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The Guardian is updating our style guide to accurately reflect the nature of the environmental crisis.In the mid 2000's, according to Elizabeth Kolbert's extensive New Yorker series on climate change, the idea was that, before the climate got warmer, it would get colder. The concept was that the Gulf Stream would break down, forcing cold air to sweep across North America and the U.K. Part of the fluctuation in the language surrounding climate change is that the scientific consensus on exactly how it all could play out keeps changing. This is when global warming became climate change, because the fear was that if the earth didn't actually warm, people would stop believing in the catastrophe.
"Climate change" -> "climate emergency, crisis or breakdown"
"Global warming" -> "global heating"
"Climate skeptic" -> "climate science denier"https://t.co/ags5nyz3Pe
- Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) May 17, 2019
The Christchurch Call did not come after any of the dozens of Muslim bombings that happened in the West, or at the peak of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) propaganda efforts, when polished beheading videos made it online every week and were shared by millions, and freely "amplified" by the media.
The unequivocal far-right atrocity serves merely as a cynical hook for countering years of mainstream party anxiety about losing control of the narrative online, which turned into an ongoing breakdown with Hillary Clinton's loss in 2016.
While reactive, the Christchurch Call isn't some brainstorm knocked up in eight weeks. This is the establishment's unifying achievement - a non-binding agreement that will nonetheless serve as a blueprint for future international regulation. If adopted, for most living in the West, there would be no escape.
It is very possible that these new tools will be used cautiously - filtering out only the guns and splatter. But with definitions of hate speech and what is considered extremist being systematically broadened, over time - years? months? - there will be appeals to use these technologies to suppress more and more voices.
And judging by the previous record of the social networks involved, the losers will be the "Islamophobes" and the "transphobes" and the "Russian trolls" - real or imagined - and not the radical feminists calling for all men to be castrated, nor Antifa protesters in balaclavas filming themselves disrupting a campus speech.
While the document talks about the need for "transparency" and "an efficient complaints and appeals process" for any censorship, it leaves both the decisions and the implementation to the tech companies themselves. "Enforcing community standards or terms of service" will still be king - so if a Twitter mod wants to close your account it will be his call and enshrined right.
The whistleblower who exposed a neo-Nazi plot to kill an MP has been warned repeatedly by police that he is at risk of being murdered by far-right terrorists.
Robbie Mullen has received five "Osman notices" (named after a high-profile 1998 case), credible warnings of a high risk of murder that are issued by police to the possible victim, after testifying against the proscribed terror organisation National Action.
"The police have offered me witness protection after each death threat but each time I've turned it down because I want the option to go back home," Mullen, 25, from Warrington, told the Observer. "They would have made me start again, changed my name."
Mullen, a former senior member of National Action who became revolted by its ideology, divulged the plot to murder Cooper to anti-fascist charity Hope Not Hate, details of which are revealed in a book published this week. Since then the threats have come regularly, with the first Osman warning given weeks after Mullen left the organisation and the latest "credible death threat" coming in February.
When Mullen has returned to the north-west, he has been quickly reminded of the risks. "I've seen a few faces in the street. I assume it's because they've been on their own that they haven't attacked me. People are cowards on their own. They just seem shocked to see me," said Mullen, a former warehouse worker.
But he knows the capabilities of his ex-colleagues in a group that celebrated the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a far-right terrorist. And life on the run from them is tough.
Mullen, who joined the group after feeling socially and politically isolated, has been effectively blacklisted because of his past association and cannot secure a job because he is unable to get a clean bill of legal health from the reference agency. Similarly, he was forced to say goodbye to his former life almost immediately after he texted Matthew Collins, Hope Not Hate's head of intelligence, at 10.40pm on Saturday 1 July 2017 to first reveal the plot.
"I didn't want to move or leave my job but had to drop everything and everyone I knew. It has totally ruined my life," said Mullen.
Before texting Collins, Mullen had spent several hours at a National Action meeting in the Friar Penketh, a Wetherspoon's pub in Warrington, listening to Renshaw's plan to kill Cooper with a 19-inch gladius machete.
Speaking in a London pub last week, the softly spoken teetotaller said: "There were five of us sat at a full table, and I wasn't going to be the person to object to it.
"Renshaw told his plot over two to three hours. It wasn't just a quick outline. He kept on explaining, saying he's got the machete, that it's designed for cutting through pig. And the pig is the closest thing to human flesh. There was an aura around the room. It was as if this is what they had been waiting for; everybody sort of had a smile on their face."
Mullen left the pub and contacted Collins, who arranged a getaway vehicle and a secret hideaway in London. Hope Not Hate refused to hand Mullen over to the police until he had been promised immunity.
Collins, who handles a network of informants who have infiltrated a number of far-right groups, knows what Mullen is going through. Once an activist with the far-right terror group Combat 18, Collins became an informer and fled to Australia, returning 10 years later as a wanted man. "You spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. Everybody wants to be a hero."
We came up with this idea, we are driven by a core belief, that a positive relationship to Israel is essential for a healthy Jewish identity. It's not about where you are on the political spectrum. It's not about what party you would vote for or how much you hate Bibi. Which by the way, college students hate Bibi. My sons are in college too, and I'm going to tell you 80 percent of students think that Bibi is a terrible human being. I happen to be the only Likudnik in New Brunswick. So I'm not here to criticize Bibi...
We want to see past that aspect of political Zionism. We want students to have a positive relationship to the state of Israel, because if they don't they're not going to be healthy as Jews. People can't be healthy if they don't have a good relationship with their family. You can go through life hating your parents or your brother or your sister, but it's going to be pain for you for the rest of your life. If you're a Jew and you can't find that positive relationship to your brothers and sisters in Israel, and the state of Israel, there's going to be a part of you that's in pain, even if you 're not aware of it, or you've rationalized it away, you're not fully healthy.
Comment: UPDATE May 18: Since the recent revelations of the leakage of the dome, residents of the islands and those previously involved in the original cleanup operations have come forward, saying the US had failed to take precautions to prevent the dome from leaking. Even though the government declared the area safe for residents to return, the dome began leaking almost immediately after the engineers left. Islanders have also struggled with numerous health issues from cancers to weakened immune systems, and other noncommunicable diseases as well. Many of the roughly 8,000 people involved in the decontamination process have since died. See also: