#i'm built for drought not floods

[dykephan]

today was too overwhelming why did i just tear up thinking about how if dan and phil were born as little tiny mice they would squeak and scurry around and such

[homo-house]

hey uh so I haven't seen anyone talking about this here yet, but

the amazon river, like the biggest river in the fucking world, in the middle of the amazon fucking rainforest, is currently going through its worst drought since the records began 121 years ago

picture from Folha PE

there's a lot going on but I haven't seen much international buzz around this like there was when the forest was on fire (maybe because it's harder to shift the narrative to blame brazil exclusively as if the rest of the world didn't have fault in this) so I wanted to bring this to tumblr's attention

I don't know too many details as I live in the other side of the country and we are suffering from the exact opposite (at least three cyclones this year, honestly have stopped counting - it's unusual for us to get hit by even one - floods, landslides, we have a death toll, people are losing everything to the water), but like, I as a brazilian have literally never seen pictures of the river like this before. every single city in the amazonas state is in a state of emergency as of november 1st.

pictures by Adriano Liziero (ig: geopanoramas)

we are used to seeing images of rio negro and solimões, the two main amazon river affluents, in all their grandiose and beauty and seeing these pictures is really fucking chilling. some of our news outlets are saying the solimões has turned to a sand desert... can you imagine this watery sight turning into a desert in the span of a year?

while down south we are seeing amounts of rain and hailstorms the likes of which our infrastructure is simply not built to deal with, up north people who have built everything around the river are at a loss of what to do.

the houses there that are built to float are just on the ground, people who depend on fishing for a living have to walk kilometers to find any fish that are still alive at all, the biodiversity there is at risk, and on an economic level it's hard to grasp how people from the northern states are getting by at all - the main means of transport for ANYTHING in that region is via the river water. this will impact the region for months to come. it doesnt make a lot of sense to build a lot of roads bc it's just better to use the waterway system, everything is built around or floats on the river after all. and like, the water level is so incomprehensibly low the boats are just STUCK. people are having a hard time getting from one place to another - keep in mind the widest parts of the river are over 10 km apart!!

this shit is really serious and i am trying not to think about it because we have a different kind of problem to worry about down south but it's really terrifying when I stop to think about it. you already know the climate crisis is real and the effects are beyond preventable now (we're past global warming, get used to calling it "global boiling"). we'll be switching strategies to damage control from now on and like, this is what it's come to.

I don't like to be alarmist but it's hard not to be alarmed. I'm sorry that I can't end this post with very clear intructions on how people overseas can help, there really isn't much to do except hope the water level rises soon, maybe pray if you believe in something. in that regard we just have to keep pressing for change at a global level; local conditions only would not, COULD NOT be causing this - the amazon river is a CONTINENTAL body of water, it spans across multiple countries. so my advice is spread the word, let your representatives know that you're worried and you want change towards sustainability, degrowth and reduced carbon emissions, support your local NGOs, maybe join a cause, I don't know? I recommend reading on ecological and feminist economics though

however, I know you can help the affected riverine families by donating to organizations dedicated to helping the region. keep in mind a single US dollar, pound or euro is worth over 5x more in our currency so anything you donate at all will certainly help those affected.

FAS - Sustainable Amazon Fundation

Idesam - Sustainable Developent and Preservation Institute of Amazonas

Greenpeace Brasil - I know Greenpeace isn't the best but they're one of the few options I can think of that have a bridge to the international world and they are helping directly

There are a lot of other smaller/local NGOs but I'm not sure how you could donate to them from overseas, I'll leave some of them here anyway:

Projeto Gari

Caritás Brasileira

If you know any other organizations please link them, I'll be sure to reblog though my reach isn't a lot

thank you so much for reading this to the end, don't feel obligated to share but please do if you can! even if you just read up to here it means a lot to me that someone out there knows

also as an afterthought, I wanted to expand on why I think this hasn't made big news yet: because unlike the case of the 2020 forest fires, other countries have to hold themselves accountable when looking at this situation. while in 2020 it was easier to pretend the fires were all our fault and people were talking about taking the amazon away from us like they wouldn't do much worse. global superpowers have no more forests to speak of so I guess they've been eyeing what latin america still has. so like this bit of the post is just to say if you're thinking of saying anything of the sort, maybe think of what your own country has done to contribute to this instead of blaming brazil exclusively and saying the amazon should be protected by force or whatever

[elbiotipo]

in the face of things like the floods in Brazil, how do you have ANY hope that the biosphere won’t be completely and utterly destroyed? I’m at my wit’s end. It seems like we’ve passed the point of no return. There isn’t any hope

how do you keep motivated

The biosphere won't ever be completely and utterly destroyed. Unless an asteroid impact boils the oceans away, that's just hyperbole.

And the FIRST thing you need to stop doing about climate change right now is hyperbole, because 1) that's the new strategy of "let's keep things as they are" people, "climate change is irreversible and we're all doomed so why do anything" and 2) it makes people to think you don't know what you're talking about and you're just a pointless doomer so they don't even listen. I'm a biologist, but you also should know what biosphere is, you know our biosphere has passed through several mass extinctions and has survived. Use the right terms.

What do I mean by this, am I being a condescending pedant? No, well maybe a little and I apologize, but my point is, it means that to talk about climate change, you need to know what's at risk. It's not "the Earth will warm 2°C and EVERYTHING WILL DIE", it's NOT. Global warming in such a short timescale means the disruption of global climate and weather in unpredictable ways which leads to natural catastrophes such as these. It means the disruption of ecosystems and agroecosystems because of this, in ways that we don't fully understand because it involves many factors. At the very worst case scenario, it means crop failures with all that implies, and we've already seen this with droughts, but even then, it would require adaptation and food distribution, just as today. There is a lot more to climate change, but what's important here is that it doesn't mean that we will all catch fire or drown when the average temperature reaches a certain degree. There is not such thing as a "point of no return".

What can we do about this? First of all, assist those who are inmediatly affected by these natural disasters. Second of all, recognize that these things will increase and start building up measures against it; change land use and preserve forests and wetlands so that floods have natural sinks, build defenses and canals in cities, reforest and protect land affected by drought, every place will have to adapt in a different way. Third, and this is already happening, transition away from fossils and aim at decarbonization, not only stop emissions but actually reverse them.

I say this is already happening because as of right now, solar and wind energy is at its cheapest ever and coal plants aren't being built nearly anywhere anymore. This transition is going through very rough times as the fossil fuel industries are very powerful, and this is why governments need to be pressured by popular action to complete it once and for all. But the results are already there. The worst case scenario of a 4°C warming planet, which would have meant crop failures and total melting of the ice caps, is increasingly far away, we are NO longer in the business as usual scenario. Are we there yet? No. Is a warming over 1.5°C inevitable? Most probably yes. Will this cause disasters and will require a tremendous effort to fight back? Definitevely. But every effort counts. Every coal plant that closes, every hectare of forest preserved, every time people choose nature over profit, every effort counts towards keeping us away from catastrophe.

Do you efffort then! Go get educated instead of dooming, learn what a biosphere is! And a biosphere isn't a small thing, you won't save it alone. It will take the efforts of millions of people to protect it. Millions of people who are already hard at work. Educate yourself and join them!

[rjzimmerman]

The agency that carries out this "program" is called the Wildlife Services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I hate this agency with all the passion I can generate, and have ever since I learned about it and what it does 15 years ago. It exists to murder wildlife, particularly to benefit farmers and ranchers. Long ago, someone put handle on the agency, calling it the "gopher chokers." The name fits. I have done more than a fair amount of yelling to my dead representatives in Congress and senators to dismantle the agency or change its purpose and mission.

My favorite statistic. I don't remember the year, but let's just say 2014. In that year, Wildlife Services killed about 350,000 red-winged blackbirds. Why? They were eating sunflower seeds in sunflower farms. You'd think that a sunflower farmer should be taking that risk rather than causing us taxpayers to make his profit for him, right?

Other stats. We're starting to believe that beavers need to be returned to the wild to help us with floods and drought resistance. Wildlife Services killed 24,603 beavers in 2023. Other stats for death: 525 cardinals; 68,562 coyotes; 430 black bears; 17,109 mourning doves; 6,952 cattle egrets; 1,292 red foxes; 24,744 Canadian geese (even though they are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act); 1,209 jackrabbits (four species of them); 1,981 possum; 905 robins. I could go on, but I'm going to puke. Here's the link to the chart.

Sorry about the length of this post, but it takes a while to describe pure evil.

Excerpt from this story from NPR:

The United States Department of Agriculture's [USDA’s] Wildlife Services program is a holdover from the 1930s, when Congress gave the federal government broad authority to kill wildlife at the request of private landowners. In that era, government-sponsored extermination programs for native wild animals, like wolves and grizzly bears, were common.

After the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, federal agencies were required to change course and start helping some of those wild animal populations recover. But today, Wildlife Services employees still kill hundreds of thousands of noninvasive animals a year, data from the agency shows. Even species considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, like grizzly bears, are not exempt. So long as livestock or human life are threatened, federal rules allow Wildlife Services to kill those animals, too.

Conservationist groups have long protested the program, saying the government is killing animals at the request of private livestock owners without first presenting enough evidence to show that the management methods aren’t harming the environment, as federal law requires.

“One of the biggest issues that comes up with Wildlife Services, and where we've beaten them in court multiple times in multiple states, is the controversy of the science,” said Lizzy Pennock, an attorney for the nonprofit WildEarth Guardians. “We need to get out of the framework of the 1800s and 1900s where it's like, kill any carnivores that might be inconvenient.”

Wildlife Services officials say that with the exception of invasive species, employees only kill wild animals that attack livestock or cause damage. But data obtained by NPR indicates the program often kills native wildlife that didn’t kill or injure livestock.

NPR obtained and digitized thousands of Wildlife Services work orders from Montana, created from 2019 through 2022, and built a database that shows that the program’s employees frequently kill native wild animals without evidence of livestock loss. The documents reveal that during those three years, employees killed approximately 11,000 wild animals on Montana properties where no wildlife was recorded as responsible for killing or injuring any livestock. In those cases, only a "threat" from those wild animals was logged in the records.

The agency frequently used helicopters and planes to shoot large numbers of wild animals at a time, the documents show, a method activists consider cruel and scientists say can lead to local eradications.

Although some livestock organizations financially support part of Wildlife Services' work, individual livestock owners do not pay a fee when federal employees come to their properties. Employees are allowed to kill wild animals on those private areas as well as on public land, like state forests and parks.

“That’s a bloodbath,” said Collette Adkins, a lawyer who leads the Carnivore Conservation program at the Center for Biological Diversity. “That just seems like yahoos with rifles killing everything they see that moves. It’s horrible to imagine the amount of suffering involved there.”

“Of all wildlife encountered in FY 2023, Wildlife Services lethally removed 5.14%, or approximately 1.45 million, from areas where damage was occurring. Invasive species accounted for 74.2% (1,079,279) of the wildlife lethally removed,” a representative wrote.

An NPR analysis of those reports shows that Wildlife Services killed more than 370,000 noninvasive animals across the country in the 2023 fiscal year. And over the past nine years, Wildlife Services killed 30 threatened grizzly bears and at least 1,500 gray wolves in states where they were otherwise supposed to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act, like in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

But the reports don’t reveal the names of the livestock owners that use Wildlife Services. That’s to protect the privacy of people in the agriculture industry, the agency has said. Wildlife Services also doesn’t disclose in those reports how many wild animals were killed by federal employees on public land.

[skeletoninthemelonland]

hey starbs,

as a person who struggles with chronic depression and severe anxiety, I cannot imagine the extra stress of everything you go through. I honestly feel terrible for what's going on. I get what it's like for things to feel very stressful and not having your time occupied can send these anxious thoughts.

Is el nino to blame for the floods? I've heard that natural weather phenomon can cause terrible storms.

I dont trust the random news sources, is there a website or somewhere I can go to just see what is going on, i want to be able to, not understand but just.. you have so much going on starbs' i'm so so sorry, I don't have funds to donate or anything but i will spread awareness the best I can.

my whole family now knows about the flooding People spreading the news who may be abe to donate.

stay safe the best you can and blessing to you and everyone you love.

please do not apologize, and thank you very much for taking some time to write me this, for helping spread awareness, and i appreciate the fact you shared the news with your family and maybe even did some research on the topic. i truly hope for things to get better soon.

i have no place in complaining about the situation, because i'm still safe, with my house intact.

here are some good news: i saw HUNDREDS OF MANY (like. mountains of it) sacks with food and supplies in them for people in the public shelters earlier today on tv!

now from what i see, some websites are not updated or might spread misinformation (i heard they blamed the people for building their houses near the rivers. istg)

about the floods, i do believe there were many different reasons behind it, that added up, resulted in this disaster.

[BEFORE ANYTHING. i don't consider this post or my own words a reliable source of information. not even the people who live here know what is currently going on, or what's gonna happen next. i'm sharing what i've been told, and have reasons to believe it's the truth]

the main reason is, as you may know, global warming, which is very self-explanatory. el niño (rain) has already happened, and el niña (drought) was supposed to take its place.

the second reason is because of negligence from the state's government. from what i remember, there were systems to drain the water in Porto Alegre that were left without maintenance and only now they're being activated.

it's absolutely not the fault of the people who built their houses there. just so you have a vision of it: Rio Grande's city hall building is located in a point were the water has easily reached it within a few hours. like ??? oh so they did not saw that coming ?? are they that dumb?? it's literally a seaport city...

the third reason is more environmental. the most affected city (Guaíba) is found inside a drainage basin (meaning that the rivers flow to the lowest area and meet in certain points, causing them to overflow altogether when it rains too much).

[everythingismadeofchaos]

You know I'm generally against constructing more elaborate industrial systems and infrastructure, except that we're going to need it because population is going up so much, but if we built a national grid of potable water pipeline, we would never have a drought again. Whenever one place is in a drought another place is experiencing flooding and we could compensate for all of this. No it's not as good as just not building in flooding areas and not ruining the ecology of other areas with agriculture and stuff, but it would definitely help us manage the situation, which we're kind of stuck with at this point.

Plus this would prevent exploitation by moneyed interests like factory agriculture from monopolizing the local water supply. Also (I've been ruminating about this for a long time) maybe we could couple this with some kind of national advertising campaign to shift public opinion on bottled water and get people to stop using single-use plastics all the damn time for stuff that comes out of the tap for a nickel per 100 gallons. If everybody had their own stainless water bottle and used it all the time and there were little cleaning stations everywhere where you could clean them out conveniently, would this be good? I'm not sure on balance; I don't know how to do that math.

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

 It would sound fun if my world was full of man made lakes so that pretty much all the roads are actually waterways. However I'm wondering where all the water and ground is from and how they create all that? Basically I just want to see the world full of boats instead of cars getting from place to place. I don't mean like single tiny cities like Venice that only works because it's on a lagoon but across the entire world basically. Large busy cities everywhere where the main transportation are boats.

Tex: How big are your lakes? Can anything get bigger than that? We have oodles of lakes on earth, but also significantly larger seas and oceans due to plate tectonics. Is it important to you that the only bodies of waters are lakes across the entirety of the planet, or will a continent or two suffice for the purposes of your worldbuilding? It’s certainly feasible to have your major transportation be via boats, but they will also be heavily dependent upon a consistent amount of water in their area, which will vary based on season and periodic droughts and floods.

Utuabzu: Historically, canals are pretty common. A lot more so than many assume. Prior to the widespread adoption of the steam locomotive and railroads, the most efficient way to transport goods and people in bulk was by water, which is why older cities in Europe and many other places are often criss-crossed by canals, or once were. Even early industrial cities like Birmingham were heavily reliant on canals for bulk transport.

These canals weren’t just intra-city affairs either. The 17th Century Canal du Midi forms a complex with some other waterways that allows boat traffic across France from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, while the Grand Canal in China is a system stretching over 1700km, with the oldest segments built in the 5th Century BCE, and the system considered to have been completed in 609CE. It is still in use as a major piece of transportation infrastructure.

Canals often also served multiple purposes, such as the canals of Bangkok which also served to drain the swampy marshland the city was built on and irrigate farmland, or the Sanitary and Ship Canal in Chicago, which reversed the flow of the lower Chicago River so that it flowed into the Mississippi river system rather than Lake Michigan, allowing shipping to pass directly between the Mississippi river system and the Great Lakes, and diverting the city’s sewerage away from the lake, where it sourced its drinking water.

Prior to the mid-late 19th Century, most urban areas with suitable geography would fill your needs. The major obstacle is going to be that canals just aren’t very practical in hilly or mountainous terrain, or in desert environments with low precipitation and high evaporation. Both can be worked around - uneven terrain can be traversed with the use of locks, and deserts with either sufficiently high water inflow or by roofing the canal over or building it more like a qanat - but there does need to be a good reason for people to bother doing so. At a certain point it becomes much more cost/effort effective to simply walk.

So, unless your world is fairly flat and pretty damp - or the parts of it relevant to your story at least - there’s going to be places where canals don’t really make sense as transportation infrastructure. But hey, now you’ve got an obstacle you can throw at your characters, so it’s not all bad.

Addy: Is the world heavily aquatic and close to sea level? If not, what advantage is there to using boats? Canals are very expensive to build and offer few benefits for everyday travel (trade is a different story, just look at the Erie Canal). I understand that you’re going for an aesthetic, and you can absolutely do that, but what’s the equivalent of a bus? And boats are fairly slow, being real. Cars also aren’t mandatory, either - plenty of cities are walkable.

Just something to think about.

[msbarrows]

Have spent the last few days diving back into playing the early access version of Timberborn. I played the same map twice, once with the default Folktails beavers, and a second time with the unlockable Iron Teeth beavers, whom I'd already unlocked the last time I was playing this game a lot.

The first playthrough was mostly re-learning how to play, as it's been a while (almost a year) since I last opened the game, and I barely played it that time.

There was the usual working through the tutorial to build the minimum stuff you need to survive and start building, and then I built. A lot. A lot a lot. My usual goal when playing a map is to get as much of it as I can green (watered) , and in this case I also wanted to build all-or-most of the items in the technology tree. At least of the non-decorative objects.

There's a lot of water management, in order to get water to places that it currently isn't (including getting it somewhere uphill). Complicated by the most recent addition to the game, badwater, which is full of toxic contamination (needed to produce explosives). There were two rivers on this map, starting in opposite corners. One of good water that runs down a large mountain and then across to the far side of the map, the main river my settlement is sited on. And then on top of a smaller mountain there's two badwater sources fuelling a river that runs along the side of the map, in the opposite direction of flow as the main river, and then floods a big chunk of one corner of the map before draining away. Also, for added entertainment, there's intermittent droughts, plus "badtides" where the main river briefly turns into badwater too. And you really don't want toxic sludge running through your city, poisoning your citizens and killing their crops! Thankfully you can build levees, dams, and floodgates to control the flow.

The Iron Teeth playthrough was interesting, as they have an almost entirely different technology tree than the Folktails, right down to having different crops (carrots vs kohlrabi, as the starter point). And it's not just a one-to-one re-skinning of buildings; they often have different buildings, and even things that are similar largely have entirely different meshes or level of function. Iron Teeth pumps can pump up higher distances by default, for example. Folktails can build windmills in addition to using water- or beaver-power. Iron Teeth have hydroponic gardens to grow mushrooms and algae. They ferment a lot of their foods before eating them, or process them into rations, while the Folktails prefer grilling, grinding, and baking. Folktails have aquatic farms that can plant cattails and spadderdock in the water; Iron Teeth use foresters to plan mangroves. But they can't plant maple trees and harvest maple syrup from them, as Folktails can.

One thing I like a lot about the game is that there's a lot of structures that count as "solid" and can be stacked. Like housing and warehouses, though "piles" aren't stackable for Folktails, but are covered, stackable structures for Iron Teeth. I basically built a big stack of housing and storage in a central area for my Iron Teeth; it's a nice solution to dealing with limited map space.

As a fan of city-building games where your only potential conflict is versus the environment, I highly recommend this one. It was already enjoyable when I first purchased early access a couple years ago, and it's definitely gotten better since. I'm probably going to go wild with it for a week or three once it officially releases.

[moondonky]

Anonymous

Slow down, that was the cry that was the protest, grass roots, that was occupy, that was truth, that was blackblock, anti what was happening, for speech for privacy for currency, a cry for things to be more decentralized, less predatory.. more protection from the cooperate world, consumer saftey, they got attacked by hive mentality, what anonymous tried to warn everyone is that u can't trust technology, u can't trust the internet, it's vulnerable, it can be controlled to easily, nothing secure about it.. just asking for trouble.. that's like the story of Noah, there's always a flood coming, eventually there's gonna be a disease, or a virus, or a drought, or a weapon of war, there's always something coming, trust in yourselves.. weather the flood came or not,, Noah built a peace of mind.. everyone else laughed, and they called him crazy, they isolated him, but what where they doing,, sinning,, while he was busy building.. perhaps why Noah survived..

Lol effin millenial.. why not, just a mix of time.. with alot of distractions floating around to surface, what's wild is I've been thinking about what's happening now for the last 15 years.. I'm not afraid of it.. I did not knee to it, still free uncomfortable and smiling, still me.. still moon walking lol

[matgb]

There's a growing defense to reintroduce them in England at the moment and it's doing marvellous things…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-61826745

Tumblr app is jumping text around so I'm just gonna hit post. Beavers are cool

[allisonreader]

Because I'm trying to halt the urge to post my not quite 500 words beginning of my story for the Inklings Challenge this year, at least not until I have a bit more finished. I'm posting the figuring that has helped me get to the point I am at. While letting me procrastinate on actually writing it at the moment. (Though I still might end up posting the first part before the rest is written...)

🌺💐🌻🌼🌷🌹🪻

This was what I came up with the first year of the challenge.

Technology: Stories exploring how a particular technological advance could affect people right here on current or future Earth

*Some one has come up with a device to control weather and it’s become a political bargaining tool which has lead to some serious problems

People have always joked about how great it would be if we could send weather where we want it to be. We could eliminate flooding and droughts. Or at least that’s what we thought would happen. There’s that little issue of bureaucratic red tape that causes more problems than helps.

Welcome to your new world. A world where weather can be controlled. A world where natural disasters due to storms can be eliminated. One where flooding and droughts are of a bygone era. All is possible with the Vector Climate Control System (V.C.C.S.). The system consists of 63 towers set in seven circuits of nine across the world. Making it possible to move weather from one side of the world to the other when needed. If one place is getting too much rain and another not enough, the rain can be pushed to where it’s needed inside its circuit zone.

🌺💐🌻🌼🌷🌹🪻

And this is all for this year. Minus a part that I had previously posted. But that wasn't solely focused on this story.

Weather control system that failed. Why is a group traveling to one of the control towers? Who is in this group? Why is it important to them?

Weather station that should have been shut down, randomly is having issues.

Many years ago, before I was born, before my parents were even born, there was a world wide collective project that was supposed to change everything. It was supposed to stop global warming and give greater stability to people world wide. On each of the seven continents were built nine tall towers. Within each of these towers was the technology to supposedly change the weather.

Jake the red haired, freckle faced, tinkerer who journeys to one of the control towers when the weather starts to act funny. (Has girlfriend?wife?fiancé? Delilah? who comes with him.) No giants in this story, just giant towers and odd weather phenomenon.

Starts with just Jake and wife, pick up others along the way who have different skills but have also noticed something wrong with the weather.

Hey there Delilah joke?

[marielle-eva-art]

Connection to Site & Collection of Water

Lake Samsonvale is a reservoir that supplies water to Brisbane and its surroundings, but it also offers recreational activities such as fishing, boating, and picnicking. I appreciate the balance between nature and human needs that the lake represents.

The lake was a lively place, with various forms of life interacting with each other. A fisherman stood on the shore, casting his line into the water and hoping for a catch. A pelican perched nearby, eyeing the fisherman's bucket and waiting for an opportunity to snatch a fish. The water was rich in nutrients, which supported the growth of algae in the shallow areas. The algae formed a green layer on the water's surface, obscuring the view of the bottom. This made it slightly difficult to collect some clear water samples, so I looked for a spot where the algae was less dense and scooped up some water with a bottle.

One of the things that I like to think about when I'm at the lake is how it was formed. The lake was created in 1976 by damming the North Pine River, which flows from the D'Aguilar Range. The dam was built to prevent flooding and to provide water security for the growing population of Brisbane. The construction of the dam had a significant impact on the environment and the people who lived in the area. Many farms, homes, and historical sites were submerged or relocated, and some wildlife habitats were lost or altered. The lake also changed the flow and quality of the river downstream, affecting the ecosystems and communities that depend on it.

How did the people who were affected by the dam feel about losing their land and their history? How did they adapt to the new situation, and what challenges did they face? I question how they view the lake today, whether they see it as a source of benefit or a reminder of loss. How they balance their needs and values with those of others who use the lake for different purposes.

How will the lake change in the future as climate change and population growth put more pressure on water resources? How will the lake cope with droughts, floods, pollution, and invasive species? How will the management of the lake evolve to address these issues and ensure its sustainability? How will the lake continue to provide water, recreation, and beauty for generations to come?

LAKE SAMSONVALE

[o-blivia]

'"Extant didn’t survive the collapse, it’s one of the cities that sprung up because of it. When wildfires raged, and flooding washed out whole swaths of land, and drought hit the rest, when it was one super weather event after another, this was one of the few places left that seemed safe. Not a paradise by any stretch, but tolerable for human life. And now it’s been built up into this shining neon jewel of civilization. A testament to humanity’s sheer tenacity in the face of extinction. They call Extant a success. They say the city is thriving; the population has swelled with millions of people crowded into towering skyscrapers and arcologies. At forty-eight storeys up, it sure is easy to believe that. Giant swaths of neon lights illuminate each of these monuments to success to show everyone that there’s enough resources to waste lighting up the night sky. People no longer have to make do with the bare minimum. Or so you’d assume. From this high up, everything you see is an illusion — and it’s almost peaceful."

This July, I'm participating in Camp Nanowrimo, and I'm posting my story in progress to a Google doc as I go along. Follow the link and check out what I've been cooking up. It's a cyberpunk noir thriller in two parts (although, this is just the draft for part one). If you enjoy what you're reading, I'd appreciate it if you could throw a couple bucks my way at my ko-fi page.

[forevermizu]

The Midwest has always had chaotic weather being stuck where the cold from the north, dry from the southwest, and warm and moist air from the southeast all collide, trapped by the Rockies. We have always gotten the really random weather systems but historically it has never been like this.

Growing up, they were short, but we definitely had spring and fall for at least a month. Now, summer and winter play such a hardcore game of tug of war that we barely get a week of either. Days of close to or below freezing in May which should be the start of 70-80 degree weather and the signal for Tornado season. Then there are the days of 70+ temps in February when historically that's when we get some of our worst snow storms.

The plants have no idea what is going on. Some come out way too early and some come out late. Some don't come at all. I'm allergic to the Cottonwood family of trees and just a decade ago, I could easily, EASILY tell you when they were going to bloom. Now? Unless I see the cotton in the air, I haven't got the foggiest. One year it was almost twice as bad as normal. This year there was NOTHING. And it is messing with the animals as well. Migratory birds coming through at strange times. Summer birds coming back expecting to feast on things like JUNE bugs but the bugs don't come out until AIGUST that year. Cougars, that haven't been spotted on the Plains for like half a century, are suddenly being spotted in towns. Ever since we drove their population down like every other native animal out here, the biggest land predators out here were coyotes, vultures for the avain ones. But cougars coming back means that something is driving them back into territories they had to abandon. And my money is on food.

Same as someone else said, we used to have creeks running everywhere. Can't say I've seen them filled too often lately. The town I grew up in has only had water FLOWING through it's river ONCE in my lifetime because of dams built upstream by other states that have cut it off it's natural source and all the "spring" melt water from the mountains. Apparently, it used to be an annual thing for them to release water from their dams and reservoirs because THEY HAD TOO MUCH and it wouldn't get all used up by the farmers on it's way to us. And this used to be a BIG river. Like on the main map kind of big.

We've been in a drought almost my entire life. The Ogallala Aquifer is damn near drained of all her water. Wildfires used to be rare and control burns weren't as perilous of a risk. Dust storms are becoming common occurrences again so our top soil is once again at risk.

Let me repeat that. DUST STORMS are starting to happen more and more frequently because the ground is so dry and we keep trying to farm like we have since the end of the Dirty Thirties and our crops, planting rotations, and tree wind breaks aren't enough to do jack now. And as a side tangent, people get mad about all the "bad GMOs" but what else are we supposed to do when what would have just been a bad year with little rain is now the norm and we need to have more drought resistant crops? We have to adapt and we are being limited by politics and fake science that we, a species where being able to adapt IS ONE OF OUR ADAPTATIONS, can't keep up.

And when it does rain?? Torrential downpours. No more spring showers. No, just everything all at once so the ground can't absorb any of it and it all just runs off the top. Remember how I said that I have never seen the river in my hometown with flowing water. In that very same breath, when I moved to the opposite end of the state for college, I saw FLOODING for the first time. I saw for the first time in my life a river so full that water was level with the banks and bridges and swept out into town and fields. Hell, my mom is from the east coast and she finally took my sister and I with her back to her hometown and that was the first time I had seen large and wide rivers with actual water in them and do you know what my mom said? They were lower than she could ever remember seeing. I still have trouble imagining growing up next to a river that flowed year round. One that you don't take four wheelers and horses down into and race for miles.

Quite honestly one of the hardest things for me to relate to when reading any story because I do not know what it's like to sit on the bank and fish. Or sail boats or catch turtles or just follow it knowing you would eventually reach some kind of town.

I literally could keep going forever on all the changes to the land, the weather, the local CLIMATE. But these experiences are common place now. We hear these same stories all the time. And we will both hear and tell them until our and probably the next generation are long gone. The bare absolute minimum we can do is strive to make these stories just that for our grandkids and those after them.

The previous generations chose to destroy the climate. We need to be the ones that repairing that damage.

truthfully dont understand how people can still deny climate change when like. you can See it happening. things are so much different 20 years ago when i was kid then they are now. ive seen it all happening slowly but surely before my very eyes and if other people cant they truthfully are just turning a blind eye 

[gangadhars-posts]

APPEAL TO WORLD SCIENTISTS...

I'm an unfortunate Indian scientist, born in a poor&oppressed community. Government didn't encourage and provide research opportunities to me. When asked for research opportunities, I was ridiculed, abused and beaten. Eventually I built a small lab in my house and conducted over a 1000 researches&studies on the earth related issues.

Among them Bio-forecast, Numerical Weather Periodical Tables, Irlapatism- A New Hypothetical Model Cosmology, National Geoscope Projects, Global Monsoon Time Scales, Indian Monsoon Tiime Scale etc. were successfully proved out in practice.

Through these, climate changes, heavy rains and floods, droughts and famines cyclones and depressions and natural calamities and weather disasters, earthquakes, celestial mysteries influencing the earth's atmosphere can be discovered. Kindly find&print out them from Google by searching my name GANGADHARA RAO IRLAPATI or can obtain by WhatsApp/me your email. I will send you the full details of my researches I did. Maybe they will useful for your research.Kindly make further research and develop them. I will send the physical monsoon time scales by post if you request. This is because it is better to examine the monsoon time scales physically than to examine the monsoon time scale online.

Artificial rains, Artificial storms, Artificial underground waters, Invention of life, Re-creation of humans of past, Time-machine, Geo-machine, Earth-machine, Journey into the atom through microcosm, Journey into the outer space-universe worlds through macrocosm, etc research concepts were uncompleted research projects. I have prepared the necessary research basics and technology proposals for these researches but uncompleted due to lack of support&opportunities. I call on world scientists to do researches on these research projects.

However much scientific research efforts did tho, I couldn't get recognition and my investigations were ignored&darkened. My scientific thoughts were infuriated the upper communities and fanatic people. As a result, I was tortured, suffered trials and imprisoned. I am a victim of racism and discrimination and negligence and intolerance. I am now making my life's last journey with disregard&despair and serious illness&poverty issues. I have no money even to buy regular medicines and no food to eat and no fabrics to put on. It is not known how long I will live or when I will die.

Kindly recognize me by making reference in research papers,postings on socialmedia, discussing in conferences, forums and other events. If world scientists have invented any technology in future that re-create humans of past, Kindly remember&re-create me to complete my uncompleted goals together with world scientists". Because there are so many goals to be invented but the life is running out. It is not known how long I will live, or when I will die. But the time is near.

GANGADHARA RAO IRLAPATI

Email:gangadhar19582058@gmail.com

GooglePay A/C No:9989239159

WhatsApp No: 630 557 1833

[earaercircular]

'The ban on washing cars with tap water was just a foretaste'

Pieter Loose stood on the highest Alpine peaks, built a bamboo village in Brazil and took part in the World Rafting Championships in Bosnia. Now he shows off his water technology company Ekopak on the Brussels stock exchange. “Let us also try to become world champions in water recycling.”

Pieter Loose pulls his leg as he receives us. A muscle tear in the calf, the result of an hour of padel. These will be difficult weeks for the man in his thirties, without sports. "I'm a bit hyperkinetic. I need sports to recharge.'” He usually does that on the mountain bike. He covers 10,000 kilometres every year, with tours in Patagonia, Africa, Greece, the Dolomites. And sometimes rides of 5,000 altimeters per day. Suffering. “But for me this is pure holiday: crawling on my bike in the morning and just follow the GPS.”

Loose talks rather quietly and monotonously. Yet he is brimming with enthusiasm. "I've always had a big mouth and I've always been ambitious. But I never dared to think that my company would ever be listed on the stock exchange.” At the end of March, his water treatment company Ekopak[1], supported by main shareholder Marc Coucke, raised 50 million euros and it is now worth about 240 million euros. It is the temporary highlight in Loose's course. With Ekopak, he surfs along with water recycling technology on the realization that we are depleting our water reserves.

He paid "a few millions" for Ekopak. “It was a small, local company at the time, with a lot of knowledge. I put more ambition into it. The ball is rolling now. My dreams become reality. That gives me power.”

The company has been building container installations for many years to produce ultrapure water for chemical, pharmaceutical, textile and food companies, among others. “Compare it to a descaler for the city water in your home, to protect your taps. But we go much further." “For customers who produce high-pressure steam, the entire Mendeleev table has to be removed, otherwise those elements will affect the steam boilers,” explains Loose. “Every customer requires a different degree of purity. For cooling water, water to clean machines, water for chemical processes.”

While until recently Ekopak treated groundwater and drinking water, today - after thorough research - it starts from waste water at the companies themselves. “A technical challenge, but future-proof,” says Loose. In addition, he launched the WAAS (Water-as-a-Service) concept, whereby Ekopak not only builds installations, but also finances and operates them and invoices the customer per drop of water. This should result in unprecedented revenue and profit growth in the coming years. “We have turned a sustainable product into a sustainable business model.”

What is the driving force behind Ekopak's growth?

Loose: "Long ago, investments were made in a network to provide everyone with clean drinking water. Industrial companies have joined the same network. That was the most obvious solution. But the situation has become completely out of balance: factories today use billions of liters of drinking water per hour. This used water is subsequently treated in a biological water treatment plant to be discharged into streams and rivers. It flows to the sea and you lose it. Consequently we have to install desalination plants at the sea side that consume a lot of energy to pump the water inland again. That is not future-proof, and companies are increasingly interested in that.”

How serious are companies about this?

Loose: “Twenty years ago you had Greenpeace with a slogan like 'better a hole in my T-shirt than a hole in the ozone layer”. But that's where it stopped. Now a tipping point has been reached. Companies set themselves concrete targets for energy, CO2 and water use. This is important to attract investors, subsidies and staff. The dominoes are falling, and that's a good thing. Climate change is real.” “The water supply is under pressure. Companies are not only afraid of a blackout, but also of a blue out. We've already had a foretaste of bans on using tap water to wash cars and fill swimming pools, and bans for farmers on pumping water from streams and rivers in certain regions. Water has a value like oil. We never thought about that. But the awareness that there are limits is growing at a rapid pace. We feel that. We keeps us occupied.”

How bad is the water scarcity in Flanders?

Loose: "Very. There is plenty of rain, but because it is a densely populated and paved area, the rain disappears into the sewers instead of seeping into the ground. Moreover, we have an economy with water-intensive sectors: food, textiles, pharmaceuticals, chemicals. In the OECD ranking, we are at the very bottom for the amount of water available per person, behind southern countries such as Spain and Italy. That also offers opportunities. We are forced to find a solution: Belgium will educate the world when it comes to rational use of water. That creates companies like Ekopak. We also intend to score internationally with that knowledge.”

Is the industry the main culprit?

Loose: "I'm not saying that. There is also agriculture. And in families at home, only 10 percent of drinking water is used for drinking. We still flush our toilets en masse with drinking water instead of rainwater. But our focus is on industry, which uses a quarter of drinking water in the northern region of Belgium. If we could reduce that, we are taking a big step forward.”

What is the role of politics in the water problem?

Loose: “Everyone is aware of the issues. The Blue Deal of Flanders[2] proving it. Money is earmarked for buffer basins and more wet nature, or for reductions in leakage losses, and so on. Mandatory water audits are introduced at companies and linked to environmental and expansion permits and subsidies. It is being examined whether companies can inject any surplus of recycled drinking water into the network against payment. It wouldn't surprise me either that there will be a limit on applications for which you can use drinking water or groundwater in industry, comparable to measures for your swimming pool.”

How important is the IPO in the growth plan?

Loose: 'It is crucial to roll out the Water-as-a-Service strategy. We will not only build the small water factories at the customers' premises, but will also operate and pre-finance them. This requires money: from 100,000 to 10 million euros per installation, depending on the flow rate and quality. We invoice per drop for a period of ten years or longer. We decrease the customer’s worries. And while tap water is becoming more and more expensive, our price is 20 to 40 percent lower. We therefore also strengthen their competitiveness. That makes companies bend in our direction more quickly. In this way we can tackle the water problem at an accelerated pace.” “The IPO also generates more than just money. It gives you more body when negotiating long-term contracts with multinationals. We are now approaching them as a listed company, no longer as 'that SME from Tielt with a skilled CEO'.'

Do you already have customers for that new concept?

Loose: “Eight projects are up and running, among others at the chemical companies Eastman[3], the copper film producer Circuitfoil[4] in Luxembourg and the vegetable processor Darta[5]. An installation has been started up at the pharmaceutical company Takeda[6] in Lessines to reuse 600 million litres of waste water. That's the equivalent of 18,000 people's water use, which means all of Lessen. We actually connect an entire city to the water network in one go. I also see many small and good initiatives, such as trucks collecting construction site water. But what we realize is of a different order. We are going fast, and sustainability knows no bounds. We also go abroad. Takeda wants to roll out our technology in its factories worldwide.”

You have now lost control of Ekopak. Is that difficult?

Loose: "The opportunity we now have to move forward gives me more satisfaction than the idea of being one hundred percent owner of a small company from which you are not getting the most out of it."

Source

JAN DE SCHAMPHELAERE, Ekopak-topman Pieter Loose: 'Het verbod om auto's te wassen met leidingwater was slechts een voorsmaakje' in: De Tijd, 24-07-2021,

https://www.tijd.be/ondernemen/technologie/ekopak-topman-pieter-loose-het-verbod-om-auto-s-te-wassen-met-leidingwater-was-slechts-een-voorsmaakje/10321369.html

[1] https://ekopak.be/en/sustainability/ [2] With the Blue Deal, the Government of Flanders is increasing its efforts in the fight against water scarcity and drought. With this deal, it wants to tackle the drought problem in a structural way, with an increased deployment of resources and the correct instruments, with the involvement of industry and farmers as part of the solution and with a clear exemplary role for the Flemish regional and other governments in Belgium. The Flemish Decree on Integrated Water Policy is officially approved in July 2003 (Belgium Law Gazette, 14.11.03). This decree is the juridical implementation of the European Water Framework Directive and the Floods Directive in Flemish law. https://www.integraalwaterbeleid.be/en [3] Founded in 1920, Eastman is a global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With the purpose of enhancing the quality of life in a material way, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. The company's innovation-driven growth model takes advantage of world-class technology platforms, deep customer engagement, and differentiated application development to grow its leading positions in attractive end-markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. As a globally inclusive and diverse company, Eastman employs approximately 14,500 people around the world and serves customers in more than 100 countries. The company had 2020 revenues of approximately $8.5 billion and is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA. The chemical company has 2 plants in the Ghent harbor in Belgium. https://www.eastman.com/pages/home.aspx. [4] Circuitfoil develops; Produces and markets high-quality copper foil, while constantly ensuring a safe and healthy environment in its plants, processes and products. rom its corporate headquarters in Luxembourg, Europe, the company distributes and markets its large range of products through a wide network of service centers and sales companies to customers worldwide. https://www.circuitfoil.com/company/profile/ [5] d’Arta is a Belgian family company founded in 1988 that has grown into a global player in the development, processing and commercialisation of fresh frozen products such as vegetables, fruits, herbs and ready-made (side) dishes. It employs more than 900 people and export our products to more than 100 countries. https://www.darta.com/en [6] Takeda is one of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies in Belgium. Takeda’s presence in Belgium is reinforced by its global manufacturing site in Lessines. This Takeda site has over 18,000 m² of building surface and operates 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. It is a flexible plant for purification and a packaging center for immunology and hematology products, covering a total geographical span of over 80 countries worldwide. In total, more than 1000 professionals work for Takeda in Belgium, making us a top 5 employer in the pharmaceutical industry. https://www.takeda.com/en-be/who-we-are/contact-us/