BR0QM @Br0qm@qoto.org

Because of how I understood anticapitalism, I was always against trying to calculate the economic cost of destroying nature.

Nature should not be destroyed because it's sacred. Period.

And, on a less spiritual way: as we don't have a clue* how complex ecosystems work, we should be less confident when pretending to put a price tag on ecosystem services.

But lately I am seeing economics less as a scam by greedy powerful to justify and optimize their exploitation of humans and nature (though I am still convinced that this brainwashing is the main function), but appreciate that in the strict sense, economics is just a way to make decisions. Even in an anarchist village, people do sorts of economics when taking decisions (just maybe a not based on €$¥, but more on "how much effort will it be for our community to build a new building with strawbales or with clay?"). And if we accept this role of economics, we see that it is necessary to integrate the value of biodiversity and nazure into the equation, because if we don't, we have lavk the tools to take wrll-informed decisions.

Still, it feels like that we won't be very successful in improving things if we talk about the value of pollinating wild bees for the economy instead of burning down the headquarters of the banks that finance industrial agriculture (and some other offices come to my mind, but maybe lets start with the banks...).
The problem with all this bioeconomics stuff is that it is so deeply flawed. And it's an uphill battle, as we will be always behind the "real" economy's destruction of nature.

"If you are so sure that this tropical forest is of any good, show us the numbers", they said, while destroying the ecosystem forever for a palm oil plantation...

* we really know little. We are getting better. E.g. in microbiology nowadays with molecular tools we can know *who* is there (mostly). But this leaves us with a large list of names and we don't have any idea about *what* they do. And latest when it comes to biological interactions in the real world, all we have left is to hold our hands and behold the impressive complexity and the miracles of life.

Thanks to
@blogdiva , one of your posts made me write this down.

#NaturalResourceEconomics #PluralisticEconomy #PluralEconomics #degrowth #Bioeconomy #DecisionMaking #Biidiversity #EcosystemServices #EcosystemService

Whst to do against the biodiversity crisis?

- mitigate climate change (renewable electricity, bicycle vs car, reduce flying)
- ban pesticides, especially insecticides
- agroecological transition (sustainable #SmallholderAgriculture)
- reduce light pollution
- reduce meat consumption
- consume less to live better
- #degrowth
- #taxtherich
- support indigenous people, they know how to protect the environment
- while building communities to live in a more equal society and leave behind the state, it is acceptable to vote green politics
- go out into nature with others and start understanding and caring

---
Sure, there is more. But these are some of the really high impact issues.
Personal choices matter, the wealthier you are and the more impactful your lifestyle is. It's ok to use e.g. less plastic bags because it is the right thing to do. But don't self-optimize overly. That is a neoliberal fallacy. If you are already way below the average in your region, your energy is better invested to create social change than to focus too much on yourself.

We can do this. There is no other way.
Take care and see that your live is more fulfilling trying to be part of the solution

@lproven @Reuters

Climate change is about the climate changing. Some areas of the world are going to become unhabitable, and some areas which were previously more difficult to live in will become prime real estate.

The question is this - do we want to maintain international boundaries as they are now, or redefine them by war?

If the former, we need to get serious of ramping down our CO2 emissions, decoupling capitalism from growth, and embracing #Degrowth (incl. population) and #ALighterTouch on the planet as founding principles.

If the latter ... ARE YOU F**KING CRAZY??

These are pretty much the choices. Apart from sticking your head in the sand and going "la-la-la" until somebody makes choice for you ...

How you react when evidence suggests you are wrong tells us all we need to know.

I've seen enough presentations to know the more words on your slides, the less information they communicate.

As students' costs to attend #university continue to spiral, one might conclude that this was all part of a plan to make #highereducation unaffordable for the children from poorer families...

Not so much 'widening participation' as 'narrowing participation'.

Its almost like the Govt. was suspicious of an educated electorate?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/27/uk-university-students-facing-unprecedented-rent-rises

Forget teaching how to do taxes, if we teach the paradox of knowledge (“If you think you understand it, you are wrong”), we might be able to make better collective decisions.

Whenever someone complains that kids these days aren't prepared to have jobs and it's because they're on their phones too much, I recall the time before smartphones where business leaders complained that kids were on their phones too much and only knew how to type on phone keypads.

We face a US government shutdown because 214 Republican representatives can't get 3 more votes on a budget plan out of the remaining 219 representatives. I want better governance from our government.

Folks who come in to lead small organizations who have never worked in them have no idea how “departments of one” function. And it shows.

Just when you think that maybe, just maybe we're managing to leverage this machine for Good, building green energy tarrifs to steer capitalism into fixing our #climatecrisis, capitalism conspires to burn us all alive anyway:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63089348

When you insist the meetings you lead be in-person only, you demonstrate you are not dedicated to inclusion, not matter what you claim about yourself.

Fascists love to hold us to a social contract they break all the time. Sorry, mah dude, it don't work that way.

It’s official: July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. The US is =finally= acting on transitioning to a clean-energy economy, thanks to Biden’s infrastructure bill, but we really REALLY need to get on the stick with this. There’s no time to waste. #CleanPowerNOW, folks. Not seven years from now; now three months from now. NOW. #CleanPowerNow #Climate #ClimateTech #ClimateChaos #sustainability

The most interesting side of the #Seattle cop says the horrific quiet part out loud episode is that SPOG tried to get in front of the outrage. They knew the tape was coming out so they got with a right wing radio talker to try to launder their side of the story

It didn't work, people are justifiably apoplectic

If the unbelievable hidden context you're trying to provide is part of a deliberate attempt to get out ahead of bad news, I'm not going to trust it

#seattlewashington #seattlewa

#Luckovich #MikeLuckovich
#Politics #USPolitics #News #JoeBiden #Biden #PoliicalCartoon

The UK "government issued 100 new oil and gas licences, confirming their disregard of human life. This is a last ditch attempt to stop our corrupt government taking more lives."

https://twitter.com/JustStop_Oil/status/1701903086057386177

➡️ They know new oil and gas is genocide – take action now at http://juststopoil.org
#JustStopOil #SaveEarth #ActNow

It requires us to stop equating an #university #college #education with preparation for the workforce. It requires us to recognize that encouraging everyone to get a four-year degree as a substitute for serious labor policy was doomed from the beginning. Perhaps hardest of all, it requires us to recognize that the true value of an education should not and cannot be quantified by its economic return alone. https://newrepublic.com/article/175277/college-debt-biden-rethink-higher-education

Another great #goodnews find:

"What started off as an assumption based on the need for self-consistency in our theories has now been directly confirmed observationally. Newton’s original conception of gravitation doesn’t hold up, as gravity isn’t an instantaneous force after all. Instead, the results agree with Einstein: gravitation propagates at a finite speed, and the speed of gravity is exactly equal to the speed of light."

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/gravity-doesnt-happen-instantly/

#physics #science #astronomy