Studies Predict Climate Change Bringing 'Brutal' Century for Western US (yahoo.com) 272
The western United States, "once a beacon for all that was new and hopeful in America, could become an example of the grim, apocalyptic future the nation faces from climate change," writes USA Today. Long-time Slashdot reader Klaxton shares their report:
The last five years already have been harrowing. Whole neighborhoods burned down to foundations. Children kept indoors because the air outside is too dangerous to play in. Killer mudslides of burned debris destroying towns. Blood-red skies that are so dark at midday, the streetlights come on and postal workers wear headlamps to deliver the mail.
And it's going to get worse unless dramatic action is taken, two studies published this week forecast.
The first predicts the growth of wildfires could cause dangerous air quality levels to increase during fire season by more than 50% over the next 30 years in the Pacific Northwest and parts of northern California....
The danger stretches across the United States. Wildfire smoke can travel hundreds and even thousands of miles. In July, smoke from Western wildfires triggered air quality alerts and caused smoky skies and red-orange haze in New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston.
Meanwhile, a second study "shows how expected increases in wildfires and intense rain events could result in more devastating flash floods and mudslides across a broad portion of the West," the article reports. Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist/dean at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability, tells the newspaer, "Even climate scientists are scared."
And Bruce Cain, director of Stanford's Bill Lane Center for the American West, hoped the studies would inspire a meaningful response. "It's a kick in the pants to get stuff done."
And it's going to get worse unless dramatic action is taken, two studies published this week forecast.
The first predicts the growth of wildfires could cause dangerous air quality levels to increase during fire season by more than 50% over the next 30 years in the Pacific Northwest and parts of northern California....
The danger stretches across the United States. Wildfire smoke can travel hundreds and even thousands of miles. In July, smoke from Western wildfires triggered air quality alerts and caused smoky skies and red-orange haze in New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston.
Meanwhile, a second study "shows how expected increases in wildfires and intense rain events could result in more devastating flash floods and mudslides across a broad portion of the West," the article reports. Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist/dean at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability, tells the newspaer, "Even climate scientists are scared."
And Bruce Cain, director of Stanford's Bill Lane Center for the American West, hoped the studies would inspire a meaningful response. "It's a kick in the pants to get stuff done."
Wont happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Or rather, the rest of the US looks with jaundiced eyes about what happens in Ca and Wa states.
That is to say, the climate change totally WILL happen-- what WONT happen, is effective mitigation.
The reality is that the agricultural activities in Ca have *NEVER* been sustainable. Combined with climate change, the "we have groundwater reserves that will last over a century" is now more "We will run out in our lifetime".
The rest of the US wont really care. A modest price increase for strawberries and almonds from elsewhere will follow, but the price hikes from rising inflation due to the post-covid and now ukrainian war bullshit, will drown it out. All prices on all goods are going up, and the marginal increase caused by Ca agriculture tanking will be a drop in the bucket-- Nobody will notice nor care.
Meanwhile, the Eastern seaboard will continue to have extreme cold winter weather, increased hurricane activity, and other bad weather, which will only increase fossil fuel use.
At least until the glacial ice in Antarctica breaks free, and slides into the ocean. Then the seaboards worldwide will suddenly find themselves underwater. Possibly quite quickly.
The time to make effective mitigation against these kinds of disasters is long past, but was called "doomsaying", and much ado was made about "inaccuracies of their models", and such-- because casting such aspersions and living in a fantasy bubble was easier and more comforting than accepting that human economic activities were destroying the viability of the planet for habitation.
That same jaundiced view will dominate, even as the sea levels rise, forests burn, and the air becomes choking and unbreathable.
THEN-- when it is too late, the same people that refused to act, and stymied efforts to act, will claim that it is not realistically infeasible to act, and just continue as before, as the world burns.
Why should they care? They had theirs.
Re:Wont happen (Score:5, Informative)
The rest of the US wont really care. A modest price increase for strawberries and almonds from elsewhere will follow, but the price hikes from rising inflation due to the post-covid and now ukrainian war bullshit, will drown it out. All prices on all goods are going up, and the marginal increase caused by Ca agriculture tanking will be a drop in the bucket-- Nobody will notice nor care.
https://www.mercurynews.com/20... [mercurynews.com]. "California’s 77,500 farms produce more than 400 commodities, and two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts."
I don't think you have a strong grasp on what California's contribution to US food is.
Re:Wont happen (Score:5, Funny)
I believe they prefer to be called LGBTQ+.
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Re:Wont happen (Score:5, Informative)
In other states, there are just about the same amount of them, they are just living in fear if they are found out they will be shunned from society.
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It's supposed to be a free country; if you don't like what people are talking about, just pay attention to something else. They can't do anything about your choosing to fixate on them.
Those of us who don't give a shit about other people's choices don't feel overwhelmed by gay people talking about their lives; it's not anything like everywhere you look. But I'm sure it *seems* that way. The problem is that hate, like love, is a powerfully attractive force. When you dislike someone you avoid them but when
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"As we speak, hundreds of mass graves are being discovered in the reclaimed portion of Kyiv"
The Russians fled from Bucha leaving behind hundreds of civilian dead. The closest to Kyiv the Russians came was some 20 km.
Also, Mariupol is getting leveled as we speak. Not long until the Russians will salt the ground.
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Yeah, but will they salt the ground before or after they irradiate it?
Re: Wont happen (Score:2)
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Rain down upon you. The euphemism is NOT about kings...
Re: Wont happen (Score:2)
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I like how it's just California that's obsessed with the Will Smith slap according to you. The whole country is nutty over celebrity nonsense.
After that I love how there isnt room in the news for more than one thing to be discussed at a time.
And then my favorite is when you say you hope California's all die. You probably don't even get the irony of loftily trying to hold the high ground while telling a given people that you hope they all die.
You claim selflessness while being the most self centered people I have ever met.
If Californians are bad because they're self centered what does th
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Queer is probably the most inclusive, but not everyone is comfortable identifying as Queer would would rather say they are Gay or Trans. For those who are nonsexual or show a nontraditional gender expression, the extra terms can help. If you've ran into information that there are X number of genders (50+?), then you're starting to see where Queer becomes a practical identity. Not that everyone who is non-binary also identifies as queer, but I can make an argument that such an identification makes a lot of s
Re:Wont happen (Score:4, Insightful)
California produces something like 40% of the food eaten in the USA. But if California produces less, then other states will produce more. Some crops will get much more expensive or even go away, but we produce enough food that we're not going to go hungry in this country, at least not because there won't be enough to go around. If people are going hungry here it will be because others are exporting too much food in order to preserve their profits and lifestyle.
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When did I say anyone was going to go hungry?
My point is that the changes in a lot of food prices will likely be quite noticeable if California agriculture were to disappear. Sure, we'd still have plenty of wheat, corn, and meat but there's plenty of produce that comes from California that would be hard for the US to replace, at least at the prices we're used to.
Re:Wont happen (Score:5, Interesting)
California produces something like 40% of the food eaten in the USA. But if California produces less, then other states will produce more. Some crops will get much more expensive or even go away, but we produce enough food that we're not going to go hungry in this country, at least not because there won't be enough to go around.
It would be likely that a number of crops would go away simply because weather conditions would not be favorable for their growth. However, Pacific West will not be the only area impacted - it's likely climate change will impact crops grown elsewhere as well as the climate changes.
If people are going hungry here it will be because others are exporting too much food in order to preserve their profits and lifestyle.
I have complete faith in American's ability to focus solely on "preserv(ing) their profits and lifestyle."
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It already has. Positively. Global warming in the main US ag belt warmed nights. That means longer planting season as nights don't go sub zero as often.
So you now have double cropping areas spread north a few hundred meters every year. And where it's not quite there yet, warmer nights still mean better buffers around each season in case of bad weather or some disruption. I.e. you can actually afford to plant later, as crops won't get hit by night freeze as early.
Because while warming is global, its impact i
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Insects are going to be more of a problem. The wetter conditions are going to be more of a problem. One has to look at the total picture before declaring something a good thing.
Re: Wont happen (Score:2)
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California produces something like 40% of the food eaten in the USA.
Google is your friend.
By dollar value, California produces 13% of US food production.
https://www.mercurynews.com/20... [mercurynews.com]
Re: Wont happen (Score:2)
California is very focused on massive factory farms. My guess is this means they are producing large amounts of cheap food. Sounds important to the poors.
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"But if California produces less, then other states will produce more."
Most of the stuff we produce here in California won't grow well in other areas of the country. Good luck with those avocados!
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Most avocados in my local stores already come from Mexico.
That is to say, other than Mexico having to take up the slack of Ca's reduced crop output because of its flagrant misuse of its water resources, to grow almonds in a semi-arid desert, the costs of avocados in my area are not going to appreciably change.
The major source of change in price, is going to be from inflation, caused by the global logistical snafu, which will discourage consumption. Possibly enough to offset the loss of Ca produced avocados
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The rest of US is having issues. Positive issues, not negative issues. Specifically progression of double cropping areas northward, massively increasing yields.
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to grow almonds in a semi-arid desert,
If you think California is a semi-arid desert, you need to stop writing posts and go look at a climate map. Most of the central valley (where crops are grown) is a Mediterranean climate, not a semi-arid desert.
Mexico having to take up the slack of Ca's reduced crop output because of its flagrant misuse of its water resources
Also, where did you get your ideas about farming? They are nonsense.
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Have you been watching what has been happening in the economy for the past decade, and especially the last 3 years?
Oh lets put Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum, so the US own Steel and Aluminum industries can pick up the slack. Except for the fact that they were not setup to to forge all the particular grades needed, and don't have the equipment to meet demand, or the resources to upgrade.
Counter Tariffs from China, hit our soybean industry, soybean farmers had to take a big loss, and needed government assis
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"And have a fit on the idea of Windmills, Solar panels, Hydro Electric and..."
Not really. It just that money spent there isn't being spent on oil and gas.
Signed: CEO, Exxon
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Some items like a lot of fruits, will be difficult to grow in other areas of the country
In theory climate change should also make some of them easy to grow in other parts of the country. Its also not as if the historic make up of the national table setting has not changed multiple times over the past two centuries. If almonds get two pricey people will eat more black walnuts. Change is change its not even necessarily bad unless you happen to live in one of the spots that is likely to fall into the sea, or you have continued to invest billions into growing water intensive corps in the desert,
Re: Wont happen (Score:2)
Climate change will push agriculture in all directions, but it's slow. It's not just temperature and humidity, it's also infrastructure and other things that don't necessarily get developed rapidly. Food isn't a hot market; profit margins are low; risk of investing in new areas is high.
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There are some fairly significant long term threats to the mid-west as well, particularly with changes to rain belts and precipitation patterns. The real long term threat isn't what amount to effectively boutique crops. Yeah, sucks if almonds end up being $500 a pound, but nobody is going to starve. See significant reductions in yields to cereal crops, and then we have a real problem.
Re: Wont happen (Score:2)
Or you could say that California agricultural practices have effectively been externalising environmental costs and maybe it is time to pay that back, even it if causes a decimation of their agricultural sector.
Having said that, one use of intermittent renewable energy could be for desalination. I believe that the costs are now so low that the agricultural sector would be viable with close to 100% desalinated water. Using desalinated water works well for agriculture since you could always just replenish you
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Oh, I grasp it alright.
I also grasp international economics. When the price barrier vanishes, such a through rising inflation, the difference on where those fruits and nuts come from vanishes.
that is what YOU are not understanding, despite my basically spoonfeeding that to you.
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I also grasp international economics.
No you don't, you don't even understand supply and demand. How would inflation magically make the higher prices that follow from product scarcity magically go away? Just because prices are going up doesnt mean they cant go up much faster for some things relative to others.
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1) Most americans live paycheck to paycheck. (>65%)
2) As costs of basic staples increase due to inflation, demand for high value commodites, which is what Ca specializes in (fresh berries, tree nuts, avocados, domestic rice, and dairy products that can be produced elsewhere just as well, if not better) will drop.
3) as that demand drops, the costs of that commodity will drop, until it reaches equilibrium with the market.
4) Once at the new equilibrium, other markets will have been enabled by the higher (po
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California is a major state that is picking up the slack for the rest of the United States.
California is the Top Agricultural producer in the US
California is the Largest State Economy by GDP, with a GDP greater than the UK, and slightly under Germany.
California has the largest population in the US, with over 10 million more people than Texas, which is a distant #2
I know, California tends to vote Democrat on state wide and national elections. Which having the provide the most members of the house, and electo
Re:Wont happen (Score:5, Interesting)
California is also misusing its water supply to produce those crops.
https://iopscience.iop.org/art... [iop.org]
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R... [fas.org]
the crops it grows are among the worst in terms of water and energy use per pound produced--
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/... [pressdemocrat.com]
So much so in fact, that due to the drought conditions there, many farmers have *ALREADY* stopped producing those commodities.
https://www.globalaginvesting.... [globalaginvesting.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0... [nytimes.com]
So, you can continue to shout about how amazeballs the Ca economy is for food production all you want. The handwriting is on the damn wall. It wont last; water is being pulled out of the ground faster than it goes back in, and overall, the climate is shifting in ways that will render continued attempts to produce those commodities even more unrealistic.
Re: Wont happen (Score:2)
Do you avoid buying California grown crops when you shop? If not, then you're causing the problem by subsidizing an unsustainable industry.
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That's because in the US the term "liberal" has a substantially different definition then it does in Europe. "Liberal" and the political "Left" are synonymous with each other here.
The Wikipedia page on the subject does a good job of explaining the "whys" and "hows" of this difference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It's almost like there are different culturals and backgrounds in the world. Crazy, right?
Re: Wont happen (Score:3)
Somehow, we ended up with a conservative/liberal axis, which doesn't make sense. Conservative/progressive would make sense. Liberal/authoritarian would make sense. Traditionall Rupublicans were progressive, not conservative. But when Democrat FDR introduced the progressive New Deal it led to a shift in how the parties get referred to. Over time, liberal became associated with progressives, who were traditionally calling for liberal ideals in freeing slaves, women's rights, etc. At some point, this associati
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California is such a thorn in the side of conservatives. It's a massive capitalist success story that also votes left and it pisses them off so badly. So all they can do is bitch and moan about mudslides or fires and ignore the massive economy.
Didn't you guys have Arnold Schwarzenegger as uhh... was it Governor? Not so long ago? It takes time to ruin economy. Usually.
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He hasn't been the governor for 11 years now and he ran on the republican ticket.
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Didn't you guys have Arnold Schwarzenegger as uhh... was it Governor?
He was the Governator, not Governor.
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Or rather, currently produces, until climactic and local environmental effects see the whole industry collapse. That an unsustainable agricultural area has become so important to the North American diet is more a sign of the inherent inability of humans to think in the long term. The mere fact that they had to redirect most of the Colorado River over a mountain range to make the desert green shows you even eighty years ago they knew they were doing something that could not be considered in any way viable. A
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There will be an adjustment period but really one of the best things that could happen is people start just eating what they can get reasonably local.
If you live in WA, you absolutely shouldn't be eating eggs from Ohio.
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Eating local is great insofar as it's possible. The problem is that very few regions can produce all of what is needed for an acceptable level of nutrition.
Example: a great majority of fruits could never grow here in northeast Ohio, even though, by area, it is a largely agricultural region; we have to get those from warmer regions.
Places further north, e.g,. much of the Canadian land mass, gradually lose the ability to grow most food crops, period.
Places like Japan have always had to import most of their f
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Actually, the "greed is good" mantra cause us gleeful consumers to buy into big corporation's koan of "prove to me that my making money is harmful to your planet."
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Amusingly, the corporations themselves have already proven this to themselves using their own analytics and climate modelling. Oil companies in the US had predicted mass climate shifts way back in the 60s.
Their solution was not to go "Oh, our economic activities are bad! We should adapt them to be less bad!"
their solution was "Make a bunch of spurious, and bad science that discounts and muddies the water, so we can continue to operate as we currently are for maximal profits."
Consumers are just notoriously
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Sorry no, I am too busy wiping asses for a living.
It might explain my shitty view of the world though. ;)
Hilariously, I find wiping asses for a living less stressful than dealing with figurative bullshit, like I did in tech all day.
Regardless, for basically the same reasons end users are demonstrably incapable of altering their use behaviors that predispose them to having computer problems, the world's population will be incapable of altering their consumer behaviors to stop predisposing the planet to furth
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While I laud your optimism, our world is demonstrably one where people cant be bothered to even wear a simple mask in public to help discourage a very real and present public health menace.
Expecting them to alter their living standards, or their living habits at home, to combat a more long-term problem does not follow from current examples.
I would very much like to be proven wrong. I am not optimistic that I will be though. Sadly.
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"four year old kid in 1930". so you are 96 years old. . .on Slashdot. I have my doubts.
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He's been posting for a while and is consistent in his claims. He may be full of shit or a crazy person, but it's at least as likely he's on the level.
My only problem is the wall-o-text posting style, he should definitely learn to use paragraphs.
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There's an intrinsic problem in saying "Hey, let's just stop paying for the military." There's a serious lesson from history here, that sustained climactic changes can represent an existential threat to even thriving civilizations. The invaders out of the Asian Steppe that started flooding into Europe starting with the Huns in the 4th century, creating massive political and social dislocation in their wake, likely occurred because of environmental changes in the Asian Steppe. Even a civilization as technolo
Re: Wont happen (Score:2)
Arizona's gonna care when their water gets shutoff. California has priority for water rights over a bunch of other states. When we start running out in California, it's THEIR water that gets shutoff, not ours.
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Sounds nice but your taxes are about to go up. https://www.moneygeek.com/livi... [moneygeek.com]
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Re:Wont happen (Score:4, Interesting)
while an abuse, it is not really the major source of use in Ca.
Municipal water use accounts for ~20% of Ca's water use-- 80% is used for irrigating their high-water-needs crops in the state.
As I linked to earlier, total irrigation load on the states' groundwater supplies exceeds the replenishment rate quite alarmingly.
The state's regulators want to believe that the now decade-long drought of the state is "temporary", and not a sign of increased aridification caused by climate change.
They are wrong.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
While Nestle' using water from the municipal supply to make a quick buck is a perverse situation, it is metaphorically a drop in the bucket. Making Nestle stop wont fix the problem.
Re:Wont happen (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems like all of this could be solved by raising the commercial pricing for water. Because they are only working in short term costs and excluding externalized costs like replenishment. Make importing water from wet areas to the north economically viable.
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You spent all this time trying to make a good point and then ruin it by pointing to an absurd price for ordering a single case of water to be shipped. A large 24 lb irregular package costs a lot to ship but it costs a fraction of that in retail stores. And Amazon works that into the price so they don't lose it on Prime.
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As pointed out, farming takes 80% of the water, leaving 20% for ALL of the cities in CA. Not to excuse Nestle, but the amount of water they use is probably less than 0.00000001% of the total consumption. More water is probably sprayed on a single golf course than bottled and shipped.
But boy, do people like to talk about it.
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Except for the forest fires.
We all know the answer (Score:3)
Only in their own narcissistic pretend world (Score:2, Insightful)
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Population tells another story. The majority clearly believes it, otherwise so many wouldn't have flocked here. That your country bumpkin cousin-fuckin' neighbors disagree is immaterial. I wish more people felt like you do, though, because then maybe rents wouldn't be so bananas.
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Can you talk about border security in the same sentence? The place is so terrible yet it needs massive fences and security forces to keep people from entering.
Re: Only in their own narcissistic pretend world (Score:2)
Faux Knews is rotting your brain. There are no more illegal aliens they lie. Microsoft NBC says many more Mexicans are fleeing the US due to rednecks with guns constantly murdering them than are new insurgents. Y you lie.
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https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mo... [msnbc.com]
That trend is actually a long running one.
https://www.pewresearch.org/hi... [pewresearch.org]
Granted, those are old statistics-- more recent ones are harder to obtain I am finding.. however, the claim that more mexicans are leaving the US appears to be correct. The claim of the impetus, however, does not appear to be.
americans need reverse psychology (Score:5, Interesting)
The most effective way to make sure an American refuses to do something is to tell them they should do something.
Then we'd better get hot (Score:2)
Pun intended.
We need to rapidly go nuclear with our energy production. And figure out how to scrub CO2 from the air and sequester it.
Hectoring and blaming hasn't worked. And there was no reason to think that it should.
Nobody, including those who play politics with this issue, actually wants to go back to stone age living.
So we need to actually technologically address the problem, instead of just using it as a political and social cudgel.
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Though it's great we have some nuclear supply and certainly should keep currently running plants running, nuclear isn't even remotely cost competitive with plain old renewables such as wind and solar.
Nevertheless, given how dire our straits are, I'm all for saying yes to feasible nuclear power production increases - but you should be realistic and not expect miracles, here. Almost all of the fossil fuel replacements will need to be wind and solar, if only for purely economical and logistical reasons.
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That just doesn't matter. There's so much low-hanging fuit; by the time we're at bunker fuel - who knows, maybe the renewable economies of scale will be so overwhelming that even solutions that sound absurd today will be economically viable. But if we manage to replace everything *but* bunker fuel we're still in a so much better spot than today that it's a moot point.
Basically: it doesn't really matter yet.
The apocalyptic stage will only last so long (Score:2)
Then all the vegetation will have burnt away to be replaced by savanna or probably desert. Then it'll be clear blue skies again, albeit at 50C+.
Nothing to do with AGW (Score:3, Insightful)
All those links are about California wildfires.
Those forests that are *supposed* to burn - that's their life cycle. The massive fires are due to years of suppressing fires, so nature is making up for lost time. Burned neighborhoods come from building in stupid places, i.e., next to forests that are supposed to burn.
Not mentioned in TFS, but we just as well mention water rights, which are so screwed up that some farmers grow *rice* in the desert, while cities are draining water tables down to nothing. Allocations from the Colorado river based on a few unusually wet years, no one has the guts to cut those allocations to match reality, and then people are surprised that the river is drained to nothing.
Climate change is not the problem in the Western US. Human stupidity is.
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> Burned neighborhoods come from building in stupid places, i.e., next to forests that are supposed to burn.
There's a housing shortage here, what are we supposed to do? I got it, bus them to YOUR state!
> The massive fires are due to years of suppressing fires
Arguably in part, but the biggest problem is that rainfall has clearly been low for that past couple of decades. No water is no water. When trees and brush were not so dry on average, fires were generally containable. When too many get too dry, th
Nah, look at Australia (Score:3)
Fake news according to Trump (Score:2, Interesting)
When he gets re-elected what then? Oh yeah, he'll blame everyone but himself for everything.
anyone opposing him will get locked up in the US Fascist state with him as POTUS for life.
I'm so glad that I left TX twenty years ago and the US two years later. Life here in Malmo is just so much nicer. The lack of guns is a big plus.
As a non-american it always seemed strange (Score:4, Interesting)
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There are problems there as well. While it's quite possible to start moving major crop production further north, a lot of the cereal crops won't thrive in places like Northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. The crops that can grow there, like winter rye, have relatively low yields, in no small part because they have much shorter growing seasons. So you would have to convert a lot more of the region to arable land, which has its own problems in finding sufficient water and basi
Re: As a non-american it always seemed strange (Score:2)
Your have a choice, move to Canada. You can experience thier healthcare system first hand. I would not choose Canada's healthcare over the US
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Not such an easy task.
Canada's immigration rules require you to first have taken a job there, AND, that you have in excess of 10,000 US dollars ON HAND, AND, that you be bilingual English and French, before they will consider letting you move in.
(granted, the last time I looked this up was quite some time ago. Their rules seem more... case-by-case now than back then. Finding the concrete rules is no longer an easy task. But basically, you need to have an outstanding sponsorship of some kind-- such as being
Here we go again (Score:3)
http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/r... [columbia.edu]
A prolonged drought also crashed the Mayan civilization. I think the dates for that were around 900, near the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period.
History is rhyming again.
Re: Here we go again (Score:2)
They couldn't import goods from halfway across the world. I wouldn't sweat it. Drought makes life difficult in modern days, but not impossible.
Also, reversion to the norm (megadroughts) (Score:3)
NY Time article "In California, a Wet Era May Be Ending" indicates that the last 150 years (i.e., since about California statehood) has been unusually wet, and that current conditions are essentially a reversion to the norm:
"Equally as important but much easier to forget is that we consider the last 150 years or so to be normal," he added. "But you don't have to go back very far at all to find much drier decades, and much drier centuries."
That raises the possibility that California has built its water infrastructure — indeed, its entire modern society — during a wet period.
But scientists say that in the more ancient past, California and the Southwest occasionally had even worse droughts — so-called megadroughts — that lasted decades. At least in parts of California, in two cases in the last 1,200 years, these dry spells lingered for up to two centuries.
The new normal, scientists say, may in fact be an old one.
FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD... (Score:2)
And yet, everybody and their mother is moving here. So, please believe this because it's already too crowded.
The drought (Score:2)
The worst drought in the US West is the drought of common sense.
Re:Experts. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, prepare for true horror then, because if you're waiting for the hyper-rich to truly act sustainably, it'll never happen. Not entirely coincidentally, those same people [i]will[/i] find some way to personally shelter the wealth and wellbeing of those few individuals they really care about - themselves and their family, say.
Waiting for the hyper-rich or influential to stop flying (for instance) is an insane strategy for coping with climate change.
Re:Experts. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
You linked to a bunch of rich people (Score:5, Insightful)
Those aren't experts. Those are very wealthy assholes and the media outlets that they bought out. It's like how the plastic industry spends millions telling us to recycle.
Your analysis that you can ignore climate change because the ultra wealthy are able to ignore it is not a sound one. As a
Not that we're going to do a damn thing about it. The same billionaires that you listed above have spent the last 40 years hollowing out the middle class so that we all live paycheck to paycheck and can't think about the future in the slightest.
Re: (Score:2)
Is thermodynamics a feature of the universe or isn't it?
Re: (Score:3)
That's demonstrably false.