Collapse

These have been going on for a few days and reportedly the Santa Ana winds are going to be heightened again for another day or so.

I didn't see a post about the fires and I'm not aware of a great article that captures the full story so I'm posting what I could find.

L.A. had a very dry second half of 2024 and now the dry winds are coming down from the desert which creates extremely hazardous conditions.

Winds swept embers far ahead of the fires which caused rapid spread. Some of the fires drove past the Wildland-Urban Interface and into fully residential areas.

There have been reports of arson and even arrests but personally I think trying to displace the blame onto people - in particular the underclass - is a social reaction many people and I'll wait for solid evidence. At the very least, it seems clear to me that arson would be unnecessary and insufficient to explain the scale of the fires so the big story should be the conditions that enabled fire and ember cast and grounded air support.

Now, with so much material burnt - organic and synthetic - air quality has been periodically terrible throughout the county (largely depending on the winds from what I've read). I've seen a few comments saying the AQI number isn't sufficiently capturing the air quality (that it is poorer than the AQI indicates). I don't think I've heard that before but I plan to keep it in mind.

Meanwhile insurers have been pulling out of the region, and the growing lender of last resort - the state iirc - has a cap that is limited compared to some of the places that have been destroyed. There is currently discussion going on about how burdened the plan might be and how it will be handled.

Feel free to discuss anything about the wildfires here.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/17154206

I choose to focus my energy on the climate crisis because a habitable planet is a prerequisite for everything worth fighting for, and because the prospect of losing a planet feels horrific and sad to me in a primal way that I can’t express with words.

Much as I admire Peter, this battle has alaz been lost and all we can do now is endure.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/17029639

Global warming is moving faster than the best models can keep a handle on

Weren't there a whole bunch of hot models that were discarded becase they were "too scary" ?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/16787523

If we don't fix it, the planet will cease to function and humanity will be in trouble," Professor Alex McBratney from the University of Sydney's Institute of Agriculture said.

I guess were going to test the Professor's hypothesis :) no do overs though

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/16652472

For sure, seems to be less then zero interest in any sort of reformation? People won't even wear a mask in a pandemic. Precautionary principal be damed?

To add to that

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/06/14/opinion/science-civilization-collapse-environment-limits.

Rees bluntly states, “the human enterprise is effectively subsuming the ecosphere” and “wide-spread societal collapse cannot be averted — collapse is not a problem to be solved, but rather the final stage of a cycle to be endured.”

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/16613982

Coal demand set a record high in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency’s annual report published on Wednesday. Considering the commodity is the most important contributor to global warming, its consumption trends matter enormously for the fight against climate change. The report makes for a depressing reading: The planet is losing to our unquenchable demand for king coal. Forget all the slogans about consigning coal to history. We’re on a path to consigning the planet to history.

Took out the China bit as its just the industrial engine we've outsourced our dirtiest emissions too