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Understanding the Refugee Crisis in Europe and Syria

radx says...

This comes up a bit short on some issues.

For instance, the ongoing drought in the Euphrates-Tigris area pushed people in Syria into the cities, adding pressure to already overstretched infrastructure.

Also, what about the West's glorious idea to run illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Libya, which destabilized the entire region? Nevermind Afghanistan or the bombing campaigns in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. What about the gulag that is Palestine? What about the economic consequences of our obsession with free trade, taking away from developing countries the ability to protect and nurture their own industries? What about our subsidies of farm exports, thereby undercutting local farmers and destroying these peoples' ability to feed themselves?

All of these countries have heaps of issues of their own, but let's not forget that "we" not only didn't help, but actively made things worse in many cases. As cities drain resources from the hinterland, so do our centers of capitalism drain resources from developing nations. They are our hinterland.

Yugoslavia seems to have been forgotten by most people, but the split and following neoliberal treatment left the entire area in a state of instability. Kosovo today is basically run by organised crime.

So, as horrible as Assad's actions are, very few countries are in a position to offer meaningful criticism, having pissed away what little moral authority we had to begin with.

And as far as legal responsibilities towards refugees go, I'd say after torture, wars of aggression, global espionage, a stateless people in Europe (Roma/Sinti), destruction of a society (Greece), an openly xenophobic regime (Hungary), etc, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that "rights" are meaningless unless actively enforced by someone with the required amount of power.

Look at Calais, look at Lesbos, look at Lampedusa, and tell me all about our European morals and values...

Written by the grandson of a man whose family fled from Silesia in '45 with nothing but two bags and walked all the way to Lower Saxony on foot.

Reservoir No. 2 - Shade Balls

Reservoir No. 2 - Shade Balls

eric3579 (Member Profile)

eric3579 (Member Profile)

radx says...

A bit of a drought in the (south-)eastern part of the country, they say. A city in Bavaria reached a temperature of 40.3°C on Friday, the highest recorded temperature in Germany since 1881. Temperatures within the confines of our concrete jungles (aka cities) have been somewhat unpleasant.

Up north, it's been... dry. And warm. Did I mention dry?

Nothing to bitch about though, everything's still in the green. With some spots of brown sprinkled throughout, wherever the vegetation was scorched...

eric3579 said:

Do you guys have water issues? Drought

radx (Member Profile)

Lab is terrible at filling the kiddie pool

Brown Bear Has Heart Attack, Caught On Camera

newtboy says...

I wonder what was wrong with that bear. It was obviously having trouble before they got there to be 'sleeping' out in the open like that. That's not normal bear behavior.
I wonder if they (the state/rangers) did an autopsy.
I've never seen anything like that in nature.
This makes me really sad, and a bit worried that we might start hearing about BCD (Bear Collapse Disorder-related to CCD in bees). I know up here in N California, we have a serious issue with very low water in our rivers causing warm water, which allows toxic algae to bloom, devastating our salmon (and other river fish) population. I have no idea if that's happening in Alaska too.
I wonder if this is related, either from eating tainted fish or drinking the water. It can kill healthy, well fed dogs within minutes of drinking it, so I'm curious what it's doing to the struggling wildlife that has no other source of water. I've not heard or seen any studies on that.
That's likely just one more part of the disaster that is the California drought. Fingers crossed we get some good rain this winter, if not things here are going to get a bit Thunderdome-y.

newtboy (Member Profile)

Is Climate Change Just A Lot Of Hot Air?

newtboy says...

Yes, you did say all that, but you also said none of that is a problem, at least not one to be really worried about. To me, that sounds a lot like climate change denial 3.0, where 1.0 was 'it's not happening at all, don't panic', 2.0 was 'it's happening, but it's natural and normal, don't panic' and 3.0 is 'it's human caused, but no problem, don't panic'. All of those are arguments designed to stall, not to be correct. If I'm reading you wrong, I apologize, but I've heard that argument before from those definitely in that camp.

If the IPCC says it won't be disastrous, yes, we would disagree, because I say it already is, and so have they in their summaries of their last few reports. Just abnormal drought alone is disastrous in many places worldwide already, as is increased flooding in some areas. I did not read the entire PDF's, only what you quoted because they were only linked as downloads/files, and I don't download files from sites I don't recognize.

I linked the first google search pages that came up with water/glacial data, not the other dozen that said the same, or near the same thing, not the NOVA on glacial retreat that said the same thing, not the movie on the same topic with photographic proof of the retreats-Chasing Ice. You ignored that they did list their source for the 2/3 of Chinese cities low on water and the 50% loss of glacial mass per decade as the Chinese military and claimed they were source less so easily dismissed.
As for the diatoms and shellfish, I've seen numerous studies on them, and again just grabbed the first one that came up in a search with data. You seemed to dismiss it as well, but it's not alone. In one snail study I saw, the woman said the last few years it had become nearly impossible to get measurements because the snail shells literally turn to paste in her fingers and weighed nearly nothing! I'm glad to read now that you don't disagree that it's an issue, you only think it's not severe?

I'm not holding my breath on fusion or fission, we've heard the 'we're only 5 years away from fission/fusion' line before about as often as 'Iran is only 2 years away from having a nuclear bomb', but we can agree on wind and solar, except I say it is great for base load, you just need to pair it with micro hydro storage (pump water uphill with surplus solar/wind, then run micro hydro at night). Small solar/wind also decentralizes production, safeguarding from terrorism, and is quite cost effective. Mine paid for itself in well under 10 years.

My issue with your position is that what we do today just with CO2 production reduction won't really effect the atmosphere for 20-200 years (the accepted lifespan of 65-85% of atmospheric CO2, the remaining 15-35% takes thousands of years to be trapped) and that's only IF the ocean CO2 sink continues functioning, so we're already well past the point of avoiding moderate climate change. Without quick action, feedback loops like methane and/or ice sheets melting make the problem exponentially larger and difficult/impossible to manage at all. It may already be too late even if we cut to zero CO2 tomorrow, but it's certainly too late to avoid more, massive, unsolvable global issues if we don't even mitigate them before 2050.

Let's not get into the quagmire of global dimming from sulfur in coal actually mitigating a large part of expected global warming by reflecting sunlight. I've yet to hear a plan or study involving that variable.

A Message To California From Moby

newtboy (Member Profile)

1970s Continental Airlines Commercial

AeroMechanical says...

Ah, nothing like leaning on the bar drinking a drought beer, smoking a cigar while waiting for the hot stewardess to bring me a couple valiums before naptime in my big comfy seat.

NASA | Megadroughts Projected for American West

NASA | Megadroughts Projected for American West

BoneRemake says...

And ? ? Please do continue, I for one am intregued what happened lext at the levy and you found it dry. Was it a far drive ? hopefully you did not waste too much time on your venture. Is it often that you have driven to the levy and it was without water ? I hope drought is not a prevalent thing in your area.

-Cheers

notarobot said:

I drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry...



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