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The historic Paris climate talks of 2015 aspired to keep the world under a two degree celsius rise, but failed to set out how to get there. Each country must create its own road map. Canada doesn't have one. But Gordon Laxer's After the Sands outlines a vision to transition Canada to a low-carbon society. Ralph Nader hails it as "a myth-destroying blockbuster book." Despite its oil abundance, Canada is woefully unprepared for the next global oil supply crisis. Canada imports 30 percent of its oil, yet--unlike twenty-seven of the other twenty-nine member countries in the International Energy Agency--has no strategic petroleum reserves to meet temporary shortages. Canadians use much more oil p...
"A thorough and challenging book." - Maude Barlow, National Chairperson, Council of Canadians
After the Sands outlines a vision and a road map to transitioning Canada to a low-carbon society. Despite its oil abundance, with no strategic reserves, Canada is woefully unprepared for the next global oil supply crisis. There’s no good reason for Canadians to use much more oil per capita than people in other sparsely populated, northern countries like Norway, Finland and Sweden—nations that use 27 to 39 percent less oil per person. In After the Sands, Alberta-based political economist Gordon Laxer proposes a bold strategy of deep conservation and a Canada-first perspective to ensure that all Canadians have sufficient energy at affordable prices. The most achievable way to gain energy s...
This volume critically examines the promise of a global civil society. Exploring issues in cases of diverse social justice movements, the contributors show that a global civil society is still far from emerging and its promotion may even harm the realization of grassroots democracy. The Internet is an exciting new means for activists to communicate internationally, and citizens' movements increasingly co-ordinate campaigns through transnational advocacy networks, but most effective civic action still takes place at national and local levels.
In fall 2015, the newly elected Trudeau government endorsed the Paris Agreement and promised to tackle global warming. In 2016, it released a major report which set out a national energy strategy embracing clean growth, technological innovation and carbon pricing. Rather than putting in place tough measures to achieve the Paris targets, however, the government reframed global warming as a market opportunity for Canada's clean technology sector. The Big Stall traces the origins of the government's climate change plan back to the energy sector itself — in particular Big Oil. It shows how, in the last fifteen years, Big Oil has infiltrated provincial and federal governments, academia, media a...
This book provides a thorough overview of global governance, exploring the key conceptual issues and illustrating them with international case studies as well as offering a provocative critique of the research in the field.
* Takes an interdisciplinary approach to interpreting global civil society * Contributors are some of the leading theoreticians in the field * A sound handbook for activism The term "global civil society" has become a catchphrase of our times. But efforts to define and interpret what global civil society actually is have led to ambiguity and dispute. This major work of scholarship and advocacy pierces through the generalizations and debates. It presents cogent examples of groups within civil society--from the Seattle and Genoa protesters to transnational grassroots movements, such as Slum/Shack Dwellers International--that are creatively meeting the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly interconnected world. The contributors offer clarity and the hope that another world is possible--one in which civil society’s global networks can effectively create a free, fair, and just global order. Scholars, students, and anyone interested in understanding new forces influencing contemporary world politics will want to have this book on their shelves.
Challenging theories of ownership that range from conservative to Marxist, this book investigates the controversy of foreign ownership of the Canadian economy. Laxer looks at such recent topics in this debate as the National Energy Program, FIRA, and the Canada-US free trade deal and argues that the assumptions about external control, the role of the Canadian elite, and the effects of geography are not adequate to explain Canada's failure to development more independently.
During the Cold War, nationalism fell from favour among theorists as an explanatory factor in history, as Marxists and liberals looked to class and individualism as the driving forces of change. The resurgence of nationalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, called for a reconsideration of the paradigm. Against Orthodoxy uses case studies from around the world to critically evaluate decades of new scholarship. The authors argue that theories of nationalism have ossified into a new set of orthodoxies. These overlook nationalism’s role as a generative force, one that reflects complex historical, political, and cultural arrangements that defy simplistic explanations.
The forces that shaped Canada's digital innovations in the postwar period. After World War II, other major industrialized nations responded to the technological and industrial hegemony of the United States by developing their own design and manufacturing competence in digital electronic technology. In this book John Vardalas describes the quest for such competence in Canada, exploring the significant contributions of the civilian sector but emphasizing the role of the Canadian military in shaping radical technological change. As he shows, Canada's determination to be an active participant in research and development work on advanced weapons systems, and in the testing of those weapons system...