Four scenarios for climate change and water
The US Environmental Protection Agency has opened a 45-day public comment period for a draft report looking at impacts of climate change on the water supplies of four American urban regions: the Bay Area in Northern California, Seattle in the Pacific Northwest, New York City in the Northeast and Spartansburg in upstate South Carolina. Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments: Four Case Studies of Water Utility Practices was prepared by the National Center for Environmental Assessment’s Global Climate Research Staff, formerly known as the Tortuous Title Division of Guess Whether or Not it’s a Quango. As it is a draft, the agency requests that readers not cite or quote the content. However, it does welcome feedback. Consider mine given on the title and name of the author. Click here for the EPA’s main climate change page.…
Scary funny
For climate change deniers everywhere, the perfect gift. Steve Greenberg is offering a revised 2010 edition of his book of environmental cartoons "Fine-tooning the planet." Click on the image to be taken to greenberg-art.com
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Climate change is real
Source: NASA. Click on the graphic to be taken to NASA's page outlining key climate change indicators.
It’s a rare letter whose content runs a page and a half and whose signatures take up four and a half more. But that is the scale of consensus about climate change from 255 of the country’s leading scientists, including 11 Nobel laureates, who in today’s Science magazine once again try to drive home the message that Climate Change is Real. To get through to the likes of George Will, they keep it simple:
(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
(iii) Natural causes always play a …
Fuzzy hubs and mass extinction
It’s easy to mock the language of the National Climate Change and Wildlife Center Proposed Five-Year Strategy, so I’m going to. Consider it a nervous laugh. This proposed framework for “fuzzy hubs” of various government agencies to cope with collapsing eco-systems and mass extinction deserves at least something that conveys how scary it is. Here is a sample of the kind of language being used by government scientists as the politicians who supposedly direct their activities argue over a climate change bill:
… climate change is already driving observable changes on the landscape, and will bring additional, large-scale changes in the coming decades. Many of these changes will have direct implications to wildlife and fish species and communities, and the habitats and ecosystems upon which they depend. For example, we are likely to see shifts in species’ ranges; changes in timing of breeding seasons and animal migrations; disassembly of …
Phantom boxing with faceless bureaucrats
The Los Angeles Times reports today that the Mayor is lashing out at “unidentified high-level bureaucrats” within the city’s Department of Water and Power.
It is these mandarin civil servants, we are to believe, who are to blame for thwarting reform, for the mixed messaging about our City finances and for failure of clean energy initiatives.
Did he mention how they run around at night and purposefully cause water main breaks?…
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