Change the Trajectory

$91 million. That's no number to laugh at. Actually, that's how much the US Forest Service has spent so far in fighting the King Fire.

Recent rain in Northern California has helped firefighters contain the massive wildfire in recent days. Yet while damper weather has helped firefighters lately, drier and warmer weather is just around the corner. And that means the region will once again be at risk for more wildfires.

And that's not all. Lake Tahoe and the Truckee River have been drying up throughout the summer.



While Lake Tahoe hasn't reached a record low just yet, it's too close for comfort.



However down south, Lake Mead has fallen to a record low water level. This means Southern Nevada is perilously close to a new round of water cuts. And this may not even be the end of it. In fact, this may only be the start of a prolonged "megadrought" for the entire Southwest region.



Any guesses as to what's making this painful drought into a perilous "megadrought"? If you guessed climate change, you're likely correct. A recent Stanford University study funded by the National Science Foundation just confirmed what we've been fearing.

Earlier this month, Cornell University, the University of Arizona, and the US Geological Survey released a study showing how nearly the entire West, along with the southern Great Plains states, Texas, and Louisiana, are all at great risk of an extended megadrought going forward due to climate change. Scared yet? We should be.

We also need to realize what we must do to both adapt to this new reality and prevent our own extinction. It may be "radical", but it's pretty much our only hope. Global carbon emissions just hit a new record high. We must change this trajectory, or else the $91 million spent fighting the King Fire will soon be a mere drop in the bucket.

Denial Is Not an Option.

Yesterday, Washoe County School District had to cancel all outdoor events. The smoke even became that thick in Reno.

The King Fire has spread to over 18,000 acres. It's still only 5% contained. A portion Highway 50 between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe is now closed. And over 1,600 homes are threatened in El Dorado County, California.



Once again, a wildfire is hitting Northern California and Northern Nevada quite hard. And this has been quite the gruesome Western Wildfire season in 2014. Washington State's wildfire season has been 6 times worse than normal this year. Yosemite just endured a major wildfire. Even the sub-arctic forests of Canada have experienced wildfires like never seen before.

Perhaps now is finally the perfect time to talk about climate change... And climate solutions? We have a growing pile of evidence showing how climate change is worsening wildfire season. How much more evidence do we need?

Last month, House Republicans actually decided to skip town for Congress' August recess without even allowing a floor vote on bipartisan wildfire aid legislation. And of course, G-O-TEA hotheads on both sides of The Capitol are still complaining about President Obama's recent executive actions on climate change.



The smoke in Reno has officially reached an unhealthful level this morning. More evacuation orders may soon be coming to El Dorado County. A growing swath of terrain from the Sacramento exurbs to the Truckee Meadows is now feeling the effects of this latest huge wildfire.

We can't deny it's happening. That's no way to fight a wildfire. So why are so many of our elected "leaders" still denying the climate change that's fueling more of these epic infernos?

Apocalypse Now

Last week, heads exploded over at Fox "Business". Host Stuart Varney wasn't expecting a Republican former EPA chief to say something rational. But alas, Former New Jersey Governor (& later George Bush era EPA Administrator) Christie Todd Whitman (R) shocked Fox "Business" with some candid talk on climate change... And climate action.



Ever since President Obama announced his climate action plan, the usual G-O-TEA suspects have turned apoplectic. They've gone Godwin. They've turned up the denial to a whole new level. They've embraced even more outrageous conspiracy theories. And of course, they've claimed this is truly just a sign that Jesus is about to magically zap them up to heaven and leave all of us heathens behind to burn.

Have any of them even tried to step away from "700 Club" (and Fox "News") and flip on the real news? Don't they realize California is already on fire? Hello, this is apocalypse now.



This past June was the hottest June on record. Drought has hit the American West quite hard. And now, wildfires are running rampant from California all the way to Washington State.

Here in Nevada, the mercury finally dropped after Reno and other parts of Northern Nevada broke records. Las Vegas even experienced some heavy rain yesterday.

We badly need the rain. Last month, Lake Mead hit a record low water level. Meanwhile up north, wildfire season began incredibly early this year. And thanks to climate change, the excessive heat, parching drought, and epic wildfires are increasingly becoming "the new normal".

So what did Congress do before skipping town last Friday? Nothing. No really, House Republican "leaders" decided to adjourn for August recess without even allowing a floor vote on bipartisan wildfire aid legislation. Needless to say, Nevada and the rest of The West are now at risk of fighting epic wildfires with no federal assistance. Instead, House Republicans (cough- Joe Heck- cough- Mark Amodei -cough) are suing President Obama for daring to #ActOnClimate.

We know the G-O-TEA base has been losing its s--t as of late over apocalyptic fairy tales. Republican "leaders" have even been throwing their support behind these fairy tales. But perhaps instead of freaking out over apocalyptic fairy tales, they should open their eyes and notice the apocalyptic images appearing throughout The West. Oh, and they need to realize they can actually do something to stop it.

Giant Wakeup Call

Nearly a year ago, it was in flames. And its smoke darkened the Las Vegas Valley below. The Carpenter 1 Fire was a frighteningly giant wakeup call for Southern Nevada.

Our state, along with the rest of the America. West, has been stuck in drought for several years. And with the land hotter and drier than ever before, it's become ideal ground for epic wildfires. Even today, Mount Charleston was placed at high risk for another wildfire.



As the drought worsens and the heat reaches record levels, we're left wondering how many more startling signs we must notice before we take further action on climate change. How many more wildfires must burn? How much more drought must we endure?



President Obama's climate action program will aid in curbing this and other effects of climate change. However, we can't stop here. We need further action just to avoid the worst case scenario.



Nevada's economy depends on our terrain. Las Vegas & Reno depend on tourism. The rural areas depend on farming & ranching. The entire state depends on the little amount of water we receive in precipitation every year.



While some question the cost of robust climate action and others question the very existence of climate change, all the "TEA" fueled deniers are missing the giant wakeup call outside. Go ahead and step outside. Feel the heat, and feel the dry.



It's real. It's happening. And we can no longer deny it. It's our giant wakeup call. Are we now ready to jump out of bed and take action?

Survival

Whatever you do, don't look behind the curtain. Don't notice the melting Antarctic Ice Sheet. Don't pay attention to the record heat. Don't bother examining the ongoing drought.

G-O-TEA politicians continue to deny the increasingly frightening reality of climate change. For them, it's about pandering to the 21st Century Know Nothings who comprise their political base. For them, it's all about political survival.



But for many in California, they're simply concerned about human survival. Last week, over 20,000 people were evacuated as wildfires emerged near Los Angeles and San Diego. We even saw a "firenado" form last week.



And it's not just California. Closer to home, the Hunter Falls Fire has burning in the Mount Rose wilderness area near Reno. It's now 47% contained. And while it may be fully contained by Friday, it's meant a rather early kickoff to Northern Nevada's wildfire season.

For many "TEA" flavored politicians & media personalities, climate change is merely a "distraction" from the pressing haute faux scandals of the day. But for those of us who have experienced wildfires, drought, and other effects of climate change, it's about survival. It's about our survival. It's about the survival of the human race.

Keep this in mind next time you see a "TEA" tinged politician engage in climate denial. They may be worried about their own near term political survival... But we need to be more concerned about longer term human survival.

Where There's Smoke...

Here we go again. Even more massive wildfires are burning in the American West. Right now, one is burning in Yosemite National Park in California.

And now, the smoke from Yosemite is blowing into Reno. Air quality in the Reno-Sparks area is now officially "unhealthy".



Yikes. Another day, another horrific Western wildfire. With conditions this hot and this dry, the region has become a tinder box. And believe it or not, some in this country continue to deny the reality of climate change.

We've recently had some alarming news on the hastening pace of climate change. Yet despite this, the usual G-O-TEA suspects continue to deny reality. They treat this as if this is all just a political game. They continue trying to spin away the grave consequences of inaction.

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We continue to see disturbing signs of what's to come. We also continue to see promising signs of a brighter future if we take action. So what are we waiting for? How much more smoke must we smell before we take care of this fire?

Dangerous Fire

It's happening yet again. We're seeing more warning signs. Last month, we saw wildfires emerge on both ends of Nevada. And now, we have a dangerous fire burning near Palm Springs, California.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) now lives in that region. She spoke with local media yesterday about witnessing the fire from her house. And she spoke about the dangerous dynamics behind this dangerous fire.



And she's onto something. We've been witnessing a growing and alarming body of evidence demonstrating how climate change is changing the natural ebb and flow of wildfires. And thanks to both climate inaction and ridiculous fiscal austerity policies, we're not as prepared to fight these fires as we should be. This is a problem. And it's one being confirmed by a new study from California's Department of Environmental Protection.

The study, written by 51 scientists, tracked a variety of indicators and found widespread evidence of the toll climate change is taking across the across the state, including more frequent and intense wildfires, rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, warmer lakes and oceans, and hotter temperatures. These ripple effects of these changes threaten communities, industry, public health, and the state’s prized natural resources. “Climate change is not just some abstract scientific debate,” said California EPA Secretary Matt Rodriquez. “It’s real, and it’s already here.”

Californians are already suffering from a growing number of heat-related illnesses and deaths and those figures are projected to rise along with temperatures. The report found that in most regions of the state, warming has accelerated over the past three decades. During the summer, heat extremes have increased and nighttime heat waves have risen across the state. As climate change drives temperatures up, it poses a serious risk to public health. As evidence of this, the report notes that “the July 2006 heat wave, unprecedented in its magnitude and geographic extent, resulted in 140 heat-related deaths in California.” [...]

As with much of the western U.S., California wildfires have grown bigger, stronger and more frequent in recent decades. The report found that annual acreage burned statewide has been steadily increasing and “the three largest fire years occurred in the last ten years.” And the average number of acres scorched every year since 2000 is almost double the average of the previous 50 years — 598,000 acres annually now, compared with 264,000 acres a year then.

Again, we've discussed this many times before. Senator Harry Reid (D-Searchlight) talked about it a year ago. And we're all living through it now.


So what will we do about it? This dangerous fire rages on. And if we don't take action soon, it will consume all of us.

Climate Charade

Lately, we've been seeing yet another outbreak of manufactured crises in Congress. Fortunately, one of them is being solved today. Yet even with that happening, we still have a whole lot of hot air polluting Capitol Hill.

So what about the real crises emerging today? In particular, what about the very real crisis threatening our very existence? We've been seeing even more evidence of it lately as massive wildfires have ripped through Nevada forests north and south. Climate change is clearly here, and there's still far more to do for us to survive it.

Yet despite all the mounting evidence of the fast approaching climate catastrophe, the 21st Century Know Nothings continue to deny reality. This is why President Obama has had trouble getting any kind of climate action through Congress. And now, one prominent Congressional Republican staffer writing under the pseudonym Eric Bradenson is finally asking his party to stop denying reality and come to the table with real solutions.

Someone in the GOP needs to say it: conservation is conservative; climate change is real; and conservatives need to lead on solutions because we have better answers than the other side. [...]

Republicans don't have to choose between conceding to the left and denying the science. There are genuine pro-growth solutions that align with conservative values. Republicans can admit that 97 percent of scientists just might be right without having to embrace Democratic ideas that would grow government.

Well, this looks encouraging... But is it really? Here's Steve Benen with some ice cold water to throw onto this hot new item.

In 2013, with the threats posed by the climate crisis intensifying, a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill is only willing to acknowledge reality if he can do so pseudonymously.

[Joe] Romm added that article "was awarded second place in the 'Young Conservative Thought Leaders' contest from the Energy & Enterprise Initiative at George Mason University." The organizers at the Initiative agreed not to publish the author's real name "for job security reasons."

In other words, to write a piece making the case that Republicans can "win the climate debate" by pushing conservative solutions to a real problem, is to put one's job in Republican politics in jeopardy.

This really isn't healthy.

It truly isn't. Even with the overwhelming scientific consensus and growing physical evidence all around us, the only way a DC Republican could ask his party to get real on climate change was with a pseudonym?! Is this for real?

Sadly, it is. Because G-O-TEA politicians are too afraid to admit the truth, we see this ongoing game of climate charade in DC. Can we afford to continue with this? We keep missing out on opportunities to improve our economy and save ourselves every time we fail to act. Do they really want to risk greater catastrophe by continuing the great climate charade?

Future on Fire

Is it just me, or does it feel like Nevada is on fire? Up north, the Bison Fire is breaking loose in Douglas County just as the Kyburz Fire near Lake Tahoe is nearing 100% containment.



Meanwhile down south, the Carpenter 1 Fire near Mount Charleston in Clark County actually dropped from 15% to only 10% containment as the massive 20,000 acre wildfire hopped across Kyle Canyon.




And it's not just here. Across the American West, we're seeing massive wildfires scorch the landscape. And as all this record heat and record dryness fuel these massive wildfires, it's becoming even more difficult to deny the brutal reality of climate change. We've already been noticing the parched land as a result of climate change. I guess it was just a matter of time (and incredibly hot weather) before this parched land was set ablaze.

Over time, we've seen growing evidence of human induced climate change leading to bigger and more destructive wildfires. Now, we have horrific evidence right outside our windows. How much longer can we deny reality?

As we keep emitting greenhouse gases, Arctic & Antarctic ice continues to melt. And as that ice continues to melt away at our earth's poles, meteorological mayhem ensues.

So keep this in mind as we see the fires outside. The future is in our hands. Do we really want to let it burn away?

Are We Whistling Past Our Own Graveyard?

Something quite scary is happening... And sadly enough, you probably aren't seeing it on the evening news. If you think our freaky weather is bad now, you "ain't seen nothing yet".

“Warming and associated loss of snowpack will persist over much of the western United States,” Assistant DOI secretary Anne Castle said in her written testimony to the water and power subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. A recent Bureau of Reclamation report, Castle said, has concluded that “this loss of snowpack storage is expected to result in a decrease in the amount of reliable water supply in areas where snow has been a major component of the hydrologic system.”

The Senate subcommittee hearing comes a week after the Global Climate Project reported that worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from the combusion of fossil fuels had risen by 5.9 percent in 2010, the biggest annual increase in history.

Climate change is already producing dramatic changes in the water cycle in the U.S., and more changes are coming, according to the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program’s 2009 report on climate change impacts.

“Evidence is mounting that human-induced climate change is already altering many many of the exsiting patterns of precipitation in the United States, including when, where, how much, and what kind of precipitation falls,” the report says. And it predicts that “dry areas will become drier and and wet areas wetter,” with particularly severe effects in the Southwest which is expected to have more severe and more prolonged droughts.

Here in Nevada (and especially down south in Clark County), we rely on that melting snowpack for the bulk of our water supply. Without that water filling the Colorado River, we're really screwed.

Yet again, we're reminded of the dangers we face with unchecked climate change. And yet again, the increasingly extreme weather we're already seeing shows us that we can't keep ignoring this real crisis. And despite constant efforts to make us forget this, Americans are realizing just how dangerous this climate crisis is.

So why aren't we seeing real action on climate change? We really need to do some soul searching on that. And the LA Times is asking us just that.

Climate change is no longer a theoretical concept to be debated at symposiums by science nerds. It is happening right here, right now. Thirteen of the warmest years on record worldwide have happened in the past 15 years. In the U.S., 12 weather-related disasters this year have caused in excess of $1 billion in damage each, a record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Although many expected the global economic downturn to slow the output of greenhouse gases, emissions actually have been accelerating at an alarming rate, growing 5.9% in 2010 — the biggest jump since 2003. The American response? Fiddling around. [...]

The U.S. position at the [UN climate] talks [in Durban, South Africa] can be described as, well, nuanced. Chief climate negotiator Todd Stern says that he favors a legally binding treaty to replace Kyoto (which the U.S. Senate never ratified), but only if it holds developing nations such as China and India to the same mandatory standards as industrialized countries such as the U.S. Yet he acknowledges that those nations will never go along with such a deal, so countries should just make voluntary pledges to cut emissions and hold themselves accountable. In other words: "I will now perform Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. Does anybody else smell smoke?"

The voluntary approach isn't getting us far. At last year's climate conference in Cancun, the world agreed to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial norm. Yet that goal can't be met under the current global pledges of voluntary reductions, leading to predictions of up to 4 degrees of warming by the end of the century. That would mean catastrophic sea-level rise, drought, famine and weather-related carnage. Fortunately, we'll all be dead by then. But our progeny will not thank us.

Indeed, they won't if we continue with our (thus far) inadequate response to climate change. And they surely won't if we continue to pay attention to "leaders" who refuse to lead on this critical issue.

So when will we truly start to take the lead on this? Again, we're already seeing the results of past inaction. This year's wildfires, such as the Caughlin fire in Reno last month, should have been another wake-up call. When will we wake up and do something?

Reno's Caughlin Fire Now 95% Contained

In case you haven't been paying much attention to the news (especially for those of us not in Northern Nevada- notice today's R-J & Sun headlines), Reno has been enduring the wrath of the devastating Caughlin Wildfire over the course of this weekend. Fortunately, the fire is now almost entirely contained.

Chief Mike Brown, incident commander of the Sierra Front Incident Management Team, reports that the Caughlin Fire is 95 percent contained.

Brown said rehabilitation of dozer and hand line construction will take place today with concentration on bringing landscape back to its natural state and concentration on placing appropriate water bars for erosion control issues that may arise from the ground being unstable. [...]

Today’s main focus is to start the rehabilitation process: cleaning up the hillsides that lost vegetation and starting to stabilize them.

Fire crews are also continuing to extinguish hot spots and areas. One challenge, Regan said, is some of the destroyed homes are so badly damaged that firefighters cannot enter them, so water is being applied from the outside.

Coming from a place that always seemed to be on fire, I can at least somewhat understand the kind of fear that permeates a community upon seeing images of flames encroaching upon houses on the TV news. Hopefully, all of you reading this blog from up north are somewhere safe right now.

Wildfires are part of what we constantly have to deal with. After all, we live in the middle of a parched desert that has been coping with drought for most of the last decade. And unfortunately because of climate change, we can expect even more wildfires in the near future.

Hopefully this week, the Caughlin Fire will be put out and the families who have lost their homes can receive proper restitution. If you'd like to help, News 4 Reno has a list of organizations ready to provide help to those that need it most. And looking forward, Nevada will need to prepare for more wildfires like this.

Quick Update from "The OC"

Hi, everyone! Just 5 more days until I come home... I promise? How is everything back home in The Silver State?

I hear the teabaggers carpetbagged their way into Vegas. Did they give you some good laughs? It seems they gave Dean Heller more ridiculously untrue material.

Oh yeah, and I heard Mr. Gleaner got quite a good laugh from them!

And is Harry Reid really growing a spine? Oh please, oh please, let it be so! Again, Reid's clearest path to reelection next year is to deliver on the promises he made to progressives so we will be as motivated to help him as we were in giving Barack Obama a 12.5% landslide victory in Nevada!

Wow, now I know why I haven't been smelling Station Fire smoke here in Orange County... It's all going to Vegas! WTF??!! Please, oh please, let there be rain this week!

Meanwhile, the boondoggle in the making also known as "DesertXpress" looks to start construction next March. Want to take bets on how long before we see it pull a "Las Vegas Monorail"?

OK, that's enough for now. I'll check in again later. And in the mean time, follow my OC restuarant reviews at Urbanspoon and my photos at Facebook. See you again soon! ;-)