Articles On Environment

[Evan]

In the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of the massive ice sheets covering both Greenland and Antarctica, NASA scientists confirm climate warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth's largest storehouse of ice and snow.

 

Other recent studies have shown increasing losses of ice in parts of these sheets. This new survey is the first to inventory the losses of ice and the addition of new snow on both in a consistent and comprehensive way throughout an entire decade.

 

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/ice_sheets.html

 

Interesting news, the ice is increasing on the landmasses, but is decreasing in the seas. (which is elevating sea levels but not as quickly as originally thought)

 

Also, just a quick thought,

Would any of the moderators be up for the idea of opening a new subforum with topics that link scientific data on issues like Global Warming? People could post a link to reports that support or refute ideas like global warming.

 

 

BY THE WAY

I realize thats what this forum is for, but I mean it would have posts on specific issues and people could build their knowledge on it. It would be a great resource builder for people who would want to learn more.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Evan,

 

I can certainly pin topic if the assembled here will agree to careful use of the Fourii.

 

Would like to have one pinned link for "News and Science" related articles.

 

A separate "Peanut Gallery" to comment on say Post #45, "Blah de blah de blah, opinion, contra-opinion, etc, so on, so forth."

 

Global Warming, Climate Change is a growing religious belief, one which will certainly influence politics and policies worldwide for years.

 

kFL

[♦ nivek ♦]

Study: Ethanol may add to global warming

Associated Press

 

"The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice

the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because

of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The

study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming.

The researchers said that past studies showing the benefits of ethanol

in combating climate change have not taken into account almost certain

changes in land use worldwide if ethanol from corn -- and in the

future from other feedstocks such as switchgrass -- become a prized

commodity." (02/07/08)

 

http://tinyurl.com/34fx6f

[♦ nivek ♦]

Hurricane hysteria revisited

Competitive Enterprise Institute

by Steven J. Milloy

 

"Will global warming increase hurricane activity? Two studies

published in the last week arrived at opposite conclusions. A link

between warmer sea surface temperatures and increased North Atlantic

hurricane activity 'has been quantified for the first time,' according

to a study by University College London researchers that was published

in Nature (Jan. 30). They claim to have associated a 0.5 degree

Celsius increase in sea surface warming with a 40 percent increase in

Atlantic hurricane activity during 1996-2005 as compared to the

average activity during 1950-2000." (01/31/08)

 

http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,06400.cfm

[Evan]

The New York Times

Elizabeth Rosenthal

 

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green†fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

 

Related to subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/...wanted=2&hp

 

Greenhouse Gases

The increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activity is often cited as one of the major causes of global warming. These greenhouse gases reabsorb heat reflected from the Earth's surface, thus trapping the heat in our atmosphere. This natural process is essential for life on Earth because it plays an important role in regulating the Earth's temperature. However, over the last several hundred years, humans have been artificially increasing the concentration of these gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth's atmosphere. These gases build up and prevent additional thermal radiation from leaving the Earth, thereby trapping excess heat.

 

Solar Variability & Global Warming

 

Some uncertainty remains about the role of natural variations in causing climate change. Solar variability certainly plays a minor role, but it looks like only a quarter of the recent variations can be attributed to the Sun. At most. During the initial discovery period of global warming, the magnitude of the influence of increased activity on the Sun was not well determined.

 

Stanford Research: http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/glob-warm.html

The top of the article deals with the basics of global warming, most of you can probably skip it.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Crichton, Chernobel, Enviromental Complexity

 

Long article with graphs, links and video embedded.

 

kL

[♦ nivek ♦]

Lights out, America?

Competitive Enterprise Institute

by Steven J. Milloy

 

"The environmentalists' new tactic in their war against our meeting

our basic energy needs focuses on coal-burning power plants, which are

at the top of the list of carbon dioxide emitters. 'Increasing

electricity almost inevitably leads to more global warming emissions,'

an activist told the Post. And the activists have used global warming

fears to great effect." (02/07/08)

 

http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,06405.cfm

[♦ nivek ♦]

Biofuels meltdown

The American Spectator

by William Tucker

 

"Last week two studies published in Science announced what anyone

might have suspected all along. 'Biofuels,' rather than reducing

carbon emissions, are adding [to] them -- possibly by a factor of

nearly 100! The two studies may finally puncture the myth that

anything is to be gained from burning crops for fuel. From the very

beginning, there was never any indication that turning corn into

ethanol was improving our energy independence. As that effort

faltered, the myth arose that at least it was reducing carbon

emissions. Now it has been shown to do neither. Meanwhile, thanks to a

51-cents-per-gallon tax break, 25 percent of the American corn crop is

being turned into ethanol." (02/13/08)

 

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12727

[♦ nivek ♦]

America is running out of electricity

Intellectual Conservative

by Alan Caruba

 

"The provision of electrical power nationwide has become the chosen

battleground for environmental groups laboring night and day to insure

there will not be enough of it to meet our needs. The U.S. Department

of Energy predicts that overall energy demand will grow by 45% between

now and 2030. ... Since coal-fired utilities provide over 50 percent

of the electricity generated in America, the need for additional

plants would seem obvious. ... The Greens, however, using the utterly

bogus 'global warming' hoax and assert the false notion that carbon

dioxide (CO2) emissions will transform the climate of the earth, are

successfully denying Americans electrical power." (02/11/08)

 

http://tinyurl.com/26aebg

[hereticzero]

Global warming is not true. We know this cuz our politicians tell us so and they have their pet scientists telling us so, and they have churches, who really know what they are talking about, telling us there is no global warming.

 

We know for a fact, straight from the horses mouth, without exception, and using this years political race as an example, that no one is allowed to appear on television unless they absolutely know, without a doubt, what they are talking about!

 

Global warming, sheesh! We do not have global warming. Our planet is just sweating. Gaia, the earth, is having a wet dream. Let's all build a camp fire and sing songs to make this planet happy.

[Evan]

Global warming is not true. We know this cuz our politicians tell us so and they have their pet scientists telling us so, and they have churches, who really know what they are talking about, telling us there is no global warming.

 

We know for a fact, straight from the horses mouth, without exception, and using this years political race as an example, that no one is allowed to appear on television unless they absolutely know, without a doubt, what they are talking about!

 

Global warming, sheesh! We do not have global warming. Our planet is just sweating. Gaia, the earth, is having a wet dream. Let's all build a camp fire and sing songs to make this planet happy.

I don't mind sarcasm, but try to post any information on the subject. I want this to be a post that people can come to and make an informed decision on what they think global warming is. I believe global warming is happening, but I couldn't call myself a skeptic if i didn't question it based off evidence! I want to base any discussion I have on Global Warming based off information that I either gathered myself or this post. That's what this post is about.

 

BY THE WAY!

Could you rename the post Skip N. Church? Information on the Environment, Global Warming Information, or Human Environmental Impact

etc. etc.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Adios, Las Vegas: Lakes Mead, Powell May Run Dry by 2021

 

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

 

AP

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330591,00.html

 

PHOENIX —

Climate change and a growing demand for water could drain two of the nation's largest manmade reservoirs within 13 years, depriving several Southwestern states of key water sources, scientists warn.

 

Researchers at San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Wednesday that there's a 50 percent chance that lakes Mead and Powell will dry up by 2021, and a 10 percent chance the lakes will run out of usable water by 2013.

 

"We were surprised that it was so soon," said climate scientist David Pierce, co-author of the institution's study that detailed the findings.

 

The study, which was released Tuesday, found that if current conditions persist, there's a 50 percent chance the reservoirs will no longer be able to generate hydropower by 2017.

 

Lake Mead, on the Arizona-Nevada border and the West's largest storage reservoir, and Lake Powell, on the Arizona-Utah border, have been hit hard by a regional drought and are half full. Both lakes were created by dams built on the Colorado River, which provides water for about 27 million people in seven states.

 

Researchers said that if Lake Mead water levels drop below 1,000 feet, Nevada would lose access to all its river allocation, Arizona would lose much of the water that flows through the Central Arizona Project Canal, and power production would cease before the lake level reached bottom.

 

Larry Dozier, deputy general manager at the Central Arizona Project, which supplies Colorado River water to the Phoenix and Tucson areas, called the Scripps study "absurd."

 

"I think they must have made some pretty outrageous assumptions to come up with some outrageous conclusions," he said. He said his agency's own study of the water levels in the two lakes showed they were in no danger of drying up.

 

"You can't get there from here," he said. "You can't make it go dry in that situation using any rational set of assumptions."

 

Pierce said the conclusions in the Scripps study are based partially on an estimated reduction in runoff of 20 percent over the next 50 years. He said that figure was used because it split the difference between the 10 to 30 percent decrease in runoff the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts will occur over the next 50 years.

 

Scott Huntley, a spokesman for the regional Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas, said 90 percent of the region's water comes from the Colorado River, and that government officials are committed to not letting the Lake Mead reservoir dry up.

 

He pointed to an agreement signed in December by the seven states and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to conserve and share scarce water if the Colorado River drought continues.

 

"Really, the main underpinning of this is not just supply side, but also demand side," Huntley said.

 

"First, we continue to monitor the lake levels to determine if states need to come back together for more dramatic and drastic measures," he said. "Second, we diversify our water sources. Third, of course, is continuing our community's efforts to conserve."

 

The December agreement established triggers that would reduce river water deliveries to states if Lake Mead's water level falls to 1,075 feet above sea level. It also calls for states to create agreements for further restrictions if the level drops to 1,025 feet. The current lake level is 1,117 feet.

 

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said that while the Scripps findings differ from the Central Arizona Project's, she agrees with the fundamental point made by Scripps, "which is to say that as our population grows, sustainability is going to require action with respect to water."

 

"We're still the second-fastest growing state in the country and we still have to be planning on that in terms of sustainability, which is a good concept," Napolitano said. "Water needs to be a part of that, obviously."

 

Launce Rake, a spokesman for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada in Las Vegas, said the issues of water usage and population growth are often overlooked in a rush to meet the needs of the influential building and development industry.

 

"Developers have an inordinate amount of clout with our elected leaders," he said. "They have dictated our growth patterns and our water use for years. That's got to end."

[♦ nivek ♦]

Titan's Organic Hydrocarbons Dwarf Earth's Oil Reserves

By John Borland EmailFebruary 13, 2008 | 2:54:40 PMCategories: Space

 

Titan_rings Before we get too excited here, let's remember. There's still an energy problem. Global warming, too. Nobody's going to be importing oil substitutes from Titan anytime soon.

 

That said, data from the Cassini probe orbiting Saturn has shown that the ringed planet's moon has "hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth," according to research reported in the Geophysical Research Letters. The stuff is literally falling from the sky.

 

Lakes are scattered across the moon, with each of several dozen holding more hydrocarbon liquid – largely in the form of methane and ethane -- than all of Earth's oil and gas reserves.

 

"Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material -- it's a giant factory of organic chemicals," said (Johns Hopkins University physicist, and Cassini radar team member Ralph) Lorenz. "This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan."

 

Naturally, there's a greenhouse effect involved (just remember that before you get too excited about new reserves of burnable organics). As methane escapes into the moon's atmosphere, it breaks down and escapes into space – but meanwhile, it's keeping the surface of the moon at a comparatively comfortable negative 290 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Scientists are more interested in seeing how far an environment like that can progress in producing the complex carbon molecules that ultimately lead to life, however.

 

"We are carbon-based life, and understanding how far along the chain of complexity towards life that chemistry can go in an environment like Titan will be important in understanding the origins of life throughout the universe," added Lorenz.

 

The Cassini probe's next Titan flyby will be on Feb. 22.

 

Titan's surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth [ESA]

 

Image: A smog-shrouded Titan, as seen by Cassini behind Saturn's rings. The small moon Epimetheus hangs over the rings. The color in the image was overlaid on a black-and-white image, to approximate what how the scene would look to our eyes. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute )

 

[♦ nivek ♦]

Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back

http://newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warm...2/19/73798.html

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 11:55 AM

 

By: Phil Brennan

Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?

 

Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.

 

Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual, challenging the global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments of skeptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.

 

The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his "Inconvenient Truth" lectures about mankind’s alleged impact on the global climate.

 

Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.

 

As winter roars in across the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature seems to have joined the ranks of the skeptics.

 

As the Express notes, scientists are saying the northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades, adding that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966. The newspaper cites the one exception — Western Europe, which had, until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.

 

Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.

 

Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman, and northern Saudi Arabia report the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. In Afghanistan, snow and freezing weather killed 120 people. Even Baghdad had a snowstorm, the first in the memory of most residents.

 

AFP news reports icy temperatures have just swept through south China, stranding 180,000 people and leading to widespread power cuts just as the area was recovering from the worst weather in 50 years, the government said Monday. The latest cold snap has taken a severe toll in usually temperate Yunnan province, which has been struck by heavy snowfalls since Thursday, a government official from the provincial disaster relief office told AFP.

 

Twelve people have died there, state Xinhua news agency reported, and four remained missing as of Saturday.

 

An ongoing record-long spell of cold weather in Vietnam's northern region, which started on Jan. 14, has killed nearly 60,000 cattle, mainly bull and buffalo calves, local press reported Monday. By Feb. 17, the spell had killed a total of 59,962 cattle in the region, including 7,349 in the Ha Giang province, 6,400 in Lao Cai, and 5,571 in Bac Can province, said Hoang Kim Giao, director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, according to the Pioneer newspaper.

 

In Britain the temperatures plunged to -10 C in central England, according to the Express, which reports that experts say that February could end up as one of the coldest in Britain in the past 10 years with the freezing night-time conditions expected to stay around a frigid -8 C until at least the middle of the week. And the BBC reports that a bus company's efforts to cut global warming emissions have led to services being disrupted by cold weather.

 

Meanwhile Athens News reports that a raging snow storm that blanketed most of Greece over the weekend and continued into the early morning hours on Monday, plunging the country into sub-zero temperatures. The agency reported that public transport buses were at a standstill on Monday in the wider Athens area, while ships remained in ports, public services remained closed, and schools and courthouses in the more severely-stricken prefectures were also closed.

 

Scores of villages, mainly on the island of Crete, and in the prefectures of Evia, Argolida, Arcadia, Lakonia, Viotia, and the Cyclades islands were snowed in.

 

More than 100 villages were snowed-in on the island of Crete and temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.

 

Temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.

 

If global warming gets any worse we'll all freeze to death

[♦ nivek ♦]

Global Cooling: Amazing pictures of countries joining Britain in the big freeze

By CHRISTOPHER BOOKER - More by this author » Last updated at 08:30am on 21st February 2008

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1811

 

 

Yesterday's picture in the Mail of a cascade of icicles in the Yorkshire Dales was a reminder of how cold Britain can be - something many of us have forgotten in this unusually mild winter.

 

But it really is remarkable how little attention has been paid to the extraordinary weather events which in recent weeks have been affecting other parts of the world.

 

Across much of the northern hemisphere, from Greece and Iran to China and Japan, they have been suffering their worst snowfalls for decades.

 

Similarly freakish amounts of snow have been falling over much of the northern United States, from Ohio to the Pacific coast, where in parts of the state of Washington up to 200in of snow have fallen in the past fortnight.

 

In country after country, these abnormal snowfalls have provoked a crisis.

 

In China - the only example to have attracted major coverage in Britain - the worst snow for 50years triggered an unprecedented state of emergency.

 

Large parts of the country have been paralysed, as rail and road transport ground to a standstill.

 

Read more...

 

* Winter at last as arctic cold brings freezing fog and deep frost

 

More than 25,000 miles of power lines collapsed under a weight of snow and ice they were never designed to cope with.

 

Snow has devastated thousands of square miles of farmland, threatening severe food shortages.

 

The total cost of the disaster to the Chinese economy may be more than £10billion.

 

In Afghanistan, freezing weather and the worst snow for 30 years have killed more than 900 people.

 

In neighbouring Tajikistan, according to aid agencies, the coldest winter for 50 years, along with soaring food prices and a massive energy crisis, threatens a "humanitarian catastrophe".

 

 

In Greece and Turkey, where temperatures dropped as low as minus 31 degrees Celsius, hundreds of villages have been cut off by blizzards and drifting snow.

 

In Iran, following heavy snowfalls last month, its eastern desert regions - normally still hot at this time of year - have seen their first snow in living memory.

 

In Saudi Arabia last month, people were amazed by the first snow most had ever seen.

 

On the Pacific coast of Japan last week, heavy falls of snow injured more than 50.

 

Meanwhile in the U.S., similarly abnormal snowfalls have hit more than a dozen states. One Massachusetts town reported 12ft drifts after its heaviest snows in 30 years.

 

In Wisconsin, the state governor declared a state of emergency as schools and airports were forced to close by up to 20in of snow - and even this was dwarfed by the blizzards which dropped as much as 16ft of the white stuff on parts of Washington state.

 

In light of such similar news from so many places round the world, it may not seem surprising that U.S. satellite data for January shows the extent of snow cover in the northern hemisphere as reaching its highest level since 1966, 42 years ago - and that temperatures were lower than their average for the whole of the 20th century.

 

Furthermore, it is not only in the northern hemisphere that records are being broken.

 

Following last year's freak snowfalls in such southern cities as Buenos Aires and Sydney, satellite observations from the other end of the world have this winter shown ice cover round the Antarctic at easily its greatest extent for this time of year since data began in 1979, 30per cent above average.

 

Yet so far in our corner of the world, we have been remarkably slow to notice what was going on elsewhere, and to put the different elements of the story together.

 

Doubtless much of the reason for this has been that, in Western Europe, we have (until the recent cold spell) enjoyed yet another comparatively warm winter - probably thanks to changes in warming sea currents which scientists find hard to explain. (Although Alpine ski resorts have seen their best snow conditions for many years.)

 

This is why we saw reports of balmy, prematurely spring-like weather, with primroses and blossom coming out earlier than usual and the curator of Kew Gardens suggesting "there is no winter any more" - just when much of the rest of the world was shivering through the coldest January and February since The Beatles were still together.

 

But one of the oddest features of this great freeze is how little it was predicted.

 

We are so used to hearing that the world is inexorably warming up thanks to rising CO2 emissions, and that recent years have been the hottest since records were kept, that no one prepared us for the possibility that there might suddenly be such a dramatic exception to the accepted trend.

 

So far, the leading advocates of the global warming thesis have remained fairly quiet about the 2008 freeze, although some may explain that "freak weather events" such as we are now witnessing are just what we should expect to see as Planet Earth hots up - even if this produces the paradox that warming may sometimes lead to cooling.

 

 

Global warming "sceptics", on the other hand, are inevitably pointing to these record snowfalls as evidence that global temperatures are no longer rising as the CO2 theory predicts.

 

We may, they suggest, be seeing the start of a period when temperatures reverse their generally upward trend over the past 30 years, as we did in those decades before 1978 known to climate scientists as "the Little Cooling".

 

The truth is that it is still much too early to draw any long-term conclusions from 2008's great freeze. But it is one of the most startling developments to have emerged in the world's weather patterns for a long time - not least in that it was so unexpected.

 

At least it raises important questions over how our global climate is evolving which the scientists will have to try to explain.

 

To the millions of people whose lives have been seriously disrupted by this year's freeze, the concept of global warming must seem awfully remote.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Liquid Gold

 

Ethanol is supposed to be good for the environment. But producing green fuel can cost a lot of water.

By Jim Moscou

Newsweek Web Exclusive

Updated: 10:08 AM ET Feb 21, 2008

 

Mike Adamson remembers when water wasn't such a problem. As a kid growing up on his family's cattle feedlot along the Colorado-Kansas border, "you could dig a post hole and see water runnin' in the bottom," he recalls. Today, Adamson is 48 and in charge of the family business, Adamson Brothers and Sons Feedlot, a holding ranch for cattle as they go to market. And the water, he says, is disappearing. "The lakes are gone. The wetlands are gone." In fact, Adamson adds, entire stretches of the nearby Republican River are gone.

 

In the arid regions of the American West, water has always been a precious, liquid gold. But in Adamson's home of Yuma County, two hours east of Denver, the stakes just got higher. Thanks to the boom in ethanol production spurred by green-energy concerns, corn farmers in Yuma County--one of the top three corn-producing counties in the country--are enjoying a new prosperity.

 

But the green-fuel boom touted as a clean, eco-friendly alternative to gasoline is proving to have its own dirty costs. Growing corn demands lots of water, and, in Eastern Colorado, this means intensive irrigation from an already stressed water table, the great Ogallala aquifer. One sign of trouble: in just the past two decades, farmers tapping into the local aquifers have helped to shorten the North Fork of the Republican River, which starts in Yuma County, by 10 miles. The ethanol boom will only hasten the drop further, say scientist and engineers studying the aquifers. The region's water shortage has pitted water-hungry farmers against one another. And lurking in the cornrows: lawsuits and interstate water squabbles could shut down Eastern Colorado's estimated $500 million annual ethanol bonanza with the swing of a judge's gavel. Collectively, "[ethanol] is clearly not sustainable," says Jerald Schnoor, a professor of engineering at the University of Iowa and cochairman of an October 2007 National Research Council study for Congress that was critical of ethanol. "Production will have serious impacts in water-stressed regions." And in Eastern Colorado, there's lots of water stress.

 

Still, with so much money growing in the fields, the current problems haven't stopped anyone on Colorado's plains. "Finally, here's the alternative market that farmers have been working toward for decades," said Mark Sponsler, executive director of the Colorado Corn Growers Association. The state's farmers planted a near record acreage of corn in 2007, up nearly 20 percent from the year before. It's not hard to see why. After hovering around $2 a bushel for nearly 50 years, corn is trading at about $4.50 today. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has called for ethanol to displace 15 percent of the nation's gasoline supply by 2015, double that by 2030. And Yuma is preparing. The state's two ethanol plants have been built nearby in just the past few years, with a third on the way. "It sure is a good time," says Byron Weathers, a farmer with 2,500 acres of corn. "It's definitely been a big plus for our state. The whole nation, really."

 

But the effort to keep the good times rolling locally has actually fueled a bitter Hatfield-vs.-McCoy atmosphere in these parts. "There's definitely tension between families," one long-time Yuma corn farmer said, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation. Here's the trouble: eastern Colorado is painfully dry, but it sits on top of one of the world's largest underground freshwater oceans--the Ogallala Aquifer, which stretches from Montana to New Mexico. Seepage from the Ogallala in eastern Colorado creates the headwaters for the North Fork of the Republican River, which flows past the Adamson family farm, and into Nebraska and Kansas. But before the Republican reaches the border, 4,000 groundwater wells tap the Ogallala, which depletes the river further and faster than rain or winter run-off can recharge it. Near Yuma, the water table has dropped more than 100 feet in the past few decades, drying out Adamson's post holes.

 

In Yuma County, the battle is between farmers who irrigate 400,000 corn acres with groundwater against those who draw surface water from the river using drainage ditches, like Adamson. (Adamson uses the water to grow less-water intensive crops, like wheat, that he can feed to the cattle). As the wells draw down the water table, the river flow drops, too. So, when the valves are opened, the water barely trickles into irrigation ditches, like Adamson's, whose family's right to draw that water according to state law dates back to the 1800s. "We're the canary in the coal mine," Adamson said. If there's little water in his ditches, the river is running low.

 

To be sure, scientists have been watching the depletion of the Ogallala for decades. Years of drought haven't helped either. But the corn-based ethanol boom has added pressure, and money, to keep the tap on. So to save the river and their water, Adamson and a group of surface water-right holders sued in 2005 to shut off the wells. A hearing is set for June. If they win, hundreds, maybe thousands of groundwater wells irrigating corn could be shut off instantly. "It would devastate the economy," says Doug Sanderson, the city manager of Yuma, the county seat.

 

Yuma County farmers face another water threat, this one from neighboring Kansas. The downstream state has struggled for decades to get its fair share of the Republican's waters. Tensions peaked eight years ago when Kansas brought a lawsuit against Colorado and Nebraska to the U.S. Supreme Court--and won. Today, the two states still owe Kansas enough water to supply a small city for a year. But, like a shop-a-holic with credit cards, Colorado's groundwater wells keep pumping. "We're at a junction with the interstate compact," says Dave Barfield, chief engineer for Kansas. "[Kansas] farmers are being hurt. They are telling me to go get 'em…. And we are." Last month, Kansas demanded its water, suggesting Colorado and Nebraska shut down groundwater wells. If things get worse, the Supreme Court could order it. The threat has sent Colorado's politicians, farmers and others scrambling, and proposed solutions are as perplexing as the problems.

 

To send Kansas its water--and keep the Colorado well on--a state legislator is pushing to drain the Bonny Reservoir, a popular border lake called the "crown jewel" of eastern Colorado. It's a key stopping point for migratory birds, a fishery maintained by the state, and leased by Colorado from the federal government, who are not likely to let the water go. Still, the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Greg Brophy of Yuma, has made the message clear: "We can't value fish over farmers."

 

Yuma corn farmers have come up with their own idea. Last month, the local Republic River Water Conservation District, a board responsible for keeping Colorado in water compliance with Kansas, approved the funding for a multi-million dollar pipeline that will pump water into the Republican River from a farm willing to retire 6,000 acres. Water will flow to Kansas. Problem solved. The source of that water? The Ogallala Aquifer. It's an idea some have called robbing Peter to pay Paul. "It is to a degree," says Ken Knox, Colorado's chief deputy state engineer. "But we're trying to maintain the entire social-economic production in this part of Colorado."

 

What's becoming clear is that the price to keep ethanol profitable is not cheap. The purchase of those wells will cost more than $50 million--a market-maker price tag that's even catching the eye of the surface-water right owners. "You know, money is an enticing thing," Adamson said. "It's great to be noble. Sometimes it's hard to be noble. But you've got to take care of your family." One attorney close to the case is more succinct: "[surface-water owners] are probably just waiting for the right price." Should the right price come along, Ogallala's groundwater will be left uncontested, at least in Colorado, a likely scenario. As for the Republican River? "We know we have a finite resource. We know it won't last forever," says Yuma City Manager Sanderson. "But we certainly don't respect the resource more than we respect the people."

 

Scientists and engineers say there's a clear lesson from the Republican River saga: water and energy are inextricably linked. "They will be the two driving forces of the future," says Knox. "And we're starting to see the future in this region." Professor Schnoor calls ethanol simply "a bridge fuel" to undiscovered and truly environmentally-friendly technology. Meanwhile, with warm months just around the corner and a meeting with state officials in Denver to discuss the pipeline that he opposes, Adamson is frustrated. "Trying to solve problems by using the same old techniques doesn't solve the problem," Adamson says. "We're going to make the area a desert. It's going to be uninhabitable." And that would be a high price to pay.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/114364

[MultifariousBirdLady]

Growing corn demands lots of water, and, in Eastern Colorado, this means intensive irrigation from an already stressed water table, the great Ogallala aquifer.

 

Indeed. And for starters, corn is a pretty poor choice for making ethanol. It takes nearly as much fossil-fuel energy to produce corn-ethanol as you get out of it.

 

I've seen a few good articles on the use of a different plant, and the results are much better. It's switchgrass, a native warm-season grass that is adapted to ecosystems across much of the continental U.S., is a helluva lot more drought-tolerant than corn, and because it's a perennial, you only plant it ONCE but can harvest it every year Furthermore, it's just plain better for producing ethanol. It's been known for years that switchgrass is much better plant for this than corn, but alas, there's no switchgrass lobby, so corn producers get the fed subsidy.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Business/story?id=1566784

[MultifariousBirdLady]

Speaking of water, have you seen this?

Farmers in California decide to sell their water instead of grow food.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/01/26...3_021_25_08.txt

[♦ nivek ♦]

When you're good to mama

Classically Liberal

by CLS

 

"Earlier today I wrote about how stupid ideas, which make no economic

sense, can make political sense due to the warped incentives of

bureaucratic or political management. One example which I mentioned

was the disastrous use of ethanol as a means of combating global

warming. Ethanol is one of those solutions that is wrong at so many

levels one doesn't know where to begin. In a nutshell it is a lousy

alternative to petrol. It is worse for the environment, requires

subsidies to be produced, is driving up the price of food and is

increasing world hunger because of its impact on food prices. But it

makes political sense. ... How do you make a profit producing ethanol?

You don't. But you make a profit when you get political hacks to push

through legislation to pay you to produce ethanol. Make no mistake

about it, ethanol is not a phenomenon of the free market. It is the

Frankenstein monster of politicians like Hillary." (02/28/08)

 

http://tinyurl.com/32djbn

[♦ nivek ♦]

Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network; Claims It Is 'Telling Us What to Think'

 

TWC founder and global warming skeptic advocates suing Al Gore to expose 'the fraud of global warming.'

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2...0303175301.aspx

By Jeff Poor

Business & Media Institute

3/3/2008 6:11:04 PM

 

The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982.

 

Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism.

 

“The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”

 

The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.

 

Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.

 

“ have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

 

Earlier at the conference Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy adviser to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told an audience that the science will eventually prevail and the “scare” of global warming will go away. He also said the courts were a good avenue to show the science.

[♦ nivek ♦]

CA: State scrambles to fund global warming fight

San Francisco Chronicle

 

"California's landmark legislation to fight global warming has been on

the books for more than a year, but it still lacks stable, long-term

funding to help meet its ambitious goal to limit greenhouse gas

emissions. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal calls

for a stopgap, two-year effort that relies on borrowing money from a

state beverage container recycling fund to run the program. On Monday,

members of a joint legislative committee raised questions about

funding for AB32, the high-profile measure that seeks to cut the

state's carbon emissions by about a third by 2020." (03/04/08)

 

http://tinyurl.com/337e3p

[♦ nivek ♦]

Global warming: Is it really a crisis?

Fox News

by John R. Lott, Jr.

 

"John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton all promise massive

new regulations that will cost trillions of dollars to combat global

warming. McCain says that it will be his first task if he wins the

presidency. After consulting with Al Gore, Obama feels the problem is

so imminent that it is not even really possible to wait until he

becomes president. Ironically, this political unanimity is occurring

as global temperatures have been cooling dramatically over the last

decade. Global temperatures have now largely eliminated most of the

one degree Celsius warming that had previously occurred over the last

100 years. Hundreds of climate scientists have warned that there is

not significant man-made global warming. A conference in New York on

Monday and Tuesday this week will bring 100 scientists together to

warn that the there is no man-made global warming crisis. Yet, we just

keep on piling on more and more regulations without asking hard

questions about whether they are justified." (03/03/08)

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334682,00.html

[♦ nivek ♦]

Ten reasons to love global warming

The Price of Liberty

by Garry Reed

 

"People are obsessing about today's global warming because anti-

libertarian political opportunists and cultural Marxists and enviro-

religionists and government-paid researchers who stand to gain

political and/or social power and prestige and tons of taxbucks are

demanding that we obsess about it. To counter the Al Goregoyle-lead

gloomsayers, here are 10 reasons to love global warming." (03/03/08)

 

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/08/03/03/reed.htm

[Evan]

The Arctic ice cap shrank so much this summer that waves briefly lapped along two long-imagined Arctic shipping routes, the Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northern Sea Route over Russia.

McKenzie Funk

Arctic Study Researchers haul a buoy across the Arctic sea ice in August, led by two Coast Guard crew whose job was to ward off polar bears or rescue anyone who slipped into the sea.

Over all, the floating ice dwindled to an extent unparalleled in a century or more, by several estimates.

 

Now the six-month dark season has returned to the North Pole. In the deepening chill, new ice is already spreading over vast stretches of the Arctic Ocean. Astonished by the summer’s changes, scientists are studying the forces that exposed one million square miles of open water — six Californias — beyond the average since satellites started measurements in 1979.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/...amp;oref=slogin

[♦ nivek ♦]

Can states cut carbon? EPA says no

Christian Science Monitor

 

"The political tussle over whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant

subject to government regulation has gone on for years. Early in his

first term as vice president, Al Gore pushed a tax on CO2. Democrats

and Republicans in Congress were both skeptical. The idea went

nowhere. As a presidential candidate, George Bush seemed to think

regulating CO2 was a good idea. At least he said so. After his

election, then-Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator

Christie Whitman marched forth in support of what she thought was

White House policy. She quickly got reeled back. Two years later she

resigned, complaining that Vice President Dick Cheney kept pushing for

weaker air pollution controls." (03/06/08)

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0306/p17s01-stgn.html