Notices by Alex Wild (alexwild@mastodon.online), page 3

Florida is trying to wreck its universities. At this point, the state’s open human rights violations are basically daring the federal government to pull the funding, and accreditation agencies to drop the hammer.

#Florida #HigherEd

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/08/23/florida-k-12-private-schools-colleges-must-follow-new-bathroom-rules/70651813007/?gnt-cfr=1

The universities are in a truly terrible situation. They have little leverage, the state holds most of the cards and wants to gut their educational function and turn them into a sports feeder league.

Unless Florida voters decide to replace the government, the universities either bleed out slowly as the good faculty and students go elsewhere, or the feds and accreditation agencies rip the bandaid off quickly.

Montevideo, the Capitol of Uruguay and home to about 2 million people, is out of water in the midst of a prolonged drought. The government is trying to secure bottled water as an emergency measure.

#climatechange #Montevideo #Uruguay

https://en.mercopress.com/2023/07/06/uruguay-taking-action-to-face-water-crisis-drinking-water-reserve-is-empty-for-montevideo

A Texas jury has found that feeding the homeless is not a crime.

#Texas #txlege

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/housing/article/food-not-bombs-tickets-citations-trial-not-guilty-18267217.php

We’re sweltering in the climate created by the fossil fuel industry and the corrupt governments it has bought.

Austin is about the break its all time record for consecutive days over 100.

#atxwx #climate #Texas

While the blame for the climate crisis can be spread around to quite a lot of humanity, few people bear more culpability, throughout the history of the crisis, than Texas and its ruling elite.

I never thought *my* atmosphere would boil, says the state that voted for the Boil The Atmosphere party.

The people of Houston do not have an easy democratic solution to the problem of the state government taking over their local governance, their schools, their elections, without the consent of the people who live there.

I’m not sure what options they have as an essentially occupied city. Try to get the DOJ to intervene? Civil disobedience on a scale sufficient to hit the oligarchs’ bank accounts?

#Texas

“What is the function of Species X?” Is a question I hear often from non-biologists.

But it’s hard to answer. Species don’t exist to serve a function. They exist because they can. Everything is just trying to find a way to be.

I've seen enough tree plantations to know that planting trees for climate is going to cause as many problems as it solves.

https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-republicans-trillion-trees-01e455acce4397c0376e82bfa18b72c2

See also: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wildfires-are-destroying-californias-forest-carbon-credit-reserves-study-2022-08-05/

Here's what's going to happen, because I've seen it before.

The government creates a big tree-planting program. A bunch of Wyoming ranchers who just happen to donate to politicians- just a coincidence!- will get paid millions of dollars, which they'll mostly pocket. But they'll buy some cheap non-native seedlings and wreck their native grass rangelands putting them in.

6 years later, during a drought, the whole thing burns, releasing all the carbon anyway.

Also, trees do a great job planting themselves. In most places where trees are happy to grow, trees don't need an expensive program to exist. You just need to leave the land alone.

The challenge faced by science in the United States isn’t that scientists are awkward and bad at communication. It’s that we’re beset by propaganda and mass media channels funded by corrupt billionaires to sow confusion.

We need big, generously funded communications channels dedicated to verifiable reality. Scientists who are slightly better at talking isn’t going to cut it.

If you're new to Mastodon, know that you don't get your tusks until one of the longtime locals scolds you for not putting your stuff behind a content warning, and your response sets off an old-school flame war that defederates at least three instances.

Things are going extinct before we even know they exist, is my executive summary of the environmental crisis and the biodiversity funding deficit.

Because Texas Republicans *hate* actual Texans, they are trying to end the ability of Texas cities to self-govern. HB2127 will be a disaster, as we won’t be able to adopt locally popular labor, environmental, human rights, and other laws.

#TXLege #HB2127 #Texas

https://sanantonioreport.org/texas-legislature-business-regulation-house-bill-2127/

Tired: Expand the Supreme Court

Wired: Convict and imprison the corrupt justices for bribery.

Most wasp species aren't the big stingy things you think of, but are instead weird non-stinging insects whose larvae develop as parasites of other arthropods. Here's a photo gallery:

#Insects #Photography #Wasps

https://www.alexanderwild.com/Insects/Hymenoptera/Parasitica/

With SCOTUS now allowing developers to fill in wetlands, people who live in places not currently considered flood risks are in for a bit of a surprise when the waters rise.

There are consequences when judges ignore science in favor of bribes. People will lose their homes. A lot of people.