Holy crap, I didn't think Biden would be able to get the Climate Corps established without Congress. This is SUCH fantastic news.
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"After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.
In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ more than 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.
The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.
Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps.
“After years of demonstrating and fighting for a Climate Corps, we turned a generational rallying cry into a real jobs program that will put a new generation to work stopping the climate crisis,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, an environmental group that has led the push for a climate corps.
With the new corps “and the historic climate investments won by our broader movement, the path towards a Green New Deal is beginning to become visible,” Prakash said...
...Environmental activists hailed the new jobs program, which is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal...
Lawmakers Weigh In
More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had also encouraged Biden to create a climate corps, saying in a letter on Monday that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale.”
The lawmakers cited deadly heat waves in the Southwest and across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, among recent examples of climate-related disasters.
Democrats called creation of the climate corps “historic” and the first step toward fulfilling the vision of the Green New Deal.
“Today President Biden listened to the (environmental) movement, and he delivered with an American Climate Corps,” a beaming Markey said at a celebratory news conference outside the Capitol.
“We are starting to turn the green dream into a green reality,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who co-sponsored the Green New Deal legislation with Markey four years ago.
“You all are changing the world,” she told young activists.
Program Details and Grant Deadlines
The initiative will provide job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects, including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding; clean energy projects such as wind and solar power; managing forests to prevent catastrophic wildfires; and energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for consumers, the White House said.
Creation of the climate corps comes as the Environmental Protection Agency launches a $4.6 billion grant competition for states, municipalities and tribes to cut climate pollution and advance environmental justice. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants are funded by the 2022 climate law and are intended to drive community-driven solutions to slow climate change.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the grants will help “communities so they can chart their own paths toward the clean energy future.”
The deadline for states and municipalities to apply is April 1, with grants expected in late 2024. Tribes and territories must apply by May 1, with grants expected by early 2025."
-via Boston.com, September 21, 2023
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What Separates Digital Circus’s Horror From Others
Disturbing.
Unnerving.
TERRIFYING.
BUT WHY?!
On the surface to the… five people that never watched The Amazing Digital Circus Pilot, this show looks like a Five Nights At Freddy’s knock off.
It’s a cute mascot show that is actually secretly a horror monster infested world.
Even people who haven’t seen FNAF at least seen a few clips of it and what it’s famous for. I know I have.
My sister is super into this, and she hogs the TV, so… RIP me.
That’s what most non-horror stans usually view horror as.
The jumpscares.
The unnerving imagery.
The designs made to freak out the viewers and make them uncomfortable.
It’s usually quite obvious when something is a horror, cause these aspects are often front and center. You can usually tell it’s a trailer of a horror movie by just looking at it.
At least, from my, a non-horror lover’s understanding. For some reason these sorts of things, especially indie animated ones, are the faces of a lot of content farms.
If the product itself isn’t r@%ing your audience, it’s those.
(TAKE MY WARNING AND TAKE IT SERIOUSLY: IF YOU VALUE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH AND YOUR SANITY, DO NOT LOOK UP THIS MOVIE)
BUT BACK ON SUBJECT.
Digital Circus… doesn’t really have this stuff.
There’s no jumpscares.
(I mean there is in a trailer, but it’s used as a joke.)
The character designs are very cute looking without any alternate versions that are scary.
And the imagery of the show remains cute and fun all throughout. The darkest it gets is in a realistic looking office.
But there are no jumpscares in that scene.
It’s just… a normal office.
If this was a horror, then perfect opportunity, right?
So… what’s going on here?
This, my friends, is why Digital Circus is not your typical indie animated horror flick.
And why people even call it ‘scary’ at all.
Here’s the trick this show uses.
It’s not the imagery.
It’s not the designs.
It’s not even intentionally trying to scare you.
Caine is not intentionally trying to scare the audience. He’s just acting like an A.I.
Yeah he has SOME unnerving moments.
But compared to THIS:
I’d say Caine is pretty tame.
Maybe it’s an indicator that he’s secretly a monster like the Other Mother in Coraline.
That horror flick is about the host lying to the protagonist and revealing their horror-like appearance later on.
But not only was it confirmed that Caine is NOT evil. But look at his design right away and his presentation.
There is no sign so far that he lies about anything. At least not what he doesn’t know.
Yes he lied about the exit. But the exit ITSELF was the thing that sent you to the VOID. So really he kinda tried to protect them.
If he didn’t, he’d let jester girl eject herself like Among Us.
So why is it unnerving?
Because it’s the POV we the audience are in for most of the episode: Pomni.
Pomni is an Audience Surrogate.
Audience Surrogates are characters designed specifically to be a placeholder for the audience.
People usually assume this trope as the character made to be the bland and generic one. But that’s actually not true.
An audience surrogate can be as simple as a First Person POV. As all it means is that the character is designed to have the same reactions the audience would in the situation they would find themselves in.
Course, not speaking for everybody, but majority that would consume the content.
Thus, with Pomni as the audience surrogate, we the audience are thrusted into her shoes the whole time. We feel the fear she does. We are experiencing the circus the same time she does.
Notice the editing in some scenes. Specifically the scenes Pomni is NOT in.
When Pomni is in a scene, there’s usually some change in lighting or camera movement that’s unnerving.
But when she isn’t in a scene, these editing moves aren’t there at all.
Which makes it pretty easy to suggest that these unnerving edits are just what’s going on in Pomni’s head.
So with that, when she’s scared. We’re scared. We’re in her POV.
But she’s scared all the time. That’s just her average personality, right?
Then why make these specific edits?
Let’s think about this:
This character is trapped in a world that isn’t her own. Everything is unusual, and she wants out. But instantly realizes there’s no escape.
And then gets told this is her new home and her new body.
A home she doesn’t recognize. And a body she doesn’t even know the name of.
She lost all sense of identity in an instant. Losing everything about herself in an instant. To the point where she can’t even remember what she was before.
And to make matters worse, because this is unusual, everything SEEMS terrifying. Even to those trying to help her adjust.
The only way out of such a confusing and terrifying world is to escape. Which is what she tries to find the entire time.
So THEREFORE:
The horror is this show is NOT the jumpscares or the creepy images.
The horror is THE VIEWER’S MIND.
This show constantly destroys your mind and breaks you through Pomni.
The idea of losing everything about yourself and being trapped in something unfamiliar forever. That IS terrifying.
If you were in this situation, you’d probably freak out even if you were the bravest being ever.
So it’s not about how scary the scene is on the outside.
It’s about what you’re THINKING that’s scary.
Ragatha’s distress monologue is not scary on the outside. But if you actually take into consideration what she says.
THATS terrifying.
That toys with your mind. And it also toys with Pomni’s.
The monster figure in the episode, the abstraction, is nowhere near as scary as something from FNAF
At least in my opinion.
Especially seeing what the monster does.
It can’t kill you. You’re just glitched.
Or maybe it CAN kill. But we never see that.
Even if Pomni ended up like Ragatha, Caine would’ve eventually came back, found them, and fixed them. And they would’ve been fine.
But then, rather out of nowhere, she STOPS.
And we get this shot.
I talked about this shot before. Said it quickly became one of my favorite shots in media.
This is why.
This shot makes me queasy every time.
The idea of looking in a mirror and not even being able to process or recognize yourself. Unable to even process your own reflection, that’s how unrecognizable you’ve become.
That’s horrifying.
And there’s no dialogue here either.
The episode effectively uses SHOW DONT TELL.
They SHOW you how scary the situation is. They SHOW you a single image that tells you everything.
It would’ve been so easy to just have Pomni say “I’m scared. I don’t recognize myself. Who is this person looking back at me?”
But no
They DON’T insult their audience.
They don’t TELL you.
They let you sink it in yourself.
Pomni doesn’t even have ANY lines after she goes through the exit door. And yet the shots after that with her have been plastered everywhere. Why? Cause she doesn’t need to tell you her mental state. You’re SHOWN it.
Can someone PLEASE tell the live action Avatar The Last Airbender that?!
Speaking of the office scene. This is the only moment in the show that looks… real. Not that cartoony.
Which I guess being in a setting that’s off putting from the rest makes it creepy, right?
Well not really.
Sure she’s running through rooms that seem to be repeating, which that of itself is sanity breaking. It reminds me a lot of another existential horror: The Stanley Parable.
But while that game is excellent and the monologue that plays in that ending is one of my favorites, it IS just telling you the sanity of the player.
Not that there’s anything wrong with this in that games style. There’s no other way that could’ve been done in that game.
Here, again, there’s no dialogue. It’s just Pomni running through these desperate for the exit.
The scary part about this is that we KNOW the absolute DESPERATION she has.
Even if we couldn’t see her face, that’s still across because we’ve seen it the entire episode.
And then there’s her break.
She snaps at the sight of a desk, and gets fangs, that of a FNAF character. But only for a second. She doesn’t even go out at the camera with them. She goes on her merry way.
But Pomni, being the POV character, really doesn’t have much to be scared at about her.
So why is this terrifying? Why not go all the way if this is supposed to be a jumpscare?
Well cause it’s not.
A way to scare your audience is to make them feel dread. Lingering longing dread. Sometimes irrational dread.
People with anxiety especially get scared at things even when they’re completely safe. They feel an unease in their stomachs. They feel unable to move. Unable to speak. Unable to put it into words at all.
It could be because we saw something unnerving that stays in our subconscious. It could be because we’re nervous about something coming up. It could be because we’re in an uncomfortable situation.
Either way, anything even remotely resembling that triggering thing can break someone to feel this anxiety. Sometimes even something as simple as the dark. Even if we know we’re completely safe.
(Speaking as a person with anxiety myself)
She only snaps and cackles when she sees a random desk with a computer. Which also has the headset she put on there. The thing that got her in this.
But you might not have even seen the headset on your first viewing. I didn’t.
But your subconscious sees it. The environment not being like the others aids in unnerving you and making it hard to process what you’re looking at.
Why is this terrifying? Why does it break you? Why does it mentally break Pomni?
We don’t know. It just does.
We’ve been stuck going through doors in repeating rooms for hours.
Fear makes you not able to overthink it.
So all of that is build up to the near perfect shot of Pomni at the brink of snapping at the dinner table. With the others voices blurred in her mind. As all she can do is fake a smile.
Terrifying End.
It’s not scary because it’s scary. It’s scary because it toys with the character, and the viewer’s mind
Now, is Digital Circus the first media to do this technique?
No. Not at all.
One of the most acclaimed animated movies, Spirited Away, also uses these exact same tactics for example.
That’s obviously a master class at this tactic. And it scared me as a child as a result. For all these exact same reasons.
It’s not a horror. Not traditionally. It’s not trying to scare you. But it does anyway cause in your mind it’s a scary concept.
And also, well, Spirited Away is a completed story as of the time this post comes out.
And Digital Circus only has one episode. But we did get confirmation this would be a series.
And I personally have high hopes that this brilliant tactic is kept. From the trailer, it does seem like they’re not forgetting the stuff I bring up here.
So I hope this works out for the creators despite the drama and the internet BS surrounding this show.
But even if not, we at least get one case in this show where we all want to curl up in a ball and cry
Us too Pomni. Us too.
Thank you for reading my… analysis a ton of people made before me, and probably better. Happy day for you all.
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No-paywall version.
"You can never really see the future, only imagine it, then try to make sense of the new world when it arrives.
Just a few years ago, climate projections for this century looked quite apocalyptic, with most scientists warning that continuing “business as usual” would bring the world four or even five degrees Celsius of warming — a change disruptive enough to call forth not only predictions of food crises and heat stress, state conflict and economic strife, but, from some corners, warnings of civilizational collapse and even a sort of human endgame. (Perhaps you’ve had nightmares about each of these and seen premonitions of them in your newsfeed.)
Now, with the world already 1.2 degrees hotter, scientists believe that warming this century will most likely fall between two or three degrees. (A United Nations report released this week ahead of the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, confirmed that range.) A little lower is possible, with much more concerted action; a little higher, too, with slower action and bad climate luck. Those numbers may sound abstract, but what they suggest is this: Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders,
we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.
...Conventional wisdom has dictated that meeting the most ambitious goals of the Paris agreement by limiting warming to 1.5 degrees could allow for some continuing normal, but failing to take rapid action on emissions, and allowing warming above three or even four degrees, spelled doom.
Neither of those futures looks all that likely now, with the most terrifying predictions made improbable by decarbonization and the most hopeful ones practically foreclosed by tragic delay. The window of possible climate futures is narrowing, and as a result, we are getting a clearer sense of what’s to come: a new world, full of disruption but also billions of people, well past climate normal and yet mercifully short of true climate apocalypse.
Over the last several months, I’ve had dozens of conversations — with climate scientists and economists and policymakers, advocates and activists and novelists and philosophers — about that new world and the ways we might conceptualize it. Perhaps the most capacious and galvanizing account is one I heard from Kate Marvel of NASA, a lead chapter author on the fifth National Climate Assessment: “The world will be what we make it.” Personally, I find myself returning to three sets of guideposts, which help map the landscape of possibility.
First, worst-case temperature scenarios that recently seemed plausible now look much less so, which is inarguably good news and, in a time of climate panic and despair, a truly underappreciated sign of genuine and world-shaping progress...
[I cut number two for being focused on negatives. This is a reasons for hope blog.]
Third, humanity retains an enormous amount of control — over just how hot it will get and how much we will do to protect one another through those assaults and disruptions. Acknowledging that truly apocalyptic warming now looks considerably less likely than it did just a few years ago pulls the future out of the realm of myth and returns it to the plane of history: contested, combative, combining suffering and flourishing — though not in equal measure for every group...
“We live in a terrible world, and we live in a wonderful world,” Marvel says. “It’s a terrible world that’s more than a degree Celsius warmer. But also a wonderful world in which we have so many ways to generate electricity that are cheaper and more cost-effective and easier to deploy than I would’ve ever imagined. People are writing credible papers in scientific journals making the case that switching rapidly to renewable energy isn’t a net cost; it will be a net financial benefit,” she says with a head-shake of near-disbelief. “If you had told me five years ago that that would be the case, I would’ve thought, wow, that’s a miracle.”"
-via The New York Times Magazine, October 26, 2022
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