Dr Keith Walker @SteelFolk@social.cleverlibre.org

Whenever I need cheering up about the climate, things like this really help:

"During the 2010s the levelised cost (that is the average lifetime cost of equipment, per megawatt hour of electricity generated) of solar, offshore wind and onshore wind fell by 87%, 62% and 56%, respectively"

And that dramatic fall in costs isn't stopping.

Even the most short-term thinkers must be convinced by that!

(Quote from this paywalled Economist article: https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2020/05/23/the-worlds-energy-system-must-be-transformed-completely )

#climate #energy #wind

Did you know that in the US, labor unions began forming locally in the mid-19th century in response to the social and economic impact of the Industrial Revolution?

With unions at the forefront of everyone’s minds right now, it’s important to understand the history of unions and why we’re seeing such a strong (and necessary) resurgence: https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/usa-labor-unions-worker-rights

Scientists - accepting the status quo IS a political position. i.e., being "neutral" in the face of climate and ecological emergency is a stronger, more fucked up political position than the one I'm taking.
H/t to @RebeccaSolnit for the conversation that fomented this rage tweet.

For those who might not know, following a week after the Russia-Ukraine wheat embargo, there are even bigger and ominous signs hinting at global food insecurity and the catastrophic agricultural crises coming our way.

India last week banned export on all non-basmati rice varieties.

I repeat: EXPORT BAN ON ALL non-basmati RICE varieties.

[Aside, export of basmati variety will continue, the demand for which is relatively small in India when compared to the nearly 15 major varieties of rice (it's home to at least a 1000 varieties) consumed by very large populations everyday(these are the ones which are now banned). Basmati is a "festive" and only occasionally consumed variety in India. It is largely exported to the richer nations, many of whom think it is the only variety of rice from India.]

Why is India banning rice now?
Answer: global warming.

What’s happening in the India (and South Asia at large) should both terrify you and wake you up

Here’s more (facts? trivia? bothersome news? how the world actually works?).

1/9

#GlobalWarming #PoliticalEconomy #ClimateChange #FoodSecurity #RiceBan #India #SouthAsia #SubContinent #Agriculture #Food #AgriculturalCrises #Inequality #EcologicalCrises

Seems a good time to introduce/remind folks of the Barbie Liberation Organization from early 1980s that hacked the media by switching out the computer chips between Barbie and GI Joe dolls, so that Barbie got to say Vengeance is Mine, while GI Joe dolls said stuff like Math is Hard

https://youtu.be/eMHMf9y-27w

#barbie

Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the Music Industry Waged War on the Cassette Tape During the 1980s, and Punk Bands Fought Back | Open Culture

https://www.openculture.com/2023/07/home-taping-is-killing-music-when-the-music-industry-waged-war-on-the-cassette-tape.html

To the President of the #CanaryIslands, the EU and governments everywhere:

We’re calling on you to reject the plan to build the world's first industrial octopus farm in #Spain and #BanOctopusFarming in the #EU and around the world, including its #import and #financing. Octopuses are intelligent, sentient and fascinating #animals. Let’s avoid creating more animal suffering for unsustainable and short-term human profit.

Important sets:
ℂ the complex numbers
ℕ the natural numbers
ℚ the rational numbers
ℝ the real numbers
𝕏 the set of fascists wannabes
ℤ the integers

What? As opposed to being effective?

In 2000, Elon Musk tried to rebrand PayPal as X.com, but was forced out by the board and replaced as CEO by Peter Thiel.

Now he’s doing the same to Twitter, but is surrounded by sycophants who can’t tell him it’s a bad idea.

Read more: https://www.disconnect.blog/p/elon-musk-wants-to-relive-his-start

#tech #twitter #x #elonmusk #socialmedia

Ron DeSantis is spending time defending the benefits of slavery and investigating Bud Light instead of fixing the home insurance crisis and highest inflation in the country in his state of Florida.

An inspiring story about rediscovering the pioneering work of Eunice Foote on the solar heating of #CO2, before anyone else! Being a woman and hence not admitted into science, she had to send an alibi male colleague to present her findings at a conference. Yet, she published the first paper on the topic.
#climatescience #historyofscience

http://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/happy-200th-birthday-eunice-foote-hidden-climate-science-pioneer

It's not "The climate is changing"

It's "We are changing the climate with our actions."

Media use the active voice when talking about climate change challenge.

There is a striking difference between land- and ocean-based #CDR.

Ocean CDR ideas like adding #alkalinity or artificial upwelling imply unprecedented intervention into ocean commons, with unknown impacts on ecosystems. #Monitoring, not to mention regulating, would be practicably challenging, because ocean waters move.

Land carbon cycle is already managed by agriculture, urbanization etc. Land CDR would be a mean of already ongoing carbon rebalancing.

#climatechange #climateaction

We don’t get to hear a lot about marine heat waves and how they affect ecosystem function.

Right now, as tourists enjoy the bathing season, the Mediterranean Sea is on its way to reaching highest temperature ever recorded.
#marineheatwaves #climatechange

https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2023/07/19/mediterranean-sea-on-its-way-to-reach-its-highest-temperature-ever-recorded/

Medics working in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are being supplied with helmets and bulletproof vests after attacks on healthcare workers and ambulances by Israeli forces & settlers

Melanie Ward, Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: “We have taken this unprecedented step in response to an urgent call from Palestinian health workers for protection from the violence they face in the line of duty. No health worker should have to risk their life to save others.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/19/medics-west-bank-given-bulletproof-vests-attacks-israeli-forces-rise

Over 1 million European citizens demand an end to pesticides in the 'Save Bees and Farmers' initiative.15 more years of glyphosate destruction in the EU? the European Commission is already moving forward a proposal of renewal, without restrictions. Fifteen more years of destructing biodiversity and harming health, Please use this tool to write to members of the EU Parliament. STOP BAYER/MONSANTO LOBBYISTS!!! #teamplanet #glyphosat #bees #insects #biodiversity #Eu #roundup https://www.pan-europe.info/help-reduce-pesticides-now