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Show 28 THE ADMINISTRATION'S CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY AND ITS EFFECT ON DROUGHT Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, I'm reading the paper on the airplane, the headlines say, " Bush Climate Plan says Adapt to the Inevitable." So now my question to both of you will be, and I'm going to read a little bit about what he says, but as I'm reading it, I'll get you prepared. Thinking outside the box, do we only have to adapt or can we do some prevention? And is adapting the only way we're going to do this? That the people in Utah are going to be able this year to flush their toilet every other day, next year every fourth day, or whenever? Or are we going to be able to do something about global warming? So it says, this report says that: " The United States will be substantially changed in the next few decades. In spite of that," and the report goes on. It says: " Very likely seeing the disruption of snow- fed water supplies, more cycling heatwaves, and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes, for example." It is not proposed- the report does not propose any major shift to the Administration's policy on greenhouse gases. Instead, it recommends adapting to inevitable changes instead of making rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases to limit global warming. First, Mr. Eubank, could you respond in your history. What do you think we he should be doing about this? Mr. EUBANK. You've asked a hard question. Ms. WOOLSEY. I know I have, but it's got to be asked or you aren't going to be able to flush your toilets ever. Mr. EUBANK. In my opinion, in the short- term, we have to adapt, but I think that's the wrong answer for long- term. I really believe that there has to be a way, I just intuitively believe that there is a way to figure this out. But it is not here now and won't be, as Dr. Potter says, in the next few years. So adapting is the only way to survive. Ms. WOOLSEY. Short- term. Okay. Dr. Potter, do you want to take a whack at maybe long- term? Dr. POTTER. Well, in the long- term I think Mark Eubank is correct that there are good possibilies of some reasonable solution. There's much work going on about the sequestration of carbon dioxide in various forms deep in the ocean, and so forth. There are many schemes, engineering kinds of schemes under way that look- I don't know of any that has a magic solution that can be applied next year and they will be quite expensive, but it seems to me, compared to the trillions of dollars that are involved in the international economies, that some of that money should be put to those kinds of solutions. I think that better predictive capability is also important. I hark back to the 1997 El Nino when in contrast to some of the earlier predictions the Climate Prediction Center did a very good job in alerting all of the citizens, particularly of middle and Southern California about the upcoming El Nino, and floods, and mud slides, and all of the other kinds of terrible activities that took place. And many of the communities that we visited, and others visited from the National Weather Service, out in California were able to take measures to protect themselves, to clean out the storm drains, and |