[Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

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(Thread IKs: Stereotype)

4d3d3d: Mar 17, 2017

Rip Testes posted:

Today's my second grader's first earth day and she is so excited for it...

Does she have any idea what her future's going to be like

# ? Apr 22, 2024 18:45

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 12:25

Fell Mood: Jul 2, 2022; A terrible Fell look!

Maybe Queen of the wasteland like Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome? Try to think positive.

# ? Apr 22, 2024 19:26

smoobles: Sep 4, 2014; Can't post for 15 minutes!

4d3d3d posted:

lmfao
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1782400479743324603

a single bead of sweat rolls down my forehead as I look at the two options on my ballot: "get kicked in both balls" or "get kicked in only one ball"

# ? Apr 22, 2024 19:59

Pink Mist: Sep 28, 2021

the two options on my ballot, �death� or �death�

# ? Apr 22, 2024 20:23

Hubbert: Mar 25, 2007; At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

I'd rather go with the cake - no? You're out of cake? Well, in that case, I'm good, thank you.

# ? Apr 22, 2024 20:26

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

smoobles posted:

a single bead of sweat rolls down my forehead as I look at the two options on my ballot: "get kicked in both balls" or "get kicked in only one ball"

Surprise! "get kicked in only one ball" is actually "get kicked in both balls but one at a time."

# ? Apr 22, 2024 20:32

4d3d3d: Mar 17, 2017

The Democrats' new strategy they're calling "we're not as bad as Satan, almost but not quite" surely bodes well for the spiraling earth system

# ? Apr 22, 2024 20:32

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

FlapYoJacks posted:

Surprise! "get kicked in only one ball" is actually "get kicked in both balls but one at a time."

I promise to spend a lot of money on a marketing campaign to reduce ball-kicking to net zero by 2050

How?

By outsourcing it so that this other guy kicks you in the balls on my behalf

# ? Apr 22, 2024 20:35

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

Hold on my accounting team just informed me that if this other guy promises to not kick you in the balls in two future instance where he might have, I can kick you in the balls once right now and you still have to thank me for not kicking you in the balls as much

e: ive done a market segment study and it turns out there's a lot of people who are willing to say they might have kicked you in the balls at some point if i pay them each a couple cents, so you might want to get some ice to prepare for all the not getting kicked in the balls that's about to happen

# ? Apr 22, 2024 20:38

Communist Cop: Jun 29, 2023

Hillary might genuinely be the worst to ever do it

# ? Apr 22, 2024 20:48

Cup Runneth Over: Aug 8, 2009; She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate

Nanomashoes posted:

Don't blame me, I voted for Target.

# ? Apr 22, 2024 21:05

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Crazypoops posted:

https://x.com/WTHRcom/status/1782133454542348518

Some good tips in there.

quote:

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.wthr.com/article/news/nation-world/earth-day-how-to-avoid-plastic-at-grocery-stores/507-e37fda21-6570-461f-8159-bdd4bfa37e7a" on this server.
Reference #18.17431502.1713820385.2cbb4bfc

https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.17431502.1713820385.2cbb4bfc

*nods sagely* the climate is important, but the ability to share select personal info with our partners is even more so

# ? Apr 22, 2024 22:24

Ferdinand Bardamu: Apr 30, 2013

I'd rather have Trumpy Bear taze me in the balls than O'Brandon

# ? Apr 22, 2024 23:29

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Delayed ball kicks for minority business owners in low income neighborhoods

# ? Apr 22, 2024 23:30

Salt Fish: Sep 11, 2003; Cybernetic Crumb

More earth day tips:

* Only roll coal on every other cyclist
* Set your dimmer switches to 50% to save electric
* Choose locally sourced foie gras instead ef imported

# ? Apr 22, 2024 23:32

4d3d3d: Mar 17, 2017

Save some truck battery power by plugging in a seatbelt silencer to stop that annoying beep!

# ? Apr 23, 2024 00:09

Rauros: Aug 25, 2004; wanna go grub thumping?

i run this narrow impassable ranch dirt road all winter, and today was awful, because there were a dozen cars celebrating earth day by joy riding during the nice weather and making awkward too fast passes by me...trash culture

# ? Apr 23, 2024 02:59

starkebn: May 18, 2004; "Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE5V4l_JaAs

2022 - 220 dolphins found dead
2023 - 667
2024 - 315 already found so far

# ? Apr 23, 2024 03:00

MightyBigMinus: Jan 26, 2020

obviously the real reason the orcas are attacking boats in the area, good old biosphere collapse

# ? Apr 23, 2024 03:15

starkebn: May 18, 2004; "Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"

we're still winning folks

# ? Apr 23, 2024 03:20

Hubbert: Mar 25, 2007; At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

starkebn posted:

we're still winning folks

ruh roh

in other unrelated news, see following terrifying climate change related threat: loving nightmare ticks that can chase you down (a walking snack) and infect you with ebola-lite

The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, Jeff Goodell posted:

The Galveston National Laboratory is a fortress of pathogens, although you would never know it from the outside. It sits on the campus of the University of Texas Medical Branch like any other building. There are some concrete barriers on the outside, and a bunch of weird-looking exhaust systems on the roof, but otherwise, it could easily be the building where you took Chemistry 101 in college. Inside, in one of about a dozen Biosafety Level 4 labs in the United States, scientists work on some of the most lethal viruses in the world: Ebola, Nipah, Marburg, and others.

The BSL-4 lab is Dennis Bente�s workroom. A broad-shouldered guy with a full dark beard and a slight German accent, Bente grew up in a small town in northwest Germany and studied veterinary medicine in Hannover before developing an interest in vector-borne diseases. He worked with mosquitoes for a while, then decided ticks were more compelling.

The BSL-4 lab is basically a big concrete box within the larger lab. Entering it is like a journey into deep space. Bente first passes through a buffer corridor, where he grabs a clean pair of scrubs. Then he enters a changing room, where he strips off his street clothes and pulls on the scrubs. Next is the suit room, where he steps into what he calls his space suit, including built-in gloves and a clear plastic helmet. To pressurize the suit, and give himself air to breathe, Bente hooks up to an air hose and inflates like the Michelin Man. If all is well, he steps into the air lock, which is the most important barrier between the deadly pathogens and the outside world. He opens a heavy, airtight submarine door, closes it, walks a few feet, then opens another heavy, airtight submarine door. Finally, he steps into the hot zone.

Inside, he works with a group of ornate-looking ticks that are native to the Mediterranean basin, known as Hyalomma ticks. They are brown, with yellow stripes on their legs, which are much longer than the stubby legs on deer ticks you see in upstate New York. They look almost spidery, which is not surprising�ticks are arachnids, not insects, in the same family as spiders and scorpions. With their long legs, Hyalomma ticks are the speed demons of the tick world. (On YouTube, you can find videos of Hyalommas running after people like tiny lions in pursuit of an antelope.) Unlike many other ticks, Hyalommas are predators. They are one of the few species of ticks that have eyes (the word �Hyalomma� is derived from the Greek words for �glass� and �eye�). Instead of using CO2 sensors like other ticks to locate a blood meal, Hyalommas sense vibrations in the ground, and watch for shadows, to chase down a nearby human (or livestock, one of their favorite foods).

But Bente is not studying Hyalomma ticks because of their athletic ability or visual acuity. He is studying them because they are the most competent carriers and transmitters of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) to humans. One way to think about CCHF is that it�s basically a slightly less awful version of Ebola. CCHF often starts with high fever, joint pain, and vomiting. Red spots appear on your face and throat. Then by the fourth day, you get severe bruising and nosebleeds, and in many cases, uncontrolled bleeding from other orifices. It lasts for two weeks or so. There is no treatment, no vaccine, no cure. The fatality rate for people with CCHF ranges from about 10 percent to 40 percent.

As far as Bente knows, the only Hyalomma ticks in America are in the Galveston lab. In the wild, they are found in North Africa, Asia, and parts of Europe (in Turkey, there are about seven hundred CCHF cases a year). The ticks, which thrive in warm, dry climates, are expanding their range. In recent years, CCHF has killed people in Spain and northern India.

Bente keeps a colony of Hyalomma ticks in his lab and feeds them on mice and rabbits that he deliberately infects with the CCHF virus. (�The virus has no impact on these animals,� Bente pointed out. �It�s only dangerous to humans.�) He is studying fundamental questions about Hyalomma ticks and CCHF that should freak out anyone who�d like to walk through nature without worrying whether they�ll contract a virus that will make their eyeballs bleed: Can Hyalomma ticks be established in the US? (It�s extremely unlikely.) Might other types of ticks be carrying CCHF in Africa? (Yes, but so far, they are only �a sideshow,� Bente said.) Is airborne transmission of CCHF possible? (�CCHF is a very old virus,� Bente said. �Why mutate now?�) But Bente still has concerns.

As disease vectors, ticks are very different from mosquitoes. They live up to two years instead of a few weeks. But like mosquitoes, they are sensitive to changes in temperature and can�t survive long in cold or dry climates. As the world warms, they are following the heat. Some tick species are moving as much as thirty miles north each year�an unseen parade of bloodsuckers conquering new terrain. They are difficult to target with insecticides, and have many remarkable survival tricks, such as the ability to go long periods without water by basically spitting into a pile of leaves and then drinking it later when they are thirsty. Heat is also changing ticks� appetites. As temperatures rise, brown dog ticks that transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever�a disease with a 4 percent fatality rate�are twice as likely to choose to bite people over dogs. In the US, ticks can carry more than twenty different pathogens�and more are being discovered all the time. �The more we look at ticks, the more viruses we continue to find,� Bobbi Pritt, a microbiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told me.

Lyme disease is emblematic of the threat ticks pose in a warming world. It is caused by deer ticks carrying the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. Lyme was discovered in Connecticut in the mid-1970s. Today it is a major, and growing, health threat. According to the CDC, reported cases in the US have tripled since the late nineties. Lyme disease has become an almost �unparalleled threat to regular American life,� as Bennett Nemser, an epidemiologist who manages the Cohen Lyme & Tickborne Disease Initiative at the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, has said. �Really anyone�regardless of age, gender, political interest, affluence�can touch a piece of grass and get a tick on them.�

It�s not just the heat that has expanded the range of Lyme-carrying ticks. It�s also the increasingly fragmented landscapes in the Northeast. As forests are cut up into suburban developments, the populations of foxes and owls decline, which leads to an explosion in the population of white-footed mice, which are the main reservoir for Borrelia burgdorferi. Young larval ticks feed on the infected mice, and then pick up Lyme and later spread it to anyone passing by.

But in Bente�s view, the most worrisome development in TickWorld is the invasion of Asian longhorned ticks in the US, which he calls �a cautionary tale.� Nobody is quite sure how or when the first Asian longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) arrived in the continental US. They are native to East Asia, including Australia and New Zealand. They were first reported in 2017, in New Jersey. Within a year, researchers had found the tick in eight other states, and its territory continues to expand as the climate warms and winters grow milder. One key contributor to its rapid spread is the fact that females can reproduce through cloning themselves, without the need for mating, a process called parthenogenesis. This makes it extremely hard to control. �In practice, it�s impossible to eradicate this species,� said Ilia Rochlin, an entomologist at Rutgers University.

Asian longhorned ticks are aggressive biters, and can gang up on prey to drink large quantities of blood. Their preferred meal is cattle. In parts of New Zealand and Australia, the ticks have reduced production in dairy cattle by 25 percent. So far, there is no evidence that Asian longhorns in North America have transmitted diseases to humans. But that could change. Pritt called the longhorned invasion �extremely worrisome.� They can carry several deadly human pathogens, including potentially fatal severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) virus and Rickettsia japonica, which causes Japanese spotted fever. �While these pathogens have yet to be found in the United States, there is a risk of their future introduction,� Pritt told me.

A close cousin of SFTS, as it turns out, is CCHF. What worries Bente is the possibility of what scientists call vector switching. That is, that somehow the CCHF virus jumps from Hyalomma ticks, which are not yet in the US outside of Bente�s lab, to Asian longhorned ticks, an aggressive biter that is becoming widespread.

Could CCHF make the leap to Asian longhorned ticks? �Nature is complex,� Bente told me. �I don�t like the narrative that says we are one tick bite away from catastrophe. But at the same time, I can�t say it won�t happen.�

Hubbert has issued a correction as of 03:36 on Apr 23, 2024

# ? Apr 23, 2024 03:31

smoobles: Sep 4, 2014; Can't post for 15 minutes!

I'm not worried about ocean temperatures because I live on land

# ? Apr 23, 2024 03:35

Stereotype: Apr 24, 2010; College Slice

starkebn posted:

we're still winning folks

yeah but the third derivative is negative so it�s fine

# ? Apr 23, 2024 04:26

Stereotype: Apr 24, 2010; College Slice

per capita it�s colder than ever

# ? Apr 23, 2024 04:26

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

starkebn posted:

we're still winning folks

Oh no! Anyways�

# ? Apr 23, 2024 04:30

smoobles: Sep 4, 2014; Can't post for 15 minutes!

Stereotype posted:

per capita it’s colder than ever

wait for the agriculture collapse and this won't be true anymore

# ? Apr 23, 2024 04:39

Hit Man: Mar 6, 2008; I hope after I die people will say of me: "That guy sure owed me a lot of money."

I like how it's time for the chart to start dipping

It's a little late

but any day now im sure

# ? Apr 23, 2024 04:40

starkebn: May 18, 2004; "Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"

Stereotype posted:

per capita it�s colder than ever

# ? Apr 23, 2024 05:01

Chard: Aug 24, 2010

if we could harvest the energy of the cognitive dissonance i/we experience between reading this thread and Doing Life we'd probably be able to capture several tons of CO2. in a way, we're potentially helping.

please give my startup 10 billion USD

# ? Apr 23, 2024 05:05

Car Hater: May 7, 2007; wolf. bike.
Wolf. Bike.
Wolf! Bike!
WolfBike!
WolfBike!
ARROOOOOO!

Chard posted:

if we could harvest the energy of the cognitive dissonance i/we experience between reading this thread and Doing Life we'd probably be able to capture several tons of CO2. in a way, we're potentially helping.

please give my startup 10 billion USD

Personally I'd rather resolve the dissonance but no one does walk-in lobotomies anymore

# ? Apr 23, 2024 05:19

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

VERY WINDY

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1782420875217674395

# ? Apr 23, 2024 05:54

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

VERY WINDY

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1782420875217674395

better dead than dutch

# ? Apr 23, 2024 06:43

maxwellhill: Jan 5, 2022

e: hosed up

# ? Apr 23, 2024 07:56

uguu: Mar 9, 2014

Hubbert posted:

�Really anyone�regardless of age, gender, political interest, affluence�can touch a piece of grass and get a tick on them.�

Remember to touch grass everyone :blessed:

# ? Apr 23, 2024 13:09

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

Stereotype posted:

per capita it�s colder than ever

# ? Apr 23, 2024 13:21

kater: Nov 16, 2010

so if it took 175 years to get to 1.6 we have until about 2400 to worry about 3? that seems like it could be way worse why panic

# ? Apr 23, 2024 14:16

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

Stereotype posted:

per capita it�s colder than ever

Thread title

# ? Apr 23, 2024 14:43

HAIL eSATA-n: Apr 7, 2007

kater posted:

so if it took 175 years to get to 1.6 we have until about 2400 to worry about 3? that seems like it could be way worse why panic

2400? lol

3C by 2040

# ? Apr 23, 2024 14:47

Hubbert: Mar 25, 2007; At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

is this what they meant by rising C levels :haw:

# ? Apr 23, 2024 15:03

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 12:25

ram dass in hell: Dec 29, 2019

Irony.or.Death posted:

that feeling when you see something that makes you instantly cackle and can't wait to share it with everyone you know, followed by the slow realization that none of them will understand why it's so funny

rejected bo Burnham verse

# ? Apr 23, 2024 15:08

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