Real Climate Science

“Perth is facing the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the city’s water supply,” says Tim Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum and Australia’s most high profile scientist and ecologist. His next book, to be published in October, will feature the water crises faced by Perth and Sydney.

“I’m personally more worried about Sydney than Perth,” Flannery told me. “Where does Sydney go for more water? At least Perth has a buffer of underground water sources. Sydney doesn’t have any backup. And while Perth is forging ahead with a desalination plant, Sydney doesn’t have any major scheme in place to bolster water. It also has nowhere to put the vast infrastructure of a desalination plant.”

Climate change is working against Sydney. “There’s only two years’ water supply in Warragamba Dam,” says Flannery, “yet Frank Sartor [NSW Minister for Energy and Utilities] is talking about the situation being stable … If the computer models are right then drought conditions will become permanent in eastern Australia.”

Most of NSW is, yet again, experiencing drought with 76 per cent of the state officially drought declared. Drought is the term used, but it is the wrong term. A better term is climate change. Much of western NSW has been strip-mined by hopeless farming practices and when the landscape is changed, the climate changes.

“Water is going to be in short supply across the eastern states,” says Flannery. Pumping water from catchment areas near Sydney is not going to be enough, and will create knock-on effects in those catchments. The water restrictions now in force in Sydney are never going to be lifted, except after a run of freak conditions, just as Warragamba Dam is never again going to be full unless there is a freak period of high rainfall unlikely to be sustained.

Easter Sunday 1913 was one of the worst days on record in the US, with thousands dead in floods and tornadoes. Omaha, Nebraska was largely destroyed by a tornado.

28 Mar 1913, 2 – Brookville Headlight at Newspapers.com

Storms struck from Oklahoma to New York.

24 Mar 1996, 8 – The Vincennes Sun-Commercial at Newspapers.com

Crazies confined in the zoom room.

Home – Extinction Rebellion

Just when I thought Boulder County progressives couldn’t possibly get any crazier or  more unethical.

Court Rebukes City’s Effort to Block Oil and Gas Production During Coronavirus Outbreak – Western Wire

I was one of the early victims of COVID related crime. Last week I was trying to rent a house off the website Zillow, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The person who claimed to be the owner said he couldn’t meet me because he was in day two of COVID self-quarantine, so we did the paperwork remotely.

It turned out to be a scam operated out of Southern California (appearently Zillow does not vet their clients.)  I’m expecting to get the deposit money back from the bank, but people who are not being allowed to work are finding other ways to feed their family.

I’ve been shopping at Whole Foods in Superior a few times this week, because it provides me with a nice long trail ride to enjoy on my way to the store.

Like I always do, I transport the groceries in a backpack, but things are different now.  The checker loads the groceries into a paper bag behind a glass window. I then take the paper bag over to a table, move the groceries into my backpack, and leave the paper bag on the table.  I assume they call in the hazmat team to dispose of it later.

Yesterday on my way to the store, most of the people on the trail appeared hostile and/or scared, and were dressed like old west bandits. But one girl gave me a big smile and waved. It reminded me of what civilization was like before it collapsed.