Notices by Pauline von Hellermann (pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green), page 2

#FollowTheMoney 🧵 53/n I have to go now but over the next few days just want to talk about what this means: it means that so much of the world around us - restaurants, care homes, appartment blocks, student accommodation, etc etc, is all owned by private equity; that there is no escape.

#FollowTheMoney 🧵 54/n

This article is hard to stomach for all those of us currently looking for work, and not finding anything suitable, or anything at all. But it’s good that at least rising #unemployment is recognised now.

My own #redundancy last year and subsequent struggles have made me so alert to all these wider structural changes; I am really scared that this may be just the beginning. Terrible combination of AI and money going only to the rich

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/feb/10/britons-hunting-for-a-job-uk-jobseekers-pay?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#FollowTheMoney 🧵55/n

“Keri said her father had been “powered by unconditional love” but he felt the government took advantage of the nearly 6 million people like him who care for a loved one, saving the taxpayer at least £162bn a year.”

This reminded of a thought I had a while back: how salaries/wages are directly negatively correlated with love.

When you do something you love, or out of love, this is instantly punished by capitalism.

Carers, nursery workers -

https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2025/mar/24/nobody-found-him-in-time-how-neglect-and-stress-led-to-the-deaths-of-a-full-time-carer-and-his-son?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Gaza: ‘Worst-case scenario’ unfolds as brutal aid blockade threatens mass starvation

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/05/1162851

#ClimateDiary Well this is quite something. Power outage in Spain and Portugal due to 'extreme temperature variations'. Noting this in #ClimateDiary, of course.

EDIT: this is according to the Portuguese Grid Operator REN, Not sure whether it's an accepted explanation overall yet.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spain-portugal-power-outage-cut-electricity-live-updates-b2740780.html

#ClimateDiary As a non-catholic, non religious person finding myself very sad that #PopeFrancis has died, worried about what will come next.

I am thinking of his #LaudatoSi on “care for our common home”

“The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology … is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry at every limit.”

https://laudatosimovement.org/news/whats-the-best-2-page-summary-youve-seen-of-laudato-si/

There are just too many awful things happening in the world, all at once. And in between everything else, the horrors in #Gaza go on and on. Each of these deaths a total tragedy.

Fatima Hassouna, who had been documenting war in Gaza for 18 months and was subject of new documentary, killed along with 10 members of her family

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/18/gaza-photojournalist-killed-by-israeli-airstrike-fatima-hassouna?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Israel expands ground assault on Gaza, vows to seize extensive territory #Gaza

Defence minister announces a major expansion of Israel’s assault on Gaza and says large areas of enclave will be siezed.

https://aje.io/gyap3w

#ClimateDiary Worst ever wildfires in South Korea. I heard about this through my sister. I wouldn’t have known otherwise - completely passed me by. Could be just me, zoning out too much. But it’s terrifying how easy it is to do so.

Do we need to know every climate catastrophe? I think it’s better, in so many ways (not least compassion) if we do. But overwhelm, fatigue is creeping in.. awful. Meanwhile, at least 23 dead in Korea.

https://news.sky.com/story/worst-ever-wildfires-rage-in-south-korea-killing-at-least-18-people-13335898

“How can an obscenity so documented, evidenced and confessed to – an obscenity facilitated by western weapons and diplomatic support – persist for so long? No one in western politics or media circles can plausibly say, “I did not know what was really happening.”

#Gaza

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/19/imagine-silent-terrible-evil-committed-gaza-inaction-censorship?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

@aral what a great piece. I really like your linking of the climate, democracy and personhood emergency. I am just sad I didn’t see this earlier, it would have been perfect for a #Personhood module I wrote and taught 2022-24. I agree, personhood is really important! Now sadly i have been made redundant i can’t teach anymore; nevertheless, good to read even now 😊

@aral thank you for this, Aral, i just listened to the whole thing. Really great to get this short, powerful intro to your work. Hope tht, thanks to you, we can all eventually wean ourselves off big tech.

One of the children just said:

“school is just all about turning us into #NPCs”

(for the uninitiated: non-player background characters in online games, scripted to do the same thing over and over again).

It’s so true!

Honestly, their school is obsessed with disciplining; obedience overrides everything else. None of this equips them for dealing with the challenges they, the world will face in 10 years time. So depressing. #Education

Just a quick note of apology for my silence here; not that it’s needed or that anyone necessarily reads it. It is strange, I seem to have completely lost the desire to share thoughts on social media. It seems to have just evaporated.

Also to even be on here. I am fine, personally,; but I think it might be linked to complete overwhelm with where we are at. Just shutting off lots of stuff, somehow. Hope it will change but just wanted to explain - and feel bad as I hadn’t kept up #ClimateDiary

@aral Hope you will be ok!

#ClimateDiary 'I have nothing to go back to' - LA fires heartbreak

“As a climate reporter, I am used to covering extreme weather events. Just a few weeks ago I was interviewing residents who had fled the Malibu fires. Now I'm on the other side of the story.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0eweel5zg3o

#ClimateDiary
https://med-mastodon.com/@cbarbermd/113794994831756437

#climateDiary I take it back. The fires are catastrophic, for so many people it’s far beyond “almost normal”. My sister just told me about a friend who has lost everything for the second time (her first house burned in another California wildfire). Thinking of everyone going through this now.

https://mastodon.green/@pvonhellermannn/113791360261342492

@stigatle And we did, too! So nice to think of all of us in different parts of the worls seeing and enjoying the same moon 🌙

#ClimateDiary Wishing everyone here all the very best for 2025.

2024 has been a terrifying combination of catastrophic climate events on a level somehow not quite anticipated yet (by me at least); more and more science showing that past models may have been too cautious; and what feels political deprioritising of climate action across the world.

Not too optmistic right now that
2025 will be different; NYE itself part of this climate impacted reality! BUT 1/2

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2025/jan/01/wind-and-rain-batters-uk-new-years-day-2025-live-updates?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other