So I was scrolling and saw this image in an article about the European heat wave,
And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that's a lot of red.
And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don't know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it's normal there?
But nope, that's not the case:
Some selections from the article:
"The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.
“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”
"The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off."
The New York Times article about Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST) barely mentions one of the most important factors for their success: they are explicitly operating within the framework of Brazil's constitution. The reason that courts have recognized so many of their land occupations is that the Brazilian constitution says that "property shall observe its social function," and that this social function includes the "adequate use of available natural resources and preservation of the environment." Wealthy landowners purchasing farmland that they never use does not meet this requirement.
The MST is not a bunch of crazed armed rebels running around the countryside threatening small family farmers, it's a movement of millions of poor people who are successfully pushing back on one of the deepest problems plaguing Latin America: a landed aristocracy which is both destructive to democracy and economically inefficient.
The proliferation of legal settlements has turned the movement into a major food producer, selling hundreds of thousands of tons of milk, beans, coffee and other commodities each year, much of it organic after the movement pushed members to ditch pesticides and fertilizers years ago. The movement is now Latin America’s largest supplier of organic rice, according to a large rice producers’ union...
Daniel Alves, 54, used to work in someone else’s fields before he began squatting on this land in 2010. Now he grows 27 different crops on 20 acres, showing off bananas, peppercorns, bright pink dragon fruit and the Amazonian fruit cupuaçu — all organic. He sells the produce at local fairs.
He said he remained poor — his shack was lined with tarps — but was happy.
“This movement takes people out of misery,” he said.
as we see skyrocketing amounts of legislation targeting trans youth in particular I’m begging people to stop parroting “your brain matures at 25”. this article by the director of harvard’s neuroscience lab is a good read. like I’m no neuroscientist myself but Brain Complicated. at best “your brain matures at 25” is an incomplete and inadequate summary of a single idea in a relatively new field wherein broad generalizations are almost impossible. *some* aspects of brain development *tend* to *plateau* *somewhere* in your 20s, *we think*; but “brain maturity” is poorly defined, and the data is still highly incomplete. plenty of aspects of the brain demonstrably continue developing well past 30, or for your entire life; on the other hand, plenty of studies have simply failed to include participants over 30, or 25, or even younger. attempting to define maturity, let alone make RULES about it, based on particular neuroscientific metrics, is extremely dicey
and this popsci notion is now actively being used to justify taking away people’s rights so pls stop perpetuating it for the sake of your age gap ship wars or whatever
You must self-generate the energy required to get up and create. It is what makes art so exhausting, it is what makes art so special
I see Hollywood is now very into the idea of buying something once and then owning it forever and being able to make infinite copies. Which. Isn’t quite the message they imparted upon me in my childhood. In the spirit of their own long-held stance:
my shirt that says “not a danger to myself and others” getting me asked a lot of questions already answered by my shirt
some bitch is binding spirits on my post
