#amazon fires 2019

[n7punk]

She-ra (2018) Official Merch

I've made a loooong post about She-ra merch and its weirdness, but I wanted to summarize it in the most comprehensive list of official merch for the 2018 Netflix reboot that I could assemble. I'm sure I've missed some stuff, though, so I'll update this if I find anything. Thanks to everyone who contributed, especially Clare and Tippen.

I did deep dives (with pictures and details) on con exclusive and promotion exclusive merch. Basic info on those is included below the read more of this post.

Everything with [L] at the end of its bulletpoint - or an * inside one - has a photo in the long post. I provided links to official photos/listings when possible, but most of them are defunct.

Pins/Accessories/Clothing (active):

A bunch of jewelry (necklaces, rings, earrings) and enamel pins from Han Cholo (+ one iron-on patch). I've seen resellers claim the chibi pins were exclusive to a convention, but they're up on the website. The long post* has pictures of these if they ever go down, and the actual convention-exclusive ones can be found in the con post.

Amazon print-on-demand clothing (+ tote bags and pop sockets) with a lot of different designs that are hidden on the site but still purchasable, see this post for details, and here's the direct link. Once you find a design you like, you can search its name in the regular search bar (for instance, there's a shirt design called "Power Stripes Catra," for that one you have to search just "Stripes Catra") to see all the kinds of items it comes on, usually a variety of tops/outerwear, maybe a tote, and sometimes pop sockets.

Bioworld also had licensed merch, but some designs are hidden on their store page, so the link shows everything available but includes both the reboot and the 80s original. As of writing, they have one lunchbox, two adult t-shirts, one adult crop top, and two youth shirts for the reboot.

Media (active):

A DVD of just the first three seasons (there's a box sleeve version that includes stickers and it's never clear in listings if this is the only version and they just don't show the sleeve or if they're two separate things). This is still for sale at multiple retailers, but there's no way we're ever getting a full boxset.

There were a couple of books: the Rebel Princess Guide, the Legend of the Fire Princess graphic novel, and then some small "novels." These are still available at multiple retailers, but the novels weren't made by the crew and at least some of these contradict basic facts from season one, so they're less canon than many fanfics despite being licensed.

Everything from this point on is out of production and only available via resale.

Toys/Figures (defunct):

Eight fashion dolls. The line had Adora, Glimmer, Bow, Catra, and She-ra (season one version), Battle Armor She-ra (2-pack with a model of Swift Wind featuring their Battle of Bright Moon looks), and a deluxe She-ra & Shadow Weaver 2-pack (SDCC 2019 exclusive). These dolls were supposed to be Target exclusive, but the rollout was botched and now they're collectors' items. There were also four cancelled dolls that were supposed to be part of the line.

Two Super7 action figures in a Catra & Adora 2-pack with limited articulation. They're rare collector's items too, though this time it's just because they were a limited run. [L]

A plastic toy Sword of Protection and shield sized for children. The sword lit up and said "For the honor of Grayskull!" when you lifted it. The gem was semi-transparent and had a picture of She-ra under it. This was a Target and Amazon exclusive (Mattel & Target are always holding hands 🤝). [L]

Clothes/Dress-up/Accessories (defunct):

Four licensed She-ra costumes (season one version) of varying quality: a Target-exclusive one in limited sizes, one from Disguise in a wider range of sizes, one from Party City (as well as a wig and Sword of Protection prop licensed under Classic Media) for children, and one from Rubie's Costume Company (with a season one Catra costume to match, as well as separate accessory packs and wigs for both characters) that was also available at Party City. [L]

Her Universe used their Netflix license to make three shirts, two jackets, an earring set, and a wallet. Photos in the long post* if these links go down (they are discontinued, after all). Bioworld (remember them?) are actually the producers of the earrings with their name rather than Her Universe's branding being found on the backing card.

Hot Topic made a few shirts (like, three. I don't have the primary link for the third design). [L]

Misc (defunct):

Zaks Design-A-Tumbler, a plastic see-through drink tumbler with a sticker sheet provided so you can place the character graphics inside as desired. Features the key character art seen on most other merch for the Best Friend Squad as well as the sword, the moonstone, Swift Wind for the horse girls, and some random sparkles and hearts to fill space. It was available via Amazon and Walmart.

Comcanroll made a Sword of Protection keychain, also defunct. [L]

Beneath the cut are con exclusives and promotional items that were not for sale (at all, or at least by themselves) but that you can still probably hunt down online. Also... still available apps.

I can't believe this is real but there are two apps. She-Ra Stickers is available on iOS and Android and is exactly what you expect: "stickers" (pngs) to send in texting conversations. She-ra Gems of Etheria (also still available on iOS and Android) is a match 3+ game. It doesn't have micro transactions or ads (since, you know, the whole thing is an ad) so it's actually better than most things on the app store.

@tippenfunkaport also made a post about "digital merch" (backgrounds, printed papercrafts, etc) that Dreamworks posted online.

Promotion Exclusives:

I made a separate post for promo-exclusive merch. Things marked with an [L] still have photos in the long post, but photos are better gathered for all of these things in the promo-exclusive post, so please look at that one if any of these interest you.

Lootcrate/Lootwear made a pair of socks, a notebook, and a tumbler all featuring the season one She-ra silhouette. These were only available as part of their subscription service and not for individual sale. [L]

A Sonic kids meal tie-in that featured: magnets of the characters, funko-esque She-ra and Hordak figures, Swift Wind & Imp "straw buddies," and a small inflatable toy Sword of Protection. [L]

The following is promotional material that was never available to the general public:

A statuette of She-ra sent out to family bloggers to promote season four. Very limited due to the tiny production and being fragile. [L]

An equally rare metal lunchbox was sent out exclusively to influencers to promote season one.

Media press kits included a number of items that made it to the public as con-exclusives (see below for more details): collectors cards, buttons, and a foam tiara.

Stickers plugging the Dreamworks Careers' socials were also produced, likely for recruitment. [L]

Gray zip-up hoodies with a small sword on the front (pocket area placement) and a larger logo on the back were made for the crew and never available outside of Dreamworks.

A shirt featuring a graphic of She-ra riding Swift Wind with the She-ra logo in the corner - distribution & source currently unknown. Looks similar but is distinct from an existing Amazon POD design. Best guess is it was given out at an event (con, reviewer promo, employee event, etc), but I'm putting it here since I have no clue where it was from.

Con exclusives (defunct):

I made a separate post for con-exclusive promo items. Some of these still have photos in the long post, but photos and details about which cons they were available at and such are gathered in the con-exclusive post.

Button pin sets (4 sets, 4 buttons each) were at comic cons. These were possibly also available on Amazon for a time but I can't find confirmation on that beyond a backing card logo that could just mean the backing card itself was produced by Amazon. They aren't for sale now either way.

A foam She-ra crown and flat plastic/foam Sword of Protection, handed out at multiple cons.

She-ra socks designed after her uniform (including a cape on the back) seem to have been given out at cons. Photos are only in the long post* because they aren't good and I ran out of room.

There's a number of official poster designs that were handed out (mostly as mini posters) at cons, but most listings online are reprints.

Collector's cards were handed out at cons, probably SDCC.

Temporary tattoos, stickers, bookmarks, and coloring sheets were handed out at Power-Con (years unknown) and possibly other locations, likely those that sold the Scholastic books. [L]

A plastic shopping bag, made to be a disposable advertisement, exclusive to Anime Expo 2019. This one also don't have a photo in the con exclusive post because it's just one of the poster designs already in there, but there is a (wrinkly) photo in the long post*.

#words and things #she ra #merch #spop meta #the fact that the concise post is itself long... listen there's a REASON i didnt add the photos here #it would have been nice and i considered sticking them under the read more but you cant format photos side-by-side on the dashboard view #so it would have ended up a mess that only looked clean on my blog itself #and i would have run out of room pretty much immediately anyway considering hitting the photo limit is why there's so many other posts #so yeah if this becomes a static page than photos can be added but the rebloggable version just has links #okay i think that's everything and all the links are right #welcome to my hell!

[jessepinkmancrystals]

Shshsjs I wrote gnr clasic line up orgin :3

The story of Guns n’ Roses starts with guitarist Izzy Stradlin. He was living with Tracii Guns, guitarist of L.A Guns. At the time, L.A guns was in need of a new vocalist, Izzy had suggested Hollywood rose singer, Axl Rose. This is the start of forming of what is to be Guns n’ Roses in March of 1985 by Axl. The line up at this point was of (Left to right) Rob Gardner (drummer) , Izzy (guitarist), Rose (vocals), Tracii Guns (lead guitarist), and Ole Beich (bassist).

Left to right! Ole Beich ,Izzy , Tracii, and Rob!! Axls obv the 1 at the bottom xd

Tracii stated in an interview with Eddie Trunk in 2019 that Rose had gotten into an argument with their manager at the time and said the manager had fired him. It was awkward for them because they all of them lived together, that night that they fired Axl they started Guns N’ Roses. The next day Tracii called Izzy asking him if he wanted to be in it. They got the name Guns N’ Roses from combining the names L.A guns and Hollywood Rose. Some of their rejected band names that the record didnt allow were “Heads of the Amazon” and “AIDS”. After the first two band rehearsals they fired Ole Beich and replaced him with Duff Mckagan. The band’s first rehearsal her duff they recorded three songs which would be featured on future records. These songs were : Anything Goes, Think about you. These would be features on their debut album ‘Appetite for Destruction’. The third song was ‘Don’t Cry’ which would be featured on their 3rd album “Use Your Illusion I’. These songs were played on their first ever radio interview. This interview was 2 days before their first ever show on March 26th (my birthday!) 1985, this show was at the ‘Troubadour’ Club. At the time, the band was planning on releasing an EP (Extended Play) with the three tracks recorded with Mckagan and a cover of ‘HeartBreak Hotel’ by Elvis Presley. But things backfired as Tracii had a fall out with Axl. This falling out was caused by an argument between Guns n’ Roses. Due to this argument, the plans of releasing the EP disappeared. Tracii Guns was then replaced with Hollywood Rose member Slash also known as Saul Hudson. Rob Gardner, the last standing L.A guns member in Guns N’ Roses, soon quit the band. Gardner was replaced with Steven Adler who was also part of Hollywood Rose. This concluded the formation of the “Appetite for Destruction” lineup, also known as the “classic lineup”. This line up was finally set in stone on June 4th when Slash and Steven officially joined the band.

:33 Hope u read allat!! I can write smch abt gnr bro ask me a question & give me 10 minutes 2 research if i don't alrd know & liek 5 to write w/no proper grammar & punctuation tho! :3

if theres anything that doesn't make sense/isnt spelt right js tell me English isn't my 1st language!!

#guns n roses #gnr #axl rose #guns n' roses #axl gnr #axl rose gnr #gn'r #izzy stradlin #duff gnr #izzy gnr #slash gnr #slash guns n roses #ole beich #tracii guns #rob gardner #duff mckagan #saul hudson #steven adler gnr #steven gnr #steven adler #duff mckagan gnr #yappy nerd alart!!! shut up pls!

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Amazon protector: the Brazilian politician who turned the tide on deforestation

As Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva helped to rein in rampant deforestation and rebuild institutions that were weakened by the previous government.

In a year that brought unrelenting bad environmental news, with record global warming, searing heatwaves and fires, Marina Silva delivered a hopeful message on 3 August. Brazil’s environment and climate-change minister announced that there had been a 43% drop in deforestation alerts on the basis of satellite images of the Amazon rainforest between January and July 2023, compared with the same period in 2022. This was a sharp shift from the previous four years, which had seen a marked rise in such alerts.

The turnaround for environmental protections in Brazil started on 1 January, when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office as president and Marina Silva assumed her current role. It’s her second time heading the ministry of the environment and climate change, which she ran previously between 2003 and 2008, during Lula da Silva’s first and second presidencies.

During her first time in office, Marina Silva tackled rampant forest-clearing activities by leading the development of the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm) — a programme that achieved an 83% decrease in deforestation between 2004 and 2012 in the Brazilian Amazon.

But many of the protections she helped to put in place were dismantled by the government of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022. During his term, the government issued 40% fewer fines for environmental crimes, and logging in the Amazon increased by about 60% compared with the four previous years.

Silva and her team started this year, she says, “with the tough mission to reconstruct what had been dismantled and, at the same time, create new results for environmental policy”.

Continue reading.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #environmentalism #marina silva #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

[antlerqueer]

Girl just bc we haven’t seen a new show doesn’t mean we’re racist…..,

That's not what I said, is it? I said we notice when people are not reblogging things about Black characters and Black lead shows. Do you think Black lead shows are a new thing?

Anyway. Instead of taking things personally, you can check out some Black lead media, or media with main Black characters, that I can recommend:

The Other Black Girl (2023 - TV Show on Hulu, based on a novel of the same name I recently finished) Harlem (2021-present, TV Show on Prime) Survival of the Thickest (2023 - TV Show on Netflix) Yellowjackets (2021-present, TV Show on Showtime) Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (2023, TV Show on Max) Lovecraft Country (2020, TV Show on Max) First Kill (2021, TV Show on Netflix) Dear White People (2017-2021, TV Show on Netflix, and the 2015 movie of the same name) The Good Place (2016-2019, TV Show) The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990-1996) Ghosts (the UK Version, 2019-2023) On My Block (2018-2021, TV Show on Netflix) Darby and the Dead (2022 movie) Bottoms (2023 movie) Nope (2022 movie) Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001-2015, TV show) Sorry to Bother You (2018 movie, definitely look up CWs for this first though) Dope (2015 movie) Swarm (2023 TV Show, Amazon Prime) Trinkets (2019-2021, TV Show, Netflix) Get Out (2017 movie) Candyman (2021 movie) Vampires vs. The Bronx (2020 movie) The Lovebirds (2020 movie) Russian Doll (2019-present, TV show Netflix) Love Life season 2 (2021, TV show on Max) Kenan & Kel (1996-2000 tv show, Nickelodeon) Good Burger (1997 movie) Little Fires Everywhere (2020 tv show, Hulu) Love Don't Cost A Thing (2003 movie) One on One (2001-2006, TV Show) The Proud Family (2001-2005, TV Show Disney) That's So Raven (2003-2007, TV Show Disney) Heartbreak High (2022-present, tv show Netflix) Veronica Mars (2004-2007, TV Show) iZombie (2015-2019, TV Show) The Resort (2022, TV Show on Peacock) Homecoming (2018-2020, TV show Amazon Prime) The Haunting of Bly Manor (2021, TV Show Netflix) The Hollow (2018-2021, tv show Netflix) Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin (2022, tv show Max)

and these are just ones I've either seen & enjoyed or seen and would recommend - there's plenty not on this list you can find.

#answered #Anonymous #btw i'm not a girl

[the-forest-library]

August 2023 Reads

The Annotated Persuasion - Jane Austen

Nothing But the Truth - Holly James

The Last Word - Katy Birchall

The Deja Glitch - Holly James

Love, Theoretically - Ali Hazelwood

The Dane of My Existence - Jessica Martin

They Hate Each Other - Amanda Woody

Mister Magic - Kiersten White

Stars, Hide Your Fires - Jessica Mary Best

Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree

The Study of Poisons - Maria V. Snyder

This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik

Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel

The Brothers Hawthorne - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Give Me a Sign - Anna Sortino

Rewind - Lisa Graff

Tuesdays at the Castle - Jessica Day George

Mice Skating - Annie Silvestro

The Rock from the Sky - Jon Klassen

Ancient Night - David Bowles

Fangirl, Vol 1 - Sam Maggs, Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl, Vol 2 - Sam Maggs, Rainbow Rowell

Family Style - Thien Pham

It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth - Zoe Thorogood

Congratulations, the Best is Over - R. Eric Thomas

Strong Female Character - Fern Brady

Everything I Know About Love - Dolly Alderton

Sipping Dom Perignon Through a Straw - Eddie Ndopu

Organizing for the Rest of Us - Dana K. White

You Just Need to Lose Weight - Aubrey Gordon

Vibrant - Stacie Stephenson

How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids - Jancee Dunn

Allergic - Theresa MacPhail

Generations - Jean M. Twenge

Enough - Shauna M. Ahern

Sensitive - Jenn Granneman

The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness - Sarah Ramey

Dressing Barbie - Carol Spencer

Goblin Mode - McKayla Coyle

How to Resist Amazon and Why - Danny Caine

The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron

Bold = Highly Recommend Italics = Worth It Crossed out = Nope

Thoughts: 

Some really good reads this month, and some disappointments. I really enjoyed They Hate Each Other and was surprised by how much I liked the Fangirl manga. I also finally found an Ali Hazelwood book that I didn't DNF, lol.

Goodreads Goal: 289/400 

2017 Reads | 2018 Reads | 2019 Reads | 2020 Reads | 2021 Reads| 

2022 Reads | 2023 Reads

#2023 reads #book reviews #book recommendations #books #booklr #bookish #reading #bibliophile

[robertreich]

How Amazon, Starbucks, and Other Companies Fight Unions

You as a worker have a legal right to join a union, but there are many ways big corporations are skirting the law to stop you from getting your fair share. You could be working for a union-buster and not even know it.

Here are four of the biggest union-busting tricks to look out for: One: Anti-Union Propaganda. Employers turn workers into a captive audience for false or misleading claims about unions. 

******

Btw, if you’d like my daily analyses, commentary, and drawings, please subscribe to my free newsletter: robertreich.substack.com

******

In 2019 Delta distributed pamphlets to flight attendants and ramp service workers warning that union fees would cost $700 dollars per year. But here's what they didn't mention: unionized workers earn $700 more per month. Weird how they left that part out, isn’t it? Amazon wallpapered its warehouses with anti-union ads. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz claimed he had no choice but to exclude workers at unionizing stores from new employee benefits. Apparently when you’re the boss you can just make stuff up. Two: Your employer hires fancy anti-union firms, lawyers, and consultants. The company claims it can’t afford to raise workers’ pay but spends millions on anti-union consultants. You might hear your bosses call this “Union Avoidance,” but it basically just means “Union busting, in a suit.” Three: Delay, delay, delay. It’s illegal for employers to cancel a vote on whether to unionize. But they skirt the law to keep that vote from happening as long as possible. And while they’re delaying, they play dirty tricks to stop a union’s momentum. Before a recent labor election in Buffalo, Starbucks flooded stores with managers to pressure workers. One Starbucks employee reported he was told to go to a meeting, only to be greeted by six managers pressuring him to reject the union. So that’s how many managers it takes to screw over an employee. Four: If none of these union-busting tactics work, your employer might just break the law. Starbucks recently fired more than twenty union leaders. Amazon fired a union leader for missing work – even though he was on leave to care for a COVID-stricken family member. U.S. employers are charged with violating federal law in over 40% of all union election campaigns. I'm sorry, I just have to pause for a second here. 40% of the time? Really? If I broke the law 40% of the time, I'd be in jail quicker than you can say "Pinkerton!" Are companies allowed to skirt the law like this? No! But labor laws take a long time to enforce – if they’re enforced at all. And the worst that can happen is a corporation has to rehire a worker who it illegally fired and provide back pay. No wonder some companies decide that breaking the law is cheaper than following it. It’s simply a “cost of doing business” for a giant corporation like Amazon. But here’s some good news: A bill called “The PRO Act” would strengthen protections for union organizers and make many kinds of “union avoidance” illegal. Call your lawmakers and ask them to support it today. They won’t just be on the right side of history. They’ll be on the right side of public opinion. A majority of Americans, including 77% of young people, support the right to join a union. Workers at Starbucks and Amazon have refused to be intimidated and have started to unionize. All over the country, American workers are growing wise to corporate union-busting tricks. Big corporations are fighting dirty to keep their workers from organizing – and they’re still losing. Imagine what could happen if they had to fight fair.

#union #Labor Unions #unions #corporations #union busting #video #videos

[argyrocratie]

“In the mainstream conversation around climate change, the most optimistic proposal suggests achieving carbon neutral economies by 2050, which supposedly could keep the temperature from rising more than 2°C. What changes could we expect to see in that most optimistic scenario?

The millions of yearly deaths discussed above would increase as clean water becomes scarcer, droughts and extreme weather events multiply, and desertification spreads. Somewhere around 25 percent of species could go extinct.20 To name just one of the many precious ecosystems that will suffer collapse, 99 percent of coral reefs will die off, leading to the loss of 25 percent of marine species and the livelihoods of 500 million people.21

It will be a world rocked by extreme, deadly heat waves breaking all previous records. The land area subjected to extreme summer heat will quadruple.22 By 2050, the land that 150 million people live on will be reclaimed by the sea, and the land that 300 million people live on will be below the level of annual coastal floods, destroying coastal cities around the world.23 Further rises in sea level would probably be locked in over the following centuries.

This is by no means a rosy picture. Nonetheless, governments, NGOs, and scientific institutions around the world are banking on this scenario as an acceptable level of collateral damage. It is no wonder that the breathless chorus of mainstream voices cheerleading the optimistic goal of going “carbon neutral by 2050” rarely discuss the extreme suffering and devastation that actually accompany their chosen timeline. City governments around the world run web pages touting their “Smart City” plans for public transportation, ride shares, and green energy. Think tanks and NGOs try to whip up enthusiasm for the few politicians who have actually committed to the goal. And barely any of them mention what that rosy scenario means for the planet and its people.

Yet it’s even worse than that. There is no guarantee that going carbon neutral  by 2050 will actually function as the meager containment wall it is being sold as. Scientific predictions relating to climate have consistently underestimated the intensity and timeline of projected changes.24 To name just one example, a summer heatwave in Alaska in 2019 led to a massive salmon die-off. The science director for a local watershed non-profit spoke about a climate model they had prepared just three years earlier, that included moderate and pessimistic scenarios. “2019 exceeded the value we expected for the worst-case scenario in 2069,” she told the media.25

Runaway warming might be caused by a number of feedback loops that are already reaching their tipping point. When the IPCC first introduced the concept of climate tipping points two decades ago, they believed that no such tipping point would be triggered shy of 5°C of warming. Now they recognize that many tipping points can be triggered with just one or two degrees of warming, and there is in fact evidence that some have already begun.26 These include the collapse of ice sheets, which would substantially decrease the portion of the earth’s surface that reflects solar radiation back into space. As the polar regions warm at an accelerated rate, arctic permafrost is beginning to thaw. This has the potential to release a huge amount of methane, a greenhouse gas roughly thirty times more potent than carbon dioxide. Boreal forests in Siberia and North America are also falling victim to warming through more frequent forest fires and insect plagues. The massive tree and soil die-off means the release of more CO2.

The Amazon rainforest, currently home to one in ten species on the planet and absorbing 600 million metric tons of carbon a year,27 is in danger of turning into a giant savanna, or even a desert. Droughts caused by warming, together with deforestation for commercial agriculture, work together to take their toll. The estimate is that when the Amazon loses between 20 and 40 percent of its forest cover, the entire ecosystem will collapse.28

Warming in the oceans is causing the slowdown of Atlantic currents that are vital to the transfer of heat and nutrients that form the basis of marine ecosystems, as well as much of the planet’s weather. This could exacerbate droughts in Africa’s Sahel region and in the Amazon, and would even disrupt the East Asian monsoon, which means the collapse of more habitats, and more suffering for humans and other forms of life.29

The implication is that even if we stop all greenhouse gas emissions today, there may be natural processes under way that force a shift to a new dynamic equilibrium, a “hothouse” planet unlike anything nearly all species alive today have evolved to survive.

What might that look like? A 4.5°C rise in temperature could mean 50 percent of species would go extinct, and that’s only in a short-term analysis.30 By the end of the century, 1 billion people would be displaced and hundreds of millions would fall victim to famine. Fifty-five percent of the world’s human population would suffer more than 20 days of lethal heat a year; it’s more than a hundred days a year in the middle latitudes. Between scorching conditions and the collapse of insect populations, crop yields could decrease by a fifth or more.31 It’s no wonder that even the World Bank says that 4°C of warming might be “beyond adaptation” for human civilization.32 The hot period could easily last 200,000 years.33

As we shall see, the experts cannot solve this problem, and they have already wasted valuable decades. The subtext to the official conversation belies a staggering apathy. We will not be the ones to die. All those who disappear, human and otherwise, are an acceptable loss. We will come out on top.

For many people—especially among policy makers and experts—there is a truth to that mindset, at least for now. The millions of human deaths caused by the ecological crisis every year are not shared equally. Most of them occur in the Global South

However, while the semantic distinction between Global North and Global South is useful, many of the same processes occur in both places; the world is not as divided as those on top want to believe. For example, though the 60,000 people killed on average every year by extreme weather events mostly live in the Global South, so-called wealthy countries are not immune. The 2003 heat wave in Europe, for example, led to 70,000 excess deaths. Needless to say, few of them were living in the houses of the wealthy, with their high ceilings and air conditioning. And while 92 percent of pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, 800,000 people die every year from air pollution in Europe and 155,000 die every year in the US.34 Still, even these deaths are unevenly distributed. Not many rich people live near industrial parks and toxic waste dumps.

In settler states like the US, Canada, Australia, and Argentina, class is largely inscribed by the historical legacy of colonialism, with the descendants of enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples subjected to conditions that the global distribution of wealth and power usually reserves for the Global South. When Hurricane Katrina descended on New Orleans in 2005, killing 1,800 people, anyone paying attention saw that the way infrastructure was built in poor and Black neighborhoods left people vulnerable, whereas infrastructure in wealthy white neighborhoods was designed to protect people. And contrary to the spontaneous initiatives of mutual aid that constituted the primary life saver, with neighbors helping neighbors survive the storm, and ex-Black Panthers and anarchists setting up the first on-site clinic,35 government responses focused on shooting neighbors trying to take clean water or diapers from supermarkets, and then making sure that only middle-class and wealthy residents could return to the city, “gentrification by God.” As Neil Smith wrote in the aftermath of that storm, “there is no such thing as a natural disaster.”36 The disaster was produced and directed by economic and political structures.

Those who currently hold power in our society, those who have failed us tragically, do not have our interests at heart, nor those of the planet. And in fact, our interests and the interests of the earth are one and the same. We do not know how disastrous these next decades will be. But there is one certainty that can give us hope and courage: there is not a single scenario in which taking action, in defense of ourselves, in defense of one another, in defense of all the interconnected life on this planet, will not make things better.”

- Peter Gelderloos, “ The Solutions are Already Here”

#global warming #climate change #peter gelderloos

[erkhyan]

I keep seeing people trying to reassure us that LLMs and genAI won’t endanger our jobs, and offering arguments on why it won’t happen.

Y’all in your ivory towers really are out of touch, aren’t you?

I’m a translator who burned out of the industry in freaking 2019 due to being unable to compete with machine translation in sheer wordcount.

My mother, brother, sister-in-law, and 120 of their coworkers lost their copywriting jobs in early 2023, with their (French) employer explicitly telling them that the reason is “there’s a cheaper app that can do the same job now”.

My coworkers from my old translation job? The top performer died in 2022 of an overwork-triggered stroke. And the rest of them, all 40 of them, were fired in late 2023. Quote the (American) employer, “Our clients don’t wish to pay for human translators anymore.” Note that said clients included money-strapped entities such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

LLMs and genAI won’t endanger our jobs? Bud, we’re on the Titanic, the entire front of the ship is already underwater and a large percentage of steerage has already drowned, and you’re standing on the topmost deck still trying to convince your fellow first-class passengers that the big ship is not in trouble.

#rant

[mariacallous]

In a move that surely made the Succession theme play in the heads of all who got the push notification, Rupert Murdoch announced today that the “time is right” for him to step down as chair of Fox Corporation and News Corp, ending his seven-decade reign as mastermind of the media landscape. His retirement won’t begin until November, but the great unbundling of his media empire has already begun.

Still, what an empire it is, or was. Murdoch, 92, got his start at 21 years old, when his father died and left him in charge of his relatively small Australian newspaper company. On taking the helm, he upped circulation by shifting their coverage to be more tabloidy. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s he continued to build that portfolio, gobbling up everything from The Sun in the UK to The Village Voice and New York magazine in the US.

By the 1980s, Murdoch was casting his gaze toward film and TV, taking over regional news stations and the movie studio 20th Century Fox. The Fox broadcast network launched in 1986, Fox News a decade later. By the early aughts, Murdoch set his sights on new media, writing a Scrooge McDuck–sized $580 million check to then-superhot social network Myspace.

Soon, a spark lit a fuse that set the whole dumpster on fire.

It’s an easy shorthand to say “Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp ruined discourse,” but that’s also not far from the truth. (The notion of “truth” is also something Murdoch’s empire has had a hand in destabilizing.) News Corp ownership effectively ruined Myspace, making way for platforms like Facebook and Twitter to host the public square, but the influence of Murdoch and his companies spread regardless. As WIRED reporters Vittoria Elliott and Peter Guest noted earlier this year, Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson “helped bring often dangerous misinformation into the mainstream around the world.” Murdoch may have never controlled Facebook or Twitter, but the people his companies platformed dominated the conversation on them anyway.

“For Rupert Murdoch, all of his media empire was a way of trying to push certain ideas,” says Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.

In the US, this was most evident in the way Fox News wed itself with the Trump administration, a marriage that was for a long time beneficial to both parties but also led to Fox News agreeing to pay $787 million to settle a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems that “would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election,” as the Associated Press put it. It also led to revelations that Carlson, in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection, sent texts saying that he hated Trump “passionately.” Carlson was canned by Fox News in April.

Murdoch newspapers in the UK backed Brexit and got caught up in a phone hacking scandal. In Australia, where his family’s news empire still holds massive influence, Murdoch periodicals showed skepticism about climate change. Today, as news spread that Murdoch was stepping down, Angelo Carusone, the CEO of watchdog group Media Matters for America, issued a statement saying, “The world is worse off because of Rupert Murdoch. No one should sugarcoat the damage he caused.”

Still, the empire Murdoch built, though vast, is dwindling. Murdoch pushed out Roger Ailes, the man behind the ascent of Fox News, in 2016. (Ailes died a year later.) News Corp sold off 21st Century Fox to Disney in 2019 for $71.3 billion. (Fox News and the Fox broadcast network were spun off into Fox Corporation as a result of the deal.) As of this summer, News Corp profits are down 75 percent year over year. As the media industry goes through a series of massive shake-ups ranging from the Warner Bros. and Discovery merger to the increasing dominance of Apple and Amazon, everything is getting unbundled and rebundled, including Murdoch’s empire.

Not that Murdoch hasn’t tried to have a hand in how those bundles come together. Murdoch abandoned a plan earlier this year to consolidate Fox Corporation and News Corp, a move he said could give the entertainment and publishing business better scale, after shareholders opposed it. “Fox is certainly diminished,” Carusone says. “I don’t think they’re going to be able to keep this big thing together.”

When Murdoch steps down in the fall, his son, Lachlan, will become chair of News Corp and remain Fox Corporation’s CEO and executive chair. (Cue the “eldest boy” memes.) It remains to be seen where Lachlan will take the empire from here or whether he’ll be able to maintain the same hold on political messaging as his father. Following the transition, Rupert Murdoch plans to stay on as chair emeritus of the companies, and in a message to his staff today said that in his new role he would still “be involved every day in the contest of ideas.” Perhaps, though, with his empire shrinking, that contest will no longer be an all-out war.

[xipiti]

Washington (CNN Business)Amazon's smart-doorbell company, Ring, has provided surveillance footage to law enforcement without a warrant or the consent of doorbell-owners 11 times this year alone, according to a letter Amazon (AMZN (AMZN)) sent to Congress earlier this month.

The disclosure highlights the degree of Amazon's control over data generated by the doorbells' cameras and microphones, as well as its deepening relationships with thousands of police departments across the country.

The July 1 letter responding to questions by Sen. Ed Markey and made public by his office on Wednesday shows that Ring frequently makes its own "good-faith determinations" as to whether to provide surveillance data to law enforcement absent a warrant or the consent of the doorbell owner.

Under its policies, Ring "reserves the right to respond immediately to urgent law enforcement requests for information in cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person," the letter read. The company also requires police to fill out a special "emergency request form" if there is an urgent need to bypass the normal law enforcement process, according to the letter.

In each of the 11 cases this year, Amazon's VP of Public Policy Brian Huseman wrote, Ring determined that the police requests met the imminent-danger threshold and provided the information "without delay."

Huseman's letter said Ring currently partners with 2,161 law enforcement agencies (and 455 fire departments) that can request surveillance data from Ring doorbells — a figure that Markey, in a release, said represented a five-fold increase from November 2019.

#Amazon ring #surveillance state

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday Scottish actor Richard Madden born June 18th 1986 in Elderslie.

Richard was raised by his mother, Pat, a classroom assistant and his father, Richard, who worked for the fire service. He also has two sisters, Cara and Lauren.

His parents were “hippies”, he says, and their house was pretty open, with friends always piling in for big vegetarian meals. Madden spent a lot of time outside, in the woods behind their house. He has several injuries: he shows me where he shot his dad’s old air pistol and blew off part of his finger, then managed to wreck the same finger when he nailed a wooden plank to his skateboard, then crashed it, so apart from the Hippie parents it was much like most of our own days as bairns.

Despite growing up wanting to be an actor, Richard was very shy during his childhood. To overcome this, at age 11, he joined Paisley Arts Centre’s youth theatre program. In 1999 he was given the lead role as Sebastian Simpkins in BBC1’s children’s TV comedy series Barmy Aunt Boomerang, that’s him aged 12 in the first pic with co-star Toyah Wilcox.. By 2000, he’d made his feature film debut in the Iain Banks adaptation, Complicity.

After high school he was accepted to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland and in 2007, he graduated.

Less than two years later, Richard had a recurring role as Dean McKenzie on the 2009 BBC series Hope Springs. Soon after, he landed the role of Ripley in the 2010 movie Chatroom, a film about a group of teenagers who encourage each other’s bad behaviours after meeting online. In the same year, Richard played punk band Theatre of Hate singer Kirk Brandon in Worried About the Boy, a TV film about the life of British singer-songwriter Boy George.

In 2011 Richard landed his breakthrough role as Robb Stark in the HBO fantasy-drama series Game of Thrones. Also in 2011, he played gay paramedic Ashley Greenwick on the short-lived British comedy-drama Sirens. During hiatus from filming Game of Thrones in 2013, Richard was cast to star as Prince Charming in the 2015 Disney film Cinderella.

Richard won his first Screen Actors Guild award in 2014 for the Discovery Channel mini-series, Klondike. He played Bill Haskell, one of two adventurers who travel to Yukon, Canada during the Klondike Gold Rush in the 1890s. He further enhanced his reputation as a good actor when he appeared in the BBC drama Bodyguard in 2018, the following year he played Lieutenant Joseph Blake in the film 2017 and was Elton John’s manager/lover in the biop of the star Rocketman.

In January 2019 Madden won  a prestigious Golden Globe for his role as war veteran David Budd in the BBC show Bodyguard. He also appeared in the 2019 war movie 1917.

We last saw Richard in the movie,  Eternals, which was okay, but nothing great, he is one of several actors being touted as the next James Bond,

James is currently in the Amazon Prime series Citadel, I've watched the first three episodes and am not really impressed with it,I think he does pull of the American accent well, but I noticed there have been people saying he doesn't pull it off, Madden revealed he spoke in the accent for two years straight to prepare for the series. The show has been earmarked for a second series. Richard is set to appear in the feature film Killer Heat next.

In July 2019, Madden received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. When asked about his personal life during a New York Times interview following speculation about his relationships and sexuality, Madden stated: “I just keep my personal life personal.”

Madden was recently named one of ‘Scotland’s Sexiest Men'  following a new study that identifies the most attractive features for men, he has competition though,  also in the running are Bathgate’s David Tennant  and Glasgow’s James McAvoy,

#scotland #scottish #actor #television #cinema #happy birhtday

[lashton-is-my-drug]

Luke and Ash living together at Ash’s house during quarantine lockdown and got more serious than ever before.

Amazon Music and Spilling The Quarrantea livestreams, plus other things.

1. The food situation. Discourse back and forth between Luke and Ash of being out of food, during both livestreams.

Both talking about being out of groceries and kept bringing up fish fingers and chicken fingers/nuggets. Pretended to both go get groceries when Michael said the grocery store (Ralph's) just restocked. Ash is the first to get up and leave, fast. Luke only starts to get up to leave.

It seems like perhaps Ash is the one that does the grocery shopping. Ash is the one who says he's going to the store when he can. Luke doesn't offer that idea up. Luke seems like he was sulking because he didn't have the foods he likes. Notice how his demeanor is when they're talking about not having food, in the Quarrantea livestream. Luke even tries to make a point by asking everyone what they're having for dinner, Ash reiterates his fish fingers situation, Michael gives an answer that he hasn't even given it a thought.

2. Amazon Music livestream, Pink Floyd, Lashton listening to Pink Floyd together. Public mentions by both.

a. August 13, 2021 Pink Floyd was one of the influences for Luke’s solo album. Luke brings them up when talking about his song ‘Beautiful Dream’ (Nylon mag interview ) 

b. Ash worn lots of PF band tees throughout the years (incl. recent pap pics of him walking with Cal via his own twitter May 1, 2019).

c. Ash tweet using “Welcome to the Machine” businessman on fire artwork March 20, 2020.

d. During Luke’s August 2021 interview with Billboard for WFTTWTAF, “I listened to so much Pink Floyd in the past couple of years, especially [during lockdown], and was very influenced by them, particularly Dark Side of the Moon." Billboard 20 Questions interview.

e. ”Welcome to the Machine” from the “Wish You Were Here” EP to Ash’s ig story on Dec 16, 2021.

f. Ash posted a video to his ig story of Pink Floyd “Echoes” in Pompeii performance on July 20, 2022.

3. Spilling the Quarrantea - Luke saying Ash only started growing his own vegetables “10 minutes ago” (He’s clued into this small detail, Ash doesn’t argue it)

4. The only thing Luke had to say about Sierra during lockdown was that she had been making bread (so was many of the population) - not from livestreams but interesting enough to include.

5. Spilling the Quarrantea - The room Luke is in has very similar style to the room Ash is in (possibly in the same house, noteworthy)

6. Ash promo pic of Superbloom includes similar wallpaper than the wallpaper in Luke’s studio room. (same house? wallpaper shopping together?)

7. I’m suspicious that Luke’s WFTTWTAF ig live was at Ash’s house

8. Luke gets the rose tattoo (Ash has one on his arm). Fans notice in picture August 6. 2021.

9. Luke and Ash each wear the black onyx rings for Twitch stream ranking 5SOS songs (Aug 19, 2021), (Lierra engagement announced June 8, 2021 via People), so he’s engaged yet wearing a matching ring with someone else…. Ok

10. Muke isn’t real, Michael reads wattpad fanfic in front of a huge livestream of fans. A partner wouldn’t do that. Ash swooped in to save the situation by making up his own funny one about Cal.

11. Ash took the trip to the desert to go create his solo album, meanwhile Luke creates his own album back in LA. They gave each other a bit of space in their creative processes to write. Pick someone supportive.

12. Ash writes songs about lies, pain, and he’s so tortured, yet publicly he is supposedly in a happy relationship (which is whats being pushed on social media). Ash’s relationship ends lowkey sometime before his birthday but after release of album. Releases his album independently. Then, right before Luke’s album is released on a record label under Sony, there’s an engagement with the gf who is also a songwriter on his album which is being promoted in his album interviews.

13. Luke writing songs about Camellia Street and a change of heart. The narrative is it's where Sierra’s apartment was when they met, but what’s not being said is there’s actually a Camellia Street in Western Sydney where the guys are from. If he were to say that and Sierra hasn’t lived in Aus, then it leaves it open for question (who is Luke having ‘a change of heart’ with?).

14. Luke writing lyrics “Now with my eyes wide open, I’m nothing but a fake”, “I’m on my way to Wonderland, take off my suit  and wander in for a moment Or hide for a lifetime”

15. Ash writes songs about lying and living in a cage (“Perfect Lie”) and lyrics such as, “I’ve been living my life but it’s not how it looks” and “Playin’ but not on the team” (“Sunshine”).

Amazon Music Livestream March 27, 2020

Link to Amazon Music livestream

The moment Ash leaves to go pee, Luke looks away from screen..

Cal remarks about Luke’s background, Ash makes a joke “that's not blurred that the clouds bro, Luke lives up in the hills.” Cal: “He doesn’t like those jokes.” Ash: “I love it! He hates them!” *continues laughing* (this reminds me of when Ash brought up the nickname “breadstick”/a>)

Ash helps Luke with figuring out how to get the chat. “You need to get it fullscreen Luke.” (Helping one another)

Luke “Ashton, where do you buy your glasses? The toilet store” Ash “No no no, Don’t encourage him! 2002 Simpsons humor!” Luke laughing (Luke dishing it back at Ash)

Ash “Luke, here’s one, you bogus!”

Ash “Heartbreak Grill” Luke “Heartbake girl” Burgers versus cookies. Ash starts to fight him on it but then lets it go.

Luke is stone faced and quiet when Ash starts talking about his ‘long lost love bodybuilder gf in high school’.

Ash’s dinner last night was 8 chicken nugs and a bag of popcorn. (In an interview, Ash said of the whole band, he’s the best cook and Luke is the worst, Ash poked fun at Luke microwaves eggs, perhaps Luke doesn’t cook much at all at home so Ash fends for himself often. Also, if Ash supposedly has a gf why didn’t she help figure out food?)

Ash: “Here's a good comment. Luke speak, I want to hear your voice” (Very smooth Ash. Ash has spoken a lot in interviews about how much he loves Luke’s voice. A couple of examples: backstage 2018 ARIAS Seconds of Summer: Backstage at ARIAs 2018 (5SOS Uncut), promo interview for Superbloom )

Ash: “Do you mind if I go upstairs and make a sandwich and be back in 20 mins?” Luke: “a chicken nuggets sandwich?” (the ongoing references to chicken nuggets/fish fingers, they are sharing a freezer/fridge)

Ash chooses a comment asking to sing Pink Floyd, Ash impromptu singing “Wish You Were Here”. “Uh! I’ve got that one!” * Luke immediately picks the guitar back up and starts playing a couple chords with a grin on his face* 

(44:00) Luke has heart eyes and touches his eye with his hand, when Ash ends the story he wrote to redirect attention of livestream from the super uncomfortable wattpad Luke romance fanfic that Michael reads.

(48:50) Ash reads a “worst” comment to sing Lady Gaga but yet starts singing “Perfect Illusion”.

(about 50:00) Randomly Ash says “You’re telling me, you’ve seen a million faces and you’ve rocked them all?” *Luke laughs* A lyric of one of Luke’s longtime favorite bands Bon Jovi. Again, Luke picks up guitar then plays a few notes of “Dead or Alive”.

(about 52:00) Ash reads a comment to listen to “Toxic” by Britney Spears. Ash then dances to it. Luke with huge grin on his face, bopping his head.

(about 57:30) Ash reads a comment for Luke to sing SLSP. Luke picks up guitar and starts playing. Ash “that rocked, that rocked my world”

(about 1:00:00) Fun fact: Empty Wallets was the first single they wanted to release off of Youngblood. (Lashton song, but that’s for a different day.)

(about 1:00:00) Ash “Here’s one. ‘Luke sing “Single Ladies” by Beyonce.’ I want to see that.” starts singing “put your hands up”

(about 1:02:00) Luke compliments Ash doing low screams, then says he can do the low screams and Luke can do the high screams.

 (about 1:04:00) Ash “I like this comment. ‘This is what real men vibe to.’ Damn right. That’s… thats true” *smiles* Luke: “Damn straight”

Over the course of the livestream, Ash reads out comments to read Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Beyonce.

Spilling the Quarrantea April 20, 2020

Link to Spilling the Quarrantea livestream

Luke and Ash both say that they are low on food, then when Michael says Ralph’s just restocked they both pretend to go together. Ash keeps repeating he only had fish fingers to eat, and Luke saying deflatedly that he has nothing left. When they get back into frame, Luke picks a quarrel by saying he bought all of the fish fingers so he can’t have any. Ash “I’m already down to my last groceries” Luke “Yeah I’ve got nothing left.” It’s brought up again later on. Ash “I just ate my last bag of fish fingers” Luke “yeah I’ve got no, I’ve got no food. I just ate my last chicken fingers.”” Luke brings up “what are you guys having for dinner?” Ash “I ate my fish fingers until I brave the outside world.” *Luke’s small awkward laugh*

Ash: “How was Ralph’s?” Luke: “Ralph’s was good. I bought all the fish fingers and there’s none left for you”

Luke and Ash being in sync so much they both turn to the side and lean down at the same time, at the end.

Ash makes a joke about Petunia being Luke’s roommate. Notice how much Luke and Ash are making jokes and ganging up on Cal and/or Michael.

Right at the beginning, Ash starts pretty much serenading Luke by playing the guitar and singing “Hey Carissa” to him.

Luke starts singing “Come come with a kick drum and a gary” and Ash is the only one that immediately starts clapping along.

Cal asks what they’ve been up to, that he hasn't seen them for two weeks, and Luke jokes about finishing the 5th album. Luke and Ash: “Gotta hit’em with a two hit wonder”, they both start shadowboxing.

Luke and Ash gang up on Cal about his outfit being a surf culture company. (Mind you, they themselves have been spotted before wearing the same company). Luke and Ash are losing their shit laughing.

Ash says “this is gotta be x rated, x rated, parental guidance rating for that fringe” when Luke’s bangs are in front of his headphones. Luke and Ash smirk and laugh.

Luke: I was trying to get the lighting right, does it look better or worse?” Ash “guess so, guess so” Luke: “It's hard to get lighting right” *Ash laughing* Ash “So hard” more laughing while Luke then pouts. (Luke has a pattern, since they’ve known each other, of pouting and fake crying to Ash, if he wants to get his way or feels like he’s let him down.)

Luke is asked “What have you been up to?” Luke: “I’ve been growing this beard, dyed my hair for a music video that didn’t happen” Ash flamboyantly says “you look amaaaaazing”. 

Luke does a move with his hands thinking it was a move for the music video for “Lost Boy”. Luke: “That's that video we did this thing.” Ash: *agrees softly to him* (a music video doesn’t exist for “Lost Boy”.)

Ash remembers Luke’s mom's tuna bake “that shit was good”. Luke jokes: “sounds like you're gonna make a your momma joke” Ash: “it was good” (a memory involving Luke’s mom is something that Ash recalls from their time in London, of which all the guys were just saying they don’t remember anything from then.)

Luke and Ash having their own conversation about Ash shaving his head for the album promo. Which then leads to joking about host mode. Luke bullies Ash about asking Michael about his least favorite song on the first album, Ash fondly laughs.

Ash tries again to get Luke to go into host mode, but then Luke tries to put it onto Michael to host.

At about the 26:00 mark, Luke and Ash are mirroring each other's head tilts.

“The Girl Who Cried Wolf” Luke and Ash copy each other’s “it's just lies!”

Ash “When do you think we’ll be able to see each other again.” Luke gets quiet with a serious look on his face and puts hand in front of his mouth.

(35:00) Ash and Luke mirroring touching the forehead.

Luke bursts out laughing when Ash puts the Ikea site on screen. (Luke finds Ash hilarious for everything istg, it's adorable don't get me wrong)

After the Ikea site, the first google search Ash does is “luke hemmings worst moments” then “luke hemmings net worth”. (Luke is first in Ash’s mind)

Ash mimicking Petunia’s zoned out face.

Ash “wow your roommate’s so hot, whats her name? Patrice?”, when Luke turns around to see Petunia, Ash does the same exact maneuver. Mirroring.

Luke does the “I love you” hand sign, and Ash says “I love you man”.

#5sos #5 seconds of summer #ashton irwin #ashton 5sos #luke hemmings #luke 5sos #amazon music livestream #spilling the quarrantea #ashton fletcher irwin #luke robert hemmings #lashton #lashton hemwin #lashton is real #pandemic lashton #living together #2019 #2020 #2021 #2022 #mirroring #black onyx ring #I love you #lashton living together #pink floyd #wfttwtaf #ashton interview #luke interview #luke hemming's voice #ash loves luke's voice #luke and ashton

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Amazon rainforest study: Brazil led deforestation in 2022

Brazil accounted for nearly half of tropical deforestation globally in 2022, found a new study. Can president Lula da Silva keep his vow to reverse the destruction wrought on the Amazon during his predecessor's term?

In former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's four years in power, vast tracts of the Amazon fell to make way for mining, cattle ranches, and soybean farming. In 2022 alone, the last year of his leadership, almost two million hectares (5 million acres) of forest was lost. 

During his tenure from 2019 to 2022, Bolsonaro's administration weakened regulation and enforcement around deforestation, shrinking the budgets of agencies monitoring environmental crimes and pushing for laws allowing forest-destroying mining on indigenous land.

It took a toll. Deforestation in Brazil in 2015 accounted for just over a quarter of global tree cover loss in tropical primary forests, which are some of the oldest and most untouched forests in the world. That figure grew to 43% in 2022, according to authors of the new Global Forest Watch (GFW) report published by research organization World Resources Institute (WRI). 

The country also saw the highest amount of tree loss not related to fires since 2005, said the report.

Continue reading.

#brazil #politics #brazilian politics #environmentalism #amazon rainforest #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt #imag

[goodboypolly]

A long thought about surprise queer representation:

The term ‘“getting ‘EVERY’ed” isn’t something that can just happen in any context.

The thing about the original EVERY is that it was from a completely unrelated multi show promo from Amazon’s Twitter, and no one paid that split second of Good Omens any mind for a good couple of days. Why would there be a Good Omens kiss in a queer kiss compilation for pride month, after all? Then someone actually watched the promo and went ‘wait a fucking second…’

It was out of fucking nowhere. We didn’t see a kiss coming in a million years.

When I first read the book years ago as a teenager, I fell in love with the idea of Aziraphale and Crowley. But it was a book that was finished and we would never get any new content. So I read every fanfiction written.

Then a show was announced. A mini series. A one off. Six episodes to tell the story of the book updated to the modern era. Like most of us who were fans of the book before the show, I was cautious. It could have been a dumpster fire.

And then it just wasn’t. I remember seeing a post way back in 2019 that summed it up perfectly: I knew I was going to like Crowley. I was always going to like Crowley. But I wasn’t expecting to LOVE Aziraphale. (Or something like that).

They were perfect and the extra scenes and watching these amazing actors actually play these characters gave us so much more fuel. The fandom exploded and we were so lucky to have an influx of ridiculously talented writers and artists and cosplayers joining our ranks.

I saw Neil Gaiman give a talk a mere week before the season 2 announcement was made. He is a professional like no other. I was fully fooled by him sadly saying that Good Omens was only going to be one series. He signed my book and was lovely and fully knew the whole time that he was going to change the trajectory of my fucking life the next week.

The announcement came and I lost my shit. This was something that was never going to get any more content. I was happy watching the same episodes over and over again and listening to different versions of the book or flipping through and rereading my favourite bits.

We were getting more content.

I never expected a kiss.

I don’t think any of us did. I thought we were always going to be living in the ‘it’s a love story, we’re just not going to show it or talk about it’ world. I’m used to being told that my existence as a queer person is meant to be kept as subtext.

It was days out from the show that EVERY dropped. Someone I followed on Twitter reposted it so I saw it. And I froze. I genuinely thought it was an edit. I had to tell myself it was an edit or I’d go insane. For the most part we all stayed silent on the subject. We didn’t want to spoil it for people who hadn’t seen it.

But I was going fucking insane. We weren’t getting a kiss there was no way we were getting a kiss.

When the show dropped I was there the first minute to binge the whole series in one go.

EVERY sitting in the back of my mind for the 5 or so hours of episodes.

Episode 6 was happening. I was 10 minutes out from the end. EVERY hadn’t happened. It must have been an edit.

Schrödinger’s EVERY, if you will.

Then it very much wasn’t.

It was real and it still is and I still lose my mind when I remember that it actually happened.

I don’t think anything else will ever feel like this.

—

For those who never saw it, I present:

#good omens #EVERY #aziracrow #A/C #I saw people joking about being EVERYed by HBO and I just thought about how much nothing will ever compare to the original feeling #this isn’t meant to be wanky #I just want to talk about how insane it is that this actually happened

[bakushinverse]

ジェットジャガー Jet Jaguar | Jetto Jagā [Size Changing Robot with a kickass theme song]

“It appears that Jet will be receiving a baptism of fire. I hope that you’re up to the task my metallic friend. Go and tell Shin Gojira how we say hello on this planet.”

After the events in 2016 of Shin Gojira’s raid on Japan, a coalition of nations including Germany, America, Britain, China, Australia and Japan lent there resources for a contingency plan outside Monarch and the UN’s jurisdiction. In a secret facility located in the unforgiving Australia desert near Uluru, Goro Ibuki’s size changing technology discovered in 2009 was finally put to use in Project Jaguar. Although the project was started in 2018, the project was fast tracked in 2019 after Biollante’s appearance in the Amazon rainforest.

With Monarch’s Antarctic Outpost 32 suddenly overrun with Shin Gojira’s mutant army and Shin Gojira in complete control of the MechaGodzilla Kiryu, all of Monarch’s Outposts went into lockdown as Shin used Kiryu to transmit a global jamming signal, now unable to respond to the threat causing Project Jaguar to be prematurely launched. With Yoroi Godzilla already moving to intercept Shin Gojira, Mothra, Anguirus and Rodan close behind, Jet Jaguar made his way South to assist the Titans against the Mutant King.

Having already engaged Yoroi Godzilla and blasted some his armour plates off and ripped a hole in the opposing King’s neck, severely incapacitating the Titan King, Shin Gojira was ready to kill the downed King near the city of Melbourne. The Stealth Bombers distracted the monstrous ShinGoji Kiryu as Jet Jaguar ambushed the half mech Godzilla from beneath his feet. It allowed Yoroi to heal his neck wounds however with his plates knocked off, Yoroi had become vulnerable and prone to attack from Krystalaks and Shin Gojians.

Jet managed to counter the now literal iron grip of Shin Godzilla however Kiryu's targeting system allowed Shin to target weaknesses in Jet's body and allowed Shin Godzilla to violently attack and pummel the robot mercilessly until it's right arm was ripped off and it's size changing module was destroyed.

This did not stop Jet Jaguar however, as he continued to fight on despite his handicap, somewhat impressing Shin Godzilla with his tenacity.

Height:

Varies (Tallest height is 95m)

Attributes:

Size changing module created by Goro Ibuki

Can punch, punch, punch

Can strategize and adapt to situations

Made of a heat resistant alloy, able to withstand Godzilla’s atomic breath and strength

Inbuilt speakers, so he can his theme for a dramatic entrance

Stronger when not in larger forms, the smaller he is the more dense and durable

Unlike most current technology, will not fail in extreme radioactive areas making him useful for nuclear meltdowns.

Can Punch, Punch, Punch!

Some say he eats sushi from a pail but that is blatantly something lost in translation. 

Personality:

Has a can do attitude

Positive and extremely friendly to anyone that isn’t Shin Gojira

Friend to children

Also a friend to Gamera

Yoroi tolerates him however Legendary Godzilla considers the robot a close friend.

Rodan also likes him which is odd considering Rodan doesn’t like anyone except himself.

One of the few robots that Dr Serizawa likes

Basically everyone loves him. Except ShinGoji, but ShinGoji is an asshole.

Megalon isn’t too fond of him either.

__________________ ShinMonsterVerse Series FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT __________________ SHIN MONSTERVERSE INDEX

#jet jaguar #shin monsterverse #シンゴジラ #kaiju #shin godzilla #bakunawaart #monster #shin godzilla 2 #monster design #megalon #gigan #godzilla #ゴジラ

[kp777]

By Olivia Rosane

Common Dreams

April 4, 2024

"Steep declines in the Brazilian Amazon and Colombia show that progress is possible, but increasing forest loss in other areas has largely counteracted that progress," one expert said.

An annual accounting of global deforestation, released Thursday, shows that political will can make a significant difference when it comes to protecting vital ecosystems and the Indigenous and local communities that depend on them—but that policymakers in many regions are not taking enough action to save tropical forests.

The data, gathered by the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discover Lab and published on the World Resources Institute's (WRI) Global Forest Watch program, found that primary tropical forest loss in 2023 decreased by more than one-third in Brazil and nearly 50% in Colombia after both countries elected leaders who championed conservation policies. However, on the global level, these declines were offset by increased deforestation in other countries.

"The world took two steps forward, two steps back when it comes to this past year's forest loss," Global Forest Watch director Mikaela Weisse said in a statement. "Steep declines in the Brazilian Amazon and Colombia show that progress is possible, but increasing forest loss in other areas has largely counteracted that progress. We must learn from the countries that are successfully slowing deforestation."

"This year's forest loss numbers tell an inspiring story of what we can achieve when leaders prioritize action, but the data also highlights many urgent areas of missed opportunity to protect our forests and our future."

All told, 3.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests were felled last year at a rate equivalent to 10 soccer fields per minute. While tropical deforestation decreased by 9% in 2023 compared with 2022, the overall deforestation rate has held steady when compared to 2019 and 2021. Tree clearing released 2.4 metric gigatons of climate pollution into the atmosphere, which is nearly half of the U.S.'s yearly emissions from burning fossil fuels.

"Forests are critical ecosystems for fighting climate change, supporting livelihoods, and protecting biodiversity," WRI President and CEO Ani Dasgupta said in a statement.

Global Forest Watch focuses on the tropics because more than 96% of human-caused deforestation occurs there. However, the climate crisis contributed to making 2023 a devastating year for global tree loss, which rose 24% due to record-breaking wildfires in Canada's boreal forests.

"That is one of the biggest anomalies on record," University of Maryland researcher Matt Hansen toldReuters, adding, "It's a big deal, and it's a cautionary tale for climate impacts to fire."

In the tropics, Brazil managed to cut primary deforestation by 36%, the lowest level in the country since 2015. The country moved from being responsible for 43% of tropical deforestation in 2022 to 30% in 2023.

The decline coincided with the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who replaced former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro oversaw record deforestation as he prioritized exploitative industries over forest protections and Indigenous rights. Since taking office in early 2023, Lula has reversed course by promising to end deforestation by 2030, ramping up enforcement efforts against illegal forest clearing, rolling back anti-environmental measures, and recognizing new Indigenous territories.

"We're incredibly proud to see such stark progress being made across the country, especially in the Brazilian Amazon," Mariana Oliveira, who manages the Forests, Land Use, and Agriculture Program for WRI Brazil, said in a statement.

In Brazil, Amazon forest loss decreased by 39%, though deforestation increased in the vulnerable and vital Cerrado and Pantanal ecosystems.

"We still have a very long ways to improve and sustain the efforts, and I hope today's release energizes the national and subnational governments in Brazil—and governments around the world—to build on this momentum rather than using it as an excuse to slow down," Oliveira said.

The other 2023 success story was Colombia, which curbed primary forest loss by 49%. This reversal followed the election of left-wing President Gustavo Petro Urrego, who took office in August 2022 with Vice President Francia Márquez, a Goldman Environmental Prize winner. After a 2016 peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, other armed groups and other opportunists moved into territories they had vacated, increasing forest loss. Petro has prioritized conservation in negotiating peace agreements with these other armed groups.

"The story of deforestation in Colombia is complex and deeply intertwined with the country's politics, which makes 2023's historic decrease particularly powerful," WRI Colombia natural resources manager Alejandra Laina said in a statement. "There is no doubt that recent government action and the commitment of the communities has had a profound impact on Colombia's forests, and we encourage those involved in current peace talks to use this data as a springboard to accelerate further progress."

Despite the good news out of Brazil and Colombia, upticks in deforestation in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Laos counteracted that progress on the global level. In Bolivia, forest loss rose by 27% to reach the greatest loss on record for a third consecutive year. A little over half of this was due to fires that spread more readily because of climate-fueled drought, while the rest was due to the expansion of agriculture, particularly soy. Agriculture was the main force behind deforestation in Nicaragua—which cleared 4.2% of its remaining primary forest—and Laos, which saw record loss of 47%.

Deforestation rates also continued to creep upward in Congo at 3% in 2023. This is concerning because the Congo rainforest is the last tropical forest that reliably acts as a carbon sink, and because of its importance to local communities.

"Forests are the backbone of livelihoods for Indigenous people and local communities across Africa, and this is especially true in the Congo Basin," Teodyl Nkuintchua, the Congo Basin strategy and engagement lead at WRI, said in a statement. "Dramatic policy action must be taken in the Congo Basin to enact new development pathways that support a transition away from unsustainable food and energy production practices, while improving well-being for Indigenous people and local communities as much as revenues for countries."

The new data comes as world leaders have six years to meet their promise, made at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in 2021, of ending deforestation by 2030. However, WRI found that nearly 2 million more hectares were cleared in 2023 than would be consistent with meeting that goal, Mongabayreported.

WRI global forest director Rod Taylor told reporters that the world was "far off track and trending in the wrong direction when it comes to reducing global deforestation."

WRI's Dasgupta said: "The world has just six years left to keep its promise to halt deforestation. This year's forest loss numbers tell an inspiring story of what we can achieve when leaders prioritize action, but the data also highlights many urgent areas of missed opportunity to protect our forests and our future."

Taylor added that the rest of the world could not rely on individual leaders like Lula or Petro, but should take steps to encourage deforestation such as making it more profitable to preserve forests than to clear them, making sure global supply chains are deforestation free, and protecting the land rights of Indigenous peoples.

"Bold global mechanisms and unique local initiatives together are both needed to achieve enduring reductions in deforestation across all tropical front countries," Taylor said.

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