http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-3/final-report/default.htm

Be sure and find the map, which shows “percentage change in annual runoff, 2090-2099.”

And here’s a link to the FAQ brochure, which is obviously more digestible than the entire report:

http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/sap3-3/Brochure-CCSP-3-3.pdf

i think that’s where the split begins, but we’re also hobbled in our collective conversations on the issue by many sociological filters such as religious and political perspective, to which science often takes a backseat.

we live in a period where raw information is wildly accessible, but the ability to assemble it coherently is not always prized. science for its own sake is not well understood (not unlike art for art’s sake, perhaps) outside what can be politically achieved with it. we’ve certainly seen it manipulated at the highest levels in this country in ways we not at any point in the past.

the A&M climate project that caught my attention suggests that when those rains do come to south texas, they will likely come in more violent bursts. that, on top of reliably increased temps, would result in lesser recharge.

whether this trend is “only” a hundred year cycle (as some of the meteorologists suggest) or the beginning of an incredibly turbulent anthropocene age (IPCC and others), how much more could texas be doing to prepare its residents? (sorry. my lazy rhetorical.)

in the same way we have been burning oil with abandon in our palatial suburban homes and trucks and SUVs, we have also been undervaluing our water resources in ways we very soon will be regretting.

we seem bound and determined to wait for the other shoe to drop before we take the sort of action on climate change that mainstream science suggests. sorta the $4 gas effect, i guess.

It’s a common mistake – confusing weather with climate. Interesting, then, to learn that the professionals, meteorologists and climatologists, are duking out in much the same way. I think part of the problem is that people, including weathermen, experience weather, but they don’t – at least they don’t think they do – experience climate. Fluctuations in weather occur on a momentary, daily, yearly, and decadal basis. One day it’s hot and the next it’s cool. One day it’s pouring cats and dogs and the next it’s dry as a bone. Weather is highly variable, in our face, and affects our daily lives.

That’s why when we meet strangers, we talk about the weather, but we don’t talk about climate per se. Climatologists, on the other hand, look at weather as a phenomenon linked to climate. They’re looking at weather as averaged out over the long-term, mining data for evidence of global or regional changes. An aberration here in there in the weather – an unusually wet summer in Texas for example – doesn’t really mean much as an isolated data point.

Climate models show that the Southwest, including Texas, will probably become much dryer. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be years in which rainfall is way above average. A periodic “weather” deviation from this new climate phenomenon doesn’t “disprove” global warming.

One of those “negligible fractions of the cost of nuclear power” (and nuclear weapons before that) is something that’s worth mentioning–namely, the cost from uranium mining to the environment and public health. (And I’m by no means defending gas or oil. I’m merely writing from experience about uranium.)

Here in NM, we’ve witnessed firsthand the effects of uranium mining on the workers who were exposed to unsafe conditions and on the communities surrounding the mines and mills. (Lest anyone forget, thousands of workers in the Southwest were sickened and many died because of their work; in 1979, a tailings dam at a uranium mill in Church Rock collapsed, sending 95 million gallons of radioactive water down the Rio Puerco; and now, the drinking water for an entire section of the Navajo Nation is at risk because of the desire to open new uranium mines–in situ leach mines–on the reservation, despite the tribe’s protests of the project.)

Someday soon, we Americans will have to start taking into account the true cost of resource extraction–and that means taking into account the environmental degradation as well as the effects on public health, workers, neighbors and future communities.

For my part, I’d much rather think about conservation, efficiency and seeking out better ways to use renewable sources of energy.

funny, early in this same essay, hopf seems to be poo-pooing early warnings of “peak oil,” which we have now thoroughly encountered. we could still mock the peak oiler’s back in 2004. how fast THAT went out of fashion.

he also speaks of those heady early days in atomic research when massively federally subsidized atomic power programs were promising energy “too cheap to meter.”

hasn’t turned out that way. both the DOE and MIT have recently mapped nuclear energy beneath both natural gas and oil in cost-per-kilowatt (being surpassed by solar as we speak).

long and short of all this is that i truly hope you will consider is my very first post to your site — that an efficiency revolution coupled with range of renewable technologies really can see us through. it’s an exciting time to be alive.

As far as I can tell, none of the nuclear utilities have shown any real concern about long-term uranium supplies, and for good reason. This is basically a non-issue. The 50-year supply “problem” is most often brought up by two groups, both of which have a vested interest. First, there are the groups opposed to nuclear energy, who use these reserves estimates to argue that nuclear power has no long-term future anyway, and is therefore not worthy of significant investment. The second group consists of nuclear engineers and scientists who are devoted to the concept of a closed fuel cycle, where breeders or spent fuel reprocessing (to re-use the uranium and plutonium in spent fuel) is used. They argue that unless these methods are used, nuclear has no long-term future, because standard reactors (using the once-through fuel cycle) only have enough fuel (uranium ore) for a few more decades.

Whatever the merit of these groups’ goals, these arguments are based on a false premise. Long-term uranium supplies are simply not a real problem. Even if (in the distant future) uranium ore does get really expensive, market forces, and nuclear technology, are equipped to handle it. Advances in extraction technology, along with higher ore prices, will exponentiate the recoverable reserves. Breeder reactors, which will become more economical in 50-100 years, will eventually appear and eliminate all supply issues. All indications are that we will have plenty of time (50-100 years) to develop such breeder technology, before the cost of ore really starts to impact nuclear economics. This is true even under the highest nuclear power growth scenarios. From James Hopf…

http://www.helencaldicott.com/books.htm#npinta
NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT THE ANSWER

In a world torn apart by wars over oil, many politicians are increasingly looking for alternative sources of energy – and their leading choice is often nuclear. Among the myths that have been spread over the years about nuclear-powered electricity are that it does not cause global warming or pollution (i.e., that it is “clean and green”), that it is inexpensive, and that it is safe. But the facts belie the barrage of nuclear industry propaganda:

* Nuclear power contributes to global warming
* The real costs of nuclear power are prohibitive (and taxpayers pick up most of them)
* There’s not enough uranium in the world to sustain long-term nuclear power
* Potential for a catastrophic accident or terrorist attack far outweighs any benefits.

Trained as a physician, and – after four decades of antinuclear activism – thoroughly versed in the science of nuclear energy, the bestselling author of Nuclear Madness and Missile Envy here turns her attention from nuclear bombs to nuclear lightbulbs. As she makes meticulously clear in this damning book, the world cannot withstand either.