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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

#271

Post by scoofy »

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 is naturally a desert. It is only unnaturally green and lush.

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

#272

Post by jakebol »

HPsquared wrote: post #205
silon42 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is one part, the other part is that you would get more persistent high pressure blocking patterns over Europe due to reordered atmosphere circulation which will lead to more intense droughts. That is what happened this summer.

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

#273

Post by bjourne »

consumer451 wrote: post #155
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

Many of the "luddite" groups were funded, and in some cases entirely formed, by fossil fuel interests.

That's pure fiction. Cite your sources.

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

#274

Post by hdgvhicv »

artisinal wrote: post #169
youngtaff wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality is much of Northern Europe hasn’t needed air conditioning until about 5 years ago Throughput the summer my phone regular tells me the temperature is 15°C above the average for the time of year

The 2003 European heatwave had a death toll of 70,000. That should have been a warning for us to get AC.

And for the next 20 years been basically unneeded.

How much AC does Alaska have?

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

#275

Post by pfdietz »

jaskerr wrote: post #262
pfdietz wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

El Nino involves moving moisture around, not just reducing precipitation all over. So the opposite can also be seen in some places. The eastern US and parts of the midwest have had a very good year, an the US harvest of maize is projected to be the 2nd highest ever, slightly above 16 billion bushels. Locally (New York state), things have been so wet we're seeing premature leaf drops from maple trees due to leaf fungu…

What part of NY are you in? Here in northern Central NY we’ve been ‘abnormally dry’ all summer long. The forecasters keep promising rain, but it’s little more than a sprinkle when it arrives. Lawns are brown. Trees are dropping leaves, but that’s to slow evaporation.

Around Ithaca. If I go to https://www.drought.gov/ and look at New York state, there's only two fairly small patches of D0 (the lowest drought category, actually "pre-drought") in the state; the rest is not under drought.

https://www.drought.gov/states/new-york

Overall the state is 2.56" above normal for precipitation in 2026. Tompkins County is 4.3" above normal.

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

#276

Post by epolanski »

ddorian43 wrote: post #251
epolanski wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you seem to be unaware: 1. a single cow produces 250 grams of methane per day. Methane is insanely more dangerous to the environment than CO2. A single adult cow pollutes in a day as much as a car driven for 165 miles. And that's only for emissions . 2. As a cow does not pollute just what it emits, you need to add the lifecycle: cows need to be fed. 80% of the food we humans grow goes to feed animals, not humans.…

> Red meat is a category 1 carcinogenic It is not. There are no studies with simply meat. They count burgers and processed stuff. I literally do 90% carnivore so eat nothing processed. I only put salt on the meat. > You could put on a scale every single tiger, domestic dog, rabbit, squirrel, horse, hyppo, kangaroo, etc, etc, etc on the planet. Carnivore animals rarely are eaten. Horse/rabbit are low fat. Beef & lamb…

It feels like speaking with a chatbot.

The focus of the discussion is topic is how dangerous is cattle farming to the planet. The answer is very, I gave you numbers, you're free to debunk them.

The topic of whether red meat is category 1 or 2 carcinogenic is less of an interest to this thread.

If you want to keep your diet, keep it, it doesn't change it has an insane impact on the planet in terms of greenhouse gases production and resource consumption. It kills the planet, whether you like it or not. It's unsustainable.

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

#277

Post by PorciiVorbesc »

tdrz wrote: post #178
eldaisfish wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this tech bro utopia ALWAYS ignores relatively basic solutions. A great example is reliable, regular, and efficient public transit. We don't need self driving cars and all that mumbo jumbo. A bloody train, tram or a bus would solve most of these problems.

This! I live in Western Europe and have never owned a car. I mostly travel by public transport or bike. I rent a car about once a year, but could do without that as well. Before people tell me that I am an exception: I know other people like me in various other places in Europe! It is possible and actually good for your body to have to move, at least to the train station, carrying groceries etc.

>This! I live in Western Europe and have never owned a car.

I'm also in Western Europe and almost always needed a car for my commutes to work, unless I was willing to accept a 1-2+ h public transport commute each way, because tech employers where I live love locating their offices in the sticks where land is cheap because they're broke and cheap, and the city hasn't significantly updated public transport infrastructure in ~30 years, but the population and size of the metro area grew by like 3x.

>Before people tell me that I am an exception: I know other people like me in various other places in Europe!

The thing is, Western Europe is not a country, but a collection of various countries with various economies, cities, and infrastructure, and various people with various housing and career locations, some close and well connected to public transport, some not at all, and from my circle of acquaintances, yes, you are the exception, as most people I know get to work by car.

So, you can't possibly throw such blanket statement over everyone in Western Europe, unless you're massively obtuse or living in a bubble without realizing it.

Like, I'm sure most people in Munich, Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna, etc can easily get to work on the excellent public transport they have, but I don't live there and don't have such amazing public transport, so then car it is for us.

>It is possible and actually good for your body to have to move, at least to the train station, carrying groceries etc.

Bruh, I only need a car just to get to work in reasonable time, not to move or carry groceries.

I get my groceries from the supermarkets 5-10 minute walking distance to my place, but I don't have the luxury of employment jobs within the same distance, so car it is, unless I want to be wasting my life switching connections between slow and infrequent trams, busses and trains which often suffer delays.

And regarding the "body movement" as a pro for public transport, I'd rather have more free time to move in gym and to the workouts my body condition needs, rather than waste my time walking and sitting/standing on public transport, as that's not an actual workout but a waste of time, as all you can do is browse HN on the phone with the hand that's not grabbing the bar. Driving is also a waste of time, but at least it saves me almost 1 hour each way which is massive time save that I can use how I like.

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

#278

Post by consumer451 »

bjourne wrote: post #273
consumer451 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the "luddite" groups were funded, and in some cases entirely formed, by fossil fuel interests.

That's pure fiction. Cite your sources.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-f...

https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun-robert-anderson/

https://truthout.org/articles/top-oil-and-gas-lobby-spent-mo...

http://climatecoalition.org/how-american-petroleum-institute... (sorry, no https)

Russia has huge influence in German politics. I believe there is connection there as well, but I cannot find any public information to cite regarding funding of anti-nuclear power movements.

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

#279

Post by cromka »

alistairSH wrote: post #254
cromka wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like you're being down voted, let's not give celebrities extra passes to be the assholes they can be. Elon being another prime example.

And I'll admit I watch his shows. The first two seasons of Clarkson's Farm were good TV. And with May and Hammond, he provided years of entertainment for car enthusiasts. None of which should excuse his boorish behavior off-screen.

Same here. Watch it, it's good entertainment, he's still an asshole that uses people. In fact, even in the current show, where he used that insult on one of his employees who someone said she looked like pre-transition Caleb — that's exactly the kind of thing he does and he found that funny so couldn't help himself but use it.

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

#280

Post by well_ackshually »

fpoling wrote: post #218
well_ackshually wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You can shit all you want over the antinuclear boys but: * Building nuclear plants is a 5-10 year plan. More if you haven't built them in a while. * The first economy in the world has quite literally started wars over oil because it wants to keep using it. * The countries that would be the biggest emitters right now are also the ones doing the most in electrification. Building more nuclear wouldn't have changed s…

EV only this year became comparable in prices to gasoline cars thanks to massive efforts by Chinese companies to reduce battery prices and improve drivetrain. With that further changes can be very quick as forcing EV no longer requires reallocating money from other things.

You're overestimating the amount of people that can afford a brand new car. The transition will take 15 years at least.
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