Global Warming Could Erase California's Farms

2.4.2009 9:17 AM
Global Warming Could Erase California's Farms
Obama's
Energy Secretary minces no words in first interview. By the end of the
century, the nation's "salad bowl" could be a dust bowl.

By Dan Shapley

 In another sign that change has indeed come to the White House,
President Obama's Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu, is discussing the
threat of global warming in new, stark and -- frankly -- frightening
terms. This is not the kind of warning we ever heard from the Bush Administration.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times,
his first since being confirmed as Energy Secretary, the Nobel
Prize-winning physicist said that all agriculture in California could
be undermined by global warming by the end of this century. In other
words, within the space of one lifetime, the nation's largest farm
producer -- known as the "salad bowl" because it provides about half of
the nation's veggies -- could quickly become more like barren a dust bowl.

Not only that, but California's cities are in jeopardy, too, Chu
said. The reason? Mountain snowpack in the Sierras is dwindling, as
warmer temperatures prevent snow accumulation and lead to greater
evaporation. It's the runoff from those mountain snows that irrigate
land and keep thirsty people alive in the valleys below.

That's not a new warning. The declining spring runoff has been a
significant factor in water stress, wildfires and other problems in
California for several years. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been
warning that California is already experiencing the ill effects of
climate change, in the form of a year-round fire "season" and
increasingly untenable divisions of water wealth.

California is in its third year of drought, and currently the
snowpack holds only 61% of the water it holds in a normal year,
according to a recent survey.
The drought could become the worst in modern history, and as the
climate continues to warn, severe drought could persist indefinitely,
or recur more frequently.

The first signs of stress on California's agriculture may be in its
world-famous almond crop, which farmers are being forced to
under-cultivate because of the drought. It's so bad that there are more
honeybees -- themselves in notoriously dire straits due to colony
collapse disorder -- than are needed to pollinate this early-season crop.

And the situation is not unique to California. The pace of glacial melting is accelerating around the world,
according to a recent report. The melting of glaciers is akin to the
loss of California snowpack, in that the runoff from glaciers is needed
to irrigate crops and supply thirsty cities around the world. As those
glaciers disappear, so might vast tracts of farmland and now-populous
cities.

Energy Secretary Chu, by highlighting the very real possibility of a
food calamity is showing that the Obama Administration is putting
science above politics. It surely won't be easy to transform the U.S.
economy to run on low-carbon and renewable energy sources. It won't be
cheap. It won't come without political fallout. But it's essential, for
this and many other reasons. It's hard to call this kind of frightening
talk a relief, but after the Bush Administration's tendency to downplay
the risks of climate change, it's welcome frank talk.