Following intensive lobbying by the oil and gas industry, the unelected Canadian Senate has approved more than 180 controversial amendments to Bill C-69. Experts describe the amendments as incoherent, badly drafted and an attempt to dodge climate change considerations. By Sarah Cox, for The Narwhal Alberta Premier Jason Kenney...

By Heidi Hutner and Erica Cirino; from Aeon In November 2018, the Woolsey Fire scorched nearly 100,000 acres of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, destroying forests, fields and more than 1,500 structures, and forcing the evacuation of nearly 300,000 people over 14 days. It burned so viciously that it seared a scar into the ...

By Stuart Parker As Hunter S. Thompson began to observe the failure of the 1960s and the rise of modern neoliberal capitalist retrenchment, he increasingly referenced Horatio Alger stories of the First Gilded Age to describe his own precarious position in a resurgent decadent American capitalist plutocracy. Las Vegas in the...

“We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.” -- Carl Sagan “... Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.” – Eckhart Tolle “Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it.” – Karl Marx “You’re saying humans are...

Some politicians believe protecting a sunset industry’s interests is more important than looking out for the citizens who elected them. In Australia, the coal industry holds sway over government policy. In Canada, bitumen and fracked gas rule. In the U.S., it’s all of the above. Fortunately, many people, especially youth, are...

By Daniel Callcut, for Aeon Imagine you work at a latex glove factory. One night, you type ‘latex’ into Google: you’re searching for competitors’ products, but you find other things too. Some of what you find turns you on. But some of it you wish you could unsee: prior to the search, it was morally unthinkable.  It’s easy to...

Readers may well wonder about the “danger” mentioned in this headline.  The value of climate change adaptation is obvious to the well-informed: it will help willing residents and their communities better survive the extremes that climate change is bringing. Better water conservation can prepare communities for longer, more ...

We’ve heard a lot recently about the appalling amount of plastic waste being dumped into the world’s oceans and other waterways, and how plastic particles (both micro and macro) are killing off many animals that live and feed in and around the oceans.  Are we in the Kootenays contributing to that, I wondered?  I phoned up the...

By George Estreich, for Aeon Most people remember the emperor: a vain ruler, swindled into paying for a nonexistent magical garment, parades in public, only to be embarrassed by a little boy. To me, the story is really about the swindling tailors. Audacious, imaginative, their true product is a persuasive illusion, one keyed...

For audio, click here Dear Minister Conroy, After 16 years of a government that constantly picked fights with teachers and underfunded public schools, many in BC’s education sector felt relief when your government was elected. Teachers heard MLAs like you congratulate us on our Supreme Court win and back us up on our fight ...