dispatches from Canada's capital
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Writer Robert Pool has defined a ‘witness’ as “someone who believes he has information so important that he cannot keep silent.” In the preface to his book, Storms of My Grandchildren, climatologist James Hansen identifies himself using the term. It is truly worrisome to be living in an age when such a prominent climate scientist [...]
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Speaking of taking action against climate change, a strong case can be made that the single most important thing we can do to reduce the chances of catastrophic climate change is to phase out coal. Coal is the one fossil fuel that is definitely abundant enough to cause catastrophic climate change. As such, we need [...]
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Back in 2008, I wrote about whether ‘runaway’ climate change might be possible on Earth. At one point, Venus had liquid water on its surface. Then, the sun grew brighter and Venus warmed. Its oceans evaporated and huge amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) got baked out of the crust. The heat made the water break [...]
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From Oprah to New Age philosophy, ‘positive thinking’ has become a hugely influential movement in business circles, the religious sphere, in pop medicine, and elsewhere. In Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich makes the case that the movement is poorly thought out and damaging. Her arguments are convincing, [...]
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Depressing fact: apparently, one third of global banks still offer multi-year guaranteed bonuses to new hires. It is fantastically absurd that they are still able to convince shareholders that such payments are justified by the need to acquire ‘top talent.’
One cannot escape the feeling that banks and bankers have come out of the credit crunch [...]
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Even once you have reached agreement that there must be a cost associated with dumping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, there are countless ways in which you can choose to do so. Many different instruments could be combined in many different ways.
Some argue that the simplest policy that corrects for the market failure is the [...]
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