I wrote the following blog post a year ago. Here is the last paragraph: "... the next news from the American west will be along the lines of mandatory water cutbacks on the order of historical intervention by government. The strange reaction of people to global weirding -- the chaotic changes in climate as a consequence of global warming -- include the idea that somehow what we have been seeing constitutes a stable, new normal. Pray for rain, but when it comes to reversing climate change causing gases and emissions, we ought to be acting as though our national security and individual lives depend on it."
I was a year early, and there is no sign that the public is catching up to the degree of alarm raised by the call to act on climate change "as though our national security and individual lives depend on it." Mitch McConnell, GOP Senate majority leader, is running around the nation urging the states to do the opposite; reject the federal governments efforts to curb greenhouse gases emitted by coal fired electric utilities.
On the other hand, yesterday Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) announced the first mandatory water cutbacks in state history. On network news, a reporter noted how most leaf vegetables for the United States originate in California. Have you checked the price of almonds lately?
Gov. Brown told TV cameras, "… we have to get used to this new normal", channeling our blog a year ago. Surely the governor knows, this is not the new normal. Hardships in California will ratchet higher and higher -- visible on the 24/7 news cycle-- until next winter, when the entire nation will be praying for rain in the American west.
The UK Guardian is calling climate change "the biggest story in the history of the world." It is why you will keep reading about it, at Eye On Miami. And by the way, with climate change there is no "new normal".
Friday, January 24, 2014
Drought in the American West: pray for rain but act like your lives depend on political change … by gimleteye
On Wednesday, federal officials designated portions of 11 drought-ridden western and central states as primary disaster areas. I'm traveling through some of them. A local newspaper in Santa Monica reports, "Last year was one of the driest in California's history. Rainfall in Los Angeles was 3.6 inches. The yearly average to date is 14.93, according to statistics from the National Weather Service." You can feel the drought everywhere, although people still seem to be sleepwalking through the consequences.
In his State of the State remarks this week, Governor Jerry Brown sounded warnings about this year's drought. His tone was not so dire as reality would dictate, generally following the pattern of political caution when it comes to delivering really bad news. After all, climate change messengers are walking around with so many arrows from sources like Fox News that they look like porcupines.
I drove up through Ventura county yesterday, through rich farmland where many hundreds of acres of crops have not been planted or where crops that have been planted are all tented to maximize water retention. The earth looks like it could blow away in the first strong wind. On NPR, stories of farmers sadly, bitterly pulling out fruit and nut trees they cannot nourish for lack of rain. Fire danger is extremely high. In January, a friend remarked to me, the hills above the Pacific in Ojai are supposed to look like Ireland not like the Arizona desert.
Comparisons are being drawn to the great California drought of the mid 1970s. The big difference is that climate change signals had not yet manifest as they are today, everywhere.
“What we’re seeing meteorologically is a blocking pattern that is deflecting all the storms,” said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the Lincoln, Neb.-based National Drought Mitigation Center. “There really hasn’t been a lot of indication that this pattern is breaking down.” In Utah the winter snowpack has not materialized. "While storms have dumped rain and snow in the East, droughts are persisting or intensifying in the West, according to officials connected with the U.S. Drought Monitor, an index on which the USDA’s declarations are based. A ridge of high pressure is to blame for keeping storms off the Pacific coast and guiding them to the East." (Insurance Journal, Jan. 23, 2014)
On the flight from LA to Salt Lake City, the weather was clear. Below, the Sierras -- the primary water supply to southern California -- were brown smudges, abnormal in the absence of snowpack.
We have experienced our own climate extremes in Miami this winter -- mosquitoes in December and January thanks to extraordinarily wet weather. Climate is oscillating at extreme ends: extremely wet, extremely dry, extremely hot, extremely cold. The Australian Open tennis tournament was played with court side temperatures in excess of 115 degrees. As Tom Friedman noted in the New York Times, the other day, drought in Syria has already created a million climate change refugees. Temperature swings during and after the recent polar vortex event in the northeast were on the order of 70 degrees.
Still, the anti-environmental trolls cruise the blogsphere to dampen down public outrage, calling up the story lines from Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, and Fox News.
So the comments on blogs continue to reflect a small minority of people who continue to grind away, denying climate change, providing political cover for elected representatives across the spectrum. In Florida, from Gov. Rick Scott to US Senator Marco Rubio (REP) and Senator Bill Nelson (D) still agitating for Congressional legislation to bail out coastal dwellers.
But the facts of business are immutable: insurance industries and bankers are already planning for their staged retreats from business models wrecked by climate change. Joe Romm, founder of ClimateProgress.org, asks Tom Friedman in the NY Times, "In the future, who will help a country like Syria when it gets devastated by its next drought if we are in a world where everyone is dealing with something like a Superstorm Sandy?" Never mind Syria, who will help tens of millions in the American Southwest or Floridians, for that matter?
So far, we can manage the impacts but the next news from the American west will be along the lines of mandatory water cutbacks on the order of historical intervention by government. The strange reaction of people to global weirding -- the chaotic changes in climate as a consequence of global warming -- include the idea that somehow what we have been seeing constitutes a stable, new normal. Pray for rain, but when it comes to reversing climate change causing gases and emissions, we ought to be acting as though our national security and individual lives depend on it.
Miami-based Coconut Grove Bank filed a lawsuit against 2701 Bayshore Ventures LLC, an affiliate of the Terra Group and the Related Group , seeking to halt work on its Park Grove condominium project.
The complaint alleges that the company is in violation of the lease agreement signed following the bank’s sale of its property to the developer. The bank is seeking an injunction on development and construction until the alleged lease violation is settled.
The complaint alleges that the actions of…
Nova Southeastern University created three new colleges Friday: a medical school, an engineering school and an honors college.
The Davie university will offer M.D.s for the first time through its new College of Allopathic Medicine, complementing its D.O. program, the College of Osteopathic Medicine.
The new College of Engineering and Computing will provide a new bachelor of science degree in general engineering starting in fall 2016. The school will also combine Ph.D., master’s and bachelor’s…
An affiliate of Menin Development acquired the George Buildings, a retail strip in bustling downtown Delray Beach, for $19.5 million.
Marcus & Millichap’s Howard Bregman represented seller Abeleina Properties, managed by Robert A. George in Fort Lauderdale. The property has belonged to the George family for about 100 years.
“The offering attracted a great deal of interest from local, regional, national and international retail property investors,” Bregman said in a news release. “The buyer…
A division of Fortune 50 company United Technologies Corp. could create nearly 500 jobs in a major Palm Beach Gardens facility, but first its proposed site must be released from a restriction for biotech uses.
The Hartford, Connecticut-based company (NYSE: UTX) is no stranger to Palm Beach County as it has major Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky aerospace facilities here. Now its Buildings & Industrial Systems division, which includes Otis Elevators, Carrier heating and cooling, Taylor refrigeration,…
Good morning, South Florida.
1. A wasted economic development effort
Office Depot was exploring a merger with Staples and cutting deals for incentives to stay in Palm Beach County at the same time, the Sun Sentinel reports. Just goes to show, you can't buy loyalty from a corporation. Click here to read more.
2. Sizzling home sales
South Florida home prices were up 8.3 percent in January, according to the latest reading on the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. The region was second in the nation…
