Lorna Taylor

They have something we lost years ago: respect for their surroundings.

POV: Japanese kids clean their own classrooms every single day… No janitors. No real exams for the first 3 years. Just respect, manners, teamwork & responsibility. This is how you raise a disciplined society 🇯🇵 Character first. Everything else follows.

These are the people who are always forgotten: the seafarers from India, the Philippines and other countries who we rely on to take goods around the world, but are underpaid and frequently abandoned at sea.

Japanese football fans have been praised online after staying behind to clean up Wembley Stadium following their team’s 1–0 victory over England. After the historic win, Japanese supporters remained in the stands to tidy the stadium before leaving.

@FurkanGozukara 💚

Massive geopolitical shift in conservation. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney just announced a staggering 3.8 billion dollar strategy to protect 30 percent of the nation's lands and waters by 2030. A monumental step against corporate destruction of the environment.

@Blockstradamus_ @shanaka86 @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP

This is where the abstraction breaks, because the system is not just failing at the macro level, it is failing at the human layer that actually keeps it running, and that is far more dangerous than any price spike. What I see here is not just a supply chain disruption, it is a structural fragility being exposed, a system optimized for efficiency with no redundancy, no sovereignty, and no responsibility when things go wrong, and once that reality hits policymakers, the reaction will not be subtle, it will be aggressive, because losing control of logistics means losing control of the economy itself.

JUST IN: Three thousand ships are anchored in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty thousand seafarers are aboard them. Fresh food ran out two weeks ago. Perishables are rotting in refrigerated holds whose generators are burning through the last reserves of diesel. Water is rationed. Mental health is deteriorating. No mass evacuation plan exists. No humanitarian corridor has been negotiated. No international body has the authority or the means to move twenty thousand people off three thousand ships through a five-nautical-mile channel controlled by the IRGC. These are the people who move the global economy. Every barrel of oil that reaches a refinery was carried by a seafarer. Every container of goods that stocks a shelf was loaded by one. Every tonne of fertiliser that feeds a field was shipped by one. The war has trapped the invisible workforce that makes globalisation function, and the world has not noticed because the world never notices seafarers until the shelves are empty. The ships themselves are worth tens of billions. The cargo aboard them is worth more. Crude oil, liquefied natural gas, urea, ammonia, consumer electronics, automotive parts, and 200 cryogenic containers of helium that are boiling off at a rate that no engineer can reverse. The stranded fleet is a floating warehouse of every molecule the global economy needs, and the molecules are degrading while the crews ration drinking water. The cargo is valued higher than the people guarding it, and neither can move. The IRGC’s Larak corridor clearance system does not only control entry. It controls exit. A vessel that wants to leave the anchorage zone must obtain the same clearance code, submit the same documentation, and receive the same pilot escort as a vessel seeking to transit. The customs border works in both directions. These crews are not stranded by geography alone. They are stranded by bureaucracy, the same bureaucracy Iran wrapped in the language of sovereign maritime governance when the parliamentary committee approved the Hormuz Management Plan. The toll booth charges for passage through. It also charges for passage out. No centralised evacuation exists because evacuation at this scale would require IRGC approval, and requesting approval would legitimise the system the United States refuses to recognise. So the crews wait. The International Transport Workers Federation issues statements. P&I clubs cover individual medical evacuations by helicopter. Flag states, predominantly Panama, Liberia, and the Marshall Islands, register ships but do not operate navies. The system that made global shipping cheap by divorcing flag from nationality has left twenty thousand people without a government willing to retrieve them. The seafarers are from the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia. Countries whose workers crew the world’s merchant fleet because the monthly pay of $1,500 to $3,000 exceeds anything available at home. They signed contracts to deliver cargo across oceans. They did not sign contracts to become indefinite residents of a war zone, rationing water on a ship whose cargo of ammonia could feed a million people if it could reach a port that is 40 nautical miles and one IRGC clearance code away. The helium boils off. The fertiliser waits. The crude oil sits. And the people who carry it all drink less water today than yesterday. The supply chain has a human body at the very bottom of it. The body is thirsty. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@shanaka86 Such a humanitarian crisis largely being ignored 🙏

@giveashitnature @aAw6WFLEArS9hVL But I would add that these look like annual plants, not wildflowers which if managed come back year after year. Not initially so colourful but contributing massively to biodiversity.

Rotherham, England replaced 8 miles of mowed grass with wildflowers. They saved £25,000 in mowing costs a year and bees, butterflies, and birds showed up almost immediately. You don’t need to wait for your city to act. Start small in your own patch: 🏡 Let your front verge or sidewalk strip go wild this spring 🌻 Toss a few native wildflower seed balls into neglected spots 🌱 Stop mowing one strip and see what shows up 📧 Contact your city government. One email from one person has started initiatives like this before One person. One small patch. Real habitat. Your street could be next.

@giveashitnature @aAw6WFLEArS9hVL @ShropsVerge and @plantlife websites full of practical information

‘Is there anyone else you know who has had a 28.9% pay rose in the last 3 years,’ asks Nick Robinson disbelievingly of an NHS doctor. Last year, Robinson’s BBC pay rose by at least £135k

@MaxFRobespierre @carolecadwalla Too true 😔

Nick Robinson earns as much as about 10 doctors....

@FurkanGozukara 🙏

Massive spiritual rebuke. Pope Leo declares that Christ continues to suffer today through the innocent victims of endless wars. He issues a powerful call to all Christians to completely reject the path of hatred and become active bearers of peace. Pope Leo (Voiceover): I think it will be an important sign because for what the Pope represents, the spiritual leader today in the world, and for this voice that everyone wants to hear, to say Christ still suffers, and I carry all this suffering also in my prayer. And I would like to invite all people of good will, people of faith, all Christians to walk together, to walk with Christ who suffered for us to give us salvation, life, and to seek how we too can be bearers of peace and not of hatred.

Something really new is happening with the Greens. They are being attacked by the right wing press, and hitting back. In fact, they basically say they aren’t credible as a source of news. Meanwhile, they’re still gaining thousands of new members a week and climbing in polls.

@AidaGreenbury 🙌 💚💚💚

The President of Indonesia in Japan: “Our forests must be protected. The forests that have been destroyed, we must carry out massive reforestation. Not only for the good of Indonesia but also for the good of the world. Because many people say that we are the lungs of the planet. So let’s protect these lungs of the planet.” youtube.com/live/dcaF1Y-XF…