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US Climate Report Says Global Warming Impact Already Severe
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Darryl Fears reports in the Washington Post on the U.S. government's newest national assessment of climate change. It says Americans are already feeling the effects of global warming. The assessment carves the nation into sections and examines the impacts: More sea-level rise, flooding, storm surge, precipitation and heat waves in the Northeast; frequent water shortages and hurricanes in the Southeast and Caribbean; more drought and wildfires in the Southwest. 'Residents of some coastal cities see their streets flood more regularly during storms and high tides. Inland cities near large rivers also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Insurance rates are rising in some vulnerable locations, and insurance is no longer available in others. Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the spring, last later into the fall, and burn more acreage. In Arctic Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and autumn storms now cause more erosion, threatening many communities with relocation.' The report concludes that over recent decades, climate science has advanced significantly and that increased scrutiny has led to increased certainty that we are now seeing impacts associated with human-induced climate change. 'What is new over the last decade is that we know with increasing certainty that climate change is happening now. While scientists continue to refine projections of the future, observations unequivocally show that climate is changing and that the warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.'"
It's Weather, not Climate.
It looks like they are having a hard time discerning predictions and actual events. The 2013 Atlantic season had ZERO major hurricanes, and only TWO total hurricanes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...
It's extremely difficult to accept at face value a report that says every possible outcome from climate change is bad.
Especially when it comes from an administration that campaigned on the theme of change.
Several of the items they cite are not even principally related to climate change, but to population and
population density increases, and to past fire suppression policies. People being people, not people changing the climate.
The flood and crop damage we are experiencing are covered by federal insurance programs, but the extra damage is caused by growing emissions. We should not be raising premiums in response to this, but rather we should impose climate damage tariffs on imports from countries that are increasing emissions to try to gain advantage in world markets. GATT Article XX provides for this. http://www.wto.org/english/tra... Using greenhouse gas emissions as a weapon to disadvantage our agricultural exports and damage our manufacturing infrastructure near flood plains must be stopped.
This report is also reviewed over at Slate by the Bad Astronomer.
La La La La La La! I'm not listening!
Interesting that just today, I also read this article:
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
It claims that a full 1/3rd. of the warming in the 1990's, on record, was actually due to water vapor in the air, vs. CO2 emissions and the like. Yes, it's not saying this is cause to deny the phenomenon, but it shows how we're still really in the early stages of understanding the details..... The statements of fact about exactly what's happening are largely premature.
My 2014 Mustang GT (Premium) has 425 horsepower and runs like an ape with his ass on fire. I'm grilling steaks this weekend and drinking beer on the deck in my back yard. Every night I sleep with my air conditioner set to 70 and I water my lawn daily. I'm having way too much fun to care about this subject. The climate will change and we'll adapt and even if we don't I'll be dead in a few decades and won't give a shit then either. I'm also not paying back any of that money my elected representatives borrowed from China. Sadly none of that was meant to be sarcastic. It's all true. That last part was sarcastic. There's nothing sad about it. Have a beer and pull up a chair on the deck. It's going to be a long drought and/or ice age. Might as well get comfortable.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
While I believe this report is overall truthful, I can't help but think of Clair Cameron Patterson. It took him 20 years of fighting corporations and their "bought and payed for" scientists to convince enough people in our government that the nation was dying due to lead poisoning to actually do something about it. This despite the fact that the reality of it was in-your-face blatant the whole time. We should all consider him a hero and be thankful that he solely lead the charge against the ridicule he faced. Although a largely unsung and unknown hero, he really did save the nation. The convincing that needs done now is a bit more diverse and politically complicated. Lets hope we come to our senses in time on the issue of climate change as we did with lead.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Latest episode of Cosmos broadcast on Fox TV:
"We just can't seem to stop burning up all those buried trees from way back in the carboniferous age, in the form of coal, and the remains of ancient plankton, in the form of oil and gas. If we could, we'd be home free climate wise. Instead, we're dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate the Earth hasn't seen since the great climate catastrophes of the past, the ones that led to mass extinctions. We just can't seem to break our addiction to the kinds of fuel that will bring back a climate last seen by the dinosaurs, a climate that will drown our coastal cities and wreak havoc on the environment and our ability to feed ourselves. All the while, the glorious sun pours immaculate free energy down upon us, more than we will ever need. Why can't we summon the ingenuity and courage of the generations that came before us? The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?"
The show:
http://www.cosmosontv.com/watc...
The news:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
At least here in the west, the increased wildfire issues are also partially caused by lack of proper forest-management. Wildfires are a natural phenomenon that allow forests to rebuild themselves - but in our zeal to prevent them, and also to prevent forest thinning via logging over the last few decades, we are breeding wildfire territories.
As for water shortages in California - we have been court-ordered to drain reservoirs and dump extra water into our rivers in order to flood the delta so that "endangered" smelt can survive. As such, we have also depleted agriculture of the much-needed water to grow plants - water that floods the land and seeps into the ground to refill the water table that is used for wells.
We are messing with things every year in the name of "environment", and causing other unintended consequences - but yet when these problems crop up, we just label them all "climate change" and blame something else.
Streets and rivers are flooding more so it MUST be global warming. It can't have anything to do with the millions of square miles (guesstimate) of asphalt and buildings we construct each year which prevent water from entering the ground and funnel them into concrete ditches instead.
I think the President should go on a few more golf outings, you know, fly in his big old 747 to somewhere far away and play a round or two, and then fly back to DC. Then, we need to have a UN Climate Summit somewhere tropical, and figure out how to solve the logistics problems inherent in having a meeting in a remote location, like how to make sure adequate supplies of caviar are flown in fresh daily and where to park all the jets ferrying individuals to their destination.
I'll believe it's a problem when the people who are telling me it's a problem start acting like it's a problem. When the logistics problems go from caviar to videoconferencing bandwidth. When the President decides that golfing locally is a better idea than flying somewhere.
"Oh, you just don't understand international diplomacy and the need for face-to-face communications to achieve consensus!"
You're asking me to change my life and not accepting any changes in the way you live yours. Hypocrisy at its finest.
I bought my house and went crazy upside down on it. I'm in the better part of nation for climate predictions. Looks like my property value is set to skyrocket once everyone else runs out of water/food.
The Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health came out in 1964. It clearly and undeniably showed the evidence that smoking was harmful. Now, 50 years later, only about 1/2 of the states have actually banned smoking in enclosed public spaces.
Why does anyone expect America to respond to AGW any quicker or more effectively?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Let's pretend that a tiny tiny sampling of hurricane frequency matters a whit.
If so, then plainly climate change is REDUCING the frequency of hurricanes. So then why again should we panic about climate change if in fact it makes coastal life calmer?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When the international communities remark with amazement at how recalcitrant american business, government, and even its own people are to even the suggestion of climate change I cant help but wonder if, as an american, people from other countries have a full understanding of just what it would mean for us to change...Everything we do, and all that we are, is prediacted upon cheap reliably supplied oil. this was a decision made after world war 2 and reinforced by the carter doctrine of foreign policy. it was a horrendous mistake.
We dont have local farms or slaughterhouses. everything is created in one place, and delivered by trucks that run on roads subsidized by american taxpayers from one of maybe a handful of factory farms dotted throughout the midwest. American markets have no season; if you want a jackfruit, it can and will be delivered more than two thousand miles to you and the ramifications of that is not even a cursory consideration. Drinks are kept cold, constantly. Ice is plentifully and liberally added to nearly any beverage you get. Beer hovers somewhere around the freezing mark. We can do this because the way we approach energy is just as we had in the 50's.
our rail system is no different than it was in the early 50's. slight modifications have been made to handle larger cargo, but the system runs at around 40 miles per hour and carries only the most cumbersome goods. Cars, Coal, shale oil and natural gas are the chief passengers. toxins too dangerous to transport by semi truck, things like hydrofluoric acid, are also frequently transported. Corridor rail systems used in boston and LA that do in fact transport people are powered exclusively by diesel, as are all our rail systems. We have minimal and fiercely debated electric light rail systems in some cities, and some have transitioned their busses to natural gas, however outside our largest four or five metropolitan areas every transportation request you have will be granted by the automobile.
Im not trying to justify what we do or why we do it. Its sad, and unsustainable in my opinion but whats important to understand is that acknowledging climate change and doing something productive about it in America means infrastructure overhaul not seen since Franklin Delano Rosevelt. It means the average 1 hour american car drive to work has to stop. Perpetually illuminated office buildings have to stop. Cities like phoenix will have to stop landscaping bluegrass lawns and water features into communities and we as a nation will have to swallow a nice big slice of 'we did it wrong' pie. The reasons we dont do anything about this problem are mostly political, but under the politics and the money, you have a system of society that is at its foundation based on conspicuous, questionless consumption and the planned obsolescence of nearly everything. anything to retard or stymy consumption is seen as a natural threat.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The whole thing will stop smelling like a religion when they stop CONSTANTLY trying to stretch some tissue-paper-thin suppositions into policy prescriptions.
I stopped reading at "...frequent water shortages and hurricanes in the Southeast and Caribbean..."
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
Essentially, the link between global warming and hurricanes is hotly (get it?) debated, the data inconclusive and contradictory. My understanding is that reasonable scientists disagree on this one. To use this as wall paper in some recent 'boilerplate of doom' just proves that they lack any sense of their own incredibility.
-Styopa
Figure out the problem like Max Planck did and stop worrying. There's nothing any of us can do about it, sadly.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
And all the people really suck at XML.
I hear the Chicken Littles squacking again.
https://xkcd.com/1321/
Meanwhile, Canadian moose pasture keeps getting more expensive.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Last winter in the eastern part of the US (the "coldest winter in recent memory") wasn't any worse than bad winters a few generations ago. The fact that you haven't had one like it in recent memory is evidence that your climate is getting warmer.
the drought and high temperatures the North American Heat Wave of 1936 of the time were not caused by human action, but sure the poor soil management techniques exacerbated the dustiness.
I wish that weren't a valid point. I happen to think this report is correct, but other reports from the same source do taint its trustworthiness.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
There was indeed a cyclical climatic phenomenon, 1936 N. American Heat Wave. The high temperatures and drought were not caused by human action. sad you instead ape the fact that poor soil management practices at the time made the dust worse but still ignore the reality of a recurring weather pattern
what was it? I forgot the current buzzword
Climate Rape.... because we can't expect bubba to cotton onto polysyllabics like "disruption."
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
20 years of extreme hot weather in Congress from all the BS hot air every day (at least every day they work which is not what you think).
Lets vote in more States & Personal Rights with a constitutional ammendment and limit the hot air guys by taking away their UNLIMITED power to spend your dollars, and even the future value of your dollars by "printing" excess dollars which devalues what you save.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
No one can predict the future.
I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow, and also the next day.
I predict the average temperature where I live will be warmer in August, and it will be cooler in January.
I predict a full moon on May 14, and a partial solar eclipse on October 23.
I predict that next year's calendars will (in America) mostly bear the year "2015".
I predict that in 2015 the Earth's atmosphere will still contain about 78% nitrogen.
I predict that, this coming June, elephants will be unable to fly under their own power, but sparrows will.
Of course people can predict the future. We can't predict everything. That doesn't mean we can't predict anything.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Because for the last few decades people and their governments have essentially refused to act to ameliorate the damage that they were doing, so all we can do is try to deal with it. We are probably already comitted to a four degree temperature rise, with two degrees the rough estimate of the maximum rise that can happen without serious effects. Probably one of the better ways to deal with this is to grow gills, but so far people aren't willing to even think seriously of what the repercussions are likely to be. Over a century or two I expect most of Antarctica to melt. This means a HUGE rise in ocean levels. Additionally warmer water takes up more room than colder water. (Water is densest at 4 C.) Expect the San Jouquin and Missippi valleys to be permanently flooded with salt water. The Great Salt Lake *may* refill, though I think the ground has risen since it was last alive, so perhaps not. Given the rise in temperatures, these changes may be good, as they will act to ameliorate the local climate.
As usual, timing will be the problem. The changes I was describing will be extremely rapid by geological time scales, but on human time scales they will be only uncomfortably rapid. I expect a couple of centuries, if we can hold the rise to four degrees. (Four degrees is all I feel we're currently comitted to, though some estimates if we continue using coal put the estimate as high as 10 degrees [I don't remember whether that was Centigrade or Fahrenheit].)
P.S.: I am not a climatologist. I merely follow reports in some popular science journals.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
When the topic is climate change or guns, you can't reason with most of them.
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As nerds, the first thing we should check is the power requirements of our technological gadgets in our daily activities.
Print with PLA instead of ABS, use a tablet or low-end computer instead of a gaming PC to read Slashdot and watch YouTube, stream Netflix via an Apple TV instead of a PS4/Xbox One, etc. The list is endless.
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See my issue with the entire Climate Change debate is that we argue it as if its a moral obligation to our planet to fix this. At the end of the day, its only us that suffers. Let all the oceans dry up, and lets pump the air full of CO2, Earth honestly doesn't care. It will use all of that to make something else, and life will prevail. Its us humans that will die off, and I promise you the Earth doesn't give two shits about that. Yet anyone who I talk to gets all indigent about how heartless I am for not worrying about this. I don't deny climate change, and while I do question the amount that is caused by humans I just don't care about it. I see it a few ways: 1) I will be dead by the time this screws me over, and its likely that humans were to face extinction at some point no matter what. 2) we achieve a level of technology that makes this entirely moot. Like we fuse with computers meaning we don't need breathable air or drinkable water. So yeah, get over it. Solar and wind energies simply arent ready for the big stage, and when they are they will find their ways into our daily lives.
literally, if you happen to live on a coast or in pollution-ravaged Chinese cities
you *sigh* because of this???
then it gets upmodded???
this is why we fail...too many arguments about people on the same side for no reason....we get tangled in trying to *convince* people with language of something they don't have an opinion on...GOP-tards and polluting corporations will *never* just admit they were wrong...it wont happen
*pollution hurts the environment*
therefore it must be regulated
end of story...the rest is just academics smelling their own farts or GOP and their corporate masters working their propaganda machine
Thank you Dave Raggett
You know, I hate to be the one to point this out, but nearly every one of those things can be attributed to governmental overreach as much as it can be attributed to the environment. Just look at the water shortage statistics. States that were hit the hardest all had laws against rain water collection. Wildfires, likewise, may also be related to the insane laws we have in place. Insurance companies are being regulated to death, and are playing it as safe as they legally can. It has more to do with this insatiable need to regulate the hell out of them than it does with actual conditions. Sea levels go up and down all year long, and no amount of climate change legislation is going to have any power to control that. Of course the government is going to tell you that climate change is a big problem, and that more of your tax money is needed to combat it. They have a profit motive to do so, duh. The people to listen to here are the ones who have no political or financial agenda.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
It has been widely acknowledged for some time that we are NOT experiencing abnormally extreme weather of any kind. Not from climate change or otherwise.
Examine these charts and point to where there is any real evidence of weather extremes due to climate change or anything else.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/ref...
Yep, global warming impact is severe, alright. Coldest winter in recent memory, that warming sure is a bitch!
Ok, that comment was just begging for the obligatory XKCD link.
This "national assessment" was released by the White House, presently in control of Barack Obama who desperately needs issues to blather about to shore up popular opinion. It's a report stringing together previously issued reports in a new presentation. Congress did not authorize it: it's propoganda for the mid-term elections.
Dear members of the press:
When this country was founded, it was fashioned with three branches of government. Those are the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. Remember your history classes from your high school years? Unless issued through a legislative process, this report was not issued by "the government" of the United States.
With the condition of the press as it is today, why do I even bother with it?
Our "vehemence" is really self-respect. I want the information needed to judge the correctness. I do not want to be told that it is morally right to shout "seig heil" with the rest.
Everyone used to believe that the earth was 6,000 years old, until someone proved differently. Let the global warming alarmists point to proof, not to each other in making a popular opinion.
Like the Syrian civil war? - Sure social media assisted in the Arab spring once the uprising began but what triggered the uprising? Why did that lone protester set himself on fire in the public square? - Did all these people all suddenly wake up one day and suddenly realise "OMG, I've been living under tyranny my entire life" or could the worst drought ever in the fertile crescent (the birth place of agriculture), and the food riots it caused in major cities such a Cairo have something to do with it?
Prior to the civil war, 10% of Syria's population (2M people) abandoned their farms due to lack of water and moved to the cities looking for work. Food prices across N. Africa and the ME skyrocketed. The leaked diplomatic cables talk about the internal migration and warn about civil unrest, one diplomat went so far as to correctly predict the city where trouble first broke. Yet if you ask a random Joe on the street what are they fighting about in Syria, the answer will almost certainly be "religion".
All wars are resource wars, religion simply provides a moral defence for morally indefensible acts. Water is a scarce recourse in many places around the world, while other places are getting so much water they are quite literally drowning. They say there's a 70% chance of a very strong El-Nino this season, similar in strength to '83 and '98, meaning the mid-west US will get massive floods and Australia will be dry as a tinder-box. Australia ran very low on drinking water during the last drought, the major city reservoirs were around 10-15% of capacity, the rural situation was worse. We spent billions on some of the largest de-sal plants in the world only to have the drought break as they came on line. I think the politicians and their fans who have been bitching about the costs of these "white elephants" will be eating their words in the next year of two..
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Climate change will be disastrous, but there is a great deal of capitalist profit to be made in the process. Does anyone think that the same bipartisan batch of politicians that spent trillions bailing out the banks (instead of prosecuting the bankers) is going to stand in the way of said profits?
It's easy to make actual historical data support your view when you quote it so selectively.
* The very first link, for example, not only hides all the warming before his carefully-chosen 1998 cutoff year, but also fails to mention the continued warming in ocean temperatures (where most of the energy ends up).
* The next link doesn't even have a source for his data.
* We are then told about a single data point (2014) in a single metric (arctic sea ice area) as if it's supposed to be particularly significant
* And finally a single paragraph from a single local newspaper from 1974, apparently intended to represent the alleged global scientific viewpoint of the times, and a quote from a single meteorologist admitting he doesn't know how climatologists can predict climate.
I honestly have no idea why you think this is convincing. It's no wonder he's never produced any peer-reviewed papers; the reviewers would tear his methodology to shreds.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Based on many studies covering a wide range of regions and crops, negative impacts of climate change on crop yields have been more common than positive impacts (high confidence).
Climate-related hazards exacerbate other stressors, often with negative outcomes for livelihoods, especially for people living in poverty (high confidence)... Observed positive effects for poor and marginalized people, which are limited and often indirect, include examples such as diversification of social networks and of agricultural practices.
At present the world-wide burden of human ill-health from climate change is relatively small compared with effects of other stressors and is not well quantified. However, there has been increased heat-related mortality and decreased cold-related mortality in some regions as a result of warming (medium confidence)
IPCC AR5 WGII Summary for Policy Makers, emphasis mine. So yeah, there are recognised positive effects, they're just outweighed by the many negative effects. Sorry the news wasn't better, but there you go.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Wait, I know this one. It's that same narcissistic bastard, day after day.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Nothing unusual about sparrows flying under elephant power. I think they like the risk of being downed by elephant dung. African sparrows, of course. European sparrows typically fly under mixed power: nuclear, coal, solar, oil, etc.
Anything else I can help you with? I have more scotch...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The problem with change is that both nature and us are adapted to CURRENT situation and all the land human has claimed acts as barrier for nature to adapt. And some things are slow to adapt. There is order of magnitude difference between negative and positive effects partially because all things previously mentioned. Humans have buildings and roads and all kinds of infrastructure in places which are optimal for current climate. Also too much heat is inherently bad. Too much cold is inherently bad, unless you had thousands of years adaptation for it. Alaska maybe better off once adaptation has happened in 300 years or so, while continental United States is inherently worser place, PEOPLE have adapted to current optimums and live and have build things based on that, 99% are worse and 1% are better, and that 1% is only better after they have survived immediate effects of change like permafrost melting caused problems.
Subject an open plains farmland in area to once a decade rains of rainforest and top soils moves away while having same thing in rainforest is not a problem. Now you got the real picture. Its all about mismatch between situation on the ground and whats in climate. On planetary scale it probably increases deserts and makes certain cold climates more habitable EVENTUALLY, while extincting things that depend on extreme cold. Maybe Greenland becomes agricultural paradise eventually once they have build soil there. But before that has happened you would of lost huge amounts of agricultural land elsewhere. And all that ice melting would mean New York would be below sea level long before Greenland would become agcricultural land. Of course if New York would be tens of miles inland then there would be no problem, but it is there right besides sea. The time difference between gaining and loosing is big problem. You cannot move food from future to present.
So yes, Canada, Alaska and Siberia might become more habitable. On the other hand most of the world would become either worse or LOT worse.
And in WORST case climate change we would get another habitable continent, while loosing bigger area to sea level rise AND deserts BEFORE it becomes habitable.
©God
they are pretty much the same people
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
I can predict everything!
Oh, you wanted predictions that come true. Carry on....
Well played, Sir Hotspur.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You can't predict anything meaningful or useful. Telling me next year will have a spring and summer isn't useful, it's a given....
The statement I was responding to was "No one can predict the future." Not "predictions of the future aren't meaningful or useful."
However, I will state that my prediction that summer will follow spring and will be warmer than winter is useful, in that it tells me that I should plant my tomatoes in spring, rather than in autumn. Predictions of the future are, in fact, very useful, and we make them all the time.
The other commenter wasn't predicting anything of consequence. On the contrary, he was simply extrapolating from the past. Those are two very different things. Extrapolating from known cyclical behavior can indeed be useful, but as a "prediction" it's pretty much a joke.
Extrapolating from the past is one way to predict the future, yes; I'm not sure why you think it's a "joke".
Extrapolating from the past is a much better way to predict the future if you have a good statistical data set to base your prediction on, and understand the statistics and error margin.
Extrapolating from the past is a much much better way to predict the future if in addition you have a well-validated model that allows you to understand the behavior of the system, as well as a base of observed data. When I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow, for example, I am not merely extrapolating from the fact that the sun rose today, and yesterday, but I have knowledge of the law of conservation of angular momentum, and an understanding of the dynamics of the solar system. This is a pretty solid prediction. ...and, since I made that prediction yesterday, it was proven correct. I not only can predict the future, I did predict the future.
As I said: We can't predict everything. That doesn't mean we can't predict anything.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Today, the NY Times had a map of the U.S. And it compared 1910-1960 temperatures to 1991-2012. And exclaimed how much hotter the U.S. was.
A few things to note:
1. The traditional south around the gulf was actually cooler.
2. 1901-1960 is a mere 60years. 1991-2012 approx. 20 years. That is an extremely small section of climate, and I would argue far too small to have ANY statistical relevance.
3. Why were the years selected? Why not 1901-1955, and 1960-2010. How does 2001-2012 compare?
4. Most of the temperature increases are 1 degree. A few spots 2 degrees. Obersvations:
> the northeast is a bit warmer, but the southern gulf area is cooler. So it appears there has been some shift in circulation.
> many of the areas that have seen the most warming highly populated areas: Southern California (LA/SD), Northeast corridor (NJ/NYC/CT/RI/Boston/Portland). Alberquerque, NM....lit up in red. Granted NOT all that is lit up red corresponds to population centers but a lot sure does. Oh, and that Montana, Minnesota, etc corridor that is red at the top. Well look at a population map of Canada and you will see that nearly 90% of Canada's population lives just north of the U.S. border. So I wager that represents Canada's population growth. Yes, there are some weird anomalies in Nevada, Utah and Colorado that do not correspond well to populations. But they in fact do...if you understand that entire region is the river basin that feeds the southwest. And that California's immense consumption of water has significantly reduced the water present in those regions.
If anything, this map represents to me a clear demonstration of the heat island affect of urban areas. Something most global warming alarmists glaringly deny, but which many others have put forth evidence to substantiate. (Oh, I should point to the fact that they only deny it when it regards the U.S., they're more than willing to accept said postulation when it relates to cutting down South American rainforests. Which should be stopped. We should be using bamboo, hemp and other fast growing weeds and grasses for consumables.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...
In fact, pretty much every one has been declared NOT to be caused by global warming. Nor in excess of prior events. Except by the media and propagandists.
Because history shows such great fluctuations. This is all very very normal. In fact, what history "mostly" points out, is that the 1900's were in fact an unusually calm and stable period. (ie: abnormal).
In fact, one might in fact argue that all of the pollution, CO2, etc. Had not enacted climate change, rather something far more dangerous. "Climate Stabilization".
I mean, other than the big money in the petrochemical industry, and their suckers on their teat, who pretends it's not real, nor human-caused?
And for you suckers who aren't getting money from them, let me ask you this: are you saying that we're *NOT* good enough to work out other sources of energy, and that we're too *dumb* to be able to reengineer the way we do things to cut carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions? Or maybe that you can't wrap your heads around the tech, and so won't be able to make the big bucks from investing in, and inventing, that tech?
So, sorry. Your kids will hate your guts for not doing something... oh, that's right, you don't have any.
Btw, I read that the last quarter, I think, Texas generated 35% of it's *total* electircal use by wind power.
mark
It seems they are peer-reviewed and properly published too
Ah, so you have noticed that one year's worth of data on one continent disproves over a century of observations all over the world?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The trees in my area of the world aren't very good at moving 200m straight up nor 300km north.
I guess you must have unusually slow trees. The trees in my area are quite adept at it. They do things like drop pine cones which then are eaten by bears and porcupines, and defecated miles away.
I'm sure you're just thinking that the trees will reseed themselves farther north or south, as the case may be.
This.