to think that if this pic of the Portugal sky doesn't make you take climate change seriously, nothing will?

[ArcheryAnnie]

Just posted this on another thread, and then thought fuck it, more people need to see this.

I felt really quite unsettled by the yellow sky and red sun yesterday. I have been trying to think how people in the paths of the recent hurricanes have been feeling, especially in Puerto Rico. And then I saw this photo of what the sky looked like over Portugal with the wildfires, and it's absolutely terrifying.

What will it take to make more people take climate change seriously, and more importantly, act on it?

CaptainsCat If I light a campfire, is it arson? If somebody has a bonfire, is it arson? I thought arson would setting a fire for the fires sake, rather than any deliberately started fire.

That should say : "....thought arson was setting..."

See what you mean Diego, I was thinking an out of control campfire wouldn't be classed as deliberately started fire. I thought all wildfires started from some man made source of ignition - thrown cigarette, fire too close to trees etc.

Not necessarily. The devastating wildfires in central Portugal this June (which killed even more people than the current ones) were thought to have been started by lightning.

Where I live the moorland burns nearly every summer, and it's only called a deliberate act i.e. Arson if it was started for nefarious purposes.

Oh yes, of course lightning! I expect that's a major cause actually.

Yeah I mean, you could be right. I just thought the language was ambiguous and I'm hesitant to start with the "fucking arsonists" etc. if it wasn't actually arsonists, so I wondered if anyone had seen that definitively reported anywhere.

Plus it seems weird that multiple fires would be started by arsonists at the same time.

The picture looks dramatic, but climate change was the very last thing I thought about when I saw it. There are fires in Portugal all the time, just this one is much bigger.

There are fires in Portugal all the time

True - but there's been a lot more in the last 10 years, TabbyMumz.

Archery.....you don't know that for sure though so you? Climate change "experts" only rely on data going back for so long, they admit that they haven't got data for much further back....so it's quite possible that a lot further back in time there were more fires than there are now.

TabbyMunz nothing can ever be known "for sure", but there's almost universal scientific consensus about climate change, (barring a few nuts and Trump's coiterie). And the consequences of constantly dismissing this scientific consensus because we don't want to face the truth that we are trashing our own home is too serious to keep on like this.

Climate change exists.

What caused the globe to warm and the last ice age to melt about 10,000 years ago. Im pretty sure there were no cars, factories, etc back then.

@NikiBabe, the climate has been warming and cooling in cycles since as far back as we can calculate (hundreds of millions of years). No-one is denying that. But what IS pretty much agreed among scientists is that human activity is accelerating this current warming period. The only person who seems NOT to believe that are you and Donald Trump.

But, OP, I think you are coming across as a bit patronising and confrontational. As above, I don't know many people who deny climate change and who aren't doing their bit to tackle it. Apart from America. That tiny country.

Dammit, that should read the only people who seem not to believe it. Hate it when I type fast and don't proof.

StepAwayFromGoogle this board is full of people arguing whether it's Ok to drive their kid a 10 min walk to school instead of walking if it's a bit drizzly, and that 30 presents from them for each child at xmas is their choice because it makes the little ones so happy, even if half of it is broken and in landfill by boxing day. I would argue entirely that we as a society have completely failed to fully grasp the scale of changes we need to make very very soon (now, yesterday) if we are not going to comprehensively screw things up for our kids. If that makes me confrontational then so be it.

Im already doing my bit. No car, never have had. Travel mostly by bike unless the weather makes it dangerous.

I have a cooker, a microwave, 1 tv, 1 laptop, 1 phone and a washing machine.

And most of all no children. Not contributing to the population exploding

Get off your high horse stepaway. Most people on my street have 2-3 cars to a household and drive their dc what would be a 5 minute walk.to school.

@NikiBabe, Your previous post made it sound like you didn't believe in climate change and thought it was part of natural cooling/warming cycles.

It is possible that most of the people I know are more committed to the environment than most (I work in the waste prevention field). BUT I would say that anyone who sees that photo and is alarmed by it, is probably already doing their bit. And anyone who isn't, probably isn't going to start as a result of one photo on MN.

I'm with you OP. Totally with you. But wilful ignorance is bliss for a lot of people.