Ludovico Einaudi performs an original piece "Elegy for the Arctic", on the Arctic Ocean to call for its protection, on June 17th, 2016
With a grand piano on a floating platform in front of a glacier, Einaudi played an original piece composed for the cause
Just read and currently reading, with detailed emoji reviews. — jamalrob
Funny & Humor - Cartoons
Looking for a little humor to be drawn in (literally) to your life? Well, you no longer have to have a copy of the funny pages to laugh at some hilarious cartoons–we’ve got a bunch of laugh out loud drawings right here.
The life of a child is hard. Do you remember? — Primperan
*****If ever you are feeling down and bummed out about the world I suggest spending one of the best 52 minutes of your life by watching the documentary “Wild and Woolly: An Elephant and His Sheep”. You will never look at sheep the same way again I promise you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfVPMMo4HQsJoe Brown closed the show with a rendition of "I'll See You in My Dreams" on ukulele, one of Harrison's favourite instruments.
“Crackers” may be the perfect word for Harrison’s uke-philia; he uses it himself in the adorable note above from 1999. “Everyone I know who is into the ukulele is ‘crackers,’” writes George, “you can’t play it and not laugh!” Harrison remained upbeat, even during his first cancer scare in 1997, the knife attack at his home in 1999, and the cancer relapse that eventually took his life in 2001. The ukulele seemed a sweetly genuine expression of his hopeful attitude.
....Harrison and an old-time acoustic jazz ensemble (including Jools Holland on piano) play one of those “old numbers”—“Between The Devil and Deep Blue Sea”—in 1988
I know that interpretation of what other people say is context- and situation-dependent. But do you still need some common sense in order to correctly interpret what others say or write? — Cidat
Keep it simple; keep it nostalgic; keep it racist; repeat hypnotically. Something like this:
"Bring back our White Christmases!" :scream: — unenlightened
Re UKIP - got their policy through — unenlightened
Expect to become poorer and learn to live simple and consume little. — unenlightened
At the moment trying to take responsibility feels hopeless. Like trying to control a wild horse. Gives me more pressure, more feelings of inadequacy, and the feeling like I am choosing to be stuck and that therefor I am a bad lazy person.
But I do think sometimes I am truly an evil person behind my mostly pleasant agreeable exterior. And that deep down I would rather be a force of destruction to the world at large. — Yohan
I'd tell a doctor the same thing you said in the OP.
No point in suffering when there's help available. — Shawn
If you have concerns, best to seek out a qualified medical doctor for clarification and support, not an internet forum. — Tom Storm
Vote green. — unenlightened
Caroline Lucas on climate, consumerism and Cop26: ‘Boris Johnson is an absolute disaster’
by Emine Saner.
If Caroline Lucas has always seemed an optimistic sort of politician, that outlook is being pushed to breaking point. Sitting through the budget last week was, says Lucas, “an unbelievable experience. It was like being in some weird parallel universe where there wasn’t a climate emergency, and we weren’t about to host the world’s nations at this big climate summit.”
It should have been a moment when the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, “was turbocharging the funding for the net zero programme”, says the Green party MP, ahead of the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, which opened on Sunday. “It should have been the point where he reversed that unforgivable cut in aid, where we demonstrated some strong climate policies. Instead, the headlines were about cutting the cost of short-haul flights.” — Guardian: Cop26 - Caroline Lucas Interview
--------... “The public pressure and movements are gathering like never before. We know the public want leadership on this – they want the government to go further, they are absolutely up for bolder and more ambitious action. I take some hope from that, but on the evidence right now, I think it’s not too late, but it’s going to be tough.”
When I was a teenager I read a lot of scifi, including some who included sea level changes. Like Paris or New York under water...
Cover art for: Valérian - La Cité des Eaux Mouvantes, by Jean-Claude Mézières, 1970 — Olivier5
Yes to optimism but no to denial. This sub-genre of scifi (called Climate Fiction) cannot be all gloom and doom of course, and mankind may indeed still thrive. But the challenge cannot be ignored anymore, nor wished away via some future technology. — Olivier5
Her biggest fear is, “That we don’t act fast enough. That we exceed 1.5 degrees, that we get towards two degrees of warming and more of the extreme events that scientists have been warning are linked to the climate emergency really accelerate.” One of her favourite films is Franny Armstrong’s docudrama The Age of Stupid, set in 2055 – with its cities under floods or on fire, it looks more familiar this year than it did when it came out in 2009 – and she says a line from it still makes the hairs stand up on the back of her neck: “‘Why is it, knowing what we knew then, we didn’t act when there was still time?’ And frankly that is the question I go to bed thinking about, and wake up thinking about.”
The future is arriving sooner than most of us expected, and speculative fiction needs to do far more to help us prepare. The warning signs of catastrophic climate change are getting harder to ignore, and how we deal with this crisis will shape the future of humanity. It’s time for SF authors, and fiction authors generally, to factor climate change into our visions of life in 2019, and the years beyond...
Science fiction, according to Jones, provides an important forum for “humanizing science and even politics/policy.” Pop culture and the popular imagination tend to depict scientists as evil or horribly misguided, and civil servants as “contemptible, petty, power-hungry bureaucrats.” But SF can show science in a more positive light, and even show how government is capable of implementing policies that “will get us out of the mess we’re currently in,” says Jones.
“With Blackfish City, I wanted to paint a realistically terrifying picture about how the world will change in the next hundred years, according to scientists,” says Miller—a picture which includes the evacuation of coastal cities, wars over resources, famines, plague, and infrastructure collapse. “But I also wanted to have hope, and imagine the magnificent stuff we’ll continue to create. The technology we’ll develop. The solutions we’ll find. The music we’ll make.”
“The Road/Walking Dead-style abject hopelessness is not entertaining or stimulating to me,” adds Miller. “Humans are the fucking worst, yes, but they’re also the fucking best.” — Tor.com: Climate change and Sci-fi authors
"Do as I say and not as I do"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U2UoR-oB1M — RussellA
My point was simply that people are only powerless against climate change when they want to be powerless. There's always something to do, including through your vote. — Olivier5
I wonder what plans informed adolescents and young adults are making in light of the ongoing crises which they will have to live with. — Bitter Crank
Growing numbers of headteachers and academics are supporting young people in their action to put pressure on governments to take the climate crisis seriously. Time is running out and young people know that that they are the ones who will suffer.
So what can schools do to support young people to address the climate emergency? Here are eight suggestions... — TES: Tackling climate crisis - 8 things schools can do
Net zero by 2050 is just snake oil. We need an actual hold-it-in-your-flippers zero
Brenda the Civil Disobedience Penguin says it’s time to crush the net zero con that puts cash over people’s future. — Guardian: Cop26 Cartoon
And musicians and anyone paying careful attention...or suffering NOW the destruction of their world. *Except them kids... — Olivier5
As Cop26 opens in Glasgow, we provide the soundtrack, ranging from Gojira’s metal fury to gorgeous environmental paeans by Childish Gambino, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell
by Alexis Petridis. — Guardian: Soundtrack to Cop26
Well, they do have anxieties about these issues, rightly so, and our inaction fuels these anxieties. — Olivier5
Wednesday’s budget took a flagrant sideswipe at Cop26. No, more than that, it poked it in the eye.
To not specifically address Climate Change, a soon-to-be-bigger threat to life than the pandemic.
To reduce the cost of internal flights, while doing nothing to make the much cleaner rail travel less expensive or more viable.
To fail to substantially increase the cost of international air travel, with a tax in rease that will barely be noticed by those who can afford to fly far.
We could undoubtedly have raised significant sums by getting tougher with fines on serial polluters. There could have been a spectrum of measures that both raised revenue to address future climate resilience while penalising offending businesses that take short cuts, pollute or mislead.
Opportunity lost.
This was undoubtedly a political act, perhaps a show of defiance to Boris Johnson, perhaps a nod to the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, but however you look at it, coming moments before Britain once more attempts to appear Global in hosting a Cop with great achievements, this budget totally undermines Britain’s credibility on Climate together with any remaining authority on green issues we may otherwise have had. — Guardian: Cartoon and Comment re Shit Budget
From climate crisis to anti-racism, more and more corporations are taking a stand. But if it’s only done because it’s good for business, the fires will keep on burning
by Carl Rhodes
...15 March 2019 marked the day that 1.4 million children turned out at locations around the world, on “strike” from school in support of action against the climate crisis.
In Australia, the strikes were especially targeted at the government’s dismal record of inaction, with many politicians being climate-change deniers. The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, was vocal in his criticism of the strikes. He wanted students to stay in school instead of engaging in democratic protest.
His public statement said: “I want children growing up in Australia to feel positive about their future, and I think it is important we give them that confidence that they will not only have a wonderful country and pristine environment to live in, that they will also have an economy to live in as well.I don’t want our children to have anxieties about these issues.”...
--------
...It is true that at their most benign, corporate gestures in support of progressive causes are simply marketing initiatives to take advantage of changing public sentiments. At its most dangerous, however, we are witnessing corporations muscling in to take over political power that was once the exclusive domain of the state – not just by lobbying government and influencing policy, but by directly funding political initiatives and engaging with citizens on matters of public concern.
Corporations are not just trying to influence politics, they appear to be trying to take the place of politicians. Either way, the self-interest of the corporation remains paramount.
— Guardian: Useless gestures from Corporate Social Responsibility
Lego issues Cop26 handbook by children on how to tackle climate crisis
Toymaker’s instructions for a better world target policy chiefs ahead of global climate summit
Nearly half of the children told researchers they thought about the environment once a week, while one in 10 thought about it every day. Global heating was their No 1 concern.
Lego is touting it as its most ambitious build to date, but rather than many pages of instructions, the toymaker’s latest handbook offers only 10 steps.
The booklet is not for a physical model, however. Instead it offers “building instructions for a better world” ahead of the crucial Cop26 climate talks that start in Glasgow this Sunday.
The “10 requests” of policymakers are based on research and workshops conducted with more than 6,000 children aged eight to 18 from around the world.
Mocked up like a Lego instruction booklet, the guide distils children’s views into a to-do list that will be handed out to delegates at Cop26.
— Guardian: Cop26 Handbook by Children
Prego, Hamity. — Shawn
COP26 is upcoming, in Glasgow...deserves its own thread, in conjunction with the reconciliation bill. — Xtrix
Here's a go-to guide to see you through COP26, and get you up to speed on what it’s all about and why it’s so important.
As we all know (I hope), there is a huge conference coming up in Glasgow starting October 31st. This is the most important climate conference since Paris in 2015. — Xtrix
Interested in where we stand on the Forum. (By "concrete," below, I mean commitments that align with what scientists are recommending -- and that are binding.) — Xtrix
Will anything concrete come out of these talks? — Xtrix
Heidi Chow, executive director of Jubilee Debt Campaign, said lower income countries will be raising the impact of debt on their ability to tackle climate change at Cop26 meeting in Glasgow this weekend.
“Lower income countries are handing over billions of dollars in debt repayments to rich countries, banks and international financial institutions at a time when resources are desperately needed to fight the climate crisis,” she said.
“In Glasgow, wealthy polluting nations need to stop shirking their responsibilities and provide climate finance through grants, as well as cancel debts.”
Over the last 20 years international bodies including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have encouraged developing world countries to fund development projects using bank loans and bonds.
Borrowers expected interest rates to fall over time as they became trusted to make regular repayments. But low income countries still regularly pay more than 10% interest on loans compared to an average 1.5 to 2.5% paid by rich countries.
During the pandemic, the IMF has provided insurance to lower a proportion of the debt interest paid by low income countries, though the scheme does not cover funds owed to China. — Guardian: Climate Crisis