Dr Keith Walker @SteelFolk@qoto.org

Boost please British folk. Woods here are FULL of death caps. Amanita phalloides. In decades of picking I have never seen as many as here on Cambridge today. It not even usually common here. It's brutally poisonous, please share a warning to avoid it #mushtodon #fungi #mushrooms

My look to the week ahead is out! Have a great rest of your weekend. https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/the-week-ahead-7e6?sd=pf

Greta Thunberg pulls out of Edinburgh Book Festival over 'greenwashing'

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has pulled out of a much-anticipated event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She cited a sponsor's "heavy" investments in fossil fuel and accusing them of "greenwashing".

"As a climate activist I cannot attend an event which receives sponsorship from Baillie Gifford, who invest heavily in the fossil fuel industry", said the 20-year-old Swedish activist in a statement on the festival website.

Thunberg was due to speak at the event entitled "It's Not Too Late To Change The World" on August 13.

#climate #climatechange #climatecrisis
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/08/04/greta-thunberg-pulls-out-of-edinburgh-book-festival-over-greenwashing

Billionaires and oil barons can build up tolerance to guillotines. Here’s how.

There's been quite a bit of speculation in my timeline & elsewhere about #KierStarmer's pre-election tactic of trying to give the right-wing #media as little policy profile as possible to attack...

Interestingly, @davidallengreen thinks this reflects a certain sort of #litigation mindset.... if DAG is right (& it certainly seems plausible), we're left with the Q. how confident are we that post-election Starmer will have a big reveal of his 'real' political approach?

https://davidallengreen.com/2023/07/sir-keir-starmer-and-the-litigation-turn-of-mind/

You like taking a hot bath?
That would typically have a temperature of around 38 °C.
The ocean in the Florida Keys has reached a shocking 38.4 °C.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/25/florida-ocean-temperatures-hot-tub-extreme-weather

Eunice Foote, who was the first to measure the solar heating of CO2 already in the 1850s noted: “An atmosphere of that gas would give to our Earth a high temperature“.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a2614102278e77e59a04f26/t/5aa1c3cf419202b500c3b388/1520550865302/foote_circumstances-affecting-heat-suns-rays_1856.pdf

It took scientists still a bit, until IPCC AR4, to prove that #climatewarming is unequivocal and leading to increased frequencies and intensities of extreme events.

This is not how to deal with climate change.

The evidence that cars don’t work as primary mass transport in cities is everywhere: traffic jams, air pollution, accident rates, the shocking fraction of city space taken up by parking spaces, safety barriers/bollards etc. This 100 year experiment should be declared over, and we should put proper effort into the systems that HAVE been shown to work and scale: walking, cycling, e-cargo bikes, cheap/accessible/reliable public transport. This “argument” about LTNs is just lazy delay. #LTN #cities

‘God willing, we will meet again in Libya.’ A migrant family’s tale shows chaos at Tunisian border

https://apnews.com/article/migrants-dying-desert-border-libya-tunisia-f238ac639497c3484218c5ef16048a15

If you're already tired of the drumbeat of news about relentless record heat, think how tired climate scientists are about warning about this for decades.

Great talk by Peter Norton recounting how the #history of driving, how the car became the center of attention in #urbanPlanning and how #tech historically has been used to sell the #car and #urbanism

We Don’t Need the Technofuturistic Utopia: Bypassing Transport Consumerism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oikNxWNwKU

#fuckcars #mobility #histodons

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.