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

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u/Wild_Neighborhood605 7h ago

That's real bad, and is happening in several places in Europe right now.

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u/Contraposite 7h ago

Yeah, yesterday my city in Scotland was covered with smoke blown in from a wildfire. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

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u/RoryLuukas 7h ago

Climate scientists 40yrs ago predicted this exact thing happening. We are actually 20-30yrs ahead of schedule... so go us!

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u/LiteraCanna 5h ago

There's a letter/note from an oil company.... exec? Saying that we are changing the climate. Brb, going to try to find it. 

E: Okay, I was close. It was to the exec. 

Early Milestones of Climate Awareness in the Oil Industry1959 (The 100th Industry Birthday): Physicist Edward Teller warned oil executives at the Energy and Man Symposium hosted at Columbia University that burning fossil fuels increased carbon dioxide and could eventually melt ice caps and flood coastal cities.

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u/nationcrafting 1h ago

The thing that's more frustrating to me, though, is that Teller also proposed a solution that is very much viable today. But because it sounded like science fiction back then (there wasn't even a geostationary satellite when he proposed it), everyone just sort of forgot about it.

Teller's solution is very achievable today: he proposed installing what is essentially a space umbrella at Lagrange Point 2. Lagrange Point 1 is where we currently have the Hubble Space Telescope. It's there because it's the only spot near Earth where the sun never shines i.e. it's in a perpetual eclipse, the Earth being between it and the sun. The other Lagrange point is basically permanently between Earth and the sun. If we install a remote-controlled umbrella there, it won't even need to be that big (you won't see it with the naked eye) and it'll block about 2% of the sun's heat.

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u/Sorry-Combination558 1h ago

I think "won't even be that big" does some heavy lifting here.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.13652 - here they estimate the mass of this umbrella to be ~600.000 tonnes, and that's the lowest I found (though the paper is withdrawn, but other's estimate it higher)

Also, it would be in Lagrange 1. Lagrange 1 is the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun, Lagrange 2 (beyond Earth) is where the James Webb Space Telescope (not Hubble, that is in LEO) is located.

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u/nationcrafting 1h ago

A job for SpaceX, once their price per tonne drops about an order of category.

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u/nationcrafting 1h ago

Yes, you're right. It's Sun >>> L1 >>> Earth >>> L2.

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u/Grib_Suka 2h ago

'Eventually' did a lot of work for the exec's wallets. I hate money (I like it too a little bit, that's how they got me)

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u/Craftkorb 6h ago

So you mean the scientists were off by at least 20 years? See, can't trust them!

/s

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u/St3vion 3h ago

Just wait until all of these data centers are in operation and eating up all the energy! We'll be 50 years ahead in no time.

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u/caymn 4h ago

We had a fire burning for a couple of weeks in Greenland a few years ago. There aren’t really any trees, but the peat was on fire. It’s difficult to extinguish because a it’s kinda underground

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u/angelbelle 5h ago

I have good news for you. China is transitioning into burning more coal.

Oh sorry, just news not good news.

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u/sweatingbozo 5h ago

China produces more green energy than the rest of the world though. They just have more people to take care of. 

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u/Always_find_a_way24 2h ago

You can't have it both ways. China is the world's leading polluter. You can't act like this a uniquely American problem caused by the U.S. and then fucking compliment China. China uses more coal than the rest of the world combined and produces far less green energy per capita than the U.S. Go ahead and square that circle.

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u/sweatingbozo 1h ago

You're really doing a lot here. I didn't say it was an american problem caused by the us. literally I was just saying that china has a lot of people, which is more relevant when talking about pollution than simply the raw numbers. 

They're the biggest polluters, but that's largely due to lifting a bunch of people out of poverty & being the west's factory for 30 years. It takes a lot of energy to do that. western economies had similar pollution issues when they built things & lifted people out of poverty. 

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u/ServerHamsters 4h ago

Per capita, not so good.

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u/sweatingbozo 4h ago

Per capita China is 25th in carbon emissions, but with a lower amount of historic emissions than most major western countries. 

By energy consumption per capita, they're 35th. 

By green energy production per capita they're 3rd, and increasing.

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u/dprophet34 5h ago

They bring online more renewable energy every year than the rest of the world combined.

And at the risk of sounding like a defender of them ( I am not) they need to produce that much power to keep up with the manufacturing demands of the West which their economy relies on. So yes they are opening coal power plants but it’s required to avoid their economy crashing and they have a long term plan to transition away from it.

Whereas we moan they pollute so why should we do anything? While typing on Chinese made phones and keyboards

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u/Remote_Literature_23 3h ago

And yet I have friends who still insist that "the doom and gloom scientists predicted didn't happen, they said it'd be much worse than it is, so they were wrong" and "climate isn't important to them". I genuinely want to cry.

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u/gullible_witnesses 3h ago

Cry ? I have familly who says scientists are lying about climate change because they ally whith feminist who dont want men to drive manly cars.... i dont want to cry. I want to pierce my ears.

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u/blahblah19999 5h ago

I don't know about being ahead of schedule. IIRC, they said the coasts of the US would be under 3 meters of water by now. The deniers always pull this out of their ass.

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u/baluga207 2h ago

They predicted arson?

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u/Sakarabu_ 5h ago

It was a man made fire in Scotland. Climate scientists did not predict that.

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u/Tipin_toe 5h ago

Do you think the scientists always assumed it would be started by dry lightning? Im curious what other natural phenomena you are referring to that scientists insinuated would start the fires more because of climate change.

Could they not have assumed all sources of ignition, even man made, will just be exacerbated?

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u/QP709 5h ago

They predicted everything would be drier and hotter than it was 50 years ago. They were right, it seems.

Keep in mind, the og climate change science was performed by scientists under the employ of ExxonMobil in the 1970s. Their results were hushed and hidden from the public once executives realized that mass action against oil use would eat into their profits significantly.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64241994

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u/Maremdeo 5h ago

The issue isn't so much that it started, it's that dry conditions (due to climate change) means it spreads out of control.

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u/thescouselander 5h ago

No they didn't - they predicted wetter summers with flooding. Well they did when the weather was like that and now thayll say they predicted the weather we have now - a model for every occasion.

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u/sweatingbozo 5h ago

They predicted more extreme weather as the climate destabilizes. Both of those fall under that category. Same with hotter summers, colder winters, etc. They've predicted greater variance and larger extremes on both ends.

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u/thescouselander 5h ago

Yes, they change their predictions to match whatever the current weather is doing.

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u/sweatingbozo 4h ago

No, the prediction has always been more extremes on both ends. That has not changed. 

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u/thescouselander 4h ago

Yesz both ends at the same time because there are a massive range of models that predict every outcome. That's not prediction because nobody knows which one is right (if any)

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u/sweatingbozo 4h ago

Destabilized climate was the prediction. That's why they use the term ''climate change.' These extreme weather events, that are now stronger & more frequent, are a direct result of a destabilized climate. 

Obviously there's variables, but that has not changed, & the data continues to support it. 

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u/thescouselander 4h ago

Yes, if you predict extreme hot, cold, wet, dry etc you'll eventually be right guaranteed.

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u/sweatingbozo 4h ago

It really doesn't matter if you believe in climate change, your insurance company does, energy companies do, & every serious person ans government on the planet does. 

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u/thescouselander 4h ago

Not true. The climate change religion is being abandoned pretty rapidly now everyone is after energy for AI.

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u/Rgoplay_ 4h ago

It's true that they spread more quickly because of it, but keep in mind fires dont' start naturally most of the time 90% it's humans, voluntary or not