Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by api » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 7:41 PM UTC

uv-depression wrote: post #194

api wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get in a time machine. Go back to 1970. Make sure world starts phasing out all coal power by 2000, replacing with nuclear and what renewables are available then, and make sure modular scalable reactors are available for China so they use that instead of coal to power their rise. Convince everyone that late 20th century unscientific greens are full of shit and nuclear power is better than coal. (Renewables were not fu…

This is a gross misunderstanding of what degrowth means. The fantasy is that an economic system predicated on infinite growth can be made compatible with finite resources. Take, for example, the fact that renewable energy keeps growing as a percentage of total energy generation, yet total GHG emissions keep rising. That's a result of the system of incentives set up by capital. Yes, the economy can become less coupled…

> It's not poor people who stand to lose from degrowth, it's the ultra rich.

Trivially false, and I think this is the root of it. I'm lazy so I asked Claude Fable, but what it gave me is in the same ballpark as a blog post on this I saw a while back that I now can't find.

Question: "Lets say a billionaire spends 100% of their time on boards a medium sized private jet. They also own three 10,000 square foot homes, all of which are heated and cooled 24/7. How much energy do they use? What is that energy use in terms of average European households?"

I used European because Americans are notable energy pigs and can cut a lot without losing much. Europeans are closer to the reasonable baseline.

The total it comes up with for our gas-guzzling fat cat is 96-97 GWh per year. That's including three homes and a continuously operating jet aircraft. This is a totally ridiculous footprint, of course.

Claude Fable says the average European household uses about 15,000 kWh/year in electricity, heating, etc. That means our fat cat corresponds to about 6,400 average European households.

The population of Europe is around 750 million people.

There's about 3000 billionaires worldwide, and if they all lived as absurdly as my caricature they'd use 288 TWh per year.

That corresponds to around 19.2 million European households, or about 2.5% of the energy use of a middle class Europe.

The vast bulk of energy and resource use supports the middle class, and raising people out of poverty.

Inequality probably reduces energy use. If we improved equality it would mean more people with a basic middle class standard of living. A society in which almost everyone has a European middle class standard of living would consume far more energy than one in which a few fat cats live it up and everyone else is poor.

Personally I agree with the left at least a bit on this. I think we have too much inequality. If we reduce inequality, that will increase energy consumption, so we'd better build solar panels and batteries and reactors at the same time.

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

#202

Post by alistairSH » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 7:41 PM UTC

kakacik wrote: post #189

VBprogrammer wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My friend that show is legendary. Not on the same watchers level as original Top Gear (who can surpass 300 million), but its extremely good and literally eye-opening to millions about woes and challenges of modern agriculture. I must admit I was utterly clueless before watching that show, what an eye opener. I hope Jeremy will be OK regarding his health, he is a national treasure. He used to mock global warming and i…

He might be a treasure, but's he's also a prick. He has a long history of letting his on-screen persona leak into meatspace (or maybe it's the other way around) and that's not a good thing.

Edit - since people seem to not believe me, at minimum, he punched his producer [1]. Which wasn't the first time he turned violent - he punched Piers Morgan [2] for letting Clarkson's extramarital affairs go public. Oh, he also had poorly concealed extra-marital affairs.

1 - https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35648682 2 - https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/piers-morgan-rev...

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

#203

Post by maciejw » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 7:45 PM UTC

tyrabound wrote: post #99

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…

It’s not really a common perspective, but I have a theory that the primary cause of especially this kind of drought has way more to do with Europe essentially draining itself through all of the river straightening projects of the 19th century. How could it not be. Before all the industrial age river straightening that has gone on until even rather recently with damming and concrete encasement projects in I think even…

I don't think this view is especially controversial. Many past infrastructure and industry projects make the drought worse today - dams, channels, mines (especially open-pit). In my area (eastern Poland) single communist-era irigation project is responsible for destroying 73% of peat bogs, meadow marshes and wet meadows [1]. Restoring them to previous condition is completely infeasible.

[1] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana%C5%82_Wieprz-Krzna

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

#204

Post by kakacik » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 7:46 PM UTC

otherme123 wrote: post #188

daedrdev wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unironically the anti nuclear luddites killed the main chance to be divert climate change that we had over unfounded fearmongering

Antinuclear have and always had zero power to stop nuclear plants. Except for Germany, if nuclear stopped growing was because of its economics. The same economics that stopped solar photovoltaics until it made sense. Even France, that is heavily pro-nuclear, can't find the economics to build new nuclear energy at decent pace. Also, nuclear was not replaced by more carbon, except again a for a couple of years in a sma…

Dude, Germany sets the tone for whole EU and then some more (aka Switzerland, they are extremely pushy also in matters which should be completely upon given country, like citizen gun laws).

They are the biggest economic force bar none (at least for now, lets see in few years when their car industry will be mostly a thing of the past). They steer 500+ million continent like a fiddle.

I have to crap on Merkel here yet again - she was horrible, utterly despicable leader. Much of the backlash in popularity of extreme right across Europe is her doing. She killed nuclear which wasn't in greatest shape, but it was well before we had actual replacements. She studied as nuclear physicist. Europe as a continent would be in much better shape politically, economically, militarily and socially if she didn't get so much power for so long. German ADF is completely her doing.

Of course when she met real power dealers like putin she caved immediately so he played her like those proverbial fiddles.

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

#205

Post by HPsquared » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 7:49 PM UTC

silon42 wrote: post #161

ffsm8 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It might compensate for global warming... I think a lot will depend on whether there is rain or not.

Warm oceans, as they are, would surely bring rain? Hence why the UK is so rainy. The ocean is warmer than the land, it's like warm water in a cold room, you get the moisture coming off it. If the ocean isn't warm any more, I reckon (as an amateur engineer not climatologist) that would reduce the rain we get.

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

#206

Post by imtringued » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

thrance wrote: post #168

znpy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The Christian-Democrats signed the end of nuclear power in Germany, not the Greens. Please stop this mindless scapegoating. And electricity is only 30% of our global carbon emissions.

And Angela Merkel held onto the phase-out of nuclear power plants all the way until her final term ending in december 2020.

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

#207

Post by mytailorisrich » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC

domh wrote: post #183

mytailorisrich wrote: post #27

I must depend on the country because the trend is that some countries, the UK for instance, are receiving more rain as climate warms, but it is becoming more seasonal. This year winter was extremely wet then indeed summer has been a record dry, so not sure how the year will look like overall (plus it's a strong El Niño year).

I expect future summers to be drier and future winters to be wetter. Our gardens are going to look very different. Already I see more people (myself included) rewilding their gardens. I've had a lot more wildlife as a result, but may be due to hotter weather as well. In the park behind my house a large Goat Willow tree has just mostly toppled over. Completely dry summer, then a week of rain has caused the tree to jus…

Yes, we really need big investment in infrastructure. At the moment parks and gardens don't have automatic watering as we expect rain to do its job, and we suffer from hosepipe bans because infrastructure to store water is not fit for purpose.

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

#208

Post by ddorian43 » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 7:56 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #123

pluc wrote: post #79

But at least we can talk to search engines now

And eat beef every day. Who cares if a small burger pollutes more than commuting with a SUV. I mean, it's just hard to care or do something, these things should be properly taxed, but there's no chance this would be popular. But it feels we're powerless beyond minor examples we can set something everyday.

The beef is not the source of this.

Ruminant meat is the best food there is for humans. (i eat daily as part of ketovore diet)

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

#209

Post by rcbdev » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 8:06 PM UTC

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…

For what it's worth, please do not go for a dip in the Danube river proper here in Vienna, the currents are too dangerous for bathing and there is no official bathing spot anywhere for this reason. Instead, visit our other waters such as the lakes of the Old Danube or the high-water protection side-arm New Danube.

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

#210

Post by MomsAVoxell » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 8:10 PM UTC

rcbdev wrote: post #209

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…

For what it's worth, please do not go for a dip in the Danube river proper here in Vienna, the currents are too dangerous for bathing and there is no official bathing spot anywhere for this reason. Instead, visit our other waters such as the lakes of the Old Danube or the high-water protection side-arm New Danube.

Yes, good clarification, I personally spend my times at Grillplatz 11 on the Neue Donau side of Donau Insel (Danube Island) .. it has been a wonderful summer and the water is delightful. Very safe and rewarding swim, every time.