Caroline Kroes

Look at us, speeding in the wrong direction. You’d almost think we’re in a competition to emit as much CO2 as quickly as possible... #climateaction #cop25

During times of conflict and suffering, we can only hope that outsiders who are not immediately affected will nurture seeds of peace. The job of intellectuals, artists and scholars is to try and go deeper. To try and see the complexity of reality, especially in today's climate of post-truth. It feels intellectually and emotionally lazy to just pick a side. #quote #war #peace #hope #empathy #truth #criticalthinking

Today I had a dear friend call me from Gaza to say goodbye. I begged her not to say it and that she would survive. She broke down and told me bodies of children and women litter the streets. And that even if she is not killed she does not want to live. I know that last week people in Israel had similar conversations. I felt their pain then and I still do. Please feel the pain today of those of us losing friends and loved ones in Gaza. My friends are not animals, they are people.

I made this 1 year ago. It's best viewed today.

People often ask why this conflict is so intractable. And I think there are two reasons, one “simple” and one more complicated. The simple one—simple only in that it’s easy to describe and agree on—is that this is not a traditional “border dispute,” like most international conflicts. Instead, you have one piece of land being fought over by two groups, and, almost uniquely in the world, significant numbers of people on both sides believe that the *whole thing* is exclusively theirs, and that the other group should either leave or remain as second-class citizens. This is made even worse by the fact that many of the people holding these extreme positions (on both sides) believe that God is literally on *their* side. The more complicated reason is that both sides have a story, a “narrative” as they say, for why *they* belong there, and why that place belongs to them. And this is where it gets tricky. The easy route is to pick one narrative over the other. “We are right! They are wrong!” But the hard and challenging truth is that *both* stories are legitimate, and which one you happen to support is often simply the one you heard first, whether from your parents, or from anyone else. Now, unless they hold back, you will soon see people from both sides jumping on me with, “No! The Jews are European settlers who should go back home!” And… “No! The Palestinians have never existed! They are a recent invention created to attack the Jews…” Okay. Whatever. The challenge, again, is that both national stories are long, rich, tragic, beautiful, and legitimate. And the ONLY way this conflict will end is when enough people on all sides accept that the other story also has merit, that we are all here to stay, and that the only way forward is by finding a way to share this place we all love so dearly and painfully. Thanks for reading. If this makes sense to *one* person, this will have been a good day.

Right now the minds of Israelis & Palestinians are filled with their own pain: no space left to even acknowledge the pain of the other side. But outsiders should make an effort to empathize with all suffering humans & help maintain a space for peace. bit.ly/YNH-TIME-Oct23 @TIME

Bij de laffe aanval van terreurgroep Hamas tegen Israël wordt regelmatig ‘de context’ erbij gehaald en dat Israël ‘ook fouten maakt’. Ja, de huidige regering van Netanyahu bedrijft op veel gebieden een verkeerde politiek, en ja, het Palestijns-Israëlisch conflict is zeer complex. Allemaal waar. Tegelijk is kritiek op Netanyahu binnen Israël volop aanwezig en is het een land waar (nog) een grote mate van individuele vrijheid is. Hamas is daarentegen de slechtst mogelijke spreekbuis voor ‘de Palestijnse zaak’ want een regelrechte terreurorganisatie, die ook van de eigen bevolking geen tegenspraak duldt en vergelijkbaar is met IS in ideologie en handelwijze. Natuurlijk moet Israël zich daartegen verdedigen.

Hoogste eer voor verzetsheld Jan Zwartendijk, die duizenden Joden redde ift.tt/irnUJO5

Anne Frank’s diary last entry was written 79 years ago today, on Tuesday, August 1, 1944. #onthisday

For those wondering, if the distribution was normal (hint. it isn't) and the climate was not changing (hint. it is.), then 6.4 standard deviations would correspond to odds of about 1-in-13,000,000,000 (1-in-13 billion).

Wow, just wow. The planet is breaking. Antarctic sea ice extent is the headline for me this morning. There was actually a net *decrease* in ice extent day over day, and it's mid-winter there, peak freeze season. Extent is now 6.4 standard deviations below the 1991-2020 mean.

Plastic nepbomen. 🙈 Waarom bestaat dit en wie wil er nou weer zoiets… (en dan nog dat prijskaartje 👀). Mensen, koop alsjeblieft echte bomen, we hebben ze nodig. 🌳

@LadislasVR @bencoates1 Oeps haha, overheen gelezen 😉

@bencoates1 Rotterdam as well

"A 2021 Ipsos report stated the Dutch are the fittest people in the world. With an average of 12.8 hours per week, twice more than the global average (6.1 hours)... We owe a large part of this exercise time to the fact that we cycle so much." @vincentl75 sportenstrategie.nl/sport-gezondhe…

A remarkable graphic Frontover fatalities (where drivers accidentally run over small children) have increased 3,800% in the last 30 years in the US Whatever could be causing this?

Breaking News: Exxon scientists predicted global warming decades ago with remarkable accuracy, a study found, even as the company publicly dismissed the threat. nyti.ms/3IJBWyh

Het roer moet om. Iedereen die in #Rotterdam wil wonen moet er ook kunnen wonen. Het aantal te bouwen woningen gaat samen met de kwaliteit van onze buurten. Hoe? Zet corporaties stevig in! Lees hier het interview met @miriam_deen #GewoonWonen

Het voelt natuurlijk heel anders (want niet half zo oncomfortabel), maar klimatologisch gezien zijn deze wintertemperaturen vergelijkbaar met een extreme hittegolf in de zomer. rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederla…

Today The Climate Book is finally released in many parts of the world! I want to use my platform to share the reality of the climate crisis – to communicate a holistic picture of how the world is changing and what we need to do about it. That is why I created this book. 1/4