Posted on 04/01/2009 8:40:24 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Climate change may cost California tens of billions of dollars annually in coming years as sea levels rise and hot days cause people to turn up the air conditioning, a draft report from the state said on Wednesday.
Thirsty cities may be able to buy water from farmers and high-altitude forests are expected to benefit for most of the century as trees enjoy the warmer weather, but a long-term effort to understand the details of climate change suggests costs will be higher than expected.
Much depends on whether global efforts to slow the Earth's heating are successful.
"Climate change will impose substantial costs to Californians in the order of tens of billions of dollars annually," the Climate Action Team draft report said, adding that "costs will be substantially lower if global emissions of greenhouse gases are curtailed."
"On the whole, I am actually less optimistic," said Michael Hanemann, an economist co-director of the California Climate Change Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of the report.
The summary of 37 climate change studies is the latest in a series that America's most populous state publishes every two to three years, adding detail as it goes. "As you fill in the detail, the whole gets worse," Hanemann said by telephone.
California leads the United States in setting climate change goals, aiming to cut carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, although proposed federal legislation could set similar targets for the nation.
Major concerns include a possible $100 billion loss from flooding concentrated around San Francisco Bay if sea levels were to rise and a hundred-year flood hit.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Sacramento, California - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement today on the release of the Climate Action Team (CAT) Draft Biennial Report. The report suggests that without action, severe and costly climate change impacts are possible across California, especially to the state’s vulnerable water supplies:
“Today’s new research reveals that California’s severe drought conditions are only a preview of what is likely to come because of our changing climate,” Governor Schwarzenegger said. “California’s drought has already had devastating effects on our people, our communities, our economy, our agriculture and our environment. We have been aggressively working to not only fight climate change but adapt to it, which is why we must upgrade California’s water infrastructure to ensure a clean and reliable water supply. The actions we are taking will reduce the devastating impacts of climate change on future generations.”The CAT report, now available for public comment, synthesizes 37 of 40 research papers written by world-class scientists from prominent universities and research institutions. Three additional papers are still undergoing peer reviews and will be considered for inclusion in the final report later this summer. The reports were funded through the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program and represent the most comprehensive and detailed scientific information to date on climate change impacts to California. They also serve as the scientific foundation on which the state is developing its first Climate Adaptation Strategy. A chapter of the CAT report released today previews the Natural Resources Agency’s work to prepare this strategy.
Anyone who thinks sea levels will rise in any significant fashion is an idiot.
Anyone who thinks mankind can do anything whatsoever to stop them from rising if they actually were is an even BIGGER blithering idiot.
Is this an actual “news” story?!?
Amazing that a state that borders the world’s largest ocean has inadequate water supply.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
That's the funniest thing I've read all day and this is April Fools' Day!
We are literally paralyzed by environmentalism and idiot legislatures in the state. I don't know how anything worthwhile ever gets done.
We should argue that since the state is worried about rising sea levels we need to build desalinization plants to drink the water level down.
Tomorrow, Ahnold will go down to the beach and command the tide to stop.
Another April Fool’s prank from Reuters Rooter.
These “world class scientists” are probably involved in soft sciences (i.e. SINOs or Scientists in Name Only), are working out of their principal fields or are coming to sound conclusions but based on faulty input.
A biologist can come to some startling conclusions if he accepts as a premise that the temperature will rise by 5 degrees C and the sea level will rise by 2 meters.
YUP! No April fools on this one. (Oh, wait... I think Schwarzenegger and the authors probably qualify as "fools")
Well, we in Santa Barbara built a desal plant back in the 80’s. Operated it for a couple of months and then shut it down. Seemed state water was a lot cheaper and some folks (such a golf course owners) complained the reclaimed water would kill the grass. What a waste.
Those things cost money. Californian should adapt and learn how to drink sea water.
They can start with little sips.
I think I just read the other day that one of our legislators had introduced legislation to ban any such facility from the coastal region. Brilliant, huh?
Carlsbad has an agreement with Oceanside to buy some of the water and help pay for the system.
Unfortunately, no prank. This one is for real.
Hopefully the sea levels will swallow it up. Jim, please move out before it happens, and take the FR servers with you when you leave.
My basic point is we can’t do anything in Cal. We are paralized by envirowackos and the idiots in Sacramento.
I’d hate to see those golf courses brown up.
Terrible thing to go to bed on. I have sound proofed the room so the neighbors can’t hear me screaming and bashing my head on the floor...
Anthropogenic Reduction of Santa Ana Winds
Publication # CEC-500-2009-015-D. (PDF file, 29 pages, 1.1 megabytes)
Sorry, TB... didn’t mean to ruin your dreams! :-)
I hope you padded the walls and floors — wouldn’t want you to hurt that handsome head of yours!
It’s a fact: sea levels might rise. And they might decline. And pigs might fly. My money’s on the pigs.
You’ve been talking to my First Wife haven’t you...
Ummm... no. Is it something I said? ROFL!
*Lack* of climate change will also cost California tens of billions of dollars each year paying for Obama’s cap and trade tax. (along with every other state in the nation)
LOL...and you’d get peppered with ignoramus comments like, You can’t drink the oceans water!!....sigh...what a sad sad state of affairs California is...
The article should have been titled “Global Warming will cost Californians Billions in Bogus Taxes”!
California is a place where Californians (people) live...for now.
Arnie already foisted cap-and-trade on the state with his landmark greenhouse gas legislation (AB-32).
Obambi is scramblin' to keep up with Arnie who is way in the lead right now.
I suppose the environmentalists are worried that the desalinization plant might cause the sea levels to go down....
LOL, I saw the title and thought it meant that “climate change” was going to cost Californians billions because they fell for the scam!
Tomorrow, Ahnold will go down to the beach and command the tide to stop.
Besides, being able to walk on water, Obama is the only one with the power to lower the oceans. You should know that./sarcasm
No... no... no!
We’re all gonna d-r-o-w-n....
It sure “may”. Assuming the whole flippin thing wasn’t an Algorian wet dream. Which it is.
The biggest joke in there to me is that “the cities will buy water from the farmers”. As a farmer in California I know how this really works ... they just pass a law and take if from us or go to the liberal judges with some bogus lawsuit and take it from us. Either way, they won’t pay us jack for our water.
Rising taxes is already costing them billions. What’s the difference?
They can’t bend over much further.
They may need to borrow Chuck Norris for that one.
Civilization in the South hangs on a thin thread.
Now that right there was funny.
Funny, I no one is planting oranges north of Ave 12 in Madera County. You’d think what with all the warming going on, oranges would be spreading north, but no. Stupid farmers, don’t they see the computer models?!
ANWR Orchards does have a certain ring to it. ;-)
ok, so the article says forests will grow more becuase of hot weather. will not all them growing trees absorb all the nasty CO2??????
8^)
gw ping
If it’s climate change, not global warming, why does the article talk about rising sea levels?
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