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: 

• “Give a Village a Mangrove”   https://hakaimagazine.com/features/give-a-village-a-mangrove/   “To protect their mangrove forests and livelihoods, traditional communities in coastal Brazil set their hopes on small-scale tourism”    I hope this succeeds in protecting the mangroves - they are vital parts of the ecosystem [warning: carnist content]         “How science is helping farmers to find a balance between agriculture and solar farms”   https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00518-6      “Ridding Macquarie Island of pests pays off as seabirds come back from the brink – but recovery has just begun”   https://theconversation.com/ridding-macquarie-island-of-pests-pays-off-as-seabirds-come-back-from-the-brink-but-recovery-has-just-begun-221992  
  

• “Number of Solar Batteries doubles to over One Million in Germany in 2023”   https://www.juancole.com/2024/02/batteries-doubles-million.html   

• “A Single Antarctic heatwave or storm can Noticeably Raise the Sea Level”   https://www.juancole.com/2024/02/antarctic-heatwave-noticeably.html   

• “The public wants clean energy – but this is Australia, where the climate wars never die”   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2024/feb/20/australia-climate-crisis-clean-energy-solutions-debate-emissions-target   

• “Report: Plastics, Oil Industry Deceived Public on Recycling Use for More Than 50 Years - DeSmog”   https://www.desmog.com/2024/02/15/recycling-plastic-center-for-climate-integrity-report-fraud/  
  

• “Major Cities on The US East Coast Are Sinking Faster, Scientists Warn”   https://www.sciencealert.com/major-cities-on-the-us-east-coast-are-sinking-faster-scientists-warn   The link I followed to this suggested groundwater extraction was significant, but I can only find passing mention to that in the original paper (linked to in URL above). However, eastern Victoria has many large open cut coal mines for coal-fired power stations which are pumped dry, and this has caused a major lowering of the ground there. One treatment plant I upgraded was only 15 years old, but the whole region was one metre lower than when it had been built. The subsidence issues mentioned are much lower than that, but, given the density of development, the USA’s abysmal lack of infrastructure maintenance, and the addition of sea level rise from the climate crisis, will be of much greater significance  
  

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. 

 

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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/