For Better Or Worse, A Glimpse At The Sum Of All The Talk

Yesterday, in San Francisco, Google launched a new interactive tool in its Google Earth Web site as part of a climate change press conference by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger designed to let Californians see the risks of climate change. The Google feature and climate report were produced after Schwarzenegger directed agencies last year to devise a strategy to prepare California for the inevitable changes ahead. The report warns rising temperatures over the next few decades will lead to more heat waves, wildfires, droughts and floods. It recommends avoiding development in low-lying areas vulnerable to rising sea level, storm surges and coastal erosion.

Schwarzenegger released the final 200-page report on California’s climate change strategy also created a 23-member climate adaptation advisory panel to devise recommendations for how the state must adapt to climate change. With a July deadline for these recommendations. Its members include leaders from business, labor, government and the private sector. Now see what can be achieved when Democrats and Republicans get their heads together for the greater good and play nice!

“When it comes to fighting global warming and climate change, it is technology, in the end, that will save us all,” Schwarzenegger said.

The California Resources Agency partnered with Google on the program called CalAdapt, a part of what Schwarzenegger described as a first-ever, comprehensive state-level strategy to adapt to the future effects of climate change. CalAdapt gives a graphic view of climate change’s potential effect on California. Based on scientific modeling, it shows Californians how warming temperatures, rising sea levels, precipitation shifts and more frequent, intense wildfires impact their environment and how California should prepare for climate change. All just a mouse click away, such things as the shrinking snow pack along the Sierra Nevada and how a rise in sea level could submerge parts of San Francisco.

The old saying of “a picture is worth a thousand words” takes on new meaning when you can actually see AT&T Park, where San Francisco Giants play, under five feet of water, if we stay the current course.

The governor released his report on Treasure Island, a man-made island where three years ago he signed California’s landmark global warming law that requires the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. “Within a century, Treasure Island, this place where we are right now, could be totally under water,” Schwarzenegger said during a late-morning news conference.

Want to see into California’s future?

… as the green future unfolds!

On a typical summer day most cities in the world are several degrees warmer than the
adjacent countryside.  It is known as the heat island effect.  Our cities have become
hot and harsh environments and require a vast amount of energy to make life
comfortable. The strain on power lines is enormous, and electric companies must
scramble to meet peak demand. In fact, heat waves kill more Americans than all other (more…)