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9:18 pm
September 24, 2010
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Climate models indicate region will be as dry as Dust Bowl for decades
WASHINGTON - Changing climate will mean increasing drought in the American Southwest — a region where water already is in tight supply — according to a new study.
“The bottom line message for the average person and also for the states and federal government is that they’d better start planning for a Southwest region in which the water resources are increasingly stretched,” said Richard Seager of Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.
eager is lead author of the study published online Thursday by the journal Science.
7:18 pm
Matey!!! We've got that kind of mega-drought now in Australia!!!! No bullshit!!
We are now on Level 5 water restrictions in the state capital city of Brisbane.
Washing one's car with potable tap water is against the law! We are allowed to use water in a bucket to wash the windscreen and other windows for safety reasons only.
The newly formed and desperate Water Commission is trying to get the average household water usage below 140 litres(36.984 gallons-US) a day. My home uses a hell of a lot less! I have a bucket that I catch the water from the shower while I adjust the temperature of the water. I even try to catch the water that flows off me as I shower. This water is used for keeping my partner's plants alive. I piss in a bottle to save having to flush the toilet bowl! We have a sign up on the tiolet door that says: "If it's yellow let it mellow. If it's brown flush it down." We have a water efficient washing machine. Even then we capture all the grey water and bucket it onto our plants in our garden. The use of garden hoses has been legally banned completely!!
Many of our major dams in Australia are completely dry. One country guy on TV last night said that he has had no drinking water on his farm for 2 years now!
It's bloody serious here now, bro!! Our State Government and Local Councils are subsidizing the cost of rainwater tanks to be fitted to private homes. The waiting time to get a tank at all is many months - the demand is so great. I have a dam on my property that has water in it because I live in a locality that has had at least some rain recently. Even then I had to pump from an intermittently flowing creek to get this dam water. There was insufficient rain falling in the dam's catchment area.
Significant rainfall is rare now in Australia unless you live right up north where floods and cyclones are prevalent and just as destructive as no rain!! This 'greenhouse effect' is producing weather extremes!!
I see that now there is a renowned scientist who has come up with an artificial 'tree' that absorbs carbon dioxide. In one year just one of his trees will absorb all the CO2 emitted from 20,000 cars in one year. He envisages 1000's of these artificial trees springing up everywhere in the near future. His artificial CO2 sinking device is far more efficient than a real tree.
But when the US government spends billions of dollars by mortgaging our children's futures who will pay for these artificial trees????
Will we have to start dying of 'heat stroke' all over the place before funding will be 'found' for such CO2 absorbing projects???.
5:01 am
September 24, 2010
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Hi Tez.
Thanks for your passionate and well-informed input.
Course, I think that *actual trees* are the way to go. Cheap and easy to produce, with a multi-million year history of proven effectiveness at CO2 sequestration.
BTW, I was thinking of moving to Australia. Sounds real warm.
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