Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
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Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#2Clarification: Western US.
Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#3Hasn't drought in the American west been a constant for at least the past 1500 years? Like, that's the origin story of most of the native groups - "everything died so we traveled through the hellish lands of death until we reached a place with water". Those that lived in the area throughout that time (like my own ancestors) left almost no history for obvious reasons, but it's pretty sure that they lived without most of the trappings of what present-day humans think of as civilization, like fire, clothing, or agriculture.
Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#4> "We knew climate change would stress our water supplies and we've been preparing for it but we did not know it would happen this fast," said Gloria Gray, chairwoman of the Metropolitan Water District Board of Directors.
Seems a little disingenuous
Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#5Hasn't drought in the American west been a constant for at least the past 1500 years? Like, that's the origin story of most of the native groups - "everything died so we traveled through the hellish lands of death until we reached a place with water". Those that lived in the area throughout that time (like my own ancestors) left almost no history for obvious reasons, but it's pretty sure that they lived without most…
Drought has always been part of the American west. The distinction here is the frequency & intensity of # of drought days. Those are increasing due to us pumping GHG into our atmosphere.
The ecosystem in the west has adapted to drought, but they never adapted for a sudden increase in drought in only a few decades (not long enough for evolution to create useful adaptations on a large scale to speciate) + a competing species reducing total avail land and taking up water supply.
Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#6Clarification: Western US.
Thanks! I was able to update the link title to make it clearer. Good catch.
Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#7Hasn't drought in the American west been a constant for at least the past 1500 years? Like, that's the origin story of most of the native groups - "everything died so we traveled through the hellish lands of death until we reached a place with water". Those that lived in the area throughout that time (like my own ancestors) left almost no history for obvious reasons, but it's pretty sure that they lived without most…
Big droughts have come and gone over the years. Here’s a nice historical data explorer:
https://www.drought.gov/historical-information?dataset=0&sel...
Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#8Hasn't drought in the American west been a constant for at least the past 1500 years? Like, that's the origin story of most of the native groups - "everything died so we traveled through the hellish lands of death until we reached a place with water". Those that lived in the area throughout that time (like my own ancestors) left almost no history for obvious reasons, but it's pretty sure that they lived without most…
1500 (or even 100) years ago, California didn't have 30 million people + intensive industrial agriculture
Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#9Hasn't drought in the American west been a constant for at least the past 1500 years? Like, that's the origin story of most of the native groups - "everything died so we traveled through the hellish lands of death until we reached a place with water". Those that lived in the area throughout that time (like my own ancestors) left almost no history for obvious reasons, but it's pretty sure that they lived without most…
The West was unusually wet when white settlement really got going. That's why the idea of 'rain following the plow' was able to exist for so long without being obviously discredited.
Re: Nearly all of the Western USA is in drought and it's not even summer yet
#10Blowing up the Cascade Range would probably solve this problem. The resulting rubble would also prove as extremely potent fertilizer. Thinking about it some more the idea seems so good that you almost have to do it. Not from the US but it would also seems like a US thing to do.