The 97% thing has always been a BS number, and I don't consider it at all helpful.
"The majority of climate scientists agree that humans are contributing to the warming of the Earth through our industrial activities, and without rapid sustained changes the Earth will not be able to maintain the balance of ecosystems and temperatures we have grown comfortable with, and will have consequences for all life on Earth, including extinctions" is probably a better way to go.
The Following User Says Thank You to Fuzz For This Useful Post:
Why do you assume that the reservoirs only supply a municipal system? They can also be used to provide non-salt water for fire tankers, water bombers, etc.
Reservoirs are supplying tankers and helicopters though. Maybe you're not familiar with the LA area, but there are dozens of reservoirs throughout the city and they're all basically full. One tiny one is out of service, and unfortunately that was the closest one to where the Palisades fire started. But there are several larger ones within 5-10 km that are being used to supply firefighters.
Quote:
Also, properly designed hydrant systems connected back to reservoirs with adequate supply can provide millions of gallons per water in short order if the system is designed properly.
Not really in that kind of landscape, unless money is no object. If it's shared with the municipal water system, there are hard limits in terms of pipe size. If you size the pipes for fighting a catastrophic forest fire, they're too big for potable use as you'll run into water quality issues.
What you're talking about would require a totally separate system, which means digging up the entire city and spending probably obscene amounts of money, and probably not being much further ahead. The fact is, there aren't hydrants in the mountains where no one lives, which is where these fires start and really get out of control.
Quote:
End of the day outside of fire re tar dant being used, the primary source of extinguishing fire is water. A large scale fire like that obviously is very hard to control, but access to abundant water gives the firefighters better options.
They have abundant water sources for this. The only issue they had with water was a loss of pressure up on the hills as the storage tanks were depleted. But it wouldn't have made any real difference. I haven't heard anything about them losing water pressure or having offline reservoirs in Altadena, yet that fire is basically just as big and destructive.
The Following User Says Thank You to opendoor For This Useful Post:
Israel, a much smaller economy, has built desalination plants that are even supplying neighbouring countries with water while at the same time supplying a decent size agriculture sector that actually plants and harvests in very desert like conditions.
California certainly is rich enough to do it, and they are also located in literally the perfect place to build the plants.
It still doesn't work for agriculture. Israel uses it for domestic water, and in those quantities the high cost is much less of an issue. But with current desalination technology, agriculture can't really be competitive using it when other places can get water for essentially nothing.
Even if you ignore the massive capital costs of desalination plants, just the electricity usage makes it cost-prohibitive. A pound of beef would use about 25-30 kWh of electricity if it used desalinated water while a pound of chicken or pork would use about 10 kWh to desalinate the water.
Israel primarily uses grey water for agriculture, along with using water saving measures like drip irrigation. Both of those things (along with growing appropriate crops) would be a far more effective ways for California to conserve water than desalination.
We are still in an ice age but an interglacial period
Other things that can impact global tempeatures
1. Volacanos
2. Asteroids
....
50. Humans
errr, this isn’t an interglacial period. If you’re trying to state that we’re in an ice age, but with a warmer fluctuation, it’s called an interstadial. Big difference between the two.
errr, this isn’t an interglacial period. If you’re trying to state that we’re in an ice age, but with a warmer fluctuation, it’s called an interstadial. Big difference between the two.
Interesting, I did not know that.
But the suggestion that we are in an interglacial period is all over goverment and science websites
Quote:
How long can we expect the present Interglacial period to last?
I’m so sorry, i completely misread your comment. I thought you were suggesting we are currently in a glacial period but with a warm fluctuation. Ignore me.
The Following User Says Thank You to TherapyforGlencross For This Useful Post:
If you look at the global temperatures of this planet over the last million years, you will notice that the planet oscillates by about 12-20 degrees Celsius. Quite reliably, in fact.
You will also see massive, rapid spikes in warming for 5-10,000 years, followed by periods of cold (as low as eight degrees below ‘modern normal’) which last 50-90,000 years.
There have been four times in the last 500,000 years where global temperatures reached higher than they are today, and in each case, a 50,000+ year period of extreme cold occurred directly after.
We happen to be at the very end of one of these rapid warming spikes - maybe we have hundreds of years left, maybe thousands - who can say. I’ve heard that by 2200, Alberta is going to be closer to Northern California, climatologically speaking.
What I would say is, being able to grow crops at scale indoors/with genetic modification to adapt them better to changing environments, and an expertise in the extraction of fuel in extreme cold environments might be a useful knowledge set to have in the next 100,000 years. (And also, advanced solar technology - it all works together.)
That, and trying to make any scientific conclusions, much less formulate global policy, based on a 200 year sample size of rising temperatures (during the middle of a warming period) seems, at best, misguided.
Oh, and finally, polluting our environment is, inherently, bad, and we should, as a matter of public policy, try to ensure our societies operate as cleanly as possible.
Just out of interest…
MIS-5 (our last interglacial): sea surface temperatures show temperatures were not much higher, and perhaps lower, than our current global average (albeit, this is ongoing research, it’s certainly not conclusive). Also — the period of warming during Milankovich cycles is much slower than our current warming — so there must be additional forcings occurring. Additionally, our current SST likely won't reach equilibrium to our current warming for at least another ~1000 years. So, a bit different than in past climatic situations. This likely demonstrates a lag of water mass (which in the past has been correlated with CO2 concentrations) in our current time considering that MIS-5 had substantially higher sea levels.
Last edited by TherapyforGlencross; 01-13-2025 at 10:05 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to TherapyforGlencross For This Useful Post:
It still doesn't work for agriculture. Israel uses it for domestic water, and in those quantities the high cost is much less of an issue. But with current desalination technology, agriculture can't really be competitive using it when other places can get water for essentially nothing.
Even if you ignore the massive capital costs of desalination plants, just the electricity usage makes it cost-prohibitive. A pound of beef would use about 25-30 kWh of electricity if it used desalinated water while a pound of chicken or pork would use about 10 kWh to desalinate the water.
Israel primarily uses grey water for agriculture, along with using water saving measures like drip irrigation. Both of those things (along with growing appropriate crops) would be a far more effective ways for California to conserve water than desalination.
You do know where a lot of the grey water comes from, right?
First there is water from the desalination plants, which is then saved & recovered as much as possible, then there is grey water....
Israel also treats all their sewage, recovering almost 100% of it.
And over 80% of the water overall is recovered and reused bringing the real life cost of the desalination plants down, as the water they produce is constantly reused as much as possible.
How much does California recover?
From there, Israel has found a way to supply a growing agriculture sector in more desert like conditions than California has. Also, California has large aquifer systems that they seem hellbent on depleting instead of managing properly.
You are right, one approach doesn't solve everything, but California is doing nothing outside of hoping it rains and snows.
I feel most of the incompetence is from know it all conspiracy loons, which Bill Burr just brilliantly summed up in that clip 3 posts up from your donkey comment. Holy #### that was funny.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Engine09 For This Useful Post:
The California fires seem like a combo of drought, high winds and in this case arson and municipality incompetence.
Not a great combo
See...I always find this difficult. I mean...if I were to wander off into the woods with a can of Gas and a pack of matches and just light some stuff on fire...who would know?
Any old idiot can wander into the woods and light stuff on fire. But for why?
Not to mention, fire is a fickle bitch! You set a fire in an otherwise uncontrolled environment and you can just as easily end up caught in it.
__________________ The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves!
This Post Has Been Distilled for the Eradication of Seemingly Incurable Sadness.
The World Ends when you're dead. Until then, you've got more punishment in store. - Flames Fans
If you thought this season would have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.
See...I always find this difficult. I mean...if I were to wander off into the woods with a can of Gas and a pack of matches and just light some stuff on fire...who would know?
Any old idiot can wander into the woods and light stuff on fire. But for why?
Not to mention, fire is a fickle bitch! You set a fire in an otherwise uncontrolled environment and you can just as easily end up caught in it.
What coffee do you drink in the morning or is it something stronger?
