-
Youth climate conference builds momentum around Canadian Green New Deal
EnvironmentSeveral hundred youth are gathering in Ottawa to kick off a recurring youth climate conference called PowerShift. This year’s event, called “PowerShift: Young and Rising,” is a four-day convergence starting February 14 that draws young people from across the country for workshops and keynote lectures by prominent activists like Kanahus Manuel, Harsha Walia, Derek Nepinak, and Romeo Saganash. Organizers say the aim of the conference is to galvanize youth around the climate change and Indigenous rights movements.
-
For a grieving optimism
EnvironmentOrganizing out of our grief for this planet and all of us on it rests on the certain knowledge that, for the vast majority of us who are not rich, most of the problems facing us now are at a scale beyond our individual capacity to solve. The way to be a grieving optimist is to band together with others who care about this world, and to struggle. We can be wonderful. We can be magnificent. We can turn this shit around.
-
May warns Ottawa will be forced to pay for oilpatch cleanup costs
Canadian PoliticsMay noted that the sector, which extracts heavy oil from tar-like bituminous deposits of sand beneath Alberta’s boreal forest, has been heavily subsidized ever since former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government offered billions of dollars in incentives. She said the cost of liabilities would dramatically rise if governments continue to allow the industry to expand. She suggested it would be better to maintain current levels of production, refining the product in Alberta and cancelling new pipeline expansion projects to reduce carbon pollution.
-
Eco Crises: Doom & Gloom, Truth & Consequences
EnvironmentWe will have to support one another in a battle against the rich and powerful who resist – with more fervor than any other type of resistance – all of the changes necessary that might stand half a chance of making this world more equitable and ecologically sound. We should do so not because we will necessarily save the world, but because as moral, ethical, rational, human beings, how can we not do so? And we do so because, unless we are mere sociopaths, we are clear about the truth of our situation and the consequences of not doing so.
-
Climate change and corporate greed combine to destroy forests with fire and felling
EnvironmentThe razing of millions of acres of forests by wildfires has been increasing in scale and intensity for the past few decades. This year has set new records for the number of trees and shrubs destroyed by fire – not just in the United States and Canada, but also in many other countries, including England, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. Wildfires have been a yearly occurrence in the summer months for centuries. Triggered mainly by lightning, they were nature’s way of disposing of dead timber and providing fertile ground for new plant growth.
-
The limits of renewable energy and the case for degrowth
EnvironmentThe obstacles to the transition to renewable energy reveal the limits of mainstream thinking and the impossibility of never-ending growth. Technological change will not suffice. We need to rethink consumerism and growth, which is all but impossible within the current capitalist framework. Degrowth may be a more difficult road to travel, but it is more likely to get us where we need to go without planetary climate upheaval and without exacerbating social inequality.
-
The People’s Pipeline
EnvironmentIn an era of neoliberal privatization when governments the world over are hastening to sell off state owned assets, Justin Trudeau bucks the trend by ponying up $4.5 billion to buy the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, with complete disregard for the resolute opposition by the B.C. government, many Indigenous groups, most environmentalists and thousands of citizens across the country deeply worried about the ecological impact and risks of both the pipeline expansion and the ensuing escalation of tanker traffic.
-
Manitoba Hydro’s dirty power — and dark legacy
EnvironmentRelations between Hydro and Indigenous communities have improved somewhat since then, the CEC heard. Although there is still conflict and issues of racism around existing Hydro projects, like the Keeyask Generating Station, the review found. The worst part of all this is you get the feeling you’re only hearing a very small part of a much bigger story behind these Hydro mega-projects in the north when it comes to the paternalism, the bigotry and the assault on human dignity that appeared to be so rampant.
-
Energy economics
Economic CrisisEntire cities are now running out of water, while others are violently flooded with far too much of it. Wildfires, droughts, pestilence, famines: climate change is already making these disasters bigger, stronger and more frequent. And we’ve seen nothing yet. By the end of the century, there could be two billion climate refugees. Two billion. We are facing simply unprecedented levels of death, misery and collapse in already Dickensian living standards. Unless, of course, we take truly radical action.
-
Climate change and the next left
EnvironmentClimate change is already happening. But the really bad news is that there’s very strong evidence that capitalism will deliver a future of catastrophic climate change that will have far-reaching effects around the world, especially in the imperialized countries of the Global South. There is a vast gap between the continuing growth of greenhouse gas emissions and the massive reductions of emissions are needed to prevent widespread catastrophes.
