Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiUS Climate Report Details Energy, Agriculture Harm
WASHINGTON - Climate change has already caused "visible impacts" in the United States and poses particular risks to the U.S. agriculture and energy industries, a new government report said on Tuesday.
![[Firefighters from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection monitor a huge plume of smoke rising from Los Padres National Forest on the northeastern flank of the Jesusita fire above Montecito, California, in this May 8, 2009 file photo.
(REUTERS/Rafael Agustin Delgado)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/climatechange_us.jpg "climatechange_us.jpg")
The report, which lays out the effects of global warming on specific U.S. regions and sectors, calls for quick policy action as the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote soon on a bill to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
"It's not too late to act," said Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, while releasing the report.
"Human induced climate change is a reality, not only in remote polar regions (and) in small tropical islands, but every place around the country -- in our own backyards."
The House climate bill aims to reduce carbon emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. Its success is considered crucial to U.S. legitimacy at international talks on climate change in December, but chances of passage in the U.S. Senate are unclear. The United States is the biggest per capita emitter of the climate-warming gas carbon dioxide.
Authors of the report said it was not meant to back a specific policy proposal, but they underscored the consequences of failing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which are blamed by scientists for contributing to global warming.
In the agriculture sector, for example, the results of climate change would be largely negative.
Increased heat waves and droughts would affect crop and livestock production while more frequent heavy downpours of rain would reduce crop yields.
"Many crops show positive responses to elevated carbon dioxide and low levels of warming, but higher levels of warming often negatively affect growth and yields," the report said.
EFFECTS ON ENERGY
In the energy industry, rising temperatures would constrain energy production while making infrastructure increasingly vulnerable in coastal areas, including New Orleans, which was devastated by a hurricane some four years ago.
"Increases in hurricane intensity are likely to cause further disruptions to oil and gas operations in the Gulf, like those experienced in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina and in 2008 with Hurricane Ike," the report said.
The Gulf of Mexico is home to nearly 30 percent of the nation's crude oil production and some 20 percent of its natural gas output.
Climate change would also result in greater demand for cooling energy, the report said, which would lead to "significant increases in electricity use and higher peak demand in most regions."
Environmentalists welcomed the report and called on policymakers to heed its warning.
"The White House report on climate change is a stark confirmation of what scientists have been saying for years: unless we dramatically curb our emissions, the world will face unprecedented climate disruptions that will lead to drought, flooding, rising seas, food insecurity and mass displacement," environmental group Greenpeace said in a statement.
"But it begs the question: are the President and Congress taking the action necessary to avert this crisis?"
(Editing by Jackie Frank)
13 Comments so far
Show AllCultural tax vectors that promote sustainability require the job here be as scientific as possible. Start with heat. Life is warm, that's why cold blooded lizards perch on hot rocks. Entropy is part of heat description, heat flows from warmer to colder like water flows downhill.
Taxes should be removed from labor and applied to energy, all subsidies should be removed from energy, soon.
snydly
One of the next things you will hear of is super-cooled water droplets.
Increased atmospheric temperature and water vapor leads (according to me, a non-peer-reviewed nobody) to water being handled in a different way by the atmosphere.
We've had little hints of it in the recent encounters of aircraft with "ice". And the report of a scientist in the Arctic upon finding these droplets in greatr concentrations than expected.
It may be that the droplets play a part in the "new" cloud formations called "aspiracatis" or some such...as droplets would refract light differently than vapor or icelets...
cheers.
A thought occurred to me. But first allow me to lay down some background information:
My buddy (some refer to her as my wife) and I went to visit an old friend on the way to an art show. We pulled up to his house and found all his stuff out in the yard. I asked his wife where he was. She said, "He's dead."
After recovering from the initial shock I asked, "What happened?" She said, "He drove home one night, closed the garage door and left the car running and went to sleep inside the car."
(More shock to recover from)
She continued, "He never woke up."
What's all his stuff doing in the yard?" I ignorantly inquired. "I'm having a yard sale" she replied.
(pause)
"Are you selling his amazing collection of vinyl records too?"
OK, now, the thought that occurred to me: I know it sounds ignorant and unscientific, but aren't we all kinda doing the same thing, collectively? Leaving the car running with the garage door closed?
Anyone catch my drift?
(cough, cough)
yeah, just that your old friend decided to do it sooner than later.......
but in the future, no-one will have a choice...............
Ahh, coco, but that's just it. We all have a choice.
You see change doesn't come by waiting for others to change. We can only change ourselves. We can't wait for the government or corporations to change. We need to change.
They will have no choice but to change along with us sooner or later.
Please watch this video about one family's choice to change:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q
The future is in our hands.
Be the change.
First, I believe that the 'time line' set by Congress is 'too little, too late'. By 2020 the point of no return will have been exceeded, even by conservative estimates.. Then we have the 'ultra-religious-right', still wielding influence in Congress that believes that when we use it all up that the Second Comming will occur and the Almighty will provide for those true believes what is necessary. The ultimate problem is that MOST people are looking for some governmental agency to come in and save them, rather than to take the necessary steps to reduce, reuse and recycle. When it comes down to the personal level, society in general is too lazy to take a few minutes to help the cause. I car pool to work, but see hundreds of autos each day with only one person, driving thirty or more miles each way to and from a routine destination. Oh, and JeeVee, we're probably safer with Congress in recess...
"Oh, and JeeVee, we're probably safer with Congress in recess..."
Was it Mark Twain or Will Rogers who coined that?
Oh well, doesn't matter.
Here are a few gems from Will Rogers:
The taxpayers are sending congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back!
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected [to Congress].
The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.
With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law it's a joke.
From Mark Twain:
[Congresspeople]...the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man.
All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.
Jeevee
How can Congress make the unutterable bad mistake of giving itself a vacation in the midst of so many crises threatening the planet's survival? Self-interest at its most infantile worst!
Man, I'd laugh if it didn't hurt so much.
Hey, what do you expect from such a clot of people who voted to automatically give themselves pay raises every year? No more messy, unseemly voting needed.
And the sheer balls of these people. To think that they posture to scold the banksters for giving themselves bonuses for failing to do their jobs.
Congress = Hypocrisy. Doctors take the hippocratic oath. Congresspeople take the hypocritical oath.
"But it begs the question: are the President and Congress taking the action necessary to avert this crisis?"
Such timidity in phrasing this as a question. Stubborn short sighted intransigence on the part of the President and Congress, and timidity on the part of the press. Meanwhile, the frog in the pot is well on his way to being boiled alive.
Well, the question begs an answer, doesn't it?
More than just short sightedness, Congress (most Democrats and all Republicans except Roscoe Bartlett), and the Administration (especially Secretary Chu, at least until now) have demonstrated a profound ignorance regarding the nature of the two-headed dragon--energy scarcity with global heating--which threatens everyone.
The Energy Secretary in particular, seems to have discounted the urgency to formulate effective policies as well as programs necessary to get them quickly implemented. The only big ideas so far are either profoundly mistaken in terms of cost-effectiveness, timeliness, or simply too weak to make a difference.
The decision to fund with untold billions of "FutureGen" which purports to somehow turn inherently dirty coal into a clean fuel is particularly galling. Ten years will pass before we have an "answer"--one that is already known WITHOUT committing the billion and wasting the time. Along with this the Energy Secretary's other meek recommendation is that of promoting "white roofs". Though qualitatively correct, its roll-out was half-hearted and didn't seem to have much behind it.
The only other policy he is touting, if I'm not mistaken, is the building of unneeded "energy corridors" which propose to move electricity from some parts of the country where renewable energy is to be generated to others where it is consumed. This would be another huge boondoggle, since there is plenty of renewable, or at least, "non-carbon-emitting" sources to be exploited in populated areas, which are not being considered.
The ES seems to be ignorant of the potential of the following: "waste heat" generated from current industrial activities, Convective Available Potential Energy, contained in the atmosphere above populated regions, and both "Geo and Ocean Thermal", any one of which is capable of generate power abundantly, cleanly, and locally, when combined with the AVE, described below.
The technology to accomplish this, The Atmospheric Vortex Engine has already been invented and patented, but is being starved of the funding necessary for rapid development. see http://vortexengine.ca for more information.
As a graduate myself of UC, Berkeley, I have to say that, so far, that Secretary Chu's performance has been a source of EMBARRASSMENT. I hope he soon wakes up and "smells the coffee" before he commits more untold billions to the building of more Nuclear Plants, a course of action which will truly bankrupt the USA, as well as set a bad example for other countries.
My email is under(underscore)hog (at) yahoo, if the Administration wishes to contact me to give a firsthand presentation of the AVE technology, or better yet, one given by the Inventor, Louis M. Michaud (aka "The Wizard of On) from Canada.
The future of the Country, and indeed, the Entire World is at stake. Please take heed.
"The House climate bill aims to reduce carbon emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050."
Throw in spending for wars, banksters, and bridges to nowhere, and you've got a bill. Otherwise, get used to breathing CO2.