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My 2025 in Review (Best Science Fiction Novels and Short Fiction, Reading Initiatives, and Bonus Categories)
- Graphic created by my father
Here’s to happy reading in 2026! I hope you had a successful reading year. Whether you are a lurker, occasional visitor, a regular commenter, a follower on Bluesky or Mastodon, thank you for your continued support. As I say year after year, It’s hard to express how important (and encouraging) the discussions that occur in the comments, social media, and via email are to me. I’m so thankful for the lovely and supportive community of readers, writers, and discussion partners that stop by.
What were your favorite vintage SF reads–published pre-1985–of 2025? Let me know in the comments.
Throughout the later part of the year I’ve dropped hints about a research project. Perceptive readers might have parsed together the contours of the research: late 19th/early 20th century, utopian, African American, the American South, radical politics… It’s taking longer than expected. I’ve read a good ten monographs, five dissertations, countless articles. I’ve written twenty pages. I hoped to have it posted by early in this year. Alas. It’s coming together–slowly. Stay tuned.
Without further ado, here are my favorite novels (I only read a few) and short stories (I read a ton of those) I read in 2025 with bonus categories. I made sure to link my longer reviews where applicable if you want a deeper dive.
Check out my 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021 rundowns if you haven’t already. I have archived all my annual rundowns on my article index page if you wanted to peruse earlier years.
My Top 5 Science Fiction Novels of 2025
- Alan Gutierrez’s cover for the 1985 edition
1. Octavia E. Butler’s Clay’s Ark (1984), 4.5/5 (Very Good). Full review.
Octavia E. Butler’s Clay’s Ark is the final published volume of her Patternist sequence (1976-1984). It is the third novel according to the internal chronology of the series. Clay’s Ark is, without doubt, the most horrifyingly bleak science fiction novel I have ever read. It’s stark. It’s sinister. It’s at turns deeply affective before descending into extreme violence and displaced morality. The moral conundrum that underpins the central problem, the spread of an extraterrestrial disease, unfurls with an unnerving alien logic. Butler’s characters are trapped by the demands of the alien microbes, scarred by the pervasive sense that their humanity is slipping away, and consumed by the fear of starting an epidemic. A true confrontation of the moment cannot lead to anything other than suicide or the first steps towards an apocalyptic transformation.
- Mark Weber’s cover for the 1st edition
2. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Icehenge (1984), 4.5/5 (Very Good). Full review.
Kim Stanley Robinson’s Icehenge, a fix-up from two previously published stories “To Leave a Mark” (1982) and “On the North Pole of Pluto” (1980), tells three interconnected tales that all connect to a mysterious monolith left on Pluto (the titular Icehenge). By design Icehenge instead follows the action after the action: men and women attempting to figure out their own place in a world characterizes by lifespans that stretch hundreds and hundreds of years. And its this brilliant interconnection between self-conception and the operations of history that Robinson succeeds and casts his spell. The story is well-told, polished, and filled with fascinating details (technological and sociological).
- Peter Jones’ cover for the 1978 UK edition
3. Joe Haldeman’s All My Sins Remembered (1977), 4/5 (Good). Full review.
The vast Confederación is comprised of radically distinct worlds ruled by the entire spectrum of political systems with both alien and non-alien inhabitants. There are few rules: don’t take advantage of indigenous populations and don’t wage wars on neighboring planets. At 22, the naive Otto McGavin, an Anglo-Buddhist, joins the Confederación as an agent to protect the rights of humans and non-humans. But there’s a twist. Under deep hypnosis a construct of Otto McGavin will be created for each mission. He’ll take on the identity–under a sheath of plasticine flesh–of whatever person he needs to be depending on the task. The story follows Otto on three missions over many years. The interlocking segments convey the deep trauma Otto must confront before he’s immersed in another persona and sent on another mission. His idealism clashes with the violence he must perpetuate. His sense of self conflicts with the violent actions of his “constructs.” The looming sense of dread and despair must finally have its reckoning.
- Uncredited cover for the 1983 edition
4. Zoë Fairbairns’ Benefits (1979), 3.75/5 (Good). Full review.
Zoë Fairbairns charts the struggles of the British women’s liberation movement in a dystopic near future. An anti-feminist fringe political party called FAMILY comes to power, simultaneously proclaiming family values while systematically dismantling the welfare state. Benefits effectively eviscerates governmental doublespeak and champions the need to organize and educate in order to fight against patriarchal forces and messianic movements that promise to solve all our ills.
- Colin Hay’s cover for the 1976 edition
5. Edgar Pangborn’s The Company of Glory (1975), 3.5/5 (Good). Full review.
Edgar Pangborn is an unsung SF hero in my book. At his best, he’s a deeply humanistic writer interested in moments of effective metafictional play on the nature of narrative. The Company of Glory (serialized 1974, 1975) is the third novel in the Tales of Darkening World sequence. It forms a prequel to Pangborn’s masterpiece Davy (1964). As with Davy, The Company of Glory attempts to create multiple interlocking layers of narrative, stories within the stories, quotations from various diaries, and the interjections of the overarching narrator of the entire collection of texts who remains anonymous until the final pages. Unfortunately, The Company of Glory is a deeply flawed novel. Recommended only for Pangborn’s fans. Read Davy first if you’re new to his work.
My Top 20 Science Fiction Short Stories Reads of 2025 (click titles for my full review)
1. Philip K. Dick’s “Foster, You’re Dead” (1955), 5/5 (Masterpiece): I featured on a podcast about this story. When the episode is posted, I’ll make sure to link it. Mike Foster spends his school days practicing survival skills–digging, making knives, weaving baskets–in case of a nuclear attack. The kids snicker at him as he walks past. They don’t own a fallout shelter at home. His father refuses to pay into the NATS (National Security fund). If a bomb hit, Mike wouldn’t even be granted access to the school shelter. He’s possessed by a deep, perpetual, encompassing trauma.
2. Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attraction” (1950), 5/5 (Masterpiece): A rare reread! Leiber imagines an America transformed after a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The physical landscape mirrors the psychological scars of New York’s inhabitants. Perverse new forms of TV entertainment, in particular male wrestlers pitted against masked women, transfix all audiences.
3. Jack Dann’s “A Quiet Revolution for Death” (1978), 5/5 (Masterpiece): Roger and his family head out of the city for a picnic in a vast cemetery. Roger dreams that he is an angel of God guiding mankind through the realm. Visiting the cemetery is an act of devotion. While other kids plug themselves into feelies, Bennie is a fanatic disciple of his father’s pseudo-philosophy of embracing the macabre. Sandra, Roger’s wife, plays along. The kids see through her dislike of the cemetery and the burial rituals happening around them.
4. Izumi Suzuki’s“Terminal Boredom” (1984, trans. by Daniel Joseph 2021), 4.5/5 (Very Good): A nameless young female main character recounts her interactions her one-time boyfriend. HE wants to reconnect with his mother, who abandoned his family. HE joins a staged show called The Psychoanalysis Room in an attempt to convince his mother to take “pity and come and find” him. She also has a dysfunctional family. Her mother, a TV executive, struggles/refuses to connect to her daughter. Like some manifestation of the modern hikikomori, they often refuse to communicate with others, eat as a group or eat at all for days on end, or leave their dwellings for the sun and vista of the aboveground. Both find solace and escape in the vacuities and artifice of television.
5. Philip K. Dick’s “Explorers We” (1959), 4.5/5 (Very Good): Six astronauts return to earth from a voyage to Mars. But they are not treated as heroes. Instead people flee. I found “Explorers We” a well-crafted existential terror. The story plays with narrative expectation and hints at a cosmic enormity that will, at least in this iteration, remain unknown.
6. James Tiptree, Jr.’s “Painwise” (1972), 4.5/5 (Very Good): An explorer who feels no pain is hurled mercilessly from planet to plant where is he tortured, experimented upon, and broken again, and again, and again. His sense of time dissipates. Space becomes a hellscape that he cannot escape. And each time he’s lifted back to his scout ship where a mechanical boditech stitches him back together.
7. Jack Dann’s “The Dybbuk Dolls” (1975), 4.5/5 (Very Good): Chaim Lewis works at a sex shop down below in the Undercity, one of many identical spheres, one mile in diameter, buried one thousand feet below the ground. As Chaim finishes up his shift in the dingy shop, a group of visitors ask about his hook-ins and 21st century pornos. Eventually one of them asks him about his alien sex doll collection. And when he returns to the room with the dolls, he discovers they’ve all been unpacked and they imprint themselves on his mind! Cue a descent into the bizarre…
8. Jack Williamson’s “Guinevere for Everybody” (1955), 4.5/5 (Very Good): An artificially created Guinevere stands “chained” in a “vending machine” tempting sleepy passengers in an airport with her plaintive calls. I did not know Williamson had this type of vision in him! The surprise of the year!
9. George H. Smith’s “The Last Days of L. A.” (1959), 4/5 (Good): A nameless character (“you”) wakes from a recurring dream: “the dream that has haunted the whole world since that day in 1945.” A dream of apocalyptic annihilation, in infinite variations. A narrative repetition takes form: Nuclear nightmare. The waking moment. The aimless quest for understanding. Communing with other lost souls. The retreat to the bottle. Fragments of the news suggest a world unraveling.
10. Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Stars Are the Styx” (1950), 4/5 (Good): The premise: Humans created Curbstone, an artificial satellite around Earth, to facilitate the ultimate scientific achievement–near instantaneous transportation across the galaxy. How? Individual spaceships, with a solitary crew person or couple, will be hurled out from Curbstone at various points across the space time continuum. The story revolves around the aging (and rotund) Senior Release Officer on Curbstone, who certifies, counsels, and guides the strange collection of humans who gather at the station willing to take such a risk.
11. Richard Matheson’s “Dance of the Dead” (1955), 4/5 (Good): In a drug and alcohol drenched near-future, a group of young adults take a break-neck road drip and stray from the path set out by parents and small town community. Manifesting the SPEED of the car, Matheson’s prose resonates with pulse and hum, snippets of song and signage, slang and youthful lust. It’s frantic. It’s zappy. It’s vibrant. Recommended for fans of the more linguistically experimental (and bleak) of 50s visions.
12. Jack Dann’s “Rags” (1973), 4/5 (Good): Joanna wanders the streets without seeing a single person. Everything she sees—from garbage cans to parked cars–seem in be various states of decay (“dented, rusted, and discolored”). She teaches herself a new way to walk to avoid the “invisible beings” that flit around her (6). She remembers a past sickness. Deaths in the family. She makes new rules of movement and perception as an act of preservation. And suddenly she sees The Purple Cat.
13. Jack Dann’s “Fragmentary Blue” (variant title: “There are no Bannisters”) (1973), 4/5 (Good): he elderly dwell underground in large domed cities. It’s a commercial and media-inundated world — tiny machines grant “feeling” as you watch commercials. Professor Fleitman, who “could not rationalize having an orgasm over a cigarette advertisement,” presents a new idea to galvanize the elderly to Entertainment Committee. Rather than a feelie or a movie he wants to put on a circus.
14. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s “Wanderers and Travellers” (1963, trans. 1966), 4/5 (Good): Stanisław Ivanovich spends his days submerged in lakes and rivers tagging septopods, a new octopus-like species discovered on Earth. His daughter, Marsha, assists from above. When he emerges from a lake, Marsha is deep in conversation with Leonid Andreevich Gorbovsky, an astroarchaeologist implied to be on leave from an expedition. The two scientists–IIvanovich, with his eyes on earthly mystery, and Gorbovsky, untangling the traces of potential intelligences across the cosmos–and Marsha engage in a series of discussions about the nature of the universe.
15. John Wyndham’s “The Man From Beyond” (variant title: “The Man from Earth”) (1934), 3.5/5 (Good): Somewhere on the Venusian surface the Valley of Dur, with its amalgamation of gasses, traps unsuspecting denizens who wander into its depths. In the city of Takon, Venusians, six-limbed creatures with silvery hair, ogle the strange beasts extricated and caged and exhibited from the Valley. The child, transfixed by the man’s noises and scrawls, pushes his stylus and pad under the bars. And Morgan Gratz, stranded astronaut and self-confessed murderer, draws for the child the respective locations of their planets.
16. Katherine MacLean’s “Contagion” (1950), 3.5/5 (Good) is a contact with an alien planet tale that’s legitimately odd. A hunting party looking for specimens of alien life in order to dissect, sets off from the spaceship Explorer across an alien planet called Minos. Reasonably, the crew is obsessed with a minute medical analysis of flora and fauna. The hunting party encounters a majestically shaped human who spins a crazy tale of adaptation and disease.
17. Cherry Wilder’s “The Ark of James Carlyle” (1974), 3.5/5 (Good): Carlyle spends his tour of duty in a hut with a wood platform on small landmass surrounded by an “oily purple sea” on an alien planet. A crisis hits — and he suddenly learns the reason for the singular trees that grow in the center of each island.
18. E. C. Tubb’s“Without Bugles” (1952), 3.5/5 (Good): A naive journalist struggles to confront her heroic idealism, regurgitated through the media, in her attempt to save the Mars colony afflicted with a futuristic case of the black lung.
19. Frank K. Kelly’s “Famine on Mars” (1934), 3.5/5 (Good): President Herbert Hoover infamously proclaimed on the eve of the Great Depression that “given the chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.” “Famine on Mars,” published five years into the Great Depression, evokes similar paradigmatic shifts between propagandistic proclamation and harsh reality. Kelly spins a nightmare account of a famine on Mars and a plan to save the starving legions.
20. Gerald Kersh’s “Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?” (1953), 3.5/5 (Good): Kersh imagines a literary version of himself returning to New York City from WWII interacting with a fantastical manifestation of a Wound Man on board the Cunard White Star liner Queen Mary. Corporal Cuckoo, the “Wound Man” in question, regals the narrator (Kersh) with the history of his scarred and mutilated form that mysteriously heals from every injury.
Reading Initiatives
I have continued, resurrected, and created new science fiction short story reading series over the course of the year. Most of the stories I’ve picked for the series are available in some fashion online via links to Internet Archive in each review. I’ve included installments from 2024 in each series below. Feel free to read along with me! And thanks for all the great conversation.
Galaxy Science Fiction Read-through (started 2025)
- Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (October 1950)
- Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (November 1950)
Organized Labor and Unions in Science Fiction (started in 2024)
- Mack Reynolds’ The Earth War (1964)
- Zoë Fairbairns’ Benefits (1979)
The First Three Published Short Fictions by Female Authors (continued from 2021)
Translated Short Stories in Translation (with Rachel S. Cordasco) (started in 2024)
- Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s “Wanderers and Travellers” (1963, trans. 1966)
- Izumi Suzuki’s “Terminal Boredom” (1984, trans. by Daniel Joseph 2021)
The Media Landscape of the Future (started in 2022)
- George H. Smith’s “In the Imagicon” (1966)
- Izumi Suzuki’s “Terminal Boredom” (1984)
- Jack Dann’s “Fragmentary Blue” (variant title: “There are no Bannisters”) (1973)
The Search for the Depressed Astronaut (continued from 2020)
- Philip K. Dick’s “Explorers We” (1959)
- James Tiptree, Jr.’s “Painwise” (1972)
- E. C. Tubb’s “Without Bugles” (1952)
- E. C. Tubb’s “Home is the Hero” (1952)
- E. C. Tubb’s “Pistol Point” (1953)
- John Wyndham’s “The Man From Beyond” (variant title: “The Man from Earth”) (1934)
Generation Ship Short Stories (continued from 2019)
Exploration Logs (continued from 2022)
- Exploration Log 7: Interview with Jordan S. Carroll, author of Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right (2024)
- Exploration Log 8: Pat M. Kuras and Rob Schmieder’s “When It Changed: Lesbians, Gay Men, and Science Fiction Fandom” (1980)
- Exploration Log 9: Three More Interviews with Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988)
- Exploration Log 10: Interview with Jaroslav Olša, Jr., author of Dreaming of Autonomous Vehicles: Miloslav (Miles) J. Breuer: Czech-American Writer and the Birth of Science Fiction (2025)
- Exploration Log 11: Interview with Chukwunonso Ezeiyoke, author of Nigerian Speculative Fiction: The Evolution (2025)
My Top 4 History Reads of 2025
A large portion of my history reading this year pushed my general interest in labor history and leftist politics backwards into the 19th century. Unusual for me I know! Often I write about what I can write about not what I plan on writing about. A brief caveat worth repeating: I’m a PhD-wielding historian and have a high tolerance for academic texts. That said, I’d classify everything in my list as on the approachable side of things if you know the broad strokes of American history.
1. Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp’s Setting Down the Sacred Past: African-American Race Histories (2010): This filled a complete hole in my knowledge. While I had encountered history-centric militant abolitionist texts written by black authors, I did not know how they fitted into the larger historiographic project of the era. As my PhD looked at universal histories in the medieval period, I’m a sucker for all kinds of histories of historiography! This is a good one.
2. Deborah Beckel’s Radical Reform: Interracial Politics in Post-Emancipation North Carolina (2011): I read this one for my research project on a black utopian author. Beckel’s brilliant monograph looks at the race and politics in North Carolina after the end of Reconstruction–a “fusion” government of Republicans and Populists managed to take power (temporarily) from the white supremacist Democratic status quo in the 1890s. Depressing. Fascinating. I’m waiting for an alt-history that uses the 1898 election in North Carolina as a jonbar hinge — hah!
3. Edward K. Spann’s Brotherly Tomorrows: Movements for A Cooperative Society in America (1989): While an older monograph, Spann’s work is a fantastic survey of the fascinating range of radical social idealism-inspired communities that proliferated across America. I’m obsessed by left-wing ideologies that permeate the rural world and movements for working-class utopianism. Spann will inspire you to track down newer monographs on the social movements he surveys.
4. Jordan S. Carroll’s Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right (2025): Rightly won the Hugo! I interviewed Carroll in January. In the book, he examines the ways the alt-right uses classic science fiction imagery and authors to mainstream fascism and advocate for the overthrow of the state. This is a short monograph designed to encourage thought. Highly recommended.
Goals for 2026
1. Keep reading and writing.
2. Read more reviews by other bloggers.
3. Cover more SF in translation.
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1950s #1960s #1970s #ArkadyAndBorisStrugatsky #bookReview #bookReviews #books #CherryWilder #ECTubb #EdgarPangborn #fiction #FrankKKelly #fritzLeiber #GeorgeHSmith #GeraldKersh #IzumiSuzuki #JackDann #JackWilliamson #JamesTiptreeJr #JoeHaldeman #JohnWyndham #KatherineMacLean #KimStanleyRobinson #OctaviaEButler #philipKDick #RichardMatheson #sciFi #scienceFiction #TheodoreSturgeon #ZoeFairbairns -
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”
Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Tarcisio Schnaider/ShutterstockDespite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoHowever, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights and indigenous rights
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Pledge your support#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
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New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”
Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Tarcisio Schnaider/ShutterstockDespite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoHowever, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights and indigenous rights
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,385 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
-
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”
Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Tarcisio Schnaider/ShutterstockDespite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoHowever, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights and indigenous rights
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,385 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
-
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”
Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Tarcisio Schnaider/ShutterstockDespite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoHowever, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights and indigenous rights
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,385 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
-
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”
Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Tarcisio Schnaider/ShutterstockDespite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoHowever, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights and indigenous rights
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,385 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
-
Could This #Arizona Ranch Be a Model for #Southwest Farmers?
Oatman Flats has undergone a dramatic transformation, becoming the Southwest’s first #Regenerative #Organic Certified farm and a potential source of ideas for weathering #ClimateChange.
" 'We embraced the abundance of #heirloom and native crops in the #SonoranDesert,' Hansen said. 'We are looking at the land and asking it what we should grow, rather than asking the land to grow what we want.' " - Dax Hansen, owner of Oatman Flats Ranch.
By Samuel Gilbert
May 12, 2025Excerpt: "Regeneration Rooted in #Indigenous Practices
"Southern Arizona’s rich agricultural history stretches back more than 5,000 years. By 600 CE, the Hohokam people were constructing North America’s largest and most elaborate irrigation systems along the Salt and Gila Rivers. The descendants of the Hohokam—the Pima and Tohono O’odham—continued to farm the land up to and after the arrival of the Spanish, who began to colonize southern Arizona in the 1600s. They continue to farm in Arizona today.
"At the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation, about two hours southeast of Oatman Flats, the San Xavier Co-op Farm uses historic land management practices and grows traditional crops that reflect their respect for the land, plants, animals, elders, and the sacredness of water.
"San Xavier Farm Manager Duran Andrews and his team plant #CoverCrops, rotate fields, and collect #rainwater.
" '[Regenerative agriculture] is nothing new to us,' Andrews said. 'We have been doing this for decades. Harmony between nature and people has been our approach all the time.' Rotating fields and cultivating multiple mutually beneficial species in the same fields improves water and soil quality and biodiversity in this harsh landscape.
" 'You’ve seen what the land looks like in five years; imagine it in 10. If we can do it here, we can do it anywhere.'
"The co-op grows a variety of native crops that were developed in the region and cultivated for centuries or, in some cases, millennia, such as grains and beans, which they sell online. 'We irrigate them till they sprout, then cut them off till the monsoon shows up,' Andrews said. 'We try to keep crops in that hardy state through all the years and decades they have been here. We try not to get away from how things were done in the past.'
"They also grow White Sonora wheat, introduced to Arizona by Spanish Jesuit missionaries in the 1600s. 'It was a gift from Father Kino that we have taken as our own,' Andrews said. 'The [San Xavier] community was one of the first to grow this wheat.'
"Following the Mexican-American War in the mid-1800s, the United States claimed parts of modern-day Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, and Utah. The Anglo ranchers who moved into the area dug canals to irrigate agricultural fields, transforming the landscape. An 1852 watercolor by surveyor Jon Russell Bartlett depicts a verdant valley with cottonwoods and mesquite trees lining a flowing Gila River as it passes through Oatman Flats Ranch.
"That landscape is unrecognizable today. The lower Gila has gone bone dry after years of upstream diversions, dams, water overuse, and climate change. In 2019, the Gila River earned the title of Most Endangered River by the nonprofit advocacy group American Rivers.
"Standing on the sandy Gila riverbed, which divides the north and south farms of Oatman Flats Ranch, Wang pointed to the nearby invasive salt cedars. Healing the land involves rebuilding the water, nutrient, and carbon cycles from the ground up, 'at the micro level,' he said. 'On the macro level, it’s broken.'
"The ranch team has poured resources into rebuilding soil health by planting #hedgerows and 30-plus species of cover crops, at a cost of approximately $100,000. The hedgerows, mostly native trees, were planted along the edges of the fields to reduce erosion and provide habitat for beneficial species, including #pollinators such as #bees and #hummingbirds.
"The cover crops — #millet, #chickpeas, #sunflowers, #sorghum, sudan grass, broadleaves, and #NativeGrasses among them—are planted immediately after harvesting wheat, to provide 'soil armor,' help conserve water, fix nitrogen in the soil, suppress weeds, attract beneficial insects, and sequester carbon. The once-barren land now supports life for more than 120 species of flora and fauna."
Read more:
https://civileats.com/2025/05/12/could-this-arizona-ranch-be-a-model-for-southwest-farmers/#SolarPunkSunday #RegenerativeAgriculture #RegenerativeFarming #RestorativeAgriculture #ClimateChangeFarming
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#CLCamp26 Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse
Auf der Heimfahrt vom diesjährigen #CLCamp26 war ich so überwältigt vom Barcamp-Erlebnis vor Ort, dass ich, anstatt die sich schon verflüchtigenden Erinnerungen an meine eigenen Sessions zu notieren, ein schnelles Stimmungsbild tippte.
Am Wochenende danach fühlte ich mich erschöpft. Zwei übervolle Tage zollen ihren Tribut. Mittlerweile hat mich der Arbeitalltag wieder, aber der Vibe meines Heimfahrt-Beitrags ist nicht verflogen. Gerade in der täglichen Arbeit bin ich umso dankbarer, dass es die Corporate Learning Community gibt … über die ich immer wieder behaupte, dass sie mir seit 2017 neue Perspektiven auf und deshalb Freude an meiner Profession gegeben hat. Es ist unbedingt notwendig, zumindest einmal im Jahr die täglichen Berufs-Konstellationen und das eigene berufliche Wirkfeld gemeinsam mit Mitwirkenden nicht aus direkter Projekt- oder Vertriebs-Perspektive zu betrachten, sondern sich gegenseitig mit Überzeugungen, Zweifeln, Einsichten oder nur lose verpackten Kritik zu konfrontieren, die das grundlegendere Verständnis für unsere Branche und deren Spielregeln weiten. (Mehr dazu schreibe ich in meinem CLC-Buchbeitrag „Eine Verteidigung der Corporate Learning Community“).
Auch dieses Jahr wieder hatte ich Sorge, dass der zerstörerisch wütende „KI“-Bullshit die Sessions dominiert. Die Sorge war berechtigt. In jedem Slot gab es Sessions, in denen Grifter irgendwelche „KI“-Zaubertricks exerzierten. Dennoch schien es mir, dass der Begriff „KI“ in der individuellen Vorstellungsrunde deutlich weniger dominierte als noch letztes Jahr, und dass ich im direkten Gespräch Verbündete fand, die mit ähnlichem Entsetzen wie ich auf die Zerstörung blicken, die die gesellschaftlich-politischen „KI“-Narrative der Tech-Nationalist:innen, der LinkedIn-Bros aber auch der diese Narrative übernehmenden Anwender:innen weiterhin anrichten. „Ich hab mal die KI gefragt“ … diesen intellektuellen Offenbarungseid habe ich glücklicherweise seltener gehört als noch die letzten Tage. Und in den Pausengesprächen mit Community-Mitgliedern, die entsprechende Sessions besucht hatten und daraus berichteten, offenbarte sich, dass die Argumente der „KI“-Grifter immer fadenscheiniger und ihre Tricks immer durchschaubarer werden.
Die Barcamp-Magie des Zwischen-den-Sessions und Drumherum
Bevor ich einige der von mir besuchten Sessions rekapituliere, blicke ich auf meine Notizen, die ich zwischen den Sessions gemacht habe.
Die Hashtags der Vorstellungsrunde schienen mir so sehr geprägt von zwischenmenschlichen Anliegen, wie schon lange nicht mehr. Sind viele von uns der „Digitalisierung“ und des „KI“-Theaters müde? Sehnen wir uns nach Erfahrungen des situativen Spielraums und der Begegnung? (Ja, vielleicht bin ich gerade auch beeindruckt von meiner Anreiselektüre: „Situation und Konstellation“ von Hartmut Rosa.)
Drückt sich diese gefühlte Digital-Müdigkeit auch dadurch aus, dass die Vorort-Tickets des Barcamps endlich mal wieder ausverkauft waren und nicht annähernd so viele Online-Teilgebenden und -Sessions angeboten wurden wie vor Ort? Dass es einen beliebten „roten Raum“ ohne Technik gab, in dem ich mich so verbunden fühlte wie in manchen Sessions 2017 und 2018, die konsequent auf menschlich-körperlich-aufmerksames und ganz analoges Improvisieren setzten?
Der Ruf nach ‚echten Begegnungen‘ mag abgestanden klingen und in der täglichen Arbeit liegt es mir völlig fern, ihn unreflektiert nachzuplappern. Ich schätze es, nicht mehr für eine einstündige Powerpoint-Präsentation morgens um 5 Uhr von Berlin nach München und nachmittags wieder zurück fliegen zu müssen (was haben wir damit jahrelang angerichtet?). Ich respektiere gut organisierte Online-Meetings und sowohl aus privaten als auch aus dienstlich-ökonomischen Gründen ist es mir ein Anliegen, nicht unnötig Kraft und Geld in vermeidbare Reisetätigkeit zu versenken, die besser in die gute Konzeption und Moderation von Online-Events investiert wäre. Gute Begegnungen sind online möglich und erstrebenswert. Hybrid-Meetings sind im geschäftlichen Kontext oft ein sinnvoller Kompromiss, insbesondere dann, wenn dadurch die Beteiligung diverser Interessensvertreter:innen ermöglicht und erhöht wird. Im Barcamp-Kontext sehe ich das anders. Wenn es uns möglich ist, Barcamps in regelmäßigen Abständen durchzuführen, plädiere ich vehement für einen Wechsel zwischen Onsite-only und Online-only. Barcamp-Hybrid ist für mich weiterhin ein schlechter Kompromiss, der uns unnötig belastet und einhegt und mir auch rein ökonomisch wenig sinnvoll scheint.Trotz oder gerade wegen meiner Hybrid-Skepsis bin ich begeistert, wie wir es diesmal das erste Mal seit dem Twitter-Aus geschafft haben, wieder einen lebendigen, begleitenden und das Barcamp erweiternden semi-synchronen Digital-Layer zu weben – im Fediverse! Das Orga-Team und mehrere Teilgebenden haben sich sehr ins Zeug gelegt, schon im Vorfeld die Aufmerksamkeit auf Mastodon und insbesondere unsere eigene colearn.social-Instanz zu lenken. Vor Ort gab es eine Mastowall, Simon und Karlheinz haben eine Mastodon-als-Lernbooster-Session angeboten, auf Flyern und in regelmäßigen Hinweisen wurde auf das Fediverse hingewiesen und es wurde ein Beitrags-Wettbewerb ausgelobt. Während der Veranstaltung haben sehr viele Community-Mitglieder neue Accounts angelegt und die Timeline mit dem #CLCamp26 Hashtag war während des Events und ist auch jetzt im Nachgang noch lebendig. Harald hatte sogar den Community-übergreifenden #colearn Hashtag in selbst gesägten Holzbuchstaben auf die Bühne gestellt. Während letztes Jahr mehr LinkedIn als Mastodon genutzt wurde, hat sich das dieses Jahr erfreulicherweise gewandelt und auf LinkedIn blieb es dafür vergleichsweise ruhig. Ich habe Hoffnung, dass wir mit dem diesjährigen Engagement den Wechsel ins Fediverse wirklich vollzogen haben. Und vielleicht haben auch die Community-Mitglieder, die die letzten Jahre noch sehr sporadisch auf Mastodon posteten, diesmal Gefallen daran gefunden? Ich hoffe sehr, dass das Engagement auch zwischen den Barcamps aufrechterhalten wird.
Gute Veranstaltungen reichen über den eigentlichen Event-Zeitraum hinaus. Sie werden bereichert und bereichern die Vor- und Nachbereitung und alles, was sie ungeplant und unorganisiert anstoßen. Die Aufregung darüber im Netz, das kanalisierte Interesse der Teilgebenden schon lange im Vorfeld, die Inspiration, die sie den Teilgebenden für die Tage und Wochen danach mitgeben, das Sprechen darüber, die durch sie ausgelösten Begegnungen, all das, worüber ich hier schreibe (und dass ich überhaupt schreibe!). Der im letzten Abschnitt erwähnte digitale Layer trägt maßgeblich dazu bei.
Als ich nach Gabrieles und meiner Session zu „Lernressourcen“ (mehr dazu weiter unten) meine Mastodon-Timeline aufrief, stellte ich erfreut fest, dass die Session, während sie lief, durch mehrere Teilgebende aufmerksam dokumentiert und kommentiert worden war. Wenn Teilgebende während Deiner Session auf ihre Handys starren, ist das in der Corporate Learning Community ein gutes Zeichen! Eine Reihe an Beiträgen stach heraus: Markus Metz, der online zugeschaltet war und sich während der Session im Hintergrund hielt, hatte den Austausch aufmerksam verfolgt und ihn in der ihm eigenen kurzen, prägnanten und reflektierten Art in mehreren Beiträgen zusammengefasst und weitergesponnen.
Ebenfalls über Mastodon organisiert fanden sich Frauke, Christian Kaiser, Felix Harling und ich zu einem Austausch über Art of Hosting zusammen. Ich hatte Fraukes „Art of Hosting“-Erwähnung in der Vorstellungsrunde mitbekommen und dann auf ihrem Mastodon-Profil wiederentdeckt … und ein paar Nachrichten später hatte sich unsere kleine spontane Austauschgruppe gefunden. So funktioniert Peermatching im Fediverse! Und schon zu Beginn des Camps kam Felix auf mich zu: Er hatte mitbekommen, dass ich mich im Sommer für das Art of Hosting Training in Bad Boll angemeldet hatte … so wie er auch. Dort werden wir uns also wiedersehen. Ich freue mich schon jetzt darauf!
Kein Matching benötigte der Austausch mit Johanna Brühl. Ihre damals auf dem CLC19-Barcamp in Koblenz eingebrachte „Wandelgang“-Session hatte ich noch in guter Erinnerung … obwohl ich sie damals wegen einer parallel stattfindenden Session gar nicht besuchen konnte. Schon damals hatten wir uns zum Lernen beim Spazierengehen ausgetauscht, einer Leidenschaft, die ich mit ihr und anderen Mitgliedern der CLC teile. Sechs Jahre und eine spaziergangreiche Pandemie später konnten wir nahtlos daran anschließen. Besonders resonierte Johannas derzeitige Auseinandersetzung mit der „Lernenden Stadt“ in mir. Über (auch physische) Lernräume und -orte spreche ich z. B. regelmäßig mit Peter Überfeldt. Johannas Begriff „Lernende Stadt“ deute ich für mich einfach mal als antikapitalistische, psychogeographische Ausdehnung der „Lerndenden Organisation“ auf unsere Habitate in der Klimakrise … und weil ich den Begriff von Johanna im Zusammenhang mit Persönlichem Wissensmanagement hörte, packe ich mir gleich einen ganzen Rucksack weiterer Assoziationen hinein, über die ich nachdenken möchte: Kollektives Gedächtnis und kollektive Intelligenz, Stadt als Geschichtsschreibung und Museum, architektonische Wissensanker etc … . Ganz unabhängig von diesen Ideen, die der Austausch mit Johanna in mir angestoßen hat, haben wir uns zur Gründung eines Sketchnoting-lernOS-Lernzirkels verabredet. (Und mittlerweile habe ich einige dieser Gedanken auch in meinen regelmäßigen Austausch mit Peter übernommen … verbreite die Ideen aus dem #CLCamp26 also weiter …).
Am Wochenende nach dem Barcamp überraschte und erfreute Heidi Milke-Erlwein auf LinkedIn mit einer Sketchnote, in der sie die von ihr besuchten Sessions (unter anderem meine Sessions zu Lernressourcen und Informelle Lernräume) prägnant zusammengefasst und ebenfalls weiter verarbeitet hatte. Diese Sketchnote ist ein Fundgrube, die ich ebenfalls noch weiter erschließen möchte, sobald ich die Zeit dazu finde.Und am folgenden Montag schrieb Stephanie Reiner ebenfalls auf LinkedIn eine Verarbeitung ihrer Inspirationen aus unserer Lernressourcen-Session mit umfassenden Hinweisen zum Weiterforschen. Bisher waren Gabriele und ich ja ganz hemdärmelig unterwegs gewesen, während Stephanie zum Thema promoviert. Schon direkt nach der Session hatte sie wertvolle Quellenhinweise auf unserem Etherpad platziert, die sie nun im LinkedIn-Beitrag sortiert, aufbereitet und kommentiert hat.
Auf diesem #CLCamp26 ist meine Art, Notizen zu machen, völlig aus dem Ruder gelaufen. Ich manchen Sessions habe ich meine Notizen direkt auf Mastodon gepostet, in anderen in meine Notizen-App getippt, wieder andere als Sprachnotiz eingesprochen. Es ist ein Chaos, das es entdeckend zu ordnen gilt. Nein, keine „KI“ wird mir das abnehmen und ich freue mich darauf, auch wenn es vielleicht noch Wochen dauern wird.
Da meine Kolleg:innen Katharina Vögl-Duschek und Johannes Wendt mir mir an diesen Freitag in einem internen „Fridays for Learning“ unsere #CLCamp26-Eindrücke mit anderen Kolleg:innen teilen werden, dient mir dieser Blogbeitrag als Start, die von mir besuchten Sessions zumindest flüchtig zu rekapitulieren und festzuhalten. Wir gehen rein.
Die 16 Stellhebel erfolgreicher Learning Circles (Nele Graf und Carla Rockenstein)
Der Raum war überfüllt. Lernzirkel – ein alter Hut? Nicht für die Teilgebenden! Die Vorerfahrungen waren unterschiedlich. Einige Teilgebende waren mit Lernzirkeln noch überhaupt nicht vertraut, andere sind WOL-Pioniere der ersten Stunde oder bilden selbst Lernzirkel-Coaches aus. Nele und Carla gaben eine kurze Einführung in das Format und legten dabei passend zum CLC-Kontext besonderen Wert auf die Planung und Durchführung interner Lernzirkel in Unternehmen. Ihre Aussage, dass Lernzirkel viele Probleme anderer Formate lösen, kann ich besonders gut nachvollziehen … insbesondere dann, wenn sie integrativ in umfassende Lernkonzepte eingebunden sind und darüber z. B. eine zeitliche Struktur in den Lernprozess bringen und Austausch- und Reflexionsräume schaffen. Nele kritisierte, dass viele Lernansätze immer noch viel zu sehr alleinstehend konzipiert und angeboten werden. Gerade in der Verschränkung klassischer Angebote mit Zirkeln liegt die Musik!
Christian Kaiser betonte, dass Boxenstopps, in der die einzelnen Lernzirkel zusammenkommen und sich synchronisieren, bei der Organisation des selbstorganisierten Lernens helfen können … gerade dann, wenn das anwendende Unternehmen damit noch nicht vertraut ist. Aber zum Selbstläufer würden Lernzirkel dadurch leider noch nicht – dazu braucht es aktive Unterstützung.
Auf die Frage einer Teilgebenden, wer Lernzirkel leite, weist Nele hin: Facilitator sollten sich möglichst schnell überflüssig machen. Es gibt viele Möglichkeiten, Guidance zu geben … zu Beginn vielleicht noch über unterstützende Personen, später dann nur noch über den Lernzirkel-Leitfaden. Die Freiheitsgrade können immer weiter gesteigert werden.
Nele bestätigte viele Aspekte, die Claudia Schütze und ich in unserer LERNLUST-Podcastfolge #51 // Willst Du mit mir zirkeln? bereits besprochen hatten – z. B. dass ein überschaubarer Gesamtzeitraum von z. B. sechs Treffen in vielen Unternehmen passender ist als die vollen 12 Wochen, die meist für Verstetigung von Verhalten empfohlen wird. Bedenkenswert ist in diesem Zusammenhang auch Neles Hinweis, dass je nach Thema und Gruppe die Taktung der Zirkeltreffen unterschiedlich sein sollte: Für manche Themen und Gruppen sollte die Regelmäßigkeit der wöchentlichen Treffen beachtet werden, andere Themen und Gruppen benötigen ggf. längere Abstände zwischen den Treffen, um dazwischen praktische Erfahrungen zu sammeln.
Es gibt Lernzirkel, deren Mitglieder sich auch nach Ende des Zirkels als Freunde jahrelang regelmäßig weiter treffen und nie wieder mit Lernzirkeln aufhören. Ich kann das aus eigener Erfahrung bestätigen. Dennoch sei es für Lernzirkel gerade innerhalb von Unternehmen schwer, sich zu verstetigen, weil das Format leider immer noch dem verbreiteten Bild von „Arbeit“ entgegenstehe, berichtet Christian.
Bei Lernzirkel-Initiativen, die einen unternehmensübergreifenden Austausch anstreben (für mich einer der wertvollsten Aspekte des Zirkelns!), springt die Bedenkenträgerei leider noch viel schneller an. Die Vorstellung, dass sich Mitarbeitende aus ggf. formal im Wettbewerb zueinander stehenden Unternehmen vertrauensvoll treffen, scheint für viele Führungspersonen Geheimnisverrat gleichzukommen Auch fehle es an offenen Möglichkeiten, Mitzirkelnde zu finden, wird beklagt. Leonid Letzner hat den Peerfinder ja leider eingestellt. Wie könnten wir das Fediverse dafür nutzen, Lernzirkelwillige zusammenzubringen?
Volkmar Langer berichtete, dass sein Unternehmen bei einer großen Behörde Lernzirkel-Coaches ausbildet und Lernzirkel-Initiativen begleitet.
Es war ermutigend, in der Session so viele Stimmen und Praxisbeispiele aus Unternehmen zu hören, die Lernzirkel im Einsatz haben oder Interesse daran zeigen. In den vergangenen Jahren hatte ich hin und wieder die Befürchtung, dass das Format an Attraktivität verlöre. Zumindest in der Session war davon nichts zu spüren. Ich freue mich, dass auch meine Kolleg:innen und ich weiterhin entsprechende Initiativen bei Kunden und intern haben … und für demnächst planen wir auch, uns in einem „Fridays for Learning“ tief in Neles Buch „Die Kraft der Learning Circle“ zu vergraben … denn das ist ein wirklich umfassendes Manual!
Das CLC Buch: Was geht noch? (Jochen Robes)
Auf diese Session freute ich mich besonders, denn hier wollten wir ein Thema zum Abschluss und gleich in eine zweite Runde bringen, das mein vergangenes Jahr prägte: Unser 15-Jahre-CLC-Buch „Gemeinsam lernen, gemeinsam wachsen“. Vor einem Jahr auf dem #clc25 kamen wir zusammen, beschlossen das gemeinsame Schreiben eines Buches, arbeiten über das Jahr daran … und waren pünktlich zum nächsten Barcamp damit fertig.
Schon auf der Anreise zum #CLCamp26 verfolgte ich auf Mastodon, wie die Teilgebenden das Buch als Anreiselektüre im Gepäck hatten und darin lasen:
Zum Aufbau der Initiative an sich wie auch zu Arten, das Ergebnis multimedial weiter zu erschließen, habe ich so viele Ideen, dass ich ihnen einen eigenen Beitrag widmen möchte. Jochen Robes und ich haben dazu vor kurzem auch einen Beitrag für die Zeitschrift „Das kuratierte Dossier“ (Schwerpunktthema „Knowledge and Co-Creation“) der Gesellschaft für Wissensmanagement eingereicht, der Anfang Mai erscheinen wird.
Christian Kaiser meinte, ein bekannter Vorwurf gegenüber Barcamps sei, dass diese sich oft in Gequatsche ohne Ergebnis erschöpfen würden. Das Buch sei Beweis für das Gegenteil. Jochen meinte, Barcamp-Sessions sollten schon versuchen, mit einem Ergebnis zu schließen … warum das dann im Anschluss nicht aufgreifen und weiter daran arbeiten? Ich schließe mich Christian und Jochen an: Für mich ist so ein Buchprojekt ein Prototyp dafür, wie sich Wissensarbeit als Gruppenprozess zwischen zwei Fix-Terminen selbstorganisieren kann: Wenn wir uns in einer Barcamp-Session (oder einem anderen Veranstaltungsformat) sortieren und wissen, dass wir uns in einem Jahr wiedertreffen, lohnt es sich, die Zeit dazwischen zu planen. Wenn jeder auch nur einen Beitrag als ‚Zwischenbericht‘ und eigener Weiterverarbeitung schreibt, auf Video aufnimmt oder anderweitig veröffentlicht, lässt sich daraus ein gemeinsames, die Gruppe stärkendes, neue Beziehungen, Debatten oder Verbindungen schaffendes Ergebnis wie unser Buch erstellen. Damit wird aus unserem Buchprojekt eigentlich ein neues Großgruppenformat … eine Art Mischung aus Open Space, Barcamp und Community of Practice vielleicht? (Christian brachte auch noch das „Harvesting“ aus Art of Hosting ein … die gemeinsame Ernte aus dem Gruppenprozess. Darüber werde ich im Sommer in meinem Training mehr erfahren …)
Wie könnten wir diesen Charakter der gemeinsamen, aber asynchronen Arbeit zwischen zwei Synchronevents auf andere Lernansätze übertragen? Das interessiert mich sehr, darüber möchte ich weiter nachdenken!Was machen wir jetzt mit dem Buch-Ergebnis? Ideen haben wir genug. Tanja Laub schlug eine Art Community-Stammtisch vor, in dessen Rahmen die Autor:innen ihre Beiträge vorstellen. Stef Halimi betonte, dass wir die ursprünglich im Rahmen unseres Online-Booklaunch geplanten Kurzpräsentationen unserer Beiträge noch durchführen sollten (eigentlich wollte ich dazu ein kurzes Video aufnehmen … vielleicht mache ich das noch?). Ich würde gerne vertiefende Podcast-Episoden mit den Autor:innen aufnehmen, um ihnen ausreichend Raum zu geben, die Geschichten hinter ihren Beiträgen hörbar zu machen.
Im zweiten Teil der Session stellte Jochen seine Idee für das nächste Projekt vor: Ein Buch über persönliches Wissensmanagement. Dazu hat er mittlerweile auch einen Aufruf auf das Blog der Corporate Learning Community gesetzt. Natürlich werde ich wieder mitmachen und kann es kaum erwarten, mit der Arbeit loszulegen! Meine Ideen und Ansprüche sind wieder übervoll. Gerne würde ich diesmal auch mehr Energie in die Gestaltung stecken, als mir dies beim letzten Mal möglich war (ich bin immer noch beeindruckt von Buchkunstwerken, die ich auf der Leipziger Buchmesse in den Händen hielt …).
Jochen schlug vor, den Schreibprozess eventuell über konkrete Leitfragen zu strukturieren. Ich könnte mir auch eine Art Blogparade vorstellen (eine Idee, die ich schon das letzte Mal eingebracht hatte). Jochen verwies außerdem darauf, dass sich das Thema ideal eigne, um mehrere Communities zusammenzubringen – z. B. die gfwm und die loscon, die sich ja ebenfalls intensiv mit Wissensmanagement auseinandersetzen.Herwig Kummer brachte die berechtige Frage ein, wieso sich eine Community, die ja gerade vom Austausch und dem Wissen-Teilen lebt, ein Buch über persönliches und damit zunächst individuelles Wissensmanagement schreiben sollte. Jochen antwortete, dass gerade in Communities wie der unseren das individuelle, selbstorganisierte Lernen und Wissensmanagement eng verbunden sei mit dem Community-Lernen und -Wissensmanagement. Ich teile diese Idee … und denke zurück an meine zeitweilige tiefere Beschäftigung mit PKM-Ansätzen wie Zettelkasten etc., bei der mich gerade der Aspekt reizte, wie wir unser eigenes Wissensmanagement nicht nur nach außen transparent einsehbar machen, sondern wirklich öffnen und zu einem gemeinsamen Wissensmanagement machen können. Simon Dückert erwähnte die Verbindungen zum Personal Learning Environment (PLE) und Personal Learning Networks (PLN). Mir fällt die LERNLUST-Folge #40 ein, die ich mit Christian Huber und Claudia Schütze zu dem Thema aufgenommen hatte. Und mit Johanna Brühl sprach ich über ihre Themen „Lernende Stadt“ und Communities of Practice, und welche Beziehungen beides zum Persönlichen Wissensmanagement habe. Ich bin mir sicher, dass Rahmenthema unseres nächsten Buches ist wieder so konkret und offen zugleich, dass es einen produktiven Rahmen für unsere Autor:innen in 2026 schafft. So viele Ideen, wann legen wir los? Erste Session für das #CLCamp27 steht bereits … 😉
Lern-Ressourcen: Was verstehen wir darunter und wie erschließen wir sie? (Gabriele Schobeß, Johannes Starke)
Unsere eigene Session, radikal hybrid, wie Harald Schirmer bereits beim Pitch feststellte: Gabriele im Online-Raum, ich vor Ort. Eigentlich begann unsere Session schon im Vorfeld in unserem kooperativen Schreibprozess, der in unserem gemeinsamen Artikel mündete.
In der Session tauschten wir uns aus: Was sind Lern-Ressourcen? Welche gibt es? Wie können sie auf- und ausgebaut werden? Wie mache ich mir meine Lern-Ressourcen bewusst?
Online dokumentierte und reflektierte Markus Metz sehr aufmerksam und präzise in kurzen Mastodon-Beiträgen mit. Im Raum entwickelten die Teilgebenden konstruktiv aufeinander aufbauende Sichtweisen auf das Thema und brachten viele Beiträge ein, die ich leider nicht mehr alle aus dem Gedächtnis rekonstruieren kann, die aber die enorme Vielfältigkeit und das Potenzial des Themas greifbar machten.
Wir sprachen über Infrastrukturen, die aufgebaut werden und die Lernressourcen erschließen lassen und selbst Ressource sind … die aber auch davon bedroht sind, zu veröden, wenn sie nicht mehr aktiv gepflegt werden … im Unterschied zu einer Art Perpetuum Mobile des Lernens, das sich selbst Lernressourcen nutzend und dabei neue generierend antreibt und verstetigt.
Wie pflanzen wir Samen, die weiter und weiter wachsen, auch wenn wir selbst nicht mehr aktiv das Wachstum unterstützen? Ist das möglich .. und erstrebenswert? (Erinnerung an Neles Lernzirkel-Session, in der bemerkt wurde, dass Lernzirkel nicht von alleine viral gehen …).
Wir sprachen über Knappheit und über Verschwendung von Lernressourcen. Gerade die Verschwendung kann in Zeiten eines Überangebots an manchen Lernressourcen auch bewusst oder sogar lustvoll sein. Teilgebende berichteten aber auch davon, dass äußere Rahmenbedingungen (z. B. befristete Stellen) auch dazu führen, dass Lernressourcen nicht sinnvoll eingesetzt werden können.
Wir sprachen über gegenseitige Unterstützung, die Ressourcenvermehrung durch menschliche Beziehungen und den Möglichkeiten, auf diesen Beziehungen aufzubauen. In gewisser Spannung dazu stehen mögliche Expert:innen-Zuschreibungen, die Gabriele und ich anfangs spürten, die wir aber schnell auflösen und in das gemeinsame und miteinander stattfindende Erkunden des Themas überführen konnten.
Über Rückmeldungen z. B. auf Social Media (und sei es nur ein Sternchen …) als Ressourcen hatten Gabriele und ich bisher noch gar nicht nachgedacht. Thematisiert wurden auch die Bedingungen, unter denen bestimmte Ressourcen entstehen/aufgebaut werden: Welche Ressourcen stehen hinter den Ressourcen? Aufgeworfen wurde die Frage von Relevanz … ob Ressourcen dauerhaft bestehen bleiben sollten oder ob es auch gut sein kann, wenn Ressourcen vergehen.
Sehr viele weitere Ideen brachte Stephanie Reiner ein, die in ihrer Promotion eine Ressourcentaxononie entwickelt hat. Ich zitiere aus dem Text, den sie auf unser Session-Etherpad gestellt hat:
„Ich habe in meinem Promotionsprojekt eine Ressourcentaxonomie für den digitalen Arbeitskontext entwickelt, basierend auf der Literatur der Job Demands-Resources Modell/Theorie. Eine Ressourcentaxonomie ist ein Klassifizierungssystem (eine Art Ressourcenmodell), das dazu betragen soll, die Variation der Ressourcenausstattung übersichtlich darzustellen. Eine Ressourcentaxonomie findet insbesondere Anwendung (oder ist hilfreich) zum Erkennen und Aktivieren von Ressourcen (z.B. im Psychotherapeutischen Kontext, in der sozialpädagogischen Praxis oder im Coachingbereich).
Die entwickelte Ressourcentaxonomie umfasst folgende Ressourcendimensionen:- Personenbezogene Ressourcen (z.B. psychologisches Kapitel wie Hoffnung, Resilienz, Selbstwirksamkeit und Optimismus, aber auch Humankapitalressourcen, wie Fähigkeiten und Berufserfahrung)
- Arbeitsplatzbezogenen Ressourcen (z.B. lernförderliche Arbeitsgestaltung, wie Autonomie, Anforderungsvielfalt (Job Characteristic Model), aber auch Stärkeneinsatz und Ergonomie)
- Soziale Ressourcen (z.B. Ressourcenquellen, wie Führungskraft, Kolleg/innen, Freunde; Form der soziale Unterstützung, wie instrumenteller Unterstützung, informationaler Unterstützung, emotionaler Unterstützung)
- Organisatorische Ressourcen (z.B. Lernkultur, HR-Services, IT-Services, betriebliche Sozialberatung)
- Technische Ressourcen (z. B. Verfügbarkeit von digitalen Technologien und anderen arbeitsplatzbezogenen Werkzeuge, Datenschutz, Nützlichkeit der digitalen Technologien)“
Im Nachgang zur Session hat Stephanie ihre äußerst hilfreichen Hinweise in einem LinkedIn-Beitrag mit ausführlichen Hinweisen zu wissenschaftlichen Perspektiven ergänzt. Was für ein Geschenk! Tausend Dank auch an dieser Stelle, liebe Stephanie! Ich freue mich sehr, auch zukünftig weiter mit Dir und Gabriele an dem Thema zu arbeiten und werde mich bei Dir melden!
Ganz besonders interessiert mich der von Stephanie mit zwei Quellen-Hinweisen versehen Ressourcen-Kreislauf (oben bereits angesprochen), denn im klassischen Corporate Learning denken wir oft in Einbahnstraßen: Konsumieren gegebener externer Lernressourcen in Form von Lernmaterialien, die zum internen Aufbau von Wissen führen. Dabei können wir doch weiter handeln (z. B. während und auch nach dem Besuch externer Veranstaltungen das Reflektierte und Gelernte in einem eigenen Beitrag weitergeben, ganz nach dem Vorbild von Stephanie oder nach Seek>Sense>Share von Harold Jarche.)
Im letzten Absatz ihres LinkedIn-Beitrags schreibt Stephanie: „Lernressourcen verändern sich über Lebensphasen hinweg (z.B. verfügbarer Zeit). Soweit mir bekannt ist, fehlt hierzu bislang ein systematischer Überblick in der Literatur. Daher möchte ich die im Rahmen meines Promotionsprojekts entwickelte Ressourcentaxonomie nach Abschluss um lebensphasenbezogene Perspektiven erweitern.“ Hier denke ich an viele Hinweise, die ich mir vor Jahren beim Lesen von Teresa Bückers prägendem Buch „Alle Zeit“ notiert hatte, zuvorderst an die darin mehrfach erwähnte 4-in-1-Perspektive von Frigga Haug, aber auch weniger auf gesellschaftlicher Ebene, sonder deutlich konkreter am Arbeitsalltag in Unternehmen die Löffel-Theorie und damit verbunden das oft viel zu eng auf WCAG-Kriterien und gesetzliche Anforderungen reduzierte Thema Barrierefreiheit. Damit möchte ich auch weiterarbeiten …Vor kurzem habe ich mich mit Gabriele abgestimmt. Gabriele hat bereits ein Workshopkonzept entwickelt, über das sich Teilnehmende ihrer individuellen Ressourcen bewusst(er) werden und diese sichtbar machen können. Ich habe vor, das Thema aus organisational-struktureller Perspektive weiterzudenken und in einer Art Landkarte darzustellen, die die Analyse unterstützt (vielleicht berührt das dann auch Stephanies Taxonomie und ich stimme mich dazu mit ihr ab?) Und wenn wir dann beide an einem bestimmten Punkt sind, wollen wir unsere beiden Perspektiven wieder zusammenführen und … wer weiß … vielleicht in einer Nachfolgesession oder einem nächsten kooperativen Schreibprozess miteinander sprechen lassen?
Twin-Transformation als Default für zukunftsfähige und resiliente Bildungskonzepte (Henning Klaffke)
In dieser Session gab Henning einen Einblick in das Forschungsprojekt „Nachhaltige Bildung in der IT-Aus- und Weiterbildung (NABIT)“ zum Aufbau von Nachhaltigkeitskompetenz in der Lehre. Er berichtete von den drei Forschungszielen:
- Beratungskonzept für KMA: Praxisnahe Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe der Twin Transformation
- Kompetenzprofile entwickeln: Was muss IT-Fachkraft können, um nachhaltig zu handeln?
- Modulare OER-Bausteine erstellen: Freie Bildungsmaterialien für Berufsschulen und Betriebe
Harald Schirmer legte m. E. mit seiner Frage einen Finger in die Wunde der klassischen BWL-Ausbildung: Wie lehrt die Hochschule das Thema Twin Transformation, wenn Ressourcenverschwendung so grundlegend im BWL-Lehrplan verankert ist?
Mich lies die Session ernüchtert zurück. Die beiden grün-kapitalistischen Betrachtungsfelder „Green IT“ und „Green IS“ sind mir viel zu klein und zu isoliert betrachtet:
Applied Improv – ein Multitool für Embodied Learning (Frederic Gülbeyaz)
Meine schönsten Erinnerungen an vergangene Barcamps sind die, in denen wir unsere Körper zum Lernen einsetzten – denn unsere Körper sind eine Lernressource, die wir in der Wissensarbeit vielleicht besonders stark vernachlässigen? Ich schrieb darüber an vielen anderen Stellen ausführlich, z. B. hier. Durch das Hybrid-Setup ist Embodied Learning in den letzten Jahren vernachlässigt worden – aber diesmal hatten wir ja den roten Raum ohne Technik und mit der Möglichkeit, ihn ganz mit unseren Körpern zu bespielen … ohne Kamera.
In unserer Improtheater-Session ging es um das spielerische Feiern unerwarteter Entwicklungen, Ausprobieren neuer Handlungsweisen und Sich-Auffangen-Lassen in der Gruppe … im „Improtheater, das fremd geht“ AKA „Unternehmenstheater“ oder „Applied Improv“. „Raus mit den Ideen. als Gegenprinzip zur Scham“ – dazu ludt uns Frederic in seiner Session ein, die mir in Erinnerung ein Lächeln der Zuversicht für zukünftige Dramatisierungskompetenz auf die Lippen legt.
(Foto von Frederic Gülbeyaz)CLC goes Podcast (Giovanna Lo Presti, Katrin Zinke und Nicole Reese)
Der Podcast der CLC war in den letzten Jahren nicht mehr sonderlich lebendig. Zu den Barcamps erschienen viele Episoden mit Session-Reflexionen … ansonsten passierte nicht mehr so viel, wie in früheren Zeiten. Es gäbe doch so viele Möglichkeiten, die Wissens- und Erfahrungsvielfalt der Community hier hörbar zu machen! Ein gutes Podcastgespräch hat so viele Ähnlichkeiten mit einer guten Barcamp-Session, ermöglicht es, Menschen beim Denken zuzuhören und eignet sich einfach sehr gut als Lern- und Entwicklungsinstrument in Unternehmen, wie ich in diesem Blogbeitrag ausführlich beschrieben habe.
Deshalb möchte ich gerne zukünftig dazu beitragen, die Möglichkeiten des CLC-Podcasts experimentell zu entdecken, denn die Startchancen könnten für einen ‚offiziellen‘ Community-Podcast kaum besser sein.
In der Session gaben Giovanna, Katrin und Nicole einen Überblick über ihre Ideen für die zukünftige Ausgestaltung des Podcasts (z. B. mit Event-Begleitung/Auswertung, Interviews, Beiträgen aus den Regionalgruppen, Lernimpulsen oder Buch-Reviews) und befragten die Teilgebenden nach ihren Erfahrungen mit Podcasts. Viel interessanter als die formalen Fragen waren jedoch die kontroversen Debatten in der Session, was ein CLC-Podcast sein soll und welche Funktionen er erfüllen könnte.
Genannt wurden u. a.: Agendasetting und Reichweite (für unsere Themen austehen und ‚hörbar‘ werden), Lernmedium und Experimentierraum, Stimmen- und Expertise-Bibliothek, niedrigschwellige Dokumentation.
Besonders heiß debattiert wurde das Thema „Zielgruppe“. Hier gibt es stark auseinanderlaufende Sichtweisen, was ein Community-Format sein und liefern soll. Diese Diskussion hatten wir bereits beim CLC-Buchprojekt. Manche Teilgebenden plädieren für eine konsequentere Definition unserer Zielgruppen und bewusstere Ausrichtung an deren Bedarfen. Ich bin da ganz anderer Ansicht und stimme mit Karlheinz Pape überein, der die Grundidee der CLC betont: Teilen, nicht Senden! Wir sollten uns deshalb ganz bewusst nicht um Zielgruppen kümmern, sondern das, was uns in der Community beschäftigt und was wir erarbeiten, zur Verfügung stellen. Falls es außerhalb der Community Hörer:innen (oder Leser:innen) gibt, die das interessant finden, werden sie zu uns kommen. Wenn nicht, ist das auch ok.
Diese Haltung bestimmt auch die weitere „Formatierung“: Sobald wir unsere Medien als Medien des Teilens und nicht des Sendens begreifen, betrifft die Frage der „Taktung“ nicht mehr das ‚bedienen‘ einer Zielgruppe, sondern wird zu einer Hilfestellung für uns selbst … z. B. um uns regelmäßig daran zu erinnern, selbst an unseren Themen weiter zu arbeiten. Mir ist es völlig egal, welche Taktung Hörer:innen von uns erwarten: Wenn -wie im Nachgang zu einem Barcamp- in schneller Folge ein ganzer Haufen an Kurzepisoden erscheint und dann mehrere Wochen nichts, ist das völlig in Ordnung. Ich schätze viele Podcasts als eine Art „Bibliothek der Stimmen“, aus der ich mich gerade interessierende Themen oder Perspektiven auswähle und mich hineinhören kann, ganz unabhängig davon, wann die Episode ursprünglich erschienen ist. Auch ergänzend zu unserem Buch könnte ich mir vorstellen, dass wir parallel zu fast allen Beiträgen begleitende und vertiefende, Hintergrund schaffende Gespräche mit den Autor:innen aufnehmen und diese auf einen Schlag oder innerhalb kurzer Zeit veröffentlichen … Hauptsache ist, sind stehen online und können bei Bedarf parallel zur Lektüre aufgerufen werden.
Karlheinz, ich und weitere Teilgebende haben sich auch dafür eingesetzt, ohne zu große Überformatierung zu podcasten. „Einfach machen“, diese oft missbrauchte Forderung, ist im Podcast sehr zuträglich. Ein Handy reicht im Zweifel aus, geschnitten werden muss kaum. Es braucht m. E. keinen Jingle und keinen kreativen Titel, keinen Redaktionsplan, kein Zielgruppenbewusstsein, keine Längenvorgaben, keine allzu lange Vorbereitung. Eine kurze Vorabstimmung oder auch ein spontanes Gespräch sind genau richtig. Unsere Hörer:innen können ja selbst wählen, in welche Stimmen sie sich hineinhören möchten und was sie skippen. Jedes Ähm, jede Pause transportiert wertvolle Informationen, die erhalten bleiben sollten und die ein Transkript nicht enthält. Podcasts sind ein Medium, um Sprechdenken zu fördern und in Lernartefakte zu bringen. Lasst uns unseren Podcast als echtes Lernmedium nutzen, „Unfertiges“ teilen, mit seinen Möglichkeiten spielen!
In der Session wandert die Debatte leider immer wieder zu der Frage zurück, wie Zuhörer:innen gewonnen werden könnten. Diese Frage langweilt mich. Und selbst wenn wir den Podcast ausschließlich für uns machen sollten und keine Zuhörerschaft außer uns selbst haben: Das ist völlig in Ordnung! Diese Haltung versuche ich, mir auch für meinen Blog hier zu bewahren: Schön, wenn Du das gerade liest. Danke für Deinen Rückmeldung. Aber eigentlich ist es mir egal. Ich habe sämtliche Logs ganz bewusst abgeschaltet und nicht die geringste Ahnung, ob sich irgendjemand auf diesen Blog verirrt. Ich schreibe das hier, um meine eigenen Gedanken in eine für mich passende Ordnung zu bringen und einen Anlass zu haben, die vielen Ideen, Begegnungen und Notizen aus dem #CLCamp26 für mich zu rekapitulieren. Allein das Wissen, dass es jemand lesen KÖNNTE, gibt mir die nötige Disziplin, es zu tun. Allein das Wissen, dass mir jemand zuhören KÖNNTE, gibt mir die Disziplin, ganze Sätze zu formulieren (ich habe gemerkt, wie ungleich schwerer es mir fällt, meine Notizen zu einer Session im Nachgang als Sprachnachricht einzusprechen, als einfach kurz mit Gabriele zu telefonieren und sie gemeinsam Revue passieren zu lassen. Leider haben Gabriele und ich unser Telefonat nach unserer Session nicht aufgezeichnet … das wäre für meine Rekapitulation viel hilfreicher gewesen als meine eigenen Sprachnotizen.)
Die Vorteile des Sprechdenkens im Dialog mit einer Gesprächsperson betonte auch Sabine Stock und brachte ein, dass in Podcast-Gesprächen produktive Reibung entstehen darf. (Das Thema Konflikt und Reibung als Lernressourcen hatten wir auch in unserer Lernressourcen-Session besprochen!)
Bei einem geäußerten Ideenkomplex von zwei Teilgebenden hatte ich den Bedarf, ganz klar meine eigene Position auszudrücken: Es kamen die Vorschläge, „Dialoge“ mit KI-Bots zu führen bzw. aufgenommene Episoden in NotebookLM „weiterzuverarbeiten“. Falls der Podcast irgend einen dieser Wege einschlagen sollte, und sei es nur als „Experiment„, wäre ich definitiv nicht mehr beteiligt. Besonders irritert hat mich der Einwurf einer Teilgebenden, das Einspeisen von Folgen in NotebookLM könne ich sowieso nicht verhindern. Ich nehme das als Ausdruck vulgärer Machtdemonstration, dieses Silicon-Valley-„We don’t care“, die über das „KI“-Narrativ immer mehr Verbreitung findet (und die z. B. Jürgen Geuter hier sehr gut beschrieben hat). Leider wurden auf dem #CLCamp26 auch die Artikel aus unserem Buchprojekt entsprechend ‚verwertet‘. Als ich im Vorfeld meinen Protest äußerte, hat Simon Dückert immerhin meinen eigenen Beitrag aus seiner Web-Version des Buches entfernt und dementsprechend aus dem Datensatz, der in seiner Session verwendet wurde. Deshalb ist mein Beitrag also nur noch im Buch selbst, in der eBook-Variante und separat hier auf meinem Blog zugänglich. Durch das „KI“-Narrativ wird die ganze Welt nur noch auf Trainingsdaten für LLMs eingeengt. Die Achtung von menschlicher Ausdrucksweise, kreativem Schaffen, kulturellem Kontext und Entstehungsprozessen wird geschleift … und auch unsere Community trägt leider dazu bei. Ja, ich „kann das nicht verhindern“ … aber ich kann immer wieder dafür eintreten, dass wir einander mit Achtung vor unserer Arbeit (und ihrer Integrität) begegnen, und selbst wenn das ein Kampf gegen Windmühlen sein und bleiben sollte.
Nach der Session konnte ich nicht umhin, direkt ein paar Gedanken zur Session in einer Mini-Podcast-Aufnahme zu verarbeiten, zu der mich Ernst einludt. Bin gespannt, wann sie erscheint!
(Foto von Frederic Gülbeyaz)Vom Käfig zum Kompass (Felix Harling)
„Beyond Teaching ist einfach gesagt. Aber die Sinnkrise der Wissensarbeiter:innen ist real, auch unter uns, oder? Was passiert, wenn du nicht nur deine Formate, sondern dich selbst hinterfragst? Eine Session über Irritation als Wegweiser und das, was Brüche lehren, wenn man sie lässt.“ Schon diese Sessionankündigung von Felix hat stark in mir resoniert (aus vielerlei Gründen, die vielleicht auch hier in diesem Beitrag oder auch sonst in meinem Blog immer wieder anklingen?) … und umso mehr die Art, wie ich Felix schon vor seiner Session in unseren Pausengesprächen kennenlernte. Zudem fand die Session im geliebten ‚Roten Raum‘ ohne Technik statt .. also ein Pflichttermin für mich!
In keiner anderen Session habe ich so wertvolle Gespräche über unsere Professionen, unsere beruflichen Situationen und unsere Positionierungen gegenüber Branchenentwicklungen führen können. Auch methodisch war das schnell getaktete Vorgehen inspirierend und für mich ein kleiner Ausblick auf das, was ich im baldigen Art of Hosting Training erwarte.
Aber nicht nur für meine persönliche Entwicklung, auch für meinen professionellen Wertbeitrag bei meinem Arbeitgeber war diese Session inspirierend … und lässt mich an manches Denken, was ich in meiner Selbstberatung im Rahmen meiner Ausbildung zum Systemischen Organisationsberater über meine Arbeit herausgearbeitet habe.
Grob zusammengefasst (und damit all das ignorierend, was in den Brüchen und Zwischenräumen auch auf dieser Session wirklich stattgefunden hat), lässt sich Felix methodisches Vorgehen folgendermaßen zusammenfassen – und ich stütze mich hier auf das abfotografierte Flipchart:
- Aufstellung im Raum mit zwei Polen: „Ich weiß, wo ich beruflich hinwill“ <> „Ich habe mehr Fragen als Antworten“
- Stimmen im Raum zur eigenen Positionierung hörbar machen
- Irritations-Landkarte: „Was irritiert Dich gerade am meisten an Deiner Arbeit / L&D-Rolle?“ (in Zweiergruppen)
- Still schreiben > A erläutert, B hört zu > B stellt offene Rückfrage > A antwortet kurz > Rollenwechsel > abschließende Reflexion
- Der Bruch, der lehrt: „Welchen Bruch in Deiner Tätigkeit hast Du in der Vergangenheit erfahren?“ (in Dreiergruppen)
- A berichtet > B+C stellen das Gehörte pantomimisch dar (ohne Worte) > A reagiert ebenfalls pantomimisch > Rollenwechsel > abschließende Reflexion
- Harvesting: Wie war die Erfahrung für Dich? Was hast Du über das, was Dich irritiert, gelernt? Wie lässt sich das anwenden?
- Abschließender Austausch: Wie lässt sich das Erfahrene für die CLC anwenden?
Informelle Lern-Räume im Rahmen von IT-Einführungen (Johannes Starke)
Das Thema meiner zweiten Session, die ich selbst angeboten habe, beschäftigt mich beruflich gerade besonders intensiv. Gerade im Rahmen von IT-Einführungen passiert in Unternehmen und durch deren Mitarbeitende, die sich mit neuen IT-Prozessen konfrontiert werden, sehr viel geplantes und ungeplantes (… oder passiert eben gerade sehr wenig, je nachdem aus welcher Perspektive man es betrachtet). Ich war zunächst untröstlich, dass parallel zu meiner Session Trainerinnen des ADAC ebenfalls eine Session zum IT-Trainingsvorgehen anboten, auf der ich gerne aufgebaut hätte – und umso erfreuter, dass sich eine dieser Trainerinnen dann in meiner Session befand und dort sehr aktiv teilgab. 🙂
(Foto CC-BY von Martina Cervenkova)Die Idee und den Hintergrund zu meiner Session habe ich in diesem Blogbeitrag zusammengefasst, auf den ich bereits im Vorfeld erfreuliches Feedback erhielt. Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass ich mit dem Session-Thema ein äußerst wichtiges (und für viele schmerzvolles) Feld angesprochen habe.
Leider habe ich es als Sessionhost ohne zweite Person nicht geschafft, parallel Notizen zu machen, habe auch im Nachgang wenig Dokumentation zu meiner Session gefunden und mir zum Ende des Tages keine Zeit mehr genommen, meine Erinnerungen als Sprachnotiz aufzunehmen. Schade, da ist einiges verloren gegangen.
In Erinnerung ist mir, dass wir ausführlich über Workarounds und Umgehungstaktiken gesprochen haben, die Mitarbeitende an den Tag legen, um neu-eingeführte Systeme nicht zu nutzen .. und primär über formale Mittel, dem Einhalt zu gebieten.
Ein großes Thema war auch M365 und insbesondere die Einführung und Nutzung von Teams. Hier sprachen viele Teilgebenden ihre Erfahrungen an.
Ein Teilgeber berichtete von erfolgreichen Floorwalker-Initiativen, die regelmäßig anstupsen/erinnern und auf Angebote aufmerksam machen, ohne diese und die Beteiligung daran zu stark zu formalisieren.
Einigen konnten wir uns darauf, wie wichtig es ist, Balancen zwischen Formalität und Informalität herzustellen und auszuhalten … und dass diese Balancen in unterschiedlichen Bereichen immer wieder neu gefunden und hergestellt werden müssen. Es gibt keine Best Practice … und umso mehr motiviert mich diese Erkenntnis, auch zukünftig weiter intensiv an dem Thema zu arbeiten!
Physische Lernreisen für Kleingruppen (Julia Methe)
Diese ganz spontan zum Abschluss des Camps initiierte Session von Julia war für mich eins von vielen Highlights des Camps. Die spontanen Sessions sind oft die besten, weil sie nicht mit langen Präsentationen beeindrucken wollen, sondern eine Idee einbringen, die dann befragt, besprochen und weiterentwickelt wird.
Julia berichtete von einem Ansatz, den sie und ihre Kolleg:innen im Rahmen der Neueinführung eines IT-Tools in einem bundeseigenen Betrieb initiiert hatten … und den sie für uns auf ein irgendwo in der Hochschule aufgetriebenes altes Metaplanpapier scribbelte.
Der Ansatz bot einen Rahmen, um die neuen IT-Prozesse körperlich zu erfahren, erklärt zu bekommen und zu besprechen. Das lief ähnlich ab wie auf einer Schnitzeljagd: Kleingruppen von 4-5 Leuten wurden mit ausgedruckten Prozessbeschreibungen über den Betriebs-Campus geschickt. Die Prozessbeschreibung war gleichzeitig eine Wegbeschreibung. An bestimmten Stationen wurden die Gruppen von Mitarbeitenden empfangen, erhielten Instruktionen und Hilfestellung in der Beantwortung von Fragen auf dem Zettel. Die Gruppendynamik wurde u. a. durch wechselnde Verantwortung im Wegfinden und Fragenbeantworten aktiviert.
Im Folgejahr wurde der Ansatz weiter genutzt. Statt eines IT-Prozesses wurden Unternehmensstrategie und -aufbau vermittelt. Außerdem wurde HR mit dem Ziel involviert, den Ansatz auch für das Onboarding zu übernehmen.
Der Ansatz war eine Idee, die im Rahmen der „Campus Week“ eingebracht wurde. Jeder Bereich beteiligt sich dabei mit eigenen Beiträgen.
Julias Vorstellung stieß auf großes Interesse. Mehrere Teilgebende offenbarten, dass sie selbst davon träumen, so etwas in ihrem eigenen Unternehmen umzusetzen. Ich bin einer davon 😉 Eine Mischung aus Schnitzeljagd, Gallery Walk, Prozess-Simulation und verkörperter Intervention … mit Vernetzung und gegenseitiger Unterstützung, die im klasisschen Training ja oft in den Hintergrund treten. Grundsätzlich ließe sich das Vorgehen auch mit Action Bound oder Self-Service-Terminals umsetzten, würde dann aber einen anderen Charakter annehmen.
#51 #CLC25 #CLCamp26 #CLCamp26Nutzt #CLCamp27 #colearn #LearningCircle #lernOS #Lernzirkel #Lernzirkeln #Peerfinder -
Triangle Weekend Event Guide August 7–9th Edition
The Triangle’s weekend calendar is packed with free concerts, outdoor movies, cultural festivals, farmers markets, art receptions and family activities from Friday, August 7, through Sunday, August 9, 2026.
Weekend highlights include Raleigh First Friday, the NC Jerk Fest in Durham, Bands, Bites and Boats in Cary, the Chatham Tomato Festival in Pittsboro and dozens of free events throughout Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham and Johnston counties.
Friday, August 7
Food and Drink Deals
National Frozen Custard Day at Freddy’s
All day | $2–$4 | Participating Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers locationsTasting at Ten
10 a.m. | Free | Counter Culture Coffee Headquarters, Durham
Sample coffees and learn more about Counter Culture’s roasting process.Free Wine Tasting
4:30–6:30 p.m. | Free | Bottle Theory, ApexFriday Night Tasting Party
5–7 p.m. | Free | Weaver Street Market, RaleighWine Tasting With Steve Sommerville
5:30–7 p.m. | Free | Taylor’s Wine Shop, RaleighRaleigh First Friday Events
First Friday Market and Movie: Zootopia 2
5–9 p.m. | Free | Moore Square
The evening includes vendors, food trucks, live music, games and an outdoor movie.Artspace First Friday
5–10 p.m. | Free | Artspace
Meet artists, explore exhibitions and watch live art-making inside Artspace’s downtown studios.First Friday Ice Cream Social
5:30–8 p.m. | Free | Pope House Museum
Enjoy free ice cream while learning about the Pope family and plans for several Raleigh cultural sites.First Friday With the NC Courage
6–9 p.m. | Free | City of Raleigh Museum
Meet Roary, play mini soccer, make friendship bracelets and celebrate women’s professional soccer.First Friday Gallery Walk
6–9 p.m. | Free | Participating Downtown Raleigh locations
Explore galleries, studios, museums and alternative art spaces during this self-guided downtown experience.First Friday Cemetery Tour
6 p.m. | $10 | Historic Oakwood Cemetery
Discover Raleigh history during an evening tour of one of the city’s most historic cemeteries.More Friday Events Around the Triangle
First Friday Bird Walk
8–10 a.m. | Free | White Deer Park, GarnerFirst Friday in Downtown Fuquay-Varina
5–9 p.m. | Free | Downtown Fuquay-VarinaFirst Friday at Oak City Brewing Company
5:30–8:30 p.m. | Free | Knightdale
Live music, food trucks and local vendors.Kidical Mass Family Bike Ride
5:30 p.m. | Free | Eastgate Park, RaleighBands, Bites and Boats: Adam Pitts
6–8 p.m. | Free | Fred G. Bond Metro Park, Cary
Enjoy live music, food trucks, drinks and lakefront activities.First Friday at Eno Arts Mill
6–9 p.m. | Free | Hillsborough
Studio tours, live music, exhibitions and children’s activities.Movie Night: Pirates of the Caribbean
6–10 p.m. | Free | Downtown Cary ParkPLAYlist Concert Series: Some of It All
6 p.m. | Free | Durham Central ParkLive Music at Gizmo Brew Works
6–9 p.m. | Free | RaleighFront Porch Friday and First Friday Campout
6–10 p.m. | Free | Haven Farm, KnightdaleMorrisville Music in the Park: The Blenders
6:30–8:30 p.m. | Free | Indian Creek Park, MorrisvilleLive at American Tobacco Campus: Hank & Pattie Duo
6:30–9 p.m. | Free | American Tobacco Campus, DurhamOne Tribe Drum Circle
6:30–8 p.m. | Free | Stone Houses at Dorothea Dix ParkRaleigh International Folk Dancing
6:30–10 p.m. | Free | Glen Eden Pilot ParkOpening Reception: Indelible: Tattooed Ceramics
7–9 p.m. | Free | Claymakers Gallery, DurhamLeela Open Improv Jam
7–9 p.m. | Free | Leela Improv Theatre, Raleigh
Space is limited and registration is required.Artist Notes Concert: Joseph Terrell of Mipso
7–9:30 p.m. | Free | The Corner at NC State Centennial CampusBynum Front Porch Friday Night Music Series
7–8:30 p.m. | Free | Bynum Front Porch, PittsboroKaraoke Bingo Night
7–11:55 p.m. | Free | KōMANA Brewing Company, CaryStand-Up Comedy Open Mic
8–11 p.m. | Free | Durty Bull Brewing Company, DurhamFirst Friday Under the Stars
8:30–11:30 p.m. | Free | Three Bears Acres, Creedmoor
Saturday, August 8Saturday features community festivals, markets, back-to-school celebrations, live music and family attractions across the Triangle.
Saturday Markets and Festivals
Triple Bucks Day at Durham Farmers’ Market
8 a.m.–noon | Free admission | Durham Central ParkDurham Craft Market
8 a.m.–noon | Free | Durham Central ParkThe Raleigh Market
9 a.m.–5 p.m. | Free admission | North Carolina State FairgroundsApex Underground Market
11 a.m.–3 p.m. | Free | Sweetwater ApexThe Market at Raleigh Iron Works
11 a.m.–4 p.m. | Free | Raleigh Iron WorksCoastal Cowgirl Vendor Market
Noon–3 p.m. | Free | Crooked Hammock Brewery, RaleighBolivian Festival
1–6 p.m. | Free | The Plant, PittsboroNC Jerk Fest
3–9 p.m. | Free | Durham Central Park
Celebrate Jamaican culture with food, music, vendors and family activities.Family and Community Events
Visit Brajboro Cow Sanctuary
8 a.m.–noon | $0–$25 | Chapel HillSharewear Community Giveaway
9 a.m.–4 p.m. | Free | Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Wake Forest
Free clothing, bedding, school supplies and other household essentials.Lanza’s Cafe Fifth Birthday Party
9 a.m.–9 p.m. | Free admission | Carrboro
The celebration includes live music, a magic show and more.Smithfield River Rat Regatta
10 a.m.–noon | Free | Smithfield Boat Ramp
Watch teams race homemade cardboard boats on the Neuse River.Back-to-School Bash at Faith City Church
10 a.m.–1 p.m. | Free | Clayton
Free food and school supplies will be available.Amplify Health End-of-Summer Bash
10 a.m.–1 p.m. | Free | Midtown Park, RaleighFirst Responders Day
10 a.m.–1:30 p.m. | $13.20–$16.45 | New Hope Valley Railway
The event includes touch-a-truck activities and train rides.Camp Waltonwood
11 a.m.–1 p.m. | Free | Waltonwood Lead Mine, Raleigh
A carnival-themed event for children and families.Back 2 School Bash and Health Fair
11 a.m.–1 p.m. | Free | The River Church, DurhamJCPenney Kids Zone
11 a.m.–noon | Free | Participating stores
Children can complete a free craft while supplies last.History, Museums and Tours
Black History Walking Tour
10–11 a.m. | $6–$10 | Pope House Museum, RaleighHistoric Yates Mill Open House
10 a.m.–1 p.m. | Free | Historic Yates Mill County ParkRaleigh Fire Museum
10 a.m.–2 p.m. | Free | Raleigh Fire MuseumHistoric Raleigh Trolley Tours
11 a.m.–3 p.m. | $6–$10 | Mordecai Historic Park
Four one-hour tours are scheduled.North Carolina State Capitol Guided Tours
11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. | Free | State Capitol, RaleighSaturday Music and Nightlife
Saturdays in Saxapahaw
5–8 p.m. | Free | Haw River Ballroom area, SaxapahawDurham Summer Concerts in the Park: Ally J
6–8 p.m. | Free | Duke ParkGuitar Hero Competition
6–8 p.m. | Free | Crank Arm Brewing Company, RaleighBeer Garden Concert Series
6–9 p.m. | Free | The Glass Jug Beer Lab, RTPKaraoke Night
7–10 p.m. | Free | Sneaky Penguin Brewing Company, RaleighStand-Up Comedy Game Show
7–9 p.m. | Free | The Beerded Lady Bottle Shop, GarnerKaraoke Kaos
7–11 p.m. | Free | Incendiary Brewing RaleighSacred Grounds Coffeehouse Concert
7:30 p.m. | Free | DurhamMoth Night
8–10 p.m. | Free | Crowder County Park, Apex
Advance registration is required.Rhythm and Reels: The Bad Guys 2
8 p.m. | Free | Apex Nature Park
Sunday, August 9Sunday brings free museum admission, community markets, live music, arts programming and outdoor activities.
Sunday Markets and Community Events
The Raleigh Market
9 a.m.–5 p.m. | Free admission | North Carolina State FairgroundsDurham Community Day at the Museum of Life and Science
10 a.m.–5 p.m. | Free for Durham County residents | Durham
Proof of Durham County residency may be required.Raleigh Really Really Free Market
11 a.m.–1 p.m. | Free | Eliza Pool ParkOak City Brewing Farmers Market
11 a.m.–2 p.m. | Free | KnightdaleRaleigh Underground Market
11 a.m.–3 p.m. | Free | Midtown ParkChatham Tomato Festival
Noon–6 p.m. | Free | The Plant, PittsboroBull City Treasure Hunt
1–7 p.m. | Free | Durham Central ParkBlack Farmers’ Market
1–4 p.m. | Free admission | Southeast Raleigh YMCAArt, History and Creative Activities
Notes on View: Eduardo de Rosamaria
11 a.m.–noon and 2–3 p.m. | Free | North Carolina Museum of ArtDix Park Trolley Tour Registration Opens
Noon | Stone Houses at Dorothea Dix ParkSecond Sunday Open Studio
1–3 p.m. | Free | Nasher Museum of Art, DurhamDrop-In Art: Origami
2–4 p.m. | Free | Historic Yates Mill County ParkCraft Club and Supply Swap
3–5 p.m. | Free | The Glass Jug Downtown DurhamTattooing in North Carolina History Talk
5–8 p.m. | $15 | Welcome Tattoo, DurhamSunday Music and Recreation
Sunday Morning Yoga
10–11 a.m. | Free | Compass Rose Brewery, RaleighWeaver Street Market Sunday Brunch Music
11 a.m.–1 p.m. | Free | CarrboroMorgan Street Sessions
Noon–4 p.m. | Free | Morgan Street Food Hall, RaleighFree Air Hockey Tournament
1 p.m. | Free | Super Rad Retro Lounge Arcade Bar, RaleighBluegrass Open Jam
4–7 p.m. | Free | Bond Brothers Eastside, CaryRaleigh Summer Concert Series: Triangle Sax Ensemble
6–8 p.m. | Free | Fred Fletcher ParkFree Violin Concert Featuring Jennifer Curtis
7 p.m. | Free | Binkley Baptist Church, Chapel HillStephen’s Pharmacy
7 p.m. | $5 | Slim’s, RaleighSundays at Sundown
7–9 p.m. | Free | Southern Village, Chapel HillWeekend-Long Offers
Teachers and school staff can receive free car washes throughout August at participating RipTide Car Wash locations. Freddy’s is also offering specially priced frozen custard cones for National Frozen Custard Day at participating restaurants.
Availability and participation may vary by location.
Plan Your Triangle Weekend
Whether visitors are looking for a free outdoor concert, family movie, cultural festival, farmers market or late-night entertainment, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area offers plenty of options this weekend.
Schedules, admission prices and weather-related plans may change. Attendees should verify details with organizers before traveling.
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Lazy Caturday Reads: The Fascist Takeover Is Progressing Rapidly
Good Afternoon!!
By Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern
The dismantling of the U.S. Government by Elon Musk and Donald Trump is beyond breathtaking. I put Musk’s name first because he appears to be the one who is issuing orders while Trump golfs or rants on social media. I couldn’t possibly discuss the damage in a blog post–there is just too much happening at once. We are watching a fascist takeover in real time. Meanwhile, the Democrats are doing nothing to stop it.
From what I can tell, Trump/Musk have already destroyed the Justice Department and the FBI. Musk has taken control of the Treasury’s computer system that controls all government’s payments, including Social Security. They are working to get rid of as many federal employees as they can, either by firing them or convincing them to quit. They are purging websites of important public information. Soon, Trump plans to install tariffs that will cause serious inflation and damage relationships with our closest allies Canada and Mexico.
One thing I know for sure: this country will never be the same. I only hope we can stop it from becoming a dictatorship. If the Democrats remain supine, it may not be possible.
Some important reads for today:
Garrett Graff at Doomsday Scenario: Musk’s Junta Establishes Him as Head of Government.
I’ve long believed that the American media would be more clear-eyed about the rise and return of Donald Trump if it was happening overseas in a foreign country, where we’re used to foreign correspondents writing with more incisive authority. Having watched with growing alarm the developments of the last 24 and 36 hours in Washington, I thought I’d take a stab at just such a dispatch. Here’s a story that should be written this weekend:
February 1, 2025
By William BootWASHINGTON, D.C. — What started Thursday as a political purge of the internal security services accelerated Friday into a full-blown coup, as elite technical units aligned with media oligarch Elon Musk moved to seize key systems at the national treasury, block outside access to federal personnel records, and take offline governmental communication networks.
With rapidity that has stunned even longtime political observers, forces loyal to Musk’s junta have established him as the all-but undisputed unelected head of government in just a matter of days, unwinding the longtime democracy’s constitutional system and its proud nearly 250-year-old tradition of the rule of law. Having secured themselves in key ministries and in a building adjacent to the presidential office complex, Musk’s forces have begun issuing directives to civil service workers and forcing the resignation of officials deemed insufficiently loyal, like the head of the country’s aviation authority.
The G-7 country’s newly installed president, a mid-level oligarch named Donald Trump, appeared amid Musk’s moves to be increasingly merely a figurehead head of state. Trump is a convicted felon with a long record of family corruption and returned in power in late January after a four-year interlude promising retribution and retaliation against foreign opponents and a domestic “Deep State.” He had been charged with attempting to overthrow the peaceful transition of power that had previously removed him from office in 2021, but loyalist elements in the judiciary successfully blocked his prosecution and incarceration, easing his return to power.
Over the last two weeks, loyalist presidential factions and Musk-backed teams have launched sweeping, illegal Stalin-esque purges of the national police forces and prosecutors, as well as offices known as inspectors-general, who are typically responsible for investigating government corruption. While official numbers of the unprecedented ousters were kept secret, rumors swirled in the capital that the scores of career officials affected by the initial purges could rise into the thousands as political commissars continued to assess the backgrounds of members of the police forces.
The mentally declining and aging head of state, who has long embraced conspiracist thinking, spent much of the week railing in bizarre public remarks against the country’s oppressed racial and ethnic minorities, whom he blamed without evidence for causing a deadly plane crash across the river from the presidential mansion. Unfounded racist attacks on those minorities have been a key foundation of Trump’s unpredicted rise to political power from a career as a real estate magnate and reality TV host and date back to his first announcement that he would seek the presidency in 2015, when he railed against “rapists” being sent into the country from its southern neighbor.
In one of his first moves upon returning to the presidency, he mobilized far-right paramilitary security forces to begin raids at churches, schools, and workplaces to identify and remove racial minorities, including those who had long lived in harmony with the country’s white Christian majority. He also immediately moved to release from prison some 1,500 supporters who had participated in his unsuccessful 2021 insurrection, including members of violent far-right militias who promptly upon release swore fealty to him in any future civil unrest.
Underscoring his apparent disconnection from reality, reports surfaced that the president had ordered military forces to unleash an environmental catastrophe and flood regions of a separatist province known as California that is led by a high-profile political opponent. The order underscored how the military, which had resisted Trump’s unconstitutional power grabs in his first administration, was now led by a subservient defense minister, a favored TV personality with no experience in management who faced an embarrassing series of allegations about his drunken behavior in the workplace.
The conclusion:
Throughout the week’s fast-moving seizure of power—one that seems increasingly irreversible by the hour—neither loyalist nor opposition parliamentary leaders raised meaningful objection to the new regime or the unraveling of the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances. A few members of the geriatric legislature body offered scattered social media posts condemning the move, but parliament — where both houses are controlled by so-called “MAGA” members handpicked for their loyalty to the president — went home early for the weekend even as Musk’s forces spread through the capital streets.
It was unclear what role, if any, Musk’s forces would allow parliament to have in the new governmental structure by the time it returned to the national assembly known as Capitol Hill.
I hope you’ll read the whole piece at the Substack link.
This story (which Dakinikat posted yesterday) is huge. Now there are new and even more dangerous developments (see additional stories on this below.)
The Washington Post: Senior U.S. official exits after rift with Musk allies over payment system.
The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department left the agency after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.
David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues that was obtained by The Washington Post. President Donald Trump named Lebryk acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.
By Bettina Baldassari
Officials affiliated with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have been asking since after the election for access to the system, the people said — requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump’s inauguration. Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley executive who has now been detailed to Treasury, is among those involved, the people said. Krause did not respond to requests for comment….
When Scott Bessent was confirmed as treasury secretary on Monday, Lebryk ceased to be the acting agency head. Trump administration officials placed Lebryk on administrative leave before he announced he would step down, two of the people said.
Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.
The clash reflects an intensifying battle between Musk and the federal bureaucracy as the Trump administration nears the conclusion of its second week. Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the U.S. government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially handles federal human resources, and the General Services Administration, which manages real estate. (Musk was seen on Thursday visiting the GSA, according to two other people familiar with his whereabouts, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. That visit was first reported by the New York Times.) His Department of Government Efficiency, originally conceived as a nongovernmental panel, has since replaced the U.S. Digital Service.
More at the WaPo.
Tim Reid at Reuters: Exclusive: Musk aides lock Office of Personnel Management workers out of computer systems.
Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, according to two agency officials.
Since taking office 11 days ago, President Donald Trump has embarked on a massive government makeover, firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.
Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO and X owner tasked by Trump to slash the size of the 2.2 million-strong civilian government workforce, has moved swiftly to install allies at the agency known as the Office of Personnel Management.
The two officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said some senior career employees at OPM have had their access revoked to some of the department’s data systems.
The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.
“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” one of the officials said. “That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”
Officials affected by the move can still log on and access functions such as email but can no longer see the massive datasets that cover every facet of the federal workforce.
Greg Sargent at The New Republic: Trump and Elon Musk Just Pulled Off Another Purge—and It’s a Scary One.
President Donald Trump has granted Elon Musk unprecedented power to carry out his war on the “deep state.” The justification for this is supposed to be that the government is corrupted to its core precisely because it is stocked with unelected bureaucrats who are unaccountable to the people.
Musk, goes this story, will employ his fearsome tech wizardry to root them out, restoring not just efficiency to government but also the democratic accountability that “deep state” denizens have snuffed out—supposedly a major cause of many of our social ills.
The startling news that a top Treasury Department official is departing after a dispute with Musk shows how deeply wrong that story truly is—and why it’s actively dangerous. The Washington Post reports that David Lebryk, who has carried out senior nonpolitical roles at the department for decades, is leaving after officials on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, sought access to Treasury’s payment system:
Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.
The news raises a complicated question: WTF??? Why is Musk’s DOGE trying to access payment systems inside the Treasury Department? It’s not clear what relevance this would have to his ostensible role, which is to search for savings and inefficiencies in government, not to directly influence whether previously authorized government obligations are honored.
Cliffhanger, by Stefanie Roberti
Another question: Did Trump directly authorize Musk to do this, or did he not? Either answer is bad. If Trump did, he may be authorizing an unelected billionaire to exert unprecedented control over the internal workings of government payment systems. If he did not, then Musk may be going rogue to an even greater extent than we thought….
Former officials I spoke with were at a loss to explain why Musk would want such access. They noted that while we don’t yet know Musk’s motive, the move could potentially give DOGE the power to turn off all kinds of government payments in a targeted way. They said we now must establish if Musk is seeking to carry out what Trump tried via his federal funding freeze: Turn off government payments previously authorized by Congress. The White House rescinded the freeze after a national outcry, but Trump’s spokesperson vowed the hunt for spending to halt will continue. The former officials are asking: Is this Treasury power grab a way to execute that?
“Anybody who would have access to these systems is in a position to turn off funding selectively,” said Michael Linden, a former OMB official who is now director of Families Over Billionaires, a group fighting Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. “The only reason Musk wants to get himself in there must be because he wants to turn some things off.”
Read more at TNR. I got my Social Security check this month. Will I get one in March?
More fascist takeover news:
This is a long one by Mike Masnick at Techdirt: Elon’s Twitter Destruction Playbook Hits The US Government, And It’s Even More Dangerous.
Remember how Elon Musk destroyed Twitter by ripping apart its infrastructure without understanding it? Now imagine that same playbook applied to the federal government. It’s happening, and the stakes are exponentially higher. When reviewing Kate Conger and Ryan Mac’s book “Character Limit” last fall, I highlighted two devastating patterns in Musk’s management: his authoritarian impulse to (sometimes literally) demolish systems without understanding them, and his tendency to replace existing, nuanced solutions with far worse alternatives (even when those older systems probably did require some level of reform). Those same patterns are now threatening the federal government’s basic functions.
Let’s be crystal clear about what’s happening: A private citizen with zero Constitutional authority is effectively seizing control of critical government functions. The Constitution explicitly requires Senate confirmation for anyone wielding significant federal power — a requirement Musk has simply ignored as he installs his loyalists throughout the government while demanding access to basically all of the levers of power, and pushing out anyone who stands in his way.
The parallel to Twitter is striking and terrifying. At Twitter, Musk’s “reform” strategy transformed a platform used by hundreds of millions for vital communication into his personal megaphone, hemorrhaging somewhere between 60-85% of its revenue in the process. But Twitter was just a private company. Now he’s applying the same destructive playbook to the federal government, where the stakes involve not just user experience or advertising dollars, but the basic functioning of American democracy.
The constitutional violations here dwarf the Twitter debacle. Where Musk merely broke a social media platform through incompetence last time, he’s now breaking the actual mechanisms of governance — and doing it with the same reckless playbook that turned Twitter into a ghost town. As Conger and Mac, who documented the Twitter disaster, point out, even the specific tactics are being recycled:
The email landed in employees’ inboxes with the subject line: “Fork in the Road.” The message in the email was stark: Accept a sweeping set of workplace changes or resign.
That was the note that millions of federal employees received around 5 p.m. on Tuesday. It echoed a similar message that thousands of workers at Twitter got from Elon Musk in late 2022 after he bought the company.
[….]
Mr. Musk, who also leads Tesla and SpaceX, has enlisted the help of a team of loyalists to assess agencies and make cuts, the same thing he did during the Twitter takeover.
Steve Davis, the head of Mr. Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Company, helped oversee cost-cutting at Twitter and now leads DOGE. Brian Bjelde, a longtime human resources executive at SpaceX who also helped during the Twitter takeover, is now an adviser to the Office of Personnel Management.
Michael Grimes, a top banker at Morgan Stanley who helped lead Mr. Musk’s Twitter acquisition, is expected to take a senior job at the Commerce Department.
One of Mr. Musk’s software engineers at Tesla, Thomas Shedd, was named the head of “Technology Transformation Services” at the General Services Administration, which helps manage federal agencies. Mr. Shedd promptly employed a Musk tactic: asking for proof of engineers’ technical chops.
Mr. Shedd asked for engineers to sign up for sessions in which they could share “a recent individual technical win,” according to an email sent to more than 700 employees on Tuesday night and viewed by The Times.
Read the rest at Techdirt.
Zoe Schiffer at Wired: Elon Musk’s Friends Have Infiltrated Another Government Agency.
Elon Musk’s minions—from trusted sidekicks to random college students and former Musk company interns—have taken over the General Services Administration, a critical government agency that manages federal offices and technology. Already, the team is attempting to use White House security credentials to gain unusual access to GSA tech, deploying a suite of new AI software, and recreating the office in X’s image, according to leaked documents obtained by WIRED.
By Otar Imerlishvili
Some of the same people who helped Musk take over Twitter more than two years ago are now registered as official GSA employees. Nicole Hollander, who slept in Twitter HQ as an unofficial member of Musk’s transition team, has high-level agency access and an official government email address, according to documents viewed by WIRED. Hollander’s husband, Steve Davis, also slept in the office. He has now taken on a leading role in Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Thomas Shedd, the recently installed director of the Technology Transformation Services within GSA, worked as a software engineer at Tesla for eight years. Edward Coristine, who previously interned at Neuralink, has been onboarded along with Ethan Shaotran, a Harvard senior who is developing his own OpenAI-backed scheduling assistant and participated in an xAI hackathon.
“I believe these people do not want to help the federal government provide services to the American people,” says a current GSA employee who asked not to be named, citing fears of retaliation. “They are acting like this is a takeover of a tech company.”
The team appears to be carrying out Musk’s agenda: slashing the federal government as quickly as possible. They’re currently targeting a 50 percent reduction in spending for every office managed by the GSA, according to documents obtained by WIRED.
There also appears to be an effort to use IT credentials from the Executive Office of the President to access GSA laptops and internal GSA infrastructure. Typically, access to agency systems requires workers to be employed at such agencies, sources say. While Musk’s team could be trying to obtain better laptops and equipment from GSA, sources fear that the mandate laid out in the DOGE executive order would grant the body broad access to GSA systems and data. That includes sensitive procurement data, data internal to all the systems and services GSA offers, and internal monitoring software to surveil GSA employees as part of normal auditing and security processes.
The access could give Musk’s proxies the ability to remote into laptops, listen in on meetings, read emails, among many other things, a former Biden official told WIRED on Friday.
NPR: Trump administration purges websites across federal health agencies.
At the direction of the Trump administration, the federal Department of Health and Human Services and its agencies are purging its websites of information and data on a broad array of topics — from adolescent health to LGBTQ+ rights to HIV.
Several webpages from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with references to LGBTQ+ health were no longer available. A page from the HHS Office for Civil Rights outlining the rights of LGBTQ+ people in health care settings was also gone as of Friday. The website of the National Institutes of Health’s Office for Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office disappeared. (Most of these pages could still be viewed through the Internet Archive.)
The changes at the CDC and NIH are examples of a broad push by the Trump administration on gender issues under an executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” That order directs agencies throughout the government to stop offering “gender identity” as a choice on government forms and to end funding of “gender ideology.”
Another order, signed by Trump, takes aim at “diversity, equity, and inclusion” across the federal government.
On Friday, however, many pages that did not seem related to “gender” or “diversity” had also been taken down, such as AtlasPlus, an interactive tool from CDC with surveillance data on HIV, viral hepatitis, STDs and TB. Also gone missing: a page with basic information about HIV testing. The CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index, a tool that assesses community resilience in the event of natural disaster was also taken down.
“The removal of HIV- and LGBTQ-related resources from the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies is deeply concerning and creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks,” the Infectious Disease Society of America said in a statement. “Access to this information is crucial for infectious diseases and HIV health care professionals who care for people with HIV and members of the LGBTQ community and is critical to efforts to end the HIV epidemic.”
One striking example of the vanishing information: The CDC pulled down the website that houses data collected by the nation’s largest monitoring program on health-related behaviors among high schoolers.
Pages related to the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, which administers the program, were also unavailable.
The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System tracks key metrics on nutrition, physical activity, tobacco and drug use, sexual behavior and other areas. The program was created 35 years ago and includes a national survey that researchers rely on to measure how behaviors influence health and design prevention measures.
“It’s the way the nation understands adolescent health,” says Stephen Russell, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin who studies adolescent health. “The disappearance of that data is stunning.”
Shane Harris at The Atlantic (published yesterday): FBI Agents Are Stunned by the Scale of the Expected Trump Purge.
This afternoon, FBI personnel braced for a retaliatory purge of the nation’s premiere law-enforcement agency, as President Donald Trump appeared ready to fire potentially hundreds of agents and officials who’d participated in investigations that led to criminal charges against him.
A team that investigated Trump’s mishandling of classified documents was expected to be fired, four people familiar with the matter said. Trump has long fumed about that investigation, which involved a raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate that turned up hundreds of classified documents he had taken after he left the White House four years ago.
David Sundberg, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, is also being fired, these people added. Sundberg is a career FBI agent with more than two decades of experience, and he oversees some of the bureau’s most sensitive cases related to national security and counterintelligence. Current and former officials told me they are worried that those investigations could stall, at least temporarily, if a large number of agents are suddenly removed. A spokesperson at the Washington Field Office declined to comment.
By Marcella Cooper
Trump’s retribution is not limited to those who investigated him personally. Administration officials are reviewing records to identify FBI personnel who participated in investigations of the January 6 assault on the Capitol by his supporters, people familiar with the matter told me. That could potentially involve hundreds if not thousands of agents, including those who interviewed and investigated rioters who were later prosecuted. Shortly after taking office, Trump pardoned about 1,500 of the rioters and commuted others’ sentences.
There is no precedent for the mass termination of FBI personnel in this fashion. Current and former officials I spoke with had expected Trump to exact retribution for what he sees as unjust and even illegal efforts by the FBI and the Justice Department to investigate his conduct. But they were stunned by the scale of Trump’s anticipated purge, which is taking aim at senior leaders as well as working-level agents who do not set policy but follow the orders of their superiors.
This afternoon, some FBI personnel frantically traded messages and rumors about others believed to be on Trump’s list, including special agents who run field offices across the country and were also involved in investigations of the former president.
Trump’s efforts to root out his supposed enemies might not withstand a legal challenge. FBI agents do not choose the cases assigned to them, and they are protected by civil-service rules. The FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit organization that is not part of the U.S. government, said in a statement that the reports of Trump’s planned purge are “outrageous” and “fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents.”
The mass firings could imperil the nomination of Kash Patel, whom Trump wants to run the FBI in his administration. Just yesterday, Patel had assured senators during his confirmation hearing that the very kinds of politically motivated firings that appear to be in motion would not happen.
This is a genuine emergency. Remember it only took Hitler about a year and a half to establish a dictatorship in Germany. Is anyone working to oppose Trump and Musk? It sure doesn’t seem like it.
Robert Tait at The Guardian: Trump’s revenge agenda has shocked officials who ‘didn’t think it was going to be this bad’, insiders say.
Federal government workers have been left “shell-shocked” by the upheaval wreaked by Donald Trump’s return to the presidency amid signs that he is bent on exacting revenge on a bureaucracy he considers to be a “deep state” that previously thwarted and persecuted him.
Since being restored to the White House on 20 January, the president has gone on a revenge spree against high-profile figures who previously served him but earned his enmity by slighting or criticising him in public.
He has cancelled Secret Service protection for three senior national security officials in his first presidency – John Bolton, the former national security adviser; Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director and secretary of state; and Brian Hook, a former assistant secretary of state – even though all are assassination targets on an Iranian government hit list.
The same treatment has been meted out to Anthony Fauci, the infectious diseases expert who angered Trump after joining the White House taskforce tackling Covid-19 and who has also faced death threats.
Trump has also fired high-profile figures from government roles on his social media site and stripped 51 former intelligence officials of their security clearances for doubting reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop as possible Russian disinformation….
“The most common refrain I’m hearing from people who have left but are still talking to people on the inside is: ‘I knew it was going to be bad but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad,’” said Mark Bergman, a veteran Democratic lawyer who has been in contact with some of those who fear being targets of the retribution Trump repeatedly vowed on the campaign trail….
A bit more:
There are ominous signs that the spirit of retribution will continue – or get worse.
Last week, in tactics more redolent of totalitarian regimes the United States has historically been at odds with, federal workers were warned of “adverse consequences” if they failed to report their colleagues who refused to comply with the administration’s purge of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, or tried to sustain the programs with coded language.
Elaine Godfrey at The Atlantic: Democrats Wonder Where Their Leaders Are.
The Democrats are angry. Well, at least some of them.
For months, party activists have felt bitter about Kamala Harris’s election loss, and incensed at the leaders who first went along with Joe Biden’s decision to run again. They feel fresh outrage each time a new detail is revealed about the then-81-year-old’s enfeeblement and its concealment by the advisers in charge. But right now, what’s making these Democrats angriest is that many of their elected leaders don’t seem angry at all.
By Monika Seidenbusch
“I assumed that we would be prepared to meet the moment, and I was wrong,” Shannon Watts, the founder of the gun-control group Moms Demand Action, told me. “It’s like they’ve shown up to a knife fight with a cheese stick.”
For all the people in Watts’s camp, the party’s response to Donald Trump’s first 12 days in office has been maddening at best and demoralizing at worst. After Trump issued pardons or commutations for the January 6 rioters last week, including the ones who attacked police officers, no immediate chorus of anger came from what is supposed to be the next generation of Democratic talent, including Maryland Governor Wes Moore, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, another 2028 hopeful, who is on tour selling a young-adult version of her autobiography, has told interviewers, “I am not out looking for fights. I am always looking to collaborate.”
After Trump threatened Colombia with tariffs, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries attempted to reassure the confused and fearful rank and file with the reminder that “God is still on the throne,” which seemed a little like saying, “Jesus, take the wheel.” And people were baffled after the Democratic National Committee responded on X to Trump’s first week in office by channeling a quainter time in American politics and dusting off an Obama-era slogan to accuse him of being “focused on Wall Street—not Main Street.” “Get new material!” one person suggested in the replies, a succinct summary of the other 1,700 comments.
The limp messaging continued this week, after Trump’s administration on Monday issued a federal-funding freeze, including for cancer research and programs such as Meals on Wheels. The next day, Jeffries called for an emergency caucus meeting to hammer out a forceful “three-pronged counter-offensive.” But that emergency meeting would not actually take place until the following afternoon. (By the time lawmakers were dialing in, the White House had already rescinded the order.) Jeffries’s Senate counterpart, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, scowling over his glasses, offered his own sleepy—and slightly unsettling—assessment of the moment: “I haven’t seen people so aroused in a very, very long time.”
Some Democrats say they are hopeful that a new chair of the DNC, who will be elected today, will give the now-rudderless party a bit of direction—a way to harness all that arousal. The committee leads the party’s fundraising apparatus and coordinates with its sister organizations on Senate and House campaigns. But a chair can’t do much if the party’s own lawmakers aren’t willing to swap out the mozzarella for something a little sharper.
I’m not holding my breath.
More stories to check out:
NBC News: Trump administration forces out multiple senior FBI officials and January 6 prosecutors.
Reuters: Crashed US Army Black Hawk unit was responsible for doomsday readiness.
WTF? Politico: ‘There will be many casualties’: Panama girds for war as Rubio opens talks.
Stephen Greenhouse at The Guardian: Trump’s disregard for US constitution ‘a blitzkrieg on the law’, legal experts say.
CNN: Trump prepares to revoke legal status for many migrants who arrived under Biden.
The Daily Beast: Trump Orders Schools to Ease Sex Assault Rules.
AP: Trump fires the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Things are getting really bad and are likely to get worse. Where are the Democrats? Where are the protests in the streets? Is it too late to save democracy?
#Democrats #DepartmentOfJustice #fascistTakeover #FBI #GeneralServicesAdministration #governmentPaymentsSystem #OfficeOfPersonnelManagement #purgeOfHealthWebsites #treasuryDepartment
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I'm just wondering how those billionaires and politicians can live with themselves. How are we even the same species!? 😡🤷🏻♀️
New Scientist: *The Nepal Disaster: How Climate Change is Reshaping the World*
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0LK9budwbAw
"A devastating climate disaster has killed at least 1,200 people in Nepal. A mass of ice and rock came crashing down off the Langtang mountain into the valley below. The climate crisis has made events like this much more likely.
This is just one of many retreating glaciers. We’re also on track for a record year of ice-loss in the European alps. As the world is reshaped before our eyes, what does this mean for the planet - and the 1.9 billion people who live downstream of glacier ice mountains?
This all comes as experts predict this year’s Super El Nino event will be the biggest in 1,000 years - plus an admittance from The UN Environment Programme that we will overshoot 1.5 degrees of global warming.
To discuss the tragedy in Nepal and the growing concern in the Alps, Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet are joined by Professor of Glaciology Bethan Davies and climate journalist Alec Luhn.
Image Credit: The aftermath of severe flooding along the Bhotekoshi river in Nuwakot, Nepal, on 28 August Ambir Tolang/JNA/ZUMA Press/Alamy
---
What does the latest science actually mean for us? Each week, New Scientist editors Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet dig into the biggest stories in science alongside expert scientists, from the mysteries of consciousness to the search for dark matter, to feed your curiosity and make sense of an uncertain world." -
I'm just wondering how those billionaires and politicians can live with themselves. How are we even the same species!? 😡🤷🏻♀️
New Scientist: *The Nepal Disaster: How Climate Change is Reshaping the World*
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0LK9budwbAw
"A devastating climate disaster has killed at least 1,200 people in Nepal. A mass of ice and rock came crashing down off the Langtang mountain into the valley below. The climate crisis has made events like this much more likely.
This is just one of many retreating glaciers. We’re also on track for a record year of ice-loss in the European alps. As the world is reshaped before our eyes, what does this mean for the planet - and the 1.9 billion people who live downstream of glacier ice mountains?
This all comes as experts predict this year’s Super El Nino event will be the biggest in 1,000 years - plus an admittance from The UN Environment Programme that we will overshoot 1.5 degrees of global warming.
To discuss the tragedy in Nepal and the growing concern in the Alps, Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet are joined by Professor of Glaciology Bethan Davies and climate journalist Alec Luhn.
Image Credit: The aftermath of severe flooding along the Bhotekoshi river in Nuwakot, Nepal, on 28 August Ambir Tolang/JNA/ZUMA Press/Alamy
---
What does the latest science actually mean for us? Each week, New Scientist editors Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet dig into the biggest stories in science alongside expert scientists, from the mysteries of consciousness to the search for dark matter, to feed your curiosity and make sense of an uncertain world." -
I'm just wondering how those billionaires and politicians can live with themselves. How are we even the same species!? 😡🤷🏻♀️
New Scientist: *The Nepal Disaster: How Climate Change is Reshaping the World*
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0LK9budwbAw
"A devastating climate disaster has killed at least 1,200 people in Nepal. A mass of ice and rock came crashing down off the Langtang mountain into the valley below. The climate crisis has made events like this much more likely.
This is just one of many retreating glaciers. We’re also on track for a record year of ice-loss in the European alps. As the world is reshaped before our eyes, what does this mean for the planet - and the 1.9 billion people who live downstream of glacier ice mountains?
This all comes as experts predict this year’s Super El Nino event will be the biggest in 1,000 years - plus an admittance from The UN Environment Programme that we will overshoot 1.5 degrees of global warming.
To discuss the tragedy in Nepal and the growing concern in the Alps, Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet are joined by Professor of Glaciology Bethan Davies and climate journalist Alec Luhn.
Image Credit: The aftermath of severe flooding along the Bhotekoshi river in Nuwakot, Nepal, on 28 August Ambir Tolang/JNA/ZUMA Press/Alamy
---
What does the latest science actually mean for us? Each week, New Scientist editors Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet dig into the biggest stories in science alongside expert scientists, from the mysteries of consciousness to the search for dark matter, to feed your curiosity and make sense of an uncertain world." -
I'm just wondering how those billionaires and politicians can live with themselves. How are we even the same species!? 😡🤷🏻♀️
New Scientist: *The Nepal Disaster: How Climate Change is Reshaping the World*
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0LK9budwbAw
"A devastating climate disaster has killed at least 1,200 people in Nepal. A mass of ice and rock came crashing down off the Langtang mountain into the valley below. The climate crisis has made events like this much more likely.
This is just one of many retreating glaciers. We’re also on track for a record year of ice-loss in the European alps. As the world is reshaped before our eyes, what does this mean for the planet - and the 1.9 billion people who live downstream of glacier ice mountains?
This all comes as experts predict this year’s Super El Nino event will be the biggest in 1,000 years - plus an admittance from The UN Environment Programme that we will overshoot 1.5 degrees of global warming.
To discuss the tragedy in Nepal and the growing concern in the Alps, Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet are joined by Professor of Glaciology Bethan Davies and climate journalist Alec Luhn.
Image Credit: The aftermath of severe flooding along the Bhotekoshi river in Nuwakot, Nepal, on 28 August Ambir Tolang/JNA/ZUMA Press/Alamy
---
What does the latest science actually mean for us? Each week, New Scientist editors Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet dig into the biggest stories in science alongside expert scientists, from the mysteries of consciousness to the search for dark matter, to feed your curiosity and make sense of an uncertain world." -
I'm just wondering how those billionaires and politicians can live with themselves. How are we even the same species!? 😡🤷🏻♀️
New Scientist: *The Nepal Disaster: How Climate Change is Reshaping the World*
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0LK9budwbAw
"A devastating climate disaster has killed at least 1,200 people in Nepal. A mass of ice and rock came crashing down off the Langtang mountain into the valley below. The climate crisis has made events like this much more likely.
This is just one of many retreating glaciers. We’re also on track for a record year of ice-loss in the European alps. As the world is reshaped before our eyes, what does this mean for the planet - and the 1.9 billion people who live downstream of glacier ice mountains?
This all comes as experts predict this year’s Super El Nino event will be the biggest in 1,000 years - plus an admittance from The UN Environment Programme that we will overshoot 1.5 degrees of global warming.
To discuss the tragedy in Nepal and the growing concern in the Alps, Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet are joined by Professor of Glaciology Bethan Davies and climate journalist Alec Luhn.
Image Credit: The aftermath of severe flooding along the Bhotekoshi river in Nuwakot, Nepal, on 28 August Ambir Tolang/JNA/ZUMA Press/Alamy
---
What does the latest science actually mean for us? Each week, New Scientist editors Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet dig into the biggest stories in science alongside expert scientists, from the mysteries of consciousness to the search for dark matter, to feed your curiosity and make sense of an uncertain world." -
Who should I vote for in a climate emergency?
It is getting increasingly difficult to sort out fact from fiction when discussing local politics. Blatant lies are sometimes told on election leaflets, and misinformation is deliberately spread on social media. How do we get to the truth, and who should we vote for to prioritise environmental action?
Greenpeace has been on the streets encouraging people to register to vote and support politicians who prioritise tackling the climate and nature emergencies. One volunteer told me, “I talked to a group of workmen in hi-viz. They were very disillusioned with politics, 3 of the 4 said they were not going to vote because of the cost of living and suggested the Council wasn’t going to change things. Then one very unexpectedly said, “Look at this Council, if they wanted to do something about cars, they’d make public transport free!”
At present, Sheffield City Council has 84 Councillors. There are 36 Labour, 27 Liberal Democrats, and 14 Greens that share power in a cooperation agreement. The opposition is made up of 6 Independents and one Reform Councillor. So talk in election leaflets of one party funding this, or being responsible for that, is a bit disingenuous, as the funding comes mainly from us, the Council Tax payers and Government grants. To get anything done, there has to be agreement between at least two of the parties. One third of the Councillors are up for election this year, but due to resignations, two wards have two votes.
I don’t think there has ever been a broader choice of candidates in Sheffield elections. Most wards have the choice of Labour, Lib Dem, Green, Conservative, TUSC and Reform. There are also candidates from Restore UK in some wards. This is a party further to the right of Reform, but they are called “Independent” on the ballot papers. These should not be confused with Independent candidates in some wards, standing on a pro-Palestine ticket. With such a massive choice of candidates, if the vote is evenly split, one party could win with a very small proportion of the vote. Our first past the post voting system was designed for two-party contests. The Government must bring in fair proportional voting as soon as possible.
This opinion poll indicates that the Labour vote has collapsed, and they could lose all their seats in this election. The poll has them hanging on to Darnall by just 2%. Greens could gain Labour strongholds Manor Castle, Walkley, Burngreave and Crookes and Crosspool and Ecclesall and Graves Park from the Lib Dems. while holding City, Hillsborough and Gleadless Valley. Reform could gain Birley, Woodhouse, Southey, Shiregreen and Brightside from Labour and Beighton from the Lib Dems. Lib Dems could gain East Ecclesfield from Labour, and hold Beauchief, Dore and Totley, Fulwood, Mosborough, Stannington and West Ecclesfield. So overall, massive gains for Greens and Reform and a massive collapse for Labour.
But this is only a poll: the only one that counts is on May 7th.
So, which parties should interest you if you are making environmental issues your priority? Three parties, Reform, the Conservatives and Restore, are now ideologically opposed to the concept of Net Zero carbon emissions. They oppose measures that improve life for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users in pursuit of drivers’ votes. They oppose renewable energy schemes in favour of a Trump-like “drill baby drill” attitude, hoping to exploit more oil in the North Sea, which we can’t afford to burn if we are going to avoid climate tipping points. Their disbelief or scepticism in the science of climate change is deeply worrying, but not surprising when you examine where their funds come from. These parties have deep vested interests in oil and tech companies and the millionaires associated with them.
I could only find local manifestos for 3 parties, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens. If you are not sure who to vote for, do examine the policies carefully.
It’s hard to find mentions of environmental issues in most election leaflets. But it’s disappointing to see untruths being told. Some Labour leaflets and social media posts, for instance, are taking full credit for Green Bonds, an idea brought to the Council by the Green Party. The Bonds quickly raised £1 million pounds for solar panels on school roofs.
Another hot potato is the Greenbelt. Liberal Democrats and Reform are both criticising the Green Party for voting for the Local Plan, and campaigners have bombarded social media with memes, objecting to the Local Plan. The Lib Dem leaflet for Ecclesall says “The Lib Dems voted to protect our Greenbelt and nature from Labour’s building plans. The Green Party voted with Labour to pave over our greenbelt in yet another let down!” The Green Party say that a Local Plan is vital to stop developments throughout the Greenbelt and in other areas of special interest not protected by the Greenbelt. They voted to give as much protection to the Greenbelt as possible and will oppose planning applications on Greenbelt land in future. So they did not vote to “pave over the Greenbelt”, they voted to protect it.
Only the Green Party mentions the climate crisis in their manifesto, but one crucial detail is missing from all the election leaflets I’ve seen. How are we going to meet the Council’s commitment to reach Net Zero by 2030?
This graph, produced by Sam Wakeling, shows that we are way off track. The Council declared a Climate Emergency in 2019, but has never taken monitoring of CO2 seriously. Extinction Rebellion was saying at the time that we need to aim for Net Zero by 2025. They were right. Today, we may already be too late to save the Coral Reefs, which are home to a quarter of the planet’s marine species. We are dangerously close to other tipping points, like the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation, without which Britain would be 5 degrees C colder, with agricultural production falling dramatically worldwide. All politicians, at every level of Government, need to be prioritising climate action and working out how we can be more resilient as a country, ready for shocks like the closure of the Straits of Hormuz or the next extreme weather event.
I don’t blame political parties or the electorate for their silence on AMOC and other climate tipping points. Political parties need to attract votes and appeal to the demands of their supporters. But most people are completely in the dark regarding the threats climate tipping points now pose to us. And the electorate isn’t demanding climate action because the mainstream media don’t inform them. This week George Monbiot published an excellent article on AMOC, but there has been very little on the BBC or the popular press. Maybe this will change soon, because the BBC are being taken to a tribunal for suppressing the most important climate news. There will be more on this in future posts.
If we are to have any chance of meeting Sheffield’s emissions target, we urgently need more Green Councillors in the Town Hall who will make the climate and nature emergencies a priority. Wherever you live in Sheffield, Vote Green Party on May 7th.
#2026 #AMOC #BritainVotesNow #GeorgeMonbiot #GreenBonds #GreenParty #Greenbelt #LabourParty #LiberalDemocrats #LocalElection #news #politics #Reform #Restore #SheffieldCarbonEmissions #TUSC -
Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump’s War on Americans
Good Morning!!
Patrice Preveirault, Le Pastel
It’s just the beginning of the storm season, and we are beginning to see the damage from Trump/DOGE cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There’s a terrible tragedy playing out in the Texas hill country right now.
The Texas Tribune: Death toll from Hill Country flash floods rises to 24 as rescue efforts continue.
State officials said Friday night that at least 24 people have died in the catastrophic flood that swept through Kerr County early Friday morning, and 23 girls from Camp Mystic, a private Christian girls’ camp, are still unaccounted for.
In a news conference in Kerrville, Gov. Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration, which allows numerous counties affected by the floods to get the state resources needed to help with ongoing search-and-rescue efforts.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said one other person was found dead in nearby Kendall County but it’s unclear if that person was a flood victim.
Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said local officials were caught off guard by the volume of rain, adding that the National Weather Service advisory issued Thursday “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”
Gen. Thomas Suelzer, the head of the Texas Military Department, said 237 people have been rescued and evacuated so far. Officials said they couldn’t provide the number of people who are unaccounted for, but they include the 23 girls from Camp Mystic.
In an earlier press conference Friday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the dead include adults and children, and some were found in cars “that were washed out upstream.” He said officials aren’t sure whether any of the bodies were children from Camp Mystic, and stressed that the campers are only considered missing at this point….
As much as 10 inches of heavy rain fell in just a few hours overnight in central Kerr County, causing flash flooding of the Guadalupe River. Patrick said the river, which winds through Kerr County in Central Texas, rose 26 feet in 45 minutes during torrential rains overnight.
Were there warnings this was coming?
A flood watch issued Thursday afternoon estimated isolated amounts up to 7 inches of rising water. That shifted to a flood warning for at least 30,000 people overnight.
According to the National Weather Service website, the flash flood watch, which included Kerr County, was issued at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. Nearly 12 hours later, a “life threatening” flash flood warning was issued at 1:14 a.m., according to the website.
When asked about the suddenness of the flash flooding overnight, Kelly said “we do not have a warning system” and that “we didn’t know this flood was coming,” even as local reporters pointed to the warnings and pushed him for answers about why more precautions weren’t taken.
“Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming,” he said. “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.”
There’s much more at the link.
The New York Times has live updates on the tragedy: Death Toll in Texas Flood Rises to at Least 24, With as Many as 25 Missing.
Here’s the latest:
Search and rescue teams were working throughout the night in Central Texas after flooding that began early Friday swept through a summer camp and homes, killing at least 24 people and leaving as many as 25 girls missing from the camp.
The girls were at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, in Kerr County, according to the county sheriff. Desperate parents posted photos of their children online, seeking any information, and others went to reunification centers to try to find missing loved ones. An unknown number of other people were also missing, Kerr County said in an update on Friday night, citing the sheriff, Larry Leitha.
By Katya Vigovskaya
The deadly flooding surprised many, including Texas officials, who said that some National Weather Service alerts had underestimated the risks. The most urgent alerts came in overnight, in the early hours of Friday.
Hundreds of emergency personnel were searching for stranded people. The Texas National Guard made 237 rescues and evacuations using helicopters and rescue swimmers, Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the guard’s commander, said at a news conference Friday evening.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration encompassing 15 counties in Central Texas. The declaration will expedite state funding for the areas that experienced significant damage.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said earlier in the day that Camp Mystic was contacting the parents of campers who remained unaccounted for. He said that parents with children who had not heard from camp officials should assume their children were safe. The camp has some 750 campers, he said.
Ron Filipkowski at Meidas: Texas Officials Blame Agency Gutted by Trump for Results of Deadly Storm.
As the best and the brightest were being fired at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by senseless and draconian ‘DOGE’ cuts earlier this year under Trump, with no reason given except for the need to cut a paltry amount of the government’s budget, experts warned repeatedly that the cuts would have deadly consequences during the storm season. And they have.
Dozens and dozens of stories have been written in the media citing hundreds of experts which said that weather forecasting was never going to be the same, and that inaccurate forecasts were going to lead to fewer evacuations, impaired preparedness of first responders, and deadly consequences. I quoted many of them in my daily Bulletins and wrote about this issue nearly 20 different times.
And the chickens have come home to roost. Hundreds of people have already been killed across the US in a variety of storms including deadly tornadoes – many of which were inaccurately forecasted. And we are just entering peak hurricane season. Meteorologist Chris Vagasky posted earlier this spring on social media: “The world’s example for weather services is being destroyed.”
Now, after severe flooding in non-evacuated areas in Texas has left at least 24 dead with dozens more missing, including several young girls at a summer camp, Texas officials are blaming their failure to act on a faulty forecast by Donald Trump’s new National Weather Service gutted by cuts to their operating budget and most experienced personnel.
Forewarnings:
Reuters published a story just a few days ago, one of many warning about this problem: “In May, every living former director of the NWS signed on to an open letter with a warning that, if continued, Trump’s cuts to federal weather forecasting would create ‘needless loss of life’. Despite bipartisan congressional pushback for a restoration in staffing and funding to the NWS, sharp budget cuts remain on pace in projections for the 2026 budget for the NOAA, the parent organization of the NWS.”
But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose agency oversees NOAA, testified before Congress on June 5 that the cuts wouldn’t be a problem because “we are transforming how we track storms and forecast weather with cutting-edge technology. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched.” Apparently the “cutting edge technology” hasn’t arrived yet.
And now presumably FEMA will be called upon to help pick up the pieces of shattered lives in Texas – an agency that Trump said repeatedly that he wants to abolish. In fact, Trump’s first FEMA director Cameron Hamilton was fired one day after he testified before Congress that FEMA should not be abolished.
Filipkowski notes that so far the “president” has had nothing to say about the tragedy in Texas.
In April, Abraham Lutgarten of ProPublica warned about the danger of gutting U.S. weather services: White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On.
Over the past two months, the Trump administration has taken steps to eliminate regulations addressing climate change, pull back funding for climate programs and cancel methods used to evaluate how climate change is affecting American society and its economy. Now it is directly undermining the science and research of climate change itself, in ways that some of the nation’s most distinguished scientists say will have dangerous consequences.
Proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency whose weather and climate research touches almost every facet of American life, are targeting a 57-year-old partnership between Princeton University and the U.S. government that produces what many consider the world’s most advanced climate modeling and forecasting systems. NOAA’s work extends deep into the heart of the American economy — businesses use it to navigate risk and find opportunity — and it undergirds both American defense and geopolitical planning. The possible elimination of the lab, called the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, in concert with potential cuts to other NOAA operations, threatens irreparable harm not only to global understanding of climate change and long-range scenarios for the planet but to the country’s safety, competitiveness and national security.
The gutting of NOAA was outlined earlier this month in a leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget that detailed steep reductions at the Department of Commerce, which houses the science agency. The memo, which was viewed by ProPublica, has been previously reported. But the full implications of those cuts for the nation’s ability to accurately interpret dynamic changes in the planet’s weather and to predict long-term warming scenarios through its modeling arm in Princeton have not.
According to the document, NOAA’s overall funding would be slashed by 27%, eliminating “functions of the Department that are misaligned with the President’s agenda and the expressed will of the American people” including almost all of those related to the study of climate change. The proposal would break up and significantly defund the agency across programs, curtailing everything from ocean research to coastal management while shifting one of NOAA’s robust satellite programs out of the agency and putting another up for commercial bidding. But its most significant target is the office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research ⎯ a nerve center of global climate science, data collection and modeling, including the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory ⎯ which would be cut by 74%. “At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office,” the memo stated.
A bit more:
The total loss of OAR and its crown jewel in Princeton represents a setback for climate preparedness that experts warn the nation may never recover from.
“If we don’t understand what’s happening and why it’s happening, you can’t be adapting, you can’t be resilient. You’re just going to suffer,” Don Wuebbles, an atmospheric scientist who sits on NOAA’s scientific advisory board, told ProPublica. “We’re going to see huge impacts on infrastructure and lives lost in the U.S.”
By Jo Potocki
There are other national climate models, but they also appear to be in jeopardy of losing funding. The National Science Foundation supports the National Center for Atmospheric Research, but the foundation announced it was freezing all research grants on April 18. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has a model, but the institute could see cuts of up to 47%. And the Department of Energy, home to a fourth climate modeling system, is also under budget pressure.
Without the models, and all the sensor networks and supporting NOAA research programs that feed them, “We’ll go back to the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s,” said Craig McLean, a 40-year veteran of NOAA who, until 2022, was the agency’s top administrator for research and its acting chief scientist. “We won’t have the tools we have today because we can’t populate them by people or by data.” [….]
Princeton and NOAA together built America’s global supremacy in weather and climate science over generations. After World War II, the United States refocused its scientific superiority ⎯ and its early computing capabilities ⎯ on understanding how the weather and the planet works. The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory was established in 1955 and moved to Princeton in 1968. Under NOAA, which was established by President Richard Nixon in 1970, the lab advanced early forecasting, using sensors in the oceans and the sky. It developed theories for how fluids and gases interact and came to understand that the oceans and the atmosphere drive weather ⎯ what today has become known as climate science.
The GFDL’s models, including the first hurricane model, became the basis for both short-term weather outlooks and longer-range forecasts, or climate prediction, which soon became one and the same. Those models now form the underlying modeling architecture of many of NOAA’s other departments, including the forecasts from the National Weather Service. The GFDL has trained many of the world’s best climate scientists, who are leading the most prestigious research in Japan, the U.K. and Germany, and in 2021 an alumnus of its staff won the Nobel Prize in physics. The U.S. agencies periodically run their models in competition, and last time they did, the GFDL’s models came out ahead. The lab is “the best that there is,” McLean said. “It’s really a stunningly impressive and accomplished place. It is a gem. It is the gem.”
But to Trump, tax cuts for billionaires who don’t need them are more important than predicting weather disasters.
With the passage and signing of Trump’s big ugly bill, we are soon going to be dealing with even worse horrors than bad weather. With the funds allocated to ICE in the bill, Trump plans to create a U.S. police state and a concentration camp system. I wonder, did the Republicans include funds for boxcars in the bill?
Trump’s coming police state and his war on citizens:
Josh Kovensky at Talking Points Memo: Congress Throws More Money at Removing Immigrants than Most Countries Spend on Their Armies.
It’s hard to convey just how big the new budget makes the country’s immigration enforcement infrastructure.
The Bureau of Prisons? Bigger than that. The FBI? Bigger. The Marine Corps? Bigger even than that, by some estimates.
All in all, the bill directs around $170 billion through 2029 to various forms of immigration enforcement, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council and TPM’s own read of the legislation. ICE, responsible for enforcement, detentions, and removals, will oversee much of the spending.
The picture is not so much of an expanded immigration enforcement system, but of an entirely new one.
“It’s going to get really scary,” Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, told TPM. “I do think that we are in a place where the Trump administration is centering a lot of the law enforcement authority of the federal government into the Department of Homeland Security.”
The bill gives ICE $29.8 billion to hire new staff and conduct deportations. That will lead to a hiring spurt of deportation officers; an additional $4.1 billion bump goes to Customs and Border Protection for new personnel….
We’re Listening, by Elisheva Nesis
For immigration detention, also overseen by ICE, the bill allocates a whopping $45 billion.
If that’s not enough, there’s more: Remember the wall? It was Trump’s big immigration-related promise during the 2016 campaign. It didn’t get built during his first term (and Mexico never paid for it, as Trump promised). Congress allocated $46.5 billion for its construction in this legislation. (A Senate source tells TPM that this, too, was drafted in such a way as to be fungible, so it could be used for building detention facilities as well.)
It’s a headspinning increase from ICE’s 2024 funding, that, per a recent CRS report, stood at $9.9 billion.
At the same time, the bill adds only a modest number of immigration judges, capping the number at 800 starting in November 2028 — an increase from the current approximately 700.
Read the rest at TPM.
A guest essay at The New York Times by Greg Grandin, Professor History at Yale (gift link): Trump Is Waging War on His Own Citizens.
Use the gift link to read learn about the history of the use of “America” to refer to the United States, as well as the notion of internationalism in the U.S.No president in the history of the Republic has used the word “America” as effectively as Donald Trump — not as a symbol to invoke unity but as kerosene to keep the home fires of our culture wars burning.
America, America: Make it great. It already is great. Keep it great. America must. America will. America First. “America,” said Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff and the driver of much of his nativist domestic policy, “is for Americans and Americans only.”
But what does it mean to be an American if armed, masked men can sweep anybody, citizen or not, off the street, forcing people into unmarked S.U.V.s — to be, if Mr. Trump has his way, disappeared to remote Louisiana or taken to a prison camp in El Salvador?
Mr. Trump and operatives like Mr. Miller are waging a war not only on migrants but also on the concept of citizenship. According to one report, Immigration and Customs Enforcement expelled as many as 66 citizens during Mr. Trump’s first term, and now he has issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship. His government is exiling children who were born in the United States, including a 4-year-old boy with late-stage cancer. The Justice Department says it is “prioritizing denaturalization,” establishing a framework to revoke citizenship from naturalized citizens the White House deems undesirable.
Vice President JD Vance admits the expansion of ICE is the mainspring of the White House’s agenda. In a series of social media posts, he pushed back against worries about the president’s signature reconciliation bill. Nothing else in the bill mattered, he said — not debt, not Medicaid cuts — compared to securing “ICE money.” Now, the agency — which already acts like a secret police — will have an additional $75 billion to build detention centers, hire new agents and supercharge its operations.
Mr. Trump’s war on citizenship goes hand in hand with his politicization of the name of America, and though the first is unprecedented in its intensity, the second taps into a long, well, American tradition, one as old as the nation itself.
Alligator Alkatraz and Trump’s dream of a concentration camp system:
The Washington Post: Heat, storms, mosquitos the big threats at Alligator Alcatraz, experts say.
The hastily constructed detention camp in the Everglades that began processing immigrant detainees late this week has already flooded once, may not meet hurricane codes and is not officially approved or funded by the federal government.
Experts say detainees and staff will face far more common hazards than the swampland terrors gleefully envisioned by state and national Republicans to discourage escapes. Mosquitoes and hurricanes are more likely to harm the expected 3,000-plus detainees and 100-member staff than are alligators and Burmese pythons.
With a cat by Galya Didur (2024)
“The risk of mosquito-borne disease at this site is significant,” said Durland Fish, a professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale University School of Public Health. And the viruses detected during a mosquitos study he conducted in the Everglades — including at Big Cypress Swamp, where the detention center is located — can cause neurological damage, including encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain.
“There’s no treatment for these,” Fish said….
The facility, which includes large tents over cells erected with chain-link fencing, portable showers and portable toilets, was put together in eight days. State lawmakers who have spoken about it say that work was done secretly, after they had ended their annual legislative session.
The camp is located on an infrequently used airfield in the heart of the protected Everglades. Before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) commandeered it, the site consisted of a long runway built in the late 1960s as an initial stage in a project intended to create a mega-airport. But environmentalists and Indigenous tribes successfully fought back, and the area, surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve and next door to Everglades National Park, is now part of an ongoing $25 billion Everglades restoration project.
Trump views the location as a plus for his crackdown with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland, and the only way out is really deportation,” he said.
And state officials are defending their rapid construction of the facility and its “soft-sided” cells — some of which started to flood during Trump’s visit, as seen in videos shot by local media. According to the state’s emergency management director, Kevin Guthrie, the 158,000 square feet of housing is “a fully aluminum frame structure rated for winds of 110 miles an hour,” the top-end equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane. He said Wednesday that the department has an evacuation plan in case a major storm threatens but released no details.
Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, at MSNBC: Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a concentration camp.
For many Americans, the word “concentration camp” evokes another country, a time long ago and a facility operating in the dark of night, away from the prying eyes of an outraged public. But a new concentration camp opened in Florida’s Everglades this week, and it’s the opposite of a secret.
President Donald Trump toured the facility with reporters in tow. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials posed with him, laughing in front of cages meant for human beings. The Florida Republican Party launched merchandise and gave the camp a nickname, “Alligator Alc
atraz,” that the state made official.
But it’s not just a new prison, Alcatraz or otherwise. I visited four continents to write a global history of concentration camps. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model: mass civilian detention without real trials targeting vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed. And its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.
This camp stands apart from other immigration detention facilities for a few reasons. First, its projected capacity of 5,000 beds is several times the average detention center (though Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking at even larger facilities). Its improvised tents and chain-link cages put detainees on display reminiscent of El Salvador’s CECOT prison. And it is billed as a “temporary” camp, with the theory being that the administration can seamlessly process massive numbers of detainees with rapid-fire judicial hearings by National Guard members-turned-immigration judges. In practice, this is unlikely to go smoothly.
By Marie Laurencin
While concentration camps have historical roots in earlier forms of mass detention, they themselves are modern. The patenting and mass production of barbed wire and automatic weapons over a century ago made it possible to detain large groups with a small guard force for the first time.
At the turn of the twentieth century, imperial powers such as Spain and Britain set up concentration camps in colonial regions. The camps had staggering death tolls that made early systems unpopular. But World War I led to a revival of the concept, with nearly a million people detained globally. The wartime camps paved the way for similar systems after the conflict ended, such asthe Soviet Gulag and the detention of homeless people in multiple countries.
Those were all in place before the Nazis came to power, so Hitler’s camps aren’t the lone precedent for the Everglades project. But even the extreme case of Germany offers disturbing parallels — and not just because the Nazis also allowed reporters to tour their camps.
Please click the MSNBC link and read the rest.
One more from Timothy Snyder at his Substack: Concentration Camp Labor Cannot Become Normal.
With the passage of Trump’s death bill, we face the prospect of many great harms, including an archipelago of concentration camps across the United States.
Concentration camps are sites of tempting slave labor. Among many other aims, the Soviets used concentration camp labor to build canals and work mines. The Nazi German concentration camp system followed a capitalist version of the same logic: it drew in businesses with the prospect of inexpensive labor.
We know this and have no excuse not to act.
What happens next in the U.S.? Workers who are presented as “undocumented” will be taken to the camps. Perhaps they will work in the camps themselves, as slaves to government projects. But more likely they will be offered to American companies on special terms: a one-time payment to the government, for example, with no need for wages or benefits. In the simplest version, and perhaps the most likely, detained people will be offered back to the companies for which they were just working. Their stay in the concentration camp will be presented as a purge or a legalization for which companies should be grateful. Trump has already said that this is the idea, calling it “owner responsibility.”
We should remember what drew I.G Farben into Auschwitz: profit. But there are of course precedents for extreme exploitation in American history, including but not limited to the history of chattel slavery. And slavery is not entirely illegal in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment allows slavery if only as punishment for a crime. The people described as “undocumented” or “denaturalized” (and other categories sure to be invented soon) are portrayed as criminals.
If the Trump regime tries to enslave such people on a large scale, there will be a court case. But waiting for the Supreme Court to do the right thing is, to put it gently, no substitute for action. It would be good if there were explicit legislation banning slave labor in all circumstances. But such a law is unlikely without a movement behind it.
The government is putting before us the temptation to cooperate in fascist dehumanization on a grand scale. But that does not mean we must do so. This is an area where actions by individuals, by civil society, by the professions, and by companies can be decisive.
Again, please follow the link and read the rest.
That’s it for me today. I know this is scary stuff, but it’s becoming real now. We are in the midst of fascist takeover. I was shocked to hear Rachel Maddow say those words last night on MSNBC, but that made it more read for. This is really happening, and we have to fight it in every way we can.
Take care everyone. I love you all.
#CampMystic #climateModeling #concentrationCamps #fascistTakeover #FEMA #ICE #NationalOceanicAndAtmosphericAdministration #NationalWeatherService #NOAA #NWS #policeState #slaveLabor #TexasFloods #weatherEmergencies
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump’s War on Americans
Good Morning!!
Patrice Preveirault, Le Pastel
It’s just the beginning of the storm season, and we are beginning to see the damage from Trump/DOGE cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There’s a terrible tragedy playing out in the Texas hill country right now.
The Texas Tribune: Death toll from Hill Country flash floods rises to 24 as rescue efforts continue.
State officials said Friday night that at least 24 people have died in the catastrophic flood that swept through Kerr County early Friday morning, and 23 girls from Camp Mystic, a private Christian girls’ camp, are still unaccounted for.
In a news conference in Kerrville, Gov. Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration, which allows numerous counties affected by the floods to get the state resources needed to help with ongoing search-and-rescue efforts.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said one other person was found dead in nearby Kendall County but it’s unclear if that person was a flood victim.
Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said local officials were caught off guard by the volume of rain, adding that the National Weather Service advisory issued Thursday “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”
Gen. Thomas Suelzer, the head of the Texas Military Department, said 237 people have been rescued and evacuated so far. Officials said they couldn’t provide the number of people who are unaccounted for, but they include the 23 girls from Camp Mystic.
In an earlier press conference Friday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the dead include adults and children, and some were found in cars “that were washed out upstream.” He said officials aren’t sure whether any of the bodies were children from Camp Mystic, and stressed that the campers are only considered missing at this point….
As much as 10 inches of heavy rain fell in just a few hours overnight in central Kerr County, causing flash flooding of the Guadalupe River. Patrick said the river, which winds through Kerr County in Central Texas, rose 26 feet in 45 minutes during torrential rains overnight.
Were there warnings this was coming?
A flood watch issued Thursday afternoon estimated isolated amounts up to 7 inches of rising water. That shifted to a flood warning for at least 30,000 people overnight.
According to the National Weather Service website, the flash flood watch, which included Kerr County, was issued at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. Nearly 12 hours later, a “life threatening” flash flood warning was issued at 1:14 a.m., according to the website.
When asked about the suddenness of the flash flooding overnight, Kelly said “we do not have a warning system” and that “we didn’t know this flood was coming,” even as local reporters pointed to the warnings and pushed him for answers about why more precautions weren’t taken.
“Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming,” he said. “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.”
There’s much more at the link.
The New York Times has live updates on the tragedy: Death Toll in Texas Flood Rises to at Least 24, With as Many as 25 Missing.
Here’s the latest:
Search and rescue teams were working throughout the night in Central Texas after flooding that began early Friday swept through a summer camp and homes, killing at least 24 people and leaving as many as 25 girls missing from the camp.
The girls were at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, in Kerr County, according to the county sheriff. Desperate parents posted photos of their children online, seeking any information, and others went to reunification centers to try to find missing loved ones. An unknown number of other people were also missing, Kerr County said in an update on Friday night, citing the sheriff, Larry Leitha.
By Katya Vigovskaya
The deadly flooding surprised many, including Texas officials, who said that some National Weather Service alerts had underestimated the risks. The most urgent alerts came in overnight, in the early hours of Friday.
Hundreds of emergency personnel were searching for stranded people. The Texas National Guard made 237 rescues and evacuations using helicopters and rescue swimmers, Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the guard’s commander, said at a news conference Friday evening.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration encompassing 15 counties in Central Texas. The declaration will expedite state funding for the areas that experienced significant damage.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said earlier in the day that Camp Mystic was contacting the parents of campers who remained unaccounted for. He said that parents with children who had not heard from camp officials should assume their children were safe. The camp has some 750 campers, he said.
Ron Filipkowski at Meidas: Texas Officials Blame Agency Gutted by Trump for Results of Deadly Storm.
As the best and the brightest were being fired at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by senseless and draconian ‘DOGE’ cuts earlier this year under Trump, with no reason given except for the need to cut a paltry amount of the government’s budget, experts warned repeatedly that the cuts would have deadly consequences during the storm season. And they have.
Dozens and dozens of stories have been written in the media citing hundreds of experts which said that weather forecasting was never going to be the same, and that inaccurate forecasts were going to lead to fewer evacuations, impaired preparedness of first responders, and deadly consequences. I quoted many of them in my daily Bulletins and wrote about this issue nearly 20 different times.
And the chickens have come home to roost. Hundreds of people have already been killed across the US in a variety of storms including deadly tornadoes – many of which were inaccurately forecasted. And we are just entering peak hurricane season. Meteorologist Chris Vagasky posted earlier this spring on social media: “The world’s example for weather services is being destroyed.”
Now, after severe flooding in non-evacuated areas in Texas has left at least 24 dead with dozens more missing, including several young girls at a summer camp, Texas officials are blaming their failure to act on a faulty forecast by Donald Trump’s new National Weather Service gutted by cuts to their operating budget and most experienced personnel.
Forewarnings:
Reuters published a story just a few days ago, one of many warning about this problem: “In May, every living former director of the NWS signed on to an open letter with a warning that, if continued, Trump’s cuts to federal weather forecasting would create ‘needless loss of life’. Despite bipartisan congressional pushback for a restoration in staffing and funding to the NWS, sharp budget cuts remain on pace in projections for the 2026 budget for the NOAA, the parent organization of the NWS.”
But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose agency oversees NOAA, testified before Congress on June 5 that the cuts wouldn’t be a problem because “we are transforming how we track storms and forecast weather with cutting-edge technology. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched.” Apparently the “cutting edge technology” hasn’t arrived yet.
And now presumably FEMA will be called upon to help pick up the pieces of shattered lives in Texas – an agency that Trump said repeatedly that he wants to abolish. In fact, Trump’s first FEMA director Cameron Hamilton was fired one day after he testified before Congress that FEMA should not be abolished.
Filipkowski notes that so far the “president” has had nothing to say about the tragedy in Texas.
In April, Abraham Lutgarten of ProPublica warned about the danger of gutting U.S. weather services: White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On.
Over the past two months, the Trump administration has taken steps to eliminate regulations addressing climate change, pull back funding for climate programs and cancel methods used to evaluate how climate change is affecting American society and its economy. Now it is directly undermining the science and research of climate change itself, in ways that some of the nation’s most distinguished scientists say will have dangerous consequences.
Proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency whose weather and climate research touches almost every facet of American life, are targeting a 57-year-old partnership between Princeton University and the U.S. government that produces what many consider the world’s most advanced climate modeling and forecasting systems. NOAA’s work extends deep into the heart of the American economy — businesses use it to navigate risk and find opportunity — and it undergirds both American defense and geopolitical planning. The possible elimination of the lab, called the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, in concert with potential cuts to other NOAA operations, threatens irreparable harm not only to global understanding of climate change and long-range scenarios for the planet but to the country’s safety, competitiveness and national security.
The gutting of NOAA was outlined earlier this month in a leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget that detailed steep reductions at the Department of Commerce, which houses the science agency. The memo, which was viewed by ProPublica, has been previously reported. But the full implications of those cuts for the nation’s ability to accurately interpret dynamic changes in the planet’s weather and to predict long-term warming scenarios through its modeling arm in Princeton have not.
According to the document, NOAA’s overall funding would be slashed by 27%, eliminating “functions of the Department that are misaligned with the President’s agenda and the expressed will of the American people” including almost all of those related to the study of climate change. The proposal would break up and significantly defund the agency across programs, curtailing everything from ocean research to coastal management while shifting one of NOAA’s robust satellite programs out of the agency and putting another up for commercial bidding. But its most significant target is the office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research ⎯ a nerve center of global climate science, data collection and modeling, including the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory ⎯ which would be cut by 74%. “At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office,” the memo stated.
A bit more:
The total loss of OAR and its crown jewel in Princeton represents a setback for climate preparedness that experts warn the nation may never recover from.
“If we don’t understand what’s happening and why it’s happening, you can’t be adapting, you can’t be resilient. You’re just going to suffer,” Don Wuebbles, an atmospheric scientist who sits on NOAA’s scientific advisory board, told ProPublica. “We’re going to see huge impacts on infrastructure and lives lost in the U.S.”
By Jo Potocki
There are other national climate models, but they also appear to be in jeopardy of losing funding. The National Science Foundation supports the National Center for Atmospheric Research, but the foundation announced it was freezing all research grants on April 18. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has a model, but the institute could see cuts of up to 47%. And the Department of Energy, home to a fourth climate modeling system, is also under budget pressure.
Without the models, and all the sensor networks and supporting NOAA research programs that feed them, “We’ll go back to the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s,” said Craig McLean, a 40-year veteran of NOAA who, until 2022, was the agency’s top administrator for research and its acting chief scientist. “We won’t have the tools we have today because we can’t populate them by people or by data.” [….]
Princeton and NOAA together built America’s global supremacy in weather and climate science over generations. After World War II, the United States refocused its scientific superiority ⎯ and its early computing capabilities ⎯ on understanding how the weather and the planet works. The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory was established in 1955 and moved to Princeton in 1968. Under NOAA, which was established by President Richard Nixon in 1970, the lab advanced early forecasting, using sensors in the oceans and the sky. It developed theories for how fluids and gases interact and came to understand that the oceans and the atmosphere drive weather ⎯ what today has become known as climate science.
The GFDL’s models, including the first hurricane model, became the basis for both short-term weather outlooks and longer-range forecasts, or climate prediction, which soon became one and the same. Those models now form the underlying modeling architecture of many of NOAA’s other departments, including the forecasts from the National Weather Service. The GFDL has trained many of the world’s best climate scientists, who are leading the most prestigious research in Japan, the U.K. and Germany, and in 2021 an alumnus of its staff won the Nobel Prize in physics. The U.S. agencies periodically run their models in competition, and last time they did, the GFDL’s models came out ahead. The lab is “the best that there is,” McLean said. “It’s really a stunningly impressive and accomplished place. It is a gem. It is the gem.”
But to Trump, tax cuts for billionaires who don’t need them are more important than predicting weather disasters.
With the passage and signing of Trump’s big ugly bill, we are soon going to be dealing with even worse horrors than bad weather. With the funds allocated to ICE in the bill, Trump plans to create a U.S. police state and a concentration camp system. I wonder, did the Republicans include funds for boxcars in the bill?
Trump’s coming police state and his war on citizens:
Josh Kovensky at Talking Points Memo: Congress Throws More Money at Removing Immigrants than Most Countries Spend on Their Armies.
It’s hard to convey just how big the new budget makes the country’s immigration enforcement infrastructure.
The Bureau of Prisons? Bigger than that. The FBI? Bigger. The Marine Corps? Bigger even than that, by some estimates.
All in all, the bill directs around $170 billion through 2029 to various forms of immigration enforcement, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council and TPM’s own read of the legislation. ICE, responsible for enforcement, detentions, and removals, will oversee much of the spending.
The picture is not so much of an expanded immigration enforcement system, but of an entirely new one.
“It’s going to get really scary,” Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, told TPM. “I do think that we are in a place where the Trump administration is centering a lot of the law enforcement authority of the federal government into the Department of Homeland Security.”
The bill gives ICE $29.8 billion to hire new staff and conduct deportations. That will lead to a hiring spurt of deportation officers; an additional $4.1 billion bump goes to Customs and Border Protection for new personnel….
We’re Listening, by Elisheva Nesis
For immigration detention, also overseen by ICE, the bill allocates a whopping $45 billion.
If that’s not enough, there’s more: Remember the wall? It was Trump’s big immigration-related promise during the 2016 campaign. It didn’t get built during his first term (and Mexico never paid for it, as Trump promised). Congress allocated $46.5 billion for its construction in this legislation. (A Senate source tells TPM that this, too, was drafted in such a way as to be fungible, so it could be used for building detention facilities as well.)
It’s a headspinning increase from ICE’s 2024 funding, that, per a recent CRS report, stood at $9.9 billion.
At the same time, the bill adds only a modest number of immigration judges, capping the number at 800 starting in November 2028 — an increase from the current approximately 700.
Read the rest at TPM.
A guest essay at The New York Times by Greg Grandin, Professor History at Yale (gift link): Trump Is Waging War on His Own Citizens.
Use the gift link to read learn about the history of the use of “America” to refer to the United States, as well as the notion of internationalism in the U.S.No president in the history of the Republic has used the word “America” as effectively as Donald Trump — not as a symbol to invoke unity but as kerosene to keep the home fires of our culture wars burning.
America, America: Make it great. It already is great. Keep it great. America must. America will. America First. “America,” said Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff and the driver of much of his nativist domestic policy, “is for Americans and Americans only.”
But what does it mean to be an American if armed, masked men can sweep anybody, citizen or not, off the street, forcing people into unmarked S.U.V.s — to be, if Mr. Trump has his way, disappeared to remote Louisiana or taken to a prison camp in El Salvador?
Mr. Trump and operatives like Mr. Miller are waging a war not only on migrants but also on the concept of citizenship. According to one report, Immigration and Customs Enforcement expelled as many as 66 citizens during Mr. Trump’s first term, and now he has issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship. His government is exiling children who were born in the United States, including a 4-year-old boy with late-stage cancer. The Justice Department says it is “prioritizing denaturalization,” establishing a framework to revoke citizenship from naturalized citizens the White House deems undesirable.
Vice President JD Vance admits the expansion of ICE is the mainspring of the White House’s agenda. In a series of social media posts, he pushed back against worries about the president’s signature reconciliation bill. Nothing else in the bill mattered, he said — not debt, not Medicaid cuts — compared to securing “ICE money.” Now, the agency — which already acts like a secret police — will have an additional $75 billion to build detention centers, hire new agents and supercharge its operations.
Mr. Trump’s war on citizenship goes hand in hand with his politicization of the name of America, and though the first is unprecedented in its intensity, the second taps into a long, well, American tradition, one as old as the nation itself.
Alligator Alkatraz and Trump’s dream of a concentration camp system:
The Washington Post: Heat, storms, mosquitos the big threats at Alligator Alcatraz, experts say.
The hastily constructed detention camp in the Everglades that began processing immigrant detainees late this week has already flooded once, may not meet hurricane codes and is not officially approved or funded by the federal government.
Experts say detainees and staff will face far more common hazards than the swampland terrors gleefully envisioned by state and national Republicans to discourage escapes. Mosquitoes and hurricanes are more likely to harm the expected 3,000-plus detainees and 100-member staff than are alligators and Burmese pythons.
With a cat by Galya Didur (2024)
“The risk of mosquito-borne disease at this site is significant,” said Durland Fish, a professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale University School of Public Health. And the viruses detected during a mosquitos study he conducted in the Everglades — including at Big Cypress Swamp, where the detention center is located — can cause neurological damage, including encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain.
“There’s no treatment for these,” Fish said….
The facility, which includes large tents over cells erected with chain-link fencing, portable showers and portable toilets, was put together in eight days. State lawmakers who have spoken about it say that work was done secretly, after they had ended their annual legislative session.
The camp is located on an infrequently used airfield in the heart of the protected Everglades. Before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) commandeered it, the site consisted of a long runway built in the late 1960s as an initial stage in a project intended to create a mega-airport. But environmentalists and Indigenous tribes successfully fought back, and the area, surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve and next door to Everglades National Park, is now part of an ongoing $25 billion Everglades restoration project.
Trump views the location as a plus for his crackdown with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland, and the only way out is really deportation,” he said.
And state officials are defending their rapid construction of the facility and its “soft-sided” cells — some of which started to flood during Trump’s visit, as seen in videos shot by local media. According to the state’s emergency management director, Kevin Guthrie, the 158,000 square feet of housing is “a fully aluminum frame structure rated for winds of 110 miles an hour,” the top-end equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane. He said Wednesday that the department has an evacuation plan in case a major storm threatens but released no details.
Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, at MSNBC: Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a concentration camp.
For many Americans, the word “concentration camp” evokes another country, a time long ago and a facility operating in the dark of night, away from the prying eyes of an outraged public. But a new concentration camp opened in Florida’s Everglades this week, and it’s the opposite of a secret.
President Donald Trump toured the facility with reporters in tow. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials posed with him, laughing in front of cages meant for human beings. The Florida Republican Party launched merchandise and gave the camp a nickname, “Alligator Alc
atraz,” that the state made official.
But it’s not just a new prison, Alcatraz or otherwise. I visited four continents to write a global history of concentration camps. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model: mass civilian detention without real trials targeting vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed. And its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.
This camp stands apart from other immigration detention facilities for a few reasons. First, its projected capacity of 5,000 beds is several times the average detention center (though Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking at even larger facilities). Its improvised tents and chain-link cages put detainees on display reminiscent of El Salvador’s CECOT prison. And it is billed as a “temporary” camp, with the theory being that the administration can seamlessly process massive numbers of detainees with rapid-fire judicial hearings by National Guard members-turned-immigration judges. In practice, this is unlikely to go smoothly.
By Marie Laurencin
While concentration camps have historical roots in earlier forms of mass detention, they themselves are modern. The patenting and mass production of barbed wire and automatic weapons over a century ago made it possible to detain large groups with a small guard force for the first time.
At the turn of the twentieth century, imperial powers such as Spain and Britain set up concentration camps in colonial regions. The camps had staggering death tolls that made early systems unpopular. But World War I led to a revival of the concept, with nearly a million people detained globally. The wartime camps paved the way for similar systems after the conflict ended, such asthe Soviet Gulag and the detention of homeless people in multiple countries.
Those were all in place before the Nazis came to power, so Hitler’s camps aren’t the lone precedent for the Everglades project. But even the extreme case of Germany offers disturbing parallels — and not just because the Nazis also allowed reporters to tour their camps.
Please click the MSNBC link and read the rest.
One more from Timothy Snyder at his Substack: Concentration Camp Labor Cannot Become Normal.
With the passage of Trump’s death bill, we face the prospect of many great harms, including an archipelago of concentration camps across the United States.
Concentration camps are sites of tempting slave labor. Among many other aims, the Soviets used concentration camp labor to build canals and work mines. The Nazi German concentration camp system followed a capitalist version of the same logic: it drew in businesses with the prospect of inexpensive labor.
We know this and have no excuse not to act.
What happens next in the U.S.? Workers who are presented as “undocumented” will be taken to the camps. Perhaps they will work in the camps themselves, as slaves to government projects. But more likely they will be offered to American companies on special terms: a one-time payment to the government, for example, with no need for wages or benefits. In the simplest version, and perhaps the most likely, detained people will be offered back to the companies for which they were just working. Their stay in the concentration camp will be presented as a purge or a legalization for which companies should be grateful. Trump has already said that this is the idea, calling it “owner responsibility.”
We should remember what drew I.G Farben into Auschwitz: profit. But there are of course precedents for extreme exploitation in American history, including but not limited to the history of chattel slavery. And slavery is not entirely illegal in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment allows slavery if only as punishment for a crime. The people described as “undocumented” or “denaturalized” (and other categories sure to be invented soon) are portrayed as criminals.
If the Trump regime tries to enslave such people on a large scale, there will be a court case. But waiting for the Supreme Court to do the right thing is, to put it gently, no substitute for action. It would be good if there were explicit legislation banning slave labor in all circumstances. But such a law is unlikely without a movement behind it.
The government is putting before us the temptation to cooperate in fascist dehumanization on a grand scale. But that does not mean we must do so. This is an area where actions by individuals, by civil society, by the professions, and by companies can be decisive.
Again, please follow the link and read the rest.
That’s it for me today. I know this is scary stuff, but it’s becoming real now. We are in the midst of fascist takeover. I was shocked to hear Rachel Maddow say those words last night on MSNBC, but that made it more read for. This is really happening, and we have to fight it in every way we can.
Take care everyone. I love you all.
#CampMystic #climateModeling #concentrationCamps #fascistTakeover #FEMA #ICE #NationalOceanicAndAtmosphericAdministration #NationalWeatherService #NOAA #NWS #policeState #slaveLabor #TexasFloods #weatherEmergencies
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump’s War on Americans
Good Morning!!
Patrice Preveirault, Le Pastel
It’s just the beginning of the storm season, and we are beginning to see the damage from Trump/DOGE cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There’s a terrible tragedy playing out in the Texas hill country right now.
The Texas Tribune: Death toll from Hill Country flash floods rises to 24 as rescue efforts continue.
State officials said Friday night that at least 24 people have died in the catastrophic flood that swept through Kerr County early Friday morning, and 23 girls from Camp Mystic, a private Christian girls’ camp, are still unaccounted for.
In a news conference in Kerrville, Gov. Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration, which allows numerous counties affected by the floods to get the state resources needed to help with ongoing search-and-rescue efforts.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said one other person was found dead in nearby Kendall County but it’s unclear if that person was a flood victim.
Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said local officials were caught off guard by the volume of rain, adding that the National Weather Service advisory issued Thursday “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”
Gen. Thomas Suelzer, the head of the Texas Military Department, said 237 people have been rescued and evacuated so far. Officials said they couldn’t provide the number of people who are unaccounted for, but they include the 23 girls from Camp Mystic.
In an earlier press conference Friday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the dead include adults and children, and some were found in cars “that were washed out upstream.” He said officials aren’t sure whether any of the bodies were children from Camp Mystic, and stressed that the campers are only considered missing at this point….
As much as 10 inches of heavy rain fell in just a few hours overnight in central Kerr County, causing flash flooding of the Guadalupe River. Patrick said the river, which winds through Kerr County in Central Texas, rose 26 feet in 45 minutes during torrential rains overnight.
Were there warnings this was coming?
A flood watch issued Thursday afternoon estimated isolated amounts up to 7 inches of rising water. That shifted to a flood warning for at least 30,000 people overnight.
According to the National Weather Service website, the flash flood watch, which included Kerr County, was issued at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. Nearly 12 hours later, a “life threatening” flash flood warning was issued at 1:14 a.m., according to the website.
When asked about the suddenness of the flash flooding overnight, Kelly said “we do not have a warning system” and that “we didn’t know this flood was coming,” even as local reporters pointed to the warnings and pushed him for answers about why more precautions weren’t taken.
“Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming,” he said. “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.”
There’s much more at the link.
The New York Times has live updates on the tragedy: Death Toll in Texas Flood Rises to at Least 24, With as Many as 25 Missing.
Here’s the latest:
Search and rescue teams were working throughout the night in Central Texas after flooding that began early Friday swept through a summer camp and homes, killing at least 24 people and leaving as many as 25 girls missing from the camp.
The girls were at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, in Kerr County, according to the county sheriff. Desperate parents posted photos of their children online, seeking any information, and others went to reunification centers to try to find missing loved ones. An unknown number of other people were also missing, Kerr County said in an update on Friday night, citing the sheriff, Larry Leitha.
By Katya Vigovskaya
The deadly flooding surprised many, including Texas officials, who said that some National Weather Service alerts had underestimated the risks. The most urgent alerts came in overnight, in the early hours of Friday.
Hundreds of emergency personnel were searching for stranded people. The Texas National Guard made 237 rescues and evacuations using helicopters and rescue swimmers, Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the guard’s commander, said at a news conference Friday evening.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration encompassing 15 counties in Central Texas. The declaration will expedite state funding for the areas that experienced significant damage.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said earlier in the day that Camp Mystic was contacting the parents of campers who remained unaccounted for. He said that parents with children who had not heard from camp officials should assume their children were safe. The camp has some 750 campers, he said.
Ron Filipkowski at Meidas: Texas Officials Blame Agency Gutted by Trump for Results of Deadly Storm.
As the best and the brightest were being fired at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by senseless and draconian ‘DOGE’ cuts earlier this year under Trump, with no reason given except for the need to cut a paltry amount of the government’s budget, experts warned repeatedly that the cuts would have deadly consequences during the storm season. And they have.
Dozens and dozens of stories have been written in the media citing hundreds of experts which said that weather forecasting was never going to be the same, and that inaccurate forecasts were going to lead to fewer evacuations, impaired preparedness of first responders, and deadly consequences. I quoted many of them in my daily Bulletins and wrote about this issue nearly 20 different times.
And the chickens have come home to roost. Hundreds of people have already been killed across the US in a variety of storms including deadly tornadoes – many of which were inaccurately forecasted. And we are just entering peak hurricane season. Meteorologist Chris Vagasky posted earlier this spring on social media: “The world’s example for weather services is being destroyed.”
Now, after severe flooding in non-evacuated areas in Texas has left at least 24 dead with dozens more missing, including several young girls at a summer camp, Texas officials are blaming their failure to act on a faulty forecast by Donald Trump’s new National Weather Service gutted by cuts to their operating budget and most experienced personnel.
Forewarnings:
Reuters published a story just a few days ago, one of many warning about this problem: “In May, every living former director of the NWS signed on to an open letter with a warning that, if continued, Trump’s cuts to federal weather forecasting would create ‘needless loss of life’. Despite bipartisan congressional pushback for a restoration in staffing and funding to the NWS, sharp budget cuts remain on pace in projections for the 2026 budget for the NOAA, the parent organization of the NWS.”
But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose agency oversees NOAA, testified before Congress on June 5 that the cuts wouldn’t be a problem because “we are transforming how we track storms and forecast weather with cutting-edge technology. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched.” Apparently the “cutting edge technology” hasn’t arrived yet.
And now presumably FEMA will be called upon to help pick up the pieces of shattered lives in Texas – an agency that Trump said repeatedly that he wants to abolish. In fact, Trump’s first FEMA director Cameron Hamilton was fired one day after he testified before Congress that FEMA should not be abolished.
Filipkowski notes that so far the “president” has had nothing to say about the tragedy in Texas.
In April, Abraham Lutgarten of ProPublica warned about the danger of gutting U.S. weather services: White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On.
Over the past two months, the Trump administration has taken steps to eliminate regulations addressing climate change, pull back funding for climate programs and cancel methods used to evaluate how climate change is affecting American society and its economy. Now it is directly undermining the science and research of climate change itself, in ways that some of the nation’s most distinguished scientists say will have dangerous consequences.
Proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency whose weather and climate research touches almost every facet of American life, are targeting a 57-year-old partnership between Princeton University and the U.S. government that produces what many consider the world’s most advanced climate modeling and forecasting systems. NOAA’s work extends deep into the heart of the American economy — businesses use it to navigate risk and find opportunity — and it undergirds both American defense and geopolitical planning. The possible elimination of the lab, called the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, in concert with potential cuts to other NOAA operations, threatens irreparable harm not only to global understanding of climate change and long-range scenarios for the planet but to the country’s safety, competitiveness and national security.
The gutting of NOAA was outlined earlier this month in a leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget that detailed steep reductions at the Department of Commerce, which houses the science agency. The memo, which was viewed by ProPublica, has been previously reported. But the full implications of those cuts for the nation’s ability to accurately interpret dynamic changes in the planet’s weather and to predict long-term warming scenarios through its modeling arm in Princeton have not.
According to the document, NOAA’s overall funding would be slashed by 27%, eliminating “functions of the Department that are misaligned with the President’s agenda and the expressed will of the American people” including almost all of those related to the study of climate change. The proposal would break up and significantly defund the agency across programs, curtailing everything from ocean research to coastal management while shifting one of NOAA’s robust satellite programs out of the agency and putting another up for commercial bidding. But its most significant target is the office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research ⎯ a nerve center of global climate science, data collection and modeling, including the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory ⎯ which would be cut by 74%. “At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office,” the memo stated.
A bit more:
The total loss of OAR and its crown jewel in Princeton represents a setback for climate preparedness that experts warn the nation may never recover from.
“If we don’t understand what’s happening and why it’s happening, you can’t be adapting, you can’t be resilient. You’re just going to suffer,” Don Wuebbles, an atmospheric scientist who sits on NOAA’s scientific advisory board, told ProPublica. “We’re going to see huge impacts on infrastructure and lives lost in the U.S.”
By Jo Potocki
There are other national climate models, but they also appear to be in jeopardy of losing funding. The National Science Foundation supports the National Center for Atmospheric Research, but the foundation announced it was freezing all research grants on April 18. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has a model, but the institute could see cuts of up to 47%. And the Department of Energy, home to a fourth climate modeling system, is also under budget pressure.
Without the models, and all the sensor networks and supporting NOAA research programs that feed them, “We’ll go back to the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s,” said Craig McLean, a 40-year veteran of NOAA who, until 2022, was the agency’s top administrator for research and its acting chief scientist. “We won’t have the tools we have today because we can’t populate them by people or by data.” [….]
Princeton and NOAA together built America’s global supremacy in weather and climate science over generations. After World War II, the United States refocused its scientific superiority ⎯ and its early computing capabilities ⎯ on understanding how the weather and the planet works. The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory was established in 1955 and moved to Princeton in 1968. Under NOAA, which was established by President Richard Nixon in 1970, the lab advanced early forecasting, using sensors in the oceans and the sky. It developed theories for how fluids and gases interact and came to understand that the oceans and the atmosphere drive weather ⎯ what today has become known as climate science.
The GFDL’s models, including the first hurricane model, became the basis for both short-term weather outlooks and longer-range forecasts, or climate prediction, which soon became one and the same. Those models now form the underlying modeling architecture of many of NOAA’s other departments, including the forecasts from the National Weather Service. The GFDL has trained many of the world’s best climate scientists, who are leading the most prestigious research in Japan, the U.K. and Germany, and in 2021 an alumnus of its staff won the Nobel Prize in physics. The U.S. agencies periodically run their models in competition, and last time they did, the GFDL’s models came out ahead. The lab is “the best that there is,” McLean said. “It’s really a stunningly impressive and accomplished place. It is a gem. It is the gem.”
But to Trump, tax cuts for billionaires who don’t need them are more important than predicting weather disasters.
With the passage and signing of Trump’s big ugly bill, we are soon going to be dealing with even worse horrors than bad weather. With the funds allocated to ICE in the bill, Trump plans to create a U.S. police state and a concentration camp system. I wonder, did the Republicans include funds for boxcars in the bill?
Trump’s coming police state and his war on citizens:
Josh Kovensky at Talking Points Memo: Congress Throws More Money at Removing Immigrants than Most Countries Spend on Their Armies.
It’s hard to convey just how big the new budget makes the country’s immigration enforcement infrastructure.
The Bureau of Prisons? Bigger than that. The FBI? Bigger. The Marine Corps? Bigger even than that, by some estimates.
All in all, the bill directs around $170 billion through 2029 to various forms of immigration enforcement, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council and TPM’s own read of the legislation. ICE, responsible for enforcement, detentions, and removals, will oversee much of the spending.
The picture is not so much of an expanded immigration enforcement system, but of an entirely new one.
“It’s going to get really scary,” Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, told TPM. “I do think that we are in a place where the Trump administration is centering a lot of the law enforcement authority of the federal government into the Department of Homeland Security.”
The bill gives ICE $29.8 billion to hire new staff and conduct deportations. That will lead to a hiring spurt of deportation officers; an additional $4.1 billion bump goes to Customs and Border Protection for new personnel….
We’re Listening, by Elisheva Nesis
For immigration detention, also overseen by ICE, the bill allocates a whopping $45 billion.
If that’s not enough, there’s more: Remember the wall? It was Trump’s big immigration-related promise during the 2016 campaign. It didn’t get built during his first term (and Mexico never paid for it, as Trump promised). Congress allocated $46.5 billion for its construction in this legislation. (A Senate source tells TPM that this, too, was drafted in such a way as to be fungible, so it could be used for building detention facilities as well.)
It’s a headspinning increase from ICE’s 2024 funding, that, per a recent CRS report, stood at $9.9 billion.
At the same time, the bill adds only a modest number of immigration judges, capping the number at 800 starting in November 2028 — an increase from the current approximately 700.
Read the rest at TPM.
A guest essay at The New York Times by Greg Grandin, Professor History at Yale (gift link): Trump Is Waging War on His Own Citizens.
Use the gift link to read learn about the history of the use of “America” to refer to the United States, as well as the notion of internationalism in the U.S.No president in the history of the Republic has used the word “America” as effectively as Donald Trump — not as a symbol to invoke unity but as kerosene to keep the home fires of our culture wars burning.
America, America: Make it great. It already is great. Keep it great. America must. America will. America First. “America,” said Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff and the driver of much of his nativist domestic policy, “is for Americans and Americans only.”
But what does it mean to be an American if armed, masked men can sweep anybody, citizen or not, off the street, forcing people into unmarked S.U.V.s — to be, if Mr. Trump has his way, disappeared to remote Louisiana or taken to a prison camp in El Salvador?
Mr. Trump and operatives like Mr. Miller are waging a war not only on migrants but also on the concept of citizenship. According to one report, Immigration and Customs Enforcement expelled as many as 66 citizens during Mr. Trump’s first term, and now he has issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship. His government is exiling children who were born in the United States, including a 4-year-old boy with late-stage cancer. The Justice Department says it is “prioritizing denaturalization,” establishing a framework to revoke citizenship from naturalized citizens the White House deems undesirable.
Vice President JD Vance admits the expansion of ICE is the mainspring of the White House’s agenda. In a series of social media posts, he pushed back against worries about the president’s signature reconciliation bill. Nothing else in the bill mattered, he said — not debt, not Medicaid cuts — compared to securing “ICE money.” Now, the agency — which already acts like a secret police — will have an additional $75 billion to build detention centers, hire new agents and supercharge its operations.
Mr. Trump’s war on citizenship goes hand in hand with his politicization of the name of America, and though the first is unprecedented in its intensity, the second taps into a long, well, American tradition, one as old as the nation itself.
Alligator Alkatraz and Trump’s dream of a concentration camp system:
The Washington Post: Heat, storms, mosquitos the big threats at Alligator Alcatraz, experts say.
The hastily constructed detention camp in the Everglades that began processing immigrant detainees late this week has already flooded once, may not meet hurricane codes and is not officially approved or funded by the federal government.
Experts say detainees and staff will face far more common hazards than the swampland terrors gleefully envisioned by state and national Republicans to discourage escapes. Mosquitoes and hurricanes are more likely to harm the expected 3,000-plus detainees and 100-member staff than are alligators and Burmese pythons.
With a cat by Galya Didur (2024)
“The risk of mosquito-borne disease at this site is significant,” said Durland Fish, a professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale University School of Public Health. And the viruses detected during a mosquitos study he conducted in the Everglades — including at Big Cypress Swamp, where the detention center is located — can cause neurological damage, including encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain.
“There’s no treatment for these,” Fish said….
The facility, which includes large tents over cells erected with chain-link fencing, portable showers and portable toilets, was put together in eight days. State lawmakers who have spoken about it say that work was done secretly, after they had ended their annual legislative session.
The camp is located on an infrequently used airfield in the heart of the protected Everglades. Before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) commandeered it, the site consisted of a long runway built in the late 1960s as an initial stage in a project intended to create a mega-airport. But environmentalists and Indigenous tribes successfully fought back, and the area, surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve and next door to Everglades National Park, is now part of an ongoing $25 billion Everglades restoration project.
Trump views the location as a plus for his crackdown with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland, and the only way out is really deportation,” he said.
And state officials are defending their rapid construction of the facility and its “soft-sided” cells — some of which started to flood during Trump’s visit, as seen in videos shot by local media. According to the state’s emergency management director, Kevin Guthrie, the 158,000 square feet of housing is “a fully aluminum frame structure rated for winds of 110 miles an hour,” the top-end equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane. He said Wednesday that the department has an evacuation plan in case a major storm threatens but released no details.
Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, at MSNBC: Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a concentration camp.
For many Americans, the word “concentration camp” evokes another country, a time long ago and a facility operating in the dark of night, away from the prying eyes of an outraged public. But a new concentration camp opened in Florida’s Everglades this week, and it’s the opposite of a secret.
President Donald Trump toured the facility with reporters in tow. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials posed with him, laughing in front of cages meant for human beings. The Florida Republican Party launched merchandise and gave the camp a nickname, “Alligator Alc
atraz,” that the state made official.
But it’s not just a new prison, Alcatraz or otherwise. I visited four continents to write a global history of concentration camps. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model: mass civilian detention without real trials targeting vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed. And its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.
This camp stands apart from other immigration detention facilities for a few reasons. First, its projected capacity of 5,000 beds is several times the average detention center (though Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking at even larger facilities). Its improvised tents and chain-link cages put detainees on display reminiscent of El Salvador’s CECOT prison. And it is billed as a “temporary” camp, with the theory being that the administration can seamlessly process massive numbers of detainees with rapid-fire judicial hearings by National Guard members-turned-immigration judges. In practice, this is unlikely to go smoothly.
By Marie Laurencin
While concentration camps have historical roots in earlier forms of mass detention, they themselves are modern. The patenting and mass production of barbed wire and automatic weapons over a century ago made it possible to detain large groups with a small guard force for the first time.
At the turn of the twentieth century, imperial powers such as Spain and Britain set up concentration camps in colonial regions. The camps had staggering death tolls that made early systems unpopular. But World War I led to a revival of the concept, with nearly a million people detained globally. The wartime camps paved the way for similar systems after the conflict ended, such asthe Soviet Gulag and the detention of homeless people in multiple countries.
Those were all in place before the Nazis came to power, so Hitler’s camps aren’t the lone precedent for the Everglades project. But even the extreme case of Germany offers disturbing parallels — and not just because the Nazis also allowed reporters to tour their camps.
Please click the MSNBC link and read the rest.
One more from Timothy Snyder at his Substack: Concentration Camp Labor Cannot Become Normal.
With the passage of Trump’s death bill, we face the prospect of many great harms, including an archipelago of concentration camps across the United States.
Concentration camps are sites of tempting slave labor. Among many other aims, the Soviets used concentration camp labor to build canals and work mines. The Nazi German concentration camp system followed a capitalist version of the same logic: it drew in businesses with the prospect of inexpensive labor.
We know this and have no excuse not to act.
What happens next in the U.S.? Workers who are presented as “undocumented” will be taken to the camps. Perhaps they will work in the camps themselves, as slaves to government projects. But more likely they will be offered to American companies on special terms: a one-time payment to the government, for example, with no need for wages or benefits. In the simplest version, and perhaps the most likely, detained people will be offered back to the companies for which they were just working. Their stay in the concentration camp will be presented as a purge or a legalization for which companies should be grateful. Trump has already said that this is the idea, calling it “owner responsibility.”
We should remember what drew I.G Farben into Auschwitz: profit. But there are of course precedents for extreme exploitation in American history, including but not limited to the history of chattel slavery. And slavery is not entirely illegal in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment allows slavery if only as punishment for a crime. The people described as “undocumented” or “denaturalized” (and other categories sure to be invented soon) are portrayed as criminals.
If the Trump regime tries to enslave such people on a large scale, there will be a court case. But waiting for the Supreme Court to do the right thing is, to put it gently, no substitute for action. It would be good if there were explicit legislation banning slave labor in all circumstances. But such a law is unlikely without a movement behind it.
The government is putting before us the temptation to cooperate in fascist dehumanization on a grand scale. But that does not mean we must do so. This is an area where actions by individuals, by civil society, by the professions, and by companies can be decisive.
Again, please follow the link and read the rest.
That’s it for me today. I know this is scary stuff, but it’s becoming real now. We are in the midst of fascist takeover. I was shocked to hear Rachel Maddow say those words last night on MSNBC, but that made it more read for. This is really happening, and we have to fight it in every way we can.
Take care everyone. I love you all.
#CampMystic #climateModeling #concentrationCamps #fascistTakeover #FEMA #ICE #NationalOceanicAndAtmosphericAdministration #NationalWeatherService #NOAA #NWS #policeState #slaveLabor #TexasFloods #weatherEmergencies
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Marvelous Market: Best New Comics August 19
All the comics fit to print, and several others too
Hello and welcome to the Marvelous Market, my weekly guide for anyone interested in going to a comic book store today. In addition to a full list of new # 1s and new volume 1s, I’ll be giving you my top 4 recommendations in 4 categories. Like Houston legend Mike Jones rapped, “We’re still tippin’ on four-fours.” I’m going to give you the top four new comics, top four ongoing comics, the top four graphic novels, and the top 4 preorders.
The work going into this curation is made possible by readers like you. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a month, you can help make this work possible.
New Issue # 1s
BUG WARS: THE COMING OF THE WARDOOM # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
The backyard battlefield heats up and it’s even more brutal and bloodier than before.
Superstar creators JASON AARON & MAHMUD ASRAR return to the savage suburban epic that feeds Honey, I Shrunk the Kids through a war grinder and marinates it in Conan-flavored myth and mayhem.
Six months after the Yard ran red with insect blood, uneasy peace is shattered as ancient enemies rise from the Woods, corporate extermination forces close in, and Slade Slaymaker is dragged back into a brutal world where roach knights ride, squirrel armies gather, and survival means choosing your side in a war no human was meant to fight.
Welcome back to BUG WARS: THE COMING OF THE WARDOOM.
THE LAST DRIVER # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
AMERICA, THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE — NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO DRIVE…EXCEPT FOR HIM!
As technology in America advanced, cities began creating the GRID — a robotic transportation system that not only made cars obsolete, it made them illegal. But an outlaw named “Clutch” has no choice but to get behind the wheel one more time. What starts out as a race to save his granddaughter’s life quickly turns into a rebellion against technology, fascism, and the future of a divided America.
Superstar artist and longtime gearhead SEAN GORDON MURPHY (Batman: White Knight, TOKYO GHOST, Punk Rock Jesus, The Wake) writes and draws this highly anticipated ongoing series.
SHELLSHOCK # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
NEW WARS! NEW SOLDIERS! SAME OLD PRICE TO PAY… Kiss your rifle and swallow your fear, because EC Comics is rotating back into combat for the 21st century’s first dose of two-fisted fury with staggering new tales of war and fighting men in our next giant-sized special!
Meet mankind’s greatest enemy of all — himself — as commanding writers Julio Anta (This Land Is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story), John Arcudi (B.P.R.D.), Benito Cereno (Invincible Presents: Atom Eve), and Michael W. Conrad (Double Walker) lead a joint campaign alongside artistic bombardiers Tom Fowler (EC’s Catacomb of Torment), David Lapham (Stray Bullets), Albert Monteys (Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novel), and Shawn Martinbrough (Thief of Thieves) that will always bring enemy and ally, private and general, to the same reward in the end: a flag-draped casket and glory posthumously conferred. Plus: This 56-page testament to fortitude also features another all-time EC classic, painstakingly remastered and restored!
You’ve warmed yourselves by the pyres of SHIVER SUSPENSTORIES… You’ve grabbed OUTLAW SHOWDOWN by both red-hot barrels… And you’ve felt the poison touch of TORTURED HEARTS. But nothing can prepare you for what awaits — or who you will become — when you finally reach the front line. Here, there can be no peace — only SHELLSHOCK!
WHAT IF…? RUNAWAYS # 1
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WHAT IF… THE RUNAWAYS HADN’T RUN AWAY?
Every year, a group of philanthropists gather for a charitable fundraiser… or so their children Alex Wilder, Chase Stein, Gertrude Yorkes, Karolina Dean, Molly Hayes and Nico Minoru thought. When they discover their parents form the Pride, a sinister, sacrificial group that answers to a godly race called the Gibborim , the teens are terrified, shocked and… intrigued? Their destiny awaits, and there’s no running away.
ONGOING SERIES
ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW # 4
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BORN ON A MONDAY… RISES ABSOLUTE SOLOMON GRUNDY! Dinah’s search for the Green Arrow Killer has led them both to discover the truth behind the Island — a place far more horrifying than either of them could ever dream. But most disturbing of all is who they discover there — as Absolute Green Arrow debuts the first appearance of a new Absolute take on a classic DC character.
G.I. JOE # 25
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IT HAD TO HAPPEN: G.I. JOE VS. NIGHT FORCE!
Everything has been leading to this EXTRA-SIZED landmark issue as Joe battles Joe, friends become enemies, and the chart-topping team of JOSHUA WILLIAMSON and TOM REILLY kick off the biggest G.I. JOE story in Energon Universe history!
KAYA # 36
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The Great Oracle calculates her next move as Jin and his companions march ever closer to their confrontation with her. While far to the south, KAYA believes she may have found a new family…
THOR #800
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AN ASGARDIAN MILESTONE: THOR #800!
The Serpent has trapped Sigurd Jarlson in the worst of all possible worlds for his greatest trial. Now, without even a weapon in his hand, he must prove himself worthy to enter the Realms of the Gods. Somewhere in the city, a man without even a hammer begins the ultimate quest… the quest for Thor!
Plus: Bonus stories, including a thrilling new tale by Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine) & Jesse Lonergan (Drome)!
Trade Paperbacks, Hardcovers, and OGNs
ASSORTED CRISIS EVENTS vol. 2 TP
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The second volume in the action-packed series following normal people navigating an alternate world where time is having a crisis, and just stepping outside your door can send you on an unexpected adventure.
Time is (still) having a crisis!
In this volume, Sasha struggles with her role as caretaker for her husband as he slips through time, Tom tries to live in a world where dead bodies with his face and finger prints keep appearing, a homeless comic book artist literally falls into the gutters, and a look into the temporal gig economy.
The hit series returns with more sad, beautiful, experimental, funny, gory stories of people and time in crisis!
Collects issues #6-9.
EXQUISITE CORPSES vol. 3 TP
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Trick-or-treating. Clocking in for your shift at work. Going to the annual Halloween party down at the Pit. For the citizens of Oak Valley, Maine, any one of these activities could spell a gruesome death as twelve of the most dangerous killers in the world turn their sleepy little town into the playing field for a game that will decide the fate of the entire country for years to come.
As the sun begins to rise on the unlucky town chosen as this year’s arena, the last remaining killers gather to determine the winner. But the civilians of Oak Valley have been pushed to their limits, and with nothing left to lose, they’re not going to let the powers-that-be play the game by their rules any longer…
JAMES TYNION IV (THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH) and MICHAEL WALSH (THE SILVER COIN) are joined by TYLER BOSS (YOU’LL DO BAD THINGS), JORDIE BELLAIRE (REDLANDS), CHE GRAYSON (Dark Spaces: Good Deeds), VALENTINE DE LANDRO (BITCH PLANET), MARIANNA IGNAZZI (Catwoman), and GAVIN FULLERTON (THE CLOSET) as they conclude the blood-soaked first season of the groundbreaking horror epic!
Collects EXQUISITE CORPSES #9-13
MEDIEVAL SPAWN TP
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MEDIEVAL SPAWN’S origins have long been shrouded in mystery, but this miniseries finally sheds light on the story of one of the most intriguing Hellspawns. As SIR JON OF YORK, he battles dragons, wizards, and relentless hordes of monsters, carving a bloody legacy throughout history. This exploration promises to captivate fans and newcomers alike, revealing the depth and complexity of a character that has fascinated audiences for years.
Collects MEDIEVAL SPAWN #1-4.
MISS TRUESDALE AND THE RISE OF MAN HC
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Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and artist Jesse Lonergan continue their acclaimed Miss Truesdale saga in this new comics miniseries.
Finally at peace with her past lives, Anum Yassa now must fight to protect the future as a dark force endeavors destroy it.The fate of mankind rests in her hands.
The secretary Miss Truesale turned gladiator Anum Yassa wanders the forest to learn about her lives—past, present, and future. Monster after monster, foe after foe, Anum Yassa fights them off—but something or someone is behind them all. The gladiator-secretary must protect the future of man before a powerful evil can stop mankind’s destiny and replace it with a darker fate—and the evil forces will not be stopped so easily.
Collects Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man #1–#4 and bonus material.
Preorders on Final Order Cutoff
AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE Deluxe Edition HC
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R.I.P. Riverdale! Once in a generation, a story so potent, so powerful, so horrifying rises from the grave to redefine the comics medium’s greatest icons. Enter: The first-ever deluxe collection of Afterlife with Archie — collecting the totality of the groundbreaking, cemetery-shaking comics masterpiece from Harvey Award–winning writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Stephen King’s The Stand: American Nightmare) and Eisner Award–winning artist Francesco Francavilla (Batman: The Black Mirror) that first introduced Riverdale’s teenage icons into a merciless world of ritual magic, undead terror, and survival at any cost!
When a tragic death befalls Jughead Jones’s closest companion, his grief drives him to the doorstep of Sabrina the Teenage Witch… and into the thrall of a dark magic that will soon turn the whole of Riverdale into a ravenous pack of undead zombies fueled by a desire for human flesh. Hunted by the reanimated corpses of their friends and loved ones, can Archie, Betty, Veronica, and the rest of America’s most beloved teenagers battle back by a legion of the dead… and live long enough to stop the entire world from being consumed by the same unholy hunger? Pal vs. pal. Classmate vs. classmate. Living vs. dead. They swore to be friends until the end… but they never expected the end to look quite like this.
This definitive hardcover collection of the riveting and relentless milestone that the New York Times calls “gruesome [and] masterly” re-presents the entirety of the Afterlife with Archie saga—including the never-before-collected issues #6–10—in an oversized format that also features a complete cover gallery and behind-the-scenes materials on the development of Archie Comics’ first all-out horror epic.
Collecting Afterlife with Archie #1–10.
AVENGERS # 1
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IN THE WAKE OF ARMAGEDDON, A NEW TEAM ASSEMBLES… Superstar team Chip Zdarsky & Marco Checchetto reunite for a trailblazing new era of AVENGERS! With the world order completely rewritten after AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON, there comes a day, a day unlike any other, when a new group of Earth’s mightiest heroes find themselves united to avenge the Marvel Universe: Spider-Man, Wolverine, Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Luke Cage and [REDACTED]! The Avengers take center stage once again in the Marvel Universe, and it all starts here. Don’t miss it!
LEGACY #808
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER # 1
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Eisner-winning writer KELLY THOMPSON (Absolute Wonder Woman, Black Widow) and superstar artist STEPHEN BYRNE (Wonder Twins) present a vision of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER you’ve got to read to believe! Featuring the comics debut of a beloved Buffy fan-favorite character!
Into every generation, a slayer is born. And Buffy Summers may have broken the mold. Though Buffy’s powers were varied and great, it was the love and devotion she inspired that was perhaps her greatest power. And when she gave her life to save the world, the people who loved her couldn’t live with that. This is that story.
THREE WORLDS / THREE MOONS: SHIFT # 1
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From the New York Times bestselling and multi-Eisner Award-nominated creator of East of West, The Manhattan Projects, Decorum, and more comes this ambitious, science fiction universe presented by comics titan Jonathan Hickman.
Explore the beginnings of the 3 Worlds/3 Moons Universe in this stunning prestige format comic book written by Jonathan Hickman, with art and colors by Mike del Mundo!
Set generations before the current science cycle, in a time when magic is at its peak and Kaoso is thriving, Syg the White Hart eschews the wishes of his family and the will of the Academy, by hitching a ride on a Vojoganto to the center of the universe — Akva — to understand the cause behind what he believes to be the inevitable collapse of the universe as he knows it. Accompanied by his lifelong friend, an accused heretic named Markus, the two set out to unlock the secrets of life and stop the worlds’ collapse. At the same time, there are forces set out to bring about the inevitable change and reawaken the God Machine of Ordo, thereby kickstarting the beginning of the next science cycle and the downfall of magic. Will Syg and Markus be able to complete their mission, or will their time be cut short by the next cosmic shift?
What did I miss?
If there are some great comics, collected or in single issues, that you think I should be reading, tell me about them! And if you do try out any of these series, let me know how you liked them, or didn’t. This is a safe space for haters. If you enjoy this service, please share this article on social media or tell someone that you know reads comics about it.
Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics”: Alex Seubert. Dustin Commet
Divining Comics is also brought to you by the support of the “Friends of Divining Comics”: Comic Book Herald.
If you would like to add your name to the list of friends, best friends, or best friends forever, support this work for less than the cost of one cup of coffee a month at patreon.com/diviningcomics. You can also leave a one-time tip/buy my zines at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. Or, if you can’t afford to support me financially at this time, simply follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky and share my posts there.
#art #books #ComicBooks #comics #DC #dcComics #fantasticFour #marvel #marvelComics #MarvelousMarket #NewComicDay -
Marvelous Market: Best New Comics July 1
RIP Absolute Martian Manhunter
Hello and welcome to the Marvelous Market, my weekly guide for anyone interested in going to a comic book store today. In addition to a full list of new # 1s and new volume 1s, I’ll be giving you my top 4 recommendations in 4 categories. Like Houston legend Mike Jones rapped, “We’re still tippin’ on four-fours.” I’m going to give you the top four new comics, top four ongoing comics, the top four graphic novels, and the top 4 preorders.
The work going into this curation is made possible by readers like you. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a month, you can help make this work possible.
New Issue # 1s
100 BULLETS: THE US OF ANGER # 1
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HAPPY 250TH, AMERICA. LONO’S BACK. YOU WON’T SURVIVE THE YEAR. Not many people made it out alive from the fall of the Trust in 100 Bullets. Lono did — just barely — and it sent him spiraling on a yearslong international odyssey. His one-time protégé, Loop Hughes, was the only one smart enough to walk away clean. But now tragedy has come knocking on Loop’s door, and the scent of blood has attracted a dangerous stray dog. Lono’s back in the United States, and he’s on the hunt… through a network of good ol ‘ boys and militias, megachurches, millionaires, and madmen. In Brother Lono, Lono unsuccessfully tried to save his own soul; in The US of Anger, he’ll play Satan to a host of demons tempting the United States to sell hers. The multi-Eisner Award-winning team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso has returned to its most famous creation, unleashing a new chapter in Vertigo’s greatest crime saga — told for the first time in stunning black and white!
BEAST OF BORIKEN # 1
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A thrilling new True Weird series from Tiny Onion by co-creators Julio Anta (Frontera; Sí, Se Puede) and Daniel Irizarri (Xino, Cementary Kids Don’t Die) bringing el Chupacabra to life!
In contemporary Puerto Rico, Loli Flores is a fierce activist fighting the overdevelopment of the island by outside investors. When a ground-breaking ceremony is violently interrupted by a supernatural force, Loli discovers that the stories of el Chupacabra are not just echoes from the past, but a brutal protector of generations extending back to the indigenous people of the island. As Loli uncovers the horrors firstand, el Chupacabra is on a parallel path with elemental destruction left in his wake.
This issue includes a haunting True Weird short story by Justin Jordan, Tony Akins and Aditya Bidikar!
THE DOGSITTER # 1
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Heel… sit… stay — for a summer rom-com with bark and bite!
Gemma Monroe should be reveling in her ’20s. Instead, she’s on a leave of absence from veterinarian school to save for rising tuition, stacking shifts at a flower shop and juggling her side gig as a dogsitter. Gemma’s favorite canine client — an Akita with an identity crisis — comes with the most demanding dog-mom: Portia Ross, a high-powered executive with deep pockets who sees Gemma as a pet project of her own. It’s delicate, but Gemma knows that getting her life back on track means this customer is always right. And the policy works… until Gemma locks eyes with the charming Neal Mandell, and what starts as a welcome casual fling unleashes a transactional love triangle that could throw her future to the dogs.
Jamie S. Rich and Megan Levens, the veteran romance collaborators behind Ares & Aphrodite and Madame Frankenstein, reunite for a new romp — and a lineup of dog-crazy cover artists joins the pack! All variants for this series will feature the artist’s real-life four-legged friends, beginning with…
THE SHAOLIN COWBOY: STAYING A.I. LIVE # 1
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The Shaolin Cowboy faces an icy reception when he leaves his wasteland retreat on a mission of mercy, following the considered consul of a desert swallow and a horned toad, both endangered species. But none as endangered as the wandering ex monk becomes, once again because in this typical AMERIGUNN small town he learns euthanASIA is the new import duty on foreign imports!!!
ONGOING SERIES
ABSOLUTE MARTIAN MANHUNTER # 12
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THE JAW-DROPPING FINAL ISSUE! It all comes together here: green and white, life and death, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, free will and fate, crime and punishment. Beginnings and endings. Why do people do the things they do? Read this issue to find out.
COMICS! THE MAGAZINE # 5
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THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE MONSTERS! MARK SPEARS REVEALS ALL! Mark Spears creates the massive hit series, MONSTERS, and draws in-demand variant covers for titles from DC Comics, The Energon Universe, and Spawn, but WHO is this man? Where did he come from? How did he become the artist he is today? How did he build an independent comic book empire that took the industry by surprise? ALL THIS AND MUCH MORE IN A HORROR-CENTRIC ISSUE OF THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC COMICS MAGAZINE OF ALL TIME!
MINOR ARCANA # 16
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Experience a blast from the past with the beginning of a brand-new arc in Minor Arcana!
Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth) and Letizia Cadonici team up for Part One of The Lovers, sending us back in time to Theresa and Missy’s humble beginnings and the origins of their intense connection.
In the present, Missy leans on Theresa as desperate times call for desperate measures. Can Theresa move on from their past, or will it continue to haunt her?
Jeff Lemire’s poignant story continues with the start of this powerful new arc!
THE MORTAL THOR # 12
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SECRETS AND LIES! Sigurd Jarlson has love, friendship and a human soul. The man called Blake has none of these… but he has the one thing his enemy doesn’t. Donald Blake knows exactly who and what he is… and he’s ready to tell Sigurd everything. Somewhere in the city, a man with a hammer is learning the truth...
Trade Paperbacks, Hardcovers, and OGNs
CAPTAIN AMERICA vol. 1: OUR SECRET WARS TP
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A new era begins here!
Witness the modern retelling of Captain America’s origin and his previously unknown first encounter with Doctor Doom in this foundational text for the current Marvel Universe!
While Captain America slumbered in ice, the world changed — for better and for worse. Steve Rogers awakens to a reality where battles are fought in the shadows through secrets and subterfuge, and villains aren’t so easy to identify. And when a fledgling dictator named Victor Von Doom conquers Latveria, Steve faces a critical decision: adapt to a new kind of warfare, or forge his own path? What will the choice he makes in the past mean for his future? Plus: Who is David Colton, and can Steve trust him to have his back as they infiltrate a hostile country with the new Howling Commandos? Experience the untold tale of Captain America’s first encounter with Doctor Doom as Chip Zdarsky and Valerio Schiti team up for a game-changing run!
Collecting: CAPTAIN AMERICA (2025) #1-5.
GEORGE PÉREZ’S NEW TEEN TITANS: Artist’s Edition HC
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Experience a unique inside look at the stunning artistry from George Perez that went into the creation of one of the most iconic teams in superhero history, the New Teen Titans!
Go behind the scenes of the formation of one of the most iconic teams in comic book history with GEORGE PÉREZ’S NEW TEEN TITANS ARTIST’S EDITION.
Marv Wolfman and George Pérez created a massive hit for DC Comics when The New Teen Titans hit comic shop shelves in 1980. The team of Robin, Starfire, Wonder Girl, Raven, Kid Flash, Cyborg, and Beast Boy stole everyone’s hearts, rivaling even the X-Men for preeminence in the comic market.
This Artist’s Edition of George Pérez’s stunning work will give a unique view into how the teen titans came to be, featuring a large selection of the artist’s original art including beautiful covers and a curated selection of pages from issues #1-40 and more of The New Teen Titans. Plus, a heartfelt introduction by Pérez’s longtime collaborator and New Teen Titans co-creator, Marv Wolfman.
Although appearing to be in black and white, all the art is scanned in color, enabling the reader to see the work as close to the original as possible – ink gradients, blue pencil, and all the unique nuances that make original art so special – are all clearly visible and printed at the same size as drawn.
This is an art book disguised as a comic collection. The only better way to see these pages would be looking over Pérez’s shoulder at his drawing board!
MOTHER PLEASE DON’T GIVE BIRTH TO A MONSTER TP
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MOOOO! Lord Momon cries out, ready for her meal. MOOOO! Baby sister cries out, miserable and cold. As a young teen, sweet Miki learns the bizarre truth about her family: for centuries, they have harnessed half-cow, half-human beasts known as “kudan” for their wealth and power. And soon, another shall be born. The hour approaches. Her mother moans in pain as the contractions begin. But all poor Miki can plead is MOTHER, PLEASE DON’T GIVE BIRTH TO A MONSTER! Published in 1988 at the end of the classic era of horror manga, MOTHER, PLEASE DON’T GIVE BIRTH TO A MONSTER is a revolting and zany tour de force by the incomparable Shirakawa Marina. The author’s last published graphic novel, this manga marks the ultimate elaboration of Shirakawa’s creepy, crackpot synthesis of Japanese history, legend, and the occult, as made famous in his cult favorite UFO MUSHROOM INVASION.
Never before reprinted even in Japan, and with an essay about Shirakawa’s mysterious life and career, MOTHER, PLEASE DON’T GIVE BIRTH TO A MONSTER is the eighth volume of Smudge, a line of vintage horror and dark fantasy manga curated by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg and published by Living the Line.
JOHN CARPTENTER’S NIGHT TERRORS: CHAPLAIN TP
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An aging and increasingly weary chaplain discovers an ancient, unknowable monster stalking his hospital, forcing him to confront the existential terror of his own mortality. Along with his energetic young protégé, he is pushed to the brink of insanity as his convictions and very grasp on reality begin to unravel. Violent, surreal, and darkly funny, Chaplain presents a demented journey of psychological anguish and grotesque body horror in stunning psychedelic style. As the sinister presence closes in, the Chaplain must face his deepest buried nightmares or be consumed by them forever.
Preorders on Final Order Cutoff
THE BLOOD BROTHERS MOTHER HC
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NEW GRAPHIC NOVEL DEBUT from Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso-the legendary creative team behind the seminal crime series 100 Bullets!
In the old American West, three children set off across the wild Texas frontier to rescue their mother-kidnapped by ruthless outlaws who gunned down their preacher father. Throughout their journey, they’ll face the harsh elements of an unforgiving landscape, deadly animals hungry for blood, merciless bounty hunters and so much more… all in a relentless quest to rescue their family.
Along the way, they’ll learn the terrible cost of revenge — not just in lives, but in how it stains a soul. While revenge may be satisfying in the moment, it leaves a yearning behind that lasts a lifetime. And once you taste it, nothing else is ever so sweet.
In the tradition of The Searchers and The Outlaw Josey Wales comes a brutal new western series from writer BRIAN AZZARELLO and artist EDUARDO RISSO-the Eisner award-winning team behind the Vertigo crime classic, 100 Bullets and Image Comics, Moonshine!
For fans of 1883, BLOOD MERIDIAN, & THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY.
EXQUISIT CORPSES vol. 3 TP
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Trick-or-treating. Clocking in for your shift at work. Going to the annual Halloween party down at the Pit. For the citizens of Oak Valley, Maine, any one of these activities could spell a gruesome death as twelve of the most dangerous killers in the world turn their sleepy little town into the playing field for a game that will decide the fate of the entire country for years to come.
As the sun begins to rise on the unlucky town chosen as this year’s arena, the last remaining killers gather to determine the winner. But the civilians of Oak Valley have been pushed to their limits, and with nothing left to lose, they’re not going to let the powers-that-be play the game by their rules any longer…
JAMES TYNION IV (THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH) and MICHAEL WALSH (THE SILVER COIN) are joined by TYLER BOSS (YOU’LL DO BAD THINGS), JORDIE BELLAIRE (REDLANDS), CHE GRAYSON (Dark Spaces: Good Deeds), VALENTINE DE LANDRO (BITCH PLANET), MARIANNA IGNAZZI (Catwoman), and GAVIN FULLERTON (THE CLOSET) as they conclude the blood-soaked first season of the groundbreaking horror epic!
Collects EXQUISITE CORPSES #9-13
THE FOUNDRY # 1
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Long before Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. defended the world against supernatural threats of all types, the men and women of the Foundry protected Queen Victoria’s Empire. But the operatives of the Foundry were adventurers and explorers with no time for the paranormal or the occult, only interested in the scientific applications of the artifacts that their expeditions uncovered or what engineering marvels could be devised from ancient discoveries. In The Foundry: In Peril on the Seas, Major Karam Singh and his fellow members of the Foundry go in search of an unknown menace that appears to threaten enemies and allies alike, unsure whether they are in pursuit of some sort of monster or something far worse.
GODZILLA’S MONSTERPIECE THEATRE PRESENTS: ROAR OF THE WORLDS # 1
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The explosive literary mashup series continues — Godzilla is taking on the classics one story at a time!
In this oversize one-shot, comic book legend Kyle Baker joins the fun to help Godzilla defend the planet against invaders from Mars! The War of the Worlds regaled readers with the story of what happened in England when faraway invaders arrived. This comic asks a much more important question… what was going on in Japan? The answer: Martians were getting smashed left and right by the King of the Monsters!
And that’s not all — this issue contains part three of Tom Scioli’s “Robin Hood and the Monster of Nottingham.”
What did I miss?
If there are some great comics, collected or in single issues, that you think I should be reading, tell me about them! And if you do try out any of these series, let me know how you liked them, or didn’t. This is a safe space for haters. If you enjoy this service, please share this article on social media or tell someone that you know reads comics about it.
Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics”: Alex Seubert. Dustin Commet
Divining Comics is also brought to you by the support of the “Friends of Divining Comics”: Comic Book Herald.
If you would like to add your name to the list of friends, best friends, or best friends forever, support this work for less than the cost of one cup of coffee a month at patreon.com/diviningcomics. You can also leave a one-time tip/buy my zines at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. Or, if you can’t afford to support me financially at this time, simply follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky and share my posts there.
#art #books #ComicBooks #comics #DC #dcComics #fantasticFour #marvel #marvelComics #MarvelousMarket #NewComicDay -
Valley garden center shares drought-resistant plant tips as dry conditions persist https://www.allforgardening.com/1686713/valley-garden-center-shares-drought-resistant-plant-tips-as-dry-conditions-persist/ #agave #bougainvillea #cacti #DesertRose #DroughtResistantPlantsSouthTexas #garden #gardener #gardening #GardeningInRGV #GardeningTipsForDryWeather #MuñozGardenCenter #PlantCareDuringDrought #RGV #RioGrandeValley #RioGrandeValleyDrought #RioGrandeValleyWeather #WaterConservationTexas #WateringScheduleForLawns
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Valley garden center shares drought-resistant plant tips as dry conditions persist https://www.allforgardening.com/1686713/valley-garden-center-shares-drought-resistant-plant-tips-as-dry-conditions-persist/ #agave #bougainvillea #cacti #DesertRose #DroughtResistantPlantsSouthTexas #garden #gardener #gardening #GardeningInRGV #GardeningTipsForDryWeather #MuñozGardenCenter #PlantCareDuringDrought #RGV #RioGrandeValley #RioGrandeValleyDrought #RioGrandeValleyWeather #WaterConservationTexas #WateringScheduleForLawns
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Hyperdimensional Titans 5/x
Rendered in collaboration with #WonderApp
Alt Text isn't saving for some reason. Description: a towering Colossus walks through a barren valley. Behind it is an illuminated night sky filled with stars and planets. You cannot tell simply by looking if this entity is a machine or encased in some sort of armor.
#AiArt #AiArtist #AIArtwork #AIArtistCommunity #Occult #SpaceGod #mysticism
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#PortlandCT - Garden Club #SeedSwap Jan. 31 in Portland, Connecticut
"Celebrate National Seed Swap Day with the Portland River Valley Garden Club on Saturday, January 31, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Waverly Center, 7 Waverly Ave, Portland, Connecticut.
"Thanks to our sponsors - Burpee Seeds, Harts Seeds, NE Seed, MI Gardener and Baker Creek Seeds - we have a large selection of seeds available for you to take and swap. You can also bring labeled seeds saved from your garden or unopened seed packets from last year.
"Club members will be offering demos on making #SeedBombs, #WinterSowing and growing #microgreens. Plant #basil or #chive seeds to take home. Visit #RiverBendBookshop’s pop-up garden-themed #BookFair and learn about the Portland Library’s #SeedLibrary. Delicious comfort food and refreshments will be available.
Admission is free; food bank donations are encouraged."
For more details, visit the Portland River Valley Garden Club website: https://portland-river-valley-garden-club.blogspot.com/
Source:
https://seedswapday.blogspot.com/2026/#SolarPunkSunday #Connecticut #NationalSeedSwapDay #GrowYourOwn #SeedExchange #BuildingCommunity
#Gardening #SharingKnowledge -
From 2011:
In Tennessee, #HeatWaves Diminish #Nuclear Power Output
By Alyson Kenward
April 10, 2011"On July 8, 2010, as the temperature in downtown Decatur, Alabama climbed to a sweltering 98°F, operators at the #BrownsFerry #NuclearPowerPlant a few miles outside of town realized they had only one option to avoid violating their #environmental permit: turn down the reactors. For days, the Tennessee Valley Authority (#TVA), which owns the nuclear plant, had kept a watchful eye on the rising mercury, knowing that more heat outside could spell trouble inside the facility. When the #TennesseeRiver, whose adjacent waters are used to cool the reactors, finally hit 90°F and forced Browns Ferry to run at only half of their regular power output, the TVA hoped the hot spell would last just a few days.
"Eight weeks of unrelenting heat later, the plant was still running at half its capacity, robbing the grid of power it desperately needed when electricity demand from #AirConditioners and fans was at its peak. The total cost of the lost power over that time? More than $50 million dollars, all of which was paid for by TVA’s customers in Tennessee.
"The Browns Ferry nuclear plant, located on the Wheeler Reservoir along the Tennessee River near Athens, Alabama. It has three reactors, each producing about 1000 megawatts of electricity. Credit: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“'Last summer, the water in the Tennessee River warmed up early and stayed warm,' says TVA spokesman Ray Golden. 'When it got hot again in July and August, we were impacted by that and had to reduce power at the plant and get it from somewhere else.'
"With river water so warm, the #NuclearPlant couldn’t draw in as much water as usual to cool the facility's three reactors, or else the water it pumped back into the river could be hot enough to harm the local #ecosystem, says Golden. But for every day that the Browns Ferry plant ran at 50 percent of its maximum output, the TVA had to spent $1 million more than usual to purchase power from somewhere else, he says.
"What happened in northern Alabama last summer, at the largest of TVA's nuclear power plants, did not present a human safety concern. Operators knew there was never a risk of an explosion or nuclear meltdown, nor was there a threat of leaking radioactive material. But the prolonged spell of hot weather put the TVA at risk of violating environmental permits, with hefty fines as one consequence and potential harm to the Tennessee River ecosystem as another.
"It’s not the first time high temperatures have affected the performance of the Browns Ferry plant, and extreme heat is a growing concern for power plant operators across the #Southeast. While some nuclear plants can improve their cooling procedures to cope with the intake of warmer water, the upgrades can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and still don’t offer an indefinite defense against extreme heat. Because scientists say the Southeast (like many other parts of the world) can expect to see more frequent and intense heat waves by the end of this century, the problems for nuclear power and the people that rely on it for electricity may only be beginning.
#ExtremeHeat Limits Nuclear Energy Production
"The disaster still unfolding at Japan’s #FukushimaDaiichi nuclear plant has refocused America's attention on nuclear power, calling into question its future role in the country's energy portfolio. Many advocates of nuclear power say that we need to maintain — and even expand — nuclear power to get away from using fossil fuels, such as coal, and to help lower greenhouse gas emissions.
"But nuclear power has a paradoxical relationship with #ClimateChange. Even though it might help mitigate long-term #GlobalWarming, nuclear power is already being challenged by rising temperatures and the increasing number of heat waves around the world. Throughout the last decade, several plants have had to reduce electricity production during heat waves, just when when electricity demand typically reaches peak levels.
“'It’s a dilemma between mitigation of climate change, and adaptation to it,' says Natalie Kopytko, an energy policy doctoral student at the University of York in England. Having recently studied the ways in which climate change could have a negative impact on nuclear power, she says nuclear power is caught in the middle because it could be used to help lower greenhouse gas emissions, but global warming is making the technology less effective at providing electricity."
Read more:
https://www.climatecentral.org/news/in-tennessee-heat-waves-frustrate-nuclear-power#Greenwashing #NoNukes
#NoNewNukes #NuclearPowerPlant #NuclearPlants #NuclearIsNotCarbonFree #RethinkNotRestart #ClimateCrisis #ExtremeTemperatures #ExtremeWeather #ExtremeHeat -
You've seen the #implosion footage. Maybe you know that this is the last echo of #coalfired #electricity generation in #Allegheny County. But do you know about the debate over the future of the site? https://www.publicsource.org/cheswick-springdale-power-plant-implosion-coal-allegheny-county-valley-charah/
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Grow #Flax For #Linen In Your Garden
By Cindy Conner
"Growing flax to process into linen was a common activity on homesteads before the Industrial Revolution. In fact, a quarter acre per person might have been planted to take care of clothing and other #textile needs for the year. When choosing a variety of flax to plant for linen, make sure the botanical name is Linum usitatissimum. The variety I’ve found to be available is Marilyn.
"If you are just starting out and don’t know if you really want to get into this yet, you can get enough material to work with from just a small space in your garden. In that case, you may want to buy seed by the packet, if it is available. If you want to have enough to really play with, plant a pound of seeds. I bought seed through The Heirloom Seed Project at the Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Their one pound package of seeds indicates it is enough to plant 400 square feet. My main source of information about growing flax to linen has been the book Linen: From Flax Seed to Woven Cloth by Linda Heinrich. That book suggests that one pound of seed is enough to plant 300 square feet."
#NaturalFibers #MakeClothesThatLastRead more:
https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/grow-flax-for-linen-in-your-garden-zbcz1703