Tag: global_climate_change

Southern Cal is going to be thirsty

Seth Anderson0 comment

Ru-oh. The water wars are getting closer. Better make those visits to Southern California sooner than later.

Listen to the Ice

As signals of climate change begin to come into focus in the Sierra Nevada, its melting glaciers spell trouble in bold font. Not only are they in-your-face barometers of global warming, they also reflect what scientists are beginning to uncover: that the Sierra snowpack – the source of 65 percent of California’s water – is dwindling, too.

More of the Sierra’s precipitation is falling as rain instead of snow, studies show, and the snow that blankets the range in winter is running off earlier in the spring. And snow in the Sierra touches everything. Take it away and droughts deepen, ski areas go bust and fire seasons rage longer.

Some glaciers already have melted away, including the first Sierra glacier discovered in Yosemite by John Muir in 1871. Today, the remaining 100 or so are withering, including Lyell, the second-largest, which could be gone inside a century.

“All across the Sierra, glaciers are transitioning into ice patches. Ice patches are transitioning to snow fields. And snow fields are transitioning into bedrock,” said Greg Stock, a geologist with Yosemite National Park who joined Devine last month on an annual survey of the Lyell glacier.

While this is not the first time glaciers have receded across the Sierra Nevada – they last did so about 20,000 years ago – this meltdown is more ominous, Stock said, because scientists increasingly believe it is sparked not by natural forces but by rising carbon dioxide levels from the burning of fossil fuels.

“We have entered new terrain with what’s going on in the atmosphere,” he said. “We haven’t seen anything like this in tens of millions of years.”

[From Yosemite glacier on thin ice – Sacramento News – Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee]

(H/T Cooky Jill over at skippy’s place.)

Palin Lie about Climate Change

Seth Anderson4 Comments

More discussion of last nights debate later (still half-formed in my mind, and you probably aren’t losing any sleep waiting for my opinion on it anyway), but this Palin lie jumped out:

99 in the Shade

PALIN TONIGHT: “We have got to encourage other nations to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that. As governor I was the first governor to form a climate change subcabinet to start dealing with the impacts.”

FACTS: PALIN WAS NOT THE FIRST GOVERNOR TO ACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE OR REORGANIZE HER CABINET TO DEAL WITH IT

In JANUARY 2007, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick Began Sweeping Cabinet Reorganization to Integrate Energy and Environment to Deal With Climate Change. “The challenge of climate change illustrates vividly the need to integrate energy and environmental policy,” added Governor Patrick, who has begun a sweeping Cabinet reorganization that combines energy and environmental affairs agencies into a single secretariat.” [Gov. Patrick Press Release, 1/8/07 ]

· Nevada Created Climate Committee in April, 2007. On April 10, 2007, “Governor Jim Gibbons today signed an executive order creating the Nevada Climate Change Advisory Committee and named its 13 members. The Committee is tasked with making recommendations to the Governor on reducing Nevada’s greenhouse gas emissions.” [State of Nevada Press Release , 4/10/07]

· By May of 2007, 29 States had Taken Action On Climate Change. “Among the 29 states that have taken steps to curb their contributions to global warming, some have been more active than others. Massachusetts sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and won a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court last month. California, at the urging of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, passed the nation’s most stringent emissions control legislation. California also worked with several New England states to set up the carbon registry.” [St. Petersburg Times, 5/10/97 ]

Palin Created Subcabinet on Climate Change In SEPTEMBER 2007. According to a press release, “Governor Sarah Palin today signed Administrative Order 238 establishing a sub-cabinet to prepare a climate change strategy. ‘Many scientists note that Alaska’s climate is changing,’ Governor Palin said. ‘We are already seeing the effects. Coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, retreating sea ice and record forest fires affect our communities and our infrastructure. Some scientists tell us to expect more changes in the future. We must begin to prepare for those changes now.’” She also said that the sub-cabinet would look at ways to develop the state’s renewable energy sources. [Palin press release, 9/14/07]

[From Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need]

So in her mind, being 30th is the same as being first. Interesting math.

The full transcript of this portion of the debate, and a bonus wordie map, here

Lutz is a Putz

Seth Anderson0 comment

General Motors has long been a reactionary company; Bob Lutz just proved nothing has changed.

Tangents

General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz, on the 100th anniversary of GM’s founding, appeared on Stephen Colbert’s show last night, and embarassed his company. Lutz, unfortunately for this aging industrial giant, is a Luddite, supporting the most extreme crackpot denials of the science of climate change and attacking the Volt — GM’s next-generation hybrid automobile that can run entirely on electricity for trips of 40 miles or less — as a weak, unattractive car. His extremism was barely matched by Colbert’s parodic statements:

Colbert: Why not just call this the Chevy Gore? You don’t believe global warming is real, you’ve said so.

Lutz: I accept that the planet is heated, but I, like many noted scientists, I don’t believe in the CO2 theory.

Colbert: Exactly! I just think that people are leaving their toaster ovens open. [Or] it’s just sun-spot activity.

Lutz: In the opinion of about 32,000 of the world’s leading scientists, yes.

Watch it:

[Click to watch the video and finish the article Wonk Room » Revolting: GM Executive Bob Lutz Denies Global Warming, Trashes His Company’s Car ]

And yet GM and other Detroit dinosaurs want a taxpayer bailout. If I had a vote on the matter, I’d say, “Hell no!” Companies that refuse to live in the present, that actively cling to the out-dated past, are not companies that deserve taxpayer-funded largesse.

Lutz’s “32,000 of the world’s leading scientists” nonsense is taken from press releases by the right-wing industry-funded Heartland Institute, amplified by right-wing blogs and radio shows. This is a zombie lie, which was begun in 1998 by theright-wing industry-funded Oregon Institute. The National Academy of Sciences, whose name was misleadingly used, issued this warning on April 20, 1998:

The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science.

One might think Lutz was merely joking along, but this February, Lutz called global warming “a total crock of shit.”