Global Warming in California
Global Warming's Twin Evil: Wildfires and Drought - 06/30/08
The facts are unequivocal, and point to a troubling future ahead. Over 850 fires, scorching some 200,000 acres, have set a new 2008 record for early-season wildfires in California. And from March to May precipitation has been the lowest since the inception of record keeping in 1894.
In California as well as throughout the West, mountain snowmelts are occurring earlier, and winter storms are arriving later, extending the fire season by at least several weeks.
On June 5, 2008 Governor Schwarzenegger declared a state-wide drought. Droughts fuel wildfires. Across western North America global warming has caused prolonged droughts -- some areas are now entering their 13th year -- and warmer temperatures.
What's more, in California and throughout the West, millions of acres of drought have created tinder-dry kindling through weakened forests that have been ravaged by billions of indigenous bark beetles and disease. Currently, there is no serious policy being implemented to clear out these dead trees, fireproof communities and inform residents of a plan of action.
A mismanaged forest policy has suppressed the natural occurrence of fire, and as a result, many of our California forests are overstocked, and now tinder dry. When lightning strikes occur in combination with drought, mega-fires can't be far away.
State risks economy on global warming plan - 06/29/08
Given California's infinite diversity and its maddeningly diffused governmental apparatus, it's rare for the state's politicians to undertake a comprehensive and expansive change of public policy.
The decades-long stalemate on water, the state's perpetual budget crisis and the failure of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care plan are merely three examples of the political system's chronic inability to act decisively and effectively.
And even on those rare occasions when major new policies are adopted, they tend to fall well short of their purported benefits, a sterling example being the unanimous approval of electric energy "deregulation" in 1996 that became a colossal failure a few years later.
California used to undertake big and visionary projects, such as its famous freeway network, or its once-unmatched system of public higher education. But that was then, and this is now. California has changed immensely from those halcyon days, and its recent record of gridlock and failure is pretty grim.
Schwarzenegger cites a poll by an outfit called Next 10, purporting to prove Californians are eager for that change, but the poll didn't fully lay out the trade-offs that going green may require for the ambitious goals for carbon reduction to be met. As with energy deregulation, there is a tendency among advocates to hype the upside without exploring the downside. And we can be certain there will be a downside.
Global Warming and California Agriculture - 04/02/07
The latest news continues to be full of stories about global warming, and one of the constant pillars of the apocalypse is that agricultural yields will substantially decline due to higher temperatures, increased drought, spread of diseases, invasion of weeds, destruction of soil nutrients.
With all the gloom and doom about increased drought in the future, we note that all climate models predict increased precipitation on a global scale with little ability to predict changes in precipitation at local or even regional scales.
The Lobell et al. team is made up of members from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Carnegie Institution, and Stanford University. They begin their article noting that "Agriculture in California represents an economically and culturally important activity that contributes substantially to national and international production of many commodities. Statewide agricultural income from sales in 2003 was $27.8 billion, or 13% of the U.S. total.
As the nation's leading producer of 74 different crops, California supplies more than half of all domestic fruit and vegetables." Furthermore, they state "Despite advances in technology and the widespread prevalence of irrigation in the state, agricultural production remains highly dependent on weather, which can affect both the quantity and quality of harvested crops."
