The Tar Sands Disaster
April 1, 2013
If President Obama blocks the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all, he’ll do Canada a favor.
Resources
Ice, Please – Climate on the Rocks
September 17, 2012
Any day now, the expanse of sea ice in the Arctic will reach its lowest extent for the year. The round-the-clock summer days have gone, and the weather is turning sharply colder as the sun sinks below the horizon for longer periods each day.
Climate Change’s Costs Hit the Plate
July 24, 2012
In the mid-1980s, when I was a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and beginning to study climate change, I attended a lecture by a specialist in plant physiology at nearby Harvard University. He spoke about global warming’s impact on crop productivity. He was quite optimistic. More carbon dioxide in the air, he explained, causes certain kinds of plants to grow faster. So, on balance, food output should rise in a warmer and CO2-rich world.
How Free Is Academic Freedom?
May 14, 2012
Canada desperately needs a broad and vigorous public discussion about why academic freedom is important, what might threaten it and how it should be protected.
Catastrophic Dehumanization: the Psychological Dynamics of Severe Conflict
April 17, 2012
Dehumanization is arguably a defining feature of the most brutal acts of human violence, such as saturation bombardment of civilian populations, terrorist attacks on urban centers, intense battlefield combat, and genocide.
All’s Not Lost, Ontario. The Future Is Green, Not Black
April 7, 2012
Ontario, we’re told, is Canada’s new rust belt. The high dollar is pummelling the province’s exports. Big manufacturers are fleeing. The Liberal government is slashing spending to maintain the province’s credit rating.
Our Peak Oil Premium
February 1, 2012
Humankind will have to invest staggering resources to find and produce new oil if global output is to grow steadily. We’re likely much closer to the tipping point than optimists think
Detecting and Coping with Disruptive Shocks in Arctic Marine Systems: A Resilience Approach to Place and People
January 22, 2012
Eddy Carmack, Thomas Homer-Dixon, et al
It seems inevitable that the ongoing and rapid changes in the physical environment of the marine Arctic will push components of the region’s existing social-ecological systems—small and large—beyond tipping points and into new regimes.
We’re Losing Our Past to Technology
December 24, 2011
A few weeks ago, as I was rummaging in a drawer in my father’s house, I came across a dozen reels of developed 8-millimetre film. I’d known the reels were in the house somewhere. But, for many years, I’d resolutely put the fact out of my mind.
Climate Summit Was a Pathetic Exercise in Deceit
December 12, 2011
There’s really only one label for the pathetic exercise we’ve just witnessed in South Africa: deceit. The whole climate-change negotiation process and the larger political discourse surrounding this horrible problem is a drawn-out and elaborate exercise in lying—to each other, to ourselves, and especially to our children. And the lies are starting to corrupt our civilization from inside out.