Weather, Water, Energy 3-1-07

• Yet another secondary effect of global warming: Vietnam's drought has left its water levels at hydroelectric dams so low that major power shortages are predicted.
• Yet another article on cellulosic ethanol, its pros and cons. The particular plant of choice in this piece is "the ideal plant" called Miscanthus. Of course, you already knew that. Jury's still out on ethanol for me, more con than pro, but I'm willing to see where it goes. It's just gunna take a lot of land that could be used for, you know, food. (Less food, higher prices . . . see why I'm not gung-ho?)
• And yet more evidence that global warming does have an effect on the power of hurricanes.
• The Christian Science Monitor has a good global warming review column with a lot of links to good stuff including the early warming of Lake Superior, the shifts of bacteria, insects and plants as that Lake Superior weather moves north, the imperative that our CO2 emissions peak between 2015 and 2020 or we'll hit the "tipping point," and British Columbia's progress with renewable energies.
• Speaking of changing fauna, this article notes how photos from post-Civil War days and from now document the changing weather patterns between now and then by focusing on the background in, say, Memorial Day pictures. This is actually something all of us could put together if we can find the photo albums.
• Finally, a National Academy of Sciences committee is pushing its report on the need for a "worldwide research network" composed of multiple disciplines finally talking to each other to get a comprehensive understanding of what's really going on in the Arctic. Even if they pull it off, it will likely be too late for these folks, the Inuit, as we've noted before. I think we can assume they won't be the only culture decimated if we don't get it together right now. So that means they won't be the only culture decimated.