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by didgetmaster 39 days ago
I occasionally check out the map on the drought monitor website. The current map does not look significantly different than maps I have seen over the past 10 years.

The areas of extreme drought may change each year, but the total area affected seems rather ordinary to me.
2 comments
PaulDavisThe1st 38 days ago
Duration, duration, duration.

The US southwest is now in the longest period of severe drought in at least 1200 years.

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njovin 38 days ago
And we're still selling what little water we have to foreign & domestic corporations for a fraction of what residential citizens pay.

We are also refusing to maintain critical water-system infrastructure, setting ourselves up to lose critical water storage capacity [1].

We can get fined for washing our cars at certain times (although it's rarely enforced), but nobody ever turns the screws on the business machine.

[1] https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/north-county/plan-f...

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lokar 38 days ago
This is because of the water rights system in the west. Water belongs to the first entity to have used it over a 150 years ago. Municipal water agencies have to buy at market rates.
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bmitc 38 days ago
Exactly. I feel like people forget about statistics and trends when it comes to the climate.

Nearly every long term trend and statistics shows climate and environmental conditions getting worse, and it's almost solely due to human activity.

Cherry picking short term events isn't useful, especially when the climate getting worse often means an increase in the duration between normal events and an increase in extreme weather.

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PaulDavisThe1st 38 days ago
To be fair, the current US SW drought fits right into the "pattern" of long term periodic droughts rather than being caused by human activity. However, anthropogenic effects are likely making it worse (worth noting that the IPCC has been clear that they cannot yet see anthropogenic effects in most climate events, despite being equally clear that they are there and they are going to get worse).
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vortegne 27 days ago
You are completely wrong about the IPCC stance. Please read the AR6.
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VirusNewbie 38 days ago
not including California? The California drought recently ended and now all the reservoirs are quite full.
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antonkochubey 38 days ago
Does amount of land usable for farming have to be halved in a decade for you to be concerned?
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