As we know the continuing squeeze on #publicsector budgets compounded by #austerity & its continuance under other terms, has led to #schools having to make difficult choices...
Now, the (perfectly understandable) choice to deny/ignore their buildings' maintenance needs is coming back to cause major problems.
When we cannot even provide safe building for our children to be taught in, you know the #Tories priorities are destroying our country!
I was aware of the issue of fat shaming and poverty shaming that has taken place over the past decade based on one essential ingredient of food. Maybe the #FoodIndustry needs to be forced to act rather than blaming people without money.
"Some argue that rapidly scaling back #FossilFuel production would leave billions of pounds of “stranded assets”, [and] would impoverish the public through a fall in the value of #savings and #PensionFunds.
The study found that in high-income countries two-thirds of the financial losses would be borne by the most affluent 10%.
Just 3.5% of financial losses from #StrandedAssets would affect the poorest half of Americans & could easily be compensated for by government."
We need to emphasize this at every turn: We live in a fossil fueled #austerity now, and can have a clean-energy powered #abundance (borrowing from Rebecca Solnit here).
An abundance of clean air.
An abundance of jobs.
An abundance of community.
Vast savings on health care costs and other averted climate damages.
What happens when you make #schools that can't afford their own building repairs, compete for funds & then limit the pot available for Govt. funded work (while costs are rising)?
Unsurprisingly the answer is that for this financial year (23/24) less than one in five schools were successful in their bids for repairs!
It cannot be the case that the other four out of five applications are just 'trying it on'... no, our schools are in disrepair & its endangering the pupils.
Just in case you had any doubt that the current global political economy is run by the rich for the rich, here is some data to remind you who is benefitting from the transfer of wealth around the system driven by right-wing governments, forms of governance normally called #neoliberalism (I have some problems with this term but that's for another time) & the shift to normalised #austerity....
Last year around 10,000 #women seeking to escape #domesticabuse were turned away from alternative housing (inc. refuges);
given what we know about how domestic abuse can be the first sign of women becoming victims of fatal violence, we are (once again) failing women who find themselves in the proximity of #toxicmasculinity & gender based violence.
yet one more area where #austerity is exposing the vulnerable to fatal consequences!
Breathing difficulties after covid-19:
Around 1 in 4 adults who were hospitalised with covid-19 and 1 in 6 who were not hospitalised, experience persistent breathing difficulties beyond 4 weeks after #SARSCoV2 infection.' @REvans_Breathe et al @bmj_latest https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj-2023-074937
here's @RichardJMurphy deconstructing the #BBC's 'story' on the national debt figures (which appeared on the BBC website this morning) - this is an excellent demonstration of the point @sjwrenlewis (& Murphy) have been making for some time;
the BBC's #economics coverage is misinformed & is guided by the normalisation of #austerty as a policy!
Its not a simplification to communicate to readers, its a skewed politicised narrative to serve specific political interest!
Twas ever thus and even, "even", the Guardian, our "Liberal" organ of record does the same in its news coverage.
A left wing media consensus is a mirage created by a truth inversion on the horizon.
It took Larry Elliott to point out that this surge in inflation is not a natural event like weather but a series of choices people have made - they hurt us to enrich themselves. They're pirates - It's greed.
"Much of the reluctance to do what #ClimateChange requires comes from the assumption that it means trading abundance for #austerity, and trading all our stuff and conveniences for less stuff, less convenience. But what if it meant giving up things we’re well rid of, from deadly #emissions to nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction?
What if the austerity is how we live now — and the #abundance could be what is to come?"
"The majority of people will be better off in virtually all aspects of their lives. Not only the elimination of #FuelPoverty – at last – but improved and warmer homes, #ReducedBills and much better indoor and outdoor air quality.
In short, for the vast majority, this is a significant improvement in quality of life - and, as a side benefit, no more carbon #emissions and much less overall pollution. "
"Currently 7 million people die prematurely EACH YEAR from #AirPollution, more than the death toll during the entire #pandemic.
Lung #cancer and #respiratory-related deaths linked to air pollution are up 160% over the past 30 years and it causes genetic mutations in some lung cancer-linked genes."
We will stop paying this price as soon as we give #FossilFuels the boot: let's do it!
"About 1 in 4 people in the #UnitedStates – more than 119 million residents – live with #AirPollution that can hurt their health and shorten their lives, according to a new report from the #AmericanLungAssociation. People of color are disproportionately affected, as are residents of Western cities. "