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: 

• “In a dangerously warming world, we must confront the grim reality of Australia’s bushfire emissions”   https://theconversation.com/in-a-dangerously-warming-world-we-must-confront-the-grim-reality-of-australias-bushfire-emissions-224745   

• in a blow to our species chances of survival,   “NYC Pensions Are Sued for Shedding Fossil Fuels - DeSmog”   https://www.desmog.com/2024/02/28/nyc-pensions-are-sued-for-shedding-fossil-fuels/    

• “The National Electricity Market wasn’t made for a renewable energy future. Here’s how to fix it”   https://theconversation.com/the-national-electricity-market-wasnt-made-for-a-renewable-energy-future-heres-how-to-fix-it-215067    

• “EVs are still too expensive for most Australians – so why are some carmakers and the Coalition standing in the way?”   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2024/mar/06/evs-electric-vehicles-afforable-prices-australia-liberal-coalition   In my opinion, the answer is because they have been so emotionally overwhelmed by the reality of the climate crisis that they have ceased to function effectively as humans - that, and/or the blindness of greed, perhaps   “Polestar joins Tesla in quitting auto lobby over its campaign against proposed vehicle efficiency standard”   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/08/polestar-quits-australian-auto-lobby-fcai-vehicle-efficiency-standards   

• “‘Outrageous and disgusting’: Greens MP condemns comparison of Queensland climate protests to US capitol riots”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/08/extinction-rebellion-protest-michael-berkman-greens-mp   “Comparisons between 14 largely retired environmental protesters unfurling banners in Queensland’s parliament and the January 6 US Capitol riots are “odious”, one of the protesters has said.”   The comparisons made by the Ethics Committee go far beyond odious to outrageous and destroying that Committees credibility by demonstrating utter incompetence  
  

• “Australian homes are getting bigger and bigger, and it’s wiping out gains in energy efficiency”   https://theconversation.com/australian-homes-are-getting-bigger-and-bigger-and-its-wiping-out-gains-in-energy-efficiency-224741   As has been said by many people for many years - at least there’s now formal research to back up us (and the bleedin’ obvious)   “Homes on steroids: how Australia came to build some of the biggest houses on Earth”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/08/homes-on-steroids-how-australia-came-to-build-some-of-the-biggest-houses-on-earth  
  

 

• The casual callousness of many of the nuclear tests has always appalled me - things like downwinders (see also here and here), tearing  people  away  from  their  now  uninhabitable  homes, planning to explode nuclear weapons in the air to above cities to stop nuclear armed bombers,  bigger and bigger tests ... and now I have found out more about the nuclear tests in space - which at least led to a treaty limiting such nuclear tests, but also illustrated our ongoing vulnerability to EMPs  and  potentially  damaging  solar  flares (see also here, here, and here):   “What Happens If We Nuke Space? -  PBS Space Time”   https://youtu.be/ZMjo_UY8vEM?si=AYFdqEj9yG1SOvGE   at around 10:45, when discussing damage to transformers and electrical grids, “... Probably we should put more of the relatively cheap safeguards  in place to avoid the multi-trillion dollar cost of repair after an electromagnetic  incident—whether natural or otherwise”   See also   https://www.thoughtco.com/starfish-prime-nuclear-test-4151202   &   https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Starfish_Prime&oldid=1211322104   (the destruction of missiles that hadn’t launched properly, causing radioactive fallout, is another example of casual callousness)   and   https://www.britannica.com/event/Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty   ,   https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20480/volume-480-I-6964-English.pdf   ,   and   https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Partial_Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treaty&oldid=1210968858   

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/