by Phil Taylor the Taylor Report for CIUT
Professor Edward S Herman dissects Stephen Pinker's book, The Better Angels of our Nature, which suggests that humanity is progressing towards more civilized behaviour. Herman believes that the book is a gift to the ruling class.
by Jody Dallaire, Dieppe Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunity between Women and Men
At first I thought that the "Harper government" (as it wants to be called, rather than "the Canadian government") was being inconsistent, had made a faux pas even, with the internet snooping bill. I mean think about it.
by Ish Theilheimer
The NDP doesn't like to admit it, but it has an establishment of wizened, veteran smart people. Sometimes they're too smart for their own good, which appears to be the case with Brian Topp's candidacy.
by David Suzuki
Cities cover just two percent of the world's land area, yet they account for about 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the United Nations, 59 percent of us now live in cities; in developing countries, 81 percent of people are urbanites. And those figures are rising every day.
by Phil Taylor the Taylor Report for CIUT
Yakov Rabkin, a speaker at the recent Science for Peace anti-war workshop about Iran, has pursued the continuing question over Israel's intentions towards the Islamic Republic. The discussion in the headlines is whether or not Israel might be interested in a pre-emptive attack on the Iran — a discussion alarming in its audacity. Are we dealing with another "Weapons of Mass Distraction" issue?
by Jody Dallaire, Dieppe Advisory Committee on Equal
Last year at this time, the provincial government was officially marking International Women's Day with sponsored events and media releases reminding us that "there is still a great deal to be achieved" towards the equality of the sexes. It said it hoped that women's day would "motivate to
Unofficially, the government had likely already decided to abolish its independent body that worked for gender equality. Later that month, David Alward would announce he was reneging on a promise in his platform and, instead of "actively engaging" with the Advisory Council on the Status of Women — as the platform said — he would abolish it.
The Advisory Council, which had been created by another Progressive Conservative government, was the only independent voice for women's concerns in the government and was doing valued work — as the reaction to his decision would soon attest. Among the many manifestations of that shock that were seen in the days and months following the Council's abolition, many remember the photos of large numbers of mostly young women with tape over their mouths on which "Alward" was written.
Since then, the government has at times seemed to regret the day it made that decision. But it also has had it easier because the Advisory Council is not around. That was why the Council was abolished — not to save the couple of hundred thousand dollars, as was suggested.
The Advisory Council researched and raised issues that were not on the government's agenda. It commented publicly when no one in the government would — and still won't — on how issues affect women. It informed women and groups, and anyone else listening, on the status of equality in the province.
What might the Advisory Council have done in the past year if they had been in place? In other words, what have we missed? What did the government dodge?
Had the Advisory Council been around in the last year, we likely would have in hand better information with which to receive and analyze the upcoming provincial budget. The Advisory Council had made substantial contributions to understanding budgets from an equality point of view.
The Council promoted critical thinking among feminists and community groups, advising them to follow the money, so that governments cannot say one thing and spend on another. In other words, tell me what you spend on and I'll tell you what your priorities are. Nobody has stepped up to the plate to play that role since the abolishment of the Advisory Council.
The Advisory Council compiled a Status Report of statistics on women and men in the province which showed, among other things, where inequalities still existed or were still being tolerated. It had commissioned or supported
Were the Advisory Council still around, we would have had in the last year dozens and dozens of public sessions in every region of New Brunswick on subjects of interests to women and on issues of fairness and equality. The Advisory Council reached thousands of New Brunswickers every year with their very popular and unusual series of mostly Lunch and Learns.
I remember some of the topics at Lunch and Learn sessions that the Advisory Council offered. Many of them I attended. Others, I listened to on the audio recordings which they made available on their internet site. Subjects included How is the child care system working for you? Running for City Hall 101. Sex Matters!: Why Analysis Must Include Gender. Sex and Taxes in New Brunswick. Women, Poverty and the Recession. Are We There Yet? Child Care Spending as Economic Stimulus. Promoting Social Justice for Rural New Brunswick.
At one of its last public sessions on the impact of the government`s tax cutting agenda, with economists Jean-Philippe Bourgeois and Joe Ruggeri, the Council distributed (as was its habit) a suggested action sheet with suggestions for citizens who might be interested in following up on the issue discussed, complete with email addresses, media contacts and lists for further readings. You can bet this was not welcome everywhere.
Were the Advisory Council still around, it would likely have spoken about the number of domestic violence related murder suicides and femicide in this province lately. Without them around, we hear about the services available for surviving victims of wife abuse — but no one is saying, like the Advisory Council would say on this topic — we're wiping the floor but we're not shutting the tap.
Were the Advisory Council still around, it would likely have told us about the impact on women of successive government's irresponsible management of the minimum wage levels. The Council would have estimated the thousands of dollars that some of New Brunswick's hardest and lowest paid workers — those in child care centers, community homes, battered women's shelters and home support services — have lost and will never get because of successive government's slow motion on pay equity.
Some may think that the government has weathered citizens' wrath about the abolition of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women. The government has since taken little action to reduce gender inequalities, to work with the equality seeking community or allow for gender issues to be taken into account in public business.
However, the government knows, from its own surveys and from the continued reaction of the citizens it meets, that it did a mean and unnecessary thing when it abolished the Advisory Council and has lost some credibility as a result.
by Geoffrey Stevens
Robocalling is a relatively new phenomenon in Canada. More correctly, it's been around for a while, but has only recently become a political issue — what with "Pierre Poutine" and his throwaway cell phone in Guelph and growing evidence that automated telephone calls were used in efforts to mislead voters or to suppress turnout, or both, in many ridings in the 2011 federal election.
We know the robocalling reached far beyond Guelph. Protests were being held yesterday across the country. Elections Canada, RCMP and possibly the CRTC (which regulates telecoms) are investigating, at last count, 31,000 complaints. We don't know how long these investigations will take. (Given the measured pace at which such investigations customarily unfold, one could speculate that Stephen Harper and his ministers will be holding their cabinet meetings in a home for aged privy councillors long before the investigators' reports disturb their slumber.)
by David Suzuki
Lets' suppose the world's legitimate scientific institutions and academies, climate scientists, and most of the world's governments are wrong.
Maybe, as some people have argued, they're involved in a massive conspiracy to impose a socialist world order. Maybe the money's just too damn good. It doesn't matter. Let's just imagine they're wrong, and that the polar ice caps aren't melting and the climate isn't changing. Or, if you prefer, that it's happening, but that it's a natural occurrence — nothing to do with seven billion people spewing carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere.
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It's all about protecting corporate profits and interests. |
Would it still make sense to continue rapidly burning the world's diminishing supply of fossil fuels? Does it mean we shouldn't worry about pollution?
We could pretend global warming isn't happening, or that humans aren't a factor if it is. That would be crazy in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but even if it weren't, there would still be no reason to continue down the road we're on. Energy is at the heart of modern society's needs, but when the source is finite, it seems folly to be hell-bent on using it up in a few generations, leaving the problems of depletion and pollution to our children and grandchildren. The longer we delay implementing solutions to our energy challenges the more costly and difficult it will be when we have to face the inevitable.
So, why do so many people insist that we remain stuck with outdated and destructive systems and technologies? Why do so many try to throw roadblocks in the way of progress and solutions? And what can we do about it?
Many books and studies have addressed the first two questions, including Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, and Climate Cover-Up, by James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore. Those show that huge sums of corporate money have been spent on campaigns to sow doubt and confusion about issues ranging from the dangers of smoking to threats to the ozone layer to climate change. It's all about protecting corporate profits and interests. That doesn't explain why so many ordinary people buy the industry spin, but a number of theories have attempted to shed light on that phenomenon.
What's important, though, is for those of us who rely on facts rather than spin to look at solutions. We can all do much more to reduce our environmental footprints, but the problem has grown so much that large-scale efforts are needed, and many of these must come from decision-makers in industry, government, and academia. However, there appears to be reluctance in some of those circles to act unless the public demands it. And so it's up to all of us to become informed. Then we can hold our leaders to account and challenge those who refuse to see the big picture.
This public responsibility is especially important in light of stepped-up efforts to deny the reality of climate change or the role humans play in it. Cases in point are illustrated by the "denialgate" scandal revealed by the release of Heartland Institute documents and the revelation that Ottawa's Carleton University hired Tom Harris, a PR man for a number of "astroturf" groups with a mechanical engineering background, to teach a course on climate change.
There are many credible sources of information, and they aren't blog sites run by weathermen like Anthony Watts or industry-funded fake science organizations. One place to start is at skepticalscience.com. Click on the tab that says "Arguments" for scientific responses to all the main climate change denier talking points.
Another great rebuttal to the deniers came in a recent article in the New York Review of Books by Yale University economics professor William D Nordhaus. He said his article, "Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong", was "primarily designed to correct their misleading description of my own research; but it also is directed more broadly at their attempt to discredit scientists and scientific research on climate change."
The misrepresentation of Nordhaus's research is typical of the Orwellian doublespeak deniers employ. Scientists and researchers are calling them on it.
Armed with credible information, we can challenge those who misrepresent science and spread confusion. If nothing else, we'll be able to breathe easier!
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Editorial and Communications Specialist Ian Hanington
References
Implementing solutions to our energy challenges
Merchants of Doubt
Climate Cover-Up
Why so many ordinary people buy the industry spin
Heartland denialgate
Ottawa's Carleton University hired Tom Harris
Astroturf groups
Skeptical Science "Arguments"
Nordhaus article
by Jody Dallaire, Dieppe Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunity between Women and Men
This probably falls under pet peeves, but I need to say something about the sometimes-heard comment that "women are their own worst enemy." The worst kind of sexism is that which is presented as something else.
by Phil Taylor the Taylor Report for CIUT
There's been a significant development surrounding Rwanda, and nobody is talking about it: the UN High Commissioner on Refugees is going to scrap refugee status for thousands of Rwandans. Rhoda Nsama, from the migrant community board in Zambia and Amnesty International, joins the program to discuss whether officials are defining refugees properly, and how refugees from Angola and Congo are being left out of the agreement.
Phil Conlon provides an update on the YRT strike. Then, David Jacobs comments on the hagiography of Vaclav Havel, with reminders about Havel's restrictions on labour unions and his attack on left-wing politics. He was always ready to support the United States, though.
References
Online listening stream
Mp3
Podcast
