Global

COVID-19 illustrates why Canada needs more — and better — public banks

17/02/21

Author:

David McDonald

Link:

Public banks around the world are working towards the public good during COVID-19. The Canada Infrastructure Bank, however, seems focused on privatizing critical public services instead of ensuring vital infrastructure across the country is built or maintained, like this project to repair the bridge spanning the Halifax harbour in 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

February 16, 2021

Most Canadians could be forgiven for not knowing what a public bank is. We do have some — the Alberta Treasury Branch, the Business Development Bank, the Export Development Canada and the Canada Infrastructure Bank — but they are relatively low profile and have narrow mandates.

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Category:

Canada

Global

Social

Coming soon: A public database of global fossil fuel reserves

16/02/21

Author:

Carl Meyer

Link:

National Observer

Suncor refinery in Commerce City, Colo., in 2005. The registry is being spearheaded by the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, an effort to focus more on what’s happening with the planet’s fossil fuel supply. Photo from Suncor

February 16th 2021

Energy experts are working to produce the world’s first public and complete database of fossil fuel reserves in the lead-up to this year’s UN climate summit.

The “Global Registry of Fossil Fuels” would fill a major gap in public knowledge, where only expensive or proprietary databases on fossil fuel reserves have existed before, or ones that are not detailed enough or are designed for industry use.

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Global salmon farming harming marine life and costing billions in damage

11/02/21

Author:

Fiona Harvey

Link:

The Guardian

Fish mortality has more than quadrupled, from 3% in 2002 to about 13.5% in 2019, in Scottish salmon farms alone. Photograph: Robert F Bukaty/AP

Feb. 11, 2021

Report says pollution, parasites and fish mortality rates cost an estimated $50bn globally from 2013 to 2019

Salmon farming is wreaking ruin on marine ecosystems, through pollution, parasites and high fish mortality rates which are causing billions of pounds a year in damage, a new assessment of the global salmon farming industry has found.

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Category:

Ecology/Environment

Fisheries

Global

Unions, Just Transition and the Struggle for Radical Social Transformation

04/02/21

Author:

John Treat

Link:

The Bullet

February 4, 2021

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Court convicts French state for failure to address climate crisis

04/02/21

Author:

Kim Willsher

Link:

The Guardian

Environmental activists stage a protest in Paris in January before the first hearing in the case against the French state over climate inaction. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Image

Feb. 3, 2021

State found guilty of ‘non-respect of its engagements’ aimed at fighting global warming

A Paris court has convicted the French state of failing to address the climate crisis and not keeping its promises to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

In what has been hailed as a historic ruling, the court found the state guilty of “non-respect of its engagements” aimed at combating global warming.

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Category:

Climate Change

Environmental Groups

Global

Three Major Threats to Life on Earth

14/01/21

Author:

Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad

Link:

The Bullet

image of globe under threat with heads of leaders, polar bear, nuclear explosion

January 14, 2021

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Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruption

14/01/21

Author:

Phoebe Weston

Link:

The Guardian

Smoke and flames rise from an illegal fire in the Amazon rainforest reserve, south of Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty

Jan. 13, 2021

Sobering new report says world is failing to grasp the extent of threats posed by biodiversity loss and the climate crisis

The planet is facing a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction, according to an international group of scientists, who warn people still haven’t grasped the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises.

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Category:

The United States Has Entered a Frightening Weimar Era

11/01/21

Author:

Walden Bello

Link:

Common Dreams

Pro-Trump extremists storm the U.S. Capitol (Photo: Shutterstock)

January 07, 2021

The violent storming of the Capitol by pro-Trump extremists underlines the face of crises to come.

By mid-February 2021, American deaths from COVID-19 may well surpass the country’s 405,400 deaths during the Second World War. By around mid-May, more Americans will have died from the virus than during the Civil War, which killed 655,000, and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, when 675,000 are estimated to have perished.

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Category:

Bust CleanBC's biofuel scam

09/01/21

Author:

Eric Doherty

Link:

National Observer

Aerial view of a biofuel crop harvested in Kahului, Maui, Hawaii, on March 5, 2018. Photo by Forest and Kim Starr/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 US)

January 5th 2021

On Dec. 16, the B.C. government released the CleanBC 2020 Climate Change Accountability Report, which revealed that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation, the single biggest source in B.C., have risen by 23 per cent since 2007, and six per cent in 2018 alone.

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Category:

'Alternative' energy and less energy

CO2 already emitted will warm Earth beyond climate targets, study finds

06/01/21

Author:

CBC News

Link:

CBC News

New study finds 'committed warming' is 2.3 C, higher than previous estimates; but it can be delayed

The Associated Press · Jan 05, 2021

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Category:

Global

Report says pollution, parasites and fish mortality rates cost an estimated $50bn globally from 2013 to 2019

State found guilty of ‘non-respect of its engagements’ aimed at fighting global warming

Sobering new report says world is failing to grasp the extent of threats posed by biodiversity loss and the climate crisis

The violent storming of the Capitol by pro-Trump extremists underlines the face of crises to come.

New study finds 'committed warming' is 2.3 C, higher than previous estimates; but it can be delayed

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