The Copenhagen Conference on climate change is over and done, the fourteenth in the last two decades since Kyoto. What did this latest one accomplish? Fifteen thousand delegates from one hundred and ninety-three UN members attended. It was generally agreed that the earth’s average temperature rise be kept at no more than two degrees....
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Author Archive
After Copenhagen, Then What?
Cab-ride to capitalism: servitude by the majority
Everyday taxicab rides may appear to be lacklustre experiences that are quickly forgotten. However, this might not always be the case. Sometimes our views of events may become clouded and we cannot see things for what they really are. However, after taking many cab-rides in an urban city, I began to see things in...
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Climate Change?
At a recent bookfair in Toronto, members of an organization called, “Supreme Master” handed out leaflets on climate change. The main thrust of their argument is that greenhouse gases are not the major cause of global warming, but de-forestation for cattle grazing land is. To support this contention they offer various statistics, some of...
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The Economic Crisis: Will Capitalism Fail?
The Economic Crisis: Will Capitalism Fail?
Despite the recent pronouncement by the governor of The Bank of Canada that the recession is over, we are suffering through the worst crisis in capitalism since the 1930s Depression. Even he had to admit that the employment figures might not recover until 2014. So for the over seven...
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God and the Market
Commenting on the current world financial crisis former 1968 student leader and now a Green MEP, Daniel Cohn Bendit, said that “the belief that the market is god is over” (Guardian, 17 September). Someone who should know more about God, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hopes this is so as he thinks that the Market...
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Priorities in Capitalism
A lot of people think it would be nice to have a lot of money. No more worries about paying the mortgage, putting food on the table, affording an education for the kids, and so on. But their dreams are nothing compared to the realities of the world’s rich. Dubai’s Palm Island, which opened...
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A Reply to the Pope
On October 8, 2008, an article in the Toronto Star (Credit Crunch Shows Futility of Money : Pope) should have set to rest the minds of any who are worried about the worlds financial crisis. “Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on crashing stock markets and capitalism, concluded that, ‘money vanishes, it is nothing’ and that,...
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The Toronto Propane Explosion
Capitalism has a nasty habit of suddenly laying a ton of grief on unsuspecting members of the working class. A typical example is when the employees of Consumers Glass in Etobicoke, Ontario, were recently told the plant was going to be shut down just two weeks after they had negotiated a union contract. But...
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Safety In The Workplace
“Working Wounded – Board Shields Unsafe Job Sites” blared the headline of The Toronto Star, February, 16, 2008. The subheading said it all: “Workplace safety rules allow companies to keep spotless ratings even if poorly trained temps are injured and killed”. The article by Moira Welsh explained that a loophole in the rules of...
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Politicians, Prime Ministers and Polls
In the wake of the Brian Mulroney/Karl Heinz Schreiber scandal there has been an outpouring of emotion concerning politicians in general and Mulroney in particular. This has reached such an extent that on December 15th the Toronto Star published the results of an Angus Reid strategies poll showing how Canadians felt about ex-prime ministers...
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