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To my knowledge over 90% of the firefighters are volunteers and they are not exceptionally well supplied. Australia has done a worse job than other countries wi

To my knowledge over 90% of the firefighters are volunteers and they are not exceptionally well supplied. Australia has done a worse job than other countries with its vast resources could have done. But I agree with you: when has humankind ever truly united on something to pull together?

Robotbeat 7y ago
Banning CFCs. The UV index is already better than it would've been without the ban. By 2050 or so, it would've been TRULY bad, with significant rise in skin cancer. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/WorldWithoutOzone/page2.php https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/WorldWithoutOzone...
- khuey 7y ago
  Eliminating smallpox also comes to mind.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Many years after hearing, and being inspired by the world's reaction to CFCs and ozone depletion, I read a piece in one of the main US papers - WSJ, NYT, WaPo, I forget which, that the main impetus for US action on CFCs was Reagan had had skin cancer. Which made it more personal for him.
  - FooHentai 7y ago
    Whelp, I guess that means we’ll see a proper response right around the time Aspen has no snow over winter, Miami beachfront drowns, or some politicians family members pop their clogs die to something CC related. Alas that’ll be real late.
kiliantics 7y ago
How about WWII? If the challenges of climate change were treated with the same urgency the allies mustered together then, we might actually have a shot at avoiding complete disaster.
- rini17 7y ago
  The urgency came only after long years of detente posturing...
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  That's really not an inspiring or hopeful comparison, but probably very accurate to how the world will play the climate crisis. If the Allies/Developed Nations respond with the same vigour, we have another half decade or two of ignoring the issue, hiding under rocks, and need to lose a good few developed nations to the void, without trace, first. Road to WW2: You could set up the dominoes all the way back to the punitive Versailles Agreement, but purely militarily... 1930, Japan moved into Manchuria. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in 33, and immediately started rearming and brought back universal conscription. Rhineland reoccupied in 36, and Fracno put on the throne in the Spanish "Civil War" the same year - where they supplied armaments, troops, supplies, and lots and lots of planes. Blitzkreig was honed and practised here. Britain and France still busy appeasing, and ignoring clear, obvious unmissable signs. Some fringe, and not so fringe members of their major right of centre parties are highly sympathetic to German rebuilding and aims. They would like to do deals with that nice Mr Hitler. Including the man who was offered the premiership of the UK before Churchill, when Chamberlain stepped down. USA is busy ignoring the world, deep in isolationism, but at the same time building trade with Germany and parts of the US, notably California and New York are most impressed to see German implementation of eugenics as policy (Nazi eugenics and what developed from it originated in US ideas and policies[1]). League of Nations whistles a happy tune as its highest membership was during this period. In 37, Japan steps up to an all out war of total conquest with China, and the Rape of Nanjing takes place, 300k+ dead. Then follows Anschluss with Austria in 38 with still barely a word muttered on the global stage. Nor was anything done about Sudetenland (half of then Czechoslovakia). The day after the Slovak State was formed from the rest, they occupied that too. 39 Brought the "Peace in our Time" Munich Agreement. Hitler responds peacefully by annexing parts of Latvia, Mussolini annexes Albania. Allies, well the European ones, finally think perhaps they might, possibly/maybe do something. But not yet. Aug 1939 brings the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which presents an astonishingly accurate picture of the post-war Europe we actually got. September 39 and Poland is annexed. Finally two of the four major Allies do something. War is declared 3rd September 1939. But it will take much stalling to buy time to rearm properly, now at full speed finally. The success of the Battle of Britain after the fall of France (in moments), and Dunkirk, gives a tiny glimmer of hope -- and bought 18 months in which to rearm, though air force losses weren't sustainable. Those other two Allies, come to the party when it is politically unavoidable. Nazi invasion of USSR in June 41 and Pearl Harbor in December, otherwise they probably wouldn't have bothered without some other major event provoking action. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U.S._eugenics_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U...

Robotbeat 7y ago

Banning CFCs. The UV index is already better than it would've been without the ban. By 2050 or so, it would've been TRULY bad, with significant rise in skin cancer. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/WorldWithoutOzone/page2.php https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/WorldWithoutOzone...

khuey 7y ago
Eliminating smallpox also comes to mind.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Many years after hearing, and being inspired by the world's reaction to CFCs and ozone depletion, I read a piece in one of the main US papers - WSJ, NYT, WaPo, I forget which, that the main impetus for US action on CFCs was Reagan had had skin cancer. Which made it more personal for him.
- FooHentai 7y ago
  Whelp, I guess that means we’ll see a proper response right around the time Aspen has no snow over winter, Miami beachfront drowns, or some politicians family members pop their clogs die to something CC related. Alas that’ll be real late.

kiliantics 7y ago

How about WWII? If the challenges of climate change were treated with the same urgency the allies mustered together then, we might actually have a shot at avoiding complete disaster.

rini17 7y ago
The urgency came only after long years of detente posturing...
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
That's really not an inspiring or hopeful comparison, but probably very accurate to how the world will play the climate crisis. If the Allies/Developed Nations respond with the same vigour, we have another half decade or two of ignoring the issue, hiding under rocks, and need to lose a good few developed nations to the void, without trace, first. Road to WW2: You could set up the dominoes all the way back to the punitive Versailles Agreement, but purely militarily... 1930, Japan moved into Manchuria. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in 33, and immediately started rearming and brought back universal conscription. Rhineland reoccupied in 36, and Fracno put on the throne in the Spanish "Civil War" the same year - where they supplied armaments, troops, supplies, and lots and lots of planes. Blitzkreig was honed and practised here. Britain and France still busy appeasing, and ignoring clear, obvious unmissable signs. Some fringe, and not so fringe members of their major right of centre parties are highly sympathetic to German rebuilding and aims. They would like to do deals with that nice Mr Hitler. Including the man who was offered the premiership of the UK before Churchill, when Chamberlain stepped down. USA is busy ignoring the world, deep in isolationism, but at the same time building trade with Germany and parts of the US, notably California and New York are most impressed to see German implementation of eugenics as policy (Nazi eugenics and what developed from it originated in US ideas and policies[1]). League of Nations whistles a happy tune as its highest membership was during this period. In 37, Japan steps up to an all out war of total conquest with China, and the Rape of Nanjing takes place, 300k+ dead. Then follows Anschluss with Austria in 38 with still barely a word muttered on the global stage. Nor was anything done about Sudetenland (half of then Czechoslovakia). The day after the Slovak State was formed from the rest, they occupied that too. 39 Brought the "Peace in our Time" Munich Agreement. Hitler responds peacefully by annexing parts of Latvia, Mussolini annexes Albania. Allies, well the European ones, finally think perhaps they might, possibly/maybe do something. But not yet. Aug 1939 brings the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which presents an astonishingly accurate picture of the post-war Europe we actually got. September 39 and Poland is annexed. Finally two of the four major Allies do something. War is declared 3rd September 1939. But it will take much stalling to buy time to rearm properly, now at full speed finally. The success of the Battle of Britain after the fall of France (in moments), and Dunkirk, gives a tiny glimmer of hope -- and bought 18 months in which to rearm, though air force losses weren't sustainable. Those other two Allies, come to the party when it is politically unavoidable. Nazi invasion of USSR in June 41 and Pearl Harbor in December, otherwise they probably wouldn't have bothered without some other major event provoking action. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U.S._eugenics_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U...