Since 2012, Global Witness has been gathering data on killings of land and environmental defenders. In that time, a grim picture has come into focus – with the evidence suggesting that as the climate crisis intensifies, violence against those protecting their land and our planet also increases. It has become clear that the unaccountable exploitation and greed driving the climate crisis is also driving violence against land and environmental defenders.
School 🚸 is back in session and the bus 🚍 is running really late.
It’s been kind of slow in the office so I don’t think I will miss much, and I can do whatever needed on my phone, a skill I mastered during the pandemic. And then just take a shorter lunch.
The answer is probably no, although I respect the ideas and agree with conservatives on some issues. I am not a big believer of tradition for the sake of tradition nor do I salute government employees just for serving the people, whatever that really means.
You might say I’m a libertarian, skeptical of government power which I often see as driven by bigotry and a misunderstanding of others rather than an actual desire to do good.
That said, there is a role in government for protecting citizens from misdeeds of large corporations and for investing in the commons that can be enjoyed by all like our wild lands and libraries.
I do worry about the costs of an ever growing government that increasingly is unwilling to confront its own supporters for the sake of what’s right or fair, one that’s unwilling to take on the hard problems like climate change or even the growing debt on all levels of government. Problems don’t go away by ignoring them.
I’m not sure what all the answers are, but I am skeptical of all political power and just see more and more of government driven by biogtry rather than thoughtful debate and discussion.
Data Source: New York State Board of Elections, Percentage of Active enrolled voters. Darker colors represent counties with the highest percentage of voters enrolled in that particular party.
New state laws tightening voting restrictions come in two basic varieties: those that make it harder to cast a vote, and those making it more difficult to get registered to vote in the first place.
I was able to get 45 counties out of the 62 counties in New York State’s election districts shapefiles for my use in future years from public online sources. 🐴 🐘
That’s not all of the counties but the only big one I couldn’t get was Nassau County and I’m less interested in that county for my personal interest compared to Upstate counties. But I have Suffolk County, Westchester County, Rockland County and New York City. The last three were official shapefiles on their website, while Suffolk was on their county REST/Server.
I also got all of the North Country, along with Chautauqua, Erie, Onondaga, Oneida, Broome, Schenectady, Albany and Rennselear County. Many but not all of the hick counties – but they are so Republican, they probably aren’t interesting to analyze. I could not get Columbia or Dutchess County as neither county posts them or has a public REST/Services.
Monroe County was a bitch as their REST/Server requires an API Token from their online mapper but once you present the token with the proper query of the sever it’s happy to give you the GeoJson of the election districts.
I took careful notes on where I got the files from so my hope is in early 2022 once state redistricting is done I can go back to the county websites and REST/Services and get the new election districts and use them to create super EDs and crosswalk tables and compare old results to current results.
It was a lot of tedious work but I think it will be very useful in the coming years…
