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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #800 on: May 10, 2019, 03:18:13 PM »
Mexico's prized beaches threatened by smelly algae invasion
https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-mexico-prized-beaches-threatened-smelly.html

Tourists looking for sun and sand in Mexican resorts like Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum have been disgusted by foul-smelling mounds of sargassum—a seaweed-like algae—piling up on beaches and turning turquoise waters brown, and experts are warning that it may be the new normal. 

Mexico's Riviera Maya Caribbean coast provides half the country's tourism revenues and very little sargassum reached it prior to 2014. But a possible combination of climate change, pollution from fertilizers and ocean flows and currents carrying the algae mats to the Caribbean has caused the problem to explode.

... While tourist arrivals at the Cancun airport were up 3.3% in March over the same month last year, many fear this will not last long with the sargassum befouling white sand beaches and blue waters, as well as the air—sargassum decomposes with a rotten egg smell. As it decays and sinks to the bottom, it can also smother the coral the Caribbean is known for, and accumulations on beaches can make it harder for sea turtles to nest.

"In my humble opinion it's a disaster that will eventually cripple the tourism, the businesses and, sad to say, destroy the local economy," said Jef A. Gardner, a frequent visitor to Playa del Carmen from Knoxville, Tennessee. "This is a Caribbean problem on the east coast that goes from Cancun all the way past Ambergris Caye in Belize."

The concerns may not be hyperbole: the sargassum mats appear even worse along parts of Mexico's coast than they did last year. And the problem affects almost all the islands and mainland beaches in the Caribbean to an extent. The U.S. Gulf coast got hit in 2014 and the east coast of Florida is getting sargassum this year.

... the sargassum mats appear to be the result of increased nutrient flows and ocean water upwelling that brings nutrients up from the bottom. Prevailing ocean currents carry the algae into the Caribbean, where it can grow further.  ... the cycle is not likely to stop anytime soon.

"Because of global climate change we may have increased upwelling, increased air deposition, or increased nutrient source from rivers, so all three may have increased the recent large amounts of sargassum," 



... Get Used To It!

... "You can clean up a beach, get it clean, imagine starting at 6 a.m. and by 11 a.m. you don't have any algae, and by 7 p.m. when the sun sets, it's full again," said Lopez.

This all makes people nostalgic for the days before 2014 when sargassum "was very little, very manageable, not a problem, not a risk, just barely a line" in the sand
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #801 on: May 13, 2019, 05:18:02 PM »
Delhi Hit By Rare Summer Air Pollution Alert
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-delhi-rare-summer-air-pollution.html

New Delhi suffered a rare summer air pollution alert Monday as dust storms and heat over northern India took smog to hazardous levels.

The world's most polluted capital city is blanketed in a toxic smog of car fumes, agricultural smoke and factory waste most winters, but it is less severe in summer months.

On Monday, the Indian government's air quality index hit "very poor" with PM 2.5 particles, the most harmful, at 154 micrograms per cubic metre, five times the normal safe level.

Clouds of dust swirled around the streets and many people brought out masks generally used in winter.

Pollution levels started rising the day after a top minister promised that Delhi's air would be clean in three years because of action taken by the government.

The Delhi region has been described as a "gas chamber" by the state's incumbent chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Sebastian Jones

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #802 on: May 14, 2019, 02:49:18 AM »
Mexico's prized beaches threatened by smelly algae invasion
https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-mexico-prized-beaches-threatened-smelly.html

Tourists looking for sun and sand in Mexican resorts like Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum have been disgusted by foul-smelling mounds of sargassum—a seaweed-like algae—piling up on beaches and turning turquoise waters brown, and experts are warning that it may be the new normal. 
To a large degree, this is caused by the resorts' own poor or non-existent sewage treatment. Simply requiring resort communities to have decent sewage treatment would reduce the problem considerably. Of course it would not address the massive nutrient loading coming from American farms.

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #803 on: May 14, 2019, 03:27:06 AM »
Mexico's prized beaches threatened by smelly algae invasion
https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-mexico-prized-beaches-threatened-smelly.html

Tourists looking for sun and sand in Mexican resorts like Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum have been disgusted by foul-smelling mounds of sargassum—a seaweed-like algae—piling up on beaches and turning turquoise waters brown, and experts are warning that it may be the new normal. 
To a large degree, this is caused by the resorts' own poor or non-existent sewage treatment. Simply requiring resort communities to have decent sewage treatment would reduce the problem considerably. Of course it would not address the massive nutrient loading coming from American farms.

Even though all this seaweed is coming from the Amazon basin region and moving north on the ocean currents?

It has nothing to do whatsoever with the "resorts in Mexico or American farms"
(if the news reports and their talking head scientists are accurate)

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #804 on: May 14, 2019, 02:13:53 PM »
Mariana Trench: Deepest-ever sub dive finds plastic bag (BBC)
Quote

Humanity's impact on the planet was also evident with the discovery of plastic pollution. It's something that other expeditions using landers have seen before.

Millions of tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year, but little is known about where a lot of it ends up.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Sebastian Jones

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #805 on: May 16, 2019, 04:07:10 PM »
Mexico's prized beaches threatened by smelly algae invasion
https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-mexico-prized-beaches-threatened-smelly.html

Tourists looking for sun and sand in Mexican resorts like Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum have been disgusted by foul-smelling mounds of sargassum—a seaweed-like algae—piling up on beaches and turning turquoise waters brown, and experts are warning that it may be the new normal. 
To a large degree, this is caused by the resorts' own poor or non-existent sewage treatment. Simply requiring resort communities to have decent sewage treatment would reduce the problem considerably. Of course it would not address the massive nutrient loading coming from American farms.

Even though all this seaweed is coming from the Amazon basin region and moving north on the ocean currents?

It has nothing to do whatsoever with the "resorts in Mexico or American farms"
(if the news reports and their talking head scientists are accurate)
The article does not rule out pollution from resorts. It does reference increased fertilizer loads. Yes the sargassum comes from... the Sargasso sea, yes it is fed by upwelling nutrient rich water, yes other rivers than the Mississippi contribute but so too does untreated sewage and the monstrous amount of nutrients that flow into the gulf of Mexico from American farms.

mitch

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #806 on: May 16, 2019, 05:15:32 PM »
It is unlikely that it is pollution from resorts since the Yucatan Current runs along that coast at a 5 knot clip, moving North.  Playa de Carmen is not in that flow line. 

dbarce

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #807 on: May 16, 2019, 10:04:06 PM »
The sargassum problem is way bigger than just Mexican beaches. It affects wide areas of the caribbean. I saw the problem first hand last year, and it was astonishing to see nature's capacity for disruption.

For anyone interested this website is a great resource for tracking sargassum blooms:

http://seas-forecast.com/

wili

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #808 on: May 16, 2019, 10:11:18 PM »
North Korea has become unlivable for other reasons, of course, but this can't be helping:

North Korea has said it is suffering its worst drought in 37 years

 
Quote
    ...the UN said that up to 10 million North Koreans were "in urgent need of food assistance".

    North Koreans had been surviving on just 300g (10.5 oz) of food a day so far this year, the UN report said.

    In the 1990s, a devastating famine is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans.

    There is no indication as yet that this drought will be as severe, but it follows a slew of warnings about poor harvests and crop damage across the country.....

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48290957
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #809 on: May 17, 2019, 09:11:19 PM »
Many, many places.  But the answer is much the same as for climate change: dump fossil fuel use.

Air Pollution Is Slowly Killing Us All, New Global Study Claims
May 17th, 2019
Quote
A comprehensive global study by the International Respiratory Society’s Environmental Committee and published recently in CHEST, the official publication of the American College of Chest Physicians, claims that air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body. Here’s the executive summary of the report.

Air pollution poses a great environmental risk to health. Outdoor fine particulate matter (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 μm) exposure is the fifth leading risk factor for death in the world, accounting for 4.2 million deaths and > 103 million disability-adjusted life years lost according to the Global Burden of Disease Report. The World Health Organization attributes 3.8 million additional deaths to indoor air pollution.

Air pollution can harm acutely, usually manifested by respiratory or cardiac symptoms, as well as chronically, potentially affecting every organ in the body. It can cause, complicate, or exacerbate many adverse health conditions. Tissue damage may result directly from pollutant toxicity because fine and ultrafine particles can gain access to organs, or indirectly through systemic inflammatory processes.

Susceptibility is partly under genetic and epigenetic regulation. Although air pollution affects people of all regions, ages, and social groups, it is likely to cause greater illness in those with heavy exposure and greater susceptibility. Persons are more vulnerable to air pollution if they have other illnesses or less social support. Harmful effects occur on a continuum of dosage and even at levels below air quality standards previously considered to be safe.

...
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/05/17/air-pollution-is-slowly-killing-us-all-new-global-study-claims/
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gerontocrat

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #811 on: May 19, 2019, 12:22:50 PM »
Quote
Quote from: Juan C. García on Today at 04:09:13 AM
With the pollution in Mexico City and surrounding, I am starting to be sick, so I will go early to bed.
Can someone else post the JAXA data?
Thanks.


https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-pollution-20190518-story.html
Smog chokes Mexico City as fires fan pollution
Quote
A smoky haze that has blanketed this capital for the past week is fraying nerves, spurring health worries and generating criticism of elected officials.

Authorities ordered Mexico City schools closed Thursday and Friday and urged people to stay indoors, as the photochemical miasma enveloping the metropolitan area, home to more than 20 million, failed to disperse.

Professional soccer games and other outdoor events were canceled as part of an emergency decree imposed on Tuesday, and the city government set driving limits to curb the number of vehicles in circulation. Many pedestrians and cyclists donned surgical masks.

The month of May, before the onset of summer rains, traditionally brings the worst air quality of the year to Mexico City, which lies in a high-altitude valley where vehicular and industrial fumes are trapped. A heat wave and sparse winds have made things worse.

This year, however, authorities say fires raging outside the city have exacerbated the problem as smoke has converged above the city and environs, mixing with a toxic brew of contaminants. Measuring stations have found dangerously high levels of tiny particulates, viewed as especially hazardous because they can damage people’s respiratory and cardiovascular systems.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/17/air-pollution-may-be-damaging-every-organ-and-cell-in-the-body-finds-global-review
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be cause

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #812 on: May 19, 2019, 12:59:53 PM »
Juan's plight makes me realise how lucky I am even though a neighbour's burning of plastics and waste oil recently caused my first athsma attack in over 30 years .. At least I was able to get it stopped . The thought of 20 million people struggling to breath and stay well , trapped in a huge Shitty has me struggling to hold back the tears .. b.c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

P-maker

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #813 on: May 19, 2019, 04:48:19 PM »
Losing Juan and his daily updates from Mexico due to air pollution, would be a tragedy in itself.  Having not heard from Terry in Canada for a while, may also be related to adverse life conditions in those tracts. Please do not let this blog clientel turn into a death society/community, which voluntarily exposes itself to all kinds of hostile climates, adverse air pollution incidents and climate change science denier's shootouts.

CalamityCountdown

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #814 on: May 19, 2019, 06:35:53 PM »
Farmers and officials in Illinois and Missouri are desperately battling floodwaters along the Mississippi River. They’re also battling each other.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-endangered-mississippi-river-illinois-missouri-20190510-story.html

<click on above link to view photos accompanying this article>

Quote
From unpaved Swain Slough Road, past scrubby bottomlands and two lonely oak trees, the mound of grass-covered earth stretches beyond the tree line as far as the eye can see. Stacks of white canvas sandbags and mounds of dirty sand line the crest of the giant berm, holding back the rushing waters beyond.

Not visible from the base of the levee, the Mississippi River is only a few feet away, mud-green and roiling as it slices a meandering border between Illinois and Missouri. The levee is the only obstacle preventing the water from pouring into the farms and fields of Pike County, Ill., a sprawling expanse of no-stoplight towns and rolling hills southeast of Quincy at the western edge of the state.

On this serene spring evening, quiet except for the whistling red-winged blackbirds, bellowing frogs and distant purr of ATVs beyond McCraney Creek, it’s hard to imagine this is the epicenter of an emotional clash dividing neighbors and states on both sides of America’s most famous river.

The pitched battle over the patchwork of human-made levees designed to control the river has led one environmental group, American Rivers, to name a section of the river, from Muscatine, Iowa, to Hamburg, Ill., about 75 miles northwest of St. Louis, one of America’s 10 “most endangered rivers.”

“This river is very important to the United States of America, and they’re treating it like it’s not,” said Nancy Guyton, who owns land in Missouri, across the river and downstream from the levee. “This river is being abused.”

Flooding in the Chicago area has been so bad in the past decade that only places ravaged by hurricanes sustain more damage.

The remnants of this spring’s massive flooding remain on Guyton’s farm field near tiny Annada, Mo. Guyton and her husband normally grow corn and soybeans there, but the field is submerged in a sheet of murky water that laps up to the railroad tracks at the border of town. At the water’s edge, a blanket of washed-up corn husks, corn cobs, splintered tree limbs and stumps litter the landscape.

The scene is quite different behind the levee a dozen miles to the north on the Illinois side of the river. Tractors belch smoke as they pull giant plows across the land. Field after field is planted with neat rows of crops, tiny tufts of green poking up through the rich soil.

Levees like the one owned and maintained by the Sny Island Levee Drainage District, a taxing body created after the Civil War, are at the center of an ongoing debate over flood control, river management, environmental philosophy and the basic concept of whether humans can, and should, try to control nature.

“The water’s gotta go somewhere,” said Robert Criss, a professor of earth and planetary science at Washington University in St. Louis who studies Mississippi River water levels and flooding. “We’re trying to choke off the river. It’s like clogging up your arteries with a bunch of cholesterol.”

Water wars
The way American Rivers frames the issue, a series of “illegal” levees along both sides of the river in three states, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, is threatening more than 170,000 acres of flood plain and farmland, increasing the flood risk for farmers, small towns and cities along the banks, inundating riverside habitats and changing the flow of the river.

The environmental group’s main gripe is that levees are being built too high — “raised” is the term used — without the required permits and approvals. Combined with other man-made navigation structures, such as wing dikes, dams and locks, the infrastructure, even if made of sand and earth, is changing the character of the river and the surrounding habitat, said Eileen Shader of American Rivers.

But many of the levee districts, the agencies in control of many of the earthen berms up and down the river, say they are not only operating in good faith and within the law, but operating to protect the farms, towns, houses and roadways that dot the landscape along the Mississippi. And those on the Illinois side are skeptical about the bellyaching from their counterparts across the river, questioning why they are being blamed for natural disasters caused by heavier recent rainfall and a pulsing river.

Mike Reed, the superintendent of the Sny Island levee district, said “flood control works,” and he simply disagrees that levees are making matters worse along the river. The Sny Island levee, Reed said, protects interstates 72 and 172 near Quincy, the highway bridges from Illinois into Hannibal and the town of Louisiana in Missouri, two cross-country railroad lines and several towns, in addition to farmland. Since the record flood of 1993, he said, the district has only raised its levees in a way that would affect the water level downstream in Missouri one other time, in 2008, and that action was by the books because of emergency declarations.

“Any improvement done to the system is done within the rules and regulations at the time,” Reed said. “Some people, especially those to the south, are trying to say that our levees are raising the flood levels on them. That’s just not true. It’s inaccurate.”

What happens when Lake Superior has too much water? It dumps it into an already overflowing Lake Michigan. »

Amy Larson, president of the National Waterways Conference, a group that works on issues including river commerce, ports, power plants, safety and infrastructure, said levees can be part of an effective overall plan that balances the myriad interests along the river.

“This long, extended season of flooding along the Mississippi is a stark reminder that we need to make thoughtful decisions about our infrastructure to ensure the safety of those who live along the river,” Larson said. “A myopic, one-size-fits-all approach will not allow us to reach that goal.”

The tussle involves complicated federal regulations and an array of federal, state and local agencies charged with balancing the welfare of local residents, vast swaths of farmland, ship traffic and commerce on the river, and environmental issues. American Rivers says the Federal Emergency Management Agency needs to do more to enforce legal levee heights. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has withdrawn access to money certain levee districts used for repairs, but it does not have the authority to address levee certifications.

More frequent flooding
All of this is happening against the backdrop of more frequent flooding. Between 1861 and 1943, Criss said, the river near St. Louis topped 38 feet only once. Since 2013, it topped 40 feet four times. Flooding like that experienced in the Midwest this spring is occurring with increased regularity, and scientists say the frequency of heavy rains is skyrocketing. After a reprieve over the past two weeks, more rain is in the forecast in the next few days, reigniting concerns that the river may once again test the limits of the levees and the river valley towns from the Quad Cities to St. Louis.

A March report by a team of Midwestern researchers suggests extreme bouts of precipitation and flooding could be the new normal in the Great Lakes region due to climate change. While the United States has seen annual precipitation climb 4 percent between 1901 and 2015, Great Lakes states have experienced a 10 percent rise over this same period.

Criss, in a 2016 research paper, wrote that “flooding in the Mississippi basin has become increasingly uncertain, and a succession of progressively higher, peak annual water levels is observed at many sites.”

How will climate change affect Chicago and the Midwest? Here's what the experts are telling us. »

The levees, Criss suggests, if they are going to exist at all, need to be moved farther inland to help free up natural flood plains and provide relief to a river that has too many channels and bottlenecks.

“We’ve messed with the river too much,” Criss said. “The levees are too high and too close.”

Landowners like Guyton, a vocal member of Neighbors of the Mississippi, a group pushing for equitable flood control measures, are in the middle of this tussle. Guyton said about one-third of her 3,000 acres have been flooded this year, and she blames the levees upstream. Without the levees blocking the floodwaters, at least some of the Mississippi River would have spilled into bottomlands and flood plains across eastern Iowa and western Illinois instead of being funneled downstream onto her land and that of her neighbors.

South of Guyton’s farm, access road to Clarence Cannon National Wildlife Refuge is impassable. Several blocks of downtown Louisiana, Mo., remained underwater earlier in the week. High water signs blocked Missouri Route 79 between Annada and Clarksville, forcing motorists to detour into the rolling hills and patchwork of roads to the west.

“No one’s following the rules, and no one’s making them follow the rules,” said Guyton, who has clashed with levee district officials as well as state and federal representatives up and down the Mississippi River.

Matt Jones, a farmer, seed dealer and crop insurance agent in Elsberry, Mo., and secretary of the Elsberry Drainage District, said the actions of other levee districts that raise levees during floods and do not return them to their required levels are unfairly punishing other communities, especially those on the Missouri side of the river. Flooded farmland, Jones said, is decimating crop yields and sapping farmers’ livelihood.

“How’d you like to go a year without getting paid?” Jones said, pointing to the floodwaters visible through a break in the trees. “We can’t plant until next spring now. That hurts.”

When flooding happens, here are ways you can weather the storm »

Jones says his levee district plays by the rules because it’s the neighborly way to operate.

“When others raise their levees and we can’t, where’s the water supposed to go?” Jones said. “It’s pretty basic physics from there.”

Jones said he doesn’t believe in climate change but rather believes more development and concrete in roads and towns along the river leads to increased and faster runoff toward the river, leading to a swollen river.

“This is not abstract,” he said. “The water has to go someplace.”

There are an estimated 1,926 miles of levees across all of Missouri, according to a state hazard mitigation report, primarily built to protect agricultural land, but not up to design standards to protect people and property. In fact, five levees in Pike County, Mo., have “unacceptable” ratings, after inspections in 2016. In April, representatives with the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, a group focused on flood plain development in the St. Louis region, wrote to members of Congress and Missouri, Illinois and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials to express concern about the levee situation along the Mississippi.

“Calls to address the flood disaster by rebuilding levees even higher than they were previously and adding new levees to our overly channelized river system,” they wrote, “are counterproductive and must be resisted.”

‘A very ugly problem’
The Sny Island Levee Drainage District was organized in 1880 to “provide for the construction, reparation and protection of the drains, ditches and levees across the lands of others for agricultural, sanitary and mining purposes.” The district includes land in Pike, Adams and Calhoun counties in western Illinois, stretching about 60 miles from north to south and 3 to 7 miles across. After the creation of the district, a 54-mile-long levee was constructed “for the purpose of preventing the overflow waters of the Mississippi River from spreading out over the lands of the District,” according to a recent court filing.

Since then, the district has embarked on a series of construction projects, including two new pump stations and a 3.9-mile levee berm on the north end of the levee, near a section that breached in the 1993 flood. In its 2017 court filing for the authority to levy an additional assessment on taxpayers, the commissioners of the district detail how recent heavy rain events, in 2015 and 2017, left tens of thousands of acres of farmland underwater, damaging near-mature crops. The district’s aging pumps, Reed said, could not keep up with the water levels and were wasting diesel fuel because of their inefficiency.

“Is this (the heavy rains) just going to be the new normal? I would not say it’s a fluke because we’ve been seeing this the last several years,” Reed said. “But what will it be like in 50 years? I don’t know.”

But eliminating levees, Reed said, doesn’t make sense, especially when they are protecting towns and farms up and down the river.

“I disagree with that,” he said. “The big issue is the precipitation.”

The answer, Reed said, is a regional flood control plan that protects all of the upper Mississippi River valley.

The “war of the levees,” as Criss calls it, is not new. In fact, the debate over levees and whether or how they should be used to tame the Mississippi dates back to 1852, when engineer Charles Ellet was commissioned to prepare a report for Congress on the issue, cautioning that progressive levee construction would make flooding worse within the river valley.

As more levees have been built along the river and more frequent heavy rains pound the Upper Midwest and the central part of the country, Criss said, the situation has worsened.

“This is a continuing narrative, and the severity of ignoring the prophecies made long ago is having a heavier and heavier price every year,” Criss said. “And it’s become particularly heavy these last five years.”

More levees, more wing dams, more rain and more snowmelt equals a torrent of water making its way from Minnesota southward to Illinois and beyond. With natural flood plains blocked, the water is funneled farther south, spilling out where it finds openings — often in the unprotected territory or where the levees have not been raised as high as the other side.

“It’s become,” Criss said, “a very ugly problem.”

poconnell@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @pmocwriter

oren

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #815 on: May 19, 2019, 10:36:30 PM »
Another tragedy of the commons. Everyone doing their best to pass the excess waters downstream, while waiting for the big one.

Juan C. García

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #816 on: May 20, 2019, 08:01:28 AM »
Losing Juan and his daily updates from Mexico due to air pollution, would be a tragedy in itself.  Having not heard from Terry in Canada for a while, may also be related to adverse life conditions in those tracts. Please do not let this blog clientel turn into a death society/community, which voluntarily exposes itself to all kinds of hostile climates, adverse air pollution incidents and climate change science denier's shootouts.


I excuse myself because I expressed myself so badly. Pollution has been terrible in central Mexico, but I was only taking about been out for one or maybe a couple of days. I was feeling pretty bad, so I was not going to post yesterday night.
Things are fine (as fine as it can be, given that we have lost almost 2/3 of ASI volume, measuring 2010-18 versus 1979-2000 and we have also local pollution). But I hope to be posting here for several years. I am JAXA addicted, so I usually cannot go to bed without looking the new data.

Thanks for been concerned and for your good wishes...  :)
And let's hope that Terry is fine too.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2019, 08:16:25 AM by Juan C. García »
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #817 on: May 28, 2019, 04:31:00 PM »
New study finds ‘strikingly high’ rates of cancer in some Ontario industrial cities

..

A new peer-reviewed McGill University study has found “strikingly high” rates of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in Canadian border towns, including Sarnia, Ont., a city whose manufacturing sector is referred to as Canada’s Chemical Valley.


The study reviewed 18,085 Canadian cases of AML between 1992 and 2010. It found hot spots for this type of leukemia in several Canadian cities, including Hamilton, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sarnia and St. Catharines.

Sarnia was at the top of the list.

...

 The city is surrounded by 57 companies which are registered to emit pollutants, including oil refineries and other chemical plants on either side of the U.S.-Canada border.

...

The scientific study noted that benzene, a known carcinogen, is also a key risk factor in the development of AML. Benzene is one of the toxins released into the air by petrochemical plants.

The study found cities with the highest levels of benzene in the air, such as Sarnia, were also the cities with the highest levels of AML.

...

In July 2017, five companies that said they couldn’t meet Ontario’s stringent benzene standard were approved instead for an alternative process, called a “technical standard.” Under a technical standard, companies are not breaking the law if they don’t meet the benzene standard — but are required to make progressive technical modifications, including greater leak detection and repair.

etc

https://globalnews.ca/news/5321672/cancer-rates-sarnia/

Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

Tom_Mazanec

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« Last Edit: May 31, 2019, 05:44:37 AM by Tom_Mazanec »

b_lumenkraft

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #819 on: June 02, 2019, 10:36:10 AM »
Norway: A whale's death moves a nation to fight plastic waste


Shared Humanity

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #820 on: June 02, 2019, 04:41:03 PM »
In July 2017, five companies that said they couldn’t meet Ontario’s stringent benzene standard were approved instead for an alternative process, called a “technical standard.” Under a technical standard, companies are not breaking the law if they don’t meet the benzene standard — but are required to make progressive technical modifications, including greater leak detection and repair.

etc

https://globalnews.ca/news/5321672/cancer-rates-sarnia/

Technically speaking, under a technical standard companies are allowed to continue to kill Ontario residents.

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #821 on: June 02, 2019, 08:43:22 PM »
My good friend Ann B. Blake died expectedly (cancer) early this morning.  Her family wrote on her Facebook:
Quote
Ann passed away early this morning. To the end she was cared for by friends and family and was tender and generous with her fading strength.


She brought such light to endeavors.  We were family friends and did Sacred Harp singing and contra dancing together.  This place has become less livable.  RIP, Ann.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

b_lumenkraft

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #822 on: June 02, 2019, 08:56:03 PM »
I'm so sorry for your loss Tor.

wili

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #823 on: June 02, 2019, 10:46:51 PM »
A touching memorial, sorry for your loss, Tor.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #824 on: June 03, 2019, 03:12:28 AM »
Thanks, guys.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #825 on: June 04, 2019, 01:13:11 AM »
Blackouts: California Could Go Dark This Summer to Prevent Wildfires   
http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2019/05/13/california-going-dark-wildfires

A plan by California’s biggest utility to cut power on high-wind days during the onrushing wildfire season could plunge millions of residents into darkness. And most people aren’t ready. 

The plan by PG&E Corp. comes after the bankrupt utility said a transmission line that snapped in windy weather probably started last year’s Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history. While the plan may end one problem, it creates another as Californians seek ways to deal with what some fear could be days and days of blackouts.

Some residents are turning to other power sources, a boon for home battery systems marketed by Sunrun Inc., Tesla Inc. and Vivint Solar Inc. But the numbers of those systems in use are relatively small when compared with PG&E’s 5.4 million customers.

Quote
... “I’m worried,” Gov. Newsom said Thursday during a budget briefing in Sacramento. “We’re all worried about it for the elderly. We’re worried about it because we could see people’s power shut off not for a day or two but potentially a week.”

-----------------

... Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ... 
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

miki

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #826 on: June 04, 2019, 05:44:00 AM »
Dozens dead in historic Indian heatwave, water being poured on tar roads to "keep them from melting."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-heatwave-death-toll-weather-channel-sunstroke-delhi-a8942056.html



interstitial

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #827 on: June 04, 2019, 05:53:32 AM »
Blackouts: California Could Go Dark This Summer to Prevent Wildfires   
http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2019/05/13/california-going-dark-wildfires

A plan by California’s biggest utility to cut power on high-wind days during the onrushing wildfire season could plunge millions of residents into darkness. And most people aren’t ready. 

The plan by PG&E Corp. comes after the bankrupt utility said a transmission line that snapped in windy weather probably started last year’s Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history. While the plan may end one problem, it creates another as Californians seek ways to deal with what some fear could be days and days of blackouts.

Some residents are turning to other power sources, a boon for home battery systems marketed by Sunrun Inc., Tesla Inc. and Vivint Solar Inc. But the numbers of those systems in use are relatively small when compared with PG&E’s 5.4 million customers.

Quote
... “I’m worried,” Gov. Newsom said Thursday during a budget briefing in Sacramento. “We’re all worried about it for the elderly. We’re worried about it because we could see people’s power shut off not for a day or two but potentially a week.”

-----------------

... Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ... 



i figured making the utility liable for that fire would cause problems. oh yeah and if the power is off how they gonna get water to fight the smaller fires before they grow.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #828 on: June 05, 2019, 03:37:25 AM »
Record-Breaking Heat in Alaska Wreaks Havoc on Communities and Ecosystems
Quote
Across Alaska, March temperatures averaged 11 degrees Celsius above normal. The deviation was most extreme in the Arctic where, on March 30, thermometers rose almost 22 degrees Celsius above normal—to 3 degrees. That still sounds cold, but it was comparatively hot.

“It’s hard to characterize that anomaly, it’s just pretty darn remarkable for that part of the world,” says Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy in Fairbanks. The state’s wave of warmth was part of a weeks-long weather pattern that shattered temperature records across our immense state, contributing to losses of both property and life. “When you have a slow grind of warming like that, lasting weeks or months, it affects people’s lives,” Thoman says.

On April 15, three people, including an 11-year-old girl, died after their snowmobiles plunged through thin ice on the Noatak River in far northwestern Alaska. Earlier in the winter, 700 kilometers south, on the lower Kuskokwim River, at least five people perished in separate incidents when their snowmobiles or four-wheelers broke through thin ice. There were close calls too, including the rescue of three miners who spent hours hopping between disintegrating ice floes in the Bering Sea near Nome. Farther south, people skating on the popular Portage Lake near Anchorage also fell through thin ice. Varying factors contributed to these and other mishaps, but abnormally thin ice was a common denominator. ...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/record-breaking-heat-alaska-wreaks-havoc-communities-and-ecosystems-180972317/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #829 on: June 05, 2019, 04:16:45 AM »
Human Civilization Faces "Existential Risk" by 2050 According to New Australian Climate Change Report 
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/new-climate-change-report-human-civilization-at-risk-extinction-by-2050-new-australian-climate/



A new report by Australian climate experts warns that "climate change now represents a near- to mid-term existential threat" to human civilization. In this grim forecast — which was endorsed by the former chief of the Australian Defense Force — human civilization could end by 2050 due to the destabilizing societal and environmental factors caused by a rapidly warming planet.

The report, entitled "Existential climate-related security risk: A scenario approach," lays out a future where society could collapse due to instability set off by migration patterns of billions of people affected by drought, rising sea levels, and environmental destruction.

"Climate-change impacts on food and water systems, declining crop yields and rising food prices driven by drought, wildfire and harvest failures have already become catalysts for social breakdown and conflict across the Middle East, the Maghreb and the Sahel, contributing to the European migration crisis," the report said.

The new policy briefing is written by David Spratt, Breakthrough’s research director and Ian Dunlop, a former senior executive of Royal Dutch Shell who previously chaired the Australian Coal Association. Retired Admiral Chris Barrie—Chief of the Australian Defence Force from 1998 to 2002 and former Deputy Chief of the Australian Navy—endorsed the report and wrote a forward to it. 

"After nuclear war, human induced global warming is the greatest threat to human life on the planet," Barrie wrote.

Using a worst-case scenario existential risk analysis, Spratt and Dunlop depict humanity falling into ruin under an additional 2 degrees Celsius of warming — a threshold scientists say the world is heading towards if current trends continue. In their scenario, "tipping points" occur when humanity fails to institute carbon emission reforms in the 2020s and 2030s. This creates a "hothouse" effect on Earth, leading to rapidly rising sea levels set off by melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and "widespread permafrost loss and large-scale Amazon drought and dieback."

As a result, the authors say, some of the world's most populated cities — Mumbai, Jakarta, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Lagos, Bangkok and Manila — would have to be abandoned due to their location in the tropical zone.

The assessment ends with a harrowing conclusion: "More than a billion people may need to be relocated and in high-end scenarios, the scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model, with a high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end."

The report also paints a grim picture in terms of national security, with extreme climate conditions and the disruption of huge populations placing "the internal cohesion of nations ... under great stress."

"The flooding of coastal communities around the world, especially in the Netherlands, the United States, South Asia, and China, has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities," the report warns. "Armed conflict between nations over resources, such as the Nile and its tributaries, is likely and nuclear war is possible. The social consequences range from increased religious fervor to outright chaos."

https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/papers
https://apo.org.au/node/239741
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_a1406e0143ac4c469196d3003bc1e687.pdf
« Last Edit: June 05, 2019, 05:11:08 AM by vox_mundi »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Tom_Mazanec

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« Last Edit: June 06, 2019, 08:17:50 PM by Tom_Mazanec »

Juan C. García

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #831 on: June 07, 2019, 11:05:48 PM »
'Which vacation spots could be permanently damaged by global warming?'

Nine examples of U.S. destinations that could be hard-hit by rising temperatures, sea-level rise, and acidifying oceans.


9. The Magic Kingdom near Orlando, Florida
8. Wine country in California
7. Jamestown Island, Virginia
6. Low-elevation winter resorts in the Midwest and the Appalachians
5. Charleston, South Carolina
4. Pike Place Market in Seattle
3. The Outer Banks in North Carolina
2. Glacier National Park in Montana
1. The Florida Reef, South Florida

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/06/which-vacation-spots-are-being-harmed-by-climate-change/

And:
0. The rest…


(Seems like rocket count down…)  :-\
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

wili

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #832 on: June 08, 2019, 04:55:37 AM »
Of course, many/most of these are already feeling the effects, in some cases quite severely.

And of course this is just in the US
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

nanning

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #833 on: June 08, 2019, 12:00:01 PM »
Potable water problems in South Africa:
http://news.trust.org/item/20190606044543-cbgji/

"With supplies scarce, fights over water are on the rise globally, with water think tank the Pacific Institute recording a surge in the number of related conflicts from about 16 in the 1990s to about 73 in just the past five years."

"Sometimes if you go to a nearby water source, other communities are standing guard at the water. They will beat you if you come near it," said Talent Zuma, 31, who is not related to the former president.

People say the next war will be over water, but here it feels like it has already begun."


more global water info from same source: https://packages.trust.org/running-dry/index.html
Edit: added link
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Shared Humanity

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #834 on: June 08, 2019, 07:11:15 PM »
'Which vacation spots could be permanently damaged by global warming?'

Not high on my list of concerns...

Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #835 on: June 08, 2019, 09:42:14 PM »
'Which vacation spots could be permanently damaged by global warming?'

Not high on my list of concerns...

But these places are high on millions of other people’s list of concerns, making those millions of people more likely to act.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #836 on: June 09, 2019, 03:11:49 AM »
Related to: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,428.msg203131.html#msg203131

Blackouts: California Could Go Dark This Summer to Prevent Wildfires   
http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2019/05/13/california-going-dark-wildfires

PG&E Says It Will Shut Off Power to Sierra Foothill Communities at 9 p.m.
https://amp.sacbee.com/news/state/california/article231352088.html

Amid forecasts of extreme fire danger Saturday evening, PG&E announced it is deliberately shutting off power to multiple communities in the Sierra foothills beginning at 9 p.m.

In a statement, PG&E said it would cut power in response to the second wave of dry and windy weather conditions across Northern California. Earlier in the day, officials had cut service to a smaller cluster of homes to the west of the Sacramento Valley; safety crews have begun inspection of infrastructure for damages and restoring power to certain areas, according to the PG&E spokesperson Karly Hernandez.

Among the communities that will be affected by the second round of planned blackouts: fire-ravaged Paradise, where a few thousand people have moved back home in recent months.

“PG&E continues to monitor extreme weather conditions in the Sierra Foothills,” the utility said. “This Public Safety Power Shutoff event will impact about 26,900 customers. Forecasts for the extreme weather conditions are expected to last through noon on Sunday.”

... Earlier Saturday, PG&E shut off power to roughly 1,700 customers in parts of Yolo, Solano and Napa counties. The utility, driven into bankruptcy by two horrific wildfire seasons, engineered those blackouts about 6:30 a.m.

Power will be restored gradually in certain areas as soon as it is deemed safe to do so, but customers should still be prepared to wait 24 to 48 hours in case repairs are needed or weather conditions change.

---------------------

It's going to be a long summer. :-\
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #837 on: June 09, 2019, 11:50:33 AM »
Before-and-After Satellite Images Show Tornado and Flood Damage in Central US   
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1358452001
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #838 on: June 10, 2019, 08:07:49 PM »
If South Africa gets any warmer, people may not want to go there (bye bye tourism industry):
https://city-press.news24.com/News/climate-crisis-bleak-tour-of-the-future-20190609

Also, US National Parks are suffering:
https://durangoherald.com/articles/280602

Map of European effects:
https://i.imgur.com/W1Nx80T.jpg
« Last Edit: June 10, 2019, 08:49:59 PM by Tom_Mazanec »

b_lumenkraft

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #839 on: June 11, 2019, 08:25:16 AM »
The Truth About Earth's Habitability Crisis


Avalonian

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #840 on: June 11, 2019, 11:30:07 AM »
I was wondering whether to post this under 'anecdotal' but on balance, this is what it amounts to. It may not be dramatic, but I think we're seeing incremental less-livable conditions even in the Atlantic-buffered centre of Wales, UK. Bear with me.

It's June, it's currently raining, and has been for most of the last two weeks, with a temperature similar to many recent winters (about 13-14C). The sun does occasionally emerge, and then it warms up suddenly - if briefly. In contrast, we had a record warm Easter (late April), at something like 28C, followed by a hard frost. The winter was damp, cool, and miserable, with barely any frost or snow.
    Rather than being a one-off, parts of this are starting to repeat in most years: a mild, wet winter (unless we get polar vortex incursions), unnaturally warm early spring, followed by a reversal to freezing conditions sometime in April, and then cool, damp summers.

All these are mere annoyances in a globalised world with reliable food imports, but I'm involved with local sustainability, insect recording and the like. These are some of the effects I'm seeing:

--This year the local fruit crop was devastated by the late frosts, which hit the blossoms. Apples are now trying to flower again, but I'm guessing that they probably won't ripen.
--The fruit that has set won't ripen if this weather keeps up through the summer.
--Last summer's near-drought (yes, in Wales) almost killed some of the fruit trees, and another long dry spell will probably knock them out - or another long wet spell will allow fungus to get them instead.
--Local honey bees survived the winter well (anomalous long hot summer last year, after the hard winter), but now have brood to feed, and can barely get out to forage for pollen. Many of the larvae will probably die.
--Insect populations are fluctuating wildly, as pest species like aphids proliferate and are then knocked out by unfavourable weather; this means their predators are hit even harder, because they don't have the reproductive mechanics to proliferate rapidly in good conditions.
--insect abundance generally is heading into boom-and-bust mode; the swarms of gnats or other flies are hardly seen, and pollinators are locally abundant and locally absent. (One a morning survey yesterday, I saw five bumblebees, all within 5 sq. m.; in hours of walking over common land, there were no others.)

It's all down the seasons becoming less well defined, and the fluctuations in weather becoming less predictable, but more entrenched. If we had to survive in my town on local produce, we would be really, really struggling. Last year the harvests were wonderful, but last year was probably an aberration. Some of our weather is, of course, tied to the Arctic as well - I'm sure it's no coincidence that the summer of 2012 (with all that ice transport into the Atlantic killing zones) was also a wash-out here.

This thread is mostly about the dramatic changes, I know, but I just wanted to emphasise that all these minor problems do add up... and they certainly make the place less livable - or, rather, will do in a more sustainably-run world with local food supplies. Even in these otherwise buffered areas like the UK, the effects are mounting up in a really noticeable way.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #841 on: June 12, 2019, 02:15:49 PM »
Sort of tangentially on topic:  The McMansion craze [big houses, in neighborhoods full of similar houses] in the U.S. is studied.

Are McMansions Making People Any Happier?
Quote
Homes have gotten bigger, but Americans aren’t any more pleased with the extra space.

American homes are a lot bigger than they used to be. In 1973, when the Census Bureau started tracking home sizes, the median size of a newly built house was just over 1,500 square feet; that figure reached nearly 2,500 square feet in 2015.

This rise, combined with a drop in the average number of people per household, has translated to a whole lot more room for homeowners and their families: By one estimate, each newly built house had an average of 507 square feet per resident in 1973, and nearly twice that—971 square feet—four decades later.

But according to a recent paper, Americans aren’t getting any happier with their ever bigger homes. “Despite a major upscaling of single-family houses since 1980,” writes Clément Bellet, a postdoctoral fellow at the European business school INSEAD, “house satisfaction has remained steady in American suburbs.”

This finding, Bellet reasons, has to do with how people compare their houses with others in their neighborhood—particularly the biggest ones. In his paper, which is currently under peer review, he looks closely at the construction of homes that are larger than at least 90 percent of the other houses in the neighborhood. By his calculation, if homes in the 90th percentile were 10 percent bigger, the neighbors would be less pleased with their own homes unless those homes grew 10 percent as well. Moreover, the homeowners most sensitive to such shifts are the ones whose houses are in the second-biggest tier, not the ones whose houses are median-sized. ...
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/06/big-houses-american-happy/591433/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #842 on: June 12, 2019, 05:44:52 PM »

Klondike Kat

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #843 on: June 12, 2019, 06:31:10 PM »
Nearly a billion people live in areas suffering from AGW:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-12/climate-change-hazards-global-peace-index-report/11198144

Their global peace index improved for the first time in five years.  That is a positive step.

b_lumenkraft

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #844 on: June 12, 2019, 06:33:08 PM »
Is the global peace index a forecast?

Klondike Kat

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #845 on: June 12, 2019, 08:04:27 PM »
Is the global peace index a forecast?

I believe it is a current snapshot in time.

b_lumenkraft

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #846 on: June 12, 2019, 09:33:30 PM »
See? :)

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #847 on: June 13, 2019, 02:47:54 PM »
The article below was posted on the drought thread but it is topical here.

A short snippet:

Further south, less than 250 miles from the country’s commercial capital, Mumbai, village after village lies deserted. Estimates suggest up to 90% of the area’s population has fled, leaving the sick and elderly to fend for themselves in the face of a water crisis that shows no sign of abating.
The village of Hatkarwadi, about 20 miles from Beed in Maharashtra state, is almost completely deserted.

Wells and handpumps have run dry in the 45C heatwave. The drought, which officials say is worse than the 1972 famine that affected 25 million people across the state, began early in December. By the end of May, Hatkarwadi had been deserted with only 10-15 families remaining out of a population of more than 2,000.

...

Twenty-one Indian cities – including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad – are expected to run out of groundwater by 2020,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/12/indian-villages-lie-empty-as-drought-forces-thousands-to-flee


All those small time farmers the first snippet is about never contributed much to global warming and now they are farming no more. Moving to those cities were water is not that abundent either.
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #848 on: June 13, 2019, 05:36:16 PM »
Time for landscapers to start planning for AGW:
https://www.foreground.com.au/environment/two-degrees-up-close-and-personal/

Flood and drought plague Nicaraguan farmers:
https://www.dw.com/en/caught-between-floods-and-drought-farmers-in-nicaragua-living-in-uncertainty/a-49021423

JUNE 15 EDIT:
It will cost South Florida $1,000,000,000.00+ to prepare for SLR:
https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/indian-river-lagoon/health/2019/06/13/cost-of-climate-change-sea-level-rise-to-sfwmd/1436600001/
and how to save a Finnish Island:
https://inhabitat.com/architects-envision-a-sustainable-future-for-a-finnish-island-at-risk-of-rising-sea-levels/
Algae in water supply lake from AGW:
https://www.syracuse.com/weather/2019/06/climate-change-is-making-skaneateles-lake-warmer-thats-bad-news.html
Watch out for the brain eating ameba in Texas:
https://abc13.com/health/swimmers-warned-of-brain-eating-amoeba-as-temperatures-rise-/5347143/?pd00=e5b82eaa-b981-4b21-bf1b-38fd54bb1a14&pd01=e1c52a80-96b4-4931-8f05-9a11a098b72e&pd02=pl-search&pd99=d1266f47-46b3-44ba-9188-1895b35f597a
or chikungunya in Spain:
https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2019/06/15/breaking-first-chikungunya-outbreak-in-spain-as-three-tourists-on-the-costa-blanca-are-infected/

JUNE 17 EDIT:
Canadian floods force climate reckoning...rebuild or leave:
https://thenarwhal.ca/back-to-back-historic-floods-in-atlantic-canada-force-a-climate-reckoning/

JUNE 18 EDIT:
Canada suffering from AGW:
https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/inourbackyard/index.html
Has your home become uninsurable?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/it-s-a-problem-for-society-climate-change-is-making-some-homes-uninsurable-1.5173697
Civilization cannot survive AGW:
https://www.gq.com/story/climate-change-david-spratt
« Last Edit: June 18, 2019, 10:49:24 PM by Tom_Mazanec »

b_lumenkraft

  • Guest
Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #849 on: June 19, 2019, 02:51:28 PM »
UN Refugee Agency UNHCR: More than 70 million people displaced worldwide