Showing posts with label Lake Powell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lake Powell. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Are you ready for total climate meltdown? It may be unstoppable...

 

I live close to both Lake Meade and Lake Powell so I get a daily update on the climate disaster through waterlines and the drying up of the lakebeds. Lake Meade, the nation's largest reservoir reached 1,043.8 feet on Thursday, June 23rd, of this year, the lowest level since the lake was created in the 1930s. It is nearing what is called "dead pool," a situation where there isn't enough water to flow over the dam to create electricity. And there is another problem...

"Lake Mead provides water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland."
Lake Powell is down -18.14 feet from one year ago. What is the current status?...
"Lake Powell is in crisis. The nation’s second-largest reservoir is strained 
 by more than two decades of drought, and its water levels are slipping dangerously low. In March, the reservoir passed an important threshold. Water levels dipped below 3,525 feet – the last major milestone before a serious threat to hydropower generation at the Glen Canyon Dam."
And these are only two examples of the catastrophic effects of climate change. Here's a headline from The Guardian that should knock your socks off, evaluating worldwide conditions: "‘Soon the world will be unrecognisable’: is it still possible to prevent total climate meltdown?" How's that for a statement that should make the U.S. public and conservatives in Congress demand and enact legislation NOW to correct the problem. But, as in the past, it probably won't.

I will be 90 years of age by the end of the week and probably won't be around to see the apocalypse. But I fear for the young people, especially my family, the climate deniers in Congress don't seem to give a damn about. With the daily disasters of fires, floods and storms, it would seem only idiots could deny such devastation. And that, apparently, is who is running our country. Here's how Robin McKee starts his article...

"Blistering heatwaves are just the start. We must accept how bad things are before we can head off global catastrophe, according to a leading UK scientist."

If you've ever been to Las Vegas you wouldn't recognize it now after catastrophic climate change...


Although the article's author, Robin McKee, is located in the U.K, his perspective is worldwide. He quotes from Bill McGuire’s latest book, Hothouse Earth; McGuire is emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London. A quote from his text...
"we have – for far too long – ignored explicit warnings that rising carbon emissions are dangerously heating the Earth. Now we are going to pay the price for our complacency in the form of storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves that will easily surpass current extremes."

McKee points out that many climate experts...

"still maintain we have time left, although not very much, to bring about meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. A rapid drive to net zero and the halting of global warming is still within our grasp, they say."

McGuire's reply...

“I know a lot of people working in climate science who say one thing in public but a very different thing in private. In confidence, they are all much more scared about the future we face, but they won’t admit that in public. I call this climate appeasement and I believe it only makes things worse. The world needs to know how bad things are going to get before we can hope to start to tackle the crisis.”
Hothouse Earth was completed at the end of 2021 and by publication McGuire found that many climate extremes had already been broken. To me this reflects just how fast climate earth is going down the drain. And McKee confirms this with...
"Wildfires of unprecedented intensity and ferocity have also swept across Europe, North America and Australia this year, while record rainfall in the midwest led to the devastating flooding in the US’s Yellowstone national park."

 McKinney Fire becomes California’s largest wildfire this year...


 And here is a most frightening statement by McKee, reflected in his title: “Soon it [the earth] will be unrecognisable to every one of us.” Is that what we want to leave for our children and their children? We find out from McGuire that the earth has only heated up 0ne degree, but according to climate models it is still heating up much faster than anticipated. Apparently it was the Industrial Revolution that started dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere...

According to the Cop26 climate meeting in Glasgow last year, every effort should be made to try to limit that [carbon] rise to 1.5C, although to achieve such a goal, it was calculated that global carbon emissions will have to be reduced by 45% by 2030.

McGuire says no...

“In the real world, that is not going to happen. Instead, we are on course for close to a 14% rise in emissions by that date – which will almost certainly see us shatter the 1.5C guardrail in less than a decade.”

Two people were found dead inside a vehicle in Northern California’s McKinney Fire zone. They couldn't escape the fire and no doubt died a horrible death. Is this what you climate deniers want?

 



 

MR. PRESIDENT: If you look frail, if you talk frail, and if you walk frail, you must be frail...

      ...too frail to lead this country for another four years. I know, we all know, what you are afraid of; the lunatic who could win the ...