Author Topic: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?  (Read 14868 times)

Prairie Stash

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1795
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #50 on: August 14, 2018, 02:33:51 PM »
The obvious solution for the long term nuclear waste seems to be that the technology needs to evolve to the point that it doesn't produce harmful waste.  As long as the waste contains harmful levels of radiation it still has energy that needs to be extracted.  "Impossible" only means that we haven't figured out how to do it, yet. 

If it was simple somebody would have figured it out already.  It took thousands of years to invent the bicycle, and that seems pretty simple today.

After the brightest minds of the day finish designing ever fancier cell phones and other toys, maybe they'll get around to solving our energy needs. ;)
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel.aspx

Actually, its already been figured out, its just not economical and not worth pursuing, there isn't likely ever to be significant money made in reprocessing. Spot Uranium is $26/lb right now, its the cheapest fuel in the world. Reprocessing costs a lot more, so people just buy fresh uranium. For perspective, that pound of uranium can supply 20,000 kwh of electricity. My house used 5,000 last year, an average house is probably 10,000 kwh. $26 in fuel for all the electricity needed for 1000 houses...fuel is cheap.

The uranium needed to power my house is worth $8-13 a year. For a reality check, how much did you spend on gasoline last year? A tesla is suppose to get 2.5-3 miles per kwh, so 10,000 miles would be 4000 wh or $5.20 in uranium. I bet that's less then most people spend on gasoline.

Perspective is everything. The problem isn't the fuel, its the reactors.

RangerOne

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 714
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #51 on: August 14, 2018, 04:53:14 PM »
The obvious solution for the long term nuclear waste seems to be that the technology needs to evolve to the point that it doesn't produce harmful waste.  As long as the waste contains harmful levels of radiation it still has energy that needs to be extracted.  "Impossible" only means that we haven't figured out how to do it, yet. 

If it was simple somebody would have figured it out already.  It took thousands of years to invent the bicycle, and that seems pretty simple today.

After the brightest minds of the day finish designing ever fancier cell phones and other toys, maybe they'll get around to solving our energy needs. ;)
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel.aspx

Actually, its already been figured out, its just not economical and not worth pursuing, there isn't likely ever to be significant money made in reprocessing. Spot Uranium is $26/lb right now, its the cheapest fuel in the world. Reprocessing costs a lot more, so people just buy fresh uranium. For perspective, that pound of uranium can supply 20,000 kwh of electricity. My house used 5,000 last year, an average house is probably 10,000 kwh. $26 in fuel for all the electricity needed for 1000 houses...fuel is cheap.

The uranium needed to power my house is worth $8-13 a year. For a reality check, how much did you spend on gasoline last year? A tesla is suppose to get 2.5-3 miles per kwh, so 10,000 miles would be 4000 wh or $5.20 in uranium. I bet that's less then most people spend on gasoline.

Perspective is everything. The problem isn't the fuel, its the reactors.

What is "spot" uranium. Do you mean nuclear waste product, depleted uranium? The ability to use this is fuel is theoretically possible and actively being pursued with significant private investment. Theoretically its cost should be more than viable. Here is at least on article. I think I first heard about this on Freakonomics.
https://www.bloomberg.com/technology

The barrier to developing this tech far enough to prove 100% that it works is simply that the US is not in desperate need of alternative power. We have plenty of natural gas and are firmly committed to renewable energy. So its hard to come by money for anything related to nuclear power research as their is a strong stigma against it do to past mistakes.

Their may be some further waste related downsides I am not aware of. But fiscal viability if the theoretical design works is not an issue. The current company head claims there is enough depleted uranium in the US to power the whole country for 100 years, or something crazy like that if their models are correct.

I have not connected with any of my physics buddies to see if this work is thought to be plausible or a joke among the scientific community. I want to say investors like Bill Gates means something positive, but I believe he has backed crazy ideas in the past.

Either way it seems the research is forging on, just not primarily in the US.

Syonyk

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4610
    • Syonyk's Project Blog
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #52 on: August 14, 2018, 05:03:53 PM »
Presumably the "spot price" of uranium metal.

better late

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 488
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #53 on: August 14, 2018, 07:44:28 PM »
Didn't see that this was already posted. Thought there was a lot of information here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/science/9-cities-to-live-in-if-youre-worried-about-climate-change.html

Syonyk

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4610
    • Syonyk's Project Blog
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #54 on: August 14, 2018, 10:23:15 PM »
San Francisco is silly.

New York will die when the subways rot from salt water.

Boise is full. Don't move here.

robartsd

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3342
  • Location: Sacramento, CA
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #55 on: August 15, 2018, 09:16:30 AM »
San Francisco is silly.

New York will die when the subways rot from salt water.

Boise is full. Don't move here.
I agree with crossing off San Francisco and New York from the list, the others are worth considering. Generally the Great Lakes region is probably best to find places with mid to low cost of living and reasonable adaptability to climate change. Of course we could all move to Boise and get Syonyk to teach us how to build off-grid solar for energy independence.

Syonyk

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4610
    • Syonyk's Project Blog
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #56 on: August 15, 2018, 09:44:30 AM »
Eh, the house system is going to be grid tied, just with a lot of battery for sustained grid down running.  It's not a good way to design something unless you really care about weird things that I care about.

Prairie Stash

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1795
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #57 on: August 15, 2018, 11:32:38 AM »
What is "spot" uranium. Do you mean nuclear waste product, depleted uranium? The ability to use this is fuel is theoretically possible and actively being pursued with significant private investment. Theoretically its cost should be more than viable. Here is at least on article. I think I first heard about this on Freakonomics.
https://www.bloomberg.com/technology

The barrier to developing this tech far enough to prove 100% that it works is simply that the US is not in desperate need of alternative power. We have plenty of natural gas and are firmly committed to renewable energy. So its hard to come by money for anything related to nuclear power research as their is a strong stigma against it do to past mistakes.

Their may be some further waste related downsides I am not aware of. But fiscal viability if the theoretical design works is not an issue. The current company head claims there is enough depleted uranium in the US to power the whole country for 100 years, or something crazy like that if their models are correct.

I have not connected with any of my physics buddies to see if this work is thought to be plausible or a joke among the scientific community. I want to say investors like Bill Gates means something positive, but I believe he has backed crazy ideas in the past.

Either way it seems the research is forging on, just not primarily in the US.
Spot Price is the cost of uranium, on the open market it sells for $26/lb. Prior to Fukushima it was over $60, in 2006 it spiked to $120. At the current price of fuel the USA has shuttered its mines. Canada, which supplies 30% of the world, has shuttered 2 of the 3 mills that mines send ore to. Canada has some of the best Uranium ore in the world, it was the source for the Manhattan project (Eldorado Mine) and still continues to supply the USA.

The work is entirely feasible, its also where plutonium comes from for Nukes, Russia, Europe Japan all have the capacity to do so and currently reprocess on a limited scale. Virgin Ore on the other hand isn't viable for nuclear weapons, it needs to be processed. In Canada its mined, milled and used in CANDU reactors. Its also shipped from Ontario Canada to the USA for enrichment, where it can be used in nuclear weapons or nuclear reactors. The Manhattan project used irradiated Uranium (fake nuclear waste) for the plutonium, its not a new tech at all. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth_phosphate_process

In the news currently we have North Korea, Going back to 2008 they blew up the cooling tower at their reactor site, a significant step if you're trying to avoid nuclear weapons from reprocessed uranium.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/28/world/asia/28korea.html


The world has an oversupply of uranium and will continue to have an oversupply for the next decade or longer. Reusing uranium is pretty simple, it just costs more. As a consumer would you rather pay $26 a pound or $200 a pound (estimate, I'm not sure of the current price)? That's the choice faced by uranium purchasers. So far the market says to keep on mining and refining virgin ore, but the day will come in 40-50 years when all the "waste" is ready for reprocessing because the spot price is higher then the cost of reprocessing. 

We're not disagreeing, I'm just letting you know that the work has already been accomplished to reprocess fuel. There are unintended consequences such as the ability to get Plutonium, such as that used in the third nuclear explosion in history over Nagasaki (Hiroshima was the second, it used Uranium, the first was the test).

Syonyk

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4610
    • Syonyk's Project Blog
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #58 on: August 15, 2018, 11:51:00 AM »
We're not disagreeing, I'm just letting you know that the work has already been accomplished to reprocess fuel. There are unintended consequences such as the ability to get Plutonium, such as that used in the third nuclear explosion in history over Nagasaki (Hiroshima was the second, it used Uranium, the first was the test).

The Gadget was a plutonium implosion type device as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)

We tested that because we weren't sure it would work.  The simpler gun type weapon over Hiroshima had never been tested before actual use, but it was over-designed enough that the engineers were confident it would work.

The newer breeders can produce a bit more of a poisoned plutonium, though.  You can target isotopes with a high enough spontaneous neutron generation rate that even an implosion type weapon is likely to fizzle, and separating out the stuff is really, really tricky (uranium is mostly dangerous as a heavy metal that likes to catch fire, plutonium has some genuinely nasty isotopes).

pecunia

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2840
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #59 on: August 15, 2018, 12:52:17 PM »
From Prairie Stash:

Quote
The world has an oversupply of uranium and will continue to have an oversupply for the next decade or longer. Reusing uranium is pretty simple, it just costs more. As a consumer would you rather pay $26 a pound or $200 a pound (estimate, I'm not sure of the current price)? That's the choice faced by uranium purchasers. So far the market says to keep on mining and refining virgin ore, but the day will come in 40-50 years when all the "waste" is ready for reprocessing because the spot price is higher then the cost of reprocessing. 

In 40 to 50 years, it is hoped that there will be new reactors that will use Thorium.  Thorium has been used in reactors in the past.  I read someplace we have about a 4,000 years worth of the stuff to power the US at current electrical usage.  It is very common and occurs with rare earth elements which we certainly need.  The reprocessing of spent fuel may never be market driven.  Wise regulatory bodies may make the right kinds of rules to eliminate it.  Of course neither the Thorium nor spent fuel reactors will emit greenhouse gases.

Dancin'Dog

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1759
  • Location: Here & There
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #60 on: August 15, 2018, 01:43:37 PM »
So, is it cheaper to secure the storage of spent radioactive fuel indefinitely than it is to reprocess it? 

GuitarStv

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 23129
  • Age: 42
  • Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #61 on: August 15, 2018, 01:53:47 PM »
So, is it cheaper to secure the storage of spent radioactive fuel indefinitely than it is to reprocess it?

Tough to say.

The costs of maintaining storage of spent radioactive fuel are unknown as they are pushed to the future.  Reprocessing it is a known (high) cost.

I don't know any businessman who will take immediate costly losses over something that might happen in the distant future.  Short term gain always wins.

Prairie Stash

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1795
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #62 on: August 15, 2018, 02:14:08 PM »
From Prairie Stash:

Quote
The world has an oversupply of uranium and will continue to have an oversupply for the next decade or longer. Reusing uranium is pretty simple, it just costs more. As a consumer would you rather pay $26 a pound or $200 a pound (estimate, I'm not sure of the current price)? That's the choice faced by uranium purchasers. So far the market says to keep on mining and refining virgin ore, but the day will come in 40-50 years when all the "waste" is ready for reprocessing because the spot price is higher then the cost of reprocessing. 

In 40 to 50 years, it is hoped that there will be new reactors that will use Thorium.  Thorium has been used in reactors in the past.  I read someplace we have about a 4,000 years worth of the stuff to power the US at current electrical usage.  It is very common and occurs with rare earth elements which we certainly need.  The reprocessing of spent fuel may never be market driven.  Wise regulatory bodies may make the right kinds of rules to eliminate it.  Of course neither the Thorium nor spent fuel reactors will emit greenhouse gases.
;) in the 80's it was predicted 40-50 years they would have fusion. 40-50 years is the scientific way of saying, we have no idea when this will happen.

I have absolutely no idea when reprocessing will be economical, no one does. I won't be around in 50 years, I'm not worried abot being called out for being wrong. I'm sorry to have misled anyone, it wasn't my intention to have the timeline taken seriosuly, I meant that its a long indeterminate time away before it happens. 

FYI: Anytime there's a prediction of what will happen with technology in 30+ years, its safe to assume the author is speculating. Its very common in the nuclear industry, it allows people to save face since they're always retired before it comes to pass.

Prairie Stash

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1795
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #63 on: August 15, 2018, 02:53:32 PM »
So, is it cheaper to secure the storage of spent radioactive fuel indefinitely than it is to reprocess it?
therre are two types of waste; fuel waste and everything else. Fuel waste is special, its dense and can be reprocessed. That stuff is small in volume and amount, cheap to store. Here is a picture of what storage looks like, does that look expensive? In total, all of canada's spent nuclear waste fits into 8 hoockey rinks stacked to the boards (Canada, eh!)
https://www.nwmo.ca/en/Canadas-Plan/Canadas-Used-Nuclear-Fuel/How-Is-It-Stored-Today

Everything else is a much bigger problem. It includes the tyvek coveralls and gloves people wear every shift. It includes packaging used for shipping, the metal recyclers scan for material that comes from the uranium industry (a contaminated scrap load, which could be the lid from a transport barrel, can cost millions to clean up). Everything that came into contact during the handling and processing, thats nuclear waste. It doesn't even need to scan high in radioactivity, its a zero tolerance game.
http://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/waste/low-and-intermediate-waste/index.cfm

Instead of uranium, imagine if somehing small in your house, like coffee grounds was toxic waste. Now imagine if everything that ever touched those grounds was considered contaminated waste. So every morning I make coffee and use 50grams of cofee, but alongside that I have to throw out the spoon I used, the gloves I wore, the container it came in, the cloth that I had handy in case of a spill (still clean but you still toss it) and then to be extra sure, my pyjamas in case it touched those. All of a sudden that small pile of coffee created a lot of waste. Obviously that will never be reprocessed, you aren't going to make coffee from my PJ's.

Its the ancillary waste that adds up. People generally lump the two together which creates all the confusion. Most waste can't be reprocessed.

dougules

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2899
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #64 on: August 15, 2018, 03:46:43 PM »
Didn't see that this was already posted. Thought there was a lot of information here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/science/9-cities-to-live-in-if-youre-worried-about-climate-change.html

I think San Francisco and Boise, along with a lot of other places out west, will run out of water à la Cape Town.

I'm surprised it doesn't mention the inland South.   A lot of the places mentioned wouldn't have any way to deal with the heat.  If you added another 5 degrees to the temperature here we'd gripe a bit and then go on about our day.  We're used to dealing with really hot weather.  And terrible storms are already completely normal here.  Also I think the South is the least likely part of the country to run out of water or experience large fires. 

Dancin'Dog

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1759
  • Location: Here & There
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #65 on: August 15, 2018, 05:09:31 PM »
Didn't see that this was already posted. Thought there was a lot of information here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/science/9-cities-to-live-in-if-youre-worried-about-climate-change.html

I think San Francisco and Boise, along with a lot of other places out west, will run out of water à la Cape Town.

I'm surprised it doesn't mention the inland South.   A lot of the places mentioned wouldn't have any way to deal with the heat.  If you added another 5 degrees to the temperature here we'd gripe a bit and then go on about our day.  We're used to dealing with really hot weather.  And terrible storms are already completely normal here.  Also I think the South is the least likely part of the country to run out of water or experience large fires.


But can the plants live at those temps?  How much drier will the air be?  Will it continue to rain, or will AL become a desert?  And remember the forest fires.  It's hard for forests to recover from fires when there are droughts too. 


Alabama could look like Arizona.  Arizona might look like the Saraha. 




Abe

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2647
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #66 on: August 15, 2018, 08:39:14 PM »
Didn't see that this was already posted. Thought there was a lot of information here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/science/9-cities-to-live-in-if-youre-worried-about-climate-change.html

I think San Francisco and Boise, along with a lot of other places out west, will run out of water à la Cape Town.

I'm surprised it doesn't mention the inland South.   A lot of the places mentioned wouldn't have any way to deal with the heat.  If you added another 5 degrees to the temperature here we'd gripe a bit and then go on about our day.  We're used to dealing with really hot weather.  And terrible storms are already completely normal here.  Also I think the South is the least likely part of the country to run out of water or experience large fires.


But can the plants live at those temps?  How much drier will the air be?  Will it continue to rain, or will AL become a desert?  And remember the forest fires.  It's hard for forests to recover from fires when there are droughts too. 


Alabama could look like Arizona.  Arizona might look like the Saraha.

I grew up in North Carolina, and learned that there are large aquifers under the coastal plain extending from Virginia to Georgia that are slowly getting contaminated with brackish water as the freshwater is being pumped. Similar to the Great Plains' Oglalla Aquifer, except it's actually a worse situation as the salt in the brackish water is contaminating the remainder of the (otherwise usable) freshwater over time.

Dougules, why is it you think the Southeast US will have less issues with drought and fire than the Northeast?

« Last Edit: August 15, 2018, 08:42:35 PM by Abe »

dougules

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2899
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #67 on: August 16, 2018, 10:55:25 AM »
Didn't see that this was already posted. Thought there was a lot of information here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/science/9-cities-to-live-in-if-youre-worried-about-climate-change.html

I think San Francisco and Boise, along with a lot of other places out west, will run out of water à la Cape Town.

I'm surprised it doesn't mention the inland South.   A lot of the places mentioned wouldn't have any way to deal with the heat.  If you added another 5 degrees to the temperature here we'd gripe a bit and then go on about our day.  We're used to dealing with really hot weather.  And terrible storms are already completely normal here.  Also I think the South is the least likely part of the country to run out of water or experience large fires.


But can the plants live at those temps?  How much drier will the air be?  Will it continue to rain, or will AL become a desert?  And remember the forest fires.  It's hard for forests to recover from fires when there are droughts too. 


Alabama could look like Arizona.  Arizona might look like the Saraha.

I grew up in North Carolina, and learned that there are large aquifers under the coastal plain extending from Virginia to Georgia that are slowly getting contaminated with brackish water as the freshwater is being pumped. Similar to the Great Plains' Oglalla Aquifer, except it's actually a worse situation as the salt in the brackish water is contaminating the remainder of the (otherwise usable) freshwater over time.

Dougules, why is it you think the Southeast US will have less issues with drought and fire than the Northeast?

The Southeast is right by the Gulf of Mexico which is already the temperature of bath water.  Alabama and Mississippi could possibly dry out, but I think with the Gulf just to our south, I think our chances of keeping well-watered are better than anywhere else in the US.   

As for brackish water in the aquifer in NC, are you sure that's not more related to sea level rise?  NC is also further from the Gulf, so that my guess may not apply to the Atlantic side of the Southeast. 

I could also be wrong about the fires.  There were large fires in the Blue Ridge mountains in 2016, and that's really abnormal given how damp the mountains generally stay. 

Prairie Stash

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1795
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #68 on: August 16, 2018, 12:03:46 PM »
Ocean desalination costs between $2,000 and $2,500 an acre-foot, Mills noted. Brackish desalination can range from $1,000 to $2,000. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/29/california-water-desalination-projects-move-forward-with-new-state-funding/

Pertinent to water scarcity is dealination in California. Unlike Cape Town I think California wil be able to afford this for their cities. For comparison water ranges from $400 to $1000 now.

"The largest, by far, is a $1 billion plant on the coast in Carlsbad, 35 miles north of San Diego, that opened in 2015. The largest desalination plant in the United States, it generates up to 56,000 acre-feet of water a year — roughly 8 percent of San Diego County’s water supply. But the cost is high, from $2,131 to $2,367 an acre-foot, depending on how much is produced, which is double the price that Metropolitan Water District of Southern California charges for the same amount of water from other sources such as local dams, the Colorado River or the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. By comparison, the Santa Clara Valley Water District in San Jose pays about $400 an acre foot for water from the Delta."

San Francisco is not running out of water.

sol

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8433
  • Age: 47
  • Location: Pacific Northwest
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #69 on: August 16, 2018, 12:22:32 PM »
For comparison water ranges from $400 to $1000 now.

Haha um... no.  Maybe you're talking about residential water rates?  "Acre feet" is a unit used to measure agricultural water supplies only, because it is a ridiculously large amount of water.  I pay about $2.10 per CCF for water at my house (approximately 4 gallons for one penny), which works out to a little over $900 per acre foot.  The farmers I work with, by contrast, usually pay between $5 and $15 per acre foot for much larger quantities of water, and they bitch and moan about anything much higher than that.  As a general rule, farmers pay less than 10% of what a municipal water customer will pay, in part because the federal government spent a few billion dollars back in the 1930s to build reservoirs and canals for them. 

With those costs in mind, desalination really only makes the remotest kind of sense for supplying people's homes, not for growing crops.  City water rates would approximately double or triple, but that's a cost most households can easily absorb because water is already so cheap.  The only form of agriculture that can possibly operate at that market price for water is weed.

Which is fine!  Everyone makes a big deal about supporting farmers "because everyone has to eat" but the simple truth is that we DO NOT have to grow food in the places where we currently grow food.  No one farms in Manhattan, and yet Manhattan is still economically prosperous without a single farmer.  You grow your food wherever it is cost effective to do so, and then you pay to ship it to wherever it is needed.  We literally transport cargo ships full of grain across the Pacific Ocean and make a profit doing it, and I'm pretty sure we can truck your apples and cheese across state lines if we have to.

Just Joe

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 6721
  • Location: In the middle....
  • Teach me something.
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #70 on: August 16, 2018, 12:35:57 PM »
Atlanta is having water problems already. They'd really like to tap into the Tennessee River but Tennessee won't let them. Guess they need to get far more serious about water conservation.

Prairie Stash

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1795
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #71 on: August 16, 2018, 03:25:02 PM »
For comparison water ranges from $400 to $1000 now.

Haha um... no.  Maybe you're talking about residential water rates?  "Acre feet" is a unit used to measure agricultural water supplies only, because it is a ridiculously large amount of water.  I pay about $2.10 per CCF for water at my house (approximately 4 gallons for one penny), which works out to a little over $900 per acre foot.  The farmers I work with, by contrast, usually pay between $5 and $15 per acre foot for much larger quantities of water, and they bitch and moan about anything much higher than that.  As a general rule, farmers pay less than 10% of what a municipal water customer will pay, in part because the federal government spent a few billion dollars back in the 1930s to build reservoirs and canals for them. 

With those costs in mind, desalination really only makes the remotest kind of sense for supplying people's homes, not for growing crops.  City water rates would approximately double or triple, but that's a cost most households can easily absorb because water is already so cheap.  The only form of agriculture that can possibly operate at that market price for water is weed.

Which is fine!  Everyone makes a big deal about supporting farmers "because everyone has to eat" but the simple truth is that we DO NOT have to grow food in the places where we currently grow food.  No one farms in Manhattan, and yet Manhattan is still economically prosperous without a single farmer.  You grow your food wherever it is cost effective to do so, and then you pay to ship it to wherever it is needed.  We literally transport cargo ships full of grain across the Pacific Ocean and make a profit doing it, and I'm pretty sure we can truck your apples and cheese across state lines if we have to.
An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. residential use is implied, family of fice is in the description.

I think it might have something to do with scale, when you start talking about 56,000 acre-feet, it gets ridiculous using gallons - 18,247,656,000, wtf is 18 trillion gallons! Instead, a more meaningful metric is employed for communication 1 acre-foot=1 house...56,000 acre-feet is 56,000 homes,

56,000 is the size of San Diego's plant in Carlsbad. It supplies 8% of the counties water and cost a billion dollars (from the link). San diego county has 3 million people, California has 39.4 million. It would take $164 billion, at that price, to build desalination water for all residential use.

Clearly thats an enormous sum, for comparison the debt of california is $1,140 billion, desalination for all will add on 14% to total debt (really rough math to put things in perspective), chances are you wouldn't replace 100% of all water. 

I stand by my statement, the cities of California aren't going to disappear in a Mad Max scenario. I also disagree they will experience a Cape Town scenario. The farmers will be screwed, but hollywood will remain, no need to fret over the Kardashians.

In Canada theres a large unfounded fear that America will invade and steal our water. Given the cost of a miltary invasion (2 trillion for Iraq), I suspect y'all would just build desalination plants. I doubt you want to deal with rebuilding our igloos and log cabins.

Syonyk

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4610
    • Syonyk's Project Blog
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #72 on: August 16, 2018, 04:24:44 PM »
In Canada theres a large unfounded fear that America will invade and steal our water. Given the cost of a miltary invasion (2 trillion for Iraq), I suspect y'all would just build desalination plants. I doubt you want to deal with rebuilding our igloos and log cabins.

Now wait just a minute, yah cannokistani commie fascist pinko librul apologizer!  Ain't no glory in infersruchsure buildin'.  War?  That's got glory!  Guts!  Courage!  And y'all'd be prone to just apologize for being in our way, so it'll be a cakewalk!

:p

Seriously, though.  You think the United States is sane enough to spend money on infrastructure when we can get some military action out of it instead?  I'm struggling to imagine the logistics of invading Canada for water, though.  That's an awful lot of prairie tankers to get the water back.

sol

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8433
  • Age: 47
  • Location: Pacific Northwest
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #73 on: August 16, 2018, 04:40:45 PM »
In Canada theres a large unfounded fear that America will invade and steal our water.

We don't need to invade to steal your water.  We're currently renegotiating the Columbia River Treaty.

GuitarStv

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 23129
  • Age: 42
  • Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #74 on: August 17, 2018, 06:44:05 AM »
Betsy Devos is in charge of US education, so we don't have to worry for long.  A few more years and Americans won't be able to find Canada on a map.

nereo

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 17499
  • Location: Just south of Canada
    • Here's how you can support science today:
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #75 on: August 17, 2018, 09:42:57 AM »
Betsy Devos is in charge of US education, so we don't have to worry for long.  A few more years and Americans won't be able to find Canada on a map.

When asked "what do Americans think of Canada" - the most honest common answer seems to be "we don't."  Also, we're already spectacularly bad at geography, and I wouldn't be surprised if many can't already find Canada on a map.  Not that this is a problem just south of the CanUSA border; in at least one study, many Memorial University students (Canada) couldn't name the ocean east of Newfoundland, locate the continent of Africa or recognize Italy.

jrhampt

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2016
  • Age: 46
  • Location: Connecticut
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #76 on: August 17, 2018, 10:56:51 AM »
Betsy Devos is in charge of US education, so we don't have to worry for long.  A few more years and Americans won't be able to find Canada on a map.

When asked "what do Americans think of Canada" - the most honest common answer seems to be "we don't."  Also, we're already spectacularly bad at geography, and I wouldn't be surprised if many can't already find Canada on a map.  Not that this is a problem just south of the CanUSA border; in at least one study, many Memorial University students (Canada) couldn't name the ocean east of Newfoundland, locate the continent of Africa or recognize Italy.

Their loss!  I love the Maritimes.  And Quebec City + environs is one of my favorite places for excellent food.

Candace

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 582
  • Age: 57
  • Location: Hampton Roads, Virginia
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #77 on: August 17, 2018, 01:00:53 PM »
This is an excellent thread. Can we keep it on-topic, please?

Thank you to everyone for their contributions, especially those with high-level specialized knowledge.

nereo

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 17499
  • Location: Just south of Canada
    • Here's how you can support science today:
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #78 on: August 17, 2018, 01:36:27 PM »
It's worth stressing that climate change won't result in uniform changes across all of the US - i.e. with 2ºC increased global temperatures we won't see all parts of our country increase by 2ºC. More worrisome than the average increase is the increase in the extremes in some areas - whereas the hottest 5 days of the year might have been ~100ºF in some area, they may soon see 106º or even 110º for about as many days.  Coastal areas will be buffered somewhat from these extremes due to the heat capacity of the ocean, whereas desert regions will see greater extremes.

The same goes with sea-level rise.  While 'sea-level' might be constant (at least to a first degree of approximation) the land where we live isn't.  Some areas, like most of New England, are rising (due to isobaric rebound) while much of the east coast from New Jersey to Florida are sinking.

Rainfall is hte trickiest to predict because it interfaces with temperature, ocean currents and wind patterns.

tl;dr - average changes across the US (or the globe) will not be uniform.

Abe

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2647
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #79 on: August 17, 2018, 05:57:58 PM »
Here's a website showing the predicted climate change with several models:
http://www.climatewizard.org/

Overall it appears the Great Plains is at highest risk of increasing temperature, while Texas and the Southwest extending into southern California are at highest risk of precipitation decline. There aren't huge differences between locations in the US, however. The other caveat is that these are average temperatures, not maximum temperatures.

This is a good website for more details at a state level:
https://statesummaries.ncics.org/ca

This website gives more granular data with good graphs. You may disappear for a few days looking through this!
https://toolkit.climate.gov/tools/climate-explorer


« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 06:01:20 PM by Abe »

sol

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8433
  • Age: 47
  • Location: Pacific Northwest
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #80 on: August 17, 2018, 07:13:22 PM »
tl;dr - average changes across the US (or the globe) will not be uniform.

I've spent much of my professional life dealing with various aspects of west coast climate change.  The general consensus seems to be that California is going to get a little drier, and British Columbia is going to get a little wetter, but everywhere is going to get a little warmer.  Along with the "warmer" part comes increased variability in rainfall, and increased water use by vegetation.  That means that even in the parts that are going to get "wetter" due to slight (<10%) increases in precip, they will end up with less water available to rivers and aquifer due to the enhanced interception by thirsty plants.

It's really the temperature signal this is going to swamp everything else.  It just has cascading effects on every other part of the climate system, like increased evaporation from lakes and streams, increased transpiration by plants, increased irrigation demand by farmers, increased rates of succession in forest ecosystems, increased glacier melt rates, increased storm and flood intensity, etc.  There are very few parts of the climate in my corner of the world that are going to get any better due to future climate change.

Now if I lived in Canada, it might be a different story.  One of my old friends started a "Canadians for Global Warming" club in college.

Tom Bri

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 689
  • Location: Small Town, Flyover Country
  • More just cheap, than Mustachian
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #81 on: August 18, 2018, 08:09:04 PM »
The thing about climate change is it is utterly unpredictable, and unstoppable. Where I now live was, 10K years ago, 5 miles deep in ice. Same average insolation, just a slightly different orbit around the sun. In that era, the Sahara Desert was the Sahara Paradise. We don't know where will be dry or wet, warmer or cooler.

I wouldn't live right on the coast, since the sea has been gradually rising for the last 10K years and will probably continue to do so until the next ice age. Also, all coastal areas are subject to occasional tsunamis, every few hundred years.

sol

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8433
  • Age: 47
  • Location: Pacific Northwest
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #82 on: August 18, 2018, 08:33:43 PM »
The thing about climate change is it is utterly unpredictable... the sea has been gradually rising for the last 10K years and will probably continue to do so until the next ice age. Also, all coastal areas are subject to occasional tsunamis, every few hundred years.

You do see the irony here, right?  First you claim "utterly unpredictable" and then you proceed to make predictions.

nereo

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 17499
  • Location: Just south of Canada
    • Here's how you can support science today:
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #83 on: August 19, 2018, 08:06:32 AM »
The thing about climate change is it is utterly unpredictable, and unstoppable. Where I now live was, 10K years ago, 5 miles deep in ice. Same average insolation, just a slightly different orbit around the sun. In that era, the Sahara Desert was the Sahara Paradise. We don't know where will be dry or wet, warmer or cooler.

I wouldn't live right on the coast, since the sea has been gradually rising for the last 10K years and will probably continue to do so until the next ice age. Also, all coastal areas are subject to occasional tsunamis, every few hundred years.

I take a bit of offense to the statements above, and have to call out some parts that is just plain wrong.  Like Sol, most of my professional career has been dealing with aspects of a changing climate, only my work focuses primarily in the N. Atlantic whereas Sol's out in the PNW.

To say that we have 'no idea' is basically refuting the work of tens of thousands of our best and brightest, as well as ignoring the substantial historical records we've painstakingly reconstructed, most in the last decade or so. The truth is that we have a very good idea of what changes our climate has undergone, and where and how things will change in the future. Nearly all the uncertainty of climate predictions comes down to what we do as humans - do we continue being dicks to the environment or do we drastically throttle back?

It's also patently false that the sea has been gradually rising for 10k years, and paints the global climate as some sort of ever-shifting target, always either slowly rising or slowly falling.  That's wrong.  Global climate exists in a series of steps, with numerous feedback mechanisms to keep things in one state for milennia until its knocked into a different regime. What really scares me as a climate scientist is looking back at previous climates and realizing that *none* of them have held stable at +2ºC of temperatures (baseline 1900). Instead every warming period has plateaued at a much higher level.  In other words, 'holding' the planet to 2ºC may not be possible.

Then there's the old canard about the 'position of the sun' (Milancovitch cycles) and the suggestion that we should be warming because of it.  no.  If we hadn't monkeyed so much with the climate already we would be in a cooling phase. And of course there's the latest excuse  - that it is 'unstoppable'.  Hogwash. We (humans) are the root casue of the current shifts, ergo we can and have changed things. It's up to us whether we want to see +6ºC in 200 years or if we fight to revert back to this blissful sweetspot we've occupied for the last several thousands years.  Speaking of which, it's no coincidence that our civilizations rose and population expanded and intelligence increased during a rather remarkable time when our climate was in this 'goldilocks zone'. Primates had been around through several climate changes but it was this latest one that gave rise to modern humans.

Dancin'Dog

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1759
  • Location: Here & There
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #84 on: August 19, 2018, 08:44:31 AM »
The thing that seems to be the most difficult to predict, prevent, and endure will be the dying off of plant life caused by fires, prolonged droughts, and the difficulty for plants to recover.


Animals can relocate & migrate, but plants can't.  Once the plants are gone from an area there's nothing for most of the animals to return to. 


Humans & their agriculture will be competing more than ever with wildlife in the areas that they've both migrated to. 


There are huge land masses in northern North America and also Aisa, which will be good for Canada & Russia. 


I'm in the NC mountains and we've had 25 days of rain in the past month.  This will probably be a comfortable place for quite a while, as long as fires don't become a problem. 




pecunia

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2840
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #85 on: August 19, 2018, 04:37:20 PM »
Green Eggs w/o ham:
"Animals can relocate & migrate, but plants can't.  Once the plants are gone from an area there's nothing for most of the animals to return to.  "

Animals can relocate?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/09/without-action-on-climate-change-say-goodbye-to-polar-bears/?utm_term=.42dba087adc4

Article says Polar Bears will be gone.  I guess if there is no more cold arctic areas, they won't be around.

Now - I don't really like Polar Bears.  They eat people.  However, I hate to see them go.  You can make really cool rugs from them.

nereo

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 17499
  • Location: Just south of Canada
    • Here's how you can support science today:
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #86 on: August 19, 2018, 05:35:46 PM »
re: migration - people tend to have a really limited view of what an animal is. Ask the average lay-person to name as many animals as they can in 60 seconds and chances are they will be almost entirely mammals, maybe with a couple birds thrown in.  That makes up just a fraction of the animal kingdom. 
Some, like mussels, are sessile their entire adult life and can't migrate into new habitats. Others, like polar species, have no where to go in a warming climate. The Caribbean corals are especially vulnerable, as it may become too hot an acidic for their existing homes, but if you go slightly north into Georgia or South Carolina there's a distinct lack of hard substrate due to the geography, so they're screwed too.  Then as pecunia hinted at, many species are either symbiotic or dependent on other flaura or fauna.  Break one of those links and they die too, even if they could have survived the physical environment. 

FWIW, I like Polar Bears, even though they (very occasionally) DO eat people. IMO they are one of the most impressive creatures on earth, capable of swimming 100 miles of open ice-clogged water and catching 500lbs seals with their bare paws.

wenchsenior

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3791
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #87 on: August 19, 2018, 06:56:44 PM »
re: migration - people tend to have a really limited view of what an animal is. Ask the average lay-person to name as many animals as they can in 60 seconds and chances are they will be almost entirely mammals, maybe with a couple birds thrown in.  That makes up just a fraction of the animal kingdom. 
Some, like mussels, are sessile their entire adult life and can't migrate into new habitats. Others, like polar species, have no where to go in a warming climate. The Caribbean corals are especially vulnerable, as it may become too hot an acidic for their existing homes, but if you go slightly north into Georgia or South Carolina there's a distinct lack of hard substrate due to the geography, so they're screwed too.  Then as pecunia hinted at, many species are either symbiotic or dependent on other flaura or fauna.  Break one of those links and they die too, even if they could have survived the physical environment. 

FWIW, I like Polar Bears, even though they (very occasionally) DO eat people. IMO they are one of the most impressive creatures on earth, capable of swimming 100 miles of open ice-clogged water and catching 500lbs seals with their bare paws.

A world where there are no predators badass enough to occasionally eat humans is a world not worth living in, IMO.

Dancin'Dog

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1759
  • Location: Here & There
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #88 on: August 19, 2018, 09:47:36 PM »
My point was animals depend on plants. 

Tom Bri

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 689
  • Location: Small Town, Flyover Country
  • More just cheap, than Mustachian
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #89 on: August 19, 2018, 10:04:11 PM »
The thing about climate change is it is utterly unpredictable... the sea has been gradually rising for the last 10K years and will probably continue to do so until the next ice age. Also, all coastal areas are subject to occasional tsunamis, every few hundred years.

You do see the irony here, right?  First you claim "utterly unpredictable" and then you proceed to make predictions.

Yes Sol, you are right. I was exaggerating for effect, and the word 'utterly' was unnecessarily extreme. Some things are predictable, like the sea continuing to rise (in most areas, but not all, since the land is rebounding from the weight of the glaciers in some areas, and land is rising for tectonic reasons in others).

But we really don't know a lot. For one example, in the last warm era, the Sahara was wet. If the climate warms will it be wet again? We know that the Southwestern US has had 'mega-droughts' periodically over the last few hundreds to thousands of years. Will it again, and when? Probably yes, but no one can predict when or exactly where, nor if Global Warming will exacerbate or ameliorate it. Will the low areas of Florida disappear under the sea as they have in the past?

For me, if not for others, global warming is too thin a reed to plan against on a personal scale. I wouldn't live in Seattle because of the risk of tsunamis and earthquakes, nor in LA. Likewise I wouldn't buy property in Galveston TX, knowing its history of flooding, but others have a higher tolerance for risk. There are plenty of at least somewhat predictable risks that we can plan against. Global warming isn't really one of them.

Tom Bri

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 689
  • Location: Small Town, Flyover Country
  • More just cheap, than Mustachian
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #90 on: August 19, 2018, 10:33:58 PM »
The thing about climate change is it is utterly unpredictable, and unstoppable. Where I now live was, 10K years ago, 5 miles deep in ice. Same average insolation, just a slightly different orbit around the sun. In that era, the Sahara Desert was the Sahara Paradise. We don't know where will be dry or wet, warmer or cooler.

I wouldn't live right on the coast, since the sea has been gradually rising for the last 10K years and will probably continue to do so until the next ice age. Also, all coastal areas are subject to occasional tsunamis, every few hundred years.

I take a bit of offense to the statements above,

Then there's the old canard about the 'position of the sun' (Milancovitch cycles) and the suggestion that we should be warming because of it.  no.  If we hadn't monkeyed so much with the climate already we would be in a cooling phase. And of course there's the latest excuse  - that it is 'unstoppable'.  Hogwash. We (humans) are the root casue of the current shifts, ergo we can and have changed things. It's up to us whether we want to see +6ºC in 200 years or if we fight to revert back to this blissful sweetspot we've occupied for the last several thousands years.

Sorry to cause offense! In a 5-sentence blip of a post it is hard to be very detailed, and I do know that the seas have risen very rapidly at some points, receded a bit during cold periods and so on, but the general trend since the ice age has been a gradual rise, as seen from the current era.

I am interested in your whole post, but this particularly caught my attention. Somehow we can calibrate our actions to specifically hit a sweet spot of temperature, like that of 1900? Tricky.

I do believe climate change is unstoppable. There are too many factors beyond human control. We can cut CO2 emissions, smog, particulates, sulfur, all the filth of human industry. Good. I don't think we can affect ocean currents or precession. Climate will change.

sixwings

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 534
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #91 on: August 19, 2018, 10:38:32 PM »
The thing about climate change is it is utterly unpredictable, and unstoppable. Where I now live was, 10K years ago, 5 miles deep in ice. Same average insolation, just a slightly different orbit around the sun. In that era, the Sahara Desert was the Sahara Paradise. We don't know where will be dry or wet, warmer or cooler.

I wouldn't live right on the coast, since the sea has been gradually rising for the last 10K years and will probably continue to do so until the next ice age. Also, all coastal areas are subject to occasional tsunamis, every few hundred years.

I take a bit of offense to the statements above,

Then there's the old canard about the 'position of the sun' (Milancovitch cycles) and the suggestion that we should be warming because of it.  no.  If we hadn't monkeyed so much with the climate already we would be in a cooling phase. And of course there's the latest excuse  - that it is 'unstoppable'.  Hogwash. We (humans) are the root casue of the current shifts, ergo we can and have changed things. It's up to us whether we want to see +6ºC in 200 years or if we fight to revert back to this blissful sweetspot we've occupied for the last several thousands years.

Sorry to cause offense! In a 5-sentence blip of a post it is hard to be very detailed, and I do know that the seas have risen very rapidly at some points, receded a bit during cold periods and so on, but the general trend since the ice age has been a gradual rise, as seen from the current era.

I am interested in your whole post, but this particularly caught my attention. Somehow we can calibrate our actions to specifically hit a sweet spot of temperature, like that of 1900? Tricky.

I do believe climate change is unstoppable. There are too many factors beyond human control. We can cut CO2 emissions, smog, particulates, sulfur, all the filth of human industry. Good. I don't think we can affect ocean currents or precession. Climate will change.

Technology has the potential to change all those things, it's really the only solution. Whether that will come too late, we will find out i guess.

nereo

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 17499
  • Location: Just south of Canada
    • Here's how you can support science today:
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #92 on: August 20, 2018, 03:36:51 AM »
The thing about climate change is it is utterly unpredictable, and unstoppable. Where I now live was, 10K years ago, 5 miles deep in ice. Same average insolation, just a slightly different orbit around the sun. In that era, the Sahara Desert was the Sahara Paradise. We don't know where will be dry or wet, warmer or cooler.

I wouldn't live right on the coast, since the sea has been gradually rising for the last 10K years and will probably continue to do so until the next ice age. Also, all coastal areas are subject to occasional tsunamis, every few hundred years.

I take a bit of offense to the statements above,

Then there's the old canard about the 'position of the sun' (Milancovitch cycles) and the suggestion that we should be warming because of it.  no.  If we hadn't monkeyed so much with the climate already we would be in a cooling phase. And of course there's the latest excuse  - that it is 'unstoppable'.  Hogwash. We (humans) are the root casue of the current shifts, ergo we can and have changed things. It's up to us whether we want to see +6ºC in 200 years or if we fight to revert back to this blissful sweetspot we've occupied for the last several thousands years.

Sorry to cause offense! In a 5-sentence blip of a post it is hard to be very detailed, and I do know that the seas have risen very rapidly at some points, receded a bit during cold periods and so on, but the general trend since the ice age has been a gradual rise, as seen from the current era.

I am interested in your whole post, but this particularly caught my attention. Somehow we can calibrate our actions to specifically hit a sweet spot of temperature, like that of 1900? Tricky.

I do believe climate change is unstoppable. There are too many factors beyond human control. We can cut CO2 emissions, smog, particulates, sulfur, all the filth of human industry. Good. I don't think we can affect ocean currents or precession. Climate will change.

I'm glad we are continuing this dialog and that your post was not meant to offend.  I'd just like to respond to your last point right now -
We have altered the climate. It's not that it is going to happen in the near future, but past tense.  Ipso facto, climate change is not unstoppable; we've already shown that we can alter it and are continuing to do so.

Perhaps what you meant is that our future trend is unstoppable.  Hogwash. We could certainly alter the climate and make it much, much warmer if we lifted all the enviornmental considerations and started belching unfiltered coal plants for all of our energy, so that's false to.

Maybe you meant we are incapable of reversing the damage we've already done (which parallels the talking point of 'it's just too expensive!').  That is also false, though I will say right now it would be harder (especially politically) to reverse the what we've done than push it even further along. We know how to stop putting CO2 into the atmosphere.  We even know how to pull it back in (hey, thankfully plants learned that trick over a billion years ago!). What we lack is the will to do it, and that's because people stand around making statements like we've seen here.

ETA:  Wanted to come back to that '1900' comment.  That date is simply parlance for the widespread use of the combustion engine. As I mentioned earlier the planet has existed in numerous different stable states before, with one of them lasting for about 10,000 years (up and until the early 20th century)  It isn't that we would try to keep the climate at whatever it was on January 1st, 1990, but rather that we could have a climate that resembles what we've every civilization on earth has developed under, or we will will slide into something much, much warmer, one where we entirely lose places like Osaka and the entirety of Florida.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2018, 05:41:25 AM by nereo »

GuitarStv

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 23129
  • Age: 42
  • Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #93 on: August 20, 2018, 07:18:54 AM »
re: migration - people tend to have a really limited view of what an animal is. Ask the average lay-person to name as many animals as they can in 60 seconds and chances are they will be almost entirely mammals, maybe with a couple birds thrown in.  That makes up just a fraction of the animal kingdom. 
Some, like mussels, are sessile their entire adult life and can't migrate into new habitats. Others, like polar species, have no where to go in a warming climate. The Caribbean corals are especially vulnerable, as it may become too hot an acidic for their existing homes, but if you go slightly north into Georgia or South Carolina there's a distinct lack of hard substrate due to the geography, so they're screwed too.  Then as pecunia hinted at, many species are either symbiotic or dependent on other flaura or fauna.  Break one of those links and they die too, even if they could have survived the physical environment. 

FWIW, I like Polar Bears, even though they (very occasionally) DO eat people. IMO they are one of the most impressive creatures on earth, capable of swimming 100 miles of open ice-clogged water and catching 500lbs seals with their bare paws.

A world where there are no predators badass enough to occasionally eat humans is a world not worth living in, IMO.

A world where humans are the only surviving animals meets your criteria as a world worth living in.  Just watch out for kuru, it's a bitch of a disease.

Car Jack

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2141
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #94 on: August 20, 2018, 07:35:37 AM »
Two words to watch out for:  Sink holes.  Sure, we've seen this forever in Florida and because Kentucky is built on top of caves that are eroding, it's heading down that path, but lots of places are seeing sink holes forming.  I won't pretend to even know why.  Florida and Kentucky are easy to figure out. 

I guess I'm lucky.  If I dig down 4 feet anywhere near my house, I hit solid granite.  So not much of a risk where I am.

jrhampt

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2016
  • Age: 46
  • Location: Connecticut
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #95 on: August 20, 2018, 08:35:19 AM »
Two words to watch out for:  Sink holes.  Sure, we've seen this forever in Florida and because Kentucky is built on top of caves that are eroding, it's heading down that path, but lots of places are seeing sink holes forming.  I won't pretend to even know why.  Florida and Kentucky are easy to figure out. 

I guess I'm lucky.  If I dig down 4 feet anywhere near my house, I hit solid granite.  So not much of a risk where I am.

Fracking, maybe? 

And to bring my Canada love more on topic, I have wondered if Canada will benefit from climate change, or at least, if southern Canada might be a desirable place to relocate to if possible (or northern Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire/New York state). 

nereo

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 17499
  • Location: Just south of Canada
    • Here's how you can support science today:
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #96 on: August 20, 2018, 08:40:54 AM »
Two words to watch out for:  Sink holes.  Sure, we've seen this forever in Florida and because Kentucky is built on top of caves that are eroding, it's heading down that path, but lots of places are seeing sink holes forming.  I won't pretend to even know why.  Florida and Kentucky are easy to figure out. 

I guess I'm lucky.  If I dig down 4 feet anywhere near my house, I hit solid granite.  So not much of a risk where I am.

Fracking, maybe? 

And to bring my Canada love more on topic, I have wondered if Canada will benefit from climate change, or at least, if southern Canada might be a desirable place to relocate to if possible (or northern Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire/New York state).
Canada, of course, is huge and so effects will be varied from region to region. Thankfully Canada has an abundance of fresh water and comparatively small population. Some cities like Halifax are actually sinking while most of New England is still rising.

If you want to really dig into the weeds about what different cities and regions in Canada are likely to experience, you can read about it here:
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/environment/resources/publications/impacts-adaptation/reports/assessments/2014/16309

sol

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8433
  • Age: 47
  • Location: Pacific Northwest
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #97 on: August 20, 2018, 08:54:16 AM »
Two words to watch out for:  Sink holes.  Sure, we've seen this forever in Florida and because Kentucky is built on top of caves that are eroding, it's heading down that path, but lots of places are seeing sink holes forming.  I won't pretend to even know why.  Florida and Kentucky are easy to figure out. 

I guess I'm lucky.  If I dig down 4 feet anywhere near my house, I hit solid granite.  So not much of a risk where I am.

Fracking, maybe? 

Sinkholes are a geologic problem, not a climate problem.  They are caused by living in places built on rocks that dissolve too easily in rain water, like limestones and dolomites. 

They are not caused by fracking.  Fracking injects water (and sand and some chemicals) deep underground to where oil and gas are stored, usually thousands of feet.  Sinkholes are rarely more than a hundred feet deep, because a cave deeper than that has a roof strong enough not to collapse.

In cases where sinkholes are caused by humans instead of natural rainfall, it's usually badly leaking water pipes that are the culprit.

dougules

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2899
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #98 on: August 20, 2018, 11:35:37 AM »
Atlanta is having water problems already. They'd really like to tap into the Tennessee River but Tennessee won't let them. Guess they need to get far more serious about water conservation.

Atlanta was destined to have water problems from its inception.  It was built on the Eastern Continental Divide because that's where it was the easiest to run a railroad without having to cross rivers.  But a continental divide is also not a good place to get water even before factoring in climate change. 

Even if Atlanta were allowed access to the Tennessee River, it would be a massive project to pipe the water >100 miles through rough terrain.  Of course that's already been done to get water to L.A., but still a huge project. 

pecunia

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2840
Re: Areas of the US most resilient to climate change?
« Reply #99 on: August 20, 2018, 02:11:15 PM »
dougeles:

Atlanta, Georgia gets 51 inches of rain, on average, per year. The US average is 39 inches of rain per year. Atlanta averages 1 inches of snow per year. The US average is 26 inches of snow per year.

Seems like cisterns or something similar could go a long way to get water in Atlanta if legally permitted.

Bermuda does it:

https://www.enterbermuda.com/blog/how-bermuda-gets-its-water

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!