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: 

• “Tenth consecutive monthly heat record alarms and confounds climate scientists”   https://www.theguardian.com/global/2024/apr/09/tenth-consecutive-monthly-heat-record-alarms-confounds-climate-scientists   “If the anomaly does not stabilise by August, ‘the world will be in uncharted territory’, says climate expert”          “Human rights violated by Swiss inaction on climate, ECHR rules in landmark case”   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/09/human-rights-violated-inaction-climate-echr-rules-landmark-case   “Court finds in favour of group of older Swiss women who claimed weak policies put them at greater risk of death from heatwaves”   &   “Top EU rights court condemns Switzerland for climate inaction in first ruling of its kind”   https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240409-europe-s-top-rights-court-to-rule-on-landmark-climate-change-cases   “The EU's top rights court ... condemned Switzerland for violating the Convention on Human Rights through its inaction in the face of climate change in a landmark case brought by an association of elderly women. But the court rejected a similar claim against France filed by a former mayor and threw out as inadmissible a case against 32 states brought by a group of Portuguese youths.”  
  

• “Vast Majority of Global CO₂ Emissions Tied to Just 57 Entities”   https://www.desmog.com/2024/04/04/influencemap-carbon-majors-co2-emissions-paris-agreement-report-database-bp-shell-exxonmobil-chevron-conocophillips/   “A new report details the state and corporate producers that bear responsibility for 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions since the Paris Agreement”   It is worth looking at the links - but note especially the changes: some nations/companies have clearly made an effort to reduce their emissions after the Paris Agreement: it is not all bad news ...    

• “Battery boom: More Australians get storage after power prices rise”   https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2024/04/09/battery-solar-households         “Australia could reach an ‘ambitious’ emissions cut of up to 75% by 2035, advisers tell Labor”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/12/australia-could-reach-an-ambitious-emissions-cut-of-up-to-75-by-2035-advisers-tell-labor   “Climate Change Authority says goal could be achievable if more action is taken by governments, business, investors and households”  
  

• “The Southern Ocean has the cleanest air on Earth. We have just discovered why”   https://theconversation.com/the-southern-ocean-has-the-cleanest-air-on-earth-we-have-just-discovered-why-226811   “There’s more to it than just a lack of human activity.   ...   Our recent research discovered clouds and rain play a crucial role in scrubbing the atmosphere clean.”   This is not surprising to me given the use of what has been described as “washing the air” (term used in my Uni lectures in the 1970s) in controlling odorous gases and other air quality problems at wastewater treatment plants and industrial facilities   

• “Bird flu outbreak in US cows: why scientists are concerned”   https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01036-1   “A virus that has killed hundreds of millions of birds has now infected cattle in six US states, but the threat to humans is currently low.”      “A person in Texas caught bird flu after mixing with dairy cattle. Should we be worried?”   https://theconversation.com/a-person-in-texas-caught-bird-flu-after-mixing-with-dairy-cattle-should-we-be-worried-227223   “A farm worker in Texas contracted the virus amid an outbreak in dairy cattle. This is the second human case in the US; a poultry worker tested positive in Colorado in 2022.   ...   H5N1 has escalated in an unprecedented fashion since 2021, and an increasing number of mammals including sea lions, goats, red foxes, coyotes, even domestic dogs and cats have become infected around the world.   Wild animals like red foxes which live in peri-urban areas are a possible new route of spread to farms, domestic pets and humans.”   The article identifies the main now as close contact with infected animals, and assesses the actions that could/should be taken - including further research and “economic compensation for farmers is also crucial to ensure we detect all outbreaks and avoid compromising the food supply”   

• “Massive investment and financial reform needed to rescue SDGs”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148411   

• “We can’t eradicate deadly cane toads – but there’s a way to stop them killing wildlife”   https://theconversation.com/we-cant-eradicate-deadly-cane-toads-but-theres-a-way-to-stop-them-killing-wildlife-224744   An interesting and promising idea    

• “Illegal dumpers blamed as parks asbestos confirmed”   https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/vic/2024/04/08/illegal-dumpers-blamed-parks-asbestos      “Australia among hotspots for toxic ‘forever chemicals’, study of PFAS levels finds”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/09/australia-among-hotspots-for-toxic-forever-chemicals-study-of-pfas-levels-finds   “Australian limits on acceptable levels of these toxic chemicals in drinking water ‘orders of magnitude’ higher than in US”   

• “The French aristocrat who understood evolution 100 years before Darwin – and even worried about climate change”   https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/07/the-french-aristocrat-who-understood-evolution-100-years-before-darwin-and-even-worried-about-climate-change   “Georges-Louis Leclerc proposed species change and extinction back in the 1740s, a new book reveals   ...   Buffon postulated that new species must have come into existence and changed over time, while some species must have gone extinct. “That was a very, very radical idea at the time, and Buffon was censured for it by the Sorbonne: he had to write a statement publicly renouncing everything he had written,” said Roberts. Buffon was later formally accused of heresy for implying that Earth was older than the biblical record.   ...   Since Buffon had to keep undermining his own observations, it was easy for Victorian naturalists to brush aside his contributions”  
  

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/