Europe holds roundtable on adaptaion

A multi-stakeholder roundtable on climate change entitled Adapting to Climate Change in Europe – Options for EU Action took place on February 27. The pre-conference story described the format this way:

Climate change concerns us all. Therefore all actors, in the widest possible sense, from the individual citizen to public authorities, the private sector, businesses, towns and cities, academics, networks, policy makers and authorities at all levels, associations and NGOs are invited to participate actively during the roundtable.

Broad participation builds resilience.

800-year drought in South Carolina?

That's what the state climatologist told the newspaper. Tree ring data says it's so.

Flooding in the U.S. Midwest - climate impact?

It's not your imagination; there have been more reports of flooding in the upper Midwest lately. It's impossible to say for sure that it's a climate change impact, but conditions have certainly changed.

The Findley (Ohio) Courier interviewed Robert McCall, an Ohio State University Extension educator who focuses on watershed management about the more frequent flooding they've been experiencing. The uncertainty McCall expressed is indicative of where we're all at now, as we deal with new patterns of extreme weather, although he sounds like he could use to follow Climate Frog and learn some stuff.

Q: We have flooded seven times in the last 14 months. Is this a fluke, or have we entered a new era in which flooding will permanently be a much bigger problem than in the past?

A: We are in an new era, that's for sure. What era that is, speaking from a climate standpoint, I'm not sure. The researchers, the scientists, the national figureheads, nobody can really come to an agreement, I don't think, across the board as to what that is. If global warming ... is caused by man-made, land use practices, I'm not sure what's going on there. Or ... it's just the natural cycle of things. I don't know how much influence, obviously we probably have some influence, but to what degree I'm not sure.

What? No truffles?

Yes, sorry, epicures. The European truffle hunters are blaming the shortage on global warming. I've been telling you that the impacts would be diverse, hitting you in places you never expected. And there you have it. Get ready to pay through the nose for your next truffle experience.

Now, foodies and tourists buying truffles by the piece have replaced the bulk-buying middlemen, and most transactions at the once-bustling market are measured in grams. At the Aups market, the black truffle's price has more than doubled over the past five years, to about €850 per kilo ($560 a pound).

One 76-year-old trufficulteur pinned the blame on climate, and is ready to believe it's permanent.

"Climate change has got the seasons out of whack, it's hotter than it used to be and it rains lots less. I want my grandson to take over, but if things continue like this, who knows if there will be anything left."

Complexities of drought planning

Most of North Carolina is still dealing with extreme drought conditions, and a plan proposed by the governor - which would impose water use restrictions uniformly on counties based on what "level" of drought they are in - is getting plenty of pushback from local resource managers.

"There is no one size fits all [answer]. Every community and the situation of every water system is different," said Ellis Hankins, director of the League of Municipalities.

Hankins is recommending his own plan to the governor, that will take into consideration other factors in assigning restrictions. Some counties, for example, are at an "extreme level" of drought, but still have water in their reservoirs, while others at that same level have empty reservoirs.

When it's dry everywhere, a little bit of available water makes a difference.

Entropy - another adaptation challenge

Climate change is far from the only change we're going through. Our national infrastructure is aging, crumbling and falling behind fast in the maintenance required to keep it safe and usable. The collapse of the interstate bridge into the Mississippi river last year was a spectacular failure, but it's only an indicator years of neglect of infrastructure built long ago.

A recent editorial in the New York Times appealed to presidential candidates to pay attention to this growing threat to lives, transportation and the economy. Check out these numbers:

....a federal commission put a jaw-dropping price tag on starting to attend to America’s crumbling foundations: $225 billion a year for the next 50 years just to maintain and upgrade surface transportation

The editorial wonders - as we all should - why this was not mentioned by anyone running to be the next president. Yes, it's bad news, but it's here now. It's not even bad news from the future, as climate change impacts are framed by those excusing their absence from the debates.

Desalination - Backup for the Long Dry

The first large-scale desalination plant in the U.S. recently began operating in Tampa, Florida. With a production capacity of 25 million gallons per day, it's much bigger than the plant currently going through public comment and EIR for my home county of Marin in California, with its initial capacity to produce 5 million gallons per day.

The price comparison: Tampa's plant, $150 million; Marin's, and estimated $115 million. One main difference is that Tampa's plant gets its water from the cooling system of a nearby power plant.

Both locations have gone through extreme water shortages and rationing in the not-too-distant past, and neither has access to backup water supplies. Marin has not yet made the decision to proceed, but has no other alternatives except conservation. Both locations have steadily increased their per capita water usage.