Linkage

For the world’s viruses, this is a time of unprecedented opportunity. An estimated 40,000 viruses lurk in the bodies of mammals, of which a quarter could conceivably infect humans. Most do not, because they have few chances to leap into our bodies. But those chances are growing. Earth’s changing climate is forcing animals to relocate to new habitats, in a bid to track their preferred environmental conditions. Species that have never coexisted will become neighbors, creating thousands of infectious meet-cutes in which viruses can spill over into unfamiliar hosts—and, eventually, into us. Many scientists have argued that climate change will make pandemics more likely, but a groundbreaking new analysis shows that this worrying future is already here, and will be difficult to address. The planetary network of viruses and wildlife “is rewiring itself right now,” Colin Carlson, a global-change biologist at Georgetown University, told me. And “while we thought we understood the rules of the game, again and again, reality sat us down and taught us: That’s not how biology works.”

Every day, you have to hold two contradictory ideas in your head. On the one hand, you have to accept that you're living through the collapse of industrial civilization. You have to deal with the moral injury that comes from realizing that many of your friends and family don't care enough about you to do a few simple things. You have to deal with a government that isn't just funding genocide but is actively participating it in it, while lying to you when it comes to... just about everything that pertains to your survival.

On the other hand...

This collapsing civilization isn't going to give you a break. It requires your participation. You still have to go to work. You still have to smile at customers, even through a mask, if you're allowed to wear one. You still have to go through the motions. You have to observe superficial politeness. You have to pay for rent and groceries. You have to pay taxes.

It's a lot.

In recent decades, many Sun Belt cities—like Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix—have seen growing populations, while populations have tended to remain stable or decrease in places in the Midwest or Northeast—like Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh.

But despite their lack of population growth, Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh have been gaining households in recent years. In Chicago, the population has remained stable, but the number of households has increased by 6.2 percent. In Detroit, while population dropped 5.5 percent between 2010 and 2018, the number of households has increased by 4.4 percent. And in Pittsburgh, even though the population dipped during the same period, the number of households increased by 9.3 percent.

Long sentences handed to two Just Stop Oil protesters for scaling the M25 bridge over the Thames are a potential breach of international law and risk silencing public concerns about the environment, a UN expert has said.

In a strongly worded intervention, Ian Fry, the UN’s rapporteur for climate change and human rights, said he was “particularly concerned” about the sentences, which were “significantly more severe than previous sentences imposed for this type of offending in the past”.

He said: “I am gravely concerned about the potential flow-on effect that the severity of the sentences could have on civil society and the work of activists, expressing concerns about the triple planetary crisis and, in particular, the impacts of climate change on human rights and on future generations.”

Rishi Sunak’s posh-boy reshuffle means members of the infamous Bullingdon Club have occupied the great offices of state for 85% of the time since 2010.

Since 11 May 2010, a member of the Bullingdon Club has been either Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, or Chancellor for 4122 days – over 11 years continuously. At one point, Bullingdon Boys occupied half of the great offices of state - but had been absent since Boris Johnson was ousted from No10.

But the shock return of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary means the elitist organisation is once again represented at the top of government. 

This issue of Interface, on community housing models, speaks directly to the contrast of increasing luxury and corresponding prices on one hand, and displacement on the other. Taking up the question of what is needed to support, sustain, and expand the non-market-driven housing sector, the papers provide insight into housing provided through community leadership and cooperative ownership models. Each author in this Interface is an experienced practitioner and researcher. They are writing from the Anglo-American perspective – England, the UK, Canada, and the US – facing housing systems that are inadequate to the level of need for secure and affordable housing access.

The reflections in this Interface seek to define the core elements of community housing and to illustrate the diversity of its forms and its aims. The papers suggest that rationales for community-led housing are found in a wide range of ideological positions – from revolutionary and anti-colonial, to seeking equitable participation in democracy, to mainstream cost-benefit analyses of the benefits of this form of affordable housing provision. All, however, agree that at the core is the leadership and enfranchisement of the people living in the community, in housing that is not buffeted by market forces.

The limited number of existing units, combined with low turnover rates, make co-op housing an unviable option for most Canadians, despite being so in-demand.

Consequently, since market landlords aren’t competing against the affordability of co-op housing, they are free to jack rents as high as the market will bear, Thomas said. She points to pressure from industry lobbying the government against investing in non-market housing.

Geordie Dent, executive director of the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations in Toronto, told Ricochet that’s an accurate assessment of what happened behind the scenes, that lobbying by landlords certainly played a key role.

“I don't think anyone ever came out publicly and said that,” he said. “It was always pitched as ‘market efficiency’ to the public, while I think privately, a bunch of landlords realized they were going to make a ton of money down the road. The government just swallowed everything they said and they didn't care if it was true or not.”

Sprawl is malfunctioning. It has underperformed for decades, but its collapse has become obvious with the recent mortgage meltdown and economic crisis, and its abundance magnifies the problems of its failure.

Let us be clear that sprawl and suburbia are not synonymous. There are many first-generation suburbs, most of them built before WWII, that function well, primarily because they are compact, walkable, and have a mix of uses. Sprawl, on the other hand, is characterized by auto-dependence and separation of uses. It is typically found in suburban areas, but it also affects the urban parts of our cities and towns.

Sprawl's defects are not limited to economics. Sprawl is central to our inefficient use of land, energy, and water, and to increased air and water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and the loss of open space and natural habitats. Because it requires a car to reach every destination, it is also to blame for time wasted in traffic, the exponential increase in new infrastructure costs, and health problems such as obesity. Social problems have also been linked to sprawl's isolation and lack of diversity.

“Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated,” President George W. Bush told the American people in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, noting specifically that such militants had designs on “vast regions” of Africa.

To shore up that front, the U.S. began a decades-long effort to provide copious amounts of security assistance, train many thousands of African military officers, set up dozens of outposts, dispatch its own commandos on all manner of missions, create proxy forces, launch drone strikes, and even engage in direct ground combat with militants in Africa. Most Americans, including members of Congress, are unaware of the extent of these operations. As a result, few realize how dramatically America’s shadow war there has failed.

The raw numbers alone speak to the depths of the disaster. As the United States was beginning its Forever Wars in 2002 and 2003, the State Department counted a total of just nine terrorist attacks in Africa. This year, militant Islamist groups on that continent have, according to the Pentagon, already conducted 6,756 attacks. In other words, since the United States ramped up its counterterrorism operations in Africa, terrorism has spiked 75,000%.

Let that sink in for a moment.

75,000%.

It is astonishing to see that what was true in 1948 is equally true in 2023. Israel spreads lies and deceit. Western elites repeat those lies. And even when Israel commits crimes against humanity in broad daylight, when it warns in advance of what it is doing, Western establishments still refuse to acknowledge those crimes.

The truth, which should have been obvious long before, in 1948, is that Israel is not a peace-loving, liberal democracy. It is a classic settler colonial state, following in a long “Western” tradition that led to the founding of the United States, Canada and Australia, among others.