Mastodawn

darthfabulous42069 Jul 5, 2023

MIT: How to pull carbon dioxide out of seawater

MIT: How to pull carbon dioxide out of seawater - Lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1075249 [https://lemmy.world/post/1075249] As carbon dioxide continues to build up in the Earth’s atmosphere, research teams around the world have spent years seeking ways to remove the gas efficiently from the air. Meanwhile, the world’s number one “sink” for carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is the ocean, which soaks up some 30 to 40 percent of all of the gas produced by human activities. Recently, the possibility of removing carbon dioxide directly from ocean water has emerged as another promising possibility for mitigating CO2 emissions, one that could potentially someday even lead to overall net negative emissions. But, like air capture systems, the idea has not yet led to any widespread use, though there are a few companies attempting to enter this area. Now, a team of researchers at MIT says they may have found the key to a truly efficient and inexpensive removal mechanism. The findings were reported this week in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, in a paper by MIT professors T. Alan Hatton and Kripa Varanasi, postdoc Seoni Kim, and graduate students Michael Nitzsche, Simon Rufer, and Jack Lake. The existing methods for removing carbon dioxide from seawater apply a voltage across a stack of membranes to acidify a feed stream by water splitting. This converts bicarbonates in the water to molecules of CO2, which can then be removed under vacuum. Hatton, who is the Ralph Landau Professor of Chemical Engineering, notes that the membranes are expensive, and chemicals are required to drive the overall electrode reactions at either end of the stack, adding further to the expense and complexity of the processes. “We wanted to avoid the need for introducing chemicals to the anode and cathode half cells and to avoid the use of membranes if at all possible,” he says. The team came up with a reversible process consisting of membrane-free electrochemical cells. Reactive electrodes are used to release protons to the seawater fed to the cells, driving the release of the dissolved carbon dioxide from the water. The process is cyclic: It first acidifies the water to convert dissolved inorganic bicarbonates to molecular carbon dioxide, which is collected as a gas under vacuum. Then, the water is fed to a second set of cells with a reversed voltage, to recover the protons and turn the acidic water back to alkaline before releasing it back to the sea. Periodically, the roles of the two cells are reversed once one set of electrodes is depleted of protons (during acidification) and the other has been regenerated during alkalization. This removal of carbon dioxide and reinjection of alkaline water could slowly start to reverse, at least locally, the acidification of the oceans that has been caused by carbon dioxide buildup, which in turn has threatened coral reefs and shellfish, says Varanasi, a professor of mechanical engineering. The reinjection of alkaline water could be done through dispersed outlets or far offshore to avoid a local spike of alkalinity that could disrupt ecosystems, they say. “We’re not going to be able to treat the entire planet’s emissions,” Varanasi says. But the reinjection might be done in some cases in places such as fish farms, which tend to acidify the water, so this could be a way of helping to counter that effect. Once the carbon dioxide is removed from the water, it still needs to be disposed of, as with other carbon removal processes. For example, it can be buried in deep geologic formations under the sea floor, or it can be chemically converted into a compound like ethanol, which can be used as a transportation fuel, or into other specialty chemicals. “You can certainly consider using the captured CO2 as a feedstock for chemicals or materials production, but you’re not going to be able to use all of it as a feedstock,” says Hatton. “You’ll run out of markets for all the products you produce, so no matter what, a significant amount of the captured CO2 will need to be buried underground.” Initially at least, the idea would be to couple such systems with existing or planned infrastructure that already processes seawater, such as desalination plants. “This system is scalable so that we could integrate it potentially into existing processes that are already processing ocean water or in contact with ocean water,” Varanasi says. There, the carbon dioxide removal could be a simple add-on to existing processes, which already return vast amounts of water to the sea, and it would not require consumables like chemical additives or membranes. “With desalination plants, you’re already pumping all the water, so why not co-locate there?” Varanasi says. “A bunch of capital costs associated with the way you move the water, and the permitting, all that could already be taken care of.” The system could also be implemented by ships that would process water as they travel, in order to help mitigate the significant contribution of ship traffic to overall emissions. There are already international mandates to lower shipping’s emissions, and “this could help shipping companies offset some of their emissions, and turn ships into ocean scrubbers,” Varanasi says. The system could also be implemented at locations such as offshore drilling platforms, or at aquaculture farms. Eventually, it could lead to a deployment of free-standing carbon removal plants distributed globally. The process could be more efficient than air-capture systems, Hatton says, because the concentration of carbon dioxide in seawater is more than 100 times greater than it is in air. In direct air-capture systems it is first necessary to capture and concentrate the gas before recovering it. “The oceans are large carbon sinks, however, so the capture step has already kind of been done for you,” he says. “There’s no capture step, only release.” That means the volumes of material that need to be handled are much smaller, potentially simplifying the whole process and reducing the footprint requirements. The research is continuing, with one goal being to find an alternative to the present step that requires a vacuum to remove the separated carbon dioxide from the water. Another need is to identify operating strategies to prevent precipitation of minerals that can foul the electrodes in the alkalinization cell, an inherent issue that reduces the overall efficiency in all reported approaches. Hatton notes that significant progress has been made on these issues, but that it is still too early to report on them. The team expects that the system could be ready for a practical demonstration project within about two years. “The carbon dioxide problem is the defining problem of our life, of our existence,” Varanasi says. “So clearly, we need all the help we can get.” The work was supported by ARPA-E.

darthfabulous42069 Jul 5, 2023

MIT: How to pull carbon dioxide out of seawater

https://lemmy.world/post/1075285

MIT: How to pull carbon dioxide out of seawater - Lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1075249 [https://lemmy.world/post/1075249] As carbon dioxide continues to build up in the Earth’s atmosphere, research teams around the world have spent years seeking ways to remove the gas efficiently from the air. Meanwhile, the world’s number one “sink” for carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is the ocean, which soaks up some 30 to 40 percent of all of the gas produced by human activities. Recently, the possibility of removing carbon dioxide directly from ocean water has emerged as another promising possibility for mitigating CO2 emissions, one that could potentially someday even lead to overall net negative emissions. But, like air capture systems, the idea has not yet led to any widespread use, though there are a few companies attempting to enter this area. Now, a team of researchers at MIT says they may have found the key to a truly efficient and inexpensive removal mechanism. The findings were reported this week in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, in a paper by MIT professors T. Alan Hatton and Kripa Varanasi, postdoc Seoni Kim, and graduate students Michael Nitzsche, Simon Rufer, and Jack Lake. The existing methods for removing carbon dioxide from seawater apply a voltage across a stack of membranes to acidify a feed stream by water splitting. This converts bicarbonates in the water to molecules of CO2, which can then be removed under vacuum. Hatton, who is the Ralph Landau Professor of Chemical Engineering, notes that the membranes are expensive, and chemicals are required to drive the overall electrode reactions at either end of the stack, adding further to the expense and complexity of the processes. “We wanted to avoid the need for introducing chemicals to the anode and cathode half cells and to avoid the use of membranes if at all possible,” he says. The team came up with a reversible process consisting of membrane-free electrochemical cells. Reactive electrodes are used to release protons to the seawater fed to the cells, driving the release of the dissolved carbon dioxide from the water. The process is cyclic: It first acidifies the water to convert dissolved inorganic bicarbonates to molecular carbon dioxide, which is collected as a gas under vacuum. Then, the water is fed to a second set of cells with a reversed voltage, to recover the protons and turn the acidic water back to alkaline before releasing it back to the sea. Periodically, the roles of the two cells are reversed once one set of electrodes is depleted of protons (during acidification) and the other has been regenerated during alkalization. This removal of carbon dioxide and reinjection of alkaline water could slowly start to reverse, at least locally, the acidification of the oceans that has been caused by carbon dioxide buildup, which in turn has threatened coral reefs and shellfish, says Varanasi, a professor of mechanical engineering. The reinjection of alkaline water could be done through dispersed outlets or far offshore to avoid a local spike of alkalinity that could disrupt ecosystems, they say. “We’re not going to be able to treat the entire planet’s emissions,” Varanasi says. But the reinjection might be done in some cases in places such as fish farms, which tend to acidify the water, so this could be a way of helping to counter that effect. Once the carbon dioxide is removed from the water, it still needs to be disposed of, as with other carbon removal processes. For example, it can be buried in deep geologic formations under the sea floor, or it can be chemically converted into a compound like ethanol, which can be used as a transportation fuel, or into other specialty chemicals. “You can certainly consider using the captured CO2 as a feedstock for chemicals or materials production, but you’re not going to be able to use all of it as a feedstock,” says Hatton. “You’ll run out of markets for all the products you produce, so no matter what, a significant amount of the captured CO2 will need to be buried underground.” Initially at least, the idea would be to couple such systems with existing or planned infrastructure that already processes seawater, such as desalination plants. “This system is scalable so that we could integrate it potentially into existing processes that are already processing ocean water or in contact with ocean water,” Varanasi says. There, the carbon dioxide removal could be a simple add-on to existing processes, which already return vast amounts of water to the sea, and it would not require consumables like chemical additives or membranes. “With desalination plants, you’re already pumping all the water, so why not co-locate there?” Varanasi says. “A bunch of capital costs associated with the way you move the water, and the permitting, all that could already be taken care of.” The system could also be implemented by ships that would process water as they travel, in order to help mitigate the significant contribution of ship traffic to overall emissions. There are already international mandates to lower shipping’s emissions, and “this could help shipping companies offset some of their emissions, and turn ships into ocean scrubbers,” Varanasi says. The system could also be implemented at locations such as offshore drilling platforms, or at aquaculture farms. Eventually, it could lead to a deployment of free-standing carbon removal plants distributed globally. The process could be more efficient than air-capture systems, Hatton says, because the concentration of carbon dioxide in seawater is more than 100 times greater than it is in air. In direct air-capture systems it is first necessary to capture and concentrate the gas before recovering it. “The oceans are large carbon sinks, however, so the capture step has already kind of been done for you,” he says. “There’s no capture step, only release.” That means the volumes of material that need to be handled are much smaller, potentially simplifying the whole process and reducing the footprint requirements. The research is continuing, with one goal being to find an alternative to the present step that requires a vacuum to remove the separated carbon dioxide from the water. Another need is to identify operating strategies to prevent precipitation of minerals that can foul the electrodes in the alkalinization cell, an inherent issue that reduces the overall efficiency in all reported approaches. Hatton notes that significant progress has been made on these issues, but that it is still too early to report on them. The team expects that the system could be ready for a practical demonstration project within about two years. “The carbon dioxide problem is the defining problem of our life, of our existence,” Varanasi says. “So clearly, we need all the help we can get.” The work was supported by ARPA-E.

darthfabulous42069 Jul 5, 2023

Potent greenhouse gas produced by industry could be readily abated with existing technologies: Affordable and available technologies can curb rising nitrous oxide emissions

https://lemmy.world/post/1073693

Potent greenhouse gas produced by industry could be readily abated with existing technologies: Affordable and available technologies can curb rising nitrous oxide emissions - Lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1073592 [https://lemmy.world/post/1073592] Researchers have found that one method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is available, affordable, and capable of being implemented right now. Nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting substance, could be readily abated with existing technology applied to industrial sources. “The urgency of climate change requires that all greenhouse gas emissions be abated as quickly as is technologically and economically feasible,” said lead author Eric Davidson, a professor with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “Limiting nitrous oxide in an agricultural context is complicated, but mitigating it in industry is affordable and available right now. Here is a low-hanging fruit that we can pluck quickly.” When greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, they trap the heat from the sun, leading to a warming planet. In terms of emissions, nitrous oxide is third among greenhouse gases, topped only by carbon dioxide and methane. Also known as laughing gas, it has a global warming potential nearly 300 times that of carbon dioxide and stays in the atmosphere for more than 100 years. It also destroys the protective ozone layer in the stratosphere, so reducing nitrous oxide emissions provides a double benefit for the environment and humanity. Nitrous oxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased at an accelerating rate in recent decades, mostly from increasing agricultural emissions, which contribute about two-thirds of the global human-caused nitrous oxide. However, agricultural sources are challenging to reduce. In contrast, for the industry and energy sectors, low-cost technologies already exist to reduce nitrous oxide emissions to nearly zero. Industrial nitrous oxide emissions from the chemical industry are primarily by-products from the production of adipic acid (used in the production of nylon) and nitric acid (used to make nitrogen fertilizers, adipic acid, and explosives). Emissions also come from fossil fuel combustion used in manufacturing and internal combustion engines used in cars and trucks. “We know that abatement is feasible and affordable. The European Union’s emissions trading system made it financially attractive to companies to remove nitrous oxide emissions in all adipic acid and nitric acid plants,” said co-author Wilfried Winiwarter of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. “The German government is also helping to fund abatement of nitrous oxide emissions from nitric acid plants in several low-income and middle-income countries.” The private sector could also play a key role in nitrous oxide emissions reduction, encouraged by trends in consumer preferences for purchasing climate-friendly products. For example, 65% of the nitrous emissions embodied in nylon products globally are used in passenger cars and light vehicles. Automobile manufacturers could require supply chains to source nylon exclusively from plants that deploy efficient nitrous oxide abatement technology.

darthfabulous42069 Jul 5, 2023

Scientists beam solar power to Earth from space for 1st time ever

https://lemmy.world/post/1073263

Scientists beam solar power to Earth from space for 1st time ever - Lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1073201 [https://lemmy.world/post/1073201] A space solar power prototype has demonstrated its ability to wirelessly beam power through space and direct a detectable amount of energy toward Earth for the first time. The experiment proves the viability of tapping into a near-limitless supply of power in the form of energy from the sun from space. Because solar energy in space isn’t subject to factors like day and night, obscuration by clouds, or weather on Earth, it is always available. In fact, it is estimated that space-based harvesters could potentially yield eight times more power than solar panels at any location on the surface of the globe. The wireless power transfer was achieved by the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (MAPLE), an array of flexible and lightweight microwave power transmitters, which is one of the three instruments carried by the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1). SSPD-1 was launched in January 2023 as part of the California Institute of Technology’s (Caltech) Space Solar Power Project (SSPP), the primary goal of which is to harvest solar power in space and then transmit it to the surface of Earth. “Through the experiments we have run so far, we received confirmation that MAPLE can transmit power successfully to receivers in space,” Co-Director of the Space-Based Solar Power Project, Dr. Ali Hajimiri, said in a statement. “We have also been able to program the array to direct its energy toward Earth, which we detected here at Caltech. We had, of course, tested it on Earth, but now we know that it can survive the trip to space and operate there.” MAPLE demonstrated the transmission of energy wirelessly through space by sending energy from a transmitter to two separate receiver arrays around a foot away, where it was transformed into electricity. This was used to light up a pair of LEDs. The instrument then beamed energy from a tiny window installed in the unit to the roof of Gordon and Betty Moore Laboratory of Engineering on Caltech’s campus in Pasadena. Because MAPLE is not sealed, the experiment also demonstrated its capability to function in the harsh environment of space while subject to large swings in temperature and exposure to solar radiation. The conditions experienced by this prototype will soon be felt by large-scale SSPP units. “To the best of our knowledge, no one has ever demonstrated wireless energy transfer in space, even with expensive rigid structures,” Hajimiri added. “We are doing it with flexible, lightweight structures and with our own integrated circuits. This is a first!” In a video from Caltech, Hajimiri, who led the Caltech that developed MAPLE, explained how the wireless transmission of energy through space is based on a quantum phenomenon called “interference.” Interference arises due to the wave-like nature of light. When two light waves overlap, if they are in phase, the waves align, and the peaks of the waves meet and create a greater peak with a height that is the sum of the two original peaks. This is called constructive interference. If, however, the waves of light are out of phase and overlap while misaligned, a peak may meet a trough in the wave, and both are canceled out, a process known as destructive interference. “If you have multiple sources that are operating in concert, in the same phase, you can actually direct energy in one direction so all of them will only add in one direction and will cancel each other out in all other directions,” Hajimiri said. “The same way that a magnifying glass can focus light into a small point, you can actually control the timing of this in such a way that you can focus all of that energy in a smaller area than the area that you started with.” By precisely controlling the timing of this process, the direction of the energy can be adjusted very rapidly on a scale of nanoseconds, and power can be redirected to space-based receivers or even receivers here on Earth. Together this allows the energy to be directed to the desired location and nowhere else, and all this can be done without the need for any moving mechanical parts. Hajimiri and his team are now assessing the performance of the individual units that comprise MAPLE. a painstaking process that will take as long as six months to complete. This will allow them to provide feedback that will guide the development of fully realized versions of the system in the future. It is planned that SSPP will eventually consist of a constellation of modular spacecraft collecting sunlight, transforming it into electricity, and turning this into microwaves that are then beamed over vast distances, including back to Earth, where energy is needed. This could include regions of the globe currently poorly served by existing energy infrastructure. “In the same way that the internet democratized access to information, we hope that wireless energy transfer democratizes access to energy,” Hajimiri concluded. “No energy transmission infrastructure will be needed on the ground to receive this power. That means we can send energy to remote regions and areas devastated by war or natural disaster.” ----------------- Something like this would be really, really great in terms of providing 24/7 solar power without the baggage of battery storage, especially if fusion never pans out. Stuff like this should be up there with nuclear when it comes to this kind of talk, but I don’t know if the rest of the world has put 2 and 2 together on it yet.

darthfabulous42069 Jul 5, 2023

Improving soil could keep world within 1.5C heating target, research suggests

https://lemmy.world/post/1072963

Improving soil could keep world within 1.5C heating target, research suggests - Lemmy.world

Marginal improvements to agricultural soils around the world would store enough carbon to keep the world within 1.5C of global heating, new research suggests. Farming techniques that improve long-term fertility and yields can also help to store more carbon in soils but are often ignored in favour of intensive techniques using large amounts of artificial fertiliser, much of it wasted, that can increase greenhouse gas emissions. Using better farming techniques to store 1% more carbon in about half of the world’s agricultural soils would be enough to absorb about 31 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide a year, according to new data. That amount is not far off the 32 gigatonnes gap between current planned emissions reduction globally per year and the amount of carbon that must be cut by 2030 to stay within 1.5C. The estimates were carried out by Jacqueline McGlade, the former chief scientist at the UN environment programme and former executive director of the European Environment Agency. She found that storing more carbon in the top 30cm of agricultural soils would be feasible in many regions where soils are currently degraded. McGlade now leads a commercial organisation that sells soil data to farmers. Downforce Technologies uses publicly available global data, satellite images and lidar to assess in detail how much carbon is stored in soils, which can now be done down to the level of individual fields. “Outside the farming sector, people do not understand how important soils are to the climate,” said McGlade. “Changing farming could make soils carbon negative, making them absorb carbon, and reducing the cost of farming.” She said farmers could face a short-term cost while they changed their methods, away from the overuse of artificial fertiliser, but after a transition period of two to three years their yields would improve and their soils would be much healthier. She estimated it would cost about $1m (£790,000) to restore 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of what is currently badly degraded farmland in Kenya, an area that is home to about 300,000 people. Downforce data could also allow farmers to sell carbon credits based on how much additional carbon dioxide their fields are absorbing. Soil has long been known to be one of Earth’s biggest stores of carbon, but until now it has not been possible to examine in detail how much carbon soils in particular areas are locking up and how much they are emitting. About 40% of the world’s farmland is now degraded, according to UN estimates. Carbon dioxide removal, the name given to a suite of technologies and techniques that increase the uptake of carbon dioxide from the air and sequester the carbon in some form, is an increasing area of interest, as the world slips closer to the critical threshold of 1.5C of global heating above pre-industrial levels. Arable farmers could sequester more carbon within their soils by changing their crop rotation, planting cover crops such as clover, or using direct drilling, which allows crops to be planted without the need for ploughing. Livestock farmers could improve their soils by growing more native grasses. Hedgerows also help to sequester carbon in the soil, because they have large underground networks of mycorrhizal fungi and microbes that can extend metres into the field. Farmers have spent decades removing hedgerows to make intensive farming easier, but restoring them, and maintaining existing hedgerows, would improve biodiversity, reduce the erosion of topsoil, and help to stop harmful agricultural runoff, which is a key polluter of rivers.

darthfabulous42069 Jul 5, 2023

Gay Republicans finally turn on Ron DeSantis for his outlandish ad attacking LGBTQ+ people

https://lemmy.world/post/1070539

Gay Republicans finally turn on Ron DeSantis for his outlandish ad attacking LGBTQ+ people - Lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1070394 [https://lemmy.world/post/1070394] Gay Republicans are abandoning Florida Gov. and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis ® in droves after his rapid response team shared a bizarre video bragging about his reign of terror against the LGBTQ+ community. The video opens with several clips of Donald Trump – DeSantis’s top primary opponent – expressing support for LGBTQ+ people and frames these comments as damning. Most of the comments are from before he was elected president in 2016. Then, the clip abruptly shifts to intense music and a photo of DeSantis shooting lasers out of his eyes, followed by snapshots of headlines about the anti-LGBTQ+ laws DeSantis has passed. The video proudly shares that DeSantis has been called “evil,” “dangerous,” “draconian,” and “public enemy no. 1” and even includes a clip accusing DeSantis of passing legislation “that literally threatens trans existence.” It also contains images of shirtless buff muscle men inter-spliced with these statements about how DeSantis is hurting LGBTQ+ people in his state. And despite DeSantis’s years-long crusade against LGBTQ+ people, this video, for whatever reason, seems to be the last straw for gay conservatives who had formerly viewed the Florida governor as a palatable alternative to Trump. “Not only did DeSantis show that he is as anti-LGBTQ+ as the mainstream media has alleged, he made a mockery of any GOP candidate that shows an interest in LGBTQ+ rights, setting the whole party back decades,” wrote Yvonne Dean-Bailey, former Republican state legislator in New Hampshire, in an op-ed for the Daily Beast. Dean-Bailey called the video “the most anti-LGBTQ+ ad in recent history,” adding that his actions “tarnish the image of the conservative movement.” “As a lifelong conservative, I believe in the principles of limited government, personal responsibility, and individual liberties. Yet, DeSantis’ approach to LGBTQ+ issues goes against these very principles.” Well-known conservative activist David Leatherwood also shared his disappointment over the ad on Twitter. “I spent the last 7 years of my life working with Trump to make the GOP a more welcoming place for gays WHILE ALSO being anti-groomer, anti-woke and pro religious liberty. I’ve even worked WITH DeSantis on this agenda. This ad is a slap in the face, and makes any LGBT person supporting DeSantis look like an absolute idiot.” Even disgraced gay Rep. George Santos (R-NY) got in on the anti-DeSantis action. Santos – who is currently facing 13 criminal charges – told The Hill he “used to think DeSantis was a great governor” but is now “starting to think differently.” Santos has long been on team Trump but spoke out in favor of DeSantis’s Don’t Say Gay law. “I still stand by the bill in its nature,” he said, “but now it seems that it had a more perverse agenda behind it.” “I’m starting to see [DeSantis] for what he is,” Santos added. “His rhetoric is to diminish and remove rights away from people like myself, and I can’t support that.” The LGBTQ+ conservative group Log Cabin Republicans criticized the ad as “divisive and desperate.” “Conservatives understand that we need to protect our kids, preserve women’s sports, safeguard women’s spaces and strengthen parental rights,” the group said in a statement, “but Ron DeSantis’ extreme rhetoric has just ventured into homophobic territory.” “Ron DeSantis and his team can’t tell the difference between commonsense gays and the radical Left gays. He, sadly, sees them all the same. His naive policy positions are dangerous and politically stupid.” And it isn’t just gay Republicans speaking out against the ad. DeSantis has been slammed and mocked from all angles. The New Republic published a piece positing it could be “the weirdest ad in American political history.” And out Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg pointed out the “strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up shirtless bodybuilders” before blasting DeSantis for focusing on bullying marginalized groups rather than helping Americans. Christina Pushaw, the DeSantis campaign’s Rapid Response director, defended the video on Twitter after former Trump official Richard Grenell called it “undeniably homophobic.” “Opposing the federal recognition of ‘Pride Month’ isn’t ‘homophobic.’ We wouldn’t support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation, either… It’s unnecessary, divisive, pandering. In a country as vast and diverse as the USA, identity politics is poison.” DeSantis is currently in a distant second place in 2024 Republican primary polling, getting an average of 21.5% support in recent polls, according to RealClearPolitics. Trump is first with an average of 52.4%.

darthfabulous42069 Jul 1, 2023

Many LGBTQ+ women face discrimination and violence, but find support in friendships

https://lemmy.world/post/919263

Many LGBTQ+ women face discrimination and violence, but find support in friendships - Lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/919035 [https://lemmy.world/post/919035] In 2018, the lesbian activist Urvashi Vaid embarked on what would become her final project before her death in 2022. From 1989 to 1992 Vaid served as the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force — now the National LGBTQ Task Force — and was the first woman of color to lead the organization. She was a fierce activist during the HIV/AIDS crisis and went on to start the first lesbian political action committee, served on the boards of ACLU and Planned Parenthood, and even co-founded the American LGBTQ+ Museum of History and Culture. Vaid had realized there wasn’t robust research about the discrimination and violence LGBTQ+ women were facing, says Jaime Grant, a sex educator and activist who collaborated with Vaid. So Grant and Vaid, along with 22 other scholars and activists, got together and developed a nationwide survey of LGBTQ+ women’s lives and experiences with disability, discrimination, harassment and intimate partner violence. Over the course of two years, they surveyed more than 8,000 people who either currently identify or previously identified as a woman about what life looks like for LGBTQ+ women who partner with women in the U.S. The executive summary of the survey report, entitled “We Never Give Up the Fight: A Report of the National LGBTQ+ Women’s Community Survey,” was released this week. It found that while LGBTQ+ women experience high rates of violence in multiple areas of their lives, they regularly rely on their friends, not institutions – such as the education system, law enforcement, or religious organizations – for support. Specifically, 76% of respondents reported experiencing harassment, discrimination, or violence in educational settings, and 43% said their childhood faith traditions became a source of conflict because of their identity as an LGBTQ+ woman. “Across the board, institutions that are critical to our well-being are failing us,” says Grant. According to the survey, LGBTQ+ women experience intimate partner violence at higher rates than women in the general population, with 47% of respondents reporting experiences with emotional violence – defined as gaslighting, control over social life, or isolation from family – as well as physical, or sexual violence from their partner. One of the rich pieces of data the survey provides is more information about who is doing the abusing and how. “We actually know very little about the people who are being abusive,” says anti-violence advocate Shannon Perez-Darby, who helped the team of researchers make sense of the survey data for the intimate partner violence section. Having a better understanding of both the abused and the abuser will help advocates against domestic violence and healthcare providers offer better support to survivors of intimate partner violence. In the intimate partner violence section, respondents gave details about their abusers, no matter the gender or sexuality. “Many lesbian identified people in the study had children with cisgender, heterosexual men and left marriages,” explains Grant. The results showed that cisgender, heterosexual men use more lethal forms of violence that have a bigger impact on someone’s ability to stay alive. In contrast, women and gender-diverse people use more social control as a form of violence, the survey found. “We did see differences from the survey data that was telling us that the kinds of harms that cisgendered men were causing to their queer female partners was different than the kinds of harms that queer women who were being abusive were enacting on their partners,” says Perez-Darby. Perez-Darby warns against making simple conclusions about patterns of abuse across gender simply based on the findings of the survey. “The impact of domestic violence was equally crushing to their lives,” says Perez-Darby, “No matter the gender or sexual orientation of the partner who was abusing them.” Grant hopes that this data can serve as the grounds for education campaigns in healthcare settings where doctors may come in contact with different types of domestic violence survivors, as well as in the broader LGBTQ+ community. The report also shows that only 20% of domestic violence survivors sought support from institutions – such as hospitals, domestic violence shelters or the police – whereas more than half of survivors did not look for help in these spaces and instead relied on their friends. Therein lies the potential solution for this problem. “The most consistent aspect of domestic violence is isolation,” says Perez-Darby. “If there was one thing we could all do, it would be to stay better connected to our people, to our friends, and to our family.” The strong value that LGBTQ+ people place on their queer and trans communities is what Perez-Darby calls a “resiliency that can help us prevent domestic violence.” The survey also gives insight into the joy and resilience that exist in the LGBTQ+ community. One of the surprising results from the survey for Grant was that gender and sexuality remain fluid and changing for LGBTQ+ women. 24% of respondents reported their gender as “fluid or changing” and 32% described their sexuality as “fluid or changing.” “LGBTQ+ women’s identities across the board are very expansive,” says Grant. This fluidity “reflects how things are changing in our society in terms of understanding nuances in gender and sexuality,” says Amanda Pollitt, an assistant professor at the Center for Health Equity Research at Northern Arizona University. “I wasn’t really expecting to see quite so much diversity and especially gender identities.” One of the last questions of the survey asked: “What are your favorite things about being an LGBTQ+ woman?” Of the 21,000 answers from 7,000 respondents, Grant says what people love is self-determination, community and the freedom to choose who they want to be with. For Perez-Darby, the survey underscores “the resiliency of queer and trans communities, how we have held each other, and all the different ways we figure out how to be in relationship with each other to survive and thrive.”

darthfabulous42069 Jul 1, 2023

We need to have a serious talk about this app and how it is recreating Reddit karma, and how it should not be doing that

https://lemmy.world/post/911284

We need to have a serious talk about this app and how it is recreating Reddit karma, and how it should not be doing that - Lemmy.world

Hellos, so, like everyone else here I am a Reddit refugee with a particular and profound hatred for karma, and the idea of it, because I saw how Reddit karma made everything on that hellsite toxic. People’s self-worth became tied to it because it was a direct measure of other people’s approval of you, and so people did everything possible to maximize their karma, including making bot accounts that karma farmed and sold them to marketers. People would fly into a rage and refuse to listen to each other simply because their comments were getting downvoted, making civil debate impossible and causing destabilization everywhere. Reddit karma is double plus ungood. From what I understand, Wefwef has a similar feature where it shows your total post and comment scores. That’s basically Reddit karma, and it needs to go, like now. Even if it’s client-side, it doesn’t matter, because it is tying a number to people’s self-worth and will cause the same toxic, mean-spiritedness, negativity, anger, vitriol, and corporate marketers exploiting the situation like vultures on a corpse that we saw the last time we migrated to a new site. Please, PLEASE remove the comment and post scores from the app. PLEASE don’t let Lemmy fail like the other sites did. PLEASE don’t let that kind of hurt be allowed to spread through our communities anymore. People don’t NEED to be rewarded or punished based on other people’s opinions of them and their comments or posts. They don’t NEED to see that shit. It only causes harm and pain. PLEASE take it off. For our sanity’s sake. For our people’s sake. For decency’s sake.

darthfabulous42069 Jun 30, 2023

‘A dangerous step backwards’: outrage at supreme court’s LGBTQ+ rights ruling

https://lemmy.world/post/862397

‘A dangerous step backwards’: outrage at supreme court’s LGBTQ+ rights ruling - Lemmy.world

Civil rights groups and Democrats reacted angrily to the US supreme court decision in favor of the Colorado web designer Lorie Smith, who argued she had a first amendment right to refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages. Critics of the court’s decision say it ushers in a new era of prejudice in America. “This ruling on LGBTQ+ rights by the Maga-right activist wing of the supreme court is a giant step backward for human rights and equal protection in America,” said the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a statement. “We will continue to fight to ensure that all Americans, including LGBTQ+ Americans, have equal protection under the law.” The progressive Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib called for term limits of justices on the conservative-dominated supreme court which has now ushered in a series of decisions rolling back well-established rights, such as overturning federal protections on abortion and affirmative action. “End lifetime appointments for supreme court justices. Enforce a binding code of ethics. Expand the court,” Tlaib posted on Twitter. The New York congressman Ritchie Torres said: “Scotus invokes religious liberty to license discrimination against LGBTQ people. The LGBTQ community might be the first victim of the supreme court’s decision but it won’t be the last. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Civil rights groups were also vocal in their shock and warned of the impact on LGTBQ+ communities across the US who see it as opening the way for people and businesses to legally refuse services to LGBTQ+ people. “This decision will have a devastating ripple effect across the country by creating a permission structure, backed by the force of law, to discriminate and endanger LGBTQ+ people and trans youth who are already so at risk,” said the Rev Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and chief executive of the Interfaith Alliance. “Discrimination under the guise of religious freedom is not just unconstitutional, but antithetical to our values,” added Darcy Hirsh, director of policy and advocacy at the group. “Just as people are free to explore matters of faith and personal conscience, people should also be free to express their sexual orientation and gender identity without fear of discrimination or harm.” The Human Rights Campaign, one of America’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, called the ruling in the case, known as 303 Creative LLC v Elenis, “unprecedented” and a decision that “will have sweeping and harmful impacts on the LGBTQ+ community and is a dangerous step backwards”. “Our nation has been on a path of progress – deciding over the course of many decades that businesses should be open regardless of race, disability or religion. People deserve to have commercial spaces that are safe and welcoming,” said the organisation’s president, Kelley Robinson, in a statement. But the Republican former vice-president Mike Pence, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and popular with rightwing evangelicals, praised the court’s decision. “Religious freedom is the bedrock of our constitution,” he said, “and today’s decision reminds us that we must elect leaders who will defend that right and appoint judges who support religious freedom.” Kristin Waggoner with Alliance Defending Freedom, the group that brought Smith’s case, said the court had “rightly reaffirmed that the government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe”. In a six to three vote, split down ideological lines, the highest court ruled that the first amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing the website designer to create expressive designs with which the designer disagreed. In the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the free speech amendment in the constitution “envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands”. Gorsuch also invoked George Orwell, writing that “if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”. The liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor responded to Gorsuch, writing that “the majority’s repeated invocation of this Orwellian thought policing is revealing of just how much it misunderstands this case”.