A severe heatwave is ongoing in Europe. Temperature records broken in France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.

On 11 July 2023, the Land Surface Temperature (LST) in some areas of Extremadura (Spain) exceeded 60°C, as highlighted in this data visualisation derived from measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) instrument. The ongoing heatwave in Spain this week is resulting in a total of 13 autonomous communities, being at extreme risk (red alert), significant risk (orange alert), and risk (yellow alert) due to maximum temperatures that, in some cases, will exceed 40°C and reach a maximum of 43°C.

For reference, “in areas where vegetation is dense, the land surface temperature never rises above 35°C. The hottest land surface temperatures on Earth are in plant-free desert landscapes.”

  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    For a while now, the question of democracy has been haunting the climate change issue. In the west, at least, it has shown itself ill-suited to the task of handling climate change. Of course, seriously proposing older forms of government would be dangerous and perhaps even insane. But the tension is there, and when we look back on all of this, democracy, or the form we have, is likely not going to look good.

    • Eximius@lemmy.lt
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      1 year ago

      Any form of government with idiots at the helm will fail. With power at the helm and feebleness of the people defining the grandeur of the fail.

      I.e. I want to say: the form of government doesnt matter. Just defines the imaginary friction for the government to do things and stuff.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Democracy just means the number of people getting kickbacks is a number above 1. The higher the number the more democratic.

      The trick is to make it so that the people who profit from fixing climate change are big enough to be in the group that gets kickbacks.

      As evil as Nixon was he wasn’t an idiot. You can get environmental rules passed as long as someone is getting their palm’s greased.