John Oliver Slams NWA Privitization Efforts

Once again, on "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver took an obscure, dry subject and turned into entertainiment and real information.

He tackled weather on Sunday.  (See the video at the bottom of this post.) Specifically, his 16-minute segment covered the National Weather Service and Republican or conservative efforts to privatize it.

As I've mentioned in this blog previously, so called free market types think that the National Weather Service shouldn't be giving us potentially lifesaving forecasts for free. We should pay for it from private weather companies.  

I'm overdramatizing it, of course, but as Oliver points outs, the private weather companies depend on the National Weather Service for a large share of their output.  The NWS is the source of their raw data.

True, private weather companies like Accuweather and The Weather Channel do perform great public services, and frankly, I'm glad they're around. I applaud any and all efforts to educate the public about the weather, hazards, climate change and all kinds of important stuff.

These private weather companies are certainly crucial in that effort.

Oliver's segment focused on the Myers family, which runs Accuweather.  The Trump administration tapped Barry Myers to run the National Weather Service a couple years ago, but the Senate has been sitting on the nomination, so Myers hasn't started serving yet.

Myers has long lobbied Congress to limit free public distribution of information and data from the National Weather Service.

Do note that National Weather Service data, provided to the public free of charge, includes such life saving things as tornado, flash flood, hurricane and blizzard warnings.

As Oliver points out, turning everything over to private weather companies risks limiting those warnings to only those who can buy information from private weather companies. If you can't afford it, sorry, you don't find out the tornado is heading toward your house until it's too late.

This, of course, would be a worse-case scenario if the NWS were privatized, but it's worth considering

John Oliver makes all this easy and entertaining, so it's worth watching his segment. Here it is:

"Meet The Press" Abandons Climate Deniers; Actually Has Worthwhile Policy Discussion

"Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd devoted the entire show on
Sunday to the subject of climate change. He pointedly
omitted climate change deniers from the discussion. 

The Sunday morning talk shows usually annoy me. Just a bunch of political pundits trying out their spin of the week. Usually the remarks make headlines, sure, but the whole thing can be obnoxious.

Pardon the pun here, but Sunday's "Meet the Press," hosted by Chuck Todd, was a breath of fresh air. I'm calling it that because Todd devoted the hour-long program to climate change.

Click on this sentence for a full transcript of Sunday's show. 

Todd opened the show by saying this: "We're not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The Earth is getting hotter. And human activity is a major cause, period. We're not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not."

What followed was more of a policy debate on what to do about climate change, which is what the nation and the world as a whole should be focusing on now.

Panelists on the show included climate scientist Dr. Kate Marvel, who, among other people on the show, saying climate change is now, and we have to start dealing with it now.

Todd had previously been criticized for a "Meet the Press" episode in November in which he hosted Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Todd didn't challenge Pletka when she said "We need to also recognize we had two of the coldest years, biggest drop in global temperatures that we have had since the 1980s, the biggest in the last 100 years. We don't talk about that."

That statement is completely false.  True, 2018 and 2017 are ending up marginally cooler than 2016, which was the world's hottest year on record. But 2018 and 2017 are fourth and third hottest on record.  

Obviously, I'm going to get pushback about this post from a host of climate deniers and skeptics regarding this post. Social media is packed with them. There's already been a lot of climate denier yelling and screaming on social media about Sunday's episode of "Meet the Press."

A lot of the pushback involves cherry picking past weather events as "evidence" the world is not warming. For example, I see a lot of people citing the extreme heat waves in the United States during the 1930s.

I  can cherry pick, too.  It's true that 1934 was one of the hottest years on record in the United States. It ranks sixth behing 2012, 2016, 2015, 2006 and 1998. (Note those are all recent years). For the Earth as a whole, though, 1934 averaged out a wee bit cooler than average, notes Skeptical Scientist. 

True, those Depression-era heat waves, particularly in the Great Plains, remain easily the most intense by far on record in those regions.  There have always been weather extremes like the Dust Bowl heat waves of the 1930s. The issue is that weather extremes are getting more common, and, generally speaking, more extreme.

I think I partially get where the climate denial crowd is coming from. Most of them are politically conservative, and, to oversimplify, don't like the government telling them what to do. Fair enough.

The concern in this crowd is that if we deal with climate change, that could mean more regulations, more government action, more impinging on their "freedoms."  I just wish these conservatives would get real and get in on the debate.

It would be useful to get ideas from conservatives on how to deal with climate change in a way that does not restrict personal freedoms, in a way that boosts the economy, creates jobs, stays in line with the free enterprise system.

We could really use their ideas.  I'm not being snarky at all. I really mean this.

I think Sunday's episode of "Meet the Press" was done in part because people are freaked out about the extreme weather events of 2018, such as the devastating California wildfires, Hurricanes Michael and Florence, and the big heat waves and flash floods that hit different parts of the nation and the world during the year that's just now ending

Few people would say these weather events were "caused" by climate change, but there's a compelling case to make that many (but not all) of them were probably made worse by global warming.

I"ve also heard climate change skeptics say the world might well be warming, but that's just a natural cycle, unrelated to human activity.

Marvel, on Meet the Press Sunday, said that the warming is largely man-made is perversely comforting. If it were a natural cycle, there would be pretty much nothing we could do to stop it. But since the warming is largely caused by fossil fuel emissions, we can cut back and switch to other alternatives and, over time, slow and stop climate change.

Nobody thinks such an effort would be quick or easy, but you have to start somewhere.

Extreme Global Heat In February Not The End Of The World, But.......

Hot times across the world in February, the most
above average warm month on record  

As worldwide temperature and climate assessments for February's global temperatures, jaws have been dropping among the climate scientists, meteorologists and weather geeks of the world.

The world was off the charts much warmer than normal, far more above average than any other month in recorded history. This follows December and January, which also set records for the greatest departures above normal.  

However, February was just ridiculous. February was a bit over 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal over the globe. Two degrees doesn't sound like all that much. After all, do you really notice the difference between, say,  55 and 57 degrees?

But a two degree departure from normal for a month distributed over the whole world is just insane and nothing close to that has been observed before.

February was also, incredibly, the tenth consecutive month a global high temperature record was set. As the Associated Press reported, government scientists sputtered that the wildly high temperatuers were "astronomical" or "staggering." "strange," or "insane."

The departure from normal in the Arctic was especially off the charts. You know you're in trouble with extreme warmth when the mapmakers at NOAA run out of colors to depict how hot it was in parts of the Arctic in February.

Scientists don't usually use huge superlatives like this, so you know something is up.

Here's Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb, who, according to the Associated Press, doesn't get too, too excited about new high temperatures being broken. It's been happening all the time, she's used to it.

But this is different. Says Cobb, quoted by the AP:

"When I look at the new February 2016 temperatures, I feel like I'm looking at something out of a sic-fi movie. In a way we are: It's like someone plucked a value off a graph from 2030 and stuck it on a graph of present temperatures. It is a portent of things to come, and it is sobering that such temperature extremes are already on our doorstep."

February temperatures were incredible, for sure. But before you panic, the world is going to temporarily cool off a little, and soon. A strong El Nino, that periodic warming of the Pacific Ocean looks like it's about to start waning, as it usually does after several month.

El Ninos make global temperatures go up, whether or not there's global warming. For the record, there IS global warming, so the combination of El Nino and climate change led to these worldwide heat records to be broken so spectacularly.

Climate change will keep happening, but El Nino might go away, at least for while. It always waxes and wanes.

A diminishing El Nino will allow the Earth's temperature to at least temporarily start easing back. Still, with global temperatures elevated from fossil fuel, don't expect a huge global cooldown.

Many climate observers are saying that we'll once again start getting months that are not the absolute warmest on record. Still well above normal, but not always record heat. This slight global cooling will probably start later this year and continue into 2017.

Of course, we can't be absolutely certain of that, but that's how it looks.

However, with climate change, you have to look at the long term trend, not one or two years. There was previously an enormous global temperature spike back in 1998 with a huge El Nino. Back then, we were told it was a glimpse of what the future might hold.

That future arrived, roughly after 2008. Temperatures between 2008 or so and 2013 were consistently close to the 1998 level.

Then, starting in 2014, global temperatures spiked again, peaking in 2015 and the first few months of this year it turns out.

Now we have another glimpse of the future. I've seen it where I live in St. Albans, Vermont. I know the little dot on the map where I live, St. Albans, is totally unrepresentative of the Earth as a whole.

However, I can't under play how bizarre the weather has been up here in northwestern Vermont over the past few months.

I wore shorts and a t-shirt outdoors all afternoon on Christmas Eve. In Vermont. In February, I dug up some soil to create new perennial bids. No snow, and the ground was totally not frozen. Unheard of in Vermont for February.

My daffodils and day lilies started coming up during the second week in March. Never seen that before either. But I've never seen the temperature reach 70 degrees in the beginning of March, either.

Will this past winter be a glimpse of what things will be like five, ten, fifteen years down the road? It's a distinct possibility.

So Cobb, the Georgia Tech climate scientist is right. We got a glimpse of our future and it's probably coming sooner than many of us think.

The cumulative effects of this mess is what really bothers me. Even as the global temperatures likely cool temporarily as we head toward 2017, world wide temperatures will almost certainly remain much higher than we were used to in the 20th century.

That leads to more climate extremes. We'll continue a trend of heat waves that kills thousands of people over the course of a month extreme droughts that cause many more deaths, or extreme storms that do the same, and on and on.

Meanwhile, the spike in global heat this winter also has policy makers questioning whether the world can adhere to the United Nation's goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celcius above 20th centry normals.

It this winter's warmth is a sign that global warming is accelerating, and even if not, policy makers with new analyses say we probably won't be able to cut our use of fossil fuel fast enough to keep the warming below 2 degree Celcius reports the Washington Post.

The Post says rewewable energy sources are increasing exponentially, but rising populations and living standards mean that fossil fuels will continue to be in high demand well into this century.

By the way, a bit of a feedback loop is probably contributing to this winter's high temperatures. The Arctic has had record low sea ice extent all winter. That means more heat is released into the atmosphere, keeping the extreme warmth going, especially in the Arctic.

That, in turn, means sea ice won't form like it normally does, and it will start to melt sooner, and that will lead to more relative warmth coming from the Arctic Ocean into the atmosphere, etc. etc.

Yeah, as I said, it will cool down a bit soon because of natural factors. But the overall trend upward shows no sign of stopping or slowing over the long haul. Be prepared to continue seeing a new climate that you and I and the rest of the world are totally unaccustomed to.

Time To Permanently Move People From Flood Prone Lyndonville Neighborhood

Damagbing floods at the Northeast Kingdom Mobile
Home Park in Lyndonville on February 26.
Image from WCAX-TV. 

According to a flood warning issued overnight from the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Vermont, they were evacuating a mobile home park in Lyndonville due to flooding.

As far as I know, this was the only spot in Vermont that had significant flooding from the rains that fell yesterday and last night.

Apparently, some sort of ice jam has created the flooding there.

This is the second time within a month this mobile home park was evacuated due to flooding. The same thing happened on February 25 and 26 during a heavy rain storm then.

The area around Route 5 and Route 114 in Lyndonville in one of the most notorious flood prone spots  in Vermont.

 Like Route 73 near Brandon,  Boston Post Road in Enosburgh  and North Williston Road between Essex and Williston, you can count on that spot in Lyndonville going under water every time we have heavy rain, snow melt or ice jams in the Green Mountain State.

Most of those places, we can deal with it. Motorists take a detour, and in the case of Brandon, Enosburg and Williston, homes tend not to be affected by the high water.

This isnt true in Lyndonville. The Northeast Kingdom Mobile Home Park is right near the intersection of  Routes 5 and 114 in Lyndonville.  Every time I turn around it's being evacuated due to flooding. This has to be incredibly difficult for the people who live there.

Plus, local services like the Red Cross are strained every time they have to open emergency shelters. Firefighters need to be called out every time to help get people out of harm's way. This is a drain on personnel and budgets.

Mobile home parks, by definition low income housing, are often placed in bad places, like flood plains It would make sense to move the mobile home park away from the very frequent floodwaters.

Lower income people are least prepared to recover from flood damaged homes and cars. Even the ones whose homes escape the flooding often have to evacuate, and that might necessitate a sick day from work. In many cases, if you don't work, you don't get paid. (Although Vermont is on the brink of enacting a law that mandates paid sick leave, thank you Leggie and Gov Shumlin!)

I, and a lot of people, would love to see Lyndonville's Northeast Kingdom Mobile Home Park moved, so the residents there won't have to evacuate practically every time it rains

Here's the problem: It makes infinite sense to move the mobile home park, but where? Where is there land to establish a new mobile home park?  I also imagine there's some mobile homes there in Lyndonville that can't be moved anyway. They're so old they're no longer mobile.

It's a safe bet that most of the people in this mobile home park can't just plunk down some cool cash this afternoon and buy a newer, safer mobile home, a house on high ground, or an apartment no where near a flood plain.

I don't have a good policy prescription for the Northeast Kingdom Mobile Home Park. But it's long past the time where smart people need to put their heads together to figure out how to let these residents live affordably in a high, dry spot.

There's an added factor: Rain storms have tended to get heavier and more destructive in Vermont and recent decades. Climatologists say these type of intense, flooding rains will continue to get more frequent as the Earth warms. That means this problem in the Northeast Kingdom isn't going away, and has a good chance of getting even worse

Let's relegate the intersection of Route 5 and 114 in Lyndonville to the status of one of those flood prone spots that doesn't really affect anybody, and doesn't disrupt lives time and time again.

What IF California Runs Out Of Water In Its Big Current Drought?

A scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech caused a stir earlier this month when he said California's drought has gotten so bad there's only a year's worth of water left.  

All of California is in drought, and much
of the state is still in exceptional drought (dark red) 

In a Los Angeles Times op ed, the scientist, Jay Famiglietti, pulled no punches:

"Right now the state has only about a year of water supply left in its reservoirs and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus year mega-drought) except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain."

Famiglietti's statement created headlines around the world. It did seem dire. What does a state with 38.8 milliion residents do when the water taps run dry?

Famiglietti said groundwater is being pumped out so fast that land is sinking by a as much as one foot per year in California's Central Valley.

We also know that snow in the Sierra Nevada at the moment is something like 12 percent of normal. The snow is important because as it slowly melts in the spring and summer, it fills reservoirs and supplies cities and agriculture through a large chunk of the state.

Of course, every water faucet in California won't stop running in one instant exactly one year from now. Different parts of the state have different degrees of drought, though the entire state is in trouble with the dry, hot weather that has persisted for four years now.

Some people dispute Famiglietti's assertion about the state having only a year's supply of water left.

News10 ABC in Sacramento quotes Jeanine Jones, the Interstate Resources Manager with the California Department of Water Resources as saying the situation isn't as dire as Famiglietti suggests.

"Jones said the LA Times article was not entirely accurate, especially the claim about the state only having on year of water left in the supply. 

'I thnk it's perhaps written from the perspective of an academic who is less familiar with how water operations actually work at the water agency supply level,' said Jones."

Jones told ABC 10 said some rain this winter has filled reservoirs above last year's low levels.

Still, there's no doubt California is short on water, and no major rains are in the forecast as the quote, unquote rainy season comes to a close.

The Sacramento Bee reported this week that the California Water Resources Control Board ordered every water agency in the state to restrict how much everyone can water their lawns and landscaping.

This is the first time any state has imposed emergency water conservation measures on every local water agency within its borders, the Sacramento Bee said.

Among the restrictions are rules that ban landscape irrigation on rainy days and withing 48 hours of measureable rain. Restaurants must not serve water to patrons unless the customers ask for it, and hotels should offer guests the option to skip washing linens, according to the Sacramento Bee article.

But will this go far enough?

The Gizmodo blog offered some suggestions, including letting the grass on lawns and golf courses statewide turn brown rather than watering them.

Gizmodo says most bottled water comes from California so that should stop, too. And how about closing car washes? Planting native plants instead of water-sucking landscapes? Having techies develop alternative water supplies, such as desalination plants?

Whatever happens, it's not going to be easy to get through this drought in California. The longer it goes on, the harder it is to deal with.

It's going to be a long, hot fiery, dry, thirsty summer in California.

Let's hope that NASA scientist is too pessimistic.