Weather, Water, Energy 11-20-06

From the mouths of babes. 11-14 year olds in Britain are more concerned about recycling and climate change than sweeties or homework and say working for an environmentally friendly company will be important to them. More important, they say they're already doing conservation. Good, they'll be used to the 3 hours of electricity they're able to cycle onto the generator every day. Okay, the article didn't say that, but you just have to wonder how they'll react if we never get around to acting (h/t Grist). . . . This energy expert has thrown down the gauntlet to the feds in Science, calling for plans now to structure the new coal power plants coming online in the near future to cut carbon emissions rather than increase them. . . . Keep this in mind when you hear people talking about biofuels as an answer to our energy future. A U of TN study says it could take up to 100,000,000 acres dedicated to the national goal of 25% renewable energy by 2050. The remaining land would continue to meet food needs, the researchers say. No word on the water available for all this but we'll assume the best. . . . Here's a shocker. A leading climate scientist at TX A&M says TX's official water plan ignores global warming. The guy tries to make himself credible--"I'm not a zealot who is out there hugging trees. But things have changed over the past 10 years." Okay, fine, can we stop with the "zealots hugging trees" crap? Maybe if a few more trees had been hugged over the last few decades, we wouldn't be facing the hellhole we've dug. . . . Like this. WY's drought has them hard up for hay and their irrigation doesn't always bear up in the heat. If we hug some trees real quick, maybe that hay problem will just be a temp thing. We can always hope.