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Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

fortune.com

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Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#41

Post by netsharc »

alde wrote: post #32
DataDive wrote: post #16

Europe is caught in a dilemma: tourism, air travel, and city hopping are its economic lifeblood that keeps the continent running, but these also cause the greatest damage to the environment. Since they can't fix the real problem are trying to go "green" in counterproductive ways that make things worse: blowing up nuclear plants or taxing cow fart.

EU currently emits only 5% of the globally emitted greenhouse gases. You can cut all the city hopping you want and it won't make the slightest difference.

If it's not significant, can I have 5% of your net worth?

If the EU mandated that products imported are made in a carbon neutral fashion, then importers of products will pay attention. Unfortunately it means higher prices, and the governments will get voted out of office by people voting for the populists selling the electoral promise of "Make Prices Low Again!"...

Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#43

Post by microtonal »

MomsAVoxell wrote: post #12
touwer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so dry, even in tne Netherlands and north of France. Amazing how quickly it goes

I can’t imagine what the Netherlands would look like if desertification would occur. It seems implausible that those flat, flat lands would ever turn brown and grey and dusty - but I won’t be surprised if things turn that way in a few years. I hope the Dutch have a solution, they always seem to when it comes to water control ..

I think currently one of the biggest risks for The Netherlands is salinization. If there is not enough river water and the groundwater level is too low, sea water will push upward, contaminating the river beds and increasingly much soil around it. This summer they had to close locks to block seawater and to increase the fresh water level. Of course, this has a considerable economic damage, since it blocks inland shipping.

Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#44

Post by morsch »

alde wrote: post #32
DataDive wrote: post #16

Europe is caught in a dilemma: tourism, air travel, and city hopping are its economic lifeblood that keeps the continent running, but these also cause the greatest damage to the environment. Since they can't fix the real problem are trying to go "green" in counterproductive ways that make things worse: blowing up nuclear plants or taxing cow fart.

EU currently emits only 5% of the globally emitted greenhouse gases. You can cut all the city hopping you want and it won't make the slightest difference.

More like 6%, roughly in line with its population share (5.4%). Not sure if that includes air travel, international air travel often isn't included in national statistics. https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025

Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#45

Post by beej71 »

ghurtado wrote: post #3

[flagged]

It's just a monetary conversion and it's in their style guides. How much is "millions of euros" in dollars? Answer: "millions of dollars".

If they'd said "it's estimated to cost 1.5 million euros", they'd have added "(1.7 million dollars)". But since they didn't have a specific value, they just used the units.

Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#46

Post by hn_submit »

Complete nonsense. Even climate chance won't change the amount of rainfall we get over the course of the year. In fact, it will most likely be wetter due to it.

But it will become more uneven, with droughts followed by torrential rains and floods. We simply need to adapt by creating underground water basins that store torrential rainfall preventing floods and also serve as buffers for when the drought comes.

I do believe places like Spain could see more desertification, though. But they were at the brink for centuries in any case, especially inland.

Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#47

Post by mschuster91 »

Just came back from a bike tour through rural Bavaria, it's insane how dusty everything is - and that despite a short but intense rain today night. The farmers around here are pretty much screwed this season, and not just the crop farmers but the cattle farmers as well, as they have to buy lots of feed now that they'd only have to buy in winter.

Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#48

Post by paganel »

netsharc wrote: post #41
alde wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU currently emits only 5% of the globally emitted greenhouse gases. You can cut all the city hopping you want and it won't make the slightest difference.

If it's not significant, can I have 5% of your net worth? If the EU mandated that products imported are made in a carbon neutral fashion, then importers of products will pay attention. Unfortunately it means higher prices, and the governments will get voted out of office by people voting for the populists selling the electoral promise of "Make Prices Low Again!"...

You won’t mind higher prices? Are you rich? Because most of us Europeans certainly aren’t.

Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#49

Post by throw-the-towel »

gniv wrote: post #36

The timing of this article is a bit unfortunate. It's been raining here (France) every day for the past week, sometimes heavily.

That's been long overdue. I really doubt a few days of rain would make anyone in France forget the rest of this summer.

Re: Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat

#50

Post by lukaslalinsky »

reenorap wrote: post #24

Droughts are scary and they suck badly. California went through one for 10+ years. However, don’t go off the deep end and think that it’s the “new normal” like Californians did at one point. All it took was one big rainfall a few years ago, and California has been out of drought ever since then. The reservoirs have been above historic norms and at the end of this summer, it’s only “abnormally dry”. Compare that to a…

People are not scared of individual droughts. They are scared of the patterns. Here in Slovakia, the last real winter with proper snow depths we had was in 2018, if I remember correctly. There is pretty much no snow anymore. All the water comes in form of heavy rainfall, causing massive floods, and the water goes straight to the sea. Nature depends on the water accumulating on the mountains during the winter, and that just doesn't seem to happen, at least in this part of Europe.
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