Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 16, 2020
Wildfires and weather extremes: It’s not coincidence, it’s climate change
Right on the heels of arguably the West Coast’s most intense heat wave in modern history comes the most ferocious flare-up of catastrophic wildfires in recent memory. Meanwhile, just a few hundred miles east, a 60-degree temperature drop over just 18 hours in Wyoming and Colorado was accompanied by an extremely rare late-summer dumping of up to 2 feet of snow.
July 14, 2020
It’s not coincidence, it’s climate change.
These kinds of dystopian weather events, happening often at the same time, are exactly what scientists have been warning about for decades. While extreme weather is a part of the natural cycle, the recent uptick in the ferocity and frequency of these extremes, scientists say, is evidence of an acceleration of climate impacts, some of which were underestimated by climate computer models.
“This is yet another example of where uncertainty is not our friend,” says Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State. “As we learn more, we are finding that many climate change impacts, including these sorts of extreme weather events, are playing out faster and with greater magnitude than our models predicted.”
July 21, 2020
On Wednesday NOAA released its latest State of the Climate Report, which finds that just during the month of August the U.S. was hit by four different billion-dollar disasters: two hurricanes, huge wildfires and an extraordinary Midwest derecho.
Just one such extreme event can strain emergency resources — a situation West Coast firefighters find themselves in now. However, in two dramatic cases this summer, the nation was hit simultaneously with concurrent catastrophes, some of which had no precedent in modern history. It’s a concept scientists call compound events, and it is necessary to factor these confluences into future projections to properly estimate risk, response and resources.
In mid-August the West suffered through an extended heat wave which saw Death Valley surge to 130 degrees, the hottest temperature ever reliably measured on Earth. The tinderbox conditions caused by the heat, along with a rare lightning outbreak, sparked the first round of major wildfires in California this season, escalating into three of the four largest fires in state history. At about the same time a powerful derecho caused billions of dollars in damage in Iowa and Illinois, and Hurricane Laura plowed into the Gulf Coast of Louisiana as a Category 4 with 150 mph winds and 16 feet of storm surge. (Continued: CBS News)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 11, 2020
Economic Prescription for Coronavirus: ‘You’ve Got to Go Fast’
The government can’t prevent the coronavirus from damaging the U.S. Economy.
February 28, 2020
The usual tools that economic policymakers rely on, like tax cuts and stimulus spending, won’t restore canceled conferences, unclog supply chains or persuade wary consumers to go out to bars and restaurants. Even if such policies would help, they conflict with the advice of health officials who are urging “social distancing” to slow the spread of the virus.
But that doesn’t mean policymakers are powerless. Economists say well-designed programs could limit the damage and help ensure a quick rebound.
President Trump said Monday that he would meet with congressional leaders to discuss a “very substantial” payroll tax cut and other measures. Many economists are skeptical of that approach, arguing that a payroll tax cut would be too small and too poorly targeted to be of much help.
June 28, 2018
Instead, they recommended a variety of other steps, some narrowly aimed at addressing the outbreak and some intended to bolster the broader economy. One lesson from the last recession is that the government has to move quickly.
“You’ve got to go big, and you’ve got to go fast,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve staff member who is now director of macroeconomic policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a left-leaning research organization. “If you don’t go fast, you’re not going to short-circuit it.”
Here are some forms that such intervention could take: 1) Fight the disease. 2) Cushion the blow. 3) Stimulate the broader economy. 4) What about payroll taxes? (Continued: NYTimes)
CHRONOLOGY OF A CARTOON GONE VIRAL
This particular editorial cartoon has gone through several modifications than the original one published above on March 11, 2020, the day the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. The original double wave cartoon received attention around the world and was modified, rather crudely, with adaptations made to my Canada flag, and translations squeezed in to replace my English “be sure to wash your hands and all will be well.” Some of the changes were done fairly well. Some of the people behind the alterations took the time to ask for permission to do so, and preserved my moniker, while others did not.
Nettuno 1958 – 5 aprile 2020
If only I got a penny for everywhere this cartoon landed I’d be rich!
Possibly my most shared, cropped, and altered cartoon ever.
One of editorial cartoondom’s most recognized and overused cliche is the visual of a tsunami or tidal wave about to wreak havoc on humanity. It’s internationally recognized and a winner in the wordless cartoon contest world. I’ve used the cliche many times in the past to evoke impending doom, like, silver tsunami, the Gomery Report, Courier company business vs. Canada Post, U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan, and H1N1 infection wave. It’s such a commonly known and wonderfully apt gag that if it had a trademark, it would really belong to everyone.
A crude repurposed image showing a third wave, with my moniker cropped out, appeared in wide circulation on various social media platforms in May, 2020. It appears someone with some knowledge of image editing software duplicated the recession wave, added a third wave by colouring it rather fluorescent green and replacing the wording to climate change. In doing so unfortunately, my signature, or moniker as cartoonists call it, was deleted out. It was on its way to being meme-ified – unsourced and unsigned, the bane of editorial cartooning. I believe the flag in this example is Argentina’s.
Meanwhile, a hemisphere over in the UK, someone revised the Argentinian version, and replaced the label recession with “Brexit”. Look closely and one will note the Union Jack flies atop the Palace of Westminster! Credit goes to Twitter account RRI Tools for pointing this out in June, 2020 with this tweet.
I thought these ideas behind modification were pretty good ones, but the crop jobs weren’t so great, and the flag of Argentina only caused confusion on an idea that could work for anyone around the world. So it was then that I decided to remove the flag and create an authorized version bearing my signature. Here it is:
Originally drawn for March 11, 2020. Revised May 23, 2020.
But it seems someone else in another corner of the planet, Ricardo Hurtubia, a teacher from Santiago, Chile, had added a third wave as early as April 4! Good on him for keeping my moniker in there. News to me by the time July rolled around:
con mis fantásticas habilidades para Power Point, he logrado esta obra de arte luego de un día entero de trabajo
(broma 😜, pero el mensaje de fondo va en serio🙁) pic.twitter.com/qPrmSaneRy
In September, 2020, this beautiful hand drawn rendering was flagged by someone in Venezuela on Twitter. This is an example of the old saying, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Thank you Alejandro!
Not long after the above tweet was posted, an anonymous twitter account holder going by the name of Cilantrófago, posted a re-adapted image in Spanish that cleaned up Mr. Hurtubia’s, somewhat, adding a 4th wave. His major failing, however, is chopping out my moniker, and unfortunately, for Cilantrófago, he or she qualifies as a Social Media Jackass.
In mid June, I was included in a tweet sent out by David Obura, a director of Cordio, East Africa, a marine ecosystem consultancy based in Mombasa, Kenya. He’s also a scientist with the Earth Commission. A 4th wave had been added as a further warning regarding the effects of climate change on the world’s ecology. He isn’t actually the person who added the “biodiversity collapse”, but liked what he saw and sent it out. The re-adapted version is quite a good one, with a thought provoking message, the lettering is close enough to my own, and the image retains my moniker. Thumbs up, but I would like to know who the person is behind the re-adaptation.
The readapted readapted version of the cartoon became the centre piece of a demonstration with a Samba Band on Paignton Promenade (in Torbay, Devon, England) Sunday afternoon, August 30, 2020 with the “Four Waves Banner” shown below and paraded by the Green Spirits group:
Enchanted by the passion of the Green Spirits, and after receiving more licensing permission to use the 4 waves, I decided to update the cartoon to include the biodiversity collapse wave. The caption bubble was also enlarged, and my moniker was placed in the top corner.
As of Autumn 2020, according to google image search, there are more than 1680 posts of these variations across the Internet on various social media platforms and websites.
POV International – Brug coronakrisen som løftestang for nødvendige forandringer: Vi skal “Build Back Better”
Medium.com – Field Notes: Teaching Climate Change in Higher Education
Noted is this eerily similar looking version found on this page on a site called EcoMatcher. They aren’t based in any particular country but whether the renderer knew it or not, that’s pretty much exactly what I drew in the very first version (posted at the top of this page) to represent Canada, from the rockies in the west to the Toronto skyline in the east. Seems the readapters of the image had a pretty good idea of the original cartoon’s chronology.
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 14, 2020
The Conservative Party’s moderate-centres have disappeared
Alone among the senior party elephants who in the past few days have fled the high veldt of the federal Conservative leadership campaign, former Quebec premier Jean Charest left behind disquieting words as he took the exit road. The party, he observed, has changed a lot since he was last active in it in 1998.
March 24, 2018
You wonder why Conservative strategists and the media have not made more of what he said.
They’ve stated that the party is confused; it has lost its identity, needs to find itself—when, for the most part, the party knows exactly where it is and how it got there. It’s the strategists and media who are living in something that looks a lot like a state of denial.
They’re engaging in a surreal debate about what the party needs to do to fix itself and grow its political message—make symbolic or mild policy nods toward the political centre, have its leaders walk in a pride parade, declare it won’t be re-opening the abortion debate, do something to hobble the party’s “extremist wing.”
Yet the Conservative moderate-centre has all but disappeared. Largely, the so-called Red Tories have left the party and gone elsewhere. There is no “extremist wing”—that’s imaginary. Fundamental changes have shaped the base of the party that reflect differences in outlook, preferences and values from the great majority of Canadians and have little to do with what someone thinks about gay pride parades. As in the U.K. and the U.S., authoritarian or ordered populism has polarized Canada into two incommensurable camps.
Animated!
The Conservative Party that most Canadians have known—the political centre that previously had the ability to find centre terrain on the most divisive issues of the day—has disappeared. What contemporary Conservative strategists and the media seem to have significant difficulty recognizing is that Canadian politics has become much more like American politics—it’s become tribal. And just as two Americas have taken root and blossomed, two Canadas are appearing on this side of the border.
EKOS Research found that four years ago, there was a 10-percentage-point gap between Liberals and Conservatives who selected climate change as the top issue of political concern. That gap is now 46 percentage points.
More than 90 per cent of Canadians who identify with the political centre-left, which is 65 per cent of adult citizens, think that Canada now has a climate emergency (they don’t believe that it’s coming, but that it’s here now.) For people who identify as Conservative or People’s Party supporters, the figure is less than 30 per cent. Four years ago, there was a 20-percentage-point gap between Liberals and Conservatives on trust in science. That exploded to a 40 per cent gap following the last election.
Since 2012, the incidence of Conservative voters who think Canada is admitting “too many” visible minorities as immigrants has swollen from 47 per cent to 70 per cent . Meanwhile, the corresponding incidence of Liberals agreeing there are too many has dropped from 35 to 15 per cent. A modest 12 per cent gap has also expanded to a massive 55 per cent gap. (MacLean’s)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 6, 2020
One step forward, another one back: What the Trans Mountain ruling means for Trudeau
In sports, you win some and you lose some. In politics, it’s possible to win and lose at the same time.
Pipeline cartoons
Take, for example, yesterday’s Federal Court of Appeal ruling on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
The court ruled unanimously that the federal government had fulfilled its duty to consult meaningfully with a handful of First Nations opposed to the project, clearing a major hurdle in the drawn-out battle to build a second line to carry bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands to Burnaby on the B.C. coast.
The federal and Alberta governments immediately claimed victory, putting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Jason Kenney on the same side for once.
“This project is in the public interest,” federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan told reporters shortly after the decision was released.
“We also know that this is a project that can deliver significant economic benefit to Alberta, to Canadians across the country,” added Finance Minister Bill Morneau. “And more importantly, we are going to put that economic benefit back into the environment.”
Their sense of relief was palpable. Ottawa spent around $4.5 billion in 2018 to buy TMX — a last-ditch effort to ensure the pipeline would be built after its owner, Kinder Morgan, announced plans to step away.
That price, hefty as it is, doesn’t include construction costs or any overruns the project has incurred because of the various stop-work orders that have put construction well behind schedule.
But with the victory comes a major setback in relations with those Indigenous groups who continue to oppose the $7.4-billion project, and will no doubt seek to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
“Reconciliation stopped today,” said Rueben George, of the Tsleil-Waututh, his voice cracking with emotion.
The band was one of four Indigenous groups behind the court challenge. It argued that the second, court-ordered round of consultations also failed to respond adequately to their concerns about the impact the project would have on marine life.
“This government is incapable of making sound decisions for our future generations,” George said. “So we will — even for their children — we will take those steps to make sure Canada stays the way it is.” (CBC)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 28, 2020
Peter MacKay launches his campaign promising to unify and expand Conservative Party
Peter MacKay officially launched his leadership campaign on Saturday with a speech that emphasized his experience on the world stage, and promised to unify and expand the Conservative Party ahead of the next election.
Peter MacKay Cartoon Gallery
“Together we’ll expand outward that big blue tent, while strengthening its solid poles of conservative principle,” he said in a speech in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, the area which he represented in Parliament from 1997 to 2015.
“I stand here before you today with my heart on my sleeve for every Canadian, whoever you love, wherever you live,” he said.
The speech leaned heavily on MacKay’s experience in senior cabinet roles during Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, particularly his time as foreign affairs minister and defence minister. While pitching himself as a Prime Minister in waiting, he also took shots at Justin Trudeau.
He said Canada and the planet are facing “big challenges with big complicated questions,” but the current Liberal government is “shrugging and often doing more harm than good, virtue signalling without action.”
However, there were no specific policy proposals in the speech. Notably, the speech made no mention of climate change, instead discussing the general importance of protecting the environment.
“We’re stewards of the environment,” he said. “The greatest gift that we’ve received as Canadians, alongside our freedom and democracy, is our natural splendour of land and sea.”
May 2, 2019
MacKay is widely seen as the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership race, which will end June 27 in Toronto. His main competition, at least for the time being, is expected to be Ontario MP Erin O’Toole. O’Toole is launching is campaign Monday in Alberta.
Three high-profile potential contenders for the Conservative leadership race — Jean Charest, Rona Ambrose and Pierre Poilieve — all dropped out over the past week. However, candidates still have until Feb. 27 to enter the race, so others may come forward.
Other candidates who have declared their intention to run include Ontario MPs Marilyn Gladu and Derek Sloan, Alberta businessman Rick Peterson, and former Conservative staffer Richard Decarie. (National Post)
One of editorial cartoondom’s most recognized and overused cliche is 
