FROM this week’s news ON: society generally, the climate crisis, environmental issues, and nuclear threats/issues [Note: Content Warning - may be 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”.

 

Frrom this week’s news on society generally, the climate crisis, environmental issues, and nuclear threats/issues (please note: this is a cut down and/or combined version of what I used to do):

• “Lying to Ourselves at The End of The World”   https://www.okdoomer.io/all-about-the-dissonance/   This is about cognitive dissonance, and is an excellent analysis of the problem     
  

on society generally:

• “The era of small government is ending. And Australians want to regain power ceded to the amoral forces of global capital”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/article/2024/may/21/the-era-of-small-government-is-ending-and-australians-want-to-regain-power-ceded-to-the-amoral-forces-of-global-capital   “Australian voters’ expectation of intervention does not begin and end with renewable energy”      

• “Australian politicians think 15-year-olds are old enough to go to jail but not go on Facebook. They’re kidding themselves”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/23/australia-social-media-ban-under-16-children-comment   “It would be much better for young people to be supported to navigate social media safely than ban them from it entirely”   I agree: there is some serious dichotomy/double standards/cognitive dissonance going on here ...     

the climate crisis: 

• “Why babies in South Korea are suing the government”   https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01457-y   “The first case in East Asia to challenge government climate policies will boost awareness of global warming and encourage further lawsuits in the region.”      

• “A new ruling says countries – including NZ – must take action on climate change under the law of the sea”   https://theconversation.com/a-new-ruling-says-countries-including-nz-must-take-action-on-climate-change-under-the-law-of-the-sea-230420   “In a significant development for small island nations threatened by rising seas, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has found greenhouse gases constitute marine pollution.   The tribunal handed down a unanimous advisory opinion this week in its first climate-related judgement. It declared countries must take measures to combat climate change in order to preserve the marine environment under the law of the sea.”      
  

• “Insurers are Pulling out of Climate Risk Zones, Leaving Communities even more Vulnerable”   https://www.juancole.com/2024/05/insurers-communities-vulnerable.html      

• “Scaremongering won’t keep Australia’s lights on. Picking up the pace of energy transition will”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/22/scaremongering-wont-keep-australias-lights-on-picking-up-the-pace-of-energy-transition-will   “More than a decade of policy inadequacy has led to projected short-term electricity shortfalls. But that doesn’t mean blackouts are imminent or unavoidable”     
  

environmental issues: 

• “Accelerating extinction rate triggers domino effect of biodiversity loss”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1150056      

• “Fire management in Victoria amounts to de facto native logging industry, conservationists say”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/17/fire-management-in-victoria-amounts-to-de-facto-native-logging-industry-conservationists-say   “Campaigners accuse Forest Fire Management Victoria of ‘knowingly’ killing endangered wildlife after greater glider found dead”      

• “Why is NSW Still Logging the Great Koala National Park? | Video Report” by The Australia Institute   https://youtu.be/WQu-8Y05bWk?si=MTjh-o-u7fsTRfAl      
  

• “China’s Yangtze fish-rescue plan is a failure, study says”   https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01444-3   The problem started with the construction of dams without any fishways. The debate over the best solution(s) continues ...      
  

pandemics and disease risks, including zoonotic: 

• “COVID-19 eliminated a decade of progress in global level of life expectancy”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1150186     
  

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. Also, consider this poem of mine.

 

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. 

Note that, as with my main blog [see here], I am cutting back on aspects of my posts.

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/