Apparently Walmart is trying to do some good to reduce the material used in overpackaged products.

I actually do own something to make opening packages easier, and I haven’t bled since buying it.

I’m guessing this is less a case of a Walmart board meeting with the agenda “How can we help the environment?” and more the case of a Walmart board meeting with the agenda “What are we already trying to do that happens to help the environment?”

Walmart ships bazillions of cubic whatevers of goods around. If they can cut down on the size of the packaging, they can ship more product in less space.

I’m not saying it’s not good, I’m just saying let’s not kid ourselves about their motivations.

Well it’s apparently official. Parliament’s been prorogued until March 3, 2010. Two months (and a bit) without governing.

Throughout the day there was no shortage of good reactions to the possibility of prorogation and a few of the potential effects.

Given the notably scarce conservative reaction, it struck me that this whole prorogation thing was just an idea being floated, to see the response, to see how it would play politically. Would it hurt among supporters would be the main question, since the non-supporters aren’t likely to be brought over anyhow. It seems the answer to that would be negative, given the assbackwards conclusion-first reasoning of some of the popular party dullards.

And here we are.

Does this happen elsewhere? Is this a surprisingly common thing in parliamentary democracies? I’m asking seriously, because I don’t know. But what I do know is that wherever it happens, it’s completely fucking ridiculous and seems the kind of thing we should be taking to the Ottawa streets over, though of course those of us who feel that way are also (as I’m sure the Conservatives figured) the people who have a general sense that being governed by nobody at all might be better than being governed by Harper.

Well, mark your calendars, enjoy the Olympics, and remember on March 3rd that Harper has to stop ignoring parliament, stop making us look ridiculous on climate change, and create 265,000 jobs. And that he’s just had a two month vacation and is a douchebag.

It seems everyone’s deciding to be briefly annoyed with Naomi Klein, here and more here (via here) largely based on a brief encounter described here.

Klein launched into a description of how the word ["reparations"] made her feel, saying that it seemed appropriate because it connoted repair. I must have been looking at her really hard. She said maybe I should send a memo to the whole Global South telling them to stop using it, and wouldn’t that be odd. She laughed. I said that they could say whatever they want to say, but if they want to ask the US for things, they can’t use that word.

Yes, fine, even if the concepts of climate debt or reparations are valid, they’re probably not constructive, fine, ok. But it’s weird to get all shrill because of a casual conversation in which it seems at least one person was just hashing out ideas in a personal, conversational way.

Klein then said I was trying to give Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh the right to tell her what to say, tell everyone what to say, and she didn’t like it. “You Americans,” she said, “want to hold us all to what’s possible in DC, which is apparently nothing.”

“You,” Klein said, and I’m not sure if she meant ‘you Americans’ again or was referring to me, personally, “have such a limited sense of the possible …[and] … give up before you even try.” She said she thought it was possible to reclaim the term and added that she’d gotten great responses to an article she wrote in Rolling Stone where she’d used it, and here our conversation was putting me in jeopardy of needing to go into a corner and bang my head repeatedly into the wall.

Though it’s definitely always wrong to lump (hundreds of) millions of people into a single group, no matter how favourable the lump.

Also, once you realize that it’s wrong to lump (hundreds of) millions of people into a single group and blame them for whatever problems their society might have, you might also consider the degree to which they’re hamstrung by their institutions.

You might also consider that the person who seemed to be lumping all these people into one group was really just talking about “America” instead of “Americans,” and that those are two different things.

So of course she is and always has been and so theoretically will always be a complete moron who by any rights should be an embarrassment to anyone who knows her:

MARVEL AT THE ‘ARROGANCE’ AND ‘NAIVETE’…. CNN is telling me that Sarah Palin said something on Twitter.

…the former half-term governor believes it’s “arrogant and naive” to think human activity is responsible for climate change, which she describes as “man overpowering nature.”

I’m not sure what that phrase means, exactly. It’s winter, which makes it cold in my office. I’ve turned on the heat, so I’m comfortable. Have I “overpowered nature,” or is it possible that people can take steps that alter natural conditions?

Palin added that the climate has been changing “for ions” — one assumes she means “eons,” and wasn’t actually referring to electrically charged atoms — and will continue to change, regardless of the 90 million tons of carbon emissions we put into the air every day. We have a “responsibility,” Palin added, to “responsibly develop resources for humankind, not pollute and destroy,” but humans are incapable of “altering natural change.”

What CNN did not tell me is that Palin said the exact opposite just last year, repeatedly arguing that human activity contributes to global warming, right around the time she endorsed caps on carbon emissions, which she now rejects.

I suppose the moral of the story, then, is that Sarah Palin believes Sarah Palin is “arrogant and naive.”

Since the right is so cavalier with equating things to Hitler and the Holocaust, how about this: Going Rogue should concern us as much as Mein Kempf should have. Even if we assume the ideas in it are wrongheaded, we have a responsibility to know, to not repeat the mistakes, to make sure she never has a chance to derail the world.

First, it’s worth noting that the “project” in this case actually amounted to basically nothing:

There is, finally, a Copenhagen Accord – a deal that is so unfair, so unambitious and so devoid of commitment that the countries of the world could agree only to “take note” of its existence. There was no hope whatever that everyone would actually “approve.”

And

As for a way forward, Robert C. Orr, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Strategic Planning, told the news conference that the UNFCCC will now try to design a process through which countries “can associate themselves with the agreement.” Not sign it, necessarily. Certainly not be bound by its vacuous contents, but presumably take note in a slightly more formal way.

So it’s grade five. Your group has known for a long time that this project is coming due. And at the last minute, you cobble something together and proudly place your project on the teacher’s desk. Later that night she reads it.

OUR REPORT

PREPARED BY 100,000 POLITICIANS

We understand there is a project to be completed. We all take note of this project, and have some very basic ideas on how to complete it, though they all fall below what you have told us is required, and we can’t actually agree on any of them at this time.

And… fail. Parents are called. Except in this case there are no parents. The children have overrun the school, and the ones in charge are the ones who see everything as a popularity contest while sociopathically failing to respect deeper issues.

And of course, in any group, no matter how bad the project, there are always a couple people who kind of just sit around occasionally saying little nothings from the sidelines, and it’s nice to see that’s where Canada was. As far as “how important is Canada” goes, we’re as important as these countries: Israel, Turkey, Greece, Ghana, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Kenya, Czech Republic, Georgia, Serbia, Trinidad and Tobago.

I don’t mean to shit on those countries, but Canada has always played an outsized role on the international stage, and in this case even just right-sized should have given a spot at the main table:

Among the G8, only Canada and Italy are missing.

Among the top 10 greenhouse gas-emitting nations in the world, only Canada (#8) and Italy (#10) are missing. Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice has said at every press conference to date that Canada is “working constructively toward a deal in Copenhagen.” Do you think?

With that in mind, here’s Harper’s spin on his being useless (h/t Paul Wells):

“This agreement is the result of two weeks of negotiations in which Canada and Environment Minister Prentice, our chief negotiator, played a key part.

“And over the past 24 hours, I have met with numerous leaders to reaffirm that Canada remains committed to a comprehensive, post-2012 agreement that is fair and effective.

“All countries must commit to taking concrete action to address climate change as part of a new treaty – actions which are measurable, verifiable and reportable.

“Canada is working to align our clean energy and climate change policies with those of the Obama Administration. This approach recognizes the high degree of integration of our two economies.

“Canada is prepared to contribute our fair share of financial support, particularly to the poorest and most vulnerable nations.”

Man. So much for “Canada’s determination to play a leading role to take on the challenges facing our planet.” Canada’s a loser.

Canada wins!

Oh, wait:

Naming Canada as “Colossal Fossil” at the boldest, most audacious Fossil Award ceremony to date, tuxedo-clad Ben Wikler of Avaaz.org said:

“Fossil of the Year goes to CANADA, for bringing a totally unacceptable position into Copenhagen and refusing to strengthen it one bit. Canada’s 2020 target is among the worst in the industrialized world, and leaked cabinet documents revealed that the governments is contemplating a cap-and-trade plan so weak that it would put even that target out of reach.

“Canada has made zero progress here on financing, offering nothing for the short term or the long term beyond vague platitudes. And in last night’s high-level segment, Canada’s environment minister gave a speech so lame that it didn’t include a single target, number or reference to the science.

“Canada’s performance here in Copenhagen builds on two years of delay, obstruction and total inaction. This government thinks there’s a choice between environment and economy, and for them, tar sands beats climate every time. Canada’s emissions are headed nowhere but up. For all this and more, we name Canada the Colossal Fossil.”

My vision for climate change repair is also cliff-based. If we can’t fix it at the last minute, we can’t fix it.

Collaberatively, as a species, we’re just that horrible.

I don’t just think this because Copenhagen is failing to do anything more than find creative ways to provide limousines. The more countries involved in something, the more likely any resulting efforts will be token.

At best, countries don’t agree to do things but to agree to agree to do things. At worst, they don’t even do that, and that’s where we are with the most important issue in the history of humanity (maybe nuclear proliferation is up there).

Also, it’s probably too late, but some rebranding has to be in order. “Global warming,” “climate change,” neither sounds especially bad if it’s the only thing you know about the issue. We should start calling it “global devastation.” If all the world leaders left a conference to solve “global devastation” with nothing accomplished, it would look a lot worse than leaving a conference aiming to prevent the temperature from changing a bit.

Which seems weird.

And of course it is.

What I’m not clear on is this seems to be the first snow-free November since records that date back to 1847. So basically, so far as we know, there has never been such a thing?

That’s pretty nuts.

I’m not for blaming every weird weather event on climate change (I’m sure there have always been some fluctuations), it’s the trend that matters (which, for the record, is up), but if this is really something that hasn’t happened in possibly a couple hundred years or more, that’s crazy.