Rojava's YPG have been the bravest and most effective ground-troops in the battle against ISIS. Now the US withdrawal from Syria leaves them fully exposed to Erdogan's aggression in what will likely become a bloodbath. It is a horrifying betrayal.
For decades the US has invaded other countries under the guise of promoting "democracy". It has always been a lie. Now, when actual democracy is at stake - a radical experiment in eco-feminist direct democracy - the US is throwing it under the bus. #StopTurkeyDefendRojava
It's not just that the US is leaving #Rojava to its fate, as if washing its hands of the matter. Let's not forget that Erdogan's invasion of Rojava will be by a US ally and NATO member, and will only be possible with US consent.
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Who is driving climate breakdown? Buckle up for some striking data... 🧵
1. First, global North countries are responsible for 86% of cumulative emissions in excess of the safe planetary boundary.
China is responsible for 1%. The rest of the South and peripheral Europe is responsible for 13%.
These results arise from taking the safe carbon budget and dividing into national "fair shares" on a per-capita basis, and then assessing national emissions against national fair-shares.
2. This chart uses the same data.
The global South *as a group* is actually still within its fair share of the planetary boundary (350ppm), since the few "overshooting" countries are compensated for by "undershooting" countries.
By contrast, the global North has burned through not only its fair-share of the planetary boundary, but also its fair share of the 1.5C budget AND its 2C budget.
3. Here's the same data at the country level. The red countries are in overshoot, the green countries are still within their fair-shares.
I was honoured to write this for @tri_continental Pan Africa:
"One of the most damaging myths about the ecological crisis is that humans as such are responsible for it. In reality it's caused almost entirely by the states and firms of the imperial core." thetricontinental.org/pan-africa/new…
@tri_continental Because everyone always wonders about the China data, yes, as of 2019 (the final year of data in our analysis), China was responsible for only 1% of global emissions in excess of the planetary boundary. globalinequality.org/responsibility…
@tri_continental Curious users can check out the data for China and any other country they want using the interactive tools here: goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/related-resear…
About Spain's tourism problem... it seems intractable but the solutions are actually quite straightforward.
First, we need to recognize that tourism is not a good allocation of real resources and labour. It means producing goods and services that do not themselves directly benefit the local population. In fact, they are actively harmful to locals... gobbling up public space, destroying neighbourhoods, driving housing prices up, worsening climate change, etc.
It is much more rational and beneficial to allocate all this labour toward creating things that people actually need, like public services, affordable housing, renewable energy, and so on.
So, why do tourism at all? Two main reasons.
One reason is to get foreign currency. In this sense, tourism is basically an export (but where the export factories are plunked disastrously right into the middle of your historic downtowns). Why do exports? To pay for imports.
The solution here is simple: reduce unnecessary imports. Reduce luxury goods imports (these only benefit the rich), reduce car/SUV imports (build up your public transit system instead), etc. There are many options here. This reduces pressure for obtaining foreign currency.
A second reason to do tourism is to create jobs. This one seems like a strong argument but in fact it's not.
The obvious solution here is to implement a public job guarantee. Not only does this solve unemployment (a major problem in Spain), it mobilizes labour around socially and ecologically useful things that benefit society, rather than allocating labour to useless things like serving tourists.
In other words, there are simple alternatives to the two main reasons people cite for needing tourism. Any political party that realises this can ride the current wave of popular discontent and translate that energy into real, practical social improvements.
This is not to say that tourism should be abolished, far from it. But it's clear to everyone that extreme dependency on tourism is socially and ecologically destructive and it has to stop.
And for anyone wondering how to go about the practical business of actually scaling down the tourism industry, the answer is the same as for reducing any damaging industry (eg, fossil fuels, luxury goods, SUVs, etc): credit guidance! jasonhickel.org/blog/2024/8/20…
And for the avoidance of all doubt, tourism is an absolute, unmitigated climate catastrophe: nature.com/articles/s4155…
I'm excited to announce this new paper we have in The Lancet Planetary Health.
We show that the world is not moving towards a just and ecological future for all. Growth in energy and material use is occurring primarily in countries that do not need it and is not occurring fast enough (or is declining) in countries that do need it.
The capitalist world economy is not delivering for human needs and ecology. A substantial redistribution of energy and material use is required—both within countries and between them.
1. Globally, we use *a lot* of energy and materials. In fact, we use at least 2.5x more than would be needed to ensure decent living standards (DLS) for all.
DLS includes universal healthcare, education, modern housing, nutritious food, sanitation systems, transit, fridge-freezers, phones, computers, etc.
2. And yet, billions of people are denied access to DLS.
We find that 50% of nations do not have access to enough energy to ensure DLS, given existing national distributions. And for 20 of these countries, their consumption is actually *declining*. This is an extremely bad situation.
Hi everyone, I'm excited to announce this new project: a website dedicated to research and data on imperialism and inequality. You're going to love this... (links in thread below):
It includes 14 topics and more than 100 interactive graphs, drawing on recent research published by our team and others, including on unequal exchange, gender, climate, military power, financial flows...
I did this interview for @rosaluxglobal with several brilliant colleagues. We talk about liberalism, socialism, strategy, and the urgent need to overcome the capitalist law of value. I think you'll like it: rosalux.de/en/news/id/535…
"We live in a world of immense productive potential, and yet we face deprivation and ecological breakdown. Why? Because under capitalism, production only happens when and where it’s profitable. Social and ecological needs are secondary to the returns to capital."
"The law of value explains why we experience shortages of socially and ecologically essential goods, even in an age of unprecedented productive capacity. If something isn’t profitable, it doesn’t get made — no matter how necessary it is."