(Cross-posted at Ditch Crazy Dana) 

Have you seen the weather report lately? I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I see this in the OC Register, but I am. Wow, it gets hot down here… But rarely THIS HOT!

People everywhere were beginning to seek relief Monday from a heat wave that will intensify over the next three days, with temperatures forecast to hit 105 degrees in some inland areas.

The worst heat will come Wednesday – the Fourth of July – says the National Weather Service. But by mid-afternoon Monday, the temperature had hit 99 in Mission Viejo and 96 in Placentia. In Palm Springs, it was 114.

The heat wave will be so oppressive the weather service has issued an “excessive heat” advisory for Wednesday and Thursday, meaning that temperatures will be high enough to cause heatstroke and dehydration.

Whoa! That's hot! But wait, why are we having more of these extreme heatwaves? We've had plenty of hot weather in Southern California before, but rarely this much reoccurring throughout the year. Wait, could this have something to do with it? Follow me after the flip for more…

OK, OK, so we've heard all the rhetoric about climate change (aka global warming) causing more severe weather. We've heard all the warnings about future killer hurricanes, massive flooding, lethal heatwaves, and just all around more erratic weather. But wait, what if all of this severe weather isn't waiting for the future? What if we're experiencing the consequences of ignoring climate change now?

Remember seeing this in The Washington Post last August? Well, you should. Oh yes, and would you like some ice water to drink while reading this?

Heat waves like those that have scorched Europe and the United States in recent weeks are becoming more frequent because of global warming, say scientists who have studied decades of weather records and computer models of past, present and future climate.

While it is impossible to attribute any one weather event to climate change, several recent studies suggest that human-generated emissions of heat-trapping gases have produced both higher overall temperatures and greater weather variability, which raise the odds of longer, more intense heat waves. […]

And researchers at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., reported this week that nighttime summer temperatures across the country have been unusually high for the past eight years, a record streak.

“It's just incredible, when you look at this thing,” said Richard Heim, a research meteorologist at the center. He added that only the Dust Bowl period of the mid-1930s rivaled recent summers for sustained heat levels.

And my goodness, we're feeling the effects of this here in California! Look at all the wildfires burning around us. Check out the record-breaking heat in the Inland Empire. Even parts of the Bay Area may hit triple digits this week. We've had plenty of heat before in California, but never like this before.

OK, so it's extra hot this week. So what? It's perfect beach weather! Well, that or shopping in a nice, big air-conditioned mall. Well, that may be true. However, heat like this can also be deadly. Remember all the people who died in last year's heatwave?

Just take a look at some of the nasty health effects of this extreme heat. Bodies get stressed from the extra pressure on the circulatory system. And for people with circulatory problems, this extra pressure can be lethal. Heart-related illnesses escalate, leaving anyone with heart conditions extra vulnerable. And of course, anyone can be susceptible to suffering heat stroke. And if not caught in time, heat stroke can leave one dead.

So why again are we suffering from this extreme heat? The OC Register actually had a good article a couple of weeks ago that gave a good answer. Basically, it's the climate crisis finally crashing down upon us.

While experts debate the exact health effects of climate change, many scientists agree that a growth in heat waves is among the most inevitable. In many areas of the United States, Earth's rising temperature will increase the intensity, number and duration of heat waves in the summer and bring more winter precipitation as rain, said Paul Epstein, associate director for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School in Boston. […]

Between 1970 and 2004, greenhouse gas emissions believed to contribute to rising temperatures increased 70 percent, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Scientists have been examining the effects of climate change since the early 1990s, Epstein said. “Finally we're seeing strong signs of it and some of them are way ahead of schedule.”

So what can we do now? Aren't we doing plenty already to stop the climate crisis? What about that “Global Warming Solutions Act” that was signed into law last year? Well, the Governator has already been working on ways to weaken the implementation of that and other laws to please his corporate sugar daddies. Meanwhile in Washington, Congress is just now beginning to take some real action on finding solutions to the climate crisis. But of course, anything that Congress passes would have to get through George W. Bush, who still doesn't seem interested in finding any real solutions.

So what can we do? What can we do right now? Well, we can join Environment California in sending personal messages to our Representatives' iPods, urging them to take action on federal legislation to take on climate change. Send an email to Governor Arnold, and let him know that you don't appreciate him weakening the implementation of the climate change law that he had claimed as “his achievement” last year. Oh yes, and if you're healthy and able-bodied, do your best to only use the energy that you need. By all of us being more efficient with our energy usage, we're reducing our carbon footprint AND allowing people who really need that air conditioning to use it.

So go ahead, go to the beach! Just think about riding the bus there, or carpooling with friends. Jump in the pool! Just remember to keep the AC to a minimum when you're not in the house. And please, have a great Fourth of July holiday! Just remember that there are plenty of things we can do to prevent future Fourth of July holidays from becoming blazing infernos that none of us could ever enjoy. : )

Lots of posts in the California blogs in the last 24 hours, almost all of them on Bush commuting Scooter Libby’s sentence (it’s good to be the king — or his friend). Actual California stuff I found below the fold. As always, if I missed something, post it in comments.

Incidentally, I noticed that for some reason the links sometimes appear as plain text in the RSS feed. They do seem to show up as hyperlinks in the emailed roundup. I’ll see what I can do about that. Until then, just click through for hyperlinking.

Not Working Californians
or California Progress Report

• From the Fever Swamp: Horrible Preemption Provision Dropped
  from Energy Bill
  http://fromthefeverswamp.blogspot.com/2007/07/horrible-preemption-provision-dropped.html
• . . . Surf Putah: Ode to the Delta Breeze (a Meditation on
  Living in One’s Actual Environment)
  http://surfputah.blogspot.com/2007/07/ode-to-delta-breeze.html

Working Californians

• Working Californians: Tax Breaks vs. Fees for Investing in
  Alternative Fuel Research 
  http://workingcalifornians.com/blog/julia_rosen/2007/07/02/investing_in_alternative_fuel_research_tax_breaks_or_fees
• Working Californians: Supermarket Swindle: Brave New Films
  Joins the Grocery Worker Fight
  http://workingcalifornians.com/blog/julia_rosen/2007/07/02/supermarkert_swindle_brave_new_films_joins_the_grocery_worker_fight

California Progress Report

• California Progress Report: California’s
  High-Speed Rail System at a Crossroads 
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/californias_hig.html
• California Progress Report: Klamath Water Users and Tribes
  Negotiate Removal of Warren Buffett’s Dams That Poison Local
  Communities and Result in Public Health Warnings
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/klamath_water_u.html
• California Progress Report: California Assembly Committee
  Readies Hearing on Schwarzenegger’s “Global Warming Gate” as Ex Air
  Board Officials Prepare to Tell All on Friday
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/california_asse_18.html
• California Progress Report: Bill to Gut Local Campaign
  Finance Laws
  Blasted by League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and California Clean
  Money Campaign http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/bill_to_gut_loc.html

Catherine Witherspoon resigned today, and unlike Robert Sawyer, it appears that this resignation was legitimate.  Witherspoon was incensed by Sawyer’s dismissal and the repeated attempts by the Governor to change the landmark global warming law through implementation in ways that he couldn’t change it in the legislative arena.

In interviews with The Times, Witherspoon said there had been a pattern of interference by the governor’s top staff in favor of industry lobbyists seeking to weaken or stall air pollution regulations, including the state’s landmark global warming law and proposed regulations on diesel construction equipment and wood products containing formaldehyde.

“They were ordering us to find ways to reduce costs and satisfy lobbyists,” she said, adding that the governor’s chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, and Cabinet Secretary Dan Dunmoyer took the lead on pressuring the agency staff and board chairman.

Adding insult to injury, she said, members of the governor’s staff have publicly blamed her and Sawyer for not doing more — conduct she described as “Orwellian … a triumph of appearances over reality.”

This will go completely nowhere on the national scene, where Arnold actually governs.  But within the state, more journalists are questioning the Governor’s commitment to the noble goals on global warming that he wastes no time espousing worldwide.  On the flip…

Here’s Evan Halper in the LA Times:

In public hearings and private negotiations, administration transportation officials are working to slow a planned crackdown by regulators on aging diesel construction equipment — among the state’s most noxious machinery and a major source of greenhouse gases […]

It is not the first time the governor has made bold promises on the environment while his administration dragged its feet behind the scenes. Schwarzenegger has vetoed bills that would put new taxes on polluters, spur the development of alternative fuels and help clean the air. He has accepted $1 million in campaign cash from the oil industry, and he had threatened to veto the global warming bill unless it was made more business-friendly.

Although the governor says he wants to hold polluters more accountable, administration officials recently signaled lawmakers that Schwarzenegger may not support a separate legislative crackdown. Lawmakers are proposing to prohibit the dirtiest equipment from being used on public works projects bankrolled with state bond money approved by voters last year.

Here are Greg Lucas and Matthew Yi in the SF Chronicle:

“The governor has made his name across the world as the jolly green governor, and now we have the regulators saying his inner circle has pressured them to go slow because the big industries don’t want us to go too quickly,” said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights, a consumer watchdog group.

The air board shakeup has as much to do with politics as air quality. After Schwarzenegger pledged to sign AB32, his chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, tried to shape the measure in the Legislature. After AB32 became law, the governor’s staff tried to control its implementation, according to lawmakers and others involved in passage of the bill.

Much of the responsibility for implementation rests with the air board, whose members are appointed by the governor, but who have a long history of independence.

“Every signal the board got from the governor’s office staff was, ‘Slow down, don’t hurt industry, don’t get ahead of us on greenhouse gases,’ ” Witherspoon said in an interview on Monday.

Schwarzenegger simply doesn’t practice what he preaches, and the high-profile resignations on the Air Resources Board are waking people up to that. 

Democratic leaders have rightly called for hearings this week to assess the political pressure being applied by the governor to the board.  And Dan Walters notes that Arnold’s attempt to manufacture AB32 into solely a cap-and-trade law is being met with resistance:

Environmental groups, backed by Democratic legislators, have denounced the administration’s cap-and-trade policy as beyond the intent of AB 32, however, favoring a more direct regulatory mechanism on emissions. The Democratic version of the state budget, in fact, seeks to deny funds for any development of cap-and-trade policy until broader studies are completed.

That’s fairly strong, and I applaud it.  But the court of public opinion is really the only one Schwarzenegger pays attention too.  Democrats who want AB 32 to be implemented as it was written need to fan out and make the case to their constituents that Arnold is trying to stop progress on global warming.  This could drag his popularity down considerably and weaken his hand in future negoitations.  The time is now.

Tomorrow, the assembly’s Public Safety Cmte. will be holding hearings on Sen. Cedillo’s Hospital Dumping Bill, now with 300% more chances for hospitals to dump patients, thanks to a hostile amendment.  At any rate, something needs to get passed this session.  Sen. Cedillo wil be at the hearing and will provide his opinion on the subject.

UPDATE: There is the possibility of further pro-hospital association amendments in this hearing. Here’s a list of the Committee Members (with emails):

Jose Solorio, (D-AD69)
Greg Aghazarian, (R-AD26)
Joel Anderson, (R-AD77)
Hector De La Torre, (D-AD50)
Fiona Ma, (D-AD12)
Anthony Portantino, (D-AD44)

UPDATE II: Some really disturbing news from LA this weekend, Kaiser apparently dumped two more people at the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row.  So, Kaiser’s previous position was that the threat of fines would be sufficient to deter them from dumping, but can we really trust that this is true given their repeated dumping of real human beings?

The funny thing is that you can go to jail for dumping a dog or a cat on the side of the road, yet it’s totally legal to dump human beings.  Where is the logic in this?

As dday mentioned in the Quickies, the Governator has been playing some unfortunate games with AB 32 and the air resources board. Speaker Nunez spoke on the issue with reporters this morning.  But today, a CARB-staffer has turned on the Governor:

The top staffer at the California Air Resources Board said Friday that the state’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act is being derailed — and that the board itself is in jeopardy — because of mismanagement and deceit by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s top aides and “squabbling” between the governor’s office and the Legislature.

Air Resources Board Executive Officer Catherine Witherspoon made the accusations the day after her boss, air board Chairman William Sawyer, announced he had been fired by Schwarzenegger for refusing to follow orders to limit the number of immediate greenhouse gas regulations, and refusing to fire her. (LA Times 7/2/07)

It shouldn’t really surprise us that Arnold wasn’t really interested in working on global warming, but really interested in getting the press for it during the election season last year.  But you know what, this governor governs via the magazine cover, so what difference does actual public policy really make? I mean, that’s not going to show up on the front page of time, so who cares…

By the way, this one goes out to all those who complain on us not hitting Republicans frequently enough.