The heat is on - not at home, but outside - and it's too hot for comfort.

Grab a cold drink (if you have such a luxury at your fingertips) and stick with me, cos we're gonna push through discomfort to see what can be done about people (and our world) in crisis:

Record-breaking temperatures this year have somehow been relayed by mass media with very little reference to the climate crisis or the responsibility of the handful of people profiting obscenely from the overheating of our world.

To call it an ecological and humanitarian disaster that is somehow happening right now, and still unfolding, is probably too tame.

We are on fire.

And various climate activists are currently in prison for pointing that out.

Where was I?

Right. Solidarity actions. Simple ones.

I'm not going to tell you to stop using plastic straws cos I kind of feel that the onus for rescuing the climate being put squarely on the shoulders of individuals is a deliberate red herring to shield the corporations who are actually responsible, from any challenge or demands for accountability.

There ARE things that most of us can do with relative ease. We can reduce, reuse, recycle, upcycle, regift. We can mend rather than buy again. We can shop secondhand/refurbished. We can invest in community resources (tool banks, lending libraries). We can choose not to shop at Amazon or Apple or Temu (if we have the privilege of choice).

There are also things we need to understand the most multiply marginalised often cannot do

Someone without kitchen facilities may not be able to avoid pre-made meals or takeout. Someone without a home may not be able to reduce or segregate their waste. Someone with three jobs to make ends meet may not be able to take time to learn how to mend their clothes. Someone already under the poverty line is unlikely to pay a premium for a more ethical product.

So here's your solidarity action this time - have a wander around your home and consider the things you have that are markers of privilege.

A functioning kitchen with well-stocked cupboards? A fridge and/or freezer for keeping food longer? A functioning bathroom to enable personal hygiene? A comfortable bed to sleep in? A wardrobe with a choice of outfits for different seasons? More than one room for everything?A door that shuts securely and offers you protection. Four walls and a ceiling not made of canvas, tin, wood, or cardboard scraps. More possessions than you could pack up and carry. A neighbourhood not being actively bombed. Anything above that you can access independently, without assistance.

It gets deep pretty quick.

And it's challenging, especially if you're not used to examining your privilege - but I encourage you to sit with that discomfort, because it really is just discomfort, and that's where the most important learning happens.

Climate justice and disability justice go hand-in-hand, and as July is Disability Pride month (and hot, hot, hot, but not in a good way), there is no better time to consider these two movements. I encourage you to learn more via disability justice activist and writer, Krystal Kavita Jagoo - Celebrating how Brad Lomax and the Black Panther Party Paved the Way for Disability Justice

Solidarity Spotlight

This time I want to highlight Iman, who is the friend of a friend. Iman is a mum, a qualified psychologist, an artist, and happens to live in Gaza, where she and her family have been trying their best to navigate the genocide being inflicted upon Palestinians by Israhell and its supporters. She is kind-hearted and considerate, and when our mutual friend, Kitty, was struggling to make ends meet, Iman directed her own supporters to also help Kitty.

If that's not solidarity, I don't know what is!

Iman and her family are also on the receiving end of climate injustice, with corporate greed and white supremacy directly funding and profiting off the atrocities being inflicted on Palestine (and now Lebanon, without any apparent global outrage whatsoever). Iman and her family occupy the intersections between racism, capitalism, white supremacy, and ecocide, and it is a violently dangerous place to be.

If you're not able to spare anything to Iman's fund, would you kindly copy and paste the below message onto one social media platform, to help get more visibility for Iman and her family's needs.

Heck, share it if you CAN spare something - it's free and only takes a moment! Sometimes solidarity can be THAT simple.

Psychologist and artist, Iman, has taken in 13 children of martyred relatives, and with her new husband is trying to also care for her sick mother, and keep them all alive through devastation, homelessness, and famine.

Please support her and help #KeepFolksAlive: https://chuffed.org/project/help-iman-in-gaza