It's a bit warm/ wet/ cold outside

[shaolin_monkey]

Update on the koalas:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/11/koalas-near-extinction-myth-australia-fires/

[shaolin_monkey]

This is a great article - broad strokes, but links to some very interesting sources.

Also, I think I mentioned the IMF fossil fuel subsidy report previously, but it's great to see this getting reported more widely.

https://theconversation.com/the-five-corrupt-pillars-of-climate-change-denial-122893

[Professor Bear]

Normally known for 2 hour videos about obscure Russian games from the mid-2000s you've never heard of and will never play or 78-hour videogame marathons specifically meant to spite IT Crowd writer Graham Linehan by turning him into a worldwide joke and paradigm for the entrenched bigotry of middle-aged UK media luvvies, Hbomberguy's old-ish vid on climate change denialism is actually quite a useful examination of how skepticism has been hijacked by the climate change denial lobby as a means of achieving their ends.
Buuuuut... it can also be viewed as a macro examination of how, in a world where more and more people record or dissect every last thing and their thoughts and observations can go global in a matter of minutes without the platform of "old" media, the only response by the media class is to double down on their worth as narrative creators by continually destroying the very concept of certainty to the point that each person lives in their own cultivated reality by choosing what facts to believe in as being real - facts supplied by that same media class through crafted consensus on major issues, as well as the more insidious stuff like targeted Facebook ads.  By eroding certainty and making you doubt everything, they make their consensus on Soylent Green being popular as well as tasty look like a more valid version of the world than the one being offered by a lone whistleblower on social media telling you what Soylent Green is made of.
Also the video has that bit in it where Hbomb uses an axe to chop his way through a wall to shout at Ben Shapiro that you probably saw on Twitter.

[Hawkmumbler]

"Just one small problem, SELL THEIR HOUSES TO WHO, BEN?! FUCKING AQUAMAN?!"

A decade defining moment.

[The Legendary Shark]

Posted without comment:

Two-million-year-old snapshots of atmospheric gases from Antarctic ice.

[shaolin_monkey]

Tuesday in Australia saw the 40.9C temperature eclipse the previous record of 40.3C, set in 2013.

Then, that record was smashed on Wednesday - which saw an average maximum of 41.9C.

Currently there is a ring of bushfire around Sydney. The smog of the city is currently the 5th worst in the world. The bushfires themselves are pumping millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Lithgow is being hit hard - streets are burning up on the outskirts, and routes out of the town are shutting down fast - some highways completely closed already.

It's hellish in Australia, and this is just the start of their summer.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2019/dec/21/australia-bushfires-catastrophic-conditions-declared-for-nsw-after-horror-day

[Jim_Campbell]

It's hellish in Australia, and this is just the start of their summer.

It's so hot birds are just falling dead out of the trees.

(Warning: dead birds in photos linked above, possibly upsetting to some.)

[IndigoPrime]

I have a friend in Sydney who posted two pics, one taken a year ago, and one recently with a yellow sky. But is this issue in any way avoidable? As in, are these fires and their scale now inevitable, or have bad government decisions in terms of funding played a role (as they have here with flooding)?

[JayzusB.Christ]

Yep, a friend of mine is just back from Sidney.  It's a mess.

[shaolin_monkey]

It's hellish in Australia, and this is just the start of their summer.

It's so hot birds are just falling dead out of the trees.

(Warning: dead birds in photos linked above, possibly upsetting to some.)

I see someone in the comments linked to Michael E Mann's explanation as to why just a one degree increase makes such a difference.

https://twitter.com/michaelemann/status/1207539340982636544?s=21

It's worth noting that 1.5 deg C is locked in and unavoidable now. Also, it's irreversible. All we can do now is damage control - stop it getting any worse/hotter with immediate action re ending use of fossil fuels.  Not burning down the world's carbon sinks would also help.

[shaolin_monkey]

An increasing demand for calories:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50856049

Versus a significant yearly reduction in calories to the tune of 35 million calories per year (which would feed about 50 million people) due to man-made climate change:

https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-affecting-crop-yields-and-reducing-global-food-supplies-118897

...equals famine, mass migration, war, and death.

[JayzusB.Christ]

An increasing demand for calories:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50856049

Versus a significant yearly reduction in calories to the tune of 35 million calories per year (which would feed about 50 million people) due to man-made climate change:

https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-affecting-crop-yields-and-reducing-global-food-supplies-118897

...equals famine, mass migration, war, and death.

Fuck.  Grim reading there.

[shaolin_monkey]

On the same subject, here's an article from earlier this year about how the climate crisis is exacerbating movement from South to North America.

"My children have gone to bed hungry for the past three years. Our crops failed and the coffee farms have cut wages to $4 a day,"

"I have to find a way to travel north, or else my children will suffer even more."

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jul/29/guatemala-climate-crisis-migration-drought-famine

[shaolin_monkey]

Fucking hell, this is chilling. The human race is determined to hasten it's own end, isn't it? And take as many with it as possible.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/20000-feet-under-the-sea/603040/

[TordelBack]

Christ that's just appalling. Gold and diamonds again, what is this, 1750? 1870? Fully expect to be reading Tweets in a few years about how we've brought democracy and the rule of law to the uncivilised seabed.