blog of the post capitalist transition.. Read or download the novel here + latest relevant posts
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What’s at stake is not just water supply, but food and energy security, regional stability, and the ability of nearly two billion people to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.
The 2025 Snow Update Report has delivered a stark warning: for the third consecutive year, the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region has experienced below-normal snow cover.
With snow persistence—a measure of how long snow remains on the ground after falling—reaching a record low of -23.6%, the findings highlight a troubling trend for the 12 major river basins that depend on this vital seasonal snow.
This significant drop in snow persistence is more than a weather anomaly. It’s a clear indicator of how climate change is disrupting natural systems, putting at risk the water security of nearly two billion people who live downstream of these rivers, including the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra.
ALLAHABAD, UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA A child lies down on a dry bed of parched mud that is the dried up River Varuna at Phoolpur
The HKH region, often referred to as the “Third Pole” due to its vast snow and ice reserves, is crucial for seasonal water storage. These snowpacks melt gradually during spring and early summer, feeding rivers that support agriculture, hydropower, and daily life across South and Southeast Asia.
However, the report shows that all twelve major river basins in the region faced below-average snow cover in 2025. The Mekong and Salween basins were particularly hard-hit, losing over 50% of their typical snow persistence.
‘We do not resign ourselves to rearmament and war in Europe’ Spain, March 26, 2025
Is there anyone, in Europe or anywhere else in the world, who does not want to defend their loved ones from a potential threat? Who does not wish to banish the terrible shadow of violence from their lives and those of their loved ones?
Who does not dream of a future in which their sons and daughters, those of their friends and neighbors, can live in peace, develop as people, have decent jobs, inhabit a habitable planet, have a roof over their heads, enjoy culture and enriching and constructive social relationships, and live lives free from all forms of violence?
Society needs the security provided by quality public healthcare and education for all, young people need a home to live in, our elders don’t want their pensions in jeopardy, and, above all, we don’t want our children and grandchildren to experience the horrors of war. To what extent exactly does the unbridled increase in military spending that European governments intend to approve without public debate, without transparency or detail, and with urgency contribute to this peaceful future?
çWhat part of those billions is allocated to improving education, healthcare, the terrible housing situation, cultural precariousness, environmental harmony, or international solidarity?
Wouldn’t it be necessary to invest in greater political and diplomatic efforts that, in the face of threats of aggression, seek paths of dialogue that have not yet been explored?
Is it stupid, simplistic, or naive to wish for this, to defend peace and social justice? Is it perhaps more intelligent, thoughtful, and mature to believe that the winds of war, bellicose language, and the commitment to arms will bring a better future?
No, we are not resigned to war. Europe’s rearmament will not bring peace, it will not contribute to détente, but will bring us even closer to war. Militaristic contexts are also often accompanied by setbacks in rights, freedoms, and social policies.
They generate fear and social alarm, an ideal scenario for normalizing mechanisms of repression and authoritarianism, as is already beginning to be seen.
We are concerned that this strategy will lead to a long war with Russia, which we know is not intended to defend international humanitarian law, freedom, human rights, or the protection of the weakest.
If this were the case, the attitude toward Netanyahu would be the same as that toward Putin.
This Europe, which remains silent or, worse still, supports Israel in its genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and even persecutes those who denounce it, needs to clearly redefine those common values whose defense is presented as a justification for rearmament.
The citizens of our country have amply demonstrated their commitment to peace and anti-war policies in the past.
The mass demonstrations against the Iraq war, illegally promoted by José María Aznar’s government, the movement against our country’s continued membership in NATO, which mobilized more than 43% of the vote in that distant referendum, and the movement against compulsory military service until its abolition in 2001, are part of our recent collective memory.
The increase in European military spending—up to €800 billion over four years—announced by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be implemented through an exceptional mechanism that will prevent parliamentary debate and, in general, prevent clear and detailed information for European citizens.
We cannot and do not want to accept that the money from our public hospitals, our schools and public universities, our long-term care system, our protection and social coverage policies for times of difficulty, the fight against climate change, gender-based violence, racism, or emergency protection, and our cooperation, will be used to buy tanks, rifles, fighter jets, and missiles for war, because this is what the warmongering elites currently governing Europe and the United States have decided.
The true security we need is the vital security that our public pensions, our primary care doctors, our free treatment in public hospitals for any ailment or illness that affects us, our guaranteed education in public schools and universities that provide us with equality, our scholarship system, our unemployment benefits in case of need, the Minimum Living Income, our firefighters putting out fires in our mountains or rescuing people in our towns and cities when an emergency breaks out, or the development and implementation of public policies.
Manifiesto: ‘No nos resignamos al rearme y a la guerra en Europa’
España, 26 de marzo de 2025
¿Hay alguien, en Europa o en cualquier otra parte del mundo, que no quiera defender a sus seres queridos de una posible amenaza? ¿Que no desee alejar la sombra terrible de la violencia de su vida y la de los suyos?
¿Que no sueñe con un futuro en el que sus hijos e hijas, los de sus amigos y vecinas puedan vivir en paz, desarrollarse como personas, tener trabajos dignos, habitar un planeta habitable, tener un techo sobre sus cabezas, disfrutar de la cultura o de las relaciones sociales enriquecedoras y constructivas y vivir vidas libres de todo tipo de violencias?
“It’s like the Wild West. Everybody is on the bandwagon.” Insane predator capitalism is jumping on often false and disastrous”solutions” for profit that could permanently destroy our biosphere and climate.
From the grounds of a gas-fired power plant on the eastern shores of Canada, a little-known company is pumping a slurry of minerals into the ocean in the name of stopping climate change.
WTF??
A growing industry is betting on the ocean to help fight climate change by developing methods to capture and store carbon dioxide, such as adding minerals like magnesium oxide to seawater, promoting plankton or seaweed growth, and sinking organic waste to the ocean floor.
While these techniques may show local promise for locking away CO₂, scientists and local communities are concerned about the destruction of marine ecosystems and the impossibility of monitoring long-term effectiveness.
The above video is an example of how ‘insane predator capitalism is jumping on false and disastrous “solutions” for profit that could permanently destroy our biosphere and climate‘
Transcript
Ocean dumping – or a climate solution? A growing industry bets on ocean carbon capture
From the shores of eastern Canada to the beaches of North Carolina to New Zealand’s open sea, companies are exploring a new frontier to fight global warming.
Soundbite (English) Will Burt, Planetary: “The problem, of course, at its root is that we’ve got too much carbon dioxide in the air and the logical storage place for all for some of that excess carbon is going to be the biggest reservoir by far that exists. And that reservoir is the ocean.”
Climate experts say that even if countries stepped up efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it wouldn’t be enough to cool the planet. Carbon dioxide also needs to be removed from the atmosphere.
Oceans naturally absorb heat-trapping gases, but researchers are looking to supercharge that capacity.
Soundbite (English) David Ho, (C)Worthy): “I always say that, you know, for this to work—carbon dioxide removal—it has to go from something that most people have never heard of to the largest thing that humanity has ever done in a really short time. Right. And it’s daunting. Yeah.”
Near Halifax, Planetary Technologies is pumping out magnesium oxide, a powdery white mineral used in everything from water treatment plants to heartburn pills. Here, a red dye is added to track how it flows out to sea.
The company hopes the chemical reaction caused by the magnesium oxide will allow the ocean to absorb more CO2.
Soundbite (English) Will Burt, Planetary: “You add an alkaline or a basic mineral to the ocean and that that mineral is essentially an antacid. This alkaline mineral neutralizes carbon dioxide acid in the ocean.”
Dozens of other projects have been launched in recent years, including sinking sugarcane waste to the ocean floor to trap carbon.
Last summer, another company, Vesta, poured shiploads of the mineral olivine, an ingredient used to manufacture steel, off the coast of North Carolina. GigaBlue is taking a different approach – hoping to increase the growth of algae through added nutrients
But some projects are facing strong opposition over concerns that dumping foreign matter into the ocean could have unintended consequences.
Planetary paused its project in Cornwall, England, after residents protested. And some locals in New England are fighting a proposed experiment off the coast of Massachusetts.
Soundbite (English) Meghan Lapp: “We created the Clean Water Act to ensure that we have clean water, (that) we’re not dumping chemicals into the ocean.”
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution plans to study the effects of sodium hydroxide in the North Atlantic Ocean. The scientists have been meeting with the community but Meghan Lapp, who represents a Rhode Island fishing company, is still concerned.
Soundbite (English) Meghan Lapp: “To be doing that in the name of carbon capture to me is just irresponsible.”
The industry is so new that many countries have yet to adopt guidelines and standards for how to dump nutrients, crops or minerals for carbon capture. In the U.S., federal agencies have recently issued some of the first-ever permits for these ocean projects.
Soundbite (English) Will Burt, Planetary: “We can’t spend half a century digging into the details of how the solution might work, because the whole point here is, is to mitigate against a rapidly accelerating climate crisis. We have to act with safety and integrity, but we also have to act fast.”
Most of the ocean start-ups are selling carbon credits to finance their work.
Soundbite (English) David Ho (C)Worthy): “The experiments that are being done now and the scale at which they’re being done, it’s pretty safe. The question is what happens when you scale it up to billions of tons every year? And that’s still to be determined. I think there’s still some work to be done there.”
AP Video: Alex Turnbull, David Goldman Other video: Ocean Alk-Align, GigaBlue, Vesta PBC, Alban Roinard, Carboniferous Production: Serginho Roosblad
Save the Climate? Growing industries bet on the ocean to capture carbon
From the grounds of a gas-fired power plant on the eastern shores of Canada, a little-known company is pumping a slurry of minerals into the ocean in the name of stopping climate change.
Whether it’s pollution or a silver bullet that will save the planet may depend on whom you ask.
From shore, a pipe releases a mixture of water and magnesium oxide—a powdery white mineral used in everything from construction to heartburn pills that Planetary Technologies, based in Nova Scotia, is betting will absorb more planet-warming gases into the sea.
Massive peaceful public protests IGNORED as Elite support Israeli Genocide for Profit – We need more Direct Action which hurts their Pockets –STOP dehumanizing Palestinians!
It has been more than 18 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank.
The retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing.
We will also provide information on local events and actions that people can get involved in.
All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
The Civil Defense in Gaza disclosed that 54 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes since Saturday’s dawn. 2o April 2025
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced in its daily report on April 19 that Israeli occupation forces have killed 51,157 Palestinians and injured 116,724 others since October 7, 2023. In detail, 1,783 have been martyred, and 4,683 others have been injured since March 18, after “Israel” broke the ceasefire agreement and resumed its war on Gaza. https://t.me/almayadeenenglish/10804
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the U.S.-backed genocidal policy of blocking lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip will continue, and that Israel Defense Forces troops will remain in the embattled Palestinian enclave indefinitely. “Israel’s […]
The US and Israel is seeking anywhere to dump over 2 million survivors of their Gaza Genocide. The UK is offering Somaliland, a militarized gangland enclave they have colonized in all but name
In recent months, Somaliland has become a subject of intense, unprecedented interest for the Western media. As Israeli and US officials scramble to find a destination to forcibly relocate Gaza’s population from their shattered homeland, the little-acknowledged, unrecognised breakaway statelet is increasingly viewed as an attractive option.
Multiple mainstream media reports indicate officials in Tel Aviv and Washington are making discrete overtures to Hargeisa on the topic. On March 14th, the Financial Times revealed:
“A US official briefed on Washington’s initial contacts with Somaliland’s presidency said discussions had begun about a possible deal to recognise the de facto state in return for the establishment of a military base near the port of Berbera on the Red Sea coast.”
The US is seeking anywhere to dump 2 million survivors of the Gaza Genocide they are still sponsoring
Somaliland’s President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi has made international recognition a major priority, and the prospect of a permanent US military presence insulating the breakaway territory from violent instability that regularly engulfs Somalia is also no doubt enormously attractive.
From Washington’s perspective too, such an arrangement offers profuse geopolitical gains well-beyond the involuntary relocation of millions of Palestinians, to make way for Trump’s fantasised ‘Gaza-Lago’. For one, Somaliland’s proximity to the Arabian peninsula makes the territory an ideal staging ground for strikes on Yemen.
This would represent a vital new strategic foothold for the Empire in Africa, at a time French and US occupation forces are being evicted from countries across the continent with ever-increasing rapidity. Moreover, it could serve as a counterweight to constantly growing Chinese and Russian influence locally.
In 2017, Beijing established its very first overseas military base in Somaliland’s neighbouring Djibouti. Ever since, the country has been a pugnacious critic of Western policy in the region, and allowed Iranian ships to dock at its ports.
In the Valley of Death: Somaliland’s Forgotten Genocide.. 1989 ‘Even in Hargeisa, many people don’t realize the extent of US support during the genocide. No American has ever apologized for what happened in Somaliland..’
The geopolitical and military utility of Somaliland’s recognition as a state has long-been understood in Washington. Project 2025, a lengthy “mandate for leadership” drawn up by the right-wing Heritage Foundation think tank, widely-perceived as a blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term in office, contained a dedicated section on “[countering] malign Chinese activity” in Africa.
It specifically recommended “the recognition of Somaliland statehood as a hedge against the US’ deteriorating position in Djibouti.”
Campaigner David Powell has issued a new warning about the spectre of corporate tyranny facing the UK.
We reported in The Acorn 100 that he has been drawing attention to the dangers involved with the UK’s deregulated Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Freeports first introduced by the global mafia’s “Conservative Party” puppets and now being pushed through by their “Labour Party” marionettes.
In a new article, published in The Canary on April 8 2025, Powell writes: “Freeports and Special Economic Zones are variations on the same thing: deregulation, privatisation, tax evasion, and corporate governance.
“Complexity is their camouflage, and we must understand what they are, because they are carving up the UK into regions where corporations are protected from parliamentary and public scrutiny under secondary legislation”.
With Keir Starmer’s regime notoriously close to the Rothschilds, it is little surprise to know that one of their better-known fronts is involved in the dodgy scheme.
Writes Powell: “Blackrock has bought three British Freeports. In partnership with Terminal Investment Limited (TiL), a subsidiary of the shipping line MSC, it has acquired an 80% stake in Felixstowe, Harwich, and Thamesport, as part of a larger $22.8 billion deal with CK Hutchison.
“Freeports are bad news for the UK. They are playgrounds for predatory corporations, which are free to indulge in all manner of illegal and illicit activity, such as modern-day slavery, private banking, fraud, the suspension of corporate taxes and custom duties, discarding environmental protections, erosion of workers’ rights, the smuggling of weapons, drugs, and people, hoarding of stolen art, installation of private security forces, extreme worker surveillance, acceleration of land-grabbing, and the trashing of regulations in favour of all-out deregulatory frameworks.
“It should be noted that the UK’s 86 free zones, unlike Thatcher’s SEZs, are now embarking on something they couldn’t do when the UK was an EU member: dishing out public money to their corporate friends to facilitate economic growth for the 1%”.
Elsewhere, Powell refers to Starmer’s use of the label “blockers” to designate the new bogeymen, in the proud totalitarian tradition of “extremists”, “counter-revolutionaries”, “conspiracy theorists” and “enemies of progress”.
He writes: “Who do you think the blockers are? They are ordinary people who have business, agricultural, and residential properties that the UK Govt can seize under Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs).
“Where do you think CPOs are most likely taking place? Inside any one of the 86 deregulated free zones across England, Scotland, and Wales that were resurrected by Sunak and Truss immediately after Brexit, and signed off by Labour MPs, Mayors, councillors, Lords, and Baronesses who were part of a cross-party consortium with major stakeholders like Blackrock, Palantir, Amazon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Fujitsu, Deloitte, PwC, EY, Google, The City of London Corporation, BP, Goldman Sachs, Thames Water, BlackStone, Telstra Health, Macquarie, Meta, SGN, EDF, Leonardo, BAE Systems, Cadent Gas, National Gas, Natwest, Virgin Atlantic, Abrdn, Barclays, Coinbase, The British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, Bluebird Care, and Edelman.
“These are just some of the firms that have met with senior Labour figures over the last 12 months; Labour recently announced they were handing over governance powers to 700 corporate lobbyists while the Government takes a ‘secondary position’.
“6,000 people could have their homes torn down as part of a £2.2bn project in which 1,266 council houses and 567 properties belonging to private homeowners could be repossessed in a mass compulsory purchase order for the area”.
This all amounts, warns Powell, to “government-by-BlackRock”.
In a recent post – Something feels…off…5.4.25 – I wrote that I was going to take my foot off the gas for a bit, rest up and take some time to reflect ahead of what I feel is going to be a heavy summer. I’d like to reassure my readers that I’m not throwing the towel in – all I want to do is look after myself to be as ready as possible for what’s coming.
A fair-sized part of that process is taking long walks in the surrounding countryside. Walking across the fields, through the woods, taking in the views and enjoying the way spring is transforming the landscape is doing wonders for my state of mind. Getting closer to nature is a boost to mental health. As is getting away from the screens, the ‘news’ agenda, the rage baiting, the divide and rule merchants and all of the other crap that comes with life in the 21st century.
The best part about all of this is that it’s free. The only thing that isn’t free is the end-of-the-walk drink at our adopted riverside local pub:)
The thing is, the bastards who presume to rule over us, and the banksters and corporations they serve, hate the idea of anyone getting closer to nature in their local countryside, and taking time out to think and reflect on what’s really important in this life. We have the misfortune to have rulers that can only measure our worth by how much we contribute to their cherished bottom line. This is something I’ve reflected upon in a couple of recent(ish) posts:
The Labour government exists to serve their corporate masters while we, the populace, have to suck up the consequences. Even if those consequences destroy the environment, take out productive farmland and damage human health, physical and mental. We’re forced to live in an increasingly stress-inducing society, where wanting to take time out to reconnect with nature and heal, is viewed as an abhorrent aberration by a government whose only concern is boosting the bottom line for their corporate masters.
We also live in a world that has increasingly lost touch with nature. This is a process that started with the Industrial Revolution and has been accelerating since then. When we lose touch with nature, we start to lose touch with who we really are. Disassociation with the natural world that supports us and worryingly, disassociation from our bodies, can only lead to a dystopian future where you have to fit in with the high-tech matrix just to survive. Which raises the question – just what are we surviving for?
My response to these nature-hating psychopaths is a poetic one, as follows:
This wood is my sanctuary
When the world grinds me down, I come to this wood for solace
I come to hear the rustle of the breeze in the trees
I come to feel the calming, protective presence of the trees
I come to restore my balance so I can face the world again
The bastards hate the idea of sanctuary, calm and reflection
They hate it when it comes for gratis, no money required
They want us working, stressing, spending, spending...spending...
They hate us retreating from their sordid world into the woods
I come to this wood, to escape, think, reflect and wonder
The bastards don’t want us escaping, thinking or reflecting
As for wonder, the nature hating, soulless bastards despise it
All because it adds nothing to the bottom line they worship
You could almost pity them for their shallowness...almost...
But, I can’t pity the bastards who would destroy what I love
They can’t comprehend anything with a deeper meaning
They fear and loathe the secrets of life the wood could tell them
This wood is a web of life, more rich than they can ever understand
This wood has a spirit and a presence they can never understand
When the stress of modern life crushes my spirit and soul
This wood is my sanctuary, my salvation, my muse and inspiration
There’s this as well regarding a physical reconnection with nature, something those who presume to rule over us not only have no understanding of – it’s also something they would absolutely abhor:
The old oak in the woods
On a bright Spring day, the two of us came to these woods
We came seeking escape from the madness of the world
We came seeking connection with nature that would heal us
And...we came seeking re-connection with each other
We stopped at the old oak to rest awhile under her boughs
We looked at her twisted, gnarled branches and trunk in wonder
We wondered about the history she has seen over the years
And all of the wisdom she has gathered in that time
We touched her bark and branches, seeking connection
We felt a calming energy that brought us together
We felt the cares of the world lift from our shoulders
Restored, we slowly walked away, thankful for her presence
We’re in an existential battle as to what it means to be truly human in a world run by soulless techno-fascists. A big part of what that means is reconnecting with, and being a part of, nature. It also means a sense of belonging to community, place and the environment that sustains us. Thankfully, this is something that is taking place… Leaving on an optimistic note, this is happening in the region we live in: Taking action for the Avon9.4.25. I’ll leave you with these words from We Are Avon in The Thriving Avon Charter:
We are each invited to become a guardian of the Avon — whether you’re a swimmer, farmer, artist, dog walker, or dreamer. This is a movement of many hands, hearts, and voices, working together to restore the soul of this land through care for its waters.
We are pleased to announce the final speakers line-up for our ‘Uniting the pro freedom and pro Palestine liberation left’ conference taking place in just under a month in central London.
The Free 