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Global Warming: the sky is falling!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/26/coverstory/index.html

I confess I don't know to what degree this is or isn't alarmist, but having lived through a similar scare in the 70s which was later to a large extent debunked (ie the concern was technically valid but grossly overblown), pardon me for being a tad skeptical...

On the other hand (as I have pointed out before) the pine forests all across the Southwest here are dying. This is happening now.
 
? WHAT forests in the Southwest? :cool: OK I'm kinda kidding, but really, when I think "Southwest" I think AZ, etc, ie mostly dirt and rocks anyway.
 
? WHAT forests in the Southwest? :cool: OK I'm kinda kidding, but really, when I think "Southwest" I think AZ, etc, ie mostly dirt and rocks anyway.

The forest around Prescott is a perfect example.

Sedona is mostly dirt. Pretty dirt, though. :)
 
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/26/coverstory/index.html

I confess I don't know to what degree this is or isn't alarmist, but having lived through a similar scare in the 70s which was later to a large extent debunked (ie the concern was technically valid but grossly overblown), pardon me for being a tad skeptical...
There was no similar scare in the 70's.

The global cooling myth

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

You should, perhaps, be a tad more skeptical about denialist talking-points.
 
Whether or not GW is occuring (which I believe it is), this is alarmist. This isn't a question of whether or not GW is happening. Did you even bother reading the front cover of the time in question and pay attention to the wording and highlighting?
 
I don't find this alarmist. I read the article and it sounded like the guy was reporting on the situation, which might sound OK to some but sounds bad to me. But then I live in the middle of a dying forest. Our area has received practically no snow, water restrictions are already in place and the fire danger is extremely high. I fear Santa Fe may burn up; there are thousands of dead, dried out trees around it. I'm trying to grow hay here; I highly doubt we will get even one cutting.
 
Whether or not GW is occuring (which I believe it is), this is alarmist. This isn't a question of whether or not GW is happening. Did you even bother reading the front cover of the time in question and pay attention to the wording and highlighting?

If what they say is true, then it is time to ring the alarm bells.
 
Eg, every major city in the country is experiencing water shortages, many inland cities and towns are experiencing dire water shortages. We are just surviving on the day to day rain now, which is holding up for now. However, reserves everywhere are low. It would take just one more national severe drought to screw things up properly.
 
Eg, every major city in the country is experiencing water shortages,

Caused by global warming or explosive population growth?

many inland cities and towns are experiencing dire water shortages.

See question #1

We are just surviving on the day to day rain now, which is holding up for now.

Funny - the water from my tap fell as rain between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. Am I gonna die as well?
 
Caused by global warming or explosive population growth?



See question #1

Less rain falling. Melbourne was supposed to have been 'drought proofed' when it built the Thompson Dam. That was on the assumption that rain patterns did not change. The rain patterns have changed.

Funny - the water from my tap fell as rain between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. Am I gonna die as well?

That is used up already for many areas.
 
I don't find this alarmist. I read the article and it sounded like the guy was reporting on the situation, which might sound OK to some but sounds bad to me.
Lines such as
It's at the north and south poles -- where ice cover is crumbling to slush -- that the crisis is being felt the most acutely.
are, IMO, alarmist and inaccurate. They are grist to the mill for denialists who only wish to paint the whole subject as alarmism. They do not publicise the more considered articles out there in the less-popular press.

But then I live in the middle of a dying forest. Our area has received practically no snow, water restrictions are already in place and the fire danger is extremely high. I fear Santa Fe may burn up; there are thousands of dead, dried out trees around it. I'm trying to grow hay here; I highly doubt we will get even one cutting.
That's the sort of experience that denialists are not keen on publicising.

Playing devil's advocate : Has this situation occurred before in living memory? Or in grandpa's recollections of his grandpa's stories? The Dust-Bowl of the 20's was the result of a 60-80 year drought-cycle that goes way back. It only became extensively ploughed during the wetter period, mostly by incomers who had no collective memory of the place.

Where you are, you may well be tapped into a much older collective memory. Or you may have cashed-up and down-sized to the country life, to be shunned by the locals. :)
 
Funny - the water from my tap fell as rain between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. Am I gonna die as well?
How deep are those artesian wells now? You're mining water to live on. Mining gold is one thing, living on mined water is another. Living on mined water and food grown using the mined water ... that's really not long-term thinking. When you throw in lawns and golf-courses it looks really silly.

But hey - there's always deeper to drill, isn't there? A hundred metres for an arestian well compared to the radius of the Earth - it's peanuts. What's another few metres a year?
 
Caused by global warming or explosive population growth?
Explosive population growth? In Australia? There are hardly enough of them to make up two cricket teams.

There are many examples of development ignoring water-constraints, mostly because people who can turn on the tap and get water are not surprised and think nothing of it. Australians are to some extent more culturally water-aware than most Westerners, since so much of it is barren horridity fit only for Discovery Channel on a wet Sunday. They have dry-wet cycles like other people have spasms - check out the geography. Not quite monsoon, not quite Antarctic, not quite Pacific, just varying bits of them all.

With crocodiles. No wonder population density is so low.
 
Eg, every major city in the country is experiencing water shortages, many inland cities and towns are experiencing dire water shortages. We are just surviving on the day to day rain now, which is holding up for now. However, reserves everywhere are low. It would take just one more national severe drought to screw things up properly.
Australia always has the option of building desalination plants, especially as 90% of the population lives near the coast. Of course, they are quite expensive, but if it's a matter of life and death you do what you have to do.
 
Australia always has the option of building desalination plants, especially as 90% of the population lives near the coast. Of course, they are quite expensive, but if it's a matter of life and death you do what you have to do.
There's a big difference between a vital resource that falls for free in the highlands and runs downwards for free - even at an energy-profit on occasion - and one that's produced, at an eregy-cost, at sea-level and pumped up to places. "Near the coast" is a bit vague; there are some serious hills in Eastern Australia.

But as you say, you do, and your kids do after you, and their kids, because that's where you are. Or maybe you move.
 
There was no similar scare in the 70's.

The global cooling myth

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

You should, perhaps, be a tad more skeptical about denialist talking-points.

Actually, there was. I lived through it. My parents even bought a "sudden ice age" thriller novel.

It was supported by the obvious weather patterns outside, the severe, heavy snow winters, etc. etc. etc. Son of a bitch! Those winters were way worse than the decades that preceeded them. Holy ****, the planet is dying! Government command and control of the economy now!

So please stop spreading false, fabricated "information".
 

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