How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming – in Alberta and in Ottawa That’s the title and subtitle, and twitter-length summary, of a recent book by Kevin Taft, who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta with the Alberta Liberal Party, and Leader of the  Opposition.  He had access to the inner workings of the petroleum industry on the democratic state, provincial and national, which is, in brief, as he demonstrates, not for ... Read more

The Climate Swerve is the title of a recent (2017) book by the elder (now 92) statesman of American psychiatry, and the eminent public intellectual, Robert Jay Lifton. What does “swerve” mean? In customary language it suggests something hurtling down a road that has to swerve if disaster is to be avoided. Not a bad image to conjure up about climate change. (Also about nuclear weapons, about which Lifton has long been concerned and is here again but which I ... Read more

The drift of the world, of our lives, has been, for some time, away from nature, from ties to the land, from birds and trees, and bees, and flowers and earthworms and such like. Nature takes its revenge for our neglect with droughts and floods, wild fires, mud slides, hurricanes, extinction of species, maybe we human beings ourselves at some point, and so on and on. The estrangement from, as it were, the good side of nature, has opened wide ... Read more

President Trump’s walk out from the Paris Accord on Climate Change was big news and bad news. The fact that almost 200 countries signed the accord was bigger news and very good news. So American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, now 90, insists in his excellent little book “The Climate Swerve“. Without hope, it is writ, the people perish. Lifton offers hope. Climate change in recent times has been on a relentless path of destruction, but it’s finally swerving. That those ... Read more

The headline above is the title of a fascinating book with an original take on climate change. The author,  Amitov Ghosh was born in India and now lives New York. He is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He pleads for a truly global view on climate change since it is the first truly global phenomemon. He thinks the West has mostly a Eurocentric view and, specifically, neglects Asia with its huge population and its attempt to catch up ... Read more

Arguments  against Global Warming  are made by a wide spectrum of critics from Skeptics to Denialists.  There are probably fewer Skeptics than Denialists, but they have a greater influence on public opinion as they present their skepticism in reasonable scientific terms.   Denialists are strident, self-interested and unconcerned by obvious errors in their conclusions. . I recommend a recent book, “How to Change Minds about Our Changing Climate”, that takes on both Skeptics and Denialists.  The joint Authors, Seth B. Darling, ... Read more