Off Topic The Goodhand Arms

It’s over the whole country too:

 

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Sister and nieces live on the eastern coast. They've been relatively fortunate to date, but it's all national forests, A six-month fiery season is just not something a person can get used to.

 

Days and days of 40+ degree temperatures don’t help either.

 

Some of my friends are among them..........not heard from them over the Christmas period which is unusual.......still trying to get in touch!!

 

Just going to sit here for a while longer. The Humans in the last decade.

 

One of my stepdaughters is in Tasmania, which was safe until recently, but the temperatures have risen and fires have started there too.

 

Tell me about it........My sister in law lives up in the blue mountains just outside Sydney. She tells me the little copse at the end of her garden has gone but she has managed to save a family of Koala's. The trees lining her street have mainly copt it but luckily her home is ok..............Main problems for my niece and her husband has been the smog. She lives about 2 miles from S.I.L

 

And yet we voted in the government least concerned with making environmental changes. People say they’re concerned about climate change, but they’re not willing to back it up in any meaningful way. I of course realise that having voted in the Greenest party wouldn’t have stopped these forest fires, but it’s more a comment on the general state of the world.

My best friend from school lives in Sydney too. I hope everyone’s friends and families are safe out there are safe.

 

It's a global problem, as you know. It is by far the most important issue facing humankind. Only people don't understand it, and because they perceive that changing means an end to any fun in life, they are not prepared to do anything. The attitude is either, you first or turning the other way and hoping the government will do something. Unfortunately, this government won't be pointing the way much, so it's up to us. Either change to a environmentally sustainable future, if you can afford it, or minimise your impact if you can't. Sell that massive, inefficient SUV that you never needed, and buy a small efficient runabout. Preferably electric or hybrid. Maybe bicycle as much as possible. Insulate your home. Get some rooftop solar, if it works for you.
There are a myriad of things anyone can do, from the smallest to the largest. Most of them make a huge difference over time.
Apart from those enquired of last time, is there anyone else who has changed their bank to one which doesn't invest in the fossil fuel industry? Just before Xmas my old bank sent me a questionnaire, asking why I'd left them. I'm going to pop into my old branch and back up the answer I gave. I want them to learn rather than just file the answer away.

 

Oops. Double post.

 

Nice to see you back TSS

 

Happy New Year People.
Hope its good for you and your families.
......and your crappy football team!

 

Feliz Año Todos Santos!

 

Thank you Ritchie.

 

Just want to back up the earlier post. Many/most people are consumed with life/problems they see in front of them. Why are politicians so short term in their thinking? Because, by and large, the general public is too. It's very easy to dismiss things that are perceived as far off in distance and time. Human Induced Climate Change is like a massive asteroid which has been spotted as a speck out in the outer reaches of the solar system and has eventually been calculated, by gathering data over time, to be on a collision course with the Earth. The only thing scientists would be debating about is how much damage it would do to the Earth and what measures we'd need to take to ward it off. Also, would it merely make life bloody uncomfortable for most people or would it be an extinction level event. The difference between an asteroid and HICC is that an asteroid would be quick. Boom, we're all dead or suffering or saved by our actions. HICC is relatively slow acting, and instead of requiring cooperation by various governments with extremely long range missile capabilities, it is us who need to cooperate - globally. Which kind of puts into perspective stupid little national arguments like Brexit, but I digress. People are not used to seeing the bigger picture. The Earth has a history of standing by while civilisations bump themselves off, sometimes by poisoning their environment, but usually by using up their resources. Perhaps the most obvious example are the Rapa Nui of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. They cut down all their trees in order to help construct and transport those incredible Moai sculptures, and so significantly degraded their ability to survive by removing the very tool material for agriculture. Also, with no tree cover, the exposed fertile soils began to be blown away, and weren't replenished. Trees are vital plants. But the Rapa Nui weren't sufficiently aware of that simple fact. Just as most people aren't aware of what is happening to the global habitat around them. Just remember, the Earth doesn't give two hoots. It will be fine. But you ought to, because you won't, if you've got at least 10-20 years left in you, or more, and we do nothing. The longer you have left the worse it will be for you. So think of the bigger picture.

Here's one example of the bigger picture:

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Can you see that pale blue dot right of the picture in the red band of light? That's the Earth taken from Voyager I on 14/02/1990, when it had completed its original mission, and was about to leave the solar system to undertake a new journey. At the request of the late NASA scientist Carl Sagan, Voyager I was instructed to turn round and take of picture and send it back to Earth, before it said goodbye. Our planet took up [IIRC] less than one pixel of Voyager's imaging camera, so NASA had to enhance it to make it properly visible. That's us. We're insignificant. Less than one pixel. Harmless to other civilisations if they are out there.

Here's what Carl Sagan had to say in his book, Pale Blue Dot:
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand**.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

**A few months ago I heard an interview with Elon Musk. He was asked to read that piece, and empathised with everything that it said. But at the end of that particular sentence he said, "that's false [now]. There's Mars." Gotta love the guy his determination to succeed when others give up or say things are not possible.
Nevertheless, we are presently on a collision course with no measures to avoid it in place. Want to give up and do nothing?

 

Why do you think the ozone hole and the success in sorting out that near disaster is different than HICC? It seems we once had the ability and desire to fix large issues like this but now it has gone. Somehow we need to get that ability back and quickly.

 

The Ozone hole was/is a relatively minor problem, fixed by changing the gases used in heat exchangers like refrigeration equipment. Fixing HICC is relatively complex. Plus, it needs that we largely abandon the fossil fuel industries, in their present form. That's why it is difficult. The thing that makes the world go round is killing us. The irony is they've known it for decades, and some of those companies, like Shell and BP openly accept they have to change.

 

True. The common person didn’t need to know that things changed since it really didn’t affect them much. Most things worked as they had before.

 

Exactly.

 

Quite a confident, symbolic [note cowboy paying homage to tombstones as fuel pumps] advert for the new all-electric Corsa from Vauxhall. Ex-General Motors and now PSA Group - that's Vauxhall, Opel, Peugeot, Citroen, DS, and maybe Fiat and Chrysler, Jeep etc... soon enough.

Anyway, quick and to the point, I'd say: