@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot
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simon_brooke

@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot

Anarcho-syndicalist, autistic, crofter, cyclist, depressive, entrepreneur, geek, searchable, Zapatista. Politics & environment, especially #LandReform. he/him.

Twitter: https://mastodon.scot/@simon_brooke
GitHub: simon-brooke
FetLife: Simon_Brooke

Credo: Life is harsh. What we can do - and what we should do - is strive to make it less harsh for the people around us.

Addendum: you would not deliberately block a wheelchair ramp. Do not post images to social media without alt text.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

johnelalamo, to random
@johnelalamo@mcr.wtf avatar

Man & his son die after “Hillwalking” in Glencoe. There are no hills in Glencoe, only mountains that become dangerous in bad weather. The real tragedy is that not enough people realise that.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@johnelalamo I really think it's hyperbole to describe anything in Scotland as a 'mountain'. We have some pretty big hills, but we have no permanent glaciers (or even any permanent snowfields). And we have nothing above 3,000 metres or 10,000 feet; we have nothing even half that tall.

Yes, the big hills are risky places, and the weather can get very bad very quickly; but "mountain" is a pretty big word.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@RussCheshire @johnelalamo Oh, sure. No arguments there.

Friend-of-a-friend went missing in the Cairngorms a while back, and his body was not found until months later.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@johnelalamo @RussCheshire The Creag Dhu's withers will be completely unwrung. It's been around a long time, and isn't at all thin skinned.

JackTheCat, to random
@JackTheCat@mastodon.scot avatar

Hmm. Number 4. Hmm. I wonder where the large majority of that will be coming from? Also, does 5 include the right to protest? 🤔



🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@JackTheCat It's going to have its head office in Scotland. Which means the board of directors will fly up from London four times a year for a two hour meeting, and the rest of the year a contract cleaning firm will keep the house-plants in the building watered.




JackTheCat, to random
@JackTheCat@mastodon.scot avatar

For a man who purports to want an end to 'chaos and division' all I can see is a man who is actively encouraging it by his actions.

#RedToryShill

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@JackTheCat I'm honestly not sure which unionist politician you're talking about here, which just underlines how interchangeable they all are.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@JackTheCat Ah! Starmak

simon_brooke, to random
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

The floor of the #roundhouse is done! Needless to say this is the first time I've been on site in a week, so Lucy has largely done this by herself.

Fitting one of the last pieces, carefully cut to fit round a pillar.
Hammering in the final nail.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@pollyp It really does.

simon_brooke, to Scotland
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

Is it really true that 's womens' football team is playing at Hampden this weekend? How is this being allowed? What are we going to do about it?


ChrisMayLA6, to random
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

Here is the (two dimensional) political placing of the parties in the forthcoming UK election from Political Compass....

If you thought you didn't have an awful lot of choice, the fact that all major parties are (on this assessment) siting in the blue (Right/Authoritarian) quadrant will confirm that suspicion

#election #democracy

source: https://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2024

h/t @melanie @PoliceStateUK

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@ChrisMayLA6 @melanie @PoliceStateUK It really irritates and annoys me to hear London journalists refer to and the as 'centre left'. Objectively, of course, they're nothing of the sort -- but in the perversely distorted context of English politics, there is some (relative) truth to it.

But it's also really sad, from a Scottish context, so see how far right the are these days.


simon_brooke, to random
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

Lesley Riddoch here arguing, essentially, that we all have to bite our tongues, haud oor whischt, and vote , because "they're the only parliamentary route to . I count Lesley as a friend and as someone I greatly respect, but I think she's wrong here: there is no longer a parliamentary path to independence.

The Lesley Riddoch Podcast: Campaign Pains

Episode webpage: https://share.transistor.fm/s/981581dc

Media file: https://media.transistor.fm/981581dc/601cf266.mp3

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@Loukas Voters will return, I think, and in very large numbers. I cannot see 's government being anything but a huge disappointment to voters in .

But I think it will make no difference. The could win 80% of the vote in Scotland and Westminster would still not concede ; and, unless they can recruit much more able people, as long as the SNP seek to be in government in Scotland, they will never achieve that large a share of the vote. >>>

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@Loukas I also think we've run out of time.

By the time #Starmer has frittered away his first term in government (as he will) on 'steady as she goes, don't frighten the #Tories' policies, the world will have reached the point where even mitigating the #ClimateEmergency will have become an impossible, cliff edge cost; and at that point there will be no space left for people of good will to do anything but put their shoulder to the wheel in the task of saving the planet.

simon_brooke,
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@melanie I always think Lesley is worth listening to; and, as usual, it's a pretty broad ranging podcast.

simon_brooke,
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@Loukas I truly hope you are wrong about the EU.

I have no evidence that you are wrong, this is just hope. But yet more crises seems impossibly hard to cope with.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@yetiinabox @Loukas if you're not already aware of @Eceni and her #AccidentalGods podcast, I think you would find it interesting and find yourself greatly in sympathy with her.

https://accidentalgods.life/our-podcast/

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@yetiinabox It would be wonderful if we could bring Alastair McIntosh's voice to #Mastodon. He's a good, solid, humane thinker about this crisis.

I'll write to him.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@Wen I don't think UDI works either. I think #ScottishIndependence will be won on the streets or not at all. To escape from Westminster, we will need to make ourselves ungovernable.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@Wen Absolutely. I mean sustained #GeneralStrike levels of coordinated peaceful civil disobedience.

I think that's the only thing that can now work. But I also think that, in the face of the other major political challenges we face now, we need to ask ourselves very carefully whether it's worth it.

As I've said many times, #ScottishIndependence on a dead planet would be a very hollow victory; we'd have to be sure our effort to achieve independence did not impede oue effort to save the planet.

simon_brooke, to Scotland
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

Destroying the planet we live on -- the only planet we can live on -- is of course totally legal and even supported and subsidised by governments around the world (including 's).

But PROTESTING against destroying the planet? That's illegal. That's very, very illegal. Don't even think about doing that.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/23/alarm-as-german-climate-activists-charged-with-forming-a-criminal-organisation

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@tshirtman @lienrag @pgcd @TomSwirly

Air travel is a small part of the problem, but not tiny, because of where in the atmosphere the pollution is emitted. And even so, a four hour flight emits, per passenger, as much carbon as three months of motor car travel. That is NOT trivial.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@tshirtman @lienrag @pgcd @TomSwirly Well, we will still be able in principle to move goods across oceans with sailing ships, except that we haven't invested in sailing ships so there will be a period where marine transport basically just has to stop for a while. Which means we're going to have to repatriate a huge amount of work.

None of this is cheap or easy, but it's better than the end of the world.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@tshirtman @lienrag @pgcd @TomSwirly Yes, but, that's considering extinctions due to climate stress alone. The #ClimateCrisis is very serious, but it's by no means the worst of the crises we face. The worst is almost certainly #ForeverChemicals. And it's unlikely that the ecological consequences of the constellation of crises we face will be simply additive.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@tshirtman @lienrag @pgcd @TomSwirly This is why I am very clearly and very deliberately not saying it's the end of the world. There is time to mitigate the worst of theproblems, IF we hit the emergency brakes IMMEDIATELY. But half measures are worse than useless; they will achieve nothing.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@tshirtman @lienrag @pgcd @TomSwirly Uhhhmmmm... I understand the psychological need, when the facts are too hard to face, to put your head under the duvet and sing an encouraging song very loudly, but that's hardly a sound basis for public policy.

simon_brooke,
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

@TomSwirly @tshirtman @lienrag @pgcd We have to try to persuade them. It is our responsibility to the rising generations.

I do not believe it will be easy, but it's better -- for me, anyway -- not to go to my grave thinking that I didn't try.

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