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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

#391

Post by SJC_Hacker »

scoofy wrote: post #271
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…

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

California is a big state. The only true deserts are in the south east part of the state

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

#392

Post by thrance »

znpy wrote: post #371
Hikikomori wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did the greens hold power?

Irrelevant. Here in Italy for example they never held power, but they did a huge lobbying and advertising campaign just AFTER Chernobyl that lead to a referendum whose result essentially forbids nuclear power in Italy. Holding power is irrelevant

Do you seriously think "the greens" have more power than fossil fuel companies?

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

#393

Post by thrance »

znpy wrote: post #372
thrance wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am not talking about Germany. The world does not revolve around Germany (despite Germany’s never-desisted ambitions). And 30% is a huge chunk of the emissions

I brought up Germany because it is the example that comes to mind. The greens never held any power anywhere. Anti-nuclear laws have all been passed by right-wing (or ""center"") parties, pushed by fossil fuel lobbies.

You're very misguided in trying to place the blame of the climate crisis entirely on the only ecologists in politics.

Until very recently, all major right-wing parties were insisting that climate change wasn't real and that we should "drill, baby, drill" or burn "clan coal". Do you think they share a part of the blame or is that on the Greens too?

And lastly, building nuclear plants is all well and good, but it is meaningless if it's only added capacity. Same with solar. We have to close coal and oil plants, or all of this is useless. You should start advocating for that instead.

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

#394

Post by freehorse »

inigyou wrote: post #389
freehorse wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Persuade others to vote for them?

Already did, we still ended up here, clearly that solution didn't work

How many did you convince? Did you convince 2s, 10s, 100s or 1000s?

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

#395

Post by ddorian43 »

aziaziazi wrote: post #390
ddorian43 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

potatoes are high carb and no protein/fat, while foods should be high fat and low-to-medium protein (in keto diet that I do).

I was responding to the carcinogenic aspect of meat, not to you personal diet. You can ignore it ("It is not") but it doesn't make Fenton reaction less real.

The "longevity" aspect on both ends of the spectrum is very hard to really quantify to be honest.

On keto/carnivore I see immediate results (weeks) that span over multiple years.

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

#396

Post by olmo23 »

mikrotikker wrote: post #344
IshKebab wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with AI really. It's a century of pumping out CO2, not 2 years. Maybe in the future... but you can't blame AI for this year.

Yea but I bet if you still had beavers in Europe you'd still have water.

We do still have beavers.

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

#397

Post by crotobloste »

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.

> Who cares if a small burger pollutes more than commuting with a SUV.

This affirmation only holds up for factory farming / intensive animal husbandry.

Extensive pastoralism (aka free-ranging grazing animals) don't pollute per se, and if certain conditions are met (regarding population density), they can have positive effects on (already anthropicized) ecosystems by linking ecotopes.

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

#398

Post by crote »

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…

It takes very little time for water to reach the sea. From rain falling in Germany or snow melting in the Alps to it entering the North Sea takes less than two weeks. Even at the current extremely low flow the Rhine is still delivering 800 m3 / second to The Netherlands, and during high-flow periods it can deliver over 12.000 m3 / second. Any kind of meaningful retention just isn't going to happen, short of a giant hydro reservoir. Some river straightening isn't going to be more than a rounding error.

The real issue here is the loss of the glaciers, which are the actual "water batteries". Previously a lot of snow fell in the winter, stayed there, and slowly melted off during the summer. Nowadays a lot of rain falls during the winter, and it immediately flows downstream, with nothing to melt during the summer.

Population is completely irrelevant here, by the way. Any water used by people ends up going back into the river after some filtering. No need to invent an immigration conspiracy.

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

#399

Post by pfdietz »

mschuster91 wrote: post #252
thrance wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget the farmers, they are concerning signs of large famines potentially coming in early 2027.

Not in the Western world, we got enough food to last us a good while (recent issues with the FDA and food recalls in the US notwithstanding). China is probably also going to be safe, they learned from Mao Zedong's failures and got stockpiles. Africa is going to get fed as long as the Ukrainian and Russian grain exports keep going. But who is going to get screwed hard is a lot of the rest of Asia, thanks to the Iran W…

US corn and soybean crops are looking quite good. The corn harvest is projected to be the 2nd highest ever, the soybean harvest the best ever.

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

#400

Post by ionwake »

eastbound wrote: post #314
phillc73 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also an Australian living in Austria (there’s a few of us), although not in Vienna. Whenever I return to Australia (also mostly rural locations) the major difference I notice is bird life. There are so many more birds in Australia. Maybe they’re just noisier. We put feeders out in our Austrian garden and do see plenty of small birds, as well as woodpeckers, crows and pigeons. However, in Australia there are lots of s…

That's my memory of Sydney to. In Europe we sold every land parcel, reduced their habitat (forests) to 100m blocks, then 50m, then a public park with scientific studies used to justify that they'll be better off in the park... then they die. Turns out all scientific studies are paid out by promoters and everyone has a price.

how could a world gov body not become corrupt but also rule over easily corruptible groups that are self interested - ie like those who slowly sell teh land to developers and reduce ecosystems to nothing to the detriment to the greater good?

I dont know

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