Global warming threatens our White Chistmases with winter heatwaves and our Arbor Days with record wildfires. And now it imperils our Independence Day fireworks with ever worsening droughts.
The Drudge Report headline blares "No Fireworks." As USA Today reports:
Dozens of communities in drought-stricken areas are scrapping public fireworks displays and cracking down on backyard pyrotechnics to reduce the risk of fires.
"From a fire standpoint and a safety standpoint, it was an easy call," Burbank Fire Chief Tracy Pansini says. He recommended calling off fireworks at the Starlight Bowl because they're launched from a mountainside covered with vegetation that's "all dead."
The record droughts around the country have nixed fireworks in a half dozen states. What will happen to 4th of July celebrations over much of the country if, as predicted in an April Science, article, we have "a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest"?
Here are some of the places canceling fireworks this year:
- Alabaster, Ala., canceled its public fireworks and Fire Chief Frank Matherson might propose at a City Council meeting Monday that all fireworks be prohibited.
"Most people will comply because they see how dry it is," he says. Water restrictions, including a ban on watering lawns, make fireworks even more risky, he says. - A 120-day ban on fireworks in Kentucky's Daniel Boone National Forest took effect Tuesday, says fire management officer Mitch Gandy. The 700,000-acre forest is popular with families with their own fireworks. It's the first ban since 1999.
"I've had 70 fires so far this year," Gandy says. "Fireworks land in the leaves and set fires, which is potentially very dangerous." The fine for possessing or igniting fireworks: $75. - In Madison, Ala., public fireworks were canceled so firefighters can focus on possible fires from illegal but rampant private fireworks. "We're worried about tying up the manpower because we're afraid we'll be busy elsewhere," Fire Chief Ralph Cobb says.
- The July Fourth parade and festival are still on in Woodstock, but residents worried about dry conditions wrote to the city recommending that the fireworks be postponed, says city community affairs director Donna Godfrey.
- There have been a record number of fire danger warnings this year, Fire Marshal Dave Soumas says. The official fireworks always cause "little spot fires" that people don't see, he says. "Imagine how dry it is, and maybe we can't keep those contained."
His advice to anyone planning fireworks: "Have adult supervision and a hose or fire extinguisher in the area."
"Adult supervision" -- if only we had some of that inside the Washington, D.C. beltway, we might solve the global warming crisis.
Have a happy and fire-free 4th!
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
View as Flat
WWAGD?! Posted 4:38 am
04 Jul 2007
Send some our way...
After 21 years as a northwesterner, and having lived through what was quite possibly the worst winter ever for rainfall, I'd say, drought? Great! Send it north...
John Bailo
You Read It Here First
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JohnCaley Posted 8:28 am
04 Jul 2007
Much more to come
World drought is coming, local droughts are increasing
and much worse than local or worldwide drought is very rapidly approaching. CO2 ? Bah!
And when I mean drought, well, like NEVER before.
omegafour.com
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SustainableGreen Posted 10:00 am
04 Jul 2007
Poor Arguments
Hey, all:
As usual, people mistake events and anecdotes as trends and data, respectively, which they are not. At the same time many areas are experiencing droughts, the south central U.S. (areas of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma) are experiencing record rainfall. Last year, up until late September, I had recorded 7" of rain in my area of Texas, then got 5 more inches in 3 days. This year, my area received by May the same amount through all of September last year. Now on 4 July we have already had a full year's worth of rain, assuming the mean annual rainfall here of 27.5".
None of this (or the anecdotes in the lead message) either prove or disprove droughts or periods of abundant precipitation. We disparage the unsophisticated global warming denialists and their narrow ill-considered arguments, and then we use the same narrow arguments ourselves.
We really should do better.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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Sam Wells Posted 10:12 am
04 Jul 2007
Maybe, maybe not ...
Water is always going to be in the troposphere somewhere simply because of all the oceans that evaporate water. Nobody is saying the droughts will become worse on a global basis, since some areas such as Bangladesh could be flooded as heck. Ask folks near Seattle and Austin about getting a dozen inches of rain in 48 hours or less ... with rain episodes lasting over a week or two.
Fact - the Sahara, known as the largest desert on the planet, is shrinking because it is getting too much rain. Al Gore really screwed up is facts on that one, which is now considered an untrue urban myth - that the Sahara would take over the top half of Africa.
Too much rain in one place and not enough in another - sounds like a familiar tune to me. Let's just say predicting the weather based on top-down assumptions about Global Warming is not such a great concept.
-sammie
Onward through the fog
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Sam Wells Posted 10:25 am
04 Jul 2007
Agree with you David
David I agree with your assessment and was directing my comments at the person above ya.
I'm still having an issue with long-range projections that increased atmospheric warming could cause more frequent and more intense tropical cyclones - hurricanes.
I'll be the first to admit I'm no licensed meteorologist. That said. Dr. Jeff Masters (PHD weather nut and founder of Weather Underground) says the mean Atlantic ocean temperatures are actually getting cooler in places, possibly due to melting arctic ice or ocean oscillation or both. No heat in the top 150 feet of water, no hurricane.
Wow, consider that!
-sammie
Onward through the fog
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SustainableGreen Posted 12:10 pm
04 Jul 2007
No Worries and Anecdotes
Hey, all:
Hey, Sam: No worries; I could see you were directing your comments elsewhere. And the times shown on our messages could have easily been reversed.
Regarding hurricanes, I had read a report 2-3 years ago speculating that we could experience more and worse hurricanes, not as a result of GW but as a symptom of a global climate in flux, the same applying to extremes in rainfall and its patterns. More records of all kinds were predicted to occur, none of them by themselves being particularly meaningful (except to those experiencing/suffering from them). As an example, 2005 had a very high number of named storms, 2006 very few, 2 observations which themselves suggest extremes. As another different example, my area had 9" of snow on Christmas Eve 2.5 years ago--as much as the previous 75 years' entire Winters combined. In a cheap misguided act, they called it a "miracle". Pullll-eeeeze.
Collectively, all these anecdotes and short-term events can lead to the formulation of hypotheses, which can lead to serious systematic data collection. By themselves, however, they really are not much more than gee whiz small talk. I have been awakened at night by strong thunder 3 times in the last month--never before in my area--more gee whiz.
And I am no meteorologist either, I just wish the weather people on TV would get the Hell out of the way of the weather map.... But because I do some prescribed burning for habitat maintenance/restoration, and I depend on wind for much of my electrical energy, I pay perhaps more attention than some.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainably energy, with Wind and Sun!
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Werdna Posted 1:37 pm
04 Jul 2007
Quoting Drudge report???
Does anyone else find it funny that you are grabbing headlines from the Drudge Report?
Andrew Eisenberg
The gateway project is wrong---http://www.livableregion.ca/blog/blogs/index.php/
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amazingdrx Posted 6:17 pm
04 Jul 2007
White xmases
Thus my July 4th parade sign on my bike, pulled by my sled dog, along with the local democrat's float.
http://www.vilasdems.org/stger.html
SLED DOGS AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING. SAVE OUR SNOW. And the local jobs and businesses that depend on it!
We have a job and business killing snow drought here in northern wisconsin.
Local tourism related businesses depend on snow to power their winter income. Without it many can't make it. Snowmobilers are turning to much more destructive ATVs. They operate year round tearing up trails and emitting GHG.
The sign drew a lot of positive comments and one frustrated attempt at argument by a hefty GOPer. He claimed Al Gore was responsible for promoting Tennessee coal mining and creating global warming. I told him there are a few democrats like Robert Byrd that do pose a problem. He then claimed republicans don't all want to kill children and pollute the air and water.
I said, "Except in Iraq, right?"
He replied, "Well we are fighting them over there so they don't attack here."
"Yeah those 300,000 kids that died from water bourne illness in Iraq from the bombing of the water system during 'shock and awe' WERE a real threat to US!" I retorted.
Hehey. Not much rhetorical power from this plus sized pub. A Drug Limbaugh fan I suppose.
Overall I think it shows that the GHG related weather problems are local issues with real political traction.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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ttyler5 Posted 10:25 pm
04 Jul 2007
From Under Water
I got news for ya
--- it's 74 degrees and we've got record floods in Texas and the Ohio River Valley.
For example, the coastal resort area of Corpus Christi Texas and the Padre Island barrier system
--- which area averages one quarter of one inch of rain by this time of year
--- has had 12.7 inches, most of it in the last week.
Global Warming?
I think you'd better stick to computing the global mean temp....
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caniscandida Posted 12:14 am
05 Jul 2007
Vilas County parades!
Great event, DrX! I assume that is you on the bike, with the beard and flowing locks? And Arnie is the white-collared dog, who does not look exactly eager to pull you? What a lovely couple!
The donkey looks sweet too.
Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!
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Kit Stolz Posted 2:55 am
05 Jul 2007
it's not downpours or droughts; it's both
Folks, although it's paradoxical, a great deal of research points to the idea that in the subtropics (such as Southern California, North Texas, and the Southeast) global warming will mean an increasing likelihood of drought interrupted by increasingly powerful downpours.
Just to give an example, here in Southern California, we had devastating record-breaking downpours in 2005, without an El Nino, that killed many people, destroyed or tore up quite a few properties, including mine, washed out roads, etc. It took us in Ventura County about a year to recover. Now we're into a record-breaking drought, with (at this moment) no end in sight.
Here's how I reported on this part of the global warming story for a local paper back in 2003:
Scientists expect climate change to lead to more variability--and more surprises. Bob Wilkinson, the lead author of the U.S. Global Climate Research Report [for California, pub. 2003] pointed out in a telephone interview that, on the same day and in the same section of the newspaper that featured [climatologist] Bill Patzert's report projecting a possible drought for the next 13 years, was a picture of a fireman "hanging off a truck," struggling to content with a heavy rainstorm that flooded Las Vegas.
"These things are not contradictory," he said. "We think there's a strong probability of increased climactic variability, and that could lead to unusual trends punctuated by storm events and floods. It's troubling, frankly."
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Sam Wells Posted 6:42 am
05 Jul 2007
Freaky weather hypothesis
Romm I see your point and I don't think I was launching proverbial Scud Missiles your way. Many of even the best experts are flabbergasted (if that's even a word).
Here's an interesting conundrum. The way global temperatures are measured they are a combination of mean averages as collected in various places in the environment. This kind of temperature model would lend itself to homogeneity simply because it mashes together millions of data points to spit out a new number like "0.5 degrees C warming potential."
But another school of science says the opposite, that global warming could create crazy weather of intense floods, prolonged droughts, and all kinds of mayhem maybe like thunder-snow and sub-tropical cyclones in the winter. I can only surmise that perhaps this is caused by cold Siberian air colliding with warm air from the subtropical jet-stream, which is the fuel for many mid-latitude storms.
But intensity, areal coverage, duration, and periodicity of these cyclones cannot be predicted from a simple Global Warming paradigm. In fact, even with the best monitoring and modeling available today, involving terra-bytes of computer information collected daily, we have a hard enough time even predicting the weather as it is right here right now.
Maybe I'm a little lost as to why Global Warming people predict more unpredictable weather. That makes absolutely no sense, and is contrary to the scientific method. The fact is like the deepest parts of the ocean, we haven't figured out more than about 5% of true dynamics and we're pretty much shooting blind, except where it is totally obvious, such as permafrost melt in Alaska.
As Bob Dylan said, "You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows." /sammie
Onward through the fog
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amazingdrx Posted 8:42 am
05 Jul 2007
Volatility
Increaed weather volatility is the main effect. Increased solar energy trapped by gHG in the atmospheric and oceanic systems. Warmer gulf water, worse hurricanes.
Super tornados over 300 mph. Sucks up even cement buildings.
drought and fire burning up whole regions. Flood waters must be preserved, purified, and recycled in wetlands and groundwater and transported in wind power driven pipelines to drought stricken areas.
Whole cities must be moved back from coastal wetlands, those wetlands restored as carbon sinks and storm buffers. How obvious do these effects have to get before we act as voters?
Vote green, vote democrat. And volunteer to support the party. This isn't political it's survival as a culture and species. GOP corporate contractor friendly governance will end the dream of 1776.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:54 pm
05 Jul 2007
Donkey
Yes that donkey was ultracool Canis! That was in the eagle river parade. I think Arnie and I will be in that one next year.
Maybe we'll get a whole sled dog team next year. Aouoxoxooohh! Those dogs get the GHG message across and the kids love them.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Sam Wells Posted 2:25 pm
05 Jul 2007
Got respect
Amazing I know you're a big dude here on the Grist and yes the message should be very emphatic that Global Warming is a very serious and perhaps even a very brutal monkey to deal with.
But the message about "crazy weather" seems somehow contrived and I was wondering where the heck that message came from, or if it was a false media "snow job" from the start. Have any facts and studies?
Just so you know, the Farmers Almanac became popular because it predicted rain, hail, sleet, and snow in the same day near its home base in New Hampshire and Boston. It was an overnight sensation. A few years later circa the 1890's the water wells in the same area were still frozen solid in June but then temperatures jumped to nearly 100 degrees in July.
So please tell me about the genesis of this "freaky weather" syndrome and if you really think it is an appropriate model for future action. What is more freaky than in the past and why do you think so for the future? Or is it all bluff?
Respectfully,
/sammie
Onward through the fog
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feonixrift Posted 3:27 pm
05 Jul 2007
Explosive habits
Please, no more fireworks anyway. How much greenhouse gas do those spew? How many health problems does the choking smoke from them cause as it lingers over cities for days? I'm not focusing on the fingers that get burned or the eyes destroyed by shrapnel, those at least the people chose to be that near it in most cases, and I don't mind conscious informed choice of risk. But not being able to safely breath outside on the 5th is hideous.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:17 pm
05 Jul 2007
Snow drought
It's more than just a freak Sam. We are watching our lakes die. Weeds are choking all but the clearest as the levels drop.
After years of very little snow all kinds of snowmobiles, mainly last year's models never sold, sit in dereliction out front of suffering businesses. the lack of winter business is closing restaurants, bars, and resorts. they depended on that business to be profitable.
The most succesful cross country skiing area in the region is talking about making snow to remain viable. I was abl to ski on my local trail here last winter 3 days, all right in a row.
We have been watching this happen for over 30 years now. It's been a steady decline.
Will we suddenly get 12 feet of snow in a few storms this winter? I wouldn't be surprised. But even that would not send lake levels back up in any signifigant way.
This is a decades long trend, not an anomaly. I wish it were just a freak.
Even chubby pubs, like that limbaugh fan, who actually see businesses sitting empty, do not argue that this is not caused by GHG.
It would be like still claiming that hurricanes are not getting more frequent and severe from warmer water caused by GHG by those living on the gulf coast.
Local residents who must believe their own eyes have lost patience with deniers. The limboobs do not go there. This is serious, everyone knows someone who is suffering financially. They change the subject very quickly, personally attacking Gore or Clinton, rather than trying to deny the local GHG related climate disaster.
This is why this issue has local political appeal. no one can deny that now.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 11:51 pm
05 Jul 2007
Heat danger
Electrical transformers and poles are catching fire in Las Vegas. A peak load for air conditioning plus heat from the sun is frying the grid.
Disastrous death from sudden grid failure already killed many in France a few years ago. That was accentuated by low water levels that caused nuclear plants to shut down.
Try to tell these people whose lives depend on air conditioning that it's just a freak accident when the grid starts on fire.
Wouldn't ground cooling be more reliable for them? Powered with low power water pumps circul;ating geothermal cooling? Pumps run by solar panels that produce peak power when it is needed for survival.
These incidents of weather extremes are increasing. Why is there no alarm sounding? instead we hear that individual incidents don't prove a trend. Do we have time to wait for proof? The people in Las Vegas nursing homes and hospitals do not. They may die from the heat today.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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SustainableGreen Posted 12:11 am
06 Jul 2007
Many Kinds of Extremes
Hey, all:
Typically, Romm's incomplete simplistic writing does not serve understanding. I pointed out earlier that the global weather system is in flux due to climate change, and since it is in flux more extremes of all kinds are occurring, and it is NOT restricted to just droughts. Can we put this misconception to rest? Lately in my area of South Texas, I would be forced to conclude that the world is flooding (over a half a year's rain in ~1.5 months--without a tropical storm or hurricane) so focusing on one phenomenon in climate or weather among many is foolish.
Sam, I had tried earlier to answer some of your questions about the extremes we are seeing. A static system typically has more predictable conditions, whereas a system in flux is unstable, causing more extremes--'variability' as used by others. To extend this to the global weather system, GHG and global warming are larger, longer term forcing phenomena, and these are causing the world climate to change, and until a new stasis is achieved, extremes are likely. This assumes a new stasis will occur, of course.
By extremes or variability we also need to keep in mind both short- and long-term events. The lakes and snow conditions Amazing has referred to as longer term trends is also part of the extremes. The potential for trends to become more permanent conditions is troubling and real. So while all this is confusing and appears to be contradictory, if it is seen to be part of greater extremes due to a system in flux, it may make more sense. Hope this helps. And good luck with the seedling trees.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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Kit Stolz Posted 4:20 am
06 Jul 2007
WSJ on droughts and downpours
The Wall Street Journal had an excellent story on this a week or two ago I meant to post. Here's the gist (the rest may not still be available, but here's the link, just in case: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118277470277046973.html?m ...).
In the Lake Tahoe area straddling the California-Nevada border, a blaze believed caused by human activity Sunday afternoon quickly spread through tinder-dry pine forests a few miles south of the lake, destroying more than 200 homes and other structures. Winds that fanned the fire subsided yesterday, but some 1,000 homes are still threatened. The fire threat in the heavily developed area is unusually severe because drought left the Sierra Nevada snow pack at 29% of normal this spring.
Meanwhile, spring in four states -- Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee -- was the driest in 113 years of record-keeping. In Florida and Georgia, the situation has been deemed an emergency by state and federal officials.
The West is experiencing its sixth-driest spring on record, while recent government reports show the drought might be creeping into the Midwest, where farmers hoping to profit from the ethanol boom have planted more acres of corn than at any time since the end of World War II.
Already, economic losses are mounting. In Georgia, peach crops are smaller than normal, peanuts were unable to germinate in the bone-dry soil, and wildfires have devoured valuable timber. The water level in Florida's Lake Okeechobee, the second-largest freshwater lake in the continental U.S., hit an all-time low on June 1, forcing lawn-and-garden enthusiasts, golf courses and farmers to conserve water.
In Alabama, lack of hay is causing cattle farmers to liquidate entire herds. Drought has been a persistent problem for much of the U.S. in recent years. This year, some areas are parched while others are being hit by heavy rains and flooding. Some parts of Texas have been declared states of emergency because of flash flooding.
Indeed, early in the spring, many farmers in the Corn Belt worried that too much rain was going to prevent them from planting their corn on time. The drastic weather can be explained partly by a summer-weather pattern called the Bermuda High that is sucking moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and dumping it on places like Texas and the High Plains.
The problem for drought-affected areas in the Southeast is that the Bermuda High has pushed too far to the west. So the typical widespread afternoon thunderstorms and rain haven't fallen there, meaning little drought relief.
Many scientists worry global warming may be playing a role, too. The kind of severe droughts punctuated by torrential rain now hitting many parts of North America have long been predicted as consequences of rising world temperatures.
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Sam Wells Posted 10:31 am
06 Jul 2007
OK Truce!
I asked for proof linking GHG to freaky weather and got ... Chaos Theory and stories about freaky weather.
Amazing, it sound like you live in an alpine area and yes, they're taking a huge hit lately. The Inuit Indians of Canada and Alaska are taking it even worse.
But in the non-alpine middle latitudes, where most of us Americans live, it is a mixed bag with little correlation to GHG concentrations. Two feet of rain in Texas and zero in Alabama - that's not proof of a single darn thing.
Now before you get your knickers in a knot, David, there may be something to what you are saying. Researchers have found the "cause" of giant waves that can tower over 30 meters, about 100 feet. Using some advanced statistical techniques (I hate to call it "chaos theory") these folks were able to prove that such giant waves were more commonplace than thought ... and went on the predict them too! Basically what happened was overlapping wave mechanics and a very, very deep trough in front of the rogue wave. You might have caught this on PBS or one of the science TV channels.
It turns out that the Earth's atmosphere is very similar to oceanic waves, at least in a mechanical sense. So far, I have not seem compelling evidence that GHG is causing either big waves or freaky weather, and authorities such as IPCC, Dr. Bill Gray at UCAR, and Dr. Jeff Masters at Weather Underground haven't found the "Holy Grail" yet.
As a famous English poet said one time, "Keep your nose to the north." The arctic will perhaps hatch its secrets one day. Might be a little muddy tho'. /sammie
Onward through the fog
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SustainableGreen Posted 7:26 am
07 Jul 2007
More Gee Whiz extremes
Hey, all:
As a further example of anecdotes not being data, and therefore not being valid for reaching conclusions, my area has now received over a year's worth of rain, assuming the local mean annual rainfall. And our rainiest period of the year, August and September, with the tropical activity, is still ahead of us. And this afternoon it rained again like a big sumbitch.
One piece of valid folk weather wisdom is that "extreme conditions tend to end extremely". As an example, today as I write the same low pressure system that has been over the Southern Great Plains for maybe a month has now moved to the East over Arkansas and Louisiana and an outflow boundary of thunderstorms is clobbering Alabama--one of the states with the worst drought conditions 2 weeks ago. I hope they don't experience too much flooding and any loss of life.
It may have helped earlier in the discussion to point out that although there seems to be some correlation between the current extremes and GW, this does not establish cause and effect at all.
Meanwhile the tank for my rooftop water collection system is full--my cup runneth over.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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JohnCaley Posted 8:08 pm
07 Jul 2007
No Freaky Weather
Wonder why anyone would think that
>> Will we suddenly get 12 feet of snow in a few storms this winter? I wouldn't be surprised. >>
It will never happen. This world is going into worldwide drought.
Cold at night hot during the day, and yep, frost, and fire.
Nothing unusual, it will be desert weather day in day out.
Oh, the occasional rain storm as hot air meets the cold of dry air.
Oh, and plenty of tornedos across the partched lands.
Nothing to do with global warming, but a lot to do with an oiled sea surface.
Seems that y'all are just going to have the theories dumped by time, before anyone here will understand the science or even look to the evidence.
I wonder why y'all do not want to look ?
omegafour.com
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amazingdrx Posted 9:33 am
09 Jul 2007
Firestorm
When will the first GHG drought related firestorm start?
It's only a matter of time. are we looking at continuous firestorms that cause an effect like nuclear winter then?
I think so, mother nature's emergency fire extiguisher, a year or two with no summer. Will we still hear that old refrain? "A few freak weather events don't prove anything.'
Yep, even a few years later down in the dr strangelove/cheney bunker they will still be saying it. Just a natural effect, not related to human GHG activity. Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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SustainableGreen Posted 11:35 am
09 Jul 2007
"Firestorms"? Aw, please....
Hey, all:
Hey, Amazing: With all due respect, the use of the term 'firestorm' conjures up a little too much fear. These are rather rare, the term overused in the media, and they usually have some topographic, fuel, or weather feature which is the trigger for the fire. Firestorms in movies are usually in cities and caused by the uniquely human violence of war.
One of the things we are seeing is the result of a history of fire suppression. Studies of tree rings, and pollen and ash in soil horizons have shown that under natural conditions, fires occur much more often--in Texas most areas, regardless of historical habitats, used to burn with a mean period of ~10 years. There are areas in the country with 100+ years of fuel--due to fire suppression--dead material of all types which otherwise would have burned decades ago. This is what was found to be one of the causes of the huge Yellowstone fires in the Summer of 1988 and many other places. Policies in place since then have reduced this tendency, but governments and people are slow to learn from them. We continue to build in fire-prone areas, and act like everything is made of asbestos, and is fireproof.
And, please: "continuous firestorms"? What would sustain such a sci-fi event? Fuel supplied from the depths of Hell?
No one here who is serious is maintaining that events have no meaning or impact. That is indeed the province of the Cheney-minded fools.
Events have great impact on those who are immediately affected (rivers where I live in South Texas are still at flood stage), and certainly events at the very least are data to be recorded and examined. The global and regional weather system is probably in flux as it reacts to climate change. This could well be due to human practices--burning previously sequestered Carbon from deep in the ground--but we are dealing with a very complex global weather system. Time will be needed to determine if GHG and GW is the cause.
None of this matters to me, though, for what it is worth, since GHG/GW is already a reality. I live with as small a foot-print as possible (off-grid, free-range chickens, composting toilet, rooftop water collection system, etc., with more to come), and I conduct prescribed burns for clients to help restore the historic fire regime and historic habitat locally. Since fire is an essential part of terrestrial ecosystems, the biggest danger is the foolish humans who do not know better. Thus our fearful overreaction.
We are certainly free to conclude anything we want from what we see, but science has to take a longer more deliberate view.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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amazingdrx Posted 2:58 pm
09 Jul 2007
Burn davey burn
Good for you. Making a living off of combustion.
Remember Ray Bradburry's classic? Farenheit 451. You are his kind of "fireman".
Weather doesn't prove a thing right? But it has an impact, purely emotional that only the uninformed would corelate with GHG climate change.
Really scientific "firemen' know more drought is good. More drought, more frequent fires. Then all that flamable material is burned and fires are actually prevented.
kind of like the cheney/rummi notion that peace can only be achieved through continuous war. war is peace.
better to collect that dead wood and return that organic matter to the soil to store water and support plant growth. than burn it and pretend you are 'prescribing" any solution to the problems human GHG release has created.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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