• yucandu@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    Fun fact: The reason we call it climate change and not global warming is because the George W Bush administration directed NASA to stop using phrases that they felt might scare the American populace.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange

    While you’re worried that “global warming” might sound too confusing to people who exist in the winter, the capitalists were pretty sure it was the phrase that was actually going to scare the working class into action.

    • Pyr@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      14 hours ago

      I mean, I do kind of agree with climate change over global warming because Hicks always see one winter with a lot of snow and go “SEE?!?! Global warming my ass!”

      Even though global warming doesn’t discount colder winters amin certain locations. Once the gulf jet stream collapses the UK will have similar winters to northern Russia and Canada. Good luck my dudes.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 day ago

      I’ve heard this the other way.

      Conservative climate deniers can more easily dismiss “global warming” because now they can point to winters being colder. Which of course is what climate change is.

  • fenrasulfr@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    1 day ago

    I live 200km from the fires of Bordeaux and we still had a lot of smoke from those fires. I can’t imagine how bad it is close to those fires. And with another heatwave hitting France today those fires won’t stop anytime soon.

    • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      13 hours ago

      I live in Bordeaux and after 41° yesterday, we couldn’t open the windows this night because of the smoke 🤢.

      Now it’s rainstorm time (alerte jaune) and we start to live again 😌

      I want to go live by the sea ⛵

    • grue@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      Just because the clouds are (almost) entirely over land and not the water doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t clouds. I’m not a meteorologist so I can’t explain why, but I’m aware that it’s pretty normal for the cloud cover over the land and the sea to be different.

      (Also, you can tell because smoke plumes definitely wouldn’t be coming from the bay or its inlet, and they didn’t blow there from the land to the east because as the real plumes show, the wind is blowing eastward.)

      • KurtVonnegut@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Just because the clouds are (almost) entirely over land and not the water doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t clouds.

        I’m saying the opposite: clouds over water are not smoke because water doesn’t burn.

        The exception is of course when smoke is blown from the land to the sea. Which is clearly not the case here.

        By the way, “to the east” and “eastward” mean the same thing.

    • Tabula_stercore@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 day ago

      My forst reaction was also clouds. But then i saw the smoke too (bit hueish grey). And the massive brown patch of burnt area.

      • grue@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 day ago

        And Iran, although the political implications aren’t as obviously good (compared to Russia) as the ecological ones.

        • Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          the political implications aren’t as obviously good

          Can look at the UAE then, or any of the other gulf slave states helping out with operation pedo protection

    • BestBouclettes
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      1 day ago

      The whole south west region is an artificial forest for monoculture (Forêt des Landes). It’s “naturally” quite prone to fires, and even more so nowadays with all the heat waves we faced.

      It’s basically kindling now, so a single cigarette butt (or in the case of the largest one, maintenance on a powerline) goes completely out of hand in mere minutes.

      It’s so dry and windy that the fires can jump a kilometre at a time, that’s why there are so many right now.

    • grue@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      There are two main smoke plumes, which look gray, translucent, and continuous. The fluffy, white splotches are just clouds (except in the areas where they overlap the smoke plumes, where they might be pyrocumulonimbus clouds, for all I know).

      It looks more like just one big fire (with several fronts) to me. It’s that big splotchy black area under and around my “smoke plumes” label.

    • Thunderbird4@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 day ago

      Not everything you’re seeing in the photo is a wildfire. The consolidated puffy white clumps are just ordinary clouds. The wildfire smoke is the gray, streaky haze underneath. You can see the darker area of burnt ground and the fires themselves at the edges of that area.

    • thericofactor@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      Doesn’t have to be people. Lightning is a cause, or a piece of glass that inadvertently acts as a lens and focuses the sunlight… Although that might also be considered as “caused by people”.

    • ElectricVocalist
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      Because it got so big it formed a pyrocumulonimbus causing a big storm with lightning strikes everywhere. This was never seen in France before

      • plyth@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 day ago

        One or two could be expected, but there are many fires. Are so many people so careless, even when the first fires are already burning?

        • Auster@thebrainbin.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 day ago

          In recent years in Brazil, iirc around 2024, a lot of fires broke out to the point the smoke covered most of the country, and often reports would appear of people actively lighting folliage on fire. Some even theorized the government wasn’t going after those because they’d benefit from the damage. Maybe a similar possibility over in Europe?

          • Deme@sopuli.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            1 day ago

            I doubt that. The sixth most populous metropolitan area in France and a regional capital was and perhaps still is under threat. In Brazil I think the farmers were lighting fires because it’s an easy way to gain land for pastures without having to deal with pesky jungle protection stuff. Just blame it on the big ass fire that suddenly broke out.