Discussion for article #237746
I understand about ice melt making the sea rise, but no one ever mentions that all the groundwater mankind continuously pumps out of the ground at ever accelerating rates, ends up in the ocean. That has got to have an impact on sea levels when it is pumped out faster than the underground water reservoirs can recharge with the evaporation-rain cycle. In California, they are treating sewer water to a drinkable level and then injecting it back into the ground to keep the water table somewhat stable. CBS’s 60 Minutes program did a segment on looming global water shortages. They covered the Californian groundwater recharging program and also the fascinating satellite system named GRACE that monitors global groundwater levels from space. That segment starts at the 5.15 minute marker. Actually, the whole 13 minute segment is worth watching: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/depleting-the-water/
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Wouldn’t exactly call that spitting fire. More like weak tea. Even the British foreign office has much stronger things to say, e.g. by 2040 the BAU scenario will lead to food riots and massive global social collapse. That seems a more realistic scenario than a mere few tens of thousands dead by the turn of the century.
Personally, I fear for my life here in California, in the here and now. Water tables are just gone. What happens when all those gun nuts in the boondocks have to start migrating just to survive?
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Climate Deniers to the White House: “Hit the snooze button. We were having such pleasant dreams about the infallibility of laissez-faire economics.”
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…and the polluters who are making big bucks today say:
Who cares? We want our money and we want it NOW.
They have some notion that their money will protect them from the ravages … or they’ve been told there’s an “Elysium” in the works.
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Not to be preaching to the choir or anything like that but here’s an interesting article from a wine industry daily that I subscribe to. It highlights, on a small scale, the impacts of drawing down the aquifers.
And now is a great time to revisit one of my favorite reads on the matter Cadillac Desert.
or the YouTube movies
Wise water use should have been policy many years ago. But as Jeb Bush would say a looming crisis should not be a factor in economic policy.
Here in Oregon we are also behind the curve. We’ve just had one of the driest winters in our history. Snowpack haas already melted off, rivers at record low flows and expectations are that we will lose another run of salmon this year, Thankfully theDICK Cheney will have no say over whether the farmers in Klamath’s high desert will get water over fish this year but that’s small comfort.
As for Senator Inhoff (R-Conoco-Phillips) he’s bought and paid for. Don’t expect the old grifter to change his stance on the science of Climate change.
It’s sad that our future depends on politicians bought and paid for by those entities with a near term economic focus,
But I’m finally, Finally beginning to hear pundits talk about the cost of doing nothing, And that cost outweighs any near term economic gains of ignoring the problem.
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A Californian friend of mine once told me, after I inquired why he was watering his lawn to the point that water was running off into the street and down the hill during a drought in the late 80’s, that “people who have money will have water and those who don’t won’t”
Astounding!
But I wonder how prevalent that attitude is today?
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God knows (and thankfully so does the POPE!) that global warming is a genuinely apocalyptic problem. It is laudable that political leaders finally take it seriously. Perhaps too little, perhaps too late, but hey.
The unknown but likely catastrophic effects of global warming makes everything else seem kinda secondary.
And yet, we all (should) know that climate chaos will be addressed, not to prevent massive species decimation (if not outright extinction), including our own idiot species, not because of the long held desperate moral arguments of genuine life-lovers (even if the RCC is very late to the game, welcome!), but simply because corporate personhood itself might someday be threatened when the personhood legalism that rationalizes deadly greed becomes moot in the face of climate chaos, and the lust for profit becomes less imperative to real persons - who after all, are the life source for corporate vampirism, than…well, what’s an elected corporate lackey to do when their constituent’s survival instincts kick in and even the idiot “base” can no longer deny the storms, droughts, decimation of water tables, bee & butterfly and bird extinctions, and the effects of unrestricted pollution and unalleviated poverty?
And since TPM is not covering the vote taking place in the senate TODAY authorizing fast track for TPP, and TPM is perhaps one way to reach our congresscritters, I must ask one question off topic.
What happens, when in the short term (which is all corporate persons care about) international corporations VIA THE INCREASED POWERS THEY GAIN IN UPCOMING TRADE AGREEMENTS, decide the campaign beneficiaries should put off global warming until the corporate coffers are full(er).
Tell us, Congresscritters, what happens to those lauded reduction of CO2 agreements when AN INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION WILL BE ENABLED TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST GOVERNMENTS FOR LABOR & ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS THAT MIGHT DIMINISH CORPORATE PROFITS AND THOSE CORPORATE TRIBUNALS NEED NOT FACE APPEAL)
Eh, congresscritters? Did you think we wouldn’t notice.
It will, and, in the long run, they’ll be dead anyway. The live for today attitude is common among us homo nonsapiens.
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What does it take? How much evidence is needed for Deniers to give up their stance and get onboard working to help the situation? I am amazed with a few actually intelligent people that I know who STILL swear that it is all a hoax!
Unfortunately, it is a “Frog in a slowly boiling pot” issue: The Frog won’t notice the temperature rise until it can’t move anymore and by then it is too late to do anything about it.
It is happening SO SLOWLY (in Modern Human reckoning) that most people (especially those who have NEVER lived on a Farm or worked on natural processes) can’t grasp it.
Time is Relative so in the fast-paced modern world, slow changes (inexorable though they are) simply cannot be noticed by most, so they don’t believe it. It does not help that it challenges their self-images and forces them to think about the consequences of their actions. It is SO HARD to just keep up these days that most can’t think about it, and just want it to “go away”.
It’s the old adage: “It is difficult to drain the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators.”