Climate Change

**Sirious** · 2021-06-09 21:55

I'm not really sure why I'm surprised coming from the same set of idiots inquiring about injecting bleach but I thought this shit was a joke when I heard it.

“I understand from what’s been testified to, the Forest Service and the [Bureau of Land Management], you want very much to work on the issue of climate change. I was informed by the past director of NASA that they’ve found the moon’s orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth’s orbit around the sun. We know there’s been significant solar flare activity, and so — is there anything that the National Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit, or the Earth’s orbit around the sun?” Gohmert inquired. “Obviously that would have profound effects on our climate.”

**Cail** · 2021-06-15 02:14

https://www.washingtonpost.com/clima...ean-water-act/

The Biden administration is set to toss out President Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back the number of streams, marshes and other wetlands that fall under federal protection, kicking off a legal and regulatory scuffle over the fate of wetlands and waterways around the country, from the arid West to the swampy South. 

Michael Regan, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said his team determined that the Trump administration’s rollback is “leading to significant environmental degradation.” The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers will craft a new set of protections for waterways that provide habitats for wildlife and safe drinking water for millions of Americans, according to a joint statement.

**Cail** · 2021-06-15 02:16

https://www.washingtonpost.com/clima...roadless-rule/

The Biden administration said Friday that it would “repeal or replace” a rule allowing roads and other types of development in more than half of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, reviving 20-year-old protections President Donald Trump had stripped three months before leaving office. 

The move was outlined in the administration’s new regulatory agenda. The notice from the White House said the change was consistent with President Biden’s Jan. 27 executive order “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis.” The Agriculture Department expects to publish the proposed rule in August, the notice said.

In an email, USDA communications director Matt Herrick said the department “recognizes the Trump administration’s decision on the Alaska roadless rule was controversial and did not align with the overwhelming majority of public opinion across the country and among Alaskans.” 

“The majority of comments recognized the important role of the Tongass National Forest and roadless areas protections to tourism, fishing, recreation, indigenous cultures and the uniqueness of the temperate rainforest,” he said. “We recognize the vital role the Forest and its inventoried roadless areas play in communities, and in the economy and culture of Southeast Alaska, as well as for climate resilience.”

**6souls** · 2021-06-29 00:58

Exxon has been building offshore wind farms for awhile, but an offhand comment in the following video reveals why, they're using the wind power to power their oil refineries to appear carbon neutral.

**6souls** · 2021-07-06 21:51

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/0...nd-clean-water

Des Monies, IA water supply is some of the most toxic in the country. (tl:dr fertilizer nitrate runoff from farms goes directly into the area's water supply)

Water Works for years has tried to force or cajole farmers upstream to reduce the runoff of fertilizer that leaves the rivers with sky-high nitrate levels, but lawsuits and legislative lobbying have failed. Now, it's considering a drastic measure that, as a rule, large cities just don't do — drilling wells to find clean water.

Small communities and individuals use wells, but large U.S. metro areas have always relied primarily on rivers and lakes for the large volumes of water needed. Surface sources provide about 70 percent of fresh water in the U.S., as a reliance on wells for big populations would otherwise quickly deplete aquifers.

However, the utility in Des Moines is planning to spend up to $30 million to drill wells to mix in pure water when the rivers have especially high nitrate levels from farm runoff, most likely in the summer.

Des Moines has become an extreme example of the conflict over clean water between agriculture and cities in farm states with minimal regulation.

Iowa is a national leader in producing corn, soybeans, eggs and pork, and all that agricultural bounty results in enormous amounts of chemical fertilizer and animal waste pouring into waterways. The state's 23 million pigs produce waste that would be the equivalent of 83 million people — more than 25 times the state’s human population, according to University of Iowa research engineer Chris Jones.

Most of that manure is spread over Iowa’s 26 million acres of cropland, along with chemical fertilizers.

The natural and chemical fertilizers have helped Iowa increase its corn and soybean production by roughly 50 percent over the past 30 years, but much of it ends up in Iowa’s waterways, especially in areas of north-central Iowa that drain into the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers. That’s because the area’s farmland is relatively flat and relies on drainage systems called tiles that don’t allow excess fertilizer to filter through the soil but instead quickly pour it into streams, leading to high levels of nitrate and phosphorus.

Nitrates can cause so-called blue baby syndrome in which infants lose the ability to properly process oxygen into the bloodstream, giving their skin a bluish tint.

Sounds like Iowa will soon be the nations leader in producing Mystiques & Nightcrawlers.

**6souls** · 2021-07-08 10:28

https://twitter.com/NWSTwinCities/st...38653124075533

**Jaybar** · 2021-07-08 12:48

What the fuck is wrong with Kenosha, just pump the lake you dinguses.

**6souls** · 2021-07-11 10:36

British Columbia reached temps as high as 129°F during the recent Northwest heatwave. It has been determined that the heatwave would not have been possible without man-made climate change.

**Dimmauk** · 2021-07-11 11:22

Originally Posted by 6souls

https://twitter.com/NWSTwinCities/st...38653124075533

Meanwhile, here in San Antonio we have had so much rain that we are almost at the yearly rainfall in July. We have also had less 100 degree days than Seattle. Its like we swapped climates.

**Byrthnoth** · 2021-07-11 13:55

RIP sushi as a concept

**Guyverarmor** · 2021-07-12 10:33

Originally Posted by Dimmauk

Meanwhile, here in San Antonio we have had so much rain that we are almost at the yearly rainfall in July. We have also had less 100 degree days than Seattle. Its like we swapped climates.

That Snow Armageddon we had threw everything here in TX for a fucking loop.

So much more humidity than usual as well!

**6souls** · 2021-07-13 13:27

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1414993306237476869?s=20

**6souls** · 2021-07-13 18:05

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1415083397236641800?s=20

**synistar** · 2021-07-14 16:52

So many threads I could post this in but I guess this will do.

Farmers Insurance is covering my dad's house with a free "Wildfire Defense Insurance System" - p much private firefighting service. I think California being on fire so often, the US forest service unable to fill all its firefighting positions, and how many fires damaged/destroyed houses these past years got the insurance people go all out on structure protection.

But the house isn't in a wildfire prone zone so unless a bunch of rich neighborhoods burn first, well at that point there are a lot bigger problems to worry about.

**Outlaw** · 2021-07-16 00:33

In the coming decades, higher tides coupled with sea-level rise will cause U.S. coastlines to experience a “dramatic” uptick in flooding, a new NASA study finds.

By the mid-2030s, scientists project that there could be a “rapid” increase in the frequency of high-tide flooding in several parts of the country, according to the report published last month in the Nature Climate Change journal by the NASA Sea Level Change Team at the University of Hawaii.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/scien...0s-nasa-warns/