Hi! I’ve seen you mention it in passing (not sure if you’ve discussed it at length), but could you either drop some knowledge about the mini ice age of the Victorians (Edwardians?) and/or share any sources you may have about it? I find it fascinating (and also dream of living through a mini ice age instead of the boiling hellscape we live in now), but can’t seem to find much information about it. Much appreciated if you’re able to help!

Oh yeah, the little ice age! You’ll find more about it if you search using that term – it has a whole Wikipedia page. It seems to be kind of complicated. Scholars can’t really reach a consensus on when exactly it happened (the most common dating seems to be from the 16th to the mid-19th century?) And many now believe that it was actually several smaller periods of colder than average temperatures interspersed with relative warming.

I’ve also found that people tend to be very quick to ascribe historical fashions in particular to much colder temperatures. While that was a thing in some places and it sometimes, I’ve also looked into, say, the oldest recorded temperature records for here in Boston (1890s) and found that yes, they did in fact have to deal with many of the same summer temperatures that we have today. The probability of intense heat was different, and most notably the nights got much cooler than they tend to do in modern summer, so don’t mistake me for a climate change denier. But it’s not always as simple as saying “oh, it was colder back then, so they could wear all those layers!“ Sometimes they wore all those layers when it was exactly the same temperature as it is today

Also, while it does sound vastly appealing from our current perspective, don’t feel too nostalgic – the Little Ice Age did cause widespread drought, crop failure, and famine.

WIP - I was gonna write an AU psych ward fanfic but then i just started writing my psych ward trauma. Antipsych. This happened a while ago, I'm okay now (and I'm not grateful it happened).

tw - suicidal ideation, descriptions of suicide rehearsal, psychiatric abuse, trauma

--------

“Why are you here?”

I look at the psychiatrist’s tie blankly. He’s dressed in a suit, a clipboard and pen in hand. I haven’t even gotten my clothes back, I have to wear a hospital gown and pants four sizes too large, and am not allowed footwear other than grippy socks. The only thing I have left that's mine is my chipped glittery nail polish. I've picked it halfway off over the past day despite desperately trying not to. But this guy is walking around in shiny Oxfords and a suit.

I don’t look at his face. I know he’s looking at me, expecting an answer. Something I’m learning here is that they wait for you to speak. Even if you take a long time. They don’t try to speak for you. Sometimes I wish they would. It would be easier to say what they wanted to hear if they did. Instead I have to guess. I suppose I’m used to doing that, but it’s a lot scarier. “Don’t you know?” I say.

“Yes. But I want to hear it from you.”

Great. I have to tell him in my own words. It’s like a school assignment, but the grade is how long I’m going to be locked up.

I had been in the ER for 13 hours before I came in, and then I stayed up 2 more hours getting here. I wasn’t allowed my phone until I’d been there for 6 hours. No calling my friends. No telling anyone where I was. No one to talk to. Just me and the book I brought, the book I couldn’t focus on because I’d just gone to the counselor’s office because I was having a hard time and now I was at the ER for a psych eval. The counselor who sent me to the ER had said he thought I would just get connected to resources in the community. He said he didn’t think I would be sent to a psych ward.

I’d done a lot of staring at the ceiling to just get through to the eval part, 4 hours in. 2 hours after, when I finally learned I was recommended inpatient, the social worker told me even if I hate it now, I will be grateful later. Once I feel better, I will approve of the decision to involuntarily commit me. My current wishes tossed aside for a theoretical future me who is glad I never a choice. If they’re right, I should kill myself now so I never become such a monster. All alone, with a life shattering brick dropped on my head, I finally cried.

After the eval, I’d begged the nurse for my phone so I could tell my friends where I was. So I could tell my roommate why I still hadn’t come back at 9pm when we usually saw each other by five. My phone was nearly dead when I got it. I called my friends. I called my parents. My friends stayed with me the rest of the 7 hours I was there. They hugged me and cried with me until I got taken away in an ambulance at 3am. I wondered how much a 45 minute ambulance ride cost. I wondered if it mattered.

What a fuck-up I must have seemed. I’d heard of some college kids going to psych wards before. I knew someone who had called a suicide hotline at 4am and got the cops called to take them in. I hadn’t thought it would happen to me.

It’s nice, in a way. To know how bad I’m doing. I’m bad enough that I need to be locked up. For my own safety. I’m so crazy that I can’t be trusted to make my own decisions. I hadn’t known I was that bad until now. I still don’t believe it. It’s a mistake. But it’s nice they think I’m struggling.

He’s looking at me again. I don’t remember what he asked. “Can you repeat the question?” I ask.

“Sure. Why are you here?” he says again.

Right, that was what it was. I smile. I smile when I’m nervous. “Well, I… I…” Why is he making me say this. He knows what I did. I didn’t even try to kill myself. It’s not that bad. “Well, I was… I was… Sometimes I get into these moods. A lot of times I’m normal and fine. But sometimes I just… sometimes I just want to die. I used to try not to think about how I could do that or anything.” I sigh. I had tried so hard to not think about methods. I must have known I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from doing shit like this eventually. “Because I know this sort of thing would happen. But this time… this time I did. I looked up bridges I could theoretically jump from. But that seems like it would suck.”

I laugh. It’s a nervous laugh. It’s a ‘isn’t it funny that jumping from a bridge to kill yourself would suck?’ joke. One of the classics. He’s not laughing.

“Anyway, I was just feeling… I don’t know. I felt useless. I just keep thinking about dying and killing myself. It’s stupid. And I—I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I don’t know if people think I was trying to kill myself and that’s why I’m here. But I wanted to do something. To—I don’t know. To see what’s even possible. So I—so I—so I—”

This is the part I always get stuck on describing. I don’t know how to put what I was feeling into words. I don’t know how to describe what I was doing. I don’t know why I was doing it. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But then again, it had seemed like a good idea to go to the counselor’s office at the time.

“I took—I took a belt. Right? And I hooked the metal buckle part over the door knob—it’s one of those long ones. And I kind of—I kind of—I don’t know. I kind of wrapped it around my neck once and held it with my other hand. So that if I passed out I would be fine. And then I sort of… pulled down. To see if that would… do anything. I did that a few times, and then I was scared that I did it. And I told the counselor the next day.”

It hadn’t been empty blackness like I’d hoped for. It had been a pulsing pressure in my head. I did it a couple times, to see if I could get the empty blackness. Then I stopped. Because it had seemed like such a good fucking idea before I did it, but then I realized I’d done something very worrying and should probably be in therapy. Even if the voice that had started the whole thing was telling me to do it again. It wasn’t real before I’d done it, but once I’d done it, it was too real to ignore.

He’s writing on the clipboard. I have a sinking feeling I’m not getting a good grade. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” I repeat.

“I know,” he says. He’s still writing. I wish I knew what it was.

It’s just me and him in my room. He woke me up when he came in. I went to sleep after breakfast. When I was admitted at 5am last night, one of the techs told me I should try to be awake during the day and asleep at night. Go to groups. Talk to people. It would help me get out sooner. But I’d already been up for 20 hours and it was 5am. So I was going to sleep and they were just going to have to live with that. Apparently you can’t skip the psychiatrist appointments, though.

“What’s got you so suicidal?” he asks.

The world. Everything. And yet, nothing. My life is great. “What do you mean?” I say.

“What do you think about that makes you want to kill yourself?” he elaborates.

“I… I don’t know,” I say. “The… the environment, I guess. Global warming. Kinda sucks to feel like the future is ruined. And the species and the ice sheets. Rising fascism.” I remember a tumblr post where a therapist talked about her patients talking more about those sorts of things making them depressed. That made it seem like an okay enough reason to give to a psychiatrist. And it’s not like that isn’t a big fucking bummer making me not want to be alive.

He makes more notes. “Anything else?” We both seem know that’s not enough on its own to make me constantly thinking about suicide.

I shrug. I’m just so stupid and worthless doesn’t feel like a cogent enough explanation. And I can’t phrase it like that. That would be stupid. “Feelings of… worthlessness, and um.” I search for something in my head. It’s fuzzy. There’s nothing there. I always remember everything so well when I’m crying in bed thinking about how much I want to kill myself. I could write essays on the subject in those moments. Instead I just rehash them to myself, over and over. But I can’t remember any of it now. “I dunno. I can’t remember unless I’m spiraling. A lot of anxiety. Around… people. Social anxiety.” I nod.

Sometimes I get attacked by my social anxiety, memories from years ago—three years, five years, a decade—sending jolts through me as I remember them. I remember what I should never do again. What I’ve learned. Lessons I can never forget, even when I can’t remember what taught them. I usually throw myself onto my bed and writhe in the agony of memories, clinging to ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I want to die’ like I'm falling in an abyss and they're the only rope up. I can never remember what the memories are until they’ve started their assault. I don’t know how to describe that, though.

I’m not being as amicable to him as I usually would be. I haven’t been amicable since they recommended me for inpatient at the ER. Something broke in me then. I’d felt it snap, a crack of terror, and then—nothing. I’m more stone-faced now. Quiet.

I can be friendly when I need to be. I can be talkative and responsive and say all the right words and have the appropriate “mmhmm”s and “oh no”s and “yeah”s. I can laugh in the right places, when it’s polite to laugh at a joke I don’t think is funny. I can make eye contact and break eye contact at what I assume are appropriate moments. I never know if I’m doing it right, though. I poured over a book about body language in high school, trying to learn how the fuck to do it. It said that the exact percentage varied, but around 40% eye contact 60% not eye contact. I tried to get the proportions right for years. Every conversation. Look at their eyes a few seconds, look away a few more seconds. Look eyes, look away. I used to look between their eyebrows, because the eyes were too much. But I read somewhere that some people can tell and they think it’s weird. So eyes it was.

I’m dead now, though. I’m already in a psych ward. They know I’m crazy. What’s the point in trying to appear like I can converse like a human. I don’t want to have to do it. So I don’t. I stare soullessly past people when they talk to me. I examine their clothes. I look at their hair. I don’t smile when they talk to me. I don’t laugh at their jokes. They ask me how I am and I don’t ask them back.

He seems to conclude I’ve finished explaining. “Well—okay, are you voluntary?” He leafs through his papers. “Yes, voluntary. Let’s see…” He leafs through them again.

Voluntary patient. What a laugh. When I came in, I was involuntary. During intake, they gave me some forms and said if I sign them I’d be a voluntary patient. I asked if anything would change. No, they said, it was a distinction with no difference. A voluntary patient still can’t leave until the psychiatrist says they can. But I would be seen as complying with the recommended treatment. It would be beneficial to be seen as complying with the recommended treatment. So I signed. But I never mistook that little black-and-white print Voluntary for consent, even if everyone else did.

Scylla I think is the most thematic of the titans, really good for fan universes

Its combination of association with diseases and implied freezing powers in the newspaper article in the credits make her easy to repurpose as the "the climate change kaiju" Remember, there are fears of microbes trapped in ice emerging into modern day ecosystem, and Scylla can bring that close to home. And her freezing powers can stand in for disruption of the polar vortex bringing chilling winds to places.

I am considering adding her to my own Godzilla fan universe as a kaiju that is not a frequent combatant, but a b-plot like you see in Marc Cerasini's novels where he had monsters like Baragon or Varan causing trouble far away from Godzilla and forcing humans to divide resources and making everything more tense.

edit:

The Fire Monster from Godzilla the Series I could see redesigned as a possible relative of hers (possibly by genetic engineering)

It would be funny to have it first be named "Gigantis" when it creates its illusionary larger flame body , as a reference to an Easter Egg in the Godzilla PS4 video game Kaiju Guide for Anguirus' bio.

[Once, ages ago, Anguirus battled a mysterious fire monster named “Gigantis” who has since been banished from this plane of existence.]

This is a reference to the first dub of Godzilla Raids Again that tried to hide being a sequel to Godzilla and had Godzilla renamed "Gigantis", thinking American audiences wouldn't be excited for a sequel.

I took the main cast of Dracula to Starbucks and this is what happened

Specifically, I took Jonathan, Mina, Lucy, Arthur, Jack, and Quincey. Van Helsing elected to stay home, because it turns out interdimensional time travel disagrees with him.

They were all a little overwhelmed at the menu. I defined some terms, which helped a bit. Then I got to tell them about drink modifications, which did the opposite.

Jack immediately began peppering me with questions about how various things taste together, most of which I could not answer.

Got to explain the concept of ice in beverages. Quincey quickly decided on a mocha Frappuccino, but waited to order until everyone was ready.

Mina wanted to know what oat milk is. I told her. She then wanted to know why.

Meanwhile, Arthur wanted to know what’s so impossible about the breakfast sandwich.

I explained climate change to a bunch of Victorians. I got some Concerned Looks. I don’t blame them.

Lucy changed the subject by deciding on a Pink Drink on the grounds that the name rhymed.

Jonathan was standing off to the side looking overwhelmed. Mina asked him if he just wanted a cup of tea. He asked me if that was possible, and decided on that when I replied in the affirmative.

Mina wanted a hot chocolate. Despite the fact that it was approximately 80 degrees out.

Arthur asked me if there was anything that shouldn’t be missed. I told him the pumpkin spice lattes were quite famous, and that someone ought to try one, though I hadn’t had one myself due to a pronounced personal dislike of coffee. He decided on that, getting it iced due to the weather.

In terms of food, they decided to get a chocolate croissant, a pumpkin scone, an impossible breakfast sandwich (Jack was curious), and a cake pop (Lucy thought they were “charming.”)

I don’t remember exactly what Jack ordered, but I’m pretty sure the barista hated him, it cannot have tasted good, and it had like four shots of espresso in it.

Quincey got his Frappuccino, began drinking it, and stopped in his tracks a few seconds in. He handed it to Arthur with a big grin and a “here, try this, it’s good.”

Thirty seconds later, Arthur was cussing Quincey out under his breath with a hand on his head, and Jack wanted to try.

Once Jack had also experienced the joys of brain freeze, I explained what was going on and how to fix and prevent it. The other three still declined to try any.

Mina took the lid off her hot chocolate and got whipped cream on her nose. Jonathan’s expression was the closest I have ever seen to cartoon heart eyes on a human being.

Lucy didn’t like the cake pop but was too polite to say so. Instead, she handed it off to Arthur, who let everyone have a nibble.

Mina wanted to try Lucy’s Pink Drink. After a moment of startled confusion, she liked it.

Lucy liked Mina’s hot chocolate, but mostly liked the whipped cream.

After that I kind of lost track of who was trying whose food and beverages

…except when Jack tried the impossible breakfast sandwich and it blew his mind

I tried to answer his questions about how it was made, what it was made of, etc., but eventually I had to take out my phone and Google it

…and that started an entirely new conversation.

So... in 90-something-degree (F) weather with a hundred-something-degree heat index, there's a group of about 15 people Running. from, like... point A to point B all the way across town to raise money for X/Y/Z charity. (Led by a slow-moving ambulance which is ostensibly there as an escort but which I REALLY hope is equipped to help in case any of the runners pass out from heat stroke, sun stroke, exhaustion, dehydration, etc.)

Yet all I can think as they pass by is, "Why in the world is This the way we humans raise money for charities??" These people are out RUNNING in one of the most lethal heat waves in recorded human history?? And that's really the best way to get other people to either contribute to a cause or become aware of a cause??

(I mean, mad respect to these folks for Caring that much about something. And yes, I do know about crowdfunding. And I think it's great, although I hate that it's gotten to be—in the US, anyway—essentially an emergency support-network substitute for health insurance/social security for so many people because our healthcare system is so f***ed up, but I digress.)

I just... *keysmash* I'm a cynic through and through, I consider myself to be professionally depressed—but even I refuse to believe that a dozen people putting their health and possibly their lives on the scorching pavement like this is truly the most efficient means of fundraising or spreading awareness for a charity, because honestly... how broken is our society that this is what charitable organizations have come to? It just seems like utter brutality to me.

(Disclaimer: I fully understand that I could be 100% wrong. I don't lead or work for a 501(c)3, I'm not an athlete, and I'm definitely not a runner, so maybe these folks actually derive some kind of enjoyment out of these charity runs. 🤷 But... in this kind of heat?? I don't buy it.)

Isn't there some way to fundraise for Good Causes that would be actually conscientious toward all parties involved? Like... I don't know. Have people pledge 50 cents for every piece of litter you pick up on a charity walk, and all the walkers go through a different neighborhood in town, and on their own time, when it's not dangerous to their health or safety to do so (aka not exerting their bodies to the maximum capacity at high noon on a sunny over-100-degree day). Or raise five dollars for every row of soil you till or seed in a community garden or something.

No clue what my point is here, but having a gaggle of already toxically-thinspo-looking people try to jog down the road on one of the hottest days of the year while sweating out what I can only imagine is every possible nutrient left in their bodies just doesn't feel like "the answer." 🤔

I can't take the state of the world anymore, every day things constantly get worse and there's literally nothing we can do. Every time things get better they're immediately undone by forces more powerful than us. I just want things to go back to the way they were before when it felt like there was hope, now it feels like humanity is doomed and will never, ever get better. I just want to die so I can finally know peace from this evil.

Hey. I'm really, really sorry you're having such a hard time. That sounds like an incredibly painful headspace to be in.

Please find someone you can talk to and who can help you - whether that's a peer counselor or a good friend or a trained mental health professional. Especially a trained mental health professional, if you can. You can find a really thorough list of crisis hotlines listed by country here.

Also, I realllllly recommend getting off any websites or social media that are contributing to you feeling like this, or at least block all the people/tags posting things that are making you feel like this. Negativity bias is real - the news/internet doesn't accurately reflect the world and neither does the way your brain perceives it

In the meantime, a few quick words/facts of comfort. I hope they can give you at least some reassurance or solace.

We literally have more reason to hope we can solve climate change than ever before x

Starting about six months ago, major international energy reports have come out for the first time showing that we have a visible, concrete path to staying under 1.5 degrees celsius x

Twenty, even ten years ago, scientists talked about whether we could possibly manage to limit global warming to 4 or 5 degrees Celsius. Now, those numbers aren't even on the map - we're talking 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius. We've cut expected warming in half in under a decade x

Renewable energy is growing so exponentially it's now "unstoppable" x

Two hundred years ago, in 1800, there wasn't a single "liberal democracy" - a democracy that gives all citizens the right to vote - on the planet. Just over one hundred years ago, in 1900, there were five of them. Today, roughly half the countries (aka roughly 100) on the planet fall into this category. International politics is so often two steps forward, one step back, but this is actually an astonishing pace of progress in the grand scheme of things x

For all of human history, until just over 200 years ago, roughly half of all children died. Across times, across cultures. Half of all children died by the age of 15. Half of them. Today, globally, that same child mortality rate is only 4%. We did that. We changed what was previously an eternal, inescapable, and horrific condition of human existence, and we are going to keep making that rate go down x

Two steps forward, one step back, is still moving forward. There are so, so, so many reasons that we are not already doomed. There are so many reasons to think the future is going to be bright

To anyone struggling with thoughts like this: please, please give yourself the chance to see it

You really should know about Storm "Daniel"

Unlike how much all of us Greek blogs notify our tumblr communities about the regular (at this point) arsons wildfires afflicting Greece, we did not say much about the floods the country has been suffering from right now. There was a mention here and there and I even made a joke post as the storm was starting but not a lot of stuff in general. So, I think there's a couple of things you should know and I feel like I could address about it and actually it's not just about Greece. So I believe this could interest a lot of people and it should be something known worldwide.

In the beginning of September there was an alarm about an extreme weather phenomenon forming above the Ionian Sea at the west of mainland Greece. In truth, the phenomenon was not caused by the climate change. It was just a very rare occurence where a high pressure atmosheric system was sandwiched between two currents of low pressure. Low pressure systems are the ones resposible for stormy weather while high pressure systems generally create stable weather. As the low currents encircled the high pressure system, the storm that had started forming became unusually stable for a storm. As a result, the storm moved northeast above Thessaly and other regions of the central part of Greece and... just decided to stay there for an indefinite amount of time. Furthermore, because it's September and the Ionian Sea had warmed up throughout the summer, the medicane (Mediterranean cyclone) gained tropical features as it was forming, pushing its intensity to extremes unknown to this area.

The storm remained above all of central Greece for about 4-5 days but at the meantime it was causing side-storms in neighbouring countries, such as Bulgaria and Turkey. Both countries suffered from floods causing damages and deaths.

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN).

Tsarevo, Bulgaria (CNN).

Four people died in Bulgaria and seven in Turkey.

But like I told you the core of this was exactly on top of Greece's central mainland and islands. So what happened there? I happened to experience this shit first hand. My recollection of it is that it was unlike any other storm I had experienced before. My knowledge on meteorology is not very advanced, however I believe due to the high pressure part, there were actually no winds at all - or they were insignificant, so it wasn't like what you might have in mind as a conventional cyclone. It was a rainstorm but it was like a rainstorm from hell. The crucial part is that in Greece summer violent rainstorms may last for about five minutes but certainly not for five days nonstop. There was no pause, not even for a second. It kept pouring and pouring in indescribable volumes, without decreasing or slowing down, not for a moment. The fourth day it started taking short breaks.

As a person with a phobia of lightnings since childhood, I kept wearing earplugs throughout all these days. For four days, ten seconds did not pass without at least one lightning shrieking exactly on top of our heads. In the end, I am dead serious, I think my lifelong phobia has been cured somewhat due to this extreme exposure that eventually had a numbing effect. I think only the first day there was a record of 7,000 lightnings. I believe there must have been dozens of thousands overall. The lightnings also caused fires but the downpour was so overwhelming no fire could ever stand a chance.

Whether during or after the rains, what I was seeing outside was post-apocalyptic. The only thing missing was the zombies. It really looked like a background from a videogame, including a constantly lit up sky. I was not in danger though people dear to me were. The worst for me was a huge fall in the quality of living but that doesn't matter. The rains caused severe destructions across cities and villages. They caused floods, they broke bridges, they broke a massive number of roads, they made walls collapse, they destroyed springs, they damaged water and electricity outlets entirely, they drowned flocks and flocks of animals, they destroyed mountainous and coastal villages alike, they made cars float and fly over each other and they uprooted houses.

Village in Mount Pelion, Greece.

But that's not the end of it. Four days later, the storm moved southwest towards the Ionian sea, basically to the place of its original formation. It side-swept over Athens in the meantime, flooding the city, but that doesn't mean much since I could cry and Athens would still flood with my tears. Anyway. AFTER the storm left, the floods caused by it started multiplying and expanding. Picture that: a crystal clear sky, a bright sun and your phone screaming state alerts about evacuating your village or town because a lake has launched at you! Here's the thing: Thessaly is a massive plain surrounded by a ring of mountains. Half of those downpours fell right on the lowlands causing floods and destructions the first days. The other half however fell on the mountains, filled the streams heading down and they all met up and filled the lakes and the large river of Thessaly, Pineios and they all basically exploded the next days. Pineios especially exploded both in its western and eastern part, sinking the entirety of Thessaly's plains under water. As a result, floods were actively taking place days after the storm had ended and the weather was good. The phenomena have only started subduing since yesterday.

The overflowing of the river, trapped by the mountains.

Farmers won't be able to work this year and next year is questionable as well. There are huge concerns about various epidemics breaking out as more and more dead animals are found in the waters. Entire villages are under the water. There are estimations that some villages in west Thessaly might have been lost forever and their residents will have to move elsewhere. Sixteen people have died from the rainstorm and the floods.

Actual villages in Karditsa, Greece.

A more longterm danger is that the ground received such an unnatural amount of water that it might have been severely eroded and destablised, making it vulnerable to natural disasters I don't want to utter. Many roads are either broken or bloated and Thessaly has been cut out from communication and transportation with the rest of the country. To this day, there are maps guiding people how to drive from North to South Greece and vice versa by entirely skipping Central Greece! (Hint: they will have to drive through Epirus, aka western Greece.) The first days there was also complete isolation from what was happening in the country and the world and also the very regions we were in as we had no electricity and our only chance was getting a call from somebody being elsewhere and telling us what is going on.

Volos, Greece (CNN)

Many regions have received within 2-4 days 55 times their monthly amount of rain or more than twice the yearly amount. Greek meteorologist Christos Zerefos estimated that such a phenomenon occurs every 300-400 years. Meteorologists were alarmed internationally - with Germans and Americans reportedly saying they hadn't studied such a phenomenon again in their career. Its intensity was record high in the history of Greece and right in the top of Europe's as well. They also agreed that such a phenomenon would be devastating even if it had hit the most advanced and prepared country.

BUT THIS IS NOT THE END. The weakened Daniel seemed to slowly move towards South Italy but it decided to take a turn and headed south towards Libya and Egypt. Quite possibly, as the storm was once again travelling across the warm Mediterranean Sea, it was rejuvenated and gained even more tropical traits. Eventually, the medicane hit Libya with unprecedented force.

The cyclone travelling from Greece to Libya.

The toll it took on Libya is unspeakable. As I am writing this,

More than 5,226 people are killed and more than 10,000 are currently missing.

Like, can you wrap your head around what I am talking about? I don't see this shit being acknowledged enough across the world. I am checking this again and again, to ensure I am reading this correctly.

Daniel has officially become the deadliest medicane on record.

Eastern Libya, from Al Jazeera.

In the meantime, Greeks found opportunities to practice their favourite sport: political infighting. People who weren't even here when hell broke loose say that if this or that was properly done, we would not have problems at all. I even saw an idiotic Greek expat comment how "we got drowned in a little bit of rain". The truth is we should bloody thank our lucky stars and I say this with the entire awareness of half of Thessaly being currently underwater. It is true that Greek governments and people have done so many things badly, like building on top of streams and rivers, changing rivers' natural route, drying up natural lakes and all that shit that guarantees you are going to have massive problems once a serious storm breaks out. Also, the disaster revealed that there was once more a very questionable management of all the money given by the EU for anti-flooding measures after a previous flood (Ianos). Of course, I would be happy if at last we viewed this disaster as an opportunity to improve ourselves and the management of our land, however whatever happened these days wasn't the fault of anyone in particular. On the contrary, A LOT worse could have happened. A lot. Maybe Libya is not an indication because if Greece is not used to such extreme rain phenomena, then Libya is probably ten times less used to them, however we should not forget that this monster was STUCK at least five days over the heartland of Greece. For this alone we should damn be thankful we did not get it any worse and that the land endured in any way and of course now we have to correct old mistakes as well but let's do it united and determined and without wasting time once more in pointless infighting, which in this case might even be unfair. (In fact I think the thing we should blame the state the most about was not making it clear beforehand that this was going to be unprecedented, not just "very severe". They probably didn't want to cause panic and mayhem but still. We should know.) Of course I am not talking about how the state will treat the afflicted regions from now on, which is entirely its responsibility. And we should stand next to Libya. Greece has its wounds to mend but it should absolutely provide support to Libya. We know what this freak phenomenon was like.

I know this text is long but please consider reblogging this. We should know what happens on our planet. Thousands of people are dead from a freak phenomenon devastating regions across lands and seas. Also forgive any mistakes I might have made although I believe the information is correct for the most part. I didn't speak more about Libya because I don't know enough to analyze the situation as much. Perhaps there are ways of supporting the country too. As a last note, this phenomenon was not freakish because of the climate change - it was just a very unusual occurence. However, the - otherwise normal - warmth of the sea did feed and intensify the storm and the climate change might in the future cause these super rare, accidental phenomena to become more frequent.

While all eyes were on the thunderstorms and floods in the south of the province, the largest blaze in Quebec history was burning north of 49e parallel this week.

At 1,041,760 hectares — barely smaller than Lebanon — this fire is three times larger than the one that made headlines in 2013.

This is the largest fire ever recorded by SOPFEU, confirmed to The Press spokesperson Mélanie Morin. “In the statistics to which I have access, which go back to 1984, I do not find any fire of more than one million hectares in the northern zone”, she explains.

“Unparalleled magnitude”, “historic fire”, “the biggest fire ever seen”: there was no shortage of superlatives in 2013 to describe the 350,000 hectare blaze that was burning then a few kilometers from the Cree community of Eastmain.

Ten years later, the magnitude of this new fire has gone almost unnoticed. It should be noted that it was in this fire that two auxiliary SOPFEU fighters were injured last Monday, a first in 30 years, as reported by The Press SATURDAY. [...]

Continue Reading.

Note from poster @el-shab-hussein: this article was posted 3 days after the SOPFEU partially lifted some bans on open-air fires.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada, @halfwar-halfpeace

People acting like Tommy Talerico was the 1st dude HBomberGuy ever took down haven't seen my favourite HBG video which is the Autism one where he takes down Andrew Wakefield, aka the father of the anti-vax movement

I am so so over climate change being something that I'm supposed to worry about in the future.

I didn't have asthma until 2017 when we started having regular forest fire seasons.

One of my elderly relatives died during one of those forest fire seasons because he couldn't handle the smoke.

Climate change is not some future issue. It is happening Right Now. It is impacting me and my family and my friends and it has been for quite some time.

If you read this I hope you reblog and share how climate change has impacted you and your loved ones. It is worth sharing. It is worth saying out loud.

I never see anyone directly blaming climate change for their health issues, or for the death of their loved ones, or even for the fact that they couldn't go for a walk one day during an extreme weather event, but we need to. We need to name this shit! We need to call out the fact that corporate and government inaction on this issue is actively harming us. This is no longer some intangible issue.

Talk about climate change like it's effecting you personally because it fucking is

Anyone else think short form social media based on algorithms designed to promote topics that create more engagement instead of more joy, the idea of fast fashion but conveyed through social media, and the fact you can monetize suffering and outrage better than ever has largely resulted in the death spiral of media literacy and the mass emergence of bad faith readings?

"Unexpected" my ass. We've been screaming for over a decade now about how we're approaching an existential risk to humankind. When are people, including scientists, going to acknowledge how little we actually know? Why are we leaving this to chance instead of demanding better?

Plural culture is feeling like you're more aware of how rapid climate change occured than others, because you went dormant in earlier childhood.

Like when the body was 6, it was getting cold at the end of August. By September it wasn't uncommon to wake up to frost.

And now my friends say "god I can't believe it's below 60, it's only September"

It just throws me off so much because I'm waking up half expecting snow every morning. The alters that didn't go dormant don't think that, they're used to this.

I'm not and it's freaky man

- Skid Drift

remember being in a horrid shitty mood catching the bus back to my parents, thinking, if they just painted a bus lane on the fucking road my journey could take less than 45 minutes and be way more reliable. wondering why it isn't there, the infrastructure, surely i could afford the jail time if i just went out there and built it, they wouldn't tear it down right? footpaths and shit. cause it's still a pretty rural area. instead i'm sitting on the bus destroying my mental health, no wonder i feel better having moved out of the area, when every car that cuts in front of us and all the traffic we can't just zoom past feels like a personal put-down, an insult to my way of life that i've chosen because it's better for all of us, not just me.

and realising, when my head's out of the constant frustration of it having moved out to somewhere walkable, i can see it 'above the trees' if you will that i can whine and bitch about it all i can (and believe me i have) but any change like the one i want, is political. we do this for the city, we as the whole city do it together. of course it would be good, say the 3+ million of us living in greater brisbane, soon to be 4, 5, 6, 7 million in the leadup to 2032 and after, but it's the tragedy of the commons isn't it? my priority, say 3+ million minus one self-supporting adult in this soon-to-be megacity, is getting to work every day and putting food on the table. i've never had that strong of a survival drive, I'd rather do the right thing and invest my choices into something that makes for a better city than be able to work or eat but when it comes to my mental health? sometimes you've gotta learn the hard way, some things you can't change, and it's not worth losing everything over. you can't think if you're exposing yourself constantly to what's fucking up your brain like if i punished myself for the inaction of the city it might make it better.

i'm starting to learn it doesn't. change is political, it's about power, and people are like water (bear with me, i'm a hydrologist) because it takes volume, all going a certain way, to make the biggest impact. have the strongest force. erode grooves in rocks and wash away entire buildings (this is brisbane, we've seen it happen). what we need, is all these people, 3+ million of us and more, coming together around an idea. getting together, council can't do anything to stop a majority, not in australia at least, and the functionality of a city is something we all need. heck, traffic is bad for all of our mental health and i would bet both my kidneys that the impact of it on our lives and relationships is understudied and underreported exponentially. we can solve this, but individual choices alone don't do shit.

so i'll stop beating myself up for not being able to simply will all the traffic lights along my commute to be green, and turn the energy i put into being mad at all of those stupid annoying cars into the things i do best. it turns out i'm really fucking good at drawing up ideas and connecting with people. so i'll stop beating myself up about the fact that the uni degree i did so i'd know about these things and the job i do for Experience and Sustenance meant i haven't had time to do all of these things As Soon As I Thought Of Them (like you always got told to do for your homework assignments). instead i'll think in larger timeframes. 9 years til the olympics. 2 to finish my masters degree. 27 til the rest of the world is carbon negative like tasmania and bhutan. what can i do in each of these timeframes? and how can i prioritise it?

as i coax my brain slowly out of fight or flight, as i put my pencils and watercolours and maps to annotate out on the table in front of me and say 'take your time, but you're allowed to do what you love' i know the places that have marked on my soul stand out to me. south east queensland right out to the bay. western sydney and bringing dignity to our second cbd, parramatta. queenstown tasmania, for some reason. the murray-darling basin as a whole, gundagai and the murrumbidgee at its heart. the red dirt centre of this great land and all the peoples and cultures it holds. i can hold all of their perspectives. i can train my intuition to find out all of their needs. i can put myself into 26 million pairs of shoes and decorate the lands and i can do it respectfully and lovingly like i'm tattooing my own skin because it might as well be. tattoo it with the needs of all of us and all who have gone before. blueprints of functionality, functionality we don't have, and then meet all 26 million souls (okay, i probably only need 2 million if we're starting from brisbane) and say to them, would you dream this dream with me? will you imagine this lifestyle where you're less burdened? can you be a part of simply talking about it, because that's how we're going to make it happen? can you improve it, make it better, make it yours, knowing that when you do it imprints itself on your heart a little more, you feel a part of it? and then we're all part of it. it takes years, but it can happen.

so i guess i've got my life's work cut out for me, and i'm so fucking glad i could figure this out from something that has been frustrating me to no end, because 'you can't change it' doesn't work for me unless you switch it out like a child's toy for something more big and exciting that i can change instead. fuck you, conformity. i found what it can be for me. a dream so big it doesn't matter if i can only do some of it--and who says i have to limit myself to australia?

After the first Republican debate, I am legitimately terrified of the 2024 election. I can't believe that Pence, someone who is so fucking homophobic and transphobic, looked like the more logical ones. I hate that the one person who spoke about believing in climate change and sending funds to Ukraine quotes Margaret Thatcher. I hate that Desantis literally said that he would shoot immigrants trying to cross the southern border and kill them and that the crowd fucking cheered.

I think what really fucking frustrates me is that even though anyone charged with a felony cannot vote, and that being a massive tool of voting suppression towards poor people and Black people, someone with over 90 can be president. I think that everyone should be able to vote no matter the circumstance, and I am not against Trump being the president because of his felonies; I'm against it because he's the definition of a fascist. I am pissed that the same party that is dead set on continuing to use the criminal justice system to keep millions of people from voting is also the one with this fucker as the top runner.

I hate knowing things! I wish I was as much of a dumbass as I make myself out to be! Fuck!