3 ms·

I never considered it, but maybe climate change will help clear some of our waterways of harmful dams.

maxerickson 10y ago
Bad news, significant flood control+reservoir dams will certainly be rebuilt. So if you are rooting for big dams to be destroyed by weather, you are just rooting for short term harm and suffering, there won't be any long term changes to the river systems.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  This certainty is unwarranted, in the recent political context.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Being utterly indifferent to thousands of lives being massively disrupted is unwarranted in pretty much any context.
    - erikpukinskis 10y ago
      I'm not indifferent. I just made an observation. Such changes would come with pros and cons. Many lives would be saved by the removal of dams. Perhaps you are indifferent to the lives that were disrupted by the creation of the dams?
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      That's pretty fuckin' rich. With the possible exceptions of wars and nuclear-plant meltdowns, nothing disrupts lives on the scale of large dams. I didn't vote for the Orange One, but this is why he won.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        If it helps, I'm not coastal or elite. It's certainly a fair criticism of my phrasing, but having your home washed away due to weather is quite different than being compensated to uproot.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  Depends how fast the changes come, and how they compound.
- schiffern 10y ago
  Small dams are great. Per dollar they can store a lot more water than large dams (partly due to compacted earth vs concrete construction), they don't incur large water transport costs and evaporation/salination, and they reduce regional flooding (again, because they store more water per dollar) and improve on-farm water security. In terms of liters stored per hectare, there are more opportunities for small-scale dams than large dams. Like in Australia, every farm should have its own system of dams. Scale matters. Like all things, there's a "right size" for everything. We've been focusing almost exclusively on huge dams, but neglecting small [property scale] dams. At a smaller scale there are many advantages: significantly more 'edge' for beneficial biotic interactions (edges between biomes are more productive than either biome on its own), the topsoil can be economically removed during dam construction to avoid methane release and wasted biomass (impossible in a huge scale dam), runoff and on-farm erosion is reduced by strategic dam placement within the landscape, and the water can be directly used on the farm with no transaction overhead or canal network (just a simple system of gravity fed pipes). http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1531e/i1531e.pdf http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1531e/i1531e.pdf >significant flood control+reservoir dams will certainly be rebuilt I wouldn't necessarily adopt such a pessimistic attitude. Your analysis is predicated on the idea that A) the society will have the resources to rebuild thousands of [often economically futile] dams, and B) the society will neglect to account for the ecological and indirect economic costs of building a dam (reduced forestry yield due to phosphorus deprivation from salmon runs, increased insurance cost due to delta erosion, etc) versus the water resources and flood control abilities, which are constantly degrading due to silt buildup. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140826-elwha-river-dam-removal-salmon-science-olympic/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140826-elwha...

Bad news, significant flood control+reservoir dams will certainly be rebuilt. So if you are rooting for big dams to be destroyed by weather, you are just rooting for short term harm and suffering, there won't be any long term changes to the river systems.

jessaustin 10y ago
This certainty is unwarranted, in the recent political context.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Being utterly indifferent to thousands of lives being massively disrupted is unwarranted in pretty much any context.
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    I'm not indifferent. I just made an observation. Such changes would come with pros and cons. Many lives would be saved by the removal of dams. Perhaps you are indifferent to the lives that were disrupted by the creation of the dams?
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    That's pretty fuckin' rich. With the possible exceptions of wars and nuclear-plant meltdowns, nothing disrupts lives on the scale of large dams. I didn't vote for the Orange One, but this is why he won.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      If it helps, I'm not coastal or elite. It's certainly a fair criticism of my phrasing, but having your home washed away due to weather is quite different than being compensated to uproot.
erikpukinskis 10y ago
Depends how fast the changes come, and how they compound.
schiffern 10y ago
Small dams are great. Per dollar they can store a lot more water than large dams (partly due to compacted earth vs concrete construction), they don't incur large water transport costs and evaporation/salination, and they reduce regional flooding (again, because they store more water per dollar) and improve on-farm water security. In terms of liters stored per hectare, there are more opportunities for small-scale dams than large dams. Like in Australia, every farm should have its own system of dams. Scale matters. Like all things, there's a "right size" for everything. We've been focusing almost exclusively on huge dams, but neglecting small [property scale] dams. At a smaller scale there are many advantages: significantly more 'edge' for beneficial biotic interactions (edges between biomes are more productive than either biome on its own), the topsoil can be economically removed during dam construction to avoid methane release and wasted biomass (impossible in a huge scale dam), runoff and on-farm erosion is reduced by strategic dam placement within the landscape, and the water can be directly used on the farm with no transaction overhead or canal network (just a simple system of gravity fed pipes). http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1531e/i1531e.pdf http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1531e/i1531e.pdf >significant flood control+reservoir dams will certainly be rebuilt I wouldn't necessarily adopt such a pessimistic attitude. Your analysis is predicated on the idea that A) the society will have the resources to rebuild thousands of [often economically futile] dams, and B) the society will neglect to account for the ecological and indirect economic costs of building a dam (reduced forestry yield due to phosphorus deprivation from salmon runs, increased insurance cost due to delta erosion, etc) versus the water resources and flood control abilities, which are constantly degrading due to silt buildup. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140826-elwha-river-dam-removal-salmon-science-olympic/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140826-elwha...