It’s pretty dry and quite hot here in ATX; we have not even started summer here yet.
Not good news, globally, for the long range forecast, either:
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A floating time bomb that requires a relatively small amount of money to mitigate before disaster strikes… hopefully the (checks notes) United Nations can agree on raising the funds…oh no.
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So long as nobody bombs it.
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- Nice. Seems like only yesterday it was “We’ve gone over 400 ppm for the first time ever!” Now it’s 420 and no one seems to care. I understand that there are a few other things (famine, war and pestilence come to mind) but this is some seriously bad shit. Maybe we have just reached peak depressed?
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To hear Neal Stephenson and Kim Stanley Robinson argue the case against despair, part of what I hear them pitch is the scaling up of giant CO2 capture machines (which would do what Iceland is piloting here…
… but on a vast industrial scale). Stephenson argues that industry will eventually end up doing this, and it may be a Bezos-like ultra-billionaire that would be among the first to try do it. YMMV.
I know, I know, getting a reframe of Ralph Nader’s Only the Superrich Can Save Us isn’t my favorite flavor (and probably isn’t yours either). The only thing in favor of that angle is that it’s the dang superrich who have the means, have the motive (they want to keep on being rich), and certainly have a big share of the blame to answer for [not that they will nor are they evidently inclined to].
I do respect the amount of thought-experiment-backed-by-hard-science-and-research homework Stephenson and “Stan” do on these scenarios.
So I don’t feel optimistic but I do work on being hopeful, being useful.
I sincerely hope this helps.
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So…we hit 30C today. In Montreal. In May.
Gonna be a bit warmer tomorrow.
This ain’t right.
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It’s still April here in Vancouver. Record low temperatures and steady rain. Farmers are getting concerned about their crops due to the lack of sun and cool temperatures. It got up to 10C today (52F). No end in sight to the gloom.
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Yikes! That’s a bit of a drag.
On the bright side, it should help keep wildfires down.
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More Atlantic hurricanes, greater Western & Plains drought.
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It wasn’t about heating or even money, it was about identity, said Conlon
I think that sums up the impass quite well. Rural farmers know the negative effects of turf burning but aren’t being given many alternatives, and the ability to warm the home with a stacked shed of turf is a sign of a family well provided for.
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Yeah, the history is hard to shake, especially when it’s connected to what your ancestors did to survive want caused by colonial violence.
I think that giving them an alternative, maybe even one that they help to craft, is absolutely necessary to move to a cleaner means of heating. It’s very similar to the problem with coal miners in Appalachia - there’s pride and history that’s sunk deep into those mines, and in this case, into those bogs. And people don’t want to be condescended to, they want to be respected and heard.
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The The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction just posted its report into the July 2021 wildfire that all but flattened the village of Lytton B.C. It’s not revolutionary but does make some excellent points.
The report:
Practical upshot:
- It wasn’t just a wildfire; once in town the fuel was buildings and residential trees.
- Fire-resistant roofs and building cladding help a lot. One surviving house had a neighbour with a stucco exterior. The stucco house burned, but the cladding prevented radiative heat from igniting the surviving house.
- Cut back the brush. Keep the lawns mowed, and conifer shrubbery 3m away from the house and big trees back 10m. Plant fire-resistant deciduous trees for shade. (Edit: courtesy of
rellies, i.e. deciduous, but not Eucalyptus.)
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Plant fire-resistant deciduous trees for shade.
Of course, B.C. already knew this, but decided to wipe out natural “asbestos forest” stands of aspen with glyphosate. This to make way for commercially valuable conifers. This belongs in the “F**k Today” thread…
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