Notices by Sally Strange (sallystrange@eldritch.cafe)

I would not have heard about this but for my "degrowth" RSS feed: Scientists in France, Netherlands, Mexico, and elsewhere did banner drops, postering, vandalism, and protests this past Saturday. Their message:

"The belief that economic growth is essential for our well-being is a myth that mainly serves the interests of a wealthy few. Instead of endlessly increasing production, we should focus on producing what is truly essential for everyone’s well-being and ensuring fair distribution."

That's #Degrowth in a nutshell.

https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2024/11/18/degrowth-protests/

Fortune Magazine calls the Dutch court ruling overturning the injunction that would have forced Shell to reduce its emissions to 45% of 2019 levels within 6 years a "Pyrrhic victory" for Shell:

-the Court of appeal recognizes that protection from climate change is a human right

-the decision did not rule out enforcement of "more specific" emission reduction strategies in the future, such as forcing them to stop new investments in oil and gas fields

-"Third, the case has already spurred the creation of regulatory obligations to reduce emissions."

#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #JustTransition #EUpol

https://fortune.com/2024/11/15/shell-pyrrhic-victory-sets-stage-for-more-corporate-climate-accountability-energy-environment-law/

I can't believe nobody is talking about this extremely important day! It's National Pickle Day!

Remember, lacto-fermented pickled things are probiotic! While vinegar-pickled things are not. Both are tasty though. This article has a recipe for the former and explains the differences.

#pickles #NationalPickleDay

https://fermenterskitchen.com/fermented-pickles-recipe/

...the word you're looking for is "theft".

Some people are saying Harris did nothing wrong.

This means you see nothing wrong with supporting genocide and also spitting in the faces of those who protest against genocide.

https://jorts.horse/@AnarchoNinaWrites/113468131943007702

Update on "The Line," or NEOM, aka the wacked-out megacity horizontal skyscraper project in the Saudi desert:

-20,000 indigenous people displaced
-21,000 workers dead
-100,000 more workers missing
-16 hour workdays and atrocious conditions for workers
-racist comments about workers by senior executives
-incoming president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Chris Williams, is directly involved in it
-so are multiple other high-profile architecture firms, including Zaha Hadid, who, when told about human rights abuses committed during the construction of her design for the Qatar World Cup, said, “I’m not taking it lightly but I think it’s for the government to look to take care of. It’s not my duty as an architect to look at it.”
-Superstudio, a radical group of Italian architects, proposed a similar "line in the city" idea back in the 1970s--as a critique of capitalism

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/neom-deaths-saudi-the-line/

https://www.archpaper.com/2024/10/documentary-reveals-21000-workers-killed-saudi-vision-2030-neom/

https://thebaffler.com/latest/line-in-the-sand-wagner

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/08/19/neom-riba-president-saudi-arabia/

#Architecture

TIL: The yellows and oranges in fall foliage are what's revealed once leaves stop photosynthesizing, but the red is something that plants specifically make, and scientists aren't entirely sure why or for what. Possibly a sunscreen of sorts.

Anyway, that red is missing from a lot of foliage in recent years, and that's because it needs cold nights to make it pop.

#ClimateDiary #ClimateChange

https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/11/07/climate-change-fall-foliage-science-new-hampshire

This. If I unfollowed you today, it's because you're one of those people who thinks Harris ran a flawless campaign and the fault lies primarily with the voters who should have held their noses more and voted harder.

You wanna say it's both? OK. Whatever. Causes are always complex and multifarious in reality.

But to blame voters ~above~ blaming the millionaires with a billion-dollar campaign? That's reversing cause and effect. Flipping the power relationships. Voters do not victimize the politicians who fail to move them. People who have more power bear more responsibility. That's just how things work.

I don't know if it makes you feel better to blame those with the least power for this shitty situation or what, but I wish you'd stop.

h/t @hannu_ikonen

https://zeroes.ca/@hannu_ikonen/113437432983412947

Let me just say one thing: the results of this election absolutely do not reflect on "us as a country." First, there's no such thing. Second, it's a deliberately antidemocratic electoral system where both candidates promised to do some truly unpopular things. Please, do not take #USpol personally. A nation-state is not a community. Your people are here regardless.

Debates over abolition raised existential questions about the future of Britain's empire, namely, how could international preeminence be maintained without racialized, enslaved labor? And so, [Charles] Babbage sought to solve the "labor question" with calculating engines that would standardize and discipline work into forms that supported British industry, capitalism, and imperial ambitions. Babbage's machines depended on automation, which in turn depended on the division and control of labor so that work could be made "observable, quantifiable, and controllable." ... Modern computation is born from an explicit attempt to replicate lucrative, violent forms of labor exploitation for the British Empire in the face of worker revolts and abolition movements."

--Edward Ongweso Jr., AI, slavery, surveillance, and capitalism

https://thetechbubble.substack.com/p/ai-slavery-surveillance-and-capitalism

Batman but he's just a guy who loves bats and builds thousands of little houses for bats

Remember those Frog Saunas? That helped frogs resist an infection by raising their temperature above that preferred by the infectious agent? Well, along those lines, I bring to you: Bat Freezers!

Many bat species in my neck of the woods have been affected by the "white nose syndrome," a fungal infection that causes bats to become dehydrated and waste away while hibernating. But scientists noticed that some species were rebounding after being infected, after choosing colder, drier hibernation spots. The fungus likes it warm and damp! So they started bringing cooling devices to areas where bats are known to hibernate, and have seen positive results.

There's so much work to do and so many people are doing bullshit jobs. Frog sauna attendant and bat freezer technician (or local disease-impacted species equivalent) should be well-paid entry-level jobs across the world.

#Bats #BatAppreciationMonth #FatFrogFriday #FrogSaunas #BatFreezers

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2024/10/01/how-scientists-are-fighting-bat-killing-fungus-found-in-new-york-

@yonabee As the ancient proverb goes, "Lesbians can be whatever the hell they want."

Happy Halloween from my niece's chickens, who have been helping to make jack-o-lanterns!

@kiliancuerda holy fuck. And people wonder why I incline towards anarchism

Another day, another "a year's worth of rain fell in one day" unexpected flood. This time in Valencia, Spain.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/30/at-least-51-dead-after-torrential-rain-floods-in-spains-valencia-region

#ClimateDiary #ClimateCrisis #flooding #Espana

My "suck less, white people" post is already getting attention from white supremacists.

See? It's not so hard for white people to catch a glimpse of racism, white Fedi. All you have to do is be vocally anti-racist.

And keep in mind that all Black* people have to do to attract their harassment is

1. Be Black*
2. ... that's it

*and Indigenous people and people of color

Dear fellow palefaces,

It really is possible to not suck. You don't have to be SO white. You can't stop others from seeing you as white, but you can learn what whiteness is and thus, begin to deprogram yourself from its dictates, norms, and practices.

Ask me how I know.

Cheers, Sally

@TheBierFrau that song is verrrry familiar

So, I've been reading "Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World" by Mike Davis. And as he recounts famine after famine, each of which claimed millions of lives, I started thinking to myself: even granting the ludicrous assumptions of the anti-communists with the "Victims of Communism" webpage (and proposed memorial or something?), the victims of capitalism easily outnumber them. And I wasn't alone. Here, the authors of the linked article recount how British colonial policy was responsible for 100 million excess premature deaths in India alone, over the course of a half century.

#Capitalism #Colonialism #Communism #VictimsOfCommunism #VictimsOfCapitalism #books #NonFiction #History @bookstodon @histodons https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians