Rick Salutin: The decline of deference (in the Toronto Star)

"“Could mortal lip divine/The undeveloped Freight/Of a delivered syllable/‘Twould crumble with the weight.”" (Rick Salutin quoting Emily Dickinson)

Full article: Salutin: The decline of deference.

Linda McQuaig: World’s poor pay for PM’s policies (in the Toronto Star)

"Canada is still punching above its weight. But, under the animus of the Harper government, those punches are now low blows, landing on some of the most vulnerable people on the planet."

Full article: McQuaig: World’s poor pay for PM’s policies.

The Disaffected Lib: Dear North Korea. Sorry For Your Loss. Maybe We Can Help.

The Disaffected Lib: Dear North Korea. Sorry For Your Loss. Maybe We Can Help.

This is priceless - thanks, Disaffected Lib, aka Mound of Sound!

Gwynne Dyer: Durban climate-change conference was an almost total failure (in straight.com)

"Three years ago, while I was interviewing the director of a think tank in New Delhi, she suddenly dropped a bomb into the conversation. Her institute had been asked by the World Bank to figure out how much food production India would lose when the average global temperature was two degrees Celsius higher, she said - and the answer was 25 percent.

....

"A 25 percent loss of food production would be an almost measureless calamity for India. It now produces just enough food to feed its 1.1 billion people. If the population rises by the forecast quarter-billion in the next 20 years, and meanwhile its food production falls by 25 percent due to global warming, half a billion Indians will starve.

"India will not be able to buy its way out of the crisis by importing food, because many other countries will be experiencing similar falls in production at the same time, and the price of the limited amount of grain still reaching the international market will be prohibitive. So India should be moving heaven and earth to stop the average global temperature from reaching +2 degrees. But it isn’t."

Full article: Gwynne Dyer: Durban climate-change conference was an almost total failure.

Thomas Walkom: Canada the odd man out after Kyoto (in the Toronto Star)

"Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out whether Canada’s Conservative government is venal or merely clueless." As the Star's summary says, why not both?

Full article: Canada News: Walkom: Canada the odd man out after Kyoto.

Haroon Siddiqui: Arab Islamists less scary than Republicans (in the Toronto Star)

Siddiqui: Arab Islamists less scary than Republicans.

Another sensible article from the Star's Haroon Siddiqui.

David Olive: Is Durban a tipping point for the world’s admiration of Canada? (in the Toronto Star)

"To be crass about it – and maybe that’s what environmentalists should do – the financial punishment we inflict on ourselves by failing to reduce emissions translates to between $21 billion and $43 billion in lost economic activity for Canada by mid-century.

"That’s the financial price we’ll pay for global warming, calculated not by NGOs but Ottawa’s own National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy. And that estimate is based on a modest degree of global warming.

"The cost of “catastrophic” global warming – the path we’re now on, without a truly substantial reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions – could be as high as 25 per cent of Canadian GDP."

Full article: Olive: Is Durban a tipping point for the world’s admiration of Canada?.

Kepler 22-b ‘Most Earth-Like’ Planet: 10 More Potentially Habitable Planets (in the International Business Times)

Kepler 22-b ‘Most Earth-Like’ Planet: 10 More Potentially Habitable Planets - International Business Times.

Now if we could only discover intelligence in Ottawa...

Global warming could be stopped by geoengineering say scientists (in the Toronto Star)

World News: Global warming could be stopped by geoengineering say scientists.

The article doesn't mention the risk of some country undertaking geoengineering independently. This is definitely a concern.

Rick Salutin: Mr. 1 Per Cent meets his match (in the Toronto Star)

Full article: Salutin: Mr. 1 Per Cent meets his match.

Thanks to the Star's Rick Salutin for pointing us at Tom Naylor's most recent book The Crass Struggle, in which he skewers the pretensions of the 1%. Of course, we have (had?) a wonderful example of this in the Canadian-born Baron Black of Crossharbour.

Melting permafrost called ticking time bomb (in the Toronto Star)

"Scientists with the Permafrost Carbon Network warned in a Nature article released Thursday that melting permafrost, loaded with enormous amounts of toxic gasses, is a ticking time bomb that could intensify global warming.

"The group of scientists predicts that about 45 billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gasses trapped in frozen ground will slowly leech into the air by 2040 as permafrost continues to melt."

Full article: Canada News: Melting permafrost called ticking time bomb.

Deep brain stimulation gives hope to Alzheimer’s patients (in the toronto Star)

"“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have Alzheimer’s. It’s reversed,” exclaims Linton."

Full article: Deep brain stimulation gives hope to Alzheimer’s patients.