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Climate change impacting California, says EPA report

August 8, 2013

climate controlClimate change is “an immediate and growing threat” affecting California water supplies, farming, forests, wildlife and public health, according to a report issued Thursday by the California Environmental Protection Agency. [Mercury News]

Fifty-one scientists combined to author the 258-page report, which found that annual average temperatures in California have increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895. The CalEPA report also stated that the sea level at the Golden Gate Bridge rose eight inches over the last century.

The authors of the report came from the University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies and institutions.

“A report like this is Paul Revere,” said UCLA economics professor Matthew Kahn. “It provides an early warning, an early indicator of the challenges we face.”

Kahn said Californian entrepreneurs will combat climate change by providing electric vehicles, wind turbines, ocean desalination projects, better air conditioning systems and denser housing in coastal areas, which will remain cooler than inland areas.

The report also found that fires have become more prevalent in the state in recent years. An average of 598,000 acres in California have burned annually since 2000, compared to average of 264,000 in previous years.

“Climate change is not just some abstract scientific debate,” said California EPA Secretary Matt Rodriquez. “It’s real, and it’s already here.”

 


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QUOTING ARTICLE: “The report also found that fires have become more prevalent in the state in recent years.”


The thing about fires is this: to put them out, water is almost always required. These water expenditures for fires aren’t usually planned for in the annual water budget.


More fires = More unplanned water demand = Greater unforeseen demand on water resources.


The need to have water available to fight fires is just one of the many reason that Paso’s water use must be reined in to sustainable levels.


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Wow, 8-inches in sea level rise over the past 100 years!

Does that mean it’ll rise 8-feet in 1,000 years?

Does anyone even believe mankind will still be around in 1,000 years?

With that much sea level rise, I guess it’s high time we all packed up and moved away from the Coast to higher ground.

Look out Fresno, you’re about to become the new Pismo Beach.

I wish they’d never started this whole fear factor PR campaign in order to convince everyone to move toward alternative energy sources.

I’m getting tired of these dooms day predictions using statistical analysis and computer modeling that the people doing the studies write themselves.

All they have to do is point to smog to show people that we need alternative energy, electric cars, etc…

Air polluttion alone is enough to show me that we need to change.

I guess I have trouble believing people who can’t acurately predict the weather next week to tell me what’s going to happen in 100 years.

And they worry about the past 100 years of data, when the earth is more than 7 billion years old. A hundred years is less than a nanosecond in the life of the earth. And you know what, no matter how badly mankind makes the atmosphere, the earth will be toasting to our demise for a billion years after our species is long gone.

The climate change people run the risk of Chicken Little syndrome. The only ones they can convince of their dire predictions are the people who already believe them. Preaching to the choir is what they are doing.

And actually looking at the numbers, like 8 inches of sea level rise over 100 years, is not instilling a sense of ugency in me.

But we’d all better wake up. Because the people in charge of our government are determined to use this kind of information to force drastic and costly changes. For example in Morro Bay, this sea level rise hysteria is going to cost us about $40 million (plus interest) to move our sewer plant from the coast.

So the monetary costs of climate change are already being felt and will be much more devastating than the actual sea level rise ever could be, based on 8 inches every 100 years.


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QUOTING NILES Q: “The climate change people run the risk of Chicken Little syndrome. ”


The climage-change-denialists already exhibit the Ostrich-Head-In-The-Sand syndrome.


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Mary, with all due respect, just because someone isn’t screaming in panic over a change in climate does not mean they are denying that said climate is changing. Perhaps they have come to the reasonable conclusion that climate DOES, in fact, change and there’s nothing man can do to change that.


Did you know that the polar ice caps on Mars are also shrinking? I swear, I never drove my SUV there, either…


The weather is in a constant state of change. It gets warmer, it gets colder. People who freak out about either are just silly at this point. No head in any sand; the only thing “denialists” deny is the junk science behind the scare tactics. It’s all about money and funding, very little about actual science.


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Your sewer plant is in a flood plain.


You call moving it to a safer place hysterical? I’d call it common sense. Besides, you need a new plant anyway. Might as well do it once the next time.


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The flood issue was mitigated for with the project that was denied to the satisfaction of FEMA, which regulates such things.

But the Coastal Commission is on a mission to instill this whole climate change, retreat policy, so they ignored FEMA’s OK.

And NO, I don’t think it’s OK to force two tiny little communities like ours and Cayucos to move a a plant from a site that’s been used for more than 50 years and at an added cost of probably $40+ million, just to satisfy the political agendas of political appointees and power hungry bureaucrats.

Sea level rise is always talked about in terms of the next 100 years, and the new plant is only good for 30-40 years, so over 100 years, we’ll have to build 2-3 more plants.

So why the hurry to move it now? Because there’s a political agenda at work here and the ratepayers and the public be damned.

Break out your checkbooks, the sea level is rising..


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always a poltical agenda especially to get funds & votes


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Good points all.


You’ve all heard the old definition of “statistics” right? – “numbers looking for an argument”.


My concern w/ the 8″ rise is how was it accurately measured 100 years ago and by whom?


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Part of what the moribund U.S. environmental movement needs is an angrier soundtrack, not bogged down with musical baggage from old, hippy-dippy environmental campaigns. Here’s a new American anthem guaranteed to stir the soul of any red-blooded environmentalist, as well as lure a few emotionally sensitive people over from the dark side. Feel free to use it. Scream your anger!

https://soundcloud.com/biff-thuringer/to-america


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“Climate change impacting California, says EPA report”…

Hmmmmmm…the weather changing impacts California. So if the weather never changes is California unaffected? 10 years ago we were told by experts that all of the piers in California would be under water in ten years and all they are today are underfunded. AAAHAHAHAHAHAHA


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truly a dumass comment


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I would guess that you were at the top of your debate class…you really make a good point there…lol


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QUOTING RAMBUNCTIOUS: “0 years ago we were told by experts that all of the piers in California would be under water in ten years”


Specific quote and reference for this statement, please.


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I can get more examples for you if you would like. An article in the New York Times in late July 2008 by an author promoting a forthcoming book about “global warming” calls the Greenland ice-sheet “one of ‘global warming’s’ most disturbing threats”. The article says: “The vast expanses of glaciers — massed, on average, 1.6 miles deep — contain enough water to raise sea levels worldwide by 23 feet. Should they melt or otherwise slip into the ocean, they would flood coastal capitals, submerge tropical islands and generally redraw the world’s atlases. The infusion of fresh water could slow or shut down the ocean’s currents, plunging Europe into bitter winter.”


The article continues that ocean warming eats the ice sheet from beneath, causing glaciers to calve and melt faster, changing patterns of migration and hence of hunting, which, it says, has a positive effect: warm-water cod have returned, and shops can now offer locally-grown vegetables. Recession of ice along the shore has exposed pockets of lead, zinc, and bauxite. More than 30 billion barrels of oil may also be reachable if there is further melting. Yet the thrust of the article is Apocalyptic.


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In case you missed it, the author doesn’t mention a timeline for this event. Try again?


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The sky is truely falling


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Isn’t this the best reason to stop illegal immigration into California by sealing the Mexican border? An increase in population means an increase in carbon usage.


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That’s right, all the carbon they produce in Mexico will stay south of the border and won’t affect California!


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your worries are over


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Wow! Essentially, a team of 51 Al Gore’s authored this report. Now we’re really doomed.


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what the hell dies that mean?


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If you have to ask….


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“Climate change is “an immediate and growing threat” affecting California water supplies, farming, forests, wildlife and public health, according to a report issued Thursday by the California Environmental Protection Agency.”


This is a revelation? It not only affects California, it’s affects the entire world. It always has, and the question isn’t is the climate changing, the question is when wasn’t it. These miscreants are fear based, funding supported thieves. California has always been defined by floods and droughts, and these freeloaders are trying to cash in on that fact. Fact, this has been the shortest Arctic summer in record keeping history (45 days compared to a historical average of 90). Fact, the earth’s temperature has been flat since 1995. Fact, the mean temperature of Alaska is down 2.7 degrees F in the last ten years. Don’t believe these liars, they’re out to pick your pocket. Here’s my question: why did you egg suckers drop the “global warming” mantra and switch to “climate change” (rhetorical).


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egg suckers.


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different perspectives on the data


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no love for charts and graphs?


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Love them, particularly when the scaling factors aren’t manipulated as “Mr” Gore did in his docudrama. Here’s a link to Burt Rutan’s analysis of the matter.


http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm


By the way, how can the beginning of the “hockey stick” graph show the 1000 AD line as lower than today when it was 5 C. warmer than now? Their explanation, it was an “insignificant event”. Oh really, 350 years is an “insignificant event” and yet 20 years of warming is??? How does that work? Was it so “insignificant” that it caused Greenland to shed its ice?


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What is your point, anyway?


A couple of days ago the LA Times ran an article about how New Mexico is suffering from the extended drought in western U.S., as well as AG-butt-kissing unwise land-use practices. What was once dry prairie grassland has turned into desert.


Just because one region or state is the focus of an article doesn’t mean that other states or regions are not also suffering from climate-change related extended droughts.


In addition, no one has said that droughts and floods in California are something new, so on that issue you are arguing with yourself.


What is evident is that we are in an extended drought period, and it does not appear that the drought will be over in the near future. Even if it started raining tomorrow, the unsustainable way water is used in the West, and the unwise land-use practices government agencies allow and promote, it would take several years of greater-than-“normal” rainfall to begin to save many at-risk groundwater basins.


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Rubbish, Alaska was proclaimed the canary cage of climate change by the alarmists. Their narrative was a planet enveloped in a CO2 laden atmosphere with the colder climes showing the most significant, early, signs. Then you go on to state:


” What was once dry prairie grassland has turned into desert.”


What grassland? Where and when? The dust bowl of the thirties? Your lawn? Loved the New Mexico example. Do you mean the New Mexico that shares a border with Arizona? You know, the Arizona that got its name for the words ARID ZONE. Remember arid, that means dry. No-no-no, the alarmists put Alaska on the pedestal, and for good reason, and now you’ll have to abide with the facts. My point is this, and as my grandfather (an Iowa farmer) used to say “Ain’t but two types that predict the climate, fools and newcomers”. There are too many variables: Eurasian Ice Sheet, Precession, Volcanic activity, Ocean Currents, and the list goes on. Then of course there’s Mr. Sun, that big ball of fire we orbit around each year. If you’re looking for a culprit, I suggest you “dialog” with him. He’s the one that has Maunder minimums (think Ice Age) and periods of increased solar activity (think Medieval Warming Era). You remember The Medieval Warming Era, when Greenland shed its ice and was farmed. The alarmists claim, should this reoccur, the seas will rise causing cataclysmic results, and yet this is the same period that western Holland experienced most of its growth and settlements flourished. So why didn’t it happen then? The atmosphere is 2% greenhouse gases, and of that 2%, 3.6% is CO2, and of that 3.6%, 3.4% is anthropogenic. In another metric that’s .7 of an ounce for every ton of atmosphere, and to think that infinitesimal amount of CO2 is causing dramatic swings in the climate is naive, at best. By the way, the aforementioned percentages are from the IPCC. The alarmists focus on CO2 for one reason, and one reason only. It’s the only variable that they can connect to human activity, and unlike the remaining variables, it’s the only one that has money, and that is precisely what this is all about, MONEY and control. You see Mary it’s an “end justifies the means” approach to modifying peoples behavior, but unfortunately that mindset is the petri dish of totalitarianism, and I don’t intend to fund it. In the matter of unwise land use, I believe there are many points in which we’re in total agreement. Want to “save the planet”? Then let’s start with lazy mothers who use the plastic diapers that line the roadways. We’ve spent billions on sophisticated sewer systems, and these deadbeats throw their baby’s crap in the trash. Where do you think the bacteria from that ends up after a good rain? Let’s get rid of the grape production for yuppie winos, and on and on. Have a nice day!!


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yep, so California cleans up its act. how about the third world? “and denser housing in coastal areas, which will remain cooler than inland areas”. i suppose ferderal regulation and eminant domain? yep, re-zone the coast and put a 20 story housing complex next to my single family dwelling. and “Californian entrepreneurs”. are they tired of flipping houses?


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