“Think of the two major possibilities here: Either the studios owe untold millions to their talents and paying it out will decimate their stock prices, or they owe so little because there really is no money in streaming and the bubble of their entire 21st century business model will burst in spectacular fashion. And make no mistake: this is a bubble. This is the inevitable climax of a stockholder-driven hunger for infinite growth, despite the fact that, by design, such a thing cannot and should not exist. The infection of Wall Street has overwhelmed the entertainment industry beyond repair, leading to cultural vandals like David Zaslav to be appointed with the callous duty of strip-mining decades’ of artistic beauty for pennies of tax write-offs. The past and future are frivolous in comparison to the short-term demands that the line keep going up.”
So I was scrolling and saw this image in an article about the European heat wave,
And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that’s a lot of red.
And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don’t know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it’s normal there?
“The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.
“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”
”The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off.“
all across the continent of Africa, ice has been melting and not coming back. the ice caps and glaciers of every continent are vitally important for maintaining a balanced climate, but as you can see from the above image, even 10-20 years ago the ice deposits on Kilimanjaro and the Rwenzori mountains had shrunk to dangerous levels.
this is Kilimanjaro in 2023. it’s only getting worse as climate change continues to ravage the globe.
because so much climate science is focused on europe and the americas, far too few know the extent of the damage that has been done to Africa by the corporations driving climate change. time and time again, the struggles across the African continent are minimised or outright ignored, because as OP said, people believe it to be a hot continent.
these heatwaves are just the tip of the iceberg. the entire western world owes it to the people living in Africa to stop the practices that are continuing to accelerate climate disaster, but billionaires and CEOs will put profit ahead of the suffering of billions of people. Africa is at the forefront of climate disaster, and any solutions for reducing or reversing climate change should be focused on how we can prevent the last African ice deposits from disappearing for good.
