We're Toast 42

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. It is part of an ongoing series of posts.

Inexpensive Add-on Spawns a New Era of Machine Guns. (paywall free): "Popular devices known as “switches” are turning ordinary pistols into fully automatic weapons, making them deadlier and a growing threat to bystanders."

Evangelicals Are Now Rejecting 'Liberal' Teachings of Jesus. How they can call themselves Christians is beyond me.

July 2023: Earth’s hottest month on record. "No other month in global recordkeeping has jumped so far ahead of the old record."

Cities Aren’t Supposed to Burn Like This Anymore—Especially Lahaina. "Humans figured out how to prevent huge fires in urban areas over a century ago. Why have they gotten so bad again?"

Bird flu researchers turn to Finland’s mink farms, tracking a virus with pandemic potential. "As it stands now, the H5N1 virus does not infect people easily. But the fear is that uncontrolled spread in animals like mink gives the virus plenty of chances to evolve in ways that could enable it to spill over into people. Already in Finland, a paper from government researchers indicated the virus has spread from mammal to mammal at the farms — and in some cases has picked up mutations indicating an adaptation toward replicating in mammalian cells."

Putin’s Hunger Games: The Ukraine War Is Forcing Millions to Face Starvation and ‘Look Death in the Eyes’. "Russia’s decision to withdraw from a key humanitarian accord puts tens of millions of people at risk of acute food crisis around the world."

Idaho’s Teacher of the Year flees state after being attacked for LGBTQ+ allyship. "Karen Lauritzen said it has been the hardest year in her 20 years of teaching."