Weather, Water, Energy 3-23-07

• USA Today tries to convince us the nuclear is a viable alternative to carbon-based fuel and that some normally sensible people are coming around. Well, they do at least quote someone who knows that it's a last option, not first. And maybe the reporter should have checked about this: we may have a major nuclear fuel shortage, too. Uh-oh. Shouldn't that be, like, the first thing you check on?
• Good stuff at Grist, including why the Repubs love of nuclear power basically makes them socialists, the drastic need for a paradigm shift on how we manage the oceans, how even conservatives are making the whirly-whirly signal at their temples when Inhofe talks, and more on the scams and hype behind too many carbon offsets that we need to be more wary of.
• This could be cool. The US has developed a CO2 tracking system to show levels all across the country, viewable from the Internet, allowing better determination of emission areas, carbon sinks, etc. And, if it helps our understanding here, the plan is to take in global.
• We keep talking about how the first IPCC report was a conservative, compromised document that may have underestimated the coming warming and pointing out to you examples where reality has already outpaced the models. Well, here's another one. Rising sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets are already at the top levels of those projections. If the ice flows continue at this pace, the IPCC forecasts may have to go up 25% on sea levels. It won't be easy to deal with it, especially if we keep dithering. As one scientist said, "You can't just say we'll just put sea walls." Yeah, good luck with the sand under them. It's the same stuff our policymakers are standing on.
• Finally, this is what I'm very afraid our future will look like. For the last 40 years the people living around Lake Chad and the Chadian gov't have been watching the water dry up, tossing out big words, holding summits, publishing plans, ignoring the political and economic interests growing richer in the short term and preventing action, and generally getting crapola done while the disaster occurs. It's like the old "Twilight Zones," but only Rod Serling is laughing.