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Woke up with a headache

@phobic-human

Dante / 161 / Humanist / Alienated. .

RIP, "The Man of the Hole." We never knew your date of birth or name.

And after what we did to you, we didn't deserve to.

The Man of the Hole was the sole survivor of an Indigenous tribe that was genocided by Brazilian settlers in the 1970s, the other survivors of his tribe were killed by illegal miners in 1996 leaving him the last of his people. From that point on he lived in complete isolation for over two decades. He survived by hunting and gathering and moving around frequently, he left a deep hole in each of his homes for unknown purposes, hence the title that was given to him. It remains completely unknown who his people were, what language they spoke or what his name was.

His story is similar to that of Ishi an Indigenous man whose people were entirely exterminated during the california genocide, he lived in isolation for decades and no one knew his real name. And with him dying so did his people.

The story of the Man of the Hole brings to the forefront the ongoing genocide of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil. And the many perils they face.

FSLN, in the central plaza, renamed “Plaza de la Revolucion.” Managua, Nicaragua. July 19, 1979

Photographed by Susan Meiselas

On this day, 19 July 1936, in response to a right-wing coup by general Francisco Franco, workers across Spain took up arms and launched one of the most far-reaching social revolutions in history. The ensuing civil war pitted the working class against the Spanish capitalists, who were backed by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. In the revolutionary areas, anarchist and socialist workers and peasants took over workplaces and land and began to run them collectively. Thousands of mostly working class people came from all over the world to aid the workers of Spain. One of them was British socialist author George Orwell, who described the scene in Barcelona: “It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties… Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivised… Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señor’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’”. Western democracies, including Britain and France, abandoned the republic and enforced a blockade on Spain which stopped the flow of aid and weapons to the anti-fascists. Meanwhile, Italy and Germany openly flouted the ban, and the US oil giant Texaco supplied the nationalists with oil and other supplies without even demanding payment, while stopping any supplies to the republic. Ultimately, after nearly three years of bitter and bloody warfare, the nationalists with their superior weaponry and equipment, were victorious. In podcast episodes 39-40, we give an overview of the events: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/06/17/e39-the-spanish-civil-war-an-introduction/ Pictured: workers’ militia members https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2038006529717820/?type=3

Capping demand from the top fifth, even at a fairly high level, cut greenhouse gas pollution from energy consumption by 9.7%, while raising demand from people in the bottom fifth who also live in poverty to a fairly low level increases emissions by just 1.4%. “We have to start tackling luxury energy use to stay within an equitable carbon budget for the globe,” said Milena Buchs, a professor of sustainable welfare at the University of Leeds and the lead author of the study, published on Monday in the journal Nature Energy, “but also to actually have the energy resources to enable people in fuel poverty to slightly increase their energy use and meet their needs.”

[...]

“The study confirms that energy demand reductions can contribute significantly to climate change mitigation, even as poorer households are lifted out of energy poverty,” said Felix Creutzig, an IPCC author and professor of sustainability economics at the Technical University of Berlin, who was not involved in the study. “High-income, high-education households have more scope and also more capacity in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions – and also carry more responsibility.”

[...]

Studies have shown the global rich – which includes middle-class people in rich countries – play a disproportionate role in heating the planet. In 2015, the top 1% of earners emitted twice as much carbon dioxide as the bottom 50%, according to estimates from the Stockholm Environment Institute and Oxfam. Rich people have more agency to cut their emissions and those of others. A commentary in Nature Energy argued in 2021 that this covered not just how they shop, which the authors stressed was a powerful lever, but also how they act as citizens, investors, role models and workers.