Direct Action

Use This App to Avoid Shady Companies

- Adam Clare
Argument analysis flowchart

Too many companies say they care about an important issue, sponsor events, and then turn around and fund organizations (or politicians) that actively fight the important issue. This behaviour by corporations is unethical and wrong. One person got so sick of companies claiming to be in favour of issues only to fund campaigns opposing it that he built an app to out the corporations. The Bobbele app allows you to scan a barcode and see what corporations fund behind the scenes, plus any controversies the companies are embroiled in.

A good example is Google since they gave up on doing no evil their controversy list is rather long.

From the creator of the app:

I use the wikipedia dumps that are provided monthly and go through all articles to filter out company and product related ones and all the relevant sections which might be controversial. I do a lot of post processing then to link all the companies based on the parent and owner information so luckily no manual labour and its easy to keep up to date!

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Celebrity Climate Criminals Get Called Out

- Adam Clare

private jet during sunset
While the average person has reduced their meat consumption, switched to paper straws and are more conscious of their energy use, celebrities have been outputting carbon at an offensive rate. People are finally turning on the outrageous planet-killing lifestyle of these wealth celebrities. The turning point seems to be when one famous person took a three minute flight to avoid a 45 minute drive, and locally in Ontario the performer Drake flies the short distance between Toronto and Hamilton.

It’s good to see people holding celebrities to account for their deplorable actions.

In a now-viral video, TikTok user Eryn broke down the data from Celeb Jets to uncover some startling results. She found that, based off the figures provided, between the dates 11 and 18 July 2022, there were 15 celebrities who flew by private jet. In total, these celebrities took 48 flights; that amounts to an average of 3.2 flights within a week. Eryn revealed that Kim Kardashian took three flights in that time period, giving off  23 tons of CO2 emission. “To put that in perspective for you,” Eryn says in the video, “the average American gives off 16 tonnes a year”.

“The more I looked at the numbers, the more I realised this is something that needed to be shared,” Eryn says. “It was mind-boggling to me that us ‘normal people’ are trying to reduce our waste and consumption by driving less, using paper straws, and saving up for solar panels while the celebrities dump 130 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in one week without consequence.”

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How Banks Destroy Your Future, And What You Can do About It

- Adam Clare

Money makes the world go round, but it can also make the world go burn. If you care about the planet, the people on it, or just life in general then you probably don’t want your investments to destroy what you care about. Investment funds that claim to protect the environment and it’s important to ensure that they actually do what they claim, and there are organizations that check that. As a consumer you can talk to your bank or financial advisor about this to bring more awareness to your concerns.

[#1] Blast the banks on socials.
Big banks are incredibly worried about their reputations, and they’re extra sensitive during their annual shareholder meetings. Those happen to be happening right now, so fire up those accounts and get to blastin’ about it.

[#2] Switch your bank.
If you don’t want your money being lent to fossil fuel companies, switch to a bank that won’t do that. There are a bunch of full service, FDIC-insured banking options out there to choose from.

[#3] Go outside and get loud!
Put on some pants, walk outside, and get loud about how absolutely f%&ed it is that banks are still lending to the fossil fuel sector.

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Ontario: Go Vote!

- Adam Clare
vote sign

It’s Election Day in Ontario, so if you’re in the province go practice some democratic action. Basically every party is trying to make the province better except for the one in power, so go vote for anybody else. Last election the planet-destroying and inequality increasing Conservatives won with a minority of voters, so just getting out to vote can make a difference. The good news is that more people asked for mail in ballots than before, which could mean a more engaged citizenary.

Go vote!

More than one million people – about 9.92 per cent of eligible voters – cast a ballot in advance polls, according to Elections Ontario. The agency said it has sent voting kits to 126,135 eligible residents, a sharp increase from 2018, when only 15,202 ballots were doled out that way. Voting kits must be received by 6 p.m. on election day and can be mailed or dropped off at a returning office.

How do I vote?

Ontario residents can vote in person on election day (today, Thursday, June 2) from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET at their assigned polling station, based on the location of their current residential address.

Read more.

Check out Elections Ontario.

Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign Wants You to Vote

- Adam Clare
vote sign

Canada’s most populous province goes to the polls in a few weeks, and climate should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Politicians are talking about the increased costs of living, but they aren’t connecting that to the ruling Conservative Party’s anti-climate actions. Energy costs are up because they ended renewable power contracts early, revenue is down because they left the carbon market (and paid a billion to do so), so the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign wants to change that.

If you live in Ontario then check out what you can do to get politicians talking about the biggest issue of our time.

As you may know, the latest IPCC report in April said we must peak emissions by 2025 and nearly halve emissions by 2030 to have a chance at a 1.5 degree world. You may also know that we play an outsized role here in Canada–we are among the top three global emitters per capita and among the top ten emitters in absolute terms, which doesn’t even count the emissions from the fossil fuels we export. That means this next Ontario government is going to play a critical role in doing our part to limit climate destruction. And the good news is that climate action is good for health! We will reduce air pollution related illness, increase access to green space and nature, and increase access to public transit and active transportation.

Our campaign’s first action is out and ready to go, and I would so appreciate your participation. Go to this page to send a message to all your local candidates about this critical emergency, and tell your family and friends to do the same.

Take action now!

Thanks to Samantha!
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