Probably posted lots before but it's the first chapter of "Ministry for the Future", which describes the tipping point. It's uncomfortable reading. https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-ministry-for-the-future/
Canada ships thousands of live horses to Japan every year, where they're brutally killed and eaten as a delicacy for the rich. New Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay should end it immediately.
"handrails were deliberately left off to allow the defender to push the attacker off the stairs all together. Also violating all modern building codes, stair treads were sometimes constructed of varying heights to deliberately cause attackers to stumble and fall as they ran up them."
Lemmy's new user retention rate is considerably better than Threads.
Should the thylacine be brought back to life?
Scientists say they can bring the extinct thylacine back from the dead within a decade, but does anybody want them to? The resounding answer to an ABC survey is "Yes".
Scientists say they can revive the extinct thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, within a decade, but does anybody want them to?
There is a plan to edit the genome of a related species — the dunnart — to resemble the thylacine's DNA, then use another relative as a surrogate to gestate the reincarnated baby thylacines.
better yet, why couldn't someone design a printer that can be 3D printed and use open source firmware?
I like Lemmy and Mastodon. No ads or manipulative algorithms. Somewhat social and usually polite. Turns out that when you don't automate the incitement of anger and invective in clever ways that people can actually be pretty civil. Whoda thunk?
recently bought 2 of the beelink mini PCs - they seem pretty solid so far - they are quite a bit more expensive than the pi but I think they offer pretty good bang for the buck for a small form factor server.
War! What is it good for? It's good for business! -- Billy Bragg ("North Sea Bubble")
As a fire scientist, I know the unfolding horror — which has killed more than 60 people — is just the beginning. It's a portent of what Australia and other countries will experience in a warmer world, writes David Bowman.
Let's look at the two decades to 2001, compared to the two decades afterwards. In Australian forests, the average annual burned area in the second period was 350 per cent greater than in the first. If we include 2019 — the year the Black Summer fires began — the increase rises to 800 per cent.
The Black Summer fires were started by lightning and human activity. They were fuelled by extreme heat, record low rainfall and widespread dieback of vegetation. It meant the fires burned at unprecedented intensity.
The Black Summer fires burned more than 24 million hectares nationally. Some 33 people were killed by the fires, more than 429 died from smoke-related effects, and more than 3,000 homes were destroyed.
The drying and warming that drove the Black Summer fires are linked to human-caused climate change. These changes are resulting in longer fire seasons and extended periods of drought.
As I watch the fires blazing in Hawaii, I'm constantly asking myself: when will Australians — who live on one of the most fire-prone continents on Earth — get a grip on this escalating global problem? How many more warning signs do we need?
Greek and Hawaiian islands have been ablaze recently, as has Canada, leading to Australia's chief scientist to call for a rapid acceleration in the reduction of carbon emissions on Q+A.
"There is a realisation that we've got to do something fast, an energy transition at a rate that we have never seen before.
"This will have a huge impact not just on governments making decisions, but everyone will have to think about the way we live."
Asked if governments were moving fast enough on action to affect climate change, Dr Foley answered in the negative before calling for a dramatic increase in carbon reduction.
"At the moment the requirement is we need to be reducing by 16 megatons of carbon a year, we are doing two, we need to increase by eight times"
I did not know until now that it is possible to embed external images within posts and replies. I thought the only option was to upload to your instance.
this is bothersome, but if you use a VPN then at least there's that.
otherwise it's feasible to track captured addresses based on which posts they read by posting an external image in the post or a reply.
if you are seeing images in this post, then your client address is visible to any external image hosts.
no. the remote server will log the requests based on the client address. it is a good argument for using a vpn.
is your router's dns definitely pointed to the pihole and was the router rebooted after that was set?
Not sure if this will help. It's a searchable list of communities sorted by newest created community. Refreshes daily. https://lemmyfind.quex.cc/
About time. Well done. More to follow, hopefully.
The BBC just set up their own Mastodon instance: https://social.bbc/@BBC_News_Labs
"The ABC has received queries about the presence of an ABC news team at yesterday’s protest action at the home of Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill.
A Four Corners team attended the protest action to gather material for a potential report later this year.
Just prior to the action the team received a tip to go to an address, they had no knowledge what was at the address or that it was someone’s house.
They had no knowledge of what action was going to occur there.
When they arrived the police were already in attendance, in numbers.
The ABC team remained on public land observing what was happening and getting some vision, as journalists do.
They at no time went on to private property or had any involvement in what was happening.
The ABC team in no way colluded with the activists.
Update on 4 August 2023: In response to concerns that have been raised, the ABC is conducting a detailed examination of the circumstances surrounding this matter."
https://about.abc.net.au/statements/abc-statement-on-woodside-protest-action/
Climate Change Protest - ABC & Woodside - Media Watch
ABC caught in the crosshairs of Woodside Energy, politicians and the media after a Four Corners crew filmed an attempted protest outside the home of Woodside CEO, Meg O’Neill.
business as usual.
"The ATACMS is an all-weather, inertially-guided surface-to-surface missile first used in the 1990s that can intercept high-value targets up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) away."
from Wikipedia:
The MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) is a tactical ballistic missile manufactured by the US defense company Lockheed Martin.
In March 1986, Ling-Temco-Vought won the contract for the missile design. The system was assigned the MGM-140 designation. The first test launch came two years later, thanks to earlier experience of the company with previous programs.
The first use of the ATACMS in combat was during Operation Desert Storm in 1991
In 2007, the U.S. Army terminated the ATACMS program due to cost, ending the ability to replenish stocks. To sustain the remaining inventory, the ATACMS Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) was launched, which refurbishes or replaces propulsion and navigation systems, replaces cluster munition warheads with the unitary blast fragmentation warhead, and adds a proximity fuze option to obtain area effects. Deliveries were projected to start in 2018. The ATACMS SLEP is a bridging initiative to provide time to complete analysis and development of a successor capability to the aging ATACMS stockpile, which could be ready around 2022.
Business, evidently, is brisk:
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia announced Thursday it will boost its defense capabilities by spending more than AU$1 billion (U.S. $683 million) on new advanced missile and rocket systems, including American-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems
WASHINGTON ― The U.S. State Department has approved Poland to buy advanced rockets and rocket launchers worth $10 billion, marking the latest such order from Eastern European allies in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has approved the potential sale of HIMARS rocket systems to Estonia, missiles to Norway and torpedoes to South Korea in separate deals that could be worth more than $1.5 billion in all, the Pentagon said on Friday.
In a June 24 release, the U.S. Department of Defense announced a $562 million sale of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Bahrain, Poland, and Romania. First fielded in 1986, the ATACMS surface-to-surface missile can deliver a 160-560 kg warhead at ranges up to 300 km. The contract is scheduled for completion in June 2022.
On October 21, the U.S. State Department approved the sale of 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and 135 AGM-84H Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) missiles to Taiwan. On October 26, the United States also approved the sale to Taiwan of up to 400 RGM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II missiles. The sales are valued at $436 million, $1 billion, and $2.37 billion respectively
Meanwhile...
More than 1,600 Australians pushed into homelessness each month as housing crisis deepens, report finds.
But of course, Australia, geographically distant, is increasingly central in the growing, multifaceted contest with China
And so, Australia's biggest consultancy firms were awarded contracts worth $3.7 billion from the Australian Defence Force during the past decade], analysis shows.
Surprising - and this is only for LNG extraction and shipment. It doesn't count the combustion at point of use.
they don't get ad revenue from you, they get it from the firms they will be selling your data to. If you are commenting and you have a profile then whatever info they have or can guess about your demographic will be monetized.
Faced with rising seas eating away at her home on Kiribati as a result of climate change, Teaote Davies set out to protect not only her property but others as well.
Kiribati is facing a real challenge.
With no part of its land rising more than 2 meters above the ocean, the country is among the most vulnerable to the encroaching tides.
Small islands have already succumbed to inundation, while others suffer erosion, jeopardising crop cultivation and freshwater reserves.
The I-Kiribati people, who may not use the words "climate change", have now experienced its harsh reality and continue to face the constant threat of rising sea levels.
The Jane Goodall Act Passes First Vote in Senate (Canada)
The bill aims to protect over 800 wild species from captivity, and give animals a stronger voice in court.
The bill aims to completely phase out elephant captivity in Canada, and protect over 800 wild animal species from suffering in captivity. The Jane Goodall Act would also grant some animals limited legal standing. The Canadian legal system is notorious for denying animals legal standing, preventing them from having representation in court. The Jane Goodall Act would allow interested specially-appointed “animal advocates” to make arguments before a court about the best interests of animals, if a zoo or individual is convicted of keeping or breeding the animal illegally.
The Jane Goodall Act builds upon groundbreaking laws banning whale and dolphin captivity in Canada, which passed in 2019. It’s now a criminal offence to capture wild whales and dolphins from the ocean, confine them in tanks, breed them, or make them perform for entertainment.
Similar to the whale and dolphin bill, the Jane Goodall Act has faced many obstacles, primarily from Conservative Senate leader Don Plett. Senator Plett delayed the whale and dolphin bill for years in an attempt to kill it, and now appears to be doing the same thing to the Jane Goodall Act.
If approved, this bill would:
- Completely eliminate the import, breeding, and captivity of elephants.
- Restrict the import, keeping, and breeding of over 800 species of wild animals, including big cats, bears, many monkeys, wolves, sea lions, walruses, and dangerous reptiles like crocodiles and snakes, for individuals and most zoos.
- Empower the federal government to add more species to this list in the future.
- Provide limited legal standing to animals so that the court can consider their best interests in case of a conviction for violating anti-captivity laws.
With July set "virtually certain" to be the warmest month on record, BBC Weather has this analysis.
It is "virtually certain" that July is going to be the world's warmest month since records began, according to scientists.
Some researchers believe it might even be the warmest month in the past 120,000 years.
The UK on the other hand, has experienced milder temperatures and a fair amount of rain.
BBC Weather's Ben Rich has this analysis.
US president pledges to ramp up heat-related worker protections as more than 100 million Americans affected by heatwave.
Outdoor workers with jobs involving physical labour can be more vulnerable, especially when paired with limited protections.
But efforts to bolster regulations have faced pushback from powerful business interests in sectors, such as agriculture, who have rejected calls for enhanced rules and enforcement.
And some US states have moved in the opposite direction: Republican lawmakers in the state of Texas, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics says 42 workers died from extreme heat between 2011 and 2021, recently banned municipalities from requiring employers to provide workers with shade and water.
“Farmworkers will still be told they can’t take a break or that they should drink out of an irrigation hose,” De Loera said. “Even in a state like California with good laws on the books, workers are afraid of speaking up.”
We need a global initiative to immediately reduce fossil fuel consumption ASAP. Stop commuting in cars. Stop flying. Stop shipping stuff all over the place to exploit cheap labor. Strengthen energy standards for construction and radically improve urban planning to increase pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Massive investment in public transit systems to improve quality and coverage. There needs to be radical and urgent change in the way the western world lives. The west has the money and means to lead by example. Carbon caps and trade. Soon enough climate change will dominate every aspect of civic discussion. This is a civic leadership responsibility and we need civic leaders who are committed to enacting solutions - or at minimum support improving policy to reduce fossil fuel consumption and reduce all contributing emissions as a matter of emergency. Support local activism and demand action from all civic leaders.
Guterres dubs heatwave across the northern hemisphere ‘terrifying’ as he calls for radical action on climate change.
“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”
According to ERA5 data from the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service, the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three-week period on record and the month is on track to be the hottest July and the hottest month on record.
In the face of “tragic” consequences, he repeated his call for swift and far-reaching action, taking aim once again at the fossil fuel sector.
“The air is unbreathable. The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable,” said Guterres, Portugal’s former prime minister.
Just Stop Oil supporters are disrupting roads in central London during their thirteenth week of continuous resistance against new oil, gas and coal. [1] Throughout the morning, starting from 9am, 132 supporters began marching in nine groups around West, East London and South London. This morning's m...
One of those on the road this morning, Jonathan Kennedy, 44, an Engineer and Parent of two young children, from Brighton, said:
“I’m marching today with Just Stop Oil to demand that the government stops all new oil and gas licensing. We are on track for devastating climate chaos, food scarcity, water scarcity, hundreds of millions of climate refugees- leading to conflict and war. It’s already happening. As a parent, I can’t sit by and watch as the government actively makes the situation worse by issuing more oil, gas and coal licences. This is the complete opposite of what we need to do.”
“When my children ask me what I was doing when there was still a chance to prevent the worst effects of climate breakdown. I will say I tried everything I could. Rishi Sunak and Grant Schnapps, what will you say to your children when they ask you the same question? You have the power to stop all new oil and gas licences. For the sake of your children and their generation, make the right choice. Be on the right side of history, be able to look at your children and say, ‘I did what I could’.”
Yesterday, James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s said “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis. Hansen, whose testimony to the US Senate in 1988 is cited as the first high-profile revelation of global heating, warned in a statement with two other scientists that the world was moving towards a “new climate frontier” with temperatures higher than at any point over the past million years, bringing severe impacts such as stronger storms, heatwaves and droughts, which will lead to millions unable to eat and forced to flee their homes.
Otter 841 is on the run from US wildlife officials, evading capture for a full week, and her fanbase is growing.
What's going to happen to Otter 841 if they catch her?
Mr Connor said that once captured, the otter would be evaluated by aquarium vets.
She'll be put into a zoo or an aquarium where she can be "an ambassador for her species", he said.
However, if she harms a human, wildlife officials have said that would consider euthanising her.
Discover a directory of Lemmy apps for various platforms. Explore a wide range of Lemmy clients, join communities, and contribute to the decentralized social fediverse web.
The Canadian province of Nova Scotia is experiencing its heaviest rain in half a century.
Three months of rain fell in just 24 hours in some areas.
The flooding is the latest extreme weather event to hit northeast Canada - recent wildfires have burnt a record area, sending clouds of smoke south into the US.
There has also been extreme flooding in the US this month. The body of a two-year-old girl found along a river in Pennsylvania is believed to be one of two missing children swept away by flash floods last weekend. Her nine-month-old brother is still missing.
Scientists cannot say for certain that such extreme rainfall is caused by climate change, but the floods are consistent with the changes they expect in a warming world. This is because the warmer the earth becomes the more moisture the atmosphere can hold. This results in more droplets and heavier rainfall, sometimes in a shorter space of time and over a smaller area.
Advocates gathered outside a Shoppers Drug Mart in Edmonton and called them out for breaking their promise of going cage-free by 2025.
In 2016, Loblaw announced it would stop selling eggs from hens confined in cages in all their stores, including Loblaws grocers and Shoppers Drug Mart. The transition was supposed to be completed by 2025. But seven long years after the promise was made, the company says it won’t meet this deadline, and refuses to share a new timeline for stamping caged cruelty out of its supply chain.
Animal Justice, our supporters, and thousands of concerned citizens have been reaching out to Loblaw Companies about their failed cage-free promise for months. But the only response from Loblaw has been to point toward their President’s Choice house brand of eggs, which is already cage-free. They won’t share any information about all the other brands they continue to sell from hens confined in tiny cages.
Over the past weeks, Loblaw brands have been blocking people from some of their social media accounts, and deleting customer questions about the company’s cage-free policy. This secrecy falls short of Loblaw’s promises on their website, stating they’re committed to “transparency, accountability and sound corporate governance” and to have a “customer-centric and values-based approach to decision making.” While this is not what we’d expect from a grocery leader, it shows that our message is being heard.
Join us in demanding Loblaw keeps their promise and go cage-free.
!protestors with megaphone and dressed as chickens in front of drugstore. 2 people in a cage
Climate Protesters Disrupt Opening Of Salzburg Festival
July 22, 2023 AFP
"We are the last generation capable of preventing the point of no return," three young activists from the Last Generation group shouted at the festival's premiere of "Jedermann" (Each Man) late Friday, before being escorted away by security, according to a video posted by the group on social media.
Founded in 1920, the Salzburg Festival is one the world's top classical music festivals.
"The citizens of the Last Generation Austria demand that we face this question as a whole society," the group said in a statement. "Especially now, when global heating is getting more out of control and is making itself felt all over the world with ever more extreme temperatures and ever more destructive weather, they can no longer look away."
The protest came as swathes of southern Europe and the United States were baking in record heatwaves.
Orange powder is dropped on to the 17th hole at The Open in a protest by Just Stop Oil at Royal Liverpool, Hoylake.
Contestants brave Boulia Camel Races to tag kicking beasts in outback Queensland
A record crowd flocks to outback Queensland to watch Joe Blows try and stick duct tape on feisty camels while avoiding their kicking legs.
Brave souls took their turn at racing towards a camel, sticking a piece of duct tape on its fur, then racing back to their starting position before returning to the camel to retrieve the tape and finally racing back to the judge to complete their run.
The unpredictable nature of camels and dexterous legs that can kick in any direction delivered a painful price for participants who were slow on their feet.
"My tactic was to try and get it in the front, slow it down and tag its front shoulder and, of course … try not to get kicked in the head," contestant Dylan said.
Collins says many First Nations people would be able to relate to the characters in Limbo, a film about the disappearance of a young woman from an outback town.
Limbo is directed by Ivan Sen, best known for the films Mystery Road, Goldstone and Beneath Clouds. It also stars Natasha Wanganeen as Emma, Charlie's surviving sister, and Nicholas Hope as Joseph, the brother of a key murder suspect.
The film was shot in the South Australian opal mining town of Coober Pedy, which stands in for the fictional town of Limbo.
Sen's decision to film in black and white accentuates Coober Pedy's otherworldliness, making the pockmarked desert look like a moonscape.
Collins says he can't imagine filming the story anywhere else.
"The whole place feels like a muffled scream, which worked a lot for Charlie," he says.
US aims to block injunction after judge ruled White House coerced social networks.
The Biden administration is appealing a federal judge's ruling that ordered the government to halt a wide range of communications with social media companies. President Biden and the other federal defendants in the case "hereby appeal" the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, according to a notice filed in US District Court yesterday. The US will submit a longer filing with arguments to the 5th Circuit appeals court.
On Tuesday, Judge Terry Doughty of US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction that prohibits White House officials and numerous federal agencies from communicating "with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms."
Doughty found that defendants "significantly encouraged" and in some cases coerced "the social-media companies to such extent that the decision [to modify or suppress content] should be deemed to be the decisions of the Government." The Biden administration has argued that its communications with tech companies are permissible under the First Amendment and vital to counter misinformation about elections, COVID-19, and vaccines.
....
The injunction doesn't cut off all contact between the Biden administration and social media companies. Doughty's ruling said the government may continue to inform social networks about posts involving criminal activity or criminal conspiracies, national security threats, extortion, criminal efforts to suppress voting, illegal campaign contributions, cyberattacks against election infrastructure, foreign attempts to influence elections, threats to public safety and security, and posts intending to mislead voters about voting requirements and procedures.