FROM this week’s news ON: the climate crisis, environmental issues, and nuclear threats/issues [Note: Content Warning - links to distressing reports on this topic. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.

Froom this week’s news on the climate crisis, environmental issues, and nuclear threats/issues (note: I may continue to add links for a few days, possibly up to a week, after these are published), noting that at least some issues will not have made it into the news that I see: 

• “The world has warmed 1.5 °C, according to 300-year-old sponges”   https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00281-8   “By the time that official temperature records began, global temperatures had already risen by half a degree”    

• “Dangerous climate tipping points will affect Australia. The risks are real and cannot be ignored”   https://theconversation.com/dangerous-climate-tipping-points-will-affect-australia-the-risks-are-real-and-cannot-be-ignored-222737  
  

• “CSIRO study shows marine heatwaves have significant impact on microorganisms - The Australian Independent Media Network”   https://theaimn.com/csiro-study-shows-marine-heatwaves-have-significant-impact-on-microorganisms/    (link to original paper included at the end of the article) This gets down to the sort of not-very-obvious that key - foundational - processes that enable life (such as photosynthesis - which is not part of this article) occur: it has the potential to be a major problem, even thought it is not immediately visible to those standing on beaches and looking at oceans   

• “Air pollution a factor in spiking cancer cases, report says”   https://www.france24.com/en/environment/20240204-air-pollution-factor-spiking-cancer-cases-who-says  
  

 

• “Greta Thunberg cleared after 'unlawful' protest arrest | SBS News”   https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/greta-thunberg-cleared-of-public-order-offence-after-protest-arrest-ruled-unlawful/0mmiwzs3i   This suggests to me that police exceeded their social licence - and acted against humanity’s best interests, which are minimising the climate crisis to maximise our chance of surviving    

• “An expression of injustice”   https://youtube.com/shorts/Q4q0dwpwl60?si=Ii2ZDSLobMKiT011   I don’t know about the claimed relativity of deaths (not enough time, energy or interest to look up the numbers of multiple issues globally), but the statistics and commentary I did find (see   https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis   and   https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tuberculosis&oldid=1200781446#Epidemiology)   supported the main points about TB   

• “Burkina Faso becomes 2^nd African country to include malaria vaccine in immunisation program”   https://www.africanews.com/2024/02/05/burkina-faso-becomes-2nd-african-country-to-include-malaria-vaccine-in-routine-immunizatio/   
  

• “National fuel efficiency standard puts Australia on the road to fuel and pollution savings - The Australian Independent Media Network”   https://theaimn.com/national-fuel-efficiency-standard-puts-australia-on-the-road-to-fuel-and-pollution-savings/   At last ... what were the neolib excuses for inaction? Any of them credible?   

• “Woolworths, Coles and Aldi to roll out soft plastics collection bins in 12 Melbourne stores”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/09/woolworths-coles-and-aldi-to-roll-out-soft-plastics-collection-bins-in-12-melbourne-stores   “Supermarkets will ask customers to recycle scrunchable plastic food packaging for first time since REDcycle ended   ...   the trial, which begins this week, is possible because of new soft plastic recycling facilities that began operating last week”   The article also outlines how it will be ensured that recycling actualy does occur this time, and why the trial is limited - it looks promising, but whether it is or not will depend on real life results  
  

 

My links for activism post may aid any activism you may decide to do on any/all of these. If you do, don’t get too fixated on specific instances of problems - important though they may well be: take a moment to also consider the broader issues these incidents and groups of incidents may suggest/reveal.

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/