#USA #Taxes #TaxEvasion #TaxAvoidance #Inequality #Billionaires: "Billionaires are pretty confident that they can't be taxed – not just that they shouldn't be taxed, but rather, that it is technically impossible to tax the ultra-rich. They're not shy about explaining why, either – and neither is their army of lickspittles.

If it's impossible to tax billionaires, then anyone who demands that we tax billionaires is being childish. If taxing billionaires is impossible, then being mad that we're not taxing billionaires is like being mad at gravity.

Boy is this old trick getting old. It was already pretty thin when Margaret Thatcher rolled it out, insisting that "there is no alternative" to her program of letting the rich get richer and the poor go hungry. Dressing up a demand ("stop trying to think of alternatives") as a scientific truth ("there is no alternative") sets up a world where your opponents are Doing Ideology, while you're doing science.

Billionaires basically don't pay tax – that's a big part of how they got to be billionaires:"

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/15/piketty-pilled/#tax-justice

Job opportunity: RMIT University Library - Document Delivery
(Bundoora, Naarm/Melbourne, Australia)

We have a position available in our Document Delivery team until May 2025. We're a pretty lovely team, if I say so myself. This is the team I currently lead and I'm very happy to answer any questions you might have about the role.

Position is full-time, fixed term, HEW 5.

Apply and see full details here: https://rmit.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/RMIT_Careers/job/Melbourne/Library-Officer--Document-Delivery_JR34547

#Career #Job #DocumentDelivery #InterLibraryLoan

Public Warning.

If you EVER, and I do mean EVER see a QR code for anything... not just some things, ANYTHING.

Treat it as a scam, do not scan it, they can easily be covered up with malicious redirects to fake sites to steal your financial details. Direct you to malware sites to try and infect your device.

Treat them all the same... as toxic, potential harmful to your identity and security.

Never trust them... EVER!!!

If you 100% must use one, do what you should be doing at any (ATM) cash machine, check for devices that have been installed by crooks. See if you can peel the code off, not just at the area around the code, but the whole sign... look for anything unusual and if you have any doubts... even if it's 1% doubt... DON'T USE IT

This isn't scaremongering, scammers and thieves are out there every day, placing fake QR codes on signs all over the place. No where is safe from them. The way to win is not to play. Don;t buy into the enshitification of everything, don;t be told that you can ONLY do it one specific way (legally they have to offer more than one way to pay for a service).

Please boost and spread the word.

#QRCodes
#ScamQRCodes
#Scammers
#Thieves
#IdentityTheft

Rooftop solar supplies more than 50 per cent of Australian main grid’s power demand for first time.

1pm (AEST) on Saturday, the output of solar PV mounted on the rooftops of millions of Australian households and businesses reached 50.4 per cent.

This beat the previous record of 49.3 per cent set just six days earlier.

There is now more than 23 gigawatts (GW) of rooftop solar in Australia.

#solar #pv #Auspol #energy #rooftopsolar #cleanenergy
#energyrecords
https://reneweconomy.com.au/rooftop-solar-supplies-more-than-50-per-cent-of-main-grids-power-demand-for-first-time/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=thesun

🧵 3/3

From the concluding paragraphs of the 2024 State of the Climate Report, in which a team of scientists warn that without system change, we are likely facing societal collapse...
________________________________

Despite six IPCC reports, 28 COP meetings, hundreds of other reports, and tens of thousands of scientific papers, the world has made only very minor headway on climate change, in part because of stiff resistance from those benefiting financially from the current fossil-fuel based system.

We are currently going in the wrong direction, and our increasing fossil fuel consumption and rising greenhouse gas emissions are driving us toward a climate catastrophe. We fear the danger of climate breakdown.

The evidence we observe is both alarming and undeniable, but it is this very shock that drives us to action. We recognize the profound urgency of addressing this global challenge, especially the horrific outlook for the world's poor.

In a world with finite resources, unlimited growth is a perilous illusion. We need bold, transformative change: drastically reducing overconsumption and waste, especially by the affluent, stabilizing and gradually reducing the human population through empowering education and rights for girls and women, reforming food production systems to support more plant-based eating, and adopting an ecological and post-growth economics framework that ensures social justice.

The surge in yearly climate disasters shows we are in a major crisis with worse to come if we continue with business as usual. Only through decisive action can we safeguard the natural world, avert profound human suffering, and ensure that future generations inherit the livable world they deserve. The future of humanity hangs in the balance.
________________________________

FULL REPORT -- https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595

What's most notable to me about the 2024 State of the Climate Report is that some of the more moderate climate scientists, such as Michael Mann, signed their names to it. This report goes well beyond what we usually get from the mainstream science establishment.

Although they insist they're not being either optimistic or pessimistic but simply honest, the whole thing feels a lot closer to the kind of 'doomism' that many have denounced in the past. Of course, they don't want anyone to give up yet, and neither do I. As they say, "the fact is that avoiding every tenth of a degree of warming is critically important."

But they're willing to state here that climate feedback loops and tipping points could amplify warming beyond human control. And they allude to findings that suggest the current rate of global warming could be accelerating, per James Hansen.

They're even calling for a post-growth economy, i.e. #degrowth.

Bottom line: These scientists are scared, as they should be. As we all should be.

#Economics #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency