Weather, Water, Energy 8-31-06

The big story, of course, is the bipartisan agreement in CA between the legislature and the governor to put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, showing it can be done despite the best efforts of the feds. For better and (often) worse, CA sets the path for the rest of the nation. Let's see how long it takes Bushnev's DOJ and/or Supreme Sovi . . . Congress to pull the old "write a pretend federal rule to preempt progressive state action" stunt. . . . The bigger news, though, to me anyway, is this Climate Progress piece wherein one of the nation's chief skeptics about global warming and hurricanes has come in from the dark side. In fact, now he's saying, “I don’t see any reason why the power of hurricanes wouldn’t continue to increase over the next 100 to 200 years.” Now, is this good news or bad? . . . And finally, a weird story from the Kansas City Star on how gasoline in hot temps will expand but not be accounted for at pumps, meaning we're paying more than we should. Like $2.3 b. (that's billion) a year. Those of you not physics-challenged will probably get the details better than the rest of us, but it's another thing to brighten your holiday weekend.

You're welcome.