[MCN] Loss of snow impact on rivers' flow has been known for more than 20 years

[Lance Olsen]

Robert F. Service. As the West Goes Dry. 
Science  February 20, 2004
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.303.5661.1124

Excerpts

New assessments of decades’ worth of snowpack measurements show that snowpack levels have dropped considerably throughout the American West in response to a 0.8°C warming since the 1950s. 
 
Even more sobering, new studies reveal that if even the most moderate regional warming predictions over the next 50 years come true, this will reduce western snowpacks by up to 60% in some regions, such as the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington. 
 
That in turn is expected to reduce summertime stream flows by 20% to 50%. ‘Snow is our water storage in the West,’ says Philip Mote, a climatologist at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle, who leads a team that has produced much of the new work. ‘When you remove that much storage, there is simply no way to make up for it.’
 
“The impacts could be profound.”

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.303.5661.1124
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" 'Hopelessness' … is often derived from unfulfillable, rather than from merely unfulfilled, desires and wishes focused on impossible aims.  It diminishes with the development of capability to change aim. Its counterpart is not just 'hope' but enthusiasm and zest."

Barbara Betz, M.D.  
International Journal of Psychiatry.  May, 1968

===========

" ‘Triage’ is a dirty word in some conservation circles, but like many dirty words, it describes something common. Whether they admit it or not, conservationists have long had to make decisions about what to save.

"As more and more admit it, open discussion about how the decisions are best made — by concentrating on particular species, or particular places, or absolute costs, or any other criterion — becomes possible. Whichever criteria come into play, one thing remains constant. The decisions have to be made quickly."

Emma Marris, "What To Let Go.” NATURE November 8, 2007

https://www.nature.com/articles/450152a.pdf

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 “The whole idea that everything’s going to work out isn’t really helpful because it isn’t going to work out ” said Kate Marvel a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Climate change is going to worsen to a point where millions of lives, homes, and species are put at risk she said. 
https://newrepublic.com/article/151608/case-against-climate-pessimism

==————

"Environmental psychologist Susi Moser, also talks about the importance of acknowledging our underlying fears and distress about climate change as an important coping strategy. Moser (2012) calls it ‘the bravest thing’ – getting real, accepting reality without illusions, and accepting that better tomorrows may not come.”

https://www.isthishowyoufeel.com/blog/how-do-people-cope-with-feelings-about-climate-change-so-that-they-stay-engaged-and-take-action


My own view: <<https://mountainjournal.org/why-rising-temps-mean-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it>>

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