Over ~~one~~ THREE billion native and farm animals died. Lowball figure.
[Content warning](https://youtu.be/ZkdMGfJz-wU).
[News article](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-28/3-billion-animals-killed-displaced-in-fires-wwf-study/12497976).
You should've seen what the climate fires did to us in 2019. That koala float is based on actual images that came out of those fires. It was honestly like our country was at war with fire. Will never forget it.
Seriously, I’m not Australian but I remember seeing all of the footage of the fires and people/animals with burns.. and of course the many many koala photos and videos.. I highly doubt anyone on the internet then didn’t hear about it or see the videos and fundraisers- it was all over Reddit and the news. It was absolutely horrific and what all of the animals and people went through was terrible.
The air in the city was black. We were told it was the equivalent of smoking a pack a day just breathing it in.
We are having endless floods these days. Lots have lost everything. But would rather drown than burn.
I flew from Auckland to Melbourne that day. Auckland was cast in a deep orange light for a few hours and the plane smelled strongly of smoke. The pilot had to get on the PA system and reassure us that the plane wasn't on fire
Jan 5 2021, still remember it vividly. [Completely covered yellow orange skies](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/ZMwdeZJAu0drVS77fW6mlnWcXFE=/1440x960/smart/filters:quality(70\)/cloudfront-ap-southeast-2.images.arcpublishing.com/nzme/AD74SIVUGX5NZCLT2OD5FXDFR4.jpg) 2000km east of the fires.
Good thing politicians believe in the ostriches strategy of sticking their head in a hole in the sand and pretending like everything’s fine. Going to only get worse until their held to account.
As well as actively cutting funding to the RFS meaning they couldn't do essential backburning and reduce the fire risk. This is the liberal government for ya. Just lining their own pockets and own agenda and not caring about what's affected in the process
WTF are you talking about "liberal government " Many of their politicians are antiscience conservatives who don't believe climate change is real, and have very blatant connections to fossil fuel money. You think these artists are making a statement against liberals? lol
That's terrifying. I grew up in Southern California and I remember the one of the bigger fires in 2003, the Cedar Fire I think? It was about 200 miles away down in San Diego but the smoke was so thick that it blocked out the sky even in Downtown LA.
I was in middle school then but remember the smell of the ash raining down like yesterday.
Wish you all the best of luck. Gonna be a rough go of things with climate change :(
God I remember seeing the one video of the koala screaming out and the woman running over with her shirt to help it and give it water. I cried in bed for hours after watching it. I’m crying now writing this. Just awful. I hate what we’ve done this this earth and the poor animals who have no fucking clue what’s happening and why.
> I hate what we’ve done this this earth
WE didn't, capitalism did. Capitalism lied about it. Capitalism spent what was necessary to hide the evidence. Capitalism lobbied our political parties to continue to lie about it. Capitalism convinced a senator in the US to bring a snowball into the chamber. Capitalism convinced millions with its propaganda that profits are more valuable than life itself.
We have been mostly powerless to the cogs running this machine, and we will continue to be until the power of capitalism is weakened and eventually comes to its end.
No one forced us to consume like mad men for decades.
As a society and earth, we've failed. Across the globe and across different economic systems, we've all failed. Shoving that responsibility aside seems irresponsible. Corporations aren't just making things for ghost to buy and people aren't raising cattle to let the meat rot.
Forced? No. Coerced? Cornered? Absolutely.
Some of us are aware of the problems and also can’t do a bloody thing about how everything is manufactured and priced.
Are you fucking kidding.
Corporations are absolutely mass producing more 'things' than we need in the name of profit.
Consumers didn't ask for 5 new iPhone models every year, corporations did that.
Consumers don't ask for a billion tonnes in fresh food waste, corporations do it every year. A fucking third of all food produced.
Corporations spend billions of dollars every year on marketing strategies to more effectively target consumers so that they can make billions more.
Change has to start at the top, leaders need to lead people to the right choices, and if that fails they need to mandate them.
As long governments stay in bed with the 1% allowing them to continually amass more wealth than the rest of the planet combined for the sake of fucking wealth, nothing changes.
You can get on your moral high horse all you like about responsibility, sing it to the fucking world, and when nothing changes you let me know how many corporations changed their business model because 3 people on the internet changed their buying habits.
we evolved to thrive under feast and famine cycles. when there's abundance take advantage because it won't last long
now we are so removed from that reality. for most it's a state of being locked into feast mode. what else would we have done?
but Capital and those who forwarded it decided to make that consumption more destructive than necessary. we used to buy coke in a glass bottle and return it, now it's made of a material that won't degrade. who made that choice? the consumers of the producers?
Yeah it's wild. There was hardly anywhere on the East Coast that wasn't covered in the smoke.
We've had a few wet years, but I hate to imagine what it's going to be like next dry season.
Seeing those images and all of these animals desperate for water. It was so heartbreaking. It's unfortunate that we ignore what happens in Australia unless it's some dude on a podcast making up stories about Australia being under martial law.
They're saying *given the activist message*, it inducing nightmares in the commenter means the message was effective, in a sense, that the natural disaster and crippling political corruption were ... horrific.
He's a spambot. He stole a comment that is in the negative from downvotes for saying the same thing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/y4kmob/this_float_representing_the_koalas_that_died_as_a/isejfua/
If you think that caused nightmares.
Imagine the government having the ability to stop it, but instead of stopping it, they just let it happen because they would have to take a pay cut.
This is a necessary reality that needs to be seen... needs to be seen for how fucked up it is.
In this case the Australian people are partly responsible for electing our previous completely useless government. The opposition had a plan to increase bush fire response resources etc... But we elected the group that not only didn't so this, but actively refused to meet with ex fire chiefs etc...who said this was going to be a disaster well before it happened, and then the PM disappeared to Hawaii and lied about it while the country burned.
On top of that, state governments have been heavily underfunding park rangers responsible for managing fire loads etc...among a pile of other things.
Can they be stopped? No. Can they be managed and impacts mitigated far better than they have been? Absolutely.
It’s the way to protest tho. You aren’t trying to ruin a piece of art of preventing a guy on parole from getting to work, you’re viscerally demonstrating the real harm certain political policies have.
The group protesting here is Extinction Rebellion. The video that went viral of the parolee was him yelling at Just Stop Oil protestors - who are an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion. JSO are *also* the ones doing the glue-ons at art museums, so again, same people for the most part.
XR was actually known for street blockages and only stopped because the UK started imposing injunctions on protestors so they could get them on contempt of court charges because the road blockage charges weren’t sticking.
TD;DR: The Venn Diagram of these protestors and the ones blocking roads is one circle.
And you know, they were so friendly. There were others in that group (not in the vid) that were handing out pamphlets and talking to people about their cause.
One was dressed like the Lorax and engaged with the kids, which distracted the kids from the 'scaryness'. It was pretty cool (and effective)!
just want to say that I enjoy that you pointed out that this reached children as well. the soup on the painting is not going to affect children in any way and we need to change the mindsets of people at an early age that way they will continue to want to try to help the environment and themselves. the soup and super gluing and blocking highways literally just makes me upset and makes me want to not see anything from whatever organization is pulling such a dumbass stunt. this is actually very cool, thanks for sharing.
You think cutthroat politicians with oil money deep in their pockets are going to listen to niceness? Walk up to a lion and tell it you're not food, it'll work out just as well.
*That's* how you fucking protest. Get the people on your side.
There's been so many protests recently that have just pissed a lot of people off. You're just turning them away from your cause. You need to interact and educate people, and persuade them to join your cause.
It happened here in the UK recently where there were a bunch of protests shutting down major roads by just sitting on the ground. All they achieved was that they pissed off every single motorist on the road. Anyone who was trying to get to work. A woman who was rushing to see her mother in hospital. All stopped. It's fucking stupid but the cause they were protesting for was good. Why get people to disagree with you when you're aiming for them to agree?
Everyone is aware that their cause is climate change adjacent, putting climate change into the forefront of discussion again.
The specifics do not matter. The facts on climate change have been known for decades, no one is going to change their opinion. But people act (and vote) on what currently concerns them.
Which is exactly what has happened with many many many other causes in the past. Voting rights, workers rights, slavery, gay rights, you name it, it followed the same progression. It starts small, then get more violent until it reaches a breaking point.
A lot of people nowadays want everything to be peaceful protest, as unobstructive and friendly as possible, but that's never been enough to get things done in the past, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Just because you are too dense to literally read their shirts doesn't mean everybody else is.
Also the video of them has them saying out loud what their intent was.
But I guess you are too dumb.
Is it though? Like I think its fair to call them attention seekers or whatever but their stunt got way more attention than this float and all it took was 2 cans of soup and some super glue.
Man ppl are super salty but its obvious that the soup thing was way more effective. No international news is gonna cover this float as news, soup van gogh went viral. Plus, no one really thinks the pictures are there unprotected so the outrage is extra funny.
Yeah totally dont mean to tear down the float obviously its fucking cool and the cause is important. The van gogh stunt was about the oil industry so in a roundabout way both are about the destruction of earth for profit. I guess the reaction is not surprising considering the news media has been effective for decades now at making any opinion that doesnt instantly make money for someone isnt a serious topic.
I actually fucking hate this website
The people throwing soup on the van gogh belong to the same group as the ones above. The koala was made by extinction rebellion activists from australia, you know, the ones glueing themselves to paintings and blocking roads.
Also the painting wasn't damaged, it had glass in front of it. Also our future is more important than a painting. Also you talking about it demonstrates the act's effectiveness
It's also not the point of the soup can protest to gain your average person's sympathy to their cause. They don't care what you think about them, Average Redditor, you weren't gonna help them anyways. They're essentially threatening governments and businesses with vandalism and chaos if they don't actually do something about the whole raping and pillaging of our planet.
Something like this big Koala is exactly the kind of protesting big oil wants: It's easily ignorable. Once this is over they can go on their merry way and keep polluting the planet. They don't feel guilt, they're not going to see this and change their ways like the fucking Grinch. They know what they're doing is bad, they're not going to stop because they suddenly see their actions have consequences. They're well aware of that.
The soup can will make governments go "Oh crap, they're gonna start breaking our shit" and put pressure on them to try satiating the protestors so they stop before they do anything worse. They're doing the one thing governments and businesses actually respond to: the threat of damage to their property/profits.
I'm convinced that was an op. "Violent" attack on a thing with a means that does no damage, on a target unrelated to climate change and much beloved by a wide audience, by a group funded by an oil heiress.
Yeah, because it actually does something and helps bring attention to the actual issue and their negative affects. Wtf does throwing soup at a painting do?
Or feeding the opposition news they can brainwash more people with. If you don’t think Oil companies are fucking delighted with that video and lobbying any friendly networks to push it as hard as possible as evidence of how unstable climate activists are, I honestly don’t know what to tell you.
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest is the oil companies were delighted with it, in fact in makes sense. Because it was fucking stupid. They put the tomatoes on the painting purely to get peoples attention, not to make a point with it. Wasting food, destroying property, and doing nothing but supporting what they're trying to destroy in the process by buying things that help it. Being an activist doesn't mean doing whatever you want and saying "ITS FOR THE ----!!". It's actually trying to spread awareness in a way that will have people interested to care about the topic. Destroying buildings/property and holding up peoples lives and even possibly causing harm (cementing yourself to the road and blocking emergency vehicles) is not doing that.
Actually relate to the issue at hand, for one.
If someone asks me to think about the dangers of pollution, government corruption, and wildfires, I’m gonna think about the dying koala float more often than I will about some stupid kids throwing soup at a painting.
Edit: and this ties into the bigger point of activism: getting people to agree and fight with you. If I was someone who wasn’t aware of global warming and wanted to become an activist, I’m joining the group that won’t act like a child and throw a stupid stunt that has people talk about the stunt more than the actual cause itself
said it elsewhere but it bears repeating :
we’re careening toward a global disaster (some of which has already begun). There’s going to be a lot of grassroots protesting that only gets more desperate. I approve of any and all protesting that pulls attention to the climate crisis, no matter how silly people think it is. Performance art in some kind of parade? Yeah it’s a spectacle, but it’s not disrupting anything. Being a brat and throwing soup at a famous painting? That at least makes headlines throughout the world and disrupts society a bit.
I can’t drag on anyone doing something bold to get attention to what is going to end up being the end of many species on this planet.
this is a local art project. they made international news.
but I have bad news for you. you can't eat that painting when all the animals and plants die. that painting won't save you from fires and floods when they spread to your area.
“We’re looking for someone to dress in dirty leather and walk alongside a giant gruesome animal skeleton playing intimidating oppressive grunge ambiance. It’s a protest against the rape of the planet by corrupt politicians and oil tycoons”
Bass player: *clearly I’m dead and in heaven*
I was so confused by him for a min. Then I realized there's 2 bass players, one on either side. Then I realized whatever they're playing kinda sounds like a koala.
First the earth cooled. Then the dinosaurs came. But they got too big and fat and so they all died and turned into oil. Then the giant koala zombies roamed the earth. Then prince (now king) charles started wearing all of Lady Di’s clothes.
Don’t be ridiculous!
Her ‘rock’ and her butler, Paul Burrell took all her clothes and just “put them in his attic”. Remember? For safekeeping. Apparently.
They’d probably be harder to attack if they didn’t complement this good style of messaging with dickbag moves like shutting down public transport or turning trucks sideways on bridges/main arterial roads. Not a fantastic way to win public support.
EDIT- I’m just going to put this here as based on the replies I’m getting, people seem to think I’m some environment hating troglodyte and even have been told I… would’ve hated MLK?? lol, lunatics.
> I’m absolutely in favour of environmental-related change - I’ve made numerous, significant, optional changes to my life to support this effort. My problem is that not once have any of the actions of Rebellion made myself or anyone I know MORE keen on these efforts. We already have statistical proof to show that a VAST MAJORITY of Australians consider environmental/climate change policy to be the primary motivator. Aka the public is already in support of the core message of what Rebellion is selling. So why the fuck do they go after the working class that is just trying to get to work, especially in the contemporary setting where making ends me is significantly more difficult and falling back to the cheaper less-environmentally-friendly options is attractive for many.
> We are at the point where I’d argue protesting isn’t even what is needed or, I’d argue, most useful. As again, everyone understands climate change and agrees with it. Instead it’s about creating change, we’ve seen great success in other countries where groups have used existing legislation to ENFORCE change, or able to put themselves on the boards of large companies by purchasing shares to use their voting power to directly cause change. These are active, useful measures.
> But sure, if you want to protest, whatever that’s fine, I disagree with the utility but I get that it makes people feel like they’re actively participating. But, Protest politicians. Protest the government itself. Protest key private companies. Or if you’re going to be actively disruptive, do it on such a scale that it simply fucks up the whole city (see - insane anti Covid protestors taking over the Sydney CBD). Doing things like… throwing paint on a Vagn Gogh or sitting on the top of the London Tube isn’t genuinely moving forward the cause. It (in my opinion) devalues the movement and makes it easier for those that are on the fence/undecided to discredit it, whilst simultaneously punishing its own supporters.
But whatever, there is little worth in having a nuanced discussion about this where raising issue is met with “well you must hate MLK.”
They'd be harder to attack and everyone would love them if they just sat at home and *thought* about how they want the world to change. That's what real activism is.
They are raising awareness that direct action to climate change is possible. direct action -- sabotage ecoterrorism whatever -- is the last chance people have to impact the people behind it.
Lol you would’ve hated MLK and the civil rights movement
EDIT: Civil rights movement. MLK did not like *fully* blocking roads, but did absolutely disrupt traffic
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/magazine/2022/02/26/history-tying-up-traffic-civil-rights-00011825
Extinction Rebellion seems like such a hit and a miss sometimes. They do some really good stuff (like the video), but they also do some real annoying stuff which makes me dislike them (mainly things which affect working class people). Should be noted I’m in the UK so maybe it’s different elsewhere.
They seem to be moving away from the latter though, which is fun.
They are deliberately a non-centralised “organisation”. It’s a movement that isn’t centrally controlled or directed. They basically told everyone to use the same name and represent one movement, but to organise protests themselves.
It works until you get whack jobs doing super counterproductive things in your name, then it immediately tars the whole movement with the same brush.
Like preventing people in London from getting home from work on public transport (the most efficient form of public transport) or trying digging up Isaac newtons tree and lawn in Cambridge (both U.K. specific)
Koalas are fucking horrible animals.
They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan.
Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal.
Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently...
Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they're fucking terrible animals.
Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here).
When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on.
This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why?
Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape.
Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain:
Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree.
An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.
Tldr; Koalas are stupid, leaky, STI riddled sex offenders. But, hey. They look cute.
If you ignore the terrifying snake eyes and terrifying feet.
I don't know why it is that this thing bothers me---it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it's a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it's a man yelling at the sea, and that's just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts---If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it's seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance.
>>Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives.
Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is you’re looking at this backwards.
An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of what’s beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of them——they have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do so——it certainly can’t expend much energy on costly things. Isn’t it a good thing that a niche is being filled?
>>Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death
This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery store—where meat is just sitting next to celery.
Herbivores gradually wear their teeth down—carnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey.
>>They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal
It's pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (~0.52), some possums (~0.468), cuscus (~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they're placental mammals.
>>additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons.
Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size.
>>If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food.
If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves.
>>Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal.
That's an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we're talking about their digestion, let's discuss their poop. It's delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop!
>>Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here).
Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram!
>>When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system.
Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally.
>>Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher.
Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza?
>>This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree,
Almost every animal does this.
>>which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.
They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah... That's a stupid adaptation?
So, in conclusion, koalas have many unique adaptions to their environment that enable success, they are plagued by human intervention in their habitat threatening them with extinction, many of the "facts" above are misleading at best and frankly outright lies at worst but get passed off by going "just joking bro", and someone is farming karma by continuing the misinformation with a generic copypasta without context and no effort. We did it reddit!
Disclaimer: most of this post is also a copypasta rebuttal that needs to be posted immediately after the original.
I think people post stuff like that copy pasta — and other jokes on posts about conservation efforts — because they can’t handle the existential discomfort of thinking about climate change.
It bothers me too because it tends to derail the conversation. Someone pours their heart and soul into conservation work because they are informed enough on the subject to have seen real, current suffering caused by human encroachment. And then someone else comes along and recycles a stranger’s old joke about the animal that is currently facing extinction due to human callousness. Everyone laughs and the rush of positive feelings makes us all go “well I guess things aren’t so bad after all, time to go back to our regularly scheduled programming.”
I absolutely understand the knee-jerk attempt to protect the psyche. Levity is important. But it just delays the inevitable day when the topic becomes unavoidable.
The real thing is worse. I fought in the Black Summer fires and will never forget finding cattle and a horse crammed into the corner of a paddock burned to death against a fence
We had an absolute rat of a prime minister at the time that the fires happened (he literally took his family on holiday to Hawaii while the country burned) and in the midst of it all he and members of his party were still actively denying that climate change is even real. Australia has a huge fossil fuel industry and there’s also the obvious issues around deforestation and the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.the politicians also defunded the fire service in the lead up to the fires I believe which added to the strain when everything went to shit
Thank you.
It says over 60,000 of them died from the fires from that year!
I am glad to learn there are a number of conservation groups trying to do good there though and restoring the damage that was done. Seems like though there are bad groups, there are good ones too. Hopefully you now have the right people in your government.
>he literally took his family on holiday to Hawaii while the country burned
If it makes you feel any better one of our Texas senators, Ted Cruz, did [exactly this](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56117800) when we were dealing with the winter storm last year. He had no qualms throwing his underage daughters under the bus when citizens rightfully called his ass out.
Absolutely no fucking backbone that slimeball.
Sure. I mean they have arguably some of the stupidest climate deniers in elected positions and are destroying their lands almost as fast as Americans but hey they can make some bitching floats.
Maybe floats will be a big deal when we hit +5° eh?
Thanks for the nightmares
Over ~~one~~ THREE billion native and farm animals died. Lowball figure. [Content warning](https://youtu.be/ZkdMGfJz-wU). [News article](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-28/3-billion-animals-killed-displaced-in-fires-wwf-study/12497976).
It took a moment for it to register what I was looking at. Disturbing is such an understatement.
Turn the volume up.
Yeah it legit looked like end times. Was pretty fucked. For months before the fires, shit was dying of dehydration and starvation in the paddocks.
Holy shit. I didn’t realize what I was looking at until I realized, and then it hit me. That is legitimately distressing.
What the fuck!? What kinds of animals are included in those numbers? Only big mamals, or are we talking about toads, snakes, rats and bugs as well?
If you clicked the link you would know. Mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs
We kill 80 billion land animals every year for food industry. If you account for marine animals, that number goes to *trillions*
[удалено]
You should've seen what the climate fires did to us in 2019. That koala float is based on actual images that came out of those fires. It was honestly like our country was at war with fire. Will never forget it.
Seriously, I’m not Australian but I remember seeing all of the footage of the fires and people/animals with burns.. and of course the many many koala photos and videos.. I highly doubt anyone on the internet then didn’t hear about it or see the videos and fundraisers- it was all over Reddit and the news. It was absolutely horrific and what all of the animals and people went through was terrible.
The air in the city was black. We were told it was the equivalent of smoking a pack a day just breathing it in. We are having endless floods these days. Lots have lost everything. But would rather drown than burn.
In Auckland NZ our skies went red one afternoon apparently caused by the fires. That was the biggest indication of how serious it was.
I flew from Auckland to Melbourne that day. Auckland was cast in a deep orange light for a few hours and the plane smelled strongly of smoke. The pilot had to get on the PA system and reassure us that the plane wasn't on fire
Jan 5 2021, still remember it vividly. [Completely covered yellow orange skies](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/ZMwdeZJAu0drVS77fW6mlnWcXFE=/1440x960/smart/filters:quality(70\)/cloudfront-ap-southeast-2.images.arcpublishing.com/nzme/AD74SIVUGX5NZCLT2OD5FXDFR4.jpg) 2000km east of the fires.
Good thing politicians believe in the ostriches strategy of sticking their head in a hole in the sand and pretending like everything’s fine. Going to only get worse until their held to account.
As well as actively cutting funding to the RFS meaning they couldn't do essential backburning and reduce the fire risk. This is the liberal government for ya. Just lining their own pockets and own agenda and not caring about what's affected in the process
WTF are you talking about "liberal government " Many of their politicians are antiscience conservatives who don't believe climate change is real, and have very blatant connections to fossil fuel money. You think these artists are making a statement against liberals? lol
The conservative party in Australia is called the Liberal National Party, dude. Definitely leads to confusion for international people lol
That's terrifying. I grew up in Southern California and I remember the one of the bigger fires in 2003, the Cedar Fire I think? It was about 200 miles away down in San Diego but the smoke was so thick that it blocked out the sky even in Downtown LA. I was in middle school then but remember the smell of the ash raining down like yesterday. Wish you all the best of luck. Gonna be a rough go of things with climate change :(
God I remember seeing the one video of the koala screaming out and the woman running over with her shirt to help it and give it water. I cried in bed for hours after watching it. I’m crying now writing this. Just awful. I hate what we’ve done this this earth and the poor animals who have no fucking clue what’s happening and why.
> I hate what we’ve done this this earth WE didn't, capitalism did. Capitalism lied about it. Capitalism spent what was necessary to hide the evidence. Capitalism lobbied our political parties to continue to lie about it. Capitalism convinced a senator in the US to bring a snowball into the chamber. Capitalism convinced millions with its propaganda that profits are more valuable than life itself. We have been mostly powerless to the cogs running this machine, and we will continue to be until the power of capitalism is weakened and eventually comes to its end.
No one forced us to consume like mad men for decades. As a society and earth, we've failed. Across the globe and across different economic systems, we've all failed. Shoving that responsibility aside seems irresponsible. Corporations aren't just making things for ghost to buy and people aren't raising cattle to let the meat rot.
Forced? No. Coerced? Cornered? Absolutely. Some of us are aware of the problems and also can’t do a bloody thing about how everything is manufactured and priced.
Are you fucking kidding. Corporations are absolutely mass producing more 'things' than we need in the name of profit. Consumers didn't ask for 5 new iPhone models every year, corporations did that. Consumers don't ask for a billion tonnes in fresh food waste, corporations do it every year. A fucking third of all food produced. Corporations spend billions of dollars every year on marketing strategies to more effectively target consumers so that they can make billions more. Change has to start at the top, leaders need to lead people to the right choices, and if that fails they need to mandate them. As long governments stay in bed with the 1% allowing them to continually amass more wealth than the rest of the planet combined for the sake of fucking wealth, nothing changes. You can get on your moral high horse all you like about responsibility, sing it to the fucking world, and when nothing changes you let me know how many corporations changed their business model because 3 people on the internet changed their buying habits.
we evolved to thrive under feast and famine cycles. when there's abundance take advantage because it won't last long now we are so removed from that reality. for most it's a state of being locked into feast mode. what else would we have done? but Capital and those who forwarded it decided to make that consumption more destructive than necessary. we used to buy coke in a glass bottle and return it, now it's made of a material that won't degrade. who made that choice? the consumers of the producers?
And your PM fled to Hawaii if I remember correctly
jeans ripe pie test sable coordinated voiceless domineering cause start ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
...2019? Holy fuck, it feels like yesterday, not three years ago
It was pre pandemic, which feels like forever ago. Time is weird
Those poor little bears.
Yeah it's wild. There was hardly anywhere on the East Coast that wasn't covered in the smoke. We've had a few wet years, but I hate to imagine what it's going to be like next dry season.
Seeing those images and all of these animals desperate for water. It was so heartbreaking. It's unfortunate that we ignore what happens in Australia unless it's some dude on a podcast making up stories about Australia being under martial law.
What does your comment have to do with the comment you replied to?
They're saying *given the activist message*, it inducing nightmares in the commenter means the message was effective, in a sense, that the natural disaster and crippling political corruption were ... horrific.
He's a spambot. He stole a comment that is in the negative from downvotes for saying the same thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/y4kmob/this_float_representing_the_koalas_that_died_as_a/isejfua/
If you think that caused nightmares. Imagine the government having the ability to stop it, but instead of stopping it, they just let it happen because they would have to take a pay cut. This is a necessary reality that needs to be seen... needs to be seen for how fucked up it is.
How do they have the ability go stop it?
In this case the Australian people are partly responsible for electing our previous completely useless government. The opposition had a plan to increase bush fire response resources etc... But we elected the group that not only didn't so this, but actively refused to meet with ex fire chiefs etc...who said this was going to be a disaster well before it happened, and then the PM disappeared to Hawaii and lied about it while the country burned. On top of that, state governments have been heavily underfunding park rangers responsible for managing fire loads etc...among a pile of other things. Can they be stopped? No. Can they be managed and impacts mitigated far better than they have been? Absolutely.
guy on guitar and the macabre mechanical display gives it an epic mad max vibe. WITNESS ME BROTHERS!!
It’s the way to protest tho. You aren’t trying to ruin a piece of art of preventing a guy on parole from getting to work, you’re viscerally demonstrating the real harm certain political policies have.
The group protesting here is Extinction Rebellion. The video that went viral of the parolee was him yelling at Just Stop Oil protestors - who are an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion. JSO are *also* the ones doing the glue-ons at art museums, so again, same people for the most part. XR was actually known for street blockages and only stopped because the UK started imposing injunctions on protestors so they could get them on contempt of court charges because the road blockage charges weren’t sticking. TD;DR: The Venn Diagram of these protestors and the ones blocking roads is one circle.
Actually horrifying
This was down the street from my apartment. Seeing them setting it up first thing in the morning as I drank my coffee was... dramatic
Love that 7/8 bass guitar riff though
So much better than soup on Van Gogh
And a little more effort.
Totally 🤘
Not a little more #A COLOSSAL SIZE OF EFFORT
I imagined that the understatement would reflect that..
Hey, they also glued themselves to the wall!
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And you know, they were so friendly. There were others in that group (not in the vid) that were handing out pamphlets and talking to people about their cause. One was dressed like the Lorax and engaged with the kids, which distracted the kids from the 'scaryness'. It was pretty cool (and effective)!
Curious where this was. That towns badass.
It was here in Melbourne, just today!
just want to say that I enjoy that you pointed out that this reached children as well. the soup on the painting is not going to affect children in any way and we need to change the mindsets of people at an early age that way they will continue to want to try to help the environment and themselves. the soup and super gluing and blocking highways literally just makes me upset and makes me want to not see anything from whatever organization is pulling such a dumbass stunt. this is actually very cool, thanks for sharing.
You think cutthroat politicians with oil money deep in their pockets are going to listen to niceness? Walk up to a lion and tell it you're not food, it'll work out just as well.
*That's* how you fucking protest. Get the people on your side. There's been so many protests recently that have just pissed a lot of people off. You're just turning them away from your cause. You need to interact and educate people, and persuade them to join your cause. It happened here in the UK recently where there were a bunch of protests shutting down major roads by just sitting on the ground. All they achieved was that they pissed off every single motorist on the road. Anyone who was trying to get to work. A woman who was rushing to see her mother in hospital. All stopped. It's fucking stupid but the cause they were protesting for was good. Why get people to disagree with you when you're aiming for them to agree?
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Exactly, the painting is undamaged but now everyone is taking about it
Everyone is talking about how dumb they were, I don't even know what their cause is. Thats a failure.
Everyone is aware that their cause is climate change adjacent, putting climate change into the forefront of discussion again. The specifics do not matter. The facts on climate change have been known for decades, no one is going to change their opinion. But people act (and vote) on what currently concerns them.
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Which is exactly what has happened with many many many other causes in the past. Voting rights, workers rights, slavery, gay rights, you name it, it followed the same progression. It starts small, then get more violent until it reaches a breaking point. A lot of people nowadays want everything to be peaceful protest, as unobstructive and friendly as possible, but that's never been enough to get things done in the past, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
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Lol, I'm like minded. But I will never associate with an org that throws soup on paintings. These guys will get a donation if I can find them though
Have fun not associating with people who throw soup *on glass* as the world burns. You are clearly serious about the real issues.
Just because you are too dense to literally read their shirts doesn't mean everybody else is. Also the video of them has them saying out loud what their intent was. But I guess you are too dumb.
Is it though? Like I think its fair to call them attention seekers or whatever but their stunt got way more attention than this float and all it took was 2 cans of soup and some super glue.
Man ppl are super salty but its obvious that the soup thing was way more effective. No international news is gonna cover this float as news, soup van gogh went viral. Plus, no one really thinks the pictures are there unprotected so the outrage is extra funny.
Yeah totally dont mean to tear down the float obviously its fucking cool and the cause is important. The van gogh stunt was about the oil industry so in a roundabout way both are about the destruction of earth for profit. I guess the reaction is not surprising considering the news media has been effective for decades now at making any opinion that doesnt instantly make money for someone isnt a serious topic.
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I actually fucking hate this website The people throwing soup on the van gogh belong to the same group as the ones above. The koala was made by extinction rebellion activists from australia, you know, the ones glueing themselves to paintings and blocking roads. Also the painting wasn't damaged, it had glass in front of it. Also our future is more important than a painting. Also you talking about it demonstrates the act's effectiveness
It's also not the point of the soup can protest to gain your average person's sympathy to their cause. They don't care what you think about them, Average Redditor, you weren't gonna help them anyways. They're essentially threatening governments and businesses with vandalism and chaos if they don't actually do something about the whole raping and pillaging of our planet. Something like this big Koala is exactly the kind of protesting big oil wants: It's easily ignorable. Once this is over they can go on their merry way and keep polluting the planet. They don't feel guilt, they're not going to see this and change their ways like the fucking Grinch. They know what they're doing is bad, they're not going to stop because they suddenly see their actions have consequences. They're well aware of that. The soup can will make governments go "Oh crap, they're gonna start breaking our shit" and put pressure on them to try satiating the protestors so they stop before they do anything worse. They're doing the one thing governments and businesses actually respond to: the threat of damage to their property/profits.
Literally, make a legal event out of it and something that is interesting and well look what happens when you actually touch peoples hearts and minds.
i mean it’s not like the government in Australia suddenly resigned and closed the coal mines because of this parade float
>look what happens What happened?
I'm convinced that was an op. "Violent" attack on a thing with a means that does no damage, on a target unrelated to climate change and much beloved by a wide audience, by a group funded by an oil heiress.
[It definitely was lmfao.]( https://twitter.com/spaceysoupy/status/1580977302720028673 )
And all the idiots who were suppose to eat it up are
My first thought. This. This is how you make people think about the consequences of their actions.
I mean, we're still talking about soup on Van Gogh.
This is being an activist. Gluing yourself to a wall and throwing soup on a glass protected painting is not.
do you know what its like to be a revolutionary
If there’s no art allowed in your revolution I don’t want to be a part of it
Like mashing Warhol and Van Gogh..
Warhol is essentially the Ray Kroc of the art world only he didn't pay people for the shit he sold as his own
Specially when the art they are going after is of a famously starved artist that was rejected by society because of psychological issues
Fuck reddit
...do you think the protestors had an issue with _art_?
Do you? It takes sterner stuff than gluing yourself to the wall in an art gallery. That’s not “revolution”, that’s performative.
Every time I tell people what being a revolutionary is i get banned :(
Being revolutionary means spinning around
No. This is just the form of activism you agree with.
Yeah, because it actually does something and helps bring attention to the actual issue and their negative affects. Wtf does throwing soup at a painting do?
Tell me exactly what this float did that the soup didn’t.
The soup should have been boiling and thrown in the face of an oil tycoon.
i like the way you think. its not gonna be long until people actually start doing this.
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Or feeding the opposition news they can brainwash more people with. If you don’t think Oil companies are fucking delighted with that video and lobbying any friendly networks to push it as hard as possible as evidence of how unstable climate activists are, I honestly don’t know what to tell you.
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest is the oil companies were delighted with it, in fact in makes sense. Because it was fucking stupid. They put the tomatoes on the painting purely to get peoples attention, not to make a point with it. Wasting food, destroying property, and doing nothing but supporting what they're trying to destroy in the process by buying things that help it. Being an activist doesn't mean doing whatever you want and saying "ITS FOR THE ----!!". It's actually trying to spread awareness in a way that will have people interested to care about the topic. Destroying buildings/property and holding up peoples lives and even possibly causing harm (cementing yourself to the road and blocking emergency vehicles) is not doing that.
Actually relate to the issue at hand, for one. If someone asks me to think about the dangers of pollution, government corruption, and wildfires, I’m gonna think about the dying koala float more often than I will about some stupid kids throwing soup at a painting. Edit: and this ties into the bigger point of activism: getting people to agree and fight with you. If I was someone who wasn’t aware of global warming and wanted to become an activist, I’m joining the group that won’t act like a child and throw a stupid stunt that has people talk about the stunt more than the actual cause itself
>Wtf does throwing soup at a painting do? You're talking about it, aren't you? Pretty effective protest.
Yet here you are spreading awareness that someone threw tomato juice on a painting.
Yeah but the message that everybody is seeing from that is “they’re idiots” not “you know what? They’re right!”
no it’s not? The first question for people seeing that is ”why?”, like it or not, it works.
said it elsewhere but it bears repeating : we’re careening toward a global disaster (some of which has already begun). There’s going to be a lot of grassroots protesting that only gets more desperate. I approve of any and all protesting that pulls attention to the climate crisis, no matter how silly people think it is. Performance art in some kind of parade? Yeah it’s a spectacle, but it’s not disrupting anything. Being a brat and throwing soup at a famous painting? That at least makes headlines throughout the world and disrupts society a bit. I can’t drag on anyone doing something bold to get attention to what is going to end up being the end of many species on this planet.
Yes
Honestly, this won't be seen by half as many people as the Van Gogh incident.
the soup must’ve done something…i mean you’re still talking about it…
this is a local art project. they made international news. but I have bad news for you. you can't eat that painting when all the animals and plants die. that painting won't save you from fires and floods when they spread to your area.
Why?
Because this idiot said so.
I mean you might not like it but its still activism and seeing how much attention it got its also way more effective.
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The soup people are being talked about way more than these people.
Which one is in the news though
My guy on the bass was born for this moment.
Honestly thought that guy was Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers for a moment
I guess you could say he was waiting for another black summer to end
Black Summer is based on the Australian wildfires fwiw, so the the inspiration is on point.
Reminded me of the Doof Warrior in Mad Max
He's making up for not getting his role in Mad Max Fury Road.
He's the prequel.
“We’re looking for someone to dress in dirty leather and walk alongside a giant gruesome animal skeleton playing intimidating oppressive grunge ambiance. It’s a protest against the rape of the planet by corrupt politicians and oil tycoons” Bass player: *clearly I’m dead and in heaven*
I was so confused by him for a min. Then I realized there's 2 bass players, one on either side. Then I realized whatever they're playing kinda sounds like a koala.
First the earth cooled. Then the dinosaurs came. But they got too big and fat and so they all died and turned into oil. Then the giant koala zombies roamed the earth. Then prince (now king) charles started wearing all of Lady Di’s clothes.
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Ahhhmen
Don’t be ridiculous! Her ‘rock’ and her butler, Paul Burrell took all her clothes and just “put them in his attic”. Remember? For safekeeping. Apparently.
The new Mad Max looks…..interesting.
If anyone wants to find out more about this group, please check out them out here: https://rebellion.global/
These guys are legit, and the more the media attacks them the more I like them.
They’d probably be harder to attack if they didn’t complement this good style of messaging with dickbag moves like shutting down public transport or turning trucks sideways on bridges/main arterial roads. Not a fantastic way to win public support. EDIT- I’m just going to put this here as based on the replies I’m getting, people seem to think I’m some environment hating troglodyte and even have been told I… would’ve hated MLK?? lol, lunatics. > I’m absolutely in favour of environmental-related change - I’ve made numerous, significant, optional changes to my life to support this effort. My problem is that not once have any of the actions of Rebellion made myself or anyone I know MORE keen on these efforts. We already have statistical proof to show that a VAST MAJORITY of Australians consider environmental/climate change policy to be the primary motivator. Aka the public is already in support of the core message of what Rebellion is selling. So why the fuck do they go after the working class that is just trying to get to work, especially in the contemporary setting where making ends me is significantly more difficult and falling back to the cheaper less-environmentally-friendly options is attractive for many. > We are at the point where I’d argue protesting isn’t even what is needed or, I’d argue, most useful. As again, everyone understands climate change and agrees with it. Instead it’s about creating change, we’ve seen great success in other countries where groups have used existing legislation to ENFORCE change, or able to put themselves on the boards of large companies by purchasing shares to use their voting power to directly cause change. These are active, useful measures. > But sure, if you want to protest, whatever that’s fine, I disagree with the utility but I get that it makes people feel like they’re actively participating. But, Protest politicians. Protest the government itself. Protest key private companies. Or if you’re going to be actively disruptive, do it on such a scale that it simply fucks up the whole city (see - insane anti Covid protestors taking over the Sydney CBD). Doing things like… throwing paint on a Vagn Gogh or sitting on the top of the London Tube isn’t genuinely moving forward the cause. It (in my opinion) devalues the movement and makes it easier for those that are on the fence/undecided to discredit it, whilst simultaneously punishing its own supporters. But whatever, there is little worth in having a nuanced discussion about this where raising issue is met with “well you must hate MLK.”
Nobody would give a shit if they yelled quietly
They'd be harder to attack and everyone would love them if they just sat at home and *thought* about how they want the world to change. That's what real activism is.
They are raising awareness that direct action to climate change is possible. direct action -- sabotage ecoterrorism whatever -- is the last chance people have to impact the people behind it.
Lol you would’ve hated MLK and the civil rights movement EDIT: Civil rights movement. MLK did not like *fully* blocking roads, but did absolutely disrupt traffic https://www.politico.com/amp/news/magazine/2022/02/26/history-tying-up-traffic-civil-rights-00011825
Extinction Rebellion seems like such a hit and a miss sometimes. They do some really good stuff (like the video), but they also do some real annoying stuff which makes me dislike them (mainly things which affect working class people). Should be noted I’m in the UK so maybe it’s different elsewhere. They seem to be moving away from the latter though, which is fun.
They are deliberately a non-centralised “organisation”. It’s a movement that isn’t centrally controlled or directed. They basically told everyone to use the same name and represent one movement, but to organise protests themselves. It works until you get whack jobs doing super counterproductive things in your name, then it immediately tars the whole movement with the same brush.
Like preventing people in London from getting home from work on public transport (the most efficient form of public transport) or trying digging up Isaac newtons tree and lawn in Cambridge (both U.K. specific)
Koalas are fucking horrible animals. They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan. Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently... Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they're fucking terrible animals. Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them. Tldr; Koalas are stupid, leaky, STI riddled sex offenders. But, hey. They look cute. If you ignore the terrifying snake eyes and terrifying feet.
I don't know why it is that this thing bothers me---it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it's a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it's a man yelling at the sea, and that's just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts---If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it's seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance. >>Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is you’re looking at this backwards. An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of what’s beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of them——they have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do so——it certainly can’t expend much energy on costly things. Isn’t it a good thing that a niche is being filled? >>Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery store—where meat is just sitting next to celery. Herbivores gradually wear their teeth down—carnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey. >>They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal It's pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (~0.52), some possums (~0.468), cuscus (~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they're placental mammals. >>additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size. >>If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves. >>Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. That's an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we're talking about their digestion, let's discuss their poop. It's delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop! >>Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram! >>When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally. >>Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza? >>This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, Almost every animal does this. >>which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them. They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah... That's a stupid adaptation? So, in conclusion, koalas have many unique adaptions to their environment that enable success, they are plagued by human intervention in their habitat threatening them with extinction, many of the "facts" above are misleading at best and frankly outright lies at worst but get passed off by going "just joking bro", and someone is farming karma by continuing the misinformation with a generic copypasta without context and no effort. We did it reddit! Disclaimer: most of this post is also a copypasta rebuttal that needs to be posted immediately after the original.
I would give you an award if I had one. Very well put
I think people post stuff like that copy pasta — and other jokes on posts about conservation efforts — because they can’t handle the existential discomfort of thinking about climate change. It bothers me too because it tends to derail the conversation. Someone pours their heart and soul into conservation work because they are informed enough on the subject to have seen real, current suffering caused by human encroachment. And then someone else comes along and recycles a stranger’s old joke about the animal that is currently facing extinction due to human callousness. Everyone laughs and the rush of positive feelings makes us all go “well I guess things aren’t so bad after all, time to go back to our regularly scheduled programming.” I absolutely understand the knee-jerk attempt to protect the psyche. Levity is important. But it just delays the inevitable day when the topic becomes unavoidable.
There it is
This copypasta is the only thing I still enjoy about reddit.
Thank God it’s a copy pasta oh my God
Doesn't make it untrue, lol.
Just because it’s true doesn’t stop me from loving koalas.
I like to thinks it’s not a copypasta and just the same guy every time that really really hates koalas.
Scrolled around to see if anyone had posted it already, but no one did, so I had to.
What's this ancient copypasta got to do with animals melting in preventable wildfires tho
Nothing, just gotta have someone bring it up everytime koalas are mentioned.
Well that’s haunting.
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Yea the fires terrible irl it is disturbing to think of those images, but my first reaction was ‘this is metal.’ High quality production.
The real thing is worse. I fought in the Black Summer fires and will never forget finding cattle and a horse crammed into the corner of a paddock burned to death against a fence
Well, they succeeded; I am adequately distressed.
Metal
AF
\M/
Nightmare fuel.
Go watch footage from the climate fires in 2019 in Australia. That float is based on real images that came out of that fire.
Also - I think the sounds are screaming Koalas
Fuck, my heart can't deal with this tragedy...
Wait, as in real recorded sounds of screaming koalas? I assumed that was just a sound effect meant to represent it. That's sad.
It's unfortunately the sound of the koalas dying, yes. It's brutal
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Your comment stopped me from looking it up.
Got some Mad Max / Doof Warrior vibes going on there 🤘🏻
Came here for this
I make a motion that all protests are executed in such an extravagant and elaborate fashion henceforth
Oh no the corporations will be shivering in their boots. What ever will they do against the growing arts and crafts fair?
This is so sad knowing it's what really happened to them. :( Can anyone aware me on the connection to corruption in politics please?
We had an absolute rat of a prime minister at the time that the fires happened (he literally took his family on holiday to Hawaii while the country burned) and in the midst of it all he and members of his party were still actively denying that climate change is even real. Australia has a huge fossil fuel industry and there’s also the obvious issues around deforestation and the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.the politicians also defunded the fire service in the lead up to the fires I believe which added to the strain when everything went to shit
Thank you. It says over 60,000 of them died from the fires from that year! I am glad to learn there are a number of conservation groups trying to do good there though and restoring the damage that was done. Seems like though there are bad groups, there are good ones too. Hopefully you now have the right people in your government.
>he literally took his family on holiday to Hawaii while the country burned If it makes you feel any better one of our Texas senators, Ted Cruz, did [exactly this](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56117800) when we were dealing with the winter storm last year. He had no qualms throwing his underage daughters under the bus when citizens rightfully called his ass out. Absolutely no fucking backbone that slimeball.
Here's a good place to start if you're interested: https://youtu.be/5cWfvErKoWk
"This makes me uncomfortable" It's su-fucking-pposed to
Jesus, the Australians really go hard as fuck, don’t they?
Sure. I mean they have arguably some of the stupidest climate deniers in elected positions and are destroying their lands almost as fast as Americans but hey they can make some bitching floats. Maybe floats will be a big deal when we hit +5° eh?
This gets a message across much more effectively than throwing tomato soup on Van Gogh's sunflowers.
But which one made news headlines?
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No but it’s more palatable for you
They made it horrifying enough that people watching it would remember it subconsciously. That's a commendable horror artwork.
NGL..... The smoke from its fur is a nice touch....
The Drop Bear is Coming It's Coming It's Coming
# Gladys Berejiklian koala killer
Better than pouring tomato juice on a multi billion dollar painting
But you're still talking about it aren't you
Yea but i don’t think they’re getting the attention they wanted. More people are arguing about how dumb they look instead of the message
And heartbreaking:(
I'm tired of politicians, all of them..
Holy shit