On Covid-19 Fake News

I received a lovely note the other day from a reader named Rose. While I am pleased she finds my blog a useful resource, I am also happy that she included a very pertinent link as an aide in spotting fake news, especially that involving our current pandemic. I shall return to that link in a moment.

But first, how big a problem is disinformation during this time of fear and uncertainty?

The Guardian cites the growing problem of prominent people who apparently have more fame than brains:

The actor Woody Harrelson and the singer MIA have faced criticism after sharing baseless claims about the supposed connection of 5G to the pandemic, while comments by the likes of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, playing down the scale of the crisis in the face of scientific evidence have attracted criticism in recent days.

Such ravings have consequences.

The issue has gained extra prominence as Britons began vandalising mobile phone masts in recent days amid wildly sharing baseless claims linking the virus to 5G.

There is growing concern that online disinformation could be having real world health impacts. Research by Dr Daniel Allington, senior lecturer in social and cultural artificial intelligence at King’s College London, suggested there was a statistically notable link between people who believed false claims about the coronavirus and people who were willing to flout the government’s social distancing guidelines.

His findings, based on a experimental study conducted in coordination with the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, found that people who said they believed coronavirus was connected to 5G mobile phone masts are less likely to be staying indoors, washing their hands regularly or respecting physical distancing.

Even more unhinged is Roseanne Barr who, in a phone interview with Norm Macdonald, had this to say about the bug:

"You know what it is, Norm? I think they're just trying to get rid of all my generation...."The boomer ladies that, you know, that inherited their — you know, are widows. They inherited the money so they got to go wherever the money is and figure out a way to get it away from people."

Barr made a number of other unorthodox claims during the interview: She argued that people are "being forced to evolve," urged working women to learn how to make bean soup, claimed that Chinese people eat bats and rats (and that she saw one guy eat a baby), and insisted that "there exists an operative in each town that reports back to Central Intelligence false information to ruin my career."

If you want to read more about this supremely unbalanced lady, Venay Menon has a droll take on her escapades.

Misinformation can be deadly, especially as it pertains to Covid-19. Perennial huckster/televangelist Jim Bakker is facing legal consequences after peddling a snake oil called Liquid Silver Sol he claimed would protect people from the bug. One hopes that the convicted felon pays a heavy price for his dangerous advocacy.

Which brings us back to the question of how to best inoculate ourselves against the virus of hysterical untruths. Readers of this blog will know that I have long been an advocate of critical thinking as the best protective; as I have said many times, it is an ideal toward which I continually strive, well-aware that I often fall short.

Reading widely of legitimate sources is a vital nutrient in this quest, but happily there are some readily accessible sites that make it easier. Snopes, of course, is one of the best. Its recent effort to dispel the myth that eating alkaline foods will confer protection against Covid-19 is an apt illustration of its usefulness.

A search engine can be of great benefit as well. Try putting the term fake news covid-19 into one and look at the results.

There are many, many useful resources on the web which I am confident you can access with little difficulty, and so I leave you with the site suggested by my correspondent Rose. Called Website Planet, it offers some very useful guidance and tools in our collective quest for truth and accuracy.

The Covid-19 virus is naturally dominating all of our concerns today. However, working to flatten the curve on the pandemic of misinformation that existed before and will continue long after the bug is managed will surely serve us well in the bigger picture known as everyday life, life that we will, eventually, return to.

A Sick Gorilla

I made the following comment on Owen's blog this morning regarding Donald Trump:

To watch Trump turn this thing [Covid-19 crisis] into a personal exercise of ego and imbecility makes me believe we live next door to an egregiously backward nation, one that can no longer command any worldwide respect.

May that contagion never spread.

Clearly, I am not alone in that view. In today's Star, Bruce Arthur offers this observation:

... we don’t have a North American ally anymore .... We have a sick gorilla in a cage, and we have to constantly worry how it might lash out.

... it is obvious to anybody who watches Donald Trump for five minutes that the man is a wicked, lying child who bluffed his way into being in charge of an aircraft carrier, and has no idea what to do now.

The crisis the world today faces puts in stark relief Trump's myriad shortcomings:

The president is in denial, and spends every day going on television performing a grotesque improvisational opera of empty promises, disinformation and blame, while agitating to reopen the country for the sake of the stock market.

Most of us have known for some time, of course, just how toxic, dysfunctional and disabled the United States has become as a consequence of their elevating Trump to the presidency. Unfortunately, there is no inoculation against their folly.

So yes, the United States holding up a shipment of masks at the U.S.-Canada border that was meant for Ontario — a shipment of three million, according to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, of which 500,000 were released as of Monday morning — was a big deal. But it was more than that, too.

Shortages in Ontario hospitals are entering a new stage. Ford claims the province is a week from exhausting its own stores of PPE. On Thursday of last week some hospitals in the GTA started asking employees to save N95 masks, and said they anticipated there would be a way to decontaminate and reuse them.

When you have a system where healthcare and equipment is available to the highest bidder, chaos is inevitable:

In a for-profit medical system, the top employers of ER doctors are groups owned by private-equity companies, including Canada’s Onex. ProPublica reported they are cutting doctor hours, because the demand for non-COVID-19 health care has collapsed, and the revenue isn’t there.

Red states and blue states are getting different amounts of PPE, but it sounds as chaotic as anything. After several shipments of PPE destined for the states were essentially hijacked by the federal government, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker had to go on a stealth mission to China with the owner of the New England Patriots under the guise of a humanitarian mission to secure 1.5 million masks.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported an Illinois official had to race to a McDonald’s rest stop outside Chicago with a $3.4 million (U.S.) cheque to beat out other bidders for N95s. California is putting together a consortium of states to bid collectively. If only there were another way to say “A Consortium of States.”

Every day, as the Covid crisis rolls on, I am deeply, deeply thankful to live in a country with leadership that, while not perfect, has not forgotten the people it serves.

Clearly, the same cannot be said about the rapidly declining, unwinding United States of America.

But What About The Cleaning Bill?

A new protection against Corvid-19 has been found! Rejoice, Brothers and Sisters.



And can I get a big AMEN?

Straight Talk From Italy

Perhaps more people would obey the mandate to self-isolate if more politicians spoke like this:

Opportunities Exist

During this time of crisis, it is easy to forget other, equally vital issues and the fact that the problems we currently confront do not exist in isolation. Climate change and the myriad emergencies it has spawned are not going away. Two letters in the print edition of the Toronto Star suggest that the opportunities presented by Covid-19 should not be ignored:

Fight for the climate, not oil companies

Toronto Star 4 Apr 2020

Many oil and gas companies are suffering because of COVID-19, losing workers and business as the price of oil plunges.

Giving them a bailout package would allow them to recover their losses and help minimize the damage they will incur due to the global pandemic. However, funnelling money into these companies would not be beneficial to our environment in the long run.

The oil and gas industry is responsible for releasing greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, which is a major contribution to climate change. Instead of bailing companies that do more harm than good to our health and environment, the federal government should focus on strengthening our climate action plan.

Canada needs to concentrate on reducing emissions, not helping them grow. The energy sector will improve eventually, but the same cannot be said for our ailing planet, if we continue to put it in the back seat when making financial decisions.

Canada has a choice, and I urge it to make the choice that will lead us to a healthier future.

Azhar Ali, Toronto

Let’s own our oil, or at least shares in Big Oil firms

Toronto Star 4 Apr 2020
I find it heartening that some members of the federal Liberal caucus have dared to question the agenda of Big Oil without being ostracized.

We are hearing about a possible big bailout of the oil industry. I urge the government to do what U.S. president Barack Obama should have done in the big financial meltdown, what Canada ought to have done in the auto industry bailout: Provide a bailout, but take an equity position and corresponding membership on the boards of directors in the industry.

Use the bailout funds to support workers in transition to sustainable jobs, while at the same time winding down the industry in the public interest. Reopen a few mothballed refineries and ensure that an ever-dwindling supply of oil is refined here and used here as we move to electric transportation powered by renewable energy.

The oil industry really ought to pay us for the unbelievable damage it has done to our environment while sucking out the resources.

We know government is ultimately going to pay for its short-sightedness in subsidizing (for years) an industry that was rendering our planet uninhabitable. We are all going to pay.

So let’s face the music now, when Canadians are showing tremendous resilience and willingness to pull together in the face of emergency.

Sue Craig, Toronto

Barbra Streisand's Searingly Accurate Assessment Of Trump

My friend Steve sent me this.

God Or Trump? You Decide

Your Sunday afternoon (rueful) smile.

God only brought one guy back from the dead on Easter. Trump is here to bring back the whole economy on Easter 2020. Enjoy this clip (possibly, like, the best ever), share and be sure to subscribe to Making Podcasts Great Again (@TrumpPod) - new every week! pic.twitter.com/aUifVWRzfh

— J-L Cauvin (@JLCauvin) March 24, 2020

Imagining A New World

Having the underpinnings of our daily lives so radically altered is immensely unsettling. The things we have always taken for granted, be it a daily walk, a quick trip to the store, a handshake with a friend, a rubbing of the eye, all of these and many more now come with the whiff of lethality. The new normal is egregiously abnormal.

We are all in mourning for the routines that until now gave structure to our lives.

But I also know I am but one among many who look for the good that can ultimately emerge from this crisis. The radical, unprecedented and immensely uncomfortable shift in living we are all experiencing has given us the opportunity to reflect on our lives, our values, and our ultimate fate as a society and as a species.

What might have been important to us such a short time ago now seems far less pressing: social status, getting and spending, ideologies that impel us to snipe at our political opponents - none have the urgency they might have held but a few short weeks ago. As Ben Jonson so aptly put it,

"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

Assuming we are spared the noose, what is it we want the world to look like when Covid-19 abates?

The Star's Rick Salutin offers his thoughts. Succinctly, he asks a fundamental question:

"Does the economy exist to serve people or vice versa?"

If you choose option 1, you pursue it, closing the economy till the plague passes, or settles into normal patterns, like the flu, which can be handled in normal ways (vaccine, built-up immunity) instead of people bringing out their dead as they did of old.

Another angle: Choose the economy, and — consequently — people die, they’re gone forever. Choose people, and the economy doesn’t die. It gets mothballed, put into a coma, to be revived. People die. Economies, which aren’t alive, can be put on hold, then come “roaring back.”

Because the economy isn’t a living being, you can tuck it away awhile.

In that case, the economy gets subordinated to human well-being. Rent, mortgages, debt are forgiven or delayed though money must still be found for repairs etc. Only governments can finance these dislocations. Private businesses can’t because they’re under constraints like competition.

Where will government find the money? .... Governments always find the money when there’s a war to fight.

I will return to the above question in a moment, but Salutin goes on to talk about this remarkable sight:

A remarkable thing about this debate, or nondebate since leaders have overwhelmingly opted for the people choice, is the range represented. Canadian right wing austerity buffs like Jason Kenney, François Legault and Doug Ford leapt in enthusiastically, alongside Justin Trudeau.

So much for the ideological divide. It is clear that Canadian leaders are opting for the people. But what about each of us and the innate power we have but too frequently fail to recognize? So we return to the writer's question about where government will find the money.

In the short-term, it will obviously borrow it.

Later, opportunists will no doubt try to foist austerity upon us as the price for today's spending. If we let them get away with that, we will have learned nothing from our current circumstances. No, if the world is to have a real rebirth, real, adult and difficult choices have to be made, including serious discussion around that always fraught topic, taxation.

Simply put, when this is over, many of us will have to pay more taxes. There will need to be special levees to reduce the deficit and the debt, because the old saw about growing the economy to pay for programs will not work for a long, long time, if ever again. Now, I am hardly the only one who enjoys a comfortable retirement, and the thought of paying more bothers me not in the least. As well, the corporate tax rate, when things stabilize, will have to be raised. And if there was ever a time for a financial transaction tax, it is now.

The weeks ahead will continue to be a crucible. We have already begun to reappraise our values as we recognize the things that connect us all. We cannot help but grow in appreciation of the people we rely on, be it the grocery clerk, the garbage collector, the pharmacist, the doctors, nurses, the tireless journalists bring us the best information they can. Equally, our empathy cannot help but increase for the more vulnerable among us: the precariously employed, those living from paycheck to paycheck, renters facing eviction, the homeless, those who rely on foodbanks. Platitudinous thoughts and prayers will not cut it. Programs like a basic income will. And we all must be willing to pay for them.

Fate has delivered to us an unprecedented opportunity to change the world's trajectory. But time is short. When Covid-19 abates, will we emerge healed from our petty obsessions and become participants in creating a new world? Or will vital lessons be quickly forgotten and see us return to our old modes of thinking, modes that are directly responsible for the sad state we are in today?

Now is not the time for us to be anything other than apt students.

A Glaring Omission

Anyone who may read this blog regularly knows that, for a number of reasons, I am not a fan of Justin Trudeau and his government. However, I give him top marks for his consistently calm and measured demeanour during this crisis. And the financial measures announced thus far, with some caveats, seem good.

He is, however, totally failing our mainstream media.

Due to declining ad revenues, media organizations have been struggling for years to survive. Now that we are in the grips of a pandemic, many face extinction. Thus far, the federal government has announced $30 million for a Covid-19 ad campaign that will do little to keep them alive:

Beyond the ad campaign, the lack of an emergency cash infusion for the struggling industry came as a disappointment to John Hinds, president and CEO of News Media Canada.

“We hoped he was going to announce something new. Instead, what (the government) did was rehash a couple of announcements that were very good with dealing with the crisis we were facing a year ago, but have nothing to do with the (pandemic-related cash crunch) crisis we’re facing today.”

When we need sources of responsible reporting now more than ever, they are drying up:

The state of print and digital news media made headlines this week when SaltWire Network said it was laying off nearly 40 per cent of its employees — about 240 people — and suspending all weekly newspapers in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador for 12 weeks.

In Quebec, 143 jobs were lost across a co-operative that owns daily newspapers outside of Montreal, including Le Soleil in Quebec City.

In an open letter to readers, SaltWire Network CEO Mark Lever said the business lost nearly two-thirds of its revenue because many advertisers ceasing operations temporarily.

“Like many industries and businesses, the economic ripple effect of COVID-19 has hit our local newspaper media industry faster and far more aggressively than we could have ever planned for or anticipated,” Lever wrote.

Those who think news is free and can be cherry-picked off the internet need to read this piece by The Star's Irene Gentle, who reminds us how, now more than ever, it is vital to stay informed.

The newspaper is doing its part in a number of categories, bringing readers the most vetted and most important news and views on an ongoing basis. And out of a sense of civic responsibility, it has removed its paywall on stories about Covid-19.

It is the right thing to do when the actions of every one of us impacts all of us.

Doing the right thing always feels good. But such are the times that doing the right thing now can harm our future viability. The media industry is in a deep financial crisis that has only worsened with the outbreak. Journalism can be staggeringly expensive, and responsible, exclusive, accountability journalism is the most expensive of all.

I add bold-type to this part of her message:

For those who can find it in their budgets amid these very difficult times, please consider subscribing to ensure public-service journalism that’s there for you can continue to exist. The need for local, responsible, compassionate, aggressive, in-depth reporting that demands accountability is clear in times like these. Subscription by some helps ensure vital information can be available to all.

Time for all of us, both as human beings and as citizens, to put on our thinking caps and keep them on, even after this crisis passes. But thinking caps need nourishment. I can think of no better a nutrient that responsible journalism.

Thank You, Corona Virus

A friend sent the following to me this morning. It is quite powerful, and reflects the kind of thinking I and I'm sure countless others have been engaged in of late.

May we truly take some lasting lessons from this ongoing catastrophe.

Time For A Massive Reorientation

It is perhaps to state the obvious that a crisis of the scale the world is currently experiencing is also an opportunity to reorient our perspective and our society. As many of us are now acutely aware, and despite the 'social distancing' we are observing, none of us live in isolation. Let us take this new understanding to heart.

Two letters in today's Star, I believe, effectively convey this.

For years, we have been encouraged to be isolated, as in caring only about ourselves, focusing only on our own well-being, which we are told is solely in our own hands.

We have been encouraged to think of ourselves as islands, our health, happiness and prosperity are independent of the larger community, society or country, never mind the world.

This way of thinking has naturally led to constant arguments against having efficient and caring governments, paying taxes, and public funding even for health and scientific research.

It is unfortunate that it takes something like COVID-19 to convince us, hopefully once and for all, that as human beings, we can never be independent of each other, and our health, well-being and prosperity is very much in each other’s hands.

COVID-19 once again shows the importance of our collective thinking and acting, of the importance of paying taxes and a fair tax system, of good governments, of public funding and of science and research.

It is not the corporations and the myth of trickle-down economics that can save us from common threats, but good governments, public health systems and collective support.

With individual and collective responsible spirit and actions, we can prevent the spread of the coronavirus and eventually defeat this pandemic.

Maria Sabaye Moghaddam, Ottawa

Twenty years from now, we will look back and say, “Thank goodness for this coronavirus!”

What we are witnessing is the beginning of a complete and far-reaching restructuring of life, business and communication.

COVID-19 has removed 80 per cent of the vehicles from the streets in a manner that no environmental activist could. It has removed 90 per cent of the people from buses, trains and subways.

What caught on as a convenience has now become the only way business can be conducted during this period of social distancing.

We are talking about working from home. It is safe to estimate that half the labour force can and is now working from home at some level and to some extent.

The big question is how entrenched will this practice become post-coronavirus.

This is as good at time as any to think carefully about what our priorities should be in the future.

COVID-19 gives us an opportunity to break away from business as usual. It gives us the ability to embrace of new paths; more sensible paths. A possible path that could see us reducing vehicular emissions so much that Greta Thunberg would be proud of us!

The curse of this coronavirus becomes a blessing for those who would use this opportunity to be courageous.

Greg McKnight, Brampton

A Big Fall

The Greeks were well-familiar with the concept of hamartia, which can be defined as follows:

The term hamartia derives from the Greek ἁμαρτία, from ἁμαρτάνειν hamartánein, which means "to miss the mark" or "to err".[1][2] It is most often associated with Greek tragedy....

In literature, it is usually associated with the protagonist's tragic flaw, which often manifests itself as hubris, a kind of exaggerated pride or arrogance, and it never ends well.

Unfortunately, hubris is not a mere literary construct. Its presence is increasingly evident in the world today, and it is fueled by a massive error in our character, our collective tragic flaw: the belief that we are somehow above, not part of, nature.

The result, if you will forgive a cliché, is that the chickens are now coming home to roost.

... a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases such as Covid-19, the viral disease that emerged in China in December 2019, to arise – with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections between the wellbeing of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems.

Our aggressive, heedless thirst for greater and greater economic gain has resulted in widespread habitat destruction, with dire results:

“We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbour so many species of animals and plants – and within those creatures, so many unknown viruses,” David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, recently wrote in the New York Times. “We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.”

While we have always had a certain number of viruses that originate in animals and infect us, such as rabies and plague, up to now, with modern medicine and detection, the threat has been manageable.

Not anymore.

Research suggests that outbreaks of animal-borne and other infectious diseases such as Ebola, Sars, bird flu and now Covid-19, caused by a novel coronavirus, are on the rise. Pathogens are crossing from animals to humans, and many are able to spread quickly to new places. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that three-quarters of new or emerging diseases that infect humans originate in animals.

Kate Jones, chair of ecology and biodiversity at UCL, says the emergence and spread of these bugs

... are linked to environmental change and human behaviour. The disruption of pristine forests driven by logging, mining, road building through remote places, rapid urbanisation and population growth is bringing people into closer contact with animal species they may never have been near before, she says.

The resulting transmission of disease from wildlife to humans, she says, is now “a hidden cost of human economic development. There are just so many more of us, in every environment. We are going into largely undisturbed places and being exposed more and more. We are creating habitats where viruses are transmitted more easily, and then we are surprised that we have new ones.”

Disease ecologist Thomas Gillespie, says that things will get much worse:

Wildlife everywhere is being put under more stress, he says. “Major landscape changes are causing animals to lose habitats, which means species become crowded together and also come into greater contact with humans. Species that survive change are now moving and mixing with different animals and with humans.”

Human activity is at the root of this multi-faceted problem. Habitat destruction and the world population explosion leads to other sources of infection, not the least of which are markets that have opened up to feed an increasingly hungry world:

Here, animals are slaughtered, cut up and sold on the spot.

The “wet market” (one that sells fresh produce and meat) in Wuhan, thought by the Chinese government to be the starting point of the current Covid-19 pandemic, was known to sell numerous wild animals, including live wolf pups, salamanders, crocodiles, scorpions, rats, squirrels, foxes, civets and turtles.

Equally, urban markets in west and central Africa sell monkeys, bats, rats, and dozens of species of bird, mammal, insect and rodent slaughtered and sold close to open refuse dumps and with no drainage.

“Wet markets make a perfect storm for cross-species transmission of pathogens,” says Gillespie. “Whenever you have novel interactions with a range of species in one place, whether that is in a natural environment like a forest or a wet market, you can have a spillover event.”

The acute crisis the world now faces is clearly one with many origins. No amount of hand-wringing will alter that fact, nor will self-pity change the trajectory of Corvid-19.

And no one likes having a finger pointed at them, particularly during a global crisis, but that is precisely what Mother Nature is doing.

We ignore Her at our ongoing peril.

You Really Don't Need Me To Offer Any Comment Here, Do You?

The Reverend Kenneth Copeland is up to his usual mischief:

Multi-millionaire televangelist Kenneth Copeland tells viewers that even if they lose their jobs because of the coronavirus outbreak, they must continue giving to the church: "Whatever you do right now, don't you stop tithing!" pic.twitter.com/Xp154Fm1rn

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) March 19, 2020

About That Other Crisis

As we remain fixated on the immediate, acute crisis that has engulfed the world, it is easy to lose sight of the other crisis that continues to engulf the world:

Last year’s summer was so warm that it helped trigger the loss of 600bn tons of ice from Greenland – enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2mm in just two months, new research has found.

Unlike the retreat of sea ice, the loss of land-based glaciers directly causes the seas to rise, imperiling coastal cities and towns around the world. Scientists have calculated that Greenland’s enormous ice sheet lost an average of 268bn tons of ice between 2002 and 2019 – less than half of what was shed last summer. By contrast, Los Angeles county, which has more than 10 million residents, consumes 1bn tons of water a year.

Glaciers are melting away around the world due to global heating caused by the human-induced climate crisis. Ice is reflective of sunlight so as it retreats the dark surfaces underneath absorb yet more heat, causing a further acceleration in melting.

Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, scientists revealed last year, pushing up previous estimates of global sea level rise and putting 400 million people at risk of flooding every year by the end of the century.

Isabella Velicogna, a professor of Earth system science, has more bad news for us:

More recent research has found that Antarctica, the largest ice sheet on Earth, is also losing mass at a galloping rate, although the latest University of California and Nasa works reveals a nuanced picture.

“In Antarctica, the mass loss in the west proceeds unabated, which is very bad news for sea level rise,” Velicogna said.

The research has further illustrated the existential dangers posed by runaway global heating, even as the world’s attention is gripped by the coronavirus crisis. Crucial climate talks are set to be held later this year in Glasgow, although the wave of cancellations triggered by the virus has threatened to undermine this diplomatic effort.

Yes, we are right to be very alarmed by our current pandemic; however, we must bear in mind that the other one is going to ultimately cost countless more lives, and act accordingly.

From The Ministry Of Truth

Pay no attention to the left side of your screens. Goldstein has been very busy.

This video on Fox News messaging around the coronavirus is really something. They are truly a propaganda outlet for Trump - nothing more - their messaging changed exactly when his did. pic.twitter.com/vSNJSpNqGY

— Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) March 18, 2020

Some Gallows Humour

For technical reasons related to the site, I can't put up the cartoon here, but if you click on this link, you will see something from the Far Side's Gary Larson that is both funny and relevant in a macabre kind of way.

A Larger Perspective

In these uncertain times, we are all seized by concerns about Corvid-19. The prospect of death invariably focuses the mind, especially in the short-term.

Facilitated by fossil-fuel propaganda and an often uncritical media, it is unfortunately easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, one that we have been warned about for a long time - climate change. The following letter, from the print edition of the Sunday Star, strives to achieve a perspective all would be wise to adopt:

Don’t let deniers frame way we talk about climate crisis
Toronto Star 15 Mar 2020

Unconscionable dithering on climate action and on Indigenous rights has caused immense and wholly needless pain, conflict and disruption for Canadians in recent weeks.

It’s 2020; scientists say we absolutely must transition to safe energy as quickly as humanly possible, just to give humanity a decent chance at a future (not to guarantee a livable future, which is already out of reach).

Despite this, multiple levels of government, and three different self-styled progressive parties, are prepared to trample the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), to force through yet another pipeline on behalf of brazen and unrepentant fossil fuel profiteers. All in the middle of a climate crisis. Worse yet, in a flailing attempt to shore up their transparently myopic stance, fossil interests, and their allies in politics and the media, are blasting out vicious invective to confuse and divide Canadians, with a wilful and criminal disregard for any resulting violence. We need look no further than recent propaganda from fossil fuel companies and their allies, including endorsements of sexual violence against teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, and acts of brutal physical violence against earth protectors.

Moreover, this petro-cabal has gleefully spread outright fabrications to vilify Indigenous protectors and their allies, such as claims of “paid protestors” and epithets like “thug.”

The fossil industry pours huge amounts of cash and effort into convincing the public that “energy” means only fossil fuels, that “jobs” must be fossil fuel jobs, that safe alternatives do not exist, and that regular folks acting out of concern for their children and the planet are funded by foreign interests, hell-bent on destroying all that is good in the world.

We do not need to argue that this is a grossly irresponsible invitation to violence; we can point to several examples where earth protectors, merely repeating science and/or defending UNDRIP, have been threatened, intimidated and attacked by people who have been made angry and confused by fossil propaganda, specifically designed to make us angry, confused and divided.

It’s time that the industry, politicians and the media renounce this dangerous disinformation.

The future of all life on earth depends on it.

Patrick Yancey, Antigonish, Nova Scotia

A Corona Public Service Announcement

Some good advice here:

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

Kenneth Copeland is on the job!

No crisis is complete without #FakeChristian charlatans using it to make a tax-free buck. Notorious conman Kenneth Copeland will “cure” #coronavirus over your TV — if you send a love offering! Glory! pic.twitter.com/UZGWEsnGvm

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) March 12, 2020

When Is Discrimination Not Discrimination?

Answer: When it occurs in Quebec.

Question #2: Where is teaching tolerance, respect and understanding considered contrary to the public good?

Answer: Quebec

It would seem that in La Belle Province, a little learning is a dangerous thing:

Since 2008, elementary and high school students in Quebec have taken a mandatory course aimed at cultivating respect and tolerance for people of different cultures and faiths.

But after years of relentless criticism from Quebec nationalists and committed secularists who say the ethics and religious culture course is peddling a multiculturalist view to impressionable young Quebecers, the provincial government is abolishing the course.

Education Minister Jean-Francois Roberge and his colleagues see a course aimed at fostering “the recognition of others and the pursuit of the common good” as contrary to Quebec values. Ardent critics of the course

have long described [it] as a type of mental virus, contaminating a generation of young people by making them amenable to Canadian multiculturalism and other pluralist ideas.

Oh, the horror of promoting a pluralistic society.

Nadia El-Mabrouk, professor at Universite de Montreal’s computer science department...suggested in a recent interview the course is partly responsible for the fact that, according to polls, young Quebecers are less likely to support Bill 21, the legislation adopted last June that bans some public sector workers, including teachers and police officers, from wearing religious symbols on the job.

Others within that 'distinct society' see this for what it is. A teacher of the course, Sabrina Jafralie, says it

...explains to students that Quebec is filled with people who have different driving forces. It doesn’t teach young people to be religious, she said, it simply explains why other people may be.

The course exposes students to religions from around the world, and according to the teaching guides, “attention is also given to the influence of Judaism and Native spirituality on this heritage, as well as other religions that today contribute to Quebec culture.”

“But what the government is trying to do,” Jafralie said, “is in fact replace the ability to investigate and explore religiosity, with their own new religion — which is secularism.”

In any other jurisdiction, such an agenda would be denounced as blatant discrimination and racism. I guess the special status that Quebec occupies within our confederation spares it that opprobrium, however.

Vive la difference, eh?

A Missing Sense Of Urgency

After taking it out of the library twice, I have finally mustered the psychic strength to begin reading Bill McKibben's Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? A grim read, its central thesis is that things are very bad, but it is still not too late to do something about it. That is, if we can muster the will to tackle this massive threat to our existence.

On a related note, the other night, while watching the ongoing perfervid coverage of Covid-19, the coronavirus now sweeping the world, I couldn't help but wonder why, if governments can so quickly mobilize in the face of immediate threat, they can't seem to muster the same resolve and resources to combat the much greater dangers posed by climate change.

Of course, part of the answer lies in the economic treadmill no one wants to exit from, as well as the fact that humans have a great capacity for cognitive dissonance, refusing to acknowledge, despite all of the meteorological evidence to the contrary (floods, droughts, wildfires, intense storms, soaring world temperatures, etc.), the dire peril we are in.

Serendipitously, yesterday I came across a piece by Owen Jones entitled, Why don’t we treat the climate crisis with the same urgency as coronavirus?

More than 3,000 people have succumbed to coronavirus yet, according to the World Health Organization, air pollution alone – just one aspect of our central planetary crisis – kills seven million people every year. There have been no Cobra meetings for the climate crisis, no sombre prime ministerial statements detailing the emergency action being taken to reassure the public. In time, we’ll overcome any coronavirus pandemic. With the climate crisis, we are already out of time, and are now left mitigating the inevitably disastrous consequences hurtling towards us.

Despite rising sea levels, Arctic wildfires and increasingly common killer heatwaves, to name but three manifestations of climate change, we still lack a sense of urgency. What if we did finally come to our senses? In Britain, it might look like this:

What would be mentioned in that solemn prime ministerial speech on the steps of No 10, broadcast live across TV networks? All homes and businesses would be insulated, creating jobs, cutting fuel poverty and reducing emissions. Electric car charging points would be installed across the country.

A frequent flyer levy for regular, overwhelmingly affluent air passengers would be introduced.

This would only be the start. Friends of the Earth calls for free bus travel for the under-30s, combined with urgent investment in the bus network. Renewable energy would be doubled, again producing new jobs, clean energy, and reducing deadly air pollution. The government would end all investments of taxpayers’ money in fossil fuel infrastructure and launch a new tree-planting programme to double the size of forests in Britain ...

Owen Jones concludes his piece with this:

Coronavirus poses many challenges and threats, but few opportunities. A judicious response to global heating would provide affordable transport, well-insulated homes, skilled green jobs and clean air. Urgent action to prevent a pandemic is of course necessary and pressing. But the climate crisis represents a far graver and deadlier existential threat, and yet the same sense of urgency is absent. Coronavirus shows it can be done – but it needs determination and willpower, which, when it comes to the future of our planet, are desperately lacking.

The pessimist in me says that nothing will change, and the world will continue its headlong plunge into the climatic abyss.

The residual optimist in me, a very faint presence nowadays, hopes I am wrong.

It Makes Perfect Sense

While many bemoan the fate of the Teck Resources Frontier tarsands project as yet another example of restrictive regulatory measures, others, as the following letter from the print edition of the Toronto Star suggests, say its death makes perfect corporate sense.

Free market now realizes carbon reserves best left alone

Re Regulatory process blamed for oilsands mine’s end, Feb. 28

Canadians who haven’t followed B.C. Premier John Horgan, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau down the rabbit hole understand that the collapse of the Teck Frontier proposal is a positive indication that the “free market” is functioning as it should.

Corporations, investors and shareholders are belatedly coming to realize that it is in everyone’s best interest that most of the world’s carbon reserves — include Alberta’s oilsands — be left in the ground.

Only in Wonderland would politicians employ massive taxpayer subsidies to subvert the marketplace and promote uneconomical, climate-destroying fossil-fuel projects; $16 billion to buy and build the Trans Mountain pipelines, plus $6 billion to construct Coastal GasLink.

The truth is, pipelines don’t end at a terminal. Every pipeline is a conduit to the sky, ultimately dumping its carbon into a dangerously overheated atmosphere.

Only by changing the ways that we produce and consume energy can we hope to avert climate catastrophe.

Mike Ward, Duncan, B.C.

The Silver Lining

While the world's unease continues to grow over the spread of coronavirus Covid-19, there is a kind of silver lining for that same world. In China, where the bug originated, air pollution is vanishing in its industrial heartland.
Satellites operated by NASA and the European Space Agency have detected significant drops of major airborne pollutants above vast swathes of the country.

Before-and-after images show how nitrogen dioxide levels plummeted in February compared to pre-lockdown January of this year. Nitrogen dioxide is a noxious gas emitted by factories, motor vehicles and fossil fuel-powered electricity generation stations.



The country's strong corona containment measures are largely responsible for this dramatic drop:

Researchers say China’s pollutant levels normally decline in February as factories pause for Lunar New Year celebrations, when the world’s largest annual mass migration occurs. But the usual rebound in pollutant levels did not occur last month, helping to illustrate the vast scale of shutdowns in the world’s second biggest economy.

“This year, the reduction rate is more significant than in past years and it has lasted longer,” Liu said. “I am not surprised because many cities nationwide have taken measures to minimize spread of the virus.”

Although such measures are taking an economic toll, not only in China but throughout the world (cancelled flights, reluctance to 'shop til you drop', stock market corrections, etc.), the natural world is in fact benefiting.

Homeostasis is a self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival.

I can't help but wonder if Covid-19 is part of nature's efforts toward that end.

Maybe We Need It After All, Eh?

In traditional conservative thought, the role of government is pretty narrowly defined; with the emphasis placed on individual liberty, government must minimize its intrusion into that liberty, providing only the necessities that promote security such as armies, police forces, and prisons. Taxes are bad, except as they support that security. The rest of life's activities should be largely self-regulating, the wisdom of the market prevailing in the bulk of those activities.

In her column today, Susan Delacourt says the times we live in challenge that notion.

If there is any upside to the ongoing blockades, strangled rail lines, the threat of a virus pandemic, even the struggle between environment and economy in Canada these days, it is this — very few people are arguing for the government to get out of the way.

Smaller government hasn’t looked like the answer to any of the problems besetting Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in early 2020. Less politics, maybe, but not less government.

Even that ardent Conservative, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, was musing this week about getting the government involved in financing the oil industry.

We have been hit hard lately, with crises ranging from the Iranian downing of a passenger jet killing many Canadians to the corona virus spread to rail blockades. None of those situations evoke cries for the government to mind its own business. Indeed, we look to government to address these issues and protect us from the vagaries of the world.

...the federal government has been very active this year in countries outside its jurisdiction — flying Canadians out of virus-affected spots in China and elsewhere, assisting families of the air-crash victims on the ground in Iran.

As well,

[i]t turns out ... that we do need the federal government to keep the rails running, or so Trudeau’s critics have been saying.

This past week, we learned that the federal government had been working quietly behind the scenes to get CN trains running on rival CP tracks, in a bid to avert total paralysis of train transportation. It would have been interesting to see the reaction if Transport Minister Marc Garneau had simply shrugged in the face of the blockades and said this was a matter for the private sector to settle.

The fact is, we do look to government not only for protection, but also reassurance:

...as the virus in China has been morphing into the threat of a global pandemic, pressure is building on the federal government to protect citizens. The markets may be freaking out, but the state is expected to be calm and non-panicky — and watching out for us. Rugged individualism is all well and good when we’re faced with paying our taxes, but perhaps not entirely our approach when it comes to safeguarding our health and lives. Questions are beginning to be asked as well about how the government will act to shore up any economic havoc wreaked by the virus scare

Delacourt's conclusion?

Government is based on the premises that citizens need the state. Sometimes it takes a crisis or two to remind us of that simple idea.

A Tonic For The Spirit

The older and more resigned about the world I get, the more I need this kind of story.

I posted recently about Quaden Bayles, the young Australian lad who has dwarfism. At nine years old, he wanted to die due to the relentless bullying he has experienced in his young life. After his mother posted a deeply disturbing video about the bullying, the better angels of the world descended in full force, starting a gofundme page to send Quaden and his mother to Disneyland.

But the story doesn't end there.

The family of Quaden Bayles, an Australian boy with dwarfism seen crying and expressing a desire to kill himself in a social media video last week, has declined a trip to Disneyland following a GoFundMe campaign, saying it will donate the funds to charity instead.

"What kid wouldn't want to go to Disneyland, especially if you have lived Quaden's life. To escape to anywhere that is fun that doesn't remind him of his day to day challenges," Bayles' aunt Mundanara Bayles told Australia's NITV News on Thursday.

"But my sister said 'you know what, let's get back to the real issue'. This little fella has been bullied. How many suicides, black or white, in our society have happened due to bullying?" she added. "We want the money to go to community organizations that really need it. They know what the money should be spent on, so as much as we want to go to Disneyland, I think our community would far off benefit from that."

While I really think they should use a bit of the money to take the boy to Disneyland, his mother's heart is in the right, life-affirming place.

The family noted Dwarfism Awareness Australia and Balunu Healing Foundation as two organizations they would like to see benefit from the fund.

"We need to come together and work out how to make sure young people like Quaden don't have to deal with what they have been dealing with," Bayles said. "We've had seven kids at the Murri School in Brisbane, where I am on the board, take their lives in the last ten years."

In these dark days, I appreciate whatever rays of light I can catch.

A Vile Image

It is good that this pathetic, disturbing attempt by Alberta energy company X-Site to incite hatred and sexual violence against Greta Thunerg is being widely denounced within Alberta. Surely, there is no place in our country or anywhere else for this kind of violent, misogynistic backlash against someone corporate Canada feels threatened by.



Rocky Mountain House, Alta., Councillor Michelle Narang summed up the revulsion all right-thinking people should feel this way:

“This company represents everything that the oil and gas industry needs to fight against,” Narang said to Global News while reading what she had posted online.

“I am absolutely sickened that X-Site Energy Services would think that the hard-working men and women in the energy industry would condone this representation of a child clearly being raped.”

“We do not rape women and girls to teach them a lesson. This is not our oilpatch,” Narang said to Global News. “We can’t have this representation of the oil patch and the oil companies and of our industry be accepted as normal. People need to start speaking out about it.

“It’s not OK.”

I guess X-Site just didn't get the memo, eh?

This Is Unbelievable

I've seen a lot in my life, but I am still trying to process this story:

At a carnival procession in Spain, participants dressed like Nazis and Jewish concentration camp prisoners while dancing next to a float evoking crematoria.

A video of the procession shows the participants marching in their fake Nazi uniforms. Behind them, dancers wearing striped outfits evoking concentration camp uniforms followed while waving flags of Israel. They were followed by the float shaped like a train locomotive with two large chimneys.

On Sunday, a carnival procession in Aalst, Belgium, featured costumes of ultra-Orthodox Jews depicted as ants. Dozens of other participants wore fake hooked noses based on Jewish stereotypes.

And here's the kicker:

The group that created the float said it was meant to protest the rising cost of living.

This Is Heartbreaking

... and believe me, I am not one easily moved. It is must-viewing for anyone who has ever bullied or been bullied, but it is very, very hard to watch:

Bullied boy's heartbreaking video sparks support - and suspicion

Hearts have been breaking across the internet over a viral Facebook Live video of Quaden Bayles, a nine-year-old Australian boy with dwarfism who tells his mother he'd rather die than endure the bullying he faces at school. "I want someone to kill me," Quaden says in the video, as he sits and cries out of an open car door.

Forgetting Their Purpose

There is little doubt that politicians' constituency work can be onerous, eroding personal/family time while home on the weekends and perhaps compromising the work they do in Ottawa. It is not a task I envy.

Nonetheless, there are those who, obstructed by overweening ego and ambition, refuse to acknowledge that serving their constituents is or should be their primary task. This might seem to be stating the obvious, but it is a truth some would-be Titans of the political universe seem to largely ignore, local scutt work apparently beneath their political dignity.

This is the tale of one such person.

I speak from personal experience here as I write about the consistent unresponsiveness of my Liberal MP, Liberal Filomena Tassi, to my phone calls and emails, and it stands in marked contrast to the relationship I had with my former MP (we had boundary changes in our area), Conservative MP David Sweet. Although he and I never saw eye-to-eye on any issues I raised with him or his office, the fact that Sweet would always respond to my emails, either by email or personal phone calls, earned my deep respect, and I like to think that we had some quite civilized exchanges.

Unfortunately, Ms. Tassi is an entirely different story. After a career helping others as a chaplain at a Catholic high school, her leap into politics looked like a good transition, one that would enable her to help even more people. Sadly, that has not turned out to be the case. Rising quickly within the government power structure, she is currently the Minister of Labour, a position she no doubt attained through both talent and party fealty.

And that fealty was obvious from the beginning, not only through the many photos of her with the movers and shakers of her government, but also what I regard as her strategic decision to refuse to acknowledge those who ask where she stands on an issue. That I am not alone in being ignored is attested to by a letter to the editor that appeared in The Hamilton Spectator back in 2017:

My MP ignored my voice

RE: Pensions in crisis
As a longtime resident of Ancaster, and a former Sears employee for over 30 years, I thought it was important to write my member of Parliament regarding my concerns about the financial future of thousands of fellow Sears pensioners locally and across Canada. It would have been nice to know that my elected representative from the Liberal government, shared my concern, and may have some input into its final conclusion.

This is the first time that I have contacted an MP on anything, and unfortunately, after an initial email over three weeks ago, a followup email and then a phone message to her Ottawa office a week ago, there has been no reply. I guess Ms. Filomena Tassi does not place a high priority on aging pensioners problems, but politeness and common courtesy should have resulted in some sort of followup!

I would like to thank MP Scott Duvall of the NDP for his efforts to bring this plight to the forefront and to The Hamilton Spectator for printing articles on pension shortfalls.

Ms. Tassi — is anyone manning the communications in your office — do you care?

Don Backman, Ancaster

Backman's letter prompted me to write one of my own, a truncated version of which follows:

Liberal MP Filomena Tassi must have missed the orientation given to all newly-elected federal representatives when she took office just over two years ago. Had she attended, she would have understood that one of the most important roles of parliamentarians is to represent and help their constituents on both big and small issues.

Her failure to even acknowledge Don Backman's emails and calls on the very important pension issue do not surprise me in the least. The emails I sent her on two separate occasions, one shortly after she was elected and another about six months later, netted me the same result. Her failure to respond to the first I attributed to the fact that she was new to office. The silence that met my second missive, regarding Canada's unconscionable sale of arms to the Saudis, was harder to explain away.

.......

Perhaps the current representative of Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas has reasons for her silence. Is it possible she is angling for a role higher than that of backbencher in the Trudeau government, her strategy being to avoid any contentious matters in order to demonstrate unflinching fealty to Justin Trudeau? Cabinet positions are often built on such absolute loyalties.

If that is the case, Ms. Tassi has a gross misunderstanding of where her first allegiance should lie: her constituents.

I might add that I recently wrote to her again, despite her communications embargo, expressing my opposition to the Teck Resources' Frontier Mine and asking where she stood on the issue. Again, no response.

So is this post simply an expression of egoistic frustration, an old guy angry that he is not being heard or acknowledged by his Member of Parliament? Not at all.

It has become increasingly apparent that our governments no longer feel responsible for representing and advancing the public interest, unless that public interest happens to coincide with economic and corporate health. The wants, needs and expectations of the general public are rarely regarded as imperatives except during election campaigns; such a cynical manipulation of the electorate, in my view, goes a long way toward explaining the alienation and disengagement far too many Canadians feel.

Whether or not MPs agree or disagree with their constituents' views and values is ultimately secondary here. It is their failure to even acknowledge them that betrays one of the basic tenets of democracy and the implicit covenant our elected representatives have with all of us.

An Effective Rebuke Of Trumpland Republicans

Filmmaker Matthew Cooke provides much-needed perspective and context as a counter to the far-right rhetoric that relentlessly seeks to undermine faith in government.

Well-worth five minutes of our time:



H/t Penny Gill

An Unhinged And Unbound President

"...a president is fully above the law in the most dangerous kind of way. This is how democracies die.”

- Former U.S. attorney Joyce White Vance

Those who have been reading this blog over the years will have noticed that I post far less than I used to. The reason is a simple one: my disenchantment with the world and its politics has reached new depths. Consequently, I do wonder if writing about this broken world is the best use of whatever time remains to me, given that if I am very fortunate, I likely have little more than two decades left.

Nonetheless, like a moth drawn to a flame, I read things that erode what little faith I have left in this world but also sometimes demand a catharsis that only writing about them can on occasion provide.

Case in point: Edward Keenan writes about how, post-impeachment, the unhinged Donald Trump is now also unbound, using the levers of power to punish all who have crossed him:

Trump has always had strongman tendencies — the grandiose rallies and military parades, proclaimed admiration for dictators, declarations that his actions are beyond scrutiny — but his actions this week amplified that affinity in ways that could do lasting damage. Jason Stanley, a Yale University professor and the author of “How Fascism Works” told Business Insider that the tactics employed by the president and his Republican Party are “straight from the literature on authoritarianism.”

First there was the punishment of his perceived enemies: Trump dismissed his ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, and marched decorated war veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman out of the White House — along with Vindman’s twin brother, Yevgeny, who also worked in the White House but played no role in the impeachment trial.

His chilling message of retribution is a clear warning of the consequences of crossing him in any way, something only worthy of the world's worst dictators.

And it's not just to individuals that this message is directed:

More explicit was Trump’s proclamation that he would use policy to punish New York unless it dropped investigations and lawsuits into his taxes. New York’s attorney general has been investigating several matters related to Trump and his businesses; recently, the Department of Homeland Security suspended the state’s access to trusted traveller programs that speed entry at border crossings. Trump appeared to connect the two when he tweeted that Gov. Andrew Cuomo needs to understand, in the context of the “national security” issues, that “New York must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harassment.”

Then there is the special attention directed toward those who Trump perceives as his loyalists:

On Monday, the U.S. attorneys who successfully prosecuted former Trump adviser Roger Stone for crimes related to Trump’s 2016 campaign suggested a prison sentence of seven to nine years, which was in line with the standards set out in federal guidelines. On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted that the recommendation was “horrible and unfair,” and insisted that “the real crimes were on the other side.”

Hours later, the Justice Department intervened to overrule its own staff and suggest leniency for Stone. In response, all four prosecutors withdrew from the case, with one even resigning from the department.

So much for the rule of law and the independence of the Justice Depart, a tradition that dates back to the Watergate era.

Perhaps Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown sums it up best:

Trump’s “retribution tour” shows he has indeed learned something from acquittal: “The lesson is he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.”

After the election of Trump, I made a pledge not to visit the U.S. as long as he was in office. I am beginning to think that that pledge will wind up being a long-term one, not just because of the very real possibility that he will be re-elected in November, but also because under his presidency, he may in fact be making changes to the very complexion and nature of American politics and society that his successors will either be unwilling or unable to reverse.

Truly, the United States is a nation in precipitous and likely irreversible decline.

Going, Going ......

I posted recently about the Teck tarsands development that is seeking the Trudeau regime's approval. If the government gives its go-ahead to the project, it will destroy whatever remnants remain of Mr. Trudeau's claims to green bona fides, not to mention the incalculable damage such a massive enterprise will do to the world's remaining carbon budget.

In today's print edition of The Star, John Stephenson of Toronto offers his perspective:

World co-operation is required to solve the climate crisis. Co-operation requires trust. How is the world to ever trust Canada if it approves the gigantic new Teck Frontier oilsands mine?

Here is what Bill McKibbon recently wrote about us in the Guardian: “If an alcoholic assured you he was taking his condition very seriously, but also laying in a 40-year store of bourbon, you’d be entitled to doubt his sincerity, or at least to note his confusion. Oil has addled the Canadian ability to do basic math: more does not equal less, and 2066 is not any time soon. An emergency means you act now.”

He concludes: “Trudeau, for all his charms, doesn’t get to have it both ways: if you can’t bring yourself to stop a brand-new tar sands mine then you’re not a climate leader.”

Approving Frontier probably won’t appease Alberta. But it will burn bridges with all environmentalists and the rest of the world. It’s simply not worth it.

Words And Actions Matter

In these latter days of my life, a time when I have largely lost faith in the possibility of large-scale change, (captured governments being what they are), I think more and more of the things we do in our daily lives that can make things either more or less tolerable for others.

No matter how insignificant we may regard individual acts and comments, we should remember that they can serve as a light in the darkness that envelops our world. A simple smile, a look in the eye, a tacit recognition of someone's essential humanity - we cannot know the ramifications of such basics.

Conversely, as the following video amply demonstrates, we can refuse through our words and deeds to acknowledge those elements; what we cannot ultimately ignore, however, is their destructive impact on others:

"Go back to your country" 5 words that had a lasting impact on a Hamilton man

Here's a phrase no immigrant wants to hear, "go back to your country", those 5 words have had a lasting impact on a Hamilton man who was threatened almost two years ago. Dale Robertson doesn't deny he uttered threats and assaulted an Indo-Canadian couple.

Telling It Like it Is

That's precisely what Rutger Bregman did at Davos last year:



H/t Alex Himelfarb

Breman talks about the reaction he received from his taxation proposal:

Don't Agonize. Organize

So says the indefatigable Robert Reich, who, while admitting that the times are very discouraging, urges no one to give up in despair. You need only watch the first three minutes to get the gist of his message:

A New Horrifying High Our Leaders Will Ignore

News that Antarctica just reached new horrifyingly high temperatures, forerunner of the deluge to come, once more reinforces the perilous state our world is in. Despite that, it seems likely that the Trudeau government will approve the massive tarsands project known as the Teck mine, which I posted about the other day.

Indeed, the most startling fact about the development is that it will add to our-already massive greenhouse gas emissions which, despite the pious rhetoric of the Trudeau government, means our country, with a mere 0.5% of the planet’s population, will use up one-third of the world's remaining carbon budget.

A new petition opposing the development is available to sign at the David Suzuki Foundation.

Still not sure that this development flies in the face of ecological sanity? Perhaps the following thoughtful missives from the Toronto Star will help convince you:

I oppose the expansion of tar sands production and call on Liberal cabinet ministers to reject the Teck Frontier mine.

The Trudeau cabinet’s decision is due at the end of February. It’s the first real climate test for this government.

I am one of the two thirds of voters who voted for increased climate action in last year’s federal election. We have less than 10 years to limit climate catastrophe and must act quickly to cut carbon emissions.

The Frontier mine is incompatible with our climate targets. It will produce about four million tonnes of carbon emissions per year.

It would result in significant adverse effects on Indigenous rights and cause irreversible environmental damage. The mine would result in a loss of habitat for local species including wood bison and whooping cranes.

And it will never be financially viable due to its reliance on unrealistically high oil prices.

Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, Toronto

Can any of us really afford to wait another 30 years for Teck Resources to become carbon neutral? Canada’s federal cabinet ministers are deciding whether to reject or approve the Teck Frontier Mine, slated to be developed 110 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta. — a mine that would become Canada’s largest tar sands project.

This mine would produce 260,000 barrels of oil per day. It would cover 290 square kilometres, almost the combined area of Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond, and have a lifespan of 41 years. During those years, this mega-mine would add 4 million tonnes of CO2 per year to Canada’s emissions, singlehandedly guaranteeing we will not meet our Paris Accord targets.

A federal-provincial joint review panel found that the mine would not only cause permanent and irreversible damage to our environment, but it would also cause “significant adverse effects” on the rights, land use and culture of local Indigenous peoples.

So I ask again: Can Canada, my grandchildren and your grandchildren afford to wait 30 years for Teck to become carbon neutral? The answer from the future is a resounding and imploring cry of “no!”

Patricia Smith, Barrie

As author of “Hawk,” a novel about the oil sands being used in many Canadian schools, I want to raise awareness about the Teck Frontier mine proposal currently up for approval by our federal government.

This mega-mine, the biggest yet, will add an area twice the size of Vancouver to an already questionable tarsands industry and is undoubtedly incompatible with our climate targets.

Canadians are doing their part to cut back on emissions, but our efforts to eat less meat or use public transport pale in comparison to the harm that will be done by this proposed project.

We pray for Australia and send money to help burned koalas, we criticize others for cutting down the Amazon forest, depriving orangutans of their habitat, and we judge the U.S. for its climate-denying leadership.

But here in Canada, with scientists telling us we have less than 10 years to limit climate catastrophe, we are poised to eradicate more boreal forest and add more greenhouse gases to an already beleaguered atmosphere.

I saw former U.S. president Barack Obama on his recent visit to Toronto. He praised Canada for listening to the science. Have we stopped doing that?

Jennifer Dance, Stouffville

Despite the bellicose rhetoric emanating from Alberta over this development, which you can view with this link, in a sane world, there really would be no debate over this ill-conceived and very, very dangerous project.

May The Scales Fall From Their Eyes

To the distracted masses, apostolic minions and all evangelicals who worship at the altar of The Beast:

Repent.

Romney Was Right from chip franklin on Vimeo.

Canada Stands Indicted

While I most assuredly cannot claim any virtue when it comes to climate-change mitigation (I still fly, probably the greatest environmental sin one can commit), I do understand the gravity of what the world faces; to say I am pessimistic about our future is a massive understatement. That pessimism has been given new impetus by a piece Bill McKibben has written in The Guardian.

Despite having elected a government purporting to take climate-change seriously, it is likely we will approve a new tars sands project that will add countless megatonnes of greenhouse gases to the world's atmosphere:

The Teck mine would be the biggest tar sands mine yet: 113 square miles of petroleum mining, located just 16 miles from the border of Wood Buffalo national park. A federal panel approved the mine despite conceding that it would likely be harmful to the environment and to the land culture of Indigenous people... Canadian authorities ruled that the mine was nonetheless in the “public interest”.

To put things into perspective,

Canada, which is 0.5% of the planet’s population, plans to use up nearly a third of the planet’s remaining carbon budget [emphasis added]. Ottawa hides all this behind a series of pledges about “net-zero emissions by 2050” and so on, but they are empty promises.

Despite the worldwide evidence that we are witnessing the beginnings of runaway climate-change, we just can't seem to help ourselves.

... the Teck Frontier proposal is predicated on the idea that we’ll still need vast quantities of oil in 2066, when Greta Thunberg is about to hit retirement age. If an alcoholic assured you he was taking his condition very seriously, but also laying in a 40-year store of bourbon, you’d be entitled to doubt his sincerity, or at least to note his confusion.

Canada is far from unique in its addiction to, and advocacy for, more fossil-fuel development. What perhaps differentiates us from the world's other bad-actors in this domain is our pious avowals that we are enacting measures that will address the problem

As Bill McKibben points out, nothing could be further from the truth.

They Are Not The Exclusive Domain Of Republicans

They being intolerance and homophobia, as this exchange at the Iowa Democratic caucus makes clear:

Death Of An Icon

Dear Friends:

There is no easy way to say this: Mr. Peanut is no more. The first video below depicts the circumstances of his demise, while the second is a loving retrospective of his long life.

Looking for the silver lining of this shocking news, however, one must consider the possibility that his death was for the best; stories have abounded for years of his sad decline, many saying that he was a mere shell of his former self.

Composting has already taken place.

All Things Considered

All Things Considered is a show on NPR...good radio. Republicans don't listen cause they already have a show on FOX called "Lick Trump's Balls." https://t.co/i17FfR2vAx @TheRickWilson @gtconway3d @McFaul @Rosie @janemarielynch @girlsreallyrule @RepSwalwell @FrankFigliuzzi1 @NPR pic.twitter.com/oKx0lb7rC9

— Chip Franklin (@chipfranklin) January 30, 2020

The Living, Beating Heart Of Canada

Having visited St. John's last summer, I found that the stories of Newfoundlanders' boundless generosity and graciousness are absolutely true. Therefore, the following resonates deeply with me:

.@markcritch’s ode to the Newfoundland blizzard. #nlstorm2020 #nlblizzard2020 #nlwx pic.twitter.com/ksZEcH0EQe

— CBC News: The National (@CBCTheNational) January 21, 2020

Lev Parnas, International Man Of Mystery

Is he a hybrid of Zelig and Forrest Gump? Is he a grifter trying to make his mark on the American psyche? Is he, as suggested by Trump's impeachment defence lawyer Patricia Bondi, simply a publicity seeker?

Or is Rudi Guiliani associate Lev (Trump: I-don't-know-the-man) Parnas telling the truth when he says he was intimately involved in the Ukrainian scandal, facilitating the search for dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter?

You decide, but pay special attention to the pictorial evidence of his associations included in the following report: