meant to apply to Canadian society, and Douglas makes that explicit: “Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada…and maybe you’ll see that they weren’t any stupider than we are.” For him, the story of Canadian politics was one where Liberal and Conservative cats ruled the roost while the masses of mice languished in poverty, precarity, and inequality. But when pioneering mice like J.S. Woodsworth stepped up to form the Labour Party and eventually the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, they offered a new path forward.
...
Mouseland is clearly a populist narrative. In our own times, many people, especially among the centrist elite, have equated populism with Trumpian far-right politics. Certainly, the right has been successful at tapping into popular discontent with the status quo, and has been able to portray wealthy leaders like Trump and Ford as regular joes. But as I’ve noted in other venues, populism is an essential component to any left wing programme which sincerely seeks to represent the masses of working-class people. Mouseland is just the sort of fable that sparks a populist understanding of politics, where the 99% of mice stop deferring to the feline elite, and start doing politics differently. Where politicians who share their life experience are elected to represent them, and in turn can pass good laws—that is—laws that are good for mice.

One of the Canadian left’s key failings over the past couple decades has been a belief that we have to move beyond class conflict as a vehicle for social, political, and economic change; that regular Canadians don’t see themselves as mice anymore, or simply see themselves as cats-in-waiting. Some of this may well be true, but the reality is that class conflict isn’t going anywhere, and the social and economic elite understand this best of all. The left in Canada needs to centre politics of the many over the few, even if that makes enemies among the people unlikely to support them in the first place. Mouseland may well just be a fable, but it is nonetheless instructive, and can be used in part to illustrate a class consciousness among the masses of people in this country, matching that class solidarity which has never dissipated among the wealthy and well-connected.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Michael Laxer writes that Doug Ford's attack on people who stood to be helped by a basic income demonstrates the cruelty of austerian politics. But we shouldn't take the callousness of right-wing parties as reflecting the preferences of most voters, as the Angus Reid Institute's poll on poverty in Canada examines attitudes toward the people facing it and the options available to address it - including the widespread recognition that poverty is primarily a matter of circumstances beyond an individual's control:

• Two-thirds of Canadians (65%) say the federal government is doing too little to address poverty, and approximately the same number (64%) feel this way about their provincial government

• More than seven-in-ten (72%) say poor people are poor because of circumstances beyond their control, rather than a lack of effort on their part

• A similar number (65%) say wealthy people are wealthy because they had more advantages in life, rather than because they worked harder than other people

- And Eric Levitz points out new data confirming that in the U.S., policies such as increased public enterprise are far more popular than the Republicans' template of tax giveaways to the rich and austerity for everybody else - even though they're hardly ever discussed by the political class.

- The Economist discusses how the world is losing the war against climate change. And Christopher Pollin interviews Naomi Klein about the need for divestment from fossil fuels as part of the public response to negligence by political leaders.

- Lisa Johnson reports on the threat to sockeye salmon posed by a warming Fraser River. And Emma Lui notes that Nestle has pumped over a billion litres of water out of the Aberfoyle well since its permit expired - and that it's showing no willingness to stop in the absence of public action.

- Finally, Andre Picard discusses how the Netherlands have taken harm reduction several steps further than Canada by allowing for drug-checking to protect against contamination.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- George Monbiot discusses the dangers of treating our natural environment solely as something to be priced and commodified.

- The Mound of Sound comments on Stephen Leahy's work in crunching the numbers on the climate change impact of a Trans Mountain expansion. And Matt Scuffham and Rod Nickel report on Bill Morneau's apparent plan to divert Canada Pension Plan funds into forcing through a pipeline which can't find private investors.

- Nora Loreto writes about Canada's criminalization of dissent on the left. And Nathan Robinson argues that the right's perpetual persecution complex serves mostly to distract from the suppression of anti-establishment speech:

I want to suggest a hypothesis that may sound outlandish: What if the whole narrative is backwards? What if people who think they are voicing suppressed dangerous ideas are actually the ones suppressing the truly dangerous ideas? What if this effort to condemn the irrational excesses of political correctness is in part a way of avoiding having to engage with its arguments and listen carefully to its advocates? What if people who seem to be “challenging” a dissent-stifling power structure are actually defending one? Now, I’m not saying this is the case; I’m just asking some questions. But let’s, for a moment, because we are rational and skeptical, consider the possibility that the conservative narrative is totally upside-down. Let’s picture a topsy-turvy world in which Donald Trump is the president and left ideas are actually marginal. 
...
...I’m just asking us to imagine a strange world in which the interests of the wealthy mattered far more than the interests of the poor, and in which the good people got left behind while the bad people were honored and celebrated. But let’s stick with the idea, just a moment longer. In this kind of world, what would we make of people like the members of the “Intellectual Dark Web,” who insist that their ideas pose a challenge to the mainstream consensus? Well, first we’d have to look at the ideas themselves. But if those ideas turned out to coincide remarkably well with the interests of those who are already wealthy and powerful, and if those ideas seemed to downplay, deny, and evade all of the contrary evidence, we might begin to suspect that these Dissident Intellectuals should not, in fact, rightfully be considered dissidents. In this kind of world, the real dissidents would be the ones whose names we didn’t know, the ones who were trying to dredge up the truths nobody wanted to listen to, rather than the people whose faces and opinions were constantly in the newspapers. The dangerous ideas would be the ones that weren’t spoken from the White House and on cable news, because they actually indicted those institutions rather than benefiting them.

- And finally, Rinaldo Wolcott and Naomi Klein discuss how Ontarians can prevent Trumpism from spreading into their provincial government by voting for the change they actually want.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Julian Cribb reports on new research as to mass exposure to chemicals and pollutants:

Almost every human being is now contaminated in a worldwide flood of industrial chemicals and pollutants – most of which have never been tested for safety – a leading scientific journal has warned.

Regulation and legal protection for today’s citizens from chemical poisons can no longer assure our health and safety, according to a hard-hitting report in the journal PLOS Biology, titled “Challenges in Environmental Health: Closing the Gap between Evidence and Regulations”.

The report describes a chemical oversight system corrupted from its outset in the 1970s when 60,000 chemicals were registered for use in the US, mostly without being safety tested. Many of these chemicals were subsequently adopted as ‘safe’ around the world.

Over the years, public health protection has stagnated – despite mounting scientific evidence that many chemicals are damaging whole classes of organisms, say report editors Liza Gross and Linda Birnbaum.
...
“Evidence has emerged that chemicals in widespread use can cause cancer and other chronic diseases, damage reproductive systems, and harm developing brains at low levels of exposure once believed to be harmless. Such exposures pose unique risks to children at critical windows of development - risks that existing regulations fail to consider.”

The report underlines a recent finding by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health which concluded nine million deaths (or 16% of the total) every year worldwide are due to diseases caused by the human chemical environment – 15 times the number killed in wars.

- In another reminder of the consequences of failing to take into account the future costs of exploitative industries, Alex MacPherson reports on the nine-figure (and mounting) public costs arising out of the abandoned Gunnar uranium mine. And Joe Romm reports on NASA's latest research showing the connection between fracking and global warming.

- Charlotte Aubin discusses Africa's energy transition which figures to see long-term development oriented toward renewable sources (even in the face of continued subsidies of fossil fuels in the near term). And Agence France-Presse takes note of the price advantage clean energy already holds compared to burning fossil fuels.

- Meanwhile, Naomi Klein writes that New York City's divestment from the oil sector (and concurrent claim for climate damages) may offer a turning point in the balance of power between citizens and the oil industry. And Gary Mason writes that Canada's climate change laggards - including Brad Wall and his heirs - are kidding themselves about the shape of future development.

- Finally, Aditya Chakrabortty discusses the imminent collapse of the UK's largest P3 profiteer - which also plays a prominent role in the privatization of Canadian infrastructure and public services.