Hubbert posted:

quote:

People are spending a lot of money on water bills, fertilizer, and sprinkler systems just to keep their lawns alive, all while their family budgets battle inflation and rising utility costs.

But some are giving up on that grassy dream and switching to a no-fuss alternative: Fake grass.

quote:

Karina Leon of Dallas and her family told NBC 5 they had to make the switch.

"Our grass is just not making it through the summers as much as we want to water it and take care of it,” she said. “I feel like this is the way to go. I mean, aesthetically, it looks beautiful. And it's functional.

quote:

Chapman walked us through the key facts about artificial turf that many people ask them about :

Synthetic grass is completely drainable just like regular grass, so your pets can use the bathroom like normal. Clean up is encouraged to keep the grass in good condition.
It's not like the turf you'd see at a sports stadium, which uses rubber fill. Most home-based artificial grass uses a sand fill, which helps it to look realistic and keep it cooler to the touch.
Overall, it can last for decades with proper care.

quote:

"The cost of going in and installing an irrigation system, then sod, then the water bill to get the sod to take, then the water bill to maintain, and your maintenance on top of it,” Chapman added. “Outside of just the general maintenance, you're not dealing with having to fertilizer and the bad toxins that you could be putting in around your kids [with real grass].

quote:

There's no habitat for pollinators. However, that can be offset with a surrounding garden.

Consumers also need to watch out for low quality fake grass, which has toxins that can be released as it degrades over time. If it's done right and laid down by a reputable company, it should be non-toxic.

Raine posted:

1) dick
2) dick
3) dick
4) dick

The Voice of Labor posted:

dude I live in a tiny town surrounded by trees and rivers, I'm a mechanic by trade, my hobbies are hiking, shooting, gardening, cooking and fixing stuff

kater posted:

creative writing prompt: things are going to be ok

The Voice of Labor posted:

dude I live in a tiny town surrounded by trees and rivers, I'm a mechanic by trade, my hobbies are hiking, shooting, gardening, cooking and fixing stuff

unless we all live to be 103 I don't think my odds of survival are going to be much higher than the gooniest of computer touchers. luck alone will determine who lives and who dies and how painfully, like it does now

Alamani57 posted:

wow you're going to be such a prize for the regional warlord who comes to power after 'the event'

Hubbert posted:

i'm putting my odds on this goon, unless Cabbages and Kings wants to become the community building katana-wielding feudal lord from World Made by Hand

Perry Mason Jar posted:

Despite that the NYC metro area has gone tropical in summer and question mark in winter it still feels very much the best place to be in the US. Everything west of the, uh, midwest is in 22 year long megadrought with several dozen thousand-year fires per annum, the midwest is either perpetually flooded or above 105F for ? reasons, or windy!!!, and the southeast is a swamp rear end hell with worse politics than weather

escaping to latam is suicide, escaping to caribbean ditto, europe weather is much worse. I can't learn Icelandic or Danish cause wtf? Maybe try Nova Scotia in 4 years probably

Irony.or.Death posted:

personally I'm definitely signing on with the guy who keeps talking about giving us all guns and weed with a mountaintop fortress

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

lake mead has started increasing

game over nerds

Mayor Dave posted:

Danish is just about the easiest language for an English speaker to learn, RIP

Perry Mason Jar posted:

Despite that the NYC metro area has gone tropical in summer and question mark in winter it still feels very much the best place to be in the US. Everything west of the, uh, midwest is in 22 year long megadrought with several dozen thousand-year fires per annum, the midwest is either perpetually flooded or above 105F for ? reasons, or windy!!!, and the southeast is a swamp rear end hell with worse politics than weather

escaping to latam is suicide, escaping to caribbean ditto, europe weather is much worse. I can't learn Icelandic or Danish cause wtf? Maybe try Nova Scotia in 4 years probably

BraveUlysses posted:

maybe your wife would like more 3 inches but nobody else will notice

Mayor Dave posted:

Danish is just about the easiest language for an English speaker to learn, RIP

Mayor Dave posted:

seriously, one of the big drivers of our current inflation that no one's talking about is how hosed up supply chains are atm, and they're not going to get any better

goochtit posted:

more or less
https://twitter.com/mark_lynas/status/1502213470216929281
https://twitter.com/mark_lynas/status/1502213473593434112
https://twitter.com/mark_lynas/status/1502213476911042560
https://twitter.com/mark_lynas/status/1502213480396603395

CODChimera posted:

im gonna eat ben & jerries in my bunker

Funky See Funky Do posted:

What's the deal with nuclear winter? I was under the impression that it was fairly well debunked. Have they done new science or is that guy just repeating the study put forward by Sagan in the 70s (maybe 80s). Which I think might have actually been deliberately falsified to scare generals and politicians out of using nukes.

Confusedslight posted:

I don't think people around me in real life realise how quickly I am to abandon all sense of morality in order just to survive another day in the hellscape that's to come.

kater posted:

creative writing prompt: things are going to be ok

Kicked Throat posted:

way ahead of you. i already live in a hellscape where my morality was abandoned in order just to survive.

quote:

Catastrophic climate change outcomes, including human extinction, are not being taken seriously enough by scientists, a new study says.

The authors say that the consequences of more extreme warming - still on the cards if no action is taken - are "dangerously underexplored".

They argue that the world needs to start preparing for the possibility of what they term the "climate endgame".

They want UN scientists to investigate the risk of catastrophic change.

According to this new analysis, the closest attempts to directly understand or address how climate change could lead to global catastrophe have come from popular science books such as The Uninhabitable Earth and not from mainstream science research.

In recent years climate scientists have more often studied the impacts of warming of around 1.5C or 2C above the temperatures seen in 1850, before the onset of global industrialisation.

These studies show that keeping temperatures close to these levels this century will place heavy burdens on global economies, but they do not envisage the end of humanity.

Researchers have focussed on these lower temperature scenarios for good reasons.

The Paris climate agreement saw almost every nation on Earth sign up to a deal that aims to keep the rise in global temperatures "well below" 2C this century, and make efforts to keep it under 1.5C.

So it's natural that governments would want their scientists to show exactly what this type of change would mean.

But this new paper says that not enough attention has been given to more extreme outcomes of climate change.

"I think it's sane risk management to think about the plausible worst-case scenarios and we do it when it comes to every other situation, we should definitely do when it comes to the fate of the planet and species," said lead author Dr Luke Kemp from the University of Cambridge.

The researchers found that estimates of the impacts of a temperature rise of 3C are under-represented compared to their likelihood.

Using climate models, the report shows that in this type of scenario, by 2070 around 2 billion people living in some of the most politically fragile areas of the world would be enduring annual average temperatures of 29C.

"Average annual temperatures of 29C currently affect around 30 million people in the Sahara and Gulf Coast," said co-author Chi Xu of Nanjing University.

"By 2070, these temperatures and the social and political consequences will directly affect two nuclear powers, and seven maximum containment laboratories housing the most dangerous pathogens. There is serious potential for disastrous knock-on effects," he said.

The report says that it is not just high temperatures that are the problem, it's the compound and knock-on effects such as food or financial crises, conflicts or disease outbreaks that have the potential for disaster.

There should also be more focus on identifying potential tipping points, where increasing warmth triggers another natural event that drives temperatures up even more - such as methane emissions from melting permafrost or forests that start emitting carbon rather than soaking it up.

To properly assess all these risks, the authors are calling on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to carry out a special report on catastrophic climate change.

The researchers said that seriously studying the consequences of worst-case scenarios was vital, even though it might scare people.

They said that carrying out this research would allow scientists to consider emergency options such as climate engineering which might involve pumping coolants into the atmosphere. Researchers would be able to carry out a risk analysis for these drastic interventions compared to the worst effects of climate change. Focussing on the worst-case scenarios could also help inform the public - and might actually make the outcomes less likely.

"Understanding these plausible but grim scenarios is something that could galvanise both political and civil opinion," said Dr Kemp.

"We saw this when it came to the identification of the idea of a nuclear winter that helped compel a lot of the public efforts as well as the disarmament movement throughout the 1970s and '80s."

"And I hope if we can find similar concrete and clear mechanisms when it comes to thinking about climate change, that it also has a similar effect."

The plea for serious study of more extreme scenarios will chime with many younger climate activists, who say they are often not addressed for fear of frightening people into inaction.

"It is vital that we have research into all areas of climate change, including the scary reality of catastrophic events," said Laura Young, a 25-year-old climate activist. "This is because without the full truth, and all of the potential impacts, we won't make the informed choices we need, and we won't be driving climate action with enough pressure.

"For years climate change has been hidden, misinformed, and avoided and this has to stop now. Especially for the younger generations who are going to be left to deal with the consequences of years of pushing the Earth to its limits."

The study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.