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The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

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Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#51

Post by nradov »

octo888 wrote: post #16
nradov wrote: post #2

This is a good, thoughtful analysis. I think many people outside the Mediterranean region are simply unaware of water issues there. As for the UK, I can't understand why they have allowed sustained high immigration rates for decades despite food insecurity and a housing shortage.

What food insecurity? We joined a successful agricultural union (the EEC, in 1973) and remained a member of its successor for decades and had fantastic access to produce, and some of the cheapest food in the EU (also thanks to a highly competitive grocery sector) Even since leaving, the food supply issues have been very minor. We may have food insecurity in the future but I'm confused if you're implying we've had any…

If a country depends on foreign imports just to satisfy basic needs then they are food insecure, by definition. Membership in alliances and trading blocs is temporary, and if other countries have the power to cut you off then that's an existential threat. You would think that the UK would have learned something from the food shortages during WWII when a blockade was in effect. The country might have starved if not for military and logistical support from Canada and the USA.

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#52

Post by nradov »

rickydroll wrote: post #48
bena wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily in this case. You have those who pay in, but die before they fully collect. Then the collectors do die off, they aren’t expected to get returns in perpetuity or crazy large returns. Then you have a constant supply of new payees into the system. Only a devastating collapse of the population would cause it to go tits up

And in your comment lies a possible solution. Support people into their mid-70s, and then the only medical care they get is palliative, so they don't suffer from whatever takes them out. Half of their estate is allocated to the social welfare fund. Another solution is to increase the sources of funding. For example, in the United States, your Social Security contributions are capped once your income exceeds approxima…

Any "solution" will have to work within the realm of political possibility. Elderly people also get to vote and I doubt they will support cutting off their own access to healthcare, or drastic increases in estate taxes.

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#53

Post by danaris »

dsign wrote: post #31
silvestrov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What??? Do you say that Denmark, Sweden, north Germany, Poland, and the Baltics can't grow crops due to lack of good soil?

Most of Scandinavia is recently emerged and you can use your hands and a wooden stick to remove the vegetable soil and uncover the silt that was at the bottom of the ocean a few hundred years ago. And before that, that silt was dirt mixed in the ice. So, there is not a lot of organic anything there. However, I think that soil is good enough. With the huge caveat that I'm not an expert by any means, I do believe that…

..."a few hundred years ago"?

It was covered in ice a few tens of thousands of years ago. As far as I'm aware, the last time it was the bottom of the sea was some significant number of millions of years ago.

Scandinavia has been free of ice for roughly as long as, say, Canada and the northern US.

I don't know much about its soil quality, but if your claim is that it's got only a couple of inches of good soil because it "recently emerged", I'm going to be very skeptical of your other claims.

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#54

Post by HappyPanacea »

bee_rider wrote: post #30
HappyPanacea wrote: post #4

Solar is so cheap that desalination is cheap enough that the only thing that will get appreciably more expensive is water intensive products like beef.

Is it really that cheap already? I thought desalination was more like an “not enough power by an order of magnitude” type problem. Solar that is a little cheaper than fossil fuels wouldn’t solve it, right? Although, I’d be happy to be wrong there! Desalination does seem like a useful shiftable load that could incentivize over-building solar, which is always nice.

> Desalination does seem like a useful shiftable load

Yes this is a really nice feature, you can store excess water for essentially free. This probably shifts the economics of desalination to favor technologies that are more energy intensive but lower capex and opex.

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#55

Post by fmajid »

The UK is busy destroying the little agriculture it has with free-trade agreements like the one with Australia that has far fewer animal-welfare safeguards, thus tying British cattle growers' hands behind their backs, when Australia already has significant comparative advantages. You can imagine what will happen to those supplies if there is any major disruption.

The thing is, global warming is making UK agriculture more productive, but government policies are hostile to agriculture, obsessed as they are with finance and what Dan Wang dismissively calls the "sounding smart industries" like media, which are going to be hit by GenAI like a freight train. The country also needs to get a grip on its water supplies, something that takes long-term investment over decades. The current government is loth to take action against water utilities that were privatized by Thatcher and continuing to be looted by their hedge-fund investors.

Similarly the EU's Common Agricultural Policy was originally a subsidies program for French and Italian farmers. It is long past time for it to be reoriented towards food security. The massive food surpluses like the mountains of EEC butter of my childhood are a distant memory now.

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#56

Post by fmajid »

madaxe_again wrote: post #49
fintechie wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy, Spain... eg. https://embalses.net shows maximum historical levels after a sharp bump these past 2 years... pretty sure it's the same story in many EU countries. Droughts are there until they aren't. Normal fluctuations if you check an actual chart going 50-100 years back. Can you post a historical chart of Cyprus? maybe it tells a different story

We had an exceptionally wet winter - reservoirs which I have not seen full in a decade are suddenly at capacity - or were, a few weeks ago. There’s now a rapid draw-down however as the weather has shifted to unseasonably hot almost overnight. The main problem isn’t reservoir levels, however, as most agriculture in Iberia doesn’t use reservoir water, rather, on-site boreholes - and the groundwater is getting seriously…

Usually that is a sign of subsidized water below cost, which disincentivizes the more efficient irrigation methods you highlight, at least that's what happens in California with is baroque system of senior and junior water rights and its "use it or lose it" mentality.

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#57

Post by fmajid »

fulafel wrote: post #45
daneel_w wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Saudis don't seem to have a problem getting it done.

How much fruit and vegetable agriculture (topic of the article) are they doing with their desalinated water? Hopefully none as they generate 99+% of their electricity from oil+gas and the climate impact from it would be atrocious.

No, they bought huge quantities of senior water rights in California and are shipping alfalfa grown there back to Saudi, essentially laundering water.

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#58

Post by madaxe_again »

fmajid wrote: post #56
madaxe_again wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had an exceptionally wet winter - reservoirs which I have not seen full in a decade are suddenly at capacity - or were, a few weeks ago. There’s now a rapid draw-down however as the weather has shifted to unseasonably hot almost overnight. The main problem isn’t reservoir levels, however, as most agriculture in Iberia doesn’t use reservoir water, rather, on-site boreholes - and the groundwater is getting seriously…

Usually that is a sign of subsidized water below cost, which disincentivizes the more efficient irrigation methods you highlight, at least that's what happens in California with is baroque system of senior and junior water rights and its "use it or lose it" mentality.

Yup, it’s just an annual fixed fee to have a borehole - which most folks don’t even pay as enforcement is nonexistent.

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#59

Post by throwaway198846 »

layer8 wrote: post #32
throwaway198846 wrote: post #8

Why the article talks about Iran in an article supposedly about "Mediterranean water"? It felt out of place for me

In terms of climate zones, it’s arguably connected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate

Iran's climate is not really connected to the Mediterranean sea - they are 2000km from Lebanon, just because they have a silver of land that happened to fall under mediaterrian classifcation doesn't mean they are mediaterrean

Re: The Coming Storm: How Mediterranean Water Collapse Could Reshape Britain

#60

Post by layer8 »

throwaway198846 wrote: post #59
layer8 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of climate zones, it’s arguably connected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate

Iran's climate is not really connected to the Mediterranean sea - they are 2000km from Lebanon, just because they have a silver of land that happened to fall under mediaterrian classifcation doesn't mean they are mediaterrean

My point was that while it isn’t part of the Mediterranean as a geographic region, the Mediterranean as a climate zone does extend into Iran. And the article is about that climatical and agricultural zone.
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