Climate change in your backyard
Jun. 6th, 2006 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersThis morning as I was walking on campus, a guy on a bike hailed a guy walking next to me, and the two of them fell into conversation. I didn't hear the beginning of it, since they fell behind and then caught up with me, but I heard the guy on the bike say something about the Snoqualmie glacier.
The second guy replied, "There hasn't been any funding to study local glaciers for decades. It's all Greenland and Antarctica."
The guy on the bike said, "Well, King County wants a study of the possible impact of climate change, and they want it to be from creditable sources ..." And they wandered off ahead of me out of earshot.
And I thought, well, that was fast! Just recently King County Executive Ron Sims announced the formation of a King County Global Warming Team to study the impact of climate change on the county (which is where Seattle resides) and ways for the county to reduce carbon emissions. Clearly University of Washington researchers are being tapped to participate in the project.
And this reminded me that yesterday the Seattle Times ran an article about a University of Washington study using a computer simulation that indicates climate change could make the Puget Sound even more overcast than it is now, at least in the spring. It also indicates that we'd have more 90 degree days in the summer, so we'd really get the worst of both worlds. Earlier I saw an article about another study that said the Puget Sound will likely rise higher than the open ocean.
Okay, I'm still waiting for the bright side of all this news! Well, it's good that Sims (and also Seattle's mayor, Greg Nickels) are looking for ways to reduce emissions locally while the Feds whistle past the graveyard. (Gee, Greg, too bad you didn't support the monorail.)
Lately it seems we're in the midst of a poltical sea change on the issue, but then again it could just be a news cycle, I suppose.
The second guy replied, "There hasn't been any funding to study local glaciers for decades. It's all Greenland and Antarctica."
The guy on the bike said, "Well, King County wants a study of the possible impact of climate change, and they want it to be from creditable sources ..." And they wandered off ahead of me out of earshot.
And I thought, well, that was fast! Just recently King County Executive Ron Sims announced the formation of a King County Global Warming Team to study the impact of climate change on the county (which is where Seattle resides) and ways for the county to reduce carbon emissions. Clearly University of Washington researchers are being tapped to participate in the project.
And this reminded me that yesterday the Seattle Times ran an article about a University of Washington study using a computer simulation that indicates climate change could make the Puget Sound even more overcast than it is now, at least in the spring. It also indicates that we'd have more 90 degree days in the summer, so we'd really get the worst of both worlds. Earlier I saw an article about another study that said the Puget Sound will likely rise higher than the open ocean.
Okay, I'm still waiting for the bright side of all this news! Well, it's good that Sims (and also Seattle's mayor, Greg Nickels) are looking for ways to reduce emissions locally while the Feds whistle past the graveyard. (Gee, Greg, too bad you didn't support the monorail.)
Lately it seems we're in the midst of a poltical sea change on the issue, but then again it could just be a news cycle, I suppose.
