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Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

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Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#61

Post by cik2e »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #49
IntrepidWorm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 focu…

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 multip…

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.

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#62

Post by mythrwy »

nemo wrote: post #4
cookingmyserver wrote: post #2

Is the ground water near a coast line brackish?

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.

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.

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#63

Post by irrational »

pelasaco wrote: post #26
_Microft wrote: post #5

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 indirect…

Population control. There is no way that we can fit 9-10 billion people on earth and are still able to be sustainable.

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.

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#64

Post by irrational »

pelasaco wrote: post #43
trhway wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

> 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…

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?

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#65

Post by HappyDreamer »

trhway wrote: post #33
pelasaco wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population control. There is no way that we can fit 9-10 billion people on earth and are still able to be sustainable.

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 li…

> 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)

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#66

Post by hihihihi1234 »

tmnstr85 wrote: post #32

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'…

Sounds like you should move before it's too late.

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#67

Post by nemo »

mythrwy wrote: post #62
nemo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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...

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#68

Post by markdown »

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...

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#69

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

irrational wrote: post #63
pelasaco wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population control. There is no way that we can fit 9-10 billion people on earth and are still able to be sustainable.

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.

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.

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#70

Post by ericd »

IntrepidWorm wrote: post #36
davidw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

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 focu…

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.

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