Climate Change -- conspiracy theory or is it time we all drive a Prius?

Quote: missedhervee

Nobody said that the only cause of global warming is manmade.

Quote: missedhervee

I recognize that this old orb has been slowly warming up for the past ten thousand or so years, and yes, that warming was due to natural causes.

The klaxon alarm is being rung because the RATE of global warming has increased since the industrial age got going and the resultant greenhouse gases got wafted into the atmosphere.

Quote: AZDuffman

The rate might or might not have changed, we do not know for sure. Considering CO2 is only .04% of the percent of the atmosphere it is a real stretch to believe it is the cause. At least if you think for yourself and not just believe what those in power tell you to think.

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Before the industrial revolution, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was about 288 ppm. We have now reached about 414 ppm, so we are on the way to doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by the end of this century.

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Amid intensifying drought, state water regulators voted Tuesday to enact a drastic emergency order that will bar thousands of Californians — primarily farmers — from using stream and river water.

California’s complex water rights system is designed to allocate water use during times of shortage and such curtailments, while rare, are not unheard of. But the scope of Tuesday’s order — which will apply to thousands of senior water rights across a wide swath of the state — is unprecedented, officials said.

While the move has been protested by some farmers, irrigation districts and others, California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross called the decision “a necessary step,” saying the fact that senior water rights holders were included “speaks to the severity of the hydrology and what climate change has presented this year.”
"It is a painful moment. We know the impacts are real," Ross said during Tuesday's meeting.

Plummeting reservoir levels could soon force Oroville hydropower offline

“Most of us that went this route, investing in property with these water rights within these districts all did it for very similar reasons in that there was security in that,” Davy said. “And now seeing that security gone, we're really scared.”
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Drought conditions in the state rapidly worsened this spring, when expected snowpack runoff to the watershed decreased by almost 800,000 acre-feet — an amount nearly equivalent to the capacity of Folsom Reservoir — between April and May.


"The simplest terms are the snow was kind of there and then it wasn't,” said David Rizzardo, chief of the hydrology branch at the state's Department of Water Resources.

According to Rizzardo, it’s not uncommon to lose 10-20% of the snowpack to normal hydrological processes, particularly following a dry year. But losing just under 80% — let alone in such a short period of time?

“It's beyond unprecedented,” Rizzardo said. The hydrologic conditions witnessed this year have been forecast in climate change models, but according to Rizzardo, such scenarios were expected to come to bear decades from now

Quote: rxwine

I think climate change deniers have already done a good job in ensuring that the brakes to the train of climate disaster are going to be applied too late.

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The former vice president doesn’t own a private jet and offsets travel for himself and staff through a program that cancels out your carbon footprint by ostensibly preventing emissions elsewhere (like planting trees or supporting renewable energy).