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The Environment, The Bad, Is There Any Good Left?

Arizona’s governor is doing something about overuse of water by alfalfa farms:

thehill.com

Arizona governor revokes Saudi-owned alfalfa farm lease, announces nonrenewal of others

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) declared Monday that she would be revoking the lease of a Saudi-owned alfalfa venture that has for years siphoned off state water resources and rattled residents across…
thehill.com thehill.com

Fondomonte acquired its Butler Valley leases, which cover about 3,500 acres of land northwest of Phoenix, in 2015. The region is home to critical groundwater supplies, in a desert state that is thirsting for such resources.

While Fondomonte received permits for its water wells in 2016 — and has since been growing alfalfa to nourish cattle in Saudi Arabia — the firm made headlines last year when The Arizona Republic exposed its below-market lease terms.

With orders from Hobbs, the State Land Department conducted site inspections in August and determined that the company had failed to address defaults already identified in November 2016, according to the governor’s office.

Among the deficiencies left unresolved for seven years was a failure to install a system designed to contain leaks in diesel storage units, Hobbs’s office noted.
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Good news, everyone! As I was performing a system update for somebody, the message on the screen assured me that “Windows Update is committed to helping reduce carbon emissions.” Global warming averted!
 
SouprMatt said:
Good news, everyone! As I was performing a system update for somebody, the message on the screen assured me that “Windows Update is committed to helping reduce carbon emissions.” Global warming averted!
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To be fair, every little bit helps.

Given all the Windows installations out there, adapting Windows Update to use less energy and (when possible) prefer to run when the relevant power grid is powered by less carbon emitting energy producers could absolutely be beneficial.

The main problem would be if people actually assumed that it was enough…
 
SouprMatt said:
Good news, everyone! As I was performing a system update for somebody, the message on the screen assured me that “Windows Update is committed to helping reduce carbon emissions.” Global warming averted!
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Every time I glance at App Store on my phone and see a badge count with umpteen updates pending... I think about my other iOS and iPadOS and Mac devices and groan at the prospect of a zillion iterations of those updates over my fricken slow DSL. Those of us who ever hung out in the coding biz know that half those updates at least involve some gotcha in a single line of code...

On a somewhat related note, an ad floated past me the other day suggesting a subscription to "community solar energy" for those of us living in the sometimes cloudy Catskills (and so far not having invested in a solar paneled roof). Yeah there's apparently now "an app for that". Guess one ends up buying energy from the neighbor brave enough to park a house atop one or another of these foothills and so able to grab more sunshine than those of us halfway down one of them.
 
The Warming Artic (and implications)
theclimatehistorian.substack.com

The Warming Arctic

... and why the Arctic Matters
theclimatehistorian.substack.com theclimatehistorian.substack.com
Continued at link. The author is based in the UK. I think I should assume hard (bad) times are coming for the species that inhabit the earth, much worse than today’s heat. Could it have been avoided? I’ll say no, we, the human species was/is just not smart enough… locked into our economies.


IMG_3139.jpeg​

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Arctic ice is shrinking by almost 13% a decade, a trend that, according to a study by Kim et al indicates ice-free summers by 2050. (Kim, Min, Gillet, & et al, 2023). Sea ice loss has far-reaching effects around the world.

The Arctic’s role in reflecting heat back into space is critical. The Arctic acts as a mirror for the Earth, bouncing heat back into space with its white ice. But this mirror is cracking, as the Arctic is heating up faster than anywhere else on the planet. As the ice melts, more dark ocean is exposed, which absorbs more heat and accelerates the warming. This reduces the Arctic’s ability to reflect heat and keep the Earth cool.

The chilly Arctic is in contrast with the warmer southern areas, creating a powerful wind called the jet stream, which steers the weather patterns across the northern half of the globe. But as the Arctic heats up faster than the rest of the world, this contrast weakens, and the jet stream becomes weaker and possibly faster. This can make the weather more extreme and unpredictable, as hot air from the tropics can invade the north causing heatwaves and droughts, while cold air from the poles could flow south bringing cold snaps and snowstorms. (E360, 2023), (Lerner, 2023

Since 1880, global sea levels have risen by 8–9 inches (21–24 centimetres), with a significant acceleration in the past 25 years. (Lindsey, 2022), (NASA) The melting of Arctic ice caps and glaciers contributes to rising sea levels, posing a direct threat to local communities, marine ecosystems, and the biodiversity that depends on them.
 
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That author is from the UK and he mentions changes in precipitation - I'm in the UK and I have never known rain like we've had this year. We've always been used to it but the length and intensity of our rainstorms have really been something over the past few years. Also, if you watch old UK TV SciFi from the 70's and 80s where they couldn't afford to film abroad and used to use old quarries in winter for alien planets you can often see their breath in frosty air - something that's pretty rare now.
 
SouprMatt said:
2023 - I set all sorts of all-time heat records!!!

2024 - ”Hold my beer”

www.bbc.com

More climate records fall in world's warmest February

It's the ninth month of global temperature records in a row, driven by climate change and El Niño.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

Congrats 2024, hottest February ever!
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In central upstate NY so far the whole year has been one where the rollercoaster leans well above average. It's alarming.

2024 so far the rollercoaster leans hot.jpg
 
I’ve said all along, but not much will be done until we’re smacked upside the head with something negative. And then maybe it’s too late, cats out of the bag as they say? 😬
 
Huntn said:
Thank your lucky stars you live up north. I’m envious. 😐
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Well yeah now that I finally invested in a sump pump for the cellar. I'm done trying to cope with more rainfall in the mountains now by using just a sponge pump. We've had multiple sequences this winter with thaws followed by brief freezes and then rain and more thaws... ugh! But yes in general the northeast is not getting the high temperatures in warmer weather, we've just been getting more rain all year round, with oddly warmer winters and cooler spring/summer weather.
 
Category: The End is Nye:
Why are we not mobilized? This is not on every channel? The UN is not marshaling all its resources to make wholesale change? Because we just don’t give a damn, and won’t because it’s too hard, 7+B of us hoarding what we can. We’ll go about our merry way until the crisis smacks us upside the head and we feel discomfort. Then we’ll scurry about in a panic, but it will be too late, que sera. Gaia will feel relief when there are many less billions of us. Sounds biblical. Actually it feels like an apocalyptic simulation I’m playing. 🤔🔥

www.abc.net.au

There's a glimmer of hope after the year that broke every single climate record

The UN agency's annual State of the Global Climate report confirmed it wasn't just the hottest year on record, ocean heat reached its highest level since records began, global mean sea level also reached a record high and Antarctic sea ice reached a record low.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au

"Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and intense tropical cyclones wreaked havoc on every continent and caused huge socio-economic losses."
 
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A sad reminder of how destructive we can be:

Iowa Fertilizer spill kills all fish in a 60-mile stretch of river
A fertilizer spill in Iowa this month wiped out much of the aquatic life across a 60-mile stretch of rivers in two states, officials said, leaving an estimated 789,000 fish dead in one of the region’s most ecologically devastating chemical spills in recent years.

A Missouri official who surveyed the damage said that the banks of the Nishnabotna River had been lined with fish carcasses, and that dead fish were visible through the water.

“I refer to this one as ‘the big one,’” said the official, Matt Combes, an ecological health unit science supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation. He added: “Calling something a near-total fish kill for 60 miles of a river is astounding and disheartening.”
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And don’t expect Iowa’s government to do anything about it…

Water contamination from agricultural nitrates has been a longstanding issue in Iowa. But the policy changes that environmental advocates desire have been a tough political sell in a state where Republicans run the legislature and farming powers the economy.
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Huntn said:
Disaster without consequence, but maybe there might be some legal, financial, or regulatory consequences? ? 🤔
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In this case, the consequences were fatal to the aquatic life, who has nothing to do with creating the problem. This is a common refrain with environmental disasters.
 
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