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California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

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Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#31

Post by scohesc »

jasonlotito wrote: post #26
jart wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the weather people in the Bay Area consider a calamity, east coasters would call Tuesday.

This is amusing seeing this sentiment posted here while just north of Philadelphia, schools are closing early because it's too hot in school. It's 85f right now.

Are there climate control issues preventing children from going to school? What I mean is - do the schools have adequate HVAC to keep the school cool, or is it for another reason?

Where I grew up the weather in summer was typically over 85f.

I assume maybe 20-30 years ago the temperature was lower or there were fewer hot days where you're talking about.

I do think it's a concerning sign that instead of addressing the grander issue, the stop-gap solution is to throw more climate control everywhere though.

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#32

Post by sologoub »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #10
sologoub wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For California, drought/water shortage is primarily and agricultural problem, but has been externalized to urban areas and consumers - urban uses are 10%, while 40% goes to agricultural uses[1]. “Environmental” is 50%, but it’s a bit of an odd measure - per the report [1] it’s for rivers and maintaining habitats. I’d pref to exclude that from the available total. That would make agriculture 80% and urban uses 20%. Wh…

To highlight this, the imperial valley alone draws about 2.5 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado. That's enough water for about 40 million residents. Nothing vital grows there.

Looked up imperial valley agriculture statistics, according to the imperial county farm bureau 500k acres are farmable, of which nearly half are alfalfa and bermuda grass (aka lawn grass).[1]

Would be interesting if someone knowledgeable in this area could comment on water consumption of these vs impact to other food chains, as well as alternatives such as growing it elsewhere and transporting to where livestock that eats it is.

[1]https://www.icfb.net/imperial-valley-agriculture

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#33

Post by sologoub »

toast0 wrote: post #30
sologoub wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For California, drought/water shortage is primarily and agricultural problem, but has been externalized to urban areas and consumers - urban uses are 10%, while 40% goes to agricultural uses[1]. “Environmental” is 50%, but it’s a bit of an odd measure - per the report [1] it’s for rivers and maintaining habitats. I’d pref to exclude that from the available total. That would make agriculture 80% and urban uses 20%. Wh…

> For California, drought/water shortage is primarily and agricultural problem, but has been externalized to urban areas and consumers - urban uses are 10%, while 40% goes to agricultural uses. Yes, agricultural dominates usage, but southern california with no agriculture would still have to transfer water from elsewhere (colorado river, sacramento delta etc) in order to sustain the population.

This source from LATimes in 2019 seems to think it’s doable (not cheap) and doesn’t event include desalination, just recycling and capturing rainwater: https://archive.ph/l0To2

Personally, I’d want desalination in the mix for resiliency/diversification.

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#34

Post by Aloha »

intrasight wrote: post #19
pfisch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that is fine, it seems like we should also continue to decarbonize right? I'm personally all for geoengineering solutions, but even that is just a bandaid. We do need to address the core problem here. We are having record high heat almost every day it seems like. Eventually it will get so hot the problems will become extreme, possibly beyond our ability to continue to mass produce food.

Why do you say that geoengineering is just a bandaid? The planet is heated by the sun and by nothing else that I'm aware of. Geoengineering is really the only solution. There's no likely plan to decarbonize.

That's my argument, I see no realistic path to decarbonization. I'd think we should eliminate fossil fuel consumption for base load power generation, but I'm not sure we can go much further than that.

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#35

Post by xnx »

tootallgavin wrote: post #29
xnx wrote: post #6

Weird that the article doesn't mention air conditioning, which basically makes life in Florida possible. Florida population almost doubled in 10 years with widespread air conditioning: https://theparklander.com/2017/07/07/floridas-sweltering-lif...

What? Most of the world has _never_ had air conditioning _ever_. How is this a real comment?

Life in hot and humid client is definitely possible without air conditioning, but the mass migration of Americans to Florida and the southwest shows their expressed preference is to live in climate controlled homes in sunny places. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/upshot/the-all-conquering...

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#36

Post by no_wizard »

chrisco255 wrote: post #13
paxys wrote: post #2

California and Florida are the 1st and 3rd most populous states in the country. We hear about the effects of climate change disproportionately in these states simply because there are a lot more people affected (by sheer number) than elsewhere. Otherwise the problems are the same as everywhere else.

I was born in Florida, and the climate is basically the same as it has been since the 90s. When I was young I would explore all the abandoned orange groves in central Florida, that suffered from repeated freezes in the 70s and 80s, where prior to those decades, citrus was reliably grown (orange trees are extremely vulnerable to freezes). If anything the current climate is a return to 19th/20th century norms for Flori…

>I suppose I'll start worrying about the climate when they're able to grow oranges in Georgia.

They have been for awhile[0]

[0]: https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=B8...

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#37

Post by no_wizard »

datenhorst wrote: post #22
m1117 wrote: post #20

New York has a perfect climate, and a mechanism to prevent being overpopulated - high taxes

NYC is the first city I think of when reading the word "overpopulation"

This is funny to me. As someone who lives on the west coast, I automatically think Los Angeles Metro

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#38

Post by intrasight »

Aloha wrote: post #34
intrasight wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that geoengineering is just a bandaid? The planet is heated by the sun and by nothing else that I'm aware of. Geoengineering is really the only solution. There's no likely plan to decarbonize.

That's my argument, I see no realistic path to decarbonization. I'd think we should eliminate fossil fuel consumption for base load power generation, but I'm not sure we can go much further than that.

Fossil fuels will be consumed as long as there is someone who benefits from its consumption. The collective "we" have very little control over that.

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#39

Post by Aloha »

intrasight wrote: post #38
Aloha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my argument, I see no realistic path to decarbonization. I'd think we should eliminate fossil fuel consumption for base load power generation, but I'm not sure we can go much further than that.

Fossil fuels will be consumed as long as there is someone who benefits from its consumption. The collective "we" have very little control over that.

Thats kinda glib -

One, the people who benefit from fossil fuel consumption are too diffuse to easily tamp down on.

Two, we cannot replace fossil fuels in certain applications.

Three, even all the green technology will need lubrication from something, unless we plan on moving back to whale oil (not exactly a renewable resource), we're stuck with oil based lubrication. Silicone use can be expanded, but it's not a 1:1 replacement for most oil based products. Burnable fuel is still a byproduct of this production.

Four, we cannot replace non lubricant petrochemical production at all, oil will still need to come out of the ground, and we will have fuel as a byproduct of that as well.

Fuel will continue to be available at a minimum as a byproduct of lubricant and petrochemical production, so while I think we can eliminate at least 50% of fossil fuel consumption - I just see no way to get to 100%. Getting to that 50% requires a whole lot more nuclear power than we have been willing to build.

Re: California and Florida now lead the country in climate change risks

#40

Post by pfisch »

intrasight wrote: post #19
pfisch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that is fine, it seems like we should also continue to decarbonize right? I'm personally all for geoengineering solutions, but even that is just a bandaid. We do need to address the core problem here. We are having record high heat almost every day it seems like. Eventually it will get so hot the problems will become extreme, possibly beyond our ability to continue to mass produce food.

Why do you say that geoengineering is just a bandaid? The planet is heated by the sun and by nothing else that I'm aware of. Geoengineering is really the only solution. There's no likely plan to decarbonize.

Because it will be really expensive and likely have a bunch of additional downsides to continuously release huge amounts of chemicals into the atmosphere to deflect the sun.

Also it will just keep getting worse and worse if we don't stop releasing CO2.

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