Yesterday a new report came out on global warming, and it’s rather depressing (it’s not just the Corporate Media that’s reporting on all this; Insurance Journal included an article on the report as well). Regardless, it’s a warning for all of us that global warming isn’t just in the offing; it’s arrived. But the report’s latest focus on water woes isn’t something new. Global overpopulation would’ve eventually led to problems with water anyway. Global warming just means that now we will be able to depend less on water from spring runoff, and areas that are used to relying on massive snowpacks, such as large swaths of Peru and India, will have increasing problems in the very near future.

This is in addition to “normal” conditions, where weather cycles that we are just now beginning to understand impact areas that are now heavily populated. Scientific studies show that the Southwestern U.S. has had cycles of drought, and it seems that we are entering such a period now. Throw in global warming on top of that, and you just exacerbate the problem. The massive growth in areas such as Las Vegas and Phoenix means there’s a sizeable population that has water needs, and unfortunately, I’m not sure how they’re going to resolve it. We in California aren’t immune either– L.A. is essentially a semi-desert, and expanding areas such as Lancaster and Palmdale are out in the desert. The agricultural areas of places like San Bernardino and Riverside are long gone, and their suburbs and exurbs are in desert regions. The shrinking snowpack in the Rockies, the Sierras, and other mountain ranges means rivers like the Colorado are drying up. Lakes Powell and Mead will probably never be completely full again. There’s going to have to be a paradigm shift in how we plan for water use, and it’s going to have to happen now.

The problem is that in the meantime, we’re going to go through quite a bit of pain. Historically, cities and towns were built near sources of water, which meant that originally, when habitation began, the surrounding area was farmland. Since then, a lot of burgs have exploded into metropolises that gobbled up prime agricultural lands. When the planet only has a certain percentage of arable land, and much of that has since been plowed under, it means that trying to provide water and sustenance for over six billion people is going to be difficult. Throw in diminishing natural resources such as petroleum, and quite a few people around the globe are going to be screwed.

Already the fact that nature is out of whack hasn’t gone unnoticed; it’s going to be pretty bad when even the glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating. What does that mean for mountains and their glaciers and snowpacks at lower elevations? Whether you continue to be a naysayer or not, the fact that the environment is rapidly changing isn’t something that can be ignored anymore. Whether the ultimate cause is man-made or not (and I’d say the evidence is in that at the very least, we had a helping hand in reaching this point), it behooves us to press our governments, our industrialists, our innovators, and our scientists to start taking the politics out of the problem, and start coming up with some solutions.

One thing that bugs me is our gummint’s claim that it’s too “expensive” to make any changes in how we deal with the environment (the Kyoto Treaty is just the best-known example); perhaps if we weren’t so busy throwing money away on Iraq and massive outlays for the military, we could use some of that money to invest in scientific innovation and exploring ways to shift from fossil fuels (that’s one of the biggest arguments– industry would have to spend so much money shifting from fossil fuels that our economy would suffer if we followed Kyoto. Yeah, but think about it: fossil fuels aren’t going to be around in a couple more generations. Perhaps it’s time to start shifting anyway?), ways to mitigate the loss of water from annual snowpacks, ways to prevent flooding (better levees, anyone? Katrina was devastating, and that area still isn’t receiving the help it should. It isn’t the first time there’s been massive flooding either; look at 1993, or 1927, or other flood years on the Mississippi), ways to alleviate transportation woes (you think the specter of $4 gas this summer is scary? Wait until it gets prohibitively expensive, and then see if you can financially manage your 30 or 40 mile daily commute), and so forth. Unless nations worldwide start making changes and seeking alternatives now, we’re going to be in for one hell of a bumpy ride.

[I originally titled this one “Brave New Warming,” only to belatedly realize I’d already used that title! Guess creativity only goes so far…]