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?