Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down
popularmechanics.com
popularmechanics.com
The discussion around climate change and breakdown of current climate cycles is always about what's survivable for our current environment and biosphere with humans in it...
I think it's also hard for people to grasp the stepwise process for this breakdown, at least from my personal experience I feel most are ignorant about the cycle of increasing social strife across the globe that will happen, a cycle of ever-increasing misery spreading across societies, eroding civil structures, etc.
Where I live, we have plenty of water and the amount will increase as the Earth warms, based upon current theories. But, there is a limit to how much water is treated and the local government refuse to invest in additional treatment. So we have water shortages here even though our lakes and rivers are filled and in some cases a bit overfilled.
Eventually people in the Southwest will have to move, along with people in the South. And people think migrations are bad now, wait a few decades.
I do wonder what the state of desalination is. I have read a bit about brine management out of curiosity , but I really have a hard time understanding what can be done about it. If someone figured out how to make concrete from brine or something could we be doing a lot more desalination?
We're marching ourselves straight into disaster that will affect hundreds of millions of people. Are we ever going to wake up and do something about it as a species?
How Oceans are Being Used to Cool Massive Data Centres [2017]
https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-oceans-are-being-used-to...
Alternative Water Cooling Sources for Data Centers [2019]
https://www.ashrae.org/technical-resources/ashrae-journal/fe...
> While the temperature of surface ocean water can fluctuate seasonally, it can still be a valuable source of cooling. In hot regions such as the Middle East, surface seawater as high as 90°F (32°C) is used for condenser cooling with conventional systems. This is because even the higher temperature water is more efficient than air cooling and using potable water for evaporative cooling is not allowed due to water use restrictions.
Feasibility study and multi-objective optimization of seawater cooling systems for data centers: A case study of Caspian Sea [2021]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22131...
Personally, I think the best way to make progress would be to remove the billionaires first as they are working against the majority's interests.
Or decent socialism. Co-ops > Corps.
And those disruptions also cause increasing effects, more humidity in the air also accelerates global warming, water vapor is also another greenhouse gas, a pretty powerful one.
Perhaps he’s underestimating the amount of resources needed per person and the garbage each person produces
Our planet had under a billion people for every century except the 20th and 21st, right?
What was so bad about that? The idea that less human scientists, workers means less innovation, productivity is not necessarily true now in the age of automation and AI.
The way I see it, people having less children across the planet may be the best way to rebalance this phenomenon.
One third of arable land is desertified. Insect and other species are plummeting. The world is being converted to monocultures and farms. And we are here talking about having more babies for the sustainability of .. social security schemes?
As one of the 8 billion on this earth, I'm rather happy being alive. And would love to give that gift to someone else. As many as possible, in fact. You're proposing a world where I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life. Which is absolutely insane. Your view only makes sense from the POV of those surviving or being the lucky chosen ones. I'd rather have my siblings + have to figure out how to fix issues with water supply etc. along the way, than not have my siblings and not have meaningful 'problems' to work on.
We've solved harder problems. Throwing 7 billion people under the bus, because a problem seems a little hard, seems idiotic.
I reserve judgement on whether this natural phasing out of 7 billion people (through natural deaths) is a good idea or not. Ideally, we'd cure death, which makes the plan unethical.
They voluntarily live their lives and have less children. They make the decision.
Contraception is much better than it was before. Women’s education is correlated heavily with having less children.
Elon Musk and people that think like him are the ones bemoaning it and trying to encourage them to have more children. But scratch below the surface — the reasons these “pronatalists” have stated are quite interesting.
https://fortune.com/2024/10/22/elon-musk-people-should-have-...
If you want to go the other way, consider Pavel Durov’s approach of sperm banks and fathering over 100 children he won’t have to take care of. A great way to propagate your DNA of course!
But consider the Categorical Imperative … what would happen if everyone did it?
How many? 20 billion? 50 billion? 1 trillion? That Star Trek: ToS episode "The Mark of Gideon" where the planet is so overpopulated that privacy does not exist and it's a rare privilege to be alone?
> I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life
How unhappy should I be that my parents decided to not have more kids, when I could have had more siblings? Should I criticize their decision to prioritize parental attention and the family's economic well-being over me being one of 12 kids like my grandfather?
The US state where I was born and raised has 3x the population now as compared to when I was born. Wild, isolated places I enjoyed have been replaced by row upon row of houses. Roads that were empty and fast are now white-knuckled congestion.
I would love to give that gift of wilderness to someone else. You are proposing a world where everything is dedicated towards human habitation. Your view only makes sense from the POV of someone who doesn't care about natural places, or being the lucky chosen one who can afford their own reserve.
> We've solved harder problems.
You are mistaken. We've delayed harder problems. As Norman Borlaug ("father of the Green Revolution") said in his Nobel Prize speech in 1970: "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise, the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only"
He was an optimist. "Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth and will adjust the growth rate to levels which will permit a decent standard of living for all mankind."
They invented the ponzi scheme of pensions. There needs to be an army of younglins slaves to prop up the system. No generation will willingly accept no pension.
Plus, last time I checked the vast majority of those billions is china, india and africa. The native west is already in decline and keeps importing third worlders to keep said scheme barely going.