Category: Xen

Think this summer was bad? It might be the best one you and I will ever see

The calamitous summer of 2023 was an oasis of tranquility, compared to what’s coming

A Greek flag flutters in the wind during a wildfire in Chasia in the outskirts of Athens on August 22, 2023. (ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)
A Greek flag flutters in the wind during a wildfire in Chasia in the outskirts of Athens on August 22, 2023. (ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

This year we saw the hottest July ever recorded, and the same was true again in August. In fact, 2023 is on track to be the hottest year so far recorded, breaking the record set by 2020 and 2016. Over the past few months, more than 6,500 daily heat records have been broken in the U.S. alone, and in some places the roads became so hot that people suffered serious burns from falling on them. Terrible floods have ripped through China, Spain, Greece and elsewhere. Wildfires raged in Canada, the Canary Islands, Maui and parts of Europe. A tropical storm hit Los Angeles, the first in living memory. Wind speeds of Hurricane Lee, in the Atlantic Ocean, increased from 80 mph to 165 mph in roughly 24 hours.

The climate catastrophe is already here. We’ve been watching it unfold in real time on the news and over social media. Some have witnessed it first-hand, losing their homes, being forced to evacuate under emergency conditions and even losing their lives or the lives of friends and family. For those sensitive to human suffering and the grave injustices driving the climate crisis, this summer has been difficult to deal with. It’s been one extreme weather event, one shattered record, one shocking tragedy after another — and though the summer is now officially over, there’s more to come.

LINK: https://www.salon.com/2023/09/23/think-this-summer-was-bad-it-might-be-the-best-one-you-and-i-will-ever-see/

“Biological Annihilation” – Stanford Scientists Discover Human-Driven Mass Extinction Is “Mutilating” the Tree of Life

Human actions have precipitated a significant acceleration in the extinction of vertebrate animal species, causing not only species but entire genera to vanish, dramatically affecting the planet’s biodiversity. This rapid loss, dubbed “biological annihilation” by scientists, has severe repercussions for human life, ecosystems, and potential medical insights, urging an urgent and large-scale response.
Human actions have precipitated a significant acceleration in the extinction of vertebrate animal species, causing not only species but entire genera to vanish, dramatically affecting the planet’s biodiversity. This rapid loss, dubbed “biological annihilation” by scientists, has severe repercussions for human life, ecosystems, and potential medical insights, urging an urgent and large-scale response.

The passenger pigeon, the Tasmanian tiger, and the Baiji (Yangtze river dolphin) are among the most recognized casualties of what many experts refer to as the sixth mass extinction. This is a consequence of human activities leading to the vanishing of vertebrate animal species at rates hundreds of times faster than their natural pace of extinction.

However, a new study conducted by Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that the crisis may run even deeper. Each of the three species above was also the last member of its genus, the higher category into which taxonomists sort species. And they aren’t alone.

LINK: https://scitechdaily.com/biological-annihilation-stanford-scientists-discover-human-driven-mass-extinction-is-mutilating-the-tree-of-life/

Addicted to Cool

How the dream of air conditioning turned into the dark future of climate change

Addicted to Cool

In 2023, Jeep rolled out a new edition of its popular four-wheel-drive SUV. For the first time since the company introduced the car in 1986, air conditioning wasn’t an option, it was a must. This appears to be the end of an era: “The last car in the U.S. without standard air conditioning,” read the headline of an article in the automotive press, “finally gives up the fight against refrigerant.”

LINK: https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/interactive/2023/air-conditioning-climate-change/

 

Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control by Jesús Sepúlveda

Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control by Jesús Sepúlveda“Instrumental reason is at the core of the emerging bio-tech paradigm, which is rapidly increasing the social, ecological, and spiritual degradation produced by civilization as a model of dominance. To counter this apocalyptic scenario based on the domination of nature, I propose poetic reason as the foundational matrix to move away from the instrumentalization of life in order to reshape in a more harmonious way the coexistence of human beings with each other, the environment, the cosmological order, and the animal realm.”

LINK: https://badideapublishing.com/

‘The buildings were a sign of civic pride’: anger as art colleges around the UK close their doors

Colleges that once fostered talent – often from working-class backgrounds – have vanished at an alarming rate. Two beneficiaries of that system are documenting its demise

The Derby School of Art now stands empty. Many more across the UK are also vacant or have been razed to the ground. Photograph: © Matthew Cornford, The Art School Project
The Derby School of Art now stands empty. Many more across the UK are also vacant or have been razed to the ground. Photograph: © Matthew Cornford, The Art School Project

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/sep/17/the-buildings-were-a-sign-of-civic-pride-anger-as-art-colleges-around-the-uk-close-their-doors

Earth is outside its ‘safe operating space for humanity’ on most key measurements, study says

Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said.

Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said.

LINK: https://apnews.com/article/earth-climate-change-biodiversity-environment-pollution-c8582c3ae0344b5a88cc38cd8e725702

Major ‘Population Correction’ Coming For Humanity, Scientist Predicts

Major 'Population Correction' Coming For Humanity, Scientist Predicts
Abandoned city
© Provided by ScienceAlert

A little over two centuries ago, in the year 1800, roughly a billion people called Earth home.

Just a century later, it had grown by another 600 million.

Today, there are around 8 billion people on the planet.

That sort of growth is unsustainable for our ecosphere, risking a ‘population correction’ that according to a new study could occur before the century is out.

The prediction is the work of population ecologist William Rees from the University of British Columbia in Canada. He argues that we’re using up Earth’s resources at an unsustainable rate, and that our natural tendencies as humans make it difficult for us to correct this “advanced ecological overshoot”.

The result could be some kind of civilizational collapse that ‘corrects’ the world’s population, Rees says – one that could happen before the end of the century in a worst case scenario. Only the richest and most resilient societies would be left.

“Homo sapiens has evolved to reproduce exponentially, expand geographically, and consume all available resources,” Rees writes in his published paper.

LINK: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/major-population-correction-coming-for-humanity-scientist-predicts/ar-AA1fqbMu

Critics of ‘degrowth’ economics say it’s unworkable – but from an ecologist’s perspective, it’s inevitable

Critics of ‘degrowth’ economics say it’s unworkable – but from an ecologist’s perspective, it’s inevitable

You may not have noticed, but earlier this month we passed Earth overshoot day, when humanity’s demands for ecological resources and services exceeded what our planet can regenerate annually.

Many economists criticising the developing degrowth movement fail to appreciate this critical point of Earth’s biophysical limits.

Ecologists on the other hand see the human economy as a subset of the biosphere. Their perspective highlights the urgency with which we need to reduce our demands on the biosphere to avoid a disastrous ecological collapse, with consequences for us and all other species.

LINK: https://theconversation.com/critics-of-degrowth-economics-say-its-unworkable-but-from-an-ecologists-perspective-its-inevitable-211496

 

‘Virtually certain’ extreme Antarctic events will get worse without drastic action, scientists warn

Record low sea ice levels, the collapse of ice shelves, and surface temperatures 38.5C above average cited as concerns in new review

Horseshoe Island, Antarctica. Between 1992 and 2020, the melting of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has contributed a 2.1cm rise to the global mean sea level. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Horseshoe Island, Antarctica. Between 1992 and 2020, the melting of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has contributed a 2.1cm rise to the global mean sea level. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

It is “virtually certIt is “virtually certain” that future extreme events in Antarctica will be worse than the extraordinary changes already observed, according to a new scientific warning that stresses the case for immediate and drastic action to limit global heating.

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/08/drastic-action-needed-to-limit-worsening-extreme-events-in-antarctica-scientists-warn?CMP=share_btn_tw

Hope Won’t Save Us. It’s Going to Get Us All Killed.

Climate optimists keep talking about hope, but philosophers offer us a warning.

Climate optimists keep talking about hope, but philosophers offer us a warning.

I’ve heard it all before:

Doomers are ruining everything. They’re encouraging everyone to give up. They’re evangelizing hopelessness and fear.

Yawn.

The hopium dealers trot out every tired cliche they can think of. They claim expertise and pass judgment on anyone who tries to express their raw emotions about what’s going on these days. Apparently, people don’t have a right to make anyone else feel uncomfortable.

Anyway, I got curious about this word hope. The climate optimists keep throwing it out there, like it’s a good thing.

LINK: https://ok-doomer.ghost.io/if-youre-going-to-bash-doomers/