LA Times stories: Most Viewed Earth faces a grim future U.N. report says

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from http://www.latimes.com/news/la-ex-warming6apr06,0,540243.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

By Alan Zarembo and Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writers
10:56 AM PDT, April 6, 2007


A new global warming report issued today by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of the Earth's future if temperatures continue to rise unabated: more than a billion people in desperate need of water, extreme food shortages in Africa and elsewhere, a blighted landscape ravaged by fires and floods, and millions of species sentenced to extinction.

The devastating effects will strike all regions of the world and all levels of society, but it will be those without the resources to adapt to the coming changes who will suffer the greatest impact, the report said.

"It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued the report today in Brussels.

The report is the second issued this year by the group. The first, released in January, characterized global warming as a runaway train that is irreversible but that can be moderated by societal changes.

That report said, with more than 90% confidence, that the warming is caused by humans, and its conclusions were widely accepted because of the years of accumulated scientific data supporting it.


Add that to this one
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-sci-swdrought6apr06,0,4839610.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

Permanent drought predicted for Southwest
Study says global warming threatens to create a Dust Bowl-like period. Water politics could also get heated.
By Alan Zarembo and Bettina Boxall, Times Staff Writers
April 6, 2007

The driest periods of the last century — the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the droughts of the 1950s — may become the norm in the Southwest United States within decades because of global warming, according to a study released Thursday.

The research suggests that the transformation may already be underway. Much of the region has been in a severe drought since 2000, which the study's analysis of computer climate models shows as the beginning of a long dry period.

The study, published online in the journal Science, predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest — one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation.

The data tell "a story which is pretty darn scary and very strong," said Jonathan Overpeck, a climate researcher at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study.

Richard Seager, a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and the lead author of the study, said the changes would force an adjustment to the social and economic order from Colorado to California.

"There are going to be some tough decisions on how to allocate water," he said. "Is it going to be the cities, or is it going to be agriculture?"



California Sierra Nevada's, the water shed that feeds both northern and southern Calif., are at 40% of normal snow pack this year!
We are in deep SHIT here now!