Homeless in ‘stark’ danger during summer heatwaves, warn charities
Homeless people are particularly vulnerable to high temperatures, struggling to access shelter, cold water and suncream.
Song for Capitalism:
The planet, the planet the planet is on fire
(We don’t need no water, let the motherfucker burn)
(Burn, motherfucker, burn)
The planet, the planet, the planet is on fire
(We don’t need no water, let the motherfucker burn)
(Burn, motherfucker, burn)
Here’s fun thing to play with:
I really hope I’m missing something…
w.r.t. discussions of forestry management and allowing burns to do their thing… The frequency of the fires is allowing the peat soil to dry out, turning it into more effective fuel and poor insulator for permafrost. “Tipping point” is the phrase the comes to mind. 
In 2015, scientist Ellen Whitman set out on a visit to Wood Buffalo National Park, a vast wilderness spanning northeastern Alberta and the Northwest Territories. At that time, the land had been subject to two major wildfires a decade apart — the most recent in 2014. “The first fire burned a very large, mature pine stand and it was regrowing back as pine with a little bit of aspen mixed in,” recalled Whitman, a forest fire research specialist at Natural Resources Canada. “Then that second fire killed all those seedlings and suddenly it’s basically a grassland with a few scattered aspen trees.”
The kids are alright
https://zacklabe.com/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/?s=09
Antarctic sea ice extent anomalies for each year from 1979 to 2023 (satellite-era; NSIDC, DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS). Anomalies are calculated using a 5-day running mean from a climatological baseline of 1981-2010. 2023 is shown using a red line (updated 6/17/2023).
Reminder that this is how this book starts, but only worse…
This might explain the decrease in wood quality that I’ve noticed, apparently over the last 50 years.
My house was built in the late 60’s and every now and then, during renos, we take out of pieces of the original wood. The 50-year old white pine baseboard is noticeably harder than the new stuff that’s available; we save it and re-use it diligently. I’ve also noticed that the quality of the board that we used refurbishing a deck last year wasn’t brilliant, and our local, independent lumber supplier has commented on that too. Ditto in furniture; we have some pieces we’ve refurbished that are 100 years old and the feel of the pine is more solid.
A study by the Technical University of Munich in Germany analyzed the growth rate of trees and the characteristics of their wood over the last century. They found that as the growth rate increased, the density of the wood dropped by eight to 12 per cent.
Furthermore, as wood density decreased, their carbon content also decreased by about 50 per cent.
There’s nothing like old pine to make you realize how differently trees grew when they weren’t being planted and harvested but rather grew on their own schedule.
We think of it as a soft wood now, but it didn’t used to be.
Can testify. Working with salvaged pine from >100 years ago. I was shocked how hard it was compared to current samples. And how tight the grain is. Not the same lumber at all.
