Jules @afewbugs@librem.one

Portugal's infrastructure minister gets it:

“If we simply replace all combustion cars with electric cars, we will end up with the same kind of congestion, the same huge amount of lost time in traffic, the same unsustainable levels of road accidents, and the same struggle for public space."

“The car overwhelmed city life and it is something that must change.”

https://www.euractiv.com/section/electric-cars/news/shift-to-electric-vehicles-will-not-solve-urban-transport-woes-says-portuguese-minister/

Councils often use barriers like these on traffic-free walking & cycling routes.

They say that they're to stop illegitimate users, like off-road motorcyclists, but in reality they fail to stop these.

But they do stop disabled people like me who use adapted cycles & other types of mobility aids. And we'd really like to access these safe and quiet routes too.

#CyclingDisabled

Hawthorn hedge near home.

#Sunrise #Silhouette #Trees #Galloway #Scotland

Yesterday, hundreds of people gathered outside the Finnish parliament to demand that Finland stop committing human rights violations against the Sámi people. Sámi rights belong to the Sámi people. Finland must pass the Sámi Parliament act reform! #Saamelaiskäräjälaki

Firstly, what is the Sámi Parliament Act? It is a piece of legislation which sets out how the Finnish government interacts with the Sámi Parliament on matters that affect Sámi people.

The current Sámi Parliament Act violates the human rights of the Sámi. The Act restricts and violates the Sámi people's right to self-determination, which includes the Sámi Parliament's decision-making powers in matters concerning the Sámi people, such as who is Sámi.

In 2015, Finland’s Supreme Administrative Court allowed non-Sámi persons into the parliament of the Sámi against the will of the Sámi Parliament. The Sámi Parliament considers that the court’s ruling violates the rights of the Sámi people.

The law would improve other things, such as the facilitation of Sámi's voting practices. In the current outdated law, voting in Sámi district elections takes place by mail, which means many people have to drive hundreds of kilometers in order to vote.

The Sámi region is subjected to many land use pressures, such as mining, tourism and deforestation without the consent of the Sámi people. The law reform would allow for democratic negotiations about plans that affect the Sámi people.

In the last years, the UN has criticised Finland multiple times for the ways in which it treats the Sámi people and this year a UN committee found that Finland violated the international human rights convention on racial discrimiation concerning the rights of the Sámi.

A draft to reform the Sámi Parliament Act to prevent future rights violations, adopted by the Sámi Parliament, was finished in 2021. The proposal would fundamentally reform the law, correcting the sections that have led to human rights violations.

The Centre Party is opposing this bill and calls for a ‘compromise’ that overrides the right of self-determination of the Sámi people in regard to Sámi identity and inclusion in the electoral roll. On top of this, the Centre party are spreading racist misinformation.

Finland must pass this reform, the world views Finland as a progressive country, but overlooks many negative aspects such as the human rights violations they commit. If Finland wants to be truer to this image, then the Sámi Parliament Act must be reformed.

If you would like to know more about this, I would recommend you listen to Sámi people themselves, I am unsure who to tag on Mastadon, but I have written about this topic on other social media platforms and have tagged people to follow on there for instance.

#HumanRights #Indigenous #Protest

"Beware the false hope of recycling" Very interesting piece in #Nature on pitfalls in the #CircularEconomy

"According to the #OECD only 15% of #plastic waste is collected for #recycling, and, of that, 40% is discarded from the recycling process on account of its low quality. As a result, actual plastic recycling rates are as low as 9%."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03645-0

@habichthorn Mit einer Instanz auf den Macroblogging-Plattformen #Friendica und #Hubzilla hält man Kontakt ins gesamte #Fediverse, auch zu dem Urgestein #Diaspora.

Here's your irregular reminder that:

Twitter was a multi-billion dollar company with thousands of employees.

Mastodon is a niche hobbyist product run by volunteers

The fact that we're being seen as a viable alternative to them is an admission that a federated, decentralized future is not only possible, but desirable.

Mastodon is not one thing, or one place. It's a network of many things and many places. We don't have a spokesperson (I mean, there's me. I'm the official spokesperson for 💯 of the fediverse, but beyond me there is no spokesperson) we don't have consensus on moderation or blocking or tools or what is good and what is bad. Some of us are professional SREs and Sysadmins, some of us aren't. Some of our instances have been around for 5+ years, some won't be here in six months.

And that's good! All of it, every last bit of it is good.

We're wrestling power away from the billionaire class, in real time, and reclaiming it for the People.

The collapse of Twitter for (basically) self-inflicted reasons makes a strong case for building online infrastructure structured as a non-profit or public utility.

People rely on these platforms for public information, use them for democratic debate and many invest their livelihoods in them.

These platforms are too important to public safety, peoples’ livelihoods and democracy to leave in the hands of eccentric billionaires or the whims of stock markets.

This one, again, I don't have "products" for (yet). I'm going to work on that later today a bit. But I kinda love it. I've been a huge fan of the symbolism of dandelions for a long time and my primary business uses dandelions in its branding.

If you follow @PleaseCaption then, when you forget to add alt-text to your image, the bot will politely dm you and give you a nudge.
#photography

The Government is engaged in what is - quite nakedly - voter suppression

Read this and weep from the #ElectoralReformSociety on one of the ways that Government is deliberately making it harder for young people to vote

#VoterID #UKPolitics #VoterSuppression #ElectoralReform

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voter-id-list-gives-few-options-for-younger-voters/

Good morning! Buen día!
Something to keep in mind.
#riptwitter
#tardigrade
#embroidery
#crossstitch

People grumbling that #Mastodon is slow at the moment... You just turned up with 1 million people in a tiny, rural village and you're complaining there's a queue to get into the only tearoom, which is run by gay pensioners Babs & Maureen as a retirement hobby on Mons-Weds. Relax!
#TwitterMigration