One of the most surprising comments I received on my piece last week about the United States Supreme Court getting out of the environmental law making business was that the Court's opinion in West Virginia v. EPA was a "rebuke of climate alarmism."
First of all, no, it wasn't. As I wrote then, the Conservative majority explicitly said that EPA's rule was a "seemingly sensible solution" to the deleterious effect of greenhouse gases.
Second of all, "alarmism" about our GHG supercharged climate is most certainly in order. It is not only appropriate but morally required to exclaim fire in a crowded theater if the theater is actually on fire.
In the past several days both Bloomberg (see below) and John Oliver (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtxew5XUVbQ) have covered the extreme shortage of water in the western United States. Anytime Bloomberg and John Oliver are covering the same topic it is likely worthy of our attention. Both reports tell us that the western United States has far less water than it needs, and that tragic fact isn't changing anytime soon. The State of Utah's response to this shortage of the most essential of natural resources is that it is using more water than any other State in the Union and Salt Lake City charges less for it than all but one of thirty cities surveyed.
When I visited a few weeks ago, the local media was reporting that toxic metals in what has, forever, been under the Salt Lake are now no longer under water and are blowing around the region.
Obviously this can't go on. The Federal Government is already in the middle of attempting to allocate too little water among the western states and requiring emergency conservation plans. But how has the west's wasting of water gone on for so long? Sadly crushing costs, dislocation and worse seem nearly certain.
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