Category: Travel

  • PR giant Edelman worked with Koch network, despite climate pledges | US news | The Guardian

    PR giant Edelman worked with Koch network, despite climate pledges | US news | The Guardian

    Edelman, the world’s largest public relations company, was among the Charles Koch Foundation’s highest-paid vendors in 2022, a 990 tax disclosure form shows, alarming climate advocates.The PR giant has made numerous climate declarations over the past decade, including making a pledge to eschew projects promoting climate denial. Partnering with a part of the Koch network, which has long worked to sow climate doubt, calls those pledges into question, said Duncan Meisel, the executive director of Clean Creatives, a non-profit pushing creative agencies to cut ties with fossil fuel polluters.US oil lobby launches eight-figure ad blitz amid record fossil fuel extractionRead more“A relationship with the Koch network … puts them totally out of step with their stated climate commitments,” said Meisel.An Edelman spokesperson said the company’s contract with the foundation ended one year ago.But that was “well after” Edelman published climate statements that should have ruled out such a contract, said Meisel, who shared the 2022 tax document with the Guardian.Edelman made its first-ever formal declaration to eschew work on campaigns that deny global warming nearly a decade ago, in 2014.“Edelman fully recognizes the reality of, and science behind, climate change,” the company’s position on climate change read. “To be clear, we do not accept client assignments that aim to deny climate change.”Months later, in the lead-up to 2015’s high-profile climate negotiations in Paris, the firm cut ties with the US’s biggest oil lobby group, and soon after with all coal producers.In 2021, the firm published a new environmental pledge that excluded the commitment not to work on climate denial, and which appears to have replaced the previous one on Edelman’s website.“The new statement was much vaguer, and it wasn’t clear whether that reflected an actual change in practice for Edelman,” said Meisel. “Did it mean they would start working with deniers again?”Edelman did not directly state whether this signified a policy change, but said “any prior policies were updated with our Climate Commitments”, which were first published in November 2021 amid surging public pressure from climate advocates.Those commitments omit the climate denial pledge but include a promise to “put science and facts first”. It’s “particularly striking” that the firm would begin a contract with the Charles Koch Foundation after publishing them, said Meisel.The PR firm’s contract with the Charles Koch Foundation in 2022 was worth just over $100,000, the tax form shows – a sum that is “ridiculously puny” for Edelman, said Christine Arena, a former executive vice-president at Edelman and climate advocate.

    Source: PR giant Edelman worked with Koch network, despite climate pledges | US news | The Guardian

  • Danielle Smith’s dangerous dance with Tucker Carlson | Canada’s National Observer: Climate News

    Danielle Smith’s dangerous dance with Tucker Carlson | Canada’s National Observer: Climate News

    I swear, I didn’t want to write about this. Much as it may shock some of my critics, I’m a big believer in freedom of expression. If Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wants to participate in a white grievance festival with people like Conrad Black, Rex Murphy, Brett Wilson and Jordan Peterson, well, she has that right. If she wants to share a stage with Tucker Carlson, a man who clearly appreciates the political leadership in Russia more than Canada, she has that right too. And if she wants to smile as he makes homophobic jokes about Justin Trudeau in order to delight a crowd filled with luminaries like Theo Fleury, Pat King and Maxime Bernier, well, you get the idea.Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, though. Carlson has made a career out of trading in dangerous and deranged conspiracies, whether it’s the “great replacement theory” (not surprisingly, the audiences at his two events were overwhelmingly white) or the notion that the 2020 U.S. election was “stolen” from Donald Trump. He’s referred to Canada in the past as America’s “retarded cousin” and suggested more recently it should be “liberated” from the “tyranny” of its democratically elected government. If Smith had even a single patriotic bone left in her body, she didn’t show it.It was embarrassing enough as an Albertan to see Smith tweet out a picture of her posing gleefully with Carlson, Peterson and Black. Her dig at the mainstream media was both predictable and ironic: Black and Peterson, after all, are inextricably linked with the National Post, which receives millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies every year. As former environment minister Shannon Phillips said, “This is beneath the dignity of the office.”

    Source: Danielle Smith’s dangerous dance with Tucker Carlson | Canada’s National Observer: Climate News

  • Once-a-day pill for stubborn cancer delivers a 62.5% positive response

    Once-a-day pill for stubborn cancer delivers a 62.5% positive response

    In what has already been tagged as a “game-changer” for cancer treatment, the potent once-a-day tablet known as divarasib has continued to impress at Phase 1b trial stage, outperforming not just current therapies but its previous trial results.

    Source: Once-a-day pill for stubborn cancer delivers a 62.5% positive response

  • Opinion: It’s time for prominent alumni to condemn Quebec university scheme

    Opinion: It’s time for prominent alumni to condemn Quebec university scheme

    Opinion: It’s time for prominent alumni to condemn Quebec university scheme

    English-language institutions should stop apologizing for what they are.

    Author of the article:

    Clifford Lincoln  •  Special to Montreal Gazette

    Published Jan 03, 2024  •  Last updated 18 hours ago  •  3 minute read

    Photo shows flags of Quebec and McGill at McGill's downtown campus in Montreal.
    A Quebec flag flies over the campus of McGill University in Montreal on Thursday December 14, 2023. PHOTO BY JOHN MAHONEY /Montreal Gazette

    Article content

    The raison d’être of democratic governments is the common good, which is fair and equitable treatment for all citizens, with special concern and care for the weakest and most vulnerable in society. Governments are fallible, of course, and democratic ideals are too often overtaken by partisan policies and squabbles. All in all, though, our governments in Canada, at all levels, have been democratic institutions, and have ensured a fair quality of life and generally equitable treatment for our citizens across the land.

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    However, the current Quebec government is increasingly veering toward a model and spirit of governance that seems to set it aside from the general democratic trend. It has become intensely partisan and intransigent, rejecting fundamental charter rights and freedoms in its legislation, issuing rules and edicts without consultation and justification, and targeting the English-speaking minority relentlessly and with sustained vindictiveness.

    Article content

    The recent university diktats, coming out of the blue and taking their aim at Quebec’s three English-language universities, are not only mean and self-defeating, but an assault on educational and minority freedoms, as well as the sustainability of these worthy and historical institutions — an essential part of the contributing fabric not only of Quebec, but of Canada and lands beyond.

    What else would provoke another petty and self-defeating decision from the Quebec government if not an obsessive bias and animosity against a particular language group? Why would the government persist in its obviously misguided partisanship in the face of outright objective criticism from key sectors and leaders of opinion regardless of language and culture? Why would the government not only dig in its heels, but double down on its flighty and abusive demands by multiplying the ante on the percentage of out-of-province students who must reach an intermediate level of French by graduation, without the least shred of justification to back it?

  • Benedict would have banned same-sex blessings, aide says on anniversary

    Benedict would have banned same-sex blessings, aide says on anniversary

    Pope Francis briefly noted the anniversary in his Dec 31 blessing to crowds in St. Peter’s Square. Read more at straitstimes.com.

    Source: Benedict would have banned same-sex blessings, aide says on anniversary

    How about the church’s finances or the protection of sexual offenders….a saint?

  • Climate Analyst Urges Balanced Reporting of Canada’s Wildfire Emissions

    Canada’s annual climate emissions inventory won’t count smoke from a record year of wildfires, but it will list forests as carbon sinks—despite concerns that global heating has made them drier, more flammable, and increasingly, a source of emissions.

    “It is crucial that Canada report carbon emissions and removals from natural disturbances in a balanced way, as required by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” Michael Polanyi, policy and campaign manager at Nature Canada, told The Energy Mix. “Since Canada doesn’t count emissions from wildfires, it must also not take credit for carbon removals from regrowth of trees after wildfires.”

    But “unfortunately, that is exactly what Canada is doing.”Polanyi was referring to the accounting in Ottawa’s annual greenhouse gas emissions update, due to be submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2024.This year, 18.5 million hectares of Canadian forest burned in a record year for wildfires in Canada, with estimates suggesting their emissions neared double or triple Canada’s usual industrial emissions, reports the Globe and Mail. But rather than counting them towards the country’s emissions total, the inventory will only flag them as an information item.Government officials say that’s because wildfire emissions are variable and outside human control, so including them would obscure emissions and removals that result directly from land management.“Distinguishing between human activities and natural disturbances allows us to evaluate how management activities are affecting forest emissions and removals,” Carolyn Svonkin, press secretary for Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, told the Globe.But Polanyi said many other countries do count wildfire emissions, adding to their motivation to invest in wildfire prevention. And wildfires are partly attributable to humans—directly through accidental fires and indirectly through climate change, which is making forests drier and more flammable. Scientists are now concerned about the transformation of Canada’s boreal forests from carbon sink to carbon source, meaning that they’ll produce net emissions rather than net emission reductions—a tipping point that will generate a feedback loop within which climate change and wildfires aggravate each other into ever-worsening outcomes.“The rationale for counting emissions from wildfires in Canada’s totals includes the fact that these emissions, like emissions from burning fossil fuels, are contributing to planetary warming and require attention and action,” Polanyi said.Plus, Canada does count carbon stored by forests that risks being released when burned—a concern dating back to the 1990s.“Even back then, there were enough of us saying, between pests and fire—and we expected particularly fire to increase—that the odds were weighted very heavily that our forests would be carbon sources,” said Dr. Mike Flannigan, a Thompson Rivers University professor who studies wildfires and climate change.Flannigan pointed to a recent report that states Canada’s forests are “becoming a net source of emissions because of forest fires and disturbances caused by insect outbreaks.” Prepared by Canada’s commissioner of environment and sustainable development, Jerry DeMarco, the report urged Ottawa to be more transparent in communicating forest emissions and Canada’s progress toward forest-related climate policy goals.

    Source: Climate Analyst Urges Balanced Reporting of Canada’s Wildfire Emissions

  • Spice School: The Foundations of Flavor With Claire Cheney of Curio Spice Co. – Atlas Obscura Experiences

    Course Description In a way, your spice cabinet offers a kind of map—an aromatic portal to different corners of the planet. In this course with Claire Cheney, founder of Curio Spice Co., we’ll traverse this atlas of flavor, charting the edible plants behind an array of spices from across the world. We’ll start with some history, tracing the long relationship between humans and spices back to ancient times. We’ll explore how to fully experience these flavors, considering how ingesting different spices interacts with the brain, and why we might crave some flavors and despise others. We’ll also talk about why knowing where your spices come from can make you a better home cook, how spices are grown, and the basics of using and keeping them. By the end of our time together, you’ll not only have a more seasoned understanding of a wide variety of spices, but also a deeper appreciation for the geographies and sensory processes that bring your favorite flavors to life.

    Source: Spice School: The Foundations of Flavor With Claire Cheney of Curio Spice Co. – Atlas Obscura Experiences

  • Dental plan rollout beginning for seniors, Bibeau confirms – Sherbrooke Record

    By Ruby Pratka

    Local Journalism Initiative

    Seniors in Quebec will be able to access dental care through a new federal government plan as early as next year, Compton-Stanstead MP Marie-Claude Bibeau confirmed in an end-of-year interview.

    In the months following the policy’s rollout, there had been some speculation about Quebec opting out of the implementation of the federal dental care program to develop its own, but Bibeau said that wouldn’t happen. “The Quebec government wanted to take a cheque from the federal government and we said no — we have decided to roll out this plan coast to coast.”

    Bibeau said enrolment letters for seniors 87 and older who have filed their 2022 taxes would start landing in mailboxes before the New Year. Those aged 77 to 86 would receive letters in January. Seniors aged 72-76 should receive letters in February, and those 65-71 should receive letters in spring. Children under 18 and adults with a valid Disability Tax Credit certificate will be able to enrol as early as June 2024 and all remaining eligible adults will be able to enrol in 2025. Children under 10 who are eligible for public dental care under the existing Quebec government program will still be eligible.

    “There are some things we are still negotiating with Quebec, but we aren’t negotiating the eligibility criteria,” Bibeau said. “The program is still on track to cover all eligible people by 2025.”

    Source: Dental plan rollout beginning for seniors, Bibeau confirms – Sherbrooke Record

  • Canada Pension Plan ‘Flunks the Test’ by Cheerleading Alberta Fossils: DeRochie

    By standing before the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and pledging our national pension fund’s continued support for the Alberta oil and gas industry, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) CEO John Graham predictably told Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her Big Oil allies exactly what they wanted to hear.

    Source: Canada Pension Plan ‘Flunks the Test’ by Cheerleading Alberta Fossils: DeRochie

  • Opinion: the ‘carbon tax’ isn’t causing inflation | The Narwhal

    Canada’s ‘carbon tax’ has been politicized and weaponized, with party leaders paying little regard to facts

    Source: Opinion: the ‘carbon tax’ isn’t causing inflation | The Narwhal