Jules @afewbugs@librem.one

Floral foam often just there, in the bottom of flower arrangements, ignored. But we need to shine a spotlight on it and find ways to avoid using it. Whatever you think about it, it's obviously a single-use plastic, but the problems go beyond that. There's a great piece here from Hakai magazine about the impact that it can have on marine life. This crumbly foam is an efficient producer of microplastics. #nofloralfoam #ocean #flowers #pollution

https://hakaimagazine.com/features/are-you-giving-flowers-with-a-side-of-plastic/

#SilentSunday

Heard of another excellent scientist leaving UK academia for a European company today.

The #Brexit brain drain is slow, but it is happening, people.

“The UK asylum policy approach is more akin to authoritarian nations that walk away from international human rights treaties, such as Russia or Belarus.

“We need an approach that replaces the chaos and cost, and focuses on compassion and competence, creating safe and orderly routes for refugees to reach the UK, such as refugee visas, and always give people a fair hearing so their rights are respected.”

Enver Solomon,
Refugee Council.

#RefugeesWelcome
#SafeRoutes

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/11/children-fleeing-danger-in-small-boats-should-be-deported-says-tory-thinktank

Vigils are being organised in pretty much every major city in the UK for #BriannaGhey

Glasgow - George Square, 16th Feb, 7pm

Liverpool - St George's Hall, 14th Feb, 7pm

Manchester - Sackville Gardens, 15th Feb, 7pm

I've seen there are plans for Bristol as well, and I suspect London will have one.

Vigil for Brianna Ghey
Department of Education London
Wednesday 15th 6PM
SW1P 3BT

An in-depth look at using a naturally occurring bacteria to affect dengue fever transmission by mosquitoes https://undark.org/2023/02/13/why-singapore-is-breeding-millions-of-bacteria-infected-mosquitoes/

Headline from the Guardian --

"Ohio catastrophe is ‘wake-up call’ to dangers of deadly train derailments"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/11/ohio-train-derailment-wake-up-call

Some people are making comparisons of this Ohio train wreck to the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. But to me there's another historical event that seems far more similar and also provides an even more ominous warning for us: the chemical gas leak that occurred in Bhopal, India, in 1984, killing tens of thousands.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Bhopal-disaster

I'm old enough to remember when this happened, and it was horrific. Could something just as bad take place today in the United States?

As oil companies eagerly produce ever greater amounts of petrochemicals for making plastics and as demand for those plastics keeps increasing year after year, and as capitalists continue lobbying for relaxed safety regulations and lowered environmental protection to increase their profits, along with reduced wages and shabbier working conditions for train personnel, it all seems to create the perfect recipe for another deadly disaster.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

#chemicals #disaster #AntiCapitalism #KeepItInTheGround

Absolutely tragic what happened to Brianna. Such a horrible thing to happen to a young girl 💔

A vigil is being held in Liverpool on Tuesday at St George's Hall, 7pm, for anyone local

#BriannaGhey #TransRightsAreHumanRights

Daytime TV normalising libraries as a place to keep warm. Not a place to educate and learn but a place to keep warm. Tory Britain in 2023! Oh, and the Tories are responsible for the closure of many of them too…..

Earth's human population recently reached 8 billion people.

Here's where they live.

Data visualization by Pietro Violo https://pietroviolo.com/

the framing of mastodon having attrition problems bafflingly misses what's interesting here

mastodon's new user retention rate being as high as it is, despite there being no UX team designing shady psychological tricks into the service/apps to keep you coming back, is a pretty big deal

like, let's be honest, there's very little about mastodon that's making us want to return here compulsively or addictively the way so many for-profit services implicitly aim for

it's pretty much just the people

I promise you, this is not a weird little rubber desert island toy for smurfs, complete with coconut trees.

It's a liverwort which I just found growing between some paving stones behind our house. It must be...2cm (3/4") high?

#Macro #MacroPhotography #Liverwort

Y'all need to read this thread.

And the replies.

"One of the cruelest things about Autistic/ADHD masking is that you learn to treat positive emotions as a warning sign that you're about to do something "wrong" and that it is therefore "safest for everyone" if you maintain a constant, low-key negative internal emotional state."

"I have received the message that my joy comes at a cost to everyone else. My happiness is something I do to others.
So I have learned to always keep my emotional barometer just slightly inside of the depressed range."

"Sometimes I say that I am happiest when I am by myself, but I wonder if maybe I am just only actually allowed to feel happy -- like truly happy without that lingering soupçon of impending indecorum and fuckuppery -- when I am by myself."

https://twitter.com/the_tweedy/status/1600287106072735744

#ActuallyAutistic

Can anyone recommend some good pro-transgender charities in the U.K., for donations?

Boosts appreciated.