Report: Global warming already impacting Calif.
By Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News
Rising ocean waters. Bigger and more frequent forest fires. More brutally hot summer days.
These aren’t the usual predictions about global warming based on computer forecasts. They’re changes already happening in California, according to a detailed new report issued Thursday by the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Climate change is “an immediate and growing threat” affecting the state’s water supplies, farm industry, forests, wildlife and public health, the report says. The 258-page document was written by 51 scientists from the University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other agencies and institutions.
A report released Aug. 8 points out how global warming is affecting California. Photo/LTN file
“Climate change is not just some abstract scientific debate,” said California EPA Secretary Matt Rodriquez. “It’s real, and it’s already here.”
Most Californians seem to agree. In a poll last month by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, 63 percent of the state’s residents said the effects of global warming are already being felt, while 22 percent said they will happen in the future. Eleven percent said they will never happen.
I for one enjoy warmer weather, so bring on the sunshine & more temperate climate!
You can bet the Ca Legislature’s gonna tax us for this ! And probably more mitigation fees locally too !!
Without climate change that melted the Tahoe Glacier no one, no anything would be living and enjoying Lake Tahoe.
Sure AB. Hope you also like the spread of diseases that presently don’t occur in our area and will be able to spread faster worldwide, increased disease costs, more fire, less tourism to support the economy,less water for agriculture so higher priced foods, more air pollution…. It will be a hoot.
I for one, still question the efficacy of going green. The developing world (large majority) is solidly trying to be Westernized and still cannot afford the high cost of going green. Fossil fuels are king (cheaper) Therefore slow to change. Even if the whole world were to go green tomorrow, it would at best take at least a hundred years to turn it around.
Personally I am embracing the idea of drought, famine or disease to decimate the population to establish a sustainable world population for the resources available. Realistically, the next world wars are not going to be over oil, they are going to be local skirmishes over water. Who has it is who is going to hydrate, eat and live.
AB,
Climate change doesn’t mean more a more temperate climate. In Tahoe, it means more risk of catastrophic wildfire, less snow, less lake clarity, more intense storms. Less Sierra snowpack means more droughts, less water for agriculture. Oceans are rising, which will eventually wipe out large sections of California coastal communities.
To not take action by switching to sources of power that emit less carbon pollution is the height of irresponsibility and selfishness, from the point of view of our children and future generations.