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February 22, 2007 11:39 AM PST
Global warming could make faucets run dry, expert says
The rising temperature of Earth is causing water sources such as glaciers and lakes to rapidly retreat, according to, among others, Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and one of the leading scientific figures trying to get more research funding for alternative energy.
Steven Chu
The effects of declining water supplies will be noticeable and harsh, according to Chu, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. Some effects can already be seen, he said.
"The Yellow River is now running dry in summertime," Chu said during a speech at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco this week.
The Yellow River is fed by glacier and snowmelt from the Himalayas, which is declining. A huge portion of the world's population gets water from the Himalayas, so this is not a good sign for other areas as well.
In the United States, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and Nevada is expected to decline by 30 percent to 70 percent by 2100, he said.
If it declines by 20 percent, people will be told to stop watering their lawns or flushing toilets often. A decline of about 50 percent or greater could rewrite the demographics of California. And a massive decline in the snowpack could cause a collapse of the agriculture industry, prompting a migration out of the state, Chu said.
Snow may actually increase in some mountain ranges and parts of the world. Many expect that dry regions will become drier, while wet regions will become rainier. Warming, however, will prevent this extra rain and snow from getting stored in mountains, he said. Thus, a lot of it will run off before it can be used.
"(Water) is probably the first thing that will hit home," he said. "The water storage problem is becoming a mess."
Several start-ups and established companies like General Electric have begun to increase their investments in systems that can purify seawater or wastewater for human consumption.
"The water issue is going to get much more prominence," predicted Nicholas Parker, chairman of the Cleantech Venture Network.
See more CNET content tagged:
global warming, Himalaya, Nobel prize, California
217 comments
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to get more funding from the government. I don't believe a word of
it. Please stop trying to scare us , will you? I know my plea will fall
on deaf ears...
I'm not disagreeing that the earth might be warming. It certainly may be, it has in the past, and it's also cooled in the past (to which the fear-mongers said we're in for another ice age as vehemently as they're doing about warming). It's a natural process, man has had very little to do with causing global warming.
I'm glad the first post on this issue had some sense to it, thanks Bosphorousman.
scientific community has tried to con us into believing...
- the world is round
- the earth circles the sun
- millions of tiny "switches" can fit onto a piece of "silicon"
smaller than your thumbnail
Of course scientists want more money to do their science. Don't
we all want more money to do what we do for a living? (I know I
do.)
Still doesn't mean that they are completely brain dead. I'm more
inclined to believe the scientists who study these things for a
living than continue to rant on about how the world is actually
flat.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070222.wxgoresb22/BNStory/ClimateChange/home" target="_newWindow">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070222.wxgoresb22/BNStory/ClimateChange/home</a>
"Like many a bygone leader who happened along at a key moment in history, Mr. Gore -- who has been sounding the environmental warning bell for years -- has suddenly inspired the kind of faith and fervour in others that he insists will be needed to overcome such a monumental problem.
"From my perspective, it is a form of religion," said Bruce Crofts, 69, as he held a banner aloft for the East Toronto Climate Action Group amid a lively prelecture crowd outside the old hall.
"The religion for this group is doing something for the environment."
And as a religion, the government should stop funnelling tax dollars to support it.
But if things get too hot in your area you can always ask Al Gore to come visit. Some areas have set low temperature records when he flew to town in a private jet to tell folks they need to drive less to save the environment. :)
Its all in your head.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/22/opinion/meyer/main2503686.shtml" target="_newWindow">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/22/opinion/meyer/main2503686.shtml</a>
In the last years, snow and ice are gone on that-and many other regions.
Can you tell me what the reason is?
You can just cover your eyes not to see it, or you can use your half a brain to see it.
It is your choice.
And Al Gore is a stupid, self-important. opportunist.
civilization immedietly!
> it is a THEORY
Ah, yes. Yet another person who doesn't have a clear grasp of what the word "theory" means. You're obviously using it as meaning the same as hypothesis or conjecture. It does not mean these things. A theory is an exposition of general or abstract principles of a science. It is an explanation of observed phenomena.
It is deeply important to understand that something can simultaneously be both fact AND theory. Global warming is observable fact. Theory attempts to describe the mechanisms involved.
We know for certain that global warming is real. We also know for certain that global dimming is real. What is less certain, however, are the mechanisms involved ... how complex are the systems and at what point will the processes become runaway and, therefore, unmanageable through external interaction?
It's folly for anybody to say we know all about global warming. It is also folly to say that global warming is a myth or some sort of bizarre conspiracy. The facts are rather obvious that we do not treat this planet with any respect and that if we push complex systems out of whack too far, the consequences will be grave.
The tone of your post makes it very clear that you don't have any intention of hoping that "factual science prevails". Your mind is set already and no amount of evidence contrary to your beliefs will sway you. All that would interest you would be statements and statistics that do not challenge the conclusions to which you've already committed.
But you'll have an added effect if you melt all the ice, especially on land e.g. Greenland and Antartica.
Whether global warming is a fact can be debated. But one thing is quite sure, the moral of burning fossile fuel is like stealing from coming generations. Are we, who drive our cars, the biggest thieves in history?
I'd say cut down a tree and plant a new one - you should sleep well. Stripmine coal, pump oil and burn it - how can we compensate for that - a planet out of balance.
If the bottle was totally filled the bottle expands.
If there is some space in the bottle the water just freezes.
(my guess - it presses the access air through the threads of the
closed top - I'm talking plastic bottles)
But when you let the ice melt in the bottle (with the cap tightly
closed) - the bottle collapses into itself - like someone sucked
the air out of it.
Basic physics ;-)
One thing in New Zealand's favour however is that they will be able to export water to the rest of the world. Being an island means that they will be spared the drying out that continents will experience.
published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse
gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent ? 18 percent ?
than transport. It is also a major source of land and water
degradation"
(<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/" target="_newWindow">http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/</a>
index.html).
We kill billions and billions of animals every year at much cost,
to the health of our planet, and our own bodies. The biggest
killer in America for example is not guns, car accidents, or
terrorist attacks--it's heart disease, a by-product of eating fatty
diet of animals.
Relative to this article, meat production is by far the biggest
consumer of water supplies. Just one pound of beef can require
up to 6,000 gallons of fresh water (earthsave.org). On top of
that, much more water is polluted form the run-off from
intensive factory farming--thousands of animals crowed
together to produce cheap meat.
Yet now only do we deplete our water sources (ie to grow
massive crow supplies to feed livestock), we also destory surface
water sources, such as streams and rivers due to massive
livestock grazing, most of it on public lands. Ie <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://" target="_newWindow">http://</a>
wasteofthewest.com/
There is no other way around it. The single most effective thing
you can do for the environment is to drastically cut back or stop
eating meat and animal products. And it's not hard to do. There
is a surging industry of vegan products that taste great: veggie
burgers, soy milk, ice cream, cheese.. you name. Some of the
greatest thinkers/creators throughout history have been
vegetarian (Einstein, Gandhi, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison,
Van Gogh...Steve Jobs, Michael Eisner, Prince... and a slew of
world record athletes: Carl Lewis, Stan Price, Tony LaRussa,
Dave Scott...
insignificant. The data shows that our contribution to GHG is
0.28%
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html</a>
that there is a 90% probability that we are driving a rise in
temperatures? You can quote figures all day and it would still
not outweigh the research that says you are on shaky ground
with your 'fact'...
I read all that on the link with interest, but it doesn't stand up
to comparison with most research in the journals, and I get the
distinct impression from it's tone and wording that it might have
a wee bit of an agenda going on there...just a tinge of a 'kill the
liberal lefties by skewering them on their atmospheric sampling
apparatus' kind of bias? That passed you by did it? You thought
that resource was a reasoned and balanced scientific analysis
did you.....?? Smell the coffee...
.Farewell, nouser, and have a happy life.
This is all Bull***t..
Anything to advance the fud.
...does someone up at Scaremonger Central care to explain that one?
/P
explains that.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://*******.com/3xsgpx" target="_newWindow">http://*******.com/3xsgpx</a>
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/527313" target="_newWindow">http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/527313</a>
The models used to support it are nothing more than academic toys.
The data used to support it is riddled with assumptions making it meaningless and heavily slanted to prop up the theories.
It is mathematically impossible to predict the climate with any meaningful margin of error.
They can't even predict the behavior of the primary input; THE SUN.
They simply refuse to admit that solar variability
is an utterly unpredictable variable.
This is the only fact needed to blow all their models out of the water.
to the proven contribution of greenhouse gases to the current
alarming rise in temperatures we are experiencing. The
propagandists are the oil companies and other vested interests
in government and society who cannot adjust to the realities of
an environment that is not impervious to their damaging
actions.
Nobody is claiming to know exactly what climate change will
bring. But it is already responsible for substantial and
undeniable damage to ecosystems across the planet. Didn't you
notice that there is now an international consensus?
experience the wonderful effect that global warming is having? Is
that why you can be so flippant about it or are you just deliberately
acting the fool to get a reaction?
Personally, I think it's all three.
Quote: "The mountain behind my grandma house was always
white on top, and it was this way for all the time."
I'm currently living in northern Japan.
This year has been a very mild winter.
Last year though . . .
Akita City had the most snow fall ever recorded in a single
winter.
Those are weather patterns - they change yearly.
Regarding climate . . .
Climate change ALWAYS happens.
Climate is not a constant or yearly thing.
The changes take many decades, even centuries.
The fact that things look different from "pietrodelai's"
grandma's time?
Well, how did they look in HER grandma's time?
Or the grandma before HER?
Can all these changes be attributed to the automobile?
The human use of fossil fuels?
Over thousands and millions of years?
Do you know how the Great Lakes bordering Canada & the U.S.
were formed?
They used to be glaciers!
Huge chunks of ice that dug huge gaping holes onto the earth -
then they melted because of "Global Warming".
Did humans cause the Great Lakes by emiting green house
gasses?
In the main article this guy - Steven Chu - said . . .
Quote: "In the United States, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada
mountains in California and Nevada is expected to decline by 30
percent to 70 percent by 2100, he said."
Really?
Does he have any actual scientific data to back up that
assersion?
30 to 70 percent is a pretty wide margin, so, if he did have any
data, it can't be very acurate.
I don't think this guy can "accurately" predict what the "climate"
will be like 100 years from now any better than the weather
experts can "accurately" tell me what the weather will be like -
anywhere in the world - next weekend (It's Saturday here now) -
let alone 3 days from now.
Or when or where exactly the next tornado will hit.
Or where a hurricane will hit just a couple of hours before it
makes landfall - even though they've been tracking it for days.
Or even what will be a good or bad hurricane season . . . every
prediction I have ever heard about a hurricane season has been
wrong.
As has been mentioned by other posters . . .
* 30 years ago it was the "Coming Ice Age" . . .
(We should all be living in igloos right this moment)
Not mentioned by other posters . . .
* Almost 40 years ago (1968) it was "The Population Bomb" . . .
(100,000,000 starving to death yearly starting in the mid 70's)
* About 20 years ago (mid 1980's) "The Hole In the Ozone". . .
(Right now <2007> it should be impossible for anyone to go
outside without a protective suit)
* 1990's to now and then on to the future "Global Warming". . .
Does anyone else see a pattern here?
And people ask - "How can you doubt the (so called) experts?"
(or the media)
I ask - "How can you not?"
(100,000,000 starving to death yearly starting in the mid 70's)
Fortunately that hasn't come to pass to that extreme, but the fact is that thousands of children are starving to death every day throughout the world, while we have the means to help them.
In 1950 there were 2.5 billion people. Today, there are 6.5 billion. Within a few decades we could have 9 billion. The environmental challenges related to this fact are not limited to climate change. If you have an interest in these global and generational issues, check out the book listed in the title of this reply.
Go figure hes trying to get more research dollars.........
Go figure hes trying to get more research dollars.........
Is it the policy statements of the world's scientific bodies?
I know it's not. So those are rhetorical questions.
Heck, even current administration policy isn't your source.
(They've recently claimed to agree that CO2 is a significant
factor in warming the earth.)
Is it James Inhofe?
Maybe. That guy's a die-hard fanatic.
But I don't get it. You're so adamant, but unwilling to REALLY
educate yourself by actually using refereed sources.
Lock yourself in your garage and run your car - That is the equivalent of what we're doing to ourselves!
Morons!
Absolute Morons!
Place a plastic bag over your head. That the same thing as what we're doing to the planet every time we breathe. Same argument.
Saddam was involved with 9/11
and God created people out of clay
I'm not surprised to see people having trouble identifying and
evaluating information.
Here again is another example. Whenever this happens you know
you have won the argument. :) :) :)
It's called denial which is the first phase of the death and dying syndrome. The smart people are not going to lay around and bake.
The smart people are listening to the massive list of climate experts and are ignoring the shrinking list of retired PhDs that are on the oil company payrolls.
Just like many plants and animals, the smart people are already picking up and are moving North.
controlled experiment with atmosphere, and that's impossible.
2. Obsevations don't happen in a vaccuum, true. But you greatly
underestimate how transparent the process of inference is. Data
ARE published. That lets everyone evaluate whether the
speculative conclusions in the paper actually fall out from the
data. Agendas become immediately obvious. Replication,
converging evidence, independence, and redundancy prevent
poorly supported conclusions from gaining traction.
3. The notion that the multitudes of researchers around the
globe regularly pumping out data consistent with global
warming via CO2 are simply seeking funding is...
illogical, insulting, and baseless.
You apparently don't understand that funding is allocated not
based on the character of the expected results but on the import
of the results, regardless of the outcome. People woud never be
funded to try to demonstrate global warming; they would be
funded to examine to what degree certain factors do or do not
change the climate.
4. No one is running from the solar radiation data. Instead,
they're being responsible adults and carefully evaluating it. The
recent IPCC statement, among others, suggests that radiation is
a factor but not as impactful as CO2.
based on the character of the expected results but on the import
of the results, regardless of the outcome."
Exactly! You can't tell me that the doomsday "we're all gonna die" cries don't garner more funding attention than "it's warming up and we want to understand why".
And if you can't run a controlled experiment with atmosphere, how can they suggest radiation is less impactful than the cosmic radiation? They need to compare what's happening on earth to other planetary bodies, such as Mars. Maybe they are, but I haven't seen anything suggesting this. With the limited atmosphere on Mars, that would seem ideal.
I noticed they are going to run some experiments with a partical accelerator to try to measure cosmic radiation's effect on water molecules. That story struck me as odd. It took a few moments for me to realize this was the first article I've read on any of this that actually talked about running experiments to help support or disprove their theories.
I'm not poo-pooing the idea that we may have something to do with global warming. I am pretty adamant that I'd like to see some hard evidence before we demolish our way of life.
Anyone who has actouly read a book would Know that the world is just covered in water. Unless we are sending the water to outerspace. You think We would of got the memo. Last time the glaicers melted. We where just swimming in water. What people fail to relize is that, the earth has been destroying things for ever so long. Brobably has expierened I dont know one or 2 ice age's and global warming. Actouly if it haddnt been for the global warming we would be.......Not around to think about.
I would suggest that globally we spend a bit less on killing
people with hi-tech weaponry and a bit more on housekeeping
before there's nothing left to fight for.
If you don't want to buy flourescent bulbs from China, buy
them from the USA and pay the extra labour costs. I buy mine
from Holland.
You do come across as a bit of a light-headed individual, if
you'll excuse the pun.
already know that smart people are never ever wrong but
sometimes we just need to be reminded. Throughout human
history we've never heard such dire predictions of the
apocalypse so now is the real time to listen.
What I like the best is that one doesn't even need to know how
to read a scientific journal to believe in global warming. You can
just get simple and easy answers from the following people who
carefully reviewed all the latest scientific research.
- retired politicians
- active politicians
- judges & lawyers
- talking heads & commentators
- famous musicians
- comedians
- movie stars
Look at that list!! I mean that's like 99.99% of the population!
They're the most intelligent members of our society, they always
speak the truth, and there is absolutely no propaganda in what
they say... why not listen?
Excuse me, I have to go organize a meeting with my "Save the
Rainforest" coalition. Britney Spears is coming to discuss
practical ways of feeding the struggling plants with CO2 to
accelerate reforestation.
I think so. I would like to see a ?Climate Change Responsibility Act?, where the US and other developed countries clearly state that they are going to compensate victims, both within and outside their own countries.
For example, if 80 million people become displaced by rising sea levels, the US should provide sanctuary for 20 million of them, since it has caused 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and Europe should take something like 16 million.
Some cause-and-effect relationships will be hard to determine, but it?s just a matter of creating rules for acceptable variation. A single hurricane is a chance event, but if a certain region experiences 50 hurricanes over a 10 year period, when 10 hurricanes per decade was the 20th-century average, the polluters should pay for the damage caused by the other 40. There are pretty good statistics over the average frequency of storms, floods, droughts, the sea levels, etc from the time before global warming.
Of course, some people will, until the very end, blame ?natural variations?. But hopefully, most people are decent enough to take responsibility for something even if there is no more than 90% probability that they caused it.
Once the responsibility is assumed at the national level, the next question is how it should be shared among individuals. First, high-income people who pay a lot of taxes but cause little emissions (many New Yorkers, for example) will not be happy about their share of the burden. Second, young people will resent having to pay the consequences of the emissions of older people. Then the case for a gasoline tax becomes more evident, although for political reasons it should not be called a tax, when it is really liability insurance.
Genuine, established liability is necessary to make governments and individuals take steps to reduce emissions in the first place. Personal morals are not enough.
Global warming is not a man-vs-environment issue of morals. It is also a human-to-human issue of justice and decency.
The best part of this proposal is that you don?t have to believe in global warming to agree with it. Obviously, global warming sceptics shouldn?t have any problem accepting responsibility for something that they don?t think will happen, right? The message is: pollute as much as you want, as long as you take the responsibility.
their offspring that sould be steering our actions.
If there's is even a possibility for preventable tragedy, I'd like to
think we won't look the other way is it unfolds.
questions about the environment which you have chosen not to
answer, my agenda is to force you into showing your true colours
as an unreasonable hot-head with an inability to answer straight
questions.
Which, as we can all now read in your posts, has worked
comprehensively well. Thanks for proving my point.
private-jet lover Al Gore should get their lies straight.
The Berkeley clown says our faucets won't have water, but the
private-jet lover Gore says that our major cities will be buried
under water. So how can we have too much water and not
enough water at the same time?
Gore should spend less time eating and flying around in his
private jet and try to get his lies to coincide with the lies of Chu
a bit better.
One thing that Gore and Chu agree on is that they want to make
money off their fear and lies; Gore is making movies and cashing
in and this story says that Chu "is trying to get more research
funding".
enough water at the same time? DUH! because humans don't drink saltwater!