livus

livus, 1 month ago

Yeah, my worst enemies are all people I consider threats to humanity and/or the planet so a scenario where I passively allowed one of them to die as a side effect of saving my cat is a dream scenario.

Even better would be if saving my cat caused multiple enemies to die.

livus, 1 month ago

Maybe in your case saving your cat = getting a cat who is like, your soulmate pet.

livus, 1 month ago

Kind of curious who your enemies are, OP.

The ones I haven't met personally are causing the deaths of millions of people.

The ones I have met personally are rapists and child abusers.

Would you save those kinds of people instead of saving a cat to whom you have a duty of care?

livus, 1 month ago

Exactly. My friends all teased me for still owning a cheque book in the 1990s.

livus, 1 month ago

A human-caused famine is "tightening its grip" across the Gaza Strip, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees warned on Wednesday as he accused Israel of blocking aid deliveries and seeking to end the U.N. Relief and Works Agency's activities in the enclave.

"Today, an insidious campaign to end UNRWA's operations is under way, with serious implications for international peace and security," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told the 15-member U.N. Security Council.

UNRWA provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Since war erupted six months ago between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, top U.N. officials have described UNRWA as the backbone of aid operations.

"Across Gaza, a man-made famine is tightening its grip," Lazzarini said. "In the north, infants and young children have begun to die of malnutrition and dehydration. Across the border, food and clean water wait. But UNRWA is denied permission to deliver this aid and save lives."

livus, 1 month ago

From the article:

The authors of the paper, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, say the data provide evidence that climate change impacts on Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) are tangible, widespread and affect multiple elements of their ecosystems.

“There is the idea existing in the scientific community that local knowledge is not a valid source of knowledge, and the study aims to bridge this gap,” says Victoria Reyes-García, research professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and lead author of the study.

The study collected 1,661 firsthand reports of change in 48 sites inhabited by Indigenous peoples and local communities, covering all climate zones and nature-dependent livelihoods across all inhabited continents. The research is the largest global effort to compile and categorize local observations of climate change and its impacts by IPLCs.

Based on the information collected, Indigenous peoples and local communities across all continents are facing nuanced impacts of climate change that are hyperlocal.

Existing measures to track climate change impacts are barely able to relate to the diverse and complex ways in which local people understand and experience these environmental impacts, according to the study. This limits researchers in their risk analysis and adaptation planning, the researchers say.

For instance, instrumental measurements might capture changes in rainfall patterns but miss crucial relationships between climate change sensitivity and vulnerability. This underscores the significance of incorporating local knowledge and experience in climate research and policy for better climate adaption strategies, they say.

By gathering IPLC reports, they documented 369 local indicators of climate change impacts: 94 indicators of climate change (referring to changes in elements of the atmospheric system) and 275 indicators of climate change impacts (referring to changes in elements of the physical and the life systems).

The authors note that the study’s method isn’t able to discern whether the reported impacts can be fully attributed to climate change. Other intermingling environmental factors, such as land use change and overextraction of resources, make it difficult. Rather, climate change is understood as one driver, among multiple others, that exacerbate the environmental changes experienced by communities.

About 20% of reports showed changes in precipitation, especially in areas where agriculture prevailed. However, changes in air masses and impacts on marine ecosystems were more frequently observed in sites where fishing rivaled other livelihoods. Indicators referring to changes in freshwater were higher in tropical climates than in polar climates. But, the average number of indicators referring to impacts in pastures and grasslands was significantly higher in arid and polar climates than in tropical climates. And impacts on pastures, grasslands and land cover were more frequent where pastoralism dominated.

According to the report, these finding provide a basis to the previously untested hypothesis that the way local people interact with the environment through livelihood activities is an important predictor of the changes they observe.

The next part of the article discusses specific examples.

livus, 1 month ago

I never really forgave them for the original ManBearPig climat change denialism.

livus, 1 month ago

If it had happened like in the 1980s or something it would have been forgiveable but it was like 2006, at that point we all already knew climate change was real.

livus, 1 month ago

Yeah I was confused going straight from that report to this news.

livus, 1 month ago

From the article:

According to the report, Romani people are systematically discriminated against: in refugee shelters, by the police, who raise doubts about their nationality, by railway employees, who force them out of waiting areas, train stations, or trains, by school authorities, who have denied Romani children access to school, by social workers or volunteers who are committed to helping other Ukrainians. "It really shocked us," says Ruiz. Some Romani families were treated so badly that they traveled back to the war zone. Reports of racial discrimination continue to come in from all over Germany.
'Ukrainian Romani people are descendants of Holocaust survivors'

Representatives of municipalities in Bavaria said: "We can continue to take in Ukrainian refugees, but not Roma." One district administrator said that they would "take in refugees, but not dogs and Roma." These statements are particularly alarming, Ruiz emphasizes because they were made by German authorities. "Germany has a historical obligation to this minority."

In Europe, up to half a million Romani people were murdered in the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany. "The Ukrainian Romani refugees are the descendants of Holocaust survivors," says Ruiz. According to estimates, almost half of the Romani people in Ukraine were murdered during the German occupation...

Many Romani people in Ukraine were also pushed to the margins of society, forced to live in extreme poverty on the outskirts of cities, sometimes without electricity or sanitation. Many have reported being denied access to school, Conkova said, which has left generations illiterate. The MIA report highlights marginalization and even violence in the 2010s.

Racism is commonplace for Romani refugees in Germany as well, Conkova observed. Guillermo Ruiz agrees: Even today, long-standing antiziganist prejudices against the minority are widespread. They are accused of criminality, child abduction, or the trafficking of children and women. "Unfortunately, antiziganism is still the norm in Germany."

Prejudices are being spread through media reports, but also through gatherings of so-called "concerned citizens" from the right or far right, some of which have been organized by the AfD, said MIA managing director Ruiz. At these gatherings, the alleged "Roma problem" was discussed. Ruiz asked a mayor why his citizens were worried: "What are the Romani people doing, where's the problem?" The mayor said: "They are just there."...

livus, 1 month ago

@KarunaX I think you're right, now. At first I thought it was a bargaining chip to soften the US stance on #Gaza, as per this report.

livus, 1 month ago

This is why we can't have nice things.

livus, 1 month ago

For some reason

This is the reason:

"You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying!

livus, 1 month ago

If it's in our "nature" how is it that the vast majority of us are not doing it?

If we look at early human societies they were mostly relatively egalitarian and peaceful. The Hobbesian view of humanity is very useful to make you accept the unacceptable.

livus, 1 month ago

Pretty sure it also has the highest literacy rates in India!

livus, 1 month ago

It has to be called something else if it's adulterated.

livus, 1 month ago

Parent companies should be legally held accountable for their subsidiaries though.

The thing is we do this with citizens all the time. For example if a citizen of my nation goes and commits pedophilia overseas they are still prosecuted for it. Similarly of they commission a third party to commit a crime for them.

This is something we are beginning to see in an international context with companies that commission crimes such as the landmark Lundin Petroleum (a Swiss company) trial last year, over corporate complicity (incitement really) of human rights abuses in Sudan.

livus, 1 month ago

I don't have to be shocked to be angry.

livus, 1 month ago

Feelings don't do good but the actions they inspire us to take sometimes do.

Like I said elsewhere in here, formula companies like Nestle used to behave like this in the West as well and it was the actions of activists that changed that.

Knowing about what's going on is the first step.