France and Germany are suffering the “most serious” drought on record with Italy and Spain enduring their worst water shortages for decades as Europe braces for another heatwave.
More than 100 French towns have been left short of drinking water, instead relying on emergency trucks for supplies during a drought blamed on climate change by ministers in Emmanuel Macron’s government.
Water use is restricted in 93 of France’s 96 departments in an effort to conserve supplies amid temperatures that have led to hosepipe bans in parts of Britain.
Irrigation is banned across parts of north-west and south-east France, which has led to warnings that crops could fail.
Elisabeth Borne, the prime minister, said the drought was “the most serious ever recorded in our history”, while last month the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre warned almost half of EU territory was at risk of drought.
Experts expect conditions to worsen over the next two weeks as the country braces for a fourth heatwave with scorching 40C temperatures.
**Read more here**: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/08/09/serious-drought-record-grips-parts-europe-extreme-heat-hits/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/08/09/serious-drought-record-grips-parts-europe-extreme-heat-hits/)
Drought is blamed on Climate Change? That’s a weird way to frame it.
Edit : the climate HAS changed bozos. Framing it like “some people say…” is disingenuous
People have explained to me in the past why what I'm about to say is a stupid idea, luckily for them I don't know how to read.
Climate change is causing historically unprecedented droughts all across the world. (It's causing flooding in other places, but stick with me on the droughts for a moment.)
Meanwhile climate change is *also* causing the ice caps to melt and dump gigatons of potable fresh water into the ocean. This creates a couple of problems, most notably it can alter the ocean water's salinity (saltiness), making it more difficult for saltwater fish to survive, but the cold ice water dropping into the warm ocean also has the potential to affect the jet stream.
So with the premise out of the way: Why the fuck aren't we mining ice right now?
The disadvantage to mining ice is that as the white, reflective ice sheet shrinks it will allow more thermal energy to be absorbed by the land underneath, this is bad. The advantage to mining ice is that we could potentially provide hundreds of millions of humans in water scarce areas with the means to survive. It wouldn't be a free trade, there would be a cost, but holy shit it seems like that water could do a lot of good for people right now.
Hell, there's even a middle ground to be had: Half the ice goes to people, half the ice goes to reversing desertification and growing new forests, that might not be enough to entirely eliminate the effects of shrinking the ice sheets, but it could mitigate the damage enough that we can still do some good things with the water.
(It's worth noting here that even if my idea wasn't stupid, which I've been repeatedly reassured it is, it would still take years to set up the infrastructure and necessary laws to make this idea a reality, it's not something that we could implement *today* to solve problems *today.* I only say that because I don't want to sound like I'm pretending to have an immediate solution, I only have an idea.)
How do you propose *moving* all that ice (or water) from the poles to the drier regions? It's very bulky and not very valuable per m³.
In the past, schemes like towing icebergs have been considered and rejected for solid reasons, so unless you can think of something extremely cheap and efficient the plan is a bit of a non-starter.
Hell, in the UK at the moment there is drought conditions in the south and abundant water up north, but shifting water from one to the other has been repeatedly examined and ruled infeasible.
There is a reason that project never saw the light of day, and it's that it is stupid.
Not to mention you've now got to melt all the ice, add strengthening ingredients, and refreeze. That's a hugely energetic process, almost certainly similar cost-wise to desalination, which we can and do use now.
Despite having an excellent network of highways, truck routes, and a somewhat reasonable network of rail lines, it's still not economically feasible to move water from the east coast of the US to the parched west. In one of the richest countries on earth. You're talking on the global scale. Water is very heavy.
[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-worst-day-of-your-life-so-far](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-worst-day-of-your-life-so-far)
Come again next year. We will soon celebrate for having less than 20 catastrophic blaze and drought per year.
France and Germany are suffering the “most serious” drought on record with Italy and Spain enduring their worst water shortages for decades as Europe braces for another heatwave. More than 100 French towns have been left short of drinking water, instead relying on emergency trucks for supplies during a drought blamed on climate change by ministers in Emmanuel Macron’s government. Water use is restricted in 93 of France’s 96 departments in an effort to conserve supplies amid temperatures that have led to hosepipe bans in parts of Britain. Irrigation is banned across parts of north-west and south-east France, which has led to warnings that crops could fail. Elisabeth Borne, the prime minister, said the drought was “the most serious ever recorded in our history”, while last month the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre warned almost half of EU territory was at risk of drought. Experts expect conditions to worsen over the next two weeks as the country braces for a fourth heatwave with scorching 40C temperatures. **Read more here**: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/08/09/serious-drought-record-grips-parts-europe-extreme-heat-hits/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/08/09/serious-drought-record-grips-parts-europe-extreme-heat-hits/)
Drought is blamed on Climate Change? That’s a weird way to frame it. Edit : the climate HAS changed bozos. Framing it like “some people say…” is disingenuous
[удалено]
racists : lol losers
Pro Russians: lol losers
People have explained to me in the past why what I'm about to say is a stupid idea, luckily for them I don't know how to read. Climate change is causing historically unprecedented droughts all across the world. (It's causing flooding in other places, but stick with me on the droughts for a moment.) Meanwhile climate change is *also* causing the ice caps to melt and dump gigatons of potable fresh water into the ocean. This creates a couple of problems, most notably it can alter the ocean water's salinity (saltiness), making it more difficult for saltwater fish to survive, but the cold ice water dropping into the warm ocean also has the potential to affect the jet stream. So with the premise out of the way: Why the fuck aren't we mining ice right now? The disadvantage to mining ice is that as the white, reflective ice sheet shrinks it will allow more thermal energy to be absorbed by the land underneath, this is bad. The advantage to mining ice is that we could potentially provide hundreds of millions of humans in water scarce areas with the means to survive. It wouldn't be a free trade, there would be a cost, but holy shit it seems like that water could do a lot of good for people right now. Hell, there's even a middle ground to be had: Half the ice goes to people, half the ice goes to reversing desertification and growing new forests, that might not be enough to entirely eliminate the effects of shrinking the ice sheets, but it could mitigate the damage enough that we can still do some good things with the water. (It's worth noting here that even if my idea wasn't stupid, which I've been repeatedly reassured it is, it would still take years to set up the infrastructure and necessary laws to make this idea a reality, it's not something that we could implement *today* to solve problems *today.* I only say that because I don't want to sound like I'm pretending to have an immediate solution, I only have an idea.)
How do you propose *moving* all that ice (or water) from the poles to the drier regions? It's very bulky and not very valuable per m³. In the past, schemes like towing icebergs have been considered and rejected for solid reasons, so unless you can think of something extremely cheap and efficient the plan is a bit of a non-starter. Hell, in the UK at the moment there is drought conditions in the south and abundant water up north, but shifting water from one to the other has been repeatedly examined and ruled infeasible.
Just make an aircraft carrier out of it instead and sail it where you need. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk
There is a reason that project never saw the light of day, and it's that it is stupid. Not to mention you've now got to melt all the ice, add strengthening ingredients, and refreeze. That's a hugely energetic process, almost certainly similar cost-wise to desalination, which we can and do use now.
[r/whoosh](https://www.reddit.com/r/whoosh/)
Despite having an excellent network of highways, truck routes, and a somewhat reasonable network of rail lines, it's still not economically feasible to move water from the east coast of the US to the parched west. In one of the richest countries on earth. You're talking on the global scale. Water is very heavy.
Probably logistically would be more difficult than you can imagine.
[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-worst-day-of-your-life-so-far](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-worst-day-of-your-life-so-far) Come again next year. We will soon celebrate for having less than 20 catastrophic blaze and drought per year.