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kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1500 on: May 16, 2022, 07:04:53 PM »
Earlier this year there was also a record amount of dust that was blown from the Sahara into Europe. Not quite as bad as Iraq but quite of the scale compared to normal years.
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El Cid

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neal

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1502 on: May 17, 2022, 03:10:08 AM »
Pluses and minuses...

When the Saharan dust season is in full swing here on St. Croix, there are a few unpleasant side effects that blow in with the dry, dusty air. First, the dust gets everywhere. No matter how much you try to keep your house, car or office cleaned, a fine layer of dust seems to be permanently settled on every surface. Second, the dust in the atmosphere raises the heat index; so, in addition to the warmer temperatures of summer, the air also feels hotter. Third, the dust can wreak havoc on those with allergies or respiratory conditions, whether human or animal. So, stock up on your allergy medications, eye drops, and nose sprays.

As for it’s impact on the Caribbean, Saharan dust is rich in minerals, like iron – making it essentially an airborne fertilizer for marine life as well as tropical rainforests. Unfortunately, this same ‘fertilizer’ encourages the growth of algae blooms and toxic algae blooms (known as ‘red tides’) in the sea which have been responsible for the deaths of huge numbers of fish and other marine life in the past. Researchers have also linked Saharan dust to coral disease. Coral reefs in the Caribbean have been in a state of decline since the 1970s, and several other marine species suffered mass mortalities in 1983. Coincidentally, the Saharan Air Layer has increased dramatically since the 1970s, with peak dust years occurring in 1973, 1983, and 1987. According to Gene Shinn, Senior Geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey Center for Coastal Geology: ‘Our hypothesis is that much of the coral reef decline in the Caribbean is a result of pathogens transported in dust from North Africa.’

Now for the good news… according to NOAA, the Saharan Air Layer can weaken tropical cyclones by creating downdrafts (sinking air) around the storm, which may result in the weakening of tropical systems. The strong winds of the Saharan Air Layer can also substantially increase the vertical wind shear in and around tropical systems, making the conditions hostile for tropical storm development. Translation: the Saharan Air Layer helps to lessen the intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes! Having been through the devastation of  Hurricanes Irma and Maria, I would say this is definitely a good thing.



vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1503 on: May 17, 2022, 03:48:58 PM »
Sandstorm Blankets Saudi capital In Grey Haze
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-sandstorm-blankets-saudi-capital-grey.html

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

Modeling Suggests Loss of Biocrusts by 2070 Could Result In Increase of 15% More Dust Emissions
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-sandstorm-blankets-saudi-capital-grey.html

An international team of researchers has found via global modeling that loss of biocrusts due to global warming could result in an additional 15% more dust emitted into the atmosphere by 2070. In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the group describes their analysis of currently available data regarding the impact of biocrust on global cycling and what impact losses of biocrusts could mean as the planet continues to warm.



Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are land areas that are dry but not sandy. Instead, the top layer of soil contains a community of nonvascular plants, microbes and lichens. Together, they harden and prevent the soil from being blown into the atmosphere. The researchers suggest they are comparable to living skin, covering as much as 12% of all land surfaces worldwide. They note that despite the important role biocrusts play in the atmospheric dust cycle, little about them is known. In this new effort, the researchers sought to learn more about the role biocrusts play and what might happen to them and the dust cycle as the planet continues to grow warmer. To that end, they collected data from the limited amount of work conducted on biocrusts and combined it with global climate models.

The researchers found that biocrusts currently prevent approximately 700 teragrams of dust from being emitted into the atmosphere every year, which they further suggest is approximately 55% less than would be the case were there no biocrusts. The climate model showed that global warming is on track to reduce biocrusts to the point that global dust emissions will increase by 15% by 2070. Currently, it is not known what impact an increase in dust emissions might have on the planet as a whole, or which places might see the greatest impacts. Prior research has shown that dust in the atmosphere scatters solar radiation and also plays a major role in ice and cloud formation. Dust particles have also been found to carry nutrients long distances, and in some cases, have even been found to carry bacteria and viruses.

E. Rodriguez-Caballero et al, Global cycling and climate effects of aeolian dust controlled by biological soil crusts, Nature Geoscience (2022).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-00942-1
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kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1504 on: May 17, 2022, 04:53:27 PM »
Interesting. Never thought of that.

Actually, Saharan dust is a great fertilizer and critical for many ecosystems, especially the Amazon:

Yes but is not good for people when there is too much in the air.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1505 on: May 18, 2022, 02:06:24 AM »
‘Forever Chemicals’ May Have Polluted 20 Million Acres of US Cropland, Study Says
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/08/us-cropland-may-be-contaminated-forever-chemicals-study

PFAS-tainted sewage sludge is used as fertilizer in fields and report finds that about 20m acres of cropland could be contaminated.

About 20m acres of cropland in the United States may be contaminated from PFAS-tainted sewage sludge that has been used as fertilizer, a new report estimates.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds used to make products heat-, water- or stain-resistant. Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, they have been linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, liver problems, birth defects, immunosuppression and more.

Dozens of industries use PFAS in thousands of consumer products, and often discharge the chemicals into the nation’s sewer system.

The analysis, conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), is an attempt to understand the scope of cropland contamination stemming from sewage sludge, or biosolids. Regulators don’t require sludge to be tested for PFAS or closely track where its spread, and public health advocates warn the practice is poisoning the nation’s food supply.

“We don’t know the full scope of the contamination problem created by PFAS in sludge, and we may never know, because EPA has not made it a priority for states and local governments to track, test and report on,” said Scott Faber, EWG’s legislative policy director.

All sewage sludge is thought to contain the dangerous chemicals, and the compounds have recently been found to be contaminating crops, cattle, water and humans on farms where biosolids were spread.

EWG found Ohio keeps the most precise records of any state, and sludge has been applied to 5% of its farmland since 2011. Extrapolating that across the rest of the country would mean about 20m acres are contaminated with at least some level of PFAS. Faber called the estimate “conservative”.

EPA records show over 19bn pounds of sludge has been used as fertilizer since 2016 in the 41 states where the agency tracks the amount of sludge that’s spread, but not the location. It’s estimated that 60% of the nation’s sludge is spread on cropland or other fields annually.

The consequences are evident in the only two states to consistently check sludge and farms for PFAS contamination. In Maine, PFAS-tainted fields have already forced several farms to shut down. The chemicals end up in crops and cattle, and the public health toll exacted by contaminated food in Maine is unknown. Meanwhile, the state is investigating about 700 more fields for PFAS pollution.

Michigan faces a similar situation as it uncovers contaminated beef and farms, and growing evidence links sludge to public health problems and contaminated drinking water.
“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

gerontocrat

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1506 on: May 18, 2022, 06:35:12 PM »
I attach a pdf file showing many images from around the world of the Urban environment man has created.

Some show change over time in various locations. And they call it progress?

download required
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1507 on: May 24, 2022, 02:40:20 PM »
Ninth sandstorm in less than two months shuts down much of Iraq
Public sector ordered to close except for health and security services, while airports suspend flights
May 24
Quote
Iraq closed public buildings and temporarily shut airports on Monday as the ninth sandstorm since mid-April descended.

More than 1,000 people were hospitalised with respiratory problems, the health ministry said. Flights were also grounded in neighbouring Kuwait for a second time this month. The second heavy sandstorm in less than a week also descended on Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh.

The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, was enveloped in dust cloud with usually traffic-choked streets largely deserted and bathed in orange light. South of the capital, near the Shia shrine city of Najaf, shepherds also found themselves shrouded in dust.

The Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhemi, ordered all work to cease in state-run institutions except for health and security services, citing “poor climatic conditions and the arrival of violent sandstorms”.

Air traffic was suspended at the international airports in Baghdad, Arbil and Najaf, before flights resumed in the capital and Arbil. Later on Monday evening, Arbil’s airport closed again “due to thick dust”, according to the state news agency INA.

Iraq is ranked as one of the world’s five most vulnerable nations to climate change and desertification. The environment ministry has warned that over the next two decades Iraq could endure an average of 272 days of sandstorms a year, rising to above 300 by 2050.

Iraq’s previous two sandstorms sent nearly 10,000 people to hospital with respiratory problems and killed one person.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/24/ninth-sandstorm-in-less-than-two-months-shuts-down-much-of-iraq
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1508 on: May 28, 2022, 08:02:17 PM »
Florida coast
 
Tentative settlement in Surfside condo collapse is nearly $1 billion
Quote
Survivors and the families of 98 people killed in the Surfside condominium collapse learned Wednesday that a class-action lawsuit has been settled for $997 million — an amount far greater than most people involved expected it to reach.

The tentative settlement comes a little more than 10 months after the catastrophe in the small beachfront town north of Miami. Since the first lawsuit in the disaster was filed June 25 — a day after half of the Champlain Towers South condominium sheared off from the rest of the building and pancaked to the ground — Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Michael Hanzman has urged attorneys in the myriad lawsuits to work quickly to bring relief to survivors.

Rodriguez and others say one important thing has been left undone after the disaster: State lawmakers have failed to pass new condo safety regulations.

“That’s the most disheartening thing, the fact that no legislation was passed to prevent this from happening again,” Rodriguez said. …
 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/11/wrongful-death-settlement-surfside-collapse-is-nearly-1-billion/

The collapse was discussed in this thread when it happened last June, starting about here:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,428.msg313494.html#msg313494
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kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1509 on: May 28, 2022, 08:47:52 PM »
So who is actually going to pay that money? Who did they sue?
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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1510 on: May 29, 2022, 04:23:40 AM »
Thirty-Five Dead as Heavy Rainfall Lashes North-Eastern Brazil
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/28/thirty-five-dead-as-heavy-rainfall-lashes-north-eastern-brazil

Downpours batter two cities on Atlantic coast in country’s fourth major flood in five months.

In the state of Pernambuco, at least 33 people had died as of Saturday afternoon, as rains caused landslides that wiped away hillside urban neighbourhoods, according to the state’s official Twitter account. Another 765 people were forced to leave their homes, at least temporarily, according to the state government.

... In late December and early January, dozens were killed and tens of thousands displaced when rains hammered Bahia state, also located in north-eastern Brazil. At least 18 died in flooding in the south-eastern state of São Paulo later in January. In February, torrential downpours in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro state killed more than 230.

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

Deaths of Three Chicago Women Prompt Urgent Heat Warnings
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/28/chicago-deaths-heat-waves-air-conditioning

... The city council member whose ward includes the neighborhood where the building is located said she had experienced stifling temperatures in the complex when she visited, including in one unit where heat sensors hit 102F.

“These are senior residents, residents with health conditions. They should not be in these conditions,” said Maria Hadden in a Facebook video shot outside the apartments.

... “Hotter and more dangerous heatwaves are coming earlier, in May … and the other thing is we are getting older and more people are living alone,“ said Eric Klinenberg, a New York University sociologist.

... Part of the problem, experts say, is that communities nationwide are still learning how deadly heat can be, as global heating accelerates, disrupting norms.

In Chicago, it took the sight of refrigerated trucks being filled with bodies after the 1995 heatwave to communicate that the city was woefully unprepared for a silent and invisible disaster that took more than twice as many lives as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
“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

oren

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1511 on: May 29, 2022, 09:23:52 AM »
So who is actually going to pay that money? Who did they sue?
The comments to the article are full of this question, which amazingly isn't discussed in the article itself. One of the comments provided the answer:

Quote
From another article with actual research:

The Herald has learned an approximate breakdown of the $997 million total. Various parties associated with the Eighty Seven Park condo adjacent to Champlain South settled for about $400 million. Parties associated with the Champlain South condo association account for about $100 million. The town of Surfside is settling for a sum in the low, single-digit millions. Securitas, the security company responsible for safety systems at Champlain South that included smoke alarms and intercoms, settled for the largest amount, in the neighborhood of $450 million to $500 million.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article261342832.html

Sebastian Jones

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1512 on: May 29, 2022, 07:53:27 PM »
Downtown Whitehorse, in Yukon, Canada, sits in a riparian zone created by the downcutting of the Yukon River into the bottom of a glacial lake.
Therefore it is bounded by 'Clay Cliffs', which also include silts and gravels.
The past two years have been very wet, particularly in winter.
This year's snow water equivalent was far and away a record.
This water has seeped down into the old lake bed until it reached a less permeable clay layer, resulting in unprecedented cliff collapse.
One of the main arteries into town has been blocked for weeks, and other slides and collapses occur almost daily.
The Yukon Government's Geological Survey set up trail cams where they guessed the next slide would take place:
https://fb.watch/djqK-G4ijW/

gerontocrat

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1513 on: June 01, 2022, 07:01:05 PM »
Katharine Hayhoe sort of says that without reducing climate emissions we humans are sort of doomed to live on a planet no longer designed for humans.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/01/we-cannot-adapt-our-way-out-of-climate-crisis-warns-leading-scientist
We cannot adapt our way out of climate crisis, warns leading scientist

Katharine Hayhoe says the world is heading for dangers people have not seen in 10,000 years of civilisation

Quote
The world cannot adapt its way out of the climate crisis, and counting on adaptation to limit damage is no substitute for urgently cutting greenhouse gases, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy in the US and professor at Texas Tech University, said the world was heading for dangers unseen in the 10,000 years of human civilisation, and efforts to make the world more resilient were needed but by themselves could not soften the impact enough.

“People do not understand the magnitude of what is going on,” she said. “This will be greater than anything we have ever seen in the past. This will be unprecedented. Every living thing will be affected.”

“If we continue with business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, there is no adaptation that is possible. You just can’t,” she said, in an interview with the Guardian.

These impacts would be felt across the world, she warned. “Our infrastructure, worth trillions of dollars, built over decades, was built for a planet that no longer exists,” she said. Changing that infrastructure would cost further trillions, so allowing greenhouse gas emissions to continue to grow would mean ever-rising impacts and costs.

The whole of modern life was at stake, she added. “Human civilisation is based on the assumption of a stable climate,” she said. “But we are moving far beyond the stable range.”

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Sebastian Jones

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Sebastian Jones

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1515 on: June 02, 2022, 01:22:35 AM »
And not totally unrelated to the landslides in Whitehorse (large parts of Northern Canada experienced record snow packs last winter, consistent with climate change projections), the second largest community in the North West Territories has been cut off by high water that has flooded the only road that leads to it.
https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2022/05/30/whitehorse-escarpment-1/

etienne

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1516 on: June 02, 2022, 05:59:39 AM »
In Luxembourg in the area where I live, it is more the lack of snow that create the landslides. Rain enters much faster into the ground, and when it freezes, the water that should run down the escarpment accumulates until it comes down with the soil.
It is mainly the upper level of the soil with the vegetation that comes down because it is not frozen deep enough. The lower part is more stable.

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1517 on: June 02, 2022, 05:59:17 PM »
Quote
The whole of modern life was at stake, she added. “Human civilisation is based on the assumption of a stable climate,” she said. “But we are moving far beyond the stable range.”

People have a hard time understanding that one. There is a specific thermal band we should stay in were the same plants grow as they always do and there is not that much margin. Since we are not bringing down the CO2 etc it is only getting worse for now so the peak temperature will be higher. In the long term there is already a lot of damage incoming in lost coastal properties (big trouble for NL in about 80 years or sooner).

The amount of problems we cause for posterity while knowing what we do is sickening.  >:(

 

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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1518 on: June 11, 2022, 02:23:44 PM »
India Isn’t Ready for Deadly Combination of Heat and Humidity
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/india-isnt-ready-for-a-deadly-combination-of-heat-and-humidity/

Recent heat wave has seen “wet-bulb” temperatures rise to potentially fatal levels



R Lakshmanan has been making steel frames in the southern Indian city of Chennai for 20 years. His job involves standing for long hours outdoors at construction sites, pounding screws with careful precision onto steel rods. Each day he makes nearly 600 frames, which end up becoming the skeleton of a home. Often he works 12-hour shifts, beginning at 6 am. He always feels fortunate when he gets to work under a shady tree.

But this year, that protection hasn’t been enough. Ever since temperatures in March hit a sizzling 38° Celsius—4° above normal for Chennai—the conditions have been stifling. The metal frames Lakshmanan works with have been too hot to touch, the steel burning his fingertips and leaving behind painful sores. He has seen construction workers, especially women, collapse around him, and has had to take breaks during the workday to cope with fits of dizziness and nausea. “On some days, there’s so much heat, it feels like you’re living in a fireball,” he says.

In India, high temperatures and humidity are increasingly combining to pose a deadly threat—one the country isn’t prepared for.

... When heat and humidity combine to push wet-bulb temperatures past 32° Celsius, physical exertion becomes dangerous. Consistent exposure to high wet-bulb temperatures—35° Celsius and above—can be fatal. At this point the sweating mechanism shuts down, leading to death in six hours. On May 1, 2022, the wet-bulb temperature in Lakshmanan’s home city of Chennai hit 31° Celsius. The same day, the district of Ernakulam in the Indian state of Kerala recorded a wet-bulb temperature of 34.6° Celsius—a record high for the area.

“Without the mechanism to rid the body of that excessive heat, there are many physiological changes that happen in quick succession,” says Vidhya Venugopal, a researcher in public health at the Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research in Chennai.

Raise your internal temperature by 3° to 4° Celsius, and you’ll start to struggle. “As the body tries hard to restore your core temperature, all other processes slowly grind to a halt,” Venugopal says. Blood vessels dilate and circulation slows, particularly to the extremities. Not enough blood will flow to the brain, affecting its functioning. You lose alertness, become drowsy, and don’t feel thirst anymore. Soon organs shut down, one by one. “When the brain stops giving messages to the heart, the pulse slows and the person goes into a coma,” she says.

“Humidity aggravates the killing power of heat,” says Ambarish Dutta, professor of epidemiology at the Indian Institute of Public Health in Bhubaneswar. “It can trigger catastrophic events like heart attacks and strokes, aggravate secondary conditions like diabetes, change the regulatory capacity of the kidneys, affect the endocrine system by triggering stress hormones. In short, it’s a silent killer.”



World Weather Attribution, an international collaboration that analyzes extreme weather events, estimates that India and Pakistan’s recent heat wave has led to at least 90 deaths across both countries. During India’s 2015 heat wave, wet-bulb temperatures in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh rose to 32° Celsius. That year, the heat killed over 2,500 people.

Such events are going to become increasingly common as climate change warms the world. What magnifies the problem is that as temperatures rise, so does the absolute humidity in the atmosphere, says Jane Baldwin, assistant professor in the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine. Thanks to what’s known as the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship of thermodynamics, “for every 1° increase in temperature, you see a 7 percent increase in humidity,” she explains. It means that for countries like India, climate change has a compounding impact. The effect is strongest over the world’s oceans, and particularly the Indian Ocean, whose rapid warming is a big trigger of South Asia’s high wet-bulb temperatures.

... It’s also not just workers who need to take care when wet-bulb temperatures are high. Rising humidity and heat lift nighttime temperatures as well, which affects everyone. “When the humidity rises, the temperature doesn’t drop quite so fast at night,” says Steven Sherwood, a professor at the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Center in Australia. When the sun goes down, infrared radiation disperses some of the heat that has built up on Earth during the day. “When humidity is higher, there is greater cloud cover, which acts like a blanket preventing that escape of heat,” he says.

At night the body should recover from the daytime assault of heat, but because nights are getting hotter, that recovery is hampered, says Dutta. Whenever people talk about the effects of heat, they usually refer to its direct effects—such as heat exhaustion and stroke, which can be fatal or debilitating—but these are only the tip of the iceberg, he says. “If heat stays high in the night, it affects the body’s homeostasis, its ability to regulate and maintain its internal body temperature.” Upset this and your cellular and metabolic activities become disrupted, which can be a driver of disease, and can even be fatal itself. This is a big concern, given that only an estimated 8 percent of Indian households have access to air conditioning.

Analysis by World Weather Attribution suggests that climate change has made deadly weather events in South Asia 30 times more likely than they used to be. In the pre-industrial age, extreme heat waves would crop up once every 3,000 years. Now the probability is once every 100 years. Across India, on average nine heat waves were recorded every year from 1980 to 1999. The average between 2000 and 2019 is almost triple that, at 23.

South Asia is also not the only area at risk. Potentially fatal mixtures of heat and humidity have been increasing around the globe. Coastal cities on the Persian Gulf seem particularly susceptible to very high wet-bulb temperatures in the future, says Luke Harrington, senior research fellow in climate science at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute. According to data from NASA, other countries will experience more critical wet-bulb temperatures in the future too, including the United States. States such as Arkansas, Missouri, and even Iowa are at risk.
“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

gerontocrat

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1519 on: June 12, 2022, 08:52:56 AM »
There is a real possibility that most of Utah could become a very unpleasant place to live.
Once again the problem is known, there are solutions but the political will is not there to fix it.
Instead high population growth is encouraged.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/06/09/utah-s-great-salt-lake-is-disappearing-and-it-could-turn-the-region-into-a-toxic-dust-bowl
Utah’s Great Salt Lake is disappearing - and it could turn the region into a toxic dust bowl
Quote
The Great Salt Lake of Utah in the American West is on the verge of becoming an environmental disaster zone, locals warn.

It has already shrunk by two-thirds since the 1980s, from around 8,547 square kilometres to just 2,590, US Geological Survey data from last summer shows.

Climate change and the siphoning of water from its mountain source are behind this alarming evaporation. The population of Salt Lake City has exploded in recent years, meaning more and more of the mountains’ snowmelt is being diverted from rivers to homes and farms.

If the lake continues to dry up at this rate, the ecological and human impacts will be disastrous.

The lake bed’s soil contains a cocktail of heavy metals, which when exposed to wind storms will drive arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents. Three-quarters of Utah’s population would be affected by the poisonous air.

“We have this potential environmental nuclear bomb that’s going to go off if we don’t take some pretty dramatic action,” Joel Ferry, a Republican state lawmaker and local rancher told the New York Times.

A glimpse into the future lies 966 kilometres southwest, the ground zero of California’s Owens Lake. It dried up decades ago, transforming into America’s worst source of dust pollution.
Owens Lake disappeared when Los Angeles built an aqueduct on its tributary in the early 1900s. Even now, the wind still kicks up PM10 - harmful particulate matter 10 micrometres or smaller - which is breathed in by the few remaining residents in the ghost town. It’s a grim precedent for Utah, a haunted picture of what’s in store if the drought and human overreach continues.

Still the largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere, for now, the Great Salt Lake is at risk of becoming too salty as its water levels drop.

America’s Dead Sea, as it’s also known, provides a precious habitat for millions of native and migratory birds, including the largest population of the wading bird Wilson’s phalarope.

If the salt content rises much further, to around 17 per cent, it will be too much for the algae in the water, threatening the flies and brine shrimp that feed on it. This will have knock-on effects for the 10 million birds that stop by the lake every year.

And though the soil exposed by the retreating lake is mostly protected by a hard crust, it’s a matter of time before it exposes metal contaminants from mining, like copper, embedded in the ground.

How can the Great Salt Lake be saved?


Salt Lake City, pictured beneath a toxic inversion fog in 2013.

The salt lake is part of a delicate system. Every summer it drops by around 0.6 metres, before the snowmelt from the mountain replenishes it in the spring.

But global warming is causing more of the snow to evaporate before it reaches the region’s three rivers. It is also driving up demand for water from people anxious to feed their crops or maintain their lawns.

The shrinking lake means that less water is absorbed by passing storms and deposited as snow on the mountains in the ‘first’ place.

With the water cycle changed by human actions both far and near, saving the Great Salt Lake means letting more snowmelt flow into the lake. But that’s easier said than done when Salt Lake City’s water resources are already under considerable strain from the growing population. Demand could outstrip supply as soon as 2040.

Addressing what has become a political issue, state lawmakers recently made it mandatory for cities and towns to include water in their long-term planning, as well as funding a study of water rights. But they blocked measures that would have had a more immediate impact, such as enforcing water-efficient sink and shower regulations in new homes.

They also baulked at increasing the price of water, despite Salt Lake having some of the lowest water rates in the US.


Laura Briefer, director of Salt Lake City’s public utility department added that - without taking less of the lake’s water - there are two other ways to increase the supply: recycling more wastewater, or drawing more groundwater from wells.[/size]
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
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kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1520 on: June 12, 2022, 10:01:59 PM »
Quote
They also baulked at increasing the price of water

And then they had to eat sand. Or how do you spell unsustainable.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1521 on: June 13, 2022, 05:02:29 PM »
Sandstorm Brings Iraq to Standstill, Grounds Flights
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-sandstorm-iraq-standstill-grounds-flights.html

Iraq temporarily closed Baghdad airport Monday as choking clouds of dust blanketed the capital, the latest crippling sandstorm in a country that has warned climate change poses an "existential threat".

It was the tenth duststorm since mid-April to hit Iraq, which has been battered by intense droughts, soil degradation, high temperatures and low rainfall linked to climate change.



... Iraq, which is entering the scorching summer season when temperatures at times surpass 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), is ranked by the United Nations as one of the world's five most vulnerable nations to climate change and desertification.

The environment ministry has warned that over the next two decades Iraq could endure an average of 272 days of sandstorms per year, rising to above 300 by 2050.
“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

Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1522 on: June 15, 2022, 05:16:50 PM »
Hundreds of Little Blue Penguins Are Washing Up Dead in New Zealand Amid an Ocean Heatwave
The birds are members of the smallest penguin species in the world. Their numbers have been declining in recent years.
Quote
Hikers and beach visitors have spotted hundreds of dead penguins, called little blue penguins or kororā (their Māori name), washed up on the western shore, according to a report from Radio New Zealand. The sightings are indicative of a larger bird die-off, triggered by warm ocean temperatures, according to local conservation authorities.


New Zealand Department of Conservation post-mortem examinations revealed many of the birds were particularly vulnerable juveniles. The young penguins died of starvation and hypothermia, with no fat to help them hold onto heat in the water.

Counterintuitively, seabirds dying of cold corresponds with hotter ocean temperatures caused by both climate change and the weather phenomenon La Niña, a Depart of Conservation representative, Graeme Taylor, told RNZ.

The kororā “prefer to find their food in cold water,” explained Taylor in May. “But when you have got La Niña conditions like we’ve had this summer with the constant northeasterly winds coming in from the subtropics you’ll get the sea temperatures raised above normal, and the food supply for the penguins diminishes with those warm conditions.” With so little food, the penguins aren’t able to build up the body fat they need for insulation.

Little blue penguins are the smallest type of penguin in the world, measuring an average of less than 10 inches long and weighing only about 2 pounds. They have historically been an abundant species, but in recent decades their numbers have been declining.

Little blue penguins on beach
Although La Niña is a naturally occurring phenomenon, human-caused climate change amplifies the most extreme effects of the weather oscillation and may be contributing to more frequent and stronger El Niño and La Niña events. In other words: Oceans are already hotter worldwide because of climate change. That warmer baseline magnifies La Niña’s thermal impact in the South Pacific.

Mass mortality events like the ongoing little blue penguin die-off have historically been once-in-a-decade events, but warmer years in New Zealand’s oceans are becoming more common, reported RNZ. “In the past, you might have had a lot of good years followed by one bad year where a lot of birds die, but then [the populations] rebound in those good years,” said Taylor. “But if we start to see the balance tipping towards more bad years versus good years, then they’re just not going to be able to recover.” …
https://gizmodo.com/little-blue-penguins-new-zealand-die-off-1849058881
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sidd

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1523 on: June 19, 2022, 02:49:17 AM »
This might fit in quite a few threads: Dhéliat in 2014 makes a prediction for 2050



Perdigon on twitter points out that it is only 2022

https://twitter.com/sylvaindarwish/status/1537181101357256704

Future is already here, just unevenly distributed, as Gibson sez.

sidd

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1524 on: June 22, 2022, 05:55:03 PM »
Somalia: ‘The worst humanitarian crisis we’ve ever seen’

Only a “massive” and immediate scaling-up of funds and humanitarian relief can save Somalia from famine, a UN spokesperson has warned, as aid workers report children starving to death “before our eyes” amid rapidly escalating levels of malnutrition.

In a message to G7 leaders who are meeting from Sunday in Germany, Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional director for east Africa, said governments had to donate urgently and generously if there was to be any hope of avoiding catastrophe in the Horn of Africa country.

“We need money and we need it now,” said Dunford. “Will we able to avert [a famine in Somalia]? Unless there is … a massive scaling-up from right now, it won’t be possible, quite frankly. The only way, at this point, is if there is a massive investment in humanitarian relief, and all the stakeholders, all the partners, come together to try to avert this.”

The Horn of Africa has suffered four consecutive failed rainy seasons and is experiencing its worst drought in four decades, a climate shock exacerbated by ongoing conflict and price rises caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Across the whole of east Africa, 89 million people are now considered “acutely food insecure” by the WFP, a number that has grown by almost 90% in the past year.

...

In 2011, Somalia experienced a famine that killed more than 250,000 people, mostly children, but Sanford said many of the people she met said the conditions now were even worse.

“We have genuinely failed as an international community that we have allowed the situation to get to the extent it is at the moment. In 2011, we vowed as a community that we would never, ever let this happen again. And yet we have failed in that promise,” she added.

...

In April, the UN had received only 3% of funds for its $6bn appeal for Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jun/22/somalia-the-worst-humanitarian-crisis-weve-ever-seen
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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1525 on: June 27, 2022, 01:41:33 PM »
“The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet” - Gibson

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

Sri Lanka Hikes Fuel Prices as It Faces Economic Collapse
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/26/sri-lanka-hikes-fuel-prices-as-economic-crisis-deepens

Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) said on Sunday it had raised the price of diesel, used widely in public transport, by 15%

... Energy Minister Wijesekera said oil due last week had not turned up while shipments scheduled to arrive next week would also not reach Sri Lanka because of “banking” reasons.

Wijesekera apologised to motorists and urged them not to join long queues outside pumping stations. Many have left their vehicles in queues hoping to top up when supplies are restored

Official sources said the island’s remaining fuel supply was sufficient for about two days, but that authorities were saving it for essential services.

... About 1.7 million Sri Lankans need “life-saving assistance”, according to the UN, with four out of five people reducing their food intake due to severe shortages and galloping prices.

Last week, the government closed non-essential state institutions and schools for two weeks to reduce commuting because of the energy crisis.

Several hospitals across the country reported a sharp drop in the attendance of medical staff due to the fuel shortage.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe warned parliament on Wednesday that more hardships were on the way.

Our economy has faced a complete collapse,” Wickremesinghe said. “We are now facing a far more serious situation beyond the mere shortages of fuel, gas, electricity and food.”
“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

Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1526 on: July 01, 2022, 09:37:40 PM »
—- A floating city in the Maldives begins to take shape
Quote
A city is rising from the waters of the Indian Ocean. In a turquoise lagoon, just 10 minutes by boat from Male, the Maldivian capital, a floating city, big enough to house 20,000 people, is being constructed.

Designed in a pattern similar to brain coral, the city will consist of 5,000 floating units including houses, restaurants, shops and schools, with canals running in between. The first units will be unveiled this month, with residents starting to move in early 2024, and the whole city is due to be completed by 2027.

The project -- a joint venture between property developer Dutch Docklands and the Government of the Maldives -- is not meant as a wild experiment or a futuristic vision: it's being built as a practical solution to the harsh reality of sea-level rise.

An archipelago of 1,190 low-lying islands, the Maldives is one of the world's most vulnerable nations to climate change. Eighty percent of its land area is less than one meter above sea level, and with levels projected to rise up to a meter by the end of the century, almost the entire country could be submerged.

But if a city floats, it could rise with the sea. This is "new hope" for the more than half a million people of the Maldives, said Koen Olthuis, founder of Waterstudio, the architecture firm that designed the city. "It can prove that there is affordable housing, large communities, and normal towns on the water that are also safe. They (Maldivians) will go from climate refugees to climate innovators," he told CNN. …
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/maldives-floating-city-spc-intl/index.html
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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1527 on: July 03, 2022, 08:55:00 PM »
Alpine Glacier Chunk Detaches, Killing at Least 6 Hikers
https://m.dw.com/en/italy-several-dead-in-alps-glacier-collapse/a-62343300



ROME -- A large chunk of Alpine glacier broke loose Sunday afternoon and roared down a mountainside in Italy, sending ice, snow and rock slamming into hikers on a popular trail on the peak and killing at least six and injuring eight, authorities said.

It couldn't immediately be determined how many hikers were in the area or whether any were missing, said Walter Milan, a spokesperson for the national Alpine rescue corps who provided the death and injury toll.

"We saw dead (people) and enormous chunks of ice, rock,'' exhausted-looking rescuer Luigi Felicetti told Italian state TV.

... Marmolada, towering about 3,300 meters (about 11,000 feet), is the highest peak in the eastern Dolomites. The detached section is know as a serrac, or pinnacle of ice.

The Alpine rescue service said in a tweet that the segment broke off near Punta Rocca (Rock Point), “along the itinerary normally used to reach the peak.”

It wasn't immediately clear what caused the section of ice to break away and rush down the peak's slope. But the intense heat wave gripping Italy since late June could be a factor.

Milan stressed that high heat, which soared unusually above 10 C (50 F) on Marmolada's peak in recent days, was only one possible factor in Sunday's tragedy.

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

Rain Hampers Search for Missing In Italian Glacier Avalanche
https://apnews.com/article/marmolada-italy-glacier-avalanche-updates-abdf984518594f62820c0ea6b70211d1

ROME (AP) — Thunderstorms hampered Monday the search for more than a dozen hikers who remained unaccounted for a day after a huge chunk of an Alpine glacier in Italy broke off, sending an avalanche of ice, snow and rocks down the slope.

... The detached ice block was massive, estimated at 200 meters (yards) wide, 80 meters tall and 60 meters deep. Gov. Luca Zaia, whose Veneto region in northeast Italy borders the Marmolada area, likened the avalanche to an “”apartment building (sized) block of ice with debris and Cyclopean masses of rock.”

”I can’t say anything else other than the facts, and the facts tell us that the high temperatures don’t favor these situations,” Zaia told reporters.

Italy is in the grips of a weeks-long heat wave, and Alpine rescuers said that the temperature at the glacier’s altitude last week topped 10 C (50F) when usually it should hover around freezing at this time of year.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2022, 05:14:33 PM 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

vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1528 on: July 05, 2022, 06:21:45 PM »
Sri Lanka's Economic Crisis is Driving People to Flee the Country in Desperation
https://www.dw.com/en/sri-lankas-economic-crisis-is-driving-people-to-flee-the-country-in-desperation/a-62365146

Sri Lanka is suffering the worst economic crisis in its history, with fuel shortages bringing the country to a standstill. Many are now convinced leaving is their only option.



Sri Lanka's economic crisis is worsening, and the daily lives of people living in the small island nation have been severely disrupted. Due to rising prices of essential items, as well as fuel and medicine shortages, many Sri Lankans desperately want to leave the country.

On Tuesdaz Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that with debts now totalling over $50 billion, Sri Lanka is "a bankrupt country."

With no signs of the crisis letting up, and no bailout from the IMF in sight, many Sri Lankan refugees are traveling illegally by boats to nearby countries like India and Australia in a desperate bid to escape the unfolding disaster.

... Sri Lanka is running out of fuel and currently has very limited supplies. On June 28, the government announced restrictions on fuel distribution, and said that for almost two weeks,fuel will be provided only to vehicles employed for essential services such as public transport and emergency services. Many schools have also been shut down and public transport has been limited.

''It's a lockdown-like situation,'' says 25-year-old Amaan Rifai, a business owner in Dehiwala.

In many parts of the country, gas stations have set up separate queues for essential services. If stocks are available, then other customers may also get hold of some fuel.

But standing in line continuously for two to three days does not guarantee access to fuel. Authorities have set up a token system, but that means people must stand in long queues to get tokens to get a place in a queue for fuel. Even these tokens do not guarantee access to fuel.


People are left to stand for hours, or days, in the sometimes futile hope of being able to buy some fuel

There have been clashes outside the few petrol stations still selling fuel, with tens of thousands lining up for the slim chance of securing limited supplies and no fresh stocks expected for at least two weeks.

The United Nations estimates that about 80 per cent of the public are skipping meals to cope with food shortages and record prices.

... ''People are frustrated and fighting in the queues. Many cannot afford to buy food and they are standing in queues while starving. We sometimes share our food with people standing in the queues,'' Ruvini told DW.

... "The fuel queues for doctors are nearly 2 kilometers long and it takes four hours to get fuel. We also have to wait until fuel reaches the stations. It takes up an entire day. Since we are needed in the hospital, not everyone can just go and wait in the queues,'' he added.

... As the fuel crisis worsens, there is a possibility that the current restrictions will be extended for another 12 days as the government struggles to pay for fuel deliveries.

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

Sri Lanka Admits Bankruptcy, Warns of Crisis Through 2023
https://www.dw.com/en/sri-lanka-is-bankrupt-says-pm-wickremesinghe/a-62365078

Sri Lanka is bankrupt and its unprecedented economic crisis is set to last until at least the end of next year, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told lawmakers in parliament on Tuesday.

He said that recent discussions with the IMF sparked hope "but this time the situation is different. In the past, we have held discussions as a developing country."

"We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country. Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation," he said as he explained a possible roadmap for recovery from Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis since it gained independence from Britain in 1948.

"Due to the state of bankruptcy our country is in, we have to submit a plan on our debt sustainability to them separately. Only when [the IMF] are satisfied with that plan can we reach an agreement."

"We will have to face difficulties in 2023 as well," the premier said. "This is the truth. This is the reality."

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-news-politics/sri-lanka-admits-bankruptcy-warns-of-crisis-through-2023-1124036.html

The island nation's 22 million people have suffered months of surging inflation and lengthy power cuts after the government ran out of foreign currency to import essential goods.

In light of the news, the UK government warned against travel to the island nation, saying it was experiencing "shortages of basic necessities including medicines, cooking gas, fuel and food."

Last month, the Sri Lankan government rationed the supply of fuel to essential services such as transport, health and food deliveries in an effort to "conserve the little reserves we have," the government said.
“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

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1529 on: July 11, 2022, 07:05:44 PM »
This one counts as lots of places:

'Unprecedented' changes to world’s rivers

Results quantify how construction of dams and land use change alters sediment flux to oceans

The way rivers function is significantly affected by how much sediment they transport and where it gets deposited. River sediment -- mostly sand, silt, and clay -- plays a critical ecological role, as it provides habitat for organisms downstream and in estuaries. It is also important for human life, resupplying nutrients to floodplain agricultural soils, and buffering sea level rise caused by climate change by delivering sand to deltas and coastlines. However, these functions are under threat: in the past 40 years, humans have caused unprecedented, consequential changes to river sediment transport, according to a new Dartmouth study published in Science.

Using satellite images from NASA Landsat and digital archives of hydrologic data, Dartmouth researchers examined changes in how much sediment is carried to the oceans by 414 of the world's largest rivers from 1984 to 2020.

"Our results tell a tale of two hemispheres. The north has seen major reductions in river sediment transport over the past 40 years, while the south has seen large increases over the same period," says lead author Evan Dethier, a post-doctoral fellow at Dartmouth. "Humans have been able to alter the world's biggest rivers at rates that are unprecedented in the recent geologic record." Dethier says. "The amount of sediment rivers carry is generally dictated by natural processes in watersheds, like how much rain there is or whether there are landslides or vegetation. We find that direct human activities are overwhelming these natural processes, and even outweighing the effects of climate change."

The findings show that massive 20th century dam building in the global hydrologic north -- North America, Europe/Eurasia and Asia -- has reduced global in river suspended sediment delivery to the oceans by 49% relative to pre-dam conditions. This global reduction has occurred despite major increases in sediment delivery from the global hydrologic south -- South America, Africa and Oceania. There, sediment transport has increased on 36% of its rivers in the region due to major land use change.

The changes to sediment transport in the south have been driven mainly by intensive land use changes, most of which are associated with deforestation. Notable examples include logging in Malaysia; alluvial gold mining in South America and sub-Saharan Africa; sand mining in Bangladesh and India; and palm oil plantations across much of Oceania. (In prior research, Dethier found that artisanal gold mining in Peru is associated with increases in suspended sediment levels).

In the north, dam building has been the dominant agent of change for rivers in the past several centuries.

"One of the motivations for this research has been the global expansion of building large dams," says co-author Francis Magilligan, a professor of geography and the Frank J. Reagan '09 Chair of Policy Studies at Dartmouth, who studies dams and dam removal. "In the U.S. alone, there are more than 90,000 dams listed in the National Inventory of Dams." Magilligan says, "One way to think about this is that we, as a nation have been building on average, one dam per day, since the signing of the Declaration of Independence."

Rivers are responsible for creating floodplains, sandbars, estuaries, and deltas due to the sediment that they transport. However, once a dam is installed, that supply of sediment, including its nutrients, is often shut off.

In the U.S. and other countries in the Northern Hemisphere, however, many dams are more than a half-century- old and fewer dams are being built in the 21st century. Recent declines in sediment transport are relatively minimal, as a result. Dam building in Eurasia and Asia in the past 30 years, especially in China, has driven ongoing reductions in global sediment transport.

"For low lying countries (countries that live at, near or below sea level) in delta regions, sediment supply from rivers has in the past, been able to help offset the effects of sea level rise from climate change," says Magilligan "but now you've got the double drivers of declining sediment from dam construction and rising sea levels." He says, "This is particularly worrisome for densely populated places like Vietnam, where sediment supply has been reduced significantly by dam activity along the Mekong River."

The results in the north are striking and could foreshadow future changes to come for the south, as the study reports that there are more than 300 dams planned for large rivers in South America and Oceania. The Amazon River carries more sediment than any other river in the world and is a major target for these dams.

...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220629161057.htm

We are clearly overengineering and building more problems.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1530 on: July 15, 2022, 03:31:27 PM »
... “You know, Fielding, the thing about breaking something that no one much thinks about is that more shadows are created. The bowl when intact was one shadow. One single shadow. Now each piece will have a shadow of its own. My God, so many shadows have been made. Small little slivers of darkness that seem at once to be larger than the bowl ever was. That’s the problem of broken things. The light dies in small ways, and the shadows—well, they always win big in the end.”

- The Summer That Melted Everything
“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

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1531 on: July 19, 2022, 05:57:31 PM »
Travelling in Chile is a lesson in the ravages of climate change

...

The burned forest of Torres del Paine National Park still hasn't recovered from a fire in 2011.

Torres del Paine National Park

...

In 2011, a traveller went wild camping at an unauthorized site on the shores of Grey Lake in the national park, sans a guide or permission from park authorities. While trying to burn some toilet paper, he ended up starting a fire in the dry, windy terrain that Patagonia is known for. The strong winds allowed the fire to spread rapidly, and the inaccessible mountain terrain made firefighting efforts nearly impossible.

The fire raged for 58 days and burned about 42,000 acres of old-growth, slow-growing, native Lenga forest. Some of these trees can grow to be more than 200 years old. The fire roasted thousands of animals to death, baked fertile soil and damaged swaths of wildlife habitat. With the park closed for several weeks and travellers evacuated, the fire cost tourism businesses an estimated $2 million.

Queulat National Park
A compelling conversation with my hostesses at Refugio Macales in Villa Mañihuales led me to Queulat National Park in the Aysén region of Patagonia, where I hiked and took a boat to witness the spectacular "hanging" Queulat Glacier (Ventisquero Colgante). The glacier straddles the ridge between two mountains, creating a gushing waterfall with a sheer drop into the lagoon below.

In the language of the nomadic Chono people, who once canoed and lived off this land, queulat means "the sound of falling water" - and queulat indeed followed me everywhere across the national park. But speaking to a park ranger, I learned that this deeply soothing sound might be quieted in a not-so-distant future.

Since it was first measured by a Chilean explorer in 1875, the Queulat Glacier has receded by about five miles, following the trajectory of other Patagonian glaciers which are receding at some of the fastest rates on the planet as a consequence of global warming. This spells a perilous future not just for the glacial water-reliant Patagonian towns and the nature-based tourism their economy relies on - but also local and global ecosystems.

To put timelines in perspective, human activity has taken just a few decades to destroy what began forming some 2.6 million years ago during the last Ice Age.

...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/south-and-central-america/300640556/travelling-in-chile-is-a-lesson-in-the-ravages-of-climate-change
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vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1532 on: July 20, 2022, 04:37:09 PM »
New Research Demonstrates Connections Between Climate Change and Civil Unrest Among the Ancient Maya
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-climate-civil-unrest-ancient-maya.html

An extended period of turmoil in the prehistoric Maya city of Mayapan, in the Yucatan region of Mexico, was marked by population declines, political rivalries and civil conflict. Between 1441 and 1461 CE the strife reached an unfortunate crescendo—the complete institutional collapse and abandonment of the city. This all occurred during a protracted drought.

Coincidence? Not likely, finds new research by anthropologist and professor Douglas Kennett of UC Santa Barbara.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, lead author Kennett and collaborators in the fields of archaeology, history, geography and earth science suggest that drought may in fact have stoked the civil conflict that begat violence, which in turn led to the institutional instabilities that precipitated Mayapan's collapse. This transdisciplinary work, the researchers said, "highlights the importance of understanding the complex relationships between natural and social systems, especially when evaluating the role of climate change in exacerbating internal political tensions and factionalism in areas where drought leads to food insecurity."

"We found complex relationships between climate change and societal stability/instability on the regional level," Kennett said in an interview. "Drought-induced civil conflict had a devastating local impact on the integrity of Mayapan's state institutions that were designed to keep social order. However, the fragmentation of populations at Mayapan resulted in population and societal reorganization that was highly resilient for a hundred years until the Spanish arrived on the shores of the Yucatan."

The researchers examined archaeological and historical data from Mayapan, including isotope records, radiocarbon data and DNA sequences from human remains, to document in particular an interval of unrest between 1400 and 1450 CE. They then used regional sources of climatic data and combined it with a newer, local record of drought from cave deposits beneath the city, Kennett explained.

"Existing factional tensions that developed between rival groups were a key societal vulnerability in the context of extended droughts during this interval," Kennett said. "Pain, suffering and death resulted from institutional instabilities at Mayapan and the population fragmented and moved back to their homelands elsewhere in the region."

The vulnerabilities revealed in the data, the researchers found, were rooted in Maya reliance on rain-fed maize agriculture, a lack of centralized, long-term grain storage, minimal investments in irrigation and a sociopolitical system led by elite families with competing political interests. (... sounds familiar)

Indeed the authors argue that "long-term, climate-caused hardships provoked restive tensions that were fanned by political actors whose actions ultimately culminated in political violence more than once at Mayapan."

... "Climate change worries me, particularly here in the western U.S., but it is really the complexities of societal change in response to climatic perturbations that worry me the most," Kennett said. "The archaeological and historical records provide lessons from the past, and we also have so much more information about our Earth's climate and the potential vulnerabilities in our own sociopolitical systems," he added.



Douglas J. Kennett et al, Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya, Nature Communications (2022)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31522-x
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kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1533 on: July 20, 2022, 05:42:09 PM »
Alarm as fastest growing US cities risk becoming unlivable from climate crisis

The ferocious heatwave that is gripping much of the US south and west has highlighted an uncomfortable, ominous trend – people are continuing to flock to the cities that risk becoming unlivable due to the climate crisis.

Some of the fastest-growing cities in the US are among those currently being roasted by record temperatures that are baking the more than 100 million Americans under some sort of extreme heat warning. More than a dozen wildfires are engulfing areas from Texas to California and Alaska, with electricity blackouts feared for places where the grid is coming under severe strain.

San Antonio, Texas, which added more to its population than any other US city in the year to July 2021, has already had more than a dozen days over 100F this summer and hit 104F on Tuesday.

Phoenix in Arizona, second on the population growth rankings compiled by the US census, also hit 104F on Tuesday and has suffered a record number of heat-related deaths this year. Meanwhile, Fort Worth, Texas, third on the population growth list, has a “red flag” warning in place amid temperatures that have reached 109F this week.

Cities that stretch across the “sun belt” of the southern and south-western US have in recent years enjoyed population booms, with people lured by the promise of cheap yet expansive properties, fine weather and plentiful jobs, with several large corporations shifting their bases to states with low taxes and cheaper cost of living.

But this growth is now clashing with the reality of the climate emergency, with parts of the sun belt enduring the worst drought in over 1,000 years, record wildfires and punishing heat that is triggering a range of medical conditions, as well as excess deaths.

“There’s been this tremendous amount of growth and it’s come with a cost,” said Jesse Keenan, an expert in climate adaption at Tulane University. Keenan pointed out that since the 1990s several states have gutted housing regulations to spur development that has now left several communities, such as in Scottsdale, Arizona, struggling to secure enough water to survive.

“The deregulation is really catching up with communities and they are paying that price today,” Keenan said. “We are seeing places run out of water, no proper sub division controls to ensure there are enough trees to help lower the heat and lots of low-density suburbs full of cars that create air pollution that only gets worse in hot weather. We’ve reached a crunch point.”

The sprawl of concrete for new housing, mostly within unspooling suburbs rather than contained in dense, walkable neighborhoods, has helped heighten temperatures in many of these growing cities. The spread of hard surfaces has also fueled flash flooding, as Houston found to its cost during the devastating Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/20/us-fastest-growing-cities-risk-becoming-unlivable-climate-crisis
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The Walrus

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1534 on: July 20, 2022, 07:27:52 PM »
While it is certainly how down south, one has to compare it to historical temperatures.

https://www.wfaa.com/article/weather/texas-summer-2022-heat-high-temps-temperatures-compared-to-1980-2011/287-61be1f3a-1188-434a-8111-cb1135a5b2c8

Currently, Fort Worth is the third highest summer to date, trailing 1980 by an average of 1.5 F degrees, and 2011 by 0.6 F.  So far this year, there have been a total of 8 less days above 100.  Yes, it is hot, but hot record setting, and yes, the added concrete is helping raise temperatures.

Phoenix is just having an average summer.  Yesterday's high of 104 is just under the normal high temperature for this date of 106.  The record high for this date is 116 (1989), and the all-time high temperature is 122 (1990).
« Last Edit: July 20, 2022, 07:52:58 PM by kassy »

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1535 on: July 20, 2022, 08:21:49 PM »
It is actually not about temperature comparisons but general trends adding up.

The cities look attractive but in climatology they are not. You can not build beyond certain limits so if you overshoot your historical water allocation by outgrowing it while it has not been updated in decades that is not going to end well.

On another note US general suburban planning has a density which is too low to pay for it´s own maintenance so that is going to be a problem too but many areas might run out of water first.
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interstitial

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1536 on: July 21, 2022, 03:26:11 AM »
Several states in the western US have recently passed laws to increase urban density however these laws will take decades to have an impact. Example Washington state passed a law that eliminates single family unit zoning in cities of a certain size. I forget the exact language but the least dense zoning these cities can now have is 3 story apartments. Prior to this law certain areas of Seattle were zoned for no larger then single family houses.

The Walrus

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1537 on: July 21, 2022, 03:55:58 AM »
Several states in the western US have recently passed laws to increase urban density however these laws will take decades to have an impact. Example Washington state passed a law that eliminates single family unit zoning in cities of a certain size. I forget the exact language but the least dense zoning these cities can now have is 3 story apartments. Prior to this law certain areas of Seattle were zoned for no larger then single family houses.

Not sure this will have much of an impact on the urban heat island.  Single family homes tend to have grass and trees, resulting in temperatures similar to rural landscapes.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2022, 02:54:00 PM by The Walrus »

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1538 on: July 22, 2022, 06:12:24 PM »
Las Vegas to cap size of home swimming pools amid ‘megadrought’

‘When you’re in the desert and it’s 100 degrees outside on a regular basis, it’s part of life to have a pool’

Limiting the size of new swimming pools in and around Las Vegas might save a drop in the proverbial bucket amid historic drought and climate change in the West.

Officials are taking the plunge anyway, capping the size of new swimming pools at single-family residential homes to about the size of a three-car garage. .... officials in Clark County voted this week to limit the size of new swimming pools to 600 square feet (56 square meters) of surface area.

...

Clark County figures show there are about 200,000 residential swimming pools in the area of 2.4 million people. Another 1,300 are added annually.

...

But Clark County Commission Chairman Jim Gibson lamented before voting in favor of the cap Tuesday: “If the trends continue and the lake continues to decline, then this may be one of the least of the tough decisions that we’ll be making over the course of time.”

...

the penalty for building a pool bigger than allowed after Sept. 1 will be severe: Denial of water service.

...

The water authority general manager, John Entsminger, said 23,000 gallons (87,000 liters) evaporate annually from the average 470 square foot (43.7 square meter) Southern Nevada home swimming pool. About 75% of recently constructed pools were already under the proposed size limit, he said.

The authority projects the pool size restriction will save 3.2 million gallons (12 million liters) of water the first year, increasing to 32 million gallons (121 million liters) by 2032, still just a fraction of the nearly 91 billion gallons (344 billion liters) the region draws from the lake per year.

...

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/las-vegas-pools-drought-water-b2129137.html

See the article for complaints from the local pool building industry and other details.
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El Cid

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1539 on: July 22, 2022, 08:58:16 PM »
It's totally insane for humans to move into deserts then import water for swimming pools. How stupid can we get???

oren

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1540 on: July 23, 2022, 01:57:15 AM »
When the price does not reflect the true cost including externalities, everything is possible. Human short-sightedness, greed and stupidity at their finest.

Bruce Steele

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1541 on: July 23, 2022, 04:03:34 AM »
Anyone who got into real estate thirty or forty years ago got to watch their home values go from $30 -  $40 thousand to $300-$400 thousand up to a million in some areas. Happened everywhere in the Southwest.  Swimming pools are a luxury yes and expensive to maintain but for people living in the desert they increase your home property values. Everything evolves around growth till I guess it doesn’t.

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1542 on: July 23, 2022, 11:50:18 AM »
That is the general problem. We aim for growth in ways that will hurt us. We don´t think about consequences. In fact our whole financing system is about borrowing from the future. Financing forward works if you actually grow but that will be a harder/impossible  task in the coming decades.
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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1543 on: July 24, 2022, 03:11:02 AM »
Several states in the western US have recently passed laws to increase urban density however these laws will take decades to have an impact. Example Washington state passed a law that eliminates single family unit zoning in cities of a certain size. I forget the exact language but the least dense zoning these cities can now have is 3 story apartments. Prior to this law certain areas of Seattle were zoned for no larger then single family houses.

Not sure this will have much of an impact on the urban heat island.  Single family homes tend to have grass and trees, resulting in temperatures similar to rural landscapes.
The impact should be minimal as most single family homes in Seattle or other densely packed areas have little to no vegetation. The increase in density makes mass transit more practical.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1544 on: July 24, 2022, 04:09:34 AM »
As Europe’s heat wave melts roads, Tour de France races into an uncertain future
July 23, 2022
Quote
AYROS-ARBOUIX, France — The Tour de France has always been a test of human endurance.

The cyclists cover epic distances over the course of three weeks, speeding past fields of sunflowers, bouncing along cobblestone roads and climbing dizzyingly steep mountains with frightening corkscrew descents.

But as the peloton makes its way down the Champs-Élysées toward the finish line Sunday — on a day forecast to reach 93 degrees Fahrenheit, 20 degrees higher than the average July high for Paris — there are questions about whether the world’s most prestigious cycling race is pushing up against its own limits, whether increasingly intense European summers are making the competition dangerously extreme.

The race has long been a point of pride for the French, highlighting some of their most stunning landscapes. And yet over the past few weeks it has also showcased some of the most alarming impacts of climate change, taking cyclists through farmland parched by drought, past melting glaciers, in proximity to raging wildfires and in direct collision with a historic heat wave that saw temperatures approach 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

It’s probably safe to say that’s hotter than most early Tour riders could have even imagined. Consider: the original yellow jersey, introduced in the more temperate climate of 1919, was made of wool.

At times the temperatures were so high during this year’s Tour that organizers sprayed water to keep the roads from “melting.” Officials agreed to ease rules that usually prevent riders from rehydrating in the first miles of the race. But they stuck to the schedule, conducting each stage in the oppressive heat of the afternoon.


But the athletes and their teams say there is only so much they can do to make racing in a heat wave bearable. The changes that would provide the most relief are in the hands of the organizers: routing the course away from the heat islands of big cities, cutting the length of races, canceling stages when temperatures are too high and moving the racing into the morning.


“We’re going to have to change the way the Tour de France is designed in the next few years,” said Matthieu Sorel, a climate change expert at France’s meteorological service who was among the spectators watching the race in the Pyrenees this week. “It won’t be possible to ride with such temperatures during the afternoon.”

The current race schedule is not just about tradition, said researchers and cycling professionals. It’s influenced by the rhythms of television, with afternoons in July being lucrative because they coincide with school vacations and hours when TV viewership picks up in Europe and North America. Any decision to move the timing of the race would upend existing calculations. …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/23/tour-de-france-heat-wave-climate-change/
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pikaia

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1545 on: July 24, 2022, 12:08:03 PM »
The 2020 Tour de France didn't begin until August 29 because of Covid, so a change of date would not be impossible.

vox_mundi

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1546 on: July 28, 2022, 04:33:59 PM »
NOAA tool now brings disaster risk, vulnerability down to community level
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-tool-now-brings-disaster-risk-vulnerability-down-to-community-level



A comprehensive update to NOAA’s Billion Dollar Disasters mapping tool now includes U.S. census tract data – providing many users with local community-level awareness of hazard risk, exposure and vulnerability across more than 100 combinations of weather and climate hazards.

The enhanced interactive maps from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) cover all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and provide data for over 72,000 U.S. census tracts, which are small subdivisions of counties that average about 4,000 inhabitants. Users can now visualize a community’s combined physical exposure, socioeconomic vulnerability and markers of resilience to natural hazards on a finer scale than ever before.

http://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/mapping

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/

The new maps also provide select socioeconomic vulnerability information using the CDC Social Vulnerability Index, which is derived from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data. There are numerous factors found in the census tract data that can indicate potential vulnerability, including:

Examining this information can help to identify areas where both risk exposure and socioeconomic vulnerability is high. Decision-makers can then use this information to better understand where to focus hazard mitigation planning and investment, especially in areas where resources are sparse.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1547 on: July 29, 2022, 04:33:35 PM »
—- ‘Painful’ division of $1 billion Surfside settlement starts: Some to get more than others
“At minimum, Hanzman has agreed to pay $1 million per victim to each victim’s representative. In those instances, the relatives don’t have to go through a claims hearing in front of the judge. But others, including those who qualify as survivors under state law, are choosing to go through the anguished review process — in essence, presenting a loved one’s biography — and might receive awards in the tens of millions of dollars.”
 
July 28, 2022 02:35 PM
Quote
With the milestone of a $1 billion settlement behind them, relatives of the 98 people who died in the Surfside condominium building’s collapse have begun private hearings this week with a Miami-Dade judge who will calculate each victim’s monetary value — a process partly guided by actuarial equations but also fraught with painful emotions.

While relatives and their lawyers can make the case to Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman that the victims all met the same tragic fate — not unlike the passengers in a plane crash — Florida law dictates that they won’t receive equal shares of the landmark settlement. Inevitably, some will get far more than others. And under state law, some grieving relatives like brothers and sisters might receive some damages while others could be entitled to little or nothing because of who is considered first in line to qualify for the payouts.

“Other than the immediate aftermath, when we were all waiting in agony, this phase will be the most painful, heartbreaking part of the entire ordeal,” said Pablo Rodriguez, a Miami attorney whose mother and grandmother died in the collapse.

The judge’s task of divvying up the massive class-action settlement, reached last month with an array of defendants, is daunting. One part of the calculation of a victim’s worth is based on age, occupation and expected lifetime earnings. But he will also consider the intangible and substantial factor of ongoing pain and suffering endured by relatives of the various spouses, children, parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers who died when the oceanfront Champlain Towers South building collapsed in June of last year.

Those intangibles abound. The victims range in age from 1 to 92. They include lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, actors, college students, retirees, a musician, a flight attendant, a Pilates instructor and a rabbi. There were the Guara sisters, Lucia, 10, and Emma, 4, who died with their parents and whose future careers and earnings can only be guessed at — Lucia aspired to be an astronaut and Emma wanted to be a princess. There was Elena Chavez, 88, who was still working as a travel agent. Theresa Velasquez, 36, who died with her parents, was a LiveNation executive and former Miami Beach DJ. Nicole Langesfeld, 26, who died with her husband, was a young attorney who had impressed Hanzman during a hearing.

Hanzman, assisted by an accountant and a retired judge who has specialized in personal injury and wrongful death cases, is scheduled to complete his review of dozens of damage claims by the end of August. They will consult tax returns, pension records, actuarial tables, past jury awards and income data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. …
https://apple.news/Ajy1gN1GYSGCzrxcOffwwIg
Or:
https://www.arcamax.com/currentnews/newsheadlines/s-2706265

   —-
Collapse reconstructed: How years of problems converged the night Champlain Towers fell
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/surfside-investigation/article256633336.html
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A-Team

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1548 on: July 29, 2022, 06:23:36 PM »
Quote
Swimming pools are a luxury yes and expensive to maintain but for people living in the desert they increase your home property values.
Our desert house in Tucson came with a below-grade pool installed by a previous owner. It was heated by a gigantic propane tank (now gone) because an artsy-curvy perimeter made a nighttime heat retention cover infeasible.

Because runaway algal growth is a huge problem with so much sunshine, it needs several hours a day of pumping through the sand tank filter (even with heavy chlorination). Reverse-flushing the sand filter is probably comparable to evaporation for water waste.

This pump is our single largest use of electricity (more than HVAC), even after we discontinued pumping the water two stories up to a rooftop solar setup. We dare not shut the pump off because an algal bloom would nessitate a very difficult clean-up.

The 'pool guy' comes once a week, $140/month. We can do it all ourselves by now except when we can't. The filter machinery innards are quite complex and parts for it are becoming difficult to obtain even if the problem can be diagnosed.

This spring, insulation on electrical wiring broke down from decades of UV with symptoms that mystified repair people. Before that, 30 year old internal plastic gears moving bottom cleaning jets gave out.

These pools are often installed "for the grandkids" who soon grow up and lose interest. Without heating, the pool is too cold to use eight months a year (and too hot in the summer to be refreshing, 90ºF).

Quite a bit of daily maintenance is needed: skimming of leaves blown in, emptying of filter basket and rescue (or disposal) of rodents, toads, snakes, scorpions etc drawn to this perpetual 'nuisance attractor'.

So we looked at getting rid of the pool but none of options are attractive: digging it up, filling temporarily with rocks or sand, converting it to a pond, leaving it empty, etc.

As Bruce mentions, if pool shut-down is not reversible, there's a significant hit to property value because the next owner, a retiree from Minnesota escaping the snow, will want bragging rights for a year-round pool in good working order. In other words, we paid for the pool at the time of purchase.

What makes more sense are small above-ground collapsible tanks with covers that can be taken down off-season. These can be freely had because current owners quickly tire of them and their storage. Too late for us though!

Our water is pumped in 336 miles from the Colorado River at Parker Dam (and then subsequently pumped up from deep storage wells in Avra Valley) and may soon be curtailed. However Tucson's own basin has been rising because of non-use. (It is seriously contaminated with runway foam from the air force.)

First Arizona irrigated ag will be cut (in favor of unsustainable groundwater pumping), then metro Phoenix, then Las Vegas and so on eventually to Tucson.

Since some 80% of water goes with highest priority to California desert irrigation with 80% of that going to alfalfa fodder for CAFO beef and dairy. (Remember when rainy Wisconsin was the dairy state?)

Los Angeles is in good shape because they can continue to purchase (or condemn) water rights to alfalfa fields (which use 6 vertical feet of water). Home faucets need not go dry because southern CA's legal share can support 160,000,000 people at current per capita rates.

Except that would entail causing the Salton Sea to go dry which would entail massive toxic alkali dust storms over the remaining lettuce fields, as we know so well from Owens Lake which LA drained earlier and had to remediate as the largest single point source pollutant in the US.

Over-diversion of the Great Salt Lake (again, for alfalfa) may be next in line to do the same to that already dreadful airshed.

So it is all part of some vast unsustainable Ponzi scheme that seems to be crashing in our lifetimes. But have a nice day (if you still can)!
« Last Edit: July 29, 2022, 06:32:41 PM by A-Team »

kassy

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Re: Places becoming less livable
« Reply #1549 on: July 29, 2022, 07:37:33 PM »
As predicted in the 1950s already.

The pool conundrum is interesting.
So on one hand you can save $1680 per year on labor and then whatever the electricity cost is plus part needed for maintenance. And water costs?
Then there is the question of how long you expect to live there...at some point the attitude against pools might change? They might not be illegal but maybe more costly or socially unacceptable. Then the pool would count as a cost... then again the crash might come first. A nice day to you too.
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