this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
1714 points (98.5% liked)

World News

39019 readers
2198 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Mild in Montreal, maybe, but check out the Canadian Drought Monitor as the rest of Canada is in drought. Like, the entire rest of Canada. https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/agricultural-production/weather/canadian-drought-monitor/current-drought-conditions

Over here in the west it's never been so dry. Pastures are brown, hay and crops aren't just stunted but are dying before maturity. Trees are yellowing and dropping leaves. Plague of grasshoppers eating everything that was still green. Every day is hot and the air is full of smoke, it feels like the end of the world over here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That isn't "just" climate change though, it's also urbanisation and the way you guys over there use ground water. It's a combination of a lot of things, climate change is only one puzzle piece in the whole scheme of things.

Also, the drought thing is easily combatable with desalination, which has a few other benefits. The main caveat is, it's expensive. But, it's a lot cheaper than having to deal with various other things due to the droughts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Guessing you've never been to Western Canada. We only have a couple major cities, and we don't use that much groundwater both as it tends to be saline and because we have plenty of surface water to use due to snowmelt runoff. Also we don't have anything to desalinate, unless we're talking about that low-quality groundwater, which is a very expensive proposition as you say to get any significant volume.

We're not concerned about water for drinking, city usage etc. Most cities are on major rivers that are running near normally. Hydro dams have tons of storage to run until next winter's snow. On my farm I have dugouts that capture runoff, they are full. I have shallow wells on GUDI aquifers where the water is near the top of the casing! I'm irrigating my garden and my orchard like mad out of my yard dugout and that usage isn't even noticeable compared to evaporation losses.

We're concerned that our crops are dying, our livestock are starving (sold mine already) and almost none of our land is irrigated. In BC the trees are dying and burning for lack of rain and there is no way to irrigate them of course. This part of the country has long relied on a steady cycle of June and July thunderstorms for moisture - but the thunderstorms have dried up.

It just won't rain, that's all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No, I have never been to Western Canada (it's very high on my bucket list, though) and I was broadly talking about North America. Sorry for the generalization. This year being also an El Nino year may have contributed...while some people will say otherwise, Europe has been uncharacteristically moist. We got a lot of places that already have reached 90% of their yearly average precipitation...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah for sure. I knew my region was kind of a standout, but that map is even more damning than I thought, thanks for the link. If I'm reading the article correctly, the issues started long before the summer, the spring was really dry. At least the atlantic got some pretty heavy rain in June, though I'd be curious to see the july report when it comes out