California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Problems of American Democracy - Part 5 - Elections Are Popularity Contests

by John Lawrence

The most competent, knowledgeable and experienced candidates are not elected. The most popular are, and in many cases these people don't know anything about governing or legislating. Especially today in America's celebrity culture, media celebrities with tons of name recognition get themselves elected while people who would govern wisely are rejected. Case in point: experienced and talented Hilary Clinton lost the 2016 election to media celebrity Donald Trump. Now Trump goes around endorsing the ljkes of Dr. Oz. Why? Because Dr. Oz is a household name having been on television for a long time. This feature of democracy could mean the end of democracy as more and more incompetent celebrities who know nothing about governing are elected. In fact the candidates who pander the most to the voters are more likely to get themselves elected than the ones who tell it like it is. The question must be asked, "Is this the best way to run a country?"

I don't think so. What you want ideally is the best and the brightest, the most knowledgable and the most experienced running the country. At the very least there should be a requirement that all Presidential candidates must have served at least one term in Congress. But that's not what the Founding Fathers ordained. Any nincompoop can run for President of the United States and become the most powerful man or woman in the world. Kishore Mahbubani writes in his book, "Has China Won?": The Chinese Communist Party is not run by doddering old apparatchiks. Instead, it has become a meritocratic governance system, which chooses only the best and brightest to be promoted to the highest levels." I am not endorsing the Chinese system. Yet by removing selection of people for the highest offices from the general public, the system does not fall victim to elections by the lowest common denominators. In China the people elect officials at the city or county level, and those officials elect officials at the next highest level and so on. So the highest officials are elected by that governing body at the immediately lower level.

It seems that what you want at the national level are officials who represent the best and the brightest not those who have become media celebrities or prominent athletes. You also don't want millionaires and billionaires in a position to buy elections. Money corrupts politics and makes it certain that government will be by the elite and for the elite. Just because a politician has a lot of money or worse yet has people with a lot of money running his campaign does not mean that that politician is in a position to govern effectively. American democracy is entering a phase in which only media celebrities are going to be able to collect enough votes to get themselves elected. They become the ultimate "influencers." Government by the most popular is antithetical to government by the best and brightest. When these "influencers" also are total panderers you have government by those who can most effectively dupe the voting public.

Off the Top of My Head

Guns Don't Kill People. Too Many People With Too Many Guns Kill People

by John Lawrence

The tragedy in Buffalo represented less than 10% of the people shot by guns last weekend, but media wants to talk about everything else except gun control. Gun control is the only issue that should be talked about and done something about, but politicians and pundits have given up on the topic. The American ideal seems to be that every American should buy several guns and be fully armed to the teeth, but never harm another person. If they do, they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Meanwhile, several families will be mourning the deaths of their loved ones. But don't be upset. The shooter will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That's the American way. And please nobody say that we shouuld get rid of all the guns. That would be unAmerican. After all, the right to own, carry and shoot guns is guaranteed to us by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Don't anybody go around demonizing the very ownership of guns.

The Guardian reported:

"In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot enacted a weekend curfew for unaccompanied minors at a city park after a 16-year-old boy was killed there. At least 33 people were shot, five fatally, in weekend violence across the city, police said.

The shootings, each horrific in their own way, punctuated the weekend’s main horror: an 18-year-old espousing white supremacist ideology who went to an African American neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday and – in less than two minutes – gunned down 13 people at a grocery, killing 10.

That shooting – one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent memory – has renewed scrutiny on internet-promulgated hate speech, access to assault-style guns and body armor, and the inability of law enforcement authorities, elected politicians, religious leaders and the commercial sector to stop such violence from recurring.

A grocery store, a park, a church and a flea market were among the locations where gunfire erupted over the weekend in eight U.S. cities, leaving at least 65 people shot, 17 fatally.

The shootings came over a violent 72-hour stretch and included multiple victims in all of the episodes, prompting elected leaders in two of the cities to impose new curfews.

Gendron, the Buffalo police commissioner Gramaglia said, planned to continue his assault in the surrounding neighborhood. But he was apprehended outside the grocery after removing his body armor and setting down his Bushmaster rifle with an extended 70-round magazine.

“This individual came here with the express purpose of taking as many Black lives as he possibly could,” the Buffalo mayor, Byron Brown, said on Sunday.

It also emerged on Monday that Gendron wrote as far back as November about staging a live-streamed attack on African Americans, practiced shooting from his car and traveled hours from his home in March to scout out the store, according to detailed diary entries he appears to have posted online.

The diary entries, taken from the chat platform Discord and reviewed by several media outlets including the Associated Press and Bloomberg, included hand-drawn maps of the grocery store along with tallies of the number of Black people he counted there, and recounted how a Black security guard at the supermarket confronted him that day to ask what he was up to. A Black security guard was among those killed in Saturday’s rampage."

The planning that went into the Buffalo attack was impressive. The research, the reconnoitering, the acquisition of data and equipment - more time and energy went into this than go into most college dissertations. Nevertheless, the results, though impressive, were not up to he level that the shooter had hoped for. It's only a matter of time until the next shooter comes along who does even more thorough research and planning. He will analyze where this shooter went wrong in carrying out an even more impressive attack. He will be determined to not make the same errors. The aftermath will be the same - a lot of grieving mourners talking about everything except getting guns off the streets and pretty much out of the hands of everyone. That's the only way the US will solve its gun violence problem, but don't hold your breath until this happens. The earth will probably burn up first. Well, that's a possibility too if nothing is done about global warming.

 

 

 

In the Buffalo shooting at Tops Friendly grocery, white suspect Payton Gendron is accused of specifically targeting a Black neighborhood and taking aim at Black victims – shoppers, grocery workers and a security guard.

Off the Top of My Head

If the Planet Goes Down, It Will Be Irrelevant Whether a Woman Has the Right to Choose or Not

by John Lawrence

Democrats will fail at codifying Roe vs Wade, but Republicans will succeed in codifying anti-abortion rights if a Republican President is elected in 2024. But that's the least important thing that will happen. If Republicans take over the House and Senate in 2022, and a Republican President is elected in 2024, forget the US and the world doing anything about climate change. It will be full steam ahead for fossil fuels, and full steam ahead for the death of the planet. We don't have that much time any more to prevent irreversible change due to global warming. All the deadlines here have past or soon will be past. The relevant headline is Greenhouse Gases Must Begin to Fall by 2025, Says U.N. Climate Report. We are continually being bombarded with political and cultural trivia when the giant in the room is climate change. The prevailing attitude is we'll get around to that eventually, but eventually is almost here, folks. If not much is happening before 2025, we might as well forget it and spend our few remaining years enjoying the human past times of war and trivial pursuits. Eos reported:

"The first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report on climate mitigation since the Paris Agreement was released today. This is likely the IPCC’s last word before the window of opportunity to stop warming at 1.5°C disappears, after which scientists said life-threatening climate consequences and feedbacks will intensify.

"Led by hundreds of scientists convened by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Meteorological Organization, the summary of the report was approved by 195 governments after 16 days of discussions and one 40-hour marathon session that stretched into Sunday night.

"The report gives the world a failing grade. International policies implemented by the end of 2020 will miss the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming well below 2°C. Current trends suggest that by 2100, the world will warm 3.2°C compared to preindustrial average temperature, with a spread of 2.2°C to 3.5°C possible.

"“Reaching 3.2°C will be nightmarish,” said Andrea Simonelli, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University who was not involved in the report. “The threshold for habitable is already being pushed to the limit in many places.”"

Despite these dire warnings the human species is still on a binge of colossal pettiness. This means that wars and in particular resource wars will become more severe and common. Already the whole world is in a food crisis due to drought and lack of water for crop irrigation. War also plays a part. Russia and Ukraine together supply more than a quarter of the world’s wheat, and coming disruptions could fuel higher food prices and social unrest. When people start fighting over food, wars will take on proportions that will make the war in Ukraine seem like a minor aberration. Russia and Ukraine together export more than a quarter of the world’s wheat, feeding billions of people in the form of bread, pasta and packaged foods. The countries are also key suppliers of barley, sunflower seed oil and corn, among other products. Food prices have already risen globally as a result of pandemic-related shipping disruptions, rising costs for farmers and adverse weather, and wheat is no exception. Between April 2020 and December 2021, the price of wheat increased 80 percent, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. That was on a par with rising costs for corn and higher than increases for soybeans or coffee.

Now we're talking some serious stuff, not just the future of NATO. The brunt of the food crisis just like the brunt of climate change in general will be felt most by the poorer nations. As a consequence, whatever immigration crisis that is being felt today will be magnified 1000 times at least as starving people seek to come across borders not only in the US but all over the world where prosperous nations border on poverty stricken ones. So crises based on real world problems, rather than on national borders between Russia and Ukraine, will become more severe. Already in California, the water supply for crop irrigation is likely to be turned off by 2025 as Lake Mead and Lake Powell go dry. California supplies about a quarter of the US' fruits and vegetables so the American diet is shortly to be seriously affected and not just by supply chain issues. Recently, a fire in Laguna Niguel destroyed 20 multi-million dollar homes on a day that was not particularly windy or hot. One 10,000 square foot mansion recently was on the market for almost $10 million.

They say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Now the human species is fiddling while the whole damn planet is about to go up in smoke. Oh well, it was a nice planet while it lasted. Scientists assure us that there are trillions of other habitable planets out there, but they're so far away.

The U.S. Drought Monitor

California-Nevada

The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) is updated each Thursday to show the location and intensity of drought across the country. Drought categories show experts’ assessments of conditions related to dryness and drought including observations of how much water is available in streams, lakes, and soils compared to usual for the same time of year. 

California/Nevada conditions as of May 10, 2022:

• 100% of California is experiencing Moderate (D1) to Exceptional (D4) Drought (59.81% in D3, 0% in D4)
• California population in drought: 37,247,852
• 100% of Nevada is experiencing Moderate (D1) to Exceptional (D4) Drought (46.6% in D3, 8.27% in D4)
• Nevada population in drought: 2,700,551

U.S. Drought Monitor Categories

 

D0 - Abnormally Dry

 

D1 - Moderate Drought

 

D2 - Severe Drought

 

D3 - Extreme Drought

 

D4 - Exceptional Drought

U.S. Drought Monitor Categories

Value	Map Hex Color
D0 - Abnormally Dry	#ffff00
D1 - Moderate Drought	#ffcc99
D2 - Severe Drought	#f5ad3d
D3 - Extreme Drought	#ff0000
D4 - Exceptional Drought	#660000

Source(s):

NDMC, NOAA, USDA

Last Updated - 05/10/22

 

 

Main Stats

100%

of California and Nevada are in drought (D1–D4)

59.8%

of California is in extreme (D3) to exceptional (D4) drought

54.9%

of Nevada is in extreme (D3) to exceptional (D4) drought

Current Conditions

• April brought widespread precipitation through the northern parts of the region; however, California and Nevada remain in a third year of drought—with recent expansion of extreme drought (D3) across southern and central California and Nevada, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
• Most of the region has received between 50%–90% of normal precipitation since the start of the 2022 water year (Oct. 1, 2021). The eastern side of the Sierra Nevada has received above-normal precipitation, while Southeastern California and Southern Nevada have received less than 50% of normal precipitation.
• Although parts of northern California and Nevada received above-normal precipitation in April, the amount of missing precipitation since the beginning of the drought, October 2019, did not show meaningful differences between April 1 and May 1. Much of the region is missing over half a year's to a year’s worth of normal precipitation. Parts of Northern California, Southeastern California, and Southern Nevada are missing more precipitation, between 1–1.5 years’ worth.
• Thus far in the 2022 water year, regional evaporative demand ranks toward the middle of the most recent 40 years. However, much higher evaporative demand has occurred in southern Nevada and southeastern California. This is in contrast to Water Year 2021 when evaporative demand was extremely high throughout much of the region. 
• Snow drought improved slightly during April with some cold storms, but continues as many of the stations in California are reporting 0% snow water equivalent (SWE) and Nevada water basins are at or below 75% of normal SWE for this time of year.  
• Current water storage in the Western Sierras, represented here as reservoir plus snowpack, is less than half of the normal storage for this time of year. In Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Lake Mead, and Rye Patch are much below average capacity. 
• NOAA’s National Weather Service California Nevada River Forecast Center is forecasting below-normal streamflow at most locations. 
• Dead fuel moistures status has generally improved since April with much of the region near normal. 
• Lake Powell storage has declined continuously since 2019, and is now below 6 million acre-feet. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is forecasting unregulated flows into Lake Powell at 62% of normal inflow.    
• For more information, check out Living with Drought in Nevada and the California Water Watch.

Off the Top of My Head

A New Security Structure for Europe?

by John Lawrence

There can be no peace in Europe until all European nations are part of a revised security structure that includes Russia. Instead the west is setting up a formula for continual tensions and continual war whether hot or cold. There must be a comprehensive security structure, not one which pits some nations against some other nations, not one where one bloc is hostile towards the other bloc. This is the failure of NATO. Until we get to the point where all nations are part of one cooperative bloc, we'll never solve the global warming problem. The division between democratic and authoritarian nations has lost all meaning and all validity. It shouldn't be cause for a dividing line among nations. NATO itself is composed of some authoritarian nations. Take Hungary and Poland, for example. Reuters reported:

"BRUSSELS, Feb 15, 2022 (Reuters) - Hungary and Poland are turning increasingly authoritarian, a European rights group said on Tuesday, a day before the European Union's top court rules on whether to cut funding to member states flouting democratic rights and freedoms. The Berlin-based Civil Liberties Union for Europe singled out the two formerly communist EU countries in a broader report highlighting how the rule of law has deteriorated across the 27-nation bloc during the coronavirus pandemic. The umbrella advocacy, which brings together rights groups from 17 EU countries, said Hungary and Poland were "seizing further control of the justice system, civil society and media, while cutting basic human rights and fueling divisions by scapegoating migrants and other minority groups". Warsaw and Budapest deny wrongdoing and accuse the EU of imposing liberal values alien to what they say are their traditional, conservative and Catholic societies. Hundreds of billions of euros are at stake in the rule of law battles in the EU. The bloc's cohesion and international standing have been damaged by the increasingly bitter dispute. Thirty-six billion euros in recovery funds earmarked for Poland, and 7 billion euros for Hungary, are already frozen over their track record on democratic rights and values. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused the EU of waging a cultural "jihad" on Hungary, while Warsaw has threatened to retaliate by stalling progress in other EU policies where decisions are made by consensus."

It is not helpful to continue to divide the world along the lines of democratic vs authoritarian. It is also not helpful (except to arms and weapons manufacturers) to continually fuel those divisions and even hatreds based on different political and economic systems. If the various countries can cooperate among each other, we shouldn't be concerned about what goes on within those countries or start telling them what to do or how to conduct their business. Definitely, we should not be setting up sophisticated weapons systems right on some country's border. That in and of itself is a hostile act. Like it or not we only have one planet, and we can either learn to live with one another or that planet will be lost to global warming. If we can get cooperation among nations and have constructive relationships among nations, then perhaps we can come together to save the planet from going up in flames. This involves mutual respect among nations and not putting down of one nation by another. We only have a short time to cooperate on this level, probably less than 5 years, before the effects of global warming will make planet earth uninhabitable, at least for our species.

Athens Declaration Calls for End to Ukraine War and Creation of 'Lasting Peace'

Thousands of demonstrators join Fridays for Future's global day of action to stand with Ukraine by walking down Willy-Brandt-Strasse, a main thoroughfare in Hamburg, Germany. (Photo: Daniel Reinhardt/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Put forth by international progressive leaders "calling the world to sanity," the document envisions a global security framework committed to de-escalating tensions in the world.

 

Andrea Germanos

May 13, 2022

A group of international progressives on Friday released a declaration demanding an urgent withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine, a global end to "rampant militarism," and the forging of a collaborative movement to ensure lasting peace and a planet safe from climate catastrophe.

The Athens Declaration was unveiled at a press conference in the Greek capital by Turkish author Ece Temelkuran; British Member of Parliament and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn; and former Greek finance minister and leader of the MeRA25 party Yanis Varoufakis. The three are all Progressive International council members.

"Every million dollars spent on major armaments is a million dollars not made available for schools, not available for hospitals, not available for housing, not available to feed the very hungriest in the world."

"Our purpose here," said Corbyn, "is to bring about.. a voice for peace."

In its entirety, the declaration states:

• We stand with the people of Ukraine, as we stand with every people suffering invasion, displacement and occupation.
• We demand an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian forces and a comprehensive Peace Treaty guaranteed by the European Union, the United States and Russia in the context of the United Nations.
• We urge respect for International Law and all refugees, who must have their rights protected and offered a place of safety regardless of ethnicity, religion etc.
• We oppose the division of the world in competing blocs that invest in rampant militarism, hyper-modern weapons of mass destruction and a New Cold War.
• We believe that lasting peace can be achieved only by replacing all military blocs with an inclusive international security framework that de-escalates tensions, expands freedoms, fights poverty, limits exploitation, pursues social and environmental justice and terminates the domination of one country by another.

With these thoughts in mind, we call upon democrats across the world to join forces in a New Non-Aligned Movement. In this context, we view non-aligned, democratic and sovereign nations working together as the route to lasting peace and a world that can avert climate catastrophe and bequeath to the next generation a decent chance at creating the conditions for globally shared prosperity.

Temelkuran—who said during the press conference that the declaration "is calling the world to sanity"—put the need for such a document in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"We are actually closer to war, all-out war, than we'd like to think," she said, warning that "we are also dealing with fascism—and fascism, like war, does not happen overnight."

"It begins by normalizing the ugly, and the wrong, and also the evil," said Temelkuran.

"Has the pandemic taught us nothing about global inequality and global insecurity?"

"One of the most dangerous facts about today," she continued, "is the non-challenge of the international institutions and the proud shamelessness of authoritarian leaders."

But "when there is no hope, there is our determination to come together, to speak to truth, and to defend justice and human dignity," she said. "This is where we are."

In his remarks, Corbyn also addressed Russia's invasion, saying that "the situation facing the world at the present time is dire and grim."

He pointed to the roughly six million who've been forced to flee Ukraine and "the horrors of the war" that "are taking life, are devastating the place," and "threatening the world's food supplies."

Corbyn also warned that "the economic devastation of this war will have a massive effect on the global economy, and because of the inequality of the global economy, it's the poorest people in the poorest countries that will suffer the most, followed by the poorest people in the richest countries."

"If the world just goes on into developing into more and more military alliances greater and greater levels of expenditure on armaments and weapons of mass destruction, you then have to ask yourself, every million dollars spent on major armaments is a million dollars not made available for schools, not available for hospitals, not available for housing, not available to feed the very hungriest in the world."

"Has the pandemic taught us nothing about global inequality and global insecurity?" he said.

"So our plea today," said Corbyn, "is for an urgent and immediate ceasefire where all of the world's leaders demand it... and a future security arrangement guaranteed by all the world's major powers as a step towards a more peaceful world."

The declaration was announced a day after Progressive International's four-day summit began.

In a keynote address Thursday, Corbyn called the summit "a site of construction" and said it was convened "to take stock of this dying world, and to build the new one that will replace it—brimming with life, bound by love, powered by popular sovereignty."

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Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

U.S. Drought Monitor Conditions | May 10, 2022

 

California-Nevada

The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) is updated each Thursday to show the location and intensity of drought across the country. Drought categories show experts’ assessments of conditions related to dryness and drought including observations of how much water is available in streams, lakes, and soils compared to usual for the same time of year. 

California/Nevada conditions as of May 10, 2022:

• 100% of California is experiencing Moderate (D1) to Exceptional (D4) Drought (59.81% in D3, 0% in D4)
• California population in drought: 37,247,852
• 100% of Nevada is experiencing Moderate (D1) to Exceptional (D4) Drought (46.6% in D3, 8.27% in D4)
• Nevada population in drought: 2,700,551

U.S. Drought Monitor Categories

 

D0 - Abnormally Dry

 

D1 - Moderate Drought

 

D2 - Severe Drought

 

D3 - Extreme Drought

 

D4 - Exceptional Drought

U.S. Drought Monitor Categories

Value	Map Hex Color
D0 - Abnormally Dry	#ffff00
D1 - Moderate Drought	#ffcc99
D2 - Severe Drought	#f5ad3d
D3 - Extreme Drought	#ff0000
D4 - Exceptional Drought	#660000

Source(s):

NDMC, NOAA, USDA

Last Updated - 05/10/22

 

 

Main Stats

100%

of California and Nevada are in drought (D1–D4)

59.8%

of California is in extreme (D3) to exceptional (D4) drought

54.9%

Current Conditions

• April brought widespread precipitation through the northern parts of the region; however, California and Nevada remain in a third year of drought—with recent expansion of extreme drought (D3) across southern and central California and Nevada, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
• Most of the region has received between 50%–90% of normal precipitation since the start of the 2022 water year (Oct. 1, 2021). The eastern side of the Sierra Nevada has received above-normal precipitation, while Southeastern California and Southern Nevada have received less than 50% of normal precipitation.
• Although parts of northern California and Nevada received above-normal precipitation in April, the amount of missing precipitation since the beginning of the drought, October 2019, did not show meaningful differences between April 1 and May 1. Much of the region is missing over half a year's to a year’s worth of normal precipitation. Parts of Northern California, Southeastern California, and Southern Nevada are missing more precipitation, between 1–1.5 years’ worth.
• Thus far in the 2022 water year, regional evaporative demand ranks toward the middle of the most recent 40 years. However, much higher evaporative demand has occurred in southern Nevada and southeastern California. This is in contrast to Water Year 2021 when evaporative demand was extremely high throughout much of the region. 
• Snow drought improved slightly during April with some cold storms, but continues as many of the stations in California are reporting 0% snow water equivalent (SWE) and Nevada water basins are at or below 75% of normal SWE for this time of year.  
• Current water storage in the Western Sierras, represented here as reservoir plus snowpack, is less than half of the normal storage for this time of year. In Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Lake Mead, and Rye Patch are much below average capacity. 
• NOAA’s National Weather Service California Nevada River Forecast Center is forecasting below-normal streamflow at most locations. 
• Dead fuel moistures status has generally improved since April with much of the region near normal. 
• Lake Powell storage has declined continuously since 2019, and is now below 6 million acre-feet. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is forecasting unregulated flows into Lake Powell at 62% of normal inflow.    
• For more information, check out Living with Drought in Nevada and the California Water Watch.

How is drought affecting your neighborhood? Click to see drought indicators, outlooks, and historical conditions by city, county, and state, as well as sign up for alerts.

'Our House Is Truly on Fire': Earth Now Has 50% Chance of Hitting 1.5°C of Warming by 2026

A home burns as flames from the Dixie Fire tear through the Indian Falls neighborhood of unincorporated Plumas County, California on July 24, 2021. (Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

 

"The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic," said the head of the World Meteorological Organization. "It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet."

 

Jake Johnson

May 10, 2022

The World Meteorological Organization warned Monday that the planet now faces a 50% chance of temporarily hitting 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels over the next five years, another signal that political leaders—particularly those of the rich nations most responsible for carbon emissions—are failing to rein in fossil fuel use.

"For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise."

In 2015, by comparison, the likelihood of briefly reaching or exceeding 1.5°C of global warming over the ensuing five-year period was estimated to be "close to zero," the WMO noted in a new climate update. The report was published amid a deadly heatwave on the Indian subcontinent that scientists say is a glimpse of what's to come if runaway carbon emissions aren't halted. Thus far, the heatwave has killed dozens in India and Pakistan.

Signatories to the Paris climate accord have agreed to act to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2°C—preferably to 1.5°C—by the end of the century. Climate advocates have deemed the 1.5°C target "on life support" following world leaders' refusal to commit to more ambitious action at the COP26 summit in Glasgow late last year.

"We are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement," Petteri Taalas, the secretary-general of the WMO, said in a statement Monday. "The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet."

"For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise," Taalas added. "And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and, our weather will become more extreme. Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us."

Dr. Leon Hermanson, a climate expert at the U.K. Met Office who led the WMO report, stressed that a short-lived breach of the 1.5°C threshold would not mean that the world is guaranteed to fall short of the Paris accord's most ambitious warming target, which climate experts and campaigners have long decried as inadequate.

Such a breach, however, would "reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5°C could be exceeded for an extended period," said Hermanson.

The WMO's latest research also estimates that there is a 93% chance that at least one year between 2022 and 2026 will be the warmest on record. Currently, 2016 and 2020 are tied for the top spot.

Even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C by 2100, countless people across the globe will still face devastating heatwaves, droughts, and other extreme weather, with the poor facing the worst consequences.

Meanwhile, key ecosystems could be damaged beyond repair in a 1.5°C hotter world. One recent study found that 99% of the world's coral reefs would experience heatwaves that are "too frequent for them to recover" if the planet gets 1.5°C warmer compared to pre-industrial levels.

Scientists behind the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report cautioned last month that if there's to be any hope of keeping warming to 1.5°C or below by 2100, "it's now or never."

"Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible," said Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III.

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Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Off the Top of My Head

When the Lights Go Out in Las Vegas

by John Lawrence

Climate change is reducing the abilities of the west's 2 main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to provide water and hydropower to 7 western states. The water elevation in these reservoirs has gotten so low that the water intake valve is exposed so they had to drill another one even lower. How low can they go? Reservoirs upstream from lake Mead can release water to elevate Lake Mead, but there are only so many acre-feet available in total because of the mega drought brought on by climate change. The west relies on Colorado river water which comes from the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains. As earth has warmed, less snow and more rain has fallen in the mountains. This means that there is more flooding and less gradual release of water in the summer months as the snowpack melts. The net result is that there is less water and power available. If the water level gets too low the hydro electric generators must be turned off because there is not enough water pressure to run them.

USA Today reported:

When the water level in a dam falls so low that an intake valve becomes exposed, you know the lake is in trouble. But when that happened this week at Lake Mead, it didn't surprise experts or state and federal officials.

They have known that Lake Mead, the nation's largest manmade reservoir and home to Hoover Dam, is hitting historic low water levels, threatening the water supply for as many as 25 million people in the western U.S. 

Water levels at Lake Mead, located in Arizona and Nevada, have dropped to elevation 1,055 feet, the lowest since 1937, a year after Hoover Dam became operational and created the reservoir. In comparison, Lake Mead was at elevation 1,080 feet this time a year ago – a year in which federal officials declared a water shortage for southwestern U.S. areas served by Lake Mead.

To add insult to injury, the less that renewable and non-polluting hydropower is available, the more polluting natural gas has to be burned to provide power. Hoover dam is home to one of the largest hydropower plants in the country, supplying power to around 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California, including tribal communities in the region. Hoover Dam's hydropower efficiency has dropped about 25% due to the historically low levels. As of March, 2022, the water level in Lake Mead was 1061.49 feet.The hydropower plant will continue generating power until Lake Mead's water level hits 950 feet. The Bureau of Reclamation says Lake Mead has an increased likelihood of hitting 1,025 and 1,000 feet by 2025, estimating the chances at 58% and 21%. So it's only a matter of a few years before both water and power are shut off to millions of people in the west since climate change is only getting worse. Already Los Angeles has imposed water restrictions. It gets 15% of its water from Lake Mead. San Diego is more fortunate. More than 43 percent of  San Diego's power comes from renewable sources like solar and wind – and a majority of the rest is natural gas.

To reduce its dependence on Colorado river water San Diego built a seawater desalination plant, the largest in the United States and now the envy of desperate communities up the coast, in spite of environmental concerns. Since 2015, millions of gallons of seawater have flowed into the $1 billion facility in Carlsbad each day, where it is filtered into something that tastes like it came from an Evian bottle, not the Pacific Ocean. San Diego also made a deal with Imperial County farmers to take some of their water which they reclaimed by lining an aqueduct to save water seepage into the earth. Eventually farmers all over the state will lose their water allotments in order to continue to send water to households. That means that California crops which feed much of the country and indeed the world will become less available and prices will rise.

The basic problem is that most southern California water is shipped in from northern California. Southern California itself is mainly a desert with few natural sources of water. The same is true for the other western states that rely of Colorado river water. The large reservoirs will probably dry up before 2030. That means that coastal cities like LA will have to build more expensive desalination plants. Inland cities will be out of luck unless they can build more dams to harness water runoff instead of snowpack runoff. Agriculture will largely become a thing of the past in these areas. This phenomenon is happening all over the world in particular in those areas which rely on Himalayan and Andes glaciers. India, China and other Asian and South American countries are also being affected. Renewable energy can solve much of the power generation, but water sources will be increasingly challenged especially as the population increases will result in demand for more not less water.