hey folks. i know its annoying to look up an article and read it but this one in particular has an incredibly misleading headline
the 12 year deadline everyone is talking about refers to the point where climate change becomes “irreversible”, where we are unable to avoid the affects of climate disaster and no longer would be able to keep temperatures from rising above 1.5°C higher.
that is not what the 18 months in this article is referring to
the 18 months here is referring to the opinion of scientists and activists (the very likely Correct Opinion) that in order to meet the 12 yesr deadline, we would need to have legislation in place by 18 months from now, not that climate change becomes irreversible in 18 months
its still scary and climate change is obviously still a huge and imminent threat, but this kind of scaremongering only makes people feel hopeless and like its too late to do anything
On Sunday afternoon, a gunman opened fire at the Gilroy Garlic Festival,
an annual summer festival in the quiet city of Gilroy, California,
located about 30 miles south of San Jose. The gunman killed three people, including a six-year-old boy,
and injured at least 12 others. Police said the gunman had been shot
and killed and that authorities suspected he may have had an accomplice,
who was still at large.
Although authorities initially did not reveal the identity of the
shooter, local news station KPIX 5 reported he was a 19-year-old man
named Santino Legan. Police recovered a backpack filled with ammunition at the scene, and they later searched his home and a second location.
Little is currently known about Legan: Though witnesses claim to have
heard him say he was “really angry” while he was opening fire on the
crowd, there’s not much indication as to his potential motive for the shooting.
While his social media platforms appear to have been deleted as of
Monday morning, one post on his alleged Instagram read: “Ayyy garlic
festival time. Come get wasted on overpriced shit.” Another post on the
now-deleted Instagram included a picture of a Smokey the Bear sign
advocating for forest fire prevention, with Legan writing in the
caption: “Why overcrowd towns and pave more open space to cater to make
room for hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats?” then
plugging the text Might Is Right by Ragnar Redbeard.
A 19th-century text of unknown authorship (its origins have been attributed to everyone from British author Arthur Desmond to Call of the Wild novelist Jack London), Might Is Right
has long been considered a key text in the white supremacist movement,
says Keegan Hankes, a senior analyst for the Southern Poverty Law
Center’s intelligence project. “It’s widely popular and present among
ethnocentric white nationalists of all levels, from suit-and-tie white
supremacists to neo-Nazis,” Hankes tells Rolling Stone.
The text, which has been banned in multiple countries, essentially
advocates for social Darwinism, or the idea that members of certain
races or ethnicities are inherently better equipped for survival than
others. The author argues that true egalitarianism does not and cannot
exist, and that the “white race” is inherently biologically superior to
other races.
Although the social Darwinist arguments in the text were not
considered all that radical in the 19th century, when the eugenics
movement was at its height, it has since been embraced by everyone from
noted satanist Anton LaVey to Katja Lane, the wife of
white-nationalist-organization The Order founder David Lane, who wrote
the preface for its 1999 reprinting. It is also available on the white
supremacist website Counter-Currents, and the PDF version has become a
staple of white supremacist digital libraries and forums.
“The most important thing [about the text] is this belief in
ethnocentricity and biological determinism that is getting pulled from
the late 19th century to this current day,” says Hankes. “The ideas are
ubiquitous today in white supremacist circles.”
While it’s still unclear whether the shooting was racially motivated,
or if Legan had any other concrete ties to extremist circles, this
would not be the first time that a mass shooter had been influenced by
old-school white supremacist writings. The manifesto of the Christchurch shooter,
for instance — while primarily designed to incite division and troll
its readers — also contained allusions to Oswald Mosley, a 1930s British
fascist known for his Nazi sympathies and xenophobic ideology, and to
the writings of David Lane.
“Unfortunately, this is starting to feel all too common,” says
Hankes. “There’s a tragedy and we look for a connection to white
supremacy, and these are exactly the types of breadcrumbs you might
expect.”
Extreme global temperatures are pushing the human body “close to thermal limits”, according to a climate scientist.
Record-breaking heat has swept through Europe this week with temperatures topping 40C in a number of countries.
However, in places such as South Asia and the Persian Gulf, people are already enduring temperatures reaching up to 54C.
Despite all the body’s thermal efficiencies, these areas could soon be uninhabitable, according to Loughborough University climate scientist Dr Tom Matthews in The Conversation.
When air temperature exceeds 35C, the body relies on sweating to keep core temperatures at a safe level. However, when the “wet bulb” temperature – which reflects the ability of moisture to evaporate – reaches 35C, this system no longer works.
“The wet bulb temperature includes the cooling effect of water evaporating from the thermometer, and so is normally much lower than the normal (“dry bulb”) temperature reported in weather forecasts,” Dr Matthews wrote.
“Once this wet bulb temperature threshold is crossed, the air is so full of water vapour that sweat no longer evaporates,” he said.
This means the human body cannot cool itself enough to survive more than a few hours.
“Without the means to dissipate heat, our core temperature rises, irrespective of how much water we drink, how much shade we seek, or how much rest we take,” he explained.
Some areas – which are among the most densely populated on Earth – could pass this threshold by the end of the century, according to Dr Matthews.
There is already evidence wet bulb temperatures are occurring in Southwest Asia.
With climate change starting to profoundly alter weather systems, rising temperatures could soon make parts of the world uninhabitable.
If electricity can be maintained, living in chronically heat-stressed conditions may be possible but a power outage could be catastrophic.
In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, Dr Matthews and his team looked at the probability of a “grey swan” event in the case of extreme heat coinciding with massive blackouts.
“The way nature has blended you into the compound whole does not prevent you drawing a boundary around yourself and keeping what is your own in your own control.
“Always remember this: remember too that the happy life depends on very little. And do not think, just because you have given up hope of becoming a philosopher or scientist, you should therefore despair of a free spirit, integrity, social conscience, obedience to the gods.
“It is wholly possible to become a ‘divine person’ without anybody’s recognition.”
