Super long form article on the politics of water, housing, development, farming and immigration in Arizona where the legislature is almost fully captured by MAGA nihilists and where the kinda-hero of the story is a Mormon zealot who believes in the divine inspiration of the Constitution
We’re fucking doomed y'all
This map is on a percentile scale, but it does illustrate how screwed the southwest is compared to the rest of the country. In 20-30 years, the desert southwest - and removedpa in particular - is going to be uninhabitable. People know this; politicians get briefed, scientific papers are getting increasingly blunt. And yet the insanity continues.
What's it going to take?
To be fair people used to say that about a future global plague and then.......
This country's appetite for death is endless until it hits the suburbs
Why do people act like they're under an obligation to actually experience negative consequences before taking steps to mitigate them?!
Evidently the name of the county where Phoenix is located contains a slur.
Ahhh, I see. I remember now that we've run into this specific sremovedhorpe before, apparently it's like an obscure spanish slur. I guess it doesn't come up enough for the admins to have added an exception for it lol
Yet another reason I hate slur filters. If you need a filter to not make slurs then you're probably a piece of shit.
Context means a lot and this is another example of it
tl;dr:
Conclusions
This study shows that the frequency of and population exposure to extreme heat index conditions in the US will increase substantially by mid-21st century under a range of emissions and population change scenarios. By late century, depending on the scenario, these changes amount to a 4- to 20-fold increase in person-days per year of high heat index conditions from 107 million historically to as high as 2 billion. The current extreme heat alert system used by the National Weather Service relies on specific heat index thresholds. This work illuminates how, across much of the country, those seldom-crossed thresholds become frequently surpassed over the course of this century, putting millions of people at risk.
Economic development, technological advances, and improved communication efforts have reduced heat-related mortality in the US in recent decades (Davis et al 2003). Given the future frequency and extent of dangerous heat events, however, additional efforts to help people cope with extreme heat, particularly in places unaccustomed to such heat historically, will likely become necessary. With late century extreme heat index conditions and exposure under RCP8.5 being roughly double of that under RCP4.5, reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions are a complementary strategy for managing the future impacts of extreme heat in the US.
You hear anything about our medium term chances here in Florida? Is the interior going to be done in by the heat and humidity? I know people always talk about the sea level rising but, most outside observers seem to forget that not everyone here lives in Miami.
I mean, Florida is essentially a swamp that was drained for real estate purposes
I've seen some pretty dire projections showing like almost half of Florida being underwater in like 40 years
The projections are based on models that ignore significant inputs, like feedback loops. The most common refrain we are hearing and will hear until the autoclave cycle completes is "Things are happening much faster than we expected". Which is what happens when you try to ignore reality.
Northern Floridians just counting down the years until they become the southern Floridians.
Someone should figure out based on elevation and stuff where the most likely place for "New Miami" will be and establish it now and pay off massively in 50 years
These are quasi-evil things I'd do as a billionaire
Walt Disney was one evil motherfucker but he knew how to plan long term
Maybe my area will enjoy a second life as the next Miami or Key West.
life will get a little harder every day for the rest of your life or until china and the global south roll tanks in to liberate and reeducate us, whichever comes first
Well, considering that the Chinese would require a naval buildup that they're presently not interested in pursuing in order to have such power projection, I guess we'll all cook to death.
don't underestimate the amount of time you might have left
During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them. The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces.
Yes, but the Chuds will read that and sacrifice queer folks like me first to appease their God.
That naval offensive gonna be a lot easier when they can park the boats in downtown Orlando.
Idk, they seem content with only regaining their traditional sphere of influence in East Asia. Plus for a long time there was always a contingent of Chinese leadership that were content with allowing the Americans to protect global commerce on the blue water sea lanes.
i grew up and lived in "inland" FL for 25+ years. i left after a particularly bad hurricane season. my area took a hit early on that year, but was otherwise calm and rainy with power outages rarely lasting more than 48 hours for each of the multiple hurricanes that year. i worked for a statewide utility company though, and it was a nightmare. everything was fucked all summer. it took weeks and even months in some places to restore communication. the amount of frenetic scurrying that goes on behind the scenes to keep things rolling smoothly for utility consumers is underestimated by everyone who hasn't seen it.
over the last few decades of being several hundred miles north and actually inland behind mountains, some of my friends who stayed use this logic... "oh, well we're 30 miles inland and at 50' above sea level. sea level rise isn't a big deal." as though being adjacent to catastrophe is some kind of protection from catastrophe.
the failure of civic infrastructure in a massive metropolitan & densely populated area has knock on effects that cascade outward. displaced people overwhelm social services while they wait for transportation to whatever community is offering relocation assistance. utilities share infrastructure and resources. opportunists move in to feed on desperation. florida is entirely a malarial zone and the big events will be in the warm/rainy season. denge, west nile, zika will all explode when people are sheltering in tent colonies waiting on government assistance that will be late to arrive, if ever, while the truthers throw bricks at the malathion trucks because they think it's giving everyone nanobots. my point is the disruption of sea level rise will not be contained to low lying areas. if the habitability of everything from Miami up to West Palm becomes dubious, that's over 6 million people looking for a place to stay, fresh water, and something to eat.
this is a map of persons filing for FEMA aid as being displaced by Katrina, estimated at 400,000-1.3 million people:
Show
there are of course other differences between NOLA and Florida, but one of the ones floridians should keep in mind is that all mention of climate change and sea level rise have been vanished by executive order from state agencies that would theoretically be in a position to buffer some of the worst impacts. having worked in public service for over a decade, i can tell you that working inside a state that has a government openly hostile to the established science of your services has an attrition effect on the people who work to provide those services. they burn out faster than normal and they leave to go somewhere they are not shit upon. they go somewhere where trying to help people with honesty won't cost them their future.
Thank you for your response. I feel some day I should get out of here before everyone else gets the same idea. Idk, I feel the chaos will be partially acute here when things break down because nobody knows anyone else in their community. We all migrated here within the last 30 years or less.
as though being adjacent to catastrophe is some kind of protection from catastrophe.
Extremely correct comrade. Like it or not, we live in a very interconnected planet, even if you only look at some parts of it via your phone.
Yea not everybody lives in Miami some people live literal dozens of feet above it.
3 feet of sea level rise will flood everything south of fort meyers/ palm beach and then the people in the highlands will be inundated with climate refugees who have spent their entire lives saying climate change isn't real and we should be able to hunt refugees for sport who will absolutely expect you to roll out the red carpet for them.
I can see the white Republican elites who run my city doubling down on partisan hatred of people from "blue" Miami to justify treating them like how the Europeans treat their refugees, even the Cubans. All of this would be horrifying to see.
The first heat bulb event will likely be the beginning of the end for Flrida never mind the rising sea level wiping out profitable coastline housing and infastructure.
That's what I had in the back of my head. Last week Kid Rock was rolling through our region and all the local hogs on the forums who wanted to go see him were saying:
"😆😆😆 What heat wave?! 101 degrees is cool winter day to me. 😆😆😆"
Maybe the first wet bulb event will happen at one of these country chud jamborees.
idk whether florida is that vulnerable to wet bulb events. You're never that far from the coast (oceans moderate temperatures) and it is truly aggressively flat so there are no physical features to force a heat dome to stay in place for that long.
All it takes is rising humidity coupled with a longer hot period like what is currently being seen in certain areas of Mexico, heck even humidity around 50% with temps around the 100s will likely start seeing larger heat stroke events occurring.
Florida gets pre-cooked petroleum flavored bouillabaisse from the Gulf while they wait for the waves to cover them.
I'm imagining all the Chuds from upstate New York who came down here for the cheap land trying to flee in the opposite direction to escape the temperatures, only to find that once again, I beat them back home by a couple of decades.
No idea but it seems trends of heat and flooding will probably continue. Medium term might see more movement away from coastal areas into the center and the north. Not sure how long this state can exist as a playground and tax haven for the wealthy when nothing is being with the infrastructure.
Yeah. Probably best to get away from that in the future. Medium to long term, we'll hear a lot less New Yorkers bragging about the lack of income tax here.
My partner talks about moving down south, but staying in the midwest where there's water and food seems smart in the face of all thism
Jesus Christ that's a novel. I read it for about an hour but have to stop
My 2c: it doesn't matter what happens to the US because there's nothing here of value. In fact the sooner it collapses the better. We are an impediment to progress. What matters now, on the scale of centuries, is China.
I guess watching the US decay is interesting from an anthropological perspective. Which is what articles like these are windows into.
The wild card of course is the depths of depravity this place will descend to as it crumbles. As long as it stays internal, it only matters to those of us with the misfortune of having to live here and of course the vassal states who have married their economies to our misfortunes
I mean in terms of the geopolitics of the home region and local resources, the United States has the potential to be in a good position in this unfolding crisis. However, the decentralized nature of it's constitution makes that better said than done. The way they would justify taking action, as they have justified all things done nationally over the last century, would be through the Federal government's enumerated power of maintaining the military, and all the economic sectors that come with it.
The prospect of an American collapse further frightens me because of the question of who would receive control of its arsenal of world ending weapons. It could potentially make the attempts by more responsible actors like China to mitigate this climate crisis a moot point, which is why the Chinese (or any power of note for that matter) have always wanted a stable America.
It’s scary as fuck though. I just hope I die before it gets really bad.
Fascism and collapse, or collapse and fascism, either one in either order.
There seems to be little doubt that the Cult of the Elibomotua was so fervently embraced by the general population, and that the daily rituals of the rac’s care and use were so faithfully performed, that the minute quantities of reagent thus distributed may have had a decisive effect on the chemical characteristics of the air. The elibomotua, therefore, may have contributed in a major way toward the prized objective of a totally man-made environment. In summary, our evaluation of both the Nacirema’s man-made environmental alterations and the artifacts found in their territories lead us to advance the hypothesis that they may have been responsible for their own extinction. The Nacirema culture may have been so successful in achieving its objectives that the inherited physiological mechanisms of its people were unable to cope with its manufactured environment.
tldr; Left-bashing liberal copes about the historical consequences of his ideology for 25,000 words
Here's how Kagi summarizes it:
- Phoenix's rapid growth and development in the Sonoran Desert has been fueled by an unsustainable reliance on water resources, leading to a looming water crisis.
- The water crisis disproportionately impacts vulnerable populations like the homeless, who suffer greatly from the extreme heat and lack of access to water.
- Solving the water crisis requires collective action and political cooperation, which is hindered by increasing political polarization and extremism in Arizona.
- The rise of right-wing, anti-democratic movements like Turning Point USA are sowing division and undermining faith in democratic institutions and processes.
- The water crisis is intertwined with broader issues of inequality, immigration, and the urban-rural divide in Arizona.
- Arizona State University is experimenting with models of mass, accessible higher education that aim to transcend partisan divides.
- The experiences of undocumented immigrant families like the Cortez family illustrate the human costs of failed immigration policies.
- Despite political divisions, there are signs of common ground and pragmatic problem-solving around issues like water management.
- The document highlights the tension between individual freedoms/property rights and collective responsibility for shared resources like water.
- The water crisis in Phoenix serves as a microcosm for the broader challenges facing American democracy and society.
