Jan. 11, 2005 - 22:50 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Opinions

I wonder if I am the only one who notices that people who once were fair haired folk in the administration or wheels in their own right in their profession are beginning to disappear back into oblivion. Ones who dared to differ with Mr. Bush about anything ?

Apropos of that is an article in January 11th Rocky Mountain News by Jim Erickson of the same paper. In full:

Drought expanding its grip on planet

Rising global temps play a major role, Boulder experts say

The percentage of the Earth's surface plagued by serious drought has more than doubled since the 1970s, and rising global temperatures appear to be a major factor, Boulder climate researchers say."

"Ten to 15 percent of the planet's land surface suffered from drought in the early 1970s. By 2002, the fraction was about 30 percent, according to researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research."

"Almost half of that change is because of rising temperatures, rather than decreases in rainfall or snowfall, said Aiguo Dai, lead author of the study."

"Global climate models predict that most of the planet's land masses will see increased warm-season drying in coming decades. The drying will occur as the planet warms in response to rising levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, according to the computer models."

"Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are released when fossil fuels are burned."

"Our analyses suggest that this (greenhouse related) drying may already have begun," said Dai, who will present his finding Wednesday at a meeting of the American Meteorological Society in San Diego."

"The study was published in the December issue of the Journal of Hydrometeorological Scoiety in San Diego. NCAR researchers Kevin Trenberth and Taotao Qian were co-authors."

"Since the 1970s, widespread drying has occurred over much of Europe, Asia, Canada, western and southern Africa, and eastern Australia. The U.S., Argentina and parts of wesern Australia have bucked the trend, becoming wetter over the past 50 years."

In mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, higher temperatures, rsulting in increased evaporation, appear to be responsible for much of the drying. But in Africa's Sahel region and East Asia, rainfall declines were the main factor responsible for the expansion of drought areas, Dai said."

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My opinions seem to go with the experts opinion. Cars are becoming behemoths, less -- much less miles-per-gallon per vehicle, many of which do their miles with only one occupant. Oil, gasoline, coal, coke are all fossil fuels and we are using the heck out of them. Wind farms are costly and the power companies don't seem to want to expand them enough to bring the price down.

My dearly beloved Heather opted to get a Saturn VUE, which one might say is a SUV. Perhaps in a smaller size than the big SUVs, but damn well big enough to eat the heck out of gasoline. She has the justification of being very short and needing to see what is ahead of her in traffic. I am that way too, but manage to cope by moving over a lane and passing. Sometimes that is not possible, so dragging along behind a city bus which spews diesel fumes back at the traffic behind, or a tractor and semi-trailer, a van or other high profile vehicle becomes a "hit the ball and drag George," operation. One foot poised and ready to slam on the brakes, raising my blood pressure and fatiguing to the utmost.

Seems like most countries of the world get the point, except our oil fed man in the White House, I guess he thinks he knows better.

I wonder how long the National Center for Atmospheric Research will be an entity in our country, or will a magic discovery of some fudge factor cause the personnel and researchers to change their Opinons . . . . . . . . . . .

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