#the environment

[highwarlockkareena]

The Host (2006) dir. Boong Joon Ho

👻

[britishleftist]

https://c.org/HsMBqSQdrB

Sign to stop an AI data centre being built in Devon! They’re terrible for the environment— and as we have seen with the data centres in the USA, they make your electricity and water bills skyrocket and can make you run out of water and get brown water and a constant super loud grating humming noise from miles away.

Even if you don’t live anywhere near Devon, do you want a holiday place and other people’s homes destroyed like that? If we all resist enough, maybe they’ll give up or at least try less…

Reblogs appreciated!

[tomorrowusa]

Pope Leo rebukes climate skeptics after Trump calls warming a ‘con job’

The Illinois native’s comments come a week after the U.S. president derided the fight against climate change.

Pope Leo XIV sends Donald Trump's climate-denialism straight to Hell.

Pope Leo XIV denounced people who deny climate change on Wednesday, arguing that they are contributing to the destruction of God's creation. "Some have chosen to deride the increasingly evident science of climate change, to ridicule those who speak of global warming and even to blame the poor for the very thing that affects them the most," Leo said. The pope's comments come just a week after U.S. President Donald Trump, in a speech at the United Nations, called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” 

Linger on that papal phrase, "the increasingly evident science of climate change".

The Chicago area pope will have none of Trump's fossil-fuelled denialism.

"We cannot love God whom we cannot see while despising his creatures, nor can we call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ without participating in his outlook on creation and his care for all that is fragile and wounded," Leo said. Following in the footsteps of Francis, Leo called on "everyone in society ... [to] put pressure on governments to develop and implement more rigorous regulations, procedures and controls" to fight climate change and protect the environment.

It's Pope Leo, not some "woke leftist" who is calling for more rigorous environmental protections.

[sweetfirebird]

Okay, some more bullshit to deal with

Hey, everyone! The Trump regime is trying to repeal a bunch of regulations about things like mercury and greenhouse gas emissions. Yay. Fun.

And no, there is no science supporting this, and they aren't even really trying to use science to justify it. They are just proposing repeals/loosening the regulations. (It's to please corporate bosses and donors who want to save a few bucks. That's it. That's the reason.)

But, the public gets to comment, and we are onto their game.

We have a few more days until the comment period closes so if you have time, go and drop a line. You don't need to be a US citizen for this one. And environmental shit affects us all.

Points you can mention if you are not a scientist who has better answers (though if you are a scientist, please go medieval on their asses).

the health care costs from this

that losing our clean air means even less tourism at a time when America desperately needs the visitors and the money

the embarrassment of falling behind the rest of the world in green energy and environmental protections to please Big Oil and Coal Mine Owners--industries the rest of the world is trying to move away from

the loss of revenue from the rest of the world not wanting to do business with us or buy products made with such lax standards

the environmental racism and classism of loosening restrictions around factories that are generally around poorer people

the cost of the cleanup when these loosen regulations cause a major problem, because they always do

that we KNOW the Clean Air Act worked because some of us lived through what the air was like before, and those that haven't can see the fucking pictures of how bad the air used to be

ISN'T IT HOT ENOUGH RIGHT NOW? WHY MAKE IT HOTTER?

LOOK AT OUR WEATHER! LOOK AT TEXAS FLOODING! Being afraid of the words climate change doesn't mean it's not happening, assholes.

Humiliating that these assholes are trying to drag us back in time to make coal mine owners and oil companies happy. Pathetic.

National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units

-comment period ends Aug 11

Repeal of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units

-comment period ends Aug 7

Here is a clip of Bill Nye talking about it (it's an instagram link, sorry.)

Thanks! Even if you just help spread the word.

[h0neyfreak]

helping “The Environment” as an individual is such a nebulous and ever changing concept and seems to be very much in the Discourse™️ at the moment so I just want to take a minute to shout into the void with some reminders I gave my enviro students when they got to the “oh dear god we’re all gonna die” phase of the class:

“Individual choices don’t matter” is like. true(?) for climate change (unless you’re a kardashian or CEO or something) but that just means you can’t reusable tote bag your way out of a private jet society. NOT that you can’t have any impact through community initiatives and activism. Advocate for municipal composting and public transit!! Get involved locally!!!!! Write weekly to your representatives! Do whatever you can to get unstuck and scrape together some modicum of hope.

Also on individual choices. There are some that “matter” but be very wary of outsized benefits promised for seemingly small choices (e.g. the straw debacle). An app is not the thing to save us from a hundred years of industry. Going out and collecting litter DOES have an impact even if that impact is just “this area of the world no longer has trash in it.” It’s not solving the issue of microplastics or whatever but it is helping local birds. And it’s helping YOU feel more connected to your local environment and getting you involved with the world and your community.

Finally, the best thing you can be is well informed, persistent, and kind. Be willing and able to help if you bump into someone who is open to the idea of not letting Shell and SHEIN pour toxic sludge directly into every river. It’s more people than you think. But most people only know how to buy things that are “better.” (Electric cars, reusable bags, expensive neutral clothing made of flax). They want to do SOMETHING but we’re all just kind of vibrating balls of anxiety all the time. Know what sort of things are going on around you and invite them! My go to’s are composting initiatives, textile recycling programs, and pollinator friendly/grass free gardens.

Again, it would be great if we were all willing to drag the Shell and Nestle CEOs out to account for their crimes but being paralyzed by fear is not gonna help. Neither is another ethical clothing brand selling $400 linen underwear (probably). I’ve found time and time again that people who have any amount of tangible connection to the world outside have a much more visceral reaction to billionaire super yachts than defeatist suburbanites who drive EVs and have a kitchen full of dubious organic snacks.

[wisdom-of-a-goatfish]

BEES!!

Bees! They're so important! I love them! 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

[confusedlamp]

There is a more popular post going around discussing individual or small-scale things you can do to help with mitigating climate change, in response to the notion that it's large companies that are responsible for climate change and there's little we as individuals can do.

I agree with it and have reblogged, but I also want to introduce 4 points that I think need acknowledgment at well in the "individuals versus large companies" debate.

1. While of course your single individual choices won't make or break large companies, a lot of the big companies that are responsible for climate change are still producing stuff for individual consumers. With the exception of stuff like crypto, companies are contributing to climate change when they make and sell stuff to people. Reducing consumption can reduce the profit of those companies. Example: ExxonMobil is obviously a big example of a company contributing to climate change. Reducing energy and gas consumption (car pool, advocate for and use public transport, etc.) knocks into their bottom line.

2. I just want to explicitly acknowledge that some of the common suggestions, though not all, require up-front money (like more efficient appliances), time, or energy that not everyone has. Some may not be available based on your exact location (eg. using public transport) or living situation (eg. growing native plants in a home garden). If you are going "but I can't do/ it would be very difficult me to do X": this is me saying that those specific suggestions are aimed at someone else in a different situation. The things listed as ways to help are just wide variety of suggestions to consider if you can apply, not moral rules that you, individually, need to live by. (I am adding this point for anyone who gets anxiety spirals around this sort of thing, not because I think folks were usually implying this).

(Last 2 points under the cut)

3. You may see some suggestions like "planting native plants for pollinators" or "decals on windows to prevent bird collisions" and wonder what the hell that has to do with climate change. One of the answers is that the stressors on ecosystems and people are additive. You may not be directly helping climate change, but by reducing a cause of ecosystem decline you help make the ecosystem more resilient to the impacts overall.

4. Point 3 is also applicable to people and communities. Stuff like extreme weather will effect the most vulnerable around us most drastically. For example, people experiencing homelessness are in danger during heat waves. This sucks, but it also means that by advocating for their rights and fair treatment and for housing, you are also reducing an impact of climate change. In a similar vein, volunteering and advocacy for a more equitable world, even for non-environmental causes, builds community and helps makes us more resilient to change and disasters. Heck, something as simple as getting to know your neighbors means that if a natural disaster hits you can rely on each other for help. Climate change has wide reaching impacts but the ways to help are just as wide.