The Wordsmith's Forge

I wrote this story for a fat-positive contest last year, although the voting eventually stalled out with some finalists selected but no winner(s) announced. Recently I went back to the story in light of my new Terramagne setting, and it fits that very nicely. Here, then, is a team of fat superheras of assorted ethnicity. The story has been sponsored by an anonymous donor and I'll be posting it in sections.

Begin with Part 1, Part 2. Skip to Part 5.

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I wrote this story for a fat-positive contest last year, although the voting eventually stalled out with some finalists selected but no winner(s) announced. Recently I went back to the story in light of my new Terramagne setting, and it fits that very nicely. Here, then, is a team of fat superheras of assorted ethnicity. The story has been sponsored by an anonymous donor and I'll be posting it in sections.

Begin with Part 1. Skip to Part 4, Part 5.

( Collapse )

I wrote this story for a fat-positive contest last year, although the voting eventually stalled out with some finalists selected but no winner(s) announced. Recently I went back to the story in light of my new Terramagne setting, and it fits that very nicely. Here, then, is a team of fat superheras of assorted ethnicity. The story has been sponsored by an anonymous donor and I'll be posting it in sections.

Skip to Part 2, Part 3.

( Collapse )

This article talks about increased floods in some major world rivers, and decreased floods in others.  

I am skeptical of their classification of the Mississippi as one with lowering flood frequency.  Okay, that might happen if the midwest rain mostly goes away.  But looking at the way that river has actually been behaving?  Floods.  It never has liked two-legs much, and it resents being crowded.  Too much of its floodplain is inhabited, the sponge forests and swamps are replaced by fields and channels, and a non-trivial amount of the lower section of river is now in the wrong place from where it wants to be.  Those things pretty consistently add up to floods.  My prediction?  The river will run low much of the time when the rains fail, and then when the sky throws hysterical amounts of water in a short time, the Mississippi will flood like FUCK.

 We often underestimate the impact.

... pretty much kill Groundhog Day.

I've stopped watching for the "spring" bulbs to sprout. This is because they are sprouting in winter. I remember being freaked when they started sprouting in February. It was, I think, early or mid-January this year when I noticed some were already well up. For all I know they may have sprouted in December.

Here's a discussion about global collapse of civilization based on environmental collapse.  I am less optimistic.  This is because I'm familiar with the many historic examples of lesser environmental disasters taking down civilizations, because I have been watching climate change develop for several decades while politicians diddled about, because scientists are now saying we're at or past the point where major change is inevitable even if we somehow got people in gear, and especially because the scientific reports now coming in are repeatedly of the "oops, we underestimated how bad the damage was going to be" variety.

Will the Earth survive?  I don't think we can actually crack the planet yet, so yes.  With a biosphere?  Almost certainly.  With more than rats, roaches, and jellyfish?  Well, it's survived getting smacked by meteors with rather better than that.  Humans?  Probably.  There are lots and they can be tenacious buggers.  Civilization?  Well, not what there is of it now.  It needs redesigning anyhow.  Society is a fragile thing.  Most people have no idea how thin a veneer it is.  I'd like to see the good parts survive, but I won't be surprised if they don't.  It's hard to focus on ephemera when there isn't enough food or water to go around.

 If you're younger than 27, you've never experienced a colder-than-average month.  0_o  I suspect there are probably localized exceptions to this, but that's the trend.

 A summary of predictions and link to the original report.  In a nutshell, we are fucked; climate change effects are already in progress.  We are extra specially deeply fucked sideways if people keep going on the current trajectory.  We are only slightly rudely fondled if maximum effort is made to undo the damage immediately.  Which is not really news, just a more refined description with better resolution and fresher examples, than what people have been saying for the last several decades.

Here's an article about the rise and fall of Mayan civilization, likely due to climate change.