Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
[vibrating] there will be children who think this weather is normal
Actually that’s air conditioning. Also car centric design but mostly the air conditioning. Talk to old people who were around for the switch and they’ll confirm how much less people went out after you didn’t have to hang out on your porch to survive the heat.
i wrote those tags. i’m neither from a car centric region nor from a place with air-conditioning. i grew up in a fishing town on the baltic sea, where temperatures rarely reached higher than 25/77 much less 30/86°C/F and standing in the ever-present coastal winds was the best reprieve from the summer heat one could ask for.
last year, in the heatwave, we had temperatures if 40/104°C/F for the first time in recorded history. the sand outside was sweltering hot to the touch and the air stood terrifyingly still. i understand that air-conditioning and hiding from the sun is normal for many regions of the world but to experience this in northern europe was terrifying and surreal. to think it might become the new normal even more so.
old people here tell me about painstakingly breaking the ships out if the ice every winter to get them on land. since i’ve been alive, the harbour has frozen twice.
So, there’s apparently research coming out now about microplastics being found in people’s bloodstreams and the possible negative effects of that and I feel the need to get out ahead of the wave of corporate sponsored “be sure to recycle your bottles!” or “ban glitter!” campaigns and remind everyone:
It’s fishing nets. It’s fishing nets. It is overwhelming fishing nets It always has been fishing nets. Unless regulations are changed, it will continue to be fishing nets.
The plastic in the ocean in largely discarded nets from industrial fishing. The microplastics are the result of these nets breaking down. The “trash islands” are also, you guessed it. Mostly fishing nets and other discarded fishing industry equipment.
Do not allow them to continue to twist the story. Do not come after disabled people who require single use plastics. Do not come after people using glitter in art projects and makeup. These things make up a negligible amount of the issue compared to corporate waste, specifically in the fishing industry. Do not let them shift the blame to the individual so they can continue to destroy the planet and our bodies without regulation.
Industries are incredibly resistant to taking responsibility for their own waste, to the point where “consumers are responsible for industrial waste” is somehow considered a sensible, ethical, worthy sentence.
It is actually perfectly reasonable to say that “industries are responsible for industrial waste” and “the effects of industry can, should and must be fixed by industry” and “Industry can, should and must be held responsible for its impacts on the commons, such as air, water, oceans and land.”
Listen. Listen. Most of you have likely never tasted genuine soy sauce as it has historically been made. The vast majority of the entire world population has never actually tasted soy sauce. Because soy sauce takes years of fermentation in a giant custom made squeezable barrel and there’s only a very few remaining people who make traditional soy sauce. Only one single company atm afaik makes the special barrels anymore that are required to do it. They make them by order.
Like, can you fucking imagine what a loss it would be if just a single person stopped doing this? If that singular company simply no longer makes the barrel. If those sporadic soy makers moved on or lost their business. Can you even begin to imagine? You can’t. There is an entire taste that you have never experienced for yourself because it is dying. And one day it will die and you will never taste it and neither will anyone else ever again.
Saffron crocuses are dying because of climate change. Because of the rising temperatures and drier climates in Iran, the crocuses aren’t growing as well, and of course by harvesting the saffron stamens, that prevents the crocuses from being able to go to seed. The balance of this incredibly important historic ingredient is being undone out of circumstances beyond the crocus farmers’ control. One day there is a very real chance that a staple ingredient in food across the entirety of the Middle East will no longer exist. No more shirini keshmeshi; no more yakhni pulao; no more mandi djaj. An entire taste will be erased from the world, and all these foods, all these proofs of humanity, of the connections we have with our past and our ancestors, it will be severed as simply as if by a cutting knife.
How can I even begin to cope with the depths of that grief? How do you live with the knowledge that these things could very likely die in your lifetime? That you could witness the atrophying of entire swathes of history and culture happen in realtime, because of greed, because of callous uncaring for others?
How can I explain to anyone why every time I cook with saffron it feels as if I am saying goodbye to someone I love, for the ones who will come after me? Where do I begin to describe to the children who come next the food that our ancestors have eaten for countless generations will never exist for them in the way they were intended to be?
How do I understand my grief when it is based in the knowledge that eventually, it would be impossible to understand?
‘environmentalists’ whose solution to climate change is to essentially tell thousands if not millions of people to just die are actually no better than the capitalists ruining the planet. like you’re not woke for wanting impoverished ppl to die
People that are like “climate change is worsening and all of humanity is going to deserve it” should realize how kind of evil and insane of a thing that is to say
Like, no actually, the masses of people in the world that are impoverished, homeless, poor and working paycheck to paycheck to survive, plus the masses of indigenous folks, POC, queer and religious minorities trying to survive the trauma of generations of industrialization & colonization DON’T deserve to go extinct over the actions of a few dozen oil executives and an economic system we have no control over, especially when we’re doing all that we can for a safer healthier planet wtf
The lives of 7 billion humans do not deserve extinction over the actions of very few oil companies destroying the planet, don’t say shit like that.
Not so fun fact: while Americans and Europeans are boiling, Brazilians are freezing. We’re having one of our coldest winters ever.
We’re set to be hit with a cold front from the south pole and many parts of the country are expecting to not only have historically low temperatures, but to even see SNOW for the first time.
Here’s the weather forecast for my city this week (°C/F)
If you live in Canada or something, 4°C (39°F) might not sound that scary, but for Brazil, a TROPICAL COUNTRY, that’s insanely low. It’s one of the lowest temperatures in the past 30 years.
Another city in my state is set to have sub-freezing temperatures, and perhaps even SNOW! (C/F)
I don’t feel like I have to tell you that for Brazil, snow isn’t exactly the most common occurrence ever.
There’s a reason why this is dangerous though.
Unlike places that actually have temperatures like these regularly, houses in Brazil don’t have insulation. Houses in Brazil are designed to be cold and stay cold, because normally, we have very hot and humid days.
And of course, no one living on Brazil has heating systems.
So no one is actually warm inside their homes. There’s been many mornings where I went out to the balcony to find it was much colder inside my apartment than outside. Because again, our homes aren’t designed to retain any heat.
This is even worse for those who are homeless, because again, hardly anyone in Brazil even owns clothes for temperatures like these. Let alone have appropriate clothes to donate to those who need it. In my city, over a dozen homeless people have already died from hypothermia this winter. And we haven’t even reached the coldest part of the season.
the worse climate disaster gets, the more you’ll see closet eugenicists start to advocate for letting people die. you need to be prepared to combat the ideology wherever you see it, because it’s only going to get worse and worse
Read everything having to do with climate disaster critically. If the central argument underlying what’s being said is that the death of disabled and/or racialized people is inevitable, natural, or desirable– that’s a fascist.
they might be appear to be a garden variety republican or liberal or even a leftist at first, but know that if that argument is being made, their underlying ideology is one of supremacism, and given additional climate stress, they will become more blatant about it.
“The Earth will heal itself” “humanity is like a virus” “The Earth will be better off once humans die out.” “The Earth is overpopulated, we need to let our numbers come back down.”
These are eco-fascist talking points. The climate disaster will hit the global poor FIRST and WORST. While the capitalist elite who CAUSED this problem will have the resources to jet around to whatever corner of the Earth is still inhabitable, or to their space arcs, or their Mars colonies run by indentured servants- the global poor will be the ones who die by the millions.
This is not justice. This is not nature. This is neither inevitable nor good. Do not let people use environmentalism as an excuse for genocide.
Happy autumnal equinox! It is 91F here in Michigan!
