Social Europe: Armenia’s Velvet Revolution

In 1978 Vaclav Havel wrote The Power of the Powerless in which he argued against the communist regime, maintaining that it forced people to “live in a lie”. For Havel, the resistance against the lie was to begin living in the truth and to challenge one’s own powerlessness through recognising one’s agency. Fast forward forty years, and we are now witnessing a new velvet revolution in post-socialist Armenia, a country which proclaimed its independence from Soviet rule in 1991, but which has long struggled to create a democracy. More than anything else, this is a revolution about values. It is about the values of Armenian society and its domestic, socio-economic and political realities. The revolution is not about geopolitics or foreign relations. [...]

Through these actions Armenia’s citizens, who some had described as apathetic, fatalistic, and demoralised, began to challenge the regime’s hold on power and its legitimacy to govern. Today, per official statistics, over one third of Armenians live in poverty and the country’s population has declined below 3 million due to both emigration and a declining birth rate. On the one hand, there is a desire to be rid of the oligarchic system of governance and to implement a more democratic and just system of governance which recognises and respects the rule of law and the human rights of Armenia’s citizens. On the other hand, there is a desire to live in a fairer society, where citizens live with dignity and where nepotism and corruption do not lead to extremes of social and income inequality and poverty.  [...]

Inclusion and tolerance are new values to Armenian society, where not only disabled people, but also people who identify as LGBT have faced discrimination, marginalisation, and even violence. Indeed, the RPA old-guard has used the presence of feminists and LGBT activists involved in the movement to attack Pashinyan as promoting ‘Western values’. And to be sure, the old divisions may return after the revolutionary euphoria passes, but for now, suited doctors and lawyers are rallying and marching alongside young tattooed hipsters, grizzly-bearded old men, and vocal young feminists, in an atmosphere characterised by peace, joy, and tolerance.

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SciShow: Every Winter, These Squirrels Destroy Their Brains

Vintage Everyday: Believe It or Not: Human Zoos Really Existed in the Past, And There Are Pictures to Prove It

 Have you ever heard of a human zoo? A human zoo was a place (and yes, they really existed in the past) where people were kept for display, just like animals are kept in zoos. The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Europeans of Western civilization and non-European peoples or with other Europeans who practiced a lifestyle deemed more primitive. Some of them placed indigenous populations in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and Europeans.

Human zoos were quite popular, as many of them were found around Europe during the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. However, they weren’t the only continent that liked to expose humans in this way. North America, specifically the U.S, had their fair share of human zoos; however they stepped up their game from the Europeans.

Ethnological expositions are sometimes criticized and ascertained as highly degrading and racist, depending on the show and individuals involved. It was obviously one of the most horrendous things one can imagine, and these pictures of human zoos are bound to terrify you!

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Quartz: Scientists have developed a new plastic that can be recycled infinitely

But now chemists at Colorado State University have made a new kind of plastic that can be recycled over and over again without losing its quality. The plastic, reported in the journal Science, can be broken down into its building blocks using mild temperatures and chemicals, and then built back up again to be as good as new.

The world produces around 300 million tons a year, and this is expected to exceed 500 million tons by 2050. Most plastics are produced for a single use. Only 5–10% of plastics are recycled today. And the resulting plastic is of low quality so it isn’t recycled again and also ends up in landfills. Biodegradable plastics and novel ways to break down plastic help. [...]

Eugene Chen and his colleagues have found a way to do that. They have developed a plastic that can be produced from a ring-shaped molecule in just a few minutes at room temperature and without the need for harsh solvents. The plastic is as strong as commercial plastics.

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Quartz: Hawaii pledges to become carbon neutral by 2045—the most ambitious goal of any US state

One of the bills cites a study that found that Hawaii could suffer $19 billion worth of damage to private property because of a rise in sea levels. When public infrastructure is included, the damage will likely be a lot higher. That is why it isn’t surprising that the US state most vulnerable to climate change is the one most keen to mitigate its impact. [...]

To be sure, it’s not clear if the state has thought through how hard a net-zero emissions target is to meet. The bill mentions initiatives such as planting trees and improving soil health as means of sequestering carbon, but not technologies such as carbon capture and storage that are proven to reduce emissions on a larger scale. That’s where the greenhouse-gas sequestration task force will help. It has a 2023 deadline to craft a plan that Hawaii can use to reach carbon neutrality. One of the bills also opens the door for the state to participate in carbon-trading programs, such as the one in California, and to use other market-driven tools to cut emissions.

Before Hawaii’s latest moves, Rhode Island was the state with the most ambitious climate goal: cutting emissions by 85% of 1990 levels by 2050. More importantly, Hawaii can now count itself among the most climate-friendly territories in the world. The Maldives aims to become carbon neutral by 2020, Costa Rica by 2021, Norway by 2030, Iceland by 2040, Sweden by 2045, and New Zealand by 2050. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it clear that more states and countries will need to join this list if the world as a whole is to avoid climate catastrophe.

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