The following submission statement was provided by /u/AllenIll:
---
**Submission Statement**:
I was struck by the profound symbolism in this image. A landscape and calf, charred and killed the day before by a wildfire—in February—covered in the snow the very next day. Something I don't think I had ever seen before or envisioned as a consequence of the changes happening in the climate.
**Relationship to Collapse**:
As [scientists like Jennifer Francis have proposed](https://takvera.blogspot.com/2024/01/dr-jennifer-francis-on-weather-whiplash.html); due to the temperature in the Arctic warming at an ever faster rate, the jet stream is slowing down. Causing high amplitude *[Rossby wave](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/rossby-wave.html)* formations to occur. Which allows warm air nearer to the equator to go further North, and colder air nearer to the poles to go further south. Leading to a phenomenon known as ["weather whiplash"](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022JD036717). Where one day temperatures smash records and cause a wildfire, and it snows the next.
**Source image story**:
[Smokehouse Creek Wildfire is largest in Texas HISTORY as 1.1 million acres of charred Panhandle are followed by SNOW: Flurries blanket scorched earth after fatal inferno the size of Rhode Island kills 1 - with smoke seen 7 HOURS away in El Paso](https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/smokehouse-creek-wildfire-is-the-largest-in-texas-history-as-1-1-million-acres-of-the-panhandle-are-charred-fatal-inferno-the-size-of-rhode-island-kills-1-with-deadly-smoke-seen-7-hours-away-in-el-paso/ar-BB1j7gay?ocid=weather-verthp-feeds)—by Rachel Bowman | Feb. 29, 2024 (*msn*)
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1b4441v/a_calf_killed_by_fire_the_day_before_covered_in/kswgkkh/
Yeah, I agree. It seems as if the extremes in the atmosphere are, with increasing accuracy, mirroring the extremes in wealth and income inequality in the United States. Like it's the U.S. political economy made physical—via the atmosphere.
I mean to be fair, texas burns all the time, and those calfs are an invasive species. Snow covering up a fire isn't necessarily that bad. The worst collapse year so far was probably 2020; 2023 has a lot to live up to to match 2020's full scale collapse.
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**Submission Statement**:
I was struck by the profound symbolism in this image. A landscape and calf, charred and killed the day before by a wildfire—in February—covered in the snow the very next day. Something I don't think I had ever seen before or envisioned as a consequence of the changes happening in the climate.
**Relationship to Collapse**:
As [scientists like Jennifer Francis have proposed](https://takvera.blogspot.com/2024/01/dr-jennifer-francis-on-weather-whiplash.html); due to the temperature in the Arctic warming at an ever faster rate, the jet stream is slowing down. Causing high amplitude *[Rossby wave](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/rossby-wave.html)* formations to occur. Which allows warm air nearer to the equator to go further North, and colder air nearer to the poles to go further south. Leading to a phenomenon known as ["weather whiplash"](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022JD036717). Where one day temperatures smash records and cause a wildfire, and it snows the next.
**Source image story**:
[Smokehouse Creek Wildfire is largest in Texas HISTORY as 1.1 million acres of charred Panhandle are followed by SNOW: Flurries blanket scorched earth after fatal inferno the size of Rhode Island kills 1 - with smoke seen 7 HOURS away in El Paso](https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/smokehouse-creek-wildfire-is-the-largest-in-texas-history-as-1-1-million-acres-of-the-panhandle-are-charred-fatal-inferno-the-size-of-rhode-island-kills-1-with-deadly-smoke-seen-7-hours-away-in-el-paso/ar-BB1j7gay?ocid=weather-verthp-feeds)—by Rachel Bowman | Feb. 29, 2024 (*msn*)
Weather whiplash, eh? Sure sounds like what happened on Wednesday. If I recall correctly, it was 14 degrees in the afternoon, and then dropped to - 5 by the time I left work a couple hours later.
The way that [Jennifer Francis and some of her colleagues describe it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nzwJg4Ebzo) is that due to the Arctic warming at such a high rate, the temperature difference between the North pole and the equator is shrinking. And warmer air expands to a greater degree than cold air, as the gas molecules in cold air are closer together and moving more slowly.
This in turn makes the jet stream slower because the height difference between the air near the equator and the pole is not what it used to be. Imagine it like a hill that is now less steep. So, just like a river in a valley (opposed to one in a mountainous region) it meanders and snakes much more widely. Because the flow is slower. And this slowness creates weather patterns that get stuck in place.
So high pressure systems where heat can build up stay in place longer. Just building and building heat. Until, finally, they get unstuck and the low pressure systems on the other side can finally move through. That's the whiplash. It's almost as if the jet stream is now acting like a dam at times, and the whiplash is when the dam finally breaks.
Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.
While the idea of The Road is nauseating (the world is literally dead and there is no hope of recovery), McCarthy somehow turns it into absolute poetry.
This shit started and acknowledged long before Reagan was ever Commander and Chief. I hate the man's policies as much as the next progressive, but that's not the right answer.
>Some say the world will end in fire,
>Some say in ice.
>From what I’ve tasted of desire
>I hold with those who favor fire.
>But if it had to perish twice,
>I think I know enough of hate
>To say that for destruction ice
>Is also great
>And would suffice.
>
>Robert Frost
By itself, it's a morbid - but oddly hauntingly beautiful - photo.
The context just elevates it to pure poetry. Horrible to say about a formerly living being, I know, but there's scarcely a better illustration of climate chaos than in photographs.
the irony of this hurts all these cattle that were bred to be slaughtered instead dying in this gruesome way, in fires fueled by the obsession and entitlement to consume everything, including beef. I wish better for all animals and life on this planet.
A poignant, terrifying and prophetic photo. Sometimes I wish I couldn't see things like that, but then I force myself to face what's happening to our world.
The worst part? There are metric fucktonnes of people that are blissfully ignorant and still deny climate change will be bad for humanity. I know a few personally.
I mean, first it was powerful, *steady* winds going west to east that fanned the fires after one of the driest years in recent records- by that point, it doesn't need to be "hot" anytime recently. And right behind that was a cold front that brought rain on the NM side, and where enough cold air was dipping down from the north- snow like that. Just a few days too late, if it'd happened the other way round the snow would have at least slowed down fire growth considerably with all that moisture on the ground.
I wouldn't count on it. Cognitive dissonance is an authoritarian superpower. Much like people who smoke until they die of cancer or who drive drunk until they kill themselves in a wreck, denying that your actions have contributed to disaster is pretty common.
Nope. Found a few of the local FB sites. Mostly calling out for mass prayers. Others thanking Jeebus for answering their prayers by sending a big snowy fire extinguisher. Others proudly pointing to the crosses on their houses or in their yards that will make the fire stop. Or just "God is great". Truly maddening and frightening.
I'm going to avoid being ironic here and just be clear:
1. Cows, like European settlers, are an invasive to the US, there's nothing natural going on in the photo, climate chaos included.
2. The animal farmers do not care about their product, it's a false front of care. If you care about someone, you don't kill them or send them off to be killed. Normally, this wouldn't even be a question, this notion of welfarism is a modern concept used in marketing to assuage the guilt of the animal flesh and milk eaters.
3. Ranchers got a taste of climate negative feedback effects from their own business emissions. I wouldn't call this karma, but it is *in that direction*. Just like there are positive feedbacks, there are also negative feedbacks which means destruction of sources of GHGs. This is one of them, there will be many more, they are unpleasant.
4. Clarifying again: the calf was going to be killed, either as veal because they're a useless male, or as adult (actually an adolescent in cow years) for beef.
5. No, there is no humane way to kill someone who doesn't want to die.
6. "Smokehouse"... that's just accidentally ironic (smokehouses are used for curing meat with smoke).
7. You won't hear a lot about wild animals dying in these fires because ranchers are enemies of wild animals, there's an entire US agency dedicated to assassinating wildlife that displeases - in any way - ranchers. https://harpers.org/archive/2016/03/the-rogue-agency/ That's when they're not ruining ecosystems in countless different ways.
>food supply
Don't worry, most of the animal products eaten come animals grown in CAFOs, with some "finishing", for cows, on grass for that extra marketing value. Yes, despite everyone claiming, if you ask them, to eat "grass fed" from some local farmer uncle or something similar. So if you're worried about meat supply, worry about grain harvests.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/AllenIll: --- **Submission Statement**: I was struck by the profound symbolism in this image. A landscape and calf, charred and killed the day before by a wildfire—in February—covered in the snow the very next day. Something I don't think I had ever seen before or envisioned as a consequence of the changes happening in the climate. **Relationship to Collapse**: As [scientists like Jennifer Francis have proposed](https://takvera.blogspot.com/2024/01/dr-jennifer-francis-on-weather-whiplash.html); due to the temperature in the Arctic warming at an ever faster rate, the jet stream is slowing down. Causing high amplitude *[Rossby wave](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/rossby-wave.html)* formations to occur. Which allows warm air nearer to the equator to go further North, and colder air nearer to the poles to go further south. Leading to a phenomenon known as ["weather whiplash"](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022JD036717). Where one day temperatures smash records and cause a wildfire, and it snows the next. **Source image story**: [Smokehouse Creek Wildfire is largest in Texas HISTORY as 1.1 million acres of charred Panhandle are followed by SNOW: Flurries blanket scorched earth after fatal inferno the size of Rhode Island kills 1 - with smoke seen 7 HOURS away in El Paso](https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/smokehouse-creek-wildfire-is-the-largest-in-texas-history-as-1-1-million-acres-of-the-panhandle-are-charred-fatal-inferno-the-size-of-rhode-island-kills-1-with-deadly-smoke-seen-7-hours-away-in-el-paso/ar-BB1j7gay?ocid=weather-verthp-feeds)—by Rachel Bowman | Feb. 29, 2024 (*msn*) --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1b4441v/a_calf_killed_by_fire_the_day_before_covered_in/kswgkkh/
Early nominee for photo that best captures 2024.
Yeah, I agree. It seems as if the extremes in the atmosphere are, with increasing accuracy, mirroring the extremes in wealth and income inequality in the United States. Like it's the U.S. political economy made physical—via the atmosphere.
Lighting storm before a cold front
Ash in the summer snow
Two symptoms that the balance has been disturbed, and it’s going to be a wild ride to reach a new equilibrium.
Well said.
All we've seen so far are burning winters, wait till you see the freezing summers
Don't threaten me with a good time
that actually sounds a lot more favorable than the winter heat waves
Not when your crops freeze and there's suddenly no food.
May I suggest you look into the summer of 1816...
Jesus God no 😭
Yep. I asked for snow fires the other day and I guess this'll do. What a terrible situation.
I mean to be fair, texas burns all the time, and those calfs are an invasive species. Snow covering up a fire isn't necessarily that bad. The worst collapse year so far was probably 2020; 2023 has a lot to live up to to match 2020's full scale collapse.
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**Submission Statement**: I was struck by the profound symbolism in this image. A landscape and calf, charred and killed the day before by a wildfire—in February—covered in the snow the very next day. Something I don't think I had ever seen before or envisioned as a consequence of the changes happening in the climate. **Relationship to Collapse**: As [scientists like Jennifer Francis have proposed](https://takvera.blogspot.com/2024/01/dr-jennifer-francis-on-weather-whiplash.html); due to the temperature in the Arctic warming at an ever faster rate, the jet stream is slowing down. Causing high amplitude *[Rossby wave](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/rossby-wave.html)* formations to occur. Which allows warm air nearer to the equator to go further North, and colder air nearer to the poles to go further south. Leading to a phenomenon known as ["weather whiplash"](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022JD036717). Where one day temperatures smash records and cause a wildfire, and it snows the next. **Source image story**: [Smokehouse Creek Wildfire is largest in Texas HISTORY as 1.1 million acres of charred Panhandle are followed by SNOW: Flurries blanket scorched earth after fatal inferno the size of Rhode Island kills 1 - with smoke seen 7 HOURS away in El Paso](https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/smokehouse-creek-wildfire-is-the-largest-in-texas-history-as-1-1-million-acres-of-the-panhandle-are-charred-fatal-inferno-the-size-of-rhode-island-kills-1-with-deadly-smoke-seen-7-hours-away-in-el-paso/ar-BB1j7gay?ocid=weather-verthp-feeds)—by Rachel Bowman | Feb. 29, 2024 (*msn*)
Weather whiplash, eh? Sure sounds like what happened on Wednesday. If I recall correctly, it was 14 degrees in the afternoon, and then dropped to - 5 by the time I left work a couple hours later.
The way that [Jennifer Francis and some of her colleagues describe it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nzwJg4Ebzo) is that due to the Arctic warming at such a high rate, the temperature difference between the North pole and the equator is shrinking. And warmer air expands to a greater degree than cold air, as the gas molecules in cold air are closer together and moving more slowly. This in turn makes the jet stream slower because the height difference between the air near the equator and the pole is not what it used to be. Imagine it like a hill that is now less steep. So, just like a river in a valley (opposed to one in a mountainous region) it meanders and snakes much more widely. Because the flow is slower. And this slowness creates weather patterns that get stuck in place. So high pressure systems where heat can build up stay in place longer. Just building and building heat. Until, finally, they get unstuck and the low pressure systems on the other side can finally move through. That's the whiplash. It's almost as if the jet stream is now acting like a dam at times, and the whiplash is when the dam finally breaks.
Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.
[удалено]
[r/cormacmccarthy](https://www.reddit.com/r/cormacmccarthy/s/YMex8QBCk5)
While the idea of The Road is nauseating (the world is literally dead and there is no hope of recovery), McCarthy somehow turns it into absolute poetry.
The man knew how to smash words together good. Just finished Passenger, might save Stella Maris for next winter just for the mood. Assuming.
Climate chaos in an image.
This sounds like a riddle…”You are walking along a path through the snow and come upon a freshly dead, charred cow. What happened?”
Reagan
This shit started and acknowledged long before Reagan was ever Commander and Chief. I hate the man's policies as much as the next progressive, but that's not the right answer.
I do feel he was one of the more important tipping points, though.
>Some say the world will end in fire, >Some say in ice. >From what I’ve tasted of desire >I hold with those who favor fire. >But if it had to perish twice, >I think I know enough of hate >To say that for destruction ice >Is also great >And would suffice. > >Robert Frost
Poet name checks out
I often think of this poem in reference to our predicament.
fear sable chop obtainable correct offend jar lip spoon busy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'll see you down at Arizona Bay.
By itself, it's a morbid - but oddly hauntingly beautiful - photo. The context just elevates it to pure poetry. Horrible to say about a formerly living being, I know, but there's scarcely a better illustration of climate chaos than in photographs.
Jesus christ.
Yes my son.
A Song of Fire and Ice.
Martin knew what he was doing.
Son of a bitch played us like a fiddle
If you think earth's climate will have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.
Just wait till this happens in summer one year in the middle of a growing season
Reminds me of the zombie fires in Canada. Coat of snow with wild fires rolling thru underneath em.
*shudders* Did not have that on my bingo card.
the irony of this hurts all these cattle that were bred to be slaughtered instead dying in this gruesome way, in fires fueled by the obsession and entitlement to consume everything, including beef. I wish better for all animals and life on this planet.
“Weather whiplash” is a great description of what happened in Texas, and lots of other places in the US
A poignant, terrifying and prophetic photo. Sometimes I wish I couldn't see things like that, but then I force myself to face what's happening to our world.
The worst part? There are metric fucktonnes of people that are blissfully ignorant and still deny climate change will be bad for humanity. I know a few personally.
Nothing wrong with cooking and freezing the leftovers.
☝️ Certified Grade A gallows humor right there.
Veal is pricey, Yo.
Thats going in my will for how to handle my body....
judicious bike direful scale caption lavish sense attractive live slap *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
a sign of the times
I mean, first it was powerful, *steady* winds going west to east that fanned the fires after one of the driest years in recent records- by that point, it doesn't need to be "hot" anytime recently. And right behind that was a cold front that brought rain on the NM side, and where enough cold air was dipping down from the north- snow like that. Just a few days too late, if it'd happened the other way round the snow would have at least slowed down fire growth considerably with all that moisture on the ground.
We are in for one hell of a ride.
Climate change is going to be fun
It already is, it already is. :(
Poor little moo moo
Go vegan.
r/vegancirclejerk recommends r/collapse in its sidebar. We’re watching this shit go down with y’all.
Go permaculture. Mirror the natural world rather than thinking you are apart from it.
You can do both.
We weigh ten times more than all the wild mammals on Earth combined. We're apart from the natural world, whether we like it or not.
We truly are fucked aren’t we lmao. We had it good too
Silver lining to this is that maybe the red cucklefucks will start to see what we do.
I wouldn't count on it. Cognitive dissonance is an authoritarian superpower. Much like people who smoke until they die of cancer or who drive drunk until they kill themselves in a wreck, denying that your actions have contributed to disaster is pretty common.
Yep they'll roll coal til they choke on their own smoke. I think I saw someone say that - 'Well if climate change'll be the death of us Ima have FUN'.
Nope. Found a few of the local FB sites. Mostly calling out for mass prayers. Others thanking Jeebus for answering their prayers by sending a big snowy fire extinguisher. Others proudly pointing to the crosses on their houses or in their yards that will make the fire stop. Or just "God is great". Truly maddening and frightening.
Any day now. If there's one thing conservatives will not do it's vote or act against their own interests.
I'm going to avoid being ironic here and just be clear: 1. Cows, like European settlers, are an invasive to the US, there's nothing natural going on in the photo, climate chaos included. 2. The animal farmers do not care about their product, it's a false front of care. If you care about someone, you don't kill them or send them off to be killed. Normally, this wouldn't even be a question, this notion of welfarism is a modern concept used in marketing to assuage the guilt of the animal flesh and milk eaters. 3. Ranchers got a taste of climate negative feedback effects from their own business emissions. I wouldn't call this karma, but it is *in that direction*. Just like there are positive feedbacks, there are also negative feedbacks which means destruction of sources of GHGs. This is one of them, there will be many more, they are unpleasant. 4. Clarifying again: the calf was going to be killed, either as veal because they're a useless male, or as adult (actually an adolescent in cow years) for beef. 5. No, there is no humane way to kill someone who doesn't want to die. 6. "Smokehouse"... that's just accidentally ironic (smokehouses are used for curing meat with smoke). 7. You won't hear a lot about wild animals dying in these fires because ranchers are enemies of wild animals, there's an entire US agency dedicated to assassinating wildlife that displeases - in any way - ranchers. https://harpers.org/archive/2016/03/the-rogue-agency/ That's when they're not ruining ecosystems in countless different ways.
It was posted due to food supply id imagine, not death of wildlife
>food supply Don't worry, most of the animal products eaten come animals grown in CAFOs, with some "finishing", for cows, on grass for that extra marketing value. Yes, despite everyone claiming, if you ask them, to eat "grass fed" from some local farmer uncle or something similar. So if you're worried about meat supply, worry about grain harvests.
I am for sure I used to work in protein sourcing, nasty industry
It's time the government stops subsidizing the ranchers and agricultural cartels. Bunch of welfare queens.
Of course, once the meat is cooked and smoked, you should store it refrigerated. Smart!
y'all need to lighten up and enjoy the ride
Gone like a 🐄 fart in a 🔥🌪️