Global warming

Welcome to the Carson City Chapter of Citizens' Climate Lobby. Our chapter includes people from Carson City and the surrounding areas who are concerned about climate issues and want to take action to lessen the impact of climate change.

Climate change: Is it real? Yes! Is there something that you can do? Yes! A few years ago I became more aware and concerned about our environment. My concern was elevated based upon what I was reading, hearing and witnessing.

My philosophy? Ok… Maybe a few questions: After long evaluation, I have decided to write down some of my philosophy and personal thoughts, politics included, which may or may not be agreed with.

The polarizing attitudes and ideology that has taken over the American political environment -- as witnessed in recently-held political debates and rallies, nationwide -- is a danger to traditional American democratic values of diversity and respect of the “marketplace of ideas”, where people are not listening to each other, where respect for diversity is lacking, where the prevailing political attitude seems to be “my way or the highway”.

At Gov. Steve Sisolak’s first State of the State address, he said he wouldn’t spend time debating the science behind climate change ...

On Friday, Gov. Sisolak signed an Executive Order directing state agencies to develop and implement a robust climate strategy in Nevada. The Nature Conservancy applauds Governor Sisolak and his effort to advance comprehensive climate action in Nevada.

In 2003, I wrote an article on making a home firesafe. I started with this “The raging fires in California are a terrible reminder of the wildfire risk of living in the urban-wildland interface.” Now, 16 years later, that initial sentence bears repeating. With climate change, global warming we are seeing hotter, more intense, faster spreading wildfires than ever before. Fuels such as brush, grasses and trees are tinder dry everywhere, including Northern Nevada.

About this time of year, I find my interest in gardening waning a bit. For one thing, it’s hot. For another, it’s already September and the first frost may not be far off, so why bother. In years past, I reminded people to expect the first frost around September 15 in most areas.

The featured speaker at Monday's Democratic luncheon will be Chas Macquarie of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. He will explain how the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (H.R. 763) could bring down the emissions fueling climate change by putting a price on carbon pollution and returning those revenues to households.

This is my final column on the sad legacy we Boomers are leaving our children.

The first one defined the public interest as mainly maximizing economic growth. That piece and the next showed that the economic policies, practices and institutions that maximize growth also promote fairness among individuals. They also debunked obsessions with income inequality. The third part focused on the 21st Century revival of progressivism and statist liberalism, plus the addition of political correctness (PC).

Here I offer directions for some solutions.

If you think it’s hot in Las Vegas now, Al Gore says, just be glad it’s not the year 2100. Gore told an audience at UNLV today that if global warming continues at its current rate, the number of days above 95 degrees in the valley will increase more than ...

The World Economic Forum is meeting this week in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss “Globalization 4.0,” an effort to “create a world of public-private partnerships that guide the free market to create economic growth, sustainability and social benefits, according to WEF’s founder and executive chairman, Klaus Schwab.” That quote comes from an information email from Climate Home News, a publication designed to inform readers about the urgency of responding to climate change warnings.

I have been curious how climate change will affect Nevada in years to come. I found an informative site here that is put out by climatecentral.org.

A recorded TED Talk by Dr. Jonathan Patz, and panel discussion by local experts on the impacts of warmer temperatures on our health will take place at Western Nevada Community College’s Marlette Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 10 at 6 p.m. Marlette Hall is located in the Cedar Building on the south side of the Carson City campus.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — Are extreme weather events linked to global warming? Deciphering the science and providing answers is the job of national weather broadcasters and journalists. How do they decide what is aired? These topics and more will be addressed at Tahoe South’s annual Operation Sierra Storm, a leading national weather conference Jan. 21-24.

My friend Paul asked me to write about pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana, which in some parts of the country has become a problem invasive plant. While it is not on the noxious weed list (listed as noxious by law) for Nevada or California, Nevada plant ecologists consider it potentially invasive in the Las Vegas area and the California Invasive Plant Council has categorized it as a “high” threat to the state’s wildlands.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most significant greenhouse gas and it plays a major role in global warming and climate change. Organic carbon in the soil and plant biomass (plants and their debris) originates from atmospheric CO2.

Science is a process, not a doctrine. It asks questions and sets out to test them for answers. But our culture seems to regard science in an animate form, like a guru seated atop a mountain.

We put science on a pedestal and submit to it as the final authority on all of our problems and important questions. We rely on science to give us the answers.

We even permit science to be the driving force behind public policy, in spite of the fact that science is a search for questions that remain unanswered.

Take the issues of climate change and global warming.

Following the release of Pope Francis’ much-anticipated encyclical dealing with climate change, a volunteer from the Carson City chapter of Citizens' Climate Lobby will meet in Washington, D.C. with representatives and senators to press for legislation that places a fee on carbon and returns revenue to households.

Mr. Bush, we have some folks you can to talk to about climate change

By Mark Reynolds

It makes me nervous when someone who might become president of the United States says the science on climate change is “convoluted” and that it is “arrogant” to assert that humans are the primary cause of global warming.

That’s what happened recently when Jeb Bush, the still-undeclared presidential candidate, said the following at a campaign-style event in New Hampshire:

Western Nevada College celebrates Mother Earth with a variety of activities and free film screenings at the Carson City and Fallon campuses. The events are designed to generate conversation and enhance understanding about the environment.

“End of the Woods" 6:30-8 pm - Marlette Hall - Cedar Building 100
Arnold Schwarzenegger accompanies a “Hot Shot” team into a forest fire while looking into evidence pointing to global warming. With warming winters, bark beetles lay waste to American forests.
Snacks, door prizes and discussions will follow the screenings.
Admission: Free.

Western Nevada College celebrates Mother Earth with a variety of activities and free film screenings at the Carson City and Fallon campuses. The events are designed to generate conversation and enhance understanding about the environment.

In addition, Geology Professor Winnie Kortemeier will offer a free lecture on the Geology of America’s National Parks on Friday May 1.

Dr. James E. Hansen, former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute, will address television meteorologists, media and the public as the keynote speaker at Operation Sierra Storm, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, 9 a.m. at Harveys Lake Tahoe.

The Obama administration is laying out plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 30 percent by 2030 to reduce global warming. States must come up with plans to meet their individualized targets, which will vary across the nation. States will have until 2017 and in some cases 2018 to submit their cleanup plans. Here's how the plan affects Nevada:

A few years ago, some experts predicted the world was about to reach a peak in global oil and gas production to be followed soon by marked decline. It would cause “war, famine, pestilence and death” – the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Another version: “war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the extinction of homo sapiens.”

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines – hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death …”

So began The Population Bomb, a 1968 advocacy book by Dr. Paul Ehrlich. He indicted American affluence and uncontrolled procreation as key parts of the over-population apocalypse he foresaw and thus as pernicious problems to be solved by Draconian public-sector and even international action.

2013 Lake Tahoe Summit in progress Sand Harbor State Park, NV:

Vice President Al Gore challenged Lake Tahoe, Carson City, dignitaries, guests and residents, that there should not only be a continued annual Tahoe Summit but a global summit formed. And, that every resident should take on a demonstrative example to the world in having Lake Tahoe as an example regarding the greater issues of global warming.

Earth and science will be in the spotlight at Western Nevada College next week with two free lectures in Carson City that will feature discussions on global warming and the geologic history of Lake Tahoe. The events highlight a series of activities during Earth Week, April 22-27.

Two free lectures by science experts - one about the violent geologic history of Lake Tahoe, another concerning global warming, will highlight the many free activities at Western Nevada College during Earth Week, April 22-27.
Renewable energy exhibits, an organic gardening lecture, alternative fuel vehicles and a tree planting ceremony will also be featured.

“Many diverse and interesting activities will be offered,” said Valerie Andersen, WNC public service librarian and college Earth Week event coordinator. Students, faculty and the public are invited to attend.

A discussion on global warming and ways that plants, wildlife and humans living in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin will adapt to climate change will be the focus of a free April 23 forum at Western Nevada College in Carson City.