And they probably constantly grow new leaves to replace old ones and ones that the wind has ripped off.

But to be fair, this is probably at the same rate as leaves on the ground below the tree are rotting and releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere.

Thank you very much for your thoughts!

Medieval spelled wrong was a mistake by me. English is my third language and this is one of the words, where I am never really sure how it is spelled!

Thank you for clarifying the word “dark ages”. I just read the regarding Wikipedia and if I understood it correctly, both of us are not wrong.

I don’t know about how many women were burned. I am currently reading Carl Sagan’s “A Demon Hunted World” and there he states in the 7th chapter talking about the chronicles of the city “Würzburg”:

There were 28 public immolations, each with 4 to 6 victims on average, in that small city in a single year. This was a microcosm of what was happening all across Europe. No one knows how many were killed altogether - perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.

Maybe you are right on scientist. It’s just what I’ve heard, that people were persecuted, when they were saying things that challenged the image the Church was providing.

For education: I don’t actually know how it was. I assume that education was reserved for a small wealthy minority, but this is more guessing than knowing. So I take your word.

I agree on your words on modern transport. There can be plenty of discussion about what is necessary and what not. But this is missing the point I was trying to make: How much knowledge we gained in a short period of time.

Personally I am against private transport, at least the way it is practised today. I think everybody can have a bicyle, I am not against this. But I think a ton of steel that takes up 10 square meter is a little over the top to transport a single person as well.

Thank you again for writing this up. This gives me plenty of interesting topics to look into!

The medieval age, or dark age, was just a few dozen generations ago. When humans used to burn women because of superstition and persecuted scientists as heretics. When it was common for children and mothers to die during childbirth. When disease killed a quarter or so of a population. When people died due to a bad tooth or a broken limb. When education was based a century’s old fiction book. It took many curious and courageous lifes to establish the scientific method. This scientific method enabled us to go from riding horses to flying to the moon. To have pocket sized computers, that connect and enterntain us. Due to science we eradicated many terrible diseases and are on the verge to win over AIDS and cancer. Nowadays this science is available almost everywhere and anytime to almost anybody.

German businesses, politicians call for 5-year delay in climate targets

A lot, if not all of the things these businesses sell are based on science. Now they want us be ignorant to science again. Every action has a reaction! The law of physics does not wait for us to be ready. The science is clear: we can’t delay reducing fossil fuel use any longer! And:

Screw anybody that tries to keep humanity ignorant and uneducated!

I’m sorry if that’s your perspective!

I find Linux great!

Brace for the latest damage report!

I understand your enthusiasm, as I am a Thinkpad lover myself. I’m worried that in future I won’t find a good nipple laptop anymore.

That said, before the Acer I had a Thinkpad X220, but the WiFi card kept failing. Opening it and cleaning the WiFi adapter helped, but it got worse over time.

Since I was low on budget, the Acer was a good compromize, although I hated the casing and the screen. Anf the floating keyboard, man that really sucked! The screen is slowly failing with visible darker spots. But it still works and should be okay for my kid’s occational minecraft game.

Last year I bought a refurbished overprized T480s and I’m very happy with that machine.

Durability is important for me, as I live very remote (next computer store is about half a day away) and in a small house, where things often get stacked and kids run around. That’s why I also usually go with Mint or Debian. I am rarely online, no WiFi here.

My usercase is very simple, so an old machine no problem to me. Mostly I use it for light gaming (most of the games I play are 20 years old, so no problem with onboard graphics and older hardware), doing some office stuff and occasional internet, although I mostly use my phone. And rarely a movie. But I must say, the speakers on that Thinkpad really suck. But I have a bluetooth speaker and miraculously nowadays bluetooth on linux just works. At least on the T480s.

The battery is also alright, which is kind of important as power often fails here and I like to work in my garden. I’m surprised how far linux has come with battery life. That used to be a drawback compared to Windows, but now I think Debian is better than win11 (I still have dualboot, although rarly boot into windows. Mostly only for 2 games, I didn’t get properly running on Linux).

I know, but the older machine runs offline. If I intended to connect it online, I’d update it. The other one that I currently use is rarely online and gets updated every 2 to 4 weeks.

In 2017 I bought a used laptop released 2011 and put mint cinnamon on it. About a year later my niece threw it off the table and keyboard and touchscreen broke. I shelfed it for a year before I bought a USB mouse and keyboard. Booted it up, used it a bit, updated, everything just worked. I don’t use that machine anymore since a year, as last year I bought a “new” used laptop released 2018. I recently booted the older laptop just to see and it works just fine. It hasn’t been updated in a long time.

The newer machine runs debian 12 gnome and also doesn’t get updated regularly (as I don’t have WiFi). Both machines are as fast as on the first day. I never had any stability problem with both machines (except maybe the table stability, where former laptop fell from).

I’d say Trump’s inability to see the value of partnerships in geo politics and the likelihood of distraction from the Epstein files has turned Greenland into a target for Trump.

How about dual boot, but the Windows OS is never online?

I used to be Linux only, but after I’ve got a new machine with Win11 preinstalled, I went dual boot " justfor now until I got all my apps running on Linux". Well, it’s been a while and I still didn’t figure out how to run some apps, so dual boot turned out to be a bit more permanent.

However, since I don’t have WiFi and Windows starts sucking my mobile data once connected, I established a strict ‘Windows must never be connected to my hotspot’ policy. So it never updates.

I still plan to go back to Linux only, because I just like open source and dislike Windows for spyware and thinking it would be smarter than the user (which in my case is probably true, but still, I take my pride in being able to screw up my own OS if I make a mistake). But at the moment I’m out of ideas for certain things not running on Linux, so my machine is still punished with a secundary Win OS.

Thanks for the laugh!

But are you sure they haven’t just agreed to talk about talking about talking about a concept of a plan?

I don’t know. I’ve recently read that 2024 we’ve globally emitted more than ever with a growth larger than ever. And that we’re on path to emit more than that in 2025. That, to my uneducated ass, sounds more like we would be still accelerating, instead of coming to a halt.

Well, COP is just a circus anyway.

This is my first comment on a climate related post in a while. Also, with people in private life I pretty much stopped talking about it.

Inside, I still want to talk. But then, what to add to the discussion?

It feels like everything has been said. Many times. We understand the problem, we know what to do and what to stop doing.

It’s just not happening, is it?

And then I feel like retreating again and maybe have a drink or a joint.

I’m reading about deep sea mining since a few years. This must be regulated before the first companies get started!

I have a feeling it won’t get regulated until it’s much too late and damage is done. It’s probably difficult to put rules on no man’s seafloor.

Yes, you’re very right.

It just feels so wrong talking about plastic straws, while we produce more plastic than ever. Everyone buys new phones, plastic clothes and a thousand other things all the time.

We need to get away from single use objects to a circular economy. We need to get away from consumerism and endless growth to a society that values life and a habitable planet.

Talking about bad straws forgets to mention the million other bad things we use and throw away.

Yes, straws are bad. Single use plastic is bad. Individual transport is bad. Fashion clothing is bad. Littering is bad. And and and…

If we continue to be stuck discussing plastic straws forever, our society won’t last much longer than paper straws.

Oh common, are we really circling this discussion forever?

We need to reduce burning fossil fuels, everything else is nice, but doesn’t really make a dent in the graphs.

Oh man… I was about to comment satirically “this study was sponsored by coca-cola” but then I read your comment.

Sometimes it seems like there is no more need for satire, because reality has become a joke itself.

The last few years have been harder than ever to clinge to any spark of hope. It feels so weird to go on business as usual in personal life. But what’s the alternative? Depression won’t save anything or anyone out there. I think I do what I personally can. I don’t think it matters, but what to live for, if not ideals and believes? But the weight of hopelessness grows regardlessly and probably will keep growing.

I don’t write this to get attention or pity or whatever. I write this, because I know countless people out there feel the same. It won’t be fine. But also, you aren’t alone. Living with dignity in a dying world is brutal. Don’t feel too bad about it!

Gasp! Oh no! Scientists are STUNNED IN DISBELIEVE! You won’t believe what they ALARMINGLY discovered! /s

The nearly 3 million rivers that weave across the world are experiencing rapid and surprising changes, with potentially drastic implications for everything from drinking water supplies to flood risks, according to a new study.

Nearly half of the world’s largest downstream rivers — 44% — saw a drop in the amount of water flowing through them each year.

Gleason’s conclusion: “Holy cow, the rivers of the world are a lot different than we thought.” Some are changing by 5% or 10% a year, the report found. “That’s rapid, rapid change,” he said.