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Comment by lukaslalinsky | Hacker News Reader

I had a similar observation this year. In 2015, I was in California, was doing some hiking on the weekends, and I found it very unnatural how all the grasses were dry, trails dusty, on the hills/mountains. I came back to Slovakia, and I was happy to see the green grass. Fast-forward to 2026, and our grasses are equally dry and trails are equally dusty. Water management seems to be more important than ever, because this is only going to get worse. Maybe we need to build massive reservoirs, to retain the flood water somehow, if we want to keep living here in the next 100 years.

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I'm not sure if Clarkson's farm has much of a following outside of the UK. Last year they had several crops fail due to the drought over summer and honestly this year was far worse. I believe he may not have even bothered planting the normal cash crops, so it will be interesting to see how that works out. That said, the year before I think it was so wet early in the year that farmers really struggled to get crops in the ground.

In areas like Valencia there are ancient irrigation systems and water rights controlled by water councils older than many countries. I wonder if the UK will need to do similar, irrigation ponds, flood control structures and canals to control the flow of water through the landscape.

It definitely has a following.

This is the challenge of extreme weather, it's either drought or floods, and wild swings from the one to the other. As a kid growing up in Australia, we heard many such stories, especially if the rains came on too suddenly, since then the ground can't absorb the water, and you get flash floods.

As if being a farmer isn't already tough enough.

It has more of a following outside the UK. We know what he is like.

My friend that show is legendary. Not on the same watchers level as original Top Gear (who can surpass 300 million), but its extremely good and literally eye-opening to millions about woes and challenges of modern agriculture.

I must admit I was utterly clueless before watching that show, what an eye opener. I hope Jeremy will be OK regarding his health, he is a national treasure.

He used to mock global warming and its advocates but thats visibly thing of the past once he got off his high ego horse behind the wheel and proverbially smelled the grass/coffee out in the countryside.

He might be a treasure, but's he's also a prick. He has a long history of letting his on-screen persona leak into meatspace (or maybe it's the other way around) and that's not a good thing.

Edit - since people seem to not believe me, at minimum, he punched his producer [1]. Which wasn't the first time he turned violent - he punched Piers Morgan [2] for letting Clarkson's extramarital affairs go public. Oh, he also had poorly concealed extra-marital affairs.

1 - https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35648682 2 - https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/piers-morgan-rev...

I don't like you're being down voted, let's not give celebrities extra passes to be the assholes they can be. Elon being another prime example.

And I'll admit I watch his shows. The first two seasons of Clarkson's Farm were good TV. And with May and Hammond, he provided years of entertainment for car enthusiasts. None of which should excuse his boorish behavior off-screen.

Same here. Watch it, it's good entertainment, he's still an asshole that uses people. In fact, even in the current show, where he used that insult on one of his employees who someone said she looked like pre-transition Caleb — that's exactly the kind of thing he does and he found that funny so couldn't help himself but use it.

Punching Piers Morgan is not a sign of a character flaw.

Fair enough ;)

I don’t know, in a world where dictators bomb whoever they want, if punching someone is the worst thing you can do. People continue to follow and fangirl the politicians who enact violence, so why should one go on a crusade against a tv star who gets a little hands on?

You can be against more than one thing.

That's appeal to bigger problems fallacy.

What's the name of the fallacy in which one tediously shuts down all conversations by highlighting a named fallacy?

> shuts down

You're free to continue conversing.

> all conversations

Also a fallacy.

I wasn't conversing in the first place, I'm just bored of reading through exchanges where at some point someone says Aha! That's a fallacy! Got you, I win!

I know you weren’t. Which was my point: the conversation was not shut down. If pointing out someone’s manipulation is not OK to you, then you’re probably better off trying a different discussion board.

the phallusy fallacy

> I'm not sure if Clarkson's farm has much of a following outside of the UK. Last year they had several crops fail due to the drought over summer and honestly this year was far worse.

The Clarkson who ran a popular car show and for years mocked Greta Thunberg and called her an "idiot" that deserved a "smacked bottom" for raising the alarm on global warming?

Oh, noe, I feel so sorry for him. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy!

Only a fool gloats about being right about the end of the world.

I don't know if it is gloating so much as it is recognition that unlike most injustice that happens in the world the people most responsible for it are going to suffer at least some of the consequences along with the hoi polloi.

A refreshing change of pace, even if the end result is horribly tragic for everyone.

I know this is controversial but I doubt this heat wave is entirely human made. Europe has gone through long arid periods in this past.

If you scroll down past the "Outlooks" header, you will see a chart that makes it abundantly clear what's going on and why.

https://www.dpg-physik.de/veroeffentlichungen/publikationen/...

As someone who hope global warming is man-made becuase that woudl be FIXABLE at least in theory, this is EXTREMELY deceptive report and graph and for the sake of humanity these scientists should be doing MUCH better.

Comparing sample rates during the spike to sample rates for the rest of the graph? Hidden inside those sample rates can be dramatic changes (some of which we know if that ARE NOT IN THIS GRAPH) for example the little ice age and the volcanic warming periods of europe as recently as the last 1000 years which dramatically changed the climate.

Im not arguing against human-climate change, I'm arguing that this type of junk science does no one any favors.

The little ice age is in the graph, it was just completely insignificant on a global scale, as opposed to global warming which as you can see from the graph is extremely significant on a global scale. You are expecting to see the little ice age on the graph because you think that was a comparable event to global warming, but the fact is it wasn't.

Local changes due to global warming are even more significant than the global average shows, for example the arctic has, on average, warmed more than 3 times as much as the global average.

This chart shows direct measurements where available (generally like 1800 to present), our best estimates for earlier temperatures, and expected future temperatures based on what we've seen so far.

Here is Google's AI description of DPG: > the German Physical Society (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, or DPG) is held in exceptionally high regard and is recognized globally as one of the most prestigious scientific organizations in the world

That's the organization whose work you refer to as "junk science".

We are discussing aridification in europe, a specifically local event? Also one that can happen regardless of global warming and has happened severalt times in the last 5000 years.

Do you not even track what conversation context you're in before going off?

edit: im editing here to respond to the absurd response below. The reponder, while lecturing rabidly missed several things like the difference between aridification and heat, local vs global, and europe not being the world.

I want to point out that its poeple exactly like this poster who ruin global warming debates with demonstratably false, confused, or foolish comments. Is polution bad and causing warming, yes most likely. Has the commentor below proven that? no. And in fact repeated danced around proving it while insulting me. This person is not the ally you need.

A local event that is closely related to the unprecedented anthropogenic global warming that is indisputably responsible for the half decade of back-to-back-to-back heat record breakage streak we're currently on yes. And no, as far as we know this has never happened before unless you count mass extinctions millions of years ago where nearly everything on the planet died. That's what breaking a record means, we have never seen these temperatures before and now we're breaking those records every. single. year. And for the record, in those mass extinctions the global warming happened over thousands of years. This global warming is happening over decades.

Also I forgot to address this point in your earlier comment:

> As someone who hope global warming is man-made becuase that woudl be FIXABLE at least in theory

The fact that I am able to shoot you in the face does not imply that I am able to fix you afterwards. We are in no way capable of removing all the carbon we have added to the atmosphere within a reasonable timeframe, it would probably take about a thousand to a few thousand years if we really went for it.

And as I've shown you with the graph, global warming is indisputably, without a doubt, anthropogenic which means man-made.

Arguing about whether this heat wave is related to the severe global warming we are currently is experiencing is absolutely asinine, there is literally not a single fucking thing about the climate on our planet right now that wouldn't be different without climate change. The heat wave in Europe would be less hot, and/or it would be shorter, or it wouldn't be here at all. The general severe warming Europe has seen over the past decade would not have occurred.

> missed several things like the difference between aridification and heat, local vs global, and europe not being the world.

I didn't miss any of that. I have already pointed out that difference in earlier comments, like when I informed you that the little ice age was local and that the arctic is warming much faster than most other places. Europe has also warmed more than many other places. And obviously the aridification is a direct result of the warming and prolonged heat waves. This article comes right after Europe experienced it's hottest summer ever recorded.

You haven't demonstrates that anything I've said is false. You referred to the article I linked as "junk science" despite the fact that it's from a very well respected organization, then you went on to just move the goal posts entirely and now you're just slandering me.

And I have in fact proved, as well as reasonably possible in an internet comment section, that the planet is warming. That was the very first thing I did, by linking an article that proves it beyond any reasonable doubt, and highlighting a chart that visualizes the severity and clear cause of the issue in a way any moron could understand if they weren't willfully ignorant.

Calling people morons is again the wrong move. You are the problem.

In fact I believe that global warming caused this but was trying to illustrate that YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

The proper response would have been explaining that 1540’s comparable drought by tree ring analysis lasted only 1 year and our samples yearly from church grape harvests help us understand direct correlation and magnitude change.

Compared to the recorded 11 month 1540 heat wave with corresponding small rings, early harvest and a dry Rhine river; 5 year consecutive heating acts as a vapor lock which then compounds aridification.

This is causality not correlation.

Instead you used a correlative and foolish argument of “line go up so you’re a moron”

Stop and think man. You are using the wrong facts and junk science to prove your point and you look foolish doing it.

Learn to do better.

What are you even talking about? At no point during this conversation have you brought up a 1540s drought, yet the proper response from me would have been to address this event you never mentioned?

An isolated freak event is not relevant to our current situation, this is not an isolated freak event. This is a trend that has been going on for centuries and for Europe it has severely worsened in the past decade or two. That straight line in the chart I showed isn't this year, it starts in the 17/1800s corresponding with the industrial revolution and continues to today. The point i am highlighting is that natural variance looks like what you see before the industrial revolution, whereas anthropogenic global warming looks like the straight vertical line you see after the industrial revolution. This makes it extremely clear that the burning of fossil fuels are having a severe effect on the climate, as soon as we started doing it you can see the temperature goes vertical, contrasting strongly with the lazy meandering it does before. In shorter-term charts it is less obvious how drastic this change is, which is why I think this chart is a good way to really show the severity of the situation.

Here is some more junk science for you https://climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/styles/ima...

Courtesy of the Copernicus junk science organization. They do this dumb junk science thing where they measure temperatures and stuff and report their findings, total baloney. The chart shows that the warmest years on record have all been the past few years, and this year is on track to set yet a new record. But sure let's talk about some 1540s freak year instead I'm sure that's more relevant to the current situation.

We have actually had one similar high-CO2 event in the past, which wasn't human made.

It's called the Permian Extinction, and eliminated around 90% of all life on earth.

The reduction in biomass at the boundary was possibly much greater. For example, no coal was formed for 10 million years, and the shell part of marine sediments was reduced by 97%.

Why not? When the world is ending you take what joy you can, while you can.

When all you have left is having been right, there's not much else to keep you busy.

Yea might as well do anything you want that gives you joy…

Don’t even think through what you say remotely before you say it?

Why? It's all we have left because of people like Clarkson.

> Oh, noe, I feel so sorry for him. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy!

In reality he now has the most popular show on Amazon. Even his brewer is probably a bigger contributor to his income than the "farming" side of his farming.

The difficulty he faces though is very common amongst British farmers but most don't have a camera crew producing 4k video of the entire growing season.

California is naturally a desert. It is only unnaturally green and lush.

Well, parts of it are naturally a desert. But plenty of forest and wetlands too. In fact there were even more wetlands before we channelized many of the rivers.

A desert with the tallest trees in the planet.

Trees that evolved to survive wildfires because of the near year-long dry periods.

A state with a diversity of environments. Southern California, dry and dusty. Northern California, green and vibrant.

Northern California is dusty too. But green!

California is a big state. The only true deserts are in the south east part of the state

This is not correct. LA gets its water from hundred of miles away. So does the Bay Area. So does the central valley.

Underground cisterns are generally the way to do it and even the Romans were building them

The UK had a hugely wet start to the year, but that’s part of the pattern.

More intense rain fall then dry spells.

The high prolonged hot spells, with the wind can really make a lot of the land dry out.

So many dead and dying Field Maples around

Don’t really know what that has to do with my comment

California was also in a super drought at that time

Well, California is like that naturally. It's green only in the winter.

Meh, almost nobody will want to live in most of Europe post AMOC collapse in 20-40 yrs

What's that?

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

See “stability” section

It might compensate for global warming... I think a lot will depend on whether there is rain or not.

Warm oceans, as they are, would surely bring rain? Hence why the UK is so rainy. The ocean is warmer than the land, it's like warm water in a cold room, you get the moisture coming off it. If the ocean isn't warm any more, I reckon (as an amateur engineer not climatologist) that would reduce the rain we get.

That is one part, the other part is that you would get more persistent high pressure blocking patterns over Europe due to reordered atmosphere circulation which will lead to more intense droughts. That is what happened this summer.

Current research is that it would get a lot drier than it is currently. Also the AMOC collapse process would play out over many decades (~50-100 years) it will not be a sudden event.

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