Features

NAFTA challenge: protect the polar bears

Dec 032012

NGO challenges Canada's claim bears are not "endangered."

by SGNews staff

MONTRÉAL, November 30 — The Center for Biological Diversity’s petition challenging Canada’s failure to protect polar bears will move forward under the North American Free Trade Agreement’s environmental dispute process. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation, an entity established under NAFTA, announced today that the Center’s petition provides sufficient documentation of Canada’s violations of its own laws to warrant an official response from the country’s government.

MoreIsUp and other metaphors for activists

Dec 032012

Features

Cognitive linguist George Lakoff explains why "fiscal cliff" sounds more threatening than "austerity bomb".

by George Lakoff

Writers on economics have been talking since the election about why the "fiscal cliff" metaphor is misleading. Alternative metaphors have been offered like the fiscal hill, fiscal curb, and fiscal showdown, as if one metaphor could easily be replaced by another that makes more sense of the real situation. But none of the alternatives has stuck, nor has the fiscal cliff metaphor been abandoned.

Why? Why do some metaphors have far more staying power than others, even when they give a misleading picture of a crucial national issue?

Young Canadians are facing bleak prospects.

Dec 012012

Features

Student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois: "Our system is broken on a systemic level."

by Dave Coles

An in-depth Globe and Mail Report on Business article titled Generation Nixed: Why Canada’s youth are losing hope for the future noted that the real unemployment rate for youth 18 to 25 has reached 1 in 5, the highest in fifteen years. Concurrently, skyrocketing tuition fees and housing costs have pushed up average household debt levels among this age group to $74,100 from $44,500 ten years ago.

Doha round to decide if we dial down the thermostat

Nov 292012

Features

New REDD program(Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is also being negotiated.

by Stephen Leahy

DOHA, November 26 2012 (IPS) — The upcoming United Nations climate talks may have a renewed sense of urgency with a new World Bank report warning that the planet is on a dangerous path to four degrees Celsius of global warming by 2100.

Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4ºC Warmer World Must be Avoided, released on November 19, was prepared for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics.

W is for Workers, not just for war

Nov 292012

Features

“We remember our war dead. We should also remember those who died in the workplace.”

by David Frank

There are many war memorials in my province, but one of them, in a small town in central New Brunswick, stands out. After you have read the names in front of the Royal Canadian Legion Hall in Minto, you can cross the street to a small park and read almost twice as many names on another monument.

These are the names of seventy men who lost their lives in the Grand Lake mining district over the course of the past century. When this monument to the coal miners was dedicated in 1984, one of the local mayors seemed to comment directly on the proximity of the two memorials: “We remember our war dead. We should also remember those who died in the workplace.”

Maher Arar views national security through Prism

Nov 262012

Features

Maher Arar founded the online magazine prism due to his frustration with the mainstream media.

Canada's most famous Syrian challenges lawless intelligence agencies.

by Ish Theilheimer, with transcription by Ruth Cooper

Maher Arar, Canada's most famous Syrian, is using the fame he never wanted to hold the national security establishment accountable. His story of illegal rendition from the USA to Syria in September, 2002 — followed by repeated torture while being held in a tiny, squalid cell for almost a year — became a symbol of rights abuse in the name of national security.

Finally released, thanks mostly to the relentless efforts of his wife, Monia Mazigh, he was quickly exonerated. Syria declared him "completely innocent." Canada also cleared his name, and Stephen Harper formally apologized for Canada's role in the extradition.

Sustainability lessons from the Suquamish people

Nov 262012

Features

Nature doesn’t write off parts of the Earth, and neither can we.

by Sarah van Gelder

I live among Chief Seattle’s people, and one of the things I’ve learned from this experience is humility.

I say, “I’ve lived here 12 years — longer than I’ve lived anywhere!” And then I look around at the ancient petroglyphs and the shell middens that whiten the beaches, and I remember that my neighbors’ ancestors have lived here for thousands of years.

“Writing is on the wall” at upcoming climate conference

Nov 222012

Features

The cost of climate change is estimated at $1.2 trillion annually.

Two-thirds of existing fossil fuels must stay in ground: IEA.

by Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 15 2012 (IPS) – Two-thirds of the world’s proven fossil fuel reserves cannot be used without risking dangerous climate change, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned this week.

Canada downsizes military bootprint

Nov 222012

Features

The Harper government is investing billions of dollars in new military hardware.

Harper tells DND to cut 2.5 billion dollars from its 22.8-billion-dollar budget.

by Paul Weinberg

TORONTO, November 21 2012 (IPS) — Canada’s military buying binge under the current Conservative government has hit a financial brick wall in these austere times, but there is no nostalgic return in sight for Ottawa’s once robust participation in United Nations-led peacekeeping missions.

Big Oil’s Luddittes block change

Nov 212012

Features

The world’s most powerful corporations are blocking the path to a green future.

by Linda McQuaig

In the interest of fighting climate change, most of us avoid buying SUVs — fortress-like vehicles that aren’t necessary unless one intends to take the whole family for a spin through downtown Baghdad.

Most of us also recycle and keep the thermostat low. However, these gestures are doing almost nothing to stop the warming of the planet.

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