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"The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has issued a landmark ruling, declaring that failure to address environmental pollution constitutes a violation of the right to life. The court found that governments must inform citizens living in pollution-affected areas, allowing them to assess risks to their health and well-being. 

The case was brought by Italian citizens affected by hazardous emissions and widespread illegal waste dumping and burning in Campania. The pollution crisis has had severe public health consequences, and the court determined that the Italian government’s failure to intervene effectively, despite the pollution being caused by private actors, breached human rights law. 

The ruling is expected to set a precedent for environmental cases across Europe, reinforcing government accountability in pollution control. 

ClientEarth fundamental rights lawyer Malgorzata Kwiedacz-Palosz hailed the decision as a crucial step in linking environmental protection to human rights. 

“This ruling confirms that human rights depend on access to clean air, water, and soil. Governments have an obligation to shield citizens from environmental hazards, no matter their source. The court has now explicitly recognised that pollution can directly threaten the right to life, meaning states will face greater scrutiny and stricter enforcement obligations,” she said. 

Leading epidemiologist Dr Fabrizio Bianchi, who submitted expert testimony, stressed the severe health risks linked to pollution in Campania, where nearly three million residents have been exposed to toxic air since the 1980s. 

“The health impacts are undeniable—higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory illnesses. Authorities must implement immediate clean-up measures and long-term monitoring to protect public health,” he stated. 

This ruling strengthens environmental case law within the European Court of Human Rights, setting a binding precedent for future litigation. 

In a separate legal challenge in Italy, ClientEarth is supporting a mother’s case advocating for her son’s right to breathe clean air, citing Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights —the same provision that underpinned the ECtHR’s latest decision. 

Legal experts from Torino Respira, a group supporting the case in Italy, welcomed the ruling: “This judgment reinforces our argument that failing to keep air pollution within legal limits violates a child’s fundamental right to life and health. It sets an authoritative precedent for human rights protections against environmental harm.” 

With growing global recognition of environmental degradation as a human rights issue, this ruling is expected to reshape legal approaches to pollution-related cases, compelling governments to act decisively against environmental threats."

-via ESG Post, February 1, 2025

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otherwise interesting post ruined by the bold insistence that you can never accidentally abuse someone & that all abusive people are self-aware evil masterminds

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well look who it is. my old friend. the conses of my quences.

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the "feeling like something is wrong with you that you have to hide" background noise is often a result of childhood trauma because an abused or neglected child who doesn't rationalize their mistreatment runs the risk of alienating themselves from what little shelter and care is actually being provided. it's theorized that blaming yourself at that age is a way to survive by coming up with a justification for why you're being abused so you don't blame your caregivers for your own suffering, thereby alienating them to the point that you are fed or sheltered or protected even less than you are currently. believing you may be able to "change" so that you're worthy of love also prevents despair/giving up. it's of utmost importance to the survival of very small children to develop a worldview that keeps them alive, even if it's by totally magical thinking and at the cost of their ability to perceive reality or navigate normal human relationships. the same thing can happen to adults in abusive domestic situations.

anyway once you're out of that situation it's time to get really pissed off

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they gave me an award for acting :')

Variety magazine named me one of their '10 Brits To Watch' and I walked the red carpet at the Newport Beach Film Honours

it's so lovely to be recognised for my acting, like wow, I could cry, genuinely

also, turns out me and Varada Sethu went to school just down the road from each other? weird coincidence lol

styling: brian conway

HMU: nicki buglewicz

dress: ilkyaz ozel

accessories: alexis bittar

cunt: served

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being abused or neglected really makes it clear how many things are skills that nobody really treats as. skills. exercising autonomy is a skill. listening to your body is a skill. resting is a skill. being liked and being loved are skills. nobody tells you how to do this shit because nobody even told me I was supposed to have learnt these things when I was a kid. I kind of just have to manually figure out what makes me freak out and work from there. unfair as shit

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Fuck this one hits home.

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my life with ADHD

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It makes me happy when they listen

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the problem with dyson spheres is they only work during the daytime

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Really cool write up that links to the original paper that just came out this year (2025)!

This is a really cool example of foraging innovation.

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maybe this time picking at Textures on my skin will lead to being silky smooth

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Hi, Clair. I’d like to come in and talk with you. Would that be all right?

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who’s left- Mariame/Prison Abolition

by Flynn Nicholls

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With this latest round of discourse being "trans men shouldn't complain about being kicked out of women's spaces", I felt the urge to write up a relatively long post regarding the topic, as I feel it is a long tangled mess and involves a significant amount of people simply talking past each other.

To begin, what is a woman's space? I ask this, because "women's spaces" often fall under one of three categories: medical services, social services, and social gatherings. Of the three, trans men need access to nearly everything if not everything included within "medical services" and "social services". These things often need to be considered co-ed anyway, but are still considered "for women" and often are labeled things like "women's health" or "women's defense". Social gatherings- things such as book clubs, concerts, festivals, and other similar outings- can have a nuanced and complicated history when it comes to the inclusion, or exclusion, of trans men.

As an example- I am a binary, gay trans man who has not yet been sterilized. If I become pregnant and need to seek out social services, I must do so via my provider's "Women and Babies" department. I am neither of those things, and yet regardless of whether I am completing or terminating the pregnancy, I must label myself a woman in order to receive care. If I wish to have a pap smear, receive birth control, or investigate my chances of ovarian and cervical cancer, I must do so via the "Women's Health Clinic". I am not a woman, but I must label myself as one in order to discuss sterilization options. Many trans men who have had their gender markers changed prior to sterilization have reported difficulty even booking an appointment, as well as difficulty convincing their insurance to pay for this appointment due to a discrepancy with gender markers vs gendered care. Many have discussed the realities of being a pregnant man, whether they remained pregnant until their child was born, or whether they terminated said pregnancy with an abortion.

It should come as no surprise that the statistics for trans men receiving quality gynecological care are abysmal. It should be equally unsurprising to hear how many trans men have died from botched abortions, untreated miscarriages, infections and cancers of the uterus and cervix and ovaries, and complications during pregnancy or birth. We belong in this space, despite it being labeled "for women", and the only thing pushing us out has done is quite literally what's been killing us.

This is, of course, not even taking into account the numbers of trans men who have been forced to become pregnant via their husbands or families as a means to detransition them, and those who have become pregnant as a result of corrective rape. There is a saying among trans men of my age- it isn't "we all know a guy this has happened to", it's "which of us haven't experienced this? who among us doesn't fear this? who will it happen to next?"

Which brings me to my next point: women's social services. As with women's medical care, nearly everything labeled "for women" as a social service must be inclusive to trans men. Shelters for domestic violence survivors, rape crisis centers, self defense classes, family planning, these are all things that honestly should already be co-ed. But, many times, they are exclusively targeted towards women. I understand why, I do. But with trans men being statistically more likely than cis women to experience the need for these services, it seems a cruelty to close their doors to a vulnerable demographic reaching out for help.

Where should trans men in crisis go? Shutting the door to us without addressing the reason we need to access these resources gives us a single ultimatum: detransition, or die. Go back to being a woman, or die knowing the likelihood that a woman's name will adorn your headstone, and "daughter, wife, mother" will be said in your obituary. Much like the medical services, this incomplete answer has lead many trans men to their deaths. Whether by their own hands, or by their attackers'.

But there are other social services out there that perhaps are not as dire. Women's scholarships, colleges, all girls schools. Girl Scouts, women's sport leagues, gym memberships. Trans men don't need access to these, right?

Well... is the trans man in question out? Has he been living as a man, or is he still closeted? Is it safe for him to come out? Does he pass, or has he just bought his first binder and given himself his first buzz cut? Is he living under the control of his parents, or is he able to freely decide for himself the type of person he'd like to be and the type of life he'd like to live?

You see, I was a Girl Scout once. And, if we are to believe to our core that trans men are men even before they know the words "transgender", this means I was a boy in a girl's space. I didn't know that being transgender was an option for me at the point where my troop disbanded, and another leader to replace the first within my local area was not found until after I had aged out.

But also... I was in 7th grade when my troop disbanded. Two years later, I would learn the word "transgender", and suddenly everything would make sense. Two years later, I would come out to my parents and my sisters. To put this into perspective, I graduated high school in 2010. The Boy Scouts officially allowed cisgender girls and transgender people of all genders to join all programs in 2019.

I was not expelled from my Girl Scout troop. My leader simply stopped showing up to meetings, and my troop disbanded to go our separate ways when leadership could not find someone quickly enough to replace her. But... if this had not happened, I would have been a recently out transgender boy in a girl's social service, still wearing push up bras and frilly shirts because that's all my parents would buy me until I became an adult and moved out and had a job with my own money to re-purchase myself a wardrobe. Indistinguishable from any of the others, outside of what went on inside my own mind.

I would not have been accepted into the Boy Scouts, if Girl Scouts had been taken from me as abruptly as it was from a different transgender boy in the same state I was born and raised. Which would have left me with... nothing. Neither. And the only reason I even joined the Girl Scouts was because I had wanted to join the Boy Scouts and the local troop had refused to allow me, because they had labeled me a girl.

I don't believe I'm the one that coined Schrodinger's Gender, but I do reference it often. In this situation, one is both a boy when it hurts, and a girl when it hurts. Even if that gender label changes by the second, the point is to use your gender and your assigned sex to hurt you.

But then, why do these services even have to be gendered to begin with? After all, Boy Scouts just updated to be The Scouts, and has removed (on paper) the insistence on gendering.

Well... I certainly agree that the majority of gendering these services is at this point a concept that needs to be reformed, but I'm unconvinced that we will be able to completely integrate without addressing the reason they were segregated by gender in the first place.

Women's gym memberships are gender segregated for two reasons. Women and girls- and anyone labeled as women and girls, regardless of true identity- are frequently not afforded the same access to resources as cisgender men and boys. Women and girls- and anyone labeled such- are frequently at high risk of predatory sexual behavior and physical violence. Both of these problems are symptoms of a larger system of misogyny at play, and both of these problems directly affect trans men especially those who have not transitioned in a way that makes them pass for cis men.

Regardless of the truth of my identity, the reality is that I was seen as and treated as a girl when it came to physical fitness, and thus barred from the same activities freely offered to the boys. Regardless of the truth of my identity, I have experienced predatory sexual behavior from cis men as young as 8 or 9 years old, continuing past when I came out and began to transition socially.

If the problem is not addressed, cis women cannot re-integrate with cis men. But, additionally, if the problem is not addressed, the choice still remains clear for trans men. Detransition, stay closeted, or go without.

A common complaint of trans men is the invisibility and erasure our demographic faces. It should be easy to see why this happens. The problem of a misogynistic society is one that continues to this day, and without addressing the problem we cannot hope for success in creating a more inclusive space. At the same time, trans men are being pushed out and isolated as they realize they must make a choice.

As for social gatherings, such as a woman's retreat or a woman's music festival? Of course, it may sound odd to say that a trans man should feel welcome there. But the truth of the matter is the majority of the trans men asking for the ability to stay are trans men who have been within that space for years already, prior to coming out, prior to realizing some things about their genders, prior to taking their first steps as men.

I'm pretty good friends with an older butch who told me that I am the first person they ever told that they were a nonbinary man. This person is in their 50s. They're married. But the wife doesn't like it, and they love their wife too much to cause friction in the relationship, so they keep it to themselves, and they keep quiet, and they don't say anything about being transgender, but in their head they aren't a woman. This person is not a woman, by their own insistence. Should this person be forcibly ejected from their local lesbian community, which they and the wife helped form decades ago? Should they divorce their wife, since that would make her not a lesbian anymore?

What harm is it, truly, to allow this person to stay? Social isolation kills people. The trans man suicide statistics are just as abysmal as any of the others I've mentioned here. Forcing someone to burn 20, 30, 40 years of their lives and their friends and their achievements because they are finally living as themselves is a deeply hurtful and isolating experience.

The majority of trans men asking to be included in these spaces are not trans men like me- who never really jived with the idea of womanhood and distanced ourselves as much as possible the moment we saw the opportunity. They are men like my friend, often existing outside of the binary, often with a deep love and appreciation for womanhood despite realizing that perhaps the label does not fit them as well as they once thought. They often have many years of connection, entire lives spent intwined in these spaces.

What good does it do to chase them out? What harm does it to do let them stay?

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when your art program’s closing message hits you straight in the heart and makes you stop and contemplate the state of it all