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Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat

science.org

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Re: Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat

#41
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not as much energy as you think. The main obstacle to removing dams is getting funding. One dam locally is finally being removed 20 years after literally everyone local agreed it should be removed. 90% silted up as it is. But you have to pay for the unsafe bridge downstream before you cut open the dam. It sure would be nice to have had 20 years more sand on the beach to fight erosion. Anyway, there are lots of little…

Hm. Not so simple. In my province (BC), over 90% of our electricity is generated by dams on rivers.[1] I agree with you that some dams are mostly negative. And all dams have some negatives. Witness our Site C dam project currently under construction.[2] It has been a political, environmental, legal, First Nations, and agricultural shitshow. I just think it's worth knowing that river dams still produce the vast majori…

There's like a 140 hydro generating stations in BC. Majority of them produce a negligible amount of power. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generating_stations_in...

Re: Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat

#42

I think when trying to predict the future of climate change, you’ll find every model imperfect (even if it can tell you important truths about what may happen). If you try to make specific predictions, you’re going to turn people off. It’s far better to frame it as a matter of, “Look we don’t know what’ll happen and since we only have 1 planet and pollution is bad, we’re going to try and minimize the impact we have,…

> If you try to make specific predictions, you’re going to turn people off.

I think it's fuzzier than that. Like, I think it's extremely useful to say out loud that climate change will cause large tidal events in the relative short term (sea level rise in the long term). And that an immediate action is for cities like Venice, New Orleans, and Miami to ready themselves for that. It's specific and should be motivating for a large group of people to do something (or risk losing their homes and possibly lives). You have to hope they connect it to the larger picture of things happening too.

> We don’t need to understand what’s inside the box when it arrives on our doorstep. We just have to avoid opening it.

The problem with this is that a lot of folks will do nothing if you don't unpack the box for them and explain how it will affect them.

Re: Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many more kilotons of fossil fuels would we need to burn per year to make up for the loss in hydroelectric power those dams give us?

There are 84,000 dams in the United States. More than one a day since we became a country. Most of them don't generate any meaningful electricity, but they do disrupt habitat for many native fish species. I would like to see them all destroyed. We can find electricity elsewhere.

July 4, 1776 - December 17, 2021 => 89,650 days

Off, but really not by much.

Re: Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat

#45

Sure but the Chinese 20km drag nets in the North Pacific will gobble up those salmon in short order.

Well they won’t gobble the Atlantic salmon..

What can be done about overfishing of international waters?

It seems that the fish is destined to become another farm animal.

Re: Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat

#46
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some hydroelectric power plants actually have greater emissions than even coal power plants, and that's ignoring that dams are much worse for the extended local ecosystems. The dams in the Pacific Northwest have decimated the wild salmon population. Salmon are big, meat eating fish that sustain several other animals, such as the Southern Resident orcas. This population of orcas is literally being starved by us destro…

> Salmon are big, meat eating fish that sustain several other animals So are cattle. Sounds like we just saved a bunch of carbon so we can keep eating steak for a while.

Cattle are big, meat eating fish that sustain several other animals?

Cattle in their current form are a “crop” that sort of sustains humans and their pets. It is likely that this is not an efficient way to sustain humans, but it’s easy and profitable.

Re: Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat

#47

Sure but the Chinese 20km drag nets in the North Pacific will gobble up those salmon in short order.

Well they won’t gobble the Atlantic salmon.. What can be done about overfishing of international waters? It seems that the fish is destined to become another farm animal.

They already are - at least fish for consumption. About 50 percent of seafood is harvested through aquaculture: https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-aquaculture

Re: Melting glaciers may produce thousands of kilometers of new salmon habitat

#48

I think when trying to predict the future of climate change, you’ll find every model imperfect (even if it can tell you important truths about what may happen). If you try to make specific predictions, you’re going to turn people off. It’s far better to frame it as a matter of, “Look we don’t know what’ll happen and since we only have 1 planet and pollution is bad, we’re going to try and minimize the impact we have,…

> If you try to make specific predictions, you’re going to turn people off. I think it's fuzzier than that. Like, I think it's extremely useful to say out loud that climate change will cause large tidal events in the relative short term (sea level rise in the long term). And that an immediate action is for cities like Venice, New Orleans, and Miami to ready themselves for that. It's specific and should be motivating…

> And that an immediate action is for cities like Venice, New Orleans, and Miami to ready themselves for that.

If you really believe in what you say, now is the time to go short on housing in these (mega-expensive) cities and re-invest your incredible profits into clean energy.

Alas, nobody is actually serious about what they say, on both sides of the so-called "debate".

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