Bread and CircusesAug 7, 2023

A perfect (and perfectly scary) title from Jessica Wildfire (@jessicawildfire) —

"If a Cactus Can't Survive This, Neither Can You"
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You might’ve seen recent headlines about saguaro cacti keeling over in Arizona after spending nearly a month above 110° Fahrenheit (43°C).

Not even a week later, The Washington Post ran this absurd story: “Your body can build up tolerance to heat. Here’s how.”

I’m not linking to it. That’s how bad it is.

It’s not just getting a little hotter. It’s getting so hot that saguaro cacti are deflating in the desert. They evolved roughly 20,000 years ago. They’ve spent millennia adapting to a hot desert environment. They live up to 200 years in the hottest, driest environments on the planet. These cactuses are saying, “I can’t take it anymore,” and sagging over dead.

And we’re being told we can adapt.

I got curious about what temperature the human body can actually withstand, and it’s somewhere around 108°F (42°C). That’s when your proteins start to denature. A wet bulb temperature beyond 95°F (35°C) can kill a person in about six hours. No amount of heat tolerance can save anyone from that.

It strikes me as just a little ridiculous that out here in reality, parts of the world are becoming absolutely uninhabitable, and wellness writers are just now telling us to start building up our heat tolerance.

It feels like we’re being prepared and conditioned to start blaming heat deaths on someone’s “low heat tolerance,” as if it’s just another precondition that helps them rationalize indifference in the face of mass death.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/if-a-cactus-cant-survive-this-neither

#Arizona #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

If a Cactus Can't Survive This, Neither Can You

On the absurdities of "personal heat tolerance."

OK Doomer
Show threadWarmasterPalakAug 7, 2023

@breadandcircuses @jessicawildfire

I keep telling people that its too late to change our course. We passed the PONR 14 years ago, according to the most recent studies. We're going to see temperatures rise until we reach the new equilibrium point, which will be far hotter than anything modern life on this planet is prepared to accept. Capitalism has killed us. It cannot and will not save us. Business as usual is what will end all life on this planet.

Show threadViolet MadderAug 7, 2023
@WarmasterPalak @breadandcircuses @jessicawildfire We can always change our course. Can't reverse it, obviously, but we can still affect WHERE that new equilibrium point ends up, how much worse things will get and how long it will take to start to get better-- even if we're now talking in terms of not just how many generations, but how many millennia. There's no fucking point in just tossing up our hands and giving up. We've got to build topsoil everywhere we possibly can, with wartime urgency. It matters.
Show threadZeke 🇨🇦Aug 7, 2023
@violetmadder @WarmasterPalak @breadandcircuses @jessicawildfire Agreed, but, where are the signs of any positive movement to change our course to destruction? We’re on a very slippery unstable slope.
Show threadViolet MadderAug 7, 2023

@mediocratese @WarmasterPalak @breadandcircuses @jessicawildfire Any real signs of positive movement are hidden under the waves of corporate-run propaganda and conspiracy chaff designed to keep us feeling hopeless, confused, and complacent while the robber barons loot everything they can get their grubby paws on before they retreat to their private islands behind their private armies and leave everyone else to tear each other to pieces when the water/food/shelter runs out and the illusion of calm finally breaks. We won't hear about hope or solutions on the "news"-- just endless pro wrestling style storylines about bad orange men and LARPing neonazis vs the neoliberal toadies pretending to "fight" them.

For real news and progress, look to independent podcasts, organizing groups, local causes-- real information from anywhere far away is very difficult to verify or truly understand, so our best bet is in our own communities where we can get to know people and try to figure out who's full of crap and who isn't. Meaningful accomplishments at the grassroots level look different than the big, climactic victories that TV has trained us to expect. It looks more like a basket of surplus produce on a neighbor's porch, or a person in distress receiving comfort.

Show threadWarmasterPalak

@violetmadder @mediocratese @breadandcircuses @jessicawildfire

The Transatlantic Oceanic Conveyer is breaking down.
Cacti that have adapted to the harsh environments of the SW deserts are dying of dehydration because of the sustained heat.
And proteins denature at sustained temperatures of over 110F.
You can't grassroots your way out of that. It's time to stop pretending we can fix this and start figuring out how to survive it. Survival mode got turned on. Time to focus on what's important.

Aug 7, 2023 at 9:00pmWeb
Show threadforesterrAug 7, 2023
@WarmasterPalak @violetmadder @mediocratese @breadandcircuses @jessicawildfire You are right, in that we should have gone into survival mode yesterday, and if capitalism was serious about doing anything, it would have to go to full-on war economy overnight (which it won't do because it would cOsT mOnEy of course).
But grassrooting is still important. Maybe not necessarily because it will change a lot on its own, but it builds connections and a basis for further organizing. I don't know if we still can survive this, but I'm pretty sure if we do, we'll have to do it together, not as a mass of alienated and atomized consumers.
Show threadViolet MadderAug 7, 2023

@foresterr @WarmasterPalak @mediocratese @breadandcircuses @jessicawildfire Grassroots is where it has to come from. A lot of energy has gone to die in the honeypots of superficial "reform". The revolution won't be televised, or indexed by the algorithms. People cooperating, figuring out how to get along, learning how to exchange value fairly and without money, learning to recognize the value in small accomplishments that nourish the soul (instead of obsessively chasing the gold idols pimped in the modern myths of marketing), relentless culture jamming, building proof of concept examples that show there's a better way to live-- that's the real work. We won't see it on the surface. I keep imagining literal roots, tiny hairs pushing and growing until cement buckles and crumbles.

Despair is a weapon. The CIA studied Martin Seligman's research on learned helplessness and applied it to their torture program. Keeping us feeling isolated and like we're "failing" is the status quo's first line of defense.