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California and Florida were indeed sold where the idea of a perfect climate - by land speculators. In both places the reality of the situation was not what was

by Aloha 3y ago

California and Florida were indeed sold where the idea of a perfect climate - by land speculators. In both places the reality of the situation was not what was promised: California with periodic drought, and a general shortage of water in the places people wanted to live. Drought which brings fire, followed by wet years, which bring mud. My entire childhood was punctuated by dry, fire, rain, mud - rinse and repeat, like seasons. Are there more fires now? I dont really know to be honest - particularly with forest fires, its hard to separate that from 100 years of bad forest policy in regards to letting forests that need to burn periodically burn. Florida with periodic hurricanes which would come thru and wipe down everything built. Are there more hurricanes every year now? I'm not clear on that either - I will say while the frequency seems within norms, the size of them does seem bigger because of how much warmer the gulf is. Climate change may be making these problems more extreme, but the fact is these problems are not new. Neither state is experiencing weather that is all that much different than in the known historical record - both in the time they've been settled by europeans and from what we know from things like tree ring records. Until we acknowledge there is no practical way to put the climate change genie back in the bottle, and that we need to switch from trying to decarbonize to making our built environments more resilient and focusing on sustainability, articles like this that tie every change in the climate to anthropogenic climate change, are little more than doomerism.

sologoub 3y ago
For California, drought/water shortage is primarily and agricultural problem, but has been externalized to urban areas and consumers - urban uses are 10%, while 40% goes to agricultural uses[1]. “Environmental” is 50%, but it’s a bit of an odd measure - per the report [1] it’s for rivers and maintaining habitats. I’d pref to exclude that from the available total. That would make agriculture 80% and urban uses 20%. When you consider many water inefficient agricultural uses, there’s quite a bit of water for consumers that is being sent elsewhere. CA has also consistently failed with other source developments, e.g. desalination, so I’d argue it’s less a fact of life here and more a question of the will to improve. [1] https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/06_June/June2019_Item_12_Attach_2_PPICFactSheets.pdf https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/...
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  To highlight this, the imperial valley alone draws about 2.5 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado. That's enough water for about 40 million residents. Nothing vital grows there.
  - sologoub 3y ago
    Looked up imperial valley agriculture statistics, according to the imperial county farm bureau 500k acres are farmable, of which nearly half are alfalfa and bermuda grass (aka lawn grass).[1] Would be interesting if someone knowledgeable in this area could comment on water consumption of these vs impact to other food chains, as well as alternatives such as growing it elsewhere and transporting to where livestock that eats it is. [1]https://www.icfb.net/imperial-valley-agriculture https://www.icfb.net/imperial-valley-agriculture
- toast0 3y ago
  > For California, drought/water shortage is primarily and agricultural problem, but has been externalized to urban areas and consumers - urban uses are 10%, while 40% goes to agricultural uses. Yes, agricultural dominates usage, but southern california with no agriculture would still have to transfer water from elsewhere (colorado river, sacramento delta etc) in order to sustain the population.
  - sologoub 3y ago
    This source from LATimes in 2019 seems to think it’s doable (not cheap) and doesn’t event include desalination, just recycling and capturing rainwater: https://archive.ph/l0To2 https://archive.ph/l0To2 Personally, I’d want desalination in the mix for resiliency/diversification.
pfisch 3y ago
While that is fine, it seems like we should also continue to decarbonize right? I'm personally all for geoengineering solutions, but even that is just a bandaid. We do need to address the core problem here. We are having record high heat almost every day it seems like. Eventually it will get so hot the problems will become extreme, possibly beyond our ability to continue to mass produce food.
- intrasight 3y ago
  Why do you say that geoengineering is just a bandaid? The planet is heated by the sun and by nothing else that I'm aware of. Geoengineering is really the only solution. There's no likely plan to decarbonize.
  - Aloha 3y ago
    That's my argument, I see no realistic path to decarbonization. I'd think we should eliminate fossil fuel consumption for base load power generation, but I'm not sure we can go much further than that.
    - intrasight 3y ago
      Fossil fuels will be consumed as long as there is someone who benefits from its consumption. The collective "we" have very little control over that.
      - Aloha 3y ago
        Thats kinda glib - One, the people who benefit from fossil fuel consumption are too diffuse to easily tamp down on. Two, we cannot replace fossil fuels in certain applications. Three, even all the green technology will need lubrication from something, unless we plan on moving back to whale oil (not exactly a renewable resource), we're stuck with oil based lubrication. Silicone use can be expanded, but it's not a 1:1 replacement for most oil based products. Burnable fuel is still a byproduct of this production. Four, we cannot replace non lubricant petrochemical production at all, oil will still need to come out of the ground, and we will have fuel as a byproduct of that as well. Fuel will continue to be available at a minimum as a byproduct of lubricant and petrochemical production, so while I think we can eliminate at least 50% of fossil fuel consumption - I just see no way to get to 100%. Getting to that 50% requires a whole lot more nuclear power than we have been willing to build.
no_wizard 3y ago
>Climate change may be making these problems more extreme It most certainly is. The periods of drought are lasting longer and are more intense, and the colder periods aren't as cold and aren't nearly as "wet" Climate may still be cycling as it did historically, however its happening with more intensity for hotter months and colder months aren't getting as cold. If models are even semi-accurate, the western Sierras may not even get snow packs in the winter at all but the highest elevations
Dig1t 3y ago
California could solve their water problem if they wanted. Desalination is a proven technology that could alleviate all of California's problems. Israel gets over 50% of their water from it. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the... California could power it with nuclear energy; they already have nuclear power plants and they have all of the engineering talent they need to make it happen. They are simply choosing not to solve their problems. In fact they are doing the opposite, they are shutting down their nuclear reactors and exacerbating their water problems by continuing to allow farmers to use all their available water on inefficient crops like almonds. It's honestly mystifying how a state full of so many smart people and with one-party complete control of politics is unable to solve a basic problem for which they have all the tools. They really don't have any excuses. Florida, on the other hand, yes they do have a hurricane problem. I don't know what they can do about that.

by Aloha 3y ago

sologoub 3y ago

For California, drought/water shortage is primarily and agricultural problem, but has been externalized to urban areas and consumers - urban uses are 10%, while 40% goes to agricultural uses[1]. “Environmental” is 50%, but it’s a bit of an odd measure - per the report [1] it’s for rivers and maintaining habitats. I’d pref to exclude that from the available total. That would make agriculture 80% and urban uses 20%. When you consider many water inefficient agricultural uses, there’s quite a bit of water for consumers that is being sent elsewhere. CA has also consistently failed with other source developments, e.g. desalination, so I’d argue it’s less a fact of life here and more a question of the will to improve. [1] https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/06_June/June2019_Item_12_Attach_2_PPICFactSheets.pdf https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/...

bcrosby95 3y ago
To highlight this, the imperial valley alone draws about 2.5 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado. That's enough water for about 40 million residents. Nothing vital grows there.
- sologoub 3y ago
  Looked up imperial valley agriculture statistics, according to the imperial county farm bureau 500k acres are farmable, of which nearly half are alfalfa and bermuda grass (aka lawn grass).[1] Would be interesting if someone knowledgeable in this area could comment on water consumption of these vs impact to other food chains, as well as alternatives such as growing it elsewhere and transporting to where livestock that eats it is. [1]https://www.icfb.net/imperial-valley-agriculture https://www.icfb.net/imperial-valley-agriculture
toast0 3y ago
> For California, drought/water shortage is primarily and agricultural problem, but has been externalized to urban areas and consumers - urban uses are 10%, while 40% goes to agricultural uses. Yes, agricultural dominates usage, but southern california with no agriculture would still have to transfer water from elsewhere (colorado river, sacramento delta etc) in order to sustain the population.
- sologoub 3y ago
  This source from LATimes in 2019 seems to think it’s doable (not cheap) and doesn’t event include desalination, just recycling and capturing rainwater: https://archive.ph/l0To2 https://archive.ph/l0To2 Personally, I’d want desalination in the mix for resiliency/diversification.

pfisch 3y ago

While that is fine, it seems like we should also continue to decarbonize right? I'm personally all for geoengineering solutions, but even that is just a bandaid. We do need to address the core problem here. We are having record high heat almost every day it seems like. Eventually it will get so hot the problems will become extreme, possibly beyond our ability to continue to mass produce food.

intrasight 3y ago
Why do you say that geoengineering is just a bandaid? The planet is heated by the sun and by nothing else that I'm aware of. Geoengineering is really the only solution. There's no likely plan to decarbonize.
- Aloha 3y ago
  That's my argument, I see no realistic path to decarbonization. I'd think we should eliminate fossil fuel consumption for base load power generation, but I'm not sure we can go much further than that.
  - intrasight 3y ago
    Fossil fuels will be consumed as long as there is someone who benefits from its consumption. The collective "we" have very little control over that.
    - Aloha 3y ago
      Thats kinda glib - One, the people who benefit from fossil fuel consumption are too diffuse to easily tamp down on. Two, we cannot replace fossil fuels in certain applications. Three, even all the green technology will need lubrication from something, unless we plan on moving back to whale oil (not exactly a renewable resource), we're stuck with oil based lubrication. Silicone use can be expanded, but it's not a 1:1 replacement for most oil based products. Burnable fuel is still a byproduct of this production. Four, we cannot replace non lubricant petrochemical production at all, oil will still need to come out of the ground, and we will have fuel as a byproduct of that as well. Fuel will continue to be available at a minimum as a byproduct of lubricant and petrochemical production, so while I think we can eliminate at least 50% of fossil fuel consumption - I just see no way to get to 100%. Getting to that 50% requires a whole lot more nuclear power than we have been willing to build.

no_wizard 3y ago

>Climate change may be making these problems more extreme It most certainly is. The periods of drought are lasting longer and are more intense, and the colder periods aren't as cold and aren't nearly as "wet" Climate may still be cycling as it did historically, however its happening with more intensity for hotter months and colder months aren't getting as cold. If models are even semi-accurate, the western Sierras may not even get snow packs in the winter at all but the highest elevations

Dig1t 3y ago

California could solve their water problem if they wanted. Desalination is a proven technology that could alleviate all of California's problems. Israel gets over 50% of their water from it. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the... California could power it with nuclear energy; they already have nuclear power plants and they have all of the engineering talent they need to make it happen. They are simply choosing not to solve their problems. In fact they are doing the opposite, they are shutting down their nuclear reactors and exacerbating their water problems by continuing to allow farmers to use all their available water on inefficient crops like almonds. It's honestly mystifying how a state full of so many smart people and with one-party complete control of politics is unable to solve a basic problem for which they have all the tools. They really don't have any excuses. Florida, on the other hand, yes they do have a hurricane problem. I don't know what they can do about that.