Photo by Bert Kaufmann | CC BY 2.0
Harken! A Trump appointee agrees that climate change is not a hoax. Granted, that is unimaginable, but it is the real thing. An ongoing climate crisis in America’s Southwest brings this rare specimen into the limelight.
The climate crisis star of the year is Brenda Burman, commissioner of The Bureau of Reclamation, a division of the Department of Interior, who, in her confirmation hearings said: “I believe that climate change is not a hoax.” After all, in her youth she did serve as a park ranger at Grand Canyon National Park; she’s an outdoorsperson.
She comes to the forefront via an ongoing dire ultra scary southwestern drought. According to The Bureau of Reclamation (Trump’s Bureau) it’s the worst drought in over 1,200 years. (Source: Eric Holthaus, Look! A Federal Agency is Pushing for Urgent Climate Action, Grist.org, May 10, 2018)
There is plenty of concern and compelling issues/dangers supporting Burman’s push for a solution to water shortages for one of the country’s major regions, and it is a pressing issue for the near future, involving (1) the livelihood of 40 million people, (2) growth of major cities, like Phoenix, and (3) saving America’s breadbasket.
Here’s what Commissioner Burman says about the climate crisis: “We need action and we need it now… We can’t afford to wait for a crisis before we implement drought contingency plans,” Ibid.
She specifically references the Colorado River System, which has been in crisis mode for some time now, which has everything to do with too much anthropogenic (human-caused) CO2 emitted into the atmosphere.
One answer to Commissioner Burman’s plea of “we can’t afford to wait for a crisis before we implement drought contingency plans” is for Trump to quit goosing up exploration of fossil fuels at the expense of installing renewable energy throughout the country, coast-to-coast. That’s one implementation that can be started overnight with his signature.
Nevertheless, a recent headline in The Intercept, May 5th reads: “Top Republican Plans To Use Fossil Fuels To Make Puerto Rico ‘The Energy Hub Of The Entire Caribbean.” How do ya’ like them apples?
On the other hand, for some sanity, maybe take a look at China’s game plan and Middle Eastern oil sheiks, all major commitments, in fact billions-upon-billions of funding for renewable energy installations, like solar, making the United States look like a creaky old antiquated fossil fuel blackened worn-out antique on a world stage of innovation and slick solar systems with industrial-strength battery storage systems coming on stream.
Wal-Mart plans on 100% renewable energy for its stores by 2020, but Congress can’t do the same for the country, anything wrong with this picture? Meanwhile, Trump gooses up fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow, and…ah, oh well!
Meanwhile, the risks are absolutely enormous because once enough time lapses without curtailment of GHGs the impending water crisis may turn irresolvable, assuming it is not already at that point, but nobody rings a bell, so who knows for sure.
According to the aforementioned Grist article, runoff from the Rocky Mountains to the Colorado River is expected to be down by 40% this year, or in other words, an extreme severe continuation of a merciless 19-year drought that’s literally parching large swaths of the Southwest. It is a vicious megadrought that won’t quit!
The Bureau claims the odds have tripled, three-times as likely, that reservoirs fall below critical levels with an another 50% probability that, by 2020, the first official water shortage hits the Colorado River. Watch out below!
The crux of the problem is all about living standards. According to laws governing the Colorado River, Arizona is first in line for big-time cuts, which means water allotments could be cut by 20% or more. Meanwhile, Burman has called for “conservation” measures.” Ahem… well, better late than never.
It’s not like scientists have not advertised this upcoming crisis. An article by Robinson Meyer in The Atlantic (2016) spelled out the danger “A Mega-Drought is Coming to America’s Southwest,” furthermore “Unless carbon emissions plummet soon, the risk of a region-altering disaster in Arizona and New Mexico will exceed 99 percent,” prompting a big important question: How is it possible to cut carbon emissions when America’s stated energy policy gooses up fossil fuel exploration, production, and use? Answer: Not.
A “region-altering” disaster with 99% risk of it happening in Arizona and New Mexico implies a worst-case scenario, which is a breakdown of the ecosystem and consequent life support system. There are no silver linings to be found in that analysis, less bathing, no lawn watering, forget car washes, close swimming pools, and dried out splotchy sandy golf courses, among other inconveniences.
Toby Ault, professor of earth science at Cornell University, one of the authors of the study in The Atlantic, says: “As we add greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – and we haven’t put the brakes on stopping this- we are weighting the dice for mega-drought conditions,” or in plain English 99% certainty it’ll happen. Take that to the craps table for a sure-fire winner.
Ten years ago an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paper (2008) by Justin Sheffield and Eric F. Wood, “Projected Changes in Drought Occurrence Under Future Global Warming From Multimodel, Multi-Scenario, IPCC AR34 Simulations,” clearly stated that America’s Southwest is one of the most sensitive regions in the world for increased risk of drought caused by global warming.
In fact, scientists have been warning about the relationship of global warming/climate change, aka: climate crisis and droughts for decades, but the United States has not taken bait. The U.S. has never ever, not even a whisper, instituted a nationwide plan to forestall or to beat back a climate crisis that is quickly, very quickly getting out of hand. Is it too late?
According to Commissioner Burman: “We can’t afford to wait for a crisis before we implement drought contingency plans.” But, it’s already a crisis, just ask the city of Las Vegas about water resources, but whisper, don’t shout. LV has ordinances in place to penalize citizens that waste water, which is increasingly precious as it flows from Lake Mead, which hit record lows in recent years, prompting LV to install a “third straw” lower intake to capture the final drops in an absolute worst-case scenario, which increasingly looks like reality.
Current governmental policies re climate crises, which should alarm Commissioner Burman, are typified by the following headline: “Trump Administration Kills NASA Project Monitoring Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” by Jacqueline Thomsen, The Hill, May 10, 2018.
NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System has been canceled, winding down over time. Well now, that’s one way to get out from underneath connecting-the-dots of human-caused carbon emissions and climate crises. No monitoring means no proof to connect dots.
Thus and therefore, from this point forward, by executive decree, droughts will be solely acts of nature, not influenced or exasperated by human carbon emissions into the atmosphere, which blankets Earth with heat-retaining molecules, which warms up the planet, which alters hydrological systems, which increases droughts by a lot and even more than realized, which threatens to cripple major cities and decimate major breadbaskets of America, period! It’s factual, no guesswork required.
Cape Town today is Phoenix tomorrow. Cape Town, a city of 4 million, is anticipating “Day Zero” when reservoirs run so low that water is rationed to less than 7 gallons for each person per day. The city is in a three-year severe drought. As of today, each person is allowed 13 gallons water per day, or the equivalent of 3-4 hefty toilet flushes (older models). If residents overuse, fines are levied with the threat that a shut-off device is installed to limit usage.
According to Peter Johnston, a climate scientist at the University of Cape Town, “We are careening towards disaster on all fronts — whether it’s agriculture, pollution, soil, water, pesticides. The human race is hell-bent on destruction,’ he says. ‘It’s a case of looking at the future and saying we’re going to have to get used to using less water on a permanent basis.” (Source: Rachel Becker, Today Wasn’t Day Zero In Cape Town, But The Water Crisis Isn’t Over, The Verge, May 11, 2018)
At what point in time does the American public wise up, rise up and push back against an incompetent, useless, menacing, devious, pandering Congress, as well as WH administrations, that ignore the pleas of scientists, ever since Dr. James Hansen, former head of NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies testified before the Senate way back in 1988, explaining the greenhouse effect and predicting freakish weather would steadily increase.
Geez, looks like Dr. Hansen hit the ole nail right on the head… bull’s-eye… we’re living with it right now, and with the current administration in place, it is guaranteed, absolutely guaranteed 100% to get worse and worse and worse until people get fed up and mad and act out in fits of horrible nastiness. It’s what people do when faced with no other choice, a flashback to Paris 1789, forget Paris 2016.
Postscript: “Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening.” James Hansen.
