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https://mobile.twitter.com/nytimesworld/status/1203092272285392898?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1203092272285392898&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.news.com.au%2Ftechnology%2Fenvironment%2Fclimate-change%2Fhow-the-world-has-reacted-to-sydney-smoke-haze%2Fnews-story%2Fc6782de9b2782287740099cb42ac0176 Dude, I don’t need to download an app to tell me where the fires are. I can SEE them. Having an app to tell me where the fires are won’t help me to breathe. I’ll tell you what will help: stop denying climate change so that your oil and coal buddies don’t get their feelings hurt. Actually it might not help - it might already be too late.

Hey Everyone, I saw that the American Family Association (AFA) was covered here at FJ in 2016. Today a person on FB shared an anti-environmental stance from them. This lovely article discusses how God controls the the sun and environmentalists should shut up: Just wondering if anyone else had heard of them or other right-wing Christian groups spreading this kind of nonsense. Mods, please let me know if this should be moved somewhere else (do we have any climate change threads?)

So, in the Brexit thread I expressed infuriation with the fact that, at least in my country, people often treat the idea of protecting our environment as a joke. I have some ideas as to why this is. Obviously, the overwhelming resistance from the people currently in power who massively benefit from the fossil fuel and motor industries as well as lax anti-pollution laws. It's like every time there is a step forwards the media will rush to portray the scientists and activists as pessimists or doom-sayers. It's annoying that people won't look at the evidence on their own and think beyond "it's annoying to have to separate my household waste" and see that we have to take this all the way to the very top to even begin to make a difference. People feel powerless and just give up when it's pretty bloody imperative to not give up in the face of mass extinction events and environmental collapse. I also wonder if it's down to science, nature and other connected topics being portrayed as "geeky" and "uncool". I think my generation suffered from a very aggressive kind of anti-intellectualism where we were taught that it was only "cool" to know just enough to get yourself into uni/a good job. This was especially true among girls in my age group. My father always valued education just for the sake of learning something so I was in a pretty small minority in my town (but then again, it had a large number of oil workers) in that I enjoyed learning about the world and how it all fits together. I remember being laughed at by a group of girls in my school because I asked for a recycling bin to put our bottles and cans in. Apparently, it's not cool to care. I think it's great that we now have young women like Greta Thunberg standing up and talking about all this in a very eloquent and well-informed way but they also come in for a horrific amount of abuse as a result. Some of this is possibly down to sexism and the idea that teenage girls should somehow be only interested in boys and other "acceptable" interests. I have also experienced first hand the reaction adults have to being questioned by young people when I was her age, equal parts horror and a sort of rage that you would even dare. I love the fact that young people, in general, seem to be starting to question adults more. Now all we need is to take these young people seriously and encourage them. This might be a very long time coming but I hope that my generation will at least be better at it than my parents'. I think a big part of the issue is fear of change. The fact is that everyone will have to make changes to their lifestyle to make this work. Even when you suggest to people that towns and cities be structured to prioritise public vehicles like buses and trams then you are met with a bunch of people telling you why it will never work. They are unable to imagine the idea that better and more available public transport might make cars obsolete in cities because they have always needed to take a car to get around or have never bothered to use public transport at all. Also, the idea of becoming a less wasteful society seems to make people angry or pessimistic. The biggest elephant in the room seems to be that our entire civilisation is now structured around cheap, replaceable stuff that we often only use once or twice then throw away. Everything from the fashion industry to electronics needs to make us want to just buy more and more stuff just so that their (terrible) business models can remain intact. On one hand, people will usually admit that it is utterly bonkers that Primark will sell you a shirt for £3 that will disintegrate after a few washes but on the other they will just shrug and head right out to buy more shirts that can only be worn a couple of times. Then right at the top, everything seems so impossible to change that people end up just bickering over the minutiae like plastic straws rather than campaigning for things like an end to fossil fuels. It's like how people in cities KNOW that diesel-fuelled engines are contributing to conditions like asthma and lung cancers but they don't see the point in putting pressure on the government to completely ban these vehicles. I once ended up talking to a taxi driver about how he knows the polluted air around city centre taxi ranks is damaging his health but he won't ever swap his diesel car and neither will any other taxi driver because then he will have to get used to a new car. It makes my head spin. I would like to believe that there is hope but it honestly feels like a losing battle. I know that in other European countries the environment is taken a little more seriously. Is this an education thing or is there something more to it?

This thread is for climate change: panic, deniers and efforts to counteract it

Searched for this but couldn't find anything so I decided to start a thread. March 15th strike had about 1.4 million participants in all continents and more than 100 countries, Greta has been nominated for Nobel Peace Prize, and movement is far from over, so we will hear a lot about this in near future.

In case you're still not feeling depressed and hopeless, here's the new climate change report: It may already be too late if we don't do something, like, right now. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45775309 I'm quoting it here but it's worth clicking for the graphics. the comment section of my local paper was really depressing. I didn't really think that climate change denial was a thing over here but the Trump propaganda has made its way over the pond too. Then there were the people who believe it's true but who don't want to do anything so there were lots of people saying whatever we can do doesn't help and SOMEBODY ELSE should do something.

Not to worry, folks, if the Antarctica melts God can send a floating island. http://time.com/4800000/tim-walberg-god-climate-change/

man this would be like being a spy among the enemy. I am surprised they don't kick her out of the church. Unfriendly Climate Texas Tech’s Katharine Hayhoe is one of the most respected experts on global warming in the country. She’s also an evangelical Christian who is trying to connect with the very people who most doubt her research. Too bad the temperature keeps rising. - See more at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/katharine-hayhoe-lubbock-climate-change-evangelist/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link#sthash.LPcfLWLk.dpuf

Temperatures in the North Pole reached freezing on Dec30-31 climbing 50 degrees above normal. http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/30/us/north-pole-high-temperature-feat/index.html

Of course she would right after she gets rid of the EPA. but hey she will do it right and not harm anything of course right along with the oil companies environmental inspectors. lets throw the world to the dogs for some jobs. the sake of jobs for poor living. someone needs to build an unregulated nuke dump by her house. the EPA has a hard enough time regulating corporations. without that they would go hog wild. The corporations are going to dump a lot of money her way I bet. BRENDAN FARRINGTON Published: Aug 28, 2011 7:57 PM SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said Sunday that she would consider oil and natural gas drilling in the Everglades if it can be done without harming the environment. Bachman said the United States needs to tap into all of its energy resources no matter where they exist if it can be done responsibly. "The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent upon American resourcefulness. Whether that is in the Everglades, or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region, or whether that's in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is," she said. "Of course it needs to be done responsibly. If we can't responsibly access energy in the Everglades then we shouldn't do it." In 2002, the federal government at the urging of President George W. Bush bought back oil and gas drilling rights in the Everglades for $120 million. Bachmann, who wants to get rid of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said she would rely on experts to determine whether drilling can be done without harming the environment. "No one wants to hurt or contaminate the earth. ... We don't want to harm our water, our ecosystems or the air. That is a minimum bar," she said. "From there, though, that doesn't mean that the two have to be mutually exclusive. We can protect the environment and do so responsibly, but we can also protect the environment and not kill jobs in America and not deny ourselves access to the energy resources that America's been so blessed with." The Minnesota congresswoman, who is seeking the GOP nomination to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012, is on a four-day swing through Florida, ending Monday in Miami. At each stop she has said she wants to eliminate the "job-killing" EPA. She elaborated on the idea in an interview after rallying hundreds of enthusiastic supporters in Sarasota. "We do have EPA's in each of the 50 states and I think that it's up to the states," she said. "The states have the right to develop their own environmental protections and regulations, as they all have." She said she recognizes there is a federal role when environmental issues cross borders, but she added that a big problem with the EPA now is that it does not consider job creation or job losses as part of its role in enforcing regulations. She said the regulations it does have prevent businesses from being able to reasonably create a profit. "If we create a new department that is focused on conservation and get rid of the EPA, that would send a strong signal about what our priorities are. We believe in conservation, but I also believe at the same time that the EPA has overstepped its bounds," Bachmann said. Among other topics, Bachmann said the stock market drop after this summer's debt ceiling compromise demonstrated disappointment that Washington had not taken more significant steps to reduce spending. "We need to get our house in order fairly quickly," she said. "What you saw with the markets was the markets reacting to the fact that Washington, D.C., did nothing to get its house in order." She also said she would consider Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who took office earlier this year, as a running mate. "Marco Rubio has the hallmarks of, I think, everything that a person would look for in a potential candidate. He's got so much going for him," Bachmann said, also naming South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint as another possibility.