Sicily - which has already been brought to its knees by a prolonged heatwave - is battling wildfires that are threatening towns and cities across the island.
Not saying shit’s not fucked up over there right now, but is this an artist rendering? Its got what looks like artist initials at the top and I can’t find this image anywhere else.
While there are indeed a great many forest fires happening around the world, and no shortage of them across Sicily, this is an artists rendering and not an actual satellite photo. The actual fires are FAR more localized, and this kind of hyper sensationalized reporting just does a disservice to the actual severity of the situation. It's a big enough problem even without the sensationalism.
Slash and burn farming is a common land clearing technique there ahead of the rainy season. It's the right time of year, but I dont know if that's what it is for sure. The current major conflict in the DRC is on the Eastern side, so I don't think it's that.
For people looking for a more realistic take…the last 48 hours are clear so this is 72 hours back… Not sure if that’s a data issue or the fires have gone out now.
Meanwhile, in BC Canada, here’s what the current fire situation looks like. 3 million acres - 12,140 km² or 4687mi²) have burned as of Jul12. For reference, which is more land-mass than some smaller countries.
It's gotten pretty bad lately and by this point I do feel like I see more misinformation on here than on Reddit. Lemmy has successfully managed to become more like Reddit than Reddit itself.
It's kinda sad, there were a few days in which it really felt like this space would be different, but right now, I either go on /sub and barely see any content because most of the communities I want to follow are fairly inactive, or I go on /all and it's mostly americans calling eachother Nazis over the slightest political disagreement, middle-class doomers going on about how their lives are horrible even though they're better off than most of the world and every "serious" community, whether it's news or politics or etc. is filled to the brim with misinformation (and more doomers).
People are already circlejerking below about capitalism over this fake pic, nice, cheers.
Yeesh, this is horrible. Looks like something you’d see in a movie
EDIT: Turns out this is an artist’s rendition according to another comment. Not sure why they’re using this movie-like image rather than an actual one. Regardless, hope they can get through this.
Today my house almost burned down, and yes I felt like I was in a movie while preparing the bags to evacuate just in case. Fortunately it didn’t come to that…
I was informed by conservative relatives that climate change was a Chinese hoax, which fair, that’s a pretty funny joke. But burning down Sicily seems like taking things a bit too far.
We won’t stop either, the greed disease is like a drug. The few who have wealth and demand more without end, and the many who prefer to tell themselves it’ll be them one day with hard work so why destroy their future lavish lifestyle by breaking the wheel? Addicted to the gluttonous life, or addicted to the gluttonous delusion.
That doesn’t really apply when the topic is “capitalists uniquely cause(d) climate change,” which is hilariously and obviously false because socialists also have a need for shelter and food.
That meme would work if I were saying something like “socialists also buy iphones lol” but my point is very clearly broader than that
You’ve ACTUALLY missed their point with the comic (who the fuck is calling a comic a meme?) tho. The fact is that capitalist society, especially in the US, has pushed even the socialist calling for change to live in the system, even though they’d rather not. The consumption of coal and oil are forced choices because someone isn’t just going to fuckin go without shelter or the ability to get to work. Your “SoCiaLisTs dO It tOo tHo!!#'$^=!” statement is crap because consumption of those products isn’t a choice anymore.
Even socialist states that fail on the climate front are because they’re competing on a global scale with capitalist cultures that just completely ignored that for a century.
For warmth and necessary industry and energy, not for crap the capitalists propagandize we need or need to be jealous of. You need a home and commons(transportation of some kind for people and utilities) and food, you dont need beanie babies, pop figues, and for everyone to have their own polluting car instead of having societal investment in quality public transit almost eveyone uses. Socialists also don’t encourage replacing everything every 6 months and making things to break/planned obsolescence to encourage needless consumption literally for the sake of consumption.
The capitalist lifestyle is unsustainable because it relies on infinite growth on a finite world we are burning to sustain.
Consumer mindset and thinking of people first and foremost is brought to you by capitalism.
We’re not consumers, we’re people. Social animals that enjoy living in groups. Owning shit isn’t something that makes us inherently happy. Just look at how other apes live. Just think about the things that make you happy.
Endless consumption is a blight. It’s killing our habitat. It’s killing us.
Because these fires are the result of climate change.
Climate change itself is driven by human emissions, which the VAST majority of are driven by the pursuit of profit by corporations, which is entirely a capitalist concept. Corporations could invest money into eliminating emissions, but that would reduce profit, so corporations don’t do it unless they can leverage it as a selling point to increase revenue.
And there are a plethora of ways to generate electricity cleanly. Nuclear, wind, solar, hydro. You know who has lobbied against these heavily? The oil and gas and coal industries, because it would hurt their profits if we used clean energy. Coal and natural gas account for 98% of the emissions from electricity generation in the US.
You know another major contributor to emissions? Transportation. Having efficient mass public transportation would eliminate a huge amount of emissions, and we would have more walkable cities with a healthier population. You know who has lobbied against that for decades? The auto industry because it would hurt profits if people didn’t need to buy a car to get anywhere.
Chevron, BP, Exxon, and Shell make up 10% of carbon emissions just between those four companies. All lobby heavily against green energy and public transportation because it would hurt profits.
And they have known about oil and gas being major contributors to climate change and the effects of climate change for nearly 100 years. And have lobbied against things that could have eliminated our need for oil and gas by now because it would hurt profits.
How do you not get this. They have known about climate change for decades and actively work to keep harming the climate because of profit.
I swear we need to retire the term ‘Capitalism’ entirely because it seems like it’s impossible to discuss its flaws without someone just assuming it’s a statement in favour of resurrecting Stalin. This has nothing to do with communists.
Electricity can be produced in many different ways - it’s just that some are more profitable than others.
Capitalism also creates an entire web of incentive structures that make it hard to develop more sustainable alternatives - e.g car industry creating ‘lock-in’, as described in this paper. I’m sure a similar paper could be written about some Soviet bloc state 60 years ago, but that’s irrelevant. This is a problem of Capitalism and the Soviet bloc doesn’t exist anymore. Just cause ‘Stalin bad’ doesn’t mean ‘Capitalism can do no harm ever’.
Ah the innovation argument, so original. “Capitalism creates innovation”. Everyone says it all the time so it must be true right? Well it isn’t. Data doesn’t support this argument.
Pretty much every major innovation of the past century has come from publicly funded and/or not-for-profit research and development. Capitalists only step in once the difficult part is done and the ‘innovation’ can be repackaged into something profitable in the short term.
Capitalism definitely creates barriers to certain types of innovation. Mainly innovation that isn’t profitable - see ‘planned obsolesence’. It also creates barriers to profitable innovation sometimes; just look up ‘patent trolls’.
But I was never even talking about innovation. You just jumped to it because that is the classic buzzword talking point that is constantly repeated everywhere. ‘Develop better alternatives’ doesn’t have to be ‘innovation’. We have the technology already, we’ve had it for decades. Trains and cycle lanes = better alternatives to cars. Nuclear energy = better alternative to fossil fuels.
Market capture exists everywhere, in every economic system.
Sure, this might be the case for every existing economic system. I believe we need to develop something new. Just like modern Capitalism was inconceivable to someone living in the Feudal era, a new system might be inconceivable for us right now. But it is imperative we try.
Lmaooo “Greenablers”. What a joke. That’s literally a corporate PR puff piece. How is corporate greenwashing PR supposed to convince me that Capitalism drives innovation (or is good for the climate?) when countless studies of data prove it wrong? The only piece of data he cites is about the billions being spent on the ‘energy transition’. I checked out his source. A good chunk of that is just government investment. Another big chunk of that is electric cars - a really stupid thing to invest in as they’ll compete with renewable energy for rare earth minerals etc. Not to mention all the emissions they’ll cause in production, and the fact that they’ll still need half the world to be paved over in asphalt for roads and parking. Better than petrol or diesel sure, but hardly efficient.
Dense cities yes. End single-family zoning yes (doesn’t really exist where I live, the US is an insane place).
Energy deregulation no. I’m sure it will be great for opening new coal plants, not a chance in hell will it lead to more nuclear power or anything useful.
Yes, I see that. It’s an investment blog written by the account manager of a major finance company. I’m sure he has no vested interests whatsoever and is just trying to be as factually accurate as possible.
If you don’t want to read other people’s thoughts on things, don’t post yours on an internet forum lol.
Am happy to end the conversation on a friendly note though. If we were having this chat in person, i’d say ‘fuck it, let’s grab a beer and chill’. See ya.
Because these fires are the result of climate change.
Climate change itself is driven by human emissions, which the VAST majority of are driven by the pursuit of profit by corporations, which is entirely a capitalist concept. Corporations could invest money into eliminating emissions, but that would reduce profit, so corporations don’t do it unless they can leverage it as a selling point to increase revenue.
Because these fires are the result of climate change.
Climate change itself is driven by human emissions, which the VAST majority of are driven by the pursuit of profit by corporations, which is entirely a capitalist concept. Corporations could invest money into eliminating emissions, but that would reduce profit, so corporations don’t do it unless they can leverage it as a selling point to increase revenue.
Because these fires are the result of climate change.
Climate change itself is driven by human emissions, which the VAST majority of are driven by the pursuit of profit by corporations, which is entirely a capitalist concept. Corporations could invest money into eliminating emissions, but that would reduce profit, so corporations don’t do it unless they can leverage it as a selling point to increase revenue.
The goal of pure capitalism is to extract as much wealth for yourself and shareholders as you possibly can, as fast as you possibly can. The consequences of that are to be the most successful, you're pushed into making selfish decisions, ones that benefit you to the detriment of others. What we have in the world now is that taken to the extreme. Oil companies don't give a fuck if global warming is killing the planet, they're making money now. Industrial farms don't care if the rain forests die, they need that land to sell crops. Fishing operations don't care if entire species are going extinct, they need to catch more to make more. Companies don't worry about long term problems because they don't show up on a quarterly balance sheet, and they need to show growth for their investors or they'll go under.
Capitalism demands and requires constant growth/metastasis instead of equilibrum. Consume, consume, consume, leads to unnecessary industry to make unnecessary things to increase profits for private individuals who never stop demanding more year over year. They use their propaganda machines, all major media which they own, to impress on everyone that not consuming needlessly makes you a loser and a bad person who is missing out and uncool, to further drive consumption for profit. Which has led us inexorably here.
You’re getting downvoted because it’s hard to believe there are any folk out there who are arguing in good faith that climate change is not at least partially (if not majorly) impacted by man-made causes. Capitalism being a driving factor would go hand in hand with climate change due to its proponents of “fuck you I got mine” and get rich at any cost. Capitalism is not for the people, it is for the capitalist, and the capitalists have shown that they are willing to burn the world down for short term gains. See the picture above.
If you can tell me you believe that fossil-fuel executives, having looked at this picture, think “oh man we really should’ve been listening to scientists for the past half century”, then I can show you a liar.
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