This and that for your Thursday reading. – Dave Hansen et al. discuss the attempt in progress by publishers to attack the Internet Archive in order to restrict access to materials. And Walled Culture examines the problem of trying to preserve any “public domain” at all when the profit motive
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Adam Miller discusses new research showing nearly half of Canadians have already caught COVID-19 at least once, while Charlie Smith offers a list of proclamations which also serve as reasons why we shouldn’t allowing it to spread further. But Michael Lee reports
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Steps to Take to Save the World from Catastrophic Climate Change
By now you’ve heard that the most recent IPCC report shows that humanity is in a dire situation and we need to act now to avoid making the planet uninhabitable to humanity. That is, if we keep doing what we’re currently doing with too much consumption and the use of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sarah Bartsch et al. study the costs and benefits of face mask use, and conclude that even without factoring in improvements to public health mask mandates produces positive outcomes from a financial perspective, while Caroline Alphonso reports on Ronald Cohn’s exhortation for Ontario not to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The Max Planck Society explores how COVID-19 has developed to hide out and mutate within the human body. Tami Luhby discusses how even a receding Omicron wave has continued to have devastating effects on millions of Americans. And Jessie Anton reports on the concerns of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andre Picard discusses the reality that long COVID will result in lasting aftereffects even if we eventually manage to get the spread of new variants under control (which is of course itself a long way off). Thomson Reuters reports on new research
Continue readingThings Are Good: Given the IPCC Report, Let’s Ban Oil Propaganda
Today the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released data that proves the world has rapidly warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, and is now careening toward 1.5 degrees. They are calling it a red alert for the planet. Obviously this isn’t good news. The oil
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: IPCC – On Land Use
The most recent IPCC special report is on “desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems”. The video at Lorne’s post does a nice summary, and Climate and Capitalism has a thorough run-down, but Mound‘s has more flavour to it. GlobalEcoGuy has some
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Well, Let’s Add This to Our Growing List of Dire Warnings
Another day another warning that humanity is pushing its luck, overstressing this Earth, our one and only biosphere. For those of you who can’t handle stress, don’t fret. It’ll be down the Memory Hole by the end of the weekend at the outside. Dirt. Who gives a damn about dirt?
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Courage Over Hope
This got a little out of control, so I added in pictures! But there is suddenly tons in the news about climate change, and many excellent videos to watch. Jeremy Deaton wrote in the Huffington Post last week: Ultimately, the idea that regular people can’t be told the full implications of climate
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Can We Turn This Corner?
September is always a busy month for me, and typically I don’t get the luxury of reading the new significantly, but this time was different. It’s been a car crash that I just can’t stop looking at. When the Charter was first developed in Canada, largely a spin off of
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: It’s Just a Sense, a Feeling.
If there’s one thing we need to get much better at it’s learning to deal with the unexpected. It’s a huge understatement to note that, on so many fronts, we’re already passing through uncharted waters. Human lifespans being as brief as they are, life experiences can be very limited in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Penney Kome raises the question of who will be responsible for the damage wrought by climate change. And Trish Audette-Longo reports that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is set to start examining how human behaviour contributes to, and is affected by,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: If We Could Be as Smart as Frogs
I regularly tell students about our likely future. It’s often met with skepticism, so I provide lots of citations from the IPCC and NASA. Then I sometimes get a lecture on being so doom and gloom. Denial is our go-to defence against reality. But for whose benefit? It’s just for
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: There’s Still Climate Denial?
This is from a local climate change group, Hamilton 350: But even better is the list of sources the post included: I swear, if I didn’t block the trolls I’d be at this all day every day. It is simply the most tedious thing on the planet. Rational people can
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: There’s Still Climate Denial?
This is from a local climate change group, Hamilton 350: But even better is the list of sources the post included: I swear, if I didn’t block the trolls I’d be at this all day every day. It is simply the most tedious thing on the planet. Rational people can
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Indicators: Attention Must Be Paid
If it started to get cloudy out, and I told a friend, “You might want to bring an umbrella,” I might hear, “Good idea, thanks!” for saving him the discomfort of walking unprotected in the pouring rain later that night.
But if it’s starting to get all…
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: IPCC Chair Rajendra K Pachauri Steps Down
The right thing to do, whatever the truth of the sexual harassment charges against him. And in this case it was starting to look like there might have been some fire under all that smoke.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Remember, It’s the IPCC and It Can Never Tell the Whole Truth
The oft-maligned Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change is, admittedly, something of a strange bird. It doesn’t conduct climate change research. It merely collects the research undertaken by universities, government agencies and NGOs, digests the important stuff and then issues advisory reports to governments. The IPCC reports are usually off-mark. They
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Ooooh! Bad Talk, More Stark.
Another report from the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. The Associated Press has managed to thumb through the latest report, a synthesis report based on the previous three. AP says there’s nothing much new in the report except, “the language is more stark and the report attempts to
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