largess

largess, 2 months ago to environment

Whales in Antarctica are competing for food with commercial fishing trawlers sucking up vast quantities of Antarctic krill to turn into pet food, health supplements and farmed salmon feed

Archive link, paywall removed
https://archive.md/6Z9NB

Original Article
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/sustainability/how-humans-are-taking-whale-food-and-feeding-it-to-cats-and-dogs-20240322-p5fejm.html

>“We’re literally taking whale and penguin food to feed to cats and dogs,” Hammarstedt said.

>“It’s like a dystopian, post-apocalyptic David Attenborough documentary where you have penguins swimming on one side and a massive trawler on the other.”

#Environment #BiodoversityLoss #Whales #Penguins

LeftistLawyer, 2 months ago to fediverse

deleted_by_author

largess, 2 months ago to climate

Tasmania’s tall eucalypt forests will be wiped out by heatwaves unless we step in to help them

https://theconversation.com/tasmanias-tall-eucalypt-forests-will-be-wiped-out-by-heatwaves-unless-we-step-in-to-help-them-224335

>Tasmania’s tall eucalypt forests are globally significant. They accumulate carbon faster than any other natural forest ecosystem in the world.

>We cannot ignore the risks of a warming climate.

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Tim looks old enough to have been around long enough to be well aware that's exactly what we are doing, and we're still increasing emissions, so I am not sure why he'd write that? We'd rather destroy the biosphere then not fly and ride a bicycle and that leads me to this bit from the article.

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>The forest supports unique tourism experiences and an emerging opportunity for “big tree tourism”.

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This is insanity! It's a dog whistle to massive carbon emissions. Tas. is at the arse end of the planet and anyone coming here needs a huge emissions footprint. Even experts are seemingly able to hold two completely different concepts in their head simultaneously; we need to take emissions seriously to protect it but we need to emit vast quantities to protect it. Locals aren't enough to support it, the state has a small population no useable public transport (smaller then the City of The Gold Coast) and is mostly poor, overwhelmingly old and poorly educated. (I live here)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-08/tasmania-year-12-attainment-rates-fall-again/103435628

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-08/tasmanias-over-85-population-to-nearly-double/101834212

Here's a tip, don't visit Tas, stay close to home, keep your emissions foot print super low and vote Green in an attempt to move the Overton window.

#ClimateChange #TasPol #Environment #BiodiversityLoss

largess, 2 months ago to Economics

Economics is in 'disarray', having placed efficiency before ethics and human well-being, says Nobel laureate

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-17/nobel-prize-winning-economist-criticises-economics-profession/103582032

> A Nobel Prize-winning economist has criticised the foundations of mainstream economics

>It catalogued how "deaths of despair" from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholic liver disease have risen dramatically in the US since the mid-1990s, to the point where they're claiming "hundreds of thousands of lives" every year.

>It linked the crisis to the weakening power of workers, the growth in corporate power, and the "rapacious health-care sector" that is redistributing working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy.

>"We live in a mirror image of a Robin Hood society, one in which resources are indeed being redistributed, not downward, from rich to poor, as Robin Hood was reputed to do, but upward, from poor to rich," Case and Deaton argued.

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I don't have much time for most Economists but this is a reasonable mea culpa albiet simply a statement of the obvious.

#economics

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago to sydney

Sydney has opened up consultation on a strategy to reduce car traffic and make the city more walkable

"Driving in central Sydney will become harder under a plan to make the city more comfortable for pedestrians.

"The City of Sydney wants to narrow roads for wider footpaths and push for lower speed limits to discourage drivers from the CBD and transform Sydney into a walkable city.

"The council will also install more pedestrian crossings and prioritise people over cars... five times more pedestrians than motorists on the average street, yet just 40 per cent of road space is allocated to footpaths."

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/greener-safer-calmer-the-plan-to-discourage-drivers-from-central-sydney-20240312-p5fbr7.html

Some key points of the strategy are:

We will ensure that there is sufficient space for people to walk.

We will improve connectivity for people walking by ensuring there are frequent street crossings that give people priority and that align with people’s walking routes.

We will ensure that footpaths and crossings are accessible so that everyone can use them.

We will plan our city based on 10-minute neighbourhoods so that people are able to meet their daily needs easily by walking.

We will make it safer for people to walk by reducing vehicle speeds.

We will reduce traffic volumes on surface streets and manage through-traffic in residential neighbourhood streets to improve both safety and experience for people walking.

We will work to make all people feel safer while walking around our city.

We will work to improve compliance with road rules, especially the lesser-known rules that benefit people walking.

We will make our streets and public spaces comfortable and inviting by ensuring that they
are green and cool.

We will make sure that there are frequent opportunities for people to stop and rest, use the toilet or have a drink of water.

We will make our city more pleasant to walk in by reducing noise and air pollution from
traffic.

We will make all streets interesting to walk along by ensuring that built form has active, permeable frontages that invite engagement and curiosity.

We will use design, activations and installations to create neighbourhood-based community and encourage people to interact with their streets.

Full details here: https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/policy-planning-changes/your-feedback-walking-strategy-action-plan#strategy

Unfortunately, the car-brained leader of the local business lobby isn't on board:

"Business Sydney executive director Paul Nicolaou welcomed efforts to make the city pedestrian-friendly... But Nicolaou said it was difficult to see how making Sydney a predominantly walking city would benefit businesses such as retailers."

(Worth repeating that 80% of people on an average city street are pedestrians, so it already is a predominantly walking city.)

Anyway, if you think the plan's a good idea, make sure you let the Sydney City Council know by emailing sydneyyoursay@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

#urbanism #UrbanPlanning #Sydney @fuck_cars #walking #walk #walkability #nswpol #auspol #nsw #planning #cities #UrbanGreening #city #cities #australia

glynmoody, 2 months ago to climate

Insurance Rates Are Soaring for US Homeowners in Climate Danger Zones - https://www.wired.com/story/insurance-rates-soaring-us-homeowners-climate-danger-zones-florida-louisiana-california-hurricane-flood/ as we warned; maybe this will wake people up #ClimateCrisis

peterdutoit, 2 months ago to random

deleted_by_author

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago to car

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."

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-07/microplastics-may-be-risk-factor-for-cardiovascular-disease

The research is particularly noteworthy, given that one of the biggest sources of microplastic pollution is the synthetic rubber in car tyres: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112015017609398126

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

#tyres #tyre #car #microplastic #microplastics #pollution #environment @fuck_cars #fuckcars

largess, 3 months ago to cycling

Go for a ride on your bike. I do regularly, for no particular reason... from my little cottage, into the forests, with my parter who for some reason unknown to me tolerates my shit. 50km this ride, ebike for the steep mountain :)

Find a spot and sit, watch the birds before they're all gone . Wedge Tailed eagles, yellow tailed cockatoos, Wrens and finches today.

#BikeTooter #StaySane #Ebikes #birds

bike trial through a loihed area growing back, a trial and my parter waiting, on her bike.
trail beside the lake
table and chairs beside the lake, a quite spot for breakfast

glynmoody, 3 months ago to Palestine

UK ministers consider ban on MPs engaging with pro-#Palestine and #climate protesters - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/03/ministers-consider-ban-mps-engaging-pro-palestine-climate-protesters when are people going to wake up to basic rights being taken away by a fanatical, desperate tory government, with labour meekly accepting that?

simon_brooke, 3 months ago to random

"Democracy is indeed under threat from extremists. The problem is, they’re running the government itself – and we need to wake up and stand up to the seriousness of the threat that they pose" -- @CarolineLucas

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/03/sunak-speech-protest-tories-friday-no-10-caroline-lucas

gruff, 3 months ago to random

This is interesting. A petition, in Germany, about getting their Universities to stop promoting Facebook/Meta, Alphabet/Google, TikTok et. al. for corporate communications.

Instead requesting that communications be made using the Fediverse.

The same is true in this country (UK). I came off Facebook for two of three years after Brexit, but found myself being sucked into it again (because it's difficult not to and various community groups require it!) and it's not a healthy environment.

I think we should start thinking about weaning the Town, District and County Councils, along with other public service organisations, off these propriety platforms.

The major social media platforms operate by collating very personal information, all sold to data brokers, and along with the increasing use of so-called AI methods exposes users to ever more subtle manipulation.

These American platforms really do represent a serious threat to our democracy.

More information and background on the petition here......
https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/open-letter-to-the-german-rectors-conference-hrk-on-the-use-of-social-media

Richard_Littler, 3 months ago to random

Reading about the Red Scare of the 1950s, a close parallel of modern culture wars. Substitute 'woke' for 'communist' and you get the idea. I'd say we're at the 'FBI investigates It's a Wonderful Life for being dangerous, subversive Marxist propaganda because Jimmy Stewart talks about fairness' stage.

LeftistLawyer, 3 months ago to Economics

deleted_by_author

Study Finds More Americans Commuting To Work Splattered On Grill Of F-150 (www.theonion.com)

largess, 3 months ago to climate

New analysis finds money from Biden’s $1.2tn infrastructure bill has overwhelmingly been spent on widening highways for cars

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/29/biden-spending-highways-public-transport-climate-crisis

>money has overwhelmingly poured into the maintenance and widening of roads rather than improving the threadbare network of bus, rail and cycling options available to Americans, a new analysis has found.

>Of reported funds dispersed to states, more than half – around $70bn – have been spent on the resurfacing and expansion of highways, a process that researchers have consistently found only spurs greater use of cars and therefore more congestion.

>This spending is a “climate time bomb”, according to the new Transportation for America analysis, which calculates that more than 178m tons of greenhouse gases will be emitted due to planned highway expansions by 2040,

#ClimateClusterFuck #ClimateChange #USPol #Infrastructure

HeavenlyPossum, 3 months ago to random

“The mound of discarded fabric in the middle of the Atacama weighed an estimated 11,000 to 59,000 tons, equivalent to one or two times the Brooklyn Bridge…clothing produced by the world’s most well-known brands: Nautica, Adidas, Wrangler, Old Navy, H&M, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Forever 21, Zara, Banana Republic. Store tags still dangled from many of her findings.”

We have more than enough clothes for anyone who wants them; there is no material reason for people unclothed or without shoes to remain so.

People go without because of capitalism: because capitalists profit by interfering with our access to the stuff we make together. It’s more profitable for them to dump mountains of clothes in the desert than it is to let people have those items.

https://grist.org/international/burn-after-wearing-fashion-waste-chile/

largess, 3 months ago to sustainability

Unsustainable Goose Chases | Do the Math

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/02/unsustainable-goose-chases/

>Meanwhile, can we please stop indulging fantasy engineering babble about a high tech future that either never will come or if it does just proves to be one more bad idea that prolongs (and worsens) the eventual fall? The ecological nosedive (sixth mass extinction) continues to steepen, making the chances of recovery slimmer year by year. I don’t want to hear about energy on Mars or grid-scale pumped storage that drowns every dam-able bowl on the terrain. It’s embarrassing. Enough destruction. The goals are all wrong.

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#Sustainability #ClimateChange #MassExtinction

chargrille, 3 months ago to random

If anyone needs his mental health evaluated, it's a) the cop who did nothing but point a gun at Aaron's head while he was in flames & b) the people making excuses for bombing over 10,000 children to pieces in Gaza.

The people who want to see Aaron's protest buried, & the slaughter of children in Gaza continue, will talk about only one person's mental health today.

People who protest in this way are not presumptively mentally ill.

peterdutoit, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to climate

deleted_by_author

DoomsdaysCW, 3 months ago to NativeAmerican

Opinion: Why the birthplace of the Western #Apache religion shouldn’t be destroyed by a #CopperMine

by Luke Goodrich
February 6, 2024·

"A federal court is poised to decide whether a #NativeAmerican #sacred site will be destroyed by a massive #copper #mine. Mining proponents claim that destroying the #SacredSite is necessary for the development of #GreenEnergy. That claim is both factually wrong and morally repugnant. And recent polling shows that the vast majority of Americans agree with what the constitution requires: #Native sacred sites deserve the same protection as all other houses of worship.

"Since before European contact, #WesternApache and other Native tribes have lived and honored their #Creator at #OakFlat, or 'Chi’chil Bildagoteel.' The site is the birthplace of Western Apache religion and the site of ancient religious ceremonies that cannot take place anywhere else. Because of its religious and cultural significance, Oak Flat is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been protected from mining and other destructive practices for decades.

"That changed in 2014, when several members of Congress, supported by #corporate #mining #lobbyists, slipped an amendment into a must-pass defense bill authorizing the transfer of Oak Flat to a foreign-owned mining giant. That company, #ResolutionCopper, announced plans to obliterate the sacred ground by swallowing it in a mining crater nearly two miles wide and 1,100-feet deep, ending Apache religious practices forever. That was no surprise given the company’s sordid history dealing with #IndigenousPeoples. The majority owner of Resolution Copper is #RioTinto (the world’s second largest mining company), which sparked international outrage in 2020 when it destroyed a 46,000-year-old rock shelter with some of the most significant #Aboriginal artifacts in all of #Australia.

"The Apache and their allies, represented by my firm, the #BecketFundForReligiousLiberty, have been fighting in court to ensure that such an atrocity won’t repeat itself at Oak Flat. After initial court rulings against the Apache, a full panel of 11 judges at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reheard their appeal last spring. A decision on whether the government can execute the land transfer is expected any day.

"Resolution Copper and its backers want the public to believe that building the mine is essential for developing #renewable energy. Extracting the copper beneath Oak Flat, they say, will help to build batteries necessary for powering #ElectricVehicles and thus fight #ClimateChange. In other words, we have to destroy Oak Flat in order to save the planet.

"These claims, however, are false — and they are specifically designed to obscure the physical and cultural destruction the project would wreak on the land.

"The mine will destroy the #environment, not save it. It is undisputed that the mine will swallow the ecologically diverse landscape of Oak Flat in a massive crater, decimating the local #ecosystem. It will also leave behind approximately 1.37 billion tons of '#tailings,' or #MiningWaste, which, according to the government’s own environmental assessment, will pollute the #groundwater and scar the landscape permanently. And the mine will consume vast quantities of water at the time it is most needed by drought-stricken towns and #farmers.

"Supporters of the mine are also at odds with the majority of Americans. According to this year’s Religious Freedom Index, an annual survey conducted by Becket, 74% of Americans believe that Native sacred sites on federal land should be protected from mining projects, even when the projects are purportedly pro-jobs and pro-environment.

"That conclusion is both sensible and humane. America can transition to renewable energy without blasting the cradle of Western Apache religion into oblivion. And it should. For too long, our nation has made excuses for taking advantage of #IndigenousPeople and their land. Indeed, our nation drove the Western Apache off Oak Flat and surrounding lands in the 1800s precisely to make way for #MiningInterests. It shouldn’t repeat that #injustice again.

"It is past time to protect Indigenous sacred sites from further destruction. Basic fairness and our constitutional commitment to religious freedom require no less. And, happily, most Americans agree."

https://news.yahoo.com/opinion-why-birthplace-western-apache-200000087.html

#SaveOakFlat #IndigenousActivism #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #CorporateColonialism #CopperMining #WaterIsLife

BenRossTransit, 3 months ago to random

Don't wring your hands. Slowing adoption of electric cars won't increase CO2 emissions. Lower VMT is the only way to cut transport emissions now.
As long as marginal supply of electricity is fossil-fueled, electric cars are still fossil-fueled. And we're years & years away from having spare non-fossil electric generation capacity. Yes, you need to build the industrial base for electric cars, but it's a long-term investment that starts to pay off 10+ years from now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/17/climate/biden-epa-auto-emissions.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WE0.KHxR.HmFlMWSBUVKZ&smid=url-share

Ruth_Mottram, 3 months ago to climate

A survey in European countries showed 69% of people would be willing to give up 1% of their income each month to fight #ClimateChange - but most people believe they are in a minority who would.
How to do climate policy in the age of the green backlash - https://on.ft.com/3urWMxH via @FT

hembrow, 3 months ago to cycling

Eternal wet weather due to climate change, fewer and fewer of us cycling, and ever more cars causing more climate change.

Is that how civilisation ends ?

This car park never used to be full. Now it rarely has any empty spaces and there are always cars parked haphazardly in places where they should not be.

#melancholy #cycling #cars #carmageddon #biketooter #dutchbikebits

passenger, 5 months ago to random

@nonehitwonder

I suspect most people who say this are just fools reciting back propaganda, but some aren't, and those people are dangerous.

Businesses make money because they can externalise stuff. A supermarket feeds people who can afford to pay. What about the people who can't afford to pay? Do they starve? That's not the supermarket's business, they don't care!

It's not possible to run a government this way, because a state can't externalise. An army can't only protect those who can pay for its protection. Water quality regulations either include everyone or noone. Laws against murder don't get waived if the murderer doesn't pay taxes.

Except... some people want a state where laws against murder get waived if the victim isn't rich, or a state where water quality regulations include only the water that White people drink from. They like the idea of externalising aspects of the state.