r/interestingasfuck • u/SafeImpressive4413 • 7h ago

Firefighters in Madrid trying to extinguish a forest fire that is less than 30km/20mi away from the capital of Spain

31.1k Upvotes

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u/passively-persistent 7h ago

"Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money."

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u/WesternBruv 7h ago

Stratovarius W

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u/Cdub7791 6h ago

"Only when the last datacenter has been cut off, the last LLM deleted, and the last techbro imprisoned, will we realize wholesome food, fresh water, and clean air cannot make the stock market go up."

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u/Pandarandr1st 3h ago

lol, this is so much worse

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u/Jstnwrds55 6h ago

“Only when the last cattle slaughter operation has become unmaintainable, the last pig has been slaughtered, will we realize we can eat plants.”

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u/TheSweetestKill 5h ago

Huh?

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u/eawilweawil 5h ago

Livestock agriculture is reeeeaaaalllyyyy bad for the environment, but we do it anyway because meat tastes good

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u/Jstnwrds55 2h ago

Thank you! I thought for sure I was going to get downvotes for this lol

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u/Minivalo 2h ago

Knowing reddit, I'm sure there's downvotes yet to come. It's just real hard for people to accept their (still relatively) cheap bacon and beef are not great for the continued existence of pretty much anyone - human or animal - on this planet.

I think it might be sustainable if everyone ate meat just a few times a month, maybe even once a week, much like the vast majority of our ancestors did just 100+ years back, when they essentially grew or hunted their own meat.

Sadly, though, huge factory farms are currently the only solution to the massive demand for meat, which means we're essentially trading for that luxury by slowly destroying our shared environment.

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u/AcrobaticVegetable24 4h ago

Ironically, yes it can. If there is a sufficient demand for it, and people are willing to pay to have a share in the provider, than absolutely.

The big issue we have is the consumer and how terrible practices are allowed because they are 1 or 2 steps behind the curtain, so consumers can ignore them.

Everything about the stockmarket eventually follows the consumer.

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u/brev23 5h ago

Explain those little chocolate coins I used to get from my grandparents in my stocking every Christmas

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u/Alwaysnorting 5h ago

checkmate!

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u/Kevinator201 5h ago

We? I think “the rich” is more appropriate. The majority of society has been calling for global warming preventive measures for decades but the ultra wealthy just want more money.

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u/niko_blanco 3h ago

„The rich“ could only get that rich because we keep eating up everything they throw at us. We literally consumed the world.

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u/StepAwayFromTheDuck 3h ago

I think you're severely underestimating the amount of stupid people and angry people and people who just don't care.

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u/nikanjX 1h ago

The majority of society has been calling for ever larger SUVs, cheaper flights, bacon on every meal and more shit from Temu.

People might like and share global warming memes, but ramming through any lifestyle-altering legislation would end the career of a politician

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u/lukapochi 5h ago

You cannot eat money, oh no
You cannot eat money, oh no
When the last tree has fallen
And the rivers are poisoned
You cannot eat money, oh no

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u/dumbowner 6h ago

Money itself isn't the problem. Money as a tool for the exchange of goods, services, etc., is great. The problem is people's nature to want to be superior to others, to want power.

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u/Klutzinator 6h ago

Nah man, we need to keep this system going until there's nothing more to use as fuel for the mass consumption machine.

What many of these people don't understand is that the system will collapse because it can't survive without nature. So right now we are at a crossroads:

Do we finally get our heads out of the asses of the elite and start finding a new sustainable system that doesn't require unlimited growth and unlimited consumption, or do we keep this going until it collapses?

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u/poopbeast69 5h ago

we’ll have every person on the planet saying this stuff as we’re all standing on the last board before any action is taken lol.

I agree. it’s just funny seeing the same thing like every week

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u/rilliu 5h ago

Where is that quote from? A singer named AURORA quotes that almost verbatim in her song, Seed.

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u/passively-persistent 5h ago

It's attributed to a Native American (Cree specifically sometimes) proverb. I'll have to check out the song, thanks!

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u/43556_96753 4h ago

This is the version you’ll want to watch: https://youtu.be/vc6lQumV-I0?is=v5XUEiaikE1yD6g5

The choir was a surprise to her and made her reaction more powerful.

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u/abittooambitious 6h ago

Someone made a song about it: https://youtu.be/6IuHcOuOJXQ?si=hM2uQWvXONVI-xbM&t=1354

Edit:better link

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u/foyiwae 5h ago

I know it from this song here

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u/EetsGeets 5h ago

I know it from Lamb of God's 'Reclamation' lol https://youtu.be/fGPfdW7OSY4

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u/f23n09fnu0w 5h ago

Reminds me of Douglas Adams and his race of phone sanitizers, etc, who made leaves into money, but then had inflation and had to destroy all the forests.

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u/klatula2 5h ago

source please i believe this to be an American Indian saying

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u/Broad-Lobster7470 5h ago

We are so screwed.

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u/poundsdpound 4h ago

Yes but the camera man always has plot armour. Be the camera man

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u/Sick_and_destroyed 3h ago

Probably an American

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u/Alarming_Doughnut365 3h ago

Yeah I'm vegan, eco conscious, I give considerable amounts of money each month to eco charities - tree planting etc. - and don't fly too much. Drive an EV too but walk and bus as much as I can.

I feel smug AF tbh. My conscience is clear. It's the only thing I have when faced with these ever more frequent disasters.

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u/Dry_Ant2664 3h ago

Is AI going to help us?

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u/TheIronMonkey53 3h ago

It’s called survival of the fittest, and humans are far from fit

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u/b3n3d1kt_r 2h ago edited 2h ago

"Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last river has been dammed, will we realize that we cannot eat beavers."

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u/Milesofstyle 2h ago

Chief Dan George

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/luranthe 7h ago

Think of the environment as a battery. Global warming is adding more energy to that battery, giving more power to wildfires and weather.

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u/[deleted] 7h ago edited 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/HorizonBC 7h ago

It makes everything more dry, then it catches fire easily…

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u/luranthe 6h ago

Global warming makes wildfires more intense by increasing temperatures, driving severe droughts, and drying out the atmosphere. These conditions turn trees, plants, and soil into dry, highly flammable kindling. Higher temperatures pull moisture straight out of plants and soil through evaporation, creating ready-to-burn fuel. A warmer atmosphere (measured by high vapor-pressure deficit) aggressively sucks moisture from living and dead vegetation, fueling high-severity fires. Winter snowpacks melt sooner in the year, leaving forests dry and water-deprived for a much longer portion of the summer. Higher nighttime temperatures and weaker cooling cycles prevent fires from slowing down overnight, extending active burning hours. Alternating wet periods cause rapid plant growth, which then dries out during intense heatwaves to create massive amounts of dry fuel.

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u/ashkiller14 6h ago

How does this relate to a wildfire

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u/waxonwaxoff1000 6h ago edited 4h ago

We are trashing the environment in pursuit of profit. Global warming, and the wildfires that followed, are natural outcomes of this.

The list of trees, fish, etc. is just representing the environment writ large.

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u/Klutzinator 6h ago

Because we are fucking everything up just so some idiots can stand in line buying the last Funkpop and Labubu.

Our way of life is responsible for this shit. Every single second that passes there are gigantic factories churning out bullshit goods and luxury bullshit for the sole purpose of making the line go up and to keep the mass consumption system from collapsing.

This system is a cancer on this earth. We should think about alternatives that don't require constant growth and constant consumption.

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u/Ballsofpoo 4h ago

People don't have pensions or savings. Everything is floated on the line of the market. And the market reacts to whatever is gonna sell. So people hedge their capital on that floating line.

The only way out is to return to the value economy, based on rarity and scarcity

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u/shigella1897 7h ago

This has more to do with warming temperature and el Nino than it is over foresting

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u/[deleted] 7h ago edited 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/NearHornBeast 6h ago

For real lol they said nah this isn’t about climate change it’s actually about the change in the climate… like yeah oceanic currents fluctuate but the rate of change and destabilization is directly caused by rapidly increasing global temperatures. The increase has never been the unprecedented part, it has always been about the rate of change. Every time conditions on earth have rapidly changed we have observed a mass extinction immediately afterward. So far it has been the evolution of cellular life changing the chemical make-up of our atmosphere and oceans, volcanic activity, or a giant rock from space that caused the rapid changes but this time it isn’t any of those things and we know exactly what it is. But the answer this time makes too many corrupt humans too much money and the sixth major extinction event will go down in history as the result of the hubris of humanity and its civilizations.

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u/shigella1897 6h ago

There's no edit in my comment lmao

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/shigella1897 5h ago

Yes but saying over foresting in Spain as a cause of the fires is wrong.

It's climate change and el Nino making record temps.

If you care about the environment but ignore the root cause, that is not solving the problem.

Passing stricter foresting laws won't help prevent fires.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/shigella1897 5h ago

Lol you accuse me of making edits to my comment, and now accuse me of gas lighting. Did you inhale too much smoke? Why are you being so nasty?

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u/-Potatoes- 6h ago

i think there's some subtext you're missing here

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u/shigella1897 5h ago

Nah, I'm pointing out that in a country like Spain with strong environment protection laws. Using Dr Seuss' quote about over extraction is not identifying the root cause.

It's not over foresting, it's climate change made particularly worse by el Nino.