I don’t think it was wrong when it was filmed. We’ve crossed so many tipping points in the past 10 years that I can’t even keep track of them.
Doesn’t the existence of grass have a benefit other than just being used as a recreational surface? In Toronto I think they used to have limits on paving over stuff because the natural drainage of water into the grass was environmentally important.
Maybe the point is that in Vegas there is no natural grass so it’s not strictly necessary.
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In Vegas every square of meter of grass has an exorbitant water cost in the middle of a desert. I live in a city that is probably always going to have ‘water shortages’ that would go away immediately and forever if we shut off the sprinklers and never used them again.
It’s actually obscene what the US spends in cash and environmental damage to have grass instead of native vegetation.
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You have to have vegetation in cities for two main reasons. First, the albedo is much lower reducing temperatures. Second, stormwater runoff has to pass through vegetation to clean it and slow its speed thus preventing flooding and contamination of waterways.
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https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/1407688001824563200
Also, we scientists are often quite conservative & big synthesis reports like the IPCC are explicitly designed to focus on what everyone can agree on, which has typically been the less alarming possibilities.
That’s always one of the things that infuriates me most. When you see this articles and then they wrote “maybe”. As soon as you write that you have already lost because deniers will always counter with “ok so maybe not is also possible”.
Germany’s biggest party (CDU) has released their election manifesto. It is a whole lot of nothing. More of the status quo. They want to enter a decade of modernization after being in power for the last 16years. A conservative publicist writes a weekly column for a newssite. I dont like him but unfortunately he wasnt wrong with his latest articles. The success of the CDU comes mostly from not wanting any experiments. They know people dont like the unknown so they stick with the same old stuff they know. Climate change requires a lot of change and this creates anxiety. People want to combat climate change but they dont want to pay the price. They are afraid what is necessary could decrease their wealth/economic outlook so they rather vote for the party that promises continuity. Somebody wrote in another thread he lost all hope with the Obama presidency. I think I will lose mine after the next election if the CDU gets over 30+ again and could form a government with the pro-business party FDP. I mean there isnt much hope left either since Biden gets done nothing so far. My brother mocked me recently why I would vote for the Greens. He thinks it makes no sense since nobody else will join the fight. Why should we the only ones that fucks up our economy when everyone else continues business as usual. Interestingly when you see what they eat then its mostly the organic good stuff.
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At this point we pretty much either get the climate change equivalent of the COVID vaccine or we’re 100% turbo fucked. I say this despite the fact that we absolutely could turn this thing around pretty damn quickly.
We absolutely could do something about this without even meaningfully reducing living standards. I have no idea what anyone with any degree of power is thinking. This whole thing is long term terrible for anyone heavily invested in the way things are presently. To remain the owner of a fiefdom you must occasionally go out and fight to protect it. This is absolutely one of those times. And yet somehow every lobbyist not directly (and solely because in a sane world you couldn’t work for anyone else if you worked for them) employed by the fossil fuel industry should be actively pushing for sane climate change policy.
Of course here on planet earth the boomers are in charge and they really do plan to just enjoy the next 20 years as much as possible. We need mandatory retirement ages on every position with real responsibility ASAP. This can’t happen again.
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can confirm this is more than most seattleites can handle. we’ve been AC holdouts so far, but i might relent and get a geothermal heat pump.
Supposed to be 108 in Seattle on Monday, glad my parents have a newer house with AC. Only 44% of homes there have AC so people gonna die.
Might be 114 in Portland today.
Breaking records:
https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1409421913554833413
Maybe we should tell people that this arent the records we want to break. Thats not an olympics.
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Not now Greta, there’s important forum drama to hash out.
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Apparently the solution is to keep piling on more drama. Surely we’ll argue, RFC, and vote our way out of this situation any moment now.
I wasn’t trying to start a derail btw. Just juxtaposing that this forum is way too serious business when the world is literally burning.
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Oh I know. I’m just tossing around a bit more snark.
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Before this week, Seattle had 3 days where it reached 100 degrees.
Today is the 3rd day in a row it reached 100 degrees.
I remember the last time. My friends lived there w/o AC and couldn’t stop going on about it.
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Checking in with no AC in Seattle. WFH and my office just hit 90f. There are some “cooling centers” around town but most don’t accept pets, so I can’t visit them with my dog. A lot of business have closed for these 2 days since it is too hot for their workers, A LOT of places don’t have AC. I’m taking the rest of the day off to just cool down, even if that simply means driving around in my air conditioned car.
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Portland’s forecasted high for today is 114. I lived in Texas for over 20 years and never saw a temperature that high.