Climate science community really needs to rein in its doomsayers. I get that exaggeration and fearmongering is an easy way to get attention for issues but it ultimately hurts the cause. Like James Hansen back in the 1980s predicting New York City would be underwater in 40 years. Even if it's just one guy's prediction it has a serious impact on credibility with the public when an expert is seen as alarmist and inaccurate.
I've been thinking for a few years of where I want to ride out the climate apocalypse into my old age. Northern New Mexico or Colorado seem like ideal places to someone who currently lives in South Texas (I'm not a fan of the combo of heat and humidity and I really don't care to see what my limit is for wet bulb temperatures). The water question really seems like the big one though and yeah, I would think any state next to the largest freshwater bodies on Earth should seem appealing.
I was born and raised and currently live in one of the states bordering the Great Lakes, and as others here have pointed out, the climate is atrocious. At the moment I'm writing this comment the actual temperature is 91F, and the feels like is 100F. There's a heat advisory in effect. The humidity is such that you practically suffocate as soon as you step outside.
In early to mid November the temperature will be in single digits with wind chills down below zero. For most of Winter the temperatures will be in the mid-teens to mid-twenties. The reason people stay is for Spring and Fall - but those seasons are disappearing, I believe due to climate change. Spring and Fall have now been reduced to a couple of weeks each. You essentially go from Winter into Summer and Summer into Fall. This year alone there were several days in "Spring" where the temperature varied by 40-50 degrees on a daily basis! That's simply insane! Not to mention making it difficult to manage your wardrobe! Okay, I need heavy winter coat and bulky knit sweaters and heavy jeans today, tomorrow I need shorts and a t-shirt.
I can tell you I'm done with it. As I'm approaching retirement I've been thinking where I can move to that isn't quite so extreme. The Southwest is appealing, but the looming water crises is keeping me away. I'm also not interested in riding out hurricanes. I want to stay on the Eastern half of the U.S. since that's where most of my family is. The only option I've come up with is Tennessee, specifically the Chattanooga area. Why? The city is nestled along the Tennessee River and it's only 1.5 hours from Atlanta which has one of the busiest airports in the world - meaning I can get direct flights to just about everywhere in the country (can't do that very easily in the Midwest, almost all flights are connecting flights and so the airline ticket costs are quite expensive since you pay a tax on each landing and takeoff - and those taxes aren't cheap in the Midwest either since there's comparatively fewer flights).
I lived near that area for a while, the climate is just awful.
Cleveland's average lows are below the freezing point 5 months out of the year. It's basically a constant state of either snowing, or melted/compacted snow freezing into ice.
Then spring comes around and it gets horribly hot. 3 months have average highs in the high 70s to low 80s. They also average 71% humidity; you will be sticky if you walk outside.
It doesn't surprise me we're letting that area decay. I've moved around a few times, and I've never experienced a worse climate. I'd take Texas or Arizona heat over the Great Lakes without thinking twice.
Living in greater Cleveland area for decades now. Though I do prefer it to tropics and south eastern states rocking 80-90% humidity. Skiing is weak around here and has been since the early oughts.
Though the beaches and islands are nice, and changing seasons are refreshing.
Every place has its pros and cons. I try to focus on the positive and do what I can about the negatives.
Well... if you care about emissions, shipping food far away emits a lot, until we get to electric trucks and trains powered by renewables. We're currently a ways away from that.
Many of those farms are exporting their produce to foreign countries. This includes growing alfalfa in California, and exporting it to Saudi Arabia (where the monarchy has set a policy of growing less alfalfa, wheat and corn to reduce pumping of groundwater from the depleted aquifers of the Arabian Peninsula). So essentially they are exporting water from one desert to another via the medium of alfaalfa.
Agreed. For example, near Charlotte. My dad lives there and they are building like crazy due to hyper grow. Problem is, the roads, sewer and water infrastructure can't handle all the new people. 20 years ago what was a 10 minute trip to the store can now be over an hour, due to massive traffic jams.
The developers are (probably) paying off politicians to get permits, but there is no money (due to low taxes) for the necessary projects.
Charlotte would probably be a lot better off if the growth wasn't sprawling so much with very low density single family houses. Instead it's illegal to build anything but a SFH in most of the region.
Imagine if half the single family homes spreading out for miles were instead townhouses, 4-6 floor apartments, duplexes, quadplexes with mixed use like groceries and schools placed within walking distance of most neighborhoods. I bet traffic and costs would be a fraction of what they are now, much easier to serve density with good infrastructure. With an added bonus, more farms and greenspace would be preserved.
They do if they were affordable and well-built, but we zone them to be expensive and undercut the labor market with illegal labor, so people don't have the motivation to upskill.
Most people would probably like to live in a giant mansion on a country estate, but they can’t afford to. If the price of a single family house in a sprawling suburb doesn’t include the actual cost of the infrastructure to serve that home, then really they can’t afford to live there, either. Cities all over the US are running into this problem.
> If the price of a single family house in a sprawling suburb doesn’t include the actual cost of the infrastructure to serve that home, then really they can’t afford to live there, either.
Sorry, but what is your point here? This is the same recycled “strongtowns” argument that they repeat endlessly.
Worst case, property taxes increase to help with local infrastructure.
You dismiss the "strongtowns" argument as if there is some consensus that it has been debunked, but I don't think there is such a consensus, so you'd need to support that claim.
Further, the worst case is not that property taxes increase, it is that other people, usually less fortunate, end up subsidizing them further through federal, state, and county funds, rather than their own local taxes.
What the lie-o-meter has to say about your assertion really depends a lot on the average income and level of density in the suburb in question.
The rich inner suburbs full of busybody jerks are unfortunately rich enough to almost certainly be self sustaining if they want to be. No starving that beast.
Apartment living sucks. People love hearing their neighbors in the bedroom next door and their kids stomping on the floor upstairs while practicing their tumbling moves. Walking groceries up multiple floors of stairs is great too. And if you want to tinker on your car or some woodworking project … too bad. Do you want to add a new bedroom for a new family member? … too bad. Want to plant some plants or a garden? … too bad. Want a pool, workshop, or a garage? … too bad. Want to allow your young kids to go outside safely? … too bad. Want to get a dog of a certain breed like a German Shepherd or Bull dog? … too bad. The restrictions of apartment living are numerous in comparison to a single family property.
Densely populated areas in the US are also loaded with apartments. However, there is a vast amount of land in the US, so 99% of it is sparsely populated.
European homes are built to a higher standard than US homes and many are built from concrete and stone. US apartments are usually built using cheap particle board for floors that turn into bouncy, noisy trampolines over time and thin walls between units.
None of that deals with the many other disadvantages of apartment living.
Nah, it's pretty bad. I've been to Europe and visited people who live in those flats. Even if the sound insulation is good, it's a bleak existence compared to a typical American suburban house (or townhouse). Very cramped, little ability to customize or remodel it to fit your needs, no space for any hobbies or activities that involve anything large or heavy or loud or dirty. Can't really invite a large group for a party, or have overnight guests.
Dense urban apartments should be available for those who want that lifestyle (primarily childless young people) but it's not a model that we should be pushing as the default for the general population. That would be a real step backwards.
Sure city kids exist, but there has been a clear trend for decades of parents with growing families moving out to the suburbs in search of more space and higher quality of life at an affordable price. It's certainly possible to squeeze multiple children into a typical small city apartment, but it's a miserable experience and few people voluntarily choose that when they have other options.
In San Francisco there are now more dogs than children. Pretty much the only parents who stay are the wealthy who can afford large homes in safe neighborhoods regardless of price, and the poor who receive subsidized housing and have no where else to go. When the middle class has kids they move out to the East Bay suburbs, where they can afford a back yard and don't have to put up with junkies on their doorstep.
American apartment buildings are built incredibly cheaply, making noise complaints real and terrible. Dense living in well-built buildings is amazing, but hard to find in the US.
> Imagine if half the single family homes spreading out for miles were instead townhouses, 4-6 floor apartments, duplexes, quadplexes with mixed use like groceries and schools placed within walking distance of most neighborhoods.
If that is all the zoning allowed then people just wouldn’t live there.
Most people in the US simply don’t want to live like that.
Consumer demand should dictate what kind of housing gets built, not naive central planners.
This is why I think California needs more high density urban housing, but not more single family home housing. Densify the urban core; don’t sprawl into the wild periphery.
Honestly, if we are talking pie in the sky, I'd say pile people up along the coast. Specifically in LA, if you had fewer people in Riverside with lawns + AC and more people in Santa Monica with year round good weather then the quality of life would be better and environmental impact would be lower.
Housing and urban centers in general are a comparatively small part of society's water budget. Agriculture beats it by 4:1, and most agricultural use is very poorly optimized (water has historically been mostly free).
It's sort of hilarious, but I think the libertarian answer here is the right one for California: remove zoning restrictions on housing to put as many people in the Bay Area as want to be there, and remove all the public subsidies and infrastructure spending in the central valley to force agriculture to pay true market rates for the scant water available.
True. Growing food in a desert is generally a bad idea and extremely wasteful of water resources, for example in an area like the desert landscapes of central California.
Not so sure about unlimited building in cities as that has consequences similar to the unlimited agricultural policies mentioned. A better solution is to have general rules for development instead of the ad-hoc rules in many communities that slow down the process and allow for extended debate over every building project.
It's not even necessarily that they need to stop growing food there completely. Switching to less water-intensive crops and farming methods would go a long way.
Of course, they aren't going to do that when they're getting water far below market price.
> True. Growing food in a desert is generally a bad idea and extremely wasteful of water resources, for example in an area like the desert landscapes of central California.
But people supposed to get food, all ~40mlns of Californians!
Ok, lets stop doing it in the Central Valley. Where Cali food would come from?
Tracked 2000miles from Lakes region?
California passed several laws in 2021 which set general rules for housing development, and limited the ability of local communities to set ad-hoc rules.
Instead of cramming ever increasing numbers into a few geographically and resource constrained cities we should be encouraging economic development in other areas. In a logical world we would have a huge thriving city at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers (IL / MO / KY tri-state border). But today that area is just a few economically depressed small towns.
Growth in California, especially Southern California, is misguided and trades near-term ethical wins (housing opportunity) for long-term ethical disaster (massive water shortages and consequent displacement). I recommend "Cadillac Desert" for a history of hubris and graft in the southwest.
I do a lot of nordic skiing and this issue is very salient to me. It is a topic that emerges one way or another in nordic skiing communities.
One thing that's not entirely appreciated all the time is that it's not just the average level or amount of snow that's important, but also the uncertainty around it. In some ways this has become as problematic for me in recent years, not knowing exactly what to expect. I don't want to spend the time preparing gear and traveling to ski trails to find out the condition is poorer than they have indicated, or possibly damage expensive skis. So even if the snow cover is actually fine, if it's become unreliable, it has almost as much effect on my ski behavior.
As another example: it tends to be the beginning and end of the seasons that are affected the most so far. Scheduling events becomes a bit tricky: do events get scheduled at a certain point at the end of the season when, if things are good, there's tons of snow, or is that risky because it could have all melted early?
There's a lot of things like this that seem to get lost when the discussion is focused on abstract quantities like average temperature (not critiquing the article, just explaining my experience).
I used to feel bad that this was someplace effecting our area in particular, that we weren't far enough north or something, almost a sort of "cold climate imposter syndrome". Then one year people in ski forums in a totally different area of the world, where there should be plenty of snow, were having a winter with essentially none.
Not only for nordic skiing. In the Alps, for touring and slopes, the conditions are also very volatile. You have these heat waves in the middle of the winter which are making the snowpack very unstable. One day the conditions are good, the day after you are not sure anymore.
For touring, you basically need to relearn all the heuristics (especially with respect to the safety of the snow) you developed over the years. This is not comfortable.
Interesting story of a quest to install a desalination plant. I was listening to one of the persons pushing the deal on a podcast. He had a baby at the time he started, his son is now about to go to college. Each time he would go to court or attempt the permitting process there was endless red tape. NIMBYs win again.
The coastal commission citing socioeconomic concerns of water rate increases is especially strange, given that their mission has nothing to do with how much and who pays for water: https://www.coastal.ca.gov/whoweare.html
A much better option would have been to have the local water agencies have households opt into the water at a higher rate and not be subject to limits, e.g. up to 80% of the limit, pay $X, then 20% pay $1.5X and then pay $3X to subsidize those who cannot pay. We have progressive rate schedules on many things and they work well enough. If enough people opt in, the subsidy from those paying a lot more could even be used to reduce or eliminate costs for low income households.
The Rose Bowl and its associated parade were created to showcase to the Midwest how pleasant winters can be in California. It's no mistake that the Rose Bowl usually pits teams from the PAC12 against the Big 10 (a Midwestern collection of universities). Southern California has long marketed its temperate winters to those in harsh winter regions. People moving from areas where water is abundant, such as the Great Lakes region, aren't accustomed to giving the existence of water much thought, beyond perhaps how to best redirect the abundance of it off of their fields. The Chambers of Commerce, realtors, and everyone else who benefits from increasing the population didn't give it much thought either. As a result, there's a growing population that becoming more water insecure. Regardless of if it is due to agriculture, environmental laws, or climate change, the population growth is what maximizes the number of people put in danger of one day not having anything come out of the tap.
There's plenty of water in Southern California for just residential use (although it certainly shouldn't be wasted). Most of the water is going to agriculture, and many of the agricultural products are exported to other states or countries. So even if those people moved from California back to the Midwest, that won't fix our water shortage.
Ultimately the only solution is to shift away from the water rights system and subsidized water prices, and instead institute a market system with dynamic pricing based on the actual supply. This may mean that California's farmers have to adopt more water efficient practices such as are already used in Israel, and reduce acreage devoted to water intensive crops such as alfalfa.
If people can stop thinking about themselves and instead focus on humanity across time as a whole, should we end the ice age or keep our ski resorts? Remember me, me, me, and you live in the holocene.
It’s hard to do a cost benefit analysis on climate change. Is it possible that the benefits outweigh the costs long term? Maybe. Unfortunately the costs will mostly be to one group of people, and the benefits to different groups. The amount of human suffering before we reach some steady state in the future is going to be horrendous.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadMaybe what we need is do put more opportunity in places that have water.
In early to mid November the temperature will be in single digits with wind chills down below zero. For most of Winter the temperatures will be in the mid-teens to mid-twenties. The reason people stay is for Spring and Fall - but those seasons are disappearing, I believe due to climate change. Spring and Fall have now been reduced to a couple of weeks each. You essentially go from Winter into Summer and Summer into Fall. This year alone there were several days in "Spring" where the temperature varied by 40-50 degrees on a daily basis! That's simply insane! Not to mention making it difficult to manage your wardrobe! Okay, I need heavy winter coat and bulky knit sweaters and heavy jeans today, tomorrow I need shorts and a t-shirt.
I can tell you I'm done with it. As I'm approaching retirement I've been thinking where I can move to that isn't quite so extreme. The Southwest is appealing, but the looming water crises is keeping me away. I'm also not interested in riding out hurricanes. I want to stay on the Eastern half of the U.S. since that's where most of my family is. The only option I've come up with is Tennessee, specifically the Chattanooga area. Why? The city is nestled along the Tennessee River and it's only 1.5 hours from Atlanta which has one of the busiest airports in the world - meaning I can get direct flights to just about everywhere in the country (can't do that very easily in the Midwest, almost all flights are connecting flights and so the airline ticket costs are quite expensive since you pay a tax on each landing and takeoff - and those taxes aren't cheap in the Midwest either since there's comparatively fewer flights).
Cleveland's average lows are below the freezing point 5 months out of the year. It's basically a constant state of either snowing, or melted/compacted snow freezing into ice.
Then spring comes around and it gets horribly hot. 3 months have average highs in the high 70s to low 80s. They also average 71% humidity; you will be sticky if you walk outside.
It doesn't surprise me we're letting that area decay. I've moved around a few times, and I've never experienced a worse climate. I'd take Texas or Arizona heat over the Great Lakes without thinking twice.
Though the beaches and islands are nice, and changing seasons are refreshing.
Every place has its pros and cons. I try to focus on the positive and do what I can about the negatives.
Many of those farms are exporting their produce to foreign countries. This includes growing alfalfa in California, and exporting it to Saudi Arabia (where the monarchy has set a policy of growing less alfalfa, wheat and corn to reduce pumping of groundwater from the depleted aquifers of the Arabian Peninsula). So essentially they are exporting water from one desert to another via the medium of alfaalfa.
People supposed to get food from farms, aren't they?
because you would end up tracking salads and greens and other stuff (which is basically WATER in itself) 2000 miles from, say, Lakes region
This happens regardless of where you grow it. Most of it gets exported. Transporting water in large quantities is not easy. Transporting lettuce is.
Nope. From 2020 numbers, out of Cali ~$50bln agri production, ~$20bln are exported.
> Transporting water in large quantities is not easy. Transporting lettuce is.
?
Get any numbers to substantiate this claim? Water in my house cost me a lot less than lettuce
The developers are (probably) paying off politicians to get permits, but there is no money (due to low taxes) for the necessary projects.
EDIT: roads are being built, but slowly.
Imagine if half the single family homes spreading out for miles were instead townhouses, 4-6 floor apartments, duplexes, quadplexes with mixed use like groceries and schools placed within walking distance of most neighborhoods. I bet traffic and costs would be a fraction of what they are now, much easier to serve density with good infrastructure. With an added bonus, more farms and greenspace would be preserved.
Sorry, but what is your point here? This is the same recycled “strongtowns” argument that they repeat endlessly.
Worst case, property taxes increase to help with local infrastructure.
You dismiss the "strongtowns" argument as if there is some consensus that it has been debunked, but I don't think there is such a consensus, so you'd need to support that claim.
Further, the worst case is not that property taxes increase, it is that other people, usually less fortunate, end up subsidizing them further through federal, state, and county funds, rather than their own local taxes.
The rich inner suburbs full of busybody jerks are unfortunately rich enough to almost certainly be self sustaining if they want to be. No starving that beast.
Not everyone wants to live like that.
In densely populated areas of Europe we have apartments everywhere. It's not that bad, if the building was well-built you barely hear your neighbors.
> Walking groceries up multiple floors of stairs is great too.
With the average American BMI it's great indeed!
European homes are built to a higher standard than US homes and many are built from concrete and stone. US apartments are usually built using cheap particle board for floors that turn into bouncy, noisy trampolines over time and thin walls between units.
None of that deals with the many other disadvantages of apartment living.
Dense urban apartments should be available for those who want that lifestyle (primarily childless young people) but it's not a model that we should be pushing as the default for the general population. That would be a real step backwards.
Are you just pretending city kids don't exist?
In San Francisco there are now more dogs than children. Pretty much the only parents who stay are the wealthy who can afford large homes in safe neighborhoods regardless of price, and the poor who receive subsidized housing and have no where else to go. When the middle class has kids they move out to the East Bay suburbs, where they can afford a back yard and don't have to put up with junkies on their doorstep.
If that is all the zoning allowed then people just wouldn’t live there.
Most people in the US simply don’t want to live like that.
Consumer demand should dictate what kind of housing gets built, not naive central planners.
And yet all across America, zoning restrictions laid down by "naive central planners" eliminate options, suppressing options for consumer demand.
Do I think it will happen? Not quite.
It's sort of hilarious, but I think the libertarian answer here is the right one for California: remove zoning restrictions on housing to put as many people in the Bay Area as want to be there, and remove all the public subsidies and infrastructure spending in the central valley to force agriculture to pay true market rates for the scant water available.
Not so sure about unlimited building in cities as that has consequences similar to the unlimited agricultural policies mentioned. A better solution is to have general rules for development instead of the ad-hoc rules in many communities that slow down the process and allow for extended debate over every building project.
Of course, they aren't going to do that when they're getting water far below market price.
But people supposed to get food, all ~40mlns of Californians!
Ok, lets stop doing it in the Central Valley. Where Cali food would come from? Tracked 2000miles from Lakes region?
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/three-new-california-la...
https://maps.app.goo.gl/u8yEKYT8FpJogRJv9
One thing that's not entirely appreciated all the time is that it's not just the average level or amount of snow that's important, but also the uncertainty around it. In some ways this has become as problematic for me in recent years, not knowing exactly what to expect. I don't want to spend the time preparing gear and traveling to ski trails to find out the condition is poorer than they have indicated, or possibly damage expensive skis. So even if the snow cover is actually fine, if it's become unreliable, it has almost as much effect on my ski behavior.
As another example: it tends to be the beginning and end of the seasons that are affected the most so far. Scheduling events becomes a bit tricky: do events get scheduled at a certain point at the end of the season when, if things are good, there's tons of snow, or is that risky because it could have all melted early?
There's a lot of things like this that seem to get lost when the discussion is focused on abstract quantities like average temperature (not critiquing the article, just explaining my experience).
I used to feel bad that this was someplace effecting our area in particular, that we weren't far enough north or something, almost a sort of "cold climate imposter syndrome". Then one year people in ski forums in a totally different area of the world, where there should be plenty of snow, were having a winter with essentially none.
It's a real problem.
For touring, you basically need to relearn all the heuristics (especially with respect to the safety of the snow) you developed over the years. This is not comfortable.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...
The coastal commission citing socioeconomic concerns of water rate increases is especially strange, given that their mission has nothing to do with how much and who pays for water: https://www.coastal.ca.gov/whoweare.html
A much better option would have been to have the local water agencies have households opt into the water at a higher rate and not be subject to limits, e.g. up to 80% of the limit, pay $X, then 20% pay $1.5X and then pay $3X to subsidize those who cannot pay. We have progressive rate schedules on many things and they work well enough. If enough people opt in, the subsidy from those paying a lot more could even be used to reduce or eliminate costs for low income households.
Ultimately the only solution is to shift away from the water rights system and subsidized water prices, and instead institute a market system with dynamic pricing based on the actual supply. This may mean that California's farmers have to adopt more water efficient practices such as are already used in Israel, and reduce acreage devoted to water intensive crops such as alfalfa.
Humanity will never reach a steady state IMHO, even if the planet does.