#rural governance improvement

[townpostin]

Citizen Support Centers Transform Rural Jharkhand: Jean Dreze

NSKs Bridge Gap Between Government Services and Villagers Jharkhand’s Nagarik Sahayata Kendras revolutionize rural governance, empowering marginalized communities by facilitating access to essential services across 76 blocks. RANCHI – Nagarik Sahayata Kendras in 76 Jharkhand blocks are transforming rural governance, facilitating access to essential services for marginalized communities. The…

[reasonsforhope]

"With “green corridors” that mimic the natural forest, the Colombian city is driving down temperatures — and could become five degrees cooler over the next few decades.

In the face of a rapidly heating planet, the City of Eternal Spring — nicknamed so thanks to its year-round temperate climate — has found a way to keep its cool.

Previously, Medellín had undergone years of rapid urban expansion, which led to a severe urban heat island effect — raising temperatures in the city to significantly higher than in the surrounding suburban and rural areas. Roads and other concrete infrastructure absorb and maintain the sun’s heat for much longer than green infrastructure.

“Medellín grew at the expense of green spaces and vegetation,” says Pilar Vargas, a forest engineer working for City Hall. “We built and built and built. There wasn’t a lot of thought about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to change.”

Efforts began in 2016 under Medellín’s then mayor, Federico Gutiérrez (who, after completing one term in 2019, was re-elected at the end of 2023). The city launched a new approach to its urban development — one that focused on people and plants.

The $16.3 million initiative led to the creation of 30 Green Corridors along the city’s roads and waterways, improving or producing more than 70 hectares of green space, which includes 20 kilometers of shaded routes with cycle lanes and pedestrian paths.

These plant and tree-filled spaces — which connect all sorts of green areas such as the curb strips, squares, parks, vertical gardens, sidewalks, and even some of the seven hills that surround the city — produce fresh, cooling air in the face of urban heat. The corridors are also designed to mimic a natural forest with levels of low, medium and high plants, including native and tropical plants, bamboo grasses and palm trees.

Heat-trapping infrastructure like metro stations and bridges has also been greened as part of the project and government buildings have been adorned with green roofs and vertical gardens to beat the heat. The first of those was installed at Medellín’s City Hall, where nearly 100,000 plants and 12 species span the 1,810 square meter surface.

“It’s like urban acupuncture,” says Paula Zapata, advisor for Medellín at C40 Cities, a global network of about 100 of the world’s leading mayors. “The city is making these small interventions that together act to make a big impact.”

At the launch of the project, 120,000 individual plants and 12,500 trees were added to roads and parks across the city. By 2021, the figure had reached 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees. Each has been carefully chosen to maximize their impact.

“The technical team thought a lot about the species used. They selected endemic ones that have a functional use,” explains Zapata.

The 72 species of plants and trees selected provide food for wildlife, help biodiversity to spread and fight air pollution. A study, for example, identified Mangifera indica as the best among six plant species found in Medellín at absorbing PM2.5 pollution — particulate matter that can cause asthma, bronchitis and heart disease — and surviving in polluted areas due to its “biochemical and biological mechanisms.”

And the urban planting continues to this day.

The groundwork is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners like Pineda, who come from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, with the support of 15 specialized forest engineers. Pineda is now the leader of a team of seven other gardeners who attend to corridors all across the city, shifting depending on the current priorities...

“I’m completely in favor of the corridors,” says [Victoria Perez, another citizen-gardener], who grew up in a poor suburb in the city of 2.5 million people. “It really improves the quality of life here.”

Wilmar Jesus, a 48-year-old Afro-Colombian farmer on his first day of the job, is pleased about the project’s possibilities for his own future. “I want to learn more and become better,” he says. “This gives me the opportunity to advance myself.”

The project’s wider impacts are like a breath of fresh air. Medellín’s temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of the program, and officials expect a further decrease of 4 to 5C over the next few decades, even taking into account climate change. In turn, City Hall says this will minimize the need for energy-intensive air conditioning...

In addition, the project has had a significant impact on air pollution. Between 2016 and 2019, the level of PM2.5 fell significantly, and in turn the city’s morbidity rate from acute respiratory infections decreased from 159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 people [Note: That means the city's rate of people getting sick with lung/throat/respiratory infections.]

There’s also been a 34.6 percent rise in cycling in the city, likely due to the new bike paths built for the project, and biodiversity studies show that wildlife is coming back — one sample of five Green Corridors identified 30 different species of butterfly.

Other cities are already taking note. Bogotá and Barranquilla have adopted similar plans, among other Colombian cities, and last year São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America, began expanding its corridors after launching them in 2022.

“For sure, Green Corridors could work in many other places,” says Zapata."

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, March 4, 2024

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #32

August 30-September 6 2024.

President Biden announced $7.3 billion in clean energy investment for rural communities. This marks the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal. The money will go to 16 rural electric cooperatives across 23 states Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Together they will be able to generate 10 gigawatts of clean energy, enough to power 5 million households about 20% of America's rural population. This clean energy will reduce greenhouse emissions by 43.7 million tons a year, equivalent to removing more than 10 million cars off the road every year.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced a historic 10th offshore wind project. The latest project approved for the Atlantic coast of Maryland will generate 2,200 megawatts of clean, reliable renewable energy to power 770,000 homes. All together the 10 offshore wind projects approved by the Biden-Harris Administration will generation 15 gigawatts, enough to power 5.25 million homes. This is half way to the Administration's goal of 30 gigawatts of clean offshore wind power by 2030.

President Biden signed an Executive Order aimed at supporting and expanding unions. Called the "Good Jobs EO" the order will direct all federal agencies to take steps to recognize unions, to not interfere with the formation of unions and reach labor agreements on federally supported projects. It also directs agencies to prioritize equal pay and pay transparency, support projects that offer workers benefits like child care, health insurance, paid leave, and retirement benefits. It will also push workforce development and workplace safety.

The Department of Transportation announced $1 billion to make local roads safer. The money will go to 354 local communities across America to improve roadway safety and prevent deaths and serious injuries. This is part of the National Roadway Safety Strategy launched in 2022, since then traffic fatalities have decreased for 9 straight quarters. Since 2022 the program has supported projects in 1,400 communities effecting 75% of all Americans.

The Department of Energy announced $430 million to support America's aging hydropower. Hydropower currently accounts for nearly 27% of renewable electricity generation in the United States. However many of our dams were built during the New Deal for a national average of 79 years old. The money will go to 293 projects across 33 states. These updates will improve energy generation, workplace safety, and have a positive environmental impact on local fish and wildlife.

The EPA announced $300 million to help support tribal nations, and US territories cut climate pollution and boost green energy. The money will support projects by 33 tribes, and the Island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. EPA Administer Michael S. Regan announced the funds along side Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in Arizona to highlight one of the projects. A project that will bring electricity for the first time to 900 homes on the Hopi Reservation.

The Biden-Harris Administration is investing $179 million in literacy. This investment in the Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant is the largest in history. Studies have shown that the 3rd grade is a key moment in a students literacy development, the CLSD is designed to help support states research, develop, and implement evidence-based literacy interventions to help students achieve key literacy milestones.

The US government secured the release of 135 political prisoners from Nicaragua. Nicaragua's dictator President Daniel Ortega has jailed large numbers of citizens since protests against his rule broke out in 2018. In February 2023 the US secured the release of over 200 political prisoners. Human rights orgs have documented torture and sexual abuse in Ortega's prisons.

The Justice Department announced the disruption of a major effort by Russia to interfere with the 2024 US Elections. Russian propaganda network, RT, deployed $10 million to Tenet Media to help spread Russian propaganda and help sway the election in favor of Trump and the Republicans as well as disrupting American society. Tenet Media employs many well known conservative on-line personalities such as Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin, Tayler Hansen and Matt Christiansen.

Vice-President Harris outlined her plan for Small Businesses at a campaign stop in New Hampshire. Harris wants to expand from $5,000 to $50,000 tax incentives for startup expenses. This would help start 25 million new small business over four years.

[psychotrenny]

I think one of Imperialism's most evil strategies is the national scale torture you'll see inflicted on countries that dare to dream of freedom. Like it's not just about overthrowing the anti-imperialist regime itself, but utterly breaking the very social, economic and in turn psychological foundations it's built upon. Prolonged periods of destruction that are as systematic as they are sadistic with the aim of making life unlivable until the government either collapses or gives in, accepting whatever concessions are forced upon them as the nation is remoulded into an dependent and obedient little neocolony.

Sometimes an imperialist power will act directly to achieve this (just take the gratuitous and deliberate destruction of civil infrastructure during the bombings of Yugoslavia and Iraq), but the preferred strategy is to employ local proxies. Groups like RENAMO in Mozambique or the Contras of Nicaragua. Bands of reactionaries, traitors and general desperadoes are gathered up, trained, armed and transported over the border at the expense of the Imperialists and their local collaborators. These armed groups have no interest in build mass support, of representing an alternative way of life. Their only purpose is destruction; killing, torturing, looting, burning whatever they can in order to bring their country to its knees. Frequently targeting important nodes in the networks that sustain the nation and the people's faith in it (bridges, rail depots, factories, hospitals and schools) but ultimately happy to attack whatever they can; every house burned or person tortured contributes to the climate of terror and corrosion of government credibility. Because when they kill these groups don't like to do it cleanly; their attacks generate countless reports immolation, disembowelment, victims hacked to pieces and left to bleed. But when possible they prefer to leave their victims alive and capable of further spreading their terror, inflicting the most vicious sorts of rape and mutilation on a mass scale

It's not just just evil for the sake of evil mind you. The cruelty has a point; human destruction to accompany the physical. Every person killed is someone who can no longer contribute to the development of the nation, while even living yet physically and psychologically broken victim places further strain on their country's increasingly fragile support systems. Meanwhile the terror of these actions spreads the impact beyond their immediate victims. The murder and torture of peasants makes the survivors too scared to go back into their fields, slowly starving the nation as the rural economy grind to a halt. The gruesome deaths of traders and travelers leaves the survivors too terrified to continue their business, shutting down the distributive networks that make national development and often life itself possible. The terror unleashed on foreign professionals can prompt the survivors to flee and discourage newcomers from arriving, depriving the underdeveloped economic and education systems of the skilled workers they need to improve or even function. And every broken body, ever broken mind, is proof of the government's weakness and ineptitude; a humiliating failure to protect their own people that demoralises supporters and empowers dissenters. The motivated sadism of these terrorist attacks is a microcosm of the motivated sadism displayed by their Imperialist backers

But why go to all this trouble? Why not just send in the paratroopers or organise a coup to end those troublesome regimes quickly? Sometimes it's a matter of possibility. As great as they are, the powers of Imperialist nations are not unlimited. All manner of constraints (domestic unrest, international condemnation which advantages dangerous rivals, the simple financial and human costs of such operations) limit what actions are viable or desirable. This is especially significant when the targets are motivated and disciplined anti-imperialists with a base of deep-rooted popular support, the sort of regime that won't go down to a simple commando raid or bribe to the right general. But sometimes, it's not enough to merely cut down a dissenting government; you have to salt the earth and make sure nothing similar ever grows back. I'll finish with the words of an anonymous Jesuit priest, talking about Nicaragua yet in terms widely relevant enough to be published in John Saul's conclusion to A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique (1985):

In Chile the Americans made a mistake. They cut off the revolution too abruptly. They killed the revolution but, as we can see from recent developments there, they didn't kill the dream. In Nicaragua, they're trying to kill the dream

[leviathan-supersystem]

BEIJING — China’s struggling real estate developers won’t be getting a major bailout, Chinese authorities have indicated, warning that those who “harm the interests of the masses” will be punished.

“For real estate companies that are seriously insolvent and have lost the ability to operate, those that must go bankrupt should go bankrupt, or be restructured, in accordance with the law and market principles,” Ni Hong, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at a press conference Saturday.

“Those who commit acts that harm the interests of the masses will be resolutely investigated and punished in accordance with the law,” he said. “They will be made to pay the due price.”

That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks published in an official transcript of the press conference, held alongside China’s annual parliamentary meetings.

Ni’s comments come as major real estate developers from Evergrande to Country Garden have defaulted on their debt, while plunging new home sales have put future business into question.

In 2020, Beijing cracked down on developers’ high reliance on debt for growth in an attempt to clamp down on property market speculation. But many developers soon ran out of money to finish building apartments, which are typically sold to homebuyers in China ahead of completion. Some buyers stopped paying their mortgages in a boycott.

Authorities have since announced measures to provide some developers with financing. But the national stance on reducing the role of real estate in the economy hasn’t changed.

This year’s annual government gathering has emphasized the country’s focus on investing in and building up high-end manufacturing capabilities. In contrast, the leadership has not mentioned the massive real estate sector as much.

Real estate barely came up during a press conference focused on the economy last week, while Ni was speaking during a meeting that focused on “people’s livelihoods.”

Ni said authorities would promote housing sales and the development of affordable housing, while emphasizing the need to consider the longer term.

Near-term changes in the property sector have a significant impact on China’s overall economy.

Real estate was once about 25% of China’s GDP, when including related sectors such as construction. UBS analysts estimated late last year that property now accounts for about 22% of the economy.

Last week, Premier Li Qiang said in his government work report that in the year ahead, China would “move faster to foster a new development model for real estate.”

“We will scale up the building and supply of government-subsidized housing and improve the basic systems for commodity housing to meet people’s essential need for a home to live in and their different demands for better housing,” an English-language version of the report said.

next time you complain about how things are in America, consider that if you lived in some kind of scary communist country like China, you wouldn't even get to fund a bailout for the real estate company owners who ruined the economy like you can (whether you like it or not) in the good old US of A! 🇺🇲

[ladydeath-vanserra]

Inequality + Slums in Velaris

kinda 👀 at the people who think slums and designated Poor™️ areas are supposed to be normal, especially in acotar w Velaris. They *shouldn't* to be normal especially for VeLAriS

The UN Definition of a slum:

.... individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following conditions: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, sufficient living area, housing durability, and security of tenure

Slums form and grow in different parts of the world for many different reasons. Causes include rapid rural-to-urban migration, economic stagnation and depression, high unemployment, poverty, informal economy, forced or manipulated ghettoization, poor planning, politics, natural disasters, and social conflicts.

Rural–urban migration

Many people move to urban areas primarily because cities promise more jobs, better schools for poor's children, and diverse income opportunities than subsistence farming in rural areas.

this doesn't really apply to Velaris as it is a closed in separated city from the rest of the night court

Urbanization

Some scholars suggest that urbanization creates slums because local governments are unable to manage urbanization, and migrant workers without an affordable place to live in, dwell in slums.

Rapid urbanization drives economic growth and causes people to seek working and investment opportunities in urban areas.

However, as evidenced by poor urban infrastructure and insufficient housing, the local governments sometimes are unable to manage this transition. This incapacity can be attributed to insufficient funds and inexperience to handle and organize problems brought by migration and urbanization.

again, I don't see thus happening due to it being a private and secluded city unless they're taking in a rapid amount of SA survivors- the only outsiders brought into the city

Poor house planning

Insufficient financial resources and lack of coordination in government bureaucracy are two main causes of poor house planning.

This would mean that Rhysand is not paying attention to evenly distributed wealth or mindful government oversight in poor house planning. If there are low income folks, adequate housing is not being provided

Colonialism and segregation

Some of the slums in today's world are a product of urbanization brought by colonialism. For instance, the Europeans arrived in Kenya in the nineteenth century and created urban centers such as Nairobi mainly to serve their financial interests. They regarded the Africans as temporary migrants and needed them only for supply of labour.

The housing policy aiming to accommodate these workers was not well enforced and the government built settlements in the form of single-occupancy bedspaces. Due to the cost of time and money in their movement back and forth between rural and urban areas, their families gradually migrated to the urban centre. As they could not afford to buy houses, slums were thus formed.

I wouldn't say this qualified for Velaris, internally, but as for the Nightcourt as a whole, the separation of the CoN and Illyria from the golden city that is Velaris is very telling

The citizens of the CoN aren't allowed to leave the city and as we have seen from Rhysand, they will have businesses turn CoN citizens away in Velaris

Illyria is full of war torn camps where inequality thrives and there is not adequate housing or supplies, as we see when Cassian said he fought other children for supplies. We also see it when Cassian brings blankets for the Illyrians

Poor infrastructure, social exclusion and economic stagnation

Social exclusion and poor infrastructure forces the poor to adapt to conditions beyond his or her control. Poor families that cannot afford transportation, or those who simply lack any form of affordable public transportation, generally end up in squat settlements within walking distance or close enough to the place of their formal or informal employment.

This overall I feel best exemplifies Velaris. As far as we're made aware there aren't vehicles in Velaris and we don't make notice of any other forms of transportation besides winnowing. The closest we get is flying and we've only seen Cassian, Azriel, Rhysand and Feyre. With Winnowing, it's only Mor and Rhysand and Feyre.

Winnowing is not a common practice ability that all faeries have. There does seem to be a suggestion that there are people who can Winnow, though this is based on Rhysand telling Feyre about his dad being unable to Winnow into the HoW

This leaves many people being unable to have any form of transportation outside of walking.

Informal economy

Many slums grow because of growing informal economy which creates demand for workers. Informal economy is that part of an economy that is neither registered as a business nor licensed, one that does not pay taxes and is not monitored by local, state, or federal government.

There are very few businesses we see in Velaris. We see Rita's, the dive bar and some art studios. There isn't enough shown about legitimate businesses to really show much about an informal economy

Poverty

Urban poverty encourages the formation and demand for slums. With rapid shift from rural to urban life, poverty migrates to urban areas. The urban poor arrives with hope, and very little of anything else. They typically have no access to shelter, basic urban services and social amenities. Slums are often the only option for the urban poor.

Poverty has been witnessed with especially the Illyrians. But within Velaris, it stands to reason that the "grimy part of the city" where Nesta lives, and the bar she frequents, does not have the adequate infrastructure in place for proper wages- which would be Rhysands responsibility to make sure a minimums wage where people could thrive would exist

tldr: Velaris has slums and it's through Rhys' shitty job as a high lord by not creating adequate social systems or infrastructure where poor folks can live without being designated to the "grimy parts of the city"

[mostlysignssomeportents]

At long last, a meaningful step to protect Americans' privacy

This Saturday (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

Privacy raises some thorny, subtle and complex issues. It also raises some stupid-simple ones. The American surveillance industry's shell-game is founded on the deliberate confusion of the two, so that the most modest and sensible actions are posed as reductive, simplistic and unworkable.

Two pillars of the American surveillance industry are credit reporting bureaux and data brokers. Both are unbelievably sleazy, reckless and dangerous, and neither faces any real accountability, let alone regulation.

Remember Equifax, the company that doxed every adult in America and was given a mere wrist-slap, and now continues to assemble nonconsensual dossiers on every one of us, without any material oversight improvements?

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/20/equifax-settles-with-ftc-cfpb-states-and-consumer-class-actions-for-700m/

Equifax's competitors are no better. Experian doxed the nation again, in 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/30/dox-the-world/#experian

It's hard to overstate how fucking scummy the credit reporting world is. Equifax invented the business in 1899, when, as the Retail Credit Company, it used private spies to track queers, political dissidents and "race mixers" so that banks and merchants could discriminate against them:

https://jacobin.com/2017/09/equifax-retail-credit-company-discrimination-loans

As awful as credit reporting is, the data broker industry makes it look like a paragon of virtue. If you want to target an ad to "Rural and Barely Making It" consumers, the brokers have you covered:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#axciom

More than 650,000 of these categories exist, allowing advertisers to target substance abusers, depressed teens, and people on the brink of bankruptcy:

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/08/from-heavy-purchasers-of-pregnancy-tests-to-the-depression-prone-we-found-650000-ways-advertisers-label-you

These companies follow you everywhere, including to abortion clinics, and sell the data to just about anyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/07/safegraph-spies-and-lies/#theres-no-i-in-uterus

There are zillions of these data brokers, operating in an unregulated wild west industry. Many of them have been rolled up into tech giants (Oracle owns more than 80 brokers), while others merely do business with ad-tech giants like Google and Meta, who are some of their best customers.

As bad as these two sectors are, they're even worse in combination – the harms data brokers (sloppy, invasive) inflict on us when they supply credit bureaux (consequential, secretive, intransigent) are far worse than the sum of the harms of each.

And now for some good news. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, under the leadership of Rohit Chopra, has declared war on this alliance:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/16/cfpb-looks-to-restrict-the-sleazy-link-between-credit-reporting-agencies-and-data-brokers/

They've proposed new rules limiting the trade between brokers and bureaux, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, putting strict restrictions on the transfer of information between the two:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/15/tech/privacy-rules-data-brokers/index.html

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, this is long overdue and meaningful. Remember all the handwringing and chest-thumping about Tiktok stealing Americans' data to the Chinese military? China doesn't need Tiktok to get that data – it can buy it from data-brokers. For peanuts.

The CFPB action is part of a muscular style of governance that is characteristic of the best Biden appointees, who are some of the most principled and competent in living memory. These regulators have scoured the legislation that gives them the power to act on behalf of the American people and discovered an arsenal of action they can take:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

Alas, not all the Biden appointees have the will or the skill to pull this trick off. The corporate Dems' darlings are mired in #LearnedHelplessness, convinced that they can't – or shouldn't – use their prodigious powers to step in to curb corporate power:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

And it's true that privacy regulation faces stiff headwinds. Surveillance is a public-private partnership from hell. Cops and spies love to raid the surveillance industries' dossiers, treating them as an off-the-books, warrantless source of unconstitutional personal data on their targets:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/16/ring-ring-lapd-calling/#ring

These powerful state actors reliably intervene to hamstring attempts at privacy law, defending the massive profits raked in by data brokers and credit bureaux. These profits, meanwhile, can be mobilized as lobbying dollars that work lawmakers and regulators from the private sector side. Caught in the squeeze between powerful government actors (the true "Deep State") and a cartel of filthy rich private spies, lawmakers and regulators are frozen in place.

Or, at least, they were. The CFPB's discovery that it had the power all along to curb commercial surveillance follows on from the FTC's similar realization last summer:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/12/regulatory-uncapture/#conscious-uncoupling

I don't want to pretend that all privacy questions can be resolved with simple, bright-line rules. It's not clear who "owns" many classes of private data – does your mother own the fact that she gave birth to you, or do you? What if you disagree about such a disclosure – say, if you want to identify your mother as an abusive parent and she objects?

But there are so many stupid-simple privacy questions. Credit bureaux and data-brokers don't inhabit any kind of grey area. They simply should not exist. Getting rid of them is a project of years, but it starts with hacking away at their sources of profits, stripping them of defenses so we can finally annihilate them.

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[whencyclopedia]

Social Change in the British Industrial Revolution

The British Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) witnessed a great number of technical innovations, such as steam-powered machines, which resulted in new working practices, which in turn brought many social changes. More women and children worked than ever before, for the first time more people lived in towns and cities than in the countryside, people married younger and had more children, and people's diet improved. The workforce become much less skilled than previously, and many workplaces became unhealthy and dangerous. Cities suffered from pollution, poor sanitation, and crime. The urban middle class expanded, but there was still a wide and unbridgeable gap between the poor, the majority of whom were now unskilled labourers, and the rich, who were no longer measured by the land they owned but by their capital and possessions.

Urbanisation

The population of Britain rose dramatically in the 18th century, so much so that a nationwide census was conducted for the first time in 1801. The census was repeated every decade thereafter and showed interesting results. Between 1750 and 1851, Britain's population rose from 6 million to 21 million. London's population grew from 959,000 in 1801 to 3,254,000 in 1871. The population of Manchester in 1801 was 75,000 but 351,000 in 1871. Other cities witnessed similar growth. The 1851 census revealed that, for the first time, more people were living in towns and cities than in the countryside.

More young people meeting each other in a more confined urban setting meant marriages happened earlier, and the birth rate went up compared to societies in rural areas (which did rise, too, but to a lesser degree). For example, "In urban Lancashire in 1800, 40 per cent of 17-30-year-olds were married, compared to 19 per cent in rural Lancashire. In rural Britain, the average age of marriage was 27, in most industrial areas 24, and in mining areas about 20" (Shelley, 98).

Urbanisation did not mean there was no community spirit in towns and cities. Very often people living in the same street pulled together in a time of crisis. Communities around mines and textile mills were particularly close-knit with everyone being involved in the same profession and with a community spirit and pride fostered by such activities as a colliery or mill band. Workers also got together to form clubs to save up for an annual outing, usually to the seaside.

Life became cramped in the cities that had grown up around factories and coalfields. Many families were obliged to share the same cheaply-built home. "In Liverpool in the 1840s, 40,000 people were living in cellars, with an average of six people per cellar" (Armstrong, 188). Pollution became a serious problem in many places. Poor sanitation – few streets had running water or drains, and non-flushing toilets were often shared between households – led to the spread of diseases. In 1837, 1839, and 1847, there were typhus epidemics. In 1831 and 1849, there were cholera epidemics. Life expectancy rose because of better diet and new vaccinations, but infant mortality could be high in some periods, sometimes over 50% for the under-fives. Not until the 1848 Public Health Act did governments even begin to assume responsibility for improving sanitation, and even then local health boards were slow to form in reality. Another effect of urbanisation was the rise in petty crime. Criminals were now more confident of escaping detection in the ever-increasing anonymity of life in the cities.

Cities became concentrations of the poor, surviving off the charity of those more fortunate. Children roamed the streets begging. Children without homes or a job, if they were boys, were often trained to become a Shoe Black, that is someone who shined shoes in the street. These paupers were given this opportunity by charitable organisations so that they would not have to go to the infamous workhouse. The workhouse was brought into existence in 1834 with the Poor Law Amendment Act. The workhouse was deliberately intended to be such an awful place that it did little more than keep its male, female, and child inhabitants alive, in the belief that any more charity than that would simply encourage the poor not to bother looking for paid work. The workhouse involved what its name suggests – work, but it was tedious work indeed, typically unpleasant and repetitive tasks like crushing bones to make glue or cleaning the workhouse itself. Despite all the problems, urbanisation continued so that by 1880 only 20% of Britain's population lived in rural areas.

Continue reading...

[probablyasocialecologist]

If Ugandans have a social safety net, it is woven from banana fibers, and if there is a clear path to socialism, it will be lined with banana leaves. The lusuku model, premised on intercropping and smallholder farming, could be the basis for national agrarian reform that improves the lives of Uganda’s agricultural workers without accelerating the destruction of the natural environment. Uganda faces increasing difficulty feeding itself because of climate extremes and land degradation, and this affects farmers more significantly than anyone else. Moreover, since the 1990s, the ruling National Resistance Movement regime sold off and dismantled most of the coffee, tea, and cotton growers cooperatives, leaving smallholder farmers in the hands of the predatory middlemen which cooperatives had been established to protect them against. Unable to collectively bargain and exposed to dramatic fluctuations in the market prices for cash crops, many people left rural areas to search for employment in cities. This has been a driving force behind the massive inequality between rural and urban workers. Ugandans now produce more food than they consume, even exporting to other countries in the region, yet 41% of people are undernourished, and agricultural production has decreased over the last 20 years. For the most part, the strategy pursued by Uganda’s government has been to encourage the development of ecologically disastrous intensive agriculture for export, privileging foreign investors rather than developing the infrastructure that would benefit peasants. Indeed, while more than 70% of Ugandans are employed in agriculture, the sector only receives around 4% of public investment, and projects aimed at helping smallholder farmers have had very little success, even by their own standards. Many of the government’s investments in agriculture very clearly advantage larger landowners, to the detriment of the poorest farmers. For example, most of the government’s investment in labor-saving technologies has been spent on tractors, which are great for large plots but largely unaffordable or unsuitable for the average farmer, whose plot is usually between 1-3 acres large. However, a socialist transition premised on agroecological reforms could make use of the existing lusuku model to create the kind of growth that actually improves poor farmers’ lives without destroying their environment. This could begin with reestablishing cooperatives and engineering agricultural prices around social needs and goals, like guaranteeing access to food. Research from around the world has shown that while large, monocrop plantations are good at producing huge volumes of one crop, smallholder farms are more productive when evaluated on a per-unit area and are capable of securing national food sovereignty. Why, for example, should Ugandans buy rice imported from Pakistan or Vietnam when banana intercropping yields more calories per hectare than rice? Lusukus could feed the nation without relying on foreign experts, development aid, or the capital-intensive inputs now being imported to grow for export. Because lusukus are far better for the soil, they also improve the nation’s capacity to resist severe floods and drought, effects of climate change that hit poor farmers hardest. In these ways, the lusuku model could provide a sustainable path to socialist development.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Landless Rural Workers and Indigenous peoples take joint action in reforestation activity in Brazil

The activity, part of the Landless Rural Workers' Nature Day, was joined by Minister Sônia Guajajara

In a joint action, the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST, in Portuguese), Kaingang and Guarani Mbya Indigenous peoples airdropped three tons of juçara and araucaria palm seeds. The activity in Rio das Cobras Indigenous Land in the state of Paraná, southern Brazil, is part of MST's Nature Day.  

The event held on Tuesday (4) was attended by the Minister for Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara; the head of the Presidency's General Secretariat, Márcio Macêdo; and the interim Minister for Agrarian Development, Fernanda Machiaveli.  

Indigenous leaders from different regions of the state came to personally hand over their demands to federal government representatives. This is the first time Sonia Guajajara has visited an Indigenous land in Paraná as minister.

In a document drawn up after a meeting of Indigenous leaders the previous night, they demand the demarcation of lands, public policies to promote agriculture, policies for access to housing and improvements in Indigenous health and education. 

Continue reading.

[thehopefuljournalist]

This article isn't solely about the environment, but some of the things there are, so I'll summarize them for you :)

Bhutan and India boosted tiger numbers

According to Bhutan's latest tiger census, tigers have increased their population from 103 to 131 since 2015 - which is a rise of 27 per-cent.

This follows the country's major interventions to help the wild tiger population, including community based tiger conservation programmes, habitat improvement and human-wildlife conflict management projects. 

Tigers are, of course, still at risk, but Bhutan's dedication to help and preserve their population is inspiring.

India has also reported a six pre-cent rise in their wild tiger population since last year. The country is believed to be populated by 3,682 tigers now.

Germany’s €49 travel pass

A part of a green new policy in Germany, a €49 (£42)-a-month pass allowing unlimited travel on buses and trains in Germany. 

This will result in about 25 per-cent rise (per year) in the numbers of people choosing public transport instead of cars - a low carbon way of transport (according to the national rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB)). 

The Deutschlandticket launched on 1 May as a plan to lower the cost of living and encourage people to take the train instead of driving.

It seems to already have some great results: The Association of German Transport Companies says that almost 10 million people had used the pass by the end of June. DB has also said that trains to holiday destinations were busier this summer.

UK crop yields rose despite a fall in fertiliser use

 New data from the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) revealed that UK crop yields rose last year, despite a sharp decline in fossil fuel fertiliser use. Many believed that these fertilisers were necessary, but this data proves that belief wrong.

According to Defra, wheat, barley, oilseed rape and sugar beet yields rose by 2.4 per cent in 2022, while fertiliser use fell by a reported 27 per cent. 

These artificial fertilisers are made using natural gas, and because the prices soared in 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, farmers had to either use much less of them, or embrace more natural alternatives.

England’s plastic bag charge was hailed a success

Since the government in England forced supermarkets to charge 5p a plastic bag, there's been a 98 per-cent reduction of single use plastic bags.

That’s according to figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which introduced the charge in 2015, then increased it to 10p in 2021. 

Environmental campaigners welcomed the figures, but urged the UK government not to row back on other green policies, including a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles and rules to make plastic producers contribute to clean-up costs. Both policies have been delayed until 2025. 

Have a good weekend everyone!

Let me know, what good news have yo read or heard about lately?

[townpostin]

Jamshedpur MLA Pledges Infrastructure Boost for Bonta Village

Villagers Demand Tube Well and Road Repair in Meeting with Legislator Bonta residents voice concerns over water scarcity and poor road conditions, prompting MLA Kalindi to assure swift action on rural development initiatives. JAMSHEDPUR – Local legislator Mangal Kalindi met with residents of Bonta Tola Jiradungri to address urgent infrastructure needs, promising rapid improvements to water access…

[reasonsforhope]

"Rewilding in Scotland has created a more than 400% increase in jobs, research has found amid calls for it to continue.

Research by Rewilding Britain shows 35 jobs have been created at one site alone in the Highlands since 2008.

The research found there has been a 412% increase in jobs at 13 major rewilding projects covering almost 60,000 hectares, including sites owned or managed by charities, communities, private landowners, and public bodies.

Full-time equivalent jobs across the sites increased from 24 before rewilding to 123, across sectors including hospitality, estate management, ecology, environmental monitoring, rewilding interventions, recreation, and education.

The largest recorded rise in jobs was at Trees for Life’s 4,000-hectare Dundreggan estate near Loch Ness in the Highlands, a former deer stalking estate.

Since 2008, some 35 jobs have been created in addition to the sole previous position, while volunteer numbers have risen from zero to 100.

A rewilding centre was opened at the site last year and an open invitation has been extended to Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio to visit it after he backed a campaign for Scotland to become the world’s first “rewilding nation”.

All the sites are more than 100 hectares in size and are part of the Rewilding Network managed by Rewilding Britain.

The research found combined volunteer numbers at the sites increased from zero to 435...

The Scottish Government has been urged to commit to nature recovery across 30% of land by restoring habitats including peatlands, native woodlands, wetlands, rivers and seas, with no loss of productive farmland.

Kevin Cumming, rewilding director at Rewilding Britain and deputy convener of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance, said: “These remarkable job creation figures show how rewilding can turbo-charge social and economic benefits, while offering hope for reversing biodiversity loss and tackling climate breakdown.

“This is yet another powerful illustration of why the Scottish Government should declare Scotland a rewilding nation.

“The opportunity is huge – for jobs and local economies, better health, food production, access to fresh water and clean air.”

The alliance’s Rewilding Nation Charter – including representations from more than 20 organisations – has been signed by thousands of people since it launched in the spring.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Restoring Scotland’s natural environment is a key way that we can help address the twin challenges of nature loss and climate change, including many of the interventions championed by the Scottish Rewilding Alliance.

“We welcome this evidence of employment in rural communities and will consider this research as we continue to work towards our commitment to protect and restore 30% of Scotland’s land and seas for nature.

“Our £65 million Nature Restoration Fund has committed nearly £40 million since 2021 to unlock the full potential that nature restoration projects can bring to communities.

“The fund has supported local businesses, helped landowners with pollinator projects to boost food production and supported improved access to green spaces throughout Scotland, alongside restoration of our marine environment.”

The charter can be viewed at www.rewild.scot/charter."

-via The Independent, June 19, 2024

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #7

Feb 23-March 1 2024

The White House announced $1.7 Billion in new commitments from local governments, health care systems, charities, business and non-profits as part of the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities. The Challenge was launched with 8 billion dollars in 2022 with the goal of ending hunger in America by 2030. The Challenge also seeks to drastically reduce diet-related diseases (like type 2 diabetes). As part of the new commitments 16 city pledged to make plans to end hunger by 2030, the largest insurance company in North Carolina made nutrition coaching and a healthy food delivery program a standard benefit for members, and since the challenge launched the USDA's Summer EBT program has allowed 37 states to feed children over the summer, its expected 21 million low income kids will use the program this summer.

The US House passed a bill on Nuclear energy representing the first update in US nuclear energy policy in decades, it expands the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and reduces reducing licensing fees. Nuclear power represents America's single largest source of clean energy, with almost half of carbon-free electricity coming from it. This bill will boost the industry and make it easier to build new plants

Vice President Harris announced key changes to the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program. The CCDBG supports the families of a million American children every month to help afford child care. The new changes include capping the co-pay families pay to no more than 7% of their income. Studies show that high income families pay 6-8% of their income in childcare while low income families pay 31%. The cap will reduce or eliminate fees for 100,000 families saving them an average of over $200 a month. The changes also strength payments to childcare providers insuring prompt payment.

The House passed a bill making changes to the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program. The 8(a) is an intensive 9 year program that offers wide ranging training and support to small business owners who are socially and economically disadvantaged, predominantly native owned businesses. Under the current structure once a business reaches over 6.8 million in assets they're kicked off the program, even though the SBA counts anything under $10 million as a small business, many companies try to limit growth to stay on the program. The House also passed a bill to create an Office of Native American Affairs at the SBA, in order to support Native-owned small businesses.

The White House and HUD announced steps to boost the housing supply and lower costs plans include making permanent the Federal Financing Bank Risk Sharing program, the program has created 12,000 affordable housing units since 2021 with $2 billion and plans 38,000 additional units over ten years. As well as support for HUD's HOME program which has spent $4.35 billion since 2021 to build affordable rental homes and make home ownership a reality for Americans. For the first time an administration is making funds available specifically for investments in manufactured housing, $225 million. 20 million Americans live in manufactured housing, the largest form of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country, particularly the rural poor and people in tribal communities.

The Department of Energy announced $336 million in investments in rural and remote communities to lower energy costs and improve reliability. The projects represent communities in 20 states and across 30 Native tribes. 21% of Navajo Nation homes and 35% of Hopi Indian Tribe homes remain unelectrified, one of the projects hopes to bring that number to 0. Another project supports replacing a hydroelectric dam in Alaska replacing all the Chignik Bay Tribal Council's diesel power with clear hydro power. The DoE also announced $18 million for Transformative Energy projects lead by tribal or local governments and $25 million for Tribal clean energy projects, this comes on top of $75 million in Tribal clean energy projects in 2023

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg put forward new rules to ensure airline passengers who use wheelchairs can travel safely and with dignity. Under the planned rules mishandling a wheelchair would be a violation of the ACAA, airlines would be required to immediately notify the passenger of their rights. Airlines would be required to repair or replace the wheelchair at the preferred vendor of the passenger's choice as well as provide a loaner wheelchair that fits the passenger's needs/requirements

The EPA launched a $3 Billion dollar program to help ports become zero-emission. This investment in green tech and zero-emission will help important transportation hubs fight climate change and replace some of the largest concentrations of diesel powered heavy equipment in America.

the EPA announced $1 Billion dollars to help clean up toxic Superfund sites. This is the last of $3.5 billion the Biden administration has invested in cleaning up toxic waste sites known as Superfund sites. This investment will help finish clean up at 85 sites across the country as well as start clean up at 25 new sites. Many Superfund sites are contained and then left not cleaned for years even decades. Thanks to the Biden-Harris team's investment the EPA has been able to do more clean up of Superfund sites in the last 2 years than the 5 years before it. More than 25% of America's black and hispanic population live with-in 5 miles of a Superfund site.

Bonus: Sweden cleared the final major barrier to become NATO's 32nd member. The Swedish Foreign Minster is expected to fly to Washington to deposit the articles of accession at the US State Department. NATO membership for Sweden and its neighbor Finland (joined last year) has been a major foreign policy goal of President Biden in the face of Russian aggressive against Ukraine. Former President Trump has repeatedly attacked NATO and declared he wants to leave the 75 year old Alliance, even going so far as to tell Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" with European NATO allies

[maaarine]

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution (Cat Bohannon, 2023)

"In a wide variety of studies, covering cultures ranging from rural America to urban India, women are more likely to allocate financial resources in a way that directly affects the welfare of their immediate households and local community.

When given the opportunity, women are more likely to spend a family’s money on food and clothing and health care and children’s education.

Men, meanwhile, are more likely to spend it on entertainment and on weapons and—if we’re talking global trends—on gambling or the local equivalents.

Worldwide, girls and women spend up to 90 percent of their earned income on their families.

Men and boys spend only 30–40 percent.

When women in India were given the opportunity to participate in local governments as ministers and officers, those governments more greatly invested in things like public services and infrastructure, from waste management to potable water and railways—things that, as it turned out, seemed to matter more to female politicians.

It’s not that male politicians don’t care about community concerns and infrastructure.

They just seem to care about them less—or at least, if they have those concerns, they act on them less.

Similar trends can be seen in the voting habits of women in the United States and Europe.

As troubling as it sounds, the data exist: when you leave men in charge, roads and bridges and dams are effectively left to rot.

When women are empowered in local governance, for whatever reason, they are more likely to vote for local infrastructure (and health services and local, directly impactful public spending) than male politicians, and in Europe, they’re even likely to improve government transparency."

[historia-vitae-magistras]

In one of your last posts about Matt and Katya, you mentioned Alfred and Ivan’s dynamic, and that perhaps there is more beyond the hate sex they have had.

Do you mind expanding on that? What is your interpretation of their relationship, if it can even be called that?

LMAO god, gonna make me use the two and a half years I spent special interesting my way through Eastern European history on my way to a degree in 20th Century history, are you? About time I did lmao. Alfred/Ivan is one of those ships I don't enjoy purely as a ship, but it's so compelling. Much too compelling to the history to leave out entirely.

So, at the dawn. You have this old state in Ivan, considered backwards and rural by the Western European imperial powers, which has largely lost its verve for even trying most of the time. He has usurped his sister, who built most of their culture and claimed the power he has from the remnants of several cultures and expanded eastwards. And he comes across this young upstart, similarly held on the fringe of the powers of Western Europe. He's had similar obsessions with Jan when the Dutch Republic was new and a lasting one with François when he was the heart of European culture. Moreover, he's not only interested in and admiring of Alfred and the American experiment, but Ivan likes Alfred. Everyone likes Alfred. It's impossible not to like Alfred. There's an affection and attachment, a kind of love if I want to push. By the 19th century, Ivan wished him success because he and Arthur were locked into the Great Game in Central Asia. He spites Arthur, Matt, and Katya by selling Alaska to Alfred when he and Russia can no longer benefit. He's happy to raise a glass to American success. Alfred was touched by the gestures during his Civil War and the purchase of Seward's Icebox.

Afterwards, things declined quite quickly. Between the end of the American Civil War and the beginning of World War One, over 3 million people from the Russian Empire settled in the United States. But less than 5% of them were ethnic Russians. Most are Jewish, Polish and Lithuanian. Feliks mostly stays in Poland, a firebrand devoted to his survival, but Alfred meets Tolys, and he loves him. He lives with Tolys and his memories, perceptions, and opinions. Matt is up to his tonsils in Katya any moment he possibly can be, with a mouth full of their father's loathing of Ivan and a chest heaving with Katya's life. Alfred is increasingly their father's heir. The Pacific acquisition of Alaska was just the first step. If Alfred is the Christ to Arthur's God and lord knows he thinks of himself as a saviour, the Russian empire just looks shittier and shittier.

But he still has that reputation of being an outsider. He's not quite in with the European powers. He brokers the end to Russia's ultimate humiliation against Japan. Ivan, to a certain if somewhat limited extent, believes Alfred's bullshit. The deal is fairer than he would have otherwise gotten. But this is the high point of the pre-war Kiku, and Alfred's strange, tense and intimate relationship and opinion is still vastly with Japan during the war.

Then comes the Russian Revolution and the Polar Bear Expedition. Alfred is keener to do business with Ivan's new government when revolution breaks out. It must be an improvement over the Tsar, surely. He's not entirely in his complete form yet; he gets looped into the Entente's support, but he's pretty vocal about this thin line of hope that this may go well. The way his revolution went. There's this brief moment where Ivan and Alfred look at the world with a thought to a common future. They're looking at each other again with an ancient hope, maybe some mutual admiration. This may work. Maybe Ivan will get his shit together. Maybe Alfred won't become the heir to Arthur's Great Game. Maybe, maybe.

And then it goes up in fucking flames. Even American leftists became disillusioned with the USSR somewhat quickly. He helped lay down new states in the newly free Eastern Europe; God knows Tolys and Matt are doing their best to keep Alfred on-side. It took almost fifteen years, until 1933, for the US to acknowledge the USSR. Alfred is repulsed by the USSR even if he does cool his jets as interwar isolationism has slowed the process of him stepping into the fray as the head of his family.

By World War Two, Alfred is happy to write his redemption story and just dump treasure and materiel at the USSR. He's the balance of power between Arthur and Ivan, and Ivan is delighted to see Alfred snap at Arthur whenever he fucking pleases. But he's also miserable that he is the one dragging himself on his belly over the broken glass and ruins of Eastern Europe and doing the largest share against the Nazis. But there's a little hope that Alfred and Ivan will rule the world when this is over and find common ground in their power. It's only in the waning days of the war when Alfred's clearly suffering from the campaign in the Pacific and Eisenhower lets Zhukov have Berlin, that they shack up in some way or form. Alfred has more hope than Ivan, but Ivan is at least a little satisfied to see that Alfred has had a piece carved out of his idealism by his war against Japan.

It doesn't last. Alfred might be happy to take Arthur down a notch, but when the crown comes upon his head, as has been arranged, he wears it with a certain ease no one expected. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but what is the weight to a man who fancies himself Atlas and Prometheus all in one. And it comes with the confidence to hate Ivan's ideas and opinions even as he revels in their fucking. Sex isn't love, and the feelings he gets throughout all of it are not love to Alfred. I still somewhat adhere to the thought that McCarthy almost denounced Alfred as both a communist sympathizer and a homosexual in the 1950s for this apparent attachment, but the intelligence apparatus intervened and prevented it.

And that is where I will leave off because I'm damn near at 1000 words RIP.