Fracking Double Whammy: New York Loses Two Aces In The Hole When Confronting Climate Change (i.e.Weather Weirding/Global Warming)

The changes brought by climate change, of which there will be many, including drought, escalating temperatures and rising sea levels, will have immense effects around the planet. Last week the New York Times ran a story about a new 600-page report, published Wednesday, about the effects that climate change will have in New York State. The report was commissioned by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, a public-benefit corporation, and reflects years of work “by scientists at state academic institutions, including Columbia and Cornell Universities and the City University of New York.” (See: From Shore to Forest, Projecting Effects of Climate Change, by Leslie Kaufman, November 16, 2011.)

According to the Times, there is lots of bad news: tress will die, invasive species will alter forests, orchards will go defunct, dairy cows will suffer heat stress and beach communities would be inundated by a sea level rise as much as 55 inches and “effects of climate change would fall disproportionately on the poor and the disabled.”

Any good news in the report? Yes, there is. According to the Times New York has an ace in the hole that could give it a special advantage over other states when confronting the devastating effects of what people also refer to as “weather weirding” and in the past more frequently called “global warming”:

Art DeGaetano, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell, said that its findings need not be interpreted as totally devastating. . . . “. . there will be opportunities as well. We expect, for example, that New York State will remain water-rich and we may be able to capitalize when other parts of the country are having severe drought.”

There is a problem with that analysis: The prospect that New York can capitalize on its status as a “water-rich” state vanishes if, as is likely to happen, New York’s water resources are contaminated by hydraulic fracturing. No kidding, New York is a state with a wonderful supply of water, water everywhere but as Noticing New York has previously covered the entire state faces pollution from fracking that the Andrew Cuomo administration is proposing to introduce. Say goodbye to the value those water resources would have. (See: Friday, July 29, 2011
Conundrum: If Gov. Andrew Cuomo Traded The Moratorium on Hydrofracking To Get Gay Marriage Would That Be Good Or a Bad Thing?)

There is another ace in the hole New York has been keeping in reserve that, according to the Times, New York stands also to lose when the higher sea levels associated with climate change arrive:

. . . New York City’s backup drinking water supply may well be contaminated as a result of seawater making its way farther up the Hudson River.

So if you were hoping that the city could resort to its backup water supply if there is a fracking contamination problem with its main supply; Fuhgeddaboudit!

Is that fair? After all, where does global warming/climate change come from anyway? By pumping carbon dioxide and gases like methane into the air by burning fossil fuels. Fracking, although a brand new, recently invented “technology” will exacerbate the situation and greatly accelerate the arrival of change. (There is also the “game over” (for the planet) plan to exploit Canada’s tar sands by building the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

That means that fracking will first significantly contribute to global warming and weather weirding and then it will, adding devastation to devastation, destroy our New York State aces in the hole available to deal with it. Holy cats!