cross-posted from: https://lemmy.vg/post/1404626

• Brazilian Amazon states are leading an offensive against environmental regulations in the Amazon and beyond. 
• The movement gained momentum in October when Brazil’s granary, Mato Grosso state, approved a bill undermining a voluntary agreement to protect the Amazon from soy expansion. 
• Before Mato Grosso, other Amazon states like Acre and Rondônia had already approved bills reducing protected areas and weakening the fight against illegal mining. 
• With its economy highly reliant on agribusiness, Mato Grosso is considered a successful model for other parts of the Amazon.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, although battered by Trump administration attempts to impose massive staff and budget cuts on the agency, nevertheless continues to publish critical climate information, including some dire drought warnings in the spring outlook published March 20 by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

About 40% of the contiguous 48 states are currently in some stage of drought or abnormally dry conditions, and those are expected to persist in the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest and Southern Plains, according to the March 20 bulletin.

In the past two weeks, water officials in the West warned that, despite near-average snowpack in some parts of the Colorado River’s mountain watershed, the river’s flows are expected to drop below normal, exacerbating tensions between water users in the region. In New Mexico, water experts said the Rio Grande is likely to dry up completely in Albuquerque as early as June. A 2024 study explained how global warming drives a cycle that leads to measured flows in Western rivers and streams being consistently lower than predictions based solely on snowpack measurements.

Other recent research suggests drought risks in North America have been widely underestimated by major climate reports, as rising global temperatures bake the moisture out of plants and out of the soil itself. Annual cycles of decreasing winter snow followed by extreme heat are pushing “a global transition to flash droughts under climate change,” a 2023 study concluded.

The continuing budget resolution passed by Congress March 14 reduces NOAA’s operations, research and facilities budget by 11% from the previous year, and according to congressional sources, it stripped away some of Congress’s budgetary oversight privileges. That could enable the Trump administration to zero out budgets for programs and offices within NOAA and use its ocean and climate budgets as a slush fund.

I'm aware that I, the consumer, won't change the world and that we need structural change.

Still, I've been wondering. I've come to learn that plastic recycling is largely a myth/scam, but what about glass and metal recycling? Also, what happens to the plastic coating on metal during recycling?

TIA

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/19092090

Robin Hood Army

It's an organization that accepts no money and feeds the poor people through, fit to eat leftover food and also other resources.

• No funds ✨ • Apolitical ✨ • Non-Religious ✨

Working in 13 countries currently: •India •Pakistan •Malaysia •Nepal •Srilanka •Nigeria •Uganda •Zambia •Bahrain •Bangladesh •Botswana •Indonesia •Guinea

Spread this movement! ✊☮️

Robin Hood Army

Very few people seem to talk about how not all plant based diets are equal and how some common favorite luxuries can be almost as bad as meat.

For example it requires about 1.1 gallons of water to grow a single almond. Worse yet not all water is created equal. An almond requires 1.1 gallons of California water. An area where water is pretty much the most significant environmental factor.

Not only that but that almond was most likely grown by the Resneks, who are the wealthiest farmers in the US, who have through corruption and political connections stolen 50% of California's water. Stealing it from residents, the environment, municipal uses (needed to fight fires), and other smaller farmers.

And it doesn't stop with almonds. Some of people's most favorite hyped plant foods have some of the worst environmental impacts when compared to the broader collection of plant based foods.

Avocados are another high water demand item that is grown in arid regions like Mexico or Chile.

Pistachios fall under almost the same circumstance as the almonds, also being a crop dominated by the Resnecks. Pistachios are actually how the Resnecks got into farming, seizing on the opportunity when sanctions on Iran blocked imports.

Two notes here that go against popular diet trends that I suspect are manufactured. One is that the cost of food often reflects loosely the resources (and the scarcity of resources) that went into it. Very expensive, sometimes labeled superfoods, are often not environmentally efficient. Sometimes those superfood claims are bunk. The other which is a similar argument is that many have been sold on a Mediterranean diet. There is some evidence that the Mediterranean diet is quite good. But that does mean for everyone to partake in that diet growing things in arid regions at scale that our environment might not actually support. Yes the Greeks classically ate a Mediterranean diet quite naturally. But that was before there was 8 billion people on the planet all trying to adopt what popular consensus tells them is the best diet. Do we have the resources for everyone to eat a Mediterranean diet?

And the reason to consider that our favorites might be manufactured goes back to the Resnecks. The wife of that family is one of the most skilled marketers humanity has ever seen. This family has also owned Fiji water and created POM wonderful. Remember when Pomegranate juice was the health fad? All science seemed to say this was super juice and if you drank it you would automatically be healthy. That was all manufactured by Mrs Resnek. She funded many of those studies, many of which now fall flat.

Fiji water? It's not special. You're just taking water from Fiji residents who need it, to have it shipped by boat across the pacific in a boat. Just so you know the fuel needed to move a boat at constant speed through water is roughly proportional to the boat's displacement. Meaning basically shipping fuel scales with the weight of the good being shipped. Last I checked water is heavy. The cost of Fiji water is the fuel being burned to push water through water.

Long story short, a lot of the most green people I know have entirely bought in on one family's marketing hype that if you buy their over priced luxury foods that you will be healthier and be a better more green person. When in reality you are buying the highest resource demanding foods per nutrition offered, that aren't that much better than meat.

If you really want to save the environment eat the cheapest diet possible. If not to save money then to consume a less resource demanding diet. Look at what more traditional people who eat plant based diets eat, often on some of the tightest budgets. One of the best places to look is India. The major bottleneck to human nutrition on such minimal resource diets is protein. This is why in Indian cultures which sustain hundreds of millions on plant based diets use lentil and chickpea in everything. If you want to save the planet eat lentils and chickpeas and rice. Some diversity is good for the sake of health. But if you want to eat the most environmental diet at least give yourself a baseline of lentils, chickpeas, and rice, and add from there. Then besides that there is endless produce besides almonds and avocados that are many times more efficient. Again look at the price tag. A low price tag means that it took few resources to grow, or grew in an area that isn't resource starved where the environment has resources to spare, and the fuel used for distribution is low.

Find a more environmental place to spend your money than luxury foods. Or don't. Save it. A dollar saved pays dividends every month in the sense of security in not living pay check to pay check even before it returns interest. Just don't waste it on hyped non-green green foods. Does anyone think avocado toast is actually good? No. It's just some California Resnek propaganda bullshit that you were told to like to seem cool. Aka manufactured bullshit.

The next time someone tells you to start eating an expensive food to unlock your health, at least double check that the Resnek's aren't growing it. Because if they are it might be some bs they floated out there. Pay a small number of health shills very little to all start saying the same thing around the same time, then other health influencers jump on the bandwagon just looking for something to talk or blog about for want of content. It's very easy to hawk some specialty food.

Sources: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2010/09/ftc-complaint-charges-deceptive-advertising-pom-wonderful
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts-crazy-stats-charts/
https://watercalculator.org/news/articles/fiji-water-locals-dry/

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18476518

The day to buy nothing, to make the corporations and governments experience our power. ☮️

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28th FEB 2025

Read more here ➡️ https://jointhepeoplesunion.com/

Happy 2025! The Eco-Libre project published our 2024 Annual Report for last year.

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Executive Summary

• Continuing search for land in Ecuador
• Prototype Progress of Life-Line
• Design changes to Launch-Nest and Treasure-Tower

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