Quartz: Brexiters who argued they’d be more “free” didn’t really understand the philosophy of freedom

In a blog post for the London School of Economics on the subject, Papazoglou explains how the 20th-century philosopher Isaiah Berlin set out two forms of liberty: negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom is the freedom from external constraints, while positive freedom is the freedom to do things according to your will. And in arguing the UK should leave the EU, campaigners disproportionately emphasized negative freedoms.

“As a member of the EU, I may give up the right to control my borders in terms of EU citizens,” says Papazoglou. “But then my citizens also gain the freedom to travel and work in a lot of countries.” [...]

Papazaglou also argues that the notion of the EU imposing undemocratic edicts on the UK is false. In fact, he says, the EU is a highly democratic institution, and arguably embodies a more nuanced version of democracy than the EU referendum itself—in which slim majority vote on a referendum has the power to effect the course of a country for the foreseeable future. [...]

Though a philosophical discussion of freedom might seem too abstract for day-to-day politics, Papazoglou points out that much of the debate around whether the UK should remain in the EU was focused on abstract ideas such as democracy, sovereignty, and freedom, not just practical considerations. And so, if the UK was to make a decision about its standing in the world based on a concept of freedom, there should at least have been a nuanced discussion of what freedom is.

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CityLab: How Oakland Defeated Coal

Because of this coalition—working under the banner of No Coal in Oakland—the city took a historic vote on June 27 to ban coal, following the lead of cities such as Portland, Oregon. Had the deal gone through, millions of tons of coal would have been stored at the port terminal annually, and Oakland would have become the largest coal-export city on the West Coast. It also would have increased Oakland’s culpability in contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions linked to climate change. [...]

Still, it was monumental that any labor reps took part in the protest, let alone that they played a leading role. The blue-green alliance formed in recent years among labor and environmentalists has not been ironclad. The AFL-CIO would not join climate change activists in their protests against the Keystone XL pipeline, worried about the jobs it might cost its members. And while the AFL-CIO did pledge to help billionaire Tom Steyer’s political efforts in fighting climate change earlier this year, eight major building-trade unions fired an angry letter at AFL-CIO president Richard Trumpka for doing so. [...]

The Oakland fight against coal expanded well beyond labor, though. A number of traditionally non-green social justice groups stepped up for this fight. A teach-in held at the local SEIU headquarters last December was emblematic of this. There, a variety of activists came out to speak on a multitude of issues—gentrification, displacement, and the fight for a minimum wage of $15 among them—tying it all to the need to keep coal out of Oakland. It wasn’t just a display of intersectionality; it was a constellation of forces converging. [...]

“Yeah, most of the environmentalists were white, and the the other side tried to say that those white people don’t understand our struggle, and that they were just trying to gentrify West Oakland,” says Muhammad. “But I was like, ‘Wait, I’m black, and [coal pollution] affects black people, too. I don’t want to be breathing that stuff, or work in that stuff. So don’t try to say that only Caucasians are concerned about this.’ Most of my local union is black, and we got a problem with it too.”

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Mental Floss: The Ozone Layer Hole Over Antarctica Is Healing

In the last 200 years, we human beings have inflicted staggering amounts of violence and destruction on our home planet. The prognosis seems grim. But every so often, we see a glimmer of hope. The latest? Researchers in the Antarctic report that a tear in the ozone layer above the continent is showing signs of healing. They published their findings in the journal Science. [...]

Apparently, the ban is working. Studies over the last 10 years have suggested that the ozone layer has begun to patch itself up in certain places, and the latest research in Antarctica bears that out.

Lead author Susan Solomon is an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She and her colleagues have been monitoring the Antarctic ozone hole for years, looking at its area, height, and chemical profile. They now report that, from 2000 to 2015, the size of hole has shrunk by millions of square miles. 

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The Guardian: Europe can’t rescue Britain. It’s too busy trying to save itself

Imagining that Britain’s European partners will produce concessions to facilitate a U-turn is wishful thinking – the EU is too weak and too rattled by populist forces to be able to make that kind of manoeuvre without setting itself on a course to self-destruction. The EU will prefer to ensure its own survival as a project rather than risk suicide by handing Britain unprecedented exemptions from its founding principles, such as freedom of movement. [...]

The logic of those who believe Brexit is a slogan rather than a reality has rested on two observations: first, there has been the reminder that in the past other EU countries held referendums whose outcomes were later corrected; second, there is the belief that because EU partners are supposedly so desperate to keep Britain in the club, they will come around and start preparing a new offer, especially on the immigration issue, which would make a British reversal much less difficult than it is now. [...]

It’s true that no European government wanted Brexit, nor ever wished it would materialise. But there is a difference between not wanting something to happen and being able to prevent it. Freedom of movement is a structural pillar of Europe. Weakening it to any greater extent than was offered to Britain earlier this year (to no effect) would trigger a time-bomb from which the European project would not recover.

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Business Insider: China is building the world's largest city — and it already has more people than South Korea

For the past decade, China has been on a mission to build the world's biggest city by combining a number of large cities into one giant megacity.

With a current population of roughly 57 million housed inside a 15,000-square-mile perimeter, the Pearl River Delta is a region roughly the size of West Virginia but with 30 times more people. [...]

Each city's population ranges from nearly 2 million to more than 14 million, which, by 2030, China hopes to unite into an all-powerful megacity with an economic output around $2 trillion.

Whether that's feasible is still a mystery, but it's one the country is set on solving.

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