mdgv2
OT Cowboy
Posts: 479
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Post by mdgv2 on Aug 4, 2023 12:28:31 GMT -5
How do!
I thought we had a thread, but no sign of it.
So here we go.
In short? Europe is on fire, and the UK has no summer. This is said to be due to the jet stream shifting south. It’s expected to move back north again in the coming days.
All I know is as well as summer being a literal washout? My basement flat is hideously humid. Because whilst not hot, it’s not cold either. British housing just isn’t built for this. For reference, I live in a Georgian building, in a basement flat. By the coast. Some level of damp comes with that territory, but this has been dreadful. I’m having to buy new pots and pans and kitchen utensils due to extensive mould. And I’ve just invested £180 in a dehumidifier, in the hope I can get atmospheric water content down to something more tolerable.
And of course, our Tory Overlord has just agreed to mine more oil and gas in the North Sea. Because that’ll help. The big twat.
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Post by adurot on Aug 4, 2023 13:57:19 GMT -5
Dehumidifiers are great. Put one in my basement straight away when I got my place and that keeps it from getting musty down there. Put one in the guard shack at work last summer so it wouldn’t get so muggy in there and cause the papers to curl.
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Post by easye on Aug 4, 2023 14:42:38 GMT -5
Heat Dome in AZ, Water Temp off Florida, Super El Nino(?), and Canadian Fires are all frakking up the weather here pretty bad.
However, I hoped you all enjoyed the hottest July on record across the globe, and the fact that this will probably be the coolest one for the rest of our lives!
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Post by pacific on Aug 7, 2023 6:16:06 GMT -5
We are doomed - a bit of an over-dramatic statement perhaps, but I honestly think that is where we are.
I work with some fairly intelligent, well-educated people and it still almost feels like it is open for discussion that we are altering the climate in a drastically harmful way. At this point, whilst we are standing on the precipice.
The science is no longer up for debate (instead, it just revolves around what percentage of fucked we actually are) but I think the fossil fuel industry and the industries connected to it are so incredibly rich and powerful that almost any meaningful policies - making the hard choices that we *need* to make right now - are just being kicked down the road. MDG, you mention the spineless cardboard cut-out that inhabits 10 Downing street right now, prepared to completely set the country on a backwards path - it won't make any difference at all to gas prices, but there is a potential to hood-wink an uninformed public there, and it won't make the slightest difference at the next GE anyway. The only votes they will gain are from people who would have voted Tory anyway.
See also the recent UN congress, where statements such as "climate change is partially man-made" had to be removed or watered down as the Saudi Arabians didn't agree with it and had found some patsy scientists to parrot their arguments. This, for something that has been accepted science for 40 years, if not longer. I think there is such an overwhelming pressure on politics, the media, I'm not sure where any absolution will come from. I try and donate to Greenpeace. I drive a hybrid and ride a motorbike, I recycle wherever possible, but it feels meaningless in the context of the volume of damage being done at the industrial level.
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Post by easye on Aug 7, 2023 9:46:17 GMT -5
I find it amazing how we were able to handle the "Hole in the Ozone" layer with collective action on the root cause of it. There are other examples as well.
Therefore, it is not like "climate-action" is unprecedented. I guess the scale and which sacred cow gets gored must be a lot bigger in scale that the CFC industry.
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herzlos
Ye Olde King of OT
Posts: 656
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Post by herzlos on Aug 7, 2023 13:27:14 GMT -5
The "climate change isn't real" thing can only be denialism. If you burn fossil fuels in a small space, the atmosphere becomes unsafe pretty quickly - which is why you're not supposed to have barbeques inside tents and so on - thus it's only logical that burning the same fuel outside will do the same thing to the whole planet on a different scale.
Of course, too many people benefit from pretending it doesn't matter and will continue to prevent it until it's too late. If it isn't already too late. It's pretty depressing really because I genuinely can't see how things can change for the better short of a revolution.
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semipotentwalrus
Ye Olde King of OT
A somewhat powerful marine mammal.
Posts: 975
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Post by semipotentwalrus on Aug 8, 2023 4:29:05 GMT -5
The "climate change isn't real" thing can only be denialism. If you burn fossil fuels in a small space, the atmosphere becomes unsafe pretty quickly - which is why you're not supposed to have barbeques inside tents and so on - thus it's only logical that burning the same fuel outside will do the same thing to the whole planet on a different scale. This doesn't necessarily follow at all. The stuff driving the greenhouse effect is not the same that causes air quality degradation.
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herzlos
Ye Olde King of OT
Posts: 656
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Post by herzlos on Aug 9, 2023 4:18:17 GMT -5
The "climate change isn't real" thing can only be denialism. If you burn fossil fuels in a small space, the atmosphere becomes unsafe pretty quickly - which is why you're not supposed to have barbeques inside tents and so on - thus it's only logical that burning the same fuel outside will do the same thing to the whole planet on a different scale. This doesn't necessarily follow at all. The stuff driving the greenhouse effect is not the same that causes air quality degradation. Both are pretty bad though. I don't think there's any argument that burning coal is good for anything except cheap power. Admittedly I was thinking more in terms of low emission zones where older cars aren't allowed in some city areas.
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Post by pacific on Aug 10, 2023 6:22:21 GMT -5
I find it amazing how we were able to handle the "Hole in the Ozone" layer with collective action on the root cause of it. There are other examples as well. Therefore, it is not like "climate-action" is unprecedented. I guess the scale and which sacred cow gets gored must be a lot bigger in scale that the CFC industry. The action on the Ozone layer is absolutely the indicator of where we would be with climate change, if there was not a multi-billion (trillion?) dollar industry supporting the continued utilisation of fossil fuels. I assume there were some producers of CFCs and factories that bemoaned the new regulation, but they were pushed aside by logical government legislation to order the stop of their production. My main frustration now is that conservatism seems to have switched from acknowledging that climate change was actually occurring but that industry and technological inventiveness would find a way to combat it, so we should carry on as we are (with solutions ranging from CO2 capture to placing mirrors in orbit above the earth to help shade from the sun), which I have read missives on from the George W Bush era, to now going into full denial mode and using large lobby groups and 'think tanks' to help obfuscate the science and influence political directives. I assume corporate Big Oil decided that it was simpler and cheaper just to go for the deniability option, and to funnel money into willing scientists and politicians accordingly.
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mdgv2
OT Cowboy
Posts: 479
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Post by mdgv2 on Aug 10, 2023 6:39:19 GMT -5
Worse? Keep an eye on where else the hard right are encouraging science denialism, such as idiotic Creationist “Science”. Anti-Vaccination, Anti-LGBTQ+.
Indeed the quickest way to spot any grifter is to note when they’re perfectly happy to uncritically accept very specific bits of science if they believe (rightly or wrongly) it supports their tenuous position.
And it’s absolutely all tied together. A writhing mass of lies and obfuscation all pushing toward the same goal.
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Post by A Town Called Malus on Aug 10, 2023 6:46:13 GMT -5
The exact same tactics, and often utilised by the exact same people, are used to try and deny climate change that were used to try and deny the harms of smoking. And, exactly like the tobacco industry, the fossil fuel industry knew that their product was harmful decades ago and actively sought to obfuscare that fact.
Like, I do literally mean the same people. You had "scientists" who pivoted from working for tobacco companies to working for the fossil fuel industry when their work was exposed as a sham for the former.
And these tactics work on the exact same people. The people today who talk about how not every scientist agrees that man-made climate change is a thing are the same people who were talking about how there will still questions about the harms of smoking.
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Post by easye on Aug 10, 2023 10:08:23 GMT -5
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Post by pacific on Aug 10, 2023 10:56:41 GMT -5
I literally had a conversation about this with someone in my office this morning. "They are saying though that the cause might not have been natural"
I replied, what difference does that make? If it is caused by a kid with a match or arsonist, a bolt of lightning, a camp fire getting out of hand. The point is that when the land is tinder-box dry, not with some residual dampness which might otherwise have been evident, it will spread (like wildfire, in fact). We're helping to create the sort of conditions where these extreme weather events (and the resulting carnage) are going to become more commonplace.
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Post by easye on Aug 10, 2023 11:06:18 GMT -5
Yeah, but if it was not natural then..... it won't happen here!
/S
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Haighus
Ye Olde King of OT
Posts: 875
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Post by Haighus on Aug 14, 2023 3:35:38 GMT -5
The wildfires in Hawaii keep going, absolutely brutal.
I presume the insurance companies will wiggle out of paying anything for anyone who could afford home insurance?
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