Alright, let's see if the make the relevant point.
Andrew Rollinson, an independent chemical engineering consultant unaffiliated with the Center for Climate Integrity, agreed with the entirety of the report: Chemical recycling “certainly is a fraud,” he said. “It hasn’t gone anywhere in 50 years, it won’t go anywhere in another 50 years, and it won’t go anywhere in 500 years.” He said a follow-up report could flesh out some of the technical reasons for these poor prospects, like what he described as chemical recycling’s very high energy use and vexing contamination issues.
They do not.
The relevant point that needs to be clear for everyone is this: plastics, especially those single use plastics, need to be abolished. Their production needs to stop. It doesn't need to stop after some replacement technology. It needs to stop now.
That's the UNION aspect of the European Union.
And who hates unions?
Also, I read that first as "incel agency". Hopefully, not foreboding.
Germany’s major far-right party is now fighting the classification in court. As a consequence, the intelligence agency has given a so-called standstill agreement – meaning that it is pausing the “extremist” designation until a court decision has been made.
Bringing Viktor Orbán's Hungary to heel with a credible threat of expulsion from the EU.
> Call it the real nuclear option for bringing Viktor Orbán’s Hungary to heel — but also call it a risky thought experiment. Tom Theuns of Leiden University wants to empower the EU to sever ties with a rogue member state like Hungary, where Orbán has fashioned an autocracy and set about cultivating the EU’s strategic rivals. Introducing an expulsion threat could push EU autocrats like Orbán to show more respect for rule of law and democracy, says Tom, while the current lack of any such mechanism has instead emboldened them. For now, Tom’s ideas still are legally theoretical, not to mention politically delicate. In his new book, Protecting Democracy in Europe, Tom envisages democratic states each leaving the EU and then immediately re-founding the Union — an EU 2.0 — minus any autocratic states. More than two dozen countries would need to coordinate national consents in advance, using the same EU treaty article that Britain used in Brexit. But if all doesn’t go to plan — think obdurate legislators, sudden calls for referendums, or a even French demand for more subsidies — the exercise could usher in the kind of political warfare that sinks the EU for good. Tom’s goal is, above all, to end what he calls fatalistic and defeatist thinking — that the EU must remain stuck in perpetuity with Orbán’s brand of kleptocratic illiberalism. “Supranational union with an autocratic state is a choice,” insists Tom. “EU member states can also choose to disengage.” In this episode Tom also reflects on what happened a quarter-century ago, when European authorities failed to block Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) from government, to elucidate a pattern of insufficient EU responses in the Hungarian context.
It's also the rich classes in "developing" countries.
(fig.3)
Related: https://slrpnk.net/post/21822936
World's wealthiest 10% have contributed to two-thirds of global warming since 1990, study finds https://phys.org/news/2025-05-world-wealthiest-contributed-thirds-global.html
Conservatives led by Friedrich Merz remain committed to renewables, but say "we must and we will change" an economic policy focused on climate.
Socially, war is a way to forcefully redistribute suffering and resources. This is a somewhat old (thousands of years) cultural tradition: instead of rationing and even sacrificing (yes, voluntary human sacrifice), the sacrifice and misery is turned into this team competition. In such civilizations, it's likely that rulers understood that they're "culling their populations" by going to war with other elites and having this "mutual sacrifice" going on. This is more evident with colonialism and capitalism, with war being a racket in the context of catabolic capitalism.
The reason we say "NO WAR EXCEPT FOR CLASS WAR" is, well, class war is already happening and the other forms of war are used to maintain the class hierarchy.
(Some) leftists do have a problem with tolerating class war violence, with making up excuses. I see it with those who make up excuses for the genocide of indigenous people by the hand of settlers, miners, ranchers and others who are trying to accumulate wealth in capitalism's rat race. So...
Don't test, don't find.
the cross will be over the shirt only once he gets the job.
The exquisitely stupid timeline.
How many "big tech" companies are just benefiting from network effects and don't really offer something unique and useful?
Network effects could be spurred from institutional efforts, usually with some incentives.
Seems like a great test to see if your government is far-right.
We saw how "too big to fail" worked out in 2008. Don't repeat the mistakes.
George Simion, the candidate tipped to win the first round of the presidential election, publicly aligns himself with Donald Trump.
PSA: Simion is as good at lying as Trump is, and his party is full of grifters, scammers and profoundly ignorant fools.
>The US wants central and eastern European countries to join its path of “energy freedom” instead of following the wider region’s transition to a net zero economy, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in Warsaw.
...
>“Central Europe faces a time for choosing,” Wright told conference participants. “We warmly welcome you to join us on Team Energy Freedom and Prosperity for Citizens.”
...
>“In fact, the clarion conclusion from economic studies of climate change is that net zero 2050 is absolutely the wrong goal,” he said. “Not only is it unachievable, but the blind pursuit of it will cause, is causing far more human damage than climate change itself.”
>President Trump has repeatedly called on Europe to buy more American energy products if the bloc wants to avoid tariffs.
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Extra context:
Climate Crisis Deniers Explain Why They Like U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright - DeSmog
Swathes of scientific data deletions are sweeping across US government websites – with decades of research at risk. Now, scientists are racing to save their work before it's lost.
Without reducing the global rates of deforestation, humanity probably can’t prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
Comic story by Eleri Harris
Contents
00:00 – Smokin’ hot Europeans
00:24 – State of the European Climate Report
01:15 - Headlines
02:27 – Extremes
04:16 – Polar impacts
07:50 – Global context
08:54 – Future change
10:02 - What to do
10:56 - Thanks
>2024 was the world’s hottest year on record, and Europe is the continent warming the fastest. Extreme events ravaged Europe last year, including floods, wildfires and storms that claimed hundreds of lives and impacted many thousands more.
>To find out more, I spoke to Julien Nicolas, a co-author of the European State of the Climate Report, a huge undertaking that was put together by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting on behalf of the Copernicus Climate Change Service and World Meteorological Organisation.
Transportation officials are reviewing local infrastructure funding as the administration leans into fossil fuels.
>On 19 March 2025, Erik Møse, chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, updated the Human Rights Council on the findings of the Commission's latest report, which found that Russian authorities have committed enforced disappearances of civilians in the areas of Ukraine that they control and these are crimes against humanity.
An intro to Russian propaganda with some words of wisdom at the end.
Belgrade authorities have used sound weapons on the crowd of protesters. The video description has some educational links.
There are lots of videos around.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/166-peter-strack
> States averaging ten thousand watts per year - with other Western countries close behind - our excessive energy consumption is built into both our physical and cultural infrastructure. How much energy do we truly need to lead fulfilling lives, and what changes would be necessary in our neighborhoods and cities to achieve that? In today’s discussion, Nate is joined by Peter Strack, a French researcher and author, to explore the concept of 2000-Watt Societies—innovative models that aim to balance reduced energy consumption with the well-being of the people who live there. Peter explains the historical context of energy consumption and origins of lower-energy communities, as well as the necessary changes in infrastructure, social dynamics, and personal habits to reduce energy consumption while sustaining a lifestyle that is fulfilling and caring for residents. How can building relationships based on trust and reciprocity within our communities enhance resilience and help reduce energy consumption? What models already exist for communal infrastructure and sharing the labor needed for maintenance and care work? Finally, how could the 2000-Watt Society offer a more comfortable, connected way of living for more people – perhaps even more than high-energy Western lifestyles – while staying within our environmental and resource constraints?
Minority leader’s intention to vote for Republican funding bill to avert shutdown attacked by progressive Democrats
> Donald Trump is starting off his morning by doing something he’s done quite often, which is threaten tariffs on major US trading partners. > > The latest salvo is aimed at the European Union and their alcoholic beverage industry, particularly France and its world-renowned vineyards. Trump says he’ll put tariffs on what the bloc exports to the United States, after the EU yesterday imposed their own levies on American whiskey in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel. > > The escalatory tit-for-tat is why these things are referred to as trade wars. Here’s what Trump wrote, on Truth Social: > >> The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky. If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.
>Donald Trump has spent the week dizzyingly going back and forth on everything from tariffs to Russia to supporting veterans to Elon Musk. It's been a week of 180-degree-turned-360-degree turns causing confusion and chaos. Grant breaks down the biggest flip-flops, what they mean, and what to know next >Grant also talks to Cory Doctorow, the inventor of the word "Enshitification," journalist, author, and activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (link below) to talk all about what enshitification is and how it applies to the US government now.
An audit found that the 10 leading generative AI tools advanced Moscow’s disinformation goals by repeating false claims from the pro-Kremlin Pravda network 33 percent of the time
Some 47 million people in Europe were unable to heat their homes sufficiently last winter. This figure has risen dramatically since 2021.
A longer article about energy costs, especially heating, and climate adaptation efforts, and how right-wing parties are profiting from fake populism about cheap fossil energy needs.
A relevant snippet:
>In times of extremely high living costs, carbon pricing not softened by support measures is of enormous social and political significance: those who can afford to renovate or install renewable energy sources will be less impacted, whereas those who are poor or renting will have to spend much more of their income on heating costs and will furthermore be unable to free themselves of the dependency on CO2. Across Europe, a dispute over carbon pricing has erupted.
>“We are currently seeing attempts by the conservative and right-wing factions in the European Parliament as well as by member states and the business community to undo climate efforts,” says Green Party MEP Michael Bloss. “It would make sense to start working now on establishing programmes for the potential revenues so money can be paid out directly from 1 January 2026. Otherwise, there is a risk of the ETS2 becoming a social trap from 2027.”
...
>According to Sibylle Braungardt from the Öko-Institut in Freiburg, there are large subsidy programmes in Germany for energy-efficient renovations and replacements of heating systems by more sustainable alternatives. However, it is mostly high-income households taking advantage of these programmes. “It’s problematic if homeowners can renovate and install heat pumps to pay their way out of carbon pricing but renters cannot.”
>A closely watched civil trial that began in North Dakota last week could bankrupt Greenpeace and chill environmental activism as the climate crisis continues to deepen. The multimillion-dollar lawsuit by Energy Transfer, the oil corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, claims Greenpeace organized the mass protests and encampment at Standing Rock between 2016 and 2017 aimed at stopping construction of the project. Although the uprising at Standing Rock was led by Indigenous water defenders, Energy Transfer is instead going after Greenpeace for $300 million in damages — an amount that could effectively shutter the group’s U.S. operations. “This case is not just an obvious and blatant erasure of Indigenous leadership, of Indigenous resistance,” says Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. “It is an attack on the broader movement and all of our First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest.”
DemocracyNow original video is here (yes, they host their own videos too): https://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/4/greenpeace - you can find a transcript on this page.
