Stephen Chu: "We're Looking at a Scenario Where There's No More Agriculture in California"

By Joseph Romm, Climate Progress. Posted February 11, 2009.

Southern California is already subtropical in the summer. But with climate change, dry conditions could spread to areas like northern California, Washington and Utah, which now get far more rain and snow.

That means climate change hits the great agricultural state with a double whammy -- a shift to a climate with less precipitation coupled with the loss of the mountain snowpack that acts as a reservoir for the state, which the state is experiencing right now:

According to a recent survey by the California Department of Water Resources, the snowpack on California's mountains is currently carrying only 61% of the water of normal years. The Sierra snowpack alone provides two-thirds of California's water supply, and these mountains have so far only received one-third of the expected annual snowfall, despite December and January normally being the wettest months.

The snowpack loss was the concern Chu focused on when he said

We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California. I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going….

He compared the situation to a family buying an old house and being told by an inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it or risk an electrical fire that could burn everything down.

"I'm hoping that the American people will wake up," Chu said, and pay the cost of rewiring.

Eight years of disinformation and muzzling U.S. climate scientists has left the public largely unaware of the catastrophes that we face of the business as usual emissions path.

That's why Chu told the LAT reporter that he felt a key part of his job is a "public awareness campaign," on climate science, which is precisely what I think the entire Obama energy and climate team needs to do if it wants a serious climate bill next year (see "Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010. Here's how").

While sea level rise gets far more scientific research and media coverage, I consider the expansion of the subtropics an equally catastrophic impact. Indeed, the UN's top climate official, Yvo de Boer has warned of the desertification-global warming feedback:

"You'll see a sort of feedback mechanism … quite a lot of carbon is captured in soil, so with more desertification (exposing the soil), you also get more CO2 emissions. They are two halves of the same coin."

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