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 (when I remember) 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):

on society generally:

• “Just Don't Do It”   https://www.okdoomer.io/just-dont-do-it-2/   A thoughtful reflection on problems such as “escalating commitment”, “sunk cost fallacy”, drawing wrong conclusions to test results, and the damage these have done to society - and when to use  “kill (stop) criteria” to manage those problems       

 

• “Post No. 2,808 - the problem of enabling or allowing/tolerating abusers   [Content Warning - discussion of abuse, trauma]”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2024/06/post-no-2808-problem-of-enabling-or.html     
  

the climate crisis: 

 

• Australia’s opposition leader   “Peter Dutton’s energy policy is a political death wish – and utterly irresponsible in the face of the climate emergency”   https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/12/peter-duttons-energy-policy-is-a-political-death-wish-and-utterly-irresponsible-in-the-face-of-the-climate-emergency       “The Coalition wants to dump our 2030 emissions target, yet somehow hit 2050’s. Behavioural economics has a name for that”   https://theconversation.com/the-coalition-wants-to-dump-our-2030-emissions-target-yet-somehow-hit-2050s-behavioural-economics-has-a-name-for-that-232141   “hyperbolic discounting”   -   from   “Hyperbolic Discounting: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices”   https://www.nirandfar.com/hyperbolic-discounting-why-you-make-terrible-life-choices/   “Hyperbolic discounting, also called “present bias,” is a cognitive bias, where people choose smaller, immediate rewards rather than larger, later rewards”     
  

environmental issues: 

• “Ugandan oil pipeline protester allegedly beaten as part of ‘alarming crackdown’”   https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jun/12/uganda-oil-eacop-pipeline-protester-stephen-kwikiriza   “Stephen Kwikiriza is one of 11 campaigners against EACOP targeted by authorities in past two weeks, rights group says”     
  

nuclear threats/issues: 

• “Is the risk of nuclear escalation rising between Russia and the west?”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/10/nuclear-escalation-russia-ukraine   “That risk is notoriously hard to predict. There’s no reliable procedure for assessment or solid evidence on which to base it”   My opinion is that it is too important not to take some appropriate preventive action - including stating concerns, warning of consequences, etc - especially as the provocations now are being made by Putin’s Russia. This article strikes me as a little “too clever by half”      “Russia, Belarus launch second stage of joint tactical nuclear weapons drills”   https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240611-russia-belarus-launch-second-stage-of-joint-tactical-nuclear-weapons-drills     
  

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/