04.02.2015 07:35 AM

But, you know, climate change is still a myth

Quote:

PHILLIPS, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered mandatory water use reductions for the first time in California’s history, saying the state’s four-year drought had reached near-crisis proportions after a winter of record-low snowfalls.

Mr. Brown, in an executive order, directed the State Water Resources Control Board to impose a 25 percent reduction on the state’s 400 local water supply agencies, which serve 90 percent of California residents, over the coming year. The agencies will be responsible for coming up with restrictions to cut back on water use and for monitoring compliance. State officials said the order would impose varying degrees of cutbacks on water use across the board — affecting homeowners, farms and other businesses, as well as the maintenance of cemeteries and golf courses.

Watch this clip if you’re in the mood to feel even worse.

52 Comments

  1. Bill says:

    Wonder how long before we’re invaded for water under the guise of “National security interests”

    • DonW says:

      Bill, you nailed it. I’ve been mumbling about this for years but my friends dismiss me as a tired conspiracy theorist. Being nice Canadians, we will give them our water before they have to invade.

  2. Lynn says:

    And in the east we are buried in snow with no end in sight, two more storms forecasted and snow up to our armpits already. We may see our lawns by July. It is too bad that we cannot build a pipeline to send all this snow to where it is needed :-). The changes in the climate are very noticeable for the east coast. There is no doubt in my mind something is amiss.

  3. Domenico says:

    And Al and the rest of the tin foil hat brigade will be here in 3-2-1……

    • Africon says:

      Very clever Domenico, how did you pull that off?

      Sorry to tell you this but to pin a 4 year climate event on man made causes, you’d have to be a pinhead.

      You do not have to be a scientist to know that oil, coal, peat or any other form of carbon was deposited where it did due to massive amounts of carbon based life forms – animal, insect or plant. How to explain many of the largest current deposits of oil in the Russian or Alaskan tundra, semi-arid N Dakota or the sands of ME or Libya without some form of magical thinking.
      I have seen 12″ thick petrified tree trunks far above than the current tree line – ie there have been much higher global temps than at present.
      California could learn a lot from Las Vegas who many years ago went about making their water usage match their water supply.
      The Hoover dam has been well below “normal” levels for many decades – just saying.

      As a history buff – I’ve read alot about two of our greatest explorers – MacKenzie and David Thompson.

      Re the MacKenzie river –
      Sir Alexander MacKenzie writes in 1788 of encountering: ”bituminous fountains; into which a pole of twenty feet long may be inserted without the least resistance. The bitumen is in a fluid state, and when mixed with gum or the resinous substance collected from the Spruce Fir, serves to gum the canoes. In its heated state it emits a smell like that of Sea Coal. The banks of the river, which are there very elevated, discover veins of the same bituminous quality.”

      How long the First Nations people had used bitumen on their canoes is unknown. But furs ― the economic engine of the day ― were what drew the first European, Peter Pond, to the region. MacKenzie made his observations only a few years after Pond, with a cursory reference to the energy potential of bitumen, but the subject appears repeatedly in the annals of subsequent explorers.
      Map maker David Thompson, and Arctic explorers Franklin, Richardson and Simpson, all mention the oil sands during their travels through the Athabasca region.
      But the most prophetic descriptions and observations were published in 1908 by Charles Mair, a recording secretary travelling with the David Laird Treaty Expedition of 1899. He even includes a description of the boiling process the First Nations people used to liberate the oil from the oil-sand mixture for waterproofing their canoes ― a rudimentary, but similar approach to the one currently used in the massive oil sands facilities of today.

      Ironic, isn’t it?

      • cgh says:

        All too true, Africon. California does indeed have a water problem, but global warming has nothing to do with it. Too little investment in infrastructure, too much drawdown of artesian reserves, and a court case regarding river smelt all lie at the heart of California’s water problems. California could solve all its problems with desalination (after all, there’s an entire Pacific Ocean out there), but like too many they expect something for free.

        And you’re right about CO2 and temperature cycles. Both have been much higher and much lower than current times. And what’s interesting, change in temperature has always changed the CO2 concentration in earth’s atmosphere, but never the reverse. In geologic history, without exception, the temperature change comes first.

      • Al in Cranbrook says:

        One study is now trying to pin the situation in the middle east and the rise of ISIS on climate change…

        http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/03/02/study_climate_change_helped_spark_syrian_civil_war.html

        As in, WTF isn’t climate change the cause of!

        Polar bears survived 200,000 years of everything from ice ages to total global meltdowns, but somehow are today threatened by climate change.

        5000 years ago the Columbia Ice Fields didn’t even exist, and the Sahara Desert looked like today’s Serengeti Plains with wildlife of every sort. Just watched a documentary covering the discovery of a civilization that lived on the edge of a one time large lake in the midst of the Sahara. The area, exposed by recent sand storms, revealed the fossilized bones of everything from hippos to fish of every sort that those peoples were living on. Then climate change happened, and everyone either moved or perished. Same as southern Greenland circa 1000 to 1300.

        The only difference between then and now is that nobody then had the means to milk a natural event for everything they could think of, not the least of which is truckloads of cash.

        • VC says:

          Is that the only difference between today and 5000 years ago, Al? Is it? I don’t think so and my perspective is drawn from the conclusions of those people who actually use science to study things, not blind ideological faith. In fact, I think scientists –none from the Universtity of Cranbrook or the Cranbook Institute of Technology, however — have conclusively demonstrated that, 5000 year ago, atmospheric CO2 levels were about 265 ppm and today that number is 400 ppm. That’s a difference. Here’s another difference: human made industry has accelerated the production of C02 emissions by increasingly burning hydrocarbons, milking those fossil fuels for truckloads of cash; this is also something that is noticeably different from what human were doing 5000 years ago.

    • Howard Moon says:

      Man separatist humour is lame

  4. Al in Cranbrook says:

    But here’s the thing about this: It’s nothing unusual.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more

    California has a long history of droughts, much more severe than this one. To make a case for “climate change/anthropological global warming”, one has to view this event completely outside the context of history.

    Climate changes all the time, always has, always will.

    AGW is entirely another matter.

    And the climate alarmists crowd know this all too well. Which is precisely why they changed their tune from AGW to climate change.

    • Howard Moon says:

      To quote:

      “In the meantime, let go of your compulsion to defend your personal beliefs; I don’t particularly care what they are.”

      Al in Cranbrook

      • Al in Cranbrook says:

        First off, offering up a link to actual scientific data to the contrary of the narrative-du-jour obviously was futile. Silly me.

        I believe in climate change, it’s a fact of life on this planet. AGW, certainly to the extent that it’s being pumped, is, in my informed opinion based upon my own research, crap. I say “my own research” because I have a mind of my own, and am inclined to look at ALL sides of a topic before arriving at conclusions, if any at all.

        I also know the difference between “science”, which operates on methodology of vigorously and eternally testing theories unto the nth degree, and “ideology/religion”, being conjecture/speculation which seeks validation through consensus via the number of believers.

        Scientists whom plead consensus as validation are, IMHO, a disgrace to their honored profession.

  5. Lyndon Dunkley says:

    This is why lower oil prices are so good for the environment – with the drastically reduced capital spending expected in the patch for the next year, California should have lots of water within twelve months.

    Furthermore, now that we’ve been cured of the dastardly “Dutch Disease”, expect huge tax cuts and spending increases in Justin’s first budget as Canada economy really takes off!

    • Howard Moon says:

      And that is why you don’t write for anyone worth reading

      • Lyndon Dunkley says:

        You seem like quite a talented debater.

        Pricing has currently achieved what environmentalists never could – a wide spread shelving of hydrocarbon exploration. If the industry is causing so much “climate change”, doesn’t less of it mean less “climate change”?

        Another year or so of $45 oil and the climate will never change again, right?

        • davie says:

          Hmmm…200 years of carbon accumulation in our atmosphere, reversed in an oil price dip of a few months months…

  6. davie says:

    Oh, man, Florida under water, California drying up, pretty soon I’ll be paying $16 for a glass of orange juice.

  7. Domenico says:

    for those of you who may have little free time, I found this to be a good read:

    http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075637

    “Not unexpectedly, free-market endorsement and conservatism together strongly predicted rejection of climate science”

  8. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Quick read, not impressed. Conservatives bad, everyone else not so much.

    Did notice the acknowledgement to John Cook for “contributions during questionnaire design”. Hmmm…

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/about.shtml

    Uh, huh.

    • Al in Cranbrook says:

      This paragraph was particularly informative…

      Quote: “Recent research has shown that the role of worldview may be attenuated by underscoring the breadth of consensus among scientists: When people are informed of the pervasive consensus about the fundamentals of climate change, they become more likely to endorse the basic premise of global warming, and they attribute a larger share of the observed warming trend to human CO2 emissions [37], [38]. In one experimental study, underscoring the consensus was particularly effective for people whose worldview otherwise might have predisposed them towards rejection of climate science [38]. This experimental result meshes well with a detailed analysis of Republicans’ opinions on climate change, which similarly revealed perceived consensus to be the strongest predictor of acceptance of climate science [39].”

    • Domenico says:

      “Conservatives bad, everyone else not so much.”

      exactly wrong:

      ” Our main SEM model showed a negative association between conspiracy theorizing and
      conservatism (as well as with free-market endorsement), suggesting
      that conspiratorial thinking is more prevalent on the political left
      than the right. ”

      The actual point is:

      “Motivated reasoning refers to the discounting of information or evidence that challenges one’s prior beliefs accompanied by uncritical acceptance of anything that is attitude-consonant. In the
      context of science denial, the present study and related precedents have identified worldviews and conspiracist ideation as two vehicles with which such motivated reasoning is exercised.”

    • cgh says:

      As usual, Al, the progressives are incapable of discussing the science. It’s never anything from them except appeals to authority, ad hominems or irrelevant digressions into their conspiracy theories. They haven’t even read the IPCC reports which purportedly make their science argument for them.

      • Domenico says:

        so…scientific consensus is a conspiracy?

        /facepalm

        Kaspar Jul we need you!

        • cgh says:

          As I said, more irrelevancies, of which this of yours is a prime specimen. Consensus isn’t science. And it’s an irrelevant appeal to authority.

          • Domenico says:

            so If I say “consensus of scientists” that is an irrelevant appeal to authority?

            Therefore if a person were to say a consensus of physicists scientists believe in the theory of gravity, this would be another irrelevant appeal to authority? And a poor argument?

          • Al in Cranbrook says:

            Gravity is not a theory. It is a fact, and one of the four fundamental forces of nature.

            Climate change is a fact.

            AGW is a theory.

          • cgh says:

            Science is not about consensus. It’s about observation and evidence. And if the evidence contradicts the theory, then the theory is wrong. Lots of things have been the subject of scientific consensus in the past. Lysenkoism, eugenics, vital fluids doctrine, the four elements of the universe, and many, many more. Mere consensus did not make them right even though they were universally held true in their day, nor did it make them wrong. What made them wrong was empirical evidence to the contrary.

            Now as for Newton’s Law of Gravitation, I can demonstrate empirically within 10 seconds its universal validity. I can even illustrate the mathematics of such. You on the other hand will be utterly unable to find any mathematics or observation that contradicts it.

            Now with respect to global warming, you cannot point to any empirical evidence supporting it. Until you do, I have no reason to take either you or your so-called consensus seriously. And until you do, you’re in the same camp as the Intelligent Design people.

      • Al in Cranbrook says:

        cgh…

        They leave a trail of trampled messengers wherever they go, eh? 🙂

        • cgh says:

          Many, many. Routed out of one redoubt, they hide in another. The reference to insurance companies above is particularly amusing. Of course the insurance companies are the biggest supporters of this nonsense. All these new insurance policies to sell. Actuarial mathematicians may be very good at what they do, but one of the things they do NOT do is atmospheric and heat transfer physics.

          • Domenico says:

            Really you two windbags are arguing a form of Lysenkoism. Ideology driving “science”.

  9. Africon says:

    Personally, I have always lived by the tenets of reduce, reuse, recycle – unlike the Al Gore and Suzuki gasbags of the world.
    Making birth-control available around the world is the single best way to reduce CO2 emissions.

    There is another fascinating dimension to this topic that I do not see published very often and that is the effect of a CO2 enriched environment on plant life. Any commercial Greenhouse owner will tell you that by enriching CO2 they increase the productivity rates of whatever carbon based product they are growing, thereby also reducing CO2 levels much faster.

    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00048148#page-3
    Abstract
    Carbon dioxide is rising in the global atmosphere, and this increase can be expected to continue into the foreseeable future. This compound is an essential input to plant life.
    Crop function is affected across all scales from biochemical to agro-ecosystem. An array of methods (leaf cuvettes, field chambers, free-air release systems) are available for experimental studies of CO2 effects. Carbon dioxide enrichment of the air in which crops grow usually stimulates their growth and yield. Plant structure and physiology are markedly altered. Interactions between CO2 and environmental factors that influence plants are known to occur. Implications for crop growth and yield are enormous. Strategies designed to assure future global food security must include a consideration of crop responses to elevated atmospheric CO2.
    Future research should include these targets: search for new insights, development of new techniques, construction of better simulation models, investigation of below ground processes, study of interactions, and the elimination of major discrepancies in the scientific knowledge base.

    • Al in Cranbrook says:

      I’ve read a number of articles stating that global vegetation biomass is up roughly 15% over the last several decades, verified by analysis of satellite imagery. Apparently even deserts are shrinking. Of course, the greater amounts of vegetation, the greater is CO2 absorbance, no small consideration in view of deforestation happening in some parts of the world.

      Fact is, atmospheric CO2 levels below 200 ppm starves plants, and 150 ppm would cause a catastrophic collapse of vegetation.

      On the other hand, greenhouse producers pump CO2 levels to several times outside air, resulting in rapid growth and hugely increased harvests.

      Given strains on food production and global population growth, one could argue that this is more likely a boon to mankind than a bane.

      Unfortunately, this sort of thinking would leave the usual suspects of the left without a threatening crisis to keep their spirits up, or exploit.

      • doconnor says:

        How much of that increase is due to agiculture?

        Plants are hurt more by an increase in extream weather events then they will benefit from an increase in Carbon Dioxide.

  10. Joe says:

    Actually the debate is not about climate change since the only constant in climate is change. Rather the debate is about the extent mankind is changing climate. Is mankind driving the temperature ever higher with its incessant CO2 emissions as postulated by Al Gore or is mankind doing the world a favour by bringing CO2 to life preserving levels as postulated by Dr Patrick Watson formerly of Greenpeace.

  11. dave says:

    This state is right next to the Pacific Ocean, lots of water…………is desalination not the answer?

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