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Comment by morkalork | Hacker News Reader

You all knew how it was going to end, for decades, and did nothing.

https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/location-maximum-land-subs...

> You all knew how it was going to end, for decades, and did nothing.

And the same is true for global carbon-related climate change, for which the real bill will become increasingly due over the next 10 years.

We are all insanely fucked and our response is still just to mostly to ignore it and hope it goes away.

> We are all insanely fucked and our response is still just to mostly to ignore it and hope it goes away.

Correction. It’s the next generations who are insanely fucked. People don’t hope it goes away, they think they won’t be around to see the consequences.

Mother Nature has always been historically very considerate with regards to our schedules.

I think it’s somewhat fortunate when these aquifers permanently compress, it takes the land out of agriculture production as a sort of forced conservation, because in many ways, humans cannot be trusted to be responsible stewards of such a natural finite resource.

https://uttoncenter.unm.edu/resources/2026-06-1-update-paper...

https://www.organicproducenetwork.com/organic-growers/califo...

? The land isn't conserved if you can't use it?

Conservation is basically defined as being unused by humans.

Uh...they're just going to pave it and throw something over it.

Edit- To be clear maybe not specifically in this case, but "oops we've ruined this ecosystem to the point we can't farm it" rarely ends with "better move down the road and let nature reclaim it". It's a lot more "cool now we can put strip malls/data centers/whatever here"

It’s unlikely strip malls and data centers will be built on the land, but utility solar PV is an acceptable use that requires no water, is beneficial to the local environment, and gives the land 20-30 years to recover from agricultural use.

It takes 600 to 3,000 years for 6 inches of topsoil to develop naturally, as it generally requires 100 to 500 years to form just a single inch. Underground water aquifers operate on similar timescales, if they can regenerate at all. The land needs time to recover from the demands of present timeline position humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

https://cleantechnica.com/2026/01/03/21-gigawatts-of-solar-f...

https://www.goldenstatecleanenergy.com/valley-clean-infrastr...

Planting more PV farms isn't better, it just convolutes the equation and hides the true sources of damage behind things with a less negative image, and would eventually just prove Jevon's law, one way or the other.

Not preceding "using better" with "consuming less" (on a system-wide basis) would get you the same result as going for recycling while forgoing the first R: empty, marketing points in green-coloured font.

It gives the land time to recover and requires nothing from it, nor human labor. All racking and conductors can be removed from the land in the future to return it to its original condition. All components can be recycled today, through metal and ewaste streams. It hides no externalities or harm. It quietly produces energy more efficiently than any crop, with no inputs besides the sun shining.

As my links demonstrate, California plans on developing 21GW of solar on farmland that no longer has water available for it.

> It takes 600 to 3,000 years for 6 inches of topsoil to develop naturally, as it generally requires 100 to 500 years to form just a single inch.

I very much doubt those statements can both be true. It would have to be the case that the amount of time required to deposit one inch of soil is independent of the amount of soil already in place, which seems extremely unlikely.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0454h/report.pdf (page 5, Start at “Introduction”)

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123462 (“It also takes around a thousand years to create just a few centimetres of topsoil and to help land restoration.”)

I don't know why you got downvoted. In any case, this makes "sense", but doesn't make sense in that if we nuke the land in some way, distort it from a peaceful balance, I don't think it is "conserved"

The land is conserved by not being farmed.

https://www.tuletrust.org/land-fallowing-program

Sci-fi brings us some optimism on that front. You can build out Brawndo distribution pipes overland.

Doing something about this is the job of the government, not of “you all”. If taking care of such essential matters is somehow the responsibility of society as a whole, we may as well get rid of governments altogether.

Governments are just a structure for people to coordinate collective action. In democracies, it’s not that distinct from “us all”. We exercise this responsibility through representatives but they are our agents not our rulers. Outcomes depend on our ability to direct them, and the ability of our opponents to do so likewise.

For the most part, I like to forward evolve solutions so I happily don’t care if Las Vegas runs out of water or whatever. I’ll find a way later. So I take responsibility for my bit. I just don’t care about this particular negative outcome.

Funny enough, Las Vegas has been planning for this outcome and won't run out of water. Only agriculture users will be impacted, who consume ~50% of the total annual Colorado River Basin. So, to your point, the ag users responsible for overconsumption for decades will be the ones primarily exposed to the outcome. Municipal water systems will continue to function as they do today with available water reserves and flows.

Thank you for posting that, saved me from doing so.

Ignorance and stupidity are the greatest threats to human survival - but perhaps it's for the best.

What can you realistically do?

Start by not electing a pedophile who calls climate change a hoax

Right?! Like there’s so much you can do.

* Vote for fucks sake. Bare minimum and stop making fucking excuses both for yourself not doing it and for politicians you otherwise support burying their heads in the sand.

* Stop buying stupid shit on the internet. Every package you don’t get delivered means less CO2.

* Fix shit instead of replacing it. The greenest EV on earth is more CO2 intense than the car you’ve already got (assuming you keep it in good working order)

Like yeah global policy needs to get better across the board, and the burden has been unfairly and ridiculously shifted to consumers. True. But at the same time consumers could buy less shit overall, still have very comfortable existences, and promote economic degrowth a little bit every day.

Oh yeah and stop using fucking AI for anything besides code because it sucks at everything else, and only use it for code you can’t otherwise complete.

I agree but

>Fix shit instead of replacing it. The greenest EV on earth is more CO2 intense than the car you’ve already got (assuming you keep it in good working order)

This is not correct at all...

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-defini... one source of many. Also local pollution is reduced, e.g. nox and particles.

Valid pushback! That said going through the MIT study quickly (and I may be wrong, feel free to correct me further) it doesn't seem to include CO2 from overseas shipping of materials and/or finished vehicles, and it also only seems to factor in tailpipe emissions as opposed to emissions from things like tire wear which is notably worse on EVs due to their weight. But again, I'll concede the point anyway.

You could however say exactly what I said about so many other classes of products. Home appliances, electronics, tools, on and on.

I would assume that the problem with California aquifer is (mostly) a consequence of its Democratic state government decisions and it is highly unlikely that electing Hilary or Kamala would have prevented it.

I don’t remember Democrat Gavin Newsom calling climate change a hoax? Jokes aside, I don’t think politicians have anything to do with that. From what I’ve learned droughts in CA are natural part of the cycle and humans just accelerate it. You can’t reverse it because it is nature” you can slow down the acceleration, but then at what cost and why? If we are “all going to die” how does it change if it will happen in 50 years vs 60 years? 60 years of misery or 50 years of normal life.

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