#Fuel management in South Africa

[neobluenergy]

Why Environmental Responsibility is Essential in the Petroleum Industry: Neo Blu’s Vision

The petroleum industry has long been a cornerstone of global energy production, powering economies and enabling modern life. However, with growing concerns over climate change, environmental degradation, and resource depletion, the industry faces increasing pressure to adopt sustainable practices. For companies like Neo Blu Energy, environmental responsibility is not only essential but a key part of their corporate vision. This blog will explore why sustainability is vital in the petroleum industry and how Neo Blu Energy is leading the charge toward a greener future.

The Growing Need for Environmental Responsibility in the Petroleum Industry The petroleum industry is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation. With increasing awareness of the global climate crisis, companies in this sector must acknowledge their role in shaping a more sustainable future. Here’s why environmental responsibility is no longer optional:

Climate Change and Global Warming: The combustion of fossil fuels contributes significantly to global carbon emissions, leading to rising temperatures, melting ice caps, and extreme weather conditions. The petroleum industry, as a major player, has a responsibility to reduce emissions and adopt cleaner technologies.

Environmental Degradation: Oil spills, land disruption, and pollution from extraction processes have long-term detrimental effects on ecosystems. Responsible companies must ensure that their operations do not harm wildlife, oceans, or communities.

Resource Depletion: Fossil fuels are finite resources. Environmental responsibility requires forward-thinking companies to explore renewable energy alternatives and invest in technologies that reduce their dependence on non-renewable resources.

Government Regulations: Many countries are introducing strict environmental regulations. Companies that fail to comply face significant penalties and damage to their reputation. Adopting eco-friendly practices helps businesses stay ahead of regulatory requirements.

Neo Blu Energy’s Vision for a Sustainable Future At Neo Blu Energy, we recognize the critical importance of environmental responsibility. We understand that as a petroleum wholesaler, we are uniquely positioned to influence the industry’s shift towards sustainability. Our vision is rooted in the following core principles:

Reducing Our Carbon Footprint: Neo Blu Energy is committed to minimizing the carbon footprint of our operations. We constantly seek innovative solutions that reduce emissions, such as upgrading our fuel distribution methods and using cleaner transportation options for bulk fuel logistics.

Investing in Renewable Energy: While petroleum remains a key resource, Neo Blu Energy is actively exploring and investing in renewable energy sources. By diversifying our energy portfolio, we aim to contribute to a more sustainable and balanced energy market.

Sustainable Fuel Solutions: We are working on providing cleaner fuel alternatives that meet strict environmental standards. Our efforts include partnering with eco-friendly fuel suppliers and researching biofuels that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Eco-Friendly Operations: From fuel storage to distribution, Neo Blu Energy follows environmentally friendly practices at every stage of the supply chain. Our corporate governance is built on strict environmental policies to ensure sustainable operations.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Beyond our internal efforts, Neo Blu Energy is committed to contributing to broader environmental causes. Through partnerships with local and international organizations, we are actively involved in reforestation projects, ocean conservation initiatives, and educational programs that raise awareness about environmental issues.

Why Neo Blu Energy Leads the Way in Petroleum Industry Sustainability Neo Blu Energy is more than just a petroleum wholesaler; we are a leader in adopting and promoting sustainable practices in the industry. Here’s how we’re making a difference:

Innovation and Technology: We leverage cutting-edge technologies to reduce the environmental impact of our operations. From using advanced filtration systems to adopting digital platforms that track emissions, we ensure that our processes are as eco-friendly as possible.

Employee and Community Engagement: Environmental responsibility starts with awareness. Neo Blu Energy actively involves its employees and the communities we serve in environmental initiatives, creating a culture of sustainability that extends beyond our business.

Collaboration with Environmental Groups: We collaborate with environmental organizations to develop new ways to reduce our impact. These partnerships allow us to stay informed on the latest sustainability trends and practices, ensuring that we remain at the forefront of the industry.

Long-Term Vision: Our commitment to sustainability isn’t just about short-term solutions. Neo Blu Energy has developed a long-term strategy that includes goals such as transitioning to lower-emission fuels, reducing water usage in operations, and continuing to invest in renewable energy.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Q1. How does Neo Blu Energy reduce its environmental impact while being a petroleum wholesaler? A: Neo Blu Energy takes several measures to reduce its environmental impact, such as minimizing emissions in transportation, investing in cleaner fuel alternatives, and adopting eco-friendly practices throughout our supply chain. We also partner with renewable energy companies to promote a balanced energy mix.

Q2. What role does renewable energy play in Neo Blu Energy’s sustainability strategy? A: Although our core business focuses on petroleum, we believe renewable energy is essential for the future. We are actively exploring ways to integrate renewable energy sources into our business and are committed to supporting the global transition to cleaner energy.

Q3. How does Neo Blu Energy ensure compliance with environmental regulations? A: We are fully compliant with local and international environmental regulations. Neo Blu Energy’s corporate governance framework ensures that we regularly audit our processes, adopt best practices, and stay updated with any regulatory changes.

Q4. How can petroleum companies be environmentally responsible? A: Petroleum companies can adopt cleaner technologies, reduce emissions, invest in renewable energy, and follow sustainable operational practices. Companies must also engage in environmental conservation efforts and prioritize reducing their carbon footprint.

Q5. Why is environmental responsibility critical in the petroleum industry? A: The petroleum industry significantly contributes to global carbon emissions and environmental degradation. Being environmentally responsible not only mitigates these impacts but also helps companies meet regulatory requirements, improve their reputation, and ensure long-term business sustainability.

Conclusion Environmental responsibility is no longer an option for companies in the petroleum industry—it’s a necessity. At Neo Blu Energy, we are committed to driving positive change in the sector by adopting sustainable practices, reducing our carbon footprint, and investing in renewable energy. As the world moves toward a greener future, we believe that the petroleum industry can—and must—play a key role in shaping that future responsibly.

By prioritizing environmental sustainability, Neo Blu Energy is not only contributing to a healthier planet but also setting the standard for what it means to be a responsible player in the energy industry.

[mesetacadre]

this might be a silly question, but. ive recently learned more about the devastating effects of sanctions on countries like cuba, dprk, or venezuela, and how much unnecessary suffering they cause among the population, especially when it comes to food or medicine shortages. but then bds also calls for sanctions against israel, and im wondering, is there any meaningful difference between that and the sanctions already imposed by the US on other countries? i feel a bit hypocritical when i argue against sanctions while at the same time supporting bds, i feel like they are very different situations with different outcomes but i lack the understanding to really grasp how they are different, if that makes any sense

Sanctions are the systematic blockade of all or certain sectors of trade under military or economic threat by the sanctioner (mostly just the USA in recent history) to any potential agents who might try to ignore the sanction. These sanctions typically include things like medical supplies, food if the country is dependent on imports (like most countries who get sanctioned), electricity, fuel, both light and heavy industry, agricultural products and machines, the global financial system, and other such key sectors. These sanctions, overwhelmingly, only serve to impoverish the country, create undue suffering and political strife. This political strife/instability is usually the main goal of sanctions, to destabilize the target government. However, this political instability more often than not does not result in a magical restoration of "democracy" or "human rights", it usually leads the country down a path of further isolationism and political violence that only worsens its general situation. It also makes it much easier for factions like ISIS to gain popularity and support, since people are desperate. Sanctions are inhumane measures which only makes a country suffer for no good reason. The sanctioners know this, they don't care, and I'd wager that suffering is often the actual point of these sanctions. What has the 60 year old blockade achieved in Cuba? It has only caused pointless poverty, and the stated goal of the sanctions, which is to ultimately remove the communist government, has failed, is failing, and Cuba is managing to make due with what they have.

BDS call for sanctions mostly in regards to military equipment and related products/services, for NATO to stop aiding the genocide, or the banning of Israel from international events such as the olympics. No Israeli will ever go hungry because they no longer get European-made ordinance or because they don't get to participate in Eurovision. This is what BDS says in their Sanctions and governments campaign (which is behind two menus, this is also not the main focus of BDS, by far):

The BDS movement calls for sanctions against Israel, similar to the sanctions that were imposed against apartheid South Africa. These sanctions could include a military embargo, an end to economic links and the cutting of diplomatic ties. In the meantime, the BDS movement is calling for states to take steps to meet their legal obligations not to be complicit in the commission of particular Israeli crimes and not to provide recognition, aid or assistance that help Israel maintain its regime of settler colonialism, apartheid.. This includes, for example, the obligation for states to immediately end to all trade that sustains illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the suspension of free trade agreements and other bilateral agreements with Israel.

Notice the greater emphasis on military and diplomatic ties, and how economic/trade sanctions are only called for when it «sustains illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory». Sure, this will (if it is ever adopted by Israel's significant trade partners) cause some suffering for the poor illegal settlers who had just moved into their shiny new apartment blocks built atop acres of land that sustained the surrounding Palestinian villages. The mere existence of these settlements cause more suffering than any sanction could ever cause.

Calling for these sanctions against Israel, which again, don't even come from comparable agents, are both less harmful towards the total population of Israel, and occur in a completely different context. I'm not going to pretend I care about the wellbeing of settlers whose houses didn't even exist 10 years ago. If these sanctions ever do occur in a significant enough scale (dubious), and those settlers don't want to find themselves in a food desert because Carrefour closed all their stores in the west bank, they shouldn't have moved into land stolen from a people facing genocide in the first place. We're also wagering hypothetical and non-global suffering against the now more than 100,000 dead Palestinians in Gaza in the past year, not even counting those who died ever since the first Nakba.

Like BDS points out, these types of grassroots and targeted boycotts/sanctions worked in South Africa, and the white South Africans didn't even suffer that much. Wager these short-lived and targeted sanctions against these other half-century long sanctions sustained by the US' strongarm policy that have prevented basically anything from getting into Cuba or the DPRK.

While those two things are both called sanctions, they have radically different objectives, methods, range, timescale, and character. I can't reiterate this enough, the North Korean collective farmer and the Israeli settler in the west bank have nothing in common when it comes to their position. Only one of them is complicit in genocide through their own actions, only one of them has any degree of blame, and only one of their governments is actually doing anything that warrants any kind of international action. And again, the BDS strategy focuses much more on military sanctions. Let's also be practical for a second, and acknowledge that the US is never going to withdraw their support for Israel, and especially will never sanction Israel. Israel is simply never going to face the same kind of sanctions that Venezuela or Cuba are facing, nor with the same severity, nor with the same restrictions on products essential for life.

[opencommunion]

"As Europe drowned in Palestinian blood, European verbal sadism softened and has been exchanged for a few grimaces and tragic statements in the media forced by the mountain of chopped-up Palestinian bodies. But ultimately, the support of all European governments for 'Israel' in its genocide has remained intact as seen in the refusal to join South Africa's demand at the ICJ. The hands of all are soaked in blood. The European position is cloaked in a gigantic refined hypocrisy that includes some votes in the UN Security Council in favor of a ceasefire but no real action in their governments.

... Whoever controls with his hand the taps of armament, economic, commercial, or institutional, to open or close them at will, is in practice the one who directs the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The European and US governments operate with their hands these taps that feed the Zionist regime, because 'Israel' is not self-sufficient and maintains a circular colonial economy of dependence on the Western metropolis. To this is added an important trade with Turkey and the supply of fuel from Azerbaijan and Iraqi Kurdistan, which also comes to it through Turkey.

... Israeli GDP fell by 20% in the last quarter of 2023 due to the staggering spending on the war machine of $300 million per day ($10 billion per month), unsustainable for a population smaller than that of Portugal. Other factors are added to this, such as the paralysis in many economic sectors, the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Israeli settlers who have emptied the settlements near the dividing line with Lebanon and Gaza, the reduction of commercial exchange, or the disappearance of foreign tourism, among others.

These figures would have led to the collapse of any country of that size, and it is obvious that there is assisted ventilation from the European metropolis and the USA. Therefore, Europe and the USA are leading in practice this genocide and exploration of ethnic cleansing to culminate their colonial project in Palestine.

... Despite all this gigantic coalition of criminal forces and the beginning of a months-long period of sadistic mass torture, today, as a year ago, as on October 7, my prediction is that the Palestinians will resist in Palestine, even if 'Israel' manages to explode a regional open war and in that gigantic chaos further escalates the massacre. 

The Palestinians will defeat the mental Dark Ages of Europe and the USA by resisting with their feet on their land, with the weapons they can dispose of, and by having the necessary and sufficient (non-Western) allies as the Algerians or the Vietnamese had. The colonial regimes applied greater sadism the closer they came to their end, and likewise, the Israeli regime will intensify its internal decomposition, accelerating its horizon of collapse. This statement is not the product of naive optimism, nor is it because the academic Ilan Pappe says so. It is because the recent history of colonialism tells us so, and above all, because it is reaffirmed by the Palestinians who are piled up on the colossal firing squad of the Gaza wall."

Daniel Lobato for Al Mayadeen, "US, Europe conducting the genocide, and their colony in Palestine, 'Israel', is executing it," 3 March 24

[saraphil2024]

FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL: THE UNSEEN STRUGGLES OF QUEER REFUGEES IN EAST AFRICA 🌈🏳️‍⚧️

my name is Ciara ,and I am a queer refugee from Uganda. My journey of survival has taken me across borders, through unimaginable hardships, and into the depths of human cruelty. I am writing this today not just to share my story, but to give voice to the silenced—those of us who are fighting every day to stay alive in one of the most hostile environments on earth.

Being LGBTIQ in Uganda is a death sentence. The fear of being hunted, beaten, or killed is a daily reality. I survived a brutal attack, narrowly escaping death simply because of who I am. In 2019, I fled to Kenya, hoping to find safety in Kakuma Refugee Camp. But the violence there was relentless. For nearly five years, I lived in constant danger—beatings, threats, and persecution followed us wherever we went.

Earlier this year, I made the heart-wrenching decision to leave Kakuma and seek refuge in Gorom Camp, South Sudan. I’m now here with a group of fellow LGBTIQ refugees who have fled the same horrors. But life in South Sudan is even more terrifying. The civil war has torn this country apart, and the laws against LGBTIQ people fuel the violence against us. We’ve lost friends to this cruelty—lesbians and transgender refugees are being raped, and the rest of us live in constant fear of what might happen tomorrow.

The struggles don’t end with the violence. We are starving. We are without clean water. We are without proper shelter. Every single day feels like a fight for survival, as we battle diseases like malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and typhoid fever. These diseases, rampant in the camp, claim lives at an alarming rate. And for those of us who are already living with HIV, the lack of medicine is an added death sentence.

We wake up every morning wondering if today will be our last. Hunger gnaws at us, and even when we manage to find something to eat, it’s not enough. The water we drink is often contaminated, making us sick with typhoid or other waterborne illnesses. Malaria, spread by the swarming mosquitoes in our unsheltered camp, leaves us bedridden and weak, and yet we must find the strength to keep going. TB spreads quickly in our crowded living spaces, adding to the burden on our already fragile bodies. Our medical supplies are almost non-existent, and we’re losing the battle against these diseases.

We are not just asking for help; we are begging for our lives.

Without food, without clean water, without medicine, we are dying. But with your support, we can survive. Your donation, no matter how small, can provide us with:

1. Food – Our bodies are frail, but a simple meal can give us the strength to keep fighting.

2. Clean Water – Safe drinking water is a lifeline, protecting us from deadly diseases like typhoid.

3. Shelter– A safe place to sleep, away from the violence and harsh environment, means everything to us.

4. Medication – For those living with HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, and other illnesses, medicine is our only hope for survival.

We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but with your help, we might see a future. Your support doesn’t just provide food or water—it brings us hope. Hope that we won’t starve. Hope that we can fight off these diseases. Hope that we will live to see a future where our identities are not a death sentence.

This is a plea for survival. Please consider donating to our cause. Every dollar, every share, every bit of support can make the difference between life and death for us. You can donate here:

GoFundMe

Thank you for standing with us and giving us hope in our darkest hour.

Written by ciara, queer refugee and advocate for LGBTIQ refugees in East Africa.*

[mariacallous]

The far-right violence against foreigners in the United Kingdom these days strongly reminds me of a novel published in the 1980s: J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians.

Coetzee, a South African novelist who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2003, describes in this slim volume exactly why and how this kind of violence erupts: because communities have been drip-fed lies and racial prejudices for a long time, until they form an image of strangers—in this novel, the barbarian nomadic tribes—that has very little to do anymore with reality.

The central character in Waiting for the Barbarians, which Philip Glass turned into an opera in 2005, is a middle-aged magistrate who has been running a sleepy border settlement of an unnamed Empire for years. Nothing ever happens in the village or in neighboring towns and villages. Everyone knows everyone. The subjects of the Empire and the barbarians living on the other side of the border, which is totally porous, have bent the rules so that everyone can go about their business without bothering others. The barbarians come to the village for food and medicine and go home afterward.

The magistrate must implement the rules of the Empire but tries to do this in a human, benign-ish way. When there is an occasional cattle raid, for example, he has a serious talk with those who did it. He hardly ever takes prisoners, and when he does, they are fed, kept clean, and often released early: “All my life I have believed in civilized behaviour.” In his view, conflicts do not benefit anyone and should be avoided. All is certainly not perfect, but it keeps the peace. The communities live more or less quietly side by side.

Then, one day, a delegation from the Empire’s secret service (the “Third Bureau”), led by Colonel Joll, visits the village. Joll, an unbending bureaucrat, is convinced that the nomad tribes are secretly preparing an attack on the Empire. He leads an expedition in search of rebels and radicals and comes back to the settlement with many suspects in chains. They are terrified. Suddenly, the prison is full. The inmates are humiliated, starved, and tortured. The magistrate tries to stop this (“These are fishermen, not rebels!”), but Colonel Joll sidelines him and continues to torture the barbarians until all “confess.”

After the colonel’s departure, the magistrate feeds the prisoners and sends most of them home. One of them is a nomad girl. He tends to her wounds, washes her feet, and sleeps with her. Eventually, he brings her all the way back to her tribe. When he returns home after the long journey, Joll is back. He has the magistrate charged with treason—“consorting with the enemy”—and throws him in the same jail where the barbarians are kept.

No one comes to the magistrate’s rescue. Many villagers have become as hysterical as the colonel, and the rest are lying low. By now, every barbarian seems like a terrorist to them. Any behavior that was once normal has become suspect. Eventually, of course, the village just destroys itself—without a single barbarian going on the attack. The settlement is a ruin. Most people have left, including the colonel and his people. The magistrate stays: He has nowhere to go. As a bitter winter cold sets in, he feels stupid, “like a man who lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere.”

Although the novel was published in 1980, it has stark relevance for our times. Coetzee, whose Empire of course depicted South Africa under apartheid, shows how easy it is for a few zealots to turn communities that have long managed to live in peace against one another. All they need to do is to plant false, scary rumors about a particular group; embed them in a larger narrative about sovereignty, nationhood, and security; and then start pumping that narrative around. If citizens are scared enough, they are willing to believe it all. As Hermann Göring, the architect of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi police state, said when he was asked how he got the German people to accept Nazism: “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”

With this grim novel, Coetzee issued a strong, principled condemnation of South Africa’s apartheid regime, then still in full swing. (He immigrated to Australia later, in 2002.) Its relevance for today’s “far-right thuggery” in the U.K., as Prime Minister Keith Starmer put it last weekend, is no less clear. When far-right politicians fan the flames of racial and religious hatred for years, amplified by social media and newspapers calling migrants and asylum-seekers criminals, at some point Muslim communities and mosques will be targeted, asylum centers will be set ablaze, and Nazi salutes will be seen on the street.

In a democracy, words have consequences. A democracy is a political system that must ensure different communities in society do not get at one another’s throats. All communities have different interests. Therefore, there is always some friction between them. Because society is always changing, the balance between the communities is always changing, too. Democracy is meant to help them find a new balance, all the time. This applies to all levels of governance: local, provincial, national, European. Politics, journalism, and other institutions have a role to play in this system—a clear responsibility. Incitement, provocations, the spread of fake news, and the demonization of one community because of skin color or religion mean that they reject that responsibility. These are forms of democratic sabotage.

Coetzee’s message, voiced through the magistrate, is not a happy one. “To the last we will have learned nothing. In all of us, deep down, there seems to be something granite and unteachable.” Still, the magistrate plows on—what else can he do? He may be far from perfect, but he is a good man.

In the words of Coetzee, the real danger in society “always comes from within.” The U.K. is lucky to have a prime minister who seems to understand this.

[good-old-gossip]

His evilness will shame the DEVIL!!!

Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich has said letting two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip die of hunger might be “justified and moral”.

Speaking at a conference hosted by the Israel Hayom outlet on Monday, he expressed support for blocking aid to the Gaza Strip but said Israel lacked international legitimacy to do so.

“We are bringing in aid because there is no choice,” the far-right minister said, according to the Times of Israel.

“We can't, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause two million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” he added.

He said that Israel needed “international legitimacy for this war”.

For nearly 10 months, the Israeli military has imposed a tight siege on the Gaza Strip, extremely limiting the flow of life-saving essential food and medical items.

Aid delivery is scarce, unprotected and restricted. In June, independent UN investigators said Israel was using starvation on the Palestinian population as a weapon of war.

The hunger crisis has led to the death of dozens of people due to malnutrition, mostly children. A high risk of famine persists across the Gaza Strip as almost the entire population faces high levels of acute food insecurity or worse, including half a million suffering starvation, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said in June.

Smotrich is one of many Israeli ministers and officials who have made statements described as genocidal against Gaza's Palestinians since 7 October.

On 9 October, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was fighting “human animals” as he announced a “complete siege” on Gaza. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said.

Other ministers and officials have advocated using a nuclear bomb on Gaza, turning the enclave into a “slaughterhouse” and “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth”.

South Africa said these statements are evidence of genocidal intent in its ongoing case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Israel denies the accusation of genocide.

Smotrich has also been accused of making genocidal statements about the occupied West Bank.

In March 2023, he said the Palestinian village of Huwwara near Nablus "needs to be wiped out".

[scotianostra]

On 6th October 1938 the Maia flying boat took off from the River Tay with the Mercury seaplane on its shoulders, it flew 6,045 miles to South Africa creating the record for the longest seaplane flight.

After getting about six miles outside Dundee, between the city and Forfar, the planes separated and the Mercury headed towards Africa. It touched down on the River Orange, setting the then seaplane distance record.

Mercury and Maia were a composite aircraft, one aircraft fixed to the top of the other, very much like the 747/Space Shuttle combination which was used to move the shuttle around America.

In this case it was two seaplanes - both aircraft took off and the object of that exercise of carrying one piggyback was to reduce fuel consumption and therefore leave the maximum amount of fuel available to the smaller aircraft (the Mercury) which would separate from the large mothership below (the Maia). The captain of the Mercury, Don Bennett, had feared that he was running low on fuel about halfway through his journey but managed to push on and descended through a cloud of flamingos.

The second pic is a street sign near Dundee Airport commemorating the event, it reads.....

: "Mayo Avenue The street names at Dundee Airport commemorate the World Record for the longest uninterrupted flight by a seaplane. At noon on 6 October 1938 an Empire Flying boat called "Maia" took off from the River Tay carrying a smaller seaplane called "Mercury" on its back. This piggy-back method of launching long distance aircraft was called the "Mayo Composite" after Major Robert Mayo of Imperial Airways who devised the technique. The two planes separated over Dundee Law and Captain Donald C.T. Bennett (later to be founder of the Pathfinder bomber force) and his co-pilot Ian Harvey, proceeded to fly 6,045 miles in Mercury in 42 hours 26 minutes. The finishing point was the estuary of the Orange River at Alexander Bay in South Africa, as the aircraft had insufficient fuel to reach its intended destination of Capetown due to adverse weather on route. "

[probablyasocialecologist]

Some of the world’s largest investment banks, pension funds and insurers, including Manulife Financial Corp.’s John Hancock unit, TIAA and UBS, have been depleting California’s groundwater to grow high-value nuts, leaving less drinking water for the surrounding communities, according to a Bloomberg Green investigation. Wall Street has come to Woodville, wringing it dry. Since 2010, six major investors have quadrupled their farmland under management in California, to almost 120,000 acres in all, equivalent to a third of all the cropland in Connecticut.

[...]

This rush for water is an outgrowth of a decades-long bet on farmland by investors who see food cultivation as an asset class virtually assured of appreciating in a warming, more populous world. Globally, large investors and agribusinesses have snapped up about 163 million acres of farmland in more than 100 countries in the past 20 years. The land grab has given rise to a grab of an even scarcer global commodity: water. In a bid to ensure thriving investment portfolios, some of the world’s largest financial entities have amassed control over lakes, rivers and underground aquifers in places from California to Africa, Australia to South America, giving them outsize roles in managing an endangered resource that’s the basis of life on Earth. The trend has contributed to shifting hydrological patterns that stand to permanently disrupt communities’ access to fresh water. Local populations are paying the price in drained wells, high water bills and contaminated water supplies.

[...]

In the past decade, parts of the San Joaquin Valley have dropped as much as a foot per year, according to the US Geological Survey. Subsidence, as the sinking is called, has damaged bridges, canals and other infrastructure that will cost billions of dollars to fix, the state says. The aquifers themselves are irreparable. Many groundwater basins, when drained, never recover their former storage capacity, hydrologists have found. “Groundwater in California has been treated as an extractive resource—you pump and hope for the best,” says Graham Fogg, an emeritus professor of hydrology at the University of California at Davis. “Capitalism is driving this. Investors don’t care, because in 10 years they can make all the money they want and leave.”

[rebeltigera]

Ok, this is just to warn you ahead of time, that this will go into info-dump territory, but this has been on my mind for a while now.

Ok, so after seeing so much of your Shadow Lord au (a big fan of it, by the way), an idea for an au. It's almost like a reverse Shadow Lord au mixed with a chaotic neutral Sun Wuklong. Basically, in this au, a little after Macaque and Wukong's falling out, while Wukong is still trapped in the mountain, Macaque, fueled by anger, somehow manages to steal all of Wukong's powers and immortality, essentially replacing Wukong as the Monkey King and leaving Wukong as essentially an average monkey with human intelligence. Because of this, the gods essentially do a switch and have Macaque gain the circlet and be the one sent on the Journey to the West. As for Wukong, he eventually escapes from the mountain. I do have one idea. Maybe they let him out for a bit to try a circlet experiment on him, only for it to go wrong, and while he gets the circlet off, he is heavily scared (classic circlet scar and scar on his face). Wukong manages to escape, and trying to escape the gods, he flees Asia and enters Europe. He eventually travels to Africa through South America and Central America and finally settles in the bayous of Louisiana near New Orleans. During his travels, Wukong learned and gained a lot of foreign magic, all of which were connected to the Earth. He also became so connected to the earth that he regained his immortality (though it, along with his magic, are only on earth, so if he leaves earth, he loses his powers and becomes mortal). His powers would include classic spell casting, plant manipulation, elemental manipulation, healing, and shape-shifting (though instead of having a golden glow, in this case, he literally melts and turns into mud and reshapes themself). Fast forward to the modern day (with MK as Macaque's student), and we have Wukong now in hiding disguised as a Vodou queen who lives in the bayou (with his pet/familiar python and raven). For his personality, it who be a mix of Dr. Facilier and Ursula, with theater-kid levels of sass, and a lot of spite.

Little feisty antagonist Wukong my beloved hah

that's for sure some character development , but i would say it's much more similar to the lmk plot than my au

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Zipper at Vox:

Despite a recent��slowdown in US sales, global forecasts for electric vehicles remain bullish. Countries across North America, Europe, and Asia are expanding charger networks and offering EV subsidies; global EV sales are projected to nearly triple by 2030, reaching 40 million vehicles annually. The incipient wave of EV purchases raises a question: What will happen to the millions of gas-powered cars whose owners no longer want them? The likely answer: Rather than scrapping used gas vehicles or selling them domestically, rich nations will dispatch them to developing countries where limited incomes and low levels of car ownership have created eager buyers for even older, substandard models.

An influx of used gas cars would be a welcome development for those in the Global South who aspire to automobile ownership, a luxury that many in affluent countries take for granted. But it would undermine efforts to mitigate climate change, since shifting gas guzzlers from one country to another doesn’t lower global emissions. For developing countries themselves, a sharp increase in car ownership could amplify calls to build auto-reliant infrastructure, making it harder to construct the dense neighborhoods and transit networks that can foster more sustainable growth. And since these imported used cars would be fueled by gasoline, air quality would further decline in cities that are already choked with smog. The world is in an era of polycrisis, facing concurrent challenges including climate change, toxic air, and extreme inequality. Difficult trade-offs are often inevitable. Such is the case with the thorny issue of what to do with the millions of gas cars that the rich world will discard as its fleets are electrified. Electrification is a necessary goal. And it’s natural for people in the developing world to desire the same luxuries that characterize middle-class comfort in wealthier countries. The question is how to manage a transition with enormous stakes that has largely been ignored. The experts who do pay attention are growing alarmed.

[...]

How used cars move from rich nations to poor ones

Although it generates few headlines, a massive industry transports used cars across borders every day, with exporters collecting lower-quality models from dealers and wholesale auctions. Ayetor noted that colonial legacies are reflected in the trade flows: the UK, with its car cabins designed for drivers who keep to the left, tends to ship to former colonies like Kenya and Tanzania that still follow the same rules.

According to a report issued in June by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), some 3.1 million used cars were exported in 2022, up from 2.4 million in 2015. Most come from Japan, Europe, and the United States. (In the US, around 7 percent of all cars no longer in use are sent abroad. The rest end up in junkyards where their parts and materiel are sold off.) About one in three exported used vehicles is destined for Africa, followed by Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Imported models often dominate local auto sales, since international carmakers send few new vehicles to the Global South and rarely establish production facilities there. (In sub-Saharan Africa, only South Africa has local factories.) The developing world’s demand for cars is robust, in large part because comparatively few people own one. According to one 2020 estimate, the US had 860 cars for every 1,000 residents, while South Africa had 176, Morocco 112, and Nigeria just 56. Meanwhile, growing populations provide a steady supply of new potential customers. Africa is home to all of the world’s 20 fastest-growing countries, with Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, and Uganda expanding their populations by at least 3 percent per year. (For comparison, the US population is growing at a 0.67 percent rate).

[...]

The world needs a plan to adapt

The risks of aged, polluting cars sent abroad will not be borne by the Global South alone. Climate change is a planetary phenomenon; driving a gas guzzler produces the same amount of emissions in Lusaka as it would in London or Los Angeles. Reducing greenhouse gasses requires reducing total vehicle emissions, not just shifting their location. In an ideal world, electrification would enable the rich world to scrap its most decrepit gas cars. Instead, wealthy nations are likely to ship them to poorer countries, which will be left to figure out what to do when even the most MacGyver-like mechanics cannot keep them running. “All of your worst vehicles end up here,” Ayetor said. “When we want to get rid of the vehicle, what do we do?” No wealthy nations currently screen exported vehicles to weed out those that flunk basic quality tests, Kopf said. But that may soon change. The European Union is now considering new regulations that would prohibit exporting “end of life” vehicles, requiring that cars shipped abroad obtain a certificate confirming their roadworthiness. Its adoption would be a “game-changer,” according to UNEP’s Akumu. (She and Kopf said they know of no comparable proposals under consideration in North America.)

With the increase of electric vehicles in the developed countries, used gas-fueled cars are headed to a developing country (aka the Global South) at increasing rates.

[jake-is-screaming-in-tune]

FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL: THE UNSEEN STRUGGLES OF QUEER REFUGEES IN EAST AFRICA 🌈🏳️‍⚧️

my name is Ciara ,and I am a queer refugee from Uganda. My journey of survival has taken me across borders, through unimaginable hardships, and into the depths of human cruelty. I am writing this today not just to share my story, but to give voice to the silenced—those of us who are fighting every day to stay alive in one of the most hostile environments on earth.

Being LGBTIQ in Uganda is a death sentence. The fear of being hunted, beaten, or killed is a daily reality. I survived a brutal attack, narrowly escaping death simply because of who I am. In 2019, I fled to Kenya, hoping to find safety in Kakuma Refugee Camp. But the violence there was relentless. For nearly five years, I lived in constant danger—beatings, threats, and persecution followed us wherever we went.

Earlier this year, I made the heart-wrenching decision to leave Kakuma and seek refuge in Gorom Camp, South Sudan. I’m now here with a group of fellow LGBTIQ refugees who have fled the same horrors. But life in South Sudan is even more terrifying. The civil war has torn this country apart, and the laws against LGBTIQ people fuel the violence against us. We’ve lost friends to this cruelty—lesbians and transgender refugees are being raped, and the rest of us live in constant fear of what might happen tomorrow.

The struggles don’t end with the violence. We are starving. We are without clean water. We are without proper shelter. Every single day feels like a fight for survival, as we battle diseases like malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and typhoid fever. These diseases, rampant in the camp, claim lives at an alarming rate. And for those of us who are already living with HIV, the lack of medicine is an added death sentence.

We wake up every morning wondering if today will be our last. Hunger gnaws at us, and even when we manage to find something to eat, it’s not enough. The water we drink is often contaminated, making us sick with typhoid or other waterborne illnesses. Malaria, spread by the swarming mosquitoes in our unsheltered camp, leaves us bedridden and weak, and yet we must find the strength to keep going. TB spreads quickly in our crowded living spaces, adding to the burden on our already fragile bodies. Our medical supplies are almost non-existent, and we’re losing the battle against these diseases.

We are not just asking for help; we are begging for our lives.

Without food, without clean water, without medicine, we are dying. But with your support, we can survive. Your donation, no matter how small, can provide us with:

1. Food – Our bodies are frail, but a simple meal can give us the strength to keep fighting.

2. Clean Water – Safe drinking water is a lifeline, protecting us from deadly diseases like typhoid.

3. Shelter– A safe place to sleep, away from the violence and harsh environment, means everything to us.

4. Medication – For those living with HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, and other illnesses, medicine is our only hope for survival.

We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but with your help, we might see a future. Your support doesn’t just provide food or water—it brings us hope. Hope that we won’t starve. Hope that we can fight off these diseases. Hope that we will live to see a future where our identities are not a death sentence.

This is a plea for survival. Please consider donating to our cause. Every dollar, every share, every bit of support can make the difference between life and death for us. You can donate here:

GoFundMe

https://gofund.me/4d80b32c

Thank you for standing with us and giving us hope in our darkest hour.

Written by ciara, queer refugee and advocate for LGBTIQ refugees in East Africa.*

go help them if you can

https://gofund.me/4d80b32c

[neobluenergy]

Reducing Emissions in the Petroleum Industry - Neo Blu Energy

Neo Blu Energy reduces emissions in the petroleum industry through cleaner fuel production, energy-efficient transportation, carbon capture, sustainable supply chains, and renewable energy investments.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Republicans clueless as to why they don't have the youth vote . . .

climate protection reproductive health student debt gun safety affordable healthcare LGBTQ+ rights interracial marriage contraception voting rights marijuana money in politics police standards workers’ rights teaching accurate history, science and biology strong public schools support of teachers immigration issues

* * * *

The Summer of Climate Collapse

[That's Another Fine Mess :: TCinLA]

Fifty years ago, I decided that a Master of Public Administration degree would be useful in my expected career in government. In 1975, I obtained on of the first MPA degrees in the field of “Environmental Management.”

One of the books we read was “The Limits to Growth,” published by the Club of Rome, which detailed current enviornmental problems and forecast where they would be in 30 years of no action was taken, some action was taken, or effective action was taken. I rediscovered that book in a box in my garage 25 years ago and re-read it with the benefit of hindsight, since their 30 year period had just ended. In every case, no action had been taken, and in every case the current situation had been accurately forecast by the contributors to the book.

In 1967, historian Lynn White Jr.'s prescient "The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis" was published in "Science" magazine. His thesis was:

"In Antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its own genius loci, its guardian spirit. These spirits were accessible to men, but were very unlike men; centaurs, fauns, and mermaids show their ambivalence. Before one cut a tree, mined a mountain, or dammed a brook, it was important to placate the spirit in charge of that particular situation, and to keep it placated. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects."

Perhaps it’s fitting that during this summer of climate collapse - and if you think it’s something other than that, consider that June was Earth’s hottest month on record since the Permian Collapse - the event that brought on the Age of Dinosaurs after killing off 70% ofr species in the ocean and 80% of those on land - until the end of this month when the record will be broken by July, a record that will likely last another 31 days to the end of August. The atmosphere is warmer now than it’s been in 125,000 years, when our species was a few thousand individuals living a precarious existence on the edge of extinction in what is now South Africa .

That we are all transfixed not by this news but rather by the prospect of the United States falling to the machinations of a tenth-rate failed circus clown demonstrates the problem.

The initial success of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” suggests Hollywood is finally ready to portray the American development and use of atomic weapons during World War II as something other than an absolute necessity. Unlike past movies, Nolan’s film points out that J. Robert Oppenheimer and many of his contemporaries knew they were ushering in an era where eradicating civilization had never been so easy

The parallels to climate change may not be obvious to people who don’t sit around pondering the end of the world, but I see them. Both climate change and ever-looming nuclear catastrophe are willful human creations driven by “progress” - one by scientific theory and research turbocharged by limitless wartime government resources, the other by oil-fueled industrialization. Both rationalized as necessary evils; climate change as a consequence of endless convenience for the human species, and nukes as guarantor of fragile world peace via “mutual assured destruction.”

It only took nearly 80 years to get to the point that National Mythology can be questioned in a commercially-successful film In all the time scientists have tried to focus our attention on climate change, they’ve had nothing as visually arresting as a single bomb instantly wiping out a city.

That has changed this summer.

We now have a global heat wave few could have envisioned even ten years ago, while the fossil fuel companies driving this destruction are coming off a year of record profits.

I wonder how this will be portrayed on screen 80 years from now.

The World Meteorological Organization expects temperatures in North America, Asia, North Africa and the Mediterranean to be above 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) "for a prolonged number of days this summer." It also expects more frequent heatwaves, spread across the seasons.

The ocean around Florida hit a record temperature of 101 degrees this week. Warm water like that will produce a hurricane that could wipe Miami off the map, the equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

While the Southwest swelters under a heat dome, Vermont saw its second 100-year rainstorm in roughly a decade. Early July brought the hottest day globally since records began, a milestone surpassed the following day. Yesterday there was flooding across the northeast from Wisconsin to Maine.

As these temperature and weather records fall, Earth may be nearing so-called tipping points. A “tipping point” is where incremental steps along the same trajectory could push Earth’s systems into abrupt or irreversible change, leading to transformations that cannot be stopped even if emissions were suddenly halted.

If these tipping points are passed, some effects such as permafrost thawing or the world’s coral reefs dying - both are already happening in Siberia and the Central Pacific - will happen more quickly than expected. We don’t really know when or how fast things will fall apart.

Some natural systems, if upended, could herald a restructuring of the world. Take the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica: It’s about the size of Florida, with a protruding ice shelf impeding the glacier’s flow into the ocean. Although the overall melt is slower than originally predicted, warm water is eating away at it from below, causing deep cracks. At a certain point, that melt may progress to become self-sustaining, which would guarantee the glacier’s eventual collapse. That will affect how much sea levels will rise; 80% of humans live near the ocean.

When melt from Greenland’s glaciers enters the ocean, it alters an important system of currents called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The AMOC is a conveyor belt, drawing warm water from the tropics north. The water’s salinity increases as it evaporates, which, among other factors, makes it sink and return south along the ocean floor. As more glacial fresh water enters the system, that conveyor belt will weaken. Right now it’s the weakest it’s been in more than 1,000 years.

The Atlantic Ocean’s sensitive circulation system has become slower and less resilient, according to a new analysis of 150 years of temperature data — raising the possibility that this crucial element of the climate system could collapse within the next few decades.

Consider that: Paris and London are at the same latitude as Hudson’s Bay, yet Europe has the climate it does because of the AMOC - we commonly call it the Gulf Stream - which brings warm water in contact with cold air, resulting in the clouds and rain that provide for all living things there. If that collapses, life in Europe could soon resemble that of northern Canada. Right now, Europe can grow enough food to feed its 740+ million people; if the AMOC was to die, the continent could be plunged into famine in a matter of years.

The study published this last Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications suggests that continued warming will push the AMOC over its “tipping point” around 2050-2080. The shift would be as abrupt and irreversible as turning off a light switch, and it could lead to dramatic changes in weather on both sides of the Atlantic, leading to a drop in temperatures in northern Europe and elevated warming in the tropics, as well as stronger storms on the east coast of North America.

If the temperature of the sea surface changes, precipitation over the Amazon might too, contributing to deforestation, which in turn is linked to snowfall on the Tibetan plateau.

A new study published in Nature Communications last week titled “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation” reports global warming forced by all the CO2 and methane in our atmosphere - if we action is not taken immediately - could shut down the AMOC as early as 2025 and almost certainly before 2095.

We may not even realize when we start passing points of no return—or if we already have.

James Hansen, one of the early voices on climate and the founder of 350.org, says measures to mitigate the crisis may ironically now contribute to it. A working paper he published this spring suggests that reduction in sulfate aerosol particles—the air pollution associated with burning coal and the global shipping industry—has contributed to warmer temperatures because these particles cause water droplets to multiply, brightening clouds and reflecting solar heat away from the planet’s surface. Hansen predicts that environmentally minded policies to reduce these pollutants will likely cause temperatures to rise 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

This adds to a growing body of alarming climate science, like the one published last year in the Journal of Climate titled “Sixfold Increase in Historical Northern Hemisphere Concurrent Large Heatwaves Driven by Warming and Changing Atmospheric Circulations,” which indicates we’re much farther down the path of dangerous climate change than even most scientists realized.

That study essentially predicted this year’s shocking Northern Hemisphere heat waves. The lead researcher’s first name is Cassandra.

Perhaps most alarming was a paper published eleven months ago in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) titled “Evidence for Massive Methane Hydrate Destabilization During the Penultimate Interglacial Warming.”

It brings up the topic of the “Clathrate Gun Hypothesis,”which is the absolute worst case scenario for humanity’s future.

Across the planet there are an estimated 1.4 trillion tons of methane gas frozen into a snowcone-like slurry called clathrates or methane hydrates laying on the sea floor off the various continents. When they suddenly melt, that’s the “firing of the gun.” An explosion - in the context of geologic time - of atmospheric gas that’s over 70 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. The Clathrate Gun.

The PNAS paper mentioned above concludes that 126,000 years ago there was an event that caused a small amount of these clathrates to warm enough to turn to gas and bubble up out of the seas. The resulting spike in methane gas led to a major warming event worldwide:

“Our results identify an exceptionally large warming of the equatorial Atlantic intermediate waters and strong evidence of methane release and oxidation almost certainly due to massive methane hydrate destabilization during the early part of the penultimate warm episode (126,000 to 125,000 y ago). This major warming was caused by … a brief episode of meltwater-induced weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and amplified by a warm mean climate.”

The researchers warn we may be looking at a similar event in our time:

“This week, sea surface temperatures along the coasts of Southern Spain and North Africa were 2-4C (3.6-7.2F) higher than they would normally be at this time of year, with some spots 5C (9F) above the long-term average.”

This has never happened before while humans have existed.

The least likely but most dangerous outcome scenario is that the warming ocean might begin a massive melting of those methane hydrate slurries into gas, producing a “burp” of that greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, further adding to global warming, which would then melt even more of the clathrates.

At the end of the Permian, 250 million years ago, this runaway process led to such a violent warming of the planet that it killed over 90 percent of all life in the oceans and 70 percent of all life on land, paving the way for the rise of the dinosaurs, as cold-blooded lizards were among the few survivors. That period is referred to as the Permian Mass Extinction, or, simply, “The Great Dying.” It was the most destructive mass extinction event in Earth’s history.

As the scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences noted:

“The key findings of our study add to a growing body of observational findings strongly supporting the ‘clathrate gun hypothesis.’ … Importantly, the interval we have studied is marked by a mean climate state comparable to future projections of transient global climate warming of 1.3 °C to 3.0 °C.”

We just this year passed 1.3 degrees Celsius of planetary warming: we are now in the territory of the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis if these researchers are right

The last time our planet saw CO2 levels at their current 422 parts-per-million, sea levels were 60 feet higher and forests grew in Antarctica.

Meanwhile, we’re pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere right now than at any time in human history.

[chaotic-diaries-of-yours-truely]

FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL: THE UNSEEN STRUGGLES OF QUEER REFUGEES IN SUDAN 🌈🏳️‍⚧️

my name is Calvin Phil, and I am a queer refugee from Uganda. My journey of survival has taken me across borders, through unimaginable hardships, and into the depths of human cruelty. I am writing this today not just to share my story, but to give voice to the silenced—those of us who are fighting every day to stay alive in one of the most hostile environments on earth.

Being LGBTIQ in Uganda is a death sentence. The fear of being hunted, beaten, or killed is a daily reality. I survived a brutal attack, narrowly escaping death simply because of who I am. In 2019, I fled to Kenya, hoping to find safety in Kakuma Refugee Camp. But the violence there was relentless. For nearly five years, I lived in constant danger—beatings, threats, and persecution followed us wherever we went.

Earlier this year, I made the heart-wrenching decision to leave Kakuma and seek refuge in Gorom Camp, South Sudan. I’m now here with a group of fellow LGBTIQ refugees who have fled the same horrors. But life in South Sudan is even more terrifying. The civil war has torn this country apart, and the laws against LGBTIQ people fuel the violence against us. We’ve lost friends to this cruelty—lesbians and transgender refugees are being raped, and the rest of us live in constant fear of what might happen tomorrow.

The struggles don’t end with the violence. We are starving. We are without clean water. We are without proper shelter. Every single day feels like a fight for survival, as we battle diseases like malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and typhoid fever. These diseases, rampant in the camp, claim lives at an alarming rate. And for those of us who are already living with HIV, the lack of medicine is an added death sentence.

We wake up every morning wondering if today will be our last. Hunger gnaws at us, and even when we manage to find something to eat, it’s not enough. The water we drink is often contaminated, making us sick with typhoid or other waterborne illnesses. Malaria, spread by the swarming mosquitoes in our unsheltered camp, leaves us bedridden and weak, and yet we must find the strength to keep going. TB spreads quickly in our crowded living spaces, adding to the burden on our already fragile bodies. Our medical supplies are almost non-existent, and we’re losing the battle against these diseases.

We are not just asking for help; we are begging for our lives.

Without food, without clean water, without medicine, we are dying. But with your support, we can survive. Your donation, no matter how small, can provide us with:

1. Food – Our bodies are frail, but a simple meal can give us the strength to keep fighting.

2. Clean Water – Safe drinking water is a lifeline, protecting us from deadly diseases like typhoid.

3. Shelter – A safe place to sleep, away from the violence and harsh environment, means everything to us.

4. Medication – For those living with HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, and other illnesses, medicine is our only hope for survival.

We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but with your help, we might see a future. Your support doesn’t just provide food or water—it brings us hope. Hope that we won’t starve. Hope that we can fight off these diseases. Hope that we will live to see a future where our identities are not a death sentence.

This is a plea for survival. Please consider donating to our cause. Every dollar, every share, every bit of support can make the difference between life and death for us. You can donate here:

GoFundMe

https://gofund.me/4d80b32c

Thank you for standing with us and giving us hope in our darkest hour.

Written by Calvin Phil, queer refugee and advocate for LGBTIQ refugees in East Africa.*

[a-krogan-skald-and-bearsark]

I am. Absolutely disgusted by my elected representative. TW for discussions of the situation in Gaza.

To preface this, a couple of things. First off, I didn't vote for the bastard. As I told one canvaser at the last election, you could not get me to vote Conservative if you held a gun to my head. Not going to happen.

Secondly, my spouse is Palestinian, on their mother's side. Their maternal great-grandfather actually owned an orange farm in what is now Israel that was expropriated during the Nakba. Their uncle was in politics in Israel until they resigned in protest over the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government. They also have family in the West Bank (All of whom have managed to make it to some sort of safety). So we've had a bit more reason than most to follow the situation in Gaza.

As such, when news came out that South Africa had presented a case to the International Court of Justice, charging Israel with acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and requesting that the ICJ try to impose a cease-fire, I contacted my MP, as my representative in Parliament, to inquire as to his stance on the matter, and explain mine, that Canada should support the motion as international censure is probably the only way to stop what's going on there. In fact, I'll include the text of my message below. (I've removed my name, cause I have common sense. I have not removed my MPs name, on accounts of he's a public figure, and how else are we to hold our elected representatives to account.)

Dear Representative Perkins. I am writing you in regards to the current situation in Palestine, and more specifically in regards to the motion brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice on Dec 29th of 2023 to charge the nation of Israel with contravention the 1948 convention against genocide. I am one of your constituents, being resident in the community of Redacted, and as my representative in Parliament, I should hope that you would apply some pressure towards the government to support the South African motion.  I have been following the conflict closely, as my spouse has Palestinian relatives (all of whom, thankfully, have managed to find safety). Israel's breaches of the convention of 1948 are both numerous and well documented: Mortality amongst journalists in Gaza has been higher than in any conflict in the past century, and the majority of the deaths are the direct result of IDF actions.  The IDF has repeatedly targeted hospitals, educational facilities and refugee camps, and has boasted of this publically.  International aid to Gaza has been severely curtailed, with the Israeli government restricting the flow of relief to well below what is required to maintain the population, as well as completely blocking emergency supplies of fuel, leading to avoidable deaths when hospital generators fail for lack of fuel.  There have also been confirmed reports of Israeli snipers targeting civilians, and of looting by Israeli soldiers.  And this is not the complete list of transgressions. It is my hope that you will bear all these things in mind, and encourage the Prime Minister to support South Africa's motion to censure Israel for their actions and press for a peaceful resolution to the conflict before further innocents die.  Sincerely Your Constituent

Each of the charges I mentioned are discussed, with supporting evidence, in the 82 page report filed to the ICJ along with the charges presented by South Africa.

It took six days for me to receive a response. Historically, when contacting my MP or MLA, I've had one within 48 hours. Here's what he said.

Hi Redacted, Conservatives continue to unequivocally condemn the invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists and the sadistic violence that Hamas has carried out against innocent civilians in both Israel and in Gaza. My thoughts remain with the families, especially Canadians, who have lost loved ones, be they Israeli or Palestinian. In addition, I would like to share a message from Pierre Poilievre, the Leader of the Opposition, on behalf of Conservatives as we continue to express our concern and sympathy for this situation: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/house/sitting-232/hansard#Int-12365221. Reflecting on October 7th, the world continues to be shocked and angered by this deplorable day for people of the Jewish faith and for Israel. October 7th was the greatest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. Children were murdered, Holocaust survivors were kidnapped, and raped women were paraded through the streets of Gaza City in celebration. I strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself against these attacks and respond against these attackers, in the same way that Canada would if threatened by an extremist organization and cult with the sole goal of committing terrorism and genocide against a democratic state. I would like to provide a striking comparison between this situation and others in the region which have similarly been shocking in deaths and war crimes. Ethnic cleansing during the Syrian Civil War, the Yemeni Civil War, and the Yezidi genocide carried out by ISIS have totaled in excess of 300,000 preventable and innocent deaths. In Canada, these have received varying degrees of media coverage despite their profound effects on populations and communities throughout the Middle East. In all of these occasions, Conservatives have advocated for the Liberal government to take action and demonstrate their willingness to work with international partners on solutions to diplomacy and peace. However, we were left with disappointment. Conservatives continue to support a two-state solution, and the only path forward to accomplishing this is by ensuring that Hamas is eliminated so that Israelis and Palestinians can succeed in achieving peace. On five previous occasions, Israel has attempted to negotiate a solution in good faith with Palestinian authorities and failed. Right now, Hamas remains a threat to not just Israel, but also to Palestinians and global peace. It must be noted that Israel has not imposed any illegal restrictions on access to water, food, or electricity, and there is no international requirement for Israel to provide humanitarian aid during this crisis. Hamas is solely to blame for the humanitarian crisis we see, and they are the greatest roadblock to any permanent solution. Here in Canada, it is important that we condemn all displays of hate, antisemitism, and islamophobia. There is no place for the glorification of terror that we have witnessed at demonstrations and protests that have targeted Jewish businesses, openly displayed swastikas, and threatened community organizations and institutions which have nothing to do with this conflict. I would like to make it clear that I have no intention to meet with any organizations or groups that deny the state of Israel’s right to exist or demonstrate any support for Hamas. Peace can be achieved now if Hamas surrenders, releases all the hostages, and ends their sadistic violence. Conservatives will stand with the people of Israel, their democratic rights, their sovereignty, their right to self-determination, and their freedoms, now and forever. Sincerely, Rick Perkins

I'm not particularly impressed that he basically completely ignored my message, in favour of pushing his own preferred interpretation. So I made a response.

Dear Representative Perkins. There appears to be a misunderstanding here. I too acknowledge that Israel has a right to its existence and to defend itself, however I fail to see how acts that meet the legal definition of genocide against a civilian population constitutes self-defence.  While I find the actions of Hamas on October 7th deplorable, the response by the Israeli Defence Force has been totally out of proportion, and I find you and your party's refusal to condemn such genocidal actions and push for a ceasefire reprehensible.   I was already unlikely to vote Conservative in the next election, but your response to my reasonable communication has ensured that the PC Party of Canada has lost my vote in any future elections.  Disappointed and dissatisfied Your Constituent

It's less that I was already unlikely to vote Conservative, and more that I'm already completely predisposed to vote for practically anybody else. But he doesn't need to know that. Let him think he's lost a possible vote. Might cost him some sleep at night. I doubt it though.

I'm not going to let it discourage me though. Might try contacting my MLA and see if there's some way they can encourage the province to put pressure on the federal government, seeing as my MP isn't doing his job. You know, to represent my interests as his constituent, in Ottawa. Bastard.

[mariacallous]

In the summer of 2022, I crossed from Rwanda into the besieged Congolese city of Goma. The slick Rwandan border police and their Chinese-made black polymer carbines stood in stark contrast to the weary Congolese soldiers’ ancient Kalashnikovs. “We can’t invade Rwanda or Uganda,” a hardened Congolese provincial politician admitted to me. He slid his fingers across his neck, adding, “But we can’t negotiate with a knife to our throat.”

Since that conversation, Rwandan troops and their local March 23 Movement (M23) proxy forces have completely encircled Goma. While the Rwandan government simultaneously denies supporting M23 while justifying its intervention as necessary for Rwandan security, the direct involvement of Rwanda has been extensively documented by the United Nations and acknowledged with alarm by the U.S. State Department.

Humiliated, many Congolese are now ready to take the war to its source. The prospect of interstate war in the region looms once more. The last time these states committed to war, as many as 5.5 million people died. The United States is the leading bilateral donor to Rwanda, giving over $170 million in assistance last year to a country where more than 40 percent of the national budget is made up of international aid. The U.S. government needs to use its overwhelming leverage to keep this deadly inferno in check.

Rwandan support for M23 introduces an unacceptable risk of regional escalation. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi is managing the aftermath of his recent controversial reelection; Burundi’s elite is well armed and divided; Uganda is approaching a leadership succession crisis as its aging president, 79-year-old Yoweri Museveni, promotes his unpredictable son (best known for his undiplomatic use of social media) to head the armed forces; and Rwanda’s veneer of development hides its own volcanic tensions.

All these countries now have troops staring one another down in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It would be a mistake to underestimate the frustration felt by many Congolese and the willingness to challenge Rwanda on its own territory.

Such a major security threat should be unacceptable to the United States. The Islamic State, also active in eastern Congo, is gaining ground and staging regional terrorist attacks as Congolese and Ugandan troops reposition to confront M23. There are concerns that Congo may turn to Russia to buttress its struggling army, although thus far Kinshasa has stuck with non-Russian (primarily Romanian) military contractors. Congo’s most effective weapon in the conflict is the recent arrival of Chinese attack drones. U.N. peacekeepers and the incoming South African-led multilateral military intervention are destined for retreat, humiliation, or quagmire if the conflict drags on. No external actor has the will to commit the resources needed to defeat M23 on the battlefield.

There are also less tangible but more serious reputational costs for U.S. inaction. Tshisekedi vocally threw his weight behind the United States against outright Chinese mining dominance and in support of U.N. resolutions condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine. If the United States is serious about attracting partners in Africa, it needs to support them when they are threatened.

That doesn’t mean turning a blind eye if Tshisekedi attempts to centralize power illegally, but it does mean forcing the Rwandans to the negotiating table. More broadly, not responding to aggression in central Africa reflects poorly on the Biden administration’s public commitment to international norms and fuels accusations of hypocrisy as Washington condemns Russian aggression in Ukraine.

The goodwill toward the United States in Congo is precarious, tainted as it is by the memory of steady support to Uganda and Rwanda throughout their invasions of Congo between 1996 and 2003. But Washington has also shown that it can flex its muscle when needed—and get the results it seeks.

In 2012, the U.S. and U.K. governments dramatically cut aid to Rwanda in response to the first M23 rebellion. It was not a smooth process, and the decision to cut aid only followed a media storm over M23’s takeover of the provincial capital of Goma. (Learning from this experience, the current rebellion initially encircled rather than captured the high-profile city.) However, it was effective. Rwanda withdrew support from M23 while remaining a U.S. aid recipient. The Congolese security situation temporarily improved.

Until the resurgence of M23 in late 2021, Rwanda’s military action in the Congolese provinces of North and South Kivu was restricted to covert actions, proxy conflicts, and consensual interventions with Congolese government approval. While occasionally destructive (particularly in 2019 in South Kivu), these actions did not provoke widespread countermobilizations or displacement.

In 2022, the U.S. government response started slowly and gradually ramped up pressure while maintaining a public stance of neutrality. Congolese support for the sanctioned Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Congo-based Rwandan rebel group led by members of the genocidal regime overthrown in 1994, was raised on equal footing with Rwandan support for M23, effectively endorsing the Rwandan narrative that the M23 rebellion was a necessary security measure.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with both Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in August 2022, continued to reiterate equal responsibility. While stern words were supposedly exchanged behind closed doors, no sanctions resulted. The U.N. groups of experts continued to observe multiple phases of offensives and consolidation by M23 with direct Rwandan military support.

Finally, after year and eight months of conflict, six individuals were sanctioned in August of 2023: three FDLR commanders, one M23, one Congolese general, and one Rwandan general. The Rwandan general was promoted in response. The small amount of military aid given to Rwanda was only cut in early October 2023. There were no cuts to development programming, and Rwanda’s eligibility in the flagship U.S.-Africa trade agreement, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, was renewed.

Only in February, as M23’s forces finally turned to march on Goma, did the State Department put out a decisive statement condemning Rwanda and the escalation “caused by the actions of the Rwanda-backed, U.S.- and UN-sanctioned M23 armed group.”

Although necessary, taking a firmer line with Rwanda will have costs. The Rwandan government is a famously responsive security, trade, and development partner in a region infamous for poor governance. Since the aid cut in 2012, the Rwandan government has continuously strived to build this reputation as a good partner into diplomatic leverage to avoid a repeat of that embarrassing rebuke. It may have found that leverage in Mozambique and the Central African Republic, where Rwandan military forces offered badly needed security, allegedly subsidized through French development aid.

Washington is heavily invested in successful development programs enabled by the relatively effective governance of the Rwandan state. Cutting effective development programs, endangering budding business relationships, and retracting military partnerships are not desirable for the United States. Yet these costs pale in comparison to the risks of continuing escalation.

There are also concerns that U.S. perceptions of Washington’s regional interests may be distorted by an overly sympathetic view toward Rwanda by officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali. This concern has been raised privately by some U.S. officials in Uganda and Congo toward their Kigali-based colleagues.

Effective domestic development programs, consistent engagement, and tight control of speech by the image-conscious Rwandan state give Kigali-based international entities a view that is devoid of opposition voices. This concern is echoed among many regional political observers who see Washington as soft on Kigali. In Congo, this observation manifests in popular conspiracy theories of a grand CIA-orchestrated Rwandan ethnic imperial project.

Regardless of the cause, indecision undermines the Biden administration’s regional foreign-policy objectives of building bridges with South Africa—a leading economy on the continent— supporting a growing partnership with Kenya, and reaching strategic mineral deals in Congo, all of which take precedence over the strained partnership with the relatively small country of Rwanda.

If Rwanda withdraws its forces from Mozambique and CAR, the United States has a menu of multilateral or bilateral options to mitigate the consequences. In Mozambique, regional multilateral forces are already deployed and could be empowered. In CAR, bilateral security arrangements with the United States are rumored to be in the negotiation stages. Unlike in those conflicts, there are few good tools to stop interstate escalation in Congo once underway. For the moment, however, the U.S. government still can influence Rwanda and Congo.

Getting Rwanda to negotiate meaningfully requires pressure. While the overstretched U.S. foreign-policy apparatus must prioritize the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, war in the Middle East, and security threats in East Asia, proactive engagement in Africa’s Great Lakes region will save energy and resources in the future.

Reconstructing Congo after 2003, even to its current fragile state, cost billions of dollars, and millions of lives were lost in the fighting. The United States cannot afford another major conflict there, even one that appears for now to lie on the periphery of U.S. interests.