A nutcase .....

===========================

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-warming4-2009feb04,0,7454963.story

California farms, vineyards in peril from warming, U.S. energy secretary warns

Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press

'We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California,'
Steven Chu says. He sees education as a means to combat threat.
By Jim Tankersley
February 4, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- California's farms and vineyards could vanish by
the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans
do not act to slow the advance of global warming, Secretary of Energy Steven
Chu said Tuesday.

In his first interview since taking office last month, the Nobel-prize-winning
physicist offered some of the starkest comments yet on how seriously President
Obama's cabinet views the threat of climate change, along with a detailed
assessment of the administration's plans to combat it.

Chu warned of water shortages plaguing the West and Upper Midwest and
particularly dire consequences for California, his home state, the nation's
leading agricultural producer.

In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack could disappear,
all but eliminating a natural storage system for water vital to agriculture.

"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could
happen,"
he said. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in
California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their
cities going" either.


A pair of recent studies raise similar warnings. One, published in January in
the journal Science, raised the specter of worldwide crop shortages as
temperatures rise. Another, penned by UC Berkeley researchers last year,
estimated California has about $2.5 trillion in real estate assets -- including
agriculture -- endangered by warming.

Chu is not a climate scientist. He won his Nobel for work trapping atoms with
laser light. He taught at Stanford University and directed the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, where he reoriented researchers to pursue "clean
energy" technologies to help reduce the use of greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil
fuels in the U.S., before Obama tapped him to head the Energy Department.

He stressed the threat of climate change in his Senate confirmation hearings
and in a video clip posted on Obama's transition website, but not as bluntly,
nor in as dire terms, as he did Tuesday.

In the course of a half-hour interview, Chu made clear that he sees public
education as a key part of the administration's strategy to fight global
warming -- along with billions of dollars for alternative energy research and
infrastructure, a national standard for electricity from renewable sources and
cap-and-trade legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

He said the threat of warming is keeping policymakers focused on alternatives
to fossil fuel, even though gasoline prices have fallen over the last six
months from historic highs. But he said public awareness needs to catch up. He
compared the situation to a family buying an old house and being told by an
inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it or risk an electrical fire
that could burn everything down.

"I'm hoping that the American people will wake up," Chu said, and
pay the cost
of rewiring.

Environmentalists welcomed the comments as a sharp break from the Bush
administration, which often minimized research about global warming.

"To say the least, it's a breath of fresh air," said Bernadette
Del Chiaro, who
directs the clean air and global warming program for Environment California.
"We've been worried about the impacts of global warming for years, even
decades. He's absolutely right -- California stands to lose so much in our way
of life."

Global warming skeptics were not swayed. "I am hopeful Secretary Chu will take
note of the real-world data, new studies and the growing chorus of
international scientists that question his climate claims," Sen. James Inhofe
(R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee,
said in a statement. "Computer model predictions of the year 2100 are simply
not evidence of a looming climate catastrophe."

jtankersley{at}tribune.com

--- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10