the EBU has decided we can't have cunt but we can absolutely have BBC

#Eurovision

How much money do you think the United States has spent since 1945 on the Cold War? Sometimes they ask this question then from the back of the audience comes in answer ‘billions and billions‘. A huge underestimate – billions and billions. The amount of money that the United States has spent on the Cold War since 1945 is approximately 10 trillion dollars. Trillion, that’s the big one with the ‘T’. What could you buy with 10 trillion dollars? The answer is: You could buy everything in the United States except the land. Everything. Every building, truck, bus, car, boat, plane, pencil, baby’s diaper. Everything in the United States except the land, that’s what we have spent on the Cold War.

So, now let me ask: How certain was it that the Russians were going to invade? Was it 100% certain? Guess not since they never invaded. What if it was only let say 10% certain? What would advocates of big military buildup have said? We must be prudent. It’s not enough to count on only the most likely circumstance. If the worst happens and it’s really extremely dangerous for us we have to prepare for that. Remote contingencies if there is serious enough have the prepared for. It’s classic military thinking – you prepare for the worst case.

And so now, I ask my friends who are comfortable with that argument, including the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, why doesn’t that same argument apply to Global Warming. You don’t think it’s 100% likely? Fine. You are entitled to think that. If it’s only a small probability of it happening since the consequences are so serious, don’t you have to make some serious investment to prevent it or mitigate it? I think there’s a double standard of argument working and I don’t think we should permit it.

— Carl Sagan, An excerpt of a speech given on the 2nd of September in 1990 at the 5th Emerging Issues Forum at NCSU

#Hollywood reporter: #ParisHilton Is “Heartbroken” After Losing #Malibu Home in #Wildfires: “The Devastation Is Unimaginable”

idk what to say if you can't imagine this, when every insurance company not only imagined it, understood the consequences in granular detail, and rapidly adapted their business to protect themselves from exposure

#ClimateChange #Denial

+++NEW ANALYSIS+++

UK electricity was the cleanest ever in 2024, with emissions per unit falling by more than two-thirds in a decade

Highlights:
🏭end of coal power after 142yrs
🔥fossil fuels at record-low 29% share
🌄renewables at record-high 45%

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-electricity-was-cleanest-ever-in-2024
1/9

Periodic reminder of the Native American approach to minimizing the power of forest fires.

They say the California forests are not "natural." They were planted by humans, 10,000 to 20,000 years ago.

They learned that if you don't do controlled burns, that in
~100 years, you get fire tornadoes.😬

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mby72d2Vz30

It's difficult for many US people to accept that native Americans planted entire forests. They seem too big.

But just in the past 20 years, we've seen multiple examples in many countries, of one individual human creating entire forests. In India. Brazil. Indonesia. China. Etc.

Like this dude:

https://youtube.com/shorts/APL35AVtWqM?si=Zoqo8tJnKD4ptwuN

The Karuk tribe says, "Making forests is easy! Just plant a few trees every day for a few years. But some years are drier, hotter, and windier. You can't let fuel build up. If you don't do controlled burns, then 1 year within about 100, you will pay a terrible price. The sky will turn red."

Indigenous people learned this the hard way when they were starting out planting forests. They said that the biggest fires crossed entire rivers by raining burning embers for miles, and "created their own weather of wind and lightning." Entire villages disappeared.

Of course we didn't believe them.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q92H5PHsWQY

I guess what I'm saying is, all those feel good videos of people planting entire forests in Brazil and India and China and Mexico etc, are probably making the same mistake that indigenous people in those same places made *checks notes* 20,000 years ago, before they figured it out.

Yes, we do some burns. No, we don't do enough. There's still too much fuel.

And we stopped burns for the better part of the past 100 years. We started limited burns again in large part due to the advocacy of people like Dr. Frank Lake, a Karuk person who also has a PhD in Environmental Sciences.👍🏿

https://research.fs.usda.gov/about/people/franklake#orgs-tab

To put it in perspective, in 2023, California treated 700,000 acres. That's a lot! But California has ~33 million acres of forest.🤯

For much of the past 20,000 years, many parts of that 33 million acres were treated regularly. Then for the most recent 100 years, they were mostly not treated at all.

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/01/08/california-forest-management-hotter-drier-climate/

Today was ... interesting. If you followed me for the past months over on the shitbird site, you might have seen a bunch of angry German words, lots of graphs, and the occassional news paper, radio, or TV snippet with yours truely. Let me explain.

In Austria, inflation is way above the EU average. There's no end in sight. This is especially true for basic needs like energy and food.

Our government stated in May that they'd build a food price database together with the big grocery chains. But..