Climatologist: World needs a pandemic in order to reverse global warming
very fucking scary indeed!Climatologist: World is no longer 'normal'
When a climatologist tells you the only thing that's going to reverse the effects of global warming is a "good old-fashioned pandemic that wipes out millions" your ears perk up. Mine sure did when climatologist Bill Patzert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told me that.
We came to California to see what is making this state so darn hot and to take a look at what the summer may bring. It's not good.
Patzert got a rare glimpse into the future by studying the past. He found that in the last 100 years the average daily temperature in this state jumped 5 degrees; average nightly temperature jumped 7 degrees; and the annual number of extreme heat days, those over 90 degrees farenheit, multiplied by 12. Even heat waves are up, he said. They are three-to-five times more likely with each passing summer.
"Now I realize normal is just a cycle on a washing machine. We're no longer living in a normal world. We're living in a warmer world," he said.
So what does all that mean for Californians? It could mean a steamy, smoggy, hot, fiery summer is around the corner, with myriad consequences.
The Los Angeles County Fire Chief for the Forestry Division John Todd told me that with the ground so hot, brush fires no longer occur just a few months a year, but all year long.
A heightened demand for electricity could tax power companies and their ability to deliver a consistent flow of energy. Last year, when temperatures soared well over 100 degrees, more than one million Californians lost power for more than a week. But Southern California Edison's Pedro Pizaro tells us the company is prepared with extra power generating capacity on standby.
We were the first TV crew invited to take video inside the company's "war room." It is packed with monitors that are tracked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They show how much electricity is actually being used by the company's 13 million customers as compared to what had been predicted for the day. The goal is to avoid blackouts.
The problem is that megawatts don't go as far as they once did. Before it got so hot in California, one megawatt could power 750 homes. Now it only powers 650 homes. And people are building bigger and bigger homes, megahomes if you will, in inland areas like San Bernardino Valley, which are hotter. Many here say urban sprawl should get some of the blame for the extreme heat.
"All this population urban/suburban development has definitely done an extreme makeover on the surface of Southern California," Patzert told me.
It's getting so bad that California Attorney General Jerry Brown has sued San Bernardino County, one of the fastest growing inland areas in the United States, for failing to account for greenhouse gases when updating its 25-year blueprint for growth.
Infectious disease experts, such as William K. Reisen at University California Davis and Microbiologist Stephen Morse at Columbia University, suggest extreme heat this summer may even bring tropical diseases to southern California. The flu, which circulates year round in the tropics, could do the same here. And the mosquitoes -- look out! They bite more often at night, so the warmer nights are sure to keep them busy.
This isn't how I pictured Southern California.
-- By Randi Kaye, CNN Correspondent
CNN.com - Anderson Cooper 360° Blogshit! Its like, whats the point of all of our so-called "progress" if we're just racing to wipe ourselves out?!
We're fucked.
I look around at all of the people out here with their mini-mansions that have all these rooms to light and cool and they have two adults and two kids living in the home. Not to mention these lush, green lawns that have to be watered round the clock in order to keep them from dying! Duh, peeps, it's a desert here. Lush, green grass is not native.
yeah we are so wasteful; its mind boggling!
The trouble is air conditioning is a vicious circle. We had so many consecutive days over 100 during our Summer, that people left their air conditioners on all night. People had to so they got some sleep.
When I was a child we would have 3 days maximum of over 100 then a cool change would come. Now we don't get them.
We have just had our second hottest May in record (last month of autumn for us).
Our climatologists have said the number of days over 100 we get have increased 4 fold.
Also we are getting more and more suburbs and big houses being built. Unfortunately millions of trees have been chopped to make way for progress.
Last year I wore my winter coat once. When I frist started work in the mid 1980's I would wear it for the 3 months of our winter.
I feel sorry for the people of California, becasue they are getting worse weather than us. Even more awful they had to do without electricity.
Very disturbing on so many levels.
I didn't start out to collect diamonds, but somehow they just kept piling up.-Mae West
We're spoiled. We are under the impresson that we are entitled to living at a certain standard. It never fails to amuse me when people get pissed off at PG&E during a rain storm and the power goes out. They demand it be restored immediately. Hello it's nature, no control over that. Anyhow, is this maybe what happened to the dinasours? A complete wipe out and do over.
^ yeah thats true too. the sad thing about us vs. the dinosaurs is that at least they were around for millions and millions of years, we've only been here thousands and we'll never make it to a million or anywhere close imo.
on another note; lucky for me, I live w/ 2 miles of the ocean and never have to use an air conditioner at home, it never gets above 90 degrees where i live, but just a couple more miles inland and you're fucked.
^^Same for me. I used to live a few blocks from the ocean and now I live about a mile away. On a hilltop with an ocean breeze. I needed my AC a couple of times last year, even in Laguna. It was hottt and no breeze at all.
People that live in the valley are seriously screwed. It's always about 105 there. Last year, they got over 115!! Remember, Alice? 117 in Woodland Hills. OC temps along the coast rarely get over 80. Inland OC gets around 95 - 100.
yeah shit, that was a nitemare! i felt so sorry for those ppl out there; sooooo sorry, it would be like 100 degrees at 10 o'clock in the morning and the rolling blackouts of years past was a nitemare too!
The world certainly needs something to wake us up and set us straight. I can't imagine what the world will look like for my grandchildren.
yeah it makes me not want to have kids either, but my vanity wins that battle....
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