Bread and Circuses

For those who have asked, and others who might be wondering, I've decided that I badly need a mental health break. The toll of reading and writing every day about catastrophic collapse is just too depressing. And I figure I can't do much good for anyone else if I don't take care of myself first.

Question: Who benefits from all this? Who gets richer and more powerful week after week? Is it you or me?
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It's here!! Another week of BUSINESS AS USUAL, sponsored this time by Shell Oil, Koch Industries, and the US Army.

🎶 "Keep driving, keep flying, keep shopping, keep buying!
We've got this, everything's fine." 🎶 😃

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

#SilentSunday

Of course I would prefer no cars at all, but this is certainly an improvement…

Today, 21 June, is Show Your Stripes day. Here's mine...

#ShowYourStripesDay #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange

Is it possible to imagine a version of social media where privacy is respected, where users are empowered, and where Big Tech has no say?

Yes!!

▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRJHIJy5Nno

It’s Friday again, and if you’re looking for great accounts to follow, here are some more of my favorites! 👏

@Climatehistories@mastodon.social
@Ruth_Mottram@fediscience.org
@KeithDJohnson@sfba.social
@stux@mstdn.social
@gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green

#FollowFriday

Julian Scaff, design leader and futurist at the ArtCenter College of Design in California, has some ideas on "Designing for Degrowth and Sufficiency" — how to plan and build the better civilization that might come next, after this one collapses.

The time to start doing that is right now.
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Rather than designing for engagement, scale, and consumer satisfaction, we must begin designing for enough. In a post-growth world, convenience is not a virtue. It’s a trap.

Designers must create experiences that slow users down, that reward repair and discourage waste. Instead of accelerating extraction, design can become a force for restraint, consciousness, and care. We must abandon metrics that measure “success” by clicks and conversions and embrace indicators like ecological impact, user resilience, and system health.

If we fail to act, the likely outcome is not a cyberpunk techno-dystopia but ecological collapse, mass migration, food and energy crises, and a dramatic reduction in the global population.

In the worst-case scenario, surviving humans may return to small-scale, subsistence farming or hunter-gatherer societies, clinging to life in the last habitable zones near the poles. Our most advanced tools, languages, and cultures could be lost, or preserved only as myths.

But we have another choice.

If extractive capitalism gave us addictive apps, infinite scrolling, and fast fashion, then the next civilization must give us designs that honor limits, restore ecosystems, and reflect the dignity of all life.

This is not an incremental design challenge. It is a civilizational one.
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FULL ESSAY ➡️ https://medium.com/the-futureplex/7-steps-for-designing-the-next-civilization-a-call-to-action-for-ux-interaction-and-human-2a3779107830

#Economics #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Degrowth

Trump is bad enough, obviously. He’s a horrible person and a dangerous demagogue.

But even worse, I think, are the billionaire tech-bros and crypto-crims whose money made Trump’s (and Vance’s) election possible...
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“These guys think they’re Superman, that they’re genetically endowed with superior characteristics, and that their genes should populate the Earth,” says Dartmouth sociology professor Brooke Harrington, who studies the ultra-rich and has helped popularize the term “broligarchy.”

As their wealth has grown, the tech right’s long-standing opposition to government ­regulation has shifted toward a more extreme, neo-­reactionionary, and antidemocratic frame of mind. Why should the “fittest” men submit themselves to taxes, regulation, DEI accountability? Why shouldn’t they be the ones in charge, if not here in America then in their floating island “network states” or on their interplanetary colonies? And if pesky government interference threatens the development of the miraculous tech that will allow these things to come to pass, why shouldn’t the American government be bought, infiltrated, and managed just like a tech startup, with total corporate control and the “fittest” guys at the top of the roster?

That was the next logical move once the tech elite had enough money to pull it off. “The broligarchs believe they are entitled to own everything and rule everything,” Harrington says. “If your goal is to own everything worldwide, if that is actually your ketamine-­addled goal, then you need to destroy any institution that has the power to hold you accountable. Buying the U.S. government is a brilliant strategy: ‘Fuck democracy. We own it, we bought it, and we’re running it the way we want.’ ”
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FULL ARTICLE ➡️ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/billionaires-psychology-tech-politics-1235358129/

#Politics #Economics #Capitalism #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange

We will shoot past the 1.5°C target, averaged over 20 years, by the end of this decade. There’s no way to prevent it.

After that, to avoid 2C, 3C, or even 4C, it will take a massive and — dare we say? — highly unlikely global effort to unite in slashing carbon emissions at an unprecedented rate.
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For global average temperatures to stabilize at less than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, humanity needs to achieve 43% greenhouse gas emissions cuts by 2030. But progress on climate action has stagnated in recent years, global GHG emissions are yet to peak, and our remaining carbon budget is dwindling.

Above 1.5°C of warming, we risk passing critical tipping points in natural Earth systems, triggering self-perpetuating changes that could shift the planet out of the habitable zone for humanity and for life as we know it. Even with rapid, large-scale action on climate change, crossing some tipping points may now be unavoidable.
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LEARN MORE ➡️ https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/climate-futures-whats-ahead-for-our-world-beyond-1-5c-of-warming/

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

Surpassing 1.5°C is a given. It's unavoidable. The only question now is how far beyond that we will go.
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The unprecedented warming that began in 2023, continued through 2024, and extended into 2025 has caused surprise and alarm. Scientists still don’t fully understand the cause, but some fear it signals the global climate is transitioning into a new state of accelerated warming.

2024 was the first full calendar year to exceed 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. A recent projection finds it likely Earth will see a 20-year average warming of 1.5°C by as early as 2029, exceeding a key Paris accord goal, and which could trigger self-perpetuating changes pushing Earth’s climate into a less habitable state.
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LEARN MORE ➡️ https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/climate-futures-world-leaders-failure-to-act-is-pushing-earth-past-1-5c/

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

Don't blame people. Don't blame the whole world. Blame those who actually deserve it.

Blame the leaders of business and government in the world's richest nations. They are the ones actively destroying our climate and environment.
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Four wealthy nations — the United States, Canada, Norway, and Australia — account for the majority of planned oil and gas expansion over the next decade, according to new data published by Oil Change International.

The analysis, titled 'Planet Wreckers', notes that if those four Global North nations stopped their planned oil and gas extraction, 32 billion tons of carbon pollution would stay in the ground instead of being burned and released into the atmosphere where they fuel planetary heating. That's the equivalent of three times the annual global emissions created by burning coal.

"A handful of the world's richest nations remain intent on leading us into disaster. This is not just hypocrisy. It is a death sentence for communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis," Oil Change International's Romain Ioualalen said in a statement.

"It is sickening that countries with the highest incomes and outsized historical responsibility for causing the climate crisis are planning massive oil and gas expansion with no regard for the lives and livelihoods at stake," Ioualalen added.
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➡️ https://www.commondreams.org/news/oil-change-report-planet-wreckers

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

The news we didn’t need right now...
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The Brazilian government is preparing to stage an oil exploration auction months before it hosts the Cop30 UN climate summit, despite opposition from environmental campaigners and Indigenous communities worried about the environmental and climate impacts of the plans.

Brazil’s oil sector regulator, ANP, will auction the exploration rights to 172 oil and gas blocks spanning 56,000 square miles (146,000 sq km), an area more than twice the size of Scotland, most of it offshore.

The “doomsday auction”, as campaigners have called it, includes 47 blocks in the Amazon basin, in a sensitive area near the mouth of the river that fossil fuel companies consider a promising new oil frontier.

The auction is key to Brazil’s plans to become the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, an ambition supported by the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who argues that oil revenue will bring economic development and fund the energy transition.
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Business As Usual, baby! Gotta have that economic development while we watch the world burn...

➡️ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/13/brazil-to-auction-oil-exploration-rights-months-before-hosting-cop30

#Economics #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

(You might be tired of this, but the owners of our society are not — and they never will be.)

Let’s all celebrate another week of BUSINESS AS USUAL, sponsored this time by BP, Walmart, and Volkswagen.

🎶 "Keep driving, keep flying, keep shopping, keep buying!
We've got this, everything's fine." 🎶 😃

#Economics #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

#SilentSunday

If you have to move some of your stuff

To get to some of your other stuff

You have too much stuff

The solarpunk thread I posted yesterday (@breadandcircuses@climatejustice.social) elicited some interesting reactions, with at least one commenter suggesting that punks and anarchists can’t *possibly* contribute anything constructive or beneficial to civilized society.

So today this cartoon seems appropriate…

#History #Economics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Degrowth #SolarPunk

Rethinking our priorities...
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What is important in life?

Is it to have the best car and the newest smartphone, or is it to be happy?

Is it to have a high-paid job, or is it to spend time with loved ones and enjoy the beauties of nature?

For critics, degrowth is not very appealing. According to them, it means impoverishment, restraint, scarcity, austerity, or recession. It is seen as a project to reduce the overall prosperity of individuals and societies.

In contrast, I argue that degrowth aims to achieve abundance, prosperity, and richness.

Degrowth is about building societies in which everyone is rich – without much material.

It is impossible to promise everyone to achieve high levels of consumption. Indeed, that would lead to environmental and societal catastrophes. It would also be extremely unfair, as those most suffering from environmental degradation are already the most marginalised.

Instead, degrowth aims to achieve an abundance that does not entail high levels of consumption: a ‘frugal abundance’.
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LEARN MORE ➡️ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-08-26/degrowth-aims-to-achieve-frugal-abundance/

#Economics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateJustice #Degrowth

Let's talk about #Degrowth...

Imagine an economy designed to serve the planet and ALL its inhabitants, not just the most powerful. What might that look like?
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Countries that have overshot ecological limits would scale back their non-essential production and consumption to lessen environmental impacts and to decarbonise more rapidly by:

❇️ Reducing reliance on cheap fossil energy
❇️ Reducing the use of material-intensive luxuries like SUVs, private jets, and oversized homes
❇️ Stopping unsustainable practices such as the industrial production of meat and the culture of fast fashion
❇️ Curbing the wealth excesses of the very rich
❇️ Promoting public transportation over private vehicle use
❇️ Fostering a culture of durability and reparability in consumer goods

Simultaneously, the focus would shift toward enhancing social progress and human well-being by:

🔷 Guaranteeing universal access to high-quality essential public services like healthcare, education, childcare, and transportation
🔷 Ensuring affordable housing and living wages for all
🔷 Implementing a public job guarantee; a nationally-funded program where the municipal government provides jobs to those willing and able to work

Embracing these changes does *not* mean rejecting technology. A balanced approach where technological innovation and efficiency improvements are pursued as long as they are sustainable, safe, and equitable should be encouraged. The focus is on using resources efficiently, distributing them fairly, and scaling down non-essential production to help societies achieve self-sufficiency and justice.
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LEARN MORE ➡️ https://explore.degrowth.net/degrowth/a-degrowth-economy-explained/

#Economics #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateJustice

Our worst nightmares have come true. These monsters are real.
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At a dinner for Big Oil executives last year, Donald Trump promised to give the fossil fuel industry anything it wanted in exchange for $1 billion toward his re-election effort. The dinner was organized by Harold Hamm.

The fossil fuel industry went on to donate $96 million directly to Trump’s campaign; spend $80 million on political advertising; and pour God-knows-how-much cash into dark money groups that don’t have to reveal their donors. Most of the fundraisers were organized by Harold Hamm.

After the election, Trump quickly nominated North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to lead the Department of Interior, which oversees fossil fuel development on federal lands and waters. Burgum is close personal friends with Harold Hamm.

Trump went on to nominate fracking executive and climate denier Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy, which oversees energy policy and research. Wright was hand-selected for the position by Harold Hamm.

While most national media has understandably fixated on Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal bureaucracy, another billionaire’s influence on the Trump administration has slid by largely unnoticed. Hamm, the founder and executive chairman of fracking company Continental Resources, has been instrumental in driving Trump’s full-speed campaign to deregulate the fossil fuel industry.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://heated.world/p/you-already-know-elon-musk-you-need

#USA #USpol #Politics #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange

You can travel everywhere and be anywhen, kid!

#Christmas #Books

Next year will be different!

#COP29 #Climate #ClimateChange

I often go on long walks around my neighborhood for exercise. And I often see ridiculously huge trucks or SUVs parked on the street.

These monstrosities are not only ugly, they're also extremely dangerous.

But fortunately, Jen Sorenson (@jensorensen@mastodon.social) has a solution!

This drawing is a perfect depiction of reality — how the world is run by a corporate dictatorship while you and I are kept complacent, stuffed with bread and circuses.

Read the #AltText for more.

Kevin Anderson is a Professor of Energy and Climate Change, holding a joint chair in the School of Engineering at the University of Manchester (UK), the Centre for Sustainability and the Environment at Uppsala University (Sweden), and the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at Bergen University (Norway).

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Greenwashing

Isn’t this exciting? The United Nations has announced it will hold a climate summit later this year, gathering all the nations of the world to have discussions and make plans for taking on the fight against global warming!!

Except — they’ve done this before, 27 times before in fact, every single year since 1995. And nothing has changed.

But *maybe* this time it will be different. Because COP28 is being held in Dubai, and the president of this year’s conference is Sultan al-Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the world’s largest oil and gas firms.

So, do you think his company will take the lead and show the way to a carbon-free future?

No, I guess not…
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UAE oil giant ADNOC — run by the president of the COP28 climate conference — is expected to spend more than $1 billion every month this decade on fossil fuels, according to new analysis by international NGO Global Witness.

This is nearly seven times higher than its commitment to decarbonization projects over the same timeframe, the research says. It comes ahead of the COP28 climate summit, with Dubai set to host the U.N.’s annual conference from Nov. 30 through to Dec. 12.

Global Witness’ analysis found that ADNOC is planning to spend an average of $1.14 billion a month on oil and gas production alone between now and 2030 — the same year in which the U.N. says the world must cut emissions by 45% to avoid global catastrophe.

It means that ADNOC is forecast to spend nearly seven times more on fossil fuels through to 2030 than it does on “low-carbon solution” projects.

By 2050, the year in which the U.N. says the entire world economy must achieve net-zero emissions, ADNOC is projected to have invested $387 billion in oil and gas. The burning of fossil fuels is the chief driver of the climate emergency.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/04/cop28-adnoc-to-spend-over-1-billion-a-month-on-oil-and-gas-for-years-global-witness-says.html

#COP28 #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

Pave paradise, put up a parking lot...

It’s official. Last month was the hottest July in recorded history, by a wide margin. It likely also was Earth’s hottest single month in more than 100,000 years.

From the Copernicus Climate Change Service…
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🔴 The global average temperature for July 2023 is confirmed to be the highest on record for any month.

🔴 The month was 0.72°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average for July, and 0.33°C warmer than the previous warmest month, July 2019.

🔴 The month is estimated to have been around 1.5°C warmer than the average for 1850-1900.
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MORE INFO — https://climate.copernicus.eu/july-2023-global-air-and-ocean-temperatures-reach-new-record-highs

So, we are now over 1.5°C, at least temporarily. Chances are that August will be at least as hot as July, if not hotter, and September might be as well.

Global average temperatures *should* drop down again below 1.5°C during the upcoming Northern Hemisphere winter — although things have been so wildly off the charts this year, it’s hard to say anything for certain.

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

Has anyone else noticed a gradual warming... or am I deluded?

Is this too much to ask? Evidently it is. 😕

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis
#ClimateAction #WarOnCars #BanCars

Do these little things, and make life better for all of us! 😋

#bicycle #vegan #other #recycling