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I get a bit of this looming feeling every time there is discussion about the Awk programming language, because it reminds me we already got the closest thing to a penguin in the nothern hemisphere extinct by the XIX century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk

Hope this time around we do a better job of avoiding complete doom for these species.

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If a bird can't fly and isn't a super fast runner, they end up as food. Tale as old as time.
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They're going extinct by habitat loss from climate change.
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Have you seen a penguin swim though? They are super fast in water
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Also this...

"Trump Administration Seals Extinction Fate for Rice’s Whale in Offshore Drilling Decision"

https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/03/trump-admi...

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This is the exact same reaction I had
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Seals can be a bundle of cuteness. Leopard seals are impressive, in a different way.

This indeed a sad story.

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It's not as though people intentionally made these endangered because they have insufficient love for penguins. We have unintentionally done it because we have insufficient love (care) for them and many, many other things, creatures, people, etc.
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It's because the people who get rich off of fossil fuels are in control, and they are willing to continue this damage as long as it adds to their personal fortunes.

We could "manhattan project" ourselves out of this mess if we wanted to. China, in a sense, is doing just that.

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I love penguins, and this news has me close to tears

My local zoo has a little event during winter where the king penguins get to go for a little walk around outside their enclosure. I've been a few times this year and they are just such fun animals. It has made me want to get involved with the zoo somehow, maybe not working with the animals directly but something. I don't know.

It makes me so sad how we humans know that we are messing things up on the planet but we keep doing it anyways because the economy must grow

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[flagged]
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Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (Recorded at Live 8)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_4uEaZQ2Kg

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About 15 years ago, I saw on the news in Europe that 8 students had been shot at some random high school in a random US state.

Having been conditioned by my environment to perceive such events as important, I turned to my friend and said “Man, 8 students were shot at a high school in the States!”

He asked me “What am I supposed to do with that information?” That response changed my life.

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>“What am I supposed to do with that information?”

...Feel some sorrow? Think a bit about what could cause such a thing? Because one day, it may happen at your kid's school... And it may be your own kid.

An absence of both empathy and curiosity aren't exactly a response to be proud of. An unconscious life. The kind that leads to, one day, spouting the standard response: "I never imagined it could happen to me".

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How did it change your life?
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