Bread and Circuses / is on Nostr

🌏 Born at 312 PPM

Retired NGO executive doing my best to stay informed and raise awareness about environmental crises, climate breakdown, and the rapacious, murderous impact of greedy capitalists and the politicians they own.

Why the name? Back in the day, empires placated their citizens with "bread and circuses." Now we get fast food and apps. But it's all basically the same — distraction from what's REALLY happening.

See my Toots: https://justmytoots.com/@breadandcircuses@climatejustice.social
Favorite saying: "Be kind to everyone you meet, for they are fighting a great battle.”

Last Notes

2024-06-13 14:00:19

If degrowth is ever to gain traction as a viable, mainstream policy option — rather than simply as academic theory or as a personal individual lifestyle choice — it must first take hold among a large mass of people who can’t survive without it and who will *demand* system change.
That’s the view expressed by the author of this essay…
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I believe that we have been discussing degrowth in an ass-backward manner. Slowing the economy will never be accomplished via the altruistic sacrifices of the materially privileged classes, but can only happen as a result of a transfer of power.
A coalition of poor, working, indigenous people and other allies will have to be sold on degrowth and be well-organized enough to engage in civil disobedience. Where has political change occurred without strikes, demonstrations, and massive numbers of people willing to take personal risks and be arrested?
Degrowth, I believe, is at a critical crossroad – advocates must now choose to continue to regard degrowth as an unending thought experiment, or to take degrowth into communities of ordinary folks. We have to create natural alliances, engage in civil disobedience, and compose a story. That is a lot to do in a very short time.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-07/is-degrowth-an-academic-field-or-a-mass-movement-taking-degrowth-to-the-people/
#Politics #Economics #Degrowth
https://climatejustice.social/system/media_attachments/files/112/609/628/079/154/050/original/47b6853d655f9e3f.jpeg

2024-05-27 12:30:39

Maximiliano Herrera (@npub1ype…jy5c) is a professional climatologist on Mastodon. He also posts at Xitter under an account called Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) and has been VERY busy there lately.
He says, for example, that Mexico City recently had their hottest day in history 🔥 (more on that in my next post). New temperature records also are being set throughout Africa — in Senegal, Niger, Mali, Chad, and Libya — along with record heat in China, southeast Asia, Pakistan, South America... the list goes on and on.
In summary, Herrera writes: “160 countries/territories have broken heat records so far this month. This is 300% more than any single month before mid-2023, and more than any month before February 2024. Many more countries will join in the next few days with record heat waves all over the world.”
🚨 We are in a climate emergency.🚨
#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency
https://climatejustice.social/system/media_attachments/files/112/513/039/641/317/857/original/114e3b4feb3ed082.jpeg

2024-04-23 12:00:34

When ocean waters become too warm, causing coral reefs to bleach and die, that imperils the entire marine food web — and ultimately a food chain that helps to feed eight billion people.
🚨 We are in a planetary climate emergency. 🚨
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Global heating has pushed the world’s coral reefs to a fourth planet-wide mass bleaching event that is on track to be the most extensive on record, US government scientists have confirmed.
Some 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have experienced heat stress high enough to cause bleaching, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch said.
The first global bleaching event happened in 1998 with 20% of the ocean’s reef corals exposed to a level of heat stress high enough to cause bleaching. The second event, in 2010, saw 35% reaching that threshold, and the third from 2014 to 2017 peaked at 56%.
Dr Derek Manzello, the Coral Reef Watch director, told the Guardian the current bleaching was likely to surpass the previous most widespread event soon “because the percentage of reef areas experiencing bleaching-level heat stress has been increasing by roughly 1% per week”.
Manzello said global heating had combined with a global El Niño to push up sea surface temperatures. He said predictions made by scientists decades ago about the fate of corals in a warming world were now coming to pass.
“The bottom line is that as coral reefs experience more frequent and severe bleaching events, the time they have to recover is becoming shorter and shorter. Current climate models suggest that every reef on planet Earth will experience severe, annual bleaching sometime between 2040 and 2050.”
Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a pioneer of coral research who was among the first to link bleaching to global heating, said: “It’s a shock. We clearly have to prevent governments from investing in fossil fuels, or we won’t have a chance in hell to save reefs.”
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/15/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-global-heating
#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

2024-04-23 12:00:34