Texas: Now Unquestionably the Reddest State Ever

When I wrote about Hell-On-Earth heatwave disasters last week, I thought I was being clever. Now there's an actual RIVER OF BLOOD in Texas, and I'm afraid that we'll see a plague of locusts next. Seriously, what the frick? I don't believe in the Bible but when The Weather Channel starts sounding like the the End of Days, you have to take note.

This Red River is not actual blood, but a bacterial sludge fed by dead fish and oil runoff pollution. Intense drought and heat lowered the San Angelo water so much that it became stagnant, unable to move. While the water evaporated, the pollution stayed behind, and the remaining muck was too toxic to support the fish. As they all died, their rotting corpses robbed the water of oxygen, which made it a perfect environment for the Rosy-faced Chromatiaceae bacteria.

So, although not actual blood, the San Angelo Reservoir is looking pretty scary. The worst part? These Red Rivers lead to a Red Lake, which actually provides DRINKING water for San Angelo and its surrounding communities in Tom Green County. I haven't heard of anyone turning on their tap and screaming bloody murder, so the drought must have kept this reservoir from reaching the pipelines. SO FAR. God only knows what will happen the next time a rainstorm hits Texas.

Mother Nature Raises Hell this Summer

The North-American heatwave has made many cities more hellish than usual. Whether it's Pennsylvania roadways turning into bubbling tar pits or ozone-smog choking people in DC, the last two weeks of summer have been a little challenging.

"In this heat, it's not just about discomfort," said Latoya White, a health worker in the capital. "For many people it's about survival." Indeed, besides heat stroke and dehydration, Harvard recently published research showing hot weather raises the danger of heart attack.

Air conditioning is one way to escape the heat. But what do you do when your AC fails? Many units in Oklahoma have stopped working because "the units aren't really built to handle this kind of heat for this prolonged period of time." I've seen units failing in New York for the same reason. My parent's compressor actually burst even though they only cool to a modest 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

Don't try to flee to Canada either, because their central countryside is being ravaged by hundreds of wildfires:

These fires are being caused by increasingly hot weather, drier conditions and DAILY LIGHTNING STRIKES. These fires are so bad, they're polluting the air across the Great Lakes in Minnesota.

As if that's not scary enough, this heatwave actually gets worse at night. "While the current heat wave has recorded 12 all-time daily highs so far this month, it also has registered 98 all-time overnight highs," said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA went on to report that "when temperatures overnight do not cool to levels that provide relief, it increases the stress on people without air conditioning, on livestock and on crops" and that this is "consistent with what we would expect in a greenhouse-warmed world."

Given all of the above, it's very hard to accept this weather as "normal climate progression." Instead, it really feels more like Hell-On-Earth.

Global Warming Can Now Be Blamed for Everything

Tired of all the snow hitting your home this year? Well, at least you can blame it on global warming.

It's true: global warming not only means death by heat, but death by snow as well. Al Gore explained it all earlier today when he said,

"increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they [scientists] have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming...In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe.

Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow.”

Man, those crazy liberals and their global warming panic. First we have to worry about heatwaves, hurricanes and drought, and now we have to worry about snowstorms? How many problems could one bad thing possibly cause!? What's next, death by angry polar bears?

Pffft. Global warming is just a string of coincidences that have no greater meaning. The record-breaking snow totals across the US this winter are just a coincidence. People in Hartford, Connecticut, worrying about their roofs collapsing because the city got over FOUR TIMES the record amount of snow last month? Just a coincidence.

It also means nothing that this year had the hottest Arctic Currents in 2,000 years.

Trees, Now With the Power of GMO!

Are you a fan of trees? Then you'll love these new super-trees being developed at Berkeley and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

Called the "organic enemy" of global warming, these new trees act like mini carbon vaults, sucking up huge amounts of carbon from the air and then sending it down to the soil, never to see the light of day again. So, if carbon is the criminal causing global warming, these super-trees are the global policemen who will catch and imprison that carbon, thereby allowing humans to frolic freely and burn as much fossil fuels as we want!

Meanwhile, the soil under these GMO trees will become filled with carbon, which will stay there "for centuries." A small amount of carbon is already naturally present in soil, and is good for plant growth. Could too much carbon in the soil become toxic? No one knows yet, but if that happens we can just invent a super Potato-Bug to eat up all the carbon in the soil!

California: Killing the Environment to Save Jobs

Californians, get ready to vote this November! Your ballots will now include the California Jobs Initiative. With unemployment rates at a frightening 12%, who wouldn't vote for such a heroically named law?

Now, while this law may not directly create any jobs, it does do the important duty of repealing global warming law AB32, which caused "higher utility rates and fuel prices," and paid subsidies to over 300 renewable energy companies. Lowering prices on fossil fuels and killing off that unproductive upstart industry of clean energy is clearly the best way to deal with an economic crisis. That must be why the guardians of public good, oil companies, covered 78% of the $3 million it took to get this law on the ballot.

Yes, the oil companies are going to protect YOU from that pesky environmental law that's making energy "so expensive." I mean, California oil companies can't help that oil comes with all these extra costs, like cleaning up the COSCO Busan spill in 2007 or the billion dollar BP mess of today. We just need to remove taxes on oil for a little while to let everyone get back on their feet! The California Jobs Initiative won't remove environmental standards forever, just until the state's unemployment rate drops below 5.5% for a full year. Sure that would require some of the lowest unemployment rates in California history, but with big oil protecting your jobs I'm sure we can all expect a new golden age to hit the state soon.

Geoengineers, the All-Stars of Science

Have you ever heard of geoengineering? It's a great new science that lets us FIX our climate! Brains from all around the world have been coming together this year to discuss ways we can lower the earth's temperature and keep global warming at bay.

Some of their lovely ideas include:

• spraying sulfuric acid into the stratosphere (this creates aerosols which block solar radiation)
• creating brighter clouds that produce more rain and block more sunlight
• sucking CO2 from the air and storing it where it can never escape--cleverly named Carbon Capture!
• shooting reflective disks into space.. at the exciting rate of 1,000,000 a MINUTE for 30 years!

Now, I know some people might worry that such hip and snazzy methods could be a little risky:

"But geoengineers, your sulfur particles that block the sun are the same ones that cause acid rain!"

Not to worry, concerned public: Sulfur aerosols that geoengineers create will be put above rain clouds, not into them! As Austrian physicist Jason Blackstock said, "by putting them higher, they stay up longer because they're above the clouds, which means they aren't raining out as acid rain all the time." And as long as you don't have acid rain ALL THE TIME, everything should be just fine.

Also, that guy who said what goes up must come down? He clearly wasn't at the conference.

Shrinking Sheep

Climate change is now causing sheep to shrink, say scientists in Scotland. With shorter winters and more grass available in cold months, the winter isn't killing off small animals as fast as it used to.

The article doesn't say if shrinking sheep are a bad or good thing. But it does say it's possible that, "in 100 years, we will have chihuahuas herding pocket-sized sheep." And you know what that sounds like to me?

AWESOME.

Global Warming Flu

Here's another reason to be afraid of global warming: ancient bacteria will be revived when ice caps melt... leading to a new disease?

It's true; according to scientists at Pennsylvania University, "ancient bacteria and viruses will come back to life as ice melts due to global warming." But don't worry, because "the process has been going on for billions of years and the bugs are unlikely to cause human disease."

...

Now I don't know about you, you can tell me not to worry about an ancient disease coming back to life, but that still doesn't sound like a good thing to me.