Energy Secretary Steven Chu (DOE Photo)
New Energy Secretary Steven Chu this week predicted global warming catastrophe in California that dwarfs the warnings issued last week by that state's water officials, postulating a dire scenario in which farming collapses in the nation's top food-producing state and cities run out of water within this century.
The Nobel prize-winning physicist made the comments about his home state in his first interview since taking the helm of the Energy Department on Jan. 21.
"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he told Joseph Romm of Climate Progress and Jim Tankersley of the Los Angeles Times. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going."
Last week, officials from California's Department of Water Resources warned that the state may be entering the worst drought in modern history after measuring snow levels at 61 percent of normal and the state's largest reservoir at 28 percent of capacity.
Chu predicted that continued global warming could reduce the snow pack by 90 percent by the end of this century, depriving farms of irrigation and spurring "desertification." California produces about half of the nation's fruits, nuts, and vegetables, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Chu warned of broader water shortages throughout the West and upper Midwest.
Chu taught physics at Stanford University and cellular and molecular biology at the University of California at Berkeley. He won the 1997 Nobel Prize for trapping and cooling atoms with laser light. Most recently, he directed the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, steering the agency to explore alternative energy sources, before President Barack Obama selected him as energy secretary in the new administration.
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Comments
California has been running out of water for 50 years. That is what happens when you put that many people in a desert. Do you think in those 50 years California could have managed to build a desalinization plant? No. They just want to lower C02 levels so there will be no plant life, therfore no need for water. No people or animal life either.
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