Excellent news today:

The case against Trudi Warner for contempt of court (for holding up a placard outside a court reminding a jury of their right to find not guilty on the basis of their conscience), has been dismissed as 'fanciful' today (after a years wait).

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/22/judge-throws-out-case-against-uk-climate-activist-trudi-warner-sign-jurors-rights

"You can't park here mate"

submitted by u/HoneyRush
https://redd.it/1ae0u3h
#fuckcars

"For scientists it is unequivocal: humans are to blame. All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is the speed of the change. Climate change is here. It is terrifying and it is just the beginning.

The era of global warming has ended.
The era of #GlobalBoiling has arrived.

The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead." — António Guterres

#EndFossilFuels

HOW DID WE GET HERE?
(a thread of threads, quotes, and links)

This is a collection of writings and research concerned with how we got where we are today, which is in fact the story of what has been done *to* us, and what has been *taken from us*.

By "us" we're talking about "the 99%", "workers", "wage slaves", all non-owners of private property, "the poor", unhoused people, indigenous people, even plenty of people who swear by capitalism and identify as "capitalist" yet have no capital of their own and no serious hope of ever having any worth speaking of. In other words almost everyone except for the very few who have had the power to exploit us and shape our lives to serve their agenda. We're going to examine institutions and concepts that have deeply altered our world at all levels, both our external and internal realities.

By "here" we are talking about climate crisis and myriad other environmental catastrophes resulting from hyper-excessive extraction, consumption and waste; a world of rampant inequality, exploitation and oppression, hunger and starvation, genocide and war; a world of fences, walls, gatekeepers, prisons, police, bullshit jobs and criminalized poverty; a world overrun with cars and preventable disease; a world of vanishing biodiversity and thriving fascism; a world where "democracy" results in being led by some of the worst of humanity; a world ruled by an imaginary but all-powerful and single-minded god: Capital.

Our inspiration and structural framework for this survey is this quote from "The Prehistory of Private Property", an important work from political philosopher Karl Widerquist and anthropologist Grant S. McCall:

"After hundreds of millennia in which all humans had direct access to the commons, it took only a few centuries for enclosure, colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization to cut off the vast majority of people on Earth from direct access to the means of economic production and therefore to rob them of the power to say no. It took only a few generations to convince most people that this situation was natural and inevitable. That false lesson needs to be unlearned."

https://widerquist.com/books-3/#2b

Also recommended: "Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy"

https://widerquist.com/books-3/#4b

#capitalism #colonialism #enclosure #PrivateProperty #state #police #inequality #anthropology #environment #ClimateCrisis #economics

1/30

I've read the case filed by South Africa in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide. Have you?

No matter whether you think Israel's actions rise to the level of genocide or not, the facts and evidence in the filing are chilling and deserve international review and response.

https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192

You likely realise I've posted almost nothing on the two major conflicts that have been killing thousands during 2023.

This is mostly because there is nothing I feel I can add to the already extensive & well-informed commentary across #Mastodon.

But, having taught IR & Global Politics for 25yrs before retiring let me share this one thought.

Behind all these conflicts is a striking problem:

the inability to see the other side as human at all!

Everything else flows from that

Greta Thunberg says:

"As much as I hate to admit it, Beyoncé was wrong. It is *not* girls who run the world. It is run by politicians, corporations, and financial interests — mainly represented by white, privileged, middle-aged, straight cis-men. And it turns out most of these are terribly ill-suited for the job. This may not come as a big surprise. After all, the purpose of a company is not to save the world — it is to make a profit, as much profit as it possibly can in order to keep shareholders and market interests happy."

That's from page 200 of “The Climate Book” -- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/709837/the-climate-book-by-greta-thunberg/

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