TIL: Today I Learned

It's the Trump effect.

 

Fine. The Trump-Hillary-McCain effect.

 

Ah I see


Then I would say his popularity is in part due to his background. It was the same way with Barr before he went full assclown.

People (including myself) applauded the appointment of insiders who seemed rational and swayed by facts to hopefully bring some sanity to the mess. The hope was that these guys were seen as un-assailable by the right due to their past but that was obviously wrong.

And I didn't know that Mueller was involved with Iraq 2 to begin with until this conversation. That may be the case for the general public. Barr was better well known but the media held up as a responsible sort even with his sorted background. That was also totally wrong.

 

Til about the "greek freak".



I know, I must have been living under a rock ^_^

 

As the resident CFC Greek, you are required to know the whereabouts and actions of all other Greeks at all times

 

Uuhm, what about christos200?

 

I don't recall that individual being a regular OT poster. In this case, that's one of the criteria for being a "resident" whatever.

 

TIL that Larry Page and Jack Dorsey, the founders of Google/Alphabet and Twitter, both had a salary of $1 last year.

Name rings a bell but I haven't seen him around in a long time and I didn't know he was Greek. You can't expect me to know the whereabouts and actions of all other CFCers at all times

 

Yep! He's a great guy and fun to watch.

 

That particular individual has met with a divergence in political views that acts as a restriction criterion, to his psyche.

There's a mere couple hundred thousand of them, man.

Yes, what about their dividends, stock options and so on? Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes had assets worth over 400 million dollars after a couple of years of working in early-era Facebook.

 

One day I will reach your level Takhisisan, but today is not that day.

It includes stock pay and "other".

 

Are you willing to walk the path of the Tak?

Hmmm. I find it hard to accept that they could be willing to work for no pay, so i wonder what they key to the mystery is. But it's quite-late-a.m and Rita Hayworth awaits, so I'll solve it another day.

 

TIL that the greenhouse gas emissions of all peat and bog areas in Western Europe is equal to the total greenhouse gas emissions of Belgium of all energy consumption.

The only way to stop this and restore peat/bog areas to a net balance of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere is to keep groundwater level just below the surface.
Unfortunately agriculture demand is to regulate and/or pump groundwater to deeper levels.
A lessening of rainfall and/or a more extreme distribution of rainfall over the year (from Climate changes) has the same detrimental effect (unless actions are taken to trap the rainfall water in those areas)

 

For the record, I never expected Barr to be anything but a fascist and always thought he had agreed to shield Trump from everything as a condition of his appointment.

 

Isn't there some similar issue with the tundra and taiga in places like Canada and Russia? I'm too lazy to Google it right now, but I remember something about methane..?

 

Yes as well as subsea methane ice deposits which are threatening to begin fizzing out of the ocean en masse

 

I am afraid that the thawing of the permafrost will cause more Methane emission than what we can improve (with higher groundwater level) on our peat-bog areas.

Estimates are still in development, but roughly 10 times as much as our current annual CO2 emission are expected to come free this century at the 3 C scenario (from thawned permafrost bacterial processes generating CO2 and Methane)
These higher emissions are AFAIK not in the current Paris Climate calculations.

 

It's all about tipping points.

How does the Netherlands (in the broader sense) being under sea level affect the level of the water table?

 

That is a long story to explain a bit properly. Have to give a lot of context that is not obvious if you live high and dry.
We live in the Netherlands up to 7 meters below average sea level. I live 2.50 meter below sea level.

Last summer gave a snapshot on part of the issues we have to deal with: it was last summer quite dry and the amount of water delivered from the big European river the Rhine (starting in the glaciers of the Alps in Switzerland) was also not big. The result was that water levels in canals and groundwater levels were lower as usual and salt water in underground currents of deep groundwater through porous soil under the dikes and dunes started brining agricultural land in some areas in the Netherlands.
Salty, briny groundwater => complaining farmers.

In a perfect world you only need a broad canal parallel to and behind sea dikes and dunes filled with fresh water at a similar level as sea level to make sure this cannot happen (pumping up water to that level). We do not have that, did not made that in the past.
As a consequence the very deep groundwater level is always a bit briny in the coastal areas up to roughly 50 km from the sea.
We manage that now with our complex canals, dikes and polders system and many pumps, by washing the top layer of groundwater with enough fresh water. But last year we had allowed too much rain from the early spring to flow directly to the sea instead of storing that at higher water levels of lakes, canals and polders.
BUT those higher storage levels means that groundwater is higher than optimal for farming => complaining farmers.

And ofc every farmer thinks that his Province gets less water to the benefit of another Province.

We also have to take care that locations we use to pump up drinking water do not get too salty => complaining citizens.
We also have to take care thar the rivers the Rhine (Germany, Switzerland), the Maas (from France), the Waal, the IJssel, have high enough water levels to allow big river transport ships to sail with mass and bulk goods to and from the sea port Rotterdam. A system of summer and winter dikes helps a lot, but you need still enough water for the companies not decreasing production => complaining industry.

We have also in all the low lands build our houses mostly on wooden pillars hammered in the peat land until depths of 10-30 meters, to get into a sandlayer for foundation stability. This works like a charm for centuries and centuries... as long as the wood stays below the groundwater level (houses after WW2 used concrete pillars to support the foundation).
As soon as the groundwater level is too low, and the wood is exposed to air, rotting starts. => angry house owners with a big financial claim.
(with todays technology we can now push-vibrate new pillars under an existing house, under the walls !, but it is expensive).

We have enormous amounts of rivers, old river beds, shipping canals, water management canals, with around 18,000 kilometer dikes and 3,000 separate polders (hydrological entities surrounded by dikes, with their own controllable groundwater level). Our land level from keeping it too dry for farmers is shrinking, sinking BTW at a speed of roughly 1 cm per year in the peat areas.


Several big actions are being researched by our water engineers.
Some actions pushed and/or started right awa. he last summer was helpfull to get that sense of urgency among citizens and municipalities. But the Climate models simply necessate all these actions.
* One of the first simple actions is better drainage systems that prevent excessive rainfall water to be simply transported to the sea and store that water in many local storages at groundwater level. We have in our better managed towns also a double sewage system: one as household sewer and one for rainwater collected from the streets and roofs. Our house owners will get in the future penalties when they do not build up their own drainage and roof rainwater collection system on their land.
* Another simple action decided and made public yesterday is to reduce the number of pigs with 10% aimed at reducing farming in some polders to transform these polders again into growing peat nature reserves absorbing CO2, instead of drying and sinking peat polders producing Methane and CO2. And ofc the CO2 of that pig meat disappears as well.
And yes those farmers were complaining including all factions of farmers in the Christian parties, the Bible Belt stricter political parties, AND ofc our populist rightwing conservative parties.
Well those farmers that disappear will be bought out for sensible prices. This whole action spread out over 10 years will cost 1 Billion Euro.
Many more of these actions needed. 10% pigs is not enough.
And we need more strategically located lakes, wetlands, for water storage and covering peat.

This is the nitty gritty part of water management of our Low Lands
The sea dikes and the river mouthes and ports will cost more.

 

Have you tried building a seawall and getting Mexico to pay for it?