[Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

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(Thread IKs: Stereotype)

Cold on a Cob: Feb 6, 2006; i've seen so much, i'm going blind
and i'm brain dead virtually; College Slice

A Bakers Cousin posted:

lol the worst companies are the "outdoors" companies pretending to be something they are not, wasn't it REI that started some union-busting meeting with acknowledging they were on stolen land?

yep land acknowledgements are extremely popular in canada and even the cbc did an article about how performatively useless they are compared to, idk, actually settling treaty disputes

# ? Apr 27, 2022 20:10

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# ? May 25, 2024 00:43

Mameluke: Aug 2, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

A Bakers Cousin posted:

lol the worst companies are the "outdoors" companies pretending to be something they are not, wasn't it REI that started some union-busting meeting with acknowledging they were on stolen land?

we sell you the things you throw out while having driven your 4x4 into the national park, we love nature

# ? Apr 27, 2022 20:38

Alamani57: Dec 15, 2010

mistermojo posted:

just the most sweltering oppressive heat

the hottest we've ever seen, from the standpoint of heat.

# ? Apr 27, 2022 20:39

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

Mameluke posted:

we sell you the things you throw out while having driven your 4x4 into the national park, we love nature

I swear, some people get into camping so they have a new class of product to hit Buy Now on.

# ? Apr 27, 2022 20:55

Homeless Friend: Jul 16, 2007

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1519326237877055493

IAMKOREA posted:

Well the good news is, just gotta get through *checks notes* may June July August September and maybe October

lol this is exactly what i thought /w the cali water stuff. 1/3 of the way through guys!

# ? Apr 27, 2022 20:58

stringless: Dec 28, 2005; keyboard ⌨️ cowboy

blatman posted:

why is a chicken only worth 4.4 egg

"8 oz chicken" is like one chicken breast, maybe 1/6th of the meat of a whole chicken.

and chickens raised for meat are typically slaughtered before they start laying eggs iirc

# ? Apr 27, 2022 21:12

IAMKOREA: Apr 21, 2007

FFT posted:

"8 oz chicken" is like one chicken breast, maybe 1/6th of the meat of a whole chicken.

and chickens raised for meat are typically slaughtered before they start laying eggs iirc

Yeah they get slaughtered super early which also means they taste like blande garbage just like all the other food in the grocery store (produce in particular). Like once you make chicken chicken soup from an old hen or rooster you'll never be able to make it from grocery store chicken again. Drives me crazy when people talk about the amazing globalized supply chain and how great it is, like yeah you can get anything you want anytime you want but the quality is just total poo poo!

# ? Apr 27, 2022 21:19

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

Iberian Orca's off Spain & Portugal have been aggressively attacking small vessels in increasing numbers for the past few years: https://www.orcaiberica.org/by-months

From a recent incident report:

quote:

...when they started to tow the other boat. The orcas were still around and 2 of them tried to bite over the rope � two times!. They got the rope in their mouths, but were not able to cut it, but they dived, and you could see the sailboat bow moving downwards...

From forums chatter in the sailing community, it sounds as if there are considerably more incidents than are reported on this site. Orca's are astonishingly intelligent, that they are actively attacking human vessels at this scale is certainly a sign of things.

# ? Apr 27, 2022 21:22

TeenageArchipelago: Jul 23, 2013

Imagine not being driven mad by all that noise

# ? Apr 27, 2022 21:25

Complications: Jun 19, 2014

On the one hand that's awesome, on the other hand I worry that if this impacts anyone that matters Spain's Coast Guard equivalent will given helicopter side depth charges and they'll solve the problem.

# ? Apr 27, 2022 21:31

bad boys for life: Jun 6, 2003; by sebmojo

Lake Powell and Lake Mead are both nearing levels where hydroelectric dams will stop producing power downstream - to 40M people in the west.

https://www.9news.com/article/weather/weather-colorado/lake-powell-water-crisis/73-c7c27ab9-4dce-4f5e-80c9-6b6a6212d48d

"She said that two unprecedented measures are being taken to help prevent Lake Powell from hitting that critical level of 3,490 feet.
One, which has already been approved, is to move an unprecedented 500,000 acre-feet of water out of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir in northern Utah and southern Wyoming, into Lake Powell over the next 12 months. "

So far they only have short term solutions, like draining all reservoirs to the north to temporarily refill them to keep the power going. Issue with that plan is, the drought is all the way up to the reservoirs being used to refill it, like Flaming Gorge:

https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/cs/fgd.html

Except its also draining and snowpack and inflow volumes are significantly lower than average:

"As of April 5, 2022, Flaming Gorge Reservoir pool elevation is 6018.73 feet, which amounts to 78 percent of live storage capacity. Unregulated inflow volume for the month of March is approximately 75,000 acre-feet (af), which is 71 percent of the average March unregulated inflow volume. The daily average release of approximately 850 cfs is planned to be maintained through April.
The April forecast for unregulated inflows into Flaming Gorge for the next three months projects below average conditions. April, May, and July forecasted unregulated inflow volumes amount to 105,000 af (84 percent of average), 120,000 af (48 percent of average), and 205,000 af (53 percent of average), respectively.
The April water supply forecast of the April through July unregulated inflow volume into Flaming Gorge Reservoir is 520,000 acre-feet (54% of average). Current snowpack is 73% of median for the Upper Green Basin. "

Basically the west is hosed and within 8 years.

# ? Apr 27, 2022 21:33

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

TeenageArchipelago posted:

I mean, some of these people are nuts, but otoh

# ? Apr 27, 2022 21:36

Just a Moron: Nov 11, 2021

Karach posted:

What is 5.5? Earthquake magnitude?

5.5 C degrees of warming

# ? Apr 27, 2022 21:44

Relin: Oct 6, 2002; You have been a most worthy adversary, but in every game, there are winners and there are losers. And as you know, in this game, losers get robotizicized!

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epx357/koch-brothers-epa-supreme-court-climate-change

something to look forward to

# ? Apr 27, 2022 22:03

mediaphage: Mar 22, 2007; Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

Relin posted:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epx357/koch-brothers-epa-supreme-court-climate-change

something to look forward to

yeah this is gonna rock

just more of the gop tactic of taking power from executive branches when dems are in office and putting it into the hands of the vote defrauded legislatures

# ? Apr 27, 2022 22:11

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

Homeless Friend posted:

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1519326237877055493

lol this is exactly what i thought /w the cali water stuff. 1/3 of the way through guys!

I refuse to believe it�s only up to 40% unless you�re counting Antarctica, and all of northern russia and Canada and Greenland, and literal desert and arctic wastelands as total land mass we haven�t destroyed yet

# ? Apr 27, 2022 22:22

Mayor Dave: Feb 20, 2009; Bernie the Snow Clown

Cold on a Cob posted:

yep land acknowledgements are extremely popular in canada and even the cbc did an article about how performatively useless they are compared to, idk, actually settling treaty disputes

The "I see you, I hear you" of imperialism

# ? Apr 27, 2022 22:24

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

Relin posted:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epx357/koch-brothers-epa-supreme-court-climate-change

something to look forward to

We can throw it up there with:

Texas targets financial firms that practice climate-conscious investing

Don't wanna invest in Oil & Gas? That's illegal! :clint:

# ? Apr 27, 2022 22:29

Armadillo Tank: Mar 26, 2010

https://twitter.com/LasVegasLocally/status/1519131935175454720

hmmm, have they tried lowering the pipe

# ? Apr 27, 2022 22:57

Hubbert: Mar 25, 2007; At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Armadillo Tank posted:

https://twitter.com/LasVegasLocally/status/1519131935175454720

hmmm, have they tried lowering the pipe

I feel like the correct course of action here is to implement water markets, fully privatize the supply, and let the free market find a way to create more fresh drinking water.

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:02

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

There�s No Scenario in Which 2050 Is �Normal�

quote:

Earlier this month, the United Nations�led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the latest volume of its current �synthesis report,� its omnibus summary of what humanity knows about the climate. As I wrote at the time, while the other volumes focus on the impacts of climate change, this newest report narrows in on how to prevent it.

One of the main tools that the volume uses to estimate how we might avert climate catastrophe is so-called energy-system models. These are complicated computer programs that simulate the global economy�s use of energy in all its guises�coal, natural gas, wind, solar�and what the greenhouse-gas footprint of that energy use will be. A single model might encompass natural-gas demand in Mongolia, highway usage in Scotland, electric-vehicle purchases in New Jersey, and thousands of other numbers before spitting out a certain year�s carbon emissions.

These models are useful because they produce scenarios: story lines that show how the world can meet its energy needs while gradually zeroing out its carbon pollution. They can help us understand how current�and future� energy policy will affect the trajectory of emissions. (By feeding the output of energy-system models into climate models, which project how the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will alter temperature, precipitation, and much else, you can then see how those emissions will drive climate change.) The models can tell us, for instance, that based on the commitments countries initially made under the Paris Agreement, the world�s average temperature is set to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above its preindustrial level, violating the very goal of that treaty.

Of course, that has long been clear. But the energy-system models used in the most recent IPCC report tell us something else too: The path to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change requires something impossible. Well, not actually impossible, but exceptionally difficult to imagine.

Of the hundreds of scenarios that the IPCC analyzed, all fell into one of three buckets. In the first bucket, every scenario forecasts that the world will soon be removing tens of gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. Carbon removal is still a bit of a dream. Not only is it technologically unproven at scale; it is extremely energy intensive. But the IPCC report implies that within the lifetime of children alive today, the world might be spending more than a third of its total energy production removing carbon from the atmosphere, according to Zeke Hausfather, an IPCC author.

The world won�t derive any immediate economic gain from this waste-management exercise; it won�t turn that carbon into something useful. It will simply need to spend what could equal trillions of dollars a year on carbon removal to help rein in climatic upheaval. What�s more, this mass removal will need to happen while the world does everything else that decarbonizing entails, such as building wind and solar farms, expanding public transit, and switching to electric vehicles. Every climate plan, every climate policy you�ve ever heard about will need to happen while tens of gigatons of carbon removal revs up in the background.

That may sound unbelievable. But now let�s turn our attention to the second bucket of scenarios. They tell a different story, one in which the world rapidly curtails its energy usage over the next two decades, slashing carbon pollution not only from rich countries, such as the United States, but also from middle-income countries, such as Brazil, Pakistan, and India.

By �curtailing energy demand,� I�m not talking about the standard energy-transition, green-growth situation, where the world produces more energy every year and just has a larger and larger share of it coming from zero-carbon sources. Rather, these scenarios imagine a world where total global energy demand collapses in the next few decades. There�s a good reason for this�as far as the models are concerned, this tactic is one of the best ways to crash carbon pollution within 10 years�but it is not how any country approaches climate policy.

Take these scenarios� assumptions about car ownership, for example. Today, there are about 1.3 billion cars and light-duty trucks on the road worldwide. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that this number will reach 2.21 billion by 2050�a 70 percent increase�of which less than half will be electric vehicles. But the low-energy scenarios require the global vehicle fleet to nearly halve during the same period of time, shrinking to about 850 million cars and light trucks by 2050.

Don�t get me wrong: This sounds fantastic. I�d love to live in a world where most people don�t have to own a car to make a living or participate in society. Yet it also does not strike me as particularly likely, and it is not the only life-altering shift imagined by the low-energy scenarios. These scenarios envision a similar revolution in energy-efficiency technology sweeping through other aspects of society, such as building construction, residential heating, and manufacturing. Historically, energy efficiency has improved by about 2 percent a year; the low-energy-demand scenarios require much faster shifts.

Oh, and by the way, these low-energy-demand scenarios require a huge amount of carbon removal too�something like 3 billion tons of it. �Even with low-energy demand, there�s still a fair amount of [carbon removal] deployed. It�s just in the three-to-five-gigaton range rather than the five-to-15-gigaton range,� Hausfather, the IPCC author, told me. (He recently became the lead climate researcher at the online-payment company Stripe, which has paid to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than any other company.)

And then there�s the third bucket. In these scenarios in the new report, humanity fails to limit global temperature growth to 1.5 degrees Celsius (or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), blowing past the more ambitious of the Paris Agreement�s climate goals. Passing 1.5 degrees Celsius means that the world could encounter deadly droughts, mass migrations, and fatal outdoor temperatures by the middle of the century.

Perhaps you can see the problem: None of these outcomes is particularly easy to imagine. There is no international agreement�or even political will�to conduct carbon removal at the scale that the IPCC report envisions. There is even less appetite for the rapid energy cuts that must come in this decade to meet the low-energy-demand scenario. And if you give up on either of those approaches, that all but ensures the world will exceed the 1.5-degree-Celsius threshold, which will lead to widespread turmoil.

When you look at the three buckets this starkly, a few things become apparent. The first and the most significant is that humanity must invest more in carbon removal as quickly as possible. So far, most of the money spent on carbon removal has come from the private sector; two weeks ago, I wrote about Stripe�s effort. But the funding to remove billions of tons a year can come only from the government. Many climate thinkers hope that the federal government will step in and administer carbon removal as a public waste-management service, at least in the United States. There�s currently little bipartisan political will to do so, but it is beyond past time to begin implementing that.

The second is that coping with climate change will require disruption on a scale that our political system has yet to comprehend. In some cases, that disruption will come beforehand and prevent the damage; in others, it will result from the climatic damage. But it will come nonetheless. If I asked you, Forty years from now, will only about 5 percent of Americans own a car, or will the world spend a large share of its energy production sucking carbon from the atmosphere?, you would rightly respond that neither sounded particularly realistic. And that is the point: We have been backed into a corner. The scale of change headed our way is unimaginable. And it is also inevitable.

Even The Atlantic, long a bastion of Cope, is starting to admit that like it or not the world as we knew it for over half a century is over and about to get really fuckin' different really fast.

quote:

In this article, you read a mainstream journalist in a mainstream publication begin to grapple with and admit to the scale of the climate change problem. It seems a fairly common position these days for people to complain about 'doomerism' and 'doomers' with respect to ecological overshoot. Well, this article reads like it was written by a doomer. He does not actually suggest that the world will stand by and do nothing as the climate collapses, but he finally acknowledges that the problem is really about power and politics, not science communication. When scientists say clearly that the well water is poisoned and the village drinks it anyway, the problem is not science communication.

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:04

Hubbert: Mar 25, 2007; At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Rime posted:

There’s No Scenario in Which 2050 Is ‘Normal’

Even The Atlantic, long a bastion of Cope, is starting to admit that like it or not the world as we knew it for over half a century is over and about to get really fuckin' different really fast.

-

quote:
The second is that coping with climate change will require disruption on a scale that our political system has yet to comprehend. In some cases, that disruption will come beforehand and prevent the damage; in others, it will result from the climatic damage. But it will come nonetheless. If I asked you, Forty years from now, will only about 5 percent of Americans own a car, or will the world spend a large share of its energy production sucking carbon from the atmosphere?, you would rightly respond that neither sounded particularly realistic. And that is the point: We have been backed into a corner. The scale of change headed our way is unimaginable. And it is also inevitable.

The last paragraph.

lol

lmao

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:06

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

My fiance unironically called this society a collapsing society and is more down than I am to GTFO of the southwest and over to the Great Lakes.

My doomer brainworms are finally breaking through!

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:12

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

My partner and I have been having a lot of deep discussions recently, about when do we mutually say the transition out of stability into chaos is inevitable and approaching soon and seriously give up on participating in society. You don't want to be like a young apocalypse hippy in the 70's, making off to the woods waiting for an ecological apocalypse which won't meaningfully arrive until you are actually 80. You don't want to leave it too late, and clock out of the office to find out the end is here.

Sure, the writing is really loving obviously on the wall, but how do you contextualize an evidence-based vibe :airquote:

within the context of still having to participate in society to some extent in order to survive? I've been open that I really don't want her to give up her career trajectory based on my interpretation of events and developments, in case I am extremely wrong about matters, that I don't want to think that I hosed someone else's life up in addition to my own in the scenario where we get to live another twenty odd years in merely a declining dystopia.

At the same time, if our civilization and the ecological pillars which support it are truly locked into a Seneca Cliff scenario, when things fall apart they are going to look normal right up until the moment they fall apart and then it's going to be a vertical drop with a few hard bumps. Maybe we've already gone over the edge and hit the first bump, I don't know. I don't want to think that I wasted the little time I had left participating in the capitalist mechanisms of a society which was headed over the cliff anyways, though, I can't think of a worse thing to be doing with the time I was granted here. Sitting here refreshing social media and pretending things aren't on fire until the fire consumes me.

This essay from Aeon: In these dark times, the virtue we need is hopeful pessimism

Really resonated with me, today, and this excerpt in particular put into words better than I have been able to the root of this horrifying liminal state I've been in for months:

quote:

I think about these things in this age marked by ecological depletion and devastation, by floods and fires and heat ceilings that no one had thought possible, by the spectre of the climate crisis that takes shape all around us. This age is marked also by the quiet, or not so quiet, desperation of the young. The same criticisms once waged against the pessimists of yore are now laid at the feet of the despairing young by those techno-optimists and advocates of progress for whom any consideration of the mere possibility of decline is itself a sign of weakness, a lack of imagination, a moral flaw � a failure of vision, most of all. And so they denounce young people�s outcry as pessimism, as fatalism, as �mere� despair. They criticise them for the bleakness of their vision, call their statements exaggerated and the speakers spoiled.

It is all too easy to miss the fact that this generation � the first to grow up in a world where a climate emergency is not just on the horizon, but a stark reality � is haunted by a real sense of losing the future, as all the things they have been told give life meaning are rendered either pointless or problematic. Things like: study, get a good job, settle down � but what jobs are still certain? Where will it be safe to settle down? As Greta Thunberg said in Parliament Square in London in 2018: �And why should I be studying for a future that soon will be no more, when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future?� Things like: start a family � but if there is no future for one�s children, is it still OK to procreate? Even more trivial things, like developing oneself by travelling, are no longer straightforward: for how important is self-development when weighed against the carbon cost of modern travel?

This is a wholesale collapse of meaning that is only now becoming clear to us. There is a very real sense in which young people are experiencing not only the loss of concepts, but the loss of the future itself, as all the usual answers to the question of what makes life worthwhile become increasingly uncertain. They are in that darkness, searching for some kind of hope, some kind of consolation � and what can we offer them? Surely we can do better than give the manifestly inadequate answer (which may also be an outright lie) to assure them that all will be well � since we know there is every chance it won�t be.

Hopeful pessimism breaks through the rusted dichotomy of optimism vs pessimism. It is this attitude, this perspective that is exemplified in Thunberg and other figures who by their example give an affirmative answer to the question posed by Paul Kingsnorth: �Is it possible to see the future as dark and darkening further; to reject false hope and desperate pseudo-optimism without collapsing into despair?�

I haven't collapsed into despair, just liminality: utterly adrift knowing there is little point in participating at all in the increasingly suicidal self-destructive charade of a civilization we have built around us - because anything I might do here is destined to collapse and be snatched away in the coming years or decades - and not knowing what to do with myself otherwise since this system demands my participation in return for continuing my very life.

Rime has issued a correction as of 23:32 on Apr 27, 2022

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:29

Complications: Jun 19, 2014

So anyway the Colorado river is low enough and the relevant treaties close enough to expiration that all states involved with it can't make it the next administration's problem. Article

quote:

If Hasencamp is right � and most scientists agree that America�s deserts will only get drier as the climate crisis worsens � that means he and other officials in the region have their work cut out for them to ensure that the Southwest stays hydrated. The Colorado River is currently governed by a set of operating guidelines that went into effect in 2007, the latest in a long line of agreements that began with the original Colorado River Compact in 1922. But that framework is set to expire in 2026, giving officials in the seven states through which the Colorado and its tributaries flow � along with their peers in Mexico and the 29 tribes whose ancestors have depended on the river for millennia � an alarmingly narrow window to come to a consensus on how to share a river that�s already flowing with one-fifth less water than it did in the 20th century.

[...]

Pat Tyrrell, Wyoming�s former state engineer, says if the states fail to reach an accord, �we�re looking at 20, 30 years in the court system.� That would be a nightmare scenario given how disastrous the past two decades have been for the river. Falling back on the existing framework of western law could result in hundreds of thousands of people being stranded without water or electricity � or, as John Entsminger of the Southern Nevada Water Authority puts it, �multiple Katrina-level events across southwestern cities.� The negotiations, then, represent the first major test of the American political system�s ability to collaboratively adapt to climate change. �I think the states feel a strong interest in working this thing through among ourselves so that we don�t end up there,� says Tyrrell. �We can�t end up there.�

[...]

In March, Bradley Udall, a water and climate researcher at Colorado State University, gave a presentation at the University of Utah�s Wallace Stegner Center that laid out several models for how much drier the basin could become by 2050, including an especially frightening forecast that the river may end up carrying 40 percent less water than it averaged during the 20th century. �There�s just a lot of worrisome signs here that these flows are going to go lower,� Udall says. Tanya Trujillo, who, as the assistant secretary for water and science at the Department of the Interior, is effectively the federal government�s top water official, agrees with that assessment. �The bottom line is we�re seeing declining storage in both Lake Mead and Lake Powell,� she says. �But we�re also seeing increasing risk of the system continuing to decline.�

[...]

Now, the entire region is facing the sort of crisis California did in 2002 but with much less margin for error. While the explosive population growth of Arizona and Nevada originally put pressure on California to draw down its use in the 1990s, now the Upper Basin states of Utah and Colorado � each of which added over a half-million residents in the past decade � are adding strain to the system. Currently, the Upper Basin uses only about 4.5 million acre-feet of water every year, leaving roughly 2 million acre-feet that the four states are theoretically entitled to as they keep adding population.

As the chair of the recently formed Colorado River Authority of Utah, Gene Shawcroft serves as the state�s lead negotiator. He grew up on a ranch along the Alamosa River in southern Colorado and was riveted by the West�s vast plumbing network from an early age. �Christmas was okay, but the best day of the year was when they turned the irrigation water on,� he says. Although he otherwise carries all the hallmarks of the taciturn Westerner, talking about water can still make Shawcroft light up like a kid at the holidays. �We have to learn to live with very, very dry cycles, and I still believe we�re going to get some wet years,� he says. �That�s part of the fun. I�m thrilled to death we have infrastructure in place that allows us to use the water when it�s available.�

[...]

But pipelines and dams are useful only as long as there�s water to be stored and transported. That�s why Cox released a video last summer in which he told his constituents that the state needed �some divine intervention� to solve its problems. �By praying collaboratively and collectively, asking God or whatever higher power you believe in for more rain, we may be able to escape the deadliest aspects of the continuing drought.� The early returns from the pray-for-rain strategy have not been good, as this winter�s snowpack indicates that 2022 will be just as dry as 2021.

[..]

At the Stegner conference where Udall made his dire prediction, Entsminger shared that his agency is now planning for the annual flow of the Colorado to fall to just 11 million acre-feet. Given how squirrelly water officials can become when it�s time to talk about actual water, many in the room were taken aback that Entsminger would be willing to dial in on a projection so specific � and so low. Later on, Arizona�s lead negotiator, Tom Buschatzke, joked, �I won�t say I agree to 11. I might get arrested when I get off the plane in Phoenix.�

[...]

While in ordinary times, the governors� delegates may meet once or twice a year, throughout the spring they were talking on a weekly basis. Many of the negotiators I spoke with via Zoom appeared sleep-deprived, staring vacantly at the camera and pausing regularly to rub their eyes or massage their temples. John Fleck has authored several books on the Colorado and serves as a writer-in-residence at the University of New Mexico; he says the tension between the two basins was palpable at the Stegner conference, with many Lower Basin negotiators expressing their frustration with those from the Upper Basin seeming to cast the current crisis as one that California, Arizona, and Nevada have created and are responsible for solving. From the other side, Mitchell told me she found it �almost offensive� when Lower Basin managers look to the excess allocations upriver as the only solution to the shortage. �It was a tense few days,� Fleck says. �We�ve reached a point where the buffers are gone and we can no longer avoid these hard conversations.�

In April, Secretary Trujillo ratcheted up the pressure when she sent a letter to the region�s principal negotiators that established the federal government�s priority as keeping Lake Powell above 3,490 feet of elevation, the threshold after which the Glen Canyon Dam ceases to produce power and drinking water could become impossible to deliver to the nearby town of Page, Arizona, and the LeChee Chapter of the Navajo Nation. To that end, Trujillo wrote that the Department of the Interior �requests your consideration of potentially reducing Glen Canyon Dam releases to 7.0 [million acre-feet] this year.� Making that happen would require the Lower Basin to double the cuts it has been haggling over through the 500+ Plan. If those states are unable to figure out a workable solution, the Department of the Interior has authority under the current operating guidelines to crank down the spigot of the Colorado and deliver only 7 million acre-feet anyway.

The Feds taking unilateral action to keep Glen Canyon Dam online would be completely unprecedented. But the fact that such a move no longer seems unimaginable is a mark of how precarious the situation has become. �When the pie�s shrinking, who�s going to take shortage and how much?� asks Hasencamp. �Every shortage you don�t take, someone else does. We�re all in this together, we all need to be part of the solution, and we all have to sacrifice. But we all have to be protected. We can�t have a city or agricultural area dry up and wither while others thrive. It�s one basin. Like it or not, you�re all part of L.A.�

Also, Florida now has an insurance crisis.

quote:

The retreat by insurance companies has left the condo associations steering aging buildings up and down the Miami-area coastline and throughout the state to deal with insurers in the lesser-regulated surplus market, for customers that can�t get standard policies because the potential loss is unacceptably high. How high? In the case of Champlain Towers South, Great American Insurance Company announced it would tender its full policy limits and additional payments totaling more than $30 million. The upheaval is translating to massive price hikes on premiums and Swiss-cheese carve-outs for policyholders.

[...]

Condo associations are having a hard time getting their pre-Surfside policies renewed, forced instead to sift through estimates for less protective plans that cost twice as much, or higher. Those lucky enough to renew their policies are doing so at 30% to 50% premium increases, according to market experts.

[...]

�The marketplace is horrible,� Munchick said. �Insurance companies are picking and choosing what buildings they want to insure. � Companies might not want to write on the ocean anymore.�

Munchick said he had previously locked in an umbrella policy that provided $25 million of protection for general liability � basic, slip-and-fall type events that happen in common areas � as well as protection for decisions made by directors and officers. It cost the association about $5,000 per year. This year, Munchick said he received a $53,000 quote for an annual policy that had a $5 million limit just for general liability.

[...]

There are more than 1.5 million condo units in Florida, and more than 922,000 of them are already over 30 years of age, according to state data collected by Sklar, the UM professor, for the Surfside task force. More than 60% of them, he added, fall in parts of the state that have no maintenance or inspection standard.

[...]

Despite the disagreement on reserves, lawmakers could have still passed some of the other measures, such as inspection requirements and transparency laws, Sklar said. That, he added, �would have sent a clear resounding message to the insurance industry� that the Legislature was taking the issue seriously and helped stabilize the market.

The new realization of risk post-Surfside comes on top of concerns about dubious insurance claims and hurricane exposure. There have been billions of dollars worth of claims in the past few years even without a major hit from a storm, Clarkson said.

[...]

�You take those two, combine it with the politicians who did absolutely nothing, that�s called a recipe for the perfect storm,� Clarkson said. �And that perfect storm is: If we have any kind of [hurricane] hit to Florida this year, we may not have anybody left.�

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:43

Pryor on Fire: May 14, 2013; they don't know all alien abduction experiences can be explained by people thinking saving private ryan was a documentary

Y'all are doing some fine posting lately, I can really feel the horror washing over me

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:51

JAY ZERO SUM GAME: Oct 18, 2005; Walter.
I know you know how to do this.
Get up.

Rime posted:

There�s No Scenario in Which 2050 Is �Normal�

Even The Atlantic, long a bastion of Cope, is starting to admit that like it or not the world as we knew it for over half a century is over and about to get really fuckin' different really fast.

*sighs* looks like we're gonna have to get more facist

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:54

Stereotype: Apr 24, 2010; College Slice

i always knew that insurance companies would be the first ones to start classifying huge regions as uninhabitable. It's funny that now that it is happening everyone who is living in climate apocalypse zones is suddenly realizing what we've all been saying for decades now

# ? Apr 27, 2022 23:57

JAY ZERO SUM GAME: Oct 18, 2005; Walter.
I know you know how to do this.
Get up.

the state of the colorado and lake powell is breathtaking

it's been happening slow for about 20 years, but the drainage is accelerating

my parents used to go to lake powell every year for two weeks to go boating, for almost three decades. they stopped a couple years ago, sold the boat, etc.

there is one place you can put in a boat these days (used to be up to 9) and the corps of engineers (i think, maybe some other entity) has to keep extending the boat ramp

e: lol powell is 32 feet above minimum power pool.

it's down 40 feet from this time last year

incredible

JAY ZERO SUM GAME has issued a correction as of 00:09 on Apr 28, 2022

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:00

Pryor on Fire: May 14, 2013; they don't know all alien abduction experiences can be explained by people thinking saving private ryan was a documentary

https://twitter.com/CNRUSU/status/1519358115149336576

that's crazy that the water is below the top of the intakes now, guess they will have to shut off the turbines soon

Pryor on Fire has issued a correction as of 00:22 on Apr 28, 2022

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:19

TeenageArchipelago: Jul 23, 2013

lmao so apparently some types of dental floss use PFAS

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/dental-floss-harmful-chemicals/

quote:

�Nonstick pans have [a] larger surface but we don�t chew on them like dental floss,� he said.

more lies from scientists

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:20

Stereotype: Apr 24, 2010; College Slice

TeenageArchipelago posted:

lmao so apparently some types of dental floss use PFAS

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/dental-floss-harmful-chemicals/

more lies from scientists

wow good thing i don't floss

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:23

TeenageArchipelago: Jul 23, 2013

I wanted to see if I could find what type of plastics toothbrushes used, and the first thing that I found was this site

https://thebamandboo.com/products/limited-edition-ukraine-toothbrush

which is selling a limited edition Ukraine toothbrush

All proceeds going to UNICEF, so at least it isn't a Nazi toothbrush

quote:

RECYCLING INFO

Remove the toothbrush bristles with a pair of pliers or tweezers and throw them into a plastic recycling bin.
Go for a stroll in the city park and stick it in the soil.
The box encasing the toothbrush is made from paper - no glue no tape - so it's easily recyclable in the proper container.

Pulling the bristles out of my toothbrush one by one to put into the plastic recycling bin, which is certainly a meaningful action

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:28

Evil_Greven: Feb 20, 2007; Whadda I got to,
whadda I got to do
to wake ya up?

To shake ya up,
to break the structure up!?

Kal posted:

might need to ban a lot more than almonds

My parents had chickens for a time. There is no loving way it takes 53 gallons for a single egg.

Anyway isn't it a great time to be alive? It only gets worse each day from here on.

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:29

Cloks: Feb 1, 2013; by Azathoth

TeenageArchipelago posted:

lmao so apparently some types of dental floss use PFAS

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/dental-floss-harmful-chemicals/

more lies from scientists

yeah, this was discussed in the thread like six months ago

it got me to switch to unwaxed

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:36

T-Paine: Dec 12, 2007; Sitting in the Costco food court unmasked, Bible in hand, reading my favorite Psalms to my five children: Abel, Bethany, Carlos, Carlos, and Carlos.

Complications posted:

The negotiations, then, represent the first major test of the American political system�s ability to collaboratively adapt to climate change. �I think the states feel a strong interest in working this thing through among ourselves so that we don�t end up there,� says Tyrrell. �We can�t end up there.�

Yeah I'm sure we got this on lockdown

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:38

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

Rime posted:

Really resonated with me, today, and this excerpt in particular put into words better than I have been able to the root of this horrifying liminal state I've been in for months:

I haven't collapsed into despair, just liminality: utterly adrift knowing there is little point in participating at all in the increasingly suicidal self-destructive charade of a civilization we have built around us - because anything I might do here is destined to collapse and be snatched away in the coming years or decades - and not knowing what to do with myself otherwise since this system demands my participation in return for continuing my very life.

I don�t know how Canada does it but America purposely weaponizes homeless to be a threat that the bottom is always limitless. no one wants to the the crazy guy under the underpass shouting slurs and shaking uncontrollably yelling at shadows and children. so yeah participation to not die is required and the state is very upfront about participate or die.

e: a bunch of stupid bullshit. nevermind.

Xaris has issued a correction as of 03:37 on Apr 28, 2022

# ? Apr 28, 2022 00:41

Wakko: Jun 9, 2002; Faboo!

Homeless Friend posted:

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1519326237877055493

im so proud of all us. only 60% more to go!

# ? Apr 28, 2022 01:09

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

quote:

Restoring degraded land can be as simple as changing farming methods to terrace and contour farming, leaving land fallow or planting nourishing cover crops, practising rainwater harvesting and storage or regrowing trees to prevent soil erosion.

no big deal, land restoration is easy! we�ll get around to it later.

# ? Apr 28, 2022 01:12

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# ? May 25, 2024 00:43

Encrypted: Feb 25, 2016

Pryor on Fire posted:

https://twitter.com/CNRUSU/status/1519358115149336576

that's crazy that the water is below the top of the intakes now, guess they will have to shut off the turbines soon

It's ok they made sure there are multiple intakes to be resilient to drought

quote:

As a result, the water authority has begun operating new, low-lake pumping station for the first time -- a valve situated deeper at the bottom of Lake Mead. The station, which began construction in 2015 and was completed in 2020, is capable of delivering water with the lake at a much lower level, and was built to protect the region's water resource in light of worsening drought.
"There was no impact to operation's ability to deliver water," Mack said. "Customers didn't notice anything. It was a seamless transition."

Seems like a good summation of our climate change actions, business as usual and keep on sucking things dry until the last drop.

# ? Apr 28, 2022 02:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

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