BLACK LIVES MATTER • ACAB

My country, Pakistan, is drowning. A third of Pakistan is at risk of being deluged by massive floods. 1000+ people have been killed, countless others displaced. We have the highest number of glaciers outside the poles, and because of climate change, they’re melting. The knock-on effect is unspeakable—and yet we must speak of it. Tragedy upon tragedy, especially against our poor and most marginalized, and it feels ceaseless.

Pakistan is just one of many countries who will be—who are being—disproportionately affected by climate change. We need international solidarity and we need radical change. Climate change is here, it is happening, it has been happening. The developed world owes developing countries on a moral level; corporations have bloody hands; the neoliberal economic order has stricken us with debts that are choking us; and through it all, we must—cruelly—battle for air against so many other people and causes who deserve equal attention, equal outrage, equal concern. That is not the world we deserve. That is not the world that will save us from climate change. We need to reimagine what a just world will look like. We need to build global, truly global, solidarity. And in the meantime, we need reparations.

If you can, please consider donating to one of these relief efforts.

To learn more:

https://twitter.com/southasiaindex/status/1563185381876842496?s=21&t=FGyKVZQnqv_-eVRO-GnIvQ

https://twitter.com/baytalfann/status/1564185095510032389?s=21&t=FGyKVZQnqv_-eVRO-GnIvQ

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/29/damage-to-main-roads-hampers-pakistan-flood-relief-effort

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/29/pakistan-floods-plea-for-help-amid-fears-monsoon-could-put-a-third-of-country-underwater

https://www.dawn.com/news/1707372/death-toll-reaches-1136-across-country-as-flood-threat-lingers-in-kp

Then of course we can look at other examples. Alcohol and tobacco are rarely discussed as a form of self harm. How reckless participation in extreme sports can be an active attempt to push yourself into deadly situations. These are things we do not implicitly see as a manifestation of suicidal thinking, but they absolutely can be – and in some situations they are more severe than “classic” or stereotypical examples of self harm.

We also see how certain suicides are minimized or even encouraged. How suicide in the disabled and chronically ill is framed as a tragic inevitability rather than a symptom of (purposefully) inadaquate social and material support. How hateful laws (such as the recent wave of transphobia in the USA) are meant to cause direct cruelty to minorities, thus promoting their non-existence.

climate change represents world-altering tragedy if unchecked, but not even in the worst-case scenario does it mean “literally everyone dies”

this, this, this, this, this, this, and like, 700 other sources will tell you that most of the effects of climate change will be reversible even if we pass the ‘threshold’ of a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in global temperature

BUT. Even if the worst happens, it will be important to be doing things other than wallowing in misery???

I’m not trying to be callous but for people living today it’s wildly unlikely for the results to be “literally immediate death.”

People will get displaced from their homes by rising sea levels. We have like, years, probably decades, before that happens. It seems so fucked up to decide that we should do nothing, because we’ve already decided they’re going to die anyway????

If a bunch of us are going to die, why not die trying to help each other? Why not try to make sure fewer people die? Why not do something that might reduce someone’s suffering or give them food or clean water or a place to sleep?

And there’s still hope! Did you know the hole in the ozone layer is closing? It was actually caused by one specific chemical that’s been banned. A lot of endangered wildlife populations are growing because of so many efforts to protect them. Many mining companies are being prevented from mining in our remaining clean waters and forests. We have all the technology we need to reverse this crisis, it’s just a matter of implementing it.

In the 1980’s, the area was absolutely devastated by copper mining, to the point that the land had a “Martian” appearance. It was utterly devoid of vegetation and wildlife. No trees, no grass, no frogs, nothing.

I own a historical fiction book, A Bird on Water Street, about how the area was restored. The astonishing thing about this place is that people were able to fix the damage.

In a lot of ways in the 80’s and 90’s, many species and environments were successfully saved from the brink of disaster.

Does anyone remember DDT? As the above poster said above, CFC’s contributing to the ozone hole? Do y'all remember how saturated the 1970’s were with lead and asbestos and all sorts of toxic shit? Getting specific chemicals banned or working to save specific species DOES HELP.

I’m begging everyone to research conservation projects going on near them, like, in or near their hometown. The state of Kentucky very successfully reintroduced elk to the mountains after they went extinct there. There are examples like this everywhere.

Things look bad and they’re scary but they would be a lot worse if the people before us hadn’t worked their asses off trying to preserve the world for us. People are out there working hard to save the world right now.

the vast majority of people i’ve seen who assert that we should focus on emphasizing only sex based transmission in coverage to the extent of denying other means of spread, which is what i think you mean by “exact opposite”, cite their fears as being based in the concern that if cishets think they may be in danger too, they will take up all vaccination slots available. the problem is this exact strategy was utilized during early covid to ensure those most vulnerable at that time (healthcare workers) maintained access to a limited supply of PPE, and the downplaying of risk and outright lies fed to the general public at the beginning of that pandemic killed untold thousands of people. monkeypox is unlikely to spread so far or kill so many, but people are having an already hated scapegoat handed to them for when it does spread further

this pandemic has already infected 2 children in the usa, and elected officials are already accusing gay or bi men of having molested them.

The lawsuit from Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley Sons, and Penguin Random House alleges there have been significant revenue losses because of their controlled digital lending program. For context, most libraries in the US also use CDL to distribute books to their patrons wherever they are but those programs are run through for profit companies and the libraries are often paying a very high fee to so their patrons can have access to digital books. The Internet Archive’s program is completely free but they have a policy of not digitizing and lending anything less than 5 years old.

Alright you guys, ‘tis the season again and I’ve already seen bullshit float about so here we go: what to do and what not to do when you happen to have a tick attached to yours truly.

WHAT NOT TO DO:

DON’T cover the tick in anything. Vaseline, nailpolish, whatever. Doesn’t matter. It’ll all suffocate the tick, making it panic vomit germs into your blood stream. That’s the opposite of what you want.

DON’T burn the tick. Same problem, plus the additional option of giving yourself a burn wound in the process. 

DON’T squeeze the body of the tick when you try to remove it. Again this empties the tick’s digestive system into your body. Bad. 

DON’T wait for the tick to detach itself. The longer it stays on you, the higher the chances it’ll transmit anything to you. Plus when ti detaches it may again vomit germs into you. 

WHAT TO ACTUALLY DO

STAY CALM. A tick hanging on you is not a reason to panick. You’re not going to keel over just like that, and if you’re unsure what to do, there are many resources on the internet on how to safely remove a tick, like this one from the CDC (aka the professionals)

USE APPROPRIATE TOOLS. These can be suitable tweezers (the pointy kind, not blunt tipped ones), tick removers (there are cheap ones out there, those you can buy at the vets are totally fine for use on humans, too!). Ideally you can remove the entire tick in one go, however if that doesn’t work and the mouth part breaks off in your skin, that’s not a terribly big deal and you can totally remove it separately after you got the body remove. Again, don’t panic.

KILL THE REMOVED TICK. But not by squeezing it. Flush it down the toilet, submerse it in alcohol in a container etc. Ideally if the tick has bitten you and not your dog, keep the tick around in a sealed container in case you start having symptoms and someone needs to identify the tick species. Also IF you start getting symptoms like the tell tale Lyme disease rash, HIT A DOCTOR RIGHT AWAY AND TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR TICK BITE. Do not wait this out, ticks can transmit a whole host of diseases beside Lyme, so be mindful of that, too! 

Henchwoman who has been wearing increasingly risqué bustiers every passing day of her employment: umm. ma’am. 😳 I would like to apply for that position  👉👈