Capitalism is one of the worst things for mental health on mass.
I don't lack it, I just temper it with statistics. You do know that there's science on this, right?
Two virology professors discuss the lackluster response to an increasingly concerning outbreak.
Broader topic:
> So our public-health infrastructure has wasted a lot of time not doing the right kind of surveillance on this virus. What is a realistic best path forward now, especially considering we’ll have a new presidential administration coming in? > David O’Connor: At the risk of saying something maybe a touch controversial, Tom and I were both commenting earlier that we’d listened to this week’s Ezra Klein podcast where the author of Recoding America was talking about how processes often become a substitute for judgment in terms of what the role of government officials should be. And I think we definitely see this — that a lot of public health is policy-driven. Tom and I see this in our own day-to-day lives. In our state of Wisconsin, farmers produce 30 billion pounds of raw milk a year, and yet it’s taken us five months to get permission to bring several ounces of that raw milk into our secure labs because of biosafety concerns that there might be something in this milk that would pose a risk. Even though it’s the same thing that’s being produced in the tens of billions of pounds per year and is being consumed legally and drunk by people in a dozen states. > > So I think that one place where there may be an opportunity for some common cause in the new administration — where there is a pointed idea that there should be less regulation, that maybe there should be less indexing on process and more on outcomes — would be to look at this with fresh eyes and say, “What are the things that we are really trying to accomplish here? What are the goals?” And then ask the question, “Are the approaches that we’re using being driven by the best science and the best public health? Or is it being driven by other considerations, like we don’t want to step on the feet of another agency that may also have a stake in this response?” > > Public health is something we all need to do. And I’d like to think that maybe we can move things faster if there is a little bit more of an emphasis on outcomes. A lot of things that public health needs to do may be unpopular at the individual level. It may be difficult for individuals, but it’s needed for community health, for literal public health. And maybe in a new administration, an optimistic take is that a reduction in regulation would be one potentially positive outcome that could lead to a more effective response. > > There’s the regulation part, and then there’s the tension between the individual and the communal here in the U.S. > Tom Friedrich: I think that’s true. I would add that there should be incentives, and maybe a new administration would find some will to do this. Because ultimately, we need to incentivize cooperation from farmers and their workers to be able to go into farms and do testing. And something that we’re not really talking about here, but underlies all of this, is just a reduction in trust in governments and institutions generally. If we want to avert a pandemic, if a pandemic is about to happen, then people are going to have to act decisively, and very quickly, it’s going to get out of control. So you have a narrow window of opportunity where by definition you have to be acting with incomplete information. If you’re going to be very deliberative about the whole thing, you’re just not going to be able to contain it.
Environmental Crimes in the Amazon Region Often Have Financial Ties to the US, Report Finds
The US has been a safe haven for illicit financial flows from environmental crimes due to lax anti money laundering requirements
For some reason the “Submit” button just freezes loading, so let’s see if I can post it as text.
Mexico is a leading international pork producer, but Yucatán residents say the waste oozing from hundreds of enormous hog farms is destroying the environment
Mexico is a leading international pork producer, but Yucatán residents say the waste oozing from hundreds of enormous hog farms is destroying the environment
For some reason the "Submit" button just freezes loading, so let's see if I can post it as text:
># Drugs, hormones and excrement: the polluting pig mega-farms supplying pork to the world
>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/25/drugs-hormones-excrement-pig-farms-mexico-water-yucatan
Exactly. The usual context of "comfort" contains an unsaid word: "sufficient".
I was looking for some dramatic photos on other articles and it's mostly people having fun in snow.
Both uses are a problem, one is just more unnecessary than the other.
I'd like it if indigenous Amazonians had better tools than bows to defend against loggers, ranchers, miners and various land grabbers. And a few SAMs to take care of those chemical airborne attacks.
firing squads
You need guns for that.
for plastic manufacturers
I can understand for drinking water, but if they're just going to use that expensive and ruinous water for industry, and a terrible one too. Considering that it's Texas, the odds are high that it will happen, right?
Typically, ranchers and farmers clear the forest by felling the trees, then burning the land during the dry season, between July and November. Those fires can quickly get out of hand and spread to neighboring areas, especially in drier years. Last year was particularly bad for fires, and this year looks to be even worse, with more than 2,700 fire alerts detected by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — the highest number since measurement began in 2012, according to GFW analysis.
There isn't really anything much to say. There's a lot to feel, however. Like... a deep and rich hatred.
Typically, ranchers and farmers clear the forest by felling the trees, then burning the land during the dry season, between July and November. Those fires can quickly get out of hand and spread to neighboring areas, especially in drier years. Last year was particularly bad for fires, and this year looks to be even worse, with more than 2,700 fire alerts detected by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — the highest number since measurement began in 2012, according to GFW analysis.
There isn't really anything much to say. There's a lot to feel, however. Like... a deep and rich hatred.
An MIT Energy Initiative study finds many climate-stabilization plans are based on questionable assumptions about the future cost and deployment of “direct air capture” and therefore may not bring about promised reductions.
># The bottom line
>In their paper, the MITEI team calls DAC a “very seductive concept.” Using DAC to suck CO2 out of the air and generate high-quality carbon-removal credits can offset reduction requirements for industries that have hard-to-abate emissions. By doing so, DAC would minimize disruptions to key parts of the world’s economy, including air travel, certain carbon-intensive industries, and agriculture. However, the world would need to generate billions of tonnes of CO2 credits at an affordable price. That prospect doesn’t look likely. The largest DAC plant in operation today removes just 4,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, and the price to buy the company’s carbon-removal credits on the market today is $1,500 per tonne.
>The researchers recognize that there is room for energy efficiency improvements in the future, but DAC units will always be subject to higher work requirements than CCS applied to power plant or industrial flue gases, and there is not a clear pathway to reducing work requirements much below the levels of current DAC technologies.
>Nevertheless, the researchers recommend that work to develop DAC continue “because it may be needed for meeting net-zero emissions goals, especially given the current pace of emissions.” But their paper concludes with this warning: “Given the high stakes of climate change, it is foolhardy to rely on DAC to be the hero that comes to our rescue.”
What a coprolite show.
I didn't say that it was easy.
And good researchers know how to control for that.
edit: typo
Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded – and one group is profiting from these extremes: the water-grabbing multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for it in bottles
The ‘progress’ made at Cop29 has been on carbon markets: a world of magical thinking, over-claiming and distorted truth, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
> We should do all we can to protect and restore soil carbon. About 80% of the organic carbon on the land surface of the planet is held in soil. It’s essential for soil health. There should be strong rules and incentives for good soil management. But there is no realistic way in which carbon trading can help. Here are the reasons why. > > First, tradable increments of soil carbon are impossible to measure. Because soil depths can vary greatly even within one field, there is currently no accurate, affordable means of estimating soil volume. Nor do we have a good-enough test, across a field or a farm, for bulk density – the amount of soil packed into a given volume. So, even if you could produce a reliable measure of carbon per cubic metre of soil, if you don’t know how much soil you have, you can’t calculate the impact of any changes you make. > > A reliable measure of soil carbon per cubic metre is also elusive, as carbon levels can fluctuate massively from one spot to the next. Repeated measurements from thousands of sites across a farm, necessary to show how carbon levels are changing, would be prohibitively expensive. Nor are simulation models, on which the whole market relies, an effective substitute for measurement. So much for the “verification” supposed to underpin this trade. > > Second, soil is a complex, biological system that seeks equilibrium. With the exception of peat, it reaches equilibrium at a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of roughly 12:1. This means that if you want to raise soil carbon, in most cases you will also need to raise soil nitrogen. But whether nitrogen is applied in synthetic fertilisers or in animal manure, it’s a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, which could counteract any gains in soil carbon. It is also one of the most potent causes of water pollution. > > Third, carbon levels in agricultural soils soon saturate. Some promoters of soil carbon credits create the impression that accumulation can continue indefinitely. It can’t. There’s a limit to how much a given soil can absorb. > > Fourth, any accumulation is reversible. Soil is a highly dynamic system: you cannot permanently lock carbon into it. Microbes constantly process carbon, sometimes stitching it into the soil, sometimes releasing it: this is an essential property of soil health. With rises in temperature, the carbon sequestration you’ve paid for can simply evaporate: there’s likely to be a massive outgassing of carbon from soils as a direct result of continued heating. Droughts can also hammer soil carbon.
As we approach the five year mark of the first known case of covid-19, as we contemplate a half decade of watching a novel virus rip through our communities, our countries, our world, I wanted to do a retrospective on the pandemic.
by Carolyn Kagan Care and caring is central to our lives and could be central to a post growth economy. There are a number of overlapping ways of thinking about care – care for (taking action to as…
Be careful.
>It is hard ask for the concept of care to be broadened to include care for earth systems. Even if there is broad recognition of repairing and caring for things, the term care invokes for most the narrow conception of caring for people, and care work to be the provision of assistance to those who are ill, disabled or frail6. If however, we substitute the term stewardship for care, then we move towards a slightly different way of understanding. Stewardship is caring about the world we live in all its complexity and caring for every part of it in whatever state it is in. It not just caring to repair things once they are broken, it is to ensure things endure from the outset; it is not just caring to assist those in need, it is ensuring that community networks are strong and resilient so that difference can be supported and celebrated at all times; it is not caring to fix a food security system that is broken, it is about ensuring that food production skills and local availability of good food are strengthened at local levels; if is not just about supporting those who are care workers (for people or the environment) it is about strengthening neighbourhoods and communities so that members feel valued whatever their contributions might be. Stewardship is stressing caring about, which almost certainly will include caring for.
Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don’t Like
> Conservatives in Florida have moved from explosive politics to subtler tactics to uproot liberal “indoctrination” in higher education by removing classes like Sociology from core requirements.
Charities worry it could block a crucial deal giving women more support in the face of climate change.
>The Vatican has blocked discussions over women’s rights at the UN climate summit following a row over gay and transgender issues, sources have told BBC News.
>Pope Francis’ representatives have aligned with Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, and Egypt to obstruct a deal which would have provided more support, including financial help, for women at the forefront of climate change, Colombia’s environment minister told the BBC.
>Charities including ActionAid said it is crucial a deal is reached as the UN estimates women and girls currently make up 80% of those displaced by climate change.
The proportion of babies born with a congenital heart abnormality increased by 16 per cent after the first year of the pandemic, according to research at City St George's, University of London and published today in Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Published paper is a letter: https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/uog.29126
(we're in still in the COVID-19 pandemic and it's likely that lots of babies are currently developing heart issues)
Cambodian study finds climate vulnerability hurts toilet functionality and leads to more open defecation.
> The key result of our study, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Environment, Development and Sustainability, was clear: In regions where climate change makes heavy storms and floods more common, households more frequently stop using and maintaining their toilets. > > Toilet dysfunction, which temporarily prevents a toilet from flushing or from keeping human waste from entering the environment, is more frequent among households living in flood-prone regions during the rainy season. We found that for every point increase in the composite climate vulnerability index, toilet abandonment went up by 4%.
Floodwaters reaching more than four meters high swamped thousands of houses in the storm-battered northern Philippines on Tuesday after rivers overflowed following heavy rain and a dam release.
>"We experienced very heavy rains two days ago, but the flood just started to rise when Magat Dam started releasing huge volumes of water," Valdepenas told AFP.
>"Plus, our land is already saturated because of the consecutive typhoons hitting the area."
Large sections of the Great Barrier Reef appear to have been smashed by climate change and cyclones this year, with one reef near Lizard Island losing nearly three quarters of its coral cover since the beginning of the year.
5 Reasons Why Capitalism Is Not Good
>Capitalism is failing humans left and right. > >Degrowth Collective website: https://www.degrowth.world
5 Reasons Why Capitalism Is Not Good
>Capitalism is failing humans left and right.
>Degrowth Collective website: https://www.degrowth.world
(Yes, this is about collapse.)
The European Parliament approved a move to postpone a watered-down version of its anti-deforestation law, with implementation pushed back 12 months to the end of 2025. The Nov. 14 vote to delay the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or the EUDR, by a year was approved with a clear majority of ...
>“It’s a dark day for Europe’s environmental credentials,” Julian Oram, policy director at nonprofit Mighty Earth, wrote in an email statement. “The inclusion of a new ‘no risk’ category will allow many countries to be considered risk-free, even if deforestation, degradation and illegal practices are still occurring.”
The Eye of Every Storm - Prepping with mutual aid
An Appalachian anarchist involved in responding to Hurricane Helene discusses what they have learned and how to prepare for the disasters to come.
>At the end of September 2024, western North Carolina and the surrounding states experienced 30 inches of rainfall over two days when an unnamed storm collided with Hurricane Helene over the mountains of Southern Appalachia. The resulting catastrophe laid waste to the entire region. At a time when misinformation, rising authoritarianism, and disasters exacerbated by industrially-produced climate change are creating a feedback loop of escalating crisis, it’s crucial to understand disaster response as an integral part of community defense and strategize about how this can play a part in movements for liberation. In the following reflection, a local anarchist involved in longstanding disaster response efforts in Appalachia recounts the lessons that they have learned over the past six weeks and offers advice about how to prepare for the disasters to come.