Luc Bernier

This should go without saying, but the best thing for Canada to do as the United States quickly spirals into fascism and corrupt autocracy, isn’t to try to seem more like the United States.

It’s to quickly double down on being even MORE Canadian.

That’s the big advantage, the big opportunity.

«N'oubliez jamais qu'il suffira d'une crise politique, économique ou religieuse pour que les droits des femmes soient remis en question. Ces droits ne sont jamais acquis. Vous devrez rester vigilantes votre vie durant.» - Simone de Beauvoir.

Opinion | You Are Contaminated

“Whole environmental movements of the past have been built on fears of incipient contamination. But what are the lessons when pollution is seemingly everywhere, and in everyone, already?” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/o...

Aggregate Budgeted Provincial Transfers to Post-secondary Institutions as a Percentage of Total Provincial Spending, 2006-07 to 2025-26, Canada and Alberta (fao @evoneuro.bsky.social).

There is no austerity. Governments just don't like spending on PSE.

Street greening transformation before and after in Paris

New forest in front of Paris city hall

New “school street” with greening in central Paris

According to the City of Paris, in the last 10 years 150K trees have been planted & 45ha of parks created in the already hot city, all intended to not only improve quality-of-life today, but also help the city adapt to & manage summer heatwaves of 50℃ (122F) by 2050.

Just the start.

Common sense.

Will future civilizations draw a line in the historic record around 2025 — the era of Trump, social media, poorly constrained AI, and “influencers” — and say that this was when the the era of unbridled bullshit began…?

The planetary implications are clear: a generation of investors hell-bent on rewarding a gaggle of end-days cultists is not a generation capable of giving a fig about its grandchildren. Everyone's piling into the hottest new trend: necro-accelerationism.

"To use current policy scenarios in order to justify the repeal of current policies (as the EPA is attempting to do) rests on a fundamentally flawed premise. If the world actively repeals climate policies – which the US proposes doing – it would potentially push us to a higher emissions scenario."

Canada could use thermal infrastructure to turn wasted heat emissions into energy In Canada, heat produced by data centres, grocery stores, laundromats, restaurants, sewage systems and hockey arenas could be captured and turned into energy.

Canada could use thermal infrastructure to turn wasted heat emissions into energy

"5. Presenting AI-generated work as your own... Chatbots are trained on existing sources. They then parrot back those sources after adding a bit of spin.

Let's be clear. Using an AI and saying its output is yours could cost you your job."

‘Sponge City’: How Copenhagen Is Adapting to a Wetter Future Climate change is bringing ever more precipitation and rising seas to low-lying Denmark. In response to troubling predictions, Copenhagen is enacting an ambitious plan to build hundreds of nature-base...

Climate change is bringing heavier rainfall and rising seas to low-lying Denmark.

In response to troubling predictions, Copenhagen has installed hundreds of flood control projects — from pumping stations to "sponge parks" — with hundreds more in the works.

De nouveaux rejets cancérigènes en provenance du terrain de Northvolt près d’une zone de baignade dans la rivière Richelieu La Ville de Belœil se dit préoccupée et veut s’associer à des scientifiques pour mesurer les contaminants potentiels dans sa piscine en eaux vives.

[BUREAU D'ENQUÊTE] De nouveaux rejets cancérigènes en provenance du terrain de Northvolt près d’une zone de baignade dans la rivière Richelieu

"For educators, the responsible integration of AI into our learning environments depends on our commitments to cultivating a culture that values intellectual labour and understands it as inseparable from the knowledge and culture it helps generate."

Thanks for the update. Much appreciated

Assessing the risk of diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential in a changing world Human activities increase zoonotic disease risk.

Assessing the risk of diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential in a changing world | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

‘Apocalyptic’ Turkey wildfires spread as 14 killed in blazes sparked by 50C heat Over a thousand firefighters are battling flames outside the country’s fourth-largest city Bursa

Wildfires have claimed 14 lives near Turkey's fourth largest city as a record 50°C heatwave grips the country.

Résumé par Alain Denault d'où nous en sommes: "...en raison de nos modes de production dominés par l’idéologie extractiviste, productiviste, consumériste et capitaliste, nous avons épuisé ce que la planète est à même de générer sans se trouver hypothéquée." www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idee...

Québec sabre dans l'analyse des lacs: «Ce n’est plus du gras qu’on coupe, c’est l’os» En raison de l’austérité caquiste, moins de prélèvements seront faits dans les lacs et les rivières du Québec.

[BUREAU D'ENQUÊTE] Québec sabre dans l'analyse des lacs: «Ce n’est plus du gras qu’on coupe, c’est l’os»

Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise Drying continents, extreme drought, and groundwater depletion are shrinking water availability and increasing sea level rise.

Global analysis of GRACE data since 2002 shows continents (all land excluding Greenland & Antarctica) have undergone unprecedented rates of drying & the areas experiencing drying are increasing by about 2x the size of California per year.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

"While Copilot for Business worked well for this project, its higher cost compared with previous desktop productivity apps may limit its use in future classes and raises ethical questions about access."

Join marine researchers @UBC (ubcoceans.ubc.ca). CERC in Ocean Ecological Modeling (research.ubc.ca/media/file/c...). $8M to work at the intersection of oceanography, fisheries, ecology, biodiversity, etc, in the context of environmental change, ecosystems, biogeochemistry & living marine resources.

Google Discover adds AI summaries, threatening publishers with further traffic declines | TechCrunch The feature will appear on iOS and Android in the U.S., with a focus on trending lifestyle topics like sports and entertainment. Google also noted the feature will make it easier for people to decide ...

What does Google imagine will be left on Discover to summarize after no one is getting traffic from Discover anymore, I wonder? techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/g...

The oceans may contain much, much more plastic than previously thought A new study finds there are 27 million metric tons of invisible plastic particles in the North Atlantic alone.

The oceans may contain much, much more plastic than previously thought.

A new study finds there are 27 million metric tons of invisible plastic particles in the North Atlantic alone.

grist.org/science/ocea...

#oceans #seas #Plastic #Climate #Waste #Environment

Tel que l'a dit Aurélien Barrau: "nous faisons preuve d’une cécité que nos descendants, s’ils survivent, auront, croyez-moi, du mal à pardonner."

Ça prend tout un culot pour écrire une chronique dénigrant les appels des autorités à être prudent lors de la canicule actuelle, mais de passer outre le fait que ceci est devenu nécessaire depuis la canicule de 2003 ayant causé le décès d'à tout le moins 15,000 personnes en France seulement

Our fear of abandoning this economic system is so immense, people would rather live with the inequality, exploitation and slavery it breeds than dare to contemplate a day without capitalism.
open.substack.com/pub/georgets...

Pleased to report that the Atlantic Ocean is still nice

p.s. I am pretty worried about how we are using AI.

While the technology has some real benefits, too much of it is being used for stupid nonsense. And, combined with our crumbling media and educational institutions, I fear it will help make us dumber.

Brain pollution, not carbon pollution…

The Ecofeminist Movement Is Surging. Here’s What Its Advocates Want - Inside Climate News More women are connecting environmental degradation with attacks on women's rights, seeing both as rooted in similar values. They’re drawing on personal experiences and reams of research to make their...

Ecofeminists argue that the conquest of nature and the control of women stem from the same values. Their movement is surging.

Important study highlighting the complex incentives that fuel spread of bunk.👇

How media competition fuels the spread of misinformation www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Creating vulnerability to BS as a market strategy? Yep.

Key: "...hyperpartisan sources spreading the majority of misinformation."