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Earth

Floods, Fires and Torrential Rains Further Bedevil Europe (nytimes.com) 68

Floods, fires and heavy rains have landed more blows across Europe this week, with the authorities on the continent scrambling to respond to the extreme weather that has become increasingly common in the past few years. From a report: The most recent events have destroyed large amounts of land, left dozens of people injured, forced thousands to evacuate and, in some cases, caused deaths, and they come on the heels of scorching temperatures that have engulfed much of Southern Europe this summer. Climate change has made extreme heat a fixture of the warmer months in Europe, but experts say that the continent has failed to significantly adapt to the hotter conditions. Governments in many countries are now struggling to address the devastating effects.

"The extreme weather conditions across Europe continue to be of concern," Roberta Metsola, the president of the European Parliament, wrote on Twitter. "The EU is showing solidarity with all those in need." Heavy rains in recent days have led rivers to overflow across Slovenia in what the authorities there said was the worst natural disaster since the country's independence in 1991. At least six people have died, according to the Slovenian news agency STA, and thousands have been forced to flee their homes to escape the floods. Several countries have tried to help, with France and Germany sending equipment such as prefabricated bridges, and even Ukraine, in the middle of a war with Russia, promising to send a helicopter.

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Floods, Fires and Torrential Rains Further Bedevil Europe

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Thanks Slashdot Weather Network. I get all my weather news from slashdot.

  • Alarmism... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Halueth ( 776646 )
    It's becoming more and more apparent that organizations screaming about climate change and environmental are getting more and more debunked. No, it's not all fine and there's still a lot of work to be done, but the alarmist reports show (in some cases mighty) exaggeration of numbers. This year, we're doing pretty good in Europe actually in regard to wild fires and such, but the news is making it look like the world is collapsing. Play with data for yourself: https://gwis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/... [europa.eu]
    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      There is a ton of profit to be made during the slow and steady decline of the world's livable habitat. Profit before all, buddy. Profit before all. Who cares if we scream scares so often that it makes nobody take it seriously enough to actually slow the steady death of our home? So long as somebody manages to wring a few more shillings out of the cloud of death on the way down? We're all good.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      It's becoming more and more apparent that organizations screaming about climate change and environmental are getting more and more debunked.

      Can you cite some sources of these debunking claims?

      • by Halueth ( 776646 )
        This is one about the plastic soup which appears much less than what is being reported (albeit plastic in oceans are still not okay): https://nltimes.nl/2023/08/07/... [nltimes.nl]
    • Consumers used to demand facts with their news when you sell it to them. Now all the lemmings want is a narrative to cheer for or attack against, highlighting the actual danger is out there. Even facts become meaningless when the audience cares more about being entertained.

      Mother Nature doesn't hold a fucking candle to the destructive force of pure ignorance.

    • Re:Alarmism... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @01:20PM (#63751040)

      It's becoming more and more apparent that organizations screaming about climate change and environmental are getting more and more debunked. No, it's not all fine and there's still a lot of work to be done, but the alarmist reports show (in some cases mighty) exaggeration of numbers. This year, we're doing pretty good in Europe actually in regard to wild fires and such, but the news is making it look like the world is collapsing.
      Play with data for yourself: https://gwis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/... [europa.eu]

      No, it really isn't.

      It really really isn't.

      At the end of the day, this isn't about _organizations_, but _individual_ scientists - thousands of them - all working apart and together to crunch the data.
      Not only to crunch the data but also to physically visit areas on our planet experiencing some of the worst impacts of climate breakdown.

      There's no organizational structure in terms of ensuring everyone is banging the drum at the same time.

      Rather, what we have, are scientists doing actual real science - you know, measuring and comparing and using the data they get - to inform us about what is happening with our climate.

      They stand nothing to gain, collectively, from alarmism.

      They stand everything to lose from not being scientific in their approach.

      The problem is so complex that FUD is an easy win for those who claim it's all alarmism and bunk.

      "Hey, the weather where I am is colder than usual - global warming - bullshit!"

      That's the level of mentality we are dealing with.

      The idea that the average temperature on earth = all places experience the same = everywhere gets warmer.

      The media confuses the issue massively - we get some outlets flat out denying it, we get others going full tilt "end of the world".

      The actual science behind what we are facing is thus lost for the majority of people - constantly bombarded with differing points of view.

      In the most simple terms, what we are facing is a _tipping_ of a natural cycle.
      The climate on earth varies so dramatically _without_ human intervention it is awe inspiring. Almost impossible to imagine.
      But _most_ of the "natural" changes occur over a very long span of time - enough time for adaptation.

      Human activity on the planet, in terms of burning ridiculous amounts of fossil fuel and thus releasing ridiculous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere ... yeah, it's tipping the natural order.

      What may have taken place over thousands to tens of thousands of years? - we're talking decades now.

      It's a nudge in an incredibly complex system.

      And the problem with that is, what exactly?

      Because we KNOW we are doing it and we KNOW we can stop it from happening.

      It's that simple, in its complexity.

      An asteroid may strike tomorrow that causes catastrophe, sending earth into an ice-age.
      A volcano may erupt doing the same thing.

      We can't avoid those (yet), but we CAN avoid tipping the balance - or we could - can't see it happening to be honest.

      We're going to push Earth toward a hot-house situation - and you could argue that's just a natural event, given that we evolved on this planet and are thus a natural event ourselves.

      HoHum ... it's happening. Kid yourself all you want. Climate breakdown due to human activity is real.

    • huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @01:44PM (#63751120) Homepage Journal

      So in 2023 in April the burnt area was 50% higher than 2012-2022 average.

      Then came floods and burnt area went down,

      This kind of whiplash weather... scorching heat waves breaking records, and heavy rains breaking records is exactly what the papers on climate change predict.

      Records were broken in 1920s and the 19th century too. you can look at the the data. But what we see is records being broken every year or every alternate year. That has never happened before in the last 200 years or so (or even before looking at ice core data, though that data is limited)

  • by GregMmm ( 5115215 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @11:44AM (#63750746)

    No, really this time the end of the world is near!!

    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      I don't know about falling, but this persistent haze I've seen over... pretty much everywhere... is a fairly new phenomenon. I know what clouds look like, but I'm not sure what this striated haze we see persistently in our skies is.

    • So, honestly, what exactly has to happen for you to consider things "not" alarmist? I'm genuinely curious.

      Seems that at the moment we have the honest-to-goodness case of the whole world being warmer all at once. Formerly you could point to some regions and say, "Hey - it's cooler over there!" but there's precious few of those right now.

      If then answer is, "nothing", then you're just a foolish denier. Falsify yourself please.

  • I unexpectedly spent an hour or so in Lisbon on Monday, and although it was 40C and sunny, there was a nice breeze, so it wasn't all that bad.

  • Is it so bad that Germany will reopen their nuke plants that they closed early while still burning coal? NO
    Hey southern Europe, understand that ending the risk of a nuclear accident trumped reducing CO2 emissions , Germany hopes you understand.
    • Energy shortages in Germany are so bad that they are pushing over windmills to get to the brown coal beneath them.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Gee, if only there were safety mechanisms which have been developed in the last half century to prevent nuclear mishap...

      You climate alarmists will shoot your foot to spite your face. It's ridiculous. "No, we insist on having no solutions!"

      Pick a battle already!

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        But you don't want to pay for those safety mechanisms!

        Nuclear is incredibly expensive and the solution put forward is to do away with "unnecessary" safety features and checks.

        • Nuclear is incredibly expensive

          Says you. Can you please tell Germany? I am quite sure they didn't get the memo, you know, with their recession linked to high energy prices. No need to tell France and its nuclear plants, they seem to be doing okay-ish so far.

          But you don't want to pay for those safety mechanisms!

          The reality is that you don't want those safety mechanisms to exist. First you ask for them. Then they get implemented. Then you complain that they get implemented. Then you throw lawsuits at new plants with new designs. Then you complain about delays, most of them the result of your

  • by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @12:45PM (#63750932)

    Climate change is causing catastrophes of biblical proportions. But wait, did they have climate change in the bible?

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      No, the Bible is just a bunch of random bullshit collected over centuries. And the catastrophes were generally local in nature, except the flood which they stole from a Sumerian text. In that text, it doesn't reach the entire world, just to about Armenia.

      On the other hand global warming is genuinely global.

    • It has this: The nations were enraged, and Your wrath has come. The time has come to judge the dead and to reward Your servants the prophets, as well as the saints and those who fear Your name, both small and great--and to destroy those who destroy the earth. --Revelation 11:18. Bold mine. This is at the very least, indicative of humans doing bad stuff to the earth, by way of doing bad stuff to the land (the greek word is used for land and earth.)

      This is why the denial part is so important to christ

  • We can turn to nuclear power for the bulk of our energy needs.
    We can keep burning fossil fuels and emitting massive levels of CO2 into the atmosphere.
    We can limit ourselves to intermittent, unreliable, dilutes, and expensive energy like wind and sun then watch as our economy fades into something approaching pre-industrial levels.

    There is no fourth option. Waiting for some new technology to save us is not an option because first of all we'd still have to choose one of the three options above until this four

    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Option #3 has the added benefit of not actually improving the environmental outlook, and perhaps even accelerating doom, while increasing the rate of corporate revenue influx through tax "subsidy" (ie fascistic corporate/governmental collusion).

    • Is the nuclear industry at least paying you to shill for them?

    • I know you only know the SUN from hearsay, down in your basement...

      ...but this nuclearism is getting Fox-News-levels of ridiculois.

      Nuclear literally isn't even competitive on price anymore. And I say that as somebody who knows enough about the technology and physics, that I could build a safe and reliable reactor myself! And who thinks they are great if there is no star nearby.

      What part of having a giant, free fusion reactor on the sky do your religious leaders not get? The independence-from-fatcats o
  • Still better than 2018, when the trees and grass were dying and one.of the biggest rovers.of the continent had so. little water, a child could wade through it. It felt literally like the apocalypse. If that had happened the following year, we would have had failed harvests, extreme price hikes, and then violent riots. One year was all it would have taken People got actually scared. I take torrential rains over that any day. At least there is nothing left to destroy the next year, and people without a Darw
  • It's to hot. It's to wet. Why isn't my weather perfect and unchanging! Look at the bright side, if it's actively raining, it's probably helped drop the regional temperature down a bunch.

    It's sprinkling in San Diego County right now and it's nearly 15 degrees cooler then a few days ago. YAY for some cloud cover. Sure, we'll deal with some humidity, probably tomorrow but it feels wonderful right now. Be grateful once in a while instead of always focusing on the negative.

    Oh wait, we can't. News isn't suppose t

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