You can download the latest study of the potential effects of warming on the Great Lakes here. It details major changes in agriculture, lake levels and shipping routes, fishing and forest fires, changes inclimate, etc. None are minor. In essence those of us who live near these incredible resources will see everything we know about our regional climate change drastically.

A new study has determined that melting permafrost in Siberia is releasing huge amounts of methane, creating what scientists are calling the Methane Time Bomb. Methane is a much more powerful greehouse gas  compared to carbon dioxide and there are huge amounts of methane trapped beneath the oceans and in the thousands of years of decaying plant matter preserved in permafrost. Now we’re warming to the point where that frost is melting and 40,000 years of accumulated methane may be released in a very short period, hence the Methane Bomb analogy.

One of the big problems with tracking global warming is the unknown multiplier effects. This is a prime example. Things get warmer, that causes huges amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas to be released, which accelerates warming at a pace not previously calculated. That rapid warming melts ice caps in Greenland, pouring huge amounts of fresh water into the North Atlantic. This, in turn, stops the flow of the Gulf Stream’s warm current which for thousands of years has kept Europe mild. Without the Gulf Stream, Europe could experience a very long and devastating winter.

This is not a far-fetched scenario. In fact it is one that virtually every climate scientist has in their list of potential outcomes of global climate change (and it is one of the reasons why ‘global warming’ is a deceiving phrase- a lot of people are going to be a lot colder if this plays out).

The really scary thing about the methane bomb is that there is nothing we can do to stop it once the melting takes place. And that’s what’s going on right now.

There is a growing car hacker movement that has local inventors and tinkerers making changes to hybrid cars to improve their mileage drastically. Basically, (check that link at the beginning of this post for a good FAQ) they add the ability to plug the car in and recharge the batteries from the grid. Additional batteries are added and the car is set to run on electric only for short trips under a certain speed. Over that the gas engine kicks in. It is also available if the batteries lose their charge.

The savings come in because the car runs on electric only for local trips, the vast majority of drive time. Electric is cheaper than gas and actual gas usage drops.

This is a simplistic explanation, however it begs the question: Why don’t the car makers embrace this if it’s easy enough for an individual to build? An unholy alliance with the oil business perhaps?

California is poised to enact the most far reaching carbon reduction plan in the country with a target of reducing carbon emission by 25% by 2020 which would be equivalent to rolling back to 1990 levels. This is essentially their ratification of the Kyoto guidelines ignored by the Federal government. It is a bipartisan effort (on the moderate side) which will be signed into law by the Governator.

Hopefully my state of NY will be next. We have agreed with several other Great Lakes states to restrict emissions from coal-fired plants. If the Bush people won’t pull their heads out of the sand on this issue then it will be up to local and state governments to take the lead. CA, as usual, is in the forefront.