Action needed to avoid disastrous overshoot of climate targets, according to organisation’s environment body

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/21/world-cut-emissions-un-climate-crisis

The decision has drawn sharp criticism from left-wing politicians and environmentalists.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/21/uk-approves-development-of-jackdaw-gasfield-in-north-sea

I do take comfort that, while working in the composing room, which was adjacent to the publisher’s office, I was able to pee in the same stall that Davies peed in (the whole story here: https://ruk.ca/content/peeing-robertson-davies).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/08/teen-hike-claude-ai-directions-rescue-canada-mountain

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/15/ukraine-war-briefing-uk-pledges-17m-to-repair-chornobyl-attack-damage-amid-fears-of-slipping-us-support

Publicly posted construction notices from the Ministry of Transportation said road work was set for Tuesday between Clissold and Royal York roads.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ford-government-begins-removing-bike-lanes-in-etobicoke/article_9340bd34-ab52-4007-b541-0dc27314a0bb.html

https://www.blogto.com/city/2026/10/hundreds-took-over-toronto-bike-lanes-stop-removal/

The numbers certainly back this theory up. “Like an axe to a tree” is how one editor at a major publisher, who works primarily on adult nonfiction, describes the effect of the 2024 US election on sales: people were so emotionally walloped by the outcome that they flocked to genres that clearly offered pleasure and distraction. But despite the critical hit, some branches of the tree continue to thrive.

Allison Devereux, an agent who leads the nonfiction program at Trellis Literary Management, sees reader appetite clustering around two poles: self-help and books that take you “out of real life for a while,” whether through a deep emotional experience (like Chloe Dalton’s memoir Raising Hare, about rearing a wild leveret) or a tale that feels stranger than fiction (à la Sophie Elmhirst’s A Marriage at Sea, chronicling a young couple’s unlikely survival on a life raft after a shipwreck). What readers have cooled on, she says, is learning about social systems and structures. Such curiosity burned brightly during the unrest of summer 2020 and the first Trump administration. But that innate desire to understand doesn’t exist anymore, she says; the news is too chaotic. “We don’t need to read the first draft of history as we’re living it.”

https://thewalrus.ca/nonfiction-is-struggling-publishers-are-making-it-worse/

Oil output in the region is set to grow and the Alberta government wants to double the amount of crude production.

Yet, ever since the first oilsands mine was built about 60 years ago, the industry has been banned from releasing any water. As a result, large tailings ponds throughout the region are filled with decades worth of industrial mining wastewater. The fluid is toxic and harmful to wildlife. For those who live in the region, they fear the harmful health effects, in addition to the impact on the environment.

All day, every day, every few seconds, air cannons blast on the edge of the tailings ponds to help deter birds, ducks and other wildlife from the water, in addition to dozens of makeshift scarecrows dressed in overalls and hard hats.

The problem is as big as 600,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools or the area of the Island of Montreal under three metres of water.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bakx-ymm-oilsands-suncor-imperial-fort-mcmurray-mcfn-tailings-9.7376752

The province will begin removing bike lanes on a 1.2-kilometre stretch of Bloor Street on Tuesday.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ford-government-begins-removing-bike-lanes-in-etobicoke/article_9340bd34-ab52-4007-b541-0dc27314a0bb.html

Crews to work on a 1.2-km section of Bloor Street W. between Clissold Road and Royal York Road

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/bike-lane-removal-work-etobicoke-9.7374696

It lays out how environmental non-profit groups are collaborative, well-funded — and effective. “The damage is real & intentional,” the document says of environmental advocacy in Canada, adding, “Every major ‘problem policy’ we fight traces back to an ENGO-authored framework or idea.”

An ENGO is an environment-focused non-governmental organization. The document includes examples of “problem policies,” including the federal emissions cap, Canada’s commitment to protect 30 per cent of its lands and water by 2030 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The document also highlights funding for Coastal First Nations, and their stance against lifting the oil tanker ban in northern B.C. — a years-long thorn in the side of the fossil fuel industry and another “problem policy,” according to the document.

“So, what can we do about it?” the document asks of environmental advocacy in general. It proposes moving “from defence to offence” by launching “counter-campaigns,” “calling out hypocrisy” and filing “regulatory complaints” against environmental groups like the David Suzuki Foundation.