Damn Pinkertons.
During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikersand suspected unionistsout of factories, and recruit goon squads to intimidate workers. One such confrontation was the Homestead Strike of 1892, in which Pinkerton agents were called in to reinforce the strikebreaking measures of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie.[5] The ensuing battle between Pinkerton agents and striking workers led to the deaths of seven Pinkerton agents and nine steelworkers.[6] The Pinkertons were also used as guards in coal, iron, and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921.
Why is it that I have less sympathy for South Florida when one of the major angles in the article is:
the report notes the city “faces the largest risk of any major coastal city in the world” because of the value of its coastal property. Other cities in the world may face a higher risk when it comes to the number of people or the amount of land area set to be hit by sea level rise or storms, but when it comes to expensive real estate, Miami is fucked.
I’ll once again recommend this novel:
http://www.apocalypsebooks.com/books/drowning-towers-sea-summer/
It’s set in a near-future Melbourne, in which the wealthy have abandoned the half-inundated city while the masses try to survive in the ruins.
Took some videos today while driving through parts of New South Wales that were scorched in the recent fires. Screenshot attached. This area was on fire three weeks ago. Many of the trees are already starting to recover and are covered in green shoots. They look positively fuzzy.
Wollemi National Park, NSW
While forest recovery after fire is always a nifty thing, I feel obliged to mention:
Indeed. And the wildlife will take longer to recover too.
Thread:
Like with straws, there isn’t a simple fix. Though, if you look at those photos you will see a bigger problem than the plastic. As the thread points out, food waste is a huge GHG problem. Our obsession with fresh, perfect food is part of the food waste problem. The faster a store is forced to cycle through its stock, the more gets wasted. 20 lbs of fresh spinach might last a week. That means it’s got a week to sell. The same frozen or canned might last 2 years, and the canned sits at ambient temperature. Same for somethinglike salmon or tuna. “Imperfect” looking produce won’t sell.
People also like to take the same ableist approach that’s been used to ban straws, attacking pre-prepped single-serve items like stir-fry mix or hard-boiled eggs when those options might be the only way a disabled person can eat those things without a friend or family member having to do it for them. Reusable cloth bags are great – so long as you have reliable access to somewhere to clean them, otherwise they may as well be an unsealed petri dish.
Which starts coming back to individual responsibility over industrial. As long as the binary is plastic packaging or no packaging, industry is either going to use plastic or ramp up production to cover increased wasteage, in an ever increasing spiral.
But stunts like what are highlighted above? Don’t help.
A cynical take has been that we’ll take climate action when it affects the people powerful enough to call the shots. Not when people are hurt by it, but only when the powerful start to think it’ll hurt them.
Thread:
It ain’t just the coral that’s dying:
This is the U.S.: feeding cows GRASS at all (instead of corn and soy) would make a huge difference!
