Why are the US news media so bad at covering climate change?


The US news media devote startlingly little time to climate change – how can newsrooms cover it in ways that will finally resonate with their audiences?
Kyle Pope and Mark Hertsgaard

Mon 22 Apr 2019

 

A firefighter sprays water as flames from the 

Camp Fire consume a home in Magalia, 

California, in 2018 Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

Last summer, during the deadliest wildfire season in California’s history, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes got into a revealing Twitter discussion about why US television doesn’t much cover climate change. Elon Green, an editor at Longform, had tweeted, “Sure would be nice if our news networks – the only outlets that can force change in this country – would cover it with commensurate urgency.” Hayes (who is an editor at large for the Nation) replied that his program had tried. Which was true: in 2016, All In With Chris Hayes spent an entire week highlighting the impact of climate change in the US as part of a look at the issues that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were ignoring. The problem, Hayes tweeted, was that “every single time we’ve covered [climate change] it’s been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great.”

The Twittersphere pounced. “TV used to be obligated to put on programming for the public good even if it didn’t get good ratings. What happened to that?” asked @JThomasAlbert. @GalJaya said, “Your ‘ratings killer’ argument against covering #climatechange is the reverse of that used during the 2016 primary when corporate media justified gifting Trump $5 billion in free air time because ‘it was good for ratings,’ with disastrous results for the nation.”

When @mikebaird17 urged Hayes to invite Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University, one of the best climate science communicators around, on to his show, she tweeted that All In had canceled on her twice – once when “I was literally in the studio w[ith] the earpiece in my ear” – and so she wouldn’t waste any more time on it.

When @mikebaird17 urged Hayes to invite Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University, one of the best climate science communicators around, on to his show, she tweeted that All In had canceled on her twice – once when “I was literally in the studio w[ith] the earpiece in my ear” – and so she wouldn’t waste any more time on it.

“Wait, we did that?” Hayes tweeted back. “I’m very very sorry that happened.”

This spring Hayes redeemed himself, airing perhaps the best coverage on American television yet of the Green New Deal. All In devoted its entire 29 March broadcast to analyzing the congressional resolution, co-sponsored by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey, which outlines a plan to mobilize the United States to stave off climate disaster and, in the process, create millions of green jobs. In a shrewd answer to the ratings challenge, Hayes booked Ocasio-Cortez, the most charismatic US politician of the moment, for the entire hour


Yet at a time when civilization is accelerating toward disaster, climate silence continues to reign across the bulk of the US news media. Especially on television, where most Americans still get their news, the brutal demands of ratings and money work against adequate coverage of the biggest story of our time. Many newspapers, too, are failing the climate test. Last October, the scientists of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report, warning that humanity had a mere 12 years to radically slash greenhouse gas emissions or face a calamitous future in which hundreds of millions of people worldwide would go hungry or homeless or worse. Only 22 of the 50 biggest newspapers in the United States covered that report.

Instead of sleepwalking us toward disaster, the US news media need to remember their Paul Revere responsibilities – to awaken, inform and rouse the people to action. To that end, the Nation and CJR are launching Covering Climate Change: A New Playbook for a 1.5-Degree World, a project aimed at dramatically improving US media coverage of the climate crisis. When the IPCC scientists issued their 12-year warning, they said that limiting temperature rise to 1.5C would require radically transforming energy, agriculture, transportation, construction and other core sectors of the global economy. Our project is grounded in the conviction that the news sector must be transformed just as radically.

The project will launch on 30 April with a conference at the Columbia Journalism School – a working forum where journalists will gather to start charting a new course. We envision this event as the beginning of a conversation that America’s journalists and news organizations must have with one another, as well as with the public we are supposed to be serving, about how to cover this rapidly uncoiling emergency. Judging by the climate coverage to date, most of the US news media still don’t grasp the seriousness of this issue. There is a runaway train racing toward us, and its name is climate change. That is not alarmism; it is scientific fact. We as a civilization urgently need to slow that train down and help as many people off the tracks as possible. It’s an enormous challenge, and if we don’t get it right, nothing else will matter. The US mainstream news media, unlike major news outlets in Europe and independent media in the US, have played a big part in getting it wrong for many years. It’s past time to make amends.

If 1.5C is the new limit for a habitable planet, how can newsrooms tell that story in ways that will finally resonate with their audiences? And given journalism’s deeply troubled business model, how can such coverage be paid for? Some preliminary suggestions. (You can read this story in its entirety atColumbia Journalism Review or The Nation.)

Don’t blame the audience, and listen to the kids. The onus is on news organizations to craft the story in ways that will demand the attention of readers and viewers. The specifics of how to do this will vary depending on whether a given outlet works in text, radio, TV or some other medium and whether it is commercially or publicly funded, but the core challenge is the same. A majority of Americans are interested in climate change and want to hear what can be done about it. This is especially true of the younger people that news organizations covet as an audience. Even most young Republicans want climate action. And no one is speaking with more clarity now than Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Villaseñor and the other teenagers who have rallied hundreds of thousands of people into the streets worldwide for the School Strike 4 Climate demonstrations.

Establish a diverse climate desk, but don’t silo climate coverage. The climate story is too important and multidimensional for a news outlet not to have a designated team covering it. That team must have members who reflect the economic, racial and gender diversity of America; if not, the coverage will miss crucial aspects of the story and fail to connect with important audiences. At the same time, climate change is so far-reaching that connections should be made when reporting on nearly every topic. For example, an economics reporter could partner with a climate reporter to cover the case for a just transition: the need to help workers and communities that have long relied on fossil fuel, such as the coal regions of Appalachia, transition to a clean-energy economy, as the Green New Deal envisions.

Learn the science. Many journalists have long had a bias toward the conceptual. But you can’t do justice to the climate crisis if you don’t understand the scientific facts, in particular how insanely late the hour is. At this point, anyone suggesting a leisurely approach to slashing emissions is not taking the science seriously. Make the time to get educated. Four recent books – McKibben’s Falter, Naomi Klein’s On Fire, David Wallace-Wells’s The Uninhabitable Earth, and Jeff Goodell’s The Water Will Come – are good places to start.

Don’t internalize the spin. Not only do most Americans care about climate change, but an overwhelming majority support a Green New Deal – 81% of registered voters said so as of last December, according to Yale climate pollsters. Trump and Fox don’t like the Green New Deal? Fine. But journalists should report that the rest of America does. Likewise, they should not buy the argument that supporting a Green New Deal is a terrible political risk that will play into the hands of Trump and the GOP; nor should the media give credence to wild assertions about what a Green New Deal would do or cost. The data simply does not support such accusations. But breaking free from this ideological trap requires another step.

Lose the Beltway mindset. It’s not just the Green New Deal that is popular with the broader public. Many of the subsidiary policies – such as Medicare for All and free daycare – are now supported by upwards of 70% of the American public, according to Pew and Reuters polls. Inside the Beltway, this fact is unknown or discounted; the assumption by journalists and the politicians they cover is that such policies are ultra-leftist political suicide. They think this because the Beltway worldview prioritizes transactional politics: what will Congress pass and the president sign into law? But what Congress and the White House do is often very different from what the American people favor, and the press should not confuse the two.

Help the heartland. Some of the places being hit hardest by climate change, such as the midwestern states flooded this spring, have little access to real climate news; instead, the denial peddled by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh dominates. Iconic TV newsman Bill Moyers has an antidote: “Suppose you formed a consortium of media that could quickly act as a strike force to show how a disaster like this is related to climate change – not just for the general media, but for agricultural media, heartland radio stations, local television outlets. A huge teachable moment could be at hand if there were a small coordinating nerve center of journalists who could energize reporting, op-eds, interviews, and so on that connect the public to the causes and not just the consequences of events like this.” Moyers added that such a team should “always have on standby a pool of the most reputable scientists who, on camera and otherwise, can connect natural disasters to the latest and most credible scientific research”.

Cover the solutions. There isn’t a more exciting time to be on the climate beat. That may sound strange, considering how much suffering lies in store from the impacts that are already locked in. But with the Green New Deal, the US government is now, for the first time, at least talking about a response that is commensurate with the scale and urgency of the problem. Reporters have a tendency to gravitate to the crime scene, to the tragedy. They have a harder time with the solutions to a problem; some even mistake it as fluff. Now, with climate change, the solution is a critical part of the story.

Don’t be afraid to point fingers. As always, journalists should shun cheerleading, but neither should we be neutral. Defusing the climate crisis is in everyone’s interest, but some entities are resolutely opposed to doing what the science says is needed, starting with the president of the United States. The press has called out Trump on many fronts – for his lying, corruption and racism – but his deliberate worsening of the climate crisis has been little mentioned, though it is arguably the most consequential of his presidential actions. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil has announced plans to keep producing large amounts of oil and gas through at least 2040; other companies have made similar declarations. If enacted, those plans guarantee catastrophe. Journalism has a responsibility to make that consequence clear to the public and to cover the companies, executives, and investors behind those plans accordingly.

If American journalism doesn’t get the climate story right – and soon – no other story will matter. The news media’s past climate failures can be redeemed only by an immediate shift to more high-profile, inclusive and fearless coverage. Our #CoveringClimateNow project calls on all journalists and news outlets to join the conversation about how to make that happen. As the nation’s founders envisioned long ago, the role of a free press is to inform the people and hold the powerful accountable. These days, our collective survival demands nothing less.

This article is excerpted from a piece published by Columbia Journalism Review and the Nation. The Guardian is partnering with CJR and the Nation on a 30 April conference aimed at reframing the way journalists cover climate change.More information about the conference, including a link to RSVP, is here.

Fire The Bums

These guys are all Tories appointed by the Tory government. They are the folks who told us to tighten our belts, who closed beds and laid off staff while giving themselves golden parachutes and corporate salaries that would be the envy of those in the private sector. And they still ran up a deficit. Because they cut staff and forced existing staff to work overtime. Fire the bums. And lets demand the right to elect health boards, something the Klein government took away. Once again we suffer a democratic deficit in the One Party State.

Calgary Health Region revealed Thursday that its 2007-08 deficit may balloon to $85 million and Jack Davis will hand over the reins as president in part of a senior executive shuffle.

Davis will retain his duties as chief executive officer in the reorganization that takes effect next week.

The CHR's executive team is being pared from about 18 positions to 11 in an attempt to reduce bureaucracy and allow for quicker decision-making.

But the organizational changes are not expected to produce major cost savings at the cash-strapped CHR, leading the Alberta Liberals to call on the government to assess how the province's health authorities are spending their money.

The financial troubles at CHR -- a $2.8 billion organization that runs Calgary's medical system -- are largely related to massive staff overtime costs, worth about $63 million.

The reorganization -- which includes sweeping changes to the way CHR is structured -- isn't likely to significantly cut costs from the region's $91 million administrative budget, in part because only two executive team members have left the organization. Others who aren't part of the new executive team have been reassigned to other areas.

SEE

Legacy Of The Ralph Revolution

Transparency Alberta Style

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Royalties Pay For Jobs

All those threats about job losses in the oil patch and the bosses protest at the Leg seems to have overlooked a little fact. Job losses in the public sector in particular our hospital sector were caused by the Klein government bailing out Big Oil in the nineties.

As this letter writer to the Calgary Sun pointed out.

JUST ANOTHER INTEREST GROUP

There seems to be a double standard in both media and government attitude regarding regular public service workers and the oil industry. In the '90s, during the Klein "devolution," health-care professionals, teachers, public service workers and their collective bargaining agents protested cutbacks to health-care, education and other public services. They warned of gross shortages and infrastructure deficits in the future (which all came true). They were written off as "special interest groups" by media and government. Now an independent panel indicates the oil and gas industry has not been paying its fair share and the industry gets closed-door meetings with the government and is regarded as a VIP by the media. They come out with a government decision that still has them paying less than their fair share. They still grumble and yet neither the media nor government disregard their threats and grumbling as "just another special interest group."

Larry Connell, RN

The attack on the public sector was the result of low royalties and tax breaks for Big Oil. The neo-con advisers to the Klein government called for cuts to public sector spending, freezes on wages and contracting out to make up for the deficit created by this give away. The deficit was caused by the failure of the government to collect its fair share, even back then, as the auditor general pointed out, of the royalties, even as low as they were; a penny on the dollar.

The cuts to the public sector were ideologically driven, at the time the Klein and Harris governments, indeed in 1995 so did the Federal Liberals, embraced the idea that the private sector can deliver services cheaper and more efficiently then unionized public sector workers.

Well cheaper yes by driving down wages and benefits. Efficiently well no, because they low balled their bids and now the costs are rising. Unionized public sector workers may cost more in wages and benefits, the workers in the private sector, but their costs are controlled by collective bargaining. And the government has controlled public sector wages in Alberta to be below inflation for the past decade. Whereas private sector costs are now skyrocketing.

Today infrastructure costs are higher because the Tired Old Tory government spent the last decade acting like Scrooge when it came to infrastructure expenditures. Instead of spending the annual surpluses they did get, which occurred annually since the pseudo-crisis of 1993, they hoarded the money crying poverty. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

Ralph cut nurses and doctors as well as capping nursing programs in Alberta universities. The cuts over a decade created a crisis we now face in staffing. especially in the hospital sector. The result has been a decline in health care services, with deadly results.

As we have seen investment in public sector jobs have been a boon to the Canadian economy. Costs of having services delivered in house are much lower than contracting out in an overheated economy. So much for the supply side economics of the Fraser Institute and it's pals.

So the next time some oil supply company workers complain that they may lose their jobs tell them to talk to the nurses in this province who left during the nineties to find work elsewhere.



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Legacy Of The Ralph Revolution

All those gold stars and awards the Fraser Institute gave Ralph Klein for his neo-con revolution in the nineties are revealed to be bronze.

Ten years after his cuts to health care and public sector workers the chickens have come home to roost.

A scandal has erupted in Alberta CEO' Ed Stelmachs backyard. The Hospital Authority and the local hospital in his hometown of Vegreville have not had adequate sterilization procedures in place since 2003. For four years it had been ignored until this spring when scandal broke.

The government has fired its appointed health board, claiming that the Premier and his Ministers did not know of the crisis in his backyard.

Premier Ed Stelmach and Health Minister Dave Hancock both suggested yesterday the government couldn't have done more to prevent a four-year outbreak of infectious disease at St. Joseph's Hospital in Vegreville because they weren't aware it was going on.

He is of course fibbing.

But area resident Connie Marcinkoski doesn't buy the province's promise to swoop in and save the day.

Marcinkoski is currently suing the hospital for allegedly exposing her father to a fatal infection a few years ago.

"The province, in fact Premier Ed Stelmach himself as our MLA, knew about the ongoing issues here years ago. I called him personally when he was our MLA to alert him to this issue and he never called me back," she said.

"The Conservative government has known about this problem for years and now wants to come in and look like they are everybody's saviour.

The government has brought in an old buddy who promotes the privatization of health care to oversee the board and hospital.

Effective immediately, Jim Saunders, of J.L. Saunders and Associates Inc., and Paddy Meade, deputy health minister, will serve as official administrators for East Central Health, replacing the board.

It has talked about hiring risk managers to assess how to avoid this kind of thing in the future.

The region is also looking to hire more staff in risk management.

What it failed to do was hire more cleaning staff, those folks who were either laid off or contracted out during the Ralph Revolution.

A scathing report issued this week found that the hospital and health board practices were a result of the 'culture of fugality', that is as Ralphs appointed buddies they knew that they had to keep costs down, which meant contracting out laundry services and cutting back house keeping services while paying big bucks to a top heavy administration. Now they want to bring in more management to resolve the crisis when what they need is more hospital cleaners.

In a “culture of frugality” the facility did not even have the proper equipment to sterilize laboratory gear, and ignored requests from the authority because of a turf war caused by fuzzy provincial legislation.

It also says the testing procedure for those potentially infected has been slowed by a lack of provincial support.

The sterilization area of the hospital was actually a converted portion of the laundry room. It wasn’t isolated from other areas. Basic procedures for sterilizing equipment were ignored as well, including using properly sterilized water instead of attempting to sterilize hospital tap water. The authority, meanwhile, did not follow up to ensure its requests were followed.

The Stelmach governments response has been more of the same. Which will not solve the problem.

In an era when hand-sanitizing stations can be found metres apart in places like the Capital Ex fair grounds, it is appalling to learn that the healthcare facilities that people in east-central Alberta count on have ignored or neglected even the most basic hygiene measures because of turf wars, confusion or because administrators were just too cheap.

Despite an outbreak of wildly contagious Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) at St. Joseph's that lasted years, neither hospital officials nor the provincially appointed health board took the crucial steps to bring the situation under control.

The public only learned about the problems in St. Joseph's and East Central Health when the region's Medical Officer of Health ordered the hospital closed to new admissions in March due to concern about the facility's central sterilization room and bits of flesh on hospital tools.

One of the key problems the Health Quality Council identified in its investigation is the fact that the province's varying pieces of health legislation have set up a system of rival bosses. That same conflict potentially exists throughout the province.

Despite the chilling report on East Central Health, Hancock rejected the notion this his government bears any responsibility for the problem. "This is not an issue that can be thrown back on the budget process," he said.

Hancock is ignoring the fact that when the Tory government he now represents first introduced its draconian cuts to health-care funding and decentralized the province's medical system to a series of regional boards, there were public demonstrations against the moves. Anyone with concerns was ignored by the then premier and his cabinet or portrayed as a Liberal crank.

The people overseeing the health authorities also were in a bind. If they didn't play ball, they were either turfed from their jobs or the region was simply disbanded. When budgets are everything, how can anyone be confident that a rigid budget allows administrators to spend extra for the best cleaning fluid or to buy the appropriate sterilization equipment when faced with a huge list of competing needs?

Vegreville's problems likely widespread: doctor

'These things happen everywhere'

Frank noted cardboard boxes were found in sterilization rooms in Tofield, Lamont, Two Hills and other health centres, creating concern for the buildup of fungus. Staff at St. Mary's hospital in Camrose wore jewelry while sterilizing. Frank said the cardboard could have been taken out and the jewelry removed in one day to prevent closure of the units.

But other problems were clearly more major, Frank said. Tables in the Lamont hospital's operating room weren't wiped down between patients, the report found. The sterilization room at Viking's hospital had holes in the wall and ceiling that hadn't been fixed in several years. In Provost, nail care supplies from community health clinics weren't being sterilized, only cleaned.

No sterilization records were being kept in Killam, and a January audit revealed that single-use cautery devices were being re-used after wiping the tip, even though they were meant to be disposed of after one use.

Frank, who doesn't work at these other centres, acknowledged such safety gaps may suggest a lack of a safety culture, which the report pointed out.

But he said, "I don't think there has ever been a don't-care attitude (among health care workers)."

He said such problems are likely happening across Alberta, especially since many centres are struggling with short staffing like St. Joseph's.

Self-evaluation of sterilization practices -- done by all Alberta health regions earlier this year after the health minister ordered them to -- isn't enough, he said. Government inspections and document reviews will also be needed.

Sterilization and cleanliness problems aren't limited to hospitals in Vegreville and the East Central Health Region, says the president of the union representing surgical processors.

Doug Knight, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president, said a "culture of cutbacks" in the provincial government and health regions dating back to the mid-1990s has led to unfilled vacancies in surgical processing and cleaning departments across Alberta.

He has heard cases of Calgary licensed practical nurses getting their scrubs back from the washers with mop strings in the pockets.

"That means they're washing their scrubs with the mops," he told Sun Media.

Knight disapproves of hospitals sending their linens out to private cleaners where the hospital has little control of the cleaning process. He suggests immediately returning privatized cleaning and laundry services to the control of health regions.

Ed Stelmach--in good times and bad - has certainly been the recipient of Ralph Klein's legacy.

In the case of the staphylococcus infection at St. Joseph's General Hospital in Vegreville, the premier clearly got the dirty end of the stick.

Health Quality Council CEO Dr. John Cowell's damning report into the incident revealed that anomalies began showing up in East Central Health authority stats as early as 2003.

By the time Cowell's team finished their investigation, they found serious breaches of sterilization standards throughout the region.

The problem was so extensive that Alberta Health Minister Dave Hancock placed the region under direct government administration and fired the board.

But somewhere along the way, a fundamental aspect of the system - proper sanitation - has been allowed to slide.

This was clearly the case in the East Central Health region.

It also puts a spotlight on the role and responsibilities of health boards, which were partially elected at one time.

They have now deteriorated into Buddy Boards that are liberally stocked with friends of the PC Party as a reward for loyal service and dedication to the cause.

As part of his mandate from Stelmach, Hancock is now charged with reviewing the governance of health boards.

But even before it began, he ruled out a return to elected health boards.

Opposition parties say Premier Ed Stelmach must should some of the blame for the hospital sterilization scandal that has rocked Alberta's health care system and forced three-thousand former patients to be tested for HIV and hepatitis.

Liberal health critic Laurie Blakeman says it's ironic that the same Tory politicians who helped created this sterilization crisis now want people to believe they're in the best position to fix the problems.

NDP Leader Brian Mason said Stelmach must shoulder some of the blame for the "mess" that is now affecting thousands of Albertans.

"This is a legacy of neglect that has affected the health of Albertans and Premier Stelmach bears significant responsibility," said Mason.

The auditor general pointed out three years ago that the committee that checks Alberta hospitals is unqualified, yet the premier has done nothing to change this, said Mason.

The premier also confirmed Thursday that the government is reviewing a master agreement for Alberta's so-called faith-based hospitals.

The controversial deal more than a decade ago kept boards in place at hospitals with religious ties at a time when other hospital boards were being dismantled as the province created health regions with new boards that would run all health facilities in the region.

The facility is run by volunteers and is known as a faith-based hospital. It works under a separate master agreement with the province. The East Central Health Region, however, also has responsibility under different legislation to run the hospital.

That was the wellspring of the problem, said Dr. John Cowell of the Health Quality Council.

He told a news conference in Calgary there there was acrimony and bureacuratic turf wars between the hospital board and the health region board. The health region didn't feel like it could step in unless asked and the hospital treated orders from the region as requests that could be acted on or ignored.

"There was a problem of two bosses and no bosses," said Cowell.

"At certain levels of both organizations there seemed to be much more focus on turf and not a focus on patient safety."

That problem flowed to people on the front line, he said. Nobody knew whom to report to, problems weren't getting solved, doctors declined to step in, morale dropped and health and safety practices spiralled out of control.

Then Cowell took aim at the board which he said had a "dysfunctional" relationship with the hospital, and did not show a "clear understanding of the seriousness of the MSRA situation and did not take action to improve the situation."

For that and much more, they are gone. But how they got there in the first place, Cowell chose to pin the tail on the political donkey.

"In terms of how these individuals are discovered and chosen and appointed," Cowell winked, "I think that's a question you should place right to the minister."

So I did.

Hancock quickly confessed that since these folks get their jobs from the government "these are political appointees."

They weren't always appointed, of course. For a brief moment in Tory time, a portion of health boards were elected.

That means you can de-elect them if they step out of line, unlike Hancock's Buddy Boards.

Part of Hancock's damage control is to develop a "culture of excellence." Including something he calls a "governance review and accountability framework."

You mean like elected health boards?

That's where Hancock started getting nervous and making Freudian slips like calling health care "haircut."

"No," the health minister blurted. "I don't foresee that."

"I'm elected and my colleagues in the legislature are elected to help set health policy for the province."

If they got their jobs in a vote, those regional health boarders would almost certainly go wild. Just like elected school board trustees do. Except they don't.

"I don't believe there has been pork barrelling of the health authorities," Hancock insisted, even though as the Minister Responsible for Edmonton, Hancock is the Grand Poopah of Pork for the Capital Region.

"In making appointments, we've always had to make sure we appoint good people," he said.

And now he's had to fire "good" people too.

Hancock calls the sideshow "irreparable and untenable" and boots the provincially appointed board. He is also expected to can a couple suits with the health region.He says he will put in provincial standards for infection prevention and control and he says he will make sure health regions know they are the boss. He also doesn't feel the health region board is clueless because they are Tory appointees.

"I don't believe there has been pork barrelling," insists the health minister. Couldn't that be cleared up if the health boards were elected as they were supposed to be?

SEE:

Tories Health Plan Kills Albertan

Laundry Workers Fight Privatization

Feminizing the Proletariat

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The One Party State

Lyle Oberg said the province must have a mixed system of public and private health care like many European countries, rather than a solely publicly funded system like Cuba or North Korea.

Well gee what do North Korea, Cuba and Alberta have in common besides public health care? Why they are all one party states.

Also See:

Conservative Leadership Race

Alberta

One Party State

Oberg

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A Hospital Named Ralph

The Edmonton Journal is reporting that the PC's ( Party of Calgary) wants to name a Calgary hospital after King Ralph. For all his, failed, efforts to privatize health care in Alberta. How about this hospital...

Implosion of Calgary's General Hospital

When the Tories blew it up in 1998, for reasons of debt and deficit hysteria, not only was it unneccasary but it created a public health risk, that was little reported at the time.

And it is still is controversial;

Taft accuses the provincial Tories of gutting the Calgary Health Care systems."We are experiencing the terrible consequences of that decision. Blowing up the Calgary General Hospital was a catastrophic mistake and somebody needs to be held responsible. Same with the Holy Cross."

Of course if the Tories really wanted a Klein legacy they could name an airport after him.....Alberta buys new planes for gov't fleet

Also See:

Ralph Klein

Alberta

Health Care

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We Paid How Much

So it cost Albertans over a million dollars to tell us something we already know and have been telling King Ralph for the past ten years as he has tried to privatize our healthcare system. All this guy has done is waste millions on focus groups, studies, reports, etc. etc. ad naseaum, to try and prove his privatization plans would save healthcare money. Which is won't. So he keeps throwing good money after bad, while that money could have been spent on creating community health clincs with health teams on salary,that would reduce healthcare costs.

Gov't study discredits third-way reforms

There is little to be gained by introducing private insurance and multiple payers into medical care, two key planks in Premier Ralph Klein's 10-point framework for reforming Alberta's health-care system, says a study commissioned by the Klein government. The report, which cost the province $1.3 million, examines the potential effects of offering insurance for prescription drugs, continuing care, "supplemental health products services," and non-emergency health care.

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Dead Way

The peasants have surrounded the castle, the monster is put to the torch and the mad doctor is in chains.

King Ralph has lost another one. Just like Same Sex Marriage, the gun registry, Kyoto, the Vriend case, etc.. Talk tough, carry a big wad of cash, and run away.

The Third Way in Health Care reform is dead. Horray cry the Volk of Alberta, the monster is dead.

But lets not party too soon contrary to the blatherings of some.

Don't forget this is the PC's, the Party of Calgary and Presto is still waiting in the wings for an invitation to the dance. And Presto likes the Third Way.

And who actually embraced the Third Way, except the Tory-appointed Calgary Health Region, an outfit hell-bent to let docs cash in on queue-jumpers since some in this city have the fat wallets to get the red-carpet treatment? Even Ralph's own MLAs finally gave the deal the thumbs-down. Tories flatline Third Way

So on May Day in Edmonton , there will be massive march in celebration of the workers holiday and a protest against the Third Way the people need to really make sure the monster is dead. Bring your stakes and signs.

As workers, we must recognize and commemorate May Day not only for its historical significance, but also as a time to organize and speak out around issues that are impacting working-class people today. The March has historically been an opportunity for people to take to the streets and show their commitment to fairness, justice and respect in and outside of the workplace. In this spirit, this year’s March will provide a forum for the public disapproval and resistance to the Alberta Government’s plan for “third way” health care reforms. Edmonton May Week Labour Arts Festival


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A Vision Of Things To Come

Ralph Klein, Preston Manning and Mike Harris have all touted their "Third Way" for Health Care reform in Canada as NOT being modeled on the US but on Europe and the UK. Well lets look at the success the UK is having with its third way model of public private healthcare delivery. Opps better not. Blair faces inquiry into NHS crisis


One of the problems of the GP contract - like so many Labour health reforms - was the number of other radical changes, some of them contradictory, being pursued at the same time. The prime minister has still not learned. In an address to the New Health Network think-tank yesterday he listed four big reforms which the government is pursuing. This month marks the nationwide introduction of payments by results, the biggest change since the NHS was launched 58 years ago, under which finance flows to hospitals, ambulance services, primary care and mental health teams according to the numbers of patients treated, rather than a block contract. On top of that, the government is expanding patient choice, introducing more independent providers and promoting GP commissioning. He could have noted two other reforms - both currently unnecessary - involving radical restructuring of primary care trusts and strategic health authorities. Right goals, too many wrong results


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The One Party State

Ya gotta love a blog from Alberta that tells it like it is and calls itself; Renewing the One Party State Which is covering the current leadership race for who will be Alberta's next CEO. It's the joy of living in an out and out plutocracy.

Cause as I have said here repeatedly ad nauseum that Alberta is unique in the Western Hemisphere as one of the few democratically elected one party states.

Yep Stalin and Castro would be jealous. And it goes to prove that representative democracy is not democracy at all just majoritarian rule that can provide for a tyranny and a dictatorship. Nothing new in that, both the old Soviet Union had and Cuba has 'free' elections too, and they had purges. So do we. Ralph Stalin Purges Alberta Cabinet

Also See:

Medicare Calgary Style

Eleven Days of Scandal Alberta Style

Go West Liberals,Thar's A Boom Out Thar

The Real Story of Alberta's BSE Crisis

Alberta Provincial Election 2004

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Return of the Socreds

Presto Manning is contemplating a run for the leadership of the Party of Calgary. Somethings never change. Preston Manning Expresses Interest In Replacing Klein

That would mean 35 years of Socred power that ended with his father, Ernest, being replaced with a lame duck Premier, then 33 years of PC power starting with Peter Lougheed and ending with a lame duck Premier, and then the possibility of that strange beast the Reformed PC Socreds under Presto.....noooooooo.

Preston Manning, who was once the second-most-powerful leader in Canada as leader of the opposition, is apparently now considering his chances of becoming the second-most-powerful leader in Canada as premier of Alberta.

King Ralph is dead
The Alberta Tories' regicide of Ralph Klein was big news for 12 hours. Then Preston Manning trumped it, telling reporters he was considering running for Klein's job.

Daddy Ernest Manning gave up party power to Peter Lougheed, thus assuring a Liberal Conservative Socred Alliance that was Seventies PC's. That alliance was shattered as neo-cons took over under Klein, the fiscal right was far less powerful than the social conservatives. The social conservatives align behind Oberg, the Reform types around Morton, and the liberal wing under Dinning. Alberta Tories in disarray

Dining did the dirty deed of balancing the budget on the backs of the working class, with wage and benefit cuts to the public sector. Then with victory in his back pocket he left the government.

The neo-cons in the party then went on to shape the Ralph Revolution, using the the debt and deficit hysteria of the ninties to impose their Republican Lite vision on Alberta, while promoting it for the rest of Canada with Prestos Reform Party.

Government that governs least is best — or not

When Mr. Klein became premier, the province had a $3.4-billion deficit and a $23-billion debt. He argued these burdens arose, in part, from governments having involved themselves too much in the economy. There were bad investments. The government taxed too much. Government regulations were too onerous. The free market, he asserted, would be encouraged if the government got out of the way.

This contrasted with the approach of Peter Lougheed, who led the Conservatives to power in 1971. Mr. Lougheed was no socialist, but he did believe the government should try to direct, cajole and even force the market in directions he believed Alberta needed. Only that way, he reasoned, could Alberta's economy be diversified and energy revenues used not just for today's needs, but for the future.

Mr. Lougheed's dirigiste preferences evaporated under Mr. Klein, but now some Albertans want that kind of guiding hand back, at least in a modified form. In a free-enterprise province, the critics are now demanding a “plan” for using the revenues that would be more than driving up spending on ongoing programs.

Presto would be an interesting add to the mix but his chances of winning are less than none. Unless he has something up his sleeve, oh like say Medicare Reform. If anyone could enunciate and promote the Third Way in Medicare it would be Presto.

“Where I think we're headed is a system of universal care, where everybody is covered ... with two tracks for delivery, and two tracks for payment. It's not a question of private versus public, but what mix of the two is appropriate.”

Mr. Manning left what he likes to call "active partisan politics" in 2002 to become more involved in the public-policy debate. He quickly got on board with the Fraser Institute and the Canada West Foundation, and he set up the Manning Centre for Building Democracy.

He and Mike Harris authored the Fraser Institute Report on exactly the musings that King Ralph has been tossing about for the past decade. And perhaps that would be the reason for him to run, otherwise Third Way Medicare Reform is dead in the water.

Third Way predicted to meet Klein's fate

Dead-end way Tories mull future of health-care reform if Ralph exits scene



More on

Ralph Klein

Social Credit

Western Canadian Populism




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Consultation Alberta Style

Ralph Klein promised consultation with the Volk of Alberta over his "discussion paper" on Third Way Health Care reform. When challenged by the Liberals to speak to Albertans at open forums they are sponsoring or in a televised debate, he balked and said the only discussion will be in the Legislature. Then he traveled to B.C. to discuss his ideas at a closed meeting where tickets sold for $100 per and $500 if you wanted to sit with Ralph.

The public is so worn down by years of Klein's threats on health reform, people hardly know where to turn. The democratic ethos is so eroded in this province with so few people prepared to contradict the premier, it's questionable whether a real debate is possible. An arrogant Klein said a few days ago he'll just make the legislature sit until he gets his way.Doctors' conditional support for Klein's third way a great letdown

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