As the U.S. deals with a nationwide swatting wave, Motherboard has traced much of the activity to a particular swatting-as-a-service account on Telegram. Torswats uses synthesized voices to pressure law enforcement to specific locations.
LINK: https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7z8be/torswats-computer-generated-ai-voice-swatting
Hundreds of teenagers flooded into Downtown Chicago on Saturday night, smashing car windows, trying to get into Millennium Park, and prompting a major police response. A woman whose car was smashed by people jumping on the windshield said her husband was beaten as he sat in the driver’s seat. Police were escorting tourists and others back to their cars in the Millennium Park garage.
s Antarctic ice melts, all of that fresh water pours into the ocean, essentially diluting it by reducing its salinity. That, in turn, is dramatically slowing the currents that, like a conveyor belt, carry oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nutrients through the sea and around the world.
A study published last week in the journal Nature modeled the impacts of this phenomenon, called overturning circulation, on the deepest ocean currents, particularly in the southern hemisphere. It found that the world is on the verge of a potentially catastrophic slowdown, which could have a devastating effect on climate change, marine ecosystems, and the stability of Antarctic ice.
“Our modeling shows that if global carbon emissions continue at the current rate, then the Antarctic overturning will slow by more than 40 per cent in the next 30 years, and on a trajectory that looks headed towards collapse,” lead researcher Matthew England, an oceanographer and climate scientist at the University of New South Wales, said at a new conference announcing the findings, according to BBC.
Melted plastic has become intertwined with rocks on the Brazilian island of Trindade, researchers said, calling the discovery “new and terrifying.”
The water in the Colorado River is becoming an increasingly desirable investment target for private investment companies as it is becoming an increasingly scarce natural resource in the American West. One of the most significant landowners in the Grand Valley is an investment company called Water Asset Management, which is based in New York and has made at least $20 million worth of investments in Western Colorado over the course of the past five years.
This episode I’m joined by writer Dougald Hine to discuss his book At Work in the Ruins.
Book link: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/at-work-in-the-ruins/
A community outside of Phoenix is furious after being cut off from its municipal water supply. NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard has more on how residents in the Rio Verde Foothills are doing everything to bring water back to their homes as others question why developers continue to build on dry land.
So much is happening, both wonderful and terrible – and it matters how we tell it. We can’t erase the bad news, but to ignore the good is the route to indifference or despair
Refusing the Total System
‘Did you eat something that didn’t agree with you?’ asked Bernard.
The Savage nodded. ‘I ate civilisation.’
The Machine is like an exotic gemstone unveiled before us, laid out on a cloth of black velvet. At first we gasp, then we wonder. What is this miracle? Where did it come from? Who made it? It glisters in the daylight in ways which our best artists cannot capture. The Machine glisters and it makes promises.
I will save you, it says. And then: I will become you. Entwined, we will go forward together. We have always been together. You need me.
LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jan/12/rebecca-solnit-climate-crisis-popular-imagination-why-we-need-new-storiesLINK: