Readers of this blog will know that I have a special affection for Cuba, having visited it many times and gotten to know, to some extent, the ‘real’ Cuba. Yet it would be wrong for me or any other non-Cuban to pontificate about what is best for the country, given
Continue readingTag: Ecology
The Disaffected Lib: Taking Stock
Most of us just don’t want to know. Most of the rest are coming to feel the same way a lot of the time. Interesting op-ed by Quincy Saul, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” It deserves a read. Ecology: The global climate is officially destabilized. Major tipping points have
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Even Capitalists Are Starting to See the Zombies in the Tarsands!
What kind of oil investments become zombies with cheap oil? [Shhh, it’s the Solstice today, but don’t tell the carbon energy sector!] Extracting and burning oil, gas and coal [the carbon criminals destroying our climate] is a bad move. Capitalists, zombies themselves seeking to maximize shareholder wealth at the expense
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Alberta Government Begins to Sunset Oil Production
Edmonton’s Eastgate: What are those cylinders in the background? This week, as an early Christmas present to the province, the world and future generations, the Alberta government has begun the process of completely ending oil, coal and gas production in the province within a generation. Citing its historic mismanagement of
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Kind of Politicians Ignore THEIR OWN SCIENTISTS?
In BC and Canada, politicians actively ignore the people and their own scientists. Why? OK, you tell me. What do you call politicians who ignore their own scientists? It’s not a trick question. What if scientists tell their political bosses about the climate impacts of ramping up a mythical $1
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: International Day of Action for Burnaby Mountain and ALL Land Defenders
This is an international day of action, so check the event page to see what’s up in your town, for TOMORROW! And if there’s nothing at your home, be the change! Let’s consolidate our recent victories and continue moving public opinion to transitioning to the post-carbon energy infrastructure: wind, solar,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Tens of Billions Wasted
How much will we keep spending to develop more fossil fuels when we know we have to stop to avert climate breakdown? $88b/year? More? How about zero. It’s time to redirect that money to wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro so we can stop exacerbating our climate crisis. Redirect NOW! Let
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Welcome, Dropping Oil Prices!
So, expensive oil made the tarsands and LNG more financially attractive if not climate-destroying. We know this because…science! Unless you are a science-denier. But even with and prices AND demand dropping, we are seeing the makings of a real flattening of long-term stability in demand that can fundamentally undermine the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How to Spot an Ecology Troll
Start with an oil spill apologist/minimizer. Work with the twisted logic that since all ships and oil tankers don’t crash all the time, any concern over one that might [and our government’s pathetic incompetence in prevention and disaster-aversion] is eco-hysteria. Pay any attention to and RT anything Ayn Rand. Then
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Welcome to the 1,000th Politics, Re-Spun Editorial!
Steve Harper, the greatest threat to Canadian security in the modern era. Happy August! Happy Day! I have a few comments about this, the 1,000th editorial at Politics, Re-Spun. But you can read them below, about my sabbatical plan, new visions for this almost 12-year-old website, and other things. But
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Lego Pimps Your Kids’ Brains For Shell Oil
This is just too much. Lego has teamed up with Shell Oil to pimp your kids’ brains for Shell. We need to be helping our children understand that our future lies in the post-carbon energy infrastructure and things like solar roadways. Here’s one way to do that, at Lego Block
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How Translink Impedes Transit Use
Translink is “being evasive on exactly how much money is being spent on this.” via Compass Card program delayed again by TransLink – British Columbia – CBC News. How’s that for not surprising. Translink is notorious for its taxation without representation: taking municipalities’ money without providing democratic representation to municipalities.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Occupy Movement Has Changed the Narrative, But We’re Not Done
Recently, with the WEF spending the last few years acknowledging global income inequality is a problem, I’ve declared a kind of victory for the Occupy Movement: getting the lexicon on the 1% and inequality on the tongues of the sly gazillionaires who rule the world, and into mass consumption. Now
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How the Tsilhqot’in Land Title Ruling Can Help Kill Enbridge
Watch Pam Palmater’s response to the SCC ruling. Click above. Stephen Harper had about a week to enjoy the glory of his remarkably understated whispery notification that the Enbridge climate killing pipeline will proceed. Yesterday the Supreme Court shut down the prime minister, which they have a tendency to do
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Hey, BC: Want More Jobs? Dump the LNG and Pipelines!
Well, I found yet another [like this] study showing how many MORE jobs we’d get by moving to a post-carbon energy infrastructure and dumping LNG, tarsands, pipelines and all the other Mordor Industrial Complex BC and Alberta are embracing. Not only is dumping the carbon energy infrastructure essential to do
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Most BCers Want to Get Off Fossil Fuels. Not Joking.
#PostCarbonEnergyInfrastructure. I know, I know, it’s a really clunky Twitter hashtag, so let’s just think of it as a concept for a second! Infrastructure: the systems in place for things like water systems, roads, the interwebz, electrical cabling, train tracks; and social infrastructure are things like the health, education, welfare,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Does Soft Fascism Look Like These Days?
We don’t see brown shirts and jackboots, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t seeing the de-democratization of our society. In Vancouver this month, armed police with guns drawn, raided a house because they suspected people inside not of being terrorists, but of spray painting “No Pipelines” all over the place.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Let’s Play Cowboys and Indians
Why not? It seems to be working in Washington, DC. And you know what? They’ve got our backs. When ranchers are farmers and tribal communities realize that the tarsands and their toxic pipelines threaten us all, it’s pretty easy to figure out how working together gets things done. They’re even
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: BC’s New Landscape and Ecology Eradication Projects!
Once upon a time, before we knew much about ecology and systems theory, corporations just went around raping and pillaging the countryside, polluting whatever they wanted. Shhh, there’s a secret new law: it’s open season for corporations to rape and pillage our environment. This came back to me grotesquely in
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Yoko Ono Knows About Fracking
Today we are fresh off the tar soaked heels of Enbridge’s lie and spin machine in Kitimat, leading to a vote AGAINST their toxic future. In Kitimat, in a non-binding plebiscite, the people of Kitimat, but not the first peoples who live outside the town boundary, voted about 60-40 to
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