Category: Canada

Anything related to Canada or Canadians

Marching again for fossil fuel divestment at U of T

Tomorrow, Toronto350.org and UofT350.org are holding our second march in support of fossil fuel divestment. The one we held back in November 2014 involved about 200 people.

Right now, Toronto’s weather is pretty miserable. After today’s dentist appointment I swung by MEC to get a waterproof silicone cover to protect my backpack (better than my crude black garbage bag cover) and some ‘Darn Tough Vermont’ merino wool socks.

Hopefully, tomorrow’s evening weather will be OK and we will see a strong turnout. The march is timed to coincide with a meeting of the Governing Council, who will hopefully be walking out of Simcoe Hall at the same time as we have people giving speeches there.

Open thread: Trudeau on climate

Now that he has been elected Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau is going to have to make some crucial decisions on climate: how much fossil fuel infrastructure he will allow (including for export); the degree to which he will promote zero-carbon energy; whether he will establish a price on carbon; how he will engage internationally; etc.

Suzy Favor Hamilton on her life with bipolar disorder

A key part of what makes CBC’s The Current so worthwhile to listen to is the interviewing ability of Anna Maria Tremonti, who manages to be appropriately skeptical and demanding with public figures but who can also demonstrate remarkable insight and compassion when interviewing people with difficult stories to tell.

Her recent segment with bipolar ex-Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton is an excellent example of what I mean: Olympian-turned-Vegas escort Suzy Favor Hamilton shares her story.

The segment also made me want to order Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness.

A Meeting of Minds book launch

I was hired to photograph the launch of Massey College historian Judith Skelton Grant’s book: A Meeting of Minds: The Massey College Story.

The book contains at least two of my photos. There is one of a Massey dinner which I have also made into a mosaic, used as a two-page spread for the front end paper, and one of the college in the snow, used as the back cover.

Trudeau and Suzuki

Justin Trudeau apparently dislikes being reminded about the science of climate change and the implications for Canada’s bitumen sands:

The environmentalist advised Trudeau about accepting the internationally agreed target for a two-degree rise in global temperature means that 80 per cent of the oil sands would have to stay in the ground.

Suzuki said Trudeau didn’t take the criticism lightly and the conversation turned sour.

“He said: ‘I don’t have to listen to this sanctimonious crap.’ I proceeded to call him a twerp. But I realized that he’s playing politics.”

We are eventually going to need politicians who are willing to say that exploiting any significant portion of Canada’s remaining fossil fuel resources would have intolerable global consequences, and that it is simply unethical to proceed along that path. Even if you ignore ethics, the global community ultimately isn’t going to allow Canada to be a rogue carbon state, so major new investments in fossil fuel production will prove to be wasted.