#IdeasAtWork in Vancouver via @uytaelee.bsky.social “The City of Vancouver has six times as many tennis courts as it does basketball courts. Why? I'm excited to share another new About Here video at the Vancouver Public Library on Sept 28th!” Register here: inkd.in/g9tEUrCg

Lanrick Bennett@lanrickbennett.bsky.social · 4mo ago

This is #TorontoDanforth From 2008 to 2019 anti-Black racism was behind the removal basketball nets from schools and parks across our ward. Started in Withrow Park Ended in Phin Park. Hello ‘Orange Functional’ h/t @thegreenlineto.bsky.social @kngprry.bsky.social @morganpcampbell.bsky.social

Household air conditioning may avert more than 5,000 heat-related deaths in the US annually, according to research in Nature Health. go.nature.com/3Syh3xz 🧪

Nepal is seeking $5 billion in aid from the UN’s climate-disaster recovery fund after devastating floods. The fund, established in 2023, has received $820 million in pledges but faces a significant financing gap because wealthy nations, including the US, haven't been willing to contribute.

Nepal Puts Cost of Disaster at $5 Billion, Blaming Climate Change (Gift Article)

The country is seeking urgent help from a special U.N. climate fund, but the program lacks money because the United States and others have been reluctant to contribute.

nytimes.com

“Incarcerated Black organizers were said to have designated August as a period of remembrance, political education, and discipline rooted in the Black prison movement of the '60s and ‘70s.” www.revolt.tv/article/revo...

20 Black revolutionary figures to study during Black August

From Black August’s prison origins to generations of Black liberation struggles, these figures help explain the observance’s history, meaning, and legacy.

revolt.tv

Outbreak in the DRC 'the fastest-spreading Ebola epidemic ever recorded,' as country struggles to contain infections https://aje.news/1mgsod

For decades, the United States has undercounted heat deaths. Dramatically. In Heat Wave, I explained why conventional criteria for diagnosing "heat-related deaths" are restrictively and misleadingly narrow, and argued for using "excess death" figures instead. Today, @npr.org reports on the problem.

NPR spent 2 years tracking deaths from heat. We found a staggering hidden toll

An NPR investigation found that people in the U.S. are dying from heat much more often than official counts show. We explore the reasons why — and how lives can be saved.

npr.org

"A lot of people get a bad impression, but, like the best people are down here. There's so much goodness down here that people don't see." www.cbc.ca/radio/whaton... Fantastic piece about the life-saving work done by SRO tenants and the SRO-C in Vancouver.

Their buildings can become dangerously hot. These Vancouver tenants are finding ways to stay safe | CBC Radio

A group of tenants in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is demonstrating how communities can come together to keep each other safe during extreme heat events.

cbc.ca

She lived love, wit and justice - many thanks to her husband Grand Chief Phillip, her children and many friends for sharing her with the world🧡 www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

'Her impact was nationwide': B.C. NDP MLA Joan Phillip dead at 74 | CBC News

Joan Phillip, the NDP MLA for Vancouver-Strathcona and wife of Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, has died.

cbc.ca

A recent CCPA analysis of data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information found that from 2021 to 2023, private health-care spending per person grew by 8.1 per cent — almost twice as fast as public spending. www.cbc.ca/news/health/...

Food and shelter have driven Canada's affordability crisis. Health care isn't far behind | CBC News

Food and shelter grab headlines, but out-of-pocket health-care expenses have climbed at a nearly identical rate since 2022, Statistics Canada data shows. Economists and policy experts break down the s...

cbc.ca

"British Columbia’s landmark Cambie surgical case concluded that private clinics do not shorten public wait times. They divert limited health-care staff to for-profit facilities and increase wait times for everyone else." #abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Iris Gorfinkel: Same doctor, different price tag: How universal health care is under attack

Alberta’s Bill 11 is a direct assault on the Canada Health Act, but the greater danger is federal complacency. What starts in Alberta doesn’t stay in Alberta.

thestar.com

What connects AI data centers, toxic spills and industrial disasters? Organizers tell @maximillianalvarez.bsky.social that confronting “vulture capitalism” means finding the links between these fights—and bringing affected communities together.

How Communities Poisoned by Data Centers and Toxic Spills Can Stand Together

“No one's coming to save these communities. They have to fight for themselves.”

inthesetimes.com

My gosh, this lunar eclipse is spectacular.

Researchers in Chicago tracked neighborhood-level tree canopy over two decades and discovered something startling: “Each year-to-year percent increase in canopy was associated with around a 10 percent reduction in mortality." Keeping mature trees alive can help keep people alive -and cooler, too.

Climate: Saving Old Trees Might Save Lives

We know that trees are good for cities. A new study finds that mature trees are especially good.

nytimes.com

“If there is one book to read this year on trans politics, abolitionist feminism, and transformative approaches to safety and justice, let it be this one.”

‘Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash’ by Sarah Lamble — Abolitionist Futures

‍Book review by Rachele Girardi

abolitionistfutures.com

A century after Canada vowed to “get rid of the Indian problem,” anti-Indigenous rhetoric is surging. Here, The Walrus contributing writer Michelle Cyca examines how leaders weaponize economic anxiety to reverse reconciliation efforts: https://thewalrus.ca/why-is-anti-indigenous-racism-on-the-rise/

Traffic exhaust is linked to childhood leukemia and asthma, along with a slew of other diseases — but for families living along busy truck routes in Vancouver's east side, there's no escape from the air pollution. thenarwhal.ca/port-of-vanc...

The Vancouver families breathing in diesel truck fumes | The Narwhal

East Vancouver neighbourhoods shoulder the health burden of thousands of diesel trucks heading to and from the Port of Vancouver every week

thenarwhal.ca

Canada has an embarrassment of stupendous authors. Madeleine Thien Omar El Akkad Miriam Toews Souvankham Thammavongsa David Chariandy Esi Edugyan I could go on for hours.

Kate Armstrong@brainchain.ca · 2w ago

Also - please join me if you will in flooding Bluesky with Canadian culture. Music, art, film, TV. Let’s show the vibrancy of this place I’m proud to call home.

A legend. Thank you, barbara. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Renowned queer lawyer, activist barbara findlay dead at 77 | CBC News

Lesbian lawyer and activist barbara findlay died this weekend at the age of 77. B.C.'s 2SLGBTQ+ community is mourning her loss.

cbc.ca

Panama Canal will be restricted to shipping because of El Niño plus Climate Change drought. Global trade implications to supply chains maritime-executive.com/article/pana...

Panama Canal Begins Reducing Daily Transits Due to Declining Water Levels

The Panama Canal Authority is expanding what it is calling “temporary modifications to the lock’s transit capacity” as the forecasts for a worsening d...

maritime-executive.com

At UBC this fall!

Home - 50th Anniversary of Habitat I - Symposium

Habitat: 50 Years of Transforming Cities in Canada and the World Half a century after the Vancouver Declaration first established adequate housing as a basic human right, UBC and UN-Habitat return to ...

urldefense.com

"You were riding in the morning, or at night, or on a quiet road, or a main road. The only time and place to ride a bike is a time beyond time and a place beyond place, where the space-time continuum is bent so strangely that you are both everywhere and nowhere." buff.ly/bSa1Wm5

You’re a Cyclist Who Was Just Struck by a Car Driver. Here’s Why It Was Your Fault

You were riding during rush hour Why were you riding then? There are way too many cars on the road. If you were commuting, you should have contacted your bos...

mcsweeneys.net

NEW: Teen boys are using smart glasses — mainly Meta's AI Glasses — to film themselves harassing classmates at school, following girls around and "rizzing" them or "ragebaiting" them w/ insults. In several videos we reviewed, girls plead w/ the poster to stop filming. futurism.com/artificial-i...

Teen Boys Are Using Meta Glasses to Harass and Bully Girls at High Schools and Middle Schools

Teen boys are using Meta's AI glasses to harass and bully victims -- overwhelmingly girls -- at middle schools and high schools.

futurism.com

Great spot about my pals at SFU BREATHE and Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, making free DIY air cleaners with and for people who need them: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFat...

DIY air filter workshop helps British Columbians against wildfire smoke

YouTube video by CBC British Columbia

youtube.com

Read the interview here: convergencemag.com/articles/mak...

Making Class Consciousness Appealing: A Conversation with Fresco Steez of Dream Defenders

Fresco Steez has helped shape the visual language of modern Black liberation movements. Learn how Fresco approaches making the revolution irresistible.

convergencemag.com

ZERO. VALUE.

Patricia Aas 🐢🏳️‍🌈@patigallardo.bsky.social · 2w ago

«virtually nobody’s willing to shell out for AI slop, meaning it’s economically almost valueless» Reminds me of a thread I did on productivity. I’ll find it after physio.

"The diaries have now been submitted to India’s National Human Rights Commission, urging it to recognise extreme heat as a human rights issue and recommend measures to protect people." www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Coping with 54C heat: Delhi slum diaries detail living in extreme temperatures

With heatwaves now recognised as disasters, personal testimonies are key to a new project that looks to protect those living in the most cramped districts of India’s capital

theguardian.com

A potential environmental disaster is unfolding off Oman, where a grounded tanker is leaking sanctioned Russian crude oil in a protected marine area. The tanker carrying about 1 million barrels of oil has created an oil slick estimated at 2,000 square kilometres.

the perennial focus on arson or intentional fires is a distraction from the main driver of increased fire activity: climate change. it's tempting to believe individual pyromaniacs are responsible because looking at systemic causes would require us, as a country, to stop investing in pipelines.

The Narwhal@thenarwhal.ca · 3w ago

'We’re in uncharted territory. There is no historical analog for this kind of rapid increase in fire activity.' In the last decade, more area has burned in B.C. than in the preceding 67 years. Professor Mike Flannigan explains why: thenarwhal.ca/bc-wildfires...

My latest piece! ✍🏽 “A country is not a corporate portfolio. Indigenous rights are a critical line of defence against unchecked corporate power. When the elements of life that we depend on are treated as assets to be unlocked, everyone and everything, except the investor, becomes expendable.”

The Hill Times@hilltimes.com · 3w ago

Opinion: Nations face difficult decisions with this government: partner on a project, but be left with financial debt and stranded assets if it fails; deny fast-tracked projects and tie up scarce community resources on litigation and front-line confrontation. www.hilltimes.com/2026/08/10/c...

If anyone asks why women tend to be cautious (if not worried) about Al based tech, here is the simplest answer. None of the “good use cases” will legitimise AI whilst these things continue to happen.

Amy Diehl, Ph.D.@amydiehl.bsky.social · 3w ago

Whether it is Meta AI glasses used to harass & covertly film women, Apple AirTags used to track women, Meta algorithms that push sexist ads, Grok AI tools that nudify women's images, tech companies create harassment by design instead of privacy by design. www.irishtimes.com/technology/2...