Drought forces first water cuts on the Colorado River. They're just the beginning. A two-decade-long megadrought along the Colorado River is pushing seven Western states and parts of Mexico into a formal shortage declaration, forcing water delivery cuts to the Southwest that are just the beginning of the pain climate change promises to bring to the region. Climate scientists and water managers have long seen this declaration coming, but what's alarming them is the speed with which the hot and dry conditions over the past four years have shrunk the river’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to levels not seen since they were first filled. Over the past two decades, releases from those giant reservoirs have supplemented the river’s dwindling natural flows, but at just a third full today, they can no longer support the same amounts of water use. For the first time ever, federal water managers took emergency measures in July to prevent the water level from dropping to levels too low to produce power at Glen Canyon dam, which generates electricity for 5 million people across seven western states. Lower water levels had already reduced the dam’s output by 16 percent when water managers made emergency releases from upstream reservoirs in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico to keep production from cutting out altogether — for now. The swift and dramatic changes within the Colorado River basin — home to 40 million people, 15 percent of America’s crop output and 11 national parks — exemplify the accelerating, snowballing effects from climate change that the world’s leading scientists warned last week are on track to dramatically remake the planet unless governments can rapidly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. ... Academics, environmentalists and climate researchers say that elected officials must face politically unpalatable possibilities head on: There simply isn’t enough water for new pipeline and reservoir projects in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico, despite the promise made to those upper basin states a century ago under the foundational 1922 Colorado River Compact. At the same time, the steep water cuts that Arizona, Nevada and California painstakingly crafted two years ago almost certainly won’t be deep enough. ... The bipartisan infrastructure bill approved by the Senate last week includes hefty funding for such measures, including $1 billion in water recycling, $250 million in desalination, and nearly $1 billion for programs such as environmental restoration and water use efficiency projects. “It’s a major investment in moving down the path toward greater water security and water system resilience,” said Kevin Moran, director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Colorado River program. But, he acknowledged, getting it out the door of federal agencies and on the ground to projects that can make a difference at a speed that matches the deteriorating hydrology will be a major challenge. “It’s going to test us,” he said.
Given the seriousness of the problem that a couple generations down the line will be facing in 100 years, why would a strong advocate for mitigation and adaptation policies bristle at a characterization that this is "code red"? The trends are not looking good. If you stand-back and look at temperatures on this planet over the a span of tens of thousands of years, what's happening in just the last few decades is alarming. For policy makers to ignore the worst case scenarios that can result from this and act like it isn't cause for concern is, IMO, irresponsible. Even what is considered the likely scenario (3 degrees Celsius increase) would be disastrous. Anyway, alternate perspectives from people who are knowledgeable on the science are welcome. I'm curious what are the mitigation and adaptation policies he is advocating for. Does he have any publications or articles where he talks more about that?
code red would be apocalypse, he simply does not believe climate change is going to be the apocalypse. And the trends are not all bad, that's been exactly his point in examining the working group report, which still relies on catastrophe trendlines that IPCC used 30 years ago and that are now out of date because we're not doing 'business as usual' . . . e.g., the US met the Kyoto protocol standards without even formally signing on to the protocol. It hasn't been business-as-usual with a 1988 fossil fuel use starting point for a long time. He's written all kinds of things on mitigation and adaptation policies, in general he's an advocate of no-regrets policies. But his biggest recommendation is for significant investments in nuclear--on the order of 300-350 new plants annually until 2050: Net-Zero CO2 Emissions By 2050 Requires A New Nuclear Power Plant Every Day Book -length works that are easy to get include these:
I don't think there's a formal definition of what "code red for humanity" means in this context. It is figurative -- indicating this is a serious emergency that requires our immediate, foremost attention. If he's advocating for significant investments in nuclear, on the order of a new nuclear power plant every day between now and 2050, that's a huge effort. Is there a will for policy makers to make that happen, without very strongly emphasizing the seriousness of the problem we're facing otherwise?
there's no will at all, but policy makers keep buying ocean front properties and 12 million dollar spreads on islands, so that's a clue that policy makers really don't take the problem seriously yet either. "Code red" may be figurative but it's all theater in some sense. The working group report for policy isn't even due out for another year, and this one is supposedly limited to "science" but the IPCC couldn't help itself by inserting plenty of policy prognostications into the science report. Again, as Pielke says, the problem is serious, yes, but catastrophic, most likely no.
It's impossible to divorce the science from the real-world effects policies (or lack of policies) can have on the world. I came across this older article from Pielke, Jr.: https://www.wsj.com/articles/my-unhappy-life-as-a-climate-heretic-1480723518 But my research led me to a conclusion that many climate campaigners find unacceptable: There is scant evidence to indicate that hurricanes, floods, tornadoes or drought have become more frequent or intense in the U.S. or globally. In fact we are in an era of good fortune when it comes to extreme weather. This is a topic I’ve studied and published on as much as anyone over two decades. My conclusion might be wrong, but I think I’ve earned the right to share this research without risk to my career. Does he still stand by that?
yes, most definitely. he's extremely critical of attribution studies in general . . . whereas there's a logical point that every weather event has a non-zero likelihood of climate change influence (in terms of causation), it's another thing entirely to attribute one percent or fifty percent or 99 percent of an event to "climate change." And again, on extreme events, there is very little if any evidence that storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts etc have "increased" either in number or intensity due to climate change
Well, attribution is a separate issue. The statement I quoted didn't mention anything about attribution. He was expressing doubt that extreme weather events have become more frequent, full stop. I was surprised by that. The IPCC report summary directly contradicts that position.
pretty sure Pielke would be very critical of IPCC's treatment of that topic. somewhere else I posted his twitter thread on the first day the WG report came out. He made a semi-sarcastic comment about being the most important author on extreme events NOT to be cited in the report--and not so sarcastically stated that was an example of IPCC cherry-picking their evidence and sources. I'll see if I can dig that out again.
oh, and I don't see attribution as a separate issue. if you're going to say that increasing global temps and/or extreme events are going to be catastrophic, it matters quite a bit whether those temps and storms are natural or bear the stamp of anthropogenic climate change. And again, the relative proportion of anthropogenic climate change signal to natural climate change signal matters a great deal. Ultimately that's the key issue that's at stake in policy debates about how to respond to climate change.
Accurate attribution to human activity ultimately is key, agreed. But we need to first be in agreement on what's actually happening before we can move on to attribution. It seems that even on that initial step he sharply disagrees with the IPCC.
I think that's right. He believes and has stated that IPCC has a built-in bias toward catastrophism in the core of its activities. And I think he believes this is in conflict with the supposed "scientific" mission of IPCC as a pure fact-finding institution. Much of this I think he believes is related to the influence of smaller, less-wealthy nations who stand to benefit from economic spending designed to fight global climate change. This is where the political science comes into to augment the physical science assessment, and where sociology of science augments the political science (in terms of understanding the social and political dynamics of international policy debate).
Attribution is nearly impossible to demonstrate in such a short period of time, but there is mounting evidence of increasing frequency of extreme events, and increase in the power of heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes, etc. While these can not be directly attributable to climate change, they follow along with what climate models predicted as a result of higher temps, changing weather patterns, and greater amounts of water in the atmosphere.
I mean, he can disagree but the number of severe events has increased - we've seen super typhoons in the pacific at a higher rate than ever before, and the amount of rainfall from storms has increased leading to flooding - not just hurricanes but overall. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180321130859.htm
again, he has pretty consistently disagreed with these kinds of analyses. Can't speak to the EASAC study you're citing here, but here's a 2019 piece Pielke published in Forbes that is typical of his position: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerp...-stronger-and-more-dangerous/?sh=496332d74d9e
It's a weird position to have when much of the evidence contradicts that position. I can see why Pielke Jr has earned the fascination of some, he plays a pretty consistent game.
