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I think a better question is, where do you not see resistance coming from? In general, there is resistance to everything everywhere. I wasn't asking rhetorical

by nkurz 11y ago

I think a better question is, where do you not see resistance coming from? In general, there is resistance to everything everywhere. I wasn't asking rhetorically, I was specifically wondering what your thoughts were, since I've read and appreciated your comments for many years now. Personally, I think that concentrating on mitigation may be a better societal pragmatic strategy than concentrating on blame. > * we are still in the range of natural variability* > And does that make this a more comfortable living situation > for you? Like you, I'm a current Californian with worries about the future of the state (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10217233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10217233). Yes, I guess I do hope that we'll swing back to normal rainfall sometime soon, buying us more time to deal with the structural problem. If the current drought is human caused, our chances of a return to a viable state are much lower. I think I disagree with your interpretation of Climategate, though, as I believe both that we are facing major ecological problems due to climate change (some portion of which is human caused) and that a large amount of climate science research is terribly flawed and untrustworthy. Not only are we lost, some of our more prominent scientific guides are not to be trusted. > then I suppose the only remaining option is to decrease > demand down to levels that can be supported by the > relatively meager amounts of precipitation across the > state. Or possibly increase supply through desalinization, or reallocate supply with major changes to infrastructure. As I'm sure you know, the majority of water use in California is agricultural. The bright side of that is that legal changes to water rights can go a long way toward reducing demand. Coming from somewhere where water is less of an issue (Wisconsin) I find water rights (and the concept of the 'surface estate') fascinating. > Which, again, makes California sound like a pretty nice > place to be from. Where do you see as more promising?

thaumaturgy 11y ago
> I wasn't asking rhetorically, I was specifically wondering what your thoughts were, since I've read and appreciated your comments for many years now. Oh, sorry. I did misinterpret your comment. I might be getting a little punchy on this topic (this isn't the only place I've been having this argument -- I've really gotta quit doing this). (And thank you.) > If the current drought is human caused, our chances of a return to a viable state are much lower. FWIW I'm pretty optimistic about the long-term future, just not so much for the next 20 years or so, and I personally don't want to live through that particular transition. There's a ton of capital and vested interests in California; people will figure it out, probably roughly equal parts adjustments to how we live and engineering of the environment. For instance, if these conditions continue, it's going to become extraordinarily difficult for environmentalists to effectively oppose building new reservoirs, and as much as I usually agree with environmentalists, new reservoirs are one of the things that really need to happen in the state. > ...a large amount of climate science research is terribly flawed and untrustworthy. Not only are we lost, some of our more prominent scientific guides are not to be trusted. Totally honest question (which I might or might not rebut depending on your answer): what was it about the CRU emails that caused you to find climate scientists to be untrustworthy? I'm not aware of any findings of academic misconduct. > Or possibly increase supply through desalinization I'm not a big fan of desalinization on a large scale, personally, though I'm not totally informed on it. My understanding so far is that it's terribly expensive in both startup and ongoing costs (including energy costs), that there is still a significant distribution problem to be solved, and that it won't make economic sense during wet years when there is plentiful freshwater available everywhere (for a few months anyway). > or reallocate supply with major changes to infrastructure. I'd be happier to see this (and it is underway: http://www.socalwater.org/news/scwc-water-blog/376-why-a-delta-fix-for-big-gulps-when-drought-is-over http://www.socalwater.org/news/scwc-water-blog/376-why-a-del...). There's a lot of storm runoff in wet years that gets shunted straight to the ocean; it would be nice if significant amounts of it were captured, so long as it didn't leave the Delta and similar areas vulnerable to seawater incursions during storm surges. > The bright side of that is that legal changes to water rights can go a long way toward reducing demand. I worry about this. I don't see agriculture as a net negative; I think we need to do as much as possible to make sure that they don't have to dramatically reduce demand. There are some aspects of it that are very screwy right now and need fixing (http://www.npr.org/2015/08/06/430077437/the-twisty-logic-of-the-drought-grow-thirsty-crops-to-dig-deeper-wells http://www.npr.org/2015/08/06/430077437/the-twisty-logic-of-...) and I suspect there are some things that can be done, technologically, to maintain agricultural production with modest decreases in water supply, but I'd hate to see agriculture in the state slow down significantly. That would have effects on food supply all over the country (at least for a while until other areas started picking up the slack). > Where do you see as more promising? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10219046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10219046 In short: I dunno. I'm open to suggestions. (edit: not sure what you said to invite downvotes, I don't think it's deserved fwiw.)
- nkurz 11y ago
  > what was it about the CRU emails that caused you to find > climate scientists to be untrustworthy? I haven't really looked at the emails since they came out, and at this point the details blur, and I'm not eager to dive back into them. It's more that they lowered the level of trust I had in the good faith of some of the participants. I'm sure there was a fair amount of confirmation bias, because I'd been immersed in the details of some of the papers for many years and already disliked a number of the participants because of (what I judge to be) the questionable quality of their scientific work. While there were a few minor players who came off looking great (in my mind) several members of the leadership (in my mind) looked more like truth-twisting politicians than truth-seeking scientists. It wasn't a matter of smoking guns, rather lack of honorable exoneration for things that already concerned me. I agree that there were no findings of academic misconduct, but I don't think that shows the conduct was "becoming" of a good scientist.
  - thaumaturgy 11y ago
    Well, that's all pretty reasonable. Science has its fair share of oddballs and bureaucrats too. I have to trust in the scientific process though. It's done pretty good so far, and I think that if there were serious flaws in the fundamental conclusions of climate science, one of the many good scientists out there would've pointed them out. (I'm using some weasel words here because I'd wager there are some disagreements among scientists in the field and I bet someone's going to come along and tell me so. But I doubt those disagreements would change statements like, "the planet is getting warmer", "humans are a significant contributing factor", "this is going to affect what we are accustomed to as 'normal' weather", and, "the west is going to get drier".)

by nkurz 11y ago

thaumaturgy 11y ago

> I wasn't asking rhetorically, I was specifically wondering what your thoughts were, since I've read and appreciated your comments for many years now. Oh, sorry. I did misinterpret your comment. I might be getting a little punchy on this topic (this isn't the only place I've been having this argument -- I've really gotta quit doing this). (And thank you.) > If the current drought is human caused, our chances of a return to a viable state are much lower. FWIW I'm pretty optimistic about the long-term future, just not so much for the next 20 years or so, and I personally don't want to live through that particular transition. There's a ton of capital and vested interests in California; people will figure it out, probably roughly equal parts adjustments to how we live and engineering of the environment. For instance, if these conditions continue, it's going to become extraordinarily difficult for environmentalists to effectively oppose building new reservoirs, and as much as I usually agree with environmentalists, new reservoirs are one of the things that really need to happen in the state. > ...a large amount of climate science research is terribly flawed and untrustworthy. Not only are we lost, some of our more prominent scientific guides are not to be trusted. Totally honest question (which I might or might not rebut depending on your answer): what was it about the CRU emails that caused you to find climate scientists to be untrustworthy? I'm not aware of any findings of academic misconduct. > Or possibly increase supply through desalinization I'm not a big fan of desalinization on a large scale, personally, though I'm not totally informed on it. My understanding so far is that it's terribly expensive in both startup and ongoing costs (including energy costs), that there is still a significant distribution problem to be solved, and that it won't make economic sense during wet years when there is plentiful freshwater available everywhere (for a few months anyway). > or reallocate supply with major changes to infrastructure. I'd be happier to see this (and it is underway: http://www.socalwater.org/news/scwc-water-blog/376-why-a-delta-fix-for-big-gulps-when-drought-is-over http://www.socalwater.org/news/scwc-water-blog/376-why-a-del...). There's a lot of storm runoff in wet years that gets shunted straight to the ocean; it would be nice if significant amounts of it were captured, so long as it didn't leave the Delta and similar areas vulnerable to seawater incursions during storm surges. > The bright side of that is that legal changes to water rights can go a long way toward reducing demand. I worry about this. I don't see agriculture as a net negative; I think we need to do as much as possible to make sure that they don't have to dramatically reduce demand. There are some aspects of it that are very screwy right now and need fixing (http://www.npr.org/2015/08/06/430077437/the-twisty-logic-of-the-drought-grow-thirsty-crops-to-dig-deeper-wells http://www.npr.org/2015/08/06/430077437/the-twisty-logic-of-...) and I suspect there are some things that can be done, technologically, to maintain agricultural production with modest decreases in water supply, but I'd hate to see agriculture in the state slow down significantly. That would have effects on food supply all over the country (at least for a while until other areas started picking up the slack). > Where do you see as more promising? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10219046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10219046 In short: I dunno. I'm open to suggestions. (edit: not sure what you said to invite downvotes, I don't think it's deserved fwiw.)

nkurz 11y ago
> what was it about the CRU emails that caused you to find > climate scientists to be untrustworthy? I haven't really looked at the emails since they came out, and at this point the details blur, and I'm not eager to dive back into them. It's more that they lowered the level of trust I had in the good faith of some of the participants. I'm sure there was a fair amount of confirmation bias, because I'd been immersed in the details of some of the papers for many years and already disliked a number of the participants because of (what I judge to be) the questionable quality of their scientific work. While there were a few minor players who came off looking great (in my mind) several members of the leadership (in my mind) looked more like truth-twisting politicians than truth-seeking scientists. It wasn't a matter of smoking guns, rather lack of honorable exoneration for things that already concerned me. I agree that there were no findings of academic misconduct, but I don't think that shows the conduct was "becoming" of a good scientist.
- thaumaturgy 11y ago
  Well, that's all pretty reasonable. Science has its fair share of oddballs and bureaucrats too. I have to trust in the scientific process though. It's done pretty good so far, and I think that if there were serious flaws in the fundamental conclusions of climate science, one of the many good scientists out there would've pointed them out. (I'm using some weasel words here because I'd wager there are some disagreements among scientists in the field and I bet someone's going to come along and tell me so. But I doubt those disagreements would change statements like, "the planet is getting warmer", "humans are a significant contributing factor", "this is going to affect what we are accustomed to as 'normal' weather", and, "the west is going to get drier".)