Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Not to mention pine bark beetles.

3. What caused the current bark beetle outbreak?
The current level of bark beetle mortality has resulted from a combination of natural factors including, but not limited to: drought, dense forest stands, shallow/rocky soils, and relatively large quantities of bark beetles. Human activities such as fire suppression, past forest management practices, past grazing practices, and ongoing urbanization also have also contributed to current conditions. These factors all influence the amount of water, light, and nutrients available to individual trees in the forest. Trees not receiving enough of these resources become stressed. Bark beetles can detect stressed, susceptible trees and they respond by colonizing it and effectively removing it from the population. This inadvertently makes a larger quantity of resources available for the surviving trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants.

The Last Generation
Rising sea levels are forcing people to leave this island nation
...
“We are water people,” Rupee’s grandmother says, explaining that her family had lived near the coast for more than two generations. It gave her family privacy and allowed them to escape the crowds and problems associated with living further inland.

In recent years, however, King Tides – as islanders refer to periodic, extremely high tides – have become much more frequent, turning Eita’s low-lying residential areas into an ever-expanding swamp.

Several years ago, the seawater finally swelled above the coast’s shallow banks of Rupee’s home. The high tides swept through the grounds of their property, reducing it to a lagoon-side islet.

A few hours previously, we’d walked through these parts. At the time, it looked like a dry moonscape. Now it was filled with several feet of seawater.
...
Frontline communities like Eita exist across all of Kiribati’s 33 islands and atolls (coral islands). Most communities suffer from coastal erosion, but many also face the threat of saltwater contamination of their fresh water supply.

“No community has escaped the impacts of climate change,” says Andrew Teem, the Senior Advisor on Climate Change to the Kiribati national government. Teem has the challenging job of risk assessment in a nation surrounded by water and only a few meters above sea-level.
...

In a telling moment at the Milken Conference last week, Apollo’s Josh Harris told an audience that as an investor, he considered renewable energy sources like wind and solar “generally not economic,” while acknowledging that embracing such technologies might be important for the nation. John Raymond, CEO of Energy & Minerals Group, noted that solar and wind, centerpieces of Mr. Obama’s campaign, still require heavy subsidies.

Harris, sounding like a hedgie, described renewables as mere “noise,” concluding they would not move the needle on oil or gas prices any time soon. Rather than putting money behind such uneconomic energy sources, he suggested investing in technologies that might eventually lower their cost and make them competitive.

Simultaneously, down the hall, Tony Blair was making an impassioned pitch for renewables, calling climate change the challenge of our lifetime.

This is the ultimate challenge for policymakers – reining in carbon emissions in a world where sustainable energy resources remain for the most part uncompetitive. Combatting climate change without compromising growth and job creation—something Europe has notably failed to do. Tony Blair, President Obama and others wax eloquent on slowing climate change, but are mute on the costs. For good reason.

Related: America’s Energy Infrastructure in Desperate Shape

Many Americans remain unaware that a stunning geopolitical shift is taking place today. For decades, the United States has been the world’s biggest consumer of oil, and Saudi Arabia has been the biggest producer. Our adventures and alliances in the Middle East have been firmly pinned to that reality. Now, that enduring fact of life has been turned on its head.

Today, against all expectations, the United States has overtaken the Saudis as the number one global producer of oil. Combined with rising output from Mexico and Canada, North America stands to become the dominant energy region in the world. It is a shocking transformation, and one which promises huge advantages to the U.S. China may have cheap labor, but we have cheap power.

Unless we give it away.

That’s what President Obama would like us to do; he wants the U.S. to adopt the policies of Tony Blair and other European leaders who have saddled their economies with huge tax subsidies for high-cost, low-carbon fuel and adoption of onerous efficiency measures

- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/05/06/US-Will-Pay-Dearly-Obama-s-Anti-Carbon-Crusade#sthash.TJT797o1.dpuf

BTW: I was reading that on peak sun days spot electric prices in Germany go negative for a few hours at a time. This is bizarre, they actually pay people to drain power off of the grid.

BTW: I was reading that on peak sun days spot electric prices in Germany go negative for a few hours at a time. This is bizarre, they actually pay people to drain power off of the grid.