Belle had several miscarriages and unsuccessful IVF cycles before eventually becoming pregnant with her daughter naturally.

It was a baby she and her husband had waited long and hard to have.

But shortly into the ride of parenting, Belle says she was asking herself: "Why the hell did I try so hard to have this child?"

Feelings of regret began to increase as her daughter, now a tween, aged.

Interesting saultory tale as it's rarley discussed.

You've heard a pub with no beer, but what about a town with no pub?

That's the situation locals in outback South Australia were facing after the doors to the Yunta Hotel closed a couple of months ago.

That was before Jacki and Rob Williams moved to town.

Love these stories :). alas our small village in rural Tassie has seen the pub doors closed and up for sale for 5 years.

What a mess :(

Each year, tens to hundreds of thousands of giant Australian cuttlefish assemble off the coast of Whyalla, in the upper Spencer Gulf, to breed – the only place globally where cuttlefish gather en masse.

In surveys dating back to 1998, populations ranged from a low of 13,500 in 2013 to a high of 247,000 in 2020. More than 63,000 were recorded in 2025.

Global food prices have hit their highest level in three and a half years, as summer heatwaves and conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East push up crop costs.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) index of food commodity prices rose last month to its highest level since January 2023, after a jump in prices for cereals, sugar and vegetable oil.

Am a sort of digital nomad (travel OS 8 months a year, home for 4) , and my Surface Pro 7 (running LMDE) just crapped itself while I am travelling. Hard to do any diagnostics while travelling and it won't boot from my LMDE USB thumb drive.

I had thought to replace it with either a System 76 or Framework when i got home and while I have never owned an Apple product, perhaps even a Macbook Air as there is always Apple repair places everywhere.

And god help me, I'd run MacOS on the Apple

The Philippines condemned as racist a video posted by the state-run China Daily depicting Filipinos as monkeys, saying on Friday it had lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing over the "offensive, distressing and unacceptable" imagery.

An Indian oil firm, Nayara Energy, has reportedly sold petroleum to Russia as Ukrainian attacks continue to target oil refineries across the country, triggering a fuel crisis.

On Wednesday, industry sources told Reuters that at least 60,000 metric tonnes of petrol had been dispatched from India to Russia and that two oil tankers, with loads of 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes each, had been sent.

Shilling a book but some might be interested

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/environment/p/2149274/denial-is-back-in-vogue-as-australia-leads-climate-talks-its-beyond-time-we-took-the-is

Politics is disconnecting from long-held assumptions at historic speed and no one knows where the great unhinging will take us. On the climate crisis, denial is back in vogue – depending on what the algorithm feeds you.

One Nation’s surge in the polls suggests, for now at least, it is vying to be the most popular political party in the country. It does not accept the overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming and that extreme weather is getting worse. Instead, it argues the climate change department should be abolished because – in the strawiest of strawman arguments – it hasn’t changed the climate.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/environment/p/2149274/denial-is-back-in-vogue-as-australia-leads-climate-talks-its-beyond-time-we-took-the-is

Politics is disconnecting from long-held assumptions at historic speed and no one knows where the great unhinging will take us. On the climate crisis, denial is back in vogue – depending on what the algorithm feeds you.

One Nation’s surge in the polls suggests, for now at least, it is vying to be the most popular political party in the country. It does not accept the overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming and that extreme weather is getting worse. Instead, it argues the climate change department should be abolished because – in the strawiest of strawman arguments – it hasn’t changed the climate.

Politics is disconnecting from long-held assumptions at historic speed and no one knows where the great unhinging will take us. On the climate crisis, denial is back in vogue – depending on what the algorithm feeds you.

One Nation’s surge in the polls suggests, for now at least, it is vying to be the most popular political party in the country. It does not accept the overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming and that extreme weather is getting worse. Instead, it argues the climate change department should be abolished because – in the strawiest of strawman arguments – it hasn’t changed the climate.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/37157842

For instance, it is easy to see that growth—which has been a bedrock companion of modernity—cannot continue for much longer. So, why try? Fossil fuel use will necessarily decline, forming a pulse in time. Human population—temporarily inflated by agriculture’s heavy dependence on fossil fuels and other rapidly depleting gifts like aquifers and soils—will likely follow suit, exacerbated by climate change. A look at ore quality over time confirms that the low-hanging fruit is long gone, so that it becomes increasingly harder and more ecologically destructive to maintain the past century’s sprint in materials extraction—necessary for renewable energy technology. Recycling also has quantitative limits: only a few dozen cycles are practical before the recovered resource dwindles to insignificance. A forward, literal extrapolation of global ecological trends of the last century would leave us with no forests, wild land mammals or insects within a few human lifetimes—especially as firewood and hunting might offset faltering energy and agricultural outputs.

We’ve witnessed and suffered immense losses and deep heartache for wildlife, ecosystems, and our communities. There was a time when the dire potential consequences of climate change and environmental destruction were warnings, calls from scientists and experts for increased and urgent action. Now an unsettling possibility feels like a disturbing reality

The decisions of our political leaders, who continue to approve fossil fuel project expansions and widespread land clearing and habitat destruction, are coming home to roost in ever more predictable, catastrophic and emotionally confronting ways. A series of recent events spanning the southern part of the continent provide a stark and sobering illustration.

Disappointing that there is no mention of the asshats electing these shitstains

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/collapse/p/1794000/senate-committee-features-climate-disinformation-the-atlas-network-and-dr-karl-s-clash

In Monday's hearing, the lobby group Coal Australia defended sending almost $4 million to "Australians for Prosperity" last financial year, which is a third-party group that attacked Labor, Greens and teal independent candidates during the 2025 federal election campaign.

Stuart Bocking, a former 2GB talkback radio host turned Coal Australia chief executive, denied it was a form of "astroturfing", telling senators that it was often easier to pay third-party groups to run political campaigns on one's behalf these days, because it left lobby groups to focus on other things.

"We're not engaged in astroturfing," he said.

Uh huh

The Atlas Network, first formed in 1981, partners with more than 500 free-market think tanks around the world, with 10 of them in Australia and New Zealand.

The ABC recently published a large piece which explains the history of the Atlas Network and what it is.

Dr Walker said Australians had little idea of the extent of the coordinated effort to prevent attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to renewable forms of energy.

He explained how fossil fuel companies have funded certain think tanks globally for decades to push climate denial, anti-Indigenous rights and anti-renewable messages, a technique that has helped to obscure where ideas and money are coming from.

....

And finally, science communicator Karl Kruszelnicki (Dr Karl) appeared at the Senate committee on Monday.

In an attempt to establish common factual ground with One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts, Dr Karl asked Roberts if he accepted that global temperatures were rising.

Their interaction illustrated how public discussions about the science of climate change get bogged down so easily:

Dr Karl: Do you agree that the climate records show that the last 10 years have been the hottest on record worldwide?

Senator Roberts: The last 10 years in Australia have been cooler than the 1880s and 1890s in Australia.

Dr Karl: Hang on … Worldwide. Do you agree that the last 10 years have been the hottest years on record worldwide?

Senator Roberts: No I don't

The fuck :)

Dr Karl: I feel like I'm talking to a school child who says seven times two is not 14, but instead seven times two is a bicycle divided by the square root of a banana.

Roberts: That's one way of making out that I'm a fool.

You do that all by yourself

Dr Karl: But all the scientists disagree with you. 99.999 per cent of the scientists disagree with you.

Roberts: So now you're into consensus, which is a political tool.

Dr Karl: Hang on, consensus is a political tool? … So if all the scientists agree that seven times two is 14, that's a political tool?

Roberts: That's obviously a stupid comment, in my opinion.

In Monday's hearing, the lobby group Coal Australia defended sending almost $4 million to "Australians for Prosperity" last financial year, which is a third-party group that attacked Labor, Greens and teal independent candidates during the 2025 federal election campaign.

Stuart Bocking, a former 2GB talkback radio host turned Coal Australia chief executive, denied it was a form of "astroturfing", telling senators that it was often easier to pay third-party groups to run political campaigns on one's behalf these days, because it left lobby groups to focus on other things.

"We're not engaged in astroturfing," he said.

Uh huh

The Atlas Network, first formed in 1981, partners with more than 500 free-market think tanks around the world, with 10 of them in Australia and New Zealand.

The ABC recently published a large piece which explains the history of the Atlas Network and what it is.

Dr Walker said Australians had little idea of the extent of the coordinated effort to prevent attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to renewable forms of energy.

He explained how fossil fuel companies have funded certain think tanks globally for decades to push climate denial, anti-Indigenous rights and anti-renewable messages, a technique that has helped to obscure where ideas and money are coming from.

....

And finally, science communicator Karl Kruszelnicki (Dr Karl) appeared at the Senate committee on Monday.

In an attempt to establish common factual ground with One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts, Dr Karl asked Roberts if he accepted that global temperatures were rising.

Their interaction illustrated how public discussions about the science of climate change get bogged down so easily:

Dr Karl: Do you agree that the climate records show that the last 10 years have been the hottest on record worldwide?

Senator Roberts: The last 10 years in Australia have been cooler than the 1880s and 1890s in Australia.

Dr Karl: Hang on … Worldwide. Do you agree that the last 10 years have been the hottest years on record worldwide?

Senator Roberts: No I don't

The fuck :)

Dr Karl: I feel like I'm talking to a school child who says seven times two is not 14, but instead seven times two is a bicycle divided by the square root of a banana.

Roberts: That's one way of making out that I'm a fool.

You do that all by yourself

Dr Karl: But all the scientists disagree with you. 99.999 per cent of the scientists disagree with you.

Roberts: So now you're into consensus, which is a political tool.

Dr Karl: Hang on, consensus is a political tool? … So if all the scientists agree that seven times two is 14, that's a political tool?

Roberts: That's obviously a stupid comment, in my opinion.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/collapse/p/1789913/sea-level-rise-worries-most-hawai-i-residents-survey-finds

Most Hawaiʻi residents believe sea level rise is already affecting the state, expect major impacts within their lifetimes, and support significant changes to how and where development occurs. At the same time, many remain uncertain about how large-scale adaptation should be financed.

Most Hawaiʻi residents believe sea level rise is already affecting the state, expect major impacts within their lifetimes, and support significant changes to how and where development occurs. At the same time, many remain uncertain about how large-scale adaptation should be financed.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/environment/p/1789901/intense-heatwaves-directly-threaten-crops-and-native-species-heres-what-we-can-do

During Australia’s unprecedented heatwave in late January, air temperatures reached 50°C in inland South Australia.

Days of sustained heat and hot nights did real damage. A flying fox colony was all but wiped out in South Australia, while Western Australian mango growers suffered major crop losses as fruit literally boiled.

These increasingly extreme heatwaves are now posing a real threat to the crops and livestock on which we rely, as well as Australia’s wildlife and ecosystems.

But in coming decades, intensifying climate change will push summer temperatures beyond the records set this summer.

Everything in Australia has to cope with heat. But the continent’s wildlife and peoples are not prepared for the heat to come,

Welp, it is why we moved to Tassie 3 years ago. Met a guy 2 days ago from Townsville who said him and his family had enough and were in the process of moving down, the heat/humidity were unbearable back in T'ville.

During Australia’s unprecedented heatwave in late January, air temperatures reached 50°C in inland South Australia.

Days of sustained heat and hot nights did real damage. A flying fox colony was all but wiped out in South Australia, while Western Australian mango growers suffered major crop losses as fruit literally boiled.

These increasingly extreme heatwaves are now posing a real threat to the crops and livestock on which we rely, as well as Australia’s wildlife and ecosystems.

But in coming decades, intensifying climate change will push summer temperatures beyond the records set this summer.

Everything in Australia has to cope with heat. But the continent’s wildlife and peoples are not prepared for the heat to come,

Welp, it is why we moved to Tassie 3 years ago. Met a guy 2 days ago from Townsville who said him and his family had enough and were in the process of moving down, the heat/humidity were unbearable back in T'ville.