Not a global warming debate, just a "What the fuck is going on?" thread.
Something's wrong, we can agree on that, right?
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Not a global warming debate, just a "What the fuck is going on?" thread.
Something's wrong, we can agree on that, right?
"Fucked up" works for me. This was a freakish summer here. We didn't have much true flooding, but just the rain falling down onto fields was enough to ruin crops all through the state because there was so much of it, so constantly, that the crops could never recover.
Summer in Chicago has been damn unpleasant. Record setting, already, for the number of continuous days over 70 and 80 degrees. I also think we're close to a record for total days over 90.
Stupid humid as well. Nothing compared to the washout in Pakistan.
Weather will keep getting worse and more extreme over the next few decades thanks to Climate Change. But it is hard to directly link any season's weather to Climate Change. This could be just a bad and crazy year or things are beginning to get worse. So far the hurricanes have not been bad but increased flooding and drought are things we have to look forward to in the next few decades. Eventually more and worse hurricanes will kick in and we will be trying to save our large coastal cities and abandoning more and more coastal properties. I predict in 40 years beach front will be back to summer homes built on the cheap.
So now that I am done depressing myself, yep, this year's weather really sucks. We've had the most snow in years. Tree breaking snows. The worst local flooding in at least 50 years. I know my basement was wet for 6 weeks. Hottest summer ever. Despite that ridiculous amount of rain and snow, we are now in a drought. I will soon be 44 and this is the worse year for weather in my life.
And herein lies the problem.Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
I swear if I see one more political cartoon about there being snow and "WELP SO MUCH FOR GLOBAL WARMING" I will kill someone.
Having said that, it's been an odd year. We had a fairly cold winter, followed by an abnormally long and mild summer. I don't think we had any 100+ degree days until July, and I think this may be our first 100+ degree day in August.
To compare, we usually have 20-30 days over the course of summer that are 100+ degrees.
Yeah. The heat's broken here (at least for the time being) but I've been wondering all summer how it would have been had global warming not happened.
Yeah, it's been hot this year, but last year it was cold all summer here in Chicago. I don't know what the heck it means.
Last summer in Chicago was actually more disturbing than this one.Quote:
Originally posted by Sarahfeena
Can't call that warming. You can call it strange.
(It was much cooler than usual. So cool, I don't think used our A/C at all in July.)
"Global warming" is a bad description anyway. Climate change is more like it, whatever the cause, and there seems to be changes and shifts all over the place.
"Global warming" is an excellent description, because the globe is, on average, getting warmer.Quote:
Originally posted by Nrblex
"Climate change" is a euphemism created to minimize the problem.
Agree, sort of.Quote:
Originally posted by Exy
Extreme cold in places is also a result of what's going on.
Last year Chicago didn't have a Summer--it was very strange. We're roasting this year.
I don't think "Climate Change" is always used as a euphemism. Though certainly, overall, the globe is warming.
See, I think it's the opposite...it's a more apt description that keeps people from saying "Bullshit, it's getting warmer! it was freezing here last summer!" (Which it was.)Quote:
Originally posted by Exy
Here in the UK, I don't think we've had "seasons" since around the late 70's. Nowadays, you can quite easily have weather that is representative of the differing seasonal conditions, all occurring on the same day, in the same geographic location. If it is man-made, we've made our bed and we'd better learn to sleep in it.
Yeah...take the clowns at Fox News who often pipe up with some stupid quip along the lines of, "Snow? Well, so much for global warming! (snort, giggle)"
Exactly my point. Calling it warming just confuses people and makes them think "it's unseasonably cold, so much for global warming!" is a valid argument.Quote:
Originally posted by Sarahfeena
That's a good point.Quote:
Originally posted by Sarahfeena
You're right, though Exy is right, too. It is all a result of global warming. The global average has gone up and this disrupts weather patterns, so even as the average rises some places will get much colder than usual.Quote:
Originally posted by Sarahfeena
How long have we had accurate world-wide weather records? Has it been long enough for us to extrapolate how the weather was in the past to any reliable degree?
Climate is a chaotic system. Almost by definition, it is always fucked. Whether or not humans are fucking it up.
Even being able to predict the weather accurately is useless if we can't move valuable property out of the path of its more destructive facets. If you are going to build human-occupied dwellings in a known area for flooding, say, the least you should be doing is building water-resistant structures.
Oh, right. I didn't mean to imply that it's not because of global warming. But, it's hard to relate or care about the earth as a whole getting warmer when summers that used to be hot and sunny are now cold and rainy and in the winter you're getting 3 feet more snow than usual. I think "climate change" is a descriptor that helps people understand that disruption of weather patterns causes different kinds of trouble, depending on where you are.Quote:
Originally posted by Zuul
Indeed, that is why I try to say and use the phrase Climate Change rather than Global Warming. Global Warming is accurate but too many people get the wrong impression about what that means and don't realize that it is an overall Global average with wide variants around the globe.
Every winter like this past winter when I hear someone on the News joke, "So much for Global Warming." I cringe and die a little inside. The rising waters over the next 50-100 years are going to cause more global disruption and unrest than anything short of a World War. We can try to reduce this or at least slow it and prepare for it. But to ignore will be foolish. We can lose a good chunk of Florida and we human do like to live near coasts and waterways. Moving a billion or more people inland will not be easier and a lot more expensive than going to cleaner energy and increasing energy efficiency in the products we use.
Global warming will be the least of our problems, if we don't get hold of the reins on who is supplying us with our fresh water.
Ivan, fresh water is another problem and actually tied to Climate Change. The droughts and flooding are likely to increase. Both are bad for managing fresh water supplies. However there are a lot of little things we can do to make better use of our water. Direct drip irrigation as opposed to spray irrigation alone will be huge. Measure to ensure more water efficiency in plumbing and dishwashing is a goodly portion of the problem. Less stupid farming would help. Sierra Club and Green Peace ran a story 20 years ago about the insanity of the corporate farms in California. They were effectively growing high water use crops in arid lands due to an old water use law passed around 1908. The waste involved in agriculture is criminal to my mind. The problem is far more critical in India where they have already very seriously depleted their fossil water supplies. The Green Revolution* is seriously threatened there. It is also easy to see the crisis in many parts of Africa and in Aussie where the droughts are causing serious issues.Quote:
Originally posted by ivan astikov
Overall the water issue is probably easier to solve than the Climate Change disruption. Only one major industry needs to be brought in line for water, agriculture. For Global Warming it affects nearly all industry.
* Green Revolution is the major changes that allowed intense farming and provided food for so much of the world. It was not a small change but a revolutionary change.
After watching Blue Gold: World Water Wars, you might not be so optimistic, Jim.
One of the reviewers describes it as good as I could.
Quote:
We can't live without water. You may have thought it was a human right. But certain corporations have been plotting to control the water supply on this planet for a while now, and have been moving into place around the globe. Now the World Bank has required certain governments to privatize their precious water supply -- make it a corporate commodity answerable only to stockholders -- as a condition to getting a loan. In some places it is now illegal to catch rainwater, because rain is being considered private property, including the United States. The evil of this worldwide corporate grab for control of your most precious resource is practically inconceivable, but it is happening. Blue Gold: World Water Wars is a landmark documentary that every school, library and church should own and show. Do you want the cost of your water to be controlled by private corporations and stockholders only interested in their bottom line? Do you want to give up your right to the water around you, including rain? It is time to get educated and get active. Start with this film.
Well ivan what you showed is a simple legal issue then. Water is going to be a problem but it is still from the science and engineering standpoint and from the layers of industry involved an easier one to solve than climate change. Though in many areas it is another one where we have almost surely waited to long to address the problem.
Direct drip irrigation will work great in the US where we still have plenty of water as will of course better land management. I worry that India has waited too long for these measures as they are already drilling wells over 200' in large parts of northern India to keep the farms going.
As to the illegal to collect rainwater even in the US, Where?!
Where? I'm sure in the several states where Thames Water owns the rights to distribution, there'd be a fuss if someone tried to do a bit of independent water distribution.
Where in the US does Thames Water own the rights to distribution?
Ivan, I promise you rain water collection is not an issue in most if not all of the US. In fact there are projects all over the country and especially in New Jersey to add more Rain Gardens. Basically areas to collect more rain water as ground water and not run-off. My town and the community college I went to both have projects in place to do this that the state is partially sponsoring.Quote:
Originally posted by ivan astikov
Ivan I am not an expert on these issue but I am far more knowledgeable than the averge Joe. I am fully immersed in the environmental movement and I track as much as possible on these issues.
RWE/Thames provides the water in Pittsburgh - Pennsylvania, Seattle - Washington and Buffalo - New York according to the documentary. I'm looking for something online to confirm it. Groups called Suez and Veolia seem to have a lot of clout, also.
The shenanigans of "who" won't matter much once there isn't any left to supply. (Not to understate the problems of corporate control of water, as has happened in Bolivia.)Quote:
Originally posted by ivan astikov
I don't read about access to water because it's become too frightening for me.
I'm not sure it's all that simple. There's been a strong tendency for decades now to radically privatize things that ought to be public goods, pushed heavily by powerful international organizations. It's causing corporations to spring up that make billions, while producing absolutely nothing, and restricting access to things that exist in large part due to public investment. Witness Enron and those rolling blackouts in California a few years back -- that was a situation almost entirely created through artificial restrictions in supply motivated by complex financial gameplaying that benefits a tiny few.Quote:
Originally posted by Jim
This is a fundamental economic problem that effects the whole world and is reinforced by very powerful groups that are not really accountable -- we have little power to change what the World Bank or the IMF or the WTO do, but they have greater and greater power over national governments.
I get that sentiment, Exy, but I'd prefer to be able to say "Well, I saw that coming, so I was ready to dodge out of the way."Quote:
Originally posted by Exy
Okay sorry for posting again but Jim, read up on the water situation in Bolivia, where the national water supply was privatized. It's scary how much power a single private corporation was able to obtain. Maybe it won't happen here in the U.S. (but I wouldn't count on that.) It's going to happen more and more in the developing world, at very least.
Right, but with a stroke of a pen, that abuse can be solved. Plus it is a semi-local issue, not Global. (yet at least)
And we've all seen how that stroke of a pen can be delayed by those with a vested interest in doing so, and the financial clout to drag it through the legal process.
Well, in Bolivia, that stroke of the pen required the election of a socialist, anti-U.S. president and popular uprising. Things like that may lead to a new lease on life for Communism. Or worse -- creating popular hatred for the West all over the world has had and will continue to have very bad consequences for us.
Because communism would never try to control a resource like that? But yes, I get your point.
I am just saying Global Climate Change is still the tougher issue to deal with. I am not dismissing water concerns. It is a huge problems and we are doing little to address the concerns. I don't think I said otherwise.
I cannot build a World Problem scale as the problems intertwine too much for simple resolution. Dependence on oil is a Climate Change issue, Environmental issue and a Terror/National Security issue. The Water issue is a waste issue, a goverment/evil corporate issue and again very much part of the Climate Change issue. It then leads to more unrest and thus more Terror/National Security issue. There is an amazing array of things we should be doing that we do not so. I suppose I have a socialist streak in me when it comes to big projects. The market does not support the long term view so that is why Big Goverment should exist.
Then there is the simple ones that will increase some problems but overall reduce many. The legalization of Drugs and other largely victimless crimes seem very simple and would remove another major funding of terror and crime. Though we need to be ready for a large increase in addicts that need help and build the social network system to test prostitutes and keep that sad industry safer at least.
Birth Control is another simple answer to resource consumption pressure but we line in a world where for some reason it is also controversial. Again this plays in Climate Change, hunger, poverty, crime, terrror and water among other areas.
:???: Of course they would. That's the point. Communism is, you know, bad. We don't want to give people an incentive to return to it. Selling a country's water supply to European conglomerates that then triple their rates is a great way to make authoritarian governments look like a better option to the general public.Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
Popular unrest against megacorporations like that fuels the rise of extreme leftist governments. I'm not really sure whether or not Evo Morales is on balance good for Bolivia, since I haven't followed closely enough to really know, but the rise of governments even further to the left and more authoritarian than his is a scary thought to me.
Sorry that was sarcasm for all the people that ever think communism would help. It was not directed at you. Please consider it a long Oy Vey.
I'm sure most intelligent people can accept that mankind's industrial activities can and have already had a detrimental effect on this planet we share, and that if they are allowed to go unchecked, the situation would deteriorate rapidly. Those of us who live in consumer-driven societies can't go asking those who wish to aspire to our status to hold back on their desires, unless we are willing to show restraint also. These are areas related to planetary change that we can affect, but things like orbital wobbles and solar flares are something we can have little influence on, other than to be prepared for hardships when they happen.