Maps like this are common and communicate an oft-heard message: global warming is the product of the global north and will punish the global south.
This mapped-graph from the WHO is particularly shocking and stark. They write:
Climatic changes already are estimated to cause over 150,000 deaths annually…
That estimate includes deaths as a result of extreme weather [...]
Never one to be unprepared for unthinkable and grotesque disaster, the Tokyo Fire Department is now using a robotic body collector.
“Robokiyu the Rescue Robot” is seen below in a demonstration of its cadaver collection skills, allowing corpses to be collected and transported from disaster sites.
Having just finished Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine I immediately began [...]
ApartmentTherapy asks, What If Homes Came With Nutrition Labels?
Eco-conscious architect Michelle Kaufmann AIA, LEED® AP writes:
Homebuyers need more information about the homes they are buying when they are buying. There should be a way for them to have easy access to information like how efficiently a home will use energy and water, how [...]
“Seasoned sessional” and valued friend and former professor Allison Dube has written an article for the University of Calgary’s Gauntlet. In it, he condemns many of the changes that have reshaped academia in the last two decades, changes in privatization and commercialization, as well as an increasing emphasis on self-interest over public benefit, that have [...]
A luxury/horror of my work is that I read about a dozen newspapers a day. I’ve discovered that these headlines could be from any indiscriminate period and are repeated weekly as if it was new news.
“Greenhouse gas emissions reach record highs”
“Climate change is occurring more quickly than expected”
“Price of oil reaches record high”
“Income inequality [...]
The Real News has been talking about “clean coal” a lot. So has Canada’s Old Government and their industry supporters. The most recent federal budget included huge dollars for “clean coal” and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
With what little I know and understand about CCS, I’m under the impression that it’s worthwhile and positive [...]
I absolutely adore the internet. Elections were so boring and serious without.
With an election imminent in Canada, the federal Liberals would likely be better served by a Bollywood-themed viral campaign than anything else they’re planning/not-planning-at-all. It’ll fare much better than the Mugabe-themed campaign that the Tories now aspire to. Electoral law be damned, I [...]
Reacting to Virgin Media’s CEO calling Net Neutrality a “load of bollocks” Cory Doctorow has declared his contract with them void, canceling his service, and encouraging others to follow his lead.
The CEO admitted he’s already providing some content to people faster than others. If you’re unwilling to pay his company a premium for delivery, he [...]
With the weather so nice, I hung around outside instead of blogging this weekend. Terrible, I know.
So, here’s an update on some books I’m reading right now.
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software - Stephen Johnson
The New City: How the crisis in Canada’s urban centres is reshaping the nation - John [...]
Really neat post about transtemporal economics at Agoraphilia. What would trade through time look like? Glen Whitman looks at migration and time travel:
If wages are expected to be higher in the future, then once the cost of time travel falls low enough, we can expect people to start migrating in large numbers into the future [...]
