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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

#111

Post by pvaldes »

formvoltron wrote: post #105

How do we get Earth back to something resembling the steady state we know can work long term? 1. Electrify almost everything that can reasonably be electrified. Move quickly to EVs, and replace anything that can practically become electric with an electric version. Self driving & fleet utilization will push transportation cost per mile lower than ever before. For the power grid, data centers, and other large 24/7 con…

6. Jail arsonists and harden the laws to protect natural resources from greed and sabotage.

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

#112

Post by epolanski »

ffsm8 wrote: post #109
lukaslalinsky wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar observation this year. In 2015, I was in California, was doing some hiking on the weekends, and I found it very unnatural how all the grasses were dry, trails dusty, on the hills/mountains. I came back to Slovakia, and I was happy to see the green grass. Fast-forward to 2026, and our grasses are equally dry and trails are equally dusty. Water management seems to be more important than ever, because th…

Meh, almost nobody will want to live in most of Europe post AMOC collapse in 20-40 yrs

What's that?

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

#113

Post by VBprogrammer »

lukaslalinsky wrote: post #55
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #4

Just took a train ride from Vienna to Budapest for a few days, and couldn’t help but notice how very, very dry everything is .. as an Australian living in Europe for a few decades now, I’ve always been intrigued by just how green everything is, literally something growing in every single crack in the pavement, or endless rolling green fields of prosperity during spring - whereas, where I’m from its year-long spinifex…

I had a similar observation this year. In 2015, I was in California, was doing some hiking on the weekends, and I found it very unnatural how all the grasses were dry, trails dusty, on the hills/mountains. I came back to Slovakia, and I was happy to see the green grass. Fast-forward to 2026, and our grasses are equally dry and trails are equally dusty. Water management seems to be more important than ever, because th…

I'm not sure if Clarkson's farm has much of a following outside of the UK. Last year they had several crops fail due to the drought over summer and honestly this year was far worse. I believe he may not have even bothered planting the normal cash crops, so it will be interesting to see how that works out. That said, the year before I think it was so wet early in the year that farmers really struggled to get crops in the ground.

In areas like Valencia there are ancient irrigation systems and water rights controlled by water councils older than many countries. I wonder if the UK will need to do similar, irrigation ponds, flood control structures and canals to control the flow of water through the landscape.

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

#114

Post by bethekidyouwant »

inigyou wrote: post #63
strictnein wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And since we've all known about this for 30+ years, is it still their fault, or is it ours?

What should I have done about it for the past 30 years?

Live a life of voluntary poverty?

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

#115

Post by Melatonic »

lukaslalinsky wrote: post #55
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #4

Just took a train ride from Vienna to Budapest for a few days, and couldn’t help but notice how very, very dry everything is .. as an Australian living in Europe for a few decades now, I’ve always been intrigued by just how green everything is, literally something growing in every single crack in the pavement, or endless rolling green fields of prosperity during spring - whereas, where I’m from its year-long spinifex…

I had a similar observation this year. In 2015, I was in California, was doing some hiking on the weekends, and I found it very unnatural how all the grasses were dry, trails dusty, on the hills/mountains. I came back to Slovakia, and I was happy to see the green grass. Fast-forward to 2026, and our grasses are equally dry and trails are equally dusty. Water management seems to be more important than ever, because th…

California was also in a super drought at that time

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

#116

Post by epolanski »

locallost wrote: post #84
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #4

Just took a train ride from Vienna to Budapest for a few days, and couldn’t help but notice how very, very dry everything is .. as an Australian living in Europe for a few decades now, I’ve always been intrigued by just how green everything is, literally something growing in every single crack in the pavement, or endless rolling green fields of prosperity during spring - whereas, where I’m from its year-long spinifex…

To be honest, it's not unusual for that part of the Europe to be pretty yellow in August. I was taking train rides to Budapest regularly between 2010-2020. But it's getting worse for sure.

As an European, no, current situation is unprecedented.

It was getting bad already, but like this? Absurd.

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

#117

Post by pvaldes »

mschuster91 wrote: post #47

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.

Who could have imagined that after the biggest wildfires registered in Germany, near Bavaria in 2025, millions of liters of water would quit the area?

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

#119

Post by bethekidyouwant »

realusername wrote: post #87
Sayrus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I see those statistics, I always find them very weird. Many of our products are made in China, but those are counted towards China's global emission, not Europe's. It also applies to the need of power generation for delocalized industry or importing food. A country handling a lot of industry will have a very high per-capita emission, but the people living there may actually have very low individual emissions…

They aren't, most emission statistics are counting imported emissions. China's figure aren't that great on their own, with exportation deducted.

EDGAR assigns emissions geographically to the country where the emitting activity occurs. (so in this case no)

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

#120

Post by gboss »

nick__m wrote: post #95
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #54

Atmospheric injections of Sulphur is going to be the only answer.

I don't like acid rain, please find something else

We really need to be pursuing Ocean Iron Fertilization https://www.whoi.edu/ocean-learning-hub/ocean-topics/climate... . We need to both drastically reduce our release of GHG emissions and work to pull CO2 out of the air. This is the only method that seems remotely plausible. I agree that I don't like the sulphur seeding because it doesn't actually remove C02, and higher concentrations of CO2 are toxic to humans.
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