Climate Change

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY As we approach Earth Day 2004, news of global climate change is disturbing. Headlines last week predicted another six years of severe drought throughout the west, with high risk of major wildfires in Southern California. Here in Huntington Beach, we have had only 6 inches of rain since last November, about 9 inches less than normal. Yet in Huntington Beach and throughout Southern California, new houses keep going up and water-demanding landscaping replaces native plants that flourished on minimal rainfall.

Our wonderful Chief of Police Ken Small has announced his retirement (" Police chief to retire, May 16 "). It is a sad day for Huntington, as Ken truly cared about the safety of our residents and would often go beyond the call of duty, always answering phone calls and emails. He was approachable, which is a rare quality. Our chief supported the work of Save Our Strays of Huntington Beach and OCSPCA, also a Huntington Beach organization, even though for the most part this city views the group's goals as irrelevant — animals never generate revenue, and we are the only coastal city from Seal Beach through San Clemente that does not have our own shelter.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher slammed warnings of climate change as bad science and alarmism in a speech on the House of Representatives floor Thursday. In a lengthy speech condemning former Vice President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the International Panel on Climate Change, as well as previous environmental cause celebres such as fears about holes in the ozone layer and acid rain, Rohrabacher claimed large parts of the environmental movement were mere “pseudoscience” to justify increased government regulation.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher slammed warnings of climate change as bad science and alarmism in a speech on the House of Representatives floor Thursday. In a lengthy speech condemning former Vice President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the International Panel on Climate Change, as well as previous environmental cause célèbres such as fears about holes in the ozone layer and acid rain, Rohrabacher claimed large parts of the environmental movement were mere “pseudoscience” to justify increased government regulation.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher slammed warnings of climate change as bad science and alarmism in a speech on the House of Representatives floor Thursday. In a lengthy speech condemning former Vice President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the International Panel on Climate Change, as well as previous environmental cause celebres such as fears about holes in the ozone layer and acid rain, Rohrabacher claimed large parts of the environmental movement were mere “pseudoscience” to justify increased government regulation.

Britain's Guardian newspaper reported recently that the construction of many new fossil fuel-burning power plants may prevent the world from keeping global temperature increases at a safe level. A manageable temperature rise is thought by many scientists to be an increase of 2 degrees Celsius, or about 7 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the Guardian article, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that if new international climate action isn't taken by 2017, people won't be able to keep future temperature increases at that so-called safe level.

I just returned from a terrific symposium on “Climate Change and Adaptive Conservation” in San Diego that was sponsored by the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project. Some of the talks were downright chilling. But probably not chilling enough to combat global warming. I wish I had good news to bring back from this conference. Unfortunately, it’s just the opposite. I learned the situation is worse than what has been predicted recently by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body of scientists who specialize in climatology.

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY Huntington Beach has had really great weather this past week, hasn't it? It's hard to believe that it's August. Vic and I have been enjoying these cool days and balmy evenings by walking on the beach. Crying gulls, crashing waves and the whispering squish of footfalls on sand provided a soundtrack as the miles rolled away under our feet. On some of our walks, a misty marine layer muted the colors and softened the sounds.

During the past week, we saw fire on Catalina, domoic acid poisonings along the coast in north Orange County and red tides in south Orange County. And it isn't even summer yet. We certainly live in interesting times. A record number of fires are burning in Florida, Georgia and Minnesota. Tropical storms are forming before hurricane season officially starts. Tornadoes are ripping apart the Midwest. And the Mississippi River is flooding out residents, businesses and farms. On Monday, rapidly rising storm waters swept two people to their deaths in Denver.

Unlike weather, which is always changing, global climate has been relatively stable for the past 10,000 to 12,000 years. Not coincidentally, this is the time period during which human civilization has flourished. Now, due mainly to the human civilization and the modern industrialized era, the earth is poised on the brink of a major global climate change. For years, many people denied that the planet was warming. Now even the George W. Bush administration has admitted that global warming is real.

Our wonderful Chief of Police Ken Small has announced his retirement (" Police chief to retire, May 16 "). It is a sad day for Huntington, as Ken truly cared about the safety of our residents and would often go beyond the call of duty, always answering phone calls and emails. He was approachable, which is a rare quality. Our chief supported the work of Save Our Strays of Huntington Beach and OCSPCA, also a Huntington Beach organization, even though for the most part this city views the group's goals as irrelevant — animals never generate revenue, and we are the only coastal city from Seal Beach through San Clemente that does not have our own shelter.

Britain's Guardian newspaper reported recently that the construction of many new fossil fuel-burning power plants may prevent the world from keeping global temperature increases at a safe level. A manageable temperature rise is thought by many scientists to be an increase of 2 degrees Celsius, or about 7 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the Guardian article, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that if new international climate action isn't taken by 2017, people won't be able to keep future temperature increases at that so-called safe level.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher slammed warnings of climate change as bad science and alarmism in a speech on the House of Representatives floor Thursday. In a lengthy speech condemning former Vice President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the International Panel on Climate Change, as well as previous environmental cause célèbres such as fears about holes in the ozone layer and acid rain, Rohrabacher claimed large parts of the environmental movement were mere “pseudoscience” to justify increased government regulation.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher slammed warnings of climate change as bad science and alarmism in a speech on the House of Representatives floor Thursday. In a lengthy speech condemning former Vice President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the International Panel on Climate Change, as well as previous environmental cause celebres such as fears about holes in the ozone layer and acid rain, Rohrabacher claimed large parts of the environmental movement were mere “pseudoscience” to justify increased government regulation.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher slammed warnings of climate change as bad science and alarmism in a speech on the House of Representatives floor Thursday. In a lengthy speech condemning former Vice President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the International Panel on Climate Change, as well as previous environmental cause celebres such as fears about holes in the ozone layer and acid rain, Rohrabacher claimed large parts of the environmental movement were mere “pseudoscience” to justify increased government regulation.

I just returned from a terrific symposium on “Climate Change and Adaptive Conservation” in San Diego that was sponsored by the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project. Some of the talks were downright chilling. But probably not chilling enough to combat global warming. I wish I had good news to bring back from this conference. Unfortunately, it’s just the opposite. I learned the situation is worse than what has been predicted recently by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body of scientists who specialize in climatology.

On June 27, California State Senator Tom Harman of Huntington Beach threw a barbecue in Sacramento for a little-known, pernicious group of California activists who call themselves "Republicans for Environmental Protection," or "REP" for short. REP fashions itself as the "green" wing of the Republican Party, citing Teddy Roosevelt (also a eugenics proponent who at one point quit the party), Barry Goldwater (a "conservationist" not a "preservationist") and Richard Nixon (not exactly a paragon of domestic conservatism)

During the past week, we saw fire on Catalina, domoic acid poisonings along the coast in north Orange County and red tides in south Orange County. And it isn't even summer yet. We certainly live in interesting times. A record number of fires are burning in Florida, Georgia and Minnesota. Tropical storms are forming before hurricane season officially starts. Tornadoes are ripping apart the Midwest. And the Mississippi River is flooding out residents, businesses and farms. On Monday, rapidly rising storm waters swept two people to their deaths in Denver.

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY The world is constantly changing. With changes in climate come changes in communities of plants, which are the habitats of animals. With natural changes in habitat, come changes in the kinds and numbers of animals that live there. But the biggest change for plant and animal life occurs when humans enter the scene. For more than 10,000 years, small numbers of humans lived in the Huntington Beach area. They gathered plants and shellfish, and they hunted birds and mammals for food, feathers and fur. We don't know for certain what changes they caused directly because the last Ice Age ended at about the same time as the arrival of those first Paleo-Indians.

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY Huntington Beach has had really great weather this past week, hasn't it? It's hard to believe that it's August. Vic and I have been enjoying these cool days and balmy evenings by walking on the beach. Crying gulls, crashing waves and the whispering squish of footfalls on sand provided a soundtrack as the miles rolled away under our feet. On some of our walks, a misty marine layer muted the colors and softened the sounds.