This is an excellent article. Unfortunately for those of us with little time on our hands, it’s long. But if you can find the time, it’s worth it, because the author is pointing out to us that which ought to be obvious: the climate and the associated weather patterns, along with the inevitable flow of capital (i.e., money, particularly from homeowners insurance companies and mortgage lenders), will be forcing us to move from those areas most directly impacted by the changing climate to more suitable spots.
Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:
For years, Americans have avoided confronting these changes in their own backyards. The decisions we make about where to live are distorted not just by politics that play down climate risks, but also by expensive subsidies and incentives aimed at defying nature. In much of the developing world, vulnerable people will attempt to flee the emerging perils of global warming, seeking cooler temperatures, more fresh water and safety. But here in the United States, people have largely gravitated toward environmental danger, building along coastlines from New Jersey to Florida and settling across the cloudless deserts of the Southwest.
I wanted to know if this was beginning to change. Might Americans finally be waking up to how climate is about to transform their lives? And if so — if a great domestic relocation might be in the offing — was it possible to project where we might go? To answer these questions, I interviewed more than four dozen experts: economists and demographers, climate scientists and insurance executives, architects and urban planners, and I mapped out the danger zones that will close in on Americans over the next 30 years. The maps for the first time combined exclusive climate data from the Rhodium Group, an independent data-analytics firm; wildfire projections modeled by United States Forest Service researchers and others; and data about America’s shifting climate niches, an evolution of work first published by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last spring. (See a detailed analysis of the maps.)
What I found was a nation on the cusp of a great transformation. Across the United States, some 162 million people — nearly one in two — will most likely experience a decline in the quality of their environment, namely more heat and less water. For 93 million of them, the changes could be particularly severe, and by 2070, our analysis suggests, if carbon emissions rise at extreme levels, at least four million Americans could find themselves living at the fringe, in places decidedly outside the ideal niche for human life. The cost of resisting the new climate reality is mounting. Florida officials have already acknowledged that defending some roadways against the sea will be unaffordable. And the nation’s federal flood-insurance program is for the first time requiring that some of its payouts be used to retreat from climate threats across the country. It will soon prove too expensive to maintain the status quo.
Iran-based artist Maryam Ashkanian embroiders portraits of peaceful sleepers deeply resting as a part of her ongoing Sleep series. Each individual she creates begins with a gestural line drawing that is then embroidered onto a handmade pillow.
i think a more interesting question than “when did you ‘join’ the internet” is “what was the first username you ever used”
my very first ever username (that i remember) was HunterKiller75 cause i thought starcraft was the coolest shit in elementary school & hydralisks were my fav unit, and 75 was my fav number
According to the rules, if you wanted to play one the DM first had to run you through an incredibly difficult pre-written solo adventure (this accounted for a few hundred pages of the section) where your frog decided to escape the mega-dungeon that the unrepentantly evil frog civilization was based inside of. If your character died or was unable to escape the dungeon for any reason, it would be eaten by its clan members and you weren’t allowed to play as a frog guy.
Had a dream that wizards of the coast replaced elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings with a sort of giant cannibalistic frog, and their section of the players handbook took up 800 pages
In total the phb was 15,000 pages long and I desperately wish I could have seen more of it.
Frog Escape Attempt #13: Despite the gruesome demise of my previous incarnations, I begin my adventure with a song in my heart and a spring in my step.
While it’s true that catboys are not the opposite of catgirls, catgirls do form part of a well-defined binary. The opposite of the catgirl is, in fact, the van art wizard.
