"We Need To Rewild The Internet"
An absolutely excellent read (and great analogy) by @mariafarrell and @robin Probably the best piece I've read all year.
I often struggle to think of a term for "appearing messy from a distance is often, on a human scale, healthy actually." Comparing the social web to an ecosystem is exactly it.
Are microplastics from car tyres contributing to heart disease?
"Add one more likely culprit to the long list of known cardiovascular risk factors including red meat, butter, smoking and stress: microplastics.
"In a study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, an international team of physicians and researchers showed that surgical patients who had a build-up of micro and nanoplastics in their arterial plaque had a 2.1 times greater risk of nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause in the three years post surgery than those who did not."
So it's not just the sedentary lifestyles that car-dependent planning encourages that's causing health issues.
And it's not just exhaust fumes either.
There's also the health impacts of microplastics, including from car tyres.
Worth noting as well that internal documents from the big oil companies show that they knew since the 1970s that recycling wasn't going to solve the problem of plastic pollution. They promoted it anyway: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112064312364853769
I should have clarified, they aren’t a significant source of microplastics until disposal, since plastic disposal is a fiction. I.e. If you have a plastic water bottle and you drink the water, you aren’t going to get any significant micro-plastic just because the water was stored in plastic. Same with PVC piping for water, or whatever. However if you have a road near a body of water, you will get a very significant amount of microplastics buildup in that water that is much greater then from water stored in a bottle. In the long term, all plastic becomes micro-plastic and gets everywhere, but wear items are absolutely the leading cause in both volume and the cause of increasing microplastics around the world.
Concerned about microplastics? Research shows one of the biggest sources is car tyres
A lot of the emphasis on reducing microplastics has focussed on things like plastic bags, clothing, and food packaging.
But there's a growing body of research that shows one of the biggest culprits by far is car tyres.
It's increasingly clear that we simply cannot solve the issue of microplastics in the environment while still using tyres — even with electric-powered cars.
"Tyre wear stands out as a major source of microplastic pollution. Globally, each person is responsible for around 1kg of microplastic pollution from tyre wear released into the environment on average each year – with even higher rates observed in developed nations.
"It is estimated that between 8% and 40% of these particles find their way into surface waters such as the sea, rivers and lakes through runoff from road surfaces, wastewater discharge or even through airborne transport.
"However, tyre wear microplastics have been largely overlooked as a microplastic pollutant. Their dark colour makes them difficult to detect, so these particles can’t be identified using the traditional spectroscopy methods used to identify other more colourful plastic polymers."
"Microplastic pollution has polluted the entire planet, from Arctic snow and Alpine soils to the deepest oceans. The particles can harbour toxic chemicals and harmful microbes and are known to harm some marine creatures. People are also known to consume them via food and water, and to breathe them, But the impact on human health is not yet known.
"“Roads are a very significant source of microplastics to remote areas, including the oceans,” said Andreas Stohl, from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, who led the research. He said an average tyre loses 4kg during its lifetime. “It’s such a huge amount of plastic compared to, say, clothes,” whose fibres are commonly found in rivers, Stohl said. “You will not lose kilograms of plastic from your clothing.”"
"Microplastics are of increasing concern in the environment [1, 2]. Tire wear is estimated to be one of the largest sources of microplastics entering the aquatic environment [3,4,5,6,7]. The mechanical abrasion of car tires by the road surface forms tire wear particles (TWP) [8] and/or tire and road wear particles (TRWP), consisting of a complex mixture of rubber, with both embedded asphalt and minerals from the pavement [9]."
Your decadent lifestyle shouldn’t have ever been normalized. Your neighborhood likely should have never been built. And the hundreds of miles of road network that you use weekly doesn’t need to exist.
Why are they blaming the republicans for banning UBI? Obama had a super majority, and the dems didn’t pass a UBI or even an abortion bill, so obviously the Dems dont want it either.
No need to change history to protect your best friends, the blue capitalist party. In 2008 they had a super majority for a few months, specifically July and August. Now I should specify, that 60 votes isn’t necessary at all, it’s just another one of those convenient rules that only seems to matter if it’s legislation democrats don’t want to pass in the first place.
I don’t see where I said the length was 2 years? I said Obama had a super majority, and when he had it he said “abortion wasn’t a priority,” and neither was UBI. I don’t give a shit about what republicans think.
It won’t be forever banned as soon as the dems decide they want it. The ban literally does nothing except signal to the republican base, but that law had no power to stop the federal government from providing UBI. Much like all the dumb bullshit states are doing with abortion could be simply and easily undone as soon as dems decide they actually cared about abortion beyond a fundraising opportunity.
But I’m sure Dems in Arizona are going to use the existence of a law, that does nothing, to send out thousands of emails urging you to donate to whatever dem candidate that has never cared about UBI, will never pass UBI and has no intention of passing a UBI.
Oh! How convenient. Democrats, that ran as Democrats, are referred to as Democrats, and are funded by various “Democrat” funding orgs such as the DNC or the DCCC, are suddenly not Democrats when it comes to actions in congress that might matter.
Maybe we shouldn’t vote for people just because they have a D next to their name?
Whoopsies! "Free speech absolutist" "accidentally" suspends the accounts of journalists who are critical of him, and people whose political views he disagrees with.
He seems to have quite the habit of firing or banning people he disagrees with, doesn't he?
Via Gizmodo:
"X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, purged an unknown number of prominent accounts over the last 24 hours with little to no explanation, and then restored the accounts minutes after this article was published.
"The list includes popular accounts belonging to journalists, writers, and podcasters. Among them are Ken Klippenstein of the Intercept, writer and podcaster Rob Rousseau, Texas Observer correspondent Steven Monacelli, the account for TrueAnon, a left-wing politics and news podcast, and a number of others.
"One thing the accounts have in common is recent criticisms of the Israeli government.
...
"Musk, who calls himself a “free speech absolutist” has previously said no one should be banned from X unless they break the law.
"Update, 1:12 p.m.: Shortly after this article was published, Musk responded to a question about the issue from far-right influencer Jackson Hinkle. Musk promised to investigate, and the accounts went back up soon after. Musk later blamed the “mistake” on X’s spam algorithms. The Hamas account is still suspended."