simon_brooke

simon_brooke, 10 months ago to random

"The electric bicycle is a game-changer, much more significant than the overhyped, expensive and insufficiently green e-car: global sales of e-bikes are projected to reach 40 million next year, compared to 9 million for electric vehicles. Globally, most trips are less than 10 kilometres, which e-bikes can cover within half an hour."

https://www.treehugger.com/stop-ignoring-ebikes-5324307

simon_brooke, 10 months ago to random

"We have noted before that this is the fastest ride to zero-carbon; almost anyone can ride an e-bike for six miles under almost any conditions. If there were safe places to ride and secure places to park, then millions of car trips could be avoided, and millions of cars taken off the road"

https://www.treehugger.com/stop-ignoring-ebikes-5324307

simon_brooke, 16 days ago to Scotland

Destroying the planet we live on -- the only planet we can live on -- is of course totally legal and even supported and subsidised by governments around the world (including #Scotland's).

But PROTESTING against destroying the planet? That's illegal. That's very, very illegal. Don't even think about doing that.

#ClimateEmergency

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/23/alarm-as-german-climate-activists-charged-with-forming-a-criminal-organisation

simon_brooke, 7 months ago to climate

5.3 metres – the degree of sea level rise now unavoidable from West Antarctic Ice Sheet melting ALONE – is sufficient to entirely submerge most of urban Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, and an enormous area of southern Iraq (Qatar gets off surprisingly lightly).

Are they sure they want to pump YET MORE oil?

#ClimateEmergency

https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/6/50.1713/28.1743/?theme=water_level&map_type=water_level_above_mhhw&basemap=roadmap&contiguous=true&elevation_model=best_available&refresh=true&water_level=5.3&water_unit=m

simon_brooke, 11 months ago to Lisp

There's a place in Belgium called #Lisp. Arthur Norman used to have a photograph of the Lisp garbage collector truck (what in Scotland we'd call the scaffie wagon) on the streets of Lisp on the wall of his office at Trinity College, Cambridge.

I'm wondering whether anyone has a copy of such a photo (or could take one), and if so, whether they would share it?

Thanks

simon_brooke, 9 days ago to trans

If you're saying that #Trans people cannot use lavatories of their legally assigned and recognised gender, you're essentially saying they cannot safely use lavatories in public places at all. Which means you're saying that they cannot travel, and cannot exist in the public realm. Which means you're also saying that that legal recognition is meaningless and worthless.

Trans people are our brothers and sisters, our comrades. Is this really the world we want to build for them?

simon_brooke, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to Israel

"Is this what #Israel is? The tech outpost, the US ally, the beacon of democracy in the Middle East? A country that kills journalists [30] and writers in surgical strikes [31]. That forces doctors away from ICU babies, leaving them to die and rot in their incubators [32]. Whose snipers shoot children and grannies in the head [33]" – extraordinarily powerful and courageous essay by @paulbiggar . Read it and weep.

I can't sleep
https://blog.paulbiggar.com/i-cant-sleep/

simon_brooke, 10 months ago to random

First they came for the transgender, but I said nothing, because I was a good socialist and maintained party discipline.

#TransRightsAreHumanRights

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66299705

simon_brooke, 5 months ago to Ukraine

"If Putin conquers #Ukraine, all our other issues will become microscopic by comparison" – Radosław Sikorski, foreign minister of Poland.

I hate the idea of war; I'm deeply opposed to the armaments industry, and to those who profit from slaughter. But I have no idea how we halt the advance of imperial #Russia by other means; and I acknowledge that it threatens us all.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/23/west-must-rearm-in-the-face-of-russian-threat-urges-polands-foreign-minister

simon_brooke, 8 months ago to climate

"The courts today talk of protesters breaching the ‘social contract’, require that they act with ‘proportion’, and that they express genuine remorse. But if you speak to anyone on the more radical edges of the environmental movement, they will say that they are fulfilling the social contract by highlighting – in a non-violent way – the imminent threat of environmental destruction"

How can one 'show remorse' for trying to save the planet?

#ClimateEmergency

https://verfassungsblog.de/civil-disobedience-in-the-uk/

simon_brooke, 7 months ago to random

Any website which claims that ANY cookies are "required" to just serve you static text and images is lying. Any website which claims that it needs to "verify the security of your connection" to just serve you static text and images is lying.

The only reason any website needs to do either of these things is if it is logging data about you – data that it almost certainly hasn't asked for permission to log.

Just. Say. No.

simon_brooke, 7 months ago to random

#Armistice is literally the French word for #Ceasefire. This Armistice Day, call for #CeasefireNow everywhere, for everyone.

#DontKillChildren!

simon_brooke, 5 months ago to random

"in those cases, [Bing] went so far as to make serious false allegations of corruption that were presented as fact."

Where LLM #ChatBots make libellous allegations, should their publishers not be legally liable? When chatbots give advice following which results in damage, should their publishers not be legally liable?

Researchers say Bing made up facts about European elections - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24003248/microsoft-ai-copilot-algorithm-watch-bing-election-misinformation

simon_brooke, 5 months ago to random

"unless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of #Gaza’s 2 million population - close to half- a million human beings - dying within a year. These would be largely deaths from preventable health causes" – Professor @devisridhar

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/29/health-organisations-disease-gaza-population-outbreaks-conflict

simon_brooke, 5 months ago to random

Today is the darkest day. The year turns. Tomorrow will be lighter. Blessings and good wishes to you all.

simon_brooke, 7 months ago to random

"The world is staring into an abyss, much as it did in the 1930s. Now, as then, the global rise of right-wing authoritarians like Vladimir Putin in Russia and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel is linked to aggressive militarism that targets civilians and risks a world war...

Yet the news rarely reflects the reality, or this risk. Why is that?" – @willbunch

h/t @GottaLaff

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/journalism-free-press-gaza-extremism-20231105.html

simon_brooke, 11 months ago to random

"So why has the government set such a low investment target that still leaves us with polluted water? The only possible answer is that they wanted to make sure that the private water companies would not go bust by having to spend too much.

Let me put that another way. The government thinks that saving the private water companies is more important than them polluting our water, rivers and beaches with all the costs that will create." – @RichardJMurphy

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/06/29/englands-water-industry-is-environmentally-insolvent/

simon_brooke, 3 months ago to Israel

"After the 7 October attack, 24,000 acres of olives were left unharvested in the West Bank after #Israel largely prevented farmers from accessing their orchards, resulting in the loss of 1,200 metric tons or $10m of olive oil – a key #Palestinian export and powerful symbol for Palestinian identity"

#GazaGenocide

Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians, UN rights expert says | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/un-israel-food-starvation-palestinians-war-crime-genocide

simon_brooke, 3 months ago to Israel

“We have never seen a civilian population made to go so hungry so quickly and so completely, that is the consensus among starvation experts. #Israel is not just targeting civilians, it is trying to damn the future of the #Palestinian people by harming their children.”

#GazaGenocide

Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians, UN rights expert says | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/un-israel-food-starvation-palestinians-war-crime-genocide

simon_brooke, 2 months ago to random

"In the past, climate change deniers accused scientists of exaggerating the threat of global warming. However, the evidence that is now emerging from Antarctica and other parts of the world makes it very clear that scientists did not exaggerate. Indeed, they very probably underrated by a considerable degree the threat that now faces humanity"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/simply-mind-boggling-world-record-temperature-jump-in-antarctic-raises-fears-of-catastrophe

simon_brooke, 2 months ago to random

"quite literally every penny that [the English privatised water industry] has borrowed this century has been used to make payment of dividends to shareholders. Even more money was used to pay interest to those from whom funds had been borrowed to finance these dividends"

This is barefaced fraud.

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/04/07/thames-water-is-bust-our-politicians-need-to-deal-with-it/

simon_brooke, 8 months ago to random

"the World Bank predicts that climate change will compel as many as 216 million people to move elsewhere in their countries by 2050; other reports suggest that more than one billion people will become refugees because of the impacts of a warming planet on developing countries"

We have somehow to find homes for that billion people. How many can your community welcome?

#ClimateCatastrophe
#RefugeesAreWelcomeHere

https://www.noemamag.com/the-bold-idea-to-move-millions-to-climate-havens/

simon_brooke, 8 months ago to climate

What Braverman is doing in talking about a 'hurricane' of refugees is obvious: she's trying to whip up hatred. But she's correct: the #ClimateEmergency is going to create a wave of forced migration unprecedented in human history. What we on the left must do is to build a spirit in our communities which says, clearly, #RefugeesAreWelcomeHere. If we sit on our hands, or fudge, the tide will sweep us away as it floods to the right.

simon_brooke, 6 months ago to random

In what sort of a world do I even need to say this?

#Gaza
#CeasefireNow