pvonhellermannn

pvonhellermannn, 5 months ago to random

Half thinking of starting an #AcademicVenting hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.

Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail. #Universities #AcademicChatter #neoliberalism

pvonhellermannn, 7 months ago to random

#ClimateDiary There is no question that #COP28 will be the most important yet. The #GlobalStocktake will be the “biggest accountability moment in history”, and on its basis leaders will need to make crucial key decisions about fiscal and policy commitments. With less than two months to go, we need to all be as well informed as possible and put pressure on leaders as much as we can. I thought I would start a 🧵that I will keep going in the run up 1/n

https://www.wri.org/un-climate-change-conference-resource-hub/key-issues-watch-cop28

pvonhellermannn, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

#Budget #UKPolitics This article by Gary Stevenson is so good, please read every word of it.

“Whatever Jeremy Hunt says, traders know the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. And they’re paid millions to bet on it.”

This is what the world is - it is run by a minute elite for a minute elite and the rest of us, the masses, the natural world, we just don’t count. It is a #TragedyOftheNonCommons (will reshare my own piece on this below 1/n)

#FollowTheMoney

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/05/banker-budget-mega-rich-traders-jeremy-hunt?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

pvonhellermannn, 10 months ago to random

#ClimateDiary have been seeing the “people need #hope to get engage in #ClimateAction” argument quite a lot recently, and it’s made me reflect.

For me, hope doesn’t actually come into it. I don’t care whether we have “hope” or not. For me it’s anger, fear, responsibility, guilt, and perhaos also (just to add one positive one) a growing sense of personal empowerment that drive me to try everything i can. These are all very strongly motivating emotions too

pvonhellermannn, 10 months ago to random

#ClimateDiary Saturday morning I was wondering whether people I know in real life even see these kinds of graphs. I decided to find out by sharing it in WhatsApp groups I am in (not all but was quite brave - included colleagues, family, etc) posting it with this message.

Entirely unscientific, badly worded etc, but I am so glad I did! I learned a number of interesting things:

1. In every group, 70-90 % of people had never seen this graph and do not normally see these graphs. 1/x

pvonhellermannn, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

My discipline, anthropology, is not seen as a “growth" discipline, and departments are being closed down. But the world needs Anthropology and Anthropologists now more than ever!

Here are my 8 reasons for this:

1. POSSIBILITIES
   At a time of polycrisis, when the destructive fallouts of capitalist modernity are ever more apparent, anthropology highlights that there are myriad alternative ways of thinking and living; that there is so much to learn from other peoples in the world. 1/n

pvonhellermannn, 2 months ago to Massachusetts

#ClimateDiary

“In a drastic attempt to protect their beachfront homes, residents in Salisbury, Massachusetts, invested $500,000 in a sand dune to defend against encroaching tides. After being completed last week, the barrier made from 14,000 tons of sand lasted just 72 hours before it was completely washed away”

#massachusetts #CoastalErosion

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dollar500k-dune-designed-to-protect-massachusetts-homes-last-just-3-days

pvonhellermannn, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Germany’s out of hand, crazy version of anti-antisemitism continues in full swing. Last week cancellation of Nancy Fraser, this week that of the rector of Glasgow University.

Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian medic, has claimed he was invited to give a conference in Berlin about his work as a surgeon in Gaza but was denied entry to the country.
#Gaza

https://www.thenational.scot/news/24250169.glasgow-university-rector-forcibly-prevented-entering-germany/

pvonhellermannn, 8 months ago to twitter

Just have to say this one more time: the whole #Twitter #X thing continues to profoundly upset me. I left in Oct/Nov ‘22 and have been very happy here, but: i had a really good Twitter community of #ClimateActivists and academics and lost it all, because hardly anyone came here. And i do not understand how they are ALL continuing to use an ever more overtly fascist platform, along with majority. The very people who i thought were the good, critical ones. I know i shd accept it but struggle.

pvonhellermannn, 4 months ago to random

#ClimateDiary Storm #Henk has turned out to be quite bad. A fatality, storm damage and flood alerts across the country. #Floods and ongoing rain in Germany too, and maybe elsewhere? We will have more and more of all this, of course.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/03/uk-weather-storm-henk-more-than-300-flood-warnings-in-england?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

pvonhellermannn, 10 months ago to random

Starting a little #ThickTrunkTuesday series today: every week a short 🧵on a different #Tree and its #historicalecology, meanings, uses, #Mythology etc.

Today it’s the #Yew - a tree I’ve been intrigued by ever since we first came across this big old yew tree next to #Wilmington church here in #Sussex. It’s over 1,500 years old and pretty amazing! 1/x

pvonhellermannn, 8 months ago to climate

#ClimateDiary i had my #Ecophany (realising i needed to really act about climate) in Feb 2019 and have tried so many different things since. But right now, for the first time, I feel completely “spent”. Obviously #ClimateEmergency hasn’t gone away; it’s more my own issues (mostly i think debilitating sense of guilt and hypocrisy). Have any of you ever had these points, and how did you work your way out again? Or anyone feeling this just now, too?

pvonhellermannn, 5 months ago to humanrights

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!

Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10th December 1948, the declaration was a response to Nazi atrocities and presents the foundational principles for human rights across the world.

Never has it been more important to remind ourselves of their existence and validity.

I invite you to read and share them today! A brief 🧵 1/n

#HumanRights #UDHR #NeverAgain #NieWieder #Gaza
#UN

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

pvonhellermannn, 8 months ago to random

#ClimateDiary My mother still sends me newspaper cutouts (❤️). Just opened this after returning from a long work trip this morning (perhaps more on this later):

“Can you even fly at all any more? “

i’ve intensely struggled with too much flying these last few weeks; to be honest it’s really thrown me, i feel i can’t say anything to anyone anymore. Not sure whether it will help but I look forward to reading this; and it’s so nice that my mother is trying to engage.

pvonhellermannn, 4 months ago to random

Does anyone have any advice here on how to make your Mastodon less eurocentric? I do regular searches, follow people from outside Europe/US whenever I come across them, etc, but it’s quite slow, hard work. I was wondering whether there is a more strategic way - ie is there a list of instances that are not Europe/US based, and from which I could follow one person each or something? Not interested in changing my own instance, just to get more global connections. #Eurocentrism

pvonhellermannn, 3 months ago to random

#ClimateDiary Now this is a story that has cheered me up (not much, recently). It sounds like a really wonderful, thought-through regenerative #restoration project - tree planting done the right way.

And: it is wonderful to see the efforts of people like Guy Shrubsole, George Monbiot and Eoghan Daltun, campaigning and writing about UK and Irish #rainforests for years, bear fruit. All this work does matter. Spurs me on a bit again! #HistoricalEcology #Devon

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/29/more-than-100000-trees-to-be-planted-in-devon-to-boost-celtic-rainforest?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

pvonhellermannn, 17 days ago (edited 17 days ago) to random

I keep on looking at this map. The Gaza strip itself is already so small , one of the most densely populated parts of the world. And now everyone is supposed to cram into a minute part of this? And we are all supposed to appreciate this“humanitarian zone” - which has itself been repeatedly bombed already, too. #Gaza

pvonhellermannn, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

#ClimateDiary It just does my head in that the billionaires who are destroying our world are all building bunkers for themselves and yet the rest of the world continues to admire them, bedazzled, distracted by the billionaires social media platforms

https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-inside-hawaii-compound/

pvonhellermannn, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to climate

#ClimateDiary This morning I am suddenly really angry again about the lack of serious engagement with #ClimateEmergency in both politics and #PoliticalScience.

Of course, Antonio #Guterres (❤️ ) is shouting 'we are BOILING', and #Vanuatu's #Regenvanu and other small island leaders have been shouting for years, too. But no major political leader is standing up and saying: this really is an Emergency, let's do everything right now. Like, noone. It is just not happening! 1/3

pvonhellermannn, 10 months ago to random

#ClimateDiary Finding myself just completely overwhelmed by grief at the moment about what we* have done to the world, and what the world is losing.

I keep on thinking about not just people but animals and plants everywhere suffering and dying in silence, entirely innocent in all this. And just want to say sorry to all, the whole time.

*"We" here not meaning all of humanity. But I do include myself amongst those who I hold responsible. From rich North, Gen X, etc.

#EcoGrief #EcoGuilt

pvonhellermannn, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to climate

#ClimateDiary Just listened to @rahmstorf’s enormously helpful &clear Alfred Wegener Medal lecture:

“Is the #AMOC Reaching a Tipping Point?”

Answer: it looks more and more likely. There are still uncertainties, especially as to “When”; but with ever increasing evidence it is clear, as Rahmstorf says: we must, must apply the #precautionaryprinciple.

During sobering conclusion a pop-up message about Taylor Swift. What a time to be alive.

https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU24/sessionprogramme/5215#

pvonhellermannn, 20 days ago (edited 18 days ago) to Palestine

BREAKING: super proud and excited to share that our formidable students were not only amongst the first to start a #Palestine #Gaza occupation back in February - the occupation has now been resolved in the following agreement! There will be Palestine scholarships, a review of investments, and more!

Protest works! #Studentprotests

#ProtestWorks 🧵 1/n

https://www.gold.ac.uk/about/responses-statements/g4p/
https://mastodon.green/@pvonhellermannn/111969910024680198

pvonhellermannn, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to random

Malaysia asks for the abolition of the veto of the 5 permanent UN Security Council members, especially in the case of "situations involving mass atrocity crimes such as genocide" . 💯 backibg this. This is crucial. Go #Malaysia! #UN

pvonhellermannn, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

#ClimateDiary As 2023 is ending, I recall my hopeful optimism a year ago that 2023 might be a #TurningPoint for climate awareness, carbon emissions plateauing and #Transition / #Regeneration - it being the 50th anniversary of Schumacher’s #SmallIsBeautiful and all that (see 🧵 in link) .

I kept on sharing this great cover (“the new world is almost born” #Gramsci). But has 2923 been a turning point? 1/5

https://mastodon.green/@pvonhellermannn/109607575259368216

pvonhellermannn, 3 months ago to random

#ClimateDiary What a time to be alive

New research that #Amoc tipping within this century, even quite soon, is a definite possibility:

Sea levels would rise by a metre in some regions, inundating many coastal cities. The wet and dry seasons in the Amazon would flip, potentially pushing the already weakened rainforest past its own tipping point. The southern hemisphere would become warmer. Europe would cool dramatically and have less rainfall.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/09/atlantic-ocean-circulation-nearing-devastating-tipping-point-study-finds?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other