But to do so, the cost of limiting solar evaporation losses must be reduced to the same order of magnitude as the local water price- the economic problem being that with present technologies, water is too cheap to conserve.

I invite Oliver to reconsider the development of the bright water ‘ approach in this new light. – CF

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/russell_seitz_soft_geo_powerpoint.pdf

To put it simply, using California and its AB 32 legislation (the Global Warming Reduction Act of 2006) as an example, in order to “reverse” global climate change, TWO things must happen:

1. Additional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, of whick carbon dioxide is the principal anthropogenic one, must be prevented. (Unchecked, the state predicts GHG emissions would further increase by another 15% over current levels).

2. Existing levels of GHG emissions must also be loweredas well. Back to 1990 levels, or 15% below today’s values, according to AB 32).

Lastly, California’s plan to hit the necessary reduction levels DOES take into account future growth in the state. So, to return to the main point, reducing future emissions BEYOND those needed to keep emissions at “current” levels would, in fact, start to “reverse” the GHG levels. Of course, the major premise of California’s plan hinges upon whether or not reducing GHG emissions will, in fact, reduce global temperatures in a meaningful way…. That is a whole other debate! :-)

We have succeeded in conveying to the public that there is evidence of a climate problem but we have not succeeded in conveying that it is cumulative.

This has been a known problem in climate communication for a decade:

http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/StermanSweeney.pdf

but we’ve made little progress on it.

One problem with the efforts to “Nate Silver” Oscar predictions is that most of them seem to ignore the shift that occured in the mid 2000s. Mainstream films are doing far worse (or are worse, depending on your view) in the last 5 years than a couple of decades ago.

So, the Oscars today are much more aligned with critics awards than they were around 2000. A statistical algorithm that goes much further back that 2005 may not be so good.