As The Dust Settles....

I will offer no analysis of our federal election; I will only say that from my perspective (my disappointment that the Greens did not do better notwithstanding), the fact of a minority government is the best of all outcomes. The question of whether or not Justin can find within himself the capacity to play nice with others is yet to be determined, but for the sake of the country, we can only hope he does.

While many pressing issues stand to be addressed, pharmacare being uppermost in Jagmeet Singh's mind, I do hope that effective action to address climate change will also be on the agenda. This latest report reminds us that we have little time to lose:

Research has found Arctic soil has warmed to the point where it releases more carbon in winter than northern plants can absorb during the summer.

The finding means the extensive belt of tundra around the globe — a vast reserve of carbon that dwarfs what's held in the atmosphere — is becoming a source of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change.

The research by scientists in 12 countries and from dozens of institutions is the latest warning that northern natural systems that once reliably kept carbon out of the atmosphere are starting to release it.

While this is only one of several feedback loops exacerbating climate change, it is a potent one.

The scientists placed carbon dioxide monitors along the ground at more than 100 sites around the circumpolar Arctic to see what was actually happening and took more than 1,000 measurements.

They found much more carbon was being released than previously thought. The results found carbon dioxide emissions of 1.7 billion tonnes a year are about twice as high as previous estimates.

Arctic plants are thought to take in just over one billion tonnes of the gas from the atmosphere every year during growing season. The net result is that Arctic soil around the globe is probably already releasing more than 600 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

And the process is accelerating.

Under a business-as-usual scenario, emissions from northern soil would be likely to release 41 per cent more carbon by the end of the century.

But the Arctic is already warming at three times the pace of the rest of the globe. Even if significant mitigation efforts are made, those emissions will increase by 17 per cent, said the report.

Our house is on fire. Only resolute, principled politics holds any hope of containing the conflagration.

The Best Way To Effect Change

H/t Michael De Adder

Should you need further encouragement, read the columns by Martin Regg Cohn and Susan Delacourt.

Says Cohn:

Decide for yourself who to vote for but whatever your decision, do not persuade yourself that your vote doesn’t matter. Nothing is more corrosive than cynicism at a time when so many citizens around the world crave the certainty and stability of our democracy.

Think of the citizens of Hong Kong who are protesting in the streets for a semblance of democratic rule that Canadians take for granted. Consider the people in the Middle East who dreamed of an Arab Spring, only to see it fade away. I lived in both places for a decade, covering the human rights movements where people risked bullets for ballots, and were prepared to die for democracy, then as now.

And, from my perspective, most importantly,

Even in so-called “safe seats” that seem predestined to favour the incumbent MP, every ballot contributes to the national popular vote tallies that are very much taken into consideration, historically, by a governor general in deciding which party (or combination of parties) has a mandate to govern.

As well, Susan Delacourt reminds us,

There is a point, though, in taking the time to vote, especially at this juncture in history. Look to the U.S. or Britain and the turmoil in politics there over the past few years. Democracy matters. Elections matter. Voting matters.

... I’m hoping that 2015 wasn’t a blip — that the upward trajectory in turnout continues on Monday, because we’re seeing how fragile democracy can be, even in nations with deep, democratic traditions, such as the U.S and Britain.

There are many ways to honour our citizenship. Participation in the voting process is one of the best.

Ain't It The Truth?

Having resisted the fear-mongering that passes as 'strategic voting,' and having already cast my ballot, I offer the following for those still to exercise their franchise next week:

Campaign 2019 - Where Is The Truth To Be Found?

It is perhaps to state the obvious that political campaigns are a kind of Rorschach Test. We respond to candidates' claims, promises and outright lies to a large extent through the filter of our values, our biases, our philosophy and our experiences. That is us just being human. Sadly, however, whatever intellectual capacities we may possess often are cast aside as we make impassioned choices based upon the above.

Critical thinking is the main casualty here.

A case in point is the carbon tax. All of the disinformation about the levy, from Doug Ford claiming it will lead to recession to Andrew Scheer averring it will make everyone poorer, often finds a ready, even Pavlovian, audience. The following brief news item from Global News attempts to set the record straight.



Our democracy demands that each person has the right to vote. There is nothing within our system that can make that vote an intelligent, informed one.

Some Heavy Lifting

H/t Theo Moudakis

Will Hysteria Or Rationality Prevail This Fall?

As we wind ou way through the dog days of summer, it is a truism that no one will pay attention to politics and the upcoming election until after Labour Day. That may well be, but the Green Party is seeking to allay fears that its climate action plan would result in massive job loss for those working in fossil-fuel industries.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has unveiled a multi-pronged plan to help workers in the gas and oil sector transition to a renewable energy economy, working to allay fears that her climate action plan would bleed jobs as she ramps up pre-election campaign efforts.

The Green worker transition plan, which includes skills retraining programs and massive retrofit and cleanup projects designed to create employment, fleshes out details from the Green Party's climate action plan called Mission: Possible, that was released in May.

A canny move in anticipation of the fear-mongering about the Greens that will inevitably increase as their momentum in the polls grows, May wants to spread the message that there will be plenty of work for those who will be displaced as we decarbonize. Her platform includes

- Investing in retraining and apprenticeship programs to refocus the skills of industrial trade workers for jobs in the renewable energy sector.
- Start[ing] a massive cleanup of "orphaned" oil wells; some of which can be transformed to produce geothermal energy.
- Creat[ing] a national program to retrofit all buildings to optimum energy efficiency.

May said the party's plan for retrofitting buildings would create four million jobs for tradespeople such as carpenters, electricians and plumbers, and said there is an "immense economic opportunity" in moving to green jobs.

"People may think when we talk about climate emergency that we're hoping to have people be afraid. People are already afraid. We want to give them hope and the tools to know that their future is secure."

While rabidly partisan 'progressives' will no doubt continue advocating a surrender to 'group-think', insisting that a vote for anyone but Trudeau is a vote for Scheer, it is to be hoped that independent, critical thinkers will base their voting decisions on more measured, less hysterical grounds.

Time will tell.