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Australia’s Darling River is running dry

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Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#91

Post by timberfields »

kyrieeschaton wrote: post #83

Australia has plentiful uranium reserves, relatively dry climate, a well-educated population, and huge amounts of empty space. Seems tailor made for nuclear powered desalinization.

context: I lived in Australia for a few years in South Australia. There was talk of building one, maybe two desalinization plants near Adelaide.

I think the consensus across the board is "yup, it does, and it would help massively" though it always came down to money and how it was going to get funded.

Side tangent: I cannot for the life of me understand the argument for "well, yeah, climate change is bad, but let's think how much this might cost to fix...". When it comes to existential threats to our mere existence, how is cost a factor? Talk about the definition of short sighted! And more, it's super short sighted on the money aspect too. We make changes to what is acceptable, how we do things, and yeah, it might cost a ton to begin, but we all know from history that amazing amounts of money are to be made in those revolutions too. This is not a zero sum game.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#92

Post by moomin »

ekianjo wrote: post #72
moomin wrote: post #67

Australia has a serious problem with water, and it would have a serious problem even without climate change. The water in the Darling, and in any river, can be extracted free of charge if your land includes the river. This produces permanent drought conditions in a country that exports oranges. Australia has limited water resources and laws that treat it as unlimited. It will be incredibly hard to square that circle.…

It could be simply solved by selling water usage rights or incentivizing saving water wherever the river runs. This was done with success in some parts of the US.

Whilst this is a logical way forward, my point still stands that some will be big losers from this or any other sustainable policy.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#93

Post by fennecfoxen »

mixedbit wrote: post #71
neotek wrote: post #4

Meanwhile we're still voting in governments that don't believe in climate change and which fight tooth and nail to destroy any chance of addressing the problem. No worries giving endless buckets of taxpayer money to climate-denying farmers and coal plants, though.

We shouldn't use "believe" and "don't believe" terminology when we talk about scientific facts. It is more proper to say that people refuse to accept the climate change.

I'm not sure that deliberate ideological message-control efforts of this sort actually meaningfully contribute to understanding. They seem unlikely to actually change what anyone thinks, somewhat reinforce the perception that climate change is a lie spread as part of a political conspiracy to control people.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#94

Post by scottmcf »

gonational wrote: post #90
vkou wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide reproduced, peer-reviewed sources for these extraordinary claims. While you're at it, please explain, with reproduced, peer-reviewed sources why you think the greenhouse effect, which directly ties CO2 to warming doesn't exist.

1. I added a link to the gp - I'll also provide you with these as food for thought: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778 https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2013/oc... 2. Please provide any evidence that I made claims that the greehouse effect doesn't exist.

So, no evidence of your claims, gotcha.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#95

Post by imglorp »

jandrese wrote: post #82
throwawaybbb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To where and how? Electricity is not something you can export when your main grid is 5000km from your nearest neighbour

Typically power is exported by smelting aluminum from bauxite. A big advantage of doing it this way is you can run the smelters only when there is an overproduction of power to help even out demand on the grid.

I wonder if a concentrated solar power tower heating a crucible of ore would be more efficient than inefficiencies from PV, transmission, conversion, storage etc.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#96

Post by thehappypm »

timberfields wrote: post #91
kyrieeschaton wrote: post #83

Australia has plentiful uranium reserves, relatively dry climate, a well-educated population, and huge amounts of empty space. Seems tailor made for nuclear powered desalinization.

context: I lived in Australia for a few years in South Australia. There was talk of building one, maybe two desalinization plants near Adelaide. I think the consensus across the board is "yup, it does, and it would help massively" though it always came down to money and how it was going to get funded. Side tangent: I cannot for the life of me understand the argument for "well, yeah, climate change is bad, but let's t…

Being honest, there is a certain amount of privilege baked into this mindset. Not everyone is a software engineer with RSUs and a six-figure income. For many individuals and many communities, every dollar matters and increasing taxes to square off against a massive, but global and impersonal, existential threat is simply not something that everyone can get behind.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#97

Post by tootahe45 »

lllr_finger wrote: post #9
PixyMisa wrote: post #3

Here's some background information: The Darling River at Menindee (the town mentioned in the article) dried up 48 times between 1885 and 1960.

Are you driving towards the conclusion that we don't need to be concerned about management of water resources because this happens naturally? That sounds close to the argument that we shouldn't do anything about climate change since the Earth naturally warms and cools.

Ironically in New Zealand, climate activists are the first to block any water retention infrastructure even after a series of very bad fires in my area, I'm guessing it's no different in Australia.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#98

Post by throwaway5752 »

JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #57
throwaway5752 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can do both really easily. Thankfully it's not a binary decision.

It's really not though, there are many candidates in a political election, many political debates, many topics, in order to make an informed decision it takes a lot more than just going to the ballet box and ticking a person's name. The fact that the mass media can't be trusted makes that getting correct information even harder. To make a properly informed decision to vote for a candidate you can truly say you believ…

The mass media is actually pretty trustworthy for the most part. It's incredibly easy to make a binary decision between two candidate about who is better for the climate. You overcomplicate it. In the end, for most places, 1-3 people are your choices. Party affiliation, etc is not pertinent. Just research your actual choices, and make an informed decision. Most of the time it will be obvious, and if it's not, then maybe you have a dilemma. But don't paralyze yourself by assuming the dilemma.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#99

Post by [deleted] »

scottmcf wrote: post #94
gonational wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I added a link to the gp - I'll also provide you with these as food for thought: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778 https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2013/oc... 2. Please provide any evidence that I made claims that the greehouse effect doesn't exist.

So, no evidence of your claims, gotcha.

[deleted]

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#100

Post by pdonis »

mixedbit wrote: post #71
neotek wrote: post #4

Meanwhile we're still voting in governments that don't believe in climate change and which fight tooth and nail to destroy any chance of addressing the problem. No worries giving endless buckets of taxpayer money to climate-denying farmers and coal plants, though.

We shouldn't use "believe" and "don't believe" terminology when we talk about scientific facts. It is more proper to say that people refuse to accept the climate change.

The observation that the climate is changing is a scientific fact.

The hypothesis that draconian reduction or even elimination of CO2 emissions by humans will stop the climate from changing is not a scientific fact. It's the opposite: it's a hypothesis based on computer models that have been falsified by the data.

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