Category: politics

Under the Dome: A Documentary on China’s Pollution

The Chinese documentary Under the Dome (I can’t find english subtitles, sorry) has taken China by storm. The documentary was released on last week and is already changing the conversation about pollution in the country. This could mark a massive change in how China enforces their pollution laws and improves how they treat nature.

Chai Jing’s documentary was released on 28 February, less than a week before China’s annual parliamentary session begins. China’s central government is expected to pass an ambitious new law that hopes to impose tough new regulations on China’s coal-burning polluters.
But in China, passing a law is one thing. Enforcing it is another.
Beijing could certainly use public pressure in its bid to carry out the new rules. Laws from the central government are commonly ignored by lower level officials, particularly when they might affect economic growth.
China named its new Environment Minister, Chen Jining, one day before the documentary was released. In his first press conference the day after his appointment, he noted he had already watched the documentary and had phoned Chai Jing to thank her for contribution.

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Why Fossil Fuel Divestment Makes Sense

Rolling Stone has a great article looking into the logic of divestment, that is the growing trend to remove investments in fossil fuel companies and investing in renewable companies instead. On campuses around the world students have been pushing their schools to put their money where their mouth is by divesting.

It makes sense to do this as a society too. It’s not just because the current economic system is unsustainable but because it also makes economic sense.

For RBF, the logic of divestment was twofold. “There was a very clear moral impetus to do this,” Wayne says. RBF makes significant grants in the field of sustainable development, and the fund reached a breaking point with Big Carbon over what Wayne describes as “the schizophrenic notion that we had investments that were undermining our grants.”

But there was also “an economic reason for divestment,” Wayne says. RBF’s business is philanthropy. It was determined not to damage its portfolio. But as RBF scrutinized its fossil-fuel investments, it began to have concerns. One of the primary assets on an oil company’s books are its “proven reserves” – that is, the oil in the ground and beneath the oceans that will be the source of future profits. RBF questioned the wisdom of parking its money in companies that, in a low-carbon world, would not be able to bring that oil to market – “proven reserves” risked becoming “stranded assets.” RBF also balked at investing in companies that continue spending astronomical funds in the hunt for even more unburnable oil. Exxon Mobil, America’s largest oil company, despite having more than 25 billion barrels of proven reserves, sunk more than $7 billion into new exploration in 2013 alone. “There is no good reason for this vast expenditure of stockholder wealth,” wrote Longstreth. (He has also served as chairman of the finance committee of the Rockefeller Family Fund.) “It is wasted capital,” he continued, “an offense against stockholders in terms financial alone.”

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Rob Ford No Longer Mayor of Toronto

Rob Ford has been the worst mayor of Toronto and as of today he’s officially no longer mayor. I say officially because he was stripped of his real power over a year ago. Why is this good news though?

Ford divided the city in a way no other politician was able (or willing) to do; he pitted the people who care about the city against people who only care about lower taxes. In Toronto this basically meant the “old” city of Toronto and the “new” inner suburbs of the city. Divisive politics is not a good thing and already the new mayor of Toronto, John Tory, has said one of his aims is to unite Toronto.

Other problems with Ford came from the fact that he openly lies about anything from quitting drinking to the state of municipal coffers. Here’s a big list of Ford’s incompetence.

Readers of this blog already know that bicycles are the present and future of urban transportation. Ford, on the other hand, thinks that cyclist deserve to die. Ford spent $300,000 to remove bike lanes in the city despite that bike lanes make the roads safer for everyone. He literally made the city a more dangerous place for road users.

On the other hand, North America’s largest city expanded their bicycle infrastructure and are reaping the benefits.

Ford also hates the environment, which is ridiculous since it’s basically hating the air. When Toronto got hit by a ton of rain in a very short time I posted this:

Yesterday Toronto got more rain in two hours than it normally does in a month which meant some serious flooding happened. This got me thinking of a program that Toronto (alleged crackhead) Mayor (busted for DUI) Rob (loves pollution) Ford (reads while driving) cancelled. The cancelled program promoted green roofs to help with flood control while lessening wear on existing infrastructure.

So the ineptitude of the current Toronto mayor got me thinking of how things could have been different with forethought of climate change. It’s worth noting that Rob Ford spent the flood idling in his SUV:

Rob Ford is still in politics in Toronto but this time as a councillor. He lacks the political sway he once had and it’s now not a good thing to associate with the tarnished and former mayor.

May we never see another mayor so malicious, evil, self-serving, and desperate to cling to power as Rob Ford. Hopefully today marks a political restart for Toronto.

Long live Toronto the good.

Norway Pays to Protect Liberia’s Forests

Deforestation is killing the planet and has been linked to the current ebola outbreak. Still, many places (Canada included) cut down hectares of land as if it’s nothing. Norway is apparently sick of tho attitude and has made a deal with Liberia to protect their woodlands.

“We have funded efforts in Indonesia and Brazil, but I think this is the first time we have entered a deal on a country level.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Norway will help Liberia to initially build up the capacity to monitor and police the forests.

Liberia will refrain from issuing any new logging concessions until all existing ones have been reviewed by an independent body.

The country agrees to place 30% or more of its forest estate under protected area status by 2020. It will also pilot direct payments to communities for protecting the forest.

Read more.

ArtsVote Toronto Mayoral Debate Monday 29th

The Toronto municipal election is happening next month and this coming Monday there will be a debate between mayoral candidates regarding support for arts and culture. Hosted by ArtsVote at the TIFF Lightbox, the candidates will answer questions from culture leaders in the city. Each candidate will be able to discuss their plan for the future of culture in the city.

The best part is that the moderator is Damian Abraham from the band Fucked Up!

Date: Monday, September 29
Time: 12:00 – 2:00 PM
Location: Cinema One, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King Street West (map)
Tickets: free general admission seating. Box office opens at 10:00 AM. Doors at 11:30 AM.

Progress is easy when we’re all working together toward something we all believe in. The ArtsVote community cares about mobilizing our collective talents, ideas, and passions for the benefit of Torontonians – and it’s not hard to see how much energy and enthusiasm the people of Toronto have for arts and culture. You can see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and feel it in parks, schools, churches, community centres, alleyways, markets, sidewalks, and all kinds of other spaces around our city. So where do our municipal candidates fit into this picture? Do they believe they have a role to play in growing audiences for the arts, and encouraging cultural participation?

Check out ArtsVote!

Disclosure: I’m an ArtsVote committee member.