The science tells us that policymakers and investors have so far been wrong to advocate so strongly for mechanical carbon-dioxide removal (CDR) solutions to the detriment of biological ones. The fate of future generations is at stake, and we cannot afford to waste both time and money on techno-fixes that are ineffective at achieving our climate goals.

It would be quite innovative for the government to acquire the Medicago vaccine plant they already paid for. This would provide Canada with something it hasn’t had since the mid-1980s: a domestic vaccine production facility. Not only could Canada then produce its own COVID vaccine, it could use the plant-based vaccine production process to create other essential vaccines.

First Nations seem unusually well placed to challenge an exclusionary politics that withholds scientific power from the majority of those affected by it. The successes of these First Nations could lead to greater changes. Perhaps this is why the faux-partisan pundit classes seem so bent on distracting us with their interminable squabbling over how to divide the cake amongst themselves.

Those following the Senate and Parliamentary hearings into Bills C-11 and C-18 might think Canadian media are wasting away while foreign digital giants like Google, Facebook and Netflix are replacing them. But big telecom companies like Rogers and Bell continue to take the lion’s share from subscription revenues for cable, Internet access, and wireless services.

The US has gambled big in its latest sanctions on Chinese companies in the semiconductor industry, believing it can kneecap China and retain its global dominance. From the slogans of globalization and “free trade” of the neoliberal 1990s, Washington has reverted to good old technology denial regimes that the US and its allies followed during the Cold War.

The high-stakes game of chicken that is the Online News Act reached a new, dangerous level after the federal government closed the list of speakers on its pending Bill C-18 without inviting Meta. That prompted the owner of social network Facebook to issue a statement threatening to stop carrying links to news stories from Canada if Ottawa tries to force it to pay for doing so.

If the energy transition is the biggest technical challenge ever, it is also the biggest social, economic, and political challenge in human history. It may also turn out to be an enormous geopolitical challenge, if nations end up fighting over access to the minerals and metals that will be the enablers of the energy transition.

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy will save countries at least US$12 trillion by 2050, an Oxford University research team reports. The study concludes that “the decarbonization of the energy system will not only see a major reduction in the cost of producing and distributing energy, but will also help expand energy access around the planet.”

We are in the middle of an historic energy crisis. Recently, news headlines have been overwhelmed by commentaries on the price of energy across Europe, driving governments like Canada’s to make sweeping statements about the future of natural gas and hydrogen. Many of these new climate plans are predicated upon carbon capture and storage technologies.

Paris Marx is one of the leading authorities on all things “tech.” As host of the award-winning Tech Won’t Save Us podcast and author the upcoming Verso book Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation, Marx expertly dissects the countless promises—and far more often, failures—of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and fads like cryptocurrency and the Metaverse.