#global weirding

[zzkt]

Extreme heat

Monday was hottest recorded day on Earth: ‘Uncharted territory’

Data shows that the global surface air temperature reached 62.87F compared with 62.76F on Sunday.

Anna BettsWed 24 Jul 2024 17.57 CESTLast modified on Wed 24 Jul 2024 18.14 CEST

World temperature reached the hottest levels ever measured on Monday, beating the record that was set just one day before, data suggests.

Provisional data published on Wednesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which holds data that stretches back to 1940, shows that the global surface air temperature reached 62.87F (17.15C), compared with 62.76F (17.09C) on Sunday.

Earlier this month, Copernicus found that global temperatures between July 2023 and July 2024 were the highest on record.

The previous record before this week was set a year ago on 6 July.

[arielkroon]

Some thoughts on the phenomenon of what I have taken to calling "Savior Syndrome" - a thought groove instilled in us by religion and culture and expanded into activist/movement spaces. Think through this with me?

[reasonsforhope]

This is kind of a weird reason for hope, honestly, but it genuinely changed how I think about catastrophe.

Historical fact that you probably do not know:

At least 30-50% of the population of Pompeii survived.

Maybe even the majority of the people of Pompeii survived.

(The numbers 30-50% there are according Professor J. Theodore Peña, a professor of ancient Roman archeology who studies Pompeii, whom I took a class on Pompeii with in 2018. The numbers of "maybe even the majority" are from articles linked below.)

Yes, that Pompeii, the one where the entire city was swallowed by a volcanic eruption.

And no, I'm not kidding. x, x, x, x, x, x

So how this is possible, that anyone could survive, when the entire city was literally buried in volcanic ash? And the answer is that the eruption actually took place over the course of almost 24 hours, as the earthquakes and clouds of smoke emitting from Pompeii gradually got worse and worse, followed by the ejection of ash and giant stones that gradually escalated, until the fifth pyroclastic flow (aka giant wave of searing hot ash) hit the city.

So, people had a bit less than 24 hours to flee the city. And many of them did, whether by boat or cart or horse or foot. And many of them made it.

Pompeii is the iconic, ultimate example we have, culturally, for a natural disaster that causes complete annihilation.

But it never caused complete annihilation at all. Not of the people who lived there.

I think climate change, ultimately, is going to be like Pompeii. Yes, there will be natural disasters. Yes, it will keep getting worse for a while.

Yes, people will die, and yes, we do need to act fast, and we need to do all that we can to save every single living being that we can.

But unlike the people of Pompeii, we have the ability to fix most of the effects of climate change. We have the ability to cool the planet down from whatever temperature it ultimately hits. (Masterpost on this here.)

Natural disasters fucking suck. But as the true story of Pompeii exemplifies, they are often a lot more survivable than we think. And we have benefits and resources and technology and knowledge above all communication that the people of Pompeii never did - in fact, we're getting so good at building for and detecting and warning for natural disasters that the number of people dying from natural disasters has been plummeting, even as natural disasters are getting worse and worse (x).

We are going to survive climate change (x). We are going to fix as much of it as we can (x). And we are going to rebuild afterward.

Because as the many survivors of Pompeii show, that's what humans do.

[carringtoneventhorizon]

this is the way the world ends this is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

[pockafwye]

Yes, it was almost 90°F three days ago. Why do you ask?

[tanadrin]

Ok this might be a strange ask, but. do you have any opinions on the marxist/leninist/whatever idea that, western capitalist states supply a welfare state and higher wages (and so on) for western workers through imperialism, in order to subdue class struggle in western states, so that the western proletariat basically has a hand in imperialism (that anti-imperialism in practice would materially harm the western proletariat)

i think that's wrong. i think it sounds like a way you can rationalize political disengagement in a both-sidesist kinda way and also accelerationism if you're into that; i think that kind of nebulously conspiratorial belief is also a way to sort of rationalize the red-brown alliance, the need to punish the bad sheep people who don't agree with you, and a way to discount anybody who uses actual substantive policy achievements as a way to point out that actually, yes, engaging with politics can produce positive outcomes.

it is factually incorrect, of course. there's no causal connection between the welfare state and capitalist imperialism. capitalist imperialism in the form that hardcore marxists are thinking of is kind of an anachronism anyway. much like "liberalism," they're using a lens of analysis which basically thinks history ended in 1917, that the systems and politics of the long 19th century have continued forever, and we have to sort everything into categories that are a century old even though the world has changed radically since then.

it is also, annoyingly, a rejection of the wins of leftism. leftism has done a lot of good in the world! i think leftism is directionally correct. many of the things we take for granted now in many wealthy countries--the 40-hour workweek, legal protection for unions and labor organizing, universal healthcare (outside the US of course), the existence of welfare programs in various forms, employee protections (weak in the US except for Montana; strong in many other countries), and, you know, the decolonization of most of the planet--these are all things leftists of various stripes fought and died for, and for good reason!

the reason "leftism" is weak--and of course by "leftism" people taking this position usually only mean their own particular flavor of revolutionary leftism, with everybody else being a scumbag liberal or a revisionist or a trotskyist sabateur or w/e--is because leftism keeps winning when it allies with aligned interests in an electoral context. that is to say, pragmatic progressive politics is historically quite effective (the thing Americans have historically called "liberalism" but which in international political language is closer to "social democracy," and is not Reaganism/Thatcherism), is quite willing to ally with people who share its goals including less self-defeating leftists, and continues to make new gains. see this page. there is no telos to history of course, and it's a constant struggle. but the revolution-only remnant needs to come up with a narrative to rationalize being left out in the cold, because without that rationalization their whole approach starts to come under indictment. so it can't be that their politics is ineffective--it's the sheeple bribed into shutting up by welfare!

[cellgatinbo]

the two times tubbo almost told fit and pac to kill themselves and the one time he did (kind of)

[turnabout-cats]

don't forget your daily clicks

ace attorney characters as cats day 128: he may not have the best name anymore but he stays winning in our hearts 💔

[spearxwind]

Honestly it really riles me up that people are mean to ocean animals because they are less understood than land animals (yes even dolphins as publically liked as they are) I think everyone should put a little more effort into understanding the ocean and the animals in it and the processes they help. You dont have to like the ocean you just need to understand it and understand that its 3/4ths of our planet's surface and that it's indispensable for life because the second that people stop caring about whats in it and what it does the door opens up for people to not care about what happens to it and how big companies destroy it and continue their needless pollution due to lack of care from the general public

[raapija]

Bearded Kyle with icing on his hands knows an awful lot about Colton's interest in children's books ?? 🤨🤨🤨

[stuckinapril]

i hope every person who stalks artists get a taste of their own medicine

it’s actually so frustrating bc I have had many of my top artists reel back projects or drop off the map bc the fans were simply not being normal……. I laugh at stan culture most days but it’s crazy how many young artists these days have to explicitly say their fanbases are insane & it’s actively making them not want to do art or engage w their fans anymore

[arkiwii]

dunno if anyone posted it before, but just for the people who don't read the files or are too lazy to buy her in the certificate shop; Caper is a minor 👍

[hale-nathan]

Trump Weird News - Bill Nye The Science Guy Endorses Kamala

Trump: "Sea-Level Rise = More Beachfront Property" [FALSE}

Bill Nye: The Planet's On Fire!!!

Trump: "I'm Not A Big Believer In Global Warming"

[molliemoo3]

I'm never gonna shut up about how happy he looks with andretti. Like just look at him!!!!!!!

[fvckw4d]

When USAmericans try to convey that America is a bunch of countries pretending to be united they tend to focus on culture, which is important, but all countries have regional cultural differences. What I think they're actually trying to explain is that the policy divide is so different between states you kind of cease to have rights the moment you leave your home state, even for vacation. Everyone has their state on their ID and license plate and birth certificate and if you move states you temporarily lose a lot of benefits as a citizen until some of those documents get changed, which is really weird if you think about it. So telling people which state you're from is a reflexive part of a conversation, even if it's meaningless to anyone outside of the US. There's a lot of places where the north and south part of the country are different, there are fewer places where you have to have special state medical insurance that only works in your state so if you cross a border in your own country and go to another town you just stop having healthcare.

[phoenixcatch7]

We could make Sqq a transformer in his past life. Like optimus prime sorta transformer. Cybertronian.

He'd be the only surviving seeker (winged guy) on the autobots side (I don't know all the canons but I don't think they have, like, any). Pretty young when the war started - unfathomably ancient for humans, the kiddie of the group to them.

And he arrives on earth. Discovers the Internet. Immediately gets hooked on critiquing stupid Web novels in every language, which being a sentient machine he can do at great speed without forgetting anything. Decides to read the final chapter during a battle because he's so close to the end and airplane had better pull SOMETHING good. Is so infuriated (distracted) by the ending he messes up and immediately gets killed by some low level decepticon. After FIVE MILLION years of war he gets offed by some loser over a stupid human story that wasn't even very good. He dies SO furious.

And then he gets reborn a human.

He is, as the kids say, big mad.

How by Primus do they do anything??