I focus mostly here on climate breakdown and ecological devastation, connected problems that both stem from capitalism's senseless drive for economic growth at all costs.

But just as threatening to human life everywhere, not to mention the health of our biosphere, is WAR. The article excerpted below goes into depth on the tragic results of a dominant geopolitical system that demands total obedience, or else.
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This is not just about Gaza. The slaughter there may be the worst thing in the world, but similar atrocities are happening all over, and for similar reasons. The corporate colonial Empire centered on the USA and spearheaded by Israel insists on consuming and dominating everything, and they are destroying the world to keep control over it.

They are wreaking extreme violence everywhere, including within the imperial nations themselves. If you want to see what the future holds, look at Gaza. Or Haiti, or Congo, or Libya, or any of a dozen other places.

Don’t think it’s only poor, Black, or Brown people who become Gazified. Look at what happens to the colonizing countries. In Israel, Germany, the UK, and America, people are being locked up or losing their jobs for opposing genocide and war. Demonstrations and free speech are stopped or curtailed if they oppose war.

It is very difficult to avoid war when military corporations control your foreign policy. Corporate capitalism prepares for nuclear war — which would instantly turn the world into Gaza — because the alternative of a more peaceful, just order is unprofitable and thus unthinkable.
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The message delivered in this piece may not be easy to accept, but it's vitally important. I hope you'll read the whole thing.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://archive.ph/Oac22

#USA #Israel #Gaza #Politics #Environment #Climate

A few excerpts below from an excellent article that explains what is happening to sea ice around Antarctica, and what it means for the global climate and for our future...
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Until recently, Antarctic sea ice fluctuated between relatively stable summer minimums and winter maximums. But after a record minimum in 2016, things began to shift. Two record lows soon followed, including the smallest minimum ever in February 2023.

As winter began in March of that year, scientists hoped the ice cover would rebound. But what happened instead astonished them: Antarctic ice experienced six months of record lows. At winter's peak in July, the continent was missing a chunk of ice bigger than Western Europe.

"We all thought that the minimum was as bad as it was going to get; it was 2023, not 2070," said Ariaan Purich, an Antarctic climate researcher at Monash University in Australia. "So when winter came, we were in disbelief."

Now, in 2024, the sea ice extent has reached another near-record low. A profound "regime shift" has taken place in the Antarctic, and climate scientists are racing to understand what will come next.

"When you push any part of the climate system, it has ripple effects that are felt all over the world — not necessarily immediately, but many years down the line," said Ella Gilbert, a polar climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey. "So by pushing the system more and more and more, we're making those ripples bigger and bigger. And eventually, we're all going to feel them."

In the meantime, the obvious prescription for our ailing planetary systems still applies: urgent and deep cuts to global CO2 emissions, according to Martin Siegert, a glaciologist who led an investigation of the Antarctic's dwindling sea ice.

“The only way forward is to decarbonize, and decarbonizing as soon as possible means we’ll not see the worst possible outcomes.” Siegert said.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/antarctica/we-were-in-disbelief-antarctica-is-behaving-in-a-way-weve-never-seen-before-can-it-recover

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

At some point in the next several years, as climate and environmental crises continue to worsen, it’s nearly certain that our capitalist rulers will look at all the problems caused by technology and industry — and then attempt to fix them with even *more* technology and industry, specifically with geoengineering.🤦‍♂️
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As nearly every climate indicator grows increasingly dire, calls for extreme technological fixes get louder. However, study after study finds that taking a gamble on forced geoengineering comes with its own dangerous risks.

New research warns that if we inject sulfate particles into the atmosphere to attempt to reflect sunlight and mimic the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions and they don't end up in the right position, they could cause further warming and even worse climate anomalies than burning greenhouse gases as usual.

"We found that some detrimental effects of this injection are of a similar magnitude to those from climate change itself in some regions," ETH Zürich atmospheric scientist Elia Wunderlin and colleagues write in their paper.

Their findings add to a growing list of research highlighting the risks of forced geoengineering, which include losing more of the ozone layer, changing global rain patterns, and further disruptions to ecological systems.

Alternatively, one type of geoengineering poses far less risk and guarantees benefits. Restoring native ecosystems has massive potential to help stabilize our climate without introducing such extreme risks and unknowns.

However, despite being a much surer and safer bet, this option doesn't appear to attract nearly as much attention, fanfare, or funding.

Regardless of future strategies, transitioning away from fossil fuels is essential to addressing our climate situation. Meanwhile, usage continues to rise, and corporations receiving public funding are making record profits.
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FULL STORY -- https://www.sciencealert.com/injecting-sulfur-into-the-atmosphere-could-pose-dangerous-risks

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

HEADLINE: Corporate climate plans are improving, but still ‘critically insufficient’

A little bit better is not good enough. Not when we’re racing so fast toward a cliff.
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Despite minor improvements, major companies’ climate commitments remain “critically insufficient” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a new analysis.

“We’re seeing improvements from a very low baseline,” said Gilles Dufrasne of Carbon Market Watch, a co-author of the report. “There’s still quite a big gap between what they’re pledging to deliver and what they’re actually delivering.”
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FULL STORY -- https://grist.org/accountability/corporate-climate-plans-are-improving-but-still-critically-insufficient/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Greenwashing

The Fairbuds noise-canceling earbuds have an easily swappable battery

Fairphone, the makers of the ultra-repairable Fairphone 5, have launched a new pair of easy-to-repair wireless earbuds. Instead of tossing away your earbuds when the batteries eventually die, Fairphone’s new Fairbuds let you replace the batteries inside the buds themselves and their charging case.

In addition to replacing the batteries, you can repair or exchange the left or right earbud, the silicone ring, earbud tips, the charging case outer shell, and the charging case core. The new buds also come with a standard two-year warranty, but you can add one extra year if you register them online.

Certainly, these objectives should be embraced by all manufacturers. I will never forget my first (and only) Apple AirPods and their batteries failing just a month past the warranty period ended. They were super expensive, and I vowed to never again pay so much money for a disposable product.

The downside though with Fairphone products is they are not the cheapest around, so many are still going to buy cheap disposal earbuds. They are very likely not as good as the top end earbuds are either, but I’d be interested to see some reviews around the sound quality.

One would have to assume these could last at least two or three times longer than any earbuds which have non-replaceable batteries (batteries are usually the component that fails). But the cost of any batteries being replaced also needs to be factored in.

I’d hope though if there is enough support and sales, that these prices could actually get cheaper over time too.

See https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/9/24125089/fairbuds-fairphone-noise-canceling-earbuds-battery-replace-repairability
#Blog, #earbuds, #environment, #technology

The author, Grant Ennis, covers a lot of important ground in this book. Most of it is dedicated to showing the reader exactly how we have got into multiple crises and why it feels like we can’t get out of any of them.

Much of this can be traced back to Margaret Thatcher and her assertions “There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women”
This of course is not a statement of fact, but more of a statement of how Corporations & Billionaires want things to be. Once people see themselves as individuals then they are less likely to organise into groups and to fight inequality and injustice. As individuals we see problems like the obesity crisis as personal ones, that can be fixed by exercise and good habits. We see the climate crisis as something that can be fixed by reducing our individual carbon footprint. We see a plastics crisis that can be fixed by individuals recycling. As we all know, this doesn’t solve the underlying problems.

Grant points out “We have an over production problem, not over consumption problem” If we were not overproducing stuff then we would not be consuming this intensely. We have to stop the over production, if we want to solve the multiple problems that our planet is facing. This can only happen if people come together organise and call out the Corporations & Billionaires and the Politicians they have put in power. These Politicians write rules and laws that result in us subsidising over production. This over production is not the result of “Free Markets” and “Competition”, it’s the result of Tax payers subsidising it.

Corporations, Billionaires and their paid Politicians have us running round thinking we can, as individuals, pressure corporations into change through consumer campaigns. However, researchers at Florida Atlantic University published a paper in the Joural of Business Research examining 502 consumer campaigns and discovered that they have no long-term financial effects, concluding that they “do not, on average, inflict any financial loss on the target.” They don’t work!

We have been lead to believe that “just voting” is enough for a healthy democracy. This has been a convenient boon for authoritarians and anti-change corporate interests. Viewing democratic participation strictly through the lens of electoral politics narrowly frames citizenship around the ballot box while crowding out attention to association and petition. Voting and other forms of participation in electoral politics comprise only a fraction of citizens’ duties. Corporations gain when we frame the individual act of voting as the only criterion for citizen action. Voter turnout is a poor indicator of democratic health; all North Koreans vote but no one would argue that North Korea is a beacon of democracy.

In the book Grant talks about the other many tools and ways that Corporations, Billionaires and their Politicians keep us distracted and confused. Concepts like
Multistakeholderism. The idea that it’s not one entity that is to blame, but a coalition of many. Global Warming Organiser and Nobel Prize nominee Greta Thunberg observed how assigning shared blame and problem-solving responsibility undermines our ability to assign genuine blame and seek genuine solutions: “Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we have all created, but that is not true. Because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame, and someone is to blame. “ The idea that we have all created the problem, and therefore all must solve it, is a con.

The “It’s complicated” and “we need to do all of the above to fix this,” narrative has been hugely successful in fragmenting our efforts to stop these global problems. When in truth what we need to do is go after the biggest problem first. We need to go after the biggest issue, the worst perpetrators. And in most cases that means, we get our politicians to stop us subsidising the problems and make the Corporations responsible for them solving them.

With The Nine Devious Frames Grant splits the many techniques that Corporations, Billionaires and their Politicians continue to use to prevent real productive action. Denalism, Post-denialism, Normalisation, Silverlinings… Anyone who has been holding truth to power for a while will instantly recognise them. When you read these frames you will no doubt recall the many, many times Conservative Media & Politicians have used them. These frames highlight just how much lying, misinformation, deviousness has been used to perpetuate all these problems for so long.

Grant finishes up talking about the many ways we can come together. Examples of what’s been done before and who is doing stuff right now. It’s important because not all protest and organisation is productive. Grant points out “Protests are not meaningless but we often mistakenly view them, rather than the organized movements behind them, as harbingers of change. Like focusing on the hammer and disregarding the arm that swings it, we too often fail to nurture the organized movements critical to protests’ success. We too often witness, and accept the notion of, individuals protesting without the backing of a cohesive organized movement. Long-term movements made up of numerous, close-knit, tiered organizations are capable of staging results-generating political demonstrations. Protests alone are not those movements.“

In my opinion, what all this should result in, is fast food companies being made responsible for obesity and they should have to pay for all the health impacts. As well as ending subsidies, companies that make plastic and sell plastic should be responsible for its recycling and clearing up of our oceans. Fossil Fuels Companies are most responsible for Climate Change and must pay for the impacts as well as be responsible for reducing their emissions, year on year, in line with scientists recommendation. Road builders, operators, petrol and car companies are responsible for road accidents, environmental & health impacts and should be fixing the problems.
I don’t expect any of these wishes to be implemented over night but unless we start in the right place, with the right understanding, real change will not happen. Unless we start with 5% reduction year on year. A 5% contribution year on year to impacts and externalities, these problems will continue to get worse. Nothing else is actual progress. For 50 years we have known all these problems about obesity, traffic deaths, climate change, plastic pollution and they have all gotten worse, because we don’t go after the root cause. The corporations responsible and their subsidies.

This change will never happen unless we organise and work together. We are fighting a bunch of Corporations, Billionaires and their paid Politicians with unimaginable wealth and power. More than we have seen in all history. But change can happen. Who would have thought that Gods & Kings could ever be toppled, but they were. We have to understand how we are being fooled. How to come together and how to force genuine change. And if we learn to organise an overcome these problems, who knows what we can achieve, social justice? world peace?

I highly recommend you read the book and recommend it to your fiends. You can find Grant in the #Fediverse @grantennis@mastodon.social

https://owgf.org/2024/04/08/dark-pr-how-corporate-disinformation-harms-our-health-and-the-environment/

#Capitalism #climateChange #ClimateChange #Consumerism #Environment #Fediverse #Obesity #PlasticPollution #Politics #traffication