Weather, Water, Energy 2-22-07

The US West is not looking like a great place to be as global warming plays out. Yes, CO is making serious moves to develop the collaborations necessary to get renewable energy up and running, but in the meantime it and the other Western states are looking at depletion of the CO River and nothing they're proposing looks adequate to deal with the needs as populations continue to expand. And to the south, in Mexico, they're draining water out of an ancient oasis to feed alfalfa to feed dairy cows. Despite the protests, the government there is into the famous "balance" of econ interests with things like, you know, long-term survival: Coahuila state's government is urging federal authorities to ban the opening of more wells but has no plans to prohibit alfalfa production. "We can't just blame one person or one group. We can't just blame Lala. We need to . . . find a solution to this problem," state environment minister Hector Franco said. Oh, yeah, but do that without blaming the people sucking out the water. Good luck with that. . . . Speaking of blame, more lawsuits are being filed against emission culprits but the difficulties of actually assigning responsibility to sue-able folks is proving really tough. . . . Seems like this sort of thing would have happened a long time ago, but scientists are finally trying to figure out the eventual impact on northern Europe of the atmosphere over Greenland and Iceland in order to improve their forecasting ability and fill in gaps in climate change models. I guess after having winds from TX blow over you and mess you up all your life, you just assume everyone tries to follow connections. . . . Finally, some good news. I've made a reference or two to the idiot "state climatologist" in DE who loudly proclaims his superior intelligence to the folks who put out the IPCC report, who has "consulted" for oil companies and one of the nuttiest of the rightwing think tanks. Well, the gov there has cut him off. He's not to say he's speaking for DE when speaking of global warming anymore. Which will surely make him a martyr to the obstructionists and deniers. But remember, he does live in DE and, if the higher insurance doesn't get him, maybe a good hurricane will. We can always hope.