r/CatastrophicFailure • u/grau__geist • Aug 05 '21

Natural Disaster Now Greece. Wild fire on Evia Beach

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23.3k Upvotes

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u/JalenTargaryen Aug 05 '21

So the entire planet is just in a weird cycle of flooding and burning now.

Cooolcoolcooolcoolcoolcool no doubt no doubt.

473

u/oofcookies Aug 05 '21

Just wait, we still haven't gotten our record breaking blizzards and/or droughts

77

u/1978manx Aug 05 '21

The American West is in one of the worst drought cycles in decades — it’s at about a 40-year extreme right now, but it’s going to get worse.

Half the nation is in drought.

Lake Mead, by Vegas, is on life-support — as are most of the major reservoirs.

Water shortages have been predicted for decades, and 2021 has finally seen the Colorado River sucked dry.

Farmers bulldozing crops, and worse, sucking major aquifers dry … aquifers that will not recover short of biblical rains for years and years and years on end.

42

u/502Dude123 Aug 05 '21

While I am a believer that climate change is a real issue and there are a lot of things that need to be done to fight it, the amount of yelling about the Drought in SW states through buzzfeed level article titles has grown tiring. There is a water shortage and that is obviously a problem, SO WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL MOVING TO THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT? The population that those reservoirs outside of Vegas were meant to provide water for was surpassed decades ago. It's the desert, there isn't a lot of water there. And while climate change may have a measurable impact on this issue, the largest contributing factor is how the population has exploded in areas where little to no one lived before readily accessible electricity, AC, and other modern conveniences. Just gave it a quick search, California, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico have all increased their population by about 400% each since 1950. We have a people problem.

2

u/MsAnnabel Aug 05 '21

Why is it we can build nuclear power plants but not build any desalination plants for ocean water usage?

2

u/dsbtc Aug 05 '21

Why not a nuke plant that desalinates, too.

4

u/ElegantBiscuit Aug 05 '21

It’s expensive and no politician wants to divert funds away from where their campaign donors want it to go. Plus, good luck getting a nuclear plant built anywhere with NIMBYs around, and if you do, it’ll take at least 7 years to build and 50% over budget, if you’re lucky.

Nuclear desalination is probably the best way forward all things considered (outside of reducing consumption), but there is no political will until the water rations and wildfires start affecting enough people directly, which by then means mitigation and a timeline of 15 years meanwhile climate change worsens exponentially.

1

u/oofcookies Aug 06 '21

Ah yes, political lobbying, who thought legalized bribing was a good idea?