[strider3700]

THe issue with relying on sea water to cool reactors is that means the reactors need to be near the sea. Fine in small countries but the energy loss in pushing power from california to the middle of the country would be insane. There is no way the current infrastructure would stand up to it.

I remember hearing that of the power we sold from up here in BC to california a few years back about 90% of it was lost during transmission.

[Birch]

I spent the winter on vancouver island, off British Columbia, Canada. It's naturally a temperate rainforest there. It does snow there normally, not a lot, but the interior mountain chain does get a lot of snow, and there are glaciers. It's a stunningly beautiful place.

Due to global warming, the glaciers are shrinking, and less snow is accumulating on the mountains. This is speeding up the run off of water into the ocean. This is leading to heavy drought and major forest fires. The same thing is happening all over british columbia, and I can imagine the west coast of the US as well.

As the forests burn, more carbon dioxide is released, and there are less trees to collect and slow down the flow of water, making the situation worse. Add to this clearcutting and retiree urban sprawl (suburbia style building around small cities/towns because the land is so expensive).


I lived in Courtenay in the Comox Valley, the fastest growing city in north america. Many people on the outskirts of town are still on septic tanks, and many are also still using well water. About 10 years back the municipality hooked up the majority of the houses to pumped water, from a lake up the interior. This has led to much increased water use, and hence, the failure of many septic tanks. This has led the city planners to believe that they must hook up all the houses to a sewage system, which is pumped pretty much untreated into the estuary (ocean). This estuary is a critical habitat for many migrant birds, including trumpeter swans, and also for seals. It's beautiful.

A friend of mine did not want to be hooked up to the sewage because it was going to cost her $15,000 CAN, and she owns a trailer home. She can't afford it. This is being forced on people there, and many are at risk of loosing their houses. It's a scam to steal land from longer term residents, to sell it to developers to grow the city as a retirement capital. Luckily my friend found a gov't grant to cover most of it, but the majority of people in this situation aren't so lucky. The city council is made completely up of newly arrived developers.

A local environmental NGO is running a pilot project on easy to hook up greywater recovery systems. Greywater is all the water that goes down your drains, except your toilet. That's blackwater. The system uses a stone and sand filter, then a living plant filter to breakdown anything in the water. Out comes clean water for washing or watering gardens. If it's further treated, or well monitered, you can drink the water. These systems work best in warmer climates to keep the plants active during the winter. But you can use a cold frame (mini greenhouse).

I talked to the city planner about this pilot project as part of a solution to the water problem of the city, and he refused to listen to the idea. Decentralization is not what they're interested in.

I believe that in order to best tackle our water problems we need to look at our area by watershed, which is the collection of streams, creeks and rivers which flow together, into a lake a sea or an ocean. Treated as a whole, we can better understand what's happening in our area. One city may have 3, 4, 5 or more watersheds. My city (Hamilton, ON) has 4. If we track what is upstream for each part of the watershed and see how it effects the system downstream, we can have a better understanding of how to keep the watershed healthy. Rehabilitating watersheds through pollution reduction, reducing the water pulled from the system, and replanting native species in the water itself (aquatic plants) and on the valley sides can do wonders to bring back a watershed. There has been an attempt to save the Hamilton harbour from being a dead body of water, by focussing on upstream inputs and naturalizing the living elements. Much progress is being made. It's also something very tangible that you can do, and many many many people will be interested in volunteering.

[strider3700]

a little off topic but yeah that is whats happening here. I'm in latzville and they are getting ready to push sewer and water everywhere because a developer is going to try and fit 700 homes into a space that was natural forest until he logged it. Under previous zoning the land would have held about 40 homes depending on the layout. Needless to say I'm rather pissed about the 300% increase in property taxes I'll be getting if it goes through. And yeah our entire council is realestate agents or developers

[Ludi]

Time to go ELF on their butt, strider.

[strider3700]

elf?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', 'e')lf?

[strider3700]

ahh. Well I may just take the profits from the housing bubble and run. If the bubble pops then the project probably doesn't go through anyways. No need for me to stay in a community that is pushing so hard to destroy it's self.

the ELF is a little too radical for my tastes

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Trindelm', 'I')t is not necessarily global warming as there is Global Weirding.
In Chicago this Winter there would be days when it was 65 F in January!
Then a few hours later after a monsoon, the temps would drop the monsoon would turn into a blizzard and the rain puddles would ice over. Only to repeat this cycle a week later. Of course things like this would have happened with or without global warming but it is happening under greater frequency.
The weather patterns have been disrupted thus these patterns are thrashing around, ou may be praying for rain one month, the next you are praying for it to stop.

[Newfie]

Yeah, its just weather.

That said, the trends suck.

Also, look at what is going on in Argentina right now, power grid buckling.

No electricity = no water

http://www.euronews.com/2013/12/29/arge ... l-during-/