Ben Johnson
@benjgeo.bsky.social
610 followers 1.1K following 1.3K posts
Earthquakes | Geology | Climate Ecosocialism and Degrowth Map enjoyer He/him
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benjgeo.bsky.social
Maps like this suck. They imply climate change will flood vast swathes of the country very soon. Climate change will (and does) cause more flooding, but flooding is not about whether land is below high tide...
benjgeo.bsky.social
Aside from anything else this is the most leading question in the world lmao.

"Some have suggested Australians are having too many children, with 286,000 births in Australia in 2022, and say the Coalition should reduce new family sizes significantly. Would you support or oppose...?"
6newsau.bsky.social
🚨 NEW: 58% of people support a "significant reduction in Australia's immigration numbers", according to a new Resolve poll

A cut is supported by a majority of Labor, Coalition and One Nation voters, while Greens voters (35% support, 32% oppose, 33% unsure) are split
Reposted by Ben Johnson
divyampersaud.com
Please share for these six families 🙏🏾 They’re still losing martyrs due to the occupation’s ongoing violations of the ceasefire. They’re still at risk of starving to death, including a pregnant mom who needs every ounce of nutrition.

So we still stand by them. Won’t you?

13 hours left 🚨 61/1000
Keep Hope Alive: a Gaza Giving Circle
We are a team of volunteers in the US and UK, led by two sisters passionate about helping our friends on the ground keep their families and neighbors alive with food, water, & shelter. We saw that…
chuffed.org
Reposted by Ben Johnson
flyingrodent.bsky.social
One of the many things I wish I had been wrong about is saying that back in the nineties, our leaders looked at climate change and said: We can’t do shit about this without measures we find unacceptable, so future generations will just have to deal with it via machine guns, fences and attack dogs.
Joe Noonan @joenoonan.bsk... • 2d
"I don't think we can mitigate for climate change."
- Mícheál Martin, Taoiseach.
benjgeo.bsky.social
Don't think it's as clear cut. Especially from Zarah's side. She's always been pro trans rights and not her fault corbyn brought his shit mates in. Real test will be what's in the constitution and what steps they take to marginalise transphobes once the party is officially formed.
benjgeo.bsky.social
GPEW have two MPs that have spoken up for transphobes and praised EHRC guidance. So both parties have a lot of work to do there sadly.
benjgeo.bsky.social
Ftr I think it's fine to do both in the same post.
benjgeo.bsky.social
Why not give benefit of the doubt? Zarah has been sound in the past she's probably sound now. Why look for betrayal?
benjgeo.bsky.social
GPEW/YP partisanship is dumb behaviour. Just don't do it.
benjgeo.bsky.social
And that's fine, but there's space to be more hard line. And I don't think it's a bad thing if YP adopts a harder line framing and they play good cop bad cop with it.
benjgeo.bsky.social
How I read it she's just saying they are more aggressively anti-NATO and anti-Israel than the Greens.

As far as I understand it GPEW policy is to stay in NATO, and they call for a "durable political solution that ensures security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians"
benjgeo.bsky.social
Weird people find this an attack. It's the most mild mannered articulation of difference. People need to chill
zarahsultana.bsky.social
Great discussion at TWT on how the left must unite — Your Party and the Greens — to keep Farage out of Downing Street.

But unity isn’t uniformity. Your Party will be truly anti-imperialist: no diplomatic ties with a genocidal, apartheid Israeli state and no greenwashing NATO.

Join us: yourparty.uk
Photo of Zarah, Zack Polanski, Amna Abdullatif from We Deserve Better and Abubakr Nanabawa from The Muslim Vote Zarah speaking to a packed room at The World Transformed
Reposted by Ben Johnson
divyampersaud.com
1 hour left ⚠️ Last ceasefire, we had so many appeals for food, rent, laptops to work remotely, etc. that went completely unmet due to care for Palestinian life evaporating.

When the aggression restarted, these families didn’t have a single thing for new emergencies. Something to chew on.

857/879
Keep Hope Alive: a Gaza Giving Circle
We are a team of volunteers in the US and UK, led by two sisters passionate about helping our friends on the ground keep their families and neighbors alive with food, water, & shelter. We saw that…
chuffed.org
Reposted by Ben Johnson
boldpolitics.bsky.social
Solidarity with all trans and intersex people having their existence debated every time a tv host hasn't done their prep and can't think of any more questions
Reposted by Ben Johnson
divyampersaud.com
3 hours left ⚠️ This goal is incredibly small. Our full costing for rebuilding needs for all six families is far more than we have ever raised. So we chip away at it for a bit of food and shelter. This is still life and death.

Kids & a pregnant mom & disabled people need you. 857/879
Keep Hope Alive: a Gaza Giving Circle
We are a team of volunteers in the US and UK, led by two sisters passionate about helping our friends on the ground keep their families and neighbors alive with food, water, & shelter. We saw that…
chuffed.org
benjgeo.bsky.social
Good to know. But perhaps also fails to distinguish between eggs and Rolex watches ass different types of demand?
benjgeo.bsky.social
I think what Phil was saying is that the OBR and the fiscal rules are one of the reasons the govt are making such awful decisions.

You may disagree with the OBR and RRs rules but they are basis upon which the government is acting, not your opinions. So scrapping the OBR would be far from immaterial
benjgeo.bsky.social
It definitely obscures the real constraints. You've already agreed with me that not all spending is equal. Shoving it into a box marked "macro constraints" explicitly treats all spending as equal in terms of its inflationary potential. And treats all tax the same in terms of the demand it suppresses
benjgeo.bsky.social
...so you will naturally promote them as real and useful things. Not a necessarily a conspiracy, just incentives. But tbh given all these people meet every year at the Spectator Garden Party, all knew eachother at Oxford, etc I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there were backroom deals.
benjgeo.bsky.social
I would agree with Phil tbh. OBR is consistently wrong and so rules like "debt/GDP falling in 5 years" are meaningless. It's become like priests gutting animals to tell the future. Absurd stuff. But if you're rich and you own the papers/media the prescriptions these priests make are very useful...
benjgeo.bsky.social
I think what @mcduff.bsky.social is getting at is the frameworks of managing the "macro constraints" acts to obscure these questions. And obscuring those questions is very helpful for the wealthy that want their demand catered to at the expense of median earners. Not a conspiracy just incentives
benjgeo.bsky.social
But perhaps the raising base rate of income tax (or indeed BoE interest rates) to address the "macro constraint" is like trying to fix a car while wearing boxing gloves?

I think we agree it's a question of whose demand do we allow to be satisfied. Why does median income demand need to be the loser?
benjgeo.bsky.social
And that's not even getting in to ways to make inflation matter less to the average person by providing basic services like housing, food and transport for free.
benjgeo.bsky.social
...be inflationary, but then the solution is to train or recruit more builders from abroad, or suppress the non useful demand of data centre investment (through taxes I guess!). But broad based taxes on people earning £30k or whatever doesn't seem to make sense.
benjgeo.bsky.social
"how many resources we have" is a very sector specific thing. Eg we have many qualified doctors without NHS jobs. Spending to give them jobs should nto be inflationary if they are waiting to be activated. Spending money hiring builders that would be building data centres I could see how that might..