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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

#161

Post by silon42 »

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

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

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

#162

Post by youngtaff »

artisinal wrote: post #146
Arodex wrote: post #100

[flagged]

The 30,000 preventable yearly deaths already remind us of that.

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

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

#163

Post by pwagland »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #113
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…

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…

It definitely has a following.

This is the challenge of extreme weather, it's either drought or floods, and wild swings from the one to the other. As a kid growing up in Australia, we heard many such stories, especially if the rains came on too suddenly, since then the ground can't absorb the water, and you get flash floods.

As if being a farmer isn't already tough enough.

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

#165

Post by headsman771 »

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…

[flagged]

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

#167

Post by IshKebab »

headsman771 wrote: post #165
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…

[flagged]

It was in a much steadier state for hundreds of thousands of years before the 20th century. Don't be obtuse.

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

#168

Post by thrance »

znpy wrote: post #138
mchusma wrote: post #118

This is all solvable with abundance. We could put together nuclear power with solar and desalination and carbon removal. Let’s start acting more like a kardishev II civilization.

[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.

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

#169

Post by artisinal »

youngtaff wrote: post #162
artisinal wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 30,000 preventable yearly deaths already remind us of that.

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.

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

#170

Post by thrance »

mchusma wrote: post #118

This is all solvable with abundance. We could put together nuclear power with solar and desalination and carbon removal. Let’s start acting more like a kardishev II civilization.

We're not Kardashev II. We're not even Kardashev I. And nuclear and solar are meaningless if we don't reduce fossil fuel use, which we currently aren't doing (quite the opposite, actually). And carbon removal is a red herring.
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