…frankly it’s all feeling pretty indigestible this morning

A new report from the UN University (UNU) in Germany has set out a series of risk tipping points that are approaching, but said having foresight of these meant that it remained possible to take action to prevent them. Tipping points are triggered by small increases in their driving force but rapidly lead to large impacts.

The risk tipping points are different from the climate tipping points the world is on the brink of, including the collapse of Amazon rainforest and the shutdown of a key Atlantic Ocean current. The climate tipping points are large-scale changes driven by human-caused global heating, while the risk tipping points are more directly connected to people’s lives via complex social and ecological systems.
[…]
The report examines six examples of risk tipping points, including the point when building insurance becomes unavailable or unaffordable. This leaves people without an economic safety net when disasters strike, compounding their difficulties, particularly for the poor and vulnerable.

The climate crisis is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather and, for example, a major insurer has already stopped insuring properties in California, due to “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure”, particularly wildfires. Insurance premiums have also soared in Florida, and six insurers in the state have gone bust due to climate-related floods and hurricanes. The report also said half a million Australian homes are estimated to be uninsurable by 2030, primarily due to increasing flood risk.

Another risk tipping point examined in the report is when groundwater aquifers are overexploited to the point that the wells run dry. Aquifers currently prevent half the losses to food production caused by droughts, which are expected to become more frequent due to global heating, the report said.

More than half of the world’s major aquifers are already being depleted faster than they can be naturally refilled, the report said. If they suddenly dry up, entire food production systems are at risk of failure.

The groundwater risk tipping point has already been passed in some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, and is close in India, the report said. Saudi Arabia was a major wheat exporter in the 1990s but now imports the cereal after the groundwater wells were exhausted.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/25/climate-crisis-threatens-tipping-point-of-uninsurable-homes-says-un

…& at the end of the day it’s pretty hard to believe a major slice of the how & the why isn’t…very much by design

Earth’s ‘vital signs’ worse than at any time in human history, scientists warn [Guardian]

…not to mention concerted effort

Fossil fuel companies have spent millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign donations to state lawmakers who sponsored anti-protest laws – which now shield about 60% of US gas and oil operations from protest and civil disobedience, according to a new report from Greenpeace USA.

Eighteen states including Montana, Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana, West Virginia and the Dakotas have enacted sweeping anti-protest laws which boost penalties for trespass near so-called critical infrastructure, that make it far riskier for communities to oppose pipelines and other fossil fuel projects that threaten their land, water and the global climate.

…west virginia, you say…not like the song said, I guess

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze

…growing like a weed probably wouldn’t sell as many john denver records…but…

Another four states have enacted narrower versions of the same law, but which could still be exploited to issue trumped-up charges against peaceful protesters. Many were based on a “model bill” promoted by the industry-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec).

According to the report, nine of the top 10 companies that lobbied most for anti-protest bills since 2017 are fossil fuel companies, including US companies ExxonMobil, Koch Industries and Marathon Petroleum, as well as Canadian companies Enbridge and TC Energy (Trans Canada).

In addition, 25 fossil fuel and energy companies have contributed more than $5m to state anti-protest bill sponsors in this timeframe, data from political finance trackers Open Secrets and Follow the Money shows.

According to Dollars v Democracy 2023: Inside the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Playbook to Suppress Protest and Dissent in the United States , a playbook of tactics has been deployed by corporations, law enforcement agencies and fossil fuel-friendly lawmakers in the US since the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests at Standing Rock in 2016. This includes mass arrests, spurious litigation, intelligence sharing, harsh policing tactics such as water cannons and sophisticated public relations efforts to depict activists as troublemakers and extremists, the report says.

It’s part of a global strategy reported by the Guardian to silence, discredit and criminalize environmental activists and Indigenous rights defenders opposed to polluting energy, mining and other extractive projects that are incompatible with meaningful climate action.
[…]
Since 2017, more than 250 anti-protest bills have been introduced in 45 states including legislation to eliminate driver liability for hitting protesters and create felony offenses for demonstrations construed as riots, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL).

…I mean…don’t get me wrong…if you overrun the capitol I don’t think you should get to claim it was a legitimate civil protest & expect to be home by bedtime…but…I don’t think it’s credible to claim these laws are aimed at closing that kind of loophole…I mean…there’s saying the quiet part loud & then there’s “eliminate driver liability for hitting protesters”…even a fucking bullhorn isn’t that kind of fucking deafening…though…no prizes for guessing if the people championing that shite would claim it ought to apply if someone had mown through that mob of insurrectionists in a fucking humveee on jan 6th

Congressman charged with pulling false fire alarm in House building [WaPo]

…if it was a little less fucking tragic it might even make a great example of how legislating to achieve a narrowly defined purpose generally results in piss-poor laws because…that isn’t how that shit works in the sense of a functional framework that achieves its purpose of being broadly applicable…as opposed to their purpose…which…most days…seems like very much the sort of thing that makes you think “there ought to be a law against it”

Fossil fuel firms are also increasingly using civil litigation to intimidate activists and chill legitimate dissent, according to the new report.

Greenpeace found that about 75% (86 out of 116) of known Slapps – strategic lawsuits against public participation – and other forms of judicial harassment cases since 2010 were linked to companies that have also lobbied for anti-protest criminal laws including ExxonMobil, Chevron and TransCanada. The Slapps include a $300m lawsuit filed against Greenpeace US by the US company behind the DAPL, Energy Transfer, which alleges that the non-profit organized the massive Indigenous resistance at Standing Rock. The case, which experts fear could have major ramifications for advocacy, is scheduled to open in North Dakota next summer.

This year has marked a further blow to the constitutional right to protest in the US, starting with the fatal police shooting of forest protector and anti-Cop City activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán in Atlanta in January 2023. It was the first case in US history of police killing an environmental activist while protesting.

In September, the Georgia state attorney general indicted 61 community organizers on racketeering charges, alleging that those who peacefully opposed the construction of the sprawling police training complex were part of a criminal enterprise. The officers who peppered Paez Terán with 14 bullets, leaving 57 wounds, will face no charges.

Also this year, developers of the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP) – which will transport fracked gas 300 miles through West Virginia and Virginia – filed a $4m civil lawsuit which seeks to restrict 41 individuals and two organizations from fundraising and other activities alleged to have slowed construction. While in North Carolina a draconian new anti-protest law allows up to 19 years in prison and $250,000 in fines for impeding an energy facility.

David Armiak, research director with the Center for Media and Democracy, said the Greenpeace report “exemplifies how the fossil fuel industry exerts its outsized influence over state and local politics to curtail the constitutional right to protest with the goal of extending its profit model”.
[…]
The American Petroleum Institute (API), an oil and gas industry trade association, said it supported the “public’s first amendment right to peaceful protest” but strongly opposed “any criminal activity or physical violence that could put lives, communities and the environment at risk”.

…uh huh…wouldn’t want to “put lives, communities and the environment at risk”…you earth-shatteringly hypocritical fucking ghouls

In a statement it added: “We share the urgency of confronting climate change together without delay; yet doing so by eliminating America’s energy options is the wrong approach and would leave American families and businesses beholden to unstable foreign regions for higher cost and far less reliable energy.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/25/fossil-fuel-company-donate-lawmakers-anti-protest-exxon-koch

…I’m not a murderous soul by nature…but…how much provocation does it take to sail over the mitigating circumstances bar & drop kick the obvious in the mouth…asking for a friend?

Shell boss set to cut jobs from low-carbon division [Guardian]

…I mean…they say beggars can’t be choosers…but…between the shit that beggars belief

Judge fines Trump $10,000 for violating gag order and says he is ‘not credible’ as witness [Guardian]

…or just plain begs the question in the classical sense

Mike Johnson helped Trump on January 6 – now he’s a threat to democracy [Guardian]

Here’s what happens when a for-profit company takes over your local ER [Guardian]

AI-created child sexual abuse images ‘threaten to overwhelm internet’ [Guardian]

…don’t even get me started on “quis custodiet ipsos custodes”

One prison guard, 96 abuse charges: women say ‘serial rapist’ targeted them over a decade [Guardian]

…let alone that god-forsaken nuclear option some people won’t STFU about

Russia simulates nuclear strike after opting out of treaty [Guardian]

…or I’m going to be hanging out my window yelling at clouds trying to summon whatever the agnostic equivalent to a deus ex machina might be…& I don’t know about you but I ain’t got time for that shit if I’m going to keep those ends in reach of being met

I should almost certainly feel despair battling the daily fallout as late capitalism enters hospice care. But instead I get a base, primal satisfaction from actually just doing something, no matter how insignificant. We’ve forgotten, maybe, as the virtual world has slowly co-opted our lives, that we are meant by nature to move through and manipulate, to lift and carry and sort and transfer. Simple acts, I’ve found, have an outsized effect on the worrying over abstractions that otherwise takes up so much of my time.

My education in this regard started one morning a few years ago, when, getting ready for a run, I looked up and saw a sea gull with what looked like a small fish clutched in one of her feet. It wasn’t a fish but a fishing lure, and its barbed hook had stabbed the gull’s foot and lodged there. She flew wide, despairing circles above me, trying to shake the hook loose while other birds, seemingly making the same mistake I’d made in thinking the lure was an actual fish, gave chase.

That day, instead of doing a more conventional walk-and-stretch after running, I finally acted on an impulse I’d had many times and started moving slowly along the perimeter of the cove, picking up garbage. My grief over the gull’s suffering receded ever so slightly as I went.
[…]
But the daily practice has taught me to be on guard against my own vanity — to notice and discard the smug feeling that sometimes arises when I see others enjoying the cove but doing nothing about how blighted it is. Instead I am confronted each day with my own fallibility, tininess and hypocrisy (as just one more trash ape among billions, I contribute to the problem simply by existing). And instead of puffing myself up, I check myself and reach for more garbage.

There are likely more effective things I could be doing with my time. We live in an age when efficiency and optimization are prized above all else, and what could be less efficient than gathering scraps of garbage by hand when the equivalent of a dump truck of plastics enters the oceans every minute? So I’ve tried to think, and do, bigger.

I’ve thought about sabotaging a pig farm or an oil rig, but have had to admit to myself that I’m ultimately not a radical. I’ve considered giving up my work as a writer for a career in ecological activism, but the whole reason I do this work is because I am at heart a loner. I mistrust groups larger than, say, half a dozen people. In my experience, that’s when we start getting a little too certain about what everyone on our side of the line believes, usually to the detriment of ourselves and everything else.

In short, I’m skeptical both of working within any system and of trying to upend it. Which is another way of saying I’m skeptical of my own species. It’s hard not to be, given the evidence. Climate change and other ecological consequences of human activity are both incomprehensibly huge and diffuse, and thus easy to distance ourselves from. Our very own personal garbage, however, and our habits in disposing of it, are not so easy to disavow — and they are damning.
[…]
It seems near all but certain that we are, as a species, too shortsighted and distractible, too enamored of dividend checks and retail therapy, to really turn this ship around. But, then, despair and idealism are two sides of the same cop-out, and I’ve indulged in both more than enough in my time. So I’ll keep splitting the difference, keep picking up trash — and keep hoping that simply setting an example can be meaningful.

This Is What Keeps My Eco-Anxiety in Check [NYT]

…I mean…I know there’s people out there trying…I’ve been to coves & beaches (guess the last one would have been on the east coast of scotland but on more than one continent in my time) where there’s a permanent stash in a weatherproof box of gloves & trash bags & even those grabber things that mean you don’t need to bend down so that everyone can take a few minutes & dispose of some of that shit before, during or after enjoying their time at the seaside…but somehow “we” keep voting for “make shit worse”

In a stunning abandonment of principle that was sure to reverberate through the country over the coming year, House Republicans, led by Mike Johnson (La.), accepted the results of an election. This was a bewildering move from someone who had previously been a staunch ally of Donald Trump.

Those who watched Johnson’s rise to prominence via tireless efforts to attract Republican signatures to a legal brief challenging the results of the 2020 election, and who admired his continued efforts to fight bravely against the democratic process by supplying arguments against certifying the 2020 election, were stunned and heartsick to see this apparent 180 on the legitimacy of majority rule. Just because it was an election that happened to result in his selection as speaker of the House, did that make winning a majority of votes suddenly a legitimate way of obtaining power? Where were the doubts? Where were the questions? Where were the barrage of dubious legal arguments? Why was he just sitting there and letting people congratulate him on his election, as though it were a good thing?

In a total betrayal of principle, Mike Johnson accepts election results [NYT]

…never mind the hand that feeds you…some people will attempt to do harm to the hand that’s trying to fucking heal them

Stabbed. Kicked. Spit On. Violence in American Hospitals Is Out of Control. [NYT]

…I dunno…but this all seems to be screaming something about a warped perspective at me?

Israel’s blockade hollowed out Gaza’s economy and left 80% of its inhabitants dependent on international aid even before the current crisis erupted, the UN has said.

In a report outlining conditions in the Palestinian territory last year, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) said two-thirds of Gaza’s population was living in poverty, while its unemployment rate of 45% was one of the highest in the world.

Unctad said a “decades-long” blockade had taken a heavy toll on Gaza’s economy, and that the aid flows that had helped underpin living standards for a population of just over 2 million people had dried up.

The report was prepared by the Geneva-based body before Hamas militants attacked southern Israeli communities on 7 October, killing 1,400 people and taking 222 hostages into Gaza. The subsequent Israeli bombardment of the territory has damaged infrastructure and led to fresh economic disruption, while more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed.

Unctad said: “The result of the restrictions and closures and military operations has been the suppression of investment and productive activities and the collapse of the economy of Gaza, as well as its separation from the world and the rest of the Palestinian economy in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“Unctad has noted that the blockade, frequent military operations and restrictions on the entry and exit of people and essential goods have stifled the economy, impeded access to health and other essential services and undermined the living conditions of more than 2 million Palestinians.”

The report said conditions were worse in Gaza than for Palestinians living in the West Bank, with a 65% probability of being poor, a 41% probability of dropping out of the labour force in despair, and for those looking for work, a 45% probability of being unemployed. Living standards – as measured by gross domestic product per head – were 27% lower than they were in 2006.

“The restrictions on movement also impede access to health and other essential services, as 80% of Gazans depend on international aid. Living in Gaza in 2022 meant confinement in one of the most densely populated spaces in the world, without electricity half the time, and without adequate access to clean water or a proper sewage system.”
[…]
“Since June 2007, Gaza suffered several military operations and has been under a land, sea and air closure,” Unctad said. “Gazans need permits to move in and out of the strip through two land crossing points controlled by Israel.

“Restrictions on the movement of people and goods, destruction of productive assets in frequent military operations and the ban on the importation of key technologies and inputs have hollowed out Gaza’s economy.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/25/un-report-80-per-cent-of-gaza-inhabitants-relied-on-international-aid-before-war

…I mean…it’s not like there’s any agreement on “how it started” but…not to be inappropriately flippant…everybody seems to be on the same side when it comes to how happy they are with “how it’s going”…so you’d think there might be some common ground to be found somewhere that hasn’t been bombed into the stone age…you know…in a sane world?

How bombings, blockades and import bans caused Gaza’s water system to crumble [Guardian]

What is UNRWA and what has it said about fuel deliveries to Gaza? [Guardian]

Red Cross witnesses ‘utter chaos’ at Gaza hospitals as supplies run critically low [Guardian]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/25/israel-hamas-war-assault-gaza-doomed-to-failure

Biden says West Bank settlers ‘pouring gasoline on fire’ as Israel prepares for Gaza ground invasion [Guardian]

…if only there were some sort of international body designed to promote quaint things like peace & understanding…pobody’s nerfect & all but it feels like even an imperfect institution along those lines might be a markedly lesser evil

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, was locked in a bitter row with Israel on Wednesday, saying he was shocked that the Israeli government had misrepresented remarks he had made to the UN to suggest he had justified the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October.

Israel has called for his resignation, accusing him of a blood libel and announcing that it was withdrawing travel visas for UN officials, including the UN humanitarian coordinator, Martin Griffiths.

The personal tensions between Guterres and Israeli officials comes as UNRWA, the UN humanitarian agency for Palestinian refugees, warned that it was hours away from being forced to close its operations in Gaza, including the provision of hospital care, due to Israel’s blockade on fuel. Israel also vowed to stop UN officials coming to Israel in a bid to teach the UN a lesson.

Israel is furious that Guterres had suggested the attacks by Hamas could not be seen in a vacuum but followed decades of occupation. Guterres had also accused Israel of clear violations of humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip, and insisted that a humanitarian ceasefire was vital, a position that the US was close to accepting even if it would not use the term ceasefire, but instead a “humanitarian pause”. There were also reports that Israel was under pressure from the US to delay a ground invasion. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said a massive ground invasion by Israel would be a mistake.
[…]
Rebutting the criticism and insisting it was necessary to re-establish the truth, he said “I am shocked by the misrepresentations by some of my statement … as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas. This is false. It was the opposite.”

Guterres had told the UN security council on Tuesday: “It is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

In his statement on Wednesday, Guterres pointed out that in his speech he had stated: “But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, responded by accusing the UN of continued bias and hatred of Israel. He added: “It is a disgrace to the UN that the secretary general does not retract his words and is not even able to apologise for what he said yesterday. He must resign. The secretary general once again distorts and twists reality. He clearly said yesterday that the massacre by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. Every person understands well that the meaning of the words is Israel has guilt for the actions of Hamas or at the very least it shows his understanding of the ‘background’ leading up to the massacre that Hamas perpetrated.”

Earlier, Erdan said on army radio: “Due to his remarks, we will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives. We have already refused a visa for the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths. The time has come to teach them a lesson.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/25/israel-says-it-will-ban-un-staff-after-secretary-generals-comments

…how does it go again…those that fail to learn from history are…something…it was one of churchill’s, I think…oh, yeah…that’s it…he didn’t swear but for the sake of a modern audience let’s go with…are fucking doomed to fucking repeat it…presumably with the corollary that if last time it was a harrowing tragedy for the ages then this time it’ll be a bleaker farce than fucking germinal or whatever french slice of crushingly depressive existentialist crisis masquerading as everyday life you feel like picking

Israel says Hamas ‘is ISIS.’ But it’s not. [WaPo]

…but what’s in a name…or…well…an acronym?

Ukrainian spies with deep ties to CIA wage shadow war against Russia [WaPo]

…well…it worked pretty good for the mossad, I suppose…& on balance…given what seems to be hanging in it

Israel’s Strikes on Gaza Are Some of the Most Intense This Century [NYT]

…secular ninjas extra-judicially inhuming powerful people with extreme prejudice as a surrogate for the immiseration of entire swathes of the global population as a way of collectively punishing the oppressed masses for the sins of their “betters”

…sure as shit seems more civilized…& that is some crazy on its face shit to be able to say…so I imagine it’s a good sign I probably should have STFU a while back…at least for today…or…well…for now?