The leap in temperatures over the past 13 months has exceeded the global heating forecasts – is this just a blip or a systemic shift?

Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.

In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.

Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.

  • @SendMePhotos
    4•26 days ago

    Mother Nature, Earth, or Gaia, is an organism. In my loose perspective, I like to think that this is it’s “fever” attempt at eliminating the virus.

    • @[email protected]
      7•25 days ago

      And thereby eliminating a whole bunch of other species than just humans as well.

      Although I’m totally in for the occasional misanthropy, I don’t like seeing it as “just a fever” anymore as too many species will go down. Life will probably persevere in the end, but so will probably a bunch of rich shitpieces, who are significantly responsible for this fever in the first place.

      • @SendMePhotos
        2•25 days ago

        Our world has gone through many life cycles in the past. At the beginning, was darkness, at the end, probably the same (unless it’s a Futurama time cycle).

        The earth will continue on and life will find a way. At this time, we, as humans, have screwed the pooch and now the pooch will screw us. We used the earth and culled it’s resources. We are taking no consideration to the world around us, and instead focus on ourselves alone.

        All of the movies about aliens are true. Humans are selfish, greedy, parasites.

        • LustyArgonianManaEnglish
          1•25 days ago

          What are you basing this on? Like what scientific knowledge exactly? That life will find a way? You realize the “scientist” in Jurassic Park who said that wasn’t a real scientist???

          Look at every other planet. Do any of them have life? What makes you so blindingly confident this planet won’t join them? We are in a mass extinction right now due to unprecedented rapid climate change. The only life left might just be extremophiles and they may never be able to evolve to be multicellular. And not even extremopjiles can survive everything.

          That people are so casual about this shows a profound lack of scientific knowledge.

          • @D1G17AL
            1•25 days ago

            And we have evidence for at least 6 other major mass extinction events. Yet life on this planet found a way to survive and re-evolve. Quit being so fucking pedantic about something so silly.

            • LustyArgonianManaEnglish
              2•25 days ago

              I’m not being pedantic, I’m openly disagreeing with the idea that life “must” or absolutely will carry on. There’s no such guarantee. That you hold onto that is a cope but not reality. That’s fine if you need to do that ig but I disagree.

          • @SendMePhotos
            0•25 days ago

            Calm down there, sport. I don’t have to cite sources or be factually correct to have a conversation about my perspective and pop culture references.

            • LustyArgonianManaEnglish
              4•25 days ago

              Um but you’re talking about a scientific phenomenon so if you want people to value your thoughts, it’s good to support them with evidence

              You don’t have to do anything ofc. It just bothers me to see people say that George Carlin quote “the planet will be fine,” the Jurassic Park quote “life will find a way,” or the idea that the planet is alive and will kill us off like a fever. Because all of those things are downplaying the seriousness of what’s actually happening. From my PoV, what you’re doing is very close to climate change denialism and it stops people from realizing how serious things are right now. Literally right now.

              • @SendMePhotos
                3•25 days ago

                I’m posting on the internet on a place that is not super populated. I have no followers and want to gain nothing from these aside from conversation, learning, and my version of social interaction. Climate change is real. It’s a very real threat to all life. I do what I can, donate to places I agree with, and advocate for groups that need to be heard. I do believe that life will find a way, because we came from nothing to begin with. Species have been destroyed, life was reborn. Civilization have been destroyed and rebuilt.

                If life does not find a way, then it’s the end of the road for our relative area. We succumb to silence like the rest.

        • @[email protected]
          1•24 days ago

          Humans aren’t selfish, greedy, parasites. We just get brainwashed into being that way by our culture

        • Maeve
          1•24 days ago

          Our carcasses could end up being petrochemicals of the emerging life forms.

    • LustyArgonianManaEnglish
      4•25 days ago

      The earth, by any definition, is not alive. Sure there are ecological systems that interact with each other, but there’s absolutely no guarantee they are able.to address issues together in an environment. I highly recommend Half Earth by EO Wilson explaining about species diversity loss and ecology.

      It’s important that we realize that life is the exception. None of the other planets have conditions needed to support life. Our planet would be fine to join them. It doesn’t care about fevers or anything. It isn’t alive.

      • @lightsblinken
        2•25 days ago

        i feel like you could describe a human body that way also :)

        • LustyArgonianManaEnglish
          1•25 days ago

          No, by definition of what’s alive, which is already scientifically described. That’s my entire point, is that the people commenting on this are laypeople without scientific understanding or basis. I’m trying to correct that because our scientific ignorance is literally killing us.

          A rock is not alive. A volcano is not alive. This is grade school science. This is what “biology” is.

          https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/intro-to-biology/what-is-biology/a/what-is-life

          Properties of life

          Biologists have identified various traits common to all the living organisms we know of. Although nonliving things may show some of these characteristic traits, only living things show all of them.

          1. Organization Living things are highly organized, meaning they contain specialized, coordinated parts. All living organisms are made up of one or more cells, which are considered the fundamental units of life.
          1. Metabolism Life depends on an enormous number of interlocking chemical reactions. These reactions make it possible for organisms to do work—such as moving around or catching prey—as well as growing, reproducing, and maintaining the structure of their bodies. Living things must use energy and consume nutrients to carry out the chemical reactions that sustain life. The sum total of the biochemical reactions occurring in an organism is called its metabolism.
          1. Homeostasis Living organisms regulate their internal environment to maintain the relatively narrow range of conditions needed for cell function. For instance, your body temperature needs to be kept relatively close to 98.6 [^\circ]F (37 [^\circ]C). This maintenance of a stable internal environment, even in the face of a changing external environment, is known as homeostasis.
          1. Growth Living organisms undergo regulated growth. Individual cells become larger in size, and multicellular organisms accumulate many cells through cell division. You yourself started out as a single cell and now have tens of trillions of cells in your body [^1]! Growth depends on anabolic pathways that build large, complex molecules such as proteins and DNA, the genetic material.
          1. Reproduction Living organisms can reproduce themselves to create new organisms. Reproduction can be either asexual, involving a single parent organism, or sexual, requiring two parents. Single-celled organisms, like the dividing bacterium shown in the left panel of the image at right, can reproduce themselves simply by splitting in two!
          1. Response Living organisms show “irritability,” meaning that they respond to stimuli or changes in their environment. For instance, people pull their hand away—fast!—from a flame; many plants turn toward the sun; and unicellular organisms may migrate toward a source of nutrients or away from a noxious chemical.
          1. Evolution Populations of living organisms can undergo evolution, meaning that the genetic makeup of a population may change over time. In some cases, evolution involves natural selection, in which a heritable trait, such as darker fur color or narrower beak shape, lets organisms survive and reproduce better in a particular environment. Over generations, a heritable trait that provides a fitness advantage may become more and more common in a population, making the population better suited to its environment. This process is called adaptation.

          We can see how earth as a planet doesn’t qualify as a living organism based on these 7 parameters. Metaphorically calling earth “living” to describe the various interacting systems and ecologies is common but not in this context with climate change and insisting the earth will actually repair itself like a living organism.

          I’m all for philosophically wondering about stuff, but we need to have an agreement on terms and what they mean. And in this case, these terms are already defined amd we know the planet isn’t able to heal itself to address climate change. That’s just a cope.