Climate impacts grow, but U.S. can adapt, says new report

National Geographic ^ | 11/23/2018 | ALEJANDRA BORUNDA

[RightGeek]

Today, U.S. government agencies released a heavily anticipated new report about how climate change is impacting the United States. The 4th National Climate Assessment (NCA4) lays out a detailed picture of how communities across the country are already feeling the effects of climate change—from intensified risk of wildfires in California, to droughts slowing agricultural production in Iowa and much more.

The report is the second half of a vast effort by scientists, land managers, public health officials, and others to assess the state of the climate across the U.S. The report's first volume, published in 2017, summarized the state-of-the-art knowledge about how climate is affecting temperatures, water resources, sea-level rise, and other natural systems around the country. The second half, published today, focuses on how climate change is already tugging at the economic and social fabric of the United States.

In clear, unwavering terms, the new report states that without "substantial and sustained reductions" in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will hurt people, economies, and resources across the U.S. But the report also highlights how its worst impacts can be avoided, by adapting to our warmer world and by working to lessen future changes in Earth's climate.

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This new report is an installment in an ongoing series. It was produced by the U.S. Global Change Research program, a consortium made up of representatives from thirteen different federal agencies that was established in 1990, after George H.W. Bush signed the Global Change Research Act into law.

The 1990 act—which passed with not a single dissent in the Senate—required a report every four years to pull together the best available research on how climate change affects the U.S. The reports were supposed to look into the future, predicting how climate would influence Americans 25 to 100 years ahead.

[chiller]

I'll buy salt futures for my yet unborn great great grandchildren !

They say the deal is snow covered land reflects light and cools even more and it keeps building upon itself until we have glaciers.

Suppose cheap-as-dirt salt fought it all back.

By then, food could be grown in warmer climes and indoors to feed most, I'd venture a guess. Especially if you knew it was coming. Last time during the Maunder minimum, society didn't have the technology, knowledge or means to survive, but they did. It'd be a lot easier today.

All this assumes a coming ice age is anything like the last. Fascinating. thank our lucky stars we lived in this almost ideal age.

[pfony1]

And STOP drinking beer...

[pfony1]

And STOP drinking beer...