Watch that next hurricane, super-heated Mother Nature may be angry

Miami used to be swampland. Could it return?

Disaster is waiting at every turn. As a kid, adults say the bad stuff is all in your head. The monster at the end of the hallway, in the basement or around the next turn in the dark alleyway isn't real.

Those kids grow up and may wish for that innocence back. The real world is far more harsh. Dreams of the high school and college graduate are often dashed when many realize their constant toil will never bring any of them closer.

The emerging threat of ecological disaster renders just about all those previous worries inert. What difference does it make if that dream home or job is out of reach when the ocean's expected to rise and wash out coastal communities and Pacific island nations and tear the world economy apart?

Really.

Goodnight Miami Beach

Rolling Stone writer Jeff Goodell takes a novel approach to illustrate the situation. In "Goodbye, Miami," he fast-forwards 17 years to 2030 after Hurricane Milo strikes. "Most of the damage occurred not from the hurricane's 175-mph winds, but from the 24-foot storm surge that overwhelmed the low-lying city," he says.

Climate change: Indecision creates an increasingly dismal future

Photo courtesy bloguin.com

Looking into the future is a universal concept. While ancient man stared at the heavens for clues on what the seasons would bring, contemporary corporate man stares at the electronic equivalent of financial ticker tape, trying to discern future financial trends.

No matter what the era, those who picked right usually reaped some reward.

But from a climate scientist's perspective, every scenario looks pretty grim. Climate change is coming. It's just a matter of determining how dramatic it will be. Choosing the level of environmental impact due to rising levels of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and other pollutants leading to global warming depends on how quickly society accepts the situation and reacts.

Change is coming

Changing direction is impossible. An analogy made by the California Air Resources Board likened the situation to a person rowing a boat into a dock. Because the boat already is moving forward, it can't come to an immediate stop. Pulling the oars from the water will help. But what's needed is immediate reversal. In other words, dip those oars in and start reversing course. The boat will still drift forward, but it will begin to slow and turn.

What we're doing now, the ARB says, is rowing forward as if there's nothing ahead to ram into.

Boom.

In November 2000, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was jointly established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, released a report on the climate scenarios facing the planet. The highly technical report says everything depends on stemming the increase in emissions and decoding "long-term uncertainties."

Biogas industry seeks to clear the regulatory air

Fresno, Calif. and the rest of the San Joaquin Valley share some of the worst air in the United States.

A bootstrap industry, still trying to gain a toehold in the state, can remove tons of those pollutants and produce renewable energy at the same time. The concept would appear to meet the goal of the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which seeks to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

So what's the holdup?

Part economics, part regulatory. Five of the top people in the state's biogas industry met recently in Fresno with members of the California Public Utility Commission to explain the difficulties in getting bio-digesters up and running. The meetings were in Fresno City Hall. Each commissioner and his or her staff listened and gave feedback to various groups.

Making the case for biogas

The small but friendly renewables group spelled out all the potential a viable biogas industry could bring. But the group, who represented five companies, also explained the turmoil their operations face breaking into the market in a substantial way. And by and large, the commissioners, who met them one by one, appeared to see the merits of their cause.

You dirty rat: Global warming's fossil fuel friends

The temperature is a little warm.

The forecast for this early August day called for 111 degrees in Fresno/Clovis, Calif. where I live. That's relatively common in this region, where 40 or more days above 100 is common for summer. But it appears more of the United States is in for similar treatment.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center says July was the hottest month in recorded history.

In fact, its State of the Climate report says, January through July was the warmest first seven months of any year on record for the contiguous United States. The national temperature of 56.4 degrees was 4.3 degrees above the long-term average, with only the Pacific Northwest, which was near average, bucking the trend.

And of course Alaska's a bit cooler. My friend Steve likes to post data on his runs in Anchorage's scenic Kincaid Park. The latest was 55 degrees. Sweltering.

Superheating the atmosphere

This temperature stuff is more than just fodder for oblique discussions of the weather. The ramifications are huge, and most scientists predict dire consequences should the trend not be reversed.