fullyarticulatedgoldskeleton:

chavisory:

queenshulamit:

ozymandias271:

reading a paper on quality of life among 45-to-70-year-olds with Down syndrome:

“Individuals expressed a desire to be allowed to go to bed when they wanted to.”

😦

Imagine.

I lived in a room and board that failed the burrito test. (”If you’re not allowed to get up in the middle of the night to microwave a burrito, you live in an institution.”) No one stopped me from going to bed, but they did tell me I had to have my lights out by 10, and that I had to be out of the house by 10 the next morning. When I complained to my outpatient program that I needed more help than I was getting, they threatened me with board and care, where my cell phone would be taken away and I would lose contact with the outside world. My case manager sounded so damn smug, like he had caught me out, when he said, “if you’re really as helpless as you say, then you need to be in a board and care.” Like my only options were struggling to do things I couldn’t do, or surrendering my life to an institution.

When I tried to talk about these things with other people, they always rationalized it away. (I told my dad once that my caseworker was reading my e-mails as I wrote them, demonstrating extreme disrespect for my privacy, and he said, “Well, she’s probably making sure you don’t use the internet to goof off.” I was 22 years old.)

 People tend to mock the idea that telling an adult when to go to bed, when to eat, etc., is a human rights violation, even though they would find it outrageous and absurd if anyone came into their lives to do the same thing to them.

And this is what people seem to think when they tell disabled activists we’re just not disabled enough to understand that some people really do need to be locked up and deprived of all autonomy.

jumpingjacktrash:

think back to the last time you saw a bunch of bloggers saying those things

and how many of them turned out to be employed by the Russian Internet Research Agency to get trump elected

i don’t know whether the russian agitprop bloggers are back under new names or whether there’s a fresh new footbullet brigade who actually bought their nihilistic message, but in the end it doesn’t matter

anyone telling you that, if you hate the way america is turning into a fascist puppet state, you should do nothing, is an enemy

anyone telling you that exercising your rights as a citizen is a bad thing, and that you should totally stick it to the man by sitting around with your thumb up your ass fantasizing about ‘burning it all down’, is a dangerous enemy, or dangerously stupid

and anyone who actually tries to get you to make real plans to go out and blow shit up, do murders, start fires, and get a lot of gung-ho idiots and innocent bystanders killed, is a literal felon, and either it’s a sting or they’re a terrorist

i don’t care if the thought of being a gun-toting shoot-first patriot sounds a-ok to you as long as you’re a leftist gun-toting shoot-first patriot, i am telling you, as Internet Dad, Local Calm Person, and Guy Who Has Seen This Shit Before, put the hateboner back in your pants, wash your hands, and go do what real americans do when they want freedom and progress: VOTE.

plantyhamchuk:

plantyhamchuk:

thecarboncoast:

cookinguptales:

A lot of people are really scared and angry because of the results of the newest climate change reports — as they should be. But I’m already seeing a lot of posts and news reports like “HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING” and bizarrely enough, the answers are never like “weed out climate change deniers from your government, impose strict new rules for the corporations that are  creating most of the emissions, pour government resources into alternate forms of fuel, etc.” It’s always like “carpool to work!”

Look. Of course you should be working to reduce waste in your own life. But let’s not fucking pretend that consumers are the ones who made this mess. You know what another recent study found? Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. If the rest of us stopped ALL WASTE and fucking ascended to a higher plane of existence that no longer requires consumption of any kind, the world would still be absolutely fucked if those 100 companies keep on as they do.

I hate this personal responsibility model when it comes to conservation. By ignoring the actual source of the problem and focusing on individuals instead, guess who gets targeted? The absolute most vulnerable individuals on the planet. When people advocate personal responsibility, somehow they’re never talking about billionaires and their private jets. They’re creating straw bans that will make life more dangerous for people with disabilities. They’re shaming women for using disposable menstrual products. They’re criticizing the poor and destitute for using “wasteful” products because they’re all they can afford. They’re making vaguely eugenic statements about getting people in “third world countries” to stop ~breeding~ so much. It’s monstrous.

Stop shaming consumers for the sins of corporations and their powerful investors. Stop placing the blame at the feet of the people who already have the hardest time getting through life. Do something, and by “do something” I mean buy a reusable coffee cup on the way to fucking vote. Go to a protest. Call a representative. Demand accountability from the people who got us into this mess.

^^^^

Let’s talk about those 100 companies for a moment. 

To defeat your enemy, you first have to know who they are.

As a wonky nerd, I looked up the actual report everyone keeps vaguely referencing. Here’s some actual info on the worst polluting companies in the world according to the Carbon Disclosure Project.

In case you can’t read that tiny writing, here’s a list of what is on this graph, which is labeled: Oil and gas company product portfolio mix and GHG emissions intensity. The point of this graph is to show and shame, since even among fossil fuels, some are worse than others. From left to right: 

Suncor (Canada), Husky (Canada), Petrobras (Brazil), Lukoil (Russia), Rosneft (Russia), Canadian Natural (Canada), Marathon Oil (USA), Occidental (USA), Hess (USA), Chevron (USA), Murphy Oil (USA), BP (UK), ConocoPhillips (USA), ExxonMobil (USA), Devon Energy (USA), Apache (USA), Total (France), Eni (Italy), Statoil (now named Equinor.. Norway), OMV (Austria), Shell (USA), Anadarko (USA), BHP Billiton (Australia), Repsol (Spain), Encana (Canada), Gazprom (Russia).

As you can see here, on the far left is Suncor, and they’re all about mining those Canadian tar sands, the #1 most polluting way to create energy on an industrial scale.

Here’s another too-small picture I screen-shotted from the report. Here’s some key words: “The distribution of emissions is concentrated: 25 corporate and state producing entities account for 51% of global industrial GHG emissions. All 100 producers account for 71% of global industrial GHG emissions.”

Here’s that list of the 25 worst emitters, roughly ordered as worst polluters to least:

1. China (a collection of state-owned Coal companies)

2. Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia)

3. Gazprom (Russia)

4. National Iranian Oil (Iran)

5. ExxonMobil (USA)

 6. Coal India (India)

7. Russia (a collection of state-owned Coal companies)

8. Pemex (Mexico) 

9. Shell (USA)

10. CNPC – China National Petroleum Corporation

11. BP (UK)

12. Chevron (USA)

13. PDVSA – Venezuela state owned 

14. ADNOC – Abu Dhabi National Oil Company state owned 

15. Poland Coal (Poland)

16. Peabody (USA – coal) 

17. Sonatrach – Algerian state owned 

18. Kuwait Petroleum Corp state owned 

19. Total (France) 

20. BHP Billiton (Australia) 

21. ConocoPhilips (USA) 

22. Petrobras (Brazil) 

23. Lukoil (Russia) 

24. Rio Tinto (UK/Australia) 

25. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (Nigeria)

As you can see, this is a truly global problem. Most of us aren’t going to be able to make an impact on governments far away from us, but we can sure as hell put pressure on our own governments. And yes, we can also do individual acts of protest – be it buying a solar charger for your phone or pinning blankets to your curtains to make them more insulative or riding your bike more instead of using a car – because the non-state owned companies rely on consumers in order to survive. 

If you want to read the report for yourself, which has lots more charts and graphs, you can find it here (PDF). It is meant to sway investors, so if you know anyone investing money in company stocks, this would be a great thing to show them.

Astute observers will note that I did not actually name and shame 100 specific companies. The report doesn’t either…

FURTHER ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE:

• Find out who your local energy company is
• Find out how they generate electricity
• Find groups pressuring them to switch over to more sustainable energy methods. Join / help out / volunteer / donate to those groups