Climate: Il fait VRAIMENT CHAUD (fka un petit)

[ThinkerX]

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Anyone who says that, who isn't living on the banks of artificial lakes such as Tahoe, is lying. And/or not paying any attention whatsoever, and thus an idiot.

It remains an alarmingly common argument amongst the deniers.

Locally...

I dwell a half mile or so from Cook Inlet. The land hereabouts is a sort of 'rolling plateau' of sand and clay and rock topped with coniferous forest some 80-120 feet above sea level. This results in insanely high erosion levels - the bluff literally loses 5-15 feet per year through erosion. (I have done casual measurements of this, 'marker to marker' - tree's, posts, whatnot - for the past thirty odd years.)

Despite this, there is no shortage of utter fools buying bluff side houses or buying the raw land and then building houses upon it - within 40-50 yards of the edge. The 'denial of reality' level among these people is...impressive. They are absolutely adamant that not only will bluff erosion never be a concern for them, but that they will also be able to unload these properties in another couple decades for a hefty profit. 

[Zorral]

29 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

It remains an alarmingly common argument amongst the deniers.

Locally...

I dwell a half mile or so from Cook Inlet. The land hereabouts is a sort of 'rolling plateau' of sand and clay and rock topped with coniferous forest some 80-120 feet above sea level. This results in insanely high erosion levels - the bluff literally loses 5-15 feet per year through erosion. (I have done casual measurements of this, 'marker to marker' - tree's, posts, whatnot - for the past thirty odd years.)

Despite this, there is no shortage of utter fools buying bluff side houses or buying the raw land and then building houses upon it - within 40-50 yards of the edge. The 'denial of reality' level among these people is...impressive. They are absolutely adamant that not only will bluff erosion never be a concern for them, but that they will also be able to unload these properties in another couple decades for a hefty profit. 

Tell 'em to talk to the people in Kentucky this summer.

Or the many people I know, just personally, who have left Florida due to their property getting constantly, and ever more dangerously, flooded.

 

[LongRider]

54 minutes ago, Zorral said:

the banks of artificial lakes such as Tahoe,

Lake Tahoe an artificial lake?   The lake carved out by glaciers?  Tahoe is a natural lake, not man made.  

[Clueless Northman]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

COVID taught us that this is hard for people to do when a crisis is right in their face. Convincing people to change when they can't see the crisis and you can't assign a date when it will be really problematic is a lost cause for far too many people. 

Covid has convinced me I was correct all along - and to quote Dr. Ian Malcolm, I hate being right -, in that current system, or democracy, are just totally unable to save us. We won't get out of this mess by "explaining and convincing" people. We're so deep in a prisoners' dilemma that even convincing 70% of the people won't cut it.

 

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I'm probably preaching to the choir, but it takes a bit of time to grasp how momentous it is to call capitalism into question. At a glance, you'd think it's "just" an economic/productivist system, but as soon as you start reading about it, you realize it goes far beyond economics. It's our way of life, but also our collective social and political organisation, our conception of mankind's place in the universe, human nature, and the purpose of life!

You're too kind with people here, frankly. I didn't need to wait for Greta to see how capitalism was a terrible idea that could bring awful outcomes and just couldn't work well in the long run; heck, I didn't need to be older than Greta to see it and come to the obvious conclusion that capitalism is simply not compatible with mankind's survival - after all, even a teen can see that resources aren't infinite, no matter what we pretend.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, ThinkerX said:

It remains an alarmingly common argument amongst the deniers.

Locally...

I dwell a half mile or so from Cook Inlet. The land hereabouts is a sort of 'rolling plateau' of sand and clay and rock topped with coniferous forest some 80-120 feet above sea level. This results in insanely high erosion levels - the bluff literally loses 5-15 feet per year through erosion. (I have done casual measurements of this, 'marker to marker' - tree's, posts, whatnot - for the past thirty odd years.)

Despite this, there is no shortage of utter fools buying bluff side houses or buying the raw land and then building houses upon it - within 40-50 yards of the edge. The 'denial of reality' level among these people is...impressive. They are absolutely adamant that not only will bluff erosion never be a concern for them, but that they will also be able to unload these properties in another couple decades for a hefty profit. 

Are insurance companies still insuring these properties? I am pretty sure some coastal properties here have already become uninsurable.

I didn't believe global warming back when it was only greeny groups talking about it. But as soon as the credible scientific community started saying it was a thing I was on board. If the world was like me there would have been a lot of global collective action happening by the late-90s, and I was certainly not on the leading edge of people being concerned about global warming. I can maybe understand the world needing another 10 years of consistent data supporting the conclusion, so firm collective action not starting until the late naughties is perhaps. Getting started any time after that is just contemptibly negligent. But here we are in the 20s and were still really only just emerging from the talking about it phase.

Edited August 4, 2022 by The Anti-Targ

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, LongRider said:

Lake Tahoe an artificial lake?   The lake carved out by glaciers?  Tahoe is a natural lake, not man made.  

Oooops, totally wrong, re the bodies being found in that manmade lake in Nevada -- ARGGHHHHHH!  I can't keep up!  Thank goodness for correction when it comes.  Thank you!  

[LongRider]

6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Oooops, totally wrong, re the bodies being found in that manmade lake in Nevada -- ARGGHHHHHH!  I can't keep up!  Thank goodness for correction when it comes.  Thank you!  

I've seen a few ariel photos of various reservoirs in Cali, very low, scary.  In 2015 or 2014, I've seen the Truckee River, Tahoe's only outlet dry up to puddles and stones of the riverbed.  The Truckee River is the only inlet to Pyramid Lake.  Lake Tahoe is a huge freshwater resource, but even it has its limits. 

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

You're too kind with people here, frankly. I didn't need to wait for Greta to see how capitalism was a terrible idea that could bring awful outcomes and just couldn't work well in the long run; heck, I didn't need to be older than Greta to see it and come to the obvious conclusion that capitalism is simply not compatible with mankind's survival - after all, even a teen can see that resources aren't infinite, no matter what we pretend.

I'm being kind with myself tbh. I've been on the left my entire life (and on the far-left for quite some time ), so I never harbored many illusions about capitalism, but I only started truly grasping the sheer scale of the environmental crisis about five or six years ago.
I'd say there's a difference between thinking capitalism can't work in the long run and knowing it shouldn't be allowed to continue any longer. It's a journey as a leftist to realize how deep the veracity of anti-capitalist thought goes, to discover or re-discover the countless warnings that we've had, and start viewing the "problem" in all its dimensions simultaneously - without being crushed by despair or depression. So, despite being an asshole at times, I do see how difficult this journey will be for people who did (or do) believe in capitalism, and swallowed whole the story/history that was presented to them. There's just so much to question, I reckon many people will just implode, take their own life and/or that of others, rather than accept that the current socio-economic structure on every level and all the narratives linked to it it are not only fake and devoid of actual meaning, but are even active threats to our entire species.
Kinda ironic that the far-right coopted the Matrix "red pill" analogy, because becoming aware of the environmental crisis is totally like waking up in a devastated landscape, seeing all your fellows plugged into one gigantic smoke-belching machine that you desperately want to turn off, but this is something you can only do if most people (at least) are in agreement.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Rippounet

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

I do see how difficult this journey will be for people who did (or do) believe in capitalism, and swallowed whole the story/history that was presented to them.

W. T. Eff???????

I grew up a farmer's daughter and got it in one.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Zorral

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, LongRider said:

Lake Tahoe is a huge freshwater resource, but even it has its limits. 

Kim Stanley Robinson has recently observed and written about these matters in these parts of the USA.  It's over. We're cooked.

[LongRider]

38 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Kim Stanley Robinson has recently observed and written about these matters in these parts of the USA.  It's over. We're cooked.

When I lived in Tahoe in the late ‘70’s/early’80’s I would BS with coworkers about the lake being such a huge source of fresh water.
 

Only the Great Lakes are bigger and Crater Lake deeper. (Wikipedia). One coworker once declared that if the Russian’s ever nuked us, Tahoe was on the list because of the water. 
 

Future water wars are a concern and Lake Tahoe could be a future target. Who controls the water is going to be a big issue. 

[ThinkerX]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Are insurance companies still insuring these properties? I am pretty sure some coastal properties here have already become uninsurable.

I didn't believe global warming back when it was only greeny groups talking about it. But as soon as the credible scientific community started saying it was a thing I was on board. If the world was like me there would have been a lot of global collective action happening by the late-90s, and I was certainly not on the leading edge of people being concerned about global warming. I can maybe understand the world needing another 10 years of consistent data supporting the conclusion, so firm collective action not starting until the late naughties is perhaps. Getting started any time after that is just contemptibly negligent. But here we are in the 20s and were still really only just emerging from the talking about it phase.

I have no idea. I do know that the borough (county to most of you) approved construction of a paved two-lane road to reach a string of these lots, and four or five people built houses upon them within the past six or eight years. 

This kind of/sort of ties into something else I have noticed. I read a great many Electric Vehicle/Green Energy type articles, along with the attendant comments. Hard Right types *immediately* jump on every single one of these articles, posting the same negative comments over and over and over again - solar panels wear out after a few years, wind turbines are environmentally destructive, sun doesn't always shine, wind doesn't always blow, the whole thing is a fraud and so on and so forth. What I have been wondering about more and more lately is the 'sameness' of these posts - almost like they were copy/pasted. It seems almost like some organized entity, or a group of organized entities, is running some sort of smear campaign.

[karaddin]

3 hours ago, LongRider said:

Future water wars are a concern and Lake Tahoe could be a future target. Who controls the water is going to be a big issue. 

The complete lack of any serious measures around water security in the US is honestly one of the things that's most baffling to me. Maybe Australia had an extended severe drought at the right time, and one unconnected to climate change at that, to get people to care at least somewhat about water because i just can't see that shit flying here. A bunch of the western US states really need to have a similar concern to ours but there's been access to these huge water sources from well across the country that has let it fly under the radar.

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, LongRider said:

When I lived in Tahoe in the late ‘70’s/early’80’s I would BS with coworkers about the lake being such a huge source of fresh water.
 

Only the Great Lakes are bigger and Crater Lake deeper. (Wikipedia). One coworker once declared that if the Russian’s ever nuked us, Tahoe was on the list because of the water. 
 

Future water wars are a concern and Lake Tahoe could be a future target. Who controls the water is going to be a big issue. 

 

57 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The complete lack of any serious measures around water security in the US is honestly one of the things that's most baffling to me. Maybe Australia had an extended severe drought at the right time, and one unconnected to climate change at that, to get people to care at least somewhat about water because i just can't see that shit flying here. A bunch of the western US states really need to have a similar concern to ours but there's been access to these huge water sources from well across the country that has let it fly under the radar.

John Oliver piece on the water rights of the Colorado river was very interesting. He said (subject to fact checking of course) that the water allocations from the river have exceeded its volume right from the start. So there has been magical thinking on Colorado river water allocations since before anyone even knew that the climate experiences changes from any cause, let alone human caused climate change.

[Rippounet]

10 hours ago, Zorral said:

W. T. Eff???????

I grew up a farmer's daughter and got it in one.

I may be a bit slow. To be fair though, the modern collapsologist movement only took flight after 2015 in France.

Speaking of which, and this is for everyone kind enough to answer:

- What's your country's version of "collapsology" ? BTW, what's the preferred term in your language?
What are the major books/writers you'd recommend (beyond obvious references like Diamond, Bookchin, Wallace-Wells or Robinson) ?

- Any project like Jancovici's Shift project? Their work is quite amazing (the wikipedia page doesn't necessarily reflect this, but the reports they give can be very concrete, and their "transformation plan for the French economy" comes close to a legislative program). They have part of their website in English, and Jancovici has the ear of French parliamentarians (which is to say, many only pretend to listen, but at least everyone knows that we'd better get used to using bikes instead of cars).

- Any important "collapsologist" organizations in your neighborhood (beyond Extinction Rebellion of course) ?

[Altherion]

22 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I'd say there's a difference between thinking capitalism can't work in the long run and knowing it shouldn't be allowed to continue any longer. It's a journey as a leftist to realize how deep the veracity of anti-capitalist thought goes, to discover or re-discover the countless warnings that we've had, and start viewing the "problem" in all its dimensions simultaneously - without being crushed by despair or depression. So, despite being an asshole at times, I do see how difficult this journey will be for people who did (or do) believe in capitalism, and swallowed whole the story/history that was presented to them. There's just so much to question, I reckon many people will just implode, take their own life and/or that of others, rather than accept that the current socio-economic structure on every level and all the narratives linked to it it are not only fake and devoid of actual meaning, but are even active threats to our entire species.

The issue is not knowing it cannot work in the long run, it's how to replace it without widespread devastation (which is what one would need to not allow it to continue any longer). More specifically, one would need to have something to replace it with and also some way to do it in the face of resistance from the people who would be worse off under the new system (or at least think that they would be worse off). I have not read any of any plausible replacement of this nature. The people who try (for example, the above-mentioned Robinson in The Ministry for the Future) typically rely on magical technology and/or implausible politics and/or economics (Robinson has all three).

[Zorral]

i.e. catastrophic disaster on levels that sf tends to handwave away, in order to show the new order.  Where have we seen that before?

However, if somehow nations could put in place a reliable justice-punishment system for increasing, hastening and refusal to stop the actions that are in process bringing us to where we are right this very minute -- i.e. here, almost midnight and temps in the 90's, which isn't the way it used to be, OK -- it has to be mass movement.  It means we have to let go of easy comfy travel for those who have benefited for so long from destroying the atmosphere, and all the rest.

Good luck to us.

[The Anti-Targ]

I guess the one thing collapsology tends to end up concluding is that fundamental change doesn't happen without a collapse of the current order. Perhaps capitalism is the dinosaur and climate change is the asteroid strike.

[Spockydog]

Yes, this is completely normal. It's just a bit warm.

 

[Rippounet]

Yes, things are very bad. It appears Western Europe will be a "hot spot," i.e. that it may warm up quicker than average.

Nonetheless, this pic is slightly misleading. Funnnily enough, I've been going to that precise spot for years (a pic from there is my phone's wallpaper) and was there just a few weeks ago for a family gathering (less than a click from that very bridge). In Varades/St Florent, the Loire has two branches. This is the Varades/Northern branch, which is almost completely dry ; the St Florent/Southern branch still has a bit of water running.

If this link works, you'll be able to see the two branches side by side.