"We analyze the average sonority of basic words of nearly three-quarters of the world’s languages, and confirm a positive correlation between sonority and local temperature. Our findings suggest that lower temperatures, over the course of many centuries, lead to decreased sonority. Our research provides further evidence that climate plays a role in shaping the evolution of human languages."
On #climate#COP28: My fear is that getting international agreements in place is the easiest part of the problem. The hard bit will be the proverbial last-mile. People will have to change their behaviour in ways that are pro-environment. And for that, they will have to be more pro-social. It is here that things get stuck.
Environmental goals are difficult to achieve without social capital. Getting international agreement on climate issues is the easy part; the difficult bit is getting hyperdiverse societies to cooperate at the everyday level.
@Eetschrijver
Zeker! Maar dat was niet zozeer een verfilming van het boek, als wel een gefictionaliseerde uitvergroting van kleine onderdelen eruit.
Het boek viel mij tegen (en in mijn review vertel ik waarom) @bookstodon@boeken
Fantastic new film. It does far more than what the headline says, it is a thoughtful inquiry, especially into global warming, and highlights many voices not traditionally included.
"New film underscores Doomsday Clock’s importance and Bulletin history"
@bojacobs@sts@histodons@nuclearhumanities This looks intriguing and well done. I'm going to see if I can get a group of friends together to watch it this weekend. $10 to rent is not bad.
#Today, I am celebrating my 4 years without flying ✈️.
The #Earth’s #climate is perturbed by #human activites. One of the easiest things to do towards #sustainability is to cut air travels. Thus, 4 years ago, I cut my frequent flyer cards and decided to #StayGrounded, using only low-#carbon travel means such as #train.
@AlexSanterne@StayGrounded_net@labos1point5@academicchatter When I was a kid in the 80s, we travelled by train to Poland to see my mums family. In fairness it was more for economic reasons as budget airlines weren’t a thing back then. It took two days and being a kid, I hated it, though crossing the Berlin Wall (still up in those days) was interesting.
Although we've mentioned this before, it's grim news that bears repeating. Global heating caused by human industry is melting glaciers and sea ice all around the world — but nowhere more dramatically than on and near Antarctica.
Sea ice that covers the ocean around Antarctica hit a record low surface area in the winter, a preliminary analysis of US satellite data shows, and scientists fear the impact of climate change is increasing at the southern pole.
“This is the lowest sea ice maximum in the 1979 to 2023 sea ice record by a wide margin,” said the NSIDC, a government-supported programme at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
At one point this year, sea ice had dropped to 1.03 million sq km, far smaller than the previous record low and an area of loss roughly the size of Texas and California combined.
“It’s a record-smashing sea ice low in the Antarctic,” NSIDC scientist Walt Meier said in comments published by NASA.
The excerpt above is from a news story published at Al Jazeera.
Over at Medium, an article by Ricky Lanusse goes into more depth on the subject, and concludes with this heartfelt lament...
It’s been 33 years since the first IPCC report on climate change. Three-plus decades of climate negotiations and disappointment: emissions soaring, climate denial, on-paper optimism, and ‘net zero, but not in my term’ speeches.
Now, the northern summer of 2023 is officially the hottest on record, pushing global sea temperatures to record highs and disrupting ocean ecosystems. Over 3.8 billion people — almost half the world — felt the wrath of human-induced extreme heat between June and August.
You don’t grab buckets or towels when your bathtub overflows, ignoring or denying the problem. You turn off the tap. Climate change isn’t a future problem; it’s here. And you might think it won’t affect you, but as temperatures climb, more will face such dire choices. The question is not if but when.
Antarctica’s struggle isn’t a far-off concern; it’s a glaring reminder that climate change is here and spares no place on Earth.
"Greta Thunberg Could Face Jail Term After Second Blockade of Swedish Oil Port"
"The Swedish climate activist has been charged for a second time for failing to obey police orders."
(See the linked article at the bottom.)
Something I posted somewhere else:
Greta’s perceptive way of seeing the world in very literal, stark terms allows her to clearly see the climate crisis as an emergency, while so many others view climate change as an abstraction. To her it’s not an abstract threat, it’s an evident reality. That’s why she said this:
"Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act."
"I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is."
And she’s right. She began her activism all alone, sitting in front of the Swedish Parliament building holding a sign, while refusing to go to school. She thought school was impossible to attend while the planet was burning. She needed to voice this massive threat to young people. She began the school strike that grew to include other young people.
Apple doesn’t have groundbreaking features to entice people to buy their new products. Instead, it wants to convince you that if you buy an iPhone or Apple Watch, it could literally save your life and will mitigate your environmental footprint while it’s at it.
But those are pretty dubious claims that rely on carbon offsets and dismiss all the harm and suffering that’s been chronicled in Apple’s supply chain. Don’t buy the PR!
The #oil megaproject #EACOP, emblematic of #climate-harming projects, is being criticized by #scientists. It's the tree that hides the forest. We must adopt a global #FossilFuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Mah juxtaposes the petrochemical industry’s destructive corporate worldviews with environmental justice struggles in the US, China, and Europe: multiscalar activism—a form of collective resistance that spans local, regional, national, and planetary sites and scales and addresses the interconnected issues of #EnvironmentalJustice, #climate, #pollution, health, extraction, land rights, workers’ rights, systemic #racism, and toxic #colonialism
I have not read this yet but looks like a LOT of resonance with #OilBeach. "Most large petrochemical facilities are located in coastal regions, near to ports, for access to shipping lines. Tightly enclosed behind security gates, they resemble cities with tall towers and giant cylindrical storage tanks. They flare and steam and crackle.
How do these petrochemical plants relate to the ports? How are they regulated? Who are
the main global corporate players? Who are the biggest polluters?"
If anyone for some reason is looking for a review essay assignment on #petroleum, #shipping, #capitalism, Mah's Petrochemical Planet would go well with Oil Beach and Negative Ecologies by David Bond.
Ah, yes, great idea, spew excessive amounts of CO2 to go on a luxury safari by 757 to see all the animals we are going to drive into extinction through excessive jet travel. (ps. $135,000 to $165,000 per person, from what I have been able to gather). #travel#climate#jets