In Ecuador there is a massive monument on the equator. When modern mapping techniques were developed, they found out that the monument was off by half a km. The real equator is beside this tour-bus parking lot, in a ravine on the other side of the wall. This was as close as I could get without climbing over the wall.
I'm Albertan, and I'm watching the news on the separation referendum. From how I understand it, Alberta separatists were a big part of Danielle Smith's rise to office. Now that the referendum was struck down, separatists are threatening her position by signing up more of their members for the UCP. I'm sure that she has separatist sentiments herself, but she's also heavily motivated to keep her role by catering to this group just in the party.
This got me thinking. Only 4% of Canadians are members of political parties. Individual Canadians have way more sway over policy by joining parties to vote for their leadership than voting in elections. In the Alberta example, separatists are a small portion of the population but they're partly controlling the premier's decisions.
With the federal Liberals, they have about 400,000 members, but only 150,000 actually voted in their leadership race. Unlike other parties, signing up for a membership is free. If a caucus of disciplined environmental voters, of only about 17,000 or 10% of the total were to join, they would have significant sway over the vote. They could threaten the role of the liberal leader if they didn't push climate policy enough. If the leader failed to hit climate goals over their term, the caucus could replace them with one who could.
Another option would be to have a caucus in all parties, to ensure some form of progress no matter what party is in office. This seems harder. It would be a challenge to convince environmentalists to join the conservatives. It still might be the most effective way to make change.
What do you think? I'm open to other people's opinions on this.
Hey everyone, I just discovered this community and I want to share my thoughts on it. From people who meditate a lot, they're able to see that free will doesn't exist. It's kind of hard to explain, but when your mind has turbidity in it, you become falsely attached to thoughts thinking that they are you, but if you calm your mind you can see that your thoughts and body movements are happening in the same way as everything else. It's kind of weird sounding but from those who meditate a lot, they can kind of see their thoughts and body move on its own. The calm mind is a more correct view of the world because you are taking in the whole field of experience instead of falsly focusing on individual parts of it. I hope this contributes to this conversation.