Weather, Water, Energy 4-9-07

Like we needed to hear this. Turns out that abrupt climate change has occurred in recent history in specific locations much more often than climatologists had thought. Which is what you expect in complex dynamic systems. Know what else you would expect eventually? An abrupt total systemic change. Uh-oh. . . . A couple of stories from different coasts, both about states facing up to their needs to make major decisions about their water systems and how they maintain them in the face of climate change--CA and SC. . . . Speaking of water, Kazakhstan has gotten a $126m. loan from the World Bank to try to salvage the northern porton of the Aral Sea, which got screwed like almost everything else by the Soviets. If it works, they might have a future. . . . A bipartisan Congressional call for a first-ever "national intelligence estimate" on global warming, including how water and food will likely be national security issues as well the effect of changed oceans. Could have a chance if not for that person in the White House. . . . You might think the winds, geo-thermal, and bio-materials in HA would make that state pretty energy-independent. Well, you'd be waaayyyy wrong. But they're trying to doing something about it finally. . . . That second IPCC report has very little good in it for New Orleans. Let all those white Repub opportunists take the place over and invest their bucks in it. Its future is worse than Kazakhstan's, according to the scientists. . . . Remember that poor global warming scientist who said the worst of global warming couldn't happen "because we can't be that stupid"? Turns out he took a giant load of crap for that particular naivete, but he got to lead a Newsweek feature on the inordinate amount of time it's taken for people (including Newsweek, we must point out) to accept the data on global warming that's been out there for decades now. So now we have an issue of the magazine devoted to the problem. Better late than never. Read and learn. . . . Finally, a study of likely political responses to the challenges of global warming and its buddies, water and energy shortage, particularly the odds that wealthy nations will do something, especially to help the poorer nations that look to get hammered first. The short version of the analysis of the six most likely scenarios? "[The authors] surmise that the political will doesn't exist to keep the temperatures down."

But . . . but "we can't be that stupid."