March 21, 2023 – Time less…
Toronto Star – Kate Allen
The UN just released a landmark climate-change report. Here’s the grim timeline it gives us – UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres: “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.” Canada will study the new targets.
The United Nations are telling the world that climate change is accelerating that the people of the earth do not have the timeline previously suggested: “By 2030, scientists warn, countries such as Canada must slash carbon emissions by almost half to prevent that fifth-grader from living out her old age in a world with increased floods, fires, crop failures, forced migration and infectious disease outbreaks, and to zero by 2050… That was the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Synthesis Report… Climate change may have once felt like something you had to squint deep into the future to see. Monday’s report shows that the choices we make now will profoundly alter the planet today’s children live in.” https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/03/20/the-un-just-released-a-landmark-climate-change-report-heres-the-timeline-it-gives-us.html Press Release and Full Report: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Synthesis Report https://www.state.gov/intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-synthesis-report/ Related article: The Energy Mix– Special Report: ‘Diffuse the climate Time Bomb’ with Net Zero by 2040 Guterres Urges G20 https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/03/20/defuse-the-climate-time-bomb-with-net-zero-by-2040-guterres-urges-g20/?utm_source=The+Energy+Mix&utm_campaign=ab0f080d2c-TEM_RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc146fb5ca-ab0f080d2c-510030506 Related article: The Conversation (Queen’s) – Robert Lempert and Elisabeth Gilmore IPCC report: Climate solutions exist, but humanity has to break from the status quo and embrace innovation https://theconversation.com/ipcc-report-climate-solutions-exist-but-humanity-has-to-break-from-the-status-quo-and-embrace-innovation-202134?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20March%2021&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20March%2021+CID_690e16c8c888b9e213a0c0546279a6c4&utm_source=campaign_monitor_ca&utm_term=Climate%20solutions%20exist%20but%20humanity%20has%20to%20break%20from%20the%20status%20quo
Toronto Star – Olivia Chow
Helping women escape violence – Sarah desperately wanted to protect her children from abuse, but she wasn’t paid enough to move out and rent an apartment. She had nowhere to go. She couldn’t afford to leave.
Former Toronto city Councillor and NDP MP, Chow draws attention to the number of women who face domestic violence without an alternate safe space. “In Canada, a woman is killed approximately every six days by her intimate partner. Without a safe transition to a secure home, many will end up in the shelter system or worse. We need solutions that save lives… This lack of affordable housing options for those fleeing violence in their homes is evident every night across Canada as thousands seek refuge in emergency shelters. At the same time, only 13 per cent of shelters across Canada are dedicated to women and even fewer dedicated to gender-diverse people.” https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/03/16/helping-women-escape-violence.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a08&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=404CAADEF7EB839FC77B1B04F0C251E1&utm_campaign=top_172208 Related article: Global News – Rebecca Lau How to support older women experiencing domestic violence focus of new Canadian study https://globalnews.ca/news/9474307/dalhousie-project-help-older-woman-intimate-partner-violence/
Toronto Star – Kevin Jiang
Majority of Canadians are in favour of bringing back the death penalty, new poll suggests
A new survey found support for the death penalty has risen over the past year, with Conservative voters and people over 55 driving the shift.
The survey seems to have focused on Conservative respondents and people over 55 years, but even the 3% increase reported is startling. Says Mario Canseco, president of Research Company: “What is interesting to me is we have these numbers in a time when nobody’s talking about the death penalty,” Canseco told the Star. “Changes (usually) happen on questions like this when a political party starts talking about things more openly.” https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/03/17/majority-of-canadians-are-in-favour-of-bringing-back-the-death-penalty-new-poll-suggests.html
Northern View – Kaitlyn Bailey
RCMP do not agree to abide by Gitxsan chiefs’ ban on ‘militarized squadron’ C-IRG is a last resort for when protesters are no longer peaceful, lawful, safe: RCMP spokesperson
The notion of militarized policing is alive and well in Canada and in the land disputes between the RCMP and the Gitxsan hereditary chiefs who have issued a ban on the RCMP entering their traditional territory. ““While we embrace safety measures for our community, the militarized squadron of the RCMP [the C-IRG] funded to the tune of $50M, have been sent to terrorize our people at the barrel of a gun during peaceful protests and blockades,” the notice from the Gitxsan hereditary chiefs read.” https://www.thenorthernview.com/news/rcmp-do-not-agree-to-abide-by-gitxsan-chiefs-ban-on-militarized-squadron/
NBC News (US) – Associated Press
San Francisco board open to reparations with $5M payouts – The draft reparations plan, released in December, is unmatched nationwide in its specificity and breadth.
San Francisco has appointed a reparations Committee which has tabled over 100 ways to effect the historic reparation to former slaves and their generations. “Tuesday’s unanimous expressions of support for reparations by the board do not mean all the recommendations will ultimately be adopted, as the body can vote to approve, reject or change any or all of them. A final committee report is due in June.” The cost estimate of doing the recs has not been done but beyond the financial costs there will undoubtedly be a political cost… The idea of paying compensation for slavery has gained traction across cities and universities. In 2020, California became the first state to form a reparations task force and is still struggling to put a price tag on what is owed.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/san-francisco-decide-black-reparations-plan-5m-person-rcna74873?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma&s=03
The Marshall Project: Closing Argument – Jamiles Lartey
New Scrutiny on Murder Charges against People Who Don’t Actually Kill – The U.S. is the only country that still uses the “felony murder” legal doctrine.
LaKeith Smith was one of five Alabama teenagers who burglarized two homes in 2015, when he was 15 years old. At the second burglary, police showed up — and after an exchange of gunfire — an officer shot and killed one of the teens, 16-year-old A’donte Washington. All four surviving teens were charged with Washington’s death under Alabama’s “felony murder” law… Under the felony murder law, a person who participates in a crime in which someone is killed, even when the perpetrator is killed by police, can be charged with murder.” Lartey’s research suggests that felony murder charge is not that unusual and that it disproportionately impacts young, women, and Black people. Similar cases are reported in Pennsylvania, Arizona and California. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/03/18/felony-murder-law-alabama-pennsylvania-arizona Related tweet from Sister Helen Prejean on LWOP for Youth: “Congratulations, New Mexico! Yesterday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law a bill that abolishes life without parole sentences for children and creates meaningful parole opportunities. And today marks 14 years since New Mexico ended the death penalty on March 18, 2009.”
(https://twitter.com/helenprejean/status/1637115505705373696?t=sSGbmvFdLOumu1dBuciDHA&s=03)
Tweet from Alex Karakatsanis on Arguing for both opposite sides: Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) tweeted at 9:26 a.m. on Sat, Mar 18, 2023:
There are a number of well-meaning and nefarious people in the larger “progressive” ecosystem who continue arguing for both more cops/prisons *and* more social spending on the proven root causes of violence. These people are obstacles to any change because they ignore a key fact.
(https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1637083044992409601?t=0RySaU36mOKKbuh-2jWy2A&s=03) (cf string)
Tweet from Alex Karakatsanis on types of crimes prosecuted: For every dollar stolen in shoplifting, there are at least $5 in wage theft and $100 in tax evasion. Have you ever heard about a wage theft or tax evasion “crime wave”? What do you think this tells you about how journalists determine what is “news” and what is ignored?
(https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1637800697222627330?t=UguL1bBhOyK0KuNjEeYumg&s=03)
Tweet from Aggravating Circumstances on parole practices in Alabama: “I’m not sure which is worse, that so many people die in Alabama prisons that no one even noticed he had died when he came up for parole, or that they set him off 5 years after he was dead. If this doesn’t prove they aren’t actually looking at these cases I don’t know what does. https://t.co/tPHKhbBlDF
(https://twitter.com/AggravatingCir1/status/1636078825887891459?t=tcihf855KfRuXQijgSkohQ&s=03)