Public Participation
The Aarhus Convention and its Protocol on PRTRs empower people with the rights to access information, participate in decision-making in environmental matters and to seek justice. They are the only legally binding global instruments on environmental democracy.
>> https://unece.org/environmental-policy-1/public-participation
In January 2020 I applied for a job as a research assistant. I interviewed, didn’t get it, but was asked if I would be interested in working on a research bid on a freelance basis. I agreed. Then lockdown hit.
So I spent the first lockdown home schooling and contemplating #ClimateBreakdown. Tonight I got to see what was the germ of a research idea 4 years ago, come to fruition. It was so powerful, but also there was humour and detail that I hadn’t imagined.
“I can’t get people to bat an eyelash. It’s like there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand just how grave this situation is.”
“I think the right to a healthy environment is actually the foundation that we require to enjoy all other human rights. If we don’t have a living, healthy planet Earth, then all the other rights are just words on paper.”
David Boyd, who served as UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment from 2018 to April 2024
Conservative Party operatives are running a network of Facebook groups opposing London’s ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) that have become a platform for widespread racism and Islamophobia, as well as conspiracy theories and celebrations of criminal damage.
Environmentally sustainable plant-based dishes in restaurants and cafes?
"Occasionally ordering a plant-based meal instead of a meat dish can greatly reduce the environmental footprint of the global food system. Animal agriculture accounts for 56% of food-related greenhouse gas emissions but produces only 18% of calories and 37% of protein."
"This means a family of four ordering plant-based meat burgers instead of beef patties saves carbon emissions equal to driving from Brisbane to the Gold Coast."
Before everyone starts dissing #EVs and celebrating the #BMW's iX5 Hydrogen, believing that #cars are going to run on pure #water tomorrow, remember that the 2 primary methods of producing #hydrogen at scale are steam #methane reformation & autothermal reforming using oxygen and #CO2. From 'blue' (as aforementioned) to 'pink' or 'yellow', all production methods hide under the unicorn #green method, hurling us towards total #climatebreakdown.
Turning some #degrowth preconceptions on their head? Surviving #ClimateBreakdown won't be about seizing control of an unsustainable system
"The historically unique situation we are now in presents us with the need for a non-confrontational strategy, one that involves turning away and ‘ignoring capitalism to death’. (This does not deny the need to confront over specific threats, such as to log a forest.)" https://medium.com/postgrowth/a-friendly-critique-of-the-degrowth-movement-f0bd2297072d
So, we are basically "right on track" regarding the #CimateCrisis, as the #Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (#PIK) had analyzed in its scenarios in December of 2022:
#ClimateBreakdown (as we know it), as all likely-to-be-implemented #climate measures are completely unlikely to limit #GlobalWarming to +1.5°C. If we will manage to limit it to "just" +2.0°C is more unlikely by the month, as warming is probably still accelerating!
New #GlobalWitness analysis reveals that the oil and gas produced by Shell, Exxon, Chevron, BP and TotalEnergies between now and 2050 could cause up to 11.5 million excess deaths from extreme heat.
"The scientific evidence is stark that reducing #inequality is a fundamental precondition for addressing the #environmental, #health and social crises the world is facing. It’s essential that policymakers act quickly to reverse decades of rising inequality and curb the highest incomes."https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00723-3
Governments can’t just sign up to climate treaties to get positive headlines and then blatantly do the opposite.
There is no other way than coordinated acts such as those taking place today around the North Sea #oil producing countries to call the actions of dangerous two faced governments out. Our democratic representatives are complicit with #ClimateBreakdown.