Recent Droughts Are 'Slow-Moving Global Catastrophe' - UN Report (bbc.com) 48
An anonymous reader shares a report: From Somalia to mainland Europe, the past two years have seen some of the most ravaging droughts in recorded history, made worse by climate change, according to a UN-backed report. Describing drought as a "silent killer" which "creeps in, drains resources, and devastates lives in slow motion" the report said it had exacerbated issues like poverty and ecosystem collapse.
The report highlighted impacts in Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, including an estimated 4.4 million people in Somalia facing crisis-level food insecurity at the beginning of this year. It recommends governments prepare for a "new normal" with measures including stronger early warning systems.
The report highlighted impacts in Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, including an estimated 4.4 million people in Somalia facing crisis-level food insecurity at the beginning of this year. It recommends governments prepare for a "new normal" with measures including stronger early warning systems.
Reality 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
Until the rich suffer, nobody will do shit squat about it.
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Until the rich suffer, nobody will do shit squat about it.
I can agree to the general idea but it could have been phrased better.
We know how to mitigate against drought but it takes money. It sucks to be poor because that means not having the resources for drilling water wells, building dams and reservoirs, desalinating water, or whatever else I missed that could mitigate against drought. The fine article indicates that droughts were made worse by the periodic El Nino event. When that shifts back then we should expect rainfall to return, and with measures in pla
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The same people claiming birth-dearth doom are booting out established families. They are morons, bigots, or both.
The situation you are describing (Score:4, Insightful)
There are so many fucking asterises related to your entire post I almost mistook it for a European comic book.
But sure, let's pretend the human race and human civilization only ever gets better and ignore thousands of years of History. Because that worked out really great for everyone involved as long as you just wait 2,000 years and having to get lucky and get born in the right place at the right time to the right parents so you're one of the two billion people that have a functioning life as opposed to one of the six billion that don't...
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Orange Putin said himself there is no global warming or climate problem.
That alone is a good indication that even his master in Moscow sees it as a major problem, and that ignoring it will hurt USA.
He will do nothing, except rename The Mar-A-Lago Club to The Mar-a-Desert Club
Re: And yet the Africans are breeding like crazy (Score:2)
Look at Bibi over here. Why don't you bomb them and take their land?
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Good times: Low birth rate. Bad times: High birth rate. It's almost like it's a trait of evolution.
Then explain the "baby boom" after World War Part Two. I can see how that can be true in many cases but it is hardly universal.
I recall some commentary on how population decline was worsened in both Ukraine and Russia after Putin decided to "liberate" Ukraine. Part of the commentary was that for children to be born we need to have adult men and women in the same room. Russian men are going to Ukraine while the women stay behind. Ukrainian men are on the front lines while their wives and children are see
Re: And yet the Africans are breeding like crazy (Score:2)
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They are busy producing the future Chinese.
Re:And yet the Africans are breeding like crazy (Score:4, Informative)
While the westerners have fewer and fewer kids.
I wonder if ending USAID will stop Africa's population rise.
No.
USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) plays a significant role in global family planning and reproductive health, providing contraceptive supplies and support to developing countries.
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Only as an infinitesimally tiny side hustle. Their first, second.....hundredth priorities are subverting and overthrowing foreign governments for American hegemony. Do you pretend the CIA and Pentagon are humanitarian agencies?
Climate change is breaking the water cycle (Score:2, Insightful)
Eventually things will get bad enough that we have widespread wars and we start to see drafts again. If nothing else the American empire like all failing empires is going to have to start trying to expand its borders in order to loot other countries.
That's why Trump has been putting out the idea of taking over Canada and Greenland. It's a classic tactic of right-wing extremists to introduce an idea and then back off and then keep introducing it until the public get
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And the wars will cause a population drop and a subsequent slowing of GHG emissions. Republicans have a funny way of saving the planet!
Re: Climate change is breaking the water cycle (Score:2)
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Go look at a map from top down of the globe. As the ice thaws (as it's going to keep doing), move path ways for trade open in that area. Right now, we barely have much access up there with just a small part of Alaska touching. Canada, Greenland and Russia have huge space touching that area. So as that area thaws out, shipping routes will open. If we could either get Canada or Greenland, it would be a huge boon on many levels for the United States.
Here is a link to picture to give you that visual. https://sw [swmaps.com]
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I'd like to see us turn it around but I just don't see how. Propaganda plus voter suppression means our right wing extremist party can win every election with ease and they're incompetence and evil means we're basically doomed.
The centrists have their heads up their asses and the left wing refuse to give up on 18 to 24 mega voter turnout that's just never going to happen. So there is no viable o
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We need to put an end to voter suppression once and for ever
How do you expect to actually do that?
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So there is no viable opposition to the right wing extremists
There is plenty of opposition. But there is no alternative agenda. Just lots of whining to no effect.
The problem the US faces is that the whole idea of self-government is dead. People don't even believe in it. We have a Hamiltonian elected monarch. An autocracy where someone is in charge and makes the decisions. We are just fans who get to cheer or boo. Its not limited to Trump. Is the Hamiltonian vision of rule by an enlightened and privileged elite.
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First, Russia does not place its intercontinental rockets around Moscow. They are mainly around the Kola peninsula close to the Finish border, in the Ural mountains...
That still leaves Greenland in the great circle path, does it not?
... on the peninsula Kamtchatka close to the Alaskian Shore and on the Kurilian Islands North of Japan.
That puts the great circle path to where there's no land mass between Russia and the USA so nothing for the USA to do but have the Navy provide cover with destroyers, submarines, or other similar assets.
Second, the Stable Genius did not have any Strategic ideas. He just looked at a map, and in his imperial reflex, he saw places in North America, which werenÃt U.S. territory, which greatly bothered him.
Maybe I could be convinced to believe you if there wasn't efforts out of the USA to take possession of Greenland since the 1860s. Greenland is a very strategic location for protecting the USA from any aggressor out of Europe and much of Asia
First... (Score:3)
Adams's law of slow-moving disasters: we can avoid or mitigate these because we have time, resources, and only need to exercise the will to do so.
Second, as a planet, we need to decide if saving lives is important enough to justify the effort and expense, or not. Not just the US. Thus, the will is lacking.
Re:First... (Score:4, Insightful)
Adams's law of slow-moving disasters: we can avoid or mitigate these because we have time, resources, and only need to exercise the will to do so.
Second, as a planet, we need to decide if saving lives is important enough to justify the effort and expense, or not. Not just the US. Thus, the will is lacking.
On the contrary, the decision has already been made. Planet-wide, we, as a species, have decided that continued corporate profits must be protected at all costs, and that there are no consequences severe enough to justify impacting those profits even in a marginal manner. Human lives don't rank in the face of corporate profits. Hells, even the possibility of making the entire planet uninhabitable doesn't really register to those with the power to make a big enough difference to matter, because profits are the be-all, end-all of existence to those that could begin to enforce the changes necessary to stop, or even slow, the environmental damage we're causing.
Once we wipe out enough of the species that it begins to show up on quarterly reports as loss of profit, maybe we'll consider doing something about it. Until then? Full speed ahead.
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Interesting you should say that. I just heard this morning that as more immigrants get sent out of the country we may experience a net loss to the population for the first time in decades. In addtion, because of all these people no longer in the country, GDP will decrease because they aren't buying goods and services nor helping to produce goods and ser
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Once we wipe out enough of the species that it begins to show up on quarterly reports as loss of profit, maybe we'll consider doing something about it. Until then? Full speed ahead.
You contradicted your prior statement in the last paragraph, the part I quoted. Dead people don't buy stuff. In some states the dead can vote but they don't buy anything. Maybe the stupid greedy people will allow people to die for a short term profit but the smart greedy people will sacrifice some profits in the now so they can continue to profit in the future. So long as we have enough smart people seeking profits there will not be some planet wide catastrophe that leaves the planet uninhabitable.
In a
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Once we wipe out enough of the species that it begins to show up on quarterly reports as loss of profit, maybe we'll consider doing something about it. Until then? Full speed ahead.
You contradicted your prior statement in the last paragraph, the part I quoted.
That's only a contradiction in a society where profit is considered over the long-term. It's also why I mentioned profit-loss needing to show up on the quarterly reports. While there are *some* businesses that try to plan long-term, the vast majority believe profits must rise every quarter regardless of the long-term plan. Most of the business world seems to operate on this mindset, and planning for the long-term be damned.
While I don't disagree that profit can be important, I don't believe it should be the
The global greening... Has side effects. (Score:2)
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Isn't the greening happening in places that use to be covered in perma-frost? It's not like San Diego is getting greener.
No you! (Score:1)
Then I guess we had better ... (Score:2)
Then I guess we had better:
If it takes a Manhattan Project, so be it.
Or we can just keep emoting, blaming other people, and demanding (on our iphones) that other people go back to the stone age. Doesn't seem to be working though.
Is drought still the right term? (Score:2)