I was sitting in a friends garden overlooking the river near Plymouth (UK) at the weekend and wondering what effect climate change is going to have on the landscape with regards to the rising sea levels.

VI - You missed my post on seperate topic on this site.

I totally agree that the overdevelopment of Atlanta is a huge contributor to this.  Remember, Atlanta has gone from 3M people in 1997 to almost 5M people in less than 10 years.  I live not far from Lanier, so I see it as well.

I also think that Alabama is being ridiculous about it, and the mussels thing is just plain crap.

My point on this topic is that so-called Global Warming, or climate change, or whatever it is called today, really is not the issue here.  Demand has simply exceeded supply, in ideal weather.  When the weather stick turns, its a disaster.  Also, the subject of just how much water is left depends on which side is speaking.

Voice of Half-Truth: I live just outside Atlanta, and I have personally seen the reservoirs that supposedly have enough water for next year, and I would disagree with your opinion. All signs are pointing to a warm, dry winter (according to NOAA), so relief is not yet in sight (this week’s rain was a nice band-aid though). The water is needed for other things than drinking by Atlanta metro residents; there’s the little problem of Alabama needing some too, and power plants require it to keep operating. The Army Corps. of Engineers released several months worth of water earlier this year after relying on a faulty gauge, so are we to assume the Corps will not make any more errors, or have any more equipment malfunction? What about the large influx of people moving to Atlanta?
The equation for determining how much water is “really” left changes constantly, and is subject to many known and hidden variables. It is short-sighted in the extreme to think that “enough water for the next year” is enough. Our primary cultural flaw right now is failing to conserve for the inevitable years of drought, or flooding, or whatever. Whether global warming is real or not is IRRELEVANT! Climate changes; that’s what it does. We lack much resiliency for ANY kind of change, and voluntarily reducing consumption in order to save up for these difficult transition periods would have been a way to get through them with much less stress than we actually will.

Voice of Truth…lol..

  Like the way they always fancy themselves as the voice of truth and reason, alway attempting to frame opposing ‘facts’ as emotional and irrational. It is so predictable—and because they have to spin it that way, it immediately indicates to me that they are on shaky ground when they use the ‘fair and balanced” pitch.

PNM is conducting an electric integrated resource plan to predict 20 years into the future.

Original pnm prediction is that the amount of electricity needed will about double in the next 20 years.

This may not happen.  World oil production may have peaked in 2005.  US natural gas production peaked in about 2001.  US coal BTU production may have peaked in 2000 although tonage had increased.

cheers
http://www.prosefights.org/pnmelectric/pnmelectric.htm

“Living With Climate Change…”

DYING with climate change, uhh!

By the way, Atlanta, where I live, is not “running out of water”.  The alarmists are trying to project a four month supply, when in fact there is actually enough water for the next year currently in lakes and reservoirs.

That is not to say that Atlanta is ridiculously overbuilt (comes from not having a natural boundary) but, again, that is where facts must be used over emotions.

blah blah blah.  Once it was scientifically determined that the earth was not getting warmer by degress (0.1c is scientifically irrelevant), then the phrase changed to “climate change”.  What about the fact that of the 11 main polar bear populations, 1 is in a state of static growth, and the other 10 are larger??  What about the fact that the Antarctic ice shelf has been receding for 6,000 years, not the last 50?  Why didn’t Mr. Bore and his President Clinton even bother to submit the Kyoto treaty to the senate for ratification?  Why does he fly around in private jets?  Why does his home use more electricity than a city?

Why is the Toyota Prius more harmful to the environment than a Ford Expedition?  I’ll answer that one…  Their batteries are nickel cadmium.  The nickel mine in Canada that they are sourced from is one of the worst polluters on the planet.  Then all the parts get shipped to Japan, then the finished product gets shipped back to the US.

These are facts.  That is what I deal in.  Emotions, generalizations, etc., have no place in this discussion.  Oh yeah, before you start labeling me, like always (so pathetically predictable), I do not work for, have relatives that work for, provide services for, etc., etc., a big, bad, evil, out-to-rule-the-world oil company.  Though I do own some of their stocks!

The rains will come and when they come they will be as prolonged and intense as the droughts, because it is all about extremes.

  Too late for us. We already had to move away from our flood prone home. Everything lost—equity gone, no one cares here in the wealthy white suburbs either. In fact they are more likely to blame people for living in a flood plain—even though our house is over 300 years old and we lived there for over 40 years. Everybody knows about the victims of Katrina. No one knows about us.

Al Gore’s ‘nine Inconvenient Untruths’
By Sally Peck

Al Gore’s environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth contains nine key scientific errors, a High Court judge ruled yesterday.

The judge declined to ban the film from British schools…but ruled that it can only be shown with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination.

Judge Michael Burton ruled yesterday that errors had arisen “in the context of alarmism and exaggeration” in order to support Mr Gore’s thesis on global warming…

The nine alleged errors in the film

Mr Gore claims that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland “in the near future”. The judge said: “This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore’s “wake-up call”. He agreed that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water - “but only after, and over, millennia”.“The Armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.”

The film claims that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls “are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming” but the judge ruled there was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.

The documentary speaks of global warming “shutting down the Ocean Conveyor” - the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to western Europe. Citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the judge said that it was “very unlikely” that the Ocean Conveyor, also known as the Meridional Overturning Circulation, would shut down in the future, though it might slow down.

Mr Gore claims that two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed “an exact fit”. The judge said that, although there was general scientific agreement that there was a connection, “the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts”.

Mr Gore says the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was directly attributable to global warming, but the judge ruled that it scientists have not established that the recession of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro is primarily attributable to human-induced climate change.

The film contends that the drying up of Lake Chad is a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming but the judge said there was insufficient evidence, and that “it is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability.”

Mr Gore blames Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans on global warming, but the judge ruled there was “insufficient evidence to show that”.

Mr Gore cites a scientific study that shows, for the first time, that polar bears were being found after drowning from “swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice” The judge said: “The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.“That was not to say there might not in future be drowning-related deaths of bears if the trend of regression of pack ice continued - “but it plainly does not support Mr Gore’s description”.

Mr Gore said that coral reefs all over the world were being bleached because of global warming and other factors. Again citing the IPCC, the judge agreed that, if temperatures were to rise by 1-3 degrees centigrade, there would be increased coral bleaching and mortality, unless the coral could adapt. However, he ruled that separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution was difficult.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/11/scigore111.xml#A

“...If Taylor were writing that song today, given that much of the country is experiencing severe drought, he might want to rethink the “rain” part….”

Yes, it IS time to start thinking about IT, isn’t it?!?! There’ll be a lot of dead politicians once the water finally runs out…..