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EDITORIAL
River's problems can't be blamed on global warming
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Speaking of global warming, a new Department of Interior study is sorely lacking in perspective.
The Bureau of Reclamation, after compiling data from other climate change alarmists, reported Monday that a warmer planet would hurt water supplies throughout the West, especially along the drought-stricken Colorado River. Southern Nevada, which relies almost exclusively on the Colorado for its drinking water, eventually could see flow decreases of between 8 percent and 14 percent per year.
If you believe that changes in the planet's climate can be blamed on mankind's ever-cleaner, increasingly efficient energy consumption, this troubling news is cause to renew demands that governments take over the global economy and dial back our collective standard of living a century or two.
But if you know anything about the chronicle of the Colorado River, the warnings of the global warming crowd are a few decades late.
The 1986 book, "Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water," by Marc Reisner, pointed out that the original allotments of Colorado River water, determined early last century, were never sustainable to begin with. That's because drought -- such as the one that persists today -- is a historically normal condition along the river, Mr. Reisner documented.
Now, however, overreaching political agendas ask that we set aside Mr. Reisner's seminal work and blame future Colorado River shortages on climate change. What a crock.
The Colorado River is indeed in trouble, and regional water planners must pursue alternative supplies to protect our economy and our way of life. But the global warming canard has nothing to do with the problem.
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AND Global warming and cooling happens all the time in geologic time as I said earlier but humans are puny things compared to the universe and the CONVEYORS of the solar wind...let alone ALL the other things making up the Earth's HUGELY complex temperature determiners.
former did you pass science 101 or take physics in high school or grade school? Look up the various scientific phrases you and others throw around...unfortunately for your comment consensus is NOT a scientific fact it is belief and no matter how many people believe something it is NOT a fact; Your consensus is at most a disproven hypothesis....since the predictions they made of sea rises etc (to support their hypothesis of HGW) are now disproven; consensus in a false hypothesis is not fact nor does it establish anything but the gullibility of the true believers; consensus is what got Tycho and Gallileo in trouble with the church, also the other proper term in this instance is coorelation of facts and since the facts are CLEARLY shown as disproven correlation is not shown either...your beliefs do not meet the test of hypothesis nor correlation...Jim Jones would have loved to have had a follower like you....
ok jack here is the review of your posts: facts? Uh not present unless one uses the "facts" created by Huff Po's underwear bloggers; check....consensus without facts; check....name calling; check....mindless blather about Human caused GW parroted from mindless websites with no science facts used check....yep jack you got it all....useless non-scientific non facts and fake information hoping that someone out there will buy the silliness...
According to the world's leading crime sociologists researchers, violent crime can be blamed on fire hydrants. According to these experts, a majority of violent crime occurs near fire hydrants. the fewer hydrants there are, the fewer acts of violent crime reported. So using this theory, the experts are in conclusion that the world needs to eliminate fire hydrants and the world's crime rate will naturally fall.... A full report is being sent to the UN as we speak.
The first problem with this whole discussion is believing that the Colorado river is in drought condition. Since 2008 the river's watershed has had one year(2011) with record snowfall and accumulation across virtually across the entire basin in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. 2008 was another very impressive water year, one of the best since the dams were built.
2009 was just about or a little above average and 2010 was 10% below average. The main reason Lake Mead is so low has everything to do with Western water politics and very little to do with snowfall so nothing to do with Global Warming.
Historically Lake Mead and Lake Powell upstream would be held at the same percentage of full pool. After several bad water years in a row and falling water levels Lake Powell had problems with safe navigation of its surface and a decision was made to raise it's water elevation at the expense of water that would have been stored in Lake Mead. Some might also say that Pat Mulroys rabid desire to tap Great Basin water for Las Vegas also kept the levels down.
With Powell close to the decided upon elevation and nearly twice as much water as needed to fill this years alottment waiting in the mountains for the thaw, we can expect Lake Meads water level to rise Dramatically. Then maybe people will quit talking about "The Drought". One year in four or even two years in five of below avergage snowfall in the Rockies does not mean a drought. It means that dams and lakes are needed to store water, which we have. Foolish allotments also doesn't make drought conditions. It means we need politicians and bureaucrats without hidden agendas to manage Colorado River water, which we don't have.
"Malousnormal wrote on April 29, 2011 11:53 PM: Yes, Jack!...consensus is NOT SCIENCE and it is NOT FACT...CONSENSUS is making stuff up as a group and peddling it to the crowds of foolish uneducated children of the left."
Okay.
You go with Gilligann Beck, the other carnival barkers and Exxon-Mobil. I'll go with the consensus of the vast majority of the planet's climate scientists.
aformerrepublican, you say "the VAST majority of climate scientists (97% at last count) DETERMINED, based on the research done, that man made global warming is real."
the following say that global warming is primarily caused by natural processes:
khabibullo abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at pulkovo observatory of the russian academy of sciences:
sallie baliunas, astronomer, harvard-smithsonian center for astrophysics:
george v. chilingar, professor of civil and petroleum engineering at the university of southern california... there's my three, show me your 97.
Once again, the public employee unions are the cause. Just one more thing they are responsible for. I think its the heat from the printing press that prints all the money people think they get.
Malous: You GOT to be kidding right? You do know that just because the VAST majority of climate scientists (97% at last count) DETERMINED, based on the research done, that man made global warming is real, and that this is the "consensus opinion" that it doesn't mean it is not based on science? Right, you get that? Just because 97% of scientists believe the earth revolves around the sun (3% of republicans still aren't convinced cause they don't cotton to the science crowd "tactics") and they therefore have a "consensus" view, does not mean that the view is not based on science. You realize that right? "Main scientists" being "discredited"? Didn't know there were "main scientists" and didn't know that they were discredited; got their names and the facts that discredited them handy do you?
You go with Gilligann Beck, the other carnival barkers and Exxon-Mobil. I'll go with the consensus of the vast majority of the planet's climate scientists.