Justin Trudeau is providing people in Canada with things to celebrate. For starters, he is temperamentally the anti-Harper. Trudeau was seen shaking hands with passersby in a Montreal metro station, took (gasp) unscripted questions from journalists, and announced the withdrawal of Canadian bombers from Iraq and Syria. He reiterated election promises, and there’s some decent stuff in there.
A federal regulator will allow Shell Canada Ltd. to begin exploration drilling off Nova Scotia after it reduced the number of days it would take the company to bring in capping technology in the event of a subsea well blowout.
The company says it would have a capping stack on site within 12 to 13 days after previously saying it would take up to 21 days.
The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board said Tuesday it is satisfied that Shell is taking all reasonable precautions to protect safety and the environment.
For now, we are discussing a problem left to us by capitalism - climate change.” This was the conclusion of Bolivian President Evo Morales in his closing remarks to the October 10-12 World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Defence of Life in Cochabamba.
More than 5000 people from more than 40 countries took part in the summit, established to give a voice to the poor and marginalised victims of climate change. Proposals and demands agreed on at the summit will be taken directly to the United Nations climate talks in Paris starting on November 30.
At the UN Climate Change Conference COP 19, the even-more-depressing-than-usual climate summit that took place in Warsaw in 2013, one small ray of light made it through the dark corporate clouds that were otherwise suffocating even the slightest effort to address the ongoing environmental disaster. On the last day of the conference, an unusual alliance was formed as environmental organizations and trade unions together walked out of the venue under the banner of “Enough Is Enough.” Sick of the meaningless talks, they stated:
This Changes Everything is a book capacious enough to allow Naomi Klein two positions at once. But a real climate-justice movement will at some point have to make choices.
[Website editor's note: Another notable statement by an establishment figure.]
Mark Carney was speaking in Britain to an audience of insurance executives, but he might as well have been talking to oil workers in Fort McMurray, Alta., their bosses in Calgary or bankers on Bay Street.
Think of it as a sobering climate-change wake-up call for Canadians.
Lars Henriksson is a Swedish auto worker, unionist activist, and author of the 2011 book Slutkört.
At the COP 19, the even-more-depressing-than-usual climate summit that took place in Warsaw in 2013, one small ray of light made it through the dark corporate clouds that were otherwise suffocating even the slightest effort to address the ongoing environmental disaster.
The upcoming Paris climate talks in December this year have been characterised as humanity’s last chance to respond to climate change. Many hope that this time some form of international agreement will be reached, committing the world to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
And yet there are clear signs that the much-touted “solutions” of emissions reduction targets and market mechanisms are insufficient for what is required.
On a sprawling, multicultural, fractious planet, no person can be heard by everyone. But Pope Francis comes closer than anyone else. He heads the world’s largest religious denomination and so has 1.2 billion people in his flock, but even (maybe especially) outside the precincts of Catholicism his talent for the telling gesture has earned him the respect and affection of huge numbers of people.
