[lenerdenator]

"What if we took the people and businesses from the places with large rivers and continental climates, and put them in a sun-blasted hellscape that these native gentlemen keep telling us cannot sustain life?" - American policy from 1840 to now

[pfannkuchen]

I think the global north doesn’t really line up with human instinct in a lot of ways. Climate, day length pattern, vegetation.

I guess somewhere in Africa should per perfect? I doubt the humans who split off and went north have had their instincts change enough to not prefer that sort of climate, and that explains the draw to sun rich areas. Not to mention those who left that region much more recently.

It’s interesting that I haven’t seen any groups with a Darwinian Zionism, so to speak. An ancestral claim to the region where humans evolved.

[mannykannot]

It seems unlikely that climate-zone preferences motivated the prehistoric spread of humanity, as that would require both a knowledge of the possibilities and the means to exploit them. More likely, people settled where they could support themselves and moved when that no longer was the case, either from micro-climactic changes or population pressure.

Large-scale migration into the arid parts of North America and elsewhere was first facilitated by the development of the technology to use deep aquifers.

[pfannkuchen]

Other way around. Humans and pre-human hominids evolved in a more confined region of the world for an extremely long time, and they left recently enough that they still instinctively prefer the climate of that region.

Prehistoric spread was driven by other factors that were more important than climate preference. But that doesn't eliminate climate preference, and all else equal humans will act on that preference.

[mannykannot]

Oh, I see, I think: you are saying that we have preserved a preference for our ancestral habitat, and that has motivated recent migration into arid areas? Maybe so; we still have some physiological adaptions for warm climates.

When it comes to agriculture in the desert, which is still the major reason why the snowpack shortfall is a matter of concern, the motivation seems more economic: crops grow very well in sunny climates, so long as you can give them adequate water - and we could, for a while, but probably not sustainably.

[galangalalgol]

Modern humans came frome the Ethiopian plateau right? So low of 75F high of 80F sort of thing. High altitude equatorial. Bogotá is similar but cooler. As is Quitó. Much of coastal Europe and west coast North America is a decent approximate.

[mannykannot]

Coastal Europe has considerable variation and the west coast of North America even more so, but what is of more relevance to the snowpack issue is that most of the lower Colorado basin is quite unlike what humanity's home was like prior to our global spread.

[apercu]

I don't know, I love the northern flora, too, Rattlesnake master, moline, dogwood, black-eyed susan, blazing star, echinacea (purple coneflower) and so many more.

More importantly, humans need water.

[pfannkuchen]

I think emotional attachment does form to what is familiar within our lifetimes.

But what is a more typical "dream" desire by the average human? To retire in a northern forest, or to retire on a tropical island? Where do people typically vacation, when the surroundings and how they feel are the primary focus? Do the very wealthy, who can do whatever they like, usually spend more time in the woods or in the tropics? Did Ellison and Zuckerberg buy large swaths of temperate forest? Etc.

[apercu]

Maybe. I grew up in the Southwest.

Ellison and Zuckerberg have very different values than I have.

Getting out of the Southwest and coming to the Midwest (school) and staying for a while before spending 18 years in Canada was a joy.

I found the people to be less religious, less racist, surprisingly in to locally sourced food and nature conservation.

I'm certainly not poor, but most wealthy people I know are, well, not really someone I would want to spend a lot of time with or emulate.

[pfannkuchen]

I am only using very wealthy people as a reference because I think they are a good proxy for hedonistic values, which I believe are rooted in human instinct and what worked in the ancestral environment.

You can’t delete these instincts, you can only bury them.

[apercu]

I'm not arguing, but again, nuance. I don't know that it is human instinct, my understanding is that diseases like malaria and the heat (no A/C) meant European colonizers avoided a lot of the warmer places and moved inland to the mountains where it was cooler.

It might, instead, be a cultural influence?

I feel like I am being pedantic, though. Apologies for that.

[lenerdenator]

For better or for worse, the global north's where most of the land and resources are, along with the majority of human civilization.

Also, as far as climate, day length pattern, vegetation, etc., I don't think moving back to, say, the Midwest (particularly the lower part) would be screwing most people. Alaska? Sure. Kansas City? Day lengths are pretty normal there.

[BobaFloutist]

I mean the Mediterranean climate is traditionally the most baseline hospitable to human life, but it's also usually pretty susceptible to drought.

[apercu]

Lol, you forgot "let's move to Arizona because I have allergies, and then plant all of the plants that caused my allergies in the yards and parks, and plant lawns, with all of these things not being native to the climate/drought resistant".

I too like nice weather, but it's getting to the point that the summers over large parts of the US are as harsh as the midwestern winters everyone wants to avoid.

[Sylamore]

Or the non-stop dust from the wind and aridity.

[toomuchtodo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PYt0SDnrBE

[bpodgursky]

> these native gentlemen keep telling us cannot sustain life?

I mean they were wrong, it obviously does sustain life. You're just grumpy about what it looks like.

[II2II]

I suppose it depends upon what you mean by sustain life. If somebody is hooked up to life support in a hospital for the rest of their life, does that mean their body is able to sustain life or does it mean the hospital is able to sustain life? That is somewhat similar to what we are talking about. All of this technology is wonderful to introduce stability, to get us through the rough patches, but a permanent dependence upon it is questionable.

As for that native gentleman, I'm not sure what the situation is down south, but the prairies of Canada and the Northern US have been known to have dry spells. The 1930's were particularly bad, but apparently early explorers returned conflicting reports about the habitability of the prairies simply because of the variability in precipitation across the years. Of course, aboriginals would have knowledge of that since they inhabited those lands for time immemorial. I have even seen suggestions that those who lived in the regions were nomadic since they had to follow the food (which, of course, had to follow its own food). This is in sharp contrast to those who inhabited other parts of the Americas, who were settled.

[lenerdenator]

It can sustain some life.

It can't sustain 40 million people who all want a pool, a grass lawn, freshly-grown fruits/nuts/vegetables, air conditioning, large-scale manufacturing, golf courses, etc.

[bpodgursky]

Like I said, it is literally sustaining this as I type this comment. You just don't like the consequences (the Colorado river isn't making it to the ocean).

[lenerdenator]

Perhaps it is, but that's not sustainable. Every ecosystem has a carrying capacity. We're coming closer and closer to that for the Southwestern US. It won't be pretty when we reach it.

I actually couldn't care less whether the Colorado makes it to the ocean. I have two major rivers in my city. There's plenty of water without having to fine people for using water on the opposite of their odd-even day. The heat during the summer is uncomfortable but it's usually not an imminent threat to human life after an hour of unhydrated exertion.

[bpodgursky]

> Every ecosystem has a carrying capacity. We're coming closer and closer to that for the Southwestern US.

The limit of carrying capacity is the limit of sustainability. If the system is coming closer to the carrying capacity, the current state, having 40 million people with lawns, is sustainable!

If your argument is that having 200 million people with lawns is unsustainable, say that! But that's not what you said.

[lenerdenator]

It's not just lawns; you're being purposefully obtuse.

There are already towns in California experiencing spells of not having any potable water [0]. We've pumped so much water out of parts of California that some land has dropped almost 30 feet [1]. Wildfire season in the southwest, including California, is now longer and more severe than it once was [2]. Arizona has passed resolutions imploring Congress to investigate diverting water from the Mississippi River out west [3] which is almost guaranteed to cause serious political confrontations.

So, no, the current state of things and the projected growth isn't sustainable. When you're honestly considering the idea of building a continent-wide aqueduct system to keep golf courses in Phoenix playable, you're better off packing up and heading back to the Midwest and Northeast to repopulate towns that have infrastructure we already bought and paid for decades ago.

[0] https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/06/california-... [1] http://www.purewatergazette.net/blog/gazettes-famous-water-p... [2] https://specialreports.news.uci.edu/climate-change/the-probl... [3] https://apnews.com/article/science-arizona-state-government-...