Book Review

Happy Earth Day. Here is my review of Heat: How to stop the planet from burning by George Monbiot (one of my very favourite journalists).

Did the Globe and Mail really just use the Icelandic volcano to justify increasing carbon emissions?

"Feeling guilty about the carbon-belching SUV you want to buy to annoy the pretentious Greenie next door? Don't. Britain's Environmental Transportation Association estimated that the flight clampdown had eliminated some 2.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere between April 15 and April 19 alone. But hasn't the Icelandic volcano emitted even more? Not so. It is spewing a mere 15,000 tonnes a day, according to one estimate. So go for it – the carbon gap is begging to be filled and your new Ford Explorer or Jeep Cherokee is just the machine to do it."

Incredible.

Interesting article on China's potentially-fraught relationship with Africa. I personally consider it an exploitative one.

Here's my commentary on malaria for the Georgia Straight.

There appears to be some headway in the fight to protect Indigenous rights.

From a fantastic essay, titled "The Mendacity of Hope", by Roger D. Hodge in the February issue of Harper's Magazine:

"Let us grant that Barack Obama is as intelligent as his admirers insist. What evidence do we have that he is also a moral virtuoso? What evidence do we possess that he is a good, or even a decent man? Yes, he can be eloquent, yet eloquence is no guarantee of wisdom or of virtue. Yes, he has a nice family, but that evinces a private morality. Public morality requires public action, and all available public evidence points to a man with the character of a common politician, whose singular ambition in life was to attain power; nothing in Barack Obama's political career suggests that he would ever willingly commit to a course of action that would cost him an election."

"Thinking like ethical people, dressing like ethical people, decorating our homes like ethical people makes not a damn of difference unless we also behave like ethical people." - George Monbiot, in Heat: How to stop the planet from burning.

Climate-change deniers

From The New Yorker: "A survey released by researchers at George Mason University found that more than a quarter of television weathercasters agree with the statement “Global warming is a scam,” and nearly two-thirds believe that, if warming is occurring, it is caused “mostly by natural changes.”"

My article in today's Toronto Star.

Today's Rabble post.

I've begun a new blog for rabble.ca, one of the best sources for progressive news. Here's my first post.

Cornel West on Courage

My article in today's Toronto Star.

The Kenyan singer, Eric Wainaina, on the mistaken view that the post-election violence in Kenyan was due to "tribalism" (starts around 8:40):

"With the post-election crisis, a lot of people said it has everything to do with tribalism. I think tribalism was maybe a spark that got the fire going, but there are deeper issue. We can't talk about peace if the necessities of life have been curtailed. There can't be peace without food; there can't be peace with sustenance."

Edward Said:

"It is a spirit in opposition, rather than in accommodation, that grips me, because the romance, the interest, the challenge of intellectual life is to be found in dissent against the status quo at a time when the struggle on behalf of underrepresented and disadvantaged groups seems so unfairly weighted against them."

Important article on Haiti.

Book Review

Here's my review of No Refuge: The Crisis of Refugee Militarization in Africa by Robert Muggah.

Who are the happiest people?

Kristof discusses.

Great article.

Arundhati Roy's words concerning the power of the common people and the fact that a better life is possible:

"Remember this. We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."