[HN Gopher] Rising groundwater caused by climate change could de...
___________________________________________________________________
Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal
communities
Author : CapitalistCartr
Score : 94 points
Date : 2021-12-13 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thinknewsmedia.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thinknewsmedia.com)
| bch wrote:
| British Columbia has just experienced substantial flooding that
| wasn't related to being coastal[0][1][2]. I think it exemplifies
| how we need to mind our relationship with the world - everywhere.
|
| [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-floods-
| su...
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/c-zANcnwY34
|
| [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/merritt-
| resi...
| phicoh wrote:
| There is one thing I don't understand about the article. The rise
| in groundwater level should follow the average increase in sea
| level. It is not like a big wave would suddenly affect the
| groundwater level.
|
| Assuming houses last for 50 years and during the next 50 years
| the sealevel can increase by around 50cm, it should be easy to
| check if buildings near the coast are high enough that they can
| accept this change in sealevel.
|
| Of course, damage done by flooding does depend on how big waves
| are. So you need levees and seawalls long before you get a
| groundwater problem.
|
| That said, you don't want to pump fresh water out of the ground
| close to the sea (unless you inject at least as much fresh
| water). But that is independent of sealevel rising.
|
| Finally, plenty of Dutch houses are built in swamps below
| sealevel. The technology exists.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > Of course, damage done by flooding does depend on how big
| waves are. So you need levees and seawalls long before you get
| a groundwater problem.
|
| Actually Germany and Netherlands experienced massive floods
| this year with increased river volumes in the Maas due to
| excess rain and ice melt in the Alps. At least 200 people died,
| 10s of thousands relocated.
|
| My point is not all your flood threats are downstream from you.
|
| > Finally, plenty of Dutch houses are built in swamps below
| sealevel. The technology exists.
|
| The dutch have centuries of know how and an entirely separate
| body to oversee all water management the Rijkswaterstaat. To
| assume that their model can be easily copied is a massive
| underestimation of the problem/solutions.
| phicoh wrote:
| There is an interesting thing related to the recent floods
| that happened in Begium, Germany and The Netherlands. The
| Netherlands spends quite a bit of effort estimating flood
| risks, and for more important water defenses tries to get the
| chance of disaster down to about one in 10000 years.
|
| However, it seems that this calculation is only done for the
| lower parts of the country. The Meuse was only taken
| seriously after a couple of floods in the 1990s (and works
| were just far enough in The Netherlands that places along the
| Meuse were mostly fine).
|
| However, for smaller rivers, nobody seems to care.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Sea level rise in itself is a complicated subject. Some regions
| of the ocean see easily twice the global average of sea level
| rise, while other regions barely change (currents and winds
| have a large effect on sea level). On the coast this gets
| further complicated because the ground itself is also moving up
| or down (mostly due to settling, or century-long rebound from
| the loss of glaciers) [1].
|
| I would assume ground water adds another layer of complexity
| since it also depends on local geography
|
| 1: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-
| climate/...
| iskander wrote:
| I haven't read the article yet but one thing that makes more
| complicated in the US is the widespread use of septic tanks.
| The leach field will flood before the actual surface.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Most septic tanks are not in coastal properties. The water
| table isn't going to change for a property unless you're
| right on the water or living on wide low lying march/delta
| type areas.
| iskander wrote:
| In Florida and much of the Gulf Coast though...
|
| Check out this map of population density:
| https://vividmaps.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/10/metropolita...
|
| All those dense spots in Florida and along the Gulf are
| also more likely than most US urban areas to use septic
| tanks. That's a lot of brackish poop, clogged toilets, and
| environmental contamination coming in the next few decades.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Given the high water table in Florida, only people living
| in the countryside have septic tanks. None on the coast
| would have a septic tank
| cronix wrote:
| Meanwhile, other places are experiencing the exact opposite -
| wells running dry because the water table is continually
| dropping.
|
| https://www.opb.org/article/2021/07/29/southern-oregon-wells...
|
| https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2017/10/16/running-dry-groundw...
| tmnstr85 wrote:
| Either side of the coin, it's still pretty wild to watch it
| happen. We live on a point in Baltimore harbor and had the
| perfect storm of both water being pushed up the harbor, big tides
| and sheets of rain. By the time the tide came in the second time,
| we started seeing water pushing up through the sump pumps in our
| basements. The pressure from the water table underneath our home
| was so great that water was pushing it's way through the floors.
| This was the first time we've ever seen this happen down here,
| this is an area with significant history. I would not be
| surprised if this became common place in the future.
| ianhawes wrote:
| The entire Inner Harbor is within a floodplain, with the
| southernmost areas being within the 100yr FP. What you are
| describing is not unheard of, but simply not common.
| hihihihi1234 wrote:
| Sounds like you should move before it's too late.
| ancode wrote:
| That doesn't make the problem go away it just pushes it onto
| some other unsuspecting person
| bob1029 wrote:
| Not everything is forever and perfect and many people are
| happy living within this reality.
| mperham wrote:
| Unsuspecting? That's the entire point of a buyer's agent.
| markdown wrote:
| In the western Pacific a week ago:
|
| https://twitter.com/LorenzoRaplili/status/146778222144867942...
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/tok-pisin/2021-12-07/king-tide-png/13...
|
| https://www.looppng.com/png-news/tides-continue-nip-107547
|
| https://postcourier.com.pg/king-tides-wreak-havoc-on-islands...
| r721 wrote:
| Original article:
| https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/13/1041309/climate-...
| (unpaywalled: https://archive.today/DNSkT)
| olivermarks wrote:
| Who is 'thinknewsmedia' who wrote this 'could' article? The link
| to Vkontakte at base suggests the site is Russian?
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| This version is freely available to read; the MIT one wasn't.
| q1w2 wrote:
| You are right to be suspicious. While the original author of
| the article isn't from the site - it is very very interesting
| to see it propagated by Russian sources.
|
| Good catch.
| DennisP wrote:
| They have a source link at the bottom. It's MIT's Technology
| Review. Here's the full-text archive: https://archive.md/cpEXX
| olivermarks wrote:
| thanks! don't know how I missed that
| nberkman wrote:
| Related, this goes into far more detail:
| https://baynature.org/article/the-sea-beneath-us/
| iskander wrote:
| >Water will leach inside homes, she said, through basement
| cracks. Toilets may become chronically backed up. Raw sewage
| may seep through manholes. Brackish water will corrode sewer
| and water pipes and inundate building foundations. And most
| hazardous of all, water percolating upward may flow through
| contaminants buried in the soil, spreading them underground and
| eventually releasing them into people's homes.
|
| This describes my experience living in Miami. People are
| already acclimated to saltwater pouring out of drains during
| "king tides".
| _Microft wrote:
| Someone submitted this a few posts earlier: "The Amazon is
| turning into savannah - we have 5 years to save it",
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29540946
|
| Two sides of the same coin but the groundwater problem seems
| easier to solve. Not because it is technically easier but because
| the incentives for (rich countries) seem to be a lot stronger.
| Preventing the own area from flooding is way less abstract than
| indirectly caused deforestation somewhere in the world, with
| effects that will be felt only years or decades into the future.
|
| Without wanting to highjack this submission (the Amazon
| submission didn't gain traction, unfortunately) but any ideas how
| this problem could be solved and how one could contribute to a
| solution?
| deltree7 wrote:
| Capitalism and Free Market.
|
| On an individual basis, apart from zero-cost sustainable
| habits, if you are capable, become a master of science,
| attempting to solve energy, material, carbon and climate issue
| at a physics level. If you are a craftsman, observe all the
| day-to-day activities of humans, tinker/hack and attempt to
| solve the same workflows more sustainably.
|
| If you have a solution either through hacks or science, you'll
| have unbelievable amount of capital coming to you to scale your
| solution. Capitalists will be tripping over themselves to hand
| you money.
|
| Here's what will 100% not work -- Activism or Trying to
| 'Policy' out of your way of Climate Change problems.
|
| Also, no government will ever fund your crazy little idea that
| has 0.0001% chance of succeeding with 10000x impact. Here's who
| may fund it -- your favorite evil Billionaire.
| NationalPark wrote:
| How does this solve the problem of externalities that exists
| today? And what do you do if no genius ever comes along with
| such a "silver bullet" solution to invite venture funding?
| Keep waiting and hope they are born before the externalities
| catch up and it's too late?
| deltree7 wrote:
| Your sustainable solution, by definition, will reduce input
| costs for all business.
|
| Every business on planet earth will hand you money for
| reducing input costs.
|
| Once again think long-term. Short-term the externalities
| does get pushed around
| selimthegrim wrote:
| >Once again think long-term. Short-term the externalities
| does get pushed around
|
| Congratulations on the most bloodless hot take I've read
| on HN by a country mile
| davidw wrote:
| Markets and capitalism are part of the solution, of course,
| but you absolutely do need policies to direct all that
| energy, at a high level.
|
| Absent "policies" and enforcement, the cheapest way for a
| factory to dispose of waste is to dump it in the river. Same
| thing applies to CO2: dumping it in the atmosphere is cheap
| right now because the policies to deal with that externality
| aren't quite there.
|
| An obvious example of a policy that might help would be a
| carbon tax that makes more carbon-efficient things more
| economically appealing.
| deltree7 wrote:
| Property rights, one of the bedrock principles of
| capitalism, easily handles externalities.
|
| Dumping waste/co2 is a violation of someone else's property
| rights. Try dumping waste into your neighbor's property and
| see what happens.
|
| The reason why externalities happen is because government
| is not enforcing property rights
| IntrepidWorm wrote:
| Carbon tax gets proposed often, but it does not work on its
| own as a singular policy. Existing implementations of this
| see the money raised by the carbon tax diverted to equally
| environmentally costly ventures. There really is no easy
| way to incentivize a society driven by capital to be
| environmentally responsible because capitalism necessitates
| a near-sighted and self-centered approach to these things.
|
| Take the focus on quarterlies- a company may be doomed long
| term by the decisions made in the present, but as long as
| they reflect positively in the quarterlies the people
| making the decisions stand to gain significantly more than
| they will eventually lose when the company collapses. Its
| this mindset that we have to fight if we hope to effect any
| real limit to climate change.
|
| There's no real incentive when climate change occurs on the
| scale of decades, and anybody with the power to change it
| thinks (and is thus affected) on the scale of years.
| phicoh wrote:
| Carbon tax works fine if politians are willing to stick
| to it.
|
| First set some goals and make sure that those goals need
| to be met. For example, 0 net CO2 emissions in 2050, 50%
| less than 1990 emissions in 2030.
|
| Then announce that each year, CO2 tax will be set to have
| effect. I.e., plot how to go from today to 2050, how much
| CO2 emission is allowed for each year and an estimate
| what to CO2 tax will be.
|
| The CO2 can just be a general tax, and income tax can be
| reduced to compensate. No need for the government to
| spend all of it on new technology. Of course, some
| programs to develop markets may help.
|
| When CO2 costs are more or less predictable, companies
| will quickly figure out ways to avoid CO2 emissions.
|
| There is one big if, if the government cannot find a way
| to grand permits for green energy, transmission of green
| energy, etc. then the standard of living may quickly go
| down.
| ericd wrote:
| https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
|
| Carbon tax is not being proposed on its own, it's meant
| to be combined with:
|
| - Paying out ~100% of the take equally per-person to make
| it so it helps rather than hurts the poorest, a "carbon
| dividend". Poor people use less carbon on average
| (directly+indirectly) than wealthy people, so they will
| usually be net beneficiaries.
|
| - Applying an equivalent tax on imports from countries
| that don't impose a similar tax, called a Border Carbon
| Adjustment, to prevent domestic manufacturing from being
| disadvantaged (and actually, it should give domestic
| manufacturing a boost, since manufacturing locally should
| be more efficient and hopefully include more green energy
| in its mix). In the cases where the carbon generation
| isn't known, due to being unaudited, the maximally
| pessimistic value can be applied, to encourage companies
| to audit their supply chain.
| kansface wrote:
| > Applying an equivalent tax on imports from countries
| that don't impose a similar tax, called a Border Carbon
| Adjustment, to prevent domestic manufacturing from being
| disadvantaged ... to encourage companies to audit their
| supply chain
|
| Not that I'm opposed to the cause or aligning incentives
| in general, but practically, this just seems flat out
| impossible to implement in any way that has teeth.
|
| Do we punish poor countries to not destroy our local
| business, or do we let them pollute to not further
| impoverish them (in which case they will just start doing
| carbon tax arbitrage)? Both solutions suck, but with
| different US demographics which makes the local politics
| tricky even when everyone agrees on terminal values.
|
| Of course, the real elephant in the room is China! China
| will never let auditors hurt a local business besides
| occasionally destroying a Jack Ma. The company doing the
| manufacturing has an enormous incentive to lie since they
| get to pocket the difference (minus payoffs), the auditor
| has an incentive to lie as otherwise they would be
| fired/imprisoned/social-decredited, and the government
| has and will continue to lie/cheat/steal to protect
| domestic business. When we inevitably have
| incontrovertible, unignorable proof they are lying and
| lied for the last N years, do we start a trade war after
| local manufacturing has been destroyed and we are fully
| reliant on their goods? Do we just start a trade war up
| front to price in the lying from the get go which looks
| indistinguishable from massive tariffs... in any case,
| China won't retaliate for what reason?
|
| > ...the maximally pessimistic value can be applied
|
| Consider how truly _feckless_ the US /WHO has been in
| addressing China on the now probably probable lab leak!
| There have been no consequences for refusing to cooperate
| in the investigation of the origins of a disease that has
| done trillions of dollars in damages and killed 5 million
| people (China threatened to withhold medical supplies at
| the start of the pandemic, so it goes, and its probably
| not within the interests of our own elites, either). Even
| if you think China has the same goal of reducing climate
| change, they will still keep two sets of books (or
| more!).
|
| Anyway, this is a sort of visibility/legibility problem
| into other countries that feels _really_ hard to solve
| politically. Every local actor is strongly incentivized
| to defect which makes the system untenable locally. It
| reminds me of tax collectors in medieval Europe, except,
| you know, it would be for the whole world.
| greeneggs wrote:
| > Paying out ~100% of the take equally per-person to make
| it so it helps rather than hurts the poorest, a "carbon
| dividend". Poor people use less carbon on average
| (directly+indirectly) than wealthy people, so they will
| usually be net beneficiaries.
|
| I think there's an argument that this is impossible to
| sustain, politically. Once there is a huge new tax, it
| will be too tempting to redirect growing portions of that
| funding to other projects. California, for example, has
| an energy rebate, but the money has also been diverted to
| bail out the high-speed rail project, for example, and if
| the state faced a fiscal crisis who knows where the money
| would go?
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The reason carbon taxes work is because the upper
| echelons of society are responsible for far, far more
| carbon dioxide and pollution than the overwhelming
| majority of the world's population.
|
| Despite what we've been told, the planet won't be saved
| by worker-bees biking to work. It'll be saved by not
| having the ultra-wealthy flying everywhere in their
| private jets, and not spending tens of millions of
| dollars on multiple homes that are lavishly equipped /
| use massive quantities of energy to heat and cool / have
| armies of people keeping them clean and the grounds
| manicured.
| cik2e wrote:
| I'm not here to defend the ultra-wealthy but what you're
| saying doesn't pass the sniff test. Aviation accounts for
| just 12% of global CO2 emissions and households account
| for 21%. Obviously, a very small percentage of that could
| be attributed to the ultra-wealthy flying around in
| private jets and owning multiple mansions.
|
| On the other hand, a reasonable argument against the
| wealthy elite would be that they are likely to have the
| most significant influence on preempting policy that
| could help deal with climate change. They would have the
| most vested interest in maintaining the status quo, due
| to their positions at the head of industry, and their
| children would suffer the fewest consequences of
| unmitigated climate change.
|
| But then again, there is also a significant number of
| voters, at least here in the United States, who aren't
| going to get behind any policy that may cost jobs and
| increase energy prices in the immediate term. And then
| there's China, putting out 27% of total global carbon
| emissions.
|
| So as convenient as it would be to just blame the rich,
| climate change is simply too broad an issue to put on the
| shoulders of any one group or entity, even China.
| long_time_gone wrote:
| ==Here's what will 100% not work -- Activism or Trying to
| 'Policy' out of your way of Climate Change problems.==
|
| Capitalism and Free Market are solutions today exactly
| because we have aligned our "policy" to make clean energy
| more attractive to capitalists. People quickly forget
| policies like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
| 2009 [1] which invested $80 billion in clean energy. Tesla
| might not exist today if the DOE didn't loan them $465
| million as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act
| of 2007 [2].
|
| [1] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-
| office/2016/0...
|
| [2] https://www.cnbc.com/id/100759230
| deltree7 wrote:
| It's delusional to think Tesla wouldn't have existed
| without government help.
|
| Tesla took a cheap government loan when it was available.
|
| Do you really think, Musk wouldn't have raised the piddly
| $500 Million from on his multiple silicon valley buddies?
| (including Thiel, Page)?
| long_time_gone wrote:
| The $465 million loan was given in April 2010. Tesla
| IPO'd in in June 2010 at a $1.7 billion valuation [1].
| Maybe someone else would have given them the low-interest
| loan, we'll never know. We do know that this loan and the
| government subsidized EV tax credits helped them weather
| some very rough cashflow years.
|
| [1]
| https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-10-anniversary-
| ipo-el...
| nawgz wrote:
| Yes, Capitalism will surely solve the problem that Capitalism
| wrought, and using tools like Regulation and Policy is sure
| to hamper Capitalism and not help consumers or the
| environment at all!
|
| How sad it is that the comment suggesting we try to not
| continue overpopulating the globe is downvoted while this
| propaganda piece isn't.
| dgfitz wrote:
| We're not overpopulating it anymore. That "solution"
| presents its own problems.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
| nawgz wrote:
| If by "we" you mean "the first world as it devolves into
| wealth inequality", sure, but it's clear there's nearly 8
| billion people, so a 2.4 fertility rate not projected to
| turn til the end of the century probably still leaves us
| with 9 billion people by 2070 don't you think?
|
| And indeed, it is a massive problem that we face, but do
| you truly think proposing regulation-free unhampered-by-
| policy capital-c Capitalism - in an era we are watching
| abuse against employees rise while wages drop - is the
| answer? I find that laughably propagandist.
| dgfitz wrote:
| Imposing population limits in the developed world won't
| change anything other than make population decrease
| problems occur faster. If this rate of birth decline
| continues, we'll have a super healthy green planet, and
| no humans to inhabit it.
|
| This isn't an argument against solar technologies et. al.
| It's just the next problem that we don't have an Al Gore
| for trumpeting it as an issue before it was widely known.
| nawgz wrote:
| > Imposing population limits in the developed world
|
| It is hard to read this and mention of "Al Gore" as
| anything other than arguing in bad faith. No one would
| propose to introduce population control in a place where
| that is not a problem.
|
| Instead, reasonable actors would propose that we work to
| dismantle the global inequality that incentivizes
| impoverished families in the exploited third-world to
| birth many children by reigning in the ability for
| corporations to act as slavers in the third world and
| simultaneously pretend to be beacons of progress in the
| first. Wealth inequality, or maybe more precisely
| poverty, is a top driver of population growth, as
| children are cheaper to acquire than labor so those who
| need currency desperately are incentivized to birth
| children (and into horrendous conditions at that).
|
| Reforming the nature of globalist capitalism would surely
| both help to curb population growth in these places as
| they became less impoverished and greatly improve our
| ethics.
| IntrepidWorm wrote:
| Probably because population control threads so often
| devolve into eugenics.
| nawgz wrote:
| Sure, and Capitalism devolves into late-stage regulatory-
| capture wealth-inequality race-to-the-bottom massive
| globally scaled abuses of both people and the planet. To
| propose that we just simply have to let "capitalists" fix
| the solution they have wrought is facile at best, and
| honestly strikes me as clearly malicious when in the same
| breath it is implied regulation and policy are the the
| enemy.
| mitigating wrote:
| Capitalism and the free market have already been in use and
| the single cause of the all environmental problems.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| I'm gonna suggest that electricity is the single cause of
| the all environmental problems. Haven't pretty much all of
| environmental problems occurred since its unwise discovery?
| And, you know, electricity and man-made climate change are
| both about energy. So there you go.
| pjmorris wrote:
| > Here's what will 100% not work -- Activism or Trying to
| 'Policy' out of your way of Climate Change problems.
|
| Two questions:
|
| 1. Are you familiar with the concept of the tragedy of the
| commons? [0]
|
| 2. How comfortable are you with the idea that capitalism and
| free markets are policies?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
| deltree7 wrote:
| I very well know about Tragedy of Commons.
|
| Property Rights, the bedrock of capitalism, if properly
| enforced, by penalizing individuals/corps that
| pollutes/destroys someone else's (including public)
| property, takes care of most governmental action that is
| needed.
|
| "Enforce property and individual rights and get out of the
| way".
| d--b wrote:
| I fail to see how capitalism and free markets, which optimize
| for profit above all else can have any incentive in reigning
| in climate change.
|
| There is zero money in preventing deforestation. There is
| zero money in carbon capture. There is zero money in keeping
| ocean's level low.
|
| But there is money in building levees and relocating sea-side
| communities.
|
| So technically capitalism will favor burning fossil fuels
| over not doing it. And later when problems like these start
| to arise, capitalists will create companies to cope with the
| broken climate and make money off it.
| deltree7 wrote:
| If you apply property rights, the bedrock principle of
| capitalism. You'll solve all of these externalities.
| pelasaco wrote:
| Population control. There is no way that we can fit 9-10
| billion people on earth and are still able to be sustainable.
| MildlySerious wrote:
| The problem is more nuanced than that and just throwing out
| "Population control." is completely meaningless.
|
| You could cull three billion people of the lowest emitters
| and it would have as much of an effect as halving the CO2
| emissions of the top 1% of emitters.[1] And considering that
| to avoid the worst of the climate crisis we need action
| immediately or as close to it as possible, waiting for people
| to die away will not help us. If the entire planet stopped
| having babies today we would wait 65 years to get to half the
| current population, and half the emissions.
|
| At best, and I would argue even that is a stretch, population
| control is one small part of a long term strategy. But it is
| by no means a solution, so throwing it out there every time
| people talk about sustainability does nothing but derail the
| conversation.
|
| What we really need is to to make consumption as sustainable
| as possible and reduce it where possible, especially for the
| top consumers. That is not only more feasible in the short
| term, it is probably more ethical as well.
|
| [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-
| ric...
| pitaj wrote:
| Overpopulation is a myth.
| notyourday wrote:
| > Population control. There is no way that we can fit 9-10
| billion people on earth and are still able to be sustainable.
|
| All BRICs are below replacement already.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| You need to be careful with this framing and also think about
| 'Population Pressure' in regards to most developed countries
| - https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/
| irrational wrote:
| This is a done deal for developed countries. All of them are
| below the 2% replacement rate (many very far below). The
| places where the replacement rate is at or above 2% (often
| very far above 2%) are places where non-white people
| primarily live. Suggesting that they need to stop having so
| many children smacks of racism so it is politically and
| socially not something that people are willing to talk about.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| It's not about race it's about access to modern medicine
| and the jobs an industrialized economy brings. The reason
| access to these things correlates with race in some nations
| is, said briefly, colonialism and its continuing impact.
| There are plenty of nations with birth rates below
| replacement where white people are by far the minority as
| well.
| filoeleven wrote:
| You're neglecting per capita resource usage. Population
| control in low-usage high-birth rate countries has
| insignificant effects. Reducing usage in high-usage
| countries has outsized effects, and a low replacement rate
| is not enough to mitigate them.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy
| _...
| trhway wrote:
| I suppose you can just schedule a cron to submit in 10 years
| the same post with updated number to say 12B :)
|
| Even with population control (suppose we found a way to do it
| and managed to avoid the large negative consequences of it
| which would be plenty) the uncontested growing consumption by
| the current population would do the planet anyway.
|
| Speaking about solutions - until significant part of Sahara
| desert and the likes aren't covered by solar panels, i
| wouldn't believe that anybody (who matters) is taking the
| climate change seriously.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > Speaking about solutions - until significant part of
| Sahara desert and the likes aren't covered by solar panels,
| i wouldn't believe that anybody (who matters) is taking the
| climate change seriously
|
| I think it is harder than we think, at least for the goals
| that Europe wants:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o
|
| The caveat about population control, is different than how
| we, humans, do with all other wild-life on planet earth, we
| cannot reduce the available food and habitat to lower the
| carrying capacity, compensate for the missing predators by
| killing individuals in the population, or slow the
| population's ability to reproduce..
|
| We have to come up with a ethic solution. But people cannot
| put 3-5 kids or more on earth and don't have the means to
| raise them accordingly.
| irrational wrote:
| I know a family that had 13 children. They had "the means
| to raise them accordingly" (basically they lived in a
| middle class neighborhood, drove older cars, didn't hire
| anyone to do work around their house - despite the father
| having a very high paying chief financial officer
| position with a large company). So... is it okay for
| those kinds of people to have 3-5+ kids?
| trhway wrote:
| > I think it is harder than we think, at least for the
| goals that Europe wants:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o
|
| it seems that the main issue is that some invested in
| concentrated solar while photovoltaics energy cost fell
| from being 2x expensive to being 4x cheaper of the
| concentrated and just beating everything out at
| $0.03/KWh. As i said - cover the desert in solar panels.
| Transmission is only 7% loss to Berlin.
|
| Instead Europe is building gas pipelines from Russia and
| others. Again, money talk, and that clearly shows that
| nobody takes climate change seriously.
| HappyDreamer wrote:
| > We have to come up with a ethic solution
|
| If you try, won't some people somewhere on the Internet,
| get angry at the ideas you have, and start writing angry
| things to and about you?
| HappyDreamer wrote:
| > cron to submit in 10 years the same post with updated
| number to say 12B
|
| Apparently not, look:
|
| https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-projected-
| reach-...
|
| _" World population projected to reach 9.8 billion in
| 2050, and 11.2 billion in 2100"_
|
| It's slowing down. But increasing a lot, in a few
| countries. (I didn't downvote b.t.w)
| twoquestions wrote:
| What I'm really worried about is the people who think this kind
| of damage is good per se, either out of general misanthropy or
| some sort of tribal hatred. Meeting these kind of challenges are
| well within our technical capability, but I fear not within our
| moral/financial/political capability.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's basically a foregone conclusion that the water levels will
| rise and envelop a large number of properties that exist due to
| the value of coastal real estate.
|
| Humans, because we are mostly water, love being close to water
| and seeing water.
|
| The question in my mind is whether we will get a waterworld type
| situation, or if everything will be left to be destroyed and we
| will re settle the new coasts.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There isn't enough water for a "waterworld situation", the
| icecaps have been completely gone in the distant past and there
| were rainforests near the poles.
|
| There also won't be a singular event that will be over, coasts
| are going to slowly walk inland.
| outworlder wrote:
| There was dry land in Waterworld.
| wccrawford wrote:
| That most people thought was a myth.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Oh, aha, not waterworld over all the land, just floating
| houses within the mile of coast as it exists.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > Humans, because we are mostly water, love being close to
| water and seeing water.
|
| I've heard plenty of attempts to explain thalassophilia, but I
| have to admit I've never heard that one.
| an9n wrote:
| Always worth pointing out the absolute pointlessness of 'could',
| 'will... ?' etc. articles. I mean, I 'could' start a company that
| cures cancer, solves poverty, takes us to new galaxies and
| elevates humanity to a transcendant level of conciousness.
| Whether I will or not is an entirely different question!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
|
| 'Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any
| headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word
| no." It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology
| journalist who wrote about it in 2009, although the principle is
| much older.[1][2] It is based on the assumption that if the
| publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would
| have presented it as an assertion; by presenting it as a
| question, they are not accountable for whether it is correct or
| not.'.
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| Is the ground water near a coast line brackish?
| nemo wrote:
| On the Florida and Texas coasts the groundwater is brackish,
| and with the increasing sea levels from AGW, that salinity is
| intruding further and further inland.
| mythrwy wrote:
| But sea levels haven't increased very much in either of those
| places (yet). Certainly not enough to be responsible for the
| observed effect.
|
| What happens is the freshwater aquifers are drained giving
| the salt/brackish water space to intrude.
| nemo wrote:
| Draining aquifers and lower levels of rainfall in FL are
| definitely also contributing (as are things like the Turkey
| Point plant near Miami) but the moderate sea level
| increases in FL and parts of the Gulf coast are also having
| an effect on rising salinity in aquifers. Increased storm
| surges and sea level rises have driven salinity further
| inland. So you're right that are also other factors, but
| one root cause is the effect of rising sea levels. Consider
| what's happening in Miami carefully.
|
| https://cnsmaryland.org/2020/11/23/salt-levels-in-
| floridas-g...
| hoffspot wrote:
| Depends on many factors but brackish groudwater does exist near
| coastlines either naturally or via intrusion from human over
| pumping. Example of the latter from LA:
| https://www.wrd.org/content/regional-brackish-water-reclamat...
| dwater wrote:
| Yes, and it's an increasing problem for coastal communities.
|
| https://www.miamidade.gov/global/water/conservation/saltwate...
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Climate change is going to cause a lot of increasing
| problems. Brackish groundwater, loss of drinking water,
| fires, flash floods in areas that have never experienced them
| or been designed to cope with them, large scale flooding,
| loss of farmland, loss of commercial areas including ports
| and transport hubs, tornadoes, hurricanes, and larger and
| more damaging storms - generally creeping loss of habitable
| infrastructure, and increasing damage to supply chains.
|
| Anyone who thinks owning a property somehow insulates them
| from change is going to be in for nasty surprises.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If anything, owning a property ties one to the fate of a
| geographic location, and the oncoming climate change means
| the function and utility of lots of geography will change
| rapidly.
| mikey_p wrote:
| Yes, I know there are parts of Orange County that have water
| injection wells that pump water into the ground along the coast
| to keep fresh water in the aquifer to prevent it filling with
| brackish water. Some googling around shows it might be called
| the Talbert Seawater Intrusion Barrier.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| I remember touring the sanitation plant when I was took an
| environmental science class in high school. They said they
| did fourth stage water treatment then injected the treated
| water into the aquifer. They are right near Talbert. It is
| going to be difficult to fight this tide.
|
| Also if you are Mike Posey please blink once.
| effnorwood wrote:
| My gosh! Someone tell Obama!
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