Some reading for the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers”

[guest49]

^

another trickier clickier thingiemajigie

Yeah.  If the newsbyte URL is  short enough, I just use that - but some of them are as long as the family bible!

[nitpicker1]

^

another trickier clickier thingiemajigie

Yeah.  If the newsbyte URL is  short enough, I just use that - but some of them are as long as the family bible!

Sure beats the Tiny Url thingy that I used to use.

Until now,  I didn't know an emoticon would work as a click-on-the-pic link! 

 

[guest49]

More signs of global warming!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2958849/Niagara-Falls-frozen-extreme-winter-weather-continues-East-Coast-going-colder.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

California Water Anxiety Syndrome: Feel it yet?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 3:00AM PDT - Tuesday, March 17, 2015


The apocalyptic furniture showroom formerly known as Almaden Reservoir. — Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press.

IF YOU live here, you already know: The feeling is inescapable, palpable, more than a little scary.

I’m talking about California Water Anxiety Syndrome (CWAS), of course, that sinking feeling to trump all sinking feelings, that sour knot in the pit of the collective stomach, unnerving and strange and, let’s just admit, unutterably depressing.

California, as you might have heard, is running out of water. Very, very quickly. And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.


Snowpack as of March 2015. Dismal-er and dismal-er.


The pond formerly known as Folsom Lake. Anyone wanna buy a boat?

Perhaps you read NASA senior water scientist Jay Famiglietti’s rather terrifying op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, declaring that, by all available measures, our state has only one year of water storage left? True. What’s more, farmers are desperately pumping out the last remaining groundwater so fast, just to survive, that the ground itself is sinking. That’s our “backup” water. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

Famiglietti declares what nearly everyone already feels: the time to start a mandatory statewide (individuals, farmers, industry, everyone) rationing program is right now.


Upside: California has the BEST before/after pictures. And by “best” I mean, horrifying.

Care to argue with him? Best go look at this chart first; it shows how the state’s snowpack currently stands at a harrowing 13% of normal, which is itself half of last year’s dismal 25%, which was already a record low. Blame climate change or blame the farmers and their water-intensive crops all you want. Fact is, the state’s been losing massive volumes of water for more than a decade. The problem is everyone’s.

By the way? Winter, in case you missed it, is over. Big rains ain’t coming. No more snowstorms. No more flood warnings. San Francisco had its first ever rain-less January 100 years. Or was that 1,000? Is this drought is the worst in 20,000 years, or just 1,200? Does it matter?

Water Anxiety Syndrome is growing, and it’s something new, something unprecedented in modern life. The prospect of the world 7th largest economy (that’s us, bigger than Russia, Italy, Brazil) running out of water and triggering the collapse of multiple industries, from agriculture to recreational tourism, invites a very unique feeling of epic helplessness.


Tahoe used to look like this, every year. Might be awhile before it ever does again.


Amazing how thick, water-ready snowpack can suddenly appear more valuable than a mountain full of diamonds.

We cannot make it snow. We cannot ever replace that pumped-out groundwater — need another Ice Age for that. We cannot refill our dried lakebeds. There is no pipeline large enough to transport trillions of gallons over from Boston. This is what we’re not accustomed to: No amount of money, no amount of political posturing, no display of military might, no act of Congress, no amount of chemicals, no amount of whistling by the graveyard can bring more water.

It’s even more difficult to fathom if, like me, you believe there’s almost nothing we can’t handle. Our species is stupendously adaptable, exceedingly quick to shift our needs or our usage when called upon. Despite what politicians or Big Energy wants you to believe, we are actually excellent at conserving, at rationing, at getting very serious, very quickly about doing what needs to be done.

And the polls back it up: 94% of Californians — that’s pretty much everyone with a functioning brain — says they’re ready and willing to make some dramatic changes, and soon. When do we start? How do we do it? And more importantly, will it be enough?


Lake Oroville. Sort of. — Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.


Salmon! But not for much longer.


Good time to put in that rock garden. Maybe a cactus.

History, I’m afraid, is not in our favor. I just saw a documentary, one of National Geographic’s hugely popular “The Truth Behind…” episodes, on Netflix, each one of which attempts to explain a particular mystery or phenomena (crop circles, Druids, Freemasons, Dead Sea Scrolls and so on). They’re smart, they’re fun, and they mostly get right to the debunking point.

This one discussed the astonishing Nazca lines, in southern Peru, those enormous, miles-long geoglyphs the Nazca people carved, scraped and dug into an immense area of flattened mountaintop between 100 B.C. and 700 A.D.

The region is staggering in size. The Nazca lines, a World Heritage Site since 1994, cover some 190 square miles. Theories as to why a small, rugged tribal people would create such epic carvings run the gamut: were they irrigation systems? Astronomical calendars? Ritual patterns? Landing strips for alien spacecraft?

This particular episode offered a newer possibility. Archaeological evidence now suggests the lines are actually elaborate “outdoor temples”, vast geometric shrines, humble offerings to the Nazca gods, requesting divine favor.


LEFT: California! Meet the Nazca. They ran out of water, too. | RIGHT: A Nazca monkey. Not good enough to bring water.


LEFT: The Nazca carved enormous glyphs, lines, diagrams, hoping to appease the gods. | RIGHT: Birds, animals, human figures, miles-long geometric patterns
 — nothing seemed to make it rain.

But why? For what? Why would a relatively primitive tribal people go to such intense, laborious lengths to appease the gods? Why scrape hundreds of miles of lines, patterns and shapes into the dry, hot, unforgiving mountaintop? What could have possibly compelled them?

It’s water, of course. The Nazca, some now believe, were fast running out of water. The climate was changing. The already parched region was drying up. The lines are simply a dying people’s desperate attempt to beg their gods to please deliver some rain.

Didn’t work. The Nazca soon vanished. Their culture disappeared forever. Seems the gods, then as now, weren’t much concerned with our plight.

• Email: Mark Morford

• Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/03/17/california-water-anxiety

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

http://xtranewscommunity2.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,14622.0.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Los Angeles Times....

Relentless drought is turning California into Nevada

By DAVID HORSEY | 2:04PM PDT - Friday, April 03, 2015



A COUPLE OF of weeks ago, I was flying to a conference in Sun Valley. The passenger next to me was looking out the window, down at the dry, barren landscape below. He asked me if I knew where we were and I said, “I think it’s Nevada, but it could be the moon.”

Nevada is a perfectly fine state, but it is largely arid and empty. From a few thousand feet in the air, it bears no resemblance to the parts of the planet that are wet and green and verdant. With Governor Jerry Brown’s implementation of unprecedented water-use restrictions in response to California’s fourth year of severe drought, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if the Golden State is becoming Nevada.

Brown made his announcement that all jurisdictions in the state must cut water consumption by 25% while he stood on dry ground in the Sierra that he said normally would be covered by five feet of snow. The mountain snowpack is just 12% of average, which means dramatically diminished runoff going into reservoirs that currently have about a year’s supply left. That does not mean there will be no water for Californians. The reservoirs will get a small boost from whatever rains do come. There are also vast, ancient aquifers with reserves of water that could last a decade. But, unlike the reservoirs, the aquifers filled up in millenniums long past and would take a century or more to restore.

California’s Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural regions the world has ever seen, sits on top of those aquifers. The people who grow the strawberries, pistachios, almonds and other crops that feed America have been forced to pump more and more water from the aquifers in order to stay in business. Now, the land is sinking as the space underground is emptied. Geologists and hydrologists warn that overpumping is bringing farmers closer to a day when the only water left in the ground will be too deep, too poor in quality and too costly to bring to the surface.

Agricultural interests, though, have successfully lobbied against state regulations that would restrict groundwater use. For now, growers can drill a well wherever they want and keep sucking up water from the aquifers. It’s not hard to understand what the growers are thinking. They just want to hang on long enough to see the drought end and water for irrigation spilling down from the mountains once again.

Wetter days will return to California, but it could be temporary. Scientific projections about climate change strongly suggest that the new normal will be far drier than in the past century, when the state’s agriculture industry was built on irrigation of otherwise unproductive land. If drought, occasionally interrupted by a diminished dose of rain and snow, is the new normal, then farmers will be hard pressed to survive. And that would be not just a tragedy for them or a disaster for California’s economy, it would be a huge problem for the country.

According to the Western Farm Press, California “produces a sizable majority of American fruits, vegetables and nuts; 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots and the list goes on and on. ... No other state, or even a combination of states, can match California’s output per acre.”

If that productivity goes away — along with a significant share of the state’s huge livestock industry — consumer prices throughout the United States will shoot up and people’s food choices will be severely pinched. What is truly scary is that, if the science is right, it is difficult to imagine how such a dried-up future can be avoided.

If California’s agricultural heartland becomes as much a desert as Nevada, even reviving empty farming towns with a string of Reno-style casinos would not come close to replacing the bonanza that water once created.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-california-into-nevada-20150403-story.html

[reality]

Here in Hanoi, Vietnam...I was surprised to see supermarket shelves loaded up with Californian apples and oranges......maybe soon Californian supermarket shelves will be loaded up with NZ apples and oranges😜
 

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

More Horse Pucky from ktj

climate change is natural and beyond human control





More Global Warming Hot Air, As Climate

Fundamentalists Continue Inflating a False Reality
JANUARY 18, 2015 BY 21WIRE 53 COMMENTS
1-Patrick-henningsen-BW1Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire

We’re told this week that Washington’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center (NOAA) had finally crunched its numbers for 2014, and Al Gore is a very happy man, as are the armies of amateur climate experts who take government scientific announcements as gospel.

Not surprisingly, NPR was very excited about this latest government proclamation, running the headline, “It’s Official: 2014 Was The Hottest Year On Record, NOAA Says”.

Yes, NOAA speaks! Who dares to defy the great and powerful NOAA?

There’s only one big problem with all of this. I really love dolphins, and all sea life, but at the end of the day, NOAA is still an arm of the US federal government, and therefore, it’s can be just as political as any other federally-funded agency.

So why is the government-media-complex pushing so hard with global warming now?
 1-Global-Warming
The top two inflated celebrity scientists fronting the UN IPCC public relations drive, Penn State’s Michael Mann and East Anglia University’s Climatic Research Unit head Phil Jones – have both been exposed long ago as failures and were caught through ‘Climategate’ manipulating data sets in order to fit their own government-funded and highly biased theoretical theses on anthropogenic (man-made) global warming. Michael Mann was so damaged by Climategate that he eventually went on a legal rampage, attempting to sue his way out of the scandal’s orbit. On top of all this, Mann, the UN’s IPCC rock star ‘climate scientist’, had his fictional “hockey stick” global warming graph – thoroughly debunked by multiple scientists and academics - read just one of those critiques here. Mann’s contrived hockey stick graph was made famous by Al Gore’s since discredited 2006 ‘documentary’ entitled, An Inconvenient Truth (a more ironic title couldn’t be found).

A decade on, a number of experts are growing tired of how creative computer-modeled fantasies are influencing long-term policy and carbon taxation schemes. Veteran meteorologist and founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman, explains:

“There has not been any significant man-made global warming in the past, there is none now, and there is no reason to expect any in the future,” he said. “The computer models that predicted the warming have failed to verify. There has been no warming in 18 years. The ice at the poles is stable. The polar bears are increasing. The oceans are not rising.”

Think of the IPCC as a 16th century Vatican who may have believed the earth was flat, even though Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan knew it wasn’t. And just like the church of old and with other institutes of control, Gore and Mann hope to use their modern mythology of global warming in order to monetize guilt with a global regime of indulgence taxes.
There are a number of obvious fundamental flaws with the latest government sermon which claims that 2014 was “the hottest year ever”, and whether or not man-made global warming theory is anything more than that – a theory (and a well-funded one at that). Climate Depot’s Marc Morano adds here, “There are dueling global datasets – surface temperature records and satellite records – and they disagree. The satellites show an 18 year plus global warming ‘standstill’ and the satellite was set up to be ‘more accurate’ than the surface records.”
Also, the US surface temperature measurement network of stations has many inherent flaws, and may not be as accurate due to issues like heat pollution.
Bottom line: this latest announcement is the latest in a long line of parlour tricks – and the parlour trick is a time-honored government tradition.

What about the scientific ‘consensus’? We hear a lot about it, but in reality, it does not exist anymore than 9 out 10 dentists say fluoride is good for your teeth. Scientist Art Robinson decided to ask top scientists throughout the US, Europe and beyond, what they thought of this supposed “consensus” that’s Al Gore and others promoted so heavily between 2005-2012. Thus far, Robinson has already collected 31,487 signatures from scientists to help form The Petition Project, which testifies that, “no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate.”


Those who have bought into the modern Armageddon-based mythology of global warming (rebranded later as ‘climate change’) will likely use the highly pejorative term, ‘climate denier’ to describe me, or anyone else who dares to challenge the Gore orthodoxy, something akin to an apostate by today’s collective climate fundamentalist standards. They will also conflate the theory of climate change with real toxic pollution, as if these are one in the same thing (when clearly they are not). It’s no surprise then that the inventors of the term ‘climate denial’ specifically chose that term to reflect the term ‘holocaust denial’ in order to parlay additional negative connotations, automatically insinuating that to be in denial equates to a crime. Again, another parlour trick, using a NLP crowbar to try and administrate a new politically correct term. Like the term ‘conspiracy theorist’, the term ‘climate denial’ was created for the same reason ‘conspiracy theorist’ was invented – as a deadly little pc linguistic widget designed for lazy commentators and self-appointed cultural gatekeepers who wish to shut down and curtail any rational or genuine scientific debate on the subject. Closet collectivists, shills for central government policy and other creatures of the nanny state, will always use these words and terms to avoid having to actually dig their heals in.

No, I am not a climate denier. Far from it; I love the climate and the environment too, but I also recognize that our climate does change – in fact, it always has, and always will - even without mankind’s (and Al Gore’s) input. I am an opponent of government propaganda, social engineering and the modern technocracy. Anyone who is so naive as to believe that they would not fudge-up their figures and theses in exactly the same way the federal government constantly fudges down its unemployment figures (5% we were last told, ‘lol’ as the kids say) and inflation figures. should ponder the term “jobless recovery” for one moment, and you’ll see what I mean.

That’s what appears to have happened this time too. For reasons not confined to job security, or funding, NOAA seems to have left out some important qualifiers in what can hardly be described as a definitive declaration of global warming.

Science author Bob Tisdale explains,”According to NOAA definitions, global surface temperatures for 2014 were “More Unlikely Than Likely” the highest on record, but they failed to note that on the main page of their State of the Climate report.  NOAA used a specific ENSO index to claim that El Niño conditions did not exist in 2014, when at least one other index says El Niño conditions existed. And, NOAA failed to discuss the actual causes of the elevated global sea surface temperatures in 2014, while making it appear that there was a general warming of the surfaces of the global oceans.”

“NOAA never stated specifically that 2014’s record high surface temperatures were a result of human-induced global warming, but they implied it… thus, all the hoopla. NOAA has omitted key discussions within that report, which biases it toward human-induced global warming. In other words, the NOAA State of the Climate report was misleading. NOAA has once again shown it is a political entity, not a scientific one. And, that’s a damn shame. The public needs openness from NOAA about climate; we do not need to be misled by politically motivated misdirection and misinformation.”

In a world full of hypocrisy and corruption, some media presenters and ‘journalists’ simply see the climate debate as that one safe place where everyone should be in agreement. By purchasing their ticket on the climate bandwagon, they think they’re being compassionate and humanitarian. But it’s not humanitarian at all, it’s political. Members of the media who feel it’s enough to simply parrot the federal government line on global warming, or regurgitate the New York Times front page spread today – are as guilty as bought-and-paid-for scientists like Mann and Jones, and could be considered journalistic failures on this subject.

The irony of this debate is that it’s much more likely, if you follow actual science (as opposed to multi-million dollar federally funded, contrived computer modelling projections), that the earth is currently slipping in to a global cooling phase. On the whole, a drop in temperatures is many times deadlier for mankind on this planet than a rise in temperature is. If you cannot figure out why global cooling is more dangerous, then perhaps you should watch the films The Colony, and Snowpiercer, and maybe think just a little bit harder about where your food really comes from.

Is man’s CO2 production warming the planet’s atmosphere? Certainly it is, but it’s likely to be so tiny that it would be (and is) actually impossible measure, and so small that it would be almost impossible to isolate as a number. A drop in the bucket at best, and at least – insignificant – in terms of pushing up global temperatures. In truth, the primary driver of the earth’s climate was, is and always will be: the sun. Overwhelmingly, solar cycles determine our planet’s climate cycles, and anyone who is not paying attention to this, will miss the real event horizon – when it finally arrives.

Meanwhile, real environmental threats go unchallenged, like GMO’s (note how Monsanto has recently bought into the climate alarmist industry), nuclear radiation, geoengineering and toxic chemical waste.

Political gravy trains, financial gravy trains. Scientists and academics who have already pledged their allegiance to the cult of climate change are too busy notice, preoccupied with filling out their federal research grant applications for next year – hoping to keep their job, the house, and ultimately, their reputations.

It’s easy to join the climate congregation and enjoy a sense of safety in numbers, but it’s a lot harder to face up to the truth: that we’ve been played by the same charlatans who’ve always played us.

READ MORE CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Climate Files

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/01/18/more-global-warming-hot-air-as-climate-fundamentalists-continue-inflating-reality/

[reality]

Haha..."more horse pucky...."

Yes.....as per usual.....😜

But seriously...if humans can change our climate...could we make it a bit warmer in NZ before the onset of winter😜

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Ooooh, looky....a couple of “head in the sand” idiots have farted.

[reality]

Haha...the scared and weak little rabbit has summoned the courage to leave the burrow😜...and say nothing...typical militant lazy unionist rail worker😳

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Does California’s catastrophic drought have an upside?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 3:00AM PDT - Wednesday, April 08, 2015


Pretty. And also a pretty stupid waste of land, water, energy, time, “sport”.

DO you know what politicians, particularly conservative politicians, despise the most?

Hint: It’s the same thing organized religions fear above all else, the same thing governments both large and small are often aggressively reluctant to embrace, the same thing we as a species, as a culture, as individuals are told, over and over again, that we should resist, perhaps even violently and blindly, lest the gays and the vegans and the terrorists come and take away our iPhones.

It’s change, of course. Life’s most upsetting, dreaded and yet fantastically enduring aspect. Did you already suspect?

It’s simple, really: Most forms of change freak us out because we’re trained to detest the discomfort of the new, that awkward, even painful adjustment period that forces our beloved habits, beliefs and addictions into weird new shapes (once we adjust, all is fine, of course; it’s that clumsy liminal phase we aren’t well adapted to cope with).


You ready? Investment tip: Bucket manufacturers. Thank me later.


Almond orchards. Massively thirsty, massively profitable, often controlled by wealthy
families or corporations.

It’s not always bad, of course: some change — fresh love, a new puppy, pec implants, your first successful orgy — can spark us alive, can give you hope and wish for even more of same. Change that brings gifts, bounty, fulfillment, some finely toned abs? We like.

It’s the other kind of change we can’t stand: loss, heartbreak, lack of security, threats to our fragile moral certainties, to our most beloved habits and ingrained cultural behaviors. We love our stuff. Ask us to limit or even eliminate some previously abundant, gluttonous, sort of thoughtless conduct we’ve become accustomed to — oil, energy, food, housing, transportation, shopping, cheap gas, dumb entertainment, water? That’s grounds for uprising, pal.

Or so we are told. And taught. And it’s a silly and dangerous lie.

Behold! California, deep in the initial stages of a jarring, lifestyle-shattering drought, one that threatens to forcibly restructure, at nearly every level, the 9th largest economy in the world. And no politician, religion, or fistful of money can stop it.


LEFT: More precious than we imagined. | RIGHT: Replace the grass with sand and the sprinkler
with magic dreams, and you’re on to something. Take a picture, parents. This idyllic scene
isn't long for this world, much less this state.


LEFT: Lawns are pretty. Lawns are nice. Lawns are almost as ridiculous as growing rice. | RIGHT: No idea if this is a pot farm,
but illegal pot growers abuse water perhaps even more than almond farmers. And there's zero regulation.

How are we to respond? What sort of unprecedented melodrama awaits in the coming summer, and the next? One thing we know: Lack of water is going to change us in ways we are only barely beginning to fathom, and it won’t just be arguments over pools, golf courses and almond orchards.

I am here to propose a possibility: Perhaps all is not so dire. Perhaps, despite all the grim adjustments that await, despite the political maneuvering, the invisible billionaires who control way too much of the state’s economy (including water), we are, nevertheless, on the cusp of something sort of amazing, a profound — and profoundly beneficial — psychological shift that can serve us well into the future.

Is it possible? After all, as pointed out by multiple experts and historians, it’s a freak historical anomaly that we’ve been living in an age when you can merely turn on the tap and boom, there’s all the free, clean, drinkable water you could possibly want, enough for a million swimming pools, golf courses, lawns galore, not to mention enough to flood a semi-arid state with a trillion acre-feet of water to grow all sorts of products we have no business growing.

This is not normal. This is not how it’s been, ever before, in human history. Such a bizarre, environmentally abusive framework of water gluttony was never long for this world.


Pools waste a fraction of what agriculture wastes in California. Still, a luxury most can live without.

Here is our chance. Here’s the opportunity to defy everything conservative politicians and religions alike tell us to fear and dumbly ignore — all the waste, corruption, resource abuse that’s plagued our state, our country, since forever, to the benefit of, well, of them.

This drought is an equal opportunity transformer. No one is immune. No one will not be challenged to adapt in new and curious ways.

Of course we can survive, even thrive, with far more dramatic cutbacks, with far less water. It will be strange and difficult. Careful, thoughtful resource management is not, after all, the American way. But should this drought continue unabated and should we, therefore, quickly realize just how valuable, how beautiful, how not to be taken for granted is the water we have left, we’ll cultivate perhaps the most precious resource of all: gratitude.


The least of our water-use worries, really.

• Email: Mark Morford

• Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/04/08/does-the-catastrophic-drought-have-upside

[reality]

"Sport a waste of time, water, land and energy"

I think your mate Mark" the moron" Morgford is a bit of a communist..

Maybe he can start a political party.....and wait for the tsunami of support😜

Tell ya what...after you have lived in a cave for one year , I will too😜

Can't be fairer than that😀

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

i heard they shut down major water catchments there and have used it as a way to control the place now they are putting smart meters to suck the peoples money.

if they wanted they can fix the problem but they didn't spend the money

for over one hundred years they had trouble with water supplies there it not a new thing it was a dust bowl in some past times.

Heres some pictures for ktj to wank over

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=dust+bowl+relocation+california+1930s&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ZKMmVcfsD8vc8AXEgIGIAg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1120&bih=642

sick of your climate fear porn brucey haha

[reality]

Perhaps they could bring in the user payed system.....
...or buy water from Canada....
...or buy all the desalination plants that Australia spent zillions building and now don't use😜

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Los Angeles Times....

William Shatner boldly goes after Northwest water for California

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Friday, April 24, 2015



ON THE voyages of the Starship Enterprise, Mr. Spock was always the logical one, while Captain Kirk led with his heart. No surprise then that William Shatner, the actor who played Kirk in the original “Star Trek” television series, has boldly gone where few have dared by proposing a $30-billion pipeline to carry water from the Pacific Northwest to drought-ravaged California.

Shatner says there is too much water in places like Seattle, so no one would miss it.

“How bad would it be to get a large, 4-foot pipeline, keep it above-ground — because if it leaks, you’re irrigating!” Shatner told an interviewer. “It’s simple. They did it in Alaska — why can’t they do it along Highway 5?”

Well, as Spock would respond, “It’s not logical.”

Despite the stereotypical image that most people in the country have about the far, upper left hand corner of the United States, it doesn’t always rain there. In fact, New York City gets more total rainfall than Seattle. The difference is that Seattle rain is generally more of a mist that stretches the cloudy days out over weeks and, sometimes, months, which is why the city is a great place for cozy coffee shops, movie theaters and public libraries — anywhere to escape the soggy gray. It may or may not be true that the weather inspires more suicides, but it certainly is the reason that Northwesterners all dress like mountain climbers, even if they are headed to the opera.

The hidden secret, though, is that, from July through September, Seattle is usually as sunny and rainless as Los Angeles. Surrounded by mountains, lakes and Puget Sound, the place is spectacularly beautiful. It makes the gray months worth enduring.

This year, though, even those gray months have not been so gray and definitely not as wet. Like the rest of the West Coast, the snowpack in the Cascade range is way below normal. Already, large sections of Washington and Oregon are seriously parched. It’s easy for people unfamiliar with the region to overlook the fact that the eastern halves of both states are arid. Like the Central Valley in California, it is massive irrigation that keeps vast agricultural areas of the Northwest from drying up and returning to dust and tumbleweeds.

The region’s salmon fisheries also depend on water from the Columbia and other rivers. And the industrial sector of the economy is built on cheap hydroelectric power. That is why officials in Oregon and Washington have quickly rebuffed past schemes by Californians thirsting for a share of all that water up north and why they will certainly say no again.

So, Shatner’s pipeline scheme is not likely to get off the ground. He could, of course, try pitching the plan using Spock’s often-stated assertion that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” There are, after all, close to 40 million human beings in California and just 11 million in Washington and Oregon, combined. Think of all the Golden State crops to be irrigated, the lawns to be watered, the cars to be washed, the swimming pools to be filled, the golf courses to be kept lush and green!

On second thought, do not think of the golf courses. Or the pools. Or those dust-streaked Maseratis and Teslas.

And don’t think badly of Shatner. He has made his proposal with tongue firmly planted in cheek. After receiving a negative response from folks up in the land of Amazon, Starbucks, REI and Microsoft, Shatner sent out a tweet that read: “Dearest Citizens of Seattle if you think I'm an idiot or evil enough to steal your much needed water; you don't know me very well.”

See? We knew he was a hero. What Shatner is really hoping to do is bring attention to a big challenge — not just the drying up of California, but the drying out of the entire West. It is a challenge that needs to have brought to it some bold, futuristic ideas. It is a worthy mission for everyone, from border to border.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-shatner-boldly-goes-after-water-20150423-story.html

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Los Angeles Times....

Jerry Brown aims to lead a climate change revolution

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Thursday, July 09, 2015



THIS WEEK most American news junkies have been tuned in to the emotional debate over the Confederate flag or mesmerized by Donald Trump’s hijacking of the Republican presidential contest, so a quieter news story from north of the border will not have been on their radar. Still, it’s a significant story for anyone who cares about the fate of the human race.

Governor Jerry Brown has been in Toronto at a climate change conference for the last couple of days. He is seeking new governmental partners to join a push to reduce the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Right now, there are 17 states and provinces in the Western Hemisphere, Africa and Europe that have pledged to make significant progress toward curbing the planet-warming pollutants between now and 2050. In Toronto, Brown added Quebec to the list with Ontario hoping to follow. Washington Governor Jay Inslee, also at the gathering, said that he wants his state to get on board as well, and that if legislators fail to go along, he will mount a statewide ballot measure.

The climate pact was announced in Sacramento earlier this year. It may not sound like such a big deal, but, given how painfully slow national governments have been in facing up to a threat that grows more frightening with each passing year, Brown believes much can be accomplished by creating a coalition of sub-national entities that get out ahead of recalcitrant national politicians.

“The real source of climate action happens to come from states and provinces,” Brown said in his conference address on Wednesday. “The real energy has to come from below.… We’re going to build up such a drumbeat that our national counterparts, they’re going to listen.”

Brown and his allies are hoping to play an influential role when representatives of the world’s governments gather in Paris later this year for a summit on climate change. Brown plans to be there and, if he has the backing of enough state and provincial leaders from around the globe, he may get a hearing for his ideas.

That, of course, may not be enough to impel real commitments to change. In fact, given the sad record of past environmental summits, there is plenty of reason to be pessimistic. Nevertheless, the effort Brown is leading could have a positive impact. Imagine if, in the United States, a significant number of major states buy into the idea that cutting emissions is good for the country and that shifting from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources is good for the economy. It could make the deniers, foot-draggers and shills for the oil and coal companies in Washington, D.C., irrelevant.

In Toronto, Brown branded those who refuse to recognize the need for dramatic action on the climate issue “troglodytes” and insisted it was time for them to stop standing in the way. "Climate change doesn't wait for anybody," Brown said. "We're not doing enough. We're taking baby steps.”

The pact between the states and provinces may be one of those baby steps, but it has the potential to mature into something big.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-brown-climate-revolution-20150708-story.html

[reality]

I think global warming is just a conspiracy theory..I'm bloody freezing...can we speed it up

[guest49]

I do believe climate change is a reality.  I don't believe humanity has much, if any, influence on it.
A volcano dwarfs humanities puny outputs in a few days.
The cause of change is much further afield than Joe Blow tooling down the pike in his V8 Landcruiser.  93 million miles further afield in fact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=n6j4TGqVl5g

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

only sick thing is you lol

[reality]

Tom Scott is old and doddery..probably has alzs'....well past his use by date....probably time to move home to England and retire

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]