Our regulars at F&O are taking a breather this Labour Day, to savour the last of summer and brace for the passage into fall and winter — a snowy and cold one, if the Farmer’s Almanac has anything to say about it.
Our journal is a trove of thoughtful, informative and sometimes delightful stories — as those who browse our Dispatches and Commentary and Features well know. But when you’re done here, for now, we have some recommendations elsewhere:
The lattice effect is created with thousands of pieces of aluminium and hundreds of LED lights that glow and fade as a unique soundtrack hums and buzzes. Watch the video below, and read about it in a Toronto Star piece, here. Photo: Kew Gardens
For the Big News file, the Guardian reports on the announcement by the United States and China — the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases — that they’ll formally ratify the Paris climate change agreement. This is significant because, as the Guardian notes, “If the Paris agreement comes into force this year as hoped, it means the nearly 200 governments party to it will become obliged to meet emissions-cutting pledges made before the deal last December.”
Frances Bula’s piece, Miner to missionary: The Ross Beaty story Ross Beaty, is a good tale about someone who, instead of resting on their laurels (and millions), is trying to make a difference. Beaty, writes Bula, ” was one of mining’s giants before taking a green turn eight years ago to become the face of British Columbia’s alternative energy sector. He’s finding both his new industry–and his controversial new message for a “no-growth” way of life–a tough sell.”
American Indians are gathering from throughout the country in rural North Dakota, to protest construction of a $3.7 billion pipeline on the plains. As the New York Times points out in a useful who/what/where/why, a web of 2.5 million miles of pipelines crisscrosses the country. This one has become a flash point, especially for aboriginal people. Perhaps, as High Country News writes, it’s because “social media and broad anxieties over climate change are bringing more publicity.”
As regular readers may have observed, F&O strives to avoid giving the oxygen of publicity to one unspeakable American presidential contender. I’ll break that tradition, briefly, to suggest anyone watching the cage fight of American politics might almost find pity in their hearts for He Who Should Not Be Named after reading this pithy work by author and radio personality Garrison Keillor, in the Chicago Tribune, “When This if Over, You Will Have Nothing That You Want.” Indeed.
Last but not least: as the Paralympics proceeds in Rio, shamefully unsung compared to the massive attention bestowed on the Olympics , have a read of this thoughtful plea by Olympian Deidra Dionne: The Olympic model is broken: An open letter to Thomas Bach. ‘You understand that a $900 per diem is not the norm,’ right?” Dionne writes. Well, no. If he understood, the IOC would be a different beast.