Environmentalists Caused California's Drought

[SeaBreeze]

Some people have been saying that environmentalists have caused the drought in California. Any Californians want to comment on this? http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/26/3674326/house-bill-california-drought-environmentalists/

A new bill introduced in the House of Representatives is pushing for new ways to combat California’s epic drought. But it’s doing so based on the premise that environmental policy — not climate change — is making the drought so bad in the state.The bill, introduced this week by Rep. David Valadao (R-CA), would direct officials to release more water through the state’s Central Valley Project, which provides irrigation and city water sources to a large portion of the state’s Central Valley. Under the bill, water flows couldn’t be limited by concerns about fish species like salmon and the Delta smelt unless there was concern over extinction of the species. By ensuring that more water moves through the project’s canals, supporters hope to make water more available to residents. The bill has the backing of California’s entire Republican House delegation, the Hill reports..

Valadao’s bill is based of an idea that’s been cited by Republicans before: that environmentalists have prevented California from building key water infrastructure, in part because of their concerns about the Delta smelt, a threatened fish species that could be nearing extinction. In 2008, in an attempt to protect the fish, the Fish and Wildlife Service moved to restrict the amount of water that’s pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta south to water districts and farms.

Valadao’s office said in a statement that water policy aimed at protecting “certain species of fish listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a significant obstacle hindering water delivery in Central and Southern California.” The bill, the statement said, “will cut red tape holding back major water storage projects that have been authorized for over a decade, which will aid the entire Western United States during dry years.”

Several California Republicans agree with Valadao’s premise.
“Droughts are nature’s fault; water shortages are our fault,” California Rep. Tom McClintock, a supporter of Valadao’s bill, said in a statement. “For a generation, we have failed to build the facilities needed to store water from wet years to have it in dry ones and radical environmental laws have squandered the water we did store. Our water shortage is caused by a shortage of sensible water policy. This bill begins fixing that.”

Some experts disagree with this analysis. According to Andrew Fahlund, deputy director of the California Water Foundation, the real reason California hasn’t built more water infrastructure is that the projects aren’t worth the cost to taxpayers.

“Study after study shows that the three projects most cited by advocates of new infrastructure don’t pass any sort of cost-benefit test,” he told Think Progress in April.
And rather than the drought being brought on by environmental policies, scientists have found that the causes of california’s drought can "very likely" be linked to climate change. According to the Stanford scientists, the “extreme atmospheric high pressure” in California is “much more likely to occur today than prior to the human emission of greenhouse gases that began during the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s.” That atmospheric pressure is linked to California’s intense dryness.

Indeed, scientists have long warned that high temperatures associated with climate change could mean more precipitation falls as rain instead of snow, decreasing snowpack that’s necessary for water supplies in some regions. That’s part of what’s driving California’s drought, Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, told Think Progress.

“There is zero truth to any argument that attempts to characterize the current California drought as man-made,” he said. “All you need to do is look at up the mountains and realize that there is no snow, look at the reservoirs and see that they are nearly empty, and look at last January to see that it was the driest on record. A lack of infrastructure is not the issue when there is nothing to put in it.”

 

[Debby]

'...
“There is zero truth to any argument that attempts to characterize the current California drought as man-made,” he said. “All you need to do is look at up the mountains and realize that there is no snow, look at the reservoirs and see that they are nearly empty, and look at last January to see that it was the driest on record. A lack of infrastructure is not the issue when there is nothing to put in it.”'

Seems like a no-brainer when you consider the last couple sentences in your link. Sounds more like people getting PO'd because they can't keep their lawns green and so they're looking for a scapegoat. Besides, do those who aren't interested in the fish not understand that those little fish probably are a major food source for the big fish that the people eat? Not that I'm in favour of that of course, but it seems to me that they're willing to 'shoot themselves in the foot' for the sake of those lawns and loooong showers.

 

[SeaBreeze]

I agree Debby, we don't have a drought in my state like California, but we rocked in our front lawn years ago, to save on water (and water bills). The back lawn grass area is very small, and I work with Mother Nature to keep it watered, also threw down some hearty clover seeds just to give the dirt some cover in the bald lawn areas. Honestly, it's the end of June and I've been lucky, only watered lightly twice so far thanks to regular rains. There have been some bad drought years here too, and my lawn has gone brown. I don't keep the water running when it doesn't have to, and keep my showers short. I thought it was strange to blame the drought on environmentalists, first time I heard that one.

 

[Don M.]

The last two paragraphs in the article quoted at the start of this thread, says it all. There is simply Not Enough Snowfall in the Sierra and Rocky Mountains to sustain a sufficient flow of water to the Western parts of the nation. The Jet Stream has shifted further East, and the Midwest and Eastern half of the nation are getting excess moisture, while the Western States are Not. Couple that, with the huge number of people who have chosen to live in California, and the SW, and it becomes obvious that Demand for water is exceeding Supply in the far West.

This year, from Denver, Colorado and East of there, rainfall has been excessive. Presently, in Missouri, Iowa and Arkansas, the rivers are all at, or very near flood stage. Eastern Texas has been swamped. Virtually every State east of the Mississippi has had above normal rainfall.

There is very little any "environmentalist" could possibly be doing...or have done...that is causing this.

 

[tnthomas]

Normal West Coast precipitation has been diverted to locations Eastward, you know...places that are getting triple the seasonal averages.

Some suggest that California is being punished by God for homosexuality and abortion.

God really has no hand in the wild weather patterns that the whole planet is experiencing- is more due to humankind's failure to take intelligent meaures to deal with [manmade] global warming.

 

[SeaBreeze]

Boehner blames Obama for the California drought, and wants every to be able to water their laws to keep them green, full story and diagrams here.



House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) took to Facebook on Tuesday to recast California’s worst drought in 1200 years as a “man-made water shortage” — not worsened by climate change, but by President Obama himself.

He also asserted that, in the midst of the historic Dust Bowl conditions, Americans still have a God-given right to green lawns.

Boehner, of course, famously said in May that he is “not qualified to debate the science over climate change.” That just affirmed what was clear from his bizarre 2009 assertion: “The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical.”

But admitted scientific ignorance doesn’t slow the Speaker down. What has sparked his blinkered outrage this time is this photo he postd on Facebook:

Boehner brags here about what “Congress is doing to end President Obama’s man-made water shortage in the West.” Indeed, the House just passed a bill that essentially blames environmental polices for causing the drought, specifically policies that reduce water use to protect endangered fish species.

But actual scientists aren’t saying environmental uses caused California’s worst drought in 1200 years. Actual scientists explained earlier this year that the primary extent to which the drought has a man-made component is that man-made global warming is making it a lot worse. Man-made warming, they said, has led to record high temperatures. And according to the National Science Foundation, climate change has tripled the chances of the current weather pattern that has blocked California from getting precipitation (the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge).

Meanwhile, Boehner is outraged that people are being urged not to maintain their water-intensive green lawns in a semi-arid region during this epic drought. From his Facebook post:

If ever there was a phrase that perfectly encapsulates liberal environmentalists’ backwards priorities and regressive ideology of restriction and scarcity, it is the one now displayed on a government sign in Arcadia, California: “It’s ‘green’ to go brown.”


​

For the record, the soil moisture deficit in the state is truly unprecedented as measured by the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Again, according to actual scientists, “the current event is the most severe drought in the last 1200 years, with single year (2014) and accumulated moisture deficits worse than any previous continuous span of dry years. … In terms of cumulative severity, it is the worst drought on record (-14.55 cumulative PDSI), more extreme than longer (4- to 9-year) droughts.”
No doubt if Boehner had been Speaker during the 1930s Dust Bowl, he’d not have been urging Oklahomans to ignore those science-based conservation efforts pushed by FDR and just keep watering their lawns.

Here is California’s groundwater depletion over the last three years as observed by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE):

NASA: “The ongoing California drought is evident in these maps of dry season (Sept–Nov) total water storage anomalies (in millimeter equivalent water height; anomalies with respect to 2005–2010). California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have lost roughly 15 km3 of total water per year since 2011 — more water than all 38 million Californians use for domestic and municipal supplies annually — over half of which is due to groundwater pumping in the Central Valley.”

So yes, the whole notion that environmentalists are somehow responsible for the water shortage is a canard. A good debunking is here. You can also watch a very recent discussion of this issue between MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Steve Fleischli, director of NRDC’s water program here.

Finally, if climate science deniers like Boehner get their way, and we continue to take little or no action on climate change, then here is what NASA projects the normal climate of the entire country will look like from a soil moisture perspective.

If anyone has a “regressive ideology” that will inevitably lead to “restriction and scarcity,” if anyone wants to see the entire country go from green to brown, it would be Speaker of the House John Boehner.

 

[Don M.]

Most of those clowns in Congress wouldn't recognize Scientific Evidence if it hit the in the face. However, that is somewhat understandable, since most of them are Lawyers. Perhaps when the Western Half of the US is reliving the Dust Bowl days of the 1930's, some of these clowns will begin to acknowledge reality.

 

[AZ Jim]

One thing to say, Boehner is a total idiot.

 

[Jackie22]

All good info, SB, here is what Hillary had to say yesterday in her speech about the "I'm not a scientist" remarks..... And to Republicans who avoid discussing climate change by pleading ignorance as non-scientists, Clinton mocked their timidity. “I’m not a scientist either, I’m just a grandmother with two eyes and a brain, and I’m not going to let them take us backwards.”Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/...ner-hillary-clinton-120315.html#ixzz3gLKv8W2z

 

[Glinda]

Most of those clowns in Congress wouldn't recognize Scientific Evidence if it hit the in the face. However, that is somewhat understandable, since most of them are Lawyers. Perhaps when the Western Half of the US is reliving the Dust Bowl days of the 1930's, some of these clowns will begin to acknowledge reality.

Don, as the OP asked for comments from Californians, I was trying to formulate my response as I read the thread. But I just can't say it any better than this guy from the "Show Me" state already did!
:applause2:

 

[SeaBreeze]

How the climate has changed in 2014, full article here.

The state of the world’s climate is complex enough that it takes 413 scientists from 58 countries half a year to completely summarize a year’s worth of data.
And 2014 was a doozy.

According to the American Meteorological Society and NOAA’s “State of the Climate in 2014″report, several markers measuring the earth’s climatic trends set historical records. This is the 25th year that scientists have provided this report, and it was full of hundreds of pages of detailed atmospheric and oceanic summaries of what’s happening to our air, land, and water.

“The year 2014 was forecast to be a warm year, and it was by all accounts a very warm year, in fact record warm according to four independent observational datasets,” the report said. The reason: “the radiative forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases continued to increase, owing to rising levels of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other radiatively active trace gases.”

The world’s experts know that climate change is happening, and why, and provide reports like these every year spelling out the impacts in excruciating detail.

“The variety of indicators shows us how our climate is changing, not just in temperature but from the depths of the oceans to the outer atmosphere,” said Thomas R. Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.