That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I imagine sea walls will become a huge mitigation strategy in the future. Over the next 50 years we'll basically have to wall off Florida. If we ever get over our national hangups we could save the entre Gulf of Mexico by building a wall from Miami, through Havana to Cancun. You hug the east coast as far north as possible. In the end you have something like the sea walls in Bladerunner 2048. I imagine that walls will be cheaper than to move the entire eastern seaboard given the trillions of dollars put into those cities since their founding.
I don't think sea walls would work in Florida. Most of the state has limestone as the substratum which is pretty porous. Rising sea levels will just percolate through it
I don't think sea walls would work in Florida. Most of the state has limestone as the substratum which is pretty porous. Rising sea levels will just percolate through it
Raising an entire city by a meter is expensive but doable and has been done before.
The bigger issue is really that with higher sea-levels in a hurricane prone area that it might just not matter - successive, more violent storms will just slowly demolish the coastal real estate entirely. It's the problem with sea-walls as well - I'm not really convinced they'll plausibly survive an environment with regular storms likely to crest them (then again, motivated engineering might build them high enough to pull it off).
We're talking about a complete rebuilding of all our ports and sea shipping infrastructure.
On top of that places like Galveston and New Orleans will be completely consumed by rising water levels.
Then we have to worry about saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers, which will devastate coastal farmland and cities. As the sea levels rise, the increased pressure from the ocean will contaminate the aquifers with brine, which they're already having to deal with in California.
Those displaced by this will have to move further inland towards Middle America, which will spell the end for the already overtaxed Ogallala aquifer.
Do big cities really need to be coastal anyway? Maybe that doesn't make sense in a climate change future. Not that we're going to give up on New York or anything, but if natural disasters cause enough damage then maybe the cost of rebuilding is better spent on more stable ground.
Shipping is still pretty huge to businesses and people naturally tend to congregate towards coasts as a result. This is true even with the very well developed freight railroad infrastructure the USA (our passenger railroad infrastructure is complete garbage but that doesn't mean our freight railroad infrastructure isn't great) has and a protectionist shipping law that makes transporting within the USA using ships much more expensive than it otherwise would be.
Issues I see with relying on sea walls extensively.
-Expensive
-You have to account for storms, not just hurricanes, any storm that can generate a surge of any sort has to be accounted for. So it's not just places with tropical cyclones that will be making their sea walls significantly higher than the water levels of high tide.
-They're require maintenance and sadly most governments tend to get stupid fuckers that would view the money towards those as a waste of resources because "duh hur, we ain't flooding right now, so it can wait." Sadly, plenty of the populous in places relying on sea walls, would probably see their fair share of idiot voters that wouldn't want to spend money on upkeep of the walls until it's too fucking late.
-The ground the wall sits on needs to not be porous or easily corroded by sea water, otherwise it just comes up from ground some distance away from the wall or seeps in under the wall. Or the wall just collapses and the sea comes rushing in.
-The water being held back has to go somewhere, since we aren't looking at walling off the entire coast, that means any sea wall is going to come at the expense of other areas. Frankly, that opens up a scenario where sea wall placement ends up being a really bad fucking idea because you might end up saving a city, but end up with sea water rising in spots that results in ground water contamination (IMO potable water sources are far more valuable than keeping so city around because the city can always be moved, even if it's expensive. Water sources can't and contaminating some with sea water could have some far reaching effects, in not only do you lose potable water sources, but you also end up hosing the environment or valuable farmland).
I mean there are probably a few spots where we would want to look at sea walls because it's either infrastructure that can't easily be moved. I kind of suspect ports are going to be one of those because moving them to keep up with the changing coasts, likely involves more than just building a new port.
Speaking of sea walls, San Francisco just turned down a ballot initiative to deal with the rising ocean with a sea wall and sewer infrastructure improvements. Too expensive when its a small fraction of the budget in bonds over 10 years. To protect the financial and tourist centers of the city.
Many places will be unprepared thanks to local and regional politics.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
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thatassemblyguyJanitor of Technical Debt.Registered Userregular
Focusing on sea level rise is a mistake. It's bad, bit if that's all climate change did it's dealable. The rest of the shitshow is much worse.
Chapter 3 (Water) in particular is the issue that scares me the most. We can solve the energy problem with some tolerable solutions (solar, batteries, etc). Clean & drinkable water? Yeah, that's scary given that the GOP/Oil Money is hell bent on running an oil pipeline through & oil fracking the region (Dakotas) with a substantially large aquifer for the USA.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Today scientist also said we could try dimming the sun. This could lead to unintended consequences, and if a future generation didn't keep up with the "sun bill" as they called it, keep doing the maintenence, we'd be hit with all the global warming at once.
This sounds like a bad idea and could potentially fuck our earth up. I feel like this happened in a Futurama episode where they forgot to do something.
This is to say nothing of it making solar nonviable and thus increasing reliance on fossil fuels. I haven't seen anyone mention that yet.
"Risk" and "uncertainty" in climate change are often mentioned as reasons to delay action. Wagner's Climate Shock, joint with Martin Weitzman, emphasizes that the "known unknowns" and potential "unknown unknowns" instead increase the need for action.
And they clearly consulted with existing studies and other experts in the field.
But Smith just moves money around for a living. Oh, and he specializes in buyouts of air services and aerospace manufacturing. The paper notes that a new airplane would need to be designed and manufactured to make the idea work. HMMMM.
Also, not me grumbling, just a fun fact: Wagner also did research into the spread of the chemtrail conspiracy theory online.
Shadowen on
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Trump's blank refusal to believe what's happening is just another level of aggravating
In terms of fuel efficiency, "crossover" has little meaning positive or negative. It's fully possible to have a relatively efficient electric crossover. They do have some issues with pedestrian safety in comparison to traditional cars, but that's a topic for another thread.
Personally, I think too much focus is being placed in general on what type of automobiles people drive. Efficient or not, gas, diesel, hybrid, electric. I'm not saying it's bad to switch over to hybrids and electrics, but it's not even close to solving the problem, it's just one relatively minor part of the solution. The future of transportation needs to look like Copenhagen, who plan to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025.
Focusing too much on electric vehicles as a major solution completely undersells the scope of the problems we face and causes people to think they're doing enough just by driving a so-called "green automobile". What needs to happen is a complete restructuring of our urban areas, like what happened in North America after WW2 but in reverse. That needs to be said every time transportation's role in climate change comes up in a conversation, and it needs to be talked about as the best and most important way to address the problem. The problem is Americans in particular don't want to hear it because it means changing lifestyles, but you know what? Tough shit.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
In terms of fuel efficiency, "crossover" has little meaning positive or negative. It's fully possible to have a relatively efficient electric crossover. They do have some issues with pedestrian safety in comparison to traditional cars, but that's a topic for another thread.
Personally, I think too much focus is being placed in general on what type of automobiles people drive. Efficient or not, gas, diesel, hybrid, electric. I'm not saying it's bad to switch over to hybrids and electrics, but it's not even close to solving the problem, it's just one relatively minor part of the solution. The future of transportation needs to look like Copenhagen, who plan to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025.
Focusing too much on electric vehicles as a major solution completely undersells the scope of the problems we face and causes people to think they're doing enough just by driving a so-called "green automobile". What needs to happen is a complete restructuring of our urban areas, like what happened in North America after WW2 but in reverse. That needs to be said every time transportation's role in climate change comes up in a conversation, and it needs to be talked about as the best and most important way to address the problem. The problem is Americans in particular don't want to hear it because it means changing lifestyles, but you know what? Tough shit.
There's a lot of cities where planning to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025 might work great but they probably have climates that are as or nearly as mild as Copenhagen.
But they don't spend 4 months a year below freezing with 40+ inches of snowfall and annual temps that can range from -60f to 120f, and not the nice dry 120f you get in the desert :P
In terms of fuel efficiency, "crossover" has little meaning positive or negative. It's fully possible to have a relatively efficient electric crossover. They do have some issues with pedestrian safety in comparison to traditional cars, but that's a topic for another thread.
Personally, I think too much focus is being placed in general on what type of automobiles people drive. Efficient or not, gas, diesel, hybrid, electric. I'm not saying it's bad to switch over to hybrids and electrics, but it's not even close to solving the problem, it's just one relatively minor part of the solution. The future of transportation needs to look like Copenhagen, who plan to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025.
Focusing too much on electric vehicles as a major solution completely undersells the scope of the problems we face and causes people to think they're doing enough just by driving a so-called "green automobile". What needs to happen is a complete restructuring of our urban areas, like what happened in North America after WW2 but in reverse. That needs to be said every time transportation's role in climate change comes up in a conversation, and it needs to be talked about as the best and most important way to address the problem. The problem is Americans in particular don't want to hear it because it means changing lifestyles, but you know what? Tough shit.
There's a lot of cities where planning to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025 might work great but they probably have climates that are as or nearly as mild as Copenhagen.
But they don't spend 4 months a year below freezing with 40+ inches of snowfall and annual temps that can range from -60f to 120f, and not the nice dry 120f you get in the desert :P
For the amount of energy we spend on cars you can build plenty of internal walkways, heated bus stops, train stations and so on.
Privately owned cars are just a super inefficient way to do anything. Walking and Small format transit (scooters, bikes etc) combined with public transit and rentable electric vehicles is the way forward.
In terms of fuel efficiency, "crossover" has little meaning positive or negative. It's fully possible to have a relatively efficient electric crossover. They do have some issues with pedestrian safety in comparison to traditional cars, but that's a topic for another thread.
Personally, I think too much focus is being placed in general on what type of automobiles people drive. Efficient or not, gas, diesel, hybrid, electric. I'm not saying it's bad to switch over to hybrids and electrics, but it's not even close to solving the problem, it's just one relatively minor part of the solution. The future of transportation needs to look like Copenhagen, who plan to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025.
Focusing too much on electric vehicles as a major solution completely undersells the scope of the problems we face and causes people to think they're doing enough just by driving a so-called "green automobile". What needs to happen is a complete restructuring of our urban areas, like what happened in North America after WW2 but in reverse. That needs to be said every time transportation's role in climate change comes up in a conversation, and it needs to be talked about as the best and most important way to address the problem. The problem is Americans in particular don't want to hear it because it means changing lifestyles, but you know what? Tough shit.
Yeah that's never going to happen.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
In terms of fuel efficiency, "crossover" has little meaning positive or negative. It's fully possible to have a relatively efficient electric crossover. They do have some issues with pedestrian safety in comparison to traditional cars, but that's a topic for another thread.
Personally, I think too much focus is being placed in general on what type of automobiles people drive. Efficient or not, gas, diesel, hybrid, electric. I'm not saying it's bad to switch over to hybrids and electrics, but it's not even close to solving the problem, it's just one relatively minor part of the solution. The future of transportation needs to look like Copenhagen, who plan to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025.
Focusing too much on electric vehicles as a major solution completely undersells the scope of the problems we face and causes people to think they're doing enough just by driving a so-called "green automobile". What needs to happen is a complete restructuring of our urban areas, like what happened in North America after WW2 but in reverse. That needs to be said every time transportation's role in climate change comes up in a conversation, and it needs to be talked about as the best and most important way to address the problem. The problem is Americans in particular don't want to hear it because it means changing lifestyles, but you know what? Tough shit.
Yeah that's never going to happen.
Maybe not, maybe we're just screwed. But I still think it's important that people understand how close to impossible it is to get anywhere near carbon neutral while most people (in North America) are living in huge, spread-out houses, driving many miles to work on extensive road networks every day. That it's not just a matter of replacing your car and sticking some solar panels on your roof, dusting off your hands, and patting yourself on the back--that the scope of the problem demands serious societal transformation, and that the entire 1950s-based "American dream" does not work for sustainability.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Trump also dismissed the federal government’s landmark report released last week that found damages from global warming are intensifying around the country. The president said “I don’t see” climate change as man-made and he does not believe the scientific consensus.
“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers,” Trump said. “You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.”
The president added of climate change, “As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it.”
The comments were Trump’s most extensive yet on why he disagrees with the dire National Climate Assessment released by his own administration last Friday, which found that climate change poses a severe threat to the health and financial security of Americans, as well as to the country’s infrastructure and natural resources.
How does that explain at all why he disagrees with the assessment?
Money just isn’t the appropriate frame when we’re talking about the planet. Climate change is a special problem that traditional economic analyses aren’t built to handle. The idea of eternal economic growth is fundamentally flawed on a finite planet, and there is substantial evidence that these economic costs will be borne disproportionately by lower-income countries. There’s no dollar figure that anyone can attach to a civilization’s collapse.
In addition to the widely covered economic risks, there were scads of human-centered impacts listed in Friday’s report: Unchecked climate change will displace hundreds of millions of people in the next 30 years, swamping coastal cities, drying up farmland around the world, burning cities to the ground, and kickstarting a public health crisis inflicting everything from infectious disease outbreaks to suffocating air pollution to worsening mental health.
This process is already in motion. Those of us who talk about climate change for a living should be focusing our dialogue on the immediate danger of climate change in human terms, not making it even more abstract and distant than it already seemingly is.
If an asteroid was going to hit the Earth in 2030, we wouldn’t be justifying the cost of the space mission to blast it out of the sky. We’d be repurposing factories, inventing entire new industries, and steering the global economy toward solving the problem as quickly and as effectively as we can — no matter the cost. Climate change is that looming asteroid, except what we’re doing right now is basically ignoring it, and in the process actually making the problem much, much worse and much harder to solve.
Money just isn’t the appropriate frame when we’re talking about the planet. Climate change is a special problem that traditional economic analyses aren’t built to handle. The idea of eternal economic growth is fundamentally flawed on a finite planet, and there is substantial evidence that these economic costs will be borne disproportionately by lower-income countries. There’s no dollar figure that anyone can attach to a civilization’s collapse.
In addition to the widely covered economic risks, there were scads of human-centered impacts listed in Friday’s report: Unchecked climate change will displace hundreds of millions of people in the next 30 years, swamping coastal cities, drying up farmland around the world, burning cities to the ground, and kickstarting a public health crisis inflicting everything from infectious disease outbreaks to suffocating air pollution to worsening mental health.
This process is already in motion. Those of us who talk about climate change for a living should be focusing our dialogue on the immediate danger of climate change in human terms, not making it even more abstract and distant than it already seemingly is.
If an asteroid was going to hit the Earth in 2030, we wouldn’t be justifying the cost of the space mission to blast it out of the sky. We’d be repurposing factories, inventing entire new industries, and steering the global economy toward solving the problem as quickly and as effectively as we can — no matter the cost. Climate change is that looming asteroid, except what we’re doing right now is basically ignoring it, and in the process actually making the problem much, much worse and much harder to solve.
The problem is, climate change isn't a countdown until everyone including the rich die. All that is known/cared about is that climate change ain't killing them today and probably isn't tomorrow, so it's never today's problem.
If the hypothetical asteroid above was only going to kill the poor people who were unable to move out of its path, we wouldn't be re-purposing shit.
Money just isn’t the appropriate frame when we’re talking about the planet. Climate change is a special problem that traditional economic analyses aren’t built to handle. The idea of eternal economic growth is fundamentally flawed on a finite planet, and there is substantial evidence that these economic costs will be borne disproportionately by lower-income countries. There’s no dollar figure that anyone can attach to a civilization’s collapse.
In addition to the widely covered economic risks, there were scads of human-centered impacts listed in Friday’s report: Unchecked climate change will displace hundreds of millions of people in the next 30 years, swamping coastal cities, drying up farmland around the world, burning cities to the ground, and kickstarting a public health crisis inflicting everything from infectious disease outbreaks to suffocating air pollution to worsening mental health.
This process is already in motion. Those of us who talk about climate change for a living should be focusing our dialogue on the immediate danger of climate change in human terms, not making it even more abstract and distant than it already seemingly is.
If an asteroid was going to hit the Earth in 2030, we wouldn’t be justifying the cost of the space mission to blast it out of the sky. We’d be repurposing factories, inventing entire new industries, and steering the global economy toward solving the problem as quickly and as effectively as we can — no matter the cost. Climate change is that looming asteroid, except what we’re doing right now is basically ignoring it, and in the process actually making the problem much, much worse and much harder to solve.
The problem is, climate change isn't a countdown until everyone including the rich die. All that is known/cared about is that climate change ain't killing them today and probably isn't tomorrow, so it's never today's problem.
If the hypothetical asteroid above was only going to kill the poor people who were unable to move out of its path, we wouldn't be re-purposing shit.
It also doesn't kill anyone directly. Your tombstone doesn't read "died in the climate change event of..." whenever, it's "800 people missing in landmark city flooding event" and "thousands killed as troops move to secure important waterway".
See, not climate related at all - just freak occurrences!
DAWSEY: You said yesterday when you were leaving that you were skeptical of a climate change report that the government had done. Can you just explain why you're skeptical of that report?
TRUMP: One of the problems that a lot of people like myself — we have very high levels of intelligence, but we’re not necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water, and it’s right now at a record clean. But when you look at China and you look at parts of Asia and when you look at South America, and when you look at many other places in this world, including Russia, including — just many other places — the air is incredibly dirty. And when you’re talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small. And it blows over and it sails over. I mean, we take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches all the time that comes over from Asia. It just flows right down the Pacific, it flows, and we say where does this come from. And it takes many people to start off with.
TRUMP: Number two, if you go back and if you look at articles, they talked about global freezing, they talked about at some point the planets could have freeze to death, then it’s going to die of heat exhaustion. There is movement in the atmosphere. There’s no question. As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it — not nearly like it is. Do we want clean water? Absolutely. Do we want clean air to breathe? Absolutely. The fire in California, where I was, if you looked at the floor, the floor of the fire, they have trees that were fallen, they did no forest management, no forest maintenance, and you can light — you can take a match like this and light a tree trunk when that thing is laying there for more than 14 or 15 months. And it’s a massive problem in California.
DAWSEY: So you’re saying you don’t see the —
TRUMP: Josh, you go to other places where they have denser trees — it’s more dense, where the trees are more flammable — they don’t have forest fires like this, because they maintain. And it was very interesting, I was watching the firemen, and they’re raking brush — you know the tumbleweed and brush, and all this stuff that’s growing underneath. It’s on fire, and they’re raking it, working so hard, and they’re raking all this stuff. If that was raked in the beginning, there’d be nothing to catch on fire. It’s very interesting to see. A lot of the trees, they took tremendous burn at the bottom, but they didn’t catch on fire. The bottom is all burned but they didn’t catch on fire because they sucked the water, they’re wet. You need forest management, and they don’t have it.
I am pretty sure his views are never nothing more than half remembered talking points and things he personally saw from over several decades that he can't even repeat properly.
A McLeod tool (or rakehoe) is a two-sided blade—one a rake with coarse tines, one a flat sharpened hoe—on a long, wooden handle. It is a standard[1] tool during wildfire suppression and trail restoration. The combination tool was created in 1905 by Malcolm McLeod, a US Forest Service ranger at the Sierra National Forest.[2]
The McLeod was designed to rake fire lines with the teeth and cut branches and sod with the sharpened hoe edge, but it has found other uses. It can remove slough and berm from a trail, tamp or compact tread,[3] and can shape a trail's backslope.
The tool can also be used for hand crimping straw mulch into soil a minimum depth of 2 inches, and is sometimes specified by the State of Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety for use during erosion control and soil amendment activities.[4]
The movement began about a month ago, with groups of friends on Facebook complaining about an increase in diesel prices put in place by the government of President Emmanuel Macron to try to curb carbon emissions. Seemingly from nowhere, the disparate conversations converged on a date for action: Nov. 17. Hundreds of thousands would gather around the country to demonstrate against the fuel price hike, which they feel unfairly burdens the millions of people who live in small towns and the countryside, where they can’t get around by public transportation or electric scooters.
The yellow vest protests in France are disappointingly showing how the western public is going to react to the end of fuel subsidies and increases in fuel taxes. Macron is standing his ground though at least.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
We have probably all heard about bees struggling but there is a concern that the entire insect population may have dropped by 80% in the last 30 years. Not sure what is causing it. May not be just one thing. But climate change is a likely big contributor.
Sune Boye Riis was on a bike ride with his youngest son, enjoying the sun slanting over the fields and woodlands near their home north of Copenhagen, when it suddenly occurred to him that something about the experience was amiss. Specifically, something was missing.
It was summer. He was out in the country, moving fast. But strangely, he wasn’t eating any bugs.
For a moment, Riis was transported to his childhood on the Danish island of Lolland, in the Baltic Sea. Back then, summer bike rides meant closing his mouth to cruise through thick clouds of insects, but inevitably he swallowed some anyway. When his parents took him driving, he remembered, the car’s windshield was frequently so smeared with insect carcasses that you almost couldn’t see through it. But all that seemed distant now. He couldn’t recall the last time he needed to wash bugs from his windshield...
L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
That's something I've been noticing this past couple of years, but never brought up to anyone. I know we always focus on bees, but I've been able to go a while outside in my backyard without being devoured alive by mosquitos in the summer. And while I hate mosquitos as much as the next person, it's just not right to not have to swat away at them in the evening. I thought I was pretty crazy, especially because there still doesn't seem to be much research. Only anecdotes, not data.
That's something I've been noticing this past couple of years, but never brought up to anyone. I know we always focus on bees, but I've been able to go a while outside in my backyard without being devoured alive by mosquitos in the summer. And while I hate mosquitos as much as the next person, it's just not right to not have to swat away at them in the evening. I thought I was pretty crazy, especially because there still doesn't seem to be much research. Only anecdotes, not data.
Anecdotally, when I was a bit further south in Oklahoma it was a constant storm of fucking mosquitos, moths, wasps, and even though they're arachnids, a never-ending stream of massive wolf spiders.
In southern WI we are still eaten alive by mosquitoes and I think they have been larger than they used to be, but this could be a consequence of a big drop in the bat population around here. Also still getting swarmed with box elders in the fall. Thinking about it though, there has been a distinct lack of butterflies and grasshoppers lately.
In southern WI we are still eaten alive by mosquitoes and I think they have been larger than they used to be, but this could be a consequence of a big drop in the bat population around here. Also still getting swarmed with box elders in the fall. Thinking about it though, there has been a distinct lack of butterflies and grasshoppers lately.
There are also invasive mosquito species spreading as climate change expands their range.
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Raising an entire city by a meter is expensive but doable and has been done before.
The bigger issue is really that with higher sea-levels in a hurricane prone area that it might just not matter - successive, more violent storms will just slowly demolish the coastal real estate entirely. It's the problem with sea-walls as well - I'm not really convinced they'll plausibly survive an environment with regular storms likely to crest them (then again, motivated engineering might build them high enough to pull it off).
But then there’s the spread of disease, famine and the refugee wars anyway
On top of that places like Galveston and New Orleans will be completely consumed by rising water levels.
Then we have to worry about saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers, which will devastate coastal farmland and cities. As the sea levels rise, the increased pressure from the ocean will contaminate the aquifers with brine, which they're already having to deal with in California.
Those displaced by this will have to move further inland towards Middle America, which will spell the end for the already overtaxed Ogallala aquifer.
I'm just saying that wall ain't gonna do shit.
-Expensive
-You have to account for storms, not just hurricanes, any storm that can generate a surge of any sort has to be accounted for. So it's not just places with tropical cyclones that will be making their sea walls significantly higher than the water levels of high tide.
-They're require maintenance and sadly most governments tend to get stupid fuckers that would view the money towards those as a waste of resources because "duh hur, we ain't flooding right now, so it can wait." Sadly, plenty of the populous in places relying on sea walls, would probably see their fair share of idiot voters that wouldn't want to spend money on upkeep of the walls until it's too fucking late.
-The ground the wall sits on needs to not be porous or easily corroded by sea water, otherwise it just comes up from ground some distance away from the wall or seeps in under the wall. Or the wall just collapses and the sea comes rushing in.
-The water being held back has to go somewhere, since we aren't looking at walling off the entire coast, that means any sea wall is going to come at the expense of other areas. Frankly, that opens up a scenario where sea wall placement ends up being a really bad fucking idea because you might end up saving a city, but end up with sea water rising in spots that results in ground water contamination (IMO potable water sources are far more valuable than keeping so city around because the city can always be moved, even if it's expensive. Water sources can't and contaminating some with sea water could have some far reaching effects, in not only do you lose potable water sources, but you also end up hosing the environment or valuable farmland).
I mean there are probably a few spots where we would want to look at sea walls because it's either infrastructure that can't easily be moved. I kind of suspect ports are going to be one of those because moving them to keep up with the changing coasts, likely involves more than just building a new port.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Many places will be unprepared thanks to local and regional politics.
Chapter 3 (Water) in particular is the issue that scares me the most. We can solve the energy problem with some tolerable solutions (solar, batteries, etc). Clean & drinkable water? Yeah, that's scary given that the GOP/Oil Money is hell bent on running an oil pipeline through & oil fracking the region (Dakotas) with a substantially large aquifer for the USA.
This is to say nothing of it making solar nonviable and thus increasing reliance on fossil fuels. I haven't seen anyone mention that yet.
I looked up the "scientists" who came up with this shit. Unless I'm missing something, they're an economist and a private equity executive.
In fairness to Wagner he is very much in favor of action on climate change and is generally well-regarded on the topic.
And they clearly consulted with existing studies and other experts in the field.
But Smith just moves money around for a living. Oh, and he specializes in buyouts of air services and aerospace manufacturing. The paper notes that a new airplane would need to be designed and manufactured to make the idea work. HMMMM.
Also, not me grumbling, just a fun fact: Wagner also did research into the spread of the chemtrail conspiracy theory online.
Or, GM follows in the footsteps of Ford and axes small cars (including the Volt) because "trucks and crossovers are more profitable, k".
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/11/gm-announces-layoffs-and-plant-closures/
This will end well.
Personally, I think too much focus is being placed in general on what type of automobiles people drive. Efficient or not, gas, diesel, hybrid, electric. I'm not saying it's bad to switch over to hybrids and electrics, but it's not even close to solving the problem, it's just one relatively minor part of the solution. The future of transportation needs to look like Copenhagen, who plan to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025.
Focusing too much on electric vehicles as a major solution completely undersells the scope of the problems we face and causes people to think they're doing enough just by driving a so-called "green automobile". What needs to happen is a complete restructuring of our urban areas, like what happened in North America after WW2 but in reverse. That needs to be said every time transportation's role in climate change comes up in a conversation, and it needs to be talked about as the best and most important way to address the problem. The problem is Americans in particular don't want to hear it because it means changing lifestyles, but you know what? Tough shit.
There's a lot of cities where planning to have 75% of their trips occur by walking, bicycle, or public transit by 2025 might work great but they probably have climates that are as or nearly as mild as Copenhagen.
But they don't spend 4 months a year below freezing with 40+ inches of snowfall and annual temps that can range from -60f to 120f, and not the nice dry 120f you get in the desert :P
For the amount of energy we spend on cars you can build plenty of internal walkways, heated bus stops, train stations and so on.
Privately owned cars are just a super inefficient way to do anything. Walking and Small format transit (scooters, bikes etc) combined with public transit and rentable electric vehicles is the way forward.
Yeah that's never going to happen.
Maybe not, maybe we're just screwed. But I still think it's important that people understand how close to impossible it is to get anywhere near carbon neutral while most people (in North America) are living in huge, spread-out houses, driving many miles to work on extensive road networks every day. That it's not just a matter of replacing your car and sticking some solar panels on your roof, dusting off your hands, and patting yourself on the back--that the scope of the problem demands serious societal transformation, and that the entire 1950s-based "American dream" does not work for sustainability.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
"I'm super smart and I don't think it's real, so that counters the data."
ow my head
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I know I didn't, I put my money on Asteroid.
https://grist.org/article/its-not-the-economy-stupid-heres-why-focusing-on-money-misses-the-big-climate-picture/
That one just... kind of says it all really
The problem is, climate change isn't a countdown until everyone including the rich die. All that is known/cared about is that climate change ain't killing them today and probably isn't tomorrow, so it's never today's problem.
If the hypothetical asteroid above was only going to kill the poor people who were unable to move out of its path, we wouldn't be re-purposing shit.
It also doesn't kill anyone directly. Your tombstone doesn't read "died in the climate change event of..." whenever, it's "800 people missing in landmark city flooding event" and "thousands killed as troops move to secure important waterway".
See, not climate related at all - just freak occurrences!
I am pretty sure his views are never nothing more than half remembered talking points and things he personally saw from over several decades that he can't even repeat properly.
Fire rakes do not work that way!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLeod_(tool)
I’ll take “things that are technically true but fucking stupid” for a thousand?
The yellow vest protests in France are disappointingly showing how the western public is going to react to the end of fuel subsidies and increases in fuel taxes. Macron is standing his ground though at least.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
The New York Times Magazine - The Insect Apocalypse Is Here
Anecdotally, when I was a bit further south in Oklahoma it was a constant storm of fucking mosquitos, moths, wasps, and even though they're arachnids, a never-ending stream of massive wolf spiders.
There are also invasive mosquito species spreading as climate change expands their range.