Floods in parts of Europe and extreme heat in parts of North America

[Fambo Number Mive]

After the recent tragic news of hundreds dying in a record heat wave in the US and Canada, sadly over a hundred people have died in Germany and at least 14 in Belgium from flooding. Hundreds are still unaccounted for. Thousands have also been evacuated in the Netherlands.

It seems clear that climate change will bring more and more extreme weather, and that the UK, along with many other countries, is not well prepared for this.

Yet in the UK - hit by severe flooding on Monday - the government's advisory climate change committee recently told ministers the nation was even worse prepared for extreme weather than it was five years ago.

It said the government was keeping only a fifth of its pledges to cut emissions.

And only this week the UK government told people that they didn't need to reduce flying because technology will solve the emissions problem - a notion that most experts consider a gamble...

Now more than ever we need governments to take the lead in bringing down emissions and stop destroying our planet. Yet the worst prime minister since records began and his Trumpian colleagues are the ones in charge in the UK. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson cares nothing for the environment.

[Kankurette]

The UK's infrastructure is fucked and not at all able to cope with any extreme weather. I got stuck on a train for an hour because a signal point melted due to the heat. It wasn't fun. And when it snows, everything shuts down.

The frustrating thing is, the government don't care and won't listen. So many people who refuse to accept climate change is real.

[jamiefairlie]

Just move up the hill, easy.

[Hobo]

Drainage in particular is fucked, no flood plains to sacrifice meaning more cases of burst banks and local flooding will get worse as we're reliant on victorian surface water systems that drain into water courses that can only surcharge when the levels rise about the drainage outfalls.

The underground infrastructure is also reliant on the goodwill of companies set up for profits with no statutory duty to improve capacity, and will accept new connections for whole estates (and therefore extra subs) without any thought that capacity is already oversubscribed. SUDS is a joke as well.

 

[bgmnts]

Presumably the 1% have fallout shelters for this kind of thing so nothing will change at all. Hope you're all braced for widespread ecological and meteorological disasters, wars and civil unrest.

It's going to be a right fucking laugh.

[buttgammon]

Presumably the 1% have fallout shelters for this kind of thing so nothing will change at all. Hope you're all braced for widespread ecological and meteorological disasters, wars and civil unrest.

It's going to be a right fucking laugh.

This is presumably what a lot of the current space nonsense is about, the idea that these billionaires can move to Mars and leave the rest of us proles behind. It's pie in the sky crap - imagine the emissions on this planet trying to build the technologies required to get that far - but says a lot about the attempts the rich are already making to insulate themselves.

[Blumf]

Nah, space is just a hobby and/or route to mooching off the government teat.

New Zealand, however...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand

If you're interested in the end of the world, you're interested in New Zealand. If you're interested in how our current cultural anxieties – climate catastrophe, decline of transatlantic political orders, resurgent nuclear terror – manifest themselves in apocalyptic visions, you're interested in the place occupied by this distant archipelago of apparent peace and stability against the roiling unease of the day.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-19/-we-needed-to-go-rich-americans-activate-pandemic-escape-plans

As coronavirus infections tore across the U.S. in early March, a Silicon Valley executive called the survival shelter manufacturer Rising S Co. He wanted to know how to open the secret door to his multimillion-dollar bunker 11 feet underground in New Zealand.

The tech chief had neve­r used the bunker and couldn't remember how to unlock it, said Gary Lynch, general manager of Texas-based Rising S Co. "He wanted to verify the combination for the door and was asking questions about the power and the hot water heater and whether he needed to take extra water or air filters," Lynch said. The businessman runs a company in the Bay Area but lives in New York, which was fast becoming the world's coronavirus epicenter.

"He went out to New Zealand to escape everything that's happening," Lynch said, declining to identify the bunker owner because he keeps his client lists private. "And as far as I know, he's still there."

[buttgammon]

PayPal scumbag and right-wing extremist Peter Thiel is one of the people hoping to use New Zealand as a bolthole, and he went so far as to buy citizenship. Mark O'Connell's brilliant book Notes from an Apocalypse talks about a lot of these ideas, and he devotes a chapter to the way that country is becoming an appealing destination for rich bastards from the rest of the world.

[bgmnts]

This is presumably what a lot of the current space nonsense is about, the idea that these billionaires can move to Mars and leave the rest of us proles behind. It's pie in the sky crap - imagine the emissions on this planet trying to build the technologies required to get that far - but says a lot about the attempts the rich are already making to insulate themselves.

Possibly. Hopefully it fails big time.

Poor fucking kiwis, mind. It's going to be a rough few decades for them too.

[chveik]

it's been quite some time that mega rich cunts have started to buy property in new zealand, there was a good new yorker article about it

[Mr_Simnock]

Presumably the 1% have fallout shelters for this kind of thing so nothing will change at all. Hope you're all braced for widespread ecological and meteorological disasters, wars and civil unrest.

It's going to be a right fucking laugh.

cool story bro

[bgmnts]

cool story bro

Hehe it's going to get really bad for loads of people lul

[Paul Calf]

Is there any way to make the ignore function work on quoted replies?

[Chedney Honks]

Someone produced an extended ignore script recently (maybe in the main ignore thread) but no good if you're only posting on mobile.

[jobotic]

cool story bro

Why would you say that? What do you disagree with in the post you quoted and why?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's tricky to strike a balance between acknowledging natural disasters always have and always will happen and two events aren't in themselves CLIMATE CHANGE, while also adjusting to the fact these events are becoming more common, more severe and more costly.

I just wonder how bad it has to get before a tipping point is reached. I mean, South Africa and Australia had record droughts and almost the total irreversible collapse of their water supply in places, and it seems to still have gone back to 'phew it rained, won't need to worry about that for a while'

[BlodwynPig]

Why would you say that? What do you disagree with in the post you quoted and why?

Democracy

[BlodwynPig]

All natural disasters are anthropogenic now

[Johnny Yesno]

cool story bro

Perhaps sir would care for something stronger for sir's jaded palate.

https://news.sky.com/story/moon-wobble-to-bring-a-surge-of-severe-flooding-in-2030s-nasa-warns-12356279

[Butchers Blind]

On the plus side, it's a lovely day outside. Buy an ice cream and enjoy the warm weather.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

If there's one thing the woke Marxist left can't take from us it's the imminent heat death of the universe.

[shiftwork2]

Cracking the flags today, lovely, might sit in the garden with a g&t dunno

[Petey Pate]

On the plus side, it's a lovely day outside. Buy an ice cream and enjoy the warm weather.

Chill out, have a lager and work towards dismantling the fossil fuel industry.

[Ferris]

Someone produced an extended ignore script recently (maybe in the main ignore thread) but no good if you're only posting on mobile.

You can manage ignore lists via settings on your profile page and they work fine on mobile.

I was dead against them in theory but actually a small but well-curated ignore lost has made CaB a nicer place to browse.

[Fambo Number Mive]

It would make sense for houses in low-lying areas and flood plains to be built on stilts, which successive governments have failed to do. We need to plan for extreme weather events now. Perhaps all houses should be built so the ground floor is one story off the ground with the first floor on the second floor, given how this moon "wobble" and the failure to tackle climate change will probably see devastating floods in Britain in the next few decades.

[BlodwynPig]

You can manage ignore lists via settings on your profile page and they work fine on mobile.

I was dead against them in theory but actually a small but well-curated ignore lost has made CaB a nicer place to browse.

https://occasionallytapes.bandcamp.com/track/fresh

[Mr_Simnock]

It's tricky to strike a balance between acknowledging natural disasters always have and always will happen and two events aren't in themselves CLIMATE CHANGE, while also adjusting to the fact these events are becoming more common, more severe and more costly.

I just wonder how bad it has to get before a tipping point is reached. I mean, South Africa and Australia had record droughts and almost the total irreversible collapse of their water supply in places, and it seems to still have gone back to 'phew it rained, won't need to worry about that for a while'

Farming in a lot of western America is not far off complete collapse, I think once they have about 2-3 years no crops at all that might start to force serious facing up to certain realities, not holding my breath. There is no money, no amount of money that let the rich escape global warmings worst effects, I'm going to enjoy watching them find out. All this talk of bunkers, laughable, just have a think about what it would actually mean to sustain your family in a bunker for many decades at the very least.

[Kankurette]

One of the problems with Oz is the coal lobby, apparently. So many people there insisting on sticking with it.

[BlodwynPig]

Farming in a lot of western America is not far off complete collapse, I think once they have about 2-3 years no crops at all that might start to force serious facing up to certain realities, not holding my breath. There is no money, no amount of money that let the rich escape global warmings worst effects, I'm going to enjoy watching them find out. All this talk of bunkers, laughable, just have a think about what it would actually mean to sustain your family in a bunker for many decades at the very least.

Not with this Australia government.

[Mr_Simnock]

Australia has, even compared to the US, the worst gov in the world in terms of responding or acknowledging the global warming issue. I can't imagine the ecological damage that needs to be done before they act on it, probably 95% of the country uninhabitable with all agriculture finished and 99% of wildlife dead.