3 ms·

Unfortunately I think it is you who misunderstands the scope of the problem. It's a massive systemic issue that touches pretty much all elements of our systems

Unfortunately I think it is you who misunderstands the scope of the problem. It's a massive systemic issue that touches pretty much all elements of our systems. Too difficult to explain to people over a comment thread on HN but if you are a systemic thinker then you likely understand this. Fast counter examples: Our infrastructure isn't prepared for the changing climates (examples: electricity Texas, ocean barriers many places across planet, increased flooding). Crop failures: (non California example: Monsoon's in India are becoming increasingly erratic.). California - continuous droughts and killing off crops due to lack of water. Yes it is going back to drier times, however the climate is changed - our forests can't manage (See redwoods in distress - FWIW they been around throughout the drier times > 1000s of years). I'm not saying that were going to lose all our crops right now (insurance models the climate heavily right now - example see climatecorp) - over time its going to get worse. Likelihood will be worse in countries that have limited ability to handle this stuff (i.e. india, china, etc). Wether or not either of us are right or wrong about this one incident doesn't matter. The world is becoming a hotter and harder place to live for humans and the frequency of adverse events keeps increasing and as humans we are not doing enough to manage our future.

NoOneNew 5y ago
You want to talk systemic... the first problem with California water supply is not drought. It's the people. The most populated areas of California inherently cannot support that level of "human civilization" without diverting large amounts of water from other, far distant areas in a sustainable manner. This comes from people who imagined an area that sees about 35 rainy days a year as "paradise". You are fundamentally and irreparably stupid to imagine that kind of location can house large amounts of people without massive resource diversion. Research the last hundred years, literally, of scandals due to LA's build up. Cali would be far more sustainable if it was more agrarian like Nebraska or Oklahoma. Probably would be an even bigger food powerhouse if the rivers weren't getting siphoned so bad as to do permanent damage to local ecosystems. What I find funny too, how much the Cali types love to play the "holy than thou" game when it comes to environmentalism, yet they're responsible for devastating a whole hell of a lot of terrain. I bring this up because I find the business of climate change to be a farce. It's all finger wagging and pointing that sums up to, "They shouldn't be in power... I should have ultimate power." Hell, let's take your Texas example. You know whose grid is in even worse shape? Cali. They've been mandatory power shut offs as well and way more often. Yet, hey, look at them stupid Texans and their "shitty" grid. If people actually gave a shit, they would say, "it looks like our first target for repair with max gains is... insert failing infrastructure here". No, it turns into a tribe political war. Mostly again, these infrastructure problems are not climate change based. They're based on policy from roughly the 90s that defunded maintenance and upgrade programs. Now we reap those short sighted policies. Pointing at climate change for these problems will not fix them because it's not the inherent cause. The same way pointing out the sky is blue will fix the infrastructure structure policy either. This isnt a new issue either. Engineers have been screaming about this since the late 90s (that I know of), but again, it's not a sexy problem.

NoOneNew 5y ago

You want to talk systemic... the first problem with California water supply is not drought. It's the people. The most populated areas of California inherently cannot support that level of "human civilization" without diverting large amounts of water from other, far distant areas in a sustainable manner. This comes from people who imagined an area that sees about 35 rainy days a year as "paradise". You are fundamentally and irreparably stupid to imagine that kind of location can house large amounts of people without massive resource diversion. Research the last hundred years, literally, of scandals due to LA's build up. Cali would be far more sustainable if it was more agrarian like Nebraska or Oklahoma. Probably would be an even bigger food powerhouse if the rivers weren't getting siphoned so bad as to do permanent damage to local ecosystems. What I find funny too, how much the Cali types love to play the "holy than thou" game when it comes to environmentalism, yet they're responsible for devastating a whole hell of a lot of terrain. I bring this up because I find the business of climate change to be a farce. It's all finger wagging and pointing that sums up to, "They shouldn't be in power... I should have ultimate power." Hell, let's take your Texas example. You know whose grid is in even worse shape? Cali. They've been mandatory power shut offs as well and way more often. Yet, hey, look at them stupid Texans and their "shitty" grid. If people actually gave a shit, they would say, "it looks like our first target for repair with max gains is... insert failing infrastructure here". No, it turns into a tribe political war. Mostly again, these infrastructure problems are not climate change based. They're based on policy from roughly the 90s that defunded maintenance and upgrade programs. Now we reap those short sighted policies. Pointing at climate change for these problems will not fix them because it's not the inherent cause. The same way pointing out the sky is blue will fix the infrastructure structure policy either. This isnt a new issue either. Engineers have been screaming about this since the late 90s (that I know of), but again, it's not a sexy problem.