World's Oceans Break Temperature Records Every Single Day Of Past Year
Change, off the Western Coast of Australia.
Edition #127
10.05.24
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Newsflash⚡ writes fictional stories based on what is currently going on in the world.
This story is about the water, which is hot, and the people close to it, who are mad.
Estimated read time: 1.5 minutes.
LINK: the original article (BBC News).⚡
“Climate change: World's oceans suffer from record-breaking year of heat”
By Matt McGrath, Mark Poynting & Justin Rowlatt, 9th of May 2024.
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If this was doomsday, well, god damn - it looked pretty.
Wedging her feet into the sand, Nicola picked out a point on the horizon and stared toward it. With enough focus, she would be able to listen, to really feel. Her wrinkled shoulders came forwards as if hooked; her knees twisted cruelly beneath her weight. She spent several minutes locked up in this way, almost without blinking - a madwoman. An elderly madwoman. Fuck it. Inside her mind, she was free - absorbed by the sound of the waves, conscious of the point of her attention; how the world receded around it (infinite); how it went on until it arrived back at her feet (island sands; ocean winds). Not for the first time, she opened her ears to the world as if they had been opened by music. There was something here that she cared for.
She had not always been here, at the edge of the water, to acknowledge it. There had been time away; some much-needed time away. At the time, the people she knew all agreed with her: it really was quite something, to accept responsibility.
Besides, there was no particular rush.
She didn't remember much about her pre-career days - they were so distant, now, that the feelings she could recall did not really feel authentic. Looking back so far, memories came back to her not with certainty, but with ever greater shades of suspicion, as if something was being concealed, willingly, against her will. She thought of the first time she had set foot on this beach. Nineteen sixty-eight. In the time since, her life had expanded, grown, receded. Some might have said she was the island's "godmother", if they knew who she was, to which she would have replied: "don't be English." She could now be seen, always at the beachfront, at this time, occasionally with the walking stick she used to hit Johnathan with whenever he went around without his shoes. All that to say, a lot had complicated her ability to remember those days, the days beforehand, a lot had happened since. But she did remember that there had been no particular rush.
Of course, after arriving, the urgency had developed. Slowly at first. Then at a more gradual pace, which began to make itself felt more in the actual running of things: several research placements this year, instead of two; newer technology; a working logbook system. As the years passed, the island was gradually washed over with people and electricity. Urgency developed more quickly after this. Something more of a rush could be detected.
And now, of course, there were the statistics! The result of all this rushing. How depressing. She felt that she saw through it. Humanity has objectively measured itself, and now dislikes objectivity. As this thought crossed her mind, she thought of the infinite lines on charts, of predictions, forecasts, of how her wrists had shaken before the introduction of computers, how she had learned to swim. She wondered at the delay, marveled at the delay, congratulated herself. Her mind drew loops around the foggy narratives she could recall and pocketed them. There was a responsibility she had felt, there was an urgency she had witnessed. Both were somewhere in her feeling. She had nothing against any of it, but - a sudden gust pulled at her dried, loose hair - there was no urgency here.
The sun echoed its fading heat; the water hummed beneath the sky’s empty sound.
Two nearby birds called from the rocks.
Three waves fell into the rhythm and vanished.
And then - the sand; those winds - again.
Nicola stared out to the horizon. Peacefully, she discarded each of her thoughts.
If this was doomsday, well, god damn - it looked pretty.
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disclaimer:
This is fiction. The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
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Looking pretty is part of the problem. The Brits Think that global warming will just mean a few more summer barbecues. However when you're here in China where it is already too hot to function without using up vast amounts of energy I cannot see how any increase in global temperature is gonna work.
Aye 50 years ago was told there would be no ice or polar bears. Just saw a photograph of the polar bears with the fur coats off and sun bathing---starkers! Parts of London/New York under water and the PLYMOUTH ROCK rising sea level etc can be taken both ways!? If the sea is going to rise so much where is the water going to come from!? Piping it in from MARS!?